Learn about how you’ve probably eaten glass, with Netflix’s “Blown Away” host Nick Uhas. You’ll also learn about how to tap into a positive kind of stress called eustress; and, how your unique screams can identify you. Please support today’s sponsor, ButcherBox! To get FREE bacon in EVERY box for the life of your subscription, PLUS $20 off your first box, visit https://www.butcherbox.com/curiosity 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: Leave Distress Behind, and Embrace "Eustress" — https://curiosity.im/2xzf5Qk Your Unique Screams Can Identify You — https://curiosity.im/2xzf8eY Additional resources from Nick Uhas: Watch “Blown Away” on Netflix — https://netflix.com/blownaway Subscribe to Nick Uhas on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/user/NickUhas Follow @NickUhas on Twitter — https://twitter.com/nickuhas/ Follow @NickUhas on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/nickuhas/ Nick Uhas’ official website — https://www.nickuhas.com/ Want to support our show?Register for the 2019 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. After you register, simply select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (voting in other categories optional): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2019 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 how you’ve probably eaten glass, with Netflix’s “Blown Away” host Nick Uhas. You’ll also learn about how to tap into a positive kind of stress called eustress; and, how your unique screams can identify you.
Please support today’s sponsor, ButcherBox! To get FREE bacon in EVERY box for the life of your subscription, PLUS $20 off your first box, visit https://www.butcherbox.com/curiosity
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:
Additional resources from Nick Uhas:
Want to support our show? Register for the 2019 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. After you register, simply select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (voting in other categories optional): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2019
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-may-have-eaten-glass-w-nick-uhas-using-positive-stress-and-identifying-screams
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 how you’ve probably eaten glass, with special guest Nick Uhas. You’ll also learn about how to tap into a positive kind of stress; and, how your unique screams can identify you.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Nick Uhas Interview #2 - Jolly Rancher glass blowing (Both)
ASHLEY: Would you ever eat glass? Your instinct might be to say “no,” but according to today’s guest, it’s possible you already HAVE eaten glass. Nick Uhas is a science influencer and creator of the Nickipedia YouTube Channel, and he’s also the host of the brand-new Netflix competition series called “Blown Away.” In the show, ten master artists turn up the heat in glassblowing sculpture challenges for the chance to win $60,000 in prizes and the title of champion. Here’s Nick with a fun fact he learned while he was shooting the show.
[CLIP 2:02]
CODY: The moral of the story is that the next time you want your friends to think you’re hardcore, just grab a box of Jolly Ranchers and tell them you’re tough enough to eat glass! You can learn even more cool things about glass on the brand-new Netflix series “Blown Away,” which is available right now. Nick Uhas is the host, and we’ll put links to the show, his YouTube channel, and more in today’s show notes.
Leave Distress Behind, and Embrace "Eustress" — https://curiosity.im/2xzf5Qk (Ashley) [FREELANCER]
Stress is not always a bad thing. Technically, the word “stress” refers to your body’s response to changes that create taxing demands. We kind of use the terms “stress” and “DIS-tress” interchangeably, but distress refers to negative stress. Which means, there’s a such thing as positive stress: eustress. And it comes with a bounty of benefits that you can tap into.
Here’s how eustress works. We've all felt the drive to achieve something great. While that drive can be considered stressful, most wouldn't see it as a bad thing. That's eustress in action. Some forms of eustress are obvious, like starting a new job, getting married, or moving to a new city. In general, this type of stress is motivating and energizing, and it provides you with incentives to do well.
Though sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference between eustress and distress. Eustress tends to be a short-lived type of pressure, one that's exciting and feels relatively easy to cope with. Distress, on the other hand, can last for any amount of time, and can make you feel like you don't have the capacity to cope. That kind of stress has the tendency to make you perform below your abilities, and can even cause physical problems.
So how do you go about ensuring you put the “eu” in stress and bring some more of the positive stress into your life?
