Learn when you can catch the Geminid Meteor Shower this month, and why it’s unique; why jet lag is worse when you travel east; and research into how the Earth’s wandering poles may have caused our ice age. Please support our sponsors! Visit zola.com/curiosity to start your free wedding website, and also get $50 off your registry on Zola. 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: Why the Geminid Meteor Shower Is One of the Most Popular There Is — https://curiosity.im/2EcOQ7H Here's Why Jet Lag Is Worse When You Travel East — https://curiosity.im/2EdMvJB The Ice Age May Have Been Caused by the Earth's Wandering Poles — https://curiosity.im/2EeNIjL 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 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!
Learn when you can catch the Geminid Meteor Shower this month, and why it’s unique; why jet lag is worse when you travel east; and research into how the Earth’s wandering poles may have caused our ice age.
Please support our sponsors! Visit zola.com/curiosity to start your free wedding website, and also get $50 off your registry on Zola.
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
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/jet-lag-is-worse-when-you-travel-east-earths-wandering-poles-and-geminid-meteor-shower
[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: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today you'll learn when you can catch the Geminid meteor shower this month and why it's unique, why jet lag is worse when you travel East, and research into what caused the Earth's last ice age.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: December is here, and that means so is the Geminid meteor shower. Not only is it a bright, clear meteor shower, but it's also got a cool back story. Ready to mark your calendar?
CODY GOUGH: This year, which is 2018, in case you're hearing this later, they'll peak around late night on December 13 and early morning of December 14, right?
ASHLEY HAMER: Right. So for some background, most meteor showers are named after the constellation they appear to come from. The Perseids appear in Perseus, for instance. And the Leonids appear in Leo. The Geminids look like they originate from Gemini. They don't, of course. They just appear at the place in the sky where Gemini happens to be.
In reality, they come from an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon. That's unusual since most meteor showers come from debris flying off of the tails of comets. Asteroids don't usually have much debris to leave behind. But 3200 Phaethon is crumblier than most.
Scientists don't know why that is. Maybe it collided with something in the past. Others think it's because its yearly path takes it so close to the sun that the temperatures caused it to fracture. In any case, the rocky crumbs it leaves behind fly into Earth's atmosphere at a screaming 80,000 miles per hour, heating up and vaporizing in bright streaks of light.
Thanks to their unusual origin, the Geminids are considered one of the most prolific meteor showers of the year. For the best show, try to find a spot without a lot of light pollution. That means if you live in the city, you may want to drive a few hours away. You don't need a telescope or binoculars. Just your naked eyes.
Try to avoid looking at smartphones or other devices since the light can wreck your night vision, and it can take up to 20 minutes for your eyes to readjust to the darkness. Even better, bring a red light flashlight. Red light wavelengths don't interfere with night vision, but still help you see where you're going while you pick out a spot. Then just kick back, look up, and take it all in.
CODY GOUGH: I suggest pulling up the latest episode of Curiosity Daily to listen to with your friends because you don't need to look at a screen to hear us. Plus, you'll impress everyone with your excellent podcast tastes. Did you know that jet lag is worse when you travel East? It's true, and I'm here to tell you why that is, just in time for my nine hours of flights to North Pole, Alaska, this week.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'm still amazed that you're going to a place called North Pole that isn't on the North Pole.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. I'll actually be north of North Pole, visiting family. Do you when sunrise and sunset is in that part of the world right now?
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, man. When?
CODY GOUGH: Sunrise is 10:46 AM.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: Sunset is 2:41 PM. I have less than 4 hours of actual daylight.
ASHLEY HAMER: Man, you could get so much sleep.
(TOGETHER) [LAUGHS]
CODY GOUGH: Well, I may have to get a lot of sleep because, like I said, jet lag is actually worse when you travel East. And we know the science of why. Jet lag is actually a pretty complex phenomenon on a cellular level. When you arrive in a new time zone, the time change disrupts your body's circadian rhythm, or internal clock.
Everyone has a slightly different internal clock. That's why some of us are night owls, and others are morning larks. That's why Ashley and I are opposites.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: Everyone's circadian rhythm has its roots in a specific type of brain cell, the oscillatory pacemaker cells of the hypothalamus. These cells play a key role in your daily functioning. They sync up with each other and with external cues, like sunlight and alarm clocks. And that's what keeps you on a roughly 24-hour sleep cycle.
