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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. Like

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Speaker 1: many of you out there, I've been familiar with with

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Speaker 1: tumbleweeds for a while, but almost almost exclusively as just

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Speaker 1: this um sort of mundane symbol of the American West, right,

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Speaker 1: you know, mainly it's this type of thing you see

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Speaker 1: popping up in old westerns or perhaps more to the point,

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Speaker 1: old cartoons inspired by old Westerns. Anytime you need the

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Speaker 1: audience to understand, this place is is desolate, this place

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Speaker 1: is in the American desert, or this place is a

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Speaker 1: ghost town. What do you do? You have the old

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Speaker 1: tumbleweed roll by, Yeah, tumbleweed means nothing's going on. In fact,

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Speaker 1: I think it's even a common gift. Right. You can

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Speaker 1: meme a tumble weed if you are to indicate the

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Speaker 1: thread has died or or you know, nobody's got anything

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Speaker 1: to say, Yeah, there's nobody in here. This is It

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Speaker 1: comes to represent like not only desolation, but also uh

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Speaker 1: emptiness and tedium. You know, it's just in boredom. It's

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Speaker 1: like this, this place is empty, This place there's nothing

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Speaker 1: going on. This is the domain of tumbleweeds, and therefore

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Speaker 1: it's easy to think, well, tumbleweeds themselves are boring tumbleweeds. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's nothing going on with tumbleweeds. There's it's not the

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Speaker 1: kind of thing you could do a two part series

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Speaker 1: on for a podcast. Oh but you would be wrong, yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: uh and uh and hopefully we will we will prove

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Speaker 1: that in uh, in this pair of episodes that we're

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Speaker 1: gonna be doing. Um. But but before, just a couple

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Speaker 1: of weeks ago, I was very much of the mind

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Speaker 1: the tumbleweeds. They they pop up in movies sometimes a

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Speaker 1: lot of times they look fake. Um. Yeah, for we

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Speaker 1: were actually looking at some clips prior to recording these. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, does this look like a real tumbleweed or

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Speaker 1: a fake tumbleweed? Um? And I wasn't always in a

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Speaker 1: good place to judge this well. I think one way

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Speaker 1: in which movie tumbleweeds often fall short is in size,

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Speaker 1: just the size shown, Because the tumbleweed in a movie

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Speaker 1: it's always pretty much basketball sized. It's very round, or

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Speaker 1: maybe you could say like turkey sized. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: like a good Thanksgiving turkey. But it's made out of twigs. Now, obviously,

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Speaker 1: tumbleweeds can vary in size and reality, and we'll we'll

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Speaker 1: explain more about that as we go on. But you know,

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Speaker 1: a lot of real tumbleweeds I've seen, especially in some

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Speaker 1: of the more dramatic tumbleweed footage where where humanity is

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Speaker 1: really doing battle with with tumbleweeds. Uh, they get big.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're more in the like beach ball to

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Speaker 1: bean bag chair range. Oh absolutely, yeah, you know, thinking

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Speaker 1: about the cinematic ones. Yeah, a lot of the times

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Speaker 1: when you see a kind of essentially a fake looking

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Speaker 1: tumbleweed and obvious plant, a plant that is is self

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Speaker 1: a plant. Um, it will be that beach ball or

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Speaker 1: turkey sized, uh tumbleweed just big enough to where it

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Speaker 1: is amusing but not a threat. Uh, it'll just kind

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Speaker 1: of be, you know, lazily rolling by in the background.

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Speaker 1: And Uh, one film that that I was looking at,

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Speaker 1: it was pretty interesting because you can see both examples

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Speaker 1: of this, and that's the film The Petrified Forest starring

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Speaker 1: Leslie Howard, Betty Davis, and Humphrey Bogart, which in and

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Speaker 1: of itself is a tremendous film, but some of it

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Speaker 1: is is obviously on more of a set or a

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Speaker 1: sound stage, and other bits of it are filmed outdoors. Uh,

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Speaker 1: perhaps in actual Arizona or at least somewhere in California

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Speaker 1: that that you know, fit the bill. Yeah, and in

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Speaker 1: the location shot, in fact, there's an early location shot

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Speaker 1: where you see Leslie Howard's character walking down the street

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Speaker 1: there and there's a fair sized tumble weed that that

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Speaker 1: comes in at a at a pretty swift pace. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if they filmed it in during an actual

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Speaker 1: windstorm or they just have some you know, some big

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Speaker 1: fans going. But uh, there's a moment there where I

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Speaker 1: when I was rewatching and I'm like, oh, jeez, I

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Speaker 1: hope this doesn't hit Leslie Howard. That would uh you

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Speaker 1: know that that that wouldn't be very becoming of such

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Speaker 1: a suave character. Well, isn't the beginning premise of the

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Speaker 1: film that he has traveled out west in order to

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Speaker 1: maybe commit suicide. So is it possible that he wanted

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Speaker 1: suicide by tumbleweed? Well, I don't know how romantic would

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Speaker 1: that day. Uh? Yeah, I think he says that he

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Speaker 1: he's hoping to one day see the Pacific Ocean and

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Speaker 1: perhaps drowned in it. But but I can't imagine saying

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Speaker 1: I hoped one day too to uh run across the

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Speaker 1: six feet tumbleweed and be demolished by it. I hope

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Speaker 1: one day to to be absorbed by a sea of thorns. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, to to get back to the to the

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Speaker 1: point here. Yeah, these tumbleweeds can get rather large. And

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Speaker 1: I never really realized this before until this holiday season,

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Speaker 1: this that we've just gone through because this year, or

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Speaker 1: this previous year rather just after Christmas, my family we

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Speaker 1: found ourselves, um driving south from Phoenix to Tucson, Arizona,

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Speaker 1: and then west towards Las Cruces before cutting up to

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Speaker 1: Albuquerque and then Santa Fe and um, and we were

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Speaker 1: doing this because we originally are going to take a

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Speaker 1: northern route through Flagstaff, but winter weather forced us to pivot.

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Speaker 1: So here we are, Uh, we're going on Interstate ten

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Speaker 1: between Tucson and Las Crucis. And what during my stretch

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Speaker 1: of the driving, we begin to enter this uh, this

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Speaker 1: this this uh you know, the you know where in

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Speaker 1: the desert is you know, desolate. We get these advisories

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Speaker 1: about possible you know, wind, possible uh dust storms and

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Speaker 1: uh and then I begin to see the first tumbleweeds. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I've been going out west for a

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Speaker 1: while now, and I don't think i'd ever really seen

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Speaker 1: a tumbleweed in action. Maybe i'd maybe i'd seen one

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Speaker 1: small like turkey basketball size one. But this was the

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Speaker 1: first time I started seeing some real bad boys, some

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Speaker 1: real monsters rolling around. Uh. For first of all, at

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Speaker 1: the you know, sort of the side of the road,

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Speaker 1: were sometimes like stuck up against a fence. But then eventually, uh,

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Speaker 1: they're they're crossing the road. They're being blown across the

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Speaker 1: the highway, and it's quite alarming because again, some of

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Speaker 1: these are are huge. There we were we were commenting

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Speaker 1: at the time, perhaps overreacting, that they look like they're

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Speaker 1: the you know, about half the size of a Voltswagen.

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Speaker 1: Did you hit one? Oh yes, yeah, eventually let's started

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Speaker 1: hitting them and that they explode. Yeah, they kind of

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Speaker 1: or it's kind of like, um, it's like frosted, uh

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Speaker 1: not frosted. What were they? Yeah, but not the many ones,

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Speaker 1: the big ones. Oh yeah, Okay, it's like a shredded wheat,

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Speaker 1: like shredded many wheat, of the shredded wheat hitting the

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Speaker 1: front of your car. They just kind of, uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: crumple and implode, and um, part of it gets stuck

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Speaker 1: under the vehicle. But it's alarming because they're so big

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Speaker 1: in volume at the size at the time. I don't

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Speaker 1: know why I thought of it this way, but I

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Speaker 1: was imagining it's like running into a ball of about

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Speaker 1: five thousand tooth brushes and toothpicks all loosely taped together. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's like that. And yeah, you're seeing them

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Speaker 1: slam into other vehicles in the the opposing side of

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Speaker 1: the highway. I'm watching them just slam into the fronts

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Speaker 1: of tractor trailer rigs and and it's weird to watch

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Speaker 1: them because on one hand, there there's something about the

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Speaker 1: tumble weed moving around that is kind of comical. There's

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Speaker 1: something absurd about it. And so I'm kind of freaking

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Speaker 1: out about the driving of My wife is just like

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Speaker 1: cracking up laughing at these things in the seat next

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Speaker 1: to me, and um. And then the other thing is

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Speaker 1: the way that they're you know, they're they're not perfect spheres. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they're not perfectly round. They have this kind of oblong

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Speaker 1: shape to them, so they kind of tumble and bounce

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Speaker 1: and especially with the you know, the uncertainty of the

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Speaker 1: wind and also the aerodynamics of the high speed traffic,

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Speaker 1: the way that they behave kind of comes to to

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Speaker 1: mimic that of an animal. You're trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: what's it gonna do. Is it gonna cross, is it

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Speaker 1: not gonna cross? Is it gonna halfway cross? And then

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Speaker 1: change direction, and so all of this adds up to

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Speaker 1: this this anxiety I was feeling about these tumbleweeds because

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm trying to to to figure out what they're

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Speaker 1: going to do and if I'm going to hit them,

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Speaker 1: and then I have to make sure I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to swerve and make the situation worse. Well, so with

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Speaker 1: us talking like this, I immediately wonder if it's like

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Speaker 1: if it's like us also talking about trying to drive

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Speaker 1: in snow. I don't know if you've seen the stuff

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Speaker 1: on the internet where anybody who lives up north makes

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Speaker 1: fun of people from the South. You're like, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's like an inch of snow on the ground and

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Speaker 1: suddenly nobody can drive. Yeah. I imagine that there are

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Speaker 1: some some desert dwellers out there who are who are

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Speaker 1: having a laugh at um that at how we're talking

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Speaker 1: about this here, and I mean they're probably used to it.

