Something You Should Know - How to Achieve Any Goal According to Science & What Is Life? A Nobel Prize Winner Explains

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Noise levels are increasing, and all that noise can have a lot of negative effects on your health and happiness. This episode begins by explaining the negative impact of too much noise so you can protect yourself. https://www.sehn.org/sehn/noise-pollution-takes-toll-on-health-and-happiness-everyday-noise-can-overstimulate-the-bodys-stress-response What is the best way to achieve any goal? There are a lot of theories and ideas but there is also solid research about this. If you want to know what the research says is the best way to accomplish those big goals, listen to Katy Milkman. She is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, host of Charles Schwab's popular behavioral economics podcast Choiceology https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1337886873?mt=2- and she is author of the book How to Change https://amzn.to/3gyCGYX. She has some surprisingly simple yet powerful ways to help you accomplish anything.  What is life? Yes, it is a big question but my guest is the perfect person to tackle it. Listen to Sir Paul Nurse who won a Nobel prize in 2001 for his work in science and author of the book What Is Life?: Five Great Ideas in Biology (https://amzn.to/3dVHxC5). He explains what makes something “living” and has some fascinating insights into what life is all about and why some things are still a mystery. Ever have a bee that just won’t leave you alone? It could be that the bee thinks you are a flower. Listen as I explain how to make sure every bee is aware you are not a flower and how to stop them from following you around this summer. http://insects.about.com/od/antsbeeswasps/a/10-tips-to-avoid-bee-stings.htm PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! We really enjoy The Jordan Harbinger Show and we think you will as well! There’s just SO much here. Check out https://jordanharbinger.com/start for some episode recommendations, OR search for The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.  Over the last 6 years, donations made at Walgreens in support of Red Nose Day have helped positively impact over 25 million kids. You can join in helping to change the lives of kids facing poverty. To help Walgreens support even more kids, donate today at checkout or at https://Walgreens.com/RedNoseDay. https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations.

You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Today on Something You Should Know, too much noise can make you irritable and less generous. I'll explain that. Then, when it comes to achieving a big goal, a lot of people do it all wrong. It turns out that most people, when they're trying to start something new and achieving a big goal, a lot of people do it all wrong. It turns out that most people, when they're trying to start something new and achieve

a big goal, look for the most effective way to get there. A small minority of people, though, look for the most fun way to pursue their goals. And it turns out that is more effective. Also today, what not to do so you don't have bees buzzing around your face this summer. And a Nobel Prize winner explains what life is and how we're all made up of billions of cells. Well, they're tiny, tiny things. You know, cells can get much, much bigger. In fact, if you had an egg this morning for breakfast,

you might be surprised to know that that is actually a single cell there. All this today on Something You Should Know. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like Something You Should Know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman

who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes.

Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts.

And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Wonder who that guy is. I don't know. You know, we paid someone to put that little intro together, and when it came, it had that little whoo in it. Don't know who it is. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. We start today talking about noise. Noise can be tricky. One person's noise is another person's music.

But one thing that's for sure is noise levels are increasing, and that is a problem. Although noise isn't likely going to kill you, science has shown that it does have some unusual and often negative health effects. Prolonged exposure to loud noise can leave you fatigued, irritable, and unable to concentrate. And although people can adapt to noise, they never get completely used to it. Noise can increase your heart rate, your blood pressure, and your breathing. And noise can promote learned helplessness. Children given puzzles in moderately noisy classrooms are more likely to fail to solve those puzzles and more likely to give up early.

And this is interesting. Noise can make you less generous. In one study, people were less likely to help someone pick up a bundle of dropped books when the noise of a lawnmower was present. And that is something you should know. If you want to reach a goal or achieve success in some area of your life, you can always find success gurus who will offer their advice of how to do it. Often, though, their advice is based on their experience or what they believe are the secrets of success, which may be fine for them, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best advice for you.

