Why We Forget & The Amazing Story of Your Body’s Atoms - SYSK Choice

Speaker 1 Today on something you should know, why touching other people, whether a big hug or a simple touch, can be so powerful.

Speaker 1 Then understanding just how your memory works and what makes it work better and what makes it worse.

Speaker 2 Alcohol, even having a single drink, can decrease your ability to remember things. Is it even true if you're having that drink a few days after you've remembered something.

Speaker 1 Also, a simple way to make a good first impression. And all the atoms and cells in your body, where do they come from? Where do they go? And how long do they stay?

Speaker 3 98% of the cells in our body are reintroduced every 10 years, which is kind of wild because we're less like a person and more like a flame, right?

Speaker 3 Where the molecules are constantly cycling in and out.

Speaker 1 All this today on something you should know.

Speaker 1 It's time for Black Friday, Dell Technologies biggest sale of the year. That's right.
You'll find huge savings on select Dell PCs like the Dell 16 Plus with Intel Core Ultra processors.

Speaker 1 And with built-in advanced AI features, it's the PC that helps you do more faster.

Speaker 1 From smarter multitasking to extended battery life, these PCs get the busy work done so you can focus on what matters most to you.

Speaker 1 Plus, earn Dell rewards and enjoy many other benefits like free shipping, expert support, price match guarantee, and flexible financing options.

Speaker 1 They also have the biggest deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC, improving the way you work, play, and connect.

Speaker 1 Whether you just started holiday shopping or you're just finishing up, These PCs and accessories make perfect gifts for everyone on your list. Shop now at dell.com slash deals and don't miss out.

Speaker 1 That's dell.com slash deals.

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, hi, welcome to another episode of Something You Should Know.

Speaker 1 As you no doubt recall during the whole COVID thing, we were isolated. We didn't come in contact with other people.

Speaker 1 We stayed as far away as we were told to stay away from and we didn't touch other people. And for the most part, that seems to have gone away.

Speaker 1 That we do now shake hands and fist bump and high-five and touch other people, and that's a good thing.

Speaker 1 Because these kind of supportive touch gestures, like a pat on the back or an arm around the shoulder, these kind of touches give a burst of oxytocin that boosts our bonding sensation and our sense of well-being.

Speaker 1 The supportive touch theory works in all kinds of environments. Sports teams who share high fives or fist bumps tend to outperform teams who don't.

Speaker 1 Students who get a supportive touch from a teacher are twice as likely to volunteer in class.

Speaker 1 And a kind touch from a doctor gives patients the sensation that their visit lasted twice as long as those whose doctors didn't touch their patients. And that is something you should know.

Speaker 1 I know people ask the question or have pondered the question, how good is my memory?

Speaker 1 And I've always thought, well, that's kind of a hard question to answer because it really depends on what it is you want me to remember, how long ago it happened.

Speaker 1 Some people are good at remembering numbers. Other people remember names.
Some of us don't remember things like that very well at all. There are a lot of variables, and yet we have a memory.

Speaker 1 So you think it would have evolved to be really accurate and there wouldn't be all these variables, but there are.

Speaker 1 So let's get a better understanding of our memory, how it works, and why it works that way. And here to do that is Andrew Budson, M.D.

Speaker 1 Andrew is the chief of cognitive and behavioral neurology and associate chief of staff for education at the VA Boston Healthcare System.

Speaker 1 He's a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and author of the book, Why We Forget and How to Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory.

Speaker 1 Hey, Andrew, thanks for coming on something you should know.

Speaker 2 Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 So, since I set it up the way I did, let's start with the variables. Why are people's memories different? Why do some people remember things better than others?

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 2 Well, everyone is a little bit different in what they are good at remembering, but almost everybody is good at remembering some things.

Speaker 2 I think it seems as if some people's memories are sort of good in general because they're good at remembering things like people's names or dates or

Speaker 2 things that are often tested. But in fact, we are all good at remembering things that are important to us.

Speaker 1 And what about the idea that as you age, particularly as you get later in life, that your memory declines? Is that normal?

Speaker 2 You know, there are some changes that are normal as people get older. And three of the most common changes in normal aging are that people

Speaker 2 often need to hear something more than once in order for it to get into the memory store.

Speaker 2 The second change that often occurs is that it may take them a little bit longer to retrieve the information that they're looking for.

Speaker 2 And the third change is that sometimes people need a little hint or a cue in order to retrieve that memory. But importantly, in normal aging, As long as the

Speaker 2 information got into the memory store, it should be able to be retrieved, even if it takes a little bit of time or a hint or a cue.

