WEBVTT - Selects: Slime Mold: 0% Mold, 100% Amazing 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:03.800 Hey there, everybody, it's Josh and for this week's select, 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.400 I've chosen our June of twenty twenty one episode on 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:12.119 slime Mold. It's actually a powerhouse episode and it's filled 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.480 with maybe more amazing facts than any other episode we've 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.800 ever recorded. It's just like mind blow after mind blow 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.920 after mind blow. So strap on your old timey football 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.440 helmet and prepare for slime Mold. I really think you're 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:28.440 going to enjoy it. 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:39.680 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.680 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:51.040 Charles W. Chuck, Wayne Bryant, and this is Stuff you 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:57.480 should Know. No producer edition, that's right, it's just us, buddy, 0:00:57.480 --> 0:00:59.560 We're going to do it. We're going to be just fine. 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.760 Jerry took an early vacation for Memorial Day. 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:05.720 I know she's always doing stuff like that. 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:09.280 She knows how to live, and we're stuck with slime 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:10.760 Mold in her absence. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:13.280 I like slime Mold. 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:14.640 I knew you would love slime Mold. 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:17.800 Uh yeah, I think it's pretty interesting stuff. 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:19.000 It's very Josh Clarky. 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:21.440 It is kind of Josh Clarky so much so that 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.160 as I was researching this, like, I mean, I just 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.000 kind of generally knew about slime mold that it exhibited, 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:31.200 you know, some weird level of intelligence here there, but 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:33.120 I didn't know much about it. And then as I 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.600 was researching, I was like, I'm kind of into slime 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.080 mold now, Yeah, like all the different kinds of it. 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.080 I like regressed into like, you know, the nerdy eight 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:42.280 year old I never was. 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:44.360 Yeah, and then you're like, let me clark this over 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.440 to Chuck and see what he thinks. Yes, yeah, I 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:48.920 like slimold too. I think it's kind of cool. 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.120 Let's do it, Okay, Chuck, I'm ready. All right, everybody 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:55.680 stand back because we are doing it. 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.760 Yeah, and I think you could file this. I mean, 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:01.600 it's not an animal slime mold. I guess we should 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.600 just tell you right away. It's not an animal. It's 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:06.880 not a fungus, even though you would think it's a 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.680 fungus if you saw it on the forest floor. And 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:14.240 we'll get to all this stuff, but it feels like 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.760 an animal one of our animal episodes anyway, sort of. 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.320 Yeah, I was gonna say the fact that it's not 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:22.200 an animal or fungus or at the very end, but 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:24.040 sure we could do it at the beginning, I guess. 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:25.920 I mean, like literally in the last minute they were like, 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:27.639 I still don't know if this is an animal? Is 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:29.320 it a dog in disguise? 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.080 You know everything we just told you about. It's not 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:34.679 an animal, it's not even a fungus. And then we 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:35.760 just go to listener mail. 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.160 So what is it though, besides super ancient as in 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.680 like maybe one of the very first living things. 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:45.680 Well, it's a protest, actually, they figured out, and protest 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:47.760 seems to be well, it's one of the five main 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:54.200 Kingdom's animal bacteria, plants, fungi, and then protests and protusts 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:58.760 are typically single celled organisms like a meba, yeah, or 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:03.320 protozoans things like that, and they have I couldn't find 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.440 out exactly when they did it, but they fairly recently, 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:11.000 I guess in the history of biology, fairly recently reclassified 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:14.640 slime molds from the Kingdom fung guy over to the 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:15.920 Kingdom protista. 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.639 Yeah, which is interesting because for years they had been 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.679 studied by mycologists who were fun, fun guys. Yeah, And 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.880 they found out later they were like you know what, sorry, 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.720 they should really go over to the protostologists and they said, 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:33.440 we kind of like these guys, Can we keep studying 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.840 them since we have been? And they said sure, And 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.520 the protostologists were superbist. 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.120 They were, they were. They're still actually not over it. 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:47.800 They're frequently tpeeing the academic halls of the mycologists whenever 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:48.440 they get the chance. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:49.880 Yeah, it's just very bitter battle. 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.000 So that is pretty cute that that the fung guy 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.480 people are still are still studying slime molds even though 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.760 they're not fung guy. But there's you know, some good 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.840 reas is why they were originally considered to be fungi, 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:06.480 Mostly that they're like these big kind of clumps, and 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.600 there's all sorts of different ways that they take shape 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:13.000 and form depending on the species. They're different colors, some 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.680 of them form kind of netlike honeycomb structures. Some of 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:18.920 them look like dog barf. One of the main ones 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.039 we'll talk about today looks a lot like dog barf. 