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What is biospeleology? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
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Speaker 1: and there's an hell yeah, and it's dark and dank, dank, creepy.
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Speaker 1: Remember that word dank? I do? Is that not a
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Speaker 1: word anymore? Not really? Okay? Um, Hey, how are you?
0:37
Speaker 1: Thanks for meeting me here? Of course I've got the invitation.
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Speaker 1: I couldn't resist. Um. Did you like the fact that
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Speaker 1: I gave you the invitation in cutout letters from magazine? Yeah?
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Speaker 1: Dealed with the kiss. It's very nice. Uh so Chuck,
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Speaker 1: we are here in a cave, yeah, man, And the
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Speaker 1: reason why is because we're talking about something thing called
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Speaker 1: bio speleology. That's a big word. It is saying, biospeleology.
1:06
Speaker 1: Bio speleology. Yes, Um, you've heard of spelunking, Yeah done,
1:13
Speaker 1: minor spelunking, yeah, I mean not deep. But I love
1:17
Speaker 1: cave so I think they're really cool. So if you've
1:19
Speaker 1: gone caving or spelunking, probably caving where they're like harnesses
1:24
Speaker 1: and ropes and like helmets with lights on the top.
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Speaker 1: Okay you want, Yes, that was it was me and
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Speaker 1: my brother. You know, like poking around. Spelunking is like
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Speaker 1: where you go into a cave and you like go
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Speaker 1: into a cave like you may die. Yeah, but it's recreational. Yes,
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Speaker 1: that's what differentiates It differentiates from spi spiology, which is
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Speaker 1: slogy speleology which is cave research, and bio speleology is
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Speaker 1: cave research on the life inside that cave. Bingo, And
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Speaker 1: there's actually quite a bit of life. We only figured
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Speaker 1: this out as recently as the seventeen hundreds. Um, But
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Speaker 1: once we did figure it out, we realized that there's
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Speaker 1: some really awesome, creepy, creaky life in caves. Like you
2:10
Speaker 1: sent me a cool picture of basically a faceless salamander, right, yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's the proteus salamander, and that's yeah, that's one of
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Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds. They saw this thing and they were like, WHOA,
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Speaker 1: something's different. Well, the first thing that I think they
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Speaker 1: noticed that was different was that it was a foot long, um,
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Speaker 1: and that's a big salamander. Can you imagine seeing that
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Speaker 1: thing though with no eyes, no face, Yeah, no face.
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Speaker 1: It's just like ahead. Did you ever see um? I
2:37
Speaker 1: think it was a Twilight Zone the movie, one of those.
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Speaker 1: And you don't remember the kid who like created this
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Speaker 1: whole like cartoon world and his sister. He didn't like
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Speaker 1: his sister talking bad. She was missing the mouth, and
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Speaker 1: she sat there and watched cartoons the whole time. It
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Speaker 1: is creepy, and the salamanders creepy in much the same way. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: slightly less because it's not a human. You know, we're
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Speaker 1: not hard wired to really be disturbed by faceless salamanders
3:02
Speaker 1: like we are mouthless humans. But it's along the same lines, right.
