Learn about why it’s okay to put play before work; a surprising reason why pirates may have worn eyepatches; and how life bounced back surprisingly quickly after the asteroid killed the dinosaurs. 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: It's OK to Put Play Before Work — Research Says So — https://curiosity.im/34ssI2R Pirates Probably Didn't Wear Eyepatches for the Reason You Think — https://curiosity.im/2L1hH0L After the Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs, Life Bounced Back Surprisingly Quickly — https://curiosity.im/2L1hI4T Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about why it’s okay to put play before work; a surprising reason why pirates may have worn eyepatches; and how life bounced back surprisingly quickly after the asteroid killed the dinosaurs.
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:
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/you-can-enjoy-play-before-work-life-after-asteroid-impacts-and-an-eyepatch-eyesight-hack
CODY: Hi! We’re here from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about why it’s okay to put play before work; a surprising reason why pirates may have worn eye patches; and how life bounced back surprisingly quickly after the asteroid killed the dinosaurs.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
It's OK to Put Play Before Work — Research Says So — https://curiosity.im/34ssI2R (Cody)
It might be time to revisit the old saying “work before play.” Because research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business suggests that it’s perfectly okay to do the fun stuff first — without hurting your ability to enjoy it. This comes from research published in the journal Psychological Science, and it featured four studies on the expectations and reality of delayed pleasure. In one study, students were recruited to go to the “spa” before or after taking their midterms. It wasn’t an actual spa, but it was a massage chair and footbath set up in the lab. Close enough, right? The researchers predicted that the students would not want the spa session before taking their midterms, instead preferring to enjoy it after their hard work had been done. And that prediction checked out: the students believed their spa experience would be spoiled if it it happened before midterms. But the students significantly overestimated the impact of looming exams on their spa enjoyment. Taking exams before or after the spa didn't really impact their spa experience at all. Students reported about the same amount of enjoyment from the spa regardless of whether a big test was on the horizon. This result points to a problem with the way workers are motivated these days, according to the study’s lead author Ed O’Brien. After he and his research assistant Ellen Roney published their results, O’Brien penned an article for Harvard Business Review that pointed out that American workers haven’t used delayed gratification in a long time. He said many incentive systems depend on people believing that you’ll enjoy a reward better if you save it til your work is finished. And the idea that you might enjoy a reward before work just as much as you would after work could jeopardize how willing you are to do it in the first place.
What he suggests is that we rethink work and play, and the order in which they happen. In the final part of O'Brien's research, he found that breaking down a leisure activity and imagining each second before doing it led to greater enjoyment and more accurate expectations. The participants were better able to experience pleasure, excitement, stimulation, and relaxation when they visualized an activity before doing it. So in real life, if you're worried about taking some time to relax before doing a big project, O'Brien says you should first ask yourself why you're worried. If it’s because you’re worried that a looming deadline will “ruin your fun,” then you’re probably wrong. Then, visualize the fun experience before you partake. List all the wonderful things you hope to do on your vacation, or what you plan to eat at that mid-week dinner out. Try it when the stakes are low, and see how it feels. There’s a good chance you'll have just as much fun before or after your work is done.
Pirates Probably Didn't Wear Eye Patches for the Reason You Think — https://curiosity.im/2L1hH0L (Ashley)
Do you know why pirates wore eyepatches? Because it may have nothing to do with injury, and everything to do with their lifestyles. Pirates had to move above and below deck, which meant they had to be able to see in both light and dark situations. If you've ever walked from broad daylight into a dark room, you know how long it takes for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. That adjustment can take 20 to 30 minutes as your eyes slowly regenerate the photopigments they rely on to see in dim light. Wouldn't it be handy to have one eye already adapted to the dark when you need it? That's the idea behind a pirate's eye patch. Picture this: A pirate is fighting on deck in the sunlight, then suddenly has to switch to fighting below deck in nearly total darkness. If they had no eye patch, they'd basically be blind down there — and then they could really lose an eye. But an eye patch makes it so one eye is always dark-adapted. When a pirate goes below deck, all he has to do is switch his eye patch to the other eye and boom, he can see in the dark. Not bad, huh?
