Learn about how to avoid getting dragged down by “Sludge”; how hybrid fruit like plumcots are made; and pirate parlance. Additional resources from Richard Thaler: Pick up "Nudge: The Final Edition" at your local bookstore: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143137009 Faculty page: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/faculty/directory/t/richard-h-thaler Twitter: https://twitter.com/r_thaler Nobel Prize page: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2017/thaler/facts/ How plumcots are made by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Carmelita in Newton, Massachusetts) Pollination and fertilisation. (2012). Science Learning Hub; Science Learning Hub. https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/77-pollination-and-fertilisation Siegel, E. (2015, July 12). Are Pluots GMOs? And Other Questions About Hybrid Stone Fruit. Bostonorganics.com; Boston Organics. http://blog.bostonorganics.com/are-pluots-gmos-and-other-questions-about-hybrid-stone-fruit Slate, S. (2010, January 22). The Secrets of Hybrid Fruit. The Daily Beast; The Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-secrets-of-hybrid-fruit Harbarger, M. (2016, October 3). Here’s how your vegetables are made. Oregonlive. https://www.oregonlive.com/food/2016/10/heres_how_your_vegetables_are.html Pluots And Apriums: The Best Of Both Parents. (2009, July). NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106098949 Demystifying Pluots, Apriums and Other Stone Fruit Hybrids. (2019). ANR Blogs. https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=30722 Apricot pronunciation tweet: https://twitter.com/smashleyhamer/status/1432806938534989835 Difference between pirates, privateers, corsairs, buccaneers by Steffie Drucker Pirates, Privateers, Corsairs, Buccaneers: What’s the Difference? | Britannica. (2021). In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/story/pirates-privateers-corsairs-buccaneers-whats-the-difference Whitenton, B. (2012, September 20). The Difference Between Pirates, Privateers and Buccaneers Pt. 1. Mariners’ Blog. https://blog.marinersmuseum.org/2012/09/the-difference-between-pirates-privateers-and-buccaneers-pt-1/ Whitenton, B. (2012, October 4). The Difference Between Pirates, Privateers and Buccaneers Pt. 2. Mariners’ Blog. https://blog.marinersmuseum.org/2012/10/the-difference-between-pirates-privateers-and-buccaneers-pt-2/ The Golden Age of Piracy. (2021). Rmg.co.uk. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/golden-age-piracy International Talk Like a Pirate Day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody 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 about how to avoid getting dragged down by “Sludge”; how hybrid fruit like plumcots are made; and pirate parlance.
Additional resources from Richard Thaler:
How plumcots are made by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Carmelita in Newton, Massachusetts)
Difference between pirates, privateers, corsairs, buccaneers by Steffie Drucker
International Talk Like a Pirate Day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day
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/nudge-theorys-dark-side-w-richard-thaler-hybrid-fruit-science-words-for-pirate
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about the darker side of Nudge theory, with Nobel Prize winning economist Richard Thaler. We’ll also answer a listener question about how hybrid fruits like plumcots are made; and you’ll learn the difference between pirates, privateers, corsairs, buccaneers.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Nobel-Prize-winning economist Richard Thaler and his co-author Cass Sunstein have just released a new edition of their mega-bestseller about behavioral economics, called "Nudge: The Final Edition." Yesterday, Richard Thaler told us about how "nudge theory" has changed the world since the book came out in 2008. Today, he's going to tell us about the dark side of nudge theory, which he calls "sludge."
[CLIP 3:10]
Taxes are never fun, but they're certainly easier in some countries than others. Again, that was Richard Thaler, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics and co-author of the new book "Nudge: The Final Edition." You can find a link to pick it up in the show notes.
We got a listener question from Carmelita in Newton, Massachusetts who writes “Hi! I’m 8 years old and I want to know how fruits like plumcots are made. How do they join two fruits together?” Love this question, Carmelita! [CODY: What’s a plumcot?]
To understand how fruit breeders create hybrids — that’s what you call crossbred fruits like plumcots — you first need to understand how plants create fruit in the first place. First, those plants produce flowers full of pollen, which gets spread from one flower to another. When that pollen lands in another flower, the two combine their DNA to produce a fertilized seed in the flower’s ovary. That ovary grows to be the fruit we eat — a fruit that’s full of seeds that can produce more plants to continue the cycle.