3:06
Speaker 1: They did that in the Matrix too. Kean had the
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Speaker 1: no mouth in that one tee but you could sort
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Speaker 1: of see the makeup, and that just bug me. Yeah,
3:12
Speaker 1: it wasn't that good. There's also plenty of slightly less
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Speaker 1: exotic um life in in caves. You've got beetles, you've
3:21
Speaker 1: got worms, kind of crickets. Cricket bats of course, are
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Speaker 1: the stars of caves, right um. And it turns out
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Speaker 1: from reading this article how cave biology works, I guess
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Speaker 1: all of if not most, if not all, of the
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Speaker 1: life in caves is based on well they basically they're
3:42
Speaker 1: descended from above ground dwelling species, right, Yeah, I was
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Speaker 1: kind of surprised. I was also surprised to learned that
3:49
Speaker 1: there were shrimp in caves for some reason that just
3:52
Speaker 1: I don't know. I could see like cave shrimp being
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Speaker 1: some exotic you know, I think you would find it a
3:58
Speaker 1: a four star restaurant because it tastes different because it's
4:01
Speaker 1: never like seen the sun. They were um like over
4:05
Speaker 1: the shoulder furs, very like big wooden clothes. But yeah,
4:10
Speaker 1: you're right. They weren't necessarily born there, but they made
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Speaker 1: their way down there and in the process called regressive evolution, right,
4:18
Speaker 1: and fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy will
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Speaker 1: recognize this because it's pretty much what Gollum did. Yeah remember, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean that's pretty much regressive evolution within a single organism,
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Speaker 1: which never happens, right, but this was this is over
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Speaker 1: the course of many, many generations, right, Yeah, they would
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Speaker 1: like not devolved, it's called regressive evolution. They would actually
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Speaker 1: lose features to adapt to the environment rather than you know,
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Speaker 1: gain features. Right. Well, I mean, if you think about it,
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Speaker 1: with the faceless salamander that had no eyes. If it
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Speaker 1: lives in complete darkness, constant darkness, there's no reason for
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Speaker 1: it to have eyes, so it might as well just
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Speaker 1: not have them and maybe put it up for an
5:00
Speaker 1: energy elsewhere. Yeah, you've seen the one of the common
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Speaker 1: uh pictures of aliens from outer space. You always see
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Speaker 1: as the sort of the big head, the huge eyes
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Speaker 1: and the little nostrils without a nose, the Whitney Striber
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Speaker 1: communion aliens, right, and then it's the holes for ears
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Speaker 1: but not ears. My buddy Jerry always thought that these
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Speaker 1: were like super evolved humans from the future and that like,
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Speaker 1: we don't need the structure of the nose, We just
5:28
Speaker 1: need the nostrils. We don't need the structure of the ears,
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Speaker 1: we just need the hole. And eventually and our brains
5:33
Speaker 1: are getting bigger. So he was like, that's why they
5:34
Speaker 1: got the big heads, that's why they don't have nose,
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Speaker 1: They just have nostrils, and kind of blew me away.
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Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, maybe they are like humans from
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Speaker 1: the future. He's like, and George Washington grew him exactly.
5:45
Speaker 1: You guys are laying on top of your car um
5:48
Speaker 1: speaking of aliens, have you ever seen bad taste? And
5:50
Speaker 1: speaking of Peter Jackson crazy Now you haven't so. Peter Jackson,
5:56
Speaker 1: the guy who did UM The Lord of the Rings.
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Speaker 1: He directs this horrible schlock graphically violent UM movie called
6:05
Speaker 1: Bad Taste in you have to see it. Well, he
6:09
Speaker 1: did another one too. UM. I can't remember the name
6:12
Speaker 1: of it, but the same thing. Yeah, he started out
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Speaker 1: doing like schlocky horror like movies. It's it's pretty it's
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Speaker 1: worth seeing. What does that have to do with this? Um?
6:22
Speaker 1: Aliens and Peter Jackson got you alrighty, thanks for that.
6:28
Speaker 1: We have been going off on a good tangent in
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Speaker 1: a while. No, you know that felt good. Thanks. Well,
6:33
Speaker 1: you know what, woodsman, this is very nice out here
6:35
Speaker 1: and all, but I feel like we should, you know,
6:37
Speaker 1: get back to the office. Yeah, you're right, let's go, Jerry,
6:47
Speaker 1: so check. We talked about regressive evolution, right, um. And
6:51
Speaker 1: it's not just the loss of eyes, you lose skim pigmentation. Um.
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Speaker 1: And you also we found that long cave organisms, cave
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Speaker 1: dwelling organisms, their metabolism is super efficient because there's so
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Speaker 1: little food down there that um, they have to make
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Speaker 1: do with what they have. It's like, um, if you
7:12
Speaker 1: are if you have to have a section of your
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Speaker 1: intestine removed, you like basically spend the rest of your life.
7:19
Speaker 1: Male nurse because their metabolism is used to like taking
7:22
Speaker 1: its time absorbing nutrients, So if there's less place for
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Speaker 1: it to go, we we become malnurished. These guys are
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Speaker 1: like the exact opposite. It's like hypermetabolism. And so as
7:33
Speaker 1: a result, we're figuring out that we can really learn
7:36
Speaker 1: a lot by studying freaks of nature, right, Well, yeah,
7:39
Speaker 1: and they said they look at fish because I didn't
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Speaker 1: know that a lot of our water, uh passes through
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Speaker 1: a cave ecosystem at some point, and so they'll study
7:47
Speaker 1: like fish and how they live in the water to
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Speaker 1: study water quality that we end up drinking, which is
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Speaker 1: kind of crazy too. Yeah, you're drinking stuff that cave
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Speaker 1: shrimp has been in. Cave shrimp is pooped in the
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Speaker 1: water that you're drinking. Monkey Eat, Push me Dead Alive.
