WEBVTT - The Plague of Mucus 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.600 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.079 My name is Robert Land, and I'm Joe McCormick. In Today, 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.319 we're gonna be diving into the ocean to take a 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:24.960 look at slime, froth, ooze, and mucus of various kinds. 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.319 And I thought maybe a good way to get in 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.639 the mood for this kind of discussion would be to 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.960 do a couple of literary readings, perhaps rob if your game. 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.639 When I was thinking about this topic, something immediately came 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.160 to mind. I remember there was some passage from Walt 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:42.879 Whitman in which he identified very strongly and emotionally with 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:46.479 becoming a bit of ooze, froth and debris washing in 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:48.400 the surf. Do do you mind if I read a 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:51.240 bit of Walt Whitman here? Yeah, go for it. Okay. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:53.080 So this is from his poem that I think the 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:55.280 title has just taken from the first line, mis called 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:57.560 as I ebbed with the Ocean of Life. The whole 0:00:57.600 --> 0:00:59.520 poem is too long to read, but I'm just going 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:01.720 to read for the fourth section here, where he really 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.960 talks about becoming the use ebb ocean of life, The 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:10.000 flow will return. Cease, not your moaning, you fierce old mother, 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:15.600 endlessly cry for your castaways. But fear not deny, not me, rustle, 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:18.520 not up so hoarse and angry against my feet. As 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.880 I touch you or gather from you, I mean tenderly 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.679 by you and all I gather for myself and for 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.240 this phantom, looking down where we lead, and following me 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:32.720 and mine, me and mine. Loose wind rows, little corpses, 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:37.400 froth snowy white and bubbles. See from my dead lips, 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:42.000 the ooze exuding at last, See the prismatic colors, glistening 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:47.320 and rolling, tufts of straw, sand, fragments buoyed hither from 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:52.160 many moods, one contradicting another, from the storm, the long calm, 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:57.600 the darkness, the swell, musing, pondering a breath, a briny tear, 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.480 a dab of liquid or soil up just as much 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:05.880 out of fathomless workings, fermented and thrown, a limp blossom 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:09.600 or two, torn just as much over the waves, floating, 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.480 drifted at random, just as much for us that sobbing 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.640 dirge of nature. Just as much whence we come that 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:21.200 blair of the cloud trumpets, we capricious, brought hither we 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.520 know not WinCE spread out before you. You up there 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.919 walking or sitting, whoever you are, we two lie in 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:32.640 drifts at your feet. Oh man, Whitman. Uh. Feeling a 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.040 little moody in that one. Yeah, this is weird because 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.040 I mean, Whitman has his his darker moods, but I 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.320 feel like this is definitely one of the more downer 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.720 Whitman moments. A lot of times he finds a way 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:44.560 to surge back up, but that's the end of the poem. 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:46.920 It kind of ends on a down note. Though. Weirdly, 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:49.920 even when Whitman is feeling down, you can still you 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.480 can tell he still has that universal connectedness perspective. He 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:57.200 still is every molecule of everything in the ocean, even 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:02.000 all the debris and ooze and froth and sand and trash. Yeah. No, 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.440 that's that's that's really good. And uh. And when you 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:06.280 initially brought this up and I was reading it, I 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.520 was like, oh man, this is this is reminding me 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:10.760 of something, not that it's reminding me of something specific, 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.079 but just sort of a similar vibe. And it got 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.960 me thinking about h G wells uh uh. It's particularly 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.520 I can't remember if it's when the time traveler goes 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:21.920 to the very end of time or the very beginning, 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.720 but he encounters kind of like, you know, this this 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:29.720 sludge like dark world of of slimy life. I don't 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.160 remember either way. Well, he goes towards the end, when 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.360 he goes the farthest in the future, it's when he 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:38.520 encounters that the world has just crabs. It's like, remember 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.280 those those big like arthropod type creatures. But maybe he 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:44.640 also goes back in time. Maybe that's working on the 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.840 the old school primordial ooze kind of idea of the 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.880 origins of life. Yeah, And you see this pop up 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:55.160 in weird fiction of the twentieth century as well, particularly 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.240 in the works of of Clark Ashton Smith, who was 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:03.280 a writer of weird dark fantasy tales and it was 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:05.280 also a poet and uh and I believe later in 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:09.720 life he worked with like sculpture. But but I was 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.600 looking up, like, what was what's a nice slimy ocean 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.440 bit from Clark Ashton Smith? And I found a really 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.839 good one from a story titled The Light from the Pole. 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.159 And I'm not sure when this was written. I don't 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:24.440 think it was actually published until after his death. But 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:26.520 I'm just going to read a quick paragraph from this 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.919 if you don't mind, go for it. Through the middle summer, 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.919 the fisher folk who dwelt in wattle huts below the 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.920 tall towers of far Azan went forth daily in their 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.320 coracles of hide and willow, and cast their nets in 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.720 the accustomed manner of their trade. But all that they 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.800 gathered from the sea was dead and withered, as if 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.000 in the blast of great coldness, such as would emanate 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.880 from the trans Arctic ice. And they drew forth from 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:58.880 their signs. Living monsters as well, such as the eldest captains, 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.880 had never beheld things triple headed and tailed and thinned 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:06.920 with horror, black shapeless things that turned a liquid foulness 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.520 and ran from the net like a vile i corps, 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.839 or headless shapes like bloated moons with green frozen rays 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:18.160 about them, or things leprous side and bearded with stiffly 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:22.520 using slime. It was as if some transdimensional and long 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.680 blocked channel beneath the known familiar seas of Earth had 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:31.240 opened suddenly into the strange waters of ultra mundane oceans, 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:35.640 teeming with repulsive and malformed life. Wow, well that goes 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.160 to supernatural dimensions, but at the same time still connects 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.520 very much to the topic we're gonna be talking about today. Yeah. Oh, 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.039 and by the way, if some of you are wanting ultramundane, 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.760 that just sounds like even more mundane than usual. It 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.760 actually means the opposite. Ultra mundane means like from beyond 