Brain Junk Trace Kerr and Amy Barton

Smarter than the mafia, more cunning than a pickpocket in Paris, long-tailed macaques in Bali are all about snatching valuables from tourists and bargaining for tasty snacks.







Show Notes:



Long tailed macaques info from the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center



Sir Attenborough and monkeys



YouTube BBC Video of things getting stolen!!



Scientific Reports paper: Cohort dominance rank and “robbing and bartering” among subadult male long-tailed macaques at Uluwatu, Bali



Poor kiddo bitten by a monkey while touring

Amy's bringing the BATS. We've got more cool facts about bat communication and how some of them compete for food (it's sonic warfare for sure).







Show Notes:



Episode 214 Sky Puppies Mama fruit bats and their kiddos



Episode 242 Bat Chat 1 A smorgasbord of bat shenanigans



University of Bristol: Bats avoiding collisions in the air



YouTube Lens of Time Roll to minute 5:20 for bat smacks



Science: Bats jam each other's signals just like humans jam cell phones



National Geographic: Bats jam each other's sonar



The Sensory & Movement Ecology Lab @ UCCS



Science: Tiger moths jam bat echolocation!!!



Southwest Research Station

Did Trace complain about clickbait titles in this episode? Yes. Did she ALSO use a clickbait title for this very episode? Absolutely. Sea scallops like light and it turns out that works in the favor of fisheries and the environment.







Show Notes:



Oceanconservancy.org: Scallops



Fishtek Marine YouTube on the tech and study. Also their website



Science Daily: University of Exeter paper



University of York: Scientists accidentally discover “scallop discos” as an environmentally friendly fishing method

While doing the show notes for this episode, Trace looked into tips and tricks for when you take a vacation and have to drive on the opposite side of the road. The advice? Don't panic and purchase travel insurance LOL. There are so many different historical reasons for how countries chose what side of the road to drive on.







Show Notes:



Lancaster-Philadelphia Turnpike



Somerset Historical Center: The Conestoga Wagon



Windwagon Smith a Disney animated picture from 1961



Wikipedia left and right side



The Economist" Robespierre and driving on the moral side of the road



US Dept. of Transportation Federal Highway Administration: On the Right Side of the Road



UK car glass and their opinion on right side/left side



BBC: A 'thrilling' mission to get the Swedish to change overnight

Nothing like rubbing yourself down with snakeskin jerky to keep yourself from getting eaten. Today we check out the parallel evolution of the California ground squirrel and rattlesnakes. It's an olfactory camouflage arms race that on a bad day, ends with someone getting eaten.







Show Notes:



UC Davis: Squirrels Use Snake Scent



Royal Society B: Donning your enemy's cloak: ground squirrels exploit rattlesnake scent to reduce predation risk



Nature: Squirrel Masks Scent with Rattlesnake Skin (Cool video of squirrels in action)

Nighttime waking and scattered thoughts are problem solving's evil twin. If you find yourself awake at 3 am obsessing over your problems, remember that stress and hormonal imbalances can really damage the quality of your sleep.











Show Notes:



IFL Science: Why Do We Wake Around 3am And Dwell On Our Fears And Shortcomings?



VeryWellmind.com: Military Sleep method



Science Direct: Molecular Clock



US Southwestern University: Understanding the circadian clocks of individual cells



Wikipedia: Suprachiasmatic nucleus



NIH: Visual impairment and circadian rhythm disorders



The New Yorker: The Woman who Spent Five Hundred Days in a Cave



Benadryl and Alzheimer's possible link







Transcript:



[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk, I'm Trace Kerr



[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Amy Barton. And today I'm gonna continue changing your lives because we've talked about how to up your personal hygiene game. And today I'm gonna tell you about why you wake up at 03:00 a.m. And give you some tips and tricks.



[00:00:19] Speaker A: To stop that from happening.



[00:00:21] Speaker B: Yeah.



[00:00:24] Speaker A: I am not a 03:00 a.m. Wake up person, so this will be interesting.



[00:00:27] Speaker B: You're not what