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<v Speaker 1>It's time for strange science. I'm asking you too much.

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<v Speaker 1>I know that's it's like weird science, but strange. So

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<v Speaker 1>some animals get a bad rap, don't they. The vulture

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<v Speaker 1>is one of them. Has to be one of the

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<v Speaker 1>most reviled creatures on Earth. The very word vulture is

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<v Speaker 1>an insult, greedy exploiter. And I understand the bad reputation.

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<v Speaker 1>They're not cute, they're not cuddly. They've got that stooped posture,

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<v Speaker 1>should sit up straight, beady eyes. And then there's the

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<v Speaker 1>whole dead animal thing. I mean, they spend their days

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<v Speaker 1>eating dead animals, and they do so in a not

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<v Speaker 1>so appetizing way. They enter the corpse at its soft parts,

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<v Speaker 1>the mouth, the nose, the anus. According to National Geographic

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<v Speaker 1>Explorer Darcio Ganda, vultures definitely have an image problem because

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<v Speaker 1>here is the thing, there are real world consequences that

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<v Speaker 1>come with not having them. The vultures play a vital

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<v Speaker 1>role in our ecosystem, and this is the whole point

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<v Speaker 1>behind the National Geographics deep dive here on the superpowers

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<v Speaker 1>of nature's most unloved animals. They really are superpowers. Without vultures,

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<v Speaker 1>bad things happen vultures act as nature's cleaners. They hover

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<v Speaker 1>up those rotting carcasses. They prevent the spread of disease.

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<v Speaker 1>Just look at India alone. About thirty years ago, vultures

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<v Speaker 1>nearly disappeared. Many of them were accidentally poisoned by the

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<v Speaker 1>medicine that they were using on cows and as a result,

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<v Speaker 1>the countryside was just littered with these rotting, germ filled

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<v Speaker 1>animal corpses. They were infecting the rivers, the drinking water.

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<v Speaker 1>They amplified the population of feral dogs carrying rabies. It

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<v Speaker 1>was a disaster. The decline in vultures correlated with more

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<v Speaker 1>than half a million excess human deaths in India between

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<v Speaker 1>two thousand and two thousand and five. And that is

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<v Speaker 1>the thing. Cuteness a powerful draw because of our brains programming,

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<v Speaker 1>Like why we want to feed babies when they act

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<v Speaker 1>like they do, It's because they're cute. But you know,

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<v Speaker 1>some of our animal kingdom's outcasts need our attention, They

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<v Speaker 1>need the conservation dollars. You're not gonna give a bunch

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<v Speaker 1>of money to the vulture society, are you. The three

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<v Speaker 1>toad sloth is another one. Slow moving animals got a

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<v Speaker 1>bad wrap from the get go. One nineteenth century account

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<v Speaker 1>labeled them imperfect monsters of creation, adding equally remarkable for

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<v Speaker 1>their disgusting appearance and helpless condition. My god, slots can't

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<v Speaker 1>help that. Several species of algae grow and the grooves

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<v Speaker 1>of their course matted fur, giving that giving them that

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<v Speaker 1>green sheen. But this is a secret weapon, a superpower.

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<v Speaker 1>The algae helps camouflage all of the creatures that live

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<v Speaker 1>in those canopies. The leopard slug. This is an animal

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<v Speaker 1>that doesn't have a spine, and that's hard to get behind,

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<v Speaker 1>isn't it. But they have a surprisingly useful set of adaptations.

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<v Speaker 1>A crown of four wriggling feelers atop the leopard slug's

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<v Speaker 1>head allow them to sense their surroundings, and their gooey

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<v Speaker 1>ooze helps them mate. The slug mucus. By the way,

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<v Speaker 1>here's where you come in. It's made from water, proteins, enzymes,

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<v Speaker 1>other compounds. It is where we came up with how

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<v Speaker 1>to develop workable surgical adhesive. Is from the leopard slug.

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<v Speaker 1>It's quite the your superpower. There's a bunch of them.

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<v Speaker 1>We'll post a picture. I'm running out of time. But

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<v Speaker 1>the Probuscus monkey, the African bullfrog, honey badgers. They all

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<v Speaker 1>play a role in keeping us alive, and so maybe

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<v Speaker 1>we start some sort of ugly animal charity around here.

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<v Speaker 1>My favorite is the hairy frog fish m a toadlike creature,

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<v Speaker 1>the most grotesque of all the fish. According to one

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<v Speaker 1>nineteenth century naturalist. They're covered in a web of stringy

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<v Speaker 1>spineles that help them blend in among algae coated rocks

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<v Speaker 1>and coral while hunting prey. They're very cool and very ugly,

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<v Speaker 1>all right. Coming up next the story that Mason Deborah

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<v Speaker 1>Mark home early one hundred foot megasunami that could hit

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<v Speaker 1>the United States at any moment, and as the headline says,

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<v Speaker 1>that is only the beginning. What fact a strange science? Okay,

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<v Speaker 1>the tsunami that's going to hit at any time. What

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<v Speaker 1>if the tsunami hits before Biver's album drops. I'm just

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<v Speaker 1>putting it out there. I know I hate it too.

