The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Sailing Boulders, Mom-Eating Worms, the Most Humongous Fungus

Episode Date: April 22, 2020

Happy Earth Day! We're celebrating with facts about worms that eat their moms' skin, the fungus bigger than a blue whale, and rocks that sail across deserts all by themselves. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our Facebook group or tweet at us! Click here to learn more about all of our stories!  Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman Claire Maldarelli: www.twitter.com/camaldarelli Jess Boddy: www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy Popular Science: www.twitter.com/PopSci Theme music by Billy Cadden: www.twitter.com/billycadden Edited by Jess Boddy: www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/popular-science/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/popular-science/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's code weirdest for 20% off. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your ocean front room.

Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or The Hilton.com. Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and heck stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not sure those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors

of Popular Science. I'm Rachel Feltman. I'm Jess Bodey. And I'm Claire Maldarelli. So on the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of factor story that we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, social distancing, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first. Then once we've all had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was.

And this week, we are celebrating. reading Earth Day. Earth Day of the Earth. Because it's today, the 22nd, Earth Day. And unlike most Earth days of recent past, many of us are spending it inside. Though I hope you can go for a socially distant walk at some point today to appreciate the planet around you. But even if you can't, we have some facts to help you think about this cool, weird, wonderful planet we're on. So hopefully that is the next best thing.

Claire, why don't you start with your teas? Yes, I would love to. So I would like to talk about a region in Death Valley, California, where 700-pound boulders seem to mysteriously move on their own. What? I'm intrigued. That's like often how I feel when I just like start my day. Stuck at home, I'm like, it is I, the 700-pound boulders.

boulder, slowly moving out of bed. But, you know, if the boulders can do it, so can we. So I'm trying to do more about them. I love that. Yes, what's your tease? Yeah, I want to talk about my love for the field of herpetology and just some of the weirdest amphibians ever. Herps, herpes, herpes, love it. Hell yeah. We love herps. And my tease, I am also talking about an esoteric field of science that I care deeply about, which is mycology. And I'm going to talk about a frightfully large mushroom. Oh. Just really astonishingly, just considerably large. Claire, why don't you start with your boulders? Like I said, that's like a motivational story I need to hear today. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. This makes me sound like I like love boulders. I mean, you love mushrooms.

But I don't have like I don't have like a dying love affair for boulders. But this story begins in Death Valley. And if you've never been there, Death Valley is a very weird place. It's located on the eastern border of California and within the Mojave Desert. So it's this kind of like desert valley region within this huge desert itself. And it's incredibly remote. and no one really lives there, and that's for good reason. The weather is scorching. And in terms of the name of Death Valley, I found this cool interesting anecdote that has nothing to do with Boulders,

but whatever, it's my segment. So I was promised the Boulders only back. We're getting there. We're getting there. As the story goes, the area got its forbidding name when a group of pioneers found themselves lost in the middle of the valley during, the 1849 gold rush. And when they were finally rescued, one of the men turned around and said, so long, death valley. Oh, dramatic. Yeah. Very, what a sign off.

It's like, sucks to suck, desert. Totally. I feel like, yeah, that's going to be us, like, when we finally leave our apartment. Totally. Yeah. But unsurprisingly, there's actually a lot of. mystery involved in this weird death-like region. But in my opinion, there's no greater mystery than the case of the sailing stones. So, yes. I just felt like that needed that.

It needed the drama. It needed sort of like, you know, I don't know, scary movie background. The vibe. Yeah, totally. So this story takes us to this region of death. Valley. Now, Death Valley itself is about three miles wide or three miles long and one mile wide. So it's actually like a pretty big space. All of Death Valley is pretty big. And even the Mojave Desert is like a big region of California. But we're kind of narrowly focusing in on a region called Racetrack Playa. Oh. Yes, yes, yes. So the area is a dry, almost flat as a pancake lake bed with barely any vegetation or life. But strangely, streaked across this desolate ground are these distinct indentations of rocks.

