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: It's Easier to Predict Other People's Behavior Than Your Own Should You Be Using Plastic or Wood Cutting Boards? Why You Should Never Wash Raw Chicken What Does Water Taste Like? Science Finally Has an Answer Recognizing how your brain makes mistakes is the best way to avoid making them. "You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself" by David McRaney can help you learn all about those mistakes. Want more kitchen tips? Check out "Kitchen Hacks: How Clever Cooks Get Things Done"from America's Test Kitchen. We handpick reading recommendations we think you may like. If you choose to make a purchase, Curiosity will get a share of the sale.
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:
Recognizing how your brain makes mistakes is the best way to avoid making them. "You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself" by David McRaney can help you learn all about those mistakes. Want more kitchen tips? Check out "Kitchen Hacks: How Clever Cooks Get Things Done"from America's Test Kitchen. We handpick reading recommendations we think you may like. If you choose to make a purchase, Curiosity will get a share of the sale.
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/plastic-vs-wood-cutting-boards-what-water-tastes-like-and-predicting-others-behavior
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY COUGH: Hi, we've got three stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Cough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn why it's easier to predict other people's behavior than your own, when you should use plastic or wood-cutting boards, and what water tastes like according to science.
CODY COUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody, have you ever noticed how it's easier to know what your best friend or your significant other is about to do than it is to know what you're about to do?
CODY COUGH: Yeah, it's weird.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, because you know them so well, right. And so if you were given a scenario, like, what thing on the menu do you think they'd choose? You'd always know. But for you, it's like, oh, I'm a complex person, you know, I have so many different preferences. Who knows what I would choose on this menu? Even though you are just as predictable as anybody else.
CODY COUGH: Well, now, I'm very curious why.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, Curiosity looked into this. And we found out why. Writing for the British Psychological Society, researcher, David Dunning, discussed several studies he had conducted since 2000 on how well people can predict their own behavior. And the people in Dunning's studies were about as accurate at predicting their own future behavior as they were at guessing the behavior of total strangers.
There were a couple of factors at play here. The first is what Dunning calls the holier than thou effect. That's where people are likely to predict that they'll engage in more good or charitable behaviors than their peers will. In one study, Dunning asked participants to guess how likely they would be to buy a daffodil for a fundraising drive. A full 83% said they'd probably do that. But on average, they only predicted that 56% of their peers would. And I think what's going to happen. When the actual fundraiser went down, only 43% of them had actually followed through on the donation.
So the second factor is accuracy. A person's predictions about themselves didn't have much effect on their actual behavior. In fact, when participants were given just five pieces of information about a total stranger, they were able to predict that person's behavior with the exact degree of accuracy that they could predict their own. Want to know why? Well, if the name David Dunning sounds familiar, it might be because he was one of the guys who came up with a Dunning Kruger effect.
The Dunning Kruger effect says that if you're not very good at something, you're also probably not very good at assessing how good you are at it, right. By the same token, if you're not very altruistic, you might have a skewed perspective of how altruistic you are.
OK, so what if you're in a situation where you really need to make an accurate prediction about your future behavior? Dunning has a solution. Instead of trying to guess on your own behalf, whether you'll have the willpower to hold off on ordering pizza this week, try these two methods. First, imagine it's not you. How well would other people be able to resist the urge? That might be a better guess than the one you make about yourself.
The second trick that might be even more accurate as long as you've got an honest friend, ask your friend what they think you'll do instead. There's strong evidence that the people you have close relationships with like your parents or roommates can predict your responses best of all.
CODY COUGH: Kind of like, how if you ask somebody else to pick your dating website profile photo, they will always pick a more attractive one than you will.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, that's one that I know we have that article. I know I say that all the time and it is still difficult. When I take a few selfies and I want to post one, like, which one should it be? And a friend or my boyfriend will say the one that I think is awful, but I go with it. It's so hard, though.
CODY COUGH: Yeah, I've been there.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY COUGH: I have a question for you, Ashley, about my behavior. How likely do you think it is that I have backed up the files on my hard drive?
