Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: That vault door creaks open, doesn't it. This episode originally
Speaker 1: aired janu two, and it's part two of our series
Speaker 1: on Tumbleweeds. I hope you enjoy Welcome to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert
Speaker 1: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And the Flaming tumbleweed has
Speaker 1: rolled right back in. We're ready for part two of
Speaker 1: this series. That's right. If you didn't listen to part one,
Speaker 1: go back, give it a listen, because we get we
Speaker 1: get all into the topic of tumble weeds, talking about
Speaker 1: what what tumbleweeds are? What? What what do we mean
Speaker 1: when we talk about them in the Americans sense, in
Speaker 1: a broader sense, why do they do the tumbling? Uh?
Speaker 1: And so forth. I think it was 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 usually talking about in the American
Speaker 1: context when they say a tumbleweed is a plant known
Speaker 1: as Russian thistle that only arrived in the United States
Speaker 1: probably around the eighteen seventies. And so this is not
Speaker 1: even native to North America. It's something that comes from
Speaker 1: 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 Zuni 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 nineteen sixty five. Uh, and then Tedlock, you know,
Speaker 1: is writing about it and discussing it, and it concerns
Speaker 1: interference by the US military into Zuni affairs. But it
Speaker 1: mentions the tumble weeds in a way that I think
Speaker 1: is rather clever and drives home their invasive and uh,
Speaker 1: their their invasive nature. Here. Quote, there's a spot near
Speaker 1: Neutria 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 touching on the
Speaker 1: foreign invasive nature of both both the the the American
Speaker 1: military presence here and the presence of of Westerners in
Speaker 1: general and the tumbleweed, both things that kind of curse
Speaker 1: the land. In this viewpoint, I was looking around for,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously to find older sort of folklore. It
Speaker 1: takes and cultural takes on tumbleweeds. You have to go
Speaker 1: to the parts of the world where tumbleweeds were originally
Speaker 1: or would have spread to before they had a chance
Speaker 1: to take root in America literally. Um. I was reading
Speaker 1: The Rooster in the Transylvanian Folklore by Ferric POLSONI, and
Speaker 1: in it the author rights on the Transylvanian plane, people
Speaker 1: used to believe that witches would cause aridity by burning
Speaker 1: a stolen rooster feather on the tumbleweed. Oh, this is interesting.
Speaker 1: So the tumbleweed Lord does go back, you know, to
Speaker 1: to pre modernity, but in in the in the Step
Speaker 1: region rather than in North America. Yeah, and so I was.
Speaker 1: I was looking around for more references to it. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's some good ones I missed. So anybody out
Speaker 1: there who's aware of of any folkloric treatments of tumble
Speaker 1: weeds from from any part of the world, right in
Speaker 1: and share them with us. But I found mentions of
Speaker 1: tumbleweeds in Mongolian tradition, namely as the subject of traditional
Speaker 1: Mongolian riddles as Collected and Disgusting in Mongolian Folklore, a
Speaker 1: representative collection from the Oral Tradition Part one, and this
Speaker 1: is by hanging Krueger Service and Rosiecki published in Mongolian Studies,
Speaker 1: and this came out. This is one of those volumes
Speaker 1: that came out like Bridging eight, five and six, so
Speaker 1: they cover both Mongolian folks, sayings and riddles in this paper,
Speaker 1: and this was this is actually a real pleasure to read.
Speaker 1: I know, Joe, you looked at it as well. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's almost like I think I was telling me
Speaker 1: before we recorded, like I kind of want to see
Speaker 1: this bound as its own little paperback edition and uh
Speaker 1: and available for purchase somewhere, because it's just it's full
Speaker 1: of these these fun little Mongolian folks things and then
Speaker 1: ultimately riddles, many of which you know, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: residents with with readers anywhere in the world, right though
Speaker 1: some of which are are completely like going to be
Speaker 1: lost on you if you don't know much about animal
Speaker 1: husbandry or goats or anything. But but other ones, yeah,
Speaker 1: they are very universal and and almost all the sayings
Speaker 1: are great. Uh So the first half of it concerns
Speaker 1: more like proverbs, you know, those kind of sayings that
Speaker 1: that don't they're not like a prompt in the way
Speaker 1: the riddle is uh and and a lot of the
Speaker 1: proverbs are really good. One of them that I'm just
Speaker 1: doing this from memory, but I think it was something like, uh,
Speaker 1: load a donkey up with cargo, load of fool up
Speaker 1: with praise. Yeah, they're so good though, obviously, Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're they're they're emerging from a particular culture in a
Speaker 1: particular region. They speak very much to the environment in
Speaker 1: the cultures of of the Mongolian people here. Um. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, the riddles here they have a lot in
Speaker 1: common with riddle traditions around the world. The authors here
Speaker 1: right quote the heart of the riddle is naturally the
Speaker 1: real or fancied resemblance between two ideas or things, although
Speaker 1: sometimes punning plays a role when the similarity involves two
Speaker 1: or three words which sound alike. So I have a
Speaker 1: I have a couple of riddles here. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna inflict them on you, Joe, and you may be
Speaker 1: able to guess the answer to a couple of them.
