Something You Should Know - How to Kill a Good Idea (and Why You Shouldn’t) & Fighting Humans’ Deadliest Predator

Episode Date: August 8, 2019

Why do people have nightmares? Do they serve a purpose? This episode begins with some fascinating facts about nightmares and the people who have them. https://www.prevention.com/health/g20516173/6-creepy-things-you-never-knew-about-your-nightmares/ Where do good ideas come from? Good ideas typically blossom in environments that encourage people to express their ideas. Yet we often shoot down people’s ideas before they have a chance to develop. One place that does NOT happens is in improv theater. That’s where someone throws out an idea and everyone adds to it to see if they can make it interesting or funny. And there may be a real lesson there for the rest of us according to Norm LaViolette an improv performer, founder of Improv Asylum in Boston and author of a book called The Art of Making it Up: Using the Principles of IMPROV to Become an Unstoppable Force (https://amzn.to/2YLvegE). Norm consults major corporations on how to use the skills of improv to nurture great ideas and he joins me to share his strategies with you. I know I’ve heard the advice that if you fake a smile that it can actually make you feel better. Or could it be that faking a smile when you don’t feel happy can actually make you feel worse? Listen and find out what the research says. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/msu-sfa022211.php You probably wouldn’t have guessed off the top of your head that mosquitoes are our deadliest predator - but they are according to Tim Winegard, a professor of history and political science at Colorado Mesa University and author of the book The Mosquito:A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator (https://amzn.to/31pWnHV). Tim joins me to offer a fascinating explanation of how the mosquito has killed more people and changed the course of history in ways you never knew.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu.

She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, ever have a nightmare? I'll tell you the reason why. Ben, we spend a lot of time shooting down other people's ideas, and doing that is actually a bad idea. You know, that person in the meeting where, look, we're just

talking about ideas, and you know, that person raised their hand, they're like, well, let me the devil's advocate here for a second. They're poking holes. Well, the easiest thing in the world to do is point out why an idea won't work and will probably fail. Anybody can do it, and it takes no talent. Plus, can faking a smile really improve your mood? And the deadliest predator known to man could be buzzing around your head right now.

It's the mosquito. The mosquito is responsible for the deaths of half of every human being that's ever lived across our planet. So 52 billion people out of the 108 billion that have existed, which from a historical impact, is astounding. 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. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. And as with every episode, we have a lot to cover today, so let's jump right in here and talk about nightmares. I'm sure you've probably had a nightmare at some point in your life. Most experts agree that nightmares are the result of anxiety,

although seldom are they a literal interpretation of what's bothering you. There are some interesting things about nightmares that you should be aware of. You can't really scream when you're having a nightmare. All of our muscles are paralyzed during sleep except eye muscles and the ones that allow you to breathe. So by the time you're screaming, you're already coming out of your dream. Women have more nightmares than men, and they tend to be more emotionally intense. Nightmares may be trying to help you. A theory that's getting more and more support is that nightmares are trying to

help you solve or deal with a problem. There is a difference between nightmares and night terrors. Night terrors occur almost exclusively in children, and you usually cannot wake up a child in the middle of one, and they don't usually have any recollection of them. And fortunately, kids outgrow them. And that is something you should know. When you talk to idea people, people who study where great ideas come from, there's a consensus, I think, that usually great ideas come as a result of generating a lot of ideas, that in an environment or culture that encourages all ideas is where the good ideas often sprout. And yet we're often very quick to shoot down new ideas. They're a waste of time. Have you ever been in a meeting and heard an idea and

quickly thought, oh god, that'll never work, and you really didn't give it much of a chance. Now, it's true that great ideas are rare, and even great ideas often result from an idea that starts out as not so great. So if you shoot them down too soon, they never have a chance. One arena where this really doesn't happen is improv. If you ever watch improv, somebody shouts out an idea and off it goes. It builds from there. You can't typically in improv say,

oh, no, no, no, that's no good. That idea sucks. You can't do that. You've got to run with it and see where it goes. So maybe there's a lesson there. Norm LaViolette is an improv comedian and founder of Improv Asylum. And in addition to being a performer, he helps companies nurture new ideas.

