[Wow in the World: From Stem Toys to the Science of Human-Dog Social Intelligence]-[WeWow on the Weekend (10/12/24)]

Wow in the World · B1 · 2024-10-12

📋 Summary

Introduction to Wow in the World's New Ventures

The latest episode of Wow in the World brings a blend of exciting product announcements and fascinating scientific exploration. The hosts, Dennis and Reggie, kick off the show by introducing a new line of "hands-on STEM toys" developed in partnership with Wundery Kids. These products, such as the "wow-ified volcano" featuring color-changing slime and the "air rocket toy" equipped with a "special fart nozzle," aim to bridge the gap between "learning to playing and playing to tinkering." Additionally, the team unveiled "Wow in the World dino buckets" and new "Tony" figures, allowing younger listeners to enjoy content screen-free.

Community Engagement: Reading Reviews

A new segment titled "Reading Reviews" highlights the show's connection with its audience. Dennis shares various listener comments from platforms like Apple Podcasts. While the feedback is largely positive, the segment captures the humorous and unpredictable nature of audience interactions, ranging from short notes like "nice" and "cool" to thoughtful requests for episodes on the "science of stress." This segment reinforces the show's commitment to community, even when the host playfully laments that the review system only allows for a maximum of five stars.

The Science of Social Intelligence: Survival of the Friendliest

The core of the episode revisits a classic story from the show’s first season, "Dogs and Humans," which explores the evolutionary bond between the two species. The hosts, Mindy and Guy Raz, discuss the concept of "survival of the friendliest," proposing that humans became the dominant species on Earth because they learned the value of cooperation long before the existence of modern conveniences like cities or "taco trucks."

The University of Arizona Study

Guy Raz details a groundbreaking study from the University of Arizona that compared the cognitive abilities of dogs, chimpanzees, and two-year-old human children. The research focused on "social intelligence"—the ability to understand social cues and interact effectively with others.

Key findings included:

Brain Games: When researchers pointed toward a hidden toy or looked in its direction, dogs and human toddlers successfully located the object, whereas chimpanzees failed to respond to these social cues.
Eye Contact: Both dogs and children demonstrated higher levels of "social intelligence" by engaging in eye contact with the scientists, a behavior rarely mirrored by chimps.

Evolutionary Implications

This research suggests that dogs and humans may have evolved in parallel, developing similar patterns of social cognition. By studying how dogs have "figured this out," scientists hope to "crack the code" regarding human behavior and development. Understanding these early social milestones, which typically begin appearing in human babies around nine months, provides deeper insight into why humans are naturally inclined toward cooperation.

Conclusion

The episode concludes by bridging the gap between high-level evolutionary science and lighthearted curiosity. While Mindy jokingly questions her own social intelligence compared to a skateboarding dog, the underlying message remains clear: the history of human survival is deeply intertwined with our capacity for friendliness. The show invites listeners to continue engaging with these "wow-rific facts" by submitting their own questions, ensuring that the spirit of inquiry remains a weekend staple.

🎯Key Sentences

I got some big news to share.

whatever we need to move on

as it happens

thank you everyone for your reviewsies

keep them coming

Expand All

📝Key Phrases

hands-on

growing up

move on

emotional roller coaster

as it happens

Expand All

📖 Transcript

Grownups, Wundery Plus subscribers can listen to Wow in the World early and ad -free right now!

Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery app or Wundery Kids Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Hey Grownups! Minnie here, and I got some big news to share.

Reggie? Drumroll please.

Okay, Wow in the World now has toys!

We've partnered with our friends at Wundery Kids to create hands -on stem toys that connect learning to playing and playing to tinkering.

