January 13, 2022 • 46 mins
In this Stuff to Blow Your Mind two-parter, Robert and Joe explore the world of tumbleweeds. While it’s easy to dismiss these amazing plants as overused symbols of the American west, these detachable diaspores are more than meets the eyes.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of
My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. And
the Flaming Tumbleweed has rolled right back in. We're ready
for part two of this series. That's right. If you
(00:24):
didn't listen to part one, go back, give it a listen,
because we get we get all into the topic of tumbleweeds,
talking about what what tumbleweeds are? What? What what do
we mean when we talk about them in the American sense,
in a broader sense, why do they do the tumbling uh?
And so forth. I think it's a pretty fun episode,
and we're gonna we're gonna keep the ball rolling today. Now.
(00:48):
One of the interesting things that we discovered in the
last episode is that while the tumbleweed is an icon
of the American West, uh, the main species of tumbleweed,
the thing people are usual really talking about in the
American context when they say a tumbleweed is a plant
known as Russian thistle that only arrived in the United
(01:08):
States probably around the eighteen seventies. And so this is
not even native to North America. It's something that comes
from the Eurasian step. Yeah, it is very much an invader.
It is an invasive species, and we're gonna get into
some of the ramifications of that here. But it's also
one of the reasons why if you look for um
(01:31):
for like Native American accounts of tumbleweeds, uh, you know,
they're not going to exist before a certain point, because
they don't even come in with the initial colonists, with
the initial influx of Westerners, or even the first few
influxes of Westerners. They come in much later. However, you
do find some interesting uh uses of tumbleweed. I was
(01:53):
reading in the Journal of American Folklore article titled The
Witches Were Saved a Zoo New origin story by Dennis Tedlock.
So the Zuni or one of the Pueblo people of
the American West, and the author here discusses work by
the author Andrew Pinesta, intended for oral performance. Pinesta was
(02:14):
a Zuni storyteller, and the story in question was apparently
told in nine uh. And then Tedlock, you know, is
writing about it and discussing it, and it concerns interference
by the US military into Zuni affairs. But it mentions
the tumble weeds in a way that I think is
rather clever and drives home their invasive and uh, their
(02:36):
their invasive nature. Here quote there's a spot near Neutria
where the soldiers camped. They fed hay to their horses,
and there were tumbleweeds seeds in it. Now only tumbleweeds
grow on that spot, and they've spread all over. Oh,
so framing the soldiers here is a vector of the
spread of this invasive plant. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's my
(02:58):
read of it. Anyway, you know, it's it's touching on
the foreign invasive nature of both, um, both the the
the American military presence here in the presence of of
Westerners in general, and the tumbleweed, both things that that
kind of curse the land. In this viewpoint, I was
looking around for, you know, obviously, to find older sort
of folklore it takes and cultural takes on tumbleweeds. You
(03:20):
have to go to the parts of the world where
tumbleweeds were originally or would have spread to before they
had a chance to take root in America. Literally. Um.
I was reading The Rooster in the Transylvanian Folklore by
Ferric Posni, and in it the author rights on the
Transylvanian plane, people used to believe that witches would cause
(03:41):
aridity by burning a stolen rooster feather on the tumbleweed.
Oh this is interesting. So the tumbleweed lord does go back,
you know, to to pre modernity, but in in the
in the Step region rather than in North America. Yeah,
and so I was I was looking around for more
raf says to it. I'm sure there's some good ones
(04:01):
I missed. So anybody out there who's aware of u
of any folkloric treatments of tumble weeds from from any
part of the world, right in and share them with us.
But I found mentions of tumbleweeds in Mongolian tradition, namely
as the subject of traditional Mongolian riddles as Collected and
disgust in Mongolian Folklore, A representative collection from the oral
(04:25):
tradition Part one, and this is by Hanging Krueger, Service
and Rosiecki published in Mongolian Studies, and this came out.
This is one of those volumes that came out like
Bridging eighty five and eighty six, So they cover both
Mongolian folk sayings and riddles in this paper. And this
(04:45):
was this is actually a real pleasure to read. I know, Joe,
you looked at it as well. It's it's it's almost
like I think I was telling you before we recorded,
like I kind of want to see this bound as
its own little paperback edition and uh and available for
purchase somewhere, because it's just it's full of these these
fun little Mongolian folks things and then ultimately riddles, many
of which you know are gonna have residents with with
(05:08):
readers anywhere in the world, right though some of which
are are completely like going to be lost on you
if you don't know much about animal husbandry or goats
or anything. But but other ones, yeah, they are very
universal and and almost all the sayings are great. Uh
So the first half of it concerns more like proverbs,
you know, those kind of sayings that that don't they're
(05:29):
not like a prompt in the way the riddle is
uh And and a lot of the proverbs are really good.
One of them that I'm just doing this from memory,
but I think it was something like, uh, load of
donkey up with cargo, load of fool up with praise. Yeah,
they're so good though, obviously, Yeah, they're they're they're they're
emerging from a particular culture in a particular region. They
(05:51):
speak very much to the environment in the cultures of
the Mongolian people here. Um. But but yeah, the riddles
here they have a lot in common then with riddle
traditions around the world. The authors here right quote the
heart of the riddle is naturally the real or fancied
resemblance between two ideas or things, although sometimes punning plays
(06:12):
a role when the similarity involves two or three words
which sound alike. So I have a I have a
couple of riddles here. I'm gonna I'm gonna inflict them
on you, Joe, and you may be able to guess
the answer to a couple of them. But here's the
first one. When it comes from yonder, it looks like
a camel. When it crawls under the wagon, it looks
(06:35):
like a goat. Okay, So I know the answer to
this one, which is that it's a tumble weed. But
nonetheless I don't get it. I don't understand why it
looks like a goat when it crawls under the wagon.
What what do goats do under the wagon? That is, like,
do goats kind of crack and break or they brittle
under a wagon. I don't know. I guess maybe they're
(06:55):
just smaller. Like I can definitely, you know, my driving
experience that I talked about in the last episode, I
can definitely relate to the idea that the bumbling tumbleweed
on the highway may look as big as a camel.
It may be that intimidating, and then once you actually
run it over, you're like, oh, well, that was more
like running over a goat. I've never run over a gut.
(07:18):
I don't know why I laughed to be very sad
to run over a goat, but for some reason that
was funny at the time, at the time, for ten
seconds ago. But but anyway, I do think this is
one of the ones that is interesting because it seems
to require some kind of localized knowledge that we don't
really have. And this is something actually that the authors
(07:40):
mentioned uh in their introduction to the section on Mongolian riddles.
They say that, you know, riddles are nearly universal in
cultures around the world, and it's interesting to see what
topics are the most common in each riddle culture. And
so they say, for example, all cultures have riddles concerning
astronomical phenomenon like the on in the moon. But that
(08:01):
when you look at Mongolian riddles in particular, they're going
to be especially focused on topics like animal husbandry. So
there will be riddles that that have to do with
camels and goats and horses and things like that. And
obviously also localized plants will show up in a culture's
riddles about nature, and the tumbleweed would be one of these.
(08:23):
Speaking of which, here's another riddle, Joe from this stuff,
from this uh, this collection, It travels by the wind.
It stays in the ditch. Now this one I get more. Yeah,
this is a tumbleweed. And I think that the tickling,
the brain tickling part of this, maybe that it's playing
on your assumption when you say it travels by the wind.
People are naturally primed to think about something other than
(08:45):
like a plant or a feature of the natural world. Yeah,
something that actually lives and and in in the air,
and something that flies in the air like a bird.
Or you're thinking, maybe it's gonna be something like song
or something, but wasn't It stays in a bit. I
thought of a boat. That's a that's a good one too,
but no, it's the tumble weed. Which I mean, this
(09:08):
feels right as well. I mean, there's this thing that
is is pretty impressive when it really gets going, but
it winds in a good ditch and it's done for exactly.
I mean, this calls to mind those images we saw
last time of you know, five hundred tumbleweeds all jammed
into a culvert. Yeah. Alright, So Joe, you knew that
the answer to those riddles was going to be the
(09:28):
tumble weed, but I wanted to I wanted to give
you a shot. It's a non tumble weed Mongolian riddles here. Okay,
so these I I realized these may be a bit difficult,
but we're gonna give it a shot. Here's the first one.
If I only had a tongue, I would be a witness.
If I could only rise up, I could reach up
(09:50):
to heaven. Now I saw this one before you read it,
and I thought about it, and I honestly have no idea.
I mean, so the second one is making me think
it maybe is something that is long but not tall,
you know, like, uh yeah, but but I really don't know. Well,
you're on the right track, because the answer to this
one is the road. Oh okay, Uh Well, I certainly
(10:14):
get the second half. If I could only rise up,
I could reach up to heaven, you know, if you
could flip the axis. But why what is it about
the tongue? If I only had a tongue that could
be a witness, I I don't. I don't know this one.
They didn't come. They basically just explained that this one
had to do with you know, they give the answer,
but they didn't explain what the tongue in the witness
(10:34):
bit means. Maybe just because you know so much happens
on the road that the road is is kind of
all knowing. In a sense, it connects to everywhere. Yeah,
it's like if these walls could talk, but there are
no walls, if this road could talk. Yeah, and in
in a sense, you know, it's yeah, it is everywhere
at once. This road that I am on is also
(10:57):
in this distant city as well as the city I
am from. And it's with me right here. Interesting, All right,
here's one more. I have something. Others use it a lot,
but I use it only occasionally. Now with this one,
I also have no idea. I was trying to think
in the animal agriculture kind of zone, would could this
(11:18):
be something about I don't know, a like a goat.
