How You CAN Change Other People & Some Interesting Science Explained

Speaker 1 Today on something you should know, the problem with listening to music with headphones and how to solve it. Then, can you really change other people? Sometimes if you know the process.

Speaker 2 There is no point in this process where I am telling her what to do or giving her advice. I'm engaging with her in thinking about it and asking certain questions that always keep her in control.

Speaker 1 Also, you've heard that having a pet is good for your health. So how does that work exactly? And some everyday science explain on things like plastics, old book smell, and superfoods.

Speaker 3 No food really merits being labeled as an angel or a devil because it's possible to eat blueberries every day and still have a terrible diet.

Speaker 3 And it's possible to never eat blueberries and still have a good diet.

Speaker 1 All this today on something you should know.

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Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Hey there, welcome to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 1 When you listen to music, there's a pretty good chance that you listen on headphones or earbuds. I think I, whenever I listen to music, practically, I'm listening on headphones or earbuds.

Speaker 1 And the question is, does listening to music on headphones or earbuds cause hearing loss? Well, it does for a lot of people.

Speaker 1 You see, according to experts at Harvard, regardless of the source of the sound, hearing loss is the result of three factors, volume of sound, the duration of the sound, and how far away the source of the sound is from your ears.

Speaker 1 Well, if you're listening to music on headphones, the volume can be pretty loud, the duration can be pretty long, and it would be hard to be any closer to your ear than headphones get.

Speaker 1 So you see the problem. There's an additional issue.
Portable music devices have updated over the years to adapt to higher qualities of digital sound.

Speaker 1 With old audio devices, when the sound got too loud, the music didn't sound right. The bass would often distort and it would just sound horrible in your ear, so you would naturally lower the volume.

Speaker 1 But now, with digital sound, you can turn up the volume and it doesn't distort. So, there's a tendency to turn up the volume.

Speaker 1 Just be aware that listening to loud music for long periods of time on headphones or earbuds will take a toll on your hearing. It pretty much has to, and that is is something you should know.

Speaker 1 I'm sure you've heard the common wisdom that you cannot change other people. That generally people don't change, and if they do change, they have to change themselves.

Speaker 1 That trying to change other people is a waste of time.

Speaker 1 Well, meet someone who disagrees with that. Peter Bregman.
Peter is a well-respected consultant and coach who has authored several books, one of which is called, You Can Change Other People.

Speaker 1 And as he'll explain, it's not about manipulating people.

Speaker 1 And, well, I'll let him explain it. Hi, Peter.
Welcome to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 2 Thanks so much for having me, Michael. It's great to be here.

Speaker 1 So, since there is this common belief that you cannot change other people,

Speaker 1 explain why you can and why you would and why you'd want to and

Speaker 1 what's the point of all of this?

Speaker 2 You can change other people. It's just that the way we try try to change other people doesn't work because we're doing and saying the wrong things and we're actually creating resistance.

Speaker 2 People don't resist change. They resist being changed.
And so I change all the time, but if you try to change me, forget it. I'm going to fight because that's my loss of control.

Speaker 2 So we have to change people in ways that doesn't elicit the kind of resistance we end up fighting against.

Speaker 1 It also seems, though, that one of the reasons people don't change is that when you try to change somebody, you're trying to change them to fit your needs and wants and desires.

Speaker 1 It may have nothing to do with them. You want them to do what you want to do.

Speaker 2 Exactly. And this process is not a magic manipulative process where I'm going to give you three words to say and people will instantly hypnotically change.

Speaker 2 It does drastically increase your hit rate in helping people change, but it is ultimately about them. So most often we want people to change, right, because there's something we're frustrated about.

Speaker 2 But that frustration is coming out of a place of care. Usually when you're frustrated or angry about something, it's because you care deeply about something.

Speaker 2 And almost always the thing you care about is in your mutual interest as well as their individual interest.

Speaker 2 But it's not being framed that way at all because you're coming off as sort of a critic of their behavior as opposed to an ally working with them.

Speaker 1 And so we've been talking so far in kind of the abstract. Can you give me an example of how you would change somebody so I get a better sense of what you're talking about?

Speaker 2 Sure. And you know what I'll do? I'll give you an example that fits your category of something where I want someone to change, but they don't necessarily want to change.

Speaker 2 And I'll up the auntie and I'll make it my daughter who's 19, right? So like, so now I want to change one of my kids.

