Something You Should Know - How to Use a Secret Identity to Get What You Want & Why We Have a Moon

Episode Date: April 11, 2019

Sibling relationships change as we move from childhood to adulthood. Sometimes they change for the better – sometimes not. We begin this episode by unraveling the complications of adult sibling relationships. http://www.rd.com/advice/relationships/adult-sibling-estrangement/ When you were a kid you had a secret identity. You pretended to be Superman or a princess or someone you admired. What’s interesting is you can do the same thing as an adult to help achieve your personal and professional goals. Todd Herman, a performance coach and author of the book The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life (https://amzn.to/2YVO46c) joins me to explain how adopting a secret identity can help you succeed in anything.  How much water should you drink today? There is a simple formula I’ll explain that will make sure you are sufficiently hydrated every day. https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/30/milk-and-other-surprising-ways-to-stay-hydrated/ It is the 50th anniversary of the first man walking on the moon. To celebrate you are going to discover some fascinating things about the moon that will forever change the way you think when you look up in the sky. Dr.Maggie Aderin-Pocock is a space scientist and science educator. She is an Honorary Research Associate in University College London's Department of Physics and Astronomy and author of the The Book of the Moon: A Guide to Our Closest Neighbor (https://amzn.to/2D11Afx). Her view of the moon will fascinate you.  This Week's Sponsors -LinkedIn. For $50 off your first job post, go to www.LinkedIn.com/podcast -BetterHelp. Get help with a counselor you will love at www.BetterHelp.com/SYSK -Care/Of Vitamins. For 50% off your first order go to www.TakecareOf.com and use the promo code: something50 -Ollie. For 60% off your first order plus a free bag of dog treats go to www.myollie.com/try/something -Calming Comfort. For $15 off the displayed price go to www.calmingcomfortblanket.com and use the promo code: something -ADT. To get a secure smart home designed just for you go to www.ADT.com -Capital One. What's in your wallet? www.CapitalOne.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, on Something You Should Know, a look at adult-sibling relationships. They're complicated. Then, the amazingly effective strategy of using an alter ego in important moments that matter. I used this idea when I played football. I was six feet tall and like 159 pounds when I was in high school, but I played way bigger on the football field than what my actual size was, because I never went out there as just quote-unquote Todd. I went out there as Geronimo.

Also, just how much water do you need to drink in a day? And it's the 50th anniversary of the first man on the moon, and you're about to discover some amazing things about our closest heavenly neighbor. We're working out that the moon is very slowly but surely moving away from us. It's about 3.5 centimeters a year, which is about the same rate that our fingernails grow. So as the moon speeds up and moves away from us, the actual rotation of the Earth slows down.

All this today on Something You Should Know. 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 is 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 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. 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. Do you have siblings? I have four siblings, and we're all spread out all over the country. And as you know, if you do have at least one brother or sister,

those relationships can change quite a bit as you move from childhood to adulthood. The number of Americans who are completely estranged from a sibling is actually pretty small, probably less than 5%. Yet only 26% of 18 to 65-year-olds report having a highly supportive sibling relationship, 19% have an apathetic relationship, and 16% have a hostile one. There are two personality types who appear prone to being estranged by their siblings, those who are extremely hostile, and then those who Gene Safer, a New York City psychotherapist, calls grievance collectors.

Those are the people who say, you never thanked me for those flowers I gave you in 1982. That gets old, and siblings go their separate ways. Interestingly, two-thirds to three-quarters of mothers have a favorite child, according to research, and when that favoritism is obvious, the siblings are more likely to become estranged in later life. Your siblings are the longest family relationships you have, so perhaps reconnecting is a good idea.

Perhaps not. It's complicated. And that is something you should know. When you were a kid, I'm sure that at times you would pretend to be someone else. Maybe you were Superman or Batman or Wonder Woman, a secret agent or a fairy princess. Whatever it was, for that moment in time, you became that person. You acted like them, talked like them, and thought like them. The idea of having an alter ego like that is something people can and often do in grown-up life as well.

