Stuff You Should Know - How Curiosity Works

Episode Date: June 16, 2011

Alternately hailed a crucial part of the human condition or accused of killing cats, curiosity remains a subject of debate among researchers. Where does it come from? How does it work? Join Chuck and Josh as they explore the mysterious roots of curiosity. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. What'd you just say? I think that came through. Did it, Jerry? Well, we'll find out eventually. But wait a minute. Let's, we got a little

pluggage to do here at the beginning at the onset, as you know. Okay. Okay. We are making our radio debut. I know. On tomorrow. I know. And it is the awesome, awesome WFMU out of Jersey City and it covers the New York metro area. And it is the oldest freeform radio station in the country and very highly respected in one of my favorite stations because I stream it online, which anyone can do. Yes. So you're going to be able to stream our show online or just listen to it if you live in New York. Right. So WFMU is taking a couple of old podcasts and putting them together into an hour long show that they're going to air. Yeah. Pretty cool stuff. Very cool. And we're Bonafide. We are Bonafide and you can hear that on

if you live in New York, you know, FMU, but in case you don't, it's a 91.1 FM and in Hudson Valley, 90.1. So you can listen to us all over the place up there. Those are total public radio megahertz. Yes. And we are on Friday. I guess we need to say when. Every Friday from seven to eight PM on WFMU, you can hear us or you can stream that online. And your support is appreciated. Yeah. As always. Nice. Let FMU know you like us if you do. And if you don't, just keep it to yourself. Nice Chuck. Thanks. How's it going Chuck? It's going harried and good. Is it you're about to go to LA? Max Funcon. Technically Lake Arrowhead. LA first for a couple of days though. Then Max Funcon. That's right. Yeah. I'm excited for you.

Yeah. You're going to hang out with Jesse Thorn. Jesse Thorn of the esteemed head of the podcasting division of the world. Head of Maximumfun.org and the voice of the sound of young America and Jordan Jesse Go, among others, the dude is a young mogul. I think my title that I just gave him, the title I just gave him, he'd prefer. Which is what? The head of the podcasting division of the world. I didn't even hear that. Sorry. That's how out of it. His buddy in ours, Hodgman, is going to be there. Actually, the part of Josh Clark at this weekend will be played by John Hodgman. Yeah. Uh-huh. That's going to be pretty cool. Totally. You guys are doing Triv together? Yeah. I'm a little nervous. Oh, Chuck. I know. You're going to knock it out of the, come on.

Hey, guess who's there now? I do know. You want me to answer? I told you. Yeah. Andy Richter. Yes. Well, my all-time heroes. Yeah. That's going to be pretty cool. Tell him I said, I can ask for some sidekick advice. Dude, I'm just kidding. All right. Well, we'll probably edit out that with that. Anyway, so. Have a lunch tomorrow with our buddy Luke Ryan. Tell him I said hi on the Paramount Pictures lot. Do you know who's losing her mind right now? Who? KDM. KDM. Beautiful. You already forgot. Good enough. Let's get started. Shall we, Chuck? Great. Okay. Chuck, I have a little bit of a story for you. Okay. I don't remember when I was looking for it, but at some point in time, it occurred to me. I had no idea where the origin of the phrase

curiosity kill the cat came from, right? It's written on my page. What do you have? Oh, I don't have the origin. I just thought, you know, well, I killed the cat so it couldn't be good. You wrote that down? Well, I didn't write that down. You had a note to remember that though? I'm telling you, I went the wrong way to get here to work today. So I'll handle this. Yes. I went and onto the Internet with a capital I and I found that I found that it was attributed to a playwright named Ben Johnson, right? And he wrote a play in 1598. You mean old Ben Johnson that lives out yeah, the immortal Ben Johnson, the one who just won't die? Okay. Yeah, that guy. His play Every Man in His Humor with a U, so you know he's like British. He is the quote,

