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Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the old vault, this time for

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Speaker 1: an interview episode that we did with one of our

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Speaker 1: favorite occurring guests on the show, Mara Hart. That's right,

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Speaker 1: Dr morraw Heart, author of Sex in the Sea. She's

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Speaker 1: the only four time of interview guests on Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind, and she appeared last year because it

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Speaker 1: was you know, it's it's February Valentine's Day, a great

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Speaker 1: time to talk about snails having sex with each other.

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Speaker 1: And uh, this year we're sharing it again the day

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Speaker 1: after Valentine, so you know, it seemed it seemed ideal.

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Speaker 1: Let's dive right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your

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Speaker 1: Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert lam

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And boy do we have a

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Speaker 1: treat for you today. We have a special guest, four

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Speaker 1: time podcast guest Dr Mara Hart, marine biologist extraordinary and

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Speaker 1: author of Sex in the Sea. She's back. That's right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we she was on three times before she took one

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Speaker 1: episode she talked about the autodox bone worm. Another episode

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Speaker 1: she talked about sharks and shark reproduction, and then another

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Speaker 1: episode was all about coral and the reproductive strategies of coral.

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Speaker 1: Man Marine reproduction is just one of those endlessly deep,

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Speaker 1: endlessly rich, endlessly fascinating subjects, like you never run out

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Speaker 1: of weird fascinating stuff to talk about when it comes

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Speaker 1: down to getting busy in the ocean, that's right. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we keep covering it on the show here, and of

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Speaker 1: course that is the central topic in Mara's book, Sex

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Speaker 1: in the Sea. Now, for those of you out there

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Speaker 1: who haven't heard our previous episodes with Dr Mara Hart,

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Speaker 1: we should introduce her a little bit, that's right. Dr

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Speaker 1: Mara Heart is research co director for Future of Fish

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Speaker 1: and her work has appeared in Scientific American, The American Prospect,

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Speaker 1: yale E three sixty, Creation Care Magazine, Scuba Diver Magazine

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Speaker 1: as well. And again she's the author of Sex and

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Speaker 1: the Sea, which is available now in all formats. You know.

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Speaker 1: Actually we just finished talking tomorrow, and so she emailed

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Speaker 1: us right after we finished talking and said like, hey,

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Speaker 1: one more thing can you remind the people? And absolutely

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Speaker 1: we can. So that extra thing is that Dr Mara

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Speaker 1: Heart will be giving a talk at the Denver Museum

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Speaker 1: of Nature and Science on Valentine's Day this year, so

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Speaker 1: February nineteen. You should look into it. It will be

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Speaker 1: for those of y'all in the Denver region. We know

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Speaker 1: there are quite a few of you out there. Actually,

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Speaker 1: it's supposed to be a really cool event with cocktails, apps,

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Speaker 1: book talk and signing. If you're a Colorado person, you

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Speaker 1: should check that out. All right, without further ado, let's

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Speaker 1: chat with Mara Heart. Hey, Marrow, Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 1: So for listeners who haven't heard the other episodes you

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Speaker 1: were on, could you go ahead and introduce yourself. Hi, guys,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having me back. I'm thrilled to be here.

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Speaker 1: My name is Mara Hart, and I'm a marine biologist

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Speaker 1: and research director at the nonprofit Future of Fish. And

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Speaker 1: I'm also author of the book Sex in the Sea,

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Speaker 1: where I explore all the weird and wild and wonderful

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Speaker 1: sex habits of marine life and how humans impact those

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Speaker 1: behaviors and what we can do to help create more

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Speaker 1: sex friendly oceans. So, Maura, I just read this book

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Speaker 1: for the first time, and I loved it. It was

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Speaker 1: full of fascinating stuff, I mean, really really great, and

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Speaker 1: I guess it's uh. I mean, the ce is full

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Speaker 1: of fascinating reproduction itself. And one of the fact that's

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Speaker 1: stuck with me the most, actually, I think just because

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Speaker 1: this is something that people actually tend to put in

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Speaker 1: their mouths without knowing what it is, is that boony

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Speaker 1: is gonads. I had no idea. Yeah, I know, right,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's one of these things that we do

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Speaker 1: right with, especially ocean animals and seafood. You know, we

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Speaker 1: call things fish or we call things you know, UNI,

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Speaker 1: and we don't know what the part is. And half

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Speaker 1: the time we don't even know what the animal is

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Speaker 1: that we're eating, what species it is. So yeahs dons gonads,

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Speaker 1: And I actually have a question for any chefs that

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Speaker 1: listen to your your podcast whether or not it's male

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Speaker 1: or female, because sea urchins have separate sexes, and so

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Speaker 1: I don't know whether or not, like male gonads make

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Speaker 1: better UNI or female gonads make better UNI, and whether

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Speaker 1: they screen or it just doesn't matter. Now it's been

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Speaker 1: I guess in three years since I read the book

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Speaker 1: for the first time, so I'm blanking a little bit

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Speaker 1: on on uni, like where where where am I encountering

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Speaker 1: this in my restaurant going experience? So it's sushi yea, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it suh specific item on the sushi yep and normally

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Speaker 1: it's in the fancier sushi places. It will actually be

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Speaker 1: served in the sea urchins. So sea urchins are they

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Speaker 1: look like big spiky balls. They're sort of just giant

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Speaker 1: round organisms are related to see stars and sea cucumbers.

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Speaker 1: And what they do in the restaurants is they tend

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Speaker 1: to kind of chop off the top and then they'll

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Speaker 1: serve it in the test or it's kind of like

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Speaker 1: the shell, but it's called the test for the sear chin.

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Speaker 1: And they have spines all over them. And then the

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Speaker 1: un is normally like a bright orange color and it's

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Speaker 1: sort of a I don't know, what would you say

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Speaker 1: it consistency is Joe. It's like a sort of like

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Speaker 1: a creamy row if you imagine like a very like

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Speaker 1: like like salmon egg row, except with tighter, tighter sphere

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Speaker 1: ules whatever you call them, like a creamy texture like

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Speaker 1: cream of wheat almost, But it's and it is the

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Speaker 1: equivalent of row, except you know in fish. We eat

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Speaker 1: the row which are the eggs? We don't We don't

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Speaker 1: eat the male gamme eats the but in sear chins.

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Speaker 1: That's my question is I think uni can be either

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Speaker 1: male or female gam meats. So anyway, standing question to anybody,

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Speaker 1: any of your listeners who might know the answer to that,

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Speaker 1: if they're sushi aficionados or chefs, um, please let me know. Well,

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Speaker 1: it makes me wonder are there other animals were eating

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Speaker 1: the gonads without knowing about it? Ah, it's a good question,

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Speaker 1: you know. I will fully claim that I'm a vegetarian,

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Speaker 1: so I'm not going to be the right one that, um.

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Speaker 1: But you know, I think they're I think there definitely are.

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Speaker 1: And certainly it's a delicacy in some cases, right like um,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, I can't, I can't speak in detail, but

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Speaker 1: I'm sure, Um, I'm sure Mark, if if you don't

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Speaker 1: mind me asking, um, concerning vegetarianism. I know a lot

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Speaker 1: of the work that you do has to do with UH,

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Speaker 1: sustainable seafood and UH and and and certainly you're you

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Speaker 1: have this connection with marine biology. Did did either of

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Speaker 1: these were these factors in you choosing a vegetarian diet? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: It's it's a good question. So I'm one of the rare,

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Speaker 1: I think, folks who gave up fish. Before I gave

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Speaker 1: up cow, I was totally happy eating burgers and chickens

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Speaker 1: and everything for quite some time. Um, But it was

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Speaker 1: it was when I was I got certified to scuba

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Speaker 1: dive at twelve, and after I started diving and just

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Speaker 1: seeing the animals on the reef, I just didn't want

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Speaker 1: to eat them anymore. And I loved I grew up

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Speaker 1: eating tons of seafood. I'm from the East Coast, Northeast,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, lobsters and cod and gosh everything you can imagine. Um,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, I just sort of lost lost interest. Um,

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Speaker 1: I just prefer seeing them, seeing out seeing them out

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Speaker 1: there in nature. And now given my work, I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: actually it's it's sort of ironic because I'm a huge

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Speaker 1: proponent of people eating seafood, because I think it's actually

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Speaker 1: the more sustainable, um choice in terms of animal protein,

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Speaker 1: certainly better in terms of carbon footprints and water footprints

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Speaker 1: then eating land based animals. But for me personally, I

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Speaker 1: just still yeah, still don't don't go for it, but

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Speaker 1: I do miss it. I mean the rest of my

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Speaker 1: family is not vegetarians. So I'm surrounded by really good

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Speaker 1: sy food a lot of the time and certainly through

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Speaker 1: my work, and it is tempting. But at the same

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Speaker 1: time I just sort of yeah, I just sort of

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Speaker 1: figure I can let somebody else, let somebody else enjoy it,

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Speaker 1: and that's another way that I can try to help

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Speaker 1: bring them back. I bet it's interesting to eat seafood

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Speaker 1: around you where you have a lot of things to

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Speaker 1: say that we kind of make people maybe stop chewing

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Speaker 1: for a second. I know, I try to. I try

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Speaker 1: to pick my fun facts wisely so that I don't

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Speaker 1: put anyone off their meal. I've definitely misjudged sometimes and

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Speaker 1: thought something that was really interesting whole you know, winds

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Speaker 1: up kind of grow of seeing somebody out and like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it's fascinating that your oyster can change sex. That's

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Speaker 1: not a bad thing. That's just really cool, you don't,

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Speaker 1: you know, and people like they do what you know.

