Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss the so called insect apocalypse and the fact that bugs are disappearing at an alarming rate all around the world. And later on, we react to the discovery that mold near Chernobyl may be feeding off radioactive material.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keats and joining me today is a man who, when everybody else is sleeping, he stays. Hustle. Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde, are you ready to show us why you're a boss?
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Yep, 24, seven, I guess.
All right.
I sleep a little bit.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Before we get started. If you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe. Like the show on YouTube or your podcast platform. Doing so really helps the show out. We're recording on December 9, 2025. And Tunde, you've been telling me for years now that when you drive from South Florida to Orlando, you no longer end up with a bunch of bugs splattered on your windshield. And now we know why. Apparently it's been confirmed that insect populations have been in rapid decline over the years, with populations going down if you look at the long term, large scale populations going down an estimated 75% over the last 50 years. And this trend of declining insect populations is continuing. This isn't something that has stopped. So tomb day. I know there's a lot of implications for this. We'll have some stuff in the show, notes talking about that. But just what are your thoughts on the so called insect apocalypse and just kind of how the.
What's happening in the world is the disappearance of insects is something that we might want to pay attention to.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: It's funny, my first initial thought is it's terrible. But as you, as you finish your question, it made me think. Yeah, I guess when I was little and you know, younger, I was a kid, I thought, oh yeah, no insects, that's great. No cockroaches in the house. Right. Like stuff like that. But you know, and it's, it's another, in a serious note, it's kind of another sign of just, you know, the impact that we have as humans on our ecosystem. I'd say at a 30,000 foot level and broadly speaking and how I would almost say it's like the more humans that populate the earth, the less of everything else there is. So it seems to be a bit of a trade off.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Well, not chickens. Chickens, not cows.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I know.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: You know like not wheat, Rice.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Yeah, wheat and rice and chickens and cows. That's pretty much the only animals that'll.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Be species of those explode.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, so, but, but not so, I think.
And you're right. Like, the drive from Fort Lauderdale to Orlando is three hours.
And especially in the summer. But any given time of the year in Florida, because it's. It doesn't snow and get super cold here. But summer especially, I mean, you would have to wash your car each way. Right. You go three hours to Orlando, I gotta wash it when I get there, come back and remember they used to sell bug shields. I remember like 25, 20 years ago. And just let me say something about.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Like, this drive is not like an urban drive. Like, once you get past the West Palm beach area, maybe Port St. Lucie, you go into kind of, you know, the. An area that is a lot of trees, a lot of wood, and then also just a lot of open space, you know, whether it be some parts of the Everglades or just area that is rural. So it's not like you're just riding from, you know, if you go from, you know, Miami to Port West Palm beach, you're kind of just riding an area that you consider relatively urban or suburban. This is a drive that includes a substantial chunk of rural area.
Yeah.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: And so, you know, and there's no bus.
Yeah. And that's what I mean. It's just noticeable that over the last decade or so, I just, it's funny, as I say, we talked about in personal. Because I just noticed it like, wow, I came back to Orlando and didn't have to wash my car.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: You've brought this up to me several times. Yeah. Over the years.
This is crazy.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's scary because I think if you read the studies, I think over the last 50 years or so, it's estimated that insect populations have declined over 70% globally.