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I just I don't think i'd ever been

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Speaker 1: down there or and I wasn't in the right place

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Speaker 1: at the right time to encounter like full blown, literally

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Speaker 1: full blown tumbleweeds season. And I was I was actually wondering,

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Speaker 1: why are there no signs advising tourists about this, Like

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Speaker 1: they're warning us about what to do during the dust storm,

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Speaker 1: But how about it, like don't swerve, just go ahead

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Speaker 1: and hit the tumbleweed. Uh, you know, some sort of

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Speaker 1: a poster to that effect. Anyway, I afterwards, I started

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Speaker 1: looking around because I was curious, well, you know, does

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Speaker 1: this ever get out of hand or is this just

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Speaker 1: something where if you're if you live around at you're

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Speaker 1: used to it. Well, Uh, I did some research online.

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Speaker 1: I started running across news stories with headlines featuring things

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Speaker 1: like tumbleweed Nightmares from as recently as last month, in

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Speaker 1: which winds basically blocked certain New Mexico roads with tumbleweeds,

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Speaker 1: or a NBC headline quote thirty foot tumbleweed pile up

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Speaker 1: traps cars, semi trucks on Washington Highway, or another one

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Speaker 1: this this was quite impressive tumbleweeds bury New Mexico town.

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Speaker 1: And if you start looking up footage or images of

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Speaker 1: some of this um it's it's not as much of

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Speaker 1: an exaggeration as as you think, like you're looking at

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Speaker 1: a two story like suburban homes and the tumble weeds,

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Speaker 1: which again you're talking about tumbleweeds that can reach you know,

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Speaker 1: sometimes like six ft in diameter. They're piling up, they're

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Speaker 1: reaching the second floor of the house. Yeah, piled up

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Speaker 1: like heavy snow drifts, except probably even more difficult to

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Speaker 1: deal with than snow, right because snow, I mean you

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Speaker 1: can at least shovel out of the way. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if I could say easily, but to some degree easily.

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Speaker 1: Tumbleweeds are notoriously difficult to handle and deal with. I

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Speaker 1: think because of their size and their shape and the composition,

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Speaker 1: like the thorny nous of them. It's difficult to just

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Speaker 1: grab them because they're usually thorny and and in some

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Speaker 1: way repel your flesh. And uh. It's also difficult to

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Speaker 1: to sort of scoop them out of the way because

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Speaker 1: they tend to break. Yeah, with snow, Like one of

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Speaker 1: the great things about snow is that even if you

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Speaker 1: don't shovel it. Um. Usually what's gonna happen is it's

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Speaker 1: gonna melt. Right, the sun is gonna na come out,

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Speaker 1: temperatures are gonna rise, That snow is gonna melt. The

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Speaker 1: tumbleweed is not going to melt. The tumbleweeds a mass

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Speaker 1: against the side of your house might not distribute on

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Speaker 1: their own and they might catch on fire. They might

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Speaker 1: catch on fire, yeah, because they're basically they're dried out,

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Speaker 1: lifeless brittle um vegetation. So they're they're they're a fire

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Speaker 1: has it. They're a legitimate fire hazard clumped up against

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Speaker 1: the side of your house. So you've got to get

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Speaker 1: rid of them. Or if they're not, again, if they're

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Speaker 1: not against the side of your house, then they're perhaps

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Speaker 1: blocking the road. Uh. They can also cause other issue,

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Speaker 1: you know, they build up against fences. They can interfere

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Speaker 1: with with drainage systems um because again, a lot of

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Speaker 1: the environments we're talking about here are very dry most

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Speaker 1: of the year, but then there will be a deluge

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Speaker 1: and during that time you need to have sufficient drainage

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Speaker 1: systems in place. You don't need those drainage systems and canals,

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Speaker 1: etcetera clogged with old tumbleweeds. They can also interfere with

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Speaker 1: irrigation systems. They can can cause a huge mess, and

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Speaker 1: they do cause traffic accidents. Um i'm reading. I was

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Speaker 1: reading about one in Jadito Wash that was apparently so

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Speaker 1: impressive that the Arizona Daily Press did a ten year

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Speaker 1: anniversary story about the incident, and I included a photo

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Speaker 1: from the story in our notes here, Joe, it does

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Speaker 1: look quite impressive. You ever like comb a shedding dog

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Speaker 1: and end up with all these clumps of hair that

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Speaker 1: you need to get rid of at the end. But

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Speaker 1: then now imagine that, but it's twenty ft high. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like like Clifford the Big Red Dog or Marmaduke

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Speaker 1: sized pile of of of shavings. Here now, like you

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Speaker 1: were saying, yeah, it's difficult to clean all this stuff up.

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Speaker 1: What do you have to do? You have to get

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Speaker 1: a work crew out there. They've got to to gather

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Speaker 1: these materials up. You've got to put them into vehicles, uh,

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Speaker 1: and and take them somewhere, take them away. And they're

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Speaker 1: mostly air, so you end up like really filling up

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Speaker 1: a vehicle. But then you know the weight volume isn't there, so, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, you start doing the math on you know,

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Speaker 1: the the cost of labor, the cost of materials, the

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Speaker 1: cost of transportation, and and the cost end up really

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Speaker 1: skyrocketing for the various counties and towns and cities that

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Speaker 1: have to engage in this kind of cleanup effort. One

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Speaker 1: of the articles we were both reading for this episode

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Speaker 1: is a PBS article about tumbleweeds by an author named

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Speaker 1: Gabriella Ciros, but citing information from somebody named Ariel of Vario,

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Speaker 1: a deputy agricultural commissioner at the county's Weed Abatement Division

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Speaker 1: in Lancaster, California. U Ciros writes, quote, in the cities

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Speaker 1: of Palmdale and Lancaster, tumbleweeds are such a big problem

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Speaker 1: that Los Angeles County spends a hundred thousand to a

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars yearly mowing and chipping dried

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Speaker 1: out Russian thistle that's the name of one specific dominant

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Speaker 1: species of tumbleweed in vacant lots and abandoned agricultural fields

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Speaker 1: before they can tumble away. So this is above a

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars a year of a problem for one county,

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Speaker 1: I mean big county, but uh, every year it's enough

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Speaker 1: to make you wonder. Um, you know, there's got to

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Speaker 1: be a better way, right, It's got to be some

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Speaker 1: sort of technological improvement, uh, that that we could make

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Speaker 1: that would uh, that would improve this situation. Uh and

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Speaker 1: uh And indeed I found evidence of a of a

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Speaker 1: really promising and and frightening looking project that I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure ever really quite got off the ground. But I

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Speaker 1: want to read verbatim from this n l A Times

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Speaker 1: article by Eddie Pell's go for it all right, there

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Speaker 1: we go Los Cruces, New Mexico. It looks like a

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Speaker 1: contraption straight out of a Stephen King novel, huge metal spoke,

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Speaker 1: squirreling away, shredding everything in its path. But the invention

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Speaker 1: from New Mexico State University's Advanced Manufacturing Center is out

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Speaker 1: only to mow down the bane of the West, the

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Speaker 1: ever present tumble weed. So you shared video of this

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Speaker 1: man alur with me, and it does look like a beast. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I found this this archived video that was put out

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Speaker 1: I think by the by New Mexico State University UM

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Speaker 1: or perhaps the State Highway Department. I forget which, but

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Speaker 1: it was it was all about this, this promising new project,

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Speaker 1: and it included footage of the prototype for this that

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Speaker 1: The invention we're talking about is the tumbleweed crumbler. It

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Speaker 1: was developed via a forty contract at the time to

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Speaker 1: New Mexico State University from the State Highway Department develop

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Speaker 1: a better way of collecting and shredding the tumbleweeds. And

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Speaker 1: the prototype was essentially a pair of rotating, like inwardly

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Speaker 1: rotating metal spokes hooked at the front of a snowplow truck. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it's like drum barrels imagine that are sort of

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Speaker 1: rolling inward as if you know, to to roll things

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Speaker 1: into the gap between them, which is pretty small, and

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Speaker 1: that it's got spikes sticking out of the drums. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And there's a really excellent part of the video where

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Speaker 1: a guy is standing right in front of it while

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Speaker 1: it's running, kind of feeding tumbleweeds into it, and we

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Speaker 1: were thinking, like, oh, is he going to reach in

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Speaker 1: there to try to clear out a jam by hand? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna be like one of those like shake hands

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Speaker 1: with dangerous safety videos. It just looks very unsafe and

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Speaker 1: and I don't. I don't know. I the guitar twine

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Speaker 1: comes in. Johnny thought he could save time because the

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's terrifying, but it also looks really effective.

