Learn how fast human lifespans are increasing; why we’ve never seen a black hole; and recent research into the “Jennifer Aniston neuron” that could help you kickstart your memory. Please support our sponsors! Visitmovaglobes.com/curiosity and use coupon code CURIOSITY for 15% off your purchase. 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: Here's Just How Fast Human Lifespans Are Increasing — https://curiosity.im/2EcqGKD Why Have We Still Never Seen a Black Hole? — https://curiosity.im/2EhQipk You Probably Have a Jennifer Aniston Neuron — https://curiosity.im/2EdMllp 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 how fast human lifespans are increasing; why we’ve never seen a black hole; and recent research into the “Jennifer Aniston neuron” that could help you kickstart your memory.
Please support our sponsors! Visit movaglobes.com/curiosity and use coupon code CURIOSITY for 15% off your purchase.
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/kickstart-your-memory-with-the-jennifer-aniston-neuron-black-hole-pictures-and-increasing-human-lifespans
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 how fast human lifespans are increasing, why we've never seen a black hole, and new brain research that could help you kick-start your memory.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity on the award-winning Curiosity Daily. We all know human lifespans are getting longer. But do you know how much longer? New research suggests that human lifespans are increasing by approximately three years every generation. And it's a trend that shouldn't be going away any time soon. Is this good news for you, Ashley? Do you want to live a really long time?
ASHLEY HAMER: I think I do, as long as I'm healthy, while I do it, yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Hale and hearty, I prefer--
ASHLEY HAMER: Exactly.
CODY GOUGH: --because I'm from the 1600s. Well, as reported by Futurity, Stanford researchers analyzed the average age of death in people who lived to be over 65 in developed countries. They looked at 50 years of life span data. And the takeaway was clear. We can expect longer lives. And there's no sign of a slowdown in the trend.
Specifically, the average age of death in those who live to be older than 65 increased by about three years in every 25-year period. So on average, you can expect to live about six years longer than your grandparents. The data showed minor fluctuations in how quickly lifespans increased, thanks to factors like medical breakthroughs, but those variations averaged out over time.
The study is notable because most longevity studies look at the outliers, the people who live longer than everybody else. That's not the best sample set, though, since not very many people live that long. What's interesting is the shape of this data was consistent over the 50-year period they studied. And that was across all variables.
There was no single factor that allowed some people to live longer than others, at least not one that was showing up after age 65. The researchers note that by the time someone's reached age 65, they've already overcome a lot of the factors that could shorten life, like violence or early disease. So if you make it that far, then congratulations. You've got the same odds of living longer as the millionaire down the street.
ASHLEY HAMER: The Event Horizon Telescope is the biggest ever attempt to directly image the environment around a black hole. That might sound kind of weird. We have images of exoplanets hundreds of light years away, stars in the midst of going supernova, and galaxies at the edge of the universe. You'd think that by now we'd have at least one picture of a black hole. So why don't we?
CODY GOUGH: Because it's too dark?
ASHLEY HAMER: Kind of. So here's the science. A Black hole is a spherical region of space with infinite density that has a gravitational pull so strong that not even light can escape. Technically, we'll never be able to image a black hole, since it doesn't emit or reflect light. Light is the only way we can see something. So it should be impossible to actually see a black hole.
But shadows don't emit light, either. And we can still see them because of the contrast with the light around them. And that's how we plan to directly image a black hole. We just have to directly image the stuff around it that emits light. See, the border around a Black hole that defines where you can and can't escape is known as the event horizon.
Gas and dust that are pulled toward but not past the event horizon turn into an accretion disk. That spins around the black hole at such tremendous speeds that it heats up and releases X-rays and gamma rays that telescopes can see. And that is what the Event Horizon Telescope is after.
And the Event Horizon Telescope is a truly momentous achievement. It combines 15 to 20 radio telescopes positioned all around the globe, spaced up to 12,000-kilometers apart and points them all at the exact same object. This essentially gives us a telescope the size of our entire planet and allows for the kind of precision that could spot a fly on the moon.
That's good because the supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies are pretty tiny, not to mention pretty far away. The one at the center of the Milky Way is 27,000 light years away. But the astronomers working on the Event Horizon Telescope say they've already observed it. They just have to compile the data and use special algorithms to translate it into a clear picture.
Soon, we should have preliminary images that show the size, shape, and surrounding environment of our local supermassive black hole. Not quite as easy as an online photo order at your nearest drugstore, but nobody ever said science was easy.