He's the author of a book called The Art of Making It Up, using the principles of improv to become an unstoppable force. Hey, Norm. Welcome. What's going on, Mike? How are you? Great. So, let's start with you explaining what you mean by the art of making it up and how it works into this idea of ideas. Making it up is what I do for a living.

It's what I do on stage. And, you know, it's said in some way tongue in cheek, right? Because I'm an improvisational or came up as an improvisational comedian. So I'm working without a script. And so we're making it up. We're making it up as an improvisational comedian. So I'm working without a script. And so we're making it up. We're making it up as we go. But what we're really doing, though, is we're listening and building together on that stage.

And that's the skill that we're using. So when you see us on stage, yeah, are we flying by the seat of our pants? Sure. But more importantly, we're using a skill set that the audience doesn't really see. And all that is is this idea of I'm listening to you, and I'm responding off of your ideas, as opposed to constantly trying to push my own idea or my own agenda.

Well, and everybody has seen improv on TV or in a theater. And sometimes it's hilariously funny, and sometimes it falls flat, real flat. Oh, sure. Absolutely. You know, I mean, that's the high wire act of any kind of live performance, but certainly comedy and improvisational comedy, right? You know, you want that potential for failure, but from a product standpoint and from a show standpoint, you need to deliver far more successes than you do failure, right? Because if, if all you do is fail, then it's going to be, well, what are these people doing? They're terrible. But, but on the other hand, you're creating it's art. And so, you know,

you have to be okay with the fact that yes, you're going to fail. You're taking a risk and that's okay. Failing isn't crippling. It doesn't mean that you're not funny, that you're not talented or that you can't do another scene or another show. Great. Now that's improv. Now can you take that idea and move it into everyday real people life? How do we use that to create ideas? If you allow yourself to listen first, right? So if anybody asked me, what's the number one skill of being able to improvise? It's not the ability to think fast. It's the yourself to listen first, right? So if anybody asks me what's the number one skill of being able to improvise,

it's not the ability to think fast. It's the ability to listen. If I listen first and listen to what you're saying and then respond off of what I hear, then I can build something with you. And that's all it is, right? As opposed to what most people do who are nervous about this stuff, we're self-conscious. We're thinking, oh, I don't want to say the wrong thing,

and I don't want to say the stupid thing. I'm going to be judged. That's not good enough. And as a comedian, we learn to shut that off pretty early. And if you can shut that off, and you can just listen and respond to what it is that you're hearing, you can quickly go with the flow, as you said, and really move through ideas. All right. So again, let's move this into real life. So you talked about listening being kind of the number one important thing. Let's move it on from there. You know, once you get listening down, really we work on this concept in improvisation. And the concept is called yes and.

And all it means is yes, I'm listening to you, and I have the courage to build off of your idea and place my idea on top of that. And so if you and I are on stage together and I know that you're always going to accept my idea and then build on it and you know I'm always going to accept your idea and build on it, we quickly can build something together that we both own. Now, do we really on stage go around saying yes and yes and no? Of course not. That would be terrible.

But what we're doing is we're building something together that we both own and we're not fighting for it. So if you go back to your own personal life, right? I think we're so conditioned to say no out of the gate. Whereas if you can just shift that conversation with your spouse, your loved one, whomever, into a yes and mindset, which is just, as I said, yeah, I'm truly trying to listen to you, even if I don't necessarily agree, and I'm trying to build with you as opposed to, you know, yes, but, which is how most of us talk, especially in the corporate world. Yeah, but you're wrong. Yeah, but my idea is right. And that's what it is, and it's using this yes and philosophy to build,