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.040 the solar system. Oh. I would not have known that. Yeah, 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.320 it threw me for your curve at first, because I'm like, oh, 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.000 the ultramundane man that must be and that's that's just supermunday, 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:07.159 but now especially average. But anyway, on these themes of 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.000 slime and mucus, it got me thinking about this question, 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:14.160 like what does life from the microscopic level to the 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.039 plants and the megafauna all have in common. Well, one 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.840 thing that is common to most life, especially most life 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.520 that lives in the water, is mucus or slime. You know, 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:30.200 some kind of like slimy substances, viscous, slimy, lubricating kinds 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.320 of substances in the body are really some of the 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:36.839 keystones of organic life. I was thinking about how, uh, 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:38.640 there was one time when I was in high school 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:41.839 and I remember being present for a a sermon that 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:44.279 was preached on the verse in the Bible about how 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.400 the blood is the life, and the point of the 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.120 sermon was that was that that statement the blood is 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:54.240 the life in the Bible is scientifically accurate, which, on reflection, 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.280 this kind of a funny claim to make. I mean, 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:58.040 I guess that's true. Like if you remove all the 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.320 blood from something, it doesn't live anymore. Um. But but 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:03.679 I started thinking about how the slime is the life. 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.120 The mucus is the life because you've got micro organisms 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.240 of course that secrete ouzy mucus like substances called mucilage. 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.080 But you can also find that implants if you break 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:18.320 a stalk of succulent, it will leak a viscous mucilage too. Yeah, 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:22.520 I mean, we could easily do an entire podcast series, 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:26.360 if not an entire podcast period on slime because you 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:27.720 look at that, I mean, you just look at the 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:31.559 ways the importance of slime and the human body, you know, uh, 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:33.680 and it's it's it's greatly important. Look at some of 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.560 the very unique creatures that utilize slime so well. Um, 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.760 the hag fish, for example, that we've discussed numerous times 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.520 a true wizard of slime um, a sorcerer of uze 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:48.480 that that is able to to to utilize this uh, 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:53.720 this this thick, slimy substance that it that it exudes um, 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:57.560 you know, so so wonderfully as a self defense mechanism. Yeah. 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.400 And the truly amazing thing about the hag fish is 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.320 how much of it it can create and how fast. Yeah. 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:08.360 Another big one is the slime that you encounter as 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.280 the very outer layer of fish in the ocean. You know, 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.560 like this is it's not just something that is on 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.600 their body. It is something of their body, but it 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:20.520 serves as an outer layer. Um. So you know, when 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:22.600 you're when you're handling a fish, even if you're catching 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.280 and releasing, if you're disrupting that that outer layer, you're 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.480 disrupting some of the protections afforded to the organism. Now, 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.360 but of course there's plenty of internal use for slime 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.480 and mucus and ooze as well, because if you think 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:38.160 about inside your body, tons of your organs and surfaces 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.720 and tissues are lined with mucus of various sorts that 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:43.640 are very important for your body. I mean, you've got 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.559 mucus in your nose, mucus and all kinds all kinds 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:48.720 of parts, so you But of course, I guess one 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.240 thing we should recognize is that we are speaking kind 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:54.200 of loosely in a general sense about similar types of 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.719 substances with similar physical properties that are not all necessarily 0:08:57.760 --> 0:08:59.920 the same thing. They're not created by the same by 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.040 a chemical pathways always uh, you know, they come from 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.760 different kinds of life. But in this loose sense, almost 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.600 all life has some kind of slime or or ooz 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.760 or goo or mucus. In common life just kind of 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:17.000 makes mucus. Yeah, I mean, that's that's really the secret 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:18.959 of the is right there. But today we wanted to 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.720 look at this question of what happens when the mucus 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.520 gets out of hand, what happens when it becomes a 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.760 plague like mass that is not not merely inside the body, 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:34.000 not merely on the body, not merely uh, floating around 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.720 in little tiny clumps in the ocean, but when it 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.240 comes to dominate the geography and you can see it 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.720 from airplanes. That's what we're going to talk about today. 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.000 So shout out that I got the idea to talk 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.480 about this today when I came across an article in 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:52.840 The Atlantic by Sarah Jong called a slimy calamity is 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.600 creeping across the sea. And this article is about an 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.720 organic substance that has been referred to in the scientific 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.680 terature as marine mucilage, but it is more commonly known 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.320 to uh people in the fishing industry and people who 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:12.240 have encountered it firsthand as things like see snot or 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:16.520 see saliva. And the article is about how this stuff 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:21.320 has lately become an absolute plague near the shores of Turkey, 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.640 specifically in a place called the Sea of Marmara, which 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.679 is in northwest Turkey, and it's the body of water 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:30.600 that connects the A G n C on the west 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:34.080 to the Black Sea on the on the northeast. And 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:36.559 so if you have not already read any articles about 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:39.040 this stuff or seen pictures of it, this one is 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.880 really worth looking up to see with your own eyes. 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.520 In fact, there is an astonishing photo gallery on the 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.400 website of The Atlantic right now. It was posted June 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:53.920 one called photos Turkey ce snot Disaster. So I'd highly 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.160 recommend checking this out if you can, but we will 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.480 try to describe a few of these images here for 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:00.520 those of you who can't go look it up right now, 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:02.839 and Rob, I've got these here for you to look 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:04.720 at as well. So I pulled a few of them. 