Today you’ll learn about a new patch that uses ultrasonic waves to deliver medicine through the skin, research that debunks the myth of the ‘fast learner’, and evidence that a megaflood ended an environmental crisis in the Mediterranean more than five million years ago.
Today you’ll learn about a new patch that uses ultrasonic waves to deliver medicine through the skin, research that debunks the myth of the ‘fast learner’, and evidence that a megaflood ended an environmental crisis in the Mediterranean more than five million years ago.
Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/medicine-patch-fast-learner-myth-mediterranean-mega-flood
Medicine Patch
Fast Learner Myth
Mediterranean Mega Flood
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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 about a new patch that uses ultrasonic waves to deliver medicine through the skin, research that debunks the myth of the ‘fast learner’, and about evidence that a mega flood ended an environmental crisis in the Mediterranean more than five million years ago.
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Researchers have developed a new way to deliver drugs into the skin using ultrasonic waves.
CALLI: Like…sound waves? Are they blasting EDM at their patients?
NATE: Not quite, although that would NOT be a study I’d sign up for. These are ultrasonic, which means we can’t hear them, and they are delivered through a little patch that sticks to the patient’s skin.
CALLI: But aren’t there other patches out there that deliver medicine? Like…the nicotine patch?
NATE: Absolutely. Transdermal patches have been around for decades. They can deliver medicines through the skin over a long period of time, which is great for some conditions.
CALLI: Like if you’re trying to quit smoking.
NATE: Yeah - a trickle of nicotine into your system has been shown to reduce cravings. That’s what makes those patches great - the drugs they carry are delivered slowly, and in a controlled way. But there’s a problem: thick skin.
CALLI: Mmm gross.
NATE: Don’t be too quick to judge, because we all have thick skin. Or…I should say that the outer layer of our skin is built to keep most molecules out. The transdermal patches that are on the market today are great for drugs that can more easily be absorbed by the skin, and for conditions that need small amounts of medicine delivered over a long period of time.
CALLI: Okay, I see. So what if you have a condition that needs a faster dose of drugs?
NATE: Exactly. And some people who suffer from certain skin conditions like premature skin aging need the medicine delivered in a very specific location. Oral medications have to go through the digestive system. Lots of medicine gets wasted in the gut, and it takes a long time to circulate. So…what’s the solution?
CALLI: Sound waves?!
NATE: Ultrasonic waves! Similar to a sound wave but the frequency is so high that humans can’t hear it.
CALLI: Cool! So how does it work?
NATE: The patch is a clear disk with four dots and some copper circuits. It looks like something a cyborg would wear to a party.
CALLI: And we all know that cyborgs love to party.
NATE: Yes they’re famous for it. The patch works by…well…vibrating. The teensy vibrations create these tiny bubbles that burst against the skin, shooting microjets of fluid through the outer layers.
CALLI: And how much more effective is this than regular patches?
NATE: The study, which was published in the journal Advanced Materials found that 26 times as much of the drug passed through the skin with ultrasonic vibrations than without. And the even better part - other methods took as much as six hours to deliver the same dose that these patches delivered in about 30 minutes.
CALLI: Whoa! So you said that this can be used for skin conditions like premature skin aging. But are there other applications?
NATE: This is just the beginning. While the immediate application will be for cosmetic conditions like treating burns and age spots, they think this tech will one day be used to penetrate more deeply to deliver drugs to the bloodstream. And they’re even exploring the idea of implanting these inside the body to treat more serious diseases, like cancer. But the sky's the limit. There could even be a way to use these patches to give pain-free tattoos.
CALLI: This story has it all - we’ve got dance music, painless tattoos, and cyborg parties.
NATE: As if ultrasonic transdermal drug application weren’t cool enough.
CALLI: I mean it sounds cooler.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Nate, would you consider yourself a ‘fast learner?’
NATE: I mean, I don’t want to brag, but I can pick up new ideas preeeeeetty quick.
CALLI: Like…faster than most people?
NATE: …fast enough to know that you’re probably setting some kind of trap by asking me this.
CALLI: Wow. You are a fast learner. But…it turns out…probably not any faster than most people.
NATE: It’s a trap!
CALLI: You know me too well. So learning science experts at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human Computer Interaction institute wanted to get to the bottom of this idea that some people are faster learners than others. The thinking was that if they could figure out what made them faster, they could design curricula that would help slower learners pick up the pace.
NATE: That seems like a good thing to figure out. You hear about people who can pick up a new language in, like, a few months. I always wanted to do that.
CALLI: Fast learning is kinda the holy grail of education, right? Ken Koedinger - the Hillman Professor of Computer Sciences at Carnegie Mellon and the leader of this study - started with two assumptions. One - students need lots of practice in order to build expertise in a subject. And two - different students learn at different rates.
NATE: Both of those assumptions seem accurate.
CALLI: Right? So they looked at student performance on similar groups of tasks, and then they looked at how the student’s skills increased after follow-up instruction.
