Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
Speaker 1: this is the magical time of the year because it
Speaker 1: is Shark Week, the best time of the year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've got our Shark Week lights up around the office. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have to look like little sharks. Mandatory consumption of
Speaker 1: gummy sharks. Um, nobody's allowed to bring their line. It's
Speaker 1: just gummy sharks and tap water for everybody. Really builds
Speaker 1: up your constitution. Yep. Yeah. And we we tend to
Speaker 1: just go around circles around each other in the break room,
Speaker 1: which is fun. So it is. It's an exciting time
Speaker 1: and it's also in the lobby. We're not making that
Speaker 1: up now, We're not making that up at all. Um.
Speaker 1: It actually premieers Sunday, July thirty one on Discovery Channel
Speaker 1: for folks who are really excited about sharks, and so
Speaker 1: we thought that we would do a little homage to
Speaker 1: sharks this week and um and talk about how great
Speaker 1: they are. Cool because the week itself was always pretty
Speaker 1: awesome growing up because you turn on Discovery and then
Speaker 1: they're just like NonStop shark attacks, I was gonna say, ma'am,
Speaker 1: and violence no matter where you look, and your parents
Speaker 1: can't say anything about it because there's sharks. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: educational yea. And sharks truly are amazing creatures. But the
Speaker 1: one you know, that, the one thing you don't think
Speaker 1: about as much are sharks in space because it just
Speaker 1: seems odd, yeah, or that NASA would it all care
Speaker 1: what a shark is up to or how a shark works.
Speaker 1: It just seems like these are totally different ends of
Speaker 1: the spectrum. Yeah, but as we know, there are definitely
Speaker 1: parallels between the Great Blue Ocean and the sky's above us,
Speaker 1: right right. Uh, So to that point, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about how sharks have informed NASA and and also
Speaker 1: how they have informed other areas of our lives and
Speaker 1: uh and why Michael Phelps needs to give us shark
Speaker 1: a big hug next time he sees one. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: for starters, there is there's not really need such thing
Speaker 1: as a as a space shark. There of course no
Speaker 1: sharks flying around in outer space. Um. But but dog, yes,
Speaker 1: but not a shark, yes, mummified dog. Right. But as
Speaker 1: as for sharks, we we have a wonder for a
Speaker 1: long time whether or not the moon affects them, even
Speaker 1: if even though there are no sharks on the moon,
Speaker 1: people have always wondered, what is the lunar cycle affect
Speaker 1: the way sharks behaved? As it can? Can we can
Speaker 1: we base their feeding uh uh, preferences of their ferocity
Speaker 1: on what the moon is doing? Yeah, that's true. Um.
Speaker 1: And we know that a full moon signals breeding and
Speaker 1: migratory practices. Um. And it also influences the tides because
Speaker 1: the tidle forces add its maximum, so you see a
Speaker 1: lot more intense feeding behavior at that time, right. And
Speaker 1: in tracking shark movement, scientists have observed large congregations of
Speaker 1: sharks during specific lunar cycles as well as intensified feeding habits.
Speaker 1: So we've got NASA definitely has its I on sharks.
Speaker 1: Yeah and um and this is just one example right there.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of things that NASA has been
Speaker 1: doing with sharks because some of their technology actually is
Speaker 1: very helpful in tracking sharks. And these are yeah, these
Speaker 1: are definitely more concrete than well, maybe the maybe the
Speaker 1: moon has some sort of influence on their activity. Um.
Speaker 1: The the one that really um first of all, as
Speaker 1: far as just tracking them goes UM. We we do
Speaker 1: use satellites to track sharks because some of these are
Speaker 1: are in either they're endangered species or they're just species
Speaker 1: we want to learn more about. UM. So we have
Speaker 1: two kinds of tracking devices that we attached to the
Speaker 1: sharks fins. We have smart position only tags also called spots,
Speaker 1: and we have pop up satellite archival tags or pats.
