Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's your younger stepbrother who somehow is old
Speaker 1: enough to have a sleeve tattoo, and you don't even
Speaker 1: know when that happened. Ali Ward back with ology is
Speaker 1: another ology you never knew about, probably with a charming
Speaker 1: person you wish you knew earlier. Trust me, So shell's
Speaker 1: hard stuff, living chemistry. This episode was almost called conchology,
Speaker 1: but it's about so much more, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: than just some swirly seashells. And this guest's Instagram handle
Speaker 1: is biomineralogists, So when that happens, you go with biomineralogy.
Speaker 1: So concology or shell collecting, that's going to wait for
Speaker 1: another time. Another person also biomineralogy technically an allergy, and
Speaker 1: I'm not accepting any emails about it. It is what
Speaker 1: it is. So this ologist got his bachelor's in chemistry
Speaker 1: from Virginia Tech and is now completing his PhD at
Speaker 1: UCLA studying geochemistry. And we met one fateful summer, the
Speaker 1: one before COVID, at a backyard barbecue at none other
Speaker 1: than Raquel Nuno, your favorite moon expert and selenologists house,
Speaker 1: And this guest told me just offhand that he studied shells,
Speaker 1: and I was like, mark my words, I'm good to
Speaker 1: drag you Onologies, my new friend. So being at a
Speaker 1: barbecue and finding out that the person eating a veggie
Speaker 1: burger next to you studies the microscopic properties of shell
Speaker 1: structure to figure out what's going on with the upending
Speaker 1: apocalypse is what this show is all about. But before
Speaker 1: we dive into this episode, thank you patrons for supporting
Speaker 1: the show. I am doing my first ever live show
Speaker 1: for everyone, not just patrons, on May eighteenth, next week,
Speaker 1: and tickets are on sale. They're at the link in
Speaker 1: the show notes. They're twelve bucks general or nine dollars
Speaker 1: for patrons who can submit questions for returning a volcanologist
Speaker 1: Jess Phoenix. She's back and we'll hear her reaction to
Speaker 1: her episode again link in the show notes. Also, thank
Speaker 1: you for leaving reviews, and to prove I read yours,
Speaker 1: here's a brand new one from fourteen sixteen eighteen, who
Speaker 1: wrote Ologies has changed my life. Seriously, Dear Allie, I
Speaker 1: hope you read my review out loud. Just one request,
Speaker 1: can you explain the pod dad joke? Thanks and love
Speaker 1: from a new listener and patron, A mama from Boston, Okay,
Speaker 1: Rose fourteen sixty eighteen. We've got a lot of puns.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of well meaning life advice and just
Speaker 1: a big dad vibe. So that's all. That's all it is,
Speaker 1: pod Dad. So thank you for the review, kiddo, and
Speaker 1: welcome all right. Biomeneralogy from words meaning alive or biomineralogy
Speaker 1: is the study of biominerals, which are inorganic elements such
Speaker 1: as calcium, ironed, potassium, sodium, or zinc. And they're essential
Speaker 1: to the nutrition of humans and plants and animals and critters.
Speaker 1: So this ologist again getting his PhD UCLA while writing
Speaker 1: a book called The Hard Parts of Life, about bones
Speaker 1: and teeth and shells and reefs, and we reunited to
Speaker 1: chat all about those things, plus the brickwork of iridescent shells,
Speaker 1: the ocean's tiny pieces of a live artwork, shells versus exoskeletons,
Speaker 1: lobster lifespans, animals that glue other dead animal skeletons to
Speaker 1: their own skeletons, snail drama, fiddle, leaf care, fashion versus function, spiraling,
Speaker 1: and more with advocate scholar, total sweetie, geochemist, writer and biomineralogist,
Speaker 1: The soon to be doctor rob Ulrich.
Speaker 2: Rob Ulrich they or he pronouns.
Speaker 1: Cool and you are a biomineralogist or a conchologist? Are concologists?
Speaker 1: Tell me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say either of those. I feel like
Speaker 2: concologists is probably more accurate to what I am now,
Speaker 2: but I feel like my goal is to branch out
Speaker 2: to be more general biomeneralogists.
Speaker 1: I'd never heard biomineralogists until I met you at a
Speaker 1: summer pool party seasons and seasons ago. I know, I've
Speaker 1: been so excited about this for so long. Okay, so
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about you. Did you grow
Speaker 1: up seaside where you landlocked in Nebraska? How did you
Speaker 1: end up studying things by the sea? And does it
Speaker 1: didn't even involve things by the sea. Are there inland
Speaker 1: things as well that are biomeneralogy related?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, biominerals are any minerals that are formed by
Speaker 2: living things, so that includes like our bones, or there
Speaker 2: are even little biominerals inside of the leaves of a
Speaker 2: lot of species of plants that act as essentially disco
Speaker 2: balls that help like scatter light more efficiently throughout the leaves,
Speaker 2: which is really cool. Yeah, but no, Unfortunately, I did
Speaker 2: not grow up by the Beach. I grew up in
Speaker 2: northern Virginia kind of just like in the middle of
Speaker 2: the woods. And I feel like I never really had
Speaker 2: the goal of ending up where I am. I think
Speaker 2: it just kind of happened, and I feel like I
Speaker 2: owe a lot of my direction into earth science or
Speaker 2: geosciences in general, just to add a crush on a boy.
Speaker 2: So I followed him.
Speaker 1: Did you follow him to Los Angeles? No?
Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness. I was probably still in denial that
Speaker 2: I was gay at this point, and I was just like,
Speaker 2: he's just a really good friend, and so I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I totally want to try to go to the same college.
Speaker 2: And so we both ended up at Virginia Tech. And
Speaker 2: initially I was in chemical engineering, but then I realized
Speaker 2: that wasn't what I wanted to do because chemical engineering
Speaker 2: is a lot more application and process based and like
Speaker 2: trying to make processes more efficient. And I found that
Speaker 2: I was a lot more fascinated with as science, where
Speaker 2: it's like trying to figure things out, how do things work?
Speaker 2: So I switched from chemical engineering to just chemistry. But
Speaker 2: I was still in this mindset because my parents wanted
Speaker 2: me like wanted to make sure that I got a
Speaker 2: good job coming out of college, right, and so I
Speaker 2: was still trying to stay on this path to go
Speaker 2: into the energy sector, going to like petroleum and oil
Speaker 2: and energy.
Speaker 1: Rob asked some mentors how to pivot from the petroleum
Speaker 1: industry and chemical engineering, and many folks suggested that he
Speaker 1: try out the geosciences and geology, which was a great
Speaker 1: fit and also romantically convenient because it turns out he
Speaker 1: was focusing on chemistry.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and that also happened to be what the boy
Speaker 2: was majoring in.
Speaker 1: Did you guys ever go together?
Speaker 2: No? He was? He not was he is is straight.
Speaker 2: I had just considered him a really good friend, he
Speaker 2: considered me a really good friend. And then in my
Speaker 2: second semester of college, I had finally had a chance
Speaker 2: to like explore things like on my own, and then
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, yeah, I am gay.
Speaker 1: Cut to now. Rob is out of the closet, thriving,
Speaker 1: and after moving to la for grad school and looking
Speaker 1: for community, he founded Queer and trans in STEM to
Speaker 1: bring together LGBTQIA plus and other intersecting identities into science, technology, engineering,
Speaker 1: and math, and the group meets on Mondays at nine
Speaker 1: to ten pm Pacific through Zoom, because otherwise, he says, it's.
Speaker 2: Like it's really hard to make friends, and so like
Speaker 2: I was trying to go really out of my way.
Speaker 2: I was driving to West Hollywood like every weekend and
Speaker 2: join the gay Kickball League because it wasn't at least
Speaker 2: like in my department, there weren't a lot of people
Speaker 2: that I knew were like queer gay I was. I
Speaker 2: was thinking about it, and I was like, I shouldn't
Speaker 2: have to drive all away, halfway across town just to
Speaker 2: meet queer people when I moved to Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Right, that's the most you know you're an Angelina When
Speaker 1: you're like I should not have to go from Westwood
Speaker 1: to West Hollywood at four pm. You're true Angelina.
Speaker 2: It shouldn't even be a problem. It's only like what
Speaker 2: four miles.
Speaker 1: Three hours distance?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So you were like, screw this.