In one way, it's like, okay, cool, no little critter is going to bother me right now. But in another way, you know, it's again, part of the ecosystem. And you know, I don't know if the tech bros have an answer for this one, because I know we can create robots and that can fold my laundry now, but we still can't create a robot that can pollinate a flower. Right. Like, so some things we do need still that are from the old school of life. Right.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, like, we've heard about the, like with the bees, I think most people have heard about how pollinators, bees, butterflies and so forth, that the populations of those have been dropping and there's concern over, you know, a lot of the fruits, a lot of vegetables, a lot of plants that we Eat or that things that we eat, eat the work. There's a concern that, that those are going to collapse because we're running out of things that can pollinate. You know, that, that concern we've, I think most people have heard specifically. But the idea that three quarters of insects compared to what was Alive, you know, 50 years ago to now are gone is pretty jarring to me. I mean, like, that's, that's, that's, that's a lot. I mean, three fourths, right The. Now, in my own personal kind of anecdotal experience, what I notice is now I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. I live in South Florida now. And. But when I go back to Cincinnati, so I had to go back to Cincinnati really to compare apples to apples, at least terms of, you know, what was going on in the 80s and 90s and lightning bugs. I notice, I don't really, or I don't notice anymore, you know, whereas that used to be something we would see a lot, you know, in the summertime. So I'm in Cincinnati. I notice, I don't know, you know, like this whether that was the same degree here. So it's hard for me to get pair apples to apples. But so anecdotally you notice a little bit. I know I'm still getting bit up by mosquitoes, so they seem to be, they seem to be around. But what, what boggles my mind here is that this can happen without us really, like, without us really noticing that much. Like you notice during, like. And you'll notice in momentary types of situations. Maybe if you're a truck driver, you notice more, but you don't really notice because you do. There are still bugs around, but it's just so, so few compared to what there has been. And I'm not 50 years old, so I can't, or I can't say what it was 50 years ago, but just in my time, you know, like, if I go back 30 years, it's different. And so it would seem to me now maybe this isn't the case, but it would seem to me that in order to have such a big change in insect populations, we would have to be doing something wrong.
That's big also not small. Now, maybe it is small, but if it's small, it's very impactful. But I think this is something that we really should unpack quickly because as the earth becomes less hospitable to life, I think life forms such as humans should probably look closely at that because we could be next. Like, there's the idea of the canary in the coal mine. Well, I don't know if insects in the coal mine would serve the same purpose. But if insect populations are dying, I'm not even saying looking down the road like, oh, okay, well, they're going to not be able to do. You know, they won't. Birds can't eat off of insects and then birds are going to die. I'm just saying directly, like something is killing them or not allowing them to proliferate like they used to. We may want to pay attention to this because maybe life is having a harder time living on earth right now and we're. Life.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think this is the big dilemma of our era. Right. That we have. I mean, look, we've created an environment over the last 200 years with the industrial age that we, you know, I think we. The big headline things are like nuclear weapons because they're very big and scary and we know that they can kill a lot of people immediately. So it's not.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: We're going to talk about nuclear issues in our next, next part of our episode today. But nonetheless, you're correct. But that's a big.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: That's where I'm going.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Is that it's. We respond better to obviously, these kinetic threats that things that we can see, just like we. The hunter gatherer days is, you know, people responded to a wolf or a lion that, that showed up in the front of their hut. Right like that. That scares us. And we can. We know what it is. These slower, longer things like climate change or these other debates that we tend to have in our society tend to be more difficult because they're slower moving, like you said. Think about it, James. We're in our late 40s and we're sitting here remembering a time because I remember I grew up in the D.C. area. Same thing. Appalachian Trail. We got lightning bugs every summer too. When I go back home now in the summer, I don't see them.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: So.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: But it's interesting, my kids don't know what that means because they don't. They never saw some of this stuff. And it's not just the insects, man. In South Florida, I think I told you pelicans. I used to come here, visit my, my, my, my uncle. In the 80s when I would come into Miami, there'll be pelicans everywhere. On. If you were at a restaurant in the water, I remember seeing fishermen coming back in from the ocean throwing up, you know, the little scraps of fish and the birds would be chasing them. I see one pelican every six Months now. And so it's not just the insects.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: And you're an outdoors person. You're. You're out.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm a boater. Like, I'm on the water a lot. So it's just. And then that can talk about fish species I don't see anymore and things like that. So I think it's just. We can't deny that there are chemicals because let's talk about.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Let's talk about what, like, we've seen. And again, we'll have stuff in the show notes.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah, there's 160 million acres. I mean, part of my reading and preparing for it today. 160 million acres of farmland in the United States that are saturated with pesticides. Yeah. And besides the fact this is a separate topic to our discussion, besides the fact we eat food that's grown in that. And, and that these pesticides are forever chemicals, they stay in the ground. So that's a whole different discussion about what we're putting on our bodies and how we're doing it. But clearly we're poisoning the animals that are.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: That.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: That are on this land. Right. And this country. And so. And obviously in a certain way, but.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: It'S hard to separate that out from ours. You said take it separately, that we're consuming that stuff at a certain concentration. You would think that that stuff's going to have a very big effect on us. Or maybe we'd see explosions in things like cancer and stuff like that because we have all these.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: Or mental health concerns or neurological concerns. Right.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Well, hold on. If you take a step back.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Did we just do a show on Parkinson's?