What I find much more compelling are the steps to success that have been studied and proven to work for a lot of people over and over again. Not just someone's opinion of what to do to be successful, but real proof that if you do this, you're more likely to succeed. So meet Katie Milkman. Katie is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She's host of Charles Schwab's popular behavioral economics podcast called Choiceology. And she's author of a book called How to Change. Hi, Katie.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. So there are a lot of people and a lot of theories and strategies about how you should try to reach your goals and find success. Yet people still struggle. They're still looking for that magic way to reach their goals and find success. So clearly, there is no magic path. Seems like just a lot of theories and ideas. I think one of the things that has made change so hard for people traditionally is that there's this sense that if you just sort of pick the right shiny idea off of a bookshelf, for instance, you'll be able to figure it out. So set big audacious goals is one catchphrase that's popular. Visualizing success. There's all these different

gurus and books out there that suggest what might help. And a lot of those ideas aren't bad. And some of them even have some basis in research. But what they all get wrong and what I've seen over and over again in my career, talking to people in organizations, trying to promote positive change among their employees, talking to individuals, trying to create change in their lives is that there's this failure consistently to actually match the tactics you're deploying to try to create change with the barriers that are standing in the way. Most of the solutions that we use are sort of like a one-size-fits-all along the lines of what I just described. But I found that change comes much,

much more easily when we tackle exactly what is holding us back. It's not a one-size-fits-all. If you're not taking your medication because you forget, there's a really different solution than if you're not taking it because it has an unpleasant side effect. And even though you know it's really important for your long-term health, that side effect makes you so uncomfortable you're not willing to do it. So we need to think about what is the obstacle and then use the best science to overcome it. You often hear the phrase, the sentence, if you believe it, you can achieve it, or some variation on that. And I've always thought that, you know, that's a little bit too simplistic, that it doesn't really get to the heart of, it doesn't

do anything. It's just, if you believe it, you can achieve it, but you can't achieve it by just believing it. I would agree with that. But I do think believing that you can accomplish something is part of the formula for success for most people. So it's not that that's garbage. It's just that it's typically not enough and it's often not the big barrier to change for people. So give me some examples of how this gets put into practice. Let me tell you about one idea that I find really valuable, which is based on research. I've done research by Ayala at Fischbach at the University of Chicago and Caitlin Woolley at Cornell. And the idea is,

and the insight is really simple. It turns out that most people, when they're trying to start something new and achieve a big goal, look for the most effective way to get there. That's what we all do. We say, you know, my big long-term goal, say I want to work out more regularly. I'm going to go find the most effective workout I can do at the gym to burn the maximum number of calories and get fit as fast as possible. A small minority of people though, look for the most fun way to pursue their goals. And it turns out that is more effective. And if you actually encourage people to pursue goals in ways that are fun rather than ways that are focused on that sort of big effective strategy, they persist longer. So people enjoy say doing Zumba, they're going to come back to the gym for a second workout.

But if they do the maximally painful Stairmaster, it's going to be kind of miserable and they won't return. So if we can find ways to make goal achievement fun, that's one really powerful way to overcome a big barrier to change, which is that often doing what's good for us in the long run isn't super pleasant. That's a major challenge for a lot of us. And we focus too much on trying to expand in our mind, oh, it's so important though. And here's why it aligns with my values. And I just need to believe in myself and not nearly enough time on actually engineering ways to make it more enjoyable. So you won't procrastinate. So you won't dread it and you'll actually dive right in. What happens when the goal is something to stop doing?

So it isn't like you're trying to find something fun to do. You need to stop eating so much. Well, so you don't find other things to eat. Well, maybe you do. I was going to say, eating is a funny one. You can't really stop eating, actually. It's one of the more challenging ones. You still need to eat. So actually, eating is a very good one where make it fun can be valuable, this sort of insight,

because trying to throw out all of the junk food and eat only kale and quinoa is not likely to be sustainable because the taste is lacking. Well, some people have excellent recipes for those, but in my kitchen, the taste doesn't turn out to be quite as delightful. So it can be really important when you're trying to pursue a change in the domain of diet to make sure you actually find healthy foods that you like eating that taste good, not just the ones that will trim your waistline as fast as possible. It also needs to be something where you'll get some joy out of the consumption. So if that means you reach your goal a little slower, but you're actually eating

