Completely Optional Knowledge

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Brigitta Green from the perennial winter wonderland of Minnesota has a fitting question for us about ice. After a mysterious, late night howling sound caused “mass slight curiosity” on the streets of St. Paul last winter, she wants to know how it is that a frozen body of water can produce such an eery noise. Chris Polashenski, Arctic researcher and expert on all things cold, has our answer.

What's the coolest or weirdest official name for a species of plant or animal? And how do they get those funny sounding Latin names anyway?

Is a watermelon a vegetable? Biologically it’s logical, but does the answer depend where you live?

Zookeeper Rick asks why why animals see color differently? Dr. Jay Neitz of the University of Washington Department of Ophthalmology says there is more than one factor that accounts for how animals perceive color. Some plants and animals present vibrant colors we can’t even see and for reasons they don't want us to know.

Listener Ross Wintle, driving past a cemetery near his home, wonders if animals other than humans have rituals around death? Barbara J King, professor emerita of anthropology at the College of William and Mary and the author of How Animals Grieve reports that when it comes to animals and death, you’ve gotta look at elephants. However there are also some interesting reports about magpies, red foxes and dolphins showing some interacting with the dead in their groups. Appropriately in a Day of the Dead episode, The Completely Optional Knowledge podcast helps us understanding that death is a bit more universal experience in the animal kingdom than just to humans.

Listener Matthew Hollingshead, a skateboard enthusiast, asks why it’s so funny to watch people get hurt. We’re not necessarily talking about critical injuries, more like America’s Funniest Home Videos style failures, pain, and embarrassment. Caleb Warren, an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Arizona helps us answer this question and feel a little better about finding joy in other people’s “hilarious misery”. If you like Completely Optional Knowledge, help support the show: greenpeace.org/usa/knowledge

Hilah Johnson hosts a show about cooking (and, naturally, eating)and she came to us with a very on-brand question. Do animals have eating contests? We spoke to biologist Elise Huchard to get the answer. Check out Hilah's cooking show! Find her on Twitter @hilahcooking.

Listening to Shohini Ghose talk about what would happen if a human reached light speed in Episode 16, Fred Papon of Australia wanted to know more about her research into quantum teleportation. Ghose reveals that teleportation has already happened, but don’t expect someone on the train with you to disappear after saying “Beam me up Scotty.”

Dallas College professor Patrick Moore, seeing his dog Abbey eating her own poo and swallowing dirty socks, wonders how animal tastebuds work. Danielle Reed, associate director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, takes a break from feeding her cat Diet Coke to talk about the chemical properties of taste. Both cheese and sweaty socks smell like isovaleric acid. Dogs being omnivores unconstrained by the social cues that govern human behavior are going to go ahead and see if that sock is food. Host Andrew Norton would rather have listeners thinking about Mac and Cheese but he has his own taste issues. Maybe it’s in genetics?

Molly and John Knefel, sister and brother co-hosts of the daily podcast “Radio Dispatch” wonder why siblings become rivals. Naomi White, PhD, of Cambridge University, explores the evolutionary and cultural roots of sibling conflict and finds that working things out with your sister or brother teaches important lessons about life and relationships.

Inspired by freeze-dried ice cream at Space Camp, podcast producer of 99% Invisible Avery Trufelman wonders what the sun really sounds like setting aside the hokey furnace effect shown in movies. Knowing that no sound waves can travel in the vacuum of space, fellow space camper and Completely Optional Knowledge host Andrew Norton finds a marvelous audible version of satellite data from sonification specialist Robert Alexander who trains heliophysicists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, to pick out subtle differences by listening to satellite data instead of looking at it. So get some astronaut ice cream and join in by pushing the “play” button.

Breakmaster Cylinder, creator of the Completely Optional Knowledge theme music, wonders if music can be used to trigger specific responses in people. Jessica Grahn of the Music and Neuroscience Lab at Western University explores ways that music can influence people and create personal playlists for happier, healthier lives. For host Andrew Norton, a turkey sandwich might be in his future. Listen to Breakmaster Cylinder at https://breakmastercylinder.bandcamp.com/ and find out more about how beats and music affect the brain at www.jessicagrahn.com.

Lauren Ober is the host of WAMU's The Big Listen. She wanted to know the answer to a relatively simple question - what is wind? With help from UCLA mathematician Marcus Roper, she got an answer plus something unexpected: the fascinating way mushrooms catch a breeze by making it themselves.

Jonathan Mehring has photographed all over the world, but there’s one place he hasn’t been yet that he’s dying to learn about: outer space. So we talked to someone who’s spent a whole year in space and taken thousands of photos while he was out there, astronaut Don Pettit. As we learn, even the simplest photography tasks are made difficult when you’re orbiting the Earth in zero gravity. Listen in for Don’s pro-tips on how to capture amazing photos from outer space! Check out Don’s photos at http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov or on Twitter @astro_pettit (and follow Jonathan @mehringphoto while you’re at it). The photo used with this episode comes courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center.