Something You Should Know - Why Are Great Innovators So Weird and Quirky? & What You Probably Never Knew About Cats

Episode Date: March 5, 2018

TV networks manipulate programs to make more time for commercials – a LOT more time. I’ll discuss that and you might want to watch this YouTube video that demonstrates just how it works. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6i1VVikRu0. And here is the source for this story: http://www.wsj.com/articles/cable-tv-shows-are-sped-up-to-squeeze-in-more-ads-1424301320   We all have our little quirks and idiosyncrasies. But why is that great innovators like Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Marie Curie and others seem weird and “off the charts” quirky compared to the rest of us? Melissa Schilling, professor of management and organization at the Stern School of Business at NYU is author of the book Quirky: The Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World (http://amzn.to/2GY5qFC). Listen and she explains why great genius is so often accompanied by quirkiness and what the connection is between the two. Want to be happier? Shorten your commute and sleep on the left side of the bed. Those are just two of the things that according to science can elevate your level of happiness. I’ll reveal more in this episode. (http://www.modernghana.com/lifestyle/3447/16/10-surprising-things-that-make-you-happier.html). There are about the same number of cat owners as there are dog owners in the U.S. So what is it about cats that make them so interesting and mysterious? And why do so many people love cats when it seems cats couldn’t care less about people - or anything else for that matter? Professor Leslie Lyons is a cat lover who also happens to run the Lyons Feline Genetic Laboratory at the University of Missouri (http://felinegenetics.missouri.edu/) . She knows more about cats that just about anybody. And she joins me to discuss the feline fascination so many people have. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, a lot of TV shows you watch are getting sped up without you knowing. There's a YouTube video you've just got to see. Then, why are so many geniuses and innovators so weird and quirky? For example… Nikola Tesla, of all the innovators I studied, had so many of these characteristics dialed up to such an extreme. I mean, he was actually a very weird guy.

Fascinating, weird, brilliant guy. Then some simple ways to make yourself a lot happier. And what you may not know about cats. They're fascinating creatures. One of the fun things is when you see a brown tabby cat, that cat is not brown at all. If you actually pull out some of the cat's fur, the cat's fur is banded black, yellow, black. And so all the cats you look out there and see that are brown, they're an optical illusion. 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, welcome.

I'm laughing because this is like the 27th time I've tried to record this segment of the podcast. And I'm just, I can't get it. It's raining outside. It's just one of those days I'm not finding my groove. And then around take, I think it was around take 17, I nailed it. I got it all done. And just before I was done, my dog Taffy, who's sitting over on the couch a few feet away from me, started barking and screwed that one up. So maybe you'll hear this. Maybe you won't. Maybe you'll hear Take 28, which will be coming up shortly. Today, we're going to start with what you're watching on television. And what you may not know is that a lot of the cable networks are speeding up the programs to allow for more commercial time. And while this isn't really new, it's a lot more common than it used to be. What they're doing is they speed it up. They have this

technology that speeds up the program and can allow for up to two minutes more of commercials per half hour. Now, there's a YouTube video that shows the difference between an actual Seinfeld episode, the way it was originally produced, compared to, I think it's TBS, what TBS does to it to speed it up. And the difference is really amazing when you watch them side by side. But by doing this, TBS frees up two more minutes of commercial time for every half hour. The process is done a couple of ways. One way is to simply speed up the playback and then use pitch correction software so the voices don't sound like chipmunks. The other

method is called Time Tailor, which essentially analyzes and then removes duplicate frames of video and audio. Now, the link to the YouTube video that shows the Seinfeld episode side by side is in the show notes for this episode, and if you have a minute, I think you'd enjoy seeing it. Hey, and look, I got all the way through the segment, and that is something you should know. When you look at the real giants of innovation, particularly in science and technology, you think about people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Madame Curie. And one of the interesting things about those people is that they are or were more than a little bit eccentric and quirky.

Every single one of them. Even more interesting is that they share some of the exact same quirks. So why is that? Do you have to be an oddball to be an innovator? And what's the connection? Why does being quirky lead to genius? Or does it? Melissa Schilling is a professor of management and organization at New York University's Stern School of Management,

and she's author of a book called Quirky, The Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World. Hi, Melissa. Welcome. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited. Well, me too, because I've always wondered about this. We've heard that many of these great innovators are oddballs, really, and some of them are difficult people to get along with. And so are they geniuses because they're quirky? Are they quirky because they're geniuses?

