WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Plague of Mucus 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:08.360 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:11.440 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:16.000 Time for a vault episode. This one originally aired July one, 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.720 and it is called The Plague of Mucus? Are you prepared? 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:27.680 Are you alright? Let's let's jump right into it. Welcome 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:37.360 to Stuff to Blow your Mind, production of My Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:39.479 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.760 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today, we're gonna 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:47.199 be diving into the ocean to take a look at slime, froth, ooze, 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.239 and mucus of various kinds. And I thought maybe a 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:52.720 good way to get in the mood for this kind 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:55.760 of discussion would be to do a couple of literary readings, 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.320 perhaps Rob if your game. When I was thinking about 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.040 this topic, something immediately came to mind. I remember there 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:04.880 was some passage from Walt Whitman in which he identified 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.960 very strongly and emotionally with becoming a bit of ooze, 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.959 froth and debris washing in the surf. Do do you 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.240 mind if I read a bit of Walt Whitman here? Yeah, 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.800 go for it. Okay, so this is from his poem 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:18.600 that I think the title has just taken from the 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:20.480 first line, but it's called as I Ebbed with the 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.360 Ocean of Life. The whole poem is too long to read, 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:25.479 but I'm just going to read from the fourth section here, 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:29.320 where he really talks about becoming the use Ebb ocean 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:33.040 of life. The flow will return cease, not your moaning, 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:37.080 you fierce old mother, endlessly cry for your castaways. But 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:41.039 fear not deny not me Russell, not up so hoarse 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.640 and angry against my feet. As I touch you or 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.280 gather from you, I mean tenderly by you and all 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.560 I gather for myself and for this phantom, looking down 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.320 where we lead, and following me and mine, Me and mine. 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:59.720 Loose wind rows, little corpses, froth snowy white, and bubbles. 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.480 See from my dead lips, the ooze exuding at last, 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:09.120 See the prismatic colors, glistening and rolling, tufts of straw, sand, 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:14.760 fragments buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another, from 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:19.840 the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, musing, pondering, 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.680 a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.960 soil up just as much out of fathomless workings, fermented 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:32.200 and thrown, a limp blossom or two torn just as 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:36.240 much over the waves, floating, drifted at random, just as 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:40.000 much for us that sobbing dirge of nature. Just as much. 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.200 Whence we come, that blare of the cloud trumpets, we 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:48.200 capricious brought hither we know not whence spread out before you. 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.360 You up there, walking or sitting, whoever you are, we 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:56.440 two lie in drifts at your feet. O man, women, Uh, 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:58.639 feeling a little moody in that one. Yeah, this is 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.160 weird because, I mean, Whitman has his his darker moods, 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:03.960 but I feel like this is definitely one of the 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.760 more downer Whitman moments. A lot of times he finds 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:08.360 a way to surge back up. But that's the end 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.200 of the poem. It kind of ends on a down note. Though. Weirdly, 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:13.800 even when Whitman is feeling down, you can still he 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.600 You can tell he still has that universal connectedness perspective. 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.200 He still is every molecule of everything in the ocean, 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.639 even all the debris and ooze and froth and sand 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.160 and trash. Yeah, No, that's that's that's really good. And uh. 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:30.040 And when you initially brought this up and I was 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:32.000 reading it, I was like, oh man, this is this 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.239 is reminding me of something, not that it's reminding me 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:36.480 of something specific, but just sort of a similar vibe. 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:40.400 And it got me thinking about h G wells uh uh. 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.000 It's particularly I can't remember if it's when the time 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.520 traveler goes to the very end of time or the 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.320 very beginning, but he encounters kind of like, you know, 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:53.800 this this sludge like dark world of slimy life. I 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:56.320 don't remember either way. Well, he goes towards the end, 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:58.520 when he goes the farthest in the future, it's when 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.760 he encounters that the world this just crabs. It's like 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:06.120 remember those those big like Arthur pod type creatures. But 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.480 maybe he also goes back in time. Maybe that's working 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.920 on the the old school primordial ooze kind of idea 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:14.480 of the origins of life. Yeah. And you see this 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:18.479 pop up in weird fiction of the twentieth century as well, 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.400 particularly in the works of of Clark Ashton Smith, who 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:27.440 was a writer of weird dark fantasy tales and it 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.479 was also a poet. And uh and I believe later 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.919 in life he worked with like sculpture. But but I 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:35.919 was looking up, like, what was it. What's a nice 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.400 slimy ocean bit from Clark Ashton Smith? And I found 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.440 a really good one, from a story titled The Light 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.159 from the Pole. And I'm not sure when this was written. 