Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show we are talking about aeroplankton.
Speaker 1: That's right, there's life all around us. We are breathing
Speaker 1: it in, don't cough it out. It's probably fine. From
Speaker 1: tiny animals to bacteria to who knows what. There are
Speaker 1: so many little guys just floating on the wind, surprisingly
Speaker 1: sometimes on purpose. Discover this and more as we answer
Speaker 1: the age old question, isn't raining viruses? And do you
Speaker 1: need an umbrella? Joining me today is friend of the show,
Speaker 1: my good old buddy, writer for American Dad, Sora and
Speaker 1: wait No, also co host of Quick Question with Soren
Speaker 1: and Daniel or Daniel and Sorn. I don't know what
Speaker 1: sorry and Daniel ddice, she got first? You got first?
Speaker 1: Is that an argument? No?
Speaker 2: In fact, Daniel gave that up. It was Daniel's idea
Speaker 2: because Daniel will always pitch it that way as the
Speaker 2: other person in the hopes that the other person says no, no, no,
Speaker 2: no no no.
Speaker 1: She should have known better. But yeah, your name is
Speaker 1: Soran Booy. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be
Speaker 2: here again. Oh to stretch my legs in the world
Speaker 2: of the floor and fauna feels good.
Speaker 1: Feels good to be back getting all those floor in fauna,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, stretching your legs and that that makes
Speaker 1: total sense.
Speaker 2: I just put them on, put them on, get slip
Speaker 2: into something more comfortable, like a megafauna, like a moose. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I imagine comfortable b to be in a moose. You'd
Speaker 2: have so much room.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, just kind of like you know, I guess
Speaker 1: you have to slice that sucker open like a ton ton,
Speaker 1: but imagine how warm would be in there.
Speaker 2: Now, are you? I assume that when you started this podcast,
Speaker 2: like the first things you did were the megafauna, like
Speaker 2: those were all the ones. Those are like the fun
Speaker 2: animals to talk.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Actually, you know what sort of
Speaker 1: I think one of the first ones I talked about
Speaker 1: was a parasite, uh, the Tia gandhia because it was
Speaker 1: so interesting. I mean, I love a parasite like that's
Speaker 1: they're my favorites because they're so sneaky, uh, and they
Speaker 1: do so they're like they're pranksters, they're they love fun pranks,
Speaker 1: like making a rat fall in love with a cat urine.
Speaker 1: That's like a fun.
Speaker 2: Prank attracted the cats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like theyry.
Speaker 2: The cats look very sexy too.
Speaker 1: They're turned on by the smell of cat urine. And
Speaker 1: I feel like it's that is a sick joke, and
Speaker 1: I'm and I'm all for sick jokes.
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say, I I I never picked.
Speaker 2: When you say do you want to call on the
Speaker 2: podcasts or anything you want to talk about I I'm like,
Speaker 2: what are the things that I'm very interested in? And
Speaker 2: I always scratch like all the big animals off the
Speaker 2: list because I'm like, no, she's probably she's probably like, oh,
Speaker 2: I know what we'll do Area plank did We'll do it.
Speaker 1: It's perfect. I love this topic so much. I'm so
Speaker 1: happy you suggested it. I actually, you know what I
Speaker 1: would this If you suggested something like let's do whales,
Speaker 1: I would panic because honestly, whales are not very well
Speaker 1: studied and there's so many things that we don't know
Speaker 1: about them, and I personally am you know, It's like
Speaker 1: when I try to research whales, like how do they mate?
Speaker 1: And it's like, we don't know you think we know that,
Speaker 1: we don't know that.
Speaker 2: It's mystery, it's none of our business.
Speaker 1: We're business. Uh so yeah, no, this is this is
Speaker 1: very cool. So we're talking about aeroplankton. So aeroplankton is
Speaker 1: it's basically just stuff that uses instead of oceanic currents,
Speaker 1: it uses wind currents to get around. So we all
Speaker 1: we all know and love oceanic plankton. They're tiny micro organism,
Speaker 1: including both zooplankton like coral larva or even like crab
Speaker 1: or fish larva. Those count as a zooplankton. There's also
Speaker 1: phytoplankton like tiny algae. These are like diatoms, so yeah,
Speaker 1: like animals, plants, even prokaryotic plankton like bacteria, these are
Speaker 1: all things that count as plankton. They're using oceanic currents
Speaker 1: to travel, and so skyplankton aeroplankton is basically the same.
Speaker 1: These are little, teeny tiny things that use the currents
Speaker 1: of the air to get around, and so it is.
Speaker 1: It is really interesting because like oceanic plankton is a
Speaker 1: relatively like stable population of stuff. They do do like
Speaker 1: a mass migration every day and night cycle, which is
Speaker 1: really cool. But more or less, they're like supposed to
Speaker 1: be there, whereas with aeroplankton, it ranges from stuff that
Speaker 1: is like intentionally like on the wind, to stuff that
Speaker 1: like probably doesn't know why or how it got up there.
Speaker 2: That's almost exciting about I'm excited forout Like spiders that
Speaker 2: end up in the stratosphere.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's interesting they do, but they are
Speaker 1: not the confused ones.
Speaker 2: They're supposed to be there.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to be there often. So, yeah, aeroplankton, there
Speaker 1: are microorganisms that live in the air, well, not live
Speaker 1: in the air. They happen to wind up in the
Speaker 1: air from clouds to wind currents. H And just like
Speaker 1: oceanic plankton, there are animal organisms. There's plants, fungi, unicellular organisms,
Speaker 1: and prokaryotic organisms that make up aeroplankton. I Actually, so
Speaker 1: this is kind of exciting timing because I recently recorded
Speaker 1: a podcast with Alex Schmidt. It's a podcast called Secretly
Speaker 1: Incredibly Fascinating. We talked about clouds, and Alex just yeah,
Speaker 1: he taught me all about clouds, uh. And he told
Speaker 1: me about how like clouds are formed usually by like
Speaker 1: a seed. It's like a little mote of something. It
Speaker 1: could be silica, like a piece of sand, but it's
Speaker 1: like these little microscopic seeds and then cloud sort of
Speaker 1: water droplet forms around it. It's like the nucleus of
Speaker 1: the cloud. Yeah, so like the cloud has all these
Speaker 1: little nuclei, but this thing exactly. But these little, these
Speaker 1: little microscopic bits of stuff can often be things like microorganisms.
Speaker 1: They can be dead or alive bacteria, microorganisms, algae that
Speaker 1: also form these nuclei and clouds. So that's really cool.
Speaker 1: Clouds can have a bunch of like dead or alive
Speaker 1: microorganisms that actually help the cloud form.
Speaker 2: Wow, that I did not know that that Every cloud. Yeah,
Speaker 2: every cloud is built around something that was once on
Speaker 2: the ground.
Speaker 1: Pretty much. Pretty No, that's I mean, that's accurate. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like I'm not going to talk anymore. Well maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit, but not much more about cloud So if
Speaker 1: you want to learn all about the clouds, you can
Speaker 1: check out Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. I host it with Alex Schmid.
Speaker 2: Do you ever have Alex Schmidt on this podcast? I do, Yes, Okay,
Speaker 2: A really fun bit would be would be to only
Speaker 2: let him talk about clams every time he comes over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what is disclams. I don't know that
Speaker 1: we have talked about clams. I should do that. He's
Speaker 1: not going to listen to this one probably, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to do that. Don't tell him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, insist on it. And ever since time, like we
Speaker 2: just got to go back to malus. I'm so sorry
Speaker 2: because molis is like wide ranging because it goes all
Speaker 2: the way from clams to octopy.