Speaker 1: Spots attached to a shark's dorsal fins and upload location
Speaker 1: data to a satellite every time the animal surfaces, you know,
Speaker 1: so every time it comes up to eat a surfer
Speaker 1: or something, or to or to attack, Richard dry fuss
Speaker 1: Uh injects in you know, pats. However, record water temperature,
Speaker 1: water pressure, and light levels before detaching from the sharks
Speaker 1: fins at a set time. So so this just sort
Speaker 1: of hangs out with the shark shadows. The shark sees
Speaker 1: what the shark is up to and what kind of
Speaker 1: environments it's been happening, and then after a certain time
Speaker 1: detaches to go report back. Yeah, so whether or not
Speaker 1: the shark knows it, it's in business with NASA and
Speaker 1: UM aggregating a bunch of data for the pat device
Speaker 1: floats back to the surface after it's through, and then
Speaker 1: it transmits the data to the satellite. Yeah. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then there's a second method to which I think is
Speaker 1: really cool. Um, this is an algorithm. Yes, Now, this
Speaker 1: is pretty fascinating because all right, you look up at
Speaker 1: the night sky and even I mean even if you're
Speaker 1: trained somewhat in astronomy and you can, you know, or
Speaker 1: even if you're you can, you know, you can pick
Speaker 1: out every constellation and you can point to different star systems.
Speaker 1: You have to admit, a really clear night sky can
Speaker 1: be really confusing because there's just so many stars and
Speaker 1: you're just you know, trying to make sense of it all.
Speaker 1: You cannot see them from Nakodaye all of them, right,
Speaker 1: So NASA, of course has developed an algorithm to help
Speaker 1: to track this that can know that can allow a
Speaker 1: computer to look at the sky and identify what's going
Speaker 1: on based on this, um, you know, to to to
Speaker 1: the lame and seemingly chaotic array of stars. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: this was originally created by Edward J. Groth, and he
Speaker 1: was using this to try to map the intimidating star
Speaker 1: fields Hubble would uncover falling it's launching. So just so
Speaker 1: everybody understands the context there. But again there's this correlation
Speaker 1: with stars and with sharks. Yeah, because the whole the
Speaker 1: whole deal is, we're really interested in whale sharks, you know,
Speaker 1: we want to know which ones which, what are they doing.
Speaker 1: This is species that we would like to to stick
Speaker 1: around for a while and we would like to learn
Speaker 1: more about them. But how do you tell them apart? Right? Um, Well,
Speaker 1: it turns out that the spots on their their their bodies,
Speaker 1: especially prominent on their heads and their their head region. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're all different. These are like the fingerprints of a
Speaker 1: of a whale shark, so it's unique to each one, right,
Speaker 1: But to the naked eye, it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: It's just like, oh, there's another giant fish with spots
Speaker 1: on its head. But we can actually use the same program,
Speaker 1: the same algorithm that's that's intended to make sense of
Speaker 1: the night sky, and it can make sense of the
Speaker 1: spots on a whale shark and actually identify individual whale
Speaker 1: sharks to the point where just random divers who encounter
Speaker 1: a whale shark can take a picture of it and
Speaker 1: then they can send it in Um. To the Echocean,
Speaker 1: which is e E C O C E a n
Speaker 1: Echo Ocean Whale Shark Photo Identification Laboratory, and they're able
Speaker 1: to through this through these users submitted to photos keep
Speaker 1: tabs on, um, you know, close to two thousand whale
Speaker 1: sharks around the world, which is really cool because it's
Speaker 1: very much a public project as well. Yeah. Um. And
Speaker 1: also the algorithm has been adapted to track the animals
Speaker 1: North American populations as well, Yeah, using the unique whisker
Speaker 1: markings on their muzzles. Yeah, so that's that's from NASA actually. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's really interesting that they are trying to learn
Speaker 1: about the stars and they were able to use this
Speaker 1: to try to learn a little bit more about our
Speaker 1: own environment. Right. And it's another great page from the
Speaker 1: whole book of of space technology, improving life or improving
Speaker 1: research on the planet itself, you know, hand me down technology,
Speaker 1: but but very useful. This is another interesting NASA connection
Speaker 1: that was a surprise to me but actually has to
Speaker 1: do with Julia Child. Julia Child, Yeah, the famed chef TV,
Speaker 1: one of the first but to just wonderful spirited woman
Speaker 1: who who assured the American Palette into the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: The reason really that we have to suffer through all
Speaker 1: these more annoying TV chef today on various reality shows. Right, possibly, yes,
Speaker 1: except she was nice. She was she was nice, and
Speaker 1: she she Calaroche Booth Vignon that was awful. But you know,
Speaker 1: she she has a lot of that she contributed to
Speaker 1: our society. But people I think are pretty familiar with
Speaker 1: the fact that she was a spy of sorts um
Speaker 1: and this is from NPRS. The lady was a spy.