Speaker 1: But here's the first one. When it comes from yonder,
Speaker 1: it looks like a camel. When it crawls under the wagon,
Speaker 1: it looks like a goat. Okay, so I know the
Speaker 1: answer to this one, which is that it's a tumble weed.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless I don't get it. I don't understand why
Speaker 1: it 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 that my
Speaker 1: driving experience that I talked about in the last episode,
Speaker 1: I can definitely relate to the idea that the bumbling
Speaker 1: tumbleweed 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. Want sense. I've never run
Speaker 1: over a goat. I don't know why I laughed, would
Speaker 1: be very sad to run over a goat, But for
Speaker 1: some reason that was funny at the time, at the time,
Speaker 1: for ten seconds ago. But but anyway, I do think
Speaker 1: this is one of the ones that is interesting because
Speaker 1: it seems to require some kind of localized knowledge that
Speaker 1: we don't really have. And this is something actually that
Speaker 1: the authors mentioned uh in their introduction to the section
Speaker 1: on Mongolian riddles, they say that, you know, riddles are
Speaker 1: nearly universal and cultures around the world, and it's interesting
Speaker 1: to see what topics are the most common in each
Speaker 1: riddle culture. And so they say, for example, all cultures
Speaker 1: have riddles concerning astronomical phenomenon like the sun and the moon,
Speaker 1: but that when you look at Mongolian riddles in particular,
Speaker 1: they're going to be especially focused on topics like animal husbandry.
Speaker 1: So there will be riddles that that have to do
Speaker 1: with camels and goats and horses and things like that.
Speaker 1: And obviously also localized plants will show up in a
Speaker 1: culture's riddles about nature, and the tumbleweed would be one
Speaker 1: of these. Speaking of WAYI here's another riddle Joe from
Speaker 1: the stuff from this uh this collection. It travels by
Speaker 1: the wind, it stays in the ditch. Now this one
Speaker 1: I get more. Yeah, this is a tumbleweed. And I
Speaker 1: think that the tickling, the brain tickling part of this,
Speaker 1: Maybe that it's playing on your assumption when you say
Speaker 1: it travels by the wind. People are naturally primed to
Speaker 1: think about something other than like a plant or a
Speaker 1: feature of the natural world. Yeah, something that actually lives
Speaker 1: and in in the air, and something that flies in
Speaker 1: the air like a bird. Or you're thinking maybe it's
Speaker 1: gonna be something like song or something, but what does
Speaker 1: it mean It stays in the bitch. I thought of
Speaker 1: a boat. That's a that's a good one too, but no,
Speaker 1: it's the tumbleweed. Which I mean this feels right as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's this thing that is is pretty impressive
Speaker 1: when it really gets going, but it winds in a
Speaker 1: good ditch and it's done for exactly. I mean this
Speaker 1: calls to mind those images we saw last time of
Speaker 1: you know, five hundred tumbleweeds all jammed into a culvert.
Speaker 1: Yeah alright, so Joe, you knew that the answer to
Speaker 1: those riddles was going to be the tumbleweed. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to I wanted to give you a shot. It's
Speaker 1: a non tumble weed Mongolian riddles here. Okay, So these
Speaker 1: I 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, 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 and the witness
Speaker 1: bit means. Maybe just because you so much happens on
Speaker 1: the road, that the road is is kind of all knowing.
Speaker 1: In a sense, it connects to everywhere. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: if these walls could talk, but there are no walls,
Speaker 1: if this road could talk. Yeah, and in in a sense,
Speaker 1: you know, it's yeah, it is everywhere at once that
Speaker 1: this road that I am on is is also in
Speaker 1: this distant city as well as the city I came from.
