Learn why you’re more likely to order junk food after your friends do; why we’re the only human species; and why people literally danced themselves to death during the Medieval Dancing Plague. 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: This Concept Explains Why You Order Junk Food After Your Friends Do — https://curiosity.im/2L1M9dk Why Are We the Only Human Species? — https://curiosity.im/2GwHtrA During the Medieval Dancing Plagues, People Literally Danced Themselves to Death — https://curiosity.im/2GyG0kK 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 why you’re more likely to order junk food after your friends do; why we’re the only human species; and why people literally danced themselves to death during the Medieval Dancing Plague.
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/medieval-dancing-plagues-altruistic-indulgence-and-types-of-human-species
CODY: Hi! We’re here 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 why you’re more likely to order junk food after your friends do; why we’re the only human species; and why people literally danced themselves to death during the Medieval Dancing Plague.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
This Concept Explains Why You Order Junk Food After Your Friends Do — https://curiosity.im/2L1M9dk (Cody)
According to research, you’re more likely to order unhealthy food if your friend does first. And the reason might surprise you. It’s not because you’re gluttonous or lazy, or even that you’re looking for your friend’s approval. Instead, researchers found that empathy was the primary motivator. And that’s why today we’re starting with a story on the term they came up with for this: altruistic indulgence. For a study last year published at Seoul National University, researchers looked at patterns in drink orders from a large coffee shop at a university in Korea. They did this by looking at 649 receipts, and they found that when a customer ordered a high-calorie item, their companion followed suit a whopping 80 percent of the time. Researchers called this the indulgent companion complex. When customers ordered low-calorie items, their companions only ordered in kind 60 percent of the time — so, not statistically significant. The next step in the study was for researchers to figure out: why was this happening? So they gave 174 American women an online quiz about what they’d do in a handful of eating situations. They found the same result as their first study, where participants were more likely to order something indulgent or unhealthy after their friend dit. But this time, they also asked WHY they ordered the unhealthy food. When the researchers crunched the numbers, they found that the biggest meal choice motivator was the desire to make their friend feel better about her choice. In other words, they said that they chose to eat the way they did so that their friend wouldn't feel bad for ordering something unhealthy. So the next time you make an unhealthy choice after your friend does, just remind yourself that it's about altruism, and not the alluring smell of that double-bacon, super-cheesy chili burger. Good thing your friend ordered it first.
Why Are We the Only Human Species? — https://curiosity.im/2GwHtrA (Ashley)
There’s only one species of human — but it hasn’t always been that way. And researchers have prehistoric proof that there used to be a lot more than just homo sapiens. Let’s talk human history. You’ve almost definitely heard of homo neanderthalensis, also known as neanderthals. We’ve also mentioned Denisovans on this podcast before. We discovered Denisovans in 2008 when researchers analyzed the DNA of bone fragments from the Denisova cave in Siberia. Denisovans are either a sub-species of Neanderthal or they’re a completely different species of human, but either way, they were a big enough deal for paleoanthropologists to take notice when we first learned about them. And in 2018, researchers discovered that based on DNA tests they’d run on bone fragments from that same cave in Siberia, one of the prehistoric people in that cave had an even split of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA. Scientists had already figured that ancient human species may have interbred — including homo sapiens, by the way. But this discovery changes things a bit. Think about it this way: we only have a handful of Denisovan bones to analyze. The fact that we have a small sample size that includes a first-generation hybrid suggests that interbreeding was quite common in the Pleistocene [PLY-stow-scene] era — at least, in this particular cave. And Neanderthals probably aren’t the only ancient humans that Denisovans mingled with. We’ve found Denisovan DNA surviving today in a surprising place: the Pacific Island region of Melanesia. About four to six percent of Melanesian DNA can be linked to Denisovans. But unlike Europeans, Melanesians show no signs of Neanderthal DNA. That would mean the Denisovan DNA was carried because of interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Denisovans.
These days, you see homo sapien, homo neanderthal, and denisovan DNA; but last year, researchers put out a new theory that there were actually a lot more prehistoric humans than just those three types. And the reason our species survived comes down to one thing: generalizatin. Researchers suggest humans fill the role of "generalist specialist" — meaning, we can slip into virtually any role available. While some of our cousins may have excelled at dwelling in some extreme climates, we found a way to adapt and spread. And as we did, we mingled with the local population and carried their genes into the future. Here’s to another several thousand years!
[NHTSA]
CODY: Today’s episode is paid for by NIT-suh. It can be a little frustrating, especially if you’re in a hurry or running late, to find yourself at a railway crossing, waiting for a train.
ASHLEY: Right — And if the signals are going and the train’s not even there yet, you can feel a bit tempted to try and sneak across the tracks. Well, don’t. Ever. Trains are often going a lot faster than you expect them to be. And they can’t stop.
CODY: Even if the engineer hits the brakes right away, it can take a train over a mile to stop. By that time, what used to be your car is just a crushed hunk of metal and what used to be you… well, better not to think about that.
ASHLEY: The point is, you can’t know how quickly the train will arrive. The train can’t stop even if it sees you. The result is disaster. If the signals are on, the train is on its way. And you... just need to remember one thing… Stop. Trains can’t.
During the Medieval Dancing Plagues, People Literally Danced Themselves to Death — https://curiosity.im/2GyG0kK (Cody)
If you think it’s hard trying to figure out the history of the human species, then buckle up. Because in Medieval times, history presented the mystery of the Dancing Plague — where people literally danced themselves to death. Yes, I said “danced,” like a tap dance or swing dancing. Here’s what went down, and what the modern medical community think caused it. This all went down in Strasbourg [STRASS-berg], which is in France these days, but back then was still part of the Holy Roman Empire. On a hot July day in 1518, a woman named Frau Troffea [FRO True-FAY] stepped into the street and started dancing. Like, a LOT. According to records, she danced without rest for between 4 and 6 days. We’re talking, no stopping to eat, sleep, or even take off her shoes. And people had started to join in. By the end of the week, there were 34 dancers, and within a month, the crowd grew to around 400. Because of the summer heat, up to 15 people per DAY were dying from exhaustion, according to some sources. Word spread and esteemed physicians tried to figure out what was going on. Supernatural causes like demonic possession were certainly on the table, but the wisdom of the time settled on this medical explanation: The dancers had a case of "hot blood," and needed to dance it out. To help them, a stage was set and musicians brought in to give the dancers something to groove to — and it was an absolute disaster. These measures only seemed to encourage the dancing and caused the numbers to swell again. Finally, the plague passed almost as mysteriously as it arrived, after about three months of non-stop boogieing. So what happened? Today, doctors think it was a kind of culture-influenced, stress-indced psychosis. It's well documented that certain psychological maladies only arise in certain cultural contexts, and this type of compulsive dancing was probably an example of just such a thing. We're not above that type of thing now — these days, we have psychoses such as Paris syndrome, which only affects Japanese tourists in Paris. It just goes to show how much of an effect your cultural surroundings have on your mind and body.
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