Yes it did, but also no, it didn’t. Before we get into specifics, what was the red phone? The red phone was said to be a direct line of communication between the Pentagon and the Kremlin in Russia, set up in August 1963 after the Cuban missile crisis of the previous year. This episode was, as you may know, a kind of paroxysm of the Cold War. The Americans and Russians were never as close to war as they were when Moscow pointed missiles from Cuba at the United States. See acast.com/privacy for pr...
Mar 11, 2021•2 min
You may have noticed that maintaining eye contact while speaking can be difficult, even though verbal processing seems like it should be independent. Still, many people frequently look away from their conversers while chatting. So is there an interference between the two processes? Well actually, yes. There is scientific evidence supporting that it is more difficult for us to look someone directly in the eye when having a conversation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. H...
Mar 10, 2021•2 min
You may have experienced this feeling: you are stuck in a traffic jam or at the bank, in a line that doesn't move forward. You find yourself thinking that you made the wrong choice, and if you had chosen a different line or lane, it would be moving faster. Two medical researchers in Canada have looked at this phenomenon to see if there is any validity to this feeling. Is there a psychological basis for it, or is it the result of real observation? The result: this thought comes from an illusion o...
Mar 09, 2021•2 min
Tea bags are by no means new inventions, but their origins may come as a surprise to you. Contrary to what you might expect, we don't owe the invention to the famous tea-loving British Isles, but actually to an American. Tea bags date back to 1908. Technically speaking, it was a little earlier, 5 years prior, that a patent was filed for the first silk tea bag. But these tea bags were initially used for tasting. They were used to present small samples and to preserve the flavor of the tea leaves....
Mar 08, 2021•2 min
The “Wicked Bible,” also known as the “Sinner’s Bible” is the reprint of the King James' Bible published in 1631, in London, by the royal printers Barker and Lucas. This English translation of the Bible was made at the request of James I of England, and this Bible replaced the previous authorized version at the time, becoming the standard Bible for the Church of England. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Mar 07, 2021•2 min
Champagne is a sparkling wine produced from 3 grape varieties: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. It benefits from an appellation of controlled origin, which means that it can only be produced in a specific geographical area and according to specific regulations. And to drink it, there are also rules. Not binding, of course, but there are specific ways of drinking it in order to fully appreciate this drink. Among them, and perhaps the most well know, relates to the glass, as champagne is ...
Mar 04, 2021•2 min
This characteristic is very old and actually dates back all the way from the 4th century. During this time is when we first see this distinctive hollowed style on the punt, i.e., the bottom of a bottle. The primary purpose of this hollowed punt is to ensure the stability of the bottle when it is placed upright. Why not just make it flat? Fifteen centuries ago, craftsmen were unable to make bottles with a perfectly flat punt, which caused some difficulty in standing them upright. Craftsmen decide...
Mar 03, 2021•2 min
Today the mask is highly recommended in many public places and often required. It is currently considered the best personal protective wear against the Covid-19 pandemic. However, you may have seen some people wearing two masks. Is this more effective? Actually, yes, it may be. This is what a scientific study shows in any case. According to this study, the superimposition of two masks could offer protection equivalent to that of FFP2 masks, which are to date the most effective device. See acast....
Mar 02, 2021•2 min
Before picking up their tickets, many passengers have probably wondered where the safest seat on the plane was. While there are no unbiased, official statistics about the safest seats on an airplane, there are small selection of studies show that some seats may be safer than others. For example, studies have been conducted for specialized publications that have looked into the question. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inf...
Mar 01, 2021•2 min
As far-fetched as it may sound, some plants can actually hear. In fact, it has been scientifically proven by researchers that plants are perfectly capable of setting up defense mechanisms responding to sound. They discovered that when the sound of a specific predators is played near the plant, their defense mechanism to fight against insects are triggered. Let’s look a little closer. These researchers first observed, how plants of the Arabidopsis genus, plants related to mustard and cabbage, rea...
