WEBVTT - Why are we so Obsessed with Slime? 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.640 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:12.960 and iHeartRadio. Guess what will? 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:13.720 What's that mano? 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.319 So you know how sometimes after it rains you see 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:18.920 snails on the ground, uh huh. And you know how 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:21.520 sometimes you pick up those snails and collect that trail 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:23.720 of clear, slimy stuff they leave behind and rub it 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:25.280 all over your face as a moisturizer. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:27.560 So we're like fifteen seconds into this episode and you 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.360 have already lost me. Is that actually a thing? 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.760 Yeah? Well, I don't know about the DIY version of it, 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.519 but there's definitely a whole industry around snail musin and 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.000 in fact, snail slime might be our most valuable of 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.440 the slimes. If you're going to put money in slime, 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:45.680 it is probably the top slime to put money into 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:49.720 right now. But some forecasters believe that the market for 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:53.440 snail slime beauty products will actually top seven hundred and 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.160 seventy million dollars in the next year, and that's in 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:57.320 the US alone. 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.840 Wow, that's more than we brought in in advertising for this. 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.360 Isn't that amazing? I can't believe we've been stepping over 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:05.360 this primost line for all these years. 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.200 I know it's embarrassing, but from smearing it on our 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:10.360 faces in the name of beauty to getting it dumped 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:12.800 on our heads on kids shows in the name of comedy, 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:15.520 Today's episode is all about trying to figure out why 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:17.880 humans are so obsessed with slime. 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:43.080 Let's dive in. Welcome back to Part Time Genius. I'm 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:45.360 Will and as always, I'm here with my good friend Mango, 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.000 and somewhere back behind that big booth is our pal Dylan, 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.000 who many of you know Moonlights is a snail beauty 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:55.240 influencer because of his beautiful dewey scan. We were just 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:56.760 talking about it before we started recording. 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:58.880 I know, we get it, Dylan. Your skin is beautiful 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:01.120 and glowing. You're better than us, all of that. 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.040 Let's let's move on. I'm getting I'm getting upset. But Mango, what, 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:07.640 why are we talking about slime today again? 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:12.240 Well, in addition to complimenting Dylan, it's it's just like 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.960 a weird topic. But you know, I live in Brooklyn, 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.679 right and we have this little fence in backyard and 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.639 for some reason there's a hole in the fence and 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:23.720 it was there when we moved in. But it's great 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.720 because our kids, and the neighbors kids use it to 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.480 sneak over to each other's houses. So I'll throw my 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:31.919 kids in the backyard and suddenly they're like three more 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:34.400 kids playing in the backyard with them. And it's really 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:37.800 sweet and kind of Americana to me. But we have 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.600 this one little neighbor, Yuki, and when it rains, he 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:43.880 comes over in his little raincoat and he just goes 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:49.880 snail hunting in our flower beds. Yuki is just the best. Yeah, 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:53.280 even does this like little hand civil for snails. I 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.280 don't know, have you ever seen this? Okay, he does that, 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.640 and so partly that and then part of the fact 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.320 that Ruby is just on an age where like kids 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.400 are always playing with slime and making slime at home 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:11.200 because of like science or something. It's just around my 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.360 house all the time, and I hate it, Like, I 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:15.480 hate slime so much, so I wanted to do this 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.880 episode to try to understand why slime exists and why 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:21.080 some humans are so attracted to it. 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:22.680 Wait, I want to go back, though, Why do you 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:23.680 hate slime so much? 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.560 I mean, it sounds fussy, but I don't like my 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.240 hands being like wet and sticky, right right? I like putty, 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:32.120 like silly putty. I can get behind it and you 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.360 can bounce it, you can transfer images, it can erase stuff. 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:37.360 But you know it's not slime. 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:39.520 Okay, so we're going to change this episode is now 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.600 about putty. Now I'm actually glad we sort of that. 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:44.800 But because you've done a lot of thinking about this, 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.600 maybe we should start with what slime is, like what 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:50.480 counts as slime. 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.640 Yeah, so slime is a pretty broad term. Even scientists 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.400 will use the word slime without specifying exactly what it is. 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.640 But it's basically anything that's kind of saw and creepily fluid. 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.960 So in nature, slimes act as one of three things. 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.120 They can be a lubricant or a barrier, or they 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.520 can be in adhesive. And one really common slime is 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.240 egg white or albumin, which is a hydrogel. So egg 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.080 whites are actually ninety percent water, and they provide protein 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.920 and water for bird embryos and also cushioning inside the egg. 