WEBVTT - The Bathysphere: Life in the Deep 0:00:01.639 --> 0:00:04.160 On the Earth at night in moonlight, I can always 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:08.440 imagine the yellow of sunshine, the scarlet of invisible blossoms. 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:12.440 But here, when the searchlight was off, yellow and orange 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.959 and red were unthinkable. The blue, which filled all space 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.759 admitted no thought of other colors. The return trip was 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:23.840 made in forty three minutes, an average of one foot 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.280 every two seconds. Twice during the ascent I was aware 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.400 of one or more indefinite large bodies moving about at 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.239 a distance. On the way down, I had accredited them 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.000 to an over excited imagination, but after having the experience 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.040 repeated on several deep dives, I am sure that I 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:44.440 did see shadowy shapes of large and very real living creatures. 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:46.680 What they were I can only guess, and live in 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.239 hopes of seeing them closer on some future descent. What 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.880 this great creature was I cannot say. A first and 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.200 most reasonable guests would be a small whale or blackfish. 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.640 We know that whales have a special chemical justment of 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.200 the blood which makes it possible for them to dive 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:05.920 a mile or more and come up without getting the bends. 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.240 So this paltry depth of two thousand, four hundred and 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.640 fifty feet would be nothing for any similarly equipped cetacean, 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:15.240 or less likely, it may have been a whale shark, 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.320 which is known to reach a length of forty feet. 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.920 Whatever it was, it appeared and vanished so unexpectedly and 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.600 showed so dimly that it was quite unidentifiable except as 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:33.720 a large living creature. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:42.880 Mind from How Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:44.960 stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb, 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.040 and I'm jere McCormick. And Robert. What were those readings from? Uh? 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:52.240 Those were the words of William Beebe in his biography 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.440 Half Mile Down, Half Mile Down. William Beebe was an 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:59.320 American naturalist who lived from eighteen seventy seven to nineteen 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.080 sixty two. And he was a fabulous writer. He was. Yes, 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.520 we were talking about this a little bit before we 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:07.960 went on. Area we have we have I guess two 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.320 major areas to look to his biography Half Mile Down, 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.799 which was certainly aimed at more of a general public audience, 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:17.919 but even in his writings to a scientific audience. I 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:22.079 admire the sort of directness and clarity of his writing. 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.320 I was looking at a report of his from his 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.080 underwater expeditions that he delivered in proceedings of the National 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:31.520 Academy of Sciences in the nineteen thirties, and it's wonderfully 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.080 written for a scientific paper. Yeah, I was. I was 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.959 reading so many of these accounts whilst listening to some 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.839 ambient electronic music, and it really I was getting chill 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.120 bumps at times when he's talking about descending into the 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:50.120 dark and seeing these various bioluminescent creatures come into his 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:52.960 line of vision, creatures that had had never been seen before, 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.560 and in some cases as well discussed creatures that have 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.200 not been seen or captured since. Now that is spooky. 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:01.800 So Robert, tell me, what does the main thing about 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:04.639 William BB's career we're gonna be focusing on today, Well, 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:08.560 we're gonna be talking about the bathosphere. The bathosphere which 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:13.080 is a Greek for deep sphere, which was the which 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:17.000 this was these basically the submersible deep ball, the deep 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.880 ball that that he used on the just groundbreaking trips 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:24.000 into the deep because prior to this, uh, this was 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.880 in the nineteen thirties. Prior to this, subs could only 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:29.360 get down about three hundred and eighty three feet or 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.079 hundred and sixteen meters or so, and uh An armored 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.320 dive suits were only good for about five twenty five 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.360 ft or a hundred sixty But the Bathosphere reached an 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:47.280 astonishing three thousand and twenty eight feet or nine two points. 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.000 That record was set in nineteen thirty four, and it 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.640 remained the record till nineteen forty nine. And that record 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.280 was set by William Beebe and his collaborator Otis Barton, 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.440 who together did many dives in the steel Ball, going 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.880 deep into the depths off Bermuda and in starting in 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.960 nineteen thirty. So we'll tell the story of the Bathosphere 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:09.520 more as we go on, But I guess first we 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.680 should talk about why why are we doing the Bathosphere today? 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:14.720 How did this come up? Well? I mean, on one hand, 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.600 it's it's a perfect topic because it deals with the 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.599 ocean and the deep mysteries of the ocean, which we 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:22.960 come back around to again and again on stuff to 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.919 blow your mind. I've been working on a lot lately, 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:27.520 A lot, yeah, a lot, like and part of that 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:29.360 is due to I do have a side project I've 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.520 been working on here at work that does concern deep 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:38.479 sea themes. Also, I've recently finished reading Peter watts novel Starfish, 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:43.080 which is a wonderful sort of cyberpunk sci fi novel 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.200 from several years back that takes takes place in the 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.000 deep ocean. Peter Watts the author of blind Side. Yes, 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.040 but he wrote Starfish many years before. Correct. Yeah, this 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.120 was his first big splash. You could say uh and 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:57.400 then uh and then also Joe, You and I recently 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:01.280 attended the exhibit Unseen Ocean at the American Museum of 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.760 Natural History in New York City, which is running March twelfth, 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.719 two thousand eighteen, through January six, two thousand and nineteen. 