Stuff You Should Know - Bioluminescence: A Bright and Shiny Fish

Episode Date: September 6, 2012

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. The residue-free, fast drying solution is specially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like Stone, Tile, Laminate, Vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call,

like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and 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.

Actually, no one has to listen to this. No, it's me and David. Oh, okay. It's part of both Obama's and Romney's platforms. Yeah, it's a part of Obamacare. You've got to listen to Stuff You Should Know and you've got to get an RFD chip in your hand. And you have to give poor people all your money. None of that is true, except that you have to listen to the podcast. And the poor people part. Chuck, how's it going? It's great. Are you feeling sick? Do you need any kind of care, Obama or otherwise? No, are you feeling sick? I'm fine. No. I'm tense like my shoulder muscles are going to pop right out of my skin. I went to that foot massage

place on Buford Highway the other day. You ever been there? Treat your feet. Is that what it's called? Yeah. That's a great name. They'll do an hour on your feet for 25 bucks, if that's what you desire. Oh, yeah? No, about a little 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. Gotcha. Each toe has gotten their own massage at this point. Right. Like they're just jelly. Crack your toes. Yeah. So they think, yeah, you know, I'll pay another 20 bucks for the body. Right. And they give you tea. 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 15 recliners. Yeah. Everyone's just sitting around. Well, we've gotten back rubs at the mall before. Yeah, that's true. You remember? I don't know how I got on this. Treat your feet, Buford Highway. Go eat some pho and then go get your foot massage. Where's good pho around here? We're trying to figure that out. Buford Highway. Yeah, where? Are we going to do this now? Yeah. Okay. I like pho number two, which is past Claremont. It's in a little shopping center. Okay. Just look it up. Okay. I mean, it's all good. All good pho. Yeah, I don't know how we got on there, but some places on Buford Highway, you'll use some money. Seriously. At least some free pho. All right.

This has nothing to do with bioluminescence. No, it doesn't. Although sometimes if you stir your pho around, Chuck, you're going to see some fungus possibly rise to the top. Yeah, or maybe a shrimp a couple of times. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's a good one too. Yeah. And were those things still alive and not cooked, they possibly might glow. And were they to glow, you would say, look at those things. They're bioluminescing. That's right. Because that's what they do. Yeah. It is a life form that generates their own glow inside their body. Their own light. Yeah. Pretty awesome. Yeah. And I read a different study that was like, what's the deal with this? Because this is still very much a mystery. We have an idea of how this goes down, but not in every case. Yeah.

We also don't understand why in a lot of cases. Yeah. And in some cases, we don't understand how. Yeah. 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 that they forget what they're doing and waste tons of time. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, I got to publish a Paris. 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. Right. And Tracy's articles are always awesome. Yeah. Oh man, they're comprehensive. You know, I never have to worry about it. Sadly, sometimes scientists can either harm the light making magic when they

try to study them. Right. This makes it hard to study or the animal will exhaust its light making glow capabilities out of like fear or defense or spite or spite, which will also make it hard to study. Right. So those are a couple of reasons and the whole just why. Right. Yeah. So we do have a pretty good handle to some extent. But let's talk about what luminescence itself is, right? With this light bulb right here in this Ikea brand lamp. Yes. It's incandescent. It's an incandescent light bulb. I think this is an Edison bulb, too. Is it? Oh, is it like the real old timey looking one? That's sort of. So that is pretty simple. It has electricity that passes through a filament. It's a thin metal piece of something metal and that heats up and it heats

up so much that it gives off light. Yeah, which is incredibly inefficient. And if say a jellyfish were to do this, it would catch fire even though it's underwater. Right. So what living organisms do when they want to give off light is something called cold light or bioluminescence, which is 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. They do not like that. Or it's like the glow sticks that I used to sell very often at Stone Mountain Laser Show. It's like the glow stick that I used to dance with at Raves. You were at Raves and I was selling these things during, like, Lee Greenwood's