What's the connection? First of all, I would say to not look for a causal relationship between quirky and brilliance per se. What I would say is that some of the quirks that we'll find in innovators, some of them do have a causal relationship with innovation, meaning they help to increase the likelihood of innovation. And some of them are side effects of other things that cause innovators to be innovative. And a lot of it was a real surprise to me when I was doing the research. So I'll give you an example. Four out of the eight innovators I studied wear the exact same outfit every day

or wore the exact same outfit every day. And we've heard those stories about Einstein and Jobs wearing the same outfit every day. It turns out Dean Kamen also wears the exact same outfit every day. Marie Curie wore the exact same outfit every day. Marie Curie wore the exact same outfit every day. And, you know, at first you're inclined to think, well, that's just a weird coincidence among weird people, because how could that possibly have any relationship with innovation? And there's been some people who've argued that it's about decision fatigue, which basically means people who are using their minds a lot don't want to waste any of their mind on choosing an outfit.

And that's part of it. But there's actually more to it than that. So what I found is that all the people that I studied had this really marked sense of separateness, meaning that they felt sort of disconnected from the social world around them or like they didn't belong to the social world. And so its rules didn't apply to them. And that ends up being tremendously valuable for innovation because these people were able to disregard accepted wisdom and they were able to challenge assumptions and they were able to pursue ideas even in the face of criticism and failure because they were used to not fitting in.

So they didn't have any pressure to wear different clothes every day, and they were really focused on something else. It just wasn't a priority. So, like, Dean came in, for instance, one time somebody asked him why he wears the same outfit every day. His response was, I always wear work clothes when I'm working, and if I'm awake, I'm working. So, before we go any further, let's talk about who exactly you studied for this. Okay, so the people that I did major case studies of are Dean Kamen, who invented the world's first portable dialysis machine and the world's first drug infusion pump, but you probably know him for the Segway,

Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Thomas Edison. But then I also talk about some other people in the book that I just didn't do major case studies about. So, for instance, I talk some about Sergey Brin and Grace Hopper and Larry Page. And when you say quirky, your definition of quirky is what? By quirky, we're really referring to traits that are unusual. So characteristics, I shouldn't even use the word traits because in psychology, the word traits has a very specific meaning that's heavily defended in that group.

So I'm going to say characteristics, but unusual characteristics. And the interesting thing was that a lot of these innovators had characteristics in common that make them different from the average population. So it was unusual that they had these things in common. But I suspect that there are plenty of people who have all the quirks these guys have and more, who have never done anything particularly exceptional or innovative. And there are plenty of people who have done amazingly exceptional and innovative things who aren't quirky. So it's not enough to have one of these characteristics, and it's also not a given that having all

of the characteristics will make you a serial breakthrough innovator that someone's heard of. To be sure, there have been lots of people who've been serial breakthrough innovators that we haven't heard of. There's also people who had serial breakthrough ideas but were prevented from acting upon them by their circumstances. But if you look across the innovators that I studied, some of the things they had in common that appear to be really important, first of all, they were all extremely intelligent and they were all noted for having exceptional memories.

And it's pretty easy for us to understand why that would be important if you're going to be a big technology or science innovator. They also had this sense of social separateness, of not belonging or being disconnected from the social world. So several of them, in fact, said that they loved humanity, but they didn't necessarily love humans or that they felt detached. And I think Einstein's the one who talked about that the most, but there's quotes that say almost the exact same thing from Elon Musk, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie. So that was kind of fascinating to me.

They were also, all of them with the exception of Thomas Edison, were keenly idealistic. And that turns out to be really important because they felt like they were pursuing some really intrinsically noble and important goal. And that goal was more important than their health and their comfort and their leisure, sometimes more important than their family. So that provided an intense amount of motivation and focus for them. that even if you didn't like them or you criticized them or they had, you know, embarrassing public failures, they persisted on because they believed that the goal they were pursuing was more important than themselves. But what I really want to get at, I mean, I understand that these innovative types are eccentric and they have these quirks and everything, but lots of people have quirks and these guys