Speaker 1 Why do we sometimes have memories of things,

Speaker 1 vivid memories, like you could remember something from your childhood, a place that you used to go or a house you used to live in, and you have a very vivid memory of it.

Speaker 1 But if you go there, you realize your memory is wrong. So you have a memory.
It isn't like you forgot forgot it. You have a memory, but it's not accurate.

Speaker 2 It turns out that our memories are not built to remember, you know, like a snapshot or a photograph of what we're seeing. Our memories were actually

Speaker 2 evolved to remember sort of the parts that are important to us. And often they remember the gestalt or the gist

Speaker 2 of that information. So that's one reason that we may not remember the same thing verbatim.

Speaker 2 The other reason that sometimes our memories are not a perfect picture of reality is anytime that we retrieve a memory and we may think about it in a certain way, it actually can change the memory in a subtle way way and we can incorporate false information into our memories.

Speaker 1 It does seem that one of the best ways to remember something

Speaker 1 is to try to remember something. That

Speaker 1 if I'm intentional about I want to remember this, I tend to remember it more than not doing that.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. That is one of the keys, which is that being intentional about

Speaker 2 your learning, whatever it is, whether you're at a cocktail party and you're meeting new people and you're trying to remember everyone's names, having the intention is absolutely key because it makes you focus your attention on the information.

Speaker 2 And focusing attention is probably the first thing that we need to do in in order to remember something.

Speaker 1 So one of the, I think, fundamental questions people have, maybe they wouldn't ask it this way, but so we talk a lot about memory's imperfections, that we don't remember things as well as we think we do.

Speaker 1 So maybe that's not what memory was meant to do.

Speaker 1 Evolutionarily, what is the purpose of memory? If it isn't to take snapshots so we can remember exact details, what is it good at?

Speaker 2 What memory is really good at is being able to take this information that happened in the past and allow us to flexibly and creatively put it together in new ways to envision different possible futures.

Speaker 2 And we think that that

Speaker 2 is why memory is so easily mixed up and distorted because it wasn't it did not evolve in order to remember things perfectly from the past memory evolved in order to have us use that past information to plan for the future i remember someone saying that when you recall a memory that you've recalled before and before and before that what you're really remembering is the memory of remembering it and that over time that's that can distort the memory because you're not remembering the thing you're remembering when you remembered it last time.

Speaker 2 No, I think that's totally correct. And one of my favorite examples of this is if you, let's say, are watching a movie.
And let's say you started off watching this movie yourself, but now

Speaker 2 your spouse comes home and you enthusiastically describe the movie to your spouse. And then there's this memory of your spouse that is getting mixed up with your memory of watching the movie.

Speaker 2 And so then when you talk about this movie with your friend, you know, say a month later or a year later, you may now have incorporated your wife into this memory as well.

Speaker 2 And when you think about watching the movie and remember it, you say, oh, right. And I watched it with my wife.

Speaker 1 And yet you didn't. And so what are the things that affect memory in terms of how we live our life, our lifestyle things, you know, drugs, alcohol, lack of sleep?

Speaker 1 What are the things that make memory worse? And perhaps what are some of the things that can make memory better?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 alcohol, although I want to preface my comments by saying there's not evidence that one alcoholic beverage a day is harmful in any sort of permanent way to your brain or another part of your body, but even having a single drink can

Speaker 2 decrease your ability to remember things.

Speaker 2 And one of the somewhat perhaps depressing aspects of that statement I just meant is it's even true if you're having that drink a few days after you've remembered something.

Speaker 2 So if you do what I used to do in college, which is I would, you know, study during the week and then I would enjoy having, you know,

Speaker 2 fun on the weekends with my friends and, you know, drinking some alcohol, it turns out that that weekend drinking can actually interfere with my ability to consolidate and really store in a deep, permanent way the things I was learning during the week.

Speaker 2 So the, you know, the things you now know as an adult that you wish you knew or maybe are glad you didn't know when you were a kid. It's also known that cannabis, marijuana, the THC

Speaker 2 in it, the sort of ingredient that makes you high,

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 also does interfere with memory. So there's a lot of different substances out there that can interfere with memory.

Speaker 2 Almost all sleeping pills, except for melatonin, whether they're over-the-counter sleeping pills or prescription sleeping pills they can also interfere with memory so there's a lot of things out there that can interfere but let me just mention a couple of the things that can actually

Speaker 2 make things better getting enough sleep

Speaker 2 is beneficial for your memory paying attention more and if that means that you're stimulated either endogenously because you're excited about the learning that's taking place or you're excited about whatever you're doing.

