Learn why NASA compared a new scientific discovery to a game of “Where’s Waldo?”; why cats stick their butts in your face; and the surprising reason why your throat burns when you take a shot of hard liquor. 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: An Undiscovered Galaxy Just Photobombed the Hubble Telescope — https://curiosity.im/2DTNBJm Here's Why Your Cat Sticks Its Butt In Your Face — https://curiosity.im/2sZlXE8 Here's Why Taking a Shot of Tequila Burns Your Throat — https://curiosity.im/2sTJh6p 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 why NASA compared a new scientific discovery to a game of “Where’s Waldo?”; why cats stick their butts in your face; and the surprising reason why your throat burns when you take a shot of hard liquor.
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/hubble-telescope-photobomb-why-alcohol-burns-and-why-your-cat-puts-its-butt-in-your-face
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 why NASA compared a new scientific discovery to a game of “Where’s Waldo?”; why cats stick their butts in your face; and the surprising reason why your throat burns when you take a shot of hard liquor.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
An Undiscovered Galaxy Just Photobombed the Hubble Telescope — https://curiosity.im/2DTNBJm (from Saturday) (Ashley)
The Hubble Space Telescope just discovered a dwarf galaxy in our stellar neighborhood. This isn’t necessarily the biggest news in the world on its face, but the story of HOW we found it is the fun part. You know you’re in for a good time when NASA compares a scientific discovery to a game of "Where's Waldo?" And this undiscovered galaxy? Basically photobombed the Hubble Telescope. [ad lib]
ASHLEY: What the Hubble Telescope was really doing was photographing a star cluster called NGC 6752, which is 13,000 light-years away. That’s a pretty respectable distance by cosmic standards. So imagine astronomers' surprise when a "loner" galaxy popped up in the image. It was super-tiny and super-faint, but scrutiny showed that this tiny, 3,000-light-year-across galaxy was something like 30 million light-years away from us. That's about 12 times further than the Andromeda Galaxy, which you can see with the naked eye in the northern hemisphere. Now that astronomers know where this galaxy is hiding, they say it’ll teach us more about how galaxies change as they grow and age. In fact, this galaxy is almost as old as our universe itself, which is estimated at 13.7 billion years. NASA compared it to a living fossil from the early universe. This is a big deal because once we know what a galaxy looks like when it's unchanging, astronomers can make predictions about how changing galaxies grow and evolve. This’ll help us understand the shape of the galaxies surrounding us, and even our own Milky Way. We do know a few things for sure, like the fact that the Milky Way and Andromeda are on an eventual collision course in a few billion years. But let's face it — space is full of mysteries and we're just getting started with our explorations. Meanwhile, Hubble just keeps on observing and producing results nearly 29 years after its launch into space.
Here's Why Your Cat Sticks Its Butt In Your Face — https://curiosity.im/2sZlXE8 (Ashley)
If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, then you know I’m a cat person. And although I [love cats / say something about how much you love cats here], I know that one reason you MIGHT not love cats is because they love to stick their butt in your face. Let’s face it, we’ve all been there. Well I’ve got some news for you: they’re doing it because they like you. And there’s research to back this up. [ad lib]
ASHLEY: Whenever experts try to shed light on the baffling abyss that is cat behavior, they start by looking at how cats act around their own kind. To be friendly, cats often rub their heads, bodies, and tails alongside one another. It doesn't just feel good; that behavior also exchanges odors from a bunch of scent glands that are located on the sides of a cat's head, the corners of its mouth, under its chin, on its ears, and — importantly — on its tail. Not only will cats rub their own scent on one another, but they'll also sniff their companions for lots of reasons: to confirm their identity, to see what they've been up to, and even just to say "hello." That includes their butts, which also contain glands that are rich with scent information. Dr. Debra Primovic is an emergency medicine veterinarian, and she wrote for PetPlace, quote, "Some believe the 'sniff' can actually relieve tension and stress by helping an individual feel more comfortable about the