Has Therapy Gone Too Far? & The Hidden Genius of Birds

Need a favor? The way you ask may matter as much as what you're asking for. Researchers have found that a few simple changes in how you make a request can dramatically increase the chances someone will say yes—and most people overlook them completely. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/francis-flynn-if-you-want-something-ask-it Going to therapy has become more common—and more socially accepted—than ever before. For many people, it has been life-changing. At the same time, anxiety, depression, and loneliness continue to rise, prompting an important question: Are we asking therapy to solve problems it was never designed to solve? Should everyone have a therapist, even if nothing is seriously wrong? Where is the line between normal struggles and issues that truly require professional treatment? In this thoughtful conversation, therapist Jonathan Alpert explores who benefits most from therapy, where it can fall short, and why resilience, personal responsibility, and strong relationships still play an essential role in emotional wellbeing. Jonathan has spent more than two decades treating patients and is author of Therapy Nation: How America Got Hooked on Therapy and Why It's Left Us More Anxious and Divided (https://amzn.to/4xMXS2I). Birds are so common that it's easy to stop noticing them. Yet they are among the most extraordinary creatures on Earth. Every feather is a masterpiece of engineering. Their bones are optimized for flight. Some navigate across continents with astonishing accuracy, others build intricate nests without blueprints, and many possess abilities that scientists are still trying to understand. Even more remarkable, every bird alive today is a living descendant of the dinosaurs. Lorna Gibson, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT and lifelong bird enthusiast, reveals the hidden science behind feathers, flight, migration, and the incredible adaptations that make birds some of nature's greatest engineering achievements. She is author of Birds Up Close: An Engineer Explores Their Hidden Wonders (https://amzn.to/4eOiE9C). The next time you open a bag of potato chips, pay attention to the sound it makes. That loud crinkling isn't an accident. Food manufacturers carefully engineer snack bags to produce a particular sound because what you hear can actually influence what you think about the freshness and quality of what's inside. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/food/noisy-chip-bags PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS WAYFAIR: Ready to upgrade your home for way less? Head to ⁠https://Wayfair.com⁠ right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less. RULA: Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that’s actually covered by insurance. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Rula.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get started. QUINCE: Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! SHOPIFY: It's time to turn those "what ifs" into CHA CHING with Shopify Today! Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ INDEED: Get a $75 Sponsored Job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at https://Indeed.com/PODCAST Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:31Mike Carruthers?

  Today, on Something You Should Know, the best way to ask someone for a favor so they're more likely to say yes. Then, mental health therapy. Lots of people seek therapy, but there are concerns within the profession.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  My profession needs to stop labeling things as trauma and major mental health disorders. You know, if breaking a fingernail is now seen as a trauma, then what the heck is a major accident? Or being assaulted?

• 1:00Mike Carruthers?

  Also, did you know potato chip bags have a particular sound? And fascinating things about birds you never knew, including the fact that they're in danger.

• 1:11Speaker 03

  Cats can be a hazard for birds. Cats are killing millions of birds. Also, things like window glass. Sometimes they fly into windows and buildings, especially if the lights are on. And there's been a concerted effort to get tall skyscrapers to turn the lights off.

• 1:26Mike Carruthers?

  All this today, on Something You Should Know. Now, here's something that might be worth a minute of your time. How would you like $1,000 to spend on shopping? Especially with the holidays coming. Well, the people behind Shopify have a shopping site called shop.com. And to celebrate the new shop.com, they're giving away $1 million in Shop Cash. But not to one person. 1,000 people will each win $1,000 in Shop Cash.

• 2:00Mike Carruthers?

  And shop.com is actually a really clever idea. It brings lots of different stores together in one place. So instead of bouncing around from website to website, you can search across stores, find what you're looking for, and track your orders, all in one place. Clothes, electronics, gifts, things for the house, all kinds of stuff. And whether you win or not, it's worth knowing. But with a thousand chances to win $1,000, I'd certainly take a look. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win.

• 2:44Mike Carruthers?

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• 2:56Speaker 04

  Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life today. Something you should know with Mike Carruthers.

• 3:09Mike Carruthers?

  If you want to ask someone to do you a favor, the way you ask it can make all the difference in the world. And that's what we're going to start with today on this episode of Something You Should Know. Hi, welcome. I'm Mike Carruthers. So when you need a favor, the words you use before you even ask can dramatically increase your chances of hearing yes. Researchers who study influence say there are three simple ingredients to an effective favor. First, announce it. Saying, "Can I ask you a favor?" gives the other person a moment to psychologically prepare, and it signals that you're asking, not demanding, which subtly taps into our instinct to be helpful.

• 3:54Mike Carruthers?

