Learn about the real effects of FOMO, and how you can measure your fear of missing out; the story of Anatoli Bugorski, a Russian scientist who put his head inside a particle accelerator and survived; and the Japanese “Cat Island” of Tashirojima, where there are more cats than people. 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: SKILLSHARE: Two months of unlimited access to more than 20 thousand classes for just 99 cents Measure Your Fear of Missing Out with This Science-Backed Quiz Anatoli Bugorski, the Man Who Put His Head Inside a Particle Accelerator — and Survived Cats Outnumber People on the Japanese Island of Tashirojima Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey 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! Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn about the real effects of FOMO, and how you can measure your fear of missing out; the story of Anatoli Bugorski, a Russian scientist who put his head inside a particle accelerator and survived; and the Japanese “Cat Island” of Tashirojima, where there are more cats than people.
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:
Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey
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!
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/measuring-your-fomo-tashirojima-cat-island-and-the-man-who-put-his-head-inside-a-particle-accelerator-and-survived
CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. From the editorial team at curiosity.com, I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about the real effects of FOMO and how you can measure your fear of missing out, the story of a man who put his head inside a particle accelerator and survived, and a Japanese island with more cats than people.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity on the award-winning Curiosity Daily. Chances are, especially if you spend any time on social media, you've had to deal with FOMO. That stands for Fear Of Missing Out. And yes, it's a real word Oxford dictionaries edited more than five years ago.
Well, today, we're going to get into the real psychological impact of FOMO and give you a resource to help you figure out how bad FOMO is in your life. Is this big for you, Ashley?
ASHLEY HAMER: Not really. I feel like as I get older, I start to care less about what everybody else is doing and kind of focusing on my own thing.
CODY GOUGH: Same. I never scroll down Facebook anymore.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, yeah. Instagram, I feel like is a big FOMO source, and it's not a source I go to.
CODY GOUGH: I'm not an Instagram scroller either.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Am I just getting old? Am I out of touch.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think we might be getting out of touch and old, yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Or are we burned out on it?
ASHLEY HAMER: Could be. I mean, yeah, I'm so busy that, like, I do not have the mental capacity to pay attention to what other people are doing.
CODY GOUGH: There's that too. Well, FOMO is not just a throwaway phrase for how you feel when you're scrolling through Instagram and wishing you were somewhere else. There's actual research that's tried to measure it.
Social media tells you about all the exciting stuff other people are up to, right? And according to a 2013 study, using social media correlates robustly with FOMO. The researchers put it this way, quote, "On the upside, social media platforms provide a multitude of opportunities for interaction. On the downside, they often broadcast more options than can be pursued, given practical restrictions and limited time," unquote.
When you go on social media, you see multiple lifetimes worth of music festivals, romantic getaways, and photo ops, and that makes a lot of people feel inadequate and hyper-aware of all the cool stuff they might not have the time or money to do. Sounds miserable, right?
Well, according to that same study we just mentioned, people feeling FOMO use social media almost compulsively. There's a logic that if you can't be somewhere, then you need to at least experience it from far away. So it becomes a vicious cycle.
But sometimes, it's hard to tell when it crosses the line from kind of inconvenience to a serious anxiety problem. Fortunately, an international team of psychology researchers have come up with a scale to help you measure your FOMO. It's called the Fear of Missing Out Scale, and we've got a link to it and our full write-up about FOMO on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS.
It's really short and sweet. And like we always say, even though it's scientifically validated, you're not going to get a clinical diagnosis or a doctor's advice from this, but it is a starting point you could use as a sign that you might want to talk to a professional or reconsider your habits.
Just remember, there's no shame in getting sucked down in Instagram rabbit hole. We've all been there. Social media is addictive by design, but there's also no shame in missing your friends' stories for a few days.
ASHLEY HAMER: Did you hear about the guy who put his head inside a particle accelerator and survived? This guy did it more than 40 years ago, and as of the time of this recording, he's actually still alive. Why did he do it, and what happened? We've got answers to both of those questions.
CODY GOUGH: Kids, don't try this at home. I mean, I realized it's probable that if you're a kid who's listening to this, you probably don't have a particle accelerator lying around the house, but I don't live your life.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, I mean, kids of particle physicists running around the CERN, just don't do it.
CODY GOUGH: The CERN, huh?
ASHLEY HAMER: The CERN. I'm trying to think of one, and I thought of CERN.
CODY GOUGH: All the STEM kids running around the CERNs. Should I be concerned about that reference?
ASHLEY HAMER: All right. Well, for some background, a particle accelerator is a machine that propels charged particles at nearly light speed. It was invented in the 1930s, and it's used to study all things particle physics.
