Learn about why you have false memories of doing daily tasks; how we know that dogs might be able to sense Earth’s magnetic field via magnetoreception; and the science behind why there’s no up or down in space.
Learn about why you have false memories of doing daily tasks; how we know that dogs might be able to sense Earth’s magnetic field via magnetoreception; and the science behind why there’s no up or down in space.
Science confirms we create false memories of doing daily tasks by Steffie Drucker
Dogs might be able to sense Earth’s magnetic field by Cameron Duke
In Outer Space, There Is No Up or Down by Joanie Faletto
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/you-create-false-memories-of-daily-tasks-dogs-can-sense-earths-magnetic-field-and-theres-no-up-or-down-in-space
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 why you have false memories of doing daily tasks; how we know that dogs might be able to sense Earth’s magnetic field; and the science behind why there’s no up or down in space.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
We’re all guilty of it: You could’ve sworn you answered that text message, but it turns out you left your friend on “read.” You thought you turned the dryer on, but your laundry is still sopping wet when you go to take it out. A new study explains why: It turns out our brains sometimes mistake our intention to do a task for actually having done it.
To learn more about the cause of this confusion, scientists at the University of Illinois designed five experiments that asked participants to hire fake models for a fake clothing catalog. To do that, they had to screen resumés — a repetitive task that was made more complicated when an intern “mistakenly” mismatched some of the photos and applications. The correct and mismatched applications were each labeled that way. If a correct application came up, the participant was asked to make a final hiring decision. If the application was mismatched, they were asked to decide whether they intended to hire or reject the candidate, assuming they could see the matching application later on. In some experiments, they used the same keystroke to mark their intention as their actual decision; in others, they were just asked to remember what they chose.
A little while later, the participants had to recall the decision they’d made for each applicant. Did they hire the person or only intend to hire them?
The team found that people were most likely to misremember when the intention and action shared similar mental or physical processes. Like, when you intend to text your friend back, it’s super similar to actually doing it: you look at your phone, tap your screen, read their message, and think about your response. If you had to respond to your friend with flag signals or something, you’d probably remember that a lot more easily. You’re also more likely to create false memories of completing routine tasks that don’t carry heavy consequences. That’s because your brain is checked out: You do the task so consistently that your brain doesn’t store much information about your intention to do it or the behavior itself.
So how can you save you from yourself? Act fast! Doing the darn thing rather than thinking about your intention to do it is the surest way to see that it’s done. But when you can’t take action immediately, take some advice from this study: when participants actually wrote down whether they did the thing, they were much less likely to misremember. So your to-do list is your friend! Leave a paper trail, and you may clear the fog of false memories.
Dogs have some super keen senses. Their senses of smell and hearing are so good that they probably think we’re all deaf and nose-blind. Now a new study suggests dogs may have another sense that puts human senses to shame. They might be able to navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field.
That shouldn’t sound too far-fetched, because dogs are really good at navigation. I mean, they have a long history as homing animals — during World War I, the military even used them to deliver messages in the same way they used homing pigeons.
So in the 1930s, researchers became interested in finding out how dogs navigate, and honestly, it’s a puzzle we’re still sorting out. Studies performed back then showed that dogs transported to unfamiliar sites can consistently find their way home. And as recently as 2013, a paper showed that dogs have a strange tendency to align themselves on a North-South axis before they poop. That suggests they might have some ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic field — a sense called magnetoreception. But if dogs have magnetoreception, are they using it for navigation? That’s what the team of researchers behind this new study wanted to find out.
They set up two identical experiments using 31 hunting dogs in total. They fitted all of them with GPS collars, and some of them with action cameras. Each trial was simple. The dog’s owner would take it into the woods and let it run around for a while.
The researchers wanted to see how each dog got back to its owner. In 60 percent of the more than 600 trials, dogs could follow their own meandering scent trail to return to their starting place. But in a third of the trials, they lost the scent. That was where things got interesting. In these cases, the dogs would take a quick, 20-meter run along a north-south axis, regardless of the direction they needed to go. Then, they’d take a direct path back to their owner.
The researchers suggest that this north-south run, or “compass run,” as they call it, might be how dogs get their magnetic bearing before taking an unknown path. The researchers think this shows that dogs are capable of magnetoreception, but use it as a last resort when other navigation methods fail.
So yes, dogs can probably sense the Earth’s magnetic field! Now if only they’d learn how to bring the ball back.
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Ever stare into the night sky and wonder what's going on up there? Ask a cosmologist and their response would likely be "Up where?" Because there's probably no such thing as "up" in outer space. Or "down," for that matter. If you’re feeling dizzy right about now, I understand.
In scientific terms, the idea that the universe looks the same from every orientation is called isotropy [EYE-suh-trop-pee] — in other words, the universe is isotropic [EYE-suh-TROP-ick]. This isn’t just a guess, either. In 2016, British researchers published a study showing the best evidence yet that the universe doesn't have a preferred direction. That is, there is no up, down, right, left — no "correct" orientation at all. They were able to determine this by looking at the cosmic microwave background, or CMB. That’s the ancient afterglow left over from the Big Bang. It’s the oldest radiation in the universe, and scientists use it to find clues about how the universe has evolved.
To understand how they used the CMB to figure this out, let's imagine for a second that the universe does have a "right" direction —that is, it's anisotropic [uh-NYE-suh-TROP-ick]. This would mean that the universe is expanding at different speeds in different directions from some central point or specific axis. That would pull and stretch the CMB into identifiable shapes and patterns. The data showed that the CMB is random noise and probably doesn't include patterns or other clues that would point toward an anisotropic universe. Basically, the universe is a well-blended mixture of space stuff that grew from a homogenous universe soup.
The idea that the universe is isotropic is definitely a relief. The work that cosmologists do rests on the assumption that the universe is isotropic. If it weren't, then we could just go ahead and throw our understanding of the evolution of the universe out the window. So no, the universe doesn’t have an up or down. And that’s good news for everybody.
Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Starting with
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Steffie Drucker, Cameron Duke, and Joanie Faletto, 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!