Lee Greenwood. Lee Greenwood, yeah. Proud to be an American. Sure. Yeah. Boy, I heard that song 5,000 times. I'll bet. Anyone who's never been to Stone Mountain Georgia, they have a big rock there and they have a laser show on it during the summer. It's a big rock that has basically the Confederate heroes carved into the side of it by the guy who did Mount Rushmore. How's that the same guy? Uh-huh. Yeah. And they show a very corny laser show every summer since like the early 1980s. And that's just once a summer, like every night during the summer. Yeah. That's why I've heard it 10,000 times. It's something. And Chuck used to work there. I think he left that out selling glow sticks. I sold the glow sticks. Full circle. Yes. All right. Let's quit stalling. Let's talk

about bioluminescence, okay? That's all over the place. Yeah. 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 a glow stick would. Right. And to turn their little glow on and off. Right. Here on the planet, not in the ocean because that's where most of the stuff takes place. Right. Here on planet Earth, on the dry land, you can have things glowing like Foxfire, which is this fungus that feeds on rotting wood. If you look at pictures of Foxfire, pretty cool. Yeah. It's eerie. It doesn't look real, but it's real. It's very real. The jack-o'-lantern mushroom, you can Google that as well. I love that. That's my favorite bioluminescent organism. Why? Just because it's

the single thing. On land, on terra firma. Because it's a perfectly named thing, the jack-o'-lantern mushroom. It has that glow coming through the gills and just 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 call them lightning bugs, but definitely in the south. Yeah. You'll see them come out every summer. And if you're a little kid, you can go around and catch them and put them in a jar. And then release them. And then release them. And in fact, you may be harming them just by catching them. But what you don't want to do if you're a kid is like, smash these

things. Right. Because that's just, you know, that means you're going to end up being a serial killer one day. Probably. So the firefly is, you know, you generally think of them as the adults flying around, but their little larva can glow as well on the ground. Right. And a lot of people call firefly lava glow worms, but glow worms are apparently another kind of fly larva. Yeah. Fireflies are fireflies or lightning bugs. That's right. Centipedes, millipedes, there's all kinds of little things that can glow. Worms. Yeah. There's some worms that give off a bioluminescent sludge and no one has any idea why. Is it their poop? And they poop it out? I don't think so. Remember the secretion they produce when they're mating and all that? Oh, yeah.

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, 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? No, we talked about it in biospeleology. Oh, in caves? Yeah. There's different zones of light penetration in caves and in the ocean too. That's right. The twilight zone is generally about 660 to 3,300 feet deep. 201 to 1,006 meters. It depends because obviously different kinds of ocean water are going to allow different amounts of light in. It depends on what the ocean floor looks like, but it is the dysphotic or poorly lit zone, deeper than the euphotic

sunlit zone. Or good lit zone. Or shallower than the euphotic midnight zone, which is scary. No light. That's a scary time down there. Those are the things down there that have no eyes. Right, because there's no reason for it. It doesn't seem like with the caves. So remember what was the Prometheus Salamander? Yeah. Which is 3 feet long and doesn't have eyes? The scariest thing ever except for the cigar shark, which we'll actually get to in here. Okay, so is that the cookie cutter shark? Yeah, man. That thing's frightening. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs.

They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss y'all. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you

get your podcasts. Our nation loves true crime. And it's no wonder in the past decade, one in four Americans have reported being victims of crime. But what happens when we survive? That's what we explore in the podcast Survivors' Heal, hosted by me, Oya El-Sharrells. I've worked as an organizer, activist and advocate for the past 15 years. And for the past five years, I've been on the ground floor providing services to survivors of crime. I invite you all to listen in as we discuss the healing side of true crime and what I call the new survivors movement. Listen to Survivors' Heal, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. So in this, this Twilight Zone, the Dysphotic Zone or Mesopelagic Zone,

