Learn about the physics of hitting a baseball; a productivity hack to stop procrastination; and, how viruses and medicines know where to go in your body. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: What It Takes to Hit a Baseball Makes Baseball Players Look Like Superheroes — https://curiosity.im/2xCsNC2 The Pomodoro Technique Is the Productivity Hack Designed to Halt Procrastination — https://curiosity.im/2xzFa1P Additional resources discussed: How do medicines know where in the body to start working? — MIT School of Engineering — https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/how-do-medicines-know-where-in-the-body-to-start-working/ How does gene therapy work? | U.S. National Library of Medicine — https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/therapy/procedures Want to support our show?Register for the 2019 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. After you register, simply select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2019 Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about the physics of hitting a baseball; a productivity hack to stop procrastination; and, how viruses and medicines know where to go in your body.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Additional resources discussed:
Want to support our show? Register for the 2019 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. After you register, simply select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2019
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/pomodoro-technique-to-stop-procrastination-where-medicine-goes-and-baseball-physics
CODY: Hi! We’re here from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about the physics of hitting a baseball; and, a productivity hack to stop procrastination. We’ll also answer a listener question about how viruses and medicines know where to go in your body.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
What It Takes to Hit a Baseball Makes Baseball Players Look Like Superheroes — https://curiosity.im/2xCsNC2 (Ashley)
Baseball season is in full SWING (get it?) and whether or not you actually watch the sport, you have to admit that it’s pretty hard to actually hit a baseball. In fact, when you think about the physics behind what it takes to knock a ball out of the park? It makes baseball players look like actual superheroes. So let’s talk about some of the mountain of research that goes into the science of this sport. Consider this: A pitch takes about 500 milliseconds to travel from the pitcher to the plate, although a fastball can take as little as 375 milliseconds. The moment the ball leaves the pitching mound, the batter is already at a disadvantage. That's because it takes his brain 75 to 100 milliseconds to even process the fact that the ball is coming toward him. It also takes time to swing: the fastest swings in baseball happen in 100 to 150 milliseconds. That leaves only about 150 milliseconds for the batter to actually make a decision about his swing. For some context, it takes as much as 400 milliseconds to blink. That’s right: you have to decide how to swing in less than half the time it takes to blink. And that’s why researchers have poured countless hours and funding dollars into the study of that brief moment in time. One way they do it is by watching how players keep their eyes on the ball. A 2014 study found that until very late in the pitch, players follow the ball with their head, not just their eyes. Their eyes only start moving when the ball gets very close, and where their gaze goes is slightly different depending on whether they plan on swinging or not. One other fun piece of research proved baseball legend Yogi Berra right. He once said, quote, “how can you think and hit at the same time?” unquote. And researchers from Columbia University confirmed that you can’t. They hooked up players to EEG caps and rolled them into fMRI machines to analyze their brain signals as they watched a simulated baseball pitch on a computer screen. The researchers started seeing that when participants were getting the pitches wrong, they were using the frontal parts of their brain too much. The frontal parts of the brain are mostly involved in deliberate decision-making. When those parts of the brain get involved, they slow down the speed of your decisions. And when the difference between a hit and a strike is a matter of a few hundred milliseconds, you just can't afford to let your brain slow you down.
The Pomodoro Technique Is the Productivity Hack Designed to Halt Procrastination — https://curiosity.im/2xzFa1P (from upcoming Wednesday) (Cody)
Today in life hacks, we’ve got a time-management method that a lot of people swear by. And it could help you prevent procrastination and maximize productivity. It’s called the Pomodoro Technique. “Pomodoro” is the Italian word for tomato. And it’s a type of pasta sauce. And, appropriately, this technique got its name from author Francesco Cirillo’s tomato-shaped kitchen timer. You don’t need a kitchen timer to try it, so don’t worry — any timer will do the trick. Here’s what you do: First, make sure you know what you need to work on, whether it’s a to-do list or writing part of a book or practicing an instrument — whatever it is. Then you get to work. Set your timer for 25 minutes. Dedicate that time — uninterrupted — to working on something. Then, take a 5-minute break. After four of those 25-minute cycles? Take a 20-minute break. Rinse and repeat until your to-do list is empty. This works because being focused is good, and breaks are also goood. Research has shown that forcing yourself to stay sitting at your desk all day actually reduces performance and productivity, while frequent short breaks keep your mind fresh and focused. What's more, knowing that your pomodoro is only 25 minutes long may pressure you into being as productive as possible during that time period. It's essentially meant to make you feel more accountable for your time and your tasks. There are even Pomodoro timer apps for iPhone and Android if you don't have any other timer, although come on — if you’ve got a smartphone, then you probably have a timer. Still, it’s a nice, easy way to stay on task, and give yourself some well-deserved rest in-between sessions. Give it a shot! [ad lib]
LISTENER QUESTION (Ashley)
ASHLEY: We got a listener question from Stefan, who writes, “How do cells, medicines, viruses, et cetera know where they have to go in the body and how do they get there? I always hear e.g. that a specific pill you swallow acts in the thyroids or in the kidneys or somewhere else. The same with genetic therapies with viruses that genetically modify DNA. How does it go where it’s needed and how does it "know" where it’s needed?” Great question, Stefan!
Let’s start with medicines. When you have a headache and you take a painkiller, it might feel like that medicine is making a beeline for your aching head to stop the pain. But medications are actually way dumber than that. Once a pill dissolves in your stomach or an injection flows through your veins, it rides through your bloodstream to spread all over your body. Once it finds the specific receptors that match with its particular molecular structure, it fits into that receptor like a key into a lock and then works its magic. The problem is that because a medicine travels throughout your body, it sometimes affects other stuff beyond its particular receptors, which is why medications often come with a list of possible side effects.
Viruses are a little more complicated. Viruses can identify the cell they’ve evolved to infect because they have a special protein on their outside coat that can recognize the correct target. But again, they don’t head directly there: they travel throughout the bloodstream until they encounter the right kind of cell to infect. Once they’ve found that type of cell, they inject it with genetic instructions that hijack the cell’s own machinery to make more copies of the virus, which go on to infect other cells. That gets us to your question about genetic therapy: Scientists have figured out a way to use that same process to inject patient cells with healthy DNA. They engineer a virus to target and inject a particular type of cell with a particular gene that integrates into a person’s DNA without making them sick. Isn’t that amazing? Thanks for targeting us with your question, Stefan!
https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/therapy/procedures
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, we want to thank we want to give a special shout-out to Dr. Mary Yancy and Muhammad Shifaz, who are executive producers for today’s episode thanks to their generous support. Thank you SO. MUCH.
ASHLEY: And YOU can support Curiosity Daily by voting for us to be a finalist in the 2019 Podcast Awards. There’s a link with more information in today’s show notes, or visit podcast-awards-dot-com. Now let’s recap what we learned today!
CODY: Today we learned that baseball players are basically superheroes.
ASHLEY: And that you can beat procrastination by working in 25-minute chunks of time.
CODY: And that [takeaway]
[ad lib]
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes! I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Stay curious!