Today, you’ll learn about how orangutans use slang a lot like we do, what causes and can alleviate everyday motion sickness, and how one black hole kicked another across the galaxy.
Today, you’ll learn about how orangutans use slang a lot like we do, what causes and can alleviate everyday motion sickness, and how one black hole kicked another across the galaxy.
Orangutans are dope.
A solution beyond not looking at your phone.
Soccer but with black holes.
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Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/orangu-slang-easing-car-queasing-kicked-across-space
TITLE:
ORANGU-SLANG, EASING CAR QUEASING, KICKED ACROSS SPACE
NATE: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. Time flies when you’re learnin’ super cool stuff. I’m Nate.
CALLI: And I’m Calli. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today, you’ll learn about how orangutans use slang a lot like we do, what causes and can alleviate everyday motion sickness, and how one black hole kicked another across the galaxy.
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: Whoosh/Intro Music]
NATE: Calli, you want to hear about something (clunky on purpose:) particularly dope?
CALLI: Was it something super cool?
NATE: It’s all about how orangutans use their own slang to communicate with each other.
CALLI: The way humans do? That’s fresh.
NATE: Not using our language, but pretty similar! Orangutans have over five thousand “kiss-squeaks”.
CALLI: I don’t think I’ve heard that slang term before. And honestly, I’m afraid what I’ll find if I look it up...
NATE: No, no, no. They’re basically consonants. You know, like, calls the apes make to each other ... to communicate. We used to think that these kinds of sounds were all part of the orangutan language. But a new study found the sounds are constantly evolving among different communities of orangutans.
CALLI: Like how there’s a hot new word I have to keep up with every year? Are we still saying things are “lit”?
NATE: You’re asking the wrong guy. I still say booyah, and that things are “da bomb.” But, something different between ape slang and human slang ... We typically assign new meanings to words. Orangutans will vary the pitch and duration of previously-used calls.
CALLI: Sick.
NATE: Tight, even! In some cases the apes would send the same message with different variations and signals.
CALLI: Kind of like the way we use different words to describe the same thing.
NATE: Right. It’s like saying “car” as well as “automobile” or “vehicle”.
CALLI: Or whip.
NATE: I guess! Again: wrong guy.
CALLI: How often would orangutans come up with new slang sounds?
NATE: That depends on the population of the ape community. The lower density groups had a pretty consistent vocabulary of slang words that they’d often re-use. Once a new call was developed and used, it would often stick in the rotation.
CALLI: Like how “cool” has been a staple forever.
NATE: Bingo! Anyway, in the higher density communities new slang was introduced constantly. Apparently, sometimes, the orangutans were doing it to show off their coolness, and be rebellious. Just like humans!
CALLI: I’m gonna have to learn some of these calls so I can hang with the cool crowd.
NATE: Different communities even came up with the same variations of calls even though the scientists didn’t see the communities interacting with one another.
CALLI: Interesting. Okay, so if the way their slang develops is fairly similar to humans, what does that say about their language as a whole?
NATE: Well, there’s mounting evidence that they actually do have language! The consonant and vowel-like sounds of the great apes languages can not only be individually changed for effect, but also combined in syllable-like “words” that can be used to clue other apes in on past events.
CALLI: That sounds really close to human language.
NATE: So much so that scientists have identified orangutans as a model species for us to study in the effort to better understand the origins of our own languages.
CALLI: I knew the great apes were real homies.
NATE: Day-one homies, for real.
CALLI: Okay, that was pretty good.
NATE: It was an accident. This research could also help us branch together information we already know about the relationship between physical gestures in language shown in both great apes and humans.
CALLI: Haven’t apes shown the ability to learn human words as well?
NATE: Yes and no. Apes are able to learn words in the sense that they can associate a symbol or sound to a specific item. But this is as far as it goes. And it’s proven pretty hard for scientists to study the brains of apes to better understand how they perceive communication and language.
CALLI: What makes it so difficult?
NATE: With humans they’re able to give them a language task and monitor their brain activity with an MRI scanner. Which is pretty much impossible with apes.
CALLI: Right. That would be one biiig MRI scanner.
NATE: A “phat” one. P.H.A.T.
CALLI: Okay that’s definitely a word I’m glad we don’t use anymore. Also, I don’t think you are using it right.
NATE: Even if we had big ol’ scanners, it’s unlikely an ape would be chill while hooked into one. Plus, most studies are done on chimpanzees in the zoo, and unfortunately their vocabularies are very limited compared to their wild counterparts.
CALLI: Their “wild” counterparts. I see what you did there.
NATE: No I meant that quite literally.
CALLI: Weak sauce.
