Learn about a new discovery into how the pyramids were built; why spouses who are also best friends see the most health and happiness benefits; and why we don’t just make more sand, with some help from a special guest, author Vince Beiser. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com — and learn about sand from author Vince Beiser — to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: We May Finally Know How the Pyramids Were Built — https://curiosity.im/2EdWVsI Spouses Who View Each Other as Best Friends Are Much Happier in Life — https://curiosity.im/2EaSi2w Visit https://amazon.com to pick up Vince Beiser’s book, “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization,” on Amazon. It’s free with your Audible trial, and if you choose to make a purchase using this link, then Curiosity gets a share of the sale! If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn about a new discovery into how the pyramids were built; why spouses who are also best friends see the most health and happiness benefits; and why we don’t just make more sand, with some help from a special guest, author Vince Beiser.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com — and learn about sand from author Vince Beiser — to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Visit https://amazon.com to pick up Vince Beiser’s book, “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization,” on Amazon. It’s free with your Audible trial, and if you choose to make a purchase using this link, then Curiosity gets a share of the sale!
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-problem-with-making-sand-w-vince-beiser-happiest-spouses-and-how-pyramids-were-built
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got the latest and greatest from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today you'll learn about a new discovery into how the pyramids were built, which married couples see the most health and happiness benefits, and why we don't just make more sand, with some help from a special guest, author Vince Beiser.
CODY GOUGH: Let's sands down some curiosity on the award-winning Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: A new discovery may help us understand how the pyramids were built. Recent research suggests that they were actually built by paid laborers, not slaves. But we're still a bit fuzzy on how they were built. Assuming aliens didn't build them, this discovery could be a big step in solving the 4,000-year-old mystery.
CODY GOUGH: But again this is assuming aliens didn't build them.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: I just want to be clear on that, Ashley. No reason why. You may continue.
ASHLEY HAMER: [CHUCKLES] All right. Well, archeologists have been able to explain some of the methods used to build the Great Pyramid of Giza, which is 481 feet, or 146 and 1/2 meters tall. The giant stones used to build it were mined from a quarry just south of the pyramid. And researchers think their journey across the desert was made easier by wetting the sand first. But that only explains how the stones got from one location to the other, not how they were then lifted high into the air and then arranged into this enormous structure.
For a while, researchers thought that the lifting part would have involved some sort of ramp, but they've never come up with actual evidence that such a ramp actually existed. It's a particular challenge because the ramp would have to have been really steep, with an incline of about 20 degrees. That would have been a bit of a challenge for a 2 and 1/2 ton stone.
Now a new discovery at a different quarry might shed light on how ancient people manage such a feat. In another rock quarry located in Egypt's Eastern Desert, an Anglo-French team found a very unusual ramp carved into the ground. And that hinted at some surprisingly advanced technological achievements. For one thing, it was pretty steep. But more significantly, it was flanked on both sides by staircases.
These stairs were marked with recurring holes that could have contained wooden posts, which would have rotted away long ago. This kind of system has never been discovered anywhere else. And it's dated to about 4,500 years ago, which means it predates the construction of the pyramids entirely. The patterns of the post holes in the stairs suggested a particular kind of rope-and-pulley system, which we've seen in Greek technology. But this discovery predates those devices by about 2,000 years.
Since this specific ramp is cut into the rock itself. It wouldn't have been used to build the actual Great Pyramid, but it does suggest the ancient Egyptians had a better idea of how to use simple machines than we originally thought.
CODY GOUGH: Assuming it wasn't aliens.
ASHLEY HAMER: It wasn't aliens, Cody.
CODY GOUGH: I never said it was.
ASHLEY HAMER: [CHUCKLES]
CODY GOUGH: Recent research has something to say about how to have the happiest marriage and why it's important. Even if marriage isn't your thing, you probably know married couples. So feel free to pass along the good news from this story if you want to improve their day.
First off, multiple studies have shown evidence that married people tend to be happier and healthier than unmarried people. According to an article from Harvard Health Publishing, compared to their single counterparts, married folks tend to live longer, have fewer strokes and heart attacks, have a lower chance of becoming depressed, be less likely to have advanced cancer at the time of diagnosis, and more likely to survive cancer for a longer period of time. Not too shabby. Married people tend to be happier too.