Speaker 1: And it's with me right here. Interesting. All right, here's
Speaker 1: 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 matchstick. 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 ninete 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 have a shadow. Okay, I
Speaker 1: got that, but okay, and then on a sunless day
Speaker 1: there's just you. There's no shadow. On a moon at 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: I guess the stars are so bright. That's one thing
Speaker 1: I guess we have to consider. I don't know for certain,
Speaker 1: but 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 sort of 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, a little ball that's hiding around
Speaker 1: underneath the carts or jammed under a wheel, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Mongolian listeners right in teach us help us figure this
Speaker 1: one out. By the way, the saying is collected in
Speaker 1: this this this book, or I mean in this paper
Speaker 1: also great. Uh, here's an example one that kept jumping
Speaker 1: out of me every time I sort of skimmed past
Speaker 1: it looking for tumbleweeds, men follow customs, dogs follow bones?
Speaker 1: I like that one. Yeah, that is good. So if
Speaker 1: this implies a parallel in the way that these things
Speaker 1: are followed, would it be that humans go after social
Speaker 1: customs in a kind of driven, hungry, instinctual way. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that is the way we're supposed
Speaker 1: to take this, or does it mean that a dog
Speaker 1: like just follows their gut instinct didn't like, you know,
Speaker 1: follows immediate evidence. But mene have customs that they have
Speaker 1: to follow. Oh yeah, that's it. That could be the contrast.
Speaker 1: But but but I I find your interpretation interesting as well.
Speaker 1: I could I guess I could se it go either way.
Speaker 1: I guess there's no comparative word in there. Doesn't say
Speaker 1: men follow customs like dogs follow bones. Anyway, there are
Speaker 1: more of these and if you're interested, again, it's Mongolian Folklore,
Speaker 1: a representative collection from the oral literary tradition, Part one
Speaker 1: And that's a bit of one J store. So if
Speaker 1: you go to J S t O R dot org
Speaker 1: you can you can access it for free. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you have to sign in, Like I, I
Speaker 1: access it via 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 it's is. A bold net
Speaker 1: can be so thick that you can't even reach your
Speaker 1: arms around it and like, you know, lock your your
Speaker 1: knuckles together. Yeah, thank alright, So we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: leave mongolian Um wisdom aside here for a little bit.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get back to more North American tales of
Speaker 1: the tumbleweed. And so I was just you know, thinking
Speaker 1: at this point you're probably going, well, geez, guys, I
Speaker 1: get the tumbleweeds are bad, and uh, you know that's
Speaker 1: sometimes they're like a camel and sometimes like there a goat. Okay,
Speaker 1: fair enough, but what do they mean for the proliferation
Speaker 1: of radioactive waste? Well, we're glad you ask, because it's
Speaker 1: actually an interesting question. Uh. And one of the things
Speaker 1: I found even more fascinating about it is that they're
Speaker 1: the role that tumbleweeds play in in our treatment of
Speaker 1: radioactive waste can vary greatly depending on like what source
Speaker 1: you're looking at. Well, yeah, and I think the radioactivity
Speaker 1: will play more into the second example we're talking about
Speaker 1: them the first, which might be more clearly classed as
Speaker 1: a case of toxic waste, right, yes, but but both
Speaker 1: have to do with the leavings of of the atomic age. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the atomic ages we've discussed on the show before,
Speaker 1: especially I think the the episode or episodes in question, uh,
Speaker 1: it was titled the Atomic Scar. Uh. The Atomic Ages
Speaker 1: left various scars on the planet, including radioactive waste that
Speaker 1: we have to see laway and figure out how to
Speaker 1: symbolically worn apocalyptic wanders ten thousand years in the future
Speaker 1: that they shouldn't mess with this because it's bad. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we're always looking at for ways to secure it,
Speaker 1: to resecure it, to clean it up, et cetera. Now,
Speaker 1: you might remember another episode we did titled The Tide
Speaker 1: of Gold, and in that we discussed some sort of
Speaker 1: novel gold harvesting schemes and ideas, and we discussed how
Speaker 1: plants can harvest gold from the ground. Basically, the premise
Speaker 1: here is that some plants have the ability to absorb
Speaker 1: minerals through their roots and and uh and and concentrate
Speaker 1: metals such as nickel, uh, cadmium, and zinc. These plants
Speaker 1: are also known as hyper accumulators. There are no natural
Speaker 1: gold hyper accumulators, but there are ways to make it
Speaker 1: possible through soil manipulation. So you like treat the soil
Speaker 1: that contains the gold in a certain way, and you
Speaker 1: can sort of engineer it so that certain plants that
Speaker 1: have this natural ability will actually draw that gold up
Speaker 1: into their roots system. So you can probably see where
Speaker 1: we're going here. Um, remember how we mentioned that tumble
Speaker 1: weed roots can dive twenty feet down into the soil. Well,
Speaker 1: As pointed out by geologist Dana Ulmer Shoal of the
Speaker 1: New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in SoCoRo, reporting
Speaker 1: to the U S Geological Society in two thousand four,
Speaker 1: taboweed plants are actually really good. It's soaking up depleted
Speaker 1: uranium from contaminated soils and weapons testing grounds and battlefields.
