1
00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:08,920
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:15,640
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

3
00:00:15,680 --> 00:00:16,760
Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

4
00:00:16,760 --> 00:00:19,680
Speaker 3: And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two

5
00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:25,000
Speaker 3: in our series on that most charismatic anatomical feature of whales,

6
00:00:25,600 --> 00:00:29,640
Speaker 3: the blowhole, also known as the spiracle or the spout.

7
00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:32,360
Speaker 3: If you are just joining us and you haven't heard

8
00:00:32,360 --> 00:00:33,920
Speaker 3: part one, you might want to hop back in the

9
00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:36,800
Speaker 3: timeline and listen to that one first. That's where we

10
00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:39,360
Speaker 3: go over a lot of the basic science of the blowhole.

11
00:00:40,120 --> 00:00:43,400
Speaker 3: But as I mentioned last time, this is a subject

12
00:00:43,560 --> 00:00:46,920
Speaker 3: that I was tempted to look into because there is

13
00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:51,680
Speaker 3: a whole chapter about the spout in the classic nineteenth

14
00:00:51,680 --> 00:00:56,440
Speaker 3: century American novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Now, if

15
00:00:56,480 --> 00:00:59,160
Speaker 3: you've ever read Moby Dick, you'll probably recall that it

16
00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:02,880
Speaker 3: is not all high speed whale chases and heroics by

17
00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:06,520
Speaker 3: Queek Wegg and mad sermons of vengeance by Captain Ahab An.

18
00:01:06,600 --> 00:01:09,480
Speaker 3: Awful lot of the book is made up of chapters

19
00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:14,919
Speaker 3: that could be considered strange, thoughtful little essays on objects

20
00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:20,240
Speaker 3: both technological and biological. Technological subjects like various pieces of

21
00:01:20,280 --> 00:01:25,039
Speaker 3: whaling equipment and things on ships, and biological subjects like

22
00:01:25,120 --> 00:01:28,720
Speaker 3: the various parts of a sperm whale's body. And one

23
00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:32,160
Speaker 3: of the latter chapters is called the Fountain. It concerns

24
00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:34,679
Speaker 3: the blowhole, and I thought this this would make an

25
00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:38,240
Speaker 3: interesting subject for us, in particular because the chapter raises

26
00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:43,920
Speaker 3: a number of practical controversies about the biology of whale spouts,

27
00:01:44,319 --> 00:01:48,600
Speaker 3: as well as some tantalizing but questionable claims about sprays

28
00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:52,440
Speaker 3: of blubbery venom from the whole. Now, among the primary

29
00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:56,400
Speaker 3: controversies that concern the narrator Ishmael in this chapter is

30
00:01:56,400 --> 00:02:00,600
Speaker 3: the question what is it exactly that shoots out of

31
00:02:00,640 --> 00:02:04,720
Speaker 3: the whale's spout? What are the plumes that whaling ships

32
00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:08,120
Speaker 3: used to locate these animals out on the high seat?

33
00:02:08,200 --> 00:02:11,040
Speaker 3: And of course these are still you know, people looking

34
00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:15,079
Speaker 3: for the whale blow is still what like whale watchers

35
00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:18,280
Speaker 3: today would use to look for these animals? Is it

36
00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:21,720
Speaker 3: a towering jet of water blasting as if from a

37
00:02:21,720 --> 00:02:24,840
Speaker 3: fire hose, as it is often depicted, I'd say most

38
00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:29,040
Speaker 3: often depicted, or is it nothing more than gas, vapor

39
00:02:29,240 --> 00:02:31,679
Speaker 3: or misst And to get as started here, I want

40
00:02:31,680 --> 00:02:35,200
Speaker 3: to read from this chapter in Moby Dick articulating this

41
00:02:35,320 --> 00:02:38,000
Speaker 3: first question, Are you all right if I read this? Rob,

42
00:02:38,320 --> 00:02:40,880
Speaker 3: go for it? Okay, okay, this is what Ishmael says.

43
00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:44,800
Speaker 3: You have seen him spout, then declare what the spout is?

44
00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:48,239
Speaker 3: Can you not tell water from air? My dear sir,

45
00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:50,400
Speaker 3: In this world it is not so easy to settle

46
00:02:50,440 --> 00:02:53,920
Speaker 3: these plain things. I have ever found your plane things

47
00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:57,160
Speaker 3: the nattiest of all. And as for this whale spout,

48
00:02:57,240 --> 00:02:59,799
Speaker 3: you might almost stand in it and yet be on

49
00:03:00,160 --> 00:03:04,400
Speaker 3: decided as to what it is. Precisely the central body

50
00:03:04,440 --> 00:03:08,160
Speaker 3: of it is hidden in the snowy, sparkling mist enveloping it.

51
00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:12,200
Speaker 3: And how can you certainly tell whether any water falls

52
00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:15,000
Speaker 3: from it? When always, when you are close enough to

53
00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:18,120
Speaker 3: a whale to get a close view of his spout,

54
00:03:18,160 --> 00:03:21,720
Speaker 3: he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading all

55
00:03:21,760 --> 00:03:25,280
Speaker 3: around him. And if at such times you should think

56
00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:28,440
Speaker 3: that you really perceived drops of moisture in the spout,

57
00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:31,240
Speaker 3: how do you know that they are not merely condensed

58
00:03:31,240 --> 00:03:33,640
Speaker 3: from its vapor? Or how do you know that they

59
00:03:33,639 --> 00:03:37,560
Speaker 3: are not those identical drops superficially lodged in the spout

60
00:03:37,600 --> 00:03:40,600
Speaker 3: whole fissure which is countersunk into the summit of the

61
00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:44,200
Speaker 3: whale's head. For even when tranquility swimming through the midday

62
00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:47,400
Speaker 3: sea in a calm with his elevated hump sun dried

63
00:03:47,440 --> 00:03:50,920
Speaker 3: as a dromedaries in the desert, even then, the whale

64
00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:53,960
Speaker 3: always carries a small basin of water on his head.

65
00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:56,680
Speaker 3: As under a blazing sun, you will sometimes see a

66
00:03:56,720 --> 00:03:59,040
Speaker 3: cavity in a rock filled up with rain.

67
00:03:59,520 --> 00:04:02,600
Speaker 2: Whoa who this kind of went off the rails. Yeah,

68
00:04:02,680 --> 00:04:04,000
Speaker 2: and here what.

69
00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:07,040
Speaker 3: You do not agree that whales always have a pool

70
00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:09,000
Speaker 3: of water on top of them, like a rock filled

71
00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:09,800
Speaker 3: up with rain.

72
00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:13,840
Speaker 2: Right, or that they keep their elevated humps sun dried

73
00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:16,080
Speaker 2: as a camel's in the desert.

74
00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:20,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is a good quase. I don't know if

75
00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:22,640
Speaker 3: there's anything to that claim or not, Like, would a

76
00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:28,040
Speaker 3: whale ever keep a part of its body consistently exposed

77
00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:30,360
Speaker 3: over the surface or do they? I mean, what I

78
00:04:30,520 --> 00:04:32,600
Speaker 3: feel like I've seen most of the time is repeatedly

79
00:04:32,640 --> 00:04:36,200
Speaker 3: going under and then coming back up to breathe, and

80
00:04:36,240 --> 00:04:37,760
Speaker 3: then returning correct.

81
00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:39,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think there'll be a hint of

82
00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:41,480
Speaker 2: this in one of the sources I refer to in

83
00:04:41,520 --> 00:04:46,000
Speaker 2: a bit concerning depictions and iconography of whales, which very

84
00:04:46,120 --> 00:04:49,880
Speaker 2: often still do picture the whale as having a large

85
00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:52,279
Speaker 2: portion of its head above the water, as if that's

86
00:04:52,320 --> 00:04:53,320
Speaker 2: just how it rides around.

87
00:04:53,680 --> 00:04:57,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, now, we already discussed discussed this question to some

88
00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:00,520
Speaker 3: extent in the last episode, and the consensus of spurts,

89
00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:04,880
Speaker 3: marine biologists, and just whale watchers that we were reading

90
00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:07,840
Speaker 3: last time seem to be that what comes out of

91
00:05:07,839 --> 00:05:11,200
Speaker 3: the whale's blowhole is not primarily water. It is not

92
00:05:11,400 --> 00:05:14,040
Speaker 3: a jet like from a fire hose, but it is

93
00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:19,000
Speaker 3: the explosive exhalation of gas from the whale's lungs, and

94
00:05:19,040 --> 00:05:22,159
Speaker 3: to be clear, that can be quite explosive, because when

95
00:05:22,160 --> 00:05:24,960
Speaker 3: a whale breathes out, especially after it has been under

96
00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:29,080
Speaker 3: for a long time, it nearly totally collapses its lungs.

97
00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:33,280
Speaker 3: It is like a blast of breath, and that exhalation

98
00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:38,120
Speaker 3: can create a very watery looking blow for several reasons.

