Learn about how your brain treats beautiful faces differently from beautiful objects; why the town of Baarle sits on one of the world’s most complex international borders; and what might happen if you’re eating during a car accident.
Learn about how your brain treats beautiful faces differently from beautiful objects; why the town of Baarle sits on one of the world’s most complex international borders; and what might happen if you’re eating during a car accident.
Your brain treats beautiful faces differently from beautiful objects by Kelsey Donk
The Town of Baarle Sits on One of the World's Most Complex International Borders by Ashley Gabriel
Eating during a car crash by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Stephen)
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/your-brain-treats-human-beauty-differently-from-artistic-beauty
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 how your brain treats beautiful faces differently from beautiful objects; and why the town of Baarle sits on one of the world’s most complex international borders. We’ll also answer a listener question about what might happen if you’re eating during a car accident.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
For decades, neuroscientists have wondered whether the human brain has a “beauty center.” Does one region of the brain light up whenever we see something beautiful — whether that’s a sunset or [insert beautiful person of choice e.g. Matt Damon, David Boreanaz, Chris Hemsworth]? Well, according to a new analysis of fMRI brain scans from almost a thousand people, the answer is yes and no. We may have two “beauty centers” instead of just one. And they see that sunset and Idris Elba differently. That’s right: Your brain treats beautiful faces differently from beautiful objects.
Scientists from Tsinghua University [CHING-hwah or SHING-wah] in China looked at almost fifty studies where researchers had taken fMRI brain scans of almost a thousand people between the ages of 18 and 50. Their brains were scanned while they looked at beautiful things: sometimes beautiful human faces, sometimes beautiful art. The researchers combed through the brain scans for any overlap in brain activity. If the same part of the brain lit up in every participant when they admired something beautiful, that would be evidence that there is actually a beauty center in the brain.
It turned out that yes, the same parts of the brain lit up in similar situations — but the region was different for faces than for art.
The researchers found that beautiful faces sparked brain activity in the left ventral striatum, which is part of the brain’s reward pathway. That suggests that beautiful faces are a primary reward for us, right along with other human necessities like food and sexual contact. If the same region that lights up for delicious food lights up for beautiful people, the scientists figure that must be because beautiful people can benefit the survival of our genes.
Beautiful art, however, triggered activity in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, a region more involved in higher-level thinking like decisionmaking and subjective judgments. That suggests that beautiful art is a secondary reward. The scientists compare it to earning money. We’ve learned to find money pleasurable, but it’s not inherently pleasurable. Our brains deal with this learned pleasure differently.
This is one of those studies that leaves us with more questions than answers. It helps us understand visual beauty, but what part of the brain responds to beautiful music or delicious food? And is beauty and the brain’s response to it in the eye of the beholder? This all warrants more research. And scientists, if you need help judging beautiful faces in the future, well — my headshot is on the website.
Have you ever wished you could just pick up and move to another country? Well, in the European town of Baarle [BARL], moving to a new country is as easy as moving your front door. Because it sits on one of the world’s most complex international borders.
Baarle is a small border town between Belgium and the Netherlands. The town is made up of numerous parcels of land: some are owned by Belgium and called the village of Baarle-Hertog, and others are owned by the Netherlands and called the village of Baarle-Nassau. If you think that’s complicated, just wait. You haven’t heard anything yet.
Instead of clumping the land parcels together and dividing them with a simple borderline, these parcels are mixed up and scattered in a patchwork. They're so mixed up, in fact, that a large chunk of Belgium's parcels are actually inside the boundaries of the Netherlands. And inside of those Belgian parcels are more parcels owned by the Netherlands; it basically creates something like a Russian nesting doll of territories. It’s one of the most complex borders in the world.
Baarle's bizarre geography dates back to medieval times, when a number of treaties and sales split the land between local aristocratic families. When Belgium declared independence from the Netherlands in 1831, they gave each pocket of land an individual nationality. They didn’t finalize the last piece until 1995.
Today, you can actually see the borderlines in the form of white crosses painted on the pavement. They snake through the two villages — and in some cases, directly through houses and restaurants, creating properties that lie in both nations.
And some of Baarle's residents have used their town's jurisdictional loopholes to their advantages. There was a famous court case where a bank was charged with laundering money via their front door in the Netherlands and their vault in Belgium. It’s even said that during one time in history, Dutch bars were required to close earlier than Belgian bars, so the owners would just move the tables across the border to stay open later.
We got a listener question from Stephen, who writes, “I have long wondered if anyone has studied the effects of eating while driving. What happens if someone is eating with a metal fork when they hit something and the airbag goes off? Does the lifesaving device turn the fork deadly?” Challenging question, Stephen. I like it.
From what I can gather, no one has actually studied the effects of eating with a fork when the airbag goes off. But there is plenty of data about other types of airbag injuries, and, well, let’s just say you don’t want anything between you and that airbag when it deploys. Airbags inflate in point-zero-four seconds, five times faster than you can blink. That’s fast. So it’s no wonder that airbags have caused injuries themselves, even when the driver is wearing their seatbelt and not, y’know, eating a forkful of spaghetti during rush hour. And there are definitely reports of broken wrists and forearms when the driver’s hand was in the way. One particularly gruesome case study described a woman who crashed her car with a pencil in her breast pocket. The airbag launched the pencil UPWARDS. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say it caused a serious injury. So a fork in your mouth? Yeah, that’s gonna cause problems.
But asking what would happen if you crash while you’re eating is ignoring the fact that if you’re much more likely to crash if you eat while you drive. Think about it. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, distracted driving is the cause of 80 percent of all car crashes. They divide driving distractions into three categories: there are visual distractions, like rubbernecking at a crash scene or looking at the next bite you’re going to take of your burger. There are manual distractions, like when you have to take your hand off the steering wheel to grab your phone or open a packet of ketchup. And there are cognitive distractions, like when you have an argument with a passenger or you have to figure out how to get that spilled coffee out of your shirt. One study found that drivers who are eating are 3.6 times more likely to crash than drivers who aren’t. So forget the fork — eating or drinking anything at all while you drive is dangerous. Finish your meal before or after your trip — and save your drive time for driving. Thanks for your question, Stephen! If you have a question, send it in to curiosity at discovery dot com or leave us a voicemail at 312-596-5208.
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll hear next week on Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Next week, you’ll learn about how disgusting sights LITERALLY turn your stomach;
Why some vaccines have to be kept so cold;
How a group of islands created its own Google Street View — with SHEEP;
Why tattoos are permanent;
And more! Okay, so now, let’s recap what we learned today.
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk, Ashley Gabriel, and Ashley Hamer, 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: Have a great weekend, and join us again Monday to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!