WEBVTT - Smells like Science 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.760 Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:17.600 Works dot com. Alright, Alison Neutron, A neutron walks into 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:19.639 the bar, all right, and he asked the bartender for 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:25.360 a drink. Bartender says for you, no charge. Hey, I'm 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.360 Alison that the science how stuff Works dot com and 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:30.760 I'm Robert Lamb, science writer How stuff Works dot com. 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:34.320 And that joke came to us courtesy of listener Christian, Yeah, 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.519 he submitted on our Facebook page. Yeah, thanks Christian. I 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:40.920 like that one. That was a Some people might say 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:44.800 that joke was a stinker um, but but I mean 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:46.519 that's that's the great thing about cheesy jokes that they 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:47.839 kind of stink. And we're gonna be talking about a 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.680 number of things that stink, uh in today's podcast. Yes, 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.080 because we're talking about science and it's varied smells and 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:56.600 that's the name of the podcast. Smells like science. Yeah, 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:58.840 And don't run away because we're not This is not 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:00.840 going to be just a discussion of like how the 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.200 nose works or something. We're gonna we're gonna come at 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:04.800 it from a number of different angles. In fact, our 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:07.440 first angle we're gonna hit is outer space and how 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:11.440 doesn't smell. Well, Um, it's interesting. There's actually far more 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:15.280 data on this than I possibly imagined. Um. I don't 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.520 know if you've ever watched Futurama. I have, I've seen 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:19.760 episodes yet. Okay, well, there's a there's an episode, I 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:23.319 think a couple of different episodes where Professor Farnsworthy, ancient 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:27.400 um often naked mad scientists, pulls out this thing called 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.160 a smelloscope and it looks like a telescope except it 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.800 has these two nostril plugs. Just drapes his nose over 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:35.760 it and the plugs go up into the nostril, and 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.679 then he can smell distant regions of the cosmos. And 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:43.360 of course this is fantastic and ridiculous, but there's, like 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:45.440 I said, there's a lot of information out there. For instance, 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:50.680 space itself, according to some people who've smelt it has 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.600 an odor, all right, And this is not just people, 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.760 you know theorizing. This is coming from International Space Station 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:03.840 Science officer Don petite Um. And Don did not spell 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.320 smell the void directly. It's important to mention because he, 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.959 you know, might be dead. Uh No, he was merely 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.720 opening the airlock. So a couple of his crew members 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.120 could come back in from a spacewalk, and he started. 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.639 Every time we do this, he would notice this peculiar smell, 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:20.160 you know. And at first he's like, it's just something 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.840 weird with the ventilation system, and he's probably thinking it 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.560 is it me, you know, do I smell kind of funny? 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.720 But no, he kept noticing that it was. It was 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.400 cleaning to the space suits in the gear, especially the fabrics, 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.400 and uh, I actould just read the quote and this 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.520 is this. He kept a little blog of his time 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.480 up there. He says, quote. It's hard to describe the smell. 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:46.639 It is definitely not the oldfactory equivalent to describing the 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.359 the sensations of some new food as tastes like chicken. 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.480 The best description I can come up with is metallic, 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:56.280 a rather pleasant, sweet, metallic metallic sensation. It reminded me 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.000 of my college summers where I labored for many hours 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.080 with an arc welding porch, repairing heavy equipment for a 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:06.240 small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant, sweet swelling 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:11.639 smelling welding fumes, that is the smell of space. So 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:13.919 aside from him seemed to have kind of a weird 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.440 thing about welding. Um. It also like it reminds me 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.560 of my cat actually because because like I pick up 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.080 the cat and like smell the cat, you know, I 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.200 mean not in like a sick way, you know, but 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:25.680 just kind of the cats there and you know, you 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:27.799 bury your nose in the fur. I totally get it. Well, 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:29.640 maybe not buried, but you know, it's like, you know, 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.000 she's there, you smell, and I always think, like, she 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.520 doesn't really smell like anything, maybe batteries. You