Learn about a new theory for the uncanny valley effect and the Door to Hell, a giant fiery pit that’s been burning since 1971. We’ll also answer a listener question about how drug and alcohol tolerance works.
Learn about a new theory for the uncanny valley effect and the Door to Hell, a giant fiery pit that’s been burning since 1971. We’ll also answer a listener question about how drug and alcohol tolerance works.
Curiosity Daily is a finalist in the 2020 Discover Pods Awards, and we need your vote to win! Please vote for Curiosity Daily for Best Technology & Science Podcast via the link below. It's free and only takes a minute. Thanks so much! https://awards.discoverpods.com/vote/
There's a New Theory for the Uncanny Valley Effect by Steffie Drucker
The Door to Hell Is a Giant Fiery Pit That's Been Burning Since 1971 by Joanie Faletto
How does drug/alcohol tolerance work? by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Danielle)
Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Ashley Hamer and Natalia Reagan (filling in for Cody Gough). You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-door-to-hell-is-a-fiery-pit-thats-been-burning-since-1971
[MUSIC PLAYING] ASHLEY HAMER: Hi. You're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity.com. I'm Ashley Hamer.
NATALIA REAGAN: And I'm Natalia Reagan. Today you'll learn about a new theory for the uncanny valley effect, and why a giant fiery pit in Turkmenistan has been burning since 1971. We'll also answer a listener question about how drug and alcohol tolerance works.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's satisfy some curiosity. Have you ever come across an artificial face that's a little too lifelike, to the point where you're creeped out by it but can't quite explain why? The name for that eerie feeling is the uncanny valley. And scientists may have finally figured out why it happens.
The term uncanny valley was coined back in 1970 by a Japanese roboticist named Masahiro Mori. He noticed that the more realistically human something is, the more we are attracted to it, to a point. When something is so lifelike that it becomes unclear whether it's a living, breathing being, our affection goes off a cliff. That's why a baby doll can go from cute to creepy like that.
There are two ideas for why this happens. Scientists in one camp believe it's because we automatically perceive faces to have a mind. But we know that robots don't have minds. So the perception that a realistic android does have a mind causes this unsettling feeling.
Scientists in the other camp say the opposite. We see an android face. We perceive that it has a mind. And then we realize that it doesn't. We have to actively dehumanize the face. And that's what causes the feeling.
To see which group is right, psychologists at Emory University played with the timing of face perception. They showed students three different kinds of faces, humans, mechanical-looking robots, and human-like robots. The faces flashed on screen for a second at most, and students had to rate how alive and uncanny they each were.
The students' ratings for the human and mechanical faces stayed the same throughout. But as the lifelike robots flashed by faster and with less detail, the students reported them as being less alive and less unsettling. The less time they had to see the android faces, the less time they had to dehumanize them, and the milder their discomfort was.
It seems that the uncanny valley effect requires that extra processing time to realize that an android is not a human. That suggests that it's that realization that causes the effect. Uncovering what happens in the brain when we distinguish man from machine isn't just good for our robot future. It may also help scientists understand why some people have trouble distinguishing the two, such as people with severe autism. In that way, understanding how we interact with robots may end up helping us better understand ourselves.
NATALIA REAGAN: Get a load of this guys. The door to hell is a real place. And no, it's not located in my ex-boyfriend's apartment building. It's a giant fiery pit in Turkmenistan, and it has been burning since 1971. You can even add it to your vacation plans if a holiday in hell sounds like fun to you.
The locals call it the door to hell or the gates of hell. But its official title is the Darvaza gas crater, in the middle of the Karakum Desert. This quaint door to hell is in the village of Derweze. And it stretches 230 feet across and 65 feet deep, a.k.a. 70 meters across and 20 meters deep, for the rest of the world that uses the metric system. Come on, America, get on board.
Here's the story. Back in the early '70s, when Turkmenistan was part of the Soviet Union, some Soviet geologists trekked into the Karakum in search of oil. They started drilling, and that's when things went, well, south. Unbeknownst to them, the team and their equipment were sitting atop a huge underground pocket of natural gas. The weight crumbled the desert surface, opening up a few craters that expelled all that flammable vapor.
