Learn about why political parties may arrive at their positions by pure chance, with some help from opinion cascades; why the Great Oxygenation Event led to a bigger die-off than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs; and, whether infrared and ultraviolet light show up in rainbows. 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 If Political Parties Arrive at Their Positions by Pure Chance? — https://curiosity.im/32U0blu Earth's Biggest Die-Off Happened Long Before the Dinosaurs — https://curiosity.im/2OeeM76 Additional resources discussed: An Example of the Herschel Infrared Experiment — http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/classroom_activities/herschel_example.html Ritter Discovers Ultraviolet Light — http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/classroom_activities/ritter_bio.html 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 political parties may arrive at their positions by pure chance, with some help from opinion cascades; why the Great Oxygenation Event led to a bigger die-off than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs; and, whether infrared and ultraviolet light show up in rainbows.
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:
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/pure-chance-of-political-positions-why-earth-has-oxygen-infrared-and-ultraviolet-in-rainbows
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 political parties may arrive at their positions by pure chance; and, an extinction event that was more deadly than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. We’ll also answer a listener question about whether infrared and ultraviolet light show up in rainbows.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
What If Political Parties Arrive at Their Positions by Pure Chance? — https://curiosity.im/32U0blu (Cody)
New research suggests that political parties may arrive at their positions by pure chance. And that means that a lot of people’s political views could be less deeply rooted than we tend to think. [ad lib / quick note that we are NOT going to “get into politics” here. This is just a high-level scientific stufy published in the journal Science Advances in August. This podcast is still your little oasis from politics, I promise.]
CODY: This study comes from researchers at Cornell University’s Social Dynamics Laboratory. And they wanted to figure out why the major political parties here in the U.S. have shifted positions on major policies like free trade and marijuana legalization. Their findings were a bit surprising: it seems that political parties come to their positions on a variety of issues not because of deeply held ideals, but because of luck. And the reason for this? “Opinion cascades.” Opinion cascades are when prominent folks are the first to choose their opinions (and sort of do it randomly), and the rest of the population follows. Here’s the experiment that backs this up. Researchers rounded more than 2,000 participants and asked them which major political party they were into. Then they sorted those people into ten “parellel worlds” that were closed off from each other. Basically, pretend political scenarios. Then, researchers asked them their opinions on a variety of cultural and political issues. For a couple of these “worlds,” those responses were private. But for 8 of those 10 worlds, participants were shown how the other people from both parties landed on each issue. And each party’s support was influenced by participant responses in real time. As soon as the social influence of political party was introduced to the equation, those “opinion cascades” started happening. In the situtions where people could see the survey results, social influence more than doubled the amount of partisan alignment. Basically, in the worlds where participants didn’t know how the parties divided, none of the issues became politically aligned. But in the worlds where opinions were public, unrelated issues tied themselves to party. And between worlds, there wasn't much correlation between the political views — for lots of issues, a party in one world was just as likely to have an extreme position on something as it would be to have an opposite position in another world. Now, the researchers note that while the opinion cascade is strong, our views are also obviously influence by religious, cultural, and ideological commitments. But when partisan influencers make their choices known first, opinion cascades can easily follow. The researchers hope this research will make us more tolerant of others' opinions. Next time you get frustrated about someone else's views on a controversial topic, remember that they might be influenced more by who surrounds them, not by a deeply held ideological difference. Even better, take that moment to reexamine your own views. They might not go as deep as you think.
Earth's Biggest Die-Off Happened Long Before the Dinosaurs — https://curiosity.im/2OeeM76 (Ashley)
ASHLEY: Enough about politics. Let’s seamlessly transition into a story about the biggest extinction event in our planet’s history! I’m talking about the Great Oxygenation Event. And new research into this event can teach us about the beginning of life on our planet. Including stuff like, you know — WHY WE HAVE OXYGEN. NBD.
