How To Protect The Ocean
SUFB 125: Ocean Talk Friday
Another Ocean Talk Friday was a success and for the 2nd week in a row, we hosted it on Blab, a live streaming site where we actually had people ask us questions! YAY for interaction!
This week, Nathan and I chatted about:
1) Superpower-like jellyfish;
2) China's quest to "explore" the deep sea by making it a law;
3) Noise from the deep sea (hint: it's not China!); and,
4) Sea Turtles vs Resorts in Kenya
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10 Ocean Tips to Conserve the Ocean:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/wordpress/sufb_optinpdf
Show Notes:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/session125
Welcome to the Speaker for Blue podcast session 125. It's Ocean Talk Friday today and I am very excited. We did another episode, Nathan and I did another episode on blab.im, which is a live streaming platform that allows us to not only talk to each other very easily and record the podcast, which normally goes easy. However, we had a bit of difficulty, I'll get to that in a minute, but it allows us to interact with the audience, which we kind of had a little bit of interaction near the end. So stay tuned for this episode of Ocean Talk Friday on the Speaker for Blue podcast. Welcome to the Speak Up for Blue podcast, helping you get involved in ocean conservation. And now, here's your host, can't get the song bad blood out of his head, Andrew Lewin. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Speak Up for Blue podcast, your voice for the ocean. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, founder, speakupforlue.com, marine ecologist and self-proclaimed ocean printer. And today is one of my favorite days of the week. It's Ocean Talk Friday. It's where I get together with my co-host, Nathan Johnson. And we get to chat about some of the important stories that we felt that were going on this week. So this week, as we did last week, we decided to record the podcast through a different platform. It's a live streaming platform called blab.im. So it's blab.im. It's kind of a cool platform where you get to interact with people. And I guess it's an audience member, and you can have a live TV show from your home, which is kind of cool. This is our second time that we did it. We at first didn't want to really announce it because we weren't sure how things were going to go. But then we realized that, you know, near the end, people started to come on and ask questions and really interact with us, which was a lot of fun. And afterwards, we actually stopped the recording after the show was done. And we got and we hopped on with JD Goodwin of Blue Streak Science podcast. And he had a conversation with us and we might be appearing on his blab this Sunday, which so stay tuned for that. If you go on blab.im and just subscribe or follow, speak up for blue, or you can follow Blue Streak Science, and you'll see us on the show maybe, potentially. I don't know what's going to happen. Anyway, so we recorded on blab. And normally what happens when you record on blab, you get, you know, you get at the end of your I guess your show, you get an email from blab. And it's has the audio in the video for the podcast or that you just, that you just recorded, the show that you just recorded. And then last week I took that and I put it, I put an intro, like I'm doing now. And then I put it on. However, we had a little bit of a problem. I signed under a different username, which was under speak up for blue because that's our brand instead of my own. And I didn't have an email put into the profile, which I didn't realize. So now I didn't get an email sent to me with the video and the audio. So it was hard to edit anything or put together something when I did that. So what I did is I actually, you can watch the replay. And I took the embed code, put it on our website, speakupforblue.com. If you go to speakupforblue.com/session125, you will see the actual show. Now, what I did is I actually recorded my screen so I can get the audio. So I recorded my screen with that playing for the hour and 14 minutes that I played. And then I put it in my editing software, my podcast editing software. And I process it that way. So I apologize if the sound is not perfect. I wanted to get it up for you guys on the podcast. It's going to be up a little late. The normal, however, at least it'll be up. So stay tuned for that. So this is our Ocean Talk Friday on BLAB recorded off of my screen. Apologize for any kind of sound interruption or distortion. But I want to give it to you anyway. So here you go. Hey, Nathan, how's it going? We're back on BLAB for our second week in a row, trying this out. It worked out well the first time. And now we're here back again. You ready? I'm ready. I'm happy to be blabbing. All right. So I've done a little intro before this just because I know we're used to doing intros all live as just the two of us. But since we're on BLAB, I didn't want to kind of give people the live show about what we've done. But we're going to go through four stories if people are here haven't listened to before. We're going to go through four stories and just talk about these stories because they interest us in some kind of aspect. So here we go. You ready? I'm ready. All right. So do you want to take us through each of the stories and then we'll give our comments. Yeah, the first one is about sea turtles right here. And it's about sea turtle populations off the coast of Kenya in the Indian Ocean. So Kenya is at a point where it's trying to develop its ecotourism industry. It's got a pretty significant one for the country. But they're also conscious of their marine resources and of the ecosystem around the coastline. So there's always a balance between ecotourism, increasing the amount of tourists you bring, increasing the amount of exposure. People have to the ocean marine habitats and protecting those marine habitats. So we kind of touched about this on a few weeks ago, the video of the kids kicking sand and the seals. It was one of those like it's great to bring people to these areas so they can appreciate it and they can learn more about it and hopefully come away thinking, oh, we need to protect these animals. But there's also a fine line like, you know, for example, maybe you don't want to let them actually up onto the animals. Maybe you want to, you know, give them like a 20-foot barrier or something like that. So, you know, this article just comes from ABC News and it talks specifically about development that's happened along the beaches of Kenya. There's a resort that a billionaire built out there, it's named Flavio Briittori. And so the result is surrounded by a seawall. So this is a large concrete, probably, or metal structure that essentially acts to prevent strong storms from flooding the area. So we have one in Galveston, Texas, where I am and the point of it is after the big hurricane of 1900, around 1900, we built the seawall, which I think is about 10 feet above sea level. And it's meant for those big erosion, hurricane storms that happen every, you know, 100 years or so if you live in those areas. What's new walls don't protect against, and what they're not meant to protect against, is day-to-day erosion of beaches. So wave erosion, wind erosion, thing that happens, you know, little by little, but it happens every day. So, you know, over a few decades, you get a lot of it. Seawalls tend to actually increase the day-to-day erosion because of how the waves come up against the smooth surface. All the energy goes back into the ocean and brings more sand with it than it would if it came upon, you know, regular beach or like a doom or something like that. So that's a trade-off you have. You have seawalls that protect a lot of human-based communities. And, you know, they're very good at that. But it also can decrease the width of the beach. It can damage coastal ecosystems. So for sea turtles, which need calm, vegetated areas to come up and nest on, if you have very thin beaches or beaches that are subject to a lot of wave erosion, the sea turtles aren't going to find that as a suitable nesting point. So this article basically says, you know, while this resort didn't necessarily do anything wrong by building the sea wall to protect its investment, it does have a harmful impact on sea turtles, which are a huge regulator and a lot of marine ecosystems. The beaches are where the sole area where they nest. So if you don't have beaches, you typically are going to have a loss in future population numbers for sea turtles. And so, you know, it says we really, it focuses on how we really need to protect these sea turtles, how, you know, protecting these beaches goes a long way to protecting the rest of these ocean ecosystems. But obviously, there's a balance, you know, you need to have funding to protect these, what we're going to say, to protect these species and develop these projects to protect them. And a lot of that money comes from eco-tourism. So, you know, I think it's just an interesting article to talk about the pros and cons of, you know, developing coastal cities. And, you know, the one thing I thought of while reading this is surrounding the seawall, you know, is there suitable habitat for sea turtles to nest on, you know, within 20 kilometers of the seawall? So they said, you know, we'll protect it. We'll build the seawall. We'll protect these other areas outside. But that way, we're still sort of accommodating as best we can these populations. Or did they just say, you know, what we're going to build a seawall regardless around our resort and the turtle are going to find some more else. Right. And