Curiosity Daily

Why Asthma Gets Worse at Night, Earth’s Largest Living Thing

Episode Summary

Learn about a heroic experiment that helps explain asthma getting worse at night; and the largest living thing on earth. A heroic experiment has shed light on the centuries-old mystery of why asthma gets worse at night by Grant Currin Harrison, S. (2021, September 21). Why Does Asthma Get Worse at Night? Wired; WIRED. https://www.wired.com/story/why-does-asthma-get-worse-at-night/  Study explores why asthma worsens at night. (2021). ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210906151456.htm  Scheer, F. A. J. L., Hilton, M. F., Evoniuk, H. L., Shiels, S. A., Malhotra, A., Sugarbaker, R., Ayers, R. T., Israel, E., Massaro, A. F., & Shea, S. A. (2021). The endogenous circadian system worsens asthma at night independent of sleep and other daily behavioral or environmental cycles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(37), e2018486118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2018486118  The largest living thing on earth is not the blue whale by Cameron Duke Fishlake National Forest - Home. (2021). Usda.gov. https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/fishlake/home/?cid=STELPRDB5393641 Lydia Ramsey Pflanzer. (2017, May 6). Largest living organism the Armillaria ostoyae fungus. Business Insider; Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/largest-living-organism-the-armillaria-ostoyae-fungus-2017-5 Marshall, M. (2018). Humongous fungus is older than Christianity and weighs 400 tonnes. New Scientist. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2182291-humongous-fungus-is-older-than-christianity-and-weighs-400-tonnes/ Prepelka, B. (2019). Sequoia Giants - General Sherman - California. Scenicusa.net. https://scenicusa.net/032906.html Schmitt, C. (n.d.). The Malheur National Forest Location of the World’s Largest Living Organism [The Humongous Fungus]. https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev3_033146.pdf Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.

Episode Notes

Learn about a heroic experiment that helps explain asthma getting worse at night; and the largest living thing on earth.

A heroic experiment has shed light on the centuries-old mystery of why asthma gets worse at night by Grant Currin

The largest living thing on earth is not the blue whale by Cameron Duke

Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.

 

Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/why-asthma-gets-worse-at-night-earths-largest-living-thing

Episode Transcription

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 a heroic experiment that helped solve a long-standing mystery about asthma; and why the largest living thing on Earth is not the blue whale.

CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.

A heroic experiment has shed light on the centuries-old mystery of why asthma gets worse at night by Grant Currin (Cody)

If you’ve got asthma, there’s a good chance that it gets worse at night. Doctors have known this is a thing for centuries, but they couldn’t say why. Researchers finally have some evidence that points to an answer: the night-time rise in asthma attacks may have the internal body clock to blame. And how they figured this out might give you a newfound respect for science.

This has been such a hard problem for researchers to solve because it’s hard to untangle all the variables. I mean, it could be something about sleeping that makes asthma worse. Or maybe it has to do with lying down. The bed itself could be the culprit, too. After all, pillows and mattresses are literal breeding grounds for mites and other allergens. Or maybe there’s something about the night itself that makes asthma worse. 

The question is simple, but finding an answer is anything but. 

That’s why researchers brought 17 volunteers with asthma into a lab with no windows and no clocks. The first experiment lasted 38 hours. During that time, the participants sat in bed, but they weren’t allowed to sleep. They weren’t even allowed to get out of bed, even to use the bathroom. All they got was a small meal every 2 hours. The idea was to take away all the social and behavioral factors that might affect asthma. That way, the researchers could focus on just one variable: the 24-hour biological cycle that scientists call circadian rhythm.

Then, they performed a second experiment, which lasted 8 days. The participants were allowed to go to sleep this time, but their quote-unquote “day” lasted 28 hours. That let the researchers separate the participants’ behavior from their circadian rhythm. They took the data from these two experiments, plus data the participants had recorded during their normal lives, and drew some pretty convincing conclusions.

It turns out that circadian rhythms have a significant effect on the severity of asthma. It doesn’t appear to matter if a person is asleep or awake, just that their body thinks it’s night. That’s not to say that everything can be pinned on the internal body clock. Behavior matters too, and circadian rhythms are influenced by all kinds of external factors. But the researchers found convincing evidence that asthma tends to be worse at night because of mechanisms within the body. 