probably had a lot of other quirks, but what's the connection between the quirks of being quirky and innovation? Where is it? Okay, so all of the characteristics that I end up identifying in the book end up being things that you can understand as causing innovation when you integrate them through the science of innovation and creativity. And I'll give you a great example. Nikola Tesla, of all the innovators I studied, had so many of these characteristics dialed up to such an extreme that you couldn't miss them. I mean, he was actually a very weird guy in a lot of ways, a fascinating, weird, brilliant guy. And once you notice characteristics about him that were really unusual and you started to understand how they worked for him, then you go and look for these characteristics,

and you suddenly discover that all of the innovators had them, but you hadn't noticed. So I'm going to give you a great example. Nikola Tesla didn't sleep very much. He slept at most two hours a night. A lot of nights he didn't sleep at all. He had a lot of signs that would be diagnostic criteria of mania. So for instance, he had incredible sensitivity to stimuli. Lights would burn his eyes and sounds would sound deafening in his ears and he could feel vibrations of cars a mile away.

He struggled a lot in his life because of this oversensitivity to stimuli, and it's part of why he worked at night. He also had, you know, ideas that just flowed in streams and were overwhelming, and he had interesting bouts of eidetic memory that were like hallucinations. So he had all these signs of a dopamine irregularity. So elevated dopamine, which is at the heart of mania, one of the things it will do is it will suppress the need for sleep. And it's different from being an insomniac. Like when you have insomnia, you feel tired. You wish you could sleep.

But someone with mania doesn't even feel tired, right? So for big stretches of Tesla's career, he's not sleeping. He's only sleeping a couple hours a night. And it was really peculiar. But then I decided to go see if I could find data on how much the other innovators slept. And if you really hunt for it, you can track this down. You can track it down in letters, and you can track it down in autobiographies. And what I ended up finding is that all but Einstein, every single one of them but Einstein, slept dramatically less than the population average. And I think that's an interesting detail that has been overlooked until now. I mean, Thomas Edison and Dean Kamen slept about four hours a night.

Dean Kamen still sleeps about four hours a night, from my understanding. Marie Curie never slept more than five hours a night. Elon Musk sleeps six and a half hours a night, which compared to the rest of the innovators looks like a pretty generous amount. But the average population in the U.S. sleeps eight and a half hours a night. And of the global average of the developed economies, the one that sleeps the least is Japan, and they sleep seven and a half hours a night. So here you have this whole set of innovators, and they all sleep less than the population. That would be a pretty bizarre coincidence, except that when you study dopamine, you suddenly realize,

wait a minute, dopamine has been repeatedly linked to creativity. It's been repeatedly linked to effort and persistence. There are lots of reasons to think that modestly elevated dopamine could enhance your likelihood of being an innovator. Melissa Schilling is my guest. She is a professor of management and organization at New York University's Stern School of Business, and her book is called Quirky, the remarkable story of the traits, foibles, and genius of breakthrough innovators who change the world. You know, eating family dinner together on a regular basis is really important.

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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

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There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or 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, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt,

Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go Network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Melissa, what does all this mean, all these quirks and things that these people have? I mean, other than the fact that it's fascinating that they all have them and that they all share some of the same quirks. So what? So what does it mean? What does this mean to me? So one of the things you realize from studying these innovators is that if you really want people to reach their creative potential, they need to spend some time in solitude, thinking and reading and writing.

If we do everything in group activities or we do all of our brainstorming in teams, we're going to lose a lot of the creative potential of people. And it also means that for kids, they need that downtime, right? There's been a lot of emphasis in the last decade, I'd say, on nurturing kids' social skills. And we tend to want to put them in soccer and glee club and all sorts of activities that would help them become charismatic and comfortable in groups. But it's important to remember that kids need downtime, too. And that's not time playing video games or watching TV. It's time thinking and reflecting and reading and writing and basically having the time to form their own beliefs about how the world works. So that's an important one. A second one pertains to idealism.

You know, all of these people who achieved great things were fighting for something they really, really believed in. And so consciously cultivating some sort of grand ambition could be incredibly important. If you want to have a moonshot of your own, you have to know what you're shooting for, right? So thinking about what you really believe in, what you could fight towards that you would feel was intrinsically valuable can be incredibly important. Another characteristic that's really, really important is self-efficacy. And that's this belief that you can overcome obstacles to achieve your goals. That ends up being incredibly important not just for innovation but for all kinds of productivity and well-being.