And in fact, it can really help you be more effective and successful in the things you want to accomplish by taking on another persona. Athletes do it. Actors do it. And so can you, according to Todd Herman. Todd's a performance coach and mental game strategist, and he's author of the book The Alter Ego Effect, The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life. Interestingly, when the book came out in February, it quickly became the number one bestseller on Amazon in the category of sports science, because this so often is what great athletes do. Hi, Todd. Welcome. Thanks for coming on. Mr. Carruthers, it is a pleasure to be here with you. Thanks. So explain in a nutshell how this alter ego effect thing, how it works. Yeah, well, the practice is that we all

use alter egos or a secret identity. We use it in our youth and we use it all the time. And it's sort of been a hidden secret of how extraordinary performers have been able to have the careers that they've had. Or it's the secret that people have used to help themselves get out of their own way because we all carry narrative and story about who we think we are and what we're made of into our daily lives. And a lot of times, the narrative for many people isn't a supportive one. And so an alter ego, it comes from Cicero. Cicero named the name alter ego back in 44 BC, when he penned a letter to a friend of his, and its root meaning means the other I or trusted friend. So you said that athletes use this alter ego idea when they play their sport. And I know you played sports. So explain how that works.

I used this idea when I played football. I was six feet tall and like 159 pounds when I was in high school. But I played way bigger on the football field than what my actual size was because I never went out there as just quote unquote Todd. I went out there as Geronimo, which was a composite of a bunch of, you know, different heroes in my mind to help me sort of tap in and leverage their attributes and their traits. And so, you know, I ended up building up, um up a very successful sports training company working with pro athletes, Olympic athletes, and I discovered along the way that the athletes that were consistently performing at a high level all seemed to be tapping into this idea of leveraging a persona, a character. They would say things like, I step into a different version of myself when I go out there. And it sort of pinged with me because I did the same thing. And in fact, I did the same thing when I started my business. I was so insecure about how young I looked.

So I built up a concept in my mind of being super Richard. And it was my way of getting past my insecurities, how young I looked, get past the insecurity of selling myself. And instead, Super Richard went and sold my workshops for me until at one point in time. And this is the kind of the big promise that people have experienced with leveraging this idea is Cary Grant said had this great, great quote at the end of his career. Hollywood golden era actor, very debonair, charismatic, what he known for. And he said, I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be. And I became that person, or he became me. But at some point in time, we met. And the only thing I would change there is instead of pretended, is I activated somebody I wanted to be.

How do you do this? How do you activate your alter ego? How do you turn to be. How do you do this? How do you activate your alter ego? How do you turn it on? How do you turn it off? What's the process you go through? How we activate this idea is, first, we always act through identities for specific roles and fields of play that we have in life. No one person on the planet is one identity. In fact, the psychology world for the longest time trotted out that idea, thinking that the people who had identified themselves with having a single self or a we have multiple selves that are all congruent with the many roles that we play in life.

And I say all this to answer the question, okay, so how do we activate it? And that's frustrating you possibly right now because you're not showing up like you want to or you're acting so insecure. You're so concerned about the concerns, the worries, the judgments that other people might be placing on you. And it's trapping you, right? Like you're not getting all of your skills out there possibly. You're not taking the actions that you want. That's a great place to start. So whether it's business or whether it's not going to the gym or something, find that. And then we want to, okay, well, how would you most want to be showing up there? Okay. So I get the fact that you're not showing up the way that you want to, but how would