Helter Skelter, Hang Sorrow, Carol Kill a Cat, Uptails All and a Loose for the Hang Man, whatever that means, right? But he's got Carol kill a cat, meaning like worry you'll kill a cat, which is weird because this is associated with later on worry and curiosity are associated for a little while. Really? Yeah. Finally, we get to 1898. Okay. Right. Exactly 400 300 years later. Yep. And the first old Ben Johnson still around old Ben Johnson. He's he's more secluded than ever. However, we finally get to the Galveston Daily News, right? 400 years later. Isn't that weird? 300 years later. I don't know why I can't subtract 1598 from 1898 and come up with the right number. Yeah. Anyway, in the Galveston Daily News, the first time it appears in print the proverb,

it is once said that curiosity killed the Thomas cat. They couldn't just say it like the right way. Right. Thomas cat is a Tom cat like Tom and Jerry. Right. But we've had it ever since then, 1898. Did you know that? No, I had no back then they called it the Thomas cat. That, well, that was a new thing you just learned. But the fact that I went and looked for that with really no gratification whatsoever, there's nothing offered no one's paying me to go look it up is an example of curiosity. True. It was also part of your job where you get paid to do. But I know what you mean. I don't think it worked into any of the stuff I wrote. Okay. So I did. You've just let the cat out of the bag. That I was asked to write how curiosity

works in part because we have a TV show coming up here in the Discovery family eventually called Curiosity. Yeah. It's going to be huge when it happens. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's coming out this summer. Yeah. Answering a lot of the just really cool questions of life and beyond. Right. And then there's a website that's already running curiosity.com. Yeah, we write for that some too. Yeah. It's very cool. It's worth checking out. But I was asked when all this was going on to write how curiosity works. And I was like, it's not going to be that great. And I wrote it and researched it and wrote it. And I thought this is really great. Yeah. Worth podcasting on. Absolutely. Really. Agreed, sir. So Chuck, have you ever landed an assignment like that?

What? That you thought it wasn't going to be great? And then you ended up being proud of it? Yes. Not even proud of it is like this is not going to be that interesting of an assignment. And it turned out to be good. Like two lungs, one heart. Right. Right. Wow. You really are not showing up today. Are you? I'm here. I'm right here. All right. Well, Chuck, let's talk about curiosity. Well, what you pointed out, which I thought was kind of neat was that it killed the cat theoretically. So the cat wouldn't have done well evolutionarily speaking. Nice. So that's something that sort of flies in the face. Curiosity as a whole sort of flies in the face of evolution because I bring back Tuck Tuck. He's making an appearance back in the day. Tuck Tuck gets a

little curious about what's in the cave. Yeah. Tuck Tuck ends up with a slashed chest from a cave bear. Yeah, cave bear or the clan of the cave bear. Yeah. And so Tuck Tuck's not around. He doesn't reproduce. So his, his offspring won't live on to be more curious. So still humans are curious beyond that. Agreed. Take that, Darwin. Yeah. And that's kind of, that's a, I guess that probably forms the basis of why we don't really understand curiosity, because we can't explain that and we can't explain that because we don't understand it. And we don't understand it because we can't explain it, which is to me seems incredibly appropriate. Right? Oh yeah. Like think about it. So we need, as humans, right? Very limited

stuff. We need a certain amount of water. We need a certain amount of food. Yeah. And we need shelter. And then as a species, we have to reproduce, right? Yeah. That's it. That's all we need. We don't need your modest mouse t-shirts, your last chance garage hats. Yeah. Frankly, your facial hair is a tad superfluous, really. It's not necessary. It's not really doing anything for your survival. No, not for my survival. But if you look around, Chuck, I mean, like, we've got some pretty great stuff going on that enhances our existence that we don't need. Right? So one of the, well, a number of the things that we have that have enhanced our existence are the result of curiosity, right? Like penicillin, Alexander Fleming, right? He said,

what exactly is growing in this Petri dish here? And investigated it and found out that you could save millions and billions of lives with it, right? Yeah. I would say a mini, if not most, of the big advancements we've made have been because of an initial spark of curiosity, at least. But I would even go back to counter, sir, that even like survival does in fact depend on curiosity to a certain degree, because maybe if Tuck-Tuck doesn't go see what's on the other side of that mountain, he doesn't find the rich fields of Will the Beast to hunt when his family is starving. That is very, very good point, Chuck. And I think he revealed something that forms the basis of curiosity. If, for some reason, say he was afraid of finding out what was over the mountain,

