Stuff You Should Know - Selects: How Moss Works

Episode Date: February 19, 2022

Think you have moss figured out? You probably don't. Join Josh and Chuck in this classic episode as they explore some of the surprising aspects of these most ancient and important plants on the planet. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello friends, Charles W. Chuck Bryant here on a Saturday. Well, it's really a Tuesday. Actually, it's a Thursday. But in your world, it's a Saturday. So let's just pretend it's Saturday. This episode, everybody is about Moss. Is Moss boring? No, not at all. Moss is actually really

cool. And if you listen to this episode from June 5th, 2012, you'll learn it for yourself. So check it out, everybody. How Moss works. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, who now refuses to do the cheeks, everyone. So I can't vouch for how good the episodes will be from this point on. Cheeks are done. I don't care about them anymore. We'll see. Okay. I mean, if we started nose dive, you're doing the cheeks again. Nope. I will see to it that you do the cheeks. Can't do it. I will stand on your chest. Ben will grab one cheek, Jerry will grab the other,

and the cheeks will be done. For people that don't know what we're talking about, this sounds like really gross. Everybody knows what we're talking about. Chuck does a little cheek pull to start off each episode. It's a little good luck charm, and now he's suddenly decided he's not going to do that anymore. So I have a new good luck charm. What is it? It's called not doing cheeks. It's not. It's a bad luck. No. So I've got a joke for you to open this one up. Do you really? And I made it up today. It's a made up joke? All right. I want to hear it. What do you call a reproducing sphagnum? What? Randy Moss. That's pretty good. Not bad. No, no, no. That's, that's into the realm of pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I think if I was a tour guide at like

a nature, like a firm bank science center or something, that would be my go to for the kids. A good one. To try and identify with them. I don't think the kids would like it as much as maybe the teacher. Yeah, that's true. The teacher would be like, that's pretty funny. And by the way, those brown knee high socks you're wearing are great. Right. Well, I'm going to give an intro in addition to the joke. Sure. The intro joke. Maybe that should be your new good luck thing. You tell it. Intro jokes. You make a joke. Make up a joke for every. That would be welcome back Cotter. Did they have a joke for everyone? Yeah. He introed every show by, or maybe it was outroed by telling a joke to his wife. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I hadn't picked up on that. I only saw

like maybe two episodes of that show. Well, then you heard two jokes. Yeah. Plus all the other jokes. Was his wife one in the same with Bailey from WKRP? Didn't they look alike? Were they the same person? I don't know if they were the same person, but they definitely seem the same. Gotcha. And they both wore glasses that had the feathered hair. Sort of long feathered hair, 70s ladies. Yeah. I don't think they were the same though. Yeah. But they were both probably in the love boat. Yes. Within five years as like a way to revitalize their career. That's right. Chuck, I was going to talk about the Ice Age, the beginning of the Ice Age, or of Ice Ages, glacial periods. Remember, right now we're in the midst of an interglacial period.

Right. I want you to think back. Way back 470 million years ago. Okay. There was no such thing as a glacial period. And by proxy, there was no such thing as an interglacial period. All we had was one hot, soupy, barren mess of land and ocean. And that was it. That's right. This is what's called the Ordovician period, or Ordovician period, depending on where you come from. Okay. And the beginning of this period is characterized by Ice Ages. And Paleo geologists, I guess you could just call them geologists really, because nobody's studying like present stuff very much. It's mostly Paleo geology, right? Sure. They were like, where did this Ice Age come from? Where, like, when did this start? And they figured out that what triggered this was the

arrival of the very first basic land plants, e.g. mosses. That's right. And they recently figured out that mosses came about about 470 million years ago. And they triggered these Ice Ages by latching onto rocks. So these were a certain type of moss, as you and I know, called granite mosses. Yep. And they would actually leach materials from these rocks to use as nutrients and minerals, right? These are like wheaties for moss, early moss. While the moss started releasing stuff, releasing, no, sucking in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere enough to reduce the global temperature, mean temperature, by 8 degrees centigrade. Wow. Which led to the beginning of Ice Ages and the Ice Age periods that we know and love. You can thank moss for that. Yeah,