you know, to bring people to you as opposed to push them away from you. Yes, but sometimes bad ideas are just bad ideas. And maybe on stage, you know, that's just one of the rules of the game is that there are no bad ideas you've got to build. But in real life, there really are some bad ideas that I don't think I want to build on them. I want to say, no, no, no, no, we're going down the wrong road here. Yes, and I think you're right. The key is, when is it the right time to evaluate that, right? So, I would argue that in the inception of an idea, it's value neutral, okay? Meaning, an idea when

it's first conceived, right? When it's wet, shiny, and new, birthed into the world, it's not good or it's bad. It may turn into a good idea. It may turn out to be a terrible idea. In its inception, in its birth, though, it's neutral. And the problem with coming at it at the very beginning with no, with yes, but with pointing out all the reasons why it won't work in the beginning is you have no chance to grow it. Now, at some point, once you explore it, even if when you first hear it, you're like, oh my God, this sounds terrible. Once you explore it, you then may say like, well, look, I don't know if this is going to, if I put it in, let's say business lexicon, right? You may start to say, well, how is this

going to fit with our marketing budget? Is this really where we want to be going in Q3? You're going to have to ask those questions. Is this operational and executable? And yeah, that's when you have to ask the yes, but questions. You have to poke holes in it. You have to challenge it. What I'm saying, though, is if you want to innovate, if all you do is say no to an idea at its inception, it can go nowhere. And so therefore, there is no innovation, and you can never determine if something is going to be good or bad. Okay, so yes and is better than yes but, and then at some point you have to make a determination,

do we keep going with this or do we bail? Yeah, and I think a lot of people when they talk about improv in particular, they get caught up in the Pollyanna-ish of it all, which is, you know, the yes and, or yes, and anything is possible. And that's all well and good. It is true. On the other hand, there's an absolute power and necessity to say no. But that comes down the line, especially when you're trying to, so when we get hired by companies,

we're usually brought in for, like, teamwork, communication, ideation, and innovation. And what we're just trying to show them is, yeah, you'll still get to say no, you'll have to at some point. But now you're going to have a much larger stable of ideas to consider as opposed to if I come to you, if you're my boss, and I say, oh, I got an idea, and you're like, no, that'll never work. Okay, that's fine. But human nature, what are the odds that I'm going to keep coming to you with ideas?

Well, no, I'm going to probably stop doing that. I'm going to start feeling embarrassed, self-conscious. And now you're losing out on ideas three, four, and five that you're never going to hear from me just because you're constantly shutting me down. There is a tendency, just as I think back to my own experience in working with and for different organizations, that when you're, for example, in a meeting and someone comes up with an idea, that one of the purposes of that meeting is to find what's wrong with it. That, you know, you don't want to go, oh my God, that is such a great idea, because then everybody says, you know, you're a yes man, and you're not a critical thinker. That critical thinking, to show how

smart you are, is to find fault with any idea. I think you're absolutely right, and it so often manifests itself in the role of the devil's advocate, that person in the meeting where, look, we're just talking about ideas. We're not anywhere close to the execution phase. We're just talking about ideas, and somebody throws out an idea, and that person raises their hand. They're like, well, I'll be the devil's advocate here for a second, and they start. They're sharpshooters.

They're poking holes, and that's what they value themselves as. Well, I can tell you this, Mike. The easiest thing in the world to do is point out why an idea won't work and will probably fail. Anybody can do it, and it takes no talent. And here's the crazy thing. You're probably right. I mean, you know, most ideas won't work. So you'll probably even be right. But what's happening there is all they're doing is they're pointing out why something won't work without offering anything back. So like a lot of times when we hold meetings or even we're ideating for the stage or for our theaters,

if somebody starts taking that role of the devil's advocate or the sharpshooter, you know, and they start poking holes in ideas, one of the things that we'll do is we'll make them put what we call intellectual skin in the game. So meaning, if you want to come and shoot my idea down or point out why it's not going to work, that's fine. But then we'll ask you, well, please give us an idea of your own that you think will work or give us a way that you think this idea could work. And what you find is when people have to put intellectual skin in the game, when they're going to get judged, oh, they start to back off, right?