Speaker 1: Julia Child worked for the OSS, which is a precursor
Speaker 1: to the CIA. It was assigned to solve a problem
Speaker 1: for the U s Naval forces during World War Two.
Speaker 1: Sharks would bump into explosives that were placed underwater, setting
Speaker 1: them off and warning the German U boats that they
Speaker 1: were intended to sink. So they asked her to work
Speaker 1: on a recipe as it were, of shark repellent and
Speaker 1: um and together they all cooked up the shark repellent
Speaker 1: and that was used to cope the explosives. So the
Speaker 1: shark repellent recipe was then later used to protect astronauts
Speaker 1: and space capsules landed in shark infested waters. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: especially like the Apollopope program and everything. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: they're returning to earthen the capsule capsule is landing in
Speaker 1: the open ocean um in many cases, and you would
Speaker 1: rather you're highly trained astronauts not get eaten by a
Speaker 1: shark immediately. No, no, no, not after all that training.
Speaker 1: That's just that that would be a big bummer. And
Speaker 1: the Soviets were very interested in this as well. I
Speaker 1: read a like a nineteen seventies something NASA report on
Speaker 1: the Soviet interest and shark repell and there was you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of interest and a lot of tests
Speaker 1: and a lot of sort of oh, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it works, so maybe it works enough, And generally
Speaker 1: it would decided that it at least did worked, it
Speaker 1: worked enough to use it, you know, like it was
Speaker 1: better than nothing. Say, there was no other alternatives, so
Speaker 1: no other alternates. Um, so, actually sharks have taught us
Speaker 1: a lot, and definitely through bio mimicry as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not just lessons in how to avoid them and how
Speaker 1: to keep them from eating us, but yeah, we can
Speaker 1: look at the shark and say, hey, that is an
Speaker 1: excellent design. What can we learn from this evolution home design. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it turns out that their skin is of particular
Speaker 1: interest first because it's able to move through water really quickly, right,
Speaker 1: and second because it keeps bacteria at a minimum. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The skin itself has these consists of these tiny tooth
Speaker 1: like scales that prevents small eddies and vortices from forming,
Speaker 1: which can slow you down. So it's it's so Speedo
Speaker 1: was instantly interesting. Yeah. Yeah, and this is so cool
Speaker 1: because they what they discovered is that that friction is
Speaker 1: different over different parts of the shark's body. So the
Speaker 1: skin on the shark, the texture changes to better manage
Speaker 1: the flow of water. Huh. Yeah. And Speedo of course
Speaker 1: was like, oh hey, we could apply this, we can
Speaker 1: make some money off of this. Yeah. And it was
Speaker 1: actually when this first made the rounds and the news,
Speaker 1: there were some people that were like, is this really
Speaker 1: fair that people can wait because they was, you know,
Speaker 1: shaving some considerable time if you were wearing like a
Speaker 1: full shark skin body suit. Where I think at the
Speaker 1: actual name that this Peto product is a fast skin
Speaker 1: one word, um, and I don't know, there's so there's
Speaker 1: I can kind of get some of that argument, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like can if they're they're improving their performance purely
Speaker 1: through this awesome outfit. I mean maybe maybe I'm just
Speaker 1: putting this out and maybe all competitive swimming should be
Speaker 1: done naked, because then it's well, you know, Greek Olympic style. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Olympic style. Okay, So I mean I would definitely think
Speaker 1: that viewership would go up. Yeah, yeah, Um, it's a possibility.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe if they you know, to to
Speaker 1: get around the TV sensors, maybe that they just dyed
Speaker 1: the water like a real murky color and then it
Speaker 1: would be you know, instantly, you know, covering any potential nudity.