Speaker 1: So like he actually does not like he does not
Speaker 1: he see life upsets him. He has a slight fear
Speaker 1: of aquatic animals. So perfect, yeah? Perfect? Uh So who
Speaker 1: is erow plankton? Right?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Who who is this stuff? I do? First want to
Speaker 1: talk about maybe the most famous of the arrow planktonic members, pollen,
Speaker 1: which I think right now everyone hates, or at least
Speaker 1: everyone with allergies hates. I also have. I actually never
Speaker 1: used to get seasonal allergies too badly until they moved
Speaker 1: to Italy and somehow the Italian flowers non mi piace
Speaker 1: ifiori italiani because they I get really bad allergies here really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh no, what do they have? They figured outamines over?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm on them.
Speaker 2: The caves that you live in.
Speaker 1: I am currently high on some kind of yani histamine.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can be, but you know
Speaker 1: it is. It's making life a little better. But I'm
Speaker 1: still sniffling a little bit. But yeah, it hits me
Speaker 1: like a train every year. Yeah. And I've heard like, oh,
Speaker 1: just eat honey that is made out of the local
Speaker 1: like flowers, and maybe it helps. I don't know, because
Speaker 1: like I don't have the patience to just keep eating honey.
Speaker 1: I usually like take the antihistamy. But it sure is good.
Speaker 1: The honey's delicious. I don't know if it has any
Speaker 1: real effect. Do you get allergy storing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get them pretty badly. I didn't when I
Speaker 2: was really young, and my brother did and I was
Speaker 2: always like, ah, sex with you. Yeah, and then as
Speaker 2: I got older, my immune system just changed. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: get terrible seasonal allergies. And the same way somebody was like, oh, hey,
Speaker 2: try this bee pollen, which is like not the honey.
Speaker 2: It's like, I don't know how they're collecting it, and
Speaker 2: like you just get these spoonfuls of the baskets.
Speaker 1: On their legs.
Speaker 2: Pieces.
Speaker 1: Oh you mean, how are the humans collecting it? Baskets
Speaker 1: on their.
Speaker 2: Legs just off the leg and I'll put it in
Speaker 2: my basket. I I tried that. I tried taking take
Speaker 2: a tablespoon on this bee pollen every day, and so
Speaker 2: I started doing that. I was like, oh, my throat's
Speaker 2: closing because of the I'm just consuming now, So I
Speaker 2: stopped doing that. Now I'm just back on Claarton.
Speaker 1: That's yeah. I had b pollen chocolate bar once. It
Speaker 1: did not close my throat, but it also did not
Speaker 1: taste good. So the thing is like, if you give
Speaker 1: me some kind of BSD remedy but it tastes good,
Speaker 1: I'll be all about it. I'm like, yeah, this honey
Speaker 1: is helping my allergies. It's not, but it tastes good,
Speaker 1: so I won't.
Speaker 2: I'm drinking it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm drinking it. Like don't like they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know red wine, you know does something positive. It's
Speaker 1: like great. I won't listen to any other news or
Speaker 1: study about it. No more. Yeah. So pollen, they are
Speaker 1: they count as aeroplankton as a bio aerosol. They are
Speaker 1: microscopic grains that contain male sperm cells of plants. That's right,
Speaker 1: plants are having sex. Get over it. So they are
Speaker 1: part of a plant sexual reproduction cycle, and they need
Speaker 1: to land on the female part of the plant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it turns out my new system it's just very prude.
Speaker 1: It's very it's it's very puritan. Yeah, it's like, get
Speaker 1: this out of here. Yeah, get this sky stauge away
Speaker 1: from me. I'm not sure if I can say sky
Speaker 1: sponge on my own show, but we'll see. So. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They plants can accomplish pollination through highly effective and precise
Speaker 1: pollinators like bees, flies, bats, and birds, or through the
Speaker 1: less precise and more promiscuous method of just blasting it
Speaker 1: out into the air and hoping it lands where it
Speaker 1: needs to go. I mean, I say, how are babies made?
Speaker 1: So uh yeah. The plants that rely on wind transport
Speaker 1: are called anmophylus, which means wind loving, and so these
Speaker 1: are the plants that typically are behind seasonal allergies. So
Speaker 1: they're pollen is designed to be bountiful and travel by air.
Speaker 1: Like have you ever like bated a pine branch and
Speaker 1: just a cloud of menacing yellow comes out of it?
Speaker 2: You're asking me, Yeah, of course. My car right now
Speaker 2: is I have a pine tree in my yard and
Speaker 2: it is just a film of yeng dust. All over it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's because the pine, the pine trees. Whole plan
Speaker 1: is to just produce a huge amount of pollen. Some
Speaker 1: of it's gonna wind up on your car, but by god,
Speaker 1: some of it will land on a female cone somewhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just with a hope and a prayer. So, yes, why
Speaker 1: is pollen an allergen? So airborne pollen is easily inhaled.
Speaker 1: It can be microscopic. I mean you can see sometimes
Speaker 1: heavy coating of pollen, but it can get up in
Speaker 1: your nose and interface with your mucosal membrane of the
Speaker 1: nose and sinuses. Our mucosal membranes are very important part
Speaker 1: of our immune system because they contain not only mucus,
Speaker 1: but immune cells, which is part of our passive immune system.
Speaker 1: Immune cells can either be part of the adaptive immune response,
Speaker 1: which is like the precise thing where they have wanted
Speaker 1: posters out of a specific pathogen, where they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the guy, get them, or the passive immune system
Speaker 1: where they are just checking essentially passports for invasive cells
Speaker 1: and stuff. It's like do you belong here? No, Well
Speaker 1: you're gonna get it. And so they will sometimes misidentify
Speaker 1: something as harmful when it's really just kind of inert.
Speaker 1: Pollen is not really that harmful intrinsically, and not everyone
Speaker 1: is allergic to it, but for many people, the immune
Speaker 1: system just accidentally identifies it as a dangerous pathogen, so
Speaker 1: like it is sensitive to civic pollen proteins. That's actually
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that it can change over time, Right,
Speaker 1: like your immune system change. You can actually become sensitized
Speaker 1: to pollen, and like your immune system accidentally learns to
Speaker 1: identify this as a pathogen, and then you start getting
Speaker 1: sneezes and wheezes with the rest of us sad sex.
Speaker 2: That's what happened to me. I think you can go
Speaker 2: the other direction too, Like I have a I was
Speaker 2: allergic to cats for a very long time and then
Speaker 2: we got a cat, and I was taking medication and
Speaker 2: then ran out and then felt like five days without
Speaker 2: taking it and realized, oh, you know what, Yeah, cats
Speaker 2: are fine. It turns out, I mean no, I'm my
Speaker 2: immune system has.
Speaker 1: Adapted that cat trained you with just the pure power
Speaker 1: of will. No, I mean that that is true. So
Speaker 1: like you can also your allergies can calm down, either
Speaker 1: with age or just sort of environmental factors, because you know,
Speaker 1: your immune system might no longer be reactive to it.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to pretend like I understand exactly how
Speaker 1: that works, and in fact, yeah, it is something that
Speaker 1: is even complex to experts, the exact way in which
Speaker 1: the immune system and allergies precisely work in that situation.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it's probably it's like a combination
Speaker 1: of genetics and environmental exposure that determines whether you will
Speaker 1: be allergic to pollen. I don't know. I would not
Speaker 1: necessarily recommend uh, eating spoonfuls of bee pollen to try
Speaker 1: to cure, because.
Speaker 2: That end up like the kid and stand by no
Speaker 2: in my girl.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, wait, you're right, it's my girl. That's mcaulay Culkin. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's I've met him. He's nice.
Speaker 2: I mean the kid in the movie who Dies. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: Macaulay Culkin himself, I'm sure is a wonderful boy.
Speaker 1: Yeah he's Uh. I I don't know if he's actually
Speaker 1: allergic to bees in real life, but I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to try it.
Speaker 2: You know what we should call?