Because now they know that the tables can be turned. And that's a good way to kind of manage that real negative person or that negative energy in any kind of meeting or really in any situation in your life. And there is always that negative person or that negative just energy in the room. Like, oh, God, every time Bob puts out an idea, it sucks,

and we're all going to make fun of it. And well, you know, then, like you say, then Bob's not going to come out with many ideas anymore. And then maybe you lose a gem because you shut him down. Sure. And it's a cultural thing. And again, I'm not saying that now, okay, we're going to do everybody's ideas. We're going to do everybody's ideas. We're going to execute everybody's ideas. That's not the point. The point, though, is even if I can bite my tongue for a little while, well, now, even if we say, okay, we've heard a bunch of ideas.

We've heard Bob's idea. You know, hey, we're going to go with idea C. We're going to go with Catherine's idea. But at least Bob is going to feel like he was heard and he was a member of the team and he contributed. And hopefully he'll either support Catherine's idea or he'll be able to come back with more ideas. And that's if you value a culture that is trying to innovate, is trying to move ideas forward and is trying to cut down on the, you know, just the toxic environment of, you know, it's my idea against your idea.

My idea wins, your idea loses. I get promoted, I fire you, right? I mean, sure, that can work too. I'm just saying that there's many ways to create, and you can create in a more positive environment if that's your goal. My guest is Norm LaViolette. He is author of the book, The Art of Making It Up, using the principles of improv to become an unstoppable powerhouse.

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 Norm, once you've decided, all right, now we're not going to say yes, but we're going to say yes and, and we're going to kind of nurture this along until at some point we either fish or cut bait here. How does that go? What does that look like?

And when do you say, no, this isn't going anywhere? Yeah, so what happens is once you say, okay, this is an idea that we're going to pursue for a little while, well, that's when at some point you do have to start asking those tough questions. Is this working? You know, what is the response? You know, for us in comedy, we do several things, right? We improvise, but we also do written pieces as well. And so once we submit written pieces for the stage, that's when we start to edit. That's when we start to say, okay, is this really getting our point across? Is the audience responding to this the way that we had hoped they would? You know, in the rehearsal room, that sketch may have been super funny to us,

and it's just not working on the stage. And so you start getting those data points to say, all right, is this measuring up to what it is that we're trying to accomplish? And then at some point, you know, it either is or it isn't, and it's okay to say, well, we've walked down the way, you know, walked down the path for a little while. It didn't work or we're not going to pursue it. But that doesn't mean it's a failure. It just means that we've learned something, either what works or what doesn't along the way. It sounds like this all is a good idea and that it opens

up possibilities and it makes everybody feel included. But what's the evidence that this really works, that there's a real benefit at the end of the road here? Well, you can look at it in many different ways, right? So if you look at it just in my world, okay, so I always like to describe a show like this, right? If you were to come down to Improv Asylum in Boston or New York, it's a basement theater. You're surrounded by 200 people. They're drunk and they're yelling stuff at you, right? It's the definition of a hostile work environment. If that's happening at your workplace, go see HR. For us, that's a Friday. And so, well, we have to deliver a product, which is something funny. We have to deliver in real

time. Our feedback loop is incredibly small. We don't get to send out a survey saying, hey, did you think the show was funny? Send it back in three weeks. No, we know right away if you think it's funny or not. And so what we're doing is we're delivering and making a product in real time, okay? And what's happening is now you have people that are relying on each other's skill set to create something very cool. So I may be funny and you may be funny, but here's the deal. I'm way more funny if you're on stage with me because I have your sense of humor, your knowledge, you know, whatever your life experiences are. And so now we create something and hopefully we're good and we make

the audience laugh. Sure. But really the bigger thing, and I think especially as it applies to, let's say, the business world or even your personal world, is if you and I work together well and the scene goes really well, well, guess what? We're going to look at each other and go, hey, maybe I want to work with that guy again. Maybe I want to listen. Maybe he listened to what I had to say. He built on some of my ideas. He let me have input onto his ideas. That's really what we're teaching when we go out in the corporate world is this idea that, okay, we're building a culture. You and I may want to work together again. And that is incredibly important, right?

