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

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

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb. In today's episode, I'll be speaking with

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Speaker 2: Patricia Kashian about her upcoming book, Forest Euphoria, The Abounding

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Speaker 2: Queerness of Nature, publishing next month and available for pre

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Speaker 2: order right now in all formats. You'll find a pre

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Speaker 2: order link in the episode description for this podcast episode,

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Speaker 2: or you can look it up at speakleanngrou dot com

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Speaker 2: slash forest hyphen Euphoria. So it's a fun shat. We

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Speaker 2: discuss queer ecology, some amazing examples from nature, and even

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Speaker 2: brief discussion of the TV show The Last Office. So

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Speaker 2: without further ado, let's jump right in. Hi, Patti, welcome

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Speaker 2: to the show.

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Speaker 3: Hi, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: So, the new book is forrest Euphoria, The Abounding Queerness

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Speaker 2: of Nature, a captivating text that meld scientific consideration of

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Speaker 2: ecology and biodiversity with personal experience and insight. Tell us

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Speaker 2: how did this project come together?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I.

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Speaker 4: Started writing this book a few years ago. I have

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Speaker 4: a degree in mycology. I have a PhD in mycology

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Speaker 4: the study of fungi, and I had recently finished my doctorate,

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Speaker 4: and I throughout the later stage of my PhD, though,

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Speaker 4: I started getting really interested in the philosophy of science

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Speaker 4: and queer theory, and so I sort of started to

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Speaker 4: explore those things adjacent to my more formal academic training

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Speaker 4: in science, and I got really interested in sort of

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Speaker 4: how science functions, how we produce knowledge, how we make

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Speaker 4: sense of knowledge within the scientific system, and how where

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Speaker 4: the power of science lies, but also what its shortcomings

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Speaker 4: might be. And so I'm someone who would say I'm

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Speaker 4: very like science positive. I think science is an amazing

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Speaker 4: tool and a really powerful way of knowing, but it also,

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Speaker 4: you know, is a human endeavor and as such pen

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Speaker 4: be flawed. And so I was sort of interested in

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Speaker 4: understanding what were the sort of limits of science and

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Speaker 4: how does science and culture interact. And as a mycologist,

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Speaker 4: you know, I'm studying a group of organisms that has

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Speaker 4: historically been extremely maligned and neglected by science and by

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Speaker 4: popular culture and perception. And I was really interested in

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Speaker 4: the fact that, even though scientists obviously strive for objectivity,

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Speaker 4: I could find all throughout the science record around mycology

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Speaker 4: sort of a unwillingness or reluctance to see their biology

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Speaker 4: as fully as one should, meaning we were sort of

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Speaker 4: the history of science is to sort of pigeonhole fungi

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Speaker 4: as being organisms that are just like dangerous or deadly

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Speaker 4: or disgusting. And there was actually a lack of objectivity

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Speaker 4: in approaching this whole group of organisms, and as it

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Speaker 4: kind of created a vacuum of knowledge. So I started

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Speaker 4: to sort of be interested in, well, how did that

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Speaker 4: come to be? How is it that a group of

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Speaker 4: organisms could be treated so subjectively by scientists and what

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Speaker 4: does that mean for sort of our understanding of them now?

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Speaker 4: And so as I dug into that, I got really

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Speaker 4: interested in sort of the history of mycology, you know,

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Speaker 4: this feeling of fear and revulsion that a lot of

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Speaker 4: people in particularly in North America or Western Europe have

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Speaker 4: towards fungi. And that brought me into sort of the

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Speaker 4: realm of queer theory as well, which is, you know,

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Speaker 4: the understanding of categories usually relating to sex and gender,

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Speaker 4: but sort of how we make sense.

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Speaker 3: Of what is quote unquote normal, what is quote unquote.

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Speaker 4: Dev and queer theory could sort of was used as

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Speaker 4: a lens for understanding this construction, these binaries that we

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Speaker 4: construct in society about what is good.

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Speaker 3: Or bad, or what is normal what's not normal.

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Speaker 4: I had started digging into that and was giving some

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Speaker 4: talks on the subject, and then an editor reached out

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Speaker 4: to me and asked, Hey, do you want to write

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Speaker 4: a book about queer theory and biodiversity? And I was like, yes, absolutely,

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Speaker 4: so I started doing that in I believe that was

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Speaker 4: the spring of twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 2: Awesome. So, speaking of queerness in the broader sense, how

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Speaker 2: do we currently define queer and queerness at a human level,

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Speaker 2: Because I feel like it's easy, it's easy to sort

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Speaker 2: of culturally absorb the term without really understanding its history,

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Speaker 2: and I guess you might say evolved, meaning sure.

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Speaker 4: So I use queerness sort of as an umbrella term

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Speaker 4: for life and behavior and ways of being that are

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Speaker 4: outside of the heteronormativity, but also as a way of

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Speaker 4: invoking kind of a notion of a shared collective struggle

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Speaker 4: towards liberation. So queer was, you know, used to be

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Speaker 4: an insult or a pejorative term, and then people in

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Speaker 4: that community took that back and and sort of proudly

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Speaker 4: self identified as queer, particularly around the height of the

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Speaker 4: AIDS crisis epidemic in the United States and used that

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Speaker 4: sort of queerness as a rallying cry to bring people

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Speaker 4: from otherwise sort of disparate LGBTQ groups and like bind

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Speaker 4: them together and come together for the shared purpose of of,

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Speaker 4: you know, addressing the AIDS crisis and other injustices related

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Speaker 4: to homosexuality and so forth. So I actually think that

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Speaker 4: queerness is a term that is not just about I

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Speaker 4: think you can be gay and not really embody queerness.

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Speaker 3: And and by that I mean I think that for me, the.

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Speaker 4: Use of queer is is always sort of tied to

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Speaker 4: collective liberation and so understanding your role in the collective

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Speaker 4: and sort of how you relate to systems of power.

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Speaker 4: And I'm you know, I'm sure other people have different definitions,

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Speaker 4: and that's one of the beauty of things that's beautiful

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Speaker 4: about being queer, is that, you know, sometimes you don't

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Speaker 4: have to commit to one singular definition. But for me,

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Speaker 4: that's how I sort of understand it. And I apply

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Speaker 4: that not just to the human world in terms of liberation,

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Speaker 4: but also liberation of non human species and life systems

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Speaker 4: on earth, all.

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Speaker 2: Right, And that brings us to queer ecology, how do

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Speaker 2: we bring this definition of queer and queerness into the

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Speaker 2: ecological world and what's the history of queer ecology.

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Speaker 4: So queer ecology is sort of a you know, an

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Speaker 4: emerging field. I would say it's been there's been some

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Speaker 4: writings around it for the past decade or so, but

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Speaker 4: it's starting to take more shape. I think it's becoming

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Speaker 4: something that people are sinking their teeth into a bit

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Speaker 4: more in the last few years. There are many dimensions

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Speaker 4: to it. Up front, the most clear and concise like

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Speaker 4: element of quer ecology is the fact that many organisms

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Speaker 4: are simply not binary or sort of heteronormative, and they're

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Speaker 4: reproductive strategies. So throughout the animal kingdom, there's all sorts

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Speaker 4: of same sex mating behaviors, partnerships. There are organisms that

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Speaker 4: have multiple sexes that sometimes in the same individual or

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Speaker 4: over a singular life span. In the fungal world, we

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Speaker 4: have all sorts of reproductive strategies that are non binary.

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Speaker 4: So there's sometimes sometimes there are you know, quote unquote

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Speaker 4: male or female species, but oftentimes there's multiple sexes or

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Speaker 4: mating types depending on the group. Your entire lineages of

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Speaker 4: fungi that are just asexual for all we know. Quer

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Speaker 4: ecology is interested in exploring the biological reproductive strategies of

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Speaker 4: different organisms and also the behaviors between organisms and sort

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Speaker 4: of like bringing to the fourth research that had been

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Speaker 4: either neglected to be you know, conducted or suppressed or

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Speaker 4: sort of just overlooked regarding these sort of.

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Speaker 3: Non non normal, you know, non heteronormative reproductive strategies.

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Speaker 4: So that you know, a lot, a lot of the

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Speaker 4: argument to shame queerness or same sex behaviors or it

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Speaker 4: has been rooted in the fact that the claim that

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Speaker 4: it's not natural right to be gay, it's not natural

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Speaker 4: to be transgender, or something like this. But we actually

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Speaker 4: know that throughout all throughout the tree of life, there

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Speaker 4: are so many examples of these types of ways of being.

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Speaker 4: So if the claim is that it's not natural, that's

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Speaker 4: just not accurate. So part of it is just sort

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Speaker 4: of a corrective against that claim. Now, you know, often

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Speaker 4: the goalpost is shifted by those who are you know,

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Speaker 4: homophobic or whatnot, but that has been a long standing claim,

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Speaker 4: so quer ecology helps sort of make that clear. But

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Speaker 4: then going further than that, getting into the little bit

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Speaker 4: more of the theories and philosophies. It's also about understanding

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Speaker 4: these constructions of categories, So like, how do we, like,

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Speaker 4: how do science make sense of the world? Are there

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Speaker 4: limitations to that worldview? Are there ways in which we've

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Speaker 4: sort of blunted our understanding of nature because we've been

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Speaker 4: steeped in a particular cultural lens, so particularly Western European philosophies.