stop laughing at me. This is where most of the bioluminescent organisms on earth can be found. And the light that penetrates this area is a blue-green color because the red, yellow, orange, yeah, the red, yellow and orange are absorbed by the seawater above. And the violet is scattered. So the blue and the green are the ones that get through. So everything's just kind of color blue-green. That's what the sunlight is. So most of the bioluminescent organisms in this Dysphotic Zone, Dysphotic Zone, have evolved to produce light at that same wavelength from something like 440 to 479 nanometers, 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. Yeah. So the, 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 this could really cook down there, basically. Yeah. 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 that like come up out of the little tubes? Tubeworms. Oh yeah? Yeah. I believe that's what they're called. Either that or I just made some terrible like sixth grade joke. But they are like on the ocean bottom and they have, they just come out of these tubes and grab stuff and go back in

there like three feet long. You've not seen this? Sea snake to me now. Yeah, but they're, that's a worm. I think they're attached or they may be attached to their tubes. Oh, okay. Or they just never come all the way out. I'm gonna have to look into that. Yeah. So you talked about the blue-green light is what they generally produce. 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 red light. And it's, 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 to basically sneak up on people. It's like James Gumm at the end of

Silence of the Lambs and like the fish are like Jodie Foster. And James Gumm is the loose jawfish coming up behind her like, I can see you. You can't see me. So like we said earlier, we don't know for sure why all these bioluminescent forms of life are down there doing their thing. 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 to attract insect to spread these spores. That's why the mushroom glows, makes sense. Sometimes, and this 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 what fireflies are doing. Yeah, they're attracting

mates, right? Yeah. With like a very specific pattern. Right. They use it to communicate. Like, hey, you're looking pretty good. We meet you by the fence post. Yeah. Let's go get some food. So should we talk about the dino flagellates, the dino flagellates? Dino flagellates. Am I pronouncing it wrong? No, I think I was wrong. Okay. Well, yeah. So have you ever seen Apollo 13? Yeah. You remember the part where they had a problem, Houston? Is it Tom level? Jim level. Yeah. We're Jim level and is hanging out with Bill Paxton and they're talking about how they're just shooting the breeze while they're trying to stay alive. And he talks about how he was flying a mission coming in on an aircraft 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 was running low on fuel. And all of a sudden he looks and he notices that there's a bunch of, um, he calls it like glowing algae or whatever. Yeah. But what he's talking about were dino flagellates that were kicked up by the wake of the, um, aircraft carrier and he used them as like a runway to guide them in. I don't remember that part. That's a great part. That whole movie from like start to finish was awesome. Ron Howard. But these dino flagellates create what's called a 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 them from space actually. In this article, there's

a picture of a pretty substantial milky sea off the coast of Africa. Yeah. Pretty cool stuff. Yeah. And if you Google milky sea too, you can see some, like that's cool looking, but I like the shots from like low flying planes or helicopters. Very cool looking. Yeah. And a little eerie. Yeah. If I may say so. They have no idea again why dino flagellates would glow when they're disturbed. Obviously they're like trying to register their complaint. They can't talk. Yeah. Can't flip anyone off. So they glow. Yeah. Out of anger apparently. Um, they, they, there's a theory called the burglar alarm theory. I like this one. Or basically they think that, um, when dino flagellates start to glow, it's because there's little fish eating on them. Right. 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 flagellates that there's little fish in the area. Pretty awesome. Like, Hey, help come eat this guy because you're bigger. Right. Uh, here's some other and, you know, these are the ones that are the most understood because there is a lot of uncertainty, like we said, like 10 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. Right. Or the lightning bug. Right. Uh, to locate food, maybe to use it as an actual light to see in the dark. Right. Pretty cool. Or spotlight to catch prey. Sure. Uh, oh, like temporarily blind something. Mm hmm. Oh,

gotcha. Or no, to like go find it. Or just to find it. It's very dark in here. I need to see what fish are around. Uh, to attract prey, like the angler fish, like, ooh, look at this bright glow. Come here. Chomp. Yeah, I love that one. What was it in finding Nemo? Man, I think it was scary. I didn't see that one. Oh, it's a good one. Yeah. Uh, camouflage. I don't watch any of those anymore because Emily doesn't like them. Oh, yes. She 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 3. Oh, dude, I can't even watch that movie. I made her watch up and she was just like a, like a little blob of plank on the floor. The first 10 minutes are just so