The TV show Mythbusters ran an experiment in 2007 to see if it would work. The cast sent a team from a well-lit space into a dark room to complete specific tasks without doing anything to their eyes. Darkness got in the way, so it took them about five minutes to finish the tasks. For the second part of the experiment, they kept one eye covered for 30 minutes, then entered a second dark room. The team was able to complete the tasks with ease in a fraction of the time.
I should note that there’s not a lot of historical evidence for this myth in the first place, so you kinda have to wonder if the 17th-century pirates really did figure this out. But the science still checks out. Either way, think of it as a life hack for the next time you get into a sword fight on a tall ship!
[ARM & HAMMER]
ASHLEY: Today’s episode is sponsored by Arm & Hammer, and their new Cloud Control litter. You know what I love? My cat Aglet. I love [insert what you love most about a cat in your life: can be something in their personality, something you do together, some physical feature, anything!].
[ad lib literally all of this]
ASHLEY: You know what I don’t love? Cleaning up Aglet’s litter box. Which is why Arm & Hammer created new Cloud Control litter. There's no cloud of nasty stuff when I scoop ... it is 100% dust-free, free of heavy perfumes, and helps reduce airborne dander from scooping: So what happens in the litter box STAYS in the litter box.
CODY: New Cloud Control Cat Litter by Arm & Hammer. More Power to You.
After the Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs, Life Bounced Back Surprisingly Quickly — https://curiosity.im/2L1hI4T (Cody)
After the asteroid killed the dinosaurs during the K-T extinction event, life bounced back surprisingly quickly. And a study published in Nature may have figured out why.
After the dinosaurs had been wiped out, other forms of life emerged in the crater left behind after the big impact. That crater is known as the Chicxulub [Chick-suh-LUBE] Crater, off the Yucatan [YOU-kuh-TAN] Peninsula. And that crater is not normal. Remember the gigantic Chesapeake Bay impact crater we talked about a couple weeks ago? Well that crater didn’t have life for millennia afterward. So, what made the K–T asteroid so deadly to dinosaurs and many other species, but comparatively easy on the tiny fauna of its immediate vicinity?
The asteroid’s impact and climate-changing aftermath drove more than 75 percent of species on Earth to extinction. And it marked the beginning of what might have been a decade of global darkness caused by dust and ash. So, you’d imagine the impact site would be the last place on earth likely to support life for a very long time.
And yet! A Paleoceanographer named Chris Lowery examined cores of sediment that’d been taken at the site of the crater, which still bore the marks of the cataclysm. These tubes of limestone and other materials were riddled with the fossils and burrowed tunnels of plankton, small worms, and tiny shelled creatures known as foraminifera.
Here’s what that means, in a nutshell: the big difference between the Chicxulub crater and the Chesapeake Bay crater was their location.
When the Chesapeake Bay asteroid struck, the bodies of the animals killed from the impact decayed and were consumed by microorganisms. But as the organic matter decayed, it used up the water's oxygen, which left the area completely inhospitable to any kind of life. It stayed that way until erosion reconnected the crater with the larger ocean over time.
In contrast, the Chicxulub crater was formed half-in and half-out of the Gulf of Mexico. Since the crater's northeastern side was immediately open to the water, the natural currents washed nutrient-carrying water through the area right from the beginning. With the Earth's natural spin-cycle clearing out the debris and reinvigorating the water with oxygen, life didn't have to wait long to move back in. And the rest… is history.
And now, let’s recap what we learned today. Today we learned that it’s okay to put work before play, because you’ll enjoy the play just as much whether you have an impending deadline or not.
We also learned that you can wear an eye patch to adjust to dark and light conditions quickly.
And that life bounced back after the K-T asteroid killed the dinosaurs because the impact crater had a supply of water right there. Nature’s spin cycle: just as refreshing as a clean load of laundry.
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Stay curious!