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Speaker 1: One thing, um that your book really made me think

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Speaker 1: about is that I find when talking to people, one

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Speaker 1: of the most common misconceptions about evolution that I find

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Speaker 1: is a question of emphasis about like where natural selection happens.

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Speaker 1: I think people tend to focus almost entirely on survival

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Speaker 1: advantages when they're thinking about what natural selection is, and

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Speaker 1: don't think nearly enough about reproduction advantages. And uh, and

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Speaker 1: when we when we do think about reproductive advantages, it's

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Speaker 1: very often in this kind of outdated Victorian style you

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Speaker 1: talk about in the book, where it's all about big,

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Speaker 1: strong males fighting for access to females, which, of course,

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Speaker 1: as you say, is only a tiny sliver of how

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Speaker 1: reproductive selection takes place. Do you think it's the case

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Speaker 1: that studying nature more closely kind of inherently leads a

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Speaker 1: person to think less about violence and survival and more

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Speaker 1: about sex and to think about sex in a more

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Speaker 1: complex way. I hope, so I do? I mean, so

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Speaker 1: you know, in all fairness, survival obviously is still a

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Speaker 1: massive driver. And as I as I mentioned in the

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Speaker 1: book in several places, one of the challenges is that

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Speaker 1: if an animal is or a population is facing a

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Speaker 1: threat um you know, either pollution or fishing or disease,

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Speaker 1: bleaching events and corals, and they're stressed out, then successful

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Speaker 1: sex and sex in general tends to take a backseat,

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Speaker 1: right And the same happens with with us if we're

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Speaker 1: if we're you know, really tired after a long work day.

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Speaker 1: You know, sex isn't always top of mind. UM, so

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Speaker 1: it is. Its survival is really important. But I do

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Speaker 1: think that the more we can understand how much the

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Speaker 1: drive to reproduce and how much the need for reproduction

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Speaker 1: governs behaviors in wildlife, the more one we can understand, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, how these systems work and therefore what our

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Speaker 1: impacts can be. But also I do think it it

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Speaker 1: lends a nuance to how we think about our own

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Speaker 1: behaviors and how we think about our own societies and

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Speaker 1: what it is that we are um being motivated by

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Speaker 1: and and and also those power dynamics. Like you said this,

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Speaker 1: it just helps us to question any um reference or

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Speaker 1: cultural sort of carry over that you know, may have

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Speaker 1: been based on old norms and and reconsider what you know,

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Speaker 1: what is quote unquote natural, and what is quote unquote

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Speaker 1: common or average. Um. Because especially in the oceans, I

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Speaker 1: think the subject of sex is one of the best

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Speaker 1: ones to do that because it's just truly in anything

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Speaker 1: goes kind of a space. Um. It is so creative

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Speaker 1: and so innovative, it's um, it's mind boggling. And we're

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Speaker 1: and we're continuing to see new things that we never

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Speaker 1: thought of UM all the time. Now, on that note,

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Speaker 1: I think we chatted with you last in and in

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Speaker 1: the last year or so, have there been any particular

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Speaker 1: UM new discoveries or breakthroughs in understanding marine reproduction UM

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Speaker 1: that that that that really stuck out to you, that

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Speaker 1: you'd absolutely so last year one of the coolest things.

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Speaker 1: And everyone listening out there, please go straight to YouTube

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Speaker 1: and look up angler fish sex and you will find

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Speaker 1: a video and like, turn all the lights off in

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Speaker 1: your room, but in the full screen mode if you

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Speaker 1: can pull it up on your TV, do so and

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Speaker 1: just watch. It is unbelievable. There's footage of a living

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Speaker 1: deep sea anglerfish and she has these um really long

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Speaker 1: tendrils that are are coming off of her body and

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Speaker 1: they're almost luminescing there. They're these like kind of glowing

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Speaker 1: filaments that are extending off her body, you know, twice

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Speaker 1: the length of her own body in every direction, and

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Speaker 1: she's sort of just floating through this dark water with

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Speaker 1: these sort of glowing tendrils and then attached right at

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Speaker 1: the base of her belly, right before the tail, is

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Speaker 1: the tiny dwarf mail who she is mating. And it

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Speaker 1: is the first time we've ever seen this live. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, got got footage of these animals in in

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Speaker 1: the act and it is just it's something out of

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Speaker 1: science fiction. I mean, it is so cool just to

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Speaker 1: sit and watch. So that was one of the neatest things.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't a new discovery so much, but it was

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Speaker 1: the first time we've been able to see this. Um.

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Speaker 1: This is the that will fuse with her body? Correct, yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: And I think this one. So there's there's different um

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Speaker 1: types of relationships. They're so not all angler fish. Is

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Speaker 1: it a permanent fusion? Um? And And to be honest,

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Speaker 1: I should go look, I'm not sure. He's definitely attached,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know if it's the kind where he

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Speaker 1: stays attached for life. I think so. UM. And if

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Speaker 1: that is the case, then what's happened is his blood, vessels,

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Speaker 1: his tissues, I mean everything has literally fused with their

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Speaker 1: females and they are now a a like mutual organism

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Speaker 1: and they and all of her nutrients because he doesn't eat,

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Speaker 1: all of her nutrients are being shared with him. And

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Speaker 1: his job his function is basically to to produce sperms.

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Speaker 1: So he's he basically dissolved into a test is just

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Speaker 1: a giant, big testes that hangs off her body. UM,

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Speaker 1: that's his role. So yeah, it's a it's a really

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Speaker 1: cool video, UM, and it's like a you describe it

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Speaker 1: and it almost sounds like a communications array. UM, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what it looks like it does. And I think

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Speaker 1: they're still trying to figure out what what all those

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Speaker 1: things are for. And if she's you know, out there

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Speaker 1: sensing as part of her way to hunt, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: to feel where pray is and then lure them in

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Speaker 1: with those that glowing UM, that's why they're called angler fish,

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Speaker 1: because she has that little more. But I think we're

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Speaker 1: still trying to figure that out. I'm not I'm not

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Speaker 1: remembering exactly what they're for, whether or whether we know,

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Speaker 1: but I'm trying to think. The other really cool discovery

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Speaker 1: UM that I just became aware of happened um late

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Speaker 1: in the year, and it was researchers over in Asia

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Speaker 1: UM discovered that they put cameras inside a I think

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Speaker 1: it was a great nurse shark and they discovered that.

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Speaker 1: So I think we've talked about when we when we

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Speaker 1: did this show on Shark Sex that there's this weird

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Speaker 1: thing where, um, in san tiger sharks, the baby embryos,

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Speaker 1: that developing embryos can hatch out of their egg cases

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Speaker 1: and the two biggest one in each uterus will eat

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Speaker 1: its siblings. It's a it's cannibalism within the uterus, right,

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Speaker 1: so it's totally bizarre. But these researchers that just last

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Speaker 1: year showed that it looks like the embryos can swim

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Speaker 1: back and forth between the two uterus and then attack. So, um,

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Speaker 1: this is really really different and we didn't know that

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Speaker 1: was happening, and they got it on camera. This was

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Speaker 1: an animal that was in an aquarium they and they

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Speaker 1: were able to put put some I don't know whether

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Speaker 1: it was through ultrasound or whether they used fiber optics. Again,

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Speaker 1: you can go onto YouTube and look up shark embryo

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Speaker 1: cannibalism and there there are videos that have been taken

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Speaker 1: inside the female of pregnant female of these voracious developing

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Speaker 1: baby sharks. But in this case, yeah, they swam from

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Speaker 1: one to the next, from one chamber to the other,

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Speaker 1: which is yeah, I'm not something we knew they could do.

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Speaker 1: So that's a really cool discovery and it and it

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Speaker 1: then challenges this idea of well, you know, in the

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Speaker 1: santiger sharks, some of the genetics were showing that really

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Speaker 1: it was one male that fathered the two biggest embryos

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Speaker 1: that seemed to survive, and we thought that maybe it

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Speaker 1: was from the first mating and um the subsequent matings

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Speaker 1: after that, then those males were really just fertilizing eggs

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Speaker 1: that would ultimately just basically serve as food um for

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Speaker 1: these these original residents. But if they can swim back

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Speaker 1: and forth, then it's you know, does only one survived,

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Speaker 1: do they battle it out or is there enough that

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Speaker 1: they are okay having you know, one in each It's yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know really what's happening there. So it definitely

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Speaker 1: calls into question some of those strategies. And so to clarify,

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Speaker 1: you're saying that this is a case where the sharks

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Speaker 1: can have multiple embryos internally at the same time, fertilized

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Speaker 1: by different males, and that those embryos can be in competition. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, yep, And it might be again one theory

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Speaker 1: and and it's it's it's a working hypothesis. Is that

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Speaker 1: it's a way that the female might actually have more

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Speaker 1: control over the fate of her offspring, in the genetic

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Speaker 1: fate of her offspring. Right. So with shark mating, there's

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Speaker 1: it's pretty aggressive. UM. Often multiple males can can work

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Speaker 1: together to help, and we do see this in therese

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Speaker 1: sharks where multiple males will come in and kind of

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Speaker 1: corral a female and then it's pretty rough. UM. So

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Speaker 1: for a female who's resisting, UM, she she can get

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Speaker 1: torn up pretty pretty badly. And UM any of those

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Speaker 1: bites or or scrapes or things can can lead to

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Speaker 1: infection UH, cost her energy to heal UH in some cases,

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Speaker 1: could could lead to more serious conditions. So resistance is

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Speaker 1: something that a female needs to weigh, right if it's

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Speaker 1: worth that um. Even just a chase to try to

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Speaker 1: escape is an energy demand. So what what one thing

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Speaker 1: that could be happening with this strategy, UH that we

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Speaker 1: see with the sand tiger sharks at least, is that

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Speaker 1: if the first mating is with a you know, a

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Speaker 1: dominant male and it seems like it's she's good with it,

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Speaker 1: then the subsequent matings don't really matter, right because those males,

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Speaker 1: even they're they're copulating and deposing their sperm and fertilizing eggs.