Feb 28, 2021•2 min
This strange feeling, this "sick joy" that we may feel when seeing the misfortune of others, has a name: Schadenfreude. This German word literally means "joy of harm". Having been adopted into the English language, it means "to rejoice in the misfortune of others". At first glance, this feeling may appear dangerously close to sadism. Thankfully, we are not all secret psychopaths, as Schadenfreude has a key difference: it’s purely passive. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information...
Feb 25, 2021•3 min
Perhaps should is a strong word. Of course, you can do whatever you want when it comes to eating. Chopsticks, small forks, your hands, whatever. But, if you want to lose weight, the size of your fork just might matter. At least, that's the conclusion reached by researchers at the University of Utah. Not unlike many of the questions we answer on You’ll Die Smarter, human psychology is behind this phenomenon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com...
Feb 24, 2021•2 min
To begin, the title of our podcast is a generalization many of us are familiar with. Some British police officers actually do carry weapons beyond the traditional police baton. So exactly what is the situation? Let’s start with some numbers. In the UK, less than 5% of the police are armed. And these weapons are rarely used. For example, in 2017, out of 15,000 armed police operations, shots were fired only 7 times. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See ac...
Feb 23, 2021•3 min
To put it briefly, it saved money. But I think that answer is a little short for us. Let’s look a little deeper into the nitty gritty of why that is. To begin with, you should know that writing dates back to approximately 3300 years BC. This is the period from which the first traces of writing have been found in the temples of the cities of Uruk, now in present-day Iraq. At that time, the Sumerians wrote on clay tablets. But this writing was composed of pictograms or symbols representing a word ...
Feb 22, 2021•2 min
If you have a cat you may have seen this strange but hilarious reaction. House cats seem to have an irrational fear of the ever-threatening cucumber. When this common vegetable is placed next to a cat or they discover it by happenstance, they’ll often leap in the air in startlement. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Feb 21, 2021•2 min
The RMS Titanic, known as the unsinkable ship, struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912 and sank, causing the deaths of over 1,500 passengers. You are probably familiar with James Cameron’s famous 1997 film depicting this event. But this was not at all the first film devoted to this tragedy! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Feb 18, 2021•3 min
You may recognize this hair color from popular media. Sitting between the realms of golden blonde and coppery red, this hair color is also referred to as “strawberry blonde.” But why do some people call it Venetian? How does it relate to city of lovers? Could it be a reference to the color of a Palace at La Serenissima? Or is Venetian a reference to the famous boats that sail the Grand Canal? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mo...
Feb 17, 2021•3 min
The fear of clowns has a name: coulrophobia. While we don’t know the exact origins of the prefix “coulro”, there are some suggestions that it comes from an Ancient Greek word meaning “acrobat on stilts.” But this doesn’t explain the fear, does it? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Feb 16, 2021•3 min
Let's start by getting the elephant out of the room: the Bible has nothing to do with this list. The fact that the 7 deadly sins come from Bible is a misconception. The 7 deadly sins, also known as the 7 capital sins, came into existence far after the books of the Bible were written. The most modern portions of the Bible date around 165 BC, but the deadly sin are more recent, finding their beginnings in the 4th century. The first deadly sins were established by Evagra the Pontic, a monk and asce...
Feb 15, 2021•3 min
If you look at the duration of the top 10 best-selling titles in the United States, you'll see that their average duration is 3.5 minutes. It may not sound like much, but in reality, it averages 20 seconds less than songs released merely 5 years ago. And if we go back further to the 1970s it was not uncommon for 7- or 8-minute tracks to come out. For example, Led Zeppelin’s 1971 "Stairway to Heaven" comes out at 8 minutes and 2 seconds. So what happened? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt...
Feb 14, 2021•3 min
Bet you didn’t see this one coming. But actually, they share one very simple trait: nicotine. Yep, both contain it. 100 grams of an eggplant contains 0.01 milligrams of nicotine. That means if you were to eat 10 kilos of eggplants, you consuming the nicotine equivalent to one cigarette. While it is a small amount of nicotine, it is still rather surprising information. This discovery was revealed by a study dating from 1993 entitled "The nicotine content of common vegetables", a study carried out...
