Something You Should Know - How To Better Maneuver Through Changes In Life & What You Need to Know About Slime

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, why you get hiccups and the best way to stop them. Then your life is going to change in ways you can't even begin to imagine. So how will you cope with that? Having an expectancy that life is going to change in ways you can't even begin to imagine. So how will you cope with that? Having an expectancy that life is not always easy, it's often hard, and that change is not the exception, it's the norm. When those things happen, immediately we'll be in a better position to deal with them

Starting point is 00:00:58 because our expectations will actually be in alignment with reality. Also, could wearing dark glasses actually alter your behavior? And slime? It probably grosses you out, yet you're full of it and slime is everywhere. You know a slime when you see it, when you feel it. The ocean is covered in like a skin of slime, which you can't see because it's too thin to see, but it's made mostly by microbes. All this today on Something You Should Know. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines.

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Starting point is 00:02:28 Well, several factors can trigger these short bouts of hiccups that many people experience. For example, a stomach full of too much food, alcohol, or air, or sudden changes in temperature, or excitement, stress, or other heightened emotions. What works best to cure them? Well, many of the remedies you've heard for hiccups may work by creating a stimulus that interrupts the signals that cause the hiccup reflex. So, for example, when you drink from the wrong side of the glass, you may be exciting nerves in the back of your mouth, nose, and throat that are not stimulated by normal drinking. Breathing in a paper bag works in a different way.

Starting point is 00:03:10 It increases the carbon dioxide, the CO2 level in your blood, which has been shown to reduce hiccups. In the Journal of Emergency Medicine many years ago, it was reported that the best way to cure hiccups is you exhale and then take a very deep breath and hold it for 10 seconds. Then, without exhaling, you breathe in again, pause, and then breathe in a third time. The theory is that stacking three inhalations in a row stops hiccups by increasing CO2 in the blood and immobilizing the diaphragm. And that is something you should know. by increasing CO2 in the blood and immobilizing the diaphragm. And that is something you should know.

Starting point is 00:03:52 You most likely have a plan. You know how things are going to go today, this week, next month, next year. And one thing is pretty certain. It won't all go as planned. Change is inevitable. The unexpected happens that alter your plan. Sometimes in small ways, sometimes in major ways. But things do change.

Starting point is 00:04:17 And people generally don't like change, or they say they don't like change. And given how inevitable it is, we likely could all use some help dealing with those changes that are inevitably coming. Here to help is Brad Stolberg. Brad is a researcher and writer who's been here before, talking about the passion paradox. And his latest book is called Master of Change, How to Excel When Everything is Changing, Including You. Hey, Brad, welcome to Something You Should Know. Mike, it's great to be back. Thanks for having me. So, Brad, explain why this is important. We all know change happens. We tend to resist it,

Starting point is 00:04:52 but it still happens, and we deal with it as best we can. So what's your perspective on this, and what does your research say about people and how they deal with change? People don't like change. We crave stability. We often end up getting ourselves into trouble because we resist change. We try to avoid it. We bury our heads in the sand. We sacrifice all agency. When in fact, the most skillful way to navigate change is really to view it as something that we are in an ongoing conversation with. Not something that happens to us, but something that is just the an ongoing conversation with. Not something that happens to us, but something that is just the ongoing nature of reality. Well, and given how inevitable change is,

Starting point is 00:05:31 it makes you wonder why we're so lousy at it, why we resist it, why we don't like it, because it seems like we should adapt to handle it better. Yeah, you know, this was the most interesting part of my recent reporting and research journey. It goes back to really the early 1600s, the beginning of empirical science, when the earliest individuals that fashioned themselves to be scientists, they observed this pattern that describes change as a cycle of order or stability, disorder, change, chaos, and then back to order. And it wasn't until the mid-1800s that a physiologist named Walter Cannon, he coined this process homeostasis. And since then, homeostasis has been the guiding narrative around change.

