WEBVTT - From the Vault: Don't Drink the Salt Water 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:07.880 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:10.680 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:12.479 Time to go into the old Vault for a classic 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:14.159 episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind. And this one 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.560 is about drinking salt water. Why on earth did we 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:19.880 talk about that? But I do remember this one was 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.599 actually interesting. Yeah, this is from January eighteen. And they're 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:26.079 all interesting, Joe, well, of course, but yeah, this one 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:27.680 is great because it got into like some of these 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.720 ideas about to what extent could you drink seawater to survive? 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:33.920 How might you go about it? And then some of 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.880 these ideas about the supposed health benefits of drinking saltwater. Hey, 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:40.040 I'm up to about six scallons of seawater to day. 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:43.839 How about you? That means you're lost at sea? Probably, so, 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.559 without further ado, let's drink the salt water. All in 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:50.760 a hot and copper sky. The bloody sun at noon 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.640 right up above the mast did stand no bigger than 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:58.840 the moon. Day after day, day after day, we stuck 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:02.640 nor breath nor motion, as idle as a painted ship 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.880 upon a painted ocean. Water water everywhere, and all the 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:14.839 boards did shrink water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink, 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:20.440 A speck, a mist, a shape. I whisked, and still 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:24.520 it neared and neared, as if it dodged a water sprite. 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:29.520 It plunged, and tacked, and veered, with throats unslaked, with 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:34.080 black lips baked. We could not laugh nor wail through 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.960 uttered drought. All dumb we stood. I bit my arm, 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:42.080 I sucked the blood and cried A sail, A sail 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:47.280 with throats unslaked, with black lips baked agape. They heard 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:51.480 me call Gramercy. They for joy did grin, and all 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:55.120 at once their breath drew in as they were drinking. All. 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.800 Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from How Stuff 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:14.240 Works dot com. Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.359 your mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.400 McCormick and ost Coleridge invading your ears. That's right from 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:24.400 his column The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Uh. In 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.520 the first chunk there, we're we're getting the famous lines 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.880 about about being thirsty at sea, having no fresh water 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:37.280 to drink, the ironic situation of finding yourself stranded amidst 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:40.240 all this water, and yet none of it is sufficient 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.840 for for human consumption. And then in the second section, 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.560 the sailors are so thirsty that they turned to drinking 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:52.040 their own blood to to satisfy their thirst. Now, this 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:56.880 is a horror movie of the Romantic period. Yeah, it 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.239 has everything. It has ghosts, it has an albatross, and 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:05.080 as c madness. Why is this classified as Romantic literature? 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:07.560 I need to go back to my English literature education 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:11.720 and understand what I think. It's about the spontaneous outpouring 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.680 of overpowering feelings, right, I think so, But it's just 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:17.960 about people going crazy at see. Like, one of my 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.680 favorite lines is is as follows, I took the oars. 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:25.200 The pilot's boy, who now doth crazy go laughed loud 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.360 and long, and all the while his eyes went to 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:30.440 and fro ha ha quoth he full plane? I see 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.359 the devil knows how to row. That's great. It has 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.520 a great tell offline too. Uh so it starts I 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:38.640 don't know if you remember the framing of the rhyme 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.800 of the ancient Mariner. Most of the poem is this 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:44.560 crazy old mariner telling the story about how you know, 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.120 he killed an albatross and brought a curse upon his ship, 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.280 and they saw death and all this. But the framing 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.560 narrative is that there's this dude on his way to 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:56.080 a wedding, and the crazy old sailor just grabs him 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.280 and starts telling his story. And as the poem goes on, 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.960 the narrator gets totally horrified and engrossed in the old 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.880 man's tail. But at first the narrator just yells, unhand me, 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:10.960 gray beard, loon. That's good. I often think of that 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.800 when somebody is like bidding for my attention at work 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.480 and I don't have time to pay attention to them. Now. 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:18.680 One thing that's great about the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.279 in addition to how fantastic of a poem it it is, 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:24.480 is it's got really great old school illustrations, like this 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:28.920 Gustave Dore ating, we've got here of it where everybody's 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.279 huddled in fear as they're watching the albatross perching on 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.840 the deck. Oh yeah, his his artwork always goes great 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.040 with a kind of dark story, right, I mean, his 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:42.960 his his illustrations of the divine comedy, various biblical stories 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.960 that he illustrated. There's a there's a darkness to those woodcuts. Yeah. Now, 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.960 the line that often gets quoted from the rhyme and 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.480 the ancient mariner water water everywhere, I think slightly misquoted 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.520 as and not a drop to drink. Uh, of course, 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.640 signals the fact that you often as a sailor, be 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.120 st out in the ocean, and you might be very, 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:06.159 very thirsty, and you're surrounded by water, but the water 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:09.920 is not going to help you with your thirst. That's right. 