Learn about the surprising memory skills of infants; why that whole “phosphine on Venus” discovery may not be as exciting as we thought; and how medical science answered Molyneux's problem, a 300-year-old philosophy question.
Learn about the surprising memory skills of infants; why that whole “phosphine on Venus” discovery may not be as exciting as we thought; and how medical science answered Molyneux's problem, a 300-year-old philosophy question.
3-year-olds can recognize a person they met once when they were 1 year old by Kelsey Donk
That whole "phosphine on Venus" discovery, suggesting life? That probably wasn't phosphine after all by Cameron Duke
Medical Science Has Answered This 300-Year-Old Philosophy Question by Reuben Westmaas
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/yeah-about-that-phosphine-on-venus
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 the surprising memory skills of infants; why that whole “phosphine on Venus” discovery may not be as exciting as we thought; and how medical science answered a 300-year-old philosophy question.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
It’s hard to remember what happened before you were three or four years old, right? Well, that doesn’t mean that little kids have no memories at all. In fact, a new study shows that three-year-olds can recognize a person they met once when they were just one year old. And this is evidence that infants’ memories are more durable than we thought.
To figure this out, researchers had to develop a pretty clever study. First, they reached out to parents whose children took part in an unrelated study when they were one year old. During that original study, the children were video recorded while they identified objects with one of two male researchers, one Black and the other white. Two years later, those same children came back to the same laboratory. They were shown two videos side by side. In one video, the children saw the researcher they’d interacted with when they were one. The other video showed the other researcher, the one they hadn’t ever met before.
While the children watched the videos, the researchers tracked their eyes’ movements. They found that the children spent significantly more time watching the video of the researcher they had never met before. Every other part of the videos was exactly the same. Same background, same behaviors, just a different person. So the researchers say the children’s eye movements are pretty strong evidence that they had some ability to recognize the person they’d met before, and they were more interested in looking at the unfamiliar researcher.
As a control, the researchers also brought in a group of three-year-olds who hadn’t participated in the first study. This group of children preferred looking at the Black researcher. Most of these children were white, and young children often show a preference for faces of people from races other than their own. That suggests that the memories of the kids in the experimental group were more powerful than their racial bias.
Here’s the amazing thing: these kids couldn’t consciously remember meeting the researcher before. So the researchers say it’s possible that young children can’t access conscious memories of people they’ve met before, but it’s also possible that they just aren’t able to verbally express their recognition.
Now the real question remains: if three year olds do actually have memories of events that happened when they were younger, why can’t we recall those memories as adults? Hopefully the researchers will remember to look into it.
Remember in September of last year when everyone was excited about possible signs of life on Venus? A team of astronomers had identified a chemical in Venus’s atmosphere that could potentially indicate the presence of life. Well, I’ve got bad news: a new analysis of the data is saying there’s a more realistic explanation. It’s not as exciting as aliens, but it is good science.
If you missed it the first time around, I’ll give you a quick rundown. Last fall, a team of astronomers announced that they had some pretty solid evidence for the presence of a compound called phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere. That’s a pretty big deal because phosphine is an organic chemical that’s only really associated with living things, as far as we know. They reported finding it high in the atmosphere, far above the inhospitable hellscape down on the surface. That was exciting, because even though it didn’t directly imply that there was microbial life in Venus’s clouds, it really forced scientists to examine that possibility.
The supposed phosphine signatures were spotted by Earth-bound radio telescopes. Radio telescopes are devices that can analyze both visible and invisible radiation coming from celestial objects like planets or stars. See, all matter gives off a signature wavelength based on its chemical structure, kind of like a light fingerprint. So scientists can analyze the wavelengths emitted from distant planets to learn whether the atmosphere might be breathable or if it has water — without having to go there and risk being disappointed.
But disappointed we are. Because a recent re-examination of the original data discovered a slight issue with the finding. Phosphine gives off its “light fingerprint” at 266.94 gigahertz. Well, because of a quirk of physics, there’s another compound that emits a very, very similar frequency: sulfur dioxide. Taking what we know about the way that both phosphine and sulfur dioxide behave, the researchers think that the telescopes were probably just seeing traces of sulfur dioxide high above the clouds instead of phosphine inside the clouds.
And, as you already know if you’re a sulfur dioxide enthusiast like Cody is: sulfur dioxide does not imply there’s life on Venus.
I know that’s not as exciting as discovering alien life, but it is super important that we follow up on these stories. Science should be a self-correcting process, and this is an example of that in action. CODY: But hey, on the bright side, this might attract new members to the international sulfur dioxide fan club, which I’ve been thinking about starting for a while now
If a person was blind from birth but had their vision restored, would that person be able to recognize the objects they knew by touch just by looking at them? This is Molyneux's [MALL-in-nooz] problem, and it was a minor thorn in philosophy’s side for about 300 years. Fortunately, I say “was” because modern medicine may have finally solved it.
The debate started in the late 1600s, at a time when the science of optics was booming, and breakthroughs in microscopes and telescopes were coming fast and furious. Philosopher William Molyneux had more personal interests, though: his wife lost her sight early in their marriage. That may have been why he was inspired to pose this now-famous question to fellow philosopher, John Locke.
Locke believed that the answer was no: a person blind from birth wouldn’t be able to recognize objects by sight that they knew by touch. He believed interpreting sensory data was something the brain learned how to do, so a person who had known what a cube was only through touch would have to learn to recognize a cube by sight separately. Other philosophers disagreed. It was a spirited debate, with just one thing that was missing: that is, any kind of empirical evidence.
But these days, the idea of curing lifelong blindness isn’t just hypothetical. And that means a solution to the problem doesn’t need to be hypothetical either.
Enter Project Prakash [pruh-KAH-sh], a program founded by MIT professor Pawn Sinha. Between 2007 and 2010, the project restored sight to five children who had been visually impaired from birth. After their surgeries, the children performed a test using small blocks that were kinda like LEGOs. First, they were asked to match identical blocks by touch, and then to match identical blocks by sight. They didn’t have too much trouble with these tasks — but they ran into problems when they were asked to match a block they knew by touch to one they knew by sight. Over the next few months, though, their ability improved.
In short, the verdict is in — Locke was right. A person born blind does have to learn to identify by sight what they know by touch, but they can do it surprisingly quickly.
Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Starting with
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk, Cameron Duke, and Reuben Westmaas, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Play this episode for a 1-year-old in your life, and see if they remember our voices in a couple years. ...or I guess, just tell a friend about our show. That’d be amazing. And, of course, join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!