thank you moss. You go outside, you find a little bit of moss, you grab a little piece of it gently, and then shake it. Shake it's little. Say thanks for the Ice Ages. Little baby stem. Yeah. Well, we needed Ice Ages. Yeah, that remains to be seen. No, it's all part of the big soup. We've had some. Who am I to doubt it? We've had some chilly, windy weather lately, and it has been getting to me. Like it's been like just seeing the trees like getting whipped outside makes me feel chilly. And then in turn, I feel socially isolated and mad. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, it's been really windy. Yeah, crazy. So we're talking about moss. This is no joke. April is over by now. We're in it right now, but by the time this comes out, this is no April Fool's joke. We're talking about moss

and how it works. Yeah. Because it's part of our long parade of explaining absolutely everything in the known universe. That's right. Moss is part of that. It's part of that. So let's talk about moss. Well, moss is pretty fun and unique in some ways, if you ask me. Yeah. Because unlike most flowering plants and trees, or let me go ahead and say it, all flowering plants in trees, they don't have roots like traditional root systems. Moss doesn't. No. Mosses don't. They do not. They don't germinate from seeds. Pretty weird. No. And they don't gush water around through internal systems. Root systems. Yeah. Yeah. And that's weird. It is, especially if you're familiar with plants, then you're like, well, when moss is strange. Exactly. For somebody,

you know, an average bystander like me, I'm like, oh, okay, well, moss doesn't do that and plants do. It doesn't seem particularly weird to me. Oh, I think it's unique. But I do find it intriguing. It makes me want to know more about moss. Well, if you've got about 15,000 species, if you want to talk about moss. Right. Traditionally, you are probably going to think of moss as the true moss. Well, let's back up a little bit. Okay. They're related to liverwort and hornwort. Yeah. I've seen, I saw other articles on moss and everybody points that out for some reason. And I'm not sure if they're like, I got to put 10 things in about moss and I got nine. So let's put that in. They are in the phylum, Brio Phyta. Yeah. And they're in three groups. You got the

granite mosses, the peat mosses, and true mosses. True mosses are probably what we're going to think of when you think of the little green carpet-y like padding that you see everywhere. Like falling tree in a forest or something. Yeah. And there's tons of true moss like 14,000 species. Yeah. Yeah. Granite mosses are blackish, small, grow in Arctic regions in the mountains. Yeah. Grow on rocks. They're the most ancient moss apparently. That's right. And there are only about 100 species of that. And then the final sub group is the peat moss. Grows in bogs. If you've ever been in a bog, then you've probably seen some peat moss or sphagnum moss. Right. And that's the money moss because you can burn it and convert it to electricity and charge money for it. That's why

sphagnum is the money moss. And oddly, well not oddly, but remarkably, moss, the sphagnum moss that you use is a soil conditioner. We do that in our garden because some of it can hold 20 times its dry weight in water. It's pretty amazing. That's very amazing. That's some strong moss. You're going to find moss all over the place, including places where you won't find any other living plants like the bottom of an Arctic or Antarctic lake. That is pretty impressive. Like the only multicellular plant growing down there is moss. Right. And it grows really slow. I think as little as one centimeter per year, this aquatic moss at the bottom of these frozen lakes. Uh-huh. And that is the slowest growing and longest living freshwater plant ever recorded.

I would guess so. It's kind of like putting somebody on ice. Right. Sure. You're slowing down the cellular processes, but they're still active. So you could, in theory, extend their lifespan. Right. That's right. Same thing with moss. Yeah. It's probably even easier with moss. Yeah. And by that same token, the zombie moss, I thought was pretty cool. Yeah. You could dry some mosses out for 19 years without water. And if you add water to it, it'll, you know, resuscitate itself. It'll turn into a big dinosaur. It's pretty cool though. They can go dormant for that long. Yeah. It's amazing. And all mosses can go dormant. It's like one of their defense mechanisms. They'll just

turn brown and dry out. Yeah. And they're in a dormant state. Unfortunately, you can't really tell, like, what the difference is between dead and dormant until you add water and see if it comes back. Right. That's the only way to determine the length of a moss's dormancy. Oh, so if you add water and it just stays dead, then... It's dead. Oh, that's sad. So you said there's like 15,000 species, and they kind of range in size and shape and texture, right? Sure. Color. Some of the, I think the peat mosses grow different colors like rows. Yeah. Very pretty. Yeah. Some grow black, like the granite moss, you said. Yeah. Some are silver, which is amazing. Yeah. And then there's the smallest moss is the ephemerum, which is a

half a millimeter tall. That's crazy. It's adult size. Yeah. And then there's the dosonia, which is up to almost 30 inches, 70 centimeters in height, which that's a pretty wide variety. Yeah. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously. I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael.