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.560 This is this is one of the most important survival 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.159 facts out there, is that if you were stranded at sea, 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:21.240 upon a desert island, upon a deserted ship, you name it, uh, 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.760 do not drink the salt water. Every survival handbook out 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.360 there will tell you the same, no matter how how 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.719 tantalizing it may seem, no matter how how logical the 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.159 solution might appear, You should not drink the salt water 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:37.680 because you're gonna You're gonna lose that race, because it 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:39.919 is going to catch up with you. Yes, you, you 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.480 are going to lose the chemical race against the solvent, 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.840 wait the salute the salt anyway against this solution of 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.000 in a C L in H two O. And I 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.000 also wanted to think about how I think it's fascinating 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:58.480 to make just a chemical compound such a grim apocalyptic 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.680 figure in a poem them like as a grim apocalyptic 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.000 tale about death by seawater. I think the rhyme of 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.080 the ancient mariner is pretty much the best. But I 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.800 often think about what sorts of chemistry is could figure 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.320 into modern apocalyptic sci fi, and I think salt would 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.120 be a really great one. So, Robert, do you want 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.000 to hear my pitch for the sci fi version of 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.600 the saltwater Apocalypse? Sure, though, I you're gonna you have 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.640 quite a challenge here and capturing the same cadence you know. Well, no, 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.120 it's I can't do the romantic poetry, but I'll try 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.599 to do the scenario. So the fact is, the Earth's 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.599 oceans were not always as salty as they are now 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:40.280 because salt is not intrinsic to the ocean water. I 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.000 don't know. Sometimes you think about, well, most of the 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.279 water on the Earth is in the oceans. The salt 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.320 water therefore vastly out numbers the the amount of fresh 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.400 water out there. I don't know out numbers is the 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:53.560 right word, because it's not enumerated, but there's way more 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.159 salt water than there is fresh water. The vast majority 0:06:56.160 --> 0:07:00.640 of water is saltwater. Therefore, it would seem rational to 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.839 to guess that this is the natural state of water. No, 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.000 it's not. Fresh water is the natural state of water. 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:12.320 The ocean's got salty, and they got salty from billions 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:16.520 of years of rinsing the rocks. See Earth's crust is 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:20.200 about two point eight percent sodium, the most common compound 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.240 in rock salt being in a cl or sodium chloride. 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:25.600 This is the same as common table salt. It's what 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:29.880 you put on your food, and as slightly acidic rainwater 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:34.640 and freshwater runoff rinses and dissolves the rocks of planet Earth. 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:38.640 Over long periods of time. It dissolves little bits of 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:43.040 that sodium chloride and carries all of that sodium downstream 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.920 and eventually into the ocean. And then this salt accumulates 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.280 in the oceans. Because the sun heats the ocean water 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.480 causes it to evaporate, It forms clouds, and those clouds 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:55.840 eventually rain the water back down on the land, but 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.880 the salt pretty much stays where it is now. Fortunately, 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.960 there are natural processes known as salt sinks and these 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.720 helped remove salt from the ocean and deposit it back 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.200 on land or in the crust. And for this reason, 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.280 the salt content of the ocean seems fairly stable for now. 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.720 But what if in the future the oceans became more 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.240 like the fatally salty dead sea where if you've ever 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.000 seen what people look like when they swim in the 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:22.640 dead sea, they bob like a bob blur, like you 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.840 just totally float on the surface because of the high 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.520 salinity of the water. But also what you'll notice is 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.640 you don't see any fish or any seaweed or anything. 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:35.600 No macroscopic organisms can live in water that's salty, So 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.400 we could have a salt apocalypse. They caught the Dead 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.120 Sea for a reason. Yeah, what if the whole sea 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:43.600 was the dead Sea? I like it. I like it. 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:45.200 You can eat that. It could even be the title 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.640 dead Sea and then colon and then whatever sci Fi 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:50.560 year you want to go with. It's like dead Sea 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.679 the saltan ng Yeah, alright, I like that. I like that. 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.240 I guess we should talk a little bit about just 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.320 how much salt is in the ocean currently, Uh, just 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.440 the what are the current sea salt levels to the 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.840 ocean about a hundred pounds, right, well, a little bit 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:13.440 more than that. Uh So, seawater is saltwater to the 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:18.400 tune of three point five percent average salinity. So that's 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:22.679 thirty five parts per thousand. And they're The crazy part 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.120 here is that there's so much salt in Earth's oceans 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.520 that supposedly, if you were to remove it all and 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.640 spread it evenly across the surface, you'd have a forty 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.960 story layer of salt. Now, it should be fairly obvious 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.960 that drinking saltwater is not a good idea when you're thirsty. 