know. It's 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:37.800 funny you say that because we recently went to the 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.160 Atlanta Zoo and we go a lot, you know, we 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.840 have kids, and I've always noticed a peculiar smell at 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.280 the gorilla exhibit, and to me, maybe it does have 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.800 a little bit of a metallic odor to it, but 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.440 it is a distinctly animal smell and it but it 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.440 does have a metallic kind of but not a monkey 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.000 house odor. No, no, no, no, not monkey house. It's 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.760 just it's just a funky kind of metallic. But back 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:03.760 to space. Back to space. Okay, well, all right, so 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.440 that's outer space itself. So from there, let's head to 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.080 the moon. And here you have a number of the 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:11.520 different astronauts who went to the moon, came back, and 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:17.119 they had some some comments about especially how moon dust smells. Now, again, 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:18.839 they were not going out onto the surface of the 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:23.359 moon and sniffing moon dust, but but it's everywhere and 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.160 it gets all over you. And so they're coming back 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.320 into the in from their walk and it's you know, 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.039 it's all over their stuff, over the equipment, et cetera. 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:31.120 So they end up sniffing it. They end up you know, 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:33.680 it's getting in their mouths and their nose, etcetera. And 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.800 so you had a number of different like a number 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:40.800 from Paulo seventeen astronauts that we're within the stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:45.600 that commented on it. One in particular, Yeah, Gene Cernan 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.680 said that it smells like like spent gunpowder, and a 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.440 number of the other astronauts backed him up on this, right, So, uh, 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.320 paula seventeen astronaut Jack Schmidt and held some of it, 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:56.760 and he said it gave him a few hours of 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.679 hay fewer. Yeah, And when they asked him it was interesting. 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.320 Their as was like, did any the other astronauts have this? 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:04.480 And he said, well, they didn't say, they didn't own 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:06.159 up to it. So it's sort of like this, like 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:08.120 maybe that they had it too, but they didn't want 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.880 to say anything. Tough guy. Yeah, I'll astronauts are tough guys, 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.640 tough women in case maybe, well, yeah a lot of 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.160 them were. Like the thing about the gunpowder is that 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.440 these were guys who knew their way around some guns. 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.960 This was not just a theoretical what gunpower. You know, 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.479 these were gun toting Americans, you know of of the 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.719 of the late sixties, early seventies. Well, the smell makes 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:30.200 sense in a way when you think about what moon 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:32.840 dust is made of, right, because almost half is silicon 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.840 dioxide glass created by meteorites hitting the moon. So these impacts, 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:38.799 which have been going on for billions of years, fuse 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.000 top soil into glass and they shatter into tiny pieces. 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:44.400 And it's also moon dust is also rich and iron, 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.000 calcium and magnesium. It's bound up in the minerals such 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:53.200 as olivine and pyroxy and so it's actually nothing like gunpara. Yeah, 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.159 it's but the impact thing makes sense to me. Yeah, 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:58.880 I mean it sounds plausible, Like you look like I didn't. 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:00.479 I don't doubt it for a second. When they're like 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.760 hunt smells like gunpowder, up there all right, you know, 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:05.440 gray and dusty. But they said also some of it 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:10.120 comes from gases evaporating off the moon dust, and these 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.400 are gases that get there via the solar wind. So yeah, 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.520 the Moon is constantly exposed to hot wind, this hot 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.320 solar wind of hydrogen, helium and other ions blowing away 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:21.880 from the Sun. So so a lot of that gets 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:23.640 caught up in the dust as well. So we don't 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.159 really have a firm answer of why these guys found 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.560 it to smell this way, but you know, we we can. 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:34.280 There's some commentary on the various elements at play there. Well, 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:35.800 if I never get to the Moon at least have 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:39.000 a fuller sensory picture. Yeah, it makes it a little, 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.360 I don't know, stinkier. I don't know. The space thing 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:43.599 was really surprising because you just think of space itself 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:47.920 as being just kind of sterile, you know, right, totally 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.279 I do. So let's talk about some many other planets 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.800 out there and what their particular odors are. Yeah, well, Mercury, 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:55.960 of course, closest to the Sun and doesn't really have 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.800 much of an atmosphere at least not anymore very thin. 