Big ideas.
Once a week.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
How Your Brain Slows Down Time
Your assessment of how long something took has a lot to do with how much energy your brain has to burn during the event.
Why time is rubbery and can speed up or slow down? It turns out, when I looked into the literature on this, the experiment had never been done about why time seems to move in slow motion when you’re in a life-threatening situation.
But I talked to so many people and I’d experienced it myself that I wanted to study that. So I found a way to study it by dropping people from 150 foot tall tower and measuring their time perception on the way down. In addition, several other experiments we did in my lab led me to understand that people don't actually see time in slow motion during an event. Instead, it’s a completely retrospective assessment.
In other words, when you’re in a life-threatening situation, your brain writes down memory much more densely, and then retrospectively, when you look at that, you have so many details that you don't normally have that it seems as though it must have lasted a very long time.
That's the only interpretation your brain can make. So time, your assessment of how long something took, has a lot to do with how much energy your brain has to burn during the event and how much footage you have of the event.
In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think's studio.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
Popular
2 new ways to find aliens, according to a Nobel Prize winner
Physicist Frank Wilczek proposes new methods of searching for extraterrestrial life.
16 February, 2020
Alien spaceships.
Adobe stock
Surprising Science
- Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek thinks we are not searching for aliens correctly.
- Instead of sending out and listening for signals, he proposes two new methods of looking for extraterrestrials.
- Spotting anomalies in planet temperature and atmosphere could yield clues of alien life, says the physicist.
<p><br></p></div>
<p>For noted theoretical physicist <strong>Frank Wilczek, </strong>finding aliens is a matter of figuring out what exactly we are looking for. To detect other space civilizations, we need to search for the specific effects they might be having on their worlds, argues the Nobel laureate in a new proposal.</p><p>Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Wilczek says that it's a real challenge to figure out which among the over 4,000 exoplanets that we found so far outside of our solar system might host extraterrestrial life. The classic way of listening for space signals is insufficient and inefficient, says the scientist. What might really help are new developments in exoplanetary astronomy that can allow us to get much more precise information about faraway space objects. </p><p>In particular, there are two ways we should focus our attention to turn the odds of finding alien life in our favor, argues the physicist.</p>
1. Atmosphere chemistry
<p>Like we found out with our own effect on the Earth's atmosphere, making a <a href="https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/facts/hole_SH.html" target="_blank">hole in the ozone layer</a>, the gases around a planet can be impacted by its inhabitants. "Atmospheres are especially significant in the search for alien life," <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/looking-for-signs-of-alien-technology-11581605907" target="_blank">writes Wilczek</a> "because they might be affected by biological processes, the way that photosynthesis on Earth produces nearly all of our planet's atmospheric oxygen."</p><p>But while astrobiology can provide invaluable clues, so can looking for the signs of alien technology, which can also be manifested in the atmosphere. An advanced alien civilization might be colonizing other planets, turning their atmospheres to resemble the home planets. This makes sense considering our own plans to terraform other planets like Mars to allow us to breathe there. Elon Musk even <a href="https://www.space.com/elon-musk-serious-nuke-mars-terraforming.html" target="_blank">wants to nuke the red planet.</a></p>The Most Beautiful Equation: How Wilczek Got His Nobel
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="ijBZzuI2" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="061a3de613c45f42b05432a2949e7caa"> <div id="botr_ijBZzuI2_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/ijBZzuI2-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/ijBZzuI2-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/ijBZzuI2-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div>2. Planet temperatures
<p>Wilczek also floats another idea - what if an alien civilization created a greenhouse effect to raise the temperature of a planet? For example, if extraterrestrials were currently researching Earth, they would likely notice the increased levels of carbon dioxide that are <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases" target="_blank">heating up</a> our atmosphere. Similarly, we can looks for such signs around the exoplanets.</p><p>An advanced civilization might also be heating up planets to raise their temperatures to uncover resources and make them more habitable. Unfreezing water might be one great reason to turn up the thermostat. </p><p>Unusually high temperatures can also be caused by alien manufacturing and the use of artificial energy sources like nuclear fission or fusion, suggests the scientist. Structures like the hypothetical <a href="https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/this-mind-bending-scale-predicts-the-power-of-advanced-civilizations" target="_self">Dyson spheres</a>, which could be used to harvest energy from stars, can be particularly noticeable. </p><p>Similarly, there might be instances when our faraway space counterparts would want to cool planets down. Examining temperature anomalies of space bodies might allow us to pinpoint such clues. </p><p>Focusing on the temperatures and atmospheres of other planets might be not only a winning strategy but something specifically encouraged by other civilizations who want us to find them. "An alien species that wants to communicate could draw the gaze of exoplanetary astronomers to anomalies in its solar system, effectively using its parent star to focus attention," expounds the physicist. </p><p>Wilczek, who currently <a href="https://web.mit.edu/physics/people/faculty/wilczek_frank.html" target="_blank">teaches at MIT,</a> was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for discovering <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptotic_freedom" target="_blank">asymptotic freedom</a>.</p><p>You can check out <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/looking-for-signs-of-alien-technology-11581605907" target="_blank">Wilczek's full article here.</a></p>
Wilczek: Why 'Change without Change' Is One of the Fundamental Principles of the ...