Speaker 2 You know, one day I went downstairs in the morning and I found her eating a chocolate chip cookie and for breakfast. And she looked up at me with this guilty expression.

Speaker 2 And she said, yeah, this is the last one.

Speaker 2 I stayed up till four o'clock in the morning and baked a plate, you know, baked a sheet of chocolate chip cookies and ate them all.

Speaker 2 And, you know, my instinct is to immediately.

Speaker 2 criticize like to be like what are you thinking like you don't want you know you told me you want to lose a little bit of weight and you're this is how you're doing it.

Speaker 2 And like, seriously, chocolate chip cookie, is this what I've taught you? Chocolate chip cookies in the morning for breakfast.

Speaker 2 But I immediately shortcut that process because I knew that that would instigate a resistance, denial. Like, you know, when we criticize someone, we

Speaker 2 come at them, even when we give feedback to someone. We're eliciting their shame.
We're telling them there's something you're doing that I'm pointing out that's bad.

Speaker 2 And people will do almost anything to avoid shame. So what do we do?

Speaker 2 We go into either denial or defensiveness, because those are the easiest ways to avoid, which is to say, I'm not doing it or I don't even know what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 And then that's a non-starter conversation because now we're in a conflict. I don't want to be in a conflict.
I'm her ally, right?

Speaker 2 And so.

Speaker 2 What I said instead, I followed the first step in the four-step process is to shift from critic to ally.

Speaker 2 And we have a formula for doing that, which is three steps, which is empathize, which is express confidence and ask permission, because it always has to be up to them.

Speaker 2 So I said, hey, I totally get you eating a plate full of cookies at 4 a.m. when you're exhausted.
And especially your cookies are awesome. Like there's no way I wouldn't have eaten a button.

Speaker 2 I would have just joined you. I'm glad I wasn't up at four o'clock in the morning.
So I totally get it. And I also can see the guilt in your face and how frustrating that must feel.

Speaker 2 I also know that you can make different decisions and do it differently if you want, because I've seen you do that in the past also. And do you want to think about this together?

Speaker 2 Do you want to think this through together? And so it's express empathy, express confidence, and then ask permission to engage in the conversation. That's the first step.

Speaker 1 And so it would seem that if the answer is no, if permission is not granted, that's pretty much the end of that.

Speaker 2 And in the case of my daughter, which is why I brought this particular example up, in the case of my daughter, she said, no, I don't want to talk about it. And this is what's really important.

Speaker 2 That's her call.

Speaker 2 So I said, Okay,

Speaker 2 no problem. And then I said, If you ever want to talk about it, I'm happy to talk about it with you.
But I gave her the power.

Speaker 2 Later that afternoon, she came back to me and she, you know, with the confidence that it was up to her to say, hey, and a little distance from the situation and from her own shame around it and said, hey,

Speaker 2 will you, can we talk about it? I kind of do want to talk about it with you, but I want to stop. Whenever I want to stop, you know, you have to stop.
And I said, that's fine.

Speaker 2 Like, you're totally in control of this. This is for you.
The second step is to identify an energizing outcome.

Speaker 2 So when there's a problem, when we're giving someone feedback, when we're telling them we want them to change, it's often de-energizing. We're basically telling them this thing they're doing is bad.

Speaker 2 People don't like to sink into problems. People get very narrow-minded around problems.
They get, their energy gets sucked out.

Speaker 2 So the first thing you do is you say, what is the outcome you want that would actually be exciting to you? So that's step two.

Speaker 2 And the negation of the problem, meaning if the outcome were just, I don't want this problem, it's, I don't want to eat so much sugar, right? That's not very inspiring.

Speaker 2 So my next question is, for the sake of what? Like, what do you hope not eating sugar will give you? The answer became, I'm an athlete and I want to think and act like an athlete. I'm a skier.

Speaker 2 I'm an ice skater. I want to do a double axle.
Like I need the right strength to weight ratio to do that.

Speaker 2 So think about like how much more inspiring it is to have an outcome that says, I want to act and be an athlete as opposed to I want to stop eating sugar.

Speaker 2 One is just depressing and the other is sort of exciting. So, okay, so now that's step two.
So we've got this energizing outcome. So step three is

Speaker 2 what is the opportunity that's hidden in the problem? Because we still have a problem. It's great that you want to be an athlete, but you still have this problem of eating too much sugar.