If you're trying to build a team, you need teams that want to work together. The converse of that is if you and I go out on stage and I don't listen to anything that you have to say or every time you put an idea out there, I shoot it down and I get a laugh while I'm doing it, because you can definitely get laughs negatively, right? But if I keep doing that to you, you're going to be like, that guy's a dink. I'm not going back out on stage with him. Or you'll start trying to do that to me and the culture breaks down. And so we see it time and time again in how teams either do or don't work well together. If they're trying to support each other, odds are they look pretty good. If they're trying to tear each other down, odds are some will win and you'll have a lot of losers. One of the big differences

between comedy and the real world is, as you just said, the feedback loop is very quick. It either works or it doesn't. It's funny or it's not, and then we move on. That's less true elsewhere. Sometimes you don't know until you've spent millions of dollars that this was a terrible idea. And that to me is where I see a big difference between what you're talking about and the staff meeting where we're trying to come up with new ideas, because we won't know right away. Yeah, I mean, of course. when you get into that, you know, there are millions of dollars at stake, as I like to say, like that's in the real world. And so what we're doing now is we're not necessarily saying, okay, all ideas are great and pursue them all. What we're saying is here's the

skill set to learn how to create together. Here's the skill set of you and I trying to listen and build something together, right? So that's what we're going for when we teach this idea of improv. And then you'll apply it to your world. Of course, you have to have all the other metrics within your industry and your life that says, well, you know, this is what we consider, you know, a practical idea for the tech industry or the financial industry or whatever. We're not industry experts like that. But what we are experts on is people building something together at its foundational points, right? That's really what it is that we talk about. And then, yes, of course, as you build something, then you have to

apply all the other things that, you know, have made you successful to be able to say, okay, we've explored this for a little while. I don't think it's the right way to go. Well, then you have that conversation, but at least you may have gotten some information or you have a team that wants to work together because of it. So quickly to wrap up here, what is that skill set? Outline that, the basic one, two, threes of that skill set that people can take away. First one is active listening, the ability to listen to somebody else, right? And not just, you know, nod your head, aha, and wait to talk. There's a difference between listening or waiting for your turn to speak. And I think in the corporate world, a lot of people spend a lot

of their time waiting for their turn to speak. So, you know, first and foremost, especially as a leader, it's really trying to be able to listen and understand what is being said, even if you don't agree with it. I'm not saying you have to agree with it, but you have to understand. That second part is allowing yourself this idea for a little while of yes and. And all that means, and it's a tool, right? I'm not saying we spend all day with it. You know, in our next meeting, if we're having trouble or we're not getting a breakthrough on an idea, we advise use YesAnd as a tool.

You can use it for 15 minutes or 30 minutes in your next meeting, right? That's all it is. Like, hey, let's try this technique for 30 minutes. And then after that, we'll go back to all the other techniques that we use in our organization. You know, accusations, finger pointing, infighting, I don't know, however you do it. But that's a tool that we use. And then at least we can see if maybe some new ideas become surfaced. And then the final thing on that after the yes and idea is allowing yourself the ability to fail. But like you said, you got to fail early and fast as opposed to, you know, failing after you've committed $10 million to it. And say, look, if you can fail early and fast, you can quickly kind of cycle through a lot of different ideas.

Because when you cycle through a lot of ideas, that's when you're likely to come up with a great idea. Norm LaViolette has been my guest. He is an improv comedian, founder of Improv Asylum in Boston, and he's author of a book called The Art of Making It Up, using the principles of improv to become an unstoppable force. Thanks for being here, Norm. Yeah, thanks, Mike. This has been awesome. It's been a pleasure to be on your show, and reach out to me anytime if you want to talk improv.

