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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the old Vault for a classic

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Speaker 1: episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind. And this one

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Speaker 1: is about drinking salt water. Why on earth did we

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Speaker 1: talk about that? But I do remember this one was

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Speaker 1: actually interesting. Yeah, this is from January eighteen. And they're

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Speaker 1: all interesting, Joe, well, of course, but yeah, this one

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Speaker 1: is great because it got into like some of these

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Speaker 1: ideas about to what extent could you drink seawater to survive?

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Speaker 1: How might you go about it? And then some of

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Speaker 1: these ideas about the supposed health benefits of drinking saltwater. Hey,

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Speaker 1: I'm up to about six scallons of seawater to day.

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Speaker 1: How about you? That means you're lost at sea? Probably, so,

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Speaker 1: without further ado, let's drink the salt water. All in

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Speaker 1: a hot and copper sky. The bloody sun at noon

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Speaker 1: right up above the mast did stand no bigger than

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Speaker 1: the moon. Day after day, day after day, we stuck

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Speaker 1: nor breath nor motion, as idle as a painted ship

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Speaker 1: upon a painted ocean. Water water everywhere, and all the

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Speaker 1: boards did shrink water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink,

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Speaker 1: A speck, a mist, a shape. I whisked, and still

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Speaker 1: it neared and neared, as if it dodged a water sprite.

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Speaker 1: It plunged, and tacked, and veered, with throats unslaked, with

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Speaker 1: black lips baked. We could not laugh nor wail through

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Speaker 1: uttered drought. All dumb we stood. I bit my arm,

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Speaker 1: I sucked the blood and cried A sail, A sail

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Speaker 1: with throats unslaked, with black lips baked agape. They heard

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Speaker 1: me call Gramercy. They for joy did grin, and all

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Speaker 1: at once their breath drew in as they were drinking. All.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from How Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow

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Speaker 1: your mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe

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Speaker 1: McCormick and ost Coleridge invading your ears. That's right from

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Speaker 1: his column The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Uh. In

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Speaker 1: the first chunk there, we're we're getting the famous lines

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Speaker 1: about about being thirsty at sea, having no fresh water

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Speaker 1: to drink, the ironic situation of finding yourself stranded amidst

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Speaker 1: all this water, and yet none of it is sufficient

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Speaker 1: for for human consumption. And then in the second section,

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Speaker 1: the sailors are so thirsty that they turned to drinking

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Speaker 1: their own blood to to satisfy their thirst. Now, this

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Speaker 1: is a horror movie of the Romantic period. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: has everything. It has ghosts, it has an albatross, and

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Speaker 1: as c madness. Why is this classified as Romantic literature?

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Speaker 1: I need to go back to my English literature education

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Speaker 1: and understand what I think. It's about the spontaneous outpouring

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Speaker 1: of overpowering feelings, right, I think so, But it's just

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Speaker 1: about people going crazy at see. Like, one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite lines is is as follows, I took the oars.

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Speaker 1: The pilot's boy, who now doth crazy go laughed loud

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Speaker 1: and long, and all the while his eyes went to

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Speaker 1: and fro ha ha quoth he full plane? I see

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Speaker 1: the devil knows how to row. That's great. It has

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Speaker 1: a great tell offline too. Uh so it starts I

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Speaker 1: don't know if you remember the framing of the rhyme

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Speaker 1: of the ancient Mariner. Most of the poem is this

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Speaker 1: crazy old mariner telling the story about how you know,

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Speaker 1: he killed an albatross and brought a curse upon his ship,

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Speaker 1: and they saw death and all this. But the framing

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Speaker 1: narrative is that there's this dude on his way to

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Speaker 1: a wedding, and the crazy old sailor just grabs him

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Speaker 1: and starts telling his story. And as the poem goes on,

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Speaker 1: the narrator gets totally horrified and engrossed in the old

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Speaker 1: man's tail. But at first the narrator just yells, unhand me,

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Speaker 1: gray beard, loon. That's good. I often think of that

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Speaker 1: when somebody is like bidding for my attention at work

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Speaker 1: and I don't have time to pay attention to them. Now.

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Speaker 1: One thing that's great about the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,

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Speaker 1: in addition to how fantastic of a poem it it is,

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Speaker 1: is it's got really great old school illustrations, like this

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Speaker 1: Gustave Dore ating, we've got here of it where everybody's

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Speaker 1: huddled in fear as they're watching the albatross perching on

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Speaker 1: the deck. Oh yeah, his his artwork always goes great

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Speaker 1: with a kind of dark story, right, I mean, his

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Speaker 1: his his illustrations of the divine comedy, various biblical stories

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Speaker 1: that he illustrated. There's a there's a darkness to those woodcuts. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: the line that often gets quoted from the rhyme and

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Speaker 1: the ancient mariner water water everywhere, I think slightly misquoted

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Speaker 1: as and not a drop to drink. Uh, of course,

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Speaker 1: signals the fact that you often as a sailor, be

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Speaker 1: st out in the ocean, and you might be very,

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Speaker 1: very thirsty, and you're surrounded by water, but the water

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Speaker 1: is not going to help you with your thirst. That's right.

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Speaker 1: This is this is one of the most important survival

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Speaker 1: facts out there, is that if you were stranded at sea,

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Speaker 1: upon a desert island, upon a deserted ship, you name it, uh,

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Speaker 1: do not drink the salt water. Every survival handbook out

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Speaker 1: there will tell you the same, no matter how how

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Speaker 1: tantalizing it may seem, no matter how how logical the

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Speaker 1: solution might appear, You should not drink the salt water

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Speaker 1: because you're gonna You're gonna lose that race, because it

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Speaker 1: is going to catch up with you. Yes, you, you

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Speaker 1: are going to lose the chemical race against the solvent,

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Speaker 1: wait the salute the salt anyway against this solution of

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Speaker 1: in a C L in H two O. And I

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Speaker 1: also wanted to think about how I think it's fascinating

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Speaker 1: to make just a chemical compound such a grim apocalyptic

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Speaker 1: figure in a poem them like as a grim apocalyptic

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Speaker 1: tale about death by seawater. I think the rhyme of

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Speaker 1: the ancient mariner is pretty much the best. But I

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Speaker 1: often think about what sorts of chemistry is could figure

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Speaker 1: into modern apocalyptic sci fi, and I think salt would

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Speaker 1: be a really great one. So, Robert, do you want

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Speaker 1: to hear my pitch for the sci fi version of

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Speaker 1: the saltwater Apocalypse? Sure, though, I you're gonna you have

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Speaker 1: quite a challenge here and capturing the same cadence you know. Well, no,

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Speaker 1: it's I can't do the romantic poetry, but I'll try

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Speaker 1: to do the scenario. So the fact is, the Earth's

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Speaker 1: oceans were not always as salty as they are now

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Speaker 1: because salt is not intrinsic to the ocean water. I

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Speaker 1: don't know. Sometimes you think about, well, most of the

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Speaker 1: water on the Earth is in the oceans. The salt

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Speaker 1: water therefore vastly out numbers the the amount of fresh

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Speaker 1: water out there. I don't know out numbers is the

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Speaker 1: right word, because it's not enumerated, but there's way more

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Speaker 1: salt water than there is fresh water. The vast majority

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Speaker 1: of water is saltwater. Therefore, it would seem rational to

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Speaker 1: to guess that this is the natural state of water. No,

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Speaker 1: it's not. Fresh water is the natural state of water.