[00:10:35] Speaker A: We did. I'll kick it back to you. But like, if you take a step back, because this is the part that's always kind of baffled my mind that, like, because I try to avoid eating poison, you know, just kind of as a general principle. And it's like, now why would you do that?
I don't know. I mean, because under herbicide, pesticide, the side part is the poison. That means it's poison. So it's like, okay, I'll put this on. This kills plants. I'll put this on. This kills insects.
There seems to be a disconnect that. And maybe if people just wouldn't think that if, oh, if it would kill people or if it would make people sick, they wouldn't put it on the plants. I don't know that that's the case. Like, I don't trust that kind of blanket thought process. People do a lot of things, especially if it doesn't hurt you immediately. If you don't just drop dead right away, then they'll do a lot of things, you know, that, that if it'll increase profit or whatever. And so the idea that we're very comfortable putting poison on our things that we're going to eat or things that we're growing to feed something else that we're then going to eat just always just baffled my mind. And so now we're kind of. This is hitting me particularly like, okay, yeah, so the poison's working. We're spreading. You know, you said millions and millions of acres. We're spreading all this poison out there. And the poison that doesn't break down, it stays forever. And it's like, yeah, that doesn't seem. It seems like if somebody looked at this, in hindsight, they would be like, what in the world are you guys doing?
[00:11:54] Speaker B: You know, but, yeah, I mean, that's. But it's kind of like the climate change argument and things that people don't want to talk about because industry does a great job lobbying to fracture the conversation in the society. And so. And the other thing.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: But how is not eating poison not common sense? That's the part that, I mean, how did humans survive if they could be so readily led into eating poison?
[00:12:17] Speaker B: It just blows my mind because the poison wasn't available.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: Mass persuasion wasn't available then.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: That's why I said, we're in a new era, James. Think about it. We got hundreds of thousands, if not maybe close to a million years of human or however Homo sapiens been around, but only about 150 years of chemicals from industry and only about years of.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Being able to persuade people in ways like with radio and television.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: Yeah, but also the ability that these things even exist. I mean, you know, 500 years ago, a thousand to a thousand, you didn't have pesticides and the ability to make synthetic chemicals.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Synthetic. Yeah, synthetic pesticides, pesticides, human beings.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: So.
And I think this is where I see the trade off, James. I said it earlier as a joke, but as you're talking, I'm realizing it is a trade off. We have created a society that's much easier for humans to not have adversity. Let me say that at a very high level. Meaning we mass produce food, we mass produce housing, we mass produce the ability for us to move around. So we have highways.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Let's just be specific. When you say adversity, you're talking lower on the Maslov hierarchy. Adversity, correct.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I mean. So the ability to have 8 billion humans on Earth is because, remember when we had a billion in the year 1900. So the exponential growth of our population is at a direct cost to the Earth because we have to have, in order to have this many humans without spreading disease and all that, we need to have a lot of synthetic things, we need to have a lot of the plastics, we need to have to be able to stop transmission of pathogens and biological stuff, which means you got to have a lot of sterile kind of things in the environment, like, you know, all this plastic and glad and things that, that every time I get a tea bag now it's in a little piece of plastic. But that creates more waste, which means one of the pelican babies is going to eat it. Once floating in the water, it's going to kill it. It means less pelicans over time or we need more pesticides to mass produce food to feed this 300 million people we got in this country. So I think there's a correlation. The more human we have, 15 billion humans, if it ever comes, we'll have a lot less insects than other animals because it's in an expense to the environment that we got more people.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: No, for sure. I mean, and that, that correlation, you know, that revert inverse relationship does seem to hold, but it seems like that, that can't go forever is my point. Like, it seems like we are, something's going to be.