Starting point is 00:06:21 It is inherently bad, and we should try to eliminate it. And when it happens, we should try to get back to where we started as fast as possible. However, in just the last two decades, the research community has stepped back and said, you know, homeostasis, it's not the most accurate fit model for change. A better model is what researchers call allostasis, which describes change as a cycle of order, disorder, reorder. So yes, we crave stability, but that stability is somewhere new. And I think, Mike, the etymology of these words tells the whole story. So homeostasis comes from the root homo, which means same, and stasis, which means standing.

Starting point is 00:07:03 So it argues that the way to stay stable is by staying the same. Whereas allostasis comes from the root allo, which means change or variable, and stasis, which again means standing. So it's translated into stability through change. And I think it has this beautiful double meaning that yes, it's possible to say somewhat stable through change, but the way to stay somewhat stable through change. But the way to do it is through change, is by changing at least to some extent. Well, when you think about, you look back on your own life, things have changed probably pretty dramatically in the last several years. And you adapt to it.

Starting point is 00:07:41 It's not like you, I mean, you may resist it, but ultimately you adapt to change. People in your life die. People in your life move. You know, things happen. You lose your job. Somehow, you don't just fall apart and die. Well, you might fall apart, but you don't. You know, we are pretty adaptable to change, it seems, and yet we don't like to think we are and we don't seem to like it.

Starting point is 00:08:09 I think that people fall into this trap where they gravitate to one of two extremes in the face of change. And the first extreme is what I'm going to call over-controlling. So they try to control a situation that is inherently out of their control. They grasp, they problem solve, they try to fix everything. They end up getting in their own way. On the other extreme is a complete sacrifice of agency. Throw one's hands up, say, just completely go with the flow, whatever happens, happens. So on the one hand, you have people that think we need to be really rugged and control things. And on the other hand, you have people that say the key is to be flexible, just to let go. And I argue that actually it's not either

Starting point is 00:08:56 or, it's both and. In my research and reporting, when you look at individuals that thrive throughout change, organizations that are really gritty over time, even entire cultures, those that navigate change skillfully, they're equal parts rugged and flexible. It's this term, rugged flexibility. Not either or, but both and. How do you do that? How do you navigate that change?

Starting point is 00:09:22 The metaphor I love to use here is of a river. And I'm obviously not the first one to use it. The famous Greek philosopher Heraclitus said that you can't step into the same river twice, meaning the river's always changing and so are you. What people often forget is that there's no such thing as a river without its bank. It has to have some boundary that guides where it's going. Otherwise, it would just be random water, be a puddle, wouldn't be very inspirational. And I think we ourselves and the organizations that we work in are similar to that river.

Starting point is 00:09:57 We need to have some sort of rugged boundary. And I think of this as our core values, the principles that matter to us most, the things that we aspire towards when we're at our best, the qualities that guide our decision making. And our core values, that's our source of ruggedness. But how we apply those core values ought to be really, really flexible over time. So a profound example of this at the organizational level is the New York Times. Listeners to put aside their editorial opinions of the Times and let's just evaluate the New

Starting point is 00:10:31 York Times as a business. It has been wildly successful at a time when so many newspapers have contracted or gone out of business. The New York Times has expanded. About 20 years ago, the Times realized that the landscape they operate in was changing. Things were going more digital. They stepped back and they said, what are our values? They came up with things like craftspersonship, excellence in reporting, telling stories that

Starting point is 00:10:57 no one else would tell, so on and so forth. But it wasn't a core value of the Times to have a print newspaper delivered to someone's porch. So the New York Times, they took their values, they held on to them tight, but they applied them so flexibly. And they adapted. They started a podcast network, a newsletter, the webpage. And now when you talk to leaders at the New York Times about the core parts of their business, no one even mentions the print newspaper anymore. So I think it's a really good example of knowing your core values, what's really the essence of what you are and what you're trying to do, but then being so

Starting point is 00:11:30 flexible in how you apply them. Okay, but the New York Times, that's a big organization, and they probably had the luxury of, you know, sitting down and having a meeting and looking out six months and all that. But in real life, in my life, and I think in most people's lives, change is very sudden, you didn't see it coming, and it's panic time. You lost your job, your house burned down, someone died, and now you're panicking about what you're going to do next. And it's not so much, well, let's figure out our core values. That's different.