And it almost looks like they're being dragged across the ground within the rock setting. So if you can imagine maybe a piece of rock or just anything that's kind of on sand being dragged across sand and it sort of leaves this indentation of where it came from or even dragged across like mud or something like that. So that's what it looks like. It's. these like big streaks of indentation on this super dry rock bed. Like a garden. Yes, exactly like that. And at the end of these streaks are these giant boulders.

Oh, my gosh. All I have in my mind right now is the SpongeBob episode where they ride around on the rocks. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Yes. And they're streaked across all of this region of Death Valley Racetrack Playa. Now, some of them are huge boulders, up to 700 pounds, and some of them are much smaller,

like little teeny pebbles, so to speak. And some of them are streaked. Some of them are six to 18 inches long, while others are just going for hundreds and hundreds of feet. So long, long streaks, mini streaks, and then strangely, some of them kind of like chain. direction. So we'll be going in these eerily, perfectly straight lines, and then all of a sudden it will abruptly turn 90 degrees and go in that other direction. So people have seen this, and they call them sailing stones, and they're known in this region as racetrack playa, but researchers have never been able to figure out what actually causes these rocks to move. Now, no one lives there,

so they know that it's not animals and they know it's not people that are moving these. If it were people that would be really weird. I guess you can't put it past people these days. We have a lot of free time on our hands, but it's not people. So there's been a number of theories that these researchers who are studying this area, racetrack playa, have proposed. One of them was even, and they honestly ranged from like the super extreme to obviously aliens to more plausible explanations. So for the sake of our science show, I will only give you plausible explanations. One of them was, you're welcome. So one of them was that this is like magnetism. So a group of researchers had once proposed that maybe there's some sort of local magnetic effect going on where

the rocks have some types of metals or in them that allow them to sort of move with the ground. But when they actually sampled the rocks, they weren't able to find any of these magnetic metals like iron that would allow them to move in this way. So the other explanation that researchers have kind of come down on is that it's some kind of extreme weather event, like just this crazy weather that kind of moves them and then it leaves the area like almost like a storm or something like that. But these kinds of storms don't really happen. And so finally, researchers kind of came down to the idea that it still must be a type of sort of weather event, but they couldn't really figure out what. But they did know that while Death Valley is typically known for its extreme heat

and lack of precipitation, the area isn't immune to sort of these types of elements. The region has a short rain season and water often collects at the bottom of the valley after rainfall. And so researchers proposed a theory that during colder months after rainfall, when the temperatures would drop below freezing, the water would turn into this really thin sheet of ice. And then as the wind picked up, it could theoretically slowly move even giant boulders in oddly, eerily, straight directions. And if the wind changed, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And if the wind changed directions, the rock would change directions too. So hence those really strange 90-degree shifts in direction. The problem with this theory, while it sounds great and pleasant, was that no one has ever been able to witness it.

Now, as soon as you read this, researchers are like, okay, but hold on. Like this region is huge. It's three miles long and one mile wide. And these rocks move at like, you know, who knows how long it takes for them to move. So it's not unplausible that if researchers were to sit there for hours and hours and even days camp out next to one of these giant boulders, that they would actually witness this amazing event, even if they timed it with this type of rainstorm, sleet, ice situation happening. So they went to the lab and they actually did sort of like lab conditions where they took

a container of Tupperware and filled it with water an inch thick. And they had like a bit of the rock sticking out. And under this Tupperware scenario, it turned out to make the rocks move. So they were like, okay, we need to test this out now in Death Valley. Totally. That's so weird. Yeah. So they went out there and they would sit out there and nothing happened.

So they're about to give up. But then finally in 2013, a group of researchers were like, we need to put technology onto this case. So they put actually motion activated GPS units on top of the rocks and watch the video footage in super high speed. And creepily, the rocks moved. Oh, my God. Yes. Mm-hmm.

And so their theory of this situation where it creates this really thin layer of ice actually happened and they were able to see these rocks even change direction as the wind moved them. No way. Yes. Yes. Yes. So they write up their stuff and they get it.

published in PLS1, which is a peer-reviewed journal. And everyone is like, the mystery is solved. Here's how it works. And everyone agrees with them. And then there's all these communities online. And they're like, I'm so sad that we've solved this mystery. I always wanted it to be this sort of mysterious, mysterious thing. So there is one part of this mystery that has yet to be solved, which I think is great for Earth Day because, you know, we like to say that there's still mysteries out there on Earth. It's that these 700-pound boulders. Now, remember, there's like a whole range of boulders. Some of them are little pebbles. Some of them are medium-sized boulders, if you will, and some of them are these, like, giant 700-pound suckers. Now, they have witnessed pebbles move, and they have

witnessed medium-sized boulders move. But they have yet to witness these 700-pound. ones move. And so they think that there must be some other type of weather process involved that is moving these 700 pound boulders because they have put the motion detectors on the boulders themselves and none of them moved even when the surrounding rocks moved under the same type of weather scenarios. The elusive chunky rocks. Yes. Yes. So that's my fact. And if you even Google sailing stones you'll be able to see and I can probably post a couple of images in our online post about this but it's really eerie the movements themselves it really looks like someone just took it and dragged the boulders along and then just sort of left them there. It's so weird.

That's like the weirdest thing I've heard in a long time. Wow. The weirdest thing I've learned in a long time is our annual special. Or it's just a great tagline for our podcast during social distancing times. Totally. This reminds me so much of the package I edited in our noise issue, our print issue. We still make a magazine sometimes on paper. And Aaron Blakemore, one of our favorite freelancers, wrote about the most mysterious sounds in the world.

And some of them have been like pretty much solved and some like will never be solved. But there's one, there are a couple actually that take place in deserts. But the singing sand is one that has been pretty much solved. So in like the gobi desert, there's like this weird hum that like changes pitch. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it's like really beautiful and eerie. And some physicists thought that it was probably like the wind.

blowing sand down dunes and that it was literally just like the friction of the sand rubbing together on its way down the dune. And to prove it, they didn't experiment where they like slid down the dunes on their butts to make the sand move in the right way. Yeah, and it worked. I love that. They got the dunes to sing with their butts. That's amazing.

Yeah. But don't worry, many other sounds remain totally mysterious. Rocks are amazing. Yeah. Rock's rock. They do. All right. Well, we'll take a quick break and then we'll be back with some more facts.

Hey guys, it's Jess. Before we get back to the show, I want to take a quick second to tell you about an amazing podcast called Flash Forward. Hosted by award-winning science journalist Rose Evellef, Flash Forward is a podcast about the possible and totally not possible futures. From the completely absurd to the terrifyingly likely, every episode of Flash Forward takes on a specific future scenario. and tries to work through the how, why, when, and if it could ever happen. By combining audio drama with deep reporting, the show helps us figure out what exactly the future might hold. They've tackled questions, like, what would the warranty on a sex robot look like?

And how hard would it actually be to eliminate all the mosquitoes in the world? And even, could an evil mega company build so many wind turbines that they actually alter the climate? It turns out, the answer to that one is technically yes. To understand these futures, Rose talks to science fiction writers, geneticists, farmers, animal behaviorists, historians, space archaeologists. Yes, that's a real job. And even her grandma. People have described it as Radio Lab meets Black Mirror. But with jokes, if you've ever wondered what the future might really be like, Flash Forward is the show for you. You can listen to Flash Forward on any podcasting app or go to Flashforwardpod.com to learn more. Okay, we're back. And Jess, tell me about some lizards. I will. Lizzards are herps. My story focuses more on salamanders.

