Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
Speaker 1: when you were in school, did you ever dissect earthworms? No,
Speaker 1: but as a youngster, I would sit around with my
Speaker 1: friends and I would pluck them from the ground and
Speaker 1: then we would cut them in half. Why why. I
Speaker 1: think the idea was that we would double our profits
Speaker 1: if we sold them to fishermen. I don't even know
Speaker 1: that we actually It's like Land of a Million Lakes
Speaker 1: or something up there, right, something like that. So, so
Speaker 1: there were a lot of fishermen, and in the area
Speaker 1: there are a lot of there was a lot of
Speaker 1: fishing going on, and they were dimwitted enough to buy
Speaker 1: hesy worms from from children. I don't know that we
Speaker 1: actually sold them, but this was sort of our version
Speaker 1: of the lemonade stand that really never came to fruition.
Speaker 1: I think it was just about cutting them. And have
Speaker 1: to be quite honest, were you going like lengthwise or umb?
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, like not down the middle, just across
Speaker 1: the body, because when we would cut them open and
Speaker 1: and certainly I grew up at times, you know, in
Speaker 1: the countryside and on Kentucky lakes. So I have slain
Speaker 1: many a worm on a hook. Uh generally didn't catch anything,
Speaker 1: but I but I've I've I've engaged in that kind
Speaker 1: of barbaric behavior myself. And uh and in in high school,
Speaker 1: I definitely remember dissecting them where you had to they
Speaker 1: give you the worm that's been like, you know, drenched
Speaker 1: and preserved and fluid, and then you have to just
Speaker 1: slit it down the middle and then peel it back
Speaker 1: and uh and pin it's it's hide and then go
Speaker 1: in there and pinpoint the different organisms. Uh. So when
Speaker 1: we were putting this episode together, was looking at the
Speaker 1: at the drawings of the inside of the Earth Forum,
Speaker 1: and it is bringing back memories and like, I remember
Speaker 1: that and I and I also remember the harsh chemical
Speaker 1: stink of the whole thing that I do remember, but
Speaker 1: I may be associated it with frogs. Oh, it's probably
Speaker 1: the same smell because they're both preserved in the same
Speaker 1: the same liquids. But yeah, to see all that split out,
Speaker 1: you get to see the glorious entrails, the circulatory system,
Speaker 1: respiratory system, and it's very cool. To see all of
Speaker 1: that or know that all that is packed into this tiny, little, wriggling,
Speaker 1: slime malicious tube emerging from the ground. Yeah, so did
Speaker 1: you like worms? Did you? Or did? What was your
Speaker 1: relationship with him? You just enjoyed cutting them up? I
Speaker 1: mean I'm gonna say enjoyed because I see what's going
Speaker 1: on here, you frying ants, cutting up worms. Next thing
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a serial killer. No, No, we've discussed before.
Speaker 1: A lot of this is just you testing your boundaries.
Speaker 1: Which which living creatures can you cut in half and
Speaker 1: get away with it? And which ones can you not?
Speaker 1: And we all have to find that that that thin
Speaker 1: gray line for ourselves. Yeah. Look, I had the that
Speaker 1: sort of idealized upbringing, you know, out in the Michigan countryside,
Speaker 1: playing with mud pies and tearing apart worms. That's all
Speaker 1: I can say about it. Well, that tend to go
Speaker 1: with your hand in hand because you're making the mud
Speaker 1: pies you get in the ground, wet worms are coming up.
