March 22, 2012 • 18 mins
Just how big can an Earth organism get? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and Robert look at some of the heavyweight contenders for the largest life form on the planet - and the answer isn't "blue whale." What is it? Tune in to find out.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, wasn't it stuff to blow your mind?
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Ducla. Julie.
What is the largest organism? Honor? I'm going to cut
you off. It's a blue whale, all right, we can
just go home now, yep, that's it, all right, Hey,
(00:24):
thanks for listening. Well, okay, most people think it is
the blue whale because it's to be fair, and it
is the largest sea animal, right, yeah, for sure largest
my mammal by by far larger than any dinosaur that
we do. We know of two hundred tons blue whale
an extensive length of a hundred and ten feet, which
is pretty massive. Um. And you know, just just to
(00:48):
put that into perspective, two hundred tons is about as
heavy as eight DC nine aircraft or fifteen school buses.
A hundred and ten feet is longer than a basketball court.
And about one hundred people can fit in a blue
whale's mouth. On people, you can have a party in
a blue wheels. You could crawl inside its heart, right, yes,
you can actually, and that that's not an exaggeration. A
(01:10):
human could crawl through its major arteries and hang out
in the heart. I mean, that is that is huge.
What in the world could be bigger than a blue whale.
Like imagine a blue whale going for a medical check
up and like, I'm sorry, your your arteries are clogged,
and they're like, oh, is it cholestaurant. It's like no,
it's um, it's thirteen year olds. They're just clogged the
(01:30):
kids in your arteries, right. I mean, if you're gonna
eat thirteen year olds, just make sure they're not on
a diet of potato chips and yeah, and of course
they don't eat thirteen year old they eat very small creatures. Yeah,
something like you know, millions and gazellions. That's not the
actual stature, but of krill. Yeah, we've talked about before,
like when you have a super large organism. They are
essentially crowned atop a throne that sits on a pyramid
(01:54):
of bones and the various and these bones represent all
the animals that and and b lower down on the
pyramid the vegetation that has to has to die for
that animal to live. And the pyramid or blue whale
is pretty vast because it's all these these these tiny
organisms that it eat at the bottom, at the base
of the pyramid. Yeah, but it turns up. But there
there is an organism much much larger than a blue whale,
(02:18):
and it's pyramid of destruction is really spread out for
you know, thousands and thousands of acres. Wow, now I'm excited.
What could this possibly be? Is it is it's some
sort of even larger whale. Is it a super whale,
like a godzilla, well, a kin cong whale. I don't know.
It's it's something enormous, right, yeah, yeah, okay, so yeah,
we'll just cut to the chase. It is a fungus
(02:40):
amongst us, like a giant mushroom that stands as tall
as the city. Yes, it is a cousin to the
white button mushroom. You know, there's cut little mushrooms that
you see in the package of the grocery store. Is
called Amarillaria a stoier okay, And it's known as honey
mushroom for its yellowish cap and I think it's got
a fruity little essence to it. Do not eat any mushrooms, period,
(03:02):
but let us just go I mean, except for the
ones that your mom cooks for you. And gets at
the grocery store. But I'm saying don't eat any wild
mushrooms by any means, though apparently the ones we're talking about,
they are edible for most people. But again, don't just
don't know, don't eat any wild mushrooms because we talked
about mushrooms. Yeah, yeah, thank you that we had to
mention that we care about your health. But this fungus
(03:23):
actually causes amalaria root disease, which kills you know, wide
swaths of conifers in many parts of the US and Canada.
And so it's easy to spot where it has been
because death follows and its footsteps. Yeah, but not so
easy to spot where it's going or where it actually
maybe in other parts. And the reason is because it's
(03:44):
just a really pervasive disease and it's difficult to deal
with because it uses these dead trees as a food base.