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.240 This was a really cool special exhibit. I really liked it, 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:13.360 and it got into a thing that's really hard to 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.760 explain in a in an interesting way, but it did it. 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.200 It got into the character of plankton, like making you 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.760 feel that like plankton has personality. There are different types 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:27.279 of plankton, and those types matter and they're interesting, Like 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.960 there are even these tiny zeno moreph some plankton. Yes, 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.200 it's easy to I feel like we we often have 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:37.240 this sort of science biology textbook approach to plankton, where 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.719 they are a little more than a little side note 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.040 at the beginning, and it's just like, these are these 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.200 are small creatures, don't worry about them. Larger or more 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.120 interesting creatures eat them. But of course they're they're extremely 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.640 vital and uh. And when you start keying in on 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:57.480 individual plankton specimens, there is this rich diversity. Uh, it's 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.840 on on par with anything you would find in other 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.080 regions of the animal kingdom. I mean, in a very 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:05.159 real way. They're sort of the ground floor of the 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.359 entire biosphere. And so you do find not only just 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:13.479 sort of interesting but also forgettable preycare creatures. You find 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:18.000 fascinating predators and parasites. But another great thing about this 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.920 exhibit is that it tells the story of people who 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:24.160 have tried to illuminate the depths of the ocean. I mean, 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.520 we we see nature documentaries showing us footage of what 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.080 happens under the sea. And because you've seen that footage, 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.720 now you might have this sense like, Okay, we finally 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:36.760 figured out what the oceans are, like, we know what's 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.520 down there. It's you know, it's it's finally conquered territory. 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.200 And in many ways it is it has been and 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.880 still remains the most mysterious thing about planet Earth. It 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.760 is not conquered territory. There's so much we haven't seen, 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.320 and we don't know about the deep oceans. Yeah, and 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:56.960 and you know that one of the interesting things, one 0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:58.640 of the one of the reasons we're talking about William 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.800 Beebe here today is that when you think about pioneers 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:07.279 in deep sea exploration, unless this is a topic that 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:11.680 you've read extensively about before or whatnot, and some of 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:15.280 the key names that come to mind are probably Jacques Cousteau, right, 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:19.960 And indeed, Jacques Custo did a lot uh in the 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:26.400 area of exploring our season, popularizing our understanding of the seas. 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.559 He's one of those figures that I think many people 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.400 of our generation actually know more directly from parody of 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.840 him than they know from him himself. Well maybe for 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.440 for today's like younger generations, but but he had a 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:43.200 long running television series narrated by Rod Serling. Oh yeah, well, 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.160 I just mean that, I know, I grew up not 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:47.640 really knowing anything about Jacque Custo himself, but I saw 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:53.440 countless cartoon and puppet French accent, you know, underwater explorer 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.720 type characters that were I don't mean like they were 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.240 attacking Jacques Custo, were making fun of him, but I 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.120 don't know. He seemed like a very parodiable character in 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.360 American culture, right. And of course today we have James Cameron, 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:11.160 who who's whose contribution to deep see exploration is a 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:15.480 is is real. Um. But but but as as far 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.520 as William Beebe goes in the bathisphere, like, this is 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:22.400 a story that I feel isn't as celebrated in pop culture. 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:27.240 It's it's it's certainly remembered in the in the history 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:31.080 of marine biology and our exploration of the seas. I mean, 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:34.319 it's not it's not something that's forgotten. Before we did 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.120 this exhibit, I knew pretty much nothing about this. Yeah, yeah, 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.080 But I think where I started really discovering it was 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:44.120 was in reading Starfish, in which Peter Watts makes several 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:48.360 mentions of BB and his contributions and his sightings not 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:49.800 just a quick note. This is going to be a 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.760 two parter. We started recording it and we were just 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:54.640 going way too long. So we went ahead and made 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.480 the decision let's cut it into UH and UH and 0:08:57.520 --> 0:08:59.560 spread it out over the course of a week instead 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.840 of draping like a nearly two hour episode right in 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:04.600 your lap. Well, I mean there's a lot of deep 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:06.600 sea out there, right, that's right. I can't blame us 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:08.880 for talking forever on that and we're only scratching the 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:13.439 surface on it. Well, maybe the best understand Baby's contributions. 