Learn about whether “fat-burning foods” are a real thing; why we probably can’t tell male and female dinosaurs apart; and how you can do great things by seeing yourself as part of something greater.
Learn about whether “fat-burning foods” are a real thing; why we probably can’t tell male and female dinosaurs apart; and how you can do great things by seeing yourself as part of something greater.
Are "fat-burning foods" a real thing? Scientists performed a critical review to find out by Andrea Michelson
We probably can't tell male and female dinos apart by Grant Currin
To Do Great Things, See Yourself as Part of Something Greater by Reuben Westmaas
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/what-science-says-about-fat-burning-foods-do-great-things-by-being-a-part-of-something-greater-and-telling-male-and-female-dinosaurs-apart
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 whether “fat-burning foods” are a real thing; why we probably can’t tell male and female dinosaurs apart; and how you can do great things by seeing yourself as part of something greater.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
If you’ve ever made a pledge to eat healthier, you’ve probably had at least some exposure to the confusing world of diet culture. Lifestyle magazines and TV doctors make it seem like if you eat this one food, you’ll burn fat, build abs, and look just like a supermodel. Obviously, that can’t all be true. But is any of it possible? Is there such a thing as a fat-burning food? Scientists recently looked into the question, and here’s what they found.
For a paper published in April, a team of nutritional scientists working in Italy performed a critical review of the research on how certain foods actually impact metabolism. First, they made a list of foods that are claimed to burn fat or speed up your metabolism — things like apple cider vinegar, cinnamon, garcinia cambogia [garr-SIN-ee-yuh kam-BOH-jee-yuh], guarana [gur-RAH-nuh], and turmeric. Then, they searched study databases for proof that they actually work. The answer? Across the board, the scientific evidence behind the claims of popular weight-loss foods is severely lacking. And the few studies that do exist are often limited by small sample sizes or shoddy methods.
But! They did find a few foods that had evidence for some fat-burning or metabolism-boosting properties. Green tea, for one, has been shown to increase energy expenditure and enhance fat oxidation. Part of that comes down to its caffeine content, but it also gets help from special antioxidants called catechins [KAT-uh-chins/kins]. The bad news? To see a real effect on metabolism, you’d have to drink a lot of green tea — like, three to four cups every day. Studies of chili peppers also supported their metabolism-boosting properties, but ran into the same problem as green tea. That is, most people wouldn’t be able to tolerate the amount you’d have to eat to really kick-start your metabolism.
But spirulina, a blue-green algae, shows promise as a potentially successful dietary supplement. It’s chock full of important vitamins and minerals. And while we don’t know exactly how spirulina affects energy expenditure, studies have found that daily consumption can lead to weight and fat loss.
That being said, even the foods that got positive reviews aren’t the diet miracles they’re made out to be in the media. Part of that comes down to differences in our gut bacteria, which the study authors say is an underappreciated factor in our energy intake and expenditure. But more importantly? Long-term change takes time. You definitely can’t expect a spirulina smoothie to shrink your waistline overnight. The science suggests that the best weight loss strategy is a balanced diet and regular exercise over the long term. It’s a boring headline for a lifestyle magazine, but it’s the method backed by science.
New evidence suggests that scientists still can’t judge one important trait about dinosaur fossils: their sex. It turns out it’s pretty hard to tell male and female dinos apart. And this new finding is casting uncertainty on some classic paleontology studies, including one that claimed female T. rexes were larger than males.
This might go without saying, but paleontology is very hard. Only the smallest sliver of ancient creatures died in the right place and at the right moment for their bodies to be fossilized. And we’ve only found a fraction of the remains that have managed to survive all this time.
That makes judging sex differences between fossils really tough. In living animals, sexes often differ by body size and sexually selected traits like horns and colorful feathers. But these characteristics vary from individual to individual — a female might be unusually large, or a male might lose a horn in a fight. You need dozens of individuals to get a sense of what’s common among males versus females. We just don’t have that with dinosaur fossils, but paleontologists have to make what judgments they can based on body size and traits they assume are sexually selected.
To test the accuracy of these kinds of judgments, a team of researchers recently tried them out on a modern animal: the gharial [GARE-ee-uhl]. It’s a kind of crocodilian, but with a long, skinny snout. They’re critically endangered and live only in India and Nepal. Gharials are large reptiles that grow slowly and lay eggs, so they’re good living analog for dinosaurs. Males tend to be larger than females, and they have a fleshy growth on the end of their snout that makes it easy to tell the sexes apart — at least, it’s easy when they’re still flesh and bone.
The researchers visited museums across the world and examined the skulls of 106 gharials. They were able to compare their best guess about the sex of each gharial with the museum’s record. It turns out there is a way to tell the difference between the sexes from the bones alone: males have a difference in their skull that corresponds to the fleshy growth on their snout. Unfortunately, that rare feature is the only way they were able to tell the difference. Physical size wasn’t a reliable way to tell male and female gharials apart.
That led them to their sad conclusion: telling the difference between male and female dinosaurs is probably a lot harder than paleontologists once believed. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible — just that scientists still haven’t found the secret.
Have you ever wanted to accomplish great things? Well here’s some advice: it might sound counterintuitive, but sometimes, the secret to accomplishing something big is thinking of yourself as something small. Specifically, as a small part of something much greater.
Think of it this way: there’s a reason that a sports team is more likely to win when playing at home than away. They’re surrounded by a massive, supportive crowd that pushes them to perform at their best. The same can be said of a team project with coworkers, running a race for charity, or even planning a camping trip for your family. The more you feel like a part of something larger than yourself, the better you’ll do. It’s a lot easier to let just yourself down then a whole team, stadium, or carful of kids who are counting on you.
Putting yourself aside and focusing on a larger purpose is what Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness, authors of the book Peak Performance, call ego minimization and self-transcendence. That kind of thinking can make people capable of greater things — and they might even enjoy those things more!
This principle doesn’t only apply to athletes — it’s useful in the workplace, too. When every member of a team understands how their job fits in with the greater project, they're more likely to succeed as a group rather than each trying to individually be the best.
It even makes a difference when you work alone. A 2001 study found that hospital janitors performed better and got more satisfaction from their work when they saw it as a part of the hospital's mission to heal the sick. These workers framed their jobs as a vital part of maintaining the hospital's hygiene and preventing the spread of infection. When they understood their importance, the janitors didn't just do their job better: they were happier, too.
So, the next time you're feeling worn out and hopeless, remember the people who are counting on you. See yourself as a part of something greater, and you just might do great things.
Let’s recap the main things we learned today
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Andrea Michelson, Grant Currin, and Reuben Westmaas, 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!