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Pando: Earth’s Oldest, Hugest Organism Is Trees! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from how Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck, Brian over there, and there's
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Jerry and this is Stuff you Should Know. This is
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: a current contemporary edition. Chuck, Oh, yeah it is. Yeah,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: we're talking about Pando and Pando's kind of made the
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: rounds of the news lately, current contemporary edition of a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: topic that could be tens of thousands of years old. Yes,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, that's well. Put Actually, did you know
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: about Pando? Yeah, you saw the news lately. No, I
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: just previously knew about Pando. Oh. Really, that's kind of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: awesome because I knew about the giant mushroom out in Oregon.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Um it, I didn't know about Pando, and now I do,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and we'll get to it. But Panda's Panda is not
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: doing so hot right now. Spoiler. Yeah, that is a spoiler,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: isn't it. It's a sad giant forest. It is a
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: genetically identical forest. So let's let's spell it out for
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: But what Pando is you want to Yeah, it's a
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: it's an aspen forest aspen trees, which, by the way,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: far and away the best trees, best looking trees at least. Uh,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: it's certainly one of them, depending on what you're out for.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Uh in your as your tree fetish, well, I tend
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to like the white papery bark with um black eyes.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: That's usually the kind of tree I like. So aspens
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: it for me. Yeah, So I mean aspens in general,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: before we get to what Panda is. They are their
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: medium sized. Uh, they're deciduous. They're generally between twenty and
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: eighty feet high, about three to eighteen inches in diameter.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And like you said, they have that bark that's that
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: sort of smooth greenish white, yellowish white gray or white.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: And uh, they have a little green in the bark,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: but from chlorophyll, which is kind of interesting for a tree. Yeah,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: it's um from what I saw unique among North American
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: trees that that um aspen bark actually is living. It's
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: like tissue that actually produces chlorophyll and carries out some
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: of photosynthesis for the tree, and most other trees don't
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: do that. But that explains why the bark is so
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: unique too. Yeah. So the aspen is known for for
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of things, but one of the things where
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: their leaves produced. They're they're really thin and firm, almost round,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: about an inch and a half to three inches in diameter,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: with a little you know, pointy apex. They look kind
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: of like a spade in a suit of cards deck
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: of cards. Yeah, sort of like that. For sure, call
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: a spade a spade unless it's an aspen leaf. But
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the sound that they make is really unique. If you're
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: in the forest, in a grove of aspen and the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: wind kicks up, it's a really unique and i say,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: very very calming experience because the stems are flat instead
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: of round and perpendicular to the flatness of the leaf. Wow,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: that was a really great description. So the the leaf
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: kind of moves around, and then the stem in ways
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: that leaves typically don't, they kind of trembles in the wind. Yeah,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: it's like a fluttery butterfly wing almost. And then because
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the leaves are sparse enough, you wouldn't just look at
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and be like, look at how sparse that tree is.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: But compared to some other trees, say like a maple
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: or an oak or something, the space in between leaves
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: is greater, and so that allows the sunlight to kind
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: of come in through the canopy of the aspen, and
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: when the wind blows and it gets all of those
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: leaves going, that has an effect on the sunlight too. Yeah.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: So that sound though, is uh specifically Pando is a
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: quaking aspen. Uh. It just the sound that it creates
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: is very very unique. It's not even just like a
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: regular calming of the wind through the trees. It's more
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: like a quack quack. That's a pretty good aspen quaking
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: aspen impression. It sounds like a duck. No, that's a
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: lot of people confuse it for ducks, So it's it's
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: actually a pretty good aspen. So that's the aspen in general.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: But go ahead and drop it, drop it on everyone's
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: head what Panda is, because it's pretty remarkable. Are you're
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: letting me do it? Yeah? All right, So Pando is
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: an aspen forest, an enormous aspen force, a hundred and
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: six acre aspen force. And you'd say, well, I could
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: name the woods in my backyard Todd or Jimmy, who
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: cares somebody gave a name to a forest. But no,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: there's something very special about Pando. Pando is not just
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: a force. Pando is a forest of trees that are
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: all genetically identical because they all come from one massive