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Speaker 1: Those later eggs are those embryos aren't making it out

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Speaker 1: into the wild and they're just again serving as a

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Speaker 1: buffet for their older sibling to to munch on. And

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Speaker 1: so it might afford the female the ability to not

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Speaker 1: not have to worry about the mating and so she

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Speaker 1: can sort of acquiesce. But it's strategic, right, Um, we

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Speaker 1: don't know, but that's one one potential that that could

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Speaker 1: come out of that kind of a system. And so

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Speaker 1: it kind of gives the female the chance to to

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Speaker 1: have sex and allow sex with other males without it

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Speaker 1: being a consequence in terms of her offspring um, which

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Speaker 1: is really interesting to think about again, how much agents

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Speaker 1: she she really has, how much choice quote unquote she's making.

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Speaker 1: We don't know. But but the system and some of

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Speaker 1: those opportunities or the potential is there. Okay, time to

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Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we will be back with

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Speaker 1: more of our conversation with Dr Marhart. Thank you, thank you,

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Speaker 1: and we're back. So in the past on the show,

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Speaker 1: we've talked with you or Robert and Christian in the

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Speaker 1: past talked with you about the osadox sharks and coral

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Speaker 1: But in getting ready for today's episode, we figured out

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Speaker 1: that you wanted to talk about marine gastro pods. So

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Speaker 1: are you ready to take us to the world of gastropods? Yes? Please,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, So gastro pods are snails, that's a more

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Speaker 1: common term UM. They are related to the larger phylum

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Speaker 1: known as mollusks, which include all the bivalves you know,

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Speaker 1: clams and muscles and oysters, and also the cephalopods which

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Speaker 1: squids and cuttlefish, octopus, and then there's a whole bunch

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Speaker 1: of other really cool mollusks out there, um that are

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Speaker 1: in different family groups. But the snails are are the

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Speaker 1: gastro pods UM, and they are just really cool. And

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Speaker 1: this includes everything from the land snails that folks may

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Speaker 1: see you in their garden and see slugs that you

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Speaker 1: you know, try not to step on when the when

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Speaker 1: the rains come and they come out all over your

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Speaker 1: your sidewalks, all the way through to abalone and conk

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Speaker 1: and um and the new to brakes, which are shellless

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Speaker 1: um slugs that live in in the sea but are

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Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful and often come in those incredibly dazzling colors.

365
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Speaker 1: That are so fun to see if if you're a diver.

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Speaker 1: So they're really really diverse group, and of course that

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Speaker 1: diversity includes the way that they reproduce. So I thought

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Speaker 1: it would be fun because, um, besides corals, we haven't

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Speaker 1: gotten to talk too much. I guess ossodex also are inverts,

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Speaker 1: but we often overlook the cool invertebrates in the ocean.

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Speaker 1: So I thought it might be a fun, fun topic. Well,

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Speaker 1: let's not overlook any longer. Where do you want to start? Well,

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Speaker 1: I let's see where could we start? Um. One of

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Speaker 1: my favorite especially when I was doing the book, because

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Speaker 1: I grew up on the Long Island Sound on the

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Speaker 1: shores of Connecticut, and there is a shell that you

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Speaker 1: can find on the beach out there that's the common

378
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Speaker 1: slipper shell. So it's sort of a pale pink and

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Speaker 1: it looks um kind of like if you flip it over,

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Speaker 1: it looks like a really fat canoe. Um. So it's

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Speaker 1: a it's sort of this domed shell, and then there's

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Speaker 1: like a shelf that comes about halfway across, which is

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Speaker 1: why they're called slipper shells, right, because it does look

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Speaker 1: like a slipper And there are times you know, I

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Speaker 1: was just back back east over Thanksgiving and there was

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Speaker 1: a full moon and it had been a really high

387
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Speaker 1: tide and the beach was covered in these shells. I

388
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Speaker 1: mean it was you couldn't see any sand, it was

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Speaker 1: there were just millions of them. And so they're they're

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Speaker 1: really a popular or easily seen snail, and they have

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Speaker 1: this fewous reproductive strategy, and I think they're they're often overlooked.

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Speaker 1: So we could start with them, if you want, we

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Speaker 1: could dive in. Oh certainly. Now, now to be clear,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about all the shells. Are you talking about

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Speaker 1: living specimens on the beach or these like the shell remnants. Yeah,

396
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,439
Speaker 1: so it's both. So that on the higher part of

397
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Speaker 1: the beach you'll often find the empty shells from the snail.

398
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Speaker 1: But if you go down kind of to the low

399
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Speaker 1: tide mark, or certainly by the water's edge, what you'll

400
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Speaker 1: find are the living snails, and you'll always find them,

401
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Speaker 1: or almost always, I should say, but nearly always find

402
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Speaker 1: them in groups and they stack up on one another

403
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Speaker 1: and they form these sort of wonky dr seuice looking

404
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: like towers. They're never, you know, perfectly straight, but they

405
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Speaker 1: actually grow one on top of the other and sort

406
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: of mold to each other's shell and they'll stay there

407
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Speaker 1: their their whole lives. And then the bottom snail is

408
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Speaker 1: the one that's a matched or was attached to some substrate.

409
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Speaker 1: At some point a rock or appear or you know,

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Speaker 1: a jetty something hard that it can kind of hold

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Speaker 1: on to. But um, you can see both the living

412
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Speaker 1: in and then just the shell. The shells are often

413
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Speaker 1: collected um uh, you know, higher up on the beach.

414
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Speaker 1: But yeah, they formed me these towers. And so that's

415
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Speaker 1: another good way to know what you're looking at, is

416
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Speaker 1: to see if there's like a whole clump of them.

417
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Speaker 1: They'll often grow on other shells to other animals. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're they're pretty fun. So when I've seen a stack

419
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Speaker 1: of these shells on top of each other before, I've

420
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Speaker 1: actually mistaken it for a single shell that's like growing

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Speaker 1: in a spiral. Does that make any sense? Yeah, yeah,

422
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Speaker 1: it can look like that. It can look like that.

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Speaker 1: So so here's what's happening. Um, you know, like most

424
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Speaker 1: gas or pods, the baby snail, called a villager, starts

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Speaker 1: off in the water column and they're sort of floating

426
00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:01,159
Speaker 1: around and then there's they're developing and they get to

427
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 1: a point where they're like, all right, it's time for

428
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: me to settle and get to the bottom. And so

429
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: in the slipper shells, when they settle down as juveniles,

430
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,879
Speaker 1: if they find a new area where there are no

431
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 1: other slippershells, they first develop as a male and then

432
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 1: they'll very quickly transition and become a female. So this

433
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:30,440
Speaker 1: is known as sequential hermaphroditism. There's sequential hermaphrodite, So hermaphrodite

434
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 1: is um from from the Greek right, Hermes was the

435
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: male god, Aphrodite is the female goddess. And you put

436
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 1: those two together, Hermes and aphrodite, you get hermaphrodite, So

437
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:45,880
Speaker 1: it means an animal that has both male and female parts. Um.

438
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 1: Often we think of this for what's known as a

439
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: simultaneous hermaphrodite, which means that the animal has both male

440
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 1: and female parts at the same time at once, and

441
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:58,680
Speaker 1: we do see that in some snails and especially in

442
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 1: many new to branks. But in the case of the

443
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 1: slipper shell they're sequential hermaphrodites, so they start as one

444
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,160
Speaker 1: sex and then transition into the other. And we see

445
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 1: this in um. Many species. Clown fish do this, oysters

446
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: do this um and they can go it can go

447
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: either direction in the sea. Um. In this case, they

448
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 1: start as males and they transition into female. And so

449
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: that's the first thing that's really cool is that they

450
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 1: are they are sex changers, which again is kind of novel.

451
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:32,199
Speaker 1: That's amazing. So what triggers the change, Like, what's the

452
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: advantage to going from one sex to the other. Yeah,

453
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: it's a it's a really good question. And again, depending

454
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:41,400
Speaker 1: on the species and depending on the circumstance, there can

455
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 1: be different kinds of umques. But for the slipper shell,

456
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: when they land or if they land and there is

457
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: no other slipper shell around, no other buddies, then they'll

458
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:57,159
Speaker 1: start as mail and do this quick transformation to a

459
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 1: female and then as a mature fee maile. What what

460
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 1: she will do is release a chemical queue into the water,

461
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:09,360
Speaker 1: and that chemical que is an attractant, and what she's

462
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: attracting are the new juveniles that might be floating around

463
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 1: nearby and saying I'm here, come on over, and it's

464
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a scent trail that can lead

465
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: these baby snails to her. But it also has this

466
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:33,160
Speaker 1: great side effect of keeping those juveniles when they mature

467
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: as males, just as she did. It actually keeps them

468
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: in the male state so that they don't transition into

469
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: females like she did. But instead they attach onto her

470
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 1: and they remain a mature male producing sperm to fertilize

471
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 1: her eggs. And what they do is as they attach,

472
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: they sort of um find a clean spot on her

473
00:28:57,080 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: on her shell, they'll put their foot down, they'll hold on,

474
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: and then, like I said, with those towers, they sort

475
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: of grow together, so they sort of conform um to

476
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: one another. And then the way that they reproduce is

477
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: the male has a extendable penis and it's actually quite

478
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: long um and it can stretch down from his shell

479
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: and reach down underneath in order to fertilize her eggs. Now,

480
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: if you imagine, she doesn't just want one male, She

481
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 1: wants lots of males because she can make a lot

482
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: of eggs, and so she keeps attracting and more and

483
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: more new newcomers arrived. They continue to build these towers,

484
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 1: and they can be six seven eight animals high. Well,

485
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 1: if you're sort of late to the party as a male,

486
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 1: coming on the very top. At some point your penis

487
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 1: cannot stretch that far right, it is too far. Also,

488
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 1: you now have all these males producing so much sperm

489
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: that there's actually now a lot of competition to fertilize

490
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 1: those eggs. So when happens is the male that's closest

491
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: to the female will transition into female, and then that

492
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: will someone up the chain to be able to reach,

493
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: change to reach, and for that male, the advantages will

494
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: Rather than my sperm competing with all these other guys

495
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 1: to fertilize a limited number of eggs, I'm going to

496
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 1: swap over and become a female and may get all

497
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 1: my eggs fertilized because there's tons of males now, so

498
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: my sperm is not needed. And as a female I

499
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 1: can ensure because we've got this nice big tower of males,

500
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: that all my eggs will be fertilized, so my reproductive

501
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: output is up. I will I will gain from this.

