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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, the production of

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

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

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Speaker 1: today we're going to go into the wettest of the woods,

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Speaker 1: the saltiest of the woods. Today. The woods are salty,

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Speaker 1: dark and deep. And we have promises to keep and

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Speaker 1: miles to float before we sleep, because we're going to

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Speaker 1: be looking at a sort of jungle in the ocean.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. The ocean. Uh, it knows quite a

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Speaker 1: mix of environments, from rich coral reefs to desolate deep

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Speaker 1: sea waste from sunlit shallows to hydrothermal vent heated depths.

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Speaker 1: Marine organisms, of course, face numerous challenges, but the most

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Speaker 1: basic demands boiled down to, you know, how not to end,

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Speaker 1: how not to die, how to prolong. It's era to

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Speaker 1: quote way for the barbarians, but this is especially true

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Speaker 1: if you're small or your young organism. You're gonna need

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Speaker 1: food and you're gonna need shelter. Uh. And there's always

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Speaker 1: gonna be something trying to eat you. And for a

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Speaker 1: number of organisms, this is provided by sargassum, a genus

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Speaker 1: of brown seaweed of sometimes brown, sometimes described as brown

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Speaker 1: and orange um as well. Discuss there a number of

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Speaker 1: different species here, But UH sargassum thrives abundantly in the ocean.

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Speaker 1: It floats free of the ocean floor. It provides a buoyant,

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Speaker 1: free floating environment that travels on the tides and offers food, refuge,

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Speaker 1: breeding grounds, nurseries, hunting grounds, et cetera for a wide

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Speaker 1: variety of organisms. So in this episode, we're going to

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Speaker 1: discuss the sargassum organisms themselves, the environment that they offer,

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Speaker 1: some of its benefactors, and also the problems posed by

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Speaker 1: the so called Great Atlantic sargassum belt. Yeah, and that

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Speaker 1: last point is interesting because I will say, when you

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Speaker 1: think of of seaweed, do you think of the macroalgay world,

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Speaker 1: you don't usually think of it as something that is

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Speaker 1: particularly economically devastating or or even economically all that significant.

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Speaker 1: But but that that is not the case for sarcassum.

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Speaker 1: Yeah as well. It's it's it's an interesting topic to

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Speaker 1: explore because in its present form it kind of cuts

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Speaker 1: both ways. It's both vitally important to UH to so

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Speaker 1: many organisms and a number of organisms that are then

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Speaker 1: important to us. You know various um, uh, you know

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Speaker 1: marine species that we depend on, various fish and so forth.

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Speaker 1: But then on the other hand, uh, in an environment

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Speaker 1: that is increasingly out of balance, Uh, it also poses

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Speaker 1: a threat, and it can pose quite a nuisance. So

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Speaker 1: we'll get into all that. So what got you thinking

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Speaker 1: about sarcassum for today, Rob, Well, it's because tomorrow's episode

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Speaker 1: of Weird howse Cinema will entail sargassum and casual mention

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Speaker 1: of a few of the creatures. One creature in particular

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Speaker 1: that calls at home. Um. Well, we'll try to save

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Speaker 1: all of that for tomorrow's episode. But but yeah, that

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Speaker 1: was probably the first place I heard of sargassum, the

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Speaker 1: weed of deceit. I was wondering if we should announce

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Speaker 1: the movie, but maybe we should just make everyone wait

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Speaker 1: to find out they're going to be wondering. Wait, is

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Speaker 1: it a Jaws clone where it's a big raft of

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Speaker 1: seaweed instead of a shark? Is it like the Blair

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Speaker 1: Witch Project, but instead of getting lost in the woods

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Speaker 1: of Virginia or wherever it is, you get lost in

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Speaker 1: the woods of the ocean of the Sargasso Sea. Well

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Speaker 1: that the truth will just suddenly strike out at them

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Speaker 1: and there'll be nothing they can do about it. Uh So,

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Speaker 1: so tune in tomorrow if you wish for that. But

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Speaker 1: but for this episode, we're going to focus on first

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Speaker 1: on on sargassum, the the organism. So sargassum glimpsed in

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Speaker 1: the ocean or on the beach, it might just look

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Speaker 1: like a big heap of brown mess. But about closer look,

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Speaker 1: you'll notice that it's composed of branches, leafy bits, and

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Speaker 1: what looks like plump berries. But they're not berries, So

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Speaker 1: don't don't pick them. Uh, I mean, I guess you

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Speaker 1: could pick them. But what they are actually are neumaticists.

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Speaker 1: These are air bubbles um. Uh. They are part of

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Speaker 1: the organism held that you know, in in these little

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Speaker 1: cysts that help it excel at floating around. Right. Because

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Speaker 1: of course, there are different types of seaweed, and some

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Speaker 1: types of seaweed spend their life, you know, submerged in

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Speaker 1: the water, and they might be say, anchored down by

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Speaker 1: a type of organ known as a hold fast that

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Speaker 1: is somewhat analogous to like the root ball of a

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Speaker 1: tree that holds it, except in the case of seaweed,

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Speaker 1: it would hold clumps of seaweed to the ocean floor.

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Speaker 1: Not entirely analogous. I mean for many reasons, one of

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Speaker 1: which is that UH is that the seaweed that we're

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Speaker 1: talking about today is technically not even a plant. It

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Speaker 1: is a type of macroalgae, which will explain more about.

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Speaker 1: But in the case of sargassum, Uh, there are types

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Speaker 1: of sargassum that are free floating organisms that spend much

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Speaker 1: or all of their I was just floating on top

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Speaker 1: of the water to have good access to sunlight, of course,

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Speaker 1: which they need in order to make their food to survive.

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Speaker 1: But they've got to just sit there and float on

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Speaker 1: the top. And they're actually not even anchored to the

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Speaker 1: bottom at all. They just float out in the open ocean.

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Speaker 1: And I do just want to stress again that the

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Speaker 1: genus is sargassum, and there I believe about a hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty species um all of sargassum. Uh. The hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty number, I got that from the Ocean Foundation,

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Speaker 1: though curiously I saw some higher numbers out there as well.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if those were accurate. I'm sticking with

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Speaker 1: the one, right. So there are different kinds that you'll

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Speaker 1: find especially in different parts of the oceans around the world. Right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And we'll be talking about some key ones though, that

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Speaker 1: are the most abundant or at least in the end

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Speaker 1: of the part of the world that we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: discussing here. So, as I mentioned, sargassum is a brown macroalgay,

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Speaker 1: so it is different than plants. And how exactly is

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Speaker 1: it different than plants? Yeah, I think this is also

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Speaker 1: important to stress because if you don't think much about seaweed,

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Speaker 1: you might just you know, you know, you might just assume, well, right,

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Speaker 1: it's some sort of plant that grows in the water. Um.

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Speaker 1: And I think that you might be reasonable to make

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Speaker 1: that assumption just based on its physical appearance. And certainly

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Speaker 1: the word seaweed um, weeds are plants. Yeah, And and

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Speaker 1: seaweed is also used informally a lot of times to

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Speaker 1: describe both the algae and some plant organisms. But the

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Speaker 1: algae are protests, meaning they are uh eukaryotic organisms which

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Speaker 1: are not animals, plants or fungi um. So land plants,

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Speaker 1: for their part, they likely derived from fresh water algae

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Speaker 1: about five hundred million years ago. And algae is of course,

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Speaker 1: when we look at the just the root of the

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Speaker 1: word um. They're synonymous with seaweed, as alga is the

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Speaker 1: Latin for seaweed. Okay, so if you if you just

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Speaker 1: think about algae like the most I would say, if

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Speaker 1: I was to go on my own personal life experience,

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Speaker 1: when I hear the word algae by itself, what I

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Speaker 1: tend to think of is kind of green en pond scum,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of very like something floating on top

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Speaker 1: of a stagnant freshwater body like a pond or a lake,

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Speaker 1: that is made of tiny little fibers that just kind

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Speaker 1: of clumped together, doesn't have any recognizable macro structures the

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Speaker 1: way larger plants like like flowers or trees would. But

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Speaker 1: that is not true of all kinds of algae. These

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Speaker 1: macro algaes that we see in these types of seaweed,

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Speaker 1: they have more complex structures that are more like the

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Speaker 1: structures of land plants. So they might have something that

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Speaker 1: is akin to the stalk of a land plant and

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Speaker 1: something that is akin to the leaves. In these cases,

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Speaker 1: they would be algal fronds. Yes, yeah, so yeah, again,

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Speaker 1: they look very plant like. You can easily look at

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Speaker 1: them and say, oh, they're they'll leaves, they're the berries.

