Something You Should Know - The Curious Forces That Make You Who You Are & How to Explain Anything to Anyone

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

Listening to music is more than just a pleasant experience. It is also good for you in several ways. This episode begins with a discussion of how valuable music is to your mental and physical well-being. http://www.emedexpert.com/tips/music.shtml Could your genes or microbes or even a parasite actually dictate parts of your personality? Likely so, according to Bill Sullivan, a professor at Indiana School of Medicine and author of the book Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are (https://amzn.to/2t2VOYT). Listen as he explains how these forces can actually determine and even alter what makes you – you.  You’ve probably heard that you shouldn’t store tomatoes in the fridge or that you shouldn’t fry food in olive oil. These are just a couple of common kitchen practices that may not stand up to scientific scrutiny. Listen as I explain why. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4539884/Should-continuously-stir-risotto-soak-onions.html It can sometimes be hard to explain something to someone so they really and truly get it. Listen as scientist, Dr. Dominic Walliman offers the four key ingredients that will help you explain anything to anyone. Link to Dominic’s YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/2TaTOIW Link to Dominic’s books: https://amzn.to/39TRko7 Link to his TED talk: https://bit.ly/2FGCMKp 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. We'll be right back. that all work together to build who you are. And the majority of these are below our conscious radar, meaning we don't have as much control over who we are as we like to believe. Then, some common kitchen practices you probably should stop doing. And why it's often hard to explain things so people really get it.

The assumption of knowledge is the key to explaining things. It's so easy to assume that people know stuff that you know because it just doesn't feel like a big deal to you. But for people who haven't been exposed to that concept, that can immediately leave them grasping to follow what you're saying. All this today on Something You Should Know. 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. 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. We're it finally feels like we're kind of back into the rhythm of things after the holidays.

Took a while. Maybe that's a sign of a good holiday. We start today talking about music. Just about everybody enjoys listening to music, and it turns out to be good for you. Hundreds of studies have been done on the effects of listening to music, and here's what some of them have discovered. Music can help with pain. Nobody's exactly sure why. It could just be a distraction from the pain, but for whatever reason, it does seem to help. Music can improve your immune system. Scientists explain that a particular type of music, and it's different for each individual, can create a positive and profound emotional experience,

which leads to secretion of immune-boosting hormones. Music can help your memory and concentration. Easy listening music or relaxing classical music has shown to improve the duration and intensity of concentration in all age groups and ability levels. And children who have had musical training have better memories than children who have not. Music can help you sleep better. Many people who suffer from insomnia find that listening to Bach can help them sleep. Researchers have shown that just 45 minutes of relaxing music before bedtime can make for a restful night's sleep. And that is something you should know.

What if? What if parts of your behavior, things such as the foods you like or hate, the people you're attracted to or not, your mood, your temperament, your fears, and your beliefs, what if these things were controlled to some degree by your genes or by parasites or something else that operates below your consciousness. It's weird to think about that, but there is some really interesting evidence that would indicate that your personality is more than just your preferences. It's being driven by other things. And here to discuss that is Bill Sullivan. He's an award-winning professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and he's author of the book, Pleased to Meet Me, Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces that Make Us Who We Are.

Hi Bill, welcome. Hi Mike, it's a pleasure to be on. Thanks for having me. So I think a good way to get into this topic is for you to explain what it is you do primarily. Sure. I'm a professor at IU School of Medicine here in Indianapolis, and I study genetics and epigenetics, which is how the environment controls genes. And I do this in the context of a parasite that is actually present in the brain of about one out of every four people. So it's a very common parasite. Most people don't even know that they carry it around. So that's what I do on a day-to-day basis. I try to understand the genetic regulation in this parasite. What is this parasite that's in one

of four people, one out of four people, but not in three out of four people. This parasite is called Toxoplasma gondii, and we call it Toxo for short. And it's so common because there's multiple means of transmission. One of the most common ways is people can pick this up from their cat, specifically out of the litter box. But even people who don't have a cat can contract the parasite from a sandbox, from gardening, or even playing in their backyard. Anywhere a cat might have done his or her business, you can contract the parasite. You can also get it from undercooked meat or unwashed vegetables. Yeah, I've heard of this, and doesn't it affect people's behavior? There are some people who have accumulated evidence that speaks to that fact,

but there's really good data that demonstrates that when the parasite infects rodents like mice or rats, it definitely changes their behavior. So that relates to the life cycle of the parasite. So when it gets into the brain of a mouse, for example, it erases the mouse's fear of cats. So this is a pretty striking behavioral change. Mice, as everybody knows, usually scurry away from cats very quickly. But when they're infected with this parasite, it somehow re-engineers the mouse brain so that it's no longer afraid of a cat. And then the cat would eat that mouse and become infected with the parasite, which is where the parasite ultimately wants to go. It can only complete the sexual stage of its life cycle in the gut of a cat.

