Science

Dreaming may be the hot new problem-solving technique of the future

Your problems will still be there in the morning, but maybe a solution can be, too.

2001: A Space Odyssey predicted AI (and its potential for evil); Star Trek foresaw handheld communicators; and now Inception appears poised to join the ranks of movies that seemed far-fetched only to turn out ahead of their time.

In this story by Erik Barnes, neuroscientists at Northwestern University recruited 20 participants and gave them challenging brain-teaser puzzles paired with specific soundtracks. Most of the puzzles went unsolved. Then participants went to sleep in the lab.

During REM sleep, researchers quietly replayed the soundtracks linked to half of the unsolved puzzles. The next morning, 12 of the 20 participants reported dreaming about the cued puzzles, and their ability to solve those problems jumped from 20 percent to 40 percent overnight. 

No word on spinning tops or slow-motion hallway fights. DiCaprio has yet to return our call for comment.

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What did we learn?

Yesterday, we shared the next, smelly evolution of wearable smart technology. 

The article begs the question, how many times a day do we pass gas? Just over half of GOOD readers had the correct and surprisingly high answer of 32 times!

• 8 (9.7%)

• 17 (25.5%)

• 32 (50.3%) ✅

• 52 (14.5%)

Health

The longevity secret scientists are chasing isn’t in a pill

It may be shaped by what you eat, how you move, and the trillions of microbes inside you.

The hunt for the fountain of youth in ancient tales always required guts. Maybe those ancient explorers would have had better luck finding the cure for aging if the guts in question hadn't been metaphorical.

In this story by Bill Sullivan (no relation!), a microbiology professor and author of Pleased to Meet Me, we learn that your gut microbiome shifts predictably with age. Scientists can now estimate your age based on your microbes alone. Not exactly helpful. A driver’s license does that just fine.

Things get interesting when researchers start swapping microbes. Give old mice the gut bacteria of young mice, and signs of aging reverse. Do the opposite, and aging speeds up. Yes, really.

Now scientists are asking a very modern question: if microbes can nudge aging in mice, what might they do for us? It may turn out that the real fountain of youth was inside us all along.

Culture

150 teens, $72,000 salaries, and the teacher pipeline problem nobody wants

“Why in the world would I?”

When Lee Ann Rawlins Williams asked 150 high school students whether they wanted to become teachers, she expected hesitation. She did not expect open disbelief.

“Why in the world would I?” one student replied. Others talked about watching their teachers juggle emotional crises, constant disruptions, endless paperwork, and long hours that follow them home.

They also notice the money.

As Williams explains in this story, teachers now earn about 73 cents for every dollar earned by other college graduates. In 1970, nearly 20 percent of college freshmen reported being interested in teaching. By 2020, that number had dropped below 5 percent.

The students are paying attention. The question is whether anyone else is.

On February 18, 1978, a bar bet that got out of hand became the first-ever Iron Man competition. At a Honolulu banquet in 1977, John and Judy Collins joined a good-natured debate about who were the “fittest” athletes: swimmers, cyclists, or runners. Their answer, string all three into one grueling meta-competition, wouldn’t settle the argument so much as redefine it.

At 7:00 a.m., 48 years ago today, 15 athletes waded into the water off Sans Souci (Kaimana) Beach in Waikīkī armed with a few mimeographed, typed rules ending with the immortal closer: “Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life!” There were no official aid stations, so when frontrunner John Dunbar ran out of water late in the marathon, his crew handed him beer, which somehow kept him moving. And for those who did make it to the line, the prize wasn’t a laurel wreath but homemade hardware: a literal little “iron man,” welded stick-figure trophy and all.

Gordon Haller won in 11:46:58; the next race ran on January 14, 1979, in Honolulu (weather-delayed a day), and the legend exploded after a national magazine spread. By 1981, the World Championship moved to Kona, and the Ironman series still spans the globe today. The old debate about who’s “most fit” remains deliciously unsettled, unless you’re happy to mark D) All of the above and call it a day.

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