Speaker 2 That's going to help you remember things better. And there's nothing wrong with using a little bit of a stimulant like a cup of coffee or tea or another caffeinated beverage.

Speaker 2 That can help you to be more alert and pay attention a little bit better. And things that you pay attention to better, you'll remember better.

Speaker 1 We're talking about how your memory works and my guest is Andrew Budson. He is a doctor and author of the book Why We Forget and How to Remember Better, the Science Behind Memory.

Speaker 1 I've learned from experience that hiring isn't easy, even when you know exactly who you're looking for. Running a business doesn't automatically make you good at hiring people.

Speaker 1 It's a skill and it takes time, sometimes too much time. That's why I like Indeed.
It makes the whole process faster and easier, and the results are better.

Speaker 1 When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Instead of struggling to get your job post noticed, Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you stand out.

Speaker 1 Your listing jumps right to the top of the page for the people you actually want to reach. And that saves you days, maybe weeks of waiting.
And the numbers back it up.

Speaker 1 According to Indeed Data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs. What I like most is there are no monthly subscriptions, no long-term contracts.

Speaker 1 You only pay for results. And while I've been talking, 23 hires were made on Indeed worldwide.
It's that fast.

Speaker 1 There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed.

Speaker 1 And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash something.

Speaker 1 Just go to indeed.com slash something right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash something.

Speaker 1 Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, indeed is all you need.

Speaker 1 With the weather getting colder and the holidays upon us, I just want my wardrobe to be easy. Things that look sharp, feel great, and last season after season, which is exactly what I get from Quince.

Speaker 1 I reach for my Quince cashmere sweaters constantly. They're 100% Mongolian cashmere, and somehow they're just 50 bucks.
Soft, warm, and the kind of everyday luxury that doesn't feel overdone.

Speaker 1 And their denim is another favorite, great fit, easy to wear, and it holds up beautifully. And if you're looking for a holiday gift to give without the big price tag guilt, Quince is perfect for that.

Speaker 1 Those cashmere sweaters I just mentioned, they make great gifts. And their wool coats, you gotta check them out.
They're stylish and durable and their quality is top of the line.

Speaker 1 It's amazing how many people have found Quince and love it. What I love is how Quince works directly with ethical factories and top artisans cutting out the middlemen.

Speaker 1 So you get premium quality at half the cost of other high-end brands. It's luxury without the markup, which means you can give something nice this season or keep it for yourself.

Speaker 1 Give and get timeless holiday staples that last this season with Quince. Go to quince.com/slash SYSK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.
Now available in Canada, too.

Speaker 1 That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash SYSK. Free shipping and 365-day returns.
Quince.com/slash slash S-Y-S-K.

Speaker 1 So Andrew, what about the supplements that you sometimes see advertised that are supposed to improve your memory or help a declining memory? What about those?

Speaker 2 Most of those supplements

Speaker 3 do not work,

Speaker 2 particularly the ones that are advertised for memory loss.

Speaker 2 I can say fairly confidently that there's no supplement or herbal remedy that is advertised on TV or other media that has any proven efficacy for people who have memory loss.

Speaker 2 There are some supplements that have some type of stimulant in it. And as I just mentioned, you know, if you

Speaker 2 take a stimulant, whether it's in a supplement or in a cup of coffee, you know, that can be beneficial as long as it's not too high.

Speaker 2 Because just like if you drink too many cups of coffee and you are sort of hyperactive and you can't pay attention to anything, the same thing can happen if you took too much of any stimulant, including those sold in supplements.

Speaker 1 You mentioned at the beginning of our discussion that everybody's different, that some people remember some things better than other people.

Speaker 1 But there are also people who just say, oh, my memory is not very good. I just can't remember things.

Speaker 1 is that is that a thing is and what is that thing

Speaker 2 I really think the more that I talk with people you know I speak with a lot of people about memory and sometimes people say oh my memory is terrible I can't remember anything and then I'll say well you know what do you do for a living oh well I'm a mechanic you know I fix cars and I'm like well do you remember like all the different parts of the cars and you know what goes in a 57 Chevy versus you know a a 2002 Toyota is like oh well that stuff's easy that's not hard and it's like ah I see so you're able to remember the things that are important to you and that's a pattern that we really do see you know for me for example it's very easy for me to listen to a patient tell an entire say 30 minute story of all the different problems that they have related to their thinking and memory, and I can remember it

Speaker 2 with very high fidelity and write that in my note with no problem. And the medical students, you know, that I work with, you know, their jaws drop on the floor.

Speaker 2 They don't see how I could remember all that information, but it's because it's information that's important, that I'm used to acquiring, that I put in a framework, so it's not difficult for me.

