Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: the Flaming Tumbleweed has rolled right back in. We're ready
Speaker 1: for part two of this series. That's right. If you
Speaker 1: didn't listen to part one, go back, give it a listen,
Speaker 1: because we get we get all into the topic of tumbleweeds,
Speaker 1: talking about what what tumbleweeds are? What? What what do
Speaker 1: we mean when we talk about them in the American sense,
Speaker 1: in a broader sense, why do they do the tumbling uh?
Speaker 1: And so forth. I think it's a pretty fun episode,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna we're gonna keep the ball rolling today. Now.
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things that we discovered in the
Speaker 1: last episode is that while the tumbleweed is an icon
Speaker 1: of the American West, uh, the main species of tumbleweed,
Speaker 1: the thing people are usual really talking about in the
Speaker 1: American context when they say a tumbleweed is a plant
Speaker 1: known as Russian thistle that only arrived in the United
Speaker 1: States probably around the eighteen seventies. And so this is
Speaker 1: not even native to North America. It's something that comes
Speaker 1: from the Eurasian step. Yeah, it is very much an invader.
Speaker 1: It is an invasive species, and we're gonna get into
Speaker 1: some of the ramifications of that here. But it's also
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why if you look for um
Speaker 1: for like Native American accounts of tumbleweeds, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they're not going to exist before a certain point, because
Speaker 1: they don't even come in with the initial colonists, with
Speaker 1: the initial influx of Westerners, or even the first few
Speaker 1: influxes of Westerners. They come in much later. However, you
Speaker 1: do find some interesting uh uses of tumbleweed. I was
Speaker 1: reading in the Journal of American Folklore article titled The
Speaker 1: Witches Were Saved a Zoo New origin story by Dennis Tedlock.
Speaker 1: So the Zuni or one of the Pueblo people of
Speaker 1: the American West, and the author here discusses work by
Speaker 1: the author Andrew Pinesta, intended for oral performance. Pinesta was
Speaker 1: a Zuni storyteller, and the story in question was apparently
Speaker 1: told in nine uh. And then Tedlock, you know, is
Speaker 1: writing about it and discussing it, and it concerns interference
Speaker 1: by the US military into Zuni affairs. But it mentions
Speaker 1: the tumble weeds in a way that I think is
Speaker 1: rather clever and drives home their invasive and uh, their
Speaker 1: their invasive nature. Here quote there's a spot near Neutria
Speaker 1: where the soldiers camped. They fed hay to their horses,
Speaker 1: and there were tumbleweeds seeds in it. Now only tumbleweeds
Speaker 1: grow on that spot, and they've spread all over. Oh,
Speaker 1: so framing the soldiers here is a vector of the
Speaker 1: spread of this invasive plant. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's my
Speaker 1: read of it. Anyway, you know, it's it's touching on
Speaker 1: the foreign invasive nature of both, um, both the the
Speaker 1: the American military presence here in the presence of of
Speaker 1: Westerners in general, and the tumbleweed, both things that that
Speaker 1: kind of curse the land. In this viewpoint, I was
Speaker 1: looking around for, you know, obviously, to find older sort
Speaker 1: of folklore it takes and cultural takes on tumbleweeds. You
Speaker 1: have to go to the parts of the world where
Speaker 1: tumbleweeds were originally or would have spread to before they
Speaker 1: had a chance to take root in America. Literally. Um.
Speaker 1: I was reading The Rooster in the Transylvanian Folklore by
Speaker 1: Ferric Posni, and in it the author rights on the
Speaker 1: Transylvanian plane, people used to believe that witches would cause
Speaker 1: aridity by burning a stolen rooster feather on the tumbleweed.
Speaker 1: Oh this is interesting. So the tumbleweed lord does go back,
Speaker 1: you know, to to pre modernity, but in in the
Speaker 1: in the Step region rather than in North America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I was I was looking around for more
Speaker 1: raf says to it. I'm sure there's some good ones
Speaker 1: I missed. So anybody out there who's aware of u
Speaker 1: of any folkloric treatments of tumble weeds from from any
Speaker 1: part of the world, right in and share them with us.
Speaker 1: But I found mentions of tumbleweeds in Mongolian tradition, namely
Speaker 1: as the subject of traditional Mongolian riddles as Collected and
Speaker 1: disgust in Mongolian Folklore, A representative collection from the oral
Speaker 1: tradition Part one, and this is by Hanging Krueger, Service
Speaker 1: and Rosiecki published in Mongolian Studies, and this came out.
Speaker 1: This is one of those volumes that came out like
Speaker 1: Bridging eighty five and eighty six, So they cover both
Speaker 1: Mongolian folk sayings and riddles in this paper. And this
Speaker 1: was this is actually a real pleasure to read. I know, Joe,
Speaker 1: you looked at it as well. It's it's it's almost
Speaker 1: like I think I was telling you before we recorded,
Speaker 1: like I kind of want to see this bound as
Speaker 1: its own little paperback edition and uh and available for
Speaker 1: purchase somewhere, because it's just it's full of these these
Speaker 1: fun little Mongolian folks things and then ultimately riddles, many
Speaker 1: of which you know are gonna have residents with with
Speaker 1: readers anywhere in the world, right though some of which
Speaker 1: are are completely like going to be lost on you
Speaker 1: if you don't know much about animal husbandry or goats
Speaker 1: or anything. But but other ones, yeah, they are very
Speaker 1: universal and and almost all the sayings are great. Uh
Speaker 1: So the first half of it concerns more like proverbs,
Speaker 1: you know, those kind of sayings that that don't they're
Speaker 1: not like a prompt in the way the riddle is
Speaker 1: uh And and a lot of the proverbs are really good.
