Learn about why your next relationship will probably be like your last one; what scientists learned by studying the oldest material on Earth; and what researchers learned when they had cuttlefish wear 3-D glasses.
Learn about why your next relationship will probably be like your last one; what scientists learned by studying the oldest material on Earth; and what researchers learned when they had cuttlefish wear 3-D glasses.
Why Your Next Relationship Will Probably Be Like Your Last by Kelsey Donk
Scientist Discovered the Oldest Material on Earth by Grant Currin
Why Scientists Put Cuttlefish in 3-D Glasses by Grant Currin
Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/why-cuttlefish-wore-3-d-glasses-for-science
ASHLEY HAMER: Season's greetings we're wrapping up the year with a look back at your favorite episodes of 2020.
SPEAKER: Enjoy this curiosity daily classic and stay subscribed for brand new episodes starting January 1
CODY GOUGH: See you in 2021.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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 why your next relationship will probably be like your last one. What scientists learned by studying the oldest material on Earth. And what researchers learned when they had cuttlefish wear 3D glasses.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity. When you're single, it's normal to wonder how the next romance will be different. I mean, you definitely won't date another person like your ex, right? Well, I've got some bad news. A new study that's the first of its kind suggests that your next relationship will probably be just like your last one.
ASHLEY HAMER: I just can't believe it.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: Can't you? For this research published in the Journal of Family Psychology, researchers examined the relationships of 554 people in Germany over an eight-year period. Specifically, the researchers looked at people at four different points. Toward the end of one relationship, and then later that year. And then within the first year of the next relationship., and then a year after that. The researchers were curious about a few different common problems. They asked the participants about their satisfaction in the relationship and how often they had sex. The team also wanted to know if the participants felt they could open up to their partners. And whether they expressed appreciation. And how confident they were in the relationship. Pretty common priorities for any relationship.
And here's what they found. After the end of that initial honeymoon phase you have at the start of a relationship, people seem to end up having the same dynamics in their new partnerships as they did in their past failed relationships. And that's probably because you're the same person from one relationship to the next. So you're likely to have the same satisfaction in your relationship, the same perceptions of instability, and the same amount of conflict and intimacy, no matter who you're with.
Certain people did see a change from one relationship to the next, though. Those who were high in neuroticism tended to have worse and worse relationships over time, for one thing. And those were the longer first relationship had a harder time adjusting to later relationships, at least at first. That did get better over time. If that sounds like a downer, then I do have some good news. A couple of things did get better across relationships. And those things were sexual frequency and partner admiration. So that's something to look forward to.
Still, if most things stay the same, then why does a new relationship seem so different from the last one? Well, the researchers blame the peak end rule, that's the tendency for people to judge an entire experience based on the ending. If your breakup was bad, you're more likely to assume the whole relationship was bad. Most likely, though, there were plenty of good times. Just like the ones you're having with your new flame. But overall, the takeaway from this research is that who we are matters. If you want your next relationship to be different, it might be you who has to change.
ASHLEY HAMER: Do you feel like all your relationships have been the same?
CODY GOUGH: No, but I also know I've changed a lot.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Like, a lot, a lot.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's good.
CODY GOUGH: I used to just sit around and play video games all day. Oh, wait a second.
[LAUGHS]
You used to not run marathons.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's true. I've had to have new partners get used to the fact that I'm going to be gone for hours in the morning. And they're just going to have to deal with it. And they're going to have to come to marathons and cheer me on.
CODY GOUGH: It's only a few hours a year.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's hard. It's a hard thing to do.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, watch a marathon?
ASHLEY HAMER: It is, it's so hard. You have to find your runner out of thousands. It's not easy.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, you have to find them, and not run 26 miles. Sounds excruciating.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, see, but I've trained for it. They haven't trained for it.
CODY GOUGH: They haven't trained for watching you run the marathon?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, you should have marathon watching training sessions.
CODY GOUGH: Wow. What would that be like?
ASHLEY HAMER: Scientists recently found the oldest stuff on Earth. It's older than our planet. It's even older than our solar system. They examined stardust inside an old meteorite. And found that the most ancient grains could be up to 7 billion years old. About half as old as the universe itself. Now that is ancient. This stardust actually tells us something about the universe.
But before we get into that, let's back up. What exactly is stardust? Well, stars begin as clouds of dust and gas. When the conditions are right, gravity can collapse that cloud into a super hot, extremely dense object. When the pressure at the center of that object gets so high, that atomic nuclei begin to merge in a process called fusion. The object becomes a star. Fusion produces two things, energy and new heavier atoms. For example, when the gravity of a star squeezes two hydrogen atoms together, they release energy and produce a helium atom. Hydrogen has one proton, helium has two, boom, heavier.
