Learn why the #NoMakeup movement actually drove more makeup sales; photosynthetic frogs; and why atoms don’t collapse. The #nomakeup movement is linked to a rise in makeup sales -- here's why by Steffie Drucker “Natural beauty” isn’t effortless (or free). (2021). Chicago Booth Review. https://review.chicagobooth.edu/marketing/2021/article/natural-beauty-isn-t-effortless-or-free Smith, R. K., Yazdani, E., Wang, P., Soleymani, S., & Ton, L. A. N. (2021). The cost of looking natural: Why the no-makeup movement may fail to discourage cosmetic use. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-021-00801-2 Jewel, A. (2020, November 10). Alicia Keys Is GLAMOUR UK’s Autumn/Winter 2020 Cover Star. Glamour UK; Glamour UK. https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/alicia-keys-glamour-uk-cover-2020 Shunatona, B. (2020, January 26). Why Doesn’t Alicia Keys Wear Makeup? Other Than, You Know, Because She CAN. Cosmopolitan; Cosmopolitan. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/beauty/a30519498/alicia-keys-no-makeup-look/ Scientists made photosynthetic frogs by Cameron Duke Incredible Creatures that Use Photosynthesis For Energy. (2014, March 9). Futurism; Futurism. https://futurism.com/photosynthetic-animals Olena, A. (2021, October 13). Scientists Use Photosynthesis to Power an Animal’s Brain. The Scientist Magazine®; The Scientist Magazine. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/scientists-use-photosynthesis-to-power-an-animal-s-brain-69307 Özugur, S., Chávez, M. N., Sanchez-Gonzalez, R., Kunz, L., Nickelsen, J., & Straka, H. (2021). Green oxygen power plants in the brain rescue neuronal activity. IScience, 24(10), 103158. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.103158 Why don't atoms collapse by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Joseph in Denver, Colorado) Fermilab | Science | Inquiring Minds | Questions About Physics. (2012). Fnal.gov. https://www.fnal.gov/pub/science/inquiring/questions/bob.html Baird, C. (2013). Why don’t electrons in the atom enter the nucleus? Science Questions with Surprising Answers. https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/08/08/why-dont-electrons-in-the-atom-enter-the-nucleus/ Ethan. (2011, October 5). Music theory and quantum mechanics. The Ethan Hein Blog. http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2011/music-theory-and-quantum-mechanics/ Nicholas McKay Parry. (2021). Electron capture | Radiology Reference Article | Radiopaedia.org. Radiopaedia.org. https://radiopaedia.org/articles/electron-capture?lang=us#:~:text=Electron%20capture%20is%20the%20radioactive,neutrino%20(ve)%201. Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Learn why the #NoMakeup movement actually drove more makeup sales; photosynthetic frogs; and why atoms don’t collapse.
The #nomakeup movement is linked to a rise in makeup sales -- here's why by Steffie Drucker
Scientists made photosynthetic frogs by Cameron Duke
Why don't atoms collapse by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Joseph in Denver, Colorado)
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/nomakeup-fail-photosynthetic-frogs-why-atoms-dont-collapse
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about why the hashtag-no-makeup movement is actually leading to more makeup sales; and why scientists made photosynthetic frogs. We’ll also answer a listener question about why atoms don’t collapse.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
They say beauty is only skin deep. Well, a new study found that the same is true of the #nomakeup movement, which encouraged women to reject cosmetics and embrace their “natural beauty.” Instead, it kinda did the opposite.
If you’re not familiar, the #nomakeup campaign began in 2009 but rose to a fever pitch in 2016. That was when Alicia Keys declared she’d be going makeup free. At the time she said she didn’t want to “cover up” anymore, and last year she told Glamour UK she’d become “addicted to” makeup.
But Keys’ revolution isn’t quite what it seems. Her makeup artist admitted to enhancing her freckles with product and even applying individual false lashes to fill in her brows. That’s a lot of work for a look that’s supposed to be effortless.
And according to research, it’s effort — or lack thereof — that colors how people judge a person’s beauty. Scientists from the University of Georgia confirmed this by having 633 participants judge the attractiveness of a woman’s selfie. The photo stayed the same across conditions, but the caption changed. One group saw a caption in which she said she was wearing makeup, and another group saw a caption stating she wasn’t. A control group saw a caption simply stating it was a midweek selfie. The photo with the makeup-free caption was the winner. That suggests that our perception of how much effort a woman puts into her appearance influences how attractive we judge her to be.
And Instagram users know it. Scientists used imaging techniques to detected a swath of selfies with the hashtag “nomakeup” whose subjects were, in fact, wearing makeup. These images got more likes and were deemed more attractive by a machine learning model.
With all this, it’s no wonder that the #nomakeup movement didn’t exactly lead people to use less makeup. Researchers figured this out by collecting every tweet using the hashtag from the movement’s 2009 birth through 2016. They compared those to weekly facial cosmetics sales data over the same period. Turns out that cosmetic sales surged as the #nomakeup movement gained steam.
