Do you really know?

What is Blue Monday? Thanks for asking! Sorry to start the week with bad news but today is Blue Monday, often cited as the most depressing day of the year. Blue Monday has existed since 2005, and is based on an equation which takes into account various factors. However, its detractors criticise the idea as pseudoscience and say it is driven by money.   Why does Blue Monday occur in January? Since the first Blue Monday equation was devised by psychologist Cliff Arnall, there have been a few different variants, but there are common elements to each. Of course you’ve got the winter weather, which explains why Blue Monday isn’t a phenomenon in the southern Hemisphere, where January is a summer month. Blue Monday is also not well known in the United States, as it usually clashes with Martin Luther King Day.Furthermore, people are often indebted in January, after overspending at Christmas time, and there’s still over a week to wait until payday. The joy of the holiday season has passed and many of us have already failed to stick to our New Year’s resolutions. Black Friday, Super Saturday, Blue Monday - why do I get the feeling this is just another marketing thing? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is induced lactation?What is a Bullshit job?What is Pornhub?A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are bionic soldiers? Thanks for asking!Bionic soldiers have been making headlines since early December, when a French military ethics committee approved the development of technological upgrades for members of the country’s armed forces.Less than a week prior to that announcement, the US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe raised concerns about China’s military technology plans. Writing an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, he accused Beijing of “developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities”, with the ultimate aim being to “dominate the US and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically.” And the United States government has also invested heavily itself in developing new generation military technology. In 2016, it spent millions to create an implant allowing the human brain to communicate with computers.This all sounds like something out of science fiction! Are we going to see cyborgs on the battlefield soon?It’s true that the idea of enhancing a human's physical or cognitive abilities through the use of technology was long restricted to sci-fi. Films like Universal Soldier and Robocop are perfect examples. But recent discussions around bionic soldiers have made such developments seem closer to becoming reality.French defence minister Florence Parly insisted that there were currently no plans to develop bionic soldiers, but the ethics committee ruling does mean it would be allowed in the future. Using a superhero analogy, Parly said the country’s intention would be to have armoured fighters like Iron Man, rather than genetic mutants like Spiderman.What kind of enhancements would bionic soldiers have compared to regular humans? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is induced lactation?What is a Bullshit job?What is Pornhub?A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is induced lactation? Thanks for asking!Induced lactation refers to the production of breast milk in non-gestational parents. That’s right, a woman who hasn’t ever been pregnant can still breastfeed their child using this method. Sounds complicated? Well it is, but it’s not impossible, and it can allow adoptive or surrogate mothers to breastfeed if they desire. The benefits of breastfeeding for a baby’s wellbeing and development are well documented, in addition to the emotional bond the physical connection can create. Quite simply, breast milk is seen as the best food for a baby, so it’s understandably an option that many families would wish to explore. In 2019, a collection of photos showing a same-sex married couple breastfeeding their twins together went viral. Kelly Pfeiffer had carried the babies, while her wife Jaclyn induced lactation.What’s the science behind induced lactation then?Human breast tissue contains small clusters of alveoli, whether you’re a woman or a man. These hollow cavities are lined with cells which secrete milk. But it’s actually the hormone prolactin, produced by the pituitary gland in the brain, which stimulates the mammary glands and is mainly responsible for lactation.Interestingly, prolactin is present in the bodies of both women and men. Outside of pregnancy, women have around a third more prolactin in their bodies compared to men. During a pregnancy, this rises to 10 times more. This spike is what causes the breasts to swell and breast milk to be produced.In the case of induced lactation, hormone therapy and herbs may be used to simulate the effects of pregnancy, with close medical supervision of course. It’s also possible to produce milk through mechanical stimulation only. Devices like breast pumps and feeding tubes can assist.The process produces low volumes of milk to start with, but studies have shown the milk is just as good for a baby as that of biological mothers.Women planning to induce lactation should reach out to their healthcare provider as early as possible before their baby arrives.What about men? Could they also lactate and breastfeed? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is a Bullshit job?What is Pornhub?What are tiny forests?A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is a Bullshit job? Thanks for asking!Back in 2013, anthropology professor David Graeber penned an essay in radical magazine Strike, criticising the proliferation of what he called Bullshit jobs. Despite having a higher social status compared to careers in teaching or nursing for example, these positions are effectively pointless. Even those paid to occupy them often struggle to justify their existence. And yet teachers and nurses are less well paid despite offering a more meaningful contribution to society.Well yes, there’s a reason they’ve been called “essential workers” during the Covid-19 pandemic, isn’t there?That’s right, and in fact the last year has seen some high-profile instances of bullshit work. Think of the UK consulting firms that as of October 2020 had been paid a combined £175m to advise the government on its response to the pandemic. This use of public money has come under strong scrutiny, especially due to the poor results achieved.One example was the £560,000 contract awarded to McKinsey & Company to define the “vision, purpose and narrative” of the country’s testing programme. What was the impact of Graeber’s essay? Do you have some examples of these BS jobs then? So what’s the solution to the bullshit jobs problem? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is Pornhub?What are tiny forests?What is hygge?A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is Pornhub? Thanks for asking!With over 3 billion visits per month, it’s the 10th most popular website worldwide. Don’t act all innocent; if you have an internet connection, it’s almost certain you have at least heard of PornHub. It’s perhaps the world’s most popular porn site but it has been making headlines for controversial reasons in the last month. Reports have surfaced, accusing PornHub of hosting illegal content, such as videos of non-consensual sex and child abuse.How did PornHub get to be so successful?The site was launched in Montreal in 2007 and has grown explosively ever since, being bought out by MindGeek in 2010. Each year, a combined 6 million videos are uploaded to the platform by pros and amateur members of the PornHub community. In 2019, PornHub recorded over 40 billion visits in a single year. For comparison’s sake, that’s more annual traffic than either Amazon or Netflix. Analytics site Similarweb estimates the average time on site at 8 minutes and 53 seconds.It sounds like everything is going swimmingly at PornHub then! Until December 4th 2020... In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is hygge?What are New Year's Resolutions?What is breaking?A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are tiny forests? Thanks for asking!Over the last few years, citizens have been planting tiny forests in towns and country settings. There are now over 2,000 across the world, all inspired by the Miyawaki method and designed to help prevent the collapse of biodiversity. Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki was born in 1928. While studying seeds and natural forests, he observed that the vast majority of Japanese forests were made by humans. Trees had been planted according to the quality of their wood, in order to build buildings or houses. The problem was that these trees weren’t the most resistant or efficient against global warming.Don’t we already have a lot of forests in Europe? You’re right in so far as forests cover 182 million hectares or 43% of the total land area in the continent. The figure for the UK is comparatively low, at just 3.21 million hectares and 13% of land area.The thing is most of this land is accounted for by monoculture forests, which are only home to one type of tree. As explained by non-profit organisation Project Drawdown, many were created “with purely economic motives and little regard for the long-term well-being of the land, environment, or surrounding communities.” The resulting lack of plant biodiversity in turn has a negative impact on animal biodiversity, and can cause diseases to spread more easily. Let’s get back to Miyawaki. Tell me more about how his method works. What is the environmental benefit of all this? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is hygge?What are New Year's Resolutions?What is breaking?A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is hygge? Thanks for asking!Picture this: you’re indoors, in front of a warm fireplace, with a plaid rug over your legs, sipping a cup of tea or cocoa while watching a film. Or you could be relaxing with a candlelit bath, soothing music and a book in your hands. Well, you might not realise it, but you’re experiencing a typical hygge moment. Wait a minute, what language are we talking about here?The word is derived from a 16th century Norwegian term for wellbeing, and can’t be literally translated to English. Hygge is generally described as a concept of cosiness and conviviality, which is a way of life for Danes in particular. It’s a highly flexible word, which can be used as a noun, verb or adjective. It’s omnipresent and has an endless amount of compound forms, such as hyggebusker. That’s a comfortable pair of sweatpants you secretly love but would never wear in public. When did hygge get to be so popular? Is this kind of cosiness really that specific to Scandinavia? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is breaking?What is the cosmic calendar?What is an immunity passport?A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are New Year’s Resolutions? Thanks for asking!Well here we are in 2021. Many are glad to see the back of 2020, now looking forward optimistically to the future thanks to global developments like the arrival of Covid-19 vaccines and Joe Biden entering the White House. The turn of the year also means it’s time to come up with New Year’s resolutions. Setting ourselves objectives for the whole year is always a big ask, and not everyone is able to keep theirs for various reasons. When were New Year’s resolutions actually invented?Nowadays, New Year’s resolutions are primarily a Western custom, but their origins actually go back to Mesopotamia in the 3rd century BC. The Babylonians would celebrate the twelve-day Akitu festival to commemorate the New Year. They would pledge their loyalty to the king and promise to pay back any debts they owed. The idea was that the gods would look favourably on them in the year ahead.In Roman times, new year’s resolutions were linked to two-faced god Janus, who was believed to look both backwards at the previous year and forward into the future. The Romans made sacrifices to Janus and promised their good behaviour for the new year.In this day and age however, New Year’s resolutions are mostly secular and tend to focus on self-improvement. What are the most popular New Year’s resolutions? And does anyone actually keep their resolutions? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is breaking?What is the cosmic calendar?What is an immunity passport?A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is breaking? Thanks for asking!In early December, the IOC officially announced it was adding breaking to the list of Olympic sports for the Paris 2024 Games. First and foremost, breaking is a form of art which was pioneered in the 1970s by members of the New York hip-hop movement.Oh right, you’re talking about breakdancing!Well yes, but the term breakdancing was actually invented by the media. This form of urban dance was originally known as “breaking”, as any self-respecting Bboy or Bgirl will tell you. Those are the terms for male or female practitioners.So why is it called breaking? How did breaking make it into the Olympics then? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is an immunity passport?What is vlogmas?What is a black hole?A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is the cosmic calendar? Thanks for asking!OK, so you’re looking for a new calendar on which to mark family birthdays, Covid-19 dependent holiday plans and dentist appointments in 2021. Well, sorry the cosmic calendar won’t be of much use to you.It’s totally different to the Gregorian or Islamic calendars, which measure individual days. The cosmic calendar is actually a method of scaling down the entire 13.8 billion year history of the universe, to match a 365-day year. Everything is in chronological order, so one can visualise cosmic evolution, the evolution of life, the relatively short evolution of humans and the even shorter period since history began. In 1977 astrophysicist Carl Sagan published an essay called The Dragon of Eden, in which featured the first cosmic calendar.OK, so how does it work?Us humans are accustomed to measuring time in seconds, minutes and hours. Sagan’s concept helps us to have a better idea of the chronology of the universe. Each day in the cosmic calendar represents 37.8 million years of “real” time, while even a single second is equivalent to 438 years. The calendar visualisation starts off with the Big Bang at midnight on January 1st, with the universe expanding, cooling and gravitating since. The present day is shown at the very end of the cosmic calendar year, on December 31st.You can follow the cosmic evolution of the universe, such as the forming of the first stars and galaxies in early January. Believe it or not, our Milky Way Galaxy only forms on May 11th, with the Sun and Earth appearing in September.Dinosaurs show up at Christmas time, but are then extinct five days later. The first sight of “anatomically modern humans”, also known as homosapiens, is only five minutes before the end of the year. Meanwhile recorded history, based on written records, only covers the final 10 seconds.Well consider my mind blown! All those years of human history are just a flicker of time really... In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!To listen the last episodes, you can click here: What is vlogmas?What is a black hole?What is Western Sahara?A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices