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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is.

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Speaker 3: Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick. And today on

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Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're going to begin a

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Speaker 3: series of episodes talking about microbial organisms called diatoms, focusing

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Speaker 3: both on their living biology and on the way that

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Speaker 3: their fossilized remains in mineral form have pervaded human techno,

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Speaker 3: history and culture. Rob I don't remember if I told

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Speaker 3: you this, but I actually got the idea to do

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Speaker 3: this episode jumping off of a sort of research tangent

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Speaker 3: that I ended up not going down. When we did

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Speaker 3: an episode on sand a few weeks back. I was

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Speaker 3: looking at weird different kinds of you know, sand and

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Speaker 3: soil on Earth, and I started thinking, actually, diatamacious earth

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Speaker 3: is so much weirder than people think about when they

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Speaker 3: go buy a canister a food grade dietamacious Earth or

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Speaker 3: get some for their garden.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and I don't think i'd really ever

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Speaker 2: encountered it on the commercial end of things before, Like,

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Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever purchased a canister of this

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Speaker 2: stuff before, or anything like that, but I do find it.

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Speaker 2: I think it's great that it's a spin off of

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Speaker 2: our Sand episode, which I think everyone was excited for

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Speaker 2: and so were we. It is also, in a weird way,

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Speaker 2: kind of a continuation of our Dust series from years back. Yes,

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Speaker 2: a series that some people were like, how are they?

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Speaker 2: When are they doing episodes on Dust? Makes me so angry,

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Speaker 2: But people love those episodes as well. We loved researching

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Speaker 2: them and recording them. We're getting into that same area,

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Speaker 2: and I think it's a fascinating world, especially when we

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Speaker 2: leave behind the human perspective and we start really zeroing

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Speaker 2: in on what's going on at a much smaller scale.

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Speaker 3: So I thought we should start with the organisms before

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Speaker 3: we get to dietamacious earth. We talked about dietoms themselves.

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Speaker 3: So diatoms are microscopic, single celled, photosynthetic algae that are

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Speaker 3: notable for living inside strange, beautiful geometric cell walls that

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Speaker 3: they manufacture for themselves out of what's called opaline silica.

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Speaker 3: So essentially, these are microscopic algal life forms, photosynthesizing single

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Speaker 3: celled organisms that live in transparent or translucent silicon based solids.

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Speaker 3: These little houses made out of a substance very similar

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Speaker 3: to glass, and these glass like shells they make are

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Speaker 3: called frustules. The weird and sometimes dazzling shapes of these

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Speaker 3: frustules are a major reason historically that diatoms have been

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Speaker 3: so interesting to people since they were first observed through

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Speaker 3: microscopes over three hundred years ago. But diatoms are not

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Speaker 3: just some obscure biological curiosity that's pretty to look at.

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Speaker 3: Diatoms are everywhere, and in a sense they are tied

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Speaker 3: up in the life of everything on Earth. So diatoms

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Speaker 3: are found in nearly every aquatic habitat on the planet, seawater,

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Speaker 3: fresh water, icy oceans, lakes and rivers, puddles, even damp soil.

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Speaker 3: You can find them stuck between layers of seasonal ice

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Speaker 3: that accumulates in Antarctica. Like anywhere there's water, you're going

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Speaker 3: to find them. And so if you put a drop

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Speaker 3: of water from any natural water source under a microscope,

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Speaker 3: there'll be some exceptions, but very likely, very high odds

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Speaker 3: you're going to find diatoms in that water.

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Speaker 2: To a certain depth. That's where its nottings were.

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Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. Yeah, So some of them live as free

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Speaker 3: floating plankton, so they'll be floating in the water, carried

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Speaker 3: about by currents in the water, and others live by

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Speaker 3: attaching themselves to surfaces in the water, like the outer

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Speaker 3: surface of aquatic plant tissues. Some of the earliest images

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Speaker 3: of diatoms people ever recorded seeing up close through microscopes

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Speaker 3: were attached to plant roots, or sometimes they will just

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Speaker 3: stick to inorganic surfaces, the surfaces of rocks, or even

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Speaker 3: the surface of ice. That's a strange place to find

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Speaker 3: things living, but there are interesting research about thriving diatom

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Speaker 3: communities that live on the surface of ice or even

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Speaker 3: in between layers of ice. So individually, most diatoms I'll

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Speaker 3: mention a couple of exceptions, but most diatoms are too

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Speaker 3: small to see with the naked eye. They live on

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Speaker 3: the scale of micrometers, with the smallest being only a

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Speaker 3: few micrometers wide, which is much too small to see

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Speaker 3: without magnification, and the largest growing to a few hundred micrometers,

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Speaker 3: which is roughly the width of a human hair. There

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Speaker 3: appears to be one extreme outline, a species that came

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Speaker 3: across called Ethmodiscus rex, which can grow up to two

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Speaker 3: or three millimeters in width while still being only a

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Speaker 3: single cell, which is pretty crazy to think about. Obviously,

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Speaker 3: that one is visible with the naked eye, but most

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Speaker 3: of them are not. And while almost all of them

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Speaker 3: are too small to see without a microscope, together they

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Speaker 3: have a massive impact on the planet. So in satellite

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Speaker 3: photography you can see them as blooms of color in

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Speaker 3: the ocean from orbit, and they are major atmospheric engineers.

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Speaker 3: Diatoms by themselves are responsible for producing somewhere between twenty

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Speaker 3: and thirty percent of the oxygen we breathe. They are

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Speaker 3: also a major primary producer of organic material and thus

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Speaker 3: a base of the food web in the ocean. According

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Speaker 3: to a twenty eighteen paper by Agira at All in

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Speaker 3: scientific Reports, which I'll come back to later, diatoms by

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Speaker 3: themselves a count for quote, forty five percent of total

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Speaker 3: primary production of organic material in the sea. So diatoms

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Speaker 3: are just going to be making up a huge portion

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Speaker 3: of the base layer of the food web in the

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Speaker 3: world's oceans, with other major primary producers in the oceans

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Speaker 3: including cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates. According to Agira and co authors,

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Speaker 3: there are actually there are more than one hundred thousand

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Speaker 3: species of diatoms I think those are not all documented.

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Speaker 3: I think those would be you know, there's some estimation

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Speaker 3: involved in there, because I've seen other estimates saying that

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Speaker 3: there are you know, somewhere between tens of thousands and

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Speaker 3: millions of species of diatoms. I think we don't really

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Speaker 3: know exactly how many species there are, and they tend

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Speaker 3: to be classified according to the shapes of their frustules,

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Speaker 3: these these glass cases that they build for themselves and

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Speaker 3: live within. So some of these frustules, and we'll do

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Speaker 3: much more intricate description as we move on, because that's

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Speaker 3: a big part of the series, is just looking at

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Speaker 3: these shells, looking at the frustuls. But some of them

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Speaker 3: are roughly shaped, like zigzagging chains of squares and rectangles.

