transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] From NHPR, this is Outside In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide. I am Nate Hegyi, here with the whole fricking team, well, almost the entire team. Justine, we'll see you soon. But we got Marina Henke.

Speaker 2:
[00:14] Hello.

Speaker 1:
[00:15] Taylor Quimby.

Speaker 3:
[00:16] Here.

Speaker 1:
[00:16] And the magical, mysterious Felix Poon.

Speaker 4:
[00:19] I am here.

Speaker 3:
[00:21] I wish there was a podcast version of like running onto the field and like bursting through the paper archway, you know?

Speaker 1:
[00:27] I wish that as well. So we're just like sitting here drinking coffee.

Speaker 3:
[00:30] It is coffee o'clock.

Speaker 2:
[00:31] Well, for you, it's always coffee o'clock, Taylor.

Speaker 3:
[00:33] And Nate, it's like 3 a.m. for something.

Speaker 1:
[00:37] It is still dark outside.

Speaker 2:
[00:38] Oh my God.

Speaker 4:
[00:39] Is it really? No, it's not actually dark out.

Speaker 1:
[00:41] Yeah, it's eight in the morning.

Speaker 3:
[00:42] Eight in the morning in Alaska. How many hours of daylight you get in these days?

Speaker 1:
[00:46] We're doing well. We get 830 to 345 right now. But remember, in the summertime, it's like 3 a.m. to 11 p.m. But that's like not good.

Speaker 4:
[00:55] How do you fall asleep?

Speaker 1:
[00:56] I can sleep with light out. It's pretty easy.

Speaker 3:
[00:58] You know, it's weird. I love to nap in sunlight like a cat or dog. But at night, I like it dark.

Speaker 4:
[01:04] Why is that, do you think?

Speaker 1:
[01:06] Is this one of our questions?

Speaker 3:
[01:07] No, no. But I'm saying like the sunlight, it's not just like I get sleepier in sunlight if it's a nap.

Speaker 1:
[01:13] Taylor, you get sleepy anywhere and everywhere. You get sleepy driving cars, if I remember correctly.

Speaker 4:
[01:19] That's because cars are like a massage chair.

Speaker 3:
[01:22] What are you driving?

Speaker 1:
[01:23] Well, when you're driving, are you cruise controlling it?

Speaker 3:
[01:26] I go back and forth. It depends what traffic is like.

Speaker 1:
[01:28] Because in order to get your Alaska driver's license, you have to take a knowledge test. It's just tons of questions. One of them was like, which of the following is not true? It was like, if you're driving with cruise control, you get road hypnosis and fall asleep. I was like, that's not true. It was one of the ones that was true.

Speaker 2:
[01:46] That's totally true. I don't drive with cruise control for this exact reason.

Speaker 4:
[01:50] I mean, that's one of those subjective questions that they put on a multiple choice. That's like, some people maybe, some people not. I don't know. It depends on other factors. Maybe you're blasting heavy metal on cruise control. It's going to keep you up.

Speaker 2:
[02:02] Okay, wow. I think we should maybe be sending in our questions to the Outside Inbox, but we can't. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[02:09] I'll start my burner account and start sending these questions.

Speaker 2:
[02:12] There you go. Okay, we've maybe buried the lead here, but we are gathered to hear some questions from our trusted Outside Inbox. There's no theme this time. I know sometimes we have them, except that these were all great. They are weird and some of them are old.

Speaker 3:
[02:31] The theme that you just described is basically like we're going through a refrigerator that needs cleaning, like old expired questions from the very back of the Outside Inbox refrigerator.

Speaker 1:
[02:42] Smells a little funky in here, but we're diving in.

Speaker 2:
[02:47] We're going to kick it off after a short break. Nobody get road hypnosis in the meantime.

Speaker 5:
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Speaker 8:
[04:03] Half Man, the new HBO original limited series from baby reindeer creator Richard Gad, examines the tumultuous relationship between two estranged brothers, tracking the highs and lows of the pair over the course of 40 years. Starring Emmy Award winner Richard Gad and BAFTA Award winner Jamie Bell, Half Man premieres April 23rd on HBO Max.

Speaker 1:
[04:34] From NHPR, this is Outside In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide. I am here with the whole team today to answer questions from our Outside Inbox.

Speaker 4:
[04:44] Should we just dive in?