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Speaker 4: So one thing I talk about a lot in my

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Speaker 4: research and in my book is the kind of notion

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Speaker 4: of an individual. Right, So I'm a taxonomist, I'm someone

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Speaker 4: who names and describes new species of fungi. So I

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Speaker 4: definitely understand the utility of like a species concept or

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Speaker 4: you know, drawing the you know, approximate limits of an individual,

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Speaker 4: so we can kind of make sense of it and

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Speaker 4: communicate about it. But there's also sort of like under

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Speaker 4: I also understand that that's like a tool and a

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Speaker 4: way of making sense in certain contexts. But sometimes to

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Speaker 4: deep more deeply understand a really complex system, we might

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Speaker 4: need to let go of certain rigid boxes that we've constructed,

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Speaker 4: and so that can be a really challenging thing for

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Speaker 4: people deep steeped in Western philosophical thought. And we really

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Speaker 4: love the idea of an individual as a unit, as

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Speaker 4: a structure. But for example, in fungi, we see oftentimes

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Speaker 4: that these organisms are not really adhering to really clear

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Speaker 4: lines of like what is this body versus the other?

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Speaker 4: Like what is this species versus the other? And often

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Speaker 4: fungi or forming really complex webs of interaction living you know,

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Speaker 4: basically living in symbiosis, you know, sometimes cells with in

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Speaker 4: larger bodies, and then it starts to challenge your ability

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Speaker 4: to really draw those lines when the more you sort

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Speaker 4: of engage with a biological understanding of these really complex beings.

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Speaker 4: So in quer ecology we sort of are like bringing

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Speaker 4: that to light, like how does how do we make

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Speaker 4: sense of the world if we kind of decompose some

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Speaker 4: of the notions that we've long kind of clung onto.

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Speaker 4: And my goal with this is always to do better science, right,

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Speaker 4: So ultimately I'm not trying to discard the scientific method. Again,

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Speaker 4: I'm very positive towards science, but it's about like pushing

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Speaker 4: us beyond the limits of current knowledge. Can we better

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Speaker 4: understand the ecosystems around us, like how fungi form complex

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Speaker 4: partnerships or how you know, desoil function. Can we can

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Speaker 4: we push past some of the limitations that we've imposed

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Speaker 4: on our own scientific processes by not examining our own biases.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I found it really interesting to think about because

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Speaker 2: I know for some listeners out there, there may be

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Speaker 2: this sort of maybe instinctual backlash against the idea of careercology,

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Speaker 2: thinking that, well, okay, maybe this is like a human

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Speaker 2: cultural matter and it's being used to influence the shape

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Speaker 2: of scientific undertaking. But it's really quite the opposite, isn't

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Speaker 2: it more of an attempt to undo binary, anthropomorphic interpretations

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Speaker 2: of nature?

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Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 4: I think that's a really good way of a succinct

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Speaker 4: way of putting it. You know, so often I hear

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Speaker 4: or like kind of detect a resistance to this, yeah,

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Speaker 4: like to politicizing science or making like adding this sort

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Speaker 4: of like identity politics to science or something like this.

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Speaker 4: But really, like, actually, when you examine the scientific record,

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Speaker 4: you can see that it's already fraught.

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Speaker 3: With those things, there's all.

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Speaker 4: And that's why I think the mycological example is really

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Speaker 4: powerful because so like even we have examples of like

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Speaker 4: Carl Lnaeus, one of the founders of modern taxonomy, describing

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Speaker 4: fungi as rastichi Popeimi the poorest peasants of the vegetable class. Like,

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Speaker 4: that's an incredibly subjective way of looking at an organism, right,

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Speaker 4: calling it poor and a peasant and obviously filled with disdain.

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Speaker 3: So that's not objectivity, that's his He.

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Speaker 4: Thought they were weird, he called them, you know, he

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Speaker 4: categorized them as lower plants. So that obviously this was

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Speaker 4: prior to our Darwinian evolution knowledge. So like, I'm not

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Speaker 4: holding that against him, but at the same time, that

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Speaker 4: is still the fact of the matter is that a

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Speaker 4: lot of scientists were Christian Western European men of high class,

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Speaker 4: and those world views are present in their writings and

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Speaker 4: in the canon of science. So I'm sort of look

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Speaker 4: kind of treating this as like a way a corrective

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Speaker 4: to that history.

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Speaker 3: How do we go through that.

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Speaker 4: History and make sense of the what we know now

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Speaker 4: understanding that these people were like all of us, you know,

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Speaker 4: limited while we're all limited in our capacity, and that's

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Speaker 4: that's not a terrible thing, but it is true. And

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Speaker 4: so sometimes people think that if you're kind of constantly

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Speaker 4: thinking about sociology or your your own identity, that you

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Speaker 4: might be clouding your own objectivity. But I think it

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Speaker 4: kind of actually can function the opposite way, that it

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Speaker 4: actually can make you more conscious of your flaws and

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Speaker 4: what biases you might be replicating because we all have them. Right,

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Speaker 4: It's not about saying someone's good or bad. It's just

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Speaker 4: that we all are people and can and can be limited.

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Speaker 4: And so it's also not really I think that much

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Speaker 4: about your own identity. I think that it's really about

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Speaker 4: understanding how information moves, how do we assign value, how

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Speaker 4: do we assign how does power function to create meaning?

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Speaker 4: And anyone is capable of sort of like exploring that. Right,

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Speaker 4: That's you don't have to have a particular identity to

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Speaker 4: be interested in challenging that or like thinking through that critically.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because I feel like it's one of those worldviews

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Speaker 2: where like we're just in it and we don't necessarily

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Speaker 2: like see it. We're not necessarily aware of these limitations

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Speaker 2: unless we sort of step outside of it momentarily at least, Right, it's.

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Speaker 4: A good practice as a scientist, I think to kind

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Speaker 4: of reflect on even if you think you're discipline is

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Speaker 4: really you know, not touched by human culture, I think

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Speaker 4: it can be, and I would say some disciplines are

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Speaker 4: much more in touch with that than others, but there's

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Speaker 4: still like, I think it's a good reflection as a scientist.

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Speaker 4: I think you can make you a more ethical, more grounded,

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Speaker 4: and more effective scientist to at least be like considering

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Speaker 4: these how this might function in your own work.

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Speaker 2: Now, coming back to the book. Very early on in

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Speaker 2: the book, you mentioned the nineteen ninety six French documentary Microcosms,

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Speaker 2: which I think a lot of our listeners have probably

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Speaker 2: seen in spite of perhaps of that sort of infamous

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Speaker 2: American poster that featured the praying mantis with the sunglasses

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Speaker 2: rather out of keeping with the actual vibe of the film,

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Speaker 2: the vibe of which you discussed.

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Speaker 4: So I really love that film because it's so immersive

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Speaker 4: in this world of insects and other arthropods, and I

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Speaker 4: think that those animals are so often treated with contempt. Right,

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Speaker 4: So we similar to fungi, there's these perceptions around insects

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Speaker 4: and and these you know, invertebrate animals that they're creepy, disgusting,

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Speaker 4: they're like unworthy of of our care and love. You know,

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Speaker 4: we we don't have any like coordinated system for ethics

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Speaker 4: around insects, right, It's all like, actually the ethic is

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Speaker 4: really that you can kill them without mercy, and so

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Speaker 4: I I just find but I find them to be

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Speaker 4: so incredibly well. They are not just I don't not

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Speaker 4: just me who finds them this way. They are incredibly diverse.

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Speaker 4: There there are you know, millions of species of insects,

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Speaker 4: and they are these It's a whole, it's a universe

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Speaker 4: unto itself, right, And so what I like about microcosmos

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Speaker 4: is that it really submerses you into that world and

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Speaker 4: you start to see that these things are animals. Like

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Speaker 4: I think a lot of people know technically, and I'm

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Speaker 4: sure most listeners to this podcast know that, like insects

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Speaker 4: are animals, but you can still like something about making

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Speaker 4: the micro sort of macro. You really see like, oh,

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Speaker 4: this thing has like all these ornaments, and it has

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Speaker 4: a behavior, and it has a family, and it has

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Speaker 4: these you know, and it has sex and like all

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Speaker 4: it is like an animal world. I think we just

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Speaker 4: reduce them to these very flat, kind of negative categories otherwise,

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Speaker 4: So I love that it kind of creates this drama

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Speaker 4: that you're like with the music and you're sort of

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Speaker 4: in and then like these towering plants all around you

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Speaker 4: and you're kind of in this metropolis of this other world.

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Speaker 4: And I think it makes them feel like dynamic because

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Speaker 4: they are dynamic. They're species that have complex lives and

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Speaker 4: probably feel all sorts of sensations that we've kind of

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Speaker 4: typically denied them, so like pleasure and maybe even pain

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Speaker 4: and fear, and we you know, we don't know too

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Speaker 4: much about insect neuroscience in terms of what sensations they're

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Speaker 4: capable of. But it kind of seems crazy to me

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Speaker 4: that we would just assume from the jump that they're

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Speaker 4: unfeeling entirely Like that doesn't make that doesn't really make

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Speaker 4: scientific sense to me, right, So, and then there's also

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Speaker 4: so there's other arthropods and and and then invertebrates. So like,

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Speaker 4: I really love the snail sex scene where these two

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Speaker 4: uh snails are there is like a gradual operatic situation

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Speaker 4: where they are finding they find each other in the

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Speaker 4: in the moss, and then they are entwined their bodies

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Speaker 4: together and it's just and the opera crescendos as it

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Speaker 4: is happening, and it's just like, Wow, these animals are

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Speaker 4: really like experiencing pleasure, Like they're really like in this

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Speaker 4: thing together and they're and also they're both you're not

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Speaker 4: sure what the sex is of either, because they're they

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Speaker 4: actually are both hermaphroditic. They both have both you know,

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Speaker 4: male and female reproductive organs in their bodies, so there

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Speaker 4: is this queer, literal, reproductively queer.

