Speaker 1: My welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and today we've got to treat for you.
Speaker 1: It's a conversation with Dr Diva aim On. That's right.
Speaker 1: This is a wonderful chat where we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: about deep sea exploration. What is it like to explore
Speaker 1: the deep ocean from someone who's been there, um, and
Speaker 1: then what sorts of organisms and ecosystems are we learning about,
Speaker 1: How much do we not know about the deep ocean?
Speaker 1: And what are some of the biggest threats facing the
Speaker 1: deep ocean. Yeah, so this was a fascinating conversation. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if you want a little bit of background, we've done
Speaker 1: some episodes about the deep sea in the past. We'll
Speaker 1: link to a few of those on the landing page
Speaker 1: for this episode. I think we've done quite a few.
Speaker 1: Within just the past six months or so, we've had
Speaker 1: deep sea on the brain. Yeah. But the short version
Speaker 1: is that the the ocean is deep. Uh. Is it
Speaker 1: so deep that the pres sure down there is in
Speaker 1: kins the darkness is absolute and yet even in this
Speaker 1: cold and it's cold and even but even in these uh,
Speaker 1: this environment that is so hostile to human life, uh,
Speaker 1: there is a great abundance of marine life to be
Speaker 1: found there and gorgeously strange and diverse habitats and ecosystems arise.
Speaker 1: That's right. So without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Alright, Diva,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell
Speaker 1: our listeners a little bit about yourself? So my name
Speaker 1: is Dr Diva Ahman. I'm a deep se biologist who's
Speaker 1: originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, but I'm
Speaker 1: currently based at the Natural History Museum in London, in England.
Speaker 1: And what do you do there? Um, Well, it really
Speaker 1: varies day to day, um quite a lot. So probably
Speaker 1: the best part of my job is actually going out
Speaker 1: to see on what we call research cruises. Then nothing
Speaker 1: like the cruises that most people think about. Um, they
Speaker 1: don't involve you know, elderly individuals or all you can
Speaker 1: eat buffase definitely not um. And yeah, that most of
Speaker 1: all I do centers around that field work, which can
Speaker 1: be for about you know, one to three months of
Speaker 1: the year, um. Usually broken up into four to five
Speaker 1: week periods, and when we're on that ship, we basically
Speaker 1: explore parts of the deep sea that most people haven't
Speaker 1: ever been to, that sometimes no one has ever been to,
Speaker 1: and we collect samples of um animals, of the geology,
Speaker 1: the rocks, and so on, water samples, and that allows
Speaker 1: us to get a better understanding for that area of
Speaker 1: the ocean. And then once the next the research crew
Speaker 1: story is done, we bring everything back to the lab
Speaker 1: and there we work on those samples for usually the
Speaker 1: remainder of the year, and that involves doing, depending on
Speaker 1: what questions we're asking, a variety of analysis. And then
Speaker 1: I also do a lot of science communication because I
Speaker 1: think it's super fun and super important and um that's
Speaker 1: not just to the public, but also to policymakers to
Speaker 1: try and make sure our oceans and managed in a
Speaker 1: more a man in a more um sustainable and effective way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great. I love what I do. Oh, it sounds amazing.
Speaker 1: So you talked about how science communication is a part
Speaker 1: of your job. If you could isolate, you know, like
Speaker 1: one thing that you really wish everyone could understand about
Speaker 1: the oceans or the deep sea that not enough people
Speaker 1: have grasped. But what do you think that messages Oh wow, UM,
Speaker 1: perhaps the let me think about this one. Didn't mean
Speaker 1: to put your on spots. No, no, no, it's great,
Speaker 1: it's a great question. UM. I think it would probably
Speaker 1: be two things. The unknown nature. You know, most people
Speaker 1: never even think about the deepotion. It's completely out of sight,
Speaker 1: out of mind, and that unfortunately has a lot of
Speaker 1: implications for UM it's management and how we treat it. UM.
Speaker 1: And while it may seem very out of sight and
Speaker 1: out of mind, it actually is not out of our grasp. UM.
Speaker 1: On every research cruise that we go on, we see
Speaker 1: our impacts in the deep sea. And so it would
Speaker 1: probably be to you know, have a home that even
Speaker 1: though it's this place that most people never go to,
Speaker 1: that most people will never get the opportunity to experience,
Speaker 1: you know, we're still having a very very real impact
Speaker 1: in this place that also is really really important to
Speaker 1: us being here on the planet. And do changes in
Speaker 1: the deep ocean and the deep sea, do we see
Speaker 1: those having consequences that cascade out to you know, parts
Speaker 1: of ecology in the world that we do interact with more. Yeah. Absolutely, So. Again,
Speaker 1: not a lot of people realize that, you know, everything
Speaker 1: is connected, and the deep otion is at the largest
Speaker 1: ecosystem on the planet. You know, it occupies about sixty
Speaker 1: of the planet's surface and provides over nineties ex percent
Speaker 1: of all the habitable space on Earth. And so, I
Speaker 1: mean this is really a huge area. And because of
Speaker 1: that huge size, it has a really really big responsibility.
Speaker 1: It plays a role in these global processes that really
Speaker 1: regulate our planets, so things like regulating temperature. It absorbs
Speaker 1: the majority I think it's absorbed about nine six percent
Speaker 1: of heat from our atmosphere so far, as well as
Speaker 1: a twentysomething percent I don't know the exact figure offhand
Speaker 1: of carbon dioxide emissions, and so, you know, regulating the
Speaker 1: world's climate, which we all know is getting more and
Speaker 1: more important. It also cycles nutrients. It also detoxifies the
Speaker 1: shallow parts of our planet um and it provides us
Speaker 1: with you know, a range of resources which a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't actually realize as well, things like food,
Speaker 1: things like oil and gas in the future, potentially medicine,
Speaker 1: and potentially metals. And there is of course this like
Speaker 1: really inherent cultural value as well. You know, we see
Speaker 1: the deep ocean and so many movies and so many books,
Speaker 1: and that that ability to inspire is really something that
Speaker 1: we shouldn't underestimate at all. So can you tell us
Speaker 1: just a little bit about growing up in the Caribbean
Speaker 1: and how you know how that it may have inspired
Speaker 1: your interest in marine biology, but then also how you
Speaker 1: ended up focusing on the deep sure without trying or
Speaker 1: probably sound quite cheesy. Um. So I grew up in
Speaker 1: the Caribbean, on the island, on the islands of Trinan, Tobago,
Speaker 1: and I mean about thirty years ago. There wasn't that
Speaker 1: much to do the back then, and so it meant
Speaker 1: that I spent a lot of time outside um in
Speaker 1: the garden, on the beach, in the ocean, and it
Speaker 1: just gradually led to this real passion um for the
Speaker 1: ocean and for the things that lived there. And there
Speaker 1: were a lot of things that I really didn't understand
Speaker 1: or didn't know about the sea and what lived in it,
Speaker 1: and that really sort of propelled me to decide to
Speaker 1: study University UM marine science. And funnily enough, I actually
Speaker 1: wanted to do medicine UM and my parents were like, no, no, no, Um,
Speaker 1: why don't you do something that you think you you know,
Speaker 1: really will absolutely love, which again I'm very very grateful
Speaker 1: for UM. And yeah, I decided to go and study
Speaker 1: marine biology, and as I said, most people don't think
Speaker 1: about the deep sea. When I went to do my
Speaker 1: undergraduate degree, I knew very little apart from perhaps like
Speaker 1: one or two animal books where there were pictures of
Speaker 1: hatchet fish and you know, giant squid and other things.
