Speaker 1: Welcome to How Stuff Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,
Speaker 1: a researcher and writer. Here at How Stuff Works. Every week,
Speaker 1: I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
Speaker 1: weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
Speaker 1: This week, we're getting better numbers on how much radiation
Speaker 1: air travelers are exposed to and unrelated researchers think that
Speaker 1: they may know why Wales sometimes get stranded on the shore.
Speaker 1: But first, managing editor Alison Loudermilk and our freelance writer
Speaker 1: Dave Rouse dive deep into the purposefully confusing world of
Speaker 1: website and app terms of service. If you never read
Speaker 1: the terms of service or privacy policies on websites or apps,
Speaker 1: you're not alone. Earlier this year, researchers from Michigan State
Speaker 1: and the University Connecticut wanted to see how many Internet
Speaker 1: users did read these notoriously lengthy policies before clicking agree.
Speaker 1: So they rounded up five forty three student participants who
Speaker 1: thought they were beta testing a new social networking site
Speaker 1: called name Drop. The researchers found that of the students
Speaker 1: didn't read the fake websites privacy policy or terms of service.
Speaker 1: Those who did skim the eight thousand word and four
Speaker 1: thousand word documents in about a minute each yep a minute.
Speaker 1: Only nine of those five D forty three students noticed
Speaker 1: that the terms of service included the slightly controversial child
Speaker 1: assignment clause We'll read you an excerpt. By agreeing to
Speaker 1: these terms of service and in an exchange for services,
Speaker 1: all users of this site agree to immediately assign their
Speaker 1: firstborn child to name Drop Incorporated. If the user does
Speaker 1: not yet have children. This agreement will be enforceable until
Speaker 1: two thousand fifty. All individuals assigned to name drop automatically
Speaker 1: become the property of name Drop Incorporated, no exceptions. Okay,
Speaker 1: so popular websites and apps like Facebook, Amazon, and Instagram
Speaker 1: aren't coming after firstborn, but they do in pensionally draft
Speaker 1: privacy policies, terms of service, and end user license agreements
Speaker 1: e u l a's that they know or hope no
Speaker 1: one will ever read. Git Walsh, a staff attorney with
Speaker 1: the Electronic Frontier Foundation at Digital Rights Advocacy Group, told
Speaker 1: House to Works that there's a clear advantage to them
Speaker 1: being unreadable. Welsh also mentioned that it would take all
Speaker 1: of us two months to read all of the agreements
Speaker 1: that we click through in a year. In fact, wal
Speaker 1: said the PayPal terms of service agreement is longer than
Speaker 1: Hamlet and a lot less interesting. The real function of
Speaker 1: these dense, jargon filled policies and agreements, which most of
Speaker 1: us ignore, isn't for companies to inform users of our rights,
Speaker 1: but to establish legal grounds for collecting and sharing our information.
Speaker 1: Welsh also mentioned that fifty people surveyed by Pew in
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen thought that if a company has a
Speaker 1: privacy policy that means they won't share your information. Not true.
Speaker 1: Walsh also says the typical privacy policy is written to
Speaker 1: give the company as much leeway as possible, so when
Speaker 1: you click agree on most social networking sites, that gives
Speaker 1: the company the right to mind and collect data not
Speaker 1: only from your clicks and likes, but from your private
Speaker 1: messages to other users too. Whilst as we're not just
Speaker 1: talking about social media sites, your home automation system collects
Speaker 1: and shares data with the company about when your home
Speaker 1: and when you're not. Medical monitoring systems gather and save
Speaker 1: extremely personal and sensitive information. I mean, when was the
Speaker 1: last time you read the fine print on any of
Speaker 1: these systems. Essentially, Walsh explains, we trust devices with all
Speaker 1: of the intimate details of our private lives, but the
Speaker 1: privacy policies are written to let the companies that run
Speaker 1: those devices basically do whatever they want and commercialize your
Speaker 1: private data. A British government task force just released a
Speaker 1: report about how unreadable terms and conditions impact children online.