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:25.719 But one of the most important things they do is 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.000 that they act like a firewall against microbes. So it's 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.839 actually this very sophisticated thing, and human embryos are protected 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:36.280 by a similar a very similar slime, amniotic fluid. It's 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:38.160 strange to think about, but yeah, I guess that's right. 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:42.520 I mean kids are born, they're basically covered in egg white. Yeah, 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.719 I mean for century, slime was especially associated with women 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:47.720 because of pregnancy and childbirth. 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:49.080 That's it's kind. 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.520 Of that weird extension of those four humors and those 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.640 old theories like blood and phlegm and bile. Plus there's 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.920 obviously all this ignorance about women's anatomy. But slime plays 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.120 this weird role in our imagination because it's almost this 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.840 boundary between health and sickness, right Like, on one hand, 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:09.920 it can be this protective layer and on the other 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:14.479 hand excessive puss or mucus, which are also slime's signal 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:16.960 disease to us. And in fact, I can read you 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:19.600 this little quote from a book by Suzanne Wedlock. It's 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.960 called Slime and Natural History. She says, humans are quote 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.159 probably hardwired to find signs of their own mortality and 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.400 animality disgusting and to shrink from contamination. 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.320 All right, so we're kind of hardwired to be grossed 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.359 out by slime. But I feel like that's definitely changed 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.880 some over the years, and we now have a working 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.240 definition of slime. So why don't we get back to 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:43.760 that slimy gold you were talking about at this start. 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:45.280 So this is snail musin. 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.000 Yeah, so this is really cool and probably the thing 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:51.200 that makes me like snails so much more. The reason 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.800 snails secrete slime is actually for movement. I always thought 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:58.760 it was just like this disgusting evolutionary mistake, but snail 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.159 slime is also referred to is pedal mucus because snails 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.600 use it to move. They're basically generating their own waves 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.640 or surfing them in slow motion. So snails are they're 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:11.200 basically like surfing their own. 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:12.719 Snot Yeah, that is awesome. 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.560 I'm going to read you the exact quote from Wedland's 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.039 book because it's so fun. A series of contractions sends 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:23.279 numerous little waves across their souls. Every elevation presses directly 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.760 on the slime below, causing its molecular framework to break 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.640 or shift. If the pressure is strong enough. The snail 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:32.800 foot then glides on the more fluid slime. Once the 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.600 wave has passed, the pressure abates and the molecular framework recovers. 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.799 The slime hardens again, and the snail foot pushes away 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:40.919 until the next surge. 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:45.080 Okay, so that's why snails make their slime, but I'm 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.520 still missing this leap of why people are scooping it 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:49.360 up and putting it on their faces. 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.120 Well, snail musin has actually been used in Asian beauty 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.680 products for years, but it got super trendy in global 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:02.440 skincare around twenty seventeen. Advocates say snail musin hydrates the 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.000 skin and reduces wrinkles, but you know, the science on 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.760 that's kind of mixed. But whether or not it works, 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.640 there's been a huge boom in the snail slime industry 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.880 or hellicic culture I guess it's called that wasn't familiar. 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.520 In Italy, there are more than four thousand snail farms 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.800 and they've seen a forty six percent increase in snail 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.600 slime in the last ten months, all due to demand 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:26.840 from the cosmetics industry. 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:29.320 I mean, I will say I think when people hear 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.000 cosmetics industry and they hear animals of any kind, we 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.400 do get a little bit concerned. For good reason. 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.480 Yeah, I mean, the industry doesn't have the best track record, 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:42.160 but several companies say they've actually developed processes to extract 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.760 the slime that doesn't injure the snails. So there's a 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.960 South Korean company it's called cause RX, and they say, quote, 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.480 the snails are placed over a mesh in a dark 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.520 and quiet room for about thirty minutes. The snails are 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.760 left alone to freely roam the net, leaving musin in 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.880 their trails. There's no external process applied to the snails 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:03.920 or the mesh to force muse and production. 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.120 I just had this great mental image when you said 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:10.480 the snails are free to roam the net, surfing, turfing 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:14.920 the web, the darkness. Yeah, exactly, all right, Well, so 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.840 far slime is three for three and it protects fetuses, 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.560 you can surf it, and you can wear it on 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.480 your face, which I know people are looking for things 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.080 to put on their face. So one thing I'm kind 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.320 of fascinated by recently is slimy foods. 