SciShow Tangents - Cnidarians

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, and welcome to SciShow Tangents, the lightly competitive science knowledge showcase. I'm your host, Hank Green, and joining me this week, as always, is science expert, Sari Reilly. Hello. And our resident everyman, Sam Schultz. Hello. So now that we're done with the Awesome Socks Club sale for this period of time, I'm curious, did you guys sign up for the Awesome Socks Club? And if not, explain yourself. Well, um... You don't have to, Sam. Rachel is like covered in them. That's what I was going to say, yeah. I have multiple of each pair of awesome socks.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Yeah, me too. I have so many socks. For people who don't know, Sam's partner, Rachel, works at DFTBA and is one of the minds behind the Awesome Socks Club. So Rachel is often organizing the artists who are doing that art. Are you signed up for it? I am signed up for it. I don't know what they all look like before they arrive.

Starting point is 00:01:17 So it's a surprise for you sometimes? Sometimes, yeah. That's cool. And Sari, how about you? Oh, absolutely not. I don't wear socks very often. And especially now that we're in an all indoor lifestyle or like mostly still,

Starting point is 00:01:32 I still don't go into an office ever. My need for socks is very low. Do you wear socks with your shoes? Yeah, I wear socks with my shoes. So if I'm just like taking out the trash, shoes without socks. Sure. I put my shoes on without if I'm just like taking out the trash, shoes without socks. Sure.

Starting point is 00:01:45 I put my shoes on without socks only in desperate situations. Only if your life is in danger. Every time I do it, I'm like, I'm so unhappy. I'm so unhappy. I can't justify going all the way upstairs to get socks right now.

Starting point is 00:02:00 I just have to take the garbage out. But I do hate every second of it. You gotta get some Crocs. I guess Crocs need socks too, don't they uh i think less so i have slippers okay i have slip like like rubber bottom slippers that i sometimes use in those situations even that i want socks you want socks and slippers i'm a sock man what can i say well yeah that adds up you have a sock company it's true yeah if you hated socks and you had a sock company, you'd just be a big hypocrite. Yeah, it all comes out one day.

Starting point is 00:02:30 It's a big scandal. Yeah. Like a piece of tangents when we didn't think it was being recorded. And I'm like, I can't believe people wear socks. They're so gross. Yeah. And I sell it to TMZ for $100,000. Yes.

Starting point is 00:02:44 Science man Hank Green, too pure? Uh-huh. Or sock goblin? Well, every week here on SciShow Tangents, we get together to try to one-up amaze and delight each other with science facts while also trying to stay on topic. Our panelists are playing for Glory and for Hank Bucks, which I will be awarding

Starting point is 00:03:03 as we play, and at the end of the episode, one of them will be crowned the winner. Now, as always, we introduce this week's topic with the traditional science poem, This Week from Sari. Polyps on outcrops with calcium carbonate branches and grooved rains and every kind of shape. Reef colonies that house little barbarians This is just one of the many cnidarians A boxy clear body in cold ocean water 24 eyes to find prey it will slaughter Long lethal noodles that aren't vegetarian

Starting point is 00:03:40 This is just one of the many cnidarians Suctioned to sea rocks with mouth butt in center. Ready to sting stuff though clownfish may enter. Tentacles help it when sucking up carrion. This is just one of the many cnidarians. When the ocean seems so boring, Just a deep, dark place. I simply remember the cnidarians with their toxic and soft embrace. Wow.

Starting point is 00:04:15 Holy crap. This is the best podcast. Oh, my God. I wanted to bust out my guitar and accompany you it's very hard to do that acapella very well done two points one point for your poem which usually you get zero so that's like two points you get a poem point today which is bad news for sam yeah i give up already nidarians are the jellies or how are you pronouncing nidarian because i always heard okay so we're talking about jellies like jellyfish but also anemones and a few other things that are

Starting point is 00:04:58 related to them i think uh but i guess i should leave it to sari to tell me, Sari, what is a Cnidarian? I mean, Google said Cnidarian. So now I feel like I'm a big winner. You got to sing the whole song again. That was the one thing I was sure about and everything else I was like, ooh, but bummer. It's a mix. It's both ways. It's like Caribbean. Okay.