Speaker 1: We should call? Yeah he does. There's no way he
Speaker 1: remembers who I am. But anyways, we are going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break and when we get back, we
Speaker 1: are actually going to talk about animal aeroplankton. Yes, I
Speaker 1: guess like zoo aeroplankton, which is gonna be fun. All right,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna talk about animal aeroplankton. These are aeroplanktonic
Speaker 1: particles that are in fact little tiny animals. So there
Speaker 1: are a lot of animals that fly or glide, and
Speaker 1: we don't really count those as aeroplanktons. So like the
Speaker 1: things like gnats or flies that like just fly or birds,
Speaker 1: like we don't count birds as aeroplankton. That would bediculous.
Speaker 1: Uh it is. The definition seems to be both things
Speaker 1: that are tiny, but also just like it has to
Speaker 1: be passively carried by a wind currents. It can't really
Speaker 1: be an autonomous flying animal, right like a gnat or
Speaker 1: a fly that actually like you know, it can be
Speaker 1: really small. There are some wasps that are really really tiny,
Speaker 1: but they can they're flying like they are showing sort
Speaker 1: of a they have an autonomous ability to fly around
Speaker 1: aeroplankton exactly. Aeroplankton, for the most part, are passively being
Speaker 1: carried by wind currents. So one example is aphis. They
Speaker 1: can be found thousands of feet up in the air,
Speaker 1: just like, I don't know that they expected that to happen,
Speaker 1: to be honest, they might benefit from from from some dispersal,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it is that must be wild. One minute,
Speaker 1: you're you're being farm by ants sipping on plant juices.
Speaker 1: In the next you're just like getting sucked into a
Speaker 1: airplane turbine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're over at the top of a storm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to.
Speaker 2: I mean, we can all stand to be a little
Speaker 2: bit more like those aphits that we just sort of
Speaker 2: like let it carry you, don't try to control everything
Speaker 2: getting if you get lifted up into the sky, just
Speaker 2: see what happens.
Speaker 1: Man. Like, the other option is staying and getting farmed
Speaker 1: by ants and having them like suck juices out of
Speaker 1: your butt. So you know what, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't you rather be hit by a plane?
Speaker 1: I would, Well, everyone has their own taste sore, and
Speaker 1: so I wouldn't judge. But you know, one famous little
Speaker 1: member of the Aeroplankton family are indeed spiders, baby spiders.
Speaker 1: So do you know about how baby spiders use strands
Speaker 1: of silk to fly around? Like little eight legged Mary Poppins's.
Speaker 2: I don't totally understand this. I'm vaguely familiar with the
Speaker 2: fact that spiders could occasionally just land on you, yes,
Speaker 2: from the sky usually.
Speaker 1: So if you for like large adult spiders, that's usually
Speaker 1: because they're probably like in a tree or somewhere nearby
Speaker 1: and then they kind of like accidentally went airborne and
Speaker 1: landed on you. But if it's a teeny tiny baby spider,
Speaker 1: there's a good chance that was entirely intentional. Where this
Speaker 1: baby spider, what they do is they they kind of
Speaker 1: walk on their little tippy toes. They're anty bitty, adorable
Speaker 1: baby spider tippy toes. They stick their butts in the air,
Speaker 1: and they should shoot out a strand of silk, and
Speaker 1: that silk helps them get picked up by the wind.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a parachute but or paragliding, but
Speaker 1: it's called ballooning, so they can be picked up by winds.
Speaker 1: And there's a massive amount of these baby spiders, so
Speaker 1: much so that there are animals that completely depend on
Speaker 1: them as part of their diet, like swifts. Swifts are
Speaker 1: birds who are migratory. They spend like most of their
Speaker 1: life in the air. Very little time roosting, and they
Speaker 1: do not like to be on the ground. Their feet
Speaker 1: actually have turned into just like basically hooks. They can't
Speaker 1: really walk, and so most of the time they're spending
Speaker 1: in the air and a huge part of their diet
Speaker 1: are these baby spiders that they snack up. Because the
Speaker 1: baby spiders, there's just so many of them, they kind
Speaker 1: of expect. I don't know if expect is something a
Speaker 1: spider can do, but the survival strategy is that, yeah,
Speaker 1: they a lot of them are going to get eaten,
Speaker 1: a lot of them are going to die, But then
Speaker 1: there's just so many of them that some of them
Speaker 1: will land somewhere good and do spider stuff.
Speaker 2: So it's called ballooning.
Speaker 1: Ballooning, yes, I love that term.
Speaker 2: And they but they just sort of like depend on
Speaker 2: the wind to carry them somewhere hopeful and promising.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully not into the mouth of a hungry swift,
Speaker 1: but that does happen. But yeah, they they hopefully will
Speaker 1: land somewhere and then they can go on and grow
Speaker 1: into adult spiders and do spider stuff. Sometimes they land
Speaker 1: in less ideal places, like boats in the middle of
Speaker 1: the ocean, because they can they can fly like three
Speaker 1: miles up, which is about five kilometers up into the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and they can wind up miles away off of land
Speaker 1: and on boats and stuff. So that's that's not great
Speaker 1: for them, but a lot of them do wind up
Speaker 1: in good places and establish themselves as you know, an
Speaker 1: adult spider that really you know, is a contributing member
Speaker 1: of spider siety.
Speaker 2: Five miles up? Do you know how far?
Speaker 1: Like they three miles five kilometers.
Speaker 2: But I mean, oh that's up, But how then how
Speaker 2: how far can they go? Like can you get? Are
Speaker 2: they these international spiders?
Speaker 1: These are you know what? It depends on the nation, right,
Speaker 1: Like I think in Europe they could probably be international.
Speaker 1: Could a spider make a transatlantic flight? Probably not unless
Speaker 1: it lands on a boat and then that boat goes
Speaker 1: into port. Usually though usually those spiders that invade areas
Speaker 1: by boat are gonna wind up there just because they're
Speaker 1: like hiding out in some bananas or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a cool new way though.
Speaker 1: It's fun. It's more fun than like just sitting on
Speaker 1: a banana. I feel like it's more like you know, adventurous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty amazing, Yeah, because at that point it's really
Speaker 2: in Fate's hands, Like the fact that a spider was
Speaker 2: in the middle of the ocean would land on a
Speaker 2: boat is like, okay, that was supposed to happen.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be so confusing though, right, Like you're like,
Speaker 1: well this is this is like Earth but smaller and
Speaker 1: full of ocean nerds. Yeah, my dad would always tell
Speaker 1: me these stories of like the various things that would
Speaker 1: like land on the boats. And it's usually some kind
Speaker 1: of sea bird, and usually it's fine, this is a
Speaker 1: little bit of a tangent, but it's just such a
Speaker 1: messed up story. But there are these like what I
Speaker 1: think there's storm petrels and they would land on the boat,
Speaker 1: which would be okay, but like when the boat is
Speaker 1: in these like cold water. I mean it's it's a
Speaker 1: research ship. It's a huge ship. But they would land
Speaker 1: on these like these sort of like I guess they're
Speaker 1: not really smoke stacks. Man, I'm bad for being the
Speaker 1: daughter of someone who does this for a living. But
Speaker 1: it is the part of the boat that generates some heat, right,
Speaker 1: Like they are there, there's this warmth that comes out
Speaker 1: of them because it is sort of like somewhere where
Speaker 1: there is like an exhaling of some of where you know,
Speaker 1: how the boat go forward with power, it's you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's starboard or something. Anyways, these birds really like
Speaker 1: the warmth of these areas, and so they'll sit and
Speaker 1: kind of buy just like the warm air that is
Speaker 1: generated by these these the kind of chimney things. And
Speaker 1: but the problem is like they sit there for too
Speaker 1: long and then they like don't have the energy to
Speaker 1: fly because they need to like be eating and fly,
Speaker 1: like it's kind of ruling for them. They have to
Speaker 1: be constantly like getting you know, fishing and flying and stuff.
