September 6, 2012 • 36 mins
Science has a handle on fireflies and glowworms, but most bioluminescent animals live in the ocean and are tough to study. Today, researchers are still figuring out why some animals produce light. Dive with Josh and Chuck into this illuminating topic.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuff Bryant
(00:20):
and uh. You put us together and you get a
little something called Stuff you Should Know. And that's what
this is. Whether you like it or not, you have
to listen to it. It's try. Um. Actually, no one
has to listen to this. It's part of both Obama's
and Romney's platforms. Yeah, it's a part of Obamacare. You
(00:42):
gotta listen to Stuff you Should Know, and you gotta
get an r f D chip in your hand, and
you have to give poor people all your money. None
of that is true, that you have to listen to
the podcast and the porpulal part um. Chuck, how's it going?
It's great. Are you feeling sick? Do you need any
kind of here Obama or otherwise? Now? Are you feeling sick?
(01:02):
I'm fine. Chance, like my shoulder muscles are gonna pop
right out of my skin. I went to that foot
massage play some Buford Highway the other day. You ever
been there. M hm. Treat your feet Is that what
it's called. Yeah, that's a great name. They'll they'll do
an hour on your feet for bucks if that's what
you desire. Oh yeah, I know. About a little bit
(01:23):
bit into it, they'll ask you like, would you want
to go half and half, like half body half foot,
because basically they get you in there, they're going at
your feet and you're like, you know, I don't know
if I could do an hour on my feet. Each
toe has gotten their own massage at this point, like
they're just jelly cracked your toes. Yeah, so they think, yeah,
you know, i'll pay another twenty bucks for the body,
right they give you t it's really nice. You should go.
(01:45):
It does sound nice, but it's not like private. Like
you're in a big room with like fifteen recliners. Everyone's
just sitting around and well we've gotten backrubs at the
mall before. Yeah, that's true. You remember, I don't know
how I got on this Treat your feet Buford Highway.
Go eat some fun and then go get your foot massage.
Where's good fun around here? We're trying to figure that out.
The Yeah, where uh if you are we going to
(02:09):
do this now. Okay, I like fun number two, um,
which is past Claremont. Um, it's in a little shopping center.
Just look it up, okay, I mean it's it's all good,
all good fun. Um. Yeah. I don't know how we
got on there, but some places on Beaureford Highway. Oh
(02:30):
you use some money, seriously, at least some free fun. Um.
This has nothing to do with bioluminescence. No, it doesn't.
Although sometimes if you stir your funt around, chuck, you're
gonna see some um fungus possibly rise to the top
a couple of times. Right, Yeah, that's a good one too.
(02:51):
And um, where those things still alive and not cooked,
they possibly might glow. And where they to glow, you
would say, look at those things, they're bioluminescing. That's right,
because that's what they do. It is a life form
that generates their own glow inside their body, their own life. Yeah,
(03:12):
pretty awesome. And um, you I read a different um
study It was like, what what's the deal with this?
Because this is still very much a mystery. Um, we
have an idea of how this goes down, but not
in every case. We also don't understand why in a
lot of cases, um, and in in some cases we
(03:35):
don't understand how. And the thing is is, I don't
think it's that it's out of the grasp of science
to understand it. I think that when researchers are looking
into this, they just they become so transfixed on the
beautiful glow that they forget what they're doing and waste
tons of time. And then all of a sudden, you're like, oh,
I gotta publish our Paris. And then it's just like
(03:56):
they just write why on a piece of paper and
send it in, as Tracy Wilson of Pop Stuff Great
Podcast points out, and Tracy's articles are always awesome. Yeah,
oh man, they're comprehensive. You know, I never have to
worry about it. Um. Sadly, sometimes scientists can either harm
the light making magic when they try to study them,
(04:18):
this makes it hard to study, or the animal will
exhaust it's light making glow capabilities out of like fear
or defense or spite or spite, which will also make
it hard to study. So those are a couple of reasons,
and the whole just why right. So, Um, we do
have a pretty good handle to some extent, But let's
(04:42):
talk about what luminescence itself is right with that this
light bulb right here in this a key of brand
lamp um. It's incandescent. It's an incandescent light bulb. I
think this is an edison bulb is oh? Is it
like the real old amy looking one sort of um?
(05:02):
So that is pretty simple. It has electricity that passes
through a filment, just a thin metal piece of something metal,
and that heats up, and it heats up so much
that it gives off light, which is incredibly inefficient. And
if say a jellyfish for to do this, it would
(05:22):
catch fire even though it's under water. Right, So what
um living organisms do when they want to give off
light is something called cold light or bioluminescence, which is
the combination of chemicals that produce light like a glow stick,
but no heat. But it is just like a glow stick.
You're combining two things that will make a glow exactly,
(05:45):
except you don't have to shake up the jellyfish. They
do not like that. Or it's like the glow sticks
that I used to sell very often at Stone Mountain
Laser Show. It's like the glows free Summer that I
used to dance with at races. You were at raves
and I was selling these things during like Lee Greenwoods,
(06:08):
Lee Greenwood, Lee Green Would you Proud to be an American? Yeah? Boy,
I heard that song five thousand times. So bad. Anyone
who's never been to a Stone Mountain, Georgia. They have
a big rock there and they have a laser show
on it during the summer. It's a big rock that
has a basically the Confederate heroes carved into the side
of it by the guy who did Mount Rushmore. How's
(06:29):
that the same guy? Huh? Yeah, And they show a
very corny laser show every summer since like the early
nineteen eighties, and not just once this summer, like every
night during the summer. Yeah, that's why I've heard it
ten thousand times. It's something And Chuck, you still work there.
I think you left that out selling gloves sticks sticks
full circle. Yes, all right, let's quit stalling. Let's talk
about bioluminescence. Okay, that's all over the place. Uh. Like
(06:53):
you said, we don't know exactly how it works in
all cases, but we do know that these animals do
mix together. There are different substances, just like a glow stick,
wood and to turn their little glow on and off. Um.
Here on the planet, not in the ocean, because that's
where most of the stuff takes place here on planet Earth.
(07:13):
On the dry land. Uh, you can have things glowing
like fox fire, which is this fungus that feeds on
rotting wood. You look at pictures of fox fire. Pretty cool. Yeah,
doesn't look real, but it's real. It's very real. Um.
The jack O lander mushroom you can google that as well.
That's my favorite bioluminous in organism. Why just because it's
(07:34):
the South on land on Terra Firma, because it's a
perfectly named thing, the jack O lantern mushroom. Like it
has that glow coming through the gills, um, and just
the gills, so it looks like there's like this glow
coming inside and there's like holes where it's coming out of.
It's so neat. My favorite on Terra Firma is the
lightning bug a k a. The firefly. Here in the
(07:57):
South and I guess I'm not sure where else it
on lightning bugs, but definitely in the Sound. You'll see
them come out every summer and if you're a little kid,
you can go around and catch them. And put them
in a jar and then and then release them. And
in fact you may be harming them just by catching them.
But what you don't want to do if you're a
kid is like smash these things because it's just yeah,
(08:20):
that means you're gonna end up being a serial killer
one day probably. Uh. So the firefly is uh, you
know you generally you think of them as the adults
lying around, but their little larva can glow as well
on the ground, right, And a lot of people call
um firefly lava glow worms, but glow worms are apparently
another kind of fly larvae. Fireflies are fireflies or lightning bugs.
(08:44):
That's right, um, centipedes, millipedes, there's all all kinds of
little things that can glow worms. Uh, there's some worms
that give off a bioluminescent sludge and no one has
any idea why is it their poop and then pop it?