Um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that, Michael. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately,

I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Okay. So moss is fairly interesting so far. Let's talk about the individual plants. Because when you look at moss and you think about moss, you're thinking of a carpet of plants. Those are actually like a bunch of little plants put together, correct? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, sure. That's one way to think of it. So when you're talking about moss, when you're talking about the individual parts or the individual plants, they're pretty simple. They're pretty basic. You have something called the gametophyte, which is the stem and the leaves, right? That's right. The leaves are generally arranged in a spiral pattern. And the leaves are usually a lance shaped with like a point, right? Yeah.

That's where you're going to find your reproductive parts. Right. At the bottom, there's rhizoids instead of roots, remember? Yeah. These are not roots. And so they don't anchor themselves to anything necessarily. They will anchor themselves to like maybe organic material or something, but it's not into the dirt. Right. And they also don't, they don't suck up water in the same way that roots do, but they do use rhizoids. A lot of it's kind of academic. The difference is really between rhizoids and roots. Oh. Yeah. In my opinion. Sure. I'm going to get some mail about that. But I think that they're very similar. Well, yeah. But I mean, the fact that it can grow on a rock kind of instead of soil kind of says it all.

Excellent. Okay. So in the gametophyte, you're going to have, like I said, your reproductive parts, both male and female. And then we'll mention this because it comes around later on when we talk about the reproduction. Emerging from the top of the female gametophyte is the sporophyte and a thin stalk called aceta and a little brown ball on top of that known as the capsule. Right. And then on top of that is the operculum and it's like a little hat that the capsule wears. Right. And that comes into play. Well, let's talk about how it gets nutrients, then we'll talk about the dirty stuff. The Randy Moss. Yeah, exactly. That was a pretty funny joke. That was silly. Okay. So a moss needs a few things to live and one of those is water. Of course.

Possibly one of the most important ingredients because it aids in not just photosynthesis, but also in reproduction, which we'll see. Yeah. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Boy, we've really built up this sexy moss thing. It's not as interesting as we're making it. Yeah. There's no, like, riding crops involved or anything like that. No. Well, but there are parts. Yeah. All right. Okay. So yeah, and I was surprised by the number of parts. I didn't realize they were that involved. I thought it was like, here's a spore. Yeah. Go forth and reproduce. True. Anyway, with that water that moss needs, because mosses need, like, pretty much across

the board, one of their great characteristics is a moist environment, right? Yeah. And they need this water or they get this water since they lack roots in a number of different ways. Some have very absorbent leaf surfaces where you can pour a drop of water on a leaf and it goes, it's just gone. It's a pretty amazing thing to watch. Yeah. Spongy. Sure. And then another way is the rhizoids, which, although they aren't roots, still manage to suck up water and they do this through capillary action in the same way that like a paper towel, if you put a drop of water on your kitchen counter, ask your mom first before doing this, because some moms will freak out on you if you do something like this. Right. Put a drop of water on your kitchen counter

and take a single thing of paper towel, set it next to it, just barely touching, and the paper towel go, suck it up. It's amazing. That's capillary action. And it's the result of the adhesion, in this case, let's say with rhizomes, the adhesion of water molecule to the rhizome. Rhizoid. Yeah. Rhizoid is greater than the cohesion between that water molecule and all the other water molecules it's part of. Yeah. It's a quicker picker upper. Nice. So once you've got a little water in there, the water is going to be moved between cells or transported through cells, depending on the moss. Yeah. And then you're going to get your photosynthesis, which is, you know, part of being a plant. Did you like this analogy? I didn't find it apt necessarily.