Yeah, it seems like we may be spinning out of control. And the thing I'm trying to, I'm trying to unpack this, you know, like, so what is this, is this, is this a cultural problem? Is this like a economic problem? Like why is it that we, we are so willingly able or so willing to allow ourselves to spin out of control collectively? And I think it is a cultural thing. Like what I see is a lot of the cultural values that dominate, tend to dominate in our modern kind of societies are more like virus like cultural values consume and you leave something as a rotten corpse, so to speak, and less balanced type. And I think this is a departure, if you look back to the types of cultures that proliferated, not all the time, but there were cultures that strove to find balance, strove to find, be able to find a little a level of sustainability. And that's a. Sustainability is kind of a modern buzzword. So I don't even mean it in that kind of way, but just the idea that, hey, let's not cut off our nose despite our face in order to have an extra piece of corn, you know, like, or something like that. Like, let's, let's try to make it so that we can eat today and then also eat tomorrow and we don't end up poisoning our food that we're going to eat in five days or whatever. And so I just, and I think that this may be an evolutionary thing because I think that virus like cultures, cultures that consume without regard for the future, seem to be, from a cultural evolution standpoint, seem to have the advantage over cultures that strive to find more balance. And so once cultures that go viral or that approach things in the way that viruses approach things, once they come onto the scene, they can't be checked by the balanced ones. It seems like that's kind of just an observation on mine. And so that part.
But the question, that doesn't answer the question, well, when did cultures start taking this turn en masse towards a more viral approach? I don't know. And I'm not going to. We don't have time to get into all that. But that's the part. It's the mentality of I don't care.
Like, I just can't get my head around this. Like, I don't care what the world looked like for my kid, you know, and for that amongst. And, you know, amongst so many people is just, it just blows my mind and I just can't get.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Well, you're, you're trying to assign rationality to irrational.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Is that rationality like, or. So that's how animals think. Like, hey, I'd like to, I'd like to feed my baby. I'd like to make sure that my baby can survive. And then I'll let the baby push the baby out. The animal like, that's not some.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: But animals don't make nuclear bombs.
Animals don't make nuclear bombs, do they? I mean, that's, that's part of being.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: That's why we beat up the animals, apparently.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And.
Well, we dominate them. Right? I mean, and that's what I'm saying is. And because as you're talking, my joke was going to be, yeah, James, the reason why we don't do all that kumbaya egalitarian stuff is because. Because it's not masculine enough.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Right? I'm not even saying egalitarian, but yes, it's not masculine.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: What I'm saying, Dave, I'm being dead.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Serious, because that's with some people's definition of masculinity. Yes, correct.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: But that, that is. James, dominating the land is a cultural thing. It is part of. Think about the old medieval Gardens of the Middle Ages in Europe. Part of it was to show the monarch, to show the population that he could dominate nature. I mean think about manifest destiny. The idea of conquering land and doing what you want with the people and the animals on it. Remember what in this country they did to the buffalo. Obviously when you go look up famous pictures of thousands of buffalo skulls and guys standing at the top of those pyramids. So there's a very, there is a cultural theme to all of this of domination, dominating the land and its resources for your own use or your tribe, quote unquote to use. And I think you're right, that's different. There's a lot of societies that didn't play that game. That played that game.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Actually it appears that societies that don't play that game will get out competed for the ones that do.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Yeah, and just like James. But how is. I think it's a good point. You make a virality think about religion. The religions that didn't proselytize are very small now in number. And the religions that went out there and said if you don't practice like me, you're dead, you're an infidel or you're, you know, or they evangelize and convert people, right. With missionaries. They're the ones that proliferate the earth. So in a certain way there is something to be said about that virus mentality.
What, what it means in the long run is probably not good for the, the large population of humans. We probably could see a collapse ecological collapse of some sort and maybe we go back to having just a couple million humans on the earth and the whole thing resets itself again.