Does a goat not use its own milk very much?
Or something? I don't know. Well, the answer to this
one is my name. Oh oh, that's very good. It's
very good. Yeah. Yeah. The the rationale being that generally
you're not saying your own name as much as other
(11:39):
people are saying your name. But this is like not
a good riddle if it's delivered by Bob Dole, right yeah,
or doing the Rock Johnson that kind of thing exactly. Okay,
Well I pulled that one for you, Rob. Did you
already see the solution to this one? Um? I don't.
I'd probably not going to remember it. Okay, it's just
one line. The head is the enemy of its body.
(12:01):
M what is it? The head is the enemy of
its body? Oh? Oh, I don't know. Again. I'm I'm
thinking and my mind is turning to two cows and
goats and horses, and I'm I'm also you know, trying
to think of like the great expanse of the Mongolian countryside,
and I'm I'm drawing a blank here. I think I
got us overly focused on on bovida and stuff. No, No,
(12:24):
the answer is a match stick. That's pretty good. So, yeah,
this has got to be a more modern riddle, I guess.
And I don't know when all of these come from,
Like do some of these date back hundreds of years,
whereas others are, you know, maybe from the nineteenth or
twentieth century. Yeah, I get the impression that that a
number of them maybe more recent. Oh and another one
of them that I saw was pretty interesting was just
(12:46):
the same one that appears in the It's the riddle
of the Sphinx from from Oedipus, So that that appears
to be a cross cultural riddle. You know what has
four legs in the morning, two legs in the in
the noontime, and three legs in the evening. It is
a human, you know, because you're a baby and you crawl,
and then as an adult you walk on two legs,
and then an old age you use a cane. Oh
but I got one more for you, rob Okay, So
(13:07):
this one is on a sunny day, there are two.
On a sunless day, there is but one. On a
moonlit night, there are two. On a moonless night, there
is but one. I mean, I'm thinking about light and silhouettes, shadows. Yeah,
that's it. It's a shadow. Is it a shadow? Okay? Wait,
(13:28):
so the person's shadow. There are two of you on
a sunny day because you got a shadow, okay, I
got that, Okay, And then on a sun most day,
there's just you. There's no shadow. On a moonlight night,
there too, again, you have a shadow, and on a
moonless night it's too dark to see anything, right, should
there Yeah, there shouldn't even be one on a moonless night.
The stars are so bright. That's one thing I guess
(13:48):
we have to consider. I don't know for certain, but
it reminds me of things I've read about Egyptian mythology
and about how uh an often unobscured sky is so
central to uh, to the world view of of say,
ancient Egyptians. I wonder if that holds true in Mongolian
culture as well, because if you have like this brilliant
(14:09):
starlet sky and there's you know, less probability of cloud cover,
then perhaps that does illuminate things a little better. I
don't know. Yeah, certainly there's going to be less possibility
of you know, light pollution and artificial light kind of
creating these these deeper pockets of shadow. But why does
the tumbleweed under the wagon look like a goat? I
(14:30):
mean maybe it just has to do with like, once
it gets up here, it's not going to you know,
kick butt like a camel would like. It's going to
be more or less hiding underneath the cart like a
goat kind of Uh, it's gonna be this It's not
gonna be this bounding, brave looking thing. It's going to
be this meek uh little ball that's hiding around underneath
(14:51):
the carts or jammed under a wheel, et cetera. Mongolian
listeners right in teach us help us figure this one out.
By the way the sayings collected in this this this
book er, I mean in this paper also great. Uh,
here's an example one that kept jumping out of me
every time I sort of skimmed past it looking for tumbleweeds.
Men follow customs, dogs follow bones. I like that one. Yeah,
(15:16):
that is good. So if this implies a parallel in
the way that these things are followed, would it be
that humans go after social customs in a kind of driven, hungry,
instinctual way. You know, I'm not sure if that is
the way we're supposed to take this, or does it
mean that a dog of like just follows their gut
(15:36):
instinct and like, you know, follows immediate evidence. But men
have customs that they have to follow. Oh yeah, that's it.
That could be the contrast. But but but I I
find your interpretation interesting as well. I could. I guess
I could see it go either way. I guess there's
no comparative word in there. Doesn't say men follow customs
like dogs follow bones. Anyway, there are more of these
(15:57):
and if you're interested, again, it's Mongolian Folklore, a representative
collection from the oral literary tradition, Part one. And that's
a bit of one J store. So if you go
to J S t O R dot org you can
you can access it for free. I don't know if
you have to sign in. I like I I access
it da membership but um, but not a paid membership.
(16:18):
So go for it if you're interested. Okay, one more
one before we move on that this is just a proverb.
It's that children who grow up spoiled are more difficult
to handle than a bull's neck. Okay, what about a
bull's neck, though, I guess it's difficult to get your
hands around it, right, like a bull's neck can be
so thick that you can't even reach your arms around
(16:41):
it and like, you know, lock your your knuckles together. Yeah, yeah,
all right, So we're gonna we're gonna leave mongolian Um
wisdom aside here for a little bit. We're gonna get
back to more North America entails of the tumbleweed. And
(17:01):
so I was just you know, thinking at this point
you're probably going, well, geez, guys, I get the tumbleweeds
are bad, and uh, you know that sometimes they're like
a camel and sometimes like there a goat. Okay, fair enough,
but what do they mean for the proliferation of radioactive waste? Well,
we're glad you ask, because it's actually an interesting question. Uh.
And one of the things I found even more fascinating
(17:23):
about it is that they're The role that tumbleweeds play
in in our treatment of radioactive waste can vary greatly
depending on like what source you're looking at. Well, yeah,
and I think the radioactivity will play more into the
second example we're talking about them the first, which might
be more clearly classed as a case of toxic waste, right, yes,
(17:47):
but but both have to do with the leavings of
of the Atomic Age. Yeah. So the Atomic Ages we've
discussed on the show before, especially I think the the
episode or episodes in question. Uh it was titled the
Atomic Scar. Uh. The Atomic Ages left various scars on
the planet, including radioactive waste that we have to seal
(18:09):
away and figure out how to Symbolically worn apocalyptic wanders
ten thousand years in the future that they shouldn't mess
with this because it's bad. Uh. So we're always looking
at for ways to secure it, to resecure it, to
clean it up, et cetera. Now you might remember another
episode we did titled The Tide of Gold, and in
(18:31):
that we discussed some sort of novel gold harvesting schemes
and ideas, and we discussed how plants can harvest gold
from the ground. Basically, the premise here is that some
plants have the ability to absorb minerals through their roots
and uh and uh and and concentrate metals such as nickel, uh, cadmium,
(18:52):
and zinc uh. These plants are also known as hyper accumulators.
There are no natural gold hyper accume ulators, but there
are ways to make it possible through soil manipulation. So
you like treat the soil that contains the gold in
a certain way, and you can sort of engineer it
so that certain plants that have this natural ability will
(19:13):
actually draw that gold up into their roots system. So
you can probably see where we're going here. Um, remember
how we mentioned that tumble weed roots can dive twenty
feet down into the soil. Well, as pointed out by
geologist Dana Ulmer Shoal of the New Mexico Institute of
Mining and Technology in SoCoRo, reporting to the US Geological
(19:36):
Society in two thousand and four, tumbleweed plants are actually
really good a't soaking up depleted uranium from contaminated soils
and weapons testing grounds and battlefields. Now this is interesting.
I guess we should do a little sidebar here on
depleted uranium because you might be wondering, okay, depleted uranium,
and you you hear that here uranium your weapons testing grounds,
(20:00):
and you might naturally think like, oh, nuclear bomb detonation sites.
But this is actually talking about something different. Uh. So,
depleted uranium is often used in heavy munitions as as
a metal, not as a a fissile material for a bomb,
but as a metal. And it's used in these munitions
(20:21):
because of its density and armor penetrating properties, so it's
you know, you can make a very dense projectile out
of it. I believe it is more than half again
as dense as leads something. It's like sixty something percent
more dense than lead is uh. And that density also
makes it useful for certain things in like the aeronautics field.
I think I've read that it's used sometimes as a
(20:43):
counterweight or counterbalance in some helicopter rotor blades, but it's
also used for plating and armored vehicles, again because it's
dense so it's more likely to stop a projectile, and
then also in creating shielding against radiation. But as as
am innisition in particular, I think depleted uranium is used
(21:03):
not just because it's dense, but because, say when it
hits the armor plating of a tank to try to
penetrate it, it has these properties where it tends to
kind of fragment in a way that that makes the
projectile sharper rather than blunt r And as it penetrates
through the armor plating of a of an armored vehicle,
it also tends to ignite and explode on the inside,
(21:26):
so it has a lot of properties that you would
want if you were trying to shoot through an armored vehicle. Now,
to pick up on the caveat I was giving earlier
about radioactivity, depleted uranium has very low levels of radioactivity.
It's actually it actually has less radioactivity then is typically
found in natural uranium. But uranium, whether natural or depleted uranium,
(21:49):
has significant chemical toxicity. So it is clear that it
is dangerous to ingest certain amounts of it beyond a
certain threshold. But at least according to some sources, this
is not really because of radioactivity. UH, though there might
be some continuing controversy about the radiological effects in particular.
