transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:32] Hi there, everybody, it's Ellen Weatherford.

Speaker 2:
[00:33] And Christian Weatherford.

Speaker 1:
[00:34] And this is Just the Zoo of Us, your favorite animal review podcast where we rate your favorite animals out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity and aesthetics.

Speaker 2:
[00:42] We are not zoological experts, but we try our best to bring the best and most accurate information that we can.

Speaker 1:
[00:48] And this week is a very special week. Do you know why, Christian?

Speaker 2:
[00:51] It is the MaxFunDrive.

Speaker 1:
[00:53] It is the MaxFunDrive. People who have maybe listened to this podcast for a while now have probably heard us do this a time or two. This is the time of year when we, along with the other podcasts on the Maximum Fun Network, ask for your support and also say thank you for that support with all sorts of really, really great new content. Like we've got, you may have heard a very special episode went up in our feed earlier this week where I got to talk with Taylor Smurl from Still Buffering. The shows on the Maximum Fun Network also have tons of awesome bonus content that's going up right now. If you've listened to this podcast for a while, you may know that we put out bonus episodes every single month for Maximum Fun members. We don't talk about that too much on this feed, but it's over there. So if you want an extra episode of Just the Zoo of Us once a month, plus the bonus episode that we put out for the Max Fun Drive is an episode I recorded with returning audience favorite, my 12-year-old Isaac, and we did some really fun, silly little summer camp style like improv games. Anyone who has heard one of the episodes he's done on here knows he's hilarious, and we had a great time kind of rage baiting each other and goofing. So lots of really great bonus content going up for Maximum Fun members, but they also have really cool things like gifts. We have an awesome keychain design that I am so excited about. Plus there are actual events going on. There's a lot of live streams. Also meetups going on on Thursday. That is, if you're listening to this, the day this episode goes up, that is today, Thursday, April 23rd, including one in Seattle, which I will be at. So if you're listening to this on Thursday, April 23rd, and you're free tonight, head over to the website to go check out the meetup with us. And you can head over to the website to see all the other cool stuff that is going on during the drive and check out some of the gifts and some of the bonus content. I will talk about it more in the middle of this episode. I just wanted to kind of give a little briefer on it right up at the top because I know y'all are going to want to hear about the animal that we are talking about this week that I'm very excited to share with you. I know you're going to be excited about this one. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:12] What is it?

Speaker 1:
[03:13] It's the MaxFunDrive. We always like to do something fun and cool for the MaxFunDrive because I really want people to listen to this episode. I figured I'm going to do an animal that I was surprised we have not talked about before that I think a lot of people are going to be interested in hearing about. It is the Great White Shark. Great White Shark. I have not talked about it. 320-something episodes have not done Great White Shark. Can you believe it?

Speaker 2:
[03:45] Oh, you know what? Was it the Bull Shark we talked about previously?

Speaker 1:
[03:49] Yeah, you did a segment on Bull Sharks years ago.

Speaker 2:
[03:52] That came to mind because it was the inspiration for the Jaws movie, I believe.

Speaker 1:
[03:56] The Bull Shark?

Speaker 2:
[03:57] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[03:58] It was definitely a Great White Shark in Jaws.

Speaker 2:
[04:00] Yes, but the real life story that kind of like, I don't know if it necessarily inspired it, but I think a real life story that happened around that time was a Bull Shark.

Speaker 1:
[04:10] Oh, that's right, because you talked about Bull Sharks being able to like travel up rivers and stuff, that most sharks are not able to do that at all. That makes sense, because then you'd get a shark in closer proximity than humans usually are.

Speaker 2:
[04:21] Didn't we do Megalodon?

Speaker 1:
[04:22] You did Megalodon, yes.

Speaker 2:
[04:24] We did Megalodon before we did Great White Shark.

Speaker 1:
[04:27] We were really kind of circling. We were like circling around this one. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride sort of situation.

Speaker 2:
[04:38] Great White Shark.

Speaker 1:
[04:39] Yes, Great White Shark. Many of us have probably grown up hearing a lot about them. I feel like if you grew up like an animal or marine biology adjacent kid, you probably have just collected little shark fun facts here and there throughout the years. Were you like a shark kid? Big time?

Speaker 2:
[04:58] I mean, about as excitable as I got about anything, I suppose.

Speaker 1:
[05:05] Did you grow up consuming a lot of shark content or consuming a lot of shark media?

Speaker 2:
[05:10] Yeah, books and of course, Animal Planet was all in on Shark Week all the time.

