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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My

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

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Speaker 1: Time for an episode from the Vault. This one originally

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Speaker 1: aired on May four, and uh oh, this was the

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Speaker 1: Star Wars Alien Necropsy Part one that we I think

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Speaker 1: we ended up dissecting several alien species. Do we do

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Speaker 1: the minox? I'm having trouble remembering this one. I think

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Speaker 1: we did. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm it's been It seems

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Speaker 1: like a lot has happened since we did these episodes,

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Speaker 1: but I remember them being a lot of fun, and

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Speaker 1: this is gonna be the perfect time to to re

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Speaker 1: explore them. There's a lot going on in the Star

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Speaker 1: Wars uh universe out there, and we have another episode

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Speaker 1: of Weird How Cinema coming up where we're gonna look

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Speaker 1: at a Star Wars knockoff film, so that's always exciting.

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Speaker 1: Oh boy, Lord Veda requires all of these necropsy is

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Speaker 1: to be completed by the end of the day. The

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Speaker 1: surgical Droids says these are substantial specimens. We might require

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Speaker 1: more time two episodes. Even Lord Vader is not a

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Speaker 1: fan of two parts. He says the anatomy of the

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Speaker 1: alien specimens are quite involved, and if we're to perform

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Speaker 1: a complete analysis, will need more time. Okay, fine, but

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Speaker 1: the results better be extremely infotaining. Welcome to st Have

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And you know, the

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Speaker 1: last couple of years, Rob, you really leaned into the holidays.

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Speaker 1: But most of those holidays were towards the end of

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Speaker 1: the year, the wintertime holidays, the hibernation holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas,

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Speaker 1: of course Halloween. But we do that all the time.

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Speaker 1: And I think I get the sense that you are

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Speaker 1: so strongly leaning into the holidays that it has continued

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Speaker 1: into the month of May. Yeah, I guess, I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: bringing that spirit uh into May, especially for today's holiday,

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Speaker 1: uh May the Fourth, as in May the Fourth be

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Speaker 1: with you, which is of course the one day each

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Speaker 1: year that everyone gets to go crazy for Star Wars

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Speaker 1: in addition to plan, addition to all the other days.

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Speaker 1: I guess. But um, but yeah, I I you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know that even though I think my son

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Speaker 1: and I had gotten super into Star Wars this at

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Speaker 1: this point. Last year, I think we kind of forgot

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Speaker 1: about May the four being a thing. Like May the

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Speaker 1: fourth was never a thing when I was a Star

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Speaker 1: Wars fan as a kid that I know of, so

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Speaker 1: it kind of blew right past me. Um. But but

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Speaker 1: this time I I kind of realized that the last minute,

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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, May fourth is next week. It's it's

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Speaker 1: Star Wars Day. It's just uh, just open season. We

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Speaker 1: should do some Star Wars content. You know. I would

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Speaker 1: have guessed, even as obsessed with Star Wars as you

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Speaker 1: were last year, and I guess continuing into this year, uh,

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Speaker 1: that that May the fourth wouldn't be your bag. I

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Speaker 1: would I would expect that May the fourth would kind

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Speaker 1: of irritate you, would be one of those cute little

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Speaker 1: things that gets under your skin. Am I wrong? Um? No? No,

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Speaker 1: I mean I think I don't have any problem with it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, especially since there's like new stuff coming out.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, if that's if this sets the deadline

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Speaker 1: for for the bad Batch animated series to come out

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Speaker 1: and makes them you know, put it out, then I'm

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Speaker 1: glad that we have it. Otherwise stuff would just keep

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Speaker 1: getting delayed right right, Okay, yes, just wedge on into

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Speaker 1: our calendars. Yeah, maybe they'll come up with another Star

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Speaker 1: Wars holiday this year. Well, some say that there's we

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Speaker 1: have May the fourth and it Made the Fourth be

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Speaker 1: with you and then write. Some say there's Revenge of

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Speaker 1: the Fifth, which is tomorrow. But I don't know, Um,

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Speaker 1: I don't know how how crazy they Maybe there's something

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Speaker 1: for the sixth as well, but I think I think

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Speaker 1: it's gonna be appropriate that it will continue after today,

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Speaker 1: because we originally planned for this to be one episode,

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Speaker 1: but then as we were working on the notes, we

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Speaker 1: were like, oh, wait a minute, We've got like, you know,

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Speaker 1: fifty thou pages of content or whatever it is we've

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Speaker 1: got now, So so this will definitely be at least

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Speaker 1: Tuesday and Thursday of this week. It is a it

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Speaker 1: is a week long Made the Fourth, Yes, yes, as well,

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Speaker 1: it should be. So. Obviously we've talked about Star Wars

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Speaker 1: a bit here on the show in the past, whether

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Speaker 1: it be a discussion of you know, the question, could

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Speaker 1: Jupiter be blown up by the Death Star? Uh, and

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Speaker 1: I think the answer was probably not. We've also talked

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Speaker 1: about the Mighty Sarlac, and we also did a Weird

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Speaker 1: House Cinema episode on e Walks the Battle for Indoor.

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Speaker 1: But in this episode we're gonna take the old my

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Speaker 1: monster science approach to the some of the the aliens

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Speaker 1: from the Star Wars universe, you know, using some sort

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Speaker 1: of some bit of fantastic biology and then using that

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Speaker 1: as a way to discuss real world terrestrial biology and

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Speaker 1: finding where things line up where they don't, etcetera. Now

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Speaker 1: standard disclaimer here we are Star Wars fans, but we

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Speaker 1: are not Star Wars experts. We're probably not going to

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Speaker 1: perfectly reflect cannon or legend uh with regards to the

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Speaker 1: Star Wars universe with accuracy. Here. We haven't read every

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Speaker 1: scientific meditation on Star Wars, and we don't know the

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Speaker 1: extended universe perfectly. But we'll do the best we can here,

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Speaker 1: and we'll have some fun with the topic. But we

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Speaker 1: fully invite you to get mad about it. Well, there's

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Speaker 1: no reason to get mad about it. This is all

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Speaker 1: too too fun. But yes, certainly, um, feel free to

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Speaker 1: write in if if you have any actually he's uh

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Speaker 1: to share with us regarding the creatures we're talking about

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Speaker 1: here today. Well, put, all right, Well, let's start with

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Speaker 1: your first selection Joe, what did you choose from the

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Speaker 1: the vast and exotic Star Wars universe? Okay, Well, to

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Speaker 1: set the stage the film is The Empire Strikes Back.

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Speaker 1: It's that mid movie section, the chase where han Leia,

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Speaker 1: Chewy and C three p O are on the run

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Speaker 1: from the Imperial fleet in the Millennium Falcon. This is

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Speaker 1: after they have evacuated the hath base and there are

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Speaker 1: a group of star destroyers that are chasing the Millennium

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Speaker 1: Falcon and they chase it into an asteroid field. This

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Speaker 1: was one of my favorite parts when I was a kid.

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Speaker 1: I still love it today. There's a kind of it

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Speaker 1: almost becomes like a James Bond car chase or like

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Speaker 1: Smokey and the Bandit where you know, they're like the

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Speaker 1: scene where the cars are zipping around, you know, through

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Speaker 1: obstacles and around traffic, but it's in space and instead

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Speaker 1: of other cars and a bunch of barrels and just

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Speaker 1: street you know, uh, tomato carts in the way and stuff,

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Speaker 1: it is asteroids and of course this is extremely dangerous

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Speaker 1: there space rocks crashing all around and uh. The Falcon

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Speaker 1: eventually manages to evade its Imperial pursuers and it hides

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Speaker 1: in a cave on a large asteroid. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: this is a great sequence in a just a great

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Speaker 1: Star Wars film. It's one of those like out of

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Speaker 1: the frying pan into the fire moments where actually it's

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Speaker 1: like into a third frying pan or front five because

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Speaker 1: everyone's gotten out of hot. You've had that tremendous battle

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Speaker 1: seat once with all of its ins and outs. Then

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Speaker 1: you have the asteroid field, and then what happens next

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Speaker 1: is uh, it comes from an entirely different direction. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's one of the great things about the story structure

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Speaker 1: of the Empire Strikes Back is that you know you're

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Speaker 1: cutting between the different characters and the things they're doing.

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Speaker 1: But when you're with han Leia, Chewy and c three

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Speaker 1: p Oh, it's just one frying pan to another. Every

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Speaker 1: time they get to a new place, they think that

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Speaker 1: they're finally safe now, but then they realize that the

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Speaker 1: floor is teflon and things start heating up, and it's

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Speaker 1: just on to the next crisis. But in this cave

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Speaker 1: we get some creature encounters. So first the Millennium falcon

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Speaker 1: is swarmed by a flock of nasty winged creatures with

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Speaker 1: ring shaped sucker mouths and there they look sort of

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Speaker 1: like sulfurous leech bats. These are called minox Han, and

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Speaker 1: Chewy seem to be familiar with them like that they

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Speaker 1: once they see them, Hans says, uh my Knox, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: like he talks about them like they're very common nuisance

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Speaker 1: animals for space travelers. He says that they're chewing on

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Speaker 1: the power cables, like, yeah, that's what they always do.

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Speaker 1: And so our heroes they leave the ship, they go outside,

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Speaker 1: go down the ramp and start walking around outside with

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Speaker 1: these little oxygen masks on while they're trying to blast

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Speaker 1: the mineox off. But then they encounter and it's another

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Speaker 1: realizing you're actually in another frying pan moment when it

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Speaker 1: is revealed that the cave that they're hiding in is

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Speaker 1: no cave at all. It is a giant carnivorous worm

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Speaker 1: of some kind and they have essentially parked down its gullet,

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Speaker 1: And of course there's a great escape sequence where they

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Speaker 1: have to rock it out between its closing jaws just

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Speaker 1: in time. Is the teeth are coming together. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it's a fabulous looking creature to this big alien whalish

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Speaker 1: worm monster. Yeah. One of the best. This giant worm

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Speaker 1: creature on the asteroid is not named in the movie.

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Speaker 1: I mean they say what the minox are. It's like,

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Speaker 1: it's like, it's almost as if in Star Wars it's

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Speaker 1: like saying, oh, rats, we've got rats here, We've got

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Speaker 1: my knox, but they never say what this thing is.

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Speaker 1: I looked it up and some plenty of the Elder

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Speaker 1: of the Galaxy has given its species of designation. It

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Speaker 1: is called an exo gorth or alternately a space slug.

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Speaker 1: And Rob, I've got some pictures attached here for you

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Speaker 1: to look at. Of course, we've seen the movie, so

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Speaker 1: we know what it looks like. It's is this giant Uh?