Okay. But regardless, yes, I'm going to talk about my love of herpetology. So basically, where this all begins is back in the day, during the summer between my junior and senior years of college, I did this really, really weird. But it was educational, but it was weird. field course in herpetology. And obviously, you guys know, but herpetology is the study of reptiles and amphibians. I was actually going to ask that. I was like, wow, everyone knows what this is, but I need to ask. No, no worries. Yeah, it encompasses both of those groups. And the name comes from the word herpes, which comes from the Greek word for a creeping thing or to creep, kind of like a serpent might creep. And I will get back to my weird herpetology class in a minute, but I first

want to take a quick detour to talk about the history of herpetology, which is really fun. So basically, people have been formally studying herpetology for a couple hundred years, but we've honestly just always been fascinated by amphibians. So the first thing is, there's always been this kind of historical theme where witches have a thing for newts. Sure, of course. Yeah. And that, like, dates back. to Shakespeare's Macbeth, which was first performed in 1606. And in the very first scene of Macbeth, there are the witches, and they're making their brew. And they say, quote, in the cauldron, boil and bake, eye of newt and toe of frog,

wool of bat and tongue of dog. That was beautiful. Thank you. Dramatic reading. And so it might seem like they're making some like grotesque stew of animal bits, but those terms are actually names for herbs and plants. What? Yeah, totally. They're all like a pseudonym for some other thing. Like I of Newt is actually a mustard seed.

Oh. Yeah, which I did not know until I started researching this. But nevertheless, which is still like had that connotation to be associated with noots, regardless that it was just a mustard seed. Another example of historical herpetology is back in ancient Egypt. People worshipped the frog as a symbol of fertility. And I think that makes sense because as amphibians, the frogs live. near rivers like the Nile and the Nile itself is very much like a life source for Egyptians. So I think that makes sense. There were actually ceremonies where the Pharaoh would like ejaculate into the Nile to like. Oh my God, really? No way. Well, because like the Pharaoh was akin to a deity and there was this idea that the Nile was the

giver of life. So I guess I haven't done too much research into this. I just know that there were ceremonies involved. the pharaoh masturbating into the river, but I would assume it was something about like replenishing the Nile's life-giving properties. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just a weird sex thing, whatever, but like it happened. Either way.

It sounds like it belongs in Handmaid's Tale or something. Yeah. It totally does. So yeah. So also frogs are in the Bible where like swarms of frogs are seen as punishment. There's also another weird thing about salamanders. People thought that salamanders had this supernatural ability to withstand fire and heat. And it seems like people thought this because when they would set a log on fire,

salamanders would often scurry out of the log. So people thought that the salamanders were born from the fire. When in fact they were like, please get me away from the fire. Exactly, exactly. Because like old rotting logs are the habitat of choice for many salamanders. But still, you know, for that reason and many other reasons, like their toxicity and their limb regeneration, salamanders were just very well respected and even worshipped. Yeah. And there are a lot more examples of like historical herpes. I'll give one more because it's my favorite. So we all know the story of the frog prince where the princess kisses a frog and he turns into a prince and then they live happily ever after. Yeah, that's literally what I've been thinking about this whole time.

Okay, yes. So my favorite iteration of that story is the fantastic animated version that Disney did back in 2009, which was said in New Orleans. It's excellent. But the original version was recorded by the Brothers Grimm back in the early 1800s. And in that version, there was no kissing of frogs. But instead, the spell was broken when the princess throws him against the wall. Oh. And then he falls down onto the bed and transforms into a prince. He just needed a solid slap upside the head. A jolt. Totally. Yeah. I just thought that was so funny.

Like, no, no, no. Not a kiss. I'm going to throw you against the wall. Well, and we've talked to Fronde Rooders saying about the Brothers Grimm and how their stories, like, compared to the Disney version, sounds so dark. But they actually, they, like, whitewashed the existing. folklore. In collecting them and putting them into their book, they had to like make them more family friendly. So I wonder what she did to the frog in like the like version of that story that

got told in like dark northern German villages in the middle of the woods. Yeah. Yeah. It's really gone through some transformation. So yeah, there's a lot of weird stories like that. But today, thankfully our knowledge of amphibians is much more rooted in science. So I'm going to tell you about some of my favorite amphibians. So first, there are these things called Sicilians. Do you guys know what these are? Have you heard of them? I am a Sicilian. Not the Italian kind. So it's spelled C-A-E-C-I-A-N-S. And they're amphibious worms. Ooh, I did not know that was a thing. Yeah, nobody does.