Speaker 1:
[04:45] Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 4:
[04:46] This is exciting.

Speaker 2:
[04:47] Okay, all right, here is our first question.

Speaker 9:
[04:51] Gonna question you all about smell and dogs. So last winter, we had a whale wash up on the title flat on the edge of town. And that whale over the last six, seven months has been just rotting and decaying on the title flat in the beach. And a couple of weeks ago, my dog and my friend's dog decided they wanted to go roll in the whale, which smells as bad as you can imagine. It's decomposing whale smelling. Which brings me to my question, which is why do dogs love to roll in things so much? I understand they have a really strong sense of smell and why they're interested in sniffing and maybe eating things that we would find gross, but what is it about rolling in things and getting that in their coat that they like so much? Thank you. Bye.

Speaker 2:
[05:39] All right. That was Dusty from Anchorage.

Speaker 1:
[05:41] From Anchorage. I knew it was going to be somewhere in Alaska.

Speaker 3:
[05:43] It would have been funny if he was like, I'm from Oklahoma.

Speaker 1:
[05:46] It would have been concerning.

Speaker 3:
[05:48] There's a bigger question here.

Speaker 1:
[05:49] I think they're rolling it because, if I remember correctly, because my dog rolls in dead salmon, that it's some ancient trait from when they were wolves or wolf-like to essentially show their buddies, hey, when you go back to the pack, check out what I found.

Speaker 4:
[06:06] It's like how they can bottle up a scent and bring it to their friends.

Speaker 3:
[06:09] I had a completely different theory, which is I was going with the also old wolf trait, but the hunter theory, which is they like smells that mask their doggy, all that human dog shampoo and all that nice smelling stuff that we put on our dogs. They're trying to get all that off so they smell like a dirty rotten whale, and they can sneak up on some unsuspecting smaller animal.

Speaker 2:
[06:34] Could it just also be a delightful sensory experience? It's a smushy dead piece of flesh, and it feels cool and gooey on their little dog skin.

Speaker 3:
[06:43] I can just imagine a dog being like, oh, cool and gooey. Well, I guess maybe we don't know, or maybe Nate's right.

Speaker 4:
[06:52] I guess there's only one way to find out.

Speaker 1:
[06:55] Which is do journalism.

Speaker 2:
[07:04] Okay, it has been a few months since we battled around these questions. I would say that, Nate, you've gone off, you've done the journalism. So, let's hear what we found.

Speaker 1:
[07:15] So this is a very familiar problem for me. My dog, he has an uncanny ability to find every single dead fish on the beach and roll in it. It happens so much these days that it is very normal for me to just take a shower with him after a walk. To my nose, it is disgusting. But to him?

Speaker 10:
[07:34] Your dog is probably doing that because they really enjoy it. It's just play behavior.

Speaker 1:
[07:38] Chris Schell is an urban ecologist and assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Speaker 10:
[07:43] The animals are getting a kick out of all of the novel scents. And because their old faction is dozens of times more sensitive than ours is, they get a lot of exhilaration and joy from just rolling around in that stuff.

Speaker 1:
[07:56] But dogs aren't just gluttons for pleasure. One kind of obvious reason they're attracted to dead stuff is that they like to eat dead stuff. And just like their canid cousins, wolves and coyotes, dogs are pack animals. So getting back to the den and smelling like rotting fish says something.

Speaker 10:
[08:15] It allows them to communicate with others in their tribe, that, hey, there's some food over here. Look, I smell like it.

Speaker 1:
[08:23] Kind of like how humans will post a photo of a pretty sunset or a super bloom on Instagram. For dogs, it's more like hashtag dead salmon, hashtag rotting whale. Now, sometimes dogs roll in dead stuff, not because they want to smell like it, but because they want it to smell like them. This is known as scent marking. It's a way to tell other dogs that this decaying chunk of fur and meat is mine. I got dibs, stay away. Chris says canines aren't the only animals getting up close and personal with the dead. Elephants, for example, will often rub their trunks on other dead elephants.

Speaker 10:
[09:01] They may partly be doing that to assimilate the scents from the dead organism to then honor that organism, which also comes in the form of animal culture, right? Many cultures within animal societies mourn their dead.

Speaker 1:
[09:19] I would like to think that this is what one of my dogs, Gilly, was doing when she literally rolled in the skeleton of another dead dog. That image, by the way, seared into my memory. Anywho, the list of why animals roll in dead stuff continues.