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.120 But there's a reason we keep returning to this idea 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:46.160 in our fiction, right because in much of human history, 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:48.440 there are lots of scenarios where you could get stuck 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.840 out on the ocean without fresh water. I mean, we 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:53.679 love those type of stories, right, I mean, the there're 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.440 stories of of of man versus nature, a human being 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.600 trying to survive. And again, like i occlude too earlier, 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:04.240 there is something deeply ironic about being surrounded by water 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.680 and not being able to drink any of it. What's 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.040 that Simpsons episode where Homer starts drinking the salt water? 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.440 Oh yeah, that's a boy Scouts in the hood, where 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.679 he misquotes the poem and says water water everywhere, so 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.280 let's all have a drink, and starts drinking palm full 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.760 and palm after palm full of salt water until they 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.320 just pull him away from the edge of the life 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.920 raft um. You know. It shows up other places as well, 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.640 in in the Song of Ice and Fire saga George rr. 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.200 Martin's Iron Islanders, the sort of love crafty and vikings 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.719 of the series, the ones that everybody's always saying, give 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.040 us more chapters with them, that's who I want to 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.960 spend my time with. Well, yeah, I ended up feeling 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:45.480 that way. I ended up feeling that way where real 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:47.480 TV series, I was like, Hey, there's all sorts of 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.280 stuff you could be doing with the Iron Islanders. They're 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:51.920 kind of cool. Oh sorry, I said that. Ironically, I 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:54.160 feel like most people are just kind of like paging 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.520 through the Iron Islands chapters, like, come on, give me 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:58.200 back to the other character. I feel like maybe I 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.000 did at one point, but at the reached a point 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:04.800 in the Iron Islanders narrative where I got really invested 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:06.960 in it. Well, they do have a really cool religion 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:09.360 that has to do with an underwater god who has 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:13.240 a major salt component. Yeah, yeah, and the whole drowned 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.520 god that that pops up in their religion. Uh, they 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:20.680 have these priests, they have these ritualized drownings. It's sometimes 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:22.880 a little vague like to what extent is just like 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.000 a violent Viking baptism in the sea, or if there's 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:30.160 some sort of supernatural element going on as well. But 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.559 they drink seawater. They do drink seawater. I mean, you're 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.840 gonna drink it as the priest is attempting to drown you. 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.640 But then also it said that their priests drinks seawater 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.839 to quote, to strengthen their faith, but you should not 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:47.800 drink seawater to strengthen your body. So the thing is, yeah, 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:51.760 humans need a lot of water, certainly, but we don't 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.120 need a lot of salt. We can consume small amounts 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:57.520 of salt, certainly, We do it all the time. Uh, 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.400 we love salty foods. And also we need salt to 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.360 maintain our body chemistry. So it's it's not a situation 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:06.920 where it's just a completely alien component. It's part of 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:09.800 who we are. But we don't need that much. But 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.920 we absolutely do need some Like at any given time, 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:16.600 the average human body contains I read this today, about 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:21.280 two d and fifty grams of sodium. That's about eight 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:25.760 point eight ounces. Your standard cylinder container of Morton table salt. 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.000 You know that, you know the can as salt, the 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.839 big one. This is the one that larger than a 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:35.120 soda can. Well, it's the twenty six ounds can. Yeah, exactly. Uh, 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.480 that container of Morton table salt twenty six ounces. So 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:40.800 if you've got eight point eight ounces in the average 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.480 human body, depending on your body size, more or less, 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.920 about one third of those containers is inside you right now. 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:49.440 That seems like a lot of salt, right, Like, if 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.560 you put that much salt on a meal, the meal 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.120 would be I dare say, to salty. I think most 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.280 people would agree with that. Yes. I want to tell 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:00.520 a story that a friend of mine once told me. So. Uh, 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.000 my friend, she she's very smart outdoors person. She does 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.360 a lot of hiking, and she knows how to handle 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.400 herself in the wilderness. And she was out hiking one 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.920 time on a trail in Zion National Park and it 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:14.800 was out in the heat, and of course, you know 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.040 when you're hiking out in the heat and the desert 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.040 on the rocks, you know, you need to take plenty 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.440 of water with you and to keep drinking in order 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:25.520 to keep yourself hydrated. And under that desert sun, dehydration 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.000 and overheating can really sneak up on you. So the 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.040 smart thing to do is not