I learned about this. Go ahead. Question. How is an amphibious worm different from a snake? I mean, snakes are reptiles, not amphibians, but I feel like once you're talking about amphibious verbs, you're getting very close to a snake. Totally. Yes. So they have evolved convergently, which means they came from two separate lineages and just developed very similar traits, essentially.

So anyway, so Sicilians, they're amphibious worms, and they're not like earthworms. They are actual vertebrates. And while some do have lungs, they also breathe through their skin. And like a traditional amphibian often does. I'm picturing like the basilisk right now. Yes, they look very similar to that. And also the other thing in pop culture that are similar to Sicilians is that a lot of people think the worm in Star Wars was based on a Sicilian. Oh.

But yeah. So they don't have eyes. And they do have a tentacle that comes out of their face. Oh, cute. Yeah. And they use that as like a secondary olfactory sense. Like they kind of use it to sniff out where they're going. I truly wish I had that.

Yeah. I wouldn't, I mean, having a tonne of your face. Well, I don't know. I guess it depends on my mood. The more you think of it. Yeah. But my all-time favorite Sicilian fact is that in some species, the babies are born with these pointy little teeth shaped like shovels.

And because food can be pretty scarce when they're born, the babies use their little shovel teeth to eat the skin off of their mother's body. Oh, cute. But is it like, is it like extra skin or like skin she needs? So, okay. It's extra skin. Oh, so almost like breast milk. Like she's making the skin for her babies.

Yes. That's almost essentially the. exactly the same thing. So basically they peel off her mother's skin and eat it. It's very rich in fatty acids, making it extra nutritious. And basically the... Yeah, it's a super food. And the babies have this, like, feeding frenzy for around seven minutes. And then that's how long it takes them to eat the skin. And the mom is just like super chill about this. She just like lets them go to town. And then in a day or so, like a day and a half, maybe the mom grows another layer of skin. And then they eat that layer. She's just so exfoliated.

Great self-care for a new mom. Totally. Totally. So yeah, and once those babies grow up, they lose their shovely teeth and get more cone-shaped teeth. And they're actually pretty voracious predators. And they eat everything from earthworms to insects to even fish and other amphibians. So, yeah, those are Sicilians. And then my other favorite amphibians are the giant salamanders.

Do you guys know about giant salamanders? salamanders. Only that they're giant salamanders. That's really the end of my knowledge. Yeah. I mean, I will say that that's definitely their most exciting trait is their sheer size. So there's three main groups of giant salamander. There's the Chinese giant salamander, the Japanese giant salamander, and then the hellbender, which is like the North American version.

But the first two get up to five or six feet in length, and they're essentially like human size. They're like actually huge. and they kind of yeah yeah it's wild and they lurk on the bottoms of rivers and they kind of just suck fish up like suck them up like vacuums and they do that by like expanding their throats and then they open their mouths and it creates a literal vacuum underwater and the fish just can't escape and when they're threatened they produce this like milky fluid and it smells like pepper i don't know why that repels things but i just thought it was cute spicy spicy indeed. I guess it's like pepper spray kind of. Sadly, both the Chinese and Japanese giant salamanders are critically endangered because a lot of times they're hunted for their meat, which is really sad. And then there's the last one, which is the hellbender. And the hellbender is the only giant salamander that lives in North America. And I think the name makes it sound a little bit too sexy for what it actually is. Basically, it's just like a foot and a half long, big salamander. But one theory for the name is that the hellbender was named by settlers who thought it was a creature from hell where it is bent on returning. And another rendition says the animal's weird skin reminded people of, quote, horrible tortures of the infernal regions. Oh, God.

Yeah, it's just a cute little salamander. I mean, it's bigger than normal, but it's just a salamander. In more cutesy colloquial terms for them include the snot otter, the lasagna lizard. That's not otter and lasagna lizard, I feel like, are both nicknames I could adopt for myself. Totally. I'm like appetizers at a really fancy, like, farm-to-table restaurant. Yeah. Yeah, some people also call it grampus, and I have no idea why.