Speaker 1:
[05:16] So Shark Week, I believe is Discovery Channel, not Animal Planet.

Speaker 2:
[05:19] Yeah, but like, you know.

Speaker 1:
[05:21] Right, yeah, Shark Week. I mean, I've mixed feelings about Shark Week. It can be hit or miss. You can get some good and some bad. It's a mixed bag with Shark Week. But yeah, I also kind of grew up hearing a lot about Great White Sharks. And when I am preparing to do an episode on a highly, I mean, I guess charismatic is the right word, right? An animal that a lot of people know about, an animal that is very like common in pop culture, sometimes something that can be difficult for me is like finding things that people don't already know. I think I found some surprises. As I was doing my notes, I was like, I've never heard of this before in my life.

Speaker 2:
[06:01] That's good. I know this one has spent a lot of time under the spotlight.

Speaker 1:
[06:05] Oh, yeah. No shortage. And some of that stuff is wrong. Like some of the stuff that a lot, some of the little fun facts and stuff that a lot of people know about sharks is just not necessarily true. So I would like to hopefully set some of the records straight for Great White Sharks today.

Speaker 2:
[06:21] Nice.

Speaker 1:
[06:22] My work cited will be in the episode description. So if you'd like to see where I'm getting this information from, please do go over there. Great White Shark scientific name is Carcharodon carcharias. Great White Shark is what most people call them. But among researchers and scientists who work with them, they usually just call them White Sharks. Because there's no other type of shark called a White Shark. And usually when something is called a great something or a greater something, it's usually in comparison with another one that's maybe smaller, like the kudu. There's the greater kudu and there's a lesser kudu. There's a great one and then there's a lesser one usually. There's no lesser White Shark. There's no other White Shark. There's only one.

Speaker 2:
[07:08] Now, was it always the case?

Speaker 1:
[07:10] I'm pretty sure. I don't think there ever was a lesser White Shark.

Speaker 2:
[07:14] Or maybe one that they were like, oh wait, this was actually just a younger one.

Speaker 1:
[07:18] Oh yeah. No, I think it's just they were like, this one rules. This shark actually is awesome. Just call it a Great White Shark even though there's nothing to compare it to. It would have been a really funny called shot if they were like, surely this must be the biggest one. There can't be one bigger than this. Then imagine finding a bigger one, and then you have to be like, well, what do we call this one? We already burnt the word great on the other one.

Speaker 2:
[07:47] Best.

Speaker 1:
[07:49] Ultimate White Shark. Now, adult Great White Sharks can be up to 16 feet long, five meters.

Speaker 2:
[08:00] This recently came up for me actually.

Speaker 1:
[08:01] Really?

Speaker 2:
[08:02] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[08:02] Why?

Speaker 2:
[08:03] For Dungeons and Dragons.

Speaker 1:
[08:07] Oh, did you have to specify what size class it was in?

Speaker 2:
[08:10] Yes, because it has giant sharks, which in Dungeons and Dragons, giant creatures take up a three by three space, or like 15 feet by 15 feet.

Speaker 1:
[08:18] On a grid?

Speaker 2:
[08:19] Yes. Then I'm like, wait a minute. This is actually not an unusual size for a regular shark.

Speaker 1:
[08:28] I mean, I guess if you consider a Great White Shark to be like a giant class of shark.

Speaker 2:
[08:33] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[08:34] Most sharks would be much smaller than that though.

Speaker 2:
[08:36] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[08:36] If they're not a Great White Shark.

Speaker 2:
[08:37] Well, a lot of times in D&D, if it's like a giant eagle or something, it's usually a thing that is larger than its normal thing.

Speaker 1:
[08:43] Like 50 feet or something.

Speaker 2:
[08:45] Yeah. But that adventure called for giant sharks against level 17 characters.

Speaker 1:
[08:49] Oh, they're level 17. You know what? Make them even more giant. They what?

Speaker 2:
[08:54] They could have been guppies.

Speaker 1:
[08:57] They're level 17. Make them even more giant sharks.

Speaker 2:
[09:00] All Megalodons.

Speaker 1:
[09:01] Make them 50 feet long. I don't know, dude.

Speaker 2:
[09:04] Anyway, sorry.

Speaker 1:
[09:06] They can also weigh up to 4,200 pounds or 1,900 kilograms. Now, those sizes are both the adult sizes of females. Males are only about half as big. So female great white sharks are like twice as big as the males. If you see those big giant 16-foot long ones, that's a female, which is something that Jaws got wrong.