But I don't think it's sustainable the way we're going for another.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: But I don't even think it's supposed to be sustainable. That's kind of my point is that this literally. And that's why you got tech bros saying hey yeah, we're just gonna go to Mars next and Mars doesn't look like a great place to be. You know, so it just again kind.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Of people are getting convinced that that is something. And I know because they recognize that.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: We'Re gonna destroy this place. And so it's like well we gotta have somewhere else to go. And so, you know what I'm saying.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Is they're convincing rank and file people. That's what when you go to how come people let this happen? That's what I mean. These powerful men with their advertising and their godlike, you know, status convince enough the population maybe we can go to Mars. Let's spend all this money on that and not actually fix what we got here.
So I think, you know, that's why it's not going to end well.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, you put it like that. And that's an interesting kind of way to look at it because that's how you can really see how it's a cultural mentality, is because it's like, hey, let's spend, you know, $10 trillion to go to Mars. Or let's spend $10 trillion to fix what we already have. And it's like, why would we fix what we already have? You know, like, let's, let's spend more money and go somewhere where we don't even know if that'll work, you know, so it's, it is this kind of. But that's what I mean. Like this kind of consume and disregard mentality that is ingrained in a culture that again, it just, it's something that, again, with perspective, it just seems crazy to me. Yeah, I just, it doesn't.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Well, it's irrational. That's what I mean. It's, it's irrational like you said.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: But I'm not even rational. I'm not even saying because again, it's, it's self defeating is what I would say more than anything.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: And it's irrational.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: James, think about what you just said.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Let's spend $10 trillion to go to Mars and let's, and let's, let's cry about paper straws on the earth. That's irrational.
So there's no other way to look at it.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: So well. But again, rationality is not some God that I'm trying to serve. Like, so calling something irrational to me doesn't mean that it's bad. Like I'm. You're besmirching.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: It's not good or bad.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: You're besmirching irrational by calling this irrational. This is much worse than irrational. You know, this is like a rational.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: Plus, it's a rational senior.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: It's much worse than irrational. Rational can be. Irrational can be okay sometimes.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Hey, man. A kamikaze pilot flying his plane in the side of a US Aircraft carrier was irrational for him personally, but you.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: Know what I mean.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: So this is.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: You're smirching irrational. But being down 10 points in the fourth quarter and thinking you can win is irrational. But that kind of impulse has a positive impulse, so it has a positive impact. So irrational. Don't besmirch irrational. And saying that, that's always bad.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Don't tell Reggie Miller or Reggie Miller.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: Wouldn'T have stole the ball and shot that three if he was rational at that point. That's what I'm saying is. But we gotta get out, man. We gotta get out this show, man.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: So see, hold on for the audience. This is what happens when you have an attorney as a partner that he now gotta argue the defined point of the definition of a word.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: So no, I'm saying that you're saying it as irrational is the wrong approach in my opinion. Because rational. What's rational has nothing to do with it whether it's suicidal or not.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: So is it rational for us to spend 10 trillion to go to Mars right now?
[00:22:37] Speaker A: That's rational, irrational. Some things that are irrational are good. Some things that are irrational are bad.
Just because you're saying irrational as a stand in for saying it's bad or it's stupid, I'm saying irrational.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Now we're going to double split experiment where it's the.
By observing the word we're changing it.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: No, I mean, like I said, I just don't think that saying something is irrational is supposed. You're not supposed to say that just because you think it's bad.
So that's all I'm saying. But we got to get out of here, man. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this part. We'll have a second part of this episode that will come out shortly as well. Please join us on that and we'll talk soon.
All right, coming back, Tunde, recently we saw a story that went into how there's life that has grown in the wake of the Chernobyl. Chernobyl is where there was the worst nuclear disaster over in Europe and there's a no go zone for humans at least. But in that no go zone, scientists have gone and checked on seeing what's going on. They've seen, you know, boar and all these wild boar and things like things have evolved in certain ways there that, you know, have been interesting, you know. But today we wanted to talk about something in particular where they found mold that's growing there that seems to be feeding on the radiation and like eating the radiation, you know, in a way that is like getting rid of the radiation, so to speak, or consuming the radiation to where it may not necessarily be as harmful anymore, which was not something that was expected to be found or something that we even knew that mold was doing.
