Learn about how cold the last ice age was, why your body’s stress response can actually be healthy for you, and how to stop a jack-a-lantern from spoiling.
Learn about how cold the last ice age was, why your body’s stress response can actually be healthy for you, and how to stop a jack-a-lantern from spoiling.
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Researchers Know How Cold the Last Ice Age Was by Grant Currin
Pandemic Stress Study Shows That a Stress Response Can be Healthy by Kelsey Donk
How to stop a jack-o-lantern from spoiling by Ashley Hamer
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/how-cold-was-the-last-ice-age
ASHLEY HAMER: Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity.com. I'm Ashley Hamer.
NATALIA REAGAN: And I'm Natalia Reagan. Today, you'll learn about how cold the last ice age was, why your body's stress response can actually be healthy for you, and how to stop that scary old jack-o'-lantern from spoiling.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
NATALIA REAGAN: Researchers have just made a pretty big discovery about Earth's icy past. That should help climate scientists predict it's well warmer future. Specifically, they answered a question that seems like it would have already been answered, how cold was the last ice age? They figured it out by analyzing data gleaned from fossilized plankton. The verdict? About 6 degrees colder than it is today. That's degrees in Celsius, by the way.
If 6 degrees doesn't sound like much of a difference, at least for something called the ice age, that's because it's the average global temperature. Some places where way colder than that. The Arctic was 14 degrees colder than it is today. And the northern parts of North America and Europe were covered in ice. When glaciers were out there maximum about 20,000 years ago, one of them made it as far south as Kentucky. A 6-degree difference was enough to put glaciers in Kentucky.
This new finding is obviously pretty cool, pun intended, but it's also really important for a practical and urgent reason. You see, it's easy for a person alive today to walk outside and know the temperature. You could probably make a fairly accurate guess. And you could definitely look at a thermometer. But what if you needed to know the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere? Figuring that out would be a bit more involved.
Scientists, who study Earth's past, have the opposite problem. The planet has several ways of archiving carbon levels, but it's not as forthcoming about what the temperature was 100 or 1,000 or 100,000 years ago. That makes it really hard for scientists to calculate something called climate sensitivity, basically, the effect that a certain amount of carbon in the atmosphere will have on the global temperature. By calculating the temperature during the most recent ice age, the researchers were able to help solve this puzzle.
Atmospheric carbon was 180 parts per million at the coldest part of the ice age. And it got to about 280 parts per million right before humans started burning fossil fuels on a large scale. Now, it's at 415 parts per million. By taking all of this data into account, the researchers calculated that Earth's average temperature should increase by 3.4 degrees Celsius every time the amount of carbon in the atmosphere doubles. That's in line with other predictions of climate sensitivity.
This data will likely be incorporated into new models that predict how Earth's temperature will change if we continue dumping carbon into the atmosphere. But this is a stark reminder of what just a few degrees of difference can do. If a 6-degree colder climate was enough to put glaciers in Kentucky, what will three degrees warmer do? If we take action on climate change now, hopefully, we'll never find out.
ASHLEY HAMER: You know how your body responds when something scary happens-- the sweaty palms, the quickened pulse, the rising blood pressure? That's a stress response, and it's definitely not fun. But a new study of people's responses to the pandemic shows that a stress response can actually be healthy. You might think that people who act cool as a cucumber would end up with better mental health than most after a crisis.
But previous research hasn't always found that. Like one study found that first responders, who showed a greater response to stress, were, in fact, more likely to experience PTSD from their jobs. But another study found that soldiers with a lower stress response early on were more likely to experience PTSD. That's why the researchers decided to test this with different kinds of people and a different kind of trauma.
The study began in Texas in February. This was when COVID-19 was just starting to appear in the news. But the team didn't start out focused on COVID. The participants just happened to be tested as part of another ongoing study. The researchers took the resting heart rate and blood pressure of 120 college students before and after they took a stress test. The test involved doing mental math problems while looking in a mirror and being videotaped. That would definitely stress me out.
The second phase of the study happened in late March when the students had all been sent home due to the coronavirus pandemic. The researchers asked each of them to fill out a questionnaire that included questions about PTSD, things like, have you been dreaming about the pandemic? Have you been having trouble sleeping? Have you been feeling irritable or having a hard time concentrating?
They found that those participants who had seemed cool and calm during the stress test showed more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder during the pandemic. That means the people whose bodies responded to stress with an elevated heart rate or sweating before the pandemic actually fared better when the pandemic started. The big takeaway from this study, when you start to feel your heart race and your palms sweat, don't panic. A stress response is healthy. And it can pay off down the road.