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.960 I don't think it was actually published until after his death. 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:50.800 But I'm just going to read a quick paragraph from this, 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:54.200 if you don't mind, go for it. Through the middle summer, 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.200 the fisher folk who dwelt in wattle huts below the 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.200 tall towers of far Azen went forth daily in their 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.599 coracles of hide and willow, and cast their nets in 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.000 the accustomed manner of their trade. But all that they 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.080 gathered from the sea was dead and withered, as if 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.279 in the blast of great coldness, such as would emanate 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:18.159 from the trans Arctic ice. And they drew forth from 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:23.160 their assigns. Living monsters as well, such as the eldest captains, 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:27.120 had never beheld things triple headed and tailed and thinned 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:31.200 with horror, black shapeless things that turned a liquid foulness, 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:33.799 and ran from the net like a vile i corps, 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:38.120 or headless shapes like bloated moons with green frozen rays 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:42.440 about them, or things leprous eye and bearded with stiffly 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:46.799 oozing slime. It was as if some transdimensional and long 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.960 blocked channel beneath the known, familiar seas of Earth had 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:55.520 opened suddenly into the strange waters of ultra mundane oceans 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.920 teeming with repulsive and malformed life. Wow. Well that goes 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.440 the supernatural dimensions, but at the same time still connects 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:06.760 very much to the topic we're gonna be talking about today. Yeah. Oh, 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:08.400 and by the way, if some of you are wanting 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.400 ultra mundane, that just sounds like even more mundane than usual. 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.039 It actually means the opposite. Ultramundane means like from beyond 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.320 the soldier system. Oh. I would not have known that. Yeah, 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:20.600 it threw me for your curve at first, because I'm like, oh, 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.280 the ultra mundane. Yeah, man, that must be and that's 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.200 that's just supermundane. But now what does the part knew 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:30.960 what he was doing? Especially average? But anyway, on these 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.680 themes of slime and mucus, it got me thinking about 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.679 this question, like, what does life from the microscopic level 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.920 to the plants and the megafauna all have in common. Well, 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.840 one thing that is common to most life, especially most 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.400 life that lives in the water, is mucus or slime, 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:53.360 you know, some kind of like slimy substances, viscous, slimy, 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:57.400 lubricating kinds of substances in the body are really some 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.240 of the keystones of organic life. I was thinking about, how, uh, 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:02.920 there was one time when I was in high school 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.160 and I remember being present for a a sermon that 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.560 was preached on the verse in the Bible about how 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:10.680 the blood is the life, and the point of the 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.400 sermon was that was that that statement the blood is 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:18.520 the life in the Bible is scientifically accurate, which, on reflection, 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.560 that's kind of a funny claim to make. I mean, 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:22.320 I guess that's true. Like if you remove all the 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:25.600 blood from something, it doesn't live anymore. Um. But but 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:27.920 I started thinking about how the slime is the life. 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.400 The mucus is the life because you've got micro organisms 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.520 of course that secrete uzy mucus like substances called mucilage. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.360 But you can also find that implants. If you break 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.840 a stalk of succulent, it will leak a viscous mucilage too. Yeah, you, 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:46.760 I mean, we could easily do an entire podcast series, 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.640 if not an entire podcast period on slime because you 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:52.000 look at that, I mean, you just look at the 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.840 ways the importance of slime and the human body, you know, uh, 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:57.960 and it's it's it's greatly important. Look at some of 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.880 the very unique creatures that utilized slime so well. Um. 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.200 The hag fish, for example, that we've discussed numerous times, 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.760 a true wizard of slime, um, a sorcerer of ooze 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.720 that that is able to to to utilize this uh, 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:18.000 this this thick, slimy substance that it that it exudes um, 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.920 you know, so wonderfully as a self defense mechanism. Yeah. 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.680 And the truly amazing thing about the hag fish is 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.600 how much of it it can create and how fast. Yeah. 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:32.640 Another big one is the slime that you encounter as 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.600 the very outer layer of fish in the ocean. You know, 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.840 like this is it's not just something that is on 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.880 their body. It is something of their body, but it 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.800 serves as an outer layer. Um. So you know, when 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:46.559 you're when you're handling a fish, even if you're you know, 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.080 catching and releasing, if you're disrupting that that outer layer, 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.760 you're disrupting some of the protections afforded to the organism now. 