Today you’ll learn how to detect lies, how bears can help scientists prevent blood clots, and how the moon might have been created in just a few hours.
Today you’ll learn how to detect lies, how bears can help scientists prevent blood clots, and how the moon might have been created in just a few hours.
Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/lying-signals-hibernation-blood-clots-moon-creation
Lying Signals
Hibernation Blood Clots
Moon Creation
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[SFX: INTRO MUSIC/WHOOSH]
NATE: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. Time flies when you’re learnin’ super cool stuff. I’m Nate.
CALLI: And I’m Calli. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today, you’ll learn how to detect lies, how bears can help scientists prevent blood clots, and how the moon might have been created in just a few hours.
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Hey Calli, can you help me clean out my garage this weekend?
CALLI: Oh. Uh. Hey, I’d love to, but I’ve got plans. Shoot, dang it sorry!
NATE: Oh? What plans?
CALLI: I’m going to a…baby shower?
NATE: Okay. Before you go any further with this obvious deception…
CALLI: Hey it was good!
NATE: …I have to tell you that a new study has given me all the tools I need to know that you’re lying.
CALLI: Oh no.
NATE: Oh yes.
CALLI: So, okay, what kind of complicated CSI mind trick is this?
NATE: That’s the thing, it’s not complicated at all. The devil, they say, is in the details. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam’s LieLab…
CALLI: …that’s a thing?
NATE: …Kinda awesome, right? They teamed up with researchers from Maastricht University and Tilburg University, both in the Netherlands, to build a study to figure out, once and for all, how to tell if someone’s lying.
CALLI: This feels like a very old field of study. We’ve been trying to sniff out lies like this forever, right?
NATE: Exactly. Think of the old lie detector polygraph tests from the Cold War days, which have been proven to be unreliable, as we’ve talked about recently. And since 9/11, efforts to detect lies have been expanded. In some cases, security officers are given as many as 92 signals to look for to tell if someone’s lying.
CALLI: Stuff like shifty eyes? Fidgety hands? Heavy breathing?
NATE: It goes well beyond that. Is the person not saying enough? Are they saying too much? Which direction are they aiming their eyes? Are they making too much eye contact? Not enough eye contact?
CALLI: So if you get really good at spotting these signals, you can become a human lie detector?
NATE: Not really. The human brain isn’t even capable of watching for that many signals and integrating them into an accurate assessment of truth or lie. And, in fact, no matter how many variables you are able to watch for, researchers have found that - in general - people are only able to spot a lie about 54% of the time.
CALLI: Like…half the time?
NATE: You’re almost better off flipping a coin.
CALLI: So how did you know I was lying about the baby shower this weekend?
NATE: First, that was a terrible lie.
CALLI: Fair.
NATE: But according to this study, you just need to look for a single signal: details. The researchers gathered three groups of students. One group was asked to go out onto campus for a half hour, grab a coffee, go to the library, and call a friend. The second group, however, was told to steal an exam from a locker. After that, the third group was gathered to hear their stories. The exam thieves and the coffee drinkers were both supposed to explain that they were just hanging out on campus for a half hour.
CALLI: Ahh. So the exam thieves were lying.
NATE: Thieves and liars, yes! Researchers wanted to know if the group listening to their stories could tell who was lying.
CALLI: Alright, could they?
NATE: Well…when they could use any of the possible signals to detect the lie…
CALLI: …the fidgeting, the nerves, the shifty eyes…
NATE: …right. When they watched for all that, it was a little better than a flip of the coin. But when they were told to ONLY assess the details of the person’s story, they were consistently able to tell who was lying and who wasn’t.
CALLI: But…can’t good liars make up lots of details?
NATE: Totally. But here’s the thing: the person telling the truth will have rich details and will be able to communicate them easily. But every detail that the liar makes up gets them closer to making a mistake. It’s hard to keep so many details straight.
CALLI: So if I want to know if someone’s lying to me, I just need to listen for the details. Okay, got it.
NATE: Unless I lied about this whole story…
CALLI: Oh no.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Scientists have recently cozied up to hibernating bears to solve a mystery that has puzzled them for ages.
CALLI: Ooh, is it how they can be giant and absolutely terrifying but also just the cutest things you’ve ever seen like oh my gosh it’s friend-shaped. I want one. I want it as a pet.
NATE: Uhhh… no not exactly what the scientists were trying to figure out. But nice guess. It’s actually all about blood clots.
CALLI: Okay. Back up. What do hibernating bears have to do with blood clots?
NATE: Well… simultaneously nothing and everything.nothing. Hibernating bears don’t get blood clots, and nobody could figure out why…until now.
CALLI: I hate to say it, but I’m still a little lost.
NATE: Let’s talk about blood clots. Specifically, immobility-related blood clots.
CALLI: Ahhhh…like the kind you get from sitting on a long flight?
NATE: Exactly. So immobility-related blood clots are pretty much exactly what they sound like. Blood clots that happen after sitting still for too long. The ones that you hear about happening on a long plane flight are called deep vein thrombosis.
CALLI: And they happen in the legs usually, right?
NATE: Usually, but not always. Basically, when we sit still for too long, inflammation and slowing blood flow can make these little clots form. They cause swelling and aches and pains, and if they break off into the bloodstream they can get lodged in the lungs, causing pulmonary embolism.