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: roots structure that forms by mass, the largest organism on Earth. Yeah, yeah,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: that's pando thirteen million pounds uh tons. And uh. While
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: we would love to say every single one of these,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: maybe up to fifty thou trees is connected literally, some
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: of them might not be. But we did learn through
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: this research that you can be uh cut off if something,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: you know, happens to cut you off from your from
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: the roots of your neighbor, you can still be considered
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: part of that because you're still genetically identical, right, yes,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: and so um Quaking aspens are kind of unique at
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: least as far as trees go, but not necessarily as
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: far as plants go, and that they reproduce through something
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: called vegetative reproduction. And it's pretty straightforward stuff. If you've
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: ever seen, like saying, augustine grass or a strawberry or
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: something like that. It just sends out like a stem
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: or something like that, and then the stem, once it
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: gets to certain points, starts to shoot down roots and
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: then it starts to grow like another section of the plant.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: But it's still kind of like a new plant growing
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: out of the original plant's arm. It's all the same plan.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: It's one big organism. Um. And that's how Pando has
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: spread through this vegetative reproduction. Yeah. And this can happen underground,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: like in the case of Pando, it's not like you
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: see this, uh, like horizontal fence of tree branches all
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: along the ground. It's actually roots underground. Sometimes it can
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: go like a hundred feet and say, I think I'd
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: like to grow up now, Yeah, it feels like a
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: good spot. Why don't you grow up? And the little
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: sprout called the ramit says, I will watch, and Pando
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: goes whoa with the light. Yes, and it looks like
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: its own tree. But uh, whether connected or not, it's
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: usually connected. Um, it's it's the same tree. Right. So um,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: you said something that some of the trees in Pando
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: might not actually be part of Pando. There's a couple
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: of ways that can happen. Like you said. One, they
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: could be cut off physically, but even still it's still
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: considered part of the same group of trees, the same organism.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: And when you're talking about a like a stand of
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: genetically identical aspen trees, they're called a clone, like a
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: pack of them or stand of them. It's called a clone,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: so you can have physically cut off, genetically identical trees
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: that are still considered part of the same clone. But
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: being a tree, pando Um can also reproduce sexually. And
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: aspens are also kind of unique or peculiar in that
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: they can reproduce vegetatively, but they also reproduce sexually, but
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: they don't have the equipment for both sides of sexual
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: reproduction on the same tree. So a tree is either
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: male or female, and in the case of pando, Pando's
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: a male. But that's pretty interesting too. I think if
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: that we're talking about like the biggest organism on Earth,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: the most massive organism on Earth, but to know that
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: it has a name and that it's a male just
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: makes it all that more endearing, you know. Yeah, And
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: like you said, even though they do have flowers and sexes,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: it's they almost always reproduce vegetatively. Yeah, I think it's
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: starting to become clear that they actually produce sexually more
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: than we realize. But for a long time they're like,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: that's basically it for aspen. Yeah, and it's uh, like
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: there are plenty of aspen grows and clones that are impressive,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: but this is one where every thing kind of came together,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk about all those different things, but everything
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: kind of came together in the right way just to
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: create something this massive, Right, Yeah, Panda lucked out. In
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: other words, yeah, they're not normally this impressive and large.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: No huh um. One of the things about like a
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: clone of aspen trees like Pando is that in one
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why they can get so huge is
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: one that vegetative growth, of vegetative reproduction. But also when
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: you have, like when you're covering a hundred and six
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: acres of land, you've got a like a lot of
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: different resources available to you, and you're interconnected, you're just
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: one organism. And this whole thing makes me think, like, Chuck,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: what are we really talking about when we're talking about pando.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: We're talking about the collection of individual trees that we
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: typically see as like as individuals. Are we really talking
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: about like the roots system? Is that the real organism
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: that we're referring to? Are you asking a little bit?