  Second, explain why. One of the oldest findings in persuasion research is that people are much more willing to cooperate when they're given a reason, even a simple one. Finally, give them an out. Add something like, "If it's not a good time, I completely understand." That may seem like you're making it easier to say no, but the opposite often happens. When people don't feel trapped or pressured, they're actually more inclined to help. One more interesting finding. Most of us underestimate how willing other people are to do us a favor. We assume we'll be rejected far more often than we actually are, which means the biggest

• 4:36Mike Carruthers?

  mistake may simply be not asking in the first place. And that is something you should know.

• 4:46Mike Carruthers?

  Mental health therapy has gone mainstream. For millions of people, seeing a therapist has become as normal as seeing the dentist. That's a remarkable change, and for many people, therapy has been life-changing. But it also raises an interesting question. If more people are in therapy than ever before, why are anxiety, depression, and loneliness continuing to rise? Is it just because life has gotten harder? Or is it possible we've started asking therapy to do things it was never intended to do? Should everyone have a therapist? Is it always helpful to explore your feelings? And where's the line between addressing a real mental health problem and simply trying

• 5:31Mike Carruthers?

  to navigate the normal challenges of everyday life? My guest is a psychotherapist who believes we may have crossed that line. Jonathan Alpert is a therapist who has spent more than 20 years treating patients. He's been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fox News, and many other outlets. He's author of a book called Therapy Nation: How America Got Hooked on Therapy and Why It's Left Us More Anxious and Divided. Hey Jonathan, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Thanks, Mike. Appreciate you having me.

• 6:04Mike Carruthers?

  So I find it interesting that it wasn't all that long ago, when the idea of going to a shrink, seeing a therapist...

• 6:14Mike Carruthers?

  It had a stigma to it. It's like, well, God, what's wrong with this guy? I mean, he's really got some problems if he's going to see a professional shrink. And now it is very common, and it certainly has lost a lot of the stigma. So what changed?

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think what happened is there's no longer, at least not as much, the stigma that we had a few decades ago. So there's more access to mental health treatment, which is a good thing. People are much more comfortable discussing mental health and their struggles, which is also a good thing. However, I think, you know, maybe we've shifted a bit too far. And I talk about this in my book, Therapy Nation, where therapists maybe are pathologizing ordinary life experiences. So for example, let's say you had a bad day or even a bad week. That doesn't mean necessarily that you're depressed and you need to go on medication or even go to therapy.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Or let's say you have a boss that's a real jerk. That doesn't mean it's a toxic work environment necessarily. But we have therapists that are quick to pathologize these ordinary life experiences that in many ways help to build character and strength. But they're making it into almost like a mental health catastrophe for a lot of people. So that's where my concern really is with where the industry, the self-help and mental health industry has gone.

• 7:46Mike Carruthers?

  But I do get this sense that people, some people, go to therapy to have someone to talk to, to talk about their inner secrets and their inner problems and their motivations, that there isn't necessarily something specifically wrong. It's just good to bounce ideas off of somebody who isn't a friend, who might judge you or whatever.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. And, you know, we all need someone to talk to, whether it's a friend, a family member, or even a therapist. But I do believe that therapy should have very clear goals. If you're going in just to vent, that's probably okay, but just be aware that you may not be actually getting better if you just go in every five, six, seven days and get stuff off your chest and go back and do it all over again in a week. If you have, say, anxiety or depression, there are like very clear ways to treat that. And you don't need to be in therapy for life to get better and to improve and learn how

• 8:52Speaker 02

  to deal with that anxiety or depression. And to go back to 2012, I wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times called "In Therapy Forever: Enough Already." And the piece proved to be quite polarizing. People in my own profession were pretty upset that I wrote such a piece. And in that piece, I really talked about how if you're going to therapy and you're not getting better, you may want to reconsider the therapist or the approach that you're taking. But then, once I got into writing the book, I realized the problem is much bigger than just therapy. It really extends way beyond that and affects how we relate to each other in society, dating, relationships, and so on and so forth.

• 9:35Mike Carruthers?

  How so?

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Well, I think therapy speak has migrated way beyond the therapist's office. And we have people who are throwing out therapy terms like narcissist, bipolar, borderline. These are serious clinical terms, but people are throwing these out in everyday life. So they may label a friend as bipolar or borderline, a boyfriend as a narcissist, or an ex-boyfriend as a narcissist. And it becomes dangerous because people start to identify with that, and it really waters down the true meaning of these serious conditions. We also see it a lot online, where we have so-called

• 10:19Speaker 02

  Social media influencers who are just spewing what I would consider nonsense. They may have checklists, like here are five things to look for to know if your significant other is a narcissist, or if your workplace is toxic. And a big one that I've seen a lot of lately is ADHD. So these influencers will put out there, here's how to know if you have ADHD. This is a serious disorder, and just because you may forget something or misplace things, that doesn't necessarily mean that you have ADHD. But part of the problem is these influencers who have huge followings, they also have great influence, as the name would suggest.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  So people really take what they say seriously. And I think, just think we need to reevaluate where we're getting information from.