Speaker 1: Next thing you know, this has happening, and you're singing
Speaker 1: the Hers song. Are you familiar worms? Yes? Yeah, the
Speaker 1: worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. They play peanutle
Speaker 1: on your snout. Scalp right there, scalp. Maybe it's an
Speaker 1: alternate version. Yeah. Well, anyway, so if you haven't guessed,
Speaker 1: in this episode we were talking about earthworms, Um, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take you through the basic anatomy of the earthworm,
Speaker 1: just to refresh your mind. If it's been a while
Speaker 1: since you've you've wormed a hook or cut one open
Speaker 1: in a classroom. Then we're gonna talk about some more
Speaker 1: interesting things. We're going to the the earthworm about. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's conquering of North America and uh, and also
Speaker 1: a little something called worm grunting that I was not
Speaker 1: familiar with until just the other week, and then in
Speaker 1: total amazement on and you wrote a great blog post
Speaker 1: about it with an accompanying YouTube clip which is wonderful, Yes, wonderful,
Speaker 1: wacky and very British, so yes, so so that the
Speaker 1: Brits out there already know what I'm talking about. But
Speaker 1: hang with us. We will get to that as well. Uh.
Speaker 1: Before we get we get into the anatomy of the earthworm.
Speaker 1: I do want to point out something and make a
Speaker 1: call back to a previous episode. Um, the last common
Speaker 1: ancestor of earthworm in Man existed about six million years ago. Uh.
Speaker 1: But if you just focus on the digestive system, we're
Speaker 1: not all that different. If you remember from our our
Speaker 1: several parts series where we we went through the human anatomy,
Speaker 1: and we mentioned Mary Roaches book Gold if she has
Speaker 1: a point where she points out that humans are quote
Speaker 1: basically a highly evolved earthworm surrounded surrounding the intestinal tract.
Speaker 1: And uh, and so I think that's something that one
Speaker 1: of the reasons we find earthworms so fascinating and sometimes
Speaker 1: a little horrifying, and also of course when we we
Speaker 1: cut them open in science classes, because it's a very
Speaker 1: simple model, it's very inhuman. But but but had its roots,
Speaker 1: has a lot in common with us. It's true. I'm
Speaker 1: glad that you point that out, because it really is
Speaker 1: sort of, um, we are sort of these glorified earthworms
Speaker 1: with heads and shoes on. Right. Um, alright, so let's
Speaker 1: talk about these earthworms. They are classified in the phylum Analyta,
Speaker 1: or innalids. They are mauve colored, as I said, slime
Speaker 1: malicious tubes. They're found in Europe, North America, and Western Asia.
Speaker 1: You can spot them probably in your local garden and
Speaker 1: they are used of course on fishing lines for bait,
Speaker 1: but their main occupation is as underground farmers. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're there are bervores. They live up to six years
Speaker 1: uh in size. You'll see them get up to a
Speaker 1: fourteen inches in length or thirty Wait you choose to
Speaker 1: weigh such things up to a point nine ounces or
Speaker 1: eleven point two grams. You know. I have read that
Speaker 1: there is um a particular kind of earthworm in South
Speaker 1: America can grow up to eight feet long. We're talking
Speaker 1: about two point four meters in weigh over a pound.
Speaker 1: You need a bigger hook for that. And of course
Speaker 1: their bodies are made up of ring like segments called annuli,
Speaker 1: and these segments are covered in a seat or you know,
Speaker 1: basically small bristles which the worm uses to move and burrow.
Speaker 1: If you ever saw the movie Tremmors with the monster worm,
Speaker 1: which takes a lot of different aspects of biological peculiarity
Speaker 1: and can combines them into one monster. But they also
Speaker 1: point out that the monster in that moves through the ground,
Speaker 1: or supposedly does, in the same way that an earth
Speaker 1: worm does. So these little bristles, uh, you know, frantically
Speaker 1: pulling it through the earth. Yeah, because ultimately those segments
Speaker 1: have to move independently of the entire body, or else
Speaker 1: it probably would never get anywhere. And it's pretty slow
Speaker 1: moving as it is. Yeah, and uh, she comes to
Speaker 1: no surprise to anyone that on the front portion of
Speaker 1: the of the worm you have a mouth. On the
Speaker 1: final segment you have an anis. And as they burrow through,
Speaker 1: they consume soil, They extract nutrients from decaying organic matter
Speaker 1: like leaves and roots and uh. In doing this, an
Speaker 1: earthworm can eat up to one third its body weight
Speaker 1: a single day. And they also consume organic matter like
Speaker 1: dead animals. Um. And in their gizzards this is the
Speaker 1: place where everything kind of gets blendered up. They actually
Speaker 1: consume some stones and some sand granules which helped to
Speaker 1: break down that matter. UM. So I think that's pretty
Speaker 1: fascinating if you think about that. Um. And then of
Speaker 1: course the result is something called castings. This is what
Speaker 1: comes out of the anus, and it contains a lot
Speaker 1: of nutrients that plants can use. And some people even
Speaker 1: use these earthworm castings as garden fertilizer. Yeah. So there
Speaker 1: they are important to the soil. They transport soil nutrients
Speaker 1: and minerals from the surface from below to the surface, uh,
Speaker 1: via the waist, and their tunnels actually aerate the soil
Speaker 1: as well, so right, so they really enrich that soil.
