Learn about how little the average commute time has changed throughout human history; what researchers learned from the largest-ever study of cancer genomes; and why procrastination is about managing emotions, not time.
Learn about how little the average commute time has changed throughout human history; what researchers learned from the largest-ever study of cancer genomes; and why procrastination is about managing emotions, not time.
The Marchetti Constant by Kelsey Donk
Scientists have released the largest-ever study of cancer genomes by Grant Currin
Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time by Kelsey Donk
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/historys-average-commute-time-fight-procrastination-with-emotions-and-the-largest-ever-study-of-cancer-genomes
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about how little the average commute time has changed throughout human history; what researchers learned from the largest-ever study of cancer genomes; and why procrastination is about managing emotions, not time.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Here’s a fun fact: the preferred commute time has stayed the same for thousands of years. Pretty unbelievable, right? If you want to guess how long that time is, then picture this: Say you’ve gotten a big raise at your job and you’ve decided it’s time for an upgrade, so you go house-hunting. How long of a commute to work would you accept? Do you have a guess? Well MY guess is that you wouldn’t want to travel for more than 30 minutes each way.
Was I close? Well if I was, then you can thank our good friend “science.”
In 1994, Cesare Marchetti, an Italian physicist, described an idea that has come to be known as the Marchetti Constant. In general — around the world and across history — people are willing to travel for about half an hour to get to work.
It’s true. The average American commutes for 26 minutes each way.
It’s because of this preference that cities shape themselves around the average travel speed. If everyone travels by foot, then the city has to be relatively compact so everyone can get from home to work within 30 minutes.
Most people can walk about one to two miles in 30 minutes. Sure enough, before the Industrial Revolution brought cars into our lives, most cities stayed within a two-mile diameter. And that’s why many medieval city-centers are so cramped. Ancient Rome had somewhere around a million residents — and they were all packed within two miles. Poor people lived on the outskirts because those hard to reach lots with long commutes were cheapest.
Modern cities are much bigger because we have faster modes of transportation. When the first steam trains were introduced in cities like London, the suburbs were introduced, too. Now, you could live outside of town and still make it in for work, shopping, or socializing within half an hour. Then came streetcars, bus lines, and subways. With each faster mode of transportation, our cities expanded. People could live happier farther away from the city center and still make it to the city in a reasonable amount of time.
Now we’re living in the age of the expressway. And depending on where you live, that could either slow you down or speed up your commute. Fears of climate change and crowded highways mean our cities could shift around again. But one thing will certainly remain constant—we won’t be willing to commute for more than 30 minutes.
Humanity has made a giant leap in its quest to understand how cancer emerges and how best to treat it. A team of more than 1,300 researchers and clinicians have released the largest-ever study of cancer genomes. This comes two decades after the first human genome was sequenced. And the achievement brings us one step closer to the day when an individual patient can receive treatments tailored to fight their specific cancer.
Lemme back up and talk about genomes for a sec. As a reminder, your genome is made up of all of your DNA. That’s 3 billion tiny pieces of information that tell your cells what to do. Every single cell in your body has a copy of your DNA, and when those cells divide, the DNA is copied again. But sometimes there’s a mistake — a molecular typo, if you will. Most of the time, these mistakes are harmless, but sometimes they make a cell divide uncontrollably. That’s what you call cancer.
Previous genetic studies of tumors only looked at the DNA that codes for proteins. That DNA is cheaper and easier to study, but it also misses a lot of possible mutations, because it only makes up 1 percent of the genome. Luckily for humanity, it’s becoming a lot cheaper to sequence a tumor’s entire genome. That’s why the researchers involved in this massive project were able to analyze the genomes of more than 2,600 tumors representing 38 types of cancer. They combed through all that data to figure out what kinds of DNA errors drove the cancer’s growth. Those errors are called “driver mutations,” or just “drivers.”
They didn’t find a lot of unknown drivers, but they did learn more about what causes the drivers and which drivers ultimately cause cancer. Each cancer had, on average, four to five drivers in its genome, and the scientists were able to identify at least one driver in 95 percent of the tumors they studied. That means that many more cancer patients might be able to receive drugs that target the protein made by the specific driver gene that’s fueling their tumor.
One of the research groups even figured out how to trace the evolution of a cancer-driving DNA error back to the original mutation. It turns out that the first mutation sometimes happened years or even decades before the patient was diagnosed, which means that we may be able to detect and treat many cancers a whole lot earlier than before.
This all means that researchers are now armed with a far more complete picture of cancer. And that means they’re poised to find new ways to catch cancer earlier and treat it more effectively. This isn’t a cure for all cancers, but it is a giant leap forward in our ability to treat them.
Here’s a productivity fact that may come as a surprise: Procrastination is not a time management issue. No, research suggests that procrastination has more to do with how you deal with your emotions than how well you stick to a schedule. When you avoid doing something by watching Netflix or scrolling through Twitter, it’s probably not because you don’t realize how long your task will take — it’s because the idea of doing that task is making you feel bad.
For one of the first studies on this back in 2001, researchers put people in bad moods by having them read sad stories. And they found that those people were more likely to play games to procrastinate on a test they were later asked to take. But here’s the twist: some of the sad people smelled a candle that they were told would “freeze” their mood. And wouldn’t you know it? Those people were less likely to procrastinate than the ones who thought their bad moods could change.
So yeah, we procrastinate because it distracts us from the daunting task ahead and makes us feel better — at least, in the short term. But it can also pile on guilt and added stress! Not the greatest strategy for emotion regulation. Plus, studies show that regular, long-term procrastination is associated with mental and physical health problems, like anxiety, depression, cold and flu, and even heart disease.
So if it’s all about emotion, how do you keep yourself from procrastinating?
Well, first, remember that wandering around the internet probably won’t help you feel better. If you wouldn’t ordinarily seek out a list of “10 tweets only introverts will understand,” it’ll probably just be a waste of time that will only leave you feeling more stressed.
Instead, just recognize how you’re feeling — and feel it. There’s something scientists call “psychological flexibility” that refers to the ability to tolerate unpleasant thoughts and feelings and stay in the moment despite them. It’s pretty powerful when you can experience your bad feelings and adapt your behavior to get stuff done anyway, and no wonder that psychological flexibility comes with tons of mental and physical health benefits.
So the next time you feel yourself mindlessly scrolling instead of working on your to-do list, stop! Check in with your emotions. Then, focus on the task at hand, taking things one step at a time. With that burden crossed off the list, just imagine how much better you’ll feel.
ASHLEY: Let’s review what we learned today, shall we?
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk and Grant Currin, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!