Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you learn something new in just a few minutes: We'll Probably Never Meet Aliens While They're Still Alive, According to 2018 Research Listen to the Sound of "Singing Sand Dunes" Your Roommate Doesn't Know How You're Feeling
Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you learn something new in just a few minutes:
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/learn-when-well-meet-aliens-hear-singing-sand-dunes-and-understand-your-roommates
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi, I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: We've got three stories from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: Today, we'll talk about when scientists say we'll meet aliens. You'll hear what singing sand dunes sound like. And we'll give you a reason to see roommates in a new light. Let's satisfy some curiosity. Cody, when do you think we'll eventually meet aliens?
CODY GOUGH: Well, we interviewed Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist, on The Curiosity Podcast last month. And he predicted we would make contact in this century. So I'm going to go with him.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, these researchers that I'm about to tell you about would disagree with him. We've explored this topic before on curiosity.com, and let's back up and explain it a little bit more. So, there's this thing called The Fermi Paradox, which basically says that with all of the galaxies in all of the universe, there is an overwhelming probability that other life exists. Yet we haven't found it. They haven't contacted us. So that's a paradox. Why is that a thing?
The Fermi Paradox is based on something called the Drake Equation, which estimates the number of intelligent civilizations that they could possibly be in our galaxy. Francis Drake calculated that equation in 1961, but recently, physicist Claudio Grimaldi updated it with his colleagues, which include Francis Drake himself. This happened this year.
CODY GOUGH: Wow.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's been updated to consider how much radio signaling from other civilizations there could be in our galaxy. And the new numbers are not great.
CODY GOUGH: Uh-oh.
ASHLEY HAMER: They say that if we receive signals from intelligent aliens, it will have taken so long to reach us, the alien civilization will already be dead.
CODY GOUGH: Wow.
ASHLEY HAMER: So, if you assume a given civilization exists for 100,000 years, which they do, the researchers say we'll never encounter living aliens or even the signals from living aliens.
CODY GOUGH: That's unfortunate.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. The universe is a really big place, and radio signals can only travel so fast.
CODY GOUGH: Yes. And where did they get the 100,000 years number from for a civilization?
ASHLEY HAMER: That was just a ballpark estimate they just threw out there. I think probably they hope that will last 100,000 years.
CODY GOUGH: It'd be nice.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, it would.
CODY GOUGH: But there are so many theories about the Fermi Paradox, right? Books and books and books have been written about it.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. There are at least 75 different "solutions," in quotes, to the Fermi Paradox. Maybe aliens are already here, and we're just too stupid to know it. Maybe aliens are living under an ice planet, and they just can't get up into the sky. Maybe they're watching us from afar, but they just don't want to make contact, kind of like the Prime Directive. There are all sorts of solutions.
CODY GOUGH: Prime Directive from Star Trek.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: Non-interference.
ASHLEY HAMER: Absolutely.
CODY GOUGH: Wow. Well, what else are we talking about today?
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, Cody, have you ever heard of singing sand?
CODY GOUGH: No, I haven't. What does that sound like?
ASHLEY HAMER: I hadn't either. Let's listen to it.
[SINGING SAND DUNES]
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. That's the sound of a sand dune in the wind.
CODY GOUGH: Just a sand dune?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, it's wild. I guess I haven't spent much time around sand dunes. Maybe some of our listeners have, and they're like, "Of course, that's what sand dunes sound like." But Curiosity looked into why people have reported singing sand in places like Morocco, Wales, Death Valley, and Chile. It even goes back as far as Marco Polo, who thought that it was the sound of wailing evil spirits.
And it's taken scientists a long time to figure it out, and they haven't really yet. But they're getting really close, especially with this recent study. They know that large dunes only sing when it's really windy. That happens as sand accumulates at the top until it eventually spills over. But besides the wind, it also has to be a dry, hot day in the desert for the sands to really start singing. So this Parisian team of biophysicist released a report that says the secret lies in the sand itself.
They were able to actually recreate the sound in a lab with a relatively small amount of sand, which is surprising because we always thought that it was just large sand dunes that could create this noise. But the team thinks the answer lies basically in the billions upon billions of tiny collisions of sand particles. So one particle hits another and another and another, and all the tiny, tiny little sounds accumulate to make one big sound.
CODY GOUGH: So, each grain of sand is like a singer in a chorus.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, exactly. The lead author said it was like the sound of millions of little shocks. They all come together in chorus, exactly.
CODY GOUGH: That's beautiful.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, and the sound of the sand dunes is really beautiful, too. I was really happy to learn that this was the thing.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. You can listen to a longer clip on curiosity.com.
ASHLEY HAMER: Nice.
CODY GOUGH: Well, I've got something for you. Have you ever wondered why it's so hard to get along with roommates? Even when the roommates are really good friends?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes, I really have.
CODY GOUGH: All right. Well, Curiosity looked into this, and we found a brand new study from New York University that says that roommates have a strong tendency to underestimate each other's distress, regardless of how close they are. They looked at roommates who have been together for at least five months, and participants told researchers about their overall state of well-being. Then they checked in later, and asked the roommates, "How do you think your roommate's well-being is?"
Almost across the board, the students ended up feeling like their roommates were not having nearly as hard of a time as they were in reality. So basically, if you felt you were having a terrible day, I might just think you're having kind of a bad day. And this was really significant. On average, roommates grew stressed about four times more quickly than their roommates would estimate. So, let's say at the start of the month, I thought my stress level was 3 out of 10. And then later in the month, it was 7 out of 10. My roommate might think it had gone from a 3 to a 4.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: So just a little bit more stress. But in reality, I'm just going crazy.
ASHLEY HAMER: But that's just roommates, right? That's just college students. I can definitely tell what my boyfriend's feeling, right?
CODY GOUGH: So, not so fast. A study from Southern Methodist University was published the same month, and it found similar tendencies in romantic couples.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, that's bad news.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. So even if you live with your significant other, or spouse, don't assume that you know how the people around you are feeling. And that's the big takeaway from the study. Ask how they're doing. Because you might be surprised at their answers.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, that's a good lesson all the time. And tell people how you're feeling. Just communication.
CODY GOUGH: Communication is key. Yeah, you do have to take some responsibility. Somebody says, "How's your day?" And you say, "Fine." And it's not fine. Well, that's on you. So, that's your big takeaway from today. You can read more about the details of this study, and all the stories we talked about today, and so much more on curiosity.com. Also, this is the last day of our first week of doing this daily podcast. So please let us know what you think? You can email us at podcast@curiosity.com. Ashley and I both read those emails, and we're really curious to know what you thought of the first week of the daily podcast.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, we'd love to know if you enjoyed it, or what we can do better. Just let us know.
CODY GOUGH: You can join us again Monday for The Curiosity Digest, and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Stay curious.
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