Like crampus, the scary Christmas demon, but. Yeah, exactly. I have no idea. So, yeah. So basically, like I said, the hellbender isn't as big as the other two giant salamanders, but they are also endangered mostly from habitat loss and global warming because they need cold waters because they have higher oxygen content.

And so they live in the fast-moving rivers of the Ozarks and also in states like Ohio, Illinois, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. And they are the state amphibian of Pennsylvania. And that brings me back to my field course in herpetology, which was in Pennsylvania. Yeah, I was looking forward to when that was coming back to the story. So I will end on my experience of my field course. So basically when I took this class, we were supposed to go find hellbenders because they are, you know, very prevalent in Pennsylvania. But it was too dangerous because we had just like a crazy amount of rain that summer. So it would

have been too dangerous to go herping for hellbenders in those fast moving streams. But we did spend a lot of weeks just trudging through the forest, looking for vernal pools, which are just these little ponds that are only around in the spring. And salamanders lay their egg masses in those pools because fish don't live in them to eat the eggs. But it's also just like stagnant water. So it just meant a ton of mosquitoes were around. And then there was all the mud and the poison ivy. So I just spent a lot of July in like long pants and rain boots and a windbreaker just zipped all the way up with the hood up for protection. And it was obviously like so cool. And like I felt very privileged to go out like hunt for salamanders and like learn all about them,

but also just made me realize like scientific fieldwork was not my jam. But I'm glad I had the experience to like, you know, it made me respect to the earth and like all these ecosystems that a lot of people don't always see. You know, like you could just go out there and flip over a log and find a bunch of little bright red newts. Like it's so cool. Yeah, that is really cool. Yeah. So that's why I wanted to talk about amphibians and salamanders and stuff. for the Earth Day episode because they're just like so sensitive and cute and they're bio

indicators meaning that like you know if they start to die off it's a sign that something's going wrong in the ecosystem like pollution or global warming or whatever they're just like very in sync with the earth so we got to protect them and that's my Earth Day message that's a great Earth Day message thank you for all of those facts also I have to say I knew that the Greek word herpes meant to crawl. It never occurred to me. I knew that because of the origin of the name for the virus herpes. It never occurred to me that like that is also where the root for herpetology comes from, even though that is extremely obvious now that I think of it. Yeah, I never realized it either until I like actually looked it up and I was like, oh my God, that's so weird. Yeah. Wow. Well,

two things that crawl. Herpes and herpes. Love it. Well, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with one more fact. And we're back and I'm going to talk about a mushroom that takes up much room as it were. Oh, boy. Sorry. So when you think about the biggest organisms on the planet, I mean, you might think of like a blue whale, for example.

example, quite large, largest actual animal living today. But arguably, the largest organism is actually a mushroom. Not a single mushroom in the sense that it's like a giant toadstool. And I'll get into the physiology of mushrooms a little bit more during the course of this fact. But in both Oregon and Michigan, there are these giant, giant fungal mats, which is a term that sounds kind of gross. It's really wonderful and fascinating and beautiful. So there's this species of mushroom called armillaria estuille. They're often called honey mushrooms. And honey mushroom is an endine given to like a whole group of them.

Most are malaria, as people would call honey mushrooms. But this particular species is really, really good at just covering huge, huge tracts of land. And it has a really kind of insidious way of doing this. So they look like pretty innocuous mushrooms. They're named because they have these kind of like golden brown fruiting bodies. And they grow out of trees. You'll often see them sprouting up out of dead trees. I used to, when I was in college and I studied mycology and we would have like during our

fieldwork days, we would just kind of run around the woods in eastern Massachusetts. And my, mycology professor used to tell me that like every mycologist has like a particular kind of mushroom that they can just always find. And mine was the honey mushroom. I just like was really good at finding them in dead trees and bringing back a bunch of them to take spore prints of and all the other things you do when you're a mycology. nerd. But the thing about them is that while there are a lot of species of fungi that have what we call micro-rizo relationships with plants or trees, which means they, you know, grow kind of into or on or

