Learn about breakthrough research into what our brains do while we sleep; how plants fight back when they hear they’re being eaten; and why the Y2K bug is actually what a well-handled crisis looks like afterward.
Learn about breakthrough research into what our brains do while we sleep; how plants fight back when they hear they’re being eaten; and why the Y2K bug is actually what a well-handled crisis looks like afterward.
This is the first direct evidence that our brains replay waking experiences while we sleep by Cameron Duke
Plants Can Hear When They're Being Eaten — and They Fight Back by Ashley Hamer
The Y2K bug is what a well-handled crisis looks like afterward by Kelsey Donk
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/y2k-was-actually-a-success-story-sleeping-brains-replay-waking-experience-and-plants-can-hear-when-theyre-being-eaten
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 breakthrough research into what our brains do while we sleep; how plants fight back when they hear they’re being eaten; and why the Y2K bug is actually what a well-handled crisis looks like afterward.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
You probably know that if you’ve got a big test in the morning, it’s important to have a good night’s sleep. Scientists have known for a while that if people sleep after learning something new, their brains will recall that knowledge even better after they wake up. But despite their best theories, scientists have never seen direct evidence of what, exactly, our sleeping brains do to make that happen. Until now! A new study has the first evidence that our brains replay our waking experiences while we sleep.
Scientists call the process that leads to that overnight brain boost memory consolidation. That’s when your brain takes what it’s learned and transfers it to long-term memory by tweaking and strengthening the connections between neurons. Scientists have known sleep plays an important role in this process, and they’ve made some progress in finding out exactly how. But so far, no one has been able to follow the process at the individual neuron level.
So recently, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital did exactly that. They invited two participants into their lab to play a game. It was kind of like the game Simon: four different colored tiles would flash one by one in a random sequence. The players just had to repeat that sequence by clicking on each color in order. Sounds simple enough, right?
Here’s the twist: the players were people with tetraplegia who had high-resolution electrodes implanted in their brains so they could use neuroprosthetic limbs. The game was on a computer hooked up to those electrodes. So not only were the participants able to play the game with their minds, but the scientists could also record the firing patterns of their neurons while they played. [The future is now!! or ad lib]
They played the game for 20 minutes, during which the same exact pattern flashed 66 times with random “control” patterns in between. As you might expect, they got faster and more accurate at that repeated pattern as the game went on, which suggests that they were learning. Once they were finished, they were encouraged to nap for a half-hour. The whole time, the scientists were recording those neural firing patterns.
Here’s the cool part: The same firing patterns that occurred during the game occurred while they slept. They were essentially replaying the game in their sleep. This is the first evidence that humans replay waking experiences while they sleep — and learning experiences in particular. So the next time you’re cramming for a test, make sure to get some shut-eye. Your brain will keep studying while you sleep!
Some plants can hear when they're being eaten. As if that wasn’t enough of a lead-in to a story, get ready for this: when they hear they’re being eaten? They defend themselves in response. And no — I’m not just talking about Groot. [ad lib idk if he’s actually a plant]
Scientists have known for a while that plants can be affected by sound waves, in terms of things like germination and growth. But for a 2014 study, researchers wanted to figure out whether plants could also sense the vibrations that insects produced when munching on them. In other words, maybe they could hear themselves being eaten!
The team used a vibration microphone equipped with laser sensors to record sounds of caterpillars chowing down on the leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana [uh-RAB-uh-DOP-sis THAAL-ee-AH-nuh]. That’s a small flowering weed related to cabbage and mustard. The name “Arabidopsis” might sound familiar, because it’s basically the lab rat of plant research: after all, it grows quickly and easily in most environments. And, importantly for this team’s purposes, it produces mustard oil in its leaves, which can poison caterpillars if the levels get too high.
When the researchers played the sounds of caterpillar chomps for Arabidopsis, the plants sent out extra mustard oils into their leaves — which is something it didn’t do in response to other sounds like wind or insect song. This suggests that the plants can distinguish feeding vibrations from other common sources of environmental vibrations.
Of course, those extra mustard oils take anywhere from a few hours to several days to build up, but that’s okay. Vibrations from one hungry caterpillar are usually a sign that more attacks are coming, so the plant gears up for war.
The researchers behind this study said their results open the window of plant behavior a little wider. The paper shows that plants have many of the same responses to outside influences that animals do, even if the responses may look a little different. It makes sense, really. Plants have to eat, breathe, reproduce, and defend against predators just like animals do. And it turns out that they’re pretty good at it, too.
Oh, Y2K. The moment when everyone thought airplanes would fall from the sky and computers would stop working as soon as the date shifted to the year 2000. Sounds silly now, right? Well, that’s because engineers took the threat of Y2K seriously. They prepared for years beforehand to make sure that the crisis never came. And we can use that as a lesson while we try to protect our current crisis.
If you weren’t around for the Y2K bug, here’s what it was all about. Before the year 2000, computers recorded years as two-digit numbers. So 1984 was recorded as just 84 and 1901 was recorded as just 01. That worked perfectly well for everyday purposes. Computers didn’t exist before the 1900s, after all, so why waste numbers?
The problem with that was obvious. When the clock turned to the year 2000, computers wouldn’t be able to tell whether the year was 1900 or 2000. This had the potential to disrupt every aspect of life, from air travel to mortgage payments to national defense.
But for years before the date changed, IT experts were charged with fixing the bug. Businesses in the United States alone spent somewhere around $100 billion to patch software and rewrite old code. The spending was so significant, and the demand for programmers so high, that some economists say Y2K is the reason the US uses India for programming even today. But that price tag was worth it.
As Paul Saffo, a futurist and adjunct professor at Stanford University, told TIME Magazine, quote, “The Y2K crisis didn’t happen precisely because people started preparing for it over a decade in advance. And the general public who was busy stocking up on supplies and stuff just didn’t have a sense that the programmers were on the job.”
After years of behind-the-scenes work by experts to prepare computers and cash registers for a new date system, the clock struck midnight the morning of January 1st, 2000 — and not much happened. There were a few hiccups. A video rental store issued a whole century’s worth of late fees for a second time. And a nuclear plant malfunctioned in Tennessee. But for the most part, the United States avoided a major emergency. Now, we laugh about it.
The lesson here: when a crisis is handled well, it often looks like an overreaction and a lot of ‘wasted effort.’ That’s the hard price to pay for thinking ahead, and it’s a reminder that seems particularly important right now.
Let’s recap today’s takeaways
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Cameron Duke, Ashley Hamer, and Kelsey Donk, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
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!