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:56.640 But of course there's plenty of internal use for slime 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:58.760 and mucus and ooze as well, because if you think 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.439 about inside your body, tons of your organs and surfaces 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:06.000 and tissues are lined with mucus of various sorts that 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:07.920 are very important for your body. I mean, you've got 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.840 mucus in your nose, mucus and all kinds all kinds 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.000 of parts, so you. But of course, I guess one 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.520 thing we should recognize is that we are speaking kind 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:18.520 of loosely in a general sense, about similar types of 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:22.000 substances with similar physical properties that are not all necessarily 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.840 the same thing. They're not created by the same biochemical 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.920 pathways always, uh, you know, they come from different kinds 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.560 of life. But in this loose sense, almost all life 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:34.760 has some kind of slime or or ooz or goo 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:39.880 or mucus. In common life just kind of makes mucus. Yeah, 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:41.719 I mean, that's that's really the secret of the is 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:43.640 right there. But today we wanted to look at this 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:47.160 question of what happens when the mucus gets out of hand, 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.320 what happens when it becomes a plague like mass that 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:55.120 is not not merely inside the body, not merely on 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:59.079 the body, not merely uh, floating around in little tiny 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.239 clumps in the shan, but when it comes to dominate 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:06.240 the geography and you can see it from airplanes. That's 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.920 what we're going to talk about today. So shout out 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.079 that I got the idea to talk about this today 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:13.839 when I came across an article in the Atlantic by 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:19.120 Sarah Jong called A slimy calamity is creeping across the Sea. 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.440 And this article is about an organic substance that has 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.920 been referred to in the scientific literature as marine mucilage, 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.600 but it is more commonly known to people in the 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:34.520 fishing industry and people who have encountered it firsthand as 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:39.560 things like sea snot or see saliva. And the article 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:42.880 is about how this stuff has lately become an absolute 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.720 plague near the shores of Turkey, specifically in a place 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.560 called the Sea of Marmara, which is in northwest Turkey, 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.120 and it's the body of water that connects the a 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.520 gan C on the west to the Black Sea on 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.080 the on the northeast. And so if you have not 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.240 already read an articles about this stuff, we're seeing pictures 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.800 of it. This one is really worth looking up to 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.679 see with your own eyes. In fact, there is an 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:11.080 astonishing photo gallery on the website of The Atlantic right 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.800 now that was posted June one called photos Turkey Cease 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.440 not Disaster. So I'd highly recommend checking this out if 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:21.719 you can. But we will try to describe a few 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:23.720 of these images here for those of you who can't 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.280 go look it up right now. And Rob, I've got 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:27.720 these here for you to look at as well. So 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:29.719 I pulled a few of them. This first one was 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:34.280 a photo taken by Mohammed Ennis Yielder Rim and it's 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:38.520 an aerial photo from June one of all these boats 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.880 in the water off the shore of Istanbul, and it 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.360 looks like they're floating in one of those buckets that 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.760 people used to make tie dye t shirts, except instead 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.680 of all the colors of the rainbow, it's just various 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:57.319 hues of off white and tan, it's this giant, floating, swirling, 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:01.640 starry night of beige slime. Yeah, this is I think 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.680 this is a Getty image as well, from the Getty website, 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:08.360 but it is um it it's really beautiful. If not, 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:10.439 and if I didn't know what it was, I would 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.640 just assume that this was a painting because it looks 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:18.280 like some sort of a surreal uh you know, oil 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:22.760 painted ocean upon which the artist has depicted realistic looking 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.160 um depictions of ships and boats. Well, another way I 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:28.440 could view it is again, because this is from a 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:30.840 great distance, it is kind of beautiful. It also looks 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.480 like boats that maybe somehow all became beached on a 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.760 vast stretch of sand. So like if like if the 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.120 ocean retreated and left all these boats stranded in the 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:45.599 dunes with these drifts and current like patterns all swirling 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.040 around them, and they were just sitting in the sand. 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.480 I I could see that being a what this is. 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:53.520 But no, they are on the surface of the water. 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.640 And also I worry for them if they must start 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.840 their engines. As we'll get to uh a bit later 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.640 on about about some of the problems that the stuff 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:07.360 causes for for powered boats. But as beautiful as this 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.160 might look from above, as kind of like weirdly, I 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.520 don't know at that that that boundary line between gross 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.440 and beautiful when you get up close, it really does 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:21.160 get more just obviously disgusting. So this next image is 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:26.640 of a diver surfacing from underneath a large mat of 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.640 marine mucilage. This one was taken by Serhat Kagdas for 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.920 the Anadolue Agency, which is a Turkish state media organization, 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:38.160 and according to the caption, this person is involved in 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:42.240 a marine mucilage cleanup operation at a Kata Boston beach 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.760 which is also in in Istanbul or off the shore 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.000 of Istanbul. And this is from June of twenty one also. 