And we can increase self-efficacy by giving people opportunities for early wins and also through using hero stories because humans are social animals, and we learn what we're capable of by seeing what others are capable of. So when we read hero stories, because humans are social animals, and we learn what we're capable of by seeing what others are capable of. So when we read hero stories, it actually teaches us something about what we can accomplish ourselves. I have quirks that apparently do me no good. How do you know? What are your quirks? Well, I can remember phone numbers. I can remember phone numbers since I was like four years, my phone number when I was four years old. I remember phone numbers really easily. It does me no good. It does me absolutely no good. No, I think you're probably

mistaken about that. So the ability to remember phone numbers has to do with your memory. And people who have exceptional memory follow paths of association out further. So for instance, most people who say volcano and they think lava. Someone who has a really good memory might think lava, hot, my trip to Hawaii, Honolulu. They travel out further on paths of association. And that is a hugely beneficial thing to do if you want to come up with creative ideas. Well, that's good to know. So these innovators that you looked at, would you say that these were especially quirky people? In other words, were they just out-of-the-park quirky and had all kinds of oddball eccentricities,

or were they just regular normal people who just happened to have a few quirks? I'd say that the main reason why you would think of these people as quirky goes back to this sense of separateness. A lot of them are not, they're not well integrated socially and they don't adhere to social norms. So if you take someone like Steve Jobs, he didn't wear shoes a lot of the time. He didn't shower very much. He stared at people intensely without blinking. He didn't put a license plate on his car. He parked in the disabled spot every single day. He was a difficult person to get along with. All of these quirks are actually coming from the same underlying characteristic, which is this sense of separateness. He did not

feel like the rules that govern the rest of us applied to him. That ended up being really valuable for him being innovative, but it also made him a socially awkward person. What about, though? I mean, these people you're talking about, these are the captains of innovation. These are people who have accomplished things most of us will never accomplish. And yes, they're clearly quirky and eccentric. But are they happy, or the ones who are dead, were they happy? Were they satisfied with their life? Because it sounds as if perhaps

some of them, or all of them, were somewhat tortured by their quirkiness. Yeah, that is a really wonderful question, and I'm so glad you asked that because so few people ask it. I think the answer to that is complicated. I think that a lot of us, if we had lived their lives, we wouldn't be happy, right? A lot of them lived their lives in a form of self-imposed isolation, and they worked incredibly long hours. And, you know, a lot of them basically gave up time with their family. Marie Curie gave her daughters over to her father-in-law to be raised, and her daughter subsequently wrote a biography about her that said basically that while they loved and adored and respected their mother, they pined for her attention, they missed her, they longed for her. And she responded back to her daughter and said,

Look, I know the life I led is not natural and it's not for everyone, but I did it because I loved science. So I think there's an answer in there. I think that for most of these people, they did something they felt compelled to do. They loved to work. They loved to pursue this objective. They were driven to work this hard. That doesn't mean the rest of us would want to live like that. And I don't think that all of us should aspire to be serial breakthrough innovators. We can learn how to be more innovative by thinking about how some of these characteristics work, but we wouldn't necessarily choose the life that Elon Musk lives. It's not even clear that Elon Musk would choose the life that he lives today.

He said that in an interview once. What? Wait a minute. I'm not sure I buy that. I mean, we all choose the life we live. I mean, yes, circumstances and random events change our choices along the way, but in the kinds of things you're talking about, I mean, you know, you can choose whether or not to wear the same clothes every day,

or you can choose whether or not to park in a handicapped spot every day. I mean, these are the kind of choices that clearly are under your own control. You choose the life you live and the actions you take to a major degree. Well, let's talk about Einstein for a minute, because he's the one that wrote about it probably the most. So first of all, I'd say Marie Curie expressed joy at working hard and having self-imposed isolation. She found that to be bliss. And Thomas Edison said the same thing.

He was never happier than when working. I think of Thomas Edison like a border collie. Have you ever met a border collie? Yeah. It's a herding dog. Yeah. So there's an expression among dog people that if you don't give a border collie a job, it will make up its own and you won't like it.