you most like to show up? And then if that's the case, who represents the traits, the qualities, the abilities that you would love to start, you know, revealing on that field of play. And that question starts to allow us to find the inspiration for the alter ego that we might use. Okay, so whether it's, you know, people automatically go to and think about superheroes. But in fact, the inspiration comes from many places kobe bryant used the black mamba other athletes have used um say the idea of a machine like jerome the bus bettis beyonce used sasha fierce so the mistake people make is no i understand that you can use this for sports or you can use this for entertainment but you I'm a sales professional. Yeah, well, you're performing just like everyone else is. You might not be on a stage in front of 110,000 screaming fans or something, but at the end of the day, we're all performing. It means we're all trying to bring our best to that moment so that we get a specific action to happen. I think that's such a great idea

because everybody has been in that situation where it's, you know, a job interview or you're meeting somebody and you feel intimidated by the situation, maybe because there's a lot riding on it and you're acting exactly how you don't want to act because you're so intimidated by it. And this is something that you can kind of pull out of your bag of tricks to help overcome that, I guess, right? Yeah, absolutely. It's the power of how our mind can create different worlds, right? Our creative imagination is the great superpower that human beings have. And we dim it, we mute it, and we walk away from its use as we get older many times. And yet the people that are tapped into it in its purest form and they end up being super creative and coming up with like amazing ideas are young

children. Zero to seven is when you're most tapped into the creative imagination because it operates in what's called the theta brainwave state. But then we get older and we start thinking about the things that we did when we were younger and we go, oh, that was us being childish. And that's the wrong label to put on it. It was you actually acting through our most creative genius that we have. And so to your point, yeah, when we get into those situations, we get so cut up in our own head about worrying about what other people are thinking of us. And all of that thought ends up stopping us from acting through the real abilities that you do have. I mean, I've been doing this for 22 years.

I've worked with individuals for over 16,000 hours one-on-one. There is no new objection. There's no new issue. There's no new whatever it might be, a pebble in someone's shoe that I haven't seen and solved. And I know that human beings place way too much value on what people think of them. And it stops them from taking the actions that they want to take. And an alter ego allows you to create some emotional distance from your own identity. And now that alter ego that you've built can help go out and truly express the real abilities that you have. This isn't about being inauthentic and trying to deceive or trick other people.

That's not what its purpose is. Its purpose is to actually reveal more of what you are made of. So I'm speaking with Todd Herman about alter egos. Todd's book is called The Alter Ego Effect, The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life. 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.

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on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Todd, I can imagine someone listening to this and interpreting what you're saying as pretending to be someone you're not. That by doing this alter ego thing, you are putting on this mask and pretending to be someone who isn't you. You're not being authentic. You're pretending. People are already pretending. Let's be honest here, Mike. Everybody, a lot of people are pretending already.

Who's the alter ego here? Superman or Clark Kent? Most people, when I've asked that question, they go Superman because they associate superpowers with the alter ego. No, the alter ego is Clark Kent. The real individual is Superman with all of those superpowers. He puts on the glasses to become the mild-mannered version of himself so that he's accepted by society. And my contention to most people is that most people are

walking around as Clark Kent's out there. They're wearing a mask and they're trying to fit in, be accepted. Why? Because it's built into the very biology and development of the human species. Because 10,000 years ago, if we were ever kicked out of the tribe, that means we're probably going to die on the plains kind of thing. And we still have that rooted inside of us. That we're so worried about the tribe kicking us out. I'm very fortunate because I've worked on the mental game stuff for a long time. I'm also very fortunate because I've been around the most elite human performers on the entire planet in business and in sport. And I can tell

you the people who operate at the very top do not live inside the same paradigms that the people in the average middle do. The average middle loves to talk about authenticity. I have never once heard an extraordinarily successful business person that I've worked with or athlete ever concern themselves with being authentic to other people. What they care about is that they're going and doing ambitious things. And the act of doing ambitious things demands that they are constantly bumping up against new comfort zones. And on the other side of that comfort zone is a new identity that they need to create for themselves or they need to move and shift into. So what we're not doing is showing up as Arnold Schwarzenegger and pumping our chest out when we're 98 pounds and all that kind of stuff. No, it's about what are the traits