So this seems to be quite. I don't know if it's necessarily an evolution, but this seems to be quite an interesting finding that we now have Species, fungi and mold and so forth that can, that apparently can eat radiation. So what's your reaction to this discovery? And I want to get into whether you want to get into kind of the mechanisms that they've seen with this and what can be learned from that, but also just this potentially could be useful in a lot of different ways.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: So your reaction, I think the last thing you said to me is the interesting part of how can this be put to use?
So first I would say my reaction is it's pretty fascinating. It reminds me, we did a show, this is probably going back a couple years, about enzymes that they discover that eat plastic.
And I feel like this is similar where it's like some sort of silver lining to the conversation we just had in the first half of this discussion about kind of the drop in insect population due to things like pollution and all these other issues that we don't seem to like as a society, the negative offshoots of how we live right now. And so I think radiation and nuclear stuff is part of that. I mean, I'm a, I'm a big fan conceptually of nuclear energy as a way to power cities and get electricity because it's cleaner than the fossil fuel way of burning coal and those. But I recognize that, you know, the Fukushima plant, Chernobyl, there's a trade off whenever the nuclear power plant has an issue for society. So this, that's why I say it's very interesting that there could be.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: If.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: There'S a fungus that actually thrives off of consuming radiation, that means that in the long run, maybe there's a way for the scientific community to develop this in a way that can make nuclear production of nuclear energy safer for us as a society. So that if there is an external, maybe it can be contained a lot quicker or something like that. Well, yeah, I mean, I find it fascinating.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Like this is something that seems like we could leverage. Now, I'm not a fan of nuclear power, but the reason is a little different than the, the, the issue with nuclear power that I have actually isn't even the Fukushima or the Chernobyl issue. Those, you know, those are problems that we would want to address. My issue is actually just that we don't have anything to do with the waste from the nuclear. It's not carbon, it's not carbon waste, but it does produce waste. And it's like when it's radioactive, and it's radioactive for millions of years, so what do we do with that stuff? And so that to me, but apparently we Maybe we have a mold that would allow some fungus or, you know, an organism that can be used to. To render the waste that is normally toxic or radioactive. This. Render this waste something that's less toxic or less radioactive, which would change my mind on the viability or the. Whether nuclear power has. Has a role, you know, so on Earth, it seems like this could have great implications if we can figure out what's going on. And I don't necessarily think you got to figure out if you got to know everything about it is more so you need to know how to use it. You know how to use this to your advantage. There are a lot of natural phenomena that we don't necessarily understand, but we know how to use, you know, I mean, sleep.
We don't know exactly how that works, but we know, hey, I gotta lay down every day, go to sleep and wake up.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: And if I don't know how my toilet works but I use it, say what? I said, I don't know how my toilet works, but I use it.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: There you go.
One of the things that was very interesting to me about this, though, was actually the mechanism that in the studying how this works is that these organisms are very high in melanin, which is something that can be helpful when you're dealing with sun rays. And it can be helpful when you're dealing. Apparently light is a form of radiation. You know, you got visible light is on that spectrum.
The spectrum and where there's, you know, like infrared and all that, uv, all those different forms of radiation. Visible lights, one of them. And so melanin. These organisms are very high in melanin. And the melanin helps them deal with kind of the radio radiation that's coming off. Because these forms of radiation, when they're. When they're forms that we can't handle, what it does is it messes up DNA. It messes up, you know, it like, knocks things loose and it's like, oh, my gosh, this thing is gonna. This thing is gonna mutate now. It's gonna be bad. So the fact that these organisms can withstand that and then actually leverage the. And not much. They call it radiosynthesis. So not much different than a plant can utilize the radiation that's come in in the form of visible light and then create energy from that. This mold is able to use other forms of radiation, not necessarily the visible light, but other forms that this radioactive material is creating and then create energy from that. So to me, just.