Speaker 1: One of them that I'm just doing this from memory,
Speaker 1: but I think it was something like, uh, load of
Speaker 1: donkey up with cargo, load of fool up with praise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're so good though, obviously, Yeah, they're they're they're they're
Speaker 1: emerging from a particular culture in a particular region. They
Speaker 1: speak very much to the environment in the cultures of
Speaker 1: the Mongolian people here. Um. But but yeah, the riddles
Speaker 1: here they have a lot in common then with riddle
Speaker 1: traditions around the world. The authors here right quote the
Speaker 1: heart of the riddle is naturally the real or fancied
Speaker 1: resemblance between two ideas or things, although sometimes punning plays
Speaker 1: a role when the similarity involves two or three words
Speaker 1: which sound alike. So I have a I have a
Speaker 1: couple of riddles here. I'm gonna I'm gonna inflict them
Speaker 1: on you, Joe, and you may be able to guess
Speaker 1: the answer to a couple of them. But here's the
Speaker 1: first one. When it comes from yonder, it looks like
Speaker 1: a camel. When it crawls under the wagon, it looks
Speaker 1: like a goat. Okay, So I know the answer to
Speaker 1: this one, which is that it's a tumble weed. But
Speaker 1: nonetheless I don't get it. I don't understand why it
Speaker 1: looks like a goat when it crawls under the wagon.
Speaker 1: What what do goats do under the wagon? That is, like,
Speaker 1: do goats kind of crack and break or they brittle
Speaker 1: under a wagon. I don't know. I guess maybe they're
Speaker 1: just smaller. Like I can definitely, you know, my driving
Speaker 1: experience that I talked about in the last episode, I
Speaker 1: can definitely relate to the idea that the bumbling tumbleweed
Speaker 1: on the highway may look as big as a camel.
Speaker 1: It may be that intimidating, and then once you actually
Speaker 1: run it over, you're like, oh, well, that was more
Speaker 1: like running over a goat. I've never run over a gut.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I laughed to be very sad
Speaker 1: to run over a goat, but for some reason that
Speaker 1: was funny at the time, at the time, for ten
Speaker 1: seconds ago. But but anyway, I do think this is
Speaker 1: one of the ones that is interesting because it seems
Speaker 1: to require some kind of localized knowledge that we don't
Speaker 1: really have. And this is something actually that the authors
Speaker 1: mentioned uh in their introduction to the section on Mongolian riddles.
Speaker 1: They say that, you know, riddles are nearly universal in
Speaker 1: cultures around the world, and it's interesting to see what
Speaker 1: topics are the most common in each riddle culture. And
Speaker 1: so they say, for example, all cultures have riddles concerning
Speaker 1: astronomical phenomenon like the on in the moon. But that
Speaker 1: when you look at Mongolian riddles in particular, they're going
Speaker 1: to be especially focused on topics like animal husbandry. So
Speaker 1: there will be riddles that that have to do with
Speaker 1: camels and goats and horses and things like that. And
Speaker 1: obviously also localized plants will show up in a culture's
Speaker 1: riddles about nature, and the tumbleweed would be one of these.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, here's another riddle, Joe from this stuff,
Speaker 1: from this uh, this collection, It travels by the wind.
Speaker 1: It stays in the ditch. Now this one I get more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a tumbleweed. And I think that the tickling,
Speaker 1: the brain tickling part of this, maybe that it's playing
Speaker 1: on your assumption when you say it travels by the wind.
Speaker 1: People are naturally primed to think about something other than
Speaker 1: like a plant or a feature of the natural world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: something that actually lives and and in in the air,
Speaker 1: and something that flies in the air like a bird.
Speaker 1: Or you're thinking, maybe it's gonna be something like song
Speaker 1: or something, but wasn't It stays in a bit. I
Speaker 1: thought of a boat. That's a that's a good one too,
Speaker 1: but no, it's the tumble weed. Which I mean, this
Speaker 1: feels right as well. I mean, there's this thing that
Speaker 1: is is pretty impressive when it really gets going, but
Speaker 1: it winds in a good ditch and it's done for exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, this calls to mind those images we saw
Speaker 1: last time of you know, five hundred tumbleweeds all jammed
Speaker 1: into a culvert. Yeah. Alright, So Joe, you knew that
Speaker 1: the answer to those riddles was going to be the
Speaker 1: tumble weed, but I wanted to I wanted to give
Speaker 1: you a shot. It's a non tumble weed Mongolian riddles here. Okay,
Speaker 1: so these I I realized these may be a bit difficult,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna give it a shot. Here's the first one.
Speaker 1: If I only had a tongue, I would be a witness.
Speaker 1: If I could only rise up, I could reach up
Speaker 1: to heaven. Now I saw this one before you read it,
Speaker 1: and I thought about it, and I honestly have no idea.
Speaker 1: I mean, so the second one is making me think
Speaker 1: it maybe is something that is long but not tall,
Speaker 1: you know, like, uh yeah, but but I really don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: you're on the right track, because the answer to this
Speaker 1: one is the road. Oh okay, Uh Well, I certainly
Speaker 1: get the second half. If I could only rise up,
Speaker 1: I could reach up to heaven, you know, if you
Speaker 1: could flip the axis. But why what is it about
Speaker 1: the tongue? If I only had a tongue that could
Speaker 1: be a witness, I I don't. I don't know this one.
Speaker 1: They didn't come. They basically just explained that this one
Speaker 1: had to do with you know, they give the answer,
Speaker 1: but they didn't explain what the tongue in the witness
Speaker 1: bit means. Maybe just because you know so much happens
Speaker 1: on the road that the road is is kind of
Speaker 1: all knowing. In a sense, it connects to everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like if these walls could talk, but there are
Speaker 1: no walls, if this road could talk. Yeah, and in
Speaker 1: in a sense, you know, it's yeah, it is everywhere
Speaker 1: at once. This road that I am on is also
Speaker 1: in this distant city as well as the city I
Speaker 1: am from. And it's with me right here. Interesting, All right,
Speaker 1: here's one more. I have something. Others use it a lot,
Speaker 1: but I use it only occasionally. Now with this one,
Speaker 1: I also have no idea. I was trying to think
Speaker 1: in the animal agriculture kind of zone, would could this
Speaker 1: be something about I don't know, a like a goat.