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="KrUgLGWm" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="cc13c3c65924439c1992935c61ab8977"> <div id="botr_KrUgLGWm_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/KrUgLGWm-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/KrUgLGWm-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/KrUgLGWm-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div>
Keep reading
Show less
As we approach death, our dreams offer comfort and reconciliation
As patients approached death, many had dreams and visions of deceased loved ones.
08 March, 2021
Credit: Amisha Nakhwa on Unsplash
Mind & Brain
One of the most devastating elements of the coronavirus pandemic has been the inability to personally care for loved ones who have fallen ill.
<p><a href="https://khn.org/news/bereaved-families-are-the-secondary-victims-of-covid-19/" target="_blank">Again and again</a>, grieving relatives <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/24/us/coronavirus-victim-family-note-trnd/index.html?sr=twCNN042420coronavirus-victim-family-note-trnd0853PMStory" target="_blank">have testified</a> to how much more devastating their loved one's death was <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article241678926.html" target="_blank">because they were unable to hold their family member's hand</a>—to provide a familiar and comforting presence in their final days and hours. </p><p>Some had to say their final goodbyes <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-230-am-in-north-dakota-youre-holding-a-smartphone-to-let-a-husband-say-goodbye-to-his-wife-via-facetime-after-60-years-of-marriage-2020-11-23" target="_blank">through smartphone screens</a> held by a medical provider. Others resorted to <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article241678926.html" target="_blank">using walkie-talkies or waving through windows</a>.</p><p>How does one come to terms with the overwhelming grief and guilt over the thought of a loved one dying alone? </p><p>I don't have an answer to this question. But the work of a hospice doctor named Christopher Kerr—with whom I co-authored the book “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Death_Is_But_a_Dream.html?id=KX6cDwAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description" target="_blank">Death Is But a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life's End</a>"—might offer some consolation.</p>
<h2>Unexpected visitors</h2><p>At the start of his career, Dr. Kerr was tasked—like any and all physicians—with attending to the physical care of his patients. But he soon noticed a phenomenon that seasoned nurses were already accustomed to. As patients approached death, many had dreams and visions of deceased loved ones who came back to comfort them in their final days.</p><p>Doctors <a href="https://www.nursingtimes.net/clinical-archive/end-of-life-and-palliative-care/the-significance-of-end-of-life-dreams-and-visions-04-07-2014/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">are typically trained</a> to interpret these occurrences as drug-induced or delusional hallucinations that might warrant more medication or downright sedation.</p><p>But after seeing the peace and comfort these end-of-life experiences seemed to bring his patients, Dr. Kerr decided to pause and listen. One day, in 2005, a dying patient named Mary had one such vision: She began moving her arms as if rocking a baby, cooing at her child who had died in infancy decades prior.</p><p>To Dr. Kerr, this didn't seem like cognitive decline. What if, he wondered, patients' own perceptions at life's end mattered to their well-being in ways that should not concern just nurses, chaplains, and social workers?</p><p>What would medical care look like if all physicians stopped and listened, too?</p>
<h2>The project begins</h2><p>So at the sight of dying patients reaching and calling out to their loved ones—many of whom they had not seen, touched, or heard for decades—he began collecting and recording testimonies given directly by those who were dying. Over the course of 10 years, he and his research team recorded the end-of-life experiences of 1,400 patients and families.</p><p>What he discovered astounded him. Over 80% of his patients—no matter what walk of life, background, or age group they came from—had end-of-life experiences that seemed to entail more than just strange dreams. These were vivid, meaningful, and transformative. And they always increased in frequency near death.</p><p>They included visions of long-lost mothers, fathers, and relatives, as well as dead pets come back to comfort their former owners. They were about relationships resurrected, love revived, and forgiveness achieved. They often brought reassurance and support, peace and acceptance.</p>