things that you find taste good, you're going to do better. So I actually think eating is a good example, but I totally take your point that there are some things you just want to cut out. For that, I'd say there's research on really the flip side of what I've just been describing when it comes to tackling these goals that aren't instantly gratifying. So I've been talking about using the carrot approach. Let's make them more instantly gratifying. But there's also the stick approach where you actually create and impose restrictions on yourself in order to help you achieve a goal you care about in the long run. So my favorite example from research is a study that looked at people who were given access to a commitment savings account. So a

savings account that had the same interest rate as the standard account they had access to. But if you put your money into this account, you wouldn't be allowed to take it out until a predetermined date that you chose or predetermined savings goal that you set for yourself. And there was an experiment where half of people were given access to a standard savings account where you could take money in and out anytime and encouraged to save more. And the other half were given both the standard account or this commitment account and could choose how to distribute money between the two. And over a year, the group with access to that commitment account where they couldn't pull the money out saved 80% more than the other. Now, not everyone put money into the commitment account. Only about 30% actually chose to use it. But that 30% saved so much more that it led the whole group savings to balloon to 80% more of what someone who could take money in and out was able to achieve. So that's one example of a commitment device, and I could talk more about others if you want, but they're really powerful ways that we can try to restrict or prevent ourselves from doing things that aren't so good for us in the future. I think people have heard, and I'd like to know what the research says, that whatever your goal is, doing it with someone else,

having some accountability to someone else will increase your chances of success. Absolutely. So research does support that. And accountability is actually a form of commitment. So it's similar to the idea of, for instance, imposing a fine on yourself if you fail to achieve a goal, which by the way, is something people can literally do. There are websites like BeMinder and Stick.com where you can go put money on the line that you'll forfeit if you fail to achieve a goal and then choose a friend who will hold you accountable. And then you get dinged and that money goes to a charity of your choice. You can choose one actually you hate, right? That supports a cause that you

disagree with to make it maximally painful. So that would be an extreme form of accountability. But even just telling someone else, this is my goal. Hold my feet to the fire if I don't achieve it. There's some really interesting research on accountability being used as a persuasion tactic. So one study looked at mailings sent to people telling them that all of their neighbors were going to find out if they'd voted or not, because it turns out your voting record is public. And the people who had sent the mailing were going to look it up and share it. And they actually proved they could do that because they sent in this mailing where they're giving you a warning. They sent the voter registration records and voting records for everyone in your neighborhood for the last couple of election cycles and said, we're going to send this to everyone again with an update. So vote,

your neighbors will find out if you don't. First of all, people hated this. So I actually don't recommend it at all, but it was incredibly effective. There was an eight percentage point increase in the number of people who turned out to vote in the group that received this mailing relative to a control group, which is, I mean, for a single piece of junk mail to move voter turnout that much is absolutely astounding. So it just shows you how powerful it is to feel watched and like your neighbors are going to find out whether or not you're doing the right thing. Well, it's kind of creepy, actually. It's totally creepy. That study is totally creepy. I'm not endorsing doing that. Rather, I think it's really interesting research to point out how powerful accountability is rather than something we should suggest. We're discussing proven ways to achieve success and reach your goals.

And my guest is Katie Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book, How to Change. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again.

And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.

People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology.