he wouldn't ever go. Curiosity exists in antithesis of fear. They're actually counterproductive to one another. Yeah, I thought that was a good point. Yeah. Well, it's not mine. Well, you got it from somewhere? No, there's a whole field of research called curiosity research. There's a guy named George Lowenstein, who I quote pretty early on in the article, basically saying like, whether you understand curiosity or not, it just tried to turn off the television set toward the end of a close football game. You can't do it, right? You are in the world. So what Lowenstein was pointing out was that there's probably a biologic basis to curiosity, and that suggests that it's a drive, right? Yeah. And what I like about this, and you'll

see consistently throughout this podcast, is that curiosity isn't one thing because it's sort of esoteric, but it's also a little like everything you mentioned in here is it's a little bit of both, I think. Okay. Starting with within us or without us. Is it something that exists inside us? Right. Or something outside acting upon us? That's the big question. Yeah. And I think it also, it depends on the situation too, as we'll see. But there's two rival explanations as it stands now for curiosity. And one is that it's within us, and one is that it's without us. So like within us is drive theory, right? You know, like being hungry. It's exactly right. We have a hunger for basically superfluous information, stuff that we don't need to survive right now. And so we

go seek it out in the form of learning a new language or crossword puzzles. But you link the inner drive to this similarity to regular hunger and eating and satisfying that hunger as well. Right. It's this innate thing within us that we just have to satisfy. Okay. That's drive theory. Then there's another theory that says, no, it's a pretty much a response like say an emotion, right? Right. Or pain to an external stimulus. Object specific incongruity. Is that what it's called? Well, it's saying that that's usually curiosity is object specific. And it's called incongruity theory, right? So incongruity theory says that there is a certain order that we can expect to the universe. And when we notice something that is outside of that order,

then we are forced to investigate it. We can't resist investigating it. But that's in reaction to something outside of us. Yeah, but I thought everyone was like this, but it's just not true. No, it's definitely not. And one example you use was why is that truck parked across the street at 2am? That big delivery truck. Right. I would always be curious about that. But I guess some people would just see that and not think anything about it. Well, I think with with the your your it's absolutely true. But there may be something that captures your curiosity or your attention that wouldn't somebody else or somebody might be curious about that picture of Nikola Tesla next to you that you just don't look at, you know. But that could be because your curiosity

satiated about it. Right. So those are the two big rival theories, drive theory and incongruity theory, right? Yes. And also to go a little further on incongruity theory. So say all of a sudden you notice that a pencil was just kind of moving slowly across a desk in front of you. I would wonder about that for sure. At the very least, you would jump up and then look. But there's no way you're not looking. I'm looking around. Right. Immediately. Okay. So that's that's external. Yeah. That's a response to the universe. But the problem is, is that both of these theories do they have a big hole in one one fills the other's big hole. So you put them together and you got maybe a whole unified theory of curiosity. Do you? But well, yeah, I'm close.

It's probably close. Okay. But so the big hole for for incongruity theory is, you know, crossword puzzles aren't an example of disorder in our universe. Right. Why would somebody go out and seek it? Drive theory, I can't think of their it's big hole. But there's there's a there's a hole there and I can't remember it. But it's in for my money, drive theories, the more correct of the two carries last. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table without any drugs.