Speaker 1: And then they just don't want to leave, so they
Speaker 1: sit there until they like just keel over and die
Speaker 1: because they have not been and they don't have the
Speaker 1: energy and they don't like it's it's it's like so
Speaker 1: creepy right where it's like these it's kind of like
Speaker 1: the the ship is like a siren that has lured
Speaker 1: these birds to their death, just sort of in the
Speaker 1: opposite way, like instead of going off the boat to
Speaker 1: like kiss a mermaid, they're going on a boat because
Speaker 1: it's warm, and then they just die. It's really sad.
Speaker 2: I tell another lesson for all of us. I told
Speaker 2: you stop grinding. That's what Katie always says. She's grindcore
Speaker 2: mentality she loves. She believes that everybody should be grinding
Speaker 2: at all times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a I have a grind set for sure,
Speaker 1: where it's like, if you're not, if you don't have
Speaker 1: five jobs going all at once, what are you why?
Speaker 1: What are you even doing?
Speaker 2: You're just a bird on a smokestack.
Speaker 1: Man. If you're not generating multiple revenues of bitcoin, ape,
Speaker 1: ape coin, whatever, whatever, the newest thing is all my
Speaker 1: apes gone. But I told him that what they should
Speaker 1: build is like a bird trebuche, so like kind of
Speaker 1: like a springboard, so that every time a bird tries
Speaker 1: to land there, it triggers like a mechanism that flings
Speaker 1: the bird back into the.
Speaker 2: Air, ye back up there.
Speaker 1: He didn't seem to take that suggestion seriously, but I
Speaker 1: think it might actually help. Uh so, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll keep trying to petition and sort of a workshop
Speaker 1: the bird Flinger invention to save storm petrels from their
Speaker 1: own desire to be cozy. So we're gonna oh wait, no,
Speaker 1: there's one more thing about spiders I wanted to tell
Speaker 1: you about. It's not just wind that actually helps baby
Speaker 1: spiders travel by silk butt parachutes. So there are actually
Speaker 1: electric fields that may be aiding these spiders. In laboratory settings,
Speaker 1: they were able to generate electrics, and not only did
Speaker 1: that seem to trigger spider ballooning behavior, these electric fields
Speaker 1: could actually lift these tiny, itty bitty spiders up. And
Speaker 1: so this sort of laboratory experiment seems to indicate that
Speaker 1: in nature's my spiders may be able to travel by
Speaker 1: the Earth's electromagnetic fields. So that's neat.
Speaker 2: WHOA, Yeah, they're using like magnets essentially.
Speaker 1: To fly through the air electric fields.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't understand what that means.
Speaker 1: Well, there are electrostatic forces that Okay, so there's a
Speaker 1: different podcast that I'm on called Daniel Njorge Explains the Ears.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm just sort of like making it
Speaker 1: other people's problems to explain these things. Now, I do
Speaker 1: a guest host on that one, Daniel Lightsen. He understands
Speaker 1: things like electric static forces much better than I do.
Speaker 1: But it's you know, it's like how uh gosh, It's
Speaker 1: it's like magnetism, but it's electromagnetism.
Speaker 2: Okay for me, You know how a balloon.
Speaker 1: Sticks to your head if if you rub it there
Speaker 1: a lot. Yes, is like that, but with a tiny
Speaker 1: spider in his little butt silk parachute, and it's.
Speaker 2: Just electromagnetism that's in the air.
Speaker 1: Yes, because the Earth has electric fields generated by.
Speaker 2: The Yes, Okay, I'll accept that as an answer, thank you.
Speaker 2: Does it can? But do electromagnetic fields travel or do
Speaker 2: they just sort of stay stationary you just sort of
Speaker 2: wait for the Earth to turn underneath you these dumb questions.
Speaker 1: No, they're not dumb questions. I just may not be
Speaker 1: able to completely answer. Yes, I think there are electrical
Speaker 1: currents that do move around the Earth. I think also
Speaker 1: it's like there's probably a number of things that are
Speaker 1: happening right like where the spider there may be some
Speaker 1: kind of like difference in the strength of the electrical current,
Speaker 1: like the higher you get up, right, so maybe it
Speaker 1: can carry the spider up. I am reaching the limits
Speaker 1: of my knowledge because we're talking about electricity. I routinely
Speaker 1: shocked myself unplugging my laptops, so I'm not an expert,
Speaker 1: but I would guess it is something. It's probably something
Speaker 1: to do with, you know how, like lightning. Happens because
Speaker 1: there is this difference in terms of the like electrostatic
Speaker 1: you know, balance between like the clouds and the ground.
Speaker 1: You know, I would imagine that you could probably lift
Speaker 1: something up, like a tiny spider based on the sort
Speaker 1: of like there there is a difference in the density
Speaker 1: of ions up in thesphere. Ions there you go. It's
Speaker 1: all snapping into place because of the ions. You just
Speaker 1: forgot about the ions. But you know, the charge, the charge,
Speaker 1: it's the difference in charge, and they're probably riding that
Speaker 1: sick charge differential wave. Definitely check out uh physics podcasts
Speaker 1: like Daniel Jorge Explain the Universe if you want to
Speaker 1: learn more about electric magnetic currents, because you know, I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you stuff that's maybe not exactly right.
Speaker 1: It is fun though, It's like it's like jazz. It's
Speaker 1: about the things you don't learn. Yeah, all right, Well
Speaker 1: we're going to take another quick break, but then when
Speaker 1: we get back, we're going to talk about other things
Speaker 1: that are floating around there that you can't even see,
Speaker 1: but they're all around you, watching you at every hour
Speaker 1: of the day. There's nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back, all right, we're back. We're talking
Speaker 1: about more stuff that's just around in the air, traveling
Speaker 1: in the clouds, in the air currents, and there's you know,
Speaker 1: you just kind of have to accept it.
Speaker 2: Well, I when I talk to you about this podcast
Speaker 2: and what we were going to be talking about, I
Speaker 2: asked you a very specific question, and I'm curious if
Speaker 2: you buy the answer you're going to be answered to
Speaker 2: answer for me.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say probably not how many, because I
Speaker 1: think your question was like how much stuff is above
Speaker 1: me right now?
Speaker 2: I want to specifically like, yeah, any animals that I
Speaker 2: don't care about, the ones that fly, I don't care
Speaker 2: about the ones that have like a way to get
Speaker 2: from A to B. I mean the ones that like
Speaker 2: either get picked up accidentally or are just riding the currents.
Speaker 2: How many, say, like spiders and small animals are right
Speaker 2: over my head right now?
Speaker 1: So sorry, I could not find an official answer to this.
Speaker 1: I did look count I Well, this is what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say. Let's say there is like there's a Soren's
Speaker 1: head shaped column that goes from the top of your
Speaker 1: head up until outer space, right and we're are we
Speaker 1: counting bacteria or just animals?
Speaker 2: I just want animals. Bacteria. I assume bacteria is I
Speaker 2: assume there I am surrounded at all.
Speaker 1: Times by millions bacteria envirus millions. Uh. If it's just animals,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say my estimate would be hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 1: So if this, like if this came down, if this
Speaker 1: like rained down on you in like a column of stuff, yeah,
Speaker 1: probably probably thousands to hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, like ten.
Speaker 1: It's probably more than that because okay, so uh and
Speaker 1: and if we're including like bacteria and viruses, it's more
Speaker 1: than you'd like for sure.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean I assume I'm ratio wise, I'm
Speaker 2: more bacteria than man.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: My bacteria out number myselves like ten to one or
Speaker 2: something like that. So bacteria, I've just I've made my
Speaker 2: peace with bacteria. Yeah, that is the world is more
Speaker 2: bacteria than anything else. And what I'm really what I
Speaker 2: what really startles me is, yeah, I'm doing that column.
