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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi, brain Stuff,

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Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb Here. Those of us who imbibe have

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Speaker 1: all said it, I'll just have one glass of wine.

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Speaker 1: But even if you stick to that, you might want

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Speaker 1: to consider how your supposed single serving actually measures up.

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Speaker 1: That's because, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge,

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Speaker 1: wine glasses of modern day Brits are now seven times

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Speaker 1: the size of their imbibing predecessors three years ago, and

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Speaker 1: those glass sizes have increased the most in the last

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Speaker 1: two decades, accompanying the rise in vino consumption. Until the

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Speaker 1: second half of the twentieth century, beer and spirits dominated

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Speaker 1: the British booz scene, but the drinking of wine nearly

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Speaker 1: quadrupled between nine and two thousand four, likely due to

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Speaker 1: its affordability, availability, accessibility, and all those successful marketing tactics.

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Speaker 1: The study authors suggest that when it comes to how

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Speaker 1: much we're drinking, our glass size probably does matter. For

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Speaker 1: the study, the researchers examined why in glass capacity over

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Speaker 1: time to illuminate weather changes in size may have contributed

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Speaker 1: to that steep rise in wine drinking over the past

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Speaker 1: few decades. By scouring online info and talking with antiques,

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Speaker 1: glassware experts, and museum curators, the researchers were able to

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Speaker 1: obtain the measurements of four hundred and eleven glasses from

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Speaker 1: seventeen hundred to the modern day. What they found might

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Speaker 1: be a bit disheartening to anyone who leans heavily on

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Speaker 1: that just one glass line. Wine glass capacity skyrocketed from

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Speaker 1: a mere sixty six millileaters or two ounces in the

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Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds to four hundred and seventeen millileaters that's fourteen

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Speaker 1: ounces in the two thousands, with the average size of

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Speaker 1: a wine glass in twenty six twenty seventeen falling around

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Speaker 1: four hundred and forty nine millileaters or fifteen ounces. For reference,

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Speaker 1: the size of a standard drink does vary from cultured

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Speaker 1: culture around the world, but is commonly around ten grams

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Speaker 1: of pure alcohol per beverage. For wine having an average

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Speaker 1: of about twelve percent alcohol by volume, that accounts for

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Speaker 1: just slightly over four ounces or drid and twenty five

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Speaker 1: million leaders. Study authors Zorana Zupin said in the press release,

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Speaker 1: for the most part, this increase was gradual, but since

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Speaker 1: the nine nineties the size has increased rapidly. Whether this

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Speaker 1: led to the rise in wine consumption in England, we

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Speaker 1: can't say for certain, but a wine glass three hundred

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Speaker 1: years ago would have only held about half of today's

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Speaker 1: small measure. There are lots of reasons those glasses may

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Speaker 1: have gotten roomier, more affordable glass prices, innovations in technology,

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Speaker 1: a healthier economy, and an increased societal appreciation for wine.

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Speaker 1: But it could be the people behind the bar who

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Speaker 1: have demanded bigger glassware to accommodate the increasingly normalized Megapore.

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Speaker 1: Despite regulatory requirement in England to make customers aware that

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Speaker 1: the more modest a hundred and twenty five million lead

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Speaker 1: glasses are available, most establishments opt to serve two hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty million leads at a time, or about one

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Speaker 1: third of a wine bottle. And if your response to

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Speaker 1: all this is that you have no problem moderating your

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Speaker 1: intake in the face of such generous glassware, know that

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Speaker 1: researchers have also found that the strength of wine has

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Speaker 1: increased over the years in the UK at least, But

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Speaker 1: regardless of where you reside, perhaps you'll want to pay

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Speaker 1: a little more attention to how much wine you're actually

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Speaker 1: doubting because apparently just one glass could potentially still be

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Speaker 1: enough to cause trouble. Today's episode was written by Michelle

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Speaker 1: Komftantanowski and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this

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Speaker 1: and lots of other standard breaking topics, visit our home planet,

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com