Of course, yes, they can do that in on the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Marcel Swiley, that dude and host of more to it, a new iHeart original podcast that takes

a deep dive into the biggest topics in sports, entertainment and culture. The journey begins with headline news, which leads to deeper discussions about life lessons that are presented in every story. Each week, we tackle subjects and issues beyond the public's perception and narrative to learn more about the stories and about ourselves, hosted by someone who defied the odds to go from Compton to the Ivy League and then played 10 years as an all pro defense event. This is not your typical sports show with topics ranging from the social ills that surround us all to the character growth that occurs from overcoming adversity. You'll get inspired hearing stories that highlight the growing pains that fuels anyone on a successful journey. You'll

leave every episode with a greater understanding that no matter the story, the person or outcome, there is always more to it. Found on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you find your favorite shows. So there's a further way to subdivide curiosity beyond these theories. And this is slightly more, slightly less theoretical and more observational. Yeah, this is why I think we studied this in school. I remember studying this a little bit. Oh yeah. Okay, we'll take it away, Chuck. Not in depth, but because it was high school. But state and trait, those are the classifications of the two types of curiosity, and they describe how we engage in curious behavior. So state curiosity would be the pencil

moving on its own and being curious about that. It's basically, by state, they mean, don't they mean like circumstantial almost situational? Yeah, like there's something going on right then, right? It's fleeting. And it could be anything from like that truck or that pencil to standing at a funeral and thinking about death. Yeah, but if you're just thinking about death in the afterlife, that's trait curiosity, right? Unless you're at the funeral. Yes, right? Yeah, it depends. So with trait curiosity, remember when we talked about happiness in that one audio book? Oh yeah. Yeah. So remember state versus trait? Uh-huh. So there's state happiness like winning the lottery, but you always went back to your baseline? Yes. This applies very much so to the

same, to curiosity as well. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So with state curiosity, it's situational. With trait curiosity, it's like your whole life. Say, Ernest Becker, he would have been trait curious about death. Yeah. Because he thought about it outside of funerals, he thought about it a lot. And because it was his life's work, you could make the case that he had a depth of trait curiosity for death. Yes. Which is a further subcategorization of curiosity, right? Right. And the, you know, the trait obviously is just, you're probably born curious. You have a lifelong interest just for the sake of learning things. But you also tag on here that it is also linked to all kinds of things like arson and fearlessness in experimentation with drugs. Yeah. So there's

a downside to that. Whereas the first state curiosity is a little more related to reward, even though they both can lead to reward. Like excitement or a sense of satiation. Yeah. Satiating. Yeah. Satiating. Yeah. Satiousness. I'm curious what the correct pronunciation is. See, I'm not. With what you were saying, though, with trait curiosity, though, Chuck, the fact that it does have a dark side to it, overall, it's generally viewed as a very, very positive thing, highly encouraged, except for this one period in the West when curiosity was reviled during the Middle Ages. St. Augustine. St. Augustine and his confessions in, I think, like 392. A fun killer. Basically said, like, God has a special place in hell for the curious.

Right. Because I think that was pretty much the quote. Yeah. Don't ask too many questions, basically. Well, yeah. Don't question things. And it detracts from the time that you have to think about God and your relationship with God and how great God is. So this is a very brief period of time where curiosity was downplayed or denounced or whatever. Yeah. Otherwise, it's encouraged for the most part. Very much so. You want your kids to be curious. You want your parents and grandparents to still be curious, you know, that whole cycle of life thing. Right. Because I know you linked, you found one study of Alzheimer's patients who they display a very low level of curiosity. Yeah. And that's sad. The older you can keep that brain vital, we talk

about it a lot, but curiosity has a lot to do with that, I think. Yes. And fear also tends to increase in Alzheimer's. Oh, really? Yeah, they're negatively correlated. One goes up, the other goes down, generally. Oh, right. Because you said that fear, basically, curiosity gets you out of your comfort zone and fear keeps you in it. Right. That's exactly right. The constant path. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute a 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the

prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Yeah. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Marcel Swiley, that dude and host of more to it, a new iHeart original podcast that takes

a deep dive into the biggest topics in sports, entertainment and culture. The journey begins with headline news, which leads to deeper discussions about life lessons that are presented in every story. Each week we tackle subjects and issues beyond the public's perception and narrative to learn more about the stories and about ourselves, hosted by someone who defied the odds to go from Compton to the Ivy League and then played 10 years as an all pro defense event. This is not your typical sports show with topics ranging from the social ills that surround us all to the character growth that occurs from overcoming adversity. You'll get inspired hearing stories that highlight the growing pains that fuels anyone on a successful journey. You'll leave every episode