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Speaker 1: The ocean's got salty, and they got salty from billions

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Speaker 1: of years of rinsing the rocks. See Earth's crust is

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Speaker 1: about two point eight percent sodium, the most common compound

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Speaker 1: in rock salt being in a cl or sodium chloride.

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Speaker 1: This is the same as common table salt. It's what

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Speaker 1: you put on your food, and as slightly acidic rainwater

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Speaker 1: and freshwater runoff rinses and dissolves the rocks of planet Earth.

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Speaker 1: Over long periods of time. It dissolves little bits of

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Speaker 1: that sodium chloride and carries all of that sodium downstream

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Speaker 1: and eventually into the ocean. And then this salt accumulates

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Speaker 1: in the oceans. Because the sun heats the ocean water

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Speaker 1: causes it to evaporate, It forms clouds, and those clouds

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Speaker 1: eventually rain the water back down on the land, but

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Speaker 1: the salt pretty much stays where it is now. Fortunately,

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Speaker 1: there are natural processes known as salt sinks and these

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Speaker 1: helped remove salt from the ocean and deposit it back

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Speaker 1: on land or in the crust. And for this reason,

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Speaker 1: the salt content of the ocean seems fairly stable for now.

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Speaker 1: But what if in the future the oceans became more

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Speaker 1: like the fatally salty dead sea where if you've ever

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Speaker 1: seen what people look like when they swim in the

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Speaker 1: dead sea, they bob like a bob blur, like you

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Speaker 1: just totally float on the surface because of the high

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Speaker 1: salinity of the water. But also what you'll notice is

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Speaker 1: you don't see any fish or any seaweed or anything.

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Speaker 1: No macroscopic organisms can live in water that's salty, So

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Speaker 1: we could have a salt apocalypse. They caught the Dead

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Speaker 1: Sea for a reason. Yeah, what if the whole sea

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Speaker 1: was the dead Sea? I like it. I like it.

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Speaker 1: You can eat that. It could even be the title

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Speaker 1: dead Sea and then colon and then whatever sci Fi

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Speaker 1: year you want to go with. It's like dead Sea

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Speaker 1: the saltan ng Yeah, alright, I like that. I like that.

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Speaker 1: I guess we should talk a little bit about just

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Speaker 1: how much salt is in the ocean currently, Uh, just

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Speaker 1: the what are the current sea salt levels to the

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Speaker 1: ocean about a hundred pounds, right, well, a little bit

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Speaker 1: more than that. Uh So, seawater is saltwater to the

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Speaker 1: tune of three point five percent average salinity. So that's

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Speaker 1: thirty five parts per thousand. And they're The crazy part

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Speaker 1: here is that there's so much salt in Earth's oceans

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Speaker 1: that supposedly, if you were to remove it all and

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Speaker 1: spread it evenly across the surface, you'd have a forty

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Speaker 1: story layer of salt. Now, it should be fairly obvious

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Speaker 1: that drinking saltwater is not a good idea when you're thirsty.

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Speaker 1: But there's a reason we keep returning to this idea

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Speaker 1: in our fiction, right because in much of human history,

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Speaker 1: there are lots of scenarios where you could get stuck

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Speaker 1: out on the ocean without fresh water. I mean, we

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Speaker 1: love those type of stories, right, I mean, the there're

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Speaker 1: stories of of of man versus nature, a human being

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Speaker 1: trying to survive. And again, like i occlude too earlier,

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Speaker 1: there is something deeply ironic about being surrounded by water

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Speaker 1: and not being able to drink any of it. What's

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Speaker 1: that Simpsons episode where Homer starts drinking the salt water?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a boy Scouts in the hood, where

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Speaker 1: he misquotes the poem and says water water everywhere, so

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Speaker 1: let's all have a drink, and starts drinking palm full

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Speaker 1: and palm after palm full of salt water until they

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Speaker 1: just pull him away from the edge of the life

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Speaker 1: raft um. You know. It shows up other places as well,

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Speaker 1: in in the Song of Ice and Fire saga George rr.

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Speaker 1: Martin's Iron Islanders, the sort of love crafty and vikings

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Speaker 1: of the series, the ones that everybody's always saying, give

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Speaker 1: us more chapters with them, that's who I want to

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Speaker 1: spend my time with. Well, yeah, I ended up feeling

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Speaker 1: that way. I ended up feeling that way where real

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Speaker 1: TV series, I was like, Hey, there's all sorts of

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Speaker 1: stuff you could be doing with the Iron Islanders. They're

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Speaker 1: kind of cool. Oh sorry, I said that. Ironically, I

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Speaker 1: feel like most people are just kind of like paging

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Speaker 1: through the Iron Islands chapters, like, come on, give me

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Speaker 1: back to the other character. I feel like maybe I

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Speaker 1: did at one point, but at the reached a point

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Speaker 1: in the Iron Islanders narrative where I got really invested

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Speaker 1: in it. Well, they do have a really cool religion

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Speaker 1: that has to do with an underwater god who has

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Speaker 1: a major salt component. Yeah, yeah, and the whole drowned

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Speaker 1: god that that pops up in their religion. Uh, they

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Speaker 1: have these priests, they have these ritualized drownings. It's sometimes

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Speaker 1: a little vague like to what extent is just like

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Speaker 1: a violent Viking baptism in the sea, or if there's

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Speaker 1: some sort of supernatural element going on as well. But

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Speaker 1: they drink seawater. They do drink seawater. I mean, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna drink it as the priest is attempting to drown you.

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Speaker 1: But then also it said that their priests drinks seawater

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Speaker 1: to quote, to strengthen their faith, but you should not

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Speaker 1: drink seawater to strengthen your body. So the thing is, yeah,

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Speaker 1: humans need a lot of water, certainly, but we don't

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Speaker 1: need a lot of salt. We can consume small amounts

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Speaker 1: of salt, certainly, We do it all the time. Uh,

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Speaker 1: we love salty foods. And also we need salt to

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Speaker 1: maintain our body chemistry. So it's it's not a situation

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Speaker 1: where it's just a completely alien component. It's part of

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Speaker 1: who we are. But we don't need that much. But

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Speaker 1: we absolutely do need some Like at any given time,

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Speaker 1: the average human body contains I read this today, about

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Speaker 1: two d and fifty grams of sodium. That's about eight

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Speaker 1: point eight ounces. Your standard cylinder container of Morton table salt.

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Speaker 1: You know that, you know the can as salt, the

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Speaker 1: big one. This is the one that larger than a

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Speaker 1: soda can. Well, it's the twenty six ounds can. Yeah, exactly. Uh,

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Speaker 1: that container of Morton table salt twenty six ounces. So

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Speaker 1: if you've got eight point eight ounces in the average

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Speaker 1: human body, depending on your body size, more or less,

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Speaker 1: about one third of those containers is inside you right now.