We wow on the weekend we wow on the weekend we wow on the weekend because this is what we do on the weekend talking laughing me and Reggie singing laughing and then oh wait no i said laughing twice uh whatever we wow on the weekend we wow on the weekend we wow on the weekend because this is what we

do on the weekend hello and welcome to we wow on the weekend i'm your host Dennis and Reggie's also a host as well also we're down in my mother's basement just hanging out being cool Reggie I am so cool yeah huh remember the time I accidentally crashed my bike into the bushes by the library and I got

a scrape and I hardly even cried I crashed because I was wearing sunglasses and I couldn't see which was cool oh whatever we need to move on because today we have a brand new segment I know I call it reading reviews reviews you know the comments people write on Apple podcasts or Spotify or whatever

and they give us stars yeah I printed a bunch out and I'm gonna read them I'm reading reviews for me and for you z's we've got us some doozies so let's read reviews z's okay let's see what we got here this review comes from cat one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven one the title says

nice and the message says cool huh that's a really short reviewsy oh and they gave us five stars thanks cat one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven one next comment okay this next review comes from username Fiona the title reads the best show ever thank you fiona and the message says

I have watched all your episodes twice they are so great I love Dennis so much thank you I am extremely lovable let's see how many stars what one star oh why oh what an emotional roller coaster of a reviewsy I need to sit down oh all right I'm already sitting down right right right right right okay

next comment this next one's from username the gymnast of the west oh mysterious the title says 11 out of 10 the message reads happy new year fireworks emoji I love your podcast you should make an episode about the science of stress well gymnast of the west as it happens there's an episode of wow in the world

called gaming your way to zen Reggie nuh -uh it's not called the zen of video games it's called gaming your way to zen yes it is look season three episode five the zen of video games huh okay whatever you're right anyway in the episode guy ros and mindy enter a relaxing state of flow by playing video

games thank you gymnast of the west and thank you everyone for your reviewsies keep them coming all right if you leave a comment on apple podcasts or spotify I just might read it five stars or more please what it only goes up to five stars sheesh I feel like we should be able to squeeze in a sixth or seventh

star you know okay next up is a little segment I like to call inside tinkercast studios inside tinkercast studios this is the part where we revisit an episode of one of my favorite tinkercast shows and this weekend we're revisiting episodes from the very first season of wow in the world today we're

doing a story from episode nine called dogs and humans in this episode Mindy and Guy Roz discuss a striking similarity between dogs and humans now Reggie we don't smell the same well I don't want to spoil the surprise let's just play the episode okay here we go and play we will be right back grown -ups

this message is for you hey grown -ups Mindy here from wow in the world and let me tell you Carly Q and I are so excited to make it wow in you Newark City I mean New York and San Francisco with our new live show make it wow presented by audible there's more to imagine would you listen and apparently

you're excited too because our San Francisco performance is filling up and our New York City performance is almost sold out so we're adding even more wow with a second show for New York City grown -ups get your tickets today at tinkercast .com slash events that's tinkercast .com slash events that's it

we'll see you there mm hmm that's it now back to the show hey Guy Roz hello Mindy how's it going buddy it's going well thanks so I've got a serious question for you okay what kind of dog loves to take bats well actually okay Guy Roz it's a joke what kind of dog loves to take a bat a shampooed hole okay

moving right along well actually Mindy that brings me to a science story oh I love stories what do you have well you know that old saying about humans and dogs oh yeah never eat a dog unless it's in a bun uh something like never eat a dog if it can run like away from you I don't know Guy Roz I don't

know what the saying actually the old saying I was thinking about Mindy is dogs are man's best friends never heard that one we call dogs our best friends because you know they're loyal and loving no matter what even on a bad day or a bun you know even on a bad day Mindy your dog will still love you

yeah and it'll show you that love by slobbering all over your face and eating your shoes but Mindy the reason why dogs and humans are such good pals might have something to do with evolution oh evolution so like the way we've changed over millions of years exactly we humans have changed over time we've

we've had to learn how to cooperate with each other in order to make sure that we survive oh we know all about cooperation Guy Roz do you remember that one time I asked you to put your cell phone in the aquarium so that I could talk to the fish and you didn't want to do it but you did it anyway because you're

a good friend and also because you fell into it that was cooperation yeah exactly and you know long long before humans had cities or horses or supermarkets or or airports or taco trucks yeah right right long before we had all of those things Mindy we had to find food out in the wild and over time we