• 11:10Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I understand the concern, but what's the harm? What's the, what do you see as obvious as it is to you, it might not be to other people, to use words like narcissist? Because, I mean, I know people aren't clinically trained to define what a narcissist is, but I know exactly what they mean when they use the term. And so it's a, it's a way to define a problem.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  It is, and I think where my concern is that these terms are being used too loosely. And if we start to label someone that we just don't like as a narcissist, or a work environment as toxic, just because you have a demanding boss, it just starts to create this, almost like this societal pathology, where everyone starts to be seen as difficult, or the conditions that you may surround yourself in as toxic or pathologic. And, and I just don't think that's healthy. We need to be more careful about how we're perceiving situations and people.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Because if everyone's a narcissist, no one really is. Truly.

• 12:23Mike Carruthers?

  So what would you rather things be? I mean, what like, so what are you suggesting be different?

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Well, I would urge therapists to be more careful about how they're treating patients. Don't be so quick to call someone a personality disorder like a narcissist. And don't be so quick to label someone as depressed because these labels carry a lot of meaning. I recall in the winter, I was in a social setting and I overheard this conversation where they were complaining about how cold it was. And one person said to the other, I think I need to up my antidepressants. It's so cold. And I just thought to myself, are we at the point where we're actually treating cold weather with antidepressants? I don't know.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  I'm just a believer that you bundle up, maybe wear a few layers to, to deal with the cold, not run to your doctor and get antidepressants. But doctors are very quick to give out medications and consumers, patients are very quick to ask for it. And I do think this comes from my profession where they're pathologizing so many ordinary life experiences like feeling blue in the winter.

• 13:42Mike Carruthers?

  Well, why are they doing that? Why are your colleagues doing this?

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Well, that's a really good question. I think some may not be trained so well for starters. I think they're just giving the patients what they think they need. I think also patients come in and they're equipped with the, with this lexicon and these, the jargon because they see it online. So they'll go into their therapist and say, oh, I think I'm depressed or I think I'm anxious. I have anxiety disorder. I have patients that see me for the first time and they're equipped with this diagnosis. They say, I think I have ADHD or I think I have bipolar. And I'll ask them just to set that aside and tell me why they think they feel that way or feel that they have it.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  I would say nine times out of 10, they got it from online, social media. So that's, that's a big problem today because probably nine times out of 10, they don't actually have that diagnosis.

• 14:43Mike Carruthers?

  But who's to say? And that's what I want to talk to you more about in just a moment.

• 14:49Speaker 05

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• 15:19Speaker 06

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• 15:49Mike Carruthers?

  We're discussing mental health and therapy with Jonathan Alpert, who has been a therapist for over 20 years. And he's author of a book called Therapy Nation: How America Got Hooked on Therapy and Why It's Left Us More Anxious and Divided. And Jonathan, I want to ask you, because here's the thing. If you break your arm, you go to a doctor, you go to 100 doctors, 100 reputable doctors, and you're going to get the same diagnosis from all 100 of them. Your arm is broken, we're going to put it in a cast and it's going to get better. If you have some mental health issues and you go to 100 therapists, you're going to get all kinds of explanations of what's wrong with you,

• 16:31Mike Carruthers?

  probably including that there's nothing wrong with you, or, I mean, it's so not an exact science.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you do raise a good point. It's much different than, say, a broken bone or even having an infection where there's a pretty defined treatment protocol in place. Therapy is a bit more gray, and mental health issues are a bit more gray. And I always tell people, say, a disorder like depression, it occurs on a continuum. So on one side, you may have someone who's severely and obviously depressed. They may isolate. They may be crying a lot, very sad. They can't get out of bed. They can't function. So that's, and they may even feel like harming themselves. So that's on one side of the continuum. And then on

• 17:21Speaker 02

  the other side, maybe someone who's feeling a bit blue, feeling down and out, just doesn't have the energy and the joy in their life that they once had. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're need to rush and get medication or get into intensive, once-a-week therapy for the next 10 years. It's a normal part of life. So it's important to make that distinction between severe depression and more mild forms of it. And the same with anxiety and other issues that I see as a practicing therapist.

• 17:55Mike Carruthers?

  Okay, so say you're at a cocktail party and you're not, you're not in your clinical situation. And somebody says to you, "Well, you know, I'm feeling a bit blue. I'm feeling like I really, I'm really struggling to get out of this funk." So the answer is, okay, you don't need 10 years of therapy. So what do you suggest?

• 18:17Speaker 02

  I think people need to be good consumers of mental health care out there. And they can interview a few people, try to get a sense of what that practitioner's approach is. Are they more short-term and goal-oriented? Or do they believe in very long-term therapy where they're diving deep into someone's early history and childhood? And there may be a place for that. But for a lot of disorders, for anxiety, for example, or mild depression, I think a treatment plan And that's that's limited, say, three to six months, usually works. Cognitive behavioral therapy I find to be quite effective. And that's where you look at how someone thinks.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  So that's the cognitive part of it. And then how that translates into certain feelings and behaviors. And that's one that we can usually get pretty good results from.