Starting point is 00:05:22 So jellies, anemones, corals, siphonophores, which are those colonial organisms, they are all under this category of cnidarians, cnidarians. And they're named for these special type of cells called cnidoblasts or cnidoblasts. I'm going to stop switching between them at some point. On their tentacles with stinging nematocysts. So they are like little basically harpoon-like structures loaded into their cells on their tentacles that with chemical stimulation or pressure stimulation, those will inject venom

Starting point is 00:06:02 into their prey so that they can stun them and eat them. Or if your skin is too thick, like human skin, if you touch anemone, then it'll just feel sticky. Like that's what's trying to sting you. As opposed to like successfully stinging you and paralyzing your hand. Right. So they all sting. They just can't all sting us.

Starting point is 00:06:22 But some of them can for sure. Yep. Yeah. Some of them can for sure. And by Yeah. Some of them can for sure. And by colonial organisms, do you mean like a coral? Well, not really. Yeah. So corals live in a colony, but each of the polyps is genetically distinct.

Starting point is 00:06:36 And a colonial organism like a Portuguese man o' war is where every like subset of the organism is a clone like genetically identical to each other so there are like food chunks and there are tentacle chunks and they're all genetically identical but they express differently and they're very weird and we don't quite understand so weird uh where did that word come from, Sari? Did you figure that out with that C that's just distracting everyone? Yep. Well, the C used to be a K or kappa in Greek. And it came from a word spelled K-N-I-D-E, which I think was pronounced kanidi, maybe, which means nettle, a root word that means to scratch or scrape.

Starting point is 00:07:24 And nidarian comes comes from greek gotcha but like when you get to the kn sound then it goes a word of uncertain origin so we were making this weird sound and it was probably really hard to trace linguistically in addition to pronounce because it's so weird and you probably have people throughout history also going, is it kni or is it kni or like whatever, like the way that we're going back and forth

Starting point is 00:07:53 on nidarian, nidarian. I'm sure they also did that with the K-Ns in history. Alright, and that means that it is time to move on to the quiz portion of our show. Today we're going to be playing a game of Triggered Fate. And we're going to be talking about a kind of Cnidarian, which is a tiny, tiny Cnidarian, just maybe a few millimeters in length.

Starting point is 00:08:15 But if you're in a shallow lagoon, you might see a starlit sea anemone, and you might see its tentacles just sort of sticking out of the mud while the rest of its body stays buried under the mud. And those tentacles, they can trap small mollusks and crustaceans as they pass over the anemone. So for today, I'm going to tell you three stories about starlet sea anemone tentacles. But only one of them is true. Which one is it? It could be fact number one. Is it?

Starting point is 00:08:41 It could be fact number one. The starlet sea anemone has special grooves in its tentacles that it can fill up with rocks and other debris as physical protection against predators. Or it might be number two. Starlet sea anemones are born with four tentacles, but if they are well fed, they can grow more. And then they grow more and more tentacles until they're practically little hairballs. More and more tentacles until they're practically little hairballs. Or it could be fact number three, where neighboring anemones will weave their tentacles together to create a web working together to trap more food. Oh. I love that.

Starting point is 00:09:14 We're holding hands. So which one could it be? Fact number one, solid as a rock. Fact number two, food-fueled arms. Or fact number three, the anemoweb. Do they have good enough thinking parts to make themselves armor? Oh, you don't have to have thinking parts. There are amoebas that create little rock-walled shells.

Starting point is 00:09:34 Oh, shoot. Okay. They don't have any thinking parts either. I still don't believe that they can do it. That they can grab some rocks? No. The one where they grow more tentacles as they get older, that feels like it could be true. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:09:51 Not older, more well-fed. More well-fed. Excuse me. Excuse me. Yeah. The rich get richer. Once you get food, you got more arms to grab more food and steal it from your brethren. And then the holding hands one is just very cute.

Starting point is 00:10:04 I don't know. I also don't know if they'd coordinate enough, but I could also see like tides. I don't know if they're kind of near the surface. Like you just kind of interlace and then they touch another one of them and they're like, ah, this is nice, but accidentally or something. Yeah, like they're flirting kind of like, oh, this is nice.

Starting point is 00:10:20 And then they won't let go. But then I don't know who would get the food. I guess that would be a completely different type of anemone. Oh, that's a good point. They then care about each other where it's like, okay, if it touches your tentacle, you get the food. If it touches mine, I'll get the food. And if it's in the middle, we'll just see where it rolls.