I think, I mean, this is a common problem, not just in Kenya, where this article takes place, but this is worldwide, right? We're looking at these massive resorts that come in. And the article this mentions, they clear cut a lot of great forests that didn't need to be clear cut. And then they also, you know, blocked the beach access to to the sea turtles. So they came in and they did a lot of, you know, a lot of invasive things to these to these poor turtles and to the to the ecosystem in general. So you've got that aspect of it. I think it would be different if the resort were a little more eco tourism friendly, you know what I mean? Where if it built the resort based on the facts of its natural habitat, not coming in and destroying the habitat or keeping a little bit to protect it or protecting something else, it just seems like it just came in and got the permit, a clear cut, a built a seawall. It probably gave a lot of money to the to the local government. And then it got it's it got what it wants. I think what we have to look at is, I mean, as I was reading this article, I mean, it frustrates me, right? Because you see a lot of damage to sea turtles. And in the article it mentions is not just the sea turtles, that beach that get damaged. It's those sea turtles go worldwide. They don't just sit around that local area. So if we don't get those beaches and those nesting sites don't occur there, then the sea turtles elsewhere, we won't see sea turtles elsewhere. So these beaches are all, a lot of them are in tropical areas or areas where there could be a lot of people. There could be some major urban cities, things like that. And there's or there's a huge poaching pressure or whatever. There's something going on. And that's why these sea turtles are actually endangered in the first place, of course, with bycatch and everything else. But, you know, this is the major point. This is like their, you know, their, their major way of reproducing. You know, you have four to 500 eggs. One will survive to adulthood, you know, most likely. So it's not a lot of great chances. And if you're destroying all those eggs or destroying the opportunity to get those eggs, then you got a problem. Now, we look at, I think the only way to really look at in terms of how to really help these turtles out is how does it benefit the local local community? Are the eco, or just like Costa Rica, are people working with local community to make this an ecotourism spot? You know, to make it a hub where people come to see the turtles, people come to watch the turtles when they come and nest, or they go out and they look for turtles, scuba diving or snorkeling or something like that. That would probably play a more important role in protecting them because then they're more valuable that way. Other than that, other than an ethical point of view in terms of let's keep the environment stable, let's keep the environment healthy. I have a feeling that these resorts, unless they're given some restrictions and some regulations and maybe every resort that comes in, like you said, has to put in some money to either establish some protected area, beach areas beyond the sea wall, or down, you know, downstream of the sea wall or down, you know, down current of the stream wall, or up current of the stream wall somewhere where they have to actually put in money. They have to take money from their revenue and say this goes to back to rehabilitating. And that's what we do here in Canada and in the US too a lot of times is if they are going to destroy, so that was weird. I just got cut off, but I'm back. This is just the fun part of Blav that we're trying to work through here, but I paused the recording and I edited it. So there's going to be a little bit of a jump in the edited version. It's going to take 70 takes. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, basically what I was saying is a lot of times these resorts go in there. They have to compensate for something, whether it be sea turtles, whether it be coral reefs or both or all. It's good to get those regulations in place to put it in. It doesn't, from this article, it doesn't seem like they're doing that. Is that right? Am I missing something here? No, I don't think they, well, I shouldn't say that. It didn't mention if they were not. The developers said that they followed all the proper rules and regulations, but that doesn't necessarily... Are those adequate? Is the question that you have to ask next, right? That was my first question when I saw that is they said that they followed it and then you're like, well, what are the regulations? What are the restrictions that they have to follow or the regulations that they follow? Maybe they're not good enough and maybe that's what the people of Kenya have to look at. Maybe the outside community and non-profit should look at it and say, what do they have to do when they come in? Because a lot of times, and especially in island nations, small island communities, they just throw some money at the government and say they're going to hire local people, and that usually takes because a lot of these islands are in need of money and they depend on tourism. It's sort of like their go-to, just like Canada's go-to is apparently oil and gas, right? So that's our go-to to create jobs. If we don't have that as our oil and gas, then we lose 70,000 jobs and our economy goes to the tanker, right? So it's the same thing with these small communities. So there's a definite feedback of putting in resorts for a nice tropical escape and vacation to see beautiful island or beautiful landscapes and beautiful seascapes and animals and things like that. And then there's also the consequences of putting in such a resort without following proper regulations or having proper regulations in place to make sure that those ecosystems stay healthy. Yeah, and now that the seawall is there, now that the resort's there, it's a pretty good opportunity for collaboration, because like you said, the people who manage your own these hotels, resorts, whatever, they've got a lot of money. And the same people who will go to Kenya and stay at these fancy resorts probably wouldn't mind seeing some sea turtles or would really like to know what's going on to protect the sea turtles. Because the benefit here is you're not protecting, we've talked about this before, we're not protecting phytoplankton. You don't have to convey to people what phytoplankton are. You just put up a really cool picture of a sea turtle, say, you know, this is critical habitat for sea turtles. And this resort, you know, has made sure that just two, three miles down the road, you know, there's, let's say, 500 linear feet of beach front protected for sea turtle nesting. And over the past few years, you know, we've seen sea turtles come up and nest in these areas and we've planted them so that they're vegetated. You know, we clean up trash there when the sea turtles aren't nesting, so it's not to disturb them. You know, that, first of all, that wouldn't cut into their profits and revenue that much. I mean, they've got enough money to build this thing. I'm sure they can afford to protect a certain area. But the sort of goodwill and the environmental and social positivity that will come from that could do huge wonders for word of mouth advertising for that place, could build up their reputation. You know, it's there's just a lot of great opportunities. So, you know, it should have been built. Ideally, no, but like you said, in a lot of these smaller, less developed countries, they need that sort of economic boost. So now that it is, you might as well take it as an opportunity to do something positive for the sea turtles. And I think there's an opportunity for a win-win if you phrase it. And if you, you know, get the community engaged in as well, show them that people will actually stay at your hotel and ask you questions about, oh, you know, why is that area protected for sea turtles? You know, what are you guys doing? Why is that important? Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it's, yeah, it's just one of these things where you really have to be careful, especially if Kenya's becoming, I don't know if it is or no, I don't know much about the area, to be honest. But if it is or becoming a hotspot for tourism, and you have a good ecotourism community already there established, use that to bring in tourists, use the ecotourism, not the fact that, hey, we can build massive resorts like we have done in the Caribbean and South Pacific, but we've destroyed the environment in the meantime, be like, no, we're actually leading the world and saying, you know what, we're actually going to use our natural world and say, look what we have, and we want to protect it, come over here and look at it. I mean, look at how many people go to Tanzania, South Africa, to see the parks, you know, like to see those safaris. They actually go to see it because of the wild animals, right? You know, they want to go see these parks, they want to go see these animals in as much of natural habitat as possible, and they're protected. So it's the same thing with the ocean, do the same thing, you know what I mean? If you can, I mean, obviously you can't put them in a boundary, but you can't put boundaries along, right? So anyway, that was a really good story. Let's go to the next one, which China's coming into play into deep sea exploration. Yeah, there's a couple really interesting headlines. All I can tell you about this story is that China has apparently implemented some sort of deep sea wall. I've looked at a few different articles. There's really not a whole lot of information on what the law