I'll mention a little more about that in a minute, UM,
(22:10):
but I was trying to look up. Okay, how does
it work? Well? According to the US Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry or the A T S d R,
which is a government agency under the under the umbrella
of the Health and Human Services Department, UH that they
put out a fact sheet on the health effects of uranium,
both known and under investigation, and they say that both
(22:33):
natural and depleted uranium have that they have the same
toxic effects within a human body. The primary of which
is adverse effects to the renal system, so the kidneys,
so either inhaling or ingesting significant amounts of uranium compounds,
and I think possibly by uh by having it enter
the body as shrapnel as well. UH. This is known
(22:54):
to cause damage to the kidneys, and there may be
some secondary effects as well, but the secondary effects are
less clear. UM. The more I looked into this, the
more complicated the picture of the health effects of exposure
to depleted uranium became. UM. So like you'll find a
lot of debate the their their questions about the exposure
(23:14):
of combat veterans and people living in war zones who
have been exposed to ammunition with depleted uranium content. UH.
And I did not have time to wade into all
of that controversy and figure out what I thought about it,
but I will say, at the very least, UH, you
do not want your body exposed to high levels of
depleted uranium. UH, definitely because of its known adverse health effects.
(23:35):
And then there may be other secondary effects on top
of what is currently known as well. But like most things, UH,
the the toxicity of depleted uranium depends on dosage over time.
So we're all exposed to tiny amounts of uranium from
the natural environment. On a consistent basis, this is completely unavoidable.
(23:55):
It's just part of living on planet Earth. There's gonna
be tiny, tiny amounts of uranium and the food you eat,
in the water you drink. But if you are living
in certain areas where there is significant uranium contamination in
the environment, those those levels could go up above what
is safe. Right. And therefore it stands to reason if
you had, say a former ammunition testing ground, and you
(24:18):
wanted to do something else with that and not just
keep it, uh, you know, set aside for you know,
the duration of of of of human civilization or something. Uh,
you might want to reclaim it. You might want to
find a way to get depleted uranium out of the ground.
And uh that's where a few different plants have have
shown promise at drinking up that depleted uranium um. One
(24:41):
of them, for instance, is the Indian mustard plant. But
as this this research points out, one of the things
about many of these plants is that they thrive in
um in in wetter soils. What are you gonna do
when you have something out in a desert, right, Well,
that's where the tumbleweed comes. The tumbleweed, of course, famously
(25:01):
excels in dry, barren places. UH. One rolls into a
well irrigated yard in a New Mexico suburb, and it's doomed. Uh.
It can't compete with the grass. But if it goes
into an abandoned um uh you know, a feed lot
or a girl or some sort of agricultural site, uh,
an undeveloped bad land, well, then that's where the tumble
weed is king. And so it's ideally suited for some
(25:23):
of the desolate places that we find depleted uranium in
the United States, especially uh in in the West, uh
in the Western States. So the argument here is that
this could be a safe method as well, because the
plants do most of the absorption well before they detach.
So if you were managing the site, if you were,
you know, planting intentionally the the the tumbleweed plants here,
(25:47):
then the plants could be harvested and disposed of well
before the the drying phase begins, and then ultimately the
tumbleweed breaks free and is able to roll free exactly.
And so I thought this was very interesting. I did
look around for more follow up on this about using
tumbleweeds for for remediation of heavy metals like depleted geranium
(26:08):
or other toxic substances in soils. And I didn't find
anything much more recent so so I don't know, uh,
if for or how much anybody's picked up on this research.
But but yeah, yeah, well, like like we we hinted
out before, this is a This is something we often
see with the tumble with tumbleweed related research. Somebody will
have an idea about something we can do with the
(26:30):
tumble weeds. What can we do with these tumble weeds?
What can we do about these tumbleweeds? And someone will
have a novel approach, but either it's something that doesn't
seem to work out for one reason or another, or
it requires more research and it is perhaps still being researched. Um,
it seems like I saw this more often than not.
Oh did we ever find anything else out about what
happened to that tumbleweed eating machine we talked about in
(26:52):
part one? No, not yet, but but the as we're
recording this, the episode had the first episode has not aired,
so I'm hoping that we'll hear from some New Mexico listeners,
like maybe maybe there are counties in New Mexico where
they had one of these or have one still. I
don't know. Maybe we'll get some local intel. I did
email one of the researchers who was involved in the
(27:12):
original project and the original prototype, but I have not
heard back from them. And and nor would I be
that surprised, because just some RANDO is reaching out of
them out of nowhere and asked him about a project
that they worked on decades ago. Uh. I can understand there.
They might see that it's just a spam email, all right,
(27:33):
So we're not done with the idea of tumble weeds
and UH weapons sites and so forth. UH. And and
this week turned to an article that you you dug up, Joe.
This was from Sarah Zang writing UH for Gizmoto back
in two thousand fourteen, which was just a really great
year for all things tumble. We had a number of
the articles that we have end up referring to and
(27:56):
this come from But she cited a George John some
peace in National Geographic particularly UH this bit quote. During
the early nineteen sixties, after above ground nuclear testing finally
ceased at the Nevada test site, the first thing said
to grow back was Russian thistle radioactive salth sola has
(28:18):
come tumbling out of the old Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington,
where plutonium was manufactured during the Cold War. I half
expect to hear someday that Russian thistle has been found
on the moon. Yeah, and uh, I can't remember if
we already said it so far in this episode or not,
but Russian thistle is the common name of the main
(28:38):
species of tumbleweed that that is now known in the
United States. That's the number of different scientific names have
been used. Sal solo, tregas, calli tregas. Uh. And this
is the salsola sal solo that the author here is
talking about in this Uh, this not g O piece
has been quoted. But yeah, it is not surprising to
me to hear that tumbleweed is is the first thing
(29:00):
moving in uh at a at a nuclear testing site,
right and uh and as saying explains, it's just one
of many organisms that can interfere where our efforts just
set aside such waste and such way side or just
sort of secure such locations. Um. Now, the the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation is of note here because yet and tumbleweeds
(29:22):
were in the news as recently as January, as reported
by Maria Kramer in the New York Times, with the
headline storm of tumbleweeds, berries, cars, terrifies drivers and astounds police.
But some I have to point out that some places,
including I believe that the Chicago Tribune altered the headline
UM or updated the headline. I would say, I don't
(29:44):
want to say altered, like they did something super nefarious
to say, UM storm of quote unquote nuclear tumbleweeds, berries, cars,
terrifies drivers and astounds police. UM. It's in quotes because
they're referring to a particular quote in the UM the
original article where they're talking about this tumble getting in
(30:05):
which they mentioned quote the highway is in a flat,
wide open area close to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which
is known as one of the sites of the Manhattan
Project and where plutonium was produced to help build the
atom bomb. And then there's this quote from a Mr
thorn Thorson that says, quote, some people are calling them
nuclear tumbleweeds. So that's so that might be jumping to
(30:26):
some conclusions here, but not not entirely without reason, right right, Yeah,
the article does not discuss tumbleweeds as radioactive in nature.
Other than including that one little quote. Uh, but um,
the the Hanford location, as discussed by Elliott Marshall in
the edition of the Journal Science UM has pointed out
(30:48):
that that this is a location that has had issues
with badgers, rabbits, ground squirrels, burrowing owls, pocket mice, insects,
rabbit brush, and yes, tumbleweeds, uh, inter fearing with with
human efforts to sort of leave this site alone and undisturbed. Well, yeah,
they're literally having breaches due to wildlife like failures of
(31:11):
nuclear material or high level waste containment due to breaches
by things like badgers. Yeah, and then things like rabbits
with like radioactive rabbit poop because rabbits have gotten in there. Yes,
here's a quote from Marshall. With roots that can grow
down twenty feet. Tumbleweeds reached down into waste dumps and
take up strontium ninety break off and blow around the
(31:33):
dry land. And this caused them to worry that the
radiation in the tumbleweeds could then be released into the
air if these weeds were to to do what tumbleweeds
sometimes do, collect somewhere and then catch fire or what
happens if they reach a body of water. Remember that
example from the last episode talking about a tumbleweed. Uh,
this mighty tumbleweed rolling into the water and then kind
(31:55):
of melting there. Um, you know you don't want your
your your radioact have shredded wheat hitting the milk exactly. Yeah, Okay,
So it's not necessarily actually known that these tumbleweeds from
the story in January had significant radioactivity levels. But tumbleweeds
(32:15):
are one of the biological vectors that could potentially breach
some types of nuclear material containment. Right, that seems to
be the case, And of course the fact that they
then break off and blow around afterwards is not helpful, right,
And I mean, we do have to to acknowledge the
fact that there are radioactive tumble weeds in the video
(32:36):
game Fallout New Vegas. So I don't know, is that
true the tumbleweeds. Apparently I I played New Vegas, and
I remember enjoying it, but I do not remember the tumbleweeds.
I had not yet fostered an appreciation for the tumbleweed,
so if they were there, I forgot them. But I
ran across this in in my searches. So it seems
(32:58):
to be the case. Let's say, good on them at
fault at the what was the team that made that game?
They did their research. Thank thank thank Now, given all
we shared about the problems posed by invasive tumbleweeds in
the United States, that should come as no surprise that
(33:19):
the U. S d A has looked into ways of
eradicating them, or at least significantly reducing their number. Uh.
And they've some some of the ways they've They've they've
examined this or rather interesting. One method that has been
proposed is to to take the classic approach and UH
and introduce a particular type of MIGHT. This is a
(33:41):
Syria south soulae, which kills the growing tips of the
plant and stunts it. Supposedly, studies have shown that it
only targets this particular MIGHT species, It only targets a
few closely related species to the tumbleweed, and all of
these species are pest species. Oh, but the proposed biological
(34:02):
controls do not stop there. That's right. They've also looked
into Researchers have also looked into using two fungi species
native to the tumbleweeds original uh you know, Russian or
Ukrainian environment. This news was making the rounds in They've
also looked into viral methods of targeting invasive tumbleweeds with viruses.