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Speaker 3: Element to them as well. So I just it's a

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Speaker 3: great film.

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Speaker 4: If you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend just setting

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Speaker 4: aside a couple hours and immersing yourself into this micro world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I had seen it years ago, and I noticed

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Speaker 2: that it's currently on Criterion Channel, so I pulled it

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Speaker 2: up during lunch the other day. Yeah, it's still gorgeous.

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Speaker 2: And this is something you touch on in the book

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Speaker 2: as well. It has almost no narration. There's like a

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Speaker 2: little opening, narrational, little closing, but for the most part,

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Speaker 2: like you're just immersed in this visual world of the

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Speaker 2: creatures studied here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really beautiful.

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Speaker 2: So in the book, you bring up many examples of

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Speaker 2: queerness in nature, again not exceptions to an imagined binary rule,

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Speaker 2: but expressions of that abounding queerness that you get to

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Speaker 2: in the title. What are some of your favorite additional

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Speaker 2: examples to bring up in discussing queer ecology.

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Speaker 4: I really am obsessed with eels, and they specifically the

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Speaker 4: American eel that I talk about in the book. I

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Speaker 4: think that they there's so much to their the they're

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Speaker 4: very there.

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Speaker 3: So they have a very queer body, right.

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Speaker 4: So they are organisms that spend most of their life

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Speaker 4: as intersex.

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Speaker 3: In zoology, we use the.

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Speaker 4: Word hermaphroditic, but I know that humans prefer intersex, so

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Speaker 4: I try I actually, I guess I.

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Speaker 3: Think that's probably the better term to use.

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Speaker 4: So in the snail, sorry, the eel bodies are intersex

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Speaker 4: in that they both have both male or they have testes,

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Speaker 4: and they have ovaries for most of their life, and

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Speaker 4: so you can't you know, there was a lot of

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Speaker 4: mystery around them in the early days of natural history,

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Speaker 4: trying to understand well, what are they, you know, and

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Speaker 4: so a lot of scientists were determined that they must

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Speaker 4: be either male or female, and so that sort of

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Speaker 4: lens of trying to prove that they were one or

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Speaker 4: the other dominated investigations into their bodies in biology. And

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Speaker 4: one of those people researching eel sex was Sigmund Freud,

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Speaker 4: and I so I write a little bit about his

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Speaker 4: early days before he became interested in psychology or before

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Speaker 4: he was studying it, was studying natural history, and he

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Speaker 4: he was someone who wanted to sort of understand what

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Speaker 4: the el sex situation was, and Spoke spent actually a

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Speaker 4: lot much of his time dissecting the bodies of eels,

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Speaker 4: trying to find roof of like sort of one sex

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Speaker 4: or the other. And he kept he wanted to find specifically,

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Speaker 4: he didn't understand why, like where were all the males?

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Speaker 4: So I think it was easier to find ovarian tissue,

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Speaker 4: but it was harder to find testicular type tissues, And

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Speaker 4: so he dissected like hundreds of eels before finally finding

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Speaker 4: some evidence that.

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Speaker 3: There were males or male sex organs.

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Speaker 4: And some people think that this may have been this

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Speaker 4: sort of pursuit might have given rise to some of

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Speaker 4: his later concepts like castration, anxiety.

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Speaker 3: And stuff like this, because he was maybe.

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Speaker 4: Made anxious by the fact that this was not actually

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Speaker 4: something he could easily find. But eels are just, on

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Speaker 4: several levels, incredibly fascinating. And one thing that also I

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Speaker 4: grew really interested in was the way that they migrate,

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Speaker 4: so they are spawned. They are all of the American

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Speaker 4: eels are born in the Sargasso Sea, so kind of

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Speaker 4: near the Bermuda Triangle, and for up until very recently,

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Speaker 4: this exact location was unknown, and their whole sort of

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Speaker 4: sexual reproduction was not witnessed or recorded by science.

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Speaker 3: And then the eels.

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Speaker 4: Migrate from the Bermuda, like from the Sargasso Sea all

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Speaker 4: the way up to the along the length of the

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Speaker 4: North American Eastern seaboard and enter into freshwater systems through

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Speaker 4: rivers that reach the ocean, and they swim upstream and

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Speaker 4: they can go pretty far. They can travel hundreds of

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Speaker 4: miles within the freshwater systems. And I got to experience

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Speaker 4: eels at when I was teaching at Bard College in

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Speaker 4: the Hudson Valley, so on the Hudson River, and there

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Speaker 4: was an eel monitoring project because eels have their populations

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Speaker 4: have collapsed due to overfishing and pollution and habitat destruction.

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Speaker 4: So there's a monitoring project with Hudsonia, an environmental org,

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Speaker 4: and we would I would take my students and we

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Speaker 4: would volunteer to help them trap eels, document them, and

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Speaker 4: then release them into the freshwater systems. And so I

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Speaker 4: started learning about how eels do this migration. They they

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Speaker 4: make this trip from the Sargasso Sea with just basically

400
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Speaker 4: only being about an inch long, and they're totally translucent

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Speaker 4: except you can see through their bodies. You can see

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Speaker 4: their eyes and then their their spinal cords and but

403
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 4: they're just this tiny little fish that like swims for

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Speaker 4: it can take them over a year to swim from

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Speaker 4: where they were born to these freshwater systems that the

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Speaker 4: systems that their parents came from. And so I was like,

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Speaker 4: you know, started reading about how they are using magnetite,

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Speaker 4: which is a oxidized iron material that's in their set

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Speaker 4: like in and around their brains.

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Speaker 3: And this is something that other animals have as well.

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Speaker 4: It's best studied in fish like salmon, which also are

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Speaker 4: you know, do these complex migratory routes. But it's magnetite

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Speaker 4: is present throughout the tree of life. Even humans have it,

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Speaker 4: but we're not sure exactly if its function in our bodies.

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Speaker 4: But what's amazing about magnetite is that it is in

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Speaker 4: the case of these complex animals, like multicellular animals, it's

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Speaker 4: probably it's believed to have been a bacterial origin, so

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Speaker 4: it's likely arose from an endosymbiotic event. So endo symbiosis

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Speaker 4: is a process by which, you know, one species of

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Speaker 4: a smaller size is engulfed by another larger species and eventually,

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Speaker 4: over time they become interdependent on one another through you know,

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Speaker 4: many generations. And so this is the case. This is

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Speaker 4: how many of our organelles came to be. So mitochondria,

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Speaker 4: for example, were used to be free living bacteria that

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Speaker 4: were absorbed by another cell and then instead of it

426
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Speaker 4: being maybe eaten or just being sort of killed by

427
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 4: that engulfing, it's stato illlive and then persisted as a

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Speaker 4: living cell within a larger cell. And eventually, over many, many,

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Speaker 4: many generations, they become you know, like entangled with each

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Speaker 4: other in physiologically and energetically. And so this process is

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Speaker 4: so I mean, it's just kind of crazy to wrap

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Speaker 4: your mind around. It's stranger than fiction in a lot

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Speaker 4: of ways, Like what are the odds of these types

434
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 4: of most you know, cellular events happening, And how is

435
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,679
Speaker 4: it that such sort of randomness could then give rise

436
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 4: to such complexity. I mean, this is like the study

437
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 4: of evolution, right, It's just absolutely crazy. I mean, it's

438
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:48,919
Speaker 4: like it sometimes feels just absolutely absurd. But what I

439
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 4: kind of am bringing it back a little bit to

440
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:53,160
Speaker 4: quer ecology in a moment, which is that for most

441
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 4: of a lot of scientific history, Western science was pretty

442
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 4: resistant to this idea of symbiosis or to interdependencies or

443
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 4: sort of that you know, the individual could really be

444
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:09,639
Speaker 4: made up of many, uh, you know, individuals, and we

445
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 4: are collectively a being that is not really discernible without

446
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 4: the presence of all these other micro organisms and such.

447
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 4: So the science there was a scientist, an evolutionary biologist,

448
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 4: Lynn Margolis, who was the person who's who brought endosymbiotic

449
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:30,159
Speaker 4: theory to like the a tension of science, and for

450
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 4: many years she was dismissed as you know, being kind

451
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,760
Speaker 4: of just like partly on the basis of her gender,

452
00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 4: but just also on the basis of the fact that

453
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 4: this just seems so crazy, like we are how could

454
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,359
Speaker 4: endosymbiosis really be like the foundation of the human body,

455
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:48,119
Speaker 4: like the noble amazing, you.

456
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:49,200
Speaker 3: Know, a complex person.

457
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 4: Couldn't really could we really be just like a bunch

458
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 4: of bacteria and fungi in a in a flesh, fleshy form.

459
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 3: But over time, more and more.

460
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:01,479
Speaker 4: Evidence accumulated in support of her highypotheses, and now that

461
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 4: is understood as as a like a you know, a

462
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 4: fact of evolutionary biology and so that but she was

463
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 4: willing to sort of challenge the paradigm and push outside

464
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 4: of like what is normal and what is accepted in

465
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:17,880
Speaker 4: the scientific discipline and at great personal you know, risk

466
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 4: and costs professionally. So I think that that part that

467
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 4: story of like how magnetite Okay, okay, So then going

468
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:28,159
Speaker 4: back to the magnetite, there were these ancient bacteria that

469
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 4: probably through just a you know, random mutation, started accumulating

470
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 4: magnetite in their cells. And the magnetite is receptive to

471
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 4: the magnetic fields of the Earth, and so over time

472
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 4: these what was probably just like you know, a mutation

473
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 4: of accumulation of this of this material became beneficial to

474
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,600
Speaker 4: that organism. They started to be able to sort of

475
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 4: orient themselves to the magn the magnetic fields of the

476
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 4: Earth and developed something of a magneto taxis, so being

477
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 4: able to move by magnetic fields. And so we have

478
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 4: like chemotaxis or phototaxis, and magomagnetic taxis is another form

479
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 4: of response, you know, stimulation and response. So the over

480
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 4: time and we have there there are these basically accumulations

481
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 4: of these little packets of magnetite in a bacterial cell

482
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:29,719
Speaker 4: and they formed in a tiny like little chain, and

483
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 4: that chain became almost like a compass needle that could

484
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 4: move in response to the magnetic fields of the Earth.