Hundreds of years ago, humans started to figure out that they could tweak this process to produce entirely new fruits. Plant breeders would start by growing two different but related types of fruiting plants in a greenhouse — say, a plum tree and an apricot tree. Then they’d take pollen from one plant and put it in the other. The fruit that resulted would combine the DNA from both plants, and it would have a mix of traits from both fruits.
But a lot of different things can happen when you combine the same DNA — I mean, just think about how different two puppies from the same litter can look. In the same way, hybrid fruits from the same plant varieties can look and taste very different. So plant breeders don’t stop there. They repeat this fertilization process with a bunch of different plants, then they take the fruits they like the best and plant their seeds. Those plants might be pollinated the normal way, or crossed again with a different plant until they produce the exact fruit the breeders want.
That’s how plumcots are made. A famous botanist named Luther Burbank crossed a plum tree with an apricot tree to produce fruits that were 50 percent plum and 50 percent apricot. Later, a botanist named Floyd Zaiger who had learned from Burbank’s methods created the “pluot,” which is three fifths plum and two fifths apricot, just like the letters in its name. There’s also the aprium, which is 70 percent apricot and 30 percent plum. And there are endless others. Some fruits you may not even realize are hybrids: Like, boysenberries are a hybrid of blackberry and raspberry, Meyer lemons are a hybrid of lemon and Mandarin orange, and grapefruits are an accidental hybrid of orange and pomelo. Tweaking what nature does already can have some very tasty results. Thanks for your question, Carmelita! If you have a question, send it in to curiosity at discovery dot com, or leave us a voicemail at 312-596-5208.
ARRRR, this Sunday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, maties! And in hon-arrrr of this hilarious holiday, we’re natterin’ about all the different salty dogs to sail the high seas. Ok, ok, but seriously. Today we’re answering the eternal pirate question: what’s the difference between a pirate, a buccaneer, a corsair, and a privateer? Let’s get to the briney deep of it!
Pirate is the most general and all encompassing. It refers to anyone committing crimes on the high seas. It comes from the Greek word peiratēs [PAY-rah-tez], which just means “brigand,” or a sort of old-timey gang member. Pirates have patrolled the oceans since ancient times, and still do today. But piracy’s prime was from 1650-1730, when more than 5,000 pirates were said to be at sea.
Pirates were generally unsavory people, but privateers had slightly better pedigree. These were basically government-sanctioned pirates. They had written orders from their monarch to raid enemy ships, though they owned their own boats and hired their own crew. Privateers split their spoils with their government. Countries usually commissioned privateers in wartime to boost their naval strength. But this backfired: Some men skipped out on military service because privateering was more profitable.
Corsairs were like privateers with a more religious mission. From medieval times to the early 1800s, the Muslim Ottoman Empire battled it out with Christian European nations over who would rule the Mediterranean Sea. Both sides used both regular navies and government-backed pirates called corsairs. But just because they had official papers doesn’t mean everything they did was above board. Sometimes they’d go beyond their commissions and conduct extracurricular raids. The line between pirating and privateering was blurry.
The Buccaneers were another location-specific group of pirates. You probably know them as the pirates of the Caribbean. Their home base was the island of Hispaniola, where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are now. Buccaneers primarily hunted wild game on the island, which describes the origin for their name: it’s derived from the French word “boucan” [boo-KON], which was a type of grill used to smoke meat. The main enemy of the buccaneers was Spain, which controlled Hispaniola until 1665. The government tried to rid the island of pirates by killing off the game animals. But it only gave the buccaneers more land to control and made them more dependent on plundering Spanish ships.
So thar ye ‘ave it. Now ye scallywags’d better use the right words when yer natterin’ like us swashbucklers… or we’ll send ye to Davy Jones’ Locker!
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 a writing trick that could help you keep the peace in your relationships;
How scientists saw behind a black hole for the first time;
The mystery of how Tibetan monks continue to meditate after they die;
A new type of matter called time crystals, which researchers may have actually created;
Why a lack of sleep really does make you eat more;
And more! Okay, so now, let’s recap what we learned today.
[ad lib optional]
ASHLEY: The writer for today’s last story was Steffie Drucker.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also a writer and audio editor on today’s episode.
ASHLEY: Our producer and lead 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!