Speaker 2 So then the question is: you know,

Speaker 2 what's the opportunity there? And after asking certain questions, right, we get to the point that

Speaker 2 actually the reason I'm eating that sugar is because I'm exhausted. And it's, you know, in this particular case, it was four in the morning and I was exhausted.

Speaker 2 But in general, I work myself too hard, I push myself so hard, and sugar gives me this burst of energy. Well, all right, that's interesting.

Speaker 2 So, the opportunity that you find hidden in the problem of eating too much sugar is rest. It's like, I need to rest.

Speaker 2 And by the way, an athlete, like probably the most important thing that you can do for yourself as an athlete is to rest.

Speaker 2 So now we've got this outcome of an athlete. And we've got the opportunity, which is, I need to find more rest.
When I am yearning for sugar, that is a sign that I'm overtired and that I need to rest.

Speaker 2 And I need to build rest into my life and I need to build rest into my schedule. And then that, once we figure that out, now we're up to the fourth step, which is to plan.

Speaker 2 Specifically, what am I going to do? By when, how am I going to do it? And that plan is an experiment. So it doesn't have to be perfect.
It doesn't have to be right.

Speaker 2 We don't necessarily need to know that you will solve this 100% this week, but we want to know that you can choose some action that you can do that will reflect movement towards the solution, towards the outcome that you want to achieve.

Speaker 1 So, clearly, in a situation like that, the person you're trying to change has to value what you have to say.

Speaker 1 And in this case, your daughter obviously is going to value what her father has to say, but that isn't always the case. People

Speaker 1 have

Speaker 1 varying feelings about the people in their life who are trying to change them and may not respect

Speaker 1 what they have to say or advice they have to offer.

Speaker 2 So here's the thing. There is no point in this process where I am telling her what to do or giving her advice.

Speaker 2 I'm engaging with her in thinking about it and asking certain questions that always keep her in control. It's her change.
It's her choice.

Speaker 1 What about the momentum of this? It seems like you could have this conversation with your daughter, but a week later, you know, there might be another plate of cookies again.

Speaker 2 Exactly. So it's a great point, Michael.
And that's why, you know, step four is the plan that says, you know,

Speaker 2 I'm confident that I'm going to follow through on this, but it's not necessarily going to solve the whole thing. It's an experiment.
I don't know if it's going to work or not.

Speaker 2 I just care that you're going to follow through on something that looks a little different. Let's get together again in a week and see how it's going.
And no shame with failure.

Speaker 2 Like that's just part of the process. We're scientists here.
We're experimenting.

Speaker 2 We don't know what the solution is about how to get better as opposed to just you know where we started which was me criticizing you

Speaker 1 what about though when you're in a situation with someone and let's just change the nature of the conversation you walk in your daughter's eating the last cookie of this plate of cookies that she's been up to till four in the morning and She doesn't see a problem with it.

Speaker 1 Why don't you just get off her back?

Speaker 2 So I think that that is absolutely her choice in a sense. This will not work with everybody in every situation because, in order for people to change, they need four things.
They need ownership.

Speaker 2 They need independent capability. They need emotional courage.
And they need resilience, future-proofing when it gets hard, right? They need those four things.

Speaker 2 Emotional courage is the willingness to feel hard things. We could build all of those things.
But if ultimately she says, I don't care,

Speaker 2 I'm happy with eating those cookies. I don't really care what my weight is.
I'm not so interested in being an athlete. I don't really care.
I'm good.

Speaker 2 So you have to realize that when you want other people to change and you want to help them change,

Speaker 2 you show up as an ally to support them, but it's not going to be a, and you could predispose them to it. You can open them to the possibility of making the change.

Speaker 2 You could support them in making the change. You could give them ideas and ways of approaching it.
But ultimately, it's going to be their call if they decide they don't want to.

Speaker 1 I'm speaking with Peter Bregman, and we're talking about how to change other people.

Speaker 1 Peter is a well-respected consultant and coach and author, and the name of his book is, You Can Change Other People.

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Speaker 1 So, Peter, so far we've used this example of you and your daughter, but that kind of relationship is a very close relationship.

Speaker 1 And as your daughter, she respects you and cares about what you think, I imagine. So, what about though, in a work situation where you've got somebody who needs to change?

Speaker 1 Maybe they're a member of the team,

Speaker 1 but they don't see a problem.

Speaker 1 They're hard to align with and be an ally for to solve a problem if they don't see the problem.

