January 26, 2019 • 37 mins
Science has a handle on fireflies and glowworms, but most bioluminescent animals live in the ocean and are tough to study. Today, researchers are still figuring out why some animals produce light. Dive with Josh and Chuck into this illuminating topic.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, your dear friend, and for
this week's s Y s K Selects, I've chosen How
Bioluminescence Works. We released it originally in September of two
thousand and twelve, and it's a straight ahead, super interesting
science E episode the best kind. And for some reason,
I sound so low key that it seems like I'm
(00:21):
going to mount into the floor at any moment. No
idea why. I hope you enjoy listening to it again
as much as I did. Welcome to Stuff you Should
Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome
(00:41):
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
and uh. You put us together and you get a
little something called Stuff you Should Know. And that's what
this is. Whether you like it or not, you have
to listen to it. It's right, um, Actually, no one
has to listen to this, Okay. It's part of both
(01:02):
Obama's and Romney's platforms. Yeah, it's a part of Obamacare.
You gotta listen to Stuff you Should Know, and you
gotta get an RFD chip in your hand, and you
have to give poor people all your money. None of
that is true that you have to listen to the
podcast and the Poor Pule party. Um chuck, Yes, how's
it going? It's great. Are you feeling sick? Do you
(01:24):
need any kind of care Obama or otherwise? Now? Are
you feeling sick? I'm fine. Tents like my shoulder muscles
are gonna pop right out of my skin. I went
to that foot massage place on Beauford Highway the other day.
You ever been there? Mm hm? Treat your feet? Is
that what it's called. Yeah, that's a great name. They'll
they'll do an hour on your feet for bucks if
(01:44):
that's what you desire. Oh yeah, no, about a little
bit bit into it, they'll ask you like, would you
want to go half and half like half body half
foot because basically they get you in there, they're going
at your feet and you're like, you know, I don't
know if I could do an hour on my feet.
Each time has gotten their own massage at this point,
right like they're just jelly cracked your toes. Yeah, so
that you think, yeah, you know, I'll pay another twenty
(02:06):
bucks for the body, right they give you t it's
really nice. You should go. It does sound nice, but
it's not like private, like you're in a big room
with like fifteen recliners. Everyone's just sitting around and well
we've gotten backrubs at the mall before. Yeah, that's true.
You remember, I don't know how I got on this.
Treat your feet Bufford Highway. Go eat some fun and
then go get your foot massage where it's good fun
(02:27):
around here. We're trying to figure that out. The Beauford Highway.
Yeah where uh if you are we going to do
this now? Okay? I like fun number two, um, which
is past Claremont. Um, it's in a little shopping center.
Just look it up, Okay, I mean it's it's all good,
(02:48):
all good fun. Um. Yeah, I don't know how we
got on there. But some places on Bufford Highway, oh
you use some money, seriously, at least some free fun. Um.
This is nothing to do with bioluminescence. No, it doesn't.
Although sometimes if you stir your foot around, chuck, you're
gonna see some um fungus possibly rise to the top
(03:13):
a couple of times. Yeah right, yeah, that's a good
one too. And um, were those things still alive and
not cooked, they possibly might glow. And where they glow,
you would say look at those things. They're bioluminescing. That's right,
because that's what they do. It is a life form
(03:33):
that generates their own glow inside their body, their own light. Yeah,
pretty awesome. Ye And um, you I read a different
um study. It was like, what what's the deal with this?
Because this is still very much a mystery. Um, we
have an idea of how this goes down, but not
(03:53):
in every case. We also don't understand why in a
lot of cases. Um. And and it's because we don't
understand how. And the thing is is, I don't think
it's that it's out of the grasp of science to
understand it. I think that when researchers are looking into this,
they just they become so transfixed on the beautiful glow
(04:14):
that they forget what they're doing and waste tons of time.
And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, I
gotta publish our parish. And then it's just like they
just write why on a piece of paper and send
it in, as Tracy Wilson of Pop Stuff Great Podcast
points out, and Tracy's articles are always awesome. Yeah, oh man,
they're comprehensive. You know, I never have to worry about it. Um. Sadly,
(04:35):
sometimes scientists can either harm the light making magic when
they try to study them it makes it hard to study,
or the animal will exhaust it's light making glow capabilities
out of like fear or defense or spite or spite,
which will also make it hard to study. So those
(04:56):
are a couple of reasons and the whole just why right, So, um,
we do have a pretty good handle to some extent.
But let's talk about what luminescence itself is, right with that.
This light bulb right here in this ikea brand lamp. Um,
(05:17):
it's incandescent. It's an incandescent light bulb. Chuck, I think
this is an edison bulb too, is taking? Oh? Is
it like the real old timey looking one that sort of? Um?
So that is pretty simple. It has electricity that passes
through a filment, just a thin metal piece of something metal,
(05:38):
and that heats up, and it heats up so much
that it gives off light, which is incredibly inefficient. And
if say a jellyfish for to do this, it would
catch fire even though it's under water. Right. So what
um living organisms do when they want to give off
light is something called cold light or bioluminescence, which is
(06:01):
the combination of chemicals that produce light. It's like a
glow stick but no heat. But it is just like
a glow stick. You're combining two things that will make
a glow exactly, except you don't have to shake up
the jellyfish and they do not like that. Or it's
like the glow sticks that I used to sell very
uh often at Stone Mountain laser show. It's like the
(06:23):
glower three summer that I used to dance with at Raves.
You were a Raves and I was selling these things
during like Lee Greenwoods, Lee Greenwood, Lee Green Would you
Proud to be an American? Yeah? Boy, I heard that
song five thousand times. Anyone who's never been to Stone Mountain, Georgia.
(06:43):
They have a big rock there and they have a
laser show on it during the summer. It's a big
rock that has a basically the Confederate heroes carved into
the side of it by the guy who did Mount Rushmore.
How is that the same guy? Yeah? And they show
a very corny laser show every summer since like the
early nineteen eighties, and not just once this summer, like
every night during the summer night. Yeah, that's why I've
(07:05):
heard it ten thousand times. It's something and Chuck, you
still work there. I think you left that out selling
glow sticks. Glow sticks full circle. Yes, all right, let's
quit stalling. Let's talk about bioluminescence. Okay, that's all over
the place. Uh. Like you said, we don't know exactly
how it works in all cases, but we do know
that these animals do mix together different substances, just like
(07:26):
a glow stick, wood and uh, to turn their little
glow on and off. Um, here on the planet, not
in the ocean, because that's where most of the stuff
takes place here on planet Earth, on the dry land. Uh,
you can have things glowing like fox fire, which is
this fungus that feeds on rotting wood. You look at
(07:47):
pictures of fox fire. Pretty cool. Yeah, it's eerie, doesn't
look real, but it's real. It's very real. Um. The
jack O lander mushroom you can google that as well.
That's my favorite bioluminescent organism. Why just because it's the
sample things land on Terra Firma. Because it's a perfectly
named thing, the jack O lander and mushroom, Like it
has that glow coming through the gills um and just
(08:09):
the gills, so it looks like there's like this glow
coming inside and there's like holes where it's coming out of.
It's so neat. My favorite on Terra firma is the
lightning bug a k a. The firefly here in the South,
and I guess I'm not sure where else they calm
lightning bugs, but definitely in the South. You'll see them
come out every summer. And if you're a little kid,
(08:30):
you can go around and catch them and put them
in a jar and then and then release them. And
in fact, you may be harming them just by catching them.
But but you don't want to do if you're a kid,
is like smash these things because it's just you know,
that means you're gonna end up being a serial killer
one day probably. Uh So the firefly is uh you know,
(08:54):
you generally think of them as the adults lying around,
but their little larva can glow as well on the ground,
and a lot of people call um firefly lava glow worms,
but glow worms are apparently another kind of fly. Larvae.