It is a dog that is only happy when working. You don't have to train it or reward it. The work is the reward in and of itself. And Thomas Edison was definitely like that. But Albert Einstein wrote about his sense of detachment from people. And on the one hand, he said he firmly believed it made him an independent thinker and helped him to resist authority. And he despised any type of deference to authority. He thought that that was basically forfeiting our humanity if we didn't think on our own. So he thought it was extremely important. But he also commented on the sense of melancholy or the lack of geniality that it also conveyed.

So he was aware of geniality that it also conveyed. So he was aware of both sides of it, right? He believed it was important to be a loner. He talked about being a loner because it was the only way you could pursue truth. But he was also cognizant of the fact that it could be lonely. Well, you said at the very beginning here that there's not a causal relationship. You can't go out and just start being quirky and expect to be a genius. But there does seem to be this really fascinating connection between quirkiness, eccentricity, and genius. And you've explained it well. Melissa Schilling has been my guest. She is a professor of management and organization at New York University's Stern

School of Business and author of the book, Quirky, the Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World. And there's a link to her book in the show notes. Thanks, Melissa. Thank you so much. It was fun talking with you. 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. 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. I'm more of a dog person than a cat person, but I like cats. I had a great cat growing up, Boxer. Boxer had an extra toe on each of his front paws. And I remember one year, one day, Boxer just didn't come home. He just disappeared. And then a couple of years later, he just walked into the house. He went right to the kitchen, sat down where his bowl used to be, and waited to be fed. Anyway, I like cats, and in the U.S. there are just about as many households with cats as

there are with dogs, and they're pretty fascinating creatures. No one knows that better than Professor Leslie Lyons. She runs the Lyons Feline Genetic Laboratory at the University of Missouri, and she is what you would call a true cat lover. Welcome, Leslie. So you say that all cats, from small little house cats up to big, huge tigers, all identify as cats. What do you mean by that? Well, large cats, whether it's a tiger or whether it's a little house cat, you know, they still mark the house the same way. They'll spray. They'll use their claws the same way. They roll over in the sun. Their mating habits are fairly similar. How they interact with one another, cat to cat, is also very similar. So it's like your house cat. It's like having a little wild

individual in your own home. Why do you think that throughout history cats have been granted this kind of mythical status? You know, they're worshipped, they're revered, they're mystical. You know, dogs don't have that. You know, all dogs have is Goofy and Pluto. Why are cats so, why have they been so worshipped? Well, I think it's because the cats themselves are not quite domesticated. They're still rather aloof. They are certainly a huge part of our lives, but sometimes they can just be on the periphery and someone sees a wild animal on the periphery and it's very intriguing.

And so you can have that cat just on the edge of the village, but taking care of the rodent population. And sometimes they come right into your living room. And I think all that mystique helps build some of the folklore behind them. And really just watching a cat, they're so graceful and agile. It's kind of watching moving artwork. So they're just very revered all through history. But sometimes they've had some bad times through history as well. Like when?

Oh, well, certainly we discussed some of the issues about the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages when there was lots of trials for witches and they were associated, cats were associated with witches. And hence they got persecuted as along did many people. And so hence, the reduction of the cats potentially helped to allow the increase of the rodent population, which probably helped to foster the bubonic plague. So they've had their bad times in history as well. Well, that's some bad PR right there. Actually, it's kind of amazing that they overcame that. Yeah, and that's because they are so good at living in the wild. They've really basically

domesticated themselves and are not truly domesticated from the point of view that they absolutely need human beings. So they can go feral very easily and take care of themselves. And so if the population gets reduced, they can retract back into the wild, increase their populations again, and then move back into the human environment. Well, I've had cats, and I know plenty of people who have cats, and probably one of the things that is most distasteful about having a cat is how they so often come and leave dead birds on the doorstep. That's what they do. Cats go out and chase prey, and you can't really train that

out of them, right? Yeah, absolutely. And so, I mean, one of certainly the biggest reasons for cats to be in animal shelters is because of behavior problems. And really, the cat doesn't have a behavior problem. The cat's behavior is not conducive to our lifestyle. And so we need the behavior adjustment, actually. But everything is a balance. Sometimes there are too many cats, and sometimes there's cats where they shouldn't be, such as in Hawaii or Australia, and you might have to really address that situation. Wait, what? Why shouldn't cats be in Australia and Hawaii? Cats are not indigenous to a lot of places, including the Americas, but they moved here with the immigrants.

