August 15, 2016 • 11 mins
Humpback whales save other sea creatures from orca attacks. The parasitic Guinea worm, faced with extinction, has jumped from human hosts to a new species. Plus, your personality may shape your taste in music more than any other factor.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Kristin Conger and I'm Caroline Irvin, and we're hosts
of the podcast Stuff Mom Never told you. That gets
down to the business of being women from every imaginable angle.
That's right. Kristen and I skillfully decode the biology, psychology,
and sociology of ladies and gents from their evolutionary past
a millennial present to better understand all of that stuff
(00:21):
Mom never told you. No offense moms Now be sure
to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to House
to Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum, a researcher
and writer here at How Stuff Works. Every week, I'm
bringing you three stories from our team about the weird
(00:43):
and wondrous developments that we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
This week, humpback whales are the righteous vigilantes of the sea,
saving other animals from killer whales and unrelated. Just as
we humans have almost eradicated the parasitic anyworm, the creators
have jumped to a new host species. But first, Senior
(01:04):
writer and unabashed they might be giants. Super fan Jonathan
Strickland reports on a study into musical tastes and personality
The study concludes that your personality traits have a bigger
influence on the type of music you like than your
socio economic status, your gender, your age, or your cultural background.
So what does your playlist say about you? It's not
(01:28):
news that music can affect your mood. The typical medical
waiting room has soothing songs to help ease tension and anxiety.
Jim's Pump in the upbeat driving music to motivate people
to get moving, and I like listening to melodramatic show
tunes after a hard day, no judging, this is a
safe space. But beyond affecting our moods, our musical tastes
(01:49):
are linked to our personalities, and now we know that
the two are more closely related than previously thought because science.
A team of researchers from Stanford in the University of
Cambridge conducted studies on musical taste and personality, but they
almost immediately disregarded the concept of music genres. That's because
(02:10):
genres are fuzzy categories that are really only useful to
the music industry for marketing purposes. Within each genre, you'll
find very different types of music. One song may have
a faster beaten poppy lyrics, while another slows things down
and challenges the listener with complex melodies. Even though both
songs are in the same genre, the team wanted to
go a level deeper than genre to the qualities that
(02:32):
define Western music. They identified three broad dimensions of music, arousal, valence,
and depth. A song with an intense beat and driving
music has a high rating, and arousal valence is a
term in psychology that refers to emotional reactions. Generally speaking,
positive valence means the music is happy, and negative valence
(02:53):
means the music is sad. And depth is a measure
of a song's complexity. Simple tunes have low depth. The
researchers conducted surveys in which nine thousand, five hundred people
listened to short clips of music unfamiliar to them. The
subjects rated the clips, which represented a wide variety of
music with different levels of arousal valence and depth. The
(03:14):
subjects also took a personality test, and that's when the
team saw how the same personality types gravitated toward music
with similar levels of those three dimensions. According to the researchers,
open minded liberals gravitate toward complex music with high depth,
The more neurotic among us tend to listen to high intensity,
emotionally negative tunes. Extroverts like me tend to like happy
(03:37):
songs with positive valence, which is why I serenade the
office with Walking on Sunshine at least once a month.
Perhaps we'll be able to learn more about ourselves by
taking a closer look at the music that moves us,
and services like Spotify or Pandora could use this research
to tweak recommendation algorithms so that you're more likely to
hear stuff that appeals to you based on your personality.
(03:59):
Beyond that, music can help improve physical and mental health.
Who knows, maybe in the future, the docs prescription will read,
listen to two Wheezer albums and call me in the morning.
Next up, my fellow writer and researcher Christian Saker brings
us the story of how humpback whales frequently intervene in
(04:19):
orca attacks on other animals. But why are they altruistic?
Are they keeping killer whales in their place or humpbacks
out for revenge? A pod of killer whales in Antarctica
has a seal cornered on an ice flow. Just as
they knock it off and close in for the kill.
A humpback whale bursts upward beneath them. It uses its
(04:42):
flippers to hold the seal on its upturned belly, keeping
it out of the water until the predators leave. We
all love it when someone stands up to a bully,
and there are records of humpbacks saving all kinds of
animals from killer whales, including sea lions, sunfish, sea wills,
and gray whales. But are they doing this intentionally? Are
(05:04):
humpbacks the superheroes of the sea. The marine ecologist who
saw the humpback seal scenario I just described is Robert Pittman.
