Learn about why it’s a good thing when you have to wait in a long line; new research that says an ancient supernova may have triggered a mass extinction on Earth; the delicious origin story of Key lime pie; and how and why we forget pain. 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: Why Is This Line So Long? — https://curiosity.im/2LNuYJk An Ancient Supernova May Have Triggered a Mass Extinction on Earth — https://curiosity.im/2LWKbb6 Key Lime Pie Is a Modern Delicacy With Humble Beginnings — https://curiosity.im/2s7bPZO 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 Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about why it’s a good thing when you have to wait in a long line; new research that says an ancient supernova may have triggered a mass extinction on Earth; the delicious origin story of Key lime pie; and how and why we forget pain.
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
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/long-lines-are-good-supernova-archaeology-key-lime-pie-history-and-pain-memory
CODY: Hi! We’ve got the latest and greatest from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about why it’s a GOOD thing when you have to wait in a long line; new research that says an ancient supernova may have triggered a mass extinction on Earth; and the delicious origin story of key lime pie. We’ll also answer a listener question about how and why we forget pain.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Why Is This Line So Long? — https://curiosity.im/2LNuYJk (Cody)
We’ve all been stuck waiting in a long line. Holiday shopping season comes to mind. Well don’t let it ruin your day the minute you see a long line, because guess what? A long line CAN be a good thing! And that comes down to the focus of our first story today: queuing theory. As reported by The Conversation, queuing theory is an actual mathematical science behind why the line is so long. Now, there can be a lot of bad reasons for a long line, from a bad retail manager to being short-staffed. But sometimes lines are long on purpose, thanks to a mathematical theorem called Little’s Law. It’s named after an MIT professor named John Dutton Conant Little, who specializes in operations research. It states that over time, the number of customers in a system is equal to their rate of arrival multiplied by the average time they spend in that system. Some lines have service times that vary — like when you’re at the post office and some people just need to buy stamps, while other people are shipping like 18 things. Other lines have service times that are fixed — like an automatic car wash. Every scenario has its own unique formula to help operations managers design the best system for their business. Little’s Law is why one long line is way, way better than dealing with lots of different short lines. Imagine you’re in the grocery store, and every cashier has his own line. You’ll only get to the front of the line fast if you guess which line will move the most quickly. Bet on the wrong line, and I hope you’ve got your headphones handy so you can listen to our podcast while you wait. A single, longer line, being served by multiple employees, is actually faster for everyone. Think about the line at your local bank, or at airport security. It may look a lot longer than those grocery store lines, but here, the line keeps moving along even if one customer is super-slow or gets delayed. So if you see a very long line, and it’s your ONLY option, then you should be pleased. Little's Law means a single long line is the fairest way to get everyone out of there as fast as possible.
An Ancient Supernova May Have Triggered a Mass Extinction on Earth — https://curiosity.im/2LWKbb6 (Ashley)
New research suggests an ancient supernova may have triggered a mass extinction on Earth. Scientists generally agree that you can blame one huge extinction on asteroids, sure. But there’ve been a lot more mass die-offs in Earth’s history, including one from about 2.6 million years ago. That killed off a lot of ocean animals and ended what’s known as the Pliocene epoch. We don’t know why that happened, though. And that brings us to this new paper out of the University of Kansas. There’s a LOT to this story, so feel free to read the full details in our write-up on curiosity-dot-com and on our free Curiosity app for Android and iOS. But here’s the idea. For this theory, you can thank an isotope called iron-60. An isotope is just an atom with an unusual number of neutrons in its nucleus. Your run-of-the-mill iron is iron-56, with 30 neutrons and 26 protons. Iron-60, on the other hand, has 34 neutrons and 26 protons. Iron-60 is radioactive. It decays over time and eventually becomes cobalt, then nickel. That means that any iron-60 that formed along with our planet would have morphed into something else by now. So if we find iron-60 here, then it came from outer space — specifically, from an exploding star, also known as a supernova. Researchers have found iron-60 in the past and estimated it came from about 325 light-years away, around the time of that mass extinction 2.6 million years ago. But the impact from something that far away probably wouldn’t do a lot of real damage here on Earth, so it’s not like it would have cracked a continent in half or anything. This new paper has a solution for that, and it’s based on muons. A muon is a subatomic particle a few hundred times bigger than an electron. Muons travel along cosmic rays from outer space and hit our planet’s atmosphere all the time. You even have muons passing through YOU all the time. They don’t cause real damage because they’re sparse. When THIS wave of cosmic rays hit us, though, you can multiply those muons we usually experience by a few hundred. Only a small fraction would interact in any way, but when the number was so large and the energy was so high, you’d get mutations and cancer. The researchers estimate that for animals the size of a human, this muon shower would boost the cancer rate by about 50 percent. And the bigger the animal, the worse that rate gets. The extinction that ended the Pliocene epoch decimated life on this planet, and this is the first solid explanation of why. And remember: this supernova could have been about 325 light-years away. [And you thought your next-door neighbor was a pain! / or ad lib a better kicker]