Starting point is 00:10:39 Two seems make-up-able to me in a way that makes me not believe it. Arms? Yes, the too many arms. One with the rocks, maybe similar, but I don't believe three either. I talk so much shit, but I might go with the one, the rock one. I feel like the wow, surprising reveal is going to be how they share food. So I'm going to go with the tentacle, not one. Well, Sam and Sari, I'm going to tell you that when a starlet sea anemone is born, it

Starting point is 00:11:08 has four buds that will eventually grow into tentacles. And as they grow up, the sea anemone might form new buds and they become tentacles as well. So scientists were trying to figure out what controlled this process. So researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory started to feed some sea anemones and not others. And they found that the more well-fed one that got up to two brine shrimp per day were able to grow those additional tentacles faster.

Starting point is 00:11:34 The results showed that sea anemones grow more tentacles when they are fed more food. This makes them the first animal we know of that can turn excess nutrition into more body parts, just like plants can do that uh that probably helps them adapt well to their environment because if you have more food available you want to have more tentacles but if you have less food you probably don't need all those extra tentacles to be maintaining all the time i'm sorry you both got no points i should have known that your

Starting point is 00:12:01 wealthy person analogy was the correct answer it It's just the way of things. It's just the way of things. It's just the way of the world, even in these squishy, blobby little guys. Yeah. The anemone web is just a good idea. We should tell them about it. We think that they should try that out, but they haven't yet. And as far as the rock goes, the starlet sea anemone

Starting point is 00:12:25 has tentacles like many cnidarians, and they're covered in those nematocysts. So you do not need to fight off predators in that way. You've got the stinging cells. But testate amoebas are a real thing. You should check them out. And also, on Journey to the Microcosmos, the YouTube channel, we just did an episode

Starting point is 00:12:41 on starlet sea anemones, so you can check that out. Well, that means it's time for us to take a short break and then we'll be back with the fact off. Welcome back, everybody. We have a score of one to zero because Sari got a point for that poem. And now it's time for the fact box where Sari and Sam have brought science facts

Starting point is 00:13:14 to present to me in an attempt to blow my mind. After you have presented your facts, I'm going to judge them and decide which one of those will be the best TikTok. And I will give the Hank points, Hank bucks to the one that I think will make the best TikTok. And I will give the Hank points, Hank bucks, to the one that I think will make the best TikTok. But to decide who goes first, I have a trivia question for you. It's going to require a little bit of background information, so get ready.

Starting point is 00:13:35 Some cnidarians, like certain jellyfish, live in the Mediterranean Sea, so they have to deal with currents, because there's a lot of currents there. And in 2019, researchers discovered that they swim faster when they are swimming against the current. When they swim with the current, they use it like a lazy river and they swim 35% slower. This is more noticeable in Ripplema nomatica, whose average speed is 6.7 centimeters per second,

Starting point is 00:13:57 than in the smaller-belled Rhizostoma pulmo. Compared to no current, how much faster does the Ropalema nomatica swim when it is going against the current? So when it's going with it, they're like, well, I'm just going to take a little break. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah, they're like, I'm doing my thing.

Starting point is 00:14:14 I'm going where I'm trying to go. I think it juices itself up. I would try about 150%. Wow. So like one and a half times as hard if I was not in a lazy river. I'd be like, eh, paddle and like try to make it a little bit faster.

Starting point is 00:14:37 I wouldn't do very, eh, okay. It feels low, but I'll go with it. I'm going to go with 35%. And Sam is our winner because the number is 25%. So even he was over. Okay. Price is right rules. You both lose and I get to tell the first fact.

Starting point is 00:14:52 Sam, who do you want to go first? I guess I'll try to go first. Okay. Even though I'm scared. This has a lot to do with the trivia thing we just talked about. When you think of a fish and swimmers, you might picture a lithe dolphin swooping through the water or the aerodynamic swordfish shooting through the briny deep.