502
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: And so they can transition. And so when you're looking

503
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 1: at a tower, the next time you're looking at this tower, um,

504
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: you know, the bottom one is definitely a female. And

505
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 1: then depending how big that tower is, the second, the

506
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: second one maybe a female, maybe even the third um.

507
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: And it's something that's a sort of a quote unquote

508
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: work in progress, depending on how how tall these towers grow.

509
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 1: And one one of my favorite parts about all of

510
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: this is, you know, again, I grew up knowing that

511
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: these were slipper shells, and as I was writing the

512
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: book and learning about this strategy and just how you know,

513
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 1: how sunky it is in the way that they do

514
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: this amazing reproduction, it occurred to me that their name

515
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 1: gives it away. In Latin, the scientific name is cropudula

516
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 1: for Nicota, so the fornicating snails, because those are just

517
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 1: big sex towers, which it's awesome and a great way

518
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 1: to introduce folks, especially on the East Coast, to sex

519
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 1: and the sea right right on your local beach, so

520
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: you can guarantee you can go out and find these.

521
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: Well there there are a couple of things that are

522
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 1: really interesting there that we could pick up on. One

523
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: is the idea because I think from in your book,

524
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: these are not the only organisms that can change sex

525
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 1: if the like local sex ratio is not not optimal.

526
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 1: But the other thing is just uh, sessile organisms with

527
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: long penises. Because Robert and I just did an episode

528
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: where we talked a bit about barnacles, and we we

529
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 1: mentioned the barnacle penis, but we didn't go into any

530
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 1: depth on it. Um no pun intended. So the so

531
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 1: it's true that the barnacle, or at least some species

532
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: of barnacle, have the longest penis to body size ratio

533
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: of any animal on Earth. Absolutely, they're the winners. They

534
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: are um and it's and there's a reason for it, right,

535
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 1: it makes sense. They are stuck. So barnacles are basically

536
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: for for folks who don't know, you know, often what

537
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 1: we know of a barnacle is the outer sort of

538
00:32:56,840 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: test that they build UM, these sort of interlocking plates

539
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: that create almost it looks like a volcano, right, a

540
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 1: mini volcano that are stuck on rocks or peel pilings

541
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: or you know, the heads of back whales. Um. But

542
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: the animal is it's a crustacean. It's related to like

543
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: a shrimp, and it lies on its back and it

544
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: sticks its feet out of the hole that it creates

545
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: in this sort of volcano like structure, and it waves

546
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: its feet around in the ocean currents and collects little particulates.

547
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 1: But it's stuck there for its whole life can't move um.

548
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: But barnacles are hermaphrodites most species, and so what they

549
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 1: do is they're kind of, you know, on some rocks

550
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: around a tide pool, and they decide that they want

551
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: to reproduce. They extend this incredibly long penis out the

552
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 1: hole and they sort of poke around that died pools,

553
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: sort of reaching around to see, you know, is anybody

554
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: else open for business? And can I can I come in?

555
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: And so clearly the longer the reach, the more fertilization

556
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: they can achieve, the more reproduction they can have. So

557
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:09,399
Speaker 1: you can I almost picture it like when I fly

558
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 1: UM and you look down over the Central Us and

559
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 1: you see those big crop circles where the water, you know,

560
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 1: sweeps around. It's kind of like that, right, They're just

561
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: sort of sweeping around with their sperm fertilizing this area.

562
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: They've got a penis radius. It's it's a penis radius.

563
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:28,240
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, right, because there's always a catch.

564
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,960
Speaker 1: The longer your penis, the more it's out there, the

565
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 1: more drag and the more vulnerability you have, especially in

566
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: a water environment and the inner tidal environment where barnacles

567
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: tend to be found it can be pretty rough. And

568
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: so if you have waves coming back and forth and

569
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:49,840
Speaker 1: slashing over you barnacles, and you know, it's it's a

570
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:53,799
Speaker 1: it's a sharp environment, and you you could risk you know,

571
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: having something shorn off, and that's not not always so

572
00:34:57,680 --> 00:34:59,839
Speaker 1: nice to have happen, right, you don't really want that.

573
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: So we there's been some really cool experiment showing not

574
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:07,960
Speaker 1: only that the barnacles have these incredible ability to extend

575
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: a very very long fallast, but it's it's malleable, it's changeable.

576
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 1: So if if you have barnacles that are in a

577
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: really calm lagoon environment, their penises will be very long,

578
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: very thin and kind of stretched out and and can

579
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: kind of sweep really far. But if you move them

580
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 1: to a rougher environment and environment where there's a lot

581
00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 1: of wave activity, it will sort of shorten and thicken, right,

582
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 1: They'll become more stout, and they'll adjust it so that

583
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:42,840
Speaker 1: it's not at risk to to the environment into the

584
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:46,879
Speaker 1: sort of rough waters, and they'll have to give up,

585
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:49,799
Speaker 1: you know, some of that reach and exchange for being

586
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 1: a little bit thicker and and and sturdier in order

587
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 1: to deal with the literally like the sheer that's in

588
00:35:57,080 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 1: the environment that the forces that they have to battle.

589
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: So I always say props to barticles for not only lengths,

590
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 1: but they've got you know, changeable penises, which is pretty cool. Yeah.

591
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:10,839
Speaker 1: I mean this is on top of just how how

592
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 1: fascinating I found barnacles and researching this, uh, this previous episode.

593
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 1: I I it's one of those creatures that you know,

594
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 1: you you know that they accumulate on on shore rocks

595
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 1: and certainly on the whole ships, but I never really

596
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 1: realized to what extent they accumulate on the holes of

597
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: ships like this, the sheer biomass that can accup, it's

598
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:36,840
Speaker 1: a it's a big deal. Um. In fact, related to

599
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 1: back to snail sex um, there was an incident I'm

600
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:43,920
Speaker 1: trying to remember. I think it was like in the

601
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 1: seventies UM where they the in the shipping industry had

602
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: had created a type of paint you know that they

603
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: paint the bottom of boats with often with with biofouling compounds,

604
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 1: you know, or anti biofouling compounds so that things can't

605
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 1: grow poison in the paint. Yeah, it's basically a poison

606
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 1: in the paint that um that helps to UM make

607
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:17,279
Speaker 1: sure animals can't accumulate, right, weon't won't attach their um.

608
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:21,879
Speaker 1: And so the the problem was that there was a

609
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:27,440
Speaker 1: toxin in this paint that was starting to affect marine

610
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,480
Speaker 1: life and in particular was showing up in snails. And

611
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:35,279
Speaker 1: what was happening was it was triggering growth, like abnormal

612
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: growth of penises in female snails. And the female snails

613
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:45,840
Speaker 1: what was happening was pretty kind of awful to think about,

614
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 1: but the penis was blocking the ability of the female

615
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 1: to release her eggs, and so it was like creating

616
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:59,200
Speaker 1: like they were like exploding basically, these snails from being

617
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: blocked up and having these really weird growths UM. And

618
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 1: it was also starting to impact other other animals like oysters,

619
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 1: and so it got the attention of oyster farmers and UM.

620
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: I think it was in France, in the Mediterranean in

621
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:16,360
Speaker 1: particular where where some of these signals started. And so

622
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: it was it was a huge problem, and they wound

623
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: up having to change the chemical compounds in the paint

624
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: in order to um you know, stop having this effect.

625
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:29,840
Speaker 1: And they were able to do so, and it was

626
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 1: able to clean up and and the snail sort of

627
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 1: next generation seemed to write right there their strange parents

628
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 1: anatomies and and and the next generation sort of was

629
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 1: was fixed. But it it was it was this crazy

630
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 1: reaction again where a pollutant that we had put into

631
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 1: the environment was having this bizarre effect on on the

632
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,879
Speaker 1: reproduction and these snails. But the reason we were using

633
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:57,920
Speaker 1: the pollutant was to keep things like barnacles off the

634
00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: bottom of the boats because they are such a problem.

635
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 1: That's a real sci fi movie scenario, plague of anomalous penises,

636
00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 1: it was. And just like the fact that they like

637
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:09,759
Speaker 1: were blowing up, you know, exploding, it was just like,

638
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:14,400
Speaker 1: oh man, that's a that's an early end. So uh,

639
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 1: I was just wondering something when you were talking about

640
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 1: like barnacle penises, like do we know what drives the

641
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:25,879
Speaker 1: different kinds of strategies that that an immobile organism could

642
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: have like that, because some like you talked about in

643
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 1: the book, some immobile organisms would just like broadcast their

644
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: sex cells. Right, you could just like release gam meets

645
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 1: into the water and hope they get into another nearby organism,

646
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 1: or you could have you could like grow a really

647
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: long penis and try to do internal fertilization on your neighbors.