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.400 Most of it was US long ago and what remains 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:04.800 is mostly sodium, which doesn't really have a smell, So 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.800 don't expect to find mercury just by using your smaller scope. 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:12.560 What would you expect mercury to smell, like, just off 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:15.520 the top of your head. Well, being a fiery world, 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:17.680 you kind of expect to get this like a sulfury 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.720 hell smell, which is we're going to see you actually 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.360 do get a very sulfury sulfury hell smell off of 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.400 some of these other planets. I'm thinking mercury maybe like peppers, 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.040 you know, spicy food sort of smell like a curry, 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.640 like a nice planet planetary curry kind of odor. Yeah, 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:36.440 like super tied chili hot. You know, that's what I 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.960 would think that mercury might smell. Like. Moving onto venus um, 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:41.920 this is supposed to be a sharp, pungent smell, and 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.760 then onlike on rotten eggs. Do the clouds of sulfuric 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.360 acid which you were just talking about and mars that 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:50.800 similar In a similar note, they say, you know, there's 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.000 sulfur acids, magnesium, iron, put that all together in a 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.600 carbon dioxide rich environment, and it's going to probably reek 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:03.040 like rotten eggs. Hidding, Yeah, bad smelling solar system. We 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:05.320 have it. Yeah, it's it kind of sucks for the 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.480 first Mars colonists to get there, right, but they do. 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:10.840 They're just going to get used to it. So Jupiter, 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:12.960 it kind of depends on the layer what you're sniffing 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.240 on Jupiter, So the lighter zones would smell like ammonia, 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.480 then ammonia and rotten eggs, and then you pass through 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.080 hydrogen sulfa, then bitter almonds, which is gonna be your 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.080 hydrogen cyanide, and then and that's really cool because it's 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:25.640 like a lot of these planets have some more odors, 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:29.720 but this is like this rich bitter almondy poison center. 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:31.720 You know, it's kind of like it's like what a 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:37.560 bond bond or something, an enormous bon bon. But then 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:39.600 it's also got its moon. Io was kind of interesting 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.520 because it's highly volcanic, and guess what ye smells like 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.840 rotten eggs due to all the sulfur and the volcanic 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:49.880 eruptions satur and we're not so sure what it smells like. 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.760 But the moon titan Um, so it's haze covered over 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.680 nitrogen based atmosphere and a silled surface and a pungent 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:05.040 odor reminiscent of a petroleum processing facility that's not very pleasant. Um. 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.520 And oh, and then of course there's there's uranus yea, 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:13.640 and the hydrogen and helium portions of the uranian atmosphere 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.439 are essentially scentless. And then there's that two percent methane content, 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.480 which I have to stress something here because we're also 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:24.240 gonna discuss another planet has some some methane content to it. 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:29.680 There's this idea that methane is stinky out there purely 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:35.319 because of the methane component in various gases that um, 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:38.760 you know, come out of cows and humans, etcetera. Right, 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:45.719 farts essentially, but it's important to note that that farts 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.320 also contain a number of other elements. All Right, these 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:55.480 tiny amounts of hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, methane, hydrogen, sulfide, um, ammonia, 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:57.720 this is all mixing together and and this is this 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.760 is all a recipe for for bad odor. Methane on 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:06.400 its own is is not going to stink. Okay, So 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.680 so again you're in this nothing really smell going on there. 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.160 Same with Neptune, very similar environment. Yeah, but you know what, 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:15.000 that doesn't surprise me because I think of Neptune and 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:18.120 you're in a very similarly I feel like brothers in 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.520 the Solar System. Yeah, I don't think of them as 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.640 having very different traits, you know what I mean? And 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:26.600 I know that's not true, brothers that hang out on 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.360 the outskirts of the Solar System. And then for all 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:32.440 of you guys who bemoaned the lack of Pluto amongst 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.920 our Solar System, we do have some infra on Pluto, 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.559 and that's a since it's such a thin atmosphere composed 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:41.600 mostly of methane, so you mainly got nothing going on there. Interestingly, though, 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:46.200 to be untrained, Iron knows, people would think, oh, but 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.800 Pluto's got methane. Um, you know, atmosphere, it's gonna suck. 