Speaker 2 One example that was studied in the scientific literature are chess masters.

Speaker 2 And chess masters can generally glance at a chessboard and be able to remember exactly where all the pieces were on the board.

Speaker 2 But if you took those chess pieces and put them in a random assignment that could not have occurred throughout the playing of a game, then those chess masters are not as good as anybody else at remembering where they are.

Speaker 2 So it all has to do with sort of fitting into context. But I did want to comment on your remembering those numbers from long ago.

Speaker 2 We all are particularly good at retaining pieces of information that we learned as young adults. And this is something that's a little bit mysterious.

Speaker 2 People don't really know why there's this sort of privileged period of young adulthood that we tend to remember all the songs and our friends and the phone numbers and what we were doing during that period of our life more than any other.

Speaker 2 But that is an interesting little fact.

Speaker 1 What about when people because when I think of memory, I think of pictures. I remember seeing this.
I remember the words to this song.

Speaker 1 But there's also memories of smell and sounds. And are those really memories in the same way or not?

Speaker 2 I love the examples that you used because it has been studied

Speaker 2 what is the strongest form of memory and for the vast majority of people, even people who might say, oh, I'm an auditory learner, people remember pictures better than they remember any other material.

Speaker 2 And I think this is biological. We as human beings are visual animals, and this is our strongest sense.

Speaker 2 And this

Speaker 2 strong visual memory goes beyond individual preferences. But having said that, these other

Speaker 2 sensations like

Speaker 2 hearing and smelling are also very powerful memory cues.

Speaker 2 And smells and tastes can also be highly linked to memory. And there's sort of an interesting little story there, which is that our memory system

Speaker 2 for events of our life, for episodes of our life, we feel actually evolved

Speaker 2 with our sense of smell.

Speaker 2 And this is one reason that senses of smell can trigger particularly powerful memories.

Speaker 1 Well, that's so true that I think everybody's had that experience of smelling something that instantly transports you back somewhere. It isn't the smell itself so much, but what it triggers.

Speaker 1 And so it's just that the smell is linked to the memory and it's just kind of the doorway into it.

Speaker 2 And I love the way you use that metaphor of a doorway. That's the way I think about all these different memory cues, whether it's, you know, going back to the same house that you

Speaker 2 perhaps grew up in or had other strong association with, or you're looking at a picture, perhaps of a face of someone you know, or you're hearing a song that you haven't heard for a long time.

Speaker 1 Those do

Speaker 2 act as doors, and all of a sudden, you find yourself transported back and you can step into that prior world.

Speaker 1 Something I have found interesting that happened to me is

Speaker 1 when you go back to a place that you haven't been in a while, like you go back to your high school and you walk through the door, all of a sudden you start to remember things that you haven't thought of since you were in high school.

Speaker 1 You remember people, you remember where the cafeteria is, you remember all these things.

Speaker 1 What is that? Where were those memories?

Speaker 1 Do we ever forget anything?

Speaker 2 That's a great question.

Speaker 2 And the answer is that

Speaker 2 your example shows that we

Speaker 2 have so many more memories than we're able to access at a particular instant of time.

Speaker 2 And the only way that we may be able to access some of those are to have the right key to fit in the lock and open the door to continue this metaphor of

Speaker 2 the right cues opening doors.

Speaker 2 So on the one hand, there are a lot of memories that we have that we just have to find the right cue to retrieve.

Speaker 2 But having said that, even though there absolutely are memories that you did not know were there, It's not anywhere close to remembering everything.

Speaker 2 Most of the time, we really are just remembering a few things, a few of the things that are important.

Speaker 1 If you want to purposefully remember something, is there a best practice? Is there a best way to remember whether you're studying for a test or whether you just want to remember something?

Speaker 1 Is there a good way to do it or is everybody different?

Speaker 2 There are good ways to do it. There are four F-O-U-R

Speaker 2 things that you should do to remember things for a long time.

Speaker 2 First is the F, which is you should focus your attention on whatever it is you want to remember. The O is organize.

Speaker 2 You want to organize whatever it is that you're trying to remember in a logical, coherent way.

Speaker 2 The U

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 understand

Speaker 2 what it is that you want to remember. So especially for all those students out there, you want to make sure that you really understand it.

Speaker 2 But even if it's an event that you're experiencing, make sure you understand the implications and what's going on.

Speaker 2 And the R in the four is to relate this new information that you're learning to things that you already know or care about.

Speaker 1 And you do that, for example, by doing what?

Speaker 2 For example, if you're studying for a test, you want to try to, you know, focus your effort on it.