Speaker 2:
[09:31] How so?

Speaker 1:
[09:33] I guess in the movie Jaws, sorry guys, have not seen it in a very long time. They splice in some actual real footage of a great white shark. Famously, there's a mechanical animatronic shark that they use, but they use some actual footage of sharks in the movie, and the footage that they use shows visible claspers on the shark. So it would be a male shark.

Speaker 2:
[09:56] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[09:57] But based on the size that they use, no male great white shark has ever been close to that big.

Speaker 2:
[10:02] I don't remember what they refer to it as in terms of pronouns or gender.

Speaker 1:
[10:06] Yeah, me neither. I hope they weren't misgendering the shark in Jaws. Yeah, I don't remember, but I feel like I would remember if Jaws was famously female, should have been female. They belong to the family of sharks, and I really wanted to talk a little bit about something that I have seen. I feel like I didn't used to hear this a lot, but I hear this a lot now, and surprisingly, I hear a lot of kids seem to hear this a lot now, the idea that sharks are older than trees. Have you heard this?

Speaker 2:
[10:36] Maybe, yeah, or something like this.

Speaker 1:
[10:39] Right. Isaac has come home. My 12-year-old has definitely repeated this a few times, and I'm pretty sure he didn't hear it from me. It feels like a very, very common fun fact now, and I wanted to talk about it a little bit because it is true in the sense that the earliest sharks appeared before the earliest trees. Does this make sense?

Speaker 2:
[11:01] It does. I mean, this probably depends a lot on what classifies a shark and what classifies a tree. But-

Speaker 1:
[11:08] Yeah, that's the muddiness of it. So according to the Natural History Museum, the earliest shark-like scales are from the Late Ordovician Period, which was about 450 million years ago. Now those are shark-like, like scales that look kind of like shark scales. And then you see shark-like teeth from the Early Devonian Period, about 410 million years ago. And those are in a cartilaginous fish called Dolidus problematicus.

Speaker 2:
[11:40] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[11:42] Your problematic fave. Probably because of this taxonomy question, because there's a lot of debate as to whether it counts as a shark or if it's a different type of fish.

Speaker 2:
[11:52] There was a very angry text on this somewhere.

Speaker 1:
[11:54] There's many, still to this day probably. They're getting heated in the Wikipedia edit history. It is still early enough that it's a little nebulous as to whether you would consider that a proper shark or not. But either way, the earliest fossil evidence of trees doesn't appear until a little bit later in the Devonian, like 10 to 20 million years later.

Speaker 2:
[12:16] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[12:17] You do get your first shark-like fossils before you get your first tree fossils by 10 to 20 million years. Now, to me, I'm feeling like they didn't become trees overnight, and they didn't become sharks overnight. I think the two things were probably evolving around the same time, but sharks appear in the fossil record earlier. Another thing to keep in mind is that this means sharks as a family, when people say sharks are older than trees, they don't mean Great White Sharks, and they don't mean, I don't know, Tiger Sharks or Nurse Sharks. The sharks that would have been around before trees looked nothing like the sharks we have today. There's a species of shark called the Frilled Shark that is thought to have retained a lot of their ancestral traits, so it's thought to probably most closely resemble what the ancient shark ancestor... Have you ever seen a Frilled Shark?

Speaker 2:
[13:16] It was in the news, like what, a decade or so ago?

Speaker 1:
[13:19] What, really? I don't remember this.

Speaker 2:
[13:20] One was found at the surface of the ocean.

Speaker 1:
[13:23] Whoa, crazy, they're so weird looking. No, I don't remember this story.

Speaker 2:
[13:26] Really?

Speaker 1:
[13:27] No.

Speaker 2:
[13:27] There's pictures of it and stuff.

Speaker 1:
[13:29] I mean, I've seen a lot of pictures of them. I just didn't see one that had washed up.

Speaker 2:
[13:32] You may have seen the picture that...

Speaker 1:
[13:33] Oh, probably the famous one then, this one.

Speaker 2:
[13:35] Yeah, this is where one was found near the surface.

Speaker 1:
[13:38] Oh, okay, I guess I don't remember that news story, but yeah, they're very, very strange. They're very eel-like. They have very bizarre teeth. They don't have that dorsal fin on top that sharks have. So when people say that sharks are older than trees, yes, that's true in the sense that something we would consider to be in the shark group existed then, they looked very different from the way that they do now. I think people missed that part of it. People think that great white sharks were swimming around before trees.