Speaker 2 So change is one thing.

Speaker 2 Boundaries and consequences for how you operate as a team is another.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 and Alan Malali, who was the CEO of Ford for the turnaround in 2008, and before then he was the CEO of Boeing during September 11th. I mean, he's an unbelievable leader.
And he was amazing at this.

Speaker 2 Whereas what he would do is he would say, these are the standards. And by the way, when he, just to give you an example, when he turned around Ford,

Speaker 2 Ford was losing billions and he turned it around so they were making billions. And this was during the recession when everybody else was taking bailouts.

Speaker 2 And he made that turnaround with essentially exactly the same team. There was a turnover of one person, but otherwise the same 16 people who were driving Ford into the ground rescued Ford, right?

Speaker 2 So he changed them. He changed what they were doing.
And he had a view of creating a certain set of boundaries. This is how we act on the team.

Speaker 2 These are my expectations.

Speaker 2 And if someone wasn't fulfilling their expectations, he would say to them, that's okay. That's really your call.
Like it's your choice whether you do this or not.

Speaker 2 There's nothing wrong with you for deciding to act differently than I'm stating that we're going to act.

Speaker 2 But you just can't do that here. I will help you leave well.
It's your call. And the one person who left, he had this conversation with and they left.

Speaker 2 Another person he had this conversation with and they decided to stay and change.

Speaker 2 But as in, you know, when you're working in a system, when you're working in a team, it is completely valid to set up clear standards of how we operate and hold people to it and then support them in changing if they want to.

Speaker 2 And if they don't change, then that's okay too, but there may not be a place for them on the team.

Speaker 1 I wonder what it that

Speaker 1 if people want to change,

Speaker 1 why they need somebody else to help them change, why they need that ally, what happens there that people just don't do it on their own?

Speaker 2 I love that you asked this question. The people, the clients that I work with are not remedial.
I'm working with the top CEOs in the top companies. They are incredibly successful people.

Speaker 2 They don't, you know, they're not people with tons of problems. Then the question is, well, why do they need me?

Speaker 2 And the answer is, you need, when you are stuck in a problem or stuck in a rut or stuck in a problem or a habit or a challenge that you're not getting over, you cannot think your way out of it with your current capability because you're in it.

Speaker 2 You need, you know, if you're struggling in water, think of if you're like drowning in water and you can't swim, like you still need an arm to reach out and pull you out of the water.

Speaker 2 That arm is really important. So you don't have to be a brilliant person with all of the solutions already to help people.

Speaker 2 You just have to help them through a process where a different mind is thinking about their problem with them and helps them to see things they can't see otherwise.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, that makes perfect sense that, you know, you're too close to the problem. It's your problem.
It's always easier to help other people.

Speaker 1 It's always easier to solve somebody else's problem than your own.

Speaker 2 100%. And that's true for me.
Like, I've been, you know, I've honed this process over 30 years of doing this, and I still need someone to think through the problems with me.

Speaker 2 I can't think, even though I know the process better than anybody, I still need someone to help me through it.

Speaker 1 How do you start this process? How do you approach someone who you would like to see change

Speaker 1 and get them to buy into this?

Speaker 2 So, the most important step, the sort of turning the light on step, is that first step of shifting from a critic to an ally. So when you really shift from this sense of,

Speaker 2 I care about you and I care about this, and I'm not coming at this from anger or frustration, but I'm coming at this as someone who wants to help if it's helpful to you.

Speaker 2 If it's not helpful to you, it's not a problem either.

Speaker 2 That approach as

Speaker 2 an ally versus a critic is the thing that switches, you know, kind of switches the light to say, yeah, I would, I have the control and I'd be willing to talk about it.

Speaker 1 It certainly puts your defenses down, I guess, because if, you know, if somebody comes to you as a critic, you get defensive and, you know, off we go.

Speaker 1 But this way, there's nothing to be defensive over.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and if they say no, they don't want to talk about it with you, your acceptance of that no reinforces that they have the control.

Speaker 2 And what they realize, what they know, and what often happens is they will then come back to you, like I described with my daughter, because

Speaker 2 you're not threatening to them anymore. Like something has changed, and they know, well, you know what? I really do want to get better at this.

Speaker 2 And actually, here's someone who is willing to talk to me about it. They're probably my best bet.
And I didn't feel judged by them.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, that's a kind of a good way to feather the nest there and make it so that that conversation goes so much better.

