Learn about why shaming people online often backfires; what caused GRB 190114C, the most energetic explosion ever observed; and how brushing your teeth can protect your heart. 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: Shaming People Online Often Backfires, According to a Study — https://curiosity.im/2PiQTLP Astronomers Found the Most Energetic Explosion Ever — https://curiosity.im/2PiR2Pn Additional sources: Brush your teeth to protect the heart | European Society of Cardiology — https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/esoc-byt112619.php The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants, and It Wants You to Brush Your Teeth | Gizmodo — https://gizmodo.com/the-heart-wants-what-the-heart-wants-and-it-wants-you-1840147705 Will taking care of my teeth help prevent heart disease? | Mayo Clinic — https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/expert-answers/heart-disease-prevention/faq-20057986 Poor Oral Health and Blood Pressure Control Among US Hypertensive Adults | Hypertension — https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.118.11528 Improved oral hygiene care is associated with decreased risk of occurrence for atrial fibrillation and heart failure: A nationwide population-based cohort study | European Journal of Preventive Cardiology — https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2047487319886018 Periodontal Disease and Atherosclerotic Vascular Disease: Does the Evidence Support an Independent Association? | Circulation — https://ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIR.0b013e31825719f3 Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about why shaming people online often backfires; what caused GRB 190114C, the most energetic explosion ever observed; and how brushing your teeth can protect your heart.
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 sources:
Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/shaming-people-online-can-backfire-the-most-energetic-explosion-ever-observed-and-the-link-between-teeth-brushing-and-heart-health
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 about why shaming people online often backfires; the most energetic explosion ever; and how brushing your teeth can protect your heart.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Shaming People Online Often Backfires, According to a Study — https://curiosity.im/2PiQTLP (from 12/23) (Cody)
Viral outrage is pretty common in our digital age. Researchers define it as a “piling up of online condemnation in response to offensive remarks.” And it feels good to join in on that viral shaming when someone says something wrong, right? Maybe it feels like you’re gonna teach that person a lesson, and help other people avoid making the same mistake? Well science says that when you shame people online, you’re not helping. In fact, that shaming could very well backfire — and that ends with sympathy for the offending party.
This idea comes from a study that was trying to figure out what people think of targets of viral outrage. For the study, researchers showed offensive social media post to thousands of participants. Some of the posts were made to look like they'd gone viral, and others had just a few angry responses.
As anger started to pile on, mass fury seemed more and more normal to the participants. They themselves grew angrier. But at the same time, they started to think the group anger was excessive, and they felt more sympathy for the target.
Interestingly, this was true regardless of how offensive the target's post was. It also didn't seem to matter if the person who posted it was a celebrity, a politician, or your average Joe. In every case, both outrage and sympathy increased the more the post went viral.
So, no — viral outrage doesn't accomplish anything good. According to the researchers on these studies, angry internet mobs aren't that effective at convincing people that someone has done something wrong. Instead, mass anger seems like bullying. And that makes us feel more sympathetic toward the offending party.
This has implications for our larger understanding of offensive behavior. Can viral outrage change general attitudes toward bigotry and discrimination, for example — or will it backfire? In the end, it may be worth looking for more effective ways to fight the good fight.
Astronomers Found the Most Energetic Explosion Ever — https://curiosity.im/2PiR2Pn (from 12/21) (Ashley)
In January, astronomers caught an epic cosmic blast that put the abilities of the "Star Wars" Death Star to shame — at least, according to NASA. The burst of energy was extraordinary, something like a trillion times more powerful than the light we can see with our eyes. In fact, it was the most energetic explosion ever observed.
The explosion I’m talking about was a gamma ray burst. You know how light comes in many forms, like the long wavelengths of infrared, and higher-energy forms like X-rays. Well, gamma rays are the most extreme forms of energy. And gamma ray bursts appear very suddenly and fade away quickly, so it's a challenge for telescopes to spot them. And we want to spot them, because until recently, gamma ray bursts were one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy. We didn’t know what caused them, and we wanted to find out. To that end, NASA and other observatories monitor the entire sky like sentries, and they’re ready to swivel into position when something unusual happens. This particular burst was spotted by several telescopes, including NASA’s Swift and Fermi space observatories, and the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov telescopes on the Canary islands. But follow-up observations require a more powerful telescope — and that’s where NASA's Hubble Space Telescope comes in.