CALLI: So, in other words, instead of flying to our destination, we should just…walk?
NATE: That’d certainly be one way to avoid these kinds of clots. But the truth is, some folks have mobility issues that can limit their movement. And patients with an illness that lays them up for a period of time are at risk. So scientists have wondered for years how bears are able to crawl into their dens and lie around for months on end without suffering from clots. And they’ve finally figured it out.
CALLI: Do they keep a stationary bicycle in there?
NATE: That would be a groundbreaking discovery! But no. Scientists took blood samples from 13 wild brown bears in winter and again in summer. They found that during hibernation, the bears’ blood had a very low levels of the protein HSP47, which is usually found in cells that make up bones and cartilage. But it also helps blood platelets stick together…
CALLI: In other words, it makes a blood clot.
NATE: Yep. When the bears go into hibernation, some mechanism lowers the level of HSP47 to about one-fiftieth of their normal level.
CALLI: Oh, so their blood doesn’t clot when they hibernate.
NATE: Here’s the kicker: they found the same low levels of the protein in pigs that had recently given birth and were immobile as they nursed their piglets. And not only that, but also in people who had suffered long term injuries.
CALLI: Cool. So our bodies can already handle immobility to some degree?
NATE: That’s right. In one study, 10 otherwise healthy people agreed to undergo bed rest for a month. After 27 days, their HSP47 levels went down.
CALLI: They basically went into hibernation.
NATE: Exactly. And now - thanks to our cuddly bear pals, scientists think they can develop drugs that can prevent blood clots from forming in people who are at risk, without causing them to stop clotting altogether, because that’s a problem all its own.
CALLI: Bears are so cute…AND they don’t get blood clots when they hibernate.
NATE: Yep, that is why kids love ‘em!
CALLI: Yeah, it’s definitely about the blood clots.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: You know that old saying, Rome wasn’t built in a day? Turns out the moon might have been. In fact - crazy new simulations from a team at NASA suggest the moon may have been formed in a matter of hours.
NATE: Hang on. Hours? How is that possible?
CALLI: It’s hard to imagine. But these new simulations are some of the most detailed of their kind, using the highest resolution of any simulation ever run to study the formation of the moon and other massive impacts.
NATE: So…how does a high resolution simulation work?
CALLI: That’s a great question. Basically, imagine the difference between an impressionistic painting and a high megapixel photograph.
NATE: One is kinda blurry and the other one is sharp and clear.
CALLI: Exactly. The difference is pretty clear. But what’s really going on is that the high megapixel image has captured more information about its subject. And that’s sorta what’s happening with these simulations. With higher levels of computational power, you can feed massive amounts of data into simulations to get a more accurate result. In fact, one thing that really surprised scientists was just how misleading the older simulations with standard resolution can be.
NATE: So they basically built a high res movie of the moon being created?
CALLI: Yeah. And it’s pretty incredible. To explain the findings, let’s start with our previous theories about the formation of the moon.
NATE: Wasn’t it created from a collision?
CALLI: Yeah, it was. There’s a range of theories, but generally the story goes like this: billions of years ago the Earth was hit by something about the size of Mars that scientists named Theia, after the Greek goddess of sight and vision. Scientists believed that some of Theia merged with Earth, and some of it bounced into orbit as the moon.
NATE: So in this theory, the moon is basically the remnants of Theia?
CALLI: With a little Earth thrown in for good measure. This can account for things like the moon’s mass and its orbit. But there’s a problem with that theory that has puzzled scientists for a long time: the moon and the Earth are basically made of the same stuff.
NATE: Ahh. So that would mean that Theia and the Earth would have also been made from the same stuff.
CALLI: Which is highly unlikely. Our rocks are unlike any other we’ve gathered from Mars or other bodies in the solar system. That’s why this new simulation got scientists so excited. It shows the collision actually pushing a large section of Earth into an orbit that would line up with the moon. And the craziest thing: it all happened in the span of a few hours.
NATE: So now we know for sure how the moon was formed?
CALLI: Well…not so fast. Jacob Kegerreis, the lead researcher on this study from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, wants to gather more data to feed future simulations. But the results are tantalizing, and will add to our understanding not just of the moon, but of how Earth became… I mean…Earth.
NATE: Can they use these new simulations to understand other planets and moons, as well?
CALLI: Absolutely. The universe is full of collisions. Simulations like this can solve a lot of cosmic puzzles. And all it takes is a supercomputer and a whole bunch of data.
NATE: Supacomputaaa.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up.
CALLI: Researchers in the Netherlands found that the most accurate way to tell if someone is lying is to listen for details. The more details there are, the less likely they are to be lying.
NATE: Scientists have learned why bears don’t have trouble with blood clots when they spend months of hibernation immobilized. It comes down to a protein that causes blood platelets to stick together, that naturally diminishes when a bear goes into hibernation. Scientists can use this knowledge to develop drugs to help people at risk for blood clots.
CALLI: A new high definition simulation from researchers at NASA suggests that the moon was created in just a few hours when an object the size of Mars impacted Earth. Unlike previous simulations, this explains why the moon and the Earth contain so much of the same material.