99
00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:42,360
Speaker 3: First of all, the exhaled breath contains vapor, which condenses

100
00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:46,520
Speaker 3: into mist and droplets when it leaves the warmer environment

101
00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:49,760
Speaker 3: of the whale's lungs and airways and enters the colder

102
00:05:49,839 --> 00:05:53,279
Speaker 3: environment of the atmosphere above, similar to how you can

103
00:05:53,320 --> 00:05:55,919
Speaker 3: see your own breath on a cold day. Then, of

104
00:05:55,960 --> 00:06:00,520
Speaker 3: course there's also some droplet content in the whale breath

105
00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:03,560
Speaker 3: that is just mucus being exhaled, kind of like when

106
00:06:03,600 --> 00:06:07,320
Speaker 3: we sneeze. And then there's probably also some splashing of

107
00:06:07,400 --> 00:06:11,440
Speaker 3: sea water, which may happen if the exhalation begins before

108
00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:14,120
Speaker 3: the blowhole breaks the surface of the water, so some

109
00:06:14,640 --> 00:06:17,760
Speaker 3: water is just getting sort of splashed up by the blast,

110
00:06:18,360 --> 00:06:21,200
Speaker 3: or if there was some amount of seawater trapped in

111
00:06:21,279 --> 00:06:24,440
Speaker 3: the airways robbed, Is that about the gist of it,

112
00:06:24,520 --> 00:06:24,839
Speaker 3: you think?

113
00:06:25,080 --> 00:06:28,840
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, And, like I say, from my family's tripped

114
00:06:28,839 --> 00:06:31,560
Speaker 2: down to Mexico to observe the gray whales and their lagoons,

115
00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:35,800
Speaker 2: very much the case with those exhalations that occur below

116
00:06:35,839 --> 00:06:39,040
Speaker 2: the surface of the water. Those can be quite explosive

117
00:06:39,960 --> 00:06:43,000
Speaker 2: and create what feels like a fountain next to you

118
00:06:43,080 --> 00:06:44,000
Speaker 2: in the water.

119
00:06:44,320 --> 00:06:46,960
Speaker 3: But that does not mean the whale spout is shooting

120
00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:50,200
Speaker 3: a jet. It is breathing out and that breath is gas,

121
00:06:50,279 --> 00:06:54,080
Speaker 3: though it contains probably some mucus droplets and bits of water.

122
00:06:54,839 --> 00:06:59,200
Speaker 2: Now, of note, I've run across various descriptions both in

123
00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:04,240
Speaker 2: literature and in just you know, the discussions of whale behavior.

124
00:07:04,839 --> 00:07:07,960
Speaker 2: Of the of the spout with a rainbow within it.

125
00:07:08,040 --> 00:07:10,160
Speaker 2: You know, the spout mist goes up into the air

126
00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:13,440
Speaker 2: and you can see the reflection, the refraction and the

127
00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:17,720
Speaker 2: and the dispersion of light in the water droplets. I

128
00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:19,440
Speaker 2: don't have much to say about that other than it

129
00:07:19,560 --> 00:07:23,080
Speaker 2: is neat to see, and you've certainly seen it. See

130
00:07:23,120 --> 00:07:26,080
Speaker 2: that it has captured people's imaginations over the years, and

131
00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:29,800
Speaker 2: you can find various photos of this today from whale watchers.

132
00:07:30,520 --> 00:07:33,080
Speaker 3: Rob When you mentioned this, did you know that this

133
00:07:33,120 --> 00:07:35,880
Speaker 3: actually connects to the final paragraph of this chapter in

134
00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:36,400
Speaker 3: Moby Dick.

135
00:07:37,800 --> 00:07:40,200
Speaker 2: Moby Dick was coming up in my searches, and I've

136
00:07:40,200 --> 00:07:42,800
Speaker 2: never actually read Moby Dick. I've I've only seen the

137
00:07:43,520 --> 00:07:48,440
Speaker 2: film adaptations, but I did suspect that Melville also touched

138
00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:48,720
Speaker 2: on this.

139
00:07:49,320 --> 00:07:51,840
Speaker 3: I actually he writes about it quite beautifully, so if

140
00:07:51,840 --> 00:07:54,640
Speaker 3: you don't mind it. In the last paragraph, he says,

141
00:07:55,560 --> 00:07:58,280
Speaker 3: and how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty

142
00:07:58,400 --> 00:08:02,920
Speaker 3: misty monster to behold solemnly sailing through a calm, tropical sea,

143
00:08:03,400 --> 00:08:07,200
Speaker 3: his vast mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor

144
00:08:07,680 --> 00:08:12,640
Speaker 3: engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor, as you

145
00:08:12,680 --> 00:08:16,320
Speaker 3: will sometimes see it, glorified by a rainbow, as if

146
00:08:16,360 --> 00:08:20,120
Speaker 3: Heaven itself put its seal upon his thoughts. For do

147
00:08:20,200 --> 00:08:23,480
Speaker 3: you see rainbows do not visit the clear air, They

148
00:08:23,560 --> 00:08:28,200
Speaker 3: only irradiate vapor. Thrue science fact. And so through all

149
00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:30,920
Speaker 3: the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind,

150
00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:35,120
Speaker 3: divine intuitions now and then shoot in kindling my fog

151
00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:36,280
Speaker 3: with a heavenly ray.

152
00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:39,960
Speaker 2: That's beautiful. Yeah, and really, I mean, this is what

153
00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:42,480
Speaker 2: it's like to be in the company of whales, Like

154
00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:46,240
Speaker 2: the idea that Heaven is glorifying them with a rainbow.

155
00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:50,040
Speaker 2: It does not feel hyperbolic to me having been in

156
00:08:50,080 --> 00:08:51,960
Speaker 2: their presence, like being in the presence of a whale

157
00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:57,079
Speaker 2: invites hyperbole because it's just such an overwhelming experience.

158
00:08:57,480 --> 00:08:59,839
Speaker 3: Haven't had the experience myself, but I can't disagree it

159
00:09:00,160 --> 00:09:02,920
Speaker 3: is quite true to most observers who write of it.

160
00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:05,280
Speaker 3: But I want to come back to this misconception, the

161
00:09:05,320 --> 00:09:08,880
Speaker 3: idea that the whale spout shoots a jet of water

162
00:09:09,200 --> 00:09:12,080
Speaker 3: like from a fire hose. Do we have any idea

163
00:09:12,160 --> 00:09:15,120
Speaker 3: like where does this misconception come from? How far back

164
00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:17,720
Speaker 3: does it go? And like why were people saying this?

165
00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:22,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting to try and tease this apart getting

166
00:09:22,040 --> 00:09:26,280
Speaker 2: into these older descriptions of whales and older understandings of

167
00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:30,280
Speaker 2: whale behavior and biology. You know, there's a lot we're

168
00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:33,400
Speaker 2: still unraveling about wales today. But historically there was a

169
00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:36,480
Speaker 2: great deal that wasn't known about these creatures, and they

170
00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:39,640
Speaker 2: were frequently the subject of myth, legend and folklore, and

171
00:09:40,320 --> 00:09:45,080
Speaker 2: even people who are trying to, you know, skeptically understand

172
00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:48,480
Speaker 2: them were often having to depend on the word of

173
00:09:48,559 --> 00:09:52,400
Speaker 2: sailors and second and third hand accounts of what they do.

174
00:09:53,440 --> 00:09:55,640
Speaker 2: And then you throw whalers into the mix, and of

175
00:09:55,640 --> 00:09:58,959
Speaker 2: course you know that also skews things in different directions.

176
00:09:59,320 --> 00:10:01,600
Speaker 2: But they were, you know, generally they were often interpreted

177
00:10:01,640 --> 00:10:07,040
Speaker 2: as fish, as monsters, as gods, as shape shifters, and more. Now,

178
00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:11,160
Speaker 2: concerning whale blow or whale spout in particular, there are

179
00:10:11,200 --> 00:10:14,720
Speaker 2: a few main myths and misconceptions. Yeah, to discuss, uh,

180
00:10:14,800 --> 00:10:17,120
Speaker 2: you know, first hitting on this one about the about

181
00:10:17,160 --> 00:10:20,600
Speaker 2: the spout being a jet of water. Again, this is

182
00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:23,440
Speaker 2: something that not only do you find in old besty

183
00:10:23,480 --> 00:10:27,720
Speaker 2: areas and woodcuts some of those old maps. You see

184
00:10:27,760 --> 00:10:33,320
Speaker 2: these fabulous like beat twails with two you know, almost

185
00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:36,640
Speaker 2: like Martian old school Martian style blowholes on the top

186
00:10:36,679 --> 00:10:40,240
Speaker 2: of their head that are depicted just spouting big jets

187
00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:42,080
Speaker 2: of water like their fire engines.

188
00:10:42,400 --> 00:10:46,760
Speaker 3: They have almost horns made of water or like antinnae.