8:03
Speaker 1: I think that was the movie. I think you're right,
8:07
Speaker 1: it's funny how it comes back like that. We also,
8:10
Speaker 1: um can learn a lot from studying the their lack
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Speaker 1: of eyes of normal eye development, right, Remember the Asian
8:18
Speaker 1: Orange podcast. Remember those kids that were born without eyes?
8:21
Speaker 1: How does that happen? Jeans are responsible for that. Well,
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Speaker 1: you learn it by comparing, say, an eyelis proteuce salamander
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Speaker 1: to a regular salamander and figure out what jeans they lack.
8:33
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Yeah, humans are smarter, so Chuck, we
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Speaker 1: started to go into the caves. We figured out why
8:39
Speaker 1: people are going into caves when they started going in.
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Speaker 1: What are we finding there? Well, they you find one
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Speaker 1: of three categories of species in a cave. Noticed it
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Speaker 1: didn't say species. People often say species, species or warsh
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Speaker 1: Have you ever been when to say warsh, I mean neither.
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Speaker 1: The first one is uh? Is it a trogolo sine i? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: troczin uh and trogolos is Greek for cave, Zenos is
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Speaker 1: Greek for guests, And so as you would or stranger,
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Speaker 1: and as you would imagine, this is uh a cave visitor.
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Speaker 1: And the three branches here of the things you will
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Speaker 1: find there, they categorize them depending on how much time
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Speaker 1: they spend in the cave. So they spend the least
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Speaker 1: amount of time and they can come and go when
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Speaker 1: they want to, and they go in there for specific reasons,
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Speaker 1: like a bear to hibernate or to nest or to
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Speaker 1: give birth, so probably for shelter talking bears, skunks, coons, moths,
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Speaker 1: right right, So that's number one. Bats as well make
9:50
Speaker 1: that list as they make that list as well. Okay, yeah,
9:53
Speaker 1: because they hibernate in there, right and poop, which will
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Speaker 1: get to in a little bit because that's important, so
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Speaker 1: us number two. The other The next one is trogolo files,
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Speaker 1: which means m Cave lovers. Yeah. I like that name,
10:06
Speaker 1: which is like, hey, cave, how's it going. They just
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Speaker 1: like you're looking good and none. Yeah, they love it
10:11
Speaker 1: so much that they actually enjoy being in there. Right.
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Speaker 1: These described species that are um capable of living inside
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Speaker 1: or outside of caves, but they love the caves so
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Speaker 1: they decided to stick around there. Um, so you've got
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Speaker 1: like beetles, worms, frogs, that kind of stuff. These things
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Speaker 1: could live outside of the caves, but they tend to
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Speaker 1: spend their their lifetimes inside of caves. And they'll go
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Speaker 1: out to to get food a lot of times and
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Speaker 1: then bring it back in, which will also get to
10:39
Speaker 1: that's a good thing to do, that, Yes it is, man,
10:42
Speaker 1: there's foreshadowing going on all the place. The third one, schuckers, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that that's the creepiest one obviously is the troglo bites
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Speaker 1: and bios for life obviously, and this these are the
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Speaker 1: ones that never leave. They can't leave. They will die
10:55
Speaker 1: outside of the cave. Yeah. I thought that was a
10:57
Speaker 1: bit of of a stretch to go from bios of bites. Now, Well,
11:03
Speaker 1: I mean you've got a files there. Those were good
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Speaker 1: ones and then bites. Yeah, should be chruglob chrug lobios.
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Speaker 1: It's good. Uh. And these these little guys have adapted
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Speaker 1: so well. Like I said, they can't leave. These are
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Speaker 1: the ones that either have eyes that don't work well
11:21
Speaker 1: or don't have eyes at all. Not much pigmentation like
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Speaker 1: the salamander we talked about was sort of a almost
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Speaker 1: a translucent pink pink a shoe. And they they have
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Speaker 1: adaptive metabolisms so they don't have a lot of food
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Speaker 1: nutrients down there, so they don't need it to live.