figured out that if we were going to make it on this planet we had to work together so some people would look for food other people would build places to live other people would cook the food basically we had to become friendly so survival of the friendliest exactly humans had to become friendly because as

any kid knows Mindy by being friendly you are more likely to get what you want okay I think I've got this so say I want you to give me 100 bucks I might say something to you like Guy Roz you're looking so dashing today I hardly even recognized it was you uh yeah nope that's not it anyway Mindy friendliness

is how early humans were in one sense able to become the most dominant species on planet earth okay and just to be sure when you say species you mean groups of living creatures right yeah but not just creatures Mindy a species is a similar group of living things that create more of that same species

so for example cats are a species so are horses and tigers but so are plants and flowers like the water hyacinth and even things like garlic and fruit flies and of course our nearest relatives chimpanzees knew it Guy Roz I took one look at your toes last summer and knew that your great grandma had to

have been a chimpanzee uh well well we're not really relatives in in that sense we actually broke away from chimpanzees about seven million years ago so not not like in our family but yes we humans are distant relatives of chimps we are different of course very different than chimps but out of all the species

on earth they are the closest ones to us wait a minute so does this mean that chimps are also friendly in the same way that humans are well it's interesting you ask Mindy because when it comes to friendliness our closest animal relatives might be oh oh pick me you want to take a guess is it man's best

friend that's exactly right Mindy dogs so how do we even know this well Mindy scientists at the University of Arizona recently discovered that dogs and two -year -old humans show similar patterns of something called social intelligence okay so I don't want to sound socially unintelligent Guy Roz but what exactly

does that mean well it means that among all creatures dogs seem to be able to understand what's going on around them in ways that are similar to a two -year -old kid wow so how do we even know this well the scientists at the University of Arizona took a group of chimps and a group of dogs and they gave

them some brain games to play so for example the scientists would hide a toy in a room and then they'd start to look in the direction of the toy or even point their fingers to the part of the room where the toys were hidden and lo and behold the dogs would stand up and walk to that part of the room

and find the toys but when it came to the chimps Mindy they they would just sit on their bottoms and do nothing wow that's crazy town so then what did the two -year -olds do Mindy those little humans did exactly the same thing the dogs did and what's more is that the scientists found that dogs and the kids

were better than the chimps at making eye contact at and looking right into the eyes of the scientists such manners so why is this a big deal well it's a big deal because making eye contact is an example of that term I mentioned earlier social intelligence and it suggests Mindy that dogs like humans

probably evolved or changed over millions of years to become friendly as you said survival of the friendliest that's so cool so gyroz now that we know about dogs what does this discovery mean for us humans well Mindy it's possible that we might be able to better understand when and how humans develop

certain behaviors and why it's easier for some humans to be friendly but sometimes harder for other humans to be friendly we know that at around nine months human babies start to understand what's going on around them they they start to notice how how other people around them behave and if we can get

an even better understanding of how dogs have figured this out it could help us crack the code about certain mysteries related to human behavior that we don't yet understand yeah like why we get the hiccups or why we can't sneeze with our eyes open or why we see in 3d or why we get bored or why our

feet fall asleep when we sit on the toilet for too long or why we too or why we daydream or why our cheeks turn red when we're embarrassed oh wow cool that was great dogs have as much social intelligence as two -year -old humans Reggie do you think i have as much social intelligence as a dog because one

time on the internet i saw a video of a dog that could ride a skateboard what skateboarding isn't social intelligence oh well another time on the internet i saw a video of a dog popping bubbles with a raccoon is that social intelligence well okay maybe it's not social intelligence but it was definitely

adorable infectiousness well that will just about do it for today listeners if you have a question for me remember to call and leave me a message at one eight eight eight seven wow wow that's one eight eight eight seven wow wow i just might answer your question on we wow on the weekend okay let's do

the goodbye song that's the end of the show i have to go watch videos of dogs on but i'll do another show tomorrow but for now that's the end of the show grownups if you like wow in the world you can listen early and ad free right now on wondery plus join wondery plus in the wondery app or on wondery

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