648
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 1: What what makes an organism choose between those two strategies.

649
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 1: It's a really it's a really good um, it's a

650
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 1: really good question. So some of some strategy is sort

651
00:39:57,160 --> 00:40:00,400
Speaker 1: of quote unquote choice, But there's also the limit patients

652
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:07,919
Speaker 1: of your evolutionary history, right, And so with crustaceans, they

653
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: tend to they have external fertilization, but the females tend

654
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:17,799
Speaker 1: to um carry eggs around like lobsters and crabs, right.

655
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 1: The females hold the eggs near them. The males have

656
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:26,239
Speaker 1: to to reach the female to fertilize those eggs. Um.

657
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: It's different than in it's it's a different approach overall

658
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:36,200
Speaker 1: than in animals like um corals that can broadcast spawn

659
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:40,399
Speaker 1: or sea urchins, you know, similarly. So some of it's

660
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 1: the limitation of the fact that that's the barnacle is

661
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:48,839
Speaker 1: a crustacean, and it's it does not broadcast spawn um

662
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: and cannot and it has this appendage. And so the

663
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: challenge was that by being a sessile crustacean, it had

664
00:40:57,080 --> 00:41:00,120
Speaker 1: to figure out how to get that appendage to to

665
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: kind of work in this strategy. And and that's the

666
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 1: direction evolution took um. But it is true that across

667
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:10,040
Speaker 1: these different kinds of organisms that don't move, we do

668
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:14,480
Speaker 1: see a whole variety, but most of them do broadcast

669
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 1: spawn normally. It's that there, if you're stuck in place,

670
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 1: you you do release your eggs and sperm into the water,

671
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: and it's about timing that release. Or for those animals

672
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 1: that can move a tiny little bit like sear Chin's

673
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 1: or abalone, they try to huddle up um and then

674
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: release into the water so that they can try to

675
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:41,600
Speaker 1: increase the you know, the density of their sperm and eggs.

676
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: But it's a lot of it comes down to, you know, ultimately,

677
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 1: what's the evolutionary baggage that you have to work with.

678
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:51,200
Speaker 1: All Right, we're going to take a quick break and

679
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 1: then we'll be right back with more of this interview.

680
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:59,240
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank alright, we're back now. Speaking of density.

681
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:02,120
Speaker 1: One thing we could come back to with the idea

682
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: of marine gaster pod sex is like density dependent sex,

683
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 1: the sort of the undersea orgies. Do you want to

684
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 1: talk about that? Yeah, of course. So it's really interesting, um,

685
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: what we see, and we see this actually in a

686
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:21,360
Speaker 1: couple of species that are really popular for for seafood

687
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:27,960
Speaker 1: so um abylone is one um and abalone. Sometimes people

688
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 1: get it confused and think it's a bivalve because it

689
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: does have that very flat um shell on top, but

690
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:36,799
Speaker 1: it's a single shell and if you look closely at it,

691
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:40,320
Speaker 1: it is that spiraled. So for those who aren't familiar,

692
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: it's sort of a a like a very gentle domed snail.

693
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:47,960
Speaker 1: They can be, you know, they can be bigger than

694
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 1: than the you know, the palm of your hand, and

695
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 1: they have those holes, kind of a series of holes

696
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:56,319
Speaker 1: that come on to the top and that's where the

697
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:59,760
Speaker 1: animal will let go its waste and pull in um water.

698
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:03,880
Speaker 1: And they have that beautiful the inside of their shell

699
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:08,040
Speaker 1: is um mother of pearl. It's that lacquer that's that's

700
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 1: sort of iridescent. And so four centuries people have collected

701
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 1: and eaten amaloni, and they've also collected the shell for

702
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:22,320
Speaker 1: jewelry and trade and all sorts of things. And during

703
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:27,200
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, sixties seventies off of the coast of

704
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:33,719
Speaker 1: California in particular, abaloni were harvested in extraordinary numbers, um

705
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 1: just thousands of tons of abaloni. There's there's these incredible

706
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 1: photos of abaloni divers like leaning up against piles, you know,

707
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:47,439
Speaker 1: mountains of abalone shell behind them. You know, divers would

708
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 1: take hundreds a day um in some cases, am I

709
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:54,840
Speaker 1: remembering this correctly? Where to collect one of these you

710
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 1: would have to flip it off the rock really quickly,

711
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: and there's an anger in having your your finger like

712
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:04,400
Speaker 1: suction to the rock by the abalony. Yeah. Yeah, they

713
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 1: they have an incredibly strong section and in they would

714
00:44:09,800 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 1: latch onto rocks in the inner title where it could

715
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 1: be really rough. So it was a pretty precarious, um

716
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 1: sort of exercise to go and get them off the

717
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 1: rocks and using knives to kind of try to um

718
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: cut the seal basically to try to get under there

719
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,720
Speaker 1: and cut the seal. And there there were times when folks,

720
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 1: you know, um, I don't remember whether folks could get

721
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:36,719
Speaker 1: like their fingers sucked under the avalonian stuck there, But

722
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 1: I think it was more that you're in this really

723
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:42,400
Speaker 1: rough environment and you're trying to get these these shells

724
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: to release, and and you know definitely could get bashed

725
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 1: around also as you as as the shallows got picked

726
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,839
Speaker 1: um and there were fewer avaloni, that's when your hard

727
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: hat divers came in, right, who would start going deeper

728
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 1: and deeper with these long hoses up to up to

729
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: the surface, which of course is um not the safest technique,

730
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: and they would be down there trying to to hunt

731
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: for abylone and again same thing, you know, trying to

732
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 1: work to get them off the rocks. And so yeah,

733
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 1: it was it was definitely hazardous UM. But the thing

734
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: is is we we knew at the time. Science knew

735
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: that abalone produced over one season billions of sperm and eggs.

736
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 1: They are extremely fecund, right they they just have an

737
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 1: incredible amount of game meats that they can release. And

738
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:37,400
Speaker 1: so the assumption was, surely an animal that's making billions

739
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 1: of sperm and eggs those there's gonna be plenty of

740
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:47,719
Speaker 1: offspring to replenish what we're taking. And abalone are single sex,

741
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:51,439
Speaker 1: so there's male and females, and the assumption was that

742
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 1: they could they could handle the fishing pressure and that

743
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:59,480
Speaker 1: there was enough out there. What wound up being um

744
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 1: the k was that while there was enough total abalone,

745
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 1: you know, the numbers might have been high enough, they

746
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:12,319
Speaker 1: started to become too far apart. So science um was

747
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: able to show unfortunately a little bit late in the

748
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:18,720
Speaker 1: game that if you separate an abaloni more than about

749
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 1: a meter or two, so you know, three to six ft,

750
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:26,399
Speaker 1: which you know really isn't that far, fertilization success goes

751
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: down drastically. And so what happened was there was this

752
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 1: serial depletion. So there's multiple species of Abylonian in California,

753
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 1: their names sort of kind of for their color, and

754
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,239
Speaker 1: there's reds and pinks and greens and blacks, and then

755
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:46,279
Speaker 1: the white abaloni and the white tended to be the

756
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 1: deeper ones and um, so they were hit sort of last. Um,

757
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 1: but they were also hit really hard. And so the

758
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 1: white abaloni still to this day it's it was the

759
00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 1: first invertebrate that made it on to the endangered species list.

760
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:04,799
Speaker 1: It is still on the endangered species list, and it's

761
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:09,200
Speaker 1: the case that, uh, without intervention, at this point, it

762
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 1: is unlikely that that that that species will very likely

763
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: go extinct. Um. There are just almost none left in

764
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 1: the wild that we can find, and so it's a

765
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 1: it was a one of these things where again density

766
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:28,799
Speaker 1: dependence isn't something that we have to worry about in mammals, right.

767
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:34,520
Speaker 1: The the individual success of the individual. Sexual success does

768
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 1: not depend on whether you're in a small group or

769
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 1: a highly dense group. Right, it's just two individuals just

770
00:47:41,200 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 1: need to get together. Um. So whether you're in a

771
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: country town or a big city, your your fertilization rate

772
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:52,239
Speaker 1: doesn't change. But in many invertebrate population, many fish populations,

773
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 1: they need to have a critical mass and in close enough.

774
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 1: You know, you have to have your neighbors near you

775
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:04,879
Speaker 1: in order for sex to work. And we missed that

776
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: with the abalone, and so their populations tanked and remain

777
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:14,719
Speaker 1: in pretty critical state, especially for for the white abalone. Um.

778
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:16,799
Speaker 1: There's a good news story though that comes with it.

