Learn about how eclipses on Mars can tell scientists more about the planet’s interior, why we behave irrationally when our freedom is threatened, and how an ‘80s video game was at the center of a conspiracy theory.
Learn about how eclipses on Mars can tell scientists more about the planet’s interior, why we behave irrationally when our freedom is threatened, and how an ‘80s video game was at the center of a conspiracy theory.
The Martian Moon Phobos Creates a Yearly Solar Eclipse — and Its Effects Could Tell Us More About the Planet by Grant Currin
Reactance Is Why You Act Irrationally When Your Freedom Is Threatened by Cody Gough
Was This 1980s Arcade Game Really at the Centre of a Government Conspiracy? by Reuben Westmaas
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-martian-moon-phobos-creates-a-yearly-solar-eclipse
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 how eclipses on Mars can tell scientists more about the planet's interior, why we behave irrationally when our freedom is threatened, and how an 80s video game was once the center of a conspiracy theory.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's satisfy some curiosity. You know Mars, the red planet, fourth rock from the sun, the apple of Elon's eye. Scientists have learned a ton about Mars in recent years. And now a new paper explains how one of its moons is shedding more light on what makes the planet tick. Or should I say blocking more light? Because these revelations happened thanks to some lunar eclipses.
About two years ago, NASA landed a probe called InSight on a plane just North of the Martian equator called the Elysium Planitia Region. InSight hasn't been on the planet for very long, but it's already witnessed nine lunar eclipses. One by the tiny moon Deimos, and eight by the only slightly larger moon, Phobos.
The Phobos eclipses happen about once per Earth year in sets of up to seven in a row. While they're more frequent than lunar eclipses on Earth, they're less impressive. Martian eclipses only lasts about 30 seconds, and the moon never entirely blocks out the sun.
The researchers have just released a paper announcing what InSight saw when it witnessed these eclipses. First, the obvious part. The amount of sunlight that reached the probe's solar cells dipped by about 30% when Phobos was partially blocking the probe's view of the sun.
On Earth, this phenomenon causes localized changes in temperature, which kick up gusts of wind. That apparently doesn't happen on Mars. InSight's weather sensors didn't detect anything out of the ordinary.
But the probe did detect something interesting during the eclipse, thanks to the seismometer that was recording ground motion. It found that the surface of Mars changed shape very, very slightly during the eclipse. One of the researchers compared the size of the effect to sliding two atoms under the edge of a coin. Very, very slight.
The signal was small, but it was enough for them to investigate. At first, they thought it might have been caused by Phobos' gravity, but the solution they settled on was the change in temperature. That probably caused the ground to cool ever so slightly, and deform enough to be detected by the sensor.
This tiny fluctuation can tell scientists a lot. For one thing, knowing how the ground reacts to that slight change in temperature tells them more about what the planet is made of. That's a big reason InSight is there after all.
Even better, the timing of these eclipses can help researchers map Phobos' orbit around Mars more accurately, which will come in handy in 2024. That's when Japan's JAXA Space Agency plans to send a probe to Phobos and bring samples back to Earth. All that from a tiny eclipse of the sun.
NATALIA REAGAN: Well, we know that everyone's got to be missing Cody. So to satisfy that Cody fix, here is a story that resonated with him. People often don't want to do what they're told they have to do, especially if they feel their freedom is being threatened. So sit back, relax, and listen to Cody teach us about reactants. But only if you want to.
CODY GOUGH: Ashley, do you ever have the instinct to do the opposite of what you're told to do?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes. A lot, yeah.
CODY GOUGH: I'm extremely, extremely guilty of this.
ASHLEY HAMER: I can get really stubborn.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: I'm glad we've never butted heads. Well, today we wrote about a psychological quirk that I have not seen super widely discussed. It's a name for when humans acts out, sometimes irrationally, when they think their freedom is under threat. We do it to reestablish our sense that we're free. And psychologists call this reactants.
I am so glad there's a term for this. If someone feels like you're bossing them around, then it'll trigger reactants. And they're not likely to see your perspective. In fact, people often do the opposite of what a bossy person says to do.