• 19:13Mike Carruthers?

  Do you find going to therapy, if you go every week for six weeks, you almost don't want to hear, okay, we're done. Because you you kind of get hooked on it like you it's a crutch. Like, I get to go every week and just bitch and moan and explain what's wrong. And I kind of like that. I get it off my chest and I don't want to hear we're done.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Well, it does feel good because we all need someone to vent to. So if you had a bad day at work or a fight with a friend, like, why not go in and get this off your chest? And I'm all for that. However, I think there needs to be more direction to it. Because if you're just going in and venting and then doing it all over in in a week or two weeks, you might be become dependent on that therapist. Because it's almost like reinforcing. You feel lousy, you go in, you bitch, you get things off your chest, you feel good. And then you do it all over again. So, I mean, some people, that's fine. I mean, it's a big investment of time and money. And go for it if it works for you.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  I'm just encouraging people to be a little more careful about what they're buying and the service that they're getting. Most people, I think, want to learn how to gain skills and tools and learn how to deal with that anxiety. But for other people, it is just a lifelong activity where they go in and they feel like they have a friend. With a lot of my patients, I'll see them intensely for a few months and then try to space sessions out. And I even have some patients who see me once a quarter, just to check in, see how things are going and just to remind them of how to deal with certain issues that maybe they originally saw me for.

• 20:57Mike Carruthers?

  Well, you said something at the beginning here that that I think is so important. And that is, like, if there's no goal, if we don't know what we're trying to accomplish here, well, then you'll never accomplish it. You'll just go on and on and on and on because there's no endpoint. There's no, we're not looking to fix anything. We're just looking to chat.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Exactly, and that may feel good and work for some people, but more and more, I'm finding that people actually want to have a better understanding of, well, where is this going? You know, what's your diagnosis of me in terms of the treatment plan? And how do I get better? How do I deal with these conflicts that keep popping up in my life? So I find people do respond quite nicely to a more goal-oriented type of therapy.

• 21:47Mike Carruthers?

  And what about couples' therapy? Where there, it seems like more like, you know, every week, we're gonna go in and talk about what went wrong, what we thought about this last week. And so you just keep going back and, and basically, it's a referee telling you, you know, why you're acting the way you are, whatever, whatever goes on in the therapy session. But it seems like that's really prone to going on forever, because every week, we've got new things.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know, I don't think a couple wants a referee in their life too long, but some couples may need it. You know, with couples' therapy, it's interesting, because usually, there is a specific issue that brings them in, whether it's lack of intimacy, poor communication, infidelity. And with something as serious as infidelity, I mean, that needs to be treated ASAP. I don't think that treatment can be prolonged and just dive deep into childhood issues. I mean, there's a real crisis in a person's, in a couple's relationship, if there's, if there's cheating. But, you know, therapy counseling can be quite difficult, and, and I do often find myself playing referee.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  But I try to give couples specific homework to follow, and really tell them, like, look, this is just a 45 to 60-minute session. The real work occurs outside of this session, and you need to put into action what we're talking about.

• 23:14Mike Carruthers?

  One of the things I've often wondered about is if you, if you have an issue, if you, if you're really sad and depressed, and, you know, you're, something happened in your life that, that is really bringing you down. If, if just going over it and over it and over it is really helpful or really harmful, maybe you need to just get on with your life and stop dwelling on what's wrong and work on what's right.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Well, you raise a good point, Mike, and I do think there's a tendency for people to hyper-focus and even fixate on all that's wrong in their life, and that's understandable. Things that are wrong bother us, whether it's a bad relationship, a bad job, or feeling depressed. So naturally, that's foremost on our mind. But as a therapist, I like to shift the focus to what's possible, and what are your strengths, and how can we tap into those strengths to get you feeling better? But if therapists dwell on and spend so much time on all that's wrong, that's how we get this pathology in our culture that just doesn't

• 24:28Speaker 02

  seem to go away. And I'm just advocating for people to try to focus on what's right, where they want to be, and really work out a path to get there.

• 24:37Mike Carruthers?

  What about, though, do you put this in a different category? When someone has had a major trauma, the loss of a child, or some horrific accident, or something, it's hard to imagine to just look at the bright side and look forward and not look back. That that baseball bat-to-the-gut kind of event probably needs to be talked about.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely. And a true trauma, like a major accident or losing a loved one, that certainly requires care and attention, and often will take quite a while to work through. But it's important to note that a lot of people and therapists will label things "trauma" that aren't. And just to get back to what I said earlier, a bad day isn't necessarily a trauma in your life, it's just a bad day. And for a trauma, it needs to be a life-threatening event, or at least close to that. I mean, just to share

• 25:46Speaker 02

  a funny story, I once had someone who had a pimple, and she felt traumatized. She panicked and called me in an emergency situation because she was so traumatized, in her words, traumatized by that pimple. I'm sorry, but a pimple is certainly not a traumatic event. I don't care who you are, it's just not a traumatic event.