I don't think so. Ober. The the the secretion they
produce when they're mating and all that, it's probably like that.
(09:08):
It probably comes from the ring. I can't remember the
name of the ring. So that's on Earth. But if
you really want to get down to some cool, glowing creatures.
You need to dive down into the ocean to the
twilight zone, which I think we've talked about that, haven't
we know? We talked about it in biospeleiol in caves. Yeah,
there's different zones of light penetration in caves and in
(09:29):
the ocean too, that's right. Um, the twilight zone is
generally about six hundred sixty two feet deep. Six It
depends because obviously different kinds of ocean water are gonna
allow different amounts of light in. It depends on what
the ocean floor looks like, but it is, um, it
(09:50):
is the dysphotic or poorly lit zone deeper than the
euphotic sunlit zone or good zone or shout or then
the aphotic midnight zone, which is like scary no light.
That's a scary time down there, right. Those are the
things down there that have like no eyes, right, because
(10:12):
there's no reason, same like with the caves. So um, yeah,
I remember what was the Prometheus Salaman just three ft
long and doesn't have eyes. The scariest thing ever except
for the cigar shark, which will actually get do in here. Okay,
so is that the cookie cutter shark man that things
frightening um. So in this uh, this twilight zone, the
(10:34):
desphotic zone or mezo pelagic zone, mesopelagic zone, stop laughing
at me. Uh there, this is where most of the
bioluminescent organisms on Earth can be found. And the light
that penetrates this area um is a blue green color
because the red, yellow, orange. Yeah, the red, yellow and
(10:58):
orange are absorbed by the seawater above and the violet
is scattered, so the blue and the green are the
ones that get through. So everything's just kind of color
blue green. That's what the sunlight is. So most of
the bioluminescent organisms in this um dysphotic zone, dysphotic zone
have evolved to produce light at that same wavelength from
(11:20):
something like four four hundred seventy nanometers, which is like
the blue green spectrum. That's right, So matches that sunlight, yeah,
which is pretty cool. Yeah, well we'll get to it.
But it can lead to some cool things like camouflage.
So uh, the but it also means that it travels farther.
Light travels that that type of light travels the farthest
(11:41):
and water because it has a shorter wavelength than the
other types. So an animal producing this could really cook
down there basically. Yeah. Uh, we're talking jellyfish, shrimp, grill, squid,
other kinds of fish, marine worms, whatever the heck that
is therely what you think it is. Yeah, what are
(12:02):
those one worms called? It like come up out of
the little tubes tube worms? Oh yeah, yeah, I believe
that's what they're called. Um, either that or it just
made some terrible like sixth grade joke. But um. They
they they are like on the ocean bottom and they
they have they just come out of these tubes and
(12:24):
grab stuff and go back in there like three ft long.
You've not seen this sea snake to me. Yeah, but
they're I think they're attached or they may be attached
to their tubes, or they just never come all the
way out. I'm gonna have to look into that. Yeah.
Uh so you talked about the blue green light is
what they generally produce. Um, there is something called the
(12:45):
loose jawfish, which actually can make red light very deep
in the ocean. But that's really unusual that can make
red light, and it's um. A lot of species can't
even see the color red down there because I don't
know if they're just their brains aren't used to it
because they never see it. So the loose jaw uses
this thing um to to basically sneak up on people. Um,
(13:09):
it's like Jane Gum at the end of silence of
the lamb and and like the fish are like Jodie
Foster like, and Jane Gum is the loose jaw fish
coming up behind her like I can see you, you
can't see me. So, like we said earlier, we don't
know for sure why all these uh, bioluminescent forms of
(13:30):
life are down there doing their thing. Um. You did
mention the earthworm that has the secretion. They don't know
why they do that. The mushroom spores, they think that
maybe it's um to attract insect to spread these spores.
That's why the mushroom glows makes sense. Um Sometimes and
this one's kind of cute. Sometimes animals will light up
(13:53):
when something nearby them lights up, which I think might
just be a little like, hey, how you doing, I
can glow too, Well, that's how far a fliers are doing. Yeah,
they're attracting mates right with it, like a very specific
pattern right there. They used it to communicate like, hey,
you're looking pretty good. Meet you by the fence post, right, yeah, um,
(14:14):
let's go get some fun. So should we talk about
the dino flagellates, the dino flagellates, dino flagelates? Am I
pronouncing it wrong? No? I think that was wrong? Okay,
well yeah, So have you ever seen Apolar thirteen? Yeah?
You remember the part where um they had a problem.
(14:35):
Is it Tom level? Gym level? Where gym level? And
UH is hanging out with Bill Paxton and they're talking
about how they're just shooting the breeze while they're trying
to stay alive, and um he talks about how he
was flying a mission, um coming in on an aircraft carrier,
(14:55):
and there was a blackout and he couldn't see where
he's going, he couldn't find the aircraft carry to land.
He's running low and fuel. Then all of a sudden
he looks and he notices that there's a bunch of
um he calls it like glowing algae or whatever. But
what he's talking about where dino flagelets that were kicked
up by the wake of the aircraft carrier and he
used them as like a runway to guide them in.
(15:17):
I remember that part. That's a great part that whole
movie from like start to finish with. But these dino
flagelets create what's called the milky sea when you get
enough of them together, when they're disturbed physically, they start
to glow. And if you have a bunch of them,
you can see him from space. Actually in this article
there's a picture of a pretty substantial milky sea off
(15:38):
the coast of Africa. Pretty cool stuff. And if you
google milky Sea two you can see some like that's
cool looking. But I like the shots from like low
flying planes, helicopters and uh a little eerie. Yeah, that
may say. So. They have no idea again, why dino
flagelates would glow when they're disturbed. Obviously they're like trying
(16:00):
to register their complaint. They can't talk, you can't flip
anyone off, so they glow out of anger. Apparently, Um,
they they there's a theory called the burglar alarm theory.
I like this one. Or basically they think that, um,
when dino flage lets start to glow, it's because there's
little fish eating on them, right, which is disturbing. They
(16:24):
think that maybe they glow to basically alert larger fish
that will come eat the smaller fish so they'll stop
eating the dino flagelets. That there's little fish in the area.
Pretty awesome, Like hey, help come eat this guy because
you're bigger. Uh. Here's some other and you know, these
are the ones that are the most understood because there
(16:45):
is a lot of uncertainty, Like we said, like ten
times um. But here's here's some of the reasons that
they think they're doing this communication, which we've mentioned with
the firefly or the lightning bug. Uh, to locate food,
maybe to use it as an actual light to see
in the dark. Pretty cool, or a spotlight to catch prey,
oh like temporarily blind something gotcha? Or no, to like
(17:09):
go find it. It's very dark in here. I need
to see what fish are around to attract prey, like
the anglerfish, Like look at this bright glow, come here, chomp. Yeah.
I love that one. What was that in Finding Nemo Man?
The thing was scary. I didn't see that movie, good one, Camouflage.
I don't watch any of those anymore because Emily doesn't
like him. Oh, yes, she doesn't like Disney movies. She
(17:32):
doesn't like any of those Pixar movies because it's always
like some tragedy like someone dies in its heartbreak and
keep her away from toy story three. Dude, I can't
even watch that movie. I made her watch up and
she was just like a like a little blob of
play the first ten minutes or this so sad. God.
But I always explained to her, like, this is why
they make these movies, so kids can learn how to
(17:53):
cope with death. And then they see like it's all
happy afterwards, you know, all right, camouflage this is the
cool this one, yeah, and the it's pretty. It makes
sense too. If you're in the ocean, and if you
ever like swum down ten or fift ft and looked
up open your eyes in the ocean, I've done it. Um.