Speaker 10:
[09:34] So if you smell like something dead, there may be animals that don't want to eat you.

Speaker 1:
[09:38] Think walking dead, right? Where the heroes cover themselves in blood and guts so they don't get eaten by zombies. Finally, there are crows and ravens. We talked about this on a recent episode of Outside In, but...

Speaker 10:
[09:50] Crows may not necessarily roll around in the dead material of one of their compatriots, but they certainly will circle around their dead compatriot to investigate what may have happened to that animal.

Speaker 1:
[10:06] They essentially act as murder investigators, but this isn't the only reason crows will get cozy with another dead bird. Very occasionally, crows have been observed having sex with the dead. This tends to happen during mating season, so scientists think maybe their hormones are just going wild, and they pick the wrong mate. So, Dusty, at least be happy your dog isn't doing that to a rotting whale.

Speaker 3:
[10:52] Well, congratulations, Nate, because I think that might be the first necrophilia reference in Outside in History, as far as I know.

Speaker 1:
[10:59] It's gotta be a first for everything. Gotta be a first for everything.

Speaker 4:
[11:02] So do animals not have the sense of disgust that humans have? Is this a uniquely human experience?

Speaker 1:
[11:08] No, because there's other things, Taylor, I'm sure you can say this as well, that really gross out dogs, like that are appealing to us, like soap smells. I feel like if I put up soap near my dog's nose, I'm like, no, that's disgusting.

Speaker 3:
[11:23] It's hard to tell from my dog the difference between something that she's disgusted by or terrified by because she is afraid of many, many things. And I'm not sure I can tell. By the way, hashtag rotting whale would be a great name for a podcast.

Speaker 1:
[11:37] Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[11:39] I say change it now at the end of the show. Reintroducing Outside In, hashtag rotting whale.

Speaker 3:
[11:43] Can we make a new theme song?

Speaker 4:
[11:46] How does it go, Taylor?

Speaker 3:
[11:47] I think it would be like a death metal, like, da-da-da-da-da-da, hashtag rotting whale.

Speaker 1:
[11:52] We need more death metal in this podcast.

Speaker 2:
[12:04] All right, I say we go to the next question.

Speaker 3:
[12:06] Let's do it.

Speaker 11:
[12:08] Hello, this is Kyle Beach.

Speaker 9:
[12:10] I'm calling from Derby, Kansas.

Speaker 11:
[12:12] Do humans have a mating season?

Speaker 9:
[12:14] And if some animals do, I'm not sure if every animal does. We're animals, do humans have a mating season or no?

Speaker 3:
[12:22] Ooh.

Speaker 9:
[12:24] No.

Speaker 1:
[12:25] Obviously like deer and other animals, the fall, the rut is the mating season, but that's only because I think, I think, they only go into heat around the same time. Like that's what gets all the bucks like really stirred up is does going into heat.

Speaker 3:
[12:40] It's like the question between, is there a true specific mating season and no mating the rest of the time versus a large increase in mating activity based off of biological processes during certain times of year, but technically they could still do a little mating in the off season.

Speaker 1:
[12:57] I will say, I will say, there are a lot of September birthdays.

Speaker 4:
[13:01] Right. I was just about to say that. I would say if there is a mating season, quote unquote, or like changes in mating habit, it's due to something that's very unique to humans, which is culture. Yeah. We have a New Year's that is like, different cultures have different New Year's. Maybe what we need to look at are a cross-cultural comparison of birth rates compared, nine months after their New Year, is there like kind of a consistent spike?

Speaker 2:
[13:28] So in that way, like a social mating season rather than a biological mating season.

Speaker 3:
[13:32] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[13:33] So Kyle, the answer is no, but an interesting thing to think about.

Speaker 2:
[13:37] Can you imagine if we had this, if humans were like, yep, it's the first two weeks of May that humans are able to reproduce?

Speaker 4:
[13:44] That would be so much fun.

Speaker 3:
[13:47] It'd be like a global spring break.

Speaker 4:
[13:48] Yeah. Someone should start this.

Speaker 2:
[13:51] Okay. Okay. Next question. We're moving on. We're moving on. From Salem, New Hampshire, Amanda says, I happened to cross the border into Massachusetts, where the electronic highway signs all say the same thing. 25% of deer collisions happen in November. First, why do a quarter of all deer collisions happen in one month? Is it just that it's rutting season? More cars on the road? Some terrible confluence of the two? Second part is how do we drive and best avoid a deer?