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:24.160 They look like a fungus though, Like if you were 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.600 walking in the woods and you saw this, nine out 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:28.080 of ten people would say, well, it's got to be 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:28.880 some kind of fungus. 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.599 Yeah, especially because if you're staring at them. You would 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.440 have to stare at them for about five, six ten 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:40.160 hours to see that they have a huge difference between 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.719 them and fungi, and that they move. They just move 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.680 so slowly it's not apparent to the naked eye. But 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:51.760 if you film these things with time lapse cameras and 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.400 speed it up, you can see all they very clearly 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.880 move about from place to place. So that's a big 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.880 differentiator between them and fungi. But one of the reasons 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:02.960 they thought they were like funger, that they were funger 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:05.520 is because they produce spores to reproduce. 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:10.039 Right, And I mentioned their ancient origins. They are about 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.560 a billion years old, and like I said, could be 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.200 like as soon as there was stuff, it seems like 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:21.200 there was slime mold eating basically eating the bacteria that 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.160 breaks down other stuff that dies, and that's what they 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:29.520 feed on. Bacteria, mold, yeast, basically anything that decomposes dead things, 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:34.640 slime molds in Gulf. I think it's it's not called photography, 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:36.520 it's called figotrophy. 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.159 Oh yeah, it's not how I was going to say it. 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.880 But are you going to say fego travo trophy? Yeah, 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:44.280 but I think you're absolutely right. 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.960 Well, you know us, it wouldn't be ues if we 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:51.680 didn't probably both get it wrong, right, But that's when 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:55.080 you basically surround something and engulf it and just sort 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.520 of like move it into your body just like sort 0:05:58.560 --> 0:05:59.880 of absorb it basically. 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.120 Yeah, which is another difference between slime molds and fungi, 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:06.400 because fungi actually break the food down and then absorb 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.719 the broken down nutrients. But the fact is, if you 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:13.919 have things that are decomposing, other things like bacteria, molds, yeast, 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:18.320 the things that crawl onto or grow on dead people, 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.840 dead trees, all that stuff break them back down into 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.400 their constituents. So the fact that this slime mold feeds 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:27.600 on other things, it makes it a really important part 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.719 of the food web sure, as part of the nutrient cycle, 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.599 because other things come along and eat the slime molds. 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.159 There's apparently a kind of beetle that has a specialized 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:42.120 jaw that allows it to slurp up slime molds. I 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.680 think some kinds of insect larva eat them, and then 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:46.440 so it just kind of keeps going. But they're a 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.160 really important part where you just have these microbes that 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.240 like the beetle couldn't get to that. They're able to 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.320 basically get that energy from you know, the bacteria by 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:57.880 eating the slime molds. 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:02.280 Right, And even though other protists can carry disease, slime 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:06.320 mold is quite human friendly. Actually, you can eat the 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:08.520 stuff if you want. There's a dish in Mexico, in 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.960 some parts of Mexico called Coca de Luna, which is 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.480 exactly what you think it is. Yeah, poop of the moon, 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.320 moon poop, yep, and they eat the stuff. I even 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:21.160 looked online to try and get a good recipe, but 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:25.680 it's not on like the pages of Martha Stewart Living 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.080 like it's you got to dive deep into Reddit and 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:29.760 stuff like that to get some good recipes. 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:34.560 It seems like almost almost smacks of urban legend. But 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.880 I'm seeing it in different enough forms yeah that I 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.400 think it's probable that it actually is a thing. The 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:43.920 thing that scares me is that people say, like in 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:47.520 some regions of Mexico, it's like, that's not super specific, 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:47.840 you know. 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:52.120 True, and we pointed out they weren't animals or plants, 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.640 but we definitely need to point out that slime mold 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.400 is also not mold. No as a protest. 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:03.160 That's right. So one of the really amazing things about 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.200 slime mold is there's a couple of different kinds, as 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:10.040 we'll talk about in a second, but a whole bunch 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.720 of different kinds of species. One type of slime mold 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.760 can get really big. I mean some of them can 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.400 get up to the size of like a medium or 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.320 pizza large pizza, I guess, depending on whether you're getting 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.040 ripped off by your pizza guy. But like twelve inches 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.120 in diameter. Yeah, that's enormous. Right, So you're like, well, 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.920 that's pretty cool. It's a big blob of mold. Well, 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:32.400 put your sockgarters on, because I'm about to blow your 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.240 socks right off your feet. Some of those types of 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:37.199 slime mold that are as big as a pizza are 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.000 one giant cell. 