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.400 It helps to turn our eyes to the past and 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:21.199 to look at what humanities knowledge of the deepest parts 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.760 of the ocean, or even not the deepest, even the 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:28.559 deeper parts of the ocean was like before the Bathmosphere expedition, 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.200 And so what we knew and what the process of 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.200 exploring the deep sea was like. So, Robert, will you 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:38.440 come along with me to the age of sea monsters? Yes, yes, 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.559 here they'd be dragons. So, given how little we know 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.200 about the deep ocean, just think about how mysterious the 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.679 depths were before just about a hundred years ago, or 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.959 in even earlier times when less was known about biology 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.760 in general, that you could extrapolate to the deep ocean, 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.400 when stories of sea monsters, the size of whole islands 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:00.600 rising out the out of the deep was really not 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.360 out of the realm of possibility. That's something I'd like 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:07.960 to emphasize. It was not just fanciful to imagine back then, 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:14.120 you had no reason necessarily to doubt stories of sea monsters, right, yeah, 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.760 I mean because ultimately, what did we know of the 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.480 of the depths or even the greater expanses of the sea. 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:24.880 We did not know about whole continents out there, So uh, 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:28.000 it would seem entirely possible that you would have giant 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.600 sea creatures. And in fact, we saw giant sea creatures 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:35.479 in the forms of of spouting whales and various carcasses 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:39.360 that occasionally drift up to shore exactly right. So most 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.560 of the time in human history was a time when 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.800 people could not look beneath the ocean. They didn't they 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:49.280 didn't really have any idea other than what sailors might 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:51.600 have said they saw coming up to the surface every 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:53.360 now and then. But that was just a peak. That 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.040 was just what came up to the surface. I mean, 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:58.480 what's deep down there? Who the heck knows. So one 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:00.640 example of the kinds of beliefs it used to be 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.120 so plausible about the creatures that lived in the deep. 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.560 I want to reference a passage that's quoted in Chet 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.960 van Deuser's book Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps, 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:11.720 which Robert this is a book you loaned me and 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:13.680 it's fantastic. Oh yeah, this is what. This is a 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.960 wonderful book, wonderful content. And there's so many rich illustrations 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.160 from these old maps. Yeah, they're they're wonderful. Now. Originally, 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.480 this quote is from the Kona Skusa or the King's Mirror, 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.720 which is a thirteenth century Old Norse educational text. So 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:31.840 it's got it's written in the form of a dialogue, 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.120 and it's got characters talking to each other about things 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:37.640 in the world, and we come to this passage talking 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.880 about marine life. So here it is quote. There is 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.160 a fish not yet mentioned, which it is scarcely advisable 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.839 to speak about, on account of its size, which to 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.600 most men will seem incredible. There are, moreover, but very 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.720 few who can tell anything definite about it, inasmuch as 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:57.640 it is rarely seen by men, for it almost never 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.760 approaches the shore or appears where fisher and can see it. 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:03.040 And I doubt that this sort of fish is very 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.079 plentiful in the sea. In our language it is usually 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.480 called the kraken. I can say nothing definite as to 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:12.480 its length in els, for on those occasions when men 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.320 have seen it it has appeared more like an island 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:17.920 than a fish, Nor have I heard that one has 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.920 ever been caught or found dead. It seems likely that 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.640 there are but two in all the ocean, and that 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.440 these beget no offspring, for I believe it is always 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.240 the same ones that appear. Nor would it be well 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.240 for other fishes if they were as numerous as other whales, 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.720 Seeing that they are so immense and needs so much food. 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:39.960 It is said that when these fishes want something to eat, 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.280 they are in the habit of giving forth a violent belch, 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.480 which brings up so much food that all sorts of 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.760 fish in the neighborhood, both large and small, will rush 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.600 up in hopes of getting nourishment and good fair. Meanwhile, 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.800 the monster keeps its mouth open, and inasmuch as its 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.720 opening is about as wide as a sound or fiord, 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.719 the fishes cannot help crowding in great numbers. But as 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:05.880 soon as its mouth and belly are full, the monster 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:09.400 closes its mouth, and thus catches and shuts in all 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.640 the fishes that just previously had rushed in eagerly to 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:16.240 seek food. Oh wow, that is a fabulous description. Yeah, 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.760 and that's an amazing hunting strategy. Yeah, I offhand, I 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:24.080 can't think of a real world organism that actually employs 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:28.360 something like that. Well, there's sort of, um, there are 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.520 versions in