Speaker 1: They would show up right, you know, just to to
Speaker 1: ratch it up the fun factor. They could put sharks
Speaker 1: in the water while the naked swimmers. Yeah, but no,
Speaker 1: I mean they really the suit I think made a
Speaker 1: big difference. It's a three percent improvement in swimming speed
Speaker 1: due to the original shark skin suit, which likely contributed
Speaker 1: to the fact of the swimming medals one in the
Speaker 1: two thousand Olympics were one by athletes wearing speedos fast
Speaker 1: skin suits. Um and then also those some of the
Speaker 1: swimmers broke thirteen of fifteen world records. That's that's I mean,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about a tenth of a second here,
Speaker 1: I mean that is that's that's that's a huge difference
Speaker 1: in this sport. Um So Speedo has made further amount
Speaker 1: of occasions of fat skin suit based on continued research
Speaker 1: and it now has something like a four percent reduction
Speaker 1: in friction. Well and the sharks of course getting no credit,
Speaker 1: yeah none, yeah, yeah for you guys. Um, we've we've
Speaker 1: used but we've also used the sharks skin technology for
Speaker 1: other things. Um, we've been able to use this technology
Speaker 1: to create a fast traveling ship holes that also deter
Speaker 1: the attachment of underwater organisms, you know, like whatnot. And
Speaker 1: m Australia's Biopower Systems has been working on a really
Speaker 1: cool shark inspired innovation. Uh. The company hopes to anchor
Speaker 1: mechanical fins based on you know, the shark's body in
Speaker 1: the middle of sea currents in order to generate hydro
Speaker 1: electric power. So it's kind of like a wind meal,
Speaker 1: except yeah, in the ocean, and it looks like a
Speaker 1: giant you know, whale, giant shark fit that is going
Speaker 1: to scare the pants off of someone. It's just in
Speaker 1: a boat having a nice leisurely day on the ocean,
Speaker 1: or or scare the fast skin body suit off of
Speaker 1: someone happens to you can just go over for the
Speaker 1: naked thing here. Yeah, yeah, all right, we'll chew on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll just leave on the naked note. Yea to chew
Speaker 1: on that while we do a quick break, and we'll
Speaker 1: be back right after that. This presentation is brought to
Speaker 1: you by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow and we're back all right.
Speaker 1: I know you got some email there, Yeah, it's time
Speaker 1: for a little listener mail. We actually quite a bit
Speaker 1: um the other podcast we recorded this week with the
Speaker 1: electronic music one, which went a little along. Starting to
Speaker 1: get to to read some of the wonderful comments and
Speaker 1: emails were received from everyone, but I have a handful here. First,
Speaker 1: let's hear from j from Arkansas at Ja writes them. Hi,
Speaker 1: Robert and Julie, longtime listening, huge fan of your podcasting blog.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you covering the method of loki uh. This
Speaker 1: of course was discussed in our Memory power eliso UM.
Speaker 1: I have found it unusually helpful and extremely entertaining. I
Speaker 1: can definitely identify with Julie's comment on how the very
Speaker 1: premise of how this method works causes her to conjure
Speaker 1: up dreamlike situations, which of course make them more memorable.