Speaker 2: It's just me and like a vacuum, and then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, I'm going to create extra gravitational pull
Speaker 2: on every single one of those animals. It's in the air,
Speaker 2: and they all come down on me.
Speaker 1: I mean they're very tiny, so you probably get like
Speaker 1: a look again, this is coming out of my butt University,
Speaker 1: Katie's but University, which is an accredited online university that
Speaker 1: you can sign up for ninety nine a month. But
Speaker 1: I would say, be a maybe like a thickish film,
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't die, but it'd be a film, a
Speaker 1: thick film, That's what I was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's still pretty pretty substantial.
Speaker 1: Well, so the kinds of animals that can be wind
Speaker 1: borne includes rotifers, columbulans, tartar grades, mites, thrips, and nematods.
Speaker 2: So I know two of those things.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: Those are two nematods and tartar grades.
Speaker 1: Good job, what are they? Soren poplin toads.
Speaker 2: Okay, nematodes are there are flatworms, nematodes, roundworms. Roundworms are nematodes. Yes, okay,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: You got the flats, you got the rounds, you got
Speaker 1: the square worms.
Speaker 2: And the tartar grades are like very microscopic looking. They
Speaker 2: kind of almost look like beetles.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, they're the chubby ones. They're also called moss
Speaker 1: piglets or water bears. They have eight legs and they
Speaker 1: they kind of look like chubby cattog pillars, but with
Speaker 1: very stubby eight legs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they survive super well in space.
Speaker 1: Yes they I mean, I wouldn't say super well, but
Speaker 1: they better better than us, much better than us. They
Speaker 1: can survive desiccation, extreme temperatures both hot and cold, and
Speaker 1: so yes, they are very hearty. It's not much of
Speaker 1: a surprise that they can survive a little bit of
Speaker 1: wind travel. And they're teeny tiny, their microscopic and yes,
Speaker 1: absolutely so. And nematodes are round worms. They range in size,
Speaker 1: but many species are microscopic or very very tiny, and
Speaker 1: they're found all over the world, and unsurprisingly, they can
Speaker 1: take advantage of wind currents to distribute themselves. They are
Speaker 1: often parasitic, but not necessarily parasitic. But they are so
Speaker 1: ubiquitous that there are like sixty billion nematodes per human being,
Speaker 1: and it is unfathomable what the world would be like
Speaker 1: without them, just because there are so many of them
Speaker 1: that they are very likely to be an integral part
Speaker 1: of every ecosystem. I saw this really sickening description of
Speaker 1: nema toads where it was like if we took away
Speaker 1: everything that wasn't Nema toad there would still just be
Speaker 1: sort of like a ghost of everything made out of
Speaker 1: Nema toads, which I think is also largely true of
Speaker 1: like bacteria.
Speaker 2: So are they in my drinking water? Like if I
Speaker 2: could get a microscope and like look at my drinking water,
Speaker 2: what I see little worms rather than around?
Speaker 1: Potentially, Yes, I mean that can actually be a problem.
Speaker 1: I think that it depends on sort of the level
Speaker 1: of purification of your drinking water. Obviously there's drinking water
Speaker 1: that can like you know, like if the tap water
Speaker 1: is not that clean, it can make you sick, and
Speaker 1: Nema toads can be behind that. But like you know,
Speaker 1: I think that if you have like water does go
Speaker 1: through sort of water sanitation, that probably kills most of
Speaker 1: the nematodes off. But you know, there could be some
Speaker 1: dead ones in there.
Speaker 2: I don't My goal is not to kill them. I
Speaker 2: just want to sterilize them. I want like spade and
Speaker 2: neuter them.
Speaker 1: Oh you mean, like you know, Bob Barker, but for nematodes, right.
Speaker 2: Don't forget the spade. Neuter your nematodes. Thank you for watching,
Speaker 2: just because that's that's the issue, right, is like them
Speaker 2: breeding inside you. The nema toad itself by on its own.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not doing much to me, right, Yeah, So like you,
Speaker 1: I think you could probably find some microscopic nematodes in
Speaker 1: your drinking water that are probably not doing anything, and
Speaker 1: they might you might drink them up, and it's probably okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So don't worry about it, don't think about it.
Speaker 2: And there's just a bunch floating right on my head
Speaker 2: at this moment. Yeah, well I'm inside. I'm inside, so
Speaker 2: it's different. But like walking around outside.
Speaker 1: There's probably a lot. Yeah, Like if you walk on
Speaker 1: the ground, there's a lot. If your head brushes against
Speaker 1: a leaf, probably gonna smear them on you. You know,
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of nematodes around, and yeah, they
Speaker 1: are probably in your drinking water. They probably aren't hurting you,
Speaker 1: uh if bacteria, like I think often like the problem
Speaker 1: with a lot of nematodes, the non parasitic nematodes is
Speaker 1: if they have uh like bacteria on them, which is
Speaker 1: also harmful to humans. But again that's not very likely.
Speaker 1: Intreated drinking water, which might kill a lot of the nematodes,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them are probably still alive and
Speaker 1: hanging out and just then you drink them and they
Speaker 1: hang out in your body and they don't do anything,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, just don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: Making piece of it right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you've got much grosser looking stuff everywhere.
Speaker 1: I don't mean this personally against you, so are I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, you know, like you can't.
Speaker 2: See where I'm recording right now, we are watching each
Speaker 2: other on video. That is a little hurtful.
Speaker 1: It is, guys. When I was saying the film it
Speaker 1: was not a hypothetical.
Speaker 2: No, I am recording out of a garage where there
Speaker 2: is not a single flat surface.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got a couple of cardboard boxes there.
Speaker 1: It's probably full of stuff nematodes, sorry, keeping nematodes. So
Speaker 1: uh yeah. They are also something that can be carried
Speaker 1: around and distributed by the wind. And they're the like
Speaker 1: research where they surveyed sort of like samples of stuff
Speaker 1: collected by like rain water and stuff. And yeah, nematodes
Speaker 1: just they get around that way. They're tiny. What do
Speaker 1: you want They like to use the wind to get around.
Speaker 1: There are other things that I had listed there that
Speaker 1: may be less recognizable, like rotifers, columbulands. I mean mites
Speaker 1: and thrips. You may have heard of.
Speaker 2: I know, mites, not thrips. That's new to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So mites are they're tiny ratnets. They've got eight legs.
Speaker 1: You might have seen like velvet mites. These like tiny
Speaker 1: red mites. Mites can be parasitic. They often are, but
Speaker 1: they don't have to be. They are not necessarily parasites.
Speaker 1: And yeah, those can get picked up by wind and
Speaker 1: carried around and it's not you know, sometimes that might
Speaker 1: be beneficial to the mites to distribute them, and sometimes
Speaker 1: could just be confusing. So the other ones I mentioned
Speaker 1: rotifers are actually typically zooplankton that inhabit freshwater habitats. They
Speaker 1: can be found in saltwater, but most of the species
Speaker 1: are in freshwater. They're also known as wheel animals. They
Speaker 1: are called wheel animals because their mouth kind of looks
Speaker 1: like a spinning wheel. It doesn't actually spin, but it
Speaker 1: has these cilia that kind of undulate in a pattern
Speaker 1: that makes it look like it's spinning. It's kind of
Speaker 1: an optical illusion. Let me see if I can. I
Speaker 1: doubt maybe I should have looked this up before, but
Speaker 1: I want to see if there's a gift of it. Man,
Speaker 1: have you noticed that it's like really hard to just
Speaker 1: find good. Yeah, like everything takes you to another thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's full of skaties, googles. Google's broken, It's broken, Okay,
Speaker 1: send it to you. So're in the human.
Speaker 2: Oh they got chainsaws on the front of them. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: just spin and spin. Yeah, it looks like a heart.
Speaker 1: Hmmm, no, but you know close enough, I don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's just something like beating inside of it.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's got tiny organs for sure. That
Speaker 1: is probably not like that thing that's moving. I would
Speaker 1: guess it's some kind of like food distribution.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thing that's the tube within the tube.
