How Icebergs Work (Very Cool)

so you don't care. I know my laptop has been apparently too full of data to operate whatever that means. Yeah, he's stuffed it up with fifty gigs of shady stuff. It's right. Yeah, it's called research, I guess. So every single bit of that it was hard facts buddy. Yeah. And songs? Yeah? Videos is that? Well? There you go. Videos tend to stop stuff up by especially high res ones. Yeah, that's probably what it was. I would imagine. So on your work computer, no less, Well, what am I going

to do? Cary? Answer? Computers? Why where are we talking about this? I don't know you started it let's hear the intro. Chuck, Yes, I'm quite sure that. Um, you'll think I'm kind of stupid for mentioning probably the most famous ship ever to be sunk by an iceberg, but humor me. Of course. We all know the wreck of the William Carson, which in seven went down off the coast of Labrador. Uh. It had a number of cars on board, but more importantly, a hundred and nine souls, right,

which is what they call you when you're to see. Yeah, like a hundred and nine souls lost. I never really hope heard that or paid attention. Really, I thought they would say lives lost. They say souls. They say souls. Are they used to old time, you wise, before Kennedy in the separation of Church and date. I guess right, yeah, I guess now they call them lives before they were souls all souls lost. That's sad. Yeah, it makes it

even sader. It's like the saint crying right under certain circumstances. Um. But the luckily a hundred and nine souls were not lost. Zero souls were lost on the William Carson, as everybody knows. The cars went down, though, which is a tragedy for the insurance companies covering those cars. But as I said, like every school child knows the story of the William Carson. Did you know that there were other ships that have hit icebergs? I was not aware of any. It's true.

The Lady of the Lake Okay, yeah, I didn't know about that one went down in the Grand Banks. Didn't make a movie about that. Uh no, no, you're thinking of ex caliber Um. The Lady of the Lake went down the Grand Banks on its way to Quebec with seventy people on board, seventy souls. Um the s s hush SHD toft hush and toft okay yeah, um off the coast of Greenland in nineteen fifty nine on her maiden voyage. Can you believe this? That makes it so much worse that it's a maiden voyage. People dead all

because of icebergs. I mean, there's been other ships that have hit icebergs, but um, all because a chunk of floating ice took out an entire ship. Souls and souls and souls were lost. Yeah. You know, we have a young fan named Shelley Stein right now that is about to throw her iPod through a window. Is that the person who always wants to hear about that that other ships, thinking, yeah, she's been begging for like two years leading into the anniversary.

That's right. Um. Anyway, what's crazy is that all of these ships were lost. As a matter of fact, between eighteen eighty two and eighteen passenger liners went down in a place called Iceberg Galley. But it was only the last twenty five years that we started tracking icebergs. What's even more amazing, though, is that we have learned a tremendous amount in those twenty five years, and we're still learning and we will dispense with the learning forth with.

That's right. This is interesting. Was this a grabster? Yeah? Boy, he puts together a nice article, then he he does. He knows what he's doing. He's a professional. I never feel uh, I never feel bad about about his. But you feel bad about some of them. Yeah, like the ones I write, like the ones you write. They're very adventurous. They were for the Adventure Channel right at one point.

So chuck, um. I think people they're sitting there sitting at home thinking right now, like they're talking about icebergs and it's just a chunk of floating ice and You're absolutely right. It is just a chunk of floating as not just a chunk. There's so much more to us um.

For example, iceberg salt water, Nope, fresh water yep. Why well, Uh, I learned virtually everything I've ever known about icebergs within the past forty same here, by the way, Uh, it is ice um, but it's not sea ice or pack ice. Like when you see deadly sketching there motoring through that that sea ice. Those those aren't little chunks of iceberg.

That's saltwater, right, that's frozen seawater. Frozen seawater and iceberg was um is a piece of a glacier that has busted off or calved, calved, calved like having a calf, like giving birth to a cat is calving, calving, calving, calving. Yeah, man, I had it until you threw me off. Well saying cal I thought it would be calving, calving, caving away from a glacier. How many times we just say calving and a glacier. Uh, Let's talk about glaciers for a second.