But it also will live in the stumps of trees
that have been cut down because they're dead, right, And
not only that, but it and grow through direct root
contacts and graft with uninfected trees. Okay, so it can
(04:06):
travel on via underground networks to uninfected trees and strangle
those to death by stopping out all of its nutrients
and then um it also and this isn't isn't quite
as common, but it can propagate through spores. So you know,
you've got spores through the wind that are carrying and
you know, maybe like a mile later, you know, boom,
(04:28):
there you have a spot infecting that area. So I
think it's interesting, especially that it can live in that
stump for fifty years waiting for new growth. Yeah, it's
so long lived. And like exaggerated earlier about a mushroom
as big as a building, its size is not of
that nature. It's it's spread out over long distances. In fact,
like we're talking acres and acres, Like there's one particular
(04:50):
individual that covered over acres I believe near Mount Adams
in Washington. Yeah, definitely acres and acres. There's one patch
that actually covers two thousand, three hundred eighty four acres
in the soil of Oregon's Blue Mountains. And this is
according to Scientific American their article strange but true, the
largest organism on earth is a fungus. Wow. I think
(05:10):
they really have to embrace that in Oregon, Oregans not
which which state is Big Sky country Montana believe. Okay, well,
Oregon should be a big mushroom, big fungus country. I
think there are actually fungus fest and I believe this
ties back to the first occurrence of discovering these massive
fungus underground systems come out for Fungus Fest. Fungus Best
(05:33):
Queen Man. I wish I had that sash, But yeah,
I mean this stuff is is pretty crazy. It just
moves from roots system to roots system old roots systems.
It's some serious fungus. I guess if you could say
that it has a cousin in the form of our
malaria gallica, which is less easy to find because it
doesn't like wipe out things and it's a path quite
(05:54):
as much. But it's so widely distributed in the rocky mountains.
And again it also you know, it's it's it's in
the ground. It's feeding on things and uh on hardwoods
and uh it's pretty widespread too, but it's it's harder
to really pinpoint exactly how big uh those organisms are. Yeah,
and the fungus was actually discovered when a team of
fortunate forestry scientists set out to map out the population
(06:16):
of this pathogenic fungus in eastern Oregon, and they paired
fungal samples and Petrie dishes to see if they fused,
which is a sign that they were from the same
genetic individual. Yeah, that's the really key thing here. This
is not a population. This is one genetic individual. Right.
It seems like it seems sort of unfair to say, oh, well,
how could this be one organism, But and in fact
(06:36):
it is the same genetic individual. And they also use
DNA fingerprinting to determine where one individual fungus ended. So yeah,
there's a biology professor by the name of Tom Volk,
And in terms of talking about what constitutes an individual organism,
he says, it's one set of genetically identical cells that
(06:57):
are in communication with one another, that have a sort
of common purpose or at least can coordinate themselves to
do something. And isn't that very much like you know humans, right,
I mean, you have all these functions in your your
body that are coordinating with one another. For me to
even like be gesticulating with my hands right now, like
I like to do. Yeah, well, we're not as good
(07:18):
about coordinating things, I guess within our own body. Yeah,
But I mean if I mean I think you're talking
about human culture as a whole. No, no, no, I'm
talking about like within my own body, within my own
little meat sack. I have old sorts of signals and
we're all hopefully on the same page and trying to
you know, I'm an individual, right, right, individual organism right,
(07:39):
and see what you're getting. A's like, how many individuals
make an uber individual? Right? Right? And individual? I met
a individual? I like that. Yeah, And that's important to
note because you would think that, like the mushrooms or
the fungus um, that you think of it as more
like this collection of when in fact, it's one organism
working in concert, and that is why it is so huge. Yeah.
(08:00):
We've talked about in the past of microbes in our
gut and bacterial colonies in our body, and how you
break it all down, and it's like, that's what we are,
you know, we are all these tiny communities that make
a larger community than the being itself is engaged with
other beings and it's just an endless maze circle and
the spiral that kind of thing. Now, there are other
particularly large organisms. I found it interesting that a case
(08:22):
can be made for an aspen clone in Utah. This
comprises approximately forty seven thousand stems of roots, sprouts, origin,
and covering up out a hundred and six acres. So
it looks like you look at a picture of it,
and it's called the Pando clone and fish like National
Forest Southern Utah. It looks like a forest. You don't say, wow,
look at that organism. You go, oh, look at all
(08:43):
those trees. They're kind of boring looking, But actually they're
genetically identical their clones. So you can make the argument
that is one organism covering that that's territory, and yet
that still isn't as large exactly. Another big contender, of course,
is the or if it's not really a contender, it's
pretty much by this fungus. But the genant sequoias, of course,
(09:03):
can get the pretty huge. They can exceed a thousand
tons and they're they're really impressive to see, but not
as impressive size wise as the fungus. Let's take a
quick break and when we get back, let's talk about
how this fungus communicates this message of hey, let's be
one big organism and take over the world when we return.
