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: Laihana Noon Is the Bizarre Time of Year When Shadows Disappear The Best Ways to Remove Pesticides From Produce How the "Misattribution of Arousal" Can Make You Fall In Love Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
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:
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/how-to-remove-pesticides-from-produce-the-misattribution-of-arousal-and-laihana-noon
[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: I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn how the misattribution of arousal can trick you into falling in love, a bizarre time of year when shadows disappear, and the best ways to remove pesticides from produce.
CODY GOUGH: Well, let's satisfy some curiosity. All right, Ashley. What would you do if you didn't see any shadows outside even in the middle of a sunny afternoon?
ASHLEY HAMER: That sounds like the time I saw the eclipse.
CODY GOUGH: The eclipse, I was going to say.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: How weird was it?
ASHLEY HAMER: That was so weird.
CODY GOUGH: Did your eyes play any tricks on you?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. It felt like I was in a cartoon. I think that's what it was. Because what happens during an eclipse is that suddenly, the light gets really focused. And there are shadows, but they're just super, super sharp. And it felt like someone had drawn them. It was so weird.
CODY GOUGH: Got it well.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Well, you can actually experience something similar twice a year at a very specific time and place, in this case, in Hawaii during what locals call Lahaina Noon. That's what happens when the sun is directly overhead in this exact location on Earth known as the sun's zenith or the Earth's subsolar points. And at this time, there are no shadows. There are shadows, of course, but they're from directly above this point.
So that sun zenith or a subsolar point, it's constantly moving to different locations around the world as the Earth rotates and orbits the sun. But a lot of that path travels over water. Hawaii is the only US State that gets a Lahaina Noon. Lahaina means cruel sun in the Hawaiian language. And the next one is coming up on Thursday, July 12, so pack your bags.
It's become a big tourist attraction because your brain has evolved to interpret shadows around you to help you get a sense of scale, time of day, and even movement. So when those shadows disappear, your brain has trouble processing visual stimuli. So things can look like they're floating or look photoshopped, which sounds kind of like the opposite of what you saw, where things were really, really stark, and they actually look the opposite of floating. They looked really almost outlined.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Right?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, definitely.
CODY GOUGH: So this is a phenomenon you can, again, experience a couple of times a year. You've got a couple of weeks to book a trip if you want to catch the next one. But if you can't make it this year, then you can at least find photos in our write-up today on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody, do you wash your fruit and vegetables before you eat them?
CODY GOUGH: I do now.
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't wash my fruits and vegetables very often. Sometimes, I'll do it if I want to impress someone, but no, usually no. It's like if I'm serving them at a party, I'll wash the strawberries, but I don't really care.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: But also, I don't rinse my produce because I'm not really sure that it's that effective. Today, we actually have some science about this, and whether you really can remove pesticides from your produce and what the best way to do that is.
CODY GOUGH: Because that's the number one thing, right? It's the pesticides?
ASHLEY HAMER: That seems to be most people's concern. Again, I don't wash my stuff, so I don't really have a concern. So first off, if you buy organic, then you're not off the hook. Organic produce is grown with pesticides too. They just can't be synthetic pesticides. And a chemical can be just as unsafe, whether it's synthesized from scratch or perfected from natural sources.
So listen up. Here's what the most popular produce washing methods actually do. First, a 2008 review showed that plain old tap water only reduced the residue from five different pesticides by 20% at most. And what if you use soap? Well, soap isn't meant for washing food, and it's not really clear how well it works against pesticides. Plus, soap usually has other chemicals in it. So even if it does get rid of pesticides, you might just be swapping chemicals. We don't recommend it.
So how about commercial veggie washes? Well, a study from 2000 found that commercial veggie washes didn't do any better than tap water, so don't waste your money. Instead, you could try using vinegar. The food research review found that washing tomatoes in a vinegar solution significantly reduce the residues of six different pesticides. Some buy as much as 94%. Try filling a spray bottle with one part vinegar and three parts water and see what it does. It's cheap, nontoxic, and might be sitting in your kitchen right now.