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Speaker 1: Have have to be honest and say, somewhat phallic looking

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Speaker 1: worm comes up out of the hole. It's got the

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Speaker 1: big jaws clamping after the ship, so it seems to

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Speaker 1: be actively wanting to eat the space ship. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: then I found another image that I think is from

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Speaker 1: one of the Marvel Star Wars comics, and it's a panel.

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Speaker 1: I really don't know the context of how this happens,

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Speaker 1: but there's a panel in a comic somewhere where a

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Speaker 1: star destroyer flies into a giant Exo Gorth's mouth. That

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Speaker 1: doesn't look like it's going to end well for for

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Speaker 1: anybody involved there. That's something that the extra it looks

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Speaker 1: like that's that's too big of a mouthful. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: there's something very interesting about both of these alien species,

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Speaker 1: the min Ox and the Exo gorths uh. And it's

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Speaker 1: something that I've actually thought about for a long time.

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Speaker 1: I remember having this thought, maybe not when I very

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Speaker 1: first saw Star Wars when I was a kid, but

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Speaker 1: at some point it occurred to me that these are

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Speaker 1: the only aliens I can think of in the Star

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Speaker 1: Wars movies that are not found on a planet, but

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Speaker 1: in outer space itself, on the barren terrain of an

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Speaker 1: asteroid with no atmosphere, living in the vacuum. These are

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Speaker 1: vacuum dwellers. Yeah, and I think it was that way

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Speaker 1: for a long time. Eventually, they also introduced a creature

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Speaker 1: called a Purgle that came around. I think it was

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Speaker 1: introduced in Star Wars Rebels, one of the animated series,

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Speaker 1: and I have a feeling it's going to show up

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Speaker 1: in some live action stuff in the near future. But

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Speaker 1: they're like a deep space whale like organism with its

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Speaker 1: kind of a squid, like a combination betwe in, a

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Speaker 1: space squid and a space whale. And they're capable of

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Speaker 1: entering hyperspace even but they're kind of they have a

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Speaker 1: lot in common with the design of the Exo Go.

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Speaker 1: They're kind of like the Noble Exo Gorth. The picture

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Speaker 1: you attached looks mad. He's got like the downturned eyebrow.

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Speaker 1: He looks like he's he's looking for a fight. Well,

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Speaker 1: they they explore this kind of like whale like nature

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Speaker 1: where if you're if you're not treating them right, if

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Speaker 1: you're abusing them, then yeah, they can be quite dangerous,

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Speaker 1: but if you try to understand them, then you realize

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Speaker 1: that they have this very passive and beautiful nature. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I can see that. So it's like the you know,

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Speaker 1: somebody says about the dog, like, oh, he doesn't like strangers,

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Speaker 1: but when you warm up to him, you know, he's

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Speaker 1: a he's a real cuttlebug. Yeah. So, anyway, for this

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Speaker 1: entry of our Aliens Star Wars Alien Neck Cropsy, I

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Speaker 1: wanted to to think about the idea of vacuum dwellers

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Speaker 1: as a as a proposal as a concept. Now Star

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Speaker 1: Wars obviously it is not hard science fiction. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's not trying to create a scientifically grounded experience. It's

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Speaker 1: a fantasy. And that's fine. I mean, you've got no

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Speaker 1: problem at all with with soft science fiction and space fantasy.

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Speaker 1: I love that stuff. Uh, And there are plenty of

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Speaker 1: elements in this sequence that are really nothing like what

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Speaker 1: we'd expect to find in reality. So I wanted to

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Speaker 1: mention a couple of other examples of that before we

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Speaker 1: get back to the idea of a vacuum dwelling organism

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Speaker 1: and consider the plausibility of that. One example of how

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Speaker 1: this doesn't really resemble reality in any recognizable way is

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Speaker 1: the idea of how dense the asteroid belt in the

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Speaker 1: Empire Strikes Back is how it's just crammed with rocks

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Speaker 1: that are moving really close to each other and slamming

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Speaker 1: together all the time, And how this compares to the

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Speaker 1: one example of a real asteroid belt that we know about.

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Speaker 1: And this is a standard feature of sci fi movies.

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Speaker 1: It's not just Empire Strikes Back. I mean, I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of times there are space battles in an

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt that is just a mind field. This densely

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Speaker 1: packed obstacle course of of giant boulders that are going

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Speaker 1: to smash into your ship and kill you, and the

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Speaker 1: ships have to frantically dodge around through the slamming rocks

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Speaker 1: while they dog fight. Yeah, it's a great sequence, but

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Speaker 1: it is just um maddening, just how how tired everything is,

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Speaker 1: and and it just seems like a complete nightmare that

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Speaker 1: anyone would I mean, it seems like it should be

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Speaker 1: a Butcher Cassidy and the Sundance Kid kind of moment, right,

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Speaker 1: Like why would the Thai fighters even chase them in there?

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Speaker 1: Like how because how could you expect to survive unless

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Speaker 1: you were like a fourth sensitive pilot of some sort,

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Speaker 1: you know, or like the greatest pilot of all time,

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Speaker 1: like like a Han Solo. Yeah, they'd be crazy to

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Speaker 1: follow us, wouldn't they. And I know when I was

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Speaker 1: a kid, I pictured the asteroid belt of our solar

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Speaker 1: system being like this, probably because of especially Empire, but

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Speaker 1: more generally movies like this that it's just you know,

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Speaker 1: it's just tight with rocks. But now we know that

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Speaker 1: is not the case. I was trying to find what

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Speaker 1: is the actual density of the asteroid belting terms of

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Speaker 1: asteroids of an appreciable size. I found an explainer about

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Speaker 1: this from Scientific American that's older. It's from nine so

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Speaker 1: our our our knowledge might be a little bit updated

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Speaker 1: since then. But this, I feel it gives you a

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Speaker 1: good idea to asks several experts about this, this question

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Speaker 1: of the density of the asteroid belt. First of all,

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Speaker 1: there was an interesting story in it that's relayed by

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Speaker 1: Tom Garrels of the University of Arizona, who said that quote.

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Speaker 1: Some scientists were seriously concerned about the possible high density

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Speaker 1: of objects in the asteroid belt, which lies between the

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Speaker 1: orbits of Mars and Jupiter, when the first robotic spacecraft

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Speaker 1: were scheduled to be sent through it. The first crossing

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Speaker 1: of the asteroid belt took place in the early nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventies when the Pioneer ten and Pioneer eleven spacecraft journey

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Speaker 1: to Jupiter and beyond. The danger lies not in the

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Speaker 1: risk of hitting a large object. In fact, such a

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Speaker 1: risk is minuscule because there is a tremendous amount of

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Speaker 1: space between Mars and Jupiter, and because the objects there

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Speaker 1: are very small in relation. Even though there are perhaps

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Speaker 1: a million asteroids larger than one kilometer in diameter, the

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Speaker 1: chance of a spacecraft and not getting through the asteroid

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Speaker 1: belt is nearly negligible. And then there was an updated

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Speaker 1: thought that came in after that from David Morrison of

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Speaker 1: NASA AMES who said, quote, there were more than a

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand asteroids larger than one kilometer in diameter, but

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Speaker 1: these objects are distributed within the huge volume of the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt. Their average spacing is several million kilometers. Collisions

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Speaker 1: are thus extremely rare. An average one kilometer asteroid suffers

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Speaker 1: one collision every few billion years, or maybe one or

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Speaker 1: two collisions over the lifetime of the Solar System. The

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Speaker 1: spacing is also so large that seen from one asteroid,

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Speaker 1: even the nearest one kilometer asteroid would likely be too

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Speaker 1: faint to be visible without a telescope. Uh So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: extreme distances between these objects now because there aren't a

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Speaker 1: lot of objects. There are, but the you know, space

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Speaker 1: is gigantic, so the space between them is also gigantic.

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Speaker 1: If you were to fly into an asteroid belt, it's

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Speaker 1: actually unlikely you would even notice it. You probably wouldn't

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Speaker 1: see any asteroids while you were flying through it. Though,

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Speaker 1: I did think about something that could make another interesting

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Speaker 1: I'm sure some movie has done this but it could

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Speaker 1: make a different kind of threat of traveling through an

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt interesting. I think the more likely risk while

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Speaker 1: flying through an asteroid belt is not that you would

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Speaker 1: be smashed between giant space rocks while you're trying to

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Speaker 1: dodge through them, but the chance that you would hit

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Speaker 1: an invisibly tiny micro asteroid at high speed, and it

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Speaker 1: would be like a bomb because of the kinetic energy

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Speaker 1: of the impact because it's going so fast and you're

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Speaker 1: going so fast. Though I guess, of course, it would

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Speaker 1: depend on how fast you were going and what angle

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Speaker 1: you hit it at relative to its own trajectory. I mean,

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Speaker 1: a head on collision with a with a tiny asteroid

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Speaker 1: could be catastrophic. But there's another thing in the sequence

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Speaker 1: that doesn't make sense if you try to bring hard

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Speaker 1: sci fi rules to it, which is the part where

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Speaker 1: they're in the cave and the minox show up in

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Speaker 1: that great moment where I think Leiah is looking out

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Speaker 1: the window and then suddenly the big sucker comes down

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Speaker 1: and he got which I was talking to Rachel about

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Speaker 1: this earlier this morning, and she says, when she saw

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Speaker 1: that part in the theater, when the Star Wars remasters

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Speaker 1: or remake not remakes, the whatever you call him. The

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Speaker 1: remasters came out in the nineties or the earlier. I

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Speaker 1: guess it was the nineties. Yeah, that she just like

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Speaker 1: screamed in the theater, just like Bloody Murder screamed. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's startling and gross totally. It's like, it still gets

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Speaker 1: me when I watched the movie. It's very suddenly that

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Speaker 1: noise it makes. It's like when the head pops out

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Speaker 1: of the boat and Jaws, you know, and when Richard

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Speaker 1: Dreyfuss is like down in the water looking at it.