Speaker 1 But I think you have to be very careful not to slip back into critic once the conversation starts.

Speaker 1 It seems like that would be very easy to do if you're not careful.

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 2 It is very, very tempting. You know, you really have to keep reminding yourself, I'm here in support of them.
It's not about me. I'm here in support of them.
And

Speaker 2 yeah,

Speaker 2 that's really critical.

Speaker 1 But it does get back to the idea that, you know, you can't change people who don't want to be changed. You can't solve a problem that the person doesn't think exists.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And I think the real focus then is to sort of say, what is that outcome that we're trying to go to? So when you shift to the outcome and you're no longer talking about the problem, then

Speaker 2 you're in a more interesting, positive, engaged conversation. It's actually one of the things I always suggest to leaders that I'm coaching.

Speaker 2 which is if you're disappointed with someone's behavior and they've made a big mistake, you know, if you go back and say, what were you thinking?

Speaker 2 What were you thinking in this when you decided to do this? That is a setup for a disaster of a conversation. And the reason is because they're going to tell you what they were thinking.

Speaker 2 It obviously wasn't smart thinking, but they're going to tell you what they were thinking. They're going to answer your question.
And that's going to sound defensive.

Speaker 2 And you're going to see the holes in it because it obviously didn't work. And then you're going to get mad.
And then they're going to get defensive. And it's just going to go back.

Speaker 2 And instead, I always suggest you say, instead of saying, you know, what were you thinking or what, you say, what would you do differently next time? So now you've gone from a defensive,

Speaker 2 shameful conversation to one of hope and opportunity and, you know, energy.

Speaker 1 When I think about trying to get someone else to change, I've always thought of it more of as a, you know, I'm right, you're wrong kind of problem.

Speaker 1 that you need to do this because I, I guess, because I said so.

Speaker 1 And what you're talking about is a very different approach that aligns the parties and

Speaker 1 probably has a lot better chance of success. Peter Bregman has been my guest.
He is a consultant and coach and author. The name of his book is You Can Change Other People.

Speaker 1 And you can find a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Peter.
Appreciate the insight.

Speaker 2 Excellent. A lot of fun, Michael.
Thanks so much.

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Speaker 1 How often have you heard people make a claim about something and say,

Speaker 1 but it's scientifically proven? There's real science here. Often, it involves food, nutrition, or some other health claim that must be true because of the science.
Well, not so fast.

Speaker 1 Here to give us all a better understanding about what is and isn't science and how that word science gets misused in order to mislead is Dr. Joe Schwartz.

Speaker 1 He's director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society. He's the author of several books.

Speaker 1 He's been a guest here before, and his latest book is called Superfoods, Silkworms, and Spandex: Science and Pseudoscience in Everyday life. Hey, Joe, welcome back.
Merry Christmas. Hi, Michael.

Speaker 1 So let's start with superfoods, because I hear that expression a lot that, you know, blueberries are a superfood or, you know, pick your food, but that a lot of foods are labeled superfoods.

Speaker 1 What is a superfood?

Speaker 3 It's an expression that I dislike, even though I used it in the title of the book. And I don't like it because no food really merits being labeled as an angel or a devil, you know, as a superfood,

Speaker 3 because

Speaker 3 it suggests that it has some sort of health quality.

Speaker 3 And usually there's a lot of hype in there.

Speaker 3 Now,

Speaker 3 obviously, food is very, very important in terms of health. There's no question about that.
We are constructed of the food that we eat, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, food is the only raw material that ever goes into our body. So we are indeed made of the food that we eat.

Speaker 3 And, you know, Hippocrates supposedly 2,000 years ago said, let thy food be thy medicine. Although, frankly, I've never found any concrete evidence that he ever said that, but he could have.

Speaker 3 It's much reported in the literature.

Speaker 3 So diet is certainly important. And if we go back to...

Speaker 3 you know, the Eber's papyrus that was written 1500 BC, suggested already that a half an onion and the froth of beer is a delightful remedy against death. Well, that's an overstatement.

Speaker 3 But of course, since that time, we've had many, many allegations of, you know, there being foods that

Speaker 3 were deemed to be especially healthy. Sylvester Graham gave us the Graham cracker, you know, high-fiber food.

Speaker 3 Kellogg

Speaker 3 regaled us with stories about the health benefits of yogurt.