In one study, for example, a judge warned a mock jury to disregard certain evidence that was inadmissible. But the judge didn't explain why. That jury used that evidence to make their final decision despite what the judge had told them to do.
But you don't have to be in a courtroom to feel this. A lot of things we think of as bad news can be seen as a loss of freedom. Like, when you're injured or sick, that takes away your physical freedom. When you get dumped, that means you lose the freedom to see your partner, and your freedom to be the one who does the breaking up. And getting fired is also a double whammy.
Now, reactants doesn't mean humans inherently dislike rules and constraints, we do like limits. In fact, too many choices can make us unhappy. Limited freedom doesn't trigger reactants, it's triggered when you feel like the freedoms you already have are slipping away.
Now, if you have to give bad news to somebody, you can get around triggering reactants by offering a built-in choice. If you're breaking up, for example, then say, you decide who gets to keep the blender we got for Christmas. And offer an immediate constructive activity that'll soak up some adrenaline.
Like if you're someone's boss, you could say, we have to cut your pay, and can you, please, walk down to HR to get some paperwork? Granting the illusion of freedom and giving someone an active distraction can help keep lashing out to a minimum.
NATALIA REAGAN: If you heard that several children fell ill and died after a mysterious new video game showed up in an arcade, what would you think? What if federal agents were spotted visiting the arcade to service the machine? You're intrigued now, aren't you?
In honor of the spooky Halloween season, I'm going to tell you the whole story. It's known as the Polybius conspiracy. In 1981, two children in Portland, Oregon mysteriously fell ill one week after visiting a local arcade. Soon after, a professional video game player died of a heart attack at an arcade, and later his greatest rival suffered the same fate.
A conspiracy theory quickly caught on. These four were victims of a government mind control experiment centered on one of a kind arcade game known only as Polybius. Legend has it that Polybius debuted in 1981, the same year as Donkey Kong, Frogger, and Galaga. The game could only be found at one arcade in Portland. And it created lines around the block. But it left many players with headaches, or worse.
Every week men in black would arrive to open the back of the machine and gather data. Then polybius disappeared and was never seen or heard from again. Dun dun da. Sounds scary, right? It's scarier when you find out at least some of it is true.
12-year-old Brian Moreau fell ill at a Portland arcade. And the same week arcade regular Michael Lopez experienced migraines for the first time in his life. High profile deaths followed shortly after. 18-year-old arcade wunderkind Jeff Daly died of a heart attack after around of a different game Berserk. And a year after that, Daly's rival Peter Borkowski suffered the exact same fate.
As creepy as this all sounds, the conspiracy is almost certainly made up. First of all, it's pretty likely that Polybius never existed. Gaming publications from the era never once mentioned it. As for the illnesses and death, almost all of them came after multi-day attempts to break video game wreckers. Those gaming marathons likely took a toll on the gamers' hearts.
Although little Brian just had a tummy ache from drinking too many Cokes. In fact, the first time the story hit the internet was 1998 in a message board post by a German man known for his hoaxes. Oh, come on, Klaus, give it up. Most likely, that's all the Polybius conspiracy is, just a story someone made up to amuse themselves. Or maybe that's just what they want you to think. Dun, dun, dun, yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right, well, let's do a quick recap of what we learned today.
NATALIA REAGAN: Well, we learned that the Mars moon Phobos has annual eclipses that lead to some temperature drops, which is to be expected. And, get this, these eclipses cause very small amounts of seismic activity on Mars. And this slight movement may actually inform scientists what exactly Mars is made of. It's not made of chocolate, despite what you, Mars bar fans, are thinking.
ASHLEY HAMER: We don't know that yet, Natalia. We need to do more research.
NATALIA REAGAN: Fake news. You're right, more research is needed. I mean, I love how these little tiny things that might seem unrelated are completely related when it comes to science. Because everything it really is connected.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. And we learned about one of Cody's favorite psychological phenomenons, reactants. This is when people do the opposite of what they're told to do because they get the impression that their freedom is at stake. I mean, teenagers, this explains teenagers, right?
NATALIA REAGAN: I guess some of us never grow out of it then.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. I think that's right.
NATALIA REAGAN: Don't tell me what to do. You're not the boss of me.
ASHLEY HAMER: I mean, this is why when you're trying to get someone to do something, you have to appeal to their better natures. You have to find a reason they want to, and do it that way instead of just telling them they have to.
NATALIA REAGAN: One of the best lines of advice I've ever really gotten when you're working with other people, which is most of the time, if you're dealing with someone who's maybe a difficult boss or someone who wants to be in control all the time, let them think that they came up with the idea that you were offering them. Kind of almost walk around the idea.
So they come to it on their own, but you are basically handing them the idea. Which is frustrating and you wish you could just be like, hey, this is my idea, isn't it cool? Sometimes if you just want it to get done, you got to take them on a walk. Let them think, hey, I'm brilliant, I came up with this.
ASHLEY HAMER: Sometimes getting the thing done is more important than getting credit for it.
NATALIA REAGAN: Absolutely.
ASHLEY HAMER: And we also learned that the 1980s were full of real life Stranger Things when a mysterious video game showed up in an arcade, and then two boys fell ill, another two gamers died. And it all centered around this game called Polybius. But Polybius probably never existed. And all the illnesses and deaths happened after gaming marathons, which can take a toll on anybody.
And I do love that you mentioned how little Brian just had a tummy ache from drinking too many Cokes, that was after a gaming marathon. But it led to a newspaper article in the local newspaper entitled Tummy Derails Asteroids Champ. Which I think is just the cutest thing in the world.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, wow. That's--
ASHLEY HAMER: That's what a little boy would do, right? When you're at the arcade.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah, poor little guy. It actually reminds me of my dad. I felt like I lost him forever to Legend of Zelda. Legend of Zelda came out-- God, I guess like 1989 or something.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, the one on Super Nintendo?
NATALIA REAGAN: No, regular old Nintendo.
ASHLEY HAMER: The regular Nintendo.
NATALIA REAGAN: I'm old, I'm real old. Yeah, my brother got regular Nintendo, I think, for his seventh birthday maybe? Because it was like 1988 or something. And actually the first video game I ever beat was Super Mario Brothers.
And I remember it was kind of like these kids. We would just go into a rabbit hole and not come out for hours. But my dad-- it was really kind of funny. My dad bought it for my brother, but then he fell in love with the Legend of Zelda, and he could not stop.
And we would-- we'd come home from school-- and my dad worked, but he was freelance. So if he didn't have to work, he had all the time in the world. Yeah, we'd always kind of get upset and be like, can we get on? No. I haven't saved the princess yet.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, see, you're talking to a kindred spirit of your dad right now because, yeah, we've talked about this on the podcast before back when Cody was on. But I bought a Nintendo Switch for the quarantine. And I started playing Zelda Breath of the Wild, which is a beautiful game and a wonderful game.
It is very engrossing. And the whole reason I didn't have a video game system was because I would waste all my time. And you know what? If there was ever a time to not get anything done, it was during those first few months of the quarantine. And that is what I spent my time doing, is playing this game. And it was wonderful.
It actually when you're all cooped up in an apartment and you can't go out and see things and do things, being able to see things and do things in a video game is actually pretty nice.
NATALIA REAGAN: No, I agree. I remember an old boyfriend had one of them in Chicago. If it was negative 10 degrees, you don't go out all weekend. And so I'd go into a Tetris hole.
ASHLEY HAMER: Nice.
NATALIA REAGAN: Not as pretty though.
ASHLEY HAMER: Great music, though.
NATALIA REAGAN: Today's stories were written by Grant Curran, Cody Gough, and Reuben Westmeath. And edited by Ashley Hamer, who's the Managing Editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scriptwriting was by Natalia Reagan and Sonia Hodgen. Today's episode is edited by me, Ashley Hamer. And our producer is Cody Gough.
NATALIA REAGAN: Join us again tomorrow, only if you really want to, learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.
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