Learn about how researchers built a “soft robot” that reached the depths of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean; why musicians with brain tumors serenade their surgeons; and the best way to phrase words of comfort.
Learn about how researchers built a “soft robot” that reached the depths of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean; why musicians with brain tumors serenade their surgeons; and the best way to phrase words of comfort.
A "soft robot" reached the deepest part of the ocean by Grant Currin
Musicians with Brain Tumors Serenade Their Surgeons by Ashley Hamer
Here's the best way to phrase words of comfort by Kelsey Donk
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-best-way-to-phrase-words-of-comfort-according-to-science
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 researchers built a “soft robot” that reached the deepest part of the ocean; why musicians with brain tumors serenade their surgeons; and the best way to phrase words of comfort.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
A soft-bodied robot recently went for an impressive swim in the deepest place on Earth, the Mariana Trench. And this is the latest in a long series of engineering achievements that take inspiration from living things.
The researchers behind this snazzy new invention were inspired by the hadal snailfish, a small, translucent fish that thrives beneath the immense pressures of the Mariana Trench. Like its inspiration, the robot is soft and colorless, with two wing-like fins that create thrust by flapping up and down, plus a long tailfin that steers by moving left and right. But the fins aren’t powered by the kind of motors that drive most robots. Instead, they’re driven by a material that contracts when electrical energy flows through it. If that sounds familiar, it’s because muscles work basically the same way. Yep, you heard that right: this artificial fish swims using artificial muscles.
It’s a very cool invention, but why go to all this trouble when we have perfectly good robots already? Well, it’s because regular ol’ robots aren’t very well suited to the deep. Normal underwater robots require a water-tight casing made of metal that’s strong enough not to buckle under the pressure. For machines going really deep, that means building thick, heavy, clunky enclosures.
This new robot gets around that problem by embedding the electrical components in flexible silicone. The engineers took some cues from how the hadal snailfish’s head protects its insides from the crushing pressure thousands of feet of water. Instead of bundling the electronics together like normal, they spaced everything out and filled in the gaps with more silicone. Tests in the lab showed what nature already knew: spacing out the electrical organs reduced strain on the components when the robot was exposed to high pressure.
This design could be the beginning of a new generation of devices that explore Earth’s oceans — but there are some more hurdles to clear before that happens. For one, the robot has to be faster. In one test, it managed to swim at about half its body length per second. That’s quite a bit slower than other underwater bots. It’s also very vulnerable to being thrown off-course by underwater currents. So there’s still some work to do.
This kind of technology is especially exciting because the oceans are still SO underexplored. We know more about the Moon than we do about huge swaths of the seafloor. Hopefully technology like this will help us discover what’s down there.
Brain surgery is tricky business. Brains aren't exactly labeled to let surgeons know which parts do what, and a single brain tumor could bump up against many different regions responsible for many different things. So, in order to make sure they’re pinpointing the right spot and not doing irreparable damage to the wrong one, brain surgeons keep their patients awake during surgery. Sometimes patients answer questions. And sometimes, in the case of musicians, they play their instruments.
Take the story of violinist Roger Frisch [FRISH - rhymes with “fish”]. He began to notice a trembling in the arm he used to bow his instrument. He got it checked out and was diagnosed with essential tremor. That’s a common neurological condition, and for a lot of people, it’s just a bothersome inconvenience. But for a violinist who requires ultra-fine motor control to communicate with his instrument, it can be career-ending. In 2014, doctors decided to treat the condition with deep-brain stimulation surgery, which involves implanting electrodes in the parts of the brain causing the tremors. For the 90 minutes beforehand and during the procedure itself, Frisch periodically bowed long notes on the violin to test the severity of the tremor. You know, while he was bolted to a table with a metal halo attached to his open skull.
The good news? Once the surgeon had implanted the second electrode, the tremor was gone completely.
In 2015, a 25-year-old saxophonist named Dan Fabbio [FAB-bee-yo (like FABulous, NOT “fah”)] was working on a master's degree in music education when he was diagnosed with a benign mass in his brain — and it was located in a region associated with music function. To make sure they kept Fabbio’s musical ability intact, the team first scanned Fabbio’s brain in an fMRI machine as he hummed and listened to music. This helped the surgeons create a 3D map of his brain that pinpointed the areas important to his musical abilities.
For the surgery itself, he modified a Korean folk song so he could play it on saxophone with one hand, and without breathing so deeply that he disturbed the surgery. When surgeons cut into his brain and began to remove the tumor, he performed the humming and language tasks he had in the fMRI. Finally, with the tumor removed, the team brought his saxophone to see if he could play. He could. He played flawlessly and when he finished, the entire operating room erupted in applause.
It shows that sometimes you have to go to great lengths to keep your passions intact.
What are you supposed to say to a loved one who’s having a hard time? It can be tough to know. Luckily, science is here to help. In a recent study, Penn State researchers found the most comforting way to respond to someone who’s hurting.
For the study, researchers gathered 478 married people and asked them to think about an argument they’d recently had with their spouse and someone they could talk to about it — maybe a friend, a sibling, or a parent. Then, they read one of six possible supportive messages and imagined it coming from that person.
The messages varied in their levels of person-centeredness. That reflects the amount that a message acknowledges, contextualizes, and explores the distressed person’s feelings. Some of the messages were high in person-centeredness, some were moderate, and others were low in person-centeredness.
So like, as an example, a highly person-centered message sounds like this:
Disagreeing with someone you care about is always hard. It makes sense that you’d be upset.
That lets the person know their feelings are valid and their experience is common. Okay — compare that to a not-very-person-centered message, which might sound like this:
Nobody is worth getting so worked up about. Stop being so depressed.
This message invalidates the person’s feelings and tells them how they should feel instead. If you were having a hard time, which one would make you feel better?
According to the researchers, probably the first one. In the study, high person-centered messages helped people feel better, faster. They also made people more likely to accept social support. On the other hand, the stop-being-so-depressed message didn’t help reduce emotional stress. Instead, the low person-centered messages made the participants feel angry and less likely to accept help. In other words, they did the exact opposite of what they were supposed to do.
The major takeaway here is that validating the other person’s feelings is really important. So if you’re struggling to figure out what to say to a friend who’s having a rough time, the researchers say to focus on expressing sympathy, care, and concern. If you’re really struggling to find the right words, practice this phrase:
I’m sorry you are going through this. I’m worried about you and how you must be feeling right now.
That kind of message can actually ease their distress and make them open to accepting help. And when going through a rough time, we could all use more of that.
Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Starting with
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Grant Currin, Ashley Hamer, and Kelsey Donk, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: I’m sorry this episode has to end. I know you enjoyed it a lot and you wish our show was 4 hours long. I just hope you find some comfort knowing that you can join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!