Learn about why we blurt things out at inappropriate times; what would happen if Earth stopped turning; and what those little black dots are around your windshield. 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: Why We Blurt Things Out, According to Research — https://curiosity.com/topics/why-we-blurt-things-out-according-to-research-curiosity What If Earth Stopped Turning? — https://curiosity.com/topics/what-if-earth-stopped-turning-curiosity Additional sources: Here's What Those Little Dots Are On The Edges Of Your Car Windows | Jalopnik — https://jalopnik.com/heres-what-those-little-dots-are-on-the-edges-of-your-c-1791075995 The Purpose of the Frit (Black Band) and Spots on Windshield | DeDona Tint & Sound — https://www.dedona.com/the-purpose-of-the-frit-black-band-and-spots-on-windshield/ What is That Black Band Around Your Windshield? | Taylor Auto Glass — https://www.taylorautoglass.com/black-dots-windshield/ Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about why we blurt things out at inappropriate times; what would happen if Earth stopped turning; and what those little black dots are around your windshield.
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:
Additional sources:
Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/what-if-earth-stopped-turning-why-we-blurt-things-out-and-the-little-black-dots-on-your-windshield
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about why we blurt things out; what would happen if Earth stopped turning; and what those little black dots are around your windshield.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Why We Blurt Things Out, According to Research — https://curiosity.com/topics/why-we-blurt-things-out-according-to-research-curiosity (Cody)
Have you ever had that experience where you blurt something out that you shouldn’t have? Hopefully it wasn’t during a job interview, an important meeting or romantic encounter. But according to research, these are exactly the situations in which you’re likely to do it. Ironically, the more “aroused” you are (as in, awake and alert), the better the chance you might say something automatically without thinking about it. Researchers say that this might even be the reason why more arguments occur during stressful periods, like Christmas.
A new paper in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology outlines a set of experiments that reached these conclusions. The first study asked participants to write a dating profile and found that "aroused" people disclosed more embarrassing, emotional, intimate, and incriminating information about themselves, compared to those who were relatively relaxed. A follow-up study on the same data found that the aroused participants' profiles were less attractive for dating than those of the more relaxed participants. That suggests that disclosing too much information also negatively affects people's attractiveness. So remember to NOT over-share on your next Tinder profile update.
The second study looked at online trolling behavior, and how likely people are to reveal instances when they said mean or malicious things to others online. The study found that people are more likely to disclose information one would not normally disclose when they are aroused. And the third study found that people are more likely to disclose highly personal information after physical exercise.
So how do we stop ourselves creating awkwardness, being offensive, damaging trust or harming perception towards our character?
Well obviously you should make an extra effort to control what comes out of your mouth when you’re stressed, and saying stuff you might regret later. But researchers also recommend adopting daily strategies to reduce stress, since stress is related to arousal. Consciously controlling your breathing and listening to chill music are two strategies known to work. You could also reduce how much coffee you drink, get enough sleep and eat well. You know — basically the stuff we tell you to do all the time. Remember all of this when you’re heading into a high-stakes situation, and hopefully you’ll be able to keep your cool.
What If Earth Stopped Turning? — https://curiosity.com/topics/what-if-earth-stopped-turning-curiosity (Ashley)
What would happen if Earth stopped rotating? Don't worry about "how" or "why"; just think about the end result. The consequences tell us a lot about how our planet functions — as well as other worlds in the galaxy. So let’s learn some lessons with this hypothetical situation.
Well, since we’d continue to rotate relative to the Sun, we’d still have night and day. It’s just that each day would be as long as 365 days are today. A year in total darkness or total daylight would have a pretty dramatic effect on the planet, as you can imagine. Puts a new spin on escaping somewhere warm for vacation, especially if you happen to be living on the night side of the planet that year. Which brings us to weather.
Our weather patterns like the Coriolis effect are created by warm air rising, cool air sinking, and the earth’s rotation driving temperature variation across the planet. Without the earth’s rotation, our entire system of currents and winds would be disrupted, and tides would only change every 27 days (since that’s the length of one lunar orbit).
While it would be hard to stop Earth's rotation, that hasn’t stopped the Moon from doing its best to do just that for millions of years, and actually succeeding. The Moon's gravity pulls harder on one side of the Earth than the other. And over the past 4-and-a-half billion years, that’s actually slowed Earth's spin from roughly 18 hours to 24 hours. Eventually, the Earth's rotation will slow to match the Moon's orbital period of 27 days. This phenomenon is called “tidal locking,” and it’s pretty common. Many moons in the solar system are tidally locked to their home worlds, which results in a spin that presents the same side to that home world all the time.
Many known exoplanets are also tidally locked to their host stars. If Earth did that, one side would have perpetual sunshine and the other would have eternal night, and the sidereal day would last a year. Since tidally locked exoplanets seem to be common around stars smaller than the Sun, astronomers are trying to understand whether they could be habitable.
Fortunately, these things tend to take a while to happen, to the tune of millions or billions of years. In the meantime, just be happy we get to experience both night and day more often than once every few hundred days.
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Black Dots on Windshields (Cody)
Here’s a question you might ask yourself if you’re bored on your commute. What are those little black dots on car windshields and bus windows? Take a look if you’re in a vehicle right now — do you see ‘em? Those gritty black circles in a pattern along the outer edges of the window? That’s what we’re talking about.
Nearly every vehicle has those dots. The material is called "frit," and it’s a baked-in ceramic paint. It’s almost impossible to scrape off.
That frit band along the edge of the glass does three very important things. First of all, it protects urethane sealant from UV rays. Urethane sealant is the adhesive that holds the window glass in place and keeps rain and moisture from getting in. And frit protects that adhesive from the sun so the windows don’t just un-stick on a hot day.
Frit also provides a rough surface for the adhesive to stick to. Car companies used to use big gaskets and chrome trim to hold windows on, but they started using adhesives in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Frit made the adhesive hold better, and it became standard in cars pretty quickly.
But why dots? Well, for one thing, the pattern is kinda pleasing and it works as a visual barrier to hide the glue. But the dot gradient also makes for an even distribution of temperature across the glass. That way, the glass doesn’t warp and distort your view during quick temperature shifts. The frit helps you see more clearly.
Some car manufacturers have a habit of extending the dot pattern down between the front sun visors to create a kind of “third visor” for the driver. That reduces the glare from sunlight so you can see while you drive. And some car makers go even further for your visual pleasure. If you’re in a fancy car, you might notice small logos or designs in place of the traditional circular dots. But whatever it looks like, it’s still frit — and it does a much bigger job than most of us realize.
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by University of Melbourne for Futurity, Matthew R. Francis, and Kelsey Donk, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Curiosity Daily is produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!