Speaker 3:
[14:37] Nate, what do you know about the rut theory?

Speaker 1:
[14:41] I think, well, okay, so I used to live in Montana in a very deer heavy area. And I remember when we would drive the hour and a half between our little house out in the middle of nowhere to the next biggest town in November during the rut, the rut being when deer all congregate together to mate and make babies and they get really dumb. It is like spring break for deer. They just cross the road all the time and they're on the road and they're jumping off the road. Also, it's getting darker earlier, I imagine. Your evening commute is now like four or five o'clock and deer are most active in those like last few hours of sunlight or the first few hours of the day. So it's probably just like morning commute clashing with the rut makes it very deadly.

Speaker 3:
[15:29] Also November is still like early November is still leaf peeping season in parts of Massachusetts. So yeah, it might be a little bit more leaf tourism.

Speaker 1:
[15:40] How do you avoid hitting deer though?

Speaker 4:
[15:42] I mean, I think the answer to anything about how do you avoid collisions is drive slower. This is my, if not number one, number two takeaway from doing the Race to Net Zero series. So I think those signs are probably just the messaging really should be drive slower.

Speaker 3:
[15:58] I wonder if it's more dangerous with cruise control on.

Speaker 4:
[16:04] Probably is.

Speaker 2:
[16:11] Okay, hello from the future. Nate, you promised to fact check us. Were we right?

Speaker 1:
[16:16] Yeah, we were right. We were definitely right. You know, deer mate during the fall, oftentimes anywhere between late October until late November. So they're just not paying attention. And then also deer are more active during a full moon. Why? There's just more light, more illumination. For them to be able to move around more, they're seeking cover. You know, if there's predators, they can see them. And so deer just move around a lot more during a full moon than when it's a new moon.

Speaker 3:
[16:46] You're sure it's not because they're like pagan animals that are doing cool moonlight rituals?

Speaker 1:
[16:50] Yeah, I'd like to issue a correction on what I just said. That is in fact the truth.

Speaker 4:
[16:54] They're probably out recharging their crystals.

Speaker 9:
[16:56] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:
[16:58] They're so focused on their crystals, they don't see the headlights coming towards them.

Speaker 2:
[17:04] All right, we are going to take a quick break, but we will be back with more questions.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 1:
[19:37] From NHPR, this is Outside In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide. I am Nate Hegyi, here with the whole team. Rapid roll call, Marina Henke.

Speaker 9:
[19:46] Here.

Speaker 1:
[19:46] Taylor Quimby.

Speaker 9:
[19:47] Here.

Speaker 1:
[19:47] Felix Poon.

Speaker 4:
[19:48] Hi.

Speaker 2:
[19:49] Okay, our next question comes from, I think one of the most interesting places that we have ever gotten an Outside Inbox question from.

Speaker 3:
[19:54] The moon. Was it the Artemis people?

Speaker 2:
[19:58] Oh my, I would cry. I would actually cry.

Speaker 3:
[20:00] I'd be actually a little worried if they called us. I'd be like, you guys seem more qualified.

Speaker 6:
[20:05] Yeah, exactly. Hello, this is Gretchen Stokes, show named Taco Cat, and I'm currently finishing up a through hike of the Appalachian Trail. I heard your call out about the color red, and what it makes me think of that is very pertinent to my current experience, is the etiquette of turning on the red light on your headlamp at night. When did this become a standard thing on headlamps, and when did this become standard etiquette, or am I just in the through hiking bubble?

Speaker 2:
[20:42] Through hiking bubble or no?

Speaker 3:
[20:43] I bet you this is in the past 20 years that it's become common.

Speaker 1:
[20:47] We've used it for hunting in the early morning when you're hiking out to a spot, and you don't want to be having a bright flashing light. You'll have something red, which is a little bit harder to see. And I've used it at a night in tents, but I've only had one instance where a guy did not like my bright headlamp. But he's the kind of guy who ran barefoot, literally barefoot, in the mountains. So he was very au naturel when we were running at night, and he wanted to run underneath the moonlight, and he asked me to turn my headlamp off.

Speaker 3:
[21:20] And that was the day I broke both my kneecaps.