around these other species and it kind of use the plants for nutrients. A lot of those relationships are really symbiotic. And in fact, fungi really help bring a lot of nutrients to soil. by breaking down materials like bugs, dead leaves, whatever, to release those nutrients back. But in the case of this particular kind of honey mushroom, they have this really nasty way of getting in a tree's business. So mushrooms, even though we often interact with just their fruiting bodies, that's actually just like a really small part of most mushrooms lifespans. Most fungi are mostly existing underground and through networks of this stuff called mycelium. And mycelium, when you see it under the ground

or like growing in some kind of substrate, it just kind of looks like this kind of like flossy white, almost like gossamer material. It's just like this very, these like wispy little little bits of white material. But actually the whole mushroom is made of mycelium. It's just that it grows into these rooting bodies and it has chitin in it, which is the same material that makes beetles hard. So, like, you know, the mushroom is able to form all these different shapes and have wonderful colors and stuff. But if you cut into a mushroom, you know, if you think of like a white button mushroom that you're cutting into and how the middle like stock of it is that like white, fleshy, material, that's just like a bunch of mycelium packed up together. But when you look at this

kind of honey mushroom in particular, they don't just have mycelium. They have these kind of appendages called rhizomorphs or shoe strings. And these are like thicker, they're stronger. Sometimes they're actually like black in color. And it's basically, I think some researchers say that it's basically like as if the stalk of the mushroom, like this very like thick clump of mycelium with the kind of like chitinous protection is growing underground. And when you have these really thick rhizomorphs, they act more like roots. And so they're able to grow really far. And they're also able to like really mess trees up when they grow into them.

So these rhizomorphs will kind of grow into a root system. and leach some nutrients from a tree. And then once the tree is weakened enough, they'll just, like, kind of shoot into the tree and, like, really kill it off. And so as much as I loved hunting for honey mushrooms, I have to say they are actually quite devastating to trees. So that brings us back to what's going on in Oregon and Michigan. So you have these super thick,

root-like branches of mycelium. They are like hunting around for new places to mess trees up. And the result is a single fungus weighing some 22,000 pounds. What? 22,000 pounds? Yes. We have a couple of really large ones in the U.S. In Michigan, we think, we think, think that it's probably like thousands of years old. But then in Oregon, they found one that they think is at least 8,000 years old. And that covers 3.5 square miles.

And it might weigh 35,000 tons. What? Yes. In Michigan, we're talking about like 91 acres across. So still, like, quite large. But yeah, so, like, we know that this is all one mushroom. Like, we can sequence its genes and say, like, this is all one organism. And we can't, like, obviously we can't, like, make the ground transparent and look at the whole thing.

But, and of course, lots of scientists wish they could. But when you calculate how much mycelium there must be and estimate the weight, you know, you're talking about something. that is just like so, so massive. And yeah, there's been some research into like how these mushrooms are able to get so old and so big. And there was a study on, they call it the humongous fungus in Michigan. Yeah. And they found that it had like a really slow rate of mutation. as it like reproduced and grew its network.

They think it may be that because it's underground and like the rays of the sun aren't like inflicting cellular damage and encouraging mutations that like that might have something to do with just like how it's able to grow so huge because it's not easily a slow process. But yeah, it's I love that like the biggest thing on the. planet is just a mushroom mat. Yeah, that's pretty wild to think about, like, it's spanning, like, that much space is weird. That's crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's just, you know, you have these little fruiting bodies that only come out for part of the year, right? And, like, I'm sure if you were in the area around the humongous fungus, you would be like, wow, there are so many of these mushrooms. But still, like, if you collected them all, it certainly. would not weigh much.

Sure, sure. You might get a nice couple of baskets, feed some hungry people. But the sheer mass when you calculate all of its underground goings on is incredible. And yeah, it's a great reminder of how much of like the wonderful things on Earth are happening hidden from our view. Yeah, big time. Is it like helping the environment around it? No, they're bad for trees. I mean, I don't think it's it's like they're they're like they're not like invasive. It's kind of like all like part of a healthy breakfast, you know, like this is all like a normal thing for a forest. But you do want to like keep an eye on how many trees they're killing because it can be a problem. And sometimes they, They do need to intervene.

