In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com (along with some outside research into a listener question) to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Please Visit Our Sponsor: Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans To Find Out If News About Aliens Is Legit, Use the Rio Scale Want to Break a Bad Habit? Focus on the 3 "R's" What Makes Your Brain Happy — and Why You Should Do the Opposite [Full Podcast Interview with David DiSalvo] Does Almond Milk Deserve to Be Called ‘Milk’? | Lifehacker Soon, your soy milk may not be called ‘milk’ | PBS If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please considersupporting 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 onCuriosity.com, and download our5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable ourAlexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com (along with some outside research into a listener question) to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
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. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 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-to-change-your-habits-almond-and-soy-milk-vs-juices-and-the-rio-scale-for-alien-news
CODY GOUGH: HI. We've got two stories from curiositydotcom, plus a well researched answer to a listener question 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 about a new scale to help you figure out if news about aliens is legit, and how to break a bad habit by focusing on the three R's. Hint, I am not talking about reading, writing, and arithmetic.
CODY GOUGH: Well top off today's some of the episode with a sprinkle of curiosity, where Ashley digs into a question from an awesome listener like you.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's right. Today's question comes from Tobias from Norway, who wants to know why non-dairy milks, like soy milk and almond milk are called milk, and not juice. Stay tuned for the answer.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity. Ashley, have you ever listened to the original War of the Worlds broadcast?
ASHLEY HAMER: I haven't. You just gave me a goal. I need to do that. That sounds amazing.
CODY GOUGH: I mean, it's Orson Welles.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Right, so it's phenomenal.
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
CODY GOUGH: It's been a while. I think I was required to listen to it in journalism school.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's cool.
CODY GOUGH: Just because.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: And for the listener that doesn't know, the War of the Worlds is a radio broadcast performed by Orson Welles, that was an adaptation of H.G. Wells novel, The War of the Worlds. And it became really famous for allegedly causing mass panic, although the scale of the panic is disputed.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes media outlets seem to have overblown what actually happened. But the idea was that people thought that aliens were really invading Earth.
CODY GOUGH: Right. And again, we're not saying that many people believed it but that's kind of how the legend goes.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's the legend.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, exactly. And there's a piece of radio history for you. But we're not going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about what happens if scientists do think we've made contact with aliens. Because we may not believe that alien invasions are real if we hear them on the radio these days. But social media is a thing, right? And social media can blow even the tiniest story way out of proportion, right.
So what do you do if you see some tweets? How are you supposed to even know if you should be paying attention with all the noise out there? Well, fortunately you've come to the right place. The next time the science world starts buzzing about aliens, you can look for this updated scale to help you figure out whether you should be paying attention.
It's called the Rio Scale 2.0, And it measures how close a piece of scientific research comes to finding alien life. The higher the mark, the more you should pay attention. The Rio Scale was first developed in 2001, and it just got an update for our social media saturated world. The scale ranges from 0 for no evidence, to 10 for the most extraordinary evidence. And scientists can publish or tweet the Rio scale along with their findings.
Hopefully responsible journalists will also do the same thing. That means us. You can learn more about the updated Rio Scale at the International Journal of Astrobiology, and you can find that in our full write up. Which we actually posted Saturday on curiositydotcom and on the curiosity app for Android and iOS.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody when's the last time you broke a bad habit?
CODY GOUGH: The one that comes to mind is when I uninstalled a certain game from my phone.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's good.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: Congratulations.
CODY GOUGH: Thanks. It was painful but probably not as painful as wasting even more hours playing it.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. I'm a very fidgety person. I'll like mess it-- my hair or, like, chew my nails and stuff. So I kind of go from habit to habit to habit, like, if I stop doing one thing then I have to make up for it by doing another thing. But right now, I'm pretty good. I'm pretty even keeled, not a lot of fidgeting.
CODY GOUGH: You say chew your nails, and not bite your nails.
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't know. I chew-- I bite them--
CODY GOUGH: That is an awful-- I don't like that phrase.
ASHLEY HAMER: Sorry. I bite my nails.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, no. I don't know why it bothers me. We'll have to make a new whiteboard, and we've got a whiteboard by our desks of words that one of our old coworkers really disliked.
ASHLEY HAMER: She had a lot of them.
CODY GOUGH: There are like 30 on there.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: All right, I'm going to start one, and it's going to be chewing on nails.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right.
CODY GOUGH: The full phrase.
ASHLEY HAMER: Perfect.
CODY GOUGH: You can chew on anything else but--
ASHLEY HAMER: Not on nails.
CODY GOUGH: Not on nails.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, if you're itching to break a bad habit, like chewing on your nails then today--
CODY GOUGH: Gross.
ASHLEY HAMER: Then today we've got an idea for you. These come from author and self proclaimed ideas advocate James Clear, who writes about the three R's. Reminder, routine, and reward. You might also hear the reminder called a trigger or a cue. But then you mess up the alliteration. So we're going to stick with reminder for this explanation.