189
00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:50,160
Speaker 2: Yes and then just poking around. If you if you

190
00:10:50,280 --> 00:10:53,000
Speaker 2: have your your smartphone with you and you pull up,

191
00:10:53,160 --> 00:10:56,480
Speaker 2: pull up somebody in there, do a you know, a text,

192
00:10:56,960 --> 00:11:00,120
Speaker 2: and if you go into throwing some whale emojis, chances are,

193
00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:01,719
Speaker 2: I don't know, if your phone's like mine, you'll have

194
00:11:01,760 --> 00:11:04,760
Speaker 2: two to choose from. One is a more thankfully scientifically

195
00:11:04,800 --> 00:11:07,800
Speaker 2: accurate whale, but the other is what we've seen a

196
00:11:07,800 --> 00:11:10,920
Speaker 2: million times and emojis and clip art. It is a

197
00:11:10,960 --> 00:11:15,200
Speaker 2: cartoon whale spouting a fountain out of its single blowhole

198
00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:16,360
Speaker 2: on the top of its head.

199
00:11:16,679 --> 00:11:18,680
Speaker 3: The same way it is most often drawn, with the

200
00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:21,520
Speaker 3: fountains splitting in a kind of fork two ways.

201
00:11:22,040 --> 00:11:24,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, which, as we discussed in the previous episode, you know,

202
00:11:24,760 --> 00:11:28,360
Speaker 2: the spout has different shapes and different intensities depending on

203
00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:30,920
Speaker 2: the species of the whale. Some do kind of squirt

204
00:11:30,960 --> 00:11:35,640
Speaker 2: off in two directions. But it's the way you see

205
00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:39,080
Speaker 2: it in clip art and these simple plaistic cartoon illustrations. Yeah,

206
00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:41,520
Speaker 2: it tends to look just like a fountain. Now. In

207
00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:44,800
Speaker 2: trying to in getting into this ended up, I kept

208
00:11:44,800 --> 00:11:48,800
Speaker 2: pulling up older sources. But one of the more interesting

209
00:11:48,880 --> 00:11:51,600
Speaker 2: older sources on this is an eighteen eighty four book

210
00:11:51,640 --> 00:11:56,599
Speaker 2: by naturalist Henry Lee titled See Fables Explained, and it

211
00:11:57,640 --> 00:12:00,440
Speaker 2: took on this misconception about whale spout more than a

212
00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:01,000
Speaker 2: century eco.

213
00:12:01,559 --> 00:12:04,480
Speaker 3: Now a brief note on Henry Lee. He was a

214
00:12:04,559 --> 00:12:09,000
Speaker 3: nineteenth century English naturalist who specialized in marine organisms, and

215
00:12:09,040 --> 00:12:11,079
Speaker 3: for a time he was the director of the Brighton

216
00:12:11,120 --> 00:12:12,319
Speaker 3: Aquarium in England.

217
00:12:12,679 --> 00:12:13,400
Speaker 2: But he is.

218
00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:19,920
Speaker 3: Notable for writing measured skeptical investigations of cryptozoological legends, and

219
00:12:20,120 --> 00:12:22,800
Speaker 3: in this latter capacity he has actually come up on

220
00:12:22,840 --> 00:12:25,080
Speaker 3: the show before, I think, on some episodes that we

221
00:12:25,440 --> 00:12:30,559
Speaker 3: just recently did for Vaults on Saturdays. So Lee was

222
00:12:30,640 --> 00:12:34,000
Speaker 3: the author of the eighteen eighty seven monograph called the

223
00:12:34,120 --> 00:12:38,440
Speaker 3: Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, a curious fable of the cotton plant.

224
00:12:39,080 --> 00:12:41,360
Speaker 3: We discussed this at length in those episodes on the

225
00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:45,000
Speaker 3: vegetable lamb, which of course was a legendary organism with

226
00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:48,720
Speaker 3: accounts going back to ancient times, usually described as a

227
00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:53,040
Speaker 3: basically a mammal that grew from a plant, a furry,

228
00:12:53,080 --> 00:12:56,160
Speaker 3: flesh and blood mammal that had meat and bones and

229
00:12:56,240 --> 00:12:59,320
Speaker 3: blood that came out of a stalk that was attached

230
00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:02,400
Speaker 3: to the ground roots and grew somewhere in Central Asia.

231
00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:06,080
Speaker 3: While there have been multiple skeptical attempts to make sense

232
00:13:06,080 --> 00:13:10,319
Speaker 3: of these legends going back hundreds of years, Lee offered an,

233
00:13:10,360 --> 00:13:13,439
Speaker 3: I think, in both of our views, an extremely persuasive

234
00:13:13,520 --> 00:13:17,680
Speaker 3: argument that these accounts actually go back to observations and

235
00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:22,640
Speaker 3: misunderstandings of the cotton plant. So by the standards I

236
00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:26,000
Speaker 3: would normally apply to a I don't know, a multidisciplinary

237
00:13:26,040 --> 00:13:30,719
Speaker 3: skeptical treatise involving literary, historical, and biological knowledge from the

238
00:13:30,800 --> 00:13:35,520
Speaker 3: eighteen eighties, I recall being extremely impressed with the last

239
00:13:35,520 --> 00:13:36,880
Speaker 3: work of Lee's that we looked at.

240
00:13:37,160 --> 00:13:39,880
Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely yeah, And I feel like this book. What

241
00:13:39,960 --> 00:13:42,600
Speaker 2: I read from it, which is basically the chapter on

242
00:13:42,640 --> 00:13:45,640
Speaker 2: whale spout, I thought thought it was a very level

243
00:13:45,800 --> 00:13:48,280
Speaker 2: and in any ways ahead of its time. So in

244
00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:51,680
Speaker 2: this chapter he cites an example of this whale spout

245
00:13:51,720 --> 00:13:55,559
Speaker 2: misunderstanding in the work of the second century Greco Roman

246
00:13:55,640 --> 00:14:01,319
Speaker 2: poet Opian And this is the quote uncouth the site

247
00:14:01,520 --> 00:14:05,840
Speaker 2: when they, in dreadful play discharge their nostrils and refund

248
00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:10,800
Speaker 2: to see while noisy finfish let their fountains fly and

249
00:14:10,960 --> 00:14:15,320
Speaker 2: spout the curling torrent to the sky. So beautiful, you know,

250
00:14:15,600 --> 00:14:19,640
Speaker 2: in translation obviously, but yeah, this idea of refunding the sea,

251
00:14:19,880 --> 00:14:23,800
Speaker 2: letting the fountain fly a curling torrent up to the sky,

252
00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:27,240
Speaker 2: it's at least a landsman's idea of what whale spout

253
00:14:27,280 --> 00:14:27,840
Speaker 2: consisted of.

254
00:14:28,080 --> 00:14:30,520
Speaker 3: Based on what I've read, it seems like the most

255
00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:34,160
Speaker 3: common understanding was that whales were shooting jets of water

256
00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:37,240
Speaker 3: out of their blowholes because they like swallowed a lot

257
00:14:37,280 --> 00:14:40,280
Speaker 3: of water through their mouths while eating, and then they

258
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:42,640
Speaker 3: would have to squirt it back out, but couldn't do

259
00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:44,280
Speaker 3: that through their mouths for some reason.

260
00:14:45,080 --> 00:14:47,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which I think it's one of those things

261
00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:51,080
Speaker 2: that certainly by this point naturalists knew that this is

262
00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:53,520
Speaker 2: not how an organism worked, and certainly not how to

263
00:14:53,560 --> 00:14:56,720
Speaker 2: how whale works. And so Lee, Yeah, he basically lays

264
00:14:56,720 --> 00:14:59,560
Speaker 2: out that this had been already been refuted time and

265
00:14:59,560 --> 00:15:02,840
Speaker 2: time again by naturalist but that the image was just

266
00:15:02,920 --> 00:15:07,440
Speaker 2: too entrenched in the popular imagination and popular imagery of

267
00:15:07,520 --> 00:15:11,480
Speaker 2: whales to be fully dismissed. And also more people are

268
00:15:11,520 --> 00:15:15,240
Speaker 2: casually taking these images in than they are actually listening

269
00:15:15,560 --> 00:15:18,240
Speaker 2: to the naturalists. And we have to, I guess we

270
00:15:18,280 --> 00:15:21,320
Speaker 2: also have to bear in mind like today so many

271
00:15:21,400 --> 00:15:24,840
Speaker 2: of us have access, whether we're actively watching them or not,

272
00:15:25,440 --> 00:15:29,240
Speaker 2: to fabulous documentaries about the biology and behavior of whales,

273
00:15:29,640 --> 00:15:32,720
Speaker 2: so many opportunities to see for yourself what the whale

274
00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:35,080
Speaker 2: spout looks like. And this of course was not always the.

275
00:15:35,040 --> 00:15:37,520
Speaker 3: Case, right, So back then there might have been more

276
00:15:37,560 --> 00:15:41,560
Speaker 3: correct knowledge about whales and their mammalian biology in books.