Geologists have studied the oldest rocks on earth to figure out that our atmosphere used to be made up of mostly carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrogen. The single-celled bacteria on our planet billions of years ago were anaerobic, which means they metabolized their food without oxygen — just like bacteria that live on the ocean floor today. But one group called cyanobacteria got tricky: they invented a way to take energy from sunlight and use it to create sugar from water and carbon dioxide. That's right: they invented photosynthesis, which is what all green plants use to make their own food today. And if there's one thing plants are good at, it's making oxygen. Plants don’t make oxygen out of the goodness of their vacuoles, though; oxygen just happens to be a waste product of photosynthesis. Oxygen also happens to be really bad for anaerobic bacteria. For a few million years, that new oxygen from cyanobacteria kept disappearing, by bonding to other particles in the atmosphere. But around 2.3 billion years ago, oxygen started to build up in the air and water — and thus, the Great Oxygenation Event began. Oxygen didn’t just kill off tons of of anaerobic bacteria; it was also bad for the cyanobacteria, which eventually exhausted their supply of nutrients in the ocean and started to die off, too. The exact scale of the die-off isn’t totally clear, but last month, an international team of researchers analyzed rock samples from Northern Canada to figure out how much oxygen levels dropped as a result of the die-off. That, in turn, helped them figure out how much life was lost in the process. And they found a drop in the amount of carbon production — a proxy for life —by more than five times. By the end of the Great Oxygenation Event, the researchers estimate that the drop could have been by as much as 100 times. Although this event didn't kill off any cool-looking dinosaurs or even any weird sea creatures, this bacterial apocalypse still eclipses even the largest extinction events in all of Earth's history. Of course, the level of oxygen in our atmosphere dipped and spiked over the next few billion years, until it settled around 21 percent today. No one knows how long that will last, but one thing's for sure: billions of bacteria gave their lives for every breath you take.
[ARM & HAMMER]
CODY: Today’s episode is sponsored by Arm & Hammer, and their new Cloud Control litter.
ASHLEY: You know what I love? My cat Aglet. I love [insert what you love most about a cat in your life: can be something in their personality, something you do together, some physical feature, anything!].
[ad lib literally all of this]
ASHLEY: You know what I don’t love? Cleaning up Aglet’s litter box. Which is why Arm & Hammer created new Cloud Control litter. There's no cloud of nasty stuff when I scoop ... it is 100% dust-free, free of heavy perfumes, and helps reduce airborne dander from scooping: So what happens in the litter box STAYS in the litter box.
CODY: New Cloud Control Cat Litter by Arm & Hammer. More Power to You.
Listener Question (Ashley)
LISTENER QUESTION: I mentioned last week how I wanted to answer both of Aditya's questions, so I'm back with his second one! The question is, "Light coming from the sun has the rainbow colours and other radiations like UV. So when a rainbow is formed, do these components split as well and we just don't see them?" Great question!
The answer is yes, and the day we discovered this fact was also the day we discovered that there's light beyond the visible spectrum! It all goes back to the year 1800 and a scientist named Sir William Herschel, who wanted to find out whether different colors of light had different temperatures. To do that, he lined up several thermometers, blacked out their bulbs so they'd be sure to absorb every color, then sent sunlight through a prism aimed at the thermometers so that different colors would hit different thermometers. He found that the light's temperature increased from the blue to the red part of the spectrum. Then he did something kind of daring: he put a thermometer just beyond the edge of the light beam, past the red area of the spectrum. The thermometer was even hotter. That marked the discovery of infrared light. The next year, inspired by Herschel's experiment, a scientist named Johann Wilhelm Ritter did the same thing for UV light. He used a substance called silver chloride that was said to react to blue light by turning black. He sent light through a prism and confirmed that the silver chloride reacted a lot to light on the blue end of the spectrum, but reacted much less to light further toward the red end of the spectrum. And sure enough, when he put silver nitrate just outside of the light beam on the blue end of the rainbow, it turned SUPER black. Ritter had discovered ultraviolet light, also known as UV. The moral of the story? When you think there's nothing there, it's worth taking a second look just in case. Thanks for your question, Aditya!
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/classroom_activities/herschel_example.html
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/classroom_activities/ritter_bio.html
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, here’s a sneak peek at what you can catch this weekend on curiosity-dot-com.
ASHLEY: This weekend, you’ll learn about the world’s largest single radio dish telescope, which is now up and running;
The US cities where your salary goes the furthest;
Ketchup
The benefits of trash-talking;
And more! Okay, so now, let’s recap what we learned today. Today we learned that political parties arrive at their positions by pure chance, because people are influenced by the loudest voices in the parties. In the end, we’re not all that different as individuals.
CODY: And that the Great Oxygenation Event killed more life on Earth than any other extinction event in history — though, to be fair, that life was mostly bacteria.
ASHLEY: And that listener question summary
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Join us again Monday to learn something new in just a few minutes. And have a great weekend! I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Stay curious!