It's it's hard to see stuff below you, but it's
(18:13):
easy to look up because you know the sunlight's penetrating
down and see like the silhouette or in the case
of Jaws, you see like the silhouette of the lady's
legs on the raft. You know, that's good eating. Um.
If you have, like in the case of what's it
called counter elimination, you can actually produce spots on your
underside to make it more difficult for a fish beneath you,
(18:35):
a predator beneath you to look up and like make
out what's going on, Like, you won't have the the
the perfect little silhouette outline of a yummy fish. It'll
confuse it, basically because you're cutting down in the contrast
pretty cool, like you're creating light that blends in with
that same blue green light, and all of a sudden
you disappear well or just breaks up your shapes don't
(18:57):
look like you should. Um. And then there's the opposite,
the cookie cutter or cigar shark, which is the name
I think you made up, Um, that's real, which basically
has the reverse of that, where the bottom, the underside
of the cookie cutter shark glows except for this one
spot in the middle that is dark that looks like
(19:20):
a small fish, So of shark or some other animal
looking up, we'll be like, I'm gonna go eat that fish.
And then all of a sudden it's like, oh god,
it's a cookie cutter slash cigar shark. And then the
cookie cutter shark takes a bite out of them, round
bite and that's why they call it the cookie cutter.
It's like a little plug of flesh and if you've
(19:41):
ever seen google these dudes in their face, it's like
the most frightening little thing you've ever seen in your life. Yeah,
they're pretty terrifying. And you'll see pictures of like a
shark or a whale washed up on the shore with
like hundreds of these little bite plugs taken out of them. Yeah,
that's pretty awful. That's a that's a terrible way to go. Yeah,
but good for you, cigar shark, because you're small and
(20:02):
you're doing what you can. Tough world down there. It's
wildly you know, it's diphotic, and then self defense is
the last reason. Um And basically, like a squid may
release inc to cloud your vision, some of these things
can release a cloud of a glowing cloud two uh,
basically make you sit back and put on pink Floyd
and like chill out for a little while. Yeah, I
(20:24):
looked it up. There's a shrimp. There's a type of
shrimp that releases a bioluminescent cloud. And I couldn't get
the name. I saw both fire breathing and vomiting shrimp
for the common names. But yeah, it just puts it out.
That's not what I would want order on the menu,
the fried vomiting shrimp, uh, and make sure there's extra
(20:46):
poop in the main vain. Um. So what's going on here? How?
How is this magic happening? Well, just like we've mentioned
with a light stick, and involves two different substances mixed
together to produce this reaction. Um. And there can be
all different kinds of kinds of chemicals. But depending on
(21:06):
the on the fish or the being, the being, the life. Uh.
The g one is a a lucifer in and that's
the light producer, and the other is a lucif phrase
and that is the enzyme that catalyzes it. So and
those aren't specific things like you you wouldn't look at
(21:28):
the chemical composition of something and be like, oh, that's
lucifer in. Something can be a lucifer and it's a
generic term for something that produces light or something that
catalyzes the production of light, the lucifhrase. That is correct,
And they will mix together and a lot of times
the lucifer in is something called a photo protein and
(21:49):
it needs an eye on a charged ion to get
things going. That would be the lucifhrase. That's right, But
in all cases there's some sort of trigger. Could be mechanical,
could be chemical, could be neu logical startle. Yeah, it
could be something they don't understand yet, but something triggers
these two things to get together and make this reaction.
And one thing that I didn't realize was the word
(22:12):
Lucifer means lightbringer. Yeah, I never knew that. You mean,
I um went on a little side tear last night
trying to figure out why the devil would be named
the light Bringer? Did you find out? It's a mystery.
It's um Latin and it came years, like centuries after
(22:32):
UM the Old Testament was originally written, and I can't
remember what version, but it was basically like added on
by the I guess the Romans maybe added it on,
but it's because it's Latin and the original version was
not written in Latin. Lightbringer, the light Bringer, the morning Star,
(22:52):
that's another way to put it. They said, maybe it
had to do with Venus, because Venus is like a
false are, and so maybe Lucifer is a false angel,
is what they're saying. But makes sense because the devil
would always come in disguise. Maybe, Yeah, I think that's
weak light Bringer. That's pretty specific like what is that.
(23:15):
I bet there's some theologian that has the answer here.
I want to hear it. Yeah, I would hard to
find out about that one podcast at Discovery dot com
if you know that answer. So, Um, you've got lucifer in,
you've got luciphrase. Some of these chemical reactions require another substance,
and a lot of times it's oxygen, right, So luciferen
(23:35):
will come in in contact with an oxygen molecule and
then the luciphrase comes along, and then you've got a
bioluminescent glow, which is pretty cool. But they also think
that that's one of the reasons I should say, that's
one of the reasons why they think that bioluminescence is
an accidental byproduct of regular old evolution and that originally um,
(24:00):
like there's a lucifering called um ceiling terrazine. I believe
it's how you pronounce it, uh, And it's an antioxidant.
It goes around and tries to find like rogue, harmful
free radicals oxygen derivatives right and get rid of them. Uh.
(24:22):
And they think that this happened this was a process
that was way way older than bioluminescence, and then along
came some substance that became a lucifhrase, and then light
was created, and then it was just a byproduct like heats,
a byproduct of metabolism, right. Um. But they think also
(24:44):
that over time this happened in like maybe it's going
on inside of us right now and we're producing light,
but we just don't know it, or it's just so
weak that we wouldn't even possibly be able to detect it.
But this happened enough times in animals in the ocean
where suddenly ones could catch prey more easily because they
could see better than other animals that weren't bioluminescing, And
(25:06):
so it was selected in these skies, and now bioluminescence
is its own trait rather than a byproduct of the
antioxidant process. I bet you're right. Oh it's that's not
me man. I think you just cooked this up. I
wish that's better than why as far as research papers go, Yeah,
throw a theory out there, see if it sticks, That's
(25:27):
what I say. So the deal with these these animals
is they either have all this stuff like in their
body as part of them, or they have a little
relationship with a bacteria, like producing bacteria that live in
a light organ and this is pretty cool. Like some
of these animals can pull this organ back into their
body like it's always on. Sometimes they don't want to
(25:50):
light to be on, so they'll pull it back in
the body. Or they have a little something like a
light uh an eyelid that they can just kind of
close over the light, which is pretty amazing. Yeah, but
it's always going. Yeah. And what the other thing with
evolution is they think that because they don't see this
as often in lakes because lakes are younger, then they
think it maybe happened independently at different parts in the ocean.
(26:13):
So I talked to Tracy about this, and it was
a little hinky. She wrote this a long time because
she couldn't quite remember what the point was. But the
point was that they think that because the process of
antioxidation is a normal thing, um, that the the conditions
were right for bioluminescence to be selected naturally in some places,
(26:35):
but it wouldn't in like a lake. So the the
idea that this happened independently and spontaneously when needed through
evolution is kind of backed up by the idea that
you don't really see bioluminescence at the bottom of lakes
because you don't need it. It all makes sense when
you just peel the peel the little curtain back, don't
it when you peel the glowing skin bag? What else
(27:00):
you got? Anything else? You've seen glowing cats? Yeah? The
Mayo Clinic likes to put jellyfish jeans in animals. The
most the biggest one so far as a cat and
make it glow because they're checking um disease. They're using
it to mark the progression of diseases. But they made
a glowing cat. It's pretty cool, now does the I
(27:23):
gotta look this. It glows under a blue light, but
it glows green, and it's like the cat glows green
like it. I guess it's the hair the caratinate produces
has some sort of fluorescent property to it, but it's
it's not bioluminescent in it's fluorescent, and fluorescent is where
(27:43):
you take light of one color and reflected back, absorb
it and reflected back of it as a different color.
