Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with curiosity daily from curiosity.com. I'm Cody Golf. And I actually Hammer today, you'll learn about how being in outer space change, our guest perspective, about the world in an inspiring story from NASA astronaut. Nicole. He'll also learn how dozens of cultures have developed whistled versions of their languages. Are y'all today?
With the daily conflicts of politics, office disputes and online trolls. It's easy to get bogged down and how different we all are. That's why today's guests will be a breath of fresh air. She's seen Earth from space and she's here to remind us that we're all just humans living on the same. Tiny planet. Nicole Stott is a former NASA astronaut who's been on two missions to space including a long-duration mission on the International Space Station. That experience change the way she sees the world and it inspired her to write a book about what she's learned about life on our home planet. That book is called back to Earth. What life in space caught me about our home planet and our mission to protect it. In our conversation. We asked her how being in space changed her perspective and I think it happens. I can't say all, I don't want to speak for everyone but you know, everyone, I know. That's had the experience has felt some kind of
Emotional personal life changing, kind of results from it, you know all the good stuff and I certainly a spacewalk is kind of one of those outliers in the kind of thing. You can do when you're in space, but the whole experience into the way our bodies adapt to this new extreme environment, you know, the way we were moving in three dimensions versus, you know, walking in a straight line or climbing stairs or something and it's it's incredible and then you add that view out the window. I had always thought about it, as far as I'll probably in, or at least at this point. Get from this, this planet. That's our home. This reality that, you know, we all know we live on a planet. And yet, there it is right in front of your face that way. And that's pretty impressive. And so, a lot of other things thoughts feelings, fall out of that reality check, I guess too. So, yeah, I carry that with me every day now, and I'm very thankful to have had the opportunity to write a book to show.
Are a little bit about the impact of that as well? Yeah. So how what thoughts and feelings did that now that you're back on earth? Like how does that change your day today?
Well, I'll go back to the, the we live on a planet thing. I think, you know, it all these really complex things that we do, right, you know, the technology we need to get ourselves off the planet, you know, to live and work in space, even for a short. Of time to get home safely. That's really complex to make that happen. And then you are there and you're doing all this work. That's really complex to this science and all of that just to live and work there that the international relationships that are going on. That's a pretty complex thing. You know, the way people work together in the way we can peacefully successfully, do that kind of thing as an International Community. And then to like take all that ad that view out the window. And the reality of that. I mean I came home thinking of it and really simple ways and ways that we all know before you don't have to fly in space to notice. They were all earthlings only.
It matters that Thin Blue Line of atmosphere that blankets and protects us all, and it's need to just communicate that. Just how much better it would be if we all lived like Crewmax here on spaceship earth versus writing this planet, like passengers. And that's that's what I take with me everyday. Now. I try to incorporate those three little lessons in the crew, mate thing, into every thing I'm doing. It's why I'm really excited about talking to you guys because this whole idea, I think of curiosity is, you know, it's really core at what makes us human. Right? And we can use a curiosity and very positive ways. We can go into situations where we believe there's a solution to every challenging problem, in our curiosity, can lead us to those Solutions. We can look at things in a very much. I here's how we can not why we can't way of solving problems too. And I think that's where curiosity is one.
Things that leads us to that kind of approach to things. The chapters ways of being is to stay grounded and not something we do in space. It seems kind of counterintuitive. What you mean stay grounded while you're, and I want to see a ship, but it's, there's a very kind of transcendent meditative.
Feel of of being in that place looking at, you know, Earth from a very different vantage point. I mean, I remember floating in front of the window during the day, looking at it and I had to set my timer on my watch to remind me to go back to work because it just would suck you into the view. You wanted to say what's the next surprise coming along? And that was, it was this refreshing thing that went on and when I came back to Earth, I wanted something that gave me that same kind of sense, and I never met at 8. It before I went to space, I do now I, when I go outside at, you know, I discovered this thing called her thing and apparently just to go out and stand Barefoot like in the dirt or grass and in a stand there for a couple seconds and just think about, oh my gosh, my feet.
Are on a planet that's spinning at a thousand miles, an hour and rotating around the Sun at like in orbiting, it like 60,000 miles an hour, or something in space. And then, you know, breathe deep. And look up and think about this blue sky or night sky. That seems to go on forever. And yet, I know it's just this thin veil, you know, protecting us and, and create a connection and all of that. And that is not trying to do that every day and I try to encourage people to do that every day. I don't know about you guys but in this whole David thing, which I wouldn't wish on anybody, I'm really hopeful that we'll be out of this soon. But one of the things I've tried to do and share with other people because I've got an ocelot. Do you know this being in isolation in our homes? Must be a lot. Like, you know what, we're all experiencing now, you know what you experienced in space and
I look out my window for my home now and try to feel the same thing. I did Looking Out My Window of the space station and look for the next surprise. That's out there. Appreciate something. I might have seen every day, but in a whole new, kind of on wonder, way that I might not have looked at it before.