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I think it's both. It's all the same, right, Okay,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I guess it is all the same, but but you
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: tend to think of like an organism is like, you know,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: a tree is a thing, but a whole bunch of
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: trees that are all connected to a root system that's
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: just different in some weird way that I can't quite
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: put my finger on. Yeah. I like to think that
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: they're all just holding hands underground, right, but it's all
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: just one hand. Yeah. But like you were saying, uh,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: like the benefits of something like this is that they
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: are they do have different access to different things depending
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: on where they are in that forest. So like there
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: may be you know, three or four big old trees
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: down near the water that are just sucking up water
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and sharing it with the trees near them. They can
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: just send that right down the old shared root pipeline
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: and say, I know you're thirsty over there, so why
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: don't you enjoy this spring water? Yeah, exactly, it's delicious
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: spring water. Um. They can also shuttle newt treents around
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: pando Can from one area to another, and so as
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a result, you'll find aspens in some like really surprising places.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: They're really hearty, and they really they show up everywhere
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: from like kind of wet rainforesty type areas to semi
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: arid um kind of brush land, Like they'll grow everywhere.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: And they have a huge range too. You can find
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: aspen in North America from Alaska down to Mexico and
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: from Vancouver over to Maine. So they have a pretty good,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: pretty good range. Uh, and they've grow just about everywhere. Yeah,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: but they need a lot of sunshine. The one thing
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: that um, the aspen does not like a shade, and
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: as their kryptonite it kind of is um. Moist soil
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: is the best. Plenty of sunshine and uh, gravelly slopes,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: sandy sandy ground is great. But they are pretty um,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: pretty hardy as long as as long as you don't
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: have anything big that's creating a canopy nearby to block
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: out that sunshine. Yeah, because think about you've got some
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: shoots that grew up and they're like, oh, I'm in
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: a semi arid area, now i could use some water
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: over here, and it just sends it from the wetlands.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I just think that's amazing. Josh Love, Pando Chuck Love
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: message break. Okay, let's do it then. All right, Well,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: to learn a thing or two from Josh Pan Chuck.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: It's stuff you should know, all right, than alright, Chuck,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: So we could probably stop here, and I just I'd
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: stand by my statement about loving PANDO. I think PANDO
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: is just an amazing inter seing organism. But I think
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: like all aspen stands are now all clones of aspen
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: let's think they're really cool. But we haven't even begun
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to scratch the surface and how interesting these things are. Yeah,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about fire, I do, because this
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why I love earth science,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Like everything fits together, and everything has an explanation, and
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: if you mess with one thing over here, something else
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: way over here goes weird. I just love earth science
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: for that and this is a good example of it. Yeah,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: so in our forest fires episode, which I think was
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: a great one, and go back and revisit that if
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: you want to learn more about this kind of thing.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: But fire, as it happens, forest fires are kind of
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: great for aspens. Yeah, they thrive in fire pretty much
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: not in fire. It's a little little complicated, but it's
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: actually very simple. So um, So there's a few things
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: that happened like with fire. Supposedly, a wildfire when it
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: reaches an aspen stand will will sometimes die out because
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: aspens actually don't burn very well. They have really wet leaves,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: and their bark says pretty moist too, and so does
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: their branches, So they don't burn well. Um, but they
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: are sensitive to fire, and that they've kind of seems
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: like kind of evolved to respond to fire, but not
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: necessarily in the ways you think like they can burn,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: especially their canopy, their tops can burn pretty pretty badly.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: But the way that they react to fire is if
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: fire comes through and wipes out some of their sprouts,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: those little ramlets, the seedlings basically that grow up from
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: the roots system. If fire wipes some of those out,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: those things send like a hormonal signal to the rest
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: of the tree saying we've got this area covered. We
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: don't need any competition, just keep the sprouts in check here.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: When when those things are gone and those hormonal signals
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: are lost to the tree responds by shooting up many,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: many times the number of sprout that were lost to
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: fire and repopulates an area that's been ravaged by fire
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: very very quickly and comes to dominate it for the
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: next hundred, two hundred, possibly thousand years. Yeah, twenty or
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: thirty years is all it takes. Uh, if an area
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: has been wiped out by wildfire to get that aspen
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: grove is plentiful or even more so than it was before. Uh.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: And they do this because, uh, well, the conifer is
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: sort of the enemy. We like to think all trees
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: like each other, and they probably do emotionally, but the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: conifer is what really provides that that upper canopy that
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: that is really bad for the aspen. So during a wildfire,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the aspen is fire resistant to a certain degree because,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: like you said, with the wetness of the leaves and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: twigs and branches. But those conifers go up like a match,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: so they're killed off first. A lot of times, like