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.760 But if if you're trying to imagine the texture of 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:55.680 this stuff up close from this image here, it looks 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.720 kind of like if you've ever tried to make beef stock, 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.679 or like a poor grammin broth. All of the scum 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.400 that rises to the top of the pot as the 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.320 impurities are are removed at first from the bones and 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.400 the connecting tissues. That that stuff that floats up there, 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:16.920 except add into that like some wilted toilet paper and 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:22.080 aloe vera gel. Yeah, that that is a good description um. 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:25.320 Another way might be to imagine if you filled a 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:30.960 crop pot like a pressure cooker with cauliflower and then 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.040 cooked it way too long where you just turned it 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.160 to mush. Like that's what this kind of looks like, Yeah, 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:38.920 so up close, a lot of the beauty has gone 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:43.440 and it becomes frankly revolting. But I want to come 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:46.040 back on the beautiful side. Because also in this photo 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.600 gallery they had one that's an underwater image. And one 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:51.120 of the things that came through is I started to 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.120 read more and more about this stuff is how in 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.040 a lot in some sense, you can't really appreciate what 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:01.760 it is unless you look at views of it from underwater. Because, 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.680 for example, a lot of scientists had been trying to 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.080 study this stuff for years, but we're having trouble because 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.960 the equipment that they used to retrieve samples from the 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:15.120 water would end up churning it up and shaking it up. 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.280 That would kind of destroy its structure. So to really 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.360 see what form it takes as it's just floating in 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:22.840 the water column you have you kind of have to 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.800 go down yourself or see pictures taken from beneath the surface. 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.720 So this one picture was by Sebnim Costcun also for 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:35.720 the Nadolu agency and uh it's an underwater photo of 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.680 a diver in the Sea of Marmara near a stand bull. 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.800 Again from this one's from May and this one looks 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.160 to me like a scene from a Forbidden Planet type 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.440 vintage sci fi movie. The water is dimly lit but 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:54.400 extremely green, and the diver has these twin work lamps 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.120 that it looks kind of like, you know, crewman Hicks 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:01.280 has wandered into an alien spider web. And so there's 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:07.240 just this translucent matrix of goop enveloping everything spun right 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:10.400 out of the shelb of the sea. Yeah, and I 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:12.640 guess it drives home. And you can't tell, really tough 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.640 on the image how deep the individual is, but yet 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:17.880 you certainly get the sense that this is not a 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.400 mere merely a surface phenomena. This is something that extends 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.120 at least somewhat into the water column, right, And we'll 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:26.080 get into more detail as we go on about how 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.880 that happens. I think they're there are different stages depending 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.280 on the conditions that that cause it to float or 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.840 stay suspended in the water column. Um, but we'll explain 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.000 that as we go on. One last photo I thought 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.360 we should look at before we move on, Rob. Is 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:44.240 this one of workers trying to vacuum this stuff up 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.240 with hoses. I think this is again near at stenbol 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:51.080 uh In in the Marmara. See this is from June. 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.320 Uh and the stuff here that's going up into the 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:58.760 hose looks very much like overflow from a sewer clean out. Yeah, 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:02.240 our big cat it like a lot of cat vomit. Maybe, oh, 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.440 big cat vomit. You mean, like the vomit is big 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:06.600 or like from a big cat, like a lion talking. 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.560 I'm talking like big time cat cat vomit here, like 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.760 like cat vomit so expansive that Peter Gabriel write a 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:16.119 song about it for real cat vomit. Yeah. One of 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.200 the articles I was reading about this had a really 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:23.280 good physical description. It was by Selene Ugertash, writing for 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.639 the The for The Guardian in May of one and you. 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:30.520 Gurtash said that when seen from above, it looks like 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:34.480 a brush of beige swirled across the dark blue waters 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.240 of the Sea of Marmara. Up close, it resembles a creamy, 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:43.280 gelatinous blanket of Quicksand yeah, so from the air looks 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.119 like a cappuccino ocean, like the surface of a cappuccino. 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.960 Up close it looks it just looks gross, very grass. Now. 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.639 In that article in the Atlantic by Sarah Jong, she 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:57.359 talks about different names for the different types of accumulations 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:01.159 of it. So you've got what's an as marine snow. 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:05.120 That's a that's a phenomenon that ultimately connects to marine muselage. 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.280 But these are of course tiny little flakes and droplets 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.640 that are usually drifting slowly down towards the sea floor. Uh, 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.040 they're They're found in the ocean all the time, just 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.159 the little flakes, little bits of life. They are drifting around. 