Speaker 1: And UM, I did want to point out that that
Speaker 1: earthworms kind of fall into a couple of groups in
Speaker 1: terms of where they live. Um. They some of them
Speaker 1: live just above the ground, and they kind of squirm
Speaker 1: in or just below the plant letter. Now this is
Speaker 1: these are all those leaves and twigs and bark that
Speaker 1: are on the forest floor, and those are thorms feed
Speaker 1: on leaves and the fun guy in the bacteria, and
Speaker 1: they helped to break all that down. And then some
Speaker 1: live higher up in trees. I did not know this
Speaker 1: um inside the king wood or piles of plant material
Speaker 1: that gather between limbs. So if you are frightened of worms,
Speaker 1: just imagine taking and nicely surely walk through the forest
Speaker 1: and looking up and knowing that they're dripping above your head. Um.
Speaker 1: And then of course you have those that are traveling
Speaker 1: through the layership soil, which is what we kind of
Speaker 1: think of when we think of earthworms. And then as
Speaker 1: you said, those that burrow really deeply down and can
Speaker 1: burrow down as deep as six ft underground cool and
Speaker 1: another just tell you know. I'm not going to spend
Speaker 1: too much time with the rest of the worms anatomy.
Speaker 1: But there is that tail tale little thick portion ye
Speaker 1: that looks like a larger segment and and bulges a
Speaker 1: little bit, and that is the sill tell them, and
Speaker 1: that is uh. That has to do with the mating.
Speaker 1: And basically what happened here is their hemacroditic much like
Speaker 1: our friends the slugs, they can't self fertilize. They cannot
Speaker 1: self fertilize, so they're not like truly you know, a
Speaker 1: sexual in that sense. But following a mating worm forms
Speaker 1: a tiny little cocoon out of a liquid secreted from
Speaker 1: the clyde tell um uh, and the spermon eggs are
Speaker 1: deposited inside this cocoon. It's buried, and about two to
Speaker 1: four week weeks later, baby worms crawl out. So there
Speaker 1: you have it, the magic of life. And they do
Speaker 1: their their reproduction thing on the top of the fool.
Speaker 1: By the way, so a lot of times earthworms are
Speaker 1: referred to as nightcrawlers because they come out at night
Speaker 1: to feed but also to reproduce. Yes, all right, so
Speaker 1: you're probably saying okay, well we already knew all of that,
Speaker 1: Robert and Julie. That's that's just common worm sense, right there. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's get to the mind blowing stuff. Yeah. Yeah, enough
Speaker 1: about me trampling on them at night during their their
Speaker 1: love mating times. I know that their foot, sure, why not? Okay?
Speaker 1: What what did the earth look like before? Um? These
Speaker 1: guys were widespread? How have they changed the soil of
Speaker 1: our earth? Yeah? I mean specifically North America? When at
Speaker 1: least North America provides a really good example of this. Um.
Speaker 1: And this is the explored in greater detail in Charles C.
Speaker 1: Man's two books, the first one New Revelations of the
Speaker 1: America's Before Columbus and Uncovering the New World Columbus created. UM.
