Summary
Zoologist and broadcaster Lucy Cooke explores the science behind our seeming obsession with all things adorable. There has been an explosion in interest in cuteness, particularly online, with an ever growing number of websites dedicated to pandas, kittens, puppies and of course babies. If you are feeling a bit down in the dumps, what better way to brighten your day than looking at some cute baby animal frolicking about. But what is it that makes these creatures so darn attractive to us and can you be addicted to cute? Lucy investigates the latest scientific research looking at just what makes babies cute, and what looking at them does to our brain, with some surprising results. She visits London Zoo to visit her number one cute creature of choice, the sloth, to find out why sloths hit the top of the cute charts, but the Chinese giant salamander definitely doesn't, and why in terms of conservation, that matters.
Image: Hoffmann"s Two-Toed Sloth, credit: Science Photo Library
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:03.0 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, |
| 0:07.0 | go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. |
| 0:10.0 | Hello, I'm Lucy Cook. broadcasts. |
| 0:19.0 | Hello, I'm Lucy Cook, and on Discovery this week, I'm investigating the power of cute. Oh, he's playing with the bit of paper. |
| 0:21.0 | Oh, it's so cute. |
| 0:22.0 | But it's not, it's so cute. But it's not it's a pig! Oh, tummy! Oh look at his face! |
| 0:28.0 | Have you ever had a sneaky peek at a micro pig to cheer up a dreary Wednesday at work. If so, you are by no means alone. |
| 0:36.0 | Oh, ginger pig, look at his stripes. |
| 0:39.0 | Oh, look at his troubles! |
| 0:40.0 | Bicy and cute. |
| 0:47.0 | I feel as if my world has been engulfed by a tsunami of pugs in party hats and kittens in teacups. |
| 0:54.0 | If you look at the media information, we are consuming more cute content than ever before. |
| 1:04.0 | With the advent of the internet, it has allowed us to tap into a primeval aspect of our brain. |
| 1:14.0 | I'm fascinated by the power of cute. |
| 1:19.0 | What is it doing to our brains? |
| 1:21.0 | And are we all equally affected? I've always thought I was immune. |
| 1:25.4 | Pandacams leave me cold. But show me a photo of a frog and I'll feel all warm and |
| 1:31.7 | fuzzy. |
| 1:32.6 | So in this program I want to investigate cute's cozy allure. |
| 1:36.4 | Can you scientifically quantify cuteness? |
| 1:39.4 | And what happens if you're an animal with a low score. Where better to start than a trip to the zoo? |
... |
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