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Speaker 1: That seems like a lot of salt, right, Like, if

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Speaker 1: you put that much salt on a meal, the meal

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Speaker 1: would be I dare say, to salty. I think most

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Speaker 1: people would agree with that. Yes. I want to tell

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Speaker 1: a story that a friend of mine once told me. So. Uh,

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Speaker 1: my friend, she she's very smart outdoors person. She does

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Speaker 1: a lot of hiking, and she knows how to handle

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Speaker 1: herself in the wilderness. And she was out hiking one

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Speaker 1: time on a trail in Zion National Park and it

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Speaker 1: was out in the heat, and of course, you know

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Speaker 1: when you're hiking out in the heat and the desert

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Speaker 1: on the rocks, you know, you need to take plenty

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Speaker 1: of water with you and to keep drinking in order

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Speaker 1: to keep yourself hydrated. And under that desert sun, dehydration

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Speaker 1: and overheating can really sneak up on you. So the

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Speaker 1: smart thing to do is not wait until you're super

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Speaker 1: thirsty to drink some water, but keep sipping. Be very

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Speaker 1: conscientious about keeping yourself cool, keeping water coming in. And

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Speaker 1: this this friend of mine, as I said, she knows how,

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Speaker 1: she knows what to do in the outside. So she

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Speaker 1: was drinking plenty of water out on the rocks, but

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Speaker 1: she noticed that she started to feel terrible. She felt

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Speaker 1: nausea as she had a headache, weakness, and I think

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Speaker 1: she said she was kind of confused and foggy, and

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Speaker 1: normally in that situation you'd think, Okay, I'm out in

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Speaker 1: the desert, I'm probab getting dehydrated. I need to rest

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Speaker 1: and drink more water. But she kept drinking water and

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Speaker 1: the symptoms didn't get any better, so she didn't know

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Speaker 1: what was going on. They got concerned and she came

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Speaker 1: back down off the trail and ended up at a

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Speaker 1: shuttle station where they called for emergency services. So what's

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Speaker 1: going on? Right? It seems like the symptoms of dehydration

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Speaker 1: almost but she had been drinking so much water it

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Speaker 1: didn't really make any sense. So the paramedics arrived, they

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Speaker 1: got the lay of the situation. They and what they

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Speaker 1: eventually did was they got her to eat some pretzels. Oh,

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Speaker 1: so the problem wasn't a lack of water, It was

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Speaker 1: too much water deluding the salt content of her blood

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Speaker 1: plasma and what she needed to bounce back or some

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Speaker 1: salty snacks. All right, So that sounds like what everyone

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Speaker 1: needs to bring with them on a on a hike

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Speaker 1: from now and it just make sure you do have

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Speaker 1: some pretzels tucked away for emergency use. I wonder if

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Speaker 1: you need a rapid infusion of salt, Like, what is

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Speaker 1: the best thing to eat? I imagine the situation is

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Speaker 1: fairly rare and im America. Yeah, like, yeah, we do

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Speaker 1: love our salt. Yeah, well, I I love salty foods too,

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Speaker 1: But like, what is it like Dorito's or she you

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Speaker 1: take a jar of pickles or a stick of pepperoni,

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Speaker 1: But see other people might see you taking that bag

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Speaker 1: of Doritos or jar of pickles would be on the

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Speaker 1: hike and they're gonna, they're gonna they might judge you

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Speaker 1: for your your your choice in trail food. I guess

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Speaker 1: you just need like a salty trail mix or packets

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Speaker 1: of soy sauce, which will come back to in a bit. Okay, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Well I wonder if some people, in addition to their

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Speaker 1: hydration when they're like running and exercising, they squirt those

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Speaker 1: little electrolyte gel things, right, and those have some amount

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Speaker 1: of salt content to help keep you balanced. Right. Yeah? Yeah, anyway,

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Speaker 1: gross side note of the story she told me about

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Speaker 1: the shuttle station. Uh, my friend, she felt so bad

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Speaker 1: after she got down there that she vomited out on

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Speaker 1: the ground somewhere. And then later, while she was waiting around,

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Speaker 1: she got to watch a wild fox wander over and

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Speaker 1: start eating it. Oh well that's kind of beautiful really.

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Speaker 1: Cycle of life, yeah, the cycle of whatever her life.

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Speaker 1: She ate and then vomited, and then something else got

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Speaker 1: to you. Yeah, I mean she was. She was behaving

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Speaker 1: much like certain buzzards do when threatened. You know, A

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Speaker 1: vomit which a vomiting display that is either meant to

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Speaker 1: scare off a predator or to distract it with a bribe. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: here you can have this. Yeah, have these pretzels and

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Speaker 1: you know in gatorade. So we totally need sodium to

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Speaker 1: keep our bodies functioning right. If you don't have enough

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Speaker 1: sodium in the body, this is called hypootremia, and you

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Speaker 1: can experience some really messed up symptoms. And in addition

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Speaker 1: to what you heard about in that story, nausea, vomiting, headache, fatigue,

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Speaker 1: and all that, you can on the far end of problems,

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Speaker 1: if he gets bad enough, you can end up with

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Speaker 1: seizures in coma. So I mentioned that sodium is an electrolyte,

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Speaker 1: that that's one of the reasons that it's necessary in

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Speaker 1: the body. And an electrolyte is a substance that tends

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Speaker 1: to dissolve in a solution and produce ions, or charged particles.

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Speaker 1: The presence of these charged particles makes the solution a

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Speaker 1: better conductor of electricity. For example, salt water is a

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Speaker 1: much better conductor of electricity than fresh water. And if

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Speaker 1: you want proof of this, you can look up videos

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Speaker 1: of salt water circuits. Have you ever seen one of these? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting. I wouldn't advise you to try

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Speaker 1: this on your own at home unless you really know

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Speaker 1: what you're doing. Electricity and water can be a dangerous combination.

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Speaker 1: But the basic setup is you've got a circuit UH

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Speaker 1: and it's connected to a battery and to a light bulb,

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Speaker 1: and at one point on your circuit you have open

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Speaker 1: wire ends that are stuck down into a jar of water.

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Speaker 1: So the electricity would need to go through the water

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Speaker 1: to complete the circuit. And if you've just got regular

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Speaker 1: tap water, especially if you've got something like distilled water,

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Speaker 1: the bulb is not going to light up. It can't

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Speaker 1: generate enough current to really complete the circuit. But if

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Speaker 1: you stir some salt into the water, suddenly the boat

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Speaker 1: the bulb will come to life. And there's some kind

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Speaker 1: of rough equivalence to that within within the body, like

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Speaker 1: the body is an electrochemical machine, and one of the

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Speaker 1: ways it regulates itself and does its stuff is through

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Speaker 1: electrochemical signal ling an electrochemical exchange. So your body cells

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Speaker 1: have membranes surrounding them, and these membranes are electrically permeable.

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Speaker 1: They can allow ions to pass through to balance electrical

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Speaker 1: charge on the sides of the membrane, and by exchanging

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Speaker 1: potassium ions and sodium ions across the cell membrane. The

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Speaker 1: cells can for example, direct an electrical impulse, which means

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Speaker 1: a chain of nerve cells can pass a message from

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Speaker 1: one part of the body to another. But you can

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Speaker 1: also think of sodium and potassium as one of the

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Speaker 1: ways that stuff gets into and out of a cell.

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Speaker 1: This electrolyte exchange across the cell membrane can be used,

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Speaker 1: for example, to exchange glucose to get glucose into the cell.