Speaker 1: Now this is interesting. I guess we should do a
Speaker 1: little sidebar here on depleted uranium because you might be wondering. Okay,
Speaker 1: depleted uranium, and you you hear that, hear uranium your
Speaker 1: weapons testing grounds, and you might naturally think like, oh,
Speaker 1: nuclear bomb detonation sites, But this is actually talking about
Speaker 1: something different. Uh. So, depleted uranium is often used in
Speaker 1: heavy munitions as as a metal, not as a fissile
Speaker 1: material for a bomb, but as a metal. And it's
Speaker 1: used in these munitions because of its density and armor
Speaker 1: penetrating properties. So it's you know, you can make a
Speaker 1: very dense projectile out of it. I believe it is
Speaker 1: more than half again as dense as leads something. It's
Speaker 1: like sixty something percent more dense than lead is uh
Speaker 1: And that density all so makes it useful for certain
Speaker 1: things in like the aeronautics field. I think I've read
Speaker 1: that it's used sometimes as a counterweight or counterbalance in
Speaker 1: some helicopter rotor blades, but it's also used for plating
Speaker 1: and armored vehicles, again because it's dense so it's more
Speaker 1: likely to stop a projectile, and then also in creating
Speaker 1: shielding against radiation. But as as ammunition in particular, I
Speaker 1: think depleted uranium is used not just because it's dense,
Speaker 1: but because say, when it hits the armor plating of
Speaker 1: a tank to try to penetrate it. It has these
Speaker 1: properties where it tends to kind of fragment in a
Speaker 1: way that that makes the projectile sharper rather than blunt
Speaker 1: r And as it penetrates through the armor plating of
Speaker 1: an armored vehicle, it also tends to ignite and explode
Speaker 1: on the inside. So it has a lot of properties
Speaker 1: that you would want if you were trying to shoot
Speaker 1: through an armored vehicle. Now, to pick up on the
Speaker 1: caveat I was giving earlier about radioactivity, depleted uranium has
Speaker 1: very low levels of radioactivity. It's actually it actually has
Speaker 1: less radioactivity then is typically found in natural uranium. But uranium,
Speaker 1: whether natural or depleted uranium, has significant chemical toxicity. So
Speaker 1: it is clear that it is dangerous to ingest certain
Speaker 1: amounts of it beyond a certain threshold. But at least
Speaker 1: according to some sources, this is not really because of radioactivity. Uh,
Speaker 1: though there might be some continuing controversy about the radiological
Speaker 1: effects in particular. I'll mention a little more about that
Speaker 1: in a minute, um, but I was trying to look up, Okay,
Speaker 1: how does it work well? According to the US Agency
Speaker 1: for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry or the A T. S.
Speaker 1: D R, which is a government agency under the under
Speaker 1: the umbrella of the Health and Human Services Department. UH
Speaker 1: that they put out a fact sheet on the health
Speaker 1: effects of uranium, both known and under investigation, and they
Speaker 1: say that both natural and depleted uranium have that they
Speaker 1: have the same toxic effects within a human body, the
Speaker 1: primary of which is adverse effects to the renal system,
Speaker 1: so the kidneys, so either inhaling or ingesting significant amounts
Speaker 1: of uranium compounds and I think possibly by uh by
Speaker 1: having it enter the body as shrapnel as well. UH.