Starting point is 00:12:09 I think it depends on the change. So you're right. If you lose a job and you unexpectedly get laid off, or if you lose a loved one, or if you have a terrible health prognosis, trying to engage in any kind of intellectualizing and positive thinking almost always backfires. It's okay when things suck to just let them suck. So in this top quadrant, what I'm going to call really big, bad, negative changes, the most important thing you can do is just keep showing up and get through. Lean on other people for support.

Starting point is 00:12:41 Try to simplify your life as much as possible. I mean, just get through. It's like the worst thing to tell someone that just suffered a loss and is grieving is, well, come up with three things you're grateful for. Reflect on your core values. It's like, that's BS. Your job is just to show up and get through. However, for 97% of the changes that happen in our lives, I actually think that we do have more room to exert our agency. I mean, how many people freak out when there's unexpected traffic on the way to work or their dog has diarrhea and they're late for a meeting? As you mentioned, we tend to react instead of being more deliberate in discerning and responding. Stepping back, trying not to be

Starting point is 00:13:23 so reactionary, trying to ask yourself, like, what are my values? What do I stand for? How can I flexibly apply them? It does go a long way. It helps us reclaim our agency. My guest is Brad Stolberg. He's a researcher and writer and author of a book called Master of Change, How to Excel When Everything is Changing, Including You. At Wealthsimple, we're built for whatever you're building. Built for Jane, who wants to break into the housing market. We're built for Ted, who's obsessed with what's happening in the global markets. And built for Celine, who just wants to retire and explore the world's flea markets.

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Starting point is 00:14:22 and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. So Brad, if I'm late for a meeting, I mean, that's the perfect example of just, you know, panic reaction. I'm going to react. I'm going to freak out. I'm late for the meeting.

Starting point is 00:14:51 I've got to clean up the dog poop. I'm not going to sit back and think about my core values and all that. I'm just going to clean it up and go. You mentioned the word panic, And I like to think of reacting follows two Ps. You panic and then you pummel ahead. Whereas responding, which is much more thoughtful and discerning, follows four Ps. So you pause, you process, you plan, and only then do you proceed. So this can happen in a really condensed manner. So first is the pause.

Starting point is 00:15:27 You know, you catch yourself, you're about to swear, you feel your blood boil, and you just, you realize that, you pause, you take a couple deep breaths. Then you process what happened. Psychologists find that what they call affect labeling, which is simply just labeling what you're feeling. So saying, I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling flustered, I'm feeling overwhelmed. That helps you get out of a reactionary mode. Because once you label something, you separate yourself from it, right? You're creating some space between you and your reaction. So that's pausing, you process what's happened. Then you quickly make a plan. You say, all right,

Starting point is 00:15:59 this is what's happening right now. My dog just had diarrhea all over. The meeting was supposed to start in 20 minutes. Here's what I can do. I can freak out or, as you said, I can pick the you-know-what off the ground. I can make the necessary adjustments. I can call or text message the people I have to, and only then do you proceed. So it just helps us get out of our own way by avoiding these freak outs in these periods of real stress throughout our day when we'd be so much better just shifting from that reactionary mode to something a little bit more responsive instead. So again, because I said a lot right there, two Ps, react, you panic and you pummel ahead. Generally, you end up regretting that. Very few people look back on that and are proud of what

Starting point is 00:16:43 they did. Four Ps, you respond. You pause, you take a breath or two, you gather yourself, you process. Naming your emotions and what you're feeling can really help. You quickly make a plan. Like this is what's happening right now. These are the resources I have available to me. And only then do you proceed. I do this all the time in parenting. Parent parenting is like one continuous river of things that you didn't plan for and changes. And it's so easy, even if you're the best intention, kindest person to lose your patience and snap. And to me, snapping, it's just being reactionary. So there's all sorts of opportunities to practice this responding, not reacting in daily life,

Starting point is 00:17:20 whether you're a parent or not. Something that I know happens to me at times, especially if I'm under stress anyway, because it doesn't happen all the time. But when something like the dog poops in the living room, there's that feeling of can't anything go right now? It colors your whole worldview of everything's screwed up, everything's a mess, which is just like a downward spiral to hell. And yet it's hard to not do it when you walk in the living room and there's stuff on the floor. I think the key is that recognizing that it's completely okay to have those thoughts and