much smaller scales. Now, obviously you've got like 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.000 the snapping turtle with the fake worm lure in its 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.000 mouth and it will wait for the fish to sneak 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.480 in to get the food and then clamp shut. But 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.000 those artificial lures, right, But what we have here is 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.640 like this creature has eaten so much sea life and 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.360 then it vomits that sea life up, which brings in 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.800 greater populations of sea life, which it then it just 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.280 then just sucks all of that down. Yeah, but I 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.760 want to emphasize again this sounds ridiculous to us, but 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.319 we're living after Darwin. We know a lot more. We're 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:01.680 living after dar one name. We're living after you know, 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.560 submarines going down and looking at, well, what kind of 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.920 sea life is there? Really, we still don't know a 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.640 whole lot, but we know enough that this doesn't seem plausible. 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.720 But if you were armed with only what an educated 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:17.520 Norwegian courtier knew about deep sea life in the thirteenth century, 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.800 how would you argue against these accounts? Indeed, and uh, 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.200 you know this is there's another point that chet VanDuzer 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.360 makes in his book is that like in the ancient world, 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.360 it was it was often assumed that anything that existed 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.840 on the surface likely had a counterpart beneath the waves 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:36.840 and the mirror world. And I mean the names stick 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.680 with us, the sea lion, the sea cow, ce cucumber, 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.400 I guess the cea cucumber two, but the see hamburger. 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.000 But basically, when you start looking at all these fabulous beasts, 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:48.280 and I think we alluded to this a little bit 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:54.080 in our Aquatic Humanoids episode episodes, Uh, you find all 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:58.920 these various just ridiculous like sea dogs, etcetera. Literally the 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:01.280 idea that whatever we have here there must be a 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:05.040 counterpart beneath the waves. And I mean, to a certain extent, 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.080 there's there's a bit of truth in that, just the 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.480 idea that that whatever diversity we have on the surface, 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.800 that diversity must be represented beneath the waves. But of course, 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.920 in reality it's even it's even greater than that. The 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:22.640 vast majority of the planet's biodiversity is in the ocean. Well, yeah, 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:24.560 there's just so much ocean, and there are so many 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.600 ecological niches to fill within it. All right, we're gonna 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:29.760 take a quick break and then we'll jump right back in. 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.560 Thank thank you, thank you. All right, we're back now. 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.560 Of course, as we've said that, over time there has 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.720 been this steady increasing catalog of some knowledge about undersea life. 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:42.480 There's still a lot we don't know, but we know 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:44.600 a lot more than we used to. And one of 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.040 the earliest major explorations of marine biology was that of 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:52.160 Aristotle in the fourth century BC. In his Biology or 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:56.360 This History of of Animal Life, Aristotle got a lot wrong, like, 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.480 for example, he said the octopus is a stupid creature, 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:01.840 for it will approach a man's hand if it be 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.359 lowered in the water. Now, on the other hand, Aristotle, 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.560 for his time, if you consider his limitations, got an 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:13.080 astonishing amount right. For example, he correctly determined that whales 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.200 and dolphins were not fish, and he made lots of 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:20.560 other extremely astute classifications. So, uh, filed this away under. 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.640 Aristotle occasionally says things that sound dumb to us, but 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.320 was not dumb. Yeah, yeah, I feel like we've touched 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:30.120 on this before on other topics. Uh. From our advantage point, 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.160 it's easy to to say Oh, yeah, you really screwed 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.200 that after Aristotle. But really, given what he had to 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:40.280 work with, his his understanding of the natural world was amazing. Yeah, 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:45.000 I just mean think about Aristotle's the research methods available 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:46.640 to him. Now, A lot of what he did he 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:49.640 probably he probably got a lot of information by like 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.760 talking to fisher folk and stuff like that. But he 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.240 also I think some people have said, you know, it 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:59.600 really looks from some of his statements like Aristotle performed dissections, 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.200 So we must have had some access to specimens. And 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:04.879 it's not so easy to always get specimens in the 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.200 ancient world, Like how how do you collect them? Do 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.360 you just like throw some nets and hope you get 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:13.160 some good stuff? Yeah? Especially this is especially important considering 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.080 that you have other historians and writers of the ancient 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.879 world who are very much going on second, third, and 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:22.480 fourth hand accounts of what was going on elsewhere in 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.560 the world. And and and that's where we see some 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:29.840 of these more ridiculous notions of of even terrestrial monsters 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:33.080 and creatures. Totally, it's like it's through a glass darkly 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.879 on in like four ways, right, So you're getting it secondhand. 