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: you said that, the aspens are just left and they're great.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: We we got rid of those jerky conifers over there,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: and now we're good. But even if it does kill
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: it all out, the aspens grow up a lot faster
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: than the new conifers do, so they basically sort of
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: beat them to the punch post wildfire, right exactly. And
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: not just wildfires. They show up after like mud slides
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: and rock slides and landslides and avalanches and everything you
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: can think of that could wipe out a forest. You're
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: gonna if if it's within the aspens range, you're gonna
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: find aspen there first. And you know, we were talking
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: about how one of the things about it is that quaking,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: trembling sunlight that allows filter light through well. That obviously
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: allows saplings of um aspen to shoot up and grow.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: And and as you were saying, when the conifers come in,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: they block out that sunlight, and so the aspen seedlings
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: don't have any kind of chance at growing up as
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the conifers start to uh interlope through the borders. I
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: think that right interloped through the borders of the clone,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the aspen clone, and then eventually make their way further
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: and further in. And then if everything's going well for
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the aspen, and as is the case with nature, fire
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: comes along wipes all the conifers out and the cycle
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: starts again. And through this an aspen clone can live
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: for a very very long time as long as there's
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: a cycle of fire that doesn't come too frequently and
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: keep the aspen from growing back or come to infrequently
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: and allow the conifers to really take over and kill
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: off any new growth in the aspen clone. Yeah, if
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: it wasn't for like if America, if North America had
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: never had humans here and it was just allowed to
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: do whatever happens, Uh, there would be a lot more fire.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: You know. Fire suppression is a is a human thing
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: because we like to put out fires for the most part.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: And if that had never happened, the United States would
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: have I don't want to say it would be largely aspen,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: but there would be a lot of aspen forest and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: forest grows, yeah, and the ones that are around still today,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: it would be in a lot better shape because I mean,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: just another way to put it is aspen grows need
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: fire to thrive. Yeah, just as simple as that. It's
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: really really interesting. So um, one of the things that
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I ran across I kept seeing was that a lot
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of the and I got the impression that was like
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: old time or stuff. And I was right that you
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: can you can tell one aspen grow from another, like
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: a clone from another clone, because they'll grow up against
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: each other and sometimes intermingle. Um. Sometimes in the spring
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: you can see the leaf formation kind of come out
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: in certain ways, but really in the fall you can see,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: you know, one aspen clone from another one will have
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: like a like a brilliant gold other will be like
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: a scarlet red or something like that. And then in
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the fall you can kind of see the boundaries between
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: one aspen clone and another aspen clone. And for many
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: of myn of years, that's just how they did it.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: And then genetics came along and they said, yeah, you're
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: wrong about a lot of this. Yeah. So like the
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: old timey researchers would say, look at those twenty five
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: trees all grouped together. They have the same exact bright
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: yellow color. Uh so that's that's all one clone. And
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: these guys over here red. But like you said, when
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: they actually finally got the technology to check, that was
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: not necessarily the case, and they'd walk away like kind
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: of dust in their hands off and fine, going off
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: to the no after before they're like, it was a
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: fine days work using my peepers to to tell one
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: clone apart from another. Peepers. I know that word. I
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: came across it again. You remember that episode. Oh yeah,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the worst slang terms of
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: all times. Peepers, one of the worst non offensive slang
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: terms of all time. Yeah, that's a good that's a
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: good call leaf peepers. Yeah, and that the whole thing
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the genetic zo is. For a while there that was
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: causing a little bit of uh, well, I mean just confusion.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: I guess it's not. It wasn't like the end of
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the world or anything, but it was a little confusing
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: because at one point, like you know, thirty years ago,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: they the scientists were there watching what they thought was
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: that single clone of aspen, and they thought, oh my god,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: we've just learned something. This this this tree or this
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you know, this clone has actually changed sex. It's amazing.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: It's producing pollen this year and last year it produced flowers,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and oh my god, what a breakthrough. And then now
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: that we have genetic testing, they're like, oh no, that's
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: actually two different clones. Yeah, when they started looking at
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: at um some of those trees more closely, like, yeah,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: they look alike, but actually this is they're not genetically identical.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: They're not part of the same Aspen clone, but they
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: could still be a direct descendant from that Aspen clone,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: because remember and aspens reproduced. They can do it one