Starting point is 00:15:09 And while these creatures are really fast, they are beat as far as efficiency goes by the humble jellyfish. Jellyfish, particularly moon jellies, but I think like jellyfish in general, are in fact thought to be the most efficient swimmer in all the sea. And according to a Scientific American article,

Starting point is 00:15:26 quote, their cost of transport, the oxygen they use to move, is 48% lower than any other swimming animal. So they're great at swimming. They're just not really all that fast because they're a little blobby guys. And of course, there's been a lot of research into why they're so efficient. And as of January 2021, we think we know a big part of their secret. So studying the swimming motion of moon jellies using a tank of water filled with small glass beads that were like illuminated with lasers and high speed video, researchers discovered that each time the jellyfish contracted their bells to expel water to move themselves,

Starting point is 00:15:59 they shot out a couple of rotating vortexes of water behind them and then the next time they expelled water they shot vortexes of water that rotated the opposite direction as the first set and these pairs of opposite spinning vortexes resisted each other and created what the researchers called a virtual wall of water so the researchers describe this as being pretty similar to the ground effect that airplanes experience when they get close to the ground and the air like squishes underneath them and it makes kind of like a blob of air that keeps them suspended so jellyfish have like a solid blob of water beneath them that then they can push off of over and over again and building walls behind them as they go like a person pushing off of the wall of a swimming pool or something except you could magically build another wall behind you. So using this method, jellies increase their speed by 41% and the distance traveled per

Starting point is 00:16:50 squeeze by 61% compared to when they aren't using this method, like when they take their first stroke, there's no wall to push again, so they can't do it. The researchers think this swimming method, which is very quiet in addition to being very efficient, would be useful for aquatic vehicles and robots of the future. So next time you see little jellies booping around, take a moment to appreciate that there is more going on with their swimming style than meets the eye, even if those brainless dopes have no idea that they're doing it. To make the opposite rotating vortexes, do they move their bells a different way each flap? I watched the slow motion video of them doing it so many times. It looked like they were doing the same thing over and over again, but you can see the beads going one way and then the other way.

Starting point is 00:17:34 It was very weird. Yeah. I once found a squirrel that was in need of help, and I, especially with tangents, and I called a person in the phone book. And I, who was this? What year was this? I think it was like 99.

Starting point is 00:17:51 And she was like a person who takes in animals, but largely squirrels. And I brought it over and she was like, I'll take care of it and raise it up. And then like, she was like, do you want to see my squirrels? And I was like, well, I just saw them. There's like a whole bunch here, like in your house where all the squirrel cages are. And she was like, no, the ones I've released. And we went outside and she was like, made a squirrel noise with her mouth and like squirrels just cascaded out of the tree. Squirrels that she fed every day. And then, and she started talking to me about each individual

Starting point is 00:18:22 squirrel. And I was like, you can tell the difference between the squirrels? She's like, of course I can. And I was like, they're tell the difference between the squirrels? She's like, of course I can. And I was like, they're squirrels. They all, and she's like, no, they all have different faces. And I was like, this is amazing. I feel like I've entered into some kind of like bizarre fantasy world. And they like ran down onto her, like on her arms and shirt. I was like, this is very wrong and cool.

Starting point is 00:18:45 And you definitely shouldn't be doing this, but also I love it. I want to be friends with squirrels. Squirrels seems like they'd be a good friend. Yeah. I want to be friends with corvids. They'll bring me shiny stuff. I'll trade them.

Starting point is 00:18:57 I feel like if you're friends with a raven, like you don't just have a, like a friend that will bring you a present. You have a friend that will hurt your enemies. Yeah. A real ride or will hurt your enemies. Yeah. A real ride or die kind of friend. Yeah. There's a Reddit thread about somebody

Starting point is 00:19:11 who made friends with the Ravens in his neighborhood and they attacked all his neighbors. So then he had to convince his neighbors to become friends with them too. Oh my God. And then they all became friends. And then one saved someone's life. Oh my God. Oh wow.

Starting point is 00:19:23 It freaked out because she got hit by a car or something. And then he was like, oh no, one of my friends. I mean, we were close to having crows instead of cats, I bet. Would that be a better world? I kind of think it would. If I could train a crow to poop in a box of sand,

Starting point is 00:19:43 that's better than a cat. That is the big problem with birds is that they poop wherever they want, and that is not sustainable. No, it's not good for inside of my house. Anyway, that was a great fact, Sam. I loved it. Sarah, what do you got? One of my very favorite animals is the boxer crab or pom-pom crab, which is not a cnidarian, but these little gremlins in the genus Lybia hold a sea anemone

Starting point is 00:20:05 in each claw as they scuttle around the seafloor. What? Wow. And if you're like me, have you never heard of these? No. I send so many pictures of these to my friends, so apparently we're not friends. I'll send you pictures.