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:39.560 You know that you heard a story from somebody who 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.679 heard a story who also was not really beneath the 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:44.760 waves when he or she saw this thing, but just 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.040 saw something poke up from the surface. I mean, there's 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:51.240 so many levels of removed from the actual biological reality 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.080 that it's not hard to understand where these myths about 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.879 sea monsters come from. So to explore the idea of 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.840 ways of understanding the deep sea, like the research methods 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.320 available to us before recent times, and like the invention 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.719 of modern technology like sonar and other stuff. Uh, there 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.639 were I want to say they were basically two broad 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.520 methods for studying the deepest parts of the ocean, and 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:17.440 for a little mythological flare, I want I want to 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.560 give them some mythological names to help us keep them organized. 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.119 So one I want to call the Ebisu method. So 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.639 Ebisu is the Japanese luck god, often depicted as a 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.720 jolly fisherman with a bright red bream on his line. 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.720 He's always got a fishing pole. So the Ebissue method 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.000 is to use some kind of method to pull creatures 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.600 up from the deep to the surface so you can 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:42.680 study them go fishing basically, okay. And the other one 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:47.240 I want to call the Gilgamesh method. Because Gilgamesh, of course, 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.880 is the protagonist of the four thousand year old Mesopotamian 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.760 work known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. And if you'll 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.280 recall and from the Epic of Gilgamesh and the second 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:59.000 half of the story Gilgamesh, he gets obsessed with finding 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.719 the secret of eternal life. And in Tablet eleven, he 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.199 receives a tip that there is a plant at the 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.600 bottom of the ocean covered in prickling thorns, which if 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:10.480 you pull it up from the ocean old grant you 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:14.720 eternal life. And so, to read from the Andrew George translation, 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.440 quote heavy stones, he tied to his feet, and they 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:22.000 pulled him down to the ocean below. He took the 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:25.240 plant and pulled it up and lifted it. The heavy 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:28.080 stones he cut loose from his feet, and the sea 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:32.000 cast him up on its shore. So the idea is Gilgamesh, 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.359 he weighs himself down, he goes to the very bottom 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:36.320 of the ocean, he cuts up this plant, and then 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.560 he cuts himself loose. So the Gilgamesh method, I'm going 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:41.440 to say is to dive as deep as you can 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.000 into the dark world and see what you can see. 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:45.639 But of course you also have to be able to 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.359 come back and report what you've seen. Right, Not not 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:50.440 all of us are Gilgamesh. Right, it seemed like he 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:52.880 could hold his breath for a long time and withstand 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.560 some crushing compression. They probably didn't necessarily understand at the time, 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.679 But so people have been accidentally practicing versions of the 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.600 Ebisome method for thousands of years. Right. So of course 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.840 the easiest thing is that sometimes dead organisms from the 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:09.119 deep sea will wash up on the shore in various 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:11.960 states of decomposition, and people could look at that and say, 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.480 I wonder what this is. Yeah, but we still see 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.720 this all the time. I feel like only a few 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:21.600 months will go go go by before there's another, uh 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.760 weird dead thing that's washed upon the beach, and various 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.679 websites will will start speculating as to what it was, 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.760 and generally they'll say, Oh, it's probably uh nessy, it's 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.560 probably a dinosaur. Yea monster. I mean, I'm torn because 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.359 I I love a good beach monster and I hate 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:43.080 the Daily Mail, and the latter is the best place 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.879 to go for the former. You you will always get. 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:48.760 The beach monster is interpreted in various ways, but I mean, 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:53.280 beach monster is a wild, grotesque and often classified as 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.040 monsters that don't really exist, can show us some things 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:58.520 about the deep ocean. Uh. The other thing would be 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:02.240 accidental ebisome method practicing just through fishing. People are throwing 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:04.840 nets in order to catch some fish to eat, but 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:07.880 they pull up something interesting by accident. Now, whether you're 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.199 practicing that this method on purpose or by accident, there 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:13.480 are definitely limits to what you can learn through it, 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:15.320 and will explore some of those limits in a bit. 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.840 One surprising thing to learn is that, according to some reports, 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:24.159 ancient people's actually did practice versions of the Gilgamesh method 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:27.400 as well. So, going back to Aristotle in his three 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.679 sixty BC work Problem at Um or the Problems, Aristotle 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:35.040 actually gives the earliest description I'm aware of of deep 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:37.879 diving technology. And so this is going to be a 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.760 version of the diving bell. And he's talking about divers 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.719 who fish for sponges on the sea floor, and he 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:48.240 discusses all kinds of weird practices these divers used to 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:52.320 make the deep more tolerable, and these include fastening sponges 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:56.119 around their ears or cutting slits in their own ears 0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:00.000