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Speaker 1: They show it, uh like running into mounds of tumbleweeds.

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Speaker 1: These uh, these wheels with the with the spikes on them,

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Speaker 1: they grind up these these tumbleweeds and then the ground

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Speaker 1: up remnants are like sucked up and shot into the

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Speaker 1: back of the snowplow truck. So uh, you know, this

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Speaker 1: seems like it seems like it would it would have

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Speaker 1: been a great fix because first of all, you have

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Speaker 1: the snowplow trucks anyway that are being used during parts

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Speaker 1: of the year to to deal with keeping the roads clear,

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Speaker 1: and then snowplow trucks without this kind of spike contraption

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Speaker 1: are apparently sometime times used to clear the roads of

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Speaker 1: tumbleweeds anyway, though of course they're just mostly pushing them

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Speaker 1: out of the way and not really you know, not

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Speaker 1: collecting them. So it seems like this would have been

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Speaker 1: a cool way to to deal with the problem. But

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Speaker 1: so are these machines day wegur Now, No, I don't

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Speaker 1: think they are. That's the thing. You know you you

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Speaker 1: see uh, you see an article like this, and you

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Speaker 1: see if you see footage like this, And again this

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Speaker 1: was ninety six and as far as I can tell

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Speaker 1: this this ended up not really going too much more

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Speaker 1: beyond the prototype phase in the video they're talking about

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Speaker 1: they're going on to another phase of development. And I

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Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe I couldn't find an answer as to

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Speaker 1: why exactly they didn't go with this. Maybe it just

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Speaker 1: came down to something as mundane as uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: the money or politics, UH, cost effective or something. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it just wasn't cost effective. UM, I don't know, maybe

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Speaker 1: it was too dangerous. I have no no way of knowing,

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Speaker 1: and I wasn't able to find out. But this seems

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Speaker 1: to be a trend with a lot of issues related

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Speaker 1: to the problem of tumbleweeds, particularly in the United States.

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Speaker 1: I kept running across UH promising sounding scientific solutions UH

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Speaker 1: from years past, solutions that in many cases may still

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Speaker 1: be in development, but but but have not reached that

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Speaker 1: point where someone is out there saying, yes, this is

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Speaker 1: the thing we're actually doing tumbleweeds, watch out because we're coming.

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Speaker 1: Though some of these solutions do get more sci fi

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Speaker 1: than the mangler. Yes, yes, all right, Well, I guess

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Speaker 1: it's worth explaining at this point what are tumbleweeds? Uh,

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Speaker 1: And I think the most important point to say the

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Speaker 1: beginning is that technically tumbleweed is not a single species

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Speaker 1: of plant. Tumbleweed is a common morphological feature of a

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Speaker 1: number of different species of plants spread out across different families.

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Speaker 1: Though in the American context, there is one single species

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Speaker 1: in the in the amaranth family that tumbleweed most often

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Speaker 1: refers to, but it's by no means the only one,

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Speaker 1: and we'll talk more about that species in particular later.

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Speaker 1: But the broader category of features of a tumbleweed is this. So,

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Speaker 1: a tumbleweed is the above ground structure of a plant

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Speaker 1: which at maturity dries up and snaps away from the

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Speaker 1: roots structure and then is blown around by the wind,

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Speaker 1: scattering seeds as it goes. Yeah, it's sometimes referred to

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Speaker 1: as a detachable diaspore. Yeah. And and a diaspore is

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Speaker 1: basically any seed and other structure that helps the seed spread.

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Speaker 1: So diaspore could include, like say, a little parachute like

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Speaker 1: thing that catches the wind, or it could include like

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Speaker 1: a fruit to that you know that an animal would eat.

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Speaker 1: It's the thing around the seed that helps the seed

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Speaker 1: get where it's going. Yeah, but in this case it's

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Speaker 1: pretty much the entire above ground part of the plant. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And so there are variations between different species, but in

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Speaker 1: most cases you can picture, for a tumbleweed, a bush

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Speaker 1: like plant that becomes very brittle and dry and has

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Speaker 1: a big tangle of different stem segments, and eventually it

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Speaker 1: breaks off at the roots at roughly the place where

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Speaker 1: the stem meets the ground, and then it rolls around

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Speaker 1: on the planes, driven driven on the wind, like a

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Speaker 1: giant inflatable ball. Now you might think, okay, most plants

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Speaker 1: don't break off at the place where they meet the

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Speaker 1: ground and then get their bodies blown around, dead and

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Speaker 1: dry by the wind. So why do tumbleweeds do that? Well, Actually,

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Speaker 1: the answer is similar to the answer to the question

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Speaker 1: why are fruits delicious? Uh. The answer is it's for

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Speaker 1: seed dispersal, meaning the transportation of seeds and thus the

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Speaker 1: next generation of plants away from the parent and UH.

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Speaker 1: A lot of plant species actually spend a great effort

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Speaker 1: at seed dispersal, and there are a host of different

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Speaker 1: strategies available. So, for example, there is animal dispersal. So

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Speaker 1: you can think of the seeds of edible fruits. The

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Speaker 1: fruit is tasty and dense and calories, so animals want

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Speaker 1: to eat it. The animal will be attracted to the fruit,

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Speaker 1: they'll nom nom, they'll swallow it, and then they will

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Speaker 1: travel elsewhere on their their wings or their legs, and

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Speaker 1: then they will defecate and deposit the seeds in a

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Speaker 1: new home. But that's not the only method of animal dispersal.

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Speaker 1: They are also the burrs that cling to the fur

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Speaker 1: of mammals, that that brush up against the parent plant. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, I don't know if if you've got pets

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Speaker 1: that are burr magnets like my dog is. But you know,

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Speaker 1: sometimes Charlie will will get into some bushes and then

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Speaker 1: when he when he comes out, it's a problem he

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Speaker 1: has probably like you know, a thousand of these things

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Speaker 1: stuck to him, and and there are a bunch more

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Speaker 1: that there. For example, there is a whole class of

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Speaker 1: of diaspores that are spread specifically by ants that you

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Speaker 1: know that they have specific relationships with ants that will

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Speaker 1: maybe bury them underground in a way that's preferable to

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Speaker 1: to the land. But there's also wind dispersal. So you

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Speaker 1: can think of the seeds of dandelions. They contain a

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Speaker 1: natural parachute, like a structure that catches the breeze and

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Speaker 1: allows the seed to be picked up by the wind

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00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:16,840
Speaker 1: and blown to new lands. There's water dispersal. Coconuts are

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Speaker 1: a great example here they float on the water and

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Speaker 1: allow currents to carry them to New German nation sites.

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Speaker 1: There's gravity dispersal, that's what it sounds like. There's explosive dispersal.

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Speaker 1: That one's fun. Yeah, yeah, bursting pods and so forth.

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Speaker 1: So there are a number of different methods uh, and

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Speaker 1: there are some primary reasons that a plant would want

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Speaker 1: to disperse its seeds to get the seeds away from

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Speaker 1: the parent plant. One idea is that doing this reduces

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Speaker 1: competition between the seed and the parent plant and with

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Speaker 1: other nearby adult plants. So, just like animals, plants need

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Speaker 1: access to resources. And one example here would be sunlight plants.

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Speaker 1: It's sunlight in order to power photosynthesis. But if they

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Speaker 1: fall straight down off of the parent this could limit

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Speaker 1: them right because they could be trying to grow in

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Speaker 1: the shadow of the adult plant. And you can imagine

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Speaker 1: other competitions for nutrients in the soil for water and

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Speaker 1: so forth. So one reason seeds might be dispersed is

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Speaker 1: that the is that it allows the parent plant and

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Speaker 1: the offspring to grow separately without competing with one another

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Speaker 1: for access to the same resources. You know that that

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Speaker 1: does make me think of the old thing the apple

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Speaker 1: doesn't fall far from the tree. But that's saying really

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Speaker 1: kind of misses the point, because it's not the The

424
00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:38,560
Speaker 1: apple is not supposed to just fall off the tree

425
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:41,679
Speaker 1: and remain there, and then the seeds are going to

426
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:44,000
Speaker 1: end up in the soil right there beside the parent tree.

427
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:46,919
Speaker 1: Like the idea is that this is animal dispersal, that

428
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,879
Speaker 1: those seeds are in this lovely, delicious apple that's going

429
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 1: to be consumed or carried off by some other creature.

430
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:56,880
Speaker 1: That's a very good point. If the apple stays too

431
00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 1: close to the tree, that could be really bad for

432
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:03,679
Speaker 1: the young apple or the young apple tree, I guess um.