779
00:48:17,239 --> 00:48:20,719
Speaker 1: Do you guys want to hear that? Just leave us

780
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:24,760
Speaker 1: with the bad news? No? No, we can't. So, um,

781
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:30,160
Speaker 1: there's a an effort. Um. The California Department of Fish

782
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:34,400
Speaker 1: and Wildlife has a white abalone recovery plan underway and

783
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:37,919
Speaker 1: they've partnered with several different institutions, including the Bodego Bay

784
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 1: Marine Lab, and a wonderful woman by the name of

785
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:47,480
Speaker 1: Kristin Akino has been working there for years to try

786
00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:51,239
Speaker 1: to rear white abaloni to raise them um in the lab,

787
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 1: and so they were able to get a few white

788
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:56,400
Speaker 1: abalone out of the wild, they started a captive breeding

789
00:48:56,400 --> 00:49:01,399
Speaker 1: program and at first they had you know, fairly good

790
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 1: success UM. So this was back in the early two

791
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: thousand's and then unfortunately, UM a disease epidemic came through

792
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 1: and I think it was around two thousand and two,

793
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 1: and it wiped out like of all the captive bread

794
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 1: white abalone. UM. It absolutely decimated and they had years

795
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:25,600
Speaker 1: where they struggled to bring the population, you know, to

796
00:49:25,680 --> 00:49:27,920
Speaker 1: get their numbers back up, and also to keep the

797
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:31,879
Speaker 1: facilities UM clean from this disease. It's a I don't

798
00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:34,400
Speaker 1: know if it's a virus or bacteria. It's called withering

799
00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:38,799
Speaker 1: withering syndrome, and it's UM some sort of you know,

800
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:42,680
Speaker 1: pathogen that just rex havoc on the shells and and

801
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:45,120
Speaker 1: makes it impossible you know, the animal eventually sort of

802
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:51,040
Speaker 1: shrivels up and and dies. And so it took from

803
00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 1: I think it was like two thousand two or three

804
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 1: until I think almost ten years. And Kristen was one

805
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:00,400
Speaker 1: of the ones who was there in the LA on

806
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:03,799
Speaker 1: the night that they were actually able too for the

807
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 1: first time, UM fertilized get male and female abaloni to

808
00:50:10,239 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: spawn get that spawn together, UM, bring the games together

809
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:19,680
Speaker 1: and actually create fertilized embryos that then settled into juvenile abalonis.

810
00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:22,239
Speaker 1: It was like a ten year period where there was

811
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 1: this gap, but since then, over the last you know,

812
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:29,960
Speaker 1: five six years. You know, it started where they got

813
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 1: I think like twenty individuals the first year and then

814
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: like a hundred, and now I think they're up around

815
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: five eight thousand, maybe even ten thousand that they're able

816
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:45,320
Speaker 1: to produce every year. And UM, so we've we've figured

817
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 1: out how to how to get them to spawn in

818
00:50:48,040 --> 00:50:49,920
Speaker 1: the lab. There's all sorts of things they need to

819
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:52,759
Speaker 1: do to control temperature and light and sort of trick

820
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 1: the abalone into thinking it's it's go time all the time. UM, diet,

821
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:01,800
Speaker 1: you know, it's really important. So they've put an extraordinary

822
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: effort into understanding the techniques and systems that need to

823
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:09,160
Speaker 1: be in place, and they've had UM, really really good

824
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:12,680
Speaker 1: success in the last few years. And so fingers crossed

825
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:15,680
Speaker 1: that this continues. UM, they'll they'll be able to start

826
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:18,759
Speaker 1: out planting these individuals back into the wild and the

827
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:22,160
Speaker 1: hope is to be able to UM sort of fill

828
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:25,759
Speaker 1: in those gaps so that this individuals that are still

829
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:28,560
Speaker 1: out there won't be so few and far between. Well.

830
00:51:28,600 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 1: And again this is with the species that that early

831
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:34,360
Speaker 1: on people made the the the assumption that it was

832
00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:37,279
Speaker 1: essentially going to be like the rabbit or the rat

833
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:39,279
Speaker 1: of the sea as opposed to the panda of the sea.

834
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 1: When it came exactly you know, again, billions billions of

835
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 1: sperm and eggs, you would never think that they would

836
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 1: have a problem making making babies. So another thing to

837
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 1: think about as we were talking about slipper shells, but

838
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 1: also this pollution and the strange impacts it has, is

839
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:02,280
Speaker 1: the ability for some of these species to change sex

840
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:07,360
Speaker 1: depends on these chemical cues, right, That's how they're communicating.

841
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:10,400
Speaker 1: It's pheromones or some sort of compound that they're releasing

842
00:52:10,440 --> 00:52:13,520
Speaker 1: in the water that says, okay, you know it's you know,

843
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:15,799
Speaker 1: all you juveniles out there, come stack up on me,

844
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:18,719
Speaker 1: or or hey, don't transition to female. I need you

845
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 1: as males um. And so when you think about our impacts,

846
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:27,879
Speaker 1: and again are unexpected impacts when we put pollutants into

847
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:34,839
Speaker 1: the environment, those those chemicals can either mess with those

848
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:37,200
Speaker 1: signals in the sense that they can they can change

849
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 1: the chemistry and make it hard for animals to read

850
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:44,640
Speaker 1: those signals, or it's like putting something really smelly out there, right,

851
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 1: and they could be masking those signals. The other thing

852
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 1: that can happen is and we're seeing this with ocean

853
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:56,279
Speaker 1: of cidification, is so when as the climate warms, as

854
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:59,200
Speaker 1: we put more CEO two from burning fossil fuels out

855
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere, the oceans are sucking that all up.

856
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:05,479
Speaker 1: They're the major sink for CEO two, and when CEO

857
00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:09,920
Speaker 1: two reacts with seawater, it changes the chemistry and lowers

858
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 1: the pH. So the oceans are becoming more acidic, more

859
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 1: towards the lemon um. Not that extreme, but it is

860
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:21,360
Speaker 1: the acidity is going going up um and the pH

861
00:53:21,520 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 1: is going down. What that means is that these chemical

862
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:29,960
Speaker 1: messages that pass through seawater, we don't know how they're

863
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:33,279
Speaker 1: going to be affected because the medium the water through

864
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:36,799
Speaker 1: which they're passing that chemistry is changing and that's going

865
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:42,279
Speaker 1: to interact with that signal. And so there's all of

866
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:47,800
Speaker 1: these unknown effects of things like ocean acidification or chemical

867
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:51,879
Speaker 1: pollutants in the marine environment. Because they're subtle, often they're

868
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:54,840
Speaker 1: dispersed at first, so they're really hard to measure. But

869
00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:58,719
Speaker 1: what we know is that animals are highly dependent, especially

870
00:53:58,760 --> 00:54:02,920
Speaker 1: for sex, on chemical signaling, um, whether it's for sex change,

871
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,400
Speaker 1: whether it's for like we see in lobsters, where females

872
00:54:06,440 --> 00:54:10,520
Speaker 1: seduce really aggressive males and turn them into gentle lovers

873
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:14,359
Speaker 1: through the power of their p sprits p in their

874
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:17,399
Speaker 1: face and that's how they sort of seduce their their mate.

875
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: So these chemical signals are are critical for successful sex

876
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:27,359
Speaker 1: and successful reproduction. And you know, pollution and climate change

877
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:32,080
Speaker 1: are major major impacts and disruptors um to the chemistry

878
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: of the sea, and we don't know what kind of

879
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:36,759
Speaker 1: impacts that's going to have. Yeah, it seems like especially

880
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:39,680
Speaker 1: in the sea. I mean, maybe it's not different than

881
00:54:39,880 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 1: than on the land, but it seems like, especially in

882
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:47,799
Speaker 1: the sea, there's so much like delicate communication involved. It's

883
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:50,000
Speaker 1: it is, it's it's really true. You know, we're very

884
00:54:50,080 --> 00:54:54,279
Speaker 1: visual as humans, we're visual creatures. I mean, there are

885
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:57,279
Speaker 1: some weird studies though I don't know, and weird things

886
00:54:57,280 --> 00:54:59,920
Speaker 1: have I shouldn't say weird, Um, there are some intra

887
00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 1: staying studies and things happening. I don't know, if you

888
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:06,000
Speaker 1: guys have heard of these? Um, oh gosh, what are

889
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:10,239
Speaker 1: they even called? Like these T shirt parties? Have you

890
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: guys heard about this second? Now? Is this the thing

891
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:20,279
Speaker 1: where you like smell a T shirt? That? Yeah, And

892
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:22,480
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of them, but they're they're

893
00:55:22,520 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 1: basically like singles can go out and you wear a

894
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 1: T shirt for a few days, and then you bring

895
00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:31,120
Speaker 1: your T shirt to the party and everybody, I don't

896
00:55:31,120 --> 00:55:33,759
Speaker 1: know if you're blindfolded or I guess you just don't

897
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:36,000
Speaker 1: know who's whose T shirt is whom. And you go

898
00:55:36,040 --> 00:55:39,440
Speaker 1: around and you sniff t shirts and you decide which

899
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:42,320
Speaker 1: person you want to talk with based on which T

900
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:45,480
Speaker 1: shirt smell is attractive to you. It's like a smell

901
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:48,279
Speaker 1: based speed dating kind of it is. It's smell based

902
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:51,960
Speaker 1: speed dating. And so you know that is that is

903
00:55:52,000 --> 00:55:55,120
Speaker 1: a pheromone, right, That's a chemical way that we're deciding

904
00:55:55,200 --> 00:55:58,799
Speaker 1: what's attractive. And you know, we're a little late to

905
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:02,759
Speaker 1: the game. Lobsters and and conk and slipprischells have been

906
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 1: using that for rages. Um, I guess we're just becoming

907
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:09,440
Speaker 1: conscious of it. But you know it works for us too,

908
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:14,160
Speaker 1: So it is it's it's a really important mechanism. Um. Well, yeah,

909
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 1: about like the chemical signals and the complexity makes me

910
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:22,240
Speaker 1: think about what I was asking earlier about people only

911
00:56:22,280 --> 00:56:25,640
Speaker 1: thinking about evolution in terms of survival and less so

912
00:56:25,719 --> 00:56:29,160
Speaker 1: in terms of reproductive advantage. And and I wonder if

913
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:31,480
Speaker 1: one of the reasons for that is just like the

914
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:34,759
Speaker 1: visual access we have to like a chase for survival.