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Speaker 1: And the body also uses sodium to maintain overall fluid

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Speaker 1: balance and regulate blood pressure. So you need sodium. It's

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Speaker 1: an important part of everything your body needs to do

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Speaker 1: to survive. Without it, you would not be able to live.

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Speaker 1: But like we were saying, you don't need a lot

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Speaker 1: of it. It's interesting, isn't it. How you end up

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Speaker 1: revisiting the body as this kind of chemical equation. But

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Speaker 1: for the most part, it's a self regulating chemical chemical

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Speaker 1: equation provided that you have you have your your your

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Speaker 1: typical resources around you. Yeah, unless there's something really wrong

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Speaker 1: with your inputs. Generally, if the body is healthy, it's

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Speaker 1: going to be balancing the sides of this equation on

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Speaker 1: its own, and so the body usually tries to keep

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Speaker 1: the sodium content very stable between about a hundred and

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Speaker 1: thirty five and a hundred and forty five milli equivalence

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Speaker 1: of sodium per liter of water in your body. And

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Speaker 1: mill equivalence is a measure and chemistry often used to

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Speaker 1: measure the amount of solute and a solution. In this case,

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Speaker 1: it's sodium and water, and there are one thousand milli

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Speaker 1: equivalents and an equivalent. So notice that's a pretty tight

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Speaker 1: range for normal sodium levels. Right one to one forty

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Speaker 1: five milli equivalence means that the body needs to be

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Speaker 1: constantly managing its retention and excretion of sodium to keep

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Speaker 1: those levels in the optimal functioning range. But having too

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Speaker 1: much salt is I would guess a more common problem

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Speaker 1: than having too little, and certainly just as potentially harmful,

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Speaker 1: and drinking seawater puts you at immediate risk for over

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Speaker 1: salting your body and your cells can basically start to

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Speaker 1: get like salted slugs. It's not good. It's not good.

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Speaker 1: It's really it's really kind of diabolical. The way it

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Speaker 1: plays out, it seems like some sort of a punishment

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Speaker 1: from the inferno. So basically what happens is humans were

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Speaker 1: eating and drinking a lot to dilute our salt intake.

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Speaker 1: So you're fine normally, if you have a salty meal,

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Speaker 1: it's not going to kill you immediately because you can

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Speaker 1: drink water to make up for it. Your your kidneys

380
00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:38,920
Speaker 1: will help you excrete all that salt over a period

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Speaker 1: of time, because there's a reason you have that super

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Speaker 1: gulp of of sugary soda water, right right, Yeah, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: if we consume too much salt, the body has to

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Speaker 1: dump it. But that that body has to get rid

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Speaker 1: of that salt the only way it knows how through

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00:20:52,760 --> 00:20:56,800
Speaker 1: urine evacuation mode exactly. But the human kidneys can only

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Speaker 1: make urine that is less salty than salt water, so

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00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:02,960
Speaker 1: it cannot it can't get rid of it as fast

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Speaker 1: as it's coming in. To get rid of all that

390
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:08,480
Speaker 1: excess salt from saltwater, you have to urinate more water

391
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Speaker 1: than you drink, and this is the path to doom.

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Speaker 1: You die of dehydration, becoming thirstier and thirstier with every gulp.

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Speaker 1: It's one of those faiths that is not only cruel,

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00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:21,120
Speaker 1: but ironic. YEA, all right, we're gonna take a quick

395
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:23,800
Speaker 1: break and when we come back, we're gonna get more

396
00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:27,560
Speaker 1: into this situation. What happens when we do drink salt

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Speaker 1: water and another outline question, does it lead to madness?

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Speaker 1: Does it lead to sea madness? Thank? Thank all right,

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00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:39,600
Speaker 1: we're back. So, Robert, we've talked about how the body

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Speaker 1: needs sodium to survive, but if you have too much

401
00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:44,760
Speaker 1: of it, it's going to be a big problem for you.

402
00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:48,240
Speaker 1: And if you start drinking seawater when you're thirsty, it

403
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:50,640
Speaker 1: will not cure your thirst, but we'll take you down

404
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:54,600
Speaker 1: a bad road. That's right, the road to doom. So

405
00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:57,639
Speaker 1: the body tries to compensate for fluid loss by increasing

406
00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:01,200
Speaker 1: the heart rate and constricting blood vessel to maintain blood

407
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:04,960
Speaker 1: pressure and flow to vital organs. So you're you're also

408
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:08,280
Speaker 1: most likely to feel nauseous, weakness, and even a sense

409
00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:11,600
Speaker 1: of delirium. But as you become more dehydrated, the coping

410
00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:14,000
Speaker 1: mechanism fails. If you still don't drink any water to

411
00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:17,159
Speaker 1: reverse the effects of the excess sodium, the brain and

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Speaker 1: other organs receive less blood, leading to coma, organ failure

413
00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:24,520
Speaker 1: and eventually death. Right. So, as we've said, several times. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you're thirsty out on the ocean, don't drink the

415
00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:32,320
Speaker 1: sea water, that's right. And the delirium condition there that

416
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Speaker 1: that underlies the whole idea of sea madness, Right, you

417
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:38,679
Speaker 1: could become delirious from drinking the seawater. We see a

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00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:41,080
Speaker 1: good bit of that portrayed, I think in the rhyme

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Speaker 1: of the Ancient Mariner, even though well, I don't know

420
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Speaker 1: if it ever establishes in the poem a cause and

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00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 1: effect saying like, oh, somebody drank the sea water and

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Speaker 1: then they went mad. I can't remember. Is that in there?

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00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 1: At least you get that vibe. I mean, it could

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Speaker 1: be that this this character, the old man from the sea,

425
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Speaker 1: is just making up this whole story. It could be

426
00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:01,200
Speaker 1: may he just drink, see why, just right out of

427
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:03,119
Speaker 1: the bay and walked up to this guy on his

428
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:06,520
Speaker 1: way to the wedding. There's really no uh, no epic

429
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 1: survival story to to relate. Now, if this guy was

430
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:13,120
Speaker 1: going to an ancient Greek wedding, it's possible he may

431
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 1: have been on his way to drink some seawater himself. Right, Yeah,

432
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:19,719
Speaker 1: this so this is interesting. I was not aware of

433
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:23,560
Speaker 1: the medicinal consumption of seawater prior to researching this episode,

434
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:27,240
Speaker 1: but I ended up running across it and it's it's fascinating.

435
00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:31,640
Speaker 1: So we mentioned the fictional Iron Islanders earlier, a seagoing

436
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:34,600
Speaker 1: people in George R. Martin's book who who honored the

437
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:37,680
Speaker 1: sea and believe their god lives under the sea. And

438
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:40,719
Speaker 1: this of course lines up with a number of different

439
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 1: traditions of ocean going people, particularly the ancient Greeks, who

440
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 1: were a seafaring culture, and they placed a lot of

441
00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:52,719
Speaker 1: emphasis on the power of the ocean, right and if

442
00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:55,359
Speaker 1: you anger Poseidon, it could really come back to bite you.