Speaker 1: But it just really wasn't It just didn't play a
Speaker 1: big rule despite having grown up by the ocean and UM,
Speaker 1: it wasn't until my final year really that everything sort
Speaker 1: of fell into place where I took a deep sea
Speaker 1: biology course and the lecturer was saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: over of our deep ocean hasn't yet been explored, and
Speaker 1: by explored, I mean visualized, like it hasn't been seen
Speaker 1: with human eyes, or it hasn't been seen with a
Speaker 1: camera that takes photos or images. And that just is
Speaker 1: such a staggering figure considering we're talking about our own planet.
Speaker 1: It really hit home that, you know, you to be
Speaker 1: to be working in deep sea science, you get the
Speaker 1: opportunity to be a real life explorer. And I think
Speaker 1: is children everybody goes through a period of wanting to
Speaker 1: do that, And yes, as I said earlier, I just
Speaker 1: absolutely love what I do, and that's when I decided, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give us a shot, and since then
Speaker 1: no regrets. Do you think you could sort of place
Speaker 1: our current understanding of deep sea ecosystems and a little
Speaker 1: bit of historical context like where do we come from
Speaker 1: and where are we today in our understanding of these ecosystems?
Speaker 1: So while it may sound abysmal, I mean the deepotion
Speaker 1: never having been explored, um, it is better than it's
Speaker 1: ever been. Right, our knowledge has increased to a point
Speaker 1: in history, UM where we are able to make better
Speaker 1: decisions than we ever have been. But it's still really
Speaker 1: this sort of drop in the bucket, you know. True
Speaker 1: deep seat exploration started I think in the sort of
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds UM. One of the biggest, one of the
Speaker 1: most important expeditions, UM was the Challenger expedition, and that
Speaker 1: went around the world really making the first concertive effort
Speaker 1: to sample as much as they could in the deep sea.
Speaker 1: But of course back then it was mostly you know,
Speaker 1: a troll you throw off the back of the boat
Speaker 1: and just sort of drag up whatever you can, whereas
Speaker 1: now where the equipment that's being used is so high
Speaker 1: tech and as a result expensive, which of course is
Speaker 1: a very very big limitation, but it means that, yes,
Speaker 1: I said, our knowledge is increasing. We're able to explore
Speaker 1: these places that no one has ever been an incredible
Speaker 1: really find detail and answer questions which have plagued us
Speaker 1: for centuries um And unfortunately, still while that is great
Speaker 1: and exciting, we still have a huge way to go
Speaker 1: in order to be able to truly, you know, understand
Speaker 1: our planet as best we can. Now. When when one
Speaker 1: goes to your website diva aman dot com, it's done.
Speaker 1: You know, you get a snapshot of all these different
Speaker 1: expeditions that you've been a part of. But can you
Speaker 1: explain to our listeners, like what what are the tools
Speaker 1: of exploration that are generally involved in one of these expeditions? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: I mean the first one is you need a ship.
Speaker 1: Not about a ship because usually you're going pretty far
Speaker 1: away from land, and you're going out there for weeks
Speaker 1: and you're never going to see a lot of time,
Speaker 1: you never see land during that read um, and so
Speaker 1: means your ship has to have everything you could possibly
Speaker 1: need on it, you know, all the food provisions, that
Speaker 1: you would need for that time, people to cook it,
Speaker 1: people to drive, people to operate all the equipment science
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, usually it's about fifty people or so
Speaker 1: on one of these ships, and that's sort of the platform,
Speaker 1: right that then everything else operates off of. And so now, yes,
Speaker 1: we still use those more rudimentary pieces of equipment like
Speaker 1: trolls which you throw off back steps, see what it gets.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily the best piece of equipment to use.
Speaker 1: But but now there's also you know, other things like grabs.
Speaker 1: You can lower down pieces of equipment like grabs and
Speaker 1: cares that bring up you know, perfectly preserved areas of
Speaker 1: a sleep full like one M by one m squared,
Speaker 1: so that you can really get some good quantitative um numbers.
Speaker 1: But then, I mean, but then you've got the really
Speaker 1: excit eating equipment. And I know a lot of deep
Speaker 1: se scientists thing to this will will curse me for
Speaker 1: saying that. But I mean the things that get me
Speaker 1: excited because I work on usually the really big animals,
Speaker 1: animals you can see in images and animals you can
Speaker 1: see in videos. And to do that we tend to
Speaker 1: use what I think is is a lot of the
Speaker 1: sexy stuff. So that'll be things like UM remotely operated vehicles,
Speaker 1: which can be about the size of a car, and
Speaker 1: they're basically our eyes and our ears on the sea floor,
Speaker 1: on our hands on the sea floor. They are attached
Speaker 1: to the ship by a tether and they are able
Speaker 1: to go down I think the deepest currently for an
Speaker 1: RV is six I'm not sure what other is in
Speaker 1: feet or miles and um and they go down there
Speaker 1: with lights, with baskets to put samples, with cameras with
Speaker 1: a range of sensors on them, and they essentially do
Speaker 1: our dirty work for us, because we can't actually just
Speaker 1: you know, scuba dive down there given the extreme conditions.
Speaker 1: But then there are also things like autonomous underwater vehicles
Speaker 1: or a u v s, which are not attached to
Speaker 1: the ship. They can be programmed to, for instance, run
Speaker 1: a grid of UM imaging, so it takes take snapshots
Speaker 1: in a really detailed grid, and they'll go off and
Speaker 1: do it and then when they finished, they'll pop back
Speaker 1: to the surface and we go by and we pick
Speaker 1: them up, and they can do that for days, if
Speaker 1: not weak sometimes. So again the technology is just has
Speaker 1: increased to this incredible level but of course, you know,
Speaker 1: the Creme della creme is really the submersibles, and that's
Speaker 1: you know, one of most people's favorites because you actually
Speaker 1: get to go down in those um usually they hold
Speaker 1: between two and three people and they are very small
Speaker 1: and uncomfortable, but they are your chariot down into this
Speaker 1: world that few people get to go to. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just to completely wild experience. And those also are
Speaker 1: not attached to the ship, and they'll have, like the RVs,
Speaker 1: a range of equipment on them, senses, baskets to put samples,
Speaker 1: video cameras and images. But there you get the added
Speaker 1: advantage of having or disadvantage whichever where you want to
Speaker 1: look at, of having humans down there to actually you know,
Speaker 1: make firsthand observations. I was just thinking about the role
Speaker 1: of visual identification in in the kind of work you do.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's it. Uh, could you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what you know, that necessity of looking at
Speaker 1: this strange world and being able to understand what you're
Speaker 1: looking at sometimes from maybe poor visual data. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's a big thing, and actually that has a lot.