Glaciers are packed snow basically. Well, yeah, but I mean they're a little more interesting than that. Well, yeah, that's the that's the base route. Though in certain latitudes, um, it never gets warm enough for snow to fully melt all the way in the summertime. So what you have an accumulation of that snow that builds up over and over and over again over the centuries, over the eons, as old as ten thousand years old, sometimes right. Uh,

And that's a glacier. But glaciers are also additionally interesting in that um, they become so heavy that they over this freezing thaw cycle and um the accumulation of layers that they all of the air bubbles are pressed out of them. So glaciers are blue, the color of frozen water with no air in it. Um. And they also move under the force of their own weight. They moved downward, downhill towards sea level, because sea levels as downhill as it gets right until you hit the sea, that's right.

And um, So because of this, they they are this ultra dense form of ice. So it slips down, floats out into the sea. Tidal motions eventually will cause little cracks and fissures, and then a piece of the glacier will break off and boom there that's an iceberg. It's a freshwater piece of the glacier freshwater glacier chunks, right, And it's freshwater because it's made of snow, not seawater. Um. And when you said that it floats out into the sea.

That's called an ice shelf. Um. And up north and northern latitudes, Um, the biggest ice shelves are found on the western coast of Greenland. Was there Arctic or northern icebergs that are formed up there off of those glaciers down south in Antarctica where there are penguins. But it's not the only place there's penguins. I want to make sure everybody knows. I know. And no polar bears. No,

only a pool would say that. Yes. Um, the pretty much the continent of Antarctica is ringed with ice shelves and there's a lot of open sea, so the icebergs can get really big. They can keep extending, extending, extending, But then like you said, yeah, they break off and then you have an iceberg. Don't talk about ice. Yeah, this is fascinating. Like I want over this again and again and again until I finally got it, and I feel like I got it. It's so easy though I

was making a lot of pot of it. Yeah. Uh, ice, as we all know, is the solid phase of water you have you know, liquid solid gas. Iis a solid phase thirty two degrees fahrenheit for fresh water zero celsius. Salt water is gonna need to be a little bit colder because, um, there are basically salt molecules getting in the way of the ice forming. Well. They they they move faster I believe than water molecules, and it takes

a lower temperature to slow them down. And also it's greater density if you're talking saltwater, right, which is important, very important. But ice also is the is peculiar meaning unique, and that it's the only solid phase of any substance. I believe that is less dense than the liquid phase. So ice is less sense the water, and then seawater

is denser than fresh water. So well, and it's easy to remember the ice is less dense because when you put a little ice cube in your little chardonnay this summer, if you're a red neck, it'll float. Yeah, because there's little uh, ice forms in a crystalline shape, so those that leaves area for gaps, I guess, And so what is the air in there? Uh? I'm sure there's just

less dense. It's just the it's just it's less dense. Basically, if you take water and freeze it, you can think of it as spreading out, so it gets bigger, has it has a larger volume, but it'll weigh the same as that lesser amount of water, right, And when you put something, say ice, in water, it's buoyant in that the amount of water displaces has to equal the weight of the ice that's displacing it. But since there's more ice than an equal weight of water, there's some leftover

that floats. And that is what we call the tip of the iceberg. And when do you get confused, Yes, the tip of the iceberg. That is the part that sticks out, and it's about, depending on the iceberg, about one six to one ninth. And I'm sure everyone's seen those awesome pictures on the interwebs of you know, the top of the water and under the water of the iceberg.

It's pretty cool, right, you've seen those. I have very nice And the reason there's very variation between how much iceberg is showing it is because of the variation in the concentration of salt in seawaters or any particular part of seawater. And and um. Also uh, some icebergs are denser than others as more as he said, just like people. Yeah, exactly. Uh that you mentioned earlier that glacial ice is blue. Um. That is true. Um. During different melting and freezing cycles, though,

they will turn white because the air gets trapped in there. Um. And then sometimes these really old icebergs that have formed at the bottom of these thick Antarctic ice shelves like that have been around for thousands of years might actually have a greenish hue because it's just you know, soaked up organic matter under there over the years, right and then so which is kind of a dirty yellow brown.