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. or fun-filled shows. And 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

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New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. You could probably win a bar bet with this question. What is the deadliest predator known to man? And by deadliest, I mean what animal has killed more people than any other? There's a good chance there is one of these creatures not far from you right now. It is the mosquito. While we have, for the most part in this country, relegated the mosquito to the category of pest,

over time and throughout the world, the mosquito has wreaked havoc and in fact has changed history in significant ways. Tim Weingard is a professor of history and political science at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, and he's author of the book, The Mosquito, A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator. Hi, Tim. Welcome. Thank you very much for having me.

So this summertime and springtime pest that we hear buzzing around our ears and occasionally bites us and it itches, what kind of horrible things has this creature done? The mosquito is responsible for the deaths of half of every human being that's ever lived across our planet. So it's in the ballpark of, you know, 52 billion people out of the 108 billion that have existed, and these are estimates, but across our human existence. And obviously the mosquito by itself, you know, untethered from a pathogen is harmless.

And that's important to note is that the mosquito doesn't directly harm anybody. It's the pathogens and the diseases that she transmits that cause such devastation and death. Wait, you said that mosquitoes are responsible for half the deaths in world history? There's numerous, you know, academic papers and articles that suggest that that's the estimate, that it's half of all human beings that have ever lived, which, from a historical impact, is astounding. Wow. That is astounding. And as you said, it's not the mosquito itself. And so why is it such an efficient killer and carrier of all these diseases? Well, the diseases don't harm the mosquito

at all, but they use the mosquito for transport and to continue the cyclical contagion of their own species. So for the malaria parasite, for example, it's an extremely sophisticated creature and its reproduction, it has numerous stages of reproduction, and some of the stages occur with inside the mosquito, and then other stages of malaria reproduction occur inside a host, whether that be, in this case, humans or other animals that have malaria strains. So the malaria parasite needs both the mosquito and essentially a zoological Noah's Ark of other animals' safe houses to continue its survival and its procreation, which is why it's so difficult to combat and why it still persists as such a lethal, lethal disease to humans. It's

just such a sophisticated creature and it's not a virus. So vaccines in the traditional sense for viruses, like smallpox, for example, we eradicated smallpox from the face of the planet. The last case was in 1977. So it's not a virus, so traditional vaccines don't work. So when we say that mosquitoes have killed half the people that have ever lived on this planet, it's because they have been carrying and distributing malaria amongst the population primarily. Right, among other diseases. Now, yellow fever before it's a virus, so there's a vaccine

developed in the 1930s, but prior to the vaccine of the virus class that the mosquito transmits, which includes Zika and West Nile and dengue and chikungunya, yellow fever was also a prevalent killer, especially in the colonial tropics of the Americas. So the mosquito is indirectly responsible for these, you know, death statistics. But if you take away the mosquito, you don't have these pathogens being able to be transmitted to. They use the mosquito as transport. So it's a symbiotic relationship for the pathogens, not necessarily for the mosquito, because it does no harm to the mosquito itself.

And the mosquito bites animals and people because why? Only females bite. The female needs blood from humans or other animals to help grow and mature her eggs. It's very simple. She uses the protein to help grow and mature her eggs. And when she bites, she immediately starts excreting the water from our blood to lessen the weight, obviously because she's taking a blood meal that's larger weight-wise than her own body. So it's actually quite an amazing feeding system and ritual. Does the mosquito have a purpose, a function? Would the world be fine without them, or are they here for a reason other than to just be mosquitoes and do what mosquitoes

do? That's a tricky question, and you know, we don't know 100%, obviously. They don't aerate the soil like other insects. They don't ingest waste, for example, like other insects. And the male's world, only females bite, but the male's world essentially revolves around nectar and sex. So the males get off easy in this species. But the males, because they drink nectar, they do pollinate plants and flowers. Now, not to the extent by comparison of bees, for example. And we all know what's happening to the bee population, and that's certainly a concern globally with the reduction of bees.