with a greater understanding that no matter the story, the person or outcome, there is always more to it. Found on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you find your favorite shows. So we were talking about trait curiosity and that it can be subdivided even further. Those two categories are depth and breadth. So if you're interested in a lot of different things, but you're constantly interested in something new, maybe, that's breadth of curiosity. There's just a lot of different things that appeal to you. But if you're interested in the French language and you start studying it back to pre-Roman era, where Johnny Fuller here with the piano. Does he know the piano pretty well? Yeah, he didn't just like say,

learn how to play the piano. He's learning theory and he's learning about how pianos are constructed and he's learning about the history of plucking a string and what that means to his life. That's very much a depth. So either way, that's just great though. I think it depends on the mood of society. I remember which is better. When we were in school, colleges wanted kids that were really well-rounded. They wanted people with a breadth of curiosity. And nowadays, they want their campus to have a breadth of curiosity by having people with depth, depth, deep curiosity, a bunch of different people. No, no, students. Yeah, man, I know state universities have to make you take your base courses and all, but I think all colleges should

really just let you take what you want to take. Do you think they should be free? No, I don't know about that. I think they should be free. I mean, that'd be great if they were free. I mean, Georgia, when we went there, might as well have been free. It's like 500 bucks a quarter. It was really cheap. But I would have easily traded in the classes that I could still don't care about now for a lot more of the ones that I really enjoyed and were interested in. I did. It worked like a chunk. That's a good point, my friend. So Chuck, we've covered pretty much all of the angles, I guess, all of the science of it so far. Curiosity has existed mostly in the realm of

psychologists, cognitive behavioralists, I believe, who really took up the mantle and started investigating it. I think the 50s or 60s. And they came up with some pretty cool ideas. But I think really what's been settled on, and I think it's probably correct. We just haven't been able to fully flesh it out, is that there is some sort of internal drive that makes us curious. And then it has to be satiated. Right? Yeah, it starts, you point out, it starts with babies, obviously. That's how you learn simple things like the stove is hot and the floor is hard. And closing that door on my finger will make me cry. Daddy upset. That's or I will lose feeling in my hand forever,

like that one listener who wrote in today, right? Yeah. But the implication of that is, okay, well, there's an example of what we get for being curious. We learn about the world around us. We gain experience up to a certain age and beyond. Well, then why doesn't curiosity just dissipate entirely? Well, Josh, because we want to be distracted in our brains and you found a cool study they did in the 50s and 60s where they took people in, I guess, was it solitary confinement? They were doing brainwashing studies. Do you remember when we, when we did brainwashing and like those guys came back from Korea? Oh, yeah. I suspect that it was the same really same research. Okay, so brainwash people would sit around and with when nothing else is

going on, they would prefer to have like an old stock report read to them over and over. Yeah, the same same one just to have some sort of source of stimulation, mental stimulation in the face of complete sensory deprivation. Yeah, right. So that's why that's one one. There's and it's not just humans either rats exhibit this kind of thing where they'll start exploring mazes even though they there's no expectation of food, right? Monkeys kept in cages with windows that have sliding covers, I guess, yeah, will open to look out just to look out for the heck of it. Yeah. Yeah. They finally found what amounts to a curious gene, right? Yeah, I mean, after I mean, you can get cognitive psychologists to say till they're blue in the face that a curiosity is

going to eventually lead to your personality and identity. And that's great. Well, that's a big one though. Let's talk about that. No, that's a big one. That's a that that makes just complete another sense to me, right? Yeah, me too. Like if you think about it, curiosity is is going out and gaining experience, right? And a lot of our identity is the experience that we've gained the the knowledge we have the intellect we have. It's what makes us interesting to other people, right? So and because curiosity is different in every single person to varying degrees, the different type, each person kind of helps mold their own identity through their own curiosity. And that is why curious people are attracted to other curious people. Yeah, that was a pretty