Scientists now think that gamma-ray bursts originate from a collapsing star, which sends material out at nearly the speed of light and forces it through the surrounding gas to produce a shock that triggers the actual burst.
Hubble's observations suggest that this powerful explosion arose from a galaxy that’s slowly colliding with another galaxy. Galaxies tend to be full of gas and dust, and all that material was kinda like kindling for the explosion. This burst is known as GRB 190114C, and its radiation will help set a benchmark for future studies, especially those looking for the birthplace of potential future explosions. If we can look at an explosion from beginning to end, we can learn a lot more about how space evolution works.
[SKILLSHARE]
CODY: Today’s episode is sponsored by Skillshare: an online learning community for the creator in all of us. Getting out of a creative rut is easier said than done, especially with a busy schedule. And that’s where Skillshare comes in.
ASHLEY: Skillshare has thousands of classes in everything from photography and creative writing to design, productivity and more. And classes are on demand so you can learn at your own pace. Get inspired, join a class, and create something you’ll love.
CODY: I’m working on a creative writing project, so I recently took a class called “Creative Personal Writing: Write the Real You.” It was taught by a writer, editor, and public speaker, and it was only a half-hour long! It was a short and sweet way to kickstart my writing, and I’ve noticed it’s benefitted my writing here at Curiosity, too. So join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare and get two months free when you sign up at Skillshare.com/CURIOSITY.
ASHLEY: That’s two whole months of unlimited access to thousands of classes for free. Get started today by heading to Skillshare.com/CURIOSITY to sign up. That’s Skillshare.com/CURIOSITY.
Brushing teeth can protect your life (Cody)
Look, we all know we should be brushing our teeth twice a day. After all, good oral hygiene doesn’t just ensure your breath will be fresher and your teeth will be whiter, but it also means you’ll have fewer cavities. But that’s not all. It turns out that good teeth-brushing habits are also linked to a reduced risk of heart disease.
Here’s the scoop — and, for the record, this isn’t really new. Scientists have long seen a weird connection between oral health and heart health. In the past, studies have shown that poor oral hygiene can lead bacteria to spread into the blood and cause systemic inflammation. And as you’re probably aware, inflammation is… bad. It can lead to heart disease, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, and heart failure.
For example, a study in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology looked at the health of 150,000 people in Korea. And it found that people who brushed their teeth at least three times per day had a 10 percent lower risk of irregular heartbeat. They also had a 12 percent lower risk of heart failure. And those results held when scientists factored in variables like age, sex, exercise, alcohol consumption, and weight.
Experts stress that there's only a correlation between heart disease and poor oral hygiene. It’s not necessarily the case that one causes the other. But at least one theory points to how tooth brushing could prevent heart disease. Frequent tooth brushing could reduce bacteria that lives between your teeth and gums, which would mean fewer bacteria that can spread to the bloodstream.
It's also possible that gum inflammation itself could indirectly weaken the heart. Chronic inflammation can release damaging substances into the bloodstream, which could really harm heart health.
The American Heart Association and other organizations aren’t ready to tell us all to brush our teeth to prevent heart disease. They’d like to wait to get more evidence of cause and effect. But either way, we should all brush our teeth more often!
--
Summary: There's a strange connection between oral health and heart health. Studies have linked poor oral health with heart disease, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, and heart failure. Expert stress that there's only a correlation and that one doesn't necessarily cause the other, but there's at least one theory as to how that could be the case: it's possible that frequent teeth brushing prevents bacteria from building up in our gums, which then lessens the chance these bacteria could migrate to the bloodstream and cause inflammation throughout the body. It's also possible that gum inflammation itself could indirectly weaken the heart. (To quote the study in Hypertension below: " It has been reported that the total surface area of inflammation in the presence of periodontitis can be estimated to equal the size of the palm of one’s hand.40,41 Such a large area of chronic inflammation reasonably dismisses large amounts of inflammatory mediators into the bloodstream, determining progressive vascular damage that affects cardiovascular health."). Either way, we should all brush our teeth more often!
Sources: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/esoc-byt112619.php
https://gizmodo.com/the-heart-wants-what-the-heart-wants-and-it-wants-you-1840147705
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/expert-answers/heart-disease-prevention/faq-20057986
Study: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.118.11528
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2047487319886018
https://ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIR.0b013e31825719f3
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk and Elizabeth Howell, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity.com.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Curiosity Daily is produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!