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of two ways, vegetatively, which produces trees that are genetically
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: identical to other trees that have sprouted up from the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: same root system, or they can do it sexually um,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and the seeds that come out are um are not
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: genetically identical, So you can have offspring and genetic genetically
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: identical clones of the same tree all intermingled in the
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: same little area. It's pretty fascinating, it is. Uh. And
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: as far as age of these things, it kind of
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: depends um on where you are. Like, usually an aspen
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: tree won't live more than a hundred and fifty years,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: occasionally up to two hundred in in Colorado, where Panda is.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I just love saying his name. I know, it's so cute.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: It's close to Panda, that's why. That's definitely why. But oh,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: it's nice of fat on the end, so it looks
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: like it's got some chubby cheeks you just want to pinch.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Probably does. As far as as Panda goes in Colorado,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: they usually don't get to be more than about seventy
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: five years old. And it's not like you can go
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: to a clone either and pluck out what you think
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: is the oldest tree and say this is how old
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the clone is, because it may be oh yeah, it
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: may be the newest tree. That's why I'm like, Okay,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: so is the organism really the root system if a tree,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: if a tree just like dies. I think around the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: area where Pando grows in Utah, uh, I think on
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the Colorado Front Range is what it's called. They said
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Colorado Emit Colorado Front Range, Colorado Front Range, so um,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: in that area they usually live that well we call trees,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: but what are really just stems growing up from Pando's
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: root system. Those things live for about seventy five years.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: The oldest aspens live for about two hundred years. Pando
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: is way way older than that, even by the most
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: conservative estimates. Yeah, I mean they say thirteen thousand years
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: old to eighty thousand years old. Yeah, and I think
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: thirteen thousand is really hedging bets because they're like, well,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: that's about when the last ice age ended, so Pando
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: probably couldn't have lived through that. But I was looking
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: at ice sheet maps. There was not an ice sheet
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: anywhere near where Panda's going. So it's it's entirely possible
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: with a hardy and resilient as um aspen stands are
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: that Pando is as far far older than that. You
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: mean the ice sheet map on your bedroom wall. He
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: just got out of bed, went let me look at
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: this again. Well, you haven't been over for a while.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I haven't pasted to the ceiling, so I don't even
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: oh man, just lay there in point. I'm like, you're
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: really getting efficiencies the laurentide kind of day. That's great. Yeah,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: uh yeah. So I mean and this one article sent
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: over the said in principle, clones may even be essentially immortal.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: That's you know. But yeah, they've they hedged it within principle,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: like and it can die from disease like aspen or
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: they're not like indestructible. There's all sorts of things that
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: can hurt them. Because of their really soft bark, they're
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: susceptible to boring insects and diseases that can come from
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: that um. A lot of birds that bore live in
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: in aspen um, which I think is not bad for him.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but there so they can die. There's
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of things that can kill an aspen growth.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: But if if everything was going right, where there's no
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: reason that it should die, there's no like a human,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: we can do everything right and we're still going to
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: die someday. There's like a certain there's a certain number
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: of times our cells are going to divide, and they're
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: gonna stop, and we're eventually going to run out of
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: dividing cells and then we die. Right, that's not necessarily
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the case with an Aspen clone. That's why they're saying,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: like in principle they are technically immortal, or they may
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: be technically immortal, and they think that possibly Pando is
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: more than eighty thousand years old. That's the high end.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Although there's a and uh at the University of Michigan,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: who's who's saying something like a million. I'm not back
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: in that one. I love that. I'll go as high
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: as eighty thousand and uh. Dr Barnes, we don't mean
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: to call you a kook. We're just joking. We were joking.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, let's uh take a break, hire an attorney,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about why why pandos now
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: in trouble, which is very very sad. Right after this, well,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: to learn a thing or two from Josh Pam Chuck.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: It's stuff you should know, all right, all right, Chuck,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Like you said, I spoiled it for everybody already. But
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Pando is dying. Yeah, Um, that's not an overstatement. Yeah,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: it's very sad. Here's what's going on, and here's what
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: can go on really to any I mean Pando special,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: but any any clone like Thisando is very special. It's uh.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: There are a few things that can happen. We already
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: talked a little bit about, like you know, birds and
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and blight and stuff like that. There's also disease. Uh,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: but human interaction has had a major toll on these forests.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: In the eighties and nineties, there were, of course, people
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: were able to build homes within where Pando is, in
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: this hundred and six acres. Uh. People also want to
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: go see these things that like, all right, well let's
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: let's put a campground there as well. And if you
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: want to campground, you want toilets, and you want plumbing,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and you want picnic tables and roads, roads and parking