is. They just keep saying it has to do with deep sea exploration, potential resource extraction, so like deep sea mining or, you know, some other sort of industrial use or purpose for this exploration. It's not like they just decided out of the goodness of their hearts and the wonder of the children to explore the deep sea. I mean, you're not going to have live cams from deep sea about, you know, what's under there? If they're doing this, they better be streaming this into schools because that would be awesome. That would be awesome. And they'll still have to abide by some of the UN laws regarding, I think it's, I don't know if it's high seas or once you get past your exclusive economic zone, UN rules or international rules apply. So, you know, it's not like they're the sole governing power, but I believe they are the first country to actually implement a specific law for deep sea exploration and use. And, you know, they made point to mention that China is very focused on expanding its marine activities, which, you know, it doesn't surprise you if you've, you know, they're an economic powerhouse. They're, you know, very aggressive in their growth. So that makes sense that eventually they would have gone to the deep sea. I think this is something that other countries are going to start implementing over the next few decades, and maybe even international laws will be strengthened or, you know, clarified now that people are actually doing things out there. And now that the technology makes it feasible to actually do things out there, but, you know, none of this matters until we find out what, what it actually says. You know, we, it could say, you know, we have the right to drill anywhere. And, you know, they say they're going to take measures to protect biodiversity, which is good, but it's also very vague. So, but, you know, it could come back saying we are going to look at places that don't have these features. And if they have any of these features, we cannot do any sort of resource extraction, or, you know, we can do limited extraction supervised by researchers, you know, that would be something that would be positive to see. So we don't know until more information comes out. Yeah, I mean, I always find this interesting when it said marine activities, you know, I used to think that it was marine activities as in, you know, exploring the deep sea, exploring the life down there, the biodiversity, maybe looking for some interesting deep sea animals, that kind of thing. I used to think that now, you know, I know what it really means. Marine activities essentially means we're going to look for oil to look for oil beyond our boundaries. We're going to try and expand our boundaries just like every other country in the Arctic is doing, is trying to basically prove that here are boundaries. They all go up to the North Pole. If you look at all the Arctic countries, they all go up to the North Pole and they say this is, you know, our area, because there's a lot of oil and gas up there. And with climate change, you know, you're getting a lot more opportunities to go up there. I think you're seeing the same thing with China, maybe not in the Arctic, but in other than the South China Sea, you know, in the Pacific. And like you said, they're a powerhouse, man, not only economically, but just in size, alone. And we, you know, people, countries are afraid of China because they're kind of like a sleeping giant. You know, they haven't moved on any country yet, but they're, they can when they want. And, and I think from a political standpoint, this could be an interesting move by, by the Chinese not really saying that they're doing anything bad, but they are, they do want to protect their boundaries. And to be honest, they're acting like every other country. So you can't fault them for doing it. Right. Right. You just hope that if they do explore for oil, one, you hope that they adhere to proper regulations, whether it be in their boundaries or not, you know, come up with some, some proper regulations, like better than other countries, become a leader in that, you know what I mean? Because we used to think that Canada and the U.S. used to have great, you know, great laws, but we all know that is not true. There's, there's some faults and there's some holes in their gaps. And it, and I think it'd be kind of cool if you see a country like China come out big on this kind of thing. I know we always look at China from a media standpoint as sort of the, the bad guy, but they do a lot of great things. They have a lot of great technology. And I think they can really do something kind of cool with this. But the other thing is you can't really blame them because even Canada's, you know, we started mapping out the, the, the Arctic so that we can declare our sovereignty of the Arctic, you know, even to the point where we didn't want U.S. subs coming through without telling us, you know, there's whole programs that we have documentaries on that where we freak out if the U.S. has a sub going in and out of our country land and we don't even know about it. They don't tell us about it, right? So imagine if like that's happening with China with another country, you know what I mean? And we're like, Canada and U.S. are friends. We're buddies, you know? Well, I don't know. Depending if Trump gets in, we don't know what's going to happen with that. Let's quite change. Yeah. Yeah. We're like those, those petty roommates in college, you know, say they're friends and get along fine but have the duct tape through the middle and if, you know, you put your shorts on their side, they freak out. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I'll tell you something interesting though about Canada U.S. Last night after that whole suit, they call it was super Tuesday with all the, the, you know, where Trump kind of tore up everybody. Yeah. The Google searches for how to move to Canada with a roof shot through the roof. I'm just saying it's not a coincidence. I think that's, that's something that everyone always seems to threaten anytime someone gets elected, like on Facebook the next day after an election day, you always have people who are like, I'm moving to Canada. But if Trump gets elected, that might actually become like a feasible career strategy for a lot of people in the States. Yeah. Yeah. That's if we don't build a wall. Yeah. You could build a great wall. It'll be great. It'll be huge. It'll be massive. You're right. And I think, you know, like you said, this kind of is an opportunity for China to really set a precedent, not that they haven't, but, you know, from, because from a national standpoint, it does make sense to create this sort of law. Yeah. You know, I'm surprised no one's done it already. The deep sea is going to become the next place for people to explore for resources, extraction. It's becoming more and more important as we learn more about climate change. You know, the, the conservation aside, I mean, obviously wants to see them do it responsibly and focus a lot on exploration. But, you know, it even makes sense from a, you know, a domestic economic standpoint, a trade standpoint, because there are a lot of benefits to these deep sea habitats. You know, there's a lot of great R&D potential from learning more about hydrothermal vents and deep sea biodiversity. So, you know, just from, that's just one example, but, you know, there is a benefit to protecting areas economically. You know, you might lose the, lose the revenue that you might get for extracting oil from the area and destroying the habitat. But, you know, that could be the next huge medicinal drug that China can discover first and, you know, patent go through. So, you know, like you said, we're not saying it's good or bad. It's just a really interesting thing that now a country has actually started implementing these laws. And, over the next few months, when we might hear about more what these laws say and how it governs their use of the deep sea, I think that would set a precedent for how future countries will implement laws as well. Yeah, I mean, we know the Chinese aren't they're not stupid. They're smart, they're smart people. They know what they're doing. And so, you know, what I find interesting, though, is they've recently made a push to get rid of their coal mines because they had such a density of, a high density of coal mines. I'm surprised they're moving more into oil and gas. Now, I know they have a lot of companies that deal with oil and gas for foreign entities, foreign companies. And, you know, like seismic survey boats and drilling and because they're labor, just like when you outsource to their warehouses is cheaper, and they probably work, you know, 10 times as hard as anybody else, or a Westerner anyway. And they do a better job. So, because they're cheaper and they actually work harder. So, I'm actually surprised it took them this long. And obviously, they must have oil platforms and stuff in their own economic boundaries. But they, I guess, you know, coming through to be on their boundaries, that's what makes it interesting. I don't know the specific laws of what happens with that and what they plan, but it's quite interesting to say the least. Anyway, let's move on. This one's kind of a cool, kind of a cool one. Why don't you take us through this one? This talks about sound in the deep sea coming from migrating organisms. So, we're not talking about whales or, you know, other marine mammals where, you know, an article about their sound would be obvious. Everyone knows whales communicate via sound and other marine mammals do as well. And so, this talks about how, you know, researchers thought for a while