Starting point is 00:17:58 feelings and to not judge yourself for them. Sometimes things do suck. And, you know, one way to view life is that it is like a series of highs and lows and the lows, we'd rather not experience them if we didn't have to, but here they are. So I wouldn't counsel you to do anything else other than acknowledge it and be like, yeah, I'm feeling like, you know, again, it's the naming the emotion. I'm feeling like things never go my way. I'm feeling like things never go my way. I'm feeling like life is just one parade of dog poop on the floor. And yet, I'm going to pick up this poop and get on with my day and acknowledge that life is hard and take those feelings along for the ride. I think such a occupational hazard for anyone that has to spend time on the internet is this torrent of like rose-tinted social media posts that everything's happy and look how great everything is and so on and so

Starting point is 00:18:52 forth. And it completely obscures the reality that life is full of challenges. And I think the work of a mature adult is having those thoughts and feelings, facing those challenges, picking up the poop. It's a great metaphor. And then getting on with your day. Well, as you said, life is hard. And there is this sense when you go on social media that everybody else's life is great, but yours. And I sometimes find too that, you know, you talk to somebody whose life seems to be going great. And if you talk to them long enough, you'll find that probably fairly recently, they've had to deal with something pretty difficult and hard and upsetting. And you forget about that. You tend to think that these problems only happen to you.

Starting point is 00:19:37 That's right. And I think that a lot of what we can get out of all of these unanticipated challenges and changes and struggles is more compassion. You know, compassion means to suffer together. And maybe it's not as extreme as suffering, but I think it softens us up and makes us a little bit kinder if we can remember that, you know, we're all going through something in some way or another. It doesn't mean that you have to be friends with everyone. It doesn't mean you have to like everyone, but to try to use that to connect with other people. In the spirit of something you should know on social media, it's not my metaphor. I've heard it multiple times. I don't know who said it first, but social media, it's kind of like a swan. You look at a swan and they're this beautiful creature, but underwater, a swan. So you look at a swan and they're this beautiful creature, right? But underwater,

Starting point is 00:20:26 a swan is paddling so frantically just to stay above water. And I feel like that's social media in a nutshell. You know, we only see the beautiful swan on top, but oftentimes the people that look most beautiful on top are so frantic underneath. Yeah. Got to keep that in mind. Another thing too is, you know, and I've always, when I heard this the first time many, many years ago, it's always stuck with me that as much as you know, things are going to change, you don't know what's going to change. And that's the, like one of the reasons why you have a little savings account, because you don't know what's going to go wrong. Maybe it's your brakes. Maybe it's your chimney.

Starting point is 00:21:09 But something's going to go wrong because things go wrong. And you kind of have to believe that and prepare for that because things do go wrong. You just can't figure out now what it's going to be next. That's right. And I think that you're getting at something really important here, which is the importance of having accurate expectations. Psychologists use this equation that our mood or our happiness at any given point in time is a function of our reality minus our expectations. So if our expectations are

Starting point is 00:21:46 better than our reality, we feel like crap. And just expecting exactly what you just said, having an expectancy that life is not always easy, it's often hard, and that change is not the exception, it's the norm, when those things happen, immediately we'll be in a better position to deal with them because our expectations will actually be in alignment with reality. Whereas if we go through life expecting everything to be easy and everything to seamlessly go our way and we're quote unquote thrown off, I mean, it's literally in the way we talk about these things.

Starting point is 00:22:19 The reason we are thrown off by change is because we never expect it. Whereas if we can step back and say exactly what we both said in the opening, that change is the norm, it's not the exception, then when it occurs, our expectations and our reality aren't that far apart from each other. And that puts us in a better mindset and mental space to be able to deal with it. So many though, so many changes. I know that as I think back, I, I should have seen them coming. And I didn't. And I think everybody has that regret. Like, I knew if I in retrospect, there were signs, I saw this, and I ignored it. Yeah, but I think that that is, um, you, you know, I'm only laughing because like you said,

Starting point is 00:23:08 everyone feels that way. And in hindsight, really is 2020. You know, there's a reason for that cliche because there's some truth in it. And I think it's easy to play Monday morning quarterback on things like that. It's hard when you're in the moment. I do think, however, there are times when you deep down inside know that something's coming, but you just don't want to acknowledge it because it's big and scary. It's a threat to your stability. And I think there it's important to remember that generally speaking, you are trading short-term discomfort for long-term pain.