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Speaker 1: It gets you every time. But anyway, so there's yeah,

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Speaker 1: the minox come out, and so Han and Chewy and

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Speaker 1: Leah walk outside of the Millennium Falcon in their regular

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Speaker 1: oaths wearing little oxygen masks. So this is another one

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Speaker 1: of those space fantasy things, because this would not work

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Speaker 1: on a real asteroid. The vacuum would kill you pretty quickly,

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Speaker 1: even if you had a little oxygen mask. So I

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Speaker 1: found a good explainer on this. This was also a

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Speaker 1: Scientific American article. This was written by Anna Goslin in

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Speaker 1: two thousand eight, and and of course one thing we

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Speaker 1: should be clear about is that a vacuum in as

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Speaker 1: the term is generally used is defined as a region

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Speaker 1: of space with extremely low gas pressure. Uh. It's sort

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Speaker 1: of a conventional definition because even in outer space, there's

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Speaker 1: not nothing in space. You're still going to have a

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Speaker 1: few random hydrogen atoms floating around and stuff, but it's

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Speaker 1: pressure so low that it's negligible. So once you walk

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Speaker 1: out of the Millennium falcon, once you are exposed to

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Speaker 1: the low pressure environment of a vacuum of space, several

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Speaker 1: things are going to happen pretty quickly. One is that

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Speaker 1: because of the lower pressure, gas is tend to expand,

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Speaker 1: and this includes the gases that are trapped in your body,

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Speaker 1: trapped in your lungs. So if you're holding your breath

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Speaker 1: or inhaling, this expanding gas is going to cause trauma

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Speaker 1: in the lungs, tearing up gas exchange tissues. Also, the

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Speaker 1: low pressure will cause water to boil at a lower temperature,

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Speaker 1: and in the case of a vacuum, this means water

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Speaker 1: boils at a temperature lower than your body temperature, which

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Speaker 1: translates to swelling in the body, rapid evaporation of water

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Speaker 1: vapor from the easiest escape roots in your body, and

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Speaker 1: primarily this will be things like the holes in your face,

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Speaker 1: like your mouth, nose, and eyes, and this rapid boiling

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Speaker 1: off of water will of course cause very low temperatures

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Speaker 1: around these holes in your face. I think about the

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Speaker 1: way that you know, the rapid evaporation of water cools

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Speaker 1: your body through sweat, except take that to the extreme,

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Speaker 1: like literally your tongue might freeze. And if records of

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Speaker 1: what has happened to animals that are opposed to a

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Speaker 1: vacuum or any indication, you also might simultaneously defecate, urinate,

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Speaker 1: and projectile vomit. Wow, So even event horizon scaled back

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Speaker 1: a little bit on what this would be like. Yes. Now,

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, sometimes movies make it look like

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Speaker 1: if you were exposed to a vacuum, you would explode,

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Speaker 1: and that doesn't seem to be true. It actually does

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Speaker 1: seem like you could survive being in a vacuum for

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Speaker 1: maybe a few minutes. I mean, it would depend on

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Speaker 1: a number of factors, but you could. Most people could

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Speaker 1: probably survive being exposed to a vacuum for some amount

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Speaker 1: of times, like a few minutes, less than five minutes maybe,

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Speaker 1: but it would require somebody else who is not exposed

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Speaker 1: to a vacuum helping you because we have seen this

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Speaker 1: in in sci fi. I think that's basically what happens

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Speaker 1: an event horizon. And I think the and yeah, the

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Speaker 1: expanse has has has explored this as well. Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: like one of the reasons you would need somebody to

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Speaker 1: help you is that you would you would very rapidly

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Speaker 1: lose anciousness. The low pressure would also cause bubbles to

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Speaker 1: form in your blood vessels, which would interfere with oxygen circulation.

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Speaker 1: And I think the estimate is that this leads to

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Speaker 1: rapid unconsciousness, probably in something like ten to fifteen seconds

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Speaker 1: after you're exposed to the vacuum, and then so you

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Speaker 1: lose consciousness, you probably collapse and it would go on

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Speaker 1: to kill you within a few minutes if you're not repressurized.

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Speaker 1: This article by Anna Goslin shares a story of a

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Speaker 1: human who actually survived vacuum exposure. Uh So, I just

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Speaker 1: want to read this part quote. In nineteen sixty five,

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Speaker 1: a technician inside a vacuum chamber at Johnson Space Center

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Speaker 1: in Houston accidentally depressurized his space suit by disrupting a hose.

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Speaker 1: After twelve to fifteen seconds, he lost consciousness. He regained

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Speaker 1: it at twenty seven seconds after his suit was repressurized

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Speaker 1: to about half that of sea level. The man reported

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Speaker 1: that his last memory before blacking out was of the

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Speaker 1: moisture on his tongue beginning to boil, as well as

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Speaker 1: a loss of taste sensation that lingered for four days

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Speaker 1: following the incident. So all that to say, Han Chewy

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Speaker 1: and Leiah, these are experienced space travelers. They would know

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Speaker 1: better than to try to walk out into the vacuum

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Speaker 1: of space without a pressure suit. Now, I want to

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Speaker 1: be fair. I have seen some righteous nerds on the

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Speaker 1: Internet arguing that, well, maybe because we we now we

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Speaker 1: know from what happens later in the movie that actually

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Speaker 1: they were not in a cave on an asteroid, they

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Speaker 1: were in the exo Gorth's gullet, and maybe the exo

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Speaker 1: Gorth's gullet creates its own pressurized atmosphere. And okay, let's

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Speaker 1: say I grant that, Uh maybe, But I thought the

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Speaker 1: whole point was that they thought they were in a

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Speaker 1: cave on an asteroid, not in the belly of a

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Speaker 1: giant worm. So it doesn't seem like they would go

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Speaker 1: outside without a pressure suit. Yeah, I mean, I guess

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Speaker 1: if maybe They're like the ship's readings were like, hey,

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Speaker 1: you don't actually need a suit to go outside in

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Speaker 1: this this weird cave, and they're like, Okay, that's fine. Cool.

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Speaker 1: It really wasn't thinking about it that hard, Like they

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Speaker 1: weren't asking, well, why would that be? Why would a

429
00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 1: cave that it's supposedly open to the to the void

430
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:12,639
Speaker 1: have these unique conditions? Um? But I guess if I

431
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:14,680
Speaker 1: was gonna play Devil's advocate and try and like sort

432
00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:17,440
Speaker 1: of stitch everything together, I could and then maybe, yes,

433
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 1: maybe this giant space slug. Uh. It's it's gastric environment

434
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:26,919
Speaker 1: closely mimics a terrestrial world and just you know, the

435
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:30,439
Speaker 1: atmosphere is a little off. Um, I don't know, maybe

436
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:32,840
Speaker 1: or maybe that's maybe that's so one of the ways

437
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:35,399
Speaker 1: that it gets its its food, right, it just waits

438
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 1: for spaceships to land inside its belly and uh. And

439
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:42,359
Speaker 1: since spaceships are hard to digest, it needs to have

440
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 1: an inviting environment that lures the precious meat beings out

441
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 1: of the spaceship. Right. Yeah, it gets gets gets them

442
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 1: out there. I mean, it does have fog rolling around,

443
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: so it almost looks like you're out on the moor

444
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:57,919
Speaker 1: once you leave the spaceship. I wonder also how fog

445
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 1: rolling around would work in a vacuum. It doesn't seem

446
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 1: very vacuum like. It's almost as if they weren't really

447
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:05,960
Speaker 1: thinking of it and in pure physical terms as a vacuum,

448
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:07,879
Speaker 1: which would make a lot of sense. Again, because this

449
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:11,360
Speaker 1: is space fantasy. I just wanted to say also, I

450
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:14,640
Speaker 1: I found a picture on the Internet of the model

451
00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 1: of the the Giant Exit Worths teeth while it was

452
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 1: being created, along with the I l M model maker

453
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:24,560
Speaker 1: Lauren Peterson inside the mouth looking at it, and he

454
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:29,399
Speaker 1: just looks just exploding with joy while gazing at the

455
00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 1: teeth he has created. He kind of he also in

456
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,119
Speaker 1: this picture he's got long hair and a big beard.

457
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:38,879
Speaker 1: He almost looks like a human e walk. Yeah. I

458
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 1: love looking at these old photos of these like these

459
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:45,160
Speaker 1: these seventies guys working on these models for this, uh,

460
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 1: for for these films. It's pretty great. But yeah, it's

461
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 1: pure joy on this NaN's face. Than I wanted to

462
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 1: come back to the question that I brought up earlier

463
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: about the vac hume dwellers. When we imagine finding alien

464
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:06,880
Speaker 1: life forms not in space fantasy, but in reality, of course,

465
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,400
Speaker 1: we always imagine finding them on a planet, a planet

466
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:15,120
Speaker 1: with an atmosphere. But I was wondering, is it biochemically

467
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: and evolutionarily conceivable that there could be such thing as

468
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: an alien dwelling directly within the void, within the you know,

469
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:28,360
Speaker 1: the howling emptiness of space. Could there be creatures of

470
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: the vacuum? And so I was looking around trying to

471
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:33,919
Speaker 1: find some good sources on this. I didn't come across

472
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 1: any like direct scientific papers, though, if any listeners know

473
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: of any that I couldn't find and want to send

474
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 1: in my way, please do. The best thing I came

475
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:46,960
Speaker 1: across was actually an interesting BBC article from sixteen by

476
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 1: the science writer Philip Ball, one of my my favorite

477
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 1: science writers who wrote probably the best book I've ever

478
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 1: read on quantum physics, which is called Beyond Weird. I

479
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: recommended it, uh really, I think a couple of years

480
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 1: ago during a summer reading episode. But in this article,

481
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: Ball starts off by pointing to a study published in

482
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: the journal Science by Cornelia Minair at all. Mine Air

483
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: is a professor at the University of Nice in France,

484
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 1: and it's a study called ribos and Related Sugars from

485
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: ultra violet irradiation of interstellar ice analogs and so to

486
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,720
Speaker 1: read from the summary from from the journal Science on

487
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:29,199
Speaker 1: this quote, astrobiologists have long speculated on the origin of

488
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 1: prebiotic molecules such as amino acids and sugars. Mine art

489
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: at All demonstrated that numerous prebiotic molecules can be formed

490
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: in an interstellar analog sample containing a mixture of simple

491
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:47,160
Speaker 1: ices of water, methanol, and ammonia. They irradiated the sample

492
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 1: with ultra violet light under conditions similar to those expected

493
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 1: during the formation of the Solar system. This yielded a

494
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: wide variety of sugars, including ribos, a major constituent of

495
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: ribo nucleic acid or RNA. And of course, as we've

496
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: discussed on the show before, RNA is one of the important,

497
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:09,639
Speaker 1: uh you know, long organic molecules that is considered a

498
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 1: possible precursor of the original formation of life on Earth,

499
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 1: the first cell, and of course RNA is used is

500
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 1: used in life forms today, it's in the cells in

501
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,199
Speaker 1: your body. And this is not the only study of

502
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 1: this kind showing that some molecules important to the formation

503
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: of a biological sphere, such as sugars and amino acids

504
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: can be formed in space, maybe even just on little

505
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: tiny grains of ice floating around in space by themselves,

506
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:38,919
Speaker 1: not on a planet at all. They can be formed

507
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 1: in these types of scenarios by radiation acting on precursor compounds.