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.480 This first one was a photo taken by Mohammed Ennis 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:12.840 Yielder Rim and it's an aerial photo from June one 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.679 of all these boats in the water off the shore 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.640 of Istanbul. And it looks like they're floating in one 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.720 of those buckets that people used to make tie dye 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.920 t shirts. Except instead of all the colors of the rainbow, 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:30.480 it's just various hues of off white and tan. It's 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:36.560 this giant, floating, swirling, starry night of beige slime. Yeah, 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.240 this is I think this is a Getty image as well, 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:43.000 from the Getty website. But it is um it it's 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:44.920 really beautiful. If not, and if I didn't know what 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:47.600 it was, I would just assume that this was a 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:51.200 painting because it looks like some sort of a surreal 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:56.600 uh you know, oil painted ocean upon which the artist 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:01.240 has depicted realistic looking um depictions of hips and boats. Well, 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.760 another way I could view it is again, because this 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:05.880 is from a great distance, it is kind of beautiful. 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.240 It also looks like boats that maybe somehow all became 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.520 beached on a vast stretch of sand. So like if 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:15.960 like if the ocean retreated and left all these boats 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.440 stranded in the dunes with these drifts and current like 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.920 patterns all swirling around them, and they were just sitting 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.319 in the sand. I I could see that being a 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:28.720 what this is, But no, they are on the surface 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.719 of the water. And also I worry for them if 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.880 they must start their engines. As we'll get to uh 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.760 a bit later on about about some of the problems 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:42.199 that the stuff causes for for powered boats. But as 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.679 beautiful as this might look from above, as kind of 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.160 like weirdly, I don't know at that that that boundary 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:51.320 line between gross and beautiful when you get up close, 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:55.360 it really does get more just obviously disgusting. So this 0:12:55.520 --> 0:13:00.280 next image is of a diver surfacing from under neath 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.520 a large mat of marine mucilage. This one was taken 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:08.280 by Sir Haat Kagdas for the Anadolue Agency, which is 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.320 a Turkish state media organization, and according to the caption, 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:16.280 this person is involved in a marine mucilage cleanup operation 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.080 at a Kata Boston beach, which is also in in 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.160 Istanbul Or off the shore of Istanbul and this is 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.679 from June of twenty one also. But if if you're 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.600 trying to imagine the texture of this stuff up close 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.120 from this image here, it looks kind of like if 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.320 you've ever tried to make beef stock, or like a 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:39.640 pork raman broth. All of the scum that rises to 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.400 the top of the pot as the impurities are are 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:46.239 removed at first from the bones and the connecting tissues. 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:50.000 That that stuff that floats up there, except add into 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:55.760 that like some wilted toilet paper and alo vera gel. Yeah, 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.880 that that is a good description um. Another way might 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.040 be to imagine if you've filled a crop pot like 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:07.600 a pressure cooker with cauliflower and then cooked it way 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.800 too long where you just turned it to mush. Like 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.559 that's what this kind of looks like. Yeah, so up close, 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:15.720 a lot of the beauty has gone and it becomes 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.680 frankly revolting. But I want to come back on the 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.520 beautiful side because also in this photo gallery they had 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:25.760 one that's an underwater image, and one of the things 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:27.400 that came through is I started to read more and 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.680 more about this stuff is how in a lot, in 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:34.160 some sense, you can't really appreciate what it is unless 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:38.280 you look at views of it from underwater, because, for example, 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.080 a lot of scientists had been trying to study this 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:45.280 stuff for years, but we're having trouble because the equipment 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.760 that they used to retrieve samples from the water would 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:50.920 end up churning it up and shaking it up. That 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.480 would kind of destroy its structure. So to really see 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.160 what form it takes as it's just floating in the 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:58.720 water column you have, you kind of have to go 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:02.480 down yourself or see pictures taken from beneath the surface. 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:06.440 So this one picture was by Sebnim Costcoon, also for 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:11.440 the Nadolu agency, and uh, it's an underwater photo of 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.400 a diver in the Sea of Marmara near at stand Bull. 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:18.520 Again from this one's from May. And this one looks 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.840 to me like a scene from a Forbidden Planet type 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.160 vintage sci fi movie. The water is dimly lit but 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:30.119 extremely green, and the diver has these twin work lamps 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:32.840 that it looks kind of like, you know, crewman Hicks 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:37.000 has wandered into an alien spider web. And so there's 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:42.960 just this translucent matrix of goop enveloping everything spun right 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.680 out of the she lob of the sea. Yeah, and 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.360 I guess it drives home. You can't tell, really tough 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.360 on the image how deep the individual is, but yet 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:53.560 you certainly get the sense that this is not a 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.119 mere merely a surface phenomena. This is something that extends 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.800 at least somewhat into the water column. Right, And we'll 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:01.760 get into more detail as we go on about how 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:04.600 that happens. I think they're there are different stages depending 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.000 on the conditions that that cause it to float or 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.560 stay suspended in the water column. Um. But we'll explain 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:13.720 that as we go on. One last photo I thought 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.080 we should look at before we move on, Rob. Is 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.960 this one of workers trying to vacuum this stuff up 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.800 with hoses? I think this is again nearest stenbul Uh 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.880 in the Marmara. See this is from June uh And 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.800 the stuff here that's going up into the hose looks 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.480 very much like overflow from a sewer clean out. Yeah, 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.960 or big cat vomit, A lot of cat vomit. Maybe, oh, 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.160 big cat vomit. You mean, like the vomit is big 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:42.320 or like from a big cat, like a lion talking. 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.280 I'm talking like big time cat cat vomit here, like 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.480 like cat vomit, so expansive that Peter Gabriel write a 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.920 song about it for real cat vomit. One of the 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.160 articles I was reading about this had a really good 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:59.400 physical description. It was by Selene Ugertash, writing for the 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:03.000 The for The Guardian in May one and you. Gurtash 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.400 said that when seen from above, it looks like a 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:10.320 brush of beige swirled across the dark blue waters of 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.960 the Sea of Marmara. Up close it resembles a creamy, 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:19.000 gelatinous blanket of Quicksand yeah, so from the air looks 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:21.840 like a cappuccino ocean, like the surface of a cappuccino. 