277
00:15:41,760 --> 00:15:44,840
Speaker 3: But that it really hits home more when you just

278
00:15:44,880 --> 00:15:49,200
Speaker 3: like see some video of them moving and swimming and spouting.

279
00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:53,680
Speaker 2: Right, right, So he rails against quote sensational pictures in

280
00:15:53,680 --> 00:15:57,040
Speaker 2: which whales are presented with their heads above the surface

281
00:15:57,560 --> 00:16:01,080
Speaker 2: and throwing up from their nostrils column of water like

282
00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:06,080
Speaker 2: the fountains in Trafalgar Square. Now he cites another erroneous

283
00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:12,239
Speaker 2: description from a sixteenth century map by map master Olaus Magnus.

284
00:16:12,800 --> 00:16:14,640
Speaker 2: This is somebody we've talked about on the show before

285
00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:17,400
Speaker 2: and concerning old maps and sea monsters. Right.

286
00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:21,560
Speaker 3: I think he came up extensively in my interview with

287
00:16:21,840 --> 00:16:25,840
Speaker 3: chet van Duzer on the history of monsters on maps,

288
00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:28,840
Speaker 3: but I think he's come up in other capacities as well.

289
00:16:28,880 --> 00:16:30,760
Speaker 3: This is a recurring guest here.

290
00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:37,280
Speaker 2: Yes, Lee writes the following, quoting Magnus quote four to

291
00:16:37,320 --> 00:16:40,640
Speaker 2: the danger of seamen, he will sometimes raise himself above

292
00:16:40,680 --> 00:16:44,160
Speaker 2: the saal yards and cause such floods of water above

293
00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:47,360
Speaker 2: his head which he had sucked in that with a

294
00:16:47,440 --> 00:16:50,280
Speaker 2: cloud of them, he will often sink the strongest ships

295
00:16:50,600 --> 00:16:54,280
Speaker 2: or expose the mariners to extreme danger. This beast hath

296
00:16:54,320 --> 00:16:57,880
Speaker 2: also a large round mouth like a lamprey, whereby he

297
00:16:58,040 --> 00:17:01,520
Speaker 2: sucks in his meat or water and buy his weight

298
00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:05,960
Speaker 2: casts upon the flour or or hinder deck. He sinks

299
00:17:06,119 --> 00:17:10,160
Speaker 2: and drowns a ship hinder deck, hinder deck, hinder deck.

300
00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:13,280
Speaker 2: I think I don't know anyway, you get the idea like,

301
00:17:13,359 --> 00:17:15,920
Speaker 2: here's this big monster and there and he fears. Some

302
00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:18,359
Speaker 2: woodcut illustrations to this article, and you can you can

303
00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:21,199
Speaker 2: easily find these as well, depicting the same sort of

304
00:17:21,280 --> 00:17:25,040
Speaker 2: like you know, beaked monstrosity we just described with these

305
00:17:25,040 --> 00:17:28,240
Speaker 2: creatures like coming up to a ship and spitting out that,

306
00:17:28,320 --> 00:17:31,879
Speaker 2: you know, using their their strange blowholes to just flood

307
00:17:31,920 --> 00:17:33,080
Speaker 2: a ship and make it sink.

308
00:17:33,560 --> 00:17:36,040
Speaker 3: Brutal, not real though.

309
00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:39,520
Speaker 2: Yeah no, and Lee continues to rail against this. He

310
00:17:39,560 --> 00:17:42,359
Speaker 2: shares that after previously trying to set the record straight

311
00:17:42,400 --> 00:17:46,680
Speaker 2: on this in a publication, he received letters stating that, Okay, sure,

312
00:17:46,720 --> 00:17:50,280
Speaker 2: while lesser whales might not spout water like this, the

313
00:17:50,359 --> 00:17:53,639
Speaker 2: great whales are doing it. They're totally doing it. You're wrong.

314
00:17:55,080 --> 00:17:57,320
Speaker 2: So he goes on to discuss the basics of blowhole

315
00:17:57,359 --> 00:18:00,600
Speaker 2: anatomy and function, driving home that there's no way this

316
00:18:00,720 --> 00:18:04,639
Speaker 2: system could be the system that you find in a

317
00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:07,480
Speaker 2: whale's head, great or small. There's no way that this

318
00:18:07,560 --> 00:18:10,560
Speaker 2: system could be used to squirt jets of pure water.

319
00:18:10,600 --> 00:18:14,520
Speaker 2: It's just not how their bodies work. Right.

320
00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:17,479
Speaker 3: So, as we said before, in certain cases, there might

321
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:20,640
Speaker 3: be a lot of splashing from a whale's explosive exhalation,

322
00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:24,600
Speaker 3: but it's exhaling gas and that maybe some splash is

323
00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:27,760
Speaker 3: getting caught up in that exhalation, but it is not

324
00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:31,720
Speaker 3: squirting water. What's coming out is from its lungs.

325
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:34,320
Speaker 2: Right, and he lays all this out and discusses everything

326
00:18:34,359 --> 00:18:38,360
Speaker 2: we've just mentioned before that yeah, it's not water coming out,

327
00:18:38,359 --> 00:18:41,160
Speaker 2: but if the exhalation comes below the surface of the water,

328
00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:43,000
Speaker 2: it's liable to carry up a lot of water and

329
00:18:43,119 --> 00:18:44,880
Speaker 2: have this explosive watery appearance.

330
00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:47,400
Speaker 3: Now, given all this, I did want to be fair.

331
00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:49,600
Speaker 3: I want to come back and add that to the

332
00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:52,840
Speaker 3: partial credit of Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick. He

333
00:18:53,080 --> 00:18:55,840
Speaker 3: does come down on what we now know to be

334
00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:59,000
Speaker 3: the correct side of the water jet versus mist or

335
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:02,960
Speaker 3: vapor debate. So he says it is missed, but he

336
00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:06,439
Speaker 3: gives a fairly hilarious reason for thinking it is missed.

337
00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:09,080
Speaker 3: His explanation is as follows.

338
00:19:09,520 --> 00:19:09,920
Speaker 2: Quote.

339
00:19:10,400 --> 00:19:14,760
Speaker 3: I account him meaning the sperm whale, no common shallow being,

340
00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:17,800
Speaker 3: inasmuch as it is an undisputed fact that he has

341
00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:22,120
Speaker 3: never found on soundings or near shores all other whales

342
00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:26,679
Speaker 3: sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I

343
00:19:26,720 --> 00:19:30,679
Speaker 3: am convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound

344
00:19:30,760 --> 00:19:36,119
Speaker 3: beings such as Plato, Piro, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and

345
00:19:36,200 --> 00:19:40,440
Speaker 3: so on, there always goes up a certain semi visible steam.

346
00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:44,960
Speaker 3: While in the act of thinking deep thoughts while composing

347
00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:48,159
Speaker 3: a little treatise on eternity. I had the curiosity to

348
00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:51,240
Speaker 3: place a mirror before me, and ere long saw reflected

349
00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:55,040
Speaker 3: there a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere

350
00:19:55,080 --> 00:19:58,880
Speaker 3: over my head, the invariable moisture of my hair while

351
00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:02,000
Speaker 3: plunged in deep thought after six cups of hot tea

352
00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:05,119
Speaker 3: in my thin shingled attic of an August noon. This

353
00:20:05,200 --> 00:20:10,160
Speaker 3: seems an additional argument for the above supposition is so good,

354
00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:12,080
Speaker 3: I get sweaty one time too.

355
00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:16,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are some some wonderful mental gymnastics which again

356
00:20:16,320 --> 00:20:20,800
Speaker 2: land him in the right spot, but some unnecessary twists

357
00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:34,040
Speaker 2: and turns. Now. It's worth noting, for the most part,

358
00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:38,639
Speaker 2: this misunderstanding of whale anatomy is victimless, right. I mean,

359
00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:41,240
Speaker 2: it's like, okay, if worst case scenario you think that

360
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:45,080
Speaker 2: a whale shoots water out of its blowhole, I mean,

361
00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:47,359
Speaker 2: what's it? Or if you encounter a whale you'll be

362
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:49,840
Speaker 2: set right on this. But it's worth noting that the

363
00:20:49,880 --> 00:20:54,119
Speaker 2: myth of whale spouts and water can even prove actually

364
00:20:54,200 --> 00:20:57,919
Speaker 2: dangerous to whales. This, according to Dan Jarvis of the

365
00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:02,119
Speaker 2: British Diver's Marine Life Rescue organization is quoted in a

366
00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:06,960
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one Melissa Hobson article on Nationalgeographic dot Cota UK.