443
00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, of course, really, most of the

444
00:23:57,080 --> 00:24:01,560
Speaker 1: Greek gods were terrible entities to even attract the attention

445
00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:06,120
Speaker 1: of much less tick off. But yeah, Poseidon does fifth

446
00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:08,120
Speaker 1: feature into a number of these tales. I mean, in't

447
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,800
Speaker 1: that what happened to Odysseus he made besides that, Yeah,

448
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 1: he's he's kind of the central antagonist of that one,

449
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 1: isn't it. But the Greeks they sometimes added seawater to

450
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:21,000
Speaker 1: wine to to adjust the flavoring. Um Kato the Elder

451
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:24,920
Speaker 1: reportedly served it to his slaves a mixture of wine

452
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 1: and seawater to keep them energized. That doesn't sound like

453
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 1: an energy drink, well, or does it like the electrolytes?

454
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:35,040
Speaker 1: I guess you know, it's kind of like ancient cruel gatorade.

455
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:37,879
Speaker 1: I guess all energy drinks are cruel, but that that's

456
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:41,920
Speaker 1: crueler than usual. Yeah. Now, during the eighteenth century, physicians

457
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: took inspiration from the works of Hpocrates and Celsus and

458
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 1: they revived the practice. Uh Now, one of the classical

459
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:52,400
Speaker 1: approach was to sweeten your saltwater. You're sweeten your seawater

460
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:55,639
Speaker 1: with honey. The British like to dilute it with milk.

461
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:58,880
Speaker 1: This sounds gross and just a big glass of salty

462
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:02,960
Speaker 1: milk to to to enhance your constitution. I guess I'm

463
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:05,880
Speaker 1: trying to imagine how salty it was like. As we've

464
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: said that they're they're electrolytes in some sports drinks. So

465
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 1: is this going to end up being about as salty

466
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: as gatorade? Or is it going to be like a

467
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 1: salty salty drink? Well, I think we find one possible

468
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 1: answer in an excellent two thousand thirteen Atlantic article by

469
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 1: Addie Brawn titled The Historic Healing Power of the beach.

470
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 1: I'll include a link to this article on the Landing

471
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: page for this episode of Stuff to Put Your Mind

472
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: dot Com because she gets into not only the idea

473
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:34,159
Speaker 1: of drinking salt water, but just this idea of the

474
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 1: beach as a place where one might go to heal oneself,

475
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: which is which is an interesting topic on to itself,

476
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 1: and one that I find myself believing in and yeah,

477
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:50,160
Speaker 1: yet unsure of the scientific you know, underlying truth to it. Well,

478
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 1: it seems like part of a broader phenomenon, especially in

479
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century. I can think of of people who

480
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 1: have a disease being prescribed by their doctors, not to

481
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:00,360
Speaker 1: like take a drug or I mean the that did

482
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: happen too, but to go to a specific climate. I

483
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: think about, you know, keats being prescribed you need to

484
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: go to like a Mediterranean climate to get well or something. Yeah.

485
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: But as she points out in the article, there was

486
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: a time when hanging out of the beach that's what

487
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: peasants did. It's only as this, uh, this resurgence of

488
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: the healing power of the beach becomes a thing. But

489
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: you see the higher classes heading out there as well. Now.

490
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: In this article, though she points out that in seventeen

491
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 1: fifty Dr Richard Russell published a treatise titled A Dissertation

492
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: on the Use of Seawater in the Diseases of the Glands,

493
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 1: particularly the scurvy, jaundice, King's Evil, leprosy and the glandular consumption. Okay,

494
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 1: so the King's evil, the King's evil. So the King's

495
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: evil was a swelling of the lymph nodes associated with

496
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 1: the tuberculosis. But of course the idea was that this

497
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:55,639
Speaker 1: condition could be cured by the touch of a royal

498
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: royal person who was blessed by the divine right of king.

499
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: Exactly we know now that that that that cure does

500
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 1: not work. They're probably a great way to get syphilis.

501
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 1: Just looking back on the history. Wait, was this also

502
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 1: known as the SCRAWFULA? Is that I think I've read that? Yes,

503
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:15,480
Speaker 1: I believe so so Dr Russell. He he prescribed a

504
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 1: lot of seawater, including to one of his patients who

505
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,640
Speaker 1: who suffered from leprosy, and he required uh this particular

506
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: patient to sprinkle himself with seawater and quote drink a

507
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:30,119
Speaker 1: pint of seawater every morning during nine months without any intervals.

508
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: And he reported a full recovery. I don't believe that

509
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:38,880
Speaker 1: a pint of seawater that is a lot of salt. Yeah,

510
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: I would think so. I kept thinking about it during

511
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 1: my recent trip to the beach, like what have I?

512
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 1: What have I followed Dr Russell's advice and I myself

513
00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: just drank a pint of this stuff every morning just

514
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 1: to kick off the day. Now here's a question I wonder.

515
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 1: I wonder if maybe people were in some cases not

516
00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: drinking enough fresh water, and that by getting people to

517
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 1: drink seawater it made them thirsty, so they would end

518
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: up drinking a lot of fresh water to make up

519
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: for it, and that that would actually increase their overall

520
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,120
Speaker 1: water consumption and make them healthier well. But of course

521
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: then that depends on their access to fresh water. Does

522
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: it result in them drinking more fresh water? Does it

523
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: result in them drinking more beer? I don't know. I'd

524
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: say the answer is probably beer. So if you were

525
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: if you are stuck at sea or on a deserted island,

526
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: or or what have you, obviously beer would be the

527
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 1: better choice. But but let's say you definitely have to

528
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: drink seawater. You should not drink seawater, but let's say

529
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: it starts looking like a good idea, how might one

530
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: go about that? Wait a minute, didn't we say you

531
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: shouldn't do it? No matter what? Exactly all the survival

532
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 1: manual say do not drink seawater. And yet you will

533
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: find particular survivalist who say, look, you shouldn't drink seawater.

534
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: But here's how you do it. Here's how I did

535
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: it and survived. All right, Well, let's hear some salty prescriptions. Okay,

536
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: So once again, to be clear, there are accounts and

537
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: sometimes rather disputed accounts, of individuals surviving their or their

538
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 1: ordeals at sea through the balance consumption of seawater. Balance.

539
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 1: So that means not just like ladling it out and

540
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: drinking it, but maybe mixing it with consumption of freshwater

541
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 1: or something else. Yeah. Noteworthy examples of this include French

542
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 1: biologist Alan Bombard, nor Even, Norwegian adventure thor Hire dol

543
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 1: rynch and sailor William Willis. I'm gonna talk a little

544
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: bit about Bombard here. He lived through two thousand five.

545
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 1: He went to an Oceano graphic institute in Monte Carlo

546
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: to develop ways for people lost in small boats to survive.

547
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 1: This after he and a friend survived in a boat

548
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 1: for five days with only a half kilogram of butter.

549
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: Of butter, what is that supposed to say? Water butter?

550
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: Just butter? Yes, butter? You heard that right, not water butter.