Starting point is 00:23:41 So the short-term discomfort of just acknowledging it is often much less than the long-term pain if you bury your head in the sand or you keep pushing it away. And then when it happens, you're completely thrown off by it. Well, and I'd like you to talk about this idea that we worry so much about when things change, what's this going to do? How is this going to affect me? And yet, experience tells, I think, most people that things usually work out one way or the other. I mean, they may not be better, but they may not be worse. Somehow you adapt that as panicked as you get about, oh no, what am I going to do? When it's all over, things usually seem to have some sort of okay ending. Fascinating research shows that when we're in the midst of a big change, time slows down. Our perception of time literally slows down. So it seems like it's going to be like this forever. It's going to be terrible forever.

Starting point is 00:24:43 However, when we get to the other side of those big changes and we look back on them, it doesn't feel like it was that long of a period of time that we were in the thick of it. One of the best pieces of advice for anyone going through a really hard time where it feels like it's forever is just to remember your brain is playing tricks on you. It will not feel like forever once you get to the other side. Just keep showing up and get to the other side. Well, it certainly seems that when big, upsetting, disruptive change happens, it seems like a big deal and it's a bigger deal in the moment than it is for the rest of your life. Somehow we adapt to it. Always. And first off,

Starting point is 00:25:23 you're a pro's pro at doing this because you've guided this conversation so, so well. It's allowing me now to summarize real quick for a minute, because I think this is like the notion of what we should know here, right? For most changes that occur throughout our day-to-day lives, all the tools that we've talked about, responding, not reacting, knowing your core values, that stuff is all really helpful and it will help you feel better and do better in real time, day to day. However, for bigger changes, especially bigger negative changes, we kind of have to set that stuff aside and we have to say our job is just to show up and get through. And then once we do that,

Starting point is 00:26:01 if we just know that, yes, it feels like it's forever, but when we're on the other side of it, it won't, then we do tend to find meaning and growth from those experiences. So it's not this or that. It's this and that. It's like use all the tools until the tools are no longer helpful and then just focus on getting through. Well, all this is good to know because one thing is for certain for everybody, things are going to change and we're going to have to deal with it. Brad Stolberg has been my guest he is a researcher and writer and the name of his book is master of change how to excel when everything is changing including you there's a link to that book in the show notes thanks brad thanks for coming on all right appreciate you mike take care metro links and cross links are reminding everyone to be careful as eglinton

Starting point is 00:26:46 crosstown lrt train testing is in progress please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks remember to follow all traffic signals be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so be Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI,

Starting point is 00:27:41 discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. When I tell you we're going to talk about slime, you probably think, why?

Starting point is 00:28:19 That's such a gross topic. Slime is disgusting. Monsters in movies ooze slime. The feel of something slimy is just so creepy and gross. And yet, we wouldn't exist without slime. Not the kind you buy in the toy store. The kind that occurs in nature. Slime is rather amazing and essential to life on earth and maybe elsewhere. So what is slime? Where does it come from? What makes it so slimy? And why should we even be discussing this? Well, you're about to find out from Suzanne Wedlitch.

Starting point is 00:28:55 Suzanne has worked as a writer in Boston and Singapore, is currently a freelance journalist in Munich, and is author of a new book called Slime, A Natural History. Hi, Suzanne. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me on. So in a nutshell, because I'm sure you could take hours explaining this, what is slime and what makes slime slimy? What is slime? That's the best question. And it's really hard to answer just in one step.