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: lots and stuff like that and water lines and all
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: of this stuff. Even though they do as good a
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: job as they can at pres ovation, um, it all
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: takes its toll little by little with every new you know,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: parking lot laid down on something like Pando. So um,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: all of these things being built in the middle of Pando, right,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: in the middle of Pando Um. They have had their effect.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: But it's probable that Panda is kind of like, let's
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: just grow around you. It's fine. I'm not happy about it, human,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: but I know you don't know any better. I'm Pando.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: I'll just grow around. So that's fine. That's not what
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: it is. That was. That's so that's strike one. But
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: humans are not off the hook because it turns out
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that we're doing things in other ways and that whole
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: like Earth science, messing with something over here has having
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: these effects over here. That's going on with Pando right
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: now as well. Yeah, because one of the major threats,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: aside from wildfires that we're putting out is uh. Herbivores,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: deer and elk specifically love to eat the those tiny
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: little baby aspen that's sprout up from the ground from well,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I was about to say, from Pando. Uh. They eat
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: them so fast it never almost has a chance to
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: become part of Fando, right, like Pando doesn't. They are
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: doing studies now. Panda is old. They're old trees. It's
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: a bunch of senior citizens hanging out holding hands. There's
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: not a youngster among them, right, And that's not good,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: whether it's a human civilization or population or a population
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: of uh, you know, aspen clones. You want like all
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: stages of life. You want mature trees, middle aged trees,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: young trees, saplings, you want all that. And if you
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: have nothing but old trees, those old trees, remember they
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: only live about seventy five years, so as they start
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to die, that means Pando is dying. As as long
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: as an aspen clone is replacing itself, it's fine, it's healthy.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: But if it's not, then it's in big, big trouble.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: And apparently Pando is in big, big trouble and has
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: been for some years now because of overgrazing and over browsing,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: not just with like cattle, like grazing cattle, which apparently
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: happens on Pando land, but also UM the mule, deer
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and elk populations are supposedly booming in Utah in the
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: area where Pando lives. Yeah, and they're they're you know,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: they're able to prove this now, uh. In a couple
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: of ways, UM in the US Forestry Service clear cut
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: fifteen full acres of Pando right in the middle of
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: it and fenced off about a third of this left
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the other two thirds, uh, just to you know, do
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: do what it would do. And the fenced part came
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: back really healthy, which was a very clear indicator that
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: because uh, there wasn't anything there to eat these little
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: seedlings that pop up that that's the big diff Um.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: So that was uh. In two thousand thirteen, they fenced
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: off and area from Uh. I love the word ungulates.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: It's any kind of hoofed animal, whether natural or just
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: you know, someone's cattle, because like you said, how many
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: how many weeks a year do they allow cattle? A
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks? Two weeks? But I think like each
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: rancher gets two weeks there. I don't think it's like, hey,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: everybody bring your cattle to Panda land for like a
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: two week period, although I could be wrong. Pando pandas
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: like please please don't not again. Yeah. So in two
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, they they fenced off this area and are
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: gonna leave it that way. And this is all part
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: of a study. UM. A nonprofit group of conservationists got
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: together with the US Force Service to kind of check
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: out what happens. And then this year that's why it's
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: what's current, Like you said, at the beginning, these these
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: results are coming in and it's pretty obvious what's going on.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: It is. So number one, it's the it's the over browsing,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: especially among elkin mule deer UM. But also number two, uh,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: it's the um the fact that the fences aren't necessarily
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: working as well. So like, the fences are doing the
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: best that they can and the unfenced area is in
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: even bigger trouble. But even the fences they're using, the
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: mule deer are able to hop over and eat these
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: shoots um. And so you think, okay, well that's the
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: mule deer's fault. Let's just kill a bunch of mule deer. Well,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: the problem is and this is so we've i should say,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: we've reached like a point of contention here because the
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: guys um led by the researchers, led by a guy
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: at the university or Utah State University, Paul Rodgers. He
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: is a an ecologist, and he's clearly he's among a
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: group who are saying the Utah fish and wildlife are
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: are they are overpopulating the area with elk and mule
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: deer because they make money from hunting licenses and as
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: like the more l can mule deer there are, the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: more hunting of those things that can go on, the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: more the state UM Wildlife Commission can take in hunting licenses, right,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: hunting license fees, Yeah, revenue, And so the state is like, no,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: that's not it. Actually elk and a mule deer are
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: lower than ever. Whether that's the case or not, whether
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: they're being managed in correctly or not, it does seem
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: pretty clearly that at the very least overbrowsing by mule