551
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 1: So what he's saying is, you know, if if there's

552
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: no fresh water around, you're saying, drink butter. That what

553
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 1: we're being told here. But basically, but now, during his

554
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: his time in Minding Carlo, he concluded the drinking limited

555
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: quality quantities of seawater and fluids pressed from raw fish,

556
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 1: and eating raw fish and plankton that this was the

557
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 1: way to go. Well, it'll come back in a little

558
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: bit later in this episode, but that may be part

559
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:25,959
Speaker 1: of the strategy employed by some organisms that live in

560
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: the ocean exactly, but this case, like I said, it's

561
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: a it's a little uncertain exactly how that all this

562
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: shakes out. He later put it to the test and

563
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: claimed that while the raw fish and plankton tasted like

564
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: lobster biscuit, first it grew tiresome. Oh, it grew tiresome

565
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: on the on the lifeboat. Yeah, and uh. And then

566
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 1: a critic comes along, German doctor Hans Lindemann, who lived

567
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 1: UH through two thousand and fifteen. He tried to follow

568
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: his advice and drank seawater to survive on two short voyages,

569
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 1: resulting in dangerous swelling of his feet and legs, and

570
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 1: he ended up charging bombered with cheating, saying that he

571
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 1: had he'd probably use secreted provisions to survive in this test,

572
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: and UH and I believe he he suggested that it

573
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: was probably beer, to come back to our mentioned of

574
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: beer earlier. Now, he's not the only word on the

575
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 1: whole issue of how much seawater should you drink? According

576
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: to the paper Metabolic Effects in Rats drinking increasing concentrations

577
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: of seawater by z Etzen and R. Yaggle, published in

578
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part A UH of Physiology, found

579
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 1: that yes, drinking seawater wind dehydrated is quote not beneficial

580
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 1: and causes impaired renal function. But if push comes to shove,

581
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:50,719
Speaker 1: they recommend the following. Oh so they actually got some

582
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 1: results that might be useful to save lives. Yeah, now

583
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: these are from these are with rats. But they say

584
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: when the concentration of seawater in the drinking water is

585
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: gradually increa east, there is a gradual increase in water

586
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 1: uptake and corresponding urine excretion. At fifty percent seawater, the

587
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 1: maximum uptake and excretion is reached. Following this, there is

588
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: a decline and appetite water uptake and urine secretion. So

589
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:18,280
Speaker 1: this is this is what they say. It is suggested

590
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 1: that when a man is stranded at sea, it is

591
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: not advisable to drink all the fresh water and then

592
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 1: be compelled to drink sea water when be hydrated. It

593
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 1: is better to slowly increase the seawater uptake. This will

594
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 1: prolong the time before seawater needs to be drunk and

595
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 1: result in only minor metabolic changes. Return to freshwater will

596
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 1: be followed by an immediate return to normal homeostasis. Now,

597
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:44,719
Speaker 1: I want to come back to soy sauce for a second, because,

598
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: as it turns out, there there are, of course other

599
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 1: ways to acquire salt poisoning, such as the two thousand

600
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 1: thirteen case reported in the Journal of Emergency Medicine, in

601
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 1: which a nineteen year old Virginian man drank a quart

602
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: of soy sauce what apparently on a day and he

603
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: he developed a hypernatremia so it's the opposite of the

604
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: condition you were talking earlier. This is too much salt

605
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: in the blood. Then this is super dangerous because it

606
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: essentially turns your brain into jerky. Now, if I had

607
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: to guess, I suppose I could, I would guess that

608
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 1: if the body detected that much salt going in through

609
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: the digestive system, it would just immediately reject it through vomiting,

610
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 1: you would think. And yet in this case, he drank

611
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: down the the soy sauce and then he started complaining

612
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: of of these symptoms that he was feeling nauseous, because

613
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 1: in this case he drank enough to go into a

614
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: seizure and had to had had to be picked up

615
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 1: by the ambulance taken to the emergency room. So so

616
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 1: what happens here is that the water ends up moving

617
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: out of the brain into the body to equalize the

618
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: salt concentration, and this can cause the brain to shrink

619
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: into blithe so at once he arrives the emergency room,

620
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:03,520
Speaker 1: they had to pump one point five gallons or six

621
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:06,840
Speaker 1: liters of sugar water into a system, and his levels

622
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 1: normalized after five hours. The hippocampus, however, a region of

623
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: his brain showed signs of trauma for several days before

624
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: returning to normal. So we've said, don't drink the seawater. Also,

625
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:20,800
Speaker 1: don't drink the soy sauce, don't don't drink the soy sauce,

626
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:24,760
Speaker 1: and certainly don't slam the soy sauce, not to demonize

627
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 1: soy sauce big fans of soy sauce now. Interestingly enough,

628
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: in the paper, authors Carl Berg at All reports that

629
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:36,399
Speaker 1: in ancient China, salt ingestion was a traditional method for suicide.

630
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 1: This led me to a paper. Yeah, this, this the

631
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 1: floored me as well. That sounds like the result of

632
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:47,760
Speaker 1: like some sick brainstorming session at a saw movie writer's

633
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 1: meeting where they're trying to come up with like the

634
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 1: most horrible way to kill somebody. I agree, I I was.

635
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: I was a little doubtful of it, so I ended

636
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 1: up doing a little more research on it. This led

637
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 1: me to a paper in jama titled Suicide by Drinking

638
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,839
Speaker 1: a solution of salt by sea Herman Barlow. Sounds good, right,

639
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,439
Speaker 1: except it's a nineteen twelve paper, so that it's it's

640
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:10,440
Speaker 1: you know, not definitive. But in this the author says quote,

641
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,360
Speaker 1: salt is taken for suicidal purposes, sometimes in a common

642
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 1: saturated solution made with water as the solvent, and sometimes

643
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:21,440
Speaker 1: in the brine from salted crout. Poisoning by salt usually

644
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:24,520
Speaker 1: presents a picture of high temperature and pulse purging, vomiting

645
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: and spasm. Um. Yeah, I couldn't find anything else on this. Really.

646
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: I found that I found some some information about the

647
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 1: nature of suicide in Chinese society in in the book

648
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:40,920
Speaker 1: Chinese Society, Change, Conflict and Resistance uh and and in

649
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 1: this author is seeingly an author Kleinman. They write the

650
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: quote suicide is not simply authorized in the Chinese tradition

651
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:50,359
Speaker 1: as an unnatural death. It was to be avoided, and

652
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: it was in some text not to be mourned. Suicide

653
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 1: was polluted and polluting. I wasn't able to find much

654
00:35:56,320 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 1: more about traditional Chinese suicide practice than that. Yeah. One

655
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 1: of the types of claims I'm often the most skeptical

656
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 1: of is just sort of like generic claims about cultural

657
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:12,359
Speaker 1: practices in some culture other than the one writing about it. Yeah,

658
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 1: and especially when drinking salt water as a means of

659
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 1: killing yourself is it does seem nonsensical. It seems like

660
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 1: they're much better ways. It seems like this, this would

661
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: be the sort of thing that wouldn't want to be

662
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:26,319
Speaker 1: driven to in a survival situation or in a case

663
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:30,360
Speaker 1: of of some sort of severe mental instability. Yeah, but

664
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 1: if you are out there and you know of a

665
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 1: more authoritative source about this, police send it our way.

666
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,319
Speaker 1: This would be interesting to know by all means. All right, well,

667
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:38,920
Speaker 1: we are going to take a quick breaking. When we

668
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 1: come back, we'll ask the question, do any animals drink seawater?

669
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 1: And if so, how Alright? We're back. So when you

670
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:52,360
Speaker 1: think of ocean dwelling animals, if you're like me, you

671
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 1: probably assumed that they just must have some way of

672
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: drinking salt water to hydrate themselves. That's what seems obvious, right,

673
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 1: But this isn't necessarily the case, not for all of them.