367
00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:10,560
Speaker 2: Apparently there have been cases where people who are not

368
00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:13,000
Speaker 2: familiar with the anatomy of whales, who still have this

369
00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:16,159
Speaker 2: idea of the whale fountain in their mind. They have

370
00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:19,800
Speaker 2: happened upon a stranded whale on the beach and thinking

371
00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:23,399
Speaker 2: that this great fish needs water to start pouring water

372
00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:28,919
Speaker 2: into its blowhole, which can drown the whale. Oh no, yeah,

373
00:21:28,960 --> 00:21:32,520
Speaker 2: So you know there are cases where not knowing what's

374
00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:35,760
Speaker 2: going on, even is a non biologist, it can lead

375
00:21:35,800 --> 00:21:39,399
Speaker 2: to something like this. So don't go pouring water into blowholes.

376
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:42,760
Speaker 3: Certainly not but okay, I think we can mostly close

377
00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:44,760
Speaker 3: the book on the idea of the water jet. It's

378
00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:47,920
Speaker 3: not a water jet. But returning to c fables explained

379
00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:52,800
Speaker 3: by Henry Lee, Lee also briefly addresses a strange claim

380
00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:55,239
Speaker 3: in the same chapter of Moby Dick that caught our

381
00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:58,919
Speaker 3: attention and we wanted to investigate further and to refresh you.

382
00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:01,800
Speaker 3: We mentioned that in the last episode. But this is

383
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:08,040
Speaker 3: the allegation made by Ishmael that the whale spout is poisonous,

384
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:12,200
Speaker 3: a claim that seemed prima fasse unlikely to both of us.

385
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:16,000
Speaker 3: But to read again from Mobi Dick so you'll know

386
00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:19,440
Speaker 3: what he's saying. He says that for even when coming

387
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:23,000
Speaker 3: into slight contact with the outer vapory shreds of the jet,

388
00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:27,080
Speaker 3: which will often happen, your skin will feverishly smart from

389
00:22:27,119 --> 00:22:30,480
Speaker 3: the acridness of the thing, so touching it. And I

390
00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:34,199
Speaker 3: know one who coming into still closer contact with the spout,

391
00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:37,560
Speaker 3: whether with some scientific object in view or otherwise, I

392
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:43,040
Speaker 3: cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm. Wherefore,

393
00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:47,199
Speaker 3: among whalemen the spout is deemed poisonous. They try to

394
00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:50,159
Speaker 3: evade it. Another thing I have heard it said, and

395
00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:52,600
Speaker 3: I do not much doubt it, that if the jet

396
00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 3: is fairly spouted into your eyes it will blind you.

397
00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,399
Speaker 3: The wisest thing the investigator can do, then, it seems

398
00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:02,800
Speaker 3: to me, is to let this deadly spout alone. So

399
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:05,680
Speaker 3: that's a number of strange claims, he says. Okay, I've

400
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 3: got a friend who got some whale blow on him

401
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:12,800
Speaker 3: and that made his skin peel off. Whaleman generally say

402
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 3: that the blow that comes out of the spout is

403
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:17,800
Speaker 3: poisonous and if you get it in your eyes it

404
00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:18,760
Speaker 3: will make you blind.

405
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:21,359
Speaker 2: So Lee doesn't spend a lot of time with this.

406
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:26,159
Speaker 2: He mentions it he doesn't really have much to add,

407
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:28,359
Speaker 2: but he kind of dismisses it out of hand, and

408
00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:31,399
Speaker 2: also throws in there that Herman Melville is quote not

409
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 2: a naturalist, and he doesn't seem to have much to

410
00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:39,159
Speaker 2: add beyond that, aside from mentioning an account from a

411
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:44,120
Speaker 2: steamship whaler. He writes, quote, he believes that the blast

412
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 2: was strong enough to blow a man off the spiracle

413
00:23:47,080 --> 00:23:51,000
Speaker 2: if he were seated on it. Now, I don't know. Okay,

414
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:53,399
Speaker 2: that also feels kind of like a tall tail, but

415
00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:56,560
Speaker 2: maybe a more believable. It's not saying that it will

416
00:23:57,040 --> 00:24:00,159
Speaker 2: blow your skin off and blind you, but he's just saying, well,

417
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:02,480
Speaker 2: it's pretty explosive. If you were re seated right on it,

418
00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:04,679
Speaker 2: I bet it would blast you into the air. I

419
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:07,119
Speaker 2: think it definitely would make you move, So just on,

420
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 2: just strong enough to blow a man off the spiracle.

421
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 2: I believe you would not remain on the spiracle if

422
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 2: you were somehow balanced there for the spout.

423
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 3: Right, So it might knock you off, but it would

424
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 3: not as often depicted in cartoons and illustrations. Create a

425
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,400
Speaker 3: jet that then leaves you floating in the air above it.

426
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And the idea of it being used as

427
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:32,920
Speaker 2: an offensive blast against ships, yeah, that's pure fantasy. Now.

428
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 2: One thing I did find interestingly doesn't go into this,

429
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:37,520
Speaker 2: but he mentions that this being an account from a

430
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:42,440
Speaker 2: steamship whaler, and I can't help but wonder about, during

431
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 2: the age of steam power, if there's like not some

432
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 2: level of technological comparison going on in one's mind where

433
00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 2: steam comes out of the top of a ship. Steam,

434
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 2: of course, is very hot and can damage you and

435
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,879
Speaker 2: burn the skin off your body, things like that, And

436
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:04,200
Speaker 2: so if there's some sort of like comparison that gets

437
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:06,960
Speaker 2: made between the ship and the whale, which of course

438
00:25:07,119 --> 00:25:11,200
Speaker 2: is large, travels in the water and also emits these

439
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 2: blasts that don't look unlike steam like, maybe it's the

440
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 2: kind of thing where there's just kind of like a

441
00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:19,639
Speaker 2: sub conscious comparison being made.

442
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:22,439
Speaker 3: That's interesting. I never thought about that, but that does

443
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:26,119
Speaker 3: seem plausible. So I did my own digging around for

444
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:30,399
Speaker 3: answers on the question of the supposedly poisonous whale spout

445
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:33,439
Speaker 3: and like you, Rob, I found no support whatsoever for

446
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 3: the claim that the blow from the blowhole is poisonous,

447
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:41,919
Speaker 3: meaning that it contains a chemical toxin or venom with

448
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 3: directly injurious effects on nearby mammals through either topical contact

449
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 3: or ingestion. I found nothing on that. In fact, I

450
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:53,440
Speaker 3: didn't even find that many references to this passage in

451
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 3: moby Dick, which I was surprised by. I thought I

452
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 3: would come across more. I don't know scientific sources referencing it,

453
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 3: even if only to contradict it or maybe try to

454
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 3: get at the source of this belief. But it just

455
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like this this idea gets a lot of stick.

456
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,879
Speaker 3: One example of the kind of reference I found was

457
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 3: in not even really a scientific book, just a sort

458
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 3: of book on grey whales called Grey Whales Wandering Giants

459
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:23,720
Speaker 3: by Robert Bush from nineteen ninety eight, which mentions the

460
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 3: claim in Moby Dick that the spout is poisonous, only

461
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 3: to say that it's not poisonous at all, but that

462
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 3: sometimes it does have a very powerful smell, and the

463
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 3: author quotes John Steinbeck from a work called The Log

464
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 3: from the Sea of Cortes. In Steinbeck wrote, a whale's

465
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 3: breath is frightfully sickening. It smells of complete decay. The

466
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 3: author here Bush says, I don't know, it's never really

467
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:50,159
Speaker 3: smelled that way to me.

468
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was in a position to smell a lot

469
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 2: of grey whale breath and I don't know. I mean,

470
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 2: there is a breathiness to it, I guess at times,

471
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 2: but yeah, I wouldn't say it stinks. Now. One thing

472
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 2: to keep in mind, though, is like these are organisms.

473
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 2: The blowhole is, you know, a breathing orifice. So I

474
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:10,959
Speaker 2: have read that you do have situations where you can

475
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 2: have a sick whale, so that could impact what you're smelling.

476
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:15,159
Speaker 2: I suppose that.

477
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Bush says the same thing. Maybe it's breath

478
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 3: smells worse when it is diseased or wounded or something.

479
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 3: So beyond this, I was just I was like, Okay,

480
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,119
Speaker 3: I'm going to expand my circle of interest here. I

481
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 3: was looking to find any evidence of any mammal or

482
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 3: any animal for that matter, that is believed to have

483
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 3: poisonous or venomous breath, and I really could not find

484
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:43,360
Speaker 3: anything that fits the description. Despite the popularity of creatures

485
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 3: with toxic breath in Dungeons and Dragons in video games.

486
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 3: It's a good area of effect type attack. But I

487
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,400
Speaker 3: couldn't find really any evidence of this in reality. Maybe

488
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:55,439
Speaker 3: there is such a thing and I just wasn't searching

489
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 3: the right way. But the closest stuff I could find

490
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 3: is what we're all more familiar with animals that might

491
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,439
Speaker 3: spit venom or something, but not having toxic breath.

492
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the only thing that really comes to my

493
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 2: mind is vultures, say vomiting, which there are a few

494
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 2: different interpretations of that behavior, but it's not quite a

495
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:17,159
Speaker 2: Dungeons of Dragon's area of a fact attack.