You're not actually producing light, all right. I just looked
it up. Wow, it's a glowing cat and I double
check the day, a double check the damn like, this
better not be an April Fool article. But it's not.
(28:04):
I want one of those this photic Yeah, okay, so
if you you're done, I'm done. Yeah. There's glowing rats too.
You know these are baby cats I think you should punch.
Are called kittens in some countries. Um, if you if
you want to learn more about bioluminescence, you should type
that in to the search bar. And you want to
(28:26):
type b I O l U M I N E
S C E n c E not ful in the
search bar at how stuff works dot com, and it'll
bring up this very cool article with some pretty glowing pictures. UM.
And I said, uh, search bar somewhere in there, which
means it's time for a listener mail. No it's not, Josh.
(28:48):
Today's part two of you want to say it? For
those of you don't know, this is a point at
the show where we um thank people for little tokens
and gifts and chatch keys and things that they have
sent us food sometimes foods, and UM, it's a good
chance to hear your name on the show as a
(29:10):
as a thank you, and it's a good chance for
some of you to find out where you can get
some of these things, because a lot of times they're
like really great creative, crafty things. People write books, and like,
we want to support uh crafters and writers and bakers
of cookies, and we want to support Bill Wagoner, who
sent us a bumper sticker on how to pronounce Nevada Nevada.
(29:34):
I'll never get used to that. It's not right. It
is right, but I tell everyone that writes in only
people from Nevada say it that way. Everyone else says
Nevada Nevada. That's Nevada, all right. Lily, her sister Toby,
and brother in law Danny start a company called Please
Be Good Humans. Yeah, I mean they've gotten uh, they
sent us some shirts. I think they sent some to
(29:56):
the stickers. They've got them. Know, everybody has stickers. We
passed them out. Oh well, Kristen Conger, I think that's
short too though, Oh she did. I think so. Oh
that's great. Um. And basically everything is has the p
B g H logo on it, which is like, be
good to each other, and of everything they sell goes
(30:16):
to the charity of your choice. So if you go there,
Please Be Good Humans. The Internet you can actually get
some of the stuff and choose your own charity that
will go to. Very nice message, Very nice. Um, how
about some Randy Carbonny action. Yeah, he send us his
Pirate Gag booklet, which is a tailor made for Pirate Day.
(30:39):
Talk about too Pirate Day. If you want to learn
more about that, you could go to Pirate Day p
I R A T E A d A y dot
blog spot dot com and hook up with Randy carbon Action.
Christopher M. A Roth with an E at the end
sent us a kN version of his book Dirk Danger
(31:02):
Loves Life. I don't have a kindle yet, and I'm
dying to read this thing, just sitting there. Um. Susannah
from Archie the Archie Comics. Um, she sent us a
bunch of stuff. She she she sends us stuff in
like waves. I guess you could put it. But most recently, um,
she sent us a Archie meets Kiss hardcover book of
(31:24):
Kevin Keller book. Um, that's the first gay character. That's right,
first gay comic book character. This whole green lantern hubbub.
I haven't heard that. Oh yeah, there's apparently two green lanterns,
and one of them came out as gay and it's
just a man in the comic that he came out.
And yeah, but Archie's gotta beat it's right because of
(31:46):
Kevin Keller is the first gay character UH in the
Jinx comics that Susannah is she draw right produced those
which yeah, I mean that's her baby, So UM support
the Jinx comics and Archie's a whole. She sent his
shirts and what we're supposed to meet at UH Comic Con,
but she said they were slammed in the booth and
she was unable to get away. Oh I met Uncle
(32:06):
John's Reader people. From reader People, they gave us shirts
and hats, very nice, so thank you for that as well.
We're from Mad Magazine too. Just like floored me. Yeah,
did you write that guy back? I totally did you. Yeah,
I finally did. Um. Daniel Mackenzie from Oakland, California Sennison
LP from his band shut I Unison, awesome music, indie rock,
(32:31):
little noisy, little melodic, right up my alley, shut Out Unison.
I didn't see that one. It's good stuff. Um. Andy
Parr Sentison edition of Games Magazine's World of Puzzles. Is
that the one that had us as a clue. I believe.
So yeah, stuff you should know was a clue in
a word search. I believe nobody got it. I don't
(32:54):
get this one. That's cool, but it was very nice
that he uh he did. He went to that in trouble.
Uh Suki s u k I Design Laboratory, senter some
hankies and this was the lady who designed the baby
head T shirt with the fly. Yeah, our favorite T
shirt of the submissions, the most disturbing one. It was
one of my five favorites. It was my favorite inning. Yeah.
(33:17):
But um, she designed that, and she sent us some
hankies with like these hankies have like sleeping sickness and
hepatitis and like the chemical combinations of these on the hanky.
Yeah that's what's contained within. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Um yeah,
thank you for those. Duff Man sent it's the Springfield
Isotopes couzy. Yeah, from deaf Man himself. Yeah, uh, we
(33:42):
appreciate that, sir. Uh. Silver Fox broad Band sent his
Silver Fox T shirts and at first I was all, well,
is this broadband company sending his shirts? Then I looked
up they supply internet for senior homes, So I was
all of a sudden work with pride. Everyone at my
gym thinks that I'm a silver Fox. Comfortable. Let's see
(34:06):
the guys from rock tail Ours send us a T
shirt the podcast about rock music. Um, that's rock and
then tail t a l e our check them out.
Bike rappers dot com uh with w R A p
B are not rapping like music. They sent us some
reflective bike rappers and dog collars. Basically just these little
(34:27):
bell grow things. Such an easy invention but but necessary
and you wrap them on the frame of your bike
to make your bike more reflective. And they have a
little reflective dog collars too. It's pretty cool. Um, we've
got Christmas cards from a bunch of people. Thank you
very much. From this is how far behind we are.
It's Christmas in July, everybody, Nick and Lindsay Devon, b
(34:49):
Becca Evans, Andrew and Janelle Thomas. So thank you very much.
Merry Christmas all your people, and happy Halloween. M oh
and I've got one more and send us a Halloween car.
Oh thanks, Happy Halloween, am. And then again from Nick
and Lindsay. They sent us Valentine State cards. Yeah, they're
they're pretty sweet. They send us stuff are you done,
because I got two more in this one. Let's go
(35:10):
for it, dude. David Beaver's family has been making a
magnetic calendar for fifty years, and not just one. They've
been making the magnetic calendars for fifty years. Uh. The
Magnetic Calendar dot com owned operated, made and sourced in
the Midwest. It's a selling point family business. They've been
doing this for how long fifty years? Fifty years? Uh?
(35:33):
And then Jill Swing sent us a Twinkie the kid
t shirts, So thank you very much. Yeah, I believe
it was how many design to write? I don't know,
I think it is, was it? Yeah? Well, thank you everybody.
That was very kind of you. Yeah. We have one
more installment and they'll here soon, and then I have
to do it because these are all the ones that
Chuck compiled. I think it's most of them that you
have a lot. I've got a decent amount. All right. Well,
(35:55):
then they'll be apart four, okay, and then we'll start
all over all right, all right? If you want to
send us something, even something is innocuous, is just a hello.