(34:22):
The U. S d A was also testing viruses developed
from two types of dying tumbleweeds and UH in Russia
and in Hungary. And this was also reported in Again
just a banner year for tumbleweed research. Now, I'm not
sure where we are with any of these different approaches
ones anyway. I mean, that's not too long ago. It
(34:43):
seems feasible that there still could be some research going
on there. Um. Uh, maybe it's a situation where the
research did fizzle out, or maybe there's just a lot
of contemplation that has to go into the massive introduction
of another invase of species or some sort of other
biological control to try and take care of your existing problem,
(35:05):
because you you know, you don't want to overflow the
tub anymore than it's already overflowing, you know. I was
just trying to remember which previous episode we talked about
some of the um controversies of using you know, different
species for bio control methods of of existing invasive species
UH and UH. The one that came to mind that
(35:27):
looks at least the time we talked about it like
it was going pretty well was on Christmas Island, where
the you know, the the big native crab populations or wait,
were those crabs originally from somewhere else as well? I
don't recall anyway, the crab populations on Christmas Island, the
glorious flows the ocean, the tide of crabs, they were
being threatened by these ant populations there that were, you know,
(35:51):
squirting formic acid into the crabs joints and and killing them.
I think there were the the yellow crazy ants, right, Yeah,
that's sound try. Yeah, so the yellow crazy ants. Uh.
There were some conservationists who had developed a plan to
help try to control populations of the yellow crazy ants
(36:11):
by deploying a predator, a predatory micro wasp that would
that would cut back on the ant colonies there. Uh.
And at least last time we read about that, it
seemed like that was going well so far and uh
and had not had any any dangerous spillover. But yeah,
you always wonder, like you don't, you know, first order
(36:33):
of businesses do no harm, and uh, it's always it's
always a little risky when you say, well, let's introduce
a different thing and and just hope that it only
has this targeted effect that we wanted to Yeah. I
mean time was when human beings thought they could fix
a problem by introducing a new invasive species, they would
just do it, and and that would and and a
(36:55):
lot of times that would end up resulting in a
new problem, a new invasive spiece. So it's it's good
that we're being more thoughtful about this because ultimately you're
dealing with a very complex ecosystem in any case, um
and it's it's difficult to figure out exactly what the
ramifications of introducing something new we're going to be or
(37:15):
introducing another new thing into it. Oh, but I just
recalled I've been trying to remember what was the example
we talked about in that episode of of a a
bio control species that had been introduced and then really backfired,
And I couldn't call it to mind, but I just did.
It was the cane toads in Australia that were brought in,
I think to control beetle populations that were threatening agriculture.
(37:40):
But then the cane toads became a became a huge
problem in their own right. Yeah, yeah, there, yeah, there,
there's so many different accounts one can turn to where
we can move that, you know, our our cautionary tales
in introducing a species to try and fix the problem. Uh.
And and then you know, another aspect of all of
this too is that this is the things changed, the
(38:02):
environments shift. UM. For instance, I was looking at a
University of California riverside study from UM and then this
was making the case that the quote unquote monster tumbleweed
species salth solar ryani was once thought to be actually
going extinct, but it has since gained ground as it
(38:23):
apparently remains green into late summer and has been increasingly
been able to take full advantage of rains during that
time period. Uh So it's footprint has been expanding in
recent years. And this is one that grows up to
six ft tall. So uh, it's a massive tumbleweed. But
just just I guess a footnote in the you know,
(38:43):
in the lesson that you know, you're you can try
and solve one particular problem in at a certain period
of time, But but what is the situation going to
look like? Uh, you know, say ten years down the road,
especially when we're looking at at at climate change and
um and and other factors having an impact act on
the natural environment. But but then again, maybe maybe I'm wrong.
(39:03):
And like, as we're recording this, somewhere on the roads
in New Mexico, there is a massive snowplow with an
enormous um grinder on the front of it. And in
the back of that snowplow there are a whole bunch
of mites and viruses and fung guy, and it's just
making a bee line for the tumbleweed. Uh nation. So
(39:24):
I don't know, Sorry, I'm thinking now about the six
foot tall tumbleweed. Okay, so I'm imagining somebody trying to
like get that with a pitchfork. How heavy does that get?
I know the tumbleweeds are typically very low density, right
because they need to be able to be blown by
the wind. But I don't know. Once you're six ft wide,
you also have a lot of surface area to catch
(39:46):
the winds, so you could probably be pretty heavy and
still get blown around. Like, how hard does it get?
We can? Can they just get bigger and bigger and bigger?
I mean, they are mostly air. But that being said,
I if I had to choose between hitting a four
foot diameter tumbleweed with my rental car or or hitting
(40:09):
a six foot diameter tumbleweed with my rental car. I'm
definitely going to sort of towards the four ft uh
diameter tumbleweed. That being said, again, if you're driving in
the tumbleweeds come at you don't swerve, That's where the
problems really start. I suppose I'm imagining runaway tumbleweed evolution
where they you know, tin foot tumbleweed, thirty foot tumbleweed,
(40:31):
hundred foot tumbleweed, and eventually the planet is ruled by
gargantuan tumbleweeds. It creates their own culture, you know. Coming
back to um, you know, cinematic uses of tumbleweed that
we touched on earlier on UH, it does seem that
it's the symbol. The iconic scene is that lone tumbleweed
(40:53):
making its way across the screen. I don't think I've
ever seen, or I don't remember ever seeing a cinematic
treatment where it is like a whole herd of tumbleweeds.
But that is the more impressive site, and in a
way it would seem to drive home the desolation. Not
only is this place so desolate, Um, that one tumbleweed
is coming by, it is just taken over all life
(41:14):
is tumbleweed here. I bet you could make a really
good sentient tumbleweeds horror movie that. Yeah. Well we we
were discussing this a little bit um off Mike the
other day. I wonder to what extent, or any extent,
the Critters franchise has any connection to Tumbleweeds. I mean,
those are films that the originate out of Texas. The
(41:35):
first one was set in Texas. I believe that. So
I couldn't find anything just offhand. I didn't go deep
and start listening to directors, commentaries or anything. But uh,
you know those those creatures, the crates, they're they're kind
of like a little tumbleweeds and they rolled together, they
joined together into big tumbling pods. Um, they're kind of
(41:56):
like creature and they're invasiveather from another planet. I put
it out to you, the listener, have you directed a
Critters movie? So right in and let us know what
you think about the comparison between a crit and a tumbleweed?
Are you? Leonardo DiCaprio was in Critters to the Critters
(42:18):
franchise has has a lot of talent, and if you
start really looking at some of the names involved, especially
on the acting end of the spectrum. Uh, it's it's
it's star studded. It's just the one where they just
like go to a buffet restaurant. Isn't there one where
they do that? I don't say, Um, the Critters movies are.
It's one of those franchises where I don't think I've
(42:38):
I've ever sat down and just watched a full Critters movie.
It's just they would come on TV a lot back
in the day, and so when Critters was on, you
just watched some Critters and I'm not sure you know
at what point I was jumping in and out of
the series. The other day you pointed out that there's
one Critters movie where they go to space, which is
a little underwhelming because the Critters are from space, their alien. Yeah,
(43:01):
but it's like it makes sense for when Jason goes
to space, that's weird. You leprecond in space, Okay, that's weird,
but now this is like aliens in space. Well, um, yeah,
maybe it's a it's it's a little odd, but it's
where you gotta go. It's like they went they went
to Critters one, Critters too, Creers three, they go to
l A. Critters four they go into space. I don't
(43:21):
know where they go after that. I think there was
a TV series recently. I think they go on the
Odyssey then, right, is they're trying to return home to it?
Think a maybe? So all right, we're gonna go ahead
and call it there. Uh, this is gonna be the
end of our two episode series on Tumbleweeds. But again,
(43:43):
we'd love to hear from everyone out there, especially those
of you who live in tumbleweed Country, which you know,
technically if you look at a map includes uh, you know,
most people in the United States. But at any rate,
we would love to hear your your your tidbits, and
your your of your experience with the mighty tumble weed,
whether it becoming actually like a camel or hiding under
(44:07):
the cart like a goat. In the meantime, if you
would like to listen to other episodes of Stuff to
Blow Your Mind, well you can listen to us in
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We have
core episodes in there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday's
we do listener mail. On Wednesday, we do a short
form artifact or monster fact episode, and on Fridays we
do Weird House Cinema. That's the time to set aside
(44:28):
most serious concerns and just talk about a strange film. Um.
We have a number of different web presences, but if
you you know, you look us up on the I
Heart Radio page, or you just go to Stuff to
Blow your Mind dot com um, or if you just
go to uh, I think the Instagram page, um, any
of the others, there's often gonna be a link there
for merchandise if you want to check that out. That's
(44:51):
just kind of a fun way to celebrate the brand.
If you want a shirt or a like a mouse
pad or a throw pillow with our logo on it
or some other various designs, go check that out. We're
we're going to see about possibly adding some more designs
this year. So also, yeah right into us and let
us know if there's any kind of stuff to blow
your mind merch that you think should exist. Likewise, I
(45:13):
don't know, if there's any merch from our show that
you think should not exist, let us know and we'll
make sure not to create that. Should we create designer
tumble weeds, which we we send to you by windmail,
obviously not huge. Thanks as always to our excellent audio
producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get
in touch with us with feedback on this episode or
(45:35):
any other, to suggest topic for the future, just to
say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow your Mind.
