Curiosity Daily

Your Roommate Really Doesn’t Know How You’re Feeling

Episode Summary

Learn about how lightning strikes led to life on Earth; the self-control of cuttlefish; and your roommate’s feelings. Lightning strikes were vital to the origin of life on Earth by Grant Currin Lightning strikes played a vital role in life’s origins on Earth. (2021). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/uol-lsp031621.php  ‌Hess, B. L., Piazolo, S., & Harvey, J. (2021). Lightning strikes as a major facilitator of prebiotic phosphorus reduction on early Earth. Nature Communications, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21849-2  Mamoun-Yale, F. (2021, March 18). Lightning may have paved way for life on Earth - Futurity. Futurity. https://www.futurity.org/lightning-life-on-earth-phosphorus-2534052  A cuttlefish has the power of self-control by Cameron Duke Cuttlefish exert self-control in a delay of gratification task | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. (2021). Proceedings of the Royal Society B. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.3161  Yasemin Saplakoglu. (2021, March 3). Cuttlefish show self-control, pass “marshmallow test.” Livescience.com; Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/cuttlefish-pass-marshmallow-test.html  Your Roommate Doesn't Know How You're Feeling originally aired April 27, 2018 https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-daily/learn-when-we-ll-meet-aliens-hear-singing-sand-dun  Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY 

Episode Notes

Learn about how lightning strikes led to life on Earth; the self-control of cuttlefish; and your roommate’s feelings.

Lightning strikes were vital to the origin of life on Earth by Grant Currin

A cuttlefish has the power of self-control by Cameron Duke

Your Roommate Doesn't Know How You're Feeling originally aired April 27, 2018 https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-daily/learn-when-we-ll-meet-aliens-hear-singing-sand-dun

Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY

 

Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/your-roommate-really-doesnt-know-how-youre-feeling

Episode Transcription

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 lightning strikes were vital to the origin of life on Earth; how a cuttlefish has the power of self-control; and why your roommate doesn’t know how you’re feeling.

CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.

Lightning strikes were vital to the origin of life on Earth (Ashley)

Researchers in the UK have shocking news.

...it’s about lightning. Get it?

These researchers have uncovered evidence that lightning strikes likely played a key role in creating the conditions for life to emerge about 3.5 billion years ago. 

Here’s why they think so. Life as we know it can’t exist without phosphorus. That’s because the stuff plays a role in just about everything that living things have in common. That’s everything from the membranes of cells to DNA’s charming little double helix shape.

The thing is, Earth didn’t always have the phosphorus it needed for life to begin, let alone flourish. There was phosphorus on Earth 4 billion years ago, but it was locked up in minerals that don’t dissolve in water. That made it pretty useless for would-be biomolecules.

Researchers have spent decades saying that meteorites might be how the earliest stirrings of life overcame the phosphorus problem. That’s because meteorites can be partly made of a mineral called schreibersite [SHRY-burr-site], which contains phosphorus AND dissolves in water. The mineral isn’t too common these days, but researchers thought schreibersite-containing meteorites might have provided the phosphorus necessary to prime the engine of life. 

But it turns out that’s not the only way schreibersite appeared on our ancient planet.

Fast forward to 2016 when lightning struck the ground right outside Chicago, in a suburb called Glen Ellyn. The strike formed a kind of rock called fulgurite [FULL-gyur-rite], which the property owners donated to Wheaton College. Researchers in the UK got their hands on the sample because they wanted to study how it had formed. But once they started looking closely, the researchers realized the rock contained a whole lot of — would you believe it — schreibersite!

Lightning struck the ground and then phosphorus appeared, free for the taking. 

It’s a huge insight, and it might make up for a shortcoming of the meteorite theory. See, Earth used to get banged up by meteorites all the time, but the rate of collisions dropped off right about the time life was on the rise. What the early Earth did get struck by was lightning. Strikes were between 2 and 10 times more common long ago than they are today. That’s a lot of lightning over the millenia — and probably a lot of phosphorus, too. 