CODY GOUGH: Today's episode is sponsored by MOVA Globes, spelled M-O-V-A. They're globes that rotate by themselves.
ASHLEY HAMER: MOVA Globes rotate using a technology that's the first of its kind, no batteries, no cords, just rotating globes powered by ambient light.
CODY GOUGH: Here's how cool these things are. I have a quick story. A few weeks ago, we were in an event for science communicators in Huntsville, Alabama.
ASHLEY HAMER: Shout-out to our friends at ThinkerCon.
CODY GOUGH: And I took a day trip with some YouTubers and podcasters to the Huntsville Art Museum. We got a private tour and got to see some of the private collection. And it was super cool. And there was a MOVA Globe at the little reception at the end of the tour. So here I am with a bunch of science people in a room in an actual art museum, surrounded by paintings and sculptures.
And seriously, all anyone could talk about was this MOVA Globe on the table. A couple of people picked it up, and it kept rotating, and everyone was floored. Talk about a conversation piece, this is like a conversation lightning rod.
ASHLEY HAMER: That globe featured a map of the Earth. But there are also globes with planets, moons, and more from their space collection.
CODY GOUGH: There are 40 different designs from world maps to artwork. Hidden magnets provide the movement. So all you have to provide is a space on your desk, or art gallery. Please visit M-O-V-A globes.com/curiosity and use coupon code CURIOSITY, that's C-U-R-I-O-S-I-T-Y for 15% off your purchase.
ASHLEY HAMER: This is a great gift for the person who has everything. To get 15% off of your purchase, visit movaglobes.com/curiosity, and use coupon code CURIOSITY.
CODY GOUGH: We're going to wrap up with some compelling memory research. And it's all based on something called the Jennifer Aniston neuron. It shows how easily our brains draw new connections. And you can use it to kick-start your memory, except now I'm just kind of sad I never got into Friends.
ASHLEY HAMER: I never did, either.
CODY GOUGH: Let's play "named the Friends characters." Who can name more? I've got Rachel and Phoebe.
ASHLEY HAMER: Is there a Carl? OK, wait.
CODY GOUGH: Can you get me-- I need Xander.
[LAUGHTER]
ASHLEY HAMER: [INAUDIBLE]. Ross. Joey.
CODY GOUGH: Yes!
ASHLEY HAMER: Nice!
CODY GOUGH: Ding, ding, ding. This has been the most fun game show we've ever played on this podcast. Well, don't worry this science requires no prior knowledge of the TV show Friends, except knowing that Jennifer Aniston was in it. And this whole thing comes from an accidental discovery in 2005.
A team of epilepsy researchers were trying to find the place in the brain where epileptic seizures originate. They started to notice a strange pattern in one of their participants. Every time she saw a picture of Jennifer Aniston, a particular neuron would fire in her brain. They tried showing her the words "Jennifer Aniston," and again, that same neuron would fire.
They tried bringing up Jennifer Aniston in other ways. And every time, it shot off. The conclusion was inescapable. For this particular individual, anyway, there was a specific neuron tied to the concept of Jennifer Aniston. Other participants in the study had their own unique triggers for particular neurons.
In one, they found a particular neuron associated with Bill Clinton. And in another, they found one for Halle Berry. And the subject's brain would react as if they recognized the person, even if the person was unrecognizable in the image. So for example, the Halle Berry part of the brain might fire off if the subject saw her in her Catwoman costume, as long as they knew beforehand that the actress had been unfortunate enough to win that role.
This actually tells us a lot about how our brains work, though. As we learn to recognize people, places, and things, our networks of neurons start to store that data by developing particular patterns of activity. And it's surprisingly easy to manipulate that pattern.
For example, sometimes Jennifer Aniston neurons would light up when they saw Lisa Kudrow. That implied that part of the job the neuron was doing was making associations. Lisa Kudrow made her think of Phoebe from friends, which made her think of Rachel from friends, which made her think of Jennifer Aniston who played Rachel.
The biggest takeaway from this is that making associations between two concepts could be one of the most effective ways to kick-start your memory. The one that comes to my mind is always thinking of a person you already know when you meet someone new who has the same name. That is my number one tried and true trick for remembering names. See, what other associations you can make, and see how much you can remember.
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 your friend Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm someone who looks just like Jennifer Aniston, Ashley Hamer. Stay curious.
ANNOUNCER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.