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:43.560 Yeah, I mean, this is truly amazing. The plasmodial slime mold, 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:45.360 which is I guess you could call it one of 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.559 the true slime mold is it has all the stuff 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.719 like as if it were undergoing cellular division, and all 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.840 the different nuclei, like millions of nuclei, organelles, cytoplasm, all 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.120 that stuff, but it's just not it doesn't have cell walls. 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:04.480 It's not individual little cells. It's just it splits and 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.040 lives inside this giant fortress wall. 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.000 Yeah. It's almost like if you took all the cells 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.640 that should have made this giant blob up as a 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.040 multi cellular organism and just kind of broke them open 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.760 and dumped all the contents into this blob. Yeah, and 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:21.960 then through the cell walls away, that's what you would have. 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:23.599 It's super interesting. 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.040 It is, and it's it's really kind of straightforward if 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:28.720 you just hear it. But it's also really easy to 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.080 just keep going like wait, why why is it like that? 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.200 And how is it like this? What's going on here? 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:36.320 Which is one of those things that it just it 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:38.960 makes slime mold. It's its own thing. And we're still 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.360 learning about this stuff, you know, every day. 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.160 Yeah, and I mean it gets there's quite a few 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:47.560 times in here where we're going to say, and here's 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:48.800 where it gets even crazier. 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:50.000 That's right. 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.559 This isn't super crazy. But the other kind of slime mold, 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.400 or the other big broad categories, the cellular slime mold, 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.319 and these are lots of individ vidual, single celled organisms, 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.240 but the kind of knockout fact about them is when 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.040 they're stressed out, if they don't have a lot of 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:13.960 food around, they can join up together and sort of 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:18.000 look like one of those plasmodial slime molds, but it's not. 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:22.640 It's called I guess pseudo plasmodial, yeah, because it's not 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:24.800 a real one. But it basically says, all right, we're 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.440 gonna all come together to try and find food together, 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:29.640 and then when they do have food, they can be like, 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:31.560 all right, we'll just go along our merry way and 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:32.040 split up. 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.360 Again, yeah, which is pretty nuts. They also will come 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.439 together apparently it makes it harder for predators like those 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.920 specialized beetles to eat them, because those individual slime molds 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:48.200 can be you know, a millimeter in size or smaller. Yeah, 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:50.720 so it's pretty easy for a beetle to eat that. 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:52.640 It's much harder for a beetle to eat something the 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.840 size of like, you know, a quarter. Right, So they 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.600 actually do come together. They come together to move. They 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.959 also come together to reproduce and produce spores. But the 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:06.000 characteristic of this that what makes it a pseudoplasmodium rather 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.320 than actual true slime mold, is that they retain their 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.280 cell walls, their individual cells. When they come together, they 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.679 just kind of loosely formed together. And a really good 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.240 way of understanding what the cellular slime molds create is 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:21.320 kind of like a swarm. 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:23.960 Yeah, that's a good way to put it, I think. 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.719 Or what's the uh god, that my favorite thing? When 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:29.000 the birds do that? What's that called? 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:31.600 Flock of seagulls? Haircut? 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:39.960 Sure, that's it, boy, you threw me there. So these 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.160 the plasmodium is covered by a layer of slime. And 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.000 you're gonna want to put a pin in this because 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.880 when they do move around, they leave behind a little 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.560 these little collapse tubules and it looks basically like not 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:54.360 exactly like a snail trail, but sort of like a 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.600 layer of slime. And you're gonna want to remember that 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.280 for later on because these actually kind of serve as 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:01.640 important little markers. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.240 As a matter of fact. Write it down, everybody. We'll 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.120 wait until you get a pen and a piece of paper. 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:11.880 Bullover, go inside the CBS closest to you. Yeah, yeah, 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.560 put on your mask by a pin. Yep, buy a 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:15.600 piece of paper. 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.680 Pay ten twelve times what you should have paid for 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.520 that pen. Really, Oh my god. 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:22.120 Pin markup is big at CBS. 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.200 I think the general mark up at CVS is fairly high. 