That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. So, Katie, one of the things that's interesting to me about people and their goals is I know a lot of people will talk about

something they want to do, but they never start. And I always think maybe the fact that they never start is a bit of a red flag that it really isn't a goal. Like they think they should lose weight, so they tell people they're gonna, but they never actually start the process. They never do anything. And the starting, I mean, the starting is the hard part. Getting started is a huge obstacle for many people. You have this vision, you intend to do it, but you actually have to get over the hump and start moving. So a lot of my research actually over the last decade has focused on this getting started problem. I got interested in it after visiting Google to give a presentation about some of my work on how we can encourage people to change for the better when it comes to making better decisions about health and wellness or

productivity or even savings choices. And I got this great question from an HR leader at Google, which was, okay, Katie, we're completely sold that we should be using these tools to help encourage our employees to make these good decisions. But is there some time when it's ideal to send out the tools that might help them reach their goals? Like, are there moments when people are particularly eager to get that information? And I remember the moment vividly because like a light bulb went off. I was like, what an amazingly important question. And I don't think there's an answer that's known to academics. So I ended up going back and studying this for years. What my collaborators and I found actually, the first

part, you'll be like, yeah, I thought of that at the minute you said it, because the first thing that came to mind for us, which was, I think is somewhat obvious, was New Year's is a moment when people are particularly motivated to pursue their goals. But what we ended up discovering is that New Year's is just actually one well-known example of a broad category of moments when we feel like we are facing a new beginning and we have a bit of a blank slate sense. Like, you know, last year, the old me couldn't do it, but the new me this year is going to be all over it. And we're more likely to step back and think big picture about our goals. We're more likely to feel optimistic and disconnected from those failures. And so those moments arise whenever we open what we think of as a new chapter in our lives. So it can be small, like the beginning of

a week turns out to be a fresh start, start of a new month, celebration of a birthday or a holiday that we associate with new beginnings like Labor Day. And also there are more substantive new beginnings. So I've just described dates on a calendar. The start of spring, for instance, is another one that can motivate people. And on those dates, by the way, we see that people search more for the term diet on Google. They are more likely to visit the gym. They're more likely to create goals on popular goal setting website.

I wonder how many people who achieve some big goal that they've set for themselves did it the first time or the second or it took like five or six false starts before that it really kicked in. And stopping smoking is probably like the example that comes to mind. But I wonder, other big examples, is that the case? Yes. You have exactly the right model that change comes in fits and starts. There are setbacks. One of the biggest lessons from my career, I would say, besides the lesson that I started with, which is like, let's actually figure out what's holding you back and suit the solution to that.

So that's like lesson number one up on a pedestal. But I'd say lesson number two is recognize that failure is inevitable. It's just a part of the process. And then build systems that are expecting failure and accommodate failure and help you get back up after a misstep. So for instance, I've done research on habits and how to form the best kinds of habits where we were really sure that the best habits would be very, very, very consistent, very rigid, sort of same time of day, everyday kinds of habits. And what we found is that those habits are brittle. And the best habits were instead habits that expect things to get in your way. There's going

to be an obstacle. You're not going to be able to make it to the gym, say, at 7 a.m. as you planned, but you have a fallback plan. And so you still go anyway. So rigidity and feeling like you have to give up after you have a failure are the kinds of things that derail change because there's inevitable setbacks. You mentioned writing things down. How important is that? And if it is important, how important is it to write them down the right way, whether it's a series of small goals rather than one big humongous goal or anything about writing things down that helps? is important is that you make a concrete plan and then that plan comes with a trigger cue. So it can't just be, you know, I will practice my Spanish on Duolingo a lot. It needs to be every night at 6 p.m. when I get home from work for half an hour, I will spend time on the Duolingo app and I've put it on my calendar. So that's sort of a writing it down digitally kind of activity. And the thing you might be writing down there is what's the date and time.

I did one study where we showed that prompting people to write down the date and time when they would get a flu shot, when they were sent a reminder by their employer to show up at a free flu shot clinic. And they're not being asked to mail this back, just prompted to write down the date and time and the privacy of their own home. That significantly increased the number of people who showed up for a flu shot over a message that conveyed all the same information, but made no prompt about making a plan. We don't think it was the writing it down that was important. The sort of bundle of evidence that led us to try this intervention was all around how important it is to have a concrete date and time plan when you want to follow through on something.