Starting point is 00:20:21 So if you're like me, your first thought might be what? And then what an adorable mutualism. The anemones help the crabs catch food and stay safe from predators. And the crabs carry the anemones around because otherwise they'd be stuck to a rock somewhere. But that's wrong. These boxer crabs are rude dudes, a.k.a. kleptoparasites, who ruthlessly use the anemones who don't really have a choice in the matter so the pairings of sea anemone and boxer crab vary depending on the location but there's a group of scientists that have been studying libya leptochelous crabs in the red sea for over

Starting point is 00:20:56 a decade which are generally found holding anemones of the genus alicia and in a study published in october 2013 they collected a bunch of L. lepticellus crabs from the Red Sea and ran some experiments to watch them feed and see what happened when they took away their Alicia anemone pom-poms. Turns out, the anemones that were free from the crabs grew an average of 177% larger over just six weeks and kept growing even more after the experiments were over. They also got brighter in color. Their petal discs, which are their little foot, grew up to 250% wider, and they basically flourished without the dang crabs there.

Starting point is 00:21:35 And the crabs not only pull the anemones away from food, but they use their little walking legs to push food particles away. So kind of like constantly pruning a bonsai tree to keep it from growing, these crabs are depriving the anemones of food so they stay nice and claw-sized instead of growing huge and healthy. And that's only the beginning of the manipulation. In a January 2017 paper, the same researchers studied more crabs and anemones and found that the crabs really like having two equal-sized anemone boxing gloves, so much so that they will fight with other crabs and steal an anemone or a fragment of one if they don't have

Starting point is 00:22:10 any. And if they only have one, they will rip it in half by stretching it between their claws and tearing it with their walking legs to force asexual reproduction and produce two genetically identical anemone babies. And in fact, in over a hundred crab anemone combos that they collected for these experiments, every pair of sea anemones held by a crab was genetically identical. And so like all good scientists, they include caveats about how these crabs

Starting point is 00:22:37 having clone pom-poms doesn't necessarily mean all boxer crabs do. And not having evidence of free-living Alicia anemones in the Red Sea doesn't mean that there aren't any big wild ones out there. But it's pretty suspicious. Wait, wait, wait. And these boxer crabs. Were they identical?

Starting point is 00:22:54 Were they genetically identical to the other one the crab was holding or to all of the other ones? I think just genetically identical to the one in the hand. Yeah. So it's not like there's one anememone yeah they're just trading it yeah so genetically identical like the pair is yeah um and so these boxer crabs control at least the food intake growth and reproduction of their anemone pets which feels like an absolutely wild level of evil genius level manipulation from a little crab. I didn't quite catch what's in it for the crab. Yeah, I was wondering that same thing.

Starting point is 00:23:30 I think it's like they get defense from them. So they're stingy. They're stingy, yeah, and can sting to catch food. So they will use the anemones to sting and like bat the food away from them and eat them themselves. So these crabs, their claws are no longer like pinchy and dangerous. They are adapted and lumpy to hook perfectly into anemones. Oh my God. Could they not survive without anemone?

Starting point is 00:23:59 They could like scuttle around, but not for very long. Like they can't defend themselves. They can't really eat very good. And so like they have evolved to need these little guys. Wow. Poor little guys. I wish they were friends. I know.

Starting point is 00:24:12 It's so cute. I love that they rip them apart to force asexual reproduction. Yeah. Forced asexual reproduction is an interesting phrase for ripping an organism in half. Yeah. It's a phrase for ripping in half, but it lives. And so it's okay, maybe? This is another example of biology being like, whatever you learned was wrong, especially single-celled organisms. Reproduction and trauma can be one and the same thing.

Starting point is 00:24:38 A lot of single-celled organisms, you put them in a blender and chop them into 100 pieces, you get 100 cells. And that's reproduction. That that's the only way they do it is they either intentionally or unintentionally get broken into pieces. And if you can do it that way, what is the individual? Which one is the parent? Are we all just one organism that happened one time and like that organism has never died? It's just branched into a lot of, you know, sort of autonomous units that glop around and go to get ice cream. Like what the hell? Life is so weird.