Speaker 2:
[14:08] Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Now, were trees also the ones where it's hard for the average person to grasp evolution at that scale, I think?

Speaker 1:
[14:16] Yeah, definitely. But there is another version of the fact of that, like, sharks are older than trees about Saturn. We heard this one.

Speaker 2:
[14:25] Oh, Saturn's rings.

Speaker 1:
[14:27] Yeah. Maybe you know a little bit more about this. I don't know anything about this. But Isaac has told me that sharks are older than the rings of Saturn. In that, if you had a telescope and looked at Saturn when the first sharks emerged, Saturn had no rings on it, which the surprising part about that to me is how young the rings of Saturn are. It's not how old sharks are. I already knew that.

Speaker 2:
[14:52] I vaguely remember something about that. A lot of planets will have rings at some point in their life cycle.

Speaker 1:
[14:59] I know Saturn's not the only one. Neptune has rings too, right? But they're a lot smaller. Are we going to have rings? Are we making our own rings?

Speaker 2:
[15:08] It'll probably be space junk.

Speaker 1:
[15:09] I was about to say, because you've heard a lot about there being too much junk and garbage up in our, orbiting our planet. We're making our own rings. If you can't make your own ring store, bought us fine. We were just talking about why things in space end up on planar orientation. That's not what this podcast is about. It's a less. Less. Boko, Boko, Boko, save it, save it, save it. Bonus content. If this is anyone's first time listening to this podcast, we rate animals out of 10. The first category we rate them on is effectiveness. These are physical adaptations, things built into the animal's body that let them do a good job of the things that they're trying to do. I'm giving Great White Sharks a nine out of 10 for effectiveness.

Speaker 2:
[16:00] Very good.

Speaker 1:
[16:01] There are very many things happening with Great White Sharks, so much so that I had to make judgment calls on to which things I really wanted to focus on and talk about. Because there's just a lot out there about them. We know a lot about these sharks. Weirdly, we know a lot about them and we also don't know anything important about them. Because we can do a lot of looking at specimens, right? If we get a dead Great White Shark, we can do a lot of anatomical analysis. We can dissect it. We know a lot physiologically about them, but we know very, very, very little about what they actually do.

Speaker 2:
[16:37] That's because they're always on the move and they travel huge distances, right?

Speaker 1:
[16:41] Yeah. They travel huge distances. They live way out in the ocean. They're not usually very close to the shore. They can't be kept in captivity, so we cannot study them in captivity. I have a bit on this later, but human beings had never documented a newborn baby great white shark until like two years ago. That was the first time anyone had ever documented a newborn baby great white shark. Didn't get to see the births, that still hasn't been seen yet. Nobody has seen a great white shark give birth.

Speaker 2:
[17:12] Right.

Speaker 1:
[17:13] Never been seen.

Speaker 2:
[17:14] They're going wherever the eels are going.

Speaker 1:
[17:18] It's them and the eels, but the eels are like, I got a spot, bro. One of the things I did want to talk about for great white sharks is their speed. Do you think you could out swim a great white shark?

Speaker 2:
[17:29] I feel like I could out swim very few things.

Speaker 1:
[17:33] Do you think that on foot, if you were running on foot and a great white shark was swimming beside you, you think you could out run a great white shark?

Speaker 2:
[17:39] Over a long distance, yes.

Speaker 1:
[17:40] That's true. That's a good point.

Speaker 2:
[17:44] But I don't know how much of a head start I'm going to need for that to cook it.

Speaker 1:
[17:50] So they can swim up to a top speed of about 25 miles per hour, which is about 40 kilometers per hour. But like you mentioned, that is a short burst of speed. They are sprinters for sure. They're not built like us humans being more persistence, like not super fast, but can run for a very long time. They're not, it's not like that. But there's a few interesting things about them that let them get to these high speeds. One of them is just their general shape. It's a hydrodynamic shape, their kind of torpedo shape. Another thing is something that you have talked about on the podcast before.

Speaker 2:
[18:24] Those are their fins.

Speaker 1:
[18:25] It's not their fins actually, but go ahead if you want to talk about their fins. The fins are really cool.

Speaker 2:
[18:29] I was thinking about airplane wing dynamics, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1:
[18:32] Oh, aspect ratio, when I was doing reading about this, I saw fin aspect ratio come up, and it was like I had wartime flashbacks. Where I was like, I can't do this again.

Speaker 2:
[18:42] No.

