Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant
Speaker 1: that makes this Stuff you should Know Express Edition, Monday
Speaker 1: Morning Edition. It's the Chilies to Go Edition. I think
Speaker 1: Monday mornings are my favorite time to record. Really, what
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? It's the worst of the worst.
Speaker 1: So you were lying? That was lying? I got you.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, before we get into this, can we give
Speaker 1: a quick Kiva shout out? We totally should. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Glenn for emailing us to be like, hey, busy movie
Speaker 1: star guys. We we need you to pay attention to
Speaker 1: Glenn and the Glen and Sonia's Yes, Hey guys, So Chuck,
Speaker 1: we have reached the seven hundred thousand dollar mark in
Speaker 1: loans from our stuff. You should know. Kiva to k
Speaker 1: i v a dot org slash team slash stuff you
Speaker 1: should know. It's a It's a micro lending organization where
Speaker 1: you loan in increments of five bucks to um people
Speaker 1: who use it to basically keep their businesses going. Start
Speaker 1: a new business by inventory whatever and it's basically um
Speaker 1: global piece through capitalism. It's Nito torpedo and we support it.
Speaker 1: And not only that, not only did we hit the
Speaker 1: seven hundred thousand dollar mark, um, we just celebrated our
Speaker 1: second anniversary. We did in like two years. That is nuts.
Speaker 1: So we're on track. From Glenna's the the uber math
Speaker 1: genius of this heading this up, I think he says
Speaker 1: we're on track to hit our three quarters of a
Speaker 1: middle goal in like mid November, and are the original
Speaker 1: goal was to hit it by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the juggernaut that is Team s y S
Speaker 1: k On Kiva rolls on. So can you tell that
Speaker 1: to you guys? Eight hundred thousand everybody a million bucks?
Speaker 1: I can't even wt my mind around that. Do you
Speaker 1: remember how all this started? Yeah, that's a simple a
Speaker 1: simple podcast. So a way to go. Everybody on our
Speaker 1: KEYVA team and we're not exclusive. Our Kiva team is
Speaker 1: very open and friendly. Again, if you want a good joint,
Speaker 1: it's k I v A dot org slash team slash
Speaker 1: stuff you should know right all right back to denial, Okay,
Speaker 1: so denial, Chuck, Yes, have you ever heard of an
Speaker 1: ancient man eating crocodile named Gustav. Yeah. Man, I watched
Speaker 1: the video on him, did you. He is enormous and scary.
Speaker 1: He's pretty creepy looking. So for those of you who
Speaker 1: aren't in the know, like Chuck, let me tell you
Speaker 1: a little bit about Gustaf. He's what twenty ft long,
Speaker 1: Chuck six? Okay, he weighs a ton, he does way ton,
Speaker 1: which is what more than two thousand pounds these days,
Speaker 1: isn't it? It's a ton? Uh. And he's about sixty
Speaker 1: years old, they think, which is pretty substantial because wild crocodiles,
Speaker 1: he's a now crocodile. Wild crocodiles lived too, about forty five.
Speaker 1: I think it's the seventy now. Actually, yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: because he was about sixteen two four. So yeah, he's
Speaker 1: pushing seventy and he is very old. And he also
Speaker 1: has a real taste for humans. Yeah, I think some.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of that is true. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of legend built up to though. Well.
Speaker 1: They there's this guy, this hunter, um of him. His
Speaker 1: last name is Fate. What's his first name, Chuck? No,
Speaker 1: his his first name is Um Patrese Faye. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was the documentary that I watched when he tried to
Speaker 1: catch him. He seems to be something of a controversial
Speaker 1: figure and he's a bit of a captain ahab and
Speaker 1: Gustaf is his quick quake, yes at least um and uh. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that the point is, I would say I think about
Speaker 1: three hundred people are attributed to dying to Gustav. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and one some legend has it that he sometimes won't
Speaker 1: even eat you, he'll just kill you, which makes me think,
Speaker 1: you know, that's probably not true, right, he kills for
Speaker 1: sport or something exactly. So goose Off has been on
Speaker 1: the loosen Burundi for a long time, and he is
Speaker 1: a now crocodile and he's in Burundi because the Nile
Speaker 1: actually flows partially through Burundi, which is the whole reason
Speaker 1: I brought up Goosetad in the first place. It's a
Speaker 1: great way to start. It was, Okay, you know much
Speaker 1: about the Nile, A little bit. I know a thing
Speaker 1: or two. It is just a river in Egypt, but
Speaker 1: it's not just in Egypt. So if you have a
Speaker 1: problem with the title stuff emailing, because we know what
Speaker 1: we're talking about. It's in technically, if you want to know,
Speaker 1: it's in Uganda, Sudan, Egypt, Zaire, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia,
Speaker 1: and the aforementioned Burundi. Yes, and throughout all those countries. Um.