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Speaker 1: But uh, at any rate, again, a hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: different species of sargassum. Uh, though we're generally gonna be

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Speaker 1: talking about specific dominant species with in given regions. For instance,

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Speaker 1: the two varieties found most often in the Caribbean are

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Speaker 1: Sargassum Natan's and Sargassum fluettans um. I don't think it

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Speaker 1: would be necessary to remember that, but just know that again,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna we're probably gonna refer to sargassum a lot,

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Speaker 1: just generally, but we're gonna ultimately be dealing with specific

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Speaker 1: species that are dominant within a given a region. So

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Speaker 1: sargassum reproduces a sexually through fragmentation, a form of a

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Speaker 1: sexual reproduction in which parents split into fragments and those

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Speaker 1: fragments then become adults. And furthermore, the Caribbean sargasm species

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Speaker 1: in particular, and some of these other varieties that are

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Speaker 1: important are hollow pelagic. That means that they not only

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Speaker 1: float freely on the ocean, but they also reproduce vegetatively

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Speaker 1: on the high seas. So they're they're completely in international waters.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're they're they're they're a monkey knife fight

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Speaker 1: that the land has no control over. So yeah, but

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Speaker 1: that would mean that they don't They can do their

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Speaker 1: whole life cycle without like anchoring to the bottom at

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Speaker 1: any point or returning to shore or anything like that. Right,

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Speaker 1: And that's gonna that's gonna becoming important later on. It

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Speaker 1: get it really gets Nultimately the idea of sargassum being

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Speaker 1: the wheed of deceit, so it grows abundantly in the ocean,

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Speaker 1: where it forms vast floating rafts, as it's sometimes called,

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Speaker 1: though um I don't think these are rafts in the

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Speaker 1: sense that you could, you know, be a shipwrecked sailor

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Speaker 1: at sea and climb on top of it or hoist

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Speaker 1: a sail on it, But essentially just big rafts, big

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Speaker 1: floating chunks of of the sargassum, all tingled together, stretching

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Speaker 1: in some cases for miles, and these form in areas

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Speaker 1: of converging surface currents, and in doing so they create

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Speaker 1: a vital environment, like re alluded to earlier. But on

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Speaker 1: top of the environment, the organism itself provides food. According

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Speaker 1: to the Ocean Foundation, sargassum contributes and estimated six of

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Speaker 1: the total primary production in the upper one meter of

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Speaker 1: the water column. Okay, so that would refer to like

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Speaker 1: different different stages of the food chain. So you've got

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Speaker 1: the primary producers that are familiar to us. These are

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Speaker 1: generally photosynthesizing organisms, like like plants on land, you know,

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Speaker 1: that absorb sunlight to power the chemical reactions that make

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Speaker 1: their bodies. And then you've got the secondary, uh, characters

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Speaker 1: on the food chain that eat the primary producers. You

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Speaker 1: know that that eat plants to survive. The same thing

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Speaker 1: is true in the ocean. So you've got these primary

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Speaker 1: producers that are at least near the top of the

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Speaker 1: water column are going to be basing their their energy

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Speaker 1: cycle on sunlight to to produce these molecules that make

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Speaker 1: up their body that that in turn are eaten by

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Speaker 1: other organisms that are the sort of the secondary organisms

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Speaker 1: in that food chain. Yeah, it's it's like you said

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Speaker 1: at the very beginning, this is the forest that we're discussing.

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Speaker 1: Like in a way, don't think of the ocean itself

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Speaker 1: as the forest. Think of the think of the sargassum.

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Speaker 1: These going to these rafts of sargassum as the forest.

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Speaker 1: Because the ocean, as we've discussed on the show before,

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Speaker 1: the ocean can be a wasteland, the ocean can be

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Speaker 1: a desert and um and in that desert, the sargassum

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Speaker 1: can be the oasis um. It serves as a place

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Speaker 1: of refuge for various creatures as well as again breeding

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Speaker 1: grounds nurseries. In fact, it's the primary nursery for a

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Speaker 1: number of important to human to humans, especially fish species

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Speaker 1: like the ma ma. And given all of this activity

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Speaker 1: that's going on at the various creatures that call it home,

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Speaker 1: sometimes exclusively uh, their home, it's also prime stalking zone

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Speaker 1: for many marine predators. So both sargasm predators who live

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Speaker 1: there and have evolved a thrive in its environment, but

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Speaker 1: also general marine apex predators that are drawn in by

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Speaker 1: the by by the riches there by the biodiversity. Uh,

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Speaker 1: let's see if a few other just sort of general

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Speaker 1: um facts about sargassum. It can survive wide temperature and

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Speaker 1: salinity variances, and after about a year, those new maticists

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Speaker 1: that help it to remain buoyant, uh, they lose their

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Speaker 1: buoyancy and bits of sargassum will then sync to the

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Speaker 1: sea floor where it will actually end up providing carbon

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Speaker 1: for various deep sea creatures. So it's not only an

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Speaker 1: important energy source for the sunlit shallow regions of the sea,

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Speaker 1: but for the dark depths as well. I guess, serving

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Speaker 1: as kind of like that that nutrient rainfall that we've

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Speaker 1: talked about before that rains upon the deep and indeed,

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Speaker 1: when it washes up on the shore, uh, I guess

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Speaker 1: for for the most part we're talking about it. If

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Speaker 1: it's washing up in manageable quantities um, it can actually

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Speaker 1: nourish beaches, it can prevent sand from blowing away. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And when it washes up, it also serves as a

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Speaker 1: food source for various coastal species um. And not only

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Speaker 1: is it generally not harmful to humans, it's actually edible.

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Speaker 1: More on that in a bit. UH. There are also

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Speaker 1: possible biofuel and pharmaceutical possibilities for sargassum um. We'll get

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Speaker 1: into some of the drawbacks later on, but but one

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Speaker 1: of the interesting things here is that like the idea

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Speaker 1: of just sargassum piling up on the beach again in

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Speaker 1: manageable quality quant quantities does bring to mind that sort

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Speaker 1: of contest, that disagreement at times over what constitutes the

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Speaker 1: beach or what the beach should look like. You know,

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Speaker 1: should there be anything on the beach other than um

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Speaker 1: human strolling and enjoying their vacation. You know. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: some of the some of the really beautiful beaches out there,

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Speaker 1: a lot of times they are manicured. You know, things

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Speaker 1: like seaweed are collected regularly in order to have that

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Speaker 1: sort of Hollywood beach presented. Uh. And in many cases

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Speaker 1: there's an argument to me, may then no debris would

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Speaker 1: be on the beach naturally, and it in the right quantities,

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Speaker 1: it can be important to keeping the sand from washing away,

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Speaker 1: keeping the beach from eroding, etcetera. I can see the

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Speaker 1: point of view that would say, I'm okay with the

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Speaker 1: beach that has natural debris, but not unmanageable amounts of

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Speaker 1: natural debris or artificial debris. I mean, you certainly you

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Speaker 1: know you don't want too many beer cans. That's going

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Speaker 1: to kind of ruin your beach experience. Yeah, nobody wants

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Speaker 1: to step on a beer can on the beach, But likewise,

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Speaker 1: nobody really wants to have to walk over a tin

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Speaker 1: foot high mound of sargassum like dead, rotting seaweed. Right

