Learn about the evolutionary reason why love is blind; the weird history of that pink color in your bathtub; and how to form new habits. 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: Love Is Blind for an Evolutionary Reason — https://curiosity.im/2DjkRbh That Pink Color in Your Bathtub Is a Soap-Eating Bacteria with a Tainted History — https://curiosity.im/2tr10SP A Huge Chunk of Your Day Is Just Mindless Habit — https://curiosity.im/2Dom9BI 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! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And 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 the evolutionary reason why love is blind; the weird history of that pink color in your bathtub; and how to form new habits.
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:
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! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And 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-to-form-new-habits-evolution-on-why-love-is-blind-and-pinks-in-your-sinks
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 the evolutionary reason why love is blind; the weird history of that pink color in your bathtub; and how to form new habits.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Love Is Blind for an Evolutionary Reason — https://curiosity.im/2DjkRbh (Cody)
We've all heard the phrase "love is blind." Scientifically speaking, it's actually kinda true. And you’re about to learn the evolutionary reason why. See if this sounds familiar: you go on a few Tinder dates with a certain lucky person, and now you can’t get them out of your head. To you, everything about this person is PERFECT. Your friends don’t all see what the fuss is about. They’re just jealous, though, right? Well, you’re also delusional. And hey, don’t worry — it happens to all of us. BELIEVE ME, I AM ONE OF THESE PEOPLE. When we get into a new relationship, we put that special someone on a pedestal. Our brain's reward system is activated, and our mirror neurons trigger a "love potion" of brain chemicals, like dopamine, testosterone, vasopressin, oxytocin, serotonin, and GABA. This magic mixture induces love, while at the same time, our brains suppress negative judgments, like wariness, suspicion, and discrimination. Here’s how neuroscience professor Dr. Lucy Brown puts it; quote, "When you're in a relationship, you're aware of the other person's flaws, but your brain is telling you it's OK to ignore them," unquote. The reason? One word: reproduction. In order for our species to survive, we're hard-wired to become blindly enamored by new love so that we’re quickly ready to reproduce and raise children. When you enter the attachment stage of love, your blinders fall. That's when you realize that your bae spends too much time fixing their hair, their laugh is super loud, and you wish they’d stop talking during your favorite movie. But that's also the start of a real relationship where your comfort grows, and you learn how to make compromises for each other. While the honeymoon stage can feel great, it also boosts the stress hormone cortisol, which influences maddening thoughts. Once you enter the attachment stage, though, your cortisol levels go down and serotonin levels go up. What does this mean? New and old couples can be equally in love — it just looks different. [I wonder if this is also why it feels like nobody in the history of ever has listened to relationship advice? That’s my wife’s running theory / ad lib]
That Pink Color in Your Bathtub Is a Soap-Eating Bacteria with a Tainted History — https://curiosity.im/2tr10SP (Ashley)
No matter how hard you clean, you’ve probably noticed a light-pink color show up somewhere in your bathtub or shower or sink. Well don’t worry: if you’re healthy, then you probably have nothing to fear from this pink soap-eating bacteria. It has an interesting history, though, and we’ve got the scoop on how to get rid of it. [CODY: Did you say “soap-eating?” / ad lib]
ASHLEY: The bacteria is called Serratia marcescens. It's an aerobic, gram-negative bacterium that thrives in a moist or wet environment. That can be the soil in your backyard or the tiles in your shower. It loves to chow down on phosphates and fatty residues, which are both found in soaps and detergents. This bacteria can also travel through the air, which is why you may find more of it during the summer months when your windows are open. Wherever you live, you can't escape it: it's estimated that Serratia marcescens exists in similar levels in households all over the world. Now like I said before, it can’t hurt you if you’re generally healthy. But it’s not completely harmless. Especially in hospitals where there are lots of people with compromised immune systems, it’s a fairly common cause of blood infections, pneumonia, and UTIs, along with a few other medical problems. Until the 1980s, though, scientists thought it was harmless. What they did know was that it had an easy-to-spot color that made it a great “tracer” microbe. One of the first “tracer” experiments was pretty funny. In 1906, Dr. M.H. Gordon was called into the House of Commons to investigate the ventilation in the building after a large number of its members caught influenza. To see how easily microorganisms could spread through the air, Dr. Gordon set up a bunch of petri dishes throughout the space, and what he did next was NOT something scientists would likely do these days. He gargled a solution filled with the red-tinged bacteria and recited Shakespeare in the debating chamber for a full hour. The scarlet bacterial colonies that grew on petri dishes a surprising distance away demonstrated that microbes could spread not only from coughing and sneezing, but also via talking. Dr. Gordon apparently didn't get sick from his experiment. If you’ve got Serratia marcescens in your home, then don’t worry: you can un-pink your sink with any cleaning product that contains bleach. Just get ready for a fight: this salmon-colored colonizer is all around you, and it’ll almost definitely come back.
A Huge Chunk of Your Day Is Just Mindless Habit — https://curiosity.im/2Dom9BI (Cody)
According to a 2014 study, a huge chunk of your day is just mindless habit. But if almost half of our lives are based on habits, then what makes it so hard to build a new one? Don’t worry: we’re in the habit of telling you how to change your habits. So be glad you’re in the habit of listening to Curiosity Daily, because you’re about to learn about the psychology of, well… habits. It comes down to engaging your habitual mind versus your intentional mind. Your intentional mind cares about goals and outcomes, but your habitual mind runs on repeated context cues. Context cues meaning, like, when I sit down in a car, I buckle my seatbelt. Let me back up and explain how habits form. According to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, habits emerge through associative learning. When you learn something procedural, like how to ride a bike, it activates your working memory in the brain’s associative basal ganglia. Engaging that part of your brain takes repetition. The 2014 study I mentioned used an experiment to illustrate this concept: Participants tasted fresh and stale popcorn, and obviously, they preferred the taste of fresh popcorn. But when the participants were offered popcorn at a movie theater, the people who had a habit of eating popcorn at the movies ate just as much whether or not their popcorn was stale. Now, while your intentional mind is thoughtful, it's easily derailed by deep-seated habits. If you’re trying to lose weight, stuff like weight loss programs will leave your intentional mind feeling motivated, but they won't feed your habitual mind. To accomplish that, you'll need to do three things. First, you have to derail existing habits and create the opportunity to form new ones. So if you want to lose weight start getting rid of unhealthy habit cues. Hide all your junk food on the top shelf of your pantry and start putting fresh fruit out where's it's easy to see. Baby steps. The second step is repetition. This can take a while — as in, anywhere from 15 to 254 days. So get started. And finally, it's important to form new, stable context cues. Here's a common example: flossing after you brush your teeth. Brushing your teeth is probably already a habit, so the new habit of flossing can hitch a ride on the habit you already have. The study found that it's more effective to form a new habit than to try and reverse an old one. Good luck — we believe in you!
ASHLEY: That’s all for today, but you can keep learning all weekend on curiosity-dot-com. This weekend, you’ll learn about why men and women need different types of people in their inner circles if they want career success;
A psychological trick that can make running more enjoyable;
What would happen if you ate one of those silica packets that say “do not eat”;
4 different types of writer’s block, and how to overcome them;
Why pants are a thing;
And more!
CODY: If there’s something ELSE you’re curious about, then email your question to podcast-at-curiosity-dot-com. We might answer your question on a future episode!
ASHLEY: That’s podcast-at-curiosity-dot-com. Come hang out with us again Sunday on the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m Ashley Hamer.
CODY: And I’m Cody Gough. Have a great weekend!
ASHLEY: And stay curious!