Speaker 1: But now it gets fairly wide. I think it's up
Speaker 1: to tin kilometers wide at its widest point. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: good to know. But ten kilometers that's that's a substantial
Speaker 1: width for a river, right. Um, it's over five miles wide,
Speaker 1: so um, and which is kind of wide. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, for flowing through ten countries, it's still
Speaker 1: fairly narrow compared to its length. Yet about three hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy million people depend on the Nile to survive
Speaker 1: and have for a long time, not that many people,
Speaker 1: a very long time as a matter of fact. Um.
Speaker 1: In Ethiopia, where one of the Nile's headwaters are the
Speaker 1: the it's considered the cradle of the Cush people, which
Speaker 1: are which is the black race, I guess, um, and
Speaker 1: possibly the human race is the cradle of the human race.
Speaker 1: But don't tell the Arian brotherhood because they will be mad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: get mad about everything. Yeah, they do. Josh, to tell
Speaker 1: us some more about the Nils, like there's some amazing facts.
Speaker 1: It is a river, but it's an amazing river, and
Speaker 1: it's not even the longest river, is it. Now? The
Speaker 1: Amazon generally is quoted as a little bit longer by
Speaker 1: I think they said the most recent expedition. Uh, they
Speaker 1: found out and they used advanced mapping equipment, which is advanced.
Speaker 1: That the Niles about four hundred I'm sorry, four thousand,
Speaker 1: one seventy five miles long, nineteen kilometers and the Amazon
Speaker 1: clock sit and we're gonna do an Amazon show too
Speaker 1: at so it's about sixty five miles longer. And that's
Speaker 1: I think that the New Nile, as we'll call it,
Speaker 1: includes the new headwaters south of Lake Victoria. Is that
Speaker 1: what they determined because he used to say it was
Speaker 1: originated in Lake Victoria? Yeah? There, Now it's south a
Speaker 1: little bit right. There was a guy that was controversial.
Speaker 1: Um when when the guy came up? But there was
Speaker 1: a guy named John Hanning speck or speak, and he
Speaker 1: was an English explorer who lived to eighteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: Before his death, he went on an expedition to Africa
Speaker 1: and went off by himself. He got his co expedition
Speaker 1: leader got injured, so he went off by himself and
Speaker 1: found I don't think it was good father, um. And
Speaker 1: he found Lake Victoria and said, well, this is guy
Speaker 1: to be the Nile and lake must be the headwaters.
Speaker 1: And there was this big public debate over whether it
Speaker 1: was real or not, and um between the guy who
Speaker 1: was injured and not on the expedition and Speak, and
Speaker 1: so finally Speak was like playing, you know what, let's
Speaker 1: go back. So we went back and they found the
Speaker 1: place where the Nile exits Lake Victoria. So Lake Victoria
Speaker 1: has traditionally been the source of the Nile, but they
Speaker 1: found that actually, no, there's some headwaters somewhere in some
Speaker 1: forests in Rwanda. And you say that it's south of
Speaker 1: Lake Victoria, which is crazy, chuck, because that means that
Speaker 1: the Nile flows south to north. Yeah. I remember when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I thought that was so strange
Speaker 1: because I thought south meant lower and it's just not
Speaker 1: the case. In Africa. The low Land, I'm sorry, the
Speaker 1: highland is south, and so it just flows towards the
Speaker 1: equator with gravity like it should towards the equator. Never
Speaker 1: had of cavity, not just not one. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: the the that is kind of big news though, that
Speaker 1: the head water is the source of the nile. Um
Speaker 1: it has changed that. It's I like how it's somewhere
Speaker 1: deep in a forest in Rwanda. That's pretty cool. That's
Speaker 1: fairly mysterious. So it still has a mysterious origin. It's
Speaker 1: always had this kind of mysterious dark Africa vibe to it.