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Speaker 1: right now, Um, we're gonna be getting into the history

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Speaker 1: of humanity's awareness and understanding of sargassum here and the

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Speaker 1: first bit I want to share is that you know,

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Speaker 1: certainly early sailors described sargassum mats, and one individual in particular,

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Speaker 1: Christopher Columbus. Uh, this was in when abundant sargassum fooled

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Speaker 1: Columbus into thinking he was approaching land. And I couldn't

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Speaker 1: find anything that really defined this for me. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if you did, Joe, but I assume this is

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Speaker 1: what the term the weed of Deceit refers to the

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Speaker 1: idea that you might encounter sargassum mats out at sea,

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Speaker 1: and you could make the same air that Columbus made

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Speaker 1: and think, oh, look at all the seaweed. Uh, there's

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Speaker 1: it's thick, it's everywhere. We must be really close to

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Speaker 1: land at this point. Sure, I don't know that that's

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Speaker 1: where the name comes from, the that makes sense. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So on September Columbus Road, and this is of course

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Speaker 1: translated quote, we have begun to see large patches of

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Speaker 1: yellowish green weed which seems to have been torn away

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Speaker 1: from some islander. Reef. I know better because I make

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Speaker 1: the mainland to be farther on and then on September

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Speaker 1: sevent I saw a great deal of weed today from

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Speaker 1: rocks that lie to the west. I take this to

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Speaker 1: mean we are near land. The weed resembles a grass,

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Speaker 1: except that it has long stalks and shoots and is

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Speaker 1: loaded with fruit like the like the mastic tree. Um, so, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, I guess on the on September six, it

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Speaker 1: sounds like he was like, no, you can't fool me.

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Speaker 1: We're not that close to land. But on September sevente

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Speaker 1: he said, nope, we are close to land. Look at

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Speaker 1: all this seaweed. I had to look up what the

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Speaker 1: mastic tree is because I didn't know, but it's the

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Speaker 1: but it's known as Pistachia lentiscus. Ah. Yeah, I looked

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Speaker 1: up a picture of it as well, and I do

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Speaker 1: see some some prominent little round fruits that you the

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Speaker 1: little berries that I assume that's that's what he was

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Speaker 1: comparing to the what what are actually neumaticists? Yea. As

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Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, the neumaticists are these little tiny berry

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Speaker 1: shaped gas bladders that helped the the seaweed float. But

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Speaker 1: in this case, yeah, it looks kind of like these

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Speaker 1: berries in a tree that would have been familiar to Columbus.

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Speaker 1: I think the looking at the mastic tree apparently is

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Speaker 1: useful for its resin. So a special note is the

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Speaker 1: Sargasso Sea. This is a truly vast patch of sargassum.

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Speaker 1: According to the Ocean Foundation, the Sargasso Sea is sometimes

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Speaker 1: referred to as the Atlantic Golden Rainforest and the islands

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Speaker 1: quote unquote uh in the Sargasso Sea can be acres across,

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Speaker 1: while the regions they occupy can stretch for miles right now.

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Speaker 1: The Sargasso Sea is interesting because it is the only

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Speaker 1: real sea in the world that doesn't have any land boundaries.

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Speaker 1: The Sargasso Sea is a sea within an ocean. It's

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Speaker 1: uh this patch in the middle of the Northern Atlantic. Basically,

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Speaker 1: it's just a large patch. If you were to look

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Speaker 1: at the eastern coast of the United States, uh and

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Speaker 1: you know in the Caribbean maybe with the bottom edge

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Speaker 1: down around like Cuba and uh in Puerto Rico, and

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Speaker 1: then going up along the the coast of North America

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Speaker 1: up towards Newfoundland, and then you just extend out east

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Speaker 1: from there. There's this big patch in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean, which is known as the Sargasso Sea.

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Speaker 1: Now we should be clear that it is not like

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Speaker 1: blanket covered in sargassum seaweed, but there are It is

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Speaker 1: known for having large rafts of sargassum seaweed within it,

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Speaker 1: and the Sargasso Sea is interesting in a number of ways.

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Speaker 1: One thing about it is it's known for having UH,

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Speaker 1: for being a place where ships can easily become be calmed,

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Speaker 1: and this is a risk that people who are not

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Speaker 1: very familiar with sea voyages might not think about very often.

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Speaker 1: But back in the days of sailing, one thing that

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Speaker 1: was really dangerous is if the winds die down and

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Speaker 1: you can't say, you know, there's nothing to propel your

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Speaker 1: ship in the direction where it needs to go. All

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Speaker 1: throughout the the Atlantic around the Sargasso Sea, there tend

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Speaker 1: to be these wind currents. You know they're there are

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Speaker 1: winds that will blow you UH, that will blow you

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Speaker 1: east to west, down from the from the coast of

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Speaker 1: Africa down towards UH, towards the Caribbean, and towards the

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Speaker 1: northern coast of South America. And then there are winds

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Speaker 1: and currents in the ocean that lead up north along

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Speaker 1: the east coast of North America. And then if you

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Speaker 1: go up north from there, there are winds and currents

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Speaker 1: that will lead you back towards the east from the west.

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Speaker 1: So essentially you create this box in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the North Atlantic that is surrounded by currents that go

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Speaker 1: in a circle around it. And this isn't often known

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Speaker 1: as the North Atlantic gyre. Now, anyone who's ever watched,

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Speaker 1: you know, any number of sailing movies or TV shows,

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Speaker 1: or any TV show that includes like a a voyage

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Speaker 1: by sale across the ocean. This is a This is

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Speaker 1: almost a standard bottle episode right here where where suddenly

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Speaker 1: the ship uh is in a is in a region

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Speaker 1: where there's just no no wind at all, nothing could

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Speaker 1: propel them, and everybody just sets around and gets like

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Speaker 1: superstitious and uh a little bit crazy until the wind

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Speaker 1: picks back up and saves everybody right. And you can

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Speaker 1: imagine like if you actually were traveling across the Atlantic

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Speaker 1: and you didn't know what you were what you were

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Speaker 1: going to see, or what was going to be out there.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you'd heard some tales of sea monsters. Who knows,

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Speaker 1: you get into an area where there is less wind

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Speaker 1: than you're used to than when you traveled into the area.

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Speaker 1: You are suddenly be calmed, it becomes hard to travel

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Speaker 1: and you're just kind of stuck there in the water.

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Speaker 1: And then you start seeing these weird rafts floating around

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the ocean towards you. I can

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Speaker 1: imagine that's pretty odd. Yeah, And in fact we maybe

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Speaker 1: don't have to imagine, because there are some historical sources

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Speaker 1: that that may well be referring to this. I guess

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Speaker 1: it's debatable whether they're referring to this or something else.

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Speaker 1: But I wanted to look at the question how long

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Speaker 1: has the Sargasso Sea been written about? Uh. It gets

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Speaker 1: its current name from Portuguese sailors. I believe of like

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Speaker 1: you know, the the early modern period, or actually I

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Speaker 1: think before that, from like the fifteenth century. But but

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Speaker 1: I was looking around to see how far back written

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Speaker 1: accounts of the Sargasso c go. And I found an interesting,

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Speaker 1: possibly applicable bit of history in a book by the

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Speaker 1: British archaeologist and Oxford professor Sir Barry Cunliffe. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: the book is called on the Ocean, the Mediterranean and

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Speaker 1: Atlantic from Prehistory to a d F hundred from Oxford

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Speaker 1: University Press in and this is in a chapter where

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Speaker 1: Cunliffe is writing about records of exploration west of the

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Speaker 1: Pillars of Heracles. So the Pillars of Heracles today are

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Speaker 1: understood to refer to the Strait of Gibraltar, that gap

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Speaker 1: between between in Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula, where you

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Speaker 1: can just go through this narrow passage to get out

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Speaker 1: of the Mediterranean Sea and into the broad Atlantic Ocean.