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Speaker 3: Some of them kind of look like pistol, like piston

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Speaker 3: cylinders or tubes with these perforations in them. Some look

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Speaker 3: like little coin purses or glass lips. Others look like colosseums,

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Speaker 3: weird little Roman colosseums.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing how they can feel like this weird

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Speaker 2: mix of organic and technological and psychedelic, and it really

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Speaker 2: feels at times when you're looking at images of these,

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Speaker 2: like the machine elves have like opened up the walls

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Speaker 2: and allowed you to see inside reality.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely. There's one micrograph image I saw that looked like

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Speaker 3: a stone hair brush, and that shook me. I don't know,

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Speaker 3: It's like, what's going on with this hair brush? But anyway,

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Speaker 3: one of the really interesting things is that these hard

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Speaker 3: silicon based cell walls have a life beyond the algal

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Speaker 3: organism that lives inside them. So when diatoms die, their

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Speaker 3: frustules do not just disappear. They usually sink down to

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Speaker 3: the sediment layer below the body of water where they live,

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Speaker 3: and in some cases, before they can be broken apart

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Speaker 3: and dissolved, they pile up and accumulate and form a

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Speaker 3: kind of silica based ooze which can become fossilized together

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Speaker 3: to create a porous, low density sedimentary material called diatamite,

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Speaker 3: which you can think of as a soft sponge like

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Speaker 3: sort of chalky fossil rock made out of compressed layers

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Speaker 3: of these microscopic glass shells. And if millions of years

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Speaker 3: later you dig up layers of this mineral diatamite, you

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Speaker 3: grind it up into a powder, you get a well

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Speaker 3: known and extremely common utility material called diatomaceous earth.

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Speaker 2: Which a misleading name. I think, like I think so,

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Speaker 2: I think we can already say just this, this far

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Speaker 2: into the episode, you could more readily call this like

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Speaker 2: necro dust or something like it's yeah, it's a lot grizzly,

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Speaker 2: or you know, this is like the mass graves of

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Speaker 2: a of a of a billion billion prehistoric creatures or

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Speaker 2: life forms. Rather this is this is so it's so fascinating. Again,

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Speaker 2: you just take it for granted and you're just like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I bought that, sprinkled it, don't inhale it. That's the

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Speaker 2: most most people think about it, usually.

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Speaker 3: The trillions of razor hippodromes of death. Yeah. Yeah. But

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Speaker 3: so this stuff, dietamacious earth, despite having this strange you know,

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Speaker 3: organic fossil history, has all kinds of mundane, industrial and

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Speaker 3: practical uses throughout history and still today. And we'll cut

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Speaker 3: we'll definitely come back and discuss some of these uses,

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Speaker 3: both historical and today, in more detail later, but just

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Speaker 3: to run through a few of them. Dietamacious earth is

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Speaker 3: commonly used as a filtration medium for liquids like oils

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Speaker 3: and oil water emulsions like it's used in food filtration

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Speaker 3: food and beverage filtration. It's used in pool cleaning devices

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Speaker 3: for filtration and making beverages like beer and wine. It's

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Speaker 3: a used as a toiletry product in like some shampoos

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Speaker 3: and toothpastes. I think sometimes just generally used as an abrasive.

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Speaker 3: It's used in some types of cat litter. I think

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Speaker 3: you've got something about that, Rob.

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Speaker 2: And worth noting too at this point that like they're

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Speaker 2: broadly you'll find there, you know, different classifications of it,

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Speaker 2: including food grade dietamacious.

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Speaker 3: Earth, which I don't know. I don't know if we're

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Speaker 3: going to vouch for that yet. I don't want to

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Speaker 3: cast too much doubt on it either. I just I

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Speaker 3: haven't made up my mind. When I think about so

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Speaker 3: called food grade dietamacious.

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Speaker 2: Earth, well, I mean that's the technical classification, I believe,

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Speaker 2: the industry classification for it. I don't know. Yeah, I

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Speaker 2: don't know how much we're going to go into some

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Speaker 2: of the more human bodied centered uses and proposed uses

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Speaker 2: for this stuff. As always, we'll just refer to a

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Speaker 2: standard caveat of check with your doctor, check with an

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Speaker 2: action action doctor on any questions like that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I have not researched for this episode a lot

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Speaker 3: of these so called these medical claims about diatamacious earth.

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Speaker 3: But just be aware that out there there are some

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Speaker 3: health and wellness claims about diatamacious earth that appear at

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Speaker 3: first glance to me to be not super well founded.

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Speaker 3: But maybe we can come back and look at that

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Speaker 3: in more detail later.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because at the same time, again, it is everywhere

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Speaker 2: and in all sorts of products, right, and not in

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Speaker 2: a way that should alarm.

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Speaker 3: You, right, totally. I don't want to be alarmist about

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Speaker 3: it either. I just don't want to say that all

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Speaker 3: alleged uses of it are legitimate obviously, so anyway, so

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Speaker 3: it's in all that stuff. But also it's commonly used

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Speaker 3: as an insecticide. I think we'll have some stuff on

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Speaker 3: this later, like a crawling insect repellent. It's used as

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Speaker 3: an additive in paints and varnishes, and it even played

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Speaker 3: a key role in the invention of dynamite. Strange story there.

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Speaker 3: So I think it's so interesting that this stuff that

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Speaker 3: you can buy in bulk at the tractor supply store

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Speaker 3: and and like has all of these mundane roles in

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Speaker 3: human industry. If you zoom in on the particles of

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Speaker 3: this stuff with a high powered microscope. You can still

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Speaker 3: see fragments of these insane xenomorphic geometric structures. Like it's

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Speaker 3: like you go to the tractor supply and you buy

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Speaker 3: a bag of smashed up microbial cathedrals and these gears

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Speaker 3: of alien machines. It's kind of wild.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I was looking at various images of these things,

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Speaker 2: and and and again I encourage everyone out there just,

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Speaker 2: you know, do your standard image start to bring up

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Speaker 2: some some some some some images of these different diatoms

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Speaker 2: and diatamacious service close ups, and you're going to be astounded.

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Speaker 2: And I was thinking, like, what do these look like?

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Speaker 2: What are the different vibes that I'm getting off of these?

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Speaker 2: And so this is just a short list. I would

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Speaker 2: say I definitely get a sense of uncooked romulin pasta

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Speaker 2: of exploded components of a high end Swiss watch, totally

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Speaker 2: defective components from a mechanical pencil factory. Okay, some of them,

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Speaker 2: especially the more colorful presentations of different diatoms that you'll find.

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Speaker 2: I get a nineteen seventies bathroom tyle mosaic at your

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Speaker 2: Aunt Helen's house, sort of feeling.

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Speaker 3: In just a minute. I wanted to get into some

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Speaker 3: reasons for some of these different colorful versus more machine

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Speaker 3: looking ones, but yeah, totally, I see that too.

