WEBVTT - Blubber, Part 2 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.120 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:16.480 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:18.919 And I am Joe McCormick. And today on Stuff to 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.759 Blow Your Mind, we are going to begin a couple 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:25.600 of episodes on the subject of blubber. I am surprisingly 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.280 fired up about blubber. I don't know exactly why, but 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:30.520 I'm like acheing to talk about it. 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:31.120 Well. 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:33.200 I think a big part of it is that, if 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.199 nothing else, blubber is just a funny word. It's just 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.120 a funny sounding word. I had to look into it 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.560 a little bit before we proceeded here, apparently stemming from 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:49.640 the late fourteenth century blobber, which describes bubbles, bubbling, or foaming, 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.840 often pointed out like the Middle English for foam, and 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:59.000 this also influences the verb blubber, as in two blubber. 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:03.360 So yeah, at the very least, blubber is just a 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:05.119 funny word to think about and say. 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.679 Does the word blob come from the same root as blubber? 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:09.759 I believe it does. 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:13.480 Wow, So it might not surprise you if you know 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:18.560 anything about marine mammal anatomy. To hear that, I started 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:22.680 thinking about Blubber to cover on the show because we've 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.319 come into the winter months here in the Southeastern United 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.759 States and I have felt that desire again to wrap 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:34.640 myself in coziness, to find barriers against the cold. And 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.440 this of course got me thinking about Blubber, which turned 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.600 my mind once again to one of my favorite weird 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.399 novels to quote and explore on stuff to blow your mind. 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:47.960 That is Herman Melville's Moby Dick. We've talked about passages 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.920 from Moby Dick on the show before, often related to 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:54.400 whale anatomy, but sometimes on other strange subjects. I know 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:56.760 we did a bunch of stuff about Moby Dick when 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.320 I did an episode with Lauren and Annie of of 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.880 the podcast Savor on Ambergris or Ambergrise uh, and we 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.240 talked about Moby Dick when Rob, when you and I 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.919 did some episodes on whale spout on like what exactly 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:12.640 is going on there when you see that you know, 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:15.600 the whale blast, what's coming out? And does it burn 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.799 the skin? Does it poison people? As alleged and Moby Dick. 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.120 I like that you have singled it out as a 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:23.240 weird novel. 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:24.800 Oh, it totally is weird. 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.040 I think it is easy. It's given its its notoriety, 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.359 and you know, everyone has heard of Moby Dick, and 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:32.160 a lot of people have. If you haven't read it, 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.120 you've at least seen a film adaptation of it, hopefully 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:39.560 one of the good ones. You might miss the fact that, yeah, 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:41.400 it is very weird in many regards. 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.320 You know, it's incredibly weird and what i'd say, one 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.480 of the weirdest books that people read in school probably. 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:49.440 Yeah, yeah. 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:49.560 Oh. 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.120 We also talked about it briefly in Wrath of Khan, 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.320 our Weird House cinema episode, because of course it too 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:57.040 takes a hefty shot of Moby Dick. 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.280 Oh, that's right, but of course relating to blubber specifically, 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.000 in chapter sixty eight of Moby Dick, the narrator Ishmael 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:09.000 meditates on the concept of whale skin and whale blubber, 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.600 which he calls the blanket. Now, as we've talked about before, 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.560 the whale facts and Moby Dick are of varying accuracy 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:21.720 when reconciled against modern science. Sometimes they're pretty spot on, 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.400 other times they're way off. Some of the main observations 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:28.600 in this chapter, as we'll discuss are correct, mainly in 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:33.360 that Ishmael observes that the whale's body is surrounded by 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.200 a thick layer of blubber, and that one of the 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.360 blubber's main purposes is related to insulation the retention of 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:42.760 body heat. That's not the only thing that blubber does 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:44.760 in marine mammals, but that's a big part of it. 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.760 It's one of the most important things it does. So 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.280 first he marvels at the incredible size and quantity of 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:53.760 blubber within the whale, which, in the example of a 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.200 single sperm whale that he's talking about, boils down into 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.880 one hundred barrels of oil. He says, one hundred bear 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.800 of oil from a single whale, and that's not even 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:07.000 the entire mass of its outer skin or integument layer. 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.560 And he says that that gives the mind a hint 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:14.920 of the quote enormousness of that animated mass overall. And 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.679 he also observes the texture and the makeup of the blubber, 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:22.680 which is quote something of the consistence of firm, close 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:27.719 grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and ranges 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.359 from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness. 