11:39
Speaker 1: They're the ones with the hypermetabolisms, right, and what else
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Speaker 1: the oh, the legs and antenna are longer to help them,
11:46
Speaker 1: you know, find food when there is food. So let's
11:49
Speaker 1: talk about food, man, Well let's talk about the different
11:52
Speaker 1: places you're gonna find these things, right, so I like
11:56
Speaker 1: think I think one of the reasons I'm I like
11:58
Speaker 1: this cave biology article or k biology in general, is
12:02
Speaker 1: um that everything's divided up so neatly and cleanly. Right. Yeah,
12:07
Speaker 1: So we've got the three different kinds of um organisms.
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Speaker 1: You've got uh, trug laws and these right, trouglo files
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Speaker 1: truglo bites. There's also three different segments of a cave, right,
12:20
Speaker 1: and they all fit in each one. And the second
12:22
Speaker 1: one is a great great name too. Yeah. The first
12:25
Speaker 1: one is the entrance zone, and that's um. You still
12:28
Speaker 1: obviously will have some sunlight coming in and out, recessive sunlight,
12:31
Speaker 1: and that means you can have some plant life a
12:34
Speaker 1: little bit. You've got bears sleeping. You've got bear sleeping,
12:37
Speaker 1: You've got coon sleeping. Uh, they're nesting, laying eggs and
12:41
Speaker 1: what have you. You've got some moss, snails, owls. And
12:45
Speaker 1: this is in the in the in this cool picture too.
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Speaker 1: It really it's kind of creepy looking. That's like a
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Speaker 1: Lead Dempsey picture. Yeah, I'm sure it is. So that's
12:53
Speaker 1: the first one, but the second one is the really
12:55
Speaker 1: good one, the twilight zone, and it's called You're about
13:00
Speaker 1: to enter the twilight Zone. And you mentioned twilight zone earlier.
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Speaker 1: Yeah with the kid who that did you? I feel
13:10
Speaker 1: like I'm about to wake up. Really, this didn't happen.
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Speaker 1: Uh in the twilight Zone. This is the middle zone
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Speaker 1: and there is a little bit of light and there
13:20
Speaker 1: can be a little bit of plant life, but don't
13:22
Speaker 1: count on it. No, but there's gonna be plenty of
13:25
Speaker 1: mushrooms and probably some albino mushrooms. Well that's plant life, right, Yeah,
13:30
Speaker 1: well it's fungus okay, So yeah, it's in the plant Kingdom. Uh.
13:35
Speaker 1: And the temperature there is um, we should mention that
13:38
Speaker 1: the temperature and the entrance zone varies obviously according to
13:41
Speaker 1: the weather outside, but it gets a little more static
13:45
Speaker 1: in the twilight Zone. I just love saying that. And uh,
13:49
Speaker 1: it's very moist and very cool. And that is where
13:53
Speaker 1: the trunk lessene lives. Spiders, millipedes, bats, moths right, um.
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Speaker 1: And I think Trocolo files you'll find those here as well,
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Speaker 1: hanging out too. And I guess, I mean, don't you
14:06
Speaker 1: imagine that this is where Rod Serling got the name
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Speaker 1: for twilight Zone, because think about he was talking about
14:13
Speaker 1: this place between this world and another world, you know,
14:16
Speaker 1: that thin fibrous transition place. And this is the this
14:20
Speaker 1: is that to look that up. I can't believe we
14:22
Speaker 1: didn't already. That's the third one. This is a good one.
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Speaker 1: Third one is the dark zone. This is the creepy
14:29
Speaker 1: slag tight This is where you're going to find no
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Speaker 1: light whatsoever, no UM change in temperature, no UM weather,
14:39
Speaker 1: and definitely no vegetation at all. Right, yeah, creep but
14:43
Speaker 1: lots of trocolo bytes. Yeah, you're gonna find lots of
14:46
Speaker 1: footlong salamanders that have no faces. Did you see The Descent?
14:50
Speaker 1: That movie kind of a not too great horror movie.
14:53
Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about. Them These girls go
14:55
Speaker 1: caving deep deep, and there there are these psych I
14:58
Speaker 1: think they were human end from way back when that
15:01
Speaker 1: never left the cave. But they're basically like human trocolobytes.
15:07
Speaker 1: It was in the woods sort of maybe, so the
15:11
Speaker 1: um We're gonna get some mail for that one. I
15:15
Speaker 1: think the problem with the Dark Zone is there's organisms
15:21
Speaker 1: running around that are alive and healthy. Uh. That kind
15:25
Speaker 1: of flies in the face of this um rule of
15:28
Speaker 1: thumb here on planet Earth that everything uh is kept
15:33
Speaker 1: alive by the sun, right right, If there's no light whatsoever?