However, there's lots of both ground and tree birds in the United States. But in Hawaii and Australia, most of the fauna there is actually ground-based. And so cats just have decimated a lot of the bird populations and a lot of the small mammal populations in both those areas. And so there's some places where cats just shouldn't be. Have you or has anyone you know looked at, you know, what it is that makes cat people cat people and dog people dog people? Yeah, that's a good question. Sometimes there's just either cat people or there's just dog people. And I think that is really personality based. If If you want an individual, a pet, to be more dependent upon you,

then you're probably a dog person. Where if you just like the beauty of the cat and can tolerate that that individual is not going to really listen to you much and do their own thing a lot of times, then you might be more of a cat person. Cats are certainly more independent, and so they don't need to have their walk every evening, and they have less separation anxiety problems. But, you know, so it really, there's different personalities, peoples,

and there's different pets for different personalities. There's even different breeds that are good for different people. Some breeds are high-strung, like the Abyssinian, very active cat, lots of action. And some are more low-key, like the Persian. What would you say are some of the more fascinating aspects of cats? Perhaps for people who are not necessarily cat people, what is it that you find, or that people who love cats find, so intriguing and wonderful? Well, I think really to stand back and look at a cat and realize what a nearly perfect

animal this is, as far as being at the top of its food chain. They have wonderful sense of hearing, actually at higher ranges than dogs do. So people think, oh, dog, dog whistles, dogs can hear very ultrasonic sounds. Well, cats can even hear at higher ranges because their prey admits sounds at that range. Their sense of smell is also very keen, but also a very keen sense of eyesight. So they have like a very excellent balance of all their senses. And then also they just have excellent balance. You can watch a cat walk across the edge of a fence, and it's truly remarkable of how agile they are.

So to step back and watch all these things in one animal is quite remarkable. And one of the fun things I think is interesting is when you see a brown tabby cat, that cat is not brown at all. If you actually pull out some of the cat's fur, the cat's fur is banded black, yellow, black. And so all the cats you look out there and see that are brown, they really don't have brown pigment at all. They're an optical illusion. So gray cats are actually all black pigment, but it's an optical illusion that makes them look blue or gray.

Do cats have natural enemies? Are they prey for some other animal? Well, certainly dogs can get a hold of cats and in the wild any larger carnivore. But they're pretty quick and agile. So sometimes cats and dogs can be at odds. But usually cats are amongst the highest on the food chain. And probably humans are the most important predator to cats at this point. It almost sounds as if cats aren't really domesticated,

that they could survive in the wild. So are we, as humans, doing them a disservice by domesticating them, putting them in the house and shutting the door and keeping them inside? Oh, I think some do quite fine living in the house. And my own cats at home, they have cat doors. They can come and go when they want. And when I come home, they're there. And they like being around in the house. They enjoy, I think, being with me. And so I think some cats have moved along the scale of evolution to being quite evolved to living in apartments and living in houses. So it's very cat dependent. Some cats that you'll meet are not so

friendly, but still you call that a domestic cat, where others, you know, you can't get them off your lap. So I think it's kind of the scale of the domestication process. I would imagine that to the non-cat person, to the untrained eye, that, you know, cats are cats. They all kind of do the same thing, and they all kind of sit there on the couch, and they just do that, lick themselves and do that thing. But that they don't necessarily have these real distinct personalities, perhaps like a dog does. And my guess is you would argue with that statement. Oh, yes, certainly. I mean, there's often arguments with any type of animal breeding.

Why should you breed cats? Because there's so many feral cats, there's so many cats in shelters. Well, there would probably be less cats in shelters if you had behaviors that matched, just as when you're picking your husband or wife or mate, you're certainly picking a behavior that you enjoy and you want to be around for the rest of your life. Well, the same applies to your companion animal. And with different cats, different breeds have different personalities

and they suit different people. I like the middle-of-the-road cats, where some people like the higher-action cat, like the Abyssinian or the Siamese, and other people like the more laid-back cats. And nice pet cats for your lap are Burmese cats. They're just really pleasant cats to be around as well. Often when we talk about dogs, we talk about mutts, you know, random breeding. There's no

pedigree or anything. Is there an equivalent in cats? Yes. Cats are certainly considered mutts. Some people call them moggies, or usually ferals is the word that gets used, but it all means the same thing. They're random bred. They're breeding on their own. They're making their mate choices. Cats, probably a majority of cats throughout the world, but certainly in the United States, the United States might have the highest percentage of fancy breed cats,

