Learn about where NASA’s new planet-hunting telescope is looking for life first; the number of places where people spend most of their time; and, the new “Light Triad” of personality traits. 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: NASA Has a New Planet-Hunting Telescope, and It Knows Where to Look for Life First — https://curiosity.im/2GgnDkf Most People Spend Their Time in Just 25 Places — https://curiosity.im/2GgLhgF Put Your Best Qualities to the Test With the Light Triad Scale — https://curiosity.im/2GerY7t 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 where NASA’s new planet-hunting telescope is looking for life first; the number of places where people spend most of their time; and, the new “Light Triad” of personality traits.
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/nasas-new-planet-hunting-telescope-the-light-triad-and-where-you-spend-your-time
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 where NASA’s new planet-hunting telescope is looking for life first; the number of places where people spend most of their time; and, the new “Light Triad” of personality traits.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity… for the 312th time. Because today is the ONE-YEAR-ANNIVERSARY of the first episode of Curiosity Daily. More on that at the end of today’s episode!
NASA Has a New Planet-Hunting Telescope, and It Knows Where to Look for Life First — https://curiosity.im/2GgnDkf (Ashley)
NASA’s Planet-Hunting Telescope just got a few pointers on where to look for life first. I’m talking about the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS. And researchers just came out with a list of more than 18-hundred stars that could host habitable planets — stars that we might want to check out with TESS’ help. When astronomers say a planet is habitable, by the way, they mean it's a rocky world that orbits near its parent star in a region where liquid water could exist on the planet. If the planet is too close to the star, like on Mercury, then that water evaporates; if it's too far, then the water turns to ice. TESS launched about a year ago to search out habitable exoplanets — meaning, planets outside our solar system — that are close to Earth. A team of astronomers led by Cornell University astronomy professor Lisa Kaltenegger just published a TESS Habitable Zone Star Catalog that identifies those 18-hundred-plus stars that could host habitable worlds, and more than 400 of those stars could yield planets in just a brief search. Even better than that, about 10 percent of the stars on that full list are within the viewing range of the James Webb Space Telescope. That's a next-generation telescope that NASA hopes to send into space by 2021. Once it's in space, Webb can take pictures of some of the planets that are largest and closest to Earth, possibly giving us a glimpse of their atmospheres. But that might be more possible for gas giant planets (that are more like Jupiter) than the tiny planets that are more like Earth. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: there are PLENTY of stars to check out while we’re waiting for that telescope to launch in 2021. Plenty of reason to keep our eyes to the sky.
Most People Spend Their Time in Just 25 Places — https://curiosity.im/2GgLhgF (Cody)
Researchers have looked into the number of places where the average person spends their time, and this could have a lot of implications — for how cities are designed, how governments manage disease epidemics, and other structural puzzles. It could also impact how people think about their personal movements. In how many places do YOU regularly spend your time? According to research, most people spend their time in just 25 places. To come up with this number, researchers from the UK and Denmark followed the movements of 850 college students over two years. They used GPS and Wi-Fi data to find that while the students did visit plenty of new spots, they spent most of their time in roughly 25 places they returned to repeatedly. Researchers came to this same conclusion, by the way, after they scaled up the study to 40-thousand people from all around the world with all kinds of different lifestyles. Plenty of scientists have studied human mobility in the past, but historically, most studies looked at movements over the course of a day or a week. This is the first study to track mobility longer-term, over multiple years. Now, this doesn’t suggest that we don’t try new places or add them to our routines — because we do! All the time! But for every new pizza place we discover, an old stomping place gets abandoned. It’s almost like humans simply don’t have the mental bandwidth for much more than 25 places. Now aside from broader implications like how companies might design their offices to be conducive to creativity, here’s YOUR takeaway: if you can only be a regular in 25 places, then it’s worth choosing them carefully. After all, your environment can shape your behavior, your mindset, and your physical health. Be mindful, and remember: sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. And they’re always glad you came.
[FIRST ALERT]
ASHLEY: Today’s episode is sponsored by 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 cover that whole trio?
ASHLEY: First, meet 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 provides an immersive, great sound experience. The Safe and Sound elevates any home.
CODY: 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. The device is 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.
Put Your Best Qualities to the Test With the Light Triad Scale — https://curiosity.im/2GerY7t (Ashley)
We’ve told you about the “dark triad” of personality traits — you know: psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism. Well one team of scientists saw all the research going into the dark side, so they decided to figure out — you guessed it — the LIGHT Triad. And there’s a test you can take to figure out your score. For a study published last month, Scott Barry Kaufman and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center pointed out that there’s been way too much focus on the Dark Triad since it was first proposed in 2002, writing that, quote: "Too much focus on one aspect of human nature at the expense of the other misrepresents the full capacities of humanity," unquote. So they recruited more than 13-hundred online participants over three studies to take a ton of personality tests, including the Dark Triad, the Big Five, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Psychopathic Personality Inventory. We don’t have time to get into all of those, but we have links to learn more about each of them on Curiosity-dot-com. Once they had all that data, the researchers crunched the numbers and came up with a 12-item scale that was inspired by, but not directly opposite to, the Dark Triad scale. And finally, they came up with these three traits for the Light Triad: First, Kantianism. That’s treating people as ends unto themselves, not as a mere means to an end. This one is based on Immanuel Kant's second formulation of his categorical imperative. It’s a sensible (and kinda tongue-in-cheek) contrast to the 'Machiavellianism' part of the Dark Triad. Second: Humanism. As in, valuing the dignity and worth of each individual. And finally: Faith in Humanity, believing in the fundamental goodness of humans. You can measure your own levels of Kantianism, humanism, and faith in humanity with a test on Scott Barry Kaufman’s website, and the researchers hope this helps to balance the scientific view of human nature.
Read about today’s stories and more on curiosity-dot-com!
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!