You might clear an infected tree. And they'll also, they can like remain pathogenic in fallen trees or tree trunks for quite a long time. So you do have to really like burn or totally get rid of the tree if you're trying to keep it from spreading. They're also like trees that it's less pathogenic too. So you might like plant some more resistant. species. But yeah, also it's like, you know, the mushrooms deserve to live too. So. Right.

Save the humongous fungus. That's what I say. There's also, do you guys know, this is not about mushrooms, but do you guys know about Pando? Uh-uh. No. So Pando is another extremely large organism. And in fact, by area, I think it's considered the largest. living organism. Sorry, no, it's the heaviest known organism. But it's a single male quaking

aspen that has formed a colony of clones that occupies 106 acres. So I'm quaking. Wow. This guy can see so perfect. Yeah. The world needs more Pando. That's what he said, that aspen tree. So wait, why is he named Pando? It's Latin for like I spread out. Oh, like, got it. Endemic. Oh, yeah. Claire. Wow. A genius. I mean, honestly, I did not make the connection. So yes, truly. But yeah, the Pandor's root system, I think conservative estimates put it at about 80,000 years old.

Wow. So it's also one of the oldest known living organisms. but some people argue that it could be like a million years old. That's, I cannot even like process that. Yeah, it's wild. And again, like back in 1968, when Burton v. Barnes discovered Pando, he was even pretty sure it was a single organism just based on its morphology. I guess he was just like, look, I know trees and these are all the same tree. But then once they actually were able to study it, you know, at the more molecular level,

it was indeed, you know, at least supported that this is all one tree. So, yeah, it's just like a root system that keeps sprouting up new trees. Very, like, you know, if you think about it, pretty similar to the humongous fungus in terms of just like how it operates. So like each, if you took the average age of just the stems that are currently standing, They're just over 100 years old, but the roots are much older. So yeah, that's another just like really incredible one. Also, Pando is not doing well. Oh, no.

Yeah. My boy. Yeah. Unfortunately, there was a 2018 study that found that Pando hadn't been growing new trees, I guess, for the last few decades. And like a lot of people think. that humans allowing cattle and deer to like thrive nearby and graze meant that fewer saplings were surviving. Also like Pando thrived really well in like a system of natural forest fires. So this is in Utah, by the way. I don't think I said where Pando hails from. But so it's basically

because this like intricate root system is surviving underground, it's surviving wild fires and then sprouting up afterwards. And like that has kept other plants from colonizing the area. And so, you know, now that we like manage forest fires, which is good because otherwise we would cause a bunch of them. But like this is a, this is a plant that really thrived in prehuman days and is not doing as well with our interference in various ways. So yeah, hopefully Pando makes it because he's had a long life and it would be a bummer if we did him in so soon after discovering him. But yeah. Yeah.

Imagine all the life that Pando and the humongous fungus have seen. Oh my gosh. All the centuries of humans. Pando and the humongous fungus is the children's book I'm going to write. Yes. That's perfect. Yeah, I love it. That's all I have to say about that big mushroom mushrooms and Pando. Wow, I love this week's episode.

Yeah, it was really fun. Yeah. What was the weirdest thing we learned this week? I don't know. They were all good. I think the rock mystery is still weighing heavy on my mind. Oh, no. But yes, agreed. Same. The weirdest thing I learned this week is a popular science podcast. We're available on all major podcast platforms, so subscribe wherever you're listening now. And if you like what you hear, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

It helps other weirdos find the show. For more information on the stories you heard in this episode, come find us at popsai.com slash weird. You can buy our merch, including weirdest thing, t-shirts, tote bags, and mugs at popsye. com. The show is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Fultman, with editing and audio engineering by Just Bodie. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore Thing. Thanks for listening, Weirdos.

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