But the most recent study showed that soaking apples in a baking soda and water solution for 12 to 15 minutes can remove almost every trace of pesticides from the fruit surface. If you have time, then this one's the winner for sure. And don't let an extra step stop you because science says you should eat your fruits and veggies if you want to live a healthy life.
CODY GOUGH: Ashley, what's the worst first date you've ever been on?
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, boy, definitely the guy who took me to a karaoke bar and proceeded to say outlandishly offensive things all night.
CODY GOUGH: Like, about a certain group of people?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes, about a certain group of people.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, boy.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I stayed on that date for way longer than I should have.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, no.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: So karaoke not your thing?
ASHLEY HAMER: No. Karaoke is not my thing. Don't take me out of karaoke date, anybody.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: One of my best first dates is on the karaoke date.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, that's good for you.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: Well, if you are struggling to come up with an idea for a great first date, today we've got a trick that science says could increase your chances of getting a second date, and there's interesting psychology around this. So if you're married or attached, this is still a cool story. This comes from an experiment in the 1970s called The Love Bridge experiment. Had you heard of this?
ASHLEY HAMER: I had. It's so cool.
CODY GOUGH: All right. Well, a group of single men would walk across one of two bridges. One was an unsteady cable bridge over a ravine with a couple 100-foot drop. And the other was a sturdy, strong, wooden bridge only about 10 feet up. After they walked across the bridge, each male participant was approached by an attractive woman who explained that she was doing a project for her Psychology class. And she asked them to fill out a questionnaire and write a short, dramatic story about a picture she showed them.
After she asked them this, she'd write down her phone number and say, hey, you can call me if you have any questions. All right. Well, it turns out the stories were not testing their creativity. They were testing the men's arousal. But hold on a second. Arousal isn't just butterflies in your stomach.
Physiologically, arousal is when your heart beats fast, you're breathing speeds up, your pupils dilate, and you might start to sweat, and that happens when you're feeling fear as well as what you might traditionally think of as arousal. The women at the end of the bridge gave a different name to the guys on the unsteady bridge versus the ones in the steady bridge.
So when they called the researchers, they immediately knew which bridge the men had crossed. And they found that the men who had crossed that unstable suspension bridge were not only more likely to call the woman, but they were also more likely to write a story with some sexual overtones. The researchers say the group that went across that shaky bridge experienced arousal induced by fear. And they misunderstood that to mean that they were attracted to the woman, the other kind of arousal. And that's known as misattribution of arousal.
So you might want to buy tickets to a horror movie or a roller coaster or a haunted house if you want a better chance of getting a second date, something that gets the blood pumping that might get mixed up for the other type of arousal later. Although, one caveat, there wasn't any difference in women who crossed the two bridges.
So maybe it'll work best if you're trying to win a man's heart? Drop us a line and let us know if it has worked for you. That's all for today, but Curiosity has big plans for the weekend. As always, we post new stuff seven days a week. So what can you learn about this weekend, Ashley?
ASHLEY HAMER: This weekend, you'll learn about why pockets are so rare in women's clothing, the weird history of why we still use the QWERTY keyboard, how to cope with a breakup according to science, why flamingos stand on one leg.
CODY GOUGH: That's actually a way cooler story than it sounds.
ASHLEY HAMER: It really is. The unbelievable meteorite that killed the dinosaurs and 75% of life on Earth and the surprising story of what happened next and more.
CODY GOUGH: Join us again Sunday for a special, slightly longer Sunday edition of this podcast. And if there's something you're curious about, then email a question to podcast@curiosity.com. Ashley might answer it Sunday or another day next week because we're getting lots of questions.
ASHLEY HAMER: We really are. That's podcast@curiosity.com. Join us again Sunday to learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough. Have a great weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: And stay curious.
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