that he used to help him to evolve into. So he went in with extraordinary discipline and focused. A 98 pound kid can go in with extreme focus and discipline into the gym. You know, what else did he do? He always brought his absolute best to it. He never let what he felt would be his last rep get into his mind and make it his last rep. He always asked himself, there's another rep inside of me, you can do the same thing at 98 pounds. It's not about faking like you're that person. It's about understanding at the root core kind of emotional and mental side of them, what were they bringing to it? So is this all or is this mostly mental? But don't you have to also act the part? If you're going to be this alter ego, don't you have to appear to be this alter ego? It's both.

So there is a psychological principle called enclosed cognition. Enclosed cognition is that human beings attach meaning and story to the clothing that other people wear and that we wear. So a study was done at the Kellogg School of Management where they brought a bunch of students into a room and they got them to do this test where it was an eye test where it had the word of a color, but it was colored differently. So it would be like the word yellow, but it was in orange or the word red, but it was colored in blue. And because our, our brain sees color before we see the words, it's actually very difficult to say the actual word. And that's actually what the test is, is you got to say the words that you're seeing on this grid. So they brought these students in and they timed them and they tracked how many mistakes they made, uh,

while they were going through this little test. Okay. So they leave, they bring in another set of students and this time they get them to put on a painter's coat, a white painter's coat, and they get them to do the test. So they're trying to say the word, despite the fact that it's colored in differently, track the test results and time them. And then they move on and then bring in another group. And this time the group puts on the exact same white coat, but this time they're told it's a lab coat or a doctor's coat. And then they do the test. Well, what are the differences? The people who wore the lab coat or the doctor's coat, they enclosed themselves in the cognitive traits of someone who's detailed, methodical, and careful. All traits that helped them execute that test with success.

But the people who wore the painter's coat, who have now just activated the traits of creativity, expression, and imagination, got the exact same results as the people who were just in their plain clothes. Now, when they gave them a creative test, now all of a sudden the people wearing the painter's coat got better results than the people who were in the doctor's coat. So to your question, does it change the way that you look and feel? Absolutely it can. All of a sudden someone starts walking taller, they feel more confident because they know that they're acting through this more powerful force

for themselves. But the more important part of it for me is I'm seeing them change on the inside. I'm seeing them speak more confidently or think more confidently about themselves. Another great study that was done was at the University of Minnesota, where they brought a bunch of four to six-year-olds into a room, gave them an unsolvable puzzle, and they wanted to see just how long they would stick out this unsolvable puzzle. They were measuring grit and perseverance. So they tracked the information, but the surprising part of it was that they were also able to see how they were talking. And they would say things like, oh, I'm not good at puzzles.

I quit. This is too hard. Things like that. Then after they were all done, they brought in this rack of costumes. Batman and Dora the Explorer costumes specifically. And they got them to pick their favorite one and put it on. Then they brought in another puzzle that, again, was unsolvable. And this time, they stuck with it far longer than they did before.

And they would say things like, Batman won't quit, so I won't quit. Dora the Explorer always finds a way, so I'm going to find a way. Probably the greatest takeaway that people can have from this conversation is this. We, as human human beings always act through whatever we associate ourselves with. And most people have created an identity for themselves that is not a true representation of what their capabilities are because they've been buried under years of conditioning, under negative self-talk, under negative impressions from the outside world, and they think that that's them. And it's not. Were those kids

being fake because now all of a sudden they stuck with their puzzles longer? Or were they being fake because now they were thinking more positively about themselves? Absolutely not. So it would seem that dressing the part would help too, wouldn't it? Martin Luther King did this. Martin Luther King went out and purchased a pair of non-prescription glasses. And he felt like he was carrying such an important mission and movement forward. And he didn't want his insecurities to get in the way of that. So when he was sitting down to put pen to paper for those important speeches that he was writing, he would put on those glasses and activate what he called his distinguished self to say the things that needed to be said in an articulate and charismatic way so that he can move an entire group of people forward with nonviolent action. And I did the same thing when I was so insecure. I went out. I used a pair of glasses as well to help me activate. I called it my reverse Superman.