Speaker 1: You can also find his an article about this titled
Speaker 1: America Found and Lost, where he goes specifically into some
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about here today. Basically, the idea
Speaker 1: here is that you can more or less attribute earthworms
Speaker 1: in North America to a single dude, and that dude
Speaker 1: is John Rolfe, who is also generally most well known
Speaker 1: as the dude who married Pocahonas. Yeah, and this is
Speaker 1: all taking place around Jamestown. Jamestown was found in sixteen
Speaker 1: o seven and it was a just a bad place overall, uh,
Speaker 1: foul place, bad water, mosquitoes, eventually malaria, famine, people eating
Speaker 1: all their livestock up, uh digging up their own dead.
Speaker 1: One case of a man allegedly killing his pregnant wife
Speaker 1: insulting her meat um at tension with the local um
Speaker 1: Pooton tribes people. It was. It was a pretty bad
Speaker 1: uh pad the little corner of history there. But more
Speaker 1: to the point, there were no earthworms at the time. UM.
Speaker 1: The hardwood forests of New England and the Upper Midwest
Speaker 1: UM have no native earthworms. They were apparently all wiped
Speaker 1: out in the last ice age years ago. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you're talking about the earthworms eating up all the leaf litter.
Speaker 1: While there are no earthworms up the leaf litter, the
Speaker 1: leaf litter ends up just piling up. So you have
Speaker 1: a rather different ecosystem. But then what happens you have
Speaker 1: you have a colonists coming over like Rolf and what
Speaker 1: are they bringing. They're bringing um there, they're bringing everything.
Speaker 1: They're bringing their agricultural lifestyle else with them. They're bringing
Speaker 1: their investigated animals, their plants, they're bringing tobacco plants that
Speaker 1: have earthworms in the root ball. Uh. And also when
Speaker 1: once they actually start successfully growing tobacco in the New World,
Speaker 1: they want to bring it back to market in Europe.
Speaker 1: So you know, in order to keep the ship from
Speaker 1: riding too high in the waters, they have to, uh,
Speaker 1: they have to to weigh it down. When they weigh
Speaker 1: it down with the way it down with shipments of earth,
Speaker 1: and that earth has earth worms in it, and so
Speaker 1: they when they get to the New World, they just
Speaker 1: dump that earth right so they can make room for
Speaker 1: the tobacco exactly add its weight in tobacco. But then
Speaker 1: you have all this dirt and with the in these
Speaker 1: worms introduced to this new world. So what you're saying
Speaker 1: here is it's kind of like terra forming. Yeah really, um,
Speaker 1: I mean, man does an excellent job just just talking
Speaker 1: about just how many factors are involved. There's one wonderful
Speaker 1: little part partner I'm gonna read here where he really
Speaker 1: sums in not not even specifically the worms or even
Speaker 1: or even rolf here, but just the the overall movement
Speaker 1: of people in their their things and how it changes
Speaker 1: the world. He says two hundred and fifty million years ago,
Speaker 1: the world contained a single land mass mass known to
Speaker 1: scientists as Pangaea. Geologic forces broke this vast expanse into
Speaker 1: into pieces, sundering Eurasia and the America's. Over time, the
Speaker 1: two halves of the world developed widely different suites of
Speaker 1: plants and animals. Columbus's signal accomplishment was, in the phrase
Speaker 1: of historian Alfred Crosby, to re knit the torn seams
Speaker 1: of Pangaea. So uh, I mean, the more you think
Speaker 1: about it, like he points out that a lot of
Speaker 1: these crops, a lot of these these signature dishes that
Speaker 1: we we take for granted. You think about tomatoes in Italy, well,
Speaker 1: it's because they moved there from somewhere else. They were
Speaker 1: taken there by humans. Oranges in Florida, chocolates and Switzerland,
Speaker 1: and of course hot peppers, and so many different culinary traditions,
Speaker 1: like I point out Thai food. And this was something
Speaker 1: I remember reading about when travel there years ago, is
Speaker 1: that you know all these signature hot, spicy thie dishes. Uh.