Starting point is 00:29:47 There will be some squishiness and sliminess in between, but that's just increasing disorder. So that's a bit boring as well. I'm only talking about biological slimes. That means slimes that are being produced and used by any kind of organisms. I mean, we're all slimmers, to be honest. Microbes, plants, animals, humans, we all need slime. We all use it. And these biological slimes are really, really complex. So you say that all slime are in a category called hydrogel. So explain, what is a hydrogel? That means they're at least 95% water. And that water is being bound by molecules. In the case of human mucus, huge, huge molecules that binds the water. And the water wants to flow, but can't. It's held on a molecular leash in a sense. And that gives

Starting point is 00:30:41 that sliminess. But I interviewed a biologist who works on microbial slimes, and he said that slime isn't a substance. It's more like a property that materials can have. Slime is just stiff water. Yeah, that sounds right. Stiff water. Slime is like stiff water. And you used the word a minute ago, mucus.

Starting point is 00:31:03 What's the difference between slime and mucus, or are they the same thing? Mucus is one word I'd say for slime. In the beginning, I thought mucus only meant human slimes that we have in the gut, for example. But then researchers also talk about snail mucus. So like I said, there's no one definition for slime and all those different words are used interchangeably in a sense, but then you have some words for slime that are very specific. For example, if microbes produce a slime, it's called a biofilm. If plants produce it, it's mucilage and very often in humans it's called mucus.

Starting point is 00:31:49 But like I said, on a basic level, they're really rather similar. Well, you know what's interesting to me is that, as you point out, slime is essential. I mean, and we're full of slime in us and other creatures and other plants. Slime's everywhere, And yet we hate slime. We don't want to talk about it. We don't want to look at it. We don't want to, we really don't want to touch it. But why, why is, why has it become synonymous practically with disgusting?

Starting point is 00:32:17 Somehow, at least in industrialized nations, we've outsourced our slimes. Thanks to sanitation, fridges hospitals in everyday life slime doesn't really occur very often and i think that's why our disgust when it comes to slime is just going overboard don't you think though that it may be movies to maybe movies, TV, there's something that's just very, like as soon as you see slime coming out of the monster's mouth, I mean, it makes the monster much more disgusting, that there's something that just, it gets triggered in people of that that's really gross.

Starting point is 00:33:01 But what I'm trying to understand is why? Why saliva isn't, I mean, it's not pretty, but it's not as gross as slime, and yet it looks kind of the same. And what is it that triggers people? You know a slime when you see it, when you feel it. Sometimes even when you just hear it, you know that slow dripping sound, and it's just really gross. And to be honest, being disgusted is a luxury because for the longest time, people, and of course there are still societies where people don't have fridges or clean water. They can't afford to be disgusted by blood, by animal excretions, by slime. But here in the West, we can do that. And there's just nothing to keep that in check.

Starting point is 00:33:53 In reality, where do we meet slime? Maybe if you have kids, then you have to deal with snotty noses. But where else? You know where else? In the movies. You see a lot of slime in movies, monster movies, alien movies. Aliens seem to have a real issue with slime. We're grossed out by aliens. We're grossed out by slime. We're grossed out by slime because we can't grip it in any sense. You don't know, is it just oozing or is it alive already?

Starting point is 00:34:24 So if slime is stiff water, what is it that's making the water stiff? If you look at slime under a microscope, and a lot of it, as you say, is water, but what else is in there that's doing that and giving slime that characteristic slimy feel to it? Like I said, up to 99% water. And then that three-dimensional structure of molecules, it's like a network, a three-dimensional network that binds the water in a way that it can't move like it usually would. But what's also interesting about that is that that structure can change. This is, for example, how snails move. If you've ever seen the underside of a crawling snail, if you put it on a piece of glass and watch the underside, you will see that there's a pattern of dark stripes that move along the sole of the snail. But these are really muscle contractions that bulge out and push the slime trail.

Starting point is 00:35:29 And wherever there's a bulge, that inner structure, that network, that molecular network will break apart. And the slime will become more liquid than it was before. That means on that particular spot, the snail can slide. But once the bulge has passed, the slime will harden again. Then the snail will push off on that now hardened slime. This is really what brought me to the idea of researching it and ultimately writing the book.