Speaker 1: This is known to cause damage to the kidneys, and
Speaker 1: there may be some secondary effects as well, but the
Speaker 1: secondary effects are less clear. UM. The more I looked
Speaker 1: into this, the more complicated the picture of the health
Speaker 1: effects of exposure to depleted uranium became. UM. So like
Speaker 1: you'll find a lot of debate that there their questions
Speaker 1: about the exposure of combat veterans and people living in
Speaker 1: war zones who have been exposed to ammunition with depleted
Speaker 1: geranium content. UH. And I did not have time to
Speaker 1: wade into all of that controversy and figure out what
Speaker 1: I thought about it. But I will say, at the
Speaker 1: very least, UH, you do not want your body exposed
Speaker 1: to high levels of depleted uranium. UH, definitely because of
Speaker 1: its known adverse health effects. And then there may be
Speaker 1: other second area effects on top of what is currently
Speaker 1: known as well. But like most things, UH, the the
Speaker 1: toxicity of depleted uranium depends on dosage over time. So
Speaker 1: we're all exposed to tiny amounts of uranium from the
Speaker 1: 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 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 geranium um. One
Speaker 1: of them, for instances, the Indian mustard plant. But as
Speaker 1: this this research points out, one of the things about
Speaker 1: many of these plants is that they thrive in um
Speaker 1: in in wetter soils. What are you gonna do when
Speaker 1: you have something out in a desert, right, Well, that's
Speaker 1: where the tumbleweed comes in. 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 tumbleweed
Speaker 1: is king. And so it's ideally suited for some of
Speaker 1: the desolate places that we find depleted uranium in the
Speaker 1: United States, especially uh in in the West uh in
Speaker 1: the Western States. So the argument here is that this
Speaker 1: could be a safe method as well, because the plants
Speaker 1: do most of the absorption well before they detach. So
Speaker 1: if you were managing the site, if you were, you know,
Speaker 1: planting intentionally the the the tumbleweed plants here, then the
Speaker 1: plants could be harvested and disposed of well before the
Speaker 1: the drawing phase begins, and then ultimately the tumbleweed breaks
Speaker 1: free and is able to roll free exactly. And so
Speaker 1: I thought this was very interesting. I did look around
Speaker 1: for more follow up on this about using tumbleweeds for
Speaker 1: for remediation of heavy metals like deplet to geranium or
Speaker 1: other toxic substances in soils, and I didn't find anything
Speaker 1: much more recent. So so I don't know, uh, if
Speaker 1: for or how much anybody's picked up on this research,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, yeah, well like like we we hinded
Speaker 1: that 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's perhaps still being researched. Um,
Speaker 1: it seems like I saw this more often than not. Oh,
Speaker 1: did we ever find anything else out about what happened
Speaker 1: to that tumbleweed eating machine we talked about in part one? No,
Speaker 1: not yet. But but the as we're recording this the episode,
Speaker 1: how the first episode has not aired, So I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that we'll hear from some New Mexico listeners, like maybe
Speaker 1: maybe there are counties in New Mexico where they had
Speaker 1: one of these or have one still. I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll get some local intel. I did email one
Speaker 1: of the researchers who is involved in the original project
Speaker 1: and the original prototype, but I have not heard back
Speaker 1: from them. And and nor would I be that surprised
Speaker 1: because just some RANDO is reaching out of them out
Speaker 1: of nowhere and ask them about a project that they
Speaker 1: worked on decades ago. Uh. I can understand there 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 tumbleweeds and
Speaker 1: to weapons sites and so forth. Uh. And And this
Speaker 1: 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 with a number of the
Speaker 1: articles that we have end up referring to when this
Speaker 1: come from. But she cited a George Johnson piece in
Speaker 1: National Geographic particularly uh this bit quote. During the early
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, after above ground nuclear testing finally ceased at
Speaker 1: the Nevada test site, the first thing said to grow
Speaker 1: back was Russian thistle. Radioactive south sola has come tumbling
Speaker 1: out of the old Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington, where
Speaker 1: plutonium was manufactured during the Cold War. I half expect
Speaker 1: to hear someday that Russian thistle has been found on
Speaker 1: the Moon. Yeah. And uh, I can't remember if we
Speaker 1: 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. Uh. That's the number of different scientific names
Speaker 1: have been used. Sal solo tregas calli tregas. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this is the salsola sal sola that the author here
Speaker 1: is talking about in this Uh. This net g opiece
Speaker 1: has being 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, barries 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 original article
Speaker 1: where they're talking about this tumble getting in which they
Speaker 1: mentioned quote. The highway is in a flat, wide open
Speaker 1: area close to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which is known
Speaker 1: as one of the sites of the Manhattan project and
Speaker 1: where plutonium was produced to help build the atom bomb.