Instead of perceiving a demanding project at work as negative, stop and remind yourself that stress can be good for you. When you feel distress, we tend to focus on external factors with thoughts like, "My boss gave me an impossible project." To transform your situation into eustress, try focusing internally with thoughts like: "I've got this! This project will be hard work, but I'm capable, and it'll be rewarding." It's all about perspective! [ad lib]
[BUTCHERBOX]
CODY: Today’s episode is sponsored by ButcherBox. ButcherBox makes it easy to get high-quality, humanely raised meat.
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CODY: If ButcherBox burgers are nearly as good as the rest of the meat I’ve gotten to try, then I am ALL-IN on these burgers. I’m pretty carniverous, and I’ve gotta say, the cuts I got in my last ButcherBox were just straight-up tastier and juicier than the meat I usually get at the grocery store.
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CODY: That’s right! Every month, ButcherBox will send you at least 9 to 11 pounds of meat — delivered straight to your door — in one of 4 curated boxes, or in a box you customize yourself. And now’s the time to get summer’s best offer before it expires! I’m talking about $20 off your first box — and 6 burgers for FREE in every box — until October 15th. Just go to ButcherBox-dot-com-slash-CURIOSITY OR enter promo code CURIOSITY at checkout.
ASHLEY: Again, you’ll get $20 off your first box and 6 burgers for FREE in every box until October 15th. Just go to ButcherBox-dot-com-slash-CURIOSITY OR enter promo code CURIOSITY at checkout.
Your Unique Screams Can Identify You — https://curiosity.im/2xzf8eY (Republish) (Cody) [FREELANCER]
Did you know that you have a unique scream that can identify you as, well, you? A new study suggests that human screams do convey a level of individual identity. This, in spite of the idea that screams are too chaotic and inconsistent to be used to identify someone.
As reported by Futurity, research led by Emory University psychology Professor Harold Gouzoulez [Guh-SOO-less] showed that participants could correctly identify whether the same person or two different people produced pairs of screams. And this is a critical prerequisite to individual recognition and social behavior.
While we know humans are good at making identity-related judgments based on speech, there’s been less research into identity cues in nonlinguistic vocalizations, such as screaming.
Gouzoulez says that the origin of screams was probably to startle a predator and make it jump, which would give prey a small chance to escape. And that kind of scream is very different from calling out for help. As some species became more social, including monkeys and other primates, screaming became a way to recruit help from relatives and friends. So, it’s important to identify screams so you can respond to those that are important to you.
Previous research by Gouzoules and others suggests that non-human primates can tell whether a scream is coming from an individual that is important to them.
To test whether the same applied to humans, Gouzoules conducted a study where 104 participants listened to audio files of pairs of screams on a computer, without any visual cues for context. Participants were asked to determine if the screams came from the same or a different person.
Across three different experiments, most of the participants were able to correctly judge most of the time whether the screams were from the same person or not.
This study is part of an extensive program of research into screaming by Gouzoules. In previous work, he found that listeners cannot distinguish acted screams from naturally occurring screams.
In upcoming papers, he’ll be digging into how people determine whether they’re hearing a scream or some other vocalization, and how they perceive the emotional context of a scream. [ad lib]
ASHLEY: Before we recap what we learned today, quick reminder that we need YOUR support for Curiosity Daily to be considered as a finalist in the 2019 Podcast Awards! Just visit podcast-awards-dot-com and look for Curiosity Daily in the drop-down menus, for the categories of People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. And please encourage a friend or two to help! It’s free to vote if we’re recognized with an award, then at least one of us will happy-scream. And now, let’s recap what we learned today.
CODY: Today we learned that when you eat a Jolly Rancher, you’re technically eating glass.
ASHLEY: And that by reframing your situation, you can turn bad stress into good stress.
CODY: And that people can actually identify different people from their screams.
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes. And have a great weekend! I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Stay curious!