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Speaker 1: And so he's writing about the exploration beyond this point,

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Speaker 1: out to the west by the ancient cultures of North Africa,

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Speaker 1: Europe and Central Asia. And for for most of these cultures,

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Speaker 1: the Mediterranean Sea was of course their bread and butter.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the sea, even the Mediterranean Sea has has

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Speaker 1: plenty of dangers and mysteries to it. But sea voyages

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Speaker 1: within this region where you know, we're well understood for

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Speaker 1: for trade and and exploration and warfare and fishing and

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Speaker 1: all that. But sea voyages west into the Atlantic Ocean

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Speaker 1: or another story. And and so you get plenty of

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Speaker 1: tales and say Greek thought and Greek mythology about islands

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Speaker 1: that maybe lay out to the west of of the

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Speaker 1: Pillars of Hercules, way out there in the ocean that

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Speaker 1: that is mostly unexplored by your people. Most of the

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Speaker 1: early explorers who passed west of Gibraltar did so in

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Speaker 1: order to travel along the coast to the north or south,

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Speaker 1: so this would be traveling up along the coast of

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Speaker 1: the Iberian Peninsula uh to form these ports along places

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Speaker 1: like Cadiz that became a Phoenician port, or south along

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Speaker 1: the coast of Africa. The Phoenicians and the Greeks did

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Speaker 1: this to various extents, but the vast and presumably mostly

399
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Speaker 1: empty Atlantic Ocean was not not among everybody, but widely

400
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Speaker 1: assumed in ancient times to be a place of mystery

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Speaker 1: and danger, especially by Greek authors. And Kunlift gives the

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Speaker 1: example of the ancient Greek poet Pindar, who was writing

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Speaker 1: in the early fifth century b c. E UH and so,

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Speaker 1: to quote from Kunliffe here describing the pillars of Heracles,

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Speaker 1: situated at the western extremity of the known world, far

406
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Speaker 1: from home, he advises, quote, what lies beyond cannot be

407
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Speaker 1: trodden by the wise or the unwise. One cannot cross

408
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Speaker 1: from Ghadeer towards the dark west, turn again the sails

409
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Speaker 1: towards the dry land end of Europe. The dark West. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean this vast, stormy ocean. You you don't know

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Speaker 1: if you know you travel out on it, Like would

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Speaker 1: would you even reach land if you kept sailing? I mean?

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Speaker 1: It was not known, however, kind of rites that Phoenician

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Speaker 1: sailors were more adventurous in general in pushing westward uh

415
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Speaker 1: And about around the year six hundred b c E,

416
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Speaker 1: a Phoenician expedition sponsored by the pharaoh Necho the second

417
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Speaker 1: had been reported to have circumnavigated Africa. And though we

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Speaker 1: don't have the original sources for the account that I'm

419
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Speaker 1: about to describe, there are later Roman quotations of the

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Speaker 1: accounts of Phoenician sailors possibly pushing further west into the

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Speaker 1: Atlantic in exploration. And one of these notable sailors was

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Speaker 1: a Carthaginian navigator named him Ilco that's h I M

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Speaker 1: I l c O, who lived probably sometime in the

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Speaker 1: fifth century b c E. The Carthaginians were an ancient

425
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 1: civilization that was based along the coast of North Africa.

426
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:08,320
Speaker 1: I think their their capital was in modern day Tunisia.

427
00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:12,720
Speaker 1: But who expanded too much of the ancient Mediterranean? And

428
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:14,960
Speaker 1: then here I'm going to read from Cunliffe as he

429
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:19,160
Speaker 1: introduces and quotes another ancient source for for knowledge about Himilco.

430
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 1: So Himilco quote, whose report published long ago in the

431
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:27,679
Speaker 1: Secret Annals of the Carthaginians, is selectively quoted in a

432
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 1: grossly pretentious poem compiled by our Roman administrator Rufus Festus

433
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 1: Aviennas in the fourth century a d. A few lines

434
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 1: of his Aura maritima will suffice to give the flavor.

435
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 1: And then this quotes lines three seventy four. To the

436
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:50,400
Speaker 1: west of these pillars, Himilco reports that the swell is boundless,

437
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 1: the sea extends widely, the salt water streaks. Fourth no

438
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 1: one has approached these waters. No one has brought his

439
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: keel into that sea, because the are no propelling breezes

440
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 1: at sea, and no breath of Heaven's air aids the ship. Hence,

441
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 1: because the mist cloaks the air with a kind of garment,

442
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:13,000
Speaker 1: a cloud always holds the swell and persists throughout the

443
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 1: humid day. And so that's describing possibly some of the

444
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,119
Speaker 1: becalmed area of the North Atlantic, with like within the

445
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 1: Gyre region that we talked about before, you know, surrounded

446
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:26,879
Speaker 1: by the currents, but is very often very still in

447
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:31,159
Speaker 1: that middle area that overlaps with the Sargasso Sea. But

448
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:35,880
Speaker 1: then Cunlift goes on to describe further how Aviennas quotes

449
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 1: from Himilco to describe his voyage. Uh Cunlift writes elsewhere

450
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:43,640
Speaker 1: he talks of monsters of the deep and beasts who

451
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: swim amid the slow and sluggish crawling ships, and again

452
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: great fear of monsters stalks the deep. When the wind falls,

453
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 1: the sluggish liquid of the lazy sea is at a

454
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 1: stand still, while thick seaweed often tops the sea, and

455
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:03,280
Speaker 1: the ti it is hindered by the marshy rack. The

456
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 1: marshy rack oh yeah um and Kunlaf also says Himilko

457
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:11,200
Speaker 1: was evidently not enamored of his encounter with the ocean.

458
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 1: Perhaps perhaps his vessel was drawn south into the dull

459
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: drums and reach the Sargasso Sea, as some commentators have suggested,

460
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: Or perhaps he reported in this dispiriting way simply to

461
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: aggrandize his own achievement and to deter others. Another possibility

462
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 1: is that his original report was embroidered by a Viennas. Uh,

463
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:35,880
Speaker 1: So we don't know exactly what he's describing here, and

464
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 1: if what he's describing is real especially since we're only

465
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: getting it quoted by a secondary source and we don't

466
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:44,120
Speaker 1: have the original source. But of course it is true.

467
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: There's the danger of the dull drums, the calm part

468
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: of the Atlantic, where you won't have winds to propel

469
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:52,640
Speaker 1: your your sales, so you can very well get trapped there.

470
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 1: That could well overlap with large stretches of seaweed, the

471
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: Sargassum seaweed that you would find in the Sargasso Sea.

472
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: So one possible interpretation of what we're getting here is

473
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 1: that this ancient Carthaginian sailor him Ilco actually sailed to

474
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: the Sargasso Sea, survived, returned to Carthage eventually, and you know,

475
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: lived to tell the tale. But again it's worth stressing

476
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 1: that modern some modern scholars are are doubtful. It's hard

477
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: to know for sure, but some details line up if

478
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:24,440
Speaker 1: they're accurate. You've got these reports about the marshy rack

479
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:28,199
Speaker 1: of seaweed coinciding with the doldrums. It it lines up

480
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 1: in a kind of interesting way. And then finally, of course,

481
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,719
Speaker 1: the mention of sea monsters right the I wonder if

482
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,640
Speaker 1: it's possible to mistake the shadow of a huge floating

483
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 1: raft of sargassum for a sea monster stalking the deep. Again,

484
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it strikes me as possible. Yeah, yeah,

485
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 1: and well, once you get into discussing sea monsters, of course,

486
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: as we've we've explored in the show before, especially looking

487
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: at the work of the check ven Douser. Yeah, that's

488
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: right on sea monsters. I believe he pointed out in

489
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: his book that you know, at times sea monsters are

490
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 1: a manifestation of uh, certainly of of second and third

491
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:07,199
Speaker 1: hand accounts of of actual organisms. Other times their products

492
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:10,359
Speaker 1: of the mind, sometimes their products of of economic or

493
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:13,880
Speaker 1: political forces. So they're a whole host of reasons, uh

494
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: to to speak the word of the name of the

495
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 1: sea monster. But that's certainly the yeah, the doldrums that

496
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,880
Speaker 1: seemed to be described here, and then the uh, the

497
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:27,359
Speaker 1: the rack, the muck, the seaweed here this does sound

498
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 1: a lot like the descriptions modern descriptions of the sargasso

499
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: c oh. And sorry, there's one thing I didn't clarify,

500
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 1: but just to avoid confusion, because it's not a common word,

501
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:38,719
Speaker 1: I had to look this up. Rack here in this

502
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: quotation is spelled with the W W R A C

503
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 1: K and I was like, what is that referring to?