So if you took away mosquitoes hypothetically, there would be certain plants and flowers that would suffer the consequences of that from not being pollinated by mosquitoes. And we don't think that they're an indispensable food source for other animals. Other animals, obviously, bats eat mosquitoes, or some fish eat their floating eggs and their larvae that float on the water. But we don't know at the end of the day. And to use the Star Wars vernacular, there's a balance to the force. And if we disturb the balance to the force, we don't know what those consequences could be. There seems to have been a lot of effort in education, you know, remove standing water,

so much effort towards getting rid of mosquitoes with limited results. Why are they so hard to eradicate? Well, I think one is there's just so many of them. There's anywhere from 100 to 110 trillion mosquitoes that inhabit nearly every inch of the globe. I think like any other creature, including ourselves, and this is why I kind of frame the book as a war almost between humans and mosquitoes, is that they want to survive and procreate. That's what they're hardwired to do, just as we are as an animal. So they're able to adapt fairly quickly to new surroundings

or also the best weapons we can throw at them to circumvent, essentially, our weapons against mosquitoes. And that holds true for the malaria parasite as well, whether it be the succession of drugs, new frontline drugs that come out. The malaria parasite adapts very quickly to circumvent these drugs and essentially shrug these drugs off, which makes it extremely difficult to tackle. And the mosquito story that's the most poignant or that people can maybe identify with the most is DDT. And we all know that DDT has harmful effects to other animals, including humans, as Joni

Mitchell sang in her song, Big Yellow Taxi, and Rachel Carson certainly made the world aware with her book, Silent Spring, in 1962. But as a mosquito killer, for its first decade of use, give or take, DDT was a remarkable mosquito killer. And it dramatically reduced the rates of mosquito-borne disease. But even before Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, it was very quickly understood that there was mosquito pockets across the world that were already resistant to DDT and it no longer worked anymore. So it's been a war since, you know, the dawn of humanity against our paramount killer.

So what kind of progress is being made in the fight against malaria and its carrier, the mosquito? You know, science progresses and we try to match the mosquito. And with CRISPR and the gene editing technology that has, you know, made the front page headline since it was unveiled in 2012, there is a hope there. And the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding numerous projects on malaria vaccines and CRISPR research among other institutions, whether that be the World Health Organization or the CDC. So we are continually trying to develop better frontline weapons to deal with not just the mosquito, but also, and more importantly, the diseases that the mosquito transmits. Talk about some of the things the mosquitoes have done in history that people probably aren't aware of? The rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

Surrounding Rome is something called the Pontine Marshes. Historically, the Pontine Marshes were a malarial hotbed and just, you know, teeming with malarious mosquitoes. So when Rome is consolidating itself and projecting its power, when outside invaders, Hannibal, the Carthaginians, and the Visigoths, the Huns, the Vandals, none of them actually take or hold Rome for any extended period of time. It's just cut to shreds by the mosquitoes of the Pontine marshes. So essentially, these marshes acted, the Malarius marshes acted as a shield safeguarding Rome. But eventually, the endemic malaria that's just pervasive across not just the

Pontine marshes in Rome, but other parts of Italy, starts to sap the strength economically, militarily of the Roman Empire. So it's kind of a double-edged sword, this Faustian pact, if you will. It's a double-edged sword, these Pontine Marshes. They both helped the Roman Empire at the beginning, but ultimately helped in the collapse of the Roman Empire as well. The American Revolution was partly aided by malarious mosquitoes. So originally the main strategy or British strategy was a northern strategy, but in the final few years of the war, General Clinton, he shifts the main grand strategy of the British from the northern colonies

to the southern colonies where malaria reigns. And so these British soldiers coming from Northern England, coming from Scotland, they weren't acclimated to American malaria, or what in history they use the term seasoned to malaria. So he's zigzagging across the Carolinas trying to escape malaria. And his correspondence absolutely alludes to this. And he's ordered to hole up in Yorktown with his forces against his own better judgment by General Clinton, his superior. And the Americans and French lay siege to Yorktown. And in Cornwallis' correspondence, he clearly states that he surrenders because he only has 35, 37 percent of his troops able to stand to post,