It's production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for
My heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(45:57):
or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. The point
four Pots of FO
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of
My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. And
the Flaming Tumbleweed has rolled right back in. We're ready
for part two of this series. That's right. If you
(00:24):
didn't listen to part one, go back, give it a listen,
because we get we get all into the topic of tumbleweeds,
talking about what what tumbleweeds are? What? What what do
we mean when we talk about them in the American sense,
in a broader sense, why do they do the tumbling uh?
And so forth. I think it's a pretty fun episode,
and we're gonna we're gonna keep the ball rolling today. Now.
(00:48):
One of the interesting things that we discovered in the
last episode is that while the tumbleweed is an icon
of the American West, uh, the main species of tumbleweed,
the thing people are usual really talking about in the
American context when they say a tumbleweed is a plant
known as Russian thistle that only arrived in the United
(01:08):
States probably around the eighteen seventies. And so this is
not even native to North America. It's something that comes
from the Eurasian step. Yeah, it is very much an invader.
It is an invasive species, and we're gonna get into
some of the ramifications of that here. But it's also
one of the reasons why if you look for um
(01:31):
for like Native American accounts of tumbleweeds, uh, you know,
they're not going to exist before a certain point, because
they don't even come in with the initial colonists, with
the initial influx of Westerners, or even the first few
influxes of Westerners. They come in much later. However, you
do find some interesting uh uses of tumbleweed. I was
(01:53):
reading in the Journal of American Folklore article titled The
Witches Were Saved a Zoo New origin story by Dennis Tedlock.
So the Zuni or one of the Pueblo people of
the American West, and the author here discusses work by
the author Andrew Pinesta, intended for oral performance. Pinesta was
(02:14):
a Zuni storyteller, and the story in question was apparently
told in nine uh. And then Tedlock, you know, is
writing about it and discussing it, and it concerns interference
by the US military into Zuni affairs. But it mentions
the tumble weeds in a way that I think is
rather clever and drives home their invasive and uh, their
(02:36):
their invasive nature. Here quote there's a spot near Neutria
where the soldiers camped. They fed hay to their horses,
and there were tumbleweeds seeds in it. Now only tumbleweeds
grow on that spot, and they've spread all over. Oh,
so framing the soldiers here is a vector of the
spread of this invasive plant. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's my
(02:58):
read of it. Anyway, you know, it's it's touching on
the foreign invasive nature of both, um, both the the
the American military presence here in the presence of of
Westerners in general, and the tumbleweed, both things that that
kind of curse the land. In this viewpoint, I was
looking around for, you know, obviously, to find older sort
of folklore it takes and cultural takes on tumbleweeds. You
(03:20):
have to go to the parts of the world where
tumbleweeds were originally or would have spread to before they
had a chance to take root in America. Literally. Um.
I was reading The Rooster in the Transylvanian Folklore by
Ferric Posni, and in it the author rights on the
Transylvanian plane, people used to believe that witches would cause
(03:41):
aridity by burning a stolen rooster feather on the tumbleweed.
Oh this is interesting. So the tumbleweed lord does go back,
you know, to to pre modernity, but in in the
in the Step region rather than in North America. Yeah,
and so I was I was looking around for more
raf says to it. I'm sure there's some good ones
(04:01):
I missed. So anybody out there who's aware of u
of any folkloric treatments of tumble weeds from from any
part of the world, right in and share them with us.
But I found mentions of tumbleweeds in Mongolian tradition, namely
as the subject of traditional Mongolian riddles as Collected and
disgust in Mongolian Folklore, A representative collection from the oral
(04:25):
tradition Part one, and this is by Hanging Krueger, Service
and Rosiecki published in Mongolian Studies, and this came out.
This is one of those volumes that came out like
Bridging eighty five and eighty six, So they cover both
Mongolian folk sayings and riddles in this paper. And this
(04:45):
was this is actually a real pleasure to read. I know, Joe,
you looked at it as well. It's it's it's almost
like I think I was telling you before we recorded,
like I kind of want to see this bound as
its own little paperback edition and uh and available for
purchase somewhere, because it's just it's full of these these
fun little Mongolian folks things and then ultimately riddles, many
of which you know are gonna have residents with with
(05:08):
readers anywhere in the world, right though some of which
are are completely like going to be lost on you
if you don't know much about animal husbandry or goats
or anything. But but other ones, yeah, they are very
universal and and almost all the sayings are great. Uh
So the first half of it concerns more like proverbs,
you know, those kind of sayings that that don't they're
(05:29):
not like a prompt in the way the riddle is
uh And and a lot of the proverbs are really good.
One of them that I'm just doing this from memory,
but I think it was something like, uh, load of
donkey up with cargo, load of fool up with praise. Yeah,
they're so good though, obviously, Yeah, they're they're they're they're
emerging from a particular culture in a particular region. They
(05:51):
speak very much to the environment in the cultures of
the Mongolian people here. Um. But but yeah, the riddles
here they have a lot in common then with riddle
traditions around the world. The authors here right quote the
heart of the riddle is naturally the real or fancied
resemblance between two ideas or things, although sometimes punning plays
(06:12):
a role when the similarity involves two or three words
which sound alike. So I have a I have a
couple of riddles here. I'm gonna I'm gonna inflict them
on you, Joe, and you may be able to guess
the answer to a couple of them. But here's the
first one. When it comes from yonder, it looks like
a camel. When it crawls under the wagon, it looks
(06:35):
like a goat. Okay, So I know the answer to
this one, which is that it's a tumble weed. But
nonetheless I don't get it. I don't understand why it
looks like a goat when it crawls under the wagon.
What what do goats do under the wagon? That is, like,
do goats kind of crack and break or they brittle
under a wagon. I don't know. I guess maybe they're
(06:55):
just smaller. Like I can definitely, you know, my driving
experience that I talked about in the last episode, I
can definitely relate to the idea that the bumbling tumbleweed
on the highway may look as big as a camel.
It may be that intimidating, and then once you actually
run it over, you're like, oh, well, that was more
like running over a goat. I've never run over a gut.
(07:18):
I don't know why I laughed to be very sad
to run over a goat, but for some reason that
was funny at the time, at the time, for ten
seconds ago. But but anyway, I do think this is
one of the ones that is interesting because it seems
to require some kind of localized knowledge that we don't
really have. And this is something actually that the authors
(07:40):
mentioned uh in their introduction to the section on Mongolian riddles.
They say that, you know, riddles are nearly universal in
cultures around the world, and it's interesting to see what
topics are the most common in each riddle culture. And
so they say, for example, all cultures have riddles concerning
astronomical phenomenon like the on in the moon. But that
(08:01):
when you look at Mongolian riddles in particular, they're going
to be especially focused on topics like animal husbandry. So
there will be riddles that that have to do with
camels and goats and horses and things like that. And
obviously also localized plants will show up in a culture's
riddles about nature, and the tumbleweed would be one of these.
(08:23):
Speaking of which, here's another riddle, Joe from this stuff,
from this uh, this collection, It travels by the wind.
It stays in the ditch. Now this one I get more. Yeah,
this is a tumbleweed. And I think that the tickling,
the brain tickling part of this, maybe that it's playing
on your assumption when you say it travels by the wind.
People are naturally primed to think about something other than
(08:45):
like a plant or a feature of the natural world. Yeah,
something that actually lives and and in in the air,
and something that flies in the air like a bird.
Or you're thinking, maybe it's gonna be something like song
or something, but wasn't It stays in a bit. I
thought of a boat. That's a that's a good one too,
but no, it's the tumble weed. Which I mean, this
(09:08):
feels right as well. I mean, there's this thing that
is is pretty impressive when it really gets going, but
it winds in a good ditch and it's done for exactly.
I mean, this calls to mind those images we saw
last time of you know, five hundred tumbleweeds all jammed
into a culvert. Yeah. Alright, So Joe, you knew that
the answer to those riddles was going to be the
(09:28):
tumble weed, but I wanted to I wanted to give
you a shot. It's a non tumble weed Mongolian riddles here. Okay,
so these I I realized these may be a bit difficult,
but we're gonna give it a shot. Here's the first one.
If I only had a tongue, I would be a witness.
If I could only rise up, I could reach up
(09:50):
to heaven. Now I saw this one before you read it,
and I thought about it, and I honestly have no idea.
I mean, so the second one is making me think
it maybe is something that is long but not tall,
you know, like, uh yeah, but but I really don't know. Well,
you're on the right track, because the answer to this
one is the road. Oh okay, Uh Well, I certainly
(10:14):
get the second half. If I could only rise up,
I could reach up to heaven, you know, if you
could flip the axis. But why what is it about
the tongue? If I only had a tongue that could
be a witness, I I don't. I don't know this one.
They didn't come. They basically just explained that this one
had to do with you know, they give the answer,
but they didn't explain what the tongue in the witness
(10:34):
bit means. Maybe just because you know so much happens
on the road that the road is is kind of
all knowing. In a sense, it connects to everywhere. Yeah,
it's like if these walls could talk, but there are
no walls, if this road could talk. Yeah, and in
in a sense, you know, it's yeah, it is everywhere
at once. This road that I am on is also
(10:57):
in this distant city as well as the city I
am from. And it's with me right here. Interesting, All right,
here's one more. I have something. Others use it a lot,
but I use it only occasionally. Now with this one,
I also have no idea. I was trying to think
in the animal agriculture kind of zone, would could this
(11:18):
be something about I don't know, a like a goat.
Does a goat not use its own milk very much?