sad. Yeah. My God. But I always explain to her like this is why they make these movies so kids can learn how to cope with death and then they see like it's all happy afterward. Right. 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, if you ever like swum down 10 or 15 feet and looked up, open your eyes in the ocean, I've done it. Um, it's, it's hard to see stuff 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. Right. You know, that's good eating. Um, if you have like in the case of, uh, what's it called, counter elimination, you can

actually produce spots on your underside to make it more difficult 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. Right. Because you're cutting down on 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 it just breaks up your shape so you don't look like you should. Right. Um, and then there's the opposite, the cookie cutter or cigar shark, which is the name I think you made up. Um, no, no, that's real. Uh, 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 is dark that looks like a small fish. Yeah. So a, a shark or some other animal looking up will be like, I'm going to 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. Well, that's round bite. Yeah. That's why they call it the cookie cutter. It's like a 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 a whale 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. But good for you, cigar shark, because you're small and you're doing what you can. It's tough world down there. It's wily. You know, it's diphotic. And then self-defense is the last reason. Um, and basically like a squid may release ink to cloud your vision. Some of these things can release a cloud of a glowing cloud to, uh, uh, basically make you sit back and put on Pink Floyd 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 cloud. And then 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 you would want to order on a

menu. The fried vomiting shrimp. Uh, and make sure there's extra poop in the main vein. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs, America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute a 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that in on the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just

like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil answer. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Our nation loves true crime. And it's no wonder. In the past decade, one in four Americans have reported being victims of crime. But what happens when we survive? That's what we explore in the podcast, Survivors' Heal, hosted by me, Oya El-Sharels. I've worked as an organizer, activist and advocate for the past 15 years. And for the past five years, I've been on the ground floor providing services to survivors of crime. I invite you all to listen in as we discuss the healing side of true crime and what

I call the new Survivors' Movement. Listen to Survivors' Heal, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. So what's going on here? How is this magic happening? Well, just like we mentioned with the light stick, it involves two different substances mixed together to produce this reaction. And there can be all different kinds of chemicals, but depending on the fish or the being, the being, the life form. Being works, yeah. The God's gift. One is a luciferin and that's the light producer and the other is a luciferase and that is the enzyme that catalyzes it. And those aren't specific things. You wouldn't look at the chemical composition or something and be like, oh, that's a luciferin. Something can be

a luciferin. It's a generic term for something that produces light or something that catalyzes the production of light, the luciferase. That is correct. Okay. And they will mix together. And a lot of times the luciferin is something called a photoprotein and it needs an ion, a charged ion to get things going. That would be the luciferase. That's right. But in all cases, there is some sort of trigger. It could be mechanical, it could be chemical, it 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. And one thing that I didn't realize was the word lucifer means light bringer. Yeah, I never knew that. You mean I went on a little

side tear last night trying to figure out why the devil would be named the light bringer? Yeah. Did you find out? No, it's a mystery. It's Latin and it came years, like centuries after the Old Testament was originally written. And I can't remember what version, but it was basically like added on by the, I guess the Romans maybe added it on, but it's because it's Latin and the original version was not written in Latin. Light bringer. The light bringer. Yeah. The morning star. That's another way to put it. Really? They said maybe it had to do with Venus because Venus is like a false star. Yeah. And so maybe Lucifer is a false angel is what they're saying. But that makes sense because the devil would always come into skies 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 would love to find out about that one. Stuff podcast at discovery.com if you know that answer. So you've got Luciferin. You've got Luciferase. Some of these chemical reactions require another substance and a lot of times it's oxygen. Right? So Luciferin will come in contact with an oxygen molecule and then the Luciferase comes along and then you've got a bioluminescent glow, which is pretty cool. Yeah. 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. Oh, yeah. And that originally,