His team has published a new study in the Journal
of Marine Mammal Science that takes a closer look at
what's going on here. An adult humpback is so enormous
that it's pretty much invulnerable to a group of killer whales,
(05:25):
and when it gets in the middle of a brawl,
it uses its massive pectoral flippers to basically say ah,
hell no, step back son. They slap the water and bellow,
pushing the killer whales back. This mobbing behavior is a
response we also see in birds, insects, fish, and other
mammals to chase off potential predators. Humpbacks have foiled killer
(05:47):
whales everywhere from Antarctica to the North Pacific. Sometimes they
even work in pairs and will travel over two kilometers
to ruin a killer whale hunt, They've been observed to
keep fighting for up to seven hours until the prey
can escape. The team's research looked at a hundred and
fifteen documented interactions between humpbacks and killer whales from nineteen
(06:09):
fifty one to two thousand and twelve, and they found
that almost exclusively, they went after mammal eating killer whales
instead of those that just eat fish. We're talking more
like the nineteen seventies seven horror movie Orca than we
are free Willie here. And while humpbacks do mob killer
whales attacking their own calves eight nine percent of the time,
(06:31):
they're saving other species entirely. So why are humpbacks doing this.
They're not known to mingle with these other species in
any other circumstance. Pittman's team thinks the humpbacks are drawn
to the scene by the sounds killer whales make during
their attack, and there's three possible motivations driving this behavior.
One a proactive warning to killer whales not to mess
(06:52):
with their kin to altruism or three pure revenge. Since
killer whales do attack young humpbacks, it's possible the adults
respond to all attacks with extreme prejudice. But humpbacks are
capable of sophisticated thinking and communication, so it's also plausible
that they display a regard for other species. Dolphins do,
(07:15):
and so do we sometimes. But what if it's simply
humpback reciprocity for past killer whale attacks on their family?
Remember that shark and Jaws for the revenge. It's like that,
except for instead of chasing Michael Caine there after killer whales.
Or maybe we shouldn't try to interpret their behavior through
human experience at all. There's more research to be done,
(07:37):
and even Pittman contends that this behavior may unintentionally arise
out of self interest. We just don't understand yet. Finally,
this week, senior writer Robert Lamb has some parasites for
us you might not want to be eating during this segment.
(07:59):
For the President, Jimmy Carter has vowed to see the
last guinea worm die before he does, and with the
parasite eradicated from all but four countries, he's close, but
now the enemy has found a new place to hide.
Man's best friend, the guinea worm dracoon Callis metaninsus, is
(08:20):
a horrific human parasite. It's larva, in fact, tiny freshwater
copa pods, which then enter the human digestive system through
unfiltered drinking water. The larva then tunnel their way through
the host stomach and intestinal walls, where they mature and
turn the human abdominal cavity into their own kinky sex cave.
The males die in there, but each two foot long
(08:42):
fertilized female migrates to the host skin, generally somewhere on
the lower body, and causes an excruciating blister to form.
When the host attempts to relieve the blister with immersion
in water, the female seems to sense the temperature change,
bursts out of the blister and excretes her foul larva
to begin the cycle and new The entire human portion
(09:02):
of this life cycle takes about a year, and that's
when a plague of other symptoms pop up in the
human host fever, itching, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and dizziness. Secondary
bacterial infections commonly been resulting painful disability that can disrupt
the individual's ability to work, attend school, or care for
family members. Now, this disability period typically last eight and
(09:23):
a half weeks, according to the CDC, but it can
sometimes prove permanent. That's why the Carter Foundation has waged
a war of extermination on the guinea worm, cutting known
infections down by nine point nine from three point five
million cases in six to just seven cases so far
in twenty six. But with victory so close at hand,
(09:44):
this inhuman adversary has now a new place to hide.
Just as the alien and John Carpenter's The Thing took
the form of a dog to outwit its human hunters,
so too has the guinea worm jumped to man's best friend.
As reported by mp ARE, dogs and Chad began experiencing
guinea worm infections three years ago, sometimes harboring as many
(10:05):
as sixty two worms per host. Now, researchers aren't sure
exactly how the jump occurred or how the cornered parasites
are reaching their new host species, but six hundred dog
infections popped up in Chad this year alone. Part of
the problem is that dog ownership and Chad, as with
much of the world isn't quite like it is in
the United States. The animals generally enjoy semi feral free reign,
(10:28):
but they need to be tied up for a solid
two week block if the worms are to safely leave
their body and die on dry land. So the Carter
Center is currently providing collars and change. They're paying individuals
to tie up their dogs in an attempt to corner
the guinea worm and push this organism ever closer to
the tipping point of total eradications. That's our show for
(10:51):
this week. I hope we haven't put you off your lunch.
Thank you so much for tuning in. Subscribe now for
more of the latest and strangest science news and send
us a links to anything you'd like to hear his cover,
plus your favorite place to go in New York City.
