Fun science facts

While Cassie was away on one of her college visits, she sent me an email saying only "Look what I found Bodhi," with a link to a ScienceNews article entitled "If Chewing Sounds Irk You, Blame Your Brain." Very subtle. The article explains that recent research found a neurological basis for a condition called misophonia, which causes "[a]nger and anxiety in response to everyday sounds of eating, drinking and breathing." MRI scans showed increased activity in the anterior insular cortex, a brain structure involved in emotional processing, of misophonics exposed to chewing and breathing noises. The misophonics also showed increased heart rate and skin conductivity, which is "the same sort of flight-or-fight response that gets triggered when facing a wild animal or a public speaking engagement." So now there is a scientific explanation for why I have such an adverse reaction to sounds like coffee slurping and gum chewing. All this time you've been making fun of me and I've been suffering from a neurological condition. Shame on you.

[9/27/22 update: You can now hear more about misophonia on this episode of The Happiness Lab (the discussion starts a little under 16:00 into the episode.]

Not long after Cassie emailed me that article, I drove her to Waynesboro for an orchestra rehearsal. I brought a variety of reading material, including an issue of Virginia Magazine, in which I found another interesting article entitled "Relief Pitcher." That article features Dr. Chris Winter, a UVA alum and former medical director of the Martha Jefferson Sleep Medicine Center. Winter was the lead author of a 10-year study on sleep, travel, and team performance in Major League Baseball that suggested that the team better adjusted to a game's local time zone has a better chance of winning. Winter began consulting with the San Francisco Giants in 2009, the year before they won the World Series for the first time since 1954. Winter gave the Giants ideas about how to sleep, and therefore perform, better, including details like "earplugs for all the players in the hotel rooms, duct tape under the doors to keep light out,[and] clip the shades together to keep not even a speck of light coming through." That should sound familiar, as earplugs and blackout curtains are two of the items I’ve resorted to in my quest to get the best night's sleep possible.

And then on the way home from that rehearsal, Cassie and I were listening to John Tesh's radio show ("Intelligence For Your Life") and heard about a study finding a scientific basis for walking into a room and forgetting why you are there, which I do often. When we got home, I read about the study on BrainPages in the article "Why You Forget What You Were Doing When You Walk Into A Room." The lead author of the study, Notre Dame scientist Gabriel Radvansky, noted that simply passing through a door seemed to make subjects forget what object they had just carried through it. Radvansky explained that our brains create an "event boundary," by which they compartmentalize events and tie them to the room in which they occurred. "By moving from one room to the next, the brain effectively creates a file containing all the information about the first room, and what you did there, and tucks it away." The brain then focuses on the second room, which makes it much harder to remember what you had intended to do upon leaving the first room. 

So in the space of just a week, I heard of scientific explanations for three different things you’ve made fun of me about. If I spent another week looking, I could probably find a neurological basis for every other so-called personality quirk you’ve razzed me over. But now we know they’re not foibles, but facts based in science. Vindication.

It appears that there is also a scientific basis for why popcorn tastes good. In the introduction to his stovetop popcorn recipe, Alton Brown (of "Good Eats" and "Iron Chef America" fame), asks and answers (sort of) the question "Why does popcorn taste so darn good? Well, for a start: pyrazines, phenols, pyrroles, carbanols and furans." Brown doesn’t say what any of those things are, so I checked On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, the standard food science reference. McGee explains why popcorn kernels pop, but not why they taste good. He does, however, include the following quote about popcorn from an 1842 journal entry by Henry David Thoreau:

I have been popping corn to-night, which is only a more rapid blossoming of the seed under a greater than July heat. The popped corn is a perfect winter flower, hinting of anemones and houstonias. . . . By my warm hearth sprang these cerealious blossoms; here was the bank where they grew.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Stovetop Popcorn

Adapted from Alton Brown (2020 video here)

Mom makes microwave popcorn most evenings, but I'm not a big fan. I recently picked up a bag of Trader Joe's Organic Popping Corn and popped it on the stovetop and there's no comparison. And once you've seasoned stovetop popcorn with nutritional yeast you never go back.

100 grams (~½ cup) popcorn kernels
40 grams (3 tablespoons) ghee or oil, such as sunflower, peanut, or coconut
scant ½ teaspoon popcorn salt (make your own)
28 grams (2 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted (optional)

    1. Combine the popcorn, oil, and salt in a large pot or large (8-quart) heavy-duty stainless steel mixing bowl. Cover with heavy-duty aluminum foil and cut 10 slits in the foil with a knife.
    2. Place the pot or bowl over medium heat. Cook, swirling and shaking the pan once in a while, until there are no pops for about 5 seconds.
    3. Take the bowl off the heat and immediately remove the foil, watching out for steam. If desired, drizzle melted butter over the popcorn, then toss well. Serve promptly.

Popcorn with Nutritional Yeast
Sprinkle the warm popcorn with nutritional yeast flakes that have been ground to a powder in a spice/coffee grinder. Toss well.

Chile-Lime Popcorn
Before you start popping the corn, mix together ½ teaspoon ancho (mild) or chipotle (spicier) chile powder and the juice of half a lime (~2 to 3 teaspoons). Drizzle the mixture over the popped corn, then toss well.