508
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:48,640
Speaker 1: So another example would be that UM researchers for decades

509
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 1: have have found evidence of amino acids in meteorites that

510
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:55,920
Speaker 1: apparently these amino acids were formed in deep space, and

511
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 1: the Rosetta mission, which intercepted a comet was a common

512
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 1: six seven p in space. In the Rosetta orbiter detected

513
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:09,680
Speaker 1: the presence of the amino acid glycine, along with methylamine

514
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: and ethylamine from a spectrometry reading of the of the comet.

515
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: So it's possible that important molecules and molecules that are

516
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 1: necessary for the early stages of chemical evolution before the

517
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 1: formation of the first cell we're not formed on Earth

518
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: but in space and then somehow delivered to Earth, maybe

519
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,199
Speaker 1: on the backs of icy comets that smashed into the

520
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 1: Earth's surface when the planet was young. And of course

521
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: this is all hypothetical. We still don't know for sure

522
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:42,239
Speaker 1: how the first life on Earth came to be. We

523
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: actually talked about one very interesting model of this on

524
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: a recent episode, the one we did about the Nile Inundation,

525
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 1: where we discussed the idea that the first cells might

526
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: have been created by the presence of prebiotic molecules like

527
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: lipids and nucleic acids in areas on the surface of

528
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: the Earth that are repeated least subjected to wet dry cycles.

529
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: And if you want the details on on the reasoning

530
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: behind that, you can go back and listen to that episode.

531
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:08,960
Speaker 1: What was it called, I believe the title we went

532
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 1: with was the Nile Inundation God's Water in Life, because

533
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of mythology in there, but also

534
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: just a lot about the the the annuals flooding of

535
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: the Nile and how it factors into the environment and

536
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: the history of the region. Right, so we don't know

537
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 1: how for sure how it happened, but the process of

538
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: chemical evolution leading from those organic molecules to the formation

539
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: of the first cell, meaning a cell capable of replication

540
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: and metabolism, that's generally assumed to have happened somewhere on

541
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: Earth or in a or on another planet like Mars

542
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 1: maybe and then seated to Earth through some kind of

543
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: collision and travel of rocks through space, and that could

544
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:50,960
Speaker 1: be in hydrothermal vents or in puddles or what have you.

545
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: But it's usually assumed to have happened on Earth. But

546
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 1: Philip Ball rights quote, there is a more intriguing possibility

547
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 1: life itself might not have kne did a warm and

548
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 1: comfortable planet bathed in sunlight to get going. If the

549
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: raw ingredients were already out there in interplanetary limbo, might

550
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 1: life have started there too? Interesting question? And of course

551
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 1: there's another question, which is a follow up. If it

552
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:20,240
Speaker 1: were possible for life to form in space rather than

553
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: on a planet, would it also be possible to for

554
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: that life to evolve into complex forms out there in space? Um? Now,

555
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 1: there are some reasons that this does seem unlikely on

556
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: its face. So a bunch of Philip Ball's article ends

557
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: up focusing on ways that alien life forms could have

558
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:42,479
Speaker 1: the benefits of a home planet while existing in interstellar space,

559
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 1: and the primary idea he explores here is life on

560
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: rogue planets, meaning planets that are ejected from their solar

561
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: systems and float through the interstellar void alone or maybe

562
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:57,680
Speaker 1: with some moons into and you. You might think that

563
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: without a home star, these worlds would be guaranteed to

564
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: be barren. But internal heating from residual formation heat and

565
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: radioactive elements in the core, and possible title interactions with

566
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 1: the moons that are along for the ride, this could

567
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 1: possibly be enough to sustain a biosphere, perhaps in an

568
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: iced over ocean. But this isn't really what we're talking about,

569
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: right We're we're we're looking for something that could live

570
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: in space itself or on the surface of an asteroid

571
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 1: exposed to the vacuum, where there's no atmosphere, no ocean,

572
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 1: just the raw hell of the infinite. Now and exploring

573
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: this part of the article, Ball notes something that I

574
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: had read about before, but I had forgotten about until

575
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:41,280
Speaker 1: I was reading this, which is that um the astronomer

576
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: Fred Hoyle, who did a lot of important work in

577
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 1: in twentieth century astronomy, but now is probably best remembered

578
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: in the popular consciousness for coining the term Big Bang,

579
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 1: which he meant as an insult, like a ridicule of

580
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: the theory, because he was a supporter of the steady

581
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: state theory of the universe, which is now known to

582
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 1: be wrong, like the the we know that the universe

583
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 1: is thirteen point eight billion years old, and and we

584
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 1: called the process of expansion leading to the universe we

585
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 1: know today the Big Bang. After this, after this negative

586
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 1: appellation from Hoyle. But anyway, Hoyle actually wrote a science

587
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:21,719
Speaker 1: fiction novel that was published in nineteen fifty nine called

588
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:25,479
Speaker 1: The Black Cloud, and supposedly it's quite good, though I've

589
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: never read it. But the premise is that there is

590
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: a giant cloud of intelligent gas that floats around through

591
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 1: outer space, and when it encounters Earth, it sort of

592
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 1: doesn't know what to make of life that inhabits a planet,

593
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 1: and it becomes a threat to us. But Hoyle did

594
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: not have a plausible theory for how a such a

595
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:48,239
Speaker 1: sentient space gas would would come to evolved. I think

596
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 1: it's just a mystery in the book. But Ball looks

597
00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: at this question of what the chemical basis of space

598
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 1: based life could be and concludes that despite the difficulties

599
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 1: of the environment, it seems like urban molecules are still

600
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: probably the best bet for creating biology. The most common

601
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: alternative put forward to carbon based biology is silicon and

602
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 1: I will know that when I looked up the the

603
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: exo gorth on Wikipedia. Wikipedia tells me that the exo

604
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 1: go is a silicon based life form. And also I

605
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: think that in addition to eating humans and spaceships and stuff,

606
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 1: it eats rocks, you know, eats the minerals of asteroids.

607
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: So I think it's the case it's supposed to have

608
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: like a mineral and energy diet that perhaps occasionally supplements.

609
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 1: But you know, another thing I was thinking about is that, Okay,

610
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: two things. I guess on one level, it could be

611
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: eat biting at a spaceship just because it's there, or

612
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: out of defense, it doesn't really want to eat it,

613
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: you know, in the same way that you'll have animals

614
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: in the wild that will attempt to take a bite

615
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: out of something, you know, defensively even if it's not

616
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 1: part of their diet. But also the curious mouth. Yeah so.

617
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 1: But but here's another thing. If the inside of the

618
00:33:56,240 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 1: the of the creature here is essentially an ecosystem, um,

619
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: is it possible that it it is like grabbing things

620
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: in order to sort of not feed itself, but to

621
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 1: supply and feed the ecosystem within it, and then it

622
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:13,080
Speaker 1: somehow gets so much sort of residual nutrition from that

623
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: ecosystem like it kind of has. It's almost like a

624
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: hive maintaining a um like like a domestic crop within itself,

625
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: except its domestic crop is just like this swampy world.

626
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 1: Oh my god. So when it eats a millennium falcon,

627
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 1: that's like it's poop yogurt, like the probiotics stuff. It's

628
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: trying to supply its interior minox and like the mossy

629
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:39,720
Speaker 1: organisms that line its gullet and produce all that fog

630
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: we see with some nice power cables to chew on

631
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 1: and and I guess presumably humans to feast on whenever

632
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 1: they die. Yeah, maybe it feeds on swamp fog. And

633
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:51,319
Speaker 1: but it needs a you know, a ripe swamp environment there,

634
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:53,400
Speaker 1: and occasionally, yeah, needs some needs some new stuff to

635
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 1: add to the to the genetic pool. You're so good

636
00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:59,280
Speaker 1: at world building. This is this is great a future

637
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: Star Wars. I hope you're taking notes. But anyway, So

638
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: back to Philip Ball's article. So he he echoes the

639
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:09,919
Speaker 1: sentiments of many experts I've read who have deep familiarity

640
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:14,359
Speaker 1: with chemistry, who generally say that carbon is just so

641
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:18,840
Speaker 1: much better at building complex molecules than silicon Uh, silicon

642
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 1: really does not seem like a very good candidate for

643
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:24,839
Speaker 1: creating life. Again, maybe our imagination is being limited in

644
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 1: some way, but but it really looks like carbon is

645
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 1: the good stuff. If if we're fine, if we're gonna

646
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: find life elsewhere in the universe. A lot of astrobiologists

647
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 1: seem to think that carbon is just the way it's

648
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 1: going to be. For example, Ball quotes an astrobiologist named

649
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: Charles Cockle of the University of Edinburgh who thinks that, yeah,

650
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 1: alien life could be very different. Maybe there's a lot

651
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:48,840
Speaker 1: that is hard for us to imagine, but that whatever

652
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: it is, it's going to be carbon based, and it's

653
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: going to require water, and that this will be a

654
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 1: universal norm no matter what planet or part of space

655
00:35:56,719 --> 00:35:59,720
Speaker 1: you're on. Uh. And he does he does admit quote

656
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: I have a quite conservative view, which science generally proves

657
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 1: is misguided. But he he holds the view nonetheless. So

658
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:11,359
Speaker 1: when looking for carbon molecules to form the precursors to life,

659
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 1: we already know that a substantial number of them can

660
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 1: be and are readily formed in the vacuum and in

661
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: deep space. As we mentioned already, both sugars and amino acids.

662
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: We have evidence that both of these things can be

663
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: formed outside the environment of a planet, maybe on the

664
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: surface of a comet or just an ice grain floating

665
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: around in a dust cloud in space. And of course,

666
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 1: you know, amino acids are the building blocks of proteins,

667
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:40,800
Speaker 1: these sugars like ribos or important ingredients in forming nucleic acids.

668
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 1: So uh so, like this is the stuff you would need.

669
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 1: And typically these things are formed through simple chemical and

670
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 1: photochemical processes. So Ball mentions a typical chemical reaction called

671
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 1: Strekker synthesis that could be responsible for the formation of

672
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: amino acids in space, but also that these things can

673
00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 1: be formed by exposure of precursor chemicals to radiation, typically

674
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: ultra violet light. Now this part I thought was interesting.