I put on a pair of glasses to be more intentional about how I was showing up. And then just like Cary Grant said, I ended up becoming the person that I most wanted to be. And what's so interesting is everybody knows that this works because everybody has done it, either as a child or yesterday. Everybody's taken on the persona of someone else and acted differently. So we know we can do it, and you've pointed out really well that it can have really positive consequences. My guest has been Todd Herman. He is a performance coach, a mental game strategist, and author of the book, The Alter Ego Effect, The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Hey, thanks, Todd. Thanks for being here. Thanks, Mike. It's been an

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Simply fill out a questionnaire to help them assess your needs and get matched with a counselor you will love. BetterHelp.com slash SYSK. And that link is also in the show notes. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. It was a big deal then, and it's still a big deal. The moon is something we all look up and see all the time. It is so close, astronomically speaking, and yet there is still so much we

don't know about it. Dr. Maggie Adarin-Pocock knows more about the moon than anybody I know and probably anybody you know. She is a British space scientist and science educator. She is an honorary research associate in University College of London's Department of Physics and Astronomy, and she is author of The Book of the Moon, A Guide to Our Closest Neighbor. Hi, Doctor. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Lovely to be here. Thank you so much. So tell me a little bit about your fascination with the moon. So my fascination and my passion for the moon goes back many,

many years to when I was a child. And I think it started, I always say my formal introduction to the moon came from my father, because he told me about the moon in Africa that he used to see. And I was brought up in London. So in a big city, you don't see many stars or other things, but you can see the moon. So I think my passion stemmed from my father. Well, one of the things that I've always been interested in, the moon as well as the stars, I think about everybody that's gone to school has some basic knowledge about what the moon is. But years ago, centuries ago, millennia ago, people must have looked up and wondered, what? What did they think when they looked up in the sky and saw this big circle what did they think that was well and this is one of

the things i'm fascinated by as well it's a whole branch of astronomy called archaeo astronomy so it's looking back in time and it's a bit of you know know, who knew what when. And the moon features very strongly in that. I mean, people were aware of the solar cycle, but the lunar cycle is much is a much smaller timescale. It's a monthly cycle which tied in with people's lives. And so great monuments have been made in celebration of the moon. In fact, as soon as recently as 2013, a lunar monument was found in northern Scotland in an area called Aberdeenshire. And it's a series of 12 pits, which represent the different phases of the moon. And they stretch over a 50 kilometre track. And if you look at these phases, they also align with the winter solstice so it was a way of keeping time so i think people looked up at the moon and wondered what it is but they also used it as a

calendar and in terms of the one day it takes on so many different forms there were there were lots of myths and legends about the moon and in australia they talk about the moon sort of coming down to earth and it's um it takes on a male persona and walks amongst us. And he has pet snakes, which he keeps. And so I think different cultures across the world have looked at the moon and tried to make up stories about, yeah, why does the phase change? What is happening with the moon? And I love that. So what is the moon? What is it? How did it get there? Why does it stay there? What is it? We've been trying to understand the moon's origins.

And one of the things I like about the moon is that it's still a bit of a mystery. We have theories, but the theories don't completely add up. And I think the strongest theory at the moment is the moon was formed when a planet about the size of Mars collided with a glancing blow with the Earth. And when this humongous collision happened it threw up debris um into the um surrounding areas around the earth and this debris slowly but surely coalesced to form the moon and when it did this the moon was actually much closer to the earth and um so this is how we think the moon was formed in the past there were other theories that you know um the early earth was spinning so fast that you know of a blob of matter from the early Earth spun off.

