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: LINKEDIN: Get $50 off your first job post. Terms and conditions apply. Why Do You Need Goggles to See Underwater? Science Says Don't Play Hard to Get The Past, Present, And Future Of Dating [Full-Length Podcast Interview with Dr. Eli Finkel] Doctors Can't Definitively Diagnose Alzheimer's Until After Death To learn even more about dating in the modern world, listen to our full-length podcast episode about dating and online relationships with Dr. Eli Finkel, a psychologist and relationship expert. Then master your relationship game with his book, "The All-or-Nothing Marriage: How the Best Marriages Work." It's free with your Audible trial, and if you make a purchase using the link, then Curiosity will get a share of the sale. Want to support our show? Register for the 2018 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. Just register at the link and select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2018 Learn more about these topics and more onCuriosity.com, and download our5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable ourAlexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
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 learn even more about dating in the modern world, listen to our full-length podcast episode about dating and online relationships with Dr. Eli Finkel, a psychologist and relationship expert. Then master your relationship game with his book, "The All-or-Nothing Marriage: How the Best Marriages Work." It's free with your Audible trial, and if you make a purchase using the link, then Curiosity will get a share of the sale.
Want to support our show? Register for the 2018 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. Just register at the link and select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2018
Learn more about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/why-you-should-stop-playing-hard-to-get-why-you-need-goggles-and-alzheimers-diagnosis
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn why you need goggles to see underwater, why science says you shouldn't play hard to get, and how researchers are working on ways to diagnose Alzheimer's disease.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody, do you like swimming?
CODY GOUGH: Not really.
ASHLEY HAMER: I just did my very first triathlon last year, and I'm about to do my second.
CODY GOUGH: No big deal.
ASHLEY HAMER: No big deal. But when I go to the pool to work out, if I forget my goggles-- goggles are really important. Even if you're not swimming laps for a workout, it is summertime. So we thought we'd explain why you need goggles to see underwater. Get ready for a crash course on your eyesight. Ready?
Your eyes have three main parts. The cornea and lens bend and focus light to form an image. And the retina sends that image to the brain. We've evolved so that works great on land, where the cornea and lens bend light independently so our brain sees an image.
But underwater, the cornea is too similar in consistency to water. That means that there's not enough difference between the two for your light-focusing system to work the way it should. Your lens has to make up for your cornea's focusing power. So you end up with an image that's kind of there but usually pretty blurry.
Fish can see fine because they only rely on their lens. But the human lens is curved on both sides, and a fish's lens is round like a sphere. So it can bend light better underwater.
There are some animal and human exceptions you can read about today on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS. But if you want to explore beneath the surface, we've got a tip for you, goggles. The air between the goggles and your eyes lets your eyes work the way they're used to.
CODY GOUGH: I know one thing that's pretty easy to see even without goggles, and it comes from today's sponsor. If you're looking for quality talent for your next hire, then we've got the perfect sponsor to help you avoid overspending on your candidate search.
ASHLEY HAMER: Today's episode is sponsored by LinkedIn. LinkedIn is more than the world's largest professional network. It's also a better way to find great talent.
CODY GOUGH: If you're not using LinkedIn, then you're missing out. Every hire matters. So don't settle for posting a job and just hoping the right person will find you and apply.
ASHLEY HAMER: 70% of the US workforce is already on LinkedIn. Are you on LinkedIn, Cody?
CODY GOUGH: Sure am.
ASHLEY HAMER: I am too.
CODY GOUGH: It's literally how I got my job here.
ASHLEY HAMER: Nice. When it comes to delivering quality candidates, businesses rate LinkedIn jobs 40% higher than job boards. That's a lot.
CODY GOUGH: Think about your company's job boards. How often do you check them? Now how often do you think anyone else is going to check them? Then there's LinkedIn, where 22 million professionals view and apply to jobs every week, in every industry, even years and mine.
ASHLEY HAMER: When you're looking to fill a position, LinkedIn takes potential candidates and looks at their skills, experiences, location and more, to match and promote your job to the right professional.
CODY GOUGH: Before you look for your next hire, visit LinkedIn.com/curiosity, and get $50 off your first job post.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's right. Get $50 off your first job post at LinkedIn.com/curiosity.
CODY GOUGH: One more time. That's LinkedIn.com/curiosity for $50 off today. Terms and conditions apply. Ashley, how soon is too soon to message after a first date?
ASHLEY HAMER: Think maybe 24 hours is a good rule.
CODY GOUGH: So within 24 hours of the end of a first date, if somebody messages you, you're like, oh, that's too much.