Speaker 1: The nile has. So, Josh, let's talk about the tributaries.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna talk about the nile, you got to
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that there's the White Nile and
Speaker 1: there's the Blue Nile. The white is the the newest
Speaker 1: source south of Lake Victoria. Is is the White Nile
Speaker 1: easiest to navigate. It's the longer section but actually has
Speaker 1: less water feeds less water. So we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: how the nile like raises and lowers in a little bit.
Speaker 1: But it's the white Nile that's responsible for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's Uh. It's lightish gray in color for the sediment,
Speaker 1: which is why they called the white Nile. The Blue
Speaker 1: Nile is very sparkly blue in its origins and the
Speaker 1: Ethiopian mountains, and UH provides about two thirds of the
Speaker 1: water to the river. And then it turns darker as
Speaker 1: it goes in the Sudan, things get dark. The Blue Nile,
Speaker 1: yeah Um, and the there's also another tributary that's that's
Speaker 1: the two largest tributaries, the Blue Nile in the White. Now.
Speaker 1: I also found out that after the nile exits a
Speaker 1: lake like it comes out of Lake Victoria. That's called
Speaker 1: the Victoria Nile. Then it gets the Lake Albert, Victoria's
Speaker 1: lover boy, and then after it exits that it's the
Speaker 1: Albert Nile. So that it's named kind of based on
Speaker 1: where it isn't any given part in time. But the
Speaker 1: other the third major tributary that at Bara River Um,
Speaker 1: which comes out of the eastern portion of Sudan, is
Speaker 1: actually Um. They think it's the original source of the
Speaker 1: nile thirty and now is about thirty million years old
Speaker 1: from the Tertiary period. But they think that that was
Speaker 1: the original source, and other rivers started coming out and
Speaker 1: joining together and now it forms the huge, massive nile. Well,
Speaker 1: it goes to a lot of twists and turns on
Speaker 1: the way, and we'll talk about a couple those, but
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and just tell you the ending. Now
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, it splits again in Egypt into the Damietta,
Speaker 1: which is on the east side or is that on
Speaker 1: the west. Damia is on the west the east, Damiette
Speaker 1: is on the east, Rosetta is on the west. I
Speaker 1: had it right to begin with. I had it right
Speaker 1: one of those times and that uh, and then you
Speaker 1: know it splits in the two main things. But it's
Speaker 1: really a fan of many, many little fingers that all
Speaker 1: spill out into the Mediterraneans. But did you notice what
Speaker 1: those two things were called, the Damietta and the Rosetta.
Speaker 1: They were called distributaries, right, You have tributaries coming in,
Speaker 1: distributaries distribute. Yeah, that's where the word distribute comes from.
Speaker 1: That was what's sad is. I was like, wow, there's
Speaker 1: the fact of the puk. That was it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like all the canal stuff do Yeah. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: it's not the fact, but I just thought that was
Speaker 1: the coolest stuff. How they made it work for them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So as the niles flowing from south to north, it's pretty,
Speaker 1: it's pretty. I mean it's wide, it flows, but I
Speaker 1: mean like it's not You're not gonna get thrown out
Speaker 1: of a kayak on it until you get to as one. Right,
Speaker 1: Once you get to as One. There's six cataracts after
Speaker 1: that between as One and the Nile Delta. And these
Speaker 1: cataracts are basically rapids. I wonder how like really really
Speaker 1: navigable the boat, Like, okay, you gotta get out and
Speaker 1: put your boat on a trailer and drive around and
Speaker 1: then get back in. What do you call that unnavigable?
Speaker 1: Navigable word for that when you have to to pull
Speaker 1: your canoe out and do some walking besides sucks? Yeah, bummer,
Speaker 1: I'm just Monday morning, Friday afternoon. I would have that
Speaker 1: word at my ready. I'm sure that, um, people have
Speaker 1: hit these rapids before. But I mean you're talking not
Speaker 1: just this isn't you know, like a normal river creek.
Speaker 1: This is the Nile hitting rapids. So there's six of
Speaker 1: those and then you get to um the delta and
Speaker 1: then calms down again. Um, it's the longest kiss in history.
Speaker 1: That's what they call it the Arab poets. Isn't it nice?