Fireflies are fireflies or lightning bugs. That's right. Um centipedes millipedes,
There's all all kinds of little things that can glow. Worms. Uh,
(09:16):
there's some worms that give off a bioluminescent sludge and
no one has any idea why is it their poop?
And I don't think so. Remember the the the secretion
they produce when they're mating and all that. It's probably
like that. It probably comes from the ring. I can't
remember the name of the ring. So that's on Earth.
(09:37):
But if you really want to get down to some
cool glowing creatures, you need to dive down into the
ocean to the twilight zone, which I think we've talked
about that, haven't we know we talked about it in
biospeleiolo in caves. Yeah, there's different zones of light penetration
in caves and in the ocean too, that's right. Um,
the twilight zone is generally about six d and sixty
(10:00):
to feet deep on th six. It depends because obviously
different kinds of ocean water are gonna allow different amounts
of light in. It depends on what the ocean floor
looks like. But it is um. It is the this
photic or poorly lit zone deeper than the eu photic
(10:20):
sunlit zone or good zone or shallower than the aphotic
midnight zone, which is like scary no light. That's a
scary time down there. Those are the things down there
that have like no eyes, right because there's no sam
like with the caves. So um, yeah, I remember what
(10:42):
was the Prometheus salaman? Yeah, just three ft long and
doesn't have eyes. The scariest thing ever except for the
cigar shark, which will actually get to in here. Okay,
so is that the cookie cotter shark? Yeah? Man, the
thing's frightening. Um. So in this uh, this twilight zone,
the sphotic zone or mezo pelagic zone, mesopelagic zone, stop
(11:05):
laughing at me. Uh there, this is where most of
the bioluminescent organisms on Earth can be found. And the
light that penetrates this area um is a blue green
color because the red, yellow, orange. Yeah, the red, yellow
and orange are absorbed by the seawater above and the
(11:26):
violet is scattered, so the blue and the green are
the ones that get through. So everything is just kind
of color blue green, that's what the sunlight is. So
most of the bioluminescent organisms in this um dysphotic zone
dysphotic zone have evolved to produce light at that same
wavelength from something like four four hundred seventy nine nanometers,
(11:48):
which is like the blue green spectrum. That's right, So
matches that sunlight, yeah, which is pretty cool. Yeah, well
we'll get to it. But it can lead to some
cool things like camouflage. So they but it also means
that it travels farther light travels. That that type of
light travels the farthest in water because it has a
shorter wavelength than the other types. So an animal producing
(12:11):
this could really cook down there. Basically, Uh, we're talking jellyfish, shrimp, krill, squid,
other kinds of fish, marine worms, whatever the heck that is.
They're exactly what you think it is. Yeah, what are
those one worms called? It like come up out of
the little tubes tube worms? Oh yeah, yeah, I believe
(12:34):
that's what they're called. Um, either that or I just
made some terrible like sixth grade joke, but um, they
they they are like on the ocean bottom and they
they have they just come out of these tubes and
grab stuff and go back in there like three ft long.
You've not seen this sea snake to me? Yeah, but
(12:56):
there I think they're attached, or they may be attached
to their tubes, or they just never come all the
way out. I'm gonna have to look into that. Yeah.
Uh so you talked about the blue green light is
what they generally produce. Um. There is something called the
loose jawfish which actually can make red light very deep
in the ocean. But that's really unusual that can make
(13:17):
red light, and it's um. A lot of species can't
even see the color red down there because I don't
know if they're just their brains aren't used to it
because they never see it. So the loose jaw uses
this thing um to to basically sneak up on people. Um,
it's like Jane Gum at the end of Silence of
the Lambs, and and like the fish are like Jodie
(13:39):
Foster and Jamee Gum is the loose jaw fish coming
up behind her like I can see you, you can't
see me. So, like we said earlier, we don't know
(14:16):
for sure why all these uh bioluminescent forms of life
are down there doing their thing. Um. You did mention
the earthworm that has the secretion. They don't know why
they do that. The mushroom spores. They think that maybe
it's um to attract insect to spread these spores. That's
why the mushroom glows makes sense. Um. Sometimes and this
(14:40):
one's kind of cute. Sometimes animals will light up when
something nearby them lights up, which I think might just
be a little like, hey, how you doing? I can
glow too. Well, that's how fireflies are doing. Yeah, they're
attracting mates right with a like a very specific pattern.
They use it to communicate like, hey, you're looking pretty good.
(15:02):
Meet you by the fence post, right, yeah, um, let's
go get some fun. So should we talk about the
dino flagellates the dino flagellates, dina flagellates? Am I pronouncing
it wrong? No? I think that was wrong? Okay? Uh?
Well yeah, so have you ever seen Apollo thirteen? Yeah,
(15:22):
you remember the part where um they had a problem.
Is it Tom level? Gym level? Where gym level? And
uh is hanging out with Bill Paxxton and they're talking
about how they're just shooting the breeze while they're trying
to stay alive, and um, he talks about how he
was flying a mission, um coming in on an aircraft
(15:45):
carrier and there was a blackout and he couldn't see
where he was going. He couldn't find the aircraft carrier
to land, and he's running low and fuel. Then all
of a sudden he looks and he notices that there's
a bunch of um. He calls it like glowing algae
or whatever. But what he's talking about where dino flagelets
that were kicked up by the wake of the aircraft carrier,
and he used them as like a runway to guide
(16:07):
him in. I remember that part. That's a great part,
that whole movie from like start to finish with. But
these dino flagelets create what's called the milky sea when
you get enough of them together, when they're disturbed physically,
they start to glow, and if you have a bunch
of them, you can see him from space. Actually, in
this article there's a picture of a pretty substantial milky
(16:29):
sea off the coast of Africa. Pretty cool stuff. And
if you google milky Sea two you can see some
like that's cool looking. But I like the shots from
like low flying planes, helicopters very cool looking and uh
a little eerie, yeah, if that may say so. They
have no idea again, why dino flage lates would glow
when they're disturbed. Obviously they're like trying to register their complaint.
(16:53):
They can't talk, you can't flip anyone off because they
glow out of anger apparent. Um. They they there's a
theory called the burglar alarm theory. I like this one.
Or basically they think that, um, when dinoflage lets start
to glow, it's because there's little fish eating on them, right,
(17:13):
which is disturbing. They think that maybe they glow to
basically alert larger fish that will come eat the smaller
fish so they'll stop eating the dino flagelets, that there's
little fish in the area. Pretty awesome, Like hey, help
come eat this guy because you're bigger. Uh. Here's some
other and you know, these are the ones that are
(17:34):
the most understood because there is a lot of uncertainty.
Like we said like ten times. Um, but here's here's
some of the reasons that they think they're doing this communication,
which we've mentioned with the firefly or the lightning bug. Uh,
to locate food, maybe to use it as an actual
light to see in the dark. Pretty cool, or a
spotlight to catch prey. Oh like temporarily blind something gotcha
(17:59):
or no, like go find it. It's very dark in here.
I need to see what fish are to attract prey,
like the anglerfish. Like look at this bright glow, come here, chomp. Yeah,
I love that one. What was that in Finding Nemo Man?
That thing was scary. I didn't see that movie was
a good one. Yeah, Camouflage. I don't watch any of
those anymore because Emily doesn't like them. Oh, yes, she
(18:21):
doesn't like Disney movies. She doesn't like any of those
Pixar movies because it's always like some tragedy, like someone
dies in its heartbreak and keep her away from Toy
Story three. Dude, I can't even watch that movie. I
made her watch up and she was just like a
like a little blob of play floor. The first ten
minutes are just so sad. Yeah, my god. But I
always explained to her, like this is why they make
(18:41):
these movies, so kids can learn how to cope with death,
and then they see like it's all happy afterwards, you know,
all right, Camouflage, this is the coolest one. Yeah, and
the it's pretty It makes sense too, if you're in
the ocean, and if you've ever like swum down ten
or fiftet and looked up, open your eyes in the ocean.