ASHLEY HAMER: Very likely, extremely likely, 100% likely because you will never make that mistake ever again.
CODY COUGH: You are correct. And today's podcast is sponsored by Backblaze. And Backblaze can help you back up your files because they offer unlimited cloud backups for your Mac or PC for just $5 a month.
ASHLEY HAMER: Backblaze is a data storage provider that makes it as easy as humanly possible to do something that you really need to be doing in today's world. We're going to make it even easier for you with a special offer for Curiosity podcast listeners. Visit Backblaze.com/curiosity to try Backblaze for free for 15 days.
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CODY COUGH: Backup your files today free for 15 days at Backblaze.com/curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: Again, get your 15 day free trial. And then, protect all of your data for just $5 a month at Backblaze.com/curiosity.
CODY COUGH: All right, Ashley, do you use plastic or wood-cutting boards?
ASHLEY HAMER: This is a constant challenge. Because wood is so nice, but I feel like plastic is less germy.
CODY COUGH: Well, you're about to find out if plastic is less germy.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh boy, I can't wait.
CODY COUGH: If you cook anything on a cutting board, you've probably worried about cross-contamination with your food, which is, like, spreading around pathogens you don't want to eat. And raw or undercooked chicken, especially, comes to mind, since it can transmit salmonella, which is an infectious bacteria that can do really bad stuff to you.
ASHLEY HAMER: Also, don't wash your chicken. We have an article on that.
CODY COUGH: We do. Yes, so we'll put a link to that in the show notes. But today, Curiosity did the research. And we're here to answer the age-old cutting board question, plastic or wood. Researchers from UW Maddison dug into the question. And they said, it doesn't really make a difference. But that's not the whole story.
So first, let's talk differences. Studies have shown that cuts on plastic boards cause deeper grooves than cuts on wooden boards. So while plastic is easier to sanitize, like in the dishwasher, like you said, the plastic also has deeper scratches for the bacteria to hide in. For wood boards, there's hardwoods and there are softwoods. Hardwoods like maple are fine grained. And the capillary action of those grains pulls down fluid, which traps the bacteria. And those are killed off as the board dries after cleaning. So hardwood, good.
Soft woods like cypress have larger grains, which means the wood can split apart and cause bacteria friendly grooves more easily. And so that's bad because then, the bacteria have more places to live. So hardwood wins there technically. But at the end of the day, either cutting board is safe as long as you know how to clean it.
Because of the way different boards are cleaned North Carolina State University food safety extension specialist Dr. Benjamin Chapman recommends plastic for meat and wood for fruit, veggies, and ready to eat foods. Throw that plastic cutting board into the dishwasher, and you're good to go. You can find instructions on how to hand wash plastic and wood-cutting boards today on Curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS, as well as more research that's absolutely cutting edge.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody, how would you describe the taste of water?
CODY COUGH: I know how I would describe the shape of water with an Oscar nomination. Did I win?
ASHLEY HAMER: No idea.
CODY COUGH: Wow. We are out of touch.
ASHLEY HAMER: We are.
CODY COUGH: This is a science podcast, folks. Sorry, we don't do pop culture.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well your tongue can register distinct flavor profiles-- salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and savory, or umami. Now, research is pointing to a sixth type of taste receptor on the tongue that's responsible for people and animals being able to determine the taste of water among other fluids. Meaning that water has a taste. And that's a key for survival for every species.
In a recent study, a research team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena set out to find water sensing taste receptor cells or TRCs in the tongues of mice. They silenced different TRCs in the mice mouths. Then, flush their tongues with water to see which receptors responded. They found that the TRCs that scent sour had the strongest response.
When they had the mice drink water and a tasteless silicone oil, the rodents without the sour TRCs had the hardest time correctly identifying the water. That suggests that those cells play a crucial role in tasting water. You can read about the rest of the details about the study on Curiosity.com. But needless to say, it's exciting to know that we do actually taste water, even if we still have a really hard time describing it.
CODY COUGH: Join us again tomorrow for the Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Cough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Stay curious.
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SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.