I just ignored it. Okay. So at the end of photosynthesis, you're going to have sugar and oxygen as a byproduct, releases the oxygen like a good little plant. Right. And eats the sugar, basically. Yeah. And says, give me more. Yes. So it converts the sugar into energy to break down minerals, say that it's leached from rocks or a tree stump or whatever it's attached to to grow and to reproduce. That's right. I think we're at the sexy moss point. Reproduction occurs, can occur in a couple of ways. And the first way is for the reproduction to begin, we're going to have to get a vase shaped archagonia. It's getting all like a Giorgio Keefe painting in here. It is. And that's going to

produce the eggs that develops at the tip of the gametophyte, which we talked about. And then on the male side, you've got the antheridia and that produces the sperm. Right. And the sperm swims through, basically, fertilizes the eggs, which is why they need to be moist, like you said. The sperm swims through nearby water. To get to the egg, it's pretty remarkable. It's almost like a fish. Yeah, but it's a sperm. That's right. So it's more like a tadpole. Yeah, that's what you mean. And then the egg is for Elijah. You're going to get a sporophyte. We already talked about the sporophyte. That's the tall, thin stalk with a little upperculum at the top. Aperculum is going to open up at a certain point. That's the hat.

Yeah. The tip of the hat happens, releases the spores, which are basically like seeds, and there you have it. Well, yes. And then the spore goes and germinates like a seed. This is what I'm saying. Rhizoid, root, spore, seed. I mean, I know that there's some differences here, but they're not that great. Anyway, the spore goes, lodges itself into a... But it's different than every other plant, every other millions of plants. Okay. I understand. I get it. I know that there are differences. I'm just saying the difference between the two is not a wow kind of thing for me. I got you. I wish it was. I understand. I'm not fighting it. So the spore germinates into another plant and the whole thing happens again.

Hopefully not with any plant that it's related to though, because that's gross. So the other way it can reproduce is asexually, which is pretty cool. Yeah. And basically, if you've got enough moisture and a piece of moss breaks off and floats downstream or gets caught up in the wind and it roots down in a nice moist place, it'll reproduce, it'll just start growing again. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. But it doesn't root. It rhizomes. Rhizomes. Rhizomes. Why does the... I think I'm confusing riboflavin with something else to get rhizomes. Okay. So we have healthy, sexually active moss everywhere all over the place. Yep. We understand them. I mean, we understand them now. Like,

that's moss right there. We left out one interesting fact I thought. They're leaves, the tiny little leaves are so small. They're very rarely one cell thick. Yeah, that's tiny. Yeah. It's neat. It is neat. Okay. So now that we understand moss, if you have said, I like moss a lot. I've seen moss before. I want to bring more moss into my life. I happen to have a yard, so I'm going to introduce moss to it. We now can say, yes, here's how you do it because we understand moss and here is how you do it. Yeah. And I like the look of moss, like to go between plants or like in Japanese gardens, moss is like... Big. Yeah, crazy big. Yeah. So if you want to grow some moss, one thing you can do sometimes

is just transplant it, like gently scrape it off that rock in a, you know, sort of like a big chunk of like a carpet square as you can get and just throw it on the ground and water it. Water it. And sometimes that'll do. Very important. It is, yeah. Not always. If you put it in the right kind of place, mosses require low sunlight. Sure. Basically shade. In fact, if you have low sunlight and you have trouble growing grass, moss is a great alternative. It is, very much so. So they want low sunlight or shade and they also prefer low acidity, lower acidity than turf grass prefers. Yeah. So yeah, if you have a patchy piece of yard, moss might grow there very well. So in just transplanting it like that could work,

especially if you keep it watered, you can also try propagating it using a pretty ingenious little method of taking a clump, a whole bunch of moss, throwing it in a blender with some butter milk and then taking that mixture with the paintbrush and painting it wherever you want. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Butter milk, it just must be the wonder thing for moss. Yeah. It's like packed with nutrients. You also want to take care of your moss. Sure. As low maintenance as it seems, like there is some things you have to do like leaves, twigs, that kind of stuff. Since it's in a shady area, it's usually subject to those

things falling on top of it and that actually will burn it like acid. There won't be a lot of growth in that area of your moss because the leaf is preventing it from doing a thing. Yeah. So you want to clean it off like you would your carpet? Yes. Maybe with a very light broom, very light, a leaf blower on a low setting. Which you hate? Yeah. I just don't like the noise. Yeah. But in this case, it makes sense. Sure. Unless you have a very light broom. Or you could just pick these things off individually.

