Learn about why your wounds heal faster in the daytime; the Peter Principle, which explains why so much goes wrong; and why there’s one tame population of foxes on Earth, and what they’ve taught us about evolution. 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: Here's Why Wounds Heal Faster in the Daytime — https://curiosity.im/2rMVzgo The Peter Principle Explains Why So Much Goes Wrong — https://curiosity.im/2rNmw3E There Is One Tame Population Of Foxes On Earth, All Thanks To A Russian Geneticist — https://curiosity.im/2rO3cmN If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom 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 why your wounds heal faster in the daytime; the Peter Principle, which explains why so much goes wrong; and why there’s one tame population of foxes on Earth, and what they’ve taught us about evolution.
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:
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
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-wounds-heal-faster-in-the-daytime-only-tame-foxes-on-earth-and-the-peter-principle
CODY: Hi! We’ve got three stories 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 why your wounds heal faster in the daytime; the Peter Principle, which explains why so much goes wrong; and why there’s one tame population of foxes on Earth, and what they’ve taught us about evolution.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Here's Why Wounds Heal Faster in the Daytime — https://curiosity.im/2rMVzgo (Cody)
I always thought the best time for your body to heal was at night. You know how you can sleep off stuff like a bad mood or a hangover, or general sleepiness? Or when you get sick and you go to sleep and wake up and you feel better? Stuff like that. Well according to a new study, one thing that’s hard to sleep off is a skin injury. It turns out the best time for healing that is during the day. Well… kind of. And this has major medical implications. [ad lib]
CODY: For me to explain this, I’ve gotta back up and talk about your circadian rhythm. That’s your internal clock. It originates in the brain, in your hypothalamus, but it has effects on your whole body. For instance, your internal clock affects the size of your liver. Seriously: your liver actually inflates by day and deflates by night. And your circadian rhythm ALSO affects your largest organ, which is… your skin. Specifically, it affects fibroblast cells, according to a study by Cambridge researchers. These cells function kinda like traveling doctors; when skin is broken, they head over to the wound to make some skin-repairing proteins. To travel through your body, though, fibroblasts rely on a protein called actin — and it's more available by day than by night. It’s not clear exactly why that is, but one theory says our defenses against injury change with the chances that we’ll hurt ourselves. Since people are more active in the day, they’re also more injury-prone, so that's when our bodies have evolved their defenses to be strongest. To learn more about this, researchers studied both skin cell cultures and living mice. They timed how quickly they healed from wounds. And when they analyzed data on accidental burn victims, they found that people who got burned at night took 60 percent longer to heal than people burned during the day. This story isn’t just random facts, though: it actually has major implications. First of all, not all skin wounds are accidental. Surgeons make incisions on purpose all the time, and this new insight into fibroblasts can help them optimize their surgical procedures. Even more importantly, skin doesn't heal faster during actual daytime — just during what our body perceives as daytime. We’ve talked on this podcast about how you can change your circadian rhythm through dietary tricks, and in this Cambridge study, researchers also found that lighting and medication can achieve similar effects. There's still no way to make surgery fun, but at least now, doctors know that tweaking patients' circadian rhythms could speed their recovery.
The Peter Principle Explains Why So Much Goes Wrong — https://curiosity.im/2rNmw3E (Ashley)
Have you ever felt like everyone in the world was completely incompetent at their jobs? Hate to break it to you, but this might actually be the case. That's according to the Peter Principle, your favorite principle you’ve maybe never heard of. [ad lib]
ASHLEY: The Peter Principle is simple, and it’s also the name of a 1968 book by educational scholar Dr. Laurence J. Peter. The Peter Principle says that in a hierarchy like a government or a corporation, every employee tends to rise to the level of his or her incompetence. Here’s a different way Dr. Peter put it: Rather than the cream rising to the top, the cream rises until it sours. It makes sense: If you're good at your job, you'll be promoted. If you're not good at your job, you won't. People are rarely DEmoted, regardless of their job performance. This means that an employee will keep getting promoted until they reach a position they’re not fit to do well. Since they do poorly in that position, they don’t get promoted to a higher one, so they're stuck being incompetent at their job. This principle may sound tongue-in-cheek, but it has sinister implications in the real world. From transit delays and internet outages to oil spills and rocket explosions, how many of the world's errors come down to people rising to the level of their incompetence?