Speaker 1: It's a tube inside of the tube sort of smooshing
Speaker 1: stuff down deeper into the tube. So but yeah, the Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can see why it's called an wheel animal because
Speaker 1: it looks like it has these two wheels that are
Speaker 1: like spinning on its head. But yeah, really, it's just
Speaker 1: the cilia are like moving in sort of a wave
Speaker 1: and that makes it look like it's spinning, and that's
Speaker 1: how they collect food.
Speaker 2: It looks like, I mean, this is a tangent as well,
Speaker 2: and it probably not super helpful for on audio podcast,
Speaker 2: but we're not.
Speaker 1: Trying to We're not trying to be helpful here.
Speaker 2: In this gift. There's also something that starts out at
Speaker 2: looking like an egg and then transforms into a worm
Speaker 2: up in the corner, and I want to know what
Speaker 2: that thing is too. It's just like, oh, no, I
Speaker 2: could do whatever shape I want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2: Man, No, I'm a chili pepper.
Speaker 1: Sometimes small stuff just does weird things. You can quote
Speaker 1: me on that. Sometimes small stuff it just does weird things.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that's those guys get picked up, you know,
Speaker 1: in evaporation cycles by winds, and they wind up in
Speaker 1: the air and they're probably super confused because they are
Speaker 1: not supposed to be in there. They're supposed to be
Speaker 1: a fresh water going around. It's been in their little
Speaker 1: face wheels.
Speaker 2: I like those wheels.
Speaker 1: I like them too. It's like I feel like there's
Speaker 1: a specific tool that is used. I'm gonna say in
Speaker 1: woodworking where it's like or maybe it's dentistry. Look, I
Speaker 1: have two successful side businesses, Katie's Backyard Dentistry in Katie's
Speaker 1: Backyard Carpentry, and I get them confused sometimes, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like it just it does look like
Speaker 1: a power tool, an organic power tool.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, uh yeah they are. They're one of these uh
Speaker 1: air aeroplankton uh columbu colum Boland's, also known as springtails,
Speaker 1: are a type of teeny, tiny, indy beaty hexapod that
Speaker 1: like moist conditions and feeding onto king matter. In fact,
Speaker 1: one type of these springtails is the snow flea, which
Speaker 1: I thought, I'm trying to remember. I thought that you
Speaker 1: were on the show when we talked about snow fleas
Speaker 1: or was it ice worms?
Speaker 2: We talked about ice worms.
Speaker 1: Damn it.
Speaker 2: Wow, snowflea sounds cool though snow snow.
Speaker 1: It's tiny and little and lives in the snow. Yes,
Speaker 1: so they are uh yeah, these little springtails they can
Speaker 1: of can kind of jump around it and there's they
Speaker 1: can get so tiny that they can get picked up
Speaker 1: by the wind and carried around. Yes. And then thrips
Speaker 1: are tiny insects that are under a millimeter long that
Speaker 1: can be winged or wingless. Now, I think earlier I
Speaker 1: talked about how like we don't generally classify winged insects
Speaker 1: as aeroplankton, but The thing is they suck at flying,
Speaker 1: so like their wings are pretty useless over long distances.
Speaker 1: They actually have a specific way of flying that's called
Speaker 1: clap and fling, which like they clap their wings together.
Speaker 1: It generates these little wind vorgicias that kind of gives
Speaker 1: them some lift, but it is not very efficient, not
Speaker 1: very good over distances. So to travel long distances, they
Speaker 1: depend on wind currents, so they count.
Speaker 2: It's just to get them up there. Yeah, yeah, I like,
Speaker 2: I mean, I really like that type of animal, the
Speaker 2: animals that like they they kind of can fly, but
Speaker 2: really it's everything's dictated by mother nature.
Speaker 1: Doesn't really count, you know, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: My butterflies, I feel like, are the same. Like you
Speaker 2: put butterfly in a vacuum, it can fly straight. But
Speaker 2: the butterflies in your everyday life look like they're drunk
Speaker 2: because they're just being like they are being thrown around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh it is they. I I do love that
Speaker 1: and I think that, like it'd be interesting though to see,
Speaker 1: like if you get a butterfly drunk, does it fly good?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Is it better?
Speaker 1: Is it better? They they like zip in nectar. They've
Speaker 1: got to sometimes sip nectar that's a little fermented. It
Speaker 1: probably just kills them, though, it probably just instantly kills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything kills butterflies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you breathe funny and it just butterflies.
Speaker 2: Like, oh no, am my scales, my scales.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I once hit a small butterfly with a hose
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and I thought I killed it.
Speaker 1: I picked it up, I put it on like a
Speaker 1: paper towel. I guess that dried it out, and it
Speaker 1: flew away, and it was such a good feeling that like,
Speaker 1: I kind of tried to hit another butterfly with a
Speaker 1: hose so I could just like be its savior again.
Speaker 1: And then I had this realization as I was doing it,
Speaker 1: like this might be wrong. So I didn't end up.
Speaker 1: I didn't end up as like Kathy Baits in Misery
Speaker 1: or what's her name, But I almost developed a munch
Speaker 1: housing by butterfly proxy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I had a very simle experience where I would
Speaker 2: My brother had taught me that you can revive a fly,
Speaker 2: round a fly and then put it in a pile
Speaker 2: of sugar. You can revive a fly, but it's never
Speaker 2: really the same.
Speaker 1: How do you know it's not the same, Like it's
Speaker 1: like personality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mountain sugar is like pet cemetery for a fly,
Speaker 2: like it'll come back, but it's like it's a weird version.
Speaker 1: Used to do that.
Speaker 2: And I do remember like catching house lies in the
Speaker 2: in the house and like how much they didn't want
Speaker 2: to be caught, and thinking that's probably fair, but I
Speaker 2: don't think i'd want this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like this. It's like this because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of children go through that experimentation phase of
Speaker 1: like doing weird stuffed insects, and then it's like and
Speaker 1: then you get to a point where you're like, like
Speaker 1: I remember putting an ant on some ice to see
Speaker 1: if it could ice skate, and it was just flopping
Speaker 1: around helplessly. I was like, maybe that sucks for the ant.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm a cruel god.
Speaker 2: Right right before you move on to mammals, yeah, and
Speaker 2: your serial killer people.
Speaker 1: I think most children stop before mammals. I certainly I
Speaker 1: certainly stopped at ants and butterflies, and then I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel bad about this, I'm gonna stop. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there's like that moment, that flickering.
Speaker 1: That realization. It's like, what is this feeling? Is it empathy. Empathy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we would take ants and put them in
Speaker 2: a dish with water, and then we would jump on
Speaker 2: the trail like get on Tramplin where there's a lot
Speaker 2: of static electromagnetic currents, and then we would put a
Speaker 2: finger in the dish and then touch a spring on
Speaker 2: the trampoline and just get that shock. And as soon
Speaker 2: as they went to the water, because the ants are
Speaker 2: writhing around the water because they're dying, they're they're they
Speaker 2: just they'll stop moving and then they come back in
Speaker 2: a little bit and they keep moving. But that shock
Speaker 2: really puts them out for a minute.
Speaker 1: I mean that is very cool, you know, pretty dark. Look,
Speaker 1: you know what like ants, I don't a lot of them.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of them. I don't. I don't relish
Speaker 1: killing them, but I'm not going to pretend like I
Speaker 1: don't eat chicken and a fish. So you know, and
Speaker 1: ants and ants, I have tried them. They have a
Speaker 1: nice peppery flavor.
Speaker 2: So the ones you get, I think, what the ones
Speaker 2: some type of ants you get?
Speaker 1: You mean, like they only serve you the peppery ones,
Speaker 1: like there's other ones. It just tastes like ass that
Speaker 1: they don't they don't they.