Speaker 1: Thai cuisine was a dramatically different thing before the Portuguese
Speaker 1: arrived and brought these aliens of species and so that's
Speaker 1: what you have going on in North America. You have
Speaker 1: these alien humans bringing their alien species in an alien
Speaker 1: way of working the land and using it, and it
Speaker 1: just changes everything. And the earthworm is a huge part
Speaker 1: of that because now the earthworm is is just all
Speaker 1: over this huge segment of North America and uh, and
Speaker 1: they're thriving there. They're they're in no danger of disappearing.
Speaker 1: And that's true. They become invasive, right and even though
Speaker 1: they're slow moving, it does take, you know, a couple
Speaker 1: hundred years before people begin to realize what sort of
Speaker 1: effect they're having. Because they are spreading, they're getting a foothold.
Speaker 1: And a good example of this is the Chippewa National
Speaker 1: Forest and this is in Minnesota, and they noticed that
Speaker 1: the landscape was really changing dramatically. And so those leaves,
Speaker 1: those twigs, the other plant debris. This is called duff
Speaker 1: and um. As you had noted, the earthworms like to
Speaker 1: munch on that. Well, previous to the earthworms, the was
Speaker 1: really broken down by fungi, bacteria might and it was
Speaker 1: a refuge for some small birds and animals. And it
Speaker 1: also helped that that duff held in the moisture like
Speaker 1: a sponge for other plants, and those are like the
Speaker 1: middle growth plants of force. So we're talking about wildflowers, shrubs,
Speaker 1: and then tree seedlings. So what happens when when the
Speaker 1: humble earth firm is unleashed upon this landscape? Will they
Speaker 1: began to remove all of that duff and so those
Speaker 1: tree seedlings, those those are middle plantings no longer exist
Speaker 1: and it changes that habitat for the other animals. And
Speaker 1: of course that the problem here is that they're spread
Speaker 1: even it's not just you know, a little columbus deposited
Speaker 1: a big pile them in dirt and then that was
Speaker 1: the end of the story. The story continues because fishermen
Speaker 1: use them as baits, so they're introduced into lakes, rivers
Speaker 1: and streams, and uh, farmers use them in composting, so
Speaker 1: of course they're spread even more around lands that then
Speaker 1: began to encroach upon hardwood force. Yeah, and the crazy
Speaker 1: thing too about earthworms is that unlike a lot of
Speaker 1: invasive species that introduced a lot of these species will well,
Speaker 1: they're introduced to an area and then they'll continue to
Speaker 1: work themselves. They're more than happy to spread their numbers
Speaker 1: across the lands. But but as Man points out, earthworms.
Speaker 1: You you introduce earthworms and to say, your backyard, if
Speaker 1: your backward yarded for some reason earthworm free, they make
Speaker 1: they'll thrive in that that area, but they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: going to expand beyond your backyard. They're very local. So
Speaker 1: this is all on humans. This is all our again
Speaker 1: using them for bait um, transplanting plants from one place
Speaker 1: to another, moving soil from one place to another, and
Speaker 1: eventually just creating a new nation underworm. You know, that
Speaker 1: reminds me two of the anthropa scene episode that we did,
Speaker 1: and we talked about how humans have changed the landscape
Speaker 1: um so drastically and that we are so responsible more
Speaker 1: than any other natural phenomenon for moving massive amounts of
Speaker 1: dirt and earth all over the world. So if you
Speaker 1: think beyond just even fishermen or you know, gardeners or
Speaker 1: farmers using earthworms, you have to realize that any time
Speaker 1: that we take dump trucks full of soil and move
Speaker 1: them to one other place, than we're introducing earthworms as
Speaker 1: an invasive species. Yeah, it's interesting too because Man also
Speaker 1: points out that you know, to no one's surprise, uh,
Speaker 1: this is this, Uh, this sort of fantasy world idea
Speaker 1: of pocahonas and and the settlers doesn't match up with reality.