But if that happened, then I think the blob of matter would more likely travel off into space. And another idea was a capture theory that it was a passing asteroid and it got captured by the Earth's gravity. But the moon is very, very large for that. So it's one of the largest moons in comparison to its planet in the solar system. So that doesn't quite add up either. And although this idea of fear, the Mars-like planet colliding with the Earth and forming the moon is interesting, one of the problems is when we analyse the moon rocks that we get from sort of missions like Apollo, from the Russian lunar samples, and also from meteorites that land, that come from the moon

and land on Earth. If we analyze these rocks, we find that the contents or the composition of these rocks is too similar to the Earth's composition. And if it was this collision theory with a glancing blow, we'd expect the moon composition to be fairly different from what we find here on Earth. And yet they're just too similar. And so you said that when it formed, it was probably closer to the Earth. So how did it get where it is and what keeps it there? Yes. So the moon orbits the Earth. And as it orbits the Earth, what it's actually doing is spiraling away from us. And a few years ago, I was very honoured to visit a telescope in the States called Apache Point. And from here, they send out beams of lasers, photons of light up to the moon. And this light gets reflected from retroreflectors left behind by the people who landed on the moon. And by doing this,

you can actually work out the time of flight of this laser beam up to the moon and back again. And by doing this, we're working out that the moon is very slowly but surely moving away from us as it spirals away. And so it's moving at a very slow rate. It's about sort of 3.5 centimetres a year, which is about the same rate that our fingernails grow. So it's a very a very slow rate. It's about sort of 3.5 centimetres a year, which is about the same rate that our fingernails grow. So it's a very, very slow rate. But as it is, it is actually spiralling away from us. And as it spirals away from us, it actually picks up speed. So it used to be much closer and we can work out that it is spiralling away from us. And it's because of a concept called conservation of angular momentum. So as the moon speeds up and moves away from us,

the actual rotation of the Earth slows down because the two are sort of in a combined system. Now that's really interesting. I had no idea. I thought the moon was in a stationary orbit around the Earth and would always stay there, but it's moving away. You know, there's so much fascination with the moon and when we first went to the moon and we haven't been to the moon in a long time and i don't know

why we haven't well why haven't we been to the moon in a long time there are lots of theories but i think it is basically the cost um this year we're sort of celebrating 50 years since Apollo 11, when the first people sort of stepped out onto the moon's surface. But it was a major breakthrough. It took huge amounts of money. It took an amazing advancing technology to get people there. And it's quite interesting, because if you look at sort of the viewing figures for the sort of the first moon landing, the Apollo 11 landing, I think 20% of the world's population watched that happening so it was an epic event across the world but as the subsequent moon landings occurred people just sort of lost interest they said yeah we've seen it we've done it

and so to be spending that huge amount of money on something that people felt was sort of a we almost had it in the bag it didn't make much sense so they rained back on the money and to me it's been as if we've been having a sort of a relationship with the moon and we get all excited about it and then as of um we sort of uh our excitement sort of dies down but now um we're in an interesting time because um people there's a resurgent in sort of moon exploration so many countries are sending sort of uh orbiters and landers to the moon because people are seeing that the moon could be of benefit to us in the future. Well, that is a question I think a lot of people have,

is what is the benefit, given the cost, what is the benefit of going to the moon, besides the fact that it is an incredible accomplishment to get from here to there and to put men on the moon. Scientifically, that is pretty amazing. But beyond that, what's the potential? There's the science of the moon. And that's what sort of gets me excited.

Because, for instance, we have huge telescopes here on Earth, sort of 8-meter, 10-meter telescopes here on Earth looking out into space. There are some parts of the moon which never see sunlight they are sort of these um caves or craters on the moon's surface where the sun never reaches so if you could build um an optical telescope in one of these craters it would do it would be able to do astronomy 24 7 so that would be wonderful in itself the moon is also sort of littered with meteorites and things that have come from outer space. So it's a goldmine in terms of that. And then in the geology of the moon, understanding another body that isn't Earth in our locale makes a lot of sense as well. But I think if we're going to go back to the moon, it's going to have to be a commercial push to get there. And so I think what people are thinking of is what does the moon have

that we don't have here on earth? And there were many things that come up with that. People talk about fusion as the sort of energy source of the future, where you take atoms and you put them in high pressures and very high temperatures and fuse them together.