674
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: I found a good explainer in this Scientific American article

675
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 1: by a marine biologist, Robert Kinney of the University of

676
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 1: Rhode Island about how animals that live in the sea

677
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,879
Speaker 1: consume saltwater. Specifically, he was focused on mammals, and one

678
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: of the things he pointed out is that it's not

679
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:23,919
Speaker 1: that marine mammals are like these salt monsters, with ten

680
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: percent salt in their blood. In fact, despite the fact

681
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 1: that they live in this salty environment, the salt concentration

682
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:32,880
Speaker 1: in their blood is not very different from that of

683
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 1: terrestrial mammals, so they're they're insides are a lot like

684
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:39,840
Speaker 1: our inside. So their blood is generally about one third

685
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,600
Speaker 1: as salty as seawater, which is kind of close to

686
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 1: what ours is. But some sea dwelling mammals get water

687
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 1: not by drinking from the ocean and purging the salt,

688
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:53,200
Speaker 1: but from their food. This kind of goes back to

689
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,879
Speaker 1: Bombard's recommendation where he said, you know, maybe you can

690
00:37:55,880 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 1: get uh some freshwater content by pressing the ash of

691
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 1: fish or something like that, or or of marine plants.

692
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 1: You've heard a million times that the human body is

693
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:10,800
Speaker 1: you know, however many percent water three water or whatever.

694
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:12,839
Speaker 1: I think the real figure is something close to six

695
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:17,319
Speaker 1: by mass. Well, other organisms are also largely made of water,

696
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 1: and if you eat them, you can get water from them.

697
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:24,760
Speaker 1: But sub marine organisms also actually do drink the brine wine.

698
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 1: So how does that work. Well, they're basically two different approaches.

699
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 1: One approach is that they act as osmotic conformers. Okay,

700
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 1: what does that mean? So marine plants and invertebrates, they

701
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: have no mechanism to control osmosis, so their cells are

702
00:38:39,239 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: the same salinity as their environment thirty five for ocean dwellers,

703
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 1: and that means saltwater intake doesn't disrupt their physiological equilibrium.

704
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 1: So that's plants and invertebrates that they basically say, okay,

705
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: we're just committing to salt life exactly. But what about vertebrates?

706
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: All right, this is where we encounter osmotic regulators. Most fish,

707
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 1: as well as reptiles, birds, and mammals control osmosis in

708
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:06,880
Speaker 1: a variety of ways. For instance, salmon, you specialized cells

709
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:10,359
Speaker 1: on their gills called chloride cells to cope with osmosis.

710
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 1: Chloride cells can excrete excess salt, allowing a fish to

711
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,799
Speaker 1: take uh in water without dehydrating. Okay, so you can

712
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: imagine that in some senses these might work kind of

713
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: like the like the water purifying plants that that get

714
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,400
Speaker 1: fresh water out of the ocean water through some process

715
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:33,880
Speaker 1: of reverse osmosis. They've got a membrane and it allows

716
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:36,919
Speaker 1: water to come through from one side to the other,

717
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: but keeps the salt out or maybe the wady. The

718
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: body works by purging salt in the other way, like

719
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 1: it can excrete salt through a membrane while retaining the

720
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: water content. Yeah, I think that's a that's a good

721
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 1: way to put it now. I recently returned from a

722
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: trip to Florida, and I was sort of churning over

723
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: a lot of this salt research while I was down there,

724
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 1: as I was encountering manatees both in the wild and

725
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 1: in an aquarium situation, as well as some exhibits with

726
00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: a number of different aquatic reptiles. So one example was

727
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: the American crocodile. It excretes salt through the use of

728
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 1: modified salivary glands called lingual salt glands in their tongues

729
00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 1: salty tongues, and these allow them to tolerate partially salty

730
00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 1: water or even full seawater in some species. And similarly,

731
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 1: the green and loggerhead sea turtles have salt glands near

732
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:31,840
Speaker 1: their eyes. Um salt glands are also found in sharks,

733
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:36,279
Speaker 1: raised skates, seabirds, and a few reptiles. Marine iguanas are

734
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 1: a great example of this. They have nasal salt glands

735
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:42,759
Speaker 1: that dislodge the salt through the splendid nasal blast. Oh.

736
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:45,240
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's why sometimes you see those marine

737
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 1: iguanas looking so crusty on the face. Probably probably so,

738
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 1: there are a few different I want to say. It's

739
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 1: probably the you know, the BBC series with Attenborough where

740
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: you get to see some of these these iguanas of

741
00:40:57,800 --> 00:40:59,840
Speaker 1: swimming under the water and then coming up on the

742
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: surface to just blast that salt out of their nose. Okay, well,

743
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 1: how about some mammals. All right, well the manateee is

744
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 1: I think that the perfect example to look to next.

745
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:15,360
Speaker 1: So among the Sirenian species, you have both strict fresh

746
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 1: water inhabitants such as the Amazonian manatees. These are like

747
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 1: river manatees. Yeah, and then you have strictly saltwater inhabitants

748
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: like the marine doo gongs. Now, if anyone's not familiar

749
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 1: with the doo gong, it's essentially like a manatee. It

750
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:31,440
Speaker 1: looks like a manatee. Uh, kind of a gray mitchell

751
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:34,799
Speaker 1: entire man. Yeah, except its tail is more like that

752
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 1: of a whale or you know, even I guess a

753
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: mermaid as opposed to the the the West Indian manateee.

754
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: The manateee that you encounter in Florida has this kind

755
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:48,880
Speaker 1: of paddle tail. And yeah, the West Indian manateee is

756
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 1: is really most interesting because it inhabits both fresh and

757
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 1: salty water and of course the brackish waters in between. Now,

758
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 1: given their vulnerability, the manateee has received quite a bit

759
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: of study. According to the University of Central Florida is

760
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:07,880
Speaker 1: Physiological Ecology and bio bio Energetics lab. Manatees and fresh

761
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: water seem to get a great deal of water from

762
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: the food they eat. Their voracious herbivores, after all, consuming

763
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: around nine percent of their body weight per day, and

764
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:24,839
Speaker 1: they weigh up to twelve thirteen pounds or so. They're

765
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: they're large animals. Plus they also drink a lot of

766
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:31,879
Speaker 1: fresh water while it's there. Oh yeah, there's um I've

767
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 1: heard from people who've grown up in Florida the whole

768
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: anecdote about how you can, you can and absolutely should not,

769
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: um fee give a manateee fresh water from a hose. Yes,

770
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: Actually that article I was talking about earlier, by that

771
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:49,160
Speaker 1: the marine biologist Kenny He writes about that. He said,

772
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: when given a choice of manatees and some pinnipeds will

773
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 1: go to a freshwater source to drink it, and that

774
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:59,399
Speaker 1: sometimes people who live on salty waterways in Florida will

775
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:02,320
Speaker 1: like put out a garden hose to watch the manatees

776
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 1: come over and drink from it because they like it

777
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: better than the salty or brackish water. And of course,

778
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 1: the danger there with with the West Indian manatee is

779
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 1: that is that you do not want them associating food

780
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:17,760
Speaker 1: or fresh water with humans, because interaction between humans and manatees,