The team says the movement seems to have changed how women used makeup rather than emboldening them to give it up. Instead of creating clearly made-up looks, consumers sought out low-key concealers, mascaras, and other products that helped them appear au naturel.
Whether you get a boost from a full face of makeup or COVID-19 has killed your cosmetics effort, know that the movement to stop using makeup isn’t entirely genuine. In the end, just do what makes you feel your best! After all, that’s when true beauty shines through.
Everyone knows that animals get energy from eating food and plants get energy from the sun through photosynthesis. It’d be pretty cool if animals could get energy from the sun, too, though, right? Sure it would be! And a team of scientists in Germany just did something pretty cool: they made photosynthetic… frogs.
Well, tadpoles, specifically. The tadpoles were a bunch of baby African clawed frogs, which you might remember from our episode about frogs being one of the earliest forms of pregnancy testing. In the experiment, right after the tadpoles sprouted limbs, researchers injected the animals with microbes that rely on photosynthesis: either green algae or blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria. The microbes were carried throughout their bodies, and they actually turned the slightly transparent animals to a leafy green.
Then things got a little...uncomfortable. After the scientists injected the tadpoles with photosynthetic organisms, they turned off the lights and slowly removed oxygen from the tadpoles’ water tanks. As the tadpoles became more and more oxygen deprived, they began to pass out and their brain activity screeched to a halt. I know this all sounds mean, but wait until you hear the next part. I promise it gets better.
The scientists then shined a bright light into the water. And wouldn’t you know it? The tadpoles hopped back to life. The microbes they had been injected with started producing oxygen with photosynthesis, and that oxygen jump-started the tadpoles’ brain activity. They were powered entirely by their new photosynthetic endosymbiont friends.
If this sounds unnatural, keep in mind that this concept mirrors what we see in nature. While no animal has truly evolved photosynthesis, there are animals that have managed to steal it. We told you a while ago about sea slugs called nudibranchs that steal photosynthesizing algae, and corals are full of the stuff too. Even cooler, spotted salamanders contain algae in their embryonic stage. That makes them the only known vertebrate to steal photosynthesis, at least for one life stage.
The researchers believe this finding could potentially lead to clinical treatments in cases where the brain is deprived of oxygen. But it’s worth noting that what’s true for tadpoles and salamanders very likely won’t hold up for humans, since we are much larger and a lot less transparent.
For now, it’s just a bright idea.
We got a listener question from Joseph in Denver, Colorado who writes, “If protons and electrons are attracted to each other, why do atoms not collapse?” Great question, Joseph!
It makes perfect sense to imagine that negatively charged electrons whizzing around a nucleus of positively charged protons would end badly — I mean, when you have the negatively charged end of a magnet near the positively charged end of another magnet, the two tend to collide. But atoms don’t follow the classical rules of physics that govern the normal-sized stuff we’re used to. In fact, if they did, our entire physical reality would be different.
Because here’s the thing. If you imagine that electrons orbit the atomic nucleus the way that planets orbit the sun — that’s a perfect example of classical physics in action — the electrons would absolutely crash into the nucleus. That’s because if a charged object, like an electron, moves with a changing velocity the way it would if it orbited in a circular path, classical physics says that the charged object has to radiate energy. That means losing energy, and that means it would eventually crash into the nucleus. Luckily, subatomic particles don’t follow the rules of classical physics. They follow the rules of quantum physics.
And in quantum physics, the rules are a little less intuitive. First of all, electrons don’t actually orbit the nucleus at all. Instead, they exist in a sort of probability cloud, where their probability of being in certain locations is higher than their probability of being in other locations but they’re not really localized to any set location. Second, these electrons can only exist at certain energy levels, spots where they don’t lose or gain energy. They can jump to different energy levels, but that requires them to either absorb or emit a certain quantity of energy — and in normal circumstances, they’re just not gonna. That’s why they don’t collapse into the nucleus. They’re comfortable where they are.
Now, in extreme cases, like when atoms are unstable because they have too many protons, electrons can be absorbed by a proton in the nucleus. That turns the proton into a neutron and leaves a neutrino behind. This is called electron capture, and it’s a type of radioactive decay. It’s a good thing this doesn’t happen with every atom, because it would mean all matter would eventually collapse.
Thanks for your question, Joseph! If you have a question, send it in to curiosity at discovery dot com or leave us a voicemail at 312-596-5208.
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll hear next week on Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Next week, you’ll learn about why you don’t lose the most heat through your head;
How researchers study “mystical experiences” — and why they want to in the first place;
Why Venus has probably never had oceans;
The mystery of why one specific Mozart sonata can reduce epilepsy seizures;
Why you act irrationally when your freedom is threatened;
And more! Okay, so now, let’s recap what we learned today.
[ad lib optional]
ASHLEY: Today’s writers were Steffie Drucker and Cameron Duke.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also a writer on today’s episode.
ASHLEY: Our producer and audio editor is Cody Gough.
CODY: Have a great weekend! [AD LIB SOMETHING FUNNY] Then, join us again Monday to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!