433
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 1: But then there are other reasons. So that's just one

434
00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 1: possible motivation in the evolutionary sense. Other evolutionary motivations for

435
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:16,360
Speaker 1: seed dispersal would be saying, limiting bad things that can

436
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: happen to young plants when they tend to be densely

437
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:24,160
Speaker 1: congregated around the parent plant. Uh. So these bad things

438
00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:27,640
Speaker 1: could include contagion, could include the you know, the spreading

439
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 1: of pathogens that would spread among densely congregated plants, or

440
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: the harvesting of predators. So if say seeds are potentially

441
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: edible and they all fall in one place right around

442
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:42,439
Speaker 1: the parent, this often results in say an animal that

443
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 1: would eat those seeds or would eat those young plants

444
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:48,400
Speaker 1: the seedlings, uh, coming gobbling them all up at one

445
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:50,720
Speaker 1: time in one big buffet. But if they spread out

446
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 1: all over the place, the risks of things like pathogens

447
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 1: and predators are reduced, And then other motivations could be

448
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:02,159
Speaker 1: things like colonization of new areas without competition. So you

449
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:06,400
Speaker 1: might want a way to spread your your offspring plants

450
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: to areas that don't really have any other plants in

451
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:11,399
Speaker 1: them right now, you know, just kind of some bare

452
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 1: ground if it can be located. And in the cases

453
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:18,200
Speaker 1: of tumbleweeds in particular, that often is located because tumbleweeds

454
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: can grow in areas that many other plants can't tolerate

455
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:24,719
Speaker 1: or haven't been able to take root in yet. And

456
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: that's going to be key moving forward. So keep that

457
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: in mind, right, Uh and uh. But another thing might

458
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: be that seeds would be dispersed so that they could

459
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:38,440
Speaker 1: target a specific germination spot where the plant is likely

460
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:41,440
Speaker 1: to thrive. And you can interpret that in a couple

461
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 1: of ways. For example, some animal dispersal would mean that

462
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: the seed ends up either buried in the ground or

463
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: maybe surrounded by dung which can protect it and provide

464
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 1: other benefits. Or in other cases, Uh, this might be

465
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:56,879
Speaker 1: methods of dispersal aimed at getting the seed to a

466
00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 1: certain kind of landscape or environment. Yeah, and I guess

467
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 1: one thing to keep in mind. It kind of goes

468
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 1: back to the whole day about an idea about the

469
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:06,880
Speaker 1: apple falling far from the tree. It's not about where

470
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:10,360
Speaker 1: the apple initially falls, it's about where the seeds end up.

471
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 1: And with the tumble weed, it's actually quite similar. It's

472
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 1: not about it's not about really where the tumble weed

473
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:21,440
Speaker 1: ultimately goes. It's about the seeds it drops along the way.

474
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: That's right. So if you apply what we've been talking

475
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,640
Speaker 1: about to the tumbleweed in particular, how does it disperse

476
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 1: its seeds? Generally? What what the detachable diaspore of a

477
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:34,720
Speaker 1: tumbleweed plant does is dry up with a bunch of

478
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:38,119
Speaker 1: seeds in it, and then it will be blown about

479
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 1: by the wind, dropping seeds as it goes, because it

480
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 1: will be kind of dry and brittle, so it bounces

481
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 1: over the landscape, uh, sort of degrading and breaking apart

482
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: as it as it blows around, and it will drop

483
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 1: seeds intermittently, so all over the place you get. You

484
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:56,920
Speaker 1: get vast seed dispersal with this method now, and thousands

485
00:26:56,920 --> 00:26:59,719
Speaker 1: of seeds. Yeah, yeah, totally. And also if there are

486
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:02,880
Speaker 1: any seeds left in the tumbleweed when it reaches its

487
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:05,160
Speaker 1: final destination, whatever that is, I mean, I guess there

488
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 1: probably usually are some seeds still left in it. Uh,

489
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 1: it can, it can try to germinate from wherever it

490
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 1: comes to rest, especially if it finds a water source,

491
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:16,520
Speaker 1: if it happens to land in a place with moisture. Yes,

492
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,920
Speaker 1: But one of the interesting things to keep in mind

493
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:22,120
Speaker 1: is that, again, this is a plant that does extremely

494
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 1: well and barren environments. Uh so like an abandoned agricultural site.

495
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: Oh that's that's that's pristine for the tumbleweed, you know,

496
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 1: a vacant lot. Yes, it wants to get in there.

497
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 1: But one of the things about say, tumbleweeds accumulating in

498
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 1: a well irrigated yard is that I've I've read that

499
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 1: those those tumbleweed seeds, if they land there and they're

500
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: not going to really be able to compete with the

501
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:49,639
Speaker 1: grass that's growing there. So yeah, this is ultimately a

502
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 1: plant that is at its best, uh in the worst

503
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: of environments, at least from uh, you know, from from

504
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: from a typical human perspective, in the worst of environments,

505
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:03,760
Speaker 1: or environments that have for some reason been cleared of

506
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: their natural vegetation, which often happens in the case of

507
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 1: human development. Yeah, and I think it's worth this is

508
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: something that I saw pointed out in a couple of

509
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: different sources. It's easy to get to get in this

510
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: mind because again, tumbleweeds, and we'll discuss more about this.

511
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:22,679
Speaker 1: You know, they're they're a pest. They're there, and they're there.

512
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: It's it's a problem that people having to deal with.

513
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 1: But you can't just look at the tumbleweed like a disease.

514
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 1: You also have to look at the tumbleweed as a

515
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:34,160
Speaker 1: symptom of land degregation, land degradation. Yeah, yeah, so uh,

516
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:37,399
Speaker 1: let's talk about the life cycle just a little bit here. So, um,

517
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: so what happens once that seed lands in just the

518
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: right spot. Well, they don't need much water at all

519
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: to start growing, and they have this kind of like

520
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: screw like shape. They're they're kind of interesting to see

521
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: the close ups of the seed. And then when they

522
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: start growing, they start out looking like just blades of grass.

523
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: They have kind of like a pinkish, uh, like a

524
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: white and pinkish um section towards the bottom. They almost

525
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: look like it almost looks like some sort of weird

526
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: onion grass or something. Oh yeah, yeah, Now I want

527
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: to be clear at this point, we're talking about one

528
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 1: species of tumbleweed in particular, the one that that Americans

529
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: usually mean when they say tumbleweeds. So now we've narrowed

530
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,479
Speaker 1: it from the broader class of tumbleweed structures to the

531
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: plant people are usually calling tumbleweed, which is known as

532
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: Calli tregas or sell Sola tregas, or more commonly prickly

533
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: Russian thistle. But yeah, that's the one we're talking about now.

534
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: And yeah, and and I'll get into a fascinating little

535
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:36,680
Speaker 1: history lesson about that one in a bit. Yeah, and

536
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: if you're a singing cowboy. This is the variety you're

537
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: probably singing about. Yeah, unless you hear like a really

538
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: uh like you're singing botanist cowboy. And then perhaps you

539
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: have a more robust um uh you know, lyrical treatment

540
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: of the whole situation. But yes, your your description is good. Yeah.

541
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: So like usually white and pink lower stem areas branching

542
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: out into green grass like structures above and in in

543
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: this young form, you know, this plant doesn't look quite

544
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 1: so quite so threatening. You know, it's not thorny yet,

545
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: it's not dry and brittle yet. And uh and according

546
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: to the way it looks, in fact that this this

547
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:16,239
Speaker 1: young form can be eaten by some animals. Yeah, and

548
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: it it should be noted that the initial leaves here

549
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: are long, but then these spring leaves eventually fall off

550
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: and or they're replaced by shorter leaves. Each flower contains

551
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: a fruit that develops into a single seed. But then

552
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: in the late fall. Uh And and again we're just

553
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 1: talking more or less about one variety. You see some

554
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 1: some differences depending on the variety of tumbleweed that you're

555
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: you're looking at the different species. But during the late fall,

556
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 1: they begin to dry out and die and the wind

557
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 1: eventually breaks the dead tumbleweed free of its roots, and

558
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 1: as as described in that that PBS source wee we

559
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: referenced earlier, it's a clean break. Um, it's it's the

560
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: sort of thing you could compare to like a lizard

561
00:30:56,680 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 1: shedding its tail due to a microscopic lay ear of

562
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 1: cells at the base of the plant called the abscission layer.

563
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 1: Uh so this allows it to just snap off. So

564
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: the part of the stem that was made to snap clean,

565
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: it's like the part of the lizard's tail that can

566
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 1: that can shake off for autautomy. Yeah, yeah, so it's

567
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: it's you would be forgiven if you just, you know,

568
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: casually thought, well, you know, it's it's a dry place

569
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: and these bushes they just get so dry and dead

570
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: and then they gets so windy here it just snaps

571
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 1: the bushes off and they roll around. Um, but no,

572
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: it's it is that. But it is also a species

573
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: that has evolved to take advantage of this environment and

574
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 1: to snap off it just the right place and it

575
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:42,040
Speaker 1: just the right time. Now, I saw some wildly different

576
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: numbers about how many seeds and individual tumbleweed plant can

577
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 1: drop as it rolls around. I assume. Obviously this varies

578
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: by species, but even just with reference to Calli tragus

579
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: or the Russian thistle. I saw people mentioning that, you know,

580
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: one can drop a few thousand seeds, like maybe two,

581
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 1: and then I saw estimates of like hundreds of thousands,

582
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 1: so I really don't know which one is more at

583
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: the correct end there. Yeah, I saw tens of thousands. Um.