Starting point is 00:25:09 Even me. I'm one of them too. That's right. Just the one guy. Oh no. But a bunch of them all working together to think about nightarians and like make dinner for Rachel. And think about Muppets.

Starting point is 00:25:24 Think about Muppets. If you want to listen to more sam schultz by the way check out commitment it's a podcast about muppets so i win right oh i'm sorry sam uh i think you could tell by my reaction that you didn't win this show um i'm sorry sam i'm gonna hire myself a research assistant, and then we'll see. Yeah. It's not that it wasn't interesting, Sam. It's mostly that if I'm going to make a TikTok about it, a bunch of crabs wearing colorful pom-poms is going to be- They're really cute.

Starting point is 00:25:55 Is the winner. Tuna has written into the show notes, fact off scores, Sari, pom-poms. Sam, still cool though. Thanks, Tuna. the show notes. Fact off scores. Sari, pom-poms! Sam, still cool though. Me too. And now it's time to ask the science couch where we ask a listener question

Starting point is 00:26:12 to our virtual couch of finely honed scientific minds. This is from at Bridget and at writer-biologist who both asked,

Starting point is 00:26:21 who told everyone that peeing on a sting would make it better? What's the science behind that? What a good question. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't do anything, but we all know about it. So it must have come from somewhere. I have a theory. I don't know if this is true. Is it that ammonia does help? And we think that there's ammonia in pee because if you let pee sit out for a long time there is but there isn't when you pee it out at first probably not now that i've said it

Starting point is 00:26:53 and there's the person who told everybody that named joey tribiani i had to be before joey is that the name of the guy from Friends? Yes. Yeah. I watched my first clip of Friends and researching this question. That's a great moment in Friends history. Yeah. Well, it did exist before him.

Starting point is 00:27:17 And ammonia is the thing. People thought there was something about ammonia in urine. And that sounds chemically. Maybe it's like it is on the more basic side of pH spectrum. And so it's like maybe something to do with that is what will help. But I couldn't find a discrete source. And every article that I was reading was like that 1997 episode, season four, episode one of Friends is what popularized it in pop culture. Like the idea of you must pee on a jellyfish sting.

Starting point is 00:27:49 But like, there's no way the writers in that writers room made it up. Someone heard it from somewhere and then was like, you know what would be funny? I feel like I'd heard it before then. Like I grew up in Florida where there was, like I stepped on a jellyfish when I was a man o' war actually. When I was, you know, like nine and got a bad sting. And I feel like we talked about it then yeah that would have been the 80s growing up in alabama i think my brother stepped on a jellyfish and maybe somebody peed on it i don't know i like it makes sense of the

Starting point is 00:28:16 thing that would spread around because it's just like funny um and like can you imagine like like you're in a panic situation and you have to pee on someone like it is a humorous. It makes a little bit of light of the situation. And it's it also just is a fun thing to imagine. I think it also is like feels like a life hack, like a like a survivalist tip. Like you've got it in you to to stop the pain. Just piss in like the same way of the, you can fold a chip bag a different way this whole time.

Starting point is 00:28:48 You were just missing out. Yeah, yeah. Just piss. Yeah. You can fold a chip bag a different way. Just piss. If only every life hack ended that way. It's like you've been opening a banana wrong the whole time.

Starting point is 00:29:02 Just piss. Just piss. Oh, wait, I had a thought. Yes. When you think about a situation where there has been a jellyfish sting and someone has to pee on it, imagine that situation and you are in that situation. Which person were you? Oh, I was the person who needed someone to pee on it. Sam, who were you?

Starting point is 00:29:23 I think I'm trying to pee on it myself. I was. You're both. I gotta pee on my own self. What if you got a jellyfish stinging on your back, dude? Oh, well, I'd have to figure out some math real fast about trajectories and stuff. You'd just need a cup, I guess.

Starting point is 00:29:40 Oh, yeah, that's a great point. I immediately imagine myself as the peer because I'm like I'm the hero here to save the day with my with my special secretion no I'm absolutely the damsel in distress please help

Starting point is 00:29:57 please help just piss just piss but anyway this doesn't do anything yes in fact it could make it worse Just piss. Just piss. But anyway, this doesn't do anything. Yes. In fact, it could make it worse. Ah, dang. So don't piss.