15:37
Speaker 1: How are animals in the dark zone allowed to live?
15:40
Speaker 1: Food chain? Which I guess still I mean, she didn't
15:45
Speaker 1: really draw the conclusion that the food chain depends on
15:49
Speaker 1: the sun, but I guess that's what it means, right, right,
15:53
Speaker 1: The sun still comes into play, just not deep down
15:55
Speaker 1: within their right they get the um they benefit from
15:58
Speaker 1: photosynthesis the lee rather than proximately. Uh So, you know,
16:07
Speaker 1: if there's gonna how do you get food deep down
16:09
Speaker 1: in the cave. One way is, and I didn't even
16:12
Speaker 1: consider this is by flooding. Right when the waters rise,
16:15
Speaker 1: it'll just wash things in there that the animals can eat, right,
16:19
Speaker 1: And it's it's rather than a food chain. I mean,
16:21
Speaker 1: the food chain is actually a good way to describe it.
16:23
Speaker 1: It's almost like a food bucket brigade, you know what
16:26
Speaker 1: I mean. So, like you have you have food maybe
16:29
Speaker 1: washed in um leaves, twigs, sticks or actual food um,
16:35
Speaker 1: maybe a dead raccoon um, and then things feast on
16:38
Speaker 1: it in the entrant zone, right, and then things that
16:42
Speaker 1: are things that are living in the twilight zone can
16:45
Speaker 1: feast on those things that ate it in the entrant zone,
16:49
Speaker 1: and then it just kind of goes and goes until
16:51
Speaker 1: you finally reach the dark zone and then they're eating
16:55
Speaker 1: you know, maybe four times removed what washed into the
16:59
Speaker 1: entrant zone, right right, Yeah, Well, and that's just one
17:02
Speaker 1: way it gets in watching. Another way is your favorite
17:06
Speaker 1: thing guano bat poop, which is a really good fertilizer.
17:10
Speaker 1: Is it that you can usually buy it at um nurseries? Really? Yeah,
17:15
Speaker 1: Well there's lots of it, because I've seen the specials
17:17
Speaker 1: where there's like mounds, like mountains of bat poop because
17:22
Speaker 1: they're there for months on end, right hibernating and they're
17:25
Speaker 1: all just pooping. That's all they're doing, eating and pooping,
17:29
Speaker 1: and it stinks to um. You can't eat it right
17:33
Speaker 1: away though, isn't that right? Or like they can't just
17:35
Speaker 1: feed on the poop initially didn't have to decompose. Well,
17:38
Speaker 1: it depends you've got decomposers muture organisms that are actually
17:42
Speaker 1: eating the poop, right, So bat guano is a food
17:45
Speaker 1: source for these these organisms at the very bottom of
17:49
Speaker 1: the bio speleology food bucket brigade, right, the unsung heroes. Yeah, well,
17:54
Speaker 1: so they decompose that they break it down for themselves,
17:57
Speaker 1: turning into food themselves. But they're also leaving the trains
18:00
Speaker 1: is byproducts, and these decomposers of micro organisms make make
18:04
Speaker 1: up food for slightly larger organisms, right, like um, millipedes
18:10
Speaker 1: and centipedes and other small insects, right, and then it
18:14
Speaker 1: just kind of goes up from up to the apex,
18:18
Speaker 1: which is the predators. Yeah, it's a food pyramid, which
18:22
Speaker 1: really all all ecosystems are at the top of of predators.
18:27
Speaker 1: And there's going to be the smaller well, the larger
18:30
Speaker 1: the animal, the fewer there are of them. You know,
18:33
Speaker 1: if you compare sharks to plankton, there's a lot more
18:37
Speaker 1: plankton than sharks in the ocean. Good point. One of
18:40
Speaker 1: the things that really creeped me out, And this one's
18:42
Speaker 1: gonna keep me awake tonight. Uh. The insects get bigger
18:45
Speaker 1: and bigger, centipedes, spider salamanders, and then uh, apparently some
18:51
Speaker 1: centipedes are so big that they can feed on bats.
18:55
Speaker 1: That's what I want to see. I do too, actually,
18:58
Speaker 1: And it's kind of like, why mess around with guano
19:01
Speaker 1: and wait for the whole food chain thing to happen,
19:03
Speaker 1: to go right to the source and eat the bat,
19:05
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, the heck of a centipede. That's yeah,
19:08
Speaker 1: I'd like to see that too. We're gonna look for
19:11
Speaker 1: some video of that after this. Okay, So how do
19:13
Speaker 1: these guys get in there? And these researchers um very carefully.