485
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 4: And that some ancestor of that bacteria was probably what

486
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:44,720
Speaker 4: was absorbed into another larger cell. That then is you know,

487
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 4: deep in the tree of life of animals, and just

488
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 4: a common ancestor of most animals probably had absorbed some

489
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 4: sort of magnetive tactic bacteria and that's why we can

490
00:29:56,720 --> 00:30:00,040
Speaker 4: find it scattered across all the tree of life. And

491
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 4: so some animals have you know, evolved these magnetostomes, these

492
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 4: more complex structures within with in which magnetite is found,

493
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 4: and they are basically sensory organs that so, like in salmon,

494
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 4: for example, we know that there's the complex magnetostomes in

495
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:20,440
Speaker 4: and around their little noses and faces and they use

496
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 4: that to guide their migratory journeys from from you know,

497
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 4: c in fresh water. And so we think eels have

498
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 4: that as well, and that's how sort of how they're

499
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 4: able to travel through the ocean for weeks and weeks

500
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 4: and weeks or oriented towards this sort of ancestral water

501
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 4: that was probably somehow that imprinted into.

502
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 3: The magnetostomes that they're using.

503
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 4: So this is that was a very long story, but

504
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 4: I think both elements of the eel biology are are relevant.

505
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 4: So there's the queer ecological the queer biological fact of

506
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 4: their bodies being intersect for most of their life and

507
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 4: then when they are about to make their journey, so

508
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 4: they migrate up to freshwater, live there for several decades,

509
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 4: and then when they are it's time to reproduce, they're

510
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 4: sort of signaled into preparing for a journey back to

511
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 4: the Sargasso c And at that point they replace all

512
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 4: of their digestive organs get sort of cannibalized and cellularly

513
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 4: repurposed into sexual reproductive organs, and that at that point

514
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 4: typically they become you know, they develop more fully ovariant

515
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 4: tissue or more fully testicular tissues, or they can retain both,

516
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 4: and then they make that journey back to the Sargasso

517
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 4: c and they have a raucous I guess evening of

518
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 4: sexual reproduction. So that is super queer in a sort

519
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 4: of queer like in a direct reproductive sense, but then

520
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 4: also this sort of you know, the history of endosymbiosis

521
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 4: as being a kind of a rejected concept in the

522
00:31:56,200 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 4: scientific establishment because it showed that these you know, higher

523
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 4: quote unquote, higher level organisms were the kind of random

524
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 4: events of these lowly microbes. And that kind of perspective

525
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 4: is something that challenges like the agency of more complex

526
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 4: beings and the human Wow.

527
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Uh, there's another organism that you bring up. And

528
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 2: I have to admit this is an organism that has

529
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 2: long been one of my favorites, but at a like

530
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 2: a a zoo tourist level, like I've never researched them

531
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:28,080
Speaker 2: for the podcast or anything, so I only really knew

532
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 2: what was out there already, like you know, going to

533
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 2: zoos and you know up there on the little sign

534
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 2: and so forth. But the Castawary, Oh yeah. And granted,

535
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 2: there's a lot about the Castawary to catch your eye

536
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 2: and to explain to a general audience, like their you know,

537
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 2: their their coloration, their their flightlessness, their their feet, the

538
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 2: formation on the top of their head. But I was

539
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 2: really taken by your discussion of how they they fit

540
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 2: into queer ecology. Would you would tell us a little

541
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 2: bit about this Yeah.

542
00:32:54,080 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 4: So castiwaries they're amazing birds. They're incredibly you know, like

543
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:03,680
Speaker 4: they just are very much like, Okay, you understand that

544
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 4: they're related to how closely related they are to dinosaurs,

545
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 4: and so they're completely fascinating.

546
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 3: But for in terms of the like they're sort of

547
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 3: queer structures.

548
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 4: They for a long time, it was really not discussed

549
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 4: in any of the literature on their basic biology, like

550
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 4: how they were reproducing and the fact that like some

551
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 4: of the females have these fallacies and some of the

552
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 4: males have like inverted basically like they instead of having

553
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 4: an extroverted fallus, they have inverted structures.

554
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 3: So they sort of have this.

555
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 4: Like in what you know, what we would consider the

556
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 4: opposite and you know, most people would consider the opposite

557
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 4: type structure representing you know, on the male or female.

558
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 4: And so for a long time, people who the people

559
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 4: like indigenous to this area where castwerries are found, would

560
00:33:55,720 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 4: involve cassowaries in a lot of their cosmology and iconographies

561
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 4: and specifically were aware that they had these you know,

562
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 4: queer reproductive organs, organs that were not binary organs that

563
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:14,879
Speaker 4: defied sort of expectations around gender or sex, and they

564
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:19,319
Speaker 4: incorporated that into some into ritual and so forth. So

565
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 4: this was known to the people who lived amongst them

566
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 4: for thousands of years that they actually have really sort

567
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 4: of these these structures.

568
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 3: But in the Western scientific descriptions of these birds there

569
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:32,800
Speaker 3: were there was really no mention of this fact. And

570
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:34,280
Speaker 3: and so actually I learned about.

571
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 4: This through reading Biological Exuberance by Bruce Bagamial, I believe

572
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 4: is the pronunciation of his last name, which is a

573
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 4: wonderful compendium, very textbook like compendium of examples of queerness

574
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 4: in nature.

575
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 3: And I found that it's a wonderful resource.

576
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:52,919
Speaker 4: It's and it does get a little bit into sort

577
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:56,400
Speaker 4: of the like reasons why certain studies were maybe not

578
00:34:56,680 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 4: taken seriously or suppressed or ignored. And so he notes that,

579
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:04,400
Speaker 4: you know, these birds were known for a while to

580
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:06,799
Speaker 4: be like this, but you could not find record of

581
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 4: that in in like publications. And he believes it's because

582
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 4: there was sort of shame and anxiety around just simply

583
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 4: reporting evidence of queerness or homosexuality or of you know,

584
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 4: sort of gender sex nonconformity in the scientific literature.

585
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 3: So it's it's just an.

586
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 4: It's an interesting example of the fact that like so

587
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:34,359
Speaker 4: going back to the earlier part of our conversation where

588
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:38,359
Speaker 4: we can have or we talk about you know, it's

589
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,879
Speaker 4: not actually we're not actually being political when we pull

590
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,279
Speaker 4: these things out. We're actually exposing the fact that there

591
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 4: were biases that clouded the objectivity in science, and it's

592
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 4: important to acknowledge those and sort of pull that subjectivity

593
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 4: out and actually just look at these things very factually.

594
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 4: So it's just a good example of like what you

595
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 4: what happens when you're just afraid to make waves in science,

596
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 4: or you're or you're just not looking correctly, so you

597
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 4: might have maybe maybe you you know. He has other

598
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 4: examples in the book too, where scientists would talk about,

599
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 4: you know, seeing something and just really not believing them

600
00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:20,879
Speaker 4: their own observations because it was contradictory to heteronormativity. It's

601
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 4: like or they would come up with very non parsimonious

602
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 4: explanations as to why they were seeing what they were seeing, like, oh,

603
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 4: this these two you know, birds are have a same

604
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 4: sex partnership, but you know, they're probably just confused or

605
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 4: something like that, right, and so making these sort of

606
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:40,240
Speaker 4: like reaching for explanations that that are not really evidence

607
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:42,359
Speaker 4: based but are just sort of like would would kind

608
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 4: of explain away the fact that you're constantly seeing same

609
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 4: sex behaviors in that species. So the same with the cassowaries.

610
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:50,799
Speaker 4: This was the case as well, that they were just

611
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 4: like not either not report. We can't be sure exactly why,

612
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 4: but it seems as if they were either not reporting

613
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:58,760
Speaker 4: what they were seeing or they didn't believe their own

614
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 4: examination of these birds that were like maybe I'm just

615
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 4: not getting it, but maybe it was just that they're

616
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 4: not conforming to our notions of what sexual structures should

617
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 4: look like in males or females.

618
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 2: It's such a fascinating way to sort of turn the

619
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 2: tables on anthromomorphism and sort of see it as I guess.

620
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 2: You know, On one hand, we have to acknowledge that

621
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,760
Speaker 2: anthromomorphism helps us in some cases care more about animals.

622
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 2: You know, we see ourselves reflected in them, but then

623
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 2: it can stand in the way of fully understanding what

624
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 2: they are and how they operate because even at a

625
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 2: subliminal level, like we're seeing ourselves in them and seeing

626
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 2: them as models of humans.

627
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.

628
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 4: I think that is a really important point because I

629
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 4: think anthropomorphism can be a good tool and it can

630
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 4: stand in the way, and it kind of is case dependent.

631
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 4: And it's also so it sort of requires you to

632
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:59,319
Speaker 4: be constantly reflexive on like, if I like withhold all

633
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 4: of the complex city that I know is found in

634
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 4: the human species from another species, am I learning more

635
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 4: about it? Or am I making it?