But icebergs have the tendency to roll over without warning, which is one reason why you wouldn't want to camp on an iceberg. No, they're dangerous to be around. They are. And actually there was one that floated down to New Zealand and some helicopter charters were like selling flights to go check them out, and one of them landed on the iceberg and they realized prett quickly they shouldn't do that anymore. Um. But did they like getting short did it? No?

They made it out okay, But when they got back and told people, I'm sure some scientists like, wait, what did you just do? Right? Don't ever do that again? Tc um, but the iceberg will roll over. And so you've got the green part up that's with the light reflecting up through the blue park when you get this brilliant emerald green. And that's some old ice right there, Bubby, Bobby, Yes, Bobby, I've never said that before. Uh. The life cycle of

an iceberg is pretty interesting too. Why we mentioned they can be as old as ten thousand years before they ever reached the ocean, and um, this is like centuries of compression. So that's why it's so so dense, that's why it's blue. And then once it calves off though and and from the glacier, you've got about three to six years on average, right if it's like say, it's up in the in iceberg galley and never strays below parallel, which is apparently where the water starts to get a

lot warmer. Four Parallel goes for Americans through like the tip of Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula Michigan. People below that are like, it's still pretty cold. I imagine, um, so ones that stay up there and never come back down, can float around for like fifty years and just kind of alt the way slowly and quietly. Right. Ones that make it further south, like one made it to Bermuda once, which I'm sure was quite a surprise. Um. Those go away fairly quickly. Uh yeah, and I enjoyed this. Um.

One account of this expedition. Um. What's the guy's name? Dr Gregory Stone witnessed and wrote about in his book Ice Island um, which I believed the largest ones are called ice island sometimes. Yeah. Right. Um. His quote is in this iceberg basically became destabilized, and it sounds like it exploded, like right in front of his face. Yeah. Well he said that there was an ice debris field across two miles. Yeah, and he said it was like

shards of crystal shattering. Right. But if you think about it, that's what happens when you put in ice cuban water. Yeah. You hear that noise, right, It's called thermal shock. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And it's also because ice is less dense than water. As it's liquefying, it shrinks because think about it's contracting and it's pulling apart the outer warm or layer from the inner colder layer, and this cracks form and the ice cube essentially explodes. It sounds like

that's the same thing that happened. Yes, when you pour that that twelve year old scotch on top of your single cube of ice. If you're into that, I don't know if you should be doing that. But okay, I'm not a neat guy. I like my I like it a little cold, and and I'm not so hardcore with the single malts, so too remove that bite just a bit is good for me. You don't so you don't like take it neat through your nose as that the way to do it. Yeah, the way you drink it

with ice through your mouth. Yeah, I know, scotch pure scoff at me, but scalp away or whatever. Just do what you like exactly. Um, that it was very supportive. I meant you as like people in general. Okay, so that wasn't supportive. Um, let's talk about some factoids and

this this is to me. The fact of the show is that there are actually six official classifications with their size, and the first two it sounds like they were having a lot to drink when they had the naming party and sobered up a bit, because the smallest one's about the size of a car, maybe a little smaller, called growlers, and then the next one, maybe about the size of your house, is called a burgie bit. I put the emphases on a bit like a burgie bit, a burgie bit.

Either way, it's pretty cute. It is very cute. And then they got I guess sobered up or got bored or ran out of whiskey, and then they said, all right, then the next ones are small, medium, large, and very large, which is really boring compared to burgie bit. It is, but the very large ones are kind of interesting in that they just keep going and going. The largest one ever record is the B fifteen iceberg. Yeah, broke off of the Ross ice shelf down in Antarctica. Apparently it

was about the size of Jamaica. Yeah. I think it's it's broken apart into smaller piece of sense, but I think the original um area was about sixty square miles. That's all. That's a big chunk of ice. Yeah, And in order to be I mean, that's the upper limit, like it can just be as big as they're gonna get. There's no like cap or anything like that. To call