(09:25):
All right, we're back, okay, So We've talked about this
fungus how it grows primarily along tree route via hype,
which are fine filaments that matted together in excrete digestive enzymes. Oh,
there you go. How cool is that the fungus also
has the unique ability to extend these flat shoestring like
structures and that bridges the gap between food sources and
(09:48):
expanding the reach of the fungus. Yeah. I saw a
picture of these root like hair like structures and it
looks just like it's kind of like nasty black hair
like maybe you just like unclogged a drain or some things. Yeah,
it's like it's it's pretty much what it looks like. Yeah,
like kind of you know, seaweedy. Yeah, also too, maybe
not quite as thick, but yeah, the very stringy and
(10:09):
uh yeah, it's not pretty stuff. But it does the job.
And I think it's fascinating that it does that, that
it it all pulls together to extend that reach so
that if there is no food source that can travel
you know, a couple of feet down or fifty yards
down to you know, basically strangle off a tree system,
uh and its roots and get those nutrients for itself. Yeah,
(10:31):
The plant world is a pretty it's a much slower
world than the animal world. It moves at a at
at a much slower pace, but it itself is a
pretty violent and competitive world. There was a great episode
of Believe It Was Life um the BBC Discovery compunction,
and they did a great job of taking footage of plants,
(10:53):
of vines growing and speeding it up, and you really
get to see the plant world more like the pace
that it is this by putting it more in a
human framework and h and it's just as as cruel
and vicious and competitive as the animal world. You know. Recently,
I was in Belize and we were inland in the
jungle area of the Lemoni ruins, and there was this
(11:15):
incredible tree, actually there were several of them, but one
with just completely stood out and it was I don't
it was an incredibly tall tree, like hundred feet tall,
but it had been encased by this um vine like
a strangler fig type of thing. Yeah, and it had
grown so thick it had basically created a sarcophagus around
(11:37):
this tree with all of these very thick some in
some cases like a foot in diameter thick vines coming
down and that tree was dying underneath. It is completely lethal.
But as you said, you know, these things happened really slowly,
and who knows, it could be another fifty years before
that tree dies. But to see that, to see this
this um, this vine choking off this tree, it's just
(12:01):
it's sort of brought to mind this idea of um,
the the invisible world, you know, happening before our very eyes.
I guess you could say, and size really mattering in
nature because we've talked about morphological limits before, and we
when we think about size mattering in nature, we think
about predation, right, And like you said, you know there's
(12:23):
a creature standing atop the pyramid of bones, and in
terms of this fungus, it's a bit different, right because
again those bones will be sort of spread out and
there's no one real predator for this fungus other than
it's not but it's very broad. Yeah, it's very easy
to scale. But I mean, you know, of course, again,
(12:45):
if you if you want to survive, being larger helps, right,
because you don't want to be eaten by your prey.
But if you're a fungus, you've got your environmental conditions
to contend with, as prey, but you're also the predator
and your ability to say, pounce on the roots ums
these conifers, while other plants are doing, are very much
in the hight game of like I need. We knew
the sunlight is the key, so I'm going to get
(13:06):
that sunlight. Well, other plants, the plants as opposed to fungus.
But right right, so you still, yes, the size still
doesn't matter because you have to spread out in order
to conquer. All right, Well, we got a little extra
time on this one, so let's haul out some listener
mail and see what folks have been saying. Crack the seal. Oh,
thank you, Ernie. Oh yes, sorry, not that seale. Why
(13:29):
I was thinking he's cracking a seal? Like, oh, no,
he's a robot. He has no no, no, he doesn't. Yeah,
I didn't care. All right, So here's a little listener
mail from Jackie. Jackie rites in and says, Dear Robert
and Julie, fascinating thought that tidally locked perpetual darkness. I've
spent the last couple of days contemplating this in my
spare time. I'm particularly enchanted with the idea of everyone
(13:50):
living in the twilight zone, this of course being if
you had a planet that one side is always facing
the sun and the other side is always facing the
outer dark. Um, you would have one side of super hot,
one side it's a this frigid, and then you had
this ring, uh, this twilight zone that would in some
cases be habitable or something good theoretically support robb life.