Speaker 1: It's a really big issue now because of course our
Speaker 1: technology is increasing when leaps and bounds, and it means
Speaker 1: that often because of those changes in UM, for instance,
Speaker 1: photo resolution, you know, a out of imagery isn't actually
Speaker 1: comparable on a scientific or statistical level anymore. So that
Speaker 1: of course has its own problems UM. But with that said,
Speaker 1: you know, it really is the level of equipment now
Speaker 1: and that level of imagery is really giving us a
Speaker 1: completely new way of looking at these environments. Like right
Speaker 1: now you can do, for instance, three de mosaic ing
Speaker 1: of hydrothermal events so that you can zoom in because
Speaker 1: it's such high resolution and see you know, individuals sent
Speaker 1: to me to size animals on this absolutely massive structure
Speaker 1: UM and it's just yeah, revolutionizing the way that that
Speaker 1: we understand the deepotion. What was the question again, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: maybe it wasn't a good question. I went off from
Speaker 1: tangent and then I was like, wait, what, Well, actually
Speaker 1: I'm more interested in that you just mentioned being able
Speaker 1: to image hydrothermal vents, and I'm wondering if maybe you
Speaker 1: could sort of paint a picture for us of some
Speaker 1: of these major types of undersea ecosystems and habitats before
Speaker 1: we get onto that. Can I put in one more
Speaker 1: point for the other question. Absolutely, sorry, um so, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say that, you know, while imagery is great
Speaker 1: for deep sea biologists if you want to really characterize
Speaker 1: an animal and fully understand, you know, if it's new
Speaker 1: for instance, or or really what it is you unfortunately
Speaker 1: images will only take you so far. It's really important
Speaker 1: that you get a sample. Um you're unable to you know,
Speaker 1: identify a new species given a name, go through that
Speaker 1: process without having something in hand. And that's because there
Speaker 1: are lots of animals that look very similar, um, superficially
Speaker 1: from the outside, but actually you need to have either
Speaker 1: really really fine detail of like how many hairs there
Speaker 1: are on the fourth leg of this crab, for instance,
Speaker 1: or that the DNA. They can look identical to us,
Speaker 1: but their DNA is actually really really different. So images
Speaker 1: really do only take you so far, and they're just
Speaker 1: sort of one piece of that puzzle of understanding the
Speaker 1: deep otion. I guess sorry, we could do the other
Speaker 1: question now, that's great. Uh So, yeah, we're asking about
Speaker 1: hydrothermal vince and other deep sea habitats, like can can
Speaker 1: you sort of describe these and talk about the different
Speaker 1: roles these habitats play when most people think of the
Speaker 1: deep ocean, they just tend to think of this, you know, abyss,
Speaker 1: it's dark, it's cold, and freeway on the planet. And
Speaker 1: actually that's really really far from the truth. Just like
Speaker 1: on land, there are a variety of habitats in our
Speaker 1: deep seas. There are mountains, there are planes, there are trenches,
Speaker 1: there are fields of corals and sponges, there are um,
Speaker 1: even lakes at the bottom of the of the deep ocean.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is just essentially like being on land,
Speaker 1: where you just get a huge range um. And that
Speaker 1: means that you know, with each of those habitats, you
Speaker 1: get a not a completely different but usually a very
Speaker 1: different fauna, so different communities live there. Um. And that
Speaker 1: leads to the deep ocean having really really high diversity,
Speaker 1: which yeah, not a lot of people realize. UM. And
Speaker 1: some of them, I mean, they're all amazing, and so
Speaker 1: many of them are so visually stunning. UM. But of
Speaker 1: course I guess I have favorite some biased um, and
Speaker 1: so those will be thing. Actually, I don't know, they're
Speaker 1: all amazing, they're actual I'll take that back. I don't
Speaker 1: have favorites. They're all actually they're all great. But I
Speaker 1: mean Some of the ones that sort of jump out
Speaker 1: are Brian pools because I mean who knew lakes at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the sea. Hydrothermal vents, which are these
Speaker 1: um sort of underwater volcanoes that gush this superheated black
Speaker 1: fluid that looks like thick, thick, thick smoke and usually
Speaker 1: has huge amounts of life living around them. You get
Speaker 1: whale falls. So when a whale dies, yes, sometimes it
Speaker 1: washes ashore, but a lot of the time will end
Speaker 1: it down in the deep sea where it will prompt
Speaker 1: this feeding bonanza. UM. On these seamounts you tend to
Speaker 1: get like essentially the rainforests of the oceans. UM, they
Speaker 1: can have these sponge and coral gardens that act as
Speaker 1: trees almost and they provide cons like trees doing rainforests
Speaker 1: for a huge variety of animals. And some of these environments,
Speaker 1: you know, the animals are incredibly old. We're now beginning
Speaker 1: to understand in the deep sea. So for instance, there
Speaker 1: have been corals and the devotion found to be well
Speaker 1: over four thousand years old, So that's like around the
Speaker 1: time the wheel was invented. So there's one, you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's probably more than one, but we know for
Speaker 1: sure there's a species of animal that can live for
Speaker 1: that long. I mean that just blows my mind, right, Um,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's just there's just huge variety and all
Speaker 1: of the animals down there are just so weird but
Speaker 1: so wonderful. It's just it's it's just fascinating, you know.
Speaker 1: I know, you couldn't pick a favorite habitat. Do you
Speaker 1: have personal favorite deep sea animals the ones that just
Speaker 1: light you up the most? I mean, so in terms
Speaker 1: of habitats, definitely, Brian pools are amazing. Brian pools are
Speaker 1: three to eight times It's where basically water seawater that's
Speaker 1: three to eight times saltier than the surrounding seawater settles
Speaker 1: because of that density and essentially forms a lake on
Speaker 1: the sea floor. And interestingly, you get these muscles and
Speaker 1: other animals forming like a seashore around that that very
Speaker 1: um salty water that's sitting on the sea floor. So
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Um. Hydrothermal vents are amazing. Well, wheel folds
Speaker 1: are amazing. I mean, we cover the habitats already, but
Speaker 1: in terms of animals, of gosh, against such a hard question,
Speaker 1: A couple that come to mind. Um definitely the hof crab.
Speaker 1: I mean, who doesn't love the club. It's a white, hairy,
Speaker 1: um blind crab that lives about two and a half
Speaker 1: kilometers down off Antarctica in the deep ocean at these
Speaker 1: hydrothermal vent environment sees underwater volcanoes. And what they do
Speaker 1: is because and hydrothermal vents, that fluid that they gush,
Speaker 1: that gushes out of them, it's really really rich in
Speaker 1: chemicals like methane and hydrogen sulfide, and there was environments
Speaker 1: those communities surrounding hydrothermal vents. Well, instead of using light
Speaker 1: because there's no light in the deep sea apart from bioluminescence, um,
Speaker 1: they will use these chemicals as their source of energy
Speaker 1: in a process instead of photosynthesis and a process called chemosynthesis.