Speaker 1: Does a goat not use its own milk very much?
Speaker 1: Or something? I don't know. Well, the answer to this
Speaker 1: one is my name. Oh oh, that's very good. It's
Speaker 1: very good. Yeah. Yeah. The the rationale being that generally
Speaker 1: you're not saying your own name as much as other
Speaker 1: people are saying your name. But this is like not
Speaker 1: a good riddle if it's delivered by Bob Dole, right yeah,
Speaker 1: or doing the Rock Johnson that kind of thing exactly. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well I pulled that one for you, Rob. Did you
Speaker 1: already see the solution to this one? Um? I don't.
Speaker 1: I'd probably not going to remember it. Okay, it's just
Speaker 1: one line. The head is the enemy of its body.
Speaker 1: M what is it? The head is the enemy of
Speaker 1: its body? Oh? Oh, I don't know. Again. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: thinking and my mind is turning to two cows and
Speaker 1: goats and horses, and I'm I'm also you know, trying
Speaker 1: to think of like the great expanse of the Mongolian countryside,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm drawing a blank here. I think I
Speaker 1: got us overly focused on on bovida and stuff. No, No,
Speaker 1: the answer is a match stick. That's pretty good. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this has got to be a more modern riddle, I guess.
Speaker 1: And I don't know when all of these come from,
Speaker 1: Like do some of these date back hundreds of years,
Speaker 1: whereas others are, you know, maybe from the nineteenth or
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Yeah, I get the impression that that a
Speaker 1: number of them maybe more recent. Oh and another one
Speaker 1: of them that I saw was pretty interesting was just
Speaker 1: the same one that appears in the It's the riddle
Speaker 1: of the Sphinx from from Oedipus, So that that appears
Speaker 1: to be a cross cultural riddle. You know what has
Speaker 1: four legs in the morning, two legs in the in
Speaker 1: the noontime, and three legs in the evening. It is
Speaker 1: a human, you know, because you're a baby and you crawl,
Speaker 1: and then as an adult you walk on two legs,
Speaker 1: and then an old age you use a cane. Oh
Speaker 1: but I got one more for you, rob Okay, So
Speaker 1: this one is on a sunny day, there are two.
Speaker 1: On a sunless day, there is but one. On a
Speaker 1: moonlit night, there are two. On a moonless night, there
Speaker 1: is but one. I mean, I'm thinking about light and silhouettes, shadows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. It's a shadow. Is it a shadow? Okay? Wait,
Speaker 1: so the person's shadow. There are two of you on
Speaker 1: a sunny day because you got a shadow, okay, I
Speaker 1: got that, Okay, And then on a sun most day,
Speaker 1: there's just you. There's no shadow. On a moonlight night,
Speaker 1: there too, again, you have a shadow, and on a
Speaker 1: moonless night it's too dark to see anything, right, should
Speaker 1: there Yeah, there shouldn't even be one on a moonless night.
Speaker 1: The stars are so bright. That's one thing I guess
Speaker 1: we have to consider. I don't know for certain, but
Speaker 1: it reminds me of things I've read about Egyptian mythology
Speaker 1: and about how uh an often unobscured sky is so
Speaker 1: central to uh, to the world view of of say,
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptians. I wonder if that holds true in Mongolian
Speaker 1: culture as well, because if you have like this brilliant
Speaker 1: starlet sky and there's you know, less probability of cloud cover,
Speaker 1: then perhaps that does illuminate things a little better. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, certainly there's going to be less possibility
Speaker 1: of you know, light pollution and artificial light kind of
Speaker 1: creating these these deeper pockets of shadow. But why does
Speaker 1: the tumbleweed under the wagon look like a goat? I
Speaker 1: mean maybe it just has to do with like, once
Speaker 1: it gets up here, it's not going to you know,
Speaker 1: kick butt like a camel would like. It's going to
Speaker 1: be more or less hiding underneath the cart like a
Speaker 1: goat kind of Uh, it's gonna be this It's not
Speaker 1: gonna be this bounding, brave looking thing. It's going to
Speaker 1: be this meek uh little ball that's hiding around underneath
Speaker 1: the carts or jammed under a wheel, et cetera. Mongolian
Speaker 1: listeners right in teach us help us figure this one out.
Speaker 1: By the way the sayings collected in this this this
Speaker 1: book er, I mean in this paper also great. Uh,
Speaker 1: here's an example one that kept jumping out of me
Speaker 1: every time I sort of skimmed past it looking for tumbleweeds.
Speaker 1: Men follow customs, dogs follow bones. I like that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is good. So if this implies a parallel in
Speaker 1: the way that these things are followed, would it be
Speaker 1: that humans go after social customs in a kind of driven, hungry,
Speaker 1: instinctual way. You know, I'm not sure if that is
Speaker 1: the way we're supposed to take this, or does it
Speaker 1: mean that a dog of like just follows their gut
Speaker 1: instinct and like, you know, follows immediate evidence. But men
Speaker 1: have customs that they have to follow. Oh yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: That could be the contrast. But but but I I
Speaker 1: find your interpretation interesting as well. I could. I guess
Speaker 1: I could see it go either way. I guess there's
Speaker 1: no comparative word in there. Doesn't say men follow customs
Speaker 1: like dogs follow bones. Anyway, there are more of these
Speaker 1: and if you're interested, again, it's Mongolian Folklore, a representative
Speaker 1: collection from the oral literary tradition, Part one. And that's
Speaker 1: a bit of one J store. So if you go
Speaker 1: to J S t O R dot org you can
Speaker 1: you can access it for free. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you have to sign in. I like I I access
Speaker 1: it da membership but um, but not a paid membership.