(14:11):
Jackie continues, Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for
the thought provoking and story inspiring episode, Julie. Your wish
for stories about this has just been granted to keep
up the great and occasionally inspiring podcast. So yeah, I
love it when we can inspire fictional imaginings of what's possible,
you know, in an other world. And and don't be
shy I send it to us. I mean, if you're
wanting someone to look at your stuff, I speak for myself.
(14:34):
I'm more than happy to look at it. Yeah. Yeah,
by all means, here's another one. Daniel writes in and says, hey, dudes,
I'm listening. I kind of want to do it in
a dude voice, Hey dudes, and listening to your Tidley
locked episode. And you asked for an example of another
author who wrote on the subject. I was immediately reminded
of vun to get Sirens of Titans, where on the
tidally lock mercury the intense burning of one half in
(14:54):
the outther cold of the other meat to produce a
planet wide vibration. Spoilers aside deepen the planet are creatures
who feed solely from this planet wide humming an excrete light.
They have no eyes or ears, but instead or drawn
to any pulses of the movie. And then he does
a movie trailer, guy, boys, and even a beating heart.
Read it. Time to push the thirty second button back
(15:17):
six or seven times. Keep up the good work. So
that's that's that's cool. Sirens of Titan is the one
that's been on my bookshelf forever, uh Like, I think
it was one of my dad had, and I don't
think he ever read it. I'm trying to continue the
legacy of not getting around to read Sirens of Titans,
I guess, but maybe I should, Maybe I should change that. Well,
he had me excrete light about my interest is all right.
(15:38):
Here's a little listener mail from Christie. Christie righton says
high Julian Robert. I recently heard the Sword podcast and
it hit a note with me. When I was a kid,
my mom used to tell me all about the stuff
she grew up with, lots of antiquated stuff. One story
was a pair of double bladed ceremonial Spanish great swords.
Wow did you grow up? She told me they were
(16:00):
thing like six to eight feet long with scalloped edges.
I had a hard time believing her until I went
to my grandmother's house and saw them on the wall.
They were just as advertised. Unfortunately, I don't know what
happened to them. Uh and I was ten when I
saw them, so I'm working from long term memory. They're
probably in a museum somewhere. I've read many books about
nights and swords this size being used, but until your podcast,
(16:21):
I had my doubts. Having listened to the podcast, I
understand they didn't weigh as much as they looked like,
but on the wall they look like they waited a ton.
I haven't heard too much listener mail on the subject.
I'm wondering how common the scaloped edges were and if
they were only for ornamentation or served a purpose. I
don't think you mentioned this aspect. Interesting. Thanks and keep
up the great work Christie. Scaloped edges. I don't know that.
(16:44):
I was gonna say. It'd have to see. I mean,
there are a lot of edges that actually had some
ornate etchings in it, and some I don't know the
the shallowness of the scaloping, you know, because that would
certainly affect the way that the sword cut. But who knows.
I mean, it could be could be that it was
actually in working order. I can't help but imagine a
sword that is actually edged with scalops, like like fake scalops.
(17:04):
It would be delicious end scalops. Now I'm just thinking, yeah, yeah,
potato scalops swords. All right. So that's that's all the
listener mail. We have violins and more. We should also
make a quick note if you're listening to this podcast
and you're and you're asking you something, where are the
seven Deadly Sin podcasts? Because we've at this point when
(17:26):
you're listening to this, I think we're like four into it,
and so there are three remaining we are gonna finish
the series, must Uh, Sloth and Anchor. Yeah, and those
are pretty garn exciting sins, right, Yeah, three really exciting
sins coming your way. So expect those in the weeks ahead,
and while you're waiting for those, feel free to drop
by our Facebook page where you may like us. We
(17:48):
are Stuff to Blow your Mind on Facebook, and if
you like us there, you know and follow us there.
And we were always updating that with all sorts of
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(18:09):
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(18:31):
the House Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, wasn't it stuff to blow your mind?
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Ducla. Julie.