NATE: I’m getting lost in the orangutan slang AND ours.
CALLI: That’s okay. Some of us just aren’t gucci enough to keep up.
NATE: Do you even know what that means?
CALLI: Not one bit.
[SFX: Whoosh]
CALLI: Do you have any road trips planned this summer Nate?
NATE: Yeah, I’m hoping to get to a few National Parks, I just love the great outdoors.
CALLI: Oh same, and when it’s not your turn to drive, it's such a good opportunity to play a few video games to pass the hours.
NATE: Oh man, no way, I can’t do that. I get nasty motion sickness.
CALLI: Oh no!
NATE: Yeah, it’s pretty common. One in three people suffer from motion sickness.
CALLI: I was just learning about this. You might experience dizziness, lightheadedness, nausea, or even vomiting. Thankfully, research is giving us a better idea of where it comes from, and how we can fight it.
NATE: Oh that would be fantastic, I’d love to play Zelda in the car, or just be able to read!
CALLI: Well let’s see what’s possible, but first let's talk about what's making you feel so ill.
NATE: It feels counterintuitive to call it motion sickness, because, for me, it most often happens in the car, where I’m not really moving much at all.
CALLI: That actually could be part of the issue. The most popular theory of why people get motion sickness is the Sensory Conflict Theory.
NATE: Sensory conflict? Like when you’re sitting at the beach in between two groups playing different music out of their boomboxes?
CALLI: Ha, sort of. It's an issue when there is an imbalance in, well, your balance. Balance depends on multiple senses: sight, feeling, and information from our inner ear. The issue comes when they don’t match.
NATE: How would that happen if they are all reacting to the same inputs?
CALLI: Well they are, but they also aren’t. Imagine you are sitting in a car. It feels like you’re sitting still, but your eyes tell you you are moving, and moving a lot. When you add in a little winding road or pot hole, the problem gets worse.
NATE: Now I see it! Sensory conflict!
CALLI: Yes. There are other theories, too. Like the Controlling Posture Theory. That theory is about how maybe car sickness is caused by a person’s inability to adjust positions, or change posture while we’re moving, but there is less proof for this theory.
NATE: I hate to ask the age old question, but why me? Plenty of people I know don’t deal with this.
CALLI: Well, there is no single reason why motion sickness affects one person and not another, but let’s look at the possible factors. For instance, how good is your vision and balance?
NATE: Solid. Why...?
CALLI: People with worse eyesight and balance often suffer more motion sickness. Same, if you’ve got migraines or meniere's disease, which affects the inner ear.
NATE: I can usually grit through thirty minutes or so, but after a few hours…I’m in real trouble.
CALLI: Length of trip is a big factor, as is the amount of motion. A long trip on rough seas is going to make you feel a lot worse than a short train ride on smooth rails.
NATE: And yet, even on rough roads, I have no problem as the driver.
CALLI: Researchers think that's because you are better able to anticipate, and thus counteract, the motion. You know you’re going to turn, so your body can prepare and reduce that sensory conflict.
NATE: Maybe I should tell my passengers what turns I’m making before I make them, like a rally car driver.
CALLI: I wouldn’t complain if you tried, but researchers say your best bet is to try to reduce the mismatch. Look out the window, focus on your passing landscape and stop frequently to give yourself a chance to reset. Help your stomach by avoiding big meals, and if it comes to it, take anti motion-sickness meds. These meds reduce activity in the physical balance center of your brain, or slow down signals from your brain to your gut that can cause you to feel nauseated.
NATE: I'll take whatever tips I can get, even if it means I still can’t dive into Zelda on the ol’ vacay road trip.
CALLI: Speaking of Zelda, with the increase in VR and 3D movies, many people report feeling queasy using these things, because their eyes take in a lot of motion but their bodies feel stationary.
NATE: Well maybe we just need to shake the people around a bit.
CALLI: Researchers found that was actually the perfect solution, if you can mix in a bit of matching physical motion with the virtual visual motion, participants got much more comfortable.
NATE: Does that mean it’d help if I start tossing myself around the backseat of a car on long drives?
CALLI: For now, why don’t we stick with looking out the window?
NATE: Fine.
[SFX: Whoosh]
NATE: Calli, what's the only thing more impressive than a black hole?
CALLI: Oh boy, I don’t know, light itself?
NATE: I’m sorry, that’s wrong, the answer we were looking for is…two black holes.
CALLI: Oh that's such a phony answer!
NATE: Okay, fair, but it is relevant to this story. What if I told you that researchers saw two black holes uniting into one?
CALLI: I’d say that is very cool!
NATE: And I’d agree, but that’s not all. The process flung one of the black holes away at millions of miles an hour.