<h2>Becoming a dream weaver</h2><p>I first heard of Dr. Kerr's research in a barn.</p><p>I was busy mucking my horse's stall. The stables were on Dr. Kerr's property, so we often discussed his work on the dreams and visions of his dying patients. He told me about his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbnBe-vXGQM" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TEDx Talk on the topic</a>, as well as the book project he was working on.</p><p>I couldn't help but be moved by the work of this doctor and scientist. When he disclosed that he was not getting far with the writing, I offered to help. He hesitated at first. I was an English professor who was an expert in taking apart the stories others wrote, not in writing them myself. His agent was concerned that I wouldn't be able to write in ways that were accessible to the public – something academics are not exactly known for. I persisted, and the rest is history.</p><p>It was this collaboration that turned me into a writer.</p><p>I was tasked with instilling more humanity into the remarkable medical intervention this scientific research represented, to put a human face on the statistical data that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1049909113517291" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">had already been published in medical journals</a>.</p><p>The moving stories of Dr. Kerr's encounters with his patients and their families confirmed how, <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/12/12/montaigne-on-death-and-the-art-of-living/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in the words of the French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne</a>, "he who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live."</p><p>I learned about Robert, who was losing Barbara, his wife of 60 years, and was assailed by conflicting feelings of guilt, despair, and faith. One day, he inexplicably saw her reaching for the baby son they had lost decades ago, in a brief span of lucid dreaming that echoed Mary's experience years earlier. Robert was struck by his wife's calm demeanor and blissful smile. It was a moment of pure wholeness, one that transformed their experience of the dying process. Barbara was living her passing as a time of love regained, and seeing her comforted brought Robert some peace in the midst of his irredeemable loss.</p><p>For the elderly couples Dr. Kerr cared for, being separated by death after decades of togetherness was simply unfathomable. Joan's recurring dreams and visions helped mend the deep wound left by her husband's passing months earlier. She would call out to him at night and point to his presence during the day, including in moments of full and articulate lucidity. For her daughter Lisa, these occurrences grounded her in the knowledge that her parents' bond was unbreakable. Her mother's pre-death dreams and visions assisted Lisa in her own journey toward acceptance—<a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=0TltiT8Y9CYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=losing+a+parent+acceptance+grief&ots=S1b_VEJ6YR&sig=fQ0IX4ZJ1ri80S1GlhwlYsmY648#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a key element of processing loss</a>.</p><p>When children are dying, it is often their beloved, deceased pets that make appearances. Thirteen-year-old Jessica, dying of a malignant form of bone-based cancer, started having visions of her former dog, Shadow. His presence reassured her. "I will be fine," she told Dr. Kerr on one of his last visits.</p><p>For Jessica's mom, Kristen, these visions—and Jessica's resulting tranquility—helped initiate the process she had been resisting: that of letting go.</p>
<h2>Isolated but not alone</h2><p>The health care system is difficult to change. Nevertheless, Dr. Kerr still hopes to help patients and their loved ones reclaim the dying process from a clinical approach to one that is appreciated as a rich and unique human experience.</p><p>Pre-death dreams and visions help fill the void that may otherwise be created by the doubt and fear that death evokes. They help the dying reunite with those they have loved and lost, those who secured them, affirmed them, and brought them peace. They heal old wounds, restore dignity, and reclaim love. Knowing about this paradoxical reality helps the bereaved cope with grief as well.</p><p>As hospitals and nursing homes continue to remain closed to visitors because of the coronavirus pandemic, it may help to know that the dying rarely speak of being alone. They speak of being loved and put back together.</p><p>There is no substitute for being able to hold our loved ones in their last moments, but there may be solace in knowing that they were being held.<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154133/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation"></p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/carine-mardorossian-1202094" target="_blank">Carine Mardorossian</a>, Professor of English, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-at-buffalo-925" target="_blank">University at Buffalo</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-death-approaches-our-dreams-offer-comfort-reconciliation-154133" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">original article</a>.</p>
Keep reading
Show less
Surprising new feature of human evolution discovered
Research reveals a new evolutionary feature that separates humans from other primates.