What is the largest organism? Honor? I'm going to cut
you off. It's a blue whale, all right, we can
just go home now, yep, that's it, all right, Hey,
(00:24):
thanks for listening. Well, okay, most people think it is
the blue whale because it's to be fair, and it
is the largest sea animal, right, yeah, for sure largest
my mammal by by far larger than any dinosaur that
we do. We know of two hundred tons blue whale
an extensive length of a hundred and ten feet, which
is pretty massive. Um. And you know, just just to
(00:48):
put that into perspective, two hundred tons is about as
heavy as eight DC nine aircraft or fifteen school buses.
A hundred and ten feet is longer than a basketball court.
And about one hundred people can fit in a blue
whale's mouth. On people, you can have a party in
a blue wheels. You could crawl inside its heart, right, yes,
you can actually, and that that's not an exaggeration. A
(01:10):
human could crawl through its major arteries and hang out
in the heart. I mean, that is that is huge.
What in the world could be bigger than a blue whale.
Like imagine a blue whale going for a medical check
up and like, I'm sorry, your your arteries are clogged,
and they're like, oh, is it cholestaurant. It's like no,
it's um, it's thirteen year olds. They're just clogged the
(01:30):
kids in your arteries, right. I mean, if you're gonna
eat thirteen year olds, just make sure they're not on
a diet of potato chips and yeah, and of course
they don't eat thirteen year old they eat very small creatures. Yeah,
something like you know, millions and gazellions. That's not the
actual stature, but of krill. Yeah, we've talked about before,
like when you have a super large organism. They are
essentially crowned atop a throne that sits on a pyramid
(01:54):
of bones and the various and these bones represent all
the animals that and and b lower down on the
pyramid the vegetation that has to has to die for
that animal to live. And the pyramid or blue whale
is pretty vast because it's all these these these tiny
organisms that it eat at the bottom, at the base
of the pyramid. Yeah, but it turns up. But there
there is an organism much much larger than a blue whale,
(02:18):
and it's pyramid of destruction is really spread out for
you know, thousands and thousands of acres. Wow, now I'm excited.
What could this possibly be? Is it is it's some
sort of even larger whale. Is it a super whale,
like a godzilla, well, a kin cong whale. I don't know.
It's it's something enormous, right, yeah, yeah, okay, so yeah,
we'll just cut to the chase. It is a fungus
(02:40):
amongst us, like a giant mushroom that stands as tall
as the city. Yes, it is a cousin to the
white button mushroom. You know, there's cut little mushrooms that
you see in the package of the grocery store. Is
called Amarillaria a stoier okay, And it's known as honey
mushroom for its yellowish cap and I think it's got
a fruity little essence to it. Do not eat any mushrooms, period,
(03:02):
but let us just go I mean, except for the
ones that your mom cooks for you. And gets at
the grocery store. But I'm saying don't eat any wild
mushrooms by any means, though apparently the ones we're talking about,
they are edible for most people. But again, don't just
don't know, don't eat any wild mushrooms because we talked
about mushrooms. Yeah, yeah, thank you that we had to
mention that we care about your health. But this fungus
(03:23):
actually causes amalaria root disease, which kills you know, wide
swaths of conifers in many parts of the US and Canada.
And so it's easy to spot where it has been
because death follows and its footsteps. Yeah, but not so
easy to spot where it's going or where it actually
maybe in other parts. And the reason is because it's
(03:44):
just a really pervasive disease and it's difficult to deal
with because it uses these dead trees as a food base.
But it also will live in the stumps of trees
that have been cut down because they're dead, right, And
not only that, but it and grow through direct root
contacts and graft with uninfected trees. Okay, so it can
(04:06):
travel on via underground networks to uninfected trees and strangle
those to death by stopping out all of its nutrients
and then um it also and this isn't isn't quite
as common, but it can propagate through spores. So you know,
you've got spores through the wind that are carrying and
you know, maybe like a mile later, you know, boom,
(04:28):
there you have a spot infecting that area. So I
think it's interesting, especially that it can live in that
stump for fifty years waiting for new growth. Yeah, it's
so long lived. And like exaggerated earlier about a mushroom
as big as a building, its size is not of
that nature. It's it's spread out over long distances. In fact,
like we're talking acres and acres, Like there's one particular
(04:50):
individual that covered over acres I believe near Mount Adams
in Washington. Yeah, definitely acres and acres. There's one patch
that actually covers two thousand, three hundred eighty four acres
in the soil of Oregon's Blue Mountains. And this is
according to Scientific American their article strange but true, the
largest organism on earth is a fungus. Wow. I think
(05:10):
they really have to embrace that in Oregon, Oregans not
which which state is Big Sky country Montana believe. Okay, well,
Oregon should be a big mushroom, big fungus country. I
think there are actually fungus fest and I believe this
ties back to the first occurrence of discovering these massive
fungus underground systems come out for Fungus Fest. Fungus Best
(05:33):
Queen Man. I wish I had that sash, But yeah,
I mean this stuff is is pretty crazy. It just
moves from roots system to roots system old roots systems.