Speaker 1: That is nice? Like when they meet that's the kiss
Speaker 1: huh and at Khartoum. Yeah, that is very nice. I
Speaker 1: thought that was very poetic, which is I guess why
Speaker 1: poets wrote it, right, Okay, So um, you want to
Speaker 1: hear a little more, a few more stats. I actually
Speaker 1: have a couple of stats. Let's hear it, just a
Speaker 1: couple more things. If you live on the Nile and
Speaker 1: you're a member of a certain ethnic group, a few
Speaker 1: ethnic groups, especially in Sudan, you're described as nihilotic, like Caucasian,
Speaker 1: you're nihilotic. Um. If you were to measure the amount
Speaker 1: of water that passes down the Nile every day at
Speaker 1: its peak, you would come up with seventy nine billion,
Speaker 1: two d fifty one million, six hundred fifteen thousand, three
Speaker 1: hundred seventy two US gallons, which is three hundred million
Speaker 1: cubic meters of water every day. And if you wanted
Speaker 1: to get to the root of the name of the Nile,
Speaker 1: Nelios is Greek for are you ready for this river valley?
Speaker 1: It's a disappointed. It was a little disappointed. I thought
Speaker 1: so too. Sometimes it just makes too much sense. So, um,
Speaker 1: there's a certain culture of people that grew up along
Speaker 1: the Nile. We mentioned the Kush people from Ethiopia. Um,
Speaker 1: But they get a lot less press than their neighbors
Speaker 1: to the to the west, the ancient Egyptians. Yes, this
Speaker 1: is after the Great Bend north of the Great Bend.
Speaker 1: We left out the Great Bend. Well, the Great Bend
Speaker 1: is interesting because it literally runs east to west for
Speaker 1: a little while, then bends back and runs the other way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's going just due north and then it cuts It's
Speaker 1: pretty switch back. You would call that if you were
Speaker 1: a hiker. Yeah. And they they found out finally, like
Speaker 1: this is perplexed people who um navigated the river and
Speaker 1: mapped it and they're like, what the what is this?
Speaker 1: Stinds this because it actually does it in one of
Speaker 1: the driest points of Earth on Earth. Um, the whole
Speaker 1: area around it is dry. To that's worth pointing out
Speaker 1: is it's in the middle of some serious, serious sand. Well,
Speaker 1: it depends on what part you're at. It goes through
Speaker 1: a lot of different clients, but when it hits the
Speaker 1: Great Band, it's like in the middle of the Sahara
Speaker 1: Desert and it should just keep going north, but it didn't.
Speaker 1: So they found in I think through um through satellite photos,
Speaker 1: they found that there's this ancient river bed that it
Speaker 1: did used to go straight and something happened. They they
Speaker 1: estimate between ten thousand and one million years ago something happened.
Speaker 1: Uh and now it takes this bend. No one knows
Speaker 1: what that. It just ain't the same sense then though. Wow. Interesting.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it was superstitious in nature, if like
Speaker 1: some person stood and said halt to the Nile and
Speaker 1: it went around him. I don't think so. I think
Speaker 1: it was the other way around. I think the Nile
Speaker 1: just is kind of like, we're your boss. So I
Speaker 1: mentioned that a lot of the northern part, especially in Egypt,
Speaker 1: is in the middle of serious sand, and that sand
Speaker 1: is what protected the Nile in the Nile River basin
Speaker 1: and the people there because it was you know, you
Speaker 1: couldn't just like walk over there and attack them. You
Speaker 1: were lucky to make it through the desert to get
Speaker 1: to the Nile. It served as a natural protection plan.
Speaker 1: That's I didn't realize that. Yeah. Um, so you you
Speaker 1: know about ancient Egypt. Of course there were several kingdoms,
Speaker 1: each of which collapsed. UM. Very advanced people. So they
Speaker 1: were one of the cool things. We we talked about
Speaker 1: the Nile rising and falling every year. UM. The blue
Speaker 1: Niles steady, slow and steady coming out of the Ethiopian highlands. UM.
Speaker 1: And it's the white now coming out of Rwanda. And
Speaker 1: through Lake Victoria, UM and through Sudan UH that that
Speaker 1: is subject to fluctuations because there's heavy rainfall, and Rwanda
Speaker 1: there's also I saw a heavy rain in the Ethiopian
Speaker 1: highlands too, though there is but for some reason, the
Speaker 1: Nile stays steady. The Blue Nile coming out of Ethiopia
Speaker 1: stays steady. And snow melting too was another big reason.