Speaker 1: And then there's this quote from a Mr thorn Thorson
Speaker 1: that says, quote, some people are calling them nuclear tumbleweeds.
Speaker 1: So that's so that might be jumping to some conclusions here,
Speaker 1: but not not entirely without reason, right right, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: article does not discuss tumbleweeds as radioactive in nature, other
Speaker 1: and including that one little quote. Uh. But um, the
Speaker 1: the Hanford location, as discussed by Elliott Marshall in the
Speaker 1: edition of the journal Science UM has pointed out that
Speaker 1: that this is a location that has had issues with badgers, rabbits,
Speaker 1: ground squirrels, burrowing owls, pocket mice, insects, rabbit brush, and yes, tumbleweeds, uh,
Speaker 1: interfering with with human efforts to sort of leave this
Speaker 1: site alone and undisturbed. Well, yeah, they're literally having breaches
Speaker 1: due to wildlife like failures of nuclear material or high
Speaker 1: level waste containment due to breaches by things like badgers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then things like rabbits with like radioactive rabbit poop
Speaker 1: because rabbits have gotten in there. Yes, here's the quote
Speaker 1: from Marshall, with roots that can grow down twenty feet
Speaker 1: tumbleweeds reached down into waste dumps and take up strontium ninety,
Speaker 1: break off and blow around the dry land, and this
Speaker 1: caused them to worry that the radio ation in the
Speaker 1: tumbleweeds could then be released into the air if these
Speaker 1: weeds were to to do what tumbleweeds sometimes do, collect
Speaker 1: somewhere and then catch fire, or what happens if they
Speaker 1: reach a body of water. Remember that example from the
Speaker 1: last episode talking about a tumbleweed. Uh, this mighty tumbleweed
Speaker 1: rolling into the water and then kind of melting there. Um,
Speaker 1: you know you don't want your your your radioactive shredded
Speaker 1: wheat hitting the milk exactly. Yeah, Okay, So it's it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily actually known that these tumbleweeds from this story
Speaker 1: in January had significant radioactivity levels. But tumbleweeds are one
Speaker 1: of the biological vectors that could potentially breach some types
Speaker 1: of nuclear material containment. Right, that seems to be the case,
Speaker 1: And of course the fact that they then break off
Speaker 1: and blow around afterwards is not helpful, right, And I mean,
Speaker 1: we do have to to acknowledge the fact that there
Speaker 1: are radioactive tumbleweeds. In the video game Fallout New Vegas.
Speaker 1: So I don't know is that true the tumbleweeds? Apparently
Speaker 1: I I played New Vegas and I remember enjoying it,
Speaker 1: but I do not remember the tumbleweeds. I had not
Speaker 1: yet fostered an appreciation for the tumbleweed, so if they
Speaker 1: were there, I forgot them. But I ran across this
Speaker 1: in in my searches. So it seems to be the case.
Speaker 1: Let's say good on them a fall at the what
Speaker 1: what was the team that made that game? They did
Speaker 1: their research? Now, given all we shared about the problems
Speaker 1: posed by invasive tumbleweeds in the United States, it should
Speaker 1: come as no surprise that the U s d A
Speaker 1: has looked into ways of eradicating them, or at least
Speaker 1: significantly reducing their number. Uh and they've some some of
Speaker 1: the ways they've They've they've examined this or rather interesting.
Speaker 1: One method that has been proposed is to take the
Speaker 1: classic approach and and introduce a particular type of MIGHT.
Speaker 1: This is a Syria south soul, which kills the growing
Speaker 1: tips of the plant and stunts it. Supposedly, studies have
Speaker 1: shown that it only targets this particular MIGHT species. It
Speaker 1: only targets a few closely related species to the tumbleweed,
Speaker 1: and all of these species are pest species. Oh, but
Speaker 1: the proposed biological controls do not stop there, that's right.
Speaker 1: They've also looked into Researchers have also looked into using
Speaker 1: two fungi species native to the tumbleweeds original uh you know,
Speaker 1: Russian or Ukrainian environment. This news was making the rounds.
Speaker 1: They've also looked into viral methods of targeting invasive tumbleweeds
Speaker 1: with viruses. The U. S d A was also testing
Speaker 1: viruses developed from two types of dying tumbleweeds and uh
Speaker 1: in Russia and in Hungary, and this was also reported
Speaker 1: in Again just a banner year for tumbleweed research. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where we are with any of these
Speaker 1: different approaches anyway. I mean, that's not too long ago.