584
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 1: I guess the tacome here is that we need to

585
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 1: think of it again, not as like a single seed,

586
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: but a depositor of many, many seeds. It's not about

587
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: where the where it goes. It's about the seeds it

588
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 1: drops along the way, as it tumbles, as it bounds

589
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 1: across the landscape, as it weaves in and out of

590
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: traffic and collides with semi trucks. Um, it's just gonna

591
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: spread out the seeds across the way, and all the

592
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: ones that land in just the right spot are going

593
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: to have a shot at growing into plant, into adult

594
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 1: plants themselves. It's one of those evolutionary marvels, which is

595
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 1: in fact neither of these things, but kind of strikes

596
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 1: you somehow as stupid and genius at the same time. Yeah,

597
00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: and I think that's that again kind of cuts to

598
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 1: the reason that tumbleweeds can be both frightening and impressive

599
00:32:55,600 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: in person, but also innately comical. There's just something kind

600
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 1: of ridunculous about this large bush bumbling and bouncing across

601
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 1: the landscape. So I was curious about the you know,

602
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 1: the physics of the of this thing. I was like,

603
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: and my and my wife even brought this up, just like,

604
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 1: surely somebody's looked at the physics of this. So I

605
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: was looking around and I found a wonderful book by

606
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,960
Speaker 1: Ralph D. Lawns, a planetary scientist and engineer at the

607
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 1: John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. It's titled Spinning Flight Dynamics

608
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: of Frisbees, Boomerangs, Samaras and Skipping Stones, And uh, there's

609
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 1: a there's there's only a brief part of the book

610
00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 1: that really gets into tumbleweeds um and ultimately he ends

611
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: up talking more about tumbleweed rover designs, which I'll I'll

612
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: touch on briefly in a minute, but uh, first I

613
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 1: want to read this quote from the book by Lawrence. Quote.

614
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 1: It is worth noting that the center of mass of

615
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 1: a tumbleweed is generally off set from the geometric center.

616
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:05,800
Speaker 1: To what extent this is an inevitable consequence of the

617
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: dendritic architecture of a plant, in that the branches must

618
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: converge towards an apex which is linked to the roots

619
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 1: system is unclear. It may be that there are dispersal

620
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: performance advantages in such a departure from spherical symmetry. Tumbling,

621
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: bouncing rather than rolling, may enhance the shedding of seeds

622
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: from the plant. That totally makes sense to me. So

623
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 1: if it were a more perfectly round dry shrub that

624
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 1: were to roll away, it might roll better, but it

625
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 1: also might shake. Uh, it might shake seeds loose in

626
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: a less even way. But by having a kind of

627
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: oblong or uneven structure, it's always kind of bouncing while

628
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: it rolls, and with every impact as it bounces, it

629
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:53,399
Speaker 1: can have a greater chance of shaking some of those

630
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: seeds loose. Yeah. Absolutely, And he also points out that

631
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:00,359
Speaker 1: that the tumbleweed is naturally porous. So and we look

632
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 1: at the airflow. The air is flowing not only on

633
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,399
Speaker 1: and around it and against it, but also through it

634
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: um and he discusses He discusses most of this in

635
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: connection again to the tumbleweed rover designs. These are various

636
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: UH engineering approaches to creating some sort of a you know,

637
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: a rover or probe that will work on the UH.

638
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 1: Generally we're talking about the surface of another planet or

639
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: another planetary body of some sort, or a moon or

640
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, Mars is often a target here because

641
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: again we have to remember there is wind on Mars

642
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 1: and UH and if we could take advantage of that, UH,

643
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: that would be a way to to move a rover

644
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 1: across the landscape. UM. So you have various takes on

645
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: this that are you know, and some are inflatable, some

646
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 1: are non inflatable, UM, you know, roughly spherical designs to

647
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:54,919
Speaker 1: allow a rover to roll more or less like a tumbleweed. UM.

648
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: But it sounds like the you know, while this is

649
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 1: a promising area of study, the tumbleweed rover nut remains

650
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 1: to you know, remains to be fully cracked. But a

651
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: lot of the science around it UM. I thought was

652
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: interesting because it kind of helps illustrate what really works

653
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 1: about the tumbleweed the plant as a as an as

654
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: an evolved solution and as an as as an evolved

655
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: approach to the landscape and what wouldn't work, uh for

656
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,759
Speaker 1: a probe or a vehicle. So some of the designs

657
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:25,919
Speaker 1: do tend towards non smooth surfaces like the real tumble weed.

658
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 1: And there have even been some experiments with oblong shapes,

659
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: but these produced bouncing due to acquired kinetic energy, something

660
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 1: Laurens rights is quote not recommended for an attractive vehicle design.

661
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 1: And I think that's quite telling again because with it,

662
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:45,880
Speaker 1: with these tumbleweed rover designs, we are trying to solve

663
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 1: a human vehicle problem, how to move a thing from

664
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: one place to another and potentially to other locations, and

665
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:54,880
Speaker 1: to control the movement as well. The tumbleweed plant, on

666
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: the other hand, is not trying to arrive at a destination.

667
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 1: It's again all about the journey and that it and

668
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 1: it's going to drop its various seeds along the way

669
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:07,280
Speaker 1: and bouncing far from being a danger to sensitive cargo

670
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: and and uh you know, sensors and whatnot. Uh, this

671
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 1: can help free the seeds that need to be dropped

672
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: and um, you know, and again naturally, tumbleweed plants are

673
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: not perfect spheres. They're they're they're vaguely spherical and are

674
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 1: I guess more bush shaped than anything um as opposed

675
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 1: to like, you know, ball shaped, they're more shaped like

676
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:28,279
Speaker 1: a turkey than they are shaped like a beach ball.

677
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: If if a turkey were likely to be like one

678
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 1: to two meters in width, yea, and was like, you know,

679
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: light enough to be pushed around in the wind. Yeah,

680
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:40,839
Speaker 1: they're they're really it's it's really remarkable. All right. Well,

681
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:43,279
Speaker 1: I think it's time to talk abouit about the history

682
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: of the tumbleweed. And one of the strangest facts about

683
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: the tumbleweed, this icon of the American West, is that

684
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:54,440
Speaker 1: it is not actually native to North America. It's a

685
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:58,720
Speaker 1: fairly late arrival. In fact, one of the most common

686
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:03,280
Speaker 1: plants categorized as a tumbleweed in the United States today

687
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 1: is the one we focused on a good bit already

688
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: uh known sometimes as callie tregas or previously known as

689
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:14,600
Speaker 1: Salsula tregas. The common name again is prickly Russian thistle.

690
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,360
Speaker 1: The name gives it away a bit where it actually

691
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: comes from. This is a species originating in the steps

692
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:24,879
Speaker 1: of eastern Europe and Western Asia, probably around the area

693
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 1: of Ukraine. And I found a very interesting description of

694
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:35,399
Speaker 1: tumbleweeds in an eighteen fifty two botanical reference book by

695
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:39,839
Speaker 1: an English surgeon and botanist named Arthur Henfrey. It's called

696
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 1: The Vegetation of Europe Its Conditions and Causes, published by

697
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:48,240
Speaker 1: Javan Vorst in eighteen fifty two. And uh, he gets

698
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:50,759
Speaker 1: to talking about tumbleweeds in the section of the book

699
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: where he's cataloging the plant life of the Russian step

700
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: So again you have to imagine that at the time

701
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: this was written in the eighteen fifties, there was probably

702
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:04,760
Speaker 1: no trace of this type of tumbleweed in the United States.

703
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 1: But here's what Hinfrey says. In these regions, the wormwoods

704
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: and thistles grow to a size unknown In the west

705
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 1: of Europe. It is said that the thistle bush found

706
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 1: where these abound is tall enough to hide a Cossack horseman.

707
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:24,720
Speaker 1: The natives call all these rank weeds useless for past

708
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:28,839
Speaker 1: yere burian, and with the dry dung of the flocks,

709
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: this constitutes all the fuel they possess. Oh, and I

710
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,280
Speaker 1: should note, by the way, that while he keeps saying thistle,

711
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: because that is the common name and what they were

712
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:40,359
Speaker 1: classifying at is back then, I think technically, in the

713
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 1: in the modern botanical sense, the tumbleweeds referring to are

714
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:46,919
Speaker 1: not true thistles. They're not thistles, but that's what they're

715
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: called here, So Henfrey goes on. One curious plant of

716
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 1: the thistle tribe has attracted the notice of most travelers,

717
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: the wind witch, as it is called by the German colonists,

718
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: or leap the field, as the Russian name may be translated.

