Learn about the similarities between problems facing ancient and modern cities from author Monica L. Smith, an archaeologist and professor in the department of anthropology at UCLA. You’ll also learn about whether you have a dominant ear. Get your copy of “Cities: The First 6,000 Years” on Amazon: https://amazon.com Additional resources from Monica L. Smith: “Cities: The First 6,000 Years” — https://amazon.com UCLA Faculty Profile (Anthropology) — https://anthro.ucla.edu/faculty/monica-l-smith UCLA Faculty Profile (Archaeology) — https://ioa.ucla.edu/people/monica-l-smith Research from Monica L. Smith — https://ucla.academia.edu/MonicaLSmith Other resources discussed: Side biases in humans (Homo sapiens): three ecological studies on hemispheric asymmetries | Springer Nature — https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-009-0571-4 Most People Prefer Right Ear for Listening | Live Science — https://www.livescience.com/9679-people-prefer-ear-listening.html 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 the similarities between problems facing ancient and modern cities from author Monica L. Smith, an archaeologist and professor in the department of anthropology at UCLA. You’ll also learn about whether you have a dominant ear.
Get your copy of “Cities: The First 6,000 Years” on Amazon: https://amazon.com
Additional resources from Monica L. Smith:
Other resources discussed:
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/modern-and-ancient-cities-faced-the-same-problems-w-monica-l-smith-ear-dominance
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 the similarities between problems facing ancient and modern cities, from archaeologist and author Monica L. Smith. We’ll also answer a listener question about whether you have a dominant ear.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Monica L. Smith Interview Clip 2 - Problems of ancient and modern-day cities 3:53 (5/26)
If you’ve ever been in a major city and gotten stuck in a traffic jam or had to deal with some other problem of urban life, then you might surprised to learn that your modern-day problems are not necessarily unique to the modern day. That’s according to today’s guest for the second part of our “Sunday Cities” mini-series, Monica L. Smith. She’s an archaeologist and a professor in the department of anthropology at UCLA, and she’s the author of a new book called “Cities: The First 6,000 Years.” I asked her about when traffic and congestion started to really plague cities, and here’s what she told us.
[CLIP 3:12]
Again, that was Monica L. Smith, an archaeologist and professor at UCLA, and author of the new book “Cities: The First 6,000 Years.” We’ll put links to find more from her in today’s show notes, and next Sunday, we’ll conclude our conversation by looking at how new technology is helping us understand how we can avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
[FIRST ALERT]
ASHLEY: One solution for problems facing cities these days comes from today’s sponsor, First Alert.
CODY: There are three things every homeowner wants their home to be: smarter, safer, and more fun. What if I told you OneLink by First Alert can hook you up with all three of those things?
ASHLEY: Let’s start by talking about your family’s new best friend, the OneLink Safe and Sound. It’s a hardwired smart smoke and carbon monoxide alarm with a premium home speaker, AND it’s Alexa enabled — all in one sleek device. It’s built with First Alert safety technology and gives you a pretty fantastic, immersive sound experience.
CODY: The Safe and Sound elevates any home, but it gets even better than that! OneLink by First Alert also offers the OneLink smart smoke and carbon monoxide alarm that works with the OneLink Safe and Sound. It’s a device that’s easy to install and protects against both smoke and carbon monoxide. If smoke or CO is detected in the home, the smart alarm will notify you using exclusive voice and location technology, and send a notification to your smart phone, whether you’re at home or away.
ASHLEY: A smart home should start with smart protection, and OneLink by First Alert welcomes you to a smarter, safer home. For more information, visit one-link-dot-first-alert-dot-com.
CODY: One more time, that’s one-link-dot-first-alert-dot-com.
Listener Question
ASHLEY: We got a listener question from Min, who writes, “We have hand dominance and eye dominance. Do we also have ear dominance?” Great question Min!
Short answer? Yes, you do have a dominant ear! It turns out that most people prefer to listen to speech in their right ear. It’s generally believed that your dominant ear is correlated with the side of your brain that does most of the language processing, which in most people is the left side. Scientists have found that when they have people try to hear a word uttered with a background of white noise, they’re slightly faster and more accurate when they listen with their right ear than with their left. While most of those studies were done in a lab, a study from 2009 figured this out in a real-world environment where hearing would normally be pretty difficult: a dance club. The researchers approached 160 different people in an Italian dance club and mumbled an inaudible, meaningless string of syllables. If someone said something to you in a club that you didn’t understand, you’d probably turn your head, both to signal that you’d like them to repeat themselves and to better direct your ear to make it easier to hear them. That’s exactly what these clubbers did. The scientists recorded which ear they offered, after asking them for a cigarette — I mean, they had to say something. 58 percent of the clubbers offered their right ear and 42 percent offered their left. In another experiment, the researchers just asked people for a cigarette in either their right or left ear, and got significantly more cigarettes from the right-sided requests. Still, this is just when it comes to hearing the information content of speech. For most people, the left ear is better at discriminating more musical elements, like pitch, timbre, and loudness. In the end, it all works together. Thanks for your question! If you have a question, send it into podcast at curiosity dot com. In fact, we’re running a little low, so I really could use more questions from the audience! Again, that email address is podcast at curiosity dot com.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-009-0571-4
https://www.livescience.com/9679-people-prefer-ear-listening.html
CODY: Before we wrap up, we want to give a special shout-out to Muhammad Shifaz and Dr. Mary Yancy, who are executive producers for today’s episode thanks to their generous support on Patreon. Thank you SO. MUCH. If you’re listening and you want to support Curiosity Daily, then visit patreon-dot-com-slash-curiosity-dot-com, all spelled out.
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!