I mean, it's kind of like just one of these fascinating things. That, you know, like, what is it? The quote from Jurassic World, like, life finds a way, so to speak. Like, this organism has been left in this radioactive space for 30 years, 40 years, and it's learned how to take advantage of the resource that's available there. You know, so it's just. It's fascinating to me from that standpoint.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: No, I agree. And, you know, the melanin thing stuck out to me, too. I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate this new finding of melanin in fungus that can then consume radiation and kind of have a shield against being harmed with the great replacement theory and how that might replace fungus that doesn't have melanin. And we're going to get a whole, you know, thing online and people are going to make commercials about genes and all this stuff, and. And then other people are going to get mad and. And it's all going to be about this fungus. So I'm waiting for that. But until that happens, I do find it interesting, James, because it's another. Like you said about the Jurassic park quote, that's another thing I was thinking of.
You know, life is pretty amazing. You know, I think that's part of the lesson is just. Yeah. Where the idea of consuming energy from. For an organism and the idea that, like you said, that that ecosystem of Chernobyl was immediately thrown out of whack because of the nuclear catastrophe there. And there were certain organisms obviously at a cellular level. You know, it's kind of fungus that were able to respond to that and create a new source of energy out of the abundance of radiation and the problem. I think you always say it this way, like, you know, climate change and all this and the arguments we have in our society is like, oh, life. Life's gonna be okay. I know that's your joke. Humans might not. And I think Chernobyl and this fungus is a great example because humans can't live still in the areas really around that nuclear power plant. Some of the articles I read alluded to that, that, that the radio. The levels of radiation are still too high for humans to be safe. But this fungus is fine.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's thriving. That's an ex.
Yeah.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: So that's an example that we. We can create an environment on Earth that is very unfavorable for humans, but other life will be fine. And I think it's another example too, where this is why I do believe there's life on other planets.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: Whether it's about to go. Yeah, well, there's a.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: Whether it's Life that we consider intelligent or that we could communicate with is a different story. I mean, you know, that I got to wait to see. But this is another reason that the fungus can grow under extreme amounts of or what we would consider extreme amounts of radiation.
That gives an argument that yeah, maybe a planet can have life on it without having such a robust and thick atmosphere and a magnetic field and kind of all the things that seem to be the secret sauce of the Earth being able to do this.
And again, whether those fungus could eventually over a million years, develop into advanced organisms like us, who knows? But could there be fungus on other planets like this? Yeah, I mean, I don't see why not.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Well, yeah, that was actually, that was where I was about to go. Is that this to me, like you already have kind of these. We have organisms that live in extreme environments in, on Earth that we were aware of already. Like the, the animals that live at the organisms live in the bottom of the ocean at these vent, these geothermal vents where there's warm, like volcanic heated, you know, water shooting out of these vents. And there are organisms that live there. So it's like, okay, these, these organisms don't need the sun. They don't, you know, they're in there submerged in water, but conceivably that could be another liquid and they're getting heat from activity inside of the planet. And they're, they're living based on that, you know. And so that's the kind of thing that could live somewhere. I could live in Titan, you know, like one of the moons, you know, and then planets in our solar system.
This is another example of type of life that could exist, as you said, without our, our atmosphere is blocking a lot of the radiation that would otherwise make Earth inhospitable. You know, in the same way that the moon or Mars are inhospitable, because there's no way to block all that radiation.