719
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:07,880
Speaker 1: It forms a large globular mass of light wiry branches

720
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: interlaced together, and in autumn decays off at the route,

721
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:14,640
Speaker 1: the upper part drying up. It is then at the

722
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:17,359
Speaker 1: mercy of the autumn blast, and it is said that

723
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:22,800
Speaker 1: thousands of them may sometimes be seen coursing over the plane, rolling, dancing,

724
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 1: and leaping over the slight inequalities, often looking at a

725
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 1: distance like a troop of wild horses. It is not

726
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 1: uncommon for twenty or thirty to become entangled into a

727
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 1: mass and then roll away, as Mr Cole says, quote

728
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 1: like a huge giant in his seven league boots. Oh

729
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 1: my goodness, yeah, this is this is exactly what I

730
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 1: was saying on the highway a couple of weeks ago,

731
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 1: Because sometimes you would see two that were I saw

732
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:52,400
Speaker 1: at one point two of them that were bound together,

733
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: and this monstrosity was what jumped in front of a semitruck. Wow.

734
00:40:57,280 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 1: I kind of wish I had seen that, But I

735
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:01,760
Speaker 1: gotta finish the last thing he says, because he describes

736
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 1: the demise of this, uh, this, this giant in the

737
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 1: Seven League boots uh quote. Thousands of them are annually

738
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 1: blown into the Black Sea, and here, once in contact

739
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:16,160
Speaker 1: with water, in an instant, lose the fantastic grace belonging

740
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,839
Speaker 1: to their dry, unsubstantial texture. They are like, oh, it's

741
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: it is like a witch like melting in the water

742
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:27,839
Speaker 1: because it's so good the wind, which that I've been

743
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 1: captivated by that ever since I read it. These things

744
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 1: are are wind witches. Um. But so, okay, this is

745
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:37,959
Speaker 1: describing something in like the what they're calling the Russian Step,

746
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 1: probably the area around the Black Sea, the Black Sea basin,

747
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 1: or probably around Ukraine. So how does this type of

748
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:48,719
Speaker 1: plant end up in the United States? Well, beginning in

749
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 1: the later decades of the nineteenth century, reports of a

750
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 1: similar plant. I can't be sure they're talking about exactly

751
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 1: the same species, but it seems likely to me. Uh,

752
00:41:57,800 --> 00:41:59,840
Speaker 1: They're They're at least definitely talking about the same type

753
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 1: of plants, some kind of tumble weed. UM. Reports of

754
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 1: a similar type of plants start pouring in from places

755
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 1: in the Great Plains of North America, places like South Dakota,

756
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 1: UM and UH. It's hard to know exactly when they

757
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: showed up, but a commonly reported claim put forward in

758
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:19,439
Speaker 1: a source I'm going to mention in a minute here

759
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: is that they arrived in the United States around the

760
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 1: year eighteen seventy or sometime in the early eighteen seventies,

761
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:31,720
Speaker 1: possibly in shipments of flax seed contaminated with these Russian

762
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: thistle seeds UM. A commonly given date is eighteen seventy three.

763
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 1: It is interesting to read reports from the early decades

764
00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:43,719
Speaker 1: of their proliferation on the continent. By the eighteen nineties,

765
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 1: invasive Russian thistle had become such a problem that the U.

766
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 1: S Department of Agriculture Botany Division issued a Farmer's bulletin

767
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:55,920
Speaker 1: on the subject, authored by someone named L. H. Dewey.

768
00:42:56,280 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 1: The l H stands for Lister Hoaxe Dewey, So you

769
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:02,880
Speaker 1: can actually look up a PDF of this yourself online.

770
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: It's called the Russian Thistle and other Troublesome weeds in

771
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:09,360
Speaker 1: the wheat region of Minnesota and North and South Dakota.

772
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 1: This document is actually more interesting and fund to read

773
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:16,240
Speaker 1: than you might expect for a farmer's bulletin. Uh So,

774
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,280
Speaker 1: so there's a number of tidbits I want to discuss

775
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: from it, but first of all, I just want to

776
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 1: read directly from it, as it is discussing the difficulty

777
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,239
Speaker 1: that farmers in the planes were facing due to the

778
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 1: proliferation of tumbleweeds, probably from from Russian thistle. So Dewey writes,

779
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 1: some of its special characteristics render this thistle much more

780
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 1: troublesome than other weeds. Again, it's not actually a thistle.

781
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: It is armed with spines quite as sharp and much

782
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: stronger than those of common thistles. Because of these, it

783
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 1: is difficult to drive horses through a field where the

784
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:52,400
Speaker 1: plants are abundant. In some sections, the farmers find it

785
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: necessary to bind leathers about the horses legs while at work.

786
00:43:56,719 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 1: Horses running in the pasture are often injured by having

787
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 1: the skin in on their legs badly lacerated. The spines

788
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 1: breaking off under the skin caused festering sores. These sores

789
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 1: are caused by the irritation. However, not by any poisonous property,

790
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:14,960
Speaker 1: as is frequently supposed. Hunters find difficulty in getting their

791
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 1: dogs to work well for prairie chickens in the stubble,

792
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 1: and the dogs are sometimes injured by the sharp spines.

793
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: Thrashers find it almost impossible to get gloves thick enough

794
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:27,759
Speaker 1: to keep the spines out of their fingers, yet thin

795
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,720
Speaker 1: enough to work with. Oh, and then he talks about

796
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:33,800
Speaker 1: how these tumbleweeds can be a fire hazard. Of course,

797
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:37,240
Speaker 1: so he says, the Russian thistle is the worst rolling

798
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 1: tumbleweed on the prairie, and in time of prairie fires,

799
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 1: is easily blown across a fire break of any width,

800
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 1: carrying fire to stacks and buildings. Yeah. So, yeah, this

801
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 1: is the thing. Not only can they potentially be a

802
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 1: fire hazard once they arrive at sort of a termination point,

803
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: you know, when they're stuck against the fence or a house,

804
00:44:57,360 --> 00:44:59,720
Speaker 1: but they can be on fire and be in motion.

805
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 1: Uh and uh. And probably one of the more outrageous

806
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 1: examples of this um was making the rounds on the internet,

807
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:12,319
Speaker 1: I think back in uh and it took place at

808
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty acre um prescribed burn at the

809
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain arsenal near Denver, Colorado. And if you haven't

810
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:21,680
Speaker 1: seen this footage, look it up. I think it was

811
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:25,359
Speaker 1: making the rounds, especially on like BuzzFeed news and stuff. Um.

812
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 1: But you know what you see is you see firefighters

813
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 1: out there, you know, engaging in this um, you know,

814
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 1: intentional burn of the of the landscape there, and a

815
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:37,400
Speaker 1: dust devil kicks up, so you know, like a small vortex,

816
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 1: and what does it do. It starts pulling tumbleweeds up

817
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:43,839
Speaker 1: into it. And uh and and this is I've seen

818
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 1: footage of this occurring um with tumbleweeds elsewhere, except in

819
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:50,920
Speaker 1: this case the tumbleweeds are also on fire, so it

820
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:56,839
Speaker 1: is essentially a dust devil of flaming tumbleweeds. Yeah, it's

821
00:45:56,840 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: like it looks like a tornado made out of tumbleweeds

822
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:02,759
Speaker 1: that are on fire. Right, it seems that, I mean,

823
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: it just sounds like a shark nado sort of a situation.

824
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:08,239
Speaker 1: But no, it exists. I mean, it would seems like

825
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 1: the main characteristics that are the problem here that tumbleweeds

826
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,919
Speaker 1: are so they're brittle, you know, fuel their their would

827
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: so they're they're highly flammable, and they're very low density,

828
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:21,479
Speaker 1: so they can easily be moved around. And of course,

829
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: when there is fire, that creates drafts of air that

830
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,400
Speaker 1: that suck and blow things in different directions on its own.

831
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 1: So yeah, tumbleweeds plus fire just seems like a nightmare

832
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 1: to try to control. Now, Naturally, one thing you would

833
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:38,240
Speaker 1: do to prevent fire from spreading, say in a prairie regions,

834
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:40,279
Speaker 1: you would have what are known as fire breaks. You

835
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 1: would have you know, like ditches or areas of cleared

836
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:45,440
Speaker 1: land where there's no fuel, you know. So it's just like,

837
00:46:45,719 --> 00:46:47,360
Speaker 1: if there is a fire, it's going to be stopped

838
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 1: here because there's no fuel for it to spread across.