Key Lime Pie Is a Modern Delicacy With Humble Beginnings — https://curiosity.im/2s7bPZO (Cody)
Today I’ve got the fun origin story of key lime pie. Ashley, do you like key lime pie? [ad lib]
CODY: I was struck by this story because I have never, once, in my life, ever wondered why it’s called key lime pie. Apparently I’m not as curious as I thought. Thankfully, we did the research and wrote this story sponsored by Key West. Well, key lime pie got its name from the green, juicy, highly acidic key limes that fluorished in the Florida Keys for almost half a century. These golf-ball-sized fruits made it to the Florida Keys in 1835, after originating in the West Indies around the 1700s. And a little while after the limes arrived, condensed milk hit the scene. That was a game-changer in the isolated islands in the Florida Keys, since fresh milk wasn’t available there until the 1930s. People mixed the tart, biting limes with the decadently sweet condensed milk, and viola! Key lime pie was born. Legend has it that key lime pie got a humble start in the mid-1800s with sponge fishermen at sea. Ingredients were limited on the ships, but the fishermen managed to combine bits of stale bread, condensed milk, bird eggs, and a squirt of lime to create what became the original key lime pie prototype. The story continues in the 1890s when a cook called “Aunt Sally” put the first key lime pie recipe on paper. She had access to a LOT of condensed milk since she was a personal cook to William Curry, a Key West ship supplier and millionaire. Today, key limes remain a true local crop with only a few trees still standing around Key West. If you’re as hungry for some authentic key lime pie as I am, then you should visit the Key West website in today’s show notes.
Listener question (?) (Ashley)
We got a listener question from Angela, who asks, “How or why do we forget pain? For example, how many times have you heard mothers say that the reason they have more children is because they don't remember the pain of childbirth?“ I have always wondered this, Angela! It was fun getting to the bottom of it.
To answer your question, I'm going to ask you to do something for me: imagine a headache. Try to really feel the pain of that throbbing in your head. It's hard to do, isn't it? That's because, while it's easy for most people to remember an image, which involves something called iconic memory, or remember a song, which is called echoic memory, the brain isn't that well equipped for memories of the sense of smell, taste, or touch. It's not impossible to remember your experiences with these senses, but those memories are definitely not as vivid as the ones of sounds and images.
And yet, your brain is super good at remembering very painful experiences, like breaking your arm, getting a tattoo, or, yes, giving birth. Studies have shown that it's actually a myth that most women forget the pain of childbirth. [insert from end] In a 2003 study that asked women to assess the pain of childbirth two months and a year after giving birth, 47 percent of them made the same pain assessment both times, and another 18 percent actually remembered it as being worse a year later. There isn’t a ton of solid research on this, but some studies seem to say that the worse the pain, the better your memory of it is. It’s possible that your brain remembers the acute, intense pain of a stingray sting more than the slow burn of a headache because it’s distinctive and novel — and your brain hangs onto new things for dear life. So there you go! It’s hard to remember a headache because you don’t make very vivid memories of touch, and it’s mild and ongoing enough to keep your brain from taking too much notice. But make the pain intense enough, and you will absolutely remember it — or at least how bad it was as the time. Thanks for your question!
CODY: Before we wrap up, we want to give a special shout-out to one of our Patrons for supporting our show. Today’s episode is brought to you by Dr. Mary Yancy, who gets an executive producer credit today for her generous support on Patreon. We hope you’re enjoying your Patreon-exclusive rewards, and we’ll do our best to keep bringing you a great show!
ASHLEY: If you’re listening and you want to support Curiosity Daily, then visit patreon-dot-com-slash-curiosity-dot-com, all spelled out. You can pledge any amount — it can be less than a piece of key lime pie! And we offer exclusive bonus interviews and other perks as our way of saying thanks to our Patrons. One more time, that’s Patreon-dot-com-slash-curiosity-dot-com.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow for the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m [NAME] and I’m [NAME]. Stay curious!