that other fish could be capable of utilizing sound to communicate maybe at a rudimentary scale, not at advanced communications marine mammals, but sound does travel further underneath or in the ocean. So, it makes sense that, you know, compared to vision or some other sort of communication strategy sound might be an effective one to develop. So, this looks at research out of the University of California, San Diego, that appears to have detected sound in the deep sea. It's just very faint sound. They mentioned it's just a few decibels over the limit of background noise, but it's been detected with acoustic sampling methods. And it seems to have a pattern of occurring during the times when these deep sea fish migrate to feed on the plankton. So, I believe it's dawn and dusk. But they're basically thinking that, you know, if this sound seems to happen just during the vertical migration, it could be sort of a collective communication from small fish, maybe middle larger fish, maybe some invertebrates even, that just creates some sort of acoustic sound and communicating that, you know, it's safe to swim up, it's safe to feed. There aren't any predators close by. So, you know, there's still a lot of questions that haven't been answered. I don't believe there's a publication for this study. I believe it was just a presentation or at a conference. So, it'd be really interesting to learn more about this study, about how they detected it, you know, and then obviously if this does turn out to be the case, if there are some sort of communication, some sort of communication going on, you know, it's what specific types of animals are making this communication. How are they making it? Why are they making it? The sorts of things. The one question I had that I thought seemed pretty obvious and might be a stupid question, but I didn't see it answered anywhere was how, I guess, how did they measure that this sound was not just sound coming from the physical movement of these organisms up in the water column? You know, how did they know that it was coming, you know, it was intentionally produced rather than, oh, this is just a small blip because you have all these tiny fish and other invertebrates swimming up, you're going to get some more noise going on. But, you know, it seems really interesting again. I think this is something that I'd love to learn more about. Yeah, yeah, this sounds like it's something that we might want to get on board on the on an interview Wednesday for the podcast. I think this is kind of interesting. But yeah, I mean, I think this is, you know, it's one of those stories where you just like, holy cow, like, first of all, how do they measure that at such a low frequency? Right. And then how do they say, well, how do we know it's fish and not some other interference? Like you said, I mean, this is in the San Diego trench. I'm not sure how far how far offshore that is, but it could be anything. But they know it's it's the, you know, they're thinking it's small fish. I mean, just imagine a school of fish being able to communicate through sound to warn each other of predators or to warn each other. You know, how many other fish do this? Is it just the deep, I mean, this opens up questions to a completely, you know, different realm of what we know about the deep sea and about fish in general and how they can actually communicate with each other. I mean, usually it was through movement or maybe through who knows what I don't know much about the subject area. It's more of a physiological thing. But, you know, schooling fish have do have some kind of dynamic, but maybe this in the deep sea, maybe they don't school because they don't they don't have to because it's so dark, but they're still close by and they still want to warn each other. Maybe they do depend on each other. Who knows? That's going to be an interesting question. Those are going to be interesting questions to answer to find out one who those, you know, are they small bony fish? Are they fish in general? What are they, you know, what are they from? How are you going to figure that out? That's going to be an interesting question, you know, to get to. I don't know if that requires like an ROV dive down in that area or, you know, putting some men sub down there to see what's going on. I think it's one of those things where you're just like, holy cow, the deep sea just did it again and it just it just amazes us. You know what I mean? That's that's the beauty of this. It's inching. I love how it, you know, this is off what Smith Smithsonian.com and yeah, I think this is, you know, Smithsonian is awesome. This is what they do and you kind of take stuff and just be like, wow, you know, they just wow us and I just love it. That's I mean, I know it's now very scientific, but Jesus, wow, sometimes you just have to say that. So, yeah, what are your thoughts on this? Hey, I got to be honest, they're kind of a little skeptical. I mean, this kind of seems like it's too good, too cool to be true. But I mean, that doesn't mean it's not true. I'm basing this off of two articles that I've read. But in my mind, like, okay, they're produced if they're producing the sound, how is it produced? Because you would think that, you know, even if it hasn't been detected, because like you said, it's got to take crazy advanced technology to even be able to detect this sort of thing. You know, how have anatomists not, you know, suggested before that, oh, we think this type of structure could be used to create vibrating sounds in the water column, you know, and maybe that has, you know, maybe I'm just showing my ignorance of fish at this point. But you know, it goes with that, it goes with maybe this is just sort of a, not like a intentional thing they're doing, but just background noise with the associated drift up the water column. You know, it could be a whole bunch of things. And I'm sure when the publication gets out, or if we're able to get the authors on an interview, they'll probably address all this, because, yeah, you know, when they were interpreting these findings, they ask these questions, too. So hopefully they, you know, have, you know, ways to answer this or say, you know, we weren't able to measure this, but this is how we would go in forward and, you know, this is how we interpret our conclusion. So having said all that, you're right, Smithsonian does put out great research, they have a reputation for very high quality. You know, at UC San Diego as well, it's a really great program. I think I'm just cautiously optimistic, so that I don't get my hopes up, and then dash two weeks later, if it turns out. I understand, because it is one of those things where you just like, really, could that happen? And it would be amazing if it could. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But I think we'll have to inquire about this and find out more about it, because the articles are doing a great job in introducing it. It seems like it's going to be come up paper afterwards, but this was an oral presentation at the Ocean Sciences meeting that happened a couple of weeks ago in New Orleans. So I think that's, you know, it's something to look into to find out if we can get these people on and say, hey, you know, what are we going to, you know, let's look at what we can figure out from this article and find out if it's, you know, if it's, are they close, are they not close, what are, you know, how do they make these assumptions, or are they assumptions? Can they figure it out? And maybe doing some more reading and figuring it out will help with this. So yeah, but yeah, I think it's definitely interesting. Yeah, oh, no, it is really cool. And it would be great to learn more about it. Well, for sure, for sure. Okay, so let's move on. Last story of the night, this one's kind of cool. It involves the new Deadpool movie. And we're thinking this is how Ryan Reynolds maybe studied for his his role as Deadpool. Why don't you, why don't you describe it for us? Yeah, this this is about jellyfish, which are much more cool, much cooler than Deadpool. Yeah. Oh, oh, yeah. How so how so tell me how so? Well, they are one of the basil phyla. That's pretty awesome. One of the first animal groups to evolve in the tree of life. They are one of the most diverse as far as life history goes, I believe. They have a very interesting life history, which we're going to talk about now. So they sexually mature adult jellyfish called Medusa scientific that's a sign of a classification of them. But it's the mobile ones with the bell. So when you think of a jellyfish, you think of a Medusa form? Right. These Medusa then really sperm and eggs sexually fertilize a planula larva, which literally just looks like a tiny little sausage. It's just a group of cells, doesn't look like much. That planula larva then settles to find a suitable spot on the seafloor, and then it turns into a polyp. Now, this polyp is completely mature adult, but it reproduces asexually and it's immobile. It's Cecil. So you have this polyp that attaches to the ground, it lives out its life, and then it buds off asexually clones that I believe are called ephyra, but they're sort of small Medusa. They don't have the fully formed bell. They kind of look like little stars if you see a scientific diagram of them. And then they, those ephyra, which are essentially juvenile, they mature into the Medusa. So you basically have these two adult stages, and this article kind of talks about how it's kind of like a caterpillar training into a butterfly. You know, if that helps you, great. I think there's some issues with that. But so this article says they compare it to Deadpool because research has