That's right. If it's got weeds, you don't want to yank the weeds out because that can yank up moss. You don't want to do that. So you just want to like snip it with scissors. And it's no wonder this is popular in Japan because they're always more like tender and caring with their gardens. Anyone who has the patience for like bonsai and origami and things like that will snip weeds with scissors. You mean I were in Kyoto and witnessed a man cutting the grass at a park with scissors. Yeah. My neighbor used to do that in my old house. Man. But his lawn looked awesome. Oh, but yeah. I don't have time for that. And that's why my yard looks like crap. No one has time for that.

And my favorite boy bands give me in this situation. If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously. I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody you everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to

father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So yeah, keep it well fed. As in once a year, aside from the water, you're going to want to, in mid spring, get out your buttermilk again. So basically like right now, or like last week? Yeah, true. Get about a quarter bottle of buttermilk, mix it with a couple of gallons of water, and spray it all over. And mist your moss. They love mist. They do. They drink it up. Yeah, literally. Well, they use capillary action to drink it up. That's right. No roots involved. Let's say you

want to kill moss. Yeah, I thought that this is very interesting in this article. It's like all pro moss, and then all of a sudden it takes a really dark turn with the subject heading how to kill moss. Well, some people don't want it, you know, like they don't want ivy taking over their yard. They don't want moss taking over their yard. That's true. Although they point out in the article, it's not going to take over your lawn because it's not going to grow where your lawn would grow. Right. So lighten up, that's what I say. But if you're one of those people who are prone to slipping on things, you may not want that on your sidewalk. You definitely don't want moss on your roof. There's a sign that you have a big problem if you have moss on your roof. Unless

you are doing that on purpose. Like a green roof. Sure. Well, then you're not going to have the kind of roof that you have to worry about. Exactly. If you have a traditional shingled roof and you have moss, you need to do something about it for a couple of reasons. One, it's the presence of moss, trapped moisture. Moss is designed to do that if you're into intelligent design theory. And that means that it's going to foster things like fungus that will decay the wood beneath, meaning you'll have a hole in your roof. Yeah, at some point. The rhizomes, right? Rhizoids. What is wrong with me? I don't know. The rhizoids also like to get in between shingles and loosen them. That's right. And what else? Well, I mean, you don't want it on your roof.

And so one thing you can do to kill it is use pesticides and chemicals, not pesticide. I guess it would be a herbicide. Yeah, they say pesticide in here. That wouldn't be right now. No, it's an herbicide. Yeah. Like roundup. Sure. Which if you're into spraying that kind of junk on your lawn, feel free. I advise not to. But that's just how I play in my yard. So you don't use scissors, but you don't use pesticides, huh? No. Do you just kick back and you're like, grow, baby? No, I take care of things, but I just don't like spraying chemicals all over the yard. What do you use as herbicides and pesticides? White vinegar. Like as a spray? For what does that work for? Yeah, anything. Like pesticide and herbicide? Oh, I don't know about pesticide, but herbicide,

like it'll kill weeds and stuff. Really? Huh, that's interesting. Yeah, put it in the huts and sprayer and gotcha. Or just live with it. Yeah, I guess it depends on the weed, for sure. Yeah, but if you have animals, you don't want to be spraying your yard with chemicals. Even though they say, like, once it dries, it's fine. I don't buy that. I don't buy that either. But if you do want to get rid of it, they say the best way to get rid of it naturally is to, you know, make it a not moss friendly environment. So like cut back some shade cover, maybe make it sunnier. That'll help get rid of the moss. Yeah, just make it so it wouldn't want to live there even if it could. Yeah, or scrape it off if it's like on a sidewalk or something. Yeah, that could leave spores,

so it may come back. Don't be surprised. But yeah, just a flat shovel or a hoe will take care of moss, usually, too. That's right. And it says here, zinc. Yeah, I didn't know about this. Yeah, zinc is a deterrent. You can put a zinc strip up on your roof and it'll keep mosses away because you hate that stuff. That's right. And then the last moss fact of the podcast, if you're ever lost in the woods, you need to get your bearings. That's right. Start looking around and see what side of the trees and, well, pretty much an upright growing tree, what side moss is growing on. And you probably have found something like north. Yeah. Because moss is going to grow on the side that gets the least exposure to sunlight, which would be north. So just follow that and you'll