This is really big news, but it’s hardly a final answer. See, circadian rhythm is super complicated, and it’ll probably be a long time before researchers understand this well enough to transform the findings into useful therapies. But this new information is a key step in helping hundreds of millions of asthma sufferers get a good and safe night’s sleep. Thanks to some VERY sleep-deprived volunteers, who I think have absolutely earned a nap.

The largest living thing on earth is not the blue whale by Cameron Duke (Ashley)

The biggest animal on Earth is the blue whale, hands down. In fact, it’s the biggest animal that’s ever existed on Earth. But it’s not Earth’s biggest life form. No, the blue whale pales in comparison to the actual largest living thing on the planet: the Humongous Fungus. 

 

The humongous fungus might sound like something you should get checked at the doctor, but it’s actually the largest single organism on the planet. The humongous fungus is a single fungal organism found in Malheur [MAAL-er, like “mallard”] National Forest in Oregon, and it belongs to a species called Armillaria ostoyae [ARR-mill-ARR-ee-uh OST-uh-yay]. These fungi can get pretty big, but the humongous fungus in Oregon is an individual that covers an area of three and a half square miles or 9 square kilometers.

 

At that kind of size, you’d imagine that the humongous fungus would be easy to spot. You’d be wrong. That’s because it’s almost completely underground for most of the year. It only pops up when it comes time to reproduce. 

 

This is the point where I should mention that the part of a fungus you’re familiar with, the mushroom cap? It’s only one specific part of the fungus, and in most species, it’s the only part that appears above ground. It’s called a fruiting body, and it’s a reproductive organ. I’ll let you take a minute to absorb the fact that pretty much every mushroom you’ve ever eaten has been fungus genitalia. 

 

Anyway, this goes for the humongous fungus too. Its mushrooms only peek above ground when it’s time to make more humongous funguses. 

 

If you really want to get to know the fungus, you have to look underground. There, you’ll find a thriving network of interconnected fibers called mycelium [my-SEE-lee-um]. This mycelium is the main body of the fungus, and it spends its days chowing down on soil nutrients and decomposing dead material.

 

Or, in the case of the humongous fungus, it can eat the forest itself. Scientists believe the humongous fungus got to be so big because it can survive by digesting living tree roots. Given that it lies beneath a forest floor, that’s good news for the fungus, but bad news for the trees. The humongous fungus has wiped out many of the trees in its path, but luckily, the Pacific Northwest has lots more where that came from.

 

That’s probably why this humongous fungus has an equally humongous lifespan. It’s survived in about the same spot for nearly 10,000 years, just chowing down on trees, making more of itself, and living its best fungus life.

RECAP

Let’s recap today’s takeaways

  1. ASHLEY: The reason asthma gets worse at night seems to be because of the internal body clock. Researchers performed two experiments designed to focus in on the circadian rhythms of people with asthma, and they found that asthma tends to be worse when the body thinks it’s nighttime — regardless of whether you’re asleep or awake.
    1. CODY: Yeah, I had asthma as a kid. Used an inhaler in second, maybe third grade. I guess it kinda went away? Then I ran cross country all 4 years in high school? At least I think it was asthma. I mean my parents said it was asthma. But maybe they just said that to keep it simple. We all remember these things our parents told us, but then it’s like, well, maybe I shouldn’t just be repeating that on a podcast that thousands of people listen to like it’s a fact. You know, like what if I was like, yeah, I had a ghost living under my bed. My parents told me so. My parents didn’t tell me that. I don’t know why a ghost would be living under my bed either. Seems like an uncomfortable place for a ghost. Or any monster, for that matter. Monsters, Inc. might be the best scientific explanation for why monsters would live in a kid’s room in the first place. 
  2. CODY: The largest life form on Earth is NOT the blue whale  — it's the humongous fungus, a single fungal organism in Oregon that covers an area of three and a half square miles or 9 square kilometers. 
    1. But the blue whale isn’t even the second biggest living thing on Earth. That goes to Pando, a stand of male quaking aspen trees in Fishlake National Forest in Utah. Quaking aspens might look like a stand of individual trees, but they’re all united by a common root system, so the whole stand is often just one or two individuals. 

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ASHLEY: Today’s writers were Grant Currin and Cameron Duke. 

CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer [who was also a writer / audio editor on today’s episode]

ASHLEY: Our producer and audio editor is Cody Gough.

CODY: [AD LIB SOMETHING FUNNY] Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.

ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!