interesting study. I think it was from like University of Texas in 2004. And they found just what we said high levels of trait curiosity predict how they felt about one another. Right. So they found that people who shared the same levels of trait curiosity were attracted to people with the similar similar levels. But you could put people who had that same level of curiosity, but had different outlooks on life, positive or negative, right? Overrode that, right? Yeah, it was it was a bigger indicator of attractiveness. That makes sense though, because that's kind of that's your outlook on life almost as your curiosity, not positive or negative, but like, what do you want to do? Do you want to sit on the couch or do you want to

go see what's on top of that mountain? Right. And and it doesn't matter what mood you're in while we do it. No, the wife, wife, I want to go over there until it's on top of the mountain. The husband says, I'd rather watch the Packers game. And the wife just shoots him in the chest because she's just so tired of that answer. Do you know how many times a year that happens? At least four times a year. So Chuck, we were on the gene though, right? Yeah, back. You were saying like, I think what you're saying was cognitive psychologists are talking about the symptom of the action of a gene, right? Yeah, which you can study like, correlatively, correlatively, I'm curious. But when when if you want to talk the brain and science,

they've pinpointed a gene, the DRD for gene as being responsible for creating dopamine in the curious, is that right? In the bird in the curious great tit songbird, which are known to be fairly curious birds, right? With a silly, silly name. Yeah. And they, yeah, they found that by enhancing and repressing the expression of this gene, the birds became more or less curious, like exploring different parts of their cages or billing nests in strange places. It's very sad science, but it's science nonetheless, right? Right. But the same thing happens in humans. Dopamine is our reward center. And so we get flooded with dopamine just like we would when we eat get a reward for, yeah, like a big fat steak or a big vegan crunch ball. So delicious. I'm off the vegan crunch balls

these days. But you get rewarded with dopamine that way. So curiosity is reinforced through those reward centers. Well, that's like scientifically boom goes the dynamite right there, right? Because anytime dopamine's present, it means that you're hardwired to do that thing. Yeah. That's that's how we learn to repeat behavior, the release of dopamine. And we say, oh, this feels good. I'm going to do it again. Oh, I like this. I'm going to do it again. Yeah. Or, you know, low fat milk or I'm going to go set this billing on fire because it felt really good. And I'm curious, right? Or volunteer to take part in Hands Across America. Same thing. Yeah. Virtually on the on the cellular level, it's the same exact thing. Right. Setting fires

are taking part in Hands Across America is the same thing. Yep. We're just a big bag of genes and cells. Right. But in humans, I don't believe it's the same in the Great Tit Songbird. But in humans, a little part of our hippocampus called the dentate gyrus appears to be implicated as the big curiosity region, right? Yep. It accepts dopamine, right? Is a form of payment. Yes. And the hippo, this region of the hippocampus and the hippocampus itself, one of its functions, as we talked about, I think, in the memory podcast, is to differentiate between already experienced and novel situations. Yeah. Because if we couldn't differentiate, then hey, it's good to meet you every single time. Wouldn't that be nice? We would just do the same podcast over and

over again, and everybody would keep listening to the same podcast over and over again, and it'd just be just as thrilling every time. Good. Let's get stuck on the Muppets loop and just do that. That'd be a good one. I could do that one. I could do Twinkies. Every single time. All right. Well, I guess we'll just do, we should probably agree on one right now. Which one? Twuppets. Sorry. Let's put it together. You good? Yes. Is your curiosity satiated? Yeah. I mean, I guess we should anecdotally just say, or I will say that I've always been a very curious person. So I have, I have a, I was born with it. I have a breadth and a depth depending on what my main interest is. And so I've always been pretty curious. I have, too. I would say, though, that

there's always been a healthy mix of fear and curiosity. Sure. I would say it's fairly close to balanced. And yeah, I don't have enough fear in my life. I don't think I ever have. Really? Yeah. Well, not a lot of bad things have happened to you. That's what you think. Chuck Bryant, mysterious, mysterious man. So you good? I'm good. All right. Well, if you want to learn more about curiosity, brother, sister, we got a whole site for you. It's called curiosity.com. We're totally shilling for it at this moment, but not because we have to. It is very cool site. Yeah, we didn't even get asked to do this. Watch, they're going to ask us to do this in a few weeks. We're going to say done, done and done. And they'll be like, ooh, can you rerecord that intro? Exactly. Yeah.