Speaker 1: It seems feasible that there still could be some research
Speaker 1: going on there. Um uh, maybe it's a situation where
Speaker 1: the research did fizzle out, or maybe there's just a
Speaker 1: lot of contemplation that has to go into the massive
Speaker 1: introduction of another invasive 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 are. Wait,
Speaker 1: where those crab abs originally from somewhere else as well.
Speaker 1: I don't recall anyway, the crab populations on Christmas Island,
Speaker 1: the glorious flows the ocean, the tide of crabs. They
Speaker 1: were being threatened by these ant populations there that were,
Speaker 1: you know, squirting formic acid into the crabs joints and
Speaker 1: and killing them. I think there were the the yellow
Speaker 1: crazy ants, right, Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: yellow crazy ants. Uh. There were some conservationists who had
Speaker 1: developed a plan to help try to control populations of
Speaker 1: the yellow crazy ants by deploying a predator, a predatory
Speaker 1: micro wasp that would that would cut back on the
Speaker 1: ant colonies there. Uh, and at least last time we
Speaker 1: read about that, it seemed like that was going well
Speaker 1: so far and uh, and had not had any any
Speaker 1: dangerous spillover. But yeah, you always wonder, like you don't
Speaker 1: you know, first order of businesses do no harm. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's always it's always a little risky when you say, well,
Speaker 1: let's introduce a different thing and and just hope that
Speaker 1: it only has this targeted effect that we wanted to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean time was when human beings thought they could
Speaker 1: fix a problem by introducing a new invasive species, they
Speaker 1: would just do it and and that would and and
Speaker 1: a lot of times that would end up resulting in
Speaker 1: a new problem, a new invasive species. So it's it's
Speaker 1: good that, uh, we're being more thoughtful about this because
Speaker 1: ultimately you're 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 or going to be or
Speaker 1: introducing another new thing into it. Oh, but I just recalled.
Speaker 1: I had 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
Speaker 1: backfired and I couldn't call it to mind, but I
Speaker 1: just did. It was the cane toads in Australia that
Speaker 1: were brought in, I think to control b the old
Speaker 1: populations that were threatening agriculture. But then the cane toads
Speaker 1: became a became a huge problem in their own right. Yeah, yeah, there,
Speaker 1: yeah there. There's so many different accounts one can turn
Speaker 1: to where we can move with our our cautionary tales
Speaker 1: in introducing new species to try and fix the problem.
Speaker 1: Uh And and then you know, another aspect of all
Speaker 1: of this too is that this is the things changed,
Speaker 1: the environments shift. UM. For instance, I was looking at
Speaker 1: a University of California riverside study from UM and then
Speaker 1: this was making the case that the quote unquote monster
Speaker 1: tumbleweed species salth solar or ryani was once thought to
Speaker 1: be actually going extinct, but it has since gained ground
Speaker 1: as it apparently remains green into late summer and has
Speaker 1: been increasingly been able to take full advantage of rains
Speaker 1: during that time period. Uh So it's footprint has been
Speaker 1: expanding in recent years. And this is one that grows
Speaker 1: up to six ft tall, so it is a massive tumbleweed.
Speaker 1: But 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 gonna look like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, say ten years down the road, especially when
Speaker 1: we're looking at at at climate change and um and
Speaker 1: and other factors having an impact on the natural environment.
Speaker 1: But but then again, maybe maybe I'm wrong. And like,
Speaker 1: as we're recording this, somewhere on the roads in New Mexico,
Speaker 1: there is a massive snowplow with an enormous um grinder
Speaker 1: on the front of it. And in the back of
Speaker 1: that snowplow there are a whole bunch of mites and
Speaker 1: viruses and fun guy, and it's just making a bee
Speaker 1: line for the tumbleweed. Uh nation. So I don't know, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking now about the six foot tall tumbleweed. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm imagining somebody trying to like get that with
Speaker 1: a pitchfork. How heavy does that get? I know, the
Speaker 1: tumbleweeds are typically very low density, right because they need
Speaker 1: to be able to be blown by the wind. But
Speaker 1: I don't know, once you're six ft wide. You also
Speaker 1: have a lot of surface area to catch the winds,
Speaker 1: so you could probably be pretty heavy and still get
Speaker 1: blown around. Like how hard does it get? We can?