ASHLEY HAMER: It will definitely be a red flag.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, boy.
ASHLEY HAMER: Mm-hmm.
CODY GOUGH: Wow. Well, I don't know if this scientific study is going to agree with you.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, let's see.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: This new study essentially says you should stop playing hard to get. It turns out that the whole playing-it-cool act was never rooted in science in the first place. I'm not saying it never works or it never has worked. All right, this is not universal. Every relationship is different. But this study had some solid takeaways for the dating world.
A team of researchers looked specifically at the relationship between uncertainty and sexual desirability. 50 men and 51 women participated, and the men sat in one room, and the women sat in another. They chatted online with the partner in the next room, then were asked to rate the sexual desirability of their chat partner from 1 to 5.
There was a catch though. At the end of the chat, the researchers told them to check their messages. Some of them got a final message from their chat partner, so they were certain that the person was into them, while the others didn't. So there was some uncertainty there. Those who received a final message gave the partner a much higher score than those who didn't. Plus, they were more interested in future interactions with that person.
So why is this? The study's authors say we might put up our shields as a defense mechanism when there's uncertainty. Nobody wants to be heartbroken. Another study in 2012 showed that playing hard to get is especially bad if you're looking for a short-term fling. But to be fair, a 2010 study did say that uncertainty can increase a woman's romantic attraction towards a man.
So the jury is still out on exactly what you should do all the time. But research seems to suggest that overall, honesty is the best policy. And hey, at least now you know that if you are honest, that doesn't automatically mean you blew it.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think I'd just like to say that there's a difference between being honest about how you feel about a person and being overly clingy and texting them all the time.
CODY GOUGH: Sure.
ASHLEY HAMER: So maybe you should still wait 24 hours. But just be honest about how you feel once that 24-hour window has closed. You probably hear about Alzheimer's disease a lot in the news even if you haven't had any personal experience with it. Today, we just want to take a quick minute to explain some of the science behind Alzheimer's. And we'll try to end on a positive note by letting you know what researchers are working on.
Specifically, let's talk diagnosis. You might not know this, but right now, the only way doctors can definitively diagnose the disease beyond a shadow of a doubt is with an autopsy after death. That's why researchers are working hard on developing tests that can definitively catch the disease when there's still a chance to help.
Right now, they can diagnose possible or probable Alzheimer's dementia or some other problem. But that requires visible symptoms. And by then, it's usually too late to start preventative measures. And there's no cure right now. But some therapies show promise in slowing its progress.
The reason the definitive diagnosis requires an autopsy is that the disease's defining characteristics are microscopic changes in the brain tissue itself. During an autopsy, diseased brain tissue under the microscope might show abnormal clusters of beta amyloid protein fragments that build up between nerve cells. Dying nerve cells also contain tangles, twisted strands of tau proteins, that keep nutrients from moving through the cells.
Overall, brains with Alzheimer's have fewer nerve cells and synapses than healthy brains and can often look smaller and shriveled. Luckily, plaques and tangles leave telltale signs in the blood. So if researchers could come up with a blood test for those markers, then they might be able to diagnose Alzheimer's more accurately and more early.
So here's the good news. In 2014, Georgetown University researchers announced the development of a test that could predict with 90% accuracy if a healthy person would develop either mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's disease within three years.
And in 2017, a team from Lancaster University in England successfully used a technique called vibrational spectroscopy to not only diagnose Alzheimer's disease in a large number of patients, but also to accurately differentiate between it and other similar diseases. There's still a long road. But the future is looking brighter.
CODY GOUGH: We're going to end with one really quick correction from an episode from last week. By the way, 90% of our corrections have nothing to do with the science we're reporting on. It's just the anecdotes that we mention.
ASHLEY HAMER: Interesting.
CODY GOUGH: And there was an anecdote when we talked about the Red Baron. I said Snoopy in the Peanuts comic strip used to cosplay as the Red Baron. He didn't. He cosplayed as a pilot that was trying to take down the Red Baron.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, that makes sense because the Red Baron was German.
CODY GOUGH: Right. The Red Baron was his enemy. So Snoopy was not being the Red Baron. He just wore a red cape, and that's what threw me off.
ASHLEY HAMER: He had a red plane and a red scarf. And that is a very easy thing to remember, especially when you were a kid when you first saw it. So I think that's understandable.
CODY GOUGH: Apologies for mislabeling Snoopy as the Red Baron. He was the Red Baron's nemesis.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: And that was caught by a Twitter user, Brian P. Baker. Thank you so much for pointing that out, Brian. And thanks for listening to our show.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again tomorrow for the Curiosity Daily, and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
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SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.