Learn about how being a patron of the arts could help you live longer; an upcoming supernova we may be able to see with the naked eye; and the superhuman speed of bird vision. Live Longer by Appreciating Art by Kelsey Donk Sources: Engaging with the arts linked to longer life | EurekAlert! — https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/b-ewt121619.php The art of life and death: 14 year follow-up analyses of associations between arts engagement and mortality in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing | BMJ 2019;367:l6377 — https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l6377 Betelgeuse Might Go Supernova by Steffie Drucker Sources: Just a Fainting Spell? Or Is Betelgeuse About to Blow? | The New York Times — https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/science/astronomy-supernova-betelgeuse.html Might there soon be a supernova near Earth? | The Economist — https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/01/09/might-there-soon-be-a-supernova-near-earth The Last Supernova: 400-Year-Old Explosion Imaged | Space.com — https://www.space.com/412-supernova-400-year-explosion-imaged.html The Freaky-Fast Vision of Birds of Prey by Kelsey Donk Sources: Falcons see prey at speed of Formula 1 car | EurekAlert! — https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/lu-fsp122019.php Flicker fusion threshold | Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flicker_fusion_threshold How fast can raptors see? | Journal of Experimental Biology — https://jeb.biologists.org/content/early/2019/12/06/jeb.209031 Subscribe to Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com to learn something new every day! You can also hear Discovery’s Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing
Learn about how being a patron of the arts could help you live longer; an upcoming supernova we may be able to see with the naked eye; and the superhuman speed of bird vision.
Live Longer by Appreciating Art by Kelsey Donk
Sources:
Betelgeuse Might Go Supernova by Steffie Drucker
Sources:
The Freaky-Fast Vision of Birds of Prey by Kelsey Donk
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Subscribe to Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com to learn something new every day! You can also hear Discovery’s Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/live-longer-by-appreciating-art-betelgeuse-might-go-supernova-and-birds-freaky-fast-vision
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 how being a patron of the arts could help you live longer; an upcoming supernova we may be able to see with the naked eye; and the superhuman speed of bird vision.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
KELSEY: Engaging with the arts is linked to a longer life [Edited to be read by Cody] (Cody)
New research suggests that engaging with the arts can be good for your health. And hey, this is good news for me. I love a good trip to an art museum or an evening out to see a musical. It’s not only fun to do, it also makes me think! [ad lib the way you like, Cody] And according to a recent study from University College London, they could also keep you alive longer. You heard that right. The more often you engage with the arts, the lower your risk of death.
This new research included participants from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Researchers looked at over 6,000 English people over the age of 50 and measured how often they attended concerts, theatre, opera, museums, and art galleries in 2004, when their data was first collected. Then, twelve years later, the researchers circled back to see how the arts lovers were doing.
The researchers found that people who engaged in arts activities once or twice a year had a 14 percent lower risk of dying during the follow-up period than those who never visited a museum or saw a concert. The people who engaged in arts activities even more often — say, every few months or more — had a 31 percent lower risk of dying during the study.
You might be thinking the difference could be chalked up to a person’s economic or social class. Maybe wealthier people who have access to better diets and easier lifestyles and higher quality health care also happen to go to the museum more often. Well, the researchers thought about that, too, and they corrected for that. Engaging with the arts was still linked to a longer life even after the researchers accounted for a range of economic, health, and social factors.
Here’s what they think is up with the arts. Trips to the opera, they say, could relieve chronic stress and depression and provide emotional, cognitive, and social support, and help us stay alive and happy longer. Concerts and museums promote empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence, which are all linked to a greater chance of survival.
And one more thing: arts engagement could help cut down on our sedentary behaviors — like staring at screens. A walk through a museum isn’t exactly taxing, but it sure beats sitting on a couch watching Netflix. And the more active we are, the better our hearts and immune systems work. Basically, art is good for you — for all sorts of reasons. Maybe it’s time we all took a trip to the museum.
STEFF: The visible star Betelgeuse may be about to blow (Ashley)
In late 2018, we were all talking about the movie “A Star Is Born.” And thanks to a red supergiant called Betelgeuse, we may soon learn about how a star dies, too. Stars die all the time, but you can see THIS star without a telescope — and it may be about to blow.