I've done it. Um. It's it's hard to see stuff
(19:03):
below you, but it's easy to look up because you
know the sunlight's penetrating down and see like the silhouette
or in the case of Jaws, you see like the
silhouette of the lady's legs on the raft. You know
that's good eating. Um. If you have like in the
case of what's it called counter elimination, you can actually
produce spots on your underside to make it more difficult
(19:25):
for a fish beneath you, a predator beneath you to
look up and like make out what's going on. Like
you won't have the the the perfect little silhouette outline
of a yummy fish. It'll confuse it basically because you're
cutting down in the contrast, pretty cool, like you're creating
light that blends in with that same blue green light,
and all of a sudden you disappear well or just
(19:46):
breaks up your shape so you don't look like you should. Um.
And then there's the opposite, the cookie cutter or cigar shark,
which is the name I think you made up um no,
that's real, which basically has the the reverse of that
where the bottom, the underside of the cookie cutter shark
glows except for this one spot in the middle that
(20:08):
is dark that looks like a small fish, So of
shark or some other animal looking up. We'll be like,
I'm gonna go eat that fish, and then all of
a sudden it's like, oh god, it's a cookie cutter
slash cigar shark. And then the cookie cutter shark takes
a bite out of them, the round bite. Yeah, that's
why they call it the cookie cutter. It's like a
(20:29):
little plug of flesh. And if you've ever seen google
these dudes in their face, it's like the most frightening
little thing you've ever seen in your life. Yeah, they're
pretty terrifying. And you'll see pictures of like a shark
or away all washed up on the shore with like
hundreds of these little bite plugs taken out of them. Yeah,
it's pretty awful. That's a that's a terrible way to go. Yeah,
(20:50):
but good for you, cigar shark, because you're small and
you're doing what you can. It's a tough world down there.
It's wildy, you know, it's diphotic and then off defenses
the last reason. Um And basically, like a squid may
release inc to cloud your vision, some of these things
can release a cloud of a glowing cloud two uh,
basically make you sit back and put on pink floyd
(21:13):
and like chill out for a little while. Yeah, I
looked it up. There's a shrimp. There's a type of
shrimp that releases a bioluminescent clown and I couldn't get
the name. I saw both fire breathing and vomiting shrimp
for the common names. But yeah, it just spits it out.
That's not what I would want. Order on the menu,
the fried vomiting shrimp. Uh, and make sure there's extra
(21:37):
poop in the main vein crowds. Um, So what's going
on here? How? How is this magic happening? Well, just
like we've mentioned with a light stick and involves two
different substances mixed together to produce this reaction. Um. And
there can be all different kinds of kinds of chemicals,
but depending on the on the fish or the being,
(22:00):
the being, the life, uh, the God's gift. The one
is a a lucifer in and that's the light producer
and the other is a lucif phrase and that is
the enzyme that catalyzes it. So and those aren't specific
things like you you wouldn't look at the chemical composition
of something and be like, oh, that's a lucifer in. Yeah,
(22:22):
something can be a lucifer and it's a generic term
for something that produces light or something that catalyzes the
production of light, the lucifhrase. That is correct, and they
will mix together and a lot of times the lucifer
in is something called a photo protein and it needs
an eye on a charged ion to get things going.
(22:43):
That would be the lucifhrase. That's right. But in all
cases there's some sort of trigger. Could be mechanical, could
be chemical, could be neurological startle, Yeah, it could be
something they don't understand yet, but something triggers these two
things to get together and make this reaction. One thing
that I didn't realize was the word lucifer means lightbringer. Yeah,
(23:06):
I never knew that, you mean. I um went on
a little side tear last night trying to figure out
why the devil would be named the light bringer? Did
you find out? It's a mystery it's um Latin and
it came years like centuries after Um the Old Testament
was originally written, and I can't remember what version, but
(23:27):
it was basically like added on by thin. I guess
the Romans maybe added it on, but it's because it's
Latin and the original version was not written in Latin. Lightbringer,
the Lightbringer, the morning Star, that's another way to put it.
They said maybe it had to do with Venus, because
(23:48):
Venus is like a false star, and so maybe lucifer
is a false angel, is what they were saying. But
because the devil would always come in disguise. Maybe, Yeah,
I think that's weak light Bringer. That's pretty specific, Like
what is that? I bet there's some theologian that has
the answer here. I want to hear it. Yeah, I
(24:09):
was hard to find out about that one. So, Um,
(24:37):
you've got lucifer in, you've got lucifhrase. Some of these
chemical reactions require another substance, and a lot of times
it's oxygen, right, So luciferen will come in in contact
with an oxygen molecule and then the luciphrase comes along,
and then you've got a bioluminescent glow, which is pretty cool. Yeah,
(24:59):
But they also think that that's one of the reasons
I should say that's one of the reasons why they
think that bioluminescence is an accidental byproduct of regular old
evolution and that originally, um, like there's a lucifering called
um ceiling terrazine. I believe it's how you pronounce it, right, Uh.
(25:22):
And it's an antioxidant. It goes around and tries to
find like rogue, harmful free radicals, oxygen derivatives, right and
get rid of them. Uh. And they think that this
happened this was a process that was way way older
than bioluminescence, and then along came some substance that became
(25:47):
a lucifhrase, and then light was created, and then it
was just a byproduct like heats, a byproduct of metabolism, right. Um.
But they think also that over time this happened in
like maybe it's going on inside of us right now
if we're producing light but we just don't know it,
or it's just so weak that we wouldn't even possibly
(26:08):
be able to detect it. But this happened enough times
in animals in the ocean where suddenly ones could catch
prey more easily because they could see better than other
animals that weren't bioluminescing, And so it was selected in
these skies. And now bioluminescence is its own trait rather
than a byproduct of the antioxidant process. I bet you're right. Oh,
(26:30):
it's that's not me man. I think you just cooked
this up. I wish that's better than why as far
as research papers go, Yeah, throw a theory out there,
see if it sticks. That's what I say. So the
deal with these these animals is they either have all
this stuff like in their body as part of them,
or they have a little relationship with a bacteria like
(26:52):
producing bacteria that live in a light organ And this
is pretty cool, Like some of these animals can pull
this organ back into their body like it's always on.
Sometimes they don't want the light to be on, so
they'll pull it back in the body. Or they have
a little something like a light uh an eyelid that
they can just kind of close over the light, which
is pretty amazing. But it's always going. Yeah, And what
(27:16):
the other thing with evolution is they think that because
they don't see this as often in lakes, because lakes
are younger, then they think it maybe happened independently at
different parts in the ocean. So I talked to Tracey
about this, and it was a little hinky. She wrote
this a long time because she couldn't quite remember what
the point was. But the point was that they think
that because the process of antioxidation is a normal thing, um,
(27:41):
that the the conditions were right for bioluminescence to be
selected naturally in some places, but it wouldn't in like
a lake. So the the idea that this happened independently
and spontaneously when needed through evolution is kind of backed
by the idea that you don't really see bioluminescence at
(28:02):
the bottom of leaks because you don't need it. It
all makes sense when you just peel the peel the
little curtain back, doesn't it? When you peel the glowing
skin bag? What else you got? Anything else you've seen
glowing cats? Yeah? The Mayo Clinic likes to put jellyfish
jeans in animals the most the biggest one so far
(28:24):
as a cat, and make it glow because they're checking
um disease. They're using it to mark the progression of diseases.