636
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:07,759
Speaker 2: Like?

637
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 3: Am I actually reducing my understanding of it?

638
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 4: And so that kind of negotiation is something that I

639
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 4: try to engage with regularly. It's like, so for example,

640
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 4: going back to the insects, if I assume nothing like

641
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 4: no human qualities can be mapped onto insects, then I

642
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 4: might assume that they're incapable of experiencing pleasure or pain,

643
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:32,680
Speaker 4: or that they don't have like complex social realities, and

644
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 4: then I might actually not really understand insects. But you

645
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 4: can take it then, as you're saying, you can also

646
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 4: for the castworries.

647
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 3: If we assume like a male.

648
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:44,280
Speaker 4: Looks like this and a female looks like this, then

649
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 4: you know you're because of what we think is normal

650
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 4: for people, then we are also reducing our understanding of

651
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 4: these organisms. So it kind of is this constant like

652
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 4: negotiation and toggle between can anthropomorphism actually enrich our scientific

653
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 4: understanding or is in this moment is it restricting us?

654
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 4: And so there isn't like a one answer. It's sort

655
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 4: of a constant question. But I try time my sort

656
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,320
Speaker 4: of inclination and this is just sort of my style

657
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 4: not to be prescriptive, is to sort of assume human

658
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:19,799
Speaker 4: like qualities and then scientifically assess what you know.

659
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 3: Is that accurate?

660
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 4: And so I'd rather over project, you know, feeling and

661
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 4: dynamicism and complexity and then maybe have you with evidence

662
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 4: take that away or under renegotiate that as opposed to

663
00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 4: assuming being that you're this inert, unfeeling species and you

664
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 4: have nothing, you know, you're just a you know, like

665
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 4: a collection of molecules and there's no sort of vitalism there,

666
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 4: and so that's kind of that's if I had to

667
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 4: pick one. I actually think anthropomorphism is likely to enrich

668
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 4: our understanding, but caveats abound.

669
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:12,839
Speaker 2: Now coming back to the realm of mycology and where

670
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 2: it intersects with human culture and understanding. I wonder what

671
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 2: your thoughts are on this. I know that, like in general,

672
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 2: writers have often touched on different cultures being micophilic or microphobic,

673
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 2: like on the whole seeing like the realm of mushrooms

674
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 2: and fun guys being dangerous or beneficial and not being

675
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:40,799
Speaker 2: like wrapped up in their culture. And this of course

676
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,280
Speaker 2: gets into what you're talking about earlier, about the about

677
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 2: certain despised species or forms of life within given cultures.

678
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 2: And I was just wondering, like, do you see an

679
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 2: overlap between traditional cultures that are more micophilic and ones

680
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:57,759
Speaker 2: that are traditionally like less defined and by rigid binary

681
00:40:57,800 --> 00:40:59,720
Speaker 2: definitions of sexuality and gender.

682
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:05,439
Speaker 4: Hmmm, that's a really good question, I think in general, yes,

683
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:07,320
Speaker 4: I would say that as I'm not you know, and

684
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 4: I'm not an anthropologist or a sociologist, but from you know,

685
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 4: so as a mycologist trying to sort of explore this topic,

686
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 4: I you know, I don't I can't speak super confidently

687
00:41:17,600 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 4: in for other cultures, but what I can say is

688
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 4: that a lot of the history of homophobia and the

689
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 4: history of sort of the way that the patriarchy functions

690
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:33,839
Speaker 4: in Western European and euro American culture had you know,

691
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 4: that's something that has been exported around the world through

692
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:41,600
Speaker 4: colonialism and other you know, there have been societies all

693
00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 4: over the world that have had you know, have sought

694
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 4: to have conformity with gender and with you know, and

695
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:52,879
Speaker 4: have been patriarchal and stuff. But the type, the sort

696
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:55,960
Speaker 4: of manifestation that we are now all pretty familiar with

697
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:59,919
Speaker 4: originated in you know, Western European and euro American thought

698
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 4: and then what has been imposed pretty forcefully.

699
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:04,840
Speaker 3: Around the world.

700
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 4: So I would say that in general there's a trend

701
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 4: that societies that had less rigid notions of gender or

702
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:20,399
Speaker 4: still do have also had unders like cosmological understandings of

703
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 4: the earth as being you know, with as they're being,

704
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 4: like deep interdependence between species, and are generally less hierarchical

705
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:32,760
Speaker 4: even in their understanding of species, not that are non human,

706
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:36,839
Speaker 4: you know, so much of the the binary understanding of

707
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 4: like humans and nature that is also like at Western

708
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:46,840
Speaker 4: you know, European origin, the exact manifestation of it in

709
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 4: you know that we're now familiar with.

710
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 3: You know, there's like there's us and them.

711
00:42:50,560 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 4: There are these two categories, there's human and nature, and

712
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 4: that you know, humans are placed atop this hierarchy. We

713
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 4: were you know, we were the chosen species. We are divine,

714
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:05,320
Speaker 4: and we are the most complex and the most intelligent

715
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 4: and most rational and everything else is just sort of

716
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:13,759
Speaker 4: beneath us to varying degrees, And in Western European thought

717
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:16,919
Speaker 4: that the things that were the lowest on this sort

718
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:22,759
Speaker 4: of pyramid would have been fungi and invertebrates, insects and

719
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 4: things like this, So that hierarchy is really foundational to

720
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:34,719
Speaker 4: European and Western European thought. So that and that's so

721
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:37,400
Speaker 4: it is like some I guess I feel most confident

722
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 4: speaking about this society because I'm someone who grew up

723
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 4: in it, and I'm part Irish Irish and part Armenian,

724
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:46,799
Speaker 4: and i grew up in the United States, so I

725
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 4: feel like most you know, I'm most able to comment

726
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 4: on how that functions. Now, there are other societies, you know,

727
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 4: around the world that including Eastern European, places in Mexico,

728
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 4: places in West Africa, Japan, where mushrooms are not considered,

729
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 4: you know, not as strongly associated with anything negative and

730
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 4: have a long history being celebrated and integrated into culture

731
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 4: and in historically these places also had less rigid understandings

732
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 4: of gender. But now, of course it's hard to sort

733
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 4: of draw that line because of the impact of colonialism.

734
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 4: So I'd say that there is a relationship and I'm

735
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 4: always interested in hearing from people who grew up steeped

736
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,959
Speaker 4: in other cultures about this specific topic, because there isn't

737
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 4: a lot written about it. So this is sort of

738
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:38,800
Speaker 4: just what I've been able to kind of piece together

739
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 4: over time, again not being a sociologist, but there is

740
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,840
Speaker 4: a relationship between sort of how does a culture respond

741
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 4: to the unknown. So in general, there's like a feeling

742
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:53,280
Speaker 4: that what is unknown induces sort of anxiety and fear

743
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 4: versus the unknown inducing something sort of a feeling of

744
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 4: revelation orinity or you know, sort of magic. And I

745
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:06,759
Speaker 4: think in our culture there's a association with wanting to

746
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:09,720
Speaker 4: control the unknown, to be unknown as to be a threat,

747
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 4: and that's subversive. And so Fungi kind of are these organisms,

748
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:16,720
Speaker 4: and same with insects in particular. They both are groups

749
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:21,240
Speaker 4: of organisms that really subvert the desire to dominate because

750
00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 4: they're like, you know, difficult to predict. They can they

751
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:27,399
Speaker 4: move in ways that sort of are unexpected. They can

752
00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 4: be ephemeral, they can amass, they can pop up overnight, right,

753
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 4: and this all of this sort of transitory, ephemeral, difficult

754
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:42,440
Speaker 4: to predict biology makes them sort of induces a feeling

755
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:44,919
Speaker 4: of fear, and I think that that is also there's

756
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 4: a parallel there to how people respond to people who

757
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:52,880
Speaker 4: do not conform not just within matters of sex and gender,

758
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 4: but also in terms of ability, in terms of race. Right,

759
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 4: So there's also this feeling of like, if you're not

760
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:00,439
Speaker 4: what I expect, I will fear you because I can't

761
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 4: I don't quite know how to control you, right, And

762
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 4: control is often, you know, executed first by putting someone.

763
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:07,360
Speaker 3: In a box.

764
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:09,279
Speaker 4: Right, you are either this or that. I need to

765
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 4: make sense of you, so I know what to expect.

766
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:13,480
Speaker 4: Instead of Wow, I don't know what to make of you,

767
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 4: how interesting, how how beautiful, it's it's like, wow, I

768
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:17,400
Speaker 4: don't know what to make of you.

769
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 3: I'm now oppositional to you. Right.

770
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 4: So that sort of response is something also that's very

771
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 4: like steeped into our culture.

772
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 2: Now, speaking of fun, guy, can you tell us a

773
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 2: little bit about labouls? This is this is not a

774
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 2: this is not something I was familiar with before.

775
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:34,320
Speaker 3: Sure, they're not a well studied group of fungi.

776
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 4: So I'm one of only like a handful of people

777
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:40,360
Speaker 4: in the world who study this entire order of fungi.

778
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:44,319
Speaker 4: The la bulbini Eli's kind of a mouthful. We call

779
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:47,839
Speaker 4: them labulls for short, so that's a little easier, and

780
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:52,839
Speaker 4: they are a very diverse lineage of fungi that live

781
00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 4: and grow on insects. People are probably much more familiar

782
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:59,280
Speaker 4: with another group of fungi that live and grow on insects,

783
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:03,880
Speaker 4: the cortiseps or the zombie fungi, but these are in

784
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:09,759
Speaker 4: the same phylum, but completely different orders and classes, so labouls.

