In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Why is NASA Going Back to the Moon Before Heading to Mars? Julie d'Aubigny Was A Bisexual 17th-Century Operatic Swordfighter Local Honey Won't Fix Your Seasonal Allergies
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/local-honey-myths-nasa-to-the-moon-and-a-bisexual-17th-century-operatic-swordfighter
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 get an update on NASA's next trip to the moon and Mars. You'll hear the hilarious tale of an opera singing sword fighter. And you'll learn why local honey will not fix your seasonal allergies.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: OK, Cody. Have you heard that we're going back to the moon?
CODY GOUGH: I did. I don't know why.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. NASA's wants to put astronauts on the moon again in the next decade. But it's to help us prepare for Mars. Whew--
CODY GOUGH: Really?
ASHLEY HAMER: Close one.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah. I just thought we were going for no good reason.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, all right.
ASHLEY HAMER: So last week at the Humans Tomorrow summit, NASA's new administrator Jim Bridenstine, said that the missions to both Mars and to the moon will help support each other. He said, quote, "A return to the surface of the moon will allow us to prove and advance technologies that will feed forward to Mars." Unquote. But what can we actually do on the moon while we're there.
Curiosity's freelance space reporter Elizabeth Howell researched this, and it turns out there's a lot. To start with, scientists think there might be water ice in craters on the moon's surface. If that's true, then we could build a moon colony near the ice and possibly extract the water for drinking, showering, or cleaning. All the stuff you need water for.
CODY GOUGH: Which is a lot of things.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. We could also explore ancient underground lava tubes which we think humans could use for shelter against radiation across the moon's surface. We can also study the moon to learn more about how the Earth formed. See, all those craters and divots on the surface tell us about our solar system's history. Because on Earth, those historical scars have been erased by wind, water, and earthquakes.
We can also test out technologies on the moon that could be useful on Mars from rovers, to mining tools, to science techniques. So what are we waiting for? Well, NASA's been working on a Mars mission with a long-term goal of launching in the 2030s. To go there, NASA is building a rocket called the Space Launch System, or SLS, and a spacecraft called Orion. But stopping by the moon first could eat up some of their budget and delay a human Mars mission by a few years or decades.
NASA's already reconfiguring its annual budget for the new plan. But it's too early to know what will happen next.
CODY GOUGH: Wow. All right, Ashley. What do you think of when you think of 17th Century female opera singers.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think of proper ladies in giant gowns. Well, today, Curiosity wrote about a woman from history that you absolutely need to know about. And she was an opera singer, and she was from the 17th Century. And she was pretty much none of the things that you just talked about. Julie d'Aubigny was a bisexual 17th Century opera singer, a sword fighter who won a steady stream of duels, and a lady who was not afraid to take her shirt off in public.
ASHLEY HAMER: What.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. She allegedly grew up in the Staples of Versailles. Her father worked in the Court of King Louis XIV. By the age of 14, she had become her dad's bosses mistress.
ASHLEY HAMER: What.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. 17th Century was a weird time. And she was with her dad's boss for a while, but then got bored and ran away with her fencing instructor. They didn't last very long as an item, but she always stuck with her fencing career. That might sound not very historical, but there was actually a whole tradition of women warriors in France at the time.
They were celebrated like Joan of Arc from a couple few hundred years earlier. And you can read about her exploits today on Curiosity.com. But here are a few highlights. One time she was performing in a public fencing show, and a guy in the audience didn't believe she was a woman because she was too good with her sword. So she took off her shirt to prove him wrong.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, my gosh.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. Another time, she snuck into a convent to break a female lover out of the place, and she and her lover ended up setting it on fire. And another time, she went to a ball dressed like a man and kissed a beautiful woman there. Which sounds romantic, but then three men were offended and challenged her to a duel. She accepted each challenge and beat them all.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh my gosh. Where's the movie about this woman?
CODY GOUGH: I know, right?
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: Netflix is probably going to turn it into an original series.
ASHLEY HAMER: I will watch that a million times.
[LAUGHS]
Cody, do you ever get seasonal allergies?
CODY GOUGH: Yes.
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't, actually.
CODY GOUGH: Really?
ASHLEY HAMER: No. I'm just immune to them. I don't know.
CODY GOUGH: You're lucky.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. Usually I get them, and then I drink massive amounts of tea with local honey.
ASHLEY HAMER: Really.
CODY GOUGH: To cure it. Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, honey's delicious. Local honey is super delicious. But there is no science to the fact that local honey could cure your seasonal allergies.
CODY GOUGH: This is bad news.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, well, I'm sorry. OK. So here's how the myth goes. Seasonal allergies are caused by pollen, right? Bees use pollen to make honey. Makes sense so far. So if you eat honey made by local bees, then you're eating a little bit of the thing you're allergic to, and that should help you develop a tolerance, right? Like a vaccine. Well, there's a problem there. The problem is that the vast majority of seasonal allergies are caused by pollen from trees and grasses in the summer, and from ragweed in the fall.
And the reason you're plagued by pollen during these seasons is that these trees and grasses are wind pollinators. They release their pollen into the air. Bees usually pollinate plants that don't have the right equipment to let the wind do the work. So the pollen that you might get in your honey isn't even the pollen that's giving you those allergies. OK. But I know you're thinking, what if you're different, and you're actually allergic to flower pollen?
Even in that case, honey won't help. That's because bees don't make honey from pollen. They make it from nectar, right? When I heard that I was like, oh yeah, of course. [LAUGHS] I didn't realize that.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, man.
ASHLEY HAMER: Any pollen that gets into the honey probably got there by accident. According to the National Honey Board, quote, "The amount of pollen in honey is minuscule, and not enough to impact the nutrient value of honey." Unquote. You can read about the scientific studies that backed this one up on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS.
CODY GOUGH: So basically, we're allergic to pollen that's getting flown around because of the trees, and the entire purpose of bees is to move pollen that's not moving on its own.
ASHLEY HAMER: Exactly.
CODY GOUGH: So you're eating maybe trace amounts of an inert pollen that has probably nothing to do with your allergies.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's exactly it.
CODY GOUGH: All right. That's terrible news.
ASHLEY HAMER: Hey, but honey's still delicious. And you should still frequent your local farmers, because local honey is delicious.
CODY GOUGH: Absolutely. And you can read about everything we talked about today plus a lot more on Curiosity.com. Join us again tomorrow for the Curiosity Daily, and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
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SPEAKER 1: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.