Reminder, routine, and reward is kind of like a habit loop. You might hear a phone ring, reminder. You answer the phone, routine. And you talk to the person on the other end, reward. Huge chunks of your day follow this pattern, too, not just bad habits.
So how do you break the cycle? The key is swapping out that middle R, routine. Let's say you want to stop smoking. Well, good luck just not getting that urge or a reminder that you want to smoke, right? But let's say that reminder is that you smoke after your lunch break. Well, if you usually eat lunch at your desk, try eating in the kitchen or the cafeteria instead, to set up a new reminder that's not associated with the routine of smoking.
For starting new good habits, try weaving your new habit into your everyday life. Do that by tacking it onto something familiar that'll act as a reminder. Reminders are good because habits are almost on autopilot in your brain. A habits reminder sets off an automatic domino effect in the brain. So you don't even have to give it any thought. This means that old habits die hard. But it also implies that good habits can last forever.
CODY GOUGH: And by the way, if any of this sounds familiar, it's because we touched on this habit changing strategy in our full length curiosity podcast interview with author David Disalvo.
DAVID DISALVO: It's a bit of a paradox, right? Everything we do requires us to rely on our brains obviously. But at the same time, this same incredible organ that is the embodiment of all these amazing abilities, also embodies this set of biases and thinking distortions, and really, frankly, delusions that can lead us astray, and frequently do. So we have to always balance between our reliance on the amazing capabilities of our brains, while also acknowledging that there's these tremendous drawbacks.
CODY GOUGH: We'll put a link to that full episode in our show notes, and if you like our longer shows then please consider supporting this show on Patreon. We're producing new feature length interviews available exclusively for our Patreon supporters, and we've got some other cool free stuff on our page as well. Visit patreon.com/curiositydotcom, all spelled out, for more info.
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CODY GOUGH: If you're in the market to buy a home, RateShield approval is a real game changer, and here's why. First, Quicken Loans will lock your rate for up to 90 days while you shop. But here's the crucial part. If rates go up, your rate stays the same. But if rates go down, your rate also drops. Either way, you win. It's the kind of thinking you would expect from America's largest mortgage lender.
ASHLEY HAMER: To get started, go to RocketMortgage.com.
CODY GOUGH: We got an email with this question from Tobias, quote, "I was googling milk memes today and came across a good one." I'm so glad you were googling milk memes. "There is no such thing as soy milk only juice. I was thinking, that actually sounds true. Rice milk, soy milk, almond milk isn't it all juice. Or why is it called milk?" Unquote. Great question, Tobias.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's a question that a lot of people have been fighting over, here in the United States, in fact. More on that in a second. There's no definitive source on why people call these concoctions milk. But it's pretty clear that we call them milk because, well, they look like milk. We generally assume milk is white and creamy, and juice is clear and sweet, regardless of the source.
Coconuts are a great illustration of this. You call the clear fluid that comes from the coconut coconut water, the thick, creamy substance made from shredded coconut coconut cream, and the white fluid made from the combination of the two, coconut milk. They're all named for what they look like. We do this with all sorts of stuff, especially in vegan and vegetarian circles-- non-dairy creamer, vegan cheese, veggie burgers, mushroom leather.
I particularly like this tweet from Kenji Lopez-Alt of the Food Lab at Serious Eats. "It's a little harsher than we like to get on the podcast, so I'll paraphrase a little. For all the people who try and argue that almond milk needs a different name because milk comes from a cow, you better come up with a new name for peanut butter, stat. Still, government regulations have specific definitions for what is and isn't milk. The US Food and Drug Administration defines milk as, the lacteal secretion practically free from colostrum obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows." Mm. Delicious
CODY GOUGH: That's hot.
ASHLEY HAMER: On the other hand, it defines juice as the aqueous liquid expressed or extracted from one or more fruits or vegetables. Those definitions, pretty clearly, put soy milk in the juice camp. The problem is that the FDA hasn't been enforcing that definition. But last month, they announced that they plan to bring the hammer down. They can't just change what they've been doing willy-nilly, though. It'll probably take a few years to even come to an official decision. But someday Americans, at least might not be able to call it soy milk. So cheers to your soy juice latte.
CODY GOUGH: No. Do you drink your lattes with soy milk.
ASHLEY HAMER: No. I'm dairy, all the way.
CODY GOUGH: It tastes better, in my opinion. But if I really want to cut my calories I'll go with almond milk.
ASHLEY HAMER: Interesting.
CODY GOUGH: An almond milk latte can taste all right, depending. What the real life hack is?
ASHLEY HAMER: What's that?
CODY GOUGH: If I want a vanilla latte but I don't want vanilla syrup, to create that vanilla flavor. Then you just make a regular latte with vanilla soy milk.
ASHLEY HAMER: Whoa.
CODY GOUGH: Not all coffee shops offer that. But this is a Cody Gough original pro tip. We've not written about this on curiositydotcom. I am just watching out for my fellow caffeine lovers.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow, you're just full of golden nuggets of information. Read about these stories and more, today on curiositydotcom.
CODY GOUGH: Join us again tomorrow for the curiosity daily, and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Stay curious.
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