What about willpower? That seems to come up a lot in conversations about setting goals and achieving goals. People use it as an excuse. I don't have enough willpower. I just don't have the willpower to do it. And, you know, my experience with willpower, especially in things like, you know, watching what you eat and whatnot, it seems to be a perishable commodity that, you know, I'm pretty good at not eating junk in the morning, but as the day goes on and as the evening rolls around, temptation is a little easier to give into. Well, there is certainly some evidence suggesting that when you're truly fatigued, it's harder to do the things you know are the right things to do. I did some research on doctors and nurses, caregivers in hospitals, and the thing they're supposed to do is sanitize their hands whenever they enter or exit a patient's room. And we looked at how over the course of a work shift, there's just this like linear downward trend. They just, they're, as

they get more and more tired, as the shift goes on, they, they do it less and less and less. And the busier the shift, the faster they stop doing it. So, you know, that's one piece of evidence, but there's other evidence too, suggesting fatigue does make it harder to do these things that we know are in our best interest. I mean, my big lesson, I think any researcher who studies change would tell you the same thing, is that willpower is really hard to muster. And the less we can rely on it, the better. You want to create the situation that sets you up for success. And the situation that sets you up for success is one where you never need to use willpower, where you've made it delightful to do the thing that's best for you, where you don't have those temptations in your path. And so you don't have to use that very difficult to muster willpower. The thing that's most interesting to me from what you've said is

this idea that people, when they have a goal, they think they have to be virtuous. It has to be difficult. And that, in fact, if you make it fun, you're more likely to be successful. But somehow adding fun into it takes away from the seriousness of the goal, which is why I guess people try to tough it out rather than make it fun. Yeah, that's a really interesting hypothesis. I don't know if people don't make it fun because they feel like that takes away from their accomplishment or because they don't think to do it. The research that I mentioned earlier suggested that just telling people choose the fun activity at the

gym or, you know, choose the fun foods when people are making choices about how much to eat of a healthy food, just telling them that is enough to help. And it's more like the insight is lacking. We don't think we need it because we're pretty sure we can just sort of muscle our way through. So I think the misperception is more around that we don't think it's necessary, but maybe there's also some stigma associated with it, like not just pushing through. And I hope we can dispel that. Yeah, well, you're right. Because when people think of exercising, they just think it's horrible. So they don't even think, well, how could we make it fun? They just think it's horrible. So they don't even think, well, how could we make it fun? They just think it's horrible. And the same with dieting. That means I'm eating kale and Brussels sprouts. They don't think, well, maybe there's other things is inherently unpleasant. I will tell you that when I was a graduate student, I had these kinds of problems. I lived binge watching TV instead of

doing my homework and I couldn't get myself to go to the gym. And I ended up engineering something that I still use today. And I've even studied that I call temptation bundling, which was, I only let myself enjoy indulgent entertainment while I was working out at the gym. And I'd find myself craving trips to the gym to find out what happened next. And I actually got really into audio novels like The Hunger Games and the Harry Potter books, but some people do it with TV. I would want to find out what happened next to my latest book. I wouldn't even notice the time passing at the gym because I was so engrossed and I didn't waste time at home anymore when I should have been doing my problem sets. So it's just one example, but I think there's lots

of ways we can make things fun and then, and feel really good about it at the same time. And, and I, I hope my research will help people see that. Well, it's an interesting message in, in, in a way seems so obvious that, you know, if you want to achieve something, make it easy as possible to achieve it, and you're more likely to achieve it. And yet somehow that eludes us, but it's good to hear that the research supports that. So make it fun, and you're more likely to be successful. Katie Milkman has been my guest. She's a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and the name of her book is How to Change. And you'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Katie. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. And I

lovely to meet you. And I look forward to hearing the show. Hey, everyone, join me, Megan Rinks, and me, Melissa Demonts for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong. Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally, wrap up your

week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts.