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Speaker 2: I get a sense of checks mixed prototypes for the

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Speaker 2: International Space Station ended up not being deployed, they sent

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Speaker 2: ramen instead of something. And then also especially with some

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Speaker 2: of the colorful images rejected Dead Can Dance album covers.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I like all of those descriptions. I think

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Speaker 3: they're all valid. One of the things I noticed is

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Speaker 3: that two different descriptions of yours mentioned sort of printed

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Speaker 3: or human made, but like mass manufactured food products. So

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Speaker 3: one I think when you said like romul and pasta

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Speaker 3: uncooked pasta, you're thinking of like cut pasta shapes, like

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Speaker 3: you know, those curly cues or tubes you get rigatonies

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Speaker 3: and things. And then you also mentioned checks like checks mix,

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Speaker 3: and I do see both of those things. I don't

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Speaker 3: know what's significant about that, but maybe it's because you

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Speaker 3: get these at once kind of organic looking, so it's

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Speaker 3: kind of food, but also mass manufactured and tool and

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Speaker 3: component looking, so it's like you know, printed foods, these

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Speaker 3: kind of like mass made foods that are all the same.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely, I mean definitely, you're looking at something

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Speaker 2: that is like a lattice work, and yeah, and you know,

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Speaker 2: we can't help but compare it to some of these

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Speaker 2: various food products.

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Speaker 3: So one thing that is interesting, if you look up

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Speaker 3: micrograph images of diatoms and of diete maacious earth, even

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Speaker 3: the ones that are similarly shaped will look pretty different

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Speaker 3: depending on whether the image is produced using visible light

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Speaker 3: microscopy or by a scanning electron microscope. And I didn't

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Speaker 3: put this together until I read it mentioned in one

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Speaker 3: of the explainer pages by an ecologist and dietom researcher

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Speaker 3: named Sarah Spalding on diatoms dot org, which is actually

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Speaker 3: that's a great website maintained by a group called Diatoms

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Speaker 3: of North America. It seems like most of the articles

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Speaker 3: on here are by this researcher, Sarah Spalding. But the

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Speaker 3: author here points out that under light microscopy, most diatom frustules,

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Speaker 3: the glass like shells on the outside of the dietom.

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Speaker 3: Most of these are going to be transparent under light microscopes,

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Speaker 3: They're going to be like glass, So this gives them

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Speaker 3: the appearance of fine crystal glassware and jewelry. Dietoms are

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Speaker 3: often compared to jewels, and so that's one sort of

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Speaker 3: genre of diatom imagery. Whereas under a scanning electron microscope,

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Speaker 3: the frustule is not transparent but opaque. And I think

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Speaker 3: there could be different reasons for this. This may be

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Speaker 3: wholly or partially do not to inherent properties of the

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Speaker 3: frustul but to how samples are pre treated for the

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Speaker 3: electron microscope. Like I think they might get some sort

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Speaker 3: of metallic coating to make them visible under this method.

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Speaker 3: I'm not totally sure about that, but whatever the cause,

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Speaker 3: the result is that the electron microscope highlights the shape

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Speaker 3: and the texture of the frustule itself, producing these images

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Speaker 3: that look less elegant and subtle and transparent. There's less

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Speaker 3: of a less light and color about them, so you

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Speaker 3: don't get that glowing gem appearance you get with the

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Speaker 3: light microscope images. These are the ones that look more

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Speaker 3: like the gray alien gears and machinery. And so I

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Speaker 3: think it's interesting that you, of course have different kinds

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Speaker 3: of diatoms that on their own, you know, because of

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Speaker 3: their natural biodiversity, contribute to all these different types of

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Speaker 3: shapes and colors and structures you get, but also the

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Speaker 3: different microscope methods give you very different feelings when you

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Speaker 3: look at them. Yeah, yeah, so I know, we want

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Speaker 3: to talk about a couple of interesting and surprising uses

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Speaker 3: of diatomacious earth made from these these fossil diatoms today,

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Speaker 3: But before we do that, I wanted to talk a

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Speaker 3: bit more about the biology of diatom frustules and these

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Speaker 3: glass like structures that the diatoms live inside. So to

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Speaker 3: picture a diatom as a living organism, you have to

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Speaker 3: think about a soft inner cell that looks in some

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Speaker 3: ways like a typical cell of algae. Though if you

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Speaker 3: think algae, you may be thinking green. Your brain just

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Speaker 3: naturally goes there because masses of algae we see, especially

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Speaker 3: in like freshwater sources, are often green. A lot of diatoms,

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Speaker 3: I think, are going to be more like. They vary,

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Speaker 3: but a lot of them tend to be more gold

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Speaker 3: or golden brown in color. And technically, historically, dietoms have

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Speaker 3: been thought of as what we're We're called protists, so

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Speaker 3: that was kind of a cash all group for single

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Speaker 3: celled eukaryotic organisms with a cell nucleus housing their main

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Speaker 3: genetic material, but which were not plants, and we're not animals,

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Speaker 3: and we're not fungi, and it's like that. It is

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Speaker 3: not any of those things. It is a photosynthesizing and

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Speaker 3: makes its energy from the sunlight, photosynthesizing, single celled organism.

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Speaker 3: It does have a cell nucleus, but it's not a plant,

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Speaker 3: it's not an animal, not a fungus. And as we've

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Speaker 3: been talking about, one of the main things that really

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Speaker 3: makes a diatom unique as an organism is that this

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Speaker 3: soft inner cell is protected by the mortified cell wall,

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Speaker 3: this rigid glass like material made out of silica that

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Speaker 3: goes all the way around the frustuel Frustules are often

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Speaker 3: compared to pill boxes in design, and I was trying

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Speaker 3: to unders make sure I understood this right. I think

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Speaker 3: I finally landed on an analogy that makes sense of

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Speaker 3: it for me. So Rob, we'll see if this gets

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Speaker 3: you there. So they're often described as pillboxes because die

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Speaker 3: tomshells are typically made of two interlocking halves, which are

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Speaker 3: known as the epitheca and the hypotheca. So think of

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Speaker 3: a box or a container with two differently sized halves,

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Speaker 3: a base and a lid. Where you close them together

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Speaker 3: by sliding the lid down over the top of the base.

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Speaker 3: A common comparison used in a lot of sources to

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Speaker 3: describe this is a Petrie dish, But I think that's

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Speaker 3: probably an easier point of reference for people who work

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Speaker 3: in labs a lot. So the best comparison I could

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Speaker 3: think of for just regular people would be the boxes

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Speaker 3: that board games come in. So you've got two halves,

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Speaker 3: one is slightly bigger than the other, and the lid

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Speaker 3: fits over the base by closing over it tightly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense to me.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so there's an interesting fact about the interaction between

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Speaker 3: the rigid frustule which exists in these two halves and

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Speaker 3: diatom reproduction, and shout out that again. I came across this,

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Speaker 3: I think, originally by reading explainers by the researcher Sarah

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Speaker 3: Spaulding on diatoms dot org, but I was reading about

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Speaker 3: this in a few other places. So the way it

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Speaker 3: works is like this, Diatoms reproduce both sexually and asexually,

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Speaker 3: but a lot of the reproduction is asexual reproduction. Asexual

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Speaker 3: reproduction happens when a single diatom parent cell divides in

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Speaker 3: two and makes a copy of itself. So each new cell,

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Speaker 3: now you've got two cells where there once was one.

