Learn about why the Earth’s atmosphere extends beyond the moon; whether you should listen to music while you work; and whether your muffled hearing after a concert means you damaged your ears. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: The Earth's Atmosphere Extends Beyond the Moon — https://curiosity.im/2SYTttN Should You Listen to Music While You Work? — https://curiosity.im/2twBYln Does Muffled Hearing After a Concert Mean You Damaged Your Ears? — https://curiosity.im/2GXNm1t Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about why the Earth’s atmosphere extends beyond the moon; whether you should listen to music while you work; and whether your muffled hearing after a concert means you damaged your ears.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/how-music-affects-your-work-damage-from-muffled-hearing-and-earths-gigantic-atmosphere
CODY: Hi! We’re here from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about why the Earth’s atmosphere extends beyond the moon; whether you should listen to music while you work; and whether your muffled hearing after a concert means you damaged your ears.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
The Earth's Atmosphere Extends Beyond the Moon — https://curiosity.im/2SYTttN (Ashley)
A new study from Russia’s Space Research Institute, the SRI, says our atmosphere extends out to 630-THOUSAND kilometers into space. And this could have big implications for astronomers, including how we find exoplanets with water.
As reported by Universe Today, this study centers on what’s called the geocorona. That’s a huge cloud of hydrogen atoms that you can find where the Earth’s atmosphere meets outer space. The researchers looked at archival data from one of the instruments on the the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO. SOHO is a spacecraft launched in 1995 to study the sun, and it’s also discovered more than 3-thousand comets. SOHO has a sensitive instrument on board that can trace the hydrogen signature from the geocorona to find its boundaries. See, there’s a type of light that interacts with hydrogen atoms called Lyman-alpha light. Hydrogen atoms can both emit and absorb this light. Inside the Earth’s atmosphere, though, the light is absorbed. So we can only see how large the geocorona is from space, and even then, we can only take observations at certain times of the year, when Earth and its geocorona come into the SOHO’s view. The researchers didn’t realize what they’d found until they dug up observations made more than 20 years ago by the SOHO spacecraft. It observed Earth’s geocorona three times between 1996 and 1998, and the team decided to take it from the archives and take a closer look. Sure enough, they discovered that the Earth’s atmosphere extends out to 630-THOUSAND kilometers into space. Just like the Kepler telescope story we did last week, you never know what we might discover when we look at old data.
This discovery is important because we usually see water vapour closer to the surface of planets with hydrogen in their exospheres — like Venus, Mars, and Earth. This fact could be helpful when researchers are trying to figure out which exoplanets might have water. And it’s also possible that the geocorna could mess with astronomical observations we make near the moon. This is something researchers will have to keep in mind when they’re using, say, a lunar telescope. And one more thing: if you were hoping to escape Earth’s atmosphere any time soon, then with nearly 400-thousand miles to travel, you’re gonna have to pack some extra bags.
Should You Listen to Music While You Work? — https://curiosity.im/2twBYln (Cody)
It’s time to settle an epic office debate: should you listen to music while you work? [ad lib]
CODY: This seems like a simple question, but think about how many different types of music there are, not to mention how many different types of work. There’s a thing called the “Mozart effect” that researchers found, that says listening to Mozart sonatas before a mental activity sparked stronger spatial reasoning. But what about Mozart sonatas DURING a task? Or what about death metal? So for a study published last month in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, researchers recruited 142 undergraduate students to perform simple and complex tasks — basically, data entry versus memorization. They did this either in silence or with a soundtrack of simple or complex instrumental music. The music tracks used the same piano, strings, and synth elements, but the complex tracks had drums and bass layered in. The participants also took personality tests beforehand to tell the researchers a bit more about their work styles.
And the results? Maybe not what you’d expect. Some of the participants had said they prefer external stimulation — think people who check their phones while watching TV — and those participants were less able to handle working to music. They were the ones who wanted to listen to music the most, but ironically, they performed best on the complex tasks when they worked in silence. Their peers who did not have a preference for external stimulation performed best when music played. For the simple tasks, the external simulation seekers performed best to no music or simple music, while their peers who got bored less easily performed best to complex music.
Okay, so what does this mean? The results suggest that people who like external stimulation have a huge amount of attention they can give to the world. That attention splits easily when they’re doing multiple things, like doing work and listening to music. But when they’re doing a single isolated task, they can get very deeply absorbed, which is why they do better when there’s no music or simple music playing. Meanwhile, people on the other end of the spectrum actually benefitted from the distraction, because it was just enough to keep their minds from wandering. Across the board, people can only enjoy so much distraction. Music might help you do a simple task better to a degree, but there’s a tipping point where that music will overload you even when you’re doing a simple task. And that overload might happen earlier if you’re the type of person who likes a lot of external stimulation, because you’re actively seeking that sensation. [ad lib]
Does Muffled Hearing After a Concert Mean You Damaged Your Ears? — https://curiosity.im/2GXNm1t (Ashley)
If you've ever rocked out at a loud concert and woken up the next day with muffled hearing, you’ve probably wondered: did you just damage your ears? I wish we could say no, but the answer is actually pretty complex. But we do have some information that could help you protect your hearing. The muffled hearing you get after a concert is called temporary threshold shift. You have tiny hairs in your inner ear that sense sound pressures waves. And you experience this shift when those hairs get tired. I said “temporary threshold shift” because it’s, well, temporary, but there is a thing called permanent threshold shift. And research into the difference between a temporary and permanent shift are ongoing; scientists aren't sure whether one causes the other, or they have separate causes. But one thing is for sure: very loud noise in a rock concert, dance club, or even your headphones, CAN cause permanent hearing loss. According to the World Health Organization, nearly half of people ages 12 to 35 in middle- and high-income countries are exposed to unsafe levels of sound — and that’s just from their phones, MP3 players, and other personal audio devices. Forget the rock concerts and dance clubs: your playlist at home is why hearing damage in teens and young adults is actually on the rise. That’s why it’s never a bad idea to use earplugs when you know you’ll be in a super-loud environment, and you can get musician-grade earplugs if you want to cut the volume without muffling the sound quality. Another great way to stay safe is by following guidelines for how much noise is safe for workers, from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. They set a limit of 85 decibels, which is a little louder than your average vacuum cleaner of around 75 decibels. Decibels are units of sound pressure level, and the louder the sound, the higher the decibels. You can measure decibels yourself with lots of different smartphone apps. But a dance club is about 110 decibels, so… maybe be extra careful if you spend a lot of time in those. [ad lib]
CODY: Today’s ad-free episode was brought to you by our Patrons. Special thanks to Roger Wright, Walt DeGrange, and Min Zye for your support on Patreon. We really appreciate it!
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CODY: Join us again tomorrow for the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m [NAME] and I’m [NAME]. Stay curious!