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:54.480 You know, it's going to really stink. But it doesn't totally. Which, incidentally, 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:56.240 if I can run through this real quick, I did 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:58.880 run across, you know, all those different websites where people 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.040 ask quite random people have questions and random people answer them. 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.760 Somebody had asked the question like, what do the planet 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.960 smell like? And somebody had had replied and I and 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:10.880 these are completely not true, but they said the mercury 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.360 smells like refried beans. Venus smells like gasoline or smells 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.520 like unwashed socks, Mars smells like martians, Jupiter smells like 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.000 muddy dogs, Saturn smells like burnt paper. You're You're in 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.480 the smells like dead trees. Nepteine smells like a turtle, 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.760 and Pluto smells like quaw squab? What squab? Again? I 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.240 think it's like pigeon meat, like some sort of all right, right, 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.920 I think you're right, which, so anyway, I just found 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.079 that amusing. Yeah, so let's head back to the Earth 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:36.880 for a second and check out some of our planets 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:41.160 most pungent residents. Oh yeah, that's right, some animals and 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:45.040 plants certainly do put out an odor. Yeah, here on Earth. 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.480 And this section gave me a chance to revisit one 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:49.640 of my favorite articles on the site, and that is 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:51.760 why does the Stink Plants Think? And it was written 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:56.000 by a freelancer, Jonathan Attebury. So in the article, att 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.679 Abury takes us back to eighteen seventy eight and he 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:03.400 imagines checking through the Launching rainforest alongside botanists Duardo Becari 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:08.160 his Italian. Yeah, and so, as the Italian is exploring 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.679 the forest, he gets a whiff of rotten meat. Next 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.040 thing he knows, the wind shifts and a stench floods 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:19.960 his nostrils. The smell is very, very bad, symphony of 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:24.720 spoiled eggs, road kill, and dirty laundry. So imagine that 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:26.960 Beccari looks towards the source of the odor and behold 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:31.440 the stinct plant A. K. Tighten arum. And this is 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.040 a This is a great U time to do a 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.120 quick Google search to see the image, or go ahead 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:37.680 and go to that article and look at the picture, 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.360 because it just looks bizarre. It's just enormous and it 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:43.160 kind of looks like a fountain and kind of looks 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.600 like something from the set of like Classic Star Trek. Yeah, well, 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.280 it's this massive plant sporting a massive pillar and it's 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.440 it is kind of phallic. Thus the scientific name a 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:58.960 morphox Phallus titanum or titanum. So the stinct plant is 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:00.960 an inflorescence, and what does that mean. It's a it's 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.640 a group of flowers clustered around a central column known 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.240 as the spadix, and it's surrounded by this leafy structure 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:10.839 called the space spath. And why does the corpse flower 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.560 smell so terrible. Take a guess, I mean to attract 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.840 in of course. And it's such a large plant that 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:19.959 it can take a year or more for the plant 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.400 to store enough energy to bloom. So even then the 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:25.400 plant can only sustain its bloom for a couple of 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:27.600 days though. So it's it's you know, it's has this 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.880 really terrible smell, but it's it's fleeting. And because these 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.240 plants are located so far apart from one another and 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.800 they bloom, you know, on such an infrequent basis, they 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.040 want as much insect attention as possible, so they get 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.040 a whole bunch of like bees and beetles. They're crawling 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:47.120 all over and spreading the pollen around, right, yeah. Yeah. 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.800 And it's also interesting that scientists size that the overall 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.440 appearance and smell helped the plant masquerade as a giant 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.560 hunk of decaying meat. It does, it does look it 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.199 doesn't look kind of fleshy. Again, you really need to 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.320 check out the article because it's it's hard to imagine. 