496
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:20,200
Speaker 3: And still that would be vomit from the digestive system,

497
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 3: not toxic breath.

498
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 2: Right right, not toxic gas emitted from the mouth.

499
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,439
Speaker 3: So is this claim in mobe to just completely made up?

500
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:31,479
Speaker 3: Maybe Melville just made it up to make, you know,

501
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 3: just for interesting fictional effect. Or maybe it was something

502
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 3: he heard he heard from people that was an actual

503
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 3: belief among whalers, but they just made it up. Well maybe,

504
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 3: but then again maybe not. While I think it's clear

505
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 3: that the exhalation of whales is not poisonous or venomous,

506
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 3: I think this could be a misunderstanding of something that

507
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 3: does seem true, which is that I found evidence that sometimes,

508
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 3: after certain times types of contact with marine mammals, including whales,

509
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 3: people do report reactions. In fact, this is a great

510
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 3: bit of listener mail we heard from a listener after

511
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 3: part one of this series who has a bit of

512
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 3: relevant personal experience. So Rob, I'm gonna read Tabitha's email here,

513
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:24,239
Speaker 3: all right. Tabitha says, Dear Robert and Joe, regarding the

514
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 3: consequences of getting a face full of blowhole ejecta. I

515
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 3: have a family experience. As a child, I went on

516
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 3: a dolphin watching boat trip. When dolphins started swimming alongside

517
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 3: the boat and playing in the bow waves, my sister

518
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 3: and I were allowed to lie on the deck and

519
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 3: stick our heads out under the railing to watch them.

520
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 3: It was the nineties. One dolphin surfaced and exhaled directly

521
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 3: into my sister's face from close range. Initially she was fine,

522
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 3: if a bit slimy and embarrassed. Later that day, however,

523
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 3: her eyes turned red, weepy and swelled almost shut. I

524
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 3: don't really remember the aftermath except for thinking it was hilarious,

525
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 3: But as far as I recall, it got better in

526
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 3: a day or so, suggesting an allergic reaction rather than

527
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 3: bacterial infection. So maybe a certain number of people are

528
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 3: just really allergic to cetaceans. Maybe a lot of people,

529
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 3: but we don't have the opportunity to find out very often.

530
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 3: I can imagine a whaling crew having one case of

531
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:28,959
Speaker 3: whalesnot face rash, and the story spreading until it reaches

532
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 3: the flesh dissolving, eye melting, tall tail stage. Love the

533
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 3: show as always, Tabitha, well fascinating and thank you so

534
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:40,239
Speaker 3: much for sharing this, Tabitha. So I totally agree that

535
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 3: it is not hard to imagine some nineteenth century whalers

536
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 3: could observe experiences like this and conclude incorrectly from it

537
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 3: that the whale spout is toxic, is venomous or poisonous,

538
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 3: like the venom of a spitting cobra or something. But

539
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 3: I was wondering more about the mechanism, what is actually

540
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 3: going on here now? I honestly could not find much

541
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 3: of anything documenting what we're directly classified as allergic reactions

542
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 3: to cetace blow. But I did find a very interesting

543
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 3: source documenting similar reactions in the context of human zoonotic

544
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 3: diseases from marine mammal vectors. Now, this is something I

545
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 3: really had never thought about before we did this series.

546
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 3: Of course, when you think about zoonotic diseases, you think

547
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 3: about bats, You think about livestock animals, you know, maybe pigs, birds,

548
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 3: and so forth. I had never thought of the idea

549
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 3: that humans could catch diseases from whales, seals, dolphins, and

550
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 3: so forth.

551
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean neither.

552
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 3: But now allow me to introduce you to the paper

553
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 3: Health Risks for Marine Mammal Workers published in the journal

554
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 3: Diseases of Aquatic Organisms the year two thousand and eight

555
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:01,480
Speaker 3: by Tanya Hunt at All. This is a paper where

556
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 3: the authors say there have been isolated, documented cases of

557
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 3: humans acquiring zoonotic diseases from marine mammals. There are certain

558
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 3: diseases that are well known and even have interesting little names,

559
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 3: such as seal finger. If you want to be grossed out,

560
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 3: you can look up images of seal finger. But they

561
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 3: wanted to design a survey to get a broader range

562
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 3: of responses. So they wanted to survey professionals and volunteers

563
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 3: who regularly work directly with marine mammals to see how

564
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 3: common various types of injuries and work related illnesses were

565
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 3: in people who have contact with these animals. So what

566
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 3: did they find to read from their abstract? First of all,

567
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 3: they characterized the people who responded to the survey. Most

568
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 3: respondents eighty eight percent were researchers and rehabilitators. And then

569
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:57,960
Speaker 3: they say, quote of all respondents, fifty percent reported suffering

570
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 3: an injury caused by a marine mammal and twenty three

571
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:07,479
Speaker 3: percent reported having a skin rash or reaction. Marine mammal.

572
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 3: Work related illnesses commonly included seal finger, which is now

573
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 3: known to be traceable to a bacterium called mycoplasma, conjunctivitis.

574
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:25,480
Speaker 3: That's very interesting because that conjunctivitis is irritation and swelling

575
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 3: of the eyes. That of course connects to Tabitha's story,

576
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 3: but also connects to the idea that getting whale blow

577
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:35,240
Speaker 3: in your face could make you blind. But to go on,

578
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 3: viral dermatitis, bacterial dermatitis, and non specific contact dermatitis. This

579
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 3: is rash or irritation of the skin, although specific diagnoses

580
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 3: could not be confirmed by a physician. Through the study,

581
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 3: severe illnesses were reported and included tuberculosis, leptospirosis, brucillosis, and

582
00:33:55,320 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 3: serious sequli to seal finger. Risk factors associated within increased

583
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 3: odds of injury and illness included prolonged and frequent exposure

584
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 3: to marine mammals, direct contact with live marine mammals, and

585
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 3: contact with tissue, blood and excretions. And I was looking

586
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 3: at another paper tracking marine mammals Zunocees in humans. This

587
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 3: was by waltzik at All in Zunoceason Public Health from

588
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 3: twenty twelve, and it also tried to collect all of

589
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 3: the literature on zoonotic infections from marine mammals and humans,

590
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:36,239
Speaker 3: and it concluded that the most common type of zoonotic

591
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 3: reaction to marine mammals was localized skin infections in humans,

592
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 3: which again makes you think about the discussion about like

593
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:50,760
Speaker 3: peeling skin and skin reactions that Melville mentions. So those

594
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:54,359
Speaker 3: are human diseases that have been tentatively linked at least

595
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 3: circumstantially to contact with marine mammals. But we need to

596
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 3: introduce some caveats Number one. This includes a wide range

597
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:05,279
Speaker 3: of different marine mammals, so not just whales, but all

598
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 3: kinds of marine mammals, and a wide range of different

599
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 3: types of contact including touching of skin, bites, contact with

600
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 3: blood and inner organs, et cetera, not just exposure to say,

601
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 3: mucus and droplets from the blowhole of whales. So what

602
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 3: if we were to come at this question from the

603
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:26,879
Speaker 3: other direction and ask what is in whalesnot specifically when

604
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:28,839
Speaker 3: a whale breathes out, there's got to be plenty of

605
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 3: bacteria and stuff in there. Has anybody ever documented what

606
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:36,000
Speaker 3: microbes are present in the blow of a whale and

607
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 3: whether that list contains anything that could cause skin or

608
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:42,800
Speaker 3: eye infections or otherwise create the impression, even the false

609
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 3: impression that the spout is poisonous or venomous. Yes, there

610
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:52,240
Speaker 3: have in fact been investigations microbiological investigations of whale blow.

611
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 3: The first one I wanted to mention was a paper

612
00:35:55,520 --> 00:36:00,480
Speaker 3: from twenty seventeen. This was published in m sistems Too,

613
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 3: which is an American Society for Microbiology journal. It's by

614
00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:08,240
Speaker 3: Amy April at All and it's called Extensive Core Microbiome

615
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 3: in Drone Captured Whale Blow supports a framework for health monitoring.

616
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,400
Speaker 3: This study was interesting because it used a drone to

617
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 3: fly above the water surface and collect blow from two

618
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 3: populations of healthy humpback whales, one Pacific group off of

619
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 3: Vancouver Island and an Atlantic group off of Cape Cod

620
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,439
Speaker 3: and I was thinking, wow, that's a good use for drones. Yeah,

621
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 3: So they took these samples, but then they compared the

622
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 3: microbes present in them to what was present in just

623
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 3: samples of straight seawater from around because obviously some seawater

624
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 3: gets in with the blow, so you're looking to see

625
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 3: what's in the blow that's not just in the seawater.

626
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:50,240
Speaker 3: And the author's right quote. The blow microbiomes were distinct

627
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 3: from the seawater microbiomes and included twenty five phylogenetically diverse

628
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 3: bacteria common to all sampled whales. This core assemblage comprised

629
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 3: on average thirty six percent of the microbiome, making it

630
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 3: one of the more consistent animal microbiomes studied to date.