We've got a field trip coming up. Shoot us an
email at now podcast at how stuff works dot com,
and to access thousands of other stories like these, check
(11:13):
out our home planet now dot how stuff works dot com.
I'm Kristin Conger and I'm Caroline Irvin, and we're hosts
of the podcast Stuff Mom Never told you. That gets
down to the business of being women from every imaginable angle.
That's right. Kristen and I skillfully decode the biology, psychology,
and sociology of ladies and gents from their evolutionary past
a millennial present to better understand all of that stuff
(00:21):
Mom never told you. No offense moms Now be sure
to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to House
to Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum, a researcher
and writer here at How Stuff Works. Every week, I'm
bringing you three stories from our team about the weird
(00:43):
and wondrous developments that we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
This week, humpback whales are the righteous vigilantes of the sea,
saving other animals from killer whales and unrelated. Just as
we humans have almost eradicated the parasitic anyworm, the creators
have jumped to a new host species. But first, Senior
(01:04):
writer and unabashed they might be giants. Super fan Jonathan
Strickland reports on a study into musical tastes and personality
The study concludes that your personality traits have a bigger
influence on the type of music you like than your
socio economic status, your gender, your age, or your cultural background.
So what does your playlist say about you? It's not
(01:28):
news that music can affect your mood. The typical medical
waiting room has soothing songs to help ease tension and anxiety.
Jim's Pump in the upbeat driving music to motivate people
to get moving, and I like listening to melodramatic show
tunes after a hard day, no judging, this is a
safe space. But beyond affecting our moods, our musical tastes
(01:49):
are linked to our personalities, and now we know that
the two are more closely related than previously thought because science.
A team of researchers from Stanford in the University of
Cambridge conducted studies on musical taste and personality, but they
almost immediately disregarded the concept of music genres. That's because
(02:10):
genres are fuzzy categories that are really only useful to
the music industry for marketing purposes. Within each genre, you'll
find very different types of music. One song may have
a faster beaten poppy lyrics, while another slows things down
and challenges the listener with complex melodies. Even though both
songs are in the same genre, the team wanted to
go a level deeper than genre to the qualities that
(02:32):
define Western music. They identified three broad dimensions of music, arousal, valence,
and depth. A song with an intense beat and driving
music has a high rating, and arousal valence is a
term in psychology that refers to emotional reactions. Generally speaking,
positive valence means the music is happy, and negative valence
(02:53):
means the music is sad. And depth is a measure
of a song's complexity. Simple tunes have low depth. The
researchers conducted surveys in which nine thousand, five hundred people
listened to short clips of music unfamiliar to them. The
subjects rated the clips, which represented a wide variety of
music with different levels of arousal valence and depth. The
(03:14):
subjects also took a personality test, and that's when the
team saw how the same personality types gravitated toward music
with similar levels of those three dimensions. According to the researchers,
open minded liberals gravitate toward complex music with high depth,
The more neurotic among us tend to listen to high intensity,
emotionally negative tunes. Extroverts like me tend to like happy
(03:37):
songs with positive valence, which is why I serenade the
office with Walking on Sunshine at least once a month.
Perhaps we'll be able to learn more about ourselves by
taking a closer look at the music that moves us,
and services like Spotify or Pandora could use this research
to tweak recommendation algorithms so that you're more likely to
hear stuff that appeals to you based on your personality.
(03:59):
Beyond that, music can help improve physical and mental health.
Who knows, maybe in the future, the docs prescription will read,
listen to two Wheezer albums and call me in the morning.
Next up, my fellow writer and researcher Christian Saker brings
us the story of how humpback whales frequently intervene in
(04:19):
orca attacks on other animals. But why are they altruistic?
Are they keeping killer whales in their place or humpbacks
out for revenge? A pod of killer whales in Antarctica
has a seal cornered on an ice flow. Just as
they knock it off and close in for the kill.
A humpback whale bursts upward beneath them. It uses its
(04:42):
flippers to hold the seal on its upturned belly, keeping
it out of the water until the predators leave. We
all love it when someone stands up to a bully,
and there are records of humpbacks saving all kinds of
animals from killer whales, including sea lions, sunfish, sea wills,
and gray whales. But are they doing this intentionally? Are
(05:04):
humpbacks the superheroes of the sea. The marine ecologist who
saw the humpback seal scenario I just described is Robert Pittman.