Here's a question. What is life? What does it mean for something or someone to be alive? Well, I happen to have the perfect person to answer that question and discuss. Sir Paul Nurse has several titles and honors to his name. Perhaps one that stands out is he won the Nobel Prize in 2001 in Physiology or Medicine. He's author of a book called What is Life? Five Great Ideas in Biology. Hi, Paul, welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi Mike, it's a pleasure to be speaking with you. My guess is you don't have a real quick snappy answer to what is life, but I'll ask anyway. What is the quick snappy answer when someone asks you what is life?

It's a very complicated question to ask. And one of the reasons why it's been a bit intractable is because it does not lend itself to a simple dictionary like answer, which is what one really would like. You know, if you were asked what is an atom, you would say it's the simplest structure of matter, for life is more complex it's more a matter of having a range of attributes which lead to something that's living and so cells are are kind of the i i don't know would you call it the foundation of what life is right it's more or less well the first thing to say is the cell is the simplest entity that exhibits the characteristics of life. I sometimes quip and call it life's atom, the basic structural unit of

life, but actually the basic functional unit of life. So a cell is definitely living. And therefore, if we understand how cells work, we are much closer to understanding how life works. And so everybody knows that cells are these little tiny things, but just how tiny are they? And how many are there in my body? Oh, yes. Well, they're tiny, tiny things. If we can talk in meters, if you don't mind, they are maybe 10 micrometers to 20 micrometers. It can be much larger than that, but most cells are often of that order of size. And a micrometer is a millionth of a meter. But you know, cells can get much, much bigger. In fact, if you had an egg this morning for breakfast,

you might be surprised to know that that is actually a single cell there. They can be very, very big, but are usually much smaller, as I've just said, in millions of a meter. Everyone has heard that we're constantly shedding cells and replacing cells. Where do the new ones come from? Well, cells come from pre-existing cells. This hasn't always been known, but a cell arises from a pre-existing cell by the division of that, let's call it a mother cell, from one to two. And so there's two daughters. And that goes on ad infinitum. Now, if we look at our skin, which is probably what you were referring to, these cells do slough off, they sort of die and slough away from our body, but they're replaced by new cells

that appear from underneath the skin skin or just within the skin, produced by this process of cell division. And cell division is the way that all living things grow and reproduce. And it also happens to be the problem that I've studied in my research life for quite a number of decades. Well, when you say cell division is the way all living things reproduce, we don't. Oh, do you know, we actually do. It's a part of that process in the sense that cell division produces the sperm and produces the egg. And then that sperm and egg fuses, which is probably the point you were making, to make a new cell because each of those two cells, sperm and the egg, have only got half a genome, a haploid genome. They then make a complete genome, a diploid genome.

And then that single cell divides repeatedly many, many rounds of division to make ourselves. So that's what I meant when I said we reproduce by that. We start by being a single cell, and then we form by many, many rounds of cell division to make, first of all, an embryo, and then a fetus fetus then a baby and then you and me. Is there an easy explanation that I might understand as to how we have all these bazillions of cells in our body how they all communicate and rely on each other? Well it's a crucial part of understanding life, really, particularly of a more complex organism such as ourselves, because we behave as an interacting colony of cells, by which I mean these cells interact one with another to generate a formally independent acting object ourselves. And everything we do is a consequence

of the interactions between different cells. And you ask, how does that happen? Well, it happens in a variety of ways. But essentially, chemicals are being produced by one cell, and they're being detected by another cell. And usually there are specialized molecules, proteins on the surface of a cell that associate with molecules produced by another cell. Sometimes this communication occurs through essentially electricity as it does in our brain cells. But the basis of that is still chemicals and chemicals and molecules reacting with other molecules. So I've heard, I'm sure everybody's heard this, that over the course of a certain amount of time, days, months, years, all of your cells in your body are replaced. Is that true? Yes, it is true. The cells are constantly being replenished. It's

like, you know, the old philosophical statement about you never step into the same river twice, because the river is there, it looks the same, but it's a flow of water, which means it's constantly replenished. And although this is very difficult to sort of comprehend, we are made up of molecules and components now, most of which have been replaced from when you existed, say, several years ago. And yet we still think we are the same object, yet we're not actually made up of many of the same molecules that we were a few years ago. So it's completely correct what you say.