found that the moon jellyfish Aurelia has the ability to essentially reverse develop itself. So when normally you would have, you know, this mature Medusa, it reproduces, and then it dies, the mature Medusa can instead revert back into a polyp using its own already distinguished cells. So it's not like it's got these essentially stem cells that haven't differentiated yet, that it says, Oh, we're just going to now use these undifferentiated cells and become a polyp again. It takes cells that are from, you know, like a damaged bell or some sort of membrane, you know, skin or tissue cells, and changes those back into the cells that it would require to develop into a polyp. So there's a lot of comparisons to like Benjamin Button, Deadpool, like you said, because it could theoretically, you know, if it's damaged, it could maybe revert back to a polyp stage, repair itself, or at least change its form. So then it's life. And I mean, the thing that I found really interesting is that Aurelia, at least on around the US down in Texas, they're pretty common. They're not some rare jellyfish that I mean, they're a lot. They get big. They do get big. And, you know, there is research for other species of jellyfish. There's one called the immortal jellyfish. Turretoxis that has similar abilities. And a lot of people are looking at it as a potential source for cancer research, because it might show us how you can, you know, reprogram cells essentially to change what they're doing. So, you know, it's not, it's not formally immortal. These jellyfish can still die. Something can still eat them. But, you know, theoretically, if they don't have any predation, if there's not any sort of environmental conditions that kill them off, these jellyfish could go from larvae to polyp to Medusa, back to polyp, back to Medusa, back to polyp, as long, you know, as far as we know, forever. Yeah. And I think it's a great way to survive. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, if there's something in the water or in the water column that's dangerous to the jellyfish, whether it's water quality or predator, and they feel that it's necessary to go back to that polyp stage, they can do so, you know, based on specific triggers. And, you know, there's a reason why they say the jellyfish are really the one like, I'm not going to say that the cockroaches of the ocean, but they say when all things go to hell, jellyfish will still be around. And there's a reason for that. Yeah. I mean, they're not, you know, crazy complex, even though it sounds like, you know, the way we're talking, they have a complex life history, but they're, you know, the way they're built, they're not complex. They have an easy way to survive to make sure the next generation goes on. I think, I think they're built as survivors. And like you said, like I've seen moon jellies, and I've been part of, you know, research studies about that in the field. And you should see the size of some of these suckers. I mean, they're, and they're gorgeous. Like you look at them. Yeah, they're massive. And yeah, and you just, and they're, they're, they're kind of a cool, like purpley white kind of color sometimes. And they're just fun to watch. And they're just, you know, and I don't know, I've always found them very calming. You know, I know a lot of people like, Oh my God, jellyfish, they hurt, they sting, there's all this and that. Yeah, sure, when you get caught up in them, when you're just watching them, I mean, they're probably the most calming things you've ever seen. Yeah. And there's a reason why aquariums, you know, have them, and they show like the different colors and it's always like calming meditation music. And people just like sit there in aquarium. You see, usually you see like parents with kids, the parents are like mesmerized by this because they have like a moment of quiet while the kids are running around, like, like their heads cut off. You know, it's, it's kind of interesting in that respect. It's just a calming thing. And to watch these organisms and to say, Hey, these guys can survive probably better than we can. You know, when, when push comes to shove, maybe not like as an individual, but as a species, they can really move on. And I think it just goes to show that evolutionary strategy to survive really works well for a really simple organism, but such an important organism sort of in our evolutionary tree. Yeah, that, that is why jellyfish are cooler than dead pool. Yes. Because, and I like talking about this stuff because when I was in grad school, I mean, my research was on invertebrates. I did the marine invertebrate lab, which was a requirement for marine biology majors, which at, at A&M Galveston is like half the students. But all of them, like you said, took it because they want to study dolphins or whales. So, you know, take this required course, but you could tell they walked in. They're like, I don't really care about this. So my goal was to make invertebrates awesome. And I like to think I did okay. But one of the papers that we talk about is a paper about territopsis. And we focus on, you know, just how, just how, when you think about it, amazing. This is like, you know, we still don't know a lot about it. It's important that we don't over stretch saying that this means jellyfish can never die because that's certainly not the case. But the fact that you can have fully differentiated and sexually mature adults somehow trigger back to, you know, an earlier life stage that helps better protect it against environmental stress against bodily damage. And as far as we can tell, there's no limit to how long they can do this. Right. And it seems to, you know, once they revert back to the polyp and then go back to the if I were Medusa stage, they don't retain those bodily damages. It seems like they're perfectly fine. So, I mean, I, to me, that's just one of the most incredible things I think I've ever learned about any marine biological organism that is. Sorry to cut you off. If you think about it, it's like a movie. Yeah, you try and kill the monster and it divides it to two and then it divides it to more but healthy. You know, I mean, like the damage is gone. All you've done was just cut the thing into. I mean, it's not quite like that. But if you think about it, you damage the Medusa, it goes back to the polyp and then it goes back into probably multiple Medusa eventually. And you're just like, wow, like you just survived that. Maybe not as like I said, not as the individual, but you survived as a species and you've now, you know, made yourself better and who knows if, and I don't know, I'm going out on a limb here, but who knows if, you know, they're stronger for it. I don't know. You know what I mean? I don't know if it's a sort of like a genetic ability to adapt, I don't know, or the adaptation is just have more. You know what I mean? Like, if you have more, you're going to survive, you know, than rather than one. So there could just be like, you know, strength in numbers. Well, and just, you know, like you said, these are relatively, at least morphologically, relatively simple animals. You know, their, their cellular signaling may be very, very different from animals or for the rest of the animals, from mammals, from, you know, so it's, it'd be interesting to see how much we could actually apply this sort of thing the more we study it. But just think of the, you know, capabilities that if we can understand how fully differentiated cells can change from like a skin cell to, you know, a cell that can generate something else. Yeah. If that would just be an incredible medical, economic, scientific breakthrough. And so, I mean, I think the fact that this is, as far as I know, one of the second or third instances of a jellyfish species or genus able to sort of do this reverse development, I think you're going to see a lot more testing, not just within jellyfish, but even within maybe like Tino4s or, you know, other organisms that, that seemed pretty close to see if this is something more, that's more common than we thought. Yeah, I agree. I think, you know, we're, I know, you know, I was just sorry, I was just thinking about, you know, how you're talking about, you know, Tiang, that marine invertebrate class and people coming in and only, you know, only wanted to study dolphins or sharks or fish or things. And I see it all the time where even researchers that study fish, you know, don't really, they kind of joke about the invertebrate aspect of it. Oh, and we're the nerd marine biology, but yeah, it's true. It's true. But if you think about it, that a lot of the adaptations, a lot of the sort of quote unquote cool things that happen in the ocean are by invertebrates, you know what I mean? Like, even if you look at just the nematodes, the flat worms and stuff like that, I mean, they have capabilities that I've never seen before. And, you know, when you've got the jellyfish and, you know, the octopus and squid, I mean, the molasses and the crustaceans, I mean, so many different adaptations, so many species that a lot of people I find like everybody always asks me, Andrew, how are the fish doing in the Great Lakes or how are this doing, you know, or how are the fish in the ocean? It's like, yeah, who cares? You know, how are the whales doing? Well, who cares? Let's talk about the ones that count, you know, let's talk about the invertebrates, you know, let's talk about the plankton. Let's talk about the jellyfish, you know, those are the ones that you really want to keep an eye on, you know, but people just want to see fish. They want to see the big things that they can see in the iconic species. And I find real