If you've ever had a gas leak in your house, you know the risk of fiery disaster is just one spark away. To deal with a gas spewing out of the earth the, geologists implemented an idea that's not uncommon for the job but sounds a little wild. They lit the stuff on fire. Disclaimer, this is not the way to handle that home gas leak. OK. The hope was that all that escaped natural gas would burn up in a few weeks. It didn't.
Fast forward more than 40 years, and you can still roast up a good marshmallow over the pit. As of now, there are no plans on how, when, or if the burning will be ended. Now going to hell doesn't sound like a dream vacay, to you maybe. But the burning crater draws hundreds of tourists every year. Given that Turkmenistan's tourism industry isn't exactly booming, the government decided to let this bonfire keep ablazing.
The Darvaza gas crater even has a Tripadvisor page, which rates it as the number one activity in Darvaza. Sorry, Darvaza water crater, better luck next year. You can even camp a football field's distance away from the crater, if you dare, Vassa. Hahahaha.
ASHLEY HAMER: We got a listener question from Danielle, who asks, how does drug and alcohol tolerance work? Why can you ingest more over time while the effects decrease? Great question, Danielle.
Tolerance, at its most basic, is when someone needs more and more of a drug to produce the same response, usually after taking that drug repeatedly over a long period of time. By drug here, I'm counting alcohol too. The weird thing is that scientists don't fully understand why tolerance happens or why certain people are more prone to it than others. Here's what they do know.
Tolerance can happen over the long term or the short term. Short-term tolerance, called tachyphylaxis, can happen in days, hours, or even minutes. That's known to happen with psychedelics. A daily dose of LSD can lead to tolerance in just three days.
But generally, when people refer to tolerance, they mean it over the long term. A coffee snob who no longer gets a jolt of caffeine from their morning brew or a frequent drinker who doesn't act drunk when their blood alcohol content says otherwise.
That kind of tolerance can happen for many different reasons, both biological and psychological. Sometimes, repeated doses of a drug teach your body to clear it from your system faster and faster. Sometimes, the cell receptors that respond to the drug, stop responding like they used to, or your body reduces the number of receptors present for that drug. Sometimes, other systems in your body even take up the slack to compensate for whatever that drug is doing.
There's also something called behavioral tolerance, when the drug might be perfectly potent but your brain makes up for it. Experience can teach a person how alcohol or drugs affect them, and they can learn to act like they're not affected.
Even a new situation can change the way a drug affects you. When scientists make rats tolerant to morphine and then give them morphine in a new environment, the rats show signs of reduced tolerance.
But just because tolerance makes it seem like drugs or alcohol don't affect you, that doesn't mean it's true. Taking more and more of a substance can increase the damage done to the body and brain. It also increases the risks of addiction. Just because you don't feel the effects, doesn't mean they aren't a problem.
Thanks for your question, Danielle. If you have a question, send it in to podcast@curiousity.com, or leave us a voicemail at 312-596-5208.
NATALIA REAGAN: Before we recap what we learned today, here's a sneak peek at what you'll hear next week on Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Next week, you'll learn about how two new bird brain studies show why birds are so dang smart, how 5G may impair weather forecasts, and the psychological reason why everything takes longer than you think. We'll also talk to author John Tierney about negativity bias and how to make use of it in your own life.
NATALIA REAGAN: All I can say is that Carol and Janette are very excited about these bird brain studies.
ASHLEY HAMER: Man, birds are impressive. That's all I'll say.
NATALIA REAGAN: OK. So what did we learn today? Well, we learned that the uncanny valley, the line between lifelike and too lifelike, may exist because of the process of realizing that these lifelike robots don't have a mind like us. Even if they seem like they do? So it's that sort of weird-- ah, wait a minute. You're human but you're not human. And it's too much, don't like. Give me an old school robot.
ASHLEY HAMER: What's your least favorite uncanny valley character?
NATALIA REAGAN: I actually did a video many years ago about clowns and how clowns have an uncanny valley aspect because of that extended smile that's a little too long. Obviously, I grew up with Chucky, things like that. There was a China doll horror story when I was a kid that we used to tell with a flashlight in front of our face. That used to terrify me. What about you?