785
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 3: Some of them we believe to be parasitic.

786
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 4: We believe they take nutrients from the insect host at

787
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 4: the insects expense, but others seem to be maybe more commensal,

788
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:24,960
Speaker 4: Like we haven't been able to quantify any sort of

789
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:28,400
Speaker 4: damage they're doing to the host, and the host seems

790
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:32,400
Speaker 4: kind of able to just go about its life as normal.

791
00:47:33,040 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 4: But in any case, they're really interesting fungi if you

792
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:37,319
Speaker 4: can believe it.

793
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:40,160
Speaker 3: There's tens of thousands of species.

794
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 4: Of this order, which just is you know, the biodiversity

795
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:46,480
Speaker 4: is just staggering, right, So a group of fung i've

796
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 4: never heard of living their lives in insects and there's

797
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 4: just tens of thousands of species of them, and they're

798
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:54,840
Speaker 4: really small. They sometimes can be sort of detected with

799
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:55,800
Speaker 4: the naked eye.

800
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 3: But usually you need at least a hand lens.

801
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 4: And then the most common way to find them is

802
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 4: looking at insects under a dissecting microscope, and they grow

803
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 4: outward from the exterior of the insect. They're multicellular, they're

804
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:14,759
Speaker 4: really flexible and durable. They're not like ephemeral, so once

805
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 4: they grow there, they you know, are there until they die. Essentially,

806
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:23,320
Speaker 4: they're not like coming up and out of the insect body.

807
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:24,360
Speaker 3: They form.

808
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:29,240
Speaker 4: The spore basically lands on the exterior of the insect,

809
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 4: and then some minute penetrative cells germinate from that and

810
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 4: enter just like shallowly into the insect body and form

811
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:42,080
Speaker 4: kind of like an anchor. And then from that, you know,

812
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:47,840
Speaker 4: a few dozen cells will form in a definitive structure,

813
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:51,279
Speaker 4: so meaning they always they're not amorphous. They have a

814
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:55,440
Speaker 4: pretty defined cellular growth pattern, and so when we do

815
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:57,759
Speaker 4: taxonomy on these fungi.

816
00:48:57,280 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 3: We are looking at more.

817
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 4: Our morphological descriptions involve draw you know, understanding the exact

818
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 4: cell like shape, size, and arrangement, and this is highly variable.

819
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 3: There are like really.

820
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:12,960
Speaker 4: Thousands of ways these fungi can present itself, but it's

821
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:16,240
Speaker 4: pretty fixed within a species, and even within a genus

822
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 4: there's like very common body plans, and so we also

823
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:25,839
Speaker 4: would use genetic DNA sequencing to do the taxonomic work

824
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:28,560
Speaker 4: on these fungi. But they're just really I mean, they're

825
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,759
Speaker 4: What I love about them is that they are so

826
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:38,480
Speaker 4: quietly existing in this tremendous diversity. They're the most diverse

827
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:41,880
Speaker 4: lineage of insect associated fungi. So you have, you know,

828
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 4: the incredible diversity of the insect world, and then on

829
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:48,319
Speaker 4: that you have this other whole realm of species that

830
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 4: are you know, have evolved and are living and dying

831
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 4: and I'm pretty much unbeknownst to you know, any witnesses.

832
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:56,799
Speaker 4: And to me, that's just a very like That's one

833
00:49:56,800 --> 00:49:59,719
Speaker 4: of the things I love about studying biodiversity, and of

834
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:02,359
Speaker 4: these fungi in particular. It is just that they they

835
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 4: are really kind of uninterested to project a little anthropomorphically

836
00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 4: on them. They're just you know, they're here whether or

837
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 4: not people are and this like and this, and it

838
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 4: kind of really reminds you of It makes me think

839
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:18,080
Speaker 4: as a person, like, Wow, the world like is so

840
00:50:18,239 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 4: dynamic and it has was.

841
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 3: Here before me. And will be here after me.

842
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:24,440
Speaker 4: And there's all these processes going on that really are

843
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:28,160
Speaker 4: kind of be apart from the the so like my

844
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 4: social perception, you know, and I just think that can

845
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:34,360
Speaker 4: be kind of calming and meditative. But I really like

846
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:37,760
Speaker 4: working with them because I get to also work with insects,

847
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 4: so it brings me into contact with multiple kingdoms of

848
00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:43,720
Speaker 4: life in this really intimate way. I love doing microscopy.

849
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 4: I love being like kind of immersed in the micro world.

850
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 4: So going back to the microcosmos, I get to, you know,

851
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:54,000
Speaker 4: getting to stare at the the an insect under the

852
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:57,280
Speaker 4: microscope a dissecting scope is so fun. You really see

853
00:50:57,320 --> 00:51:01,800
Speaker 4: like all of its elaborate evolutionary you know, all the

854
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 4: appendages and hairs and colors, and and it's it's you

855
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:08,919
Speaker 4: can it makes you feel like in touch with these

856
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 4: this whole other realm. And then what's really exciting about

857
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 4: being a micologist is that there are because we've only

858
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:20,440
Speaker 4: described you know, around we estimate three to five percent

859
00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 4: of fungal species diversity, there's no shortage of new species

860
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:28,799
Speaker 4: descriptions that can be just authored. So I get to,

861
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 4: you know, been able to name and describe about a

862
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:35,680
Speaker 4: dozen species new species to science, all within this group

863
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:36,839
Speaker 4: the level of anilies.

864
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 3: So that's a fun thing too.

865
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 4: It's like you can say, you can say pretty definitively

866
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 4: that you know, a person has not looked upon this

867
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:46,719
Speaker 4: fungus before because a no one is looking for them,

868
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:48,759
Speaker 4: and also because you need a microscope to see it,

869
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 4: so it's just not likely that someone would have just

870
00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:51,560
Speaker 4: bumped into it.

871
00:51:51,760 --> 00:51:52,760
Speaker 3: You know. There there.

872
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 4: You have to be looking for them to find them.

873
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:58,920
Speaker 4: So it's just a kind of a fun opportunity for

874
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 4: me to like be contributing taxonomically. And then also one

875
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:06,279
Speaker 4: thing that I like about being a taxonomist is that

876
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 4: the practice of naming, and you know, taxonomy does have

877
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:15,759
Speaker 4: a complicated history in terms of ethics, and you know,

878
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 4: all of these forces that we've been talking about, you know,

879
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 4: sort of around colonialism and power and who gets to,

880
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:26,520
Speaker 4: you know, put a name on something and in what language.

881
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:29,080
Speaker 3: So one thing I like to think about.

882
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:33,880
Speaker 4: Is taxonomy as a practice of honoring, so not stamping

883
00:52:34,040 --> 00:52:36,759
Speaker 4: your authority on it as like an act of I

884
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:41,160
Speaker 4: guess possession, but being like okay, here, this is a

885
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 4: species that I share the planet with. This is a

886
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 4: species who's been on this multi billion year journey like

887
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 4: every other species here, and how can we sort of

888
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:53,959
Speaker 4: honor its diversity, regardless of its role in doesn't matter

889
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,440
Speaker 4: if this fungus is of utility to me or to

890
00:52:57,560 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 4: people like it.

891
00:52:58,600 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 3: It's here, it exists.

892
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:04,240
Speaker 4: It is complex and dynamic and worthy of a name.

893
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:06,880
Speaker 4: So I like to think of naming as a system

894
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 4: of like as a practice of honoring other the existence

895
00:53:10,600 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 4: of and the sort of what I like to think

896
00:53:12,680 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 4: of as sort of like the agency and almost like

897
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 4: personhood of another being. Right to name is to sort

898
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:23,120
Speaker 4: of acknowledge that complexity. It's also an opportunity to sort

899
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:25,400
Speaker 4: of embody some of the practices that I think have

900
00:53:25,520 --> 00:53:28,320
Speaker 4: been missing in the field of taxonomy, which would be

901
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 4: to name things, you know, perhaps based on using indigenous languages,

902
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:36,200
Speaker 4: from the location that organism was found, or from you know,

903
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 4: you know, naming scientists who've been forgotten or were you know,

904
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 4: sort of like acknowledging like the complexity of the human

905
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 4: life that might surround the procurement of that species in

906
00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:50,680
Speaker 4: the first place. So, yeah, that that's sort of a

907
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:53,719
Speaker 4: fun thing that I can do.

908
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:55,319
Speaker 3: With with libules.

909
00:53:56,760 --> 00:53:59,719
Speaker 2: Now you mentioned the cord of steps and I want

910
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:02,760
Speaker 2: to highlighted that you you you did appear on Science

911
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:06,319
Speaker 2: Friday to discuss uh the fund these particular fun guy

912
00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 2: uh and HBO's The Last OBUs, which of course has

913
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:13,160
Speaker 2: this I guess you'd say, like very sort of you know,

914
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:16,560
Speaker 2: of course, a fantastic sci fi treatment of Courtyceps. It's

915
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:21,879
Speaker 2: very uh micophobic in its manifestation. But I do refer

916
00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 2: listeners to that interview if they want to they want

917
00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:25,680
Speaker 2: like the full story.

918
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I sort fungal fact from fiction on that episode.

919
00:54:31,200 --> 00:54:32,840
Speaker 2: As we're I believe we're about to go into the

920
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 2: second season of the Last of Us, any like quick

921
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 2: reminders for folks about Courtyceps and sort of disconnecting the

922
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:42,040
Speaker 2: fantasy from the reality totally.

923
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 3: Yes.