wait until you're super 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:33.840 thirsty to drink some water, but keep sipping. Be very 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:38.079 conscientious about keeping yourself cool, keeping water coming in. And 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.280 this this friend of mine, as I said, she knows how, 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.080 she knows what to do in the outside. So she 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.679 was drinking plenty of water out on the rocks, but 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.640 she noticed that she started to feel terrible. She felt 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.040 nausea as she had a headache, weakness, and I think 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:56.240 she said she was kind of confused and foggy, and 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.120 normally in that situation you'd think, Okay, I'm out in 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.120 the desert, I'm probab getting dehydrated. I need to rest 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:06.120 and drink more water. But she kept drinking water and 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.040 the symptoms didn't get any better, so she didn't know 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.400 what was going on. They got concerned and she came 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:13.319 back down off the trail and ended up at a 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:17.160 shuttle station where they called for emergency services. So what's 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.520 going on? Right? It seems like the symptoms of dehydration 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.160 almost but she had been drinking so much water it 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.640 didn't really make any sense. So the paramedics arrived, they 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.240 got the lay of the situation. They and what they 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:33.040 eventually did was they got her to eat some pretzels. Oh, 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.440 so the problem wasn't a lack of water, It was 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.800 too much water deluding the salt content of her blood 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.960 plasma and what she needed to bounce back or some 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:48.000 salty snacks. All right, So that sounds like what everyone 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:49.520 needs to bring with them on a on a hike 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:50.880 from now and it just make sure you do have 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.840 some pretzels tucked away for emergency use. I wonder if 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.280 you need a rapid infusion of salt, Like, what is 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.040 the best thing to eat? I imagine the situation is 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.960 fairly rare and im America. Yeah, like, yeah, we do 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.800 love our salt. Yeah, well, I I love salty foods too, 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.320 But like, what is it like Dorito's or she you 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.760 take a jar of pickles or a stick of pepperoni, 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.800 But see other people might see you taking that bag 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.480 of Doritos or jar of pickles would be on the 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:18.960 hike and they're gonna, they're gonna they might judge you 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:21.640 for your your your choice in trail food. I guess 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.760 you just need like a salty trail mix or packets 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:28.320 of soy sauce, which will come back to in a bit. Okay, Yeah, 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.040 Well I wonder if some people, in addition to their 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.640 hydration when they're like running and exercising, they squirt those 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.960 little electrolyte gel things, right, and those have some amount 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:42.000 of salt content to help keep you balanced. Right. Yeah? Yeah, anyway, 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.440 gross side note of the story she told me about 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:48.200 the shuttle station. Uh, my friend, she felt so bad 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:50.440 after she got down there that she vomited out on 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.280 the ground somewhere. And then later, while she was waiting around, 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:55.680 she got to watch a wild fox wander over and 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.040 start eating it. Oh well that's kind of beautiful really. 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:00.800 Cycle of life, yeah, the cycle of whatever her life. 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.240 She ate and then vomited, and then something else got 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:04.760 to you. Yeah, I mean she was. She was behaving 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:08.720 much like certain buzzards do when threatened. You know, A 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.760 vomit which a vomiting display that is either meant to 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:16.720 scare off a predator or to distract it with a bribe. Yeah, 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.200 here you can have this. Yeah, have these pretzels and 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.720 you know in gatorade. So we totally need sodium to 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.000 keep our bodies functioning right. If you don't have enough 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.160 sodium in the body, this is called hypootremia, and you 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.880 can experience some really messed up symptoms. And in addition 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:34.480 to what you heard about in that story, nausea, vomiting, headache, fatigue, 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.480 and all that, you can on the far end of problems, 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:39.040 if he gets bad enough, you can end up with 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:43.400 seizures in coma. So I mentioned that sodium is an electrolyte, 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.040 that that's one of the reasons that it's necessary in 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.080 the body. And an electrolyte is a substance that tends 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:53.280 to dissolve in a solution and produce ions, or charged particles. 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.720 The presence of these charged particles makes the solution a 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.600 better conductor of electricity. For example, salt water is a 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.560 much better conductor of electricity than fresh water. And if 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:05.600 you want proof of this, you can look up videos 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:09.480 of salt water circuits. Have you ever seen one of these? Yeah, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.280 it's kind of interesting. I wouldn't advise you to try 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.679 this on your own at home unless you really know 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.639 what you're doing. Electricity and water can be a dangerous combination. 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.040 But the basic setup is you've got a circuit UH 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.840 and it's connected to a battery and to a light bulb, 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:26.520 and at one point on your circuit you have open 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.160 wire ends that are stuck down into a jar of water. 