We discuss how VR is as effective as psychedelics at helping people reach transcendence, whether Stonehenge may have been an ancient calendar, and how COVID-19 has affected women in late pregnancy.
We discuss how VR is as effective as psychedelics at helping people reach transcendence, whether Stonehenge may have been an ancient calendar, and how COVID-19 has affected women in late pregnancy.
VR & Transcendence
Stonehenge Calendar
Pregnant With Covid
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Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/vr-transcendence-stonehenge-calendar-pregnant-with-covid
[SFX: INTRO MUSIC/WHOOSH]
NATE: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. Time flies when you’re learnin’ super cool stuff. I’m Nate.
CALLI: And I’m Calli. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today you’ll learn about how VR is as effective as psychedelics at helping people reach transcendence, whether Stonehenge may have been an ancient calendar, and how COVID-19 has affected women in late pregnancy.
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Calli, we’ve talked about psychedelics before, but if you’re not willing to try LSD or psilocybin, there might be another option, and it might be in your house…
CALLI: Something you can take that has the same effects as psychedelics?
NATE: Not take, wear! New research has shown that virtual reality, or VR, can cause incredibly similar experiences to taking medium doses of psychedelics! This new finding could soon be used as therapy for patients with hard to treat mental disorders like addiction, PTSD, and depression!
CALLI: That is too cool, but before we talk about how these VR experiences mimic psychedelics, can you remind me what psychedelics do?
NATE: Sure, these are a class of drugs that are known to alter your sensory perception, and this often causes a change in the ways our brains process information. Recent trials have begun studying them again for the first time since the ‘70s. Researchers are particularly interested in how they affect OCD, addiction and depression where the standard treatment often fails patients. They’ve been so good at treating these issues, in fact, that in 2019 the FDA designated one, psilocybin from “magic mushrooms,” as a breakthrough therapy!
CALLI: That’s awesome. But how could VR have the same effect as such powerful drugs?
NATE: Well the VR experience is called Isness-D. The creator, David Glowacki, created it after having a near death experience. He wanted to see if he could use VR to recreate what sometimes happens internally during these events - what he calls a “self-transcendent experience.” This is an experience that makes you see yourself as being united with others and your surroundings, rather than an individual, separate from the rest of the world. I should say that self-transcendence is on a scale, getting lost in a book is a minor self-transcendent experience, whereas a high dose of psychedelics can cause a much grander experience, often called ego death.
CALLI: Ah so rather than trying to recreate the trip then, he wanted to recreate the results of the trip?
NATE: Exactly! To do this, Glowacki and his team created a VR experience that borrowed a lot of visual inspiration from quantum mechanics, where he says matter and energy blur: matter being the physical and energy being the abstract. So they had four or five people with headsets on at a time that were spread out all over the world. Each of them saw themselves in the VR goggles as a glowing ball of smoke and light. The users also saw their peers as the same. The program encourages the participants, as glowing balls of light, to overlap with each other until you can’t tell where one body ends and another begins.
CALLI: Well what does that do?
NATE: Researchers say it causes a sense of deep connectedness, or “energetic coalescence,” that mirrors the self-transcendent experience of psychedelics.
CALLI: Sounds like a trip to me! How well did it mirror the psychedelic experience?
NATE: Researchers tracked the emotional responses of 75 participants who experienced Isness-D. They measured four common metrics in psychedelic studies, including a feeling of shared humanity and a sense of belonging in a community. When compared to the results of psychedelic trips, the results were indistinguishable from studies with medium doses of psychedelics!
CALLI: Oh wow, so the visual and audio experience of VR had much the same effect as actually taking the psychedelic drugs?
NATE: Yes! But researchers say they still need to study how long these positive effects last. And they’re quick to point out that leading theories think psychedelics work for both the emotional experience, which VR can mimic, and the chemical experience, which VR can’t reproduce. So, obviously VR is not the same as a drug and therefore it can’t replicate the exact effects of taking psychedelics.
CALLI: Even still, this sounds incredibly promising for those with hard to treat conditions!
NATE: Absolutely! Some companies are even starting to host sessions based on ISNESS-D. Soon, you might not need to take drugs to get their benefit. All you’d have to do is put on a headset!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Hey Nate, I’ve got some exciting news to tell you! New research shows that we might have finally figured out something that has long confounded historians: Stonehenge. Well, more specifically, WHY Stonehenge was built in the first place.
NATE: You mean they finally figured out what all those rocks stacked up are for?
CALLI: They think so! For those who need a refresher, Stonehenge is the site of massive, well-organized stones, many of them standing upright, in southwest England! Construction started about 4,500 years ago, and ended about 3,500 years ago.
NATE: So they’re not just standing at random?
CALLI: Nope! New research shows that the site is actually a solar calendar, so accurate that it calculated a year as 365 ¼ days, just a bit more than the 365.2425 days used in modern solar calendars.