Speaker 1: So go for it if you're interested. Okay, one more
Speaker 1: one before we move on that this is just a proverb.
Speaker 1: It's that children who grow up spoiled are more difficult
Speaker 1: to handle than a bull's neck. Okay, what about a
Speaker 1: bull's neck, though, I guess it's difficult to get your
Speaker 1: hands around it, right, like a bull's neck can be
Speaker 1: so thick that you can't even reach your arms around
Speaker 1: it and like, you know, lock your your knuckles together. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, So we're gonna we're gonna leave mongolian Um
Speaker 1: wisdom aside here for a little bit. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: back to more North America entails of the tumbleweed. And
Speaker 1: so I was just you know, thinking at this point
Speaker 1: you're probably going, well, geez, guys, I get the tumbleweeds
Speaker 1: are bad, and uh, you know that sometimes they're like
Speaker 1: a camel and sometimes like there a goat. Okay, fair enough,
Speaker 1: but what do they mean for the proliferation of radioactive waste? Well,
Speaker 1: we're glad you ask, because it's actually an interesting question. Uh.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I found even more fascinating
Speaker 1: about it is that they're The role that tumbleweeds play
Speaker 1: in in our treatment of radioactive waste can vary greatly
Speaker 1: depending on like what source you're looking at. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think the radioactivity will play more into the
Speaker 1: second example we're talking about them the first, which might
Speaker 1: be more clearly classed as a case of toxic waste, right, yes,
Speaker 1: but but both have to do with the leavings of
Speaker 1: of the Atomic Age. Yeah. So the Atomic Ages we've
Speaker 1: discussed on the show before, especially I think the the
Speaker 1: episode or episodes in question. Uh it was titled the
Speaker 1: Atomic Scar. Uh. The Atomic Ages left various scars on
Speaker 1: the planet, including radioactive waste that we have to seal
Speaker 1: away and figure out how to Symbolically worn apocalyptic wanders
Speaker 1: ten thousand years in the future that they shouldn't mess
Speaker 1: with this because it's bad. Uh. So we're always looking
Speaker 1: at for ways to secure it, to resecure it, to
Speaker 1: clean it up, et cetera. Now you might remember another
Speaker 1: episode we did titled The Tide of Gold, and in
Speaker 1: that we discussed some sort of novel gold harvesting schemes
Speaker 1: and ideas, and we discussed how plants can harvest gold
Speaker 1: from the ground. Basically, the premise here is that some
Speaker 1: plants have the ability to absorb minerals through their roots
Speaker 1: and uh and uh and and concentrate metals such as nickel, uh, cadmium,
Speaker 1: and zinc uh. These plants are also known as hyper accumulators.
Speaker 1: There are no natural gold hyper accume ulators, but there
Speaker 1: are ways to make it possible through soil manipulation. So
Speaker 1: you like treat the soil that contains the gold in
Speaker 1: a certain way, and you can sort of engineer it
Speaker 1: so that certain plants that have this natural ability will
Speaker 1: actually draw that gold up into their roots system. So
Speaker 1: you can probably see where we're going here. Um, remember
Speaker 1: how we mentioned that tumble weed roots can dive twenty
Speaker 1: feet down into the soil. Well, as pointed out by
Speaker 1: geologist Dana Ulmer Shoal of the New Mexico Institute of
Speaker 1: Mining and Technology in SoCoRo, reporting to the US Geological
Speaker 1: Society in two thousand and four, tumbleweed plants are actually
Speaker 1: really good a't soaking up depleted uranium from contaminated soils
Speaker 1: and weapons testing grounds and battlefields. Now this is interesting.
Speaker 1: I guess we should do a little sidebar here on
Speaker 1: depleted uranium because you might be wondering, okay, depleted uranium,
Speaker 1: and you you hear that here uranium your weapons testing grounds,
Speaker 1: and you might naturally think like, oh, nuclear bomb detonation sites.
Speaker 1: But this is actually talking about something different. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: depleted uranium is often used in heavy munitions as as
Speaker 1: a metal, not as a a fissile material for a bomb,
Speaker 1: but as a metal. And it's used in these munitions
Speaker 1: because of its density and armor penetrating properties, so it's
Speaker 1: you know, you can make a very dense projectile out
Speaker 1: of it. I believe it is more than half again
Speaker 1: as dense as leads something. It's like sixty something percent
Speaker 1: more dense than lead is uh. And that density also
Speaker 1: makes it useful for certain things in like the aeronautics field.
Speaker 1: I think I've read that it's used sometimes as a
Speaker 1: counterweight or counterbalance in some helicopter rotor blades, but it's
Speaker 1: also used for plating and armored vehicles, again because it's
Speaker 1: dense so it's more likely to stop a projectile, and
Speaker 1: then also in creating shielding against radiation. But as as
Speaker 1: am innisition in particular, I think depleted uranium is used
Speaker 1: not just because it's dense, but because, say when it
Speaker 1: hits the armor plating of a tank to try to
Speaker 1: penetrate it, it has these properties where it tends to
Speaker 1: kind of fragment in a way that that makes the
Speaker 1: projectile sharper rather than blunt r And as it penetrates
Speaker 1: through the armor plating of a of an armored vehicle,
Speaker 1: it also tends to ignite and explode on the inside,
Speaker 1: so it has a lot of properties that you would
Speaker 1: want if you were trying to shoot through an armored vehicle. Now,
Speaker 1: to pick up on the caveat I was giving earlier
Speaker 1: about radioactivity, depleted uranium has very low levels of radioactivity.
Speaker 1: It's actually it actually has less radioactivity then is typically
Speaker 1: found in natural uranium. But uranium, whether natural or depleted uranium,
Speaker 1: has significant chemical toxicity. So it is clear that it
Speaker 1: is dangerous to ingest certain amounts of it beyond a
Speaker 1: certain threshold. But at least according to some sources, this
Speaker 1: is not really because of radioactivity. UH, though there might
Speaker 1: be some continuing controversy about the radiological effects in particular.