Speaker 2: I was like, screw this. I went to one of
Speaker 2: the events that is held by the UCLA LGBTQ Resource Center,
Speaker 2: walked in there and then I was like, there's nothing
Speaker 2: here for a queer trans people in science and engineering,
Speaker 2: and I kind of like stormed out of there. Really frustrated,
Speaker 2: and so then I just reached out to the director
Speaker 2: and I was like, Hey, I'm really interested in like
Speaker 2: forming this. How do I go about doing this? I
Speaker 2: don't really know how to do anything around here yet,
Speaker 2: I like just moved here. And they were like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: actually there are a few people who bounced this idea around.
Speaker 2: Let me connect you and so born somewhat out of
Speaker 2: just like me, needing and wanting friends, we all got
Speaker 2: together and sort of built this together.
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing. And just think of how many people
Speaker 1: are now not having to battle traffic.
Speaker 2: To play kickball exactly. We can all just like play
Speaker 2: video games online.
Speaker 1: And what about getting into biomineralogy? Did you want to
Speaker 1: enter into it kind of through geosciences or through human
Speaker 1: bones or what was it that really hooked you.
Speaker 2: I feel like I was trying to stay away from
Speaker 2: it at first because I feel like when I was
Speaker 2: in chemistry, I was always really fascinated by like crystals
Speaker 2: and like crystal growth in itself. And then when I
Speaker 2: was looking around for research opportunities, I ended up working
Speaker 2: for my faculty advisor eventually, and I was working with
Speaker 2: her PhD student at the time, Sebastian Mergelsburg, and the
Speaker 2: first project that they had me working on or helping
Speaker 2: out with was this project on lobsters. I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know any biology. I still haven't taken a
Speaker 2: biology class since the freshman year of high school, and
Speaker 2: so I was just like, this is super out of
Speaker 2: my element. But that was my first introduction to it,
Speaker 2: and I realized that are cool, but living things making
Speaker 2: their own crystals is even cooler.
Speaker 1: And do lobsters just keep molting and growing and molting
Speaker 1: and growing? Is that why they were studying them?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, they were trying to figure out whether or
Speaker 2: not the chemical composition of the lobster shell is like
Speaker 2: the same throughout the entire shell, or if it changes
Speaker 2: at different points of the lobster. We found that yes,
Speaker 2: it does change across the lobster, with the clause actually
Speaker 2: being more enriched in some certain elements compared to other
Speaker 2: parts of the lobster. And we drew connections from the
Speaker 2: differences in the chemical composition to the function of each
Speaker 2: part of the lobster. The shells have to be harder,
Speaker 2: so they're like more enriched in these certain elements. At
Speaker 2: the tail it needs to be more flexible, so it's
Speaker 2: more enriched in these different elements.
Speaker 1: Oh Wease see various papers, including the twenty nineteen Frontiers
Speaker 1: in Earth Science publication Composition systematics in the exoskeleton of
Speaker 1: the American Lobster and implications for Malicostraca malachostraka side note
Speaker 1: refers to the forty thousand or so Shelley Boys, including
Speaker 1: crabs and lobsters and shrimp and wood lice and many
Speaker 1: other beautiful and bizarre little beasts with exoskeletons. But this
Speaker 1: lobster paper Rob worked on found that magnesium, phosphorus, and
Speaker 1: calcium concentrations in lobster exoskeletons are not uniform. There are
Speaker 1: different shell compositions for the pinchy parts versus the flexi butts.
Speaker 1: And what exactly would you say as a biomeneralogist, what
Speaker 1: would you say the field mostly involves. Are there biomenrologists
Speaker 1: that study totally different animals and structures And how does
Speaker 1: one even get into that field?
Speaker 2: I feel like it's a really small field, at least
Speaker 2: my exposure to it. There's a handful of people that
Speaker 2: study things that live in the oceans and create like
Speaker 2: calcium carbonate shells. And then there are medical fields where
Speaker 2: they're trying to mimic biology, for like bone regeneration, tissue regeneration.
Speaker 2: Remember when I was researching for one of my fellowship
Speaker 2: application proposals, I kept coming across a lot of papers
Speaker 2: by like dentists looking out healing teeth, and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: this is a this is really cool.
Speaker 1: One of the more compelling ones I found was titled
Speaker 1: quote calcium silicate coating derived from Portland cement as a
Speaker 1: treatment for hypersensitive denteen. Now Portland cement, you ask, is
Speaker 1: it locally harvested organic concrete? No, ma'am. It's a fine
Speaker 1: powder made by baking limestone and clay stuff and then
Speaker 1: adding gypsum. And it's so much worse for the environment
Speaker 1: than I realized previously. But apparently in dento nanotechnology circles
Speaker 1: they're using derivatives to strengthen teeth. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what it's all about, but yes, we're gonna
Speaker 1: need an Odentology episode about teeth like yesterday. Also, nathology
Speaker 1: starts with a G is the study of chewing. So sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm never stopping this podcast. It can't tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about your what your work is like. Are
Speaker 1: you like scraping shells with an exact do knife and
Speaker 1: tossing him in a spectrometry contraption? What's a day in
Speaker 1: the life like for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of my lab work so far has been
Speaker 2: taking powders of shells, so like someone else has thankfully
Speaker 2: already cultured a lot of the samples that I'm working
Speaker 2: with right now, and they've already been scraped off and
Speaker 2: or I guess they use a drill. They drilled off
Speaker 2: and like then put into vials for me, and then
Speaker 2: I just need to like weigh them out and like
Speaker 2: prepare them to be put into the mass spectrometer or
Speaker 2: like whatever other technique we're using to analyze it. But
Speaker 2: more recently, for a newer projects that I'm working on,
Speaker 2: I seem to be moving towards working with algae and
Speaker 2: specifically like coco lithophords, which are like these tiny little
Speaker 2: things that make these beautiful like calcium carbonate plates. They're
Speaker 2: really gorgeous. If no one's ever seen one.
Speaker 1: Oh side note, I have seen one because I had
Speaker 1: to google it. And first off, coco lilephores are these
Speaker 1: musically named single celled phytoplankton that live in the upper
Speaker 1: layers of the sea, and they're so cool. They make
Speaker 1: themselves a little house out of what looks like a
Speaker 1: bunch of starched lacy doilies or paper plates layered over
Speaker 1: a beach ball, These round things with scales all over them,
Speaker 1: and at their largest they are the size of the
Speaker 1: width of a strand of hair. And then when they
Speaker 1: multiply or dye their shed scales are helpful for sequestering
Speaker 1: carbon and it builds up to one point four billion
Speaker 1: kilos of calcite in the ocean every year. And you're like, calcite,
Speaker 1: what's that, dad, Well, it's a great question that I
Speaker 1: asked Google for us. So, calcite is a form of
Speaker 1: calcium carbonate, and carbonate is a carbon and three oxygens.
Speaker 1: Now it's the same stuff that's in eggshells and pearls
Speaker 1: and seashells. But there are different types of calcium carbonate.
Speaker 1: Calcite is calcium carbonate that's in a really stable structure.
Speaker 1: But there's another form called ragonite, which has a different
Speaker 1: crystal lattice shape from a molecular standpoint, And calcium carbonate
Speaker 1: is also a supplement for bone health, and is in
Speaker 1: the thumbs that you chew on when you're burping up
Speaker 1: chili dogs and you need an ant acid because carbonates
Speaker 1: are pretty strong basis. Now, this information will prove useful
Speaker 1: later in the episode, do trust, But yes, very cool
Speaker 1: chemistry happening to make strong shells out of thin air
Speaker 1: and water and other minerals.
Speaker 2: And so I maintain our cultures by just going into
Speaker 2: the lab, feeding them every once in a while, by
Speaker 2: putting them in some new seawater media, and then yeah,
Speaker 2: doing some experiments with that. Also have another project that
Speaker 2: I'm really excited about where we're hopefully going to be
Speaker 2: planting like different types of fiddle leaf trees. So maybe
Speaker 2: I'll be able to get to work in a greenhouse soon.
Speaker 1: Ooh, and fiddle leaf trees those are the ones that
Speaker 1: people have in their house. But they kill a lot, right, Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can't believe I get to actually ask someone about this,
Speaker 1: But why are they hard to keep alive? Because I
Speaker 1: see them in beautiful Instagram interior design photos, and I say,
Speaker 1: how long will it take me to kill them?
Speaker 2: I feel like people maybe probably overwater them, or like
Speaker 2: I feel like it's either they pay too much attention
Speaker 2: to it or they pay too little attention to it.
Speaker 2: But unfortunately, I'm not too much of a plant scientist.