Speaker 2: When they when the restaurant orders their ants, I see
Speaker 2: go through and they set out the ones that are
Speaker 2: peppery because they're just not good.
Speaker 1: I mean I when I was a kid, I just
Speaker 1: eat them off the ground. But they always taste peppery
Speaker 1: to me. So I don't you got lucky? Yeh, lucky.
Speaker 1: I was like the Gordon Ramsey of of the inside eating.
Speaker 1: I have a friend who's visiting a cricket farm where
Speaker 1: they're they're doing sort of like they're trying to mask.
Speaker 1: It's very good. It's for ecological and humanitarian reasons, but
Speaker 1: they're trying to sort of make a cricket farming a
Speaker 1: sort of doable on this like Maus scale. And it's
Speaker 1: just like I'm just imagining a bunch of little crickets
Speaker 1: and paddocks, you know, just like rows and rows of them.
Speaker 1: I know it's not that, but That's how I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about it. Uh So. Yeah. Aeroplankton also includes some non
Speaker 1: animal microorganisms, such as fungal spores, you know, same kind
Speaker 1: of like principle as pollen. There's also bacteria viruses. In fact,
Speaker 1: clouds that have been studied can have anywhere from three
Speaker 1: hundred to thirty thousand bacteria per millimeter of water. It
Speaker 1: is unclear whether clouds can successfully transport bacteria in an
Speaker 1: effective way, because most kind of just die under cloud conditions.
Speaker 1: It's not particularly hospitable to bacteria. But wind, like when
Speaker 1: they have sort of a substrate to be on, like topsoil,
Speaker 1: wind can transport this top soil containing bacteria. The bacteria
Speaker 1: can like survive on this these like tiny particles of
Speaker 1: top soil, and they can be transported from like one
Speaker 1: area to another fairly effectively through wind.
Speaker 2: Okay, I have another question for you, and I'm not
Speaker 2: sure you can answer this.
Speaker 1: I'll make something up, don't worry.
Speaker 2: I have a bad understanding of how high up is
Speaker 2: the sky, and so I am. I'm curious if like
Speaker 2: there's an animal that could potentially get picked up by
Speaker 2: a wind current get carried higher and higher, like like
Speaker 2: curious George and the kite, and just higher and hire
Speaker 2: to the point where it just leaves the atmosphere, Like,
Speaker 2: are we sending animals unto space by accident every day?
Speaker 1: Potentially? I think that, you know, I I think like
Speaker 1: a few there are few that would survive the trip
Speaker 1: to say Mars, right like that could just flow on
Speaker 1: their own, wind up on Mars and start like a
Speaker 1: little colony of guys I mean some microscopic like I
Speaker 1: mean bacteria. There are extremophiles like bacteria. I mean, we
Speaker 1: talked about tartar grades who can survive quite a bit
Speaker 1: of abuse. Even then, being able to survive space for
Speaker 1: long enough to say, like hit the Moon would be
Speaker 1: pretty tough without some kind of like yeah, good chunk
Speaker 1: of a substrate. Like, there's ideas that back here it
Speaker 1: could like maybe survive on say like an asteroid for
Speaker 1: a while, right like, but just free floating in space.
Speaker 1: I don't think they would last very long.
Speaker 2: I don't need them to survive. I just like the
Speaker 2: idea that there's a spider that in its last moments
Speaker 2: leaves the pull of.
Speaker 1: Earth mage to ground control. Yeah, I think, you know what,
Speaker 1: I think it could happen. I don't know how much
Speaker 1: we have in terms of records of that, right Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know that we've got satellites scooping up scooping
Speaker 1: up microorganisms, but I think that there certainly could be
Speaker 1: some like you know, maybe like a storm or something
Speaker 1: that kicks them up even higher and you know. The
Speaker 1: thing is the problem with that happening a lot is
Speaker 1: that you need a lot of like velocity to escape
Speaker 1: the Earth's gravity. Oh right, so like you know, you
Speaker 1: could I could imagine something like getting kicked up maybe
Speaker 1: by a storm and then like tinking into like a
Speaker 1: satellite or something. But to really like get to shoot
Speaker 1: something out into space, it's a really good question. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if there would be enough.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're light, right, so it doesn't take as
Speaker 1: much force as like a spaceship because the spaceship is
Speaker 1: a big mass, and so you need a lot a
Speaker 1: ton of energy to escape the Earth's gravitational pull something
Speaker 1: that's tiny. Yeah, that's a that's a that's like a question.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna ask Ai
Speaker 1: assists whether.
Speaker 2: I'm going to make a note to talk to Nessa
Speaker 2: about putting a cup a look up on the next
Speaker 2: satellite so that I can see if it's collecting uh targets.
Speaker 1: That's a great question. I'm gonna I am going to
Speaker 1: uh keep looking into this and if I find a
Speaker 1: satisfying answer, I will do a follow up on the
Speaker 1: show and I will tell you about it, Soren.
Speaker 2: Because what a journey. I mean, obviously it ends in death,
Speaker 2: but what a what an exciting journey for Yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean little comrade spiders seems fun.
Speaker 1: The the atmosphere, you know, like they're probably there's probably
Speaker 1: like a special heaven for animals that die in space,
Speaker 1: like like Ika is there. It's like lots of chimpanzees there.
Speaker 2: You're past heaven at that point, like you are.
Speaker 1: You're I do like that. You have you subscribe to
Speaker 1: the belief that there is a heaven, but it is
Speaker 1: lies at a certain it's at a certain it's like
Speaker 1: sort of like above the eye on a sphere, but
Speaker 1: below the stratosphere. I don't know how.
Speaker 2: Sometimes in a plane you can you can see it.
Speaker 1: I try. I try to wink at God when I'm
Speaker 1: on a plane, you know, like, hey there, God, how's
Speaker 1: the hanging Jesus. I'm sure you guys are up here
Speaker 1: doing stuff.
Speaker 2: One of the engines goes out. Okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know you know what is up there though.
Speaker 1: Viruses uh so. Viruses can also travel by wind and
Speaker 1: be found in clouds, and they can rain down on
Speaker 1: us in actual literal rain. But don't worry. Most of
Speaker 1: these are fine. In fact, pretty much all the viruses
Speaker 1: that you're gonna find that are aeroplankt in uh. There's
Speaker 1: millions and millions of them, and we're breathing them in
Speaker 1: all the time. But they actually uh are only pathanogenic
Speaker 1: uh for bacteria, So they infect bacteria maybe other microorganisms,
Speaker 1: but they can't infect humans. And so it is not
Speaker 1: really thought that viruses flying around in the wind is
Speaker 1: particularly driving infection in humans. It's it is like theoretically possible, right.
Speaker 1: It's just that a sneeze is gonna be a much
Speaker 1: more efficient deliverer of viruses than like one virus lands
Speaker 1: on your nose from two thousand miles away.
Speaker 2: Okay, And if I'm drinking rainwater, am I getting all
Speaker 2: this stuff in there as well?
Speaker 1: I think there are different reasons not to drink rainwater,
Speaker 1: like I mean, sometimes it depends on like the bodies
Speaker 1: of water near you, where the water is evaporating from.
Speaker 1: I don't think you have anything to worry about in
Speaker 1: terms of viruses from drinking rainwater. It's just we're breathing
Speaker 1: in like literally millions of viruses all the time, and
Speaker 1: they just don't do anything to us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, makes me feel a little stronger.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, it's like it's it's kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like our bodies a city and these
Speaker 1: viruses are just passing through, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They're just drifters system. Yeah. But yeah, so don't don't
Speaker 1: worry about it. We're constantly surrounded by viruses, bacteria. Little
Speaker 1: guys probably breathe them, breathing them in, uh, taste in them.