675
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: Ball rights quote. It looks at first as though these

676
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: reactions should not take place in deepest space without a

677
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: source of heat or light to drive them. Molecules encountering

678
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 1: one another in frigid, dark conditions do not have enough

679
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 1: energy to get a chemical reaction started. It's as if

680
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:26,799
Speaker 1: they run into a barrier that is too high for

681
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 1: them to jump over. However, in the nineteen seventies, the

682
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:35,240
Speaker 1: Soviet chemist vitality. Golden Sky showed otherwise, some chemicals could

683
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:39,920
Speaker 1: react even when chilled to just four degrees above absolute zero,

684
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: which is about as cold as space gets. They just

685
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 1: needed a bit of help from high energy radiation such

686
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 1: as gamma rays or electron beams like the cosmic rays

687
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: that whizz through all of space. And so maybe there

688
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 1: is some hope for for deep space stimulation of the

689
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 1: chemical reactions that lead to life given these types of

690
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 1: inputs like like gamma rays or cosmic rays. Given these

691
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 1: inputs which are possible in outer space, Goldanski found evidence

692
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 1: that some long chain molecules could form, such as formaldehyde

693
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 1: chains that are several hundred molecules long. But there's a

694
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 1: there's a catch. There's the downside. While space can form

695
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 1: these precursor molecules, the molecules encounter another problem, which is

696
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: continued exposure to the same radiation sources that formed them

697
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 1: in the first place. Ball sides this this guy Charles

698
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:35,840
Speaker 1: Cockle again saying that they are just as likely to

699
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:40,440
Speaker 1: smash molecules as they are to form them. Potential biomolecules,

700
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 1: progenitors of proteins and RNA say, would be broken apart

701
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:47,839
Speaker 1: faster than they were being produced. And to come back

702
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:50,000
Speaker 1: to the Nile episode, this reminds me of what we

703
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 1: talked about in that episode with theories about the formation

704
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 1: of life on Earth and the role of water, because again,

705
00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: water would play this stimulating and destruct deive role in

706
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 1: the in the early chemical evolution of life. Water is

707
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 1: a key ingredient in Earth based models of chemical evolution,

708
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 1: but it also easily destroys the delicate organic molecules it creates,

709
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:15,400
Speaker 1: and that's one of the reasons that it's been hypothesized

710
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: that there are these wet dry cycles that uh that

711
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:21,359
Speaker 1: would have allowed the first cells to come together. So

712
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 1: ultimately that the experts that Ball consults here seem to

713
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 1: think it's pretty unlikely that we would see in these

714
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 1: really cold environments in deep space, like on the surfaces

715
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: of ice creams. Even though these precursor molecules to life

716
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 1: can be formed, it seems unlikely that these environments would

717
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:42,759
Speaker 1: form enough complex molecules and have them survive long enough

718
00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:47,280
Speaker 1: to kick off chemical evolution and really really bring together

719
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:50,880
Speaker 1: space based life. But I want to get into another

720
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: option in just a second here that could explain where

721
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:56,239
Speaker 1: something like this organism comes from. But before that, I

722
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:59,919
Speaker 1: was just wondering also, like, Okay, why the complex morphology

723
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: of the exo goth Uh? You know? Complex? More so,

724
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:05,360
Speaker 1: it's got like a body with different parts like the

725
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:07,760
Speaker 1: animals we see on Earth. It's got a mouth with teeth,

726
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 1: and it's got something that looked like little eyes talks,

727
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:12,319
Speaker 1: and it's got a head and a tail, and it's

728
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 1: it's very differentiated. Uh. Complex morphology arises on Earth, I

729
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: think as a reaction to complex environments. Right, Like if

730
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:23,760
Speaker 1: you look at all the body parts on an animal,

731
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:27,840
Speaker 1: these are parts that have arisen in response to different

732
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:32,560
Speaker 1: qualities and challenges of the environment in which the animal evolved.

733
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 1: Animals need to I mean not all animals, I guess

734
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 1: there are sessile animals, but most animals that move they've

735
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: had these different parts because they need to move around

736
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 1: and do different types of things. They have different types

737
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 1: of predators and prey, etcetera. The asteroid in the Empire

738
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 1: Strikes Back does not seem to me to be a

739
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:53,839
Speaker 1: complex environment, Like so if anything was living there in reality,

740
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 1: I feel like I could more easily imagine a sort

741
00:40:56,719 --> 00:41:00,360
Speaker 1: of map of bacteria just harvesting radiation and on the

742
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 1: surface of the asteroid rather than rather than like a complex,

743
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 1: differentiated large animal. But that that makes me think, well,

744
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 1: what if these organisms didn't first evolve in space, but

745
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 1: this is this is sort of a transplant operation. Yeah,

746
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 1: this would seem to make more sense, right, Yeah, the

747
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:23,320
Speaker 1: idea that it's it's worm shaped because this worm shape

748
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,360
Speaker 1: that it has once served it well in a non

749
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: asteroid environment exactly. So. I think all of our listeners

750
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 1: now probably know about the animal I'm about to bring up,

751
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:37,800
Speaker 1: but but it's worth revisiting the details. The mighty tarte grade,

752
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 1: also known as the water bear, a truly all inspiring organism. Yeah,

753
00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: they're they're absolutely incredible. Tartar grades are animals. They're not

754
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:50,279
Speaker 1: bacteria or fungus. They are animals like us. They're even

755
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 1: bilateral animals. They have bilateral symmetry like we do. So

756
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: they're not like sponges, but they are extremely tiny. Tartar

757
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:01,120
Speaker 1: grades are ubiquitous within Earth's byo sphere. You'll find them

758
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: on the highest mountain peaks, in marine caves, in moss

759
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:09,400
Speaker 1: in Antarctica. They're basically everywhere, and as far as I

760
00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 1: can find evidence of they are the only known animal

761
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 1: that has been documented to survive prolonged exposure to the

762
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:22,399
Speaker 1: raw vacuum of space, and they do it apparently by

763
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:25,920
Speaker 1: taking specific steps to avoid some of the nastiness that

764
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: we talked about earlier when we were talking about humans

765
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:31,120
Speaker 1: being exposed to a vacuum. Now, of course, one of

766
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:33,799
Speaker 1: their main defense mechanisms has got to be just that

767
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 1: they're they're so cute, Like they imagined that one day

768
00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:39,399
Speaker 1: they would be discovered by humans, and if they were

769
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,319
Speaker 1: not so cute, we would not take so kindly to

770
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:45,239
Speaker 1: to uh, to finding out that this is really their

771
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: planet and we're just on it um. But they're they're

772
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: so adorable, you you you kind of don't get earth jealous. Yeah,

773
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:56,760
Speaker 1: the what was the German description that the declina vassa

774
00:42:56,920 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 1: baron the the tiny water bears, yeah, or the little

775
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:04,320
Speaker 1: moss piglets some people, Uh yeah, they look like across.

776
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 1: I think I've seen somewhere described as a cross between

777
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: a caterpillar and a teddy bear. That's pretty accurate. I

778
00:43:10,080 --> 00:43:14,240
Speaker 1: keep seeing them pop up in animated shows recently. Really, Yeah,

779
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:17,359
Speaker 1: I just was watching a show with the fam and

780
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 1: there was a race of creatures in another world that

781
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 1: were clearly based on water bears, And then there was

782
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:26,879
Speaker 1: another cartoon we were watching where they were like futuristic

783
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:29,839
Speaker 1: mutated water bears that live in the water, and if

784
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 1: they get in the water, you drink the water, then

785
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: they get in your brain and start controlling you stuff

786
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: like that. Clearly they strike a chord. Yeah, I mean,

787
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:39,839
Speaker 1: there's something about the way they look and the way

788
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:43,719
Speaker 1: that we've already started describing them that, um it lends

789
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 1: itself well to further imagination. Yeah. So about their hardiness

790
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 1: and ability to survive, to survive a vacuum. I was

791
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:55,440
Speaker 1: reading a New York Times article about water bears by

792
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: Cornelia Dean, and this article discusses the targe grades ability

793
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:03,800
Speaker 1: to survive unbelievably harsh environmental conditions. So, if a tartar

794
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: grade encounters extreme drought or sudden changes in temperature or

795
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:12,360
Speaker 1: water salinity, or other types of environmental threats, the tartar

796
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:15,399
Speaker 1: grade can enter a kind of hibernation state where it's

797
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 1: metabolism throttles down to zero point zero one percent of

798
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 1: its standard rate, so that's one ten thousand of its

799
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:28,760
Speaker 1: regular metabolism. During this process, almost all of the water

800
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 1: content is avoided out of the tartar grade's body, and

801
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: the tartar grade curls up into this dehydrated shell state

802
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: called a ton spelled t u n so. Cornelia Dean writes,

803
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:45,320
Speaker 1: quote tons can be subjected to atmospheric pressure six hundred

804
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,760
Speaker 1: times the surface of Earth and they will bounce right back.

805
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 1: They can be chilled to more than three hundred degrees

806
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: fahrenheit below zero for more than a year, no problem.

807
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: The European Space Agency once sent tons into space two

808
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:04,359
Speaker 1: third it's survived simultaneous exposure to solar radiation and the

809
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:07,960
Speaker 1: vacuum of space. This is not something that can be

810
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 1: said of any other animal that I know about. I

811
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 1: think this is the only one we're aware of. And

812
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 1: it really seems like this dehydration is one of the

813
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: main keys to survival in the state because with all

814
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:23,359
Speaker 1: the water evacuated, you won't get these rapid boiling and

815
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 1: freezing effects of water content that can occur in space

816
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 1: that led to some of the really gross outcomes we

817
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier. In fact, the evacuation of the

818
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: water content, counterintuitively apparently even affects the Tarte grades ability

819
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:41,719
Speaker 1: to survive exposure to extreme radiation. You wouldn't think those

820
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 1: things were correlated. But Dean writes, quote, when cosmic radiation

821
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:48,280
Speaker 1: hits water in a cell, it produces a highly reactive

822
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 1: form of oxygen that damages cell d n A. The

823
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 1: ton doesn't have this problem. Tons have been reconstituted after

824
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 1: more than a century and brought back to life as

825
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: tarte grades looking not a day older. So no frozen

826
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:04,040
Speaker 1: tongue for the tartar grade and no radiation damage either.

827
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 1: So if you're if you're looking for a candidate for

828
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 1: something that could possibly take hold of life in the void,

829
00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:11,840
Speaker 1: I'm not saying a tart grade could like take up

830
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 1: life on an asteroid. It seems like eventually it would

831
00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:16,839
Speaker 1: just like its window for life would close. But using

832
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 1: our imaginations here, this might be trending in the right direction.