Speaker 2 You want to, for example, don't just read the textbook, but copy down key points and organize it in a way that makes sense.

Speaker 2 You want to make sure that all the material that you're studying, that you really

Speaker 2 understand what it means. And then you you want to relate it to things that you may have learned in other courses or other parts of your life.
You know, that would be.

Speaker 1 Well, this is great. It's kind of like a user's manual for using your memory, and I appreciate you sharing it.
Andrew Budson has been my guest. He is a medical doctor.

Speaker 1 He is chief of cognitive and behavioral neurology and associate chief of staff for education at the VA Boston Healthcare System.

Speaker 1 He's a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, and the name of his book is Why We Forget and How to Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory.

Speaker 1 And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Andrew.
This was great.

Speaker 2 Thanks, Mike.

Speaker 1 You know, my mornings used to be a scramble, coffee, breakfast, trying to remember what supplements to take. It was a lot to juggle.

Speaker 1 And now I start every day with a single scoop of AG1, and it's made my mornings so much easier and better. In one mix, here's what I get.

Speaker 1 I get nutrients from real whole foods plus prebiotics, probiotics, and enzymes that support my digestion and gut health. After just a few weeks, I mean I can tell it's working.

Speaker 1 My energy feels steady all day. I don't have to think about juggling five different pills or powders.
And what I love is that AG1 isn't just another supplement.

Speaker 1 It's a daily microhabit that supports whole body health in one scoop. It's simple, it's consistent, and it fits easily into my routine.
One scoop, shake, drink, done.

Speaker 1 And I know I've done something good for myself before the day even starts. It's become a small ritual that sets the tone for the entire day.
AG1 helps me stay one scoop ahead.

Speaker 1 Head to drinkag1.com/slash something to get a free welcome kit with an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 when you first subscribed. That's drinkag1.com slash something.

Speaker 4 This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies just to see if you could save some cash? Well, Progressive makes it easy.

Speaker 4 Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies.

Speaker 4 The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save.
Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.

Speaker 4 Potential savings will vary, not available in all states.

Speaker 1 You are made up of atoms and molecules. So where did they come from? Think about it.
Every one of us contains a billion times more atoms than all the grains of sand in the Earth's deserts.

Speaker 1 If you weigh, say, 150 pounds, you've got enough carbon in you to make 25 pounds of charcoal, enough salt to fill a salt shaker, enough chlorine to disinfect several backyard swimming pools.

Speaker 1 So how did all those atoms come together to make you, you?

Speaker 1 That's what Dan Levitt set out to discover. Dan has been writing and producing award-winning science and history documentaries for National Geographic, Discover, Science, and the History Channel.

Speaker 1 And he's author of a book called, What's Gotten Into You? The Story of Your Body's Atoms from the Big Bang Through Last Night's Dinner. Hey, Dad, welcome to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 3 Thanks so much, Mike. I'm so honored to be here.

Speaker 1 So I'm sure we'll get into the interesting details, but in a nutshell, where do my atoms originate? Where did I come from?

Speaker 3 All of the atoms in your body started at the very beginning of time. 13.8 billion years ago, we had the Big Bang.
Protons, electrons, and ultimately neutrons came out of that.

Speaker 3 They formed all of the atoms within your body.

Speaker 3 But there was a long epic journey from there to here, obviously.

Speaker 3 They went through the sun where new elements were created. They were in a huge molecular cloud and unbelievable collisions that created our solar system and Earth.
They were in the Earth

Speaker 3 when life formed, and ultimately through plants colonizing the continents and evolution, they found our way to us. So it's a very, it's an unbelievably epic story.

Speaker 1 But so how do those atoms get to be part of me? I mean, so they were created 13.8 billion years ago, and they must have been laying around somewhere or

Speaker 1 floating around somewhere. How do they become me?

Speaker 3 What we're made of is almost exclusively stuff that's made from plants. All of the molecules that we're made of came from plants through

Speaker 3 actually 80% of your mass came from the air, from carbon dioxide in the air, that plants transformed with sunlight and water into sugar.

Speaker 3 Another 10% of your mass came from hydrogen, which also photosynthesis turned into sugar. Plants then created not only the sugars, but they extracted minerals from the earth.

Speaker 3 And together, they created the carbohydrates, the proteins, the vitamins that are in us. So we really, if plants were not here and photosynthesizing organisms would not be here, we would not be here.

Speaker 1 And so how long have we pretty much known this? How long have we had this story nailed? Is this new?

Speaker 1 We've known this for years.

Speaker 3 Where are we?

