Learn about why feet smell bad; how NASA knows where to dig on its next mission to find evidence of life on Mars; and why you associate cold temperatures with luxury. 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: To Find Evidence of Life on Mars, NASA's Next Mission Knows Where to Dig — https://curiosity.im/2D7ad7H To Make Products Seem More Luxurious, Retailers Literally Put Them on Ice — https://curiosity.im/34bfas7 Additional sources: Bacteria, Beneficial: Brevibacterium linens, Brevibacterium aurantiacum and Other Smear Microorganisms | Encyclopedia of Dairy Sciences, 2011 — https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780081005965006326?via%3Dihub How to Get Rid of Foot Odor | HowStuffWorks — https://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/men/sweating-odor/how-to-get-rid-of-foot-odor1.htm Curious Kids: Why do feet stink by the end of the day? | The Conversation — https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-do-feet-stink-by-the-end-of-the-day-125037 Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about why feet smell bad; how NASA knows where to dig on its next mission to find evidence of life on Mars; and why you associate cold temperatures with luxury.
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:
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/why-feet-stink-how-nasa-knows-where-to-dig-for-life-on-mars-and-why-ice-is-luxurious
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 feet smell bad; how NASA knows where to dig on its next mission to find evidence of life on Mars; and why you associate cold temperatures with luxury.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
AUDIO SCRIPT - Why do feet stink? (Cody)
Why do feet have such a specific, pungent odor? I mean, sure, you keep them in your shoes all day, but your legs don’t smell when you keep them in your pants all day, right? Well, that funky foot smell comes down to the type of sweat glands on your feet and how many of them you have, plus a particular strain of bacteria — which happens to be the same kind of bacteria used in Limburger cheese! Yum!
Most of the body’s smells come from the genitals and the armpits, which are home to “apocrine” sweat glands. The whole rest of the body — including your feet — is covered with “eccrine” sweat glands. Sweat itself is basically odorless, and it’s actually bacteria on the skin that makes our bodies smelly. That’s why we shower. But the sweat from apocrine glands has protein and amino acids in it. Those proteins and amino acids feed the bacteria, and that makes it stronger and… well… smellier.
Your feet are a little different. Eccrine gland sweat is watery and thin and evaporates quickly, so it doesn’t have time to get smelly. The thing is, your feet have a LOT of sweat glands. We’re talking half a million sweat glands, out of the body’s 2-5 million. That’s a huge proportion.
In societies where people tend to go barefoot, foot sweat keeps their feet cool, and then evaporates away. But in societies where people wear socks and shoes, our sweat stays trapped — and that makes for a bacteria feast.
Feet don’t smell like armpits because they have different sweat glands that host different bacteria. Feet host bacteria like Brevibacterium linens, which eat the dry, dead skin on your feet.
And they also love warm, moist, salty environments — like your sweaty socks. Brevibacteria release a gas when they eat that can make your feet smell like cabbage, skunk, rotten eggs, or funky cheese. In fact, that’s also the bacteria used in some rind-washed cheese, like Muenster and Limburger.
Don’t worry, though. While stinky feet might be a little embarrassing, they otherwise can’t hurt you. You can get rid of the smell by keeping your feet clean and dry and free from all that stinky bacteria.
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Summary: Why do feet kept in shoes all day have such a specific, pungent odor when legs kept in pants all day don't? It comes down to the type and quantity of sweat glands on your feet, and a particular strain of bacteria (that's also used in limburger cheese!!)
Sources: https://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/men/sweating-odor/how-to-get-rid-of-foot-odor1.htm
https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-do-feet-stink-by-the-end-of-the-day-125037
Study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780081005965006326?via%3Dihub
To Find Evidence of Life on Mars, NASA's Next Mission Knows Where to Dig — https://curiosity.im/2D7ad7H (12/2) (Ashley)
If you’ve ever watched a pirate movie, you know that whoever has the map is going to find the buried treasure, right? Well that’s why NASA’s next Mars mission is so exciting: to find evidence of life on Mars, NASA knows exactly where to dig. And their mission, Mars 2020, is due to land in Jezero [JESZ-eh-row] crater in less than 18 months. We know Mars used to have lots of water and was once habitable. And now, hopefully, Mars 2020 will help us learn whether little organisms ever called the red planet “home.”
Scientists pinpointed the X that marks the spot thanks to two new studies. They both found promising locations based on the presence of minerals that could preserve scientific evidence of life.
The first is carbonate. That’s a type of mineral that's perfect for fossil formation. A new paper in the journal Icarus identified carbonates along the rim of Jezero crater, in a sort of "bathtub ring," as scientists call it. We know Jezero crater used to be filled with water, and we know that carbonates tended to form along ancient shorelines on Earth, too. That’s where the fossils of many types of creatures, including coral and seashells, were preserved using carbonate. So, if life happened on Earth in this kind of environment, it's quite possible it could have happened on Mars.
The other mineral is called hydrated silica, and that’s also commonly associated with Earth fossils — specifically microfossils, or the remnants of ancient bacteria, plants, and other microscopic life.
The rover will have a busy mission ahead of it. Not only will it take pictures and analyze rocks like the Curiosity rover did, but it will also cache the most promising samples for a possible return mission to bring these Red Planet rocks back to Earth. The plan is to get such a mission ready to land in the late 2020s, although that's still dependent on funding plans from NASA and the European Space Agency. Fingers crossed!
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To Make Products Seem More Luxurious, Retailers Literally Put Them on Ice — https://curiosity.im/34bfas7 (12/2) (Cody)
Ask most people how they feel about the cold, and they’ll probably think they associate it with some level of discomfort. But while we can all agree that icy eyeballs and numb toes are no fun, new research suggests that humans actually harbor some positive associations with cold — at least, unconsciously. And these are associations that both retailers and shoppers can put to good use.
This research from the University of Oxford showed the physical cold can increase consumers’ perceptions of a product’s luxuriosness. For example, in one part of the study, people who touched a chilled vase said it was worth more than the same vase at room temperature. In another part of the study, people looked at pieces of luggage shown against a snowy nature scene. And they saw that luggage as more luxurious than the same product shown against the same nature scene during springtime.
It may not seem like temperature and status have anything to do with each other — and if they did, it might feel like warm would be, I dunno... nicer. And yet! The association actually makes a strange kind of sense. When you think about status, it really implies distance — psychological AND physical distance. That’s the opposite of warmth being associated with closeness. Something that feels cold hasn’t been touched by someone else. Cold makes it feel exclusive, set apart, and not conformist. Think about sitting on a set on the subway. If it’s warm, you know someone was probably just sitting on it — not super exclusive. When you touch something that’s cold, even from a strictly thermal perspective, it feels like it hasn’t been touched by anyone else.
So now you know why jewelry ads often showcase the goods on actual ice. If you're looking to sell an upscale product, then find creative ways to lower the temperature around it, either literally or figuratively. You may nudge customers to see your offering as worthy of more of their dollars.
If you're a shopper, on the other hand, it's always useful to know all the tricks retailers have up their sleeves to get more of your hard-earned cash. So the next time you spot a high-end fashion ad featuring a model rolling around in the snow, know your brain's biases are being manipulated. That should put you in a better position to resist.
ASHLEY: Let’s run down our favorite parts of what we learned today.
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk, Elizabeth, Howell, and Jessica Stillman, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity.com.
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!