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:31.600 So the electricity would need to go through the water 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.760 to complete the circuit. And if you've just got regular 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.560 tap water, especially if you've got something like distilled water, 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:40.880 the bulb is not going to light up. It can't 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:44.400 generate enough current to really complete the circuit. But if 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.960 you stir some salt into the water, suddenly the boat 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:49.560 the bulb will come to life. And there's some kind 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.720 of rough equivalence to that within within the body, like 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.639 the body is an electrochemical machine, and one of the 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.720 ways it regulates itself and does its stuff is through 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:03.919 electrochemical signal ling an electrochemical exchange. So your body cells 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:08.199 have membranes surrounding them, and these membranes are electrically permeable. 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.119 They can allow ions to pass through to balance electrical 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.280 charge on the sides of the membrane, and by exchanging 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.919 potassium ions and sodium ions across the cell membrane. The 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:23.160 cells can for example, direct an electrical impulse, which means 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:25.480 a chain of nerve cells can pass a message from 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:27.640 one part of the body to another. But you can 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.240 also think of sodium and potassium as one of the 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.200 ways that stuff gets into and out of a cell. 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:36.800 This electrolyte exchange across the cell membrane can be used, 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.679 for example, to exchange glucose to get glucose into the cell. 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.960 And the body also uses sodium to maintain overall fluid 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.439 balance and regulate blood pressure. So you need sodium. It's 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:49.879 an important part of everything your body needs to do 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.400 to survive. Without it, you would not be able to live. 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:56.240 But like we were saying, you don't need a lot 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:59.520 of it. It's interesting, isn't it. How you end up 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.679 revisiting the body as this kind of chemical equation. But 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.800 for the most part, it's a self regulating chemical chemical 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.560 equation provided that you have you have your your your 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:14.159 typical resources around you. Yeah, unless there's something really wrong 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.760 with your inputs. Generally, if the body is healthy, it's 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.320 going to be balancing the sides of this equation on 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.080 its own, and so the body usually tries to keep 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:26.000 the sodium content very stable between about a hundred and 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.960 thirty five and a hundred and forty five milli equivalence 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.840 of sodium per liter of water in your body. And 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.800 mill equivalence is a measure and chemistry often used to 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.879 measure the amount of solute and a solution. In this case, 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:40.520 it's sodium and water, and there are one thousand milli 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.520 equivalents and an equivalent. So notice that's a pretty tight 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.240 range for normal sodium levels. Right one to one forty 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.520 five milli equivalence means that the body needs to be 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.880 constantly managing its retention and excretion of sodium to keep 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:58.000 those levels in the optimal functioning range. But having too 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.200 much salt is I would guess a more common problem 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.480 than having too little, and certainly just as potentially harmful, 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:08.600 and drinking seawater puts you at immediate risk for over 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.840 salting your body and your cells can basically start to 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.560 get like salted slugs. It's not good. It's not good. 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:18.199 It's really it's really kind of diabolical. The way it 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.240 plays out, it seems like some sort of a punishment 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:25.400 from the inferno. So basically what happens is humans were 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.760 eating and drinking a lot to dilute our salt intake. 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:31.560 So you're fine normally, if you have a salty meal, 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.040 it's not going to kill you immediately because you can 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.560 drink water to make up for it. Your your kidneys 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:38.920 will help you excrete all that salt over a period 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.160 of time, because there's a reason you have that super 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:46.160 gulp of of sugary soda water, right right, Yeah, but yeah, 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.760 if we consume too much salt, the body has to 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:50.560 dump it. But that that body has to get rid 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:52.560 of that salt the only way it knows how through 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.800 urine evacuation mode exactly. But the human kidneys can only 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:00.440 make urine that is less salty than salt water, so 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:02.960 it cannot it can't get rid of it as fast 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:05.119 as it's coming in. To get rid of all that 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.480 excess salt from saltwater, you have to urinate more water 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:10.920 than you drink, and this is the path to doom. 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:15.760 You die of dehydration, becoming thirstier and thirstier with every gulp. 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:18.240 It's one of those faiths that is not only cruel, 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.120 but ironic. YEA, all right, we're gonna take a quick 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.800 break and when we come back, we're gonna get more 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.560 into this situation. What happens when we do drink salt 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:31.560 water and another outline question, does it lead to madness? 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:36.760 Does it lead to sea madness? Thank? Thank all right, 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:39.600 we're back. So, Robert, we've talked about how the body 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.280 needs sodium to survive, but if you have too much 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:44.760