Learn about how curiosity gives your memory a boost; what happened when researchers put feathered hats on birds to see if other birds found them sexy; and how we trick bacteria into making insulin for us.
Learn about how curiosity gives your memory a boost; what happened when researchers put feathered hats on birds to see if other birds found them sexy; and how we trick bacteria into making insulin for us.
How Curiosity Gives Your Memory A Boost by Cody Gough
Researchers Once Put Feathered Hats on Birds to See if Other Birds Found Them Sexy by Cameron Duke
We Trick Bacteria Into Making Insulin For Us by Cameron Duke
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/why-birds-wore-funny-hats-for-science
CODY GOUGH: Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity.com. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about how curiosity gives your memory a boost, how researchers once put feathered hats on birds to see if other birds found them sexy, and how we trick bacteria into making insulin for us.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity. Here's something that'll make you feel good about listening to this podcast, curiosity can improve your memory. It turns out that the more curious you are about something, the easier it is to remember what you learn about it. In fact, you'll also be able to better remember unrelated information that you learn along the way.
Just take it from a 2014 study led by researchers from UC Davis. For that study, researchers had volunteers read more than 100 trivia questions that were displayed on a screen one after the other. But instead of trying to answer the questions, the volunteers just had to rate how curious they were about the answer. After each question, the screen would go black for a few seconds, then flash a picture of a face before it displayed the answer. And then the volunteers went home. And 24 hours later, they went back to the lab for a memory test.
It turned out that when people were curious about the answer to a trivia question, they remembered it better 24 hours later. But that's not all, the volunteers were also better at remembering the faces associated with the questions that piqued their curiosity, even though those faces had nothing to do with the trivia questions.
The researchers also scanned the volunteers brains while they did the trivia exercise. When volunteers were feeling curious, there was higher activity in the brain's reward area, which thrives on dopamine. Dopamine reinforces the connections between the reward area and the areas of the brain related to memory. So now, you know that curiosity helps you remember unrelated information.
But this isn't just a sneaky way for me to get you to stay subscribed to Curiosity Daily. This research could have big implications for treating brain conditions. In patients with neurological disorders like Alzheimer's or dementia, doing engaging tasks that pique their curiosity can help them remember other things. And stimulating curiosity in an educational setting could also help motivate children who are struggling to learn. So there you have it, curiosity doesn't just feel good, it's good for you, too.
ASHLEY HAMER: In many birds, the males are the flashy dressers, think peacocks, birds of paradise, and cardinals. They don't strut their stuff just because they like it though. They do it because females seem to prefer it. But where does that preference come from? To answer this question, some very serious researchers performed a very serious study in which they gave birds funny hats. Here's why.
When a female cardinal is looking for a mate, there are a couple of things she keeps an eye out for. She expects her mate to be bright red and to have a big crest on his head. But why? We know that a trait like red feathers is a side effect of a good diet and immune system, but we don't necessarily know that the female cardinal likes that trait because it's a sign of health.
So here's where we run into a chicken and egg problem. What came first, was it the bright colors and crests or the female's preference for them? Darwin himself thought that exaggerated male traits like crests probably started with some sort of innate female preference. But he never really got around to testing that idea. This is where the funny hats come in.
In 1999, researchers at UC Irvine decided to answer this question once and for all with an experiment. They used a population of zebra finches, a type of small songbird from Australia. The males in this species can be brightly colored, but they don't have crests on their heads. In their experiment, a female finch was given a choice between two males. One was just a regular guy, but the other had an upgrade. He was wearing a tiny hat with a giant white feather sticking straight up. I mean, imagine a bird balancing a tiny inkwell on his head with a white feather pen in it.
Then if you can, imagine being uncontrollably attracted to him because that's what happened in the trials. The females went wild for the guys with the funny hats, which suggests that there's some innate preference for head crests that's just waiting to come out the second the males managed to evolve them. Scientists have performed similar experiments in other species, and they all seem to suggest the same thing, that choosy females seem to have certain innate preferences in mates. When innate preferences line up with good genes, exaggerated traits can come to life.
CODY GOUGH: That's peacocking.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's right.
CODY GOUGH: I learned that once.
ASHLEY HAMER: Where did you learn that, Cody?
CODY GOUGH: Nowhere.
ASHLEY HAMER: Reading those pickup artist manuals, I see you.
CODY GOUGH: Wait, how do you know what they are?
ASHLEY HAMER: Because we have worked together for a long time now.
CODY GOUGH: OK, that's-- yeah. Did you know that November was National Diabetes Month? I know, it's December. But I was on paternity leave last month, so now that I'm back I should mention that I have type 1 diabetes. And I am certainly not alone. More than 420 million people worldwide have diabetes. And just like me, a lot of those people depend on insulin to survive.
But it wasn't until the 1980s that researchers came up with an efficient way to make human insulin for everyone who needs it. And the way we did it was pretty ingenious. So let's talk about how we tricked bacteria into making it for us. And first, some basics. Diabetes is a disease caused by the body's inability to either produce or properly responds to a hormone called insulin. Insulin is a super important part of your metabolism. Believe me, I've learned this.
It lets your body pull sugar out of your blood and into your cells to provide them with energy. It also lets your body store sugar for the next time your cells need it. Without insulin, the body can't regulate blood sugar. And this can damage nerves, blood vessels, kidneys, and the brain. It can even lead to coma and death.