631
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:10,279
Speaker 3: The closest phylogenetic relatives of twenty of these core microbes

632
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 3: were previously detected in marine mammals, suggesting that this core

633
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 3: microbiome assemblage is specialized for marine mammals and may indicate

634
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 3: a healthy, non infected pulmonary system. So that's interesting. These

635
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:27,720
Speaker 3: two geographically distinct populations of healthy humpback whales from different

636
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 3: oceans share a common baseline of non pathogenic bacterial species.

637
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 3: Of course, the fact that a bacterium is not pathogenic

638
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 3: in its normal whale host doesn't necessarily tell you how

639
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 3: it will behave when sprayed onto the skin or into

640
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,240
Speaker 3: the eyes of a human being. But then, the other

641
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 3: study I wanted to mention is one that was published

642
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:54,240
Speaker 3: in Nature Scientific Reports by Raverty at All in twenty

643
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 3: seventeen called Respiratory Microbiome of Endangered Southern resident killer Whales

644
00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:02,960
Speaker 3: and Microbiome of surrounding Sea surface micro layer in the

645
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:09,280
Speaker 3: Eastern North Pacific. So, to summarize from a news report

646
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,360
Speaker 3: on this article, I was reading from the University of

647
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 3: British Columbia. Stephen Raverty, he was the lead author on

648
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:17,839
Speaker 3: the study, is a professor or an adjunct professor at

649
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 3: University of British Columbia's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries.

650
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 3: And this study was looking at the microbiome of endangered

651
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:30,319
Speaker 3: Southern resident killer whales in what's known as the Salish Sea.

652
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 3: It's the sea around I think, the sort of the

653
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 3: inside of Vancouver Island. It's the sea around that stretch

654
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 3: throughout British Columbia and Washington State. And this study was

655
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 3: focused on the health of orcas, not on humans, so

656
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 3: this was not studying human diseases. But it did find

657
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 3: that the breath of these killer whales, when sampled droplets

658
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 3: from that blow, contained all kinds of bacteria and fungi

659
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 3: that are known to cause disease in humans, so bacteria

660
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 3: like salmonella, like Staphylococcus aureus, and then fungi like penicillium

661
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 3: and foma. And it's not clear that these common bacteria

662
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:12,280
Speaker 3: that could also cause disease in humans would be present

663
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 3: in the breath of all whales. It's also not clear

664
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 3: that they have always been present, even in these killer whales,

665
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:22,360
Speaker 3: because there's a possibility that these are sort of recently

666
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 3: introduced microbia loads that are a result of human activity.

667
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 3: We don't know, but it's a possibility. Giving a quote

668
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 3: to this news article, the lead author, Raverty says, quote,

669
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 3: We're not sure if these microbes naturally occur in the

670
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 3: marine environment or if they may be terrestrially sourced. These

671
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 3: animals are long ranging as they migrate along the coast,

672
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:46,280
Speaker 3: and they are exposed to agricultural runoff and urban discharge,

673
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 3: which may introduce a variety of microbes into the water.

674
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 3: So ultimately, in this case, we don't know for sure,

675
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 3: Like we can't take a sample of what whalers might

676
00:39:57,640 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 3: have been getting blown in their faces from sperm whale

677
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 3: or whales in general in the nineteenth century. But here

678
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 3: at least there are cases today of whales that are

679
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:12,640
Speaker 3: ejecting breath from their lungs that contains droplets of mucus

680
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,320
Speaker 3: with bacteria that we know do cause disease in humans.

681
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 3: Whether that is sort of a recent loading onto these

682
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:21,440
Speaker 3: whales or whether that would have been present a long

683
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:24,040
Speaker 3: time ago, we can't say for sure. But if you

684
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 3: combine this with the other observations that people, you know,

685
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:29,879
Speaker 3: people who work directly with marine mammals, report a lot

686
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 3: of sort of skin infections conjunctividis and things like that,

687
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:37,840
Speaker 3: it does not seem implausible to me that this story

688
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:43,400
Speaker 3: about the whale blow being poisonous could emerge from different

689
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 3: types of infections people get after getting whale mucus or

690
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 3: other types of whale body fluids on their skin or

691
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:52,400
Speaker 3: in their eyes.

692
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:55,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are a number of additional considerations to make

693
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 2: based on this information, because, on one hand, just by

694
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,919
Speaker 2: the nature of tall and sailor lore. How many times

695
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:06,759
Speaker 2: would it need to happen really for the stories to generate,

696
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 2: You know, just one incident of somebody really swelling up

697
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:14,399
Speaker 2: after being exposed to whale blow might be enough. At

698
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,720
Speaker 2: On top of that, if there are myths and legends

699
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 2: pre existing that to tie into some of this, those

700
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 2: could add to the energy of these tales and could

701
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 2: even in their origin be partially inspired by such experiences.

702
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 2: And then I think the other thing to keep in

703
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 2: mind is that the whalers we were just talking about

704
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:37,840
Speaker 2: all the different things that one might have reactions to

705
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 2: have exposed to, including like blood and organs, Like the

706
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 2: whaler was not just out there to see the whale,

707
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:48,279
Speaker 2: not just out there to experience the whale. They were

708
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 2: out there to kill and butcher the whales. So it

709
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 2: seems entirely likely that, yeah, if you're going to have

710
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 2: an allergic reaction to one aspect of the whales anatomy,

711
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 2: there are going to be multiple additional opportunities to be

712
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:03,880
Speaker 2: infected by blood, viscera, et cetera.

713
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 3: I absolutely agree with all that. So yeah, I can't

714
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 3: say for sure, but my best guess is if this

715
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:12,319
Speaker 3: is not just a made up story. If there are

716
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,560
Speaker 3: if there were actually folk tales among whalers that the

717
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 3: spout was poisonous, it probably came from people getting some

718
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 3: kind of infection after being around whales.

719
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 2: Now I have a few other little things first to

720
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 2: take into this first one kind of ties into several

721
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 2: different things we've discussed, because it definitely concerns whaling. It

722
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 2: concerns the idea of a liquid spout, and it also

723
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 2: concerns exposure of the whaler to various parts of the

724
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 2: whales anatomy. So this concerns the red spout. In the

725
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 2: book Red Leviat and the Secret History of Soviet Whaling,

726
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 2: author and previous guest on the show, Ryan Tucker Jones

727
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:07,960
Speaker 2: discusses the destruction wrought by the Soviet industrial whaling industry,

728
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:13,120
Speaker 2: and in this one particular case, the Soviet industrial whaling harpoons.

729
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:15,800
Speaker 2: So these were not like the harpoons of the classical

730
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 2: age of whaling as depicted in Moby Dick. We're talking

731
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:23,320
Speaker 2: about things that are fired, and in this case a

732
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:27,720
Speaker 2: grenade tipped so that they explode upon hitting the whale

733
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 2: and impacting the whale. He points out that the ideal

734
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 2: first hit ideal for the whalers, of course, not the whale.

735
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 2: Would be for one of these to go off near

736
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 2: the whale's vital organs. Wherever it hit, blood would pour

737
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 2: into the cavity and the brain would eventually succumb. But

738
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:47,800
Speaker 2: if the lungs were punctured quote, blood would soon fountain

739
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:51,960
Speaker 2: out the blowhole. This was termed by the Soviet whalers

740
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:55,359
Speaker 2: a red spout, and the whale would drown in its

741
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 2: own fluids. And he goes into a great deal more

742
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 2: detail about all of this, but suffice to say like

743
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:04,320
Speaker 2: two to six harpoons were often required to kill the whale.

744
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:08,280
Speaker 2: So worth keeping this in mind, I think and thinking

745
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:11,960
Speaker 2: about all of this, and also it brings to mind

746
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 2: an account that I was reading regarding a mythic monstrous whale.

747
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,719
Speaker 2: So we have the word cetacean, you know, referring to

748
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 2: our whales. This I've read is connected to the name

749
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 2: of the of the sea monster in Greek mythology Ketos

750
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:34,279
Speaker 2: or CTOs, and it is believed by some, at least

751
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 2: in some tellings, to be based on or interpreted as

752
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 2: a whale. In Manilius is Monster by K. M. Coleman

753
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty three, the author points to whale like

754
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:49,280
Speaker 2: qualities of spouting in the writings of first century Roman

755
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:54,759
Speaker 2: poet Manilius. Ovid, however, doesn't write of spouting with these

756
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 2: with this creature, but of vomiting bloody water. So the

757
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 2: there of this paper, Coleman contends that Manilius was possibly

758
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:07,879
Speaker 2: incorporating observational or even for the time natural insight into

759
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 2: his treatment of the myth. But I also think this

760
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 2: depiction of that Ovid gives the spouting of bloody water.