And frankly, don't you think it's quite extraordinary? Yeah, well, you know what? Well, one of the reasons that it seems so odd and counterintuitive is, let's say you have like a mark or a freckle or a birthmark or something. That never changes, even though you tell me all my cells are gone and these are all new ones but they're all new in exactly the same way i know it's one of the great wonders of life i mean you we have a particular shape you have particular colored eyes your ears your tongue your fingers all look the same to you as they did 30 years ago.

But in fact, what makes them up is quite different. I really think it's helpful to think of a river. If I'm in London here, if I look out at the River Thames, it looks the same as it did a year ago or a day ago even, but it is completely different because of ago even, but it is completely different because of the water flowing through it is completely different. So what is a gene and how is it different from a molecule or a cell or what makes a gene a gene? Well, the gene was my second idea that I brought up as important to thinking about what life is.

And a gene is a molecule, but it's a very special molecule. It's the way in which heredity is maintained across generations, from one generation to the next generation, from a mum and a dad to their children, for example. And what genes do is they are passed on like sort of coding machines and they are passed on through the sperm and the egg in animals and through the equivalents in plants, which are pollen and ovules, for example. And they encode how the offspring will operate. I mean, it's more complex than that because how we operate is an interaction

between our genes and the environment and how we've been brought up and so on. But the genes play a major role there. And it turns out I'm rather short. And I have blue eyes. I'm a little bit on the fat side. And I still have lots of hair. And all of these will be influenced by my genetic makeup. And everything in fact that we do will be influenced by my genetic makeup. And everything, in fact, that we do will be influenced to a greater or lesser degree about them. And it's the way in which

continuity is maintained across generations. And of course, it's dependent upon the molecule that makes up genes, which is deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, which is one of the most famous molecules, certainly of life, that we know of. When you look at this at the level that you do, does it make you think more or less about

this isn't all just a random accident that there's some higher power or do you not even let that enter your work well this gets us into another of the ideas of evolution by natural selection the concept that we are evolving beings, that species change, and that this has brought about my natural selection, which is the great ideas of Charles Darwin and some of his predecessors, does provide an explanation as to how genes working within cells can produce wonderfully complex animals and plants and fungi and so on that operate with purpose,

that can grow, divide, occupy different lifestyles and habitats and so on, without invoking a creator of some sort. It is quite difficult to imagine how life first started, but once life was there, once there was a single cell and once it had genes and a hereditary system, then it is very plausible how that can evolve into a variety, that life form into much more complicated ones. How it first came about is really quite difficult to imagine. There are ideas about it, but since it happened on the planet Earth 3.5 billion years ago, but it is one of the great mysteries that people do think about, but I don't think we yet have a good explanation. Is evolution, as you look at it, is it efficient in the sense that it's always reacting to something? Or would we have evolved into something even if we didn't have problems that evolution helped to overcome, if my question makes sense?

It does sort of make sense. I think what I'd say about that is it's a mistake to think that evolution produces perfect adaption. In other words, we shouldn't look upon ourselves as being perfect. We shouldn't look upon the cells that surround us in different organisms as being perfect. What we are is um functional we work it it's uh we survive we can grow we can reproduce and we tend to think because perhaps we're too egocentric maybe we tend to think we must be the highest apex of of life um but it isn't true. I mean, all it really means is that we can survive and we are reasonably effective and we do work. But that doesn't mean that we couldn't evolve into something else that was more efficient, that could make better use of food or could think better or

could run better or whatever. All of that is possible. But we have evolved to where we are because we had to overcome certain things and some people made it and some people didn't, and the ones who did reproduced and made those people. Isn't that basically evolution? It is basically evolution by natural selection. That is correct. And you summed it up very nicely there. And that's been going on for an enormously long time. I mean, I mentioned already that life first appeared on the planet three and a half billion years ago, and evolution by natural selection has been occurring all that time. From your perspective, the way you look at life and what is life, do you make a distinction between life that has a conscience, a consciousness, and life that doesn't, or is that not a distinction?