Feb 11, 2021•2 min
The word "lesbian" comes from the name of the Greek island of Lesbos, which is the homeland of the poetess Sappho. Sappho is an ancient Greek poetess who lived in the 7th and 6th centuries BC, in Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesbos. Because she was inhabitant of the island of Lesbos, she was called a “lesbian”. We know that she was very famous during Antiquity, but unfortunately only fragments of her poetic work remain today... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted...
Feb 10, 2021•3 min
To answer rather directly, it's for warmth. And it is a survival reflex. But let’s get into the nitty gritty details, shall we? The thermoregulation mechanism culpable is designed to keep the body at 37 degrees. When it is too cold, and the body detects that its temperature is too low, and it triggers a protective reflex. It provokes repeated muscular contractions that create heat with the aim to raise the body's temperament. These uncontrollable muscular contractions are called tremors and are ...
Feb 09, 2021•2 min
An interesting study has just been conducted by a scientist and cognitivist by the name of Frank J. Sulloway. He has studied 700 families, and, to be more precise, 700 siblings. To clarify even further, these siblings all evolved into the world of high-level baseball in the second half of the 20th century. His goal? To try to determine if within siblings, one of them, whether the eldest or youngest, could be designated as the bravest, or at least as the one who takes the most risks... See acast....
Feb 08, 2021•3 min
You're going to tell me that the answer is in the question. You may say “The V of victory comes from the word Victory, which begins with the letter V.” And you will be right. But which victory is it? And just why was the expression accompanied by the gesture? Here’s a little more explanation. According to the historian Aurélie Luneau in her book "Radio London 1940-1944 Voices of Freedom", it all began at the BBC during the Resistance in the Second World War. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and...
Feb 07, 2021•2 min
You may have already noticed that when you get a first impression of someone or something, it is often difficult to get rid of it afterwards. How can you explain the fact that even when you have examined it through the lens of reason, this impression persists or at least greatly influences your final opinion? I have just read a fascinating article on this subject and I am going to summarize it for you. I'll put the link to the complete article in the description of this podcast if you want to do...
Feb 04, 2021•3 min
It is a natural reflex. When it is cold, we want to warm up by drinking a hot drink, tea, coffee or hot chocolate for example. Unfortunately, that's a bad idea. Certainly, in the moment and for a short term, one feels a sensation of warmth, but it is immediately counterbalanced by a counterproductive phenome. When we drink, the hot drink gives the sensors on the mouth and tongue a false information: the body is hot. As a result, the brain reacts immediately by adjusting its internal temperature....
Feb 03, 2021•2 min
Occasionally when we hold an ice cube or a piece of frozen metal, our fingers can literally stick to it. This physical phenomenon has an easily understandable basis. The heat from our fingers melts the ice on the surface of the ice cube. At this point, the ice turns into water and gets embedded in the small folds of our skin. But a few moments later, if the ice cube is big enough and cold enough, the temperature at the surface of the ice cube is so cold that the water refreezes causing, our fing...
Feb 02, 2021•2 min
The Braess Paradox, highlighted in 1968 by mathematician Dietrich Braess, states that adding a new road to a road network can reduce overall performance when cars choose their route individually. In simpler terms, and without going into the technical details that explain this mathematical paradox, this means that although it may seem counter-intuitive (hence the term "paradox"), when there is a traffic jam, the best way to make traffic flow smoother is not necessarily to add a lane. On the contr...
Feb 01, 2021•2 min
A fairly short podcast today to quickly answer this common question! It's something you've known since you were a child: dromedaries have one hump and camels have two. But have you ever wondered why there's a difference? After all, these animals are very close. So why don't they have the same number of humps? First off, you have to know what this part of the body is used for. These bumps are essential because they provide the animal with the energy it needs to survive the extreme conditions of i...
Jan 31, 2021•2 min