Speaker 2: I just am able to keep plants alive somehow. I
Speaker 2: always just tell people to stick your finger in the
Speaker 2: dirt and if it's dry, it probably needs to be watered.
Speaker 1: It's very scientific talktor side note, I tried to look
Speaker 1: up some fiddle leaf tips because I knew some of
Speaker 1: you out there are struggling, and apparently they like a
Speaker 1: lot of bright indirect light. And you should dust the
Speaker 1: leaves often. And yes, stick your little finger in the
Speaker 1: dirt and water it if it's dry. That's what you do,
Speaker 1: says a scientist. Also, Costco was selling these otherwise pretty
Speaker 1: pricey plants for like twenty bucks recently, in case you
Speaker 1: need to replace one you've killed while your roommate's been away.
Speaker 1: Secrets safe with me. And okay, now, when it comes
Speaker 1: to shells, let's say you're dealing with shells in the lab.
Speaker 1: Are they really different across different animals? Are a lot
Speaker 1: of them like calcium carbonate. Others are like calcium silicate.
Speaker 1: I am making up words because I don't know what
Speaker 1: they're made.
Speaker 2: Of Yeah, the most predominant biomineral is are made up
Speaker 2: of calcium carbonate, and then I would say maybe the
Speaker 2: second most common are calcium phosphate, which would be like
Speaker 2: bones and like teeth, and then maybe the third would
Speaker 2: be silicate minerals. And then at the end that you
Speaker 2: probably have the more complicated ones. They have iron in
Speaker 2: them though, and they're like made by bacteria.
Speaker 1: Ooh, and when it comes to shells, this is a
Speaker 1: very basic question, But I don't understand how something that's
Speaker 1: like a slimy, little flaccid little tongue is making something
Speaker 1: that's harder than my bones. Maybe what where is it
Speaker 1: coming from? Where they getting this calcium, Where are the
Speaker 1: secreting it? How are these shells even made?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so eye valves they secrete their shells from this
Speaker 2: organ they have called the mantle. And so the organ
Speaker 2: it's like lined with these epithelial cells that are what
Speaker 2: secrete the mineral that eventually becomes the shell. But what
Speaker 2: it has to do is it has to take all
Speaker 2: of the parts that it needs from the seawater first,
Speaker 2: and so through some process of essentially like absorption, it's
Speaker 2: pulling little tiny pockets of seawater into itself, and as
Speaker 2: that pocket is traveling through the organ, different enzymes and
Speaker 2: transporters are changing the chemistry of the water in that
Speaker 2: pocket to make it favorable for it to form like
Speaker 2: a mineral.
Speaker 1: Rob says that crystalline structures form out of these minerals
Speaker 1: plus a mix of some acidic proteins from the animal
Speaker 1: to make these biomineral structures of varying hardness and uses that.
Speaker 2: Da and then it turns into like its final form.
Speaker 1: And is it hard as soon as it comes out?
Speaker 1: Or is it like plaster of Paris? And how can
Speaker 1: something that's in the seed dry? I don't get any
Speaker 1: of it so exciting.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say it's necessarily hard, because what they're finding
Speaker 2: more and more evidence for is like this intermediate mineral
Speaker 2: phase called a morphous calcium carbonate. It's sort of counterintuitive
Speaker 2: because you don't think of minerals as being amorphous because
Speaker 2: one of the definitions of the minerals that has a
Speaker 2: crystalline structure, it's this like a morphous mineral that seems
Speaker 2: to be what gets deposited and then that's what eventually transforms.
Speaker 2: It seems like it doesn't want the water like as
Speaker 2: a part of it. And so when it is released
Speaker 2: from the pocket that was keeping it stable, it sort
Speaker 2: of dehydrates and then like pushes the water out because it
Speaker 2: wants to be it wants to be this more stable
Speaker 2: form of the mineral.
Speaker 1: Okay, So spirals is that a common thing with a
Speaker 1: lot of shells? Why are some like two little clappy
Speaker 1: plates like a clam or a muscle, and others are
Speaker 1: like this incredible beautiful Fibonacci spiral.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the shape has to do a lot with
Speaker 2: the function of it, and so things like the notylloids
Speaker 2: and stuff, they have this spiral shape that within it
Speaker 2: has these different chambers that allow it to change the
Speaker 2: animal's buoyancy so it can move up and down the
Speaker 2: water column. And then the different like bivalves, like the
Speaker 2: different clams and muscles and oysters. Their shape is very
Speaker 2: determined by how do they live. Do they live like
Speaker 2: attached to a rock, do they live on the like
Speaker 2: the sediment, the surface of the sediment, do they live
Speaker 2: buried under the sediment? How buried are they like partially
Speaker 2: or like fully? And then I think for the spiral,
Speaker 2: the other spirally shapes, for like snails, and other things
Speaker 2: like that. I think it's mainly for like protection as
Speaker 2: well as like their sexual organs are the same shape
Speaker 2: and so they need it like that.
Speaker 1: Oh so when you're looking at a spiral, you're looking
Speaker 1: maybe at their bathing suit area's shape exact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, And most of the gastropod they're chiral,
Speaker 2: so they all swirl in like this clockwise pattern because
Speaker 2: it matches the shape of their reproductive organs. That's why
Speaker 2: they can only mate with things of the same handedness
Speaker 2: or the same rotation. And that's why the sad like
Speaker 2: Jeremy the snail of the left handed snails, they can't reproduce, and.
Speaker 1: So that is part of just sexual selection where they
Speaker 1: tend to be like okay, well couldn't couldn't find anyone,
Speaker 1: So I guess I'm just out out of the game.
Speaker 1: Is that how that goes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really sad, and it's like surprising how recent,
Speaker 2: how new this research is that actually identified the gene
Speaker 2: that controls it. It came out like last year where
Speaker 2: they actually identified the gene and they noticed that like, oh,
Speaker 2: things that lack this gene are the ones that's like
Speaker 2: spiral counterclockwise so it's just mutation and it's sad.
Speaker 1: Oh, Jeremy, I looked it up, and this left hand
Speaker 1: or sinisterrel snail could not get it on with any
Speaker 1: other snail unless it too was a beautiful backwards mutant.
Speaker 1: And in a tribute to horny souls everywhere the world
Speaker 1: found him two other lefty snails to fall in love with.
Speaker 1: All three were put in a love nest enclosure, and
Speaker 1: that two others mated with each other and made tons
Speaker 1: of babies. Well, Jeremy watched from the sidelines before he
Speaker 1: died in twenty seventeen. But don't cry yet. Researchers realized
Speaker 1: that he did mate before his demise. He produced fifty
Speaker 1: six babies, all of them righty's who have a better
Speaker 1: chance at love and making more snail babies. Okay, you
Speaker 1: figure like tiny snail, Right, tiny snail becomes bigger snail
Speaker 1: becomes figure snail. Are they adding to the shell on
Speaker 1: the big end or on the little end? Can it
Speaker 1: just keep growing like a rock candy and supersaturated sugar water?
Speaker 1: Like where are they adding to it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're adding to it at the little end. That's
Speaker 2: like the point at which things are growing outward.
Speaker 1: So the snails hatch from an egg and they have
Speaker 1: a proto counch, which is like a colorless little shell
Speaker 1: that hardens with more calcium which they have to get
Speaker 1: from eating their egg shell, kind of like snacking on
Speaker 1: the placenta that you just slid out of. It's resourceful. Now,
Speaker 1: as a snail grows, the teeny tiny baby whirl stays
Speaker 1: in the center and it keeps making more new shell
Speaker 1: at the aperture at the opening end, which hardens and
Speaker 1: crystallizes as it grows. Okay, and crystals. You love crystals.
Speaker 1: Obviously it kind of drew your very I know. I
Speaker 1: like the idea that if you have like a crusty
Speaker 1: snail shell on your altar, that's kind of a crystal. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, smash smash it up a bit, look at it,
Speaker 2: like at it under like a really really strong microscope.
Speaker 2: You'll see the crystals.
Speaker 1: How are the crystals forming? Because we know that an
Speaker 1: ice cube is a crystal, right, we like or snowflake
Speaker 1: is also a crystal, like six sided. What is it
Speaker 1: about calcium carbonator or these other minerals that allow it
Speaker 1: to make that crystalline structure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's what's available it's like based on what they
Speaker 2: have around them, it's what they can make the most easily.