it super extra large. Um, but very large. You have to be about twenty four stories tall and a little longer than two football field six to be classified is very large. Yeah, that's that's big man. If you think about that, Yeah, it's huge. UM. I'm sorry, it's very large or it's huge huge. Um. The other two classifications that icebergs can fall in are equally boring as the last four size names. They really could have done better than this if you ask me, But they're the t

shape classifications are tabular and non tabular. And tabular is basically just like a well, it looks like a table, like a or a tab tablet, writing tablet, and it's back. It's like tall with steep sides and a flat tops like a floating plateau. Um. And those tend to come off of the ice sheets down in the act Antarctic. I believe, Yeah those are um. I think they have to have a with five times greater than their height to be tabular. And then non tabular have I think

five different classifications. You got blocky flat top steep signs. They sound like characters they do wedged um flat with a steep surface on one side and a gradual slope on another. So it's like the high right haircut. Yeah, the gumby the gumby the dome which is round and smooth pinnacle, which means it has at least one big tall spiral sticking up, and then the ones that um deteriorate to where they form a big canyon. And it

looks like two different icebergs, but it's really connected. Underneath those are dry docks, so that means they have two tips sticking out, but they're connected underwater. It's like mind blowing. It's pretty much. It was. It's pretty neat at the

very least. So, um, we've got northern icebergs, southern icebergs, um, and there's plenty of icebergs like elsewhere, but for the most part, in northern icebergs, like we said, form off the western coast of Greenland, because Greenland, apparently I read this, Greenland and Antarctica are the only place where, um, there's ice sheets, glaciel glacial true glacial sheets, glacial sheets. Boy, that's a tough one, that was. It surprised me too.

I wasn't expecting that. Uh. And in Greenland there's about twenty glaciers that cap the majority of the icebergs. Yeah, that was I thought pretty cool. I thought it was cool too. Um. Roughly forty thousand medium too large h calv from Greenland glaciers each year, is that right? And they are about ten percent as strong as concrete, which I thought sounded not super strong, but apparently that's like

way harder than like freeze our ice. Oh yeah, like this ice is different than the ice you put in your scotch, right, which is why when icebergs run into one another, it tends to break it up into smaller icebergs. They're very much subject to um wave motion uh storms, other icebergs land When they run into things, like they break up, and it's one of the things that has a big deletrious effect on their lifespan. But it's part

of the it's part of the iceberg life cycle. Going with the okay, good, Um, they are pretty slow but um, to give you an idea, like a fast moving iceberg goes about two point two miles per hour and that's Hauland oh, I'm glad you bring this up because that raises a very important point because we see the tip of the iceberg and because we're so um anthropocentric, Um, we assume that wind drives icebergs, you would be dead wrong. And assuming that since most of the iceberg is underwater,

it's currents that drive icebergs, makes sense. Yeah, um. And so that's how icebergs can be trapped, like in the Antarctic, because they're trapped in that current or up north in the Labrador Current, they kind of stay trapped up there. Um. But it also makes them subject to wave motion currents from other far far off storms. And I guess getting hung up on things underwater, yes as well. It's another good point is um, they apparently strike the bottom of

land a lot. Yeah, and they can like wreck the seafloor, can't they. But if you think about it, like there's plenty of parts of North America where glacial movement carved geological features are of the land. The icebergs do the same thing when they're dragged along by the current. And say one's a thousand feet tall underwater and it hits a patch of sea that's less than a thousand feet it's gonna strike New York City and fast go to

Central Park and look at the there. Oh yeah, yeah, they got all those little grooves cut out, that's ice. That's ice ice baby. Um no, no, it's not nice. Uh. The ecology this was sort of surprising to me because I just figured they're just floating along. Maybe they melt a little bit, what's the big whoop? But I didn't really consider the fact that it's melting this glacial fresh water, a lot of it at times, depending on the size of the iceberg, all around in the sea water. And

that's got to have some sort of ecological effect. Yeah, And I couldn't find anything anywhere that said, like there's a lot of life that's adapted to living in fresh water even though it's home is sea water, and they live around icebergs. I couldn't find anything like that. But apparently it has little effect on these animals because icebergs are basically like floating time released nutrient capsules. Yeah, it's like teeming with life around it. So they must love it,