Or something? I don't know. Well, the answer to this
one is my name. Oh oh, that's very good. It's
very good. Yeah. Yeah. The the rationale being that generally
you're not saying your own name as much as other
(11:39):
people are saying your name. But this is like not
a good riddle if it's delivered by Bob Dole, right yeah,
or doing the Rock Johnson that kind of thing exactly. Okay,
Well I pulled that one for you, Rob. Did you
already see the solution to this one? Um? I don't.
I'd probably not going to remember it. Okay, it's just
one line. The head is the enemy of its body.
(12:01):
M what is it? The head is the enemy of
its body? Oh? Oh, I don't know. Again. I'm I'm
thinking and my mind is turning to two cows and
goats and horses, and I'm I'm also you know, trying
to think of like the great expanse of the Mongolian countryside,
and I'm I'm drawing a blank here. I think I
got us overly focused on on bovida and stuff. No, No,
(12:24):
the answer is a match stick. That's pretty good. So, yeah,
this has got to be a more modern riddle, I guess.
And I don't know when all of these come from,
Like do some of these date back hundreds of years,
whereas others are, you know, maybe from the nineteenth or
twentieth century. Yeah, I get the impression that that a
number of them maybe more recent. Oh and another one
of them that I saw was pretty interesting was just
(12:46):
the same one that appears in the It's the riddle
of the Sphinx from from Oedipus, So that that appears
to be a cross cultural riddle. You know what has
four legs in the morning, two legs in the in
the noontime, and three legs in the evening. It is
a human, you know, because you're a baby and you crawl,
and then as an adult you walk on two legs,
and then an old age you use a cane. Oh
but I got one more for you, rob Okay, So
(13:07):
this one is on a sunny day, there are two.
On a sunless day, there is but one. On a
moonlit night, there are two. On a moonless night, there
is but one. I mean, I'm thinking about light and silhouettes, shadows. Yeah,
that's it. It's a shadow. Is it a shadow? Okay? Wait,
(13:28):
so the person's shadow. There are two of you on
a sunny day because you got a shadow, okay, I
got that, Okay, And then on a sun most day,
there's just you. There's no shadow. On a moonlight night,
there too, again, you have a shadow, and on a
moonless night it's too dark to see anything, right, should
there Yeah, there shouldn't even be one on a moonless night.
The stars are so bright. That's one thing I guess
(13:48):
we have to consider. I don't know for certain, but
it reminds me of things I've read about Egyptian mythology
and about how uh an often unobscured sky is so
central to uh, to the world view of of say,
ancient Egyptians. I wonder if that holds true in Mongolian
culture as well, because if you have like this brilliant
(14:09):
starlet sky and there's you know, less probability of cloud cover,
then perhaps that does illuminate things a little better. I
don't know. Yeah, certainly there's going to be less possibility
of you know, light pollution and artificial light kind of
creating these these deeper pockets of shadow. But why does
the tumbleweed under the wagon look like a goat? I
(14:30):
mean maybe it just has to do with like, once
it gets up here, it's not going to you know,
kick butt like a camel would like. It's going to
be more or less hiding underneath the cart like a
goat kind of Uh, it's gonna be this It's not
gonna be this bounding, brave looking thing. It's going to
be this meek uh little ball that's hiding around underneath
(14:51):
the carts or jammed under a wheel, et cetera. Mongolian
listeners right in teach us help us figure this one out.
By the way the sayings collected in this this this
book er, I mean in this paper also great. Uh,
here's an example one that kept jumping out of me
every time I sort of skimmed past it looking for tumbleweeds.
Men follow customs, dogs follow bones. I like that one. Yeah,
(15:16):
that is good. So if this implies a parallel in
the way that these things are followed, would it be
that humans go after social customs in a kind of driven, hungry,
instinctual way. You know, I'm not sure if that is
the way we're supposed to take this, or does it
mean that a dog of like just follows their gut
(15:36):
instinct and like, you know, follows immediate evidence. But men
have customs that they have to follow. Oh yeah, that's it.
That could be the contrast. But but but I I
find your interpretation interesting as well. I could. I guess
I could see it go either way. I guess there's
no comparative word in there. Doesn't say men follow customs
like dogs follow bones. Anyway, there are more of these
(15:57):
and if you're interested, again, it's Mongolian Folklore, a representative
collection from the oral literary tradition, Part one. And that's
a bit of one J store. So if you go
to J S t O R dot org you can
you can access it for free. I don't know if
you have to sign in. I like I I access
it da membership but um, but not a paid membership.
(16:18):
So go for it if you're interested. Okay, one more
one before we move on that this is just a proverb.
It's that children who grow up spoiled are more difficult
to handle than a bull's neck. Okay, what about a
bull's neck, though, I guess it's difficult to get your
hands around it, right, like a bull's neck can be
so thick that you can't even reach your arms around
(16:41):
it and like, you know, lock your your knuckles together. Yeah, yeah,
all right, So we're gonna we're gonna leave mongolian Um
wisdom aside here for a little bit. We're gonna get
back to more North America entails of the tumbleweed. And
(17:01):
so I was just you know, thinking at this point
you're probably going, well, geez, guys, I get the tumbleweeds
are bad, and uh, you know that sometimes they're like
a camel and sometimes like there a goat. Okay, fair enough,
but what do they mean for the proliferation of radioactive waste? Well,
we're glad you ask, because it's actually an interesting question. Uh.
And one of the things I found even more fascinating
(17:23):
about it is that they're The role that tumbleweeds play
in in our treatment of radioactive waste can vary greatly
depending on like what source you're looking at. Well, yeah,
and I think the radioactivity will play more into the
second example we're talking about them the first, which might
be more clearly classed as a case of toxic waste, right, yes,
(17:47):
but but both have to do with the leavings of
of the Atomic Age. Yeah. So the Atomic Ages we've
discussed on the show before, especially I think the the
episode or episodes in question. Uh it was titled the
Atomic Scar. Uh. The Atomic Ages left various scars on
the planet, including radioactive waste that we have to seal
(18:09):
away and figure out how to Symbolically worn apocalyptic wanders
ten thousand years in the future that they shouldn't mess
with this because it's bad. Uh. So we're always looking
at for ways to secure it, to resecure it, to
clean it up, et cetera. Now you might remember another
episode we did titled The Tide of Gold, and in
(18:31):
that we discussed some sort of novel gold harvesting schemes
and ideas, and we discussed how plants can harvest gold
from the ground. Basically, the premise here is that some
plants have the ability to absorb minerals through their roots
and uh and uh and and concentrate metals such as nickel, uh, cadmium,
(18:52):
and zinc uh. These plants are also known as hyper accumulators.
There are no natural gold hyper accume ulators, but there
are ways to make it possible through soil manipulation. So
you like treat the soil that contains the gold in
a certain way, and you can sort of engineer it
so that certain plants that have this natural ability will
(19:13):
actually draw that gold up into their roots system. So
you can probably see where we're going here. Um, remember
how we mentioned that tumble weed roots can dive twenty
feet down into the soil. Well, as pointed out by
geologist Dana Ulmer Shoal of the New Mexico Institute of
Mining and Technology in SoCoRo, reporting to the US Geological
(19:36):
Society in two thousand and four, tumbleweed plants are actually
really good a't soaking up depleted uranium from contaminated soils
and weapons testing grounds and battlefields. Now this is interesting.
I guess we should do a little sidebar here on
depleted uranium because you might be wondering, okay, depleted uranium,
and you you hear that here uranium your weapons testing grounds,
(20:00):
and you might naturally think like, oh, nuclear bomb detonation sites.
But this is actually talking about something different. Uh. So,
depleted uranium is often used in heavy munitions as as
a metal, not as a a fissile material for a bomb,
but as a metal. And it's used in these munitions
(20:21):
because of its density and armor penetrating properties, so it's
you know, you can make a very dense projectile out
of it. I believe it is more than half again
as dense as leads something. It's like sixty something percent
more dense than lead is uh. And that density also
makes it useful for certain things in like the aeronautics field.
I think I've read that it's used sometimes as a
(20:43):
counterweight or counterbalance in some helicopter rotor blades, but it's
also used for plating and armored vehicles, again because it's
dense so it's more likely to stop a projectile, and
then also in creating shielding against radiation. But as as
am innisition in particular, I think depleted uranium is used
(21:03):
not just because it's dense, but because, say when it
hits the armor plating of a tank to try to
penetrate it, it has these properties where it tends to
kind of fragment in a way that that makes the
projectile sharper rather than blunt r And as it penetrates
through the armor plating of a of an armored vehicle,
it also tends to ignite and explode on the inside,
(21:26):
so it has a lot of properties that you would
want if you were trying to shoot through an armored vehicle. Now,
to pick up on the caveat I was giving earlier
about radioactivity, depleted uranium has very low levels of radioactivity.
It's actually it actually has less radioactivity then is typically
found in natural uranium. But uranium, whether natural or depleted uranium,
(21:49):
has significant chemical toxicity. So it is clear that it
is dangerous to ingest certain amounts of it beyond a
certain threshold. But at least according to some sources, this
is not really because of radioactivity. UH, though there might
be some continuing controversy about the radiological effects in particular.