like there's a Luciferin called Seedland Terazine, I believe is how you pronounce it. All right. And it's an antioxidant. It goes around and tries to find like rogue, harmful, free radicals, oxygen derivatives, right? Yeah. And get rid of them. 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 a Luciferase. And then light was created. And then it was just a byproduct, like heat's a byproduct of metabolism, right? Right. But they think also that over time this happened in, like maybe it's going on inside of us right now. Right. And we're producing light, but we just don't know it, or it's just so weak that we wouldn't even possibly 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. That's not me, man. No, I think you just cook 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 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, a light 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. Right. 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, an eyelid that they can just kind of close over the light. Right. Which is pretty amazing. Yeah. But it's always going. Yeah. And what 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 Tracy about this, and it was a little hinky because she wrote this a long time ago. She couldn't quite remember what the point was. But the point was that they think that because

the process of anti-oxidation is a normal thing, that the conditions were right for bioluminescence to be selected naturally in some places, but it wouldn't in like a lake. So the idea that this happened independently and spontaneously when needed through evolution is kind of backed up by the idea that you don't really see bioluminescence at the bottom of the lakes because you don't need it. Yeah. It all makes sense when you just peel the little curtain back, doesn't it? Yeah. When you peel the glowing skin back, what else? You got anything else? You seen glowing cats? No. Are there cats that glow? Yeah. The Mayo Clinic likes to put jellyfish genes in animals. The most, the biggest one so far is a cat and make it glow because they're

checking disease. They're using it to mark the progression of diseases, but they made a glowing cat. It's pretty cool. Now, how do I got to look this up? It glows under a blue light, but it glows green and it's like the cat glows green. I guess it's the hair. The keratin it produces has some sort of fluorescent property to it, but it's not bioluminescent and it's a fluorescent and fluorescent is where you take light of one color and reflect it back, absorb it and reflect it back of it as a different color. You're not actually producing light. All right. I just looked it up. Wow. It's a glowing cat and I double checked the date. I double checked the day. I'm like, this better not be an April Fool's article, but it's not.

Wow. Yeah. I want one of those. Dysphotic. Yeah. Okay. So if you, you're done. I'm done. Yeah. There's glowing rats too. No, these are baby cats, I think. Are you sure? Which are called kittens in some countries. 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-C-E. It's not full. In the search bar at housefworks.com and it'll bring up this very cool article with some pretty glowing pictures. And I said search bar somewhere in there, which means it's time for listener mail. No, it's not, Josh. Today is part two of, oh yeah. You want to say it? Administrative details.

For those of you who don't know, this is the point at the show where we thank people for little tokens and gifts and tchotchkes and things that they have sent us. Food sometimes. Food. And it's a good chance to hear your name on the show 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. Books. People write books. Yeah, like we want to support the crafters and writers and bakers of cookies. And we want to support Bill Wagner, 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 says Nevada. Nevada. No, it's Nevada. All right. Lily, her sister Toby and brother-in-law Danny started a company called Please Be Good Humans. Oh yeah. Remember these guys? They sent us some shirts. I think they sent some to Kristen. They sent us stickers. They've got them. No, everybody has stickers. We've passed them out. Oh, well, Kristen Conger, I think, got a shirt too, though. Oh, she did? I think so. Oh, that's great. And basically, everything has the PBGH logo on it, which is, like, be good to each other. And 15% of everything they sell goes to the charity of your choice. So if you go there, please be good humans on the Internet. You can actually get some of the stuff and choose your own charity that 15% will go to.

Very nice message. Very nice. How about some Randy Carbononi action? Yeah. He sent us his Pirate Gags booklet, which is a tailor made for Pirate Day, national topic of Pirate Day. If you want to learn more about that, you could go to Pirate Day, P-I-R-A-T-E-A-D-A-Y, blogspot.com, and hook up with Randy Carbononi 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. Just sitting there waiting. Susanna from Archie, the Archie comics. Yay. She sent us a bunch of stuff. She sends us stuff in

like waves, I guess you could put it. But most recently, she sent us a Archie Meets Kiss Hard Cover book. Yeah. A Kevin Keller book. That's the first gay character. That's right. The first gay comic book character. This whole Green Lantern hubbub. I haven't heard that. Oh yeah. There's apparently two Green Lanterns, and one of them came out as gay. And it's just a man in the comic that he came out in. That's forward thinking. Yeah. But Archie's got a beat. That's right. Because of Kevin Keller's the first gay character. In the Jinx comics that Susanna, is she draw, write, produce those? Yeah, I mean, that's her baby. So support the Jinx comics. And Archie as a whole, she sent us shirts. And we were supposed to meet at Comic-Con. But she said