Speaker 3 And today,

Speaker 3 of course, there's a whole collage of foods that are labeled in the popular press as superfoods, ranging from olive oil to blueberries.

Speaker 3 And what I point out is that while certainly there are diets that are healthy and diets that are unhealthy, it is a mistake to label any single food as that.

Speaker 3 And that's why, you know, whenever students or members of the public ask me to kind of have a look at their diet and evaluate it i say the only way we can do that is if they keep a diary in which they write down everything that they eat including amounts that they eat for several weeks then we can have a look because you know it's possible to to eat blueberries every day which actually i do try to do it's possible to do that and still have a terrible diet and it's possible to never eat blueberries and still have a good diet so it's the overall components of the diet that will determine whether it is healthy or less than healthy.

Speaker 3 And that's why I don't like the idea of superfoods. So I use it in the title so I can discuss all of these nuances.

Speaker 1 So talk about this term bio-based. We hear this a lot about fuels, like, oh, we need more bio-based fuels because that's better for the environment and we're going to run out of fossil fuels.

Speaker 1 What about that?

Speaker 3 Right. Well, we will run out of fossil fuels.
That's a given because the earth is of a finite size and

Speaker 3 we only have so much in terms of raw materials. I don't think we have to worry about running out of fossil fuels within our lifetime.
But eventually it is going to happen.

Speaker 3 So there is a search for alternatives. Bio, of course, comes from the Greek word meaning life.

Speaker 3 So we're looking for substances that are replaceable, usually because they are isolated from crops that can be grown.

Speaker 3 We cannot manufacture any petroleum, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, that's a given amount that we have in the earth, which is really the end result of the degradation of vegetable matter and animal matter over millennia.

Speaker 3 So we're not going to replenish petroleum, but we can go crops from which we can isolate useful components.

Speaker 3 So we can grow corn, we can grow canola, from where we can extract oils, and those oils can be used as fuel. And those would then be termed as bio-based.
And that is certainly a legitimate endeavor.

Speaker 3 For example, we are already doing that to some extent. As you may know, gasoline can have up to 10% ethanol content.

Speaker 3 And that ethanol can come from corn because the glucose in corn can be fermented to produce alcohol. So that would be a biofuel.
And then, of course, we also talk about biodegradable substances.

Speaker 3 And that is also a very important concept in terms of environmentalism, because we don't want substances building up in the environment that will stay there forever. We would like them to decompose

Speaker 3 into innocuous substances. So there's a lot of work on that as well, especially when it comes to plastics.

Speaker 3 Plastics have been demonized recently. And

Speaker 3 there's of course some legitimacy to that. We don't like to see plastic bags fluttering in the breeze or hanging in trees.

Speaker 3 We don't want to hear about this giant plastic garbage patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Speaker 3 We don't want to hear about nanoplastics, which are the end product of the badgering by sunlight and waves of plastics that get into the ocean and which eventually end up in our body, right?

Speaker 3 We don't want macro, micro nanoplastics ending up in our body. So the question is to produce substances that are biodegradable, meaning that they will break down.

Speaker 3 And we can do that with certain plastics.

Speaker 3 Polylactic acid, for example, is made from corn, and it is biodegradable. However, there's a but.
There always is a but in science. You know, we tend to give with one arm and take away with the other.

Speaker 3 So it would be great to have the one-armed scientist, you know, only gives us good things.

Speaker 3 The fact is that these biodegradable plastics are biodegradable under ideal conditions, which usually means some sort of

Speaker 3 industrial commercial composting facility.

Speaker 3 And I can tell you that I've done an experiment where I have one of these plastic cups, the polylactic acid cups that are biodegradable and I've left it out in my backyard and now for two years.

Speaker 3 And I can tell you that it has not degraded at all. It looks the same as it looked then.

Speaker 3 But if it were present in a compost pile that is constantly being turned all the time and where the microbes are monitored or where the temperature is monitored, then it would degrade.

Speaker 1 Aaron Powell, talk about the science of old book smell.

Speaker 1 Anybody who has opened an old book, maybe in a library or something that hasn't been opened in a long time, there's a very distinctive old book smell.

Speaker 1 And you talk about that. What is that smell?

Speaker 3 If you've ever opened an old book, I mean, we're talking, you know, at least decades old, probably a book that has not been stored very well, that has been, you know, exposed to mold or fungi, mostly humidity, you can develop a variety of smells.