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.760 But then when when the marine muselage starts to accumulate, 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.360 you've got these things called stringers, which he says, resemble 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:29.320 a kind of sticky goo. This is more actually similar 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.560 in appearance to human nasal mucus. But then you've also 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.040 got clouds, which are maybe more like you know that 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.320 maybe when the stringers come together they form clouds. It's 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.159 more like that giant spider web under the surface of 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.240 the water. Uh. They're they're delicate and they break apart 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.240 when you touch them. But they just form these big, 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:52.960 sort of translucent white masses floating in the water. So 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.520 I guess we should get more into describing the phenomenon 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.640 of of what's actually happening here. I mentioned that this 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.400 is something that's going on into Herkey right now, specifically 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.800 in the Sea of Marmara. But marine mucilage is a 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.040 broader phenomenon than what's happening in Turkey right now, both 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.280 in terms of time and geography. So the Sea of 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.840 Marmara is not the only place that experiences surges of 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.720 this stuff, and it's not the first time it has happened. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:23.240 But the slime infestation at Marmara is especially bad this year, 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.480 and the problem does seem to be getting worse in 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:29.240 the region over time. So I found a source illuminating 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.280 this as a scientific paper discussing marine mucilage in the 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.840 Adriatic Sea, which is nearby. It's in the Mediterranean. The 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.959 Adriatic is the stretch of sea between Italy and the Balkans. 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.480 And this is a paper by Roberto den Ovarro, Serena 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:49.600 fonda Umani and Antonio pusque Do and it's called Climate 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:53.080 Change and the Potential Spreading of marine mucilage and microbial 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.720 Pathogens in the Mediterranean Sea. This was published in Plos 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.639 one in two thousand nine. This is a highly cited 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.720 paper about marine mucilage. Most of the articles that I 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.040 was reading mentioned this paper at one point or another. 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.280 But in tracking the history of this stuff, they go 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:12.680 all the way back to the eighteenth century. The author's 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:17.320 right quote. Worldwide, the highly productive and shallow Adriatic Sea, 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.199 and particularly it's a northern portion within the Mediterranean Basin, 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.720 is the area most severely affected by the outbreak of 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:29.399 massive marine mucilage. Mucilage was reported here for the first 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:33.720 time in seventeen twenty nine, and was originally described as 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.800 a quote dirty c phenomenon, or in Italian that would 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:43.760 be mare sporko, because it causes the clogging of fishing nets. Uh. 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.199 And I do like the name mare Sporko. I'm not 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:48.680 quite sure why. Maybe because it sounds like it has 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:51.800 a porky element somehow. It could easily be the name 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:55.080 of a demon in Dante's Inferno. Oh yeah, yeah, ma 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:59.000 Sporko hanging out with you know, the very with the 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:03.320 malacotta and all Mala bronco. Or I might be getting 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:07.959 that name wrong. Yeah, there's Mala Coda in there, and 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:12.520 of course Scarmiglian, Scarbiglian. Lots of good names. So what 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:15.960 would the dirty sea demon be? I mean, usually they're 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.479 more kind of like animals are personified. This would be 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.399 like the ocean itself is a demon, yeah, or just 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:24.479 kind of a roughly humanoid form made out of this 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:27.600 CEA snot that we're describing. That's the way I'm picturing it. Yeah, 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.080 So outbreaks of CEA snot, according to the authors of 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.320 this paper, have been occurring in the Adriatic ever since, 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.320 ever since they were observed, and you know, possibly before 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:40.120 that too, but it was first documented in seventeen twenty 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.480 nine and they've been recurring ever since. But the frequency 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.399 has increased sharply in the last thirty years or so. 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:49.720 And this paper was published in two thousand nine, so 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.000 that would mean since around nineteen eighty. And the author 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:57.680 is right about how once this stuff aggregates, an outbreak 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:00.800 of marine mucilage can stay floating on the surface or 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.800 suspended throughout the water column for around two to three months, 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.000 and then after that it tends to float down and 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.919 settle on the sea bottom. And there are several reasons 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.520 why the stuff is considered undesirable by humans. Some of 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:17.480 them are pretty obvious. They write, for example, quote the 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:21.600 presence of mucilage makes the seawater unsuitable for bathing because 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.080 of the bad smell produced and the adherents of the 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:27.760 mucilage on the skin of bathers. So it's kind of like, 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:30.600 I don't know, just like describing why you wouldn't want 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:32.919 to swim in water that has tons of mucus floating 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:35.399 on top of it. But I appreciate that they spelled 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:39.080 that out. Um. Now, of course I mentioned already that 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:41.879 over time it tends to settle on the sea floor, 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:46.240 and once it's there, the author's right quote, these large 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:51.080 aggregates coat the sediments, extending in certain cases for kilometers 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:55.200 and causing hypoxic and or anoxic conditions, which of course 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:58.760