That's basically how a star works. Its atoms fuse and fuse, and fuse, until the star has burned through all its fuel. When a star dies, it leaves behind gobs of those heavier atoms. A lot of those atoms are recycled into new stars or turned into planets, comets, or asteroids. The leftover stuff is what you call stardust. The space rock that contained this particular stardust is known as the Murchison meteorite, which landed in Australia back in 1969.
In order to find the stardust, the researchers crushed a sample of the meteorite into powder. And then used acid to dissolve everything that wasn't stardust. They were left with microscopic flecks of a mineral called silicon carbide. That's a mineral that stars produce as they die. In other words, stardust. When the researchers studied the grains one at a time, they discovered that the oldest grains were old, extremely old. Up to 7 billion years old.
That's up to 3 billion years older than the solar system. And makes those grains the oldest known solid on Earth. The age of the stardust told scientists the age of the star it must have come from. But a lot of the stardust was much younger than that, which means that there must have been a spike in the rate of star formation during a short period billions of years ago. Our planet might seem ancient, but it's positively young compared to a lot of the stuff out there. And by studying that ancient material, we can learn more about how the universe operates.
CODY GOUGH: Scientists have discovered that cuttlefish use their eyes a lot like we do. Hang on a sec. I know what you're thinking. Cool, new animal research, right? Well, yes, but I'm not telling you this story because of what we figured out here. I'm telling you, this story because of how researchers discovered this. And that was by making the cuttlefish wear 3D glasses. For real. Do I have your attention yet?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, there are pictures. They're adorable.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: So as a reminder, cuttlefish are cute little cephalopods that are related to squid, but are a little rounder and slower moving. We don't have cuttlefish in the Americas, but they're fairly common near the coasts in Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia. In this admittedly strange study, cuttlefish were put in a tank with an animated screen. The screen showed a pair of two dimensional shrimp scurrying across from left to right, 1 slightly offset from the other. And like we said, the cuttlefish were wearing 3D glasses. It's exactly what you picture. That cute little red and blue plastic film kind that you might have used to watch Spy Kids 3D. Game Over,
ASHLEY HAMER: Or like Avatar. I saw that in 3D.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, so when the cuttlefish looked at the shrimp on the screen, the 3D glasses made the two shrimp images look like a tasty 3D meal. So why did scientists go to the trouble of giving this cuttlefish a 3D motion picture experience? Well, the researchers behind this experiment were trying to learn more about the sea creatures' visual system. Cuttlefish have two eyes, one on each side of their head. Scientists already knew that their fields of vision overlap, just like ours do. But cuttlefish brains are very different than ours. And no one knew if the creatures were able to combine images from both eyes to see in 3 dimensions.
The researchers showed their 11 test subjects different versions of the shrimp video to find out whether they were using both eyes to see the shrimp, and to figure out whether they could perceive distance using what they saw. And it turns out that, yes, cuttlefish use both eyes in tandem to calculate the distance of potential prey. Once the cuttlefish has figured out where its next meal is, the cephalopod grabs it with its tentacles before injecting it with toxins. The cuttlefish in the experiment just met the side of the tank when they lunged through the video shrimp. But the researchers were quick to reward their subjects with the real thing. But the biggest reward, taking those 3D glasses off. After all, even cuttlefish need their dignity.
ASHLEY HAMER: So what did we learn today? Well, I learned that everybody's next relationship is probably going to be like their last one. Because, while people are different, you're the same person. So you're probably going to take those same habits and behaviors from relationship to relationship.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, and I learned that we have stardust on Earth that could be up to 7 billion years old, which is pretty cool.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, it's half as old as the whole universe. And I learned that scientists are weird, and sometimes they put 3D glasses on sea creatures to see if they can see in 3D.
CODY GOUGH: I mean, whatever does the trick.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. And you know what? They can. This weird experiment was a success.
CODY GOUGH: Do you watch movies in 3D when you go to the theaters?
ASHLEY HAMER: You know, it depends on who I'm with. I honestly-- when it's up to me, I don't. But my boyfriend really likes them. So we'll do that.
CODY GOUGH: I mean, there's some must watches like Avatar, obviously.
ASHLEY HAMER: Sure.
CODY GOUGH: But, you're a big Avatar fan, aren't you?
ASHLEY HAMER: Apparently.
CODY GOUGH: You love--
ASHLEY HAMER: I guess my new thing.
CODY GOUGH: You love name dropping Avatar on this podcast. All right, James Cameron's Avatar, to be clear, not Avatar the Last Airbender.
ASHLEY HAMER: Right. Which, I guess. Is good. I haven't seen it.
CODY GOUGH: I heard the anime is phenomenal. Maybe not so much the movie by M. Night Shyamalan.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, I've heard that, too.
CODY GOUGH: Today's stories were written by Kelsey Donk and Grant Curran. And edited by Ashley Hamer, who's the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Today's episode was scripted, produced, and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY GOUGH: Join us again, tomorrow, to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]