504
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 1: Is that like referring to like a like a shipwreck,

505
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 1: because rack sometimes is an alternate spelling of rack or wreckage.

506
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: But also I looked it up and apparently it is

507
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: also just a word sometimes used to refer to a

508
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 1: massive seaweed like green vegetation. Could be oh, there is

509
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: a rack with the W Yeah, okay, well sometimes that

510
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 1: I wasn't familiar with the precise definition, but I totally

511
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: understood it in the context of the sentence. It's like,

512
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: look at this rack, there's no getting through it. So

513
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: so certainly you can imagine that the rack would not

514
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: be a great place to find yourself as a human sailor,

515
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 1: certainly in in ancient times. But of course the Iraq

516
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: is home to a great many organisms, as we've already

517
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: alluded to here. So, uh, for one thing, you have

518
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: you have various um micro and macro um epiphytes. These

519
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:40,960
Speaker 1: are organisms that grow on the surface of a plant

520
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 1: and derived derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain,

521
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 1: and water. Uh So you have that's those sorts of

522
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 1: organisms growing there. You have fung gi, you have more

523
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: than a hundred species of invertebrates that are known to

524
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: uh to to live within the sargassum. Over a hundred

525
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: species of fish, four species of turtle. Again, and it

526
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: kind of spirals out because once you have a certain

527
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: amount of of life uh fostered within the sargassum, it's

528
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: going to attract other things as well, So you'll see

529
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 1: things like sharks showing up, etcetera. So we are not

530
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: going to attempt to cover everything that lives in the sargassum,

531
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: but we are going to talk about some of the

532
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: standouts because there are some really fun, really interesting, really

533
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:26,480
Speaker 1: weird organisms that call the rack home. And the first

534
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 1: of which I want to talk about is the sargassum fish,

535
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: also known as the sargassum frog fish. Now, is this

536
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: the one that you lured me into this episode with,

537
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 1: because the first thing that I became aware of when

538
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: you were getting interested in sargassum was was that you

539
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: came to me and you said, Joe, there is a

540
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: fish with hands. Yes, yes, this would be uh, this

541
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: would be the sargassum frog fish um and uh and

542
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: and I'll and I'll explain what I mean by by hands.

543
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,719
Speaker 1: They're not quite hands, but they are enough like hands

544
00:30:56,800 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: that you're committed to get excited um and uh and yeah,

545
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: it's probably the most famous sargassum denizen. It's the species

546
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: history of history o frog fish of the family uh

547
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: at tananara day and it's the only species of its genus.

548
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: So uh, we'll describe them here, but also feel free

549
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 1: to look up images or video. I mean, there's nothing

550
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: quite like seeing video of these these creatures. I think

551
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: there's some wonderful national geographic footage, but also the Weird

552
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: House Cinema selection for tomorrow also will feature some actual

553
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: footage of this creature right at the top. Um. So

554
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: the uh, the sargassum fish grows to around twenty centimeters

555
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: in length, so about seven point eight inches. And I

556
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 1: should I guess I should say, first of all, they

557
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: generally have this appearance that you'll find with other frog

558
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: fish um and uh and and they're related to uh

559
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: into the angler fish of the deep. Uh. So they

560
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 1: have these upturned mouths, which kind of give them kind

561
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: of this uh, this frowny face look, this kind of

562
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: froggy appearance and uh and and so that that's the

563
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: first thing to drive home about them. So they have

564
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: that that kind of body that I think at number

565
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: of you can can imagine, but they sometimes sort of

566
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 1: think of it as the drawbridge jaw. Yes, yes, that's

567
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 1: a good way of describing a drawbridge jaw. And of course,

568
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: like like pretty much all fish, you know, they're they're

569
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: going to consume by by lunging and inhaling, you know,

570
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: pulling their their prey rapidly into their mouth. Um their masters.

571
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 1: These particular fish, though, uh, the sargassum fish are masters

572
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 1: of camouflage, at least within the sargassum environment, because they've

573
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 1: adapted to physically look like the sargassum, complete with fleshy

574
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: appendages that look like weed. I've seen some of the

575
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 1: some of the appendages have even been compared to organisms

576
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: that live within the weed um. So they just they

577
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: just they look like they're just a part of the environment.

578
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: You'll see images or even footage sometimes of the sargassum

579
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:05,840
Speaker 1: fish hiding in the seaweed, and you really cannot pick

580
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 1: them out with a human eye. I think at some

581
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 1: point I watched a documentary or part of a documentary

582
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: that had some of these in it, and it was

583
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 1: one of those like you know, trick shots where they

584
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 1: show you the shot and then it's like there are

585
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 1: three sargassum fish in the shot, you can't see them

586
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 1: at all, and then has to like circle them or

587
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: zoom in on them or something. I think I've seen

588
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 1: the same one. Yeah. Um. But of course it's not

589
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: just their physical structure and initial coloration. The other cool

590
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 1: thing about them is they can further adjust their coloration

591
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 1: from dark browns and greens to light browns and greens

592
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,719
Speaker 1: to complete the illusion, to to fine tune it so

593
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: that they blend in you know, seemingly completely um. And

594
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 1: they can do this quite rapidly as well. This is

595
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 1: important for the sargassum fish because of again it is

596
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 1: a voracious hunter, but also it's the jungle baby, so

597
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: you know they're they're also they also have to be

598
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: on guard against other predators, so it also helps protect.

599
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: Now they let's get to the hands, so if you will,

600
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 1: uh so, theirs their pelvic fins uh, you know the

601
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:12,319
Speaker 1: fins up front. They have nine to eleven rays uh

602
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: in them and they're stalked essentially forming what act like clause. Basically,

603
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 1: they can use these things. Again, they look like claws,

604
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 1: they look like fish clause, and they can use these

605
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:27,359
Speaker 1: to grip objects, and they use these to clamber over

606
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: and through the seaweed. Okay, so they can use them

607
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: to grip objects, not in the sense of like like

608
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: our fingers, where you would manipulate objects freely, but they

609
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: can grip things in the sense of like sort of

610
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 1: pushing against surfaces. Right. Yeah, they're not gonna be able

611
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:45,880
Speaker 1: to use an iPhone. They can't play the piano worth

612
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 1: of dying. But but they can use these appendages. You

613
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:51,359
Speaker 1: have to sort of grip and push through things, which

614
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: is gonna be vitally important when you're hanging out in

615
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 1: the sargassum, like little gravoid spines. Yeah, so they're really cool.

616
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:02,360
Speaker 1: Definitely look up. They're beyond cool. They're a little creepy looking.

617
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 1: I highly recommend checking them out. Um. So, So, obviously

618
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: the adults live in the mats and their eggs are

619
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: placed there as well, but the larvae developed in the

620
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 1: water columns between fifty and six meters deep. Um. And

621
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:21,800
Speaker 1: you might think, well that, I guess the sargasum environment

622
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: then is just no place for for kids, right um.