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: deer and elk is a major major factor, if not
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: the dominant factor in what's killing panda off. Yeah, and
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: this goes back even further because, like you were saying,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: touch one thing here and it affects something over there.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: This can even be separated by like a hundred years.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Go back to the early nineteen hundreds, when people in
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: this country, uh, in North America as a whole hunted wolves,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: hunted mountain lines and mountain lions, hunted grizzly bears. Uh
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: what is what are they? They are animals that eat
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: mule deer and elk. So it's it's called an effect
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: here a hundred plus years later, where there aren't a
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: lot of apex predators out there keeping these helping to
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: keep these deer population in check. So there's been talk
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: here and there. I don't I mean, they're not gonna
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: do it now that they said unequivocally. They're not like,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: should we reintroduce wolves to the ecosystem because that's a
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: very national natural predator prey cycle that goes on that
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: is not happening right now. No. And I mean it's
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: like hunters coal uh, that is to say, shoot mule
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: deer and elkins stuff like that. So the population, it's
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: not like it's getting out of hand. And if it
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: ever did, they would just have like open season on
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: these things, right, And if it ever did, they would
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: just sell more hunting licenses. I don't think that that's
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: the issue. What the what Paul Rodgers and some of
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: his fellow A collegists are saying is that if the
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: presence of like wolves and bears and mountain lions is
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: known in an area, the elkin, the mule deer, they're
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: not just gonna stay in one place for very long.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: They're going to constantly be on the move. And so
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: even if they are going through with a big population
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: eating a bunch of shoots off of something like Pando.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: They're not going to be doing it in the same place,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: so the panda will be able to recover over time
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: because that browsing will be distributed. Whereas now it's like,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I don't feel like going ten miles down the mountain.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay right here and just keep eating Pando
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: until Pando dies. Yeah, there's no wolves, right, there's no bears,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: or least not enough to to scare me and my
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: my gang here. Yeah. Yeah, they call it an ecology
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: of fear. I've never heard of that, haven't either, And yeah,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: it's it's really interesting though that they and and I
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: guess it takes you know, a hundred plus years too
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: to create this kind of uh almost called it a culture.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: It kind of is sort of there's a culture among
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: these herds of hooved animals to where they're just like
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: you said, They're like, no, you know, there's nothing around
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: here to hunt me, So I'm just gonna look at
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: all this tasty aspen babies. I'm gonna eat them all. Yeah,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: what am I chump? I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, it's
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: really interesting, it is. And then there's I and like
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: it's not like I'm a wildlife ecologist or a biologist
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: or have any formal training in it whatsoever. But I
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: tend to think that it's not just over browsing. I
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: think that they the fact that there are people that
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: live in Pando means that the Forest Service says, well,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: we we have to control wildfire. You don't let wildfire
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: go any longer. Um, And so then you've got conifer
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: um forest coming in moving in on Pando too. I
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: think that that's probably part of the issue as well.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: So the key is, Chuck, is to put up better
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: fences and let the fires go. Yeah, burn, baby, burn burn,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Just don't burn the fences down. Yeah. I don't know
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: what they were doing with those little three foot fences anyway, No,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: because a mule deer just hops right over, just so easy. Yeah,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: it's all very sad. Mean, panda is such an amazing
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know, such an amazing thing in this in
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: this country. And it's going bye bye. It is it is,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: it's it is said, um yeah, and I mean part
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: of it is like, well, yes it's I mean, it's
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: an aspen stand. But it's possibly the oldest and definitely
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: the most massive organism on Earth, which seems like it
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: should get like a little extra attention just for that,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: you know. But then you ask like, well, is that
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: just dumbly sentimental? Why not save everything? Why? Why why
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: just focus all of your attention on this one thing?
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: And then the other part of me says, well, if
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: you focus attention on this one thing, you come to
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: realize that all this other stuff is in danger as well,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: and you start to care. So maybe pandas like just
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the poster child for getting people into ecology a little more,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: kind of like the Great Barrier Reef, you know, Superstar
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: of the Ocean that is uh kind of quickly going away. Yeah,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: it's all sad. I'm depressed now. Yeah, I mean too.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I was kind of hoping to end this on a
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: high note. Well, you know, despite what happens to Pando,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: it's not like this is the death of the the
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: aspen in North America. This is Pando. Yeah, there are
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: plenty of them in uh. And I encourage you to
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: go sit among the trees when the breeze is blowing
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: in the fall and tell us your experience. It's it's amazing.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: It's a light and sound show. Nice. Um, I got
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: a couple more things. Do you want to talk about
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: some of the other biggest or oldest stuff on Earth? Sure?