It's some serious fungus. I guess if you could say
that it has a cousin in the form of our
malaria gallica, which is less easy to find because it
doesn't like wipe out things and it's a path quite
(05:54):
as much. But it's so widely distributed in the rocky mountains.
And again it also you know, it's it's it's in
the ground. It's feeding on things and uh on hardwoods
and uh it's pretty widespread too, but it's it's harder
to really pinpoint exactly how big uh those organisms are. Yeah,
and the fungus was actually discovered when a team of
fortunate forestry scientists set out to map out the population
(06:16):
of this pathogenic fungus in eastern Oregon, and they paired
fungal samples and Petrie dishes to see if they fused,
which is a sign that they were from the same
genetic individual. Yeah, that's the really key thing here. This
is not a population. This is one genetic individual. Right.
It seems like it seems sort of unfair to say, oh, well,
how could this be one organism, But and in fact
(06:36):
it is the same genetic individual. And they also use
DNA fingerprinting to determine where one individual fungus ended. So yeah,
there's a biology professor by the name of Tom Volk,
And in terms of talking about what constitutes an individual organism,
he says, it's one set of genetically identical cells that
(06:57):
are in communication with one another, that have a sort
of common purpose or at least can coordinate themselves to
do something. And isn't that very much like you know humans, right,
I mean, you have all these functions in your your
body that are coordinating with one another. For me to
even like be gesticulating with my hands right now, like
I like to do. Yeah, well, we're not as good
(07:18):
about coordinating things, I guess within our own body. Yeah,
But I mean if I mean I think you're talking
about human culture as a whole. No, no, no, I'm
talking about like within my own body, within my own
little meat sack. I have old sorts of signals and
we're all hopefully on the same page and trying to
you know, I'm an individual, right, right, individual organism right,
(07:39):
and see what you're getting. A's like, how many individuals
make an uber individual? Right? Right? And individual? I met
a individual? I like that. Yeah, And that's important to
note because you would think that, like the mushrooms or
the fungus um, that you think of it as more
like this collection of when in fact, it's one organism
working in concert, and that is why it is so huge. Yeah.
(08:00):
We've talked about in the past of microbes in our
gut and bacterial colonies in our body, and how you
break it all down, and it's like, that's what we are,
you know, we are all these tiny communities that make
a larger community than the being itself is engaged with
other beings and it's just an endless maze circle and
the spiral that kind of thing. Now, there are other
particularly large organisms. I found it interesting that a case
(08:22):
can be made for an aspen clone in Utah. This
comprises approximately forty seven thousand stems of roots, sprouts, origin,
and covering up out a hundred and six acres. So
it looks like you look at a picture of it,
and it's called the Pando clone and fish like National
Forest Southern Utah. It looks like a forest. You don't say, wow,
look at that organism. You go, oh, look at all
(08:43):
those trees. They're kind of boring looking, But actually they're
genetically identical their clones. So you can make the argument
that is one organism covering that that's territory, and yet
that still isn't as large exactly. Another big contender, of course,
is the or if it's not really a contender, it's
pretty much by this fungus. But the genant sequoias, of course,
(09:03):
can get the pretty huge. They can exceed a thousand
tons and they're they're really impressive to see, but not
as impressive size wise as the fungus. Let's take a
quick break and when we get back, let's talk about
how this fungus communicates this message of hey, let's be
one big organism and take over the world when we return.