Speaker 1: So I think what it is Maybe Africa rains on
Speaker 1: one during one part of the year, and then the
Speaker 1: snowmel happens in another, and it equals basically just an
Speaker 1: equal volume coming out. So in UH on the White
Speaker 1: Nile it's subject to a wild fluctuation and UM it
Speaker 1: drops down, it raises up to twenty feet at its
Speaker 1: highest point. And the ancient Egyptians, UM, we're pretty smart
Speaker 1: about capturing this stuff. They could capture the water and
Speaker 1: canals and basins so much so that they would have
Speaker 1: all the water they needed for next year's crops. All
Speaker 1: let me say that again, they could capture all the
Speaker 1: water they needed for next year's crops through the nile.
Speaker 1: That's right, Uh. Specifically, John, the river is at its
Speaker 1: lowest in May, it's at its highest in September. So
Speaker 1: between May and September. Uh, there's something called the rise,
Speaker 1: which is the uh inundation, and then there's the fall,
Speaker 1: which is the relinquishment. Happens around October's when it starts
Speaker 1: to fall. And during that that time where it rises
Speaker 1: so much, like you said, they would capture this water.
Speaker 1: It would flood the sand there and when it receded,
Speaker 1: it would leave this mud. This's awesome rich fertile silt.
Speaker 1: They would dry that out for about a week and
Speaker 1: then they would start a plant. That's why the um
Speaker 1: the nile delta is so lush. It's that annual you know,
Speaker 1: bringing of the silt. That's dude. This that changed the
Speaker 1: history of the world and definitely Africa. And apparently the
Speaker 1: silt is between fifty and hundred feet deep and it's
Speaker 1: just this black, rich, nutrient rich soil that you could
Speaker 1: take rocks in. Yeah. Um yeah, but still I know
Speaker 1: what you meant, um and uh yeah, like you said,
Speaker 1: it changed the history of the world. And um there
Speaker 1: was problematic is it was a gift as well as
Speaker 1: a curse because it would not only um bring the silt,
Speaker 1: sometimes it would bring way too much water. It would
Speaker 1: ruin it would come in at the wrong time and
Speaker 1: they couldn't harvest fast enough. But the Nile giveth, it
Speaker 1: taketh away, right exactly, So to prevent the flooding and
Speaker 1: to allow for more settlement because you know, you need
Speaker 1: to pack people in there. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: the Nile is one of the most densely populated areas
Speaker 1: on Earth, right. Yeah, there's a stat here somewhere. I
Speaker 1: think it's like thirty eight people per square mile, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is um, Yes, that's dense, my friend, is very dense.
Speaker 1: And it was always that dense or not that dense,
Speaker 1: but it's always been very dense with people because that
Speaker 1: was the life, the life blood, as they say. So
Speaker 1: when you have a bunch of people, um, you need
Speaker 1: to settle them where you can. And you can't just
Speaker 1: let the Nile flood everybody every year and then rebuild.
Speaker 1: So what they did is they started building a system
Speaker 1: of dams and uh, they started controlling them now a
Speaker 1: little more so they can keep the flooding in check.
Speaker 1: They've got plenty of water for irrigation, but they're losing
Speaker 1: out on the sediment. Yeah, reduced the fertility some. So
Speaker 1: they started using fertilizer. They kind of rolled with the
Speaker 1: punches over the years from what I gathered as far
Speaker 1: as you know, building the dams, and they realized that
Speaker 1: saved the land from being flooded too much. But it
Speaker 1: also they said, we get start using fertilizer now. They did.
Speaker 1: It was part of the green Revolution, I think. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, yeah, we've got all this fertilizer,
Speaker 1: but now we're screwing up the land two different ways.
Speaker 1: It's basically it's just another example of humans controlling nature
Speaker 1: and shooting themselves in the foot, you know. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: the the good thing, the good news is though that
Speaker 1: through their control and through this silt in the flooding,
Speaker 1: it allowed for a lot of kind of crops that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't think you would be able to grow out there,
Speaker 1: like wheat and barley. Um. I think these days, what
Speaker 1: do they grow? Uh, cotton even sorghum, well, Egyptian cotton
Speaker 1: the best. It's very very solid. What kind of threadcount
Speaker 1: you go with these days? Higher the better? You know.
Speaker 1: What I just recently learned is higher actually means heavier too.
Speaker 1: So if you go out and get like a one
Speaker 1: thousand thread count sheet, you might not be getting what
Speaker 1: you're looking for because it might feel more a blanket. Right.
Speaker 1: It depends on what what thread, what type of fabric
Speaker 1: they're using. Yeah, exactly. Um, it's on the weave, it is.