623
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: And this is this is certainly the case, especially since

624
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 1: the sargassum fish is more than happy to eat them

625
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 1: as well, So they're in they're not only incredibly voracious,

626
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:35,759
Speaker 1: but their notorious cannibals. I was reading about some of

627
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: the studies where they've they've caught sargassum fish and they've

628
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 1: they've looked inside at their bellies and they'll find like

629
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: multiple juveniles. You know, they'll find some juveniles and they

630
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: just they'll just just gobble them up delicious. Yeah. So again,

631
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: just a fabulous fish. Just it's everything about it is

632
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:57,799
Speaker 1: uh is both beautiful and frightening uh in just the

633
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:02,440
Speaker 1: right proportions. Now, not the only creature that that that

634
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 1: lives there again, and they're not the only creature that

635
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 1: that takes a sargassum as part of its uh you know,

636
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:11,439
Speaker 1: official or unofficial name. For instance, there's the sargassum pipe fish.

637
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: This is a species of pipe fish that makes its

638
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 1: home in the sargassum mats uh And like all pipe

639
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 1: fish and seahorses, the male carries the egg. Um. They're

640
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: just into these elongated um, you know, beautiful fish with

641
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 1: that kind of signature uh seahorsey head now um. Just briefly,

642
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:30,879
Speaker 1: a couple of other organisms well, first, in general should

643
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: say that that the Sargasso Sea in particular is the

644
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: spawning site for various eels, uh, including threatened and endangered eels.

645
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: But speaking of decapods, there is also worth our consideration

646
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: the sargassum swimming crab or U. Portunists say, I uh,

647
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 1: this is uh just one variety of crab you'll find

648
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:55,360
Speaker 1: in sargassum mats, but it's an impressive one and a

649
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 1: species adapted to blend into the environment. They have an

650
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:02,799
Speaker 1: orange brown colorization that apparently matches up with the sargassum

651
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:06,360
Speaker 1: pretty well. And as the name implies, they're more adapted

652
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: for swimming than walking. The fourth pair of legs are

653
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: modified into paddle like structures. Now, crabs, of of course,

654
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: are noted for walking sideways, so you might wonder how

655
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:21,680
Speaker 1: does it swim. Well, they tend to swim sideways as well, uh,

656
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 1: and apparently they're quite fast. They depend on a mix

657
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,960
Speaker 1: of active and passive hunting, so they'll they'll actively chase

658
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 1: after something against sideways uh to catch it, but they'll

659
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: also fall back on that that sort of ambush hunting

660
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: within the jungle of the sargassum. Yeah. Now, in addition

661
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: to these organisms that spend all or most of their

662
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: lives in the sargassum, there are also organisms that use

663
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 1: sargassom as a sort of like a stepping stone during

664
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:56,880
Speaker 1: their migration patterns. One example that's often referenced would be

665
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:00,399
Speaker 1: young sea turtles. Yeah, and I've also heard that it's

666
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: important to even like migratory birds species. Again, it's it's

667
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: it's an oasis in the wastes, an oasis in the

668
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:15,720
Speaker 1: desert of the sea. Thank thank thank so. Now, earlier

669
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:19,320
Speaker 1: we we alluded to the sargassum being not not only

670
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:23,840
Speaker 1: this this bountiful environment, but also potentially a problem, a

671
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: problem for humans and the sort of human likes and

672
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 1: dislikes concerning beaches, but also just for the environment as

673
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: a whole. As the Ocean Foundation points out, it's ecologically

674
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,960
Speaker 1: important the sargassum, but it doesn't mean it doesn't have

675
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:44,839
Speaker 1: some downsides, especially when you're dealing with large volumes. Right,

676
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 1: And this is something that's become especially a problem within

677
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: just the last decade or so. Actually, it can really

678
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: be dated to a year in particular, from what from

679
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 1: everything we've been reading for the year two thousand eleven,

680
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:02,919
Speaker 1: starting around two thousand eleven, something started happening with sargassum

681
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 1: in the Atlantic Ocean, where there was a sudden increase

682
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:10,840
Speaker 1: that has gone on in many years since then, of

683
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: of sargassum inundations where beaches and shorelines along areas in

684
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 1: the Caribbean, along the coast of Florida, along places in

685
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: the coast of the northern coast of South America would

686
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: just be caked with sargassum, like they're just mounds and

687
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:30,400
Speaker 1: mounds of seaweed piling up to the point that it

688
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:34,799
Speaker 1: in some cases would make these shores unusable for what

689
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:39,239
Speaker 1: humans have been using them for, usually in the years beforehand. Yeah,

690
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,280
Speaker 1: if if any of you out there are are snorkelers,

691
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:46,480
Speaker 1: or are you know, related to our friends with snorkeling enthusiasts,

692
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 1: then you've you've probably heard about the blight of sargassum,

693
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:53,800
Speaker 1: about the disappointment of of, say, you know, reaching a

694
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 1: popular snorkeling area and finding that there's just sargassum everywhere. Um,

695
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: you know. So in in particular, one of the things

696
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 1: that the Ocean Foundation points out is huge rafts of

697
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:09,799
Speaker 1: it can actually smother other sea grasses and even coral reefs. Um.

698
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:12,879
Speaker 1: You know. Granted, coral reefs are facing uh a number

699
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,400
Speaker 1: of problems, um you know and are and uh and

700
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,440
Speaker 1: we've gone into that in past episodes. But but certainly

701
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 1: this could disrupt your ability to even properly view them

702
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 1: as a as a tourist in the ocean, as a

703
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: as a snorkeler, um you know, out there trying to

704
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: to observe this natural habitat. Uh. It can also this

705
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: is interesting this this has brought up as well. Apparently

706
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: sargassum can serve as a means of transport for invasive species.

707
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: Though UM, I honestly wonder if this at all compares

708
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:48,880
Speaker 1: to human enabled invasive species transport. It seems like, um

709
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:51,839
Speaker 1: it almost wouldn't matter compared to what humans can and

710
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: have done, um you know, importing species like the lion

711
00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:59,840
Speaker 1: fish into regions that um that that are not balanced

712
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 1: and off to uh to contain them. Well, yes, but

713
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 1: I would also say that there I think there is

714
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:09,879
Speaker 1: at least a strong likelihood that human behavior is a

715
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: major contributor to these these new build ups of sargassum. Yeah,

716
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:17,400
Speaker 1: and we'll and we'll get into into more of that

717
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: in just a second. Um, just a few more points

718
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:23,839
Speaker 1: here that the ocean foundation made uh sargassum of course,

719
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:26,000
Speaker 1: can prevent boats and fishermen from setting out to sea.

720
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: It can also prevent sea turtles from making it to

721
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:33,880
Speaker 1: nest in these cases as well. So you know, again

722
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:36,719
Speaker 1: you have it massing up on the beach in particular,

723
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 1: if it's um, you know, a certain amount of that

724
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:41,799
Speaker 1: is arguably good for the beach, but if you have

725
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 1: too much of it, yeah, it's going to actually interfere

726
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: potentially in a sea turtle's ability to come on shore

727
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: lady eggs and then have the hatchlings be able to

728
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,319
Speaker 1: properly get back out to sea again in in an

729
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 1: appropriate amount of time. And if it masses on the beach,

730
00:41:56,680 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 1: the sargassum it, if it's not removed in time, it

731
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:03,560
Speaker 1: can produce hydrogen sulfide, which can have a major can

732
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: have major detrimental effects on coastal ecosystems. Yeah, I mean,

733
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 1: it can have all kinds of negative effects on the

734
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:11,880
Speaker 1: wildlife itself. I mean, one would be like if it

735
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:13,960
Speaker 1: doesn't reach the beach, if you're just talking about it

736
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 1: still being in the water, big blooms of algal organisms

737
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: in the water can have downstream effects when the blooms

738
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:27,720
Speaker 1: eventually die and then there's all of this dead, decomposing

739
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: material in the water, and then the decomposition of that

740
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: material ends up robbing the water of dissolved oxygen, which

741
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:38,840
Speaker 1: in turn leads to these big fish die offs and

742
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: die offs of other organisms because there's not enough oxygen

743
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 1: in the water for them to breathe. Yeah, and also

744
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: all that decomposition in the water can promote harmful blooms

745
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: of bacteria and other microbes. I guess the way to

746
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: to to think of it is it's basically like spiraling

747
00:42:55,080 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: imbalance in the ecosystem and uh and and it's its

748
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 1: place in this uh this this this cascade of imbalance.