(09:25):
All right, we're back, okay, So We've talked about this
fungus how it grows primarily along tree route via hype,
which are fine filaments that matted together in excrete digestive enzymes. Oh,
there you go. How cool is that the fungus also
has the unique ability to extend these flat shoestring like
structures and that bridges the gap between food sources and
(09:48):
expanding the reach of the fungus. Yeah. I saw a
picture of these root like hair like structures and it
looks just like it's kind of like nasty black hair
like maybe you just like unclogged a drain or some things. Yeah,
it's like it's it's pretty much what it looks like. Yeah,
like kind of you know, seaweedy. Yeah, also too, maybe
not quite as thick, but yeah, the very stringy and
(10:09):
uh yeah, it's not pretty stuff. But it does the job.
And I think it's fascinating that it does that, that
it it all pulls together to extend that reach so
that if there is no food source that can travel
you know, a couple of feet down or fifty yards
down to you know, basically strangle off a tree system,
uh and its roots and get those nutrients for itself. Yeah,
(10:31):
The plant world is a pretty it's a much slower
world than the animal world. It moves at a at
at a much slower pace, but it itself is a
pretty violent and competitive world. There was a great episode
of Believe It Was Life um the BBC Discovery compunction,
and they did a great job of taking footage of plants,
(10:53):
of vines growing and speeding it up, and you really
get to see the plant world more like the pace
that it is this by putting it more in a
human framework and h and it's just as as cruel
and vicious and competitive as the animal world. You know. Recently,
I was in Belize and we were inland in the
jungle area of the Lemoni ruins, and there was this
(11:15):
incredible tree, actually there were several of them, but one
with just completely stood out and it was I don't
it was an incredibly tall tree, like hundred feet tall,
but it had been encased by this um vine like
a strangler fig type of thing. Yeah, and it had
grown so thick it had basically created a sarcophagus around
(11:37):
this tree with all of these very thick some in
some cases like a foot in diameter thick vines coming
down and that tree was dying underneath. It is completely lethal.
But as you said, you know, these things happened really slowly,
and who knows, it could be another fifty years before
that tree dies. But to see that, to see this
this um, this vine choking off this tree, it's just
(12:01):
it's sort of brought to mind this idea of um,
the the invisible world, you know, happening before our very eyes.
I guess you could say, and size really mattering in
nature because we've talked about morphological limits before, and we
when we think about size mattering in nature, we think
about predation, right, And like you said, you know there's
(12:23):
a creature standing atop the pyramid of bones, and in
terms of this fungus, it's a bit different, right because
again those bones will be sort of spread out and
there's no one real predator for this fungus other than
it's not but it's very broad. Yeah, it's very easy
to scale. But I mean, you know, of course, again,
(12:45):
if you if you want to survive, being larger helps, right,
because you don't want to be eaten by your prey.
But if you're a fungus, you've got your environmental conditions
to contend with, as prey, but you're also the predator
and your ability to say, pounce on the roots ums
these conifers, while other plants are doing, are very much
in the hight game of like I need. We knew
the sunlight is the key, so I'm going to get
(13:06):
that sunlight. Well, other plants, the plants as opposed to fungus.
But right right, so you still, yes, the size still
doesn't matter because you have to spread out in order
to conquer. All right, Well, we got a little extra
time on this one, so let's haul out some listener
mail and see what folks have been saying. Crack the seal. Oh,
thank you, Ernie. Oh yes, sorry, not that seale. Why
(13:29):
I was thinking he's cracking a seal? Like, oh, no,
he's a robot. He has no no, no, he doesn't. Yeah,
I didn't care. All right, So here's a little listener
mail from Jackie. Jackie rites in and says, Dear Robert
and Julie, fascinating thought that tidally locked perpetual darkness. I've
spent the last couple of days contemplating this in my
spare time. I'm particularly enchanted with the idea of everyone
(13:50):
living in the twilight zone, this of course being if
you had a planet that one side is always facing
the sun and the other side is always facing the
outer dark. Um, you would have one side of super hot,
one side it's a this frigid, and then you had
this ring, uh, this twilight zone that would in some
cases be habitable or something good theoretically support robb life.
(14:11):
Jackie continues, Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for
the thought provoking and story inspiring episode, Julie. Your wish
for stories about this has just been granted to keep
up the great and occasionally inspiring podcast. So yeah, I
love it when we can inspire fictional imaginings of what's possible,
you know, in an other world. And and don't be
shy I send it to us. I mean, if you're
wanting someone to look at your stuff, I speak for myself.