these little krill and plankton. It's like a lot of small stuff generally, Well, what there's there's a there's a definite Um, what's that chain called food chain that iceberg support. Um. They bring a lot of iron rich nutrients from the land as a gift to the sea, and as they melt, they slowly release this stuff. This supports um algae, right, So there's a lot of algae that that grows on

their krill. These little tiny shrimp like things eat the algae um, and then all these other animals eat the krill, and then the birds prey on the other fish that are eating the krill. So this whole food chain develops around this iceberg. It's pretty cool. But even even something that I think they've only recently begun to figure out is that icebergs are there a sign of climate chains, Like everybody's worried about all the icebergs melting in the

sea levels rising, and for good reason. But they're also figuring out that they also aid in carbon sequestration in the ocean. That makes sense. So this algae and all

this stuff is they're eating this iron. There's a transfer of carbon from the land to these uh that this life that eventually will die fall down to the bottom of the sea and keep the carbon trapped with it, So algae that wouldn't be there um is soaking up carbon and then being eaten and passed along in this undersea food chain, and they found that, Um, the carbon absorption around in iceberg is twice what it is elsewhere because this algae wouldn't be there if it weren't for

the iceberg. So there it's soaking up the CEO too. That's crazy. Um, but they also take it away what icebergs giveth uh and not just boats and chips Like that's a tanic there, I said it, Okay, Um, they can actually, like I said, they can clog up shipping lanes. They can. In the case of B fifteen, I think it actually um had a pretty uh deliterious effect on Emperor Penguin's Yeah, in much of the March of the Penguins and they so you know what happens in that

sad movie. I guess what. They have to walk around it. Yeah, and there's a they really have a tight schedule. When they hit an iceberg that's you know, taller than the penguins don't fly, remember, and it's really wide, they have to go around it. They learn to fly. Yeah, that would just solve a lot of problems. Um. So yeah, it can have negative effects on the little penguins, a cute little penguins, and um, it can rake the sea floor and just destroy it basically over the course of

many years. No good, no another cool thing. And this I don't know. I couldn't find if they're actually moving on this. But the United States military UM called up the RAND Corporation said, hey, boy, these things are huge chunks of awesome drinking water, totally safe to drink because it's from the water. Boy. Yeah really I never saw that all the way through. That was pretty um it Uh. They called the rain corporations said, hey, can we study

these things? And how viable is it too? I know it sounds crazy, but how viable is it to get one of these icebergs over here and provide fresh drinking water for people who need it? And it sounds like it's not the most ridiculous idea in the world. Um. Their study said that a system allowing a ten percent yield could provide water for five hundred million people at a cost of eight dollars per one thousand cubic meters,

which is not too bad. I mean, it's way more expensive than it should be, I think, than than we pay for water now. But our water is artificially cheap, so as water becomes more expensive, if there's any icebergs left. We may want to go do that, And they say, I guess they just nudge it through the water closer and closer. Um. And this is where it gets a little hinky. It says in the article, using massive insulating

sheets to slow the melting. I don't know what that looks like, but it looks like, um my l are like you used to reflect the sun on your car. That's what they would use. That's all it'll take, you know, like those um sun blankets or whatever, just something to reflect the sun sunlight radiation. Well, it's also moving into warmer water that was not gonna melt it from below, or it'll melt it from below for sure. Yeah, but

I mean you protect what you can. I guess, I guess if you're harvesting icebergs, you're right, they're not the

they're not the only ones looking at this. UM. I ran across an M I T proposal of building a pipeline from Alaska, where there's plenty of glaciers that the western US makes sense, but the author concluded it's like four and eighty seven billion dollars to build the pipeline and keep it going, and that just wouldn't be worth it, uh in canals to another Another group studied that and suggested a canal well and in the United States have

exactly hurting for water. It would be nice that they did some of these studies and like pushed it to where they don't have fresh water right now at all. You know. Yeah, it's been a little money for them, like straws oat. Um, well, I guess we already went over. Well, Iceberg Galley is actually a little more interesting. They started