833
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 1: And I want to take it a step further because

834
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 1: did you know that there are probably tartar grades on

835
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 1: the Moon, not native to the Moon. I want to

836
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:32,759
Speaker 1: be very clear they're from Earth, but they're on the

837
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:37,400
Speaker 1: Moon now, possibly still alive, and in this this ton state,

838
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: just awaiting the possibility to get splashed with water again. Right.

839
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 1: So I was reading about this in an article on

840
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:47,400
Speaker 1: vox by Brian Resnick called Tartar Grades. The toughest animals

841
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 1: on Earth have crash landed on the Moon. Uh. This

842
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:53,279
Speaker 1: was from twenty nineteen, and it covers the fact that

843
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 1: I think this is actually drawing from an article that

844
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 1: was originally in Wired in twenty nineteen that had some

845
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:01,319
Speaker 1: interviews with the people involved. But the short version is

846
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 1: that in April twenty nineteen, there was a lunar lander

847
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: called a Baracheet, which was scheduled to become the first

848
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:12,040
Speaker 1: privately funded spacecraft ever to land on the Moon. It

849
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:15,080
Speaker 1: was originally a competitor for the Google Lunar Xprize, but

850
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:18,239
Speaker 1: that window had passed, but the mission was still scheduled

851
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 1: and it was controlled by a group called Israel Aerospace

852
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 1: Industries that was based out of Yahoo Did, Israel. And

853
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:28,319
Speaker 1: after landing on the surface, it was planned to take

854
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:32,800
Speaker 1: some readings of the Moon's magnetism. But unfortunately, there was

855
00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 1: a mission failure. There was a critical computer error I

856
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: think during its descent or before, and the probe ended

857
00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:42,840
Speaker 1: up crash landing on the Moon. And so you would think, okay,

858
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 1: well the craft was destroyed, end of story. But there

859
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:49,320
Speaker 1: was something on the craft. There was something much of interest.

860
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:53,320
Speaker 1: Aboard there was a small installation created by a group

861
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 1: called the arch Mission Foundation, and speaking to Daniel Oberhouse

862
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 1: of Wired, the group claims that they believed their cargo

863
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:06,600
Speaker 1: may have survived the crash, and their cargo it included

864
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 1: several things. I mean, the idea was they were trying

865
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 1: to send up to the Moon a record of Earth

866
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:15,680
Speaker 1: civilization that could last for billions of years. So maybe

867
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 1: like if humanity goes extinct and aliens ever get to

868
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:21,479
Speaker 1: the Moon, they could find some records of Earth from

869
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 1: this little from this little installation on this lunar lander.

870
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 1: And so part of it was a library of information

871
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: that was etched onto a nickel metal disc that had

872
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:34,839
Speaker 1: like a bunch of English Wikipedia pages and some some

873
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:38,920
Speaker 1: classic books. But it also had samples of human tissue

874
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:42,839
Speaker 1: like human blood, and it had Tarte grades. Oh man,

875
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:46,560
Speaker 1: I hope they screenshotted essentially screenshot at Wikipedia at a

876
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:49,759
Speaker 1: time when there were no like trolley entries at a

877
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:53,359
Speaker 1: incorrect information because there's a cut off period there and

878
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: now it's it's up there on the moon, that's right. Yeah.

879
00:48:56,200 --> 00:49:00,080
Speaker 1: I wonder how many uh citation needed tags the aliens

880
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:03,320
Speaker 1: are going to run into. But to read from Resinus

881
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:06,560
Speaker 1: article here quote, many of those Tarte grades are coded

882
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:10,399
Speaker 1: in a protective resin, much like how Amber preserves long

883
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: dead mosquitoes that were once trapped in tree sap. According

884
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:16,680
Speaker 1: to Wired, a co creator of the library believes the

885
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:20,640
Speaker 1: disc survived the crash. In the best case scenario, Barascheet

886
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 1: ejected the Archmission Foundation's Lunar Library during impact and it

887
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:28,840
Speaker 1: lies in one piece somewhere near the crash site. Wired reports,

888
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 1: so water bears on the Moon at least potentially may

889
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:36,239
Speaker 1: maybe still viable. So I would say this is still

890
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:38,719
Speaker 1: not super plausible if you're if you're gonna be really

891
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:41,399
Speaker 1: strict about it, But to play our hand as far

892
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:43,359
Speaker 1: as we can, I'm going to say that I think

893
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:47,640
Speaker 1: the Exo Gorth was originally some type of extremely hardy

894
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: water bear type creature that crash landed via spaceship on

895
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:56,040
Speaker 1: an asteroid and a heavily populated stretch of space and

896
00:49:56,080 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 1: somehow adapted to the new environment over millions of years

897
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 1: of evil lution. I'm still not quite sure how it

898
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:06,439
Speaker 1: survives without an atmosphere. That doesn't seem very possible, because

899
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: while the Tarte grade can for a while. It's only

900
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:12,840
Speaker 1: able to survive that through entering this cryptobiotic state the

901
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:16,880
Speaker 1: ton uh. So it's it's harder to imagine an organism

902
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 1: do in its life and doing full metabolism while simultaneously

903
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:25,320
Speaker 1: being exposed to the vacuum um. Maybe if the exo

904
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 1: gorth and the mynock have some kind of biology that

905
00:50:27,719 --> 00:50:30,880
Speaker 1: allows them to live without water content, because it seems

906
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 1: like one of the main problems with being exposed to

907
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:36,440
Speaker 1: the vacuum and trying to live is that the organisms

908
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:40,760
Speaker 1: we're thinking of are sort of heterogeneous mixtures of different

909
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 1: states of matter. They've got some gas contents, some liquid content,

910
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 1: and some solid content, and that that just doesn't all

911
00:50:48,040 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 1: hold together super well when exposed to a vacuum. The

912
00:50:50,640 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 1: low pressure messes with your liquid and your gas contents. Plus,

913
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,279
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't honestly say that it seems like

914
00:50:57,320 --> 00:50:59,800
Speaker 1: the exo Gorth in the movie is all is purged

915
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:02,280
Speaker 1: water because I think, as we mentioned, it's got fog

916
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 1: and it's in its belly, so yeah, it's very swampy

917
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:11,279
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, it's not a dry heat um, you know,

918
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:13,680
Speaker 1: and it almost as a saunotype environment. It would be

919
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 1: interesting to see if there was like a treatment of

920
00:51:15,520 --> 00:51:19,240
Speaker 1: this where where one of these Exo gorths is actually

921
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:22,400
Speaker 1: like a vacation destination where you you know, you go

922
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 1: to just sweat it out. But as far as I

923
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:29,240
Speaker 1: know that that does not currently exist. Another awesome idea

924
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 1: that man, they should hire you to write one of

925
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 1: these upcoming movies. I wouldn't go that far um at

926
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:38,800
Speaker 1: any rate. The exo go certainly one of the cooler

927
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: alien monster type species that that we discover in the

928
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 1: Star Wars movies. And a great reveal as well. I

929
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:49,719
Speaker 1: always love that scene where you finally see the whole thing,

930
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 1: like just you know, leaping out of that hole in

931
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:56,279
Speaker 1: the asteroid trying to grab the millennium falcon. I love

932
00:51:56,320 --> 00:52:00,560
Speaker 1: how it bends over as it bites. Yeah, and I

933
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:02,799
Speaker 1: guess another thing that's wonderful about it is that it's

934
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:06,319
Speaker 1: not certainly not a cheap creation like it has. They

935
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:08,239
Speaker 1: put a lot of skill and a lot of love

936
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 1: into creating it. But it also kind of looks like

937
00:52:10,719 --> 00:52:13,560
Speaker 1: an oven mit, you know, So it it has this

938
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:18,319
Speaker 1: it's it's basic um body shape is uh is a

939
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:21,440
Speaker 1: big hand puppet, you know, But but they make it

940
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:24,319
Speaker 1: into something that is. Uh you know that it goes

941
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:26,439
Speaker 1: beyond hand puppets, So I don't know, but it's still

942
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:30,719
Speaker 1: kind of simultaneously hits both those uh uh those frequencies

943
00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:32,960
Speaker 1: For me, I love it. Give me more monsters like

944
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:37,280
Speaker 1: that puppets models, uh, instead of the computer animation please.

945
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:47,880
Speaker 1: All right, well, I think we have time for at

946
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 1: least one more uh consideration here in the episode. So

947
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:55,799
Speaker 1: for my selection for today, basically I went to my

948
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:57,799
Speaker 1: son and I said, hey, Joe and I are doing

949
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:02,319
Speaker 1: these episodes on features from the Star Wars world. What

950
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:07,239
Speaker 1: should we cover? And without any deliberation, he said toe grouts.

951
00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:10,279
Speaker 1: He's been obsessed with toe groot is over the past year,

952
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 1: often discussing their key anatomical features, their leak wu and

953
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 1: their mon trails. Uh, just wondering aloud, what do they

954
00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:21,359
Speaker 1: feel like? What do you know? What is there? How

955
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:25,759
Speaker 1: flexible are they? What? Um? How do they move as

956
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 1: the as individual toe groutes get older and so forth?

957
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 1: And so very popular discussion area. So I owe it

958
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 1: to him to consider them here. Now are these the creatures?

959
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:41,480
Speaker 1: These are humanoid creatures right, so they're they're like sentient humanoid,

960
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:45,120
Speaker 1: not like some space monster and they have a kind

961
00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:48,040
Speaker 1: of they have a biological feature that kind of looks

962
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:52,200
Speaker 1: like a long hat or head dress. Yea, they have Yeah,

963
00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:55,080
Speaker 1: they have these uh, these appendages on their head that

964
00:53:55,120 --> 00:53:57,919
Speaker 1: do look like a head dress and certainly strike that

965
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:02,719
Speaker 1: that chord when you're looking at them and they are um. Yeah.

966
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:05,839
Speaker 1: So basically, yeah, that you have two different sets. So

967
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:08,320
Speaker 1: you have the mon trails and these are two large

968
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:11,280
Speaker 1: cone like horns on the top of their head, sometimes

969
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 1: said to be hollow. And then you have the leaku.

970
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 1: These are three fleshy appendages also called head tails that

971
00:54:18,160 --> 00:54:23,359
Speaker 1: protrude downward, two on either side beneath the montrels and

972
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 1: one behind the head. Uh. These are sometimes compared to

973
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:30,200
Speaker 1: the head appendages of the Twilights, which I believe you're

974
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:33,359
Speaker 1: familiar with these from Return of the Jedi, Yes, from

975
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:37,239
Speaker 1: Jab of the Huts, little lackey guy. Yeah. But while

976
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:42,040
Speaker 1: the leaku of the Twilights, uh, you know, are are

977
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:45,560
Speaker 1: supposed to contribute to communication, like they have like subtle

978
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:48,279
Speaker 1: movements that they make with them, the leaku of the

979
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:53,040
Speaker 1: toe Gruta seem mostly motionless, though with varying degrees of rigidity.