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:05.880 It's it's it's like this giant pillar. Um, you know, 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.000 as long as your arm if you're to hold your 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.360 arm in the air right now. But even longer. I 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:14.160 think it can be maybe a couple of feet. Yeah, 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.040 the stink plant is by no means the only mellower's plant. 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.680 In fact, a whole group of them are called carryon flowers, 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:22.560 which is kind of an interesting name for a flower. 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:24.400 I mean that you don't necessarily go together when you 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.560 think about flower carryon carrying flowers. Yeah, we have a 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.720 we have a great botanical garden here in town um 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:32.520 and some lovely smelling flowers. I almost kind of want 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.800 them to put on like a carrion flower exhibit, you know, 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:36.800 just just you know, just so I can run through 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:39.040 real quick at least and sniff these and really the 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:41.480 full experience. Yeah, I have no doubt that would be 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:43.480 a big hit with the ladies of the garden club set. 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.360 So not only do these carrying flowers smell like we're 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.160 just saying, but they also tend to look the part right. So, 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:53.800 for instance, the Stipilia asterious flower is coated with fine hairs, 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.880 and that's handy because it makes the flower resemble moldy meat. 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.560 And then we have the rough roughly see you are 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.120 no oldie, And that's the world's largest flower. And that's 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:07.240 another fleshy carrion flower located in Sumatra. Sumatra is just 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.040 ripe with this stuff, like literally right with this stuff. 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.240 So what about animals? I assume you know, naturally, not 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.560 every animal's gonna smell as nice and metallic as our 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.600 cats and gorillas, right right, right right? Um. So I 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:24.120 had fun researching this part of the podcast, and I 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:26.280 came up with a couple of candidates for the most 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.160 pungent animal on Earth, and one of the candidates I've 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.000 never heard of before. And this is called the zarilla. 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:34.440 See now that just makes that just sounds made up, 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:37.920 it kind of does. I mean, it's like I'm picturing 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.240 like maybe a gorilla with zebra stripes. Is that what 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.560 it does? Yeah? Well no, Robert, it's a striped pole cat, okay. 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.800 And it's a it's a skunk like animal, and it's 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:48.760 a member of the weasel family. Okay. I see. I 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:50.720 was wondering when when we were going into this, and like, 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:52.760 is the skunk going to be the stinkiest animal, because 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:54.840 that's the one that instantly comes to mind. It does, 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.120 it definitely does. But we're going with the skunk like 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.880 in this case, and I'm I'm weighing in on the zailla. 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:02.120 You want to know why you want to we want 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:04.400 to know why this convinced me that that Zarella's might 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:08.080 take the prize. Is that because they can ward off 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.920 lions with their stink, they can ward off lions, the 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:16.760 King of the Jungle, Yeah, the grassy plaint whatever, but 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.320 but still, yeah, warding off the lion. These guys are ferocious. 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.120 You think they wouldn't shy away from a slightly stinky meal. Well, 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.160 I read one editorial about the Zorella that said it's 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:33.960 anal glance can be smelled from a half mile away. Yeah, okay, 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:35.960 I have another. Are you ready? Are you ready for 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:40.720 the next nomination? You know what, I'm finding something to 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.640 be true in this podcasting series we've been doing. I 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:46.920 think I have a stronger stomach than you do. Maybe 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:49.480 so that mean they're yeah, I mean, if you listen, 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.440 I mean with the worm and the woman's foot and listener, man, 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:54.760 that was worms and a woman's foot. That was kind 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.240 of gross. That was pretty cool and it was cool, 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.760 but it was you know, it's a pretty grim image. Right. 