And that produces sort of new elements, but it also releases energy. And it's the conversion of Einstein's E equals MC squared equation. You lose some mass in this conversion when atoms are fused together and you create energy. And for a very small amount of mass, you create huge amounts of energy. So it's a very efficient way of doing it. One of the ways we could do fusion is by using a substance called helium-3. And that is, I won't say it's abundant on the moon, but that can be found on

the moon. It's one of the things that is given out by the sun. And because the moon has no atmosphere, it's deposited on the moon. And so it could be mined down in the future. Another thing is that I mentioned that sort of the moon has a day cycle, which is two weeks of daylight and two weeks of nighttime. And so if you put solar panels on the moon, you could generate sort of a huge amount of energy. The moon just has a very tenuous atmosphere called an exosphere. And so sunlight hitting the moon, it hits it hard.

And so if you had these solar panels on the moon's surface, you could generate vast amounts of power being that power back to earth and therefore sort of utilize the moon again in a commercial manner so there were various there were um sort of a rare earth metals that we are getting harder to get here on earth mainly due to where they're found but they are available on the moon and when when it becomes cost effective, we might start mining those on the moon surface. So what is the moon when you, if you were standing on the moon and you reached down and picked up moon dirt, and apparently it's not green cheese as it was once, it was once thought, what is it? What's the moon made of? Yes. When the moon first formed, it was a hot ball of lava, effectively.

And over billions of years, it has cooled down. And it was also one of the main features of the moon is the craters. Because the moon has no atmosphere, lumps of rock and things like that, debris in space, they smash straight into the moon's surface. Here on Earth, because we've got a protective layer around our planet, many things burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. And we see those as shooting stars. So shooting stars are nothing to do with stars. They're just bits of sort of dust and debris burning up in the Earth's atmosphere because they're traveling at such great speeds. They heat up and sort of leave a streak of light. But on the moon, they hit the moon's surface.

And so although the moon might have started with a sort of a crust that had cooled down from this molten state, because it's been pummeled over billions of years by all this detritus from space, it has broken it up into a very, very fine powder. And what's it like if there was an atmosphere? Well, maybe that's not the right question. What's the weather like up there? What's the temperature? What's all that about? Well, one of my dreams is one day to go to the moon's surface and live there. I'd love to be a scientist on the moon one day. But it would be a very, very challenging environment. For one thing, because of this lack of atmosphere, this exosphere, which is just a very, very thin atmosphere, it means that during the daytime, so you get two weeks of daytime and then the surface is blasted with solar radiation.

And then the temperature shoots up to about 100 degrees C. So that's the temperature we boil water at. So it goes up to the temperature of boiling water. But then if you're on the dark side of the moon and the night side of the moon, then the temperature plummets to nearly minus 200. I'm trying to think what it is in Fahrenheit. My conversion is awful. But it goes down sort of minus 200 degrees c which is colder than antarctica so you have these extremes of temperature happening happening every two weeks um there's no atmosphere so there's no breathable air and if we look at the footage of the moon landings we see sort of people you know moving over the surface wearing the bulky spacesuits that's to protect them from the sort of

solar radiation itself from the extreme temperatures and to provide an environment for their bodies to sit in because there's no atmosphere actually on the moon and so there's all these sort of various challenges that we would face if we actually went to the moon but it's a challenge i'd love to take so weigh in from a scientific point of view on this idea that you when there's a full moon, people's behavior changes, crime goes up, crazy behavior goes up, what do you say? Research has shown that some people think there is a correlation, and some people think that there isn't a correlation. And so we have papers actually describing both effects. And I think this is the problem. It's very hard to get

unbiased data. So for instance, in the UK, the police in a certain borough of a certain county of the UK, near a town called Brighton, put more police on the beat during the times of a full moon, because their statistical analysis showed that more crime or more incidents happened during the times of a full moon, because their statistical analysis showed that more crime or more incidents happened during the time of the full moon. But I think it's a psychological problem, because I think when the moon is full and something happens, people go out and tell other people about it, and they see it as significant. But when something significant happens and it's not a full moon, because they're not making that correlation, I don't think they talk about it so much. So I think there's a psychology behind it where it's hard to get pure data.

But the Luna in the word lunatic refers to the moon, correct? Oh, correct. And that's why I call myself a self-certified lunatic, because I am, I believe, under the influence of the moon. When I see the moon, I am totally mesmerized. I gaze at it sort of with a joy in my heart. So I think the term lunatic came, I think it was from the Greeks who sort of saw the moon and felt that the moon did actually have an influence on people and sort of made it a negative negative influence and if you go back in time though um before the time of your electric lights and things like that you could see that perhaps um at the time of the full moon perhaps that's the time where people might commit crimes or that's where a time where people might observe crimes because there's more light uh and so perhaps there was a correlation there

and in africa it said that um there seemed to be more lion attacks at the time of a full moon. But then again, that correlation could come from that animals at the time of the full moon sort of are more likely to hide away because of the extra light, whereas humans might go out more because of the extra light and therefore are more likely to be attacked. So I think with all these correlations, it's very hard to get to the pure data and take out all the extenuating circumstances. Lastly, any one thing about the moon that is particularly fascinating to you that perhaps most people don't know? I do believe we take the moon for granted. And when you sort of speak to people about the moon, they say, oh, yes, yes, well, we know about the tides. But the moon does granted and when you sort of speak to people about the moon they say oh yes yes well we know about the tides but the moon um does so much more uh it's uh one of the things it did is

um it enabled with the tides it enabled um the precursors of dna to be formed we here on earth we believe and so because of the movement of the tides it washed washed chemicals in and out of the tidal pools. And then those tidal pools got sort of irradiated by sunlight and UV light. And if you repeat that experiment in a lab, you can actually create something called RNA, which is the precursor to DNA. So the moon might actually be responsible for life here on Earth. Well, clearly you have a love affair with the moon. I do. But it's fun to hear. I enjoy listening to you talk about it with the passion you have for it. Dr. Maggie Adarin-Pocock has been my guest. She's a British space scientist and author of the book, The Book of the Moon, A Guide to Our Closest Neighbor. There's a link to her book in the show

notes. Thank you, doctor. So nice to have you join me. Oh, thank you so much. You need to drink more water. You've heard that all your life. But why is water so important? Because drinking it does a lot of things. It helps rid the body of waste and toxins.

It transports oxygen and nutrients to muscles, and it protects every organ in your body. So how much water should you drink? Well, a rule of thumb is to take your body weight in pounds and divide it in half. That's approximately how many ounces of water or fluid you should consume a day. And since plain water can be boring, you should think of alternatives to stay hydrated. Some beverages can hydrate us faster than others,

and this is known as the hydration index. For example, milk has a higher hydration index compared to, say, coffee or tea. And that is something you should know. You know, ratings and reviews, to, say, coffee or tea. And that is something you should know. You know, ratings and reviews, they're like the lifeblood of podcasts. We need them.

So please leave a rating and review for this podcast. Every podcast platform, wherever you listen, has the capability to leave ratings and reviews. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. enrage you. And don't blame me. We dive deep into listeners questions, offering advice that's funny, relatable and real. Whether you're dealing with relationship drama or you just need a friend's perspective, we've got you. Then switch gears with But Am I Wrong, which is for listeners who didn't take our advice and want to know if they are the villains in the situation. Plus, we share

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