Speaker 1: We tend to think of this idea that they arrive
Speaker 1: in the New World and the and everything is just
Speaker 1: this lush you know, avatar esque. Um, you know, untouched wilderness.
Speaker 1: And then there are a few uh Native Americans moving
Speaker 1: around almost unseen, you know, just a seamless part of
Speaker 1: the environment. But but as it turns out, the Palatin
Speaker 1: tribes people had already really done their part to change
Speaker 1: to to to change the environment and keep it the
Speaker 1: way they liked it, such as using control burns to
Speaker 1: clear out some of that underbrush and then constantly hunting
Speaker 1: and gathering to to collect you know, the items that
Speaker 1: they depended on for their diets. All right, so now
Speaker 1: we have an idea of these suckers as a as
Speaker 1: an invasive species. Have the conqueror worm, the conquering worm.
Speaker 1: What about just what about this worm grunting thing? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we should take a break. We'll take a
Speaker 1: break before we get to the worm grunting. But stay
Speaker 1: with us, because when we come back, um, humans and
Speaker 1: non humans alike will call to the worm, and the
Speaker 1: worm shall rise up from the drought. All right, we're
Speaker 1: back and we are talking about worm grunting, also known
Speaker 1: but by a few other names that you may know
Speaker 1: u the worm grunter as a worm charmer. You may
Speaker 1: know him or her as a worm fiddler. You may
Speaker 1: know this is worm snoring, But in Florida at least,
Speaker 1: it's called worm grunting. And you can in fact find
Speaker 1: this pastime throughout the southeastern United States and even in
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom. Had you ever heard of worm grunting before?
Speaker 1: I had not, But I think it's fascinating because we're
Speaker 1: talking about here is driving a wooden steak into the
Speaker 1: ground and then taking a flat metal rod across the
Speaker 1: top of it and creating a sort of bull frog
Speaker 1: like grunting sound which emanates from this. Yeah, and just
Speaker 1: that you have to imagine this setting, like here's this uh,
Speaker 1: this woodsy Floridian going out and into the into the wilderness.
Speaker 1: They're pounding the steak home and they're just sitting there
Speaker 1: moving the grunt and stick back and forth and then
Speaker 1: waiting for the worms to crawl up. It's true, like
Speaker 1: a minute or so later, depending on the sort of
Speaker 1: sound spectra that you create. Yeah, these worms emerge from
Speaker 1: the ground and and it's a rooping iron. By the way,
Speaker 1: I should point out that's that's the thing that they
Speaker 1: move across the state iron. Yeah, okay, So what's cool
Speaker 1: about this is that it's that sounds spectra that's made
Speaker 1: that shares a similarity with burrowing moles. We have found, yes,
Speaker 1: because for a lot of the worm grunters and the
Speaker 1: worm charmers elsewhere, they didn't necessarily understand the science of it.
Speaker 1: Because you don't really have to understand why the worms
Speaker 1: are crawling up. You realize that they're doing it, and
Speaker 1: then you want to get in on the action. And
Speaker 1: in fact, the two examples of worm grunters in in
Speaker 1: in nature that don't understand the science of what they're doing.
Speaker 1: The wood turtle and some seagulls. Goals and wood turtles
Speaker 1: also use worm grunting. The turtle especially is adorable doing
Speaker 1: this because the turtle kind of does a little dance
Speaker 1: on the ground and does the dance just right, and
Speaker 1: then the worms come up and then he eats the worms.
Speaker 1: And likewise the seagull that's the same thing. But what
Speaker 1: is this what is the reason for it? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: the you know, the worm grunters of old might have
Speaker 1: maybe thought it was magic. There was one theory at
Speaker 1: one point that it was the idea that the grunting,
Speaker 1: the tapping, or whatever kind of sounds you're making on
Speaker 1: the soil, that they somehow sound like rain drops falling,
Speaker 1: and the and the worms think, oh, the rain is coming.
Speaker 1: I need to get the higher ground so I don't
Speaker 1: drown in the earth, which you know, we see this sometimes, right,
Speaker 1: there's a good rainfall and then a couple of worms appear.
