Your Nightmares Help You Survive, Tin Whiskers Break Your Gadgets, and Every Map Is Lying
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 963 Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2019
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn about “tin whiskers,” the mysterious reason why your gadgets suddenly stop working; threat simulation theory and how your nightmares might be helping you survive; and why every map is lying to you.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
- Tin Whiskers Are the Mysterious Reason Some Gadgets Stop Working — https://curiosity.im/2jFCzQC
- Your Nightmares Might Be Helping You Survive — https://curiosity.im/30vYXvq
- Sorry, but Every Map Is Lying to You — https://curiosity.im/2xAua4j
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/your-nightmares-help-you-survive-tin-whiskers-break-your-gadgets-and-every-map-is-lying
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, we're here from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. |
| 0:04.8 | I'm Cody Gough. And I'm Ashley Hamer. |
| 0:06.8 | Today you learn about the mysterious reason why your gadgets suddenly stop working, |
| 0:11.2 | how your nightmares might be helping you survive, and why every map is lying to you. |
| 0:16.3 | Let's lie. |
| 0:18.3 | Let's not. |
| 0:22.3 | Okay. Let's satisfy some curiosity. |
| 0:25.0 | Have you ever heard of Tin whiskers? |
| 0:27.0 | No, I'm not talking about something from the upcoming movie adaptation of the musical Cats, |
| 0:32.0 | which I'm sure Cody is very excited about. |
| 0:34.4 | It's such a good musical. |
| 0:36.0 | I'm talking about the reason why your gadgets mysteriously stop working. |
| 0:40.6 | You know what I'm talking about. |
| 0:41.8 | One day your TV remote works just fine and the next day it's dead. |
| 0:46.1 | You might be able to blame Tin whiskers, which can happen to lots of different metals like zinc, cadmium, |
| 0:51.7 | and silver, and of course tin, which is often used to |
| 0:55.2 | solder and coat electronic circuits. Tin whiskers are microscopic crystalline |
| 1:00.6 | structures that sprout out of that tin and they usually happen because of stress in the |
| 1:05.2 | metal. Any bending, compression, stretching, or even scratches and nicks can be enough to sprout them. |
| 1:11.5 | We've known about tin whiskers since the 1940s, but they've actually |
| 1:15.1 | gotten worse in recent years because we got rid of lead in electronics. Ditching that lead has |
| 1:20.4 | been great for human health, but bad bad for electronics since lead can keep whiskers from |
... |
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