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:29.760 Though so things like okra. 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.520 I love some good slimy ochre, I actually really do. 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.840 But it's also things like Nato, which is a Japanese 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:39.400 fermented soybean that's delicious when you eat it with rice, 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.080 and it's very gooey, and in fact, that guy texture 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:45.960 is kind of common in Japanese food. You find it 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.439 in stuff like seaweed and mountain yam, and the Japanese 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.800 have a word for it. It's neba neba, which translates 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.000 to sticky or slimy, and it's it is supposed to 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.120 be on a monopoia for the noise your mouth makes 0:08:58.120 --> 0:08:59.960 while enjoying these slimy foods. 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:01.559 Never neva, never neva. 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.040 Yeah, it's definitely fun to say. All right, well you 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:19.959 keep working on your neva's. Let's take a quick ad break. 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.680 Welcome back to Part Time Genius where we're talking slime, 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:27.600 and I think it's time to veer into slime of 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.200 pop culture because of course it's one of the most 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.319 popular places where we encounter slime. You'll see these in 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:37.560 TV and movies. Of course, there's Ghostbusters with Slimer, that 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:39.439 green floating slime. 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.040 Who became such a fan favorite. I mostly remember him 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:43.360 from High Seed Juice Box. 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:45.920 Yeah, Slimer was such a big deal in here, like 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.280 like Todd It was like Michael Jordan's Slimer Madonna, you 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:52.360 know what I mean. It was just Slimer was a 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.160 big deal. And then there's the Blob, which features, of 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.160 course a blob, this expanding, massive red gelatinous material which 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:01.920 just grows and it eats, and it like pulls human 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.400 victims into itself from all directions. And some of this 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.800 imagery actually goes back to the nineteen thirties. You've got 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:13.439 writers like HP Lovecraft and Corell Chappek, and they actually 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:15.160 who wrote War with the Newts. 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.000 You know, I feel like I read a good bit 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:20.360 in college, and I'm not familiar with that literature. 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:22.360 You need to do a little bit more reading. But 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.640 it's it's about slimy neutes that quote wage war on 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:30.480 humanity and strive toward world domination. It's famous because it's 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.719 basically this allegory, Like what you find out is the 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:40.040 Newts were peaceful and kind until humans started abusing. So Cheppek, 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.600 you know, was writing this in nineteen thirty six Czechoslovakia, 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.520 so it's basically about fascism. So you saw that coming 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.679 right clearly about that. Yeah, And of course there's this 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.880 slime from Nickelodeon, which we knew we had to get 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.400 to at some point, which is actually kind of messed 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:57.480 up when you hear the origin story. I did not 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.840 know this origin story before this, Yeah, but it's actually 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.080 messed up in a fun way, I promise. So back 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:06.480 in nineteen seventy nine, which side note the ar you 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.760 and I were both born, You Can't Do That on 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.720 television premiered in Canada and it was such a big 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.080 hit that Nickelodeon picked it up. But in a twenty 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:19.360 twelve interview with Vulture, co creator Jeffrey Darby explained that 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.360 the slime was actually a total accident. I don't know 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.000 if you remember this, but there was this funny dungeon 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:26.400 set on the show. Do you remember this? 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.440 Yeah? I do. When Cable and Nickelodeon came to our 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.160 neighborhood in third grade, all the kids in our neighborhood 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:36.000 were completely obsessed totally that and doubledare h Double? 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.320 There? For sure? That was another show with slime. But 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.240 back to You Can't Do That on television, the set 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:43.600 had a chain hanging down, and the whole day they 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.480 were shooting, there was this running joke between producers where 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.560 they'd say, whatever you do, kids, don't pull on the chain. 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.600 So as bits go. Eventually someone decided to commit and 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.480 they went to the cafeteria asked for all the day's 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.599 plate scrappings. They collected these all in one bucket, and 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:01.880 their play was to dump it on a kid when 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.240 he or she inevitably pulled the. 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.920 Chain because you know, as we both know, when you 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:09.000 tell a kid not to do something, he or she 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:11.880 pretty much has to do it. Of course, so slime 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:13.480 was originally just food scraps. 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:15.920 Well, they actually ran out of time to shoot the 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.239 scene that day, and you can't go to overtime with kids. 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.520 Of course, but you can dump food scraps. 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.800 Yet that seems to be seems to be fine, So 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.040 they come back the next week to get the shot. 