Speaker 2: When they are putting these chemicals into the space, they're
Speaker 2: really probably they're not like intentionally doing it, like we
Speaker 2: don't think about us our ourselves, like making our bones.
Speaker 2: But there is something they're like guiding the crystals into
Speaker 2: being formed and more impressively formed into like these like
Speaker 2: wild beautiful shapes that we see.
Speaker 1: And I mean, okay, favorite shells. Do you have some
Speaker 1: that stick in your mind? Are you like a shell
Speaker 1: person as it is? Are you a person who's like, ugh,
Speaker 1: I got a keep some on a bookshelf or are
Speaker 1: you strictly like when it's powdered and under a microscope
Speaker 1: then I care? Or do you marvel over them?
Speaker 2: I marvel over them. But when I moved, since I
Speaker 2: was moving across the country, I had the lead of
Speaker 2: like my like rock and mineral collection with my parents
Speaker 2: at their house, and I was like, oh no, so
Speaker 2: I sadly like, don't I don't have any? But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I'm always going to be fascinated by things
Speaker 2: that like nature can create, especially with how like beautiful
Speaker 2: shells can be. And it's kind of like almost for
Speaker 2: no rea, like they do it for function, and then
Speaker 2: it just like happens to be beautiful. My old research
Speaker 2: advisory I used to always say that nature was the
Speaker 2: best engineer. Oh.
Speaker 1: I mean, when I think about biomimicry and how much
Speaker 1: we borrow from nature, I always think, you know, we're
Speaker 1: on iPhone eleven or twelve or something. But for every animal,
Speaker 1: they've had so many iterations. Every generation is an iteration,
Speaker 1: and they've had millions and millions, millions over years. So like,
Speaker 1: imagine an iPhone thirty five million, like it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a great iPhone, Like it's gonna be advanced. So of
Speaker 1: course they've figured they've figured it out based on like
Speaker 1: what works best. But can I ask you one million
Speaker 1: patroon questions.
Speaker 2: You can ask me whatever you want.
Speaker 1: Okay, hear that, whatever I fricking want, which is what
Speaker 1: you want patrons who submitted questions. But first we donate
Speaker 1: to a charity of the biomeneralogists choosing and this week
Speaker 1: it's directed toward the Center for Diverse Leadership in Science
Speaker 1: and c d LS at UCLA was founded by Professor
Speaker 1: Aradna Tapati and is an initiative to bring people from
Speaker 1: diverse backgrounds into science, and a donation to them was
Speaker 1: made possible by these word approved show sponsors. All right,
Speaker 1: we have a shell of a lot of questions to
Speaker 1: get through. Let's do it, Okay, A lot of people.
Speaker 1: Leah Darpel, Courtney are and Blondin, Monica, Bellaquava, Lisa ma Zoey, Jane,
Speaker 1: Paige Leberski, Flora Duff, Carrissa Perry, Felix Wolf, Kelsey's Story,
Speaker 1: Becky Roberson, Aliyah, Sarah Sexton. I know these are a
Speaker 1: lot of names. Ann mckenry and Ellen Durnal, all of
Speaker 1: those people. It's a lot of people and I've read
Speaker 1: them all because it is important. Want to know. In
Speaker 1: Kelsey Story's words, she said, is it rude to collect shells?
Speaker 1: Empty ones? Obviously? Or am I robbing a little sea
Speaker 1: friend of a potential home? And Carissa Perry said, love
Speaker 1: my shell collection, but can probably be convinced to quit
Speaker 1: the habit if it's no bueno. And Sarah Sexton has
Speaker 1: a million shells from when she lived in Hawaii and
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to get rid of them. But what
Speaker 1: should she do with them? What is the deal when
Speaker 1: you are collecting shells. Are you ruining life for the sea?
Speaker 2: I guess. In short, yeah, like anything where you're removing
Speaker 2: a material from the natural ecosystem probably isn't the best
Speaker 2: for the environment. I'm pretty sure that hermit crab's already
Speaker 2: like very it's not their market for homes, and so
Speaker 2: removing more potential homes for them is probably not the best.
Speaker 2: But they're They're also not the only people who use
Speaker 2: old shells. There are other organisms that use old shells
Speaker 2: to like weigh themselves down or even like use them
Speaker 2: for protection. Like I know, there's some really cute pictures
Speaker 2: of sea urchins that actually put some old like bivoul
Speaker 2: shells on and they kind of look like little tiny hats.
Speaker 2: I think there was an image circulating Twitter of like
Speaker 2: these sea urchins wearing tiny little cowboy hats and they're
Speaker 2: really cute.
Speaker 1: Did I look it up? Of course? Did it deliver also?
Speaker 1: Of course? Okay. So Reddit user vanilla Bean fifty thirteen
Speaker 1: has an aquarium, and after seeing their urchins pick up
Speaker 1: shells or bits of coral and damaging the coral doing it,
Speaker 1: they decided to three D print them some hats to
Speaker 1: use instead, so you can see the links on my
Speaker 1: website if you need to look up a spiky a
Speaker 1: live cousheball wearing a witch hat, which you do. And
Speaker 1: apparently scientists think they do that because it makes them
Speaker 1: feel protected. And they also, according to Vanilla Bean fifty
Speaker 1: eight thirteen on Reddit, they move them just to the side.
Speaker 1: They cock up to an angle in order to poop,
Speaker 1: which happens at at the top of their head. They
Speaker 1: poop at the top of their head. Please tell everyone
Speaker 1: that you know. No I was going to ask about Hermes.
Speaker 1: Emily asked, is it true that hermit crabs all line
Speaker 1: up to trade shells when they need a larger one?
Speaker 1: Felix Wolf had this question too. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've seen the David Attenborough clip, but it is the
Speaker 1: cutest thing I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like I feel it. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: they have a video of it, right.
Speaker 1: So we happened to discuss this recently in an aphrology
Speaker 1: episode about kidneys, because one kidney donation might help ten
Speaker 1: other people meet their match rather than their maker. So yes,
Speaker 1: David Attenborough narrated it beautifully. I think about it way
Speaker 1: too much. I think people should do it with houses.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just saying a lot of people wanted to know.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I'm going to read their names,
Speaker 1: to be honest, because it's like seventy five people wanted
Speaker 1: to know, Like Bridget White says first Patreon question, why
Speaker 1: do the inside of shells tend to have a beautiful
Speaker 1: shiny gas rainbow and the outsides are just good for camouflaging?
Speaker 1: Also Anne McInerney, first time question asker wants to know
Speaker 1: Mother Pearl, what's the deal? Why is the inside of
Speaker 1: an oyster like a fairy wing? Is it an accident?
Speaker 1: Does it serve a purpose? And do they know how
Speaker 1: beautiful they are?
Speaker 2: I would hope so. I'd hope that they have some
Speaker 2: sort of reflection where they look in whatever they can
Speaker 2: use as a mirror and are like, yes, you are beautiful,
Speaker 2: you are gorgeous, you are powerful. But that's probably not
Speaker 2: the case that I but yeah, so Mother Pearl or
Speaker 2: Maker and a cre It's beautiful because of how the
Speaker 2: light refracts because it's usually made up of they're like
Speaker 2: prismatic tablets almost, and the way that they're stacked bend
Speaker 2: the light and the way that makes it look like
Speaker 2: this weird rainbow, and it does have a purpose. So
Speaker 2: it's mechanical properties are very strong and are very good
Speaker 2: and very resistant to wear and tear. And it's especially
Speaker 2: useful because of its stuctile they can put it into
Speaker 2: odd shapes that are the insides of these shells.
Speaker 1: Ooo, so ductyle side note means that it can be
Speaker 1: formed into shapes without losing its strength and kind of
Speaker 1: like an iridescent lego set. Mother of pearl has a
Speaker 1: brick and mortar structure to it, the bricks being a ragonite,
Speaker 1: which is another form of calcium carbonate, and the mortar
Speaker 1: what is it, thanks for asking, Well, it's elasticky biopolymers,
Speaker 1: kind of like a silky glue that holds the ragonite together.
Speaker 1: The molluscs that secrete it in their mantle tissue are
Speaker 1: just always turning it over to help capture and get
Speaker 1: rid of parasites and debris and goonk and stuff. So
Speaker 1: under a microscope, the inside of an abalony or muscle
Speaker 1: shell looks like a brick building and the stacked arragonite
Speaker 1: platelets are close to the size of a wave of light,
Speaker 1: and so irregularities on the surface scatter light, making it
Speaker 1: look like a jazzy little rainbow, all of that chemistry, structure, strength, beauty,
Speaker 1: and your cousin just uses an abalone shell as an ashtray.