749
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: Now to get kind of a I guess, sort of

750
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 1: a bird's eye or I guess satellite view of things. UM.

751
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:14,759
Speaker 1: I found this pretty helpful. I was looking at a

752
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:18,759
Speaker 1: July twenty nineteen article from NASA Goddard. They utilize the

753
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:24,839
Speaker 1: satellite images to observe the Great Atlantic Sargassum belt. Uh

754
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:28,239
Speaker 1: So at this point, based on simulations, they confirmed that

755
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: its shape was due to ocean currents and that it

756
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 1: can grow large enough so as to blanket the surface

757
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 1: of the Tropical Atlantic from the west coast of Africa

758
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 1: to the Gulf of Mexico. Major blooms have occurred in

759
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:46,880
Speaker 1: every year between twenty eleven and again, this was a

760
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:49,359
Speaker 1: July articles, so that's as far up as it went

761
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 1: at the time. UH with the exception of which this

762
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 1: was apparently uh in this year was impacted by unusually

763
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: low seed populations during the winter, but other wise eleven onward,

764
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 1: it's been sargassum season. Prior to eleven, most of the

765
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: free floating sargassum in the ocean was primarily found in

766
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:13,319
Speaker 1: patches around the Gulf of Mexico and the Sargasso Sea.

767
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 1: But then something changed, something seemingly in the biochemistry the ocean. Obviously,

768
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: you know, people were asking a lot of questions about

769
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:25,800
Speaker 1: climate change uh and and ultimately I guess the reality

770
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 1: is is complicated, but basically yes, it's pointed out by

771
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:35,720
Speaker 1: a doctor Paula Bontempi of NASA's Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program,

772
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 1: the ocean's biochemistry is changing due to a mix of

773
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: natural and human forces, and it seems to be leading

774
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 1: to an ecosystem shift with important implications for marine life

775
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 1: and human life since we depend on many of the

776
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 1: species in question and live in and in many of

777
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:54,760
Speaker 1: the environments that are impacted. UH. Climate change is certainly

778
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:58,560
Speaker 1: a key aspect of this, as it impacts precipitation and

779
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 1: ocean circulation, but increased water temperatures specifically don't seem to

780
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 1: be the cause. It's these other causes. But again, UH,

781
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:10,840
Speaker 1: climate change is very much part of the issue. I

782
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 1: don't want to make it sound like it's not. Yeah,

783
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: if you were. If you want to read more in

784
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: depth about this research, there's a really good article in

785
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: The Atlantic by Ed Young from July nineteen called hy

786
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: waves of seaweed have been smothering Caribbean beaches. Again, this

787
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:29,040
Speaker 1: from July nineteen by Ed Young. Uh, that's worth looking up,

788
00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: and it gets into a lot of the difficulty and

789
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 1: uncertainty and trying to figure out exactly what the underlying

790
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: factors leading to this change that we first saw in

791
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: the year two thousand eleven was establishing this this huge

792
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:44,959
Speaker 1: belt of sargassum that was not there previously. And and

793
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:47,879
Speaker 1: what we want to be very clear, this Atlantic sargassum

794
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 1: belt is different from the sargassum in the Sargasso Sea.

795
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 1: The Sargasso Sea is further north in the North Atlantic,

796
00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 1: off the east coast of of like the United States,

797
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 1: whereas this would be something that stretches more between Brazil

798
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,000
Speaker 1: and Africa. In fact, one of the things that ed

799
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 1: Young writes about in this article was the very idea

800
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: of the satellite photos that you were talking about that

801
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 1: one of the fortunate things for studying sargassum blooms on

802
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 1: the large scale is that sargassum reflects more infrared light

803
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,839
Speaker 1: than the seawater around it, So when you look down

804
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 1: with satellites, sargassum patches can appear as hot spots in

805
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:30,239
Speaker 1: the ocean that can be seen from space. Young sites, Uh,

806
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 1: the researcher named Jim Gower of the Fisheries and Oceans

807
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:38,719
Speaker 1: Canada for for doing this satellite research. But yeah, the

808
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 1: satellite photos found that the bloom really began in April

809
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 1: of two thousand eleven, which correlates with you know these

810
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 1: times when these pile ups on the beaches, the sargassum

811
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 1: inundations really started becoming a problem that people noticed. But

812
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 1: they started noticing the blooms off the coast of Brazil,

813
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 1: and the satellite images from two thousand eleven, and then

814
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:04,759
Speaker 1: Young also points to research by someone named Ming Chi

815
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: Wang from the University of South Florida who, along with

816
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 1: her colleagues, they've basically established that, yeah, this bloom is

817
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:14,799
Speaker 1: just going to be an ongoing yearly thing. Now, uh

818
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 1: that that it's coming and it's probably not going to stop. Though.

819
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things this article gets into is

820
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:25,480
Speaker 1: a delay between the proximate causes that are likely leading

821
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 1: to the blooms and then when the blooms show up

822
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 1: within you know, what we can see with our satellites

823
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 1: or what's piling up on our beaches. Because a couple

824
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:37,399
Speaker 1: of the factors that have been identified as likely candidates

825
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 1: leading to these blooms. One is um is water being

826
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:45,719
Speaker 1: discharged from the Amazon River, you know, coming out of

827
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:50,600
Speaker 1: South America. UM. And this water coming out of the

828
00:47:50,640 --> 00:47:57,239
Speaker 1: Amazon River is probably being especially saturated with nutrients from

829
00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:01,359
Speaker 1: agriculture that's happening all along the US on basin, and

830
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 1: so this is like it's like fertilizer that is flooding

831
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:07,040
Speaker 1: into the ocean and then of course that is feeding

832
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:10,480
Speaker 1: blooms of of this macro algae. And then there are

833
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 1: other factors they get into that are probably contributing, such

834
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:16,439
Speaker 1: as like what the different temperatures are this year. It's

835
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:18,840
Speaker 1: the same thing you were talking about that um that

836
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:21,400
Speaker 1: climate change doesn't seem to be the cause of it

837
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: in the sense of increasing ocean temperatures lead to uh,

838
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 1: lead to macro alogy blooms, because that doesn't appear to

839
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:32,880
Speaker 1: be the case, but downstream other effects of climate change

840
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,600
Speaker 1: are very likely contributing to this. It's just not the

841
00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:39,520
Speaker 1: temperature of the water itself. Another factor that they're talking

842
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 1: about is access to the seed populations of of seaweed.

843
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 1: It's like, how many patches of seaweed are there leftover

844
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 1: that survived the winter of the previous year and can

845
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:54,880
Speaker 1: act as a kind of seed for the regrowth of

846
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 1: the seaweed every new season. Yeah, because I think it

847
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 1: kind of brings back that point of the neumaticis having

848
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:04,360
Speaker 1: a like a year's lifespan, so there's going to be

849
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:06,960
Speaker 1: a certain amount of crossover as well here from one

850
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 1: year to the next. UM. I was impressed one of

851
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:12,840
Speaker 1: the quotes that you pulled from from the Young article

852
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 1: just about how many tons of seaweed we're talking about here? Yeah, yeah, Yeah,

853
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 1: So the estimate I think this would be referring to

854
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 1: the year previous to when this article was written, So

855
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 1: it was published in twenty nineteen, so I think this

856
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 1: would be referring to the summer of eighteen during June,

857
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:33,040
Speaker 1: when the Sargassin Belt was at its most fruitful, it

858
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:37,239
Speaker 1: was estimated to contain twenty two million tons of seaweed.