but 80-90% cats of the world are just random bred feral mutt cats. Where dogs, we see a much higher percentage of fancy breed dogs as compared to mutt dogs. But you do hear the argument that mutt dogs make better pets because they don't have all the inbreeding and disease potential and medical problems that a purebred might have. Is the same true with cats? Yes, that certainly does apply. However, what you have to realize is with a feral cat, you have an unknown health situation. So you don't know, you don't know. You can't make any predictions whether that cat will have a heart disease or a kidney

disease. And even random bred cats can have inherited problems. It's just that they're at a lower frequency because they're not inbred as much. Where if you have a breed, at least you can kind of predict what kind of health concerns and you can watch out for them. And really my job is to find the genetic mutations that cause health problems in cats. Are cats, like humans, living longer and healthier as more advances are made in cat medicine? Yes, they're certainly, the more they're in the house,

certainly it's shown that cats that live in the house and under the protection of humans, or at least in a safer environment, probably have a longer lifespan than cats, feral cats just living out in the park. That's because they're getting more consistent food and then protected from really cats get into trouble when they start mating and start fighting,

and so you can get a lot of problems that way. So once neutering your animal is really great to do, neuter or spay your cats and dogs, that really improves their lifespan. But on the contrary, we also see that because they're enjoying our lifestyle, they're starting to have our same health problems. So asthma, diabetes, obesity is rising in our cats just as it is human beings because we're sitting at the computer too much.

It sounds as if, it almost sounds as if, cats could do just fine without us, that they don't need us, unlike dogs, which seem to be much more dependent on us. That's absolutely true. And other than a few breeds that might have some traits that might not be conducive to being out in the wild, most cats probably can just go feral and they'll do just fine. Now, of course, it's going to depend on the environment, whether there's enough live game out there, enough rats and mice and birds. But overall, a cat can go feral at any time. Tell me one more thing about cats that I probably don't know. Let's see. They have

a special sense organ up in the top of their palate, the Jacobson's pit, which a few different animals have, but mostly cats. And that's when they can actually pick up smell on their tongue and they actually stick it up in this organ and you'll look at a cat and you'll say, hey, it's grimacing or it's smiling. Well, it's actually sampling that odor and sticking it up in its organ so it can actually get a better idea of what that smell actually is. So dogs can't do that. Cats can. Well, I know a lot more about cats now than I did before. And I've always understood the appeal. I get the appeal of having a cat.

Like I said in the beginning, I'm more of a dog person. But it's really interesting to hear a little more about them. Professor Leslie Lyons has been my guest. She runs the Lyons Feline Genetic Laboratory at the University of Missouri. And she's a cat lover. Thanks, Leslie. Life has a way of just sucking the joy right out of your day if you're not careful, so here are some ways to fight back and be happy,

starting with a little love in the morning. We all know that sex is a natural mood booster, but morning sex is scientifically proven to give you an extra boost. Researchers have revealed that those who begin their day this way release higher amounts of the feel-good hormone oxytocin and that supplies them with a loving, happy feeling all day long. Sleep on the left side of the bed. A study of 3,000 people showed that those who slept on the left side of the bed. A study of 3,000 people showed that those

who slept on the left side of the bed tended to have a more optimistic outlook. Shorten your commute. In a survey of 4,000 people, those who commuted 20 minutes or less each way were less stressed and had significantly better moods throughout the day. Finally, researchers from Harvard and Princeton underwent a study in which they asked people to watch television in fast forward and come up with solutions to problems quickly. The research revealed that fast thinking and fast watching and fast reading led to feelings of elation, with some of the subjects saying they also felt a heightened sense of creativity and power when they thought this way. Experts suggest this is due to a high level of dopamine, a feel-good hormone, which is released when we think faster. And that is something you should know.

You know, we have great advertisers on this program. They're all checked out. They're all great companies, and I hope you will consider supporting them and doing business with them, because to do that is to support this podcast and keep it running for a long, long time. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Hey, hey, are you ready for some real talk and some fantastic laughs? Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa D. Montz, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? We're serving up for hilarious shows every week designed to entertain and engage and,

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New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. 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 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.

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