Speaker 3 Different pieces of it have been discovered at various times. Some were discovered in the 1700s when we first discovered that there was such a thing as photosynthesis.

Speaker 3 How the molecules in our body

Speaker 3 that came from the Big Bang create life within our cells, that's something that we've been discovering from the 1950s through the 1970s. So different parts of the story.

Speaker 3 have come to the fore at different times.

Speaker 1 And we hear that we regenerate ourselves frequently, that we're not physically the same person we were 10 years ago. How does that work?

Speaker 3 98% of the cells in our body are reintroduced every 10 years, which is kind of wild because it's more, we're less like a person and more like a flame, right, where the molecules are constantly cycling in and out.

Speaker 3 When you break it down, though, it makes a certain amount of sense. Over 50% of us is water, right? Of course, we're drinking water and excreting water all the time.

Speaker 3 We're constantly replacing the cells in our body. In fact, like intestinal cells, we replace some in the stomach lining every couple days and

Speaker 3 red blood cells every couple months.

Speaker 3 And then we're constantly also within our cells, we're constantly not just repairing mechanisms, but we're also breaking down organelles and other structures within the cells and creating creating new ones just because there's we there's going to be damage to them.

Speaker 3 And so we're constantly regenerating

Speaker 3 the systems within our body. And so in a sense, right,

Speaker 3 we're not the same person that we were 10 years ago or however long ago. And yet in another sense, of course, we still are.

Speaker 1 Which makes you wonder. If we regenerate all these cells on a regular basis, why do we die? Because you would think we'd be a new person.

Speaker 3 We die because ultimately you can't, you can repair a car for a certain amount of time, but ultimately things are going to go wrong that really can't be repaired.

Speaker 3 In our case, one of the reasons is cancer, is genetic mutations that build up. And although our cells have incredible, incredible mechanisms for fixing mutations,

Speaker 3 there are some that they can't fix. And sometimes cells become cancerous and they replicate non-stop.

Speaker 3 That's what cancer is.

Speaker 3 So that's not, of course, the only reason that we die. Other things in our body break down.

Speaker 3 But ultimately, we're not able to regenerate all of the cells in our body that could be damaged forever. There are limits.

Speaker 1 You say that we take about 20,000 breaths a day. Talk about that and what goes on there.

Speaker 3 We are completely, of course, dependent on oxygen because our energy comes from taking the energy that's stored in sugars and combining it with the oxygen to liberate energy.

Speaker 3 That's what the mitochondria in our cells do. We have your average cell contains about 2,000 mitochondria.
And their job, among others, is to produce energy. But they can't do it without oxygen.

Speaker 3 So that's why we have, we consume about two-thirds of a pint of oxygen a day. That oxygen goes into our body.
The hemoglobin distributes it throughout the body to all the cells within our body.

Speaker 3 And that oxygen is what allows our cells to create energy. Without it,

Speaker 3 we wouldn't be here.

Speaker 1 Isn't that amazing that that's how it works? And yet it all kind of goes on under the radar. We don't think about that,

Speaker 1 but there it is. And without that, we wouldn't be here.

Speaker 3 The thing that I think is especially incredible

Speaker 3 is that we are here because of oxygen that was created by life. When the Earth first formed billions of years ago, there was no oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere.

Speaker 3 The only reason we have oxygen is because single-celled organisms, bacteria came along. They learned how to photosynthesize.

Speaker 3 And as a result of photosynthesis, they began putting oxygen into the atmosphere.

Speaker 3 So at the beginning of Earth's history, there was nothing. Now we have 21% oxygen.

Speaker 3 And it was only after life put oxygen into the atmosphere that other kinds of cells could evolve and structures within cells could evolve that could take that oxygen and create energy more efficiently.

Speaker 3 So, the interesting thing is, without that oxygen in the atmosphere, Earth still would have had lots of bacteria.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 the more

Speaker 3 complex cells that animals and plants are made of, that we're made of,

Speaker 3 those would not have evolved. And that all depends on the presence of oxygen from some of the first organisms on the planet.

Speaker 1 It makes you wonder if elsewhere in the universe that

Speaker 1 this same set of circumstances exists, or does life exist in a different way? And are there things that in outer space that we don't even know about that

Speaker 1 well, like when they went to the moon, there was concern about

Speaker 1 what are they going to bring back from the moon that might contaminate the world kind of thing.

Speaker 3 There's a lot of speculation that there could be all kinds of other kinds of life in distant worlds that we can't even conceive of.

Speaker 3 But there are also scientists who think that oxygen is uniquely the molecule that can release enough energy to create more complex cells.