07 March, 2021
Human evolution.
Credit: Adobe Stock
Surprising Science
- Researchers find a new feature of human evolution.
- Humans have evolved to use less water per day than other primates.
- The nose is one of the factors that allows humans to be water efficient.
<p>Scientists discovered a new feature that makes humans distinct from other primates like chimpanzees. The research shows that the human body uses 30% to 50% less water per day than our closest animal relatives.</p><p>Certainly, our brain power, and the ability to walk upright are key in making us special but the efficiency with which the human body uses up water is another major difference. This characteristic likely came about as an evolutionary adaptation in ancient hunter-gatherers, who had to venture out further and further from water sources in search of food, thinks the study's lead author Herman Pontzer, associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Even just being able to go a little bit longer without water would have been a big advantage as early humans started making a living in dry, savannah landscapes," Pontzer <a href="https://phys.org/news/2021-03-humans-evolved-closest-primate-relatives.html" target="_blank">said</a>.</p><p>As our body constantly gets rid of water through processes like urinating or sweating, it is necessary for the water levels to be restored. "To sustain life, humans and other terrestrial animals must maintain a tight balance of water gain and water loss each day," as the paper's authors <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00289-X?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS096098222100289X%3Fshowall%3Dtrue" target="_blank">write</a>. </p><p>For the study, the researchers looked at this cycle of water consumption and loss in 309 people from a variety of backgrounds. These included farmers, hunter-gatherers, and office workers, who were compared to 72 apes spread around zoos and sanctuaries.</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTc5Mzg4NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2Mjc5NDIxNX0.twc5eqzbcvstjN1fXX-egPqyRhL5ob1oxbmE7Vm_M4g/img.jpg?width=980" id="5b260" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0410ac6c503e7f6c52ff043c1ffaa533" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2250" data-height="2250" />
A model of water turnover for humans and chimpanzees who have similar fat free mass and body water pools.
Credit: Current Biology
<p>The scientists calculated the water intake of each person in the study, whether it came from drinks or food. They also tracked how much water was lost through urine, sweat or the GI tract. With all the numbers added up, it became clear that an average person's body goes through about 3 liters of water every day. That's about 12 cups. A chimp or a gorilla goes through twice as much.</p><p>The results were surprising because humans tend to sweat more than other primates. In one square inch of skin, "humans have 10 times as many sweat glands as chimpanzees do," <a href="https://phys.org/news/2021-03-humans-evolved-closest-primate-relatives.html" target="_blank">explained</a> Pontzer. We can sweat out about a half gallon in a 30-minute workout. We also lead much more active lives than the apes at the zoo, with most apes only moving a couple of hours a day, according to the scientists. So how is it that we use up so much less water?</p>
<p>The researchers believe that the very real difference in water processing they observed in humans compared to other primates is related to evolutionary mechanisms. Our bodies had to adjust to need less water to stay healthy.</p><p>The scientists are now focused on figuring out how exactly this change occurred. The data suggests that our sense of thirst diverged from other ape relatives. We just don't want so much water. Notably, the ratio of water-to-calories is 25% less in human breast milk than in ape milk.</p><p>It is also possible that our nose has a lot to do with this. Fossils point to the fact that humans started to get more protruding noses than its evolutionary cousins about 1.6 million years ago, with the dawn of Homo erectus. In contrast, gorillas and chimp have flatter noses. </p>
<p>What's good about our noses? Since we tend to breathe out water vapor, the nasal passages actually cool and condense it, turning it back into liquid. This liquid gathers inside the nose and get reappropriated back into the body. Essentially, having a nose that juts out likely helped ancient humans keep more moisture when breathing.</p><p>Read the study published in <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00289-X?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS096098222100289X%3Fshowall%3Dtrue" target="_blank">Current Biology. </a></p>
Keep reading
Show less
Videos
Skepticism: Why critical thinking makes you smarter
Being skeptical isn't just about being contrarian. It's about asking the right questions of ourselves and others to gain understanding.
Scroll down to load more…