Betelgeuse is the brightest star in the constellation of Orion. It’s also one of the brightest objects we can observe from Earth with the naked eye. You can spot it by looking for Orion the hunter… then finding his left armpit. That’s Betelgeuse. Recently, this star has mysteriously dimmed to less than half of its usual brightness, and scientists aren’t sure why.
Here’s what we do know: Betelgeuse will eventually explode. And we know how that happens and what it looks like because we’ve seen it before.
Right now, Betelgeuse actually burns brighter than our sun because it’s at least 10 times as massive, which means it has more fuel. But it’s also using that fuel much faster, which means it will die sooner: it has a 10 million year lifespan to our sun’s 10 billion years, and its time is almost up.
When its fuel runs out, the nuclear reactions in Betelgeuse’s core that keep it shining will stop. The core will collapse in on itself because it lacks the heat and outward radiation force needed to balance the force of gravity from pulling everything inward. The resulting shock wave will destroy Betelgeuse in an explosion called a supernova, which will make it temporarily brighter than the rest of the stars in our galaxy put together.
We’re far enough away that the explosion won’t kill us, but Betelgeuse’s relative proximity to Earth means it should be quite a show: the supernova will be visible during the daytime for weeks, and as bright as the full moon at night. It will truly be a once-in-a-lifetime event because the last supernova observed from Earth happened hundreds of years ago.
But it’s unclear if it’ll happen during any of our lifetimes. Scientists estimate that Betelgeuse could blow any time within the next 100,000 years — soon by astronomical standards, but not so soon by human ones.
But some think that mysterious dimming could be a signal that Betelgeuse’s end is near. Whether that’s true, we just don’t know. Scientists have considered several different theories, including something as simple as a cloud of dust obscuring the star. But the dramatic dimming has caught astronomers’ attention so now, no matter what happens in the next one to 100,000 years, we’re bound to learn more about how red supergiants behave as they approach death.
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KELSEY: Falcons have sharp vision, but how FAST is it? New research says - real freakin fast (Cody)
Everyone knows that birds can see better than humans can. But how fast do they see? In other words, how quickly can they sense visual impressions before them? Thanks to a brand new study from Lund University, we know for the first time. And it turns out that falcons’ vision isn’t just fast — it’s SUPER fast.
For this recent study, researchers measured something called “flicker fusion frequency.” You know how films with lower frame rates look kind of jerky, like you can see the difference between the frames, but higher frame rates look smooth and steady? That’s the basic principle here. Basically, scientists flash light at different speeds and determine the fastest speed that still lets the eye perceive it as individual flashes.
The results show that the peregrine falcon has the fastest vision. A peregrine falcon in bright light can register 129 Hertz — meaning you can flash flight that many times per second and they can still distinguish the flashes. Under the same conditions, the saker falcon can distinguish a speed of 102 flashes per second and the Harris's hawk can distinguish 77 flashes per second.
How fast can humans see? Well, the peregrine falcon puts us to shame. And honestly, so do the saker falcon and Harris’s hawk. Humans can distinguish a maximum of 60 flashes per second. When it comes to the movies, we only need to see 25 images per second in order to see movement instead of a slideshow of pictures. Even at the super high frame rate that’s graced some recent films and video games, the peregrine falcon would probably be like, “cool slideshow, humans.”
But why do some birds see faster than others?
The researchers say it all comes down to the bird’s hunting needs. The peregrine falcon hunts fast-flying birds and the Harris's hawk hunts small, slower mammals on the ground. The bottom line is that birds who hunt fast prey also have the fastest vision. That kind of makes sense. They evolved the ability because they need it to eat.
The new findings are cool on their own, but they also have implications for birds in captivity. Now that we know how fast these birds can see, it highlights the need to careful about giving them lighting that shimmers, flickers, or blinks. Their eyes, it turns out, are much more sensitive than ours.
RECAP
This protective association was largely explained by differences in cognition (thinking and understanding), mental health, and physical activity levels among those who did and did not engage in the arts. But results were maintained independent of these and other factors such as mobility problems, deprivation, wealth, and retirement.
This is an observational study, so can't establish cause, and the researchers acknowledge the limitations of measuring cultural engagement at only one point in time. However, strengths include use of a large representative sample linked to national mortality data, and being able to adjust for a range of potentially influential factors.
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk and Steffie Drucker, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode of Curiosity Daily was scripted, produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!