In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: There's a Scientific Reason Open Offices Are So Quiet, and It's Not Good The First Men on the Moon Almost Didn't Make It There What Counts as a Fruit and What Counts as a Vegetable? It's Not What You Think Want to polish up your workplace communication skills? Check out "The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People" by Dr. Paul White and Dr. Gary Chapman, the guy who wrote the wildly popular book "The 5 Love Languages." We handpick reading recommendations we think you may like. If you choose to make a purchase, Curiosity will get a share of the sale. Want to support our show? Register for the 2018 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. Just register at the link and select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2018 Follow Curiosity.com for updates to learn about these topics and more: 5-star Curiosity App for Android and iOS Email Newsletter Facebook Twitter Instagram Alexa Flash Briefing for Amazon Echo smart speakers
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Want to polish up your workplace communication skills? Check out "The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People" by Dr. Paul White and Dr. Gary Chapman, the guy who wrote the wildly popular book "The 5 Love Languages." We handpick reading recommendations we think you may like. If you choose to make a purchase, Curiosity will get a share of the sale.
Want to support our show? Register for the 2018 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. Just register at the link and select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2018
Follow Curiosity.com for updates to learn about these topics and more:
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/what-defines-fruits-and-veggies-why-open-offices-are-bad-and-moon-landing-anniversary
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories 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 we'll celebrate the 49th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing with a look-back at the computer overload that almost stopped us from getting there. You'll also learn why open office setups are bad, and we'll answer a listener question about the difference between berries and fruit.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity. Ashley, have you ever worked at a job where you had your own office?
ASHLEY HAMER: Never.
CODY GOUGH: Wouldn't that be nice?
ASHLEY HAMER: That would be so nice. I feel like that's what you always think is going to happen when you're a kid. And maybe it did when someone was a kid. But I don't think it happens anymore.
CODY GOUGH: I've never had a job in my adult life where-- I have access to this podcast studio.
ASHLEY HAMER: Just sort of like an office.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. I guess. Kind of.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: About 3/4 of offices in the US are open offices. And if you think that's because they're really great for employees, then we've got news for you. A new Harvard study suggests open offices dramatically reduce face-to-face interaction.
Now there's been research on this in the past saying that the fewer barriers there are in an office, the more people should talk, right? It's like common sense. Well, that research was mostly based on surveys, as in self-reported behavior. And that kind of data is not always that accurate.
This study outfitted people with wearable technology with infrared sensors, microphones, and other bells and whistles. Super high tech. They're sending Robocop to the office.
ASHLEY HAMER: [CHUCKLES]
CODY GOUGH: They could measure how long people had conversations, where they were, and even their posture. And they tracked workers in two different Fortune 500 companies over several weeks, starting a few weeks before in office remodel and continuing for another three months after the new setup.
Well, guess what? Email and instant messaging data showed that electronic communication skyrocketed and face-to-face conversation dropped precipitously. The study's authors note this might be because people just don't like having conversations in front of every single one of their coworkers. When there are walls, you can talk to somebody in private, when there are no walls, private conversations happen online, which is why I slack you all day actually.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: Open offices also might trigger some innate human instinct to withdraw socially when you're in a situation of forced togetherness. Either way, they note that written communication is generally less efficient than talking, which means the open office plan reduces productivity. And that can also cause coworker friction because some people are a lot more fun to talk to in person than they are over email, like if you chat with a co-worker that puts a period at the end of all of their instant messages. So aggressive. Not a millennial style.
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't do that, do I?
CODY GOUGH: No. Gosh. No. No. No. This is a personal thing. This is nothing to do with the study. Just don't put periods at the end of your text or instant messages. Oh, man. They come off as aggressive to me. Maybe I'm just neurotic.
Now some argue that you can fit more people in an open-plan space. So if big companies can cram more workers into one space, then they might save on real estate to make up for that lost productivity. But I am not a fan.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's probably just to save money. It's a whole mess.
CODY GOUGH: Do you hear that office managers? Just stop it.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stop it.
CODY GOUGH: Give us our own offices. [CHUCKLES]
ASHLEY HAMER: 49 years ago today, Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and we took one giant leap for mankind. But did you know the landing almost failed at the last minute? Here's a little history lesson.
First, some background on the mission. Apollo 11 was made up of two spacecraft. The command service module was called Columbia. It was made to bring the crew all the way to the moon and then back again. And it was commanded by Michael Collins, who hung out on Columbia while his crewmates went to the surface. By the way, can you imagine your two crewmates get to go on the lunar surface, be the first people ever to touch the moon, and you have to stay in the car?