You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com. Uh slash
stuff you should know and you can send us an
email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. For more
(36:24):
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff
Works dot com. M brought to you by the reinvented
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuff Bryant
(00:20):
and uh. You put us together and you get a
little something called Stuff you Should Know. And that's what
this is. Whether you like it or not, you have
to listen to it. It's try. Um. Actually, no one
has to listen to this. It's part of both Obama's
and Romney's platforms. Yeah, it's a part of Obamacare. You
(00:42):
gotta listen to Stuff you Should Know, and you gotta
get an r f D chip in your hand, and
you have to give poor people all your money. None
of that is true, that you have to listen to
the podcast and the porpulal part um. Chuck, how's it going?
It's great. Are you feeling sick? Do you need any
kind of here Obama or otherwise? Now? Are you feeling sick?
(01:02):
I'm fine. Chance, like my shoulder muscles are gonna pop
right out of my skin. I went to that foot
massage play some Buford Highway the other day. You ever
been there. M hm. Treat your feet Is that what
it's called. Yeah, that's a great name. They'll they'll do
an hour on your feet for bucks if that's what
you desire. Oh yeah, I know. About a little bit
(01:23):
bit into it, they'll ask you like, would you want
to go half and half, like half body half foot,
because basically they get you in there, they're going at
your feet and you're like, you know, I don't know
if I could do an hour on my feet. Each
toe has gotten their own massage at this point, like
they're just jelly cracked your toes. Yeah, so they think, yeah,
you know, i'll pay another twenty bucks for the body,
right they give you t it's really nice. You should go.
(01:45):
It does sound nice, but it's not like private. Like
you're in a big room with like fifteen recliners. Everyone's
just sitting around and well we've gotten backrubs at the
mall before. Yeah, that's true. You remember, I don't know
how I got on this Treat your feet Buford Highway.
Go eat some fun and then go get your foot massage.
Where's good fun around here? We're trying to figure that out.
The Yeah, where uh if you are we going to
(02:09):
do this now. Okay, I like fun number two, um,
which is past Claremont. Um, it's in a little shopping center.
Just look it up, okay, I mean it's it's all good,
all good fun. Um. Yeah. I don't know how we
got on there, but some places on Beaureford Highway. Oh
(02:30):
you use some money, seriously, at least some free fun. Um.
This has nothing to do with bioluminescence. No, it doesn't.
Although sometimes if you stir your funt around, chuck, you're
gonna see some um fungus possibly rise to the top
a couple of times. Right, Yeah, that's a good one too.
(02:51):
And um, where those things still alive and not cooked,
they possibly might glow. And where they to glow, you
would say, look at those things, they're bioluminescing. That's right,
because that's what they do. It is a life form
that generates their own glow inside their body, their own life. Yeah,
(03:12):
pretty awesome. And um, you I read a different um
study It was like, what what's the deal with this?
Because this is still very much a mystery. Um, we
have an idea of how this goes down, but not
in every case. We also don't understand why in a
lot of cases, um, and in in some cases we
(03:35):
don't understand how. And the thing is is, I don't
think it's that it's out of the grasp of science
to understand it. I think that when researchers are looking
into this, they just they become so transfixed on the
beautiful glow that they forget what they're doing and waste
tons of time. And then all of a sudden, you're like, oh,
I gotta publish our Paris. And then it's just like
(03:56):
they just write why on a piece of paper and
send it in, as Tracy Wilson of Pop Stuff Great
Podcast points out, and Tracy's articles are always awesome. Yeah,
oh man, they're comprehensive. You know, I never have to
worry about it. Um. Sadly, sometimes scientists can either harm
the light making magic when they try to study them,
(04:18):
this makes it hard to study, or the animal will
exhaust it's light making glow capabilities out of like fear
or defense or spite or spite, which will also make
it hard to study. So those are a couple of reasons,
and the whole just why right. So, Um, we do
have a pretty good handle to some extent, But let's
(04:42):
talk about what luminescence itself is right with that this
light bulb right here in this a key of brand
lamp um. It's incandescent. It's an incandescent light bulb. I
think this is an edison bulb is oh? Is it
like the real old amy looking one sort of um?
(05:02):
So that is pretty simple. It has electricity that passes
through a filment, just a thin metal piece of something metal,
and that heats up, and it heats up so much
that it gives off light, which is incredibly inefficient. And
if say a jellyfish for to do this, it would
(05:22):
catch fire even though it's under water. Right, So what
um living organisms do when they want to give off
light is something called cold light or bioluminescence, which is
the combination of chemicals that produce light like a glow stick,
but no heat. But it is just like a glow stick.
You're combining two things that will make a glow exactly,
(05:45):
except you don't have to shake up the jellyfish. They
do not like that. Or it's like the glow sticks
that I used to sell very often at Stone Mountain
Laser Show. It's like the glows free Summer that I
used to dance with at races. You were at raves
and I was selling these things during like Lee Greenwoods,
(06:08):
Lee Greenwood, Lee Green Would you Proud to be an American? Yeah? Boy,
I heard that song five thousand times. So bad. Anyone
who's never been to a Stone Mountain, Georgia. They have
a big rock there and they have a laser show
on it during the summer. It's a big rock that
has a basically the Confederate heroes carved into the side
of it by the guy who did Mount Rushmore. How's
(06:29):
that the same guy? Huh? Yeah, And they show a
very corny laser show every summer since like the early
nineteen eighties, and not just once this summer, like every
night during the summer. Yeah, that's why I've heard it
ten thousand times. It's something And Chuck, you still work there.
I think you left that out selling gloves sticks sticks
full circle. Yes, all right, let's quit stalling. Let's talk
about bioluminescence. Okay, that's all over the place. Uh. Like
(06:53):
you said, we don't know exactly how it works in
all cases, but we do know that these animals do
mix together. There are different substances, just like a glow stick,
wood and to turn their little glow on and off. Um.
Here on the planet, not in the ocean, because that's
where most of the stuff takes place here on planet Earth.
(07:13):
On the dry land. Uh, you can have things glowing
like fox fire, which is this fungus that feeds on
rotting wood. You look at pictures of fox fire. Pretty cool. Yeah,
doesn't look real, but it's real. It's very real. Um.
The jack O lander mushroom you can google that as well.
That's my favorite bioluminous in organism. Why just because it's
(07:34):
the South on land on Terra Firma, because it's a
perfectly named thing, the jack O lantern mushroom. Like it
has that glow coming through the gills, um, and just
the gills, so it looks like there's like this glow
coming inside and there's like holes where it's coming out of.
It's so neat. My favorite on Terra Firma is the
lightning bug a k a. The firefly. Here in the
(07:57):
South and I guess I'm not sure where else it
on lightning bugs, but definitely in the Sound. You'll see
them come out every summer and if you're a little kid,
you can go around and catch them. And put them
in a jar and then and then release them. And
in fact you may be harming them just by catching them.
But what you don't want to do if you're a
kid is like smash these things because it's just yeah,
(08:20):
that means you're gonna end up being a serial killer
one day probably. Uh. So the firefly is uh, you
know you generally you think of them as the adults
lying around, but their little larva can glow as well
on the ground, right, And a lot of people call
um firefly lava glow worms, but glow worms are apparently
another kind of fly larvae. Fireflies are fireflies or lightning bugs.
(08:44):
That's right, um, centipedes, millipedes, there's all all kinds of
little things that can glow worms. Uh, there's some worms
that give off a bioluminescent sludge and no one has
any idea why is it their poop and then pop it?
I don't think so. Ober. The the the secretion they
produce when they're mating and all that, it's probably like that.