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Speaker 3: Each new cell gets to take one half of the frustul.

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Speaker 3: So each new diatom then treats its half frustule as

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Speaker 3: the big half and makes a smaller half of a

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Speaker 3: frustul to close inside of it. So, to follow from

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Speaker 3: the board game box analogy, imagine that the board game

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Speaker 3: clones itself. You know, you've got your your Monopoly game

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Speaker 3: inside that makes a copy of itself, and each copy

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Speaker 3: of the Monopoly game takes one half of the original

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Speaker 3: box with it. So one new one game takes the lid,

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Speaker 3: one game takes the base.

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Speaker 2: Might this also be like if a human were too

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Speaker 2: spontaneously clone, and then one clone got to keep like

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Speaker 2: the shirt and the other clone got to keep the pants, right.

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Speaker 3: Sure, yes, putting aside structural differences between the rigid case

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Speaker 3: and the clothes. Yeah, it's much like that if a

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Speaker 3: human reproduced by just splitting in two and making two humans.

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Speaker 3: One would take the shirt, one would take the pants.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a long shirt in my mind, so

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Speaker 2: you know it's still functional.

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Speaker 3: They're fine, okay, But now imagine Following that analogy, I

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Speaker 3: was going to say that for the board game, now

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Speaker 3: you've got the two new Monopoly games, and each one

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Speaker 3: takes the half of the box that it took as

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Speaker 3: the lid, and it makes a new base.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 3: In your analogy, I think it would be that you've

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Speaker 3: got the two humans, and one takes the shirt, one

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Speaker 3: takes the pants, but they both use that article of

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Speaker 3: clothing as the shirt, and so now they both need

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Speaker 3: to make a new pair of pants. Okay, but let's

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Speaker 3: just stick with a board game analogy for a second,

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Speaker 3: so I don't get confused. So, since the lid of

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Speaker 3: the box always has to fit over the base of

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Speaker 3: the box, you know, and they each took half, so

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Speaker 3: one of them took away a base to make into

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Speaker 3: a new lid. This means that the dietm that originally

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Speaker 3: took the base and treated it as the lid will

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Speaker 3: have a smaller shell overall than the original parent. And

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Speaker 3: if that dietm divides again, one of its offspring will

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Speaker 3: have to be even smaller, and so on and so on. Now,

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Speaker 3: obviously this cannot go on forever. Over the course of

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Speaker 3: a few months, diatom reproduction can result in generations dramatically

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Speaker 3: smaller than the original ancestor. I think this varies somewhat

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Speaker 3: by species, Like I think there are some species maybe

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Speaker 3: that don't really shrink like this, and others that do,

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Speaker 3: and they might shrink to different extents. But anyway, some sources,

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Speaker 3: at least talking about some species, said that you can

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Speaker 3: get more than fifty or sixty percent reductions in size

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Speaker 3: in just a few months.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, so I think the board game box

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Speaker 2: analogy actually works really well here, because, yeah, if the

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Speaker 2: top of the box becomes the new bottom of the

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Speaker 2: box and this process keeps going, eventually normal monopoly becomes

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Speaker 2: travel Monopoly, and then eventually you have a monopoly set

396
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Speaker 2: inside of a matchbox or something it's too.

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Speaker 3: Small to play with eventually, Yeah, exactly. So this brings

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Speaker 3: us to a question, how does a diatom reproductive line

399
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Speaker 3: get big again? Well, according Dispalding, diatoms get back to

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Speaker 3: their original size by entering a specialized life phase where

401
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Speaker 3: they create a structure called an oxospore. So, instead of

402
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Speaker 3: a rigid silica shell surrounding the entire cell like you

403
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:22,920
Speaker 3: get with regular diatoms, the oxospore only has these bands

404
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Speaker 3: of silica which go around it. These bands are called perizonia,

405
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Speaker 3: and because the oxospore lacks the full shell, the oxospore

406
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Speaker 3: can grow to its ideal size before kicking off the

407
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:39,440
Speaker 3: reproductive line again through cell division, which results in full

408
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:45,359
Speaker 3: size diatoms with full size frustules. So diatom species that

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Speaker 3: shrink like this usually use sexual reproduction to reach the

410
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Speaker 3: oxospore phase. Highly shrunken diatoms are are triggered to produce

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Speaker 3: game meats, and these game meats come buying to become

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Speaker 3: the full sized oxospore. So it's like the shrinking process

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Speaker 3: that triggers the sexual reproduction. Once they get shrunken down enough,

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Speaker 3: it's like time to reproduce sexually. So you could say

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Speaker 3: that in some cases diatoms are sexually frustulated. Hey, I

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Speaker 3: think I'm probably not the first person to make that one. Now,

417
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Speaker 3: there are some other really interesting things about diatom biology

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Speaker 3: that I want to get into, but I think I'm

419
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Speaker 3: want to save them for the next episode because I

420
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Speaker 3: also want us to talk today about some of the

421
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Speaker 3: bizarre properties of diatamacious earth. The fossil remnants of these organisms,

422
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Speaker 3: as they are often sold in bags and were in

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Speaker 3: places all around the world.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, So we're going to get into into

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Speaker 2: some of these topics concerning diatamacious earth. Here. We're going

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Speaker 2: to start talking a bit about diatamacious earth as an insecticide,

427
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Speaker 2: as a mechanical insecticide, or as a opponent in other insecticides.

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Speaker 2: And in order to get into this, I thought we

429
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:07,760
Speaker 2: might sci fi it up a little bit, which is,

430
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 2: you know, an exercise we sometimes do on the podcast

431
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 2: and also often what happens in my own mind when

432
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 2: I'm trying to understand something or sort of picture it.

433
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 2: So bear with me. Here. It is the year ten

434
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:25,959
Speaker 2: sixty aee, Okay, you are part of the human exploration

435
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 2: mission to the exoplanet let's see Blout sixteen oh six B.