(14:34):
I'm more than happy to look at it. Yeah. Yeah,
by all means, here's another one. Daniel writes in and says, hey, dudes,
I'm listening. I kind of want to do it in
a dude voice, Hey dudes, and listening to your Tidley
locked episode. And you asked for an example of another
author who wrote on the subject. I was immediately reminded
of vun to get Sirens of Titans, where on the
tidally lock mercury the intense burning of one half in
(14:54):
the outther cold of the other meat to produce a
planet wide vibration. Spoilers aside deepen the planet are creatures
who feed solely from this planet wide humming an excrete light.
They have no eyes or ears, but instead or drawn
to any pulses of the movie. And then he does
a movie trailer, guy, boys, and even a beating heart.
Read it. Time to push the thirty second button back
(15:17):
six or seven times. Keep up the good work. So
that's that's that's cool. Sirens of Titan is the one
that's been on my bookshelf forever, uh Like, I think
it was one of my dad had, and I don't
think he ever read it. I'm trying to continue the
legacy of not getting around to read Sirens of Titans,
I guess, but maybe I should, Maybe I should change that. Well,
he had me excrete light about my interest is all right.
(15:38):
Here's a little listener mail from Christie. Christie righton says
high Julian Robert. I recently heard the Sword podcast and
it hit a note with me. When I was a kid,
my mom used to tell me all about the stuff
she grew up with, lots of antiquated stuff. One story
was a pair of double bladed ceremonial Spanish great swords.
Wow did you grow up? She told me they were
(16:00):
thing like six to eight feet long with scalloped edges.
I had a hard time believing her until I went
to my grandmother's house and saw them on the wall.
They were just as advertised. Unfortunately, I don't know what
happened to them. Uh and I was ten when I
saw them, so I'm working from long term memory. They're
probably in a museum somewhere. I've read many books about
nights and swords this size being used, but until your podcast,
(16:21):
I had my doubts. Having listened to the podcast, I
understand they didn't weigh as much as they looked like,
but on the wall they look like they waited a ton.
I haven't heard too much listener mail on the subject.
I'm wondering how common the scaloped edges were and if
they were only for ornamentation or served a purpose. I
don't think you mentioned this aspect. Interesting. Thanks and keep
up the great work Christie. Scaloped edges. I don't know that.
(16:44):
I was gonna say. It'd have to see. I mean,
there are a lot of edges that actually had some
ornate etchings in it, and some I don't know the
the shallowness of the scaloping, you know, because that would
certainly affect the way that the sword cut. But who knows.
I mean, it could be could be that it was
actually in working order. I can't help but imagine a
sword that is actually edged with scalops, like like fake scalops.
(17:04):
It would be delicious end scalops. Now I'm just thinking, yeah, yeah,
potato scalops swords. All right. So that's that's all the
listener mail. We have violins and more. We should also
make a quick note if you're listening to this podcast
and you're and you're asking you something, where are the
seven Deadly Sin podcasts? Because we've at this point when
(17:26):
you're listening to this, I think we're like four into it,
and so there are three remaining we are gonna finish
the series, must Uh, Sloth and Anchor. Yeah, and those
are pretty garn exciting sins, right, Yeah, three really exciting
sins coming your way. So expect those in the weeks ahead,
and while you're waiting for those, feel free to drop
by our Facebook page where you may like us. We
(17:48):
are Stuff to Blow your Mind on Facebook, and if
you like us there, you know and follow us there.
And we were always updating that with all sorts of
cool stuff, wacky stuff, weird stuff, I mean, stuff that's
coming up in our research, stuff that's coming up when
we're momentarily distracted from our research. Updates about this, if
your cat on your head while you're working, standing on
my shoulders, um and trying to help me when I'm teleworking,
(18:09):
all sorts of of good stuff. Again Facebook, Stuff to
Blow your Mind. And then we're also on Twitter. You
can find us there where our handle is blow the Mind,
and you can also drop us a note at blow
the Mind at Discovery dot com. Be sure to check
out our new video podcasts, Stuff from the Future. Join
(18:31):
the House Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
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