Learn about a cockatoo that proves humans aren’t the only animals who can dance; mental models like Hanlon’s razor for reducing anxiety and getting along better with others, with some help from authors Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann; and, what would happen if the world went vegan. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following story from Curiosity.com about a cockatoo that proves humans aren’t the only animals who can dance: https://curiosity.im/2SD85vB Additional resources from Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann: Pick up “Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models” on Amazon — https://amazon.com Gabriel Weinberg official website — https://ye.gg/ About DuckDuckGo — https://duckduckgo.com/about Follow Gabriel Weinberg @yegg on Twitter — https://twitter.com/yegg Follow Lauren McCann @LilBunnyFuted on Twitter — https://twitter.com/LilBunnyFuted Other resources discussed: Veggie-based diets could save 8 million lives by 2050 and cut global warming | University of Oxford — http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-03-22-veggie-based-diets-could-save-8-million-lives-2050-and-cut-global-warming# What would happen if the world suddenly went vegetarian? | BBC — http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160926-what-would-happen-if-the-world-suddenly-went-vegetarian Simulating a meat-free America | Phys.org — https://phys.org/news/2017-11-simulating-meat-free-america.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 a cockatoo that proves humans aren’t the only animals who can dance; mental models like Hanlon’s razor for reducing anxiety and getting along better with others, with some help from authors Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann; and, what would happen if the world went vegan.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following story from Curiosity.com about a cockatoo that proves humans aren’t the only animals who can dance: https://curiosity.im/2SD85vB
Additional resources from Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann:
Other 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/respecting-others-with-hanlons-razor-what-if-the-world-went-vegan-and-dancing-cockatoos
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 a cockatoo that proves humans aren’t the only animals who can dance; and, a trick for reducing anxiety and getting along better with others, with some help from authors Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann. We’ll also answer a listener question about what would happen if the world went vegan.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
This Cockatoo Proves Humans Aren't the Only Animals Who Can Dance — https://curiosity.im/2SD85vB (Cody)
Believe it or not, sometimes we can learn something from viral videos online. All the way back in 2007, one of the first of these videos featured a cockatoo named Snowball, who danced along to the Backstreet Boys classis “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).” And that video is now helping scientists understand the evolutionary underpinnings of dance. That’s because one of the six-and-a-half million people who watched the video was neurobiologist Aniruddh [Ah-NEE-rud] Patel. He thought the bird may be demonstrating a skill we've never seen in a non-human animal before, and he envisioned an experiment to figure out whether Snowball was dancing from his soul or just playing parrot. So for a paper in 2009, Patel and his team produced 11 different versions of Snowball’s favorite Backstreet Boys hit with varying tempos. They found that Snowball stayed on beat about 25 percent of the time, which might be a disappointing number if it comes from that hottie you’re crusing on at a nightclub on a Saturday night. But for a bird, the results were statistically significant, suggesting that Snowball’s “dance” wasn’t happening by chance. Because of this, Patel’s team dubbed Snowball the first confirmed non-human dancer. And the work didn’t stop there. Another study from 2009 looked at videos of lots of dancing animals to try to find a common thread. And they found that the most capable dancers are animals capable of vocal mimicry — mostly parrots, but some elephants. Yes, elephants can mimic sounds they hear. So while you might expect that we humans share our dancing gene with monkeys and apes, that's not the case. Our closest genetic relatives were left out of the dancing picture. For a study published in July in Current Biology, Patel and his team found a few other factors that go into the types of animals that can really boogie, including the ability to learn complex vocal patterns, pay attention to and imitate movements, and have a tendency to form long-term social bonds. A combination of all those traits is somewhat rare in the animal kingdom, but we still have a lot to learn about the ones that do have them. And we know that one reason people dance is to bond with others, so for their next research, the scientists plan to figure out whether Snowball prefers a partner or just likes to dance to the beat of his own drum.
Gabriel and Lauren Clip #2 — Respecting Others [3:54] (Both)
ASHLEY: We all fall into the trap of over-thinking something someone says. Whether you’re in a meeting with a co-worker or you’re texting your significant other, misinterpreting people can really get in the way of your happiness and productivity. Fortunately, our guests today have some suggestions for how you can communicate better. Gabriel Weinberg is the CEO & Founder of DuckDuckGo, the Internet privacy company and private search engine. And Lauren McCann is a statistician and researcher who’s published articles in medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine. They wrote the new book “Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models,” and it’s a fun, illustrated guide to every mental model you could possibly need. One of those models is called Hanlon’s Razor, and here’s what Gabrial told us about it.
[CLIP 3:54]
CODY: So remember: before you decide that your colleague who messes up your projects is out to sabotage you, consider Hanlon's Razor for an alternative explanation. Again, that was Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann, authors of the new book “Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models.” Find links to pick up the book and more in today’s show notes.
Listener Question
ASHLEY: We got a listener question from Lahari, who wants to know what would happen if all humans turned vegan. Great question, Lahari!
This is kind of a complicated thing to answer, because so much is involved with our diets. There’s the agricultural industry, sure, but there’s also culture, nutrition, food waste, the economy...it’s a lot. So it’s no wonder that different studies come to different conclusions about this, depending on which pieces of the puzzle they examine. Like, take greenhouse gas emissions. Food production accounts for a quarter to a third of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and most of that comes from the livestock industry. A 2016 study found that if the world went vegetarian, it would cut those emissions by 63 percent — 70 percent if we all went vegan. But that would have to be worldwide. Another study looked at what would happen if only the US went vegan, with other countries continuing to produce animal products. Even though animals make up nearly half of agricultural emissions in the U.S., an all-vegan nation would only reduce total emissions by less than three percent. That’s because right now, waste from growing crops is used to feed animals. Without animals to eat those leftovers, we’d probably have to burn them, and that’s no good for the climate either.
Ok, but what about nutrition? Well, that same 2016 study found that going vegan could prevent more than 8 million deaths by the year 2050. A big chunk of that comes down to the reduction in red meat consumption, while the rest is thanks to eating more fruits and vegetables and fewer calories overall. But that’s assuming that everyone can get the food they need, which isn’t even true right now. There are more than two billion undernourished people on the planet, and it’s a plain fact that animal products contain more nutrients per calorie than plant-based staples like wheat and rice. You’d need a good replacement, and that could get costly.
But let’s be realistic. The planet doesn’t have to go vegan to make a big impact on their health and the environment. That same study I was talking about also found that if the world just followed global dietary guidelines, which basically means less meat and more fruits and veggies, could mean a 29% reduction in food-related greenhouse gas emissions and 5.1 million fewer deaths by 2050. I’ll stress again: red meat is the biggest culprit here, in terms of both human health and the environment. If you’re looking for the best way to do your part, you could go vegan or vegetarian. But if that’s too much, just try cutting red meat from your diet. Your health and the planet’s health will thank you.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160926-what-would-happen-if-the-world-suddenly-went-vegetarian
https://phys.org/news/2017-11-simulating-meat-free-america.html
CODY: Let’s recap what we learned today!
ASHLEY: Today we learned that some animals can dance, and researchers are working on figuring out why.
CODY: And that you should assume people mean the best when you get an email or text message. Don’t assume ill intent!
ASHLEY: And that [LISTENER QUESTION STUFF]
[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!