But they made a glowing cat. It's pretty cool, now
does the I gotta look at this. It glows under
a blue light, but it glows green, and it's like
the cat glows green like it. I guess it's the hair.
(28:45):
The cara tin it produces has some sort of fluorescent
property to it, but it's it's not bioluminescent in it's fluorescent,
and fluorescent is where you take light of on color
and reflect it back, absorb it and reflected back of
it as a different color. You're not actually producing light,
all right. I just looked it up. Wow, it's a
(29:07):
glowing cat, and I double check the date, double check
the damn Like, this better not be in April Fools article,
but it's not. Yeah, I want one of those this photo. Yeah, okay,
so if you you're done, I'm done. Yeah. There's glowing
(29:27):
rats too. Now these are baby cats. I think you
should pulled kittens in some countries. Um if you if
you want to learn more about bioluminescence, you should type
that in to the search bar. And you want to
type b I O l U M I N E
S C E n CE mouthful in the search bar
(29:50):
at how stuff works dot com and it'll bring up
this very cool article with some pretty glowing pictures. UM,
and I said, uh, search bar somewhere in there, which
means it's time for listener mail. No, it's not Josh.
Today is part two of you want to say it.
(30:10):
For those of you don't know, this is a point
at the show where we um thank people for little
tokens and gifts and chatch keys and things that they
have sent us. Foods sometimes foods, and um, it's a
good chance to hear your name on the show as
a as a thank you, and it's a good chance
for some of you to find out where you can
get some of these things, because a lot of times
they're like really great creative crafty things. People write books,
(30:33):
and like we want to support uh crafters and writers
and bakers of cookies, and we want to support Bill Wagoner,
who sent us a bumper sticker on how to pronounce
Nevada Nevada. I'll never get used to that. It's not right.
It is right, but I tell everyone that writes in
only people from Nevada say it that way. Everyone else
(30:55):
says Nevada Nevada. That's Nevada, all right, Lily her sister
Toby and brother in law Danny start a company called
Please Be Good Humans. Oh yeah, remem of these guys. Uh,
they sent us some shirts. I think they sent some
to stickers. They've got them. Know everybody has stickers. We
passed them out. Oh well, Kristen Conger, I think that's
a short too though. Oh she did. I think so.
(31:16):
Oh that's great. Um. And basically everything is has the
pbg H logo on it, which is like be good
to each other, and of everything they sell goes to
the charity of your choice. So if you go there
Please Be Good Humans the Internet, you can actually get
(31:36):
some of the stuff and choose your own charity that
will go to. Very nice message, Very nice. Um. How
about some Randy Carbonone action. Yeah, he sent us his
Pirate Gags booklet, which is a tailor made for Pirate
Day talking about tool and Pirate Day. If you want
to learn more about that, you could go to Pirate
(31:59):
Day I R A T E A D A Y
dot blog spot dot com and hook up with Randy
Carbonny Action. Christopher M. Roth with an E at the end,
sent us a kindle version of his book Dirk Danger
Loves Life. I don't have a kindle yet, and I'm
dying to read this thing just sitting there. Um, Susannah
(32:23):
from Archie the Archie Comics. Um, she sent us a
bunch of stuff. She she she sends us stuff in
like waves. I guess you could put it. But most recently, um,
she sent us a Archie meets Kiss hardcover book of
Kevin Keller book. Um, that's the first gay character. That's right,
the first gay comic book character. This whole green Lantern hubbub.
(32:46):
I haven't heard that. Oh yeah, there's apparently two Green
Lanterns and one of them came out as gay and
just a man in the comic that he came out.
And yeah, but Archie's got a beat. It's right because
of Kevin Kelly was the first gay character. Uh in
the Jinx comics that Susannah is she draw right produced
those which yeah, I mean that's her baby. So, um
(33:08):
support the Jinx comics and archiees a hole. She sent
his shirts and what we were supposed to meet at
uh comic on but she said they were slammed in
the booth and she was unable to get away. Oh
I met Uncle John's reader people from reader people. They
gave us shirts and t hats. Very nice, so thank
you as well. We're from Mad Magazine too, which just
(33:29):
like floored me. Did you write the guy back? I
totally did you? Yeah, I finally did. Um. Daniel Mackenzie
from Oakland, California, Sennison LP from his band shut I Unison,
awesome music, indie rock, little noisy, little melodic, right up
my alley, shut Out Unison. I didn't see that one.
(33:50):
It's good stuff. Um, Andy Parr Sentison edition of Games
Magazine's World of Puzzles. Is that the one that had
us as a I believe so yeah, stuff you should
know was a clue in a word search. I believe
nobody got it. I don't get this one. That's cool,
but it was very nice that he uh he did.
(34:11):
He went to that trouble. Uh. Suki s u k
I Design Laboratory sentis some hankies and that this was
the lady who designed the baby head T shirt with
the fly. Yeah, our favorite T shirt of the submissions,
the most disturbing one. It was one of my five favorites.
It was my favorite, I think, yeah, but um, she
(34:32):
designed that and she sent us some hankies with like
these hankies have like sleeping sickness and hepatitis and like
the chemical combinations of these on the hanky. Yeah, it's
pretty funny. That's what's contained within. Yeah, that's pretty awesome.
Um yeah, thank you for those. Duff Man sent it's
the Springfield Isotopes couzy. Yeah from deaf Man himself. Yeah, uh,
(34:55):
we appreciate that, sir. Uh. Silver Fox broad Band sent
a Silver Fox T shirts and at first I was all,
what did this broadband company sending his shirts? Then I
looked up they supply internet for senior homes, So I
was all of a sudden wark with pride. Everyone at
my gym thinks that I'm a Silver Foxes. They wear
(35:16):
that shirt a lot. It's always comfortable. Let's see. The
guys from rock tail Ours send us a T shirt
a podcast about rock music. Um, that's rock and then
tail t a l e our check them out. Bike
rappers dot com uh with w R A p B
are not rapping like music. They sent us some reflective
(35:37):
bike rappers and dog collars basically just these little bell
grow thinks such an easy invention, but but necessary, and
you wrap them on the frame of your bike to
make your bike more reflective. And they have a little
reflective dog collars too. It's pretty cool. Um. We've got
Christmas cards from a bunch of people. Thank you very much.
From this is how far behind we are. It's Christmas
(36:00):
July everybody, Nick and Lindsay Devon, b Becca Evans, Andrew
and Janelle Thomas. So thank you very much. Merry Christmas
all your people, and happy Halloween. M oh and I've
got one more. Send us a Halloween card. Oh, thanks,
Happy Halloween, am uh. And then again from Nick and Lindsay.
They sent us Valentine state cards. Yeah, they're They're pretty sweet.
(36:20):
They send us stuff. Are you done because I got
two more in this one ahead, let's go for it, dude.
David Beaver's family has been making a magnetic calendar for
fifty years, and not just one. They've been making the
magnetic calendars for fifty years. Uh. The Magnetic Calendar dot
com owned, operated, made and sourced in the Midwest. It's
(36:41):
a selling point family business. They've been doing this for
how long fifty years? Fifty years? Uh? And then Jill
Swing sent us a Twinkie the kid t shirts, so
thank you very much. Yeah, I believe it was how
made design to write. I don't know, I think it is,
was it? Yeah? Well, thank you everybody that was very
kind of you. Yeah, we have one more installment fell
here soon and then I have to do it because
(37:02):
these are all the ones that Chuck compiled. I think
it's most of them that you have a lot. I've
got a decent amount. All right, Well then there'll be
a part four, okay, and then we'll start all over
all right, all right? If you want to send us something,
even something is innocuous, is just a hello, You can
tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You
can join us on Facebook dot com, uh slash stuff
(37:23):
you should know, and you can send us an email
to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. VI is
it how stuff works dot com
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, your dear friend, and for
this week's s Y s K Selects, I've chosen How
Bioluminescence Works. We released it originally in September of two
thousand and twelve, and it's a straight ahead, super interesting
science E episode the best kind. And for some reason,
I sound so low key that it seems like I'm
(00:21):
going to mount into the floor at any moment. No
idea why. I hope you enjoy listening to it again
as much as I did. Welcome to Stuff you Should
Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome
(00:41):
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
and uh. You put us together and you get a
little something called Stuff you Should Know. And that's what
this is. Whether you like it or not, you have
to listen to it. It's right, um, Actually, no one
has to listen to this, Okay. It's part of both
(01:02):
Obama's and Romney's platforms. Yeah, it's a part of Obamacare.