980
00:54:53,160 --> 00:54:55,800
Speaker 1: They might have to do with age or environmental conditions

981
00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 1: or in many cases like what you know, what what

982
00:54:59,400 --> 00:55:04,160
Speaker 1: degree flexibility is inherent in the makeup, special effects or

983
00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:07,040
Speaker 1: in the computer animations being used. You know, this is

984
00:55:07,040 --> 00:55:09,520
Speaker 1: funny because I was sort of considering picking The Twilight

985
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:12,759
Speaker 1: actually because I was thinking about, oh, the weird like

986
00:55:12,920 --> 00:55:15,400
Speaker 1: head tails, those things, until I saw you had picked this.

987
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:17,920
Speaker 1: So I feel like we got our head tail basis covered.

988
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:21,799
Speaker 1: You're going to be the Liku and Montrale's expert here.

989
00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:24,360
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a little more to talk about

990
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:28,000
Speaker 1: with with the Tgrudas because you have you have these

991
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:31,799
Speaker 1: two different features going on. Yeah, so, um, in case

992
00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:34,120
Speaker 1: you don't know, you're not you don't know offhand who

993
00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:36,520
Speaker 1: I'm talking about with the Dogrutas, I should point out

994
00:55:36,560 --> 00:55:39,400
Speaker 1: the two most notable to Grutas in the Star Wars galaxy,

995
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:43,840
Speaker 1: both of whom were Jedi. So there's Jedi masters Shocked

996
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:47,920
Speaker 1: Ti Uh, hero general of the Clone Wars, and Uh.

997
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:51,799
Speaker 1: She fought in pivotal battles on Genosis, Camino, and Corrassant

998
00:55:52,160 --> 00:55:55,240
Speaker 1: and served as the Jedi representative on the world of Camino.

999
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:56,959
Speaker 1: And she was killed at the close of the Clone

1000
00:55:57,000 --> 00:56:02,800
Speaker 1: Wars by Darth Vader. But the even more famous uh

1001
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 1: to grout of character is Jedi Commander as Katano, hero

1002
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:09,799
Speaker 1: of the Clone Wars, later a Rebel operative. Uh. She

1003
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:13,560
Speaker 1: was the padawan of Anakin Skywalker and she was voiced

1004
00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:17,040
Speaker 1: by Ashley Exstein on the Clone Wars and later played

1005
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:20,359
Speaker 1: in live action by Rossario Dawson. I would say she's

1006
00:56:20,360 --> 00:56:23,520
Speaker 1: not only the most beloved Star Wars character of the

1007
00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:25,480
Speaker 1: modern era, but probably at this point one of the

1008
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:28,960
Speaker 1: most beloved Star Wars characters of all time. Like, she's

1009
00:56:29,040 --> 00:56:31,760
Speaker 1: she's up there? Wait, why do I not know this character?

1010
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:34,520
Speaker 1: What does she? What does she? What properties is she from?

1011
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:38,239
Speaker 1: So she pops up in the Clone Wars animated series. Um,

1012
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:41,640
Speaker 1: the long the long run, not the initial one. Um,

1013
00:56:41,800 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 1: you know that that was very short form. This is

1014
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:50,560
Speaker 1: the uh, the later one. Uh the computer animated version. Oh,

1015
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:52,799
Speaker 1: I mean I like, I like all the the Clone

1016
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:55,799
Speaker 1: Wars animated but but yeah, this one was was particularly good. Uh.

1017
00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:57,799
Speaker 1: Enjoyed going through all that with my son over the

1018
00:56:57,800 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 1: past years. But yeah, she's an introduced in a series

1019
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:05,839
Speaker 1: early on as as Anakin's padawan, and you follow her

1020
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:08,760
Speaker 1: throughout this whole series. She kind of grows up and

1021
00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:11,719
Speaker 1: then as you know, as a as an adult, she's

1022
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:15,360
Speaker 1: a character in the Rebels series, and she finally popped

1023
00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:18,720
Speaker 1: up as a live action character in the second season

1024
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:20,840
Speaker 1: of The Mandalorian, and she's gonna have her own spin

1025
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:25,360
Speaker 1: off series, etcetera. She's in all the stuff I haven't seen, right, right,

1026
00:57:26,200 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 1: but you know, it's just a really well fleshed out character. Um,

1027
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:32,600
Speaker 1: you know, just a strong female character, and uh in

1028
00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 1: an alien character with a lot of depth to them.

1029
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 1: You know, so often in the Star Wars universe where

1030
00:57:37,560 --> 00:57:40,480
Speaker 1: we're just focusing on the human characters amid the aliens,

1031
00:57:40,480 --> 00:57:42,640
Speaker 1: and here we have one of the aliens. Yeah, I mean,

1032
00:57:43,040 --> 00:57:45,360
Speaker 1: you gotta love Han Solo, Princess Lea and all them,

1033
00:57:45,400 --> 00:57:47,640
Speaker 1: but we've got enough humans. I'm gonna have some real

1034
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 1: creatures as heroes. Yeah. So coming back to their biology, Yeah,

1035
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:55,880
Speaker 1: for the most part, they're they're very very human though,

1036
00:57:55,920 --> 00:57:58,760
Speaker 1: but they do have these mon trials and the Leekup.

1037
00:57:59,280 --> 00:58:02,400
Speaker 1: So what are they doing? What what are they for? Well,

1038
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 1: as far as the Leeku go, again, they seem to

1039
00:58:05,160 --> 00:58:09,720
Speaker 1: play a role in communication, uh in other species, but

1040
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:12,080
Speaker 1: not so in the toegrew or they don't seem to

1041
00:58:12,080 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 1: to move around or anything. Now, they do seem to

1042
00:58:14,480 --> 00:58:16,840
Speaker 1: grow throughout their life, and there does seem to be

1043
00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 1: some degree of sexual dimorphism in that they're longer in

1044
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:24,200
Speaker 1: females than in males. Um. So obviously they could have

1045
00:58:24,240 --> 00:58:27,520
Speaker 1: evolved to aid in mate selection to communicate fitness to

1046
00:58:27,560 --> 00:58:30,960
Speaker 1: potential mates. Uh. They are quite colorful and I cut

1047
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:33,600
Speaker 1: catching after all. Uh. And you know, we see this

1048
00:58:33,640 --> 00:58:37,600
Speaker 1: in the wattles of various bird species, for instance, and

1049
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:40,920
Speaker 1: I think I think leeku are quite comparable to wattles

1050
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:44,360
Speaker 1: in other species like goats. However, wattles or castles as

1051
00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:47,680
Speaker 1: there sometimes known, are generally thought to have no purpose.

1052
00:58:47,880 --> 00:58:50,880
Speaker 1: I was reading about this in a book book by

1053
00:58:50,880 --> 00:58:54,120
Speaker 1: Sue Weaver titled The Goat is Just All about goats

1054
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:56,720
Speaker 1: and how they work. Chapter about the parts that have

1055
00:58:56,800 --> 00:58:59,640
Speaker 1: no purpose. Yeah, pretty much. It seems it seems as

1056
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 1: if or tassels have no purpose. So it's possible that

1057
00:59:03,160 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 1: you have this feature in this alien humanoid species that

1058
00:59:05,800 --> 00:59:09,000
Speaker 1: ultimately has no purpose. But maybe, but you know, is

1059
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 1: a part of of of their anatomy and is you know,

1060
00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:15,360
Speaker 1: factored into their own ideas of beauty and representation. Now,

1061
00:59:15,400 --> 00:59:19,040
Speaker 1: as for the montrals, we have a far more specific

1062
00:59:19,080 --> 00:59:22,560
Speaker 1: purpose in the star Wars lore. Uh. They allow an

1063
00:59:22,560 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 1: individual to sense the movement of objects around them through

1064
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:30,680
Speaker 1: echolocation and um in consens up to eighty two feet

1065
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:34,640
Speaker 1: or roughly twenty five ms. Now. Echolocation is of course

1066
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:38,080
Speaker 1: the location of objects by reflected sound, used in a

1067
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:41,480
Speaker 1: number of terrestrial birds and mammals, either used in the

1068
00:59:41,560 --> 00:59:44,400
Speaker 1: hunting of prey or in the navigation of their environments

1069
00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:48,160
Speaker 1: such as trees and caves. Um Now, I was looking

1070
00:59:48,160 --> 00:59:50,600
Speaker 1: around at some possible parallels, and I think a good

1071
00:59:50,600 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 1: comparison for the to gruta might actually be the shrew,

1072
00:59:55,000 --> 00:59:59,360
Speaker 1: which uses echolocation quote for habitat assessment at close range

1073
00:59:59,640 --> 01:00:04,000
Speaker 1: a in too, why do shrew's twitter communication or simple

1074
01:00:04,400 --> 01:00:08,040
Speaker 1: echo based orientation by siemens at all published in the

1075
01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:11,560
Speaker 1: Royal Society Biology Letters from two thousand and nine. So again,

1076
01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 1: this would be a situation where the shrew or perhaps

1077
01:00:14,840 --> 01:00:18,120
Speaker 1: that took gruta, is not using its echolocation like say

1078
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:20,640
Speaker 1: like a bat, you know, to hunt in a you know,

1079
01:00:20,680 --> 01:00:24,440
Speaker 1: a nighttime environment. They would be using it more as

1080
01:00:24,520 --> 01:00:29,360
Speaker 1: a way to assist in their understanding of their immediate environment. Now, okay,

1081
01:00:29,360 --> 01:00:33,520
Speaker 1: so we were with these possible echolocation horns. Again we're

1082
01:00:33,560 --> 01:00:37,680
Speaker 1: talking about the montrels on the took rudas, but this

1083
01:00:37,720 --> 01:00:40,320
Speaker 1: actually come brings us back to the leak of those

1084
01:00:40,440 --> 01:00:44,560
Speaker 1: uh those those tales that are hanging down um, because

1085
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 1: sometimes waddles are used by organisms such as the umbrella

1086
01:00:49,080 --> 01:00:52,520
Speaker 1: bird to aid in the production of sounds. So perhaps

1087
01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 1: that's what's going on with the took root as well.

