Learn about how doctors on Earth diagnosed and treated an astronaut’s medical problem in space for the first time; a new study that explains why whales are so big, but not bigger; and a Stanford technique for getting better at picking creative ideas.
Learn about how doctors on Earth diagnosed and treated an astronaut’s medical problem in space for the first time; a new study that explains why whales are so big, but not bigger; and a Stanford technique for getting better at picking creative ideas.
The First Medical Diagnosis and Treatment in Space from Earth by Mae Rice
Why Whales Are So Big (But Not Bigger) by Steffie Drucker
Stanford Technique for Picking Creative Ideas by Steffie Drucker
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/stanford-technique-for-picking-creative-ideas-why-whales-are-so-big-but-not-bigger-and-the-first-medical-diagnosis-and-treatment-in-space-from-earth
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 how doctors on Earth diagnosed and treated an astronaut’s medical problem in space for the first time; a new study that explains why whales are so big, but not bigger; and Stanford research that uncovered how you can get better at picking creative ideas.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
In space, no one can hear you scream… let alone cough. But that doesn’t mean astronauts can’t get medical care. Recently, doctors treated an astronaut in space. From Earth! For the first time!
This only happened because the astronaut was lucky enough to be a participant in a medical study about space travel’s effects on circulation. Specifically, the researchers behind the study wanted to know how microgravity would affect the internal jugular vein. That sends blood from the brain to the heart, sooooo it’s pretty important! In space, though, blood tends to float up towards an astronaut’s head. How does this affect the jugular?
To find out, the researchers studied 11 astronauts on a multi-month mission on the International Space Station. At set intervals throughout the trip, the astronauts ran ultrasounds on themselves, which let doctors back on Earth track their vein health in real-time.
Two months into the mission, one astronaut’s ultrasound revealed a blood clot in the jugular vein. It was dangerous — clots like this can lead to infection, blockages in lung arteries, and even death. It was also dangerous to treat, though. The space pharmacy had a limited supply of blood thinners, and if the astronaut took too high of a dose, there was nothing on board to reverse the effects. Medicine can also have unexpected effects in space.
Ultimately, though, the doctors and patient decided to treat the clot, and a supply shuttle brought the space station extra blood thinners midway through the mission. It worked, too. Over about three months of treatment, the clot shrank. It was still there when the astronaut landed back on Earth, but 10 days later it had disappeared completely..
It’s not clear what caused the blood clot. There was no history of clots like this in the astronaut’s family, and the astronaut had a clean bill of health when the mission launched. Was space travel to blame? The authors of the paper about this say the question deserves more research. That’s especially true while we consider crewed missions to Mars, which could take more than nine months each way. For now, though, one thing is clear: doctors on Earth can diagnose and treat blood clots in space. Astronauts can rest easy.
You’ve heard the saying, “you are what you eat.” Well a new study found that that’s pretty true for whales, too — and it has explains a lot more than just what’s up with a particular whale’s waistline.
Whales are the largest animals ever to roam the planet — even larger than dinosaurs. But even whales have limits, and scientists wanted to know what they were. Turns out that those limits have a lot to do with their food.
To figure this out, scientists attached sensors to different types of whales and estimated the type and quantity of prey they took in. Then they put all that data together to figure out how much energy whales spent on feeding, and how much of that energy was restored by what they ate.
The size of toothed whales seemed to be limited by the size of their prey. Sperm whales are among the largest in this category, but were still found to feed mostly on medium-sized squid, maybe because there aren’t a whole lot of giant squid out there.
But baleen whales, like blue whales, are the real heavyweights here. And strangely, they grow so big by feeding on some of the ocean’s smallest creatures: I’m talking about krill, a shrimp-like animal about the size of your pinky finger.
Instead of teeth, baleen whales have, well, baleen: that’s a series of keratin plates lined up like the teeth of a comb. They eat by swimming toward a patch of krill with their mouths open and gulping down the whole patch — along with about 100 tons of water. That can amount to half a million calories in one mouthful! And you thought The Rock’s cheat days were epic. Then, the whale pushes the water back out through the baleen while the krill stay trapped inside.
So why is it that the whales that feed on tiny prey are larger than those that eat bigger fish? Blue whales consume up to 40 million krill, or about 8,000 pounds worth of food per day. And they don’t expend a lot of energy in the process. Plus, the bigger they are, the more they can consume. It’s a superefficient system. Toothed whales, on the other hand, expend more energy hunting individual prey, and they get a lot less caloric bang for their buck.
But why don’t the baleens get even BIGGER? Well, because there are only so many fish in the sea — or, in this case, krill. It seems that baleen whales have enough energy to sustain their massive bodies, but not enough to grow even larger. Still, the scientists aren’t sure whales have reached their limit. With more food, the whales of the future may get even bigger.
According to new research from Stanford University, you might be trashing your best, most creative ideas before they ever get to see the light of day. So listen up if you want to get better at getting creative.
For a new study, researchers asked people to come up with three innovative ideas — like, say, an idea for something to keep people from falling asleep in self-driving cars. They were also asked to rank the creativity of their solutions. Then, the researchers randomly chose one of the participants’ initial ideas and had them spend at least 5 minutes fleshing it out into a final product. Another group judged how creative all of the participants’ original solutions were.
That random choice was key: it meant that the scientists could measure how creative an idea was once it was fully fledged, compared to how the participant had originally ranked it. The scientists found that before the ideas were fleshed out, the participants’ original rankings were pretty accurate. But the more time they spent working out their solutions, the more likely it was that the idea originally rated second-best ended up being the most creative.
Researchers described the dynamic like the tortoise and the hare: The second-best idea was the tortoise, because it started out behind the hare but finished as most creative in the end. The “hare” idea that participants initially thought was their favorite ended up losing its appeal to the tortoise.
What was the difference between the two? Well, the “tortoise” ideas were more abstract. The scientists say that people tend to value concreteness more because concrete ideas are already a little developed. Abstractness, on the other hand, can hide an idea’s potential.
But never fear! The team has a trick to help people get better at picking out their most creative ideas: ask why an idea is good rather than how. Prior research shows that this small but significant tweak can put people in a more abstract mindset.
Now, the team notes that this may tactic may not work as well the more ideas you come up with. And if you’re pressed for time, it may still make sense to go with the idea that’s most concrete, since it’ll reach its potential fastest.
But if you’ve got time to spare, try spending a little more of it in the initial ideation process before you make your selection. And when you do, keep the “why” in mind.
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Mae Rice and Steffie Drucker, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was scripted 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!