Speaker 1: I'll mention a little more about that in a minute, UM,
Speaker 1: but I was trying to look up. Okay, how does
Speaker 1: it work? Well? According to the US Agency for Toxic
Speaker 1: Substances and Disease Registry or the A T S d R,
Speaker 1: which is a government agency under the under the umbrella
Speaker 1: of the Health and Human Services Department, UH that they
Speaker 1: put out a fact sheet on the health effects of uranium,
Speaker 1: both known and under investigation, and they say that both
Speaker 1: natural and depleted uranium have that they have the same
Speaker 1: toxic effects within a human body. The primary of which
Speaker 1: is adverse effects to the renal system, so the kidneys,
Speaker 1: so either inhaling or ingesting significant amounts of uranium compounds,
Speaker 1: and I think possibly by uh by having it enter
Speaker 1: the body as shrapnel as well. UH. This is known
Speaker 1: to cause damage to the kidneys, and there may be
Speaker 1: some secondary effects as well, but the secondary effects are
Speaker 1: less clear. UM. The more I looked into this, the
Speaker 1: more complicated the picture of the health effects of exposure
Speaker 1: to depleted uranium became. UM. So like you'll find a
Speaker 1: lot of debate the their their questions about the exposure
Speaker 1: of combat veterans and people living in war zones who
Speaker 1: have been exposed to ammunition with depleted uranium content. UH.
Speaker 1: And I did not have time to wade into all
Speaker 1: of that controversy and figure out what I thought about it,
Speaker 1: but I will say, at the very least, UH, you
Speaker 1: do not want your body exposed to high levels of
Speaker 1: depleted uranium. UH, definitely because of its known adverse health effects.
Speaker 1: And then there may be other secondary effects on top
Speaker 1: of what is currently known as well. But like most things, UH,
Speaker 1: the the toxicity of depleted uranium depends on dosage over time.
Speaker 1: So we're all exposed to tiny amounts of uranium from
Speaker 1: the natural environment. On a consistent basis, this is completely unavoidable.
Speaker 1: It's just part of living on planet Earth. There's gonna
Speaker 1: be tiny, tiny amounts of uranium and the food you eat,
Speaker 1: in the water you drink. But if you are living
Speaker 1: in certain areas where there is significant uranium contamination in
Speaker 1: the environment, those those levels could go up above what
Speaker 1: is safe. Right. And therefore it stands to reason if
Speaker 1: you had, say a former ammunition testing ground, and you
Speaker 1: wanted to do something else with that and not just
Speaker 1: keep it, uh, you know, set aside for you know,
Speaker 1: the duration of of of of human civilization or something. Uh,
Speaker 1: you might want to reclaim it. You might want to
Speaker 1: find a way to get depleted uranium out of the ground.
Speaker 1: And uh that's where a few different plants have have
Speaker 1: shown promise at drinking up that depleted uranium um. One
Speaker 1: of them, for instance, is the Indian mustard plant. But
Speaker 1: as this this research points out, one of the things
Speaker 1: about many of these plants is that they thrive in
Speaker 1: um in in wetter soils. What are you gonna do
Speaker 1: when you have something out in a desert, right, Well,
Speaker 1: that's where the tumbleweed comes. The tumbleweed, of course, famously
Speaker 1: excels in dry, barren places. UH. One rolls into a
Speaker 1: well irrigated yard in a New Mexico suburb, and it's doomed. Uh.
Speaker 1: It can't compete with the grass. But if it goes
Speaker 1: into an abandoned um uh you know, a feed lot
Speaker 1: or a girl or some sort of agricultural site, uh,
Speaker 1: an undeveloped bad land, well, then that's where the tumble
Speaker 1: weed is king. And so it's ideally suited for some
Speaker 1: of the desolate places that we find depleted uranium in
Speaker 1: the United States, especially uh in in the West, uh
Speaker 1: in the Western States. So the argument here is that
Speaker 1: this could be a safe method as well, because the
Speaker 1: plants do most of the absorption well before they detach.
Speaker 1: So if you were managing the site, if you were,
Speaker 1: you know, planting intentionally the the the tumbleweed plants here,
Speaker 1: then the plants could be harvested and disposed of well
Speaker 1: before the the drying phase begins, and then ultimately the
Speaker 1: tumbleweed breaks free and is able to roll free exactly.
Speaker 1: And so I thought this was very interesting. I did
Speaker 1: look around for more follow up on this about using
Speaker 1: tumbleweeds for for remediation of heavy metals like depleted geranium
Speaker 1: or other toxic substances in soils. And I didn't find
Speaker 1: anything much more recent so so I don't know, uh,
Speaker 1: if for or how much anybody's picked up on this research.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, yeah, well, like like we we hinted
Speaker 1: out before, this is a This is something we often
Speaker 1: see with the tumble with tumbleweed related research. Somebody will
Speaker 1: have an idea about something we can do with the
Speaker 1: tumble weeds. What can we do with these tumble weeds?
Speaker 1: What can we do about these tumbleweeds? And someone will
Speaker 1: have a novel approach, but either it's something that doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to work out for one reason or another, or
Speaker 1: it requires more research and it is perhaps still being researched. Um,
Speaker 1: it seems like I saw this more often than not.
Speaker 1: Oh did we ever find anything else out about what
Speaker 1: happened to that tumbleweed eating machine we talked about in
Speaker 1: part one? No, not yet, but but the as we're
Speaker 1: recording this, the episode had the first episode has not aired,
Speaker 1: so I'm hoping that we'll hear from some New Mexico listeners,
Speaker 1: like maybe maybe there are counties in New Mexico where
Speaker 1: they had one of these or have one still. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe we'll get some local intel. I did
Speaker 1: email one of the researchers who was involved in the
Speaker 1: original project and the original prototype, but I have not
Speaker 1: heard back from them. And and nor would I be
Speaker 1: that surprised, because just some RANDO is reaching out of
Speaker 1: them out of nowhere and asked him about a project
Speaker 1: that they worked on decades ago. Uh. I can understand there.