761
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 2: This also brings to mind, I mean this, I can't

762
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:19,840
Speaker 2: help but compare to this idea of the red spout

763
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:23,360
Speaker 2: and wonder if it might be connected to some you know,

764
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:27,360
Speaker 2: ancient world older accounts of harpooning a whale piercing the

765
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 2: lung and observing this reaction.

766
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,280
Speaker 3: Wow, but now I'm picturing this. So the key toss

767
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:37,799
Speaker 3: or the sea monster that is here being interpreted as

768
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 3: a whale I think was the monster in the Perseus

769
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:45,919
Speaker 3: and Andromeda story. So like when Cassiopeia offers up Andromeda

770
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 3: as a sacrifice to the sea monster, we should maybe

771
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:53,400
Speaker 3: picture at not like a big scaly man thing coming

772
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 3: out of the water track see and clash of the Titans,

773
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:58,800
Speaker 3: but instead a whale vomiting bloody water.

774
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and you know this idea of the vomiting whale,

775
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 2: he goes. There's some other accounts of this as well,

776
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 2: because I was poking around looking for just any other

777
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:14,399
Speaker 2: interesting like whale spout myths that connected into what we're

778
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 2: talking about here. And there are various myths about whales

779
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:20,359
Speaker 2: being you know, monsters or gods and so forth, but

780
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 2: not all of them are necessarily insightful concerning the spout

781
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,799
Speaker 2: or the blowhole. But I happened to cross something in

782
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 2: Irish traditions that I can't help but wonder if this

783
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:35,480
Speaker 2: is something that ended up helping inform sailor's lore, especially

784
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 2: as discussed in Moby Dick. I found this initially in

785
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 2: an eighteen ninety nine publication Notes and Folklore from the

786
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 2: Renez Copy of the Dencentchez by TJ. Westrop, published in

787
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 2: the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland.

788
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 2: The Dencentchez. This is the tales of the Tales of

789
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:00,799
Speaker 2: the Duns, the Lore of Places. It's a class of

790
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 2: texts from early Irish literature, and these were apparently added

791
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 2: to by various writers up until the eleventh or twelfth centuries.

792
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 2: So here's a quote from this particular author quote. A

793
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 2: very dangerous monster, the ros Sualt is also described, which

794
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:23,280
Speaker 2: spouts at Muhrisk in Mayo, and a pestilence en sieus.

795
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 2: This is stated of the whale in other ancient works.

796
00:47:28,040 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 2: When the whale spouts upwards, flying creatures die, when downwards

797
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:36,120
Speaker 2: it kills the fish, and when at the land, a

798
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:41,400
Speaker 2: plague ensieus. Whoa. So this is the idea of a

799
00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:45,080
Speaker 2: whale shooting birds out of the air with its poisonous spout,

800
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 2: and occasionally, you know, coming close to the shore and

801
00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:52,080
Speaker 2: being a bringer of plagues, vomiting up plague upon the

802
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 2: shore and letting that plague or roll across the countryside

803
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 2: as a vapor, a bringer of miasma.

804
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 3: Okay, I was confused about the timeline for a second.

805
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 3: But okay, so this is an eighteen ninety nine publication,

806
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:09,400
Speaker 3: but it is discussing these earlier like medieval Irish texts.

807
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:13,960
Speaker 2: Correct. Yes, and for there's a little background. Mrisk is

808
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 2: in fact a village in County Mayo in Ireland, and

809
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 2: also according to a different text in eighteen ninety two

810
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 2: text I was looking at this ross salt, and I

811
00:48:24,239 --> 00:48:27,400
Speaker 2: apologize that I'm butchering. This was sometimes understood as a

812
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:30,879
Speaker 2: sea animal, and I think sometimes translated as a walrus.

813
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 2: Not that we should necessarily think of it as a walrus,

814
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:36,120
Speaker 2: but you know, sometimes there's a shift in what these

815
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,799
Speaker 2: terms are referring to over time. So since we had

816
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 2: a sea monster here, especially one of European origin, I turned,

817
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 2: as I always do, to the books of Carol Rose.

818
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 2: He has these wonderful pair of encyclopedias, one dealing with

819
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 2: monsters and giants and other other one dealing with fairies

820
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 2: and leprechauns. And there's some crossover between the books, but

821
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 2: they're both great. So I looked it up. And Rose

822
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 2: has a little more insight on the resalt, which she

823
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 2: says is an alternate name for the moorisk, a monster

824
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 2: fish of Irish tradition. She writes that it was said

825
00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 2: to inhabit the region of crow og Patrick, and it

826
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:16,480
Speaker 2: was super poisonous. If it vomited in the water, all

827
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 2: the sea life around it would die. The fumes from

828
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:20,880
Speaker 2: its mouth would cause dead birds to fall out of

829
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,720
Speaker 2: the sky, and it could breathe on a coastal region

830
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:24,720
Speaker 2: and bring disease.

831
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:27,319
Speaker 3: Okay, that sort of matches what we were reading a

832
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:30,320
Speaker 3: minute ago, right, right, yeah, yeah, And at the coast

833
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:32,759
Speaker 3: it brings the pestilens. It kills the birds if it

834
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:35,439
Speaker 3: shoots up, and it kills the fish if it shoots down.

835
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 2: Right. And I also found another source referring to this.

836
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 2: This is from P. W. Joyce in nineteen oh six

837
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:47,719
Speaker 2: is a smaller social History of Ancient Ireland, and this

838
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 2: author added basically says the same thing, but added that

839
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:53,320
Speaker 2: it was quote able to vomit in three different ways

840
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 2: three years in succession. He adds that the vomiting into

841
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:00,840
Speaker 2: the water also wrecked ships, and when it vomited towards

842
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:04,400
Speaker 2: the land in the third year, the whale caused quote

843
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 2: a pestilential vapor to creep over the country that killed

844
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:11,360
Speaker 2: men and four footed animals.

845
00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 3: No, not the four footed animals.

846
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 2: The four footed animals are just at the forefront of

847
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 2: strange death. I mean, this is how many times are

848
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:23,359
Speaker 2: we gonna in this year and last have we talked

849
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,719
Speaker 2: about strange reasons that four legged animals are dying? And

850
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:28,880
Speaker 2: in the British Isles.

851
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:32,040
Speaker 3: We never considered this as an explanation for the cattle

852
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 3: mutilation panic. What if it was actually a risk?

853
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:41,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what if a whale vomited? So this is

854
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:45,520
Speaker 2: this is all interesting Again, I don't think that. I

855
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 2: think potentially one has to, you know, take into account

856
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:52,799
Speaker 2: these these myths and legends about poisonous vomit coming out

857
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 2: of these whales or whale like creatures, these also first

858
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 2: hand accounts of potentially getting some sort of an infection

859
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:02,280
Speaker 2: after contact with a whale spout or whale blood, et cetera.

860
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:05,760
Speaker 2: But I also can't help but wonder if there's some connection,

861
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:11,440
Speaker 2: particularly between this story and perhaps encounters with beached and

862
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 2: dead whales, where there's of course decomposition going on, and

863
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 2: therefore there's going to be a very strong, awful odor,

864
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 2: the kind of odor that we would, you know, we

865
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 2: would associate with with illness. Perhaps, so I wonder, I

866
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,760
Speaker 2: wonder if there's any connective tissue there as well.

867
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 3: Well. Rob, I think this has been a mighty fun

868
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 3: and interesting exploration. Even though we didn't get a definitive

869
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 3: answer on the poisonous whales thing, I think what we

870
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:41,399
Speaker 3: did find out has been enlightening, and as Melville would say,

871
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 3: through all the thick mists and the dim doubts, you know,

872
00:51:44,239 --> 00:51:47,480
Speaker 3: the divine intuitions now and then shoot, so our fog

873
00:51:47,560 --> 00:51:49,319
Speaker 3: has been enkindled with a heavenly ray.

874
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:53,360
Speaker 2: Very nice. All right, We're gonna gohead and close it

875
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:54,960
Speaker 2: out then, but yeah, we'd love to hear from everyone

876
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:57,760
Speaker 2: out there. If you have additional insight, experience, et cetera,

877
00:51:57,880 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 2: just general thoughts and what we've talked about in this

878
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:03,240
Speaker 2: pair of episodes or our previous episodes on Gray Whales

879
00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:05,839
Speaker 2: in particular, write in we'd love to hear from you.

880
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:08,440
Speaker 2: Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

881
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:11,840
Speaker 2: primarily a science podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,

882
00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:14,360
Speaker 2: but on Mondays we do listener mail. On Wednesdays we

883
00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 2: do a short form artifact or monster fact episode, and

884
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:19,920
Speaker 2: then on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to

885
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

886
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:27,160
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you

887
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:29,240
Speaker 3: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

888
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:31,720
Speaker 3: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic

889
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 3: for the future, or just to say hello, you can

890
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 3: email us at contact Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com.

891
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:47,680
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

892
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

893
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:53,440
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

894
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:05,880
Speaker 2: Nations, Westrator