Speaker 1: Do as you will. So it's function first and then
Speaker 1: it's fashion.
Speaker 2: Yes, function and then fashion, very much like my closet.
Speaker 2: And the more surprising bit is that even though it
Speaker 2: looks completely different to the outside of the shell, at
Speaker 2: the base level, it's all made up of the same stuff.
Speaker 2: It's all calcium carbonate. It's just in a different crystal structure,
Speaker 2: or it's like arranged in a different orientation.
Speaker 1: Ah, I had no idea. Sarah Kulag wants to know.
Speaker 1: Is marceald the Shell the cutest example of a fictional
Speaker 1: shell creature? Yes, that I used. It's time I skis
Speaker 1: to my car the hair. Guess what my skis are
Speaker 1: toe nails from the man?
Speaker 2: Uh? I think? So yeah, Like that's that's a throwback.
Speaker 2: Like I haven't thought about Marsala Shell in I don't
Speaker 2: even know how long.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you something? I watched Marcella Shell three
Speaker 1: days ago.
Speaker 2: What that show is like at least ten years old.
Speaker 1: I know, but I just remember now she was like,
Speaker 1: I get a what ice ski on toenail, and I
Speaker 1: liked to listen to it again. It always gets me
Speaker 1: right in the heart. Helen's Skelton wants to know what
Speaker 1: is the most ridiculous shell you have seen? Like one
Speaker 1: that you look at and think, why an evolutionary history
Speaker 1: did this squishy thing feel the need to create this
Speaker 1: elaborate thing.
Speaker 2: Well, there's this one Xenophora. It's called the carrier shell.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make sense. It's just like, why did this
Speaker 2: shell of this snail decide at some point in its
Speaker 2: history that it was going to pick up and meld
Speaker 2: with other shells as it grows? And so it just
Speaker 2: looks like this spiral that has other random shells sticking
Speaker 2: out of it, and it.
Speaker 1: Just kind of picks it up as it goes, like dang,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's good for it. It's like that guy
Speaker 1: at the party that sees half empty beers and is like, sure, man,
Speaker 1: why not? Okay, So I had never heard of these,
Speaker 1: but xenomorph's etymology means bearing foreigners because they pick up
Speaker 1: objects like pebbles and other shells, sometimes bottle caps, and
Speaker 1: they cement them to themselves for camouflage or in deeper waters.
Speaker 1: Scientists think it might help them from getting sucked into
Speaker 1: the sticky mud to have a bigger footprint. But the
Speaker 1: objects they choose, ugh, they can be so beautifully curated.
Speaker 1: And I was reading one museum exhibit about it that
Speaker 1: began quote, it is not known to what extent an
Speaker 1: artistic sensibility plays a part in this behavior, which I've met.
Speaker 1: A lot of molluscs right now are like it. Pardon me,
Speaker 1: this is hand crafted. And by hand crafted, I mean
Speaker 1: I made it with my slimy body. But that's not
Speaker 1: the point. Okay, So this next question is about operculum.
Speaker 1: A few people, Sarah Sutcliffe and Serene Shipman, both wanted
Speaker 1: to know a pairculums appairculums, oppericulums, operculum.
Speaker 2: What are It's one of those words I've never read
Speaker 2: out loud.
Speaker 1: I've never seen it before. But they're so cool. How
Speaker 1: do they grow as well as the shell? What is
Speaker 1: is it a lid? What are they?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are lids or like trapdoors. They're made of
Speaker 2: the same stuff as the shell, and they're just one
Speaker 2: of the ways that the organisms living inside of the
Speaker 2: shell can protect themselves from predators because it's like a
Speaker 2: little trap door that they can retract and close themselves
Speaker 2: into Goodbye, and they're yeah, they're just little lids for
Speaker 2: these little shell pots.
Speaker 1: Well that's so cute.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: A lot of people, a lot of people wanted to
Speaker 1: know can you hear the ocean in shells? What makes
Speaker 1: them sound like the ocean? Elizabeth Ross says, I heard
Speaker 1: that the sound is created by blood moving in our
Speaker 1: own ears being echoed by the shell. Do people ask
Speaker 1: this of you when you tell them you study shells.
Speaker 2: I feel like nobody ever asks me anything. I would
Speaker 2: love more questions about shells all the time, and I
Speaker 2: really want to say yes, because it sounds very magical.
Speaker 2: But the answer is no, unfortunately, And it's also not
Speaker 2: necessarily you hearing your own blood either. It's just that
Speaker 2: like shells, and this is the reason why they also
Speaker 2: have been used for instruments in the past, is just
Speaker 2: that shells are so efficient and effective at amplifying sound
Speaker 2: that whenever you put your ear up to the shell,
Speaker 2: it's really just amplifying the sound of the ambient noise
Speaker 2: in like air moving around.
Speaker 1: So flim flam busted. The noise that you hear from
Speaker 1: shells has a name. It's called seashell resonance, but that
Speaker 1: ambient amplification would also work with like an empty Starbucks cup.
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry to have just broken your heart. Curious
Speaker 1: Land mermaids including Christi Charter, Rachel Moore, Elizabeth Ross, Kate Rampy,
Speaker 1: Kelly Windsor Teaking Andrews, Megan Jounts, Olivia Meyer, and Delaneo
Speaker 1: Pelt But on the notes of myths and thrumbing blood
Speaker 1: in your ears, Remnant Muse posted how do you feel
Speaker 1: about the acid bath lyrics? The sound of the ocean
Speaker 1: is dead. It's just the echo of blood in your head.
Speaker 1: But that makes me want to know, along with a
Speaker 1: lot of other people in terms of acid baths, tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit about the ocean and what is
Speaker 1: happening to shells these days? Ellen Skelton, Becky the Sassy Seagrass,
Speaker 1: Scientist Monica, Julie Duprie, Ryan Gwynn, Sarah Sutcliffe, Seth Succi,
Speaker 1: Zach Stricklin, First time question askers Olivia's and Zonico Natalie Rhodes,
Speaker 1: letters from Ellen or rigby Jennifer Stone all had similar questions,
Speaker 1: which I will read in Julie Bear's words, Sorry to
Speaker 1: ask the depressing question, but are we noticing a change
Speaker 1: in marine shells due to global warming and ocean acidification?
Speaker 1: What a necessary bummer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as most of the listeners probably know, the ocean
Speaker 2: is becoming more acidic and temperature of the ocean is increasing,
Speaker 2: and so this, I guess, sort of predictably sort of
Speaker 2: makes it a lot harder for living things that precipitate
Speaker 2: minerals to make their minerals. It affects the animals in
Speaker 2: different ways because they all live in different ways. So
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily as direct as like, oh, the shells
Speaker 2: are dissolving. It's more along the lines of like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is stressing out these living things, and it's making
Speaker 2: it harder for them to precipitate the minerals in the
Speaker 2: first place, and so they have to if they even
Speaker 2: can direct more energy into that process. That's like, what
Speaker 2: is killing these things?
Speaker 1: What types of shellfish or mollusks are having the hardest
Speaker 1: time right now?
Speaker 2: Hm? I feel like it's any organism that doesn't have
Speaker 2: as much control over its internal chemistry, like some organisms
Speaker 2: control more strongly than others. The composition of that fluid
Speaker 2: pocket that's traveling through the shell making organ and so
Speaker 2: if it's something that has a very high level of
Speaker 2: control over that, like corals or lobsters, they tend to
Speaker 2: have a bit more resistance when it comes to be
Speaker 2: faced with like these stressors. However, things that have less control,
Speaker 2: like certain species of algae, certain species of like molluscs,
Speaker 2: they can't really do anything about it because they can't
Speaker 2: adapt quickly enough because.
Speaker 1: They're a little bit less complex of an organism.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's one way
Speaker 2: of putting it.
Speaker 1: Daisy Goldstein Cross wants to know. Please talk about chalk. Also,
Speaker 1: opals are opals shell.
Speaker 2: Like You could argue that they look kind of like naked,
Speaker 2: but they're not. They are not shells. Okay, good, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they are amorphous silica minerals that are form more like
Speaker 2: bia sedimentation.
Speaker 1: Oh, I did not know that. I understand that they
Speaker 1: are less hardy as a gem, like they're more prone
Speaker 1: flaking than some other gems.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, probably because it's a MorphOS not as hard.