Speaker 1: And that means that you know, you end up with
Speaker 1: animals that are just so weird. And instead of having
Speaker 1: plants as the primary producers like we do want land
Speaker 1: and shallow waters, we have m bacteria the other primary producers,
Speaker 1: and so they'll be these thick backed, white bacterial mats
Speaker 1: growing all over these vents. But what is special about
Speaker 1: the hof crab is that it will actually have those
Speaker 1: bacteria growing on its body. So it has that that
Speaker 1: hairy chest, those hairy arms um for the bacteria to
Speaker 1: grow on. And so what it will do is it
Speaker 1: will bathe itself in this warm, chemical rich fluid. The
Speaker 1: bacteria will then grow and essentially then it will scrape
Speaker 1: all of the bacteria off of its chest and off
Speaker 1: of its arms and into its mouth and it's like
Speaker 1: having its bomb and its body. I mean that sounds
Speaker 1: our grocery. That sounds great to me, you know, it
Speaker 1: just but yeah, they're just they're just the most fabulous
Speaker 1: little animals. And they we now know because of work
Speaker 1: by colleagues that they actually where they live on hydrothermal
Speaker 1: events will be determined by their sex as well as
Speaker 1: what reproductive status they're in. So they found that, you know,
Speaker 1: the biggest um male hof crabs will move to the
Speaker 1: tops of the chimneys, whereas the females who have eggs
Speaker 1: will move further away from the hottest parts of the
Speaker 1: chimney into more lukewarm water. I mean, it's just it's
Speaker 1: just fascinating. But in case you didn't know, they're the
Speaker 1: real name is a Yeti crabs because they look like
Speaker 1: they vominable stowman or yet sy like. They've been nicknamed
Speaker 1: the hoff crab um because they because of that hairy
Speaker 1: chest aspect on the expedition, on the cruise, they were
Speaker 1: basically someone drew an allergy between them and David Hasselhoff.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and as far as I understand, he quite
Speaker 1: enjoys the idea. So yeah, so it's a quirky one.
Speaker 1: But then I mean there's also um an animal that
Speaker 1: I worked on. While it may not be like visually
Speaker 1: stunning it just as you know, a weird little thing
Speaker 1: called ostax. It's a bone eating worm, and so it
Speaker 1: lives only on the bones of dead animals in the
Speaker 1: deep sea, especially on the largest one, so whales, for instance,
Speaker 1: and that is the only place they have found. And
Speaker 1: they have this sort of rich structure that they use
Speaker 1: that secretes acid and allows them to dissolve the whale
Speaker 1: bone and allow them to bury down into it like
Speaker 1: a tree's roots to and then they're able to get
Speaker 1: their food from those bones. And what is what is
Speaker 1: amazing about them? You know, there's just so many sex
Speaker 1: strategies in the deep sea that are so weird that
Speaker 1: they all the ones that were that you can see
Speaker 1: when you approach a whalefall on the deep sea floor,
Speaker 1: m actually a female um but they have no one
Speaker 1: knew whe the males were. It took ages for scientists
Speaker 1: to understand. But it turns out the males are tiny,
Speaker 1: tiny little blob like animals rather than this beautiful worm,
Speaker 1: and they sit on the female's bodies in within their tube.
Speaker 1: They have mixed tubes. Sometimes they sit within their mixed tubes,
Speaker 1: and a female can have hundreds of them, um and
Speaker 1: they're just there to provide her with sperm until they
Speaker 1: essentially run out and then they die and then she'll
Speaker 1: just replace them. And again that sounds great to me.
Speaker 1: But um so just yeah, it's just this great easy
Speaker 1: world down there with all of these mad animals that
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, nature just went a bit crazy,
Speaker 1: or rather evolution went a bit crazy. And I guess
Speaker 1: that makes sense given how extreme the conditions are down
Speaker 1: in the deep sea. You know, you really, evolution has
Speaker 1: really sort of taken a turn and it's just a
Speaker 1: great place to innovation. Well maybe they're the normal ones
Speaker 1: and we're the weird ones. I mean exactly, And there
Speaker 1: are these thoughts that you know, life did come from
Speaker 1: the deep ocean, potentially from these hydrosenmal event environments, so
Speaker 1: exactly who knows. All right, we need to take a
Speaker 1: quick break. We'll be right back with more of our conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you. All Right, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're going to jump right back into the interview. So
Speaker 1: you were just talking about these whalefall habitats, the whale
Speaker 1: carcasses and the bone worms. We've discussed a bit on
Speaker 1: the show before some research about shipwrecks sometimes playing a
Speaker 1: similar role to whale carcasses at the bottom of the ocean.
Speaker 1: Do you have any experience with shipwrecks as deep sea
Speaker 1: habitats and any possible parallels there. Yeah, so it's such
Speaker 1: a great question. By the way, when I got the email,
Speaker 1: I was like, huh, interesting, because the deep ocean is
Speaker 1: so food limited. There really is not a lot of
Speaker 1: food to go around in the deep sea, and that's
Speaker 1: because most of it comes from the sea surface um
Speaker 1: in the form of dead plankton um both phyto and zooplankton.
Speaker 1: But then also you get a fish and other things
Speaker 1: that drift down, and then of course you get these
Speaker 1: occasionally much larger packages of food like whales and would
Speaker 1: um so trees when they wash out to sea and
Speaker 1: so on, and they these for organic falls once they
Speaker 1: get to the deep see, because they're able to be
Speaker 1: broken down. They form this this huge source of food.
Speaker 1: And as most of us know, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of ships are actually made of wood. Um. And so
Speaker 1: just like on land, how you have a variety of
Speaker 1: animals that will eat wood break downward. Um, it's the
Speaker 1: same thing in the deep sea. And so I know
Speaker 1: when was it in twenty seventeen, I was on an
Speaker 1: expedition UM in the Gulf of Mexico exploring areas there,
Speaker 1: and we came across eighteenth century vessel and because it
Speaker 1: was wood made of wood, but it actually had copper
Speaker 1: cladding along the front of it. And so you could
Speaker 1: see that all the wood, or a lot of the
Speaker 1: would rather not all of it had been consumed and
Speaker 1: eaten away. And you can see the little boring holes
Speaker 1: by lots of animals. Um. But because of that, would
Speaker 1: you actually get similar um processes happening to those that
Speaker 1: happen at whalefall. So at whalefalls, they will go through
Speaker 1: different stages in terms of animals eating them and The
Speaker 1: second to last stage is where they essentially become chemosynthetics,
Speaker 1: so similar to the hydrothermal events, they because of the
Speaker 1: degradation of all that food organic matter, it results in
Speaker 1: a lot of the oxygen being removed from the water,
Speaker 1: and then a whole new set of life that can
Speaker 1: live without oxygen moves in and results and uses these
Speaker 1: chemicals and are now being emitted from the wood and
Speaker 1: the sea floor. And that's exactly what happens at these
Speaker 1: at some of these shipwrecks, you get these and because
Speaker 1: of the acumums and possess you get this thick bacterial map,
Speaker 1: these white thick back to your maps, and a very
Speaker 1: specific set of fauna moving in to make the most
Speaker 1: of that environment. But they essentially end up as this
Speaker 1: sort of hub of deep sea life because while a
Speaker 1: lot of the deep sea may look barren, of course
Speaker 1: it's not. But compared to a lot of the deep sea,
Speaker 1: they end up with a huge abundance of animals, big
Speaker 1: diversity of species. And that's just the wood ones. I mean.
