For years, we've been asking, "Which came first: the chicken or the egg?" Maybe what we should have been asking is, "Which came first: the frog or the tadpole?" A new paper in the journal Nature details the oldest known tadpole fossil. Ringing in 20 million years earlier than scientists previously had evidence of, this fossil might get us closer to an answer.Have another scientific discovery you want us to cover on a future episode? Email us at [email protected] — we might feature your idea on a future episode! Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What exciting discoveries are discussed in this episode?
Yes, the squad. Okay, so there are three science stories that really caught our attention this week and we're really excited to share them with you.
All right, what are they? We have two students that developed new mathematics for the Pythagorean theorem. Another one about how overripe fruit in the wild may have affected animal evolution. And finally, the discovery of a fossil that sheds new light on the life cycle of frogs.
So cool.
This sounds like a very happy episode. It is. It is. We're here to be a mood booster. All of these stories on this episode of Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
All right, let's start with the students tackling the Pythagorean theorem. What's their story?
Okay, so in 2022, two high school students shocked the math world by solving the Pythagorean theorem using trigonometry. And for doing this, Kelsey Johnson and Nakia Jackson earned keys to the city of New Orleans.
Whoa.
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Chapter 2: What groundbreaking work did students do with the Pythagorean theorem?
And now they are published mathematicians. This week, Kelsey and Nakia published their work, Five proofs and a method for finding at least five more in the journal American Mathematical Monthly. It's super prestigious. And seeing the paper online, Kelsey started jumping up and down.
It's really great to see it not just on my own laptop because that's where it's been for a very long time. Wait, how old are they now? They're sophomores in college.
That's incredible. Yeah. Okay, can we just back up a little bit, though? Because the Pythagorean theorem, in case anyone needs a refresher course, it's about the three sides of a triangle that has one right angle, right?
Yeah, so over 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras figured out the equation a squared plus b squared equals c squared, right? Yes. To calculate the length of a right triangle.
I mean, I still chant it in my sleep. It was drilled deep into my soul 35 years ago. Was that a math cheer? Amazing. Okay.
Yeah, that theorem has been proven again and again with geometry and algebra, but it was once thought impossible to do with trigonometry. Like only two other mathematicians had done it before Calci and Nakia.
And that's because trigonometry is like based on the Pythagorean theorem. So it's tricky to use trigonometry to prove it.
Ah, I mean, this is kind of circular reasoning, right?
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Chapter 3: How did Kelsey and Nakia change the math world?
Right. But Kelsey and Nakia proved it could be done. They actually developed five proofs in total. Wow. Little overachievers. Kelsey's particularly proud of the proof that involves this infinite series of little triangles, which looks like a waffle cone.
Oh, yummy, yummy. So wait, what's next for these two math superstars?
They're in college. Kelsey is studying environmental engineering at Louisiana State University, while Nakia is studying pharmacy at Xavier University. And Nakia had some advice for today's high schoolers. Finish what you start.
I know there's moments where you're like, I don't want to do this for real. But in the long run, it might be something that could have mattered if you had just tried or kept with it.
And that's certainly true for her and Kelsey, who both wanted to thank their parents for all their support.
Oh, what good kids. I know. Good, good kids. All right. So let's move on. We're going to talk about overripe fruit. Animals eat this. I mean, I do.
I mean, I do, too. Elsa, have you heard of something called the drunken monkey hypothesis?
No, but this makes me want to hang out with some drunk monkeys.
Same. Okay. The drunken monkey hypothesis suggests that our human interest in alcohol increases. Maybe due to the abundance of alcohol, especially ethanol, from all that rotting, naturally fermenting fruit in the wild. No way. Which animals have eaten throughout history.
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Chapter 4: What do Kelsey and Nakia say about perseverance?
There was like 90 percent of primatologists who thought fermented fruit was very rare. And then there's 10 percent, a handful of primatologists who thought it was so common to be uninteresting. And that was kind of like the divide.
That's Matthew Kerrigan, who's an author of a review paper, which is an article that looks at a lot of studies that came out in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
OK, so did they figure out how common it is for animals to eat fermented fruit?
So this review paper claims that many animals consume large amounts of fruit to survive. And they are bound to encounter fermented fruit with low levels of ethanol. So consuming this specific kind of alcohol is most likely very common. Also, if you eat a lot of these fruits, that alcohol is going to make you tipsy.
Yeah. And intoxication is dangerous out in the wild. Like animals would be too vulnerable to predators or falling out of a tree. So Matthew says that our primate ancestors likely had to adapt to alcohol consumption and more or less become functional drinkers. They probably didn't have a choice.
And so it kind of flips the story in the head. Rather than being humans consuming alcohol to get drunk, perhaps it's the other way around, that animals are either intentionally or can't avoid consuming ethanol that they're going to be exposed to on a perhaps very routine basis.
OK, so I have these monkeys to thank for how we evolved to be able to drink and break down alcohol because our ancestors apparently could not avoid it.
Yeah. Yeah. Matthew says we still don't know for sure if animals actually prefer fermented fruit, like sometimes seek it out. There needs to be more studies on that. But scientists are seeing more and more evidence that this was an evolutionary advantage to have enzymes break down alcohol, which may have led to many human civilizations enjoying it.
So interesting. Okay. Well, we have to move on now to another story about the animal world. I hear a new fossil of a frog has been found.
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