But this recent research shows that happiness levels are significantly higher in spouses who also view each other as best friends. In fact, having your significant other as your BFF may mean that you are twice as satisfied with life overall than married people who don't see each other that way. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, quote, "Those who are best friends with their partners have the largest well-being benefits from marriage and cohabitation, even when controlling for pre-marital well-being levels. The well-being benefits of marriage are, on average, about twice as large for those, about half the sample, whose spouse is also their best friend," unquote. Now to be clear being best friends is not absolutely necessary to have a happy marriage. It's just icing on that delicious, very expensive wedding cake.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody, is your wife your best friend?
CODY GOUGH: She's definitely my best friend.
ASHLEY HAMER: Aww.
CODY GOUGH: There's no way I could have not married her because-- yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's really sweet.
CODY GOUGH: Today's episode is sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
ASHLEY HAMER: Everyone knows about the risks of driving drunk. You could get in a crash. People could get hurt or killed. But let's take a moment to look at some surprising statistics.
CODY GOUGH: Almost 29 people in the United States die every day in alcohol-impaired vehicle crashes. That's one person every 50 minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: Even though drunk-driving fatalities have fallen by a third in the last three decades, drunk-driving crashes still claim more than 10,000 lives each year.
CODY GOUGH: Drunk driving can have a big impact on your wallet too. You could get arrested and incur huge legal expenses, for example. You could possibly even lose your job.
ASHLEY HAMER: So what can you do to prevent drunk driving? Plan a safe ride home before you start drinking. Designate a sober driver, or call a taxi. If someone you know has been drinking, take their keys and arrange for them to get a sober ride home.
CODY GOUGH: We all know the consequences of driving drunk, but one thing is for sure. You're wrong if you think it's no big deal.
ASHLEY HAMER: Drive sober or get pulled over.
CODY GOUGH: Humans are running out of one of the most important materials in our civilization, and it's sand. You might remember hearing about this from when we talked to Vince Beiser a few months ago. He's the author of the book The World in a Grain, The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization. And he really made us change the way we look at sand.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Sand is in pretty much everything we build, from glass to concrete. And grains of sand actually have to be a certain shape to work well in those applications. Today Vince is back on the podcast to answer a simple question. If we're running out of sand, then why don't we just make more of it? Here's what he told us.
VINCE BEISER: Most sand in the world is created by erosion. It's created by weather, by water, and wind breaking down rock formations. And that happens on a rock that's exposed in mountains and other rock outcroppings. It also happens below the ground, right? Water moving underground can also break off bits of rock formations under the ground and push it up to the surface as sand. So that's where most sand comes from.
We can, of course. We can make more sand. You can crush down rock and make sand artificially, and that is happening in a lot of places. They have no choice but to do that.
There's two problems with creating sand that way though. One is that it's often not quite the right shape because when you crush down rock and turn it into sand, it's not quite the right shape as naturally occurring sand, and it doesn't work quite as well for a lot of the purposes that we use sand for, which is mainly concrete.
The other problem with it is it's really expensive. I mean, if you think about how much energy it takes to run a machine that's capable of smashing up granite, crushing it down to grains of sand, it takes a lot of energy, which costs a lot of money. So it's much more expensive usually than just going out and scooping up naturally occurring sand.
ASHLEY HAMER: In the shape, is it sort of like the difference between cubed ice and crushed ice?
VINCE BEISER: Kind of. Yeah, yeah. It's really like-- it's too angular is the problem. It's too sharp to stick together because what happens when a grain of sand is freshly broken off from a piece of rock, it's really sharp and jagged. The sand that we use, which mostly comes from rivers and floodplains, it's been eroded some by the water. So it's been worn down some. So it's still got that angularity that you need to lock together, but it's not so angular that it's too sharp. And the problem with artificial sand is it's often hasn't been eroded at all. It's fresh sand, as they call it. And it's a little too sharp to work together.
So like I say, they do use that sand. There is more and more of it being created, but it's a problem because it's also much more expensive than using natural stuff. It is absolutely staggering how much sand we use, how many different purposes we put it to, and the fact that we are so dependent on it. I had absolutely no idea until I started looking into it.
CODY GOUGH: Once again, that was Vince Beiser, author of The World in a Grain, The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization. We've got a link to by his book in the show notes. And if you make a purchase using that link, I think Curiosity will get a share of the sale. Thanks again for joining us, Vince.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again tomorrow with the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
NARRATOR: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.
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