19:19
Speaker 1: You gotta look out for crazy hillbillies who have um
19:23
Speaker 1: regressively evolved. You have to not fall off of ledges,
19:29
Speaker 1: you have to go through very narrow crevasses, watch out
19:33
Speaker 1: for bears initially, and I'm sure the entrance zone can
19:35
Speaker 1: be a little dodgy definitely. And um, I guess we
19:39
Speaker 1: said that bio speleology or speleology in general is um
19:45
Speaker 1: a pretty recent feel of the science that couple hundred
19:48
Speaker 1: years old. Um. And we figured out pretty quick though
19:52
Speaker 1: that these are almost pristine ecosystems. And when we show
19:58
Speaker 1: up and we're cover it in fungi or bacteria or whatever, um,
20:04
Speaker 1: we introduced that to that that ecosystem and can cause
20:08
Speaker 1: its collapse pretty quick. Yeah. Debbie Bronco, my buddy who
20:12
Speaker 1: you met as well, who wrote this, pointed out that
20:15
Speaker 1: even just like shedding like lent off of your shirt
20:17
Speaker 1: or Dan driff or Dan Driff off your head, off
20:20
Speaker 1: your scaby head can can start a reaction that can
20:25
Speaker 1: like destroy the ecosystem potentially, right creepy, And there's something
20:30
Speaker 1: that there's nothing sadder than seeing a footlong faceless salamander
20:34
Speaker 1: die and you know that it was because of your
20:37
Speaker 1: your version of smallpox. You would know it was sad,
20:39
Speaker 1: though you wouldn't be able to tell. It just looked
20:43
Speaker 1: like the faceless beast that it was. Are you happy?
20:47
Speaker 1: I had another point to make, but I can't remember
20:48
Speaker 1: it right now. Were you going to make the point
20:51
Speaker 1: about the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act of But go ahead, Well,
20:56
Speaker 1: the US passed an act that said if you go
20:59
Speaker 1: into a cave, you and you spray paint and cave
21:01
Speaker 1: go to jail. You go to jail. You can't spray
21:06
Speaker 1: paint in a cave. Well, maybe that was my point
21:09
Speaker 1: was that that's pretty recent. Like I get the feeling
21:11
Speaker 1: because they didn't explore caves until sort of recently as
21:15
Speaker 1: far as if you talk about how long science has
21:16
Speaker 1: been around, so I think caves have kind of just
21:19
Speaker 1: been ignored, or maybe hundreds of years ago they were
21:23
Speaker 1: like I ain't going in there. No, there's no or
21:26
Speaker 1: maybe they didn't think there was a reason too there
21:28
Speaker 1: was anything worth finding in there. Plus, they're just really scary.
21:32
Speaker 1: I think that more than anything that's kept us out
21:35
Speaker 1: ain't going in there. I would like to do this
21:37
Speaker 1: though that like the the caves and the snots. Is
21:41
Speaker 1: that what they're called? Yeah? Those are those are really neat. Yeah,
21:46
Speaker 1: the underground water like it's a it's fascinating to me.
21:51
Speaker 1: I want someone to like email us and say, hey, guys,
21:54
Speaker 1: I do this, and I'd love to fly heat down
21:56
Speaker 1: and take you spe linking. I think the coolest stuff
21:59
Speaker 1: may have done something and saying no tastes maybe we'll see. Um,
22:04
Speaker 1: so you got anything else? I guess the one thing
22:07
Speaker 1: that um we took away from this is that instead
22:11
Speaker 1: of stranger danger, you could also say zenos danger if
22:14
Speaker 1: you're in Greece, and they'd be like, we get the
22:17
Speaker 1: zenos part, but I didn't catch the second. Uh. If
22:20
Speaker 1: you want to learn about cave biology or bio speleology,
22:25
Speaker 1: you should type in cave biology or bio speleology in
22:29
Speaker 1: the search bar at how stuff works dot com. There's
22:32
Speaker 1: some pretty cool illustrations in there. Um and uh, or
22:37
Speaker 1: google a proteus salamander too. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Get
22:41
Speaker 1: it's creepy. Folk show. It's a creepy like ten times.