781
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 1: particularly interactions between boats and manatees, this is the leading

782
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 1: cause of death for the species. Yeah. Now, now that's

783
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 1: of course when they're in fresh water. Yeah, they can

784
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 1: get the fresh water all around them. In salt water, however,

785
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:33,759
Speaker 1: they seem to limit their direct salt intake and have

786
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: been observed to cease the consumption of sea grasses when

787
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:40,760
Speaker 1: their salt levels get too high. So the sea grasses

788
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 1: I assume are saltier than some of the other things, yes, exactly, Yeah,

789
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:47,759
Speaker 1: that this grass is in the salty environment and is saltier. Now,

790
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:50,319
Speaker 1: one of the interesting strategies that Kenny mentions is that

791
00:43:50,360 --> 00:43:53,839
Speaker 1: he says some seals will actually eat snow to get

792
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: fresh water. Well, I grew up eating snow, don't. Didn't

793
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 1: you have snow creams when you're a child? Wait? Hold on,

794
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: what is a snow cream? How is that different from

795
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 1: a snow cone? A snow cream is you you were

796
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 1: allowed to go out into the snow, You get a

797
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:08,840
Speaker 1: bowl of snow, you bring it inside, and you put

798
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:10,839
Speaker 1: like sugar and milk on it and you eat it

799
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 1: that Okay, I have not increasing messing with me. You

800
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:16,880
Speaker 1: know this is real. I would I would do it

801
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: as a child up in uh Up in Newfoundland, Canada.

802
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:22,279
Speaker 1: You get that brown slush from under the tire and

803
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:24,800
Speaker 1: you only go for the white stuff. You leave the

804
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: brown and the yellow alone. Uh And, and I have

805
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:29,839
Speaker 1: to add I I do not know to what extent

806
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 1: this is still done. I have not introduced it to

807
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 1: my son yet, but I do have fond memories of

808
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 1: doing doing this as a child. Well, I did not

809
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 1: expect to learn that today. Well, now, you know, you

810
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:43,879
Speaker 1: learn something new to do with milk and sugar every day.

811
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:47,239
Speaker 1: And hey, if you want to throw some salt in there,

812
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:49,319
Speaker 1: then you have the curative properties of that as well.

813
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:51,880
Speaker 1: You know for your leprosy? Right, Well, I think you

814
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 1: actually need salt if you're gonna go ahead and make

815
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 1: full on ice cream, right, Well, that's true. Yeah, if

816
00:44:56,560 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 1: you're gonna go all the way, you're gonna need the salt.

817
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:01,359
Speaker 1: So there you go. But perhaps there are some snow

818
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: cream experts out there practicing snow cream eaters that can

819
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: weigh in on this. Now, also a survival tactic among

820
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:13,439
Speaker 1: some seals and sea lions is apparently too actually get

821
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 1: some salty water in their system and just they just

822
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 1: purge the heck out of it. Like Kinney writes that

823
00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:22,239
Speaker 1: measurements have found that among seals and sea lions, their

824
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 1: urine can be up to two point five times as

825
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:27,879
Speaker 1: salty as seawater. Remember how we talked about how our

826
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:30,840
Speaker 1: urine can't get as salty as seawater, so we can't

827
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 1: net purge salt. We're just gonna accumulate it. But seals

828
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:37,279
Speaker 1: and sea lions apparently can. They can be up to

829
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:39,839
Speaker 1: two point five times as salty as seawater, meaning it's

830
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:42,319
Speaker 1: seven or eight times saltier than their blood. And that

831
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 1: is some salty urine. So but they have the kidneys

832
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 1: of a creature that is evolved to thrive in a

833
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 1: saltwater habitat. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they think that the kidneys

834
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:53,919
Speaker 1: have evolved to have these different types of structures, these

835
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:57,879
Speaker 1: longer loops that allow for more purging of water out

836
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: of the concentrated solution that they will have actually end

837
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:04,239
Speaker 1: up excreting in their urine curiously enough, apparently, at least

838
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:06,239
Speaker 1: of the time Kenny was writing, he wrote that we

839
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 1: don't yet fully understand how whales and dolphins hydrate themselves,

840
00:46:10,600 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 1: just because it's it's harder to study them in the wild. Interesting. Yeah,

841
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:16,760
Speaker 1: I mean, the sea retains so many of its mysteries,

842
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 1: just as the ancient mariner would have it. Yeah, I

843
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:21,360
Speaker 1: think I think that the old man they know what

844
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:23,839
Speaker 1: the gray haired loon I would agree with us there.

845
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: So I know you're out there thinking like, okay, unhand me,

846
00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:30,239
Speaker 1: gray beard loon. It's time for this episode to wrap up.

847
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:32,400
Speaker 1: Should we wrap up? Yeah, let's let's go ahead and

848
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 1: wrap it up. Hopefully we provided you know, a decent

849
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:38,799
Speaker 1: overview of of salt water, why we can't drink it,

850
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:42,799
Speaker 1: some of the arguments for drinking it, and instructions on

851
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:45,560
Speaker 1: how to drink it if you absolutely have to. Uh,

852
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,760
Speaker 1: we do want to drive home, though, do not drink saltwater.

853
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:51,279
Speaker 1: Do not do not leave this podcast thinking that you

854
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 1: should try a couple of pints. Now, what should their

855
00:46:54,120 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 1: opinion be on snow cream? I don't know, I have

856
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 1: I have not researched it recently. I probably should to

857
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:01,680
Speaker 1: see see if I should let my my son eat

858
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 1: snow the next time it snows here in Atlanta, Georgia.

859
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:07,719
Speaker 1: But yeah, I would. I would love to hear from

860
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:09,800
Speaker 1: people who are a little more up on the science

861
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 1: of eating snow. Likewise, I'd love to hear from anyone

862
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 1: who has uh who either has a story of not

863
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 1: consuming enough salt or consuming way too much of drinking seawater.

864
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:22,440
Speaker 1: I mean, it's we have a number of listeners. I

865
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: imagine some of you have been in survival situations before.

866
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear what it was like. And I

867
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,279
Speaker 1: know we've heard from some listeners in the past who

868
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 1: have actually lived and worked on the high seas. So

869
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:36,920
Speaker 1: what tales did you hear out on the waves? Indeed,

870
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:39,320
Speaker 1: let us know. Hey. In the meantime, be sure to

871
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 1: check out stuff to Blew your Mind dot com. That's

872
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 1: the mother ship, that's where we will find all the

873
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 1: podcast episodes, you will find some videos, some blog post

874
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Speaker 1: links out to our various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter,

875
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Speaker 1: and Instagram. Also, hey, wherever you listen to us, be it,

876
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, um Stitcher, wherever. If there is a way

877
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Speaker 1: to rate our show, to throw some stars our way,

878
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Speaker 1: maybe a nice comment that is an excellent way to

879
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Speaker 1: help us and to ensure that we get to provide

880
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:12,400
Speaker 1: more great content to big shout out as always to

881
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:16,359
Speaker 1: our excellent producers Alex Williams and Torry Harrison. And if

882
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Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us directly and

883
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Speaker 1: ask us about a future topic or give us feedback

884
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Speaker 1: on this, this episode or any other, you can email

885
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Speaker 1: us at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot

886
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Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

887
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Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com? It's not far