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, I just watched Prometheus this weekend. There's definitely an uncanny valley with the villain in that one. Also his face looks weirdly like the female protagonists does. And so then I started getting an uncanny valley effect from her. It was weird.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: And we discovered that sometimes, when you try to fix something, you end up turning it into a 40-year burning pit. That applies to the Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan, also known as the Gates of Hell or the Door to Hell. It was uncovered unwittingly by Soviet geologists in the search for oil. Instead, they found a pit of natural gas and lit it on fire, hoping it would burn off in a few weeks. And it did not. That was in the 1970s. You can still visit this burning crater today. And I have explored the Tripadvisor page for--
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, did you now?
ASHLEY HAMER: For the door to hell. And my favorite thing is that, as of now, the most recent review of it comes from a band called Van Pimpenstein.
[LAUGHTER]
And one of the pictures that they posted is a shirtless dude rocking out on a guitar in front of the flames. It's quite an image.
NATALIA REAGAN: I need to see this. This sounds fantastic. Oh, my god, Vam Pimpenstein. Go check out their newest album. Pimps for life. I don't know. Yeah. What exactly do you get the gate because next year is it's going to be its 50th. It's going to be turning 50, this gate of hell. So yeah, what are you going to get the gate of hell for its 50th anniversary? A golden calf?
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, that's a good point. I guess ice is kind of insensitive because it's not going to be able to keep it for very long. Also, why would you give someone ice as a present? Ashley, that's a stupid suggestion.
NATALIA REAGAN: Well, maybe if somebody was on fire and didn't want to be on fire anymore, that's a very thoughtful gift, Ashley.
ASHLEY HAMER: Sure. Well, yeah, in that realm, maybe a fire extinguisher, maybe a giant fire extinguisher. Maybe it gets to be not on fire for its 50th anniversary.
NATALIA REAGAN: Do you know what this is Ashley?
ASHLEY HAMER: What is that?
NATALIA REAGAN: I think it's the world's longest sustained fart.
[LAUGHTER]
It's a almost 50-year-old long silent but deadly earth fart. Earth Fart should be Van Pimpenstein's first album.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm just going to put it out there.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, I hope it is. I hope they're listening.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, my god. We need to find them on Twitter. We need to track them down. We are Van Pimpenstein, and this is Earth Fart!
[LAUGHTER]
ASHLEY HAMER: Wonderful.
NATALIA REAGAN: I think that's great.
[LAUGHTER]
Going to hell. I'm going to the gates of hell. OK. We also learned that drug and alcohol tolerance can be both physiological and psychological.
Biologically, your body might be able to clear the substance from your system faster, the more you ingest it. There's also behavioral tolerance, where the substance may still be potent, but your brain compensates for it. And even new environments can alter the way the drugs affect you. Like you might have a tolerance but all of a sudden, oh my goodness, I'm in a different house or I'm in the forest or I'm at Burning Man and where are my clothes. And ah, where did this gate of hell come from?
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: I was pretty surprised that we don't fully understand how tolerance works. That was news to me. I just figured like, oh yeah, OK, your cell receptors stop responding. But they're like, well, not always. There are a bunch of different ways that happens, and we don't really understand.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah. And this is also a sad side effect to this building up of tolerance. A lot of times, when people either have an overdose because of a relapse, is because when people relapse, oftentimes they'll take the same amount of the drug or alcohol that they're used to taking before they quit. Your body no longer has that built up tolerance.
And therefore, you will either overdose and have to get medical attention or unfortunately, you could pass away. And so this is why it's common when people are dealing with addicts to remind them that if you're going to relapse, which we hope you don't, remember that your body no longer has that tolerance.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow, I didn't realize that at all.
NATALIA REAGAN: Today's stories were written by Steffie Drucker, Joanie Faletto, and Ashley Hamer. And edited by Ashley Hamer, who's the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scriptwriting was by Natalia Reagan and Sonja Hodgen. Today's episode was edited by Natalia Reagan. And our producer is Cody Gough.
NATALIA REAGAN: Try to avoid lighting any gas pits on fire. Have a great weekend. And join us again on Monday to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]