Speaker 3 So there are quite a number of scientists who think that if we find a distant planet somewhere out in the universe that has life, it may have single-celled organisms,

Speaker 3 but it probably won't have active intelligent organisms unless there's some form of photosynthesis there that also put oxygen in the atmosphere and allowed those organisms to create

Speaker 3 energy much more efficiently. And that's why the

Speaker 3 astrobiologist David Catling said to me, he said,

Speaker 3 if the old science fiction movies were right, that if aliens ever came to Earth, they'd feel right at home because they'd step out and they could breathe in the oxygen.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, but there have been science fiction movies about aliens that can't breathe oxygen and that oxygen is poisonous to them, which seems odd.

Speaker 3 Right. But his belief and others is that...
We are made of eukaryotic cells, which are more complex than single-celled organisms.

Speaker 3 And they depend for their energy on mitochondria, which take oxygen from the air and liberate energy from sugars.

Speaker 3 And he and others believe that uniquely, oxygen is probably the only molecule in the universe that can do that.

Speaker 3 And therefore, that if we have large, active creatures that are intelligent like us,

Speaker 3 his belief is that they will depend on oxygen, not on something else

Speaker 3 for their their energy.

Speaker 1 When you look back at the 13 billion years of our scientific history, what are some of the highlights of that journey from the origins of it to now?

Speaker 3 Well, one of them, of course, was just the discovery that there was an origin. In the 1920s, we thought that the universe was static.

Speaker 3 It took a Catholic priest, of all people, to convince Albert Einstein of the implications of his own theory was that

Speaker 3 there was a theory that we now know of as the Big Bang, that there was an origin to the universe. Einstein didn't want to believe it because it smacked too much of religion, right?

Speaker 3 That, you know, of the Bible, which says that God created the world from light. And so that was the start of a huge, huge, obviously, change in our understanding of who we are and how we got here.

Speaker 3 When you look at images from the the James Webb telescope and we look for distant worlds and look back into the ancient, look for ancient stars, that all came from La Maitre and Einstein's theory of the Big Bang.

Speaker 1 And what other, I don't know, events or moments in time or people changed the way that we looked at the world and who we are and all of that?

Speaker 3 One of the most interesting stories of a wonderful scientist by the name of Lynn Margulis, who was an unbelievable

Speaker 3 rebel who was long derided as being a bit of a kook, but really changed the way we think about how complex life on Earth evolved.

Speaker 3 She came up with a theory that the only reason why we have mitochondria in our cells is because one time way

Speaker 3 far back

Speaker 3 there was one cell that ate a bacteria and the union was the kind of complex cells that we are made of and for years she was ridiculed for that her her theory essentially was that

Speaker 3 there were bacteria that became very good

Speaker 1 at

Speaker 3 using oxygen to create energy from sugar.

Speaker 3 One day, one single cell, a larger, a a different type of cell, ate that bacteria, but instead of digesting it, right, they came to an accommodation, and that bacteria ultimately, its descendants evolved into the mitochondria in our body.

Speaker 3 In fact, you know, we have

Speaker 3 like an average of 2,000 mitochondria in our cells. And if you were to lay out flat all the mitochondria in your body, they would cover two basketball courts.

Speaker 3 So this was considered a kooky, completely kooky theory because it just seemed weird, absolutely strange. And why would evolution do such a weird thing?

Speaker 3 So Margulis was really out in the wilderness for years and years, but she was lucky because in the 1970s, the technology came along to analyze DNA.

Speaker 3 And when scientists analyzed the DNA of some particular bacteria and some DNA that was discovered in our mitochondria in our cells, they found they actually were related, and she was right.

Speaker 3 It's really an amazing, inspirational story.

Speaker 3 In fact, one of the interesting things about Markulis is that she really changed the way we look at ourselves in a sense, because she liked to say that we're really just overgrown colonies of single-celled organisms.

Speaker 3 You have in your body 30 trillion cells.

Speaker 3 Much of the basic biochemistry in those cells was invented by bacteria and single-celled organisms. Mark Gulis liked to say that we're just overgrown colonies.

Speaker 3 Other people might say we're actually just germs.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but doesn't it seem, though, that an awful lot of these

Speaker 1 coincidences had to have happened for us to be here that makes you wonder if there some design here, because it just seems like so many little things had to have happened just so perfectly.

Speaker 1 Otherwise, we wouldn't be here.

Speaker 3 Sometimes, when I look at all the incredible things that could have happened to create the circumstances for us to be here, I think it's so unlikely.