Speaker 1: But this, it turns out, is not actual reason why
Speaker 1: worms will rise to the top when you make these
Speaker 1: certain vibrations in the soil. Yeah, And in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, biologists kin A Catania and he set out
Speaker 1: to look into this. So he went out, he did
Speaker 1: did a full on scientific investigation, and he found that
Speaker 1: the reason is, like you said, moles. So the mole
Speaker 1: in earthworm lore, of course, is the worm gobbler part excellence.
Speaker 1: He's the he's the the greatest foe. He is the
Speaker 1: the ultimate enemy of worms. Yeah, no doubt, Like he
Speaker 1: is the Boogeyman. And worm folklore like they sit down
Speaker 1: with the kids and they're like the awful mole is
Speaker 1: going to come visit us one day. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of bad stuff that can happen to you
Speaker 1: if you are an earthworm. Um. Like, these things are plentiful,
Speaker 1: but they're also very nutritious, so you know, birds will
Speaker 1: not hesitate to eat them, Fishermen will not hesitate to
Speaker 1: put them on a hook, um Little Julie's will not
Speaker 1: hesitate to slice them up for for fun and possible
Speaker 1: profit and uh and so and so. Coming to the
Speaker 1: surface carries with it certain risks, but those risks do
Speaker 1: not even compare to the risk of staying underground when
Speaker 1: a mole is burrowing through the area. So worm grunting uh,
Speaker 1: using this a stake in the special rod or some
Speaker 1: of the worm charming techniques you see in in England
Speaker 1: they have the whole festivals for this every year, and
Speaker 1: if you look at the videos, it's just like a
Speaker 1: bunch of people going nuts, like hitting the ground with objects,
Speaker 1: playing musical instruments. So there are other ways to get
Speaker 1: the proper uh, the proper reverberations going in the earth. Uh.
Speaker 1: But but the idea is that again, it sounds like
Speaker 1: a mole and it's just enough crossover between the frequencies
Speaker 1: to to whether the earthworm interprets that is, as a
Speaker 1: mole approaching, and so they take to the surface, and
Speaker 1: they will take to the surface in the hundreds. We're
Speaker 1: not talking like just one or two earthworms. We're talking
Speaker 1: about all the earthworms in the vicinity rising at once. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you doubt this mole earthworm linkum, just consider
Speaker 1: that a paper published in Biology Letters showed that recordings,
Speaker 1: just the mere recordings of worm grunting vibrations bring worms
Speaker 1: to the surface and that more worms will surface nearer
Speaker 1: to the source of the vibrations of where those recordings
Speaker 1: are being transmitted. Yeah. Catania said that they found that
Speaker 1: worm grunting vibrations were more uniform and concentrated near the
Speaker 1: eight hurts area, while moles produce a wider range of
Speaker 1: vibrations that peak around two h hurts. But there's just
Speaker 1: enough overlap between the two to make this practice the reality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you have to think too, like why would people
Speaker 1: do this? Well, you know they probably said, huh, look
Speaker 1: look at that turtle over there, just raising raising these worms,
Speaker 1: like raising the dead. We could profit from this, we
Speaker 1: could do this, We could have a whole field of
Speaker 1: these and gather them and then sell them to fishermen. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean that's the main reason worm grinners do it.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe it's kind of a power trip as well.
Speaker 1: You know, things aren't going right in your life, but
Speaker 1: at least you can go out into the woods and
Speaker 1: hundreds of worms will obey or every command. But yeah, generally,
Speaker 1: I guess you would box them up at that pointing
Speaker 1: and selling a fisherman. I wanted to point out that
Speaker 1: the festival in Florida takes place in stop choppy Florida.
Speaker 1: That's a good Florida name right there. I thought it
Speaker 1: was great for an earthworm festival. So I was amazed
Speaker 1: by this. I just hope everyone else finds this as
Speaker 1: fascinating as I do. That there, because I love any
Speaker 1: kind of like weird folk traditions that they are just
Speaker 1: you know, just seem at first glance to just be
Speaker 1: completely mystical and strange, but then they end up having
Speaker 1: some sort of a hidden science to them. And I
Speaker 1: think we're running as a as a great example of that.