924
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 4: So I've been asked a number of times like could

925
00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 4: people be turned into zombies by a fungus as they

926
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:56,960
Speaker 4: are in the show, And the answers know that these

927
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:01,879
Speaker 4: fungi and the insect hosts that they have on we're

928
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:06,840
Speaker 4: in a you know, coevolutionary dynamic for millions of years

929
00:55:07,440 --> 00:55:12,040
Speaker 4: and it took That's how the fungus is perfectly adapted,

930
00:55:12,080 --> 00:55:14,640
Speaker 4: not just to like insects broadly or not even just

931
00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:17,040
Speaker 4: to like, you know, a whole group of insects, but

932
00:55:17,120 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 4: specific species of insects. So, for example, Cordyceps could be

933
00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:23,839
Speaker 4: found on a number of species of ants, but there

934
00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:26,800
Speaker 4: are ants other ant species that live in and amongst

935
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:29,480
Speaker 4: you know, those in the areas that Courtyceps grows, and

936
00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:32,640
Speaker 4: they're not affected because they have you know, the subtle

937
00:55:32,719 --> 00:55:37,440
Speaker 4: differences in behavior or or chemical ecology is enough that

938
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:42,959
Speaker 4: it's incompatible with that very precise coevolutionary dynamic. In order

939
00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:47,440
Speaker 4: for fungi to evolve to be doing that to people,

940
00:55:47,520 --> 00:55:53,040
Speaker 4: we would need probably millions and millions of years of exposures.

941
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:57,880
Speaker 4: And our our just biologies are so different from our ants,

942
00:55:58,000 --> 00:55:59,919
Speaker 4: so we're not really at risk in that way.

943
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:03,319
Speaker 3: I do really like the show. I think it's a

944
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:04,120
Speaker 3: great story.

945
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:09,360
Speaker 4: It is a little challenging that funjer are demonized, obviously,

946
00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:11,680
Speaker 4: that's kind of kind of you know, stressful for me,

947
00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:15,000
Speaker 4: But from a from a storytelling perspective and from an

948
00:56:15,040 --> 00:56:16,560
Speaker 4: action perspective, is a great show.

949
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:20,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. My my wife is a mushroom enthusiast and and

950
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 2: does like some mushroom club stuff and forging stuff, and

951
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:26,359
Speaker 2: so I'll often I would often joke to her after

952
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:28,279
Speaker 2: we'd watch an episode of the show about, Oh, well,

953
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:30,640
Speaker 2: mushrooms are bad news. I got to be watch out

954
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:31,320
Speaker 2: for those mushrooms.

955
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:34,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good way to get under her skin,

956
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:34,839
Speaker 3: I'm sure.

957
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:39,879
Speaker 2: Now coming back to the book again, there's a lot

958
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:42,240
Speaker 2: of there's a lot about science in there. There's also

959
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:46,440
Speaker 2: a lot of lately, a personal interpretation of everything, and

960
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:49,520
Speaker 2: you get into the philosophy of it all. Can you

961
00:56:49,560 --> 00:56:51,560
Speaker 2: take a moment to tell us what a sit spot

962
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:55,440
Speaker 2: is and how that can potentially help us all in

963
00:56:55,440 --> 00:56:56,280
Speaker 2: our daily lives.

964
00:56:56,800 --> 00:57:02,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, So a sit spot a place you go regularly.

965
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:05,800
Speaker 4: I mean it could be every day, it could be

966
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:08,759
Speaker 4: once a month, but it's something that you do with

967
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:12,239
Speaker 4: some sort of routine and frequency. And it can be

968
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:17,000
Speaker 4: deep in the forest, it could be in an urban park.

969
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:19,080
Speaker 4: It could be looking out your window if you're someone

970
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 4: who can't leave the house or can't do so easily.

971
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 4: So it's not really about being in you know this

972
00:57:26,280 --> 00:57:30,200
Speaker 4: quote wilderness, It's just about being in community with as

973
00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:31,800
Speaker 4: many species as possible.

974
00:57:32,280 --> 00:57:34,920
Speaker 3: So I have I'm a teacher.

975
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:39,200
Speaker 4: I've taught college classes and nature classes, and I have

976
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:43,120
Speaker 4: one thing I tried. I often incorporate into my classes

977
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:46,080
Speaker 4: is having my students do a sit spot. And the

978
00:57:46,080 --> 00:57:48,840
Speaker 4: instructions I give is to start by going once a week.

979
00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:50,960
Speaker 4: I think once a week is a nice amount of

980
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:53,240
Speaker 4: time because it's both like kind of reasonable for our

981
00:57:53,320 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 4: hectic schedules, but it's also frequent enough that you it

982
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:02,800
Speaker 4: can kind of become like a personal rich And when

983
00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:06,360
Speaker 4: what I advise you do is that you go to

984
00:58:06,400 --> 00:58:09,000
Speaker 4: your sit spot and you go by yourself.

985
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 3: I think I do think it.

986
00:58:10,600 --> 00:58:12,360
Speaker 4: I mean, it's not that you can't go with a buddy,

987
00:58:12,400 --> 00:58:15,200
Speaker 4: but I think it's really nice to go totally to

988
00:58:15,240 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 4: be the only human right in that spot. And I

989
00:58:18,520 --> 00:58:24,560
Speaker 4: also recommend that you don't bring anything at first. The

990
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:27,440
Speaker 4: first couple spot times, I wouldn't even bring a notebook.

991
00:58:28,160 --> 00:58:31,320
Speaker 4: I wouldn't bring anything but just some stuff, maybe some water,

992
00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:34,120
Speaker 4: maybe a snack if you're you know, but just try

993
00:58:34,160 --> 00:58:36,439
Speaker 4: to go with you know, keep your phone away, don't

994
00:58:36,440 --> 00:58:39,400
Speaker 4: try to take pictures, don't try to record anything, and

995
00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:42,800
Speaker 4: just be present. And I would recommend the first time

996
00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 4: doing it for at least thirty minutes. You go, you

997
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:49,280
Speaker 4: sit for thirty minutes, and you take note as of

998
00:58:49,520 --> 00:58:51,960
Speaker 4: everything around you, what do you smell?

999
00:58:52,120 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 3: What do you take touch with your fingertips? What do

1000
00:58:55,040 --> 00:58:56,600
Speaker 3: you see? Of course, what do you hear?

1001
00:58:57,520 --> 00:59:00,320
Speaker 4: Kind of roll through the senses, you know, go, Okay,

1002
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:01,400
Speaker 4: what am I hearing right now?

1003
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:05,080
Speaker 3: Wait? What am I seeing right now? You know? Look around?

1004
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:06,560
Speaker 3: What am I smelling right now?

1005
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:09,040
Speaker 4: Maybe you're sitting on a bench, or maybe you're sitting

1006
00:59:09,080 --> 00:59:12,160
Speaker 4: on the forest floor, like what are your fingertips sensing?

1007
00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:15,600
Speaker 3: And kind of go let yourself sort of move through that.

1008
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:18,439
Speaker 4: My students will tell me that the first few times

1009
00:59:18,480 --> 00:59:20,160
Speaker 4: they did it, they were incredibly bored.

1010
00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:22,560
Speaker 3: The time for them moved very slowly.

1011
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:26,880
Speaker 4: They were actually some of them were even detectively irritated

1012
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:32,800
Speaker 4: with the assignment. But as the weeks progressed, one hundred

1013
00:59:32,880 --> 00:59:37,880
Speaker 4: percent of the students began to enjoy their time. And

1014
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:40,880
Speaker 4: then after a few weeks you start maybe you decide,

1015
00:59:40,920 --> 00:59:43,160
Speaker 4: maybe you're an artist and you love illustrating. Maybe you

1016
00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:45,560
Speaker 4: bring a notebook and you sketch some of the plants

1017
00:59:45,600 --> 00:59:48,760
Speaker 4: that are growing. Maybe you're you like your sound person,

1018
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:53,040
Speaker 4: you bring an audio way to record some audio. But

1019
00:59:53,080 --> 00:59:55,840
Speaker 4: maybe you decide or maybe you're I wouldn't I wouldn't

1020
00:59:55,840 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 4: do too much writing while you're there because you do

1021
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:02,600
Speaker 4: want to be mentally loose and receptive, so whatever, and

1022
01:00:02,720 --> 01:00:05,920
Speaker 4: that's that does look different for everyone. So, however, you

1023
01:00:05,960 --> 01:00:08,400
Speaker 4: can be in a state of looseness and receptivity, to

1024
01:00:08,440 --> 01:00:11,520
Speaker 4: be porous, to be receiving this sort of the energy

1025
01:00:11,640 --> 01:00:14,000
Speaker 4: and the sort of information that's flowing from these other

1026
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:18,000
Speaker 4: species and from the wind, from the humidity, you know,

1027
01:00:18,040 --> 01:00:21,760
Speaker 4: whatever it is. And so I think that over time,

1028
01:00:21,880 --> 01:00:25,640
Speaker 4: the point is that you become really immersed and really

1029
01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:28,880
Speaker 4: in tune with that spot.

1030
01:00:29,320 --> 01:00:30,840
Speaker 3: So I think in the age.

