5 questions you’ve always wanted to ask a scientist
Is breakfast the most important meal? Are we alone in the universe? Can we live on four hours’ sleep? Science reporter Jamie Morton unearths more questions when he asks the experts.
When will the next pandemic come?
Here’s a scary thought: it’s possible the next pandemic could have already begun somewhere.
Scientists estimate that about five new diseases emerge in people every year and any has the potential to spread further.
That means if a novel infection has a long incubation period, like HIV, it may already be spreading without us knowing.
But, equally, another pandemic might be years away.
One problem for scientists is that they’re often unable to make good predictions when chance plays a big role in the emergence of new infections.
Most novel emerging infections, and particularly viruses, come from wildlife, so these chance events include someone somewhere coming into contact with an infected wild animal, whether directly through touch or indirectly, including being bitten by a mosquito.
“What we do know is that increasing numbers of people, especially in biodiverse countries, are moving into areas where there is diverse wildlife infected with their own infections that don’t currently circulate among us,” Massey University infectious disease expert Professor David Hayman says.
“So we are increasing the likelihood of these events and infections emerging.”
Trading in wildlife is also increasing, and this means exposure to new infections.
So does increased livestock farming in these areas, because domesticated animals are at high densities and may be exposed to new infections, and could act as a bridge between wildlife and us.
These infections, often viruses, could amplify in our domestic animal populations, increasing the chances of us becoming infected.
“There have been huge advances in our well-being, but the increased population densities of people and our highly connected world mean that once infections of people do occur, infections can spread around the world very rapidly, as we have seen with the Sars-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid19.
“So all the conditions that led to HIV and Covid-19 remain.
“This sounds quite a negative perspective, but the good news is that if we can stop the encroachment of people and livestock in areas in which fewer people have previously lived, we can likely reduce habitat destruction, stop the biodiversity crisis and help mitigate climate change, as well as reduce the chances of new outbreaks of infectious diseases.”
Can we live on four hours’ sleep?
The short answer is yes — but it’s more likely that your life will be shorter, with health problems and less fulfilling.
It’s currently recommended that adults get seven to nine hours’ sleep each night to function at their best and stay well.
Some people may only need six hours’ sleep and some may need 10, but sleep durations outside this range are not recommended.
Very few people are natural short sleepers and function well on less sleep than recommended, and what leads to natural short sleep is not well understood.
“The research clearly shows that short sleep increases a person’s chances of developing health conditions like high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and mental health disorder,” explains Dr Karyn O’Keeffe, of Massey University’s Sleep/Wake Centre.
“There is emerging evidence that short sleep may contribute to the development of dementia. Short sleep is also associated with early death.”
On a daily basis, when we don’t get enough sleep, our quality of life is reduced.
We are less productive at work, less creative in our problem-solving, have poorer concentration and memory, and are poorer communicators.
Our moods are more up and down, and we don’t react as appropriately in challenging situations. Our ability to carry out safety-critical tasks like driving is reduced, making us a danger to ourselves and others around us.
“Our ability to assess how well we are functioning changes when we miss out on sleep for a few days in a row,” O’Keeffe says.
At first, we notice that we are no longer functioning well, but after a few days, we lose our ability to notice how impaired we are, even though our functioning continues to worsen.
“This means it’s possible to get by on short sleep but not be aware of its negative impact.”
Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day?
We’ve long been told our first meal of the day is the one we need the most — but does that stack up with the science?
When the role of breakfast in weight management was reviewed last year, the quality of the research wasn’t good enough to draw conclusions.
Dietitian Helen Gibbs says that, while everyone has an opinion on breakfast, there are some solid points people can consider when thinking about whether to have it or skip it.
If we feel hungry when we wake, she says, we should eat, as it is a sign our bodies were asking for food.
“If you miss breakfast, what are you likely to eat when you get to eat next?
“Arriving hungry at morning tea is okay if you can make choices to nourish yourself.
“Many morning tea choices are high in saturated fat, salt and sugar. You could take breakfast food to eat at morning tea.”
As breakfast choices typically provide fibre, we also need to think about where we are going to source this over the rest of the day.
Dietitians recommend between 25g and 30g of fibre each day for adults — and many people receive less than half of that.
“If you are missing breakfast,
you need wholegrain and high-fibre options later in the day,” says Gibbs, noting those options should include more than 6g of fibre per 100g.
“If you are uncertain what to eat and when, speak with the nutrition professionals — dietitians.”
Are humans really the smartest animals?
Ever wonder if we really are the brainiest creatures on Earth?
“One answer to that question, based on our general measures of intelligence — how we go about doing and thinking about things — is yes, absolutely,” says University of Auckland biologist Associate Professor Alex Taylor.
“When it comes to reasoning and social intelligence, we seem spectacularly smart — but there are a couple of massive caveats.
“One is obviously about how we measure intelligence. If there was a test based on sonar, dolphins would be the ones that’d do the best.”
It’s also worth noting that bottlenose dolphin brains are comparable with our brain when differences in body mass are factored in.
Because human intelligence is largely based on visual modalities, we can’t begin to imagine what intelligence based on sonar or smell might look like.
“There are some tests where humans don’t do as well as some animals. For instance, there’s one test on self-control and patience. Humans are great at it when it involves money — but if you use food, then suddenly animals do better than the humans.
“So it’s important to realise that we’re measuring everything through the lens of what we think is smart, and it’s a fairly biased way of testing.”
Another big limitation is that we no longer have our closest relatives around to compare ourselves against.
“Neanderthals actually had a larger relative brain size than humans do. Recently it’s been suggested some amazing cave paintings in Europe may well have been created by Neanderthals, because they appear to have been present before humans arrived there.
“The fact that our closest relatives have gone extinct puts us in this rather comfortable position where we can say, hey, we look like we’re the smartest animals — without realising our closest relatives have disappeared or passed on.
“We’ve put the game on an uneven footing because we’re not asking what is smart in an objective way, we’re asking what is the most ‘human smart’ — and surprise, surprise, the answer you get back is human.”
Are we alone in the universe?
It’s been one of the most enduring questions of science — and in the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), the world has a major effort trying to find an answer.
So far, all that’s turned up is the odd quick-fire radio signal, all of which can be explained by glitches in detection equipment, local electronic interference, or signals from Earth satellites.
The possibility is still real — but whether we ever get to solve the mystery is another question.
Despite leaps in science that have allowed us to discover thousands of planets orbiting other stars — with a significant number of them in socalled “habitable zones” — the universe is a vast space.
The observable universe is estimated to be about 93 billion light years in diameter — our solar system is one light day across — and could pack about two trillion galaxies, and perhaps one billion trillion stars.
“There’s nothing that seems particularly special about the sun or the Earth, or the conditions that gave rise to the origin of life on Earth itself — so it’s very likely that process will repeat itself in other places in the universe,” University of Auckland cosmologist and astronomer Professor Richard Easther says.
“But it may still be that intelligent life like us is rare — in the sense that we’ve only got one good example of that.”
That said, modern human beings have only been around for tens of thousands of years, while the Earth has existed for some 4.5 billion years.
“So our existence on the planet as an intelligent species is less than one ten-thousandth of that time, so it may be that, even if you have places where life arises, that takes a long time, or it’s simply unlikely that complex and intelligent life will ever appear.
“Even if life is common in the universe, it might just mean that intelligent life is unusual — but not unique.”