You gotta listen to Stuff you Should Know, and you
gotta get an RFD chip in your hand, and you
have to give poor people all your money. None of
that is true that you have to listen to the
podcast and the Poor Pule party. Um chuck, Yes, how's
it going? It's great. Are you feeling sick? Do you
(01:24):
need any kind of care Obama or otherwise? Now? Are
you feeling sick? I'm fine. Tents like my shoulder muscles
are gonna pop right out of my skin. I went
to that foot massage place on Beauford Highway the other day.
You ever been there? Mm hm? Treat your feet? Is
that what it's called. Yeah, that's a great name. They'll
they'll do an hour on your feet for bucks if
(01:44):
that's what you desire. Oh yeah, no, about a little
bit bit into it, they'll ask you like, would you
want to go half and half like half body half
foot because basically they get you in there, they're going
at your feet and you're like, you know, I don't
know if I could do an hour on my feet.
Each time has gotten their own massage at this point,
right like they're just jelly cracked your toes. Yeah, so
that you think, yeah, you know, I'll pay another twenty
(02:06):
bucks for the body, right they give you t it's
really nice. You should go. It does sound nice, but
it's not like private, like you're in a big room
with like fifteen recliners. Everyone's just sitting around and well
we've gotten backrubs at the mall before. Yeah, that's true.
You remember, I don't know how I got on this.
Treat your feet Bufford Highway. Go eat some fun and
then go get your foot massage where it's good fun
(02:27):
around here. We're trying to figure that out. The Beauford Highway.
Yeah where uh if you are we going to do
this now? Okay? I like fun number two, um, which
is past Claremont. Um, it's in a little shopping center.
Just look it up, Okay, I mean it's it's all good,
(02:48):
all good fun. Um. Yeah, I don't know how we
got on there. But some places on Bufford Highway, oh
you use some money, seriously, at least some free fun. Um.
This is nothing to do with bioluminescence. No, it doesn't.
Although sometimes if you stir your foot around, chuck, you're
gonna see some um fungus possibly rise to the top
(03:13):
a couple of times. Yeah right, yeah, that's a good
one too. And um, were those things still alive and
not cooked, they possibly might glow. And where they glow,
you would say look at those things. They're bioluminescing. That's right,
because that's what they do. It is a life form
(03:33):
that generates their own glow inside their body, their own light. Yeah,
pretty awesome. Ye And um, you I read a different
um study. It was like, what what's the deal with this?
Because this is still very much a mystery. Um, we
have an idea of how this goes down, but not
(03:53):
in every case. We also don't understand why in a
lot of cases. Um. And and it's because we don't
understand how. And the thing is is, I don't think
it's that it's out of the grasp of science to
understand it. I think that when researchers are looking into this,
they just they become so transfixed on the beautiful glow
(04:14):
that they forget what they're doing and waste tons of time.
And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, I
gotta publish our parish. And then it's just like they
just write why on a piece of paper and send
it in, as Tracy Wilson of Pop Stuff Great Podcast
points out, and Tracy's articles are always awesome. Yeah, oh man,
they're comprehensive. You know, I never have to worry about it. Um. Sadly,
(04:35):
sometimes scientists can either harm the light making magic when
they try to study them it makes it hard to study,
or the animal will exhaust it's light making glow capabilities
out of like fear or defense or spite or spite,
which will also make it hard to study. So those
(04:56):
are a couple of reasons and the whole just why right, So, um,
we do have a pretty good handle to some extent.
But let's talk about what luminescence itself is, right with that.
This light bulb right here in this ikea brand lamp. Um,
(05:17):
it's incandescent. It's an incandescent light bulb. Chuck, I think
this is an edison bulb too, is taking? Oh? Is
it like the real old timey looking one that sort of? Um?
So that is pretty simple. It has electricity that passes
through a filment, just a thin metal piece of something metal,
(05:38):
and that heats up, and it heats up so much
that it gives off light, which is incredibly inefficient. And
if say a jellyfish for to do this, it would
catch fire even though it's under water. Right. So what
um living organisms do when they want to give off
light is something called cold light or bioluminescence, which is
(06:01):
the combination of chemicals that produce light. It's like a
glow stick but no heat. But it is just like
a glow stick. You're combining two things that will make
a glow exactly, except you don't have to shake up
the jellyfish and they do not like that. Or it's
like the glow sticks that I used to sell very
uh often at Stone Mountain laser show. It's like the
(06:23):
glower three summer that I used to dance with at Raves.
You were a Raves and I was selling these things
during like Lee Greenwoods, Lee Greenwood, Lee Green Would you
Proud to be an American? Yeah? Boy, I heard that
song five thousand times. Anyone who's never been to Stone Mountain, Georgia.
(06:43):
They have a big rock there and they have a
laser show on it during the summer. It's a big
rock that has a basically the Confederate heroes carved into
the side of it by the guy who did Mount Rushmore.
How is that the same guy? Yeah? And they show
a very corny laser show every summer since like the
early nineteen eighties, and not just once this summer, like
every night during the summer night. Yeah, that's why I've
(07:05):
heard it ten thousand times. It's something and Chuck, you
still work there. I think you left that out selling
glow sticks. Glow sticks full circle. Yes, all right, let's
quit stalling. Let's talk about bioluminescence. Okay, that's all over
the place. Uh. Like you said, we don't know exactly
how it works in all cases, but we do know
that these animals do mix together different substances, just like
(07:26):
a glow stick, wood and uh, to turn their little
glow on and off. Um, here on the planet, not
in the ocean, because that's where most of the stuff
takes place here on planet Earth, on the dry land. Uh,
you can have things glowing like fox fire, which is
this fungus that feeds on rotting wood. You look at
(07:47):
pictures of fox fire. Pretty cool. Yeah, it's eerie, doesn't
look real, but it's real. It's very real. Um. The
jack O lander mushroom you can google that as well.
That's my favorite bioluminescent organism. Why just because it's the
sample things land on Terra Firma. Because it's a perfectly
named thing, the jack O lander and mushroom, Like it
has that glow coming through the gills um and just
(08:09):
the gills, so it looks like there's like this glow
coming inside and there's like holes where it's coming out of.
It's so neat. My favorite on Terra firma is the
lightning bug a k a. The firefly here in the South,
and I guess I'm not sure where else they calm
lightning bugs, but definitely in the South. You'll see them
come out every summer. And if you're a little kid,
(08:30):
you can go around and catch them and put them
in a jar and then and then release them. And
in fact, you may be harming them just by catching them.
But but you don't want to do if you're a kid,
is like smash these things because it's just you know,
that means you're gonna end up being a serial killer
one day probably. Uh So the firefly is uh you know,
(08:54):
you generally think of them as the adults lying around,
but their little larva can glow as well on the ground,
and a lot of people call um firefly lava glow worms,
but glow worms are apparently another kind of fly. Larvae.
Fireflies are fireflies or lightning bugs. That's right. Um centipedes millipedes,
There's all all kinds of little things that can glow. Worms. Uh,
(09:16):
there's some worms that give off a bioluminescent sludge and
no one has any idea why is it their poop?
And I don't think so. Remember the the the secretion
they produce when they're mating and all that. It's probably
like that. It probably comes from the ring. I can't
remember the name of the ring. So that's on Earth.
(09:37):
But if you really want to get down to some
cool glowing creatures, you need to dive down into the
ocean to the twilight zone, which I think we've talked
about that, haven't we know we talked about it in
biospeleiolo in caves. Yeah, there's different zones of light penetration
in caves and in the ocean too, that's right. Um,
the twilight zone is generally about six d and sixty
(10:00):
to feet deep on th six. It depends because obviously
different kinds of ocean water are gonna allow different amounts
of light in. It depends on what the ocean floor
looks like. But it is um. It is the this
photic or poorly lit zone deeper than the eu photic
(10:20):
sunlit zone or good zone or shallower than the aphotic
midnight zone, which is like scary no light. That's a
scary time down there. Those are the things down there
that have like no eyes, right because there's no sam
like with the caves. So um, yeah, I remember what
(10:42):
was the Prometheus salaman? Yeah, just three ft long and
doesn't have eyes. The scariest thing ever except for the
cigar shark, which will actually get to in here. Okay,
so is that the cookie cotter shark? Yeah? Man, the
thing's frightening. Um. So in this uh, this twilight zone,
the sphotic zone or mezo pelagic zone, mesopelagic zone, stop
(11:05):
laughing at me. Uh there, this is where most of
the bioluminescent organisms on Earth can be found. And the
light that penetrates this area um is a blue green
color because the red, yellow, orange. Yeah, the red, yellow
and orange are absorbed by the seawater above and the
(11:26):
violet is scattered, so the blue and the green are
the ones that get through. So everything is just kind
of color blue green, that's what the sunlight is. So
most of the bioluminescent organisms in this um dysphotic zone
dysphotic zone have evolved to produce light at that same
wavelength from something like four four hundred seventy nine nanometers,
(11:48):
which is like the blue green spectrum. That's right, So
matches that sunlight, yeah, which is pretty cool. Yeah, well
we'll get to it. But it can lead to some
cool things like camouflage. So they but it also means
that it travels farther light travels. That that type of
light travels the farthest in water because it has a
shorter wavelength than the other types. So an animal producing
(12:11):
this could really cook down there. Basically, Uh, we're talking jellyfish, shrimp, krill, squid,
other kinds of fish, marine worms, whatever the heck that is.
They're exactly what you think it is. Yeah, what are
those one worms called? It like come up out of
the little tubes tube worms? Oh yeah, yeah, I believe
(12:34):
that's what they're called. Um, either that or I just
made some terrible like sixth grade joke, but um, they
they they are like on the ocean bottom and they
they have they just come out of these tubes and
grab stuff and go back in there like three ft long.
You've not seen this sea snake to me? Yeah, but
(12:56):
there I think they're attached, or they may be attached
to their tubes, or they just never come all the
way out. I'm gonna have to look into that. Yeah.
Uh so you talked about the blue green light is
what they generally produce. Um. There is something called the
loose jawfish which actually can make red light very deep
in the ocean. But that's really unusual that can make
(13:17):
red light, and it's um. A lot of species can't
even see the color red down there because I don't
know if they're just their brains aren't used to it
because they never see it. So the loose jaw uses
this thing um to to basically sneak up on people. Um,
it's like Jane Gum at the end of Silence of
the Lambs, and and like the fish are like Jodie
(13:39):
Foster and Jamee Gum is the loose jaw fish coming
up behind her like I can see you, you can't
see me. So, like we said earlier, we don't know
(14:16):
for sure why all these uh bioluminescent forms of life
are down there doing their thing. Um. You did mention
the earthworm that has the secretion. They don't know why
they do that. The mushroom spores. They think that maybe
it's um to attract insect to spread these spores. That's
why the mushroom glows makes sense. Um. Sometimes and this
(14:40):
one's kind of cute. Sometimes animals will light up when
something nearby them lights up, which I think might just
be a little like, hey, how you doing? I can
glow too. Well, that's how fireflies are doing. Yeah, they're
attracting mates right with a like a very specific pattern.
They use it to communicate like, hey, you're looking pretty good.
(15:02):
Meet you by the fence post, right, yeah, um, let's
go get some fun. So should we talk about the
dino flagellates the dino flagellates, dina flagellates? Am I pronouncing
it wrong? No? I think that was wrong? Okay? Uh?
Well yeah, so have you ever seen Apollo thirteen? Yeah,
(15:22):
you remember the part where um they had a problem.
Is it Tom level? Gym level? Where gym level? And
uh is hanging out with Bill Paxxton and they're talking
about how they're just shooting the breeze while they're trying
to stay alive, and um, he talks about how he
was flying a mission, um coming in on an aircraft
(15:45):
carrier and there was a blackout and he couldn't see
where he was going. He couldn't find the aircraft carrier
to land, and he's running low and fuel. Then all
of a sudden he looks and he notices that there's
a bunch of um. He calls it like glowing algae
or whatever. But what he's talking about where dino flagelets
that were kicked up by the wake of the aircraft carrier,
and he used them as like a runway to guide
(16:07):
him in. I remember that part. That's a great part,
that whole movie from like start to finish with. But
these dino flagelets create what's called the milky sea when
you get enough of them together, when they're disturbed physically,
they start to glow, and if you have a bunch
of them, you can see him from space. Actually, in
this article there's a picture of a pretty substantial milky
(16:29):
sea off the coast of Africa. Pretty cool stuff. And
if you google milky Sea two you can see some
like that's cool looking. But I like the shots from
like low flying planes, helicopters very cool looking and uh
a little eerie, yeah, if that may say so. They
have no idea again, why dino flage lates would glow
when they're disturbed. Obviously they're like trying to register their complaint.
(16:53):
They can't talk, you can't flip anyone off because they
glow out of anger apparent. Um. They they there's a
theory called the burglar alarm theory. I like this one.
Or basically they think that, um, when dinoflage lets start
to glow, it's because there's little fish eating on them, right,
(17:13):
which is disturbing. They think that maybe they glow to
basically alert larger fish that will come eat the smaller
fish so they'll stop eating the dino flagelets, that there's
little fish in the area. Pretty awesome, Like hey, help
come eat this guy because you're bigger. Uh. Here's some
other and you know, these are the ones that are
(17:34):
the most understood because there is a lot of uncertainty.
Like we said like ten times. Um, but here's here's
some of the reasons that they think they're doing this communication,
which we've mentioned with the firefly or the lightning bug. Uh,
to locate food, maybe to use it as an actual
light to see in the dark. Pretty cool, or a
spotlight to catch prey. Oh like temporarily blind something gotcha
(17:59):
or no, like go find it. It's very dark in here.
I need to see what fish are to attract prey,
like the anglerfish. Like look at this bright glow, come here, chomp. Yeah,
I love that one. What was that in Finding Nemo Man?
That thing was scary. I didn't see that movie was
a good one. Yeah, Camouflage. I don't watch any of
those anymore because Emily doesn't like them. Oh, yes, she
(18:21):
doesn't like Disney movies. She doesn't like any of those
Pixar movies because it's always like some tragedy, like someone
dies in its heartbreak and keep her away from Toy
Story three. Dude, I can't even watch that movie. I
made her watch up and she was just like a
like a little blob of play floor. The first ten
minutes are just so sad. Yeah, my god. But I
always explained to her, like this is why they make
(18:41):
these movies, so kids can learn how to cope with death,
and then they see like it's all happy afterwards, you know,
all right, Camouflage, this is the coolest one. Yeah, and
the it's pretty It makes sense too, if you're in
the ocean, and if you've ever like swum down ten
or fiftet and looked up, open your eyes in the ocean.