Speaker 11:
[21:22] Yes, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[21:24] Well, I gotta say, I think this is a fascinating question for particularly hiking gear and culture, because my sense is, I think of red light being used in military operations, but it feels like a great example of, is this another moment where the technologies that are used in way different spaces slowly trickle their way into what us plebeians are using on a little night hike?

Speaker 3:
[21:49] This makes me think I would be down to hear an entire headlamp history in four minutes.

Speaker 1:
[21:54] Yeah, to the now?

Speaker 3:
[21:55] That'd be interesting.

Speaker 2:
[22:03] A couple months later, I'm here to offer those exact four minutes that you asked for, Taylor. And I gotta say, guys, we were right about some things, but not everything.

Speaker 3:
[22:12] Oh, well, I can't wait. Here we go.

Speaker 2:
[22:15] To figure out when headlamps started to use red light, you gotta know when humans started to use headlamps. That story starts in a place darker than any hiking trail.

Speaker 15:
[22:25] The kind of profound darkness of someplace underground is difficult to describe.

Speaker 2:
[22:31] This is Eric Nystrom, a history professor at University of Nevada, Reno. He's talking about mines. That's because miners were the first people to use headlamps. But these were way lower tech than what you might see today.

Speaker 15:
[22:43] Really, you trace the first ones to candles.

Speaker 2:
[22:46] Candles. But since miners needed their hands to mine, those candles had to go somewhere.

Speaker 15:
[22:52] So some folks would take a dot of clay and sort of affix it to the crown of their hat.

Speaker 2:
[22:58] Except this was dangerous because an open flame could cause a methane explosion, or it could just go out.

Speaker 15:
[23:04] You think about what a flame on your head goes through when you move your head around. There's wind, there's movement, there's jostling, and that flame is your light and it might be your ability to get out of the mine.

Speaker 2:
[23:17] Needless to say, it was a big deal when a new technology came onto the scene, carbide lamps.

Speaker 15:
[23:23] Carbide is a manufactured product and it's discovered in the late 1890s. And then pretty quickly, they figure out when it comes in contact with water, it generates acetylene gas. And acetylene burns with a bright white flame.

Speaker 2:
[23:39] Carbide lamps took advantage of this reaction. Separated by two chambers, water would drip over dry carbide. Cue the acetylene gas and then by strike of a flint, presto, light. This flame was about 10 times brighter than a singular candle.

Speaker 15:
[23:53] You can just imagine it's a revolution.

Speaker 2:
[23:55] But the revolution didn't end there. With the development of batteries, electric headlamps entered the mining world in the 1930s. But the early models looked, well, kind of like a Victorian torture device. And the batteries? Gigantic.

Speaker 15:
[24:09] You take one of those biographies of a president or something like that, it's the size of one of those things.

Speaker 2:
[24:14] So yeah, these early headlamps weren't quite ready for your weekend hikes. But they did make their way into another pocket of outdoor recreation.

Speaker 16:
[24:22] Up in the Alps, some cave-ers from Grenoble have written their previous record of minus 903 meters in their exploration of the Guperberzi.

Speaker 2:
[24:32] Caving. In 1973, as batteries were getting lighter and lighter, a caver named George Petzl had an idea. Could an elastic band carry the weight of both the bulb and the battery pack? Welcome the Petzl headlamp. Petzl, by the way, is still one of the most popular brands of lighting gear today. As these headlamps became popular amidst your average weekend warrior of the 80s, red light was already pretty common in a different realm, the military. That's because red light allows you to see in the dark without ruining your night vision.

Speaker 15:
[25:03] You see in the First World War and really certainly by the Second World War, the development of flashlights that have a replaceable lens cover so that you can filter your light if you wanted to have it temporarily useful for night vision.

Speaker 2:
[25:17] But as always, military tech takes a while to make its way to the public. Recreational headlamps wouldn't offer that handy red light setting until the early 2000s. Now, as far as the etiquette question, I don't know when this became a thing, but it does seem like a nice way to avoid blinding hikers going the other way. And besides, you know who also hates bright white lights? The animals whose home you're kind of crashing.

Speaker 3:
[25:49] There we go, short and sweet, four minutes. I feel like I know a thousand percent more about headlamps than I did before this.

Speaker 4:
[25:57] I think it's really cool that people put candles on their hats.