Speaker 1: Then you also get the ones that are made of
Speaker 1: less degradable materials like metal or fiberglass, and those are
Speaker 1: very similar to the final stage of whale falls um.
Speaker 1: So once all the nutrients has been removed from a whalefall,
Speaker 1: whether it's the flesh of the whale or the nutrients
Speaker 1: from the bones, the bones essentially just become a structure,
Speaker 1: a physical structure on the sea floor like a rock,
Speaker 1: and as a result, animals will move in that can
Speaker 1: sit movement little, so for instance, a coral or a
Speaker 1: sea star will sit on top of the whale fall
Speaker 1: on top of the bones, and that will allow them
Speaker 1: to project up into the away from the sea floor
Speaker 1: where currents can be slower because of the friction, and
Speaker 1: it allows them to get much more food. And so
Speaker 1: it really is you know, pretty good to for them
Speaker 1: to propel themselves off the sea floor. And that's the
Speaker 1: same thing that happens at a lot of shipwrecks. They
Speaker 1: provide this habitat because of that structure, because of that
Speaker 1: physical um distance from the sea floor, for a lot
Speaker 1: of animals to attach to so that they can get
Speaker 1: up into the water column and get more food, but
Speaker 1: also for a lot of animals to hide and shelter in.
Speaker 1: So they really are interesting. And another thing that a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't realize is you know, some whale falls,
Speaker 1: it's thought can last for over a hundred years on
Speaker 1: the sea floor, and we know that shipwrecks also can
Speaker 1: last for a very very long time on the deep
Speaker 1: sea floor as well. So a lot of analogies that interesting.
Speaker 1: So one thing I was reading that you had written
Speaker 1: about was about deep water exploration in the Mariana region.
Speaker 1: I read where you mentioned that you can sometimes just
Speaker 1: come across these masses of strange organisms that nobody on
Speaker 1: the team can identify. Can can you talk to something
Speaker 1: about that experience. I mean, it's not just in the
Speaker 1: Marianas region, it's just globally in the deep sea m
Speaker 1: I'd say on nearly every research crew that I've been on,
Speaker 1: that has happened um And I'm sure other DPC scientists
Speaker 1: would tell you the same. And that's just a nod
Speaker 1: to the how little exploration there's been. But it's just
Speaker 1: this really humbling feeling. You know, often as scientists, a
Speaker 1: lot of people think that we have all the answers,
Speaker 1: but really working in the deepotion reminds us that we
Speaker 1: we don't. Um On every on every research cruise we
Speaker 1: go on, we see new animals, we see new habitats um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think not a lot of people realize
Speaker 1: that that's the case. Most people think that, you know,
Speaker 1: we know everything about our about our planet, about our oceans,
Speaker 1: but really we're very very far away from that. Was
Speaker 1: that kind of where you're going with that question or
Speaker 1: were you opening at something else? No, of course that's true.
Speaker 1: I was wondering also, I mean, if there were any
Speaker 1: experiences that stood out to you about specific things you
Speaker 1: saw and you mentioned in the piece I was reading
Speaker 1: about just like strange white spheres and like green wiry things.
Speaker 1: I think that they didn't have named that was I
Speaker 1: mean that? Okay, So on every expedition, yes, we find animals.
Speaker 1: We don't know exactly what species they are, or maybe
Speaker 1: even what genus they are, maybe even what family they
Speaker 1: are in that taxonomic classification. But yeah, occasionally you get
Speaker 1: you get you see these things and you're like, I
Speaker 1: don't even know whether that's a line, whether that's a
Speaker 1: plant or because of course you don't really get plants
Speaker 1: in the deep sea because there's don't light, or you
Speaker 1: don't get plants in the deep sea unless they're dead. Um,
Speaker 1: and so you just you know, you're like, how is this,
Speaker 1: How is this happening? How can I not even understand
Speaker 1: the basic classification of this animal? And that happened quite
Speaker 1: a lot in the Mariana region. Actually, um, you're right.
Speaker 1: We saw these sort of green thread like structures that
Speaker 1: were um hanging off of deep sea corals in the current,
Speaker 1: and so we thought that maybe maybe it was algae
Speaker 1: that had you know, gotten further down to the deep sea,
Speaker 1: and then was the current had blown in and then
Speaker 1: it's sort of snagged. But then the weirdest one definitely
Speaker 1: was were these spares. They were only a couple maybe
Speaker 1: a centimeter a couple of millimeters across, but there were
Speaker 1: the housands of them just all on the sea floor.
Speaker 1: And we had on that expedition because we were able
Speaker 1: to stream the dives live. It was on the Okeanos Explorer,
Speaker 1: the No A ship O Pianist Explorer, and they stream
Speaker 1: all of their dives live, and it means that the
Speaker 1: public can watch, and it means that a lot of
Speaker 1: scientists who aren't able to be on the ship because
Speaker 1: of constraints of space, but perhaps also they have other
Speaker 1: things going on, they can watch and join in and
Speaker 1: communicate with us. So it means we really have a
Speaker 1: much larger wealth of knowledge. But again, in that case,
Speaker 1: you know, we had dozens of scientists on the core
Speaker 1: with us, on the dive with us, and no one
Speaker 1: was able to say what those spears were. And we
Speaker 1: saw them several times during that expedition. We tried to
Speaker 1: pick them up, we tried to crush them with the
Speaker 1: r V manipulator that r V hands, and it just
Speaker 1: we yeah, we were We narrowed it down to about
Speaker 1: five things, but we still don't know for sure. And
Speaker 1: that was three years ago, you know, and that's just
Speaker 1: a really common in the deep seat. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: love the the sense of scientific wonder and discovery. You know,
Speaker 1: you're you're able to relay about the deep ocean, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna come We're gonna come back to that towards
Speaker 1: the end. But but I wanted to ask a few
Speaker 1: questions though about about the threats that the deep sea
Speaker 1: ecosystems are facing. What are the biggest threats to deep
Speaker 1: sea ecosystems today? So the biggest threats Okay, there's a
Speaker 1: huge suite of things that are impacting the deep sea um,
Speaker 1: but currently it's probably fishing um. There's actually a lot
Speaker 1: of deep ocean fishing, and a lot of it can
Speaker 1: be very very destructive practices. So things like trawling, which
Speaker 1: essentially just clear cuts communities. Nothing is left unscathed. And when,
Speaker 1: for instance, when the corals and sponges those rainforests are
Speaker 1: are broken and disturbed, then it means the habitat for
Speaker 1: lots of other animals is lost, and that happens in
Speaker 1: in a lot of our world's deepotions. But then there's
Speaker 1: also you know, pollution. We're hearing a lot these days
Speaker 1: about plastic, but there's lots of other materials. I mean,
Speaker 1: people used to even though it's illegal now, UM, people
Speaker 1: used to purposefully dump into the deep sea because it
Speaker 1: was sort of this essentially bottomless pit, you know, it