Speaker 1: Okay, And what about chalk. Chalk is a lot of
Speaker 1: dead animals.
Speaker 2: Yes, chalk is a lot of dead Coco lithophores. Actually,
Speaker 2: so the old skeletons of tons and tons of these
Speaker 2: algae that have sunk to the bottom of an ocean
Speaker 2: and piled up very high.
Speaker 1: Wow, And do you think if you're vegan, using chalk
Speaker 1: should be not something you do. Are they plants or
Speaker 1: are they animals?
Speaker 2: They are plants. There are a species of algae.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, got it, got it, got it. So they're
Speaker 1: not dead animals, they're dead plants. That's interesting. Okay, listen,
Speaker 1: I heard skeletons. I thought of bags of flesh. Okay,
Speaker 1: my bad. A few people, Edward Rice, Sakarivas and Alex
Speaker 1: Wager all wanted to know about coqina. Could you talk
Speaker 1: about how shells become coquina? And Edward Rice, as I'm
Speaker 1: living just south of Saint Augustine and there are whole
Speaker 1: buildings made out of the stuff that were building the
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds, how did those tiny shells end up becoming rock?
Speaker 1: So have you heard of this?
Speaker 2: I definitely remember it from flasts. I've never imagined it
Speaker 2: being able to be something that could make up entire buildings.
Speaker 2: Those buildings must be beautiful.
Speaker 1: So kokina is the material composed of shells all stuck
Speaker 1: together by the calcium carbonate that dissolved over time and
Speaker 1: then restuck. And I had never seen this, but I
Speaker 1: just gazed at pictures and it looks kind of like
Speaker 1: a rice crispy treat made with frosted flakes only its shells.
Speaker 2: But it must be very similar to chalk in a
Speaker 2: way where it's like it's all these organisms that have
Speaker 2: percipiated shells and they've died, and so these shells have
Speaker 2: sunk to the bottom of the ocean and created this
Speaker 2: layer of sediment that's just crushed up old shells, but
Speaker 2: they haven't been pulverized enough to where they're super sandy.
Speaker 2: It's still very obviously like crushed up shells glued together
Speaker 2: by other forms of calcium carbonate like limestone.
Speaker 1: Ooh and seen it.
Speaker 2: Oh it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And sarah Ma's first time question asker such a good question.
Speaker 1: How are shells different from exoskeletons? And do crabs have
Speaker 1: shells or do they have exoskeletons?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I think it completely depends on
Speaker 2: the exoskeleton that you're talking about. I would argue that
Speaker 2: probably that all shells are exoskeletons, but not all exoskeletons
Speaker 2: are shells. But yes, crabs do have an exoskeleton, and
Speaker 2: yes it is a shell. I guess this also goes
Speaker 2: back to the lobster question, where it's like, oh, these
Speaker 2: arthropods are crustaceans. They're molting, and at least in the
Speaker 2: case of the lobster, every time it molts, it's shedding
Speaker 2: its old shell. But in that process of shedding its
Speaker 2: old shell, it actually recycles a lot of the mineral
Speaker 2: in that old shell. It resorbs it, which is really cool.
Speaker 2: And so depending on the species of lobster or even location,
Speaker 2: it can recycle from twenty percent up to like ninety
Speaker 2: percent of that old shell, which is really cool.
Speaker 1: That is cool. I had no idea. I thought they
Speaker 1: were just like, okay by now that was so expensive,
Speaker 1: just like leaving leaving like an audi by the side
Speaker 1: of the road. That's good to know. I feel less
Speaker 1: bad for them. Speaking of feeling bad, Sarah Culigan Monica
Speaker 1: both had questions similar. Sarah says, I feel like this
Speaker 1: is unlikely, but I can't help. But wonder is there
Speaker 1: evidence of microplastics somehow now appearing in shells or affecting
Speaker 1: shell development?
Speaker 2: Just can't be good. Hmmm. I don't know if they've
Speaker 2: found them in like within the shell itself. I know
Speaker 2: that the organisms are like they are getting into like
Speaker 2: the soft parts of the organisms, like the shellfish we're
Speaker 2: eating and stuff, But I don't know about them actually
Speaker 2: getting into the shells themselves. I did read an article
Speaker 2: at one point that was looking at the effects of
Speaker 2: microplastics on hermit crabs, and they found that when hermit
Speaker 2: crabs are exposed to microplastics, it screws with their cognitive
Speaker 2: abilities and it makes it harder for them to be
Speaker 2: able to chew a new shell.
Speaker 1: No, I don't like that very much at all. Please
Speaker 1: see the April twenty twenty paper Microplastics disrupt Hermit Crab
Speaker 1: shell selection and then go whimper into your hands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sad, I.
Speaker 1: Want to pet one softly on the head. It does
Speaker 1: not want that. Kelly Drive had a great question can
Speaker 1: the chemical composition of shells be utilized to identify where
Speaker 1: they were developed globally? Like can we look at a
Speaker 1: shell and know it was created in Australia because of
Speaker 1: its chemistry?
Speaker 2: Maybe not that specifically. Like that's a really great question,
Speaker 2: and that's very aligned with what some other people in
Speaker 2: my lab do. I don't know if we'd be able
Speaker 2: to pinpoint like where on the globe exactly, but we
Speaker 2: would definitely be able to get a lot of information
Speaker 2: of the type of environment that it grew in.
Speaker 1: Okay, along those lines, Julie Behert wants to know, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to read it as as it's written. It goes,
Speaker 1: have we found flushed man made drugs in shells? Frowny face?
Speaker 2: Not that I know of.
Speaker 1: They're not like jacked on steroids or on birth control bills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but maybe they have their own substances that they
Speaker 2: like to use.
Speaker 1: Perhaps just party shells. Vince Alasha asks why are Florida
Speaker 1: beaches covered in shells? So many cuts in my feet
Speaker 1: and then there's four exclamation points.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually the shape of Florida and like the
Speaker 2: surrounding bits of lander islands that causes that to happen.
Speaker 2: A lot of the islands run parallel to Florida, and
Speaker 2: so they're like aligned with the water currents running around
Speaker 2: Florida itself. However, beaches like Santa bell I think that
Speaker 2: it starts with an s. It's actually perpendicular and so
Speaker 2: it sort of catches all the shells that come out
Speaker 2: of that current, and that's why it has so many
Speaker 2: more shells and a lot of other beaches.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, So do you think if you were to
Speaker 1: find a shell from someplace in Florida and there were
Speaker 1: a lot of them, it would be okay to take home?
Speaker 1: Or is it still leave them on the beach?
Speaker 2: I think to be safe leave them on the beach.
Speaker 2: But I'm sure if you take one it's like fine, definitely,
Speaker 2: not if they're alive or but if they're like fully
Speaker 2: still like formed and like together, you probably should leave them, okay.
Speaker 1: Seguity Dana asks what determines the color of a shell?
Speaker 1: Like what makes it white or purple? And does the
Speaker 1: same color have a different cause in different species.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really.
Speaker 1: Like purple mollusk shells and stuff. Any idea what causes it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So a lot of shells have this the like
Speaker 2: final outermost layer is this organic covering sort of like
Speaker 2: a skin almost, and that's what carries the pigment or
Speaker 2: whatever makes the pigment. And usually what determines the color
Speaker 2: is similar to the shape, where it's it's about function
Speaker 2: and trying to camouflage with its surroundings. And I know
Speaker 2: that some species of bivalves are actually able to change
Speaker 2: their color with the environment where others can't.
Speaker 1: Let's say, a certain kind of muscle shell is usually
Speaker 1: purple on the inside. If there's a purple seashell out
Speaker 1: of the Bahamas, is it kind of the same the
Speaker 1: same thing that's making the same color? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, it's usually it's probably the same thing going on.
Speaker 2: And it's also interesting that it's so much more function
Speaker 2: over genetics that it really depends a lot more on
Speaker 2: like the local environment of the shell rather than it
Speaker 2: being related like closely related to other species of shell.
Speaker 1: Wow, And that is that partly just because that's what
Speaker 1: it's pulling out of the environment to make it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's partially probably like what it's playing out of
Speaker 2: the environment, but also just like what it needs. We're
Speaker 2: probably wearing a lot more shorts and T shirts in
Speaker 2: La than up in Washington.