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.000 He also remarks curiously when he's looking at the outer 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.440 skin of the sperm whale. He says that the sperm 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:42.240 whale's skin is quote all over, obliquely crossed and recrossed, 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:46.320 with numberless straight marks in thick array, something like those 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:50.599 in the finest Italian line engravings, which he later also 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:54.680 compares to Egyptian hieroglyphics. He especially makes the connection to 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:59.520 the mysteriousness of the hieroglyphics and the mysteriousness of the 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:02.960 marks the whale's body. I think we now know that 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.080 this is actually a common thing you do see on 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.719 the bodies of sperm whales, that they will have lines 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.039 or sometimes even circular scars over their bodies, which can 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.919 in part come from battles with the squid they hunt, 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.400 can come from running into things, butting, fights with other whales, 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:23.160 all kinds of scrapings and accidents, maybe sat yes, mating, 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:27.400 maybe other contact with fishing equipment or whatever. The whales 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:29.839 can get a lot of scars. And I love thinking 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.400 of these scars on the outside of the sperm whale 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.640 skin as like a mysterious language to be deciphered. 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:36.840 Yeah, I love that. 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.440 But then Finally he comes to marvel at the blubber 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:44.919 as a heat retaining adaptation within the whale, which he 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.760 kind of connects two thoughts about human character. So I'm 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.440 going to read a more extended passage here. Ishmael says, quote, 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.560 it is by reason of this cozy blanketing of his 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.080 body that the whale is enabled to keep himself comfortable 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:03.120 in all weathers, in all seas, times and tides. What 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:06.800 would become of a greenland whale, say, in those shuddering 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:11.080 icy seas of the north, if unsupplied with his cozy surtout. 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:13.960 Surtout is a type of coat from the time. By 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.560 the way, so his cozy surtout true. Other fish are 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.880 found exceedingly brisk in those hyperborean waters. But these, be 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.840 it observed, are your cold blooded, lungless fish, whose very 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:30.479 bellies are refrigerators, creatures that warm themselves under the lee 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.479 of an iceberg, as a traveler in winter would bask 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.760 before an infire, whereas like man, the whale has lungs 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.840 and warm blood freeze his blood and he dies. How 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:46.239 wonderful it is, then, except after explanation, that this great monster, 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.760 to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it is 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.119 to man. How wonderful that he should be found at home, 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:57.120 immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters. 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.400 And then a little later he says, it does seemed 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.080 to me that herein we see the rare virtue of 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:07.880 a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:13.160 and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh man, admire 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:17.080 and model thyself after the whale. Do thou too remain 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.720 warm among ice? Do thou too live in this world 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.240 without being of it? Be cool at the equator, Keep 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.200 thy blood fluid at the pole, like the great dome 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:31.120 of Saint Peter's, and like the great whale. Retain o man, 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:35.440 in all seasons a temperature of thine own beautiful. 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.640 I love it. I especially want to get back to 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:42.280 that immerse to his lips for life in those Arctic waters. 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.320 Later on in this episode, now I mentioned that this 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.400 chapter I was just quoting from is called The Blanket 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.040 Chapter sixty eight. The blanket. The blanket referring to the 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.440 coating of blubber around the whale's body. There is actually 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:56.840 a much earlier part of the story which struck me 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:02.000 as abstractly and yet powerfully can to this chapter, and 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.040 this earlier part is not about whale anatomy at all, 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.800 but about a literal blanket. And it seems also related 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.280 somehow to the seasonal mind state I've been in that 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.120 got me thinking about blubber. So this is chapter eleven, 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:18.720 much earlier. It's called night Gown, and the context in 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.240 the story is that because of overcrowding at a boarding 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.880 house on Nantucket, Ishmael he's just arrived there and he 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.440 has been forced to share a room, and not to 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:30.920 share a room, to share a bed at the boarding 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:35.360 house with the Polynesian harpooneer quek Weeg. And he's initially 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.880 much annoyed by these circumstances, but then after some reflection 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:42.640 and some experiences together, Ishmael comes to not just tolerate, 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.920 but admire and even adore quek Weeg, and they become 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.600 best of friends, in Ishmael's words, a cozy, loving pair 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:54.079 on their honeymoon. So in the Nightgown chapter, Ishmael writes 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:56.160 of sharing a bed in a blanket at the boarding 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:58.480 house with quik Weeg. He says, first they try to sleep, 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.240 then they're not able to sleep. And then finally, he says, quote, 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.520 we became very wakeful, so much so that our recumbent 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.040 position began to grow wearisome. And by little and little 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:12.439 we found ourselves sitting up, the clothes well tucked around us, 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.520 leaning against the headboard, with our fore knees drawn up 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.040 close together, and our two noses bending over them, as 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.480 if our knee pans were warming pans. We felt very 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:25.040 nice and snug, the more so since it was so 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:29.040 chilly out of doors, indeed out of bedclothes too, seeing 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.800 that there was no fire in the room. The more so, 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.920 I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.320 part of you must be cold. For there is no 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.680 quality in this world that is not what it is merely. 