22:45
Speaker 1: I wonder also we were talking about guano and being
22:47
Speaker 1: a fertilizer. I wonder if um, the bat guano fertilizer
22:53
Speaker 1: market is contributing to declineing cave ecosystems. It's got to
22:58
Speaker 1: go in there and harvest it in the dark own, right.
23:01
Speaker 1: I know. One thing we did forget was she made
23:03
Speaker 1: a point that they are concerned that climate change is
23:07
Speaker 1: not going to be too good for for what's in
23:09
Speaker 1: the cave because they kind of depend on that constant
23:11
Speaker 1: temperature in the dark zone. Right. You know, we we
23:13
Speaker 1: can get used to changes in temperature. These organisms like
23:16
Speaker 1: literally don't experience the temperature change in generations and generations.
23:21
Speaker 1: I would imagine even a couple of degrees could could
23:23
Speaker 1: wipe them out. And plus also we've got the um
23:26
Speaker 1: white nose syndrome facing our bat populations. Yeah, what is that?
23:31
Speaker 1: We talked about it before, I remember, um, I can't
23:33
Speaker 1: remember how it came up, but we were talking about
23:35
Speaker 1: bats with like little fungus on their nose and it
23:37
Speaker 1: was killing like entire populations of bats and it's just
23:42
Speaker 1: they're dropping by the millions and our our I guess.
23:45
Speaker 1: Bat researchers are like, we have no idea what's going on.
23:48
Speaker 1: We don't know how to fight this. And it's actually
23:50
Speaker 1: a big problem because if you hate mosquitoes, brother, you
23:54
Speaker 1: better like bats. They can eat up to six mosquitoes
23:57
Speaker 1: in an hour. I need to get some bats, somebody
24:00
Speaker 1: part you do. It's awful. You can actually put up
24:03
Speaker 1: a bat house. Really, yeah, they sell them, um, usually
24:07
Speaker 1: at nurseries. Again, you know a lot about bats. We
24:10
Speaker 1: had a bat in our um chimney and it uh.
24:13
Speaker 1: We did a little research and found out that's like
24:15
Speaker 1: one of the worst things that could happen to you
24:16
Speaker 1: as a family having bad luck. No, just like health risks.
24:22
Speaker 1: If you wake up in a bad luck to have
24:25
Speaker 1: a batbew, it probably is bad luck to run over graves. Really,
24:30
Speaker 1: I heard good. Um, if you wake up in a
24:33
Speaker 1: room and there's a bat in the corner, you have
24:36
Speaker 1: to kill that bat and go right to the hospital.
24:39
Speaker 1: Because people are often known to sleep through being bitten
24:43
Speaker 1: by a bat bats Carrie rabies, so if you wake up,
24:47
Speaker 1: you might not know that you were bitten and you
24:50
Speaker 1: need to go get checked out. That funny people do. Well.
24:55
Speaker 1: I'm a like sleeper. There's no way. Are you really
24:57
Speaker 1: big time? Oh my goodness, I'm a heavy sleeper. Yeah.
25:00
Speaker 1: It's like I got hit in the head with going
25:02
Speaker 1: in there. I think she's recalling her Guatemal experience. The snoring.
25:06
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh, is that it? I think that's it.
25:08
Speaker 1: I think that's it. Man. Yeah, okay, well, then let's
25:11
Speaker 1: just go right to the the listener mail. There's no listener mail.
25:13
Speaker 1: This is plugfest. Okay, yes, hell, let's do it, Chuck,
25:19
Speaker 1: go ahead. Oh, I guess we should start with Atlanta October.
25:26
Speaker 1: The time is still being worked out, but we're gonna
25:28
Speaker 1: do like a door's open at this time and then
25:30
Speaker 1: trivia starts at this time. It'll it'll be in the
25:32
Speaker 1: evening hours, of course. Yeah, at a place called Five
25:34
Speaker 1: Seasons Brewing Company there on the West Side. They have
25:37
Speaker 1: a few locations, but the one we're gonna be at
25:39
Speaker 1: is on the West Side. Um, not too far away
25:41
Speaker 1: from downtown by Georgia Tech boo and um. We're going
25:45
Speaker 1: to be playing trivia. Anybody who wants to come play us.