Speaker 1: They might see that it's just a spam email, all right,
Speaker 1: So we're not done with the idea of tumble weeds
Speaker 1: and UH weapons sites and so forth. UH. And and
Speaker 1: this week turned to an article that you you dug up, Joe.
Speaker 1: This was from Sarah Zang writing UH for Gizmoto back
Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen, which was just a really great
Speaker 1: year for all things tumble. We had a number of
Speaker 1: the articles that we have end up referring to and
Speaker 1: this come from But she cited a George John some
Speaker 1: peace in National Geographic particularly UH this bit quote. During
Speaker 1: the early nineteen sixties, after above ground nuclear testing finally
Speaker 1: ceased at the Nevada test site, the first thing said
Speaker 1: to grow back was Russian thistle radioactive salth sola has
Speaker 1: come tumbling out of the old Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington,
Speaker 1: where plutonium was manufactured during the Cold War. I half
Speaker 1: expect to hear someday that Russian thistle has been found
Speaker 1: on the moon. Yeah, and uh, I can't remember if
Speaker 1: we already said it so far in this episode or not,
Speaker 1: but Russian thistle is the common name of the main
Speaker 1: species of tumbleweed that that is now known in the
Speaker 1: United States. That's the number of different scientific names have
Speaker 1: been used. Sal solo, tregas, calli tregas. Uh. And this
Speaker 1: is the salsola sal solo that the author here is
Speaker 1: talking about in this Uh, this not g O piece
Speaker 1: has been quoted. But yeah, it is not surprising to
Speaker 1: me to hear that tumbleweed is is the first thing
Speaker 1: moving in uh at a at a nuclear testing site,
Speaker 1: right and uh and as saying explains, it's just one
Speaker 1: of many organisms that can interfere where our efforts just
Speaker 1: set aside such waste and such way side or just
Speaker 1: sort of secure such locations. Um. Now, the the Hanford
Speaker 1: Nuclear Reservation is of note here because yet and tumbleweeds
Speaker 1: were in the news as recently as January, as reported
Speaker 1: by Maria Kramer in the New York Times, with the
Speaker 1: headline storm of tumbleweeds, berries, cars, terrifies drivers and astounds police.
Speaker 1: But some I have to point out that some places,
Speaker 1: including I believe that the Chicago Tribune altered the headline
Speaker 1: UM or updated the headline. I would say, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say altered, like they did something super nefarious
Speaker 1: to say, UM storm of quote unquote nuclear tumbleweeds, berries, cars,
Speaker 1: terrifies drivers and astounds police. UM. It's in quotes because
Speaker 1: they're referring to a particular quote in the UM the
Speaker 1: original article where they're talking about this tumble getting in
Speaker 1: which they mentioned quote the highway is in a flat,
Speaker 1: wide open area close to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which
Speaker 1: is known as one of the sites of the Manhattan
Speaker 1: Project and where plutonium was produced to help build the
Speaker 1: atom bomb. And then there's this quote from a Mr
Speaker 1: thorn Thorson that says, quote, some people are calling them
Speaker 1: nuclear tumbleweeds. So that's so that might be jumping to
Speaker 1: some conclusions here, but not not entirely without reason, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the article does not discuss tumbleweeds as radioactive in nature.
Speaker 1: Other than including that one little quote. Uh, but um,
Speaker 1: the the Hanford location, as discussed by Elliott Marshall in
Speaker 1: the edition of the Journal Science UM has pointed out
Speaker 1: that that this is a location that has had issues
Speaker 1: with badgers, rabbits, ground squirrels, burrowing owls, pocket mice, insects,
Speaker 1: rabbit brush, and yes, tumbleweeds, uh, inter fearing with with
Speaker 1: human efforts to sort of leave this site alone and undisturbed. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're literally having breaches due to wildlife like failures of
Speaker 1: nuclear material or high level waste containment due to breaches
Speaker 1: by things like badgers. Yeah, and then things like rabbits
Speaker 1: with like radioactive rabbit poop because rabbits have gotten in there. Yes,
Speaker 1: here's a quote from Marshall. With roots that can grow
Speaker 1: down twenty feet. Tumbleweeds reached down into waste dumps and
Speaker 1: take up strontium ninety break off and blow around the
Speaker 1: dry land. And this caused them to worry that the
Speaker 1: radiation in the tumbleweeds could then be released into the
Speaker 1: air if these weeds were to to do what tumbleweeds
Speaker 1: sometimes do, collect somewhere and then catch fire or what
Speaker 1: happens if they reach a body of water. Remember that
Speaker 1: example from the last episode talking about a tumbleweed. Uh,
Speaker 1: this mighty tumbleweed rolling into the water and then kind
Speaker 1: of melting there. Um, you know you don't want your
Speaker 1: your your radioact have shredded wheat hitting the milk exactly. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: So it's not necessarily actually known that these tumbleweeds from
Speaker 1: the story in January had significant radioactivity levels. But tumbleweeds
Speaker 1: are one of the biological vectors that could potentially breach
Speaker 1: some types of nuclear material containment. Right, that seems to
Speaker 1: be the case, And of course the fact that they
Speaker 1: then break off and blow around afterwards is not helpful, right,
Speaker 1: And I mean, we do have to to acknowledge the
Speaker 1: fact that there are radioactive tumble weeds in the video
Speaker 1: game Fallout New Vegas. So I don't know, is that
Speaker 1: true the tumbleweeds. Apparently I I played New Vegas, and
Speaker 1: I remember enjoying it, but I do not remember the tumbleweeds.
Speaker 1: I had not yet fostered an appreciation for the tumbleweed,
Speaker 1: so if they were there, I forgot them. But I
Speaker 1: ran across this in in my searches. So it seems
Speaker 1: to be the case. Let's say, good on them at
Speaker 1: fault at the what was the team that made that game?
