Curiosity Daily

Jungles’ Impact on Climate Change and a Music-Epidemic Link

Episode Summary

Learn about the link between music download trends and epidemics; and how losing jungles contributes to climate change.  Music download patterns found to resemble infectious disease epidemic curves by Cameron Duke Rosati, D., Woolhouse, M., Bolker, B., & Earn, D. (2021). Modelling song popularity as a contagious process | Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. Proceedings of the Royal Society A. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.2021.0457 Smith, D., & Moore, L. (2020). The SIR Model for Spread of Disease - The Differential Equation Model | Mathematical Association of America. Maa.org. https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/loci/joma/the-sir-model-for-spread-of-disease-the-differential-equation-model Yirka, B. (2021, September 22). Music download patterns found to resemble infectious disease epidemic curves. Phys.org; Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2021-09-music-download-patterns-resemble-infectious.html More from archaeologist Patrick Roberts: Pick up "Jungle: How Tropical Forests Shaped the World — and Us": https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/patrick-roberts/jungle/9781541600096/  Website: https://www.patrickjroberts.com/   Follow @palaeotropics on Twitter: https://twitter.com/palaeotropics  Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Sustainable Palm Oil Shopping Guide app: https://www.cmzoo.org/conservation/orangutans-palm-oil/sustainable-palm-oil-shopping-app/  WWF Palm Oil Buyers Scorecard: http://palmoilscorecard.panda.org/  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.

Episode Notes

Learn about the link between music download trends and epidemics; and how losing jungles contributes to climate change.

Music download patterns found to resemble infectious disease epidemic curves by Cameron Duke

More from archaeologist Patrick Roberts:
 

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.

 

Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/jungles-impact-on-climate-change-and-a-music-epidemic-link

Episode Transcription

CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.

ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about the weird link between music listening trends and epidemiology; and how losing jungles contributes to climate change, with archaeologist Patrick Roberts.

CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.

Music download patterns found to resemble infectious disease epidemic curves by Cameron Duke (Cody)

A good song can be infectious. But can it spread like a disease? Recently, a group of mathematicians set out to see whether songs travel through a population the way an epidemic might. And it turns out that earworms spread a lot like disease. 

 

These researchers were all mathematicians at McMaster University. And they obtained a huge dataset of music downloaded to old Nokia phones in the UK between the years of 2007 and 2014. I know that sounds like pretty narrow criteria, but just remember that the first smartphone didn’t come out until 2007, and the Nokia was the best-selling mobile device of its day. So yeah, this dataset is huge. It contains information on over 1.4 billion song downloads, including how many times particular songs were downloaded and when.

 

Then, the mathematicians acted like epidemiologists. They applied a mathematical model called SIR [spelled out] to each song in the database. You might not have heard of the SIR model, but you’ve probably seen its results: it’s one of many models used by epidemiologists to describe those disease outbreak curves we so desperately wanted to flatten. The model is a differential equation that uses the numbers of infected people in a population over time to calculate the reproductive rate of the disease, or the speed that it is likely to spread. 

 

By treating songs as diseases and downloads as cases, the researchers were able to track a song as it begins with a few downloads, spreads through word of mouth, and ultimately becomes a hit. And their hunch was correct: they found that the curves for infectious songs seem to mirror the behavior of infectious diseases. Except, in some cases, music was even more infectious. The researchers say that’s because a disease often requires one-on-one contact to spread, while a song can be in a movie, commercial, or even on Tik Tok where it could potentially infect thousands at once. 

 

The data couldn’t tell the researchers what, exactly, makes a song “infectious.” But they did find that certain musical genres were more infectious than others. People are mostly immune to metal and dance music, while hip hop and rock spread pretty quickly. But none of these compared to electronica, which spreads like wildfire. That’s not to say that electronica is more popular than other genres — instead, it just seems to spread the most easily among people who like it. That suggests that fans of electronica probably transmit musical preferences through their social groups more easily than metalheads do. 

 

Relating music to diseases might be a relatively new idea, but the idea that music can be a cure is much older. For example, I have a fever, and you know the prescription. 

Patrick Roberts - How losing jungles contributes to climate change (Ashley)

We've all heard about how tropical jungles are under threat and about the importance of saving them. But if we've all heard about it — why are they still being destroyed? That's...a long story, and today's guest is going to tell us all about it — and exactly why it's important to save these essential ecosystems. Patrick Roberts is an archaeologist and author of the new book, "Jungle: How Tropical Forests Shaped the World — and Us." And Cody asked him the obvious question: why exactly are jungles being destroyed?

[CLIP 5:33]

Jungles transforming from a solution to climate change into a cause of climate change? No thank you. If you're wondering how the average person can help stop that from happening, well, Patrick will be back tomorrow to explain just that. Patrick Roberts is an archaeologist and author of the new book, "Jungle: How Tropical Forests Shaped the World — and Us." Be sure to tune in tomorrow for more.

RECAP

Let’s do a quick recap of what we learned today

  1. ASHLEY: Catchy songs spread through a population a lot like a disease does. Researchers found this out by applying epidemiological models to a dataset of song downloads, and they found that some genres are even more infectious than a disease. Metal and dance music, not so much, but hip hop, rock, and especially electronica spread through a population like wildfire.
  2. CODY: One of the first big threats to tropical jungles came from colonialism, when Europeans started seeing them as resources to be extracted. That trend has continued in many places, and that’s a problem because trees store a lot of carbon — especially older trees. So the more trees get cut down, the more carbon gets released back into the atmosphere. Those trees also release water from their leaves, which helps to form clouds and bring rainfall. So when you remove those trees, you get less rain to nourish the trees that ARE still standing. It’s a vicious cycle. And that’s not to mention all the wildlife that counts on forests for everything from habitats to food.
  3. ASHLEY: The silver lining to the growing rate of deforestation is that some regions are starting to improve, and that helps offset places that aren’t doing so well. The situation globally is not good. But if we all work together, we can turn things around. So remember to come back tomorrow to learn how you can help.

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ASHLEY: The writer for today’s music and epidemic curve story was Cameron Duke.

CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also an audio editor on today’s episode.

ASHLEY: Our producer and lead audio editor is Cody Gough.

CODY: [AD LIB SOMETHING FUNNY] Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.

ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!