Speaker 1: And also you have to look out for you you
Speaker 1: definitely get what you pay for if you find like
Speaker 1: six hundred thread count sheets for like internet. The reason why, Um,
Speaker 1: it is six hundred thread count, but they're counting each
Speaker 1: of the three strands of thread. So with rather than
Speaker 1: a single thread counting, you know, six hundred times, it's
Speaker 1: one thread divided by into the three strands that make
Speaker 1: up that single thread thread counts. Because I've seen those
Speaker 1: on the internet, you know, six undred thread count front
Speaker 1: and then you'd like pull it up over you and
Speaker 1: you get like a rash. You might as well sleep
Speaker 1: in a potato sack or something. You get the Nile rash. Yeah. So, um, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we talked about damns. I did a little extra research.
Speaker 1: It turns out that the Nile connects nine countries, and
Speaker 1: it connects them geo politically as well as just geologically geographically.
Speaker 1: Um and I apparently Egypt and Sudan like to make
Speaker 1: agreements over water use for the Nile. And this has
Speaker 1: been going on for a really long time. Used to
Speaker 1: be Egypt and Ethiopia, and Egypt would occasionally, um accused
Speaker 1: Ethiopia of you know, controlling the Nile and keeping the
Speaker 1: water to themselves, which they had no no way of doing.
Speaker 1: And then every once in a while, Ethiopia would threat
Speaker 1: and to do that, and Egy would be like, okay, alright, alright,
Speaker 1: let's talk to keep all the water right. Um. So uh,
Speaker 1: then it changed between EAGYPT and Sudan, and that's those
Speaker 1: are still two of the biggest players now. So Egypt
Speaker 1: has a really long history of blocking projects that would
Speaker 1: kind of equitably distribute the Nile waters. And you remember
Speaker 1: in Ethiopia had this horrible famine, um do you remember, um?
Speaker 1: But the Nile was just fine. They just hadn't figured
Speaker 1: out or they weren't using it to eargate properly, and
Speaker 1: the world didn't really care that much at first. It
Speaker 1: took a little while to remember it took it took
Speaker 1: a while. It was a big deal before I found
Speaker 1: out about it. In other words, yes, exactly, I have
Speaker 1: a little factor. The show for me is to measure
Speaker 1: the the the recession and the rising of the river.
Speaker 1: They used a staircase. They built a staircase down into
Speaker 1: the river and literally just marked it. It It was called
Speaker 1: a nilometer and they just mark to what stair it
Speaker 1: was on from time to time. Pretty basic. That is basic.
Speaker 1: But because you can't have a big pole, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't stick a big pole down. How old are
Speaker 1: those stairs, I don't know if there's I don't think
Speaker 1: they're still around. Oh that was into Egypt, the old Kingdom.
Speaker 1: Now they just measure it with advanced equipment. So nor
Speaker 1: advanced mapping equiping, danced mapping equipment. So what else? Do
Speaker 1: you want to talk some more about some animals? Uh?
Speaker 1: Sure that the nile is is well known to house crocodiles.
Speaker 1: The nile crocodile is a fish eater for the most part,
Speaker 1: goats or chickens and whatever happens to be lurking nearby. Yeah, goats,
Speaker 1: I did know. Fish I didn't think of. But they
Speaker 1: do attack humans. They say roughly two d human deaths
Speaker 1: per year thanks to the crocodile. And goostaf that we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier is he's large for a nile crocodile, but
Speaker 1: it's not like he's some freak of nature. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's plenty of crocodiles that get to be twenty feet
Speaker 1: in length. Well, the saltwater crocodiles tend to grow larger,
Speaker 1: so he's just big for the area. Which and he's
Speaker 1: old as the hills, so that that gave him the
Speaker 1: spooky legend. He's as old as a seventy year old hill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sixty seven year old, best neighborhood kids. Uh. And then hippopotamus.
Speaker 1: They don't the hippopotamus doesn't live in the Nile anymore.
Speaker 1: And I didn't find why they're not natives. They don't
Speaker 1: live in Egypt. Oh, they live on the Nile, but
Speaker 1: they Yeah, they get around Sudan more. Now Egypt gets
Speaker 1: all the press, but they used to be around Egypt.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly why they left. Well, probably because
Speaker 1: the crocodiles, although the crocodiles everywhere, but they would eat
Speaker 1: hippos even though they're not supposed to. And the hippos
Speaker 1: were pretty fearsome in their own right. Yeah, they like
Speaker 1: to mess up crops, run over people. I mean, we
Speaker 1: think of them as very lovable, hungry, hungry hippos um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you don't really want to get too close
Speaker 1: to him, because well, it's like an elephant. An elephant
Speaker 1: is not going to like necessarily mean to kill you.