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.680 Up close, it looks it just looks gross, very grass. Now. 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.359 In that article in The Atlantic by Sarah Jong, she 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:33.080 talks about different names for the different types of accumulations 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.879 of it. So you've got what's known as marine snow. 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.800 That's a that's a phenomenon that ultimately connects to marine muselage. 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.000 But these are of course tiny little flakes and droplets 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.360 that are usually drifting slowly down towards the sea floor. Uh, 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:49.760 they're They're found in the ocean all the time, just 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.879 the little flakes little bits of life they're drifting around. 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:57.480 But then when when the marine muselage starts to accumulate, 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:01.080 you've got these things called stringers, which she's says resemble 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:05.040 a kind of sticky goo. This is more actually similar 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:08.280 in appearance to human nasal mucus. But then you've also 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.760 got clouds, which are maybe more like you know that 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.040 maybe when the stringers come together they form clouds. It's 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.879 more like that giant spider web under the surface of 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.960 the water. Uh. They're they're delicate and they break apart 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.960 when you touch them, but they just form these big, 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:28.679 sort of translucent white masses floating in the water. So 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.200 I guess we should get more into describing the phenomenon 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.320 of of what's actually happening here. I mentioned that this 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.120 is something that's going on in Turkey right now, specifically 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.520 in the Sea of Marmara, but marine mucilage is a 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.760 broader phenomenon than what's happening in Turkey right now, both 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.000 in terms of time and geography. So the Sea of 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.560 Marmara is not the only place that experiences surges of 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.440 this stuff, and it's not the first time it has happened. 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:58.920 But the slime infestation at Marmora is especially bad this year, 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.199 and the problem does seemed to be getting worse in 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.960 the region over time. So I found a source illuminating 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.000 this as a scientific paper discussing marine mucilage in the 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.560 Adriatic Sea, which is nearby. It's in the Mediterranean. The 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:15.679 Adriatic is the stretch of sea between Italy and the Balkans. 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:20.200 And this is a paper by Roberto den Ovarro, Serena 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:25.320 Fonda Umani and Antonio pusque Do and it's called Climate 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.800 Change and the Potential Spreading of Marine mucilage and Microbial 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.440 Pathogens in the Mediterranean Sea. This was published in PLS 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.399 one in two thousand nine. This is a highly cited 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.439 paper about marine mucilage. Most of the articles that I 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:40.760 was reading mentioned this paper at one point or another, 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.000 but in tracking the history of this stuff, they go 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.400 all the way back to the eighteen century the author's 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:53.040 right quote. Worldwide, the highly productive and shallow Adriatic Sea, 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.919 and particularly it's a northern portion within the Mediterranean Basin, 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:00.320 is the area most severely affected by the out break 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:04.800 of massive marine mucilage. Mucilage was reported here for the 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:09.080 first time in seventeen twenty nine, and was originally described 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:13.280 as a quote dirty c phenomenon, or in Italian that 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:17.800 would be mare Sporco, because it causes the clogging of 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.520 fishing nets. Uh. And I do like the name mare Sporko. 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:23.840 I'm not quite sure why. Maybe because it sounds like 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.040 it has a porky element somehow. It could easily be 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:30.560 the name of a demon in Dante's Inferno. Oh yeah, 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.639 Mari Sporko hanging out with you know, the very with 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.760 the malacoda and all Malo Bronco or I might be 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:43.480 getting that name wrong. Bronco. Yeah, there's Malacoda in there. 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:48.080 And of course Scarmiglian, Scarbiglian, lots of good names. So 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.480 what would the dirty sea demon be? I mean, usually 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.040 they're more kind of like animals are personified. This would 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:57.000 be like the ocean itself is a demon, yeah, or 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:00.040 just kind of a roughly humanoid form made out of 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:02.400 this cease, not that we're describing, That's the way I'm 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:06.199 picturing it. Yeah, So outbreaks of cease not, according to 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:08.840 the authors of this paper, have been occurring in the 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.240 Adriatic ever since, ever since they were observed, and you know, 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.040 possibly before that too, But it was first documented in 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:17.720 seventeen twenty nine, and they've been recurring ever since, but 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:22.760 the frequency has increased sharply in the last thirty years 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.280 or so. And this paper was published in two thousand nine, 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:28.399 so that would mean since around nineteen eighty. And the 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:32.920 author is right about how once this stuff aggregates, an 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.320 outbreak of marine mucilage can stay floating on the surface 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.600 or suspended throughout the water column for around two to 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:42.320 three months, and then after that it tends to float 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:45.800 down and settle on the sea bottom. And there are 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:49.920 several reasons why the stuff is considered undesirable by humans. 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.560 Some of them are pretty obvious. They write, for example, 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:56.199 quote the presence of mucilage makes the seawater unsuitable for 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:59.639 bathing because of the bad smell produced and the adherents 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:03.000 of the mucilage on the skin of bathers. So it's 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:05.560 kind of like, I don't know, just like describing why 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:07.720 you wouldn't want to swim in water that has tons 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:10.560 of mucus floating on top of it. But I appreciate 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:13.720 that they spelled that out. Um. Now, of course I 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:16.719 mentioned already that over time it tends to settle on 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:21.320 the sea floor. And once it's there the author's right quote, 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:25.760 these large aggregates coat the sediments, extending in certain cases 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:30.560 for kilometers and causing hypoxic and or anoxic conditions, which 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:33.359 of course means that the water is being depleted of 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:37.080 dissolved oxygen, which marine animals need in order to breathe. 