Our bodies know what to do a lot of the time.
NATALIA REAGAN: It's kind of like sensing, danger, pain, things like that maybe you need to change what you're doing if something hurts.
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah, that's why we're sometimes innately scared of like spiders and snakes or those sorts of things because they can do some harm.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, your body's just trying to keep you safe.
NATALIA REAGAN: Well, because Halloween is coming up, and we want to satisfy your Cody Fix, here is some spooktacular advice about how to keep those jack-o'-lanterns lasting longer. Enjoy.
CODY: Have you heard Halloween is coming up? Listen, it's no treat when you're super cool jack-o'-lantern shrivels and decays on your front stoop. Fortunately, we've got just the trick for keeping your jack-o'-lantern from spoiling too early. I am going to use trick and treat puns almost daily this month.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'm ready for it.
CODY: First, you need to buy the right pumpkin. You can tell how old the pumpkin is by the colors of its stem. The greener the stem, the more recent the harvest. Now, here's a fun fact. The stem actually delivers nutrients to the pumpkin, so it's not just there for decoration. So you know how you usually cut a hole around the top of the pumpkin that cuts out the stem when you scoop out its guts? Not so good if the stem is actually giving the pumpkin nutrients.
So instead, try to cut a hole in the back of the pumpkin so the stem can keep doing its thing as long as possible. Make sure the pumpkin you pick doesn't have any soft spots or open cuts either since those will let in spoilage happy germs. Speaking of germs, pumpkins spoil in part, thanks to mold and microbes. You can fight against that by keeping your pumpkin cold or even wrapped in plastic wrap when it's not on display. Your refrigerator will do wonders for this. But if you're lucky, it'll just be cold enough for you to put it outside so you can save some space in your fridge.
If you want to get really hardcore, you can kill microorganisms that try to live in the pumpkin by soaking or spraying it with a dilution of bleach or Borax and water. You can also smear the cut areas of the pumpkin with petroleum, jelly like Vaseline or a generic clone. That'll lock the moisture into the pumpkin to keep it from drying out, just like what it does to your skin.
And finally, if you're putting a light inside your autumnal art, then use an electric light or glow stick if you can. Candles are great, but they can cook the gourd and make it spoil faster. That's certainly no treat.
ASHLEY HAMER: Good one.
[LAUGHTER]
All right, well, let's do a quick recap of what we learned today, starting with the fact that the last Ice Age was 6 degrees cooler on average than current temperatures. And even though that doesn't sound like a lot, it still meant that there were glaciers in Kentucky, glaciers in Kentucky. Hopefully, having a better idea about the last ice age will give scientists a better idea of how to prepare for future climate change.
NATALIA REAGAN: I actually teach at Eastern Kentucky University, so I need to squeeze that into my next lecture. Although I have to say, when I was a kid, fossil hunting was one of my favorite things to do. In Kentucky, dry lake beds, just filled with fossils, so I have a feeling many of those students are going to already know.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, they very well might. I've been to Louisville a handful of times. And I just want to say, in case anybody is listening in Kentucky, you have awesome running routes. I know that's not something everybody likes, but they have these bridges that play classical music. And they're specifically for runners. It's incredible.
NATALIA REAGAN: What?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. I was running with the sunrise. And there was classical music being piped through the speakers. It was amazing.
NATALIA REAGAN: Sweet. We also learned that some of that pandemic stress can actually be good for you. Studies show that soldiers, who got stressed during combat, were actually less likely to get PTSD down the road. And now, it seems like it also applies to people responding to COVID-19. So if you're feeling anxious and stressed, that's OK. It's normal. And it might actually be helpful in the long run.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. And we also learned how to keep your jack-o'-lantern from spoiling. First, try to keep the stem attached by cutting a hole in the back of the pumpkin. And you can keep the pumpkin safe from germs by spraying it with a solution of water and Borax. And finally, you can smear Vaseline on the cut parts of the pumpkin to keep it from spoiling. That's something I do to my lips at night. I feel like, why wouldn't that work for a jack-o'-lantern? Keep it all moist and youthful.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, very good. I felt like Cody really squashed this one.
ASHLEY HAMER: Ooh.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, yeah. Decorative gourd puns never get old, they just get moldy.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, that's why you got to put Borax on them.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yes. Today's stories were written by Ashley Hamer, Grant Currin, and Kelsey Donk and edited by Ashley Hamer, who's the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scriptwriting was by Natalia Reagan and Sonja Hodgen. Today's episode was edited by Natalia Reagan. And our producer is Cody Goff.
NATALIA REAGAN: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes. And until then, stay curious.