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<v Speaker 1>I hate it, and I don't think it's gonna happen.

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<v Speaker 1>The Cascadia Subduction Zone is what we're worried about. This

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<v Speaker 1>is a massive fault line stretching from northern California to

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<v Speaker 1>British Columbia, and it has been This is Deborah's least

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<v Speaker 1>favorite thing, eerily quiet for three hundred years. When it

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<v Speaker 1>finally ruptures, the Cascadia subduction zone is expected to trigger

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<v Speaker 1>a colossal earthquake that could rattle the Pacific Northwest for minutes.

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<v Speaker 1>Think about the earthquakes you've felt have only really been

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<v Speaker 1>seconds long, and they felt like minutes, didn't They. Even

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<v Speaker 1>worse than that earthquake that would last for minutes is

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<v Speaker 1>the tsunami wave. Nay, Tsunami waves Z up to one

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<v Speaker 1>hundred feet would crash ashore, unleashing devastation along the coast.

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<v Speaker 1>But according to a new study published in the Proceedings

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<v Speaker 1>of the National Academy of Sciences, that would only mark

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<v Speaker 1>the beginning of Cascadia's cataclysm. The new analysis reveals that

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<v Speaker 1>land along the coast could drop by more than eight

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<v Speaker 1>feet in a matter of minutes. Eight feet. That's two DeBras.

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<v Speaker 1>That's true. I measure I measure things by how many deborahs.

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<v Speaker 1>The lead author of the study is Professor Tina Dora,

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<v Speaker 1>and she says, we talk about climate driven sea level rise,

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<v Speaker 1>which is occurring at three to four millimeters a year,

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<v Speaker 1>and that does eventually add up. But here we have

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<v Speaker 1>two meters of sea level rise in minutes. She wonders

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<v Speaker 1>why we're not talking about this more well, Professor Tina.

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<v Speaker 1>Probably because we can't do jack s about it, Tina.

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<v Speaker 1>Probably because it makes Deborah worried for four to six days. Tina, Yeah, Tina, Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>What the hell are we supposed to do, Tina? Build

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<v Speaker 1>up some sort of massive fence, Like, how do you

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<v Speaker 1>prepare for an earthquake? You cannot in an earthquake this

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<v Speaker 1>size at last minutes, in a tsunami that's one hundred

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<v Speaker 1>feet high. You're just screwed, Tina. You're screwed at that point.

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<v Speaker 1>You know, we all know that there's a chance that

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<v Speaker 1>an asteroid could fly into the system and just take

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<v Speaker 1>us all out. But why would we spend more time

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<v Speaker 1>thinking about that? We have no control over it. The

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<v Speaker 1>Cascadia subduction Zone marks the boundary where the oceanic Juan

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<v Speaker 1>Dai Fuca Plate is slipping beneath the North American plate,

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<v Speaker 1>and as they lock together, because they don't move slowly,

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<v Speaker 1>these plates, they tend to get stuck, and when they

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<v Speaker 1>locked together, the strain accumulates over centuries, and then when

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<v Speaker 1>it finally releases, boom. There goes the earthquake. You're not

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<v Speaker 1>going to want to listen to this part. It's produced,

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<v Speaker 1>it's capable. Cascadia is producing quakes of multitude nine or more,

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<v Speaker 1>major events thought to strike every four hundred and fifty

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<v Speaker 1>to five hundred years. The last one occurred on January

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<v Speaker 1>twenty sixth, seventeen hundred. Its magnitude was between an eight

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<v Speaker 1>seven and a nine to two terrifying. So we're new.

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<v Speaker 1>I've told you that, you have said over and over

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<v Speaker 1>again you have we are due. Yes, and it's not

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<v Speaker 1>going to be pretty. It's not. No, no, we will

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<v Speaker 1>not be here to talk about it. We will not.

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<v Speaker 1>I mean John Cobelt gets excited about well it's a

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<v Speaker 1>dark person. Oh I know, but he'll be smashed. It's

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<v Speaker 1>a broken soul, which is not true, by the way, John,

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<v Speaker 1>That's it's all an act. He's such a great he's

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<v Speaker 1>a very good person and very soft inside. He is.

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<v Speaker 1>You know, he's like one of those hardshelled. I don't know.

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<v Speaker 1>You know, he's sitting right here and he has this look.

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<v Speaker 1>He's going to end it. He's going to end it all.

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<v Speaker 1>This will be my last show. He's getting a kick

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<v Speaker 1>out Shannon is singing your praises, John, Yes, she is