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:41.480 And then they write quote the consequent suffocation of benthic organisms, 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:46.960 including bottom associated necton, provokes serious economical damage to tourism 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:51.359 and fisheries. And a noteier necton, these are some of 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:54.840 the organisms that are being affected. Necton means animals that 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:58.120 are strong swimmers that can move independent of water currents, 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:01.440 so this would be opposed to see floor organisms and 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:05.080 plankton that just float with the currents. So several bad 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:07.880 things about it. Obviously, it's bad for the local wildlife 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:11.480 because it can can smother them or suffocate them in 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:15.040 various ways. But it's also of course bad for humans, 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:17.720 not just because it kills all the wildlife, but because 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:20.639 it creates these bad conditions. Nobody wants to swim in 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:23.639 the water. It's unsightly, it hurts tourism, but also it 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:27.520 creates a big problem for boats and fisheries. Uh So 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:32.639 In Jong's article, she talks about how boats sometimes can't 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:36.520 go to sea when there's all this mucus floating around 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:40.639 because the mucus um it quote clogs up the seawater 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:43.920 intake that cools the motor. So if you've got all 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:46.600 this mucus going in where the motor is trying to 0:23:46.640 --> 0:23:49.480 take in water for coolant, I guess that just clogs 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:52.080 it up and then the engine can't work. Yeah. So, 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:56.199 not even getting into how little you want to swim 0:23:56.200 --> 0:23:59.440 in these waters, it impacts your ability to go out 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:02.600 in a boat and ish to use boats for certain 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:06.840 degrees of trade and travel. Um. Yeah, it's a problem 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:09.560 regarding the effect on the benthic organisms that are on 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:11.439 the sea floor or rob I found a couple of 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:13.320 pictures just for you to look at that include a 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:16.960 starfish and one has a crab that are both apparently 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:20.040 just dead and smothered by this sea snot. They have 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:23.920 turned a kind of palid shade and are I don't 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:26.720 know what exactly about it killed them. Perhaps it's smothered 0:24:26.760 --> 0:24:29.320 them or interfered with their ability to breathe, or maybe 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:34.119 it's uh it going through its decomposition cycle somehow removed 0:24:34.280 --> 0:24:36.879 dissolved oxygen from the water that could be affecting them 0:24:36.880 --> 0:24:39.560 as well. But yeah, it just looks generally very bad 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:41.760 for the what's living on the sea floor. Yeah, I 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:43.840 encourage everyone to look at these photos because it, yeah, 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:46.320 it's just it looks like zombified sea life. It's just 0:24:46.400 --> 0:24:50.439 really ghastly. And the photography is is beautiful in its 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:53.320 own right. It's it's it's excellent photography, but it is 0:24:53.359 --> 0:25:02.640 capturing something that is rather ghastly and disturbed. Thank you. Now, 0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:05.400 we mentioned that a lot of the older documented outbreaks 0:25:05.440 --> 0:25:08.480 of of marine mucilage mentioned in that two thousand nine 0:25:08.480 --> 0:25:11.480 paper in PS one, we're in the Adriatic Sea, which 0:25:11.520 --> 0:25:14.359 is of course different than the Sea of marmara Um. 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:18.639 Apparently there had not been outbreaks of marine mucilage reported 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:21.960 in Turkey before two thousand seven, but now, of course 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:25.080 that's where the big problem is situated. It seems like 0:25:25.119 --> 0:25:28.080 some of the problem from the Adriatic has been alleviated 0:25:28.119 --> 0:25:31.760 by some interventions that will talk about later on. But 0:25:31.880 --> 0:25:34.560 this current outbreak of C SNOTS seems to have begun 0:25:34.920 --> 0:25:39.080 in December of uh there's some of the early signs 0:25:39.080 --> 0:25:42.000 of it where that fishermen were noticing that it was 0:25:42.080 --> 0:25:44.840 preventing them from using their nets. I saw this thing 0:25:44.840 --> 0:25:48.600 about the fisher nets mentioned in a lot of articles, 0:25:48.600 --> 0:25:50.640 and I was trying to figure out exactly how it 0:25:50.720 --> 0:25:54.800 makes the nets unusable. I couldn't nail that down for certain, though. 0:25:55.000 --> 0:25:57.480 I think possibly what's going on is it makes the 0:25:57.520 --> 0:26:00.880 nets too heavy, as it like sort clogs them up, 0:26:01.160 --> 0:26:04.480 they don't really work. Or possibly it interferes with the 0:26:04.520 --> 0:26:07.760 ability of water to pass freely through what's supposed to 0:26:07.760 --> 0:26:10.560 be the holes in the nets. Yeah, you can easily 0:26:10.600 --> 0:26:14.640 imagine how it would turn a net into a parachute 0:26:14.720 --> 0:26:19.080 made out of netting and slime. Yeah. Gross. And another 0:26:19.160 --> 0:26:22.159 thing is I actually saw this claim cited in an 0:26:22.240 --> 0:26:26.720 article for The Washington Post by Antonio Neuri Farson, who 0:26:26.920 --> 0:26:30.359 said that it's also sometimes making people wonder whether fish 0:26:30.440 --> 0:26:34.080 that are successfully caught in the these not infested waters 0:26:34.119 --> 0:26:36.960 are safe to eat. And there was no ruling on 0:26:37.280 --> 0:26:40.320 whether they were or not. I don't know of any 0:26:40.359 --> 0:26:42.920 reason why they wouldn't be, but at least said people 0:26:42.960 --> 0:26:45.960 were worried about that. But it wasn't just people in 0:26:46.000 --> 0:26:49.080 the fishing industry who started to notice this. This problem 0:26:49.080 --> 0:26:51.879 with the new outbreak of marine mucilage. Also, it was 0:26:51.920 --> 0:26:56.280 noticed by by scientists. There is one example cited in 0:26:56.320 --> 0:27:00.040 that article in The Guardian by Sillan you Gurtash and 0:27:00.040 --> 0:27:03.280 and this one um this one refers to a scientist 0:27:03.359 --> 0:27:07.360 named Dr Barish ot Salp who is a marine biologist 0:27:07.400 --> 0:27:12.880 at the China cal A Osakes Mart University. And uh 0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:16.440 this researcher was diving to look at corals off the 0:27:16.640 --> 0:27:20.359 China cal A straight and notice the extent of the 0:27:20.359 --> 0:27:24.040 sea saliva underneath the water and points out that it's 0:27:24.119 --> 0:27:27.920 especially dangerous to immobile animals along the bottom of the ocean, 0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:31.639 like coral. Uh So, so Dr ot Salp here found 0:27:31.680 --> 0:27:37.159 that that the gold coral or Savalia savaglia and the 0:27:37.280 --> 0:27:42.920 violeescent sea whip or Para murissa clavada were the most 0:27:43.040 --> 0:27:46.240 armed by the cease not bloom. And then near the shoreline, 0:27:46.359 --> 0:27:49.760 it of course threatens fish populations. There have been reports 0:27:49.800 --> 0:27:53.040 that thousands of fish have turned up dead near coastal settlements. 0:27:53.359 --> 0:27:56.199 So it's bad stuff for the marine life. So just 0:27:56.280 --> 0:27:59.879 out of disruption here, it's it's you know, we recently 0:28:00.000 --> 0:28:05.200 talked about the sargasm weed and and uh, and large 0:28:05.280 --> 0:28:08.879 quantities of that that that at times become a problem 0:28:08.920 --> 0:28:12.320 for coastal communities, and and and actually creating some of 0:28:12.359 --> 0:28:14.720 the same problems we've discussed here, making it difficult to 0:28:14.720 --> 0:28:17.160 to to to leave in a boat that sort of thing, 0:28:17.240 --> 0:28:19.919 making an unpleasant to visit the beach or be in 0:28:19.920 --> 0:28:25.399 the water. But in those cases, I mean, the sargasm 0:28:25.560 --> 0:28:28.520 is still an environment that things are thriving in. And 0:28:28.560 --> 0:28:31.600 this this seems like more of a total disruption of 0:28:32.200 --> 0:28:35.680 all the of the marine environment at all levels. Well, 0:28:35.760 --> 0:28:38.840 it turns out there's evidence that something is thriving in here, 0:28:38.880 --> 0:28:41.960 but it's not very helpful for the marine life around it. 0:28:42.000 --> 0:28:44.960 So get more to that in just a moment. Uh. First, 0:28:45.000 --> 0:28:47.120 I guess I wanted to talk about, like what actually 0:28:47.280 --> 0:28:50.040 is this stuff physically, Like what is it and how 0:28:50.120 --> 0:28:53.000 is it formed? So here I'm turning back to that 0:28:53.080 --> 0:28:55.200 study from two thousand nine in p o OS one 0:28:55.280 --> 0:28:58.080 by den O Varro at all, and the way they 0:28:58.160 --> 0:29:02.360 explain it is that marine mucilage starts with what's known 0:29:02.480 --> 0:29:05.520 as marine snow. So I'm gonna read from their their 0:29:06.080 --> 0:29:10.400 explanation in their introductory section here they define marine snow 0:29:10.520 --> 0:29:14.560 as quote amorphous aggregates with the size ranging from a 0:29:14.560 --> 0:29:18.720 few millimeters to several meters, and so these are just 0:29:18.840 --> 0:29:22.800 little flex of organic material that form an important part 0:29:22.960 --> 0:29:26.520 of of the ocean because of course it's marine snow 0:29:26.720 --> 0:29:31.200 raining down from the the the trophic areas in the 0:29:31.200 --> 0:29:34.840 top of the water column where you've got the photosynthesizing organisms, 0:29:34.920 --> 0:29:37.840 you know, they make energy from from sunlight, and then 0:29:38.440 --> 0:29:42.360 they die and float down or stuff they produce comes 0:29:42.400 --> 0:29:45.000 off of them and floats down, and it creates this 0:29:45.080 --> 0:29:48.600 sort of blizzard of organic material that rains down below 0:29:49.080 --> 0:29:51.880 and feeds organisms that live much lower down in the 0:29:51.920 --> 0:29:55.640 water column who are not able to produce energy from sunlight. 