(09:08):
It probably comes from the ring. I can't remember the
name of the ring. So that's on Earth. But if
you really want to get down to some cool, glowing creatures.
You need to dive down into the ocean to the
twilight zone, which I think we've talked about that, haven't
we know? We talked about it in biospeleiol in caves. Yeah,
there's different zones of light penetration in caves and in
(09:29):
the ocean too, that's right. Um, the twilight zone is
generally about six hundred sixty two feet deep. Six It
depends because obviously different kinds of ocean water are gonna
allow different amounts of light in. It depends on what
the ocean floor looks like, but it is, um, it
(09:50):
is the dysphotic or poorly lit zone deeper than the
euphotic sunlit zone or good zone or shout or then
the aphotic midnight zone, which is like scary no light.
That's a scary time down there, right. Those are the
things down there that have like no eyes, right, because
(10:12):
there's no reason, same like with the caves. So um, yeah,
I remember what was the Prometheus Salaman just three ft
long and doesn't have eyes. The scariest thing ever except
for the cigar shark, which will actually get do in here. Okay,
so is that the cookie cutter shark man that things
frightening um. So in this uh, this twilight zone, the
(10:34):
desphotic zone or mezo pelagic zone, mesopelagic zone, stop laughing
at me. Uh there, this is where most of the
bioluminescent organisms on Earth can be found. And the light
that penetrates this area um is a blue green color
because the red, yellow, orange. Yeah, the red, yellow and
(10:58):
orange are absorbed by the seawater above and the violet
is scattered, so the blue and the green are the
ones that get through. So everything's just kind of color
blue green. That's what the sunlight is. So most of
the bioluminescent organisms in this um dysphotic zone, dysphotic zone
have evolved to produce light at that same wavelength from
(11:20):
something like four four hundred seventy nanometers, which is like
the blue green spectrum. That's right, So matches that sunlight, yeah,
which is pretty cool. Yeah, well we'll get to it.
But it can lead to some cool things like camouflage.
So uh, the but it also means that it travels farther.
Light travels that that type of light travels the farthest
(11:41):
and water because it has a shorter wavelength than the
other types. So an animal producing this could really cook
down there basically. Yeah. Uh, we're talking jellyfish, shrimp, grill, squid,
other kinds of fish, marine worms, whatever the heck that
is therely what you think it is. Yeah, what are
(12:02):
those one worms called? It like come up out of
the little tubes tube worms? Oh yeah, yeah, I believe
that's what they're called. Um, either that or it just
made some terrible like sixth grade joke. But um. They
they they are like on the ocean bottom and they
they have they just come out of these tubes and
(12:24):
grab stuff and go back in there like three ft long.
You've not seen this sea snake to me. Yeah, but
they're I think they're attached or they may be attached
to their tubes, or they just never come all the
way out. I'm gonna have to look into that. Yeah.
Uh so you talked about the blue green light is
what they generally produce. Um, there is something called the
(12:45):
loose jawfish, which actually can make red light very deep
in the ocean. But that's really unusual that can make
red light, and it's um. A lot of species can't
even see the color red down there because I don't
know if they're just their brains aren't used to it
because they never see it. So the loose jaw uses
this thing um to to basically sneak up on people. Um,
(13:09):
it's like Jane Gum at the end of silence of
the lamb and and like the fish are like Jodie
Foster like, and Jane Gum is the loose jaw fish
coming up behind her like I can see you, you
can't see me. So, like we said earlier, we don't
know for sure why all these uh, bioluminescent forms of
(13:30):
life are down there doing their thing. Um. You did
mention the earthworm that has the secretion. They don't know
why they do that. The mushroom spores, they think that
maybe it's um to attract insect to spread these spores.
That's why the mushroom glows makes sense. Um Sometimes and
this one's kind of cute. Sometimes animals will light up
(13:53):
when something nearby them lights up, which I think might
just be a little like, hey, how you doing, I
can glow too, Well, that's how far a fliers are doing. Yeah,
they're attracting mates right with it, like a very specific
pattern right there. They used it to communicate like, hey,
you're looking pretty good. Meet you by the fence post, right, yeah, um,
(14:14):
let's go get some fun. So should we talk about
the dino flagellates, the dino flagellates, dino flagelates? Am I
pronouncing it wrong? No? I think that was wrong? Okay,
well yeah, So have you ever seen Apolar thirteen? Yeah?
You remember the part where um they had a problem.
(14:35):
Is it Tom level? Gym level? Where gym level? And
UH is hanging out with Bill Paxton and they're talking
about how they're just shooting the breeze while they're trying
to stay alive, and um he talks about how he
was flying a mission, um coming in on an aircraft carrier,
(14:55):
and there was a blackout and he couldn't see where
he's going, he couldn't find the aircraft carry to land.
He's running low and fuel. Then all of a sudden
he looks and he notices that there's a bunch of
um he calls it like glowing algae or whatever. But
what he's talking about where dino flagelets that were kicked
up by the wake of the aircraft carrier and he
used them as like a runway to guide them in.
(15:17):
I remember that part. That's a great part that whole
movie from like start to finish with. But these dino
flagelets create what's called the milky sea when you get
enough of them together, when they're disturbed physically, they start
to glow. And if you have a bunch of them,
you can see him from space. Actually in this article
there's a picture of a pretty substantial milky sea off
(15:38):
the coast of Africa. Pretty cool stuff. And if you
google milky Sea two you can see some like that's
cool looking. But I like the shots from like low
flying planes, helicopters and uh a little eerie. Yeah, that
may say. So. They have no idea again, why dino
flagelates would glow when they're disturbed. Obviously they're like trying
(16:00):
to register their complaint. They can't talk, you can't flip
anyone off, so they glow out of anger. Apparently, Um,
they they there's a theory called the burglar alarm theory.
I like this one. Or basically they think that, um,
when dino flage lets start to glow, it's because there's
little fish eating on them, right, which is disturbing. They
(16:24):
think that maybe they glow to basically alert larger fish
that will come eat the smaller fish so they'll stop
eating the dino flagelets. That there's little fish in the area.
Pretty awesome, Like hey, help come eat this guy because
you're bigger. Uh. Here's some other and you know, these
are the ones that are the most understood because there
(16:45):
is a lot of uncertainty, Like we said, like ten
times um. But here's here's some of the reasons that
they think they're doing this communication, which we've mentioned with
the firefly or the lightning bug. Uh, to locate food,
maybe to use it as an actual light to see
in the dark. Pretty cool, or a spotlight to catch prey,
oh like temporarily blind something gotcha? Or no, to like
(17:09):
go find it. It's very dark in here. I need
to see what fish are around to attract prey, like
the anglerfish, Like look at this bright glow, come here, chomp. Yeah.
I love that one. What was that in Finding Nemo Man?
The thing was scary. I didn't see that movie, good one, Camouflage.
I don't watch any of those anymore because Emily doesn't
like him. Oh, yes, she doesn't like Disney movies. She
(17:32):
doesn't like any of those Pixar movies because it's always
like some tragedy like someone dies in its heartbreak and
keep her away from toy story three. Dude, I can't
even watch that movie. I made her watch up and
she was just like a like a little blob of
play the first ten minutes or this so sad. God.
But I always explained to her, like, this is why
they make these movies, so kids can learn how to
(17:53):
cope with death. And then they see like it's all
happy afterwards, you know, all right, camouflage this is the
cool this one, yeah, and the it's pretty. It makes
sense too. If you're in the ocean, and if you
ever like swum down ten or fift ft and looked
up open your eyes in the ocean, I've done it. Um.