Starting point is 00:30:11 In fact, just don't piss. And that's because pouring fresh water, which urine is basically fresh water with some stuff sprinkled in it, will change the composition of whatever. I don't want to let that stand. Okay. Urine is basically Aquafina purified water

Starting point is 00:30:31 with a little stuff sprinkled in it. Yeah, it's like a Gatorade. Yeah. Don't drink piss. Yeah. Don't drink it. Don't put it on jellyfish stings. Okay.

Starting point is 00:30:39 Regardless, it is not good because it will change the composition of the area around the stinger. And like we've been talking about, it's not only pressure. So like once the stinger is attached to your skin, that means some of the nematocysts have deployed and it's like stuck in there. But not all of them have. So there could be more stinging that could happen. Yeah. And if you pour certain things on it, so like ethanol or isopropanol, a lot of different alcohols or fresh water, it might make it worse.

Starting point is 00:31:10 It might deploy more of those stingers. If you pour salt water, it's probably neutral because jellyfish are in salt water the whole time. But former SciShow editor and co-host of SciShow After Hours, Christy Wilcox, was like one of the lead researchers on all the papers to do with jellyfish piss and stings, which is very like in character for her. And so they showed in a 2016 paper that vinegar or acetic acid is the best simple treatment for a first aid standard for jellyfish stings. If you pour it on, then it will stop. It will prevent some things from deploying, even if you then pour isopropanol on top of it. The vinegar will have prevented the nematocysts from firing. And then you can use tweezers or something to rip it off.

Starting point is 00:31:54 But basically, whatever you can do to deactivate it and then gently pull it off your skin. So not a lot of scraping, not a lot of pouring weird stuff on it. Well, that is excellent. And I'm glad that we got that cleared up. For all of you listening out there, just make sure that you shout at your friends, just don't piss in any situation, really. And we need to spread that information far and wide.

Starting point is 00:32:18 If you want to ask your science couch question to the science couch, you can follow us on Twitter at SciShow Tangents, where we will tweet out topics for upcoming episodes every week. Or you can join the SciShow Tangents Patreon and ask us on our Discord. Thank you to Atum Carla, Jets Galore, and everybody else who asked us questions for this episode. If you like this show and you want to help us out, it's very easy to do that. First, you can go to our Patreon. It's at patreon.com slash SciShow Tangents, where you can become a patron and get access to things like our newsletter and our bonus episodes.

Starting point is 00:32:49 Somebody reminded me that we could have called our October bonus episode Spooky PPPedia. Well, you said that first, and then we forgot to title it that. Oh, was that my joke? Yeah. Oh, man. Your joke was Spoopy PPPedia. Yeah, Spoopy PPPedia. That's great.

Starting point is 00:33:05 Also coming soon, our cars. Two commentary because guess what? We hit our goal. Yeah, we got 500 patrons on the SciShow Tangents Patreon. Thank you all so much for signing up because now we get to do a commentary to learn how water works at the Cars universe. How they're drinking that stuff. How are they doing it? It's terrifying if you think about it too much.

Starting point is 00:33:26 It's a great place, our Patreon. You should really join. It's a lot of fun. And finally, if you want to show your love for SciShow Tangents, just tell people about us. Thank you for joining us. I have been Hank Green.

Starting point is 00:33:36 I've been Sari Reilly. And I've been Sam Schultz. SciShow Tangents is created by all of us and produced by Caitlin Hoffmeister and Sam Schultz, who edits a lot of these episodes, along with Hiroko Matsushima. Our social media organizer is Paola Garcia Prieto. Our editorial assistants are Deboki Trocarvarti, Emma Dowster, and Alex Billow.

Starting point is 00:33:52 Our sound design is by Joseph Tuna-Medish, and we couldn't make any of this without our patrons on Patreon. Thank you! And remember, the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted. But one more thing. Corals are cnidarians that have a complicated relationship with poop. Sometimes they love it. Sometimes they hate it. Me too.

Starting point is 00:34:29 A study published in March 2021 in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology found that pathogens in surgeon fish poop prevent corals from healing their wounds. But clam poop brings photosynthetic microorganisms to the corals, which they symbiotically use as their main source of energy. Man, I want a clam to shit on me. Yeah, imagine if you could just, clam poops on you, and then that's how you nourish for the day. Yeah, that's how I become photosynthetic. I need some zooxanthellae.

SciShow Tangents - Cnidarians

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