R&D, and we've talked about this a couple of times in this episode, the real R&D is in the invertebrates, you know, there might be some in the fish, but because we know a lot about the fish, there's some of these invertebrates. We have no idea yet, you know, I mean, I know we haven't discovered fish, we know we haven't discovered invertebrates, but there's probably many more invertebrates that we haven't discovered than fish. And those are where the, you know, the cures could be. There, there needs to be an invertebrate week on Discovery Channel, and you could talk about these jellyfish. Could you fit it all in one week? Well, the way I look at it is there's so many cool things that maybe you wouldn't devote a day to jellyfish, but you devote like flowers. So you could easily fill a week. You can do jellyfish, you can do tardigrades and how you can't seem to kill tardigrades either. You can do mantis shrimp and how mantis shrimp strike like a bullet and can see in like 16 or whatever different wavelengths, talk about cuddlefish, talk about squid. So you're talking about a 24 hour. Oh, yeah. No, you wouldn't sleep during invertebrates. You would look like an invertebrate after invertebrate week. I would graciously go on and talk about my worms. There you go. You know, there's the possibilities are endless Discovery Channel. Please blab us. This, this should happen. Everyone's getting fed up with shark week anyway. You know what we should why waste it with with discovery? Maybe speak up for blue, should just come out with the channel and do all invertebrate week. Let's do it. Let's do it. I can, I can just get coffee and take the first 24 hour shift. That would be awesome. That'd be fantastic. I would love to, I would just love to watch you. Totally. I think it would be you watching me and like two other creepy people who just like redheaded kids. No, no, it would be like all the invertebrate professors that we know are watching this and picking us apart. And yeah, no, I definitely, I'd definitely be watching you. I think we found. I think so. I think so. But yeah, I mean, I just think, you know, going back to this, jellyfish are probably one of the coolest species. They are one of the species that are going to be around for a long time. And it could be because of this sort of survival, you know, this, this survival, I don't even know what you call it, the tactic strategy that they have of being able to go back into a polyp in case there's some sort of, you know, quote unquote emergency or something like that, bad water quality and stuff. And it's the reason why people are predicting there's going to be more jellyfish. So I think it's going to be a very interesting thing to see in the future is to look to see discover more species that have this type of capability within the jellyfish species. I mean, these are just Aurelius. They're the ones that we see all the time. Like you said, in the Gulf of Mexico, they're everywhere. You know, and they're, you know, jellyfish are found all over the place. So yeah, I think this would be kind of kind of a cool thing. Yeah, and I mean, the other thing you pointed out is jellyfish numbers are also on the rise. I know in the Pacific, there has been massive blooms of jellyfish. You know, I think a lot of it has to do with just the water quality. Jellyfish, like you said, are kind of known for their resiliency. So in areas where you don't necessarily have the quality to sustain other diverse ecosystems, jellyfish are just going to go nuts. But you know, it could have something to do with what you said, the, you know, this ability to sort of be resilient to environmental stressors. They also don't have a lot of natural predators. I mean, as far as I know, it's pretty much sea turtles are the only things that go specifically after jellyfish. Other things might eat them from time to time, but you know, so they really, like you said, they're poised to, you know, stay for a while. Yeah. And there was, like you said, they're resilient. They can last in bad water quality. Yeah. Right. And I think that's important. I think that's an important feature to survive, especially along coastal regions where you often get high nutrient waters, high water pollution. I mean, it can get pretty nasty in those coastal waters in some areas, especially if you think, I wonder what the, the jellyfish population like Aurelia is like after the BP oil spill. That would be, I wonder if anybody studying, do you know if anybody studying that in that area? That's a really good question. I don't know. I would imagine someone would have at least done like a population survey, but the other thing about jellyfish is like, there aren't many people who go out and look for jellyfish specifically. There are people who might go out and do a broad, you know, wildlife survey, and they say, oh, yeah, we saw a bunch of it, really. But I don't know if anyone actually went out to the oil spill area and said, I'm looking at strictly, you know, Skype-a-zones or, uh, areas or something. There is one professor at Dauphin Island, so that's University of Alabama, I think, right? Dauphin Island Institute, who I went out on a research survey when I was working in Louisiana, and we specifically looked for jellyfish. I don't remember if it was just moon jellies, but we were looking for schools of jellyfish, and we had cameras in the water, and we were looking for, and he, they were all about jellyfish. That's all they wanted to look for, and they were studying it, and along, they'd be along the coast, and they were in a lot of places, but we would look for specific triggers in water quality to actually go there, and it was, it was really interesting. We would, I remember taking a small boat, we'd be in like the middle, it felt like the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, it wasn't. We'd be about 100 miles offshore, and I would take, so we were in 110 foot boat, I would take a small boat out and take divers out, and they would just dive in the middle of what seemed to be nowhere, uh, and go down about, you know, 50 to 100 feet and do surveys to check for, for jellyfish, and come back and do water quality. Yeah, it was, it was quite, it was quite cool, and in fact, kind of an unrelated story, but on that, one of those surveys, we were, I was serving, so I was always, I was always controlling the vessel up top. It was like a small zodiac kind of thing, and at one point, you know, I'm pretty new out of school, I haven't been around the ocean that much, you know, 15 years ago, um, I look out and I see like a dorsal fin, and I'm like, oh geez, like on the surface, and I'm like, oh God, we got divers in the water, so I have this, this metal sort of object that I'm supposed to hit on my boat, so I started banging a bang, the secure, the, um, the safety diver comes up, takes a look, and it ended up being, I'm like, that's weird, I see, I see three of them now, and it started going in and out of the water, in and out of the water, I'm like, what is that? I'm like, that's not, and then all of a sudden, it was like a small pod of dolphins. Yeah, you get them. Yeah, that came zipping around, and it was one of the most fantastic things, like the divers, you can see them jumping, because they, they came flying in, and then they came flying back, and then they just kind of, they just kind of, almost, it was almost like they did the survey with them, and they were going back and forth, yeah, so it was one of the, one of the scariest moments at the beginning of, you know, the whole event of my life, and then it ended up being one of the coolest things, it ended up being one of the most envious things, because who doesn't want to swim with dolphins, I want to jump in there, and go in with them, but I'm like, what are you doing, you're controlling them, so, yeah, one job, one job, the Canadian had one job, that's what I was going to get, if I jumped in, but, uh, no, but definitely a cool thing, I mean, you know, going around the golf mexial looking for, for jellyfish was easier than I thought, you know, to, to actually get some, you know, and it was based on specific water quality threshold and triggers and stuff like that, so, yeah, so it was kind of cool, but, but yeah, I guess that's the end of our, our, our show today, I see that we just had two people join us, thank you for joining us, thank you. We appreciate that, um, and you listening, oh, look at that, we got a lot of big ups, there we go, I like that, um, you're abusing the props, yeah, I love it, I'll abuse that, abuse away, but, um, yeah, we're, we're, we're planning, just to let you know, uh, this is our second time doing this, we plan on, on coming back next week, uh, in the week after that, in the week after that, um, I'm also trying to figure out a time of good time to actually put this on, um, you know, two to three days a week, um, at night, so that I can, you know, record the podcast and stuff like that, and, and Don and Kath, I don't know if you guys are already subscribed to our, um, Speak Up For Blue podcast, but all these recordings go on the, on the, uh, podcast, and, um, you know, this is, this is what we do, so, um, you know, if you want to subscribe to that podcast, uh, you can do so. Don just asked a question, uh, you two are in education, or do you get paid for the stuff you were talking about? A thousand dollars question, I guess. Yeah, I, uh, I would love to get paid for this. Um, but no, we do this, to be honest, we do this out of the goodness of our heart. Um, it is a, we, we would like this to become a business, um, and, and make people aware of what's going on in the ocean and, and the solutions that we can