they were slammed in the booth, and she was unable to get away. Oh, I met Uncle John's reader people, bathroom reader people. They gave us shirts and hats. Very nice. So thank you to them as well. We heard from Mad Magazine too, which was like floored me. Yeah. Did you write that guy back? I totally did. Did you? Yeah, I finally did. Daniel McKenzie from Oakland, California, Senesan LP from his band, shut eye unison. Awesome music, indie rock. Little noisy, little melodic, right at my alley. Nice. Shut eye unison. I didn't see that one. It's good stuff. Andy Parr, Senesan edition of Games Magazine's World of Puzzles. Is that the one that had us as a clue? I believe so. Yeah. Stuff you should know was a clue in a word search,

I believe. There's nobody got it. I don't get this one. That's cool, but it was very nice that he went to that trouble. Suki, S-U-K-I, design laboratory, sent us some hankies. And this was the lady who designed the baby head t-shirt. With the fly. Yeah, our favorite t-shirt of the submissions. Yeah. The most disturbing one. It was one of my five favorites. It was my favorite, I think. Yeah, but she 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 hankie. Yeah, that's pretty funny. That's what's contained within. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Yeah, thank you for those. Duffmans and it's a Springfield isotopes

Coosie. Yeah. From Duffman himself. Yeah. We appreciate that, sir. Silver Fox Broadband sent us Silver Fox t-shirts and at first I was all, oh, what is this? Broadband company sending his shirts. Then I looked up, they supply internet for senior homes. Yeah. So I was all of a sudden wore it with pride. Everyone at my gym thinks that I'm a Silver Fox because I wear that shirt a lot. It's very comfortable. Let's see. The guys from Rock Tail Hour sent us a t-shirt. They podcast about rock music. That's rock and then tail, T-A-L-E, hour. Check them out. BikeRappers.com with W-R-A-P-B are not rapping like music. Right. They sent us some reflective bike rappers and dog collars. Basically, just these little velcro things. Such an easy invention,

but necessary. And you wrap them on the frame of your bike to make your bike more reflective. Yeah. And they have little reflective dog collars, too. It's pretty cool. We've got Christmas cards from a bunch of people. Thank you very much for them. This is how far behind we are. I know. It's Christmas in July, everybody. Nick and Lindsay, Devin B, Becca Evans, Andrew, and Janelle Thomas. So thank you very much. Merry Christmas, all you people. And happy Halloween, M. Oh, and I've got one more. M sent us a Halloween card. Oh, thanks. Happy Halloween, M. And then again from Nick and Lindsay, they sent us Valentine's Day cards. Yeah, they're pretty sweet. They sent us stuff. Are you done? Because I got two more on this one. Go ahead. Let's go

for it, dude. David Beaver's family has been making a magnetic calendar for 50 years. Yeah. And not just one. They've been making the magnetic calendars for 50 years. Yeah. Themagneticcalendar.com owned, operated, made, and sourced in the Midwest. It's a selling point. Family business. They've been doing this for how long? 50 years? 50 years. Awesome. And then Jill Swing sent us a Twinkie the Kid t-shirt. So thank you very much. Yeah. I believe it was homemade design, too, right? 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 that you will hear soon. And then I have to do it because these are all the ones that Chuck compiled. I think it's most of them. Do you have a lot?

I've got a decent amount. Well, then they'll be a part four. Good. And then we'll start all over. All right. All right. If you want to send us something, even something as innocuous as just a hello, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. And you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Here's today's fortnight weather report. iHeartland has been hit by a major blizzard. The snow has turned iHeartland and fortnight into a winter wonderland with new festive games, including a winter themed escape room, a holiday obstacle course, ice skating, hidden holiday gifts and more. Look out for upcoming special events from your favorite artists and podcasters all month, along with scavenger hunts and new how fan are you challenges. So embrace the holidays at iHeartland in fortnight.

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