• 26:07Mike Carruthers?

  No, I would think not, but it seems like the bar keeps getting lower and low. If, well, if that, if a pimple is a trauma, we're all in trouble.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  We are, and that does get back to the theme that I've been hammering through today on this call, that my profession needs to stop labeling things as trauma and major mental health disorders, because it really does take away from people who truly have experienced a trauma in their lives. You know, if, if breaking a fingernail is now seen as a trauma, then what the heck is a major accident or being assaulted?

• 26:48Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I certainly relate to a lot of the things you've talked about. I mean, I hear people, just in casual conversation, talk about other people as narcissists, or you know, some mental health diagnosis that they really don't have the, the credentials to make. And, you know, given your 20 years' experience as a therapist, I, I respect your point of view. I've been talking with Jonathan Alpert. He is a psychotherapist in practice for over 20 years, and he's author of a book called Therapy Nation: How America Got Hooked on Therapy and Why It's Left Us More Anxious and Divided. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Jonathan, thanks for coming on, talking about this. Great to have you.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Thanks so much, Mike. I appreciate it. Take care. Bye bye. Thank you.

• 27:36Speaker 05

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• 28:05Speaker 07

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's Fall Drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon Fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.

• 28:38Mike Carruthers?

  Birds are so common, it's easy to overlook them. But the next time you see a bird in your backyard or perched on a power line, consider this: you are looking at one of nature's most extraordinary engineering achievements. Birds have conquered nearly every corner of the planet, from deserts and rainforests to city streets and open ocean. Some migrate thousands of miles with astonishing precision. Others can sleep while they're flying, recognize human faces, solve problems, and communicate in surprisingly sophisticated ways. And then there are the feathers. Feathers are among the most remarkable structures in nature.

• 29:21Mike Carruthers?

  The more scientists study birds, the more amazing they become. Here to reveal the hidden wonders of these everyday marvels is Lorna Gibson. She is a professor of materials science and engineering at MIT. She's a lifelong bird enthusiast, a member of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and author of the book Birds Up Close: An Engineer Explores Their Hidden Wonders. Hi, Lorna, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 29:49Speaker 03

  Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

• 29:52Mike Carruthers?

  So if you were going to explain to an alien that came down and had never been here before and seen a bird, how would you explain what a bird is?

• 30:03Speaker 03

  Well, birds are things with feathers. Some of them can fly, but they don't all fly. They're descended from dinosaurs, and they're among the most beautiful, colorful creatures on Earth. In the whole world, there's something like 11,000 species of birds.

• 30:21Mike Carruthers?

  Something I've always wondered is when I go outside and I see birds everywhere, different species of birds, and I wonder... Do they all feel like this big bird community? Do they all ignore each other? Do they stick to their own species? Or are they all aware of each other?

• 30:40Speaker 03

  I think so. I mean, I guess I don't really know for a fact, but I assume they do. They, you know, birds, some birds prey on other birds. For instance, raptors, like hawks, eat other birds. So clearly, the birds that are prey are aware of the raptors. And one of the things you sometimes see is you'll see a hawk flying, and you'll see crows mobbing it. You know, they're sort of flying next to it and they're kind of diving. Sometimes they even touch it. And they're really telling the crow, telling the hawk to get lost. They just, they don't want it around because they're worried that the hawk might kill them, might eat their eggs. You know, they really don't want the hawk around. So clearly, they know that there's another bird there, and they know that the bird might attack them.

• 31:25Mike Carruthers?

  So I think, you know, the big question people have is, how do birds fly? Do they enjoy flying? I mean, it's not like they really know any other way. But, but I sometimes see birds like, they're way up, so they can't be like looking for prey, I don't think. And they just seem to be having the time of their life, just soaring around up there. Is that what they're doing and, or not?

• 31:52Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, it's hard to know what another animal feels, so it's hard to know if they enjoy it, but one would think that they do. When you see birds soaring, birds like hawks or vultures, you know, what they're really doing is taking advantage of thermals. So some part of that land might be warmer than another, and that causes warm air to rise. And then the birds rise with it. They go up with that air. And then they just spread their wings and they glide down. And so it's a very energy-efficient way of flying. And sometimes, especially during migration, you might see what's called a kettle of hawks. And this will be a whole group of hawks, dozens of hawks, all going up in thermals together. And they go up, and then they soar it down.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  And they can, you know, they can go up thousands of feet. And they can glide for miles before they have to hit another thermal and go back up again.