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:27.439 Oh, they're like, we get him in here for the aspirin, 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:29.640 then we really juice them with this ballpoint pen. 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.560 That's right. I hope there's no CVS ads in this episode, 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:34.400 but we'll find out. 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.240 What is a what's a good deal at a drug store? 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:39.600 Is there like a there's zero? 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:40.839 Are they all mark it up? 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.640 Yeah? Everything's marked up because it's like it's like convenience 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:45.440 kind of thing. 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:47.600 You sound like a lot of sound like a grandfather. 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:48.839 It's all marked up. 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:51.720 Right Back in my day, you just go to a 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:53.640 regular grocery store and buy your pens. 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:57.000 Well, you buy from the pin factory, straight from the 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.200 man who made it. It's right, you know, when I 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:02.680 was little, you would for a short time. I'm not 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:04.640 sure why we did this, because it's not like we 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:06.240 lived out in the country and this is a very 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:08.679 old timey country thing to do. We bought our milk 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.600 direct from a farm nice and we would pull up 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.640 and I would get to walk inside this huge walk 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:16.520 in cooler, like next to a loading dock, and I 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:18.240 just thought it was like the coolest thing in the 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.439 world somehow to get that fresh milk. 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.520 Sure didn't. They back the cow up and it makes 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.040 a beeping sound and they just scort the milk right 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:28.360 into the back of your station. 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.120 Way. It's right, they mark it up first, wash your 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.160 way home. So where were we? Okay? If you do 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.800 see this stuff in the woods, if you ever hiking 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:41.040 along and you see a big or medium size pizza 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.720 like yellow blob or orange blob. They can be red, 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.480 they can be white, they can be maroon. Very rarely, 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.800 they can be black, blue, or green, but usually it's 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.160 sort of yellowish an orange. And you see that in 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.959 the forest, you're probably looking at a slime mold. 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.080 Yeah, especially if it's really hot out and it just rained. 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:05.959 Yeah, the worst thing in the world for me. 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.160 You can also see them like on your grass too. Apparently, 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.280 if it gets really rainy and hot, slime molds will 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.720 actually come out of the woods into your grass and 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.040 be like, oh, this is pretty nice and they aren't 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.000 gonna do any harm. It's not a problem for your grass. 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.160 It just looks kind of gross. It's certainly not gonna 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.880 hurt you or your pets. And then eventually it'll dry 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:27.720 up and turned to kind of a gray or tam 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.160 powder and blow away. And that means that it just 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.200 turned into spores and it just reproduced all over your place. 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.080 Yeah, I think maybe we should take a break because 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:41.880 right now people are probably like, dudes, you promised greatness here, 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:44.320 and so far it's a little hum drum. 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:45.120 What. 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:49.280 So put those salt guarters back on, because when we 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:52.000 come back, we're really gonna start knocking them off with 0:14:52.040 --> 0:15:17.360 some of these amazing facts. 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.560 Okay, chuck, we set them up, let's knock them back down. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:28.120 So here's one cool fact is that slime molds basically 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.400 can do the equivalent and do the equivalent of throwing 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:35.920 themselves on the grenade. They will sacrifice themselves to save others. 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.040 And these are things without a brain or a central 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.200 nervous system. Like it's not like they think, hmmm, I'm 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.880 feeling empathy today for my fellow mold. Sure, and so 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.320 I'm gonna save everybody because I've come across some infectious bacteria. 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.040 But what they do is they come across it, they 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:55.440 engulf it, and then they say, let me go, and 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.400 they cut themselves off from the pack, from the swarm 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.600 and detach themselves and die of that infection, but save 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:04.000 the rest of the group. 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.400 And my heart will go on played in the background 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.240 as they get further and further away, exactly. But that's 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:16.240 that's altruism, yeah, which is pretty amazing considering, like you said, 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.320 they don't have a brain or anything like that. So 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.920 how how are they doing this? We'll get to that later. 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:28.960 So what about tell everyone about the dick Dystellium diyscoitus 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:31.239 discods discoids. 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.880 Okay, that's one of my favorite words now, discods. 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:35.560 Just because as disco in it. 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.479 So that this was this is a kind of cellular 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:42.960 slime mold, right, So it's made up of a bunch 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:47.080 of different individual organisms that come together and when they 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:51.520 come together they practice altruism to some degree as well, 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.800 because some of them will basically be like, Okay, I'm dead. 