Learn about how guaranteed 8-hour work days came to the US; the liking gap; and the shocking defense systems of tomato plants. It took more than 70 years to guarantee 8-hour work days in the US by Steffie Drucker Lee, S. (2019, February 26). 40-hour work week: The history and evolution | Culture Amp. Culture Amp. https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/40-hour-work-week-the-history-and-evolution Ward, M., & Lebowitz, S. (2020, June 12). A history of how the 40-hour workweek became the norm in America. Business Insider; Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-the-40-hour-workweek-2015-10 Hendricks, S. (2021, July 20). Thanks to Iceland, the four-day workweek is coming. Big Think; Big Think. https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/four-day-week- Going Public: Iceland’s Journey to a Shorter Working Week. (2021). Autonomy. https://autonomy.work/portfolio/icelandsww/ 80 Days That Changed the World - TIME. (2003, March 31). TIME.com. https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1977881_1977883_1977922,00.html Ward, M. (2017, May 3). A brief history of the 8-hour workday, which changed how Americans work. CNBC; CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/03/how-the-8-hour-workday-changed-how-americans-work.html History of Labor Day | U.S. Department of Labor. (2021). Dol.gov. https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history The Haymarket Affair — Illinois Labor History Society. (2014). Illinois Labor History Society. Illinois Labor History Society. http://www.illinoislaborhistory.org/the-haymarket-affair People like us more than we think, and this bias starts as young as 5 by Cameron Duke Kids As Young As Five Underestimate How Much Their Peers Like Them. (2021, July 7). Research Digest. https://digest.bps.org.uk/2021/07/07/kids-as-young-as-five-underestimate-how-much-their-peers-like-them/ Wolf, W., Nafe, A., & Tomasello, M. (2021). The Development of the Liking Gap: Children Older Than 5 Years Think That Partners Evaluate Them Less Positively Than They Evaluate Their Partners. Psychological Science, 32(5), 789–798. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620980754 When under attack, tomatoes sound the alarm with a jolt by Cameron Duke Devis, D. (2021, July 29). Seeing red – do tomatoes feel pain? Cosmos Magazine. https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/plants/tomatoes-send-electric-warning-when-attacked-by-caterpillars/ Reissig, G. N., Oliveira, T. F. de C., Oliveira, R. P. de, Posso, D. A., Parise, A. G., Nava, D. E., & Souza, G. M. (2021). Fruit Herbivory Alters Plant Electrome: Evidence for Fruit-Shoot Long-Distance Electrical Signaling in Tomato Plants. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.657401 Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Learn about how guaranteed 8-hour work days came to the US; the liking gap; and the shocking defense systems of tomato plants.
It took more than 70 years to guarantee 8-hour work days in the US by Steffie Drucker
People like us more than we think, and this bias starts as young as 5 by Cameron Duke
When under attack, tomatoes sound the alarm with a jolt by Cameron Duke
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/road-to-the-8-hour-workday-the-liking-gap-shocking-tomatoes
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn why it took more than 70 years to guarantee 8-hour work days in the US; why people like you more than you probably think; and how tomato plants defend themselves with an electric shock.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
It’s becoming clear that when it comes to work, quantity does not necessarily equal quality. Some are even pushing to shorten our five-day workweek to four days. But once upon a time in the United States, even a 5-day workweek was considered short. And it took us more than 70 years for it to become the standard. Here’s the saga.
At the peak of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, people were working 80 to 100 hours per week. Even kids were pulling backbreaking hours, in mines, on farms, and in factories where the conditions were often dangerous. Activists and labor unions began organizing for better conditions, including a shorter workday.
The creation of the 8-hour workday is credited to a Welsh labor activist named Robert Owen. He called for “eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, and eight hours rest” for workers in 1817. His idea eventually came to the U.S., and in 1866 the National Labor Union called on Congress to make the eight-hour workday law. They didn’t, but support for the idea grew, and in 1869 President Ulysses S. Grant made it happen for federal employees.
The eight-hour workday became law in Illinois in 1886. But many employers refused to comply. In response, thousands of workers went on strike and turned out to protest in Chicago. Things turned violent when someone threw a bomb at police officers who came to break up the peaceful rally. Dozens were hurt and somewhere between 11 and 15 people died.