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: So I mentioned that giant mushroom in Oregon. Isn't that
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: how they say Oregon? Oregon? Oregon? Um? It is an
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Armillaria Ostoyer specimen and it covers acres. PANDO covers a
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: hundred and six This covers acres of Mallard National Forests
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: in Oregon, UM. But they only think that it's just
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: a couple of thousand years old, and that's just that's
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: just area that's not mass. Yeah. I think I learned
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: about PANDO a few years ago when I was trying
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: to find out the oldest tree. There's like a sequoia
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that's pretty old, right or is it the biggest? You know.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I can't remember where I ended up as far as
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: that result goes, but I know that's where I found
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: out about PANDO. And I was like, what And there
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: are some old trees. There's like some bristle comb pines
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: in California that are about five thousand years old. That's
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: pretty old for a tree. There's a creas salt bush
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: that's at least eleven thousand, seven hundred years old. And
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: then have you heard of um glass sponges. There are
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: glass sponges. They live in the water off of Antarctica.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: They lived to about fifteen thousand years old. A sponge.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Who'd have thought, you know, amazing? You got anything else?
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I got nothing now? Okay, well then, uh, we'll just
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: put out a call for everybody to save Pando. Okay, yes,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: send us. Uh if you've actually been to Pando or
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: in in Pando on Pando on Pando, Yeah, in Pando
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: that's gross. Uh, send us. I want to I want
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: to hear about this experience. Okay, yes, please to Uh.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: And in the meantime, how about a listener mail. Yeah,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this. UM, we got a couple on
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: robin Hood. I'll read these these couple in the next
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: two episodes. Hey guys, Uh, every episode you release, it's
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: done to such a high standard. It's clear that the
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: true effort and love of the job is poured into
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: every session in the studio. You might get a little
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: too much credit. Joey Uh. The episode on robin Hood
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: especially piqued my interest, though as I am from Nottingham
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: sure myself and I live only about ten miles a
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: from rain Worth. The area of Sherwood Forest where Robin
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Hood and his men are fabled to have resided or
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: at least spent a lot of their time in this
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: area is the major oak of Sherwood Forest, which is
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: said to be the location they chose for shelter. It
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: is between eight hundred to a thousand years old and
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: is now held up by a series of poles due
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: to his age and bad health. Interesting. Maybe they should
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: do that with Bando. I think I saw that tree.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Actually I saw something on it. Oh yeah, when doing
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: panda research would have been like, gosh, this trees everywhere. Uh.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: The episode was so well done. You taught me new information.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Even though I've been to the woods and Visitor Center
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: a few times, I have taken my children as well,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: and they also love the legend myth of Robin Hood.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: My father in law happens to be called Robin and
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: resides in the Sherwood district, so I sometimes dropped little
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: hints to my young children that he could possibly be
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: the Robin of Sherwood. I lost all credibility with them.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: They love it, even though I think they're onto the ruse.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Really really looking forward to your legendary Halloween episode. I'm
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: a huge fan of horror and I am actually in
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: a horror punk rock band called Headstone Horrors based in Nottingham, UK.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: So this is an amazing busy and exciting time of
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: the year for us. I bet they book a lot
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: of gigs in October. Don't you think I would guess
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: so Headstone Horrors, I would guess January is not a
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: huge month for him. No, no or Christmas or Christmas season.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Everybody Headstone Horrors Christmas album. Uh, It's an amazing busy
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and exciting time of year for us. I would love
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: to send you a C D T T shirts if
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: you like. Just let me know your size as you want,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: and I'll pack them up and send them on their way.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: That is from Joey Gathercole of shere would, son of
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Robin perhaps father of incredible this Children. Well thanks a lot, buddy,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: that was fantastic. I appreciate the offer for the shirt.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: I think we will be taking you up on that. Uh.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: And in the meantime, if you out there want to
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: get in touch with us to let us know you're interesting.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Amazing story of how you fib to your children, We'd
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: love to hear that you can go to stuff you
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Should Know dot com and find all of our social links.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I'm also at the Josh clark Way dot com and
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: you can send me, Chuck and Jerry All an email
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast how stuff Works dot com. For more
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com