Speaker 1: In the UK, fifty six percent of twelve to fifteen
Speaker 1: year olds have an Instagram account. But when a group
Speaker 1: of children were asked to read the apps five thousand
Speaker 1: words terms of service agreement, none of them could decipher
Speaker 1: the postgraduate level legalise. So the task force asked a
Speaker 1: lawyer to translate the document into plain English. Here's how
Speaker 1: that translated policy read. Although you're responsible for the information
Speaker 1: you put on Instagram, we may keep, use, and share
Speaker 1: your personal information with companies connected with Instagram. This information
Speaker 1: includes your name, email, adjusts, school, where you live, pictures,
Speaker 1: phone number, your likes and dislikes, where you go, who
Speaker 1: your friends are, how often you use Instagram, and any
Speaker 1: other personal information we find, such as your birthday or
Speaker 1: who you were chatting with, including in private messages. The
Speaker 1: report noted that when a thirteen year old named Amy
Speaker 1: read the d jargon version. She said, they must know
Speaker 1: that no one reads the terms and conditions, but if
Speaker 1: they made it more easy and then people would actually
Speaker 1: read it and think twice about the app. Another boy
Speaker 1: named Alex put it more bluntly, I'm deleting Instagram because
Speaker 1: it's weird. Does that mean you have to start reading
Speaker 1: these insane in terms of service? No, it doesn't. The
Speaker 1: Electronic front Here Foundation has published a handy cheat sheet
Speaker 1: of companies that have your back when it comes to
Speaker 1: government data requests, and a crowdsource initiative called terms of
Speaker 1: Service Didn't Read reads and rates the privacy policies in
Speaker 1: terms of service for a major website and ABS so
Speaker 1: you don't have to next up our own. Audio producer
Speaker 1: Dylan Fagan and freelance writer Laurie L. Dove explore new
Speaker 1: research into a cause of whale beachings that sounds surprising
Speaker 1: on the surface, solar flares. Each year, hundreds of otherwise
Speaker 1: healthy whales wind up stranded on coastlines across the globe.
Speaker 1: Most are still alive at the moment they get stuck,
Speaker 1: but within a matter of hours, the whales suffocate under
Speaker 1: their own weight. Drown and high tide, or conversely die
Speaker 1: of dehydration. Why is this happening. No one has a
Speaker 1: clear answer, but researchers may be getting closer to deciphering
Speaker 1: the mystery of these mass strandings by looking to the
Speaker 1: Sun for clues. NASA Helia physicist Anti I. Polkinen, stationed
Speaker 1: at the Goddard Space Flight Center, is working with the
Speaker 1: Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the International Fund
Speaker 1: for Animal Welfare. They're parsing years of data that may
Speaker 1: provide a link between solar flares and beached whales. Research
Speaker 1: from two thousand five suggested a link between the phenomena,
Speaker 1: but this new undertaking will be the first time quantitative
Speaker 1: research has been used to gather statistically significant data on
Speaker 1: the possible relationship. Whales, like dolphins and porpoises, use magnetic
Speaker 1: fields for navigation, and when solar flares interrupt Earth's magnetosphere,
Speaker 1: cetaceans the collective name for whales, dolphins, and porpoises may
Speaker 1: lose all sense of direction, leading to deadly mistakes. The
Speaker 1: hope is that by pulling data from years of whale beachings,
Speaker 1: scientists will understand the relationship between solar flares and these strandings.
Speaker 1: Katie Moore, director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare
Speaker 1: Global Animal Rescue Program and project collaborator, says, if we
Speaker 1: understand the relationship between the two, we may be able
Speaker 1: to use observations of solar storms as an early warning
Speaker 1: for potential strandings to occur. This would allow stranding responders
Speaker 1: and global hotspots and really around the world to be
Speaker 1: better prepared to respond, thus having the opportunity to save
Speaker 1: more animals. Also interesting, researchers believe the moon's gravitational influences
Speaker 1: also make it difficult for whales to navigate open seas.
