Learn about why researchers have broken down the smell of old books; new research that shows why your brain has a kind of Spider-sense; and the Panspermia theory that human life originally came from outer space. 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: Researchers Have Broken Down the Smell of Old Books — https://curiosity.im/2V6WlkL Magic Or Medicine: Medieval Mysteries [Curiosity Podcast Episode] — https://curiosity.im/2trTo2y Seeing and Reacting to a Threat Doesn't Happen in the Order You Think — https://curiosity.im/2V7XjO2 The Panspermia Theory Says Humans Are From Outer Space — https://curiosity.im/2V98Cp9 If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom 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 why researchers have broken down the smell of old books; new research that shows why your brain has a kind of Spider-sense; and the Panspermia theory that human life originally came from outer space.
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:
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
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/preserving-old-book-smells-reacting-before-noticing-and-humans-from-outer-space
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 why researchers have broken down the smell of old books; new research that shows why your brain has a kind of Spider-sense; and a theory that human life originally came from outer space.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Researchers Have Broken Down the Smell of Old Books — https://curiosity.im/2V6WlkL (Republish) (Cody)
There’s nothing like that musty smell of an old book. And today I’ve got some exciting news: researchers have broken down the smell of old books! And the authors of this new extensive study also have an argument for the importance of documenting and preserving smells. [ad lib]
CODY: As reported by HowStuffWorks, researchers at University College London noticed that people visiting at least one local library would make a lot of comments about the way the place smelled. Some said it felt like they could smell history. Odors can in fact make us feel emotions, especially when they’re related to memories. So the researchers argue that hey, smells are part of our cultural heritage. That gives them historical value, and that means they should be identified, analyzed, and archived. To figure out how to do this, researchers started by asking visitors to describe the odors they smelled. The most common descriptions that came out included words like woody, smoky, earthy, pleasant, and even vanilla. Other words included a range including musty, pungent, floral, and even rancid. In another experiment, researchers soaked a piece of sterilie gauze into an extract of the book odor. Then they put the extract in a metal canister and opened it for participants to describe. Here, the top responses included chocolate, coffee, and old. The team even analyzed the VOCs in the books and library. VOCs are volatile organic compounds, chemicals that evaporate at low temperatures. And VOCs are what most odors are made of. The researchers used data from the chemical analysis and from the descriptions of the smells from visitors, and the result was the Historic Book Odour Wheel. It’s a tool they’re using to document and archive that quote-unquote “historic library smell.” You can see the full wheel in this story’s write-up you can find on curiosity-dot-com and on our free Curiosity app for Android and iOS, but it’s described into main categories like “medicinal” or “grassy-slash-woody” that fill the inner circle of the wheel. Then there are descriptors in the middle like “vinegar” or “charred wood”; and finally, on the outside, you’ll find the chemical compounds that are probably the cause of that smelly source, like “acetic acid” or “hexanal.” The researchers want the book odor wheel to help an untrained nose identify smells and the chemical compounds that cause them. This could help address concerns about material composition and degredation, and even help create a better museum experience for the nose. [Scientists may be smart, but at the end of the day, the nose knows. / ad lib]
Seeing and Reacting to a Threat Doesn't Happen in the Order You Think — https://curiosity.im/2V7XjO2 (Ashley)
New research has found evidence that supports a controversial theory that explains blindsight. This could explain why you get a funny feeling when there’s danger around you, even if you can’t see it. [ad lib / CODY: So, it kinda says that humans have a Spider-sense]
ASHLEY: So to back up for a second, there’s been a lot of really interesting research into how human and animal brains react to things even when we, well… shouldn’t. For example, a study from 1998 showed the amygdala light up in human participants when they were shown a fearful face, even if it only flashed on a screen for a few milliseconds. The amygdala is the center of emotion processing for the brain, and it was activated even when the participants didn’t even realize they’d been shown those fearful faces. That brings us to “blindsight,” the phenomenon where someone with cortical blindness, or blindness caused by damage to the visual cortex, can still react to sudden movements or emotional facial expressions that they shouldn't be able to see. Many can even still navigate their surroundings.
For a while, there’s been a theory that this so-called “blindsight” happens because our sense of sight actually takes two paths to the brain: one through the visual cortex, and one somewhere else. This is based on research that our sense of hearing takes two paths to the brain, with one going through the auditory cortex and the other elsewhere. Likewise, there must be a second visual pathway in the human brain; it would bypass the visual cortex and go from the eyes, to the brain relay station known as the thalamus, and directly to the emotion-centric amygdala. There hasn't been much evidence for this controversial theory, however — until now. Last month, researchers from the University of Queensland announced that they'd found evidence for this secondary pathway. The team looked at MRI brain scans of 622 people from the Human Connectome Project. All of them had a working visual cortex, and for that project, the participants had undergone brain scans while looking at faces with different expressions. The research team started by imaging this secondary pathway from the participants’ eyes to the thalamus and on to the amygdala, then estimating the density of its connections. Next, they plugged brain data from the faces task into a computer model to figure out the direction information flowed in response to the facial expressions, and see if that secondary pathway played a role. It did; when people saw the threatening facial expressions, information flowed from the thalamus directly to the amygdala without stopping by the visual cortex. The researchers think it’s possible we evolved this way because of redundancy; as in, it’s useful to have a backup plan so in case one mechanism fails — like you can’t see anything — you’re still able to process things that’re VERY important, like danger and how to navigate. This gives a solid explanation for why a sighted person's heart might race before they can process the fact that there's a mountain lion nearby and why a blind person might flinch when a basketball whizzes past.
The Panspermia Theory Says Humans Are From Outer Space — https://curiosity.im/2V98Cp9 (Cody)
There’s an idea called the Panspermia theory that says humans didn’t start out here on Earth. This idea does actually have some legs in science, it’s not just some alien conspiracy story. We know that we evolved here from Homo erectus about 200-thousand years ago, and Homo erectus showed up about a million years ago here on Earth. But we can’t trace our origins ALL the way back to the beginning. Our origins are shrouded in so much confusion, some scientists wonder if we started here at all. Sure, it’s a simple explanation. When life on this planet showed up about 4 billion years ago, though, it was during a time when the Earth was getting hit with a lot of meteors. Some think that any life during that time would’ve died, because, well… meteors. I mean, the meteor that took out the dinosaurs was so devastating, it would’ve made the surface of our planet hotter than the sun, according to Peter Brannen’s book “The Ends of the World.” The heat wouldn’t have lasted long, but it was impossible to survive. The Panspermia theory flips that idea on its head, though. It says the very meteors that snuffed out the first signs of life on Earth had been carrying signs of life on board. Theoretically, bacterial spores COULD survive hitching a ride through outer space on a meteor, potentially for thousands of years. These hardy, microscopic beings go into sleep mode when they can't get to any nutrients, but they reanimate once they're in a hospitable environment. Sure, like all life, they can die. But they're not particularly prone to it. The real snag in the Panspermia theory is that the spores would still have to come from somewhere, and we haven’t found life on another planet yet. But we all know that statistically, there’s a good chance there’s life out there, somewhere. The Panspermia theory is far from proven, but it’s far from UN-proven, too. Maybe aliens aren’t sinister outsiders; maybe they’re really our ancestors.
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