Speaker 1: They did their research. Thank thank thank Now, given all
Speaker 1: we shared about the problems posed by invasive tumbleweeds in
Speaker 1: the United States, that should come as no surprise that
Speaker 1: the U. S d A has looked into ways of
Speaker 1: eradicating them, or at least significantly reducing their number. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they've some some of the ways they've They've they've
Speaker 1: examined this or rather interesting. One method that has been
Speaker 1: proposed is to to take the classic approach and UH
Speaker 1: and introduce a particular type of MIGHT. This is a
Speaker 1: Syria south soulae, which kills the growing tips of the
Speaker 1: plant and stunts it. Supposedly, studies have shown that it
Speaker 1: only targets this particular MIGHT species, It only targets a
Speaker 1: few closely related species to the tumbleweed, and all of
Speaker 1: these species are pest species. Oh, but the proposed biological
Speaker 1: controls do not stop there. That's right. They've also looked
Speaker 1: into Researchers have also looked into using two fungi species
Speaker 1: native to the tumbleweeds original uh you know, Russian or
Speaker 1: Ukrainian environment. This news was making the rounds in They've
Speaker 1: also looked into viral methods of targeting invasive tumbleweeds with viruses.
Speaker 1: The U. S d A was also testing viruses developed
Speaker 1: from two types of dying tumbleweeds and UH in Russia
Speaker 1: and in Hungary. And this was also reported in Again
Speaker 1: just a banner year for tumbleweed research. Now, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure where we are with any of these different approaches
Speaker 1: ones anyway. I mean, that's not too long ago. It
Speaker 1: seems feasible that there still could be some research going
Speaker 1: on there. Um. Uh, maybe it's a situation where the
Speaker 1: research did fizzle out, or maybe there's just a lot
Speaker 1: of contemplation that has to go into the massive introduction
Speaker 1: of another invase of species or some sort of other
Speaker 1: biological control to try and take care of your existing problem,
Speaker 1: because you you know, you don't want to overflow the
Speaker 1: tub anymore than it's already overflowing, you know. I was
Speaker 1: just trying to remember which previous episode we talked about
Speaker 1: some of the um controversies of using you know, different
Speaker 1: species for bio control methods of of existing invasive species
Speaker 1: UH and UH. The one that came to mind that
Speaker 1: looks at least the time we talked about it like
Speaker 1: it was going pretty well was on Christmas Island, where
Speaker 1: the you know, the the big native crab populations or wait,
Speaker 1: were those crabs originally from somewhere else as well? I
Speaker 1: don't recall anyway, the crab populations on Christmas Island, the
Speaker 1: glorious flows the ocean, the tide of crabs, they were
Speaker 1: being threatened by these ant populations there that were, you know,
Speaker 1: squirting formic acid into the crabs joints and and killing them.
Speaker 1: I think there were the the yellow crazy ants, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's sound try. Yeah, so the yellow crazy ants. Uh.
Speaker 1: There were some conservationists who had developed a plan to
Speaker 1: help try to control populations of the yellow crazy ants
Speaker 1: by deploying a predator, a predatory micro wasp that would
Speaker 1: that would cut back on the ant colonies there. Uh.
Speaker 1: And at least last time we read about that, it
Speaker 1: seemed like that was going well so far and uh
Speaker 1: and had not had any any dangerous spillover. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you always wonder, like you don't, you know, first order
Speaker 1: of businesses do no harm, and uh, it's always it's
Speaker 1: always a little risky when you say, well, let's introduce
Speaker 1: a different thing and and just hope that it only
Speaker 1: has this targeted effect that we wanted to Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean time was when human beings thought they could fix
Speaker 1: a problem by introducing a new invasive species, they would
Speaker 1: just do it, and and that would and and a
Speaker 1: lot of times that would end up resulting in a
Speaker 1: new problem, a new invasive spiece. So it's it's good
Speaker 1: that we're being more thoughtful about this because ultimately you're
Speaker 1: dealing with a very complex ecosystem in any case, um
Speaker 1: and it's it's difficult to figure out exactly what the
Speaker 1: ramifications of introducing something new we're going to be or
Speaker 1: introducing another new thing into it. Oh, but I just
Speaker 1: recalled I've been trying to remember what was the example
Speaker 1: we talked about in that episode of of a a
Speaker 1: bio control species that had been introduced and then really backfired,
Speaker 1: And I couldn't call it to mind, but I just did.
Speaker 1: It was the cane toads in Australia that were brought in,
Speaker 1: I think to control beetle populations that were threatening agriculture.
Speaker 1: But then the cane toads became a became a huge
Speaker 1: problem in their own right. Yeah, yeah, there, yeah, there,
Speaker 1: there's so many different accounts one can turn to where
Speaker 1: we can move that, you know, our our cautionary tales
Speaker 1: in introducing a species to try and fix the problem. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and then you know, another aspect of all of
Speaker 1: this too is that this is the things changed, the
Speaker 1: environments shift. UM. For instance, I was looking at a
Speaker 1: University of California riverside study from UM and then this
Speaker 1: was making the case that the quote unquote monster tumbleweed
Speaker 1: species salth solar ryani was once thought to be actually
Speaker 1: going extinct, but it has since gained ground as it
Speaker 1: apparently remains green into late summer and has been increasingly
Speaker 1: been able to take full advantage of rains during that
Speaker 1: time period. Uh So it's footprint has been expanding in
Speaker 1: recent years. And this is one that grows up to
Speaker 1: six ft tall. So uh, it's a massive tumbleweed. But
Speaker 1: just just I guess a footnote in the you know,
Speaker 1: in the lesson that you know, you're you can try
Speaker 1: and solve one particular problem in at a certain period
Speaker 1: of time, But but what is the situation going to
Speaker 1: look like? Uh, you know, say ten years down the road,
Speaker 1: especially when we're looking at at at climate change and
Speaker 1: um and and other factors having an impact act on
Speaker 1: the natural environment. But but then again, maybe maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: And like, as we're recording this, somewhere on the roads
Speaker 1: in New Mexico, there is a massive snowplow with an
Speaker 1: enormous um grinder on the front of it. And in
Speaker 1: the back of that snowplow there are a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of mites and viruses and fung guy, and it's just
Speaker 1: making a bee line for the tumbleweed. Uh nation. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, Sorry, I'm thinking now about the six
Speaker 1: foot tall tumbleweed. Okay, so I'm imagining somebody trying to
Speaker 1: like get that with a pitchfork. How heavy does that get?