I've done it. Um. It's it's hard to see stuff
(19:03):
below you, but it's easy to look up because you
know the sunlight's penetrating down and see like the silhouette
or in the case of Jaws, you see like the
silhouette of the lady's legs on the raft. You know
that's good eating. Um. If you have like in the
case of what's it called counter elimination, you can actually
produce spots on your underside to make it more difficult
(19:25):
for a fish beneath you, a predator beneath you to
look up and like make out what's going on. Like
you won't have the the the perfect little silhouette outline
of a yummy fish. It'll confuse it basically because you're
cutting down in the contrast, pretty cool, like you're creating
light that blends in with that same blue green light,
and all of a sudden you disappear well or just
(19:46):
breaks up your shape so you don't look like you should. Um.
And then there's the opposite, the cookie cutter or cigar shark,
which is the name I think you made up um no,
that's real, which basically has the the reverse of that
where the bottom, the underside of the cookie cutter shark
glows except for this one spot in the middle that
(20:08):
is dark that looks like a small fish, So of
shark or some other animal looking up. We'll be like,
I'm gonna go eat that fish, and then all of
a sudden it's like, oh god, it's a cookie cutter
slash cigar shark. And then the cookie cutter shark takes
a bite out of them, the round bite. Yeah, that's
why they call it the cookie cutter. It's like a
(20:29):
little plug of flesh. And if you've ever seen google
these dudes in their face, it's like the most frightening
little thing you've ever seen in your life. Yeah, they're
pretty terrifying. And you'll see pictures of like a shark
or away all washed up on the shore with like
hundreds of these little bite plugs taken out of them. Yeah,
it's pretty awful. That's a that's a terrible way to go. Yeah,
(20:50):
but good for you, cigar shark, because you're small and
you're doing what you can. It's a tough world down there.
It's wildy, you know, it's diphotic and then off defenses
the last reason. Um And basically, like a squid may
release inc to cloud your vision, some of these things
can release a cloud of a glowing cloud two uh,
basically make you sit back and put on pink floyd
(21:13):
and like chill out for a little while. Yeah, I
looked it up. There's a shrimp. There's a type of
shrimp that releases a bioluminescent clown and I couldn't get
the name. I saw both fire breathing and vomiting shrimp
for the common names. But yeah, it just spits it out.
That's not what I would want. Order on the menu,
the fried vomiting shrimp. Uh, and make sure there's extra
(21:37):
poop in the main vein crowds. Um, So what's going
on here? How? How is this magic happening? Well, just
like we've mentioned with a light stick and involves two
different substances mixed together to produce this reaction. Um. And
there can be all different kinds of kinds of chemicals,
but depending on the on the fish or the being,
(22:00):
the being, the life, uh, the God's gift. The one
is a a lucifer in and that's the light producer
and the other is a lucif phrase and that is
the enzyme that catalyzes it. So and those aren't specific
things like you you wouldn't look at the chemical composition
of something and be like, oh, that's a lucifer in. Yeah,
(22:22):
something can be a lucifer and it's a generic term
for something that produces light or something that catalyzes the
production of light, the lucifhrase. That is correct, and they
will mix together and a lot of times the lucifer
in is something called a photo protein and it needs
an eye on a charged ion to get things going.
(22:43):
That would be the lucifhrase. That's right. But in all
cases there's some sort of trigger. Could be mechanical, could
be chemical, could be neurological startle, Yeah, it could be
something they don't understand yet, but something triggers these two
things to get together and make this reaction. One thing
that I didn't realize was the word lucifer means lightbringer. Yeah,
(23:06):
I never knew that, you mean. I um went on
a little side tear last night trying to figure out
why the devil would be named the light bringer? Did
you find out? It's a mystery it's um Latin and
it came years like centuries after Um the Old Testament
was originally written, and I can't remember what version, but
(23:27):
it was basically like added on by thin. I guess
the Romans maybe added it on, but it's because it's
Latin and the original version was not written in Latin. Lightbringer,
the Lightbringer, the morning Star, that's another way to put it.
They said maybe it had to do with Venus, because
(23:48):
Venus is like a false star, and so maybe lucifer
is a false angel, is what they were saying. But
because the devil would always come in disguise. Maybe, Yeah,
I think that's weak light Bringer. That's pretty specific, Like
what is that? I bet there's some theologian that has
the answer here. I want to hear it. Yeah, I
(24:09):
was hard to find out about that one. So, Um,
(24:37):
you've got lucifer in, you've got lucifhrase. Some of these
chemical reactions require another substance, and a lot of times
it's oxygen, right, So luciferen will come in in contact
with an oxygen molecule and then the luciphrase comes along,
and then you've got a bioluminescent glow, which is pretty cool. Yeah,
(24:59):
But they also think that that's one of the reasons
I should say that's one of the reasons why they
think that bioluminescence is an accidental byproduct of regular old
evolution and that originally, um, like there's a lucifering called
um ceiling terrazine. I believe it's how you pronounce it, right, Uh.
(25:22):
And it's an antioxidant. It goes around and tries to
find like rogue, harmful free radicals, oxygen derivatives, right and
get rid of them. Uh. And they think that this
happened this was a process that was way way older
than bioluminescence, and then along came some substance that became
(25:47):
a lucifhrase, and then light was created, and then it
was just a byproduct like heats, a byproduct of metabolism, right. Um.
But they think also that over time this happened in
like maybe it's going on inside of us right now
if we're producing light but we just don't know it,
or it's just so weak that we wouldn't even possibly
(26:08):
be able to detect it. But this happened enough times
in animals in the ocean where suddenly ones could catch
prey more easily because they could see better than other
animals that weren't bioluminescing, And so it was selected in
these skies. And now bioluminescence is its own trait rather
than a byproduct of the antioxidant process. I bet you're right. Oh,
(26:30):
it's that's not me man. I think you just cooked
this up. I wish that's better than why as far
as research papers go, Yeah, throw a theory out there,
see if it sticks. That's what I say. So the
deal with these these animals is they either have all
this stuff like in their body as part of them,
or they have a little relationship with a bacteria like
(26:52):
producing bacteria that live in a light organ And this
is pretty cool, Like some of these animals can pull
this organ back into their body like it's always on.
Sometimes they don't want the light to be on, so
they'll pull it back in the body. Or they have
a little something like a light uh an eyelid that
they can just kind of close over the light, which
is pretty amazing. But it's always going. Yeah, And what
(27:16):
the other thing with evolution is they think that because
they don't see this as often in lakes, because lakes
are younger, then they think it maybe happened independently at
different parts in the ocean. So I talked to Tracey
about this, and it was a little hinky. She wrote
this a long time because she couldn't quite remember what
the point was. But the point was that they think
that because the process of antioxidation is a normal thing, um,
(27:41):
that the the conditions were right for bioluminescence to be
selected naturally in some places, but it wouldn't in like
a lake. So the the idea that this happened independently
and spontaneously when needed through evolution is kind of backed
by the idea that you don't really see bioluminescence at
(28:02):
the bottom of leaks because you don't need it. It
all makes sense when you just peel the peel the
little curtain back, doesn't it? When you peel the glowing
skin bag? What else you got? Anything else you've seen
glowing cats? Yeah? The Mayo Clinic likes to put jellyfish
jeans in animals the most the biggest one so far
(28:24):
as a cat, and make it glow because they're checking
um disease. They're using it to mark the progression of diseases.
