Hi, we're here from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes.

I'm Cody Gough.

And I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today you learn about why it could be hard to communicate with humans of the future,

how a potted plant can help you boost your productivity, and why coffee makes

you poop.

Let's satisfy some curiosity.

Have you ever heard of nuclear semiotics?

It's an actual field of research centered around, get this, figuring out how we can warn people 10,000 years from now about nuclear waste.

And a government task force has been working on it for almost 40 years. Pretty wild, right? Well, if your mind hasn't been

blown yet, then wait till you hear the reasons why this field of study is so important and

why it's so challenging. Of course, you probably already know that nuclear waste hangs around for a really, really long time.

Some isotopes decay pretty rapidly, but plutonium 239, that has a half life of 24,000 years.

And high-level wastes are hazardous because they produce radiation that can be fatal during even short periods of direct exposure.

That's why it's important that we warn people

about nuclear waste. But the thing is, there's no guarantee that any of the

languages, symbols, or cultural references we have today will make any sense to the people of the future.

After all, language never stops changing.

From generation to generation, both the form and meanings of words shift in subtle ways.

We hardly realize it's happening

while the changes are in progress,

but a few hundred years are significant enough

...