Curiosity Daily Podcast: Elephants Get Drunk (and They’re Lightweights), Pigeons Helped Win Wars, and Night Owls May Struggle to Regulate Their Emotions
Learn about why it might actually be pretty easy to drink an elephant under the table; how carrier pigeons like Cher Ami helped win the world wars; and why night owls may have worse emotion regulation than morning people.
May 25, 2020
Episode Show Notes:
Apparently, elephants get drunk and they're total lightweights by Cameron Duke
- Burke, J. (2010, December 3). Elephants on drunken rampage kill three people. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/03/elephants-drunken-rampage-india
- Elephants Drunk in the Wild? Scientists Put the Myth to Rest. (2005, December 21). Animals. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2005/12/news-elephants-drunk-wild-myth/
- Goldman, J. G. (2014). Do animals like drugs and alcohol? BBC.com; BBC Future. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140528-do-animals-take-drugs
- Janiak, M. C., Pinto, S. L., Duytschaever, G., Carrigan, M. A., & Melin, A. D. (2020). Genetic evidence of widespread variation in ethanol metabolism among mammals: revisiting the ‘myth’’ of natural intoxication.’ Biology Letters, 16(4), 20200070. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0070
- No, a bunch of elephants didn’t get drunk and fall asleep in a tea garden. (2020, March 20). The Daily Dot. https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/drunk-elephant-viral-story-debunked/
- Siegel, R. K., & Brodie, M. (1984). Alcohol self-administration by elephants. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 22(1), 49–52. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03333758
- Yirka, B. (2020, April 29). Study suggests elephants may get drunk naturally after all. Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2020-04-elephants-drunk-naturally.html
Carrier pigeons helped win the world wars by Steffie Drucker
- Shapiro, M. D., & Domyan, E. T. (2013). Domestic pigeons. Current Biology, 23(8), R302–R303. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.01.063
- Guilford, T. (2014, April 23). Explainer: how do homing pigeons navigate? The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-do-homing-pigeons-navigate-25633
- Dash, M. (2012, April 17). Closing the Pigeon Gap. Smithsonian Magazine; Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/closing-the-pigeon-gap-68103438/
- Unsung heroes of World War I: the carrier pigeons. (2018, January 8). Pieces of History. https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2018/01/08/unsung-heroes-of-world-war-i-the-carrier-pigeons/
- Maksel, R. (2018, August 29). When War Gets Weird. Air & Space Magazine; Air & Space Magazine. https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/when-war-gets-weird-180970156/
- Pigeons in bras go to war. (2013, September 4). National Museum of American History. https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2013/09/pigeons-in-bras-go-to-war.html
- Wings of Valor - The Lost Battalion in the Argonne Forest. (2014). Accessed via Archive.org. https://web.archive.org/web/20180705234207/http://www.homeofheroes.com:80/wings/part1/3_lostbattalion.html
Night owls may have worse emotion regulation than morning larks by Grant Currin
- Night Owls May Use Poorer Emotion Regulation Strategies Than Early Birds. (2020, April 16). Research Digest; Research Digest. https://digest.bps.org.uk/2020/04/16/night-owls-may-use-poorer-emotion-regulation-strategies-than-early-birds/
- Antúnez, J. M. (2020). Circadian typology is related to emotion regulation, metacognitive beliefs and assertiveness in healthy adults. PLOS ONE, 15(3), e0230169. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230169
- Resnick, B. (2016, March 18). If you’re just not a morning person, science says you may never be. Vox; Vox. https://www.vox.com/2016/3/18/11255942/morning-people-evening-chronotypes-sleeping
Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY
Next Up
Curiosity Daily Podcast: How Wildlife Crossings Work (w/ Beth Pratt of #SaveLACougars) and Get Happy by Doing One Creative Thing a Day
Beth Pratt, leader of the Save LA Cougars campaign, explains how wildlife crossings work and the unique engineering behind the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing. Plus: learn how doing one creative thing every day can boost your happiness.
Curiosity Daily Podcast: Why Do Wombats Poop Cubes?
Learn about a newly discovered way to cut down on intrusive thoughts; why wombats poop cubes; and why UPS trucks almost never make left turns.
Curiosity Daily Podcast: Accent-Changing Monkeys and the Information “Dataome”
Learn about why monkeys imitate other species’ accents; and the “dataome,” a new way to think about information.
Curiosity Daily Podcast: Revenge Bedtime Procrastination, Elephant Trunks, Pineapples Eat You Back
Learn about how to combat revenge bedtime procrastination; the power of elephant trunks; and how pineapples eat you back.
Curiosity Daily Podcast: How Do Wild Animals Know What to Eat?
Learn why helping others feels like helping ourselves, how wild animals eat healthy, and how the Sahara feeds the Amazon.
Curiosity Daily Podcast: The Duck-Billed Platypus Is Weirder Than You Thought
Learn about what researchers found when they sequenced the bizarre duck-billed platypus genome; a trick for unlocking your creativity; and the strange reasons for job-specific voices, like those of pilots, newscasters, and poets.
Curiosity Daily Podcast: Your Brain on Music, Super-Singing Songbirds, Animal Sunburns
Learn about the social neuroscience of music; songbirds’ ultra-precise song control; and how animals can get skin cancer.
Curiosity Daily Podcast: Human-Wildlife Conflict and Believing Leisure Is a Waste of Time
Learn about the science of human-wildlife conflicts; and what you risk by believing that leisure is a waste of time.
Curiosity Daily Podcast: Why Cities Have Squirrels, How Psychopath Brains Are Different, and a Holographic Brain Device
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you learn something new in just a few minutes:
Curiosity Daily Podcast: Foods to Curb Sleep Deprivation, Light Levels Affect How Cold You Feel, and Kangaroo Pouches
Learn about why the amount of light you see affects how cold you feel; what’s inside a kangaroo’s pouch; and, foods that can curb the effects of sleep deprivation.