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, schools in the United States are spending twice
Speaker 1: as many students as in previous decades, and this type
Speaker 1: of punishment may have lasting effects. Unrelated, we answer the
Speaker 1: age old question do smartphones really charge faster in airplane mode?
Speaker 1: But first, Christian Sager, co host of a podcast you
Speaker 1: might have heard of called Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: takes us on a deep dive into the history behind
Speaker 1: one of America's iconic fictional heroes, wonder Woman. Wasn't a
Speaker 1: kind year to wonder Woman, especially considering it was her
Speaker 1: seventy five birthday. In March, the Princess of the Amazons
Speaker 1: made her big screen debut in the critically panned slow
Speaker 1: fest Batman v. Superman Dawn of Justice. Then she was
Speaker 1: awarded an honorary United Nations Ambassadorship for Women and Girls,
Speaker 1: only to have it revoked two months into its planned
Speaker 1: twelvemonth campaign. On the comic book side, the critically acclaimed
Speaker 1: Legend of Wonder Woman series was canceled abruptly, and artist
Speaker 1: Frank cho through a public fit when he couldn't draw
Speaker 1: a Wonder Woman's underwear on a comic book cover. In
Speaker 1: the wake of this no good, very bad year, it's
Speaker 1: worth remembering there's a secret origin behind Wonder Woman, one
Speaker 1: that only a few storytellers are willing to commemorate. Her creator,
Speaker 1: William Moulton Marston, saw Wonder Woman comics as an educational
Speaker 1: opportunity to teach readers about his beliefs. Controversial both at
Speaker 1: the time and today. Much has been previously written on this,
Speaker 1: but writer Jill Lapoor pulled all the pieces together in
Speaker 1: her book The Secret History of Wonder Woman. Mars had
Speaker 1: three main fixations he baked into Wonder Woman's d NA,
Speaker 1: the detection of lies, a matriarchal uprising, and sexualized bondage. Firstly,
Speaker 1: Marston is widely acknowledged as inventing the systolic blood pressure
Speaker 1: test that was eventually developed into the LIE detector. The
Speaker 1: gadget he put together wasn't much more than a stethoscope
Speaker 1: and a blood pressure cuff, which is fairly basic compared
Speaker 1: to the digital polygraphs forensic psychophysiologists utilized today. They operate
Speaker 1: on the same principle, though, that being deceptive produces anxiety,
Speaker 1: leading to physical changes in the human bodies blood pressure,
Speaker 1: heart rate, respiration, and conductivity. But there's evidence that it
Speaker 1: wasn't Marston who first came up with this idea. Instead,
Speaker 1: his wife, Elizabeth Holloway, was the one who suggested it
Speaker 1: after she noticed her blood pressure increase when she was upset. Regardless,
Speaker 1: the lie detector's accuracy is as debatable now as it
Speaker 1: was in nineteen twenty two when Marston tried to introduce
Speaker 1: it into court cases. So Marston turned to fiction instead
Speaker 1: and created Wonder Woman's Golden Lasso of Truth that forces
Speaker 1: those in its thrall to reveal their deceptions. In addition
Speaker 1: to marrying Holloway, Marston also partnered with his former student,
Speaker 1: all Of Burne. The three lived together in polyamory, with
Speaker 1: Marston fathering children with both women. Burn's aunt was feminist
Speaker 1: Margaret Sanger, whose philosophies influenced Marston and subsequently the comic
Speaker 1: books he wrote. He had already supported women's rights in
Speaker 1: the Harvard Men's League for Women's Suffrage, but Marston also
Speaker 1: worked as a lab assistant under Harvard psychologist Hugo Munstenberg,
Speaker 1: who was known to oppose the right to vote for women.
Speaker 1: This confluence led Marston to believe that women were superior
Speaker 1: to men and would eventually run the world because they
Speaker 1: were more trustworthy and less aggress of them men. In
Speaker 1: a nineteen forty three essay, he wrote, women's strong qualities
Speaker 1: have become despised because of their weak ones. The obvious
Speaker 1: remedy is to create a feminine character with all the
Speaker 1: strengths of a superman plus all the allure of a
Speaker 1: good and beautiful woman. Marston's solution was the creation of
Speaker 1: Wonder Woman, and he drew inspiration from Munstenberg when creating
Speaker 1: the villain Doctor Psycho. Finally, remember earlier when I mentioned
Speaker 1: Marston's interest in the suffrage movement. A crucial spark toward
Speaker 1: that influence came when he witnessed suffragists chain themselves to
Speaker 1: offense in protest. Chains were used symbolically within this movement
Speaker 1: to signify women's emancipation from enslavement. This led to an
Speaker 1: ongoing theme and Wonder Woman comics, where she was constantly
Speaker 1: chained up by her enemies Marston's allegory for female liberation
Speaker 1: through birth control. Sanger herself published a collection of letters
Speaker 1: from women titled Motherhood in Bondage, describing the lack of
Speaker 1: birth control as akin to slavery. Now, to be fair,
Speaker 1: while Marston may have worked progressive themes like this into
Speaker 1: his Wonder Woman's stories, there's still evidence that he suppressed
Speaker 1: his first wife's career while taking credit for her ideas.
Speaker 1: Hopefully this will be explored more in the upcoming biopic
Speaker 1: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. If not, We've always
Speaker 1: got Galgado's second outing as Princess Diana in the summer
Speaker 1: of as an opportunity to explore Marston's genesis for the heroine.
Speaker 1: Here's hoping her seventy six year treats her a little
Speaker 1: bit better than did next up, staff editor Eves Jeff
Speaker 1: Coote and our freelance writer Julia Layton explore a troubling
Speaker 1: trend in American public schools, stringent use of exclusionary punishments
Speaker 1: like suspensions. US public schools suspended two point eight million students,
Speaker 1: or about six percent of its student population during the
Speaker 1: fourteen school year. That's about ten percent more than two
Speaker 1: thousand numbers and more than double the suspension rates of
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. Suspensions rose dramatically with the widespread adoption
Speaker 1: of zero tolerance policies. In the nineteen nineties, schools mandated
Speaker 1: suspension for any student bringing a weapon onto campus, amid
Speaker 1: growing concern about crime and violence in schools. But according
Speaker 1: to the u c l A Civil Rights Project, most
Speaker 1: suspensions in the two thousand nine to ten school year
Speaker 1: were for offenses like tardiness, disrupting class, and violating dress codes.
Speaker 1: Many education experts thank suspension is a poor approach to
Speaker 1: school discipline. It doesn't address the issues that may cause
Speaker 1: the student's problematic behavior, especially when some students see it
Speaker 1: as a holiday. But inefficacy may be the least of
Speaker 1: school suspensions problems. An alarmingly vast body of research suggests
Speaker 1: discipline and many US public schools could be ruining students lives.
Speaker 1: The U S Department of Education reports that a student
Speaker 1: who has suspended or it's spelled during preschool or elementary
Speaker 1: school is up to ten times more likely to face
Speaker 1: jail tom later in life. A twelve study out of
Speaker 1: Johns Hopkins University found that a single suspension in ninth
Speaker 1: grade doubles the student's risk of dropping out, a major
Speaker 1: predictor for incarceration. Experts say exclusionary punishment is a main
Speaker 1: entry point to the school to prison pipeline that carries
Speaker 1: students away from school and into the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: The pipeline has a short version where schools involve law
Speaker 1: enforcement in matters of school discipline. In twelve police arrested
Speaker 1: nine students for in school offenses, But in the longer version,
Speaker 1: suspension causes the students to fall behind, fail academically, face
Speaker 1: embarrassment among peers, and continue to misbehave. The school issues
Speaker 1: more suspensions, and the student finally drops out. Responding to
Speaker 1: student misbehavior can be a subjective process, and zero tolerance
Speaker 1: policies tend to be open to interpretation. School officials often
Speaker 1: determine what is and isn't suspension worthy on a case
Speaker 1: by case basis, and sometimes these decisions are controversial, like
Speaker 1: when a first grader in Delaware was suspended for bringing
Speaker 1: his cub scout camping utensil to class. Problems also arise
Speaker 1: when officials apply zero tolerance policies arbitrarily and with racial bias.