Speaker 1: was once thought to be. And so there's been things
Speaker 1: like pharmacy, pharmaceuticals, it's been dumped in the Puerto Rico Trench,
Speaker 1: and UM, ammunition and chemical weapons that have been dumped
Speaker 1: off of U in the Pacific and off Hawaii and
Speaker 1: so on. UM. But that's changing. But of course there's
Speaker 1: still a lot of stuff that gets into the deep sea,
Speaker 1: not on purpose, right, whether it is plastic, but wash
Speaker 1: is out to sea in rivers, or something that blows
Speaker 1: off a ship um and unfortunately, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a reality. On every research cruise that I've been on,
Speaker 1: we've come across our trash on the deep sea floor
Speaker 1: from the Antarctic to the Mariana Trench. And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if you've been watching the news, but there was
Speaker 1: someone who broke the record for the deepest dive um
Speaker 1: in our world's oceans and then Marianna Trench just this week,
Speaker 1: and when he got down there, you know, he found
Speaker 1: trash and that really is a very sad reality, but
Speaker 1: that's those those pieces of trash are sort of the
Speaker 1: part of the things that are easy to see and
Speaker 1: easy to understand. But there's also lots of impacts that
Speaker 1: we can't see. So things like chemical pollution. Some of
Speaker 1: the animals in the Mariana Trench and other parts of
Speaker 1: the deep otion have been found to have incredibly high
Speaker 1: levels of really destructive chemicals in their bodies, things like
Speaker 1: PCBs and so on. Then now plastics were realizing breakdown
Speaker 1: in of microplastics and those end up in the deep
Speaker 1: otion and a lot of animals actually eat them, and
Speaker 1: no one is really sure what effect that's having. On them,
Speaker 1: and then of course we've got this huge umbrella over
Speaker 1: everything of climate change. It's happening globally. It is the
Speaker 1: biggest environmental crisis and one of the biggest crises in
Speaker 1: general to face our planet. And the deep sea is
Speaker 1: no exception. Um, whether it is rising temperatures, whether it
Speaker 1: is um ocean a certification because of that, or also deoxygenation,
Speaker 1: all of those things are happening in our deep oceans
Speaker 1: and they're almost sort of we we think, and there's
Speaker 1: you know, research we're in the recent you know, decade
Speaker 1: or so happening on this, and more and more happening
Speaker 1: on this that actually, though the impacts of climate change
Speaker 1: may be exacerbating some of the other impacts that are
Speaker 1: already happening, and so we're having these sort of cumulative
Speaker 1: impacts that we don't quite understand yet. And you know,
Speaker 1: this lack of lack of understanding, that lack of science
Speaker 1: is really a huge barrier to being able to deal
Speaker 1: with these impacts. Um, it really really is a big problem.
Speaker 1: I was actually I don't know the answer to this.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you do, so, how does in previous
Speaker 1: mass extinctions that have taken place on the Earth. I
Speaker 1: know many ocean organisms are affected, but in the deep sea.
Speaker 1: Do we think that the deep sea is usually more
Speaker 1: affected or less affected or about equally affected to other
Speaker 1: ecosystems when there's a massive mass extinction? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is a really hard question. I'll give you a
Speaker 1: very broad answer, just because I'm not like certain. But
Speaker 1: there have been a range of extinction events that have
Speaker 1: happened on the planet, and usually um, while in our oceans,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the lie in a lot
Speaker 1: of in most of the oceans deep and shallow have died. Um.
Speaker 1: It is thought in some of them that you know,
Speaker 1: that is where life remained and that is where life
Speaker 1: was able to recolonize from. But that shouldn't really be
Speaker 1: you know, shouldn't really give us any hope. Well down there, no, no,
Speaker 1: they won't. UM. So it really is about, you know,
Speaker 1: changing the way that we're sort of treating our planet.
Speaker 1: And especially as you know, the technology is increasing, the
Speaker 1: demand is increasing for resources because of these increasing global populations,
Speaker 1: increasing standards of living, and that means that we're pushing
Speaker 1: deeper and deeper into our oceans to get these basic
Speaker 1: resources that we lie on fishing is a big one food,
Speaker 1: but there's also things like you know, deep sea mining
Speaker 1: is on the horizon UM for those metals that we
Speaker 1: need for our laptops, our cell phones, our renewable energy UM.
Speaker 1: And then there's also UM things like marine genetic resources.
Speaker 1: So because the deep sea is this really extreme place
Speaker 1: and animals have evolved so so much down there, they
Speaker 1: thought that they met they might have a lot of
Speaker 1: properties and compounds that might be really useful to us. UM. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, antibiotic resistance is going to be again one
Speaker 1: of the biggest challenges facing humanity, and so now there's
Speaker 1: a big push to look to the deep ocean for
Speaker 1: antibiotics and other types of medicine for instance, that you know,
Speaker 1: may be able to help combat that issue in the future. UM.
Speaker 1: And so that's this is this is increasing and we
Speaker 1: really do need to think about how we regulate our
Speaker 1: deep otions because a lot of them aren't very well
Speaker 1: regulated because they sit in international waters UM or areas
Speaker 1: beyond national jurisdictions. The term that people are using these days,
Speaker 1: and that means that you know, they've been really loosely
Speaker 1: regulated and managed UM up to today, and that's changing.
Speaker 1: But slowly. Now in terms of deep sea mining, you
Speaker 1: mentioned how that is that's on the horizon, what can
Speaker 1: be done and what is being done to to to
Speaker 1: curve and prevent destruction from from those enterprises. So the
Speaker 1: the deep ocean is the clothes. While it is not pristine,
Speaker 1: it's the closest ecosystem we have on the planet to
Speaker 1: one that is pristine. And you know, historically we haven't
Speaker 1: been a great species. For instance, on land and shallow waters.
Speaker 1: We exploited lots of environments without having a very good
Speaker 1: understanding of them, and so things went arrived very quickly,
Speaker 1: and we've been doing that for millennia right longer UM.
Speaker 1: And but with the deep sea we have this real
Speaker 1: opportunity to understand what exists there prior to exploitation so
Speaker 1: that we can essentially better value and better manage it. UM.
Speaker 1: So there is science being done very slowly, not quickly enough,
Speaker 1: which is a problem, but it is sort of ticking
Speaker 1: over and right now. What there are two really big
Speaker 1: processes happening globally UM. One is at the United Nations
Speaker 1: a process called the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Negotiations UM,
Speaker 1: and that is essentially to try and put laws and
Speaker 1: regulations in place to manage international waters because currently they're
Speaker 1: sort of this UM. They're called the common heritage of humankind,
Speaker 1: and that means that they belong to everyone on the planet.