You can thank particle accelerators for discovering new particles like the Higgs boson. Well, in the 1970s, Russian scientist Anatoli Bugorski was working with a Soviet particle accelerator called the Synchrotron U-70 at the Institute for High Energy Physics.
On July 13th, 1978, he popped his head into the synchrotron to check on a malfunctioning piece of equipment when all of a sudden, zap, a safety mechanism went kaput at exactly the wrong moment, shooting a proton beam straight through his head.
Don't worry, though. He didn't feel any pain, although Bugorski did say he saw a flash, quote, "brighter than a thousand suns," unquote. The beam entered through the back of his head and exited through his nose.
Soon after, the left side of his face swelled up like a balloon, and he was rushed to the hospital for treatment and to be studied, of course, since nothing like this had ever happened before.
The kind of energy Burgorski's school absorbed from the proton beams ionizing radiation is measured in a thing called gray, like the color. Usually, absorbing more than five grays at a time will kill you.
The beam that hit Bugorski measured 2,000 gray when it entered his skull and about 3,000 gray when it exited, but nobody had ever experienced radiation in the form of a proton beam moving in about the speed of light, so all bets were off.
Like I mentioned earlier, though, not only is he still alive, but he also completed his doctorate after the incident. The beam did burn a path through his skull and brain tissue. And for a few days after the event, there was a bit of skin peeling on the spots where the beam had entered and exited his head.
Bugorski also lost the hearing in his left ear, and he has to deal with constant tinnitus. The left side of his face also became paralyzed over time, and he suffered from a variety of seizures, but he still beat the odds. And you can add sticking your head in a particle accelerator to your list of things not to have a fear of missing out on.
CODY GOUGH: Although it would make a great Instagram photo.
ASHLEY HAMER: It really would.
CODY GOUGH: Today's episode is sponsored by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning platform with more than 20,000 classes in business, marketing, design, technology, and more-- as in a lot more.
Ashley and I have taken classes on everything from cooking to video editing. And lately, I've been taking one to help me with my diet. I'm taking a course on Flexible Dieting from Brad Newton.
He's one of the best fitness model competitors in the world, and he's also got a science background. So I'm finally figuring out how to understand macronutrients and calories, and most importantly, practical ways of figuring out a meal plan that'll help me stay on track with my diet for more than just the short term.
ASHLEY HAMER: And it's not just Cody's instructor who has experience. Skillshare's classes are all taught by real experts in their field or public motivational speakers.
And again, you can take classes for everything you're curious about-- video editing, computer coding and programming, cooking, photography, mobile development, fine art, podcasting. Remember, Skillshare offers more than 20,000 classes.
CODY GOUGH: You can join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare with a special offer just for Curiosity Daily listeners. Get two months of Skillshare for just $0.99. To sign up, visit skillshare.com/curious.
ASHLEY HAMER: Again, that's skillshare.com/curious for two months of unlimited access to more than 20,000 classes for just $0.99.
CODY GOUGH: Lifelong learning is important. That's why you like Curiosity, and that's why we think you'll love Skillshare. So don't miss out. Start your two-month trial today.
ASHLEY HAMER: One more time. That's skillshare.com/curious.
CODY GOUGH: If you're a cat person like Ashley is, then have I got the perfect place for you to visit. How high is this on your bucket list, Ashley?
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't know. That sounds like a pretty great place to go just to like sit down and let all the cats come at you.
CODY GOUGH: Well, welcome to Tashirojima, also known as Cat's Island. This is a tiny island with more cats than humans. It got this way because a few centuries ago, humans took a page right out of the Tom and Jerry cartoons and brought cats to the island to hunt mice.
See, in the mid-1700s and 1800s, people on the island raised silkworms to create fabric, and mice ate silkworms, so the cats are brought there to take care of the mice.
The fishermen on the island started to see the cats as good luck, so they built a shrine to cats in the middle of the island. Over the past 50 years, the human population has really dwindled, going down from a thousand people to less than a hundred residents, and most of them are over the age of 65.
But tourism is still a thing. It's small enough to bike around, and you'll find plenty of quirky buildings designed to look like cats. Not to mention the shrine I mentioned, which invites visitors to leave offerings in the form of cat drawings and other feline-themed items.
And of course, there are the cats, most of whom are happy to accept pets from friendly strangers. No dogs allowed, though.
ASHLEY HAMER: Read about today's stories and more on curiosity.com.
CODY GOUGH: Join us again tomorrow for the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Stay curious.
NARRATOR: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.