Speaker 1: In the US, black students are three times more likely
Speaker 1: than white students to be suspended. Males, American Indians, Alaska Natives,
Speaker 1: and disabled students are also overrepresented in a suspended population.
Speaker 1: Yet suspensions often don't improve student behavior. Considering the failure
Speaker 1: and discrimination of school suspension policies, more effective measures of
Speaker 1: discipline are critical u s schools are trying to change
Speaker 1: their ways. Many schools are trading rampant suspension for research
Speaker 1: based discipline models. Some take the restorative justice approach, which
Speaker 1: focuses on repairing the harm done through community cooperation, and
Speaker 1: some limit police involvement in discipline. Also, Texas took disruption
Speaker 1: of class office list of Class C misdemeanors. In overall,
Speaker 1: the move to reform is showing results the two point
Speaker 1: eight million suspensions, where actually it's reduction from the previous
Speaker 1: school year. Finally, this week, staff editor Christopher Hassiotis and
Speaker 1: our freelance writer Patrick Jake Tiger have some practical advice
Speaker 1: for us regarding how we charge our smartphones. Admit it,
Speaker 1: you're a heavy duty smartphone user, and that includes just
Speaker 1: about everybody these days. Since the average Americans spends four
Speaker 1: point seven hours each day gazing at and tapping that
Speaker 1: little screen. So you know how agonizing it is to
Speaker 1: tear yourself away from cat videos and plug your phone
Speaker 1: into a charger to replenish the battery. After all, some
Speaker 1: smartphones can take hours to fully charge, so listen. You
Speaker 1: may have heard that you can reduce your separation anxiety
Speaker 1: a bit by following one simple tip while charging, switch
Speaker 1: your phone to airplane mode. The thinking is that the
Speaker 1: phone won't spend energy trying to connect with the outside world,
Speaker 1: thereby speeding up the charging process. So that's what you've heard.
Speaker 1: But does it actually work. As it turns out, the
Speaker 1: answer is yes. In fact, mobile provider Verizon actually recommends it.
Speaker 1: The reason why the trick succeeds is that while your
Speaker 1: phone is in its regular mode, it's continually trying to
Speaker 1: signal cell towers and pinpoint your location. And even though
Speaker 1: your phone most likely has assisted GPS, which calculates your
Speaker 1: location coordinates using the cell phone network rather than satellites,
Speaker 1: the function still burns up a lot of juice. That's
Speaker 1: because the location finding stops your phone from going into
Speaker 1: full on energy saving sleep mode. So when you switch
Speaker 1: to airplane mode, you turn off reception of those radio
Speaker 1: transmissions and as a result, your smartphone charges more quickly.
Speaker 1: But don't get too hyped up, because it's not likely
Speaker 1: to save you that much more time. When the website
Speaker 1: c Net tested the proposition a few years ago, airplane
Speaker 1: mode only shaved four minutes off of phones total charging
Speaker 1: time in one trial and eleven minutes in another, a
Speaker 1: fraction of the overall time. Still, if you're in a
Speaker 1: pinch and just have a few minutes to charge, it
Speaker 1: may help, and it certainly won't slow things down. That's
Speaker 1: our show for this week. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: tuning in. Further thanks to our audio producer Dylan Fagin
Speaker 1: and our editorial liaisons Alicon, Loudermilk and Christopher. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: now now for more of the latest science news, and
Speaker 1: send us links to anything you'd like to hear us cover,
Speaker 1: plus a photo from your local women's march. You can
Speaker 1: send us an email at now podcast at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, and of course, for lots more stories
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