Speaker 3 But at other times, I think because of the way the universe was structured from the beginning for who knows

Speaker 3 and who knows why,

Speaker 3 it was almost inevitable. We had the Big Bang.
We had electrons and protons and neutrons. They formed hydrogen.
The hydrogen formed stars.

Speaker 3 The stars, because of the way the nuclear particles' energies worked out, they formed the elements that were made of. Those elements created clouds that created solar systems and planets.

Speaker 3 And along the way, there are so many unlikely things that happened. But at the same time, there are organic molecules throughout the entire universe.

Speaker 3 The universe is like littered with organic molecules. So it's really hard to say, given how huge the universe is, whether it's really completely unlucky and we are one of the kind.

Speaker 3 or whether there's life in many other places and even intelligent life in many other places.

Speaker 1 So as somebody who's researched this and looked pretty deep at who we are, what we're made of, where we came from, what's the big takeaway that you get from all of this?

Speaker 3 One of the things that I've come to realize is how unbelievably complex single-celled organisms are. And our bodies are made of 30 trillion cells.

Speaker 3 Each one of those cells is made of 100 trillion atoms. You know,

Speaker 3 if each atom was the thick width, the width of a dollar bill, that would extend to the moon and back 27 times. We are incredibly complex creatures.

Speaker 3 And so now there's a strange way in which when I look around at people,

Speaker 3 sometimes I think, wow,

Speaker 3 you are unbelievably complex and amazing. And that really fills me with.

Speaker 3 a bit of gratitude and it fills me with awe to see not just that we're here and how lucky we are, but how much we share together.

Speaker 1 Well, this has been really enlightening and it gives new perspective to what your mother used to tell you about how wonderful and awesome and unique and special you are. I guess we all are.

Speaker 1 I've been talking to Dan Levitt. Dan has been writing and producing award-winning science and history documentaries for quite some time.
And he's got a book out called What's Gotten Into You?

Speaker 1 The story of your body's atoms from the Big Bang through last night's dinner. And if you'd like to buy it, there's a link to the book in the show notes.
Thanks for coming on, Dan.

Speaker 3 Thank you so much. I so appreciate it.
This is fun.

Speaker 1 I'm sure you know how important it is to make a good first impression, and you don't have much time to do it. People get a good sense of you in about seven seconds.

Speaker 1 According to Yale University psychology professor Marianne LaFrance, 90% of a first impression is based on appearance, posture, facial expressions, and tone of voice.

Speaker 1 And there are a few things to consider to make the most of those seven seconds. Like it or not, when you meet someone new, your hairstyle will get noticed more than your facial features.

Speaker 1 Long hair says my looks are important to me. Short hair says I'm confident and successful.
And shoulder-length hair says I'm intelligent and level-headed. Your handshake certainly matters.

Speaker 1 People who make eye contact while offering a handshake that is firm, dry, and vigorous makes people believe you possess the qualities associated with your grip.

Speaker 1 For women, your instinct about other women are more accurate than your instincts about men.

Speaker 1 That's because women are programmed to want to make a connection with a man and that chemistry throws off their radar, according to Professor LaFrance.

Speaker 1 And try not to be too self-focused during those first seven seconds. How good you make the other person feel is another big factor in making a good first impression.

Speaker 1 And that is something you should know. As always, I'd like to remind you that your help in growing our audience is greatly appreciated.

Speaker 1 So, if you would spread the word and share this podcast with someone you know, that'd be great. I'm Mike Carruthers.
Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 1 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.
Wanna take a sec to think about it. Or like a month.

Speaker 1 Wanna keep tabs on that instant offer. With OfferWatch.
Wanna have CarMax pick it up from the driveway.

Speaker 1 You wanna do it. So, wanna drive? CarMax.
Pickup not available everywhere. Restrictions and fee may apply.

Speaker 5 Oh, the Regency era. You might know it as the time when Bridgerton takes place, or the time when Jane Austen wrote her books.

Speaker 5 But the Regency era was also an explosive time of social change, sex scandals, and maybe the worst king in British history.

Speaker 5 And on the Vulgar History podcast, we're going to be looking at the balls, the gowns, and all the scandal of the Regency era.

Speaker 5 Vulgar History is a women's history podcast, and our Regency Era series will be focusing on the most rebellious women of this time.

Speaker 5 That includes Jane Austen herself, who is maybe more radical than you might have thought.

Speaker 5 We'll also be talking about queer icons like Anne Lister, scientists like Mary Anning and Ada Lovelace, as well as other scandalous actresses, royal mistresses, rebellious princesses, and other lesser-known figures who made history happen in England in the Regency era.

Speaker 5 Listen to Vulgar History wherever you get podcasts.