839
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:52,280
Speaker 1: But if you have tumbleweeds, first of all, they're they're

840
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:55,840
Speaker 1: likely to gather in fire breaks anyway, because that's the

841
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 1: kind of you know, they will fall. They will settle

842
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 1: their seeds in cleared land and grow grow there, so

843
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:03,720
Speaker 1: they can grow in firebreaks. When they're tumbling, they'll probably

844
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 1: get stuck in fire breaks and pile up there. And

845
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 1: uh and even if there's nothing in the fire break,

846
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:12,399
Speaker 1: if there's tumble if there are tumbleweeds burning on one side,

847
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:14,839
Speaker 1: they can easily leap over the break and then just

848
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 1: spread it to the other side. You know, when I

849
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 1: first encountered this, I also was thinking, Okay, maybe this

850
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: is just a rare thing though, a flaming tumbleweed. I mean,

851
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 1: just because it's on BuzzFeed news doesn't mean it's an

852
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 1: accurate representation of reality. Um. But then I was looking

853
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 1: around at some various folkloric references to tumble weeds, most

854
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 1: of which I'm gonna say for part two. But there

855
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:39,919
Speaker 1: was this one bit from a folklore's by the name

856
00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 1: of Thomas Edward Cheney, who lived nineteen o one through

857
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: who specialized in Mormon folklore and folklore of the bad Lands,

858
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 1: and he wrote this in nineteen fifty nine in Scandinavian

859
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 1: Immigrants stories quote, A story glows like a tumbleweed on

860
00:47:57,040 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 1: fire as it passes on. It may die after or

861
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:03,440
Speaker 1: a brief and flashy existence, or it may be retained

862
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: in the mind of a jokester until he dies and

863
00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:09,480
Speaker 1: leaves his legacy to members of his family. They in

864
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:14,800
Speaker 1: turn recall sporadically the stories which particularly resemble their experiences.

865
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 1: Many such stories die without the folklorist or anyone else

866
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 1: getting them into the written language. Now that's just a

867
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:24,440
Speaker 1: good quote. About just sort of the nature of storytelling.

868
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 1: And I just kind of like what he's actually trying

869
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:29,239
Speaker 1: to relate there. But I also love that, like that

870
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:32,319
Speaker 1: that here is the flaming tumbleweed as a as a

871
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 1: metaphor to explain that, and clearly like one that's not

872
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 1: so novel as to be foreign. I guess two people

873
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:40,759
Speaker 1: of of of this part of the country, Like, he

874
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 1: doesn't have to stop and say, let me tell you

875
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 1: a story about a tumbleweed that once caught on fire,

876
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:46,680
Speaker 1: and how gonna use that to make my point? No,

877
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:49,600
Speaker 1: like the tumbleweed on fire seems to be just you know,

878
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:51,600
Speaker 1: more or less off the shelf, even if it feels

879
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 1: a little novel to many of us. But I like

880
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 1: that metaphor. Actually it has both, uh in terms of

881
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:02,439
Speaker 1: oral storytelling. It has both its strengthen its fragility there

882
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,240
Speaker 1: because a tumble wheat on fire will burn up pretty quickly,

883
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:08,440
Speaker 1: and so it's it's very fleeting, it's very ephemeral. But

884
00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 1: on the other hand, it's you know, it spread super easily,

885
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:13,560
Speaker 1: so if it if it reaches another fuel source, there

886
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:25,160
Speaker 1: it goes. But anyway, so in this document, this Department

887
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 1: of Agriculture document, from the eighteen nineties. LH. Dewey goes

888
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: on to talk about some of the same kind of

889
00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:33,719
Speaker 1: problems we've already discussed in the modern age. You know

890
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:36,319
Speaker 1: that they will pile up against buildings, that they will

891
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 1: pile up against fences, that they will will choke fields,

892
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,919
Speaker 1: that they will even if you kind of mulch them down. Uh.

893
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 1: That they may do some good in in nourishing the land,

894
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:49,919
Speaker 1: but just that they're hard to deal with when they're

895
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 1: in their bulky form. They just get stuck in all

896
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff and and cause these huge problems. Uh.

897
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,360
Speaker 1: There was another very interesting note I came across in this.

898
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:02,400
Speaker 1: There was more just to kind of uh something mentioned

899
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:04,560
Speaker 1: in passing in this document, but I thought it was

900
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 1: sociologically interesting. So, in discussing where Russian thistle comes from,

901
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 1: Dewey says, all the evidence points to the idea that

902
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:16,840
Speaker 1: it was imported in contaminated shipments of flax seeds that

903
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:20,759
Speaker 1: were received in in the States around eighteen seventy three

904
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:23,640
Speaker 1: or in the early eighteen seventies, And then he goes

905
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:27,360
Speaker 1: on to say, quote, there is evidently no foundation whatever

906
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 1: for the theory which is too often related as a

907
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 1: fact that it was first sewn in South Dakota by immigrants,

908
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:37,800
Speaker 1: either for forage or to inflict an injury on an enemy.

909
00:50:38,320 --> 00:50:40,959
Speaker 1: So at least as early as the eighteen nineties, people

910
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:45,240
Speaker 1: were spreading a completely baseless rumor that this invasive plant

911
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 1: was due to immigrants who had sowed the weed on purpose,

912
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:53,719
Speaker 1: possibly even with the intent to cause harm. Very much

913
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 1: uh mo on the Simpsons immigrants, I knew it was them.

914
00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 1: But then later Dewey is talking about how quickly he's

915
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:04,560
Speaker 1: trying to document how quickly the Russian thistle spread. Uh.

916
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:07,400
Speaker 1: He says, quote in many localities where a few plants

917
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:10,720
Speaker 1: were first seen four or five years ago, every spot

918
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 1: of land where the sod has been broken is now occupied.

919
00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 1: On every badger burrow and overfed spot in the prairie,

920
00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:23,360
Speaker 1: on every roadside, railroad, embankment, firebreak, and neglected garden, On

921
00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:27,520
Speaker 1: every field of early plowed land or stubble, maybe seen

922
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 1: a patch of thistles. Again, not thistles. These are the tumbleweeds. Uh.

923
00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:34,880
Speaker 1: The seeds are not here and there as with eastern weeds,

924
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:38,239
Speaker 1: but they are everywhere. The few plants introduced four or

925
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:41,359
Speaker 1: five years ago have seeded the land for miles in

926
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:44,759
Speaker 1: every direction. Um. And then the last thing in the

927
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: document is a section I actually found somewhat hilarious where

928
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:52,480
Speaker 1: he issues recommendations that are they're like pure just like

929
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 1: vilification propaganda. I mean not like obviously, you know, these

930
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:58,799
Speaker 1: tumbleweeds can be a huge problem, and I'm not saying

931
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:01,799
Speaker 1: like I'll just ignore them, but he like recommends that

932
00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:06,640
Speaker 1: every school house in America should have a Russian thistle

933
00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:09,120
Speaker 1: in the school house so that the pupils may become

934
00:52:09,160 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 1: familiar with it quote and teach them to kill it

935
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 1: wherever they find it, as they would kill a rattlesnake.

936
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. I really feel for for many of

937
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 1: us that, you know, they didn't grow up in tumble

938
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:26,239
Speaker 1: weed country or haven't been visiting tumbleweed country during the

939
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 1: times that they're on the move. Like this is just

940
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:32,839
Speaker 1: kind of a uh, this this great adversary that's been

941
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 1: there the whole time and we and I feel like

942
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:37,880
Speaker 1: I didn't really recognize it until just now. Well I

943
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:41,359
Speaker 1: think it is technically now in all forty eight contiguous

944
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:44,440
Speaker 1: US states, so it's everywhere. Yeah, Like I mean it

945
00:52:44,520 --> 00:52:47,480
Speaker 1: is in Georgia, the state where we uh, we record this,

946
00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 1: but I do not recall ever having seen it or

947
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:53,279
Speaker 1: you know, identified it as such while I was here.

948
00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 1: I certainly have not had that experience of you know,

949
00:52:56,680 --> 00:53:00,400
Speaker 1: the herds of of them moving across the high ways.

950
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:04,839
Speaker 1: So I can only imagine how Georgia drivers would would

951
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:07,840
Speaker 1: would respond to that. We don't take kindly to stuff

952
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 1: invading our highways. Now, I just wanted to mention a

953
00:53:11,120 --> 00:53:13,520
Speaker 1: few other interesting facts that came across in another article.