Starting point is 00:35:59 It was an article on snail trails. First of all, how complex that mode of locomotion is. And the other thing is, of course, that this is not only a way to glide, the slime isn't only a lubricant, but it's also a message board. It means that snails communicate via their slime trails. Males, for example, can read from a foreign slime trail, okay, who went there? Which species? Is it a female? Which direction did she go? And is she pretty? No parasites. And then he will follow her. Wow. You can tell all of that from a slime trail if you're a snail?

Starting point is 00:36:42 Apparently. And that was so surprising for me because if you find a snail trail in your garden in the morning, it's usually already drying up. It doesn't look like anything. There's no structure. It looks like garbage. And yet if another snail comes along, they will find each other. And there are also carnivorous snails that hunt that way because they can read from slime trails, is it a potential mating partner or is it a prey snail? And it's really only the slime because in one study, researchers coded a potential mating partner from the same species with a prey snail slime and then the one who followed tried to eat a snail from its own species and the other

Starting point is 00:37:31 way around it so it tried to to mate with with the prey snail only because it had that kind of slime on so it's really only the slime so when you come across a a pond of water that's that's still very frequently you'll see like slime on top what is that slime doing there how did it get there what is its function on a pond of water that isn't doing anything to be honest I haven't read much about pond slime I know it's a thing, but I know that lots of microbes, aquatic microbes live on the surface

Starting point is 00:38:10 of bodies of water. The ocean, for example. And they very often produce slimes for protection. Biofilms. And on the ocean, for example, the ocean is covered in like a skin of slime,

Starting point is 00:38:25 which you can't see because it's too thin to see. But it's one example where we can deduce that slime is important for climate, for example, because every single exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean has to happen through that slimy layer so all those you said that the the ocean is covered in slime yeah probably not a hundred percent but large parts uh are covered in slime that's called the sea surface micro layer and it's really thin so you can't see it but it's it's made mostly by microbes that live there they're adapted to the really really harsh environment um and they produce slime just

Starting point is 00:39:11 just for protection and as they do microbes just produce slime all the time in the in the environment everywhere in the desert even and especially in the sea um And that means now that the water gets warmer due to climate change, it's highly likely that those microbes produce more slime, because usually they're happier when it's warmer. That means that layer could become thicker. And the ocean, of course, is like two thirds of the whole surface of the planet. Every single exchange, be it CO2 that passes from the atmosphere into the water or oxygen going out or any exchange, then has to pass through a layer that's different. And no one knows so far.

Starting point is 00:39:59 Will that slow those exchanges down? Or they might even become faster. No one has any idea. But this is just, yeah, two-thirds of the planet we're talking about. Is it possible for any creature to be made of slime? I mean, you think of like the movie The Blob, you know, I mean, that's just a big blob of goo of slime moving around terrorizing people and making life difficult but are there creatures that are like made that's a big part of them that they are part slime um let's say creatures that are slimy and i'd count as humans among them because then the mucus that we have on our inner

Starting point is 00:40:46 surfaces is not the only slime or the only hydrot shell we have. Another hydrot shell, in a sense, slime-like material that we have is what we call the connective tissue. That's the most boring name ever because that stuff keeps us together, literally. I often get asked what would happen if we didn't have slime and then everyone will assume that we'd be overrun by pathogens, which is true and not true because there wouldn't be time for that. We just fall apart. The connective tissue, that's our tissue glue. It gives us three dimensions. It keeps our single cells together. And then even if you look inside our single cells, there's so much stuff in there that the water

Starting point is 00:41:33 or the liquid that's also there is just really sluggish. It's not exactly like a slime, but it's rather similar. And I've heard researchers say that they, in that in a sense they treat tissues and whole organisms, at least the soft parts, in a sense like a slime. But then again, you ask for creatures. It's just one cell that's oozing along, but it has some sort of membrane on the outside. The slime mold, for example, it's just one cell with thousands of nuclei inside. So in nature, when slime is created on a pond or somewhere, what is the catalyst? How does it just happen? Do creatures create it or are creatures attracted to it once it's created?