It's it's hard to see stuff below you, but it's
(18:13):
easy to look up because you know the sunlight's penetrating
down and see like the silhouette or in the case
of Jaws, you see like the silhouette of the lady's
legs on the raft. You know, that's good eating. Um.
If you have, like in the case of what's it
called counter elimination, you can actually produce spots on your
underside to make it more difficult for a fish beneath you,
(18:35):
a predator beneath you to look up and like make
out what's going on, Like, you won't have the the
the perfect little silhouette outline of a yummy fish. It'll
confuse it, basically because you're cutting down in the contrast
pretty cool, like you're creating light that blends in with
that same blue green light, and all of a sudden
you disappear well or just breaks up your shapes don't
(18:57):
look like you should. Um. And then there's the opposite,
the cookie cutter or cigar shark, which is the name
I think you made up, Um, that's real, which basically
has the reverse of that, where the bottom, the underside
of the cookie cutter shark glows except for this one
spot in the middle that is dark that looks like
(19:20):
a small fish, So of shark or some other animal
looking up, we'll be like, I'm gonna go eat that fish.
And then all of a sudden it's like, oh god,
it's a cookie cutter slash cigar shark. And then the
cookie cutter shark takes a bite out of them, round
bite and that's why they call it the cookie cutter.
It's like a little plug of flesh and if you've
(19:41):
ever seen google these dudes in their face, it's like
the most frightening little thing you've ever seen in your life. Yeah,
they're pretty terrifying. And you'll see pictures of like a
shark or a whale washed up on the shore with
like hundreds of these little bite plugs taken out of them. Yeah,
that's pretty awful. That's a that's a terrible way to go. Yeah,
but good for you, cigar shark, because you're small and
(20:02):
you're doing what you can. Tough world down there. It's
wildly you know, it's diphotic, and then self defense is
the last reason. Um And basically, like a squid may
release inc to cloud your vision, some of these things
can release a cloud of a glowing cloud two uh,
basically make you sit back and put on pink Floyd
and like chill out for a little while. Yeah, I
(20:24):
looked it up. There's a shrimp. There's a type of
shrimp that releases a bioluminescent cloud. And I couldn't get
the name. I saw both fire breathing and vomiting shrimp
for the common names. But yeah, it just puts it out.
That's not what I would want order on the menu,
the fried vomiting shrimp, uh, and make sure there's extra
(20:46):
poop in the main vain. Um. So what's going on here? How?
How is this magic happening? Well, just like we've mentioned
with a light stick, and involves two different substances mixed
together to produce this reaction. Um. And there can be
all different kinds of kinds of chemicals. But depending on
(21:06):
the on the fish or the being, the being, the life. Uh.
The g one is a a lucifer in and that's
the light producer, and the other is a lucif phrase
and that is the enzyme that catalyzes it. So and
those aren't specific things like you you wouldn't look at
(21:28):
the chemical composition of something and be like, oh, that's
lucifer in. Something can be a lucifer and it's a
generic term for something that produces light or something that
catalyzes the production of light, the lucifhrase. That is correct,
And they will mix together and a lot of times
the lucifer in is something called a photo protein and
(21:49):
it needs an eye on a charged ion to get
things going. That would be the lucifhrase. That's right, But
in all cases there's some sort of trigger. Could be mechanical,
could be chemical, could be neu logical startle. Yeah, it
could be something they don't understand yet, but something triggers
these two things to get together and make this reaction.
And one thing that I didn't realize was the word
(22:12):
Lucifer means lightbringer. Yeah, I never knew that. You mean,
I um went on a little side tear last night
trying to figure out why the devil would be named
the light Bringer? Did you find out? It's a mystery.
It's um Latin and it came years, like centuries after
(22:32):
UM the Old Testament was originally written, and I can't
remember what version, but it was basically like added on
by the I guess the Romans maybe added it on,
but it's because it's Latin and the original version was
not written in Latin. Lightbringer, the light Bringer, the morning Star,
(22:52):
that's another way to put it. They said, maybe it
had to do with Venus, because Venus is like a
false are, and so maybe Lucifer is a false angel,
is what they're saying. But makes sense because the devil
would always come in disguise. Maybe, Yeah, I think that's
weak light Bringer. That's pretty specific like what is that.
(23:15):
I bet there's some theologian that has the answer here.
I want to hear it. Yeah, I would hard to
find out about that one podcast at Discovery dot com
if you know that answer. So, Um, you've got lucifer in,
you've got luciphrase. Some of these chemical reactions require another substance,
and a lot of times it's oxygen, right, So luciferen
(23:35):
will come in in contact with an oxygen molecule and
then the luciphrase comes along, and then you've got a
bioluminescent glow, which is pretty cool. But they also think
that that's one of the reasons I should say, that's
one of the reasons why they think that bioluminescence is
an accidental byproduct of regular old evolution and that originally um,
(24:00):
like there's a lucifering called um ceiling terrazine. I believe
it's how you pronounce it, uh, And it's an antioxidant.
It goes around and tries to find like rogue, harmful
free radicals oxygen derivatives right and get rid of them. Uh.
(24:22):
And they think that this happened this was a process
that was way way older than bioluminescence, and then along
came some substance that became a lucifhrase, and then light
was created, and then it was just a byproduct like heats,
a byproduct of metabolism, right. Um. But they think also
(24:44):
that over time this happened in like maybe it's going
on inside of us right now and we're producing light,
but we just don't know it, or it's just so
weak that we wouldn't even possibly be able to detect it.
But this happened enough times in animals in the ocean
where suddenly ones could catch prey more easily because they
could see better than other animals that weren't bioluminescing, And
(25:06):
so it was selected in these skies, and now bioluminescence
is its own trait rather than a byproduct of the
antioxidant process. I bet you're right. Oh it's that's not
me man. I think you just cooked this up. I
wish that's better than why as far as research papers go, Yeah,
throw a theory out there, see if it sticks, That's
(25:27):
what I say. So the deal with these these animals
is they either have all this stuff like in their
body as part of them, or they have a little
relationship with a bacteria, like producing bacteria that live in
a light organ and this is pretty cool. Like some
of these animals can pull this organ back into their
body like it's always on. Sometimes they don't want to
(25:50):
light to be on, so they'll pull it back in
the body. Or they have a little something like a
light uh an eyelid that they can just kind of
close over the light, which is pretty amazing. Yeah, but
it's always going. Yeah. And what the other thing with
evolution is they think that because they don't see this
as often in lakes because lakes are younger, then they
think it maybe happened independently at different parts in the ocean.
(26:13):
So I talked to Tracy about this, and it was
a little hinky. She wrote this a long time because
she couldn't quite remember what the point was. But the
point was that they think that because the process of
antioxidation is a normal thing, um, that the the conditions
were right for bioluminescence to be selected naturally in some places,
(26:35):
but it wouldn't in like a lake. So the the
idea that this happened independently and spontaneously when needed through
evolution is kind of backed up by the idea that
you don't really see bioluminescence at the bottom of lakes
because you don't need it. It all makes sense when
you just peel the peel the little curtain back, don't
it when you peel the glowing skin bag? What else
(27:00):
you got? Anything else? You've seen glowing cats? Yeah? The
Mayo Clinic likes to put jellyfish jeans in animals. The
most the biggest one so far as a cat and
make it glow because they're checking um disease. They're using
it to mark the progression of diseases. But they made
a glowing cat. It's pretty cool, now does the I
(27:23):
gotta look this. It glows under a blue light, but
it glows green, and it's like the cat glows green
like it. I guess it's the hair the caratinate produces
has some sort of fluorescent property to it, but it's
it's not bioluminescent in it's fluorescent, and fluorescent is where
(27:43):
you take light of one color and reflected back, absorb
it and reflected back of it as a different color.