Speaker 1: I am a very visual person and have adopted this
Speaker 1: memory approach almost daily since listening to your podcast. I
Speaker 1: have used it to memorize the original Thirteen Colonies, numerous
Speaker 1: shopping lists, and also to wow friends by memorizing lists
Speaker 1: of twenty plus random words in a very short period
Speaker 1: of time. Most recently, I have used this method to
Speaker 1: memorize all of the U S presidents in order. There
Speaker 1: were definitely some colorful images generated to memorize that list.
Speaker 1: Uh and he gives the example of puke cannon for
Speaker 1: Buchanan and a tea glass that continually refills itself for fillmore.
Speaker 1: Thanks again and keep up a great work. Well, that
Speaker 1: was awesome to hear somebody take the method of Looky
Speaker 1: the Memory Palace and start ramming it into their life
Speaker 1: on a basis. Yeah, I'm still using it myself. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: would you use it for last some appointments that I
Speaker 1: needed to make? Uh? So yeah? Cool? Um. Here is
Speaker 1: another listener email, and this is from Molly. Molly right
Speaker 1: in and says, hey, guys, just finished listening to your
Speaker 1: Space Religion podcast. Interesting. My immediate thoughts when you mentioned
Speaker 1: designing a religion Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Hyland. Granted,
Speaker 1: this is kind of the opposite of what you mentioned
Speaker 1: in this case of Martian who is really human but
Speaker 1: raised as a Martian by Martians, comes to Earth and
Speaker 1: designs a religion. Here excellent book if you haven't read it.
Speaker 1: Interesting thought provoking ideas about the nature and need of
Speaker 1: religion and the nature of humans at any rate. I
Speaker 1: gave the pot guest loved the mentions of my favorite books,
Speaker 1: music movies, for instance, a shout out to Doune in
Speaker 1: this one. Um, and then she also mentioned Robert Anton
Speaker 1: Wilson as being particularly interesting along these lines. Uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have actually not read Stranger in the Strange Line.
Speaker 1: It's it's definitely on the list, but your summer reading
Speaker 1: list maybe I don't know. My reading list is out
Speaker 1: of control. Yeah, I've seen that stack of books in
Speaker 1: your dusk But but no, I was really, uh really
Speaker 1: pleased with some of the feedback we got on this
Speaker 1: because we actually we didn't get any like crazy grumpy
Speaker 1: feedback from I think anyone, like everybody that has something
Speaker 1: to say. It was you all along the lines of oh,
Speaker 1: I think I think you know space and religion means this.
Speaker 1: I think it means that, and several people wrote in
Speaker 1: with the examples of of space religions from science fiction.
Speaker 1: I think somebody on Twitter mentioned the religion that shows
Speaker 1: up in the Warhammer forty thousand universe, which is uh
Speaker 1: a gaming tabletop gaming kind of universe. But there's definitely
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of ideas that are brought
Speaker 1: together in that regarding what a science fiction interplanetary species
Speaker 1: religion would consist of. Um. So it was a pleasure
Speaker 1: to hear all that. Yeah, and I think that we
Speaker 1: are fortunate to have such a thoughtful audience with a
Speaker 1: lot of moxie. I might add moxie mind blowers out there.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read just one quick one here before we close,
Speaker 1: And this is from James responding to our Funnier Dive podcast,
Speaker 1: which we also we receive a lot of cool stuff
Speaker 1: um later later, but that he just wanted to throw
Speaker 1: in some some quick funny words and he said, supple
Speaker 1: pork loin, I love that one and toot. So he
Speaker 1: also said that anything with loin in it is going
Speaker 1: to be pretty funny tender loin loincloth, and and yeah
Speaker 1: it's it's a funny shop, pork shop. Yeah. All right.
Speaker 1: So there you have it. If you have anything you
Speaker 1: would like to add, anything you would like to share
Speaker 1: with us, you can find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Speaker 1: We are Blow the Mind on both of those feet,
Speaker 1: and you can also drop us a line at blow
Speaker 1: the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be sure
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Speaker 1: Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.