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:47.520 By contrast, nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:50.520 that you are all over comfortable, and you have been 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.000 so a long time, then you cannot be said to 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.840 be comfortable anymore. But if, like Queequeg and me in 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.319 the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:02.760 of your head slightly chilled, why then indeed, in the 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:07.480 general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.360 this reason, a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.840 a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.080 the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.480 is to have nothing but the blanket between you and 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.080 your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.320 there you lie, like the one warm spark in the 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:28.920 heart of an arctic crystal. 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:32.959 Beautiful? Beautiful. Do you think that the two characters were 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.440 talking about any of this as they said in bed? Oh? 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:38.720 Maybe, I don't know. I don't remember at this point 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.959 in the story how extensively the two characters are communicating 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.280 across it. I don't remember what to what extent. There's 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:46.280 a language barrier at the beginning of their friendship. 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.040 Yeah, it could have been said, if I could have 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.240 just said, Hey, isn't this delicious? I'm glad we don't 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:51.720 have a fire. 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:54.840 Yeah, But no, I think there really is something to 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.880 that that there is a way that it is much 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.839 cozier to be warm under a blanket in a cold 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:04.199 room then to be under a blanket in a warm room. 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:05.840 I mean, in a way that's almost obvious. 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.760 But yeah, No, I'm a big blanket fan. If it's 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.079 too hot, I'm a little bit sad that I don't 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:15.120 get to cover up with blankets more. Yeah, and then 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:17.200 when it's too cold, I'm just sad in general. So 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:19.760 the one warm stark, Yeah, I know what he's getting 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:20.160 at here. 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.080 But I thought that this was beautiful and insightful, and 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:26.880 to some extent it makes me think also of the 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.800 anatomy of the whale, thinking of the whale's body as 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.559 a blanket, the idea of creatures that carry their blanket 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.640 with them into the icy waters. And if you apply 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.400 the same reasoning, you know, as we'll discuss in the 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.640 anatomy of the whale, the whale is not coated in 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:46.200 every single part of its body by the blubber. So 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:48.400 I wonder what the sensation of the whale is. You know, 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:51.160 it has blubber mostly all around its body, but maybe 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.040 not fully in the flippers or something. So does it 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:57.720 have those little exposures to the iciness around it? What 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.000 does it feel like to the whale? Does the whale 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.000 have that sensation in the cold it feels with the 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.600 flippers or some little parts of its body of the 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.000 one warm spark in the heart of an Arctic crystal, 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.400 except it doesn't have to wrap itself in the blanket. 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:11.959 The blanket is under its skin. 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:14.720 That's a great question. Yeah, I mean, another thing about 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.920 blubbers we'll discuss is that blubber is not uniform thickness 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.000 over the entire body of the whale. It's going to 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.360 vary in thickness depending on where you're looking at. So 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.360 I know it's a human thing, I guess, But anytime 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.480 I see a creature that has evolved to thrive in 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:31.640 the cold corners of the world, it doesn't depend on 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:35.199 its technology to do so. Like humans, I always just 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:37.680 kind of, on some like non thinking level, assume that 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.360 they're just really called and miserable all the time. But 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.439 of course that would be it'd be that's rather unreasonable 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:43.680 with me. 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:46.840 Yeah, I wonder if that's the equivalent of a tropical 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.320 lizard looking at us, being at you know, seventy two 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:51.880 degrees in the shade, and thinking we must be miserable. 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:52.240 Yeah. 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:54.560 So anyway, and the rest of the series, we're going 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:59.040 to be exploring blubber as biology and also some things 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:00.640 about blubber in hue and culture. 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:04.120 Yeah, most of that will probably be in the second episode. Yes, 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.200 this episode will be more about what blubber is and 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.040 what it is to a specific whale species. 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:11.600 Yeah, what it is and what it is not. 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:12.280 Yes. 