Starting point is 00:42:35 Creatures create it constantly. just not often apparent because all life on land, like us humans, had to hide the slimes inside. They're so highly hydrated that we would lose too much water if we had slime on the outside. I mean, the eyes are the only surface where we show our slimy surfaces, the only tiny example. And even there, there's another layer on top of the slime. It's more like a wax or lipid just to prevent the loss of too much water. But all those creatures that are in ponds and rivers in the sea. There's no problem to produce slime to have it on the outside. There are marine creatures that create amazing complex nets of slime that just produce them, let them waft away and wait for food particles to get caught because that slime is always sticky. There are snail-like creatures on the bed of the sea that are stuck in

Starting point is 00:43:49 their shells and they have fishing ropes made of slime and they will just catch whatever's floating by. And also the females, because they will never meet a male, will just catch the sperm packages that the males have released into the water. So, so much of aquatic life is based on slime to move, to mate, to catch food, to eat, everything and anything. So, you said that the moisture in our eyes is slime? The tears are probably more water, I think. We don't have a skin on the surface of our eyes, just a thin mucus layer that's really there for protection, but it's thin because otherwise we couldn't look through.

Starting point is 00:44:34 But even there, the eyes aren't that big, but even there we would lose too much water if it was unprotected, and that's why we have that fatty, fatty layer on top. What else about this? Because I didn't even know this was really a topic worth discussing, but clearly it's fascinating. What else about slime do I probably not know that I would find interesting? Guess what? guess what astrobiologists, people who try to find alien life on other planets,

Starting point is 00:45:09 what they're looking for? Slime, of course. I talked to another scientist who told me that it's just a question of probability. What would alien life look like? And if anyone had studied someone, an alien had come to planet Earth and look at the life that's here, then for billions of years,

Starting point is 00:45:32 they would have only found microbes with lots of slime. And the time that we have now with what we call higher organisms, it's really short. So they think it's highly likely. Of course, they're looking for planets with water. And if water's there, there will be slime there. So that's why lots of these scientists study the most amazing slimes that microbes produce,

Starting point is 00:45:55 like in caves deep inside the earth where it's dark or maybe even dangerous for people to go. And some of these caves, look like someone said like an alien gut so it's it's a huge cave but it's covered in slime it's dripping down like stalactites but they call it snot heights because it's just slime so they want to learn from these terrestrial microbes and slimes how um alien life might look like. You know, it's funny. I was thinking as you were speaking that, you know, we all know what slime is. Slime is a noun, but we also use it to describe people. You know, he's so slimy that our feelings about slime are so intense that we've used it to describe certain people and not in a good way.

Starting point is 00:46:44 I've been speaking with Suzanne Wedlitch. She is author of a book called Slime, A Natural History, and there's a link to it at Amazon in the show notes. I appreciate you coming on. Thank you, Suzanne. I'm really grateful. Thanks so much for having me on. Wearing dark glasses can make someone look mysterious, or maybe a little shady, and with good reason. It turns out that a lot of us actually change our behavior

Starting point is 00:47:12 when we wear sunglasses or when we're in a darker environment. Participants in a study were asked to divvy up money between themselves and a stranger. Those who wore dark glasses took more money for themselves. In another experiment, people were asked to complete some math problems and then score themselves. Those who did so in a dimly lit room gave themselves a curve and higher grades than they actually deserved.

Starting point is 00:47:42 And that is something you should know. You know, we're always looking for new listeners, and I'll bet you know someone who doesn't listen to this podcast now who would enjoy it and would likely become a regular listener if only you would tell them about it. So please, tell someone you know about this podcast. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening to Something You Should Know. Hey, hey, are you ready for some real talk and some fantastic laughs?

Starting point is 00:48:08 Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa DeMonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? We're serving up four hilarious shows every week designed to entertain and engage and, you know, possibly enrage you. In Don't Blame Me, we dive deep into listeners' questions, offering advice that's funny, relatable, and real. Whether you're dealing with relationship drama or you just need a friend's perspective, we've got you. Then switch gears with But Am I Wrong?, which is for listeners who didn't take our advice and want to know if they are the villains in the situation.

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Starting point is 00:48:59 So if you're looking for a podcast that feels like a chat with your besties, listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run. 15 seasons, 327 episodes.

Starting point is 00:49:27 And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll, of course, have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes.

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Something You Should Know - How To Better Maneuver Through Changes In Life & What You Need to Know About Slime

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