• 32:45Mike Carruthers?

  So I guess you have to really talk about the feathers because everyone has touched a bird's feather, and it's kind of hard to describe. If you had to describe it, it would be difficult because it's not. It's not a lot of things, but I'm not sure exactly what it is.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  One of the things that I find just stunning about birds is the feathers. And the feathers have all sorts of remarkable properties. You know, they can be iridescent, feathers can create sound. Some birds make sound with their feathers as a courtship thing when they're trying to attract a mate. Some feathers suppress sound. Down feathers keep the bird warm. So, you know, you can see eider ducks in the Atlantic Ocean in the winter. And the, you know, the water might be 38 degrees Fahrenheit. And the birds are bobbing around, they're diving, and the down is keeping them warm even in those cold temperatures. And then the outer feathers are water repellent. And all of these different properties or all these different types of things that the feathers can do,

• 33:50Speaker 03

  they're all related to the microscopic structure of the feathers. And it's one of the things that I find just amazing about birds.

• 33:57Mike Carruthers?

  And do we know exactly how birds fly? I mean, do we understand the science of that?

• 34:04Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I think that's quite well understood. There are people who study various aspects of that still, but the basic ideas behind it are understood. For instance, there's people who fly birds in wind tunnels. So the same way that, you know, somebody training for a marathon might run on a treadmill. If you fly a bird in a wind tunnel with the wind flowing past at a certain speed, it's like being on a treadmill for the bird. And so it stays stationary, but it's flapping and it's doing all the things it normally would do when it's flying. And when you think about flight and how it works, there's really four forces involved. So one is the weight of the bird that acting downward. And obviously, in order to fly, the bird has to overcome that weight.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  And birds have a number of aspects that really reduces their weight. They have lightweight bones, the feathers are lightweight. And so they have fairly low weight. If you compare the weight of a bird to a similar sized manimal, the bird will weigh less. But there's also the lift, and the lift arises from the flow of the air over the wings. And then there's the drag. You know, if you run your bicycle and you bike into the wind, you can feel the wind kind of pressing against you and pushing back. That's drag. It's the same thing for the birds. And then there's thrust. That's the force that moves the birds forward. But it's really the upward force that allows them to overcome their weight and to stay aloft in the air.

• 35:31Mike Carruthers?

  Do birds have to learn to fly, or is it just they know, they're born knowing?

• 35:37Speaker 03

  Well, if you look at birds that are just getting out of the nest, you look at fledgling birds, often they do this routine where they'll stand on a branch and they'll sort of hop and flap, and they're sort of hop-flapping. And I think they're sort of trying out their wings and kind of seeing what it feels like. And, you know, eventually they will leap off the branch, and some are more successful than others, let's put it that way. Some of them, you know, manage to kind of get themselves to another branch and land, and some of them end up on the ground. You kind of see, sometimes you see baby birds on the ground and they've, you know, tried to fly, I think, and not quite, not quite got it.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  And also, you know, even once they've made that first kind of leap and put their wings out and tried to fly, I think it takes them some time to actually learn how to fly and get good at it. I once, I lived near a pond, and I once saw an osprey, and I can only assume it was a juvenile osprey learning to fly. And, you know, when an osprey fishes, they, they can see the fish, you know, near the surface of the water, they kind of zoom down and they put out their talons and they grab the fish and they fly off. Well, this bird had not quite perfected that, and it kept doing these belly flops. So it was sort of flying up, it obviously saw a fish, it was sort of zooming down, and

• 36:59Speaker 03

  then it couldn't quite coordinate its wings and its talons and the fish, and it just kind of did this belly flop. And it sort of, you know, dusted itself off and it flew off again, and then it just kept doing it over and over, doing these kind of belly flops into the water. And I can only assume that it had not quite perfected the whole flight and catching fish routine, but presumably it got the hang of it later on.

• 37:23Mike Carruthers?

  Do birds, I know you're not a biologist, but do birds live in families? And what I mean by this is, so there's a nest that I just discovered the other day in our backyard, and there's eggs in it, and there's going to be babies, and the babies will grow up. Will they all stay in touch? Will they all live around here and stay in touch? Or, once they're up and gone, they're up and gone?

• 37:51Speaker 03

  I think typically, they're up and gone. Some birds, in fact, some birds that migrate, the adults will leave the nest before the bird, the young birds are ready to go. And the adults may go to a staging ground where they feed and fatten up before they do their migration. And the young birds will have to find their own way to the staging ground. I don't think they hook up with the parents at that point. And they, they basically have to find their own way to migrate to wherever they go to. So I think typically, they don't end up. And I think often, also, you know, birds might have a territory, especially, birds of prey might have a territory. And I think typically, the young have to go and find their own territory, that they

• 38:36Speaker 03

  can't really compete with the adults.

• 38:38Mike Carruthers?