And these organisms apparently, or this organism apparently is able to very quickly was able to adapt to be able to live in a place with all that, with all a bunch of radiation. So it, to me it makes pretty clear that, okay, well this, an organism like this or organisms could evolve and adapt to be able to live in a high radiation environment somewhere else in the solar system or the galaxy or the universe or whatever. So that was, that's the other takeaway from here. And I know even, you know, in the, one of the piece that we're going to share that we looked at for this, they were talking about that you could put this material, put These organisms on like the exterior of spacecraft and they can help absorb, you know, the, the, the, the radiation just out there in space. Again, because once we leave our atmosphere, we have anything to shield us from the radiation that's out there that some of which is harmful to us. So you know, like that kind of, once you have that kind of idea, then you kind of have to take a step back and say, well, hold up, if I'm going to use this organism as a shield in space, that means this organism could potentially thrive in environments that we would not conceive life being able to thrive in thus far. So yeah, I was, I was pretty fascinated by, by this. And yet the possibilities that it opens up, I guess said it said differently the way that it expands how we conceive where life could be and where life could flourish.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I agree. And I think it's also like when I look at these kind of revelations, let's say these discoveries, it always, I try and say to myself, you know, this is why as humanity we just need to be humble because we don't know everything. But think about it, James. We have been taught, I mean, obviously nuclear bombs and that type of extreme radiation is bad for life, obviously, especially when it's got the thermal blast and all that.
But I don't think anyone would have thought 30, 40 years ago that this would happen, that there would be life thriving in Chernobyl, because I mean, this isn't part of our discussion. But there's also wolves and boars and other animals that seem to be okay in this higher elevated radiation and people didn't predict that. And I think that's where my concern is today, James, with where we are as a society, in our current discourse around things like AI, where we have our cultural leaders telling us that this is going to solve everything in the world and all the problems of humanity. And I think this is an example where, I mean, AI wouldn't have predicted that this fungus could eat, could eat radiation, right? Like, I mean until this happens, no one knew that this could happen. And so I just think that it's an this learning about things like this is an example for me, that we need to stay humble as humans, we need to always remind ourselves that we don't understand everything about the environment and the world around us and why things happen. And this is very interesting that this did happen.
And to your point, if they can put it outside of spaceships and all that stuff in the future, great, let's go learn how it happened. But it's another Example of we're going to have other discoveries like this that are just going to happen off of the backs of. Yeah, I mean, things that seem like catastrophes.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a good point and I commend you for making it. Although I would say here's where I'll put my Tunde hat on and tell you that what you're saying is impossible. It's been very clear, if you study history, that humans cannot survive generally without feeling like they understand everything, everything that's.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: Going on around them.
[00:36:52] Speaker A: Like, if you go back 2,000 years, you go to places and they will swear up and down to you that in order for it to rain tomorrow, they need to sacrifice a virgin. And they will be very comfortable that that is a fact and that is a true. And so if they had to sacrifice the right version, then the gods will be happy and it'll rain tomorrow. And so people were not walking around saying, oh, well, I don't know why it rains. And I'm okay with that. You know, like, so we've always. Humans have always looked for things, made up stuff or whatever. Look, find stories, find things that will allow us to explain and be comfortable that we understand what's going on around us. And so, yes, at minimum, we should keep our eyes open so that when we see something new, we can learn from it and not ignore it. Because it's something that we didn't actually, you know, that isn't accounted for in the stories we already have. But we see that that's what's happened that would happen. You know, Christianity for the longest time was suppressing science. So that. Because anytime science would not confirm something that Christianity said, if, hey, well, if the Earth is not the center of the universe, then you got it, and you say it is, then you gotta die. It's like, well, hold up, I just looked it out and looking at a telescope, man, why do I gotta die? But it's like, well, because our God said that the Earth is. Or the people that speak for our God said that the Earth is the center of the universe. So it's honorable. Hopefully there will be people that take heed to your message. And I mean, the humility, the, hey, we have something we can learn still. But it doesn't seem like by and large that human beings are able to adopt that kind of mentality.
There are many people seem to need the certainty that. And if science doesn't provide it, then religion will provide it, or AI will provide it, or something else will provide it. And that's just kind of seems to be our M.O.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: Or a fungus.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: So. But I think we can wrap maybe.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: That'll be my certainty.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: I'll be certainty. All right, well, so what? I think we can wrap from there. But nonetheless, I mean, it's something new to learn, something new to see. And you should always keep it.
Follow the advice of tune that you keep an open mind and you can learn something new. You keep your eyes open.
[00:39:04] Speaker B: So.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: But we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call Like I See It. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, send it to a friend. Till next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: I'm tuned.
All right.
[00:39:14] Speaker A: We'll talk soon.