CALLI: I didn’t expect that. But can we back up a second? I thought we couldn’t see black holes, because even light can’t escape their gravitational pull.
NATE: You can’t see black holes themselves, but you can see their silhouettes. The first image of a black hole was developed in 2019 by a team of international scientists. Bringing together telescope arrays from around the world, and calibrating them to work together as one, they created a much larger virtual telescope that was able to observe the silhouette of the black hole against the backdrop of glowing gas being pulled into it.
CALLI: Wow.
NATE: No kidding! Plus, scientists don’t just look at visible light to predict the locations of astronomical events and objects. They track invisible light of all kinds, use models of how gravity can bend light ... all sorts of things go into their complex calculations and predictive computer models.
CALLI: Got it, got it. Okay, so they “saw” two black holes, one of which got flung across the galaxy. How did that happen?
NATE: So to start, think of two black holes orbiting one another. When they turn and turn around one another, they actually start to wobble a bit.
CALLI: Wobble, like a top?
NATE: Exactly like a top. This is especially true if one is slightly bigger than the other. As they spiral in toward each other, slowly becoming one, they emit gravitational waves.
CALLI: Gravitational waves?
NATE: Yes! Like ripples in spacetime that stretch and squeeze space itself.
CALLI: I didn’t know that spacetime could ripple.
NATE: Yes! Gravitational waves were first discovered in 2016, though Einstein predicted they were possible a hundred years before! They happen only in very particular circumstances...
CALLI: Like two black holes spinning around each other?
NATE: Yep! And these disruptions of space itself get shot out at the speed of light.
CALLI: Wouldn’t that take a lot of energy? Moving that much, well, everything?
NATE: Absolutely. These ripples carry energy with them away from the orbiting black holes. And when that happens, the orbit shrinks.
CALLI: So energy is flying away rippling space time, and the two black holes get closer and closer?
NATE: That’s what scientists have observed from two gravitational wave observatories, LIGO in the US, and Virgo, in Italy.
CALLI: Gravitational wave observatories?
NATE: Yes. LIGO and Virgo are both interferometers, the tools used to detect this stretching and squeezing of spacetime. In the case of LIGO and Virgo, they are massive L-shaped structures, several kilometers across. As a gravitational wave passes through an interferometer like these, it squeezes one leg of the L and stretches the other. The observatories are designed to detect these changes. Back in early 2020, LIGO and Virgo observed the spacetime ripples that are evidence of these two black holes orbiting each other and getting closer. And they knew from that, that they might be able to witness something they’d only ever theorized before. “The kick.”
CALLI: The Kick?
NATE: Yes. As these blackholes spiral closer together, the difference in size and other factors causing that asymmetry means the gravitational waves will eventually line up. And all that force going in one direction needs...
CALLI: It needs an equal and opposite reaction.
NATE: Yes!
CALLI: So, what happens then?
NATE: Well, in theory, the smaller black hole gets kicked out at crazy speeds away from the larger one. And, it turns out that theory was correct. Researchers saw exactly what was predicted. The gravitational waves lined up, and the lesser blackhole was shot way out into the galaxy ... at around 3 million miles per hour.
CALLI: Oh that is fast! That’s like….what? One-two-hundredth the speed of light? And for something so big! But how can we track that speed?
NATE: Well, it’s not easy. Scientists took data from the observatories and compared that with predictions from other black hole mergers. They had to run computer simulations to get a clear image. Even still, there are a lot of questions.
CALLI: Like what?
NATE: Well, you’d have to think it’d be less likely for them to combine often if they are kicked away at high speeds once they get close to one another. So, if they partially combine and then separate with a kick, can they recombine later with other black holes? How does this combination and kick play into the creation of even more massive black holes?
CALLI: Right, yeah. It’s not so simple as two black holes get close and pull each other in. There’s a lot more going on there.
NATE: And this is the first time anybody’s ever seen this happen, remember, so we’re just at the beginning of truly understanding all that’s going on there.
CALLI: One more piece of the supermassive puzzle.
[SFX: Whoosh]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up.
CALLI: New research shows certain primate groups are creating their own cool versions of slang in their communication systems. A discovery that could help us track the early developments of human language. Finally answering the question - how gucci were the caveman cribs.
NATE: Research is helping us better understand why motion sickness happens, and how we can counteract it. If you’re one of the more than thirty percent of people who get motion sickness, we offered some ways to make yourself more comfortable while on the move.
CALLI: Researchers found evidence of two black holes orbiting one another, but as their orbits aligned, an impressive cosmic event happened. One of the black holes was kicked across the cosmos at millions of miles an hour.