Learn about cat and dog “zoomies” and why pets sprint around the house; how to avoid the abstinence violation effect that makes you give up after a mistake; and why vision is surprisingly important for babies in the womb. Sources: Viral Snow-Loving Pup Illustrates the Science of Dog "Zoomies" | Inverse — https://www.inverse.com/article/38913-dog-zoomies-science What Actually Are the Zoomies? | MEL — https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/what-actually-are-the-zoomies Forget Zombies. The Notification Apocalypse Is Here | Inc. — https://www.inc.com/magazine/201805/thomas-goetz/manipulation-gamification-scarcity.html?cid=hmside1 Abstinence Violation Effect (AVE) | Encyclopedia.com — https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/abstinence-violation-effect-ave Why Falling Off the Wagon Isn't Fatal | TIME — http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1868965,00.html Babies in the womb may see more than we thought | EurekAlert! — https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-11/uoc--bit112219.php Gap Junction Coupling Shapes the Encoding of Light in the Developing Retina | Current Biology — https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)31365-X?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS096098221931365X%3Fshowall%3Dtrue Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about cat and dog “zoomies” and why pets sprint around the house; how to avoid the abstinence violation effect that makes you give up after a mistake; and why vision is surprisingly important for babies in the womb.
Sources:
Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/why-pets-get-the-zoomies-how-to-avoid-giving-up-after-a-mistake-and-why-vision-is-important-for-babies-in-the-womb
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, we’ll answer a listener question about cat and dog “zoomies” when they sprint around the house. You’ll also learn about how to avoid giving up after a mistakes; and why vision is surprisingly important for babies in the womb.
CODY: And stick around at the end of today’s episode for a MAJOR announcement regarding this podcast. As for right now, let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Listener question - Cat/dog zoomies (Ashley)
ASHLEY: We got a listener question from Michelle, who writes: "Ashley, I know you're a cat-haver and I've had or been around cats all my life. One of the things I've seen them all do is a crazy top-speed run through the house. Is it just to spend excess energy or is there more to it than that?" Great question, Michelle!
What Michelle is referring to is often called “the zoomies,” though it seems like a lot of people have their own terms for it: turbo mode, NASCAR, track practice, the scoots. My cat just sounds like she’s possessed when she does it, but the fact of the matter is, it’s super common for both dogs AND cats to get a random burst of energy that sends them careening at blistering speeds, often without appearing to be in control of their own bodies. The internet may tell you that the technical term for this is FRAP, which stands for “frenetic random activity periods,” but I actually haven’t found that term in the scientific literature and my Google-fu tells me that FRAP only appeared online in 2010, on a website for Corgi lovers. But whatever it’s called, it’s mystifying.
That may be because there’s been so little research on the phenomenon — nobody’s done a systematic study of the zoomies, so we don’t know definitively what causes them or what’s going on in an animal’s body when they happen. Most of what we have is observation and anecdotes. Like, dog owners say their dogs do it for all sorts of reasons: some do it right after a bath, some do it on walks when they get to a favorite field, some do it right after they poop. There are stories of cats doing it after they poop, too, while other feline tales tell of cats zooming right after their owners get home in the evening...or when their owners are asleep at 2 a.m. Been there. Generally, the accepted explanation is that animals zoom to release energy pent up from a day spent lazing around the house or from a period of discomfort, like going to the vet, getting a bath, or, in my recent case, moving day. But as animal behaviorist Marc Bekoff told Inverse, it’s not just indoor critters that run around like madmen: wild coyotes and elk display this same frenetic behavior in what he says is a sign to the rest of the herd that it’s safe to play. That might mean that animals do it when they’re feeling relaxed and secure. That’s great! Just make sure they’ve released that pent up energy by playing with them earlier in the day — before 2 am rolls around.
Abstinence violation - Mae (Cody)
We’re deep into the New Year, and by now, many of us are all too aware of how hard it is to drop last year’s bad habits. And research shows that how successfully you’re able to do this has a lot to do with how you think about mistakes along the way. Specifically, I’m talking about whether or not you give into something psychologists call the abstinence violation effect.
Say you’re trying to quit smoking cold turkey, but two weeks in a craving hits, and you smoke a cigarette. If your slip-up makes you decide you’re innately unable to quit smoking, so you give up and go back to your pack-a-day habit, that’s the abstinence violation effect at work. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy — if you think you’re a failure, you tend to fail. If you think you can learn from your mistakes, though, you’re more likely to succeed. Instead of judging yourself and giving up, you could look at your slip-up and think that next time, you’ll avoid reaching for a smoke by staying out of high-stress situations, or trying new coping mechanisms.
The abstinence violation effect is hard to escape, though. Alcoholics Anonymous even encourages this kind of thinking with the saying that “a drink equals a drunk.” It’s also why apps that remind users to work out can actually discourage long-term fitness goals. Once someone ignores one reminder, they throw in the towel.
To avoid the abstinence violation effect, research has shown that it helps to have realistic expectations. That means accepting occasional mistakes, sure, but also understanding how temptations and cravings work. Cravings only subside, in the long term, when you don’t give into them. Every time you don’t have your usual cigarette with your coffee, you weaken the neural pathways that make you expect coffee to come with cigarettes. And just as breaking a habit doesn’t happen overnight, derailing a goal doesn’t either. One slip-up won’t ruin you. Just accept that you’re not perfect, and keep on going!
Vision is important for babies in the womb - Grant (Ashley)
New research shows that vision is important for babies in the womb. Seriously!
As a fetus develops, its cells are constantly dividing and differentiating into different types of cells with extremely specialized jobs. By the second trimester, a fetus has developed a retina — that’s the thin sheet of cells at the back of each eye that detects light. The fetus can’t see images, but even at that midway point through its development, it can detect the existence and intensity of light. Scientists have believed for a long time that a fetus uses this new ability to set and calibrate its biological clock. But new research suggests that the fetal retinas are doing much more.
According to a paper published last November in the journal Current Biology, signals from those light-detecting cells in the retina are actually sent to locations all over the brain. Some of them end up where researchers had expected, like the brain region that controls our biological rhythms and another responsible for making our pupils dilate and constrict in response to light. But other signals go to some parts of the brain that we don’t ordinarily think of as having much to do with light.
One of those places is the perihabenula [PARE-ee huh-BEN-yoo-luh], a part of the brain involved in regulating mood. Another is the amygdala, which is associated with fear, anxiety, and most importantly aggression. It’s the brain region that lights up when a lab rat smells a cat or when someone with a phobia is confronted with the thing they fear.
The team says their work shows that fetal retinas are encoding way more information than we thought. This new finding will open up new areas of research into the role light plays in fetal development. It might also help researchers tackle some longstanding problems in adult brains, such as understanding what causes light-induced migraines as well as understanding why light therapy can help ease depression.
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, we have a major announcement to make. FINALLY.
And more! Okay, so now, let’s recap what we learned today.
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Ashley Hamer, Mae Rice, and Grant Currin, with editing and scriptwriting by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was also scripted, and produced and edited, by Cody Gough.
CODY: Have a great weekend, and join us again Monday to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!