Learn about how animals evolved to amputate their limbs in self-defence; how dogs literally have human friendship in their DNA; and English words that don’t exist in other languages. 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: Here's Why Some Animals Amputate Their Limbs in Self-Defense — https://curiosity.im/2LqG60o Puppy-Dog Eyes Evolved to Pull Your Heartstrings — https://curiosity.im/2LIvuKK These English Words Don't Exist in Other Languages — https://curiosity.im/2LnO3DK 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 how animals evolved to amputate their limbs in self-defence; how dogs literally have human friendship in their DNA; and English words that don’t exist in other languages.
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:
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/self-defense-amputations-unique-english-words-and-how-puppy-dog-eyes-evolved
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 how animals evolved to amputate their limbs in self-defense; how dogs literally have human friendship in their DNA; and English words that don’t exist in other languages.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Here's Why Some Animals Amputate Their Limbs in Self-Defense — https://curiosity.im/2LqG60o (Republish) (Cody) [FREELANCER]
There’s an evolutionary reason why some animals amputate their limbs in self-defense.
And although we humans are capable of doing it too, not all self-amputation is created equal.
As reported by The Conversation, it turns out this extreme tactic is pretty widely used in the animal kingdom, from lizard species to crabs, insects, and spiders. They’ll ditch appendages to escape a predator, or even to get rid of an injured one that’s just slowing them down.
And this behavior has inspired engineers to design safety features that fail on purpose. For example, they’ve designed signposts that are engineered to break when they’re hit by a car, which helps protect drivers and passengers.
But back to animals that amputate their own limbs. It does helps them escape a potentially fatal encounter, but shedding appendages can also make the animal slower and increase its risk of infection. Since there are costs and benefits that go along with this decision, a team of researchers recently asked where animals might draw the line. Especially since self-amputation can be an effective strategy against some predators, but not others.
Take damselfly larvae, for example. Shedding an appendage can be a good move against a grasping predator like a dragonfly. In particular, dragonflies like to target the feathery tail appendages of fleeing damselflies, called lamellae. But dropping that appendage is not super helpful when it comes to bigger predators like fish, which swallow them whole.
For a new study, researchers raised damselfly larvae in a laboratory. They exposed some to a dragonfly predator placed in their enclosure behind a mesh barrier. And they discovered that damselflies growing up in the presence of dragonflies developed a weaker lamella joint, which would make it easier to amputate.
This means that damselfly larvae can change how they develop depending on the cues in their environment. An ability like this is crucial for survival, since they can't know which predators they’ll have to face at their local pond. When you're going as far as amputating your own limb to avoid being someone's dinner, it's kind of important that that ability works right.
Puppy-Dog Eyes Evolved to Pull Your Heartstrings — https://curiosity.im/2LIvuKK (Ashley) [FREELANCER]
We all know how those puppy-dog eyes of our canine companions can pull at our heartstrings. Now science can tell us that’s by design. A recent study suggests that dogs specifically evolved puppy-dog eyes to appeal to humans.
The researchers found that dogs, but not wolves, possess a muscle called the levator anguli oculi medialis, which raises their inner eyebrows and helps them produce those classic puppy-dog eyes. This muscle enables an "infant-like" expression that's like the expression humans make when we’re sad.
The researchers figured this out by analyzing the anatomy of six dogs, all different breeds, alongside four grey wolves. They found that the domestic dogs had this muscle, but the wolves didn't, which suggests that the muscle was one of many traits that evolved as humans and dogs bonded over tens of thousands of years of evolution. It seems dogs pretty much only use this look when they’re interacting with humans.
A 2015 study also found that when dogs and humans make eye contact with each other, they experience a surge of oxytocin, known as the bonding hormone. It’s the same thing that happens when humans make eye contact with someone they love, like their child.
This discovery surprised the researchers since staring is typically a sign of aggression in the animal kingdom. But dogs, it seems, are the exception.
How dogs became man's best friend is a question that's been subjected to a lot of scrutiny in the past few years.
Theories suggest wolves started hanging out near human settlements scavenging for scraps. Since it paid to be friendly, some wolves evolved to be more appealing to humans including developing floppy ears and puppy-dog eyes. As we spent more time together and began to share a common diet over the next 32,000 years, we evolved a lot of traits in parallel, including certain genes for digestion and metabolism. Humans and dogs have bonded for so long that we’ve evolved together. Our friendship is quite literally written in our DNA.
These English Words Don't Exist in Other Languages — https://curiosity.im/2LnO3DK (Cody) [FREELANCER]
CODY: A lot of words in the English language are derived from other languages. But believe it or not, there are some English words that just don’t exist in other languages. We have listeners all across the world, so we thought it’d be interesting to everyone to wrap up today by talking about some words that are unique to English.
Starting with “Serendipity.” It’s a word for a happy or beneficial effect achieved through coincidences. It comes from a 1557 story entitled “The Three Princes of Serendip,” and it’s a story about 3 princes who get into and out of trouble by, you guessed it, plain and simple luck. For a great example of what serendipity means, check out the 2001 movie of the same name, starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale.
Here’s another one: Cheesy – and I don’t mean “covered in cheese.” I mean the definition “fake, garish, and trying too hard.” It’s KINDA close to the German word “Kitsch” which refers to an unrefined artwork. But not exactly. [example]
"Gobbledygook" is language that’s meaningless or otherwise hard to understand because you’re using obtuse technical terms or nonsense. It first entered the English vocabulary in 1944, courtesy of Texas senator Maury Maverick. He was railing against overly complicated words and attempting to evoke the sound of a turkey's gobble.
A newer one is “Facepalm.” It describes when you smack your face with your hand to express disbelief, shame or exasperation, and it pretty much came from online users in 1996.
Which brings us to the word Spam. You might think that a fake email is called “spam” because fake meat is called “spam,” but the truth is even funnier. Spam is used to describe fake or junk email because of a Monty Python sketch, where spam is the star ingredient in a Spam-loving restaurant. Every item on the menu has spam in it, which the customer absolutely does not want, and early internet users co-opted this phrase to describe those emails or messages you absolutely don’t want to see.
The next word on the list is “trade-off,” which is basically a balance between an even exchange and a compromise. [example]
And last, but not least, the word “Hillbilly” originated in the hilly region of the Appalachian bluegrass, where Scottish immigrants sang the praises of William of Orange, earning them the nickname "Billy Boys." Combine that with the terrain they immigrated to and you've got a whole new type of American: the hillbilly.
ASHLEY: Before we recap what we learned today, we want to remind you to vote for Curiosity Daily to be a finalist in the 2019 Podcast Awards! Find a link in today’s show notes, or visit podcast-awards-dot-com, to register. Then find Curiosity Daily in the drop-down menus for the categories of People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine.
CODY: And now, let’s recap what we learned today. Today we learned that self-amputation is an evolutionary feature built into some animals’ development.
ASHLEY: And that dogs and humans evolved together to be best friends.
CODY: And that our podcast may be cheesy sometimes, but at least it’s not full of gobbledygook.
[ad lib optional]
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!