Speaker 1: True and side note, These lilac to violet marbley colored
Speaker 1: shells of the Northeast coast Quahaug clams are used to
Speaker 1: make what some indigenous nations call wampum beats, strung together
Speaker 1: in various patterns with these creamy white shelled beads of
Speaker 1: the welk stale and the species of clam is called
Speaker 1: Mercenaria mercenaria, and those words essentially mean commerce. But wampum
Speaker 1: beads and belts had much more significance than currency for
Speaker 1: many indigenous cultures, and I was just reading that it
Speaker 1: wasn't until colonization that their value became monetary to settlers.
Speaker 1: So there is gorgeous beadwork and a rich history in
Speaker 1: wampum beads, and it's worth going down labyrinths of rabbit
Speaker 1: holes to learn more. But yes, those purple striations in
Speaker 1: the shell are regional and they're created by different minerals
Speaker 1: in the mud. So color me plum surprised. So biomineralogy
Speaker 1: my friends in a nutshell in a clamshell Aaron Morris,
Speaker 1: first time ever question asker says, the little holes you
Speaker 1: see in shells, are they from worms burrowing into them
Speaker 1: while they're alive? What are those?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not from worms, but they are from these
Speaker 2: carnivorous nails. Usually it's like this type of welk. I
Speaker 2: think it's called the dog welk. And what it does
Speaker 2: is it goes up to these clams and it uses
Speaker 2: its tongue, which is like a tongue in like quotes.
Speaker 2: It's more of a drill, and it drills into these
Speaker 2: shells to try to get into the soft, tasty, gooey,
Speaker 2: you know, deliciousness that's inside the shell. Once it makes
Speaker 2: that hole, it turns the inside until it can slurp.
Speaker 1: Up like oh, what a dick just piercing it like
Speaker 1: a capri son. Of course, it's okay, snail, you gotta eat.
Speaker 1: I understand you're not a dick. I was projecting, okay.
Speaker 1: Mollie Johnson has a style question uh seconded by Aaron Ryan.
Speaker 1: Molly asks why are dusty shells a thing in suburban
Speaker 1: beach themed bathrooms and how do we make people stop
Speaker 1: putting them there and just enjoy them on the beach?
Speaker 1: And Aaron Ryan says, I second this question, and it's
Speaker 1: precise wording. Thoughts on dusty bathroom shells?
Speaker 2: What do they mean by dusty?
Speaker 1: You know, you just you got a bowl of shells?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, I don't know what the what
Speaker 2: is up with that? I guess it's people trying to
Speaker 2: you know, you're trying to transport yourself to where you
Speaker 2: want to be, and so they put the shells in
Speaker 2: the bathroom.
Speaker 1: It's very true. I am going to see if I
Speaker 1: can trace it back to like a two thousand and
Speaker 1: four Martha Stewart edition of Beach Homes. Jude Kenny has
Speaker 1: an important scientific question. Wants to know can I use
Speaker 1: a conch to summon animals to do my bidding?
Speaker 2: I wish that would be great.
Speaker 1: It would be doing some of your lab work. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we're that trip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would. I would just you know, I would
Speaker 2: buy one of those little microphones that people use to
Speaker 2: interview their cats, and I would go down there and
Speaker 2: interview them. That would make my life so much easier,
Speaker 2: just be like, how how do you do this?
Speaker 1: Have you ever blown into a conch? No?
Speaker 2: I haven't.
Speaker 1: It's pretty transformative, I have to say.
Speaker 2: Is it easy? Is it like just like a trumpet
Speaker 2: you like do anything?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, it's like a trumpet. And it really does
Speaker 1: make you feel that there's just elk that're gonna start
Speaker 1: filtering down and like a raccoon's gonna peep its head
Speaker 1: out and be like, my queen. Maybe one day you'll
Speaker 1: get to you'll get to.
Speaker 2: It's very I just want to feel powerful. I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe I'll try to find a consholl before my
Speaker 2: my defense.
Speaker 1: Any myths that you really want to bust about shells.
Speaker 2: Myths not that I can really think of. Oh oh oh, pearls.
Speaker 2: Pearls are very interesting. I always thought that it was
Speaker 2: that pearls were like this like self defense mechanism that
Speaker 2: like different bivalves had to like protect themselves, and it's
Speaker 2: like foreign, foreign particles like sand or something entering into
Speaker 2: like the inner the inner sanctum of the shell. What
Speaker 2: I've like come to eventually now like learn now, like
Speaker 2: in the fourth ear of my PhD, is that it's
Speaker 2: not like, yes, that's like sometimes the case is that
Speaker 2: there's like a like a like a grain of sand
Speaker 2: or sometimes like a parasite that is at the core
Speaker 2: of the pearl. But what it really is, it's usually
Speaker 2: like it's it just it happens when part of the
Speaker 2: epithelial cells that create that actually likes to create the shell,
Speaker 2: they get like moved or like misplaced inside, and so
Speaker 2: then they start like making this this shell. It doesn't
Speaker 2: have the things really guiding it anymore, so then it
Speaker 2: the pearls are really just like these inside out shells
Speaker 2: that have these the like thencre shiny beautiful outside, but
Speaker 2: like at the inside is the more similar to the
Speaker 2: outer shell.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's just a mistake. And anyone who's been
Speaker 1: seating pearls to try to make more pearls, is that
Speaker 1: just not effective.
Speaker 2: It probably helps because it provides a site of like
Speaker 2: nucleation for crystal growth, So probably I would I would
Speaker 2: probably argue that maybe seeding them does help, but it's
Speaker 2: not the main reason that natural pearls form.
Speaker 1: Wow, have you ever gone down any of those rabbit holes?
Speaker 1: Watching people who open pearl muscles at home and do
Speaker 1: haul videos?
Speaker 2: I really should, but like seeing people shell stuff makes
Speaker 2: me really anxious, like, oh my god, oysters. Oh no,
Speaker 2: I'm never eating oysters. If the texture wasn't enough, if
Speaker 2: the texture wasn't enough, I'm shelling them. Scares me. I
Speaker 2: do not want to stab my hand. The onliest way
Speaker 2: I want to see an oyster is like deep fried
Speaker 2: in like on top of a devil deg you.
Speaker 1: I like them canned and smoked. It look like they
Speaker 1: look like toad turns, but I prefer them that way.
Speaker 1: But when they're when they're raw and slippery. I'm kind
Speaker 1: of like, if the table orders them, I'll have one
Speaker 1: to be polite. But then I'm always the most generous
Speaker 1: person that's like, no, no, no, you have the last five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you, it's all it's it's for you. I got
Speaker 2: this for you.
Speaker 1: Also, can I tell you that I just read an
Speaker 1: article about a man who got a bacterial infection from
Speaker 1: cracking open oysters and got an open wound on his
Speaker 1: hand and almost died. But good news, he survived. But
Speaker 1: the newspaper article detailing his ordeal chose the headline aweshucks,
Speaker 1: how oysters gave one man a rare bacterial infection.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: On the topic of things that are the worst okay, questions,
Speaker 1: things about your job that suck worse than oysters? What
Speaker 1: is the worst part about being a biomederalogist slash concologist
Speaker 1: slash conchologist.
Speaker 2: I guess, in my opinion, the least fun thing is
Speaker 2: probably for me. I think it's the lab work itself.
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm made for doing like sitting in
Speaker 2: a lab for hours. I very much enjoy, at least
Speaker 2: enjoy more the side of science where it's I've gotten
Speaker 2: the data, and like I'm at the point of like
Speaker 2: trying to figure out like what it means and like
Speaker 2: writing about it and reading about it and then like
Speaker 2: sharing that. I don't know if I actually like doing
Speaker 2: the stuff leading up to that as much.
Speaker 1: So. Some people like collecting the food, some like cooking
Speaker 1: it up. Different scientists like different parts of the process.
Speaker 1: What about the thing that you love the most about it.
Speaker 2: The friends we've made along the way. But I guess,
Speaker 2: like seriously, I think the thing I enjoy the most about,
Speaker 2: just like I guess life and working in general, is
Speaker 2: being able to like mentor more junior students, because I
Speaker 2: work with a lot of undergraduates, and like being able
Speaker 2: to work with them is like such a great experience.
Speaker 2: I love getting to like teach them how to do
Speaker 2: the lab stuff and then having them do the lab stuff.
Speaker 2: It's real, that's rewarding for me. They get experience, they
Speaker 2: can write about it in their personal statements, they can
Speaker 2: collect the paycheck like it's a win win for everyone.
Speaker 2: But it's also just so rewarding to them. It's rewarding.