Speaker 1:
[26:00] Yeah, I'm like blown away by carbide, that's so cool.

Speaker 3:
[26:03] My headlamp doesn't have a red light setting, I don't think.

Speaker 2:
[26:06] Taylor, did you buy that in like the 80s?

Speaker 3:
[26:09] Yeah, I mean, no, it's on the...

Speaker 4:
[26:11] It's just a candle.

Speaker 1:
[26:12] Yeah, you gotta upgrade. They have batteries now.

Speaker 2:
[26:16] You know how people are trying to go analog with their cell phones? Taylor's actually trying to go analog with his headlamp.

Speaker 3:
[26:21] I grumble about the people with the red lights. I'm like, come on, guys, go old school.

Speaker 17:
[26:29] Hello, Outside In Team. I live next to a major highway that runs through Minneapolis. It's one of those mid-century neighborhood destroying highways. We're about two blocks off of that highway, and we can hear it kind of a low hum almost all the time. I've read that constant sound from highways can kind of lead to cognitive issues. I worry that I'm dooming my two young daughters to issues growing up next to this highway. So I'm wondering if you'd be willing to tackle this question and see what you can find out. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 4:
[27:07] I think we should get him to record the sound. I think it really depends.

Speaker 2:
[27:12] Well, okay, then let's say he lives two blocks off no wall. He's hearing the dull, dulcet tones of highway noise every day all the time.

Speaker 3:
[27:21] I still think that Felix is right, which is there's probably a decibel threshold at which we know there are more deleterious effects, right? But also, there is some differences. You remember, Felix did the story about pickleball and he talked about the...

Speaker 4:
[27:35] I was about to say, I would take a highway over a pickleball court.

Speaker 1:
[27:40] Yeah, there's a certain white noise like, zh-zh-zh. Is it bad that I'm kind of just like, I think they'll be fine? We have been living around loud sounds for probably like 160, 170 years at least, you know? I mean, like since the beginning of the industrial age where people were living next to loud factories. Like I grew up next to train tracks and it was just constant, you know, and I'm fine, I'm fine.

Speaker 4:
[28:05] I grew up next to train tracks too and it was actually quite comforting to hear like the horn. It just lulled me to sleep.

Speaker 2:
[28:12] I think this is where I'm speaking though on like a paper that I scanned from an article about noise. So, you know, but I'm pretty sure they've found that it's not good.

Speaker 3:
[28:21] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[28:22] Not to freak Zach out, but I'm pretty sure that it's not like it's causing these massive shifts in your behavioral well-being. But I think the dull background noise, the very noise, we're like, that's probably fine. Again, I'm not speaking in great scientific terms here, but I think it's not doing us well.

Speaker 3:
[28:39] Yeah. I agree that this is probably pretty well studied and we'll be able to find some definitive answers about what is and is not healthy and what the outcomes are for people who live next to constant noise.

Speaker 2:
[28:53] Sounds like a question for the Outside Inbox.

Speaker 3:
[28:56] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[29:03] All right, well, a question for the Outside Inbox. Indeed, Felix, you took this up, right?

Speaker 4:
[29:07] I did, I looked into it.

Speaker 2:
[29:10] Okay, I'm on the edge of my seat, I gotta know. Let's get the scoop.

Speaker 4:
[29:12] All right. So, if you live next to a highway, you're in good company. About 17% of people in the US live close to a highway or busy road. In some parts of the country, that figure doubles. Like in California, where it's closer to 40%, and it can be noisy.

Speaker 18:
[29:31] I used to live in a community where every time a car would pass over, this bump on the highway would be like this.

Speaker 10:
[29:35] Kadoon, kadoon, kadoon, kadoon.

Speaker 4:
[29:37] This is Erica Walker. She's an assistant professor of epidemiology and runs the Community Noise Lab at Brown University. And Erica says there are a bunch of potential health impacts from chronic exposure to noise, like higher rates of depression and anxiety, heart disease, diabetes, even dementia. The common denominator of all these conditions is that noise can be stressful.

Speaker 18:
[29:59] And when you're stressed, cortisol is one of the hormones that are released when your body is getting into that flight or fight response.

Speaker 4:
[30:08] Erica has been measuring cortisol across different communities in a pretty unique way. I think it's cool, even if it may sound a little gross.

Speaker 18:
[30:17] We are actually taking biological samples of their fingernails.