25:48
Speaker 1: We're taking all comers. It's free. Yeah, you gotta buy
25:53
Speaker 1: your own drinks. I imagine we'll have some s Y
25:55
Speaker 1: s K swag and some house support swag. But we
25:57
Speaker 1: definitely will. They'll probably be some other podcas casters, um,
26:01
Speaker 1: some other house stuff works podcasters. There were assembling our
26:04
Speaker 1: team right now. Yeah, we're trying to. We're more on
26:07
Speaker 1: that later, but we're sending out emails to some people
26:09
Speaker 1: that may or may not want to join us. Yes,
26:11
Speaker 1: so please come uh October that's a Wednesday, right, Yeah,
26:15
Speaker 1: it's gonna be awesome. It's not to be messed. They
26:17
Speaker 1: got a cool scene there on the roof. It's gonna
26:19
Speaker 1: have the downtown be nice and cooled off by then.
26:21
Speaker 1: It's gonna be nice. Yeah, it's gonna be way cool.
26:23
Speaker 1: So that's and we welcome our friends from Florida. We've
26:27
Speaker 1: already gotten some guff because I said Floridians will be
26:29
Speaker 1: turned away at the door. Well maybe we should say
26:32
Speaker 1: University of Florida. People aren't welcome. If you show up
26:36
Speaker 1: with a Florida Gator shirt, you're just asking for it.
26:37
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying there. Yes, anything else now, Well,
26:42
Speaker 1: we're gonna in on our trivia tour after that to
26:45
Speaker 1: five or six cities, gonna end up in Austin and
26:48
Speaker 1: the other cities are kind of being worked out, and
26:50
Speaker 1: we appreciate those of you on Facebook who have lobbied
26:52
Speaker 1: for your city. Uh, we're taking that into consideration, of course.
26:57
Speaker 1: And Facebook is a great place to interact with us. Yeah,
27:00
Speaker 1: we've got a fan page, um Facebook slash stuff. You
27:04
Speaker 1: should know. We also have a Twitter feed it's hit
27:07
Speaker 1: or miss in how funny it is at s Y
27:11
Speaker 1: s K podcast one word um and Uh, we also
27:15
Speaker 1: have a Cuba team that's closing in Man. We just
27:17
Speaker 1: hit two hundred and thirty thousand dollars in donations. Yeah,
27:21
Speaker 1: we we are trying to hit the two fifty thousand
27:24
Speaker 1: dollar mark by our one year anniversary. Will make that
27:28
Speaker 1: which is October sixth I believe K seven dot org
27:33
Speaker 1: k I v a dot org slash team slash stuff
27:36
Speaker 1: you should know team singular not plural. And finally, our
27:41
Speaker 1: friends in Guatemala and co ed you can They have
27:44
Speaker 1: left the campaign open if you still want to text
27:46
Speaker 1: five dollars to two zero to two two. Didn't that
27:50
Speaker 1: how it works? You text the words stuff to two
27:52
Speaker 1: zero two two two and you can donate five dollars
27:56
Speaker 1: and by uh, I think we've raised over fifteen thousand
27:59
Speaker 1: dollars now the stuff you should know, Army. It's a
28:02
Speaker 1: good good cause. Yeah, it's a way good cause. And
28:04
Speaker 1: that's a lot of a lot of dough for them,
28:06
Speaker 1: you know. That's what like three computer centers in full
28:09
Speaker 1: or textbooks for life for like thousands and thousands of kids.
28:13
Speaker 1: So we appreciate their work. And that's an ongoing campaign
28:16
Speaker 1: right now. And we have a super cool blog to Chuck.
28:20
Speaker 1: People don't go to the blog. It's all happening on
28:23
Speaker 1: Facebook these days. You know how it works. I like
28:25
Speaker 1: the blog too, you know these kids, Well, your blog
28:27
Speaker 1: posts are awesome. Alright. Well, yeah, that's another thing too.
28:32
Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone knows. Every week Mr Charles W.
28:35
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant does a little round up, a little additional
28:38
Speaker 1: info about whatever podcast we released that week on the
28:41
Speaker 1: blogs at how stuff Works dot com. So you can
28:43
Speaker 1: check that out every Friday. Um. And that's that, man.
28:47
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with me, Chuck,
28:49
Speaker 1: Jerry or this chair all right, yeah, let's name this
28:54
Speaker 1: chair Frank. If you want to get in touch with
28:57
Speaker 1: me Chuck, Jerry or Frank the chair, you can email
29:01
Speaker 1: us at Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
29:09
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
29:12
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
29:16
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
29:18
Speaker 1: Com home page. M brought to you by the reinvented
29:23
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you