Well, I think this is a difficult question, and I've got to be honest with you. In my little book i consciously decide not to discuss consciousness but we know that consciousness has arisen we feel conscious it's a consequence of our brain and how the brain works and perceives and manages information but quite what it is it's really quite difficult to describe. We know we have it. We know we're self-aware. We know that we feel a sense of self. And these are very important characteristics of being a human being. I described meeting a large gorilla in a Ugandan forest and sitting next to it and remarking upon how similar we were.

It was like we were having a conversation, looking at each other's face, looking into those deep brown eyes. And somehow we were communicating. And I'm sure that great ape had a sense of consciousness. I don't think when I look at a daffodil that it's quite the same. I think this is something that arises with the brain and the nervous system and organized as it is in the great apes and ourselves. But somehow, the chemistry of life, which is complex and important for understanding life, generates a brain which leads to self-awareness. And it's another one of these, like the origin of life, which I said, I don't really know how that happened. We can speculate, but not much more. Nor do we know yet how consciousness arises, or for that matter, quite what it is. When you step back from all the work that you've done,

and clearly you won a Nobel Prize, so you must think about this a lot. What's the one thing that really just fascinates you about this? Well, it is this question that I've tried to address, which is what is life? It's the fact how I think what is fascinating for me is, and even looking at this simple life form of a single cell, let alone ourselves, of how this purposeful behavior that can lead to the growth and maintenance of this living thing, that allows it to reproduce itself and to make two

living things, and to undergo this evolution. How does this all arise? But it is highly complex, highly elaborated, highly regulated, and ends up producing something which is behaving as a holistic entity. And although we might emphasize the chemistry in the molecule, so it's very reductionist in that type of explanation. It is only by those molecules working together in a holistic way that produces the behavior of the organism as a whole. And that, for me, is absolutely extraordinary, that lifeless chemistry can be turned into life. And once life is gone, you can't get it back, even if you have the same chemistry. extraordinary that lifeless chemistry can be turned into life. And once life is gone, you can't get it back even if you have the same chemistry. No, isn't that interesting? I mean, it makes you think about things like the spark of life.

You know, whilst it's organized, whilst it's functioning as a whole, it's alive. Once it stops functioning as a whole, once it stops interacting within itself to produce purposeful behaviors, you get disintegration and death. It's like Humpty Dumpty once the egg falls. Yes, it's like Humpty Dumpty. Very good, Michael. Thanks. Yeah, all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put him back together again. Sir Paul Nurse has been my guest. He's been explaining what life is in a rather interesting way.

Paul won a Nobel Prize in 2001 for his work. He is author of the book, What is Life? Five Great Ideas in Biology. And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Paul. Well, thank you. Thank you for the conversation. Don't you hate it when that lone bee buzzes around your head and just won't go away? If it's hovering around your head or orbiting your aura somehow, it could be your perfume or your shampoo or even your clothes, according to bee expert Debbie Hadley. To a bee, some of us look like or smell like a big, beautiful flower. They obviously love sweet or flowery smells, and bright colors can really

catch their attention. So if you know you're going to be outside, you might want to dress in khaki, white, or beige if you want to avoid attracting bees. Think about what beekeepers wear. I mean, when I think of a beekeeper, it's usually somebody dressed in khaki with that big thing on their head. And consider wearing a hat, too.

Also, be aware that bees are drawn to the color black. Avoid wearing anything with a sweet or flowery scent, and if you're eating, well, you know, that can be a problem, too. Wasps and bees are going to want in on that sweet treat you're eating, and if you're drinking a soda, well, they love to climb right into the can or sometimes sneak into that straw straw so check before you sip. And that is something you should know. If you enjoyed this episode of Something You Should Know

make your feelings known. Leave a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Apple Podcasts would be a good place. My recommendation. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide

when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity.

The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. To be continued... that ours is not a loving God, and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Randolph Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available.