Speaker 1: If it means to kill you, you're dead, sure, but
Speaker 1: it can still kill you just by you being in
Speaker 1: its way, right, So you just don't you don't want
Speaker 1: to get too close to the hippotami. Okay, what about insects, Josh,
Speaker 1: who cares the c D c uh. Apparently they've gotten
Speaker 1: the malaria pretty well in check there so that you
Speaker 1: don't even have to get vaccinated any longer. If you
Speaker 1: travel to that area, going to the city, if you're
Speaker 1: if you're on an expedition on the Nile, you're probably
Speaker 1: gonna need to get the valaria. Now. Even if they
Speaker 1: didn't recommend it, I would get it. But they do
Speaker 1: recommend that, you know, if you're traveling there, to take
Speaker 1: the standard anti diarrhea stuff, ida and tablets, water purification,
Speaker 1: all the good stuff that you're gonna need to stay
Speaker 1: alive and to keep from pooping your skeleton out like
Speaker 1: that guy I said, you said that, one of the listeners, Remember, Oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. What else, Josh? The Nile today still booming,
Speaker 1: and you know, that the the way they farm there
Speaker 1: today is still really similar to the way they did
Speaker 1: it back in the day. Like I saw video of
Speaker 1: from last week of you know, the oxen pulling the
Speaker 1: stuff right on the banks of the Nile. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. That is cool. Um. The Arab spring that
Speaker 1: led to the revolt in Egypt. Um, you know, Egypt
Speaker 1: and Sudan or the two big players with water now.
Speaker 1: Um to get around that, a bunch of other countries,
Speaker 1: some of the smaller countries started the Nile Basin Initiative,
Speaker 1: which is basically like trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: do it on their own without depending on Egypt. And
Speaker 1: Egypt kept going around and blocking their bonds. Yeah, however
Speaker 1: they could because you need money for it. These are
Speaker 1: countries that you know, have just enough infrastructure to keep
Speaker 1: their people going. So a new project that's going to
Speaker 1: really develop the country, they need some money for it.
Speaker 1: So Egypt would go to the World Bank and be like,
Speaker 1: you don't, you don't want to do that. So now
Speaker 1: now that there's like a leadership vacuum in Egypt, people
Speaker 1: are hopeful and worried because Egypt still has you know,
Speaker 1: commitments to water agreement and Um, it's kind of up
Speaker 1: in the air at this point, like how it's gonna go.
Speaker 1: Are they gonna get stintier, are they gonna get better?
Speaker 1: Who knows? Interesting? I got one more step for you.
Speaker 1: You talked about how densely populated it is, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that the Nile River basin only makes up five
Speaker 1: of Egypt's land mass. Of the population lives along the
Speaker 1: Nile in Egypt. It's nuts, it is, but necessary. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the Nile River Delta itself, not just the Nile,
Speaker 1: but the Delta is so significant that the ancient Egyptians
Speaker 1: worshiped the Delta as a god copy happy h a
Speaker 1: p I who is represented by a frog. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: happy than delta frog. Yeah. Uh. And despite the fact
Speaker 1: that they do grow things like cotton and wheat and
Speaker 1: sugar cane there and citrus fruits, there's still a lot
Speaker 1: of poor people doing the farming. It hasn't to like
Speaker 1: this abundance of riches as farmers. No, it's pretty sad.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the problem is either, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I mean, they are they exporting tons
Speaker 1: of this stuff or is it mainly for their use?
Speaker 1: I wonder I don't know. Jerry's laughing at it. They're
Speaker 1: also getting into hydro electric power, which that could change things. Well,
Speaker 1: that's one damn. Yeah, I think it's been producing powerful
Speaker 1: a while it opened in nineteen seventy while they're getting
Speaker 1: more and more into it these days. Two like more
Speaker 1: hydro electric power and more damns. It's huge. So it's
Speaker 1: like three sixty four ft tall above the river and
Speaker 1: it's twelve thousand feet wide. That's an enormous damn. That
Speaker 1: is big. Took eleven years to build. Really, Yeah, how
Speaker 1: does that compare to the Hoover damn? And in generation
Speaker 1: of power? I wonder I keep asking for stats. We don't.