Speaker 1: They belong to everyone that's yet to come on the planet,
Speaker 1: and as a result, they sort of belong to no one, right,
Speaker 1: So there's that catch twin two. So now there's this
Speaker 1: process happening at the u N to manage these areas
Speaker 1: and all of the life within them more responsibly UM,
Speaker 1: and hopefully, you know, within the next two to three
Speaker 1: years that will be concluded with a really strong UM
Speaker 1: set of regulations so that we can really begin to
Speaker 1: step it up. Also happening is related to deep sea
Speaker 1: mining is again another process. It's deep se mining. Well,
Speaker 1: all mineral resources in the deep ocean is governed by
Speaker 1: a body called the International Seabed Authority UM, and they
Speaker 1: are an intergovernmental body and they right now are going
Speaker 1: through a similar process as that of BBNG, where they
Speaker 1: are trying to put in place the regulations that will
Speaker 1: govern mining if it ever does begin UM. And it's
Speaker 1: really important that those regulations be grounded in rigorous science,
Speaker 1: because again that is really one of those key limiting factors. Hey,
Speaker 1: our understanding. UM. But you know, it's a great start,
Speaker 1: and so the next five years to ten years are
Speaker 1: going to be hugely important for our oceans and as
Speaker 1: a result, hugely important for our planet. UM. And we
Speaker 1: just kind of have to keep our hopes up and
Speaker 1: keep engaging and keep hoping that um, you know that
Speaker 1: really strong regulations emerge and as a result, everyone will
Speaker 1: be much much better for that. But it remains to
Speaker 1: be seen. Okay, time to take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: we will be right back. Thank Alright, we're back, and
Speaker 1: we're going to jump right back into the interview on
Speaker 1: top of urging for you know, the right kind of
Speaker 1: large scale policy is to fight climate change and to
Speaker 1: you know, try to prevent the destruction of these habitats
Speaker 1: by industry. Is there is there anything really that that
Speaker 1: individual people can do to help or is this really
Speaker 1: something that just has to be addressed on the large scale? UM?
Speaker 1: I mean both. Definitely, the large scale process is so
Speaker 1: so important, UM. But I mean something that you know
Speaker 1: anyone can do is become responsible consumers. You know, I
Speaker 1: know when people here this all the time, but ask
Speaker 1: where your fish is coming? From ask how it was caught, Um,
Speaker 1: you know in the Mariana Trench, that plastic bag that
Speaker 1: ended up over ten kilometers down there. Um, someone had
Speaker 1: to take that from a grocery, right. So it's about
Speaker 1: you know, really behaving responsibly because everything on the planet
Speaker 1: is connected, um, and all of our actions have an impact.
Speaker 1: And I think something else is really you know, educating
Speaker 1: yourself about the oceans, about what lives there, um, and
Speaker 1: then sort of educating others because that's the way that
Speaker 1: we can really influence change in our communities. And that's
Speaker 1: where a lot of um impetus can be placed on policymakers. Right.
Speaker 1: Without that that backing of the public, sometimes a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff doesn't get done. So really it's just about
Speaker 1: that knowledge increasing it awesome, Robert. So we did have
Speaker 1: a few things from from Robert's son's class that we Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just happened that my son's for one of his
Speaker 1: first grade grade classes, they're they're discussing their covering of
Speaker 1: marine biology and discussing various ocean layers. So I reached
Speaker 1: out to them. Right for first grade. I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I wish my school was like but but yeah, I
Speaker 1: reached out to him, and I said, you know, we're
Speaker 1: we're chatting with an expert this week. Maybe the class
Speaker 1: has some questions they would like to to ask, so
Speaker 1: so I'm going to ask them on their behalf. Here
Speaker 1: these are actual questions from first graders about marine biology
Speaker 1: and the deep ocean. So the first one is how
Speaker 1: do animals in the midnight zone handle the water pressure?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a super specific question. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: when I was in first bird, I didn't know what
Speaker 1: the midnight zone was. I'm pretty sure up until like
Speaker 1: ten years ago, I didn't know what the midnights. But
Speaker 1: I asked with the zeal of a child who just
Speaker 1: learned about the midnight zone. You've got to know great, um.
Speaker 1: But this this unfortunately isn't my area of expertise, but
Speaker 1: especially the midnight zone. But I'll give a more broad answer. UM.
Speaker 1: So many fish and any and lots of other animals
Speaker 1: that live in the deep ocean. One of the ways
Speaker 1: they handle that huge change in water pressure, UM, is
Speaker 1: that they don't have air pockets in their bodies. So
Speaker 1: if you think about us, we have our lungs and
Speaker 1: those that has air in it, right, And that is
Speaker 1: the reason that we one of the reasons that we're
Speaker 1: unable to go into the deep sea because they were
Speaker 1: at that air would essentially become really really compressed and
Speaker 1: eventually we would just squish. Um. But a lot of
Speaker 1: animals get around that by just not having those air
Speaker 1: pockets um and are largely composed of water, and so
Speaker 1: if you're essentially the same material as what you're living in,
Speaker 1: it means that the pressure when you when that when
Speaker 1: it changes, can remain sort of balanced. But unfortunately, fun
Speaker 1: fact a bit morbid. Um. When some fish in the
Speaker 1: depotion do have those air bladders in them, and when
Speaker 1: you you know, when we're doing our science, if we
Speaker 1: were to collect one of them and then bring it
Speaker 1: to the surface, because of that change in pressure. When
Speaker 1: you're really deep down, um, every air is very compressed,
Speaker 1: but as you move shallower it expands because of that
Speaker 1: difference in pressure, and a lot of those fish, because
Speaker 1: of that air pocket in them, the air will actually
Speaker 1: expand as they're coming to the sea surface, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they end up like exploding, or their stomach comes out
Speaker 1: of their mouth, or their eyes bug out. It's just
Speaker 1: and right, not very pretty. We actually talked about this
Speaker 1: in an episode not too long ago. The the version
Speaker 1: of the stomach from was it a rock fish, I
Speaker 1: think when they get pulled up from deep pressure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly so. And not just rock fish, but you know
Speaker 1: any deeps fish that have have these air pockets. It
Speaker 1: just I can imagine it's not a very nice experience
Speaker 1: for them to go through. All right, Well, here's another
Speaker 1: first grade question. How do animals without sight find food
Speaker 1: in the ocean? And that's a great question because in
Speaker 1: the deep sea, there's no light once you go past
Speaker 1: about four meters depth. Sun cannot get down there, and
Speaker 1: so that means that a lot of animals either if
Speaker 1: they do have eyes, they can't see very well or
Speaker 1: they just flat up don't have eyes. Right, So it's
Speaker 1: really really important in the deep otion that they have
Speaker 1: another way to find their food. Um. So there's two
Speaker 1: main ways. One is that they can use they have
Speaker 1: chemical senses. So just like how when your mom is
Speaker 1: making your favorite meal and you're in your bedroom and
Speaker 1: you can smell it wafting up the stairs. Um, animals
Speaker 1: can do the same. They can detect these chemicals in
Speaker 1: the water and then because of currents bringing that chemical,
Speaker 1: those chemicals to them, just like how the wind would
Speaker 1: bring us the scent of the food. They can follow
Speaker 1: that to wherever that that parcel of food maybe. And
Speaker 1: the other way is they can have it's the big
Speaker 1: word mechano sensory cues. So what that means is that
Speaker 1: they will have, for instance, um structures along their body,
Speaker 1: like little lateral lines or little hairs that make them
Speaker 1: extra sensitive for picking up vibrations in the water. So
Speaker 1: it's like how if you were to go outside and
Speaker 1: you were to feel a breeze on your arm. Animals
Speaker 1: can do that, but sleeps the animals can do that,
Speaker 1: but on a much greater scale. So if there was,
Speaker 1: for instance, a dying fish down the deep sea that
Speaker 1: was sort of flapping about making lots of movement, or
Speaker 1: something like a dead whale had just drifted down to
Speaker 1: deep sea and then hit the sea floor with a
Speaker 1: big thump, animals will be able to pick up those
Speaker 1: vibrations and then again follow them to find the next meal,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool, awesome. Well, um, they have the
Speaker 1: first graders ask a few more questions. But you've you've
Speaker 1: you've hit on most of the answers already. But but
Speaker 1: I will close one of their questions was, what's the
Speaker 1: most interesting thing you've seen in the ocean. You've already
Speaker 1: shared a number of different, um, you know, fascinating examples
Speaker 1: of ecosystems and organisms. But I wonder if there's if
Speaker 1: there's there's one more ecosystem or organism that you would
Speaker 1: like to highlight before we close out, or something anomalous old.
