Learn about “tin whiskers,” the mysterious reason why your gadgets suddenly stop working; threat simulation theory and how your nightmares might be helping you survive; and why every map is lying to you. 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: Tin Whiskers Are the Mysterious Reason Some Gadgets Stop Working — https://curiosity.im/2jFCzQC Your Nightmares Might Be Helping You Survive — https://curiosity.im/30vYXvq Sorry, but Every Map Is Lying to You — https://curiosity.im/2xAua4j 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 “tin whiskers,” the mysterious reason why your gadgets suddenly stop working; threat simulation theory and how your nightmares might be helping you survive; and why every map is lying to you.
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:
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/your-nightmares-help-you-survive-tin-whiskers-break-your-gadgets-and-every-map-is-lying
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 the mysterious reason why your gadgets suddenly stop working; how your nightmares might be helping you survive; and why every map is lying to you.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Tin Whiskers Are the Mysterious Reason Some Gadgets Stop Working — https://curiosity.im/2jFCzQC (from next Wednesday) (Ashley)
Have you ever heard of “tin whiskers?” No, I’m not talking about something from the upcoming movie adaptation of the musical “Cats.” I’m talking about the reason why your gadgets mysteriously stop working. You know what I’m talking about: one day your TV remote works just fine, and the next day, it’s dead. And you might be able to blame tin whiskers, which can happen to lots of different metals, like zinc, cadmium, and silver — and, of course, tin, which is often used to solder and coat electronic circuits. Tin whiskers are microscopic, crystalline structures that sprout out of that tin, and they usually happen because of stress in the metal. Any bending, compression, stretching, or even scratches and nicks can be enough to sprout them. We've known about tin whiskers since the 1940s, but they've actually gotten worse in recent years because we got rid of lead in electronics. Ditching that lead has been great for human health, but bad for electronics, since lead can keep whiskers from forming. Tin whiskers can extend several millimeters, but they don't need to be very big to wreak havoc on electronics. They only need to be long enough to form a "bridge" between two different electronic parts. That bridge can cause problems as minor as intermittent short circuits, and as damaging as metal vapor arcs. Those arcs happen when high current and voltage vaporize the whisker, which turns it into a plasma of metal ions that can carry hundreds of amps, wreaking catastrophic destruction in its wake. Like I said before, tin whiskers can cause problems in your TV remote, but they can do a lot more damage than that. In 1986, the FDA recalled several models of a pacemaker because tin whiskers were causing circuit problems. And in 2005, a nuclear reactor in Connecticut was suddenly shut down due to a computer malfunction caused by — get this — a single tin whisker. Higher altitudes help whiskers form even faster. The microscopic menace has been enough to shut down satellites, destroy airplane communication equipment, and ruin space shuttle components. Experts are hard at work trying to figure out what exactly causes tin whiskers, and how to fight them. Certain tin coatings can reduce the risk of tin whisker growth, but the question of why they develop in the first place might be the bigger mystery. Oh, and you can see an example of what tin whiskers look like in our full write-up on them, which you can find on curiosity-dot-com and on our free Curiosity app for Android and iOS. There’s a chance you’ve seen them before, so check it out so you know what to call them when you see them!
Your Nightmares Might Be Helping You Survive — https://curiosity.im/30vYXvq (Cody)
Research suggests your nightmares may be helping you survive. Dreams about stressful scenarios like sleeping through class, or fighting with your significant other, might have evolved to help us to work through our anxieties in a risk-free environment, and to prepare us to face our fears in real life. This idea is called threat simulation theory. It basically says dreams take us through stressful or scary events as a way to prepare us for the real thing. When we rehearse a perceived threat and avoidance in our sleep, we have a better chance of successfully reacting to threats when we’re awake. The theory explains why even modern city-slickers like me have the occasional nightmare about being chased through a forest. Humans have evolved to be especially sensitive to threats like dangerous animals and extreme weather events, so it makes sense that those deep-rooted fears would keep showing up in our dreams even though most of us are not being chased around by predators all day. Those more modern nightmares about failing a test or getting ghosted on Tinder show up because real-life trauma impacts dream threats. Neuroscientists learned this when they analyzed the dream reports of Kurdish children from Northern Iraq who’d grown up around regular military violence, for a study in 2005. The researchers compared their dreams to the dreams of Finnish children who’d grown up in a relatively safe environment. And they found that the Kurdish children encountered more severe threats in their dreams, and that they were able to recall more dreams in general. This could be because trauma led to increased activation of the children's threat simulation system, which would work as a form of protection against the threats in their waking environment. And a 2014 study of medical students looked at that test-taking anxiety dream I’m sure we’ve all had. Sixty percent of those students said they had a dream about the medical school entrance exam the night before the test. Most of these dreams qualified as nightmares, riddled with fear of failing the test, being late, or forgetting answers. No surprise there. But get this: Students who dreamed of the exam actually performed better on test day. It turns out dreams probably do improve our ability to face threats, whether they're saber-toothed or multiple choice.
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CODY: That’s L-I-G-H-T, S-T-R, E-A-M, dot-com-slash-Curiosity. Subject to credit approval. Rate includes zero-point-five-percent AutoPay discount, Terms and conditions apply and offers are subject to change without notice. Visit lightstream.com/Curiosity for more information.
Sorry, but Every Map Is Lying to You — https://curiosity.im/2xAua4j (Ashley) [FREELANCER]
Here’s some world-shattering news: Every map is lying to you.
Your mental image of the world is probably based on the Mercator [merr-KAY-ter] projection map. That’s the flat world map you see hanging up in school classrooms, and it’s terribly distorted. If you cross-check the sizes of the countries with those on a globe, you'll find heaps of discrepancies.
For example, the Mercator projection makes it look like Africa and Greenland are pretty much the same size. But in reality, Africa is a whopping 14 times larger than Greenland.
This distortion happens because you can NOT flatten a sphere onto a plane without distorting it. For a cartographer to put the globe on a flat surface, sacrifices must be made.
In the case of the Mercator projection, we sacrifice size for compass accuracy. The map exaggerates the size of countries as they get closer to the poles, but it maintains true north-south and east-west direction between any two points — to make navigation easier.
Other maps might show more realistic sizes, but they make trade-offs in continuity or distance.
A Japanese architect named Hajime Narukawa [hah-jee-may nah-roo-kah-wah] thinks he's developed the most accurate map so far. It's called the AuthaGraph World Map. The map divides the world into 96 triangles, which makes it a tetrahedron that unfolds into a rectangle. This preserves the true dimensions of the continents by angling them outward instead of stretching them. Narukawa admits his map not a hundred percent accurate just yet, because some regions are slightly distorted.
For now, the most "accurate" map depends on what you'll use it for.
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, we want to quickly remind you to please nominate Curiosity Daily to be a finalist in the 2019 Podcast Awards! Find a link in today’s show notes, or visit podcast-awards-dot-com, to register. Then find Curiosity Daily in the drop-down menus for the categories of People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. A win would go a long way in putting us on the map, so please help us out!
And now, let’s recap what we learned today.
ASHLEY: Today we learned that tin whiskers break your gadgets
CODY: And that nightmares help you prepare for dangers in real-life
ASHLEY: And that every map is distorted, so they’re all kinda lying to you
[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!