Learn about why meteorites probably aren’t hot when they land; why babies hardly ever blink; and why couples have such a hard time breaking up. 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: Despite the Fireball, Meteorites Probably Aren't Hot — https://curiosity.im/2Gs6DYe Why Do Babies Hardly Ever Blink? — https://curiosity.im/2GuxAL2 Why Is Breaking Up So Hard? A Study Found a Surprising Reason — https://curiosity.im/2IJJ4fl 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 meteorites probably aren’t hot when they land; why babies hardly ever blink; and why couples have such a hard time breaking up.
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/meteorites-probably-dont-land-hot-break-up-struggles-and-why-babies-hardly-ever-blink
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 about why meteorites probably aren’t hot when they land; why babies hardly ever blink; and why couples have such a hard time breaking up.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Despite the Fireball, Meteorites Probably Aren't Hot — https://curiosity.im/2Gs6DYe (Ashley)
Here’s a fun fact: despite the fireball, meteorites are probably not hot when they hit the ground. A smoldering rock in a crater might be nice and dramatic for TV shows and movies, but at the end of the day, it’s just not scientifically accurate. Here’s the story behind what they’re getting wrong. You know how space is REALLY cold? As in, barely three degrees above absolute zero cold? That means that the chunks of rock we know as meteoroids are in a deep freeze. When a meteoroid starts hurtling through our atmosphere and becomes a meteor, you see a super-bright glow. But it's not the meteor itself that glows; it's the air around it, through something called ram pressure — that’s the compression in the air caused by the meteor's forward motion. Compression makes air heat up, and that's why a falling meteor looks red-hot. Of course, hot air DOES heat up the meteor, but for most meteors, that's only on the outside. The outer layers can get so hot that they melt, but they get blown off pretty quickly thanks to a phenomenon known as ablation [uh-BLAY-shin]. That likely leaves behind un-melted rock that's just warm, at best. By the way: spacecraft actually use ablation to protect their delicate equipment from getting too hot. Modern heat shields are large, rounded surfaces that are covered in a material that’s designed to burn off like the outer layers of a meteor, which leavesthe cargo and people inside comfortably warm instead of molten hot. But back to why meteorites aren’t ultra-hot when they land: there's also the fact that although a meteor's speed peaks at thousands of kilometers per hour, all that air pressure slows it down quite a bit before it hits the ground. That gives the meteor — and the air around it — plenty of time to cool down. Once it lands and becomes a meteorite, it's probably a comfortably lukewarm temperature. One more thing to note is that there’s never been a scientific survey involving many meteorite falls to see what condition they've been in when they land. Very few people have actually touched a meteor right after it landed. And while only those people can know for SURE what temperatures are possible when they touch a freshly planted meteorite, for now, we’ll go with the science that says maybe you shouldn’t believe everything Hollywood shows you.
Why Do Babies Hardly Ever Blink? — https://curiosity.im/2GuxAL2 (Cody)
Our next story was a bit of a relief to me. Because I’ve always had this feeling that babies REALLY enjoy staring at me. [probably because I’m tall. Idk. / ad lib / but like… have you ever noticed they DON’T BLINK?]
CODY: As it turns out, babies really do blink way less than adults do. One study from 1979 found that adults tend to blink 10 to 15 times per minute, while the youngest babies blink a little less than twice a minute. After infancy, the rate of blinking gradually speeds up until a kid turns about 14 years old, when their blinking rate levels out with grown-ups. Here's the thing, though: No one quite knows why this is. There are a few hypotheses on the matter, though, so let’s get into them. One is that smaller eyes need less lubrication. This would seem to make sense, because one of the main reasons you blink in the first place is to keep your eyes moisturized. The problem with this idea is that it’s pretty much been disproven. A 2011 study found no relationship between the number of times a bunch of 4-month old babies blinked with the amount of exposed surface area in their eyes. So let’s move onto the second hypothesis, which says that a baby’s brain is too busy to bother with blinking. The basic idea is that because the babies are so new to the world, they're super interested in what's going on around them. That means babies are extremely focused on everything, and their brains are working hard to take in all that info. As a result, blinking is a mere distraction. Adults also blink less when they’re intensely focused on something, so there’s a fair amount of promise to this idea. There’s one other leading hypothesis, though, and that relates to brain development. Believe it or not, how much you blink is linked to your brain's levels of dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter that helps brain cells communicate with one another. As a result, blink rate has been used in adults to help identify certain medical conditions like Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia, which are linked with having too little or too much dopamine, respectively. A baby might blink less because the dopamine system is still developing in the brain. While the technology’s not quite there yet, some hope that by observing blinking in babies, we might be able to predict their risk of dopamine-related conditions like ADHD. And that’s why this all matters: knowing why babies blink less isn’t just a trivial fact researchers are curious about. It could have serious medical implications! Hopefully some day we’ll know for sure. But for now, your best bet when a baby stares at you is to smile back, make a funny face, and polish up your peek-a-boo skills.
[NHTSA]
ASHLEY: 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.
CODY: 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.
ASHLEY: And they can’t stop. 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…
CODY: ...let’s not think about that. 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.
Why Is Breaking Up So Hard? A Study Found a Surprising Reason — https://curiosity.im/2IJJ4fl (from Friday) (Ashley)
You’ve heard the saying “breaking up is hard to do.” And today we’ve got some research that might explain why. According to a study published in 2017 in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, even while planning a breakup, most people continue feeling the pull to stay with their partner. In a series of studies, researchers from the University of Utah collected data from participants who were thinking about or planning on breaking up with their partners. And they found that it was striking how ambivalent people were about their relationships: a lot of the participants felt nearly as strongly about staying as they did about leaving. The participants in this study included some couples where just dating and others who were married, and both groups had similar reasons for breaking up. At the top of the list, they mentioned emotional distance, unfairness, dishonesty, and their partner's overall personality. But when it came to reasons to stay, the two groups were very different. People in dating relationships wanted to stay for the good parts of their partner's personality, emotional intimacy, and how much they enjoyed being with the person. Married people, on the other hand, said they'd stay because of investment, family responsibility, fear of uncertainty, and overall logistics. That may sound like marriage kills romance, but that's probably too harsh. After all, marriage is designed to keep two people together. Mixing up your finances, investments, and children requires security in a relationship, so there's no wonder that those same things are top-of-mind when a husband or wife thinks about divorce. If you're wrestling with the decision to keep things going or break it off with a significant other, there's no right answer. But now at least you know that many, many other people have struggled with the same conflicts you do. Breakups aren't a battle of good and evil; they're just two people trying to do what's best for each of them.
CODY: Read about today’s stories and more on curiosity-dot-com!
ASHLEY: 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!