Learn why late buses cluster in threes, and which one you should choose; how you could get funding from the National Science Foundation for your big idea; and how long you should date someone before getting married, according to research. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Here's Why Late Buses Cluster in Threes — and Which One You Should Choose The National Science Foundation Wants Your Idea for Their Next Project How Long Should You Date Someone Before Getting Married? Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn why late buses cluster in threes, and which one you should choose; how you could get funding from the National Science Foundation for your big idea; and how long you should date someone before getting married, according to research.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron!
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/how-long-to-date-before-marriage-the-nsf-2026-idea-machine-and-why-buses-cluster
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn why late buses cluster in threes and which one you should choose, why the National Science Foundation wants to hear your big questions, and how long you should date someone before getting married, according to research.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: Have you ever been waiting for a city bus for what feels like forever when suddenly, three in a row pull up to the curb? Believe it or not, there's actually a lot of research into this phenomenon. For you bus riders listening on your commute, we're going to tell you why it happens and which bus to get on.
CODY GOUGH: This used to happen to me all the time.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Me, too. Well, here's how bus clustering or bunching works. First, bus one gets delayed for whatever reason-- traffic, loading a bike, riders paying their fair in coins, whatever. Why do people do that?
[LAUGHS]
When that bus gets to the next stop, it has to load more people because riders who are running late get to catch it. Since bus one is picking up those late passengers, bus two has fewer passengers to pick up. So it moves on faster and catches up to bus one. And the gap between the two buses keeps getting smaller, since bus one keeps arriving late, picking up more riders, and running even further behind schedule.
Now let's say whoever's in charge tells bus two to pass bus one. Well, then bus two will hit the overcrowded stops, and then bus one will catch up to it. And that could cause a chain reaction that brings bus three even closer until all three pull up to your stop right when you thought you'd never see a bus again. So which one do you get on?
Transportation experts recommend bus two. That's because it's probably less crowded than bus one and it's likely to pass bus one soon. Careful, though. If bus two already passed bus one, then you might accidentally get on the wrong bus. So make sure you get on the less crowded of the two front buses. Whatever you do, do not get on bus three. The driver might get instructions to get ahead of the mayhem by skipping stops, including yours. And it might also get instructions to terminate before the end of the line, which means you'd have to get off the bus and wait for a new one anyway. Bus two all the way.
CODY GOUGH: Do you have a question you think science needs to answer? We have a smart audience made of people who have a lot of big questions. Yes, we're talking about you, listener. So today on Curiosity, we wrote about an organization that might be able to help. And this is not a paid placement, by the way. It's just a science thing that science-y people--
ASHLEY HAMER: Sure.
CODY GOUGH: --like to science. Science it up. What's a big question you want answered, Ashley?
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, man. This has been a tough one for me, because I-- they just want such big questions. I don't think I have one thing that I don't think science has looked into enough.
CODY GOUGH: You do look into a lot of stuff.
ASHLEY HAMER: I do.
CODY GOUGH: Well if you're listening and you have a big question, starting this week, the National Science Foundation is accepting any and all suggestions for areas of research they may want to focus on. It's called the NSF 2026 Idea Machine. And you don't have to be a scientist or an engineer or even a high school graduate to participate. They're just looking for big ideas. And hey, you don't need to be an expert to have a big idea.
The head of NSF's Office of Integrative Activities told Science Magazine, quote, "We don't want single projects, but rather, big umbrella themes with lots of community engagement and involving all units at NSF," unquote. In other words, you don't have to figure out how to make your idea happen. You can leave that to the NSF-funded researchers. Now, as for specific types of big ideas, they're looking for things the NSF isn't already funding. That means they're probably not going to pick projects like a mission to Mars.
Instead, focus on ideas with immediate or near immediate impact or relevance. You can read about some of the things the NSF is working on in our full write-up on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity App for Android and iOS. And let us know if they pick your big idea for their next project.
ASHLEY HAMER: Have you ever wondered how long you should date someone before you get married? Six months? A year? Five years? Research has some answers, but we're also here to tell you that's probably the wrong question to ask. Cody, how long did you date your wife before you got married?
CODY GOUGH: Before we got married? I proposed to her a little after two years of dating.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, wow.
CODY GOUGH: 2 and 1/2, 2 and 2/3 years before we tied the knot.
ASHLEY HAMER: OK, yeah.
CODY GOUGH: I like that this is probably the wrong question to ask because I didn't meet the minimum criteria for this.
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
CODY GOUGH: But I still got a pretty good feeling about my marriage.
ASHLEY HAMER: Good. Yeah, let's take this off of Cody.
[LAUGHS]
In 2015, Emory University researchers published a study involving 3,000 couples. It primarily looked at how wedding spending affected marriage length. But it also looked at other variables, like how long a couple dated before popping the question. The study found that compared to couples who dated for less than a year, couples who dated one to two years before proposing cut the risk of divorce by 20%. Dating three years or more slashed their risk of divorce in half.
CODY GOUGH: So what, I'm somewhere in the middle, somewhat like 2/3.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, yeah, you're pretty good. You're doing well.
CODY GOUGH: Right.
ASHLEY HAMER: But there were other factors just as important as dating length. Like couples who said that they knew each other, quote, "very well" at the time of marriage also cut their risk of divorce by half. And the smartest couples think hard about the future. A 2017 study from psychology researchers Laura VanderDrift, James McNulty, and Levi Baker found that there's a link between how satisfied you think you'll be with your relationship in the future and your level of commitment in the work you'll do on your relationship today.
Even if you're really compatible right now, that's not a guarantee that you'll be the same way in three to five years if your goals aren't aligned. But if the relationship is important enough, you can adjust on the fly and make the sacrifices you need to insure your love thrives.
CODY GOUGH: That's all for today, but Curiosity has big plans for the weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: This weekend, you'll learn about why blowing your nose could actually make your cold worse, two traits that could predict how likely you are to cheat on your partner, a fish that lives deeper in the ocean than anything we've ever found, why running might actually be good for your knees, and the science behind why black is swimming-- which was way more science-y and advanced than I expected to write. It's amazing.
CODY GOUGH: I'm looking forward to reading it. You had a lot of fun researching it.
ASHLEY HAMER: I really did.
CODY GOUGH: And hey, since this is a holiday weekend here in the US, would you mind taking a couple minutes to help us with something? We just posted a listener survey so we can learn more about you and what you like hearing on our show. If you fill it out, then you can also enter for a chance to win a Curiosity t-shirt. Hooray. We've posted the survey in today's show notes and on our Patreon page and on our podcast page on our website and on the second bus that pulls up to your stop. Or maybe not that one. But you can find it in lots of places.
It'll definitely take a few minutes to fill out, but like I said, you can enter to win a t-shirt. And we're going to use your feedback to figure out how to do our show better. Do you love our productivity hacks? Want to hear more or less about dark matter or exercise tips or dinosaurs? Now is your chance to tell us. Again, you can find a link to our listener survey and today's show notes and on patreon.com/curiosity.com, all spelled out. Thank you so much.
ASHLEY HAMER: Despite Labor Day weekend in the US, we will still be back Sunday and Monday with new episodes. And remember, if there's something you're curious about, then email your question to podcast@curiosity.com, and we might answer it on a future episode.
CODY GOUGH: We're not sitting on a ton of questions right now, so really, you've got a good shot at us answering it. That's podcast@curiosity.com. Join us on Sunday to learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Have a great weekend, and stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.