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, no. That's not OK. There's nothing OK about that.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Well--
ASHLEY HAMER: Astronauts, man. They just take one for the team. The other spacecraft was a lunar module called Eagle. Eagle was designed to fly to the moon's surface and then back to Columbia. And you probably know that was commanded by Neil Armstrong and co-piloted by Edwin Buzz Aldrin.
Well, we're lucky Eagle made it because when it was on its way to the lunar surface, the computer on board showed a 1202 alarm. Translation? The computer was overloaded. Remember, computers in 1969. Not so advanced, right? The alarms went off every 10 seconds, so it was a bit stressful.
So who saved the day? A NASA software engineer named Jack Garman. He made the gutsy call to tell mission control to push on. It turns out he had a lot of experience with that computer system, and his instinct told him that the computer's overload just meant that it wasn't making certain calculations that it didn't even need to make in order for landing to be a success.
With alarms blaring and NASA holding its breath, Neil Armstrong took over the computer's control just before touching down. And he manually steered Eagle to a safe landing. They touched down at 4:17 PM Eastern Time on July 20, 1969. And the rest is history. Happy anniversary, moon landing.
CODY GOUGH: Our last story today was inspired by an email we got from a whole family of curious listeners. This question came from Dorothy, Abigail, and Hazel. Quote, "My kids and I listen to the Curiosity Daily on our car ride home. Our question is, are strawberries berries or fruit? What is the difference between berries and fruit? I've tried to research this, and it gets confusing around botanical versus popular definitions," unquote.
Like I said, the question was so good, we wrote an entire article to answer it. So let's define some things. Traditionally, in your grocery store's produce aisle, if it has seeds, it's fruit. And if it's seedless, it's generally seen as a vegetable.
Botanists defined fruit is the portion of a flowering plant that develops from the ovary. That's where the plant manages its seeds. Now as for berries, this is one of lots of different types of fruit. A berry is a simple fruit that stems from just one flower with one ovary and lots of seeds. That's it.
That means that tomatoes, pomegranates, eggplant, kiwis, and even bananas count as berries. I'll say that again. Eggplant and bananas are berries. Those little brown spots in the middle of bananas are seeds.
But there are two categories of berries too-- citrus and pepos. First off, citrus fruits are berries with a tough, oily outer layer. They have a layer that surrounds the seeds called an endocarp. That's made of succulent hairs that contain the juice of citrus fruit. Since oranges, tangerines, lemons, and limes are all citrus fruits, that means they're all berries. Yeah, oranges, tangerines, lemons, and limes are berries.
The second type of berry is pepos. They've got a hard rind-like outer layer around a fleshy middle layer. Think watermelons and cantaloupes. Surprise. You can read about other fruit categories like caryopsis, drupes, palms, aggregate fruit, and even veggies in our full write-up today on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS. But we hope that answers your question about berries. Thanks again, Dorothy, Abigail, and Hazel, for writing in and for staying curious.
ASHLEY HAMER: Here's the weirdest thing. Raspberries and strawberries are not berries.
CODY GOUGH: What are raspberries and strawberries?
ASHLEY HAMER: They're aggregate fruits.
CODY GOUGH: What?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: [CHUCKLES]
ASHLEY HAMER: It's wild.
CODY GOUGH: This is like how the FDA classifies pizza as a vegetable.
ASHLEY HAMER: [CHUCKLES]
CODY GOUGH: Its classifications are weird. That's all for today, but Curiosity has big plans for the weekend. What can you learn about this weekend, Ashley?
ASHLEY HAMER: This weekend, you'll learn about why we wear pants, the benefits of being a narcissist, an eerie whistling sound detected between Saturn and Enceladus, the most haunted trails in the United States, and how holding hands with your partner can literally reduce pain and more.
CODY GOUGH: Join us again Sunday for another edition of this podcast. If there's something you're curious about, then email a question to podcast@curiosity.com, and one of us will answer it on Sunday or some other time next week. And please check the show notes if you have not yet nominated us as a finalist in the 2018 Podcast Awards. That's at podcastawards.com. Or again, the link is right there in the show notes with some step-by-step instructions to help us out. We really appreciate it.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again Sunday to learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough. Have a great weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: And stay curious.
NARRATOR: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.
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