436
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 2: It's a dry world, not altogether lifeless, but no longer

437
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 2: harboring intelligent life as you know it. Initial scans reveal

438
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 2: vast deserts and gaping canyons, but also isolated valleys that

439
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 2: could provide protection for landed modules. So you descend into

440
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:52,679
Speaker 2: just such a valley where ancient black pyramids whisper of

441
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,840
Speaker 2: a bygone age when the world's last civilization sought refuge

442
00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:59,959
Speaker 2: in these valleys, probably doing some sort of impending catacory

443
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,640
Speaker 2: that eventually destroyed them. But whatever lived here once your

444
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 2: bioscans indicate are no longer present. This valley is now lifeless,

445
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 2: and tech scans also show no evidence of the machines

446
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:15,480
Speaker 2: that your civilization purged itself off North machine descendants of

447
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 2: other alien civilizations. So everything seems good to go. Time

448
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:21,160
Speaker 2: to land. You're going to keep your suit on, of course,

449
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 2: but you're going to land and check it out. So

450
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:27,719
Speaker 2: that's what you do. You set out on foot, you

451
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 2: and your team, your clad and your protective armored spacesuits

452
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 2: complete with powered exoskeletons and all the human enhancing technology

453
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 2: that is currently permitted by the ecclesiastical authority. You scan

454
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 2: again for pathogens and the scans read negative. Emboldened, you

455
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,120
Speaker 2: and the team descend into the largest of the Black pyramids.

456
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 2: The inscriptions on the walls are indecipherable, composed in an

457
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:56,120
Speaker 2: alien text, and then on top of that degraded by

458
00:27:56,280 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 2: untold ians of neglect. But you can't help but try.

459
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 2: As you're staring at them, and as you're staring at

460
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 2: these inscriptions, you hardly notice that the finely etched floor

461
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 2: of black stone has steadily given away to some sort

462
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 2: of fine sand or dust. And as you encounter various

463
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:20,360
Speaker 2: statues and are captivated by these hauntingly humanoid yet drastically

464
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 2: supernumerary figures with various limbs and appendages, you also fail

465
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 2: to notice how your footfalls are stirring up all of

466
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 2: this fine dust around you. In no time, this dust

467
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:35,920
Speaker 2: adheres to your suit in each grain of the strange

468
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:40,959
Speaker 2: dust simultaneously slices into your armor and also somehow begins

469
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 2: to absorb it. Suddenly, a whole host of warning lights

470
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 2: are blinking in your helmets heads up display. You have

471
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 2: indicators of multiple suit apertures. You have failures going out

472
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 2: on throughout the system. Your powered exoskeletal movement is completely down.

473
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 2: Biocontainment is each and then you begin to lose moisture

474
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 2: and an alarming rate to the dry environment outside of

475
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 2: your suit and to the dust particles in themselves. So

476
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 2: live drains from each of you, leaving behind only desiccated

477
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 2: corpses within perforated technological shells, which soon splinter and collapse

478
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 2: into shards as well.

479
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 3: Sounds rough don't want to go to that planet and

480
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 3: actually it kind of reminds me. I don't know, I

481
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 3: haven't read recently to what extent this is still a concern,

482
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 3: but I remember years ago reading about proposed you know,

483
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 3: crude missions for longer habitation on the Moon or maybe

484
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 3: in other places as well. Particularly this was with reference

485
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 3: to the Moon, the idea that the that the lunar

486
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 3: regolith had some abrasive qualities that actually would make it

487
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 3: rather hard to deal with that it's like sticky and

488
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 3: abrasive at the same time, and would be harmful to

489
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 3: spacesuits and you.

490
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 2: Know, oh yeah, yeah things. There's certainly a lot of

491
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 2: dust related concerns in in space exploration, including things like

492
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 2: you know, dark what happens of dark matter or not

493
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:08,720
Speaker 2: dark matter, but you know, dark dust of some sort

494
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 2: adheres to your suit and then is hit with solar energy,

495
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 2: you know, is it heat up and so forth. So, yeah,

496
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 2: there's there's a lot we could discuss on that matter.

497
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 2: But for this, for our purposes here, yeah, this is

498
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 2: a little sci fi indulgence. But this is also somewhat

499
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 2: how diatamacious Earth acts on insects and iracnids as a

500
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 2: mechanical pesticide, which is to say it's not a poison,

501
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 2: it's not a toxin, it's not a pathogen. It kills

502
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 2: insects via largely physical interaction with them. For starters, what's

503
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 2: going on here is, as we've been discussing, ditamacious, earth

504
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,520
Speaker 2: is abrasive and at the scale of insects and arachnids,

505
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 2: the particles slice into exoskeletal plates like and I've seen

506
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 2: various comparisons online, like the teeth of a roaring chainsaw,

507
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 2: like yards of glass and a tornado. I mean, you

508
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 2: pick the the comparison that sounds the grizzliest to you.

509
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:10,959
Speaker 2: And this is the This is all caused by the edges,

510
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 2: the sharp edges of the fossil eyed diatoms.

511
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 3: Well, actually, I was about to think about what is

512
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 3: it like crawling through and I was thinking is it

513
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 3: like razor blades or whatever? But I wonder to what

514
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 3: extent it sort of would be like crawling through glass

515
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 3: because in the sense this material is kind of like glass.

516
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, coming back to sand a

517
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 2: little bit. One of the we talked about different types

518
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 2: of sand, different uh smoothness levels of sand in our

519
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 2: episode on sand, and there are certain beaches that, you know,

520
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 2: I always dig in the sand of them at a beach,

521
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 2: and some of the rougher beaches I've been to, the

522
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:45,800
Speaker 2: ones that are you know, where the sand is composed

523
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 2: of like hard invisible pieces of shells, like some of those.

524
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 2: Your your hands definitely begin to feel raw after a

525
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 2: certain amount of digging, you know. So you know, I

526
00:31:56,640 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 2: can't I can't help but compare it to that. But yeah,

527
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 2: that's what's going on here. On one level, Yes, the

528
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 2: little particles of the diatamacious earth, the fossilized diatoms, are

529
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 2: like cutting into the exoskeletal layer of the insects and arachnids.

530
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 2: But on top of that, the particles are also absorptive,

531
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 2: and they are leeching away lipids from the waxy outer

532
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 2: layer of the creature's exoskeleton, and this essentially unseals the

533
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 2: containment suit of the insect, allowing its inner moisture to

534
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 2: be drawn out of the body as well, killing the

535
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 2: organism via dehydration sometimes referred to as enhanced dehydration. And

536
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 2: so this also works to varying degrees on snail, slugs

537
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 2: and other creatures, but it's particularly hard on exoskeleton bound arthropods,

538
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 2: and as such, diatamacious earth is widely used as an insecticide,

539
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 2: the one that functions in a different way compared to

540
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 2: what we might think of concerning like you know, more

541
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 2: chemical insecticie. So again, it requires external contact with the

542
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 2: organism to work, So it has to be applied in

543
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 2: a way that will coat the organism, cause it to

544
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 2: be coated, or work as a barrier to prevent the

545
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:15,880
Speaker 2: organism from crossing it like almost like a magical magic

546
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 2: circle spelled out in salt to keep a demon at bay.

547
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 2: And indeed, salt is also used as a mechanical pesticide.