Speaker 2: That's sad because then they they eventually graduate or like
Speaker 2: they move to like another lab to get more experience,
Speaker 2: and then they stop working with me, and I'm sad,
Speaker 2: but it's very fun to like see them grow and
Speaker 2: like blossom into people or students or scholars.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that you wish you knew, you know
Speaker 1: growing up that or any advice you would give to
Speaker 1: someone who maybe had yet to go through that kind
Speaker 1: of journey of discovering what they're into, either personally or professionally.
Speaker 2: I would say, just like, I don't know, do I
Speaker 2: wish I knew what things to like look for, like
Speaker 2: what things to look up. So I grew up like
Speaker 2: in a like a religious household and so and then
Speaker 2: I also went to a like religious private school from
Speaker 2: kindergarten to eighth grade, and so I feel like growing
Speaker 2: up I was very like sheltered in many many ways
Speaker 2: because I also didn't live in like a neighborhood where
Speaker 2: like I was seeing kids outside of school. And so
Speaker 2: then even when like I finally eventually came out when
Speaker 2: I was in college in undergrad, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gay, But then I still didn't know anything about
Speaker 2: like the history of like like LBTQ history or like
Speaker 2: rites or anything like that. And I didn't start being
Speaker 2: able to explore that until I moved to Los Angeles
Speaker 2: and then started like meeting a lot more like queer
Speaker 2: and trans people who are a lot more knowledgeable in
Speaker 2: that things. And I can also attribute a lot of
Speaker 2: that to my partner, who's a lot more in tuned
Speaker 2: and like teaches me a lot m So, find your friends, Yeah,
Speaker 2: find your friends. Talk to people. Yeah. For jobs, Oh
Speaker 2: my gosh. I think the best advice I've ever gotten
Speaker 2: from like a career center is just like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: just ask people about their jobs. Ask to talk to
Speaker 2: them about their job. People love to feel helpful, and
Speaker 2: you'll learn a lot about like what that job actually entails.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can tell you asking people about their
Speaker 1: jobs is not as hard as it looks. People. It's
Speaker 1: very easy to ask people about what they like. And
Speaker 1: I think it's great to reach out to people, especially
Speaker 1: if you think you might be interested in the field.
Speaker 2: Worst thing is that they don't respond, Like, no one's
Speaker 2: going to respond to you and be like, how.
Speaker 1: How dare you like the field I'm in?
Speaker 2: How dare you appreciate me the goal?
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate you so much.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you too. I still remember when I was
Speaker 2: like really mad at you when we met, because I
Speaker 2: was like, you walked in, you were like oh, Like
Speaker 2: I was like, I was like, okay, so here's this
Speaker 2: like like smart, funny, like a gorgeous individual walking in.
Speaker 2: I'm like laying down on this blanket, like playing with
Speaker 2: a kid, like I guess yeah it was. He was
Speaker 2: Roquel's kid. I was like playing with this like pump
Speaker 2: up rocket, and you like introduced yourself to me. And
Speaker 2: I was like the gall of this woman to think
Speaker 2: I don't know who she is.
Speaker 1: I had no idea you would know.
Speaker 2: I remember being like I binged every episode.
Speaker 1: Well, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: I can't believe.
Speaker 1: I still can't believe anyone listens to it because I'm
Speaker 1: just you know, I'm sitting here recording it next to
Speaker 1: my dirty dog. The course to me that there are
Speaker 1: people on the other side that actually would want to
Speaker 1: listen to it. I feel like I just people do
Speaker 1: it out of guilt or something. But I was so excited.
Speaker 1: I was like, You've been on my list of index
Speaker 1: cards as an interview I've wanted to do for so long.
Speaker 1: I keep an index card the deck of ones I want.
Speaker 2: To get to.
Speaker 1: So it's So I'm so glad that we finally reconnected
Speaker 1: because I'm like, ah.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's been the real the real purpose
Speaker 2: of me going through grad school and getting my PhD
Speaker 2: is just preparing for this moment.
Speaker 1: I hope this was easier than your qualls.
Speaker 2: Oh, it was definitely less stressful and more fun.
Speaker 1: So don't clam up ask shell of smart people basic
Speaker 1: or acidic questions because they are charming and informative. And
Speaker 1: now you were friends. So you can learn more about
Speaker 1: Rob Ulrick at Robertulrich dot com. You can follow him
Speaker 1: at Robert and Ulrich on Twitter or Queer's in Stem.
Speaker 1: Also of course on Instagram at biomineralogist. He's got the handle,
Speaker 1: He's got the jobs. So we also have our first
Speaker 1: ever live show. There's a link in the show notes.
Speaker 1: It stars the return of volcanologists Jess Phoenix to debunk
Speaker 1: more myths and go over more questions that we didn't
Speaker 1: get to. This happens on May eighteenth. It's at five
Speaker 1: pm Pacific. Tickets are twelve bucks for general or nine
Speaker 1: bucks for patrons. There's a discount code posted at patreon
Speaker 1: dot com slash ologies. For patrons, you can get three
Speaker 1: dollars off by joining the Patreon for a dollar. Look
Speaker 1: at that boom, So do attend. This may be the
Speaker 1: only virtual live show I ever do. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how it's going to go. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep doing them, but I thought I'd give
Speaker 1: at least one a shot. So tune in you can
Speaker 1: see if it's brilliant or if it's a disaster. So
Speaker 1: that's May eighteenth. Tickets are available at the link in
Speaker 1: the show notes. We are on the internet at Ologies
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Ali Ward. Thank you
Speaker 1: to Aaron Talbert for admitting the Ologies podcast Facebook group
Speaker 1: full of nice people. Shannon Felters and Bonnie Dutch of
Speaker 1: the comedy podcast You are that our sisters. They help
Speaker 1: out with Facebook and also handle merch at ologiesmerch dot com,
Speaker 1: t shirts, masks, tots, mugs, It's all there. Emily White
Speaker 1: of the Wordery does our transcripts so wonderfully. Caleb Patten
Speaker 1: bleeps episodes and transcripts and Bleeped episodes are up on
Speaker 1: the website at aliboard dot com. Slash ologiestash extras for
Speaker 1: zero dollars to anyone who wants or could use them.
Speaker 1: Noel Dilworth is a scheduler extraordinaire. Susan Hale helps manage
Speaker 1: the ship and makes quizzes for you on Instagram, and
Speaker 1: the Man and Legend and Hunk Jared Sleeper puts together
Speaker 1: the show alongside longtime Ologies editor and a shell of
Speaker 1: a guy, step Mary Morris, who hosts the per cast
Speaker 1: and see Jurassic Right. Nick Thorburn wrote and performed the
Speaker 1: theme music. He is in a band called Islands. It
Speaker 1: is a very good band. If you listen to the end,
Speaker 1: you get a tiny dessert bond bond in the form
Speaker 1: of me confessing something. And this week I will tell
Speaker 1: you that, Uh, I'm a pretty bad bowler, but I've
Speaker 1: had some good games, which just means like I break
Speaker 1: a hundred here and there. And my trick to getting
Speaker 1: like spare after strike after spare is usually right before
Speaker 1: I toss the ball, I visualize it just connecting, slamming.
Speaker 1: And this one time I was out bold with some
Speaker 1: people I didn't know very well but who were all
Speaker 1: like comedy writers on this big show, and I was
Speaker 1: really self conscious and I started knocking down pins and
Speaker 1: they were all impressed, like you're a really good bowler,
Speaker 1: and I told them, well, I use this trick of
Speaker 1: visualizing it first and then it really just connects. And
Speaker 1: one of them was like, so it's like the secret,
Speaker 1: use the secret to bowl, and I was like, well, no,
Speaker 1: it's more about confident, just being being confident. And then
Speaker 1: the next one I threw hit like one pin, and
Speaker 1: then a few gutter balls followed, and I just my
Speaker 1: whole game sucked. And I think about that night a lot,
Speaker 1: and about how they're all probably still like, remember that
Speaker 1: girl who says that she uses a secret to bowl
Speaker 1: and then she sucked to bowling, And I remember thinking
Speaker 1: I should have never told them that I tried to
Speaker 1: rely on cosmic good vibes and visualization to bowl better.
Speaker 1: I don't even like bowling that much anyway. May eighteenth
Speaker 1: Live Show to get link in the show notes, come
Speaker 1: hang out until then. Ber Bye, Packaderman College, Bomby All
Speaker 1: the Or doo Zoology, Lithology, new technology, meteorology and bold
Speaker 1: of Bertology, methology, seriology, selenology,