CODY: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
[CAPTERRA]
CODY: Before we get to our last story, I want to mention a free service, that is totally free, that’s not trying to actually sell you anything… and that sponsored today’s episode.
ASHLEY: YES, today’s episode is brought to you by Capterra. It’s the leading, FREE online resource to help you find the best software solution for your business. Did we mention it’s free?
CODY: Seriously, I recently learned about Capterra, and I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d used them at my last couple jobs. The software you use at work can make or break your business. Think about all those clunky workflow tools you’ve used, or convoluted CRMs, or subpar scheduling services. If you’re like me, then you have straight-up wasted hours upon hours just trudging your way through the wrong applications.
ASHLEY: Capterra is there for you to find the right tools for your business. They have over seven-hundred-THOUSAND reviews of products from real software users, to help you find everything need to make an informed decision. And you can search across more than 700 specific categories of software, from project management to email marketing to yoga studio management software.
CODY: Seriously, no matter what kind of software your business needs, Capterra makes it easy to discover the right solution, FAST. And again: it’s completely free. No strings attached. So visit capterra-dot-com-slash-curiosity for free, TODAY, to find the right tools to make 2019 THE year for your business. Capterra, that’s C-A-P-T-E-R-R-A, dot-com-slash-curiosity.
ASHLEY: One more time, start 2019 on the right foot and show our sponsors some love — for FREE — by visiting capterra-dot-com-slash-curiosity.
There Is One Tame Population Of Foxes On Earth, All Thanks To A Russian Geneticist — https://curiosity.im/2rO3cmN (Cody)
On yesterday’s episode, we talked about domesticated animals, and Ashley mentioned that MOST foxes haven’t been tamed. Well that’s because there IS one tame population of foxes on Earth — and today we have the story of the Russian geneticist who made it happen. Although, there’s one question this story won’t answer, Ashley. [ad lib]
CODY: Dmitry K. Belyaev [bel-YI-ave] was a Russian geneticist who wanted to trace the evolutionary pathway of domesticated animals by trying to domesticate some foxes, specifically silver-black foxes. He and his intern traveled around to different fox farms, where foxes were being bred for thier fur. And they took away foxes that showed one key trait: friendliness! Around 10 percent of the foxes in these cages had a weak wild-response, meaning they were docile [dossle] around people. They ended up with about 130 foxes for the first generation of friendly foxes, and when they had cubs, the team hand-fed and pet the little foxes — for a strictly measured period of time. The friendliest of the foxes went on to breed the next generation, and so on and so on. By the fourth generation of friendly fox litters, the researchers started noticing dramatic changes. Foxes were wagging their tails, eagerly looking for human contact, and licking the scientists like puppies. And as the generations of foxes were getting friendlier and more dog-like, they were changing physically, too. Not only did they start making different vocalizations than wild foxes, but these foxes also developed a more delicate appearance, with floppier ears, widened heads, shorter legs, and curlier tails. In other words, these foxes were just getting... cuter. The team had successfully created a genetically distinct population of foxes, which remains the only one in the world. And with intense selective breeding, the team had compressed a thousands-of-years process into just a few decades. That taught us quite a lesson in evolution. Remember, selection was ONLY based on tamability, but the foxes changed in their physiology, anatomy, and behavior. Oh, and if you want a fox? The friendly fox operation is still up and running. You can import one of these foxes through an agency in Florida for a cool eight-thousand-nine-hundred dollars. You can find a link to that in our full write-up on curiosity-dot-com and on our free Curiosity app for Android and iOS.
ASHLEY: Join us again tomorrow for the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m [NAME] and I’m [NAME]. Stay curious!