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.960 So the best source I found rob in providing a 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.520 scientific overview of blubber is actually an extensive, in depth 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:23.480 entry in the Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals from two thousand 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.880 and nine from Academic Press. This article is by a 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.679 well known marine biologist named Sarah J. Iverson, who is 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:34.880 affiliated with Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. So I thought 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.480 maybe we could start off by going through this entry 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.480 talking about some of the points that Iverson raises and 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:43.640 branch out for discussion at various places as we go along. 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:48.280 All right, so what is blubber. Blubber is fat, yes, 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:51.240 but it is not just fat. It is not just 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.400 like the adapose tissue of other mammals in the world. 0:13:55.840 --> 0:14:00.880 Blubber is, in Iverson's words, a quote dense, vasculared layer 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.480 of fat beneath the skin. So it is a special 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:08.360 type of fat tissue that is a characteristic trait of 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.280 marine mammals. It is found only in the mammals of 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.640 the sea. There are not really fully land dwelling animals 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:20.720 that have blubber, so all cetaceans meaning whales, porpoises and dolphins, 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:26.200 all cyrenians like manatees and dugongs, and all pinnipeds meaning 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:30.800 seals have blubber. Iverson notes a couple of exceptions of 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.960 marine or semimarine mammals. Things you might think of as 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:38.200 marine mammals or semimarine mammals that don't have blubber. Polar 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:42.280 bears and sea otters don't have blubber strictly defined, though 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.520 obviously they do have and rely on fat. Polar bears 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:49.480 tend to store a lot of subcutaneous fat, which is 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:51.800 used to insulate the body, but it doesn't have the 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:56.520 special structural and chemical features found in blubber. It's more 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.680 like regular terrestrial carnivore fat, but they do keep a 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:01.760 lot of on their body when they can to help 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:07.840 stay warm. Blubber is an incredibly important adaptation for marine mammals. 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.320 It makes marine mammal life possible, and in some species, 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.480 at particular stages of life or times of the year, 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.280 blubber can make up fifty percent of the animal's total 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.160 body mass. So you know some whales you meet are 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.960 half blubber. In part, blubber serves the same purpose as 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:30.120 fat in other organisms, so it stores food food energy 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.160 that can later be burned to support the body's energy 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.320 needs when food is scarce. But it also does other 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:42.160 important things for marine mammals. Most importantly, probably blubber is insulation. 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:46.520 It protects marine mammals body heat against the often extreme 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.880 cold of their watery environments, and it does so in 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.800 particular interesting and dynamic ways. We'll talk about that more 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.600 as we go on, but blubber also aids in buoyancy 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:02.360 and has interesting functions in help with locomotion, maybe in 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.120 some cases streamlining the body in the water, in other 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:07.640 cases even serving as a kind of spring. We can 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.760 talk more about that later. And also you can learn 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.840 a lot about a marine mammal by looking at its blubber. 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.040 At the species level, you can learn about its evolutionary 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:21.000 history and environmental specialization, and at the individual level, you 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:22.960 can learn a lot of things about like what this 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.480 animal has been eating and where it's been foraging by 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:27.440 looking at its blubber. 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.120 Yeah, and another factor that I think we already kind 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.560 of alluded to in terms of like the scarring on 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:37.400 a whale is that blubber does provide some level of protection, 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.760 some level of armor, which can can seem a little 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.120 counterintuitive at first, because we think of an animal's armor, 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:47.200 we think of hard armor. We think of hard, unfeeling 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:52.400 protection between the organism and its many threats, And obviously 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.440 blubber is not quite a hard shell. But on the 0:16:56.480 --> 0:17:00.920 other hand, it can sustain a fair amount of damage 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.639 from an animal's environment, so it does have to a 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.119 limited degree some sort of an armor role here as well. 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.040 Yeah, and even in non marine mammals, there are cases 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:15.119 where fat plays an important role in protective cushioning, you 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.040 might say, even if it's not like, you know, not 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.000 like plate armor, but it does play a protective role 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:34.800 in some types of cushioning basically patting. So getting into 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:39.800 the structure of blubber. Blubber is subcutaneous fat, meaning that 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.600 it's stored around the outside of the body, just under 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.119 the skin. And this is in contrast to visceral fat, 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.760 which is stored deeper in the body cavity surrounding the organs. 