implement to, um, to sort of reduce or hopefully eventually eliminate some of the issues that are going on or many of the issues that are going on, uh, in the ocean, which I know a lot of you guys know about already. Um, and so that's what we're here to do. We're here to educate people and we're here to, to, um, just get people involved in talking about the ocean because I don't know about you, Nathan, but a lot of my friends who are not in the actual, uh, you know, in my actual field don't know a lot about the, what's going on in the ocean. And it's, it gets to be frustrating sometimes. Cause I'm just like, Hey, you know, you guys should know about this. And they don't, and they know very little. And, and it's not their fault. They're, you know, they come from all walks of life. They come from, you know, educated, like university, college educated, a labor educated, you know, all that kind of stuff. And they're, they're smart people. Um, but they just don't have time to go and head and, you know, figure this out, you know, and, and, and look up online. Um, because there's so much other information that are going on. I mean, who's going to look at this stuff and ignore what Kanye West is saying. I mean, Oh, you can't ignore what Kanye West is saying. I mean, he'll kill you. He'll tweet at you until you delete your Twitter. Exactly. He'll tweet your kids. He'll tweet your kids. But your, um, you know, since we, you know, we've both been to grad school for, for science, I think we take for granted a lot that, you know, we had professors who walked us through a lot of these difficult concepts. Um, and you know, even if you are college educated, if you didn't focus necessarily on sciences, you could go your whole education without ever having learned about all these conservation issues, learned about the complex ins and outs of climate change. And you're right, if you try and learn it on your own on the internet, there's just so much misinformation out there are incomplete information that it's perfectly easy to get, uh, you know, wrapped up in something that's not true. So I think people like us who have this sort of background, you know, it, it may not be our full time jobs to communicate this, but I think to a certain degree, we do owe it to people who want to get involved, but just don't have the means or the knowledge to get involved to at least give them some opportunity and, and way to give back and, and get more involved. Yeah, I mean, really the way I see it, um, for, for coastal convers or, or for ocean conservation, um, coastal conservation too, is really just education. That's the basic need right now is education. I mean, there are a lot of people doing some great things, some complex things, some non complex things, um, advocacy, but the, the real need right now is just getting people educated. Let's be honest, the fin trade would still be alive and well today and not suffering like it is today. If nonprofit organizations weren't going into China and getting into the schools and getting into the communities and educating people in a positive way to let them know what was happening with all these sharks and it's working. We were seeing a decrease in the trade according to the numbers anyway. Um, that's what we're seeing and that's what we need to do is educate people. Everybody can be educated. The internet is there for everybody. Somebody's looking for marine information. Somebody's looking for ocean conservation information, uh, whether it be speakupforblue.com, whether it be deep seen news.com or whether it be southern fried science.com or either nonprofit organized or nonprofit organizations that are not just about, you know, spreading ocean awareness and ocean news. Uh, you know, that's where it's at. That's where you got to get people to go and, uh, in a positive way, not an extreme way, not in a way that really, uh, kills people. So, you know, that just turns people off. Um, you know, I think that's, uh, that's really the way we need to go in our, in our area. So, um, you know, I think, I think you had to, you know, really look at these things. Sorry. I just looked at, at Don's, um, comment here. He says he was recently in Kuala Lumpur at a hotel that had shark fin soup, um, for their dinner special the week. And yeah, it still goes on, um, and it probably will, uh, for a while. Um, and yeah, it's, it sucks. Look, I live in Canada. And a few years ago, I think it was about, well, it was a long time ago. Now actually six, seven years ago, I was at a banquet, a wedding banquet, and they served shark fin soup. I had no idea it was going to be served. Um, probably ignorant in the fact. And I had to leave. I had to step out. I was so angry. Um, and this was like a family thing. And, and you're just kind of like what is going on. Um, and then I'm lucky I had the person that we went with. It was like, uh, you know, my in-laws was a family member. They found out how angry I was. And now we go to a restaurant and that is taken off the menu. And we don't order that because it's, and, and which is nice because they do it out of respect for me and, and knowing what I know and what I've told them. And I think they don't want to hurt the environment. They know how bad it is. And, um, and I think that's important. And what's interesting is that's a class thing. It's, it's a, you know, in the Asian culture, it's, if you can afford shark fin soup, which is very expensive, it's a class thing. So for someone to do that, to say, no, I don't want it. That's a big thing in that culture to say, no, I'm going to refuse. Um, because classes is, it means a lot in that, in the Asian culture. So, you know, it's, it's great, but it's just, it was basically through me speaking up and saying, Hey, I don't like this. And it's not, it's not right because of this reason. And, and, you know, I was, my, my in-laws are smart. They're not, you know, they're, they know they don't want to harm anybody. They don't want to harm the environment. And that's just the way it goes. So, um, you know, that's just, that, just just one example, but yeah, it still goes on. It, it will, it'll probably will. And it has been going on for a while, just not the level that we've seen it in the rat in the last like 10 years, because of, you know, you're getting the populations getting richer. So of course they're going to want, um, you know, it's like, you know, the western population getting richer and wanting diamonds all the time, you know, you know, they're getting more affordable now because people can afford them before it was, it wasn't as affordable and only the rich could afford them. Now everybody could, right? Or a lot of people could. And that's what they go for, because it's, no, they couldn't have it before. So it's the same thing. Um, and, and Kathy says that the fishing industry is unsustainable. Absolutely. I mean, the fishing industry isn't, isn't, isn't a big mess. I mean, let's be honest. It's, it's a huge mess. And then there needs to be a global effort to really reduce what's going on in, in that area. And to be honest, like, I love seafood. I do. I love seafood, but I can't, like I can't order it anymore, because I never know one, if it's the seafood that I want. And two, if it's, if it's, um, you know, if, if it's, if it's fish properly, there are programs out there, but the people who sell it have no idea. And that's, that's the big problem, right? So sorry, I've been kind of like going on a rant here at the end, um, you know, but I figure we have two people watching and they're, they're really interacting. I like this. You know, soon Ocean Talk Fridays, we're going to have to open up the seats and get everybody talking and stuff. But this is our second time. So we have to ease into it, right? Because obviously I like talk slow and steady. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. But anyways, guys, do you have anything to say, Nathan, like last last words? Uh, well, I mean, I, I think, I think you're right as far as a lot of this comes from knowledge and education, like, you know, you and I eat less seafood probably than we did when we were younger because we know, you know, what goes into providing us that seafood. And I think once you know it, it's very difficult to not change. I think the reason a lot of people don't is because they don't know it. And I think you're right, a lot of people do want to change and they're just completely ignorant of the fact. And it's, you know, our job and other people's jobs who are aware of this to, you know, not, not preach it, not force it down someone's throat, but just give them the information so that they can make their own decision. And I think you'll find pretty consistently that more people will make a socially responsible and environmentally responsible decision if you give them that information. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Sorry, I'm just typing away here. I love this interaction. This is, this is awesome. This is great. We're getting all these questions. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you very much for all this. Don, you want to know how to get to our blog. The blog is actually SpeakUpForBlue.com. So if you look at my at the Twitter handle, SpeakUpForBlue.com, I'll write it in the chat just to make sure, because sometimes I'm not very clear in how I say SpeakUp for Blue, which I probably should have thought of that before I started that. And then, yeah, I think you can subscribe to the blabs. I'm going to start posting them, like scheduling them more often ahead of time. Luckily, Nate and I have been able to meet every Wednesday. So based on our schedules, we both work full-time jobs. So it has to be at night. But based on our schedules, Wednesday, Nate has been pretty pretty good for us recently, right? Yeah, I mean, I don't foresee any massive exchanges in that. Yeah, so we'll probably do it more on on on Wednesdays. And then may I may put in a Tuesday, when if we get this many questions and interaction, I might just do like a live, you know, Q&A and just have discussions all over the place. If we can do that. If you want to subscribe to our SpeakUp for Blue podcast, you can go to iTunes and do that. I can put I'll put the link in here for now to have these just a copy and paste. So I don't have to type these in anymore. I'm all about automation and sometimes. And also, I'll put another link. You don't have to do this. Don't feel the need to do this. But we do have a crowdfunding campaign to support our podcast to help us out with equipment and things like that. And of course, our time. And we also want to take SpeakUp for Blue to a different level right now. We are in the we're doing well in the podcasting realm. We're going to record this put on the podcast. But we're also trying to go to other platforms, right Nate? We're trying to do a digital magazine, which will hit like a completely different audience. And then of course, get into some some kind of cool documentary videos and some chat videos on YouTube. So, but to do that, we need more time. And to get more time, you know, things have to change financially for us if we're going to be able to do that. So that helps a lot. So, but yeah, so anyway, so that's one thing to do. You know, interesting, interesting thought by Don here, he says, one thing to mention here in Miami, they have some educational things about sea life and such, but it's all targeted to school age kids. There needs to be some class info, some info, class or even lab to teach adults just needs some good promotion. I know many of you want to learn about yeah, you know what, you're right, like we do we do educate kids, a lot of scientists educate kids and programs. I mean, Nate, your job, a lot of times your organization is focused on students, right? Yeah, that's I mean, that's how we make our living. We I mean, we do public, we call on public, but I mean, programs for adults, right? But a lot of times we don't, we kind of just take the curriculum that we teach kids and increase the level of complexity a little bit. We don't have anything designed specifically for adults, which I mean, I think that's a good point in that there's so many things that adults can get involved in if they just had, you know, the proper educational platform to do that because a lot of these topics, as you mentioned, are pretty complex. Yeah. So, you know, some of it may be better focused on adults. You can talk about seafood. You can talk about the fishing industry because kids aren't in a position to buy their own seafood anyway. You can talk about climate change. You can talk about, you know, coastal environments. And, you know, if you're looking to buy a house on the coast, which things you might want to know before you buy a house on the coast, stuff like that, that are more focused on adults. Yeah. And to be honest, this the podcast and Speak Up for Blue is really targeted more towards an adult audience than a sort of like a younger audience. And I did that on purpose because my friends didn't know a lot about the ocean and we were adults at the time. This is only, you know, 2011. So, it was one of those things where it's like, yeah, like the thing with adults is they'll never necessarily get together to learn about the ocean because they'll say they don't have time or they don't want to pay for it, which like organizations like Nate's, they need the funding to get the money and a lot of school programs will do that to help their kids get a broad, you know, education where adults, I mean, one way you could do it is like a team building thing for businesses. I think that would be fantastic. But again, it's to get out there and promote it and stuff. It's not as easy as it as it sounds. And unfortunately, in this industry, there aren't a lot of money. It's just not a lot of money. We're not in it for the money, unfortunately. You know, and that's that's that's that could be a big problem. It's a it's a huge sort of restriction in our in our industry. I mean, the plus side is we get to be around the ocean a lot or the water a lot. And that's fantastic for us. That's our bonus. That's our pay, you know, and we have enough to pay, you know, for, you know, what we need. So, yeah, I mean, this is just it's it's it's tough to get adult programs going. But that's why we did the podcast is so that you can listen on the run. I mean, I listen to podcasts. When I walk my dog, it's really the only chance I get to listen to podcasts. When I'm in the car, my daughters want to listen to pop music. So I don't get to listen to podcasts. Sometimes I'll put one on and then they'll complain. And then I say, well, when you're an adult, you can figure it out. You know, you can specifically to avoid the pop music. Well, yeah. And when I specifically not to listen to Katy Perry, yeah, it's listen to podcast. Well, when you have a six and eight year old and they want to listen to like Taylor Swift, you don't really have a choice. It's that's what happens. But but anyway, like, I mean, it's just it's just, you know, that's that's for what I'm trying to say is that we don't have a lot of time. Adults don't they that's the first thing we complain about. And so a podcast, you can just kind of put it on the background and just listen to it. And it's it's fun. I just we just got somebody here, the blue street signs. I don't know your name, but it's JD. But he has a podcast as well. This is awesome. We have a Speak Up For Blue podcast, and maybe we should do a little bit of a switcheroo and interview style if you want to do that. But yeah, hey, man, we're all about, you know, science and and stuff. So yeah, for sure, tweet me Speak Up For Blue that will and we'll we'll figure something out. JD, I appreciate that. And and welcome Robin to this. It's kind of the end. But this is what we do. Apparently, someone wants to ask us if we want to hear a joke. Go you can type it in. Go ahead. Because I don't know what you what you mean. All right, what I don't know. What do you what do you call an Irish Persian flying around the room? This is dangerous. Ricochet. Very nice. Very nice. Anyway, so yeah, so, I mean, we're kind of at the end. Good night. We're kind of at the end of our, you know, at the episode. But guys, you can you can subscribe to the Speak Up For Blue podcast. You can come back on here. I'll make sure I let you know if you're not. If you guys are following Speak Up For Blue, that's that's awesome. If you're not, follow, follow Speak Up For Blue at Speak Up For Blue. And and we can figure out, Nate, what's your Twitter handle? I don't even know. Is that bad? I have one, but I don't use it much. I mean, let me figure it out. I think it's at Nate J. 126. Okay, there you go. And we can, you can follow us there. And then we'll let you know when we have, yeah, we can do that definitely JD for sure. And yeah, we can do that and we can we can have a good chat and we'll have people on and more and more and more that we haven't really announced that we're having a lot like that we did this. This is only our second time on here. But I think next week, I think we should open it up and maybe only do two stores and just have literally an Ocean Talk for our for this week and do that for our Ocean Talk Friday. We record this for Friday. This is our Ocean Talk Friday podcast, which maybe our podcast users might be a little confused by this one, but this is what we want it. So anyway, yeah, for sure. But anyway, Nate, thanks a lot for coming on. I'm going to stop the recording now and just stay on because maybe we should talk to JD. Hold on one second. So I hope you enjoy that blab. Again, I apologize for having to record it off my screen. A little bit of a mishap in me understanding the platform itself. I really want to thank you guys for listening. We passed this week a hundred thousand downloads. That's huge. And we're looking forward to getting to 200,000 and more in the near future. So keep listening to our podcast. Keep spreading that Ocean Conservation message because that's really what it's all about. We want to reach as many people as possible. Make them aware of what's happening with the ocean and how to implement solutions. That's what we want to do. So I think, you know, blab is going to become part of our way we record in the future. And once I understand more about it, we're going to be putting on some live shows as well. So stay tuned for that. If you want to go to blab, you can go to blab.im. If you have a Twitter profile, it's really easy to sign up. They just use your Twitter profile. So that's not a problem, right? And you can actually go ahead and get it through there. So, you know, you can you can follow us at speaker for blue or handle. And you can well, I'll let you know schedule something when it's live way ahead of time. And I'll let you know what we're going to be talking about. We might even just do some Q&A, you know, on ocean stuff just to get what you guys are wanting to talk about. So, you know, we'll see what what it comes out to be. Hopefully this blab thing and this live podcasting thing or live streaming thing will be kind of cool. So anyway, thank you very much for listening to this speaker for blue podcast. I am your host Andrew Lewin. Happy Friday, happy weekend. And hopefully on Monday, my voice will be better. Happy conservation. [Music]