Speaker 3 And that originate from the breakdown of the cellulose, which, of course, is the fundamental building block of

Speaker 3 paper. and also from the infusion of fungi.
Fungi are everywhere. They're present in the air.
They're microscopic, so you don't see them.

Speaker 3 But when they get into a book and especially aided and abetted by moisture, they will start to use the cellophane or the decellulose that is the essential part of paper as food.

Speaker 3 And when they digest that, they crank out some pretty smelly compounds.

Speaker 1 What's the science behind duct tape or the science about duct tape?

Speaker 3 Duct tape is

Speaker 3 fascinating, of course, in many ways. First of all, the name, it actually comes from a Dutch word, and it has nothing to do with ducks.
It has nothing to do with DUCK.

Speaker 3 And it turns out that

Speaker 3 during the Second World War, ammunition boxes were sealed with a type of paper tape. But that paper tape would tear very easily.

Speaker 3 So when soldiers in the heat of the battle had to open these ammunition boxes, the tape would tear and they wouldn't be able to open the box.

Speaker 3 And that precipitated a search to find a tape that would be hardy, but that would easily be removed without tearing.

Speaker 3 And that's what gave birth to what we now call the duct tape.

Speaker 3 Now, one interesting connection there is that the tape originally was made with a backing of a rubber adhesive and some polyethylene that made it waterproof.

Speaker 3 And in between those was a sandwich, a type of fabric that was referred to as cotton duck. That was the name of a type of fabric.

Speaker 3 So that also is one of the reasons that people have used the word duck tape, D-U-C-C-K.

Speaker 3 And there are all kinds of uses, you know, as you can imagine for duct tape.

Speaker 3 It saved the lives of the Apollo 13 astronauts, where a catastrophe was averted because the astronauts were able to rig up a contraption to remove carbon dioxide from the air that they exhale.

Speaker 3 And they used duct tape in order to do that. You know, it's been said that WD-40 is what you need to make things go, and duct tape is what you need to make things stop.

Speaker 1 We hear a lot today about PFAS.

Speaker 1 I mean, I get press releases all the time about, you know, this is the end of the world kind of thing.

Speaker 1 And I think people don't really know much about it or really know how big a concern it is. So clear that up.

Speaker 3 PFAS stands for perfluoro alkyl substances, which

Speaker 3 are really a family of compounds that have some very interesting properties that are commercially useful

Speaker 3 because they make substances water resistant and oil resistant. So PFAS would be used, for example, in the making of rain gear.

Speaker 3 It is used in firefighting foams because it can very effectively blanket a fire and seal out oxygen.

Speaker 3 It is used in the manufacture of

Speaker 3 Teflon.

Speaker 3 It has a myriad of uses.

Speaker 3 Your pizza box in which your pizza is delivered, you don't want that box to be greasy or wet. So it is treated with these chemicals.
Now the problem is that

Speaker 3 whatever makes these so useful also creates a problem.

Speaker 3 The carbon-fluorine bond is a very, very strong bond.

Speaker 3 And it is responsible for all the beneficial properties of these compounds, but it also means that they are very difficult to break down. So these are not biodegradable.

Speaker 3 These substances build up in the environment. Now, of course, then the question comes up, so what?

Speaker 3 Well, once we find that they build up in the environment, we start looking for them everywhere, including in our urine and including in our blood. And it turns out that they are there.

Speaker 3 It is, however, always important to point out that the presence of a chemical cannot be equated to the presence of risk. That's a different question.

Speaker 3 So just because they're present in our urine and our blood doesn't mean that they're creating some sort of havoc in our body, but it does mean that it requires further exploration.

Speaker 3 And that further exploration has been done. And it turns out that there are links to

Speaker 3 elevated blood pressure, to greater risk of kidney disease, to greater risk of diabetes when there is an excessive amount of these these chemicals in the bloodstream, which unfortunately can happen because they are so widely used in so many commercial items.

Speaker 3 However,

Speaker 3 the real problem

Speaker 3 is that they get into the environment not from the products that we tend to use on a daily basis, but from their manufacture.

Speaker 3 So it's not the pizza box, you know, from which we eat the pizza that has transferred some

Speaker 3 trace amount of PFAS into the pizza that gets into our body. That's not the major problem.

Speaker 3 The major problem that these chemicals are manufactured on a gigantic scale around the globe because they are so much in demand.