1088
01:00:55,000 --> 01:00:57,000
Speaker 1: I don't think we ever see or hear at the

1089
01:00:57,080 --> 01:01:00,640
Speaker 1: grouta doing this, but I was wondering if possibly, like

1090
01:01:00,720 --> 01:01:04,160
Speaker 1: that's the reason for this combination of headgear, like the

1091
01:01:04,640 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 1: leakup would have been used at least originally to create

1092
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:11,080
Speaker 1: sounds that would aid in echolocation that was then picked

1093
01:01:11,160 --> 01:01:14,200
Speaker 1: up by the montrels. Oh like you also see I

1094
01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:16,440
Speaker 1: think in some marine mammals, like some of the equipment

1095
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:17,960
Speaker 1: on the front of their head is not just used

1096
01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:22,000
Speaker 1: for receiving the sounds, but for producing the sounds. Yeah.

1097
01:01:22,280 --> 01:01:24,520
Speaker 1: So so again there's nothing. I don't think there's anything

1098
01:01:24,520 --> 01:01:27,520
Speaker 1: in the shows too to support this idea. Maybe it's

1099
01:01:27,520 --> 01:01:30,440
Speaker 1: somebody's written about it, uh and gone to this this area.

1100
01:01:30,440 --> 01:01:32,720
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but I was thinking, well, okay, on

1101
01:01:32,720 --> 01:01:34,480
Speaker 1: one hand, maybe it's simply out of our range of

1102
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:38,080
Speaker 1: hearing as a supposedly you know, human viewer of this

1103
01:01:38,160 --> 01:01:41,000
Speaker 1: space drama. Um Or it could have to do with

1104
01:01:41,040 --> 01:01:43,840
Speaker 1: the fact that the two to grooted that we spend

1105
01:01:43,880 --> 01:01:46,840
Speaker 1: the most time with our our our fourth sensitive and

1106
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:50,680
Speaker 1: their Jedi trained uh so perhaps most of the time

1107
01:01:50,720 --> 01:01:55,360
Speaker 1: they have little use for these um more archaic sense features.

1108
01:01:55,400 --> 01:01:58,320
Speaker 1: But then again, for sensitivity, would you know it would

1109
01:01:58,320 --> 01:02:01,040
Speaker 1: open up a new sense realm for an individual, But

1110
01:02:01,120 --> 01:02:02,400
Speaker 1: I don't mean, I don't know if that would mean

1111
01:02:02,440 --> 01:02:05,600
Speaker 1: you would just completely abandon another sense realm, you know,

1112
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:11,240
Speaker 1: even if it was decreased or or partially um you know, atrophied, uh,

1113
01:02:11,480 --> 01:02:14,200
Speaker 1: you know, due to evolution. Well, you know, I think

1114
01:02:14,240 --> 01:02:17,200
Speaker 1: about in the very first Star Wars movie, how a

1115
01:02:17,320 --> 01:02:20,040
Speaker 1: large part of what the forces shown to do is

1116
01:02:20,080 --> 01:02:22,680
Speaker 1: to aid in the guidance of actions without the use

1117
01:02:22,720 --> 01:02:26,400
Speaker 1: of senses. So when when Luke is training with Obi

1118
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:28,439
Speaker 1: Wan Kenobi while they're on the way to the Death Star,

1119
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:30,880
Speaker 1: they put the blast shield down on the helmet so

1120
01:02:30,920 --> 01:02:33,040
Speaker 1: that he can't see the remote while he's training with it.

1121
01:02:33,080 --> 01:02:35,480
Speaker 1: He's supposed to be able to tell what's there without

1122
01:02:35,600 --> 01:02:38,720
Speaker 1: using his primary sense of his eyes the same way. Um,

1123
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:41,160
Speaker 1: you know, he turns off his targeting computer when he's

1124
01:02:41,160 --> 01:02:45,000
Speaker 1: aiming the proton torpedoes into the death Star. He somehow

1125
01:02:45,120 --> 01:02:50,600
Speaker 1: is is abandoning or surrendering is either natural or technologically

1126
01:02:50,640 --> 01:02:54,640
Speaker 1: aided senses in in almost as a kind of supplication

1127
01:02:54,800 --> 01:02:56,720
Speaker 1: to the power of the force. Right, It's like the

1128
01:02:57,040 --> 01:02:59,160
Speaker 1: you put the blast shield down or you turn off

1129
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:01,800
Speaker 1: the targeting you to as a sign of faith, is

1130
01:03:01,840 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 1: showing that you you truly forsake these senses and you

1131
01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:07,480
Speaker 1: trust the force totally. Well, there you go, there's there's

1132
01:03:07,520 --> 01:03:10,600
Speaker 1: precedent for it after all. So anyway, it's a fun

1133
01:03:10,600 --> 01:03:12,439
Speaker 1: exercise I think too, you know, to look at something

1134
01:03:12,520 --> 01:03:15,400
Speaker 1: like that on a on a fictional alien species that

1135
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:17,680
Speaker 1: you know it's clearly there, mostly because it looks cool,

1136
01:03:18,200 --> 01:03:20,840
Speaker 1: but try to imagine what what could it have done?

1137
01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 1: What what could its purpose actually be? And again, some

1138
01:03:23,840 --> 01:03:26,560
Speaker 1: of it is baked into the cannon already, the idea

1139
01:03:26,640 --> 01:03:29,360
Speaker 1: that there is some of these worst sense features of

1140
01:03:29,440 --> 01:03:32,040
Speaker 1: some sort. But yeah, it's it's fun to than try

1141
01:03:32,080 --> 01:03:34,320
Speaker 1: and break it down further and imagine exactly what they

1142
01:03:34,320 --> 01:03:36,360
Speaker 1: were doing and what it would be like, uh, to

1143
01:03:36,480 --> 01:03:39,720
Speaker 1: have uh, those those montreles and leku um, you know,

1144
01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:42,680
Speaker 1: without getting into my my son's additional concerns over what

1145
01:03:42,720 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 1: do they feel like? How flexible? I'm sorry, this is unacceptable.

1146
01:03:47,200 --> 01:03:50,520
Speaker 1: We need an answer, Rob, What do they feel like? Oh? Well,

1147
01:03:50,600 --> 01:03:53,120
Speaker 1: I mean I guess you could say, what does the

1148
01:03:53,160 --> 01:03:55,760
Speaker 1: wattle of a bird or or the tassels of a goat?

1149
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:57,280
Speaker 1: What do they feel like? I guess they would be

1150
01:03:57,360 --> 01:04:03,760
Speaker 1: kind of flashy and awesome. Um. Yeah, the horns would

1151
01:04:03,760 --> 01:04:07,000
Speaker 1: be kind of rigid. Uh yeah, And I guess it

1152
01:04:07,000 --> 01:04:09,600
Speaker 1: would depend on, you know, how how old they are

1153
01:04:09,680 --> 01:04:12,480
Speaker 1: and how you know, if they do they lotion? Do

1154
01:04:12,560 --> 01:04:16,360
Speaker 1: they lotion their their their leku enough to keep them

1155
01:04:16,360 --> 01:04:19,400
Speaker 1: you know, uh, you know from getting too dried out.

1156
01:04:19,440 --> 01:04:21,680
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's like the self care manuals for

1157
01:04:21,720 --> 01:04:24,400
Speaker 1: the Tokruta. It's like, hey, you know, remember to oil

1158
01:04:24,440 --> 01:04:28,080
Speaker 1: your oil your leaku do well? The Jedi tended. They

1159
01:04:28,080 --> 01:04:29,919
Speaker 1: seem to take pretty good care of themselves. How often

1160
01:04:30,000 --> 01:04:33,320
Speaker 1: you see like a truly scruffy Jedi, That's true. One

1161
01:04:33,360 --> 01:04:36,080
Speaker 1: thing I always noticed, Obi Wan Kenobi's beard is so

1162
01:04:36,200 --> 01:04:40,040
Speaker 1: well trimmed and sculpted. Yeah, I think you just have

1163
01:04:40,120 --> 01:04:43,160
Speaker 1: that extra you have that extra time on your hands,

1164
01:04:43,160 --> 01:04:45,320
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, you know, even as even as an

1165
01:04:45,320 --> 01:04:49,640
Speaker 1: old Jedi, he took the time. Yoda was pretty scruffy, um,

1166
01:04:50,160 --> 01:04:53,560
Speaker 1: especially towards the end, but he was ancient, so yeah,

1167
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:58,160
Speaker 1: he's earned it. Okay, should we call part one there?

1168
01:04:58,240 --> 01:05:02,000
Speaker 1: Because we've got plenty more alien necropsies from the Star

1169
01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:04,720
Speaker 1: Wars universe to to come back and explore next time.

1170
01:05:05,280 --> 01:05:08,400
Speaker 1: That's right, we have. There's a more fun specimens to

1171
01:05:08,920 --> 01:05:12,600
Speaker 1: discuss and to die sect. Uh So in the meantime,

1172
01:05:13,200 --> 01:05:14,880
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone or what are your

1173
01:05:14,880 --> 01:05:19,480
Speaker 1: thoughts on on giant Star Wars space worms and fleshy

1174
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:23,400
Speaker 1: appendages to alien species? Uh, you know, let us know

1175
01:05:23,480 --> 01:05:26,800
Speaker 1: of anything we missed, any details, uh that we're not

1176
01:05:26,840 --> 01:05:29,920
Speaker 1: aware of from from Cannon or extended universe that might

1177
01:05:30,360 --> 01:05:33,160
Speaker 1: uh you know, further fill in some of the holes here.

1178
01:05:33,720 --> 01:05:35,360
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, in the meantime, if you want to

1179
01:05:35,400 --> 01:05:37,280
Speaker 1: check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,

1180
01:05:37,400 --> 01:05:40,640
Speaker 1: such as the past episodes where we talked about the

1181
01:05:40,840 --> 01:05:44,200
Speaker 1: Death Star blowing things up or or or certainly the

1182
01:05:44,240 --> 01:05:46,320
Speaker 1: Mighty Star Lack, you can find them in the Stuff

1183
01:05:46,360 --> 01:05:48,760
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind podcast feed, which you can find

1184
01:05:48,760 --> 01:05:50,800
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that happens to be.

1185
01:05:50,840 --> 01:05:53,880
Speaker 1: We just asked the rate review and subscribe huge thanks

1186
01:05:53,920 --> 01:05:57,160
Speaker 1: as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

1187
01:05:57,400 --> 01:05:58,880
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1188
01:05:58,880 --> 01:06:00,920
Speaker 1: with feedback on this step, SOOD or any other, to

1189
01:06:00,960 --> 01:06:03,280
Speaker 1: suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1190
01:06:03,720 --> 01:06:06,280
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1191
01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:16,320
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow your Mind is

1192
01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:19,040
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my

1193
01:06:19,080 --> 01:06:22,000
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

1194
01:06:22,080 --> 01:06:32,560
Speaker 1: or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.