548
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 2: You know, it draws the moisture out of bodies of

549
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 2: certain pests or perceived pests. And also again it's mechanical

550
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 2: and therefore widely regarded as safe for humans and animals

551
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 2: that don't have exoskeletons. Again, even coming in food grade forms,

552
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 2: so you know it can be used. It's often used

553
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 2: in agricultural settings and so forth. Now that's not to

554
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 2: say dietamatious earth can't hurt you it. You know, it

555
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 2: certainly can be harmful if inhaled, it can irritate the

556
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 2: eyes and other tissues. Obviously the large quantities rule is

557
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 2: in place for this as well, but it's not going

558
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 2: to eat through your skin and turn you into a

559
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 2: money right, And so yeah, on one level, ditamatious earth

560
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 2: can work like this is an insecticide on its own,

561
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 2: but it also is apparently sometimes added to pesticide mixtures

562
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 2: as well. And I've also read that it's it's very

563
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:21,400
Speaker 2: versatile in the ways you can use it as an

564
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 2: as an insecticide or an insect barrier, you know, sprinkling

565
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 2: it here, putting it in hard to reach places, and

566
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 2: so forth.

567
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 3: Trying to imagine up close, the magnified view of it

568
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 3: working as a mechanical insecticide, I think is made especially

569
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:40,799
Speaker 3: grizzly if you're looking at the like scanning electron microscope

570
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:44,880
Speaker 3: images of it, and you're seeing all these little sharp

571
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 3: looking shards of these fossil shells, you.

572
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 2: Know, Yeah, pieces looks like shrapnel exactly.

573
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, These pieces of the colosseums, these pieces of the

574
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 3: old fences, and all this mechanical looking It's like the

575
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 3: world the terminators come from. It's just like piled up

576
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:05,399
Speaker 3: scraps of things that look mechanical and things that look

577
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 3: organic all mixed together, but it all looks sharp, it

578
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:09,439
Speaker 3: all looks like it would hurt.

579
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:22,319
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now we've already touched a little bit on the

580
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 2: history of diatoms and anti diatamacious earth in terms of

581
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:29,239
Speaker 2: our understanding of diatoms, and we're going to come back

582
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 2: to that in the next episode as well. But I

583
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 2: was curious about just how far back the use of

584
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:39,799
Speaker 2: diatamacious earth, particularly as a pesticide, really goes. And one

585
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,320
Speaker 2: source I was looking at is Diatamacious Earth for Pest

586
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 2: Control by William Quarrels. This was published in The IPM

587
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 2: Practitioner back in nineteen ninety two and citing a nineteen

588
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 2: seventy two work by one F. Allen. The author here

589
00:35:56,560 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 2: mentions the possibility that the use of diatamatious earth as

590
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 2: an insecticide might date back some four thousand years to

591
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:06,360
Speaker 2: late Neolithic or early Bronze Age China.

592
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:10,280
Speaker 3: Wow, I had no idea. I hadn't read anything about this. Yeah.

593
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it wasn't able to uncover a ton here.

594
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 2: So I'd definitely take this with a grain of fossilized

595
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:20,600
Speaker 2: diatom because this is not I don't know that this

596
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 2: is something one can really put any hard numbers behind.

597
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 2: But supposedly humans may have picked up on this. Ancient

598
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:31,360
Speaker 2: humans may have picked up on this practice by observing

599
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 2: birds engaging in dust baths.

600
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 3: Huh.

601
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 2: So I believe we've all observed birds taking a dust

602
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:45,319
Speaker 2: bath before. Certainly, if you have chickens, or you just

603
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 2: do a lot of bird watching, you may have observed this.

604
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've seen this, Joe. There used

605
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 2: to be a dusty place in my backyard and I

606
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 2: would sometimes catch birds in there. I'd see movement flapping.

607
00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:58,240
Speaker 2: I'm like, what's going on? And it's just a bird

608
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:00,840
Speaker 2: in there, just flapping around in the dust, just flinging

609
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:04,360
Speaker 2: dust everywhere and then flying away when I get too close.

610
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 3: Interesting. Well, I mean I would immediately start thinking, what's

611
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 3: that for? Why is it doing that?

612
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it seems it seems ridiculous, right, like a bath,

613
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:15,239
Speaker 2: you don't take it in dust. You take a bath

614
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 2: to get rid of dust. What possible good comes of

615
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 2: taking a bath in dust? And basically it comes down

616
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 2: to individual pest control. And it's interesting because it does

617
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 2: seem to play a little bit. It seems like dietamacious

618
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 2: earth and the function of diatamatious earth does play a

619
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 2: little bit into what's happening with particularly avian dust baths.

620
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 2: There are non birds that do something like a dust bath.

621
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 2: But for purposes here, we're going to be looking at

622
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:47,840
Speaker 2: the birds. I look to a paper and this is

623
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 2: a really recent one. This came out March of twenty

624
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 2: twenty six in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

625
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 2: USA by Kuo at All, titled Mechanics of Dust Bathing

626
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 2: and Birds. One of the things that they point out

627
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 2: is that this is an area the actual mechanics of

628
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 2: what's going on here has long been kind of poorly understood.

629
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 2: We see birds doing it, but do we really know

630
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:17,319
Speaker 2: what's actually happening. I've read elsewhere that dust baths may

631
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 2: actually mechanically impact parasites such as mites via dehydration, along

632
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 2: the same lines as what we're talking about with ditamacious earth.

633
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 2: But Kuo it All focused mostly on wing flapping powered

634
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 2: substrate interaction. Now what does that mean. I'm just going

635
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 2: to read a quote from the paper here because I

636
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 2: think this sums it up nicely.

637
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 3: Quote.

638
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 2: Collision modeling indicates that the impact force from sand particles

639
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 2: exceeds MTE adhesion forces. Thus collision is the dominant removal mechanism.

640
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 2: Mites are removed within seconds when sand is present, suggesting

641
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:57,560
Speaker 2: that sand plays an active mechanical role in parasite dislodgments.

642
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:01,800
Speaker 2: So a bird gets in the dust, starts just whipping

643
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 2: that dust all around themselves, and what is happening is

644
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:09,760
Speaker 2: those little particles, particularly if its stand like apparently there's

645
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 2: like boulders smashing into mites and knocking them physically, mechanically

646
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 2: knocking them off of the feathers of the birds. So

647
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 2: that's pretty crazy. Now, did humans use dietamacious earth in

648
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 2: ancient times based on the observation of avian dust baths? Again,

649
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 2: I don't know that we really know an answer to this.

650
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:35,000
Speaker 2: I suppose it's possible, maybe even likely, But as the

651
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 2: researchers point out, again, the mechanics of what's going on

652
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:41,000
Speaker 2: have been at best poorly understood. But there's all sorts

653
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 2: of things about the natural world that humans picked up

654
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 2: on because we observed our animal relatives doing something, and

655
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 2: you know, on some level we understood that they had

656
00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:56,239
Speaker 2: developed those methods and those acts and those practices and

657
00:39:56,239 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 2: those habits because they did something that it was useful

658
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 2: to them.