954
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:16,000
Speaker 1: I was trying to look for a a more recent

955
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:20,800
Speaker 1: article about the spread of the different tumbleweed species, especially

956
00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:24,920
Speaker 1: ruscent Russian thistle and related species in the US. So

957
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:29,520
Speaker 1: there was one I read from eighteen in the UC Boulder,

958
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:33,120
Speaker 1: Colorado Arts and Sciences magazine by a UC Boulder professor

959
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:37,600
Speaker 1: of evolutionary biology and ecology named Jeff Mitten and Mitton

960
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 1: covers some of the same ground we've already talked about that,

961
00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 1: for example, that tumbleweed is a is a structure. It

962
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:46,760
Speaker 1: is a type of strategy for reproduction that is employed

963
00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 1: by many plants, but that in the American context, most

964
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:51,880
Speaker 1: of the time when people see a tumble weed or

965
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:54,839
Speaker 1: talk about a tumble weed, they're usually talking about this

966
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: Russian thistle species A Salsula tregas or Calie tregas. And uh,

967
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:02,920
Speaker 1: he said, is interestingly that genomic analysis in California has

968
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:06,200
Speaker 1: revealed that the tragus the main species, was introduced to

969
00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 1: the US multiple times, at least twice from different places,

970
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:14,879
Speaker 1: so there were multiple introduction events. And he emphasizes again

971
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:17,399
Speaker 1: something that that has come out from multiple sources we've

972
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:22,000
Speaker 1: looked at that tumbleweeds became especially common as they took

973
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:27,840
Speaker 1: hold in otherwise barren areas or in quote over graized sites,

974
00:54:28,520 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 1: So abandoned farm lands or or overused ranch lands could

975
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:37,520
Speaker 1: be especially good places for uh, for for these things

976
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:40,239
Speaker 1: to take root. They do better in cleared land where

977
00:54:40,239 --> 00:54:42,680
Speaker 1: they can scatter freely, where their seeds don't have to

978
00:54:42,719 --> 00:54:46,360
Speaker 1: compete with native grasses and shrubs. So it seems like

979
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:49,279
Speaker 1: one way to have a place resist colonization by the

980
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:53,760
Speaker 1: by the tumbleweeds is just to have plenty of natural

981
00:54:53,920 --> 00:54:58,120
Speaker 1: native vegetation covering the land. One last thing I want

982
00:54:58,120 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 1: to mention that that Mitton brings up in the article

983
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 1: is that, uh, you know, sometimes discussion of of aggressively

984
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:10,880
Speaker 1: spreading non native species of plants can I don't know

985
00:55:10,920 --> 00:55:13,120
Speaker 1: it caused people to think of a plant as being

986
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:16,719
Speaker 1: wholly without use or merit in any You know, it

987
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:20,279
Speaker 1: can provide no nourishment to anything at all. And while

988
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:23,880
Speaker 1: tumbleweeds can certainly be a big problem for for humans

989
00:55:23,920 --> 00:55:26,920
Speaker 1: and other life forms, uh Mitten points out that some

990
00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:30,200
Speaker 1: animals can eat the sprouts of of these tumbleweed plants

991
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:32,959
Speaker 1: and and can get nourishment from them, especially when they're

992
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 1: young and green, but he says that herbivores do tend

993
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:39,720
Speaker 1: to avoid them once they've reached their their thorny brittle

994
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:43,800
Speaker 1: adult state. Though he points out one interesting historical fact

995
00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 1: about their use as nutrition in in American history. He

996
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:51,000
Speaker 1: says that tumbleweeds quote were one of the last plants

997
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:54,760
Speaker 1: growing during the dust Bowl nineteen thirty to nineteen thirty six,

998
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 1: when many farmers and ranchers were unable to keep anything

999
00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:01,520
Speaker 1: growing to feed cows and horses. Russian this sole hey

1000
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:04,839
Speaker 1: is credited with saving the beef cattle industry when other

1001
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:08,920
Speaker 1: sources of hay disappeared. Oh wow, So this is a

1002
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:12,879
Speaker 1: species of plant that that plays rough, but when when

1003
00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:15,239
Speaker 1: nobody else can hack it, it is still there and

1004
00:56:15,280 --> 00:56:17,760
Speaker 1: you know, in its young form it, it can be eaten.

1005
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:20,320
Speaker 1: It may not be the best food source in the world,

1006
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:25,319
Speaker 1: but but the bovines can ingest. Anyway, I think that'll

1007
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:27,520
Speaker 1: have to do it for part one of our series

1008
00:56:27,520 --> 00:56:30,440
Speaker 1: on the Wind, which the tumbleweed. But we've got a

1009
00:56:30,440 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 1: lot more interesting stuff to talk about in part two.

1010
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:38,000
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we've got some some crazy tumbleweed variants that

1011
00:56:38,040 --> 00:56:40,000
Speaker 1: may interest you. We've got we've got we've got a

1012
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:43,960
Speaker 1: few Mongolian riddles we're gonna share. Uh. So there should

1013
00:56:43,960 --> 00:56:47,520
Speaker 1: be a lot of a lot of interesting territory to cover,

1014
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:50,640
Speaker 1: but we're gonna go ahead and let this particular tumbleweed

1015
00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:55,319
Speaker 1: episode snap off at the roots and begin tumbling its

1016
00:56:55,320 --> 00:57:00,400
Speaker 1: way uh to listeners out there obviously, even though fire

1017
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:05,960
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, with creativity in the metaphoric sense. Right. Um. Now,

1018
00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:08,399
Speaker 1: I'm sure we have a number of listeners out there

1019
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:12,200
Speaker 1: who have a lot more experience direct experience with tumbleweeds,

1020
00:57:12,760 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 1: and yes, we would love for you to share your

1021
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:20,440
Speaker 1: experiences with us, uh, encountering tumbleweeds rolling across the highways

1022
00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:23,800
Speaker 1: and into your house and so forth. Um, let us

1023
00:57:23,800 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: know you know how to get in touch with us,

1024
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:28,240
Speaker 1: and we'll share that information here in just a second.

1025
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: But hey, in the meantime, if you would like to

1026
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:34,080
Speaker 1: listen to additional episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

1027
00:57:34,400 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 1: you can find them in the Stuff to Blow Your

1028
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:41,960
Speaker 1: Mind podcasts. Feed Core episodes published on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

1029
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:46,560
Speaker 1: On Monday's we do listener mail. On Wednesdays we do

1030
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:49,920
Speaker 1: an artifact or a monster fact episode. On Fridays, we

1031
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:52,240
Speaker 1: do Weird How Cinema. That's our time to set aside

1032
00:57:52,280 --> 00:57:55,840
Speaker 1: most serious matters and just to focus in on a

1033
00:57:55,920 --> 00:57:59,360
Speaker 1: strange film and discuss a strange film. Um oh. I

1034
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: should also point out that I was just looking to

1035
00:58:02,640 --> 00:58:07,640
Speaker 1: to revamp some of our you know, placeholders social media presences,

1036
00:58:08,080 --> 00:58:11,040
Speaker 1: and our Instagram account has been locked up for over

1037
00:58:11,080 --> 00:58:13,240
Speaker 1: a year. Nobody knows how to get into it. It's

1038
00:58:13,280 --> 00:58:16,080
Speaker 1: a ghost house. So we have a new Instagram. If

1039
00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:18,280
Speaker 1: you're into Instagram and you want to follow us, you

1040
00:58:18,280 --> 00:58:22,400
Speaker 1: can follow us at st b y M Podcast. That's

1041
00:58:22,400 --> 00:58:26,080
Speaker 1: our handle there. But I should also point out that

1042
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 1: we also have a separate Instagram for Weird House Cinema,

1043
00:58:30,200 --> 00:58:32,600
Speaker 1: and that one is just Weird House Cinema. That's the

1044
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:36,800
Speaker 1: that's the Instagram handle, and uh, that one I've actually

1045
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:39,520
Speaker 1: updated so it has like a still from every episode

1046
00:58:39,560 --> 00:58:41,960
Speaker 1: of Weird House Cinema that we've done this far. So

1047
00:58:42,000 --> 00:58:43,880
Speaker 1: that's a fun way if you just want to follow

1048
00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:46,720
Speaker 1: Weird How Cinema stuff. And I'll probably be updating that

1049
00:58:46,720 --> 00:58:48,480
Speaker 1: because because every now and then, when I'm watching a

1050
00:58:48,520 --> 00:58:50,600
Speaker 1: movie for a Weird House, I'll have to like take

1051
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:53,600
Speaker 1: a picture of something on the on the on the

1052
00:58:53,640 --> 00:58:56,520
Speaker 1: TV screen, um, and this might be a place where

1053
00:58:56,560 --> 00:58:58,800
Speaker 1: I would share that. So so yeah, I'm liable to

1054
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 1: actually use that account for things beyond just the mentioning

1055
00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:06,480
Speaker 1: of new episodes. This is this is phone camera photo

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Speaker 1: of a TV screen. Yeah, that medium has more heart. Yeah.

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00:59:12,040 --> 00:59:14,760
Speaker 1: I think the first one the post I did on

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00:59:14,760 --> 00:59:18,040
Speaker 1: that Instagram account was it was just a picture I

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00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:21,080
Speaker 1: took off the screen during Hands of Steel, where it

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00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:22,920
Speaker 1: has the text at the end that pops up and

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00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:25,000
Speaker 1: says it was a day in our near future the

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Speaker 1: era of the cyborg had begun Arizona movie, so it

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00:59:29,720 --> 00:59:31,800
Speaker 1: ties in to what we're talking about here today. Not

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00:59:31,920 --> 00:59:34,960
Speaker 1: unrelated to Tumbleweeds. There you go, drifting along with the

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00:59:35,040 --> 00:59:40,720
Speaker 1: tumbling cyborg. Okay, anyway, huge things. As always to our

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00:59:40,760 --> 00:59:44,080
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like

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00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:46,320
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this

1068
00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1069
00:59:49,040 --> 00:59:51,160
Speaker 1: or just to say hi, you can email us at

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00:59:51,280 --> 01:00:02,160
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff

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01:00:02,160 --> 01:00:04,360
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.

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01:00:04,720 --> 01:00:06,840
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i

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01:00:06,880 --> 01:00:09,640
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen me

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01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:22,400
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.