  Let's talk about the colors. What do we know about, because some birds, you know, like around where I live in California, yeah, they're pretty dull, you know? And then you see birds in South America or elsewhere that are just brilliant, bright colors. And do we have any sense of, or how to make sense of that?

• 38:59Speaker 03

  Typically, the male birds are much more colorful than the females. And I think often, that is part of a courtship effort by the males. And so, you know, the birds, the bird's color is some way that the females evaluate the males and decide who they want to mate with. But there's all sorts of amazing things about the structure of feathers that gives them those, those incredible colors. So a lot of the color in bird is, birds' feathers is from pigments. For instance, there's melanin pigments that give you grays and blacks. And there's another kind of melanin that gives you sort of reddish browns. There's carotinoid pigments that give you reds and yellows. But there's this amazing iridescence in feathers.

• 39:42Speaker 03

  And the iridescence is caused by tiny little microscopic structures that are very well sort of aligned and oriented. And those structures have a similar length to the wavelength of light, which is really remarkable. It's tiny, tiny structures that produce the iridescence.

• 40:00Mike Carruthers?

  When you look at a bird and you can see the feathers fairly up close, they're always very clean. You don't see dirt on them much. I mean, do they work at keeping their feathers clean? Or they just naturally repel dirt, or what?

• 40:16Speaker 03

  The birds work at keeping their feathers clean. You often see birds preening their feathers. They have something called a preen gland at the base of their tail. And the preen gland exudes an oil. And they get, when they stick their bill into this preen gland, they get the oil on their bill. And then they run their bill through their feathers. And that puts the oil on their feathers. And it's thought that that does a couple of things. They think that it sort of makes the feathers more supple and less brittle, so they don't break. And it's also thought that the preen gland oil helps repel bacteria and things that could adversely affect the bird.

• 40:58Speaker 03

  So the preen gland is important, and also the preening is important. The birds need to keep their feathers in good condition in order to be able to fly and to, you know, have the feathers function. So it's important that they groom and preen.

• 41:12Mike Carruthers?

  Do you know, for example, if you go out and look at the birds in your neighborhood, how likely are they the same birds that were there a week, a month, a year ago? Or are they more likely, they're much more transient and they come and they go?

• 41:29Speaker 03

  Well, some birds definitely return to the same spot over and over again. People who study bird migration sometimes put various tracking devices on the birds. And some of these devices, you have to be able to get the device off the bird to get the data down from it. And Arctic terns, for example, have these incredible migrations. They breed, you know, in the north, and then they fly to Antarctica over the winter, over our winter, and then they fly back again. And the people who do these migration studies, they will find the same bird at the same nest site the next year. And so, you know, you sort of think like, how are they ever going to find the bird again?

• 42:12Speaker 03

  But in fact, they can find the bird again because they do return to the same nesting sites. And I had even a kind of local experience with this. There was a robin that I used to see on my street, and it had some, I don't know, it must have had some little defect in the melanin in its feathers, and some of its wing feathers had little white patches on it, so it didn't look quite like a regular robin. And that robin would come to our neighborhood, it would hang around within like three or four houses on the street. It would disappear in the winter, I assume it went south somewhere, and then the next spring it would reappear and it was in the same three or four houses. It wouldn't even like go down to the other end of the street. It was like in one little part of the street, this robin kind of hung out.

• 42:56Speaker 03

  And it came back for, I don't know, three or four years, I think I saw it.

• 43:01Mike Carruthers?

  Do all birds migrate somewhere?

• 43:05Speaker 03

  No, they don't all migrate. Some birds just stay in the same spot all year round. I was kind of amazed to find out that chickadees have quite a wide range. They live in Massachusetts, and there's different kinds of chickadees in different parts of the country. But some chickadees live in Alaska, and they don't migrate. They spend the winter in Alaska. So that's kind of a tough bird that can spend the winter in Alaska.

• 43:30Mike Carruthers?

  So I think we all understand the concept of migration, that birds fly south for the winter to a warmer place. But I've always wondered, like, how do they decide where to go? And how do they decide how to get there?

• 43:44Speaker 03

  There's what are called flyways, that are the certain sort of general paths that birds take as they fly south and as they come north. Some birds take one path to go south and then have a different path to go north. But I think, I think birds typically follow the same routes. When they're, you know, individual birds will follow the same route as they're going north and south. And, you know, if you have one species, there may be some birds take a slight variation on that route relative to other birds. But I think there's, you know, they tend to go from certain areas and to other areas.

• 44:20Mike Carruthers?

  What about the social world of birds? I mean, certainly everyone has heard and usually likes the sound of birds singing and tweeting and whatever. But is, is that typically communication? Are they talking to each other? Do they hang out with each other? Do they migrate with their friends? Or is it a more of a solitary life?