659
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:05,160
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess one thing to think about is

660
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 3: that dietamacious earth has a different anti insect or anti

661
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 3: arachnid mechanism than the sand, and this example does like

662
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 3: it's knocking off the external parasites, whereas if it was

663
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 3: dietamacious Earth, what you would probably be thinking it was

664
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:25,239
Speaker 3: doing was like eventually killing them so that they die

665
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 3: and fall off right.

666
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 2: And it's possible given I think it's possible, given different

667
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 2: components in different dust or sands, that you could have

668
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:40,880
Speaker 2: some combination of things going on in a dust bath.

669
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:44,240
Speaker 2: But again, I don't know that we really have everything

670
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:47,239
Speaker 2: completely squared away on what's going on with an avy

671
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 2: and dust bath. But when it comes to say, chickens

672
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 2: chicken farmers, I was reading online. I saw some various

673
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 2: threads about this. Chicken farmers seem to go back and

674
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 2: forth on whether you should add iotamacious earth to like

675
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:05,799
Speaker 2: the to like the dust bath portion of a chickens

676
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 2: living area. Some people are like, yeah, do it, Others

677
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 2: are like no, no, no, don't do it. They go

678
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:14,720
Speaker 2: back and forth on it. But there's some some people

679
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 2: argue that it helps them get rid of their own mites.

680
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:20,359
Speaker 3: But we're not making a call on that.

681
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 2: I'm not making a call on I'm just saying there

682
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:27,239
Speaker 2: there is discussion out there on this topic. Now, coming

683
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 2: back to that paper by Quarrels, he also points to

684
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 2: some of the more recent history in the US regarding

685
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 2: the use of diatamacious earth and things like It. Points

686
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 2: out that road dust was just was observed killing cotton

687
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 2: worms as early as eighteen eighty, points out that until

688
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:50,000
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties, clay dust, sand, and silica jel were

689
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:55,880
Speaker 2: more popular test materials than diatamite, and then insects he

690
00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:00,320
Speaker 2: lists controlled by different dusts up to nineteen fifteen included

691
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 2: the oriental fruit moth, the coddling moth, larva, flea beetles,

692
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 2: cucumber beetles, cockroaches, Mexican bean beetle larva, and stored grain pests.

693
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 3: So there is a even before targeted use by diatamacious earth,

694
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 3: there was a more general practice of using various types

695
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 3: of dust or other mineral grains, even sand in some cases,

696
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:29,760
Speaker 3: to repel or harm insects that were considered pests.

697
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:32,879
Speaker 2: Right right. He writes that quote dusts in general are

698
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 2: repellent to insects, and he provides an overview of some

699
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 2: of the different findings that existed at this time. Basically,

700
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 2: different experimentations entailed different types of diatamacious earth, for instance,

701
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 2: looking at ditamacious earth of marine origin and freshwater origin.

702
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 2: Also different experiments with silica gel grain size sometimes factors

703
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,799
Speaker 2: into how effective or ineffective it's seem to be. But

704
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:05,319
Speaker 2: also different insects seem to have different vulnerability levels to

705
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:06,720
Speaker 2: dietamacious earth.

706
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 3: Oh okay, and.

707
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:10,760
Speaker 2: This makes sense because again we're talking about a physical

708
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 2: interaction here between these little tiny shards and some sort

709
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 2: of surface. So more vulnerable include large surface area to

710
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 2: volume ratio insects, and this generally means smaller insects.

711
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 3: Because as you scale up, your volume increases cubically.

712
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:33,360
Speaker 2: Right, Plus insects that have lots of he calls it

713
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 2: body here. We know it's not quite here, but you know,

714
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:39,600
Speaker 2: if an insect has lots of little things on it,

715
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 2: like hair that can pick up particles, that can grab

716
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:47,760
Speaker 2: onto particles, that also makes them more vulnerable. Thinner layers

717
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,239
Speaker 2: as well can play into this. You know, again we're

718
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 2: talking about physical interaction. The thinner the armor, the more susceptible,

719
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:58,239
Speaker 2: the easier it's going to be for something to breach it.

720
00:43:59,600 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 2: And he also writes, quote insects such as the cockroach

721
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 2: that is protected by a low melting grease are more

722
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:13,360
Speaker 2: susceptible than insects with hardened, waxy cuticles. Now less vulnerable

723
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 2: include smoother beetles like the confused flower beetle. Insects that's

724
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:21,920
Speaker 2: that's a type of beetle. Yeah, yeah, I didn't. I

725
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 2: didn't do a deep dive on this, but that is

726
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:27,279
Speaker 2: at least the common name for it. Insects with thick cuticles,

727
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:31,400
Speaker 2: and they are also less vulnerable likewise, and then also

728
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:35,719
Speaker 2: sucking insects that are constantly obtaining water by feeding on vegetation,

729
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 2: they're just going to be my understanding, they're moister compared

730
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:44,319
Speaker 2: to say, dry grain feeding insects. Again, these are going

731
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:46,800
Speaker 2: to be less vulnerable. So yeah, you can have a

732
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 2: lot of variability in exactly what kind of dietamacious earth

733
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 2: you're you're using, and then what kind of insect is

734
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 2: on the receiving end of it, what kind of insect

735
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:01,960
Speaker 2: or i racnet exoskeleton bound organism is on the receiving

736
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 2: end of your sand.

737
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 3: There is such a honey, I shrunk the kid's quality

738
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:09,319
Speaker 3: to this of the you know, the horrors that you

739
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:11,880
Speaker 3: don't even really think about because of the scale on

740
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 3: which you exist, and trying to imagine all of the

741
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 3: different ways the world is threatening. This reminds me of

742
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 3: I feel like I've mentioned it on the show a

743
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 3: million times. At this point, I'm always thinking about it.

744
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 3: But the classic JBS Halliday and essay on being the

745
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:30,319
Speaker 3: right size, which has to do in part with the

746
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 3: different physical forces that act on you most and represent

747
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 3: the most threat to you when you are different sizes,

748
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 3: so that like we at the size we are do

749
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 3: not really have to worry that much about the surface

750
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 3: tension of water as a physical force that can destroy us.

751
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 3: But like you know, a small insect that can get

752
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 3: overwhelmed by a droplet of waters, like the surface tension

753
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 3: of water is a much more threatening physical force to

754
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 3: very small creatures, whereas we really have to worry about gravity,

755
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 3: and tiny insects don't have to, you know, like falling

756
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:08,879
Speaker 3: for a tiny insect is not nearly as threatening. And

757
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:12,040
Speaker 3: that essay also includes, I think the part about how

758
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 3: you know if a mouse falls down a mind shaft,

759
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 3: it bounces, a human is broken, a horse splashes. Yeah,

760
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 3: but you know the counterpoint to that is like dietamacious

761
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 3: earth could maybe be like a lung or eye irritant

762
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:29,279
Speaker 3: to us, Like you wouldn't want to get it on

763
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 3: your sensitive mucous membranes in certain ways. And you know,

764
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,040
Speaker 3: it's not like completely harmless.