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.560 So my next nomination, getting back to pungent animals, is 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:07.520 is a beetle? The bombardier beetle. I've seen clips of 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:11.920 these guys. Yeah. Yeah, So these beetles, when physically assaulted, um, 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.719 they squirt out this hot quininoid spray from their abdomens, 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.600 and the African bombardiered beetle can aim its spray and 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.520 pretty much any direction. So I was reading about this 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.040 in the journal Proceedings in the National Academies of Science, 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.960 and UM, the reason why this beetle has evolved such 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.880 an olfactory defense is if you can remember that can't 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.720 instantly take to the air, so it has to right, right, 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:37.359 I mean, it can eventually take to the air, but 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.280 not instantly, and you know, an instant can be you know, 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:43.080 life or death, as we all know. And so I 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:45.439 like this. I really like this beetle. And according to 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.680 authors of the paper and the proceedings will just call 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.480 that for short, it can discharge upwards of twenty times 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:56.000 before depleting its glands. And this is this is kind 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.600 of cool. The discharges are accompanied by audible audible detonations, 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.120 so it's like it's setting off these little smell bombs 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.240 and they do deter predators. Yeah, I've seen some. I 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.400 think this is one of the ones that some scientists 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.520 were interested in in the you know, in the field 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:16.880 of bio mimicry, like looking how how nature is evolved 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.000 to carry out certain processes that we might want to 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.000 carry out. And you know, they're very interested in like, um, 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.840 like like being able to take this squirting mechanism and 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:28.359 apply it to some sort of gizmo or another. You know, 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.719 it's just one of the amazing little evolutionary traits it's 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.320 come around. That's cool. Yeah, So those are two of 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.480 my nominations for most punching Animal. Of course, if you 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:39.200 guys have ones that you'd like to send us, please 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.880 do feel free to email them on over a post 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.800 m on Facebook. But let's talk about when it doesn't 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.080 smell so bad. Well, you know, and this is of 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:51.560 course subjective because smell is subjective. Um, like a koala. 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:56.399 Really they're so adorable and yet they stink. Well, a 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.240 lot of people have talked about koala smelling like cough drops, 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.119 and do they in fact smell like coughdrops. I've never 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.399 heard this particular, like they're addicted to cough drops or 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:07.840 oh no, I guess it's their their diet, right, right. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.639 So if you remember, kuala is the furry Australian marsupial 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.440 that sleeps all day and it's a cradled up in 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.320 the tree branches, and it wakes up maybe you know, 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.080 for a few hours, much as a couple of eucalyptus leaves, 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.200 and it conks out again. Yeah, probably all that time 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:26.359 digesting food. It's probably not that easy to digest. It 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.760 reminds me of the panda in that their digestis they 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.320 have such a specialized diet, right, you know, the qualitists 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.760 eats these eucalyptic eucalyptus leaves and then you know, maybe 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.640 eats a couple of other random things, but mainly eucalyptus, 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.120 you know, in the panda with the bamboo, right. Yeah, 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.119 they're all specialists, right, and but their digestive systems have 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.680 such a hard time accommodating that specialized diet. So it 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:50.040 just doesn't really make sense to me. Yeah, well that's 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:54.480 why you don't see any any specialist um species like 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:57.159 building cities and ruling the planet, you know, I mean, 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.840 we're we're more generalists. We can eat just about anything, 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.280 you know. Okay, so you're saying that pandas can't rule 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.400 the planet because they exactly. Yeah. And and also it's 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:10.200 like you go, you look around a city, what's running everywhere? Raccoons? Rats, uh, foxes? 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:12.480 You know, I don't know if fox is canna. I 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:15.040 don't think foxes are running everywhere anyway. Oh yes they are. 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:20.120 London foxes are everywhere in London. Seriously, like you don't 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:21.879 see him as much because then I'm not making this. 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:24.080 It sounds like something I would make up. But but no, 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.720 there are a lot of foxes, uh in especially in 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.720 the London area. Well, So, getting back to coals and 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:35.480 cough drops for a sex off thea the British foxes. Um, 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:39.159 so do thesemart supiles actually smell a cough drops? All right? 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:41.120 So do you se these leaves from the eucalyptus street? 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.480 And remember that eucalyptus is are grown for their gums, 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:47.000 their resins, their oils in their woods. And then you 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.159 can lift to soil acts as an expectorant. So it 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.160 loosens the flegm and the respiratory passages and that's that's 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:58.359