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:55.719 Blubber sits just under the skin, kind of loosely enveloping 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.840 the underlying layer of muscles. And as I mentioned, blub 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.959 is not just fat. It is this special type of 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.440 fat tissue which is shaped by evolution for a very 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:13.399 special purpose, primarily that of a dynamic thermal insulator. So 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:18.240 in most marine mammals, the blubber layer is a continuous 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:22.600 covering for almost the entire body, with some exceptions like 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:26.239 the appendages. Often the flippers won't have blubber. Though it 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.000 does tend to cover the whole body, it doesn't cover 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:33.840 it evenly everywhere, so the thickness and structure of the 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:37.320 blubber layer differ on different parts of the body for 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:38.960 reasons we'll probably get into later. 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:39.920 Now. 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.159 While blubber is not just regular fat tissue, it is 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:47.720 still basically fat tissue. It's similar to regular fat, also 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:51.680 known as adipose tissue, in that it is made mainly 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:57.360 of fat cells called adipocytes. Atopocytes are energy storage cells 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:01.240 that first form in an immature ste age without fat 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:05.000 or without much fat stored in them. They're initially mostly 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.960 protein and water, and then as the animal is able 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.840 to take in more food energy than needed to sustain 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:15.880 its metabolism, the extra energy is stored as lipid molecules. 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:20.400 In the now mature fat cell as atiposites accumulate these 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:24.159 liquid droplets for storage. They swell up in size, so 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:28.280 adipocytes are very stretchable cells. Their cells that can grow 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.840 and shrink as needed. When they fill up with fat, 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.239 they stretch and grow. When fat stores are depleted, they 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:36.080 can shrink back down to size. 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.320 Yeah. Humans, as humans, we tend to have a very 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.000 toxic relationship just with the word fat, almost to the 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:49.080 point where it colors or creates a barrier to understanding 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.399 its necessity for an organism, or or at least that's 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:54.960 the way I have often been found in anytime I'm 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.760 reading about like the actual purposes of fat, fatty tissue, 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:00.480 I'm like, oh, of course this is actually super important. 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:04.199 But we're often just coded to, you know, buy the 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:06.440 media and culture to have to feel a certain way 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.840 about even the idea of a fat in our body. 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.280 Yeah, I guess I can see that. Well, I would 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.280 encourage you out there to try to break that shackle 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.000 in your brain, like not to associate, you know, any 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.560 kind of negative cultural ideas or whatever with the idea 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:24.359 of fat biology. Like, fat is really interesting tissue and 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:27.760 it's really important, you know, it's almost I would almost 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:31.000 say it's like the biological equivalent of wealth in a way. 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:33.560 It's like, you know, something that can be accumulated to 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:37.920 be used later and serves important purposes along the way. 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.399 So these fat cells, they can they can grow and 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:47.359 shrink as needed, and in most atipos tissue, these fat 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.200 cells are packed densely together and held together by what's 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:55.480 called an extracellular matrix, a kind of honeycomb mesh or 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:59.440 three D net made out of things like collagen fibers. 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:05.040 Collagen is the structural protein found in animal skin and 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.040 in connective tissues. A lot of cooks will be familiar 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:11.800 with collagen because structural collagen is a major part of 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:16.480 what makes certain cuts of meat tough, Like tough muscles 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:19.480 usually have a lot of collagen connective tissue in them, 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:22.239 and so these are the cuts that typically you have 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:24.320 to slow cook. You want to cook for a long time, 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:28.080 maybe with moist heat, and that type of treatment tends 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.600 to turn these tough cuts of meat with a lot 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.640 of collagen tender. It makes them tender because the collagen 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:37.080 breaks down and turns into gelatin, giving the final product 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:41.800 a soft texture. This is part of what sets blubber apart. 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:48.840 Blubber has significantly more of this structural material than most 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:53.720 adipose tissue in the animal kingdom, more collagen, more elastic fiber. 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:56.320 And for this reason you can kind of think back 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:59.800 to the description in Moby Dick of the blubber as saying, 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:02.920 you know, it's kind of like firm, close grained beef, 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:07.000 but he describes it also as tougher, as elastic and compact. 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:11.600 There's something dense and springy about it. It's just it's 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:14.320 tough stuff. And I think a lot of this probably 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:19.080 comes from this extra collagen and elastic content. I expect 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:20.960 we'll get more into this in part two when we 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:23.479 talk about blubber as a food item, which it is, 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.679 especially for people living in the polar regions. But I 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:30.960 would suspect because of this extra collagen and structural fiber 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.080 that blubber is a good bit chewier and tougher than 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.480 most animal fat. Maybe we'll have to revisit that next time. 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.919 Yeah, but certainly in the meantime, for any of you 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:44.919 out there who have personal culinary experience with blubber, go 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:45.720