765
00:46:34,600 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 2: But you wouldn't want to swim in at Scrooge McDuck

766
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 2: style or riding.

767
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's not like completely harmless, but you mostly

768
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 3: don't have to worry about these these tiny razor gears

769
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 3: from the ancient diatoms. But for if the wrong kind

770
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 3: of insect, this is just a valley of thorns. It

771
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 3: is just this terror.

772
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:54,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, for the wrong sort of insect, like a line,

773
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 2: like a sprinkled line of this stuff is just a

774
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 2: barrier of death that they either will die in attempting

775
00:47:00,480 --> 00:47:02,879
Speaker 2: to cross, or they just cannot cross. They just will

776
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 2: say no, I want none of it. All right, Well

777
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 2: I'm gonna leave it off there. But you know, as

778
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:20,760
Speaker 2: with any of this, I'd love to hear from anyone

779
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 2: out there who has experience using dietamacious earth, particularly as

780
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:30,280
Speaker 2: a pesticide or chicken farmers right in. I want your

781
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:33,319
Speaker 2: opinion on all of this that the chicken farming world

782
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:37,600
Speaker 2: is mostly new to me. I had some chicken stay

783
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:40,160
Speaker 2: in my backyard once, like over the course of a weekend.

784
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:42,239
Speaker 2: They were guests. I don't know what they were up

785
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:46,839
Speaker 2: to aside from just pooping everywhere, but yeah, I didn't

786
00:47:46,840 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 2: get a lot of insight into what they wanted when

787
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:50,320
Speaker 2: it came to a dust bath.

788
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,240
Speaker 3: Man. You know, just last night I had an interesting

789
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 3: experience with some overwhelming bird poops and aarreos. I was

790
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 3: about to go out paddling on the river last night

791
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:02,360
Speaker 3: after work, and I just happened to be standing in

792
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 3: a place right under a part of the bridge where

793
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 3: there are many many swallow nests up above, and I

794
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 3: was just noticing, noticing, like, man, I just put my

795
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:13,879
Speaker 3: kayak down, and suddenly there's bird poop on it. Oh

796
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 3: there's more, Oh there's more. What's going on? And then

797
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 3: I realized all around me it was just a it

798
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 3: was just a yeah, a frenzy.

799
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, it can be quite overwhelming at times.

800
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if they all try to poop

801
00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 3: on purpose at the same time. Is that a thing?

802
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 2: I had similar thoughts. In the last week, I was,

803
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:32,719
Speaker 2: you know, I was up in Denver with with my

804
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 2: family and we did some walks, and you know it,

805
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:39,359
Speaker 2: I encountered this pretty much wherever I go, wherever there

806
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:42,800
Speaker 2: are you know, geese, But geese will just poop everywhere.

807
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 2: And I was wondering, It's like, do they prefer to

808
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 2: poop on human walkways? And at first I was I

809
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 2: was entertaining that idea, and then I was really noticed, like, no,

810
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 2: they're just pooping everywhere. I don't think they really have

811
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 2: a preference, but but I don't know this would be

812
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 2: this This kind of gets an to something we're going

813
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 2: to be talking about in the next episode when we

814
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:04,799
Speaker 2: get into a little bit into cat litter and talk

815
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 2: about dietamatious or within cat litter. But it's possible sometime

816
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 2: down the line we should do an episode on where

817
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 2: to poop and where to urinate and how animals decide

818
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:19,080
Speaker 2: what is the approximate place to do this, Like what

819
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 2: sort of material or environment should I do it in?

820
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:26,279
Speaker 2: Where should I do it in terms of like you know,

821
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 2: top or bottom of a tree, that sort of thing.

822
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 2: There are a number of just a number of examples

823
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:34,960
Speaker 2: that come to mind that are that are pretty fascinating.

824
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:38,440
Speaker 2: You know, even in a captive environment. You know, we'll

825
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:42,040
Speaker 2: see in situations where the animal will choose, like a

826
00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:44,759
Speaker 2: gecko will always have one particular corner in which it

827
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:47,279
Speaker 2: does its business. And I'm sure everyone out here, you know,

828
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 2: certainly pet owners and people who raise animals can can

829
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 2: think of various examples of this as well. But anyway,

830
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:53,960
Speaker 2: it might be something we could come back to in

831
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:54,840
Speaker 2: a future episode.

832
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:58,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, cross species investigation of bathroom strategies, I think would

833
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:03,239
Speaker 3: would be good. Okay, Well, as we've said, next time,

834
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 3: we're going to get into more. We'll talk about cat letter,

835
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:10,279
Speaker 3: probably talk about dynamite, probably talk about more dietm biology,

836
00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:15,359
Speaker 3: and plenty more. So join us again next time.

837
00:50:16,200 --> 00:50:18,799
Speaker 2: All right. Just a reminder to everyone out there that

838
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:21,200
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and

839
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:24,880
Speaker 2: culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short

840
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 2: form episode on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside

841
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:29,680
Speaker 2: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film

842
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:34,720
Speaker 2: on Weird House Cinema. You can find our podcast wherever

843
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 2: you get audio podcasts and wherever that happens to be

844
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 2: a rate, review, and subscribe. Also be aware that there's,

845
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 2: you know, a huge backlog of episodes in there, huge

846
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 2: vault of episodes we've recovered, we've covered over the years.

847
00:50:48,440 --> 00:50:52,160
Speaker 2: You'll find topics like dust and sand and so forth.

848
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:58,320
Speaker 2: If you are on Netflix watching us, the back catalog

849
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 2: is only going to go so far because this is

850
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:04,080
Speaker 2: adding the video is relatively new. But we'll just remind

851
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 2: you that you can find all of these additional episodes

852
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:09,400
Speaker 2: in audio format where you get your audio podcast, but

853
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:12,279
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to us, watch us, whatever. Do what

854
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:17,440
Speaker 2: you can to help us out with star ratings, thumbs up, subscribing,

855
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:18,880
Speaker 2: whatever the case may be.

856
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:21,839
Speaker 3: Subscribing most important. Yeah, if you want to get more,

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00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 3: please subscribe wherever you listen and wherever you watch on Netflix.

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Speaker 3: I think the button click is remind me, remind me

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Speaker 3: for the It sounds kind of ominous, though, doesn't it

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Speaker 3: remind me? I don't know why? Okay, anyway, huge thanks

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Speaker 3: as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If

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00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:42,799
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch with us with

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00:51:42,920 --> 00:51:45,239
Speaker 3: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

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00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:47,319
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

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Speaker 3: can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your

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Speaker 3: Mind dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Speaker 1: M