Speaker 4:
[30:21] You heard that right, fingernails. Turns out that your nails act like little storage tanks for stress hormones released in your body. And even though a lot of the study's participants told Erica that they're not all that bothered by noise, Their nails tell a different story. The story that Erica found was that the fingernails from people in rural areas had less cortisol in them than the fingernails from people in urban areas. While she's not sure yet if the difference is because of the noise or because of other factors like income or race, the link between noise and stress is backed by other studies. When it comes to kids, noisy environments have been linked to more difficulty paying attention, slower cognitive development and mental health issues. Though not all noise is made equal. Some researchers found that intermittent noises like honking trucks, for example, are worse than say the steady home of a highway. So what are we to do about all this noise? Short of moving out of the neighborhood and going somewhere quieter, which let's be real, a lot of people can't afford, Erica does have some ideas, from getting a pair of earplugs to installing soundproof windows to what she does in her own home.

Speaker 18:
[31:31] I have a masking system, and a masking system is basically a noise, kind of like white noise, that you blast into your home that sort of diffuses the noise from outside. You can get masking systems for as cheap as $30 to where you can have fancy, sophisticated solutions put into your HVAC system.

Speaker 4:
[31:53] But this is still an individual approach to a systemic problem. Erica says something you can do at the community level is petition your Department of Transportation to install sound walls along highways, which don't just reduce noise, they also reduce air pollution. And going forward, she says we should be more thoughtful about how we plan future development. So as we're building more housing, more roads, more data centers, we need to take noise pollution seriously.

Speaker 18:
[32:22] Which is why when I asked Erica what advice we should be giving to Zach, Zach should quit his day job and become an urban planner and direct our cities to be planned better.

Speaker 4:
[32:34] Erica reminded me that kids are resilient. But whatever you end up doing, good luck to you, Zach.

Speaker 1:
[32:52] Well, I was definitely wrong.

Speaker 3:
[32:56] Wouldn't it be crazy if Zach quit his job and became an urban planner, and then like five years from now, he's like, guys, you changed my life.

Speaker 2:
[33:03] Zach, let us know.

Speaker 1:
[33:05] How do you guys deal with noise pollution?

Speaker 4:
[33:08] My air purifier kind of masks all the noises out there, and then in the summer, I have my fan going, so.

Speaker 2:
[33:15] Yeah, no, I should say, I sleep with a noise machine, and it lulls me right to sleep, but it also, like during the summer when AC units are turning on and off and they're loud, and then when trucks go by, it's exactly what Erica described. It kind of just dulls everything.

Speaker 1:
[33:29] Yeah, because you can't handle the sound of radiators popping.

Speaker 2:
[33:32] Oh, simply cannot. I'm a tender wetlands.

Speaker 4:
[33:36] I don't know. I still think there is something to, like, getting used to sounds that kind of almost become cozy. Like, radiators popping, to me, kind of symbolizes, oh, I'm inside, I'm warm.

Speaker 3:
[33:47] That's nice. I'm not capable of that. Like, total grump. But I think that's great that you do that, Felix. You know, I think there's some amount of, like, if you live in a place with a lot of density, there are great things that come from that. And you get to enjoy maybe a little bit more nightlife or museums and, you know, there's community. But then you just have to deal with the noise.

Speaker 2:
[34:09] Well, it's cultural, right? Where, you know, you'd also find somebody who moves to a really quiet place and says, I actually can't fall asleep with it being fully quiet. So it can definitely be easy, I think, when you hear this kind of information to imagine, okay, the solution is one thing for every person, when that's not the case. Okay, we're going to round this out with a question that came in, I think, a year and a half ago. I know we have some fans in the room.

Speaker 11:
[34:51] Hi, my name is Sabrina. I'm calling from Corvallis, Oregon State. I just finished watching Lord of the Rings. Like, I spent all night watching Lord of the Rings. And in the final movie, they serve the ring in the volcano. So it's like laying on a crust above the lava. I'm just wondering if that's like a real thing. Like, do volcanoes have some sort of crust atop the lava? And if so, what is it made out of?

Speaker 3:
[35:25] Ooh.

Speaker 4:
[35:26] Great question.

Speaker 3:
[35:28] Great scene too, let's be honest.

Speaker 4:
[35:29] It's a great scene and I'm willing to bet it's not purporting to the laws of physics, but to the laws of dramatic climax. Because can you imagine that scene where it just like plops in like, oh, like it's gone.

