Learn about why people tune out facts and trust their guts in medical emergencies; a Victorian-era version of credit cards; and how scientists are trying to add an eighth row to the periodic table of elements.
Learn about why people tune out facts and trust their guts in medical emergencies; a Victorian-era version of credit cards; and how scientists are trying to add an eighth row to the periodic table of elements.
People tune out facts and trust their guts in medical emergencies by Kelsey Donk
Instead of credit cards, Victorian shoppers had credit coins by Steffie Drucker
Scientists are trying to add the eighth row to the periodic table by Cameron Duke
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/why-people-ignore-facts-in-medical-emergencies-victorian-era-credit-cards-and-adding-a-new-row-to-the-periodic-table
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 people tune out facts and trust their guts in medical emergencies; a Victorian-era version of credit cards; and how scientists are trying to add an eighth row to the periodic table of elements.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Every single one of us can probably think of an irrational decision someone’s made in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. And according to a new study, that irrational decision actually makes some sense. Researchers from the University of Texas at Arlington have found that when people sense a threat, like in a health crisis, they’re more likely to base their choices on anecdotal information than on hard facts.
The study set out to solve a conflict in the research. When it comes to which kind of information is most persuasive, the findings are split: some say statistics are the most compelling, others say personal stories are. So the researchers collected 61 studies on this question and rated the decisions they covered based on their emotional engagement: specifically, they looked at whether the issues were health-related, whether there was a threat involved, and how personally relevant the decision was.
Sure enough, when emotional engagement was high — as in, when the decision was health-related, threatening, and personally relevant — people found anecdotal information to be the most persuasive. One the flipside, when a decision isn’t particularly threatening or personal, people like statistical information best.
Obviously, this is pretty important to remember during the current global health crisis. The researchers point out that even in the best of times, people tend to dismiss facts about events they've experienced personally. But when crises are really dangerous or health-related, decisionmaking is even more compromised.
The study also found that people are more likely to make decisions based on facts and data when they’re choosing for other people. So it’s easy to say that other people should refrain from hoarding food and supplies right now, but it might be hard to practice that same restraint when it comes to you and your own family.
So what should we do with this information? Well, it’s good to remember the way your brain works when it’s under threat. When emotions are running high, we need to be even more vigilant about the information we take in and share with other people. It’s also important to be understanding with others. Crises aren’t going to bring out the best in people — and sometimes, you just need to give them a break.
Pop quiz: which came first, the light bulb or the credit card? Edison’s first light bulb may have been patented nearly 150 years ago, but the first credit cards are older than that. They didn’t look much like the credit cards of today, but they worked in a similar way.
The origin of the credit card traces all the way back to 1865. Technically, these were credit coins, which hotels, retail stores, taxi services, and oil companies would issue so customers could pay for things with credit. The coins were printed with the customer’s account number, which the store would check against a paper ledger to make sure the account was in good standing. But because they didn’t include the customer’s name, they were a pretty big fraud risk.
Over time, credit coins gave way to paper cards, which themselves gave way to “charga-plates” around 1928. These looked like dog tags and — critically! — included the customer’s name and address. Though they could be kept in a leather sheath, charga-plates — and credit coins before them — generally stayed at the issuing store and could only be used there.
But soon, stores began teaming up agreeing to accept each other’s charga-plates, and that carried over to what became the first real credit card in widespread use: the Diners Club Card, invented by Frank McNamara in 1949. By 1951, the “club” had 20,000 members who could use the cardboard card at 28 restaurants and two hotels.
American Express issued the first plastic credit card in 1959 and others soon followed suit. But even though they looked like modern credit cards, they still didn't work the same way. It would take a few more decades before you could use your card at virtually any business and carry a balance from one month to the next.
Another difference? Stores had to make paper imprints of customers’ cards and send them to the bank for manual verification, which could take days. That made life easy for would-be fraudsters. That was finally fixed in 1970 with IBM’s invention of the magnetic strip. The strip contains customer information that a machine can decode, send to the user’s bank, and determine their account status within seconds.
You probably remember the most recent step in credit card evolution: chip cards, also known as EMV, which was adopted in Europe in the 1990s and in the US around 2015. The “chip” in these cards is literally a computer chip, which creates a unique code for each transaction to cut down on credit card fraud. It also makes tap-to-pay possible.
From coins to cards to computer chips, credit has come a long way. Who knows what’s next?
Scientists are trying to add an eighth row to the periodic table by building an element with 119 protons. Yes, BUILDING an element. That achievement could not only lead to exciting new materials, but would also mark a huge advancement in science.
[CODY: Not to mention, you know… a new row on the periodic table. Which I feel like is slightly more complicated than adding a new row to an Excel spreadsheet. You don’t exactly right-click and select “build a new element”]
If you haven’t cracked open a chemistry book in a while, here’s a refresher: the periodic table lays out all 118 of the known chemical elements in a table with seven rows. These elements are arranged by their atomic number, which corresponds to the number of protons in their nucleus. Hydrogen has one proton, making it the first element on the table. Oganesson [OH-gaan-ESS-onn] has 118 protons, giving it atomic number 118 in the last spot of the last row of the table. Element 119 would start an entirely new row with entirely new properties.
Elements with lots of protons are called superheavy elements, and building a new one could bring science closer to the theoretical “island of stability,” a range of neutron and proton configurations that are more structurally stable than most other superheavy nuclei.
See, heavy elements are produced via nuclear fusion, and in nature, this happens inside stars and in supernova explosions. Stars squeeze the atoms of light elements together into heavier elements and then smash those into even heavier ones. But there seems to be a limit to how heavy these natural laboratories can make their elements. The heaviest element made in nature is atomic number 92: uranium.
And you know only one thing about uranium, it’s probably that it’s radioactive. This means that the protons and neutrons in the nucleus don’t hold together very well. Often, this means they give off energy and decay into lighter, more stable elements. Everything on the periodic table past atomic number 92 has been forced into existence in a particle accelerator. The bigger these atoms get, the more their protons repel each other. In fact, element 117, Tennessine [TEN-iss-een], only has a half-life of 50 thousandths of a second, meaning it falls apart nearly as soon as it is made.
But scientists suspect that there are probably superheavy proton-neutron combinations that are both big and stable. Discovering long-lasting superheavy elements would lead to massive breakthroughs in physics.
CODY: Let’s do a quick recap of what we learned today
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk, Steffie Drucker, and Cameron Duke, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was 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!