studying it. They formed the International Ice Patrol uh way later than they should have, I guess, but they probably didn't have the equipment they needed back in the day to do what they do now. Um, the Coastguard US Coastguard administers it and they worn ships. They kind of run it through their little program and say, we think this is where it's headed. This is how big it is. Uh, if you're in this area, you might want to watch

out for this, for this guy floating your way. Well, they basically say, like there's ice up here, don't go above this these coordinates. That's called the limit of all known ice. Wow. And they the Coast Guard also does some other stuff for the I should say the Ice Patrol Um, they do other things like um bomb icebergs. Ye. Did you find out more about that? No? I looked it up on YouTube because I was like, surely somebody's videos everybody dropping obamba and iceberg. I couldn't find anything.

Plenty of calving stuff. Um. And they also spray paint them with very bright paint, which it seems wrong to me, just so you can see him. Yeah. Yeah, that's like tagging like a new car or something, um, a beautiful new car made by nature, or putting like m radio transmitters on them, which makes sense. But then when they start to break up, it's like, well, there's a little chunk that has the radio transmitting three ft big. Uh. So I got nothing else? I don't either, I've got

something else, all right, what you got? So it became um, I became interested in the idea of this article mentions a nautical mile, sure, well, like why why is there a nautical mile in a mile? And I found out why. So a nautical mile is um one point one five o eight miles And the reason why is because a notical mile, when going around the equator, takes into account the curvature of the Earth. A regular mile um or

called a statute mile is what it's called. Goes from one point on the map to another through a straight line, which means that it's not taking into account the curvature of the earth, which means that the nautical mile accurate is more accurate and thus a little longer than the regular mile from minute to minute along a degree. So a mile is really not a mile. So if you're saying on land, huh, no, it's not because it's a it's it's it's like if you take the earth, cut

in half of the equator and turn it over. You've got the two halves and you're looking in the molten center um and you divide it into three six degrees, divide those degrees in two minutes, and the measure a minute to a minute. If you do a straight line, it's not as accurate. If you do the curve line, it will be accurate. And a kilometer is this way

out there. And seventeen the French Academy of Sciences said, okay, we're gonna designate a kilometers the amount of the length the distance from the north pole to the equator through Paris divided by ten thousand. Pretty clever. So there you have it, Um, nautical miles. I love it. Thanks man, I really uh went all out on this one. I

think so too, kudos sir. Um. If you want to learn more about icebergs, you can type in that word I ce E b r g s in the search bars how stuff works dot com and I'll bring up this fine, fine article by A Grabowski. Um and I said search bar how stuff works, which means it's time for listener mail. Before listener mail quickly. I know we're going to Comic Con. Oh, yes, we are. This is exciting, It is very exciting. We've never been San Diego, California.

Right July twelfth to fifteenth. We will be there, um, I believe on the today. Yeah, and we will be presenting and we are not quite sure the deats yet, but as we find out, you will find out excellent. So if you're gonna be there, come see us. Yes, come say hi to us. We're pretty friendly. We're gonna be pressing flesh, as they say, hands, baking hands and then okay, so I'll be listening, len okay, wait, wait, wait again, hold on, yes, uh we have a huge

announcement dude. Yeah, um, we are running a pretty cool contest if you asked me, agreed, Chuck. You know how every Halloween we read a short story. So far we've read one by HP Lovecraft, the tune we read Barnice by a ground poet. Well, we thought, hey, why don't we see what our listeners can do. This is your brainchild and a great idea, Thank you very much. Sure, So we're holding a horror fiction contest um by our listeners. Uh.