Speaker 3:
[35:44] It takes a super long time. Like I would actually love to go back this and put a stopwatch to it because I want to say it's like a full 15 seconds as the like the ring hits and then the you know the writing in, oh god, what's the language of Sauron, Mordor? It's like god, I should love this.

Speaker 4:
[36:03] Wasn't it elvish on the ring?

Speaker 3:
[36:06] Yeah, but it's a specific type of evil elvish, I think. Oh boy, Taylor.

Speaker 1:
[36:09] Taylor's taking this question 100%. He's taking this question. Sorry, buddy.

Speaker 3:
[36:12] I would be willing to bet if you threw a ring on a stable pool of lava, it would sit on top for a brief period because of the surface tension. But I don't think it would stay long before it slipped under.

Speaker 2:
[36:28] I think we could answer this.

Speaker 1:
[36:29] I think so too.

Speaker 2:
[36:30] Well, I hope Sabrina is still patiently waiting for this tardy reply. Taylor, you have some answers for us, right?

Speaker 3:
[36:44] Yeah, I mean, kind of. So one thing I could say is, the Lord of the Rings here is definitely inaccurate from a scientific perspective.

Speaker 4:
[36:53] Oh no, I never would have thought.

Speaker 3:
[36:55] So I talked a little bit about surface tension there, and I think that just isn't going to be a part of this. The thing is, is that lava is just super dense. And so a person would float on top of lava and probably catch fire and die in that fashion. It would not sink. Oh. Gold, though, is denser than lava, so the ring might actually sink. But that depends on how hot the lava is, because if it's really hot, it's more liquidy. If it's starting to cool, it's more like molasses, in which case the ring might actually stay on the surface like it does in the movie.

Speaker 2:
[37:27] I mean, I hate to even bring this up, but we haven't talked about the heat and whether the heat would just melt the ring.

Speaker 1:
[37:31] Thank you. We shouldn't even be in this situation. I think they both die of heat and just all the gasses at that lip of the volcano. You can't be hanging out up there. You're breathing in toxic fumes. It's insanely hot.

Speaker 4:
[37:46] Well, we don't understand Hobbit physiology though.

Speaker 3:
[37:49] That is true. They're very hardy.

Speaker 1:
[37:50] Yeah, that's true. That is also true. We don't know if they can withstand incredible temperatures.

Speaker 17:
[37:55] He's not even wearing shoes.

Speaker 1:
[37:56] Yeah, they weren't even wearing shoes.

Speaker 3:
[37:58] That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2:
[37:59] Wow. Well, Taylor, you did really look into it. You tried your hardest and I appreciate that. I appreciate a good try.

Speaker 3:
[38:05] There's one thing that we also straight up didn't answer. She basically asks, like, oh, you know, if you look at the video, there's like some blackened parts of the top of the lava. And she was like, what's that crust and would that happen? And yes, absolutely. Like if you look at lava, you know, basically as soon as it's hitting the air, the top is cooling and it's turning back into rock. And so you can have like a pretty thick crust of what is becoming solid rock on top of that molten rock.

Speaker 4:
[38:32] So was her question about the body of Gollum or the ring? Cause I don't really feel like we've answered the question.

Speaker 3:
[38:40] You know what Felix, you're just gonna have to live with this and you know, we'll do a full episode on it another time.

Speaker 2:
[38:45] Three-parter. A trilogy.

Speaker 3:
[38:49] One might say.

Speaker 1:
[38:55] Alrighty, that is it for today's episode. If this has inspired you to send in a question to the Outside Inbox, do it now. Please, before you forget, you can call us at 1-844-GO-AUTER or you can email us at outsidein at nhpr.org. This episode was reported, produced and mixed by Marina Henke, Felix Poon and me, your host, Nate Hegyi. It was edited by Marina and our executive producer, Taylor Quimby. Our staff also includes Justine Paradis and Jessica Hunt. Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR's Director of On Demand Audio. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions, No Sons of Mine and Eric Fernholm. Outside In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Speaker 2:
[39:33] Cue rotting whale theme song.

Speaker 16:
[39:39] Whale, whale, whale. That's it. That's it.

Speaker 19:
[39:41] Whale, whale, whale.

Speaker 14:
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Speaker 19:
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