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.160 But the prop guys like, I didn't get a new 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.000 bucket of food slop. I just have the old one 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.680 from last week. And we all know what happens to 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.360 a bucket of food slop if you leave it backstage 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.280 for a week, it turns it a compost. Yeah, I mean, 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:46.319 it got all green and gooey and moldy. And I 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:48.800 guess this is because it was the eighties and they 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:53.400 actually dumped this gooey mold on a child and it 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.200 got such positive response from Nickelodeon that they wrote a 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.920 show with nothing but slime in it. And that's how 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.680 Nickelodeon's Greens was invented. 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.600 And I'm guessing they've changed that recipe over the years. 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:06.840 They did just a little bit. Yeah, it's proprietary, so 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.680 we don't know exactly what it is. But Darby says 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.520 it's all edible and non toxic, so that's good. But 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.000 he also has this really insightful thing to say about 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.160 the nature of sliming someone. So here's what he had 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:23.360 to say. Slime is a leveler. It's violent, but it's 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:28.000 not violence. It's safe. That's why it resonated with kids. 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.839 You're pulling these people who are on pedestals down green 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:34.360 Slime was about trying to give this come upance to 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:37.960 kids on TV so audiences at home wouldn't feel so 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.000 jealous of them. And of course plenty of adults started 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:42.240 getting slimed too. 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.560 You know, that's something I actually hadn't thought of, Like, 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.480 you get all the fun of dropping something on someone's 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.320 head looney Tune style, but because it's slime, it's not 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.280 an anvil, and no one's getting hurt. 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:53.720 That's right. 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:55.959 It's kind of a great evolution for comedy. 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.160 Yeah, it kind of reminds me of this one journalist 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:00.640 what he said about the prevalence of slame and more 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.960 adult movies, especially in the nineteen eighties. Also, it captures 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.040 these feelings of uncertainty of the times, like I mean, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.559 honestly even like fears of radioactive threats. 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.880 Yeah, slime is I guess pretty versatile in terms of 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.480 what he plays on at philosophically, here's something that's kind 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:20.960 of fun. Did you know mid pandemic? HuffPo actually looked 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.760 into claims that slime has mental health benefits and it's 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:26.840 something I've seen more and more like this idea that 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:31.800 we like slime because it's both distracting and calming. Anyway, 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.160 HuffPo talked to Jack Turbin, who's a doctor and chief 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:39.280 Fellow and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Stanford and while 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.920 he said he's not aware of any peer reviewed studies 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:44.760 looking at the impact of slime on mental health, things 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.720 like slime and putty have interesting textures which make it 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:51.080 easier to capture our attention and draw ourselves into our senses, 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:53.520 which can make it easier to take a moment away 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.320 from our thoughts and anxieties about the past or future. 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:58.760 And he's not the only one who thinks this. There's 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:02.640 this author Britney Johnson, who's also a licensed mental health counselor, 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.080 and she said soothing sounds and soft textures have been 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.520 known to be a great coping skill for people of 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.200 all ages. Touching slime can actually trigger calming signals in 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:12.600 your brain. 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:14.840 That is pretty interesting. So it feels like one minute 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:16.720 you're catching slime in a ghost trap and the next 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:18.720 minute you're squeezing him like a therapy dog. 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:23.000 Yeah, like a wet green you can see therapy dog. Now. 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.040 Of course, slime has plenty of negative connotations too, Like 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.920 we've talked a little bit about the health benefits and 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:33.240 nature our mental health, I guess, and possibly magically deaging 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:37.080 your skin like your Benjamin button. But slime is still gross, 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:39.880 and especially when you're talking about pink slime. 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.040 I'd actually forgotten about pink slime and food, right, So 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:46.040 tell me what it is exactly. 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.280 So, pink slime has an official name. It's called lean 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.520 Finely Trimmed Beef or LFTB, and in the nineteen nineties 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.040 it was in a ton of pre made beef patties 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:58.920 in the US. And the term pink slime was actually 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.160 coined by a micro biologist named Gerald Zernstein in two 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:04.960 thousand and two, but most of us became aware of 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.600 pink slime from the two thousand and eight documentary Food Ink. 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:10.160 You remember all the noise it made. 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.960 Yeah, I just remember like thinking at the time it 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.520 was so gross. It was on like magazine covers and things. 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.480 Everywhere everywhere, and it's not appetizing. I mean, pink slime 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:20.680 got a lot of bad press for that. It was 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.480 a two thousand and nine New York Times expos and 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.680 it reported that BPI, the company who made LFTB, had 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.200 been lowering the levels of ammonium hydroxide it used to 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.800 treat it in response to complaints of the strong ammonious 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:39.200 smell in meat. But the reduction of ammonium hydroxide caused 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.440 several batches of burger destined for school lunches to test 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.280 positive for E. Coli and salmonella. 