And you can say and then your submission. Uh. And if you win, we will read your story as our Halloween episode. That's right. Um, let's get down to brass tacks here. Here, here's what we're gonna be ranking on the scale of one to five in the following categories. This has all got to be, you know, on the level h interestingness, a plot, awesomeness of characters, well paced pacing. Well yeah, it's gonna be well paced, scariness, and overall

quality of writing. And it's actually gonna be a bracket. You can follow this. We'll have you r l s later for you know where you can follow this bracket on the house to work site. Well, so you and I are going to judge all the submissions and we're gonna select based on these this criteria the top sixteen. Then the top sixteen gets put onto the bracket, and then it's up to everybody to read and vote, and then the one that's picked Democratic is number one. That's

the one that wins. This is I mean, I'm really genuinely excited about this. Yes, Um, In speaking of genuine I want to see genuinely scary stuff. Agreed. Um. I don't want to give too many hints, but if you're creeping into like torture porn territory, you're not going to be impressing anyone with your literary skills. Agreed to get get creative. I'm glad you pointed that out. Uh so the if you want to submit your stuff, you jump, you want to send it to how Stuff Works Underscore

Contests plural at Discovery dot com. Oh, and to qualify, the email has to have the words by participating in this contest, I agree to abide by the contest rules. It's kind of mouthful, but um, it has to be in the email that you send in your submission with and emails that don't have that in it are going to be disqualified. I'm afraid. Yes, And what is our limit. We have a limit here or character or not word limit three thousand to four thousand words and three thousand minimum.

Don't go under disqualified the four thousand maximum. Don't go over disqualified. Yeah, we gotta be sticklers on the rules here because it's official, right exactly. Um. So the whole thing starts um, Monday, June eighteenth, and it goes until even pm Friday, July. Okay, you have the within that time to submit your um, your stories, and uh after that, after the deadline, sorry, it's closed. I mean you and I get to judging. I might submit under a pseudonym

just for fun. Okay, I don't know if pseudonyms are Okay, no, as a matter of fact, sorry, no pseudonyms allowed, Chuck. Yeah, no, pseudonym is allowed. Uh. You have to be eighteen to enter, and it's open only to America. It is as usual, one submission per person. Um. We'll post all the rules on a blog post and put it on Facebook. Um, but that's generally the criteria. So get to writing, see if you can scare our socks off, and um, we look forward to reading. This is gonna be awesome. Yeah,

this is gonna be really make Halloween wonderful. Wow, there we go. Ready, yep, now, I guess it's time for listener. Indeed, Josh, I'm gonna call this one um good email from a Chicago, Chicago guy. That's a terrible Just yesterday, guys, I was finished reading a book Robin Dunbar wrote called Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. Her argument is that language evolved out of a need to keep up social relationships

with group members. Put in its most basic form, Over time, our brains evolved to be larger, which made our average group size increase. At the same time. Once our group size became large enough, today our average group size is about one. We didn't have enough time in the day to groom one on one with that many group members to keep up our social bonds with them. So we have all language, so we could use language as a way to verbally groom with more members at a time

to keep the group strong. That's interesting. It was my understanding that our brains have actually decreased in size and the last years because of group group size, because it's increased and we have to rely less on our like instincts and run from thunder and stuff like that. I smell a cage match. Um. Another interesting experiment I read about is this to Scientists were studying vervet monkeys in

their natural habitat. They started recording the sounds of the vervets um and make notes about what they were doing when they made the noise. After examining a large sample of noises, they found a correlation between the sound they made and what was happening when they made it. I believe the noises were difficult to distinguish by the naked human ear, but the pattern was obvious when they compared

large numbers of them together. The verbets made a different noise for when an error predator was spotted, when a ground predator was spotted, when approaching a dominant male, etcetera. It's not quite language where it like syntax, but it's still more advanced than I thought they were. Um, and that's pretty much to hope it wasn't too dense, but if it was, and that has revenge for the Sun podcast as a listener right there, that's right, and that

is from Matt Schunk from Chicago. Thanks Matt SHUNKA go bears. Yeah seriously, bear. Um. I guess I always like to hear about new books that I should be reading. I'm sure like we have any time for that anymore. Did you hear that that was a limit? It was? Um send us your book recommendation, suck us. You can turn it. You can turn it into uh s y s K podcast on Twitter. Uh. You could send it to Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know. Don't send it.

I guess you'd post it on that um. Or you can send us an email good old fashioned electronic mail, wrap it up, spanking on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff Podcasts at Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff works dot com. Mhmm. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you