Inspiring stuff. Right again. That was Nicole Stott former NASA astronaut and author of the new book back to Earth. What life in space taught me? About our home planet and our mission to protect it. Nicole will be back tomorrow to talk about how art has helped her communicate her experience in space.
How do you communicate with someone who's out of earshot for people in the modern Western World? The answer might be walkie talkies or cell phones or empty Soup cans connected by a string. But what about back before those inventions were possible? We get this more than 80, cultures scattered across the world settled on the same remarkable solution, a whistled version of their local language will because whistle carries a lot farther than normal speech, you talkin to loud volume at the goal. End of a soccer field. You can reach someone who's almost to the Midfield line. If you start at the top of your lungs, you can read someone at a distance of about soccer fields, placed end-to-end, but whistle in, your target could hear it from upwards of five, soccer fields away, a very skilled Whistler can send a message Ken.
Seems farther than they can yell, the same thing. It's kind of a Sonic super power. That's probably why cultures have developed with old languages again, and again from Siberia to the Amazon rainforest to West Africa, to the Himalayas to New Guinea. A lot of the time, what these cultures have in common comes down to the land. The first instance. There are Shepherds you live on a la. Camara off the coast of West Africa and they spend a lot of time tending to their flocks on very rugged terrain. It's painstaking and dangerous to cross. The valleys are too far to shout across but they aren't too far for whistling the conversation and then whistled language, can save Shepherds hours of travel.
Linguistic Jillian, Meyer recently published a review of whistled languages and he found that they had the same features of normal languages. Minus the vocal cords for languages like English. The don't rely on Pitch for meaning a skilled Whistler, can pretty easily imitate. The most important aspects of the spoken version that makes it simple enough to differentiate between a whistled long e and a long o or between a T and A K. You don't even have to have heard it before. Like take a listen to these recordings of whistles English which were using courtesy of Julianne Meyer. Nice to meet you.
How do you do?
Happy birthday to you.
Do you understand the whistle?
Of course, again, that's a language were pitched. Doesn't carry a lot of meaning in total of languages like Mandarin whistlers have to make trade-offs but it's definitely doable Princeton a language from southern Mexico called seen an attack as seven different stones, but the whistles version can still carry a ton of meaning.
Unfortunately, whistled languages have been in serious decline all over the world for decades and it's not just because of technological Alternatives, deforestation and other forms of resource extraction are harming whistling communities and changing their ways of life. But there is some good news. UNESCO has recognized two whistled. Languages is part of the world. Intangible cultural heritage, which comes with some resources for conservation. At least that is something to whistle about it.
All right, will. Let's do a quick recap of what we learned today, starting with the fact that life on Earth would be a lot better. If we all acted, like roommates, instead of passengers. That's according to NASA astronaut. Nicole Stott, who said that going to space changed her life for the better. She also said that curiosity is core to what makes us human, and it's important for humans to approach problems with a sense of curiosity. So we can find solutions that work for everyone. Nicole also told us about a thing called a thing where you basically just stand outside, feel the ground beneath your feet. And think about how we're all hurtling through space and millions of miles an hour. You may not be able to go to outer space, but you can take a moment to stand on the ground and think about the nature around you and that can go a long way, the money thing meditation, so popular, right? Yeah. It's really made me want to do that. Just go out and stand and think about how I'm moving really, really, really fast the kid.
Haven't done that a long time, no time. Like the present more than 80 cultures worldwide have a whistled version of their language. They use it for long-distance communication. Sad. Whistles can travel up to ten times farther than a shout. These languages are in Decline. But UNESCO has recognized to as part of the world, intangible cultural heritage and that comes with some resources to help conserve it and something that I really thought was kind of interesting little behind the scenes, tidbit about the whistled language sample is that I actually had to normalize the volume between the spoken word, and the whistle, because the whistle was so much louder than the spoken words and like, that's exactly what work, what we're saying here, is that like whistles can reject way, way, way further than spoken language and hearing this recording. I saw just that thank you for not blowing out anybody's ears, sometimes when it comes to volume levels.
Have to take our word for it. The writer for today's whistling story with Grant current tomorrow. All you need to do is use just a little
To learn something new in just a few minutes. And it do then they carius.