0:29:56.080 --> 0:29:59.360 And of course that processes is, as they say, ubiquitous 0:29:59.360 --> 0:30:02.640 in the oceans of the world. It's it's everywhere. But 0:30:02.720 --> 0:30:07.280 then they write quote water columns stratification, So that's the 0:30:08.160 --> 0:30:11.240 forming of these layers in the water column. Water column 0:30:11.280 --> 0:30:16.719 stratification under summer conditions favors the progressive coalescence of small 0:30:16.840 --> 0:30:23.800 sized aggregates into large, massive sheets, thin layers, flocks, and clouds, 0:30:23.800 --> 0:30:27.959 which are collectively known as marine mucilage. Mucilage is a 0:30:28.080 --> 0:30:33.520 gelatinous evolving stage of marine snow, which can reach huge 0:30:33.640 --> 0:30:38.080 dimensions and cover areas of hundreds of kilometers of coastline. 0:30:38.560 --> 0:30:41.040 Now we'll come back to the exact mechanics of how 0:30:41.080 --> 0:30:43.520 those aggregates form in the water column. But yeah, so 0:30:43.960 --> 0:30:46.320 what what what's going on here is that something that 0:30:46.400 --> 0:30:50.840 would be marine snow just these little flex of mucus 0:30:50.960 --> 0:30:54.720 or decomposing matter or or organic material of some kind 0:30:55.320 --> 0:30:58.440 collect when there are certain conditions in the water column, 0:30:58.640 --> 0:31:02.200 and they start to stick together and form these huge masses, 0:31:02.280 --> 0:31:07.440 and those masses become marine mucilage, again the gelatinous evolving 0:31:07.680 --> 0:31:12.080 stage of marine snow. So in terms of its chemical composition, 0:31:12.120 --> 0:31:15.640 they say, marine mucilage is quote is made of exo 0:31:15.720 --> 0:31:20.400 polymeric compounds with highly colloidal properties that are released by 0:31:20.440 --> 0:31:26.600 marine organisms through different processes including phytoplankton exudation of photosynthetically 0:31:26.640 --> 0:31:31.760 derived carbohydrates produced under stressful conditions. Uh. And then they 0:31:31.760 --> 0:31:35.240 say and through the death and composition of cell wall debris. 0:31:35.720 --> 0:31:38.560 Such a release can be coupled with a limited ability 0:31:38.600 --> 0:31:42.920 of prokaryotes to hydrolyze these exo polymers by means of 0:31:42.960 --> 0:31:47.479 extracellular enzymes, leading to the release and accumulation of large 0:31:47.560 --> 0:31:51.880 molecular weight compounds in the system. Uh so, so a 0:31:51.880 --> 0:31:56.200 lot of this stuff is being produced by phytoplankton and 0:31:56.440 --> 0:32:00.200 it has a carbohydrate basis. Though another researcher that I 0:32:00.200 --> 0:32:03.800 was reading was saying that the marine muselage ends up 0:32:03.800 --> 0:32:08.200 being this combination of carbohydrates, proteins, and fat, which is 0:32:08.200 --> 0:32:10.080 funny because it makes it like, you know, it's the 0:32:10.120 --> 0:32:12.920 full gamut. It's like a gravy, it's got everything. But 0:32:12.960 --> 0:32:17.840 apparently these these uh carbohydrates from phytoplankton are a big 0:32:17.920 --> 0:32:20.600 part of it. And then we come back to what 0:32:20.680 --> 0:32:23.000 you mentioned a minute ago about whether this would be 0:32:23.040 --> 0:32:25.600 a habitat or not. So we know the sarcasm seaweed 0:32:25.680 --> 0:32:28.600 is a is a habitat. Uh. The authors here right 0:32:28.720 --> 0:32:33.040 quote these processes can be associated with viral infections of 0:32:33.080 --> 0:32:39.240 prokaryotes and phytoplankton and the consequent cell license parentheses viral shunt, 0:32:39.280 --> 0:32:43.120 which further contributes to release and accumulation of dissolved organic 0:32:43.200 --> 0:32:45.920 matter in the water column. And what they end up 0:32:45.920 --> 0:32:50.600 alleging is that the build up a marine mucilage essentially 0:32:50.640 --> 0:32:55.880 forms a habitat for potentially pathogenic bacteria and viruses. So 0:32:56.040 --> 0:32:59.120 e coal I can thrive in these things, which can 0:32:59.280 --> 0:33:03.640 lead to infections of other organisms in the water, which 0:33:03.680 --> 0:33:07.400 can sort of create a feedback loop here. Oh, that's 0:33:07.520 --> 0:33:10.280 that's not good at all. That's that's not the sort 0:33:10.320 --> 0:33:13.320 of environment we're looking for. So I guess it's time 0:33:13.360 --> 0:33:15.400 to talk about, like what are the causes, what what 0:33:15.560 --> 0:33:18.080 is the process, and what are the causes that creates 0:33:18.120 --> 0:33:22.960 this kind of unprecedented build up of of marine mucilage. Well, 0:33:23.080 --> 0:33:26.440 having seen Ghostbusters too, I assume it has to do 0:33:26.560 --> 0:33:31.960 with like negative uh, like like emotions building up in 0:33:32.000 --> 0:33:35.720 an urban population that some museum in Istanbul imported a 0:33:35.800 --> 0:33:40.360 painting of Vigo the Carpathian and uh yeah, and everybody 0:33:40.640 --> 0:33:42.840 in the city started being mean to each other. And 0:33:42.880 --> 0:33:45.040 then this is what you get, alright, case close. We 0:33:45.080 --> 0:33:47.240 gotta do something about that that painting. Got to shoot 0:33:47.240 --> 0:33:51.680 that painting with some some charged slime. Is that what 0:33:51.760 --> 0:33:54.040 they do? And oh yeah they Oh that's right in 0:33:54.040 --> 0:33:56.520 in Ghostbusters two. Yeah, they charged the slime with good 0:33:56.600 --> 0:34:00.160 vibes by having everybody dance to that song and out 0:34:00.160 --> 0:34:01.560 and they shoot it and they shoot it out of 0:34:01.600 --> 0:34:05.479 the guns. Yeah, they defeat they defeat Vigo with good vibes. 0:34:06.440 --> 0:34:08.080 That was that was you know, say what you about 0:34:08.080 --> 0:34:11.719 Ghostbusters two, but it leaned into the slime, like I'm 0:34:11.760 --> 0:34:14.760 guessing Ackroyd and Raymison they were like, well, what worked 0:34:14.760 --> 0:34:17.280 in the first one, Oh the slime, the slime worked, 0:34:17.400 --> 0:34:20.480 let's do let's do even more slime. Ghostbusters two is 0:34:20.520 --> 0:34:23.759 not great, but all the Vigo the Carpathian scenes are wonderful. 0:34:24.040 --> 0:34:27.520 Oh yeah, I forget that name of that actor talking 0:34:27.520 --> 0:34:30.640 to him. Oh yeah, he's a German actor that played 0:34:30.680 --> 0:34:35.480 the actual Vigo Um a former boxer, kind of a 0:34:35.480 --> 0:34:39.160 man of mystery. But he also pops up in John 0:34:39.160 --> 0:34:43.400 Carpenter's in the Mouth of Madness, playing a distraught villager 0:34:43.560 --> 0:34:46.120 in some sort of nightmare realm. And it's a it's 0:34:46.239 --> 0:34:49.080 it's a one of many fun little cameos in that movie. 0:34:49.680 --> 0:34:54.160 Wilhelm von Homburg was his name, and he was a wrestler, 0:34:54.560 --> 0:34:56.560 perhaps a boxer too, but he was definitely a wrestler. 0:34:56.640 --> 0:34:59.120 He was also in die Hard, Oh and die Hard. 0:34:59.480 --> 0:35:02.400 Oh was he one of the villains. Oh I almost 0:35:02.440 --> 0:35:04.399 I am almost certain he was. Yeah, I don't think 0:35:04.400 --> 0:35:06.759 this is a kind of guy who played anything. But wait, 0:35:06.800 --> 0:35:09.400 it wasn't the police chief who was also in the 0:35:09.440 --> 0:35:13.080 breakfast club. I can't imagine this guy every play police chief, 0:35:13.160 --> 0:35:15.800 not not in the US anyway, Maybe he played police 0:35:15.840 --> 0:35:17.560 chief and I could see him playing a cop like 0:35:17.560 --> 0:35:20.160 in a German show. So it's possible. No, I was 0:35:20.239 --> 0:35:22.520 joking it was not that guy at don't I forget 0:35:22.520 --> 0:35:28.040 his name, but that guy's that guy. Everybody knows that guy. Yeah, okay, anyway, sorry, 0:35:28.040 --> 0:35:30.240 we gotta come back to So the causes the causes 0:35:30.320 --> 0:35:33.319 of marine mucilage um, so across everything I was reading, 0:35:33.360 --> 0:35:38.080 there are three main causes that have been uh put 0:35:38.120 --> 0:35:42.319 forth as the probable primary explanations of what's going on 0:35:42.480 --> 0:35:46.279 with this with this cease and outbreak. And these causes are, 0:35:46.320 --> 0:35:48.359 and I'll explain each of these as we go on. 0:35:48.680 --> 0:35:55.200 Warmer temperatures, calm weather, and specific kinds of water pollution. Now, 0:35:55.200 --> 0:35:57.720 first of all, I mentioned warm temperatures. Why would warm 0:35:57.760 --> 0:36:04.160 temperatures contribute, Well, one reason is that phytoplankton populations apparently 0:36:04.239 --> 0:36:08.359 grow more at higher temperatures, and phytoplankton seems to be 0:36:08.800 --> 0:36:11.879 one of the main or the main source of of 0:36:11.960 --> 0:36:15.240 this marine mucilage build up. And so of course ocean 0:36:15.280 --> 0:36:18.960 waters are getting warmer. That's consistent with climate change. One 0:36:19.239 --> 0:36:22.759 Turkish researcher I was reading was cited in that Washington 0:36:22.800 --> 0:36:25.560 Post article mentioned that the Sea of Marmora was several 0:36:25.600 --> 0:36:28.600 degrees warmer than average after a very mild winter, And 0:36:28.640 --> 0:36:31.960 of course, uh, there's just continuous warming of the oceans 0:36:32.040 --> 0:36:35.000 due to climate change. But then also you've got the 0:36:35.040 --> 0:36:40.960 idea of particular kinds of pollution. So one thing that 0:36:41.120 --> 0:36:45.200 is definitely true is you don't want to overfeed the sea. 0:36:45.760 --> 0:36:49.279 That can cause really bad things to happen downstream in 0:36:49.320 --> 0:36:53.000 the ocean. Uh. These explosions of sea saliva in Turkey 0:36:53.000 --> 0:36:56.080 are probably caused, like I said, mostly by phytoplankton, which 0:36:56.080 --> 0:37:00.799 are microscopic marine algae, and they are primary autotrophs in 0:37:00.840 --> 0:37:03.440 the waters, so they are sort of the bottom level 0:37:03.640 --> 0:37:08.520 of the food chain within ocean ecosystems. Their photosynthesizers, they're 0:37:08.560 --> 0:37:10.400 they're the base of the food chain and the oceans, 0:37:10.440 --> 0:37:14.280 but also producers of oxygen that allows water dwelling animals 0:37:14.320 --> 0:37:18.759 to breathe. But when phytoplankton population surge, they can have 0:37:18.920 --> 0:37:23.960 devastating effects on the ecosystems around them. And one way 0:37:23.960 --> 0:37:29.000 that phytoplankton populations can surge and uh and existing phytoplankton 0:37:29.080 --> 0:37:32.920 can produce an excess of mucus is when there are 0:37:33.040 --> 0:37:38.799 certain imbalances of nutrients that are injected into natural waterways, 0:37:39.160 --> 0:37:41.960 and specifically what I've seen called out here are the 0:37:42.080 --> 0:37:46.400 nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus. Now, why would the Sea of 0:37:46.440 --> 0:37:50.520 Marmara have especially high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus. Well, 0:37:50.719 --> 0:37:53.719 first of all, it is fed directly from the Black Sea, 0:37:53.760 --> 0:37:57.280 which tends to be nutrient rich anyway. But it's also 0:37:57.440 --> 0:38:01.480 fed by wastewater runoff for um like twenty million people, 0:38:01.560 --> 0:38:07.120 which would include untreated wastewater so like like sewage, but 0:38:07.280 --> 0:38:13.480 also agricultural runoff which contains things like fertilizers. This can 0:38:13.560 --> 0:38:16.879 lead to a chain reaction in which the phytoplankton sort 0:38:16.920 --> 0:38:20.759 of become stressed and under conditions of stress they exude 0:38:21.080 --> 0:38:24.839 mucus or this this mucus like material that of course 0:38:24.880 --> 0:38:28.520 can lead to these