But they made a glowing cat. It's pretty cool, now
does the I gotta look at this. It glows under
a blue light, but it glows green, and it's like
the cat glows green like it. I guess it's the hair.
(28:45):
The cara tin it produces has some sort of fluorescent
property to it, but it's it's not bioluminescent in it's fluorescent,
and fluorescent is where you take light of on color
and reflect it back, absorb it and reflected back of
it as a different color. You're not actually producing light,
all right. I just looked it up. Wow, it's a
(29:07):
glowing cat, and I double check the date, double check
the damn Like, this better not be in April Fools article,
but it's not. Yeah, I want one of those this photo. Yeah, okay,
so if you you're done, I'm done. Yeah. There's glowing
(29:27):
rats too. Now these are baby cats. I think you
should pulled kittens in some countries. Um if you if
you want to learn more about bioluminescence, you should type
that in to the search bar. And you want to
type b I O l U M I N E
S C E n CE mouthful in the search bar
(29:50):
at how stuff works dot com and it'll bring up
this very cool article with some pretty glowing pictures. UM,
and I said, uh, search bar somewhere in there, which
means it's time for listener mail. No, it's not Josh.
Today is part two of you want to say it.
(30:10):
For those of you don't know, this is a point
at the show where we um thank people for little
tokens and gifts and chatch keys and things that they
have sent us. Foods sometimes foods, and um, it's a
good chance to hear your name on the show as
a as a thank you, and it's a good chance
for some of you to find out where you can
get some of these things, because a lot of times
they're like really great creative crafty things. People write books,
(30:33):
and like we want to support uh crafters and writers
and bakers of cookies, and we want to support Bill Wagoner,
who sent us a bumper sticker on how to pronounce
Nevada Nevada. I'll never get used to that. It's not right.
It is right, but I tell everyone that writes in
only people from Nevada say it that way. Everyone else
(30:55):
says Nevada Nevada. That's Nevada, all right, Lily her sister
Toby and brother in law Danny start a company called
Please Be Good Humans. Oh yeah, remem of these guys. Uh,
they sent us some shirts. I think they sent some
to stickers. They've got them. Know everybody has stickers. We
passed them out. Oh well, Kristen Conger, I think that's
a short too though. Oh she did. I think so.
(31:16):
Oh that's great. Um. And basically everything is has the
pbg H logo on it, which is like be good
to each other, and of everything they sell goes to
the charity of your choice. So if you go there
Please Be Good Humans the Internet, you can actually get
(31:36):
some of the stuff and choose your own charity that
will go to. Very nice message, Very nice. Um. How
about some Randy Carbonone action. Yeah, he sent us his
Pirate Gags booklet, which is a tailor made for Pirate
Day talking about tool and Pirate Day. If you want
to learn more about that, you could go to Pirate
(31:59):
Day I R A T E A D A Y
dot blog spot dot com and hook up with Randy
Carbonny Action. Christopher M. Roth with an E at the end,
sent us a kindle version of his book Dirk Danger
Loves Life. I don't have a kindle yet, and I'm
dying to read this thing just sitting there. Um, Susannah
(32:23):
from Archie the Archie Comics. Um, she sent us a
bunch of stuff. She she she sends us stuff in
like waves. I guess you could put it. But most recently, um,
she sent us a Archie meets Kiss hardcover book of
Kevin Keller book. Um, that's the first gay character. That's right,
the first gay comic book character. This whole green Lantern hubbub.
(32:46):
I haven't heard that. Oh yeah, there's apparently two Green
Lanterns and one of them came out as gay and
just a man in the comic that he came out.
And yeah, but Archie's got a beat. It's right because
of Kevin Kelly was the first gay character. Uh in
the Jinx comics that Susannah is she draw right produced
those which yeah, I mean that's her baby. So, um
(33:08):
support the Jinx comics and archiees a hole. She sent
his shirts and what we were supposed to meet at
uh comic on but she said they were slammed in
the booth and she was unable to get away. Oh
I met Uncle John's reader people from reader people. They
gave us shirts and t hats. Very nice, so thank
you as well. We're from Mad Magazine too, which just
(33:29):
like floored me. Did you write the guy back? I
totally did you? Yeah, I finally did. Um. Daniel Mackenzie
from Oakland, California, Sennison LP from his band shut I Unison,
awesome music, indie rock, little noisy, little melodic, right up
my alley, shut Out Unison. I didn't see that one.
(33:50):
It's good stuff. Um, Andy Parr Sentison edition of Games
Magazine's World of Puzzles. Is that the one that had
us as a I believe so yeah, stuff you should
know was a clue in a word search. I believe
nobody got it. I don't get this one. That's cool,
but it was very nice that he uh he did.
(34:11):
He went to that trouble. Uh. Suki s u k
I Design Laboratory sentis some hankies and that this was
the lady who designed the baby head T shirt with
the fly. Yeah, our favorite T shirt of the submissions,
the most disturbing one. It was one of my five favorites.
It was my favorite, I think, yeah, but um, she
(34:32):
designed that and she sent us some hankies with like
these hankies have like sleeping sickness and hepatitis and like
the chemical combinations of these on the hanky. Yeah, it's
pretty funny. That's what's contained within. Yeah, that's pretty awesome.
Um yeah, thank you for those. Duff Man sent it's
the Springfield Isotopes couzy. Yeah from deaf Man himself. Yeah, uh,
(34:55):
we appreciate that, sir. Uh. Silver Fox broad Band sent
a Silver Fox T shirts and at first I was all,
what did this broadband company sending his shirts? Then I
looked up they supply internet for senior homes, So I
was all of a sudden wark with pride. Everyone at
my gym thinks that I'm a Silver Foxes. They wear
(35:16):
that shirt a lot. It's always comfortable. Let's see. The
guys from rock tail Ours send us a T shirt
a podcast about rock music. Um, that's rock and then
tail t a l e our check them out. Bike
rappers dot com uh with w R A p B
are not rapping like music. They sent us some reflective
(35:37):
bike rappers and dog collars basically just these little bell
grow thinks such an easy invention, but but necessary, and
you wrap them on the frame of your bike to
make your bike more reflective. And they have a little
reflective dog collars too. It's pretty cool. Um. We've got
Christmas cards from a bunch of people. Thank you very much.
From this is how far behind we are. It's Christmas
(36:00):
July everybody, Nick and Lindsay Devon, b Becca Evans, Andrew
and Janelle Thomas. So thank you very much. Merry Christmas
all your people, and happy Halloween. M oh and I've
got one more. Send us a Halloween card. Oh, thanks,
Happy Halloween, am uh. And then again from Nick and Lindsay.
They sent us Valentine state cards. Yeah, they're They're pretty sweet.
(36:20):
They send us stuff. Are you done because I got
two more in this one ahead, let's go for it, dude.
David Beaver's family has been making a magnetic calendar for
fifty years, and not just one. They've been making the
magnetic calendars for fifty years. Uh. The Magnetic Calendar dot
com owned, operated, made and sourced in the Midwest. It's
(36:41):
a selling point family business. They've been doing this for
how long fifty years? Fifty years? Uh? And then Jill
Swing sent us a Twinkie the kid t shirts, so
thank you very much. Yeah, I believe it was how
made design to write. I don't know, I think it is,
was it? Yeah? Well, thank you everybody that was very
kind of you. Yeah, we have one more installment fell
here soon and then I have to do it because
(37:02):
these are all the ones that Chuck compiled. I think
it's most of them that you have a lot. I've
got a decent amount. All right, Well then there'll be
a part four, okay, and then we'll start all over
all right, all right? If you want to send us something,
even something is innocuous, is just a hello, You can
tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You
can join us on Facebook dot com, uh slash stuff
(37:23):
you should know, and you can send us an email
to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. VI is
it how stuff works dot com
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