Speaker 1: When there's a full moon or a new moon. In
Speaker 1: combination with a coastal storm, whales may swim into two
Speaker 1: shallow waters. Finally, this week, Step editor Christopher Hasiotas and
Speaker 1: our freelance writer Patrick Jake Tiger have a story for
Speaker 1: us about how scientists are setting out exactly how much
Speaker 1: danger air travel poses radiation wise, if you're listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast while cruising through the stratosphere at thirty six
Speaker 1: thousand feet, your jetline or seat probably seems like a
Speaker 1: pretty serene place. After all, you're well above the clouds
Speaker 1: and weather, and indeed above much of the Earth's atmosphere itself.
Speaker 1: What you probably don't realize, though, is that just above you,
Speaker 1: a street of high energy particles from deep space is
Speaker 1: crashing down into the atmosphere, causing all sorts of molecular
Speaker 1: level carnage. Try not to flinch, you're getting bombarded with
Speaker 1: cosmic rays. For those of us back on the Earth's surface,
Speaker 1: the thickness of the atmosphere pretty much filters them out,
Speaker 1: but in the thin air of the stratosphere where airplanes fly,
Speaker 1: there's little cover. Fortunately, most research on the subject indicates
Speaker 1: that occasional air travelers probably aren't getting that much of
Speaker 1: a cosmic dose. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Speaker 1: estimates that across country flight exposes an average traveler to
Speaker 1: about three point five millirams of radiation, which is less
Speaker 1: than the amount of radiation received during one chest X ray,
Speaker 1: but it's more of a risk for pilots and airline
Speaker 1: crew who spend a whole lot more time in the sky.
Speaker 1: Cosmic radiation can break down DNA and produce free radicals,
Speaker 1: which can damage parts of cells. Free radicals, by the way,
Speaker 1: aren't exclusive to cosmic rays. And can also be generated
Speaker 1: by substances found in fried food, alcohol, tobacco, smoke, and
Speaker 1: air pollution, among other sources. Hooray. The good news is
Speaker 1: that the fine people at NASA are studying high altitude
Speaker 1: radiation to get more precise numbers on exposure and to
Speaker 1: improve real time monitoring for everyone who flies. In September
Speaker 1: of two thousand sixteen, researchers in New Mexico launched a
Speaker 1: giant helium balloon carrying NASA's Radiation D Symmetry experiment, also
Speaker 1: known as rad X and apologies to anyone who uses
Speaker 1: that name for online gaming avatars. This array of instruments
Speaker 1: measures cosmic rays coming from the Sun and interstellar space.
Speaker 1: The scientists recently published an article on their work in
Speaker 1: a special issue of Space Weather Journal. Chris Marten's, the
Speaker 1: principal investigator of the rad X mission at NASA's Langley
Speaker 1: Research Center, says that measurements were taken for the first
Speaker 1: time at seven different altitudes where the physics of D
Speaker 1: symmetry is very different. By having the measurements at these
Speaker 1: seven altitudes, he says, we're really able to test how
Speaker 1: well our models capture the physics of cosmic radiation now.
Speaker 1: According to NASA, aircraft crews frequent flying leads them to
Speaker 1: being exposed to us as much cosmic radiation as they
Speaker 1: would receive on the ground. On the bright side, the
Speaker 1: mission also tested two new radiation measuring instruments, the Rashard
Speaker 1: detector and the TELEDI and t I D detector, that
Speaker 1: may be installed in aircraft in the future. Such friendly,
Speaker 1: friendly scouys. That's our show for this week. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Further thanks to our audio
Speaker 1: producer Dylan Fagan and our editorial liaison, Eve's Jeff Cote.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to now Now for more belated science news and
Speaker 1: send us links to anything you'd like to hear us cover,
Speaker 1: plus the name of your favorite podcast, Professional Curiosity. You
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