I'll mention a little more about that in a minute, UM,
(22:10):
but I was trying to look up. Okay, how does
it work? Well? According to the US Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry or the A T S d R,
which is a government agency under the under the umbrella
of the Health and Human Services Department, UH that they
put out a fact sheet on the health effects of uranium,
both known and under investigation, and they say that both
(22:33):
natural and depleted uranium have that they have the same
toxic effects within a human body. The primary of which
is adverse effects to the renal system, so the kidneys,
so either inhaling or ingesting significant amounts of uranium compounds,
and I think possibly by uh by having it enter
the body as shrapnel as well. UH. This is known
(22:54):
to cause damage to the kidneys, and there may be
some secondary effects as well, but the secondary effects are
less clear. UM. The more I looked into this, the
more complicated the picture of the health effects of exposure
to depleted uranium became. UM. So like you'll find a
lot of debate the their their questions about the exposure
(23:14):
of combat veterans and people living in war zones who
have been exposed to ammunition with depleted uranium content. UH.
And I did not have time to wade into all
of that controversy and figure out what I thought about it,
but I will say, at the very least, UH, you
do not want your body exposed to high levels of
depleted uranium. UH, definitely because of its known adverse health effects.
(23:35):
And then there may be other secondary effects on top
of what is currently known as well. But like most things, UH,
the the toxicity of depleted uranium depends on dosage over time.
So we're all exposed to tiny amounts of uranium from
the natural environment. On a consistent basis, this is completely unavoidable.
(23:55):
It's just part of living on planet Earth. There's gonna
be tiny, tiny amounts of uranium and the food you eat,
in the water you drink. But if you are living
in certain areas where there is significant uranium contamination in
the environment, those those levels could go up above what
is safe. Right. And therefore it stands to reason if
you had, say a former ammunition testing ground, and you
(24:18):
wanted to do something else with that and not just
keep it, uh, you know, set aside for you know,
the duration of of of of human civilization or something. Uh,
you might want to reclaim it. You might want to
find a way to get depleted uranium out of the ground.
And uh that's where a few different plants have have
shown promise at drinking up that depleted uranium um. One
(24:41):
of them, for instance, is the Indian mustard plant. But
as this this research points out, one of the things
about many of these plants is that they thrive in
um in in wetter soils. What are you gonna do
when you have something out in a desert, right, Well,
that's where the tumbleweed comes. The tumbleweed, of course, famously
(25:01):
excels in dry, barren places. UH. One rolls into a
well irrigated yard in a New Mexico suburb, and it's doomed. Uh.
It can't compete with the grass. But if it goes
into an abandoned um uh you know, a feed lot
or a girl or some sort of agricultural site, uh,
an undeveloped bad land, well, then that's where the tumble
weed is king. And so it's ideally suited for some
(25:23):
of the desolate places that we find depleted uranium in
the United States, especially uh in in the West, uh
in the Western States. So the argument here is that
this could be a safe method as well, because the
plants do most of the absorption well before they detach.
So if you were managing the site, if you were,
you know, planting intentionally the the the tumbleweed plants here,
(25:47):
then the plants could be harvested and disposed of well
before the the drying phase begins, and then ultimately the
tumbleweed breaks free and is able to roll free exactly.
And so I thought this was very interesting. I did
look around for more follow up on this about using
tumbleweeds for for remediation of heavy metals like depleted geranium
(26:08):
or other toxic substances in soils. And I didn't find
anything much more recent so so I don't know, uh,
if for or how much anybody's picked up on this research.
But but yeah, yeah, well, like like we we hinted
out before, this is a This is something we often
see with the tumble with tumbleweed related research. Somebody will
have an idea about something we can do with the
(26:30):
tumble weeds. What can we do with these tumble weeds?
What can we do about these tumbleweeds? And someone will
have a novel approach, but either it's something that doesn't
seem to work out for one reason or another, or
it requires more research and it is perhaps still being researched. Um,
it seems like I saw this more often than not.
Oh did we ever find anything else out about what
happened to that tumbleweed eating machine we talked about in
(26:52):
part one? No, not yet, but but the as we're
recording this, the episode had the first episode has not aired,
so I'm hoping that we'll hear from some New Mexico listeners,
like maybe maybe there are counties in New Mexico where
they had one of these or have one still. I
don't know. Maybe we'll get some local intel. I did
email one of the researchers who was involved in the
(27:12):
original project and the original prototype, but I have not
heard back from them. And and nor would I be
that surprised, because just some RANDO is reaching out of
them out of nowhere and asked him about a project
that they worked on decades ago. Uh. I can understand there.
They might see that it's just a spam email, all right,
(27:33):
So we're not done with the idea of tumble weeds
and UH weapons sites and so forth. UH. And and
this week turned to an article that you you dug up, Joe.
This was from Sarah Zang writing UH for Gizmoto back
in two thousand fourteen, which was just a really great
year for all things tumble. We had a number of
the articles that we have end up referring to and
(27:56):
this come from But she cited a George John some
peace in National Geographic particularly UH this bit quote. During
the early nineteen sixties, after above ground nuclear testing finally
ceased at the Nevada test site, the first thing said
to grow back was Russian thistle radioactive salth sola has
(28:18):
come tumbling out of the old Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington,
where plutonium was manufactured during the Cold War. I half
expect to hear someday that Russian thistle has been found
on the moon. Yeah, and uh, I can't remember if
we already said it so far in this episode or not,
but Russian thistle is the common name of the main
(28:38):
species of tumbleweed that that is now known in the
United States. That's the number of different scientific names have
been used. Sal solo, tregas, calli tregas. Uh. And this
is the salsola sal solo that the author here is
talking about in this Uh, this not g O piece
has been quoted. But yeah, it is not surprising to
me to hear that tumbleweed is is the first thing
(29:00):
moving in uh at a at a nuclear testing site,
right and uh and as saying explains, it's just one
of many organisms that can interfere where our efforts just
set aside such waste and such way side or just
sort of secure such locations. Um. Now, the the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation is of note here because yet and tumbleweeds
(29:22):
were in the news as recently as January, as reported
by Maria Kramer in the New York Times, with the
headline storm of tumbleweeds, berries, cars, terrifies drivers and astounds police.
But some I have to point out that some places,
including I believe that the Chicago Tribune altered the headline
UM or updated the headline. I would say, I don't
(29:44):
want to say altered, like they did something super nefarious
to say, UM storm of quote unquote nuclear tumbleweeds, berries, cars,
terrifies drivers and astounds police. UM. It's in quotes because
they're referring to a particular quote in the UM the
original article where they're talking about this tumble getting in
(30:05):
which they mentioned quote the highway is in a flat,
wide open area close to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which
is known as one of the sites of the Manhattan
Project and where plutonium was produced to help build the
atom bomb. And then there's this quote from a Mr
thorn Thorson that says, quote, some people are calling them
nuclear tumbleweeds. So that's so that might be jumping to
(30:26):
some conclusions here, but not not entirely without reason, right right, Yeah,
the article does not discuss tumbleweeds as radioactive in nature.
Other than including that one little quote. Uh, but um,
the the Hanford location, as discussed by Elliott Marshall in
the edition of the Journal Science UM has pointed out
(30:48):
that that this is a location that has had issues
with badgers, rabbits, ground squirrels, burrowing owls, pocket mice, insects,
rabbit brush, and yes, tumbleweeds, uh, inter fearing with with
human efforts to sort of leave this site alone and undisturbed. Well, yeah,
they're literally having breaches due to wildlife like failures of
(31:11):
nuclear material or high level waste containment due to breaches
by things like badgers. Yeah, and then things like rabbits
with like radioactive rabbit poop because rabbits have gotten in there. Yes,
here's a quote from Marshall. With roots that can grow
down twenty feet. Tumbleweeds reached down into waste dumps and
take up strontium ninety break off and blow around the
(31:33):
dry land. And this caused them to worry that the
radiation in the tumbleweeds could then be released into the
air if these weeds were to to do what tumbleweeds
sometimes do, collect somewhere and then catch fire or what
happens if they reach a body of water. Remember that
example from the last episode talking about a tumbleweed. Uh,
this mighty tumbleweed rolling into the water and then kind
(31:55):
of melting there. Um, you know you don't want your
your your radioact have shredded wheat hitting the milk exactly. Yeah, Okay,
So it's not necessarily actually known that these tumbleweeds from
the story in January had significant radioactivity levels. But tumbleweeds
(32:15):
are one of the biological vectors that could potentially breach
some types of nuclear material containment. Right, that seems to
be the case, And of course the fact that they
then break off and blow around afterwards is not helpful, right,
And I mean, we do have to to acknowledge the
fact that there are radioactive tumble weeds in the video
(32:36):
game Fallout New Vegas. So I don't know, is that
true the tumbleweeds. Apparently I I played New Vegas, and
I remember enjoying it, but I do not remember the tumbleweeds.
I had not yet fostered an appreciation for the tumbleweed,
so if they were there, I forgot them. But I
ran across this in in my searches. So it seems
(32:58):
to be the case. Let's say, good on them at
fault at the what was the team that made that game?
They did their research. Thank thank thank Now, given all
we shared about the problems posed by invasive tumbleweeds in
the United States, that should come as no surprise that
(33:19):
the U. S d A has looked into ways of
eradicating them, or at least significantly reducing their number. Uh.
And they've some some of the ways they've They've they've
examined this or rather interesting. One method that has been
proposed is to to take the classic approach and UH
and introduce a particular type of MIGHT. This is a
(33:41):
Syria south soulae, which kills the growing tips of the
plant and stunts it. Supposedly, studies have shown that it
only targets this particular MIGHT species, It only targets a
few closely related species to the tumbleweed, and all of
these species are pest species. Oh, but the proposed biological
(34:02):
controls do not stop there. That's right. They've also looked
into Researchers have also looked into using two fungi species
native to the tumbleweeds original uh you know, Russian or
Ukrainian environment. This news was making the rounds in They've
also looked into viral methods of targeting invasive tumbleweeds with viruses.