Speaker 1: You'd stick your tongue out. It's probably like just a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff landing on there. But don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: It's good. It's like, you know, like when you stick
Speaker 1: out your tongue to catch snow on your on your tongue,
Speaker 1: but then you're getting viruses.
Speaker 2: Snowflaces.
Speaker 1: Yeah, makes it feel better. Anyways, before we go, we
Speaker 1: do got to play a little game. This game is
Speaker 1: called Guests Who's Squawking mysteryil sound game. Every week we
Speaker 1: play a mystery an I'll sound in you the listener,
Speaker 1: and you the guest, trying to guess who.
Speaker 2: I'm so mad that.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that you did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there I was. I shouldn't know because we maybe
Speaker 2: I can't remember the last time a time before, but
Speaker 2: it was Cassawary, and Cassewary is like one of my
Speaker 2: favorite games.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, that was so embarrassing. Everyone was disappointed
Speaker 1: in you.
Speaker 2: One more than myself.
Speaker 1: It's okay, I I'm sure if someone like turn this
Speaker 1: around on me, I would lose so much because, like
Speaker 1: it's easy for me to pick out these sounds and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I know what it is because I
Speaker 1: looked it up. I looked it up. But yeah I
Speaker 1: would I would not. I I don't want people to
Speaker 1: think that I would actually have a really high success
Speaker 1: rate with this, because I probably would not. Okay, But
Speaker 1: that being said, let's do this all right. So the
Speaker 1: hint is this. It gets its name from the sound
Speaker 1: it makes, not for sitting at the cool kids stable.
Speaker 1: It gets its name from the sound it makes, not
Speaker 1: from sitting at the cool kids table in high school.
Speaker 1: Could you hear that?
Speaker 2: Is it the little popping noise?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I was gonna say the manta shrimp,
Speaker 2: but or that shrimp that makes that noise. But then
Speaker 2: I hear a bunch of birds and ship in the background.
Speaker 2: So is this something? Is it the manta shrimp?
Speaker 1: No, it's not you're you're, you're, You're correct to be skeptical,
Speaker 1: given that there is birds and wind.
Speaker 2: Okay, because sometimes you can even say, put your you're
Speaker 2: the surface of the water. And it sounds like soda
Speaker 2: popping with manta shrimp. But let's see, let's see, it's.
Speaker 1: A good guess. It's a good guess.
Speaker 2: Is that popping noise? It's gonna be something weird. Isn't
Speaker 2: a clam?
Speaker 1: No, it's not Alex Schmidt snapping his fingers doing.
Speaker 2: Doing try not find out until next one.
Speaker 1: Doing the no. No, you're gonna find out. You're gonna
Speaker 1: find out right now, because this is last week's No,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not Alex Smint snapping his fingers. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not a clam Uh. This is the click beetle.
Speaker 1: It is a beetle that basically folds its body in
Speaker 1: half and makes this clicking sound, and it actually can
Speaker 1: rapidly contract its muscles, and it has like a peg
Speaker 1: and slot mechanism uh that allows it to like it
Speaker 1: can unhinge this and then sna app it back into place,
Speaker 1: and it both makes a clicking sound and basically launches
Speaker 1: it in a sort of jump. So this is an
Speaker 1: evasive tactic for it to like, I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of it. It looks kind of funny
Speaker 1: because it's just it's basically just this beetle. It's kind
Speaker 1: of I don't know, it's like about the length of
Speaker 1: your thumb, and it's sort of oblong, just kind of
Speaker 1: a flat beetle. But then it like if it's on
Speaker 1: its back or being held, it like kind of folds
Speaker 1: itself where it's like kind of belly up and folds
Speaker 1: itself like in a upside down V and then just
Speaker 1: like snaps back together and then kind of flings itself
Speaker 1: and makes that snapping sound.
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's fun. It's a fun little party trick.
Speaker 2: I didn't know this thing existed.
Speaker 1: Well, now you do, all.
Speaker 2: Right, give me the next one. I get another one, right,
Speaker 2: you do.
Speaker 1: Get another one? Okay, all right, here's a hint. This
Speaker 1: bearded fellow is the bell of the ball, all right,
Speaker 1: got of guesses.
Speaker 2: Yes, before I heard your clue, it's like bird. Definitely
Speaker 2: a bird.
Speaker 3: You gave me another clue that was this bearded fellow.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna even though the habitat in the background
Speaker 3: sounds too jungly or tropical for this, I'm gonna guess
Speaker 3: the bearded readling.
Speaker 1: Ooh, interesting, interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 2: Guess it's not right.
Speaker 1: It's not right, no, because otherwise I would have bleeped
Speaker 1: you out. But maybe you're on the right track. Anyways,
Speaker 1: you'll find out the real answer to this little, my
Speaker 1: tricky little riddle. Next time you're.
Speaker 2: Playing a home give yourself. Give yourself the extra context
Speaker 2: of the background noises always with this game. That's like,
Speaker 2: you know Habitat right away, and I disregarded that this time.
Speaker 2: I shouldn't have done that. But you get Habitat almost immediately,
Speaker 2: and that's gonna give like that's gonna zero down your
Speaker 2: search and then you can win this game of katies
Speaker 2: that if you do win, you give a million dollars, right,
Speaker 2: you give a million dollars the person who gets it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, well, Sarren, that is a great guess, and
Speaker 1: he is on the right track. I will say that,
Speaker 1: but yes, not quite uh anything that you know the answer.
Speaker 1: You can write to me a Creature feature pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. You can also write to me your questions,
Speaker 1: pictures of your pets. Please stop sending me requests for
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. I don't have it. I don't have it.
Speaker 1: Uh so sorry, where can the people find you? And also, hey,
Speaker 1: thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. I'm
Speaker 2: no longer on Twitter, but you can find me on
Speaker 2: blue Sky. I'm like one of the Blue Sky.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, it's the other thing. I don't know where you.
Speaker 1: I don't know where you're x x X.
Speaker 2: Gonna give it to you. Yeah, I'm not on that anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm on Blue Sky. If you go there, I'm one
Speaker 2: of only like six people there, so it's very easy
Speaker 2: to find me. Just it's a room full of folks
Speaker 2: and you just go others.
Speaker 1: I'm I'll follow you, I'll give you a follow. I'm
Speaker 1: never there, but I guess I kind of want to
Speaker 1: go on there, and I want to share super recipes
Speaker 1: on blue Sky, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Just oh, reinvent yourself. It's like going to high school
Speaker 2: after middle school. It's a whole new opportunity.
Speaker 1: I feel like it. We could definitely swing it in
Speaker 1: the direction of just being a recipe sharing site, and
Speaker 1: we should try to do that. Like this is the
Speaker 1: time at which the culture is being established and if
Speaker 1: it's just like, this is a website to share fun
Speaker 1: recipes without any stories, just like I like this being
Speaker 1: super recipe here it is.
Speaker 2: I'm doing jokes over there right now, but I'm happy
Speaker 2: to switch over to Soups Soups.
Speaker 1: I think it's a good use for it as much
Speaker 1: as anything else. But that's good.
Speaker 2: You also listen to my podcast with the US It's
Speaker 2: called Quick Question with Thorn and Daniel. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 2: fun little podcast we do. Yeah, and check it out.
Speaker 1: Check that out. Please. I beg of you and thank
Speaker 1: you so much listeners for doing that thing you do,
Speaker 1: which is listening. If you're enjoying the show and you
Speaker 1: leave it right review. I read every single review, all
Speaker 1: of them all at once. It hurts my head, but
Speaker 1: I love them. And thank you to the Space Cossics
Speaker 1: for their super awesome song. Exo Lumina Creature feature is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one
Speaker 1: you just heard, visit the Arheart Radio ap Apple podcast
Speaker 1: or Hey guess what where are you listening to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows? I don't judge you. I'm not your mom.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you where to listen to your gosh
Speaker 1: durn podcasts. That's not my job. See you next Wednesday.