You're not actually producing light, all right. I just looked
it up. Wow, it's a glowing cat and I double
check the day, a double check the damn like, this
better not be an April Fool article. But it's not.
(28:04):
I want one of those this photic Yeah, okay, so
if you you're done, I'm done. Yeah. There's glowing rats too.
You know these are baby cats I think you should punch.
Are called kittens in some countries. Um, if you if
you want to learn more about bioluminescence, you should type
that in to the search bar. And you want to
(28:26):
type b I O l U M I N E
S C E n c E not ful in the
search bar at how stuff works dot com, and it'll
bring up this very cool article with some pretty glowing pictures. UM.
And I said, uh, search bar somewhere in there, which
means it's time for a listener mail. No it's not, Josh.
(28:48):
Today's part two of you want to say it? For
those of you don't know, this is a point at
the show where we um thank people for little tokens
and gifts and chatch keys and things that they have
sent us food sometimes foods, and UM, it's a good
chance to hear your name on the show as a
(29:10):
as a thank you, and it's a good chance for
some of you to find out where you can get
some of these things, because a lot of times they're
like really great creative, crafty things. People write books, and like,
we want to support uh crafters and writers and bakers
of cookies, and we want to support Bill Wagoner, who
sent us a bumper sticker on how to pronounce Nevada Nevada.
(29:34):
I'll never get used to that. It's not right. It
is right, but I tell everyone that writes in only
people from Nevada say it that way. Everyone else says
Nevada Nevada. That's Nevada, all right. Lily, her sister Toby,
and brother in law Danny start a company called Please
Be Good Humans. Yeah, I mean they've gotten uh, they
sent us some shirts. I think they sent some to
(29:56):
the stickers. They've got them. Know, everybody has stickers. We
passed them out. Oh well, Kristen Conger, I think that's
short too though, Oh she did. I think so. Oh
that's great. Um. And basically everything is has the p
B g H logo on it, which is like, be
good to each other, and of everything they sell goes
(30:16):
to the charity of your choice. So if you go there,
Please Be Good Humans. The Internet you can actually get
some of the stuff and choose your own charity that
will go to. Very nice message, Very nice. Um, how
about some Randy Carbonny action. Yeah, he send us his
Pirate Gag booklet, which is a tailor made for Pirate Day.
(30:39):
Talk about too Pirate Day. If you want to learn
more about that, you could go to Pirate Day p
I R A T E A d A y dot
blog spot dot com and hook up with Randy carbon Action.
Christopher M. A Roth with an E at the end
sent us a kN version of his book Dirk Danger
(31:02):
Loves Life. I don't have a kindle yet, and I'm
dying to read this thing, just sitting there. Um. Susannah
from Archie the Archie Comics. Um, she sent us a
bunch of stuff. She she she sends us stuff in
like waves. I guess you could put it. But most recently, um,
she sent us a Archie meets Kiss hardcover book of
(31:24):
Kevin Keller book. Um, that's the first gay character. That's right,
first gay comic book character. This whole green lantern hubbub.
I haven't heard that. Oh yeah, there's apparently two green lanterns,
and one of them came out as gay and it's
just a man in the comic that he came out.
And yeah, but Archie's gotta beat it's right because of
(31:46):
Kevin Keller is the first gay character UH in the
Jinx comics that Susannah is she draw right produced those
which yeah, I mean that's her baby, So UM support
the Jinx comics and Archie's a whole. She sent his
shirts and what we're supposed to meet at UH Comic Con,
but she said they were slammed in the booth and
she was unable to get away. Oh I met Uncle
(32:06):
John's Reader people. From reader People, they gave us shirts
and hats, very nice, so thank you for that as well.
We're from Mad Magazine too. Just like floored me. Yeah,
did you write that guy back? I totally did you. Yeah,
I finally did. Um. Daniel Mackenzie from Oakland, California Sennison
LP from his band shut I Unison, awesome music, indie rock,
(32:31):
little noisy, little melodic, right up my alley, shut Out Unison.
I didn't see that one. It's good stuff. Um. Andy
Parr Sentison edition of Games Magazine's World of Puzzles. Is
that the one that had us as a clue. I believe.
So yeah, stuff you should know was a clue in
a word search. I believe nobody got it. I don't
(32:54):
get this one. That's cool, but it was very nice
that he uh he did. He went to that in trouble.
Uh Suki s u k I Design Laboratory, senter some
hankies and this was the lady who designed the baby
head T shirt with the fly. Yeah, our favorite T
shirt of the submissions, the most disturbing one. It was
one of my five favorites. It was my favorite inning. Yeah.
(33:17):
But um, she designed that, and she sent us some
hankies with like these hankies have like sleeping sickness and
hepatitis and like the chemical combinations of these on the hanky.
Yeah that's what's contained within. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Um yeah,
thank you for those. Duff Man sent it's the Springfield
Isotopes couzy. Yeah, from deaf Man himself. Yeah, uh, we
(33:42):
appreciate that, sir. Uh. Silver Fox broad Band sent his
Silver Fox T shirts and at first I was all, well,
is this broadband company sending his shirts? Then I looked
up they supply internet for senior homes, So I was
all of a sudden work with pride. Everyone at my
gym thinks that I'm a silver Fox. Comfortable. Let's see
(34:06):
the guys from rock tail Ours send us a T
shirt the podcast about rock music. Um, that's rock and
then tail t a l e our check them out.
Bike rappers dot com uh with w R A p
B are not rapping like music. They sent us some
reflective bike rappers and dog collars. Basically just these little
(34:27):
bell grow things. Such an easy invention but but necessary
and you wrap them on the frame of your bike
to make your bike more reflective. And they have a
little reflective dog collars too. It's pretty cool. Um, we've
got Christmas cards from a bunch of people. Thank you
very much. From this is how far behind we are.
It's Christmas in July, everybody, Nick and Lindsay Devon, b
(34:49):
Becca Evans, Andrew and Janelle Thomas. So thank you very much.
Merry Christmas all your people, and happy Halloween. M oh
and I've got one more and send us a Halloween car.
Oh thanks, Happy Halloween, am. And then again from Nick
and Lindsay. They sent us Valentine State cards. Yeah, they're
they're pretty sweet. They send us stuff are you done,
because I got two more in this one. Let's go
(35:10):
for it, dude. David Beaver's family has been making a
magnetic calendar for fifty years, and not just one. They've
been making the magnetic calendars for fifty years. Uh. The
Magnetic Calendar dot com owned operated, made and sourced in
the Midwest. It's a selling point family business. They've been
doing this for how long fifty years? Fifty years? Uh?
(35:33):
And then Jill Swing sent us a Twinkie the kid
t shirts, So thank you very much. Yeah, I believe
it was how many design to write? I don't know,
I think it is, was it? Yeah? Well, thank you everybody.
That was very kind of you. Yeah. We have one
more installment and they'll here soon, and then I have
to do it because these are all the ones that
Chuck compiled. I think it's most of them that you
have a lot. I've got a decent amount. All right. Well,
(35:55):
then they'll be apart four, okay, and then we'll start
all over all right, all right? If you want to
send us something, even something is innocuous, is just a hello.
You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com. Uh slash
stuff you should know and you can send us an
email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. For more
(36:24):
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff
Works dot com. M brought to you by the reinvented
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