Speaker 1: I know the tumbleweeds are typically very low density, right
Speaker 1: because they need to be able to be blown by
Speaker 1: the wind. But I don't know. Once you're six ft wide,
Speaker 1: you also have a lot of surface area to catch
Speaker 1: the winds, so you could probably be pretty heavy and
Speaker 1: still get blown around. Like, how hard does it get?
Speaker 1: We can? Can they just get bigger and bigger and bigger?
Speaker 1: I mean, they are mostly air. But that being said,
Speaker 1: I if I had to choose between hitting a four
Speaker 1: foot diameter tumbleweed with my rental car or or hitting
Speaker 1: a six foot diameter tumbleweed with my rental car. I'm
Speaker 1: definitely going to sort of towards the four ft uh
Speaker 1: diameter tumbleweed. That being said, again, if you're driving in
Speaker 1: the tumbleweeds come at you don't swerve, That's where the
Speaker 1: problems really start. I suppose I'm imagining runaway tumbleweed evolution
Speaker 1: where they you know, tin foot tumbleweed, thirty foot tumbleweed,
Speaker 1: hundred foot tumbleweed, and eventually the planet is ruled by
Speaker 1: gargantuan tumbleweeds. It creates their own culture, you know. Coming
Speaker 1: back to um, you know, cinematic uses of tumbleweed that
Speaker 1: we touched on earlier on UH, it does seem that
Speaker 1: it's the symbol. The iconic scene is that lone tumbleweed
Speaker 1: making its way across the screen. I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever seen, or I don't remember ever seeing a cinematic
Speaker 1: treatment where it is like a whole herd of tumbleweeds.
Speaker 1: But that is the more impressive site, and in a
Speaker 1: way it would seem to drive home the desolation. Not
Speaker 1: only is this place so desolate, Um, that one tumbleweed
Speaker 1: is coming by, it is just taken over all life
Speaker 1: is tumbleweed here. I bet you could make a really
Speaker 1: good sentient tumbleweeds horror movie that. Yeah. Well we we
Speaker 1: were discussing this a little bit um off Mike the
Speaker 1: other day. I wonder to what extent, or any extent,
Speaker 1: the Critters franchise has any connection to Tumbleweeds. I mean,
Speaker 1: those are films that the originate out of Texas. The
Speaker 1: first one was set in Texas. I believe that. So
Speaker 1: I couldn't find anything just offhand. I didn't go deep
Speaker 1: and start listening to directors, commentaries or anything. But uh,
Speaker 1: you know those those creatures, the crates, they're they're kind
Speaker 1: of like a little tumbleweeds and they rolled together, they
Speaker 1: joined together into big tumbling pods. Um, they're kind of
Speaker 1: like creature and they're invasiveather from another planet. I put
Speaker 1: it out to you, the listener, have you directed a
Speaker 1: Critters movie? So right in and let us know what
Speaker 1: you think about the comparison between a crit and a tumbleweed?
Speaker 1: Are you? Leonardo DiCaprio was in Critters to the Critters
Speaker 1: franchise has has a lot of talent, and if you
Speaker 1: start really looking at some of the names involved, especially
Speaker 1: on the acting end of the spectrum. Uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's star studded. It's just the one where they just
Speaker 1: like go to a buffet restaurant. Isn't there one where
Speaker 1: they do that? I don't say, Um, the Critters movies are.
Speaker 1: It's one of those franchises where I don't think I've
Speaker 1: I've ever sat down and just watched a full Critters movie.
Speaker 1: It's just they would come on TV a lot back
Speaker 1: in the day, and so when Critters was on, you
Speaker 1: just watched some Critters and I'm not sure you know
Speaker 1: at what point I was jumping in and out of
Speaker 1: the series. The other day you pointed out that there's
Speaker 1: one Critters movie where they go to space, which is
Speaker 1: a little underwhelming because the Critters are from space, their alien. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's like it makes sense for when Jason goes
Speaker 1: to space, that's weird. You leprecond in space, Okay, that's weird,
Speaker 1: but now this is like aliens in space. Well, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a it's it's a little odd, but it's
Speaker 1: where you gotta go. It's like they went they went
Speaker 1: to Critters one, Critters too, Creers three, they go to
Speaker 1: l A. Critters four they go into space. I don't
Speaker 1: know where they go after that. I think there was
Speaker 1: a TV series recently. I think they go on the
Speaker 1: Odyssey then, right, is they're trying to return home to it?
Speaker 1: Think a maybe? So all right, we're gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: and call it there. Uh, this is gonna be the
Speaker 1: end of our two episode series on Tumbleweeds. But again,
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone out there, especially those
Speaker 1: of you who live in tumbleweed Country, which you know,
Speaker 1: technically if you look at a map includes uh, you know,
Speaker 1: most people in the United States. But at any rate,
Speaker 1: we would love to hear your your your tidbits, and
Speaker 1: your your of your experience with the mighty tumble weed,
Speaker 1: whether it becoming actually like a camel or hiding under
Speaker 1: the cart like a goat. In the meantime, if you
Speaker 1: would like to listen to other episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind, well you can listen to us in
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Speaker 1: do Weird House Cinema. That's the time to set aside
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