Speaker 1: It's just it's so hard because you know, on every
Speaker 1: single research could we go on, we see amazing things. Right,
Speaker 1: It's just not an exaggeration. Um oh um. Perhaps. I
Speaker 1: mean I've had a number of really memorable experiences. Um.
Speaker 1: So a couple that are jumping to mind. Uh um.
Speaker 1: When we were exploring the deep sea in the Antarcticum,
Speaker 1: I remember my first morning on the ship. This isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily in the ocean, in the deep sea, but I
Speaker 1: remember my first morning on the ship. I was brushing
Speaker 1: my teeth looking out the window, Um, just at the
Speaker 1: amazing you know, we can see any land or any icebergs.
Speaker 1: But I was just looking at the view and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden there was a splitsh splash right by
Speaker 1: the window. I was like, what was that? And then
Speaker 1: it was just this huge flock of chin strap penguins
Speaker 1: just you know, sort of swam by, and that was
Speaker 1: just I mean, I'll never forget that. That was just
Speaker 1: an incredible experience, of course, and I started brushing my
Speaker 1: teeth and ran outside with my camera and stayed out
Speaker 1: there for like four hours. But but apart from that, um,
Speaker 1: something anomalous would be it was it was actually a
Speaker 1: bit sad um again in the Gulf of Mexico in
Speaker 1: we were going to be exploring what we thought was
Speaker 1: a shipwreck. We had found a shipwreck a couple of
Speaker 1: days earlier that no one had been too since it
Speaker 1: had been on the sea floor, had known was there.
Speaker 1: And we were really excited because we were hoping to
Speaker 1: do that again. Um. And you know, we had bets
Speaker 1: going on board for how old it would be, what
Speaker 1: kind of vessel it would be, what would be living
Speaker 1: on it. Everyone was really really excited, and because it
Speaker 1: really is exploration in like the truest sense, right, Um.
Speaker 1: But when we got to it, it turned out it
Speaker 1: wasn't a ship at all, and in fact was a
Speaker 1: shipping container that had obviously fallen off a ship in
Speaker 1: a storm or something and had exploded on the sea floor,
Speaker 1: and as a result, we found the r O V
Speaker 1: driving through this field of fridges, washing machines, dryers, chest freezers, dishwashers.
Speaker 1: Like it was just the most surreal experience because you're
Speaker 1: like two kilometers down in an area of the Gulf
Speaker 1: of Mexico no one has ever been before. And yet
Speaker 1: still hair is all of our trash just sitting on
Speaker 1: the sea floor, you know, like common common goods that
Speaker 1: we all have in our home. And then there are
Speaker 1: all these way deep sea animals like living on them
Speaker 1: or swimming around them, and you're like, what is going on?
Speaker 1: I don't understand. Um. And then apart from that, um,
Speaker 1: I mean one of some of my favorites. It never
Speaker 1: gets old seeing octopus in the deep sea, especially dumbo
Speaker 1: octopus that have the flaps on the side of their heads.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're just so adorable. Um. And also deep
Speaker 1: sea sharks are super cool. Um. And usually we see
Speaker 1: a couple of those on on a lot of exhibitions.
Speaker 1: On we were off Brazil about yeah, two years ago,
Speaker 1: and um, we were diving in submersibles, which of course
Speaker 1: is always so much fun. Um, and remind me to
Speaker 1: tell you something funny after uh, And we yeah, on
Speaker 1: every single dive we were off Brazil, off these rocks
Speaker 1: called Saint Paul's and Saint Peter's Rocks, which are smack
Speaker 1: in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil, and
Speaker 1: we on every expedition, on every sorry dive in the submersible,
Speaker 1: we I guess they were attracted by the by by
Speaker 1: the vibration, the noise, the lights, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: but on every single dive we were joined by huge
Speaker 1: six girls sharks. And there are sharks that predominantly stay
Speaker 1: in the deep ocean and can get to really really
Speaker 1: big sizes, and so that was super exciting to be
Speaker 1: able to see those you know, in their in their habitat.
Speaker 1: And then I'll end, I guess with like a funny
Speaker 1: fact for from all the kids is that you know,
Speaker 1: you when you go down and submersible. It's the most
Speaker 1: crazy experience. And I'm sure in your lifetimes people will
Speaker 1: be able to do that when they go on holiday. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: But things that people don't really think about that there's
Speaker 1: no toilet on submersible. In fact, like it's so small
Speaker 1: that you know you're usually touching the two other people
Speaker 1: that you're in there with, and you may not know
Speaker 1: them very well, right, So just something to ponder when
Speaker 1: sometimes you're in there for like nine hours, what do
Speaker 1: you do? Right? So yeah, yeah, that's that's a kind
Speaker 1: of my my. Yeah. Fun, So you pose the question,
Speaker 1: but you don't answer it. I can answer it, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just figured we'd leave it up to them. Some
Speaker 1: think well that this has been so wonderful. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us today. My absolute pleasure. This
Speaker 1: has been really really fun. All right, So there you
Speaker 1: have it. Thanks again to Dr Diva Aimon for coming
Speaker 1: on the show chatting with us again. If you want
Speaker 1: to check out more about her work, you can check
Speaker 1: out our website. That's a great first stop. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: a diva Aman dot com. It's d I v A
Speaker 1: a m o in. She's also on social media. We're
Speaker 1: going to make sure that our accounts are are linking
Speaker 1: to hers on the various social platforms where we're sharing
Speaker 1: this episode. That's right, so huge, Thanks as always of
Speaker 1: course to Dr Diva Amon for joining us today, but
Speaker 1: also to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tary Harrison.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: directly with feedback on this episode, Uh, to suggest a
Speaker 1: topic for the future, to suggest a guest for the future,
Speaker 1: for just to say hello. You can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.