The disease can be treated by injecting insulin into the bloodstream when it's needed. This is easier said than done though. Historically, insulin had to be harvested from animal sources, which was the opposite of efficient. It would take two tons of pig pancreases just to make 8 ounces of insulin. That's roughly what one patient needs over a few months. And that meant it was in chronically short supply. And since pig insulin had slight differences from human insulin, it wasn't as effective either.
In 1980, genetic engineering came to the rescue, specifically recombinant DNA technology. That basically means that scientists were able to create insulin in the lab by tricking the bacteria into making it themselves. So first, the scientists found the human gene responsible for making insulin. And they cut it out of a human chromosome. Next, they introduced the gene into the environment of some E. coli bacteria. And finally, they made a tiny cut in the bacteria's DNA.
The bacteria immediately got to work trying to repair their DNA. And some of them mistakenly used the human insulin gene to make that repair. This created E. coli bacteria that have the gene to make human insulin, known as recombinant bacteria. In 1983, human insulin made by bacteria hit the market. And we've been sourcing it that way ever since.
If you or someone you know relies on insulin to treat their diabetes, say a quick thank you to those little recombinant bacteria. They are very literally a lifesaver. Believe me, I would know.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right, well, let's recap what we learned today, starting with the fact that curiosity can improve your memory because when you're curious, there's more activity in your brain's reward area. That area thrives on dopamine and dopamine reinforces the connections between the reward area and the parts of your brain related to memory.
I feel like most of us have had this experience in school, right? You have a lesson on something that you're just forced to learn. And the minute the test is over, you completely forget it. But if there's a lesson that you're really curious about, that maybe you have a really good teacher, who piques your curiosity and makes it really relatable and interesting, then you remember that for life. I still remember how to say check out those memories in Latin because of an English teacher who knew that if she told high school students racy things in Latin, they would remember their Latin. [LATIN] test, by the way.
CODY GOUGH: I was going to ask. And we also learned that female birds love elaborate feathers of their male counterparts. This was illustrated when scientists adorned male birds with festive hats, and the females went cuckoo for the Kangol hats-- I mean, feathered hats.
ASHLEY HAMER: I just, I love that scientists put hats on birds. I love it so much. You can find a link to a picture in the show notes. It's incredible. I feel like I want to make it my own background because it's a burden of funny hat. What more can you want? Oh, my gosh, there it is. I was just going to send this to you.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, that's awesome. All right, so I hadn't seen the picture of the bird in the hat until Ashley just sent it to me just now. Oh, it's so good. It's so good. Check it out.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's so good.
CODY GOUGH: And I will be keeping an eye out for the next study where they put a monocle on the birds to see if the females find them more sophisticated.
ASHLEY HAMER: And we learned that, hey, our body needs insulin to function, just ask Cody. But what if your body can't make it on your own? Well, you actually have to inject insulin into your bloodstream. And we used to get it from animal pancreas, but that wasn't very efficient. So scientists were actually able to produce insulin in the lab by tricking bacteria to do it for us.
CODY GOUGH: Maybe someday we can trick my pancreas into not being so useless.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Man, there are really cool things coming out for diabetics though. I feel like the science is progressing really, really fast right now. And I'm very excited to see what kind of biotech and gene therapy and all sorts of stuff that's coming down the line that maybe will help people with diabetes in the future.
CODY GOUGH: You're excited to see it. You're--
ASHLEY HAMER: I feel-- you know what, honestly, like, because I know you and I know my brother, you're more amenable to technology. But my brother, who also has type 1 diabetes, is very suspicious of robots controlling whether he lives or dies, which honestly, if I put it that way, that makes a lot of sense. But it's like a self-driving car. They're going to crash it less often than you are.
CODY GOUGH: Well, and pacemakers have been around for how long keeping people alive, pretty reliably. So, yeah, I'm amenable to that. But sometimes people get set in their ways. Like I don't use a pump, I inject manually. And lots and lots of diabetics use an insulin pump, which basically it's connected to you at all times, and you just kind of dial in how much insulin you gave yourself. But I use-- I just take the pins and I just manually inject anytime I need it. Everyone I've ever talked to, including my endocrinologist, swears by the pump. But I just-- I'm just used to the pin. I just don't feel like having it sticking out of me all the time. So I'm just doing my thing. And I know I'm not the only one.
So the new technology may not reach everyone, but we have gotten to a point, I think, where the baseline, like, even if you're just manually doing it, it's like pretty good. I would not have wanted to have this condition 50 years ago, like really not-- yes, very bad, very bad.
ASHLEY HAMER: Definitely.
CODY GOUGH: But I do use the continuous glucose monitor so that I don't have to prick my finger and put blood into a little thing every time I want to test my blood sugar. I was diagnosed very late. I got it very late. I was in my late 20s. I was like 26 or 27, which is uncommon also because type 1 diabetes is nicknamed juvenile diabetes because you're diagnosed when you're young, when you're like an adolescent.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting how those both juvenile and adult onset diabetes are both basically meaningless at this point. Because, yeah, like you said, it is rare for people to get type 1 when they're adults, but it does happen. And it's also becoming more common for kids to get type 2 diabetes. So type 1 and type 2 I feel like are better names.
CODY GOUGH: Very strange thing. But manageable, so if you've recently been diagnosed or you know somebody, be positive, stay positive, have hope. It's kind of annoying to have, believe me, but it's manageable. Today's first story was written by me, Cody Gough. Today's other story is written by Cameron Duke, with all stories edited by Ashley Hamer, who's the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scriptwriting was by Natalia Reagan, Sonia Hodgson, and Cody Gough. Today's episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY GOUGH: We're a funny hat and join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.