• 44:41Speaker 03

  I think that really depends on the species of birds. Some birds are more social than others. So for instance, if you think of herons or egrets, they often nest in colonies. So they'll nest at the top of trees, often near some sort of marsh or swamp so they can get fish. But you'll see, sometimes you can see dozens and dozens of heron nests, all in, all in one area, you know, the different trees have, have these different nests. So some birds are sort of social that way, but other birds, not so much. You know, if you look at, say, a hawk nest, you're not going to find a whole lot of other hawks around there. So, so some of them are. One of my favorite social birds is the acorn woodpecker.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  They tend to hang out in social groups of, you know, maybe 12, 15 birds. And they, they do this routine where they, they store acorns. They're called acorn woodpeckers because they eat acorns. But what they do is they find a rotted tree and they peck a hole in the tree. And they'll hammer an acorn into that. And the thing that's amazing is it's not one or two acorns we're talking, we're talking tens of thousands of acorns. So these social groups of, you know, maybe a dozen, maybe fifteen acorn woodpeckers will, you know, pick out a sort of decaying tree trunk and they will just hammer acorns into these little holes that they've drilled over and over and over again. So they've, they've got these amazing kind of way of storing their food, but it's, it's for the whole group of them.

• 46:07Mike Carruthers?

  Are there concerns about birds, are there, do we lose species? Do we find new species? Is it still a growing field or are the birds that are here are the birds that are here?

• 46:20Speaker 03

  Well, there's certainly a lot of concern about birds declining. There's been a remarkable decrease in the number of birds over the last, say, fifty years. It's something that conservation groups work on to try to preserve habitat. There's lots of reasons for this. I mean, one is the loss of habitat means that the birds can't, can't function, can't breed. But there's other things too. You know, even having like domestic cats, like your pet cat that goes outside and you, you know, once in a while you think it catches a bird. Though, if you look at the whole country, the cats are killing millions of birds. It's, it's not just the odd bird. So just cats can be a hazard for birds. Also, things like window glass.

• 47:05Speaker 03

  When the birds are migrating, sometimes they, they fly into windows and buildings, especially if the lights are on. And there's been a concerted effort to try to get like tall skyscrapers to turn the lights off during migration or to use a kind of glass that has some pattern on it that the, the birds can see. Another thing is the birds can see ultraviolet light that we can't see. So there's, there's coatings that reflect ultraviolet light too. So the birds are really under threat in a lot of ways. There's been some success stories, for instance. You know, you may have heard that after World War II, farmers started using DDT as an insecticide and that the...

• 47:50Speaker 03

  Birds declined both because they were eating this poison and as you got further up the food chain, the larger birds were getting more and more of this poison in their system and dying. And also, the eggshells were thinning and the eggs weren't hatching. And DDT was banned in the 1970s and many of the birds that were affected by that have really come back. So, things like bald eagles and ospreys, for example, peregrine falcons, all of those birds were really in a lot of peril 50 years ago. And now, I see bald eagles in Boston. I see peregrine falcons in Boston. And so, you know, they've really recovered. So, there's some success stories. But nevertheless, there's a lot of threats to birds.

• 48:35Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it's amazing how much I don't know or didn't know about birds until just now, given the fact that I see them everywhere all the time. And I appreciate you sharing your knowledge. I've been speaking with Lorna Gibson. She's a professor of material science and engineering at MIT, a lifelong bird enthusiast and author of the book Birds Up Close: An Engineer Explores Their Hidden Wonders. There's a link to her book in the show notes. Great, Lorna, this is really interesting. Appreciate it.

• 49:05Speaker 03

  Thanks very much for having me.

• 49:07Mike Carruthers?

  The next time you open a bag of potato chips, pay attention. Not to the chips, but to the bag. The package has been engineered far more carefully than you probably realize. First, that empty space, it's not there to cheat you. It's filled with nitrogen, not air, and it creates a protective cushion that keeps the chips from arriving as crumbs while also preventing the oils from going stale. But here's the part that's really surprising. The sound of the bag is intentional. Packaging researchers know that the crisp crinkle of a chip bag actually influences

• 49:49Mike Carruthers?

  how fresh and crunchy your brain believes those chips are. In other words, your ears help determine what your taste buds experience. Frito-Lay discovered that there is such a thing as too much crunch. Back in 2010, Frito-Lay introduced a compostable Sun Chips bag that measured about 95 decibels, roughly as loud as a motorcycle, and customers hated it. The noise became so infamous that the company ended up redesigning the bag less than two years later. And it's a lot quieter, and that is something you should know. I'm sure something we've discussed today in this episode, whether it's therapy, or

• 50:30Mike Carruthers?

  birds, or potato chip bags, would be of interest to someone you know. So I invite you to please pass this episode along, tell them about it, get them to listen, and it helps us grow our audience. And it's the best thing you can do to support this podcast. I'm Mike Herthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 50:51Speaker 06

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