915
00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:38,279
Speaker 1: You can watch a documentary and very clearly see what's

916
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:41,320
Speaker 1: happening when one organism chases and tries to catch another.

917
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:44,200
Speaker 1: And when you look at some kind of you know,

918
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:46,920
Speaker 1: reproductive process going on under the ocean, a lot of

919
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:49,359
Speaker 1: times it doesn't look like anything. You can't see it,

920
00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:51,719
Speaker 1: or if you can see it, you can't understand what's

921
00:56:51,719 --> 00:56:57,480
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah. Absolutely, um And I think you know,

922
00:56:57,800 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 1: like we're talking about, you can't see, can't cannibalistic embryos

923
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:06,360
Speaker 1: swimming back and forth right inside of pregnant shark. There's

924
00:57:06,440 --> 00:57:10,000
Speaker 1: so much that we we miss even when we can

925
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 1: see the organism. And then most of these organisms we

926
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:16,880
Speaker 1: just we never even see um or we don't know

927
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:19,560
Speaker 1: what it is we're looking at. I mean, one of

928
00:57:19,600 --> 00:57:23,400
Speaker 1: the another great example in snails and new to break

929
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:29,160
Speaker 1: are these hermaphrodites that are simultaneous hermaphrodites, right, so rather

930
00:57:29,240 --> 00:57:31,840
Speaker 1: than like the slipper shell, these are animals that are

931
00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:35,360
Speaker 1: both have both male and female organs at the same time,

932
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:39,760
Speaker 1: so they produce sperm and they produce eggs. And there's

933
00:57:40,360 --> 00:57:47,560
Speaker 1: one that in particular is is really unique in that

934
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:51,680
Speaker 1: as far as we know, as far as I know, um,

935
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:56,480
Speaker 1: it's the only animal that has a disposable, regrowable penis.

936
00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:03,080
Speaker 1: So it's like a penis pez to spencer. Okay, so um,

937
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:09,040
Speaker 1: it's It's basically what happens is there two individuals will

938
00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 1: kind of come up to one another and they'll sort

939
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 1: of feel along each other's edge and they'll actually explore

940
00:58:14,480 --> 00:58:17,760
Speaker 1: the general opening on each other, and then they will

941
00:58:18,320 --> 00:58:22,680
Speaker 1: turn to face in opposite directions and line up, and

942
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:27,680
Speaker 1: then they will simultaneously insert each of them will insert

943
00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:32,520
Speaker 1: their penis into the other snail um into their opening

944
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:38,040
Speaker 1: and deposit sperm. So it's like a mutual reciprocal meeting.

945
00:58:38,400 --> 00:58:43,360
Speaker 1: And it all seems very civilized and great takes. It

946
00:58:43,360 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 1: takes a little bit for it to happen, and then

947
00:58:46,120 --> 00:58:49,920
Speaker 1: the two animals will start to pull apart and the

948
00:58:49,960 --> 00:58:52,520
Speaker 1: penis is like basically they just like stretch like two

949
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:55,520
Speaker 1: rubber bands between the animals, and they stretch and they stretch,

950
00:58:55,560 --> 00:58:56,960
Speaker 1: and they stretch and they stretch, and then they just

951
00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:01,640
Speaker 1: sort of like pop out, and so then the each

952
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:04,120
Speaker 1: snail has like they're like it's kind of like you

953
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:05,480
Speaker 1: know when you when you were little and used to

954
00:59:05,480 --> 00:59:07,800
Speaker 1: play with slinkies and then the slinkies got really stretched

955
00:59:07,800 --> 00:59:10,560
Speaker 1: and they never kind of bounced back. It's kind of

956
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 1: like that, right. They've got this like long extended ballast

957
00:59:14,720 --> 00:59:18,080
Speaker 1: that's dragging behind them that they can no longer like recoil,

958
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:23,440
Speaker 1: so they just drop it and within a day the

959
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 1: next penis is ready to go. It's like they have

960
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:29,360
Speaker 1: to I think it's like two or three backups, um

961
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:31,560
Speaker 1: and for two to three days they can mate. They

962
00:59:31,560 --> 00:59:32,920
Speaker 1: can mate, they can mate, and then they have to

963
00:59:32,960 --> 00:59:36,640
Speaker 1: take a longer break for it to regenerate. But what

964
00:59:36,760 --> 00:59:40,160
Speaker 1: researchers found was while this all looked like very like,

965
00:59:40,480 --> 00:59:43,160
Speaker 1: I don't know, civilized sort of a fair kind of um,

966
00:59:44,640 --> 00:59:47,760
Speaker 1: you know, mutual mating, it turns out that part of

967
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:51,080
Speaker 1: the reasons why they have to drop the penis and

968
00:59:51,120 --> 00:59:54,000
Speaker 1: they can't pull it back inside their own bodies is

969
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:56,360
Speaker 1: because if you look under a microscope, the heads of

970
00:59:56,360 --> 01:00:01,320
Speaker 1: the penis are covered with these like hooks, the sharp,

971
01:00:01,640 --> 01:00:06,680
Speaker 1: thorny hooks. And what happens is when they insert into

972
01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:11,560
Speaker 1: their mate, they let go a stream of sperm that

973
01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:14,760
Speaker 1: can kind of like flush to the front deep inside

974
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:19,160
Speaker 1: the animal, into their meat, and then they pull with

975
01:00:19,200 --> 01:00:22,560
Speaker 1: these hooks back out. And while they may grab some

976
01:00:22,640 --> 01:00:25,200
Speaker 1: of their own sperm, what they're doing is trying to

977
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:29,720
Speaker 1: like clean out and get rid of any previous sperm

978
01:00:29,760 --> 01:00:32,960
Speaker 1: deposits from a different mating event. And so they kind

979
01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:37,520
Speaker 1: of scrape the inside out. And because of that, yeah,

980
01:00:37,560 --> 01:00:40,080
Speaker 1: it's pretty it's you know, kind of early. But because

981
01:00:40,120 --> 01:00:42,600
Speaker 1: of that, they don't want to retract that back inside

982
01:00:43,040 --> 01:00:46,960
Speaker 1: their own body, right because that's that's just not gonna

983
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:50,920
Speaker 1: turn out well, So they just drop it and grow another.

984
01:00:51,640 --> 01:00:54,080
Speaker 1: So it's really but you would have no idea if

985
01:00:54,120 --> 01:00:56,800
Speaker 1: you saw these two you know, pretty colored meuter brak

986
01:00:56,960 --> 01:01:02,520
Speaker 1: kind of sitting next to one another hanging out that

987
01:01:02,640 --> 01:01:04,920
Speaker 1: that's what we got on. You can't you can't see it,

988
01:01:05,400 --> 01:01:07,080
Speaker 1: and you have no idea that you know a few

989
01:01:07,080 --> 01:01:10,880
Speaker 1: hours later they'd regrow their penis. It's yeah, you're right,

990
01:01:10,920 --> 01:01:14,200
Speaker 1: it's not stuff we can see. So Um, that's why

991
01:01:14,240 --> 01:01:16,600
Speaker 1: we need more science, and we need more scientists, and

992
01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 1: we need more funding to support this kind of just

993
01:01:19,800 --> 01:01:24,800
Speaker 1: basic research. Um, because it's fascinating and it matters for

994
01:01:24,920 --> 01:01:30,240
Speaker 1: how how these animals are surviving and you know, in

995
01:01:30,280 --> 01:01:35,360
Speaker 1: some cases these are you know, abaloni was a major industry,

996
01:01:35,360 --> 01:01:38,520
Speaker 1: It was a major food supply. It was devastating when

997
01:01:38,520 --> 01:01:42,600
Speaker 1: that fishery collapsed. Um. We see something similar happening in

998
01:01:42,640 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 1: the Bahamas right now with conk concept iconic giant snail

999
01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:51,479
Speaker 1: that you know the um you blow on the shell

1000
01:01:51,560 --> 01:01:54,880
Speaker 1: and it makes that beautiful like kind of um loud

1001
01:01:56,000 --> 01:02:01,440
Speaker 1: honking sound to call it. Yeah. So so there these

1002
01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:05,439
Speaker 1: are really large gastropods. They can grow over a foot

1003
01:02:05,480 --> 01:02:08,480
Speaker 1: and a half. They can live up to twenty years,

1004
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:13,720
Speaker 1: maybe even longer. Um. But again even though they're not

1005
01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:18,560
Speaker 1: broadcast spawners. UM. So they again, the male has a

1006
01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 1: penis that it it has to insert into the into

1007
01:02:23,640 --> 01:02:27,600
Speaker 1: the female underneath her shell. Um. It's called the verge.

1008
01:02:27,920 --> 01:02:29,720
Speaker 1: The penis that's called the verge, which I think is

1009
01:02:29,760 --> 01:02:33,080
Speaker 1: such a cool sexy name. Um. But you know, they

1010
01:02:33,120 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 1: have these heat shells that they kind of have to

1011
01:02:34,840 --> 01:02:37,680
Speaker 1: heft around, and so it takes a lot of energy

1012
01:02:37,680 --> 01:02:39,840
Speaker 1: to move if you're a conk. And so they do

1013
01:02:40,040 --> 01:02:42,200
Speaker 1: group up and then they kind of all just like

1014
01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:45,080
Speaker 1: go around and sort of mate. And so again they

1015
01:02:45,120 --> 01:02:48,120
Speaker 1: need that density. They need enough conk near enough to

1016
01:02:48,160 --> 01:02:51,560
Speaker 1: one another that they can have enough mating events. And

1017
01:02:51,960 --> 01:02:55,160
Speaker 1: what they're finding is that in places the conk have

1018
01:02:55,280 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 1: have been over fished, and even though there may be

1019
01:02:57,960 --> 01:03:02,520
Speaker 1: enough conk, you know, over a certain area in terms

1020
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:06,320
Speaker 1: of number, they're not close enough together. They're not finding

1021
01:03:06,320 --> 01:03:08,840
Speaker 1: each other or there's not enough of them huddling up.