end up in Canada every time, even if you start out in Australia. Yeah. Hey, Australia. All right, well, that's moss, huh? You got anything else? No. I'm going to grow a little moss garden in my front yard. Are you going to? Yeah, well, I was going to zero-escape it anyway, so they might as well get some moss going. I wrote an article on that. Zero-escaping? Yeah, but the problem is, is this isn't zero-escaping because that's dry landscaping. This requires water, but it'd still be pretty low maintenance. Yeah. And my front yard doesn't get very much sun. Like, I failed miserably at trying to grow grass, so I'm just going to like mulch and moss and put plants and stuff. I'd like to see that. Yeah, one day. If you want to know more about moss, including

seeing some very pretty pictures of moss, and to get to the bottom of what Chuck and I decided was an in-app analogy between photosynthesis and cookie baking, you can type in moss in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com and it'll bring this up and you will be very happy. And you should also be happy because I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. Josh, we're going to call this the nicest Irishman on earth. Wow. This guy was super nice. Okay. Josh, Chuck and Jerry. My name is John Keating and I'm writing from Dublin, Ireland. I've been a reasonably long time listener. I started listening to the show over a year ago when I started studying for my leaving cert, the Irish university entry exams. On a number of occasions during my exams,

I was able to recall a topic you guys covered during the series, especially in English and history. Due to this, I feel I owe you a great deal of thanks as I was accepted to the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, better known as Trinity College. Nice. And it's Go Thunderbolts, in case you're curious. Nice. During the year in Trinity, it was announced that a fraternity is to be established within the college in Ireland as well as in the UK. Society and clubs take up the role of frats that frats have in the US. However, one exception is normally these clubs societies do not have a particular house associated with them. Okay. Like we do here. Right. This house concept is something I'll have to deal with

the near future as I shall be staying in the beta theta pi branch of the University of Toronto on in the city in search of work this summer. On this side of the Atlantic, the frat concept is mainly centered around their depiction in such movies as Animal House or how the Winklevoss twins were portrayed in the social network. Sure. Do you see those guys that are in commercial for like pistachios? I did. Oh, God, it's awful. Hey, man, you're going to make that dollar some way, huh? Yeah, the multimillion dollar payout wasn't enough. Right. Yeah. And they were wealthy already. Yeah, exactly. They seem like nice enough guys. Oh, they seem like great guys. In such we see them as being an alcohol fueled rich boys club. Yes, except for the College of

Pharmacies fraternity. What are they like? It's a pill fueled club. I know that both of you weren't associated with the frat when you were in college. So maybe I'm right on the button there. Also, I'm curious as to why the idea hasn't successfully been exported to Ireland and the UK and further revealed. And what exactly is the association with the Greek alphabet? And why did they develop in the US in the first place? So he wants us to do a podcast. Oh, I thought he wanted us to answer now. No, as this email has already exceeded the limit I felt it would. So I shall end it on this note. I just want to further emphasize my gratitude and respect I have for the SYSK team and all the individuals involved in House of Works. Here's hoping for a

successful venture on a TV. Best of luck and slam. Let's be an Irish thing. S-L-A-N. Ever heard of that? Is it like an acronym for something or? No, it just says best of luck and slam. So we'll probably hear about that. And that is from John Keating. Thank you, John. That is very nice of you. That was a very nice email, wasn't it? Do you want to do frats? Yeah, I think we should at some point. Well, I guess we have to explain everything. If we did moss, we have to do frats, right? Yeah, sure. Um, let's see. What should we call for, Chuck? I don't believe anybody could possibly have a moss story, which makes me want to hear one. Well, that means people go, oh boy, you didn't think you'd get a moss story. Listen to this.

Okay, so we might as well ask for it. I once laid so still for a year I had moss growing on my side. That'd be pretty cool. That would be cool. And then there's the tree man who I think some people call the moss man. I don't think I know him. Oh, you do. There's a video on House of Works of this man who has like some sort of HPV and like he's growing like bark like skin. Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah. Wow. I think he's called a tree man though. It's not the moss man, is it? I don't know. It's sad. So we've already heard about that guy. Don't send us any links to that video. Seen it. But if you do have an interesting moss story, we want to hear it. Not only that, if it's interesting enough, we'll promote it on the show via listener mail. You can tweet at least

the first 140 characters of your moss story to us at SYSK Podcast. You can post a bunch of it on Facebook at facebook.com slash stuff you should know. Or you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at housestuffworks.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, everybody about my new

podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye-bye-bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.