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:46.760 Oh that's gross. 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.240 Yeah, there's this twenty twelve ABC News report that ran 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:54.920 about LFTB. BPI eventually sued ABC and its parent company, 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.520 Disney for defamation, but the damage was done by that point, 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.440 so grocery chains said they would know longer carry pink slime. 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.000 Sales plummeted for maybe five million pounds per week to 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:06.680 less than two million pounds. 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.719 I mean, pink slime is legitimately disgusting. Be careful, though, 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:12.760 because we don't want to get sued, so don't tell 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:15.720 see too much. Yeah, I mean, pink slime is delicious 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:20.439 right right in Cereal. But I think we're allowed to 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.520 safely say that sea snot is gross? Is that? Okay? 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:26.000 I don't know. I don't know what sea snot is, 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:27.280 but yeah, sure, I agree. 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.120 Sea snot are these thick, slimy, gray brown sheets known 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:35.080 as marine mucilage, and they are made of dead and 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.880 living organic material, but a lot of it is phytoplankton. 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.879 And these microscopic algae usually help fill the ocean waters 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.160 with oxygen, but when they're stressed, they can grow out 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:49.720 of control and produce this sticky mucus like substance that 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:54.600 can span miles. In twenty twenty one, turkeys Marmara sea. 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:58.320 It was actually overrun with sea snot, boosted by global 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:02.840 warming and also from an overload of pollutants like wastewater 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:03.960 and also pesticides. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.960 Oh goodness, so ce snot could talk, it would probably 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.080 say stop dumping poison on me, and I'll chill out 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:09.520 a little bit. 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:12.160 Yeah. I mean, it's funny you say that, because that's 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.080 something we tend to do with slimes, right, Like we 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.200 treat them like they're sentient. And it seems like we've 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.160 done this for a while. So back in nineteen seventy three, 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:24.119 a woman in Garland, Texas named Marie Harris, she found 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.960 a mysterious slime oozing from the ground in her backyard, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.400 and she said it was reddish and foamy, it had 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.119 this black mucus inside when it was punctured, and it 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:37.479 also released this purple goo, so really really gross, And 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.320 eventually she hacks it in half with a garden hoe, 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.520 but two days later it's back, and it's doubled in size, 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:46.280 and over the course of a couple of weeks it 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:48.880 grew to sixteen times its original size. 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.199 It definitely makes it sound like it's a lie, I know. 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.560 And a Dallas paper called it, quote the brooding and 0:18:55.760 --> 0:19:00.440 inscrutable organism, and it set off this minor media frenzy, 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:02.760 and of course rumors start to spread that it had 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.359 come from outer space, and it turns out it was 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:07.919 just a slime mold, which you know, is gross, but 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:12.199 soil dwelling amiba, these brainless, single celled organisms that you 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.119 see growing on forest litter and decaying wood. I mean 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.000 slime molts don't have brains, but they actually are kind 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.800 of smart mango, So how do you mean, Well, like 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.080 you said, they don't have a brain, but slime molds 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.840 can make really strange and sophisticated shapes, including. 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.680 Add this to the list, a replica of the Tokyo 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.200 subway system. I mean that's pretty smart. They connect it. 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.160 This is this is actually true. A group of researchers 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:40.320 from the Hokkaido University in Japan placed FI serum policy fallum. 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.960 Say it with me now, FI serum policyfallus in a 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:47.480 petri dish scattered with oat flakes, and they sprinkled the 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.880 food scraps in a pattern meant to replicate the locations 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:54.320 of some of the most visited sites in Tokyo. So 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.040 first the slime mold size grew exponentially, and then it 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.840 branched out, and then the the size of the branches 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:05.600 started to shrink and eventually recreated this complex, interconnected network 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.159 made of slimes that looks almost exactly like the Tokyo 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:09.960 subway system. 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:13.359 See super smart, which is cool, but it also sounds 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.000 like you can just like mold slime molds to look 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:17.800 like art or architecture. 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:20.440 Yeah, I mean, it's so easy to endow this inanimate 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.800 growth with intention. Actually, the original the Blob movie from 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.960 nineteen fifty eight was probably inspired by slime molds because 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:31.160 it's fun to imagine that the slime is actually thinking. 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.680 But it's just a movie. It's not like slime can 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.840 actually become aware and kill people, so you can relax. 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:43.639 Well. Actually, in twenty sixteen, there's a mass migration of 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.280 snails that left a trail of slime on a German 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.560 motorway and it caused a car crash. Or I guess 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:50.679 a car surfing out. 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:52.800