In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Your DNA Could Determine How Easily You're Fooled By Placebos What's the Emergency Fund Plan for You? For more budgeting guidance, check out "The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness" by Dave Ramsey. Our Favorite Ongoing Science Debates 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.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
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.
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/ongoing-science-debates-emergency-fund-planning-and-placebo-dna
CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about our favorite ongoing science debates, tips for planning for an emergency, and the science behind how your DNA could determine how easily you're fooled by placebos.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy from curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody, do you know what a placebo is?
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, it's like a fake drug.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, like a sugar pill kind of thing.
CODY GOUGH: And researchers will give it to make sure that you're not just thinking-- I don't know how to-- this is really hard to explain.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, no, totally.
CODY GOUGH: I know exactly what it is.
ASHLEY HAMER: You're on the right track.
CODY GOUGH: I have no idea how to actually say what it is.
ASHLEY HAMER: Totally. Well, you have the main gist of it, that it doesn't do anything. It's a fake drug. But it actually does something, that's the crazy thing. They're specifically used as the sham treatment to rate how effective a drug or a therapy is. So if patients respond just as much to the placebo as they do to the drug, that usually means the drug doesn't work, right. But not always, that's the crazy thing.
Placebos can create real biological effects, mostly thanks to your own expectations. One great example of this comes from the 1980s when neuroscientist Jon Levine did a study on a bunch of people who had just had an operation. So, you know, they were in a lot of pain. He gave half of them a secret dose of morphine, which is a powerful painkiller. And the other half, an out in the open injection of something described as a powerful painkiller, but it was actually just regular saline solution.
Both groups reported the same amount of pain relief. Wild, right? The people who expected to feel better from the so-called powerful painkiller actually did. So why is this? Well, in 2001, Italian researchers did a similar study. But this time, they gave some of the placebo groups a shot of naloxone. Naloxone blocks your body's opioid receptors. It's most often used to reverse heroin overdoses.
When that placebo group got an open injection of fake painkiller and a hidden injection of naloxone, they still felt just as much pain as the people who didn't think they had gotten any painkiller at all. The placebo effect was making the patients bodies produce opioid painkillers all on their own. And when those opioid receptors were cut off, the pain relief stopped too.
CODY GOUGH: Wow.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. But here's the thing. Some people experience the placebo effect much more powerfully than others. And when your placebo is supposed to level the playing field in your study, that causes some problems. But in 2012, scientists started discovering what might be responsible for those differences, genetics. Harvard researchers found that differences in the COMT gene which controls dopamine levels predicted differences in the placebo effect. Since then, other researchers have found a whole network of genes that play a role in the placebo effect. This is huge.
An unpredictable placebo response has been thwarting a lot of painkiller trials in recent years. And if researchers could design their trials around these specific genes, they might be able to demonstrate bigger effects with fewer participants and less money. Also, it might explain why some people swear by every fad treatment under the sun, while others can't seem to get relief wherever they look.
CODY GOUGH: That's wild.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Your body and your brain is more mysterious than you could ever imagine. It's amazing.
CODY GOUGH: That's so cool. All right, Ashley, do you have an emergency fund?
ASHLEY HAMER: I have some money stashed away, yeah, yeah.
CODY GOUGH: In Bitcoin, right.
ASHLEY HAMER: Sure, in Bitcoin.
CODY GOUGH: JK. Well, it's important to have your finances in order. So today, in Curiosity, we wrote about some options for planning an emergency fund. And before we get into this, please note that this story is for educational and informational purposes only. And we are not providing specific advice or recommendations for any individual. This podcast should not be considered professional financial advice. Got it? Great.
So let's talk about emergency funds. An emergency fund is a bunch of money that you can count on in case something comes up. Like you need a car repair, you have an unexpected medical bill, or you lose your job. So let's talk details. The most popular version sets aside a full 3 to 6 months worth of cash, which is how much you might need if you suddenly find yourself on the job market, right. Like, it takes a while to find a job.
But not everybody agrees. Financial expert Suze Orman says that you should have at least eight months saved up. But then, other experts argue that if your emergency fund is too big, and it's just sitting in your savings account, then you're missing an opportunity to make your money work for you, like investing it in the stock market or something that will pay you returns and dividends. It's important to keep putting money in your 401k, while you're also building up your emergency fund.
But context matters. So, like, if you're in a single income household, then it might make more sense to play it safe with eight months of money than if you have more than one person bringing in money. Anyway, you can read more tips on Curiosity.com. But if you don't know where to start, then here's a tip for starting an emergency fund. Try the 50, 30, 20 rule for planning your budget.
That's when you do this with your net income. Allot 50% to your needs like rent or mortgage, groceries, bills, car payments, all your regular expenses, the stuff you have to spend money on, the needs. Then, allot 30% to wants like going out to eat, movie tickets, nice bottle of wine, some video games, stuff like that. And then, put the remaining 20% into savings and investments.
For more ideas for planning your budget, specifically, check out a book called "The Total Money Makeover Classic Edition, a Proven Plan for Financial Fitness" by Dave Ramsey. We'll put a link in the show notes. And if you choose to make a purchase through that link, then Curiosity will get a share of the sale.
ASHLEY HAMER: So it turns out that science doesn't always have all the answers. Isn't that surprising?
CODY GOUGH: Shocking.
ASHLEY HAMER: Shocking. So we're going to talk about some of our favorite scientific ambiguities, flip-flops, and raging debates that we wrote about today on Curiosity.com.
CODY GOUGH: Yes, I love this article. We wrote about five debates today. But my favorite one is about death, which sounds weird. But I found it interesting that there is no scientific consensus on the definition of death. According to the DBC, biologically speaking, there never has been a single moment of death because your tissues die one at a time basically.
So are you dead when your heart stops beating and your lungs stop working or when both are in such bad shape that even medical technology can't keep you alive? Or what about people who are completely brain-dead but whose organs still function? Robert Veitch from the Kennedy Institute of Ethics said, quote, "Choosing a definition of death is essentially a religious or philosophical question." end quote.
ASHLEY HAMER: Another thing scientists can't really agree on, is Pluto a planet? We all learned in elementary school, I think, that it was the ninth planet. But in 2005, scientists said, nope, it's not. And then, just this month, a pair of astronomers wrote in the Washington Post that we should revisit the controversial change. That's because under its new definition, a planet must have, quote, "cleared its neighborhood" meaning it must have either deflected or accumulated all of the space debris in its orbit.
Pluto fails on that end, but so did the Earth for the first 500 million years of its existence. So was Earth not a planet either? The Pluto debate is far from over. Read all about these debates and more today on Curiosity.com or on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS.
CODY GOUGH: We'll be back again tomorrow. But mark your calendars. Starting this Sunday, Ashley and I will start hosting a special Sunday edition of the Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Also, we got a question from a listener about our new podcast. Julianne asked if we still plan on doing extra credit questions on our podcast. And the answer is yes.
CODY GOUGH: If you're not a longtime listener of our longer weekly episodes, the extra credit question is when Ashley wraps up our episode with a listener question. We may change the name of the segment. So email us your suggestions if you think we should have a cool new name for our Sunday fun fact, trivia, listener question daily Bob-thing.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Which was my original name.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think it really doesn't roll off the tongue.
CODY GOUGH: So much. So one more time, send any question you have about anything at all you're curious about to podcast@curiosity.com. You can also send us your suggestions for that segment title. Thanks for the question, Julianne, we appreciate it.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again tomorrow and Sunday to learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Cough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
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