(34:22):
The U. S d A was also testing viruses developed
from two types of dying tumbleweeds and UH in Russia
and in Hungary. And this was also reported in Again
just a banner year for tumbleweed research. Now, I'm not
sure where we are with any of these different approaches
ones anyway. I mean, that's not too long ago. It
(34:43):
seems feasible that there still could be some research going
on there. Um. Uh, maybe it's a situation where the
research did fizzle out, or maybe there's just a lot
of contemplation that has to go into the massive introduction
of another invase of species or some sort of other
biological control to try and take care of your existing problem,
(35:05):
because you you know, you don't want to overflow the
tub anymore than it's already overflowing, you know. I was
just trying to remember which previous episode we talked about
some of the um controversies of using you know, different
species for bio control methods of of existing invasive species
UH and UH. The one that came to mind that
(35:27):
looks at least the time we talked about it like
it was going pretty well was on Christmas Island, where
the you know, the the big native crab populations or wait,
were those crabs originally from somewhere else as well? I
don't recall anyway, the crab populations on Christmas Island, the
glorious flows the ocean, the tide of crabs, they were
being threatened by these ant populations there that were, you know,
(35:51):
squirting formic acid into the crabs joints and and killing them.
I think there were the the yellow crazy ants, right, Yeah,
that's sound try. Yeah, so the yellow crazy ants. Uh.
There were some conservationists who had developed a plan to
help try to control populations of the yellow crazy ants
(36:11):
by deploying a predator, a predatory micro wasp that would
that would cut back on the ant colonies there. Uh.
And at least last time we read about that, it
seemed like that was going well so far and uh
and had not had any any dangerous spillover. But yeah,
you always wonder, like you don't, you know, first order
(36:33):
of businesses do no harm, and uh, it's always it's
always a little risky when you say, well, let's introduce
a different thing and and just hope that it only
has this targeted effect that we wanted to Yeah. I
mean time was when human beings thought they could fix
a problem by introducing a new invasive species, they would
just do it, and and that would and and a
(36:55):
lot of times that would end up resulting in a
new problem, a new invasive spiece. So it's it's good
that we're being more thoughtful about this because ultimately you're
dealing with a very complex ecosystem in any case, um
and it's it's difficult to figure out exactly what the
ramifications of introducing something new we're going to be or
(37:15):
introducing another new thing into it. Oh, but I just
recalled I've been trying to remember what was the example
we talked about in that episode of of a a
bio control species that had been introduced and then really backfired,
And I couldn't call it to mind, but I just did.
It was the cane toads in Australia that were brought in,
I think to control beetle populations that were threatening agriculture.
(37:40):
But then the cane toads became a became a huge
problem in their own right. Yeah, yeah, there, yeah, there,
there's so many different accounts one can turn to where
we can move that, you know, our our cautionary tales
in introducing a species to try and fix the problem. Uh.
And and then you know, another aspect of all of
this too is that this is the things changed, the
(38:02):
environments shift. UM. For instance, I was looking at a
University of California riverside study from UM and then this
was making the case that the quote unquote monster tumbleweed
species salth solar ryani was once thought to be actually
going extinct, but it has since gained ground as it
(38:23):
apparently remains green into late summer and has been increasingly
been able to take full advantage of rains during that
time period. Uh So it's footprint has been expanding in
recent years. And this is one that grows up to
six ft tall. So uh, it's a massive tumbleweed. But
just just I guess a footnote in the you know,
(38:43):
in the lesson that you know, you're you can try
and solve one particular problem in at a certain period
of time, But but what is the situation going to
look like? Uh, you know, say ten years down the road,
especially when we're looking at at at climate change and
um and and other factors having an impact act on
the natural environment. But but then again, maybe maybe I'm wrong.
(39:03):
And like, as we're recording this, somewhere on the roads
in New Mexico, there is a massive snowplow with an
enormous um grinder on the front of it. And in
the back of that snowplow there are a whole bunch
of mites and viruses and fung guy, and it's just
making a bee line for the tumbleweed. Uh nation. So
(39:24):
I don't know, Sorry, I'm thinking now about the six
foot tall tumbleweed. Okay, so I'm imagining somebody trying to
like get that with a pitchfork. How heavy does that get?
I know the tumbleweeds are typically very low density, right
because they need to be able to be blown by
the wind. But I don't know. Once you're six ft wide,
you also have a lot of surface area to catch
(39:46):
the winds, so you could probably be pretty heavy and
still get blown around. Like, how hard does it get?
We can? Can they just get bigger and bigger and bigger?
I mean, they are mostly air. But that being said,
I if I had to choose between hitting a four
foot diameter tumbleweed with my rental car or or hitting
(40:09):
a six foot diameter tumbleweed with my rental car. I'm
definitely going to sort of towards the four ft uh
diameter tumbleweed. That being said, again, if you're driving in
the tumbleweeds come at you don't swerve, That's where the
problems really start. I suppose I'm imagining runaway tumbleweed evolution
where they you know, tin foot tumbleweed, thirty foot tumbleweed,
(40:31):
hundred foot tumbleweed, and eventually the planet is ruled by
gargantuan tumbleweeds. It creates their own culture, you know. Coming
back to um, you know, cinematic uses of tumbleweed that
we touched on earlier on UH, it does seem that
it's the symbol. The iconic scene is that lone tumbleweed
(40:53):
making its way across the screen. I don't think I've
ever seen, or I don't remember ever seeing a cinematic
treatment where it is like a whole herd of tumbleweeds.
But that is the more impressive site, and in a
way it would seem to drive home the desolation. Not
only is this place so desolate, Um, that one tumbleweed
is coming by, it is just taken over all life
(41:14):
is tumbleweed here. I bet you could make a really
good sentient tumbleweeds horror movie that. Yeah. Well we we
were discussing this a little bit um off Mike the
other day. I wonder to what extent, or any extent,
the Critters franchise has any connection to Tumbleweeds. I mean,
those are films that the originate out of Texas. The
(41:35):
first one was set in Texas. I believe that. So
I couldn't find anything just offhand. I didn't go deep
and start listening to directors, commentaries or anything. But uh,
you know those those creatures, the crates, they're they're kind
of like a little tumbleweeds and they rolled together, they
joined together into big tumbling pods. Um, they're kind of
(41:56):
like creature and they're invasiveather from another planet. I put
it out to you, the listener, have you directed a
Critters movie? So right in and let us know what
you think about the comparison between a crit and a tumbleweed?
Are you? Leonardo DiCaprio was in Critters to the Critters
(42:18):
franchise has has a lot of talent, and if you
start really looking at some of the names involved, especially
on the acting end of the spectrum. Uh, it's it's
it's star studded. It's just the one where they just
like go to a buffet restaurant. Isn't there one where
they do that? I don't say, Um, the Critters movies are.
It's one of those franchises where I don't think I've
(42:38):
I've ever sat down and just watched a full Critters movie.
It's just they would come on TV a lot back
in the day, and so when Critters was on, you
just watched some Critters and I'm not sure you know
at what point I was jumping in and out of
the series. The other day you pointed out that there's
one Critters movie where they go to space, which is
a little underwhelming because the Critters are from space, their alien. Yeah,
(43:01):
but it's like it makes sense for when Jason goes
to space, that's weird. You leprecond in space, Okay, that's weird,
but now this is like aliens in space. Well, um, yeah,
maybe it's a it's it's a little odd, but it's
where you gotta go. It's like they went they went
to Critters one, Critters too, Creers three, they go to
l A. Critters four they go into space. I don't
(43:21):
know where they go after that. I think there was
a TV series recently. I think they go on the
Odyssey then, right, is they're trying to return home to it?
Think a maybe? So all right, we're gonna go ahead
and call it there. Uh, this is gonna be the
end of our two episode series on Tumbleweeds. But again,
(43:43):
we'd love to hear from everyone out there, especially those
of you who live in tumbleweed Country, which you know,
technically if you look at a map includes uh, you know,
most people in the United States. But at any rate,
we would love to hear your your your tidbits, and
your your of your experience with the mighty tumble weed,
whether it becoming actually like a camel or hiding under
(44:07):
the cart like a goat. In the meantime, if you
would like to listen to other episodes of Stuff to
Blow Your Mind, well you can listen to us in
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We have
core episodes in there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday's
we do listener mail. On Wednesday, we do a short
form artifact or monster fact episode, and on Fridays we
do Weird House Cinema. That's the time to set aside
(44:28):
most serious concerns and just talk about a strange film. Um.
We have a number of different web presences, but if
you you know, you look us up on the I
Heart Radio page, or you just go to Stuff to
Blow your Mind dot com um, or if you just
go to uh, I think the Instagram page, um, any
of the others, there's often gonna be a link there
for merchandise if you want to check that out. That's
(44:51):
just kind of a fun way to celebrate the brand.
If you want a shirt or a like a mouse
pad or a throw pillow with our logo on it
or some other various designs, go check that out. We're
we're going to see about possibly adding some more designs
this year. So also, yeah right into us and let
us know if there's any kind of stuff to blow
your mind merch that you think should exist. Likewise, I
(45:13):
don't know, if there's any merch from our show that
you think should not exist, let us know and we'll
make sure not to create that. Should we create designer
tumble weeds, which we we send to you by windmail,
obviously not huge. Thanks as always to our excellent audio
producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get
in touch with us with feedback on this episode or
(45:35):
any other, to suggest topic for the future, just to
say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow your Mind.
It's production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for
My heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(45:57):
or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. The point
four Pots of FO
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com