other cat. Two cats living in the same house may smell each other when one comes in from the outside or comes back from the vet to confirm information about the cat's state including diet, stress, availability for mating, and mood,” unquote. But that's with other cats. How does this apply to the weird way your little furball treats YOU? Well, when cats rub their bodies against each other, they usually move in opposite directions, starting head-to-head and ending with their butts facing one another. That's exactly what a cat is doing when it slides its body along your standing leg — its head starts the move, its butt finishes. But if you're lying down, that move isn't so straightforward, and that’s why you could end with your cat's butt in your face. Along the same lines, your cat might just shove its rear directly in your face because it wants to say "hello." Other cats sniff butts to say hi, so why wouldn't you? And on a final note: it's possible that a cat’s butt in your face is just an accident. Since cats stick their tails straight up when they're feeling friendly, a happy cat exposes its stinkiest area to the world — whether or not there's an unlucky human face nearby. [See? Do you feel like a cat person now? / ad lib]
Here's Why Taking a Shot of Tequila Burns Your Throat — https://curiosity.im/2sTJh6p (from Saturday) (Cody)
If you’ve ever taken a shot of hard liquor, then you probably know how badly it burns on the way down. We encourage you to drink responsibly, as always, but just in time for the weekend, I figure now might be a good time to explain why that room-temperature tequila gives you a burning sensation on the way down your throat. And the answer is probably not what you think. [ad lib]
CODY: Your normal body temperature is around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 37 degrees Celsius. When you drink something cold, it gets slightly warmer as it travels down your throat and into your stomach. When you drink a hot beverage, the opposite happens: Your body absorbs some of that heat. And your body can take a lot of heat. I mean, my fellow former coffee shop baristas can tell you that a typical latte or cup of joe might get served at around 140 or even 160 degrees Fahrenheit. So even when you sip on something a lot hotter than your core body temperature, you don't feel like your throat is on fire. In order to protect your insides, your mouth and throat both have pain sensors called vanilloid receptor-1, or VR1. VR1 react to the temperature and acidity of food. They do this by stimulating neurons that transmit the sensation of pain to your brain. These receptors are super sensitive to both actual high temperatures and perceived heat from compounds like capsaicin. That’s why they have a similar reaction to either a sizzling hot slice of pizza or a red hot chili pepper. And things change when alcohol comes into play. The type of alcohol you find in liquors like tequila is called ethanol. You know how spicy capsaicin makes VR1 think a food is hot to the touch? Well, ethanol binds to these receptors and makes them more sensitive to heat. This bond actually changes the heat threshold, and lowers it to just 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit, or 34 degrees Celsius. Doesn’t sound like a big swing in temperature, right? Well it’s still enough to cause a flurry of responses in your skin, esophagus, and spinal cord, which gives giving you a sudden sensation of warmth all over and a nasty burn in your throat. So when it comes to downing a shot of liquor, that burning sensation you feel isn't real heat; it's your own body's warning signals going kinda haywire. [ad lib a funny ending that is hilarious to everyone]
ASHLEY: Today’s ad-free episode was brought to you by our Patrons. Special thanks to Katrina Constantine, Muhammad Shifaz, Ben Urick, Luke Chapman, and Stay-fan Crate for your support on Patreon. We really appreciate it!
CODY: To learn more about how you can support Curiosity Daily, go to patreon-dot-com-slash-curiosity-dot-com, all spelled out. You can also keep learning all weekend on curiosity-dot-com.
ASHLEY: This weekend, you’ll learn about statistical tricks that headlines use to fool you;
Why too much sleep might be as harmful as too little;
The decades-old secret of a massive stone tower in the middle of the Pacific Ocean;
How long you would survive on every planet without a spacesuit;
Light echoes from a black hole we recently detected from the ISS;
And more!
CODY: Come hang out with us again Sunday on the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. Have a great weekend! I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Stay curious!