NATE: So that’s like looking at how well a student does on the first day of Spanish 101, and then how much they’ve improved by the 10th day?
CALLI: Yeah, basically. And then how much they continue improving after that. They applied their model to over a million observations across 27 datasets. These are students all the way from elementary school to college, in subjects ranging from math, science, and language.
NATE: So what did they find?
CALLI: It turns out there was a pretty big difference in how well the students performed.
NATE: But that’s not surprising, is it? We’re all good at different things, right?
CALLI: Not surprising at all. But there was one thing that absolutely astonished the researchers - no matter what level of expertise the student started out at, and no matter how good they got - they all improved at roughly the same rate.
NATE: Perhaps I’m a slow learner, but what makes this astonishing?
CALLI: This study shows that the assumption that some students are just faster, better learners is…just…wrong.
NATE: Okay. So…why do some students get better grades than others?
CALLI: If this study is right, then the biggest factor in learning is opportunity. Those students who have access to better instruction, who are allowed to practice more…well…they simply do better.
NATE: Then that must mean that just about any student with access to better education will do better.
CALLI: That’s basically right. These findings show that one of the most important things to know about a student isn’t how fast she learns - because we all learn at about the same rate - but how much they know about the subject in the beginning.
NATE: Right. Because if one student starts out at a C, and the other starts out with an F, and they both learn at the same rate, then one will end up with an A and the other with a C.
CALLI: But they’ll both have learned the same amount.
NATE: Okay so what do we do with this knowledge?
CALLI: It’ll help teachers build better conditions for students where they are more actively engaged. And, maybe even more importantly, it tells students who have always felt like they aren’t good enough that they can make the grade. They just have to stick to it.
NATE: Look how fast people learn just listening to this podcast.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Geologists from Utrecht, London, and Granada are saying that there was a massive environmental crisis in the Mediterranean that was solved by the largest mega flood in the history of the planet.
CALLI: Mega flood?! Environmental crisis?! Why isn’t this bigger news? Is it because there’s an election coming up?
NATE: Maybe. But it’s more likely it’s because this happened six million years ago.
CALLI: Oh yeah. That would explain it. So…what was with this megaflood?
NATE: Well…before we talk megaflood, we need to talk Messinian Crisis.
CALLI: Megaflood isn’t a big enough crisis for you?
NATE: I know, right? Professor Wout Krijgsman at Utrecht University has been studying the Messinian Salinity Crisis for years. So water flows back and forth from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean, right? Well…six million years ago, the water level in the Mediterranean suddenly dropped.
CALLI: How low did it go?
NATE: Very low. Very very low. It dropped nearly a kilometer and a half. Imagine if the ocean off the coast of Florida suddenly dropped almost a mile.
CALLI: Whoa.
NATE: Right. Basically, the thinking is that tectonic shifts plugged up the Straits of Gibraltar, where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean evaporated faster than rivers could resupply it. From that, a layer of gypsum and salt that was about a kilometer thick formed over the Mediterranean basin.
CALLI: A kilometer-thick layer of salt?
NATE: Yep. Geologists have always thought that some kind of flood happened that caused it to fill back up. But they could never prove it. Until now.
CALLI: I mean I take it someone uncorked the Straits of Gibraltar?
NATE: That was the thinking. But no one was certain. Then Professor Krijgsman happened upon a few meters of sandstone that had become visible around Southern Sicily. He brought his team of geologists to have a look, and what they found seems to prove that a megaflood actually happened.
CALLI: So how can you tell that a megaflood happened by looking at sandstone?
NATE: Good question. There’s a long, technical answer that you’d probably need a degree in geology to understand. But for the rest of us, there were ripples.
CALLI: Ripples?
NATE: Yep. Huge amounts of fast-flowing water carry sand with it. When it builds up in deposits, it has a sort of ripple. So this happens all over the place, but by studying these particular ripples, they realized that they couldn’t have been formed by local rivers, and that the water flowed from west to east, and was much deeper than they expected.
CALLI: The megaflood!
NATE: It’s fun to imagine water flooding back into the Mediterranean about 5.3 million years ago. But the bigger picture here is that scientists of all stripes can model huge events like this, but every theory is just an educated guess until you can see direct evidence.
CALLI: One last question: There’s not some kind of tectonic cork holding back an ocean full of water anywhere near my house, right?
NATE: If there is, geologists in a few million years will only have to look at the sandstone to find out.
CALLI: Yeah you’re not making me feel better.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. A team of researchers have built a patch that can deliver medication through the tough outer layers of skin using ultrasonic waves.
CALLI: Education researchers have debunked the myth that some people learn faster than others, showing that most of us learn at roughly the exact same pace.
NATE: Geologists found direct evidence that a megaflood over five million years ago rapidly refilled the dry Mediterranean sea basin, ending what was known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis, where the Mediterranean water level had dropped nearly a mile.