with the vast remainder having either been killed or being incapacitated at the time by malaria. So in a way, the mosquito is a founding mother of the United States. Is anyone making a dent in the problem? Is there any winning in the battle? We are seeing a reduction in malaria cases and malaria deaths in the last 10, 20 years, which is a very good thing. So we're seeing that the death rates consistently decrease from malaria, which is the paramount killer. But at the same time, what we're seeing is the emergence or reemergence of other mosquito-borne diseases. And they're not comparatively as prolific of killers as malaria. But, for example, we're seeing West Nile Zika, and dengue is making a big comeback, for example, and we even are seeing some sporadic and isolated domestic transference

of dengue in the southern United States. What is that? It's a virus. Breakbone fever is the nickname. It's a virus, again, and it's essentially, call it a cousin of yellow fever, but far, far less lethal than yellow fever. But still, it's agonizing and excruciating pain in your joints and muscles and fever and rashes. And it's not something, obviously, that you would want to contract.

And it can lead to death. It's just not in the same class as killers of humans as malaria and yellow fever was. Is this a thing that governments and foundations are going to have to fix? Does, you know, spraying mosquitoes in my backyard help? I mean, what's the takeaway from all of this? Well, I think because mosquitoes are a universal concern, it requires a global or universal solution. And I think definitely, as I said, with various governmental organizations, national organizations, foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the vast amount of research being funded and conducted all over the world in laboratories and in the field

against mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases. I think with the rise of CRISPR, and there's other avenues too, but with CRISPR specifically is that the future perhaps is hopeful where we can CRISPR mosquitoes to alter their genome and DNA to make them harmless. So essentially we make the mosquito incapable of vectoring the diseases, thereby bringing down the disease itself, but not necessarily harming or extincting the mosquito species itself and thereby essentially keeping the alignment to the balance of the forest, to which I alluded to earlier.

I remember hearing when there was a big mosquito problem, I guess it was in California, where they were trying to release sterile mosquitoes to mate with the other mosquitoes. Does that kind of effort help, or is that more of a band-aid thing? Well, no, it would certainly help. And as I said, not all mosquito species transmit disease. That's the other avenue with the CRISPR research is you CRISPR mosquitoes and release them into the wild and their offspring will be only male, infertile, or stillborn, and therefore you could potentially extinct that species of mosquito. What's the lifespan of a mosquito? Oh, it varies depending on the species of mosquito. And because they're cold-blooded,

they're temperature sensitive too. So it depends on the outside temperature, it depends on a lot of factors, but generally in the more temperate zones, it's kind of a week or two. They can live longer, so not a long lifespan, but certainly long enough. Yeah, because in that week or two, they mature, mate, have babies, and here we go again. Right, and can have more than one birthing of eggs in that lifespan as well. So depending on the species, again, it depends on how many eggs they lay, but generally, you know, I'd say about 200 eggs in one birthing in a canoe of eggs floating on the water. So, yeah, it's very temperature-dependent, but also species-dependent as well.

But generally, I would say about a week or two on average is how long they live. Well, it is strange to think that that little pest buzzing around your head at the picnic, its ancestors helped change human history, world history. It's mind-boggling. Tim Weingart has been my guest.

He's a professor of history and political science at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, and he is author of the book The Mosquito, A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator. And there's a link to his book in the show notes. Thank you, Tim. All right, well, thank you very much. You've probably heard the advice that forcing yourself to smile will improve your mood.

It can help, but it has to be a real smile. Faking a smile can actually make matters worse. A study from Michigan State University found that customer service workers who fake a smile throughout their day actually wind up in a worse mood and may be withdrawn and less productive. The fake smile effect was stronger for women than men. Smiling can improve your mood, but you have to mean it. If you don't feel like smiling, instead try to conjure up pleasant or funny thoughts. Most of us do have the ability to trigger a genuine smile, and when we do, we tend to experience a slight surge of

feel-better endorphins. And that is something you should know. If you like this podcast, I bet your friends would too. Please share it with them. I'm Mike Carruthers. 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,

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Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table,

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