Speaker 3 And when you're manufacturing things on such a large scale, it's impossible to prevent their entry into the environment. So they get into the water, they get into the air, they get into the soil.

Speaker 3 And from there, they get into our body because we drink water, we eat food, we breathe air. So, really, the only way to try to battle this

Speaker 3 problem

Speaker 3 is to

Speaker 3 cut down on the overall production of these substances.

Speaker 3 But that means that you've got to find replacements. And right now, there are no substances that can do the job as well as these PFAS.

Speaker 3 However, I think in this context, it also needs to be mentioned that we are exposed to literally millions of compounds on a daily basis.

Speaker 3 Chemical Abstracts, which is a service that basically lists all known chemicals, there are over 160 million chemicals that are now listed. Now, of course,

Speaker 3 we're not going to encounter all of those regularly, but we certainly encounter thousands of chemicals on a daily basis.

Speaker 3 Just to give you an example, when you drink a cup of coffee, you're consuming over a thousand compounds, over a thousand compounds, including some like cafaic acid or furforal, which are known carcinogens.

Speaker 3 Now, if we label something as a carcinogen, it means that we know that at some dose in some animal or in some laboratory trial, it causes cancer. It does not mean that it does so in humans.

Speaker 3 That's a common misconception that people make. They think that if something is labeled as a carcinogen, it means that it causes cancer in humans.

Speaker 3 No, it just means that it has the potential to cause cancer. Now we know that coffee does not cause cancer.
We know this.

Speaker 3 If coffee did cause cancer, we would know because there's enough coffee consumed by enough people around the world that this would reveal itself epidemiologically.

Speaker 3 So here we have a situation where we have known carcinogens present in the coffee, but of course the whole coffee as an entity doesn't cause cancer. Why?

Speaker 3 Because the amounts of the carcinogens in there are in very, very small doses. And coffee also contains some compounds like antioxidants, which can mitigate cancer.

Speaker 1 Well, great, Joe. It's always a pleasure to have you on.
I enjoy listening to your scientific explanations because they're unique and they make you think.

Speaker 1 I've been speaking with Dr. Joe Schwartz.
He is director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society. He's the author of several books.

Speaker 1 His latest is called Superfoods, Silkworms, and Spandecks: Science and Pseudoscience in Everyday Life. And there's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes if you would like to buy it.

Speaker 1 Thank you for coming on again, Joe. Always a pleasure.

Speaker 3 I appreciate that very much. Thank you.

Speaker 1 You've probably heard the theory that having a pet dog is somehow good for your health. And you may have wondered, well, how? Like, how does that work? Well, here's one way it works.

Speaker 1 Scientists took a look at 421 heart attack victims, some dog owners, some not dog owners. They found the dog owners were far more likely to survive the heart attack than the non-dog owners.

Speaker 1 Dog owners are less obese and more active physically and socially. Another study found that pet owners have to go to the doctor less often than people with no pet.

Speaker 1 The study looked at kids, too, and those kids with pets had stronger comforting and empathy skills and a better sense of overall well-being.

Speaker 1 So those are just some examples of how having a pet dog is good for your health. And that is something you should know.

Speaker 1 I assume you've enjoyed this podcast since you made it all the way to the end of the episode.

Speaker 1 And so, since you did enjoy it, perhaps you could tell someone you know and ask them to give a listen and help us grow our audience. I'm Micah Brothers.

Speaker 1 Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Next up is a little song from CarMax about selling a car your way.
You wanna sell those wheels? You wanna get a CarMax instant offer? So fast.

Speaker 1 Wanna take a sec to think about it. Or like a monster.
Wanna keep tabs on that instant offer. With OfferWatch.
Wanna have have CarMax pick it up from your driveway?

Speaker 1 So, wanna drive? CarMax. Pick up not available everywhere.
Restrictions and female apply.

Speaker 5 The Infinite Monkey Cage returns imminently. I am Robert Ince, and I've sat next to Brian Cox, who has so much to tell you about what's on the new series.

Speaker 3 Primarily eels.

Speaker 1 And what else?

Speaker 5 It was fascinating, though. The eels.
But we're not just doing eels, are we? We're doing a bit.

Speaker 6 Brain-computer interfaces, timekeeping, fusion, monkey business, cloud, science of the North Pole, and eels.

Speaker 5 Did I mention the eels? Is this ever since you bought that timeshare underneath the Sagasso C?

Speaker 6 Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.