859
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:40,840
Speaker 1: And then there's even a clarification later in the article

860
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 1: that that estimate is probably low since the resolution of

861
00:49:46,200 --> 00:49:50,040
Speaker 1: the satellite camera that's taking the infrared imagery to establish

862
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 1: that number, it has like a minimum sort of pixel

863
00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 1: distance resolution, so it can only see patches that show

864
00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:58,880
Speaker 1: up at a minimum resolution of something like a kilometer.

865
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: I think it was it could be about that, uh,

866
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 1: doing that just stuff memory, but I think that's what

867
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: it was. And uh, And so like patches that are

868
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 1: smaller than that, with which there are probably plenty, they're

869
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:11,439
Speaker 1: not even really showing up on the imaging. So that's

870
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: a lot of seaweed. That's a lot of seaweed, folks,

871
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:17,680
Speaker 1: And that's a lot, and that's ending up on a

872
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:20,279
Speaker 1: lot of it's ending up on the shores eventually. But

873
00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 1: one thing that is worth stressing again is that while

874
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:26,719
Speaker 1: researchers have probably identified some very good candidates for the

875
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:31,400
Speaker 1: explanations of of these blooms and inundations of sargassum in

876
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,040
Speaker 1: the last decade or so. There's still some uncertainty. There's

877
00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:36,880
Speaker 1: like stuff we don't know about what what could be

878
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,120
Speaker 1: leading to it, and what could be the limiting and

879
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 1: contributing factors. Anyway, that the article by ed Young is

880
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:46,280
Speaker 1: a really good read. You should look it up. Yeah, absolutely,

881
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 1: I recommend that one. Now. You know, in the past,

882
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:52,920
Speaker 1: I think it's been brought up when we're dealing with

883
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:56,480
Speaker 1: invasive species or species that are out of balance, one

884
00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:59,280
Speaker 1: of the best things that you can do is develop

885
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 1: an appetite for that species. Uh, in human beings. Now,

886
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:06,719
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think anybody's making an argument that

887
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:10,520
Speaker 1: that could um make a difference with the sargassum. But

888
00:51:11,080 --> 00:51:14,359
Speaker 1: it is again worth noting that sargassum is something that

889
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:17,920
Speaker 1: humans can eat. Uh. We we mentioned that already, And

890
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:21,359
Speaker 1: I found a wonderful blog titled Eat the Weeds with

891
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 1: Green Dean Um. So his name is Dean, but he's

892
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 1: green Dean, get it and the blogs The blog is

893
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:32,439
Speaker 1: titled Sargassum Sea vegetable, and in this post, Green Dean

894
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 1: points to a few different culinary traditions that have recipes

895
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 1: for sargassum uh, though he points out that given the

896
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:43,799
Speaker 1: different species, basically it's sargassum is going to quote very

897
00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:46,439
Speaker 1: in taste and texture, so there is no one way

898
00:51:46,480 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 1: to cook your local species uh. He says that some

899
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:54,040
Speaker 1: amount of experimentation is going to be required, but basically

900
00:51:54,080 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 1: he goes through different cuisines. In this post, points out

901
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:01,000
Speaker 1: that sometimes it's consumed fresh, other time it's cooked, saying

902
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:04,759
Speaker 1: coconut milk or vinegar or lemon juice. Other times it's

903
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:08,560
Speaker 1: smoke dried, or it's boiled. Sometimes it's even sweetened and

904
00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: put into steam buns. Sometimes it's cooked with fish. Basically,

905
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:15,839
Speaker 1: they're just numerous ways to approach it, but it's it's

906
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 1: worth checking out the link. I recommend it. It said

907
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 1: eat the weeds dot com. You'll find a post on

908
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:24,799
Speaker 1: the sargasm sea vegetable um. I'm not sure I've ever

909
00:52:25,120 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 1: had sargassum in a dish. Maybe I have and I

910
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: just wasn't alert to it, But now I feel like

911
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:33,400
Speaker 1: I really, I really want to have it. I don't

912
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:34,799
Speaker 1: know if I have either. I mean, I've had a

913
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 1: number of seaweed salads, but I don't know what species

914
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 1: were in them. Yeah, well, I know some basic things.

915
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 1: I mean, I know like combo, and combo of course,

916
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:46,360
Speaker 1: is a seaweed based food additive that is an amazing

917
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:49,399
Speaker 1: source of umami flavor. It's it's it's almost like raw

918
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:54,759
Speaker 1: msg it's it's good stuff um but but yeah, other

919
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:56,399
Speaker 1: than that, I don't know. I mean, I've had I've

920
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:59,719
Speaker 1: had like various seaweed salads at Japanese restaurants that have

921
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:02,160
Speaker 1: had different types of seaweeds, some that looked kind of

922
00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:05,400
Speaker 1: like orange brown, like like some species of sargassum do

923
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:08,319
Speaker 1: So maybe I have I don't know. Huh, Yeah, I

924
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:10,839
Speaker 1: think I've I've only I know of at least one time,

925
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:14,680
Speaker 1: had like a sampler of seaweed salads from the Japanese restaurant.

926
00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 1: But in those cases, I think they were all still

927
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: rather green. They didn't have um any kind of darker coloration.

928
00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I'm gonna look for it now

929
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 1: now it is on it is it is something I

930
00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:30,360
Speaker 1: want to specifically try out, knowing that it is sargassum.

931
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:32,080
Speaker 1: I just looked it up to make sure I I

932
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:35,080
Speaker 1: thought that combu was not sargassum, and it is not.

933
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 1: Combu is a type of kelp. Well, obviously we'd love

934
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:40,760
Speaker 1: to hear from everyone out there about this topic in general,

935
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:44,400
Speaker 1: but but specifically on this question of the cooking and

936
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:48,840
Speaker 1: the consumption of sargassum. If you've, if you've, you definitely

937
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:50,680
Speaker 1: know you've had it, and you've had in a particular

938
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:53,920
Speaker 1: way that was yummy or or or or not yummy.

939
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:56,120
Speaker 1: Let us know we would love to hear from you,

940
00:53:56,480 --> 00:53:58,920
Speaker 1: and likewise, just in you know, in general, any feedback

941
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:03,239
Speaker 1: about about the various organisms we've discussed here surrounding sargassum

942
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:07,239
Speaker 1: or uh sargassum, seaweed itself. Perhaps you're a snorkeler and

943
00:54:07,280 --> 00:54:09,480
Speaker 1: have your you know, two cents you want to throw

944
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:13,279
Speaker 1: in right in, we'd like to hear from you. In

945
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you would like to hear other episodes

946
00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow your Mind, you can find us

947
00:54:16,680 --> 00:54:20,000
Speaker 1: in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed and

948
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:22,560
Speaker 1: you know where to find that, just wherever you get podcasts.

949
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:26,840
Speaker 1: Um subscribe if you can rate us, if the platform

950
00:54:26,880 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 1: allows you to um, you know it gives us I

951
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:31,279
Speaker 1: guess a good ratings what we're asking for, you know

952
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:34,800
Speaker 1: that supposedly helps us out, but in general we're just

953
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:37,200
Speaker 1: thankful if you're if you're listening to the show, and

954
00:54:37,680 --> 00:54:39,440
Speaker 1: uh you know, right in, let us know what you

955
00:54:39,520 --> 00:54:41,279
Speaker 1: like about the show, what what you would like to

956
00:54:41,320 --> 00:54:44,239
Speaker 1: hear from us in the future, what other topics you

957
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:47,520
Speaker 1: would like us to consider. Yes, absolutely, uh so, I

958
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 1: guess we're closing out here, so huge thanks as always

959
00:54:50,480 --> 00:54:54,040
Speaker 1: to our wonderful audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you

960
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us as as

961
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:59,000
Speaker 1: Rob just asked there, to let us know feedback on

962
00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:01,759
Speaker 1: this episode or any to suggest a topic for a

963
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:04,320
Speaker 1: future episode, or just to say hi, you can email

964
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:15,359
Speaker 1: us at contact. That's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

965
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:17,880
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.

966
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:20,320
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I

967
00:55:20,440 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to

968
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:29,440
Speaker 1: your favorite shows