1031
01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:33,160
Speaker 4: Of climate change and the age of globalization, it can

1032
01:00:33,200 --> 01:00:36,600
Speaker 4: be really really overwhelming to understand where where do you

1033
01:00:36,600 --> 01:00:40,520
Speaker 4: put your focus right There's so many crises, there's so

1034
01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:44,160
Speaker 4: many stressors, there's so many things drawing and pulling at

1035
01:00:44,160 --> 01:00:47,560
Speaker 4: your attention. And so I this is like kind of

1036
01:00:47,600 --> 01:00:50,360
Speaker 4: a practice of attention. Where do you give your attention

1037
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:54,480
Speaker 4: in an intentional way and how does that sort of

1038
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:59,440
Speaker 4: make you feel held and attuned with the other organisms

1039
01:00:59,480 --> 01:01:02,880
Speaker 4: around you. I also had a number of students actually

1040
01:01:03,160 --> 01:01:05,280
Speaker 4: cry at the end of the semester when they had

1041
01:01:05,280 --> 01:01:07,560
Speaker 4: to leave their spots. They were graduating, or they had

1042
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:09,800
Speaker 4: to leave for the summer or whatever. It was and

1043
01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:12,080
Speaker 4: they were like, I can't believe I have to leave

1044
01:01:12,080 --> 01:01:14,120
Speaker 4: this spot, Like this is my spot, this is like

1045
01:01:14,400 --> 01:01:17,800
Speaker 4: my place. And that happened just in a few months. Right,

1046
01:01:17,840 --> 01:01:22,320
Speaker 4: that's just the duration of a college semester. And so

1047
01:01:22,440 --> 01:01:28,120
Speaker 4: for a lot of people, it's an opportunity to become immersed,

1048
01:01:28,160 --> 01:01:30,160
Speaker 4: to be but also to be like a steward. Right,

1049
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:33,400
Speaker 4: You suddenly may the more you pay attention to a spot,

1050
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:35,480
Speaker 4: the more you see. So it's not just that you're

1051
01:01:35,560 --> 01:01:39,000
Speaker 4: there longer. So it's like, you know, an exponential line

1052
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:41,440
Speaker 4: of like you're there longer, so you're seeing more, but

1053
01:01:41,480 --> 01:01:44,840
Speaker 4: you're actually like it's actually that your brain starts to

1054
01:01:45,080 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 4: rewire a little bit.

1055
01:01:46,400 --> 01:01:49,000
Speaker 3: Especially if this practice is really new to you.

1056
01:01:49,000 --> 01:01:51,480
Speaker 4: You start to be a you actually are capable of

1057
01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:55,160
Speaker 4: noticing more the more you sort of engage with this meditatively.

1058
01:01:56,040 --> 01:01:58,320
Speaker 4: And so for some people that can it can help

1059
01:01:58,360 --> 01:02:02,600
Speaker 4: you find a role in what is otherwise a very

1060
01:02:02,760 --> 01:02:06,080
Speaker 4: crazy world. Right, how do you become a steward of

1061
01:02:06,120 --> 01:02:09,120
Speaker 4: your own backyard? Like how can you care for the species?

1062
01:02:09,160 --> 01:02:14,240
Speaker 4: Like maybe you're helping monitor the health of the trees

1063
01:02:14,240 --> 01:02:17,280
Speaker 4: in that area. Maybe you're realizing that there's a ton

1064
01:02:17,320 --> 01:02:22,520
Speaker 4: of there's a you're seeing all these salamanders or amphibians

1065
01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:25,960
Speaker 4: and that actually, oh, actually this is like a vernal pool,

1066
01:02:25,960 --> 01:02:30,240
Speaker 4: and this could be protected because you know, by local legislation.

1067
01:02:31,160 --> 01:02:32,920
Speaker 4: There's all sorts of ways that you can sort of

1068
01:02:32,960 --> 01:02:35,360
Speaker 4: tune into the life around you and then actually do

1069
01:02:35,440 --> 01:02:39,320
Speaker 4: something to help care for it. So I definitely recommend it.

1070
01:02:39,440 --> 01:02:41,680
Speaker 4: I think it's such a nice way of like sort

1071
01:02:41,680 --> 01:02:46,600
Speaker 4: of I find it really peaceful and therapeutic and sort

1072
01:02:46,600 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 4: of a bomb for my nervous system every time I

1073
01:02:49,760 --> 01:02:50,960
Speaker 4: go to my sit spot.

1074
01:02:51,080 --> 01:02:52,040
Speaker 3: So I recommend it.

1075
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:54,360
Speaker 2: Awesome. Yeah, I'm gonna have to try it as well,

1076
01:02:54,440 --> 01:02:56,680
Speaker 2: because I go out of nature, we go on walks

1077
01:02:56,680 --> 01:02:59,320
Speaker 2: and hikes and all. But this kind of like intentional

1078
01:02:59,640 --> 01:03:03,720
Speaker 2: medita native approach, setting aside so many distractions and tasks

1079
01:03:03,720 --> 01:03:07,520
Speaker 2: and objectives, you know. Yeah, I think it's truly attractive.

1080
01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:09,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it can take a little while to like

1081
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:12,640
Speaker 4: not be a little bored, but that's really normal that

1082
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:16,240
Speaker 4: we're all kind of, you know, overstimulated, So it could

1083
01:03:16,320 --> 01:03:19,040
Speaker 4: take a little bit of time, but I can assure

1084
01:03:19,040 --> 01:03:22,480
Speaker 4: you that you'll enjoy it as the ritual is established.

1085
01:03:22,960 --> 01:03:27,920
Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, the book is Forest Euphoria, The Abounding Queerness

1086
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:30,360
Speaker 2: of Nature. It's out next month in all formats, but

1087
01:03:30,400 --> 01:03:33,120
Speaker 2: available for pre order right now. What is the one

1088
01:03:33,240 --> 01:03:36,400
Speaker 2: thing you want readers to get out of Forest Euphoria?

1089
01:03:36,840 --> 01:03:40,480
Speaker 4: So I think actually the Sit Spot conversation is kind

1090
01:03:40,520 --> 01:03:42,919
Speaker 4: of closest to what I want readers to get out

1091
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:47,120
Speaker 4: of it. I think that I want readers to feel

1092
01:03:47,160 --> 01:03:51,280
Speaker 4: closer to nature. I want readers to feel it like

1093
01:03:51,360 --> 01:03:53,640
Speaker 4: they're part of nature and nature is part of them,

1094
01:03:53,880 --> 01:03:58,160
Speaker 4: and these are things that will strengthen each other, like

1095
01:03:58,160 --> 01:04:00,600
Speaker 4: that knowledge I find is strengthening.

1096
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:02,440
Speaker 3: It's something that's comforting.

1097
01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:08,200
Speaker 4: It is a a magnetic compass in a time of

1098
01:04:08,760 --> 01:04:09,920
Speaker 4: you know, poly crises.

1099
01:04:11,240 --> 01:04:13,720
Speaker 3: So I want people to feel that they belong.

1100
01:04:14,600 --> 01:04:18,080
Speaker 4: Their differences are what make them a part of this

1101
01:04:18,920 --> 01:04:21,760
Speaker 4: ecology that you know, ecology is.

1102
01:04:21,760 --> 01:04:22,800
Speaker 3: All about difference.

1103
01:04:22,840 --> 01:04:26,360
Speaker 4: It's all about multiple, multiple ways of being in forms,

1104
01:04:26,440 --> 01:04:31,920
Speaker 4: and so to not feel shame around that. And I

1105
01:04:31,960 --> 01:04:36,640
Speaker 4: want people to, you know, see that nature is really

1106
01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:37,240
Speaker 4: all we have.

1107
01:04:37,520 --> 01:04:38,520
Speaker 3: There's nothing without it.

1108
01:04:38,680 --> 01:04:41,439
Speaker 4: I'm sure a lot of my readers will already be

1109
01:04:41,640 --> 01:04:44,480
Speaker 4: environmentalists and people committed to the protection of nature, but

1110
01:04:44,720 --> 01:04:47,200
Speaker 4: maybe it'll bring some more people into that fold as well,

1111
01:04:47,320 --> 01:04:50,320
Speaker 4: or or strengthen that someone's commitment to that.

1112
01:04:51,200 --> 01:04:52,920
Speaker 2: All right, well, Patti, thanks for coming on the show

1113
01:04:52,920 --> 01:04:53,560
Speaker 2: and chatting with me.

1114
01:04:53,960 --> 01:04:55,800
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it's

1115
01:04:55,800 --> 01:04:56,680
Speaker 3: fun to talk to you. Rob.

1116
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:01,800
Speaker 2: Thanks again to Patty for coming on the show. The

1117
01:05:01,800 --> 01:05:05,920
Speaker 2: book again is Forest Euphoria, The Abounding Queerness of Nature,

1118
01:05:06,160 --> 01:05:08,800
Speaker 2: publishing next month and available for pre order in all

1119
01:05:08,840 --> 01:05:11,880
Speaker 2: formats right now. Again, you'll find a pre order link

1120
01:05:12,200 --> 01:05:14,600
Speaker 2: in the episode description, or you can look it up

1121
01:05:14,840 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 2: at Spiegel and Grau dot com slash forest hyphen Euphoria.

1122
01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:21,560
Speaker 2: Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1123
01:05:21,600 --> 01:05:24,160
Speaker 2: primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on

1124
01:05:24,200 --> 01:05:27,640
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Fridays, we set aside most serious

1125
01:05:27,680 --> 01:05:30,680
Speaker 2: concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird

1126
01:05:30,680 --> 01:05:34,040
Speaker 2: House Cinema. Thanks as always to the excellent Jjpossway for

1127
01:05:34,080 --> 01:05:35,920
Speaker 2: producing the show, and if you'd like to get in

1128
01:05:35,920 --> 01:05:38,320
Speaker 2: touch with us, you can shoot us an email at

1129
01:05:38,320 --> 01:05:48,880
Speaker 2: contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com.

1130
01:05:41,400 --> 01:05:51,880
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1131
01:05:51,960 --> 01:05:55,800
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts

1132
01:05:55,880 --> 01:06:11,880
Speaker 1: or Wherever you're listening to your favorite shows,