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.160 Now I'm dead. I'm going to turn into a bundle 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:01.160 of cellulose fibers, and that cellulose is going to connect 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:05.000 with other slime mold cells that have dyed and turned 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.119 into cellulose and come together and form a stalk, and 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.040 then at the top of the stalk a bunch of 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:15.280 different slime mold cells. They're called slugs. When they're individual 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.440 like that will climb up the stalk and then they'll 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.280 turn into spores. And then in that way, they're sticking 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.400 up out of the ground and a passing animal will 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:25.119 come and they'll stick to it and it'll get a 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.919 ride to greener pastures. But to do that, some of 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:33.480 them have to die to form the stalk to let 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.640 the spores grow on top of which is pretty amazing itself. 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:39.320 It is. And you know we mentioned that they move, 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:41.879 you know, they're not. They don't just sit around and 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:45.479 wait for someone to drop a pepperoni near their pizza 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.240 shape in the woods so they can eat it. They 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.920 got to go where the food is, and they either 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.240 move by these little appendages that like little feet like appendages. 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.680 Those are the cellular slime molds, the individual single celled 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.800 organisms that can come together, and this is crazy. The 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.399 other kind they move as one big mass because you know, 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:07.440 there's no cell wall going on, so they just sort 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:11.840 of expand and contract the cytoplasm to kind of gush 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:13.919 their way along the ground very slowly. 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:17.520 Yeah, which is really neat to see because when they're 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.119 especially when they're searching for food, which is basically all 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:22.720 they're ever doing. Like everything that they do is either 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:26.239 to get away from some noxious stimuli or to go 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.080 toward food. Usually to go toward food. It sounds like 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:34.080 us it basically, Yeah, I don't like that smell. Wonder 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.359 we love them, but I like that smell. I'm going 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:41.280 to go toward that. So they make these amazing kind 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.159 of they look almost like seafans, you know what I'm 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.400 talking about. They look very fractally and they just kind 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.000 of they fan out, is the best way to put it. 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:53.160 When they start to go look for food, and when 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.280 they do fine food, they start moving toward it. It's 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.240 the cell walls contract and that cytoplasm goes that way 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.119 and next you know, over a very long period of time. 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:04.040 See you know, five days later. 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:09.560 The slime mold has moved and actually sli molds. If 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.560 you don't they like they they're totally fine living in 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:14.760 petrie dishes for as long as you want them to, 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.360 as long as you feed them. If you stop feeding them, 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.040 they'll just get out of the petrie dish and start 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:22.400 looking for food elsewhere. 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:23.960 So they'll they'll stay creepy. 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:27.080 Yeah, but I mean again, it's not like you're just 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:29.720 sitting there watching this thing crawl out of it's Petrie dishes. 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:32.280 You leave overnight and you forget to feed the thing, 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.480 and you come back and it's half of it is 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:36.600 out onto the table or something. 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.000 It's something like right out of Gremlins kind of you. 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:41.600 And I think you said they move it about a 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:45.120 millimeter an hour, but some of them, actually, if they're 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.600 really cooking, can go about an inch and a half 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.240 in an hour, which it's really fast. I mean, it 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:52.440 doesn't sound fast, but when you're talking about what we're 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.480 talking about, it is pretty fast. 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.480 Yeah, And I saw that a couple of places. Most 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.600 people cite something like a millimeter an hour. Remember which 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.000 one goes that fast? But yeah, I mean you can't 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:04.880 see it moving when you're staring at it, but over 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:06.440 time you can for sure. 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.280 Sure, or you know, if you're just really patient and 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.240 you can lock in on something, you might be able 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:12.560 to see that. 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:17.320 So when they started figuring out in the early two 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.119 thousands of Japanese researchers were some of the first to 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.639 like really study slime molds, is showing some sort of intelligence. 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.840 They figure this out from you know, from watching these 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.320 things actually move about and when you when you film 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.760 them in like high speed and then replay it. You 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:38.320 can see their movements are deliberate in a lot of ways. 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.560 They're they're not just blind dumb movements where they happen 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:46.840 on to food. They clearly can sense food somehow or 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.560 some way, and they spread out and they seem to 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:53.080