So that's curiosity.com, which is a sister site of our beloved and esteemed howstuffworks.com, right? Right. Which is where you can find how curiosity works. And since I said howstuffworks.com and in there is implied the word handy search bar, that means it's time for listener mail. That's right, Josh. And quickly before listener mail, I personally want to issue an apology to those of you that took offense when I said walleye and disco eye to for people who have the condition with strabismus. Yeah, with a lazy eye. I have a friend with a lazy eye. He always called it a disco eye. I always thought it was hysterical when he did so. He thought it was funny. We all laughed. Not everyone thinks those things are

funny. And I was pretty insensitive when I just threw those words out there, because it is a condition a lot of people feel really bad about. So good for you, Chuck. I want to just apologize for saying that. That was very grown up. That's not what we're about. And if you want to know how I feel about strabismus, type in strabismus and blogs and howstuffworks.com into the search engine, your favorite search engine, and it'll bring up a blog post on it, complete with a little cross-eyed Asian girl. This is, I'm going to call this for a good cause from Kristen. We got a lot of those back a few months ago when we talked about your good cause thing. Well, when we called for, hey, if you got a good cause. And this is one that I've been meaning to read for a while.

Hi, guys. And Jerry just finished to the one on cults, who is the leader. And at the end, Josh called for people to write in with projects that will better humanity. I think I have a good one. I have the great fortune of working for an incredible international humanitarian organization called World Bicycle Relief. Check us out at www.worldbicyclerelief.org. You're going to beep that out until our check clears, right? Yeah. I live and work in Zambia in Southern Africa, and we build bicycles that we give to folks in need. Pretty simple. That's great. We are currently doing a distribution of 50,000 bicycles over the next three years. That's 10,000 bicycle wheels. That's right. What? 500,000. Oh, man. Let's just beep that part out. If they were giving out

unicycles, it'd be, oh, 25. Just go ahead. Sorry. Through the Ministry of Education to help students and teachers access school. One of the things I think is super cool is it is 70% of our bikes go to children, girl children, females being disadvantaged and often left out of education and developing countries like Guatemala. We give them to girls because they give the bike to the boy and the family so he can get educated. That's as old as the hills. That's right. Our project is the bike. Our project is actively increasing attendance of all children at Zambian schools. I love my job. It's better in humanity, promoting education, providing access to health care, and assisting with financial stability. Plus, exercise is good for you. That's right. She

encourages to visit Zambia. She said it's pretty awesome. Sweet. And she's been there for four years ago listening to us since then. And ours is one of her favorites. We'll take it. Definitely. That is christintyworldbicyclerelief.org. That's great. Thank you, Kristen. We appreciate that. Well, if you have something you've always been curious about and not something stupid, but something like cool that we could possibly answer, we want to know. Don't be stupid. I'm curious how a thermos works. How does it know? Hot or cold? Also, if you, that's not stupid, I just can't answer that. It's insulation. It doesn't matter if it's hot or cold. It just insulates. Oh, a thermos. I thought you meant a thermometer. Gotcha. So if you have something you're curious

about, tell us. We want to know and we'll try to figure it out. And if you have a podcast that, if we had to podcast the same podcast over and over and over again, what would it be? We want to know whether we recorded it or not. Maybe it'll bring up a good idea. Send those to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join HouseDefork staff as we explore them as promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff,

stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil answer for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Check out the podcast, Good Assassins, the unbelievable but true story of the greatest spy of World War II. A mysterious agent is strategically dismantling the Nazi's violent grasp on France. They don't know her name, but they want this woman dead. They send a devious double agent to hunt down the limping lady, but Virginia Hall was tougher than they expected.

Listen to Good Assassins on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcast.