September 9, 2026 • 63 mins
Even now in 2026, much of the world's oceans remain mysterious and thoroughly unexplored. Prompted by news from The Ocean Census, which has discovered thousands of new species (and hopes to discover a hundred thousand more), Ben, Matt, and Noel dive deep into the latest oceanographic research... and ask whether we'll finally find new, giant cryptids out there in the depths. Heck, the real aliens might be beneath the waves.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
They called me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Dylan, the Tennessee pal fake, and most importantly,
you are you. You are here. That makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. And guys, I
gotta tell you, super excited about this one. I don't
know if, I'm sure it's a common experience, but one
(00:52):
of my foundational memories has always been visiting aquariums you
know when it's when you're in the dark and you've
got these huge glass panels of nothing but blue and
creatures you would never see otherwise I we've got a
good aquarium in Atlanta as.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Well and it's funny my girlfriend's coming to visit and
I suggested we go to the aquarium and she said
absolutely not I'm an adult I said no really.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
It's good I promise oh it's like the best it's
a good one especially for For us curious folk that
remember being a kid, guys, I have super fond memories
of going to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
That was the place to go to before Atlanta built
that giant one with the whale sharks and stuff. That
was the place. And if I recall correctly, isn't there
a river area in the Tennessee Aquarium where... Gosh. I
specifically have memories of that, but I couldn't... describe it
to you right now, but my brain, when I think
(01:57):
about fish, goes to that aquarium.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
They have otters.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
And otters, yes. And you start at the top and
you wend your way down. Yes. The Atlanta Aquarium is
wonderful as well. We know that some aquariums can be
pretty problematic, right, up there with zoos, but the Chattanooga
and the Atlanta Aquarium are exceptional, and you can visit
(02:21):
these things to have a kind of encounter with the ocean,
with the ink, with the brine, with the deep, and
you probably won't experience thalassophobia. Our word of the day, thalassophobia.
It's something we talked about before without the specific definition.
It is the persistent and intense fear of deep, vast,
(02:45):
or dark bodies of water, like open ocean, sea, or lakes.
And I think a Noel, not to put you on
the spot, but I remember a few years back you
said this was one of your big fears.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Oh, yeah, just massive things lurking beneath the waves. I
have recurring dreams about not necessarily like being devoured or
being attacked or anything or shark attacked or whatever, but
something about a thing that is so huge that you
can't see really freaks me out.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Well, yeah, it's our imaginations, right? A lot of those
fears that we talk about end up being our own
imagination playing out across whatever the thing is.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
That's why Jaws is better when you don't see the shark.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, Hitchcock was right. It's the monster off screen, right?
Your imagining will almost always be more frightening than the
thing that you see because seeing something is very close
to defining it, right? So the unknown carries such weight
and foresight thousands, thousands of years, even before the written word,
(03:49):
humanity had a very strange relationship with the water. It
continues today. It's beautiful. It's vast. It's poetic. It's dangerous.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
It's terrifying.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
It's unpredictable. And recently in our strange news program, we
learned about some collaborative and technological breakthroughs that have revolutionized
human understanding of the world beneath the waves and That's
what we're doing tonight. Put on your cryptic cap, folks.
Hop in the aquarium with us. Hold your breath. Hail Cthulhu.
(04:22):
Let's dive in. Here are the facts. We can agree
the ocean is amazing. And if you are listening to
this and you live on the surface, you are in
the minority of life on Earth.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
29% of it.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Right? Roughly.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, 71% of the entirety of Earth is covered in water.
That's something like 360 million square kilometers, or in freedom units,
139 million square miles. It's a lot of miles.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, so many America lakes, or gulfs. Did you guys see,
freaking Google immediately changed it to Lake of America. Come on.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Really?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Anyway, different episode.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Check Google Maps.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
They got a guy.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
They got a guy.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Google right now.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
We need to be more creative, man. Come on.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
That's my main beef.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
It's like so on the nose.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
I mean, how many things can have the same or
similar names?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I saw a really funny response in some sort of
post about it where someone was like, next thing you know,
it'll be giving people directions like left turn on America Street,
you know, take a quick turn through Americaville and then,
you know, you're in America Berg.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Anyway, it's. Yeah. And you know what? while you're on
the internet, folks, to get a sense of the scale
of the ocean, after you check out all the things
being named America, do check out Point Nemo. This is
the furthest point from the land that we go up.
The middle of the openest of oceans. You can get
(06:06):
the coordinates 48 degrees south, 120 degrees west. It goes on.
But depending on, this is a cool fact, depending on
the orbit of the International Space Station. If you were
at Point Nemo, you could literally be closer to astronauts
than you are to other humans on the planet.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
And Ben, you're going to make some Jules Verne refs
a little later, but I think this has got to
be one, right? Captain Nemo? Point Nemo?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yes, yes. Captain Nemo. Man, I loved that. I love that.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Ben, which ocean is Point Nemo in?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Point Nemo is in the Pacific.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Basically between New Zealand and Chile, kind of. That's where
I'm imagining it looks. That's where I would call Point Nemo.
I didn't look at the coordinates.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
South Pacific Ocean. So if you're in Santiago and you
have a lot of time on your hands, then you
can sail out there, but it's like a 10 to
15 day journey, even in a modern watercraft. You could
maybe have an airplane travel over but it would be
(07:14):
starving for fuel, and you would have to literally jump
from the plane, and unless some friendly humans or dolphins intervened,
you would soon die from a lack of food, drinkable water,
or shelter. Or, of course, you know, something might come
up from below and take a chop on you.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Dude, just to stay on Google Maps for a moment,
one of the only things that keeps me on this
app or this website nowadays is looking at some of
the updated scans, like the deep water scans of the
ocean where you can actually see where a satellite or,
you know, some type of research vessel has gone across
(07:57):
one little strip of the ocean. And you can actually
see what looks like the topography somewhat, or, you know,
at least the, the, depth, the actual depth and what
the ocean floor looks like, at least allegedly according to
the scientists, but you know, it is super cool to
see that. And there is one, there's one of these
(08:19):
been right by point Nemo on Google maps.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I mean, because it's, it's almost like a tourist destination
for our fellow ocean nerds. And I love that you're
bringing up this point because we can get conspiratorial really quickly.
Check out our, Earlier episode on whether sonar is killing
marine animals. I think we were all astonished to learn. Well,
(08:43):
maybe not astonished. We were all saddened to consider the
idea that some world governments know more about the seafloor
than they're letting the public learn because of, you know,
wars and various unpleasant activities, resource extraction.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Underwater cables.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Underwater cables, yeah. We got to also mention, this might
be counterintuitive, but it's another fun fact. Just like life
on the surface, life in the ocean is not evenly distributed.
Oceans have deserts, which can be a confusing concept, but
we're talking about these vast stretches of nutrient-poor regions with
(09:29):
very little biodiversity. And those regions are expanding and shifting
as we record so parts of the ocean are just
functionally kind of abandoned is how it would feel if
you were.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
There yeah there's a warming waters guys and ocean acidification
don't worry about it it's fine we're all gonna be
fine I'm.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Worried about it Matt don't tell me not to worry
about it I worry It's fine. Don't think it's fine.
It doesn't feel fine, guys.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Well, we're a little salty about the ocean. Let's say
it that way. Yeah. It's not to say the ocean
is overall a desolate place. Even now, it's quite the opposite.
We know that the world's oceanic systems hold the highest,
higher level biological diversity on the planet. So we've got
something like 34 million major animal phyla that we know
(10:21):
about as civilization. 32 of those are in the water
and a lot of life forms exist entirely in the oceans.
Like the octopus, super duper smart, not on land. Thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Landopus. No, man.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
No, thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
And if you're listening, uh, octopuses, uh, go, you guys don't,
don't come for us.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Keep doing your thing.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
It's cool. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
We got this up here.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, we'll just stay up in the other 29%. That
70-something is all you. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
We got a few more decades before it's unlivable on
the surface. So enjoy the deep.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Well, it's also interesting how deep, deep, deep, deep sea
exploration is nigh on as dangerous as space exploration.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Oh, God.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Like, I mean, look what happened with the, what was
the name of that PlayStation joystick-controlled craft that that venture
capitalist guy killed all those billionaires in?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Deepwater Horizon. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
No, I was going to say the same thing, Matt,
so thank you for that. Don't worry about that. You
got James Cameron of Terminator fame, and also, I mean,
just really one of the top guys when it comes
to exploring really, really, really deep hard to reach places
like the Marianas Trench. And, you know, the design of
these crafts is just as crucial in terms of stability
(11:52):
and air tightness as a spacecraft because the pressure down
there is insane. You know, it can like absolutely, if
there's some sort of breach, it can, I believe what
happened with that craft we're talking about was it more
or less imploded.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, that's the Ocean Gates Titan. submersible and was exploring
the Titanic, right? Which is why they called it the Titan. Um,
fortunately all five people on there lost their lives.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I wasn't meaning to make light of any loss of life.
It was almost promoted the same way as we're seeing
space tourism being promoted. There's a luxury, some sort of
fun thing that the super rich can get into. This
one was quite the grift in that the dude had
not really done his homework and was going against a
lot of recommendations from folks who said, no, you really
(12:39):
shouldn't build it out of this carbon fiber stuff. He
just wanted to get it done and get his idea
off the ground. uh, and it, you know, ended in tragedy.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, because it is, I mean, space exploration is a
really solid comparison because both, uh, the ink of the
heavens and the ink of the briny deep call to us, right?
They call to land lubber civilization. Um, we're essentially, we're
saying to put a cap on it, the ocean is huge.
(13:12):
And even now, as we record on, uh, the end
of August, 2026, nobody really knows the full extent of
what lives there, what did live there and went extinct.
We don't have any full history of how surface dwellers
interacted with the ocean over time. So if you are
(13:32):
a surface dwelling biological organism, you're probably at some point
going to be baffled by realizing that way back in
the day, your ancestors came from the sea. no matter
who you are, it's, it's so evolution is such a trip.
Do you guys remember aquatic ape theory? Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
It made so much sense to me specifically because I,
I love the water so much. So personally, aquatic ape
theory felt like one of those, Oh, obviously I'm.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
A strong swimmer. Makes sense.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
But, but don't you guys kind of feel like weirdly
differently alive in the water sometimes? I don't know if
you guys get that ever, but like, Sometimes you step
out into that ocean. There is that moment which we
can kind of compare to that feeling that we've talked about.
What was the thing, Ben, when you get into orbit
(14:27):
for the first time and you look down at Earth?
The overview effect. The overview. But it's not the same
as that, but it's similar, especially if you're a place
where you look out and it's just endless ocean for
your point of view. There's something similar.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Also a certain amount of danger associated with it. Like,
I think it used to freak me out, but now
it kind of makes me feel alive. Like, you know,
you could get stung by a jellyfish or caught up
in a riptide or, you know, eaten by a shark.
And you sort of have to just make peace with
that idea to a certain degree or live in fear.
and never step foot in the ocean. So I think
(15:01):
there's sort of, it's a twofold thing, but I totally
see what you're saying, Matt.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
I mean, it's there. We have to figure out more, right?
We're naturally inquisitive creatures, and we know that things are
not going super great for a lot of wildlife on
the surface, unfortunately. That is true for higher order animals
or all animals in Earth's oceans as well. Humans have
(15:25):
done a lot of dirt down there. Plastics are everywhere.
Plastics are in places now that humans have yet to reach, right?
You're a cutting edge oceanographer. You're diving under the surface
of some frozen lake in Antarctica and all of a
sudden you see like a plastic water bottle.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Not even to mention the microplastics. They're so small and
there's so much of it that it could travel thousands
and thousands of miles.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And then, you know, unfamiliar or toxic chemicals, oil spills
left and right, the sonar, the noise. Guys, the way
I think about it, especially knowing what we know now
about non-human intelligence, it feels like the orca, the cetaceans,
the octopuses, they're kind of in a Mad Max situation. right?
(16:15):
In the oceans, like the resources are growing more and
more scarce. The challenges to reproduction are growing more and
more apparent. It's just, it's tough out there.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
One thing we learned, like one of the most, well,
there are two most important things about living in the ocean.
One of them is the salinity of whatever particular part
of the ocean you're in. The other one is the temperature.
And often the way those things are changed by a
species that hangs out in the ocean is depth right
(16:47):
so it's usually temperature and pressure is like what you're
dealing with if when you're on the surface of the
water or down in the deep depths and there's a
nice little scale basically on those things and as i'm
gonna say it guys as the climate is changing don't
get me in trouble west point we know you just
fired your last climate scientist sorry about that good idea
(17:08):
good idea good idea as it is changing, species are
literally migrating in the depth and having to figure out
new places to exist where it will actually function with
their biological systems.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Well, and look at some of the, I mean, it
would appear, based on at least the Planet Earth episodes
that I've seen, that some of the most outrageously wild
alien-seeming adaptations come from deep, deep, deep sea-dwelling organisms.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Sure. A lot of it is similar to the problem
with amphibious lifeforms because we always see them as sort
of the ecological canary. They're specially adapted to two different
kinds of environments. So when we're... This is a brilliant
and terrifying point when we're talking about a lot of
(17:59):
maritime life We're talking about things that are adapted to
very specialized circumstances. So anybody who's had a pet octopus knows,
you know, like Matt was saying, salinity, the pH balance
of the water, these things are deal breakers. They're matters
of survival. And as these global ecosystems collapse and technology
(18:24):
continues to progress and we're learning more and more about
the world beneath the waves. As we said in previous
episode on sea serpents, humanity's best chance for discovering new
large species. And I'll say it cryptids, uh, it's inevitably
going to be in the water in those still unexplored oceans.
(18:45):
So let's say we take a break for a word
from our sponsors. We'll talk about what civilization has discovered
quite recently. And we'll ask if, uh, we still have
time to save some of these animals. Here's where it
gets crazy. We were talking about this, Noel, you brought
(19:09):
this story to us recently in Strange News. We have
some great things to report. Humanity has recently acknowledged a vast,
dare say, chasmic lack of knowledge regarding the world beneath
the waves. We know that there's so much history that
humanity is yet to explore. Oceanic life forms tend to
(19:33):
survive when the surface dwellers die, right? Like during the
great extinctions of the past, the planets got blasted, right?
And things persisted beneath the waves. So you may have
heard a headline that we feel is somewhat misleading. And
it says, you know, it says the ocean census has
(19:56):
found 1,212 new species. And sometimes it makes it sound
like they found all of that at once in one day.
That's not the truth.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Cumulatively speaking, right?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah. Yeah. Cumulative research. So we want to give a
shout out to the Nippon foundation, Necton ocean census. Uh,
they have sent out, uh, various expeditions to some of
the world's most remote, least explored waters on the planet. Uh,
can we talk a little bit about the ocean census
(20:34):
and why it's so cool slash strange?
Speaker 3 (20:37):
I think we have to, it was just, I mean,
it makes sense, but the details of it were certainly
new to me. It started relatively recently in 2023, quite recently,
in fact. It is a 10-year global science initiative set
to discover, document, and accelerate the identification of ocean life,
(20:57):
prioritizing expeditions that explore some of the ocean's most undersurveyed
and biodiverse, to your earlier point, Ben, regions. So they're
able to leverage a lot of new techniques and technology,
really doing what old Jules Verne could only dream of,
(21:18):
you know, with what was it called then? The Nautilus, right?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yes. Yes. The Nautilus. This is fascinating because it goes
back to your comparison of space exploration. These scientists are
not just collecting unprecedented data. but they're able to do
really cool stuff with lasers. They're able, you know, like a,
it's like a maritime version of LIDAR basically. And they're
(21:43):
also able to do some very clever collections of DNA
because you know how here on the surface, every living
thing is shedding some part of its cellular structure, right?
At any given point, which is why people leave traces
of DNA everywhere they go. It turns out now we
(22:05):
have the technology to find DNA that has been shed
by creatures traveling through the water. Pretty nuts. You're right.
Jules Verne would have been gaga for this one.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
It totally makes sense. Guys, I'm just thinking back to
those times going and hanging out at the Tennessee Aquarium
and just the... It's tough to even say because you
imagine there's plant matter in the water, there are fish
in the water, other species, maybe even amphibians in some
parts of the aquarium. But the particulate matter inside the water,
(22:39):
you know, if you imagine scooping just a clear glass
into there and holding it up and you could just
see all of the life that's in there. And if
you got a microscope, whoo-hoo, baby. But you don't imagine
that's actually.
You know, from the fins and from the other parts
of the animal's body that's actually just floating there.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
And also because it's the ocean, some of that stuff
is just the detritus from a larger creature. And some
of it is entirely distinct organism.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
It's like a ocean dust. I mean, think about how
much of dust on the surface is skin cells floating around.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
This is why you got to stay hydrated, guys.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah. This is also turning me into a germaphobe. I mean,
when you start thinking about the dust, I mean, oh, geez.
So we know the science here is incredible. Even though
the headlines might be a little misleading, this is astonishing, very,
very cool stuff. A lot of us casual readers, I'll
(23:43):
be honest, me, are disappointed when you hear new species
are discovered and it turns out to be something that's
a slightly different version of a thing we already knew existed,
or it's physically tiny. You know, you'll hear about a
mysterious worm found at the ends of the earth and
you're like, no way was doing real. And then they say,
(24:05):
this amazing creature can grow up to two centimeters. And
you're like, come on, man, that's stuff to do today.
And we want the cryptids, right? We want the big stuff.
Bring on Cthulhu, bring on the Kaiju, right?
Speaker 2 (24:18):
It is true. It is very true. There was one
recently that I think we're even going to mention later
in this episode. And they call it a gossamer worm.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
The name of it is Tomopteris, I think. And it's
this incredible looking creature. And then you realize, oh, it's
0.79 inches to 40 millimeters.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Boom.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And you're just like, ah.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I know.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
It does look. it looks like the kind of thing
you're describing, Ben, where you're like, Oh my God, if
that was huge.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Yeah. Because, uh, there are expert photographers who get the
perfect shot, right. And in, in hyper focus and, you know,
I didn't know we'd say it on tonight's episode, but
we're obviously not here to body shame, newly discovered marine animals.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
You're still incredible. And you're, you're working it.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah. I, I, I guess I kind of, I did
kind of body shame you guys. So this is.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
It's not so much body. It's just size. You know,
I mean, look, we're not saying they're not amazing. We're
just saying they're not, they're not what we're looking for.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah. Big news comes in small packages. Right. And we're,
we're grateful to discover anything we can about the ocean.
But no, I think you nailed it. We're always going
to have that desire to find.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
We want sea monsters.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah. We want Kaiju, man. And, We know that these
expeditions may be the way to find these large creatures
because since, like you said, in 2023 going into 2026,
since that time, these expeditions have gone more than four
miles into the water, four miles deep, 6,575 meters for
(26:07):
the rest of the world. They found all sorts of
cool stuff. they found ghost sharks. I think we were
all excited about the name ghost sharks, right? In strange news.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Cool name.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Ghost sharks were really neat looking, right?
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah. We've got a photo.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Can we describe them?
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah. Okay. So, um, they're not sharks. The name is misleading.
They're kind of shark like, uh, if you look at
some of the photos of specimens of ghost shark that
we already know existed, uh, they've got wonky looking noses
i'll say it how would we do how would we
(26:44):
describe this.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
The one i'm looking at guys it's odd to me
it looks a bit frankensteined there's i don't yeah i'm
looking at the what we would describe as the nose
part near the mouth uh between the eyes and the
mouth and it looks as though it has been attached
there somehow do you see the line there's like a
yeah almost a line running down here. Like it's a
(27:08):
piece of leather that was attached and obviously it's not it,
but it reminds me of one of those things you
would find in, um, the crypto museum kind of thing back.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
In the day.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Mermaid, Barnum and Bailey vibes. Yeah. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Not saying that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
We're not. And we have to realize, you know, just
like the unfortunate blob fish, a lot of these creatures
don't look their best when they're on the surface. You
know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Let's talk about that. One of the biggest problems that
researchers have, and I think we've talked about this in
the past, is that creatures that live at a certain
depth in the ocean, their bodies become more gelatinous, more spongy,
more squishy, because they're dealing with such tremendous pressure down there.
And as soon as any researcher physically attempts to bring
(27:58):
them up just enough to a place, especially if you're
going all the way up to the surface, this isn't
the Benz. This isn't the nitrogen getting in your blood
and all that other stuff. This is the body kind
of doesn't have the pressure anymore.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
So it just kind of droops, just kind of flops.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Well, it's more like, you know how the research vessel
we talked about was going out of the Titanic? The
problem with that is the tremendous pressure squeezed it in.
Imagine something where it's in tremendous pressure and now you
release that pressure. What happens?
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
You see them in their natural habitat. They're good looking.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
No, that's not true either. Well, I mean, for them,
they're still pretty odd looking.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Let's make a reality show where we judge the most
beautiful fish.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
As it is being lifted to the surface, like slowly
and changing.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
That's the final round, right? And then we also have
to have a category for personality and moxie. And if
it's a reality show, then they all have to have
their weird backstories. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (29:07):
I mean, I know we're not exclusively talking about the deep, deep, deep, deep, deep,
deep depth, but because of how extreme those environments are.
you're typically not going to see beauties down there because
they're adapted so specifically. They usually have some pretty gnarly-looking
(29:28):
extrusions or little thingies with lamps hanging on them. Like
the anglerfish, the deep sea.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
100%.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Booty poop guy.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Guys, we talked about one years ago when we first
found out about it through HowStuffWorks research. You're going to
have to correct me if I'm wrong here. Siphonophores? Yes.
It's the things that create giant chains of themselves and
create what looks like, at least to us when we're
observing it, one massive organism. But it's really just... Thousands,
(30:00):
if not hundreds of thousands of these things?
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Yeah, kind of chained together. It's like the question of
how big certain jellyfish can be because some are essentially colonies, right?
Confederacies of smaller organisms. The cynophores are fascinating, right? And
the goose shark, despite not really being a shark, it's
another thing that is, it's like the coelacanth. in how
(30:26):
indicative it is about how little we know regarding the
natural world. Because these guys, these ghost sharks that have
been discovered in Costa Rica and in Australia, they can
range up to just under five feet, which is huge
to remain undiscovered in this day and age. And they also,
(30:48):
as an organism, are literally older than dinosaurs. They've always
been around. humans just didn't know where or how to
look for all of them.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Just I'm imagining being a species that has been around
that long. I mean, obviously a single organism isn't that old, right?
That's not what we're saying. But the DNA and whatever
gets passed down, the more we learn about that, how
DNA does seem to have some things that get passed
down that in some way and form new versions of
(31:20):
that species as they're born to retain something. It's not memory, right?
Not in the same way as that, but it is something.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah. There's a avoidance.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
What do they remember, Ben?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
What do they remember, Matt? What do they remember, Noel
at Tennessee? We do know they're very interesting experiments with
even what we will call low-level organisms, like certain flatworms,
planarian worms, right? You can cut them in half. I
believe these are the ones. You can cut them in
half and they will grow into separate creatures that still
(31:55):
seem to share memories. And again, fast and loose with
memories because what we're talking about is avoiding or seeking
a certain stimulus from their previous life. It's bonkers. I
wish David Attenborough was a guest to explain it to
us here. I know.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Speaking of the giant small things and the difference between
the two and how exciting it is to find one
or the other. There was a discovery. This one was
off the coast of Brazil of Rosarians. And these are
single cell organisms. But they found a version of these
(32:37):
guys that were large enough for the naked eye, the
naked human eye to observe them. And that doesn't mean
the human naked eye observed them. It was a camera
on a submersible that observed them. But it was large
enough to where it's not... You didn't need a microscope
to see a single cell. A single cell organism was
so big you could see it. That is mind-boggling to me.
(32:59):
And just the fact that that can exist down there
without our knowledge, right? Until somebody built a thing that
could go down to that depth and look at it
with optics. That... That gives me chills in a way
because it just doesn't it just make you imagine there
really could be anything down there.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yes, really good. That's the thing. It's now everything is
on the table, the water table, whatever. We'll keep it
like you were saying about the siphonophore. That is technically caveat,
like you said. That is the world's longest sea creature.
(33:39):
Only in 2020 did scientists find this guy that was
45 meters long. Fellow Americans, that means this bad boy
is over 147 feet long. Or a collection of bad boys.
I don't know what the group name for a siphonophore is.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Ooh.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
A suction of siphonophores? No.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Let's go with it.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
As long as it's alliterative, that's all I care about.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
There we go. But again, you know, we're not, we're
not poopooing the small stuff because as, as we said earlier,
some of the strangest physically smallest discoveries are the most
impressive because they're so alien to life on the surface,
you know, like the, the symbiotic worm that was discovered
(34:27):
in the ocean senses. I'm going to mess up the
Latin here, but Dalhousiella yabuki, discovered off the coast of
Japan last year, 2025. It lives inside another organism, a
glass sponge. It's got a skeleton made of crystalline silica.
That sounds very anime to me.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
What?
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Wait, hold on.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
What is this guy?
Speaker 1 (34:54):
It's a newly discovered symbiotic worm. They're careful not to
call it a parasite, but the Ibuki sounds like a
folklore tale, right? It sounds like a myth. It lives
inside a glass sponge, which they sometimes call a glass castle.
It's a wonky-looking little guy. If you pull up the
(35:16):
picture here, even though the story sounds romantic and fairytale-esque,
it's not exactly Cinderella.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Whoa, it's almost shrimp-like, almost centipede-like.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Ooh, fascinating creature.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
It's got the definitely picture of burrowing into your nasal
cavity and laying eggs inside you.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
You could kind of see the guts too.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
It's like the thing they pull out of Neo with the,
you know what I'm talking about? He goes and gets interrogated.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Suck it out. Whoa, that is, Ben, there's another one
that I saw. It's the same creature. I was just
talking about it. The Schmidt Ocean Institute's Falkor II research
vessel did a thing earlier this year in Brazil, and
they found something that they called larvaceans, tadpole-like larvaceans. And
(36:15):
these things build balloon-like houses out of mucus that they
use to trap the little, like the dust you were
talking about, Ben, the little food, the particles that just
float by. Yeah, yeah. they balloon their house thing out
of mucus and they're just like.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Oh, there we go.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Got our food now.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Incredible.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Like how in the heck did you get that? How
did you figure that out? What, what, what series of
events led you to the first version of that? That
was like, Oh, this guy blows mucus houses. He's really
doing well for himself.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
This guy's got it figured out. Yeah. That's, that's always the, uh,
the most confounding part of evolution is we understand it.
Like how many, mutations did that take, you know, like seriously,
was there, was there one guy who just had a
bunch of mucus and then millions of years later, somebody
else was like, oh, I can shape it. I can
(37:09):
blow bubbles with this thing.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
I'm playing a lot of, uh, uh, Splatoon Raiders, which
is very nautical themed. And one of these powers that
you have is to create these balloons that then chain together.
And then you can explode one of them and it
causes a chain reaction and explodes all of them. And
it covers everything in like, you know, ink, AKA mucus.
It seems related. Wonder if they were inspired. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
That's, that's something that could inspire our new friends underwater
as well. Uh, again, any underwater denizens we're on your team.
Don't come for us. Uh, we, we also know, um,
this is only the beginning, the ocean census in particular,
but like we said, many other initiatives. they are proving
something so inspiring and aspirational when humanity collectively combines, right?
(38:02):
When humanity puts aside its surface level differences, it can
learn so much more than at any other point in
established history. It's like the beginning of the $ 6 million
man TV show where we can use technology to build
him faster, better, stronger. Wait, nope, that's Daft Punk.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
No, no. That's what it's from.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Oh, okay. All right. We got there.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
We have the technology.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
But it is not all, of course, dolphin whistles and
sirens singing. Let's say we take a break for a
word from our sponsors and get back with a quote
from our friends at Oceanographic Magazine.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
And we're back. So, Ben, you mentioned Oceanographic magazine. They
have a really good take on all of this underwater diversity. Historically,
the average time between a species' initial collection and its
formal description in scientific literature has been 13.5 years, a
delay so severe that species routinely face extinction before they're
(39:15):
even catalogued. So, yeah, that's a very interesting way of
looking at it. It did not occur to me at all.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Just the idea that we can find these things. I guess,
should we talk about why? Because we only know about
most of these creatures because of submersible technology. Because humans
cannot go to these depths, and when we attempt to,
it often ends in disaster. Again, see the submersible we
mentioned before. Even in massive ship's that are built specifically
(39:52):
to go deep in the water. Ben, I'm thinking about
Ohio-class submarines, the nuclear submarines, that I think officially on paper,
they can go up to 800 feet in depth, but
the other classified depths that Ohio-class submarines have reached, we
can't know about. We don't know how deep that submarine
(40:13):
can go safely or maybe not safely. But that's a
military ship. you know, that costs good God who knows
how much, and it's going to be used for military things, like,
you know, sneakily having a nuclear arsenal posted right outside
of somebody's backyard in the ocean. But we don't use
(40:34):
the money and resources for ocean exploration, right? There are
specific one-offs that an institution, an organization, maybe multiple working together,
may build some specific things, like you mentioned James Cameron earlier,
but we really don't put the money in to even
get to these depths. And even if you do, imagine
(40:56):
in a submersible, as we talked about the problem with
raising a fish to different pressures, you're taking imagery if
you can, right? If you actually gain visibility through lights
and optics, you're maybe scanning in a couple different ways.
Unless there is serious innovation, which there has been some,
(41:17):
and we're going to talk about it, But unless there's
serious innovation, it's really hard to fully classify a thing
and get a tissue sample of some sort to the
surface to then say, hey, this DNA is different than
the three other versions of siphonophores that we've seen before.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
But isn't it also a case of, and I'm not
entirely blaming the current administration on its own, but it
just seems like pure science has become less and less
prioritized if it's not like a moneymaker.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah, it's difficult. Like some of the, um, you know,
there's a terribly problematic film, uh, with Sean Connery back
in the day called medicine man or something like that.
And it's all about how, uh, private industry began funding
explorations into very biodiverse areas of the Amazon, not for
(42:06):
pure science, but because certain medicines, certain traditional medicines or
certain plants, uh, could be leveraged into profitable pharmaceuticals. So there's,
you know, there are, that's the tricky thing, right? We're
asking people who are already strapped for cash or in
the case of governments have wildly differing priorities. We're saying, hey,
(42:30):
give us hundreds of millions of dollars. to learn more
about the world around us. And they say, okay, what's
our ROI? And we say, well, there might be a
new kind of squid. We could call it, we give
it a cool name. We call it vampire squid. You know,
like that's cool, right?
Speaker 3 (42:47):
What else you got? Can we weaponize its brains? Can
we turn its ink into some sort of, you know,
mass produced ink? you know, medicine.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Chromatophores could help us with camouflage, General.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
That's fair. Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Okay, I'm listening. I'm listening.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I'll tell you what. Why don't you go out on
your research vessel? Here's a lot of money. The only
thing you have to do is strap this to the
bottom of your ship. What it's going to do is
scan for oil deposits.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Yeah. Okay? Cool.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Whatever you find along the way, fair game.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Fair game. And also, we just got a call from marketing.
We are going to have to put some Nestle signage
on the side of the sub. No. They're very into it.
It's like NASCAR rules. NASCAR rules. So we've talked about
this stunning quote, right? The idea that you can capture
(43:43):
something like Darwin did on the Beagle. Fun fact about
Darwin from our pal Jack over at Daily Zeitgeist. Darwin
prided himself on eating one specimen of everything he discovered.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (43:59):
It's a different time.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Just in case.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Just in case.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
This one's delicious.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Because what if it is delicious? You know what I mean?
Now we've got another business, another community.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
What if there's only one of them? Don't care.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Don't care.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Gotta eat it.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
It's the rules.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
It's my personal code.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Right. A man's gotta have a code. So it reminds
us a little bit of earlier studies in insect populations.
a long-acknowledged fact about insects is that humanity has no
idea how many different insects are out there. And a
lot of them, just like amphibians, are highly specialized. They
(44:41):
are inevitably going to go extinct before humans can ID them,
document them, get the little, what do you call that
when you pin an animal? You know, like lepidopterists and
butterflies and stuff?
Speaker 3 (44:55):
I think it's just called pinning.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Oh, okay. I was going to say taxidermy, but that's
not right. Guys, I had a moment of that just
to step away for a second. I had to move
a bunch of firewood on my property last night. And,
you know, you put gloves on to be safe. Make
sure you cover your body if you're moving wood that's
been stacked up for a while because there's a particular
(45:17):
spider that I was worried about here in Georgia. Can
you guess what it was?
Speaker 3 (45:20):
A brown recluse.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Freaking... Guys... I swear to you, I saw one jump
off one of these just little pieces of firewood and
it scared the living crap out of me. And I
just imagine what is the brown recluse of the water
in the ocean out there that were the, you know, the, the,
the one snake that if it bites you like, uh.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
It rots your flesh from the outside. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Oh, What's the river one around here? I can't, it's,
it's a scary.
Speaker 3 (45:50):
The Kanduru. The one that swims inside your pee hole? No,
that's different. That's in the Amazon.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Water moccasin.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Water moccasin. Oh, also another cool fact. This is brutal.
Speaking of Mad Max stuff, guys, I just learned that
there are some octopuses that will follow around poisonous jellyfish
and they'll rip off the stinger arms of the jellyfish
and they'll use them like whips. No way. That's intense.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
That's like some Castlevania stuff.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
I know.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
That's so cool. And we also, we were asking, we've
got more animal discoveries we want to get to. But,
you know, the 20,000 league question here is whether any
large living and still undiscovered sea creatures could exist. The
good news is, like we've established, it is totally possible
(46:42):
that Some of our likely candidates are invertebrates, big jellyfish,
or to gross out people like my girlfriend who is
making a face as we record this, huge eel-like things
that persist in the deep abyssal plains because they don't
need that much energy. As the pressure is rising and
(47:06):
you get further and further down into the ocean, you
will see lower energy available outside of, uh, hydrothermal vents.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
As in there's fewer things to consume, right? As we're saying,
like you less food to actually eat.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Ooh. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
So then the adaptation would be, then I guess we
need less to eat now.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Or we need to move less frequently. So I just
kind of lay there, you know, and hope something comes
by and then I kill it. And it's, uh, you know, it's,
it's a living.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Did I mention I'm the size of a bus?
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Just kidding. Just kidding.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
A couple things about me. Size of a bus. I
don't know what those are, but they're about my size.
So there's something else we didn't talk about in our
previous underwater explorations. Underwater caves. Guys, remember how not too
long ago in Thailand, a group of kids got stranded
in a cave exploration activity, and they had to have
(48:08):
very seasoned underwater spelunkers rescue them. Elon Musk was also involved.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Yeah, he was real humble about it too, if I recall.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Yeah, he was kind of off in his tone. Did
they get out? Yes, yes, the majority did. But this
was an introduction to the fascinating and terrifying world of
underwater spelunking. And so we already established we don't know
(48:39):
much about the seafloor itself. We know even less about
what's under the seafloor. Back in 2023, scientists went 8,200
feet into the ocean, and they explored these caverns they
had never seen before, totally filled with water. They're underneath
hydrothermal vents, and they didn't find Atlantis. They didn't find Lemuria,
(49:02):
but they found snails and worms and all kinds of
strange bacteria.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
Oh, my.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yeah, right. It's life where we thought, no life could
exist at all, much less thrive.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Man, that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Underwater caves, you guys.
Speaker 4 (49:18):
I remember.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
when I first read in National Geographic about the hydrothermal
vents and all the... What was it? There's sulfur that
can be used in specific ways.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
That's right. I was thinking there was some kind of
like fuel use or, you know, material that could be harnessed. Yeah,
that's the one.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Well, just the way specifically as younger guy brain that
existed in here, the way it started to think about
the possibilities and how that opened the door for, oh
my God, life could persist in a whole bunch of
different ways that I... My little imagination couldn't even begin
(49:59):
to think about. It reminds me of the first time, Ben,
when was it? It was a long time ago we
talked about life that could be based on something other
than carbon, like silicon-based life.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
And how that changed our viewpoint.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
I'm like, whoa. Yeah, because the same kinds of deep
sea vents that exist in Earth's ocean may exist in
on moons of other planets in our solar system, right?
Like Europa, I think, is one of those.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
And science is starting to realize that, oh gosh, Neptune
and some of these gas giants that we think are
fully just gas giants may not be that. We just
haven't had the ability to observe them on the levels
of like what's beneath that part. Is there a solid bit?
Are there massive solid bits on these things?
Speaker 3 (50:50):
And what could be there?
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
What's under there?
Speaker 1 (50:54):
And that's the beauty of this science. I mean, we
could argue the difference between pure science and applied science
all the live long evening, but it is, I think
we can all agree, absolutely worthwhile, especially when we realize
these new discoveries that we've been talking about, they're barely
a drop in the chum bucket because the same experts
(51:17):
who are world-class, bleeding-edge boffins into these investigations are They
all also openly acknowledge that up to 90% of marine
species have yet to be discovered.
Speaker 3 (51:30):
And is it weird that when you said Chum Bucket,
I immediately got hungry? Because Chum Bucket equals Krusty Krab
equals Krabby Patty, and I don't know what it actually is, but.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
It looks good. I don't know. I remember SpongeBob.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
The Chum Bucket is the rival restaurant that is run
by Plankton, the little megalomaniacal villain of the world. But
he's always trying to get the secret recipe for the
Krabby Patty. Again, is it beef? Is it crab? I
don't know. But it's a really tasty looking cartoon burger. Hey,
(52:04):
quick shout out.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Quick shout out if you want to hear Mr. Krabs.
Go ahead and listen to season three of 13 Days
of Halloween.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Clancy Brown.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
That's right. Yes, yes. Well done. And Clancy Brown does
an amazing job on that. E.P. by our own Matt
Frederick and good friend of the show, Alex Williams. Please do.
Please do check that one out. Oh, man, I forgot.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Written for by our very own Benjamin Bowen.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I did like one episode, but it was.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
I know you did.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
It's a fantastic story. Shout out to our Nicholas Takowski
as well. So even now, in 2026, there are constant
reports of human encounters with unidentified forms of life. And
just like UFOs, a lot might be hoaxes, a lot
might be good old-fashioned misidentification. But I want to believe,
(52:57):
you guys, I so want to believe that there's a
sea serpent out there. Not a siphonophore, but like, you know,
an actual sea serpent.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
I'd be down to know that it exists and it
would be fascinating and incredible, but I do not want
it lurking in my vicinity. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Even like behind glass in a huge aquarium?
Speaker 3 (53:17):
Yeah, that'd be fine. Just not, you know, in my
dreams under the water.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Well, I think we might actually get there, guys. We're
at least taking steps. It just takes us to a
couple of pretty recent news stories out of this year.
And we're going to talk specifically about a delightfully named thing.
We already mentioned in this episode, the Schmidt Ocean Institute's FALCOR2, T-O-O,
research vessel. So FALCOR! FALCOR!
Speaker 1 (53:45):
We've been going on that never-ending story.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
Never-ending story. Shout out. Great movie.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
And we just made a realization that my very white dog,
Looks so much like Falcor, you guys. We're lovingly referring
to her as Falcor now.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
I technically named my Honda Fit, my white Honda Fit, Falcor.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (54:05):
Ben might recall that because he suggested that I name it,
and that's what I came up with.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
I'm laughing at the very formal tone there, Noel, because
it sounded like a legal deposition. I technically... Name my Honda.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
No, no, I just didn't come up often, but I did.
There was a moment where you were fond of naming things,
and when I first got that car, you suggested that
I name it, and that is the name that I chose.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
That's so cool, man.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Well, the researchers at the Schmidt Ocean Institute also did that.
They also have something, a remotely operated vehicle that comes
off of that Falkor vehicle called the Sub-Astian, the Sub-Astian. Stop, stop, stop.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
Those Schmiddies, they're always cracking up.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
Well, they partook in several expeditions that included teams of
international scientists. They would bring people on basically from wherever
they were. So they would go to a place like,
in this case, off the coast of Brazil, bring a
bunch of people there to the South Atlantic Ocean, to
the tropical midwaters, and they would go and search for
(55:11):
new species. And they found all kinds of stuff. And
it's not just because they had A submersible, again, with
optics that they could go through and look. And you
could watch some of this often, by the way. You
can watch some of the live streaming. You can watch
videos of some of these new species being discovered with
the optics. But they had other new tech that allowed
them to get a better picture, a better view. And,
(55:33):
you know, in the end, a little piece of some
of these animals to study. I just want to go
over some of this tech because, hopefully... We will see
more of this and innovations to these specific techs and
to new versions, right, that are massive improvements. There's this
thing called the DeepPIV or Particle Image Velocimetry. Velocimetry?
Speaker 3 (55:56):
That sounds good.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
Velocimetry. V-E-L-O-C-I-M-E-T-R-Y. I don't know why I can't say that word. Anyway,
they had something called the IRIS, the E-Y-E-R-I-S or Remote
Imaging System. These were developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute, which I didn't even know was a thing, guys.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
These would create 3D images of the creatures with lasers,
so like scan the creature, so you don't actually have
to go in there and manipulate it, pick it up,
or return it to the surface. You just 3D scan
that sucker, and you can create a model of it,
and then study the model, which is... It's really good
because it's non-invasive, right, to these... possibly extremely rare species
(56:43):
that you're encountering, which, you know, and you're not Darwin,
so you're not going to take a bite, which is good.
They had a thing called a shadow graph camera developed
by the Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology.
And this captures super high contrast silhouettes, which is really interesting.
And when you take a picture with this thing, you
(57:05):
can see, you know, we're talking about the particles in
the water. Imagine there are some smaller things that you
cannot see with just some light shining out from a
couple of sources on that submersible. You take a picture
with this and you can see just the shadowy background
of things and new things that you can't even physically observe,
(57:25):
which is super cool. There's a bunch of other stuff, guys.
In particular, the non-destructive methods of research are amazing because
it reminds me that Was that orb we've talked about
on the show before? There's an orb in the Alien
series that, oh, what is that?
Speaker 3 (57:47):
The one they shoot into the caves and it maps
it from the inside?
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
The scientists were real dumb other than their ability to
wield those things. But yeah, that was one of the takeaways.
Those were pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
I'm imagining that kind of tech.
Speaker 3 (58:00):
Prometheus is with, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Yes, Prometheus.
Speaker 3 (58:02):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (58:03):
I'm imagining that kind of tech that you could release
in the ocean, guys. It might be super invasive for
the creatures, right? Shooting lasers everywhere and maybe some sonar
or something. But if you could just let it scan
an area of the ocean floor like that, or in
this case, the mid-ocean somewhere, and just see what all's there.
And just have a map you could look at.
Speaker 3 (58:25):
I kind of wonder. I mean, I don't know if
you guys know this. You probably do. But our phones
using LiDAR... can actually like scan a room. Like there
are apps you can use that'll utilize LIDAR to actually
literally create like a map of the interior of a room.
And I think I heard this from that dude, Curry Barker,
who made that movie Obsession. He was saying that he
(58:47):
used that on his phone to kind of create spaces
that he would then use to kind of come up
with ideas for sets for his film. It's also cameras.
that can use, it's almost like two-way light optics or
something that can literally create, it can see behind objects.
(59:08):
So I just gotta believe that with optics with where
we are with that kind of stuff that there would
be some non-invasive way of doing exactly what you're describing
because i've always thought when i heard about that lidar
thing and then the camera thing um like the camera
thing you can actually like change exposure after the fact
you can do all kinds of stuff beyond just, you know, touch-ups.
(59:29):
There would have to be a thing. I always think
about that exact thing you're talking about, the little orbs
that map the caves in Alien, Prometheus. So let's see
what happens, man. I think we've got to be close.
Speaker 1 (59:40):
Sure. I mean, the technology is our way in.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
Ben, I'm sure that LiDAR technology on our phones is
not being used for anything nefarious right now as we speak.
I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure nobody is using that
to map places just with the phones.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
Guys, everything is so great.
Speaker 3 (59:55):
I feel good.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
Yeah, 10-10. No notes. I mean, this is something that
we're probably going to return to in the future. There's
even more we have to get to, but we do
want to tell you that the Ocean Census is just
getting started. You mentioned earlier, this is a 10-year initiative.
(01:00:16):
By 2033, they aim to discover at least 100,000 new
species in the oceans alone. And It's ambitious, but I
hope they pull it off. And I hope one of
the things they discover is a gigantic sea serpent. I'll
say it. Just, you know, Leviathan. Some kind of kraken, perhaps.
Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
We didn't really discuss this. I'm with you, Ben, but
doesn't it seem unlikely or less likely that that's going
to be the case and more likely they're just going
to keep finding really, really small things that we missed?
Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
100%. It's very unlikely. It's like the Jets getting a
big win for all the sports fans out there.
Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Apparently the Jets suck. I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Well, we don't want to ruffle too many feathers or—
Flip too many fins, which maybe works. I don't know
how underwater humor is. But we do have to shout
out a little bit delayed here, folks. A holiday that
I think we should start celebrating every year going forward. Guys,
(01:01:19):
did you know August 7th is National Sea Serpent Day?
Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
For sure, Ben. And you know what? We can celebrate
that on the high seas ourselves. Do a little sea
serpent watching on the deck of the valiant lady as
we take to the high seas for the Stuff at
Sea Virgin Voyages cruise.
Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
October 2nd through the 7th, we're joining forces with our
friends at Stuff You Should Know and Stuff Mom Never
Told You, and most importantly... you, folks, so please hang
out with us as we go on excursions around the ship.
We'll do live shows. We'll have adventures. We can't wait
to see you there.
Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Just search Stuff at Sea. It's that simple.
Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Do it now. And there we have it, friends and neighbors.
The next horizon of exploration might not be outer space
just yet. When it comes to bizarre biology, everything we
are learning about the ocean proves, hey, we might just
have aliens at home. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.
There's any number of ways to hit us up. Well, three.
Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
That's any number. There's two if you want to try
us on social media. It's either the Conspiracy Stuff handle
or the Conspiracy Stuff Show handle. Said that differently. Fine
with it.
Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Yes, and we have a phone number. It is 1-833-STD-WYTK.
Can you think of any innovations for studying the ocean
and all of its inhabitants? If you do have an idea,
call in, give us a cool nickname, and let us
know if we can use your name and message on
the air. It'll show up in one of our listener
mail episodes, potentially. If you want to send us an email,
we are.
Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
The entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive
be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back. Please, please, please,
as a personal favor to us, send us your favorite
weird fact about an animal that lives in the ocean.
We can't wait to be surprised. We'll see you out
here in the dark. conspiracy at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
They called me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Dylan, the Tennessee pal fake, and most importantly,
you are you. You are here. That makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. And guys, I
gotta tell you, super excited about this one. I don't
know if, I'm sure it's a common experience, but one
(00:52):
of my foundational memories has always been visiting aquariums you
know when it's when you're in the dark and you've
got these huge glass panels of nothing but blue and
creatures you would never see otherwise I we've got a
good aquarium in Atlanta as.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Well and it's funny my girlfriend's coming to visit and
I suggested we go to the aquarium and she said
absolutely not I'm an adult I said no really.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
It's good I promise oh it's like the best it's
a good one especially for For us curious folk that
remember being a kid, guys, I have super fond memories
of going to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
That was the place to go to before Atlanta built
that giant one with the whale sharks and stuff. That
was the place. And if I recall correctly, isn't there
a river area in the Tennessee Aquarium where... Gosh. I
specifically have memories of that, but I couldn't... describe it
to you right now, but my brain, when I think
(01:57):
about fish, goes to that aquarium.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
They have otters.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
And otters, yes. And you start at the top and
you wend your way down. Yes. The Atlanta Aquarium is
wonderful as well. We know that some aquariums can be
pretty problematic, right, up there with zoos, but the Chattanooga
and the Atlanta Aquarium are exceptional, and you can visit
(02:21):
these things to have a kind of encounter with the ocean,
with the ink, with the brine, with the deep, and
you probably won't experience thalassophobia. Our word of the day, thalassophobia.
It's something we talked about before without the specific definition.
It is the persistent and intense fear of deep, vast,
(02:45):
or dark bodies of water, like open ocean, sea, or lakes.
And I think a Noel, not to put you on
the spot, but I remember a few years back you
said this was one of your big fears.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Oh, yeah, just massive things lurking beneath the waves. I
have recurring dreams about not necessarily like being devoured or
being attacked or anything or shark attacked or whatever, but
something about a thing that is so huge that you
can't see really freaks me out.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Well, yeah, it's our imaginations, right? A lot of those
fears that we talk about end up being our own
imagination playing out across whatever the thing is.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
That's why Jaws is better when you don't see the shark.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, Hitchcock was right. It's the monster off screen, right?
Your imagining will almost always be more frightening than the
thing that you see because seeing something is very close
to defining it, right? So the unknown carries such weight
and foresight thousands, thousands of years, even before the written word,
(03:49):
humanity had a very strange relationship with the water. It
continues today. It's beautiful. It's vast. It's poetic. It's dangerous.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
It's terrifying.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
It's unpredictable. And recently in our strange news program, we
learned about some collaborative and technological breakthroughs that have revolutionized
human understanding of the world beneath the waves and That's
what we're doing tonight. Put on your cryptic cap, folks.
Hop in the aquarium with us. Hold your breath. Hail Cthulhu.
(04:22):
Let's dive in. Here are the facts. We can agree
the ocean is amazing. And if you are listening to
this and you live on the surface, you are in
the minority of life on Earth.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
29% of it.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Right? Roughly.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, 71% of the entirety of Earth is covered in water.
That's something like 360 million square kilometers, or in freedom units,
139 million square miles. It's a lot of miles.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, so many America lakes, or gulfs. Did you guys see,
freaking Google immediately changed it to Lake of America. Come on.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Really?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Anyway, different episode.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Check Google Maps.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
They got a guy.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
They got a guy.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Google right now.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
We need to be more creative, man. Come on.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
That's my main beef.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
It's like so on the nose.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
I mean, how many things can have the same or
similar names?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I saw a really funny response in some sort of
post about it where someone was like, next thing you know,
it'll be giving people directions like left turn on America Street,
you know, take a quick turn through Americaville and then,
you know, you're in America Berg.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Anyway, it's. Yeah. And you know what? while you're on
the internet, folks, to get a sense of the scale
of the ocean, after you check out all the things
being named America, do check out Point Nemo. This is
the furthest point from the land that we go up.
The middle of the openest of oceans. You can get
(06:06):
the coordinates 48 degrees south, 120 degrees west. It goes on.
But depending on, this is a cool fact, depending on
the orbit of the International Space Station. If you were
at Point Nemo, you could literally be closer to astronauts
than you are to other humans on the planet.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
And Ben, you're going to make some Jules Verne refs
a little later, but I think this has got to
be one, right? Captain Nemo? Point Nemo?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yes, yes. Captain Nemo. Man, I loved that. I love that.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Ben, which ocean is Point Nemo in?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Point Nemo is in the Pacific.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Basically between New Zealand and Chile, kind of. That's where
I'm imagining it looks. That's where I would call Point Nemo.
I didn't look at the coordinates.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
South Pacific Ocean. So if you're in Santiago and you
have a lot of time on your hands, then you
can sail out there, but it's like a 10 to
15 day journey, even in a modern watercraft. You could
maybe have an airplane travel over but it would be
(07:14):
starving for fuel, and you would have to literally jump
from the plane, and unless some friendly humans or dolphins intervened,
you would soon die from a lack of food, drinkable water,
or shelter. Or, of course, you know, something might come
up from below and take a chop on you.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Dude, just to stay on Google Maps for a moment,
one of the only things that keeps me on this
app or this website nowadays is looking at some of
the updated scans, like the deep water scans of the
ocean where you can actually see where a satellite or,
you know, some type of research vessel has gone across
(07:57):
one little strip of the ocean. And you can actually
see what looks like the topography somewhat, or, you know,
at least the, the, depth, the actual depth and what
the ocean floor looks like, at least allegedly according to
the scientists, but you know, it is super cool to
see that. And there is one, there's one of these
(08:19):
been right by point Nemo on Google maps.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I mean, because it's, it's almost like a tourist destination
for our fellow ocean nerds. And I love that you're
bringing up this point because we can get conspiratorial really quickly.
Check out our, Earlier episode on whether sonar is killing
marine animals. I think we were all astonished to learn. Well,
(08:43):
maybe not astonished. We were all saddened to consider the
idea that some world governments know more about the seafloor
than they're letting the public learn because of, you know,
wars and various unpleasant activities, resource extraction.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Underwater cables.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Underwater cables, yeah. We got to also mention, this might
be counterintuitive, but it's another fun fact. Just like life
on the surface, life in the ocean is not evenly distributed.
Oceans have deserts, which can be a confusing concept, but
we're talking about these vast stretches of nutrient-poor regions with
(09:29):
very little biodiversity. And those regions are expanding and shifting
as we record so parts of the ocean are just
functionally kind of abandoned is how it would feel if
you were.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
There yeah there's a warming waters guys and ocean acidification
don't worry about it it's fine we're all gonna be
fine I'm.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Worried about it Matt don't tell me not to worry
about it I worry It's fine. Don't think it's fine.
It doesn't feel fine, guys.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Well, we're a little salty about the ocean. Let's say
it that way. Yeah. It's not to say the ocean
is overall a desolate place. Even now, it's quite the opposite.
We know that the world's oceanic systems hold the highest,
higher level biological diversity on the planet. So we've got
something like 34 million major animal phyla that we know
(10:21):
about as civilization. 32 of those are in the water
and a lot of life forms exist entirely in the oceans.
Like the octopus, super duper smart, not on land. Thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Landopus. No, man.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
No, thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
And if you're listening, uh, octopuses, uh, go, you guys don't,
don't come for us.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Keep doing your thing.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
It's cool. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
We got this up here.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, we'll just stay up in the other 29%. That
70-something is all you. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
We got a few more decades before it's unlivable on
the surface. So enjoy the deep.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Well, it's also interesting how deep, deep, deep, deep sea
exploration is nigh on as dangerous as space exploration.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Oh, God.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Like, I mean, look what happened with the, what was
the name of that PlayStation joystick-controlled craft that that venture
capitalist guy killed all those billionaires in?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Deepwater Horizon. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
No, I was going to say the same thing, Matt,
so thank you for that. Don't worry about that. You
got James Cameron of Terminator fame, and also, I mean,
just really one of the top guys when it comes
to exploring really, really, really deep hard to reach places
like the Marianas Trench. And, you know, the design of
these crafts is just as crucial in terms of stability
(11:52):
and air tightness as a spacecraft because the pressure down
there is insane. You know, it can like absolutely, if
there's some sort of breach, it can, I believe what
happened with that craft we're talking about was it more
or less imploded.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, that's the Ocean Gates Titan. submersible and was exploring
the Titanic, right? Which is why they called it the Titan. Um,
fortunately all five people on there lost their lives.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I wasn't meaning to make light of any loss of life.
It was almost promoted the same way as we're seeing
space tourism being promoted. There's a luxury, some sort of
fun thing that the super rich can get into. This
one was quite the grift in that the dude had
not really done his homework and was going against a
lot of recommendations from folks who said, no, you really
(12:39):
shouldn't build it out of this carbon fiber stuff. He
just wanted to get it done and get his idea
off the ground. uh, and it, you know, ended in tragedy.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, because it is, I mean, space exploration is a
really solid comparison because both, uh, the ink of the
heavens and the ink of the briny deep call to us, right?
They call to land lubber civilization. Um, we're essentially, we're
saying to put a cap on it, the ocean is huge.
(13:12):
And even now, as we record on, uh, the end
of August, 2026, nobody really knows the full extent of
what lives there, what did live there and went extinct.
We don't have any full history of how surface dwellers
interacted with the ocean over time. So if you are
(13:32):
a surface dwelling biological organism, you're probably at some point
going to be baffled by realizing that way back in
the day, your ancestors came from the sea. no matter
who you are, it's, it's so evolution is such a trip.
Do you guys remember aquatic ape theory? Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
It made so much sense to me specifically because I,
I love the water so much. So personally, aquatic ape
theory felt like one of those, Oh, obviously I'm.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
A strong swimmer. Makes sense.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
But, but don't you guys kind of feel like weirdly
differently alive in the water sometimes? I don't know if
you guys get that ever, but like, Sometimes you step
out into that ocean. There is that moment which we
can kind of compare to that feeling that we've talked about.
What was the thing, Ben, when you get into orbit
(14:27):
for the first time and you look down at Earth?
The overview effect. The overview. But it's not the same
as that, but it's similar, especially if you're a place
where you look out and it's just endless ocean for
your point of view. There's something similar.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Also a certain amount of danger associated with it. Like,
I think it used to freak me out, but now
it kind of makes me feel alive. Like, you know,
you could get stung by a jellyfish or caught up
in a riptide or, you know, eaten by a shark.
And you sort of have to just make peace with
that idea to a certain degree or live in fear.
and never step foot in the ocean. So I think
(15:01):
there's sort of, it's a twofold thing, but I totally
see what you're saying, Matt.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
I mean, it's there. We have to figure out more, right?
We're naturally inquisitive creatures, and we know that things are
not going super great for a lot of wildlife on
the surface, unfortunately. That is true for higher order animals
or all animals in Earth's oceans as well. Humans have
(15:25):
done a lot of dirt down there. Plastics are everywhere.
Plastics are in places now that humans have yet to reach, right?
You're a cutting edge oceanographer. You're diving under the surface
of some frozen lake in Antarctica and all of a
sudden you see like a plastic water bottle.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Not even to mention the microplastics. They're so small and
there's so much of it that it could travel thousands
and thousands of miles.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And then, you know, unfamiliar or toxic chemicals, oil spills
left and right, the sonar, the noise. Guys, the way
I think about it, especially knowing what we know now
about non-human intelligence, it feels like the orca, the cetaceans,
the octopuses, they're kind of in a Mad Max situation. right?
(16:15):
In the oceans, like the resources are growing more and
more scarce. The challenges to reproduction are growing more and
more apparent. It's just, it's tough out there.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
One thing we learned, like one of the most, well,
there are two most important things about living in the ocean.
One of them is the salinity of whatever particular part
of the ocean you're in. The other one is the temperature.
And often the way those things are changed by a
species that hangs out in the ocean is depth right
(16:47):
so it's usually temperature and pressure is like what you're
dealing with if when you're on the surface of the
water or down in the deep depths and there's a
nice little scale basically on those things and as i'm
gonna say it guys as the climate is changing don't
get me in trouble west point we know you just
fired your last climate scientist sorry about that good idea
(17:08):
good idea good idea as it is changing, species are
literally migrating in the depth and having to figure out
new places to exist where it will actually function with
their biological systems.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Well, and look at some of the, I mean, it
would appear, based on at least the Planet Earth episodes
that I've seen, that some of the most outrageously wild
alien-seeming adaptations come from deep, deep, deep sea-dwelling organisms.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Sure. A lot of it is similar to the problem
with amphibious lifeforms because we always see them as sort
of the ecological canary. They're specially adapted to two different
kinds of environments. So when we're... This is a brilliant
and terrifying point when we're talking about a lot of
(17:59):
maritime life We're talking about things that are adapted to
very specialized circumstances. So anybody who's had a pet octopus knows,
you know, like Matt was saying, salinity, the pH balance
of the water, these things are deal breakers. They're matters
of survival. And as these global ecosystems collapse and technology
(18:24):
continues to progress and we're learning more and more about
the world beneath the waves. As we said in previous
episode on sea serpents, humanity's best chance for discovering new
large species. And I'll say it cryptids, uh, it's inevitably
going to be in the water in those still unexplored oceans.
(18:45):
So let's say we take a break for a word
from our sponsors. We'll talk about what civilization has discovered
quite recently. And we'll ask if, uh, we still have
time to save some of these animals. Here's where it
gets crazy. We were talking about this, Noel, you brought
(19:09):
this story to us recently in Strange News. We have
some great things to report. Humanity has recently acknowledged a vast,
dare say, chasmic lack of knowledge regarding the world beneath
the waves. We know that there's so much history that
humanity is yet to explore. Oceanic life forms tend to
(19:33):
survive when the surface dwellers die, right? Like during the
great extinctions of the past, the planets got blasted, right?
And things persisted beneath the waves. So you may have
heard a headline that we feel is somewhat misleading. And
it says, you know, it says the ocean census has
(19:56):
found 1,212 new species. And sometimes it makes it sound
like they found all of that at once in one day.
That's not the truth.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Cumulatively speaking, right?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah. Yeah. Cumulative research. So we want to give a
shout out to the Nippon foundation, Necton ocean census. Uh,
they have sent out, uh, various expeditions to some of
the world's most remote, least explored waters on the planet. Uh,
can we talk a little bit about the ocean census
(20:34):
and why it's so cool slash strange?
Speaker 3 (20:37):
I think we have to, it was just, I mean,
it makes sense, but the details of it were certainly
new to me. It started relatively recently in 2023, quite recently,
in fact. It is a 10-year global science initiative set
to discover, document, and accelerate the identification of ocean life,
(20:57):
prioritizing expeditions that explore some of the ocean's most undersurveyed
and biodiverse, to your earlier point, Ben, regions. So they're
able to leverage a lot of new techniques and technology,
really doing what old Jules Verne could only dream of,
(21:18):
you know, with what was it called then? The Nautilus, right?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yes. Yes. The Nautilus. This is fascinating because it goes
back to your comparison of space exploration. These scientists are
not just collecting unprecedented data. but they're able to do
really cool stuff with lasers. They're able, you know, like a,
it's like a maritime version of LIDAR basically. And they're
(21:43):
also able to do some very clever collections of DNA
because you know how here on the surface, every living
thing is shedding some part of its cellular structure, right?
At any given point, which is why people leave traces
of DNA everywhere they go. It turns out now we
(22:05):
have the technology to find DNA that has been shed
by creatures traveling through the water. Pretty nuts. You're right.
Jules Verne would have been gaga for this one.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
It totally makes sense. Guys, I'm just thinking back to
those times going and hanging out at the Tennessee Aquarium
and just the... It's tough to even say because you
imagine there's plant matter in the water, there are fish
in the water, other species, maybe even amphibians in some
parts of the aquarium. But the particulate matter inside the water,
(22:39):
you know, if you imagine scooping just a clear glass
into there and holding it up and you could just
see all of the life that's in there. And if
you got a microscope, whoo-hoo, baby. But you don't imagine
that's actually.
You know, from the fins and from the other parts
of the animal's body that's actually just floating there.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
And also because it's the ocean, some of that stuff
is just the detritus from a larger creature. And some
of it is entirely distinct organism.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
It's like a ocean dust. I mean, think about how
much of dust on the surface is skin cells floating around.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
This is why you got to stay hydrated, guys.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah. This is also turning me into a germaphobe. I mean,
when you start thinking about the dust, I mean, oh, geez.
So we know the science here is incredible. Even though
the headlines might be a little misleading, this is astonishing, very,
very cool stuff. A lot of us casual readers, I'll
(23:43):
be honest, me, are disappointed when you hear new species
are discovered and it turns out to be something that's
a slightly different version of a thing we already knew existed,
or it's physically tiny. You know, you'll hear about a
mysterious worm found at the ends of the earth and
you're like, no way was doing real. And then they say,
(24:05):
this amazing creature can grow up to two centimeters. And
you're like, come on, man, that's stuff to do today.
And we want the cryptids, right? We want the big stuff.
Bring on Cthulhu, bring on the Kaiju, right?
Speaker 2 (24:18):
It is true. It is very true. There was one
recently that I think we're even going to mention later
in this episode. And they call it a gossamer worm.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
The name of it is Tomopteris, I think. And it's
this incredible looking creature. And then you realize, oh, it's
0.79 inches to 40 millimeters.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Boom.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And you're just like, ah.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I know.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
It does look. it looks like the kind of thing
you're describing, Ben, where you're like, Oh my God, if
that was huge.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Yeah. Because, uh, there are expert photographers who get the
perfect shot, right. And in, in hyper focus and, you know,
I didn't know we'd say it on tonight's episode, but
we're obviously not here to body shame, newly discovered marine animals.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
You're still incredible. And you're, you're working it.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah. I, I, I guess I kind of, I did
kind of body shame you guys. So this is.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
It's not so much body. It's just size. You know,
I mean, look, we're not saying they're not amazing. We're
just saying they're not, they're not what we're looking for.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah. Big news comes in small packages. Right. And we're,
we're grateful to discover anything we can about the ocean.
But no, I think you nailed it. We're always going
to have that desire to find.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
We want sea monsters.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah. We want Kaiju, man. And, We know that these
expeditions may be the way to find these large creatures
because since, like you said, in 2023 going into 2026,
since that time, these expeditions have gone more than four
miles into the water, four miles deep, 6,575 meters for
(26:07):
the rest of the world. They found all sorts of
cool stuff. they found ghost sharks. I think we were
all excited about the name ghost sharks, right? In strange news.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Cool name.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Ghost sharks were really neat looking, right?
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah. We've got a photo.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Can we describe them?
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah. Okay. So, um, they're not sharks. The name is misleading.
They're kind of shark like, uh, if you look at
some of the photos of specimens of ghost shark that
we already know existed, uh, they've got wonky looking noses
i'll say it how would we do how would we
(26:44):
describe this.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
The one i'm looking at guys it's odd to me
it looks a bit frankensteined there's i don't yeah i'm
looking at the what we would describe as the nose
part near the mouth uh between the eyes and the
mouth and it looks as though it has been attached
there somehow do you see the line there's like a
yeah almost a line running down here. Like it's a
(27:08):
piece of leather that was attached and obviously it's not it,
but it reminds me of one of those things you
would find in, um, the crypto museum kind of thing back.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
In the day.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Mermaid, Barnum and Bailey vibes. Yeah. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Not saying that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
We're not. And we have to realize, you know, just
like the unfortunate blob fish, a lot of these creatures
don't look their best when they're on the surface. You
know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Let's talk about that. One of the biggest problems that
researchers have, and I think we've talked about this in
the past, is that creatures that live at a certain
depth in the ocean, their bodies become more gelatinous, more spongy,
more squishy, because they're dealing with such tremendous pressure down there.
And as soon as any researcher physically attempts to bring
(27:58):
them up just enough to a place, especially if you're
going all the way up to the surface, this isn't
the Benz. This isn't the nitrogen getting in your blood
and all that other stuff. This is the body kind
of doesn't have the pressure anymore.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
So it just kind of droops, just kind of flops.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Well, it's more like, you know how the research vessel
we talked about was going out of the Titanic? The
problem with that is the tremendous pressure squeezed it in.
Imagine something where it's in tremendous pressure and now you
release that pressure. What happens?
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
You see them in their natural habitat. They're good looking.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
No, that's not true either. Well, I mean, for them,
they're still pretty odd looking.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Let's make a reality show where we judge the most
beautiful fish.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
As it is being lifted to the surface, like slowly
and changing.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
That's the final round, right? And then we also have
to have a category for personality and moxie. And if
it's a reality show, then they all have to have
their weird backstories. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (29:07):
I mean, I know we're not exclusively talking about the deep, deep, deep, deep, deep,
deep depth, but because of how extreme those environments are.
you're typically not going to see beauties down there because
they're adapted so specifically. They usually have some pretty gnarly-looking
(29:28):
extrusions or little thingies with lamps hanging on them. Like
the anglerfish, the deep sea.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
100%.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Booty poop guy.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Guys, we talked about one years ago when we first
found out about it through HowStuffWorks research. You're going to
have to correct me if I'm wrong here. Siphonophores? Yes.
It's the things that create giant chains of themselves and
create what looks like, at least to us when we're
observing it, one massive organism. But it's really just... Thousands,
(30:00):
if not hundreds of thousands of these things?
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Yeah, kind of chained together. It's like the question of
how big certain jellyfish can be because some are essentially colonies, right?
Confederacies of smaller organisms. The cynophores are fascinating, right? And
the goose shark, despite not really being a shark, it's
another thing that is, it's like the coelacanth. in how
(30:26):
indicative it is about how little we know regarding the
natural world. Because these guys, these ghost sharks that have
been discovered in Costa Rica and in Australia, they can
range up to just under five feet, which is huge
to remain undiscovered in this day and age. And they also,
(30:48):
as an organism, are literally older than dinosaurs. They've always
been around. humans just didn't know where or how to
look for all of them.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Just I'm imagining being a species that has been around
that long. I mean, obviously a single organism isn't that old, right?
That's not what we're saying. But the DNA and whatever
gets passed down, the more we learn about that, how
DNA does seem to have some things that get passed
down that in some way and form new versions of
(31:20):
that species as they're born to retain something. It's not memory, right?
Not in the same way as that, but it is something.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah. There's a avoidance.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
What do they remember, Ben?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
What do they remember, Matt? What do they remember, Noel
at Tennessee? We do know they're very interesting experiments with
even what we will call low-level organisms, like certain flatworms,
planarian worms, right? You can cut them in half. I
believe these are the ones. You can cut them in
half and they will grow into separate creatures that still
(31:55):
seem to share memories. And again, fast and loose with
memories because what we're talking about is avoiding or seeking
a certain stimulus from their previous life. It's bonkers. I
wish David Attenborough was a guest to explain it to
us here. I know.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Speaking of the giant small things and the difference between
the two and how exciting it is to find one
or the other. There was a discovery. This one was
off the coast of Brazil of Rosarians. And these are
single cell organisms. But they found a version of these
(32:37):
guys that were large enough for the naked eye, the
naked human eye to observe them. And that doesn't mean
the human naked eye observed them. It was a camera
on a submersible that observed them. But it was large
enough to where it's not... You didn't need a microscope
to see a single cell. A single cell organism was
so big you could see it. That is mind-boggling to me.
(32:59):
And just the fact that that can exist down there
without our knowledge, right? Until somebody built a thing that
could go down to that depth and look at it
with optics. That... That gives me chills in a way
because it just doesn't it just make you imagine there
really could be anything down there.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yes, really good. That's the thing. It's now everything is
on the table, the water table, whatever. We'll keep it
like you were saying about the siphonophore. That is technically caveat,
like you said. That is the world's longest sea creature.
(33:39):
Only in 2020 did scientists find this guy that was
45 meters long. Fellow Americans, that means this bad boy
is over 147 feet long. Or a collection of bad boys.
I don't know what the group name for a siphonophore is.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Ooh.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
A suction of siphonophores? No.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Let's go with it.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
As long as it's alliterative, that's all I care about.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
There we go. But again, you know, we're not, we're
not poopooing the small stuff because as, as we said earlier,
some of the strangest physically smallest discoveries are the most
impressive because they're so alien to life on the surface,
you know, like the, the symbiotic worm that was discovered
(34:27):
in the ocean senses. I'm going to mess up the
Latin here, but Dalhousiella yabuki, discovered off the coast of
Japan last year, 2025. It lives inside another organism, a
glass sponge. It's got a skeleton made of crystalline silica.
That sounds very anime to me.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
What?
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Wait, hold on.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
What is this guy?
Speaker 1 (34:54):
It's a newly discovered symbiotic worm. They're careful not to
call it a parasite, but the Ibuki sounds like a
folklore tale, right? It sounds like a myth. It lives
inside a glass sponge, which they sometimes call a glass castle.
It's a wonky-looking little guy. If you pull up the
(35:16):
picture here, even though the story sounds romantic and fairytale-esque,
it's not exactly Cinderella.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Whoa, it's almost shrimp-like, almost centipede-like.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Ooh, fascinating creature.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
It's got the definitely picture of burrowing into your nasal
cavity and laying eggs inside you.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
You could kind of see the guts too.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
It's like the thing they pull out of Neo with the,
you know what I'm talking about? He goes and gets interrogated.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Suck it out. Whoa, that is, Ben, there's another one
that I saw. It's the same creature. I was just
talking about it. The Schmidt Ocean Institute's Falkor II research
vessel did a thing earlier this year in Brazil, and
they found something that they called larvaceans, tadpole-like larvaceans. And
(36:15):
these things build balloon-like houses out of mucus that they
use to trap the little, like the dust you were
talking about, Ben, the little food, the particles that just
float by. Yeah, yeah. they balloon their house thing out
of mucus and they're just like.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Oh, there we go.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Got our food now.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Incredible.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Like how in the heck did you get that? How
did you figure that out? What, what, what series of
events led you to the first version of that? That
was like, Oh, this guy blows mucus houses. He's really
doing well for himself.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
This guy's got it figured out. Yeah. That's, that's always the, uh,
the most confounding part of evolution is we understand it.
Like how many, mutations did that take, you know, like seriously,
was there, was there one guy who just had a
bunch of mucus and then millions of years later, somebody
else was like, oh, I can shape it. I can
(37:09):
blow bubbles with this thing.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
I'm playing a lot of, uh, uh, Splatoon Raiders, which
is very nautical themed. And one of these powers that
you have is to create these balloons that then chain together.
And then you can explode one of them and it
causes a chain reaction and explodes all of them. And
it covers everything in like, you know, ink, AKA mucus.
It seems related. Wonder if they were inspired. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
That's, that's something that could inspire our new friends underwater
as well. Uh, again, any underwater denizens we're on your team.
Don't come for us. Uh, we, we also know, um,
this is only the beginning, the ocean census in particular,
but like we said, many other initiatives. they are proving
something so inspiring and aspirational when humanity collectively combines, right?
(38:02):
When humanity puts aside its surface level differences, it can
learn so much more than at any other point in
established history. It's like the beginning of the $ 6 million
man TV show where we can use technology to build
him faster, better, stronger. Wait, nope, that's Daft Punk.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
No, no. That's what it's from.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Oh, okay. All right. We got there.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
We have the technology.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
But it is not all, of course, dolphin whistles and
sirens singing. Let's say we take a break for a
word from our sponsors and get back with a quote
from our friends at Oceanographic Magazine.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
And we're back. So, Ben, you mentioned Oceanographic magazine. They
have a really good take on all of this underwater diversity. Historically,
the average time between a species' initial collection and its
formal description in scientific literature has been 13.5 years, a
delay so severe that species routinely face extinction before they're
(39:15):
even catalogued. So, yeah, that's a very interesting way of
looking at it. It did not occur to me at all.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Just the idea that we can find these things. I guess,
should we talk about why? Because we only know about
most of these creatures because of submersible technology. Because humans
cannot go to these depths, and when we attempt to,
it often ends in disaster. Again, see the submersible we
mentioned before. Even in massive ship's that are built specifically
(39:52):
to go deep in the water. Ben, I'm thinking about
Ohio-class submarines, the nuclear submarines, that I think officially on paper,
they can go up to 800 feet in depth, but
the other classified depths that Ohio-class submarines have reached, we
can't know about. We don't know how deep that submarine
(40:13):
can go safely or maybe not safely. But that's a
military ship. you know, that costs good God who knows
how much, and it's going to be used for military things, like,
you know, sneakily having a nuclear arsenal posted right outside
of somebody's backyard in the ocean. But we don't use
(40:34):
the money and resources for ocean exploration, right? There are
specific one-offs that an institution, an organization, maybe multiple working together,
may build some specific things, like you mentioned James Cameron earlier,
but we really don't put the money in to even
get to these depths. And even if you do, imagine
(40:56):
in a submersible, as we talked about the problem with
raising a fish to different pressures, you're taking imagery if
you can, right? If you actually gain visibility through lights
and optics, you're maybe scanning in a couple different ways.
Unless there is serious innovation, which there has been some,
(41:17):
and we're going to talk about it, But unless there's
serious innovation, it's really hard to fully classify a thing
and get a tissue sample of some sort to the
surface to then say, hey, this DNA is different than
the three other versions of siphonophores that we've seen before.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
But isn't it also a case of, and I'm not
entirely blaming the current administration on its own, but it
just seems like pure science has become less and less
prioritized if it's not like a moneymaker.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah, it's difficult. Like some of the, um, you know,
there's a terribly problematic film, uh, with Sean Connery back
in the day called medicine man or something like that.
And it's all about how, uh, private industry began funding
explorations into very biodiverse areas of the Amazon, not for
(42:06):
pure science, but because certain medicines, certain traditional medicines or
certain plants, uh, could be leveraged into profitable pharmaceuticals. So there's,
you know, there are, that's the tricky thing, right? We're
asking people who are already strapped for cash or in
the case of governments have wildly differing priorities. We're saying, hey,
(42:30):
give us hundreds of millions of dollars. to learn more
about the world around us. And they say, okay, what's
our ROI? And we say, well, there might be a
new kind of squid. We could call it, we give
it a cool name. We call it vampire squid. You know,
like that's cool, right?
Speaker 3 (42:47):
What else you got? Can we weaponize its brains? Can
we turn its ink into some sort of, you know,
mass produced ink? you know, medicine.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Chromatophores could help us with camouflage, General.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
That's fair. Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Okay, I'm listening. I'm listening.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I'll tell you what. Why don't you go out on
your research vessel? Here's a lot of money. The only
thing you have to do is strap this to the
bottom of your ship. What it's going to do is
scan for oil deposits.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Yeah. Okay? Cool.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Whatever you find along the way, fair game.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Fair game. And also, we just got a call from marketing.
We are going to have to put some Nestle signage
on the side of the sub. No. They're very into it.
It's like NASCAR rules. NASCAR rules. So we've talked about
this stunning quote, right? The idea that you can capture
(43:43):
something like Darwin did on the Beagle. Fun fact about
Darwin from our pal Jack over at Daily Zeitgeist. Darwin
prided himself on eating one specimen of everything he discovered.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (43:59):
It's a different time.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Just in case.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Just in case.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
This one's delicious.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Because what if it is delicious? You know what I mean?
Now we've got another business, another community.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
What if there's only one of them? Don't care.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Don't care.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Gotta eat it.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
It's the rules.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
It's my personal code.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Right. A man's gotta have a code. So it reminds
us a little bit of earlier studies in insect populations.
a long-acknowledged fact about insects is that humanity has no
idea how many different insects are out there. And a
lot of them, just like amphibians, are highly specialized. They
(44:41):
are inevitably going to go extinct before humans can ID them,
document them, get the little, what do you call that
when you pin an animal? You know, like lepidopterists and
butterflies and stuff?
Speaker 3 (44:55):
I think it's just called pinning.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Oh, okay. I was going to say taxidermy, but that's
not right. Guys, I had a moment of that just
to step away for a second. I had to move
a bunch of firewood on my property last night. And,
you know, you put gloves on to be safe. Make
sure you cover your body if you're moving wood that's
been stacked up for a while because there's a particular
(45:17):
spider that I was worried about here in Georgia. Can
you guess what it was?
Speaker 3 (45:20):
A brown recluse.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Freaking... Guys... I swear to you, I saw one jump
off one of these just little pieces of firewood and
it scared the living crap out of me. And I
just imagine what is the brown recluse of the water
in the ocean out there that were the, you know, the, the,
the one snake that if it bites you like, uh.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
It rots your flesh from the outside. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Oh, What's the river one around here? I can't, it's,
it's a scary.
Speaker 3 (45:50):
The Kanduru. The one that swims inside your pee hole? No,
that's different. That's in the Amazon.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Water moccasin.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Water moccasin. Oh, also another cool fact. This is brutal.
Speaking of Mad Max stuff, guys, I just learned that
there are some octopuses that will follow around poisonous jellyfish
and they'll rip off the stinger arms of the jellyfish
and they'll use them like whips. No way. That's intense.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
That's like some Castlevania stuff.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
I know.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
That's so cool. And we also, we were asking, we've
got more animal discoveries we want to get to. But,
you know, the 20,000 league question here is whether any
large living and still undiscovered sea creatures could exist. The
good news is, like we've established, it is totally possible
(46:42):
that Some of our likely candidates are invertebrates, big jellyfish,
or to gross out people like my girlfriend who is
making a face as we record this, huge eel-like things
that persist in the deep abyssal plains because they don't
need that much energy. As the pressure is rising and
(47:06):
you get further and further down into the ocean, you
will see lower energy available outside of, uh, hydrothermal vents.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
As in there's fewer things to consume, right? As we're saying,
like you less food to actually eat.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Ooh. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
So then the adaptation would be, then I guess we
need less to eat now.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Or we need to move less frequently. So I just
kind of lay there, you know, and hope something comes
by and then I kill it. And it's, uh, you know, it's,
it's a living.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Did I mention I'm the size of a bus?
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Just kidding. Just kidding.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
A couple things about me. Size of a bus. I
don't know what those are, but they're about my size.
So there's something else we didn't talk about in our
previous underwater explorations. Underwater caves. Guys, remember how not too
long ago in Thailand, a group of kids got stranded
in a cave exploration activity, and they had to have
(48:08):
very seasoned underwater spelunkers rescue them. Elon Musk was also involved.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Yeah, he was real humble about it too, if I recall.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Yeah, he was kind of off in his tone. Did
they get out? Yes, yes, the majority did. But this
was an introduction to the fascinating and terrifying world of
underwater spelunking. And so we already established we don't know
(48:39):
much about the seafloor itself. We know even less about
what's under the seafloor. Back in 2023, scientists went 8,200
feet into the ocean, and they explored these caverns they
had never seen before, totally filled with water. They're underneath
hydrothermal vents, and they didn't find Atlantis. They didn't find Lemuria,
(49:02):
but they found snails and worms and all kinds of
strange bacteria.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
Oh, my.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yeah, right. It's life where we thought, no life could
exist at all, much less thrive.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Man, that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Underwater caves, you guys.