Speaker 1: Can they just get bigger and bigger and bigger? I
Speaker 1: mean they are mostly air. But that being said, I
Speaker 1: if I had to choose between hitting a four ft
Speaker 1: diameter tumbleweed with my rental car or or hitting a
Speaker 1: six foot diameter tumbleweed with my rental car, I'm definitely
Speaker 1: going to sort of towards the four ft uh diameter tumbleweed.
Speaker 1: That being said, again, if you're driving and the tumbleweeds
Speaker 1: come out, you don't swerve, That's where the problems really start.
Speaker 1: I suppose I'm imagining runaway tumbleweed evolution where they you know,
Speaker 1: tin foot tumbleweed, thirty foot tumbleweed, hundred foot tumbleweed, and
Speaker 1: eventually the planet is ruled by gargantuan tumbleweeds. It creates
Speaker 1: their own culture, you know. Coming back to um, you
Speaker 1: know cinematic uses of tumbleweed that we touched on earlier
Speaker 1: on UH, it does seem that that it's the symbol
Speaker 1: the the iconic scene is that lone tumbleweed making its
Speaker 1: way across the screen. Um, I don't think I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: or I don't remember ever seeing a cinematic treatment where
Speaker 1: it is like a whole herd of tumbleweeds. But that
Speaker 1: is the more impressive site, and in a way, it
Speaker 1: would seem to drive home the desolation. Not only is
Speaker 1: this place so desolate, um, that one tumbleweed is coming by,
Speaker 1: it is just taken over all life is tumbleweed here.
Speaker 1: I bet you could make a really good sentient tumbleweeds
Speaker 1: horror movie that. Yeah, well, we we were discussing this
Speaker 1: a little bit um off Mike the other day. I
Speaker 1: wonder to what extent, or any extent, the Critters franchise
Speaker 1: has any connection to Tumbleweeds. I mean, those are films
Speaker 1: that originate out of Texas. Uh, the first one was
Speaker 1: set in Texas. I believe I forgot that, so I
Speaker 1: couldn't find anything just offhand. I didn't go deep and
Speaker 1: start listening to directors, commentaries or anything. But uh, you
Speaker 1: know those those creatures, the crates, they're they're kind of
Speaker 1: like a little tumbleweeds and they rolled together, they joined
Speaker 1: together into big tumbling pods. Um. They're kind of like
Speaker 1: creature and they're invasive other 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, Yeah, you know was in Critters
Speaker 1: to The Critters franchise has as a lot of talent,
Speaker 1: and if you start really looking at some of the
Speaker 1: names involved, especially on the acting end of the spectrum, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's star studded. It's just the one where
Speaker 1: they just like go to a buffet restaurant. Isn't there
Speaker 1: one where they do that? I don't know, Um, the
Speaker 1: Critters movies are. It's one of those ranchises where I
Speaker 1: don't think I've I've ever sat down and just watched
Speaker 1: a full Critters movie. It's just they would come on
Speaker 1: TV a lot back in the day, and so when
Speaker 1: Critters was on, you just watched some Critters and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure you know at what point I was jumping
Speaker 1: in and out of the series. The other day you
Speaker 1: pointed out that there's one Critters movie where they go
Speaker 1: to space, which is a little underwhelming because the Critters
Speaker 1: are from space. There aliens yeah, but it's like it
Speaker 1: makes sense for when Jason goes to space, that's weird.
Speaker 1: You lepre cond in space. Okay, that's weird. But now
Speaker 1: this is like aliens in space. Well, um yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: it's a it's a 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, Critters 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. Well I think they go on
Speaker 1: the Odyssey. Then, right, it's they're trying to return home
Speaker 1: to it Thaca maybe. So all right, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and call it there. Uh, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: the end of our two episode series on tumble Weeds.
Speaker 1: But again, we'd love to hear from everyone out there,
Speaker 1: especially those of you who live in tumbleweed Country, which
Speaker 1: you know, technically if you look at a map includes uh,
Speaker 1: you know most people in the United States. Uh. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, we'd love to hear your your your
Speaker 1: tidbits in your your hear of your experience with the
Speaker 1: mighty tumbleweed, whether it becoming actually like a camel or
Speaker 1: hiding under the card like a goat. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you like to listen to other episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, well, you can listen to us
Speaker 1: in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We
Speaker 1: have core episodes in there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On
Speaker 1: Monday's we do listener mail, On Wednesday we do a
Speaker 1: short form art of act or monster fact episode. And
Speaker 1: on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. That's the time
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Speaker 1: go to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com um,
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Speaker 1: be a link there for merchandise if you want to
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