Learn about the trait you can borrow from narcissists to boost your professional and academic success; the groundbreaking and potentially life-saving discovery that came from studying tumors that can grow teeth; and the story of how a solar eclipse prediction helped end a war, restore an economy, and build a philosophy school that trained a couple of history’s greatest minds, with some help from Dr. David Warmflash. 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: Narcissists May Have One Specific Advantage Over Other People — https://curiosity.im/2tszPY7 Tumors Can Grow Teeth — https://curiosity.im/2ttO8vf Additional resources from Dr. David Warmflash: Pick up “Moon: An Illustrated History: From Ancient Myths to the Colonies of Tomorrow” on Amazon — https://amazon.com Follow @CosmicEvolution on Twitter — https://twitter.com/CosmicEvolution Moon Monday Episode 1: Saros Cycles — https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-podcast/saros-cycles-w-dr-david-warmflash-the-eiffel-tower 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 trait you can borrow from narcissists to boost your professional and academic success; the groundbreaking and potentially life-saving discovery that came from studying tumors that can grow teeth; and the story of how a solar eclipse prediction helped end a war, restore an economy, and build a philosophy school that trained a couple of history’s greatest minds, with some help from Dr. David Warmflash.
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:
Additional resources from Dr. David Warmflash:
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/narcissism-lessons-the-war-stopping-eclipse-w-dr-david-warmflash-and-toothed-tumors
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 what you can take away from narcissists to boost your professional and academic success; and the groundbreaking and potentially life-saving discovery that came from studying tumors that can grow teeth.
CODY: Plus, you’ll hear how the prediction of a solar eclipse helped end a war, restore an economy, and leave an impact on some of history’s greatest minds, in the second installment of our MOON MONDAY mini-series. Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Narcissists May Have One Specific Advantage Over Other People — https://curiosity.im/2tszPY7 (Ashley)
Narcissism isn’t just a psychological condition, it’s a personality trait. All of us have some degree of narcissism, and it turns out you can actually use that to your advantage. Get ready to have your narcissist stereotypes shattered, and find out what you could actually learn from people who know how to harness their inner narcissist. According to a September 2018 study from Queen's University Belfast, narcissists are likely to have a trait that's been closely linked to professional and academic success: mental toughness. In a nutshell, Mental toughness is the mind's ability to hold onto its sense of self and self-worth when things aren’t going so great. The boss didn't like your idea? No worries, he'll love the next one — and who cares what he thinks anyway? You're obviously a genius. It's easy to see a narcissist slipping into that pattern of thinking. And it's just as easy to see how that kind of thinking could be a major benefit to a person's career. To be clear, this study didn’t look at people with narcissistic personality disorder — it just looked at participants with high, but normal, narcissism scores. And that was where they found the people with the highest mental toughness. Now, we're not saying that narcissism is a good thing or that you should try to cultivate it like it’s a skill. I also can’t emphasize enough that a clinical diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder is a real disorder that can cause lots of complications in your life. Even if you’re not a clinical narcissist, narcissism is part of the so-called “dark triad” of personality traits for a reason (along with psychopathy and Machiavellianism) . You probably don't want to take on more narcissism than you naturally do. But if you regularly doubt yourself, it might not hurt to observe how the more self-centered people in your life think — and borrow a little bit of that attitude at work.
Moon Monday — The Eclipse War (Cody)
CODY: It’s time for the second installment in our “Moon Mondays” miniseries, where we’ll teach you how the history of the moon has affected the world in some way. Last week we talked about how the Babylonians had figured out “Saros Cycles,” which basically predict how often a solar eclipse will show up. Who cares, right? Well, thanks to this information, the Greek philosopher Thales predicted a solar eclipse that helped end a war, restore an economy, and build a philosophy school that trained a couple of history’s greatest minds. Here’s the story, from Dr. David Warmflash.
[CLIP 3:06]
CODY: Next week we’ll jump ahead to the Middle Ages and hear a fascinating story about the origins of astronomy. In the meantime, Dr. David Warmflash’s book is called “Moon: An Illustrated History,” and you can pre-order it on Amazon today. You can also follow him on Twitter at cosmic-evolution. We’ll include links to all that and more in today’s show notes.
Tumors Can Grow Teeth — https://curiosity.im/2ttO8vf (Ashley)
Our last story today is a little creepy, but biology isn’t always pretty. And on the plus side, the next subject is mostly benign, and they led scientists to a groundbreaking and life-saving discovery. But still, the thing is… tumors can grow teeth. I told you it wasn’t pretty. [ad lib]
ASHLEY: I’m talking about tumors called teratomas, which is Greek, roughly, for “monstrous tumors.” No kidding. Teratomas haven't just been known to sprout teeth. They've been known to contain all kinds of tissue: bone, muscle, hair, and elements of a nervous system. A mature teratoma can be big and painful and even persistent, but again, they’re typically not dangerous. It’s immature teratomas that have the most potential to develop into cancer. That’s where the cells haven’t yet turned into multiple tissue types. The reason teratomas can grow teeth is through the normal magic of germ cells. That’s the type of stem cell that turns into an egg or sperm cell, which can then produce a fetus. Germ cells are what scientists call pluripotent, which means they can produce all different types of tissue. When germ cells go rogue, though, teratomas arise. In fact, all it takes is one germ cell going rogue. In the 1960s, embryologist Barry Pierce discovered that the root of every teratoma is a single germ cell, which produces a constant stream of new and varied cells that accumulate into a tumescent mass. Meanwhile, all the other cells in the tumor lead normal cellular lives and eventually die off. In other words, teratomas are a case of a bad apple ruining the bunch. Back to the silver lining of this story: Pierce’s research ended up with implications beyond these toothy tumors. That discovery of pluripotency, the discovery that one cell could create many types of cells, eventually led tot he discovery of stem cells in the 1980s. That’s a breakthrough with massive implications, from the key to cloning animals to growing isolated human organs like hearts for people who need transplants. So in the end, teratomas really aren't as horrifying as they sound. Just like you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, maybe you shouldn't judge a tumor by its teeth, hair, and fully developed eyeball.
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