runaway conditions. Now how exactly does 0:38:28.560 --> 0:38:31.680 this process happen? Well, it's actually described very well in 0:38:31.719 --> 0:38:34.680 that that Sarah Jong article in the Atlantic from from 0:38:35.200 --> 0:38:38.160 from June twenty one. So she backs up to the 0:38:38.440 --> 0:38:41.440 starting point that we already talked about with with marines snow. 0:38:41.480 --> 0:38:44.719 You've got marine snow already in the water, but then 0:38:45.000 --> 0:38:49.640 you've got these imbalances of nutrients that are largely caused 0:38:49.719 --> 0:38:53.440 by uh, the untreated waste water and the agricultural runoff 0:38:53.480 --> 0:38:57.000 that may contain fertilizers. And this leads the phytoplankton in 0:38:57.040 --> 0:39:01.520 the water to produce copious mucus. The excess of mucus 0:39:01.600 --> 0:39:06.600 then accumulates into these these things we mentioned earlier that 0:39:06.680 --> 0:39:10.680 we're sometimes called stringers, the you know, these snot like strings, 0:39:10.760 --> 0:39:13.839 and then that accumulates into clouds and then ends up 0:39:14.160 --> 0:39:18.520 somehow floating up onto the surface becoming these sheets. Now, 0:39:18.640 --> 0:39:22.320 one question is why do warm water and calm weather 0:39:22.360 --> 0:39:26.640 conditions also contribute to marine mucilage build up. Well, it 0:39:26.640 --> 0:39:30.440 goes like this. In the warmer months, the sun heats 0:39:30.560 --> 0:39:33.560 up the top layer of the water column near the surface, 0:39:33.640 --> 0:39:38.560 which causes increased stratification. So the warm layer of water 0:39:38.680 --> 0:39:42.320 above the cold layers of water below, and the cold 0:39:42.400 --> 0:39:45.920 layer of water is denser than the warm layer of water. 0:39:46.400 --> 0:39:49.960 And salinity also affects the saltier water is denser than 0:39:50.040 --> 0:39:53.120 less salty water, which is why in really salty bodies 0:39:53.160 --> 0:39:55.359 of water, like the Dead Sea, it's easier for things 0:39:55.400 --> 0:39:58.320 to float. It's because the water is denser, but also 0:39:58.400 --> 0:40:02.240 cold water is denser, so mucus forms in the top 0:40:02.360 --> 0:40:06.160 layer of the water where the photosynthesizing organisms, the phytoplankton, 0:40:06.280 --> 0:40:08.760 are up near the top of the water. They produced 0:40:08.800 --> 0:40:12.320 the mucus. After it's produced, the mucus starts to sink, 0:40:12.480 --> 0:40:16.480 but because of the water column stratification, at some point 0:40:16.600 --> 0:40:20.319 it hits dense cool water and stop sinking. It just 0:40:20.560 --> 0:40:24.200 hangs around, and as it hangs around, it starts to 0:40:24.239 --> 0:40:29.359 aggregate together and accumulate into these strings or clouds. And 0:40:29.400 --> 0:40:31.560 here's where the third element comes in. I mentioned h 0:40:31.600 --> 0:40:36.200 I mentioned warm temperatures, the pollution, but also the calm weather. 0:40:37.200 --> 0:40:40.839 Winds and storms could normally come in to rough up 0:40:40.880 --> 0:40:44.720 the waters and essentially tear up, churn up forming strings 0:40:44.760 --> 0:40:48.280 and clouds of mucus. But if the weather is especially calm, 0:40:48.680 --> 0:40:51.920 that doesn't happen. For example, we talked about how this 0:40:52.040 --> 0:40:55.560 was historically observed in the Adriatic Sea. The Adriatic Sea 0:40:55.600 --> 0:40:59.799 tends to be relatively calm. Then after that, genres there 0:40:59.800 --> 0:41:03.600 are bacteria within all of this mucilage that start to 0:41:04.080 --> 0:41:08.400 decompose it, and as they decompose it, they release gases, 0:41:08.640 --> 0:41:12.799 forming bubbles within this accumulated matrix of mucus, and then 0:41:13.000 --> 0:41:15.800 it floats to the top of the water and collects 0:41:15.800 --> 0:41:20.120 in sheets on the surface. And one astounding fact that 0:41:20.400 --> 0:41:23.640 Jong mentioned is the quote in the Adriatic Sea, the 0:41:23.760 --> 0:41:26.600 arm of the Mediterranean, just east of the Italian Peninsula, 0:41:26.760 --> 0:41:29.880 the floating mucus can dry and toughen in the sun. 0:41:30.480 --> 0:41:41.000 Seagulls are known to walk on it. So one of 0:41:41.040 --> 0:41:42.920 the things about this, I mean, we're talking about this 0:41:42.920 --> 0:41:48.120 this overabundance of slime caused by these the by by 0:41:48.160 --> 0:41:51.439 pollution changes in the environment. I mean, it really really 0:41:51.440 --> 0:41:56.080 get the sense of like the mass ouzing of of 0:41:56.200 --> 0:41:59.920 the ocean's pus, you know, like the the the zing 0:42:00.120 --> 0:42:02.960 of a massive infection. Yeah, that's funny. One of the 0:42:03.040 --> 0:42:05.000 articles I read it, though I don't recall which one, 0:42:05.080 --> 0:42:08.080 did cite a marine biologist, I think, or it was 0:42:08.120 --> 0:42:10.359 some researcher in this area who was saying that it's 0:42:10.360 --> 0:42:13.120 sort of like the ocean has the flu and this 0:42:13.200 --> 0:42:15.240 is this is the mucus coming out of its nose. 0:42:15.320 --> 0:42:19.000 You know, it reflects a sort of general sickness in 0:42:19.040 --> 0:42:22.680 the ecosystem due to h due to pollution, due to 0:42:22.800 --> 0:42:26.520 changing temperatures, and and all that adding up together. Now, 0:42:26.560 --> 0:42:28.560 of course it comes to the question of can anything 0:42:28.600 --> 0:42:32.240 be done about this, about this cease not the plague 0:42:32.239 --> 0:42:34.640 of mucus here. There are a few sort of levels 0:42:34.680 --> 0:42:37.440 at which you could answer that question. One is, well, 0:42:37.440 --> 0:42:40.160 can anything be done about it once it is here, 0:42:40.280 --> 0:42:43.799 once it's all collected. I've read that Turkish authorities are 0:42:43.840 --> 0:42:47.920 trying some possible solutions. In that that Washington Post article 0:42:47.960 --> 0:42:52.160 I mentioned by Antonio Nouri Farzan. She mentions that they 0:42:52.200 --> 0:42:55.400 they have floated the idea of pun not intended of 0:42:55.760 --> 0:42:58.799 dredging the sea floor as a way to possibly try 0:42:58.840 --> 0:43:01.640 to remove some of it has settled on on the bottom. 0:43:02.400 --> 0:43:05.080 But they're also just vacuuming it up in the surface 0:43:05.160 --> 0:43:06.920 from the surface, and we've seen that in some of 0:43:06.920 --> 0:43:09.600 the images we talked about earlier, these photographs of these 0:43:09.920 --> 0:43:13.080 workers with hoses just trying to suck up the slime 0:43:13.200 --> 0:43:16.560 from near the coasts. Uh farce On writes quote in 0:43:16.800 --> 0:43:20.319 ismt workers have laboriously collected more than a hundred and 0:43:20.360 --> 0:43:22.880 ten tons of the mucus, which was sent to an 0:43:22.920 --> 0:43:26.800 incinerator for disposal. I wonder what it smells like downwind 0:43:26.840 --> 0:43:30.760 of that incinerator. What what is the smell of grilled snot? 0:43:31.360 --> 0:43:34.160 Oh man, this would be a good one for the Ghostbusters, right, 0:43:34.200 --> 0:43:36.520 because it's this is the smell of having just fired 0:43:37.200 --> 0:43:40.640 a proton pack uh into some sort of a slime 0:43:40.800 --> 0:43:48.120 ectoplasm based organism or spiritual being fried ghost. Yes. So 0:43:48.160 --> 0:43:50.279 there are you know, some things that people are that 0:43:50.400 --> 0:43:52.960 they're trying to do, Turkish authorities are trying to do. 0:43:53.680 --> 0:43:56.200 Now that this problem has already happened, the bigger question 0:43:56.239 --> 0:43:58.440 would be how do you prevent it from happening in 0:43:58.520 --> 0:44:02.400 future seasons. So one of the big things, obviously is 0:44:02.480 --> 0:44:06.600 reducing pollution, reducing wastewater runoff into the Sea of Marmara, 0:44:06.840 --> 0:44:09.799 reducing it into any sea where this could happen um, 0:44:10.000 --> 0:44:12.920 and that would prevent the this build up, this imbalance 0:44:12.960 --> 0:44:15.800 of nutrients that sets off this chain reaction by feeding 0:44:15.800 --> 0:44:19.239 the phytoplankton like that, And there is some indication that 0:44:19.239 --> 0:44:22.880 that could work. According to Jong's article, there is there's 0:44:22.920 --> 0:44:25.360 every reason to think halting pollution could actually make a 0:44:25.360 --> 0:44:28.880 difference in the following years because of what we've already 0:44:28.880 --> 0:44:32.000 seen work in the Adriatic. See you remember the Adriatic 0:44:32.120 --> 0:44:35.440 is where where these older reports from the eighteenth century 0:44:35.520 --> 0:44:39.240 of the Mare Sporco had taken place. And John Wrights 0:44:39.320 --> 0:44:42.759 quote in the Adriatic uh pusque Do says, and that's 0:44:42.760 --> 0:44:44.520 a researcher who was one of the authors of that 0:44:44.560 --> 0:44:48.240 two thousand nine article, says that mucilage outbreaks have died 0:44:48.280 --> 0:44:50.880 down since Italy began cleaning up the waste water that 0:44:50.960 --> 0:44:53.720 flows into it. The sea has returned to what looks 0:44:53.760 --> 0:44:56.880 like a healthier, less slimy normal. So it looks like 0:44:57.000 --> 0:44:59.680 this sort of worked in the Adriatic just stopped polluting 0:44:59.680 --> 0:45:02.160 the wa better as much. But there have been other 0:45:02.200 --> 0:45:05.720 things that have been mentioned in that that Guardian article 0:45:05.840 --> 0:45:08.640 I was talking about earlier. It cites a researcher, damed 0:45:08.800 --> 0:45:12.440 Dr nes leyhan Os Deli Say, who is a marine 0:45:12.440 --> 0:45:18.280 biologist at Istanbul University, and this researcher also mentions over fishing, 0:45:18.440 --> 0:45:22.960 stop over fishing, because fishing removes organisms that prey on 0:45:23.000 --> 0:45:26.000 the phytoplankton and help keep it from getting out of control. 0:45:26.080 --> 0:45:27.480 So it's kind of like how you know, you don't 0:45:27.520 --> 0:45:29.359 want to take the wolves out of the park, right 0:45:29.560 --> 0:45:32.560 because you could get an overabundance of prey animals. You 0:45:32.600 --> 0:45:35.359 also don't want to take the fish that feed on 0:45:35.440 --> 0:45:39.560 these autotrophes, take too many of them out of the waterways, right, 0:45:39.920 --> 0:45:42.440 So so yeah, don't So we need to do not 0:45:42.560 --> 0:45:45.600 over fish. We need to cut down on the amount 0:45:45.680 --> 0:45:49.040 of pollutants that are leaking into these these bodies of water. 0:45:49.800 --> 0:45:51.920 And uh well, I mean on top of that too, 0:45:51.920 --> 0:45:55.279 we already pointed to climate change being an issue as well, right, 0:45:55.320 --> 0:45:57.479 And as with so many issues, you end up seeing 0:45:57.520 --> 0:45:59.480 and like, why is this weird thing happening in the 0:45:59.480 --> 0:46:03.400 ocean right now? It seems like a large contributing macroscopic 0:46:03.440 --> 0:46:05.880 factor in the background is climate change probably, you know, 0:46:05.920 --> 0:46:09.520 as the as the waters warm, that changes just all 0:46:09.600 --> 0:46:13.719 kinds of complex interactions and the ecosystems, and so of 0:46:13.760 --> 0:46:16.960 course climate change is really the the ultimate battle we 0:46:17.000 --> 0:46:19.000 have to fight in the long term. But so, I 0:46:19.040 --> 0:46:21.320 guess that does it for me. With the the specific 0:46:21.320 --> 0:46:24.640 outbreak of marine mucilage in in the Sea of Marmara, 0:46:24.719 --> 0:46:27.800 and I guess originally I was just captivated by that 0:46:27.800 --> 0:46:30.120 that article in the Atlantic and the photographs that I 0:46:30.160 --> 0:46:32.879 saw along with it. But it also this subject got 0:46:32.920 --> 0:46:36.239 me thinking about how how slime, mucus and snot are, 0:46:36.320 --> 0:46:39.640 as we said earlier, fairly loose terms, and not every 0:46:39.719 --> 0:46:42.160 kind of snot in the sea is identical or has 0:46:42.200 --> 0:46:45.279 the same biochemical origin and when So, when I was 0:46:45.320 --> 0:46:47.960 searching around for other reports of different kinds of C 0:46:48.200 --> 0:46:50.920 snot quote, one that I came across was a totally 0:46:50.960 --> 0:46:54.359 different substance that was referred to by researchers with this term. 0:46:54.440 --> 0:46:57.239 That was in the Gulf of Mexico following the deep 0:46:57.239 --> 0:47:00.880 Water Horizon oil spill. Yeah. Yeah, this is the perfect 0:47:00.920 --> 0:47:04.280 place to go, you know, having just discussed the horrors 0:47:04.280 --> 0:47:07.680 of the oil age, um the ongoing horrors of the 0:47:07.719 --> 0:47:11.719 oil age, because yeah, the deep Water Horizon spill gave 0:47:11.840 --> 0:47:14.960 us a kind of a particular type of of slime. 0:47:15.640 --> 0:47:18.040 So the deep part of horizons spilled to refresh everyone. 0:47:18.280 --> 0:47:21.200 This was, by many estimates, the largest marine oil spill 0:47:21.280 --> 0:47:24.640 in history. It occurred on April in the Gulf of 0:47:24.680 --> 0:47:29.600 Mexico on the BP operated Macondo Prospect Macondo Oil Prospect, 0:47:30.040 --> 0:47:34.360 and it dumped an estimated four point nine million barrels 0:47:34.360 --> 0:47:37.200 I've also seen I think these were earlier estimates four 0:47:37.200 --> 0:47:41.640 point one million barrels UH into the Gulf of Mexico, 0:47:41.719 --> 0:47:45.120 in addition to an estimated three hundred and sixty three 0:47:45.120 --> 0:47:50.560 thousand tons of natural gas. It's a sort of unimaginable scale. Yeah. 0:47:50.920 --> 0:47:53.440 And um, you know, as the name implies here, the 0:47:53.480 --> 0:47:57.040 deep Water Horizon operated in deep water just beyond the 0:47:57.120 --> 0:48:00.640 edge of the continental shelf. And we were both looking 0:48:00.640 --> 0:48:04.120 at a paper from from Mark shrope that was in 0:48:04.239 --> 0:48:07.799 Nature back in twleven, so in the you know, this 0:48:07.880 --> 0:48:11.360 came out right afterwards. This was in the immediate period 0:48:11.440 --> 0:48:14.160 of of of research, just a lot of researchers getting 0:48:14.160 --> 0:48:16.520 involved in trying to figure out what is the damage? 0:48:16.840 --> 0:48:19.720 You know that I think it pretty quickly we realized 0:48:19.800 --> 0:48:23.800 it was extensive, but but exactly what was the damage 0:48:23.840 --> 0:48:27.319 to to the environment. And this article, which you can 0:48:27.320 --> 0:48:29.880 look up, it's available for free online, is titled deep 0:48:29.920 --> 0:48:35.160 Wounds and and in that article shrope Um points out 0:48:35.200 --> 0:48:38.960 the collection and burning efforts UH only took care of 0:48:39.000 --> 0:48:41.960 an estimated quarter of the liquid from the well. The 0:48:42.000 --> 0:48:46.359 rest of it was dispersed into the sea in small droplets. UH. 0:48:46.400 --> 0:48:50.160 In tar balls that formed. Some of it was chemically dispersed, 0:48:50.320 --> 0:48:54.439 and some of it evaporated and or dissolved, but short 0:48:54.560 --> 0:48:57.680 rites that researchers began to realize pretty quickly that while 0:48:57.800 --> 0:49:00.600 some of the uh, you know, the surf, a shallow 0:49:00.640 --> 0:49:04.279 and coastal damage was the most obvious, deep environments were 0:49:04.320 --> 0:49:07.120 hit really hard as well. The researchers he talked to 0:49:07.120 --> 0:49:11.280 in the article describe a pervasive layer of putrefied sediment 0:49:11.920 --> 0:49:15.440 containing dead sediment dwellers, you know, different organisms and worms 0:49:15.440 --> 0:49:18.799 and the like, dead jellyfish from layers above that had 0:49:18.840 --> 0:49:24.160 died and had drifted down and also highly disrupted um 0:49:24.239 --> 0:49:28.719 or even just you know, counseled canceled out microbial activity. 0:49:28.800 --> 0:49:32.680 So the result was kind of a necro sludge. They 0:49:32.680 --> 0:49:35.680 did find some things that were still technically alive in it. 0:49:35.960 --> 0:49:38.880 They pointed to some snails in particular, but the snails 0:49:38.880 --> 0:49:43.080 were no longer moving. They weren't behaving like living snails anymore, 0:49:43.760 --> 0:49:46.400 which just makes it all the more creepy, and so 0:49:46.480 --> 0:49:48.960 of course it as a completely different original cause. But 0:49:49.360 --> 0:49:53.120 this does remind me of the images of the the 0:49:53.160 --> 0:49:56.600 sludge or the slime or the mucus from these phytoplankton 0:49:56.640 --> 0:50:00.239 blooms settling down on the sea floor in the Sea 0:50:00.280 --> 0:50:03.319 of Marmara and smothering organisms there. Yeah, some of the 0:50:03.400 --> 0:50:06.800 descriptions were also sounded a lot like what we're looking 0:50:06.840 --> 0:50:10.279 at here is described as looking like cauliflower, you know, 0:50:10.600 --> 0:50:16.280 as having this kind of this ghastly appearance. Now, scientists 0:50:16.360 --> 0:50:19.760 from the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science 0:50:19.760 --> 0:50:21.960 Conference said that as much as one third of the 0:50:22.000 --> 0:50:24.680 oil from the Deep Water Horizon disaster may have mixed 0:50:24.680 --> 0:50:28.720 with deep ocean sediments and and here it risks lasting 0:50:28.800 --> 0:50:33.480 damage to the two ecosystems and commercial fisheries. Researchers were reporting, 0:50:33.640 --> 0:50:37.959 for instance, normally pink and lighter jellies from from further 0:50:38.040 --> 0:50:40.759 up in the water column that were found to be 0:50:40.800 --> 0:50:44.040 black or brown. And so yeah, that the damage from 0:50:44.080 --> 0:50:46.280 an event on this scale was this thought to extend 0:50:46.280 --> 0:50:49.760 just throughout the water column. So certainly the surface, certainly 0:50:50.200 --> 0:50:53.480 um on the on the the shore, but also deep 0:50:53.520 --> 0:50:57.040 down right down to the very bottom. Everything about that 0:50:57.200 --> 0:51:00.439 is a truly sad and devastating story. But thinking about 0:51:00.440 --> 0:51:03.600 biological mucus, I do kind of come back to despite 0:51:03.640 --> 0:51:05.919 you know, all of the grossness that we've been talking 0:51:05.920 --> 0:51:08.120 about throughout the middle of this episode, a kind of 0:51:08.200 --> 0:51:16.000 wonder um about the ways that that uh tiny you know, microscopically, 0:51:16.200 --> 0:51:22.080 invisibly microscopic organisms can so quickly, uh change the whole 0:51:22.200 --> 0:51:27.920 environment with with just like releasing mucus or mucus like substances. 0:51:27.960 --> 0:51:31.160 Obviously the effects are bad, but in a strange way, 0:51:31.160 --> 0:51:34.279 I find something conceptually kind of beautiful about it. Well, 0:51:34.360 --> 0:51:37.160 in a way like the viscosity comes first, Like if 0:51:37.200 --> 0:51:41.440 you had a scenario, whether I a mythological creator god 0:51:41.520 --> 0:51:44.600 or gods is sort of toy in around with different 0:51:44.640 --> 0:51:47.120 ideas and and you know, one day they have something 0:51:47.239 --> 0:51:49.640 and one of their tendance comes and so what do 0:51:49.640 --> 0:51:50.680 you what do you got there? And they're like, oh, 0:51:50.680 --> 0:51:53.120 it's it's great, it's um, it's look at it. I 0:51:53.239 --> 0:51:55.040 think I'm gonna call it slime. I'm gonna base an 0:51:55.160 --> 0:51:57.360 entire ecosystem on this stuff. What do you think the 0:51:57.440 --> 0:51:59.960 whole planet? And they're like, yeah, yeah, let's do it. 0:52:00.280 --> 0:52:02.759 The mucus is the life. Yeah. I mean, maybe that's 0:52:02.800 --> 0:52:07.080 one of the reasons why slime based creatures and monsters 0:52:07.160 --> 0:52:11.280 sometimes resonate, is that um is that we we realize 0:52:11.320 --> 0:52:14.120 that this isn't this is this is life, you know, 0:52:14.280 --> 0:52:16.439 this is this is a hallmark of life. That's why 0:52:16.480 --> 0:52:19.600 the blob is is grim. That's why verious slime creatures 0:52:19.600 --> 0:52:23.160 are grim, because they're just an exaggeration of what we 0:52:23.239 --> 0:52:26.680 see when we look closely at the world around us. 0:52:27.160 --> 0:52:29.799 Maybe the same way that people watch crime shows and 0:52:29.880 --> 0:52:33.160 anti heroes and all that and see people behaving badly 0:52:33.320 --> 0:52:36.680 and kind of secretly see elements of their own personality 0:52:36.800 --> 0:52:39.600 that they kind of keep submerged throughout life but are 0:52:39.600 --> 0:52:41.759 coming through in this character on the screen or in 0:52:41.760 --> 0:52:44.560 the book. I wonder if it's similar like that, but 0:52:44.640 --> 0:52:47.839 at a biological level. With with slime monsters, you kind 0:52:47.840 --> 0:52:49.960 of you see that part of yourself. You kind of 0:52:50.000 --> 0:52:53.080 see like, oh, this mass of floating mucus. In a way, 0:52:53.120 --> 0:52:55.040 that's kind of what that's what I am. That's a 0:52:55.040 --> 0:52:57.600 big part of me. Oh man, you know, I'm I'm 0:52:57.600 --> 0:53:00.680 smelling a new genre of podcas ask now, I think 0:53:00.680 --> 0:53:05.799 we'll call it true slime. True slime. Yes, we'll be pioneers. Yeah, 0:53:06.040 --> 0:53:08.759 that's gotta already exist. Somebody has already got a true slim. 0:53:09.920 --> 0:53:12.279 Surely we'll go and like I said, there's enough there. 0:53:12.320 --> 0:53:14.799 I think you could make a podcast call it True 0:53:14.840 --> 0:53:18.920 Slime and just talk about something slime related in every 0:53:18.920 --> 0:53:21.920 episode and you'd be good to go. God, that sounds 0:53:21.920 --> 0:53:24.239 like it was made for me. All right, Well we're 0:53:24.239 --> 0:53:26.759 gonna go ahead and close the book on this one. 0:53:26.800 --> 0:53:28.520 But hey, if you want to listen to other episodes 0:53:28.520 --> 0:53:30.480 of Stuff to Blow your Mind, you know where to 0:53:30.520 --> 0:53:32.239 find us. Check out the Stuff to Blow your Mind 0:53:32.320 --> 0:53:36.200 podcast feed. You can find that. Wherever you get your podcast, 0:53:36.239 --> 0:53:37.759 you get your core episodes of Stift to Blow your 0:53:37.760 --> 0:53:41.800 Mind on Tuesdays and Thursdays listener Man on Monday's uh, 0:53:41.920 --> 0:53:45.239 What's on Wednesday? Artifact Friday, we do a little Weird 0:53:45.280 --> 0:53:47.239 House Cinema, which is just dark time to talk about 0:53:47.760 --> 0:53:51.880 weird movies with none or less of the science. Sometimes 0:53:51.880 --> 0:53:54.120 we sneak a little science in there. But anyway, that's 0:53:54.120 --> 0:53:56.200 the schedule wherever you listen to us. 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