Speaker 1: I hate my name? Man, you got anything else? No?
Speaker 1: I wish I did, but I don't. That's pretty amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this one we're going to chalk up to. If
Speaker 1: you want to know the entire world, we gotta we
Speaker 1: have to explain the Nile eventually. So that's what we did.
Speaker 1: We're gonna kill the Amazon or not little not really
Speaker 1: kill it. Nobody can. We're gonna shut it off. No,
Speaker 1: I should be asking you that, Chuck, You got anything else?
Speaker 1: Uh don't? Okay, Well, if you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about the Nile. You can type in Nile and I
Speaker 1: l e in the search part at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com, which means it's time for listener mail. Josh,
Speaker 1: you know that we read our email emails occasionally from
Speaker 1: our younger listeners. Yes, we like kids, and we like
Speaker 1: them learning stuff and we like to be uh role
Speaker 1: models as far as our show goes the kids. That's
Speaker 1: a good good This comes from a listener from Wiscon.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Minnesota, Okay, you can't say it like that.
Speaker 1: I am Eli of Lyndstrom, Minnesota. It's a small town
Speaker 1: located on the nose of Wisconsin, which is why I
Speaker 1: send that. I'm fourteen years old and I've been listening
Speaker 1: to your podcast for about six months. I really like
Speaker 1: it a lot. It is straight to the point, yet
Speaker 1: it isn't so facty you got that right, unlike Radio Lab.
Speaker 1: But I really enjoy your sense of personality. You add
Speaker 1: you guys don't sound like robots. I was having an
Speaker 1: anger attack when I heard the Underground Railroad podcast That
Speaker 1: lady wouldn't a real genius if it hit her in
Speaker 1: the ear. Drums, harsh words. Your topics include a variety
Speaker 1: of pop culture, science, psychology, and some downright obscure ones.
Speaker 1: I listened to you on the lawnmower along with wait waite,
Speaker 1: don't tell me? And how to do everything I haven't
Speaker 1: heard of. That one sounds suspiciously like our own like
Speaker 1: Catholic stuff. You should know exactly. One of the people
Speaker 1: who turned me onto your podcast is my scout Master, Dana.
Speaker 1: He and I have a very have very heated arguments
Speaker 1: and discussions about certain topics on our way to and
Speaker 1: from boy Scout camp. Me being the senior patrol leader,
Speaker 1: I need to have a certain connection with the scout
Speaker 1: Master in order for things to run smoothly. I appreciate
Speaker 1: what you guys are doing for me, and I hope
Speaker 1: that you right back. I would get all warm and
Speaker 1: fuzzy if you went as far as to read this
Speaker 1: on the air and Dana would not believe it. I
Speaker 1: hope you have a wonderful fault. Sincerely, Eli from Minnesota.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Eli, and Dana take that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think Eli just one up to Dana from that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I's had s'mores the other day. You mean, and I
Speaker 1: are into smores right now? You build a fire? How
Speaker 1: do you do it? Uh? In the Hey, dude, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't have like a backyard to have a fire
Speaker 1: in and set it on fire on fire. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: if you have a good s'more story, or how about this,
Speaker 1: if you have a good autumn treat recipe, we're in
Speaker 1: the we're in the market. Uh, we want it. Okay,
Speaker 1: A good punkin pie perhaps something like that, something that
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of. Good, um, good autumn cocktail recipe
Speaker 1: is always appreciated as well. I had a nice autumn
Speaker 1: beer the other night the doctors had punkin. Yeah, you've
Speaker 1: been talking about that ever since too. I just had
Speaker 1: it two nights ago. What are you talking about? No,
Speaker 1: you didn't, because this is like the third time you've
Speaker 1: mentioned added two nights ago. You're thinking of your other friend, Chuck. No,
Speaker 1: I think well then Chad had one. Okay, Okay. So
Speaker 1: if you have a good recipe of some sort for
Speaker 1: an autumn treat, we want to hear it. You can
Speaker 1: tweet it to us, but it better be short. That's
Speaker 1: s Y s K Podcast is our Twitter Twitter handle
Speaker 1: on Facebook where at Facebook dot com slash stuff you
Speaker 1: should Know and and you can totally email us totally
Speaker 1: at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be
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