Speaker 4 (49:18):
I remember.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
when I first read in National Geographic about the hydrothermal
vents and all the... What was it? There's sulfur that
can be used in specific ways.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
That's right. I was thinking there was some kind of
like fuel use or, you know, material that could be harnessed. Yeah,
that's the one.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Well, just the way specifically as younger guy brain that
existed in here, the way it started to think about
the possibilities and how that opened the door for, oh
my God, life could persist in a whole bunch of
different ways that I... My little imagination couldn't even begin
(49:59):
to think about. It reminds me of the first time, Ben,
when was it? It was a long time ago we
talked about life that could be based on something other
than carbon, like silicon-based life.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
And how that changed our viewpoint.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
I'm like, whoa. Yeah, because the same kinds of deep
sea vents that exist in Earth's ocean may exist in
on moons of other planets in our solar system, right?
Like Europa, I think, is one of those.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
And science is starting to realize that, oh gosh, Neptune
and some of these gas giants that we think are
fully just gas giants may not be that. We just
haven't had the ability to observe them on the levels
of like what's beneath that part. Is there a solid bit?
Are there massive solid bits on these things?
Speaker 3 (50:50):
And what could be there?
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
What's under there?
Speaker 1 (50:54):
And that's the beauty of this science. I mean, we
could argue the difference between pure science and applied science
all the live long evening, but it is, I think
we can all agree, absolutely worthwhile, especially when we realize
these new discoveries that we've been talking about, they're barely
a drop in the chum bucket because the same experts
(51:17):
who are world-class, bleeding-edge boffins into these investigations are They
all also openly acknowledge that up to 90% of marine
species have yet to be discovered.
Speaker 3 (51:30):
And is it weird that when you said Chum Bucket,
I immediately got hungry? Because Chum Bucket equals Krusty Krab
equals Krabby Patty, and I don't know what it actually is, but.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
It looks good. I don't know. I remember SpongeBob.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
The Chum Bucket is the rival restaurant that is run
by Plankton, the little megalomaniacal villain of the world. But
he's always trying to get the secret recipe for the
Krabby Patty. Again, is it beef? Is it crab? I
don't know. But it's a really tasty looking cartoon burger. Hey,
(52:04):
quick shout out.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Quick shout out if you want to hear Mr. Krabs.
Go ahead and listen to season three of 13 Days
of Halloween.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Clancy Brown.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
That's right. Yes, yes. Well done. And Clancy Brown does
an amazing job on that. E.P. by our own Matt
Frederick and good friend of the show, Alex Williams. Please do.
Please do check that one out. Oh, man, I forgot.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Written for by our very own Benjamin Bowen.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I did like one episode, but it was.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
I know you did.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
It's a fantastic story. Shout out to our Nicholas Takowski
as well. So even now, in 2026, there are constant
reports of human encounters with unidentified forms of life. And
just like UFOs, a lot might be hoaxes, a lot
might be good old-fashioned misidentification. But I want to believe,
(52:57):
you guys, I so want to believe that there's a
sea serpent out there. Not a siphonophore, but like, you know,
an actual sea serpent.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
I'd be down to know that it exists and it
would be fascinating and incredible, but I do not want
it lurking in my vicinity. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Even like behind glass in a huge aquarium?
Speaker 3 (53:17):
Yeah, that'd be fine. Just not, you know, in my
dreams under the water.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Well, I think we might actually get there, guys. We're
at least taking steps. It just takes us to a
couple of pretty recent news stories out of this year.
And we're going to talk specifically about a delightfully named thing.
We already mentioned in this episode, the Schmidt Ocean Institute's FALCOR2, T-O-O,
research vessel. So FALCOR! FALCOR!
Speaker 1 (53:45):
We've been going on that never-ending story.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
Never-ending story. Shout out. Great movie.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
And we just made a realization that my very white dog,
Looks so much like Falcor, you guys. We're lovingly referring
to her as Falcor now.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
I technically named my Honda Fit, my white Honda Fit, Falcor.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (54:05):
Ben might recall that because he suggested that I name it,
and that's what I came up with.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
I'm laughing at the very formal tone there, Noel, because
it sounded like a legal deposition. I technically... Name my Honda.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
No, no, I just didn't come up often, but I did.
There was a moment where you were fond of naming things,
and when I first got that car, you suggested that
I name it, and that is the name that I chose.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
That's so cool, man.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Well, the researchers at the Schmidt Ocean Institute also did that.
They also have something, a remotely operated vehicle that comes
off of that Falkor vehicle called the Sub-Astian, the Sub-Astian. Stop, stop, stop.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
Those Schmiddies, they're always cracking up.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
Well, they partook in several expeditions that included teams of
international scientists. They would bring people on basically from wherever
they were. So they would go to a place like,
in this case, off the coast of Brazil, bring a
bunch of people there to the South Atlantic Ocean, to
the tropical midwaters, and they would go and search for
(55:11):
new species. And they found all kinds of stuff. And
it's not just because they had A submersible, again, with
optics that they could go through and look. And you
could watch some of this often, by the way. You
can watch some of the live streaming. You can watch
videos of some of these new species being discovered with
the optics. But they had other new tech that allowed
them to get a better picture, a better view. And,
(55:33):
you know, in the end, a little piece of some
of these animals to study. I just want to go
over some of this tech because, hopefully... We will see
more of this and innovations to these specific techs and
to new versions, right, that are massive improvements. There's this
thing called the DeepPIV or Particle Image Velocimetry. Velocimetry?
Speaker 3 (55:56):
That sounds good.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
Velocimetry. V-E-L-O-C-I-M-E-T-R-Y. I don't know why I can't say that word. Anyway,
they had something called the IRIS, the E-Y-E-R-I-S or Remote
Imaging System. These were developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute, which I didn't even know was a thing, guys.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
These would create 3D images of the creatures with lasers,
so like scan the creature, so you don't actually have
to go in there and manipulate it, pick it up,
or return it to the surface. You just 3D scan
that sucker, and you can create a model of it,
and then study the model, which is... It's really good
because it's non-invasive, right, to these... possibly extremely rare species
(56:43):
that you're encountering, which, you know, and you're not Darwin,
so you're not going to take a bite, which is good.
They had a thing called a shadow graph camera developed
by the Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology.
And this captures super high contrast silhouettes, which is really interesting.
And when you take a picture with this thing, you
(57:05):
can see, you know, we're talking about the particles in
the water. Imagine there are some smaller things that you
cannot see with just some light shining out from a
couple of sources on that submersible. You take a picture
with this and you can see just the shadowy background
of things and new things that you can't even physically observe,
(57:25):
which is super cool. There's a bunch of other stuff, guys.
In particular, the non-destructive methods of research are amazing because
it reminds me that Was that orb we've talked about
on the show before? There's an orb in the Alien
series that, oh, what is that?
Speaker 3 (57:47):
The one they shoot into the caves and it maps
it from the inside?
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
The scientists were real dumb other than their ability to
wield those things. But yeah, that was one of the takeaways.
Those were pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
I'm imagining that kind of tech.
Speaker 3 (58:00):
Prometheus is with, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Yes, Prometheus.
Speaker 3 (58:02):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (58:03):
I'm imagining that kind of tech that you could release
in the ocean, guys. It might be super invasive for
the creatures, right? Shooting lasers everywhere and maybe some sonar
or something. But if you could just let it scan
an area of the ocean floor like that, or in
this case, the mid-ocean somewhere, and just see what all's there.
And just have a map you could look at.
Speaker 3 (58:25):
I kind of wonder. I mean, I don't know if
you guys know this. You probably do. But our phones
using LiDAR... can actually like scan a room. Like there
are apps you can use that'll utilize LIDAR to actually
literally create like a map of the interior of a room.
And I think I heard this from that dude, Curry Barker,
who made that movie Obsession. He was saying that he
(58:47):
used that on his phone to kind of create spaces
that he would then use to kind of come up
with ideas for sets for his film. It's also cameras.
that can use, it's almost like two-way light optics or
something that can literally create, it can see behind objects.
(59:08):
So I just gotta believe that with optics with where
we are with that kind of stuff that there would
be some non-invasive way of doing exactly what you're describing
because i've always thought when i heard about that lidar
thing and then the camera thing um like the camera
thing you can actually like change exposure after the fact
you can do all kinds of stuff beyond just, you know, touch-ups.
(59:29):
There would have to be a thing. I always think
about that exact thing you're talking about, the little orbs
that map the caves in Alien, Prometheus. So let's see
what happens, man. I think we've got to be close.
Speaker 1 (59:40):
Sure. I mean, the technology is our way in.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
Ben, I'm sure that LiDAR technology on our phones is
not being used for anything nefarious right now as we speak.
I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure nobody is using that
to map places just with the phones.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
Guys, everything is so great.
Speaker 3 (59:55):
I feel good.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
Yeah, 10-10. No notes. I mean, this is something that
we're probably going to return to in the future. There's
even more we have to get to, but we do
want to tell you that the Ocean Census is just
getting started. You mentioned earlier, this is a 10-year initiative.
(01:00:16):
By 2033, they aim to discover at least 100,000 new
species in the oceans alone. And It's ambitious, but I
hope they pull it off. And I hope one of
the things they discover is a gigantic sea serpent. I'll
say it. Just, you know, Leviathan. Some kind of kraken, perhaps.
Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
We didn't really discuss this. I'm with you, Ben, but
doesn't it seem unlikely or less likely that that's going
to be the case and more likely they're just going
to keep finding really, really small things that we missed?
Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
100%. It's very unlikely. It's like the Jets getting a
big win for all the sports fans out there.
Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Apparently the Jets suck. I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Well, we don't want to ruffle too many feathers or—
Flip too many fins, which maybe works. I don't know
how underwater humor is. But we do have to shout
out a little bit delayed here, folks. A holiday that
I think we should start celebrating every year going forward. Guys,
(01:01:19):
did you know August 7th is National Sea Serpent Day?
Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
For sure, Ben. And you know what? We can celebrate
that on the high seas ourselves. Do a little sea
serpent watching on the deck of the valiant lady as
we take to the high seas for the Stuff at
Sea Virgin Voyages cruise.
Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
October 2nd through the 7th, we're joining forces with our
friends at Stuff You Should Know and Stuff Mom Never
Told You, and most importantly... you, folks, so please hang
out with us as we go on excursions around the ship.
We'll do live shows. We'll have adventures. We can't wait
to see you there.
Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Just search Stuff at Sea. It's that simple.
Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Do it now. And there we have it, friends and neighbors.
The next horizon of exploration might not be outer space
just yet. When it comes to bizarre biology, everything we
are learning about the ocean proves, hey, we might just
have aliens at home. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.
There's any number of ways to hit us up. Well, three.
Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
That's any number. There's two if you want to try
us on social media. It's either the Conspiracy Stuff handle
or the Conspiracy Stuff Show handle. Said that differently. Fine
with it.
Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Yes, and we have a phone number. It is 1-833-STD-WYTK.
Can you think of any innovations for studying the ocean
and all of its inhabitants? If you do have an idea,
call in, give us a cool nickname, and let us
know if we can use your name and message on
the air. It'll show up in one of our listener
mail episodes, potentially. If you want to send us an email,
we are.
Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
The entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive
be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back. Please, please, please,
as a personal favor to us, send us your favorite
weird fact about an animal that lives in the ocean.
We can't wait to be surprised. We'll see you out
here in the dark. conspiracy at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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