Learn about the perception-adoption model, which says that most parents don’t pass their political ideology to their kids; how researchers found the source of peanut allergies in the human gut; and Olbers’ Paradox, which asks why the night sky is so dark if stars are so bright.
Learn about the perception-adoption model, which says that most parents don’t pass their political ideology to their kids; how researchers found the source of peanut allergies in the human gut; and Olbers’ Paradox, which asks why the night sky is so dark if stars are so bright.
Most parents don't successfully transmit their political ideology to their kids by Kelsey Donk
Researchers find source of peanut allergies in the human gut by Grant Currin
Olbers' Paradox Asks Why the Night Sky Isn't Blazing With Light by Trevor English
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/parents-rarely-pass-their-politics-to-their-kids-source-of-peanut-allergies-found-in-the-gut-and-why-stars-dont-make-the-night-sky-bright
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 why most parents don’t pass their political ideology to their kids; how researchers found the source of peanut allergies in the human gut; and a paradox that asks why the night sky is so dark if stars are so bright.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Where did you get your political beliefs? According to a lot of previous research, the chances are pretty good that you got them from your parents. But recently, a pair of political scientists realized that past studies into this issue were making one big, very wrong assumption. And they revealed the reality that parents pass their politics to their kids way less often than you might think.
That idea that parents reliably pass their politics down to their kids is called the direct-transmission model. It’s a cornerstone of political science research, and it basically says that parents drive the bus when it comes to a child’s political beliefs. After all, parents teach children values and morals, show them how the world works, and generally act as role models. Since kids can’t really grasp political policies until they’re much older, the model says that they’re basically passive recipients of their parents’ politics.
But what if they’re not? What if kids are actively choosing what to believe? That’s what researchers Peter Hatemi and Christopher Ojeda [oh-HAY-da] wanted to find out. They thought that there was one big unchecked assumption made by the direct-transmission model; and that’s the idea that children even understand what their parents’ politics are in the first place.
They came up with a theory they call the perception-adoption model. And it says that it takes two steps for kids to adopt political beliefs. First, they have to understand what their parents’ values are. And then, they choose whether they agree with those values or not.
Sure enough, when the researchers analyzed a dataset of more than 4,000 parent-child pairs, they found that 28% of the children misunderstood their parents’ political values. And 35% of kids rejected whatever values they thought their parents held. If the researchers had ignored the understanding part and only looked at how often kids adopted their parents’ actual beliefs, like past research did, it would have seemed like the majority of kids believed what their parents did. But in reality, most kids don’t adopt their parents’ beliefs.
The most surprising part of these findings came when they dug into details about the parent-child relationship. It turned out that when children want to be like their parents, they often end up adopting the wrong values because they don’t know what their parents really believe. So while parent-child closeness and intense political feelings make children want to imitate their parents, they don’t guarantee a child will correctly understand their parents’ values.
And before this study, scientists thought education didn’t have much of an influence on whether a parent passed their politics to a child. But now, research shows that educated children are more likely to reject whatever they think their parents think.
The moral of this story is that kids are independent thinkers. They form their own beliefs based on what they want and understand. Parents can just help them get there.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u_R3VJybaQinBaz_-CPewfMbhxx274185aWaz-MHTQg/edit
Why are some people so violently allergic to peanuts? According to new research, the answer may lie in the gut.
Before I get into that, though, let’s talk food allergies in general. They can cause a huge range of symptoms, from hives and swelling to trouble breathing and even death. The problem isn’t the food itself. It’s your body’s reaction to the food. When your immune system detects something you’re allergic to, it launches a violent attack with specialized antibodies. But if you aren’t allergic, nothing really happens. That massive difference hinges on which antibodies your immune system produces. And this new study sheds light on that life-or-death difference.
Part of your immune system is made up of specialized white blood cells called B cells. They produce all sorts of antibodies, called antibody isotopes. One of the most common antibody isotopes is called immunoglobulin G. (To keep track, think of the G as “good.”) When someone who isn’t allergic to peanuts has a handful of them, immunoglobulin G binds to the peanut proteins, but nothing really happens. G! Good! But when someone who’s allergic to peanuts eats one, their body produces an isotope called immunoglobulin E. (Let’s say that E is for “evil.”) When immunoglobulin E binds to peanut proteins, it releases chemicals like histamines that cause an allergic reaction.
For this new study, researchers recruited 19 people who were about to start a clinical trial for a therapy to ease their peanut allergies. The researchers collected samples of the volunteers’ antibody-producing cells from several parts of their digestive system. And they discovered that a huge percentage of their immunoglobulin E-producing B cells came from the stomach and the duodenum [doo-WAH-din-um or DOO-oh-DEEN-um] — that’s a small organ that connects the stomach to the small intestine. In those organs, B cells usually produce harmless and common antibodies, like immunoglobulin G. But in these participants, they had started producing immunoglobulin E instead. That change from G to E is called a class switch recombination.
When the researchers sequenced the DNA in the participants’ B cells, most of them had similarities in the part of the genome associated with immunoglobulin E. That suggests that the immune systems of people who are allergic to peanuts all use similar molecular tools to identify peanut proteins.
The discovery that immune cells can switch which antibodies they produce and that most people with peanut allergies have similar genetic markers could be big news for people who suffer from food allergies. The new understanding opens the door to exploring new therapies that have never been tried before. And that could bring a whole lot of people some much needed relief.
CODY: Today’s episode is sponsored by KiwiCo.
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For as long as there have been people, there have been questions that make you go, “huh.” Olbers' Paradox has been doing exactly that for hundreds of years. It asks: if the universe is filled with infinite stars, then why isn't the night sky infinitely bright? Centuries of scientists have pondered this question and have come up with a variety of possible solutions, some more correct than others. So take a guess and see if you’re right.
First up: Maybe the sky isn't uniformly bright because more distant stars are dimmer than those closer to us. If you take a given nearby star and look 10 times further out in the sky, you'll see 100 more stars sitting in that exact same vantage point. Even though they're dimmer, there are enough of them shining together to make up for their lack of brightness..
Number two: What if cosmic dust is just obstructing parts of the sky? The cosmic dust would glow itself from absorbing the light. It’s how you get glowing nebulae.
Number three. There aren’t an infinite number of stars. True, but it doesn't technically solve the paradox. Even a finite number of stars could illuminate the night sky.
Number four. There isn’t a uniform distribution of stars. This solution could be correct but isn’t the most correct.
Number five. The expanding universe renders the most distant stars invisible. Yes! Wavelength of light gets longer as an object moves away from you — that is, it moves into the infrared area of the electromagnetic spectrum. The furthest galaxies are moving away from us fastest, so their light has been redshifted so far that they're no longer visible to the human eye.
And bonus number six. The universe is too young to see the most distant stars. It’s only about 13.7 billion years old, and it takes light from an object one year to travel one light-year. So light from anything further hasn’t reached us yet and beyond that just looks like darkness.
These two final propositions — redshift and a young universe — are the most likely solutions to Olbers' Paradox. The next time you look up at the night sky and you marvel at the stars, take a moment to wonder about the beauty of those you can't see.
Let’s recap the main things we learned today
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk, Grant Currin, and Trevor English, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Curiosity Daily is produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!