This incident was known as the Haymarket Affair, and it stalled progress for a while. Little by little, individual companies and industries picked up the slack: two major printing firms instituted an 8-hour workday in 1906, then Congress did the same for interstate railroad workers in 1916. Then in 1926, Henry Ford instituted the 40-hour workweek in his factories. He hoped workers would spend money during their time off.
Finally, the Fair Labor Standards Act made the eight-hour workday federal law in 1940.
2021 may mark the next big milestone. Today’s employees are calling for all kinds of flexibility in the wake of COVID-19. For some that means setting their own hours, working outside the traditional office, or having a shorter workweek altogether.
Icelandic workers got a shot at a shorter week in two trials over the last decade. More than 2,500 workers had their hours reduced with no loss of pay. Some spread their 36 hours across four and a half 8-hour days, while others worked four 9-hour days per week. Many reported greater productivity and better work-life balance.
Maybe one day our 40-hour week will seem barbaric. Until then, thank the American Labor Movement for getting us this far.
Do you ever have that feeling that your friends like you a lot less than you like them? Most people have this experience sometimes, and new research suggests that it begins at a very young age.
This perception that you like your friends more than they like you actually has a name. Psychologists call it the liking gap. It’s a common and well-studied phenomenon in adults, but recently, a group of researchers from Duke University performed an experiment to see how early in life liking gaps begin to form.
For the study, the team recruited 241 children, all between four and eleven years old. The children worked in pairs to build a tower out of blocks. After they played, the researchers asked each child to rate how much they liked their new playmate, and then asked them how much they thought their playmate liked them.
A distinct pattern came out of those ratings. The youngest participants, the four year olds, thought their playmate liked them about the same amount that they liked their playmate. But the five-year-olds thought they liked their playmate more than their playmate liked them. They showed a liking gap. That gap became even wider the older the children were.
Why would the liking gap appear at age 5? The researchers think it’s because that’s when we begin to be aware of other people’s feelings, and in turn their impressions of us. Children at that age might begin to sense that the child building the tower with them might only be pretending to like them to make a good impression, as opposed to actually enjoying their company. They’re less sure about how other people feel about them. And the older we get, the more uncertain other people’s feelings become.
The take home message here is that we all tend to experience the liking gap from time to time. You’re not alone in those feelings. But now that you know this, it’s good to remember that the opposite is likely to be true. People tend to like you much more than you think they do.
Tomatoes are tasty, but that doesn’t mean they want to be eaten. In fact, when insects munch on them, they sound an alarm that alerts the rest of the plant to the attack. And by “alarm” I mean “an electric jolt.” Here’s the shocking story.
For being so quiet, plants communicate a lot. Sure, they don’t talk, but they have no problem sending messages. This is especially true when they’re stressed out. And being eaten by caterpillars is certainly stressful.
But communication doesn’t just happen between plants; it also happens within plants, like from the parent plant to a fruit. Scientists usually assume that this is a one-way line of communication. The parent plant often pumps nutrients and hormones into the fruit, but there hasn’t been much evidence that the fruit sends anything back.
Researchers at the Federal University of Pelotas in Brazil have discovered that — at least for tomato plants — that communication goes both ways. They found this in an experiment that involved mounting little electrodes around a tomato plant and placing it in a cage that shielded it from electrical interference.
When a caterpillar took a bite of a tomato, the tomato didn’t just sit and take it. Instead, it screamed out with an electric shock that traveled through the entire plant. It was a strong enough shock that it made it all the way to the leaves on other branches.
That jolt wasn’t just a scream into the void, either. The shock jump started production of chemicals like hydrogen peroxide that the plant can use to defend itself against more insect attacks in different places on the plant.
So, is this evidence that plants feel pain? Not quite. As far as we know, a brain is necessary to process pain. This type of communication is much more similar to a reflex, like pulling your hand away from something hot, which happens independently of your brain. But make no mistake, if a plant is under attack, it’ll fight back — even if it can’t make like a tree and leaf.
Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Starting with
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ASHLEY: Today’s writers were Steffie Drucker and Cameron Duke.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer.
ASHLEY: Our producer and audio editor is Cody Gough.
CODY: [AD LIB SOMETHING FUNNY] Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!