Now when you travel, these cells get thrown out of whack. Suddenly they're just synced with each other because your external cues are all over the place. Sunrise is happening at bizarre times. And if you travel overseas, maybe you're eating dinner when you usually eat breakfast.
This is really not looking good for me since Alaska is pretty much total darkness this time of year, by the way. But I'll get over it. Jet lag is that transition period when your cells are syncing up with their new environment, but not all those cells are identical. They have different innate frequencies.
When they're isolated from the sun and from each other, some cells would set your sleep cycle to slightly shorter than 24 hours, while other cells would set it to slightly longer. Overall, their average frequency is slightly longer than 24 hours. It's about 24 and 1/2 hours. This is why traveling East makes for worse jet lag than traveling West. Your oscillatory pacemaker cells already tends toward a 24 and a half hour sleep cycle.
So a longer day is easier for them to adjust to, like when you travel West. A shorter day rubs them in the wrong way and causes more intense jet lag symptoms, like when you travel East. The takeaway is that you should plan on a harder adjustment when you head East, and that I'm going to be pretty tired for the next few weeks.
ASHLEY HAMER: Today's episode is sponsored by Zola, the wedding company that will do anything for love. That's Zola, spelled Z-O-L-A.
CODY GOUGH: Zola takes the stress out of wedding planning with free wedding websites, your dream wedding registry, affordable save-the-dates and invitations, and easy-to-use planning tools. I got married last year. And I've got to tell you, I wish I had known about Zola when I was planning my wedding because seriously, a place to conveniently manage everything online and in one place. Look, if you're not married, then I don't think you fully understand how much time that could have saved.
ASHLEY HAMER: You'll start with a free wedding website, which is super easy and takes just minutes to set up. Zola has more than a hundred beautiful wedding website designs to choose from to fit any couple's style and every type of wedding. You can put your Zola registry on your wedding website so guests can get all the details they need and buy your wedding gift in one convenient and beautiful place.
CODY GOUGH: Zola also makes it easy to register for newlywed life. The Zola store has the widest selection of gifts at all different price points, so there's something for every guest to give.
ASHLEY HAMER: To start your free wedding website and also get $50 off your registry on Zola, go to zola.com/curiosity.
CODY GOUGH: One more time. Start your free wedding website and get $50 off your registry on Zola at zola.com/curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: New research may help us come up with a more complete explanation for Earth's last ice age. Until now, we've blamed the ice age on a combination of astronomical cycles, atmospheric conditions, ocean currents, and plate tectonics. And now geophysicists think they have one more reason, the Earth's wandering poles.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, I get it. Because the red on the poles represents blood. The white stripe represents bandages.
ASHLEY HAMER: No. [CHUCKLES]
CODY GOUGH: Was that wrong?
ASHLEY HAMER: Not barber poles, Cody. That was a previous episode.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, right.
ASHLEY HAMER: I meant poles as in the North and South Poles. So as reported by Universe Today, this study was recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. And it says Earth's last ice age may have been caused by shifts in the Earth relative to its spin axis that caused its poles to wander. For the study, researchers analyzed geophysical evidence from the Pacific Ocean. That included fossilized patterns of deep ocean sediments, the magnetic signature of oceanic crust, and the position of the mantle hotspot that created the Hawaiian islands.
From this, the team figured that within the past 12 million years, the Earth experienced what they call true polar wander. That's what happens when the entire planet shifted relative to its spin axis. When that happens, the locations of the North and South Poles literally change or wander.
In this case, Greenland moved far enough toward the North Pole to kick off the last ice age. The shift the researchers measured would only be about 3%, but that would have had the effect of moving the Earth's mantle. If Greenland and parts of Europe and North America would have moved north, then that would result in lower temperatures there, which could have triggered the last ice age.
Looking ahead, the researchers are hoping to build on their analysis. They want to extend it from 12 million years ago to the present, but they also want to extend it further into the past, beyond the 48-million-year start date they used for the study. The results of this could be a more refined understanding of how Earth's geological history, its ice ages, and the evolution of life are all interconnected.
CODY GOUGH: I wonder if our poles had traveled east instead of an ice age, we'd have ended up with a sleepy age.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think you're definitely in the sleepy age right now.
CODY GOUGH: [LAUGHS]
ASHLEY HAMER: Read about today's stories and more on curiosity.com.
CODY GOUGH: Join us again tomorrow with the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Stay curious.
NARRATOR: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.
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