Curiosity Daily Podcast: ‘Wanting’ and ‘Liking’ Are Different to Your Brain

Learn about why just because you want something doesn’t mean you like it; why Esperanto is the world’s most successful universal language; and a gene therapy injection in one eye that improved vision in both.

February 17, 2021

Episode Show Notes:

Just because you want something doesn't mean you like it — and that has implications for addiction by Kelsey Donk

Esperanto Is the World's Universal Language by Reuben Westmaas

Gene therapy injection in one eye surprises scientists by improving vision in both by Cameron Duke

Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Next Up

A Guide to Defending the Earth

Let’s say one day astronomers announce that our worst nightmare has come true: a large object is headed towards the Earth with a significant chance of impact. What do we do?

Sing Along to the Shark Week Song

Listen to the first official Shark Week song and catch all the action July 26 through August 1 on Discovery!

Investigate the Mind of a Shark on 'How to Train a Great White'

See how these apex predators actually think. Will they completely transform our understanding of their intelligence?

'My Strange Shark Addiction' Is Coming to Shark Week 2026

Meet the most shark-obsessed "fin-atics" around and take a plunge into their wild fascinations on "My Strange Shark Addiction." Learn all about the new special here!

Why We Know Nothing about Dark Matter and Dark Energy

Welcome to the era of precision cosmology…where we’ve managed to very precisely measure everything we don't know about the universe.

Scientists Watch as Stars Quake

The European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft has managed to watch stars tremble, their light subtly changing as starquakes ripple through their surfaces. Which is pretty cool, because Gaia wasn’t even designed to do it.

Watch Ken Jeong & Rei Ami Make a Splash on 'K-Pop Shark Heroes'

They'll use the power of K-Pop to change the way we view sharks forever!

An Astronomical Review of “Don’t Look Up”

In our annual New Year’s family tradition of struggling to stay awake until midnight, we decided to watch “Don’t Look Up,” the Adam McKay satire starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and other fabulously good-looking people.

Shark Week: The Podcast - How Smart Are Sharks?

The discussion turns this week to sharks’ intelligence, and how it varies among species. Host Luke Tipple is joined by Dr. Tristan Guttridge, a behavioral ecologist and veteran of Shark Week whose research has tackled the social smarts, and even personalities, of different kinds of sharks. He sheds light on why we shouldn’t just think of them as dumb fish with rows of razor-sharp teeth. And at the end, our researcher Sierra Kehoe tells us about shark hypnosis.