Speaker 1: Um Like, I really want to see more of this
Speaker 1: in action. I kind of want to try it for myself.
Speaker 1: You want to start a festival here in Georgia. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've got that far, but but
Speaker 1: if there is an existing um one, I would I
Speaker 1: would totally be up for checking it out. All right,
Speaker 1: Any fun games for the whole family, Yeah, if anybody
Speaker 1: there is organizing one, let us know in the southeast,
Speaker 1: that would be all right. Well, I'm gonna read a
Speaker 1: quick listener mail then on that note, if the robot
Speaker 1: will bring me one, all right. This one comes to
Speaker 1: us from Brittany. Brittany writes and and says, an interesting
Speaker 1: kidbit to add to your information on sun dial. So
Speaker 1: I took a Latin class a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: and found out that ancient Romans divided the day daylight
Speaker 1: day not full day, into twelve segments based on the
Speaker 1: sun dial. The length of the segment change based on
Speaker 1: the time of the year, but everyone followed it so
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. There you go a little. She's of course,
Speaker 1: responding to our clocking in episode where we talked about
Speaker 1: the nature of time as well as how we measure
Speaker 1: all right, And this one comes to us from John.
Speaker 1: John says, Hey, Robert and Julia, I saw this video
Speaker 1: and I just had to send to you. Guys. It
Speaker 1: blew my mind just how much small things like the
Speaker 1: jar in this video can change our perspectives on the
Speaker 1: world and other people. I love your podcast and I
Speaker 1: hope you keep blowing my mind. And he Since this
Speaker 1: video of the statue experiment, it took place on the
Speaker 1: high Line in New York. This is that people have
Speaker 1: probably seen it on like an episode of Louis Or
Speaker 1: or certainly some cool pictures of it where it's a
Speaker 1: elevated train track. They turned into a little park and
Speaker 1: there's the statue there. Uh. And at first glance, it
Speaker 1: looks like a performance artist, you know, like the kind
Speaker 1: of people you see, like in the streets New Orleans
Speaker 1: who paint themselves like bright silver and then put on
Speaker 1: some shades and stand there and wait for tips. But
Speaker 1: then you quickly realize it's just a statue. Well, in
Speaker 1: this video experiment, they put a tip jar next to
Speaker 1: it and and everyone just starts loading the tip jar.
Speaker 1: They instantly like like that flips on the switch to
Speaker 1: where people decide, oh, I guess it is a person,
Speaker 1: and then they are totally reacting to it differently. So
Speaker 1: I found that interesting and uh, and certainly now that
Speaker 1: we're doing more videos. Really UM always open to receive
Speaker 1: some video links from people are really cool, like little
Speaker 1: bits of viral video or scientific video that you would
Speaker 1: like to have explained because we do this series uh
Speaker 1: science on the web where we do that. We take
Speaker 1: something like a cat in a shark suit on a
Speaker 1: room but chasing a duck and we say, hey, what's
Speaker 1: the possible science of the vest and when we started
Speaker 1: talking about it? So if you have anything like that
Speaker 1: you would like to as send to us, let us
Speaker 1: know if you would like to talk to us about worms,
Speaker 1: your experience with earth worms, your experiences with worm grunting
Speaker 1: or worm charming or whatever you call your worm calling
Speaker 1: um tradition in your part of the world, let us
Speaker 1: know about it. We would love to hear from you. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can find us as always that stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That is our central location, but
Speaker 1: we also have social media accounts on Facebook, we're on Tumblr,
Speaker 1: we're on Twitter where our handle is blow the Mind.
Speaker 1: And how else can we get in touch withooks? Well,
Speaker 1: you can always send an email and you can do
Speaker 1: that at below the Mind at discovery dot com for
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Visit how
Speaker 1: staff works dot com.