His team has published a new study in the Journal
of Marine Mammal Science that takes a closer look at
what's going on here. An adult humpback is so enormous
that it's pretty much invulnerable to a group of killer whales,
(05:25):
and when it gets in the middle of a brawl,
it uses its massive pectoral flippers to basically say ah,
hell no, step back son. They slap the water and bellow,
pushing the killer whales back. This mobbing behavior is a
response we also see in birds, insects, fish, and other
mammals to chase off potential predators. Humpbacks have foiled killer
(05:47):
whales everywhere from Antarctica to the North Pacific. Sometimes they
even work in pairs and will travel over two kilometers
to ruin a killer whale hunt, They've been observed to
keep fighting for up to seven hours until the prey
can escape. The team's research looked at a hundred and
fifteen documented interactions between humpbacks and killer whales from nineteen
(06:09):
fifty one to two thousand and twelve, and they found
that almost exclusively, they went after mammal eating killer whales
instead of those that just eat fish. We're talking more
like the nineteen seventies seven horror movie Orca than we
are free Willie here. And while humpbacks do mob killer
whales attacking their own calves eight nine percent of the time,
(06:31):
they're saving other species entirely. So why are humpbacks doing this.
They're not known to mingle with these other species in
any other circumstance. Pittman's team thinks the humpbacks are drawn
to the scene by the sounds killer whales make during
their attack, and there's three possible motivations driving this behavior.
One a proactive warning to killer whales not to mess
(06:52):
with their kin to altruism or three pure revenge. Since
killer whales do attack young humpbacks, it's possible the adults
respond to all attacks with extreme prejudice. But humpbacks are
capable of sophisticated thinking and communication, so it's also plausible
that they display a regard for other species. Dolphins do,
(07:15):
and so do we sometimes. But what if it's simply
humpback reciprocity for past killer whale attacks on their family?
Remember that shark and Jaws for the revenge. It's like that,
except for instead of chasing Michael Caine there after killer whales.
Or maybe we shouldn't try to interpret their behavior through
human experience at all. There's more research to be done,
(07:37):
and even Pittman contends that this behavior may unintentionally arise
out of self interest. We just don't understand yet. Finally,
this week, senior writer Robert Lamb has some parasites for
us you might not want to be eating during this segment.
(07:59):
For the President, Jimmy Carter has vowed to see the
last guinea worm die before he does, and with the
parasite eradicated from all but four countries, he's close, but
now the enemy has found a new place to hide.
Man's best friend, the guinea worm dracoon Callis metaninsus, is
(08:20):
a horrific human parasite. It's larva, in fact, tiny freshwater
copa pods, which then enter the human digestive system through
unfiltered drinking water. The larva then tunnel their way through
the host stomach and intestinal walls, where they mature and
turn the human abdominal cavity into their own kinky sex cave.
The males die in there, but each two foot long
(08:42):
fertilized female migrates to the host skin, generally somewhere on
the lower body, and causes an excruciating blister to form.
When the host attempts to relieve the blister with immersion
in water, the female seems to sense the temperature change,
bursts out of the blister and excretes her foul larva
to begin the cycle and new The entire human portion
(09:02):
of this life cycle takes about a year, and that's
when a plague of other symptoms pop up in the
human host fever, itching, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and dizziness. Secondary
bacterial infections commonly been resulting painful disability that can disrupt
the individual's ability to work, attend school, or care for
family members. Now, this disability period typically last eight and
(09:23):
a half weeks, according to the CDC, but it can
sometimes prove permanent. That's why the Carter Foundation has waged
a war of extermination on the guinea worm, cutting known
infections down by nine point nine from three point five
million cases in six to just seven cases so far
in twenty six. But with victory so close at hand,
(09:44):
this inhuman adversary has now a new place to hide.
Just as the alien and John Carpenter's The Thing took
the form of a dog to outwit its human hunters,
so too has the guinea worm jumped to man's best friend.
As reported by mp ARE, dogs and Chad began experiencing
guinea worm infections three years ago, sometimes harboring as many
(10:05):
as sixty two worms per host. Now, researchers aren't sure
exactly how the jump occurred or how the cornered parasites
are reaching their new host species, but six hundred dog
infections popped up in Chad this year alone. Part of
the problem is that dog ownership and Chad, as with
much of the world isn't quite like it is in
the United States. The animals generally enjoy semi feral free reign,
(10:28):
but they need to be tied up for a solid
two week block if the worms are to safely leave
their body and die on dry land. So the Carter
Center is currently providing collars and change. They're paying individuals
to tie up their dogs in an attempt to corner
the guinea worm and push this organism ever closer to
the tipping point of total eradications. That's our show for
(10:51):
this week. I hope we haven't put you off your lunch.
Thank you so much for tuning in. Subscribe now for
more of the latest and strangest science news and send
us a links to anything you'd like to hear his cover,
plus your favorite place to go in New York City.
We've got a field trip coming up. Shoot us an
email at now podcast at how stuff works dot com,
and to access thousands of other stories like these, check
(11:13):
out our home planet now dot how stuff works dot com.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.