So that begs the question, what does it do when it gets into a human brain. And this is where the evidence gets a little more questionable because we can't do defined experiments in humans like we can do in rodents. But some studies have connected people infected with this parasite have heightened risk for schizophrenia, rage disorder, risk-taking, and even being involved in more car accidents. Well, that's really interesting. And now what I'd really like to have you do is a segue from that into what your book is about, which is about how our behavior,

how our tastes, how our attractions are affected by things like genes and perhaps parasites, and how this all came together. Working on this parasite for the past 20 years or so, it occurred to me that there are microbes within us that could be changing our behavior in ways that we're not even conscious of. So that's a little unsettling. And I think most people would agree, yeah, that's pretty disturbing. There could be some common parasite or other microbe in my body or brain that's making me do things that I'm not aware of. operate within our body, and explain our personality, our mood, our behavior in ways that we've never really thought of before. Because these are things that we believe that we have full

command over. You know, we make the decisions in our lives. We believe the certain things that we do because our brain rationalizes these things. Or we like certain foods because, well, that's our personality. But there are genes and epigenetic factors, microbes, and psychological factors that all work together to build who you are. And the striking, most startling thing about this research is that the majority of these are below our conscious radar, meaning we don't have as much control over who we are as we like to believe. So let's dive into some examples. One of the major examples I like to talk about right off the bat is a personal one, and it involves vegetables like broccoli. We've evolved with plants like other mammalian, over a very long period of time.

And plants usually don't want us to eat them. That's not really good for their life cycle. So they engineer bitter chemicals in the digestible parts. So they extract these bitter chemicals, and that's what gives them an unpleasant taste. Even if you like the vegetable, it might taste a little bitter to you, but it's still tolerable and you enjoy it and you reap a lot of health benefits. But for people like me and my daughter who can gag at the smell of broccoli, these bitter chemicals react very differently with our bodies. And that has been traced to a single gene called taster. There's a variation in this gene, which builds a taste bud on our tongue that when it binds to the bitter chemicals in broccoli, it registers that plant to be like a poison. So our brain is getting the signal that this is a poisonous plant. You should not be eating it. Whereas most people in the world, about 75%, they don't have this mutation. So their taste bud receptor is physically different. It has a different physical structure. And it doesn't bind to the bitter chemicals in broccoli very tightly. It just kind of floats right over the tongue. So this is one of the major biological reasons why some people can't stomach certain vegetables and other people have no problem with them.

And you found out that you have this gene, how? How did you determine that? You can do that through commercial testing companies. They will look at the genetic sequence that encodes for these taste buds, and the mutation in question is very well characterized. So about 25% of people, one in four, are what scientists refer to as super tasters, meaning that they can recognize these bitter chemicals very strongly. So they're very sensitive to this. What about obesity and overeating? Does that play into this? There are some genetic mutations that take place in certain individuals that drive them to overeat. For example, there's a really well-characterized gene called leptin, which makes a hormone that

tells the brain that the stomach is full. So, it's what scientists call a satiety hormone. And in people who are deficient in making leptin, their brain never gets the signal that their stomach is full and it's time to stop eating. So, every single meal or snack, they tend to overeat, and obviously that's going to lead to obesity. So there's a very well-characterized gene behind that. When we look at addiction, there's another gene that's associated with this that basically leads to a chaotic brain. The brain is just in overdrive, and it's very problematic because it makes it hard to focus, it makes it hard to concentrate, and these individuals also suffer from insomnia. Many of them will turn to alcohol to sedate the brain. And it works very well, but the problem is alcohol is

an addictive substance, and you build up a tolerance to it and it leads to a very dangerous downward spiral. But there is a biological reason why some people are driven more towards alcohol and other people are not driven to that. But why, using the obesity example, why are there so many more obese people now, if this is genetic, than there were 50 years ago? Yes, excellent point. The Western diet can manipulate our genes in ways that we are just beginning to understand. And what we are finding is that in the prenatal environment, while someone is still in the womb, if the mother is consuming the Western diet, or what I'll refer to as the junk food diet, the fetus's genes are being programmed in a way to naturally crave high sugar, high fat, and high salt when they are born as a child. So we are basically setting up this child

to fail in a dietary sense because of the junk food diet that mom may be accustomed to eating. So that's how epigenetics can work in basically pre-programming someone, predisposing them to cravings of the Western diet. And then there's this microbial component, which should not be underestimated. This is some real cutting-edge science that stems from what we call germ-free mice. These were mice that are designed by a scientist named Jeffrey Gordon that are born through a sterile C-section, and they don't have any microbes in them or on them. So in case you weren't aware, we have about three pounds of microbes, bacteria, in our intestines, in our gut,

that influence our appetite, our mood, and so much more. And obesity may be linked to the composition of microbes that are in our gut. And the way we know this is because if we take twins that are discordant for obesity, meaning one of the identical twins is of a normal weight while the other one is obese, and we take intestinal bacteria from the lean twin and put it into this germ-free mouse, nothing really happens. But if we take the bacteria from the obese twin and put it into this germ-free mouse, it begins to overeat and become obese, which tells us that there is a microbial component right in our guts that can govern our appetite. And can you manipulate that?

That's what many scientists and pharmaceutical companies are trying to do. I want to talk about how these things you're talking about, genes and microbes, how they affect your thinking, your beliefs, who you're attracted to. I'm speaking with Bill Sullivan. He is a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and he's author of the book, Pleased to Meet Me, Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a 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 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 Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. So Bill, talk about how these things can actually affect your thinking. This seems so weird to me. When I started to do some research into what people are calling genopolitics, this kind of really floored me. But there is, in fact, a gene that is associated with whether people lean to the right or to the left on the political spectrum. This gene is called DRD4, and it encodes a dopamine receptor in the brain.

So dopamine is a critical neurotransmitter that drives people towards reward. And we find variations in the human population in this receptor that basically translate into different personalities. So many people who have one version of this dopamine receptor are not very exploratory. They don't like change. They aren't risk-taking. And then there's a version of this receptor that changes the amount of dopamine in the brain. And these people are risk takers. They want novelty. They don't like the status quo. They tend to be rebels. And the way this plays out in politics is that people who are risk taking and novelty seekers tend to be more liberal, whereas those who do not want change, who do not seek out novelty, tend to be conservatives. So this is just one gene

that's associated with personalities that play into where we fall on the political spectrum. But sometimes we change our minds on the political spectrum. Sometimes liberals move to the right and conservatives might move to the left. And that underscores that genes are merely predispositions. Environmental factors also come into play and are a major component of where someone stands with respect to their politics. which gene expression can change. So that builds in a opportunity for the environment to express our genes differently and can explain why people change over time. When a gene, let's say a gene, you have the gene that makes you liberal, but for whatever life experience, you happen to be a conservative. So now, does the conservative in you squash that gene and put it out of commission? Or do you live a life of conflict, of inner conflict, fighting with your genes over which way you should be?

Good question. And as you probably know, there's a lot of people in the middle of the political spectrum. So they may have the conditions that you just outlined. And I do want to emphasize that there's no single gene that's going to be responsible for a behavior. Behaviors like where you stand on the political spectrum are governed by hundreds, maybe thousands of different genes. And there's also components of the environment. And there's even components associated with neuroscience. For example, conservatives, they tend to have a larger area of the brain that's called the amygdala. This is the fear center of the brain, and liberals tend to have a larger anterior proceed accordingly. And that obviously isn't

happening very much today, but it speaks to some of the other biological variables in the equation that makes up someone's political affiliation. And what about genes that help determine who you're attracted to. people's not too far off the mark. Let me tell you about a really interesting experiment, a classic experiment that was done a couple decades ago that involved women sniffing smelly t-shirts that had been worn by men for about one to two weeks. It's not something you normally want to do on a Friday night, but anything for science. So they were smelling the odors of these t-shirts and ranking the smell, whether they found it unpleasant, neutral, or perhaps even pleasant. And it turns out that women who had immune system genes that were similar to the guy's found his smell to be

unappealing, whereas women who had immune system genes that were different from the guy found his smell to be unappealing, whereas women who had immune system genes that were different from the guy found his smell to be alluring. And this makes biological sense through an evolutionary lens, because if we mix immune system genes that are very different together, then the baby's going to have a better chance at fighting off pathogens. So this is just one of the ways that is flying under the radar in the rules of attraction. We basically want to match up with people who are going to increase the prosperity of our genetic legacy. And people with different immune system genes are going to do that.

Talk about fears and how they might be genetic. Because if anything would seem to be the result of experience, it would be fear. You're afraid of something because something happened, but not necessarily so. This is really cutting-edge science and goes back to the epigenetics phenomenon that we talked about before. And again, the data in humans is not as good as it is in experimentally controlled animals like mice. But let me tell you about this fascinating experiment that suggests certain fears could be inherited. So if you take mice, which normally love the smell of cherries, and then you shock them when they smell the cherries, when they get a whiff of that scent, they get a little shock. They're going to develop an intense fear of the smell of cherries very quickly. But what's really fascinating is that when those mice have children,

those mouse pups are born afraid of cherries. And then those mouse pups, when they have babies, we're talking about the grandkids now, they still have a fear of cherries, even though they've never been shocked or never saw their parents get shocked. So this turns out to be an epigenetic change that takes place on mouse DNA and is passed through the generations. And it basically means that certain fears, new instincts, can be inherited through epigenetic mechanisms. Wow.

Well, this is really fascinating, and we could talk about it for hours. What's the thing you want people to take away from this conversation that we're having? I want people to realize with a little humility that we're not who we think we are. Our behavior, as well as the behavior of others, is guided by these hidden forces in our biology. And knowing the biological basis of our actions is powerful knowledge that puts us in a position to fix behavioral problems or understand other people better. Well, and so when you say that, when you say that we could perhaps fix our behavioral problems, if they're rooted in these genetic roots, is the fix different than if they're not? In the last chapter of the book, which is called Meet Your Future, I go into a variety of cutting-edge techniques whereby scientists are figuring out how to modify genes using a system called CRISPR-Cas9.

CRISPR is a very powerful gene editing system and may very well one day give us the power to fix certain genes. So for example, I'll go back to my broccoli example. I have that mutant taste bud that basically makes broccoli a turnoff. Can you imagine a gene editing tool that doctors could give to me and then all of a sudden my taste bud gene is changed and now I like broccoli just as much as everybody else. Now, of course, there's more important disease applications where gene editing is going to come into play, but we are just around the corner from making those sorts of advances. But if you start editing genes like that, doesn't that concern you that if you edit someone's genes,

now they're maybe not the same person? That is one of the concerns. So we grow up a certain way, we develop our personalities. It always begs the question, if you change them, however well-intended that change might be, will you fundamentally change who you are? And I think the answer to that is going to be yes. Because think about toxoplasma for a minute. One of the main things my lab tries to do here at the IU School of Medicine, we're trying to come up with a cure for this parasite because once you become infected, it goes to your brain and stays there for the rest of your life. And if it is true that this parasite can change your behavior and maybe give you a temper or maybe make you a risk taker, if you suddenly remove that parasite, you're going to fundamentally change the personality of that person. So they're not going to be who they are. And in some cases, risk taking may be a positive behavior. There's a lot of biology behind who we are.

And we need to be more sensitive to that in understanding people who are not like us. It is going to engender, I think, a lot more empathy and patience in understanding people who are not like us. It is going to engender, I think, a lot more empathy and patience in our relationships with one another. Well, this all certainly makes you stop and think who you are and why you are who you are. Bill Sullivan has been my guest. He is an award-winning professor at Indiana University School of Medicine, and his book is called Pleased to Meet Me, Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces that Make Us Who We Are. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Mike. These are excellent questions. I really appreciate

it. 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, 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 Lister poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we

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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. Have you ever tried to explain something to someone and somewhere along the way, you can see it in their eyes, they've just completely lost you? The fact is, some things are hard to explain, especially if you know a lot about the topic and the person you're trying to explain it to does not.

But there will always be those times when you have to try to explain something to someone. And so here to explain how to explain anything to anyone is Dr. Dominic Walliman. Dominic is a scientist who has a YouTube channel called The Domain of Science. He has a series of children's science books called Professor Astro Cat. He also has a great video on how to explain anything to anyone. Hi, Dominic. Welcome. Hi, Mike. Good to be on. Thank you. You bet. So describe the problem here. Well, I've worked in a technical field for a long time, and I don't know if anyone's had this experience is when someone's explaining something to you, and you're following along for a certain amount of time, and then it gets to a point where you realize you actually lost the thread of what they're saying. And that can be quite awkward. And so

that's all down to how well the person is communicating technically. And I know from my own experience that when someone's trying to explain something to me and I'm not getting it, like I think it's my fault. Like I'm just too dumb to understand when maybe it's just not being explained well. Yeah, it's often the case that when someone's telling us something and we lose the thread of what we're saying, we kind of feel like it's our responsibility that somehow if we knew more, we would, or we were more intelligent, we would be following along with what they were saying. But the trouble is, I think that's the wrong way around. If you think about it, if someone's

explaining something to you and you don't understand what they're saying, there's literally nothing you can do in that moment to suddenly understand better. But there is something that the person explaining can do to make you understand better, which is to find a way to explain the thing that they're explaining in the terms that you understand. So you never feel guilty if we don't understand something that people are telling us. But I've experienced in the professional context,

very often you do sort of not want to own up to your ignorance about a subject or your ignorance about what someone's saying to you because you don't want to come across as you know not being knowledgeable but i think it's important that uh we sort of own up to what we don't know and in practice i've found that people actually you come across as being more intelligent or more engaged in the subject if you really consciously ask questions about what you do and don't know. Right. Yeah, I think that's true. And if I'm talking to somebody about something and they say, I don't really understand that,

that signals to me that at least they're trying to understand that and maybe I need to explain it better. But they don't just give me that blank stare like, uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But it's about, I i guess having an environment where people feel comfortable asking questions yeah that's a that's a good thing to foster in a workplace i think so to prevent that if you're the person doing the explaining what should people what should people do differently in how they explain things that that people can follow along better even if the the

content is a bit complicated and certainly you you work in a area that's pretty complicated in science so so how do you do it yeah so i do a lot of science communication and so i've developed a few sort of guidelines that i try and remind myself of when I'm explaining things. So one of the first things is to start in the right place for your audience, which basically means to explain the subject in terms that they already understand, because it's no good leaving a gap because you've already lost them. And technical terms are notorious for this. When we learn technical terms, we assume everyone kind of knows them. But if someone's not heard a technical term before, that can immediately derail things.

The assumption of knowledge is the key to explaining things. And that's the thing I always battle with, is that it's so easy to assume that people know stuff that you know, because it just doesn't feel like a big deal to you when you know it. But for people who haven't been exposed to that concept before, that can immediately leave them sort of grasping to follow what you're saying. So that's one thing to be very aware of to start off in the right place. And where is the right place? It depends for each person, each audience. So you need to actually actively find that out. So you can do that if you're just talking with a small group is by asking people questions

to gauge what their knowledge is. You can also give them permission from the outset to ask you questions. So if that, you know, to overcome the problem we talked about earlier. And then with an audience, it's more difficult because you can't obviously ask everyone in the audience. So you have to, you can ask a question for a show of hands, or it's always good just to err on the side of caution. People tend to not mind if you're explaining things that they already understand for a while. Yeah. Well, I've always thought that you're better off simplifying and erring on the side of caution and including everybody

because people don't mind, I think, if you explain something they already know. In fact, it might even be helpful. It confirms to them that they're kind of on board with what you're saying. And don't you think, too, that when you talk to people in a group or even with an audience, that you as the explainer get a sense pretty quick of where they are. You can kind of tell. Yeah, body language is obviously key to that.

If people get that glazed look or seem sort of not actively involved in listening, then those are good signs. But the best way is to ask people questions if you're in a context where you can do that. Yeah, well, I have the experience sometimes people come on this podcast to talk about a topic, and very often they're people from academia, and they do use jargon, and they do assume that i know more than i know and i'll have to stop and say look explain this as if you're talking to a group of 14 year olds and don't use those kind of academic terms uh and and just talk the way people talk and and

explain it in a way that a 14 year old could understand it and also the other temptation especially with academics is they go too far down the rabbit hole too quickly exactly which is another thing to be mindful of that um it's better to people have only got a sort of limited capacity of new information and so it's much better to tell someone a few things, maybe three, four things that they'll go away remembering, rather than barrage them with, say, 10, 20 things, which they won't remember any of. So let's get really specific, because you do have four steps to help anybody explain anything to anyone. And we've sort of been talking about them, but but let's label them and get real specific on the four steps. Yeah, so those are the two, the first two, start off in the right place and, and don't go too far down the rabbit hole. The third one is that

clarity beats accuracy. And what that means is that often it's tempting to give the complete accurate description straight away. But accurate descriptions, especially in science, say I was explaining my favorite subject, quantum mechanics. If I wanted to give you the absolute accurate description of quantum mechanics, we'd be here for weeks. So it's much better to start off with a simpler explanation which is probably not technically correct but it's the right thing for the audience to hear to begin with just to get a hook into the subject and that's really what you want to do is like hook them in so that they're interested to find out more and then you can tidy up the details later so give me a quick explanation of what quantum mechanics is um it's a subject in science, in physics specifically, and it deals with the very smallest things in the universe.

So when you get smaller than the scale of cells or molecules down to the scale of atoms and subatomic particles, and then how the atoms interact with each other and how they interact with light, all of that's described by the field of quantum mechanics. And historically, it was quite a revolution about 100 years ago because around 100 years ago, people, physicists, thought they had it pretty much figured out. And then a few experiments on how light interacts with atoms showed that actually there were some strange effects some strange mysteries down there when they probed deeper

they actually found that the whole universe behaves fundamentally in a different way to what we thought before before in classical physics we thought the world was sort of like a clockwork machine, you know, the orbits of the planets and things like that. But when they discovered quantum mechanics, they actually found that these subatomic particles like electrons, they can tunnel through barriers, quantum tunneling. So quantum tunneling is like a strange feature of quantum mechanics. So it'd be like if you threw a bouncy ball at a window, instead of it bouncing back at you, it would go through the window. And it wouldn't smash the window to go through it, it would just immediately appear on the other side of the window and fly away. And that's sort of a weird concept for us humans because we don't experience anything that does anything like that at our scales. But down in the subatomic realm, that's the thing that happens

all the time. And in fact, we can thank quantum tunneling for us being alive because it's the thing that keeps the sun shining so you probably know the sun is a fusion power source basically all fusion power means is it's taking atoms and smashing them together to form heavier atoms and you get out energy at the same time. So if you smash together hydrogen and helium, you get a heavier element, and you also release energy. And that's how the sun burns, that's how stars burn. And in that process, normally, if you thought about hydrogen atoms as these bouncy balls, when they banged into each other that you can imagine them just bouncing off each other but actually because of this quantum tunneling they actually tunnel

into each other and that's what allows them to fuse together and then release the energy and all the energy from the sunlight that's hit hits the earth that's how life started and that's the energy that powers all of the life on earth so it wasn't if it wasn't for quantum tunneling we wouldn't exist see now that's a pretty good explanation of of you know because you used very simple things you you didn't explain it in very complex terms so i was able to follow that pretty well and and that's what it's all about i guess is keeping it simpler yeah and then the last thing is to um try and explain why it's relevant to the person that you're talking to so this is to try and to get them to care about the subject so if you're explaining things to someone, there's probably a reason why you're explaining it,

because you think it's cool or you think it's important. And so as well as just the explanation, it's really, really good to explain why you're enthusiastic about it, or the best way is to show why it's relevant to someone. So the fact that we're all alive because quantum mechanics lets the sun shine, that's kind of a cool story, which gives you a connection to this very abstract field of quantum mechanics that you probably didn't know you had. Yeah. So let's recap the four things in kind of a shopping list form here. What are they? So start off in the right place don't go too far down the rabbit hole

clarity beats accuracy and then explain why you think it's cool perfect and you have just now explained very well how to explain things to anybody dominic walliman has been my guest he is a scientist he has a youtube channel called of Science. And he also has a series of children's science books called Professor Astro Cat. You'll find a link to those books, a link to his YouTube channel, and also his TED Talk about how to explain anything to anybody are all in the show notes for this episode. Thanks, Dominic. Okay, thank you so much for having me on. Several very common kitchen practices don't hold up to scientific scrutiny. New Scientist magazine investigated several of them, and here's what they found. Common wisdom is to not put hot leftovers in the fridge because it can raise the temperature inside the fridge.

But that risk is dwarfed by the food poisoning potential of leaving leftovers out in a warm room, where bacteria can double every hour. You should put leftovers in the fridge as soon as possible. You've likely heard that you should avoid frying with olive oil because it has a low smoke point and produces a toxic flavor. Not true. Olive oil is fine for frying. Everyone knows that a plastic cutting board is safer, but in fact it is not. E. coli and

salmonella will die on wood, but not on plastic. You've probably heard that you should never put tomatoes in the fridge because it ruins the flavor. Well, maybe. The ideal temperature to store tomatoes is about 47 to 50 degrees. That's warmer than the fridge, but cooler than most kitchen counters. The best bet may be to put them on the top shelf or on the door of the refrigerator. And that is something you should know. Your questions and comments are always welcome.

You can email me directly at mike at somethingyoushouldknow.net. 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, 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. 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. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Buntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator.

Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Redolph Buntwine, wherever podcasts are available.