And get this: if lightning can provide early life the phosphorus it needs, then life could develop on an Earthlike planet at any time, not just when meteorites are raining down all the time. 

See, it all comes back to aliens. 

CODY: REALLY???

A cuttlefish has the power of self-control (Cody)

Cephalopods like cuttlefish and octopuses are quickly redefining how we think about animal smarts. And the latest example is pretty… SHOCKING.

ASHLEY: Cody, that’s… not even a pun. This story has nothing to do with lightning.

[ad lib]

CODY: A cuttlefish just passed the famous “marshmallow” test, a classic measure of self control. This means that the cuttlefish gets to join a club that has so far only admitted primates and a few birds. 

 

The marshmallow test is a common test for self-control that was developed by Stanford psychologists in the 1970s. The participant was usually a small child, and was offered two choices. They could have a single marshmallow now, or wait fifteen minutes and get a whopping two marshmallows. It measures how long a child can delay gratification.

 

Since then, biologists have been using the marshmallow test to study cognition in non-human animals. The latest of these is the bizarre color-changing, backward-swimming, tiny Cthulu impersonator otherwise known as the cuttlefish. 

 

We’ve known for a long time that these guys were smart, but they tend to surprise scientists almost every time their intelligence is explored. In this latest exploration a researcher at Cambridge University named Alex Schell decided to give cuttlefish their own version of the marshmallow test. But he didn’t give them a choice between one marshmallow or two; he gave them a choice between a so-so treat like Asian shore crab and a beloved treat: the tasty, tasty grass shrimp. 

 

Each item was placed behind a sliding glass door, with a symbol on it that the cuttlefish was trained to recognize as meaning either that the door will open immediately or on a delay. The cuttlefish in the experiment were able to wait up to 130 seconds for the better treat, often even sitting in a position where they couldn’t see the immediately available treat as if they were trying to ignore it. That’s similar to a strategy used by some kids in the original marshmallow test!

 

This ability is a big deal because an animal that is able to weigh its options and even pay a small cost for better long-term outcomes might survive longer in the wild than an animal that can’t. 

 

Cuttlefish are also helping scientists reexamine their expectations for intelligence. Cuttlefish evolved to be intelligent in a completely different way than birds or primates did, and studying them gives scientists a way to better understand the different forms that intelligence can take. 

 

What can’t cuttlefish do? You’ll have to delay that gratification until there’s more research.

[C] Your Roommate Doesn't Know How You're Feeling [1:47] (Cody / Ashley Intro)

ASHLEY: Just because you live with someone doesn’t mean you know how they’re feeling. We remastered this clip from 2018 that might help you ease your roommate relations — whether you’re in college or married with children.

[CODY: audio 1:47]

OLD SCRIPT:

RECAP

Let’s recap today’s takeaways

  1. CODY: Researchers think lightning strikes played a key role in the formation of life on Earth. That’s because lightning provided the planet with phosphorus, which we’d otherwise only get from meteors. There was a ton of lightning on early Earth, so maybe other lightning-rich planets could some day support life, too.
    1. CODY: Remember that story we did about how an ancient supernova may be partly responsible for why humans walk upright? Yeah, geology. Underrated.
  2. ASHLEY: Cuttlefish passed the marshmallow test! In some cases, they were able to wait for more than 2 minutes to get a better treat than the one they were initially offered. Researchers say animals that can think using long-term cost-benefit analysis like this might survive longer than other animals in the wild.
  3. ASHLEY: People tend to underestimate how stressed their roommates are. Whether you live with a roommate who’s just a friend or a significant other, research suggests you should ask them how they’re feeling, and TELL them how YOU’RE feeling, more often.
    1. CODY: Hey you said “boyfriend” in that clip. Are you getting used to the “husband” thing yet or

[ad lib optional] 

ASHLEY: Today’s writers were Grant Currin and Cameron Duke. 

CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer.

ASHLEY: Our producer and audio editor is Cody Gough.

CODY: Ask your roommate how they’re feeling; the answer may SHOCK you! Then, join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.

ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!