1022
01:03:09,200 --> 01:03:12,760
Speaker 1: And they're starting to see some some really um strong

1023
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:17,800
Speaker 1: signals that the recruitment so the next generations, the numbers

1024
01:03:17,840 --> 01:03:21,360
Speaker 1: of of juveniles, it's going down. And so it's it's

1025
01:03:21,400 --> 01:03:26,240
Speaker 1: a really big problem um in in one that would

1026
01:03:26,280 --> 01:03:31,400
Speaker 1: affect you know, food security, it affects um you know, livelihoods.

1027
01:03:31,400 --> 01:03:34,200
Speaker 1: So it's not just I mean, they're great tales to tell,

1028
01:03:35,120 --> 01:03:38,600
Speaker 1: but there's a reason, especially for me, you know, the

1029
01:03:38,720 --> 01:03:41,760
Speaker 1: reason why I care about this topic and why I'm

1030
01:03:42,080 --> 01:03:45,840
Speaker 1: so passionate about it is because it matters UM in

1031
01:03:45,880 --> 01:03:49,160
Speaker 1: a very selfish way. It matters back for our own

1032
01:03:50,160 --> 01:03:53,880
Speaker 1: um our own benefit as as people um in the

1033
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:57,440
Speaker 1: communities that depend on on these fisheries. We depend on

1034
01:03:57,520 --> 01:04:01,240
Speaker 1: the delicate balance of marine ecosystems for the for the

1035
01:04:01,280 --> 01:04:04,320
Speaker 1: food we eat and the air we breathe, right, yeah, yeah,

1036
01:04:04,360 --> 01:04:06,480
Speaker 1: and the cool chemical compounds. You know, we've talked a

1037
01:04:06,480 --> 01:04:09,720
Speaker 1: lot about that, but you know there are trials right

1038
01:04:09,760 --> 01:04:15,080
Speaker 1: now for anti cancer compounds, compounds, medicinals that are helping

1039
01:04:15,120 --> 01:04:20,560
Speaker 1: fight uh, neurological disorders, heart disease, all all coming from

1040
01:04:20,560 --> 01:04:27,200
Speaker 1: marine organisms. And you know, it's a wealth of resources

1041
01:04:27,240 --> 01:04:31,160
Speaker 1: that we we barely begun to tap. So yeah, absolutely,

1042
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:32,880
Speaker 1: all right, Well, it looks like we're about out of

1043
01:04:32,920 --> 01:04:35,040
Speaker 1: time here, but thanks for coming on the show again

1044
01:04:35,080 --> 01:04:37,360
Speaker 1: and chatting with this Mora. It's been so great to

1045
01:04:37,400 --> 01:04:41,680
Speaker 1: get to meet you. Oh sorry, it's been great to

1046
01:04:41,680 --> 01:04:44,240
Speaker 1: get to meet meet you too, Joe and Robert. It's

1047
01:04:44,240 --> 01:04:46,520
Speaker 1: always such a pleasure. I love talking with you guys,

1048
01:04:46,560 --> 01:04:50,480
Speaker 1: and I mean, you're you guys just cover the best stuff.

1049
01:04:50,520 --> 01:04:52,280
Speaker 1: I love getting on a show and you're talking about

1050
01:04:52,320 --> 01:04:54,600
Speaker 1: so we were talking about Barnacle penis Is the other day.

1051
01:04:54,880 --> 01:04:56,560
Speaker 1: I don't I don't get to have this kind of

1052
01:04:56,600 --> 01:04:59,320
Speaker 1: connection with with a lot of folks, so I'm always

1053
01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:01,560
Speaker 1: up for it. Now, if our listeners want to want

1054
01:05:01,560 --> 01:05:03,280
Speaker 1: to connect with you and learn more about what you're

1055
01:05:03,360 --> 01:05:05,800
Speaker 1: up to. Your your website is sex in the Sea

1056
01:05:05,840 --> 01:05:09,760
Speaker 1: dot org and that has your blog on their details

1057
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:13,760
Speaker 1: about upcoming appearances. And then of course the book itself.

1058
01:05:13,760 --> 01:05:17,720
Speaker 1: Sex in the Sea is available in every format absolutely.

1059
01:05:17,840 --> 01:05:20,720
Speaker 1: We got it's on audible, we've got e books, we

1060
01:05:20,840 --> 01:05:24,240
Speaker 1: got hardbacks, paperbacks, and you can get it pretty much,

1061
01:05:24,480 --> 01:05:28,000
Speaker 1: you know, online or in your local bookstore. Makes a

1062
01:05:28,040 --> 01:05:31,040
Speaker 1: great gift heading into Valentine's Day for anybody out there

1063
01:05:31,080 --> 01:05:36,040
Speaker 1: looking for perfect scien see Valentine's Day gift. Yeah you

1064
01:05:36,080 --> 01:05:39,120
Speaker 1: can be you can be sex slightly sexy, I guess

1065
01:05:39,160 --> 01:05:43,040
Speaker 1: you could say. All right, So there you have it.

1066
01:05:43,440 --> 01:05:46,240
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Dr mar J Hart for coming on

1067
01:05:46,240 --> 01:05:49,720
Speaker 1: the show and chatting with us once more about the weird,

1068
01:05:49,760 --> 01:05:54,040
Speaker 1: wild world of marine reproduction. Now, just one more reminder,

1069
01:05:54,120 --> 01:05:57,200
Speaker 1: Dr Maura Hart will be giving a talk in the

1070
01:05:57,400 --> 01:06:01,280
Speaker 1: Denver Museum of Nature and Science on Valentine's Day this year,

1071
01:06:01,560 --> 01:06:05,440
Speaker 1: February twenty nineteen. If you're in the Denver area, you

1072
01:06:05,480 --> 01:06:07,479
Speaker 1: should look into that. It's going to be a cool event.

1073
01:06:07,520 --> 01:06:11,320
Speaker 1: With cocktails, apps, book talk, and signing. If I was nearby,

1074
01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:13,000
Speaker 1: I would not miss it for the world. Now, if

1075
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:14,760
Speaker 1: you want to listen to any of the other episodes

1076
01:06:14,800 --> 01:06:16,880
Speaker 1: in which we talked with Maurraw, you head on over

1077
01:06:16,920 --> 01:06:19,040
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where

1078
01:06:19,040 --> 01:06:21,360
Speaker 1: you'll find all the episodes of the podcast. But I'll

1079
01:06:21,360 --> 01:06:23,640
Speaker 1: make sure that on the landing page for this episode

1080
01:06:23,680 --> 01:06:26,120
Speaker 1: we linked to those older episodes as well, so you

1081
01:06:26,120 --> 01:06:28,440
Speaker 1: can look those up. We also, of course, have a

1082
01:06:28,760 --> 01:06:30,400
Speaker 1: have a place on the website where you can click

1083
01:06:30,400 --> 01:06:33,520
Speaker 1: on our store you can check out some cool merchandise options.

1084
01:06:33,800 --> 01:06:36,680
Speaker 1: But if you another great way, perhaps the best way

1085
01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:39,520
Speaker 1: to support the show is to simply rate and review

1086
01:06:39,600 --> 01:06:41,800
Speaker 1: us wherever you have the power to do so, and

1087
01:06:42,040 --> 01:06:45,040
Speaker 1: make sure you are subscribed to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

1088
01:06:45,160 --> 01:06:46,840
Speaker 1: And while you're at it, go ahead and subscribe to

1089
01:06:46,920 --> 01:06:50,080
Speaker 1: Invention as well. That's our other show. Absolutely, if you

1090
01:06:50,120 --> 01:06:52,680
Speaker 1: like Stuff to Blow your Mind, you'll like Invention too.

1091
01:06:52,920 --> 01:06:56,080
Speaker 1: We almost guarantee it. We're pretty confident. You go over there,

1092
01:06:56,120 --> 01:06:58,600
Speaker 1: you check it out, you click subscribe, you'll be happy.

1093
01:06:58,720 --> 01:07:01,120
Speaker 1: We'll be happy. It's a great thing to do. Anyway,

1094
01:07:01,280 --> 01:07:05,560
Speaker 1: huge thanks to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and

1095
01:07:05,640 --> 01:07:08,240
Speaker 1: Tori Harrison. If you would like to get in touch

1096
01:07:08,280 --> 01:07:10,960
Speaker 1: with us directly with feedback on this episode or any other,

1097
01:07:11,200 --> 01:07:13,400
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic or a guest for the future,

1098
01:07:13,720 --> 01:07:15,360
Speaker 1: or just to say hi, let us know how you

1099
01:07:15,360 --> 01:07:17,360
Speaker 1: found out about the show where you listen from all

1100
01:07:17,400 --> 01:07:19,800
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, you can email us at blow

1101
01:07:19,920 --> 01:07:32,280
Speaker 1: the Mind at how stuff works dot com for more

1102
01:07:32,320 --> 01:07:34,640
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how

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01:07:34,640 --> 01:07:42,760
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com b b b b b b

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01:07:42,880 --> 01:07:44,440
Speaker 1: b b b b b b b b