NATE: That is so cool, but how exactly did they use it? It's not like you can move all those stones and point them at the sun?
CALLI: No, these massive stones definitely didn’t move. Each of the boulders weighs upwards of 20 tons! They align toward the location of the sun’s rising and setting on the Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstices, when the sun would be its southernmost in the sky. On the modern calendar this is usually December 22nd. It's the longest night, and shortest day of the year!
NATE: Arranging these rocks towards the sun is one thing, but how did that help them tell how the months were progressing?
CALLI: Well researchers say the partial circle of the 17 largest stones that stand today, many of them impressively connected by huge stones across their top, was likely originally 30 stones, which would reflect a thirty day month!
NATE: Where did those other stones go?
CALLI: The thought is they were likely taken to make roads or other buildings, which is pretty funny if you ask me. It’s like taking the materials for the pyramids and using them to make a highway. Using these 30 stones as 30 days, the calendar would have included twelve months, for a total of 360 days. Then, inside the circle of stones, there are five pairs of these massive stones, which represent the extra five days needed to get to 365 days!
NATE: Well what about that quarter day to get to 365.25?
CALLI: In addition to all the stones in the circle, researchers say there were four more stones OUTSIDE the circle in a rectangle that would have marked those quarter days each year. With this kind of precision, the whole system would have been accurate for hundreds of years!
NATE: That is so impressive. But how would they have been able to figure something like this out?!
CALLI: Historians think that it seems like something a group of pagan sun worshippers would have built. Other’s think that the technology and understanding may have come from another sun worshiping culture, the Egyptians, who figured out how to track days and 1months by the sun a few hundred years before Stonehenge’s construction.
NATE: 20 tons, per rock, just to know what day it is! I’ll be sticking with my phone thanks.
CALLI: That’s fine, but at least now you don’t have to use it to google ‘What is Stonehenge!”
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Calli, I know the pandemic has been stressful for all of us, but maybe none more so than expecting mothers.
CALLI: I’m sure the fear of a pandemic or illness affecting the child they're carrying, or their own health, is the last thing any expectant mother needs!
NATE: No doubt about that. A new study just came out about the effects of contracting COVID-19 during pregnancy. This was one of the first studies to look into the effects and symptoms of Covid by each stage of pregnancy.
CALLI: What did the study look like?
NATE: Well, since the start of the pandemic there has been limited information about the effects of infection during pregnancy, with most studies being small, and rather general. For this study, researchers in Israel collected the anonymous data of more than 5,000 women to gain a better understanding of the situation.
CALLI: They found more than 5,000 pregnant women with Covid?
NATE: The study relied on 2,753 women who had contracted Covid during their pregnancy, and a control group of 2,753 women who did not contract Covid. The study took place from February 2020 to July 2021 and broke down exactly when these mother’s contracted the infection. About 17% got COVID-19 during the first trimester, 34% during the second and 48% during the third trimester.
CALLI: Was there a big difference on the effects depending on when the mothers contracted Covid?
NATE: Well those who caught Covid in the first and second trimester didn’t show any signs of increased risk for premature birth.
CALLI: And the third trimester?
NATE: In the third trimester, women who contracted Covid were 2.76 times more likely to have a preterm birth.
CALLI: That’s a big change!
NATE: And mothers who caught Covid after 34 weeks of pregnancy were 7 times more likely to have a preterm birth! Additionally, all women who had Covid were less likely to have their water break than women who weren’t infected, about 39% of mothers compared to about 58%!
CALLI: Did that affect the success of the pregnancy at all?
NATE: That is a reason to be hopeful, researchers say contracting Covid made mothers no more likely to lose their babies.
CALLI: Oh thank goodness. Well, where do we go from here?
NATE: There is definitely still more research to be done. This study came out before the Delta variant, or the more prevalent Omicron variant arrived. So they will have to keep updating the study.
CALLI: Well what should expectant mothers do in the meantime?
NATE: Researchers say this study suggests that women in their third trimester, and especially those pregnant for more than 34 weeks, should wear a mask and practice social distancing to lower the risk of infection and premature birth
CALLI: Well these results certainly could have been much worse. I hope they can relieve some stress!
NATE: Absolutely, anything science can do to lessen the worry of expectant mothers is science worth pursuing!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. A new VR experience is causing emotional reactions incredibly similar to those seen in patients who take psychedelics. Developing this technology could soon help patients with hard to treat mental conditions.
CALLI: Researchers say they likely figured out the purpose of the massive stone structure, Stonehenge. The circle of stones was likely a supremely accurate solar calendar aligned with the winter solstice!
NATE: A recent study was the first to break down the effects of covid-19 infection by the stage of the pregnancy. Thankfully, while those who contract covid in the third trimester are more likely to have a premature birth, they are no more likely to lose their child.