Speaker 1:
[18:43] I can't spend a third episode talking about aspect ratios.

Speaker 2:
[18:48] And I won't, so what's your thing?

Speaker 1:
[18:50] I was gonna talk about their scales.

Speaker 2:
[18:51] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[18:53] What is it that you call them? How do you say it? Can I get a clean take of that?

Speaker 2:
[18:58] I keep forgetting the word itself like at all. What is the correct pronunciation?

Speaker 1:
[19:02] Dermal denticles.

Speaker 2:
[19:03] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[19:05] And what is it that you call them?

Speaker 2:
[19:06] We called them, I called them denticles.

Speaker 1:
[19:10] And I have to say in full earnestness, it was not a bit or a joke at all. You went full send on calling them denticles, which is awesome.

Speaker 2:
[19:20] Which I believe was the whale shark episode.

Speaker 1:
[19:22] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[19:23] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[19:24] Do you remember very much about the dermal denticles?

Speaker 2:
[19:26] The little spikies kind of feel like sandpaper.

Speaker 1:
[19:30] In one direction.

Speaker 2:
[19:31] Yeah. And is it has to do with surface tension of the water, perhaps?

Speaker 1:
[19:37] So it is these scales that are all over the shark's body, which are actually kind of built more like teeth than scales, where there's a blood supply going into it. It's surrounded by dentine, which is the same material that the hard parts of your teeth are made of. Anatomically, they're actually a lot more like teeth than like the scales you'd see on other things. And they're ridged with these things that are called riblets. So it's these tiny, tiny little ridges along the surface of the scale. And they break up the flow of water over the surface, which significantly reduces drag. It actually kind of reminds me of owl feathers, how like the edges of the owl's feathers are like jagged, so that it like breaks up the airflow, so you don't have this sort of sheer edge, right?

Speaker 2:
[20:21] Was that also part of the being a silence flyers, or is that something else?

Speaker 1:
[20:25] That's what it was for owls. For owls, it was the jagged edges, like decreased the friction of the air, I think. But for sharks, it's just about speed. It's just about reducing drag so they can go faster, which I've shared this before. I tell the story on the podcast sometimes, but do you remember how you got me to touch a shark?

Speaker 2:
[20:41] Oh, the one on the beach?

Speaker 1:
[20:42] Yeah, you remember that? I tell the story all the time, and I don't think you remember it at all.

Speaker 2:
[20:49] I remember finding it, but was it anything more than just like, hey, look at this shark?

Speaker 1:
[20:53] It was more than, hey, look at this shark, because I did not want to touch the shark.

Speaker 2:
[20:56] Oh, okay. What was it?

Speaker 1:
[20:57] We found a shark on the beach in the middle of the night. Well, Puppy found the shark, actually, and you picked it up and you were holding... It was a bonnet head.

Speaker 2:
[21:04] It was dead, by the way.

Speaker 1:
[21:05] It was dead, yes. It was a dead shark. It was a bonnet head, which at the time we thought was a baby hammerhead, and you were holding it and touching it and I asked you, what does it feel like? I did not want to touch it. I was scared, but I said, what does it feel like? You said, I'm not telling you. I was like, why not? And you were like, you should touch it yourself. If you want to know, you got to find out. And it worked and now we're married.

Speaker 2:
[21:37] Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:
[21:42] And I did touch the shark and what I didn't know about touching sharks before that that I learned because you encouraged me to was that it's kind of like petting like a cat, right? Like if you move your hand from like nose to tail, it's very smooth. But if you move it tail to nose, it's rough like sandpaper, but only but that's because the scales are laying in that direction. I didn't know that before that. So every time I talk about shark scales, I think of you mildly rage baiting me into touching a shark. Aside from the like hydrodynamic benefits of it, it actually provides another benefit in that the sort of bumpiness of the scales makes it really, really difficult for tiny things to hold on to the surface of the shark. So things like algae or parasites or like bacteria, stuff like that, it has a hard time getting a grip on the side of the shark. So it actually has a sort of anti-microbial property. Oh, okay. So it kind of keeps the shark clean and healthy.

Speaker 2:
[22:47] But probably doesn't mess with remoras at all, I would guess.

Speaker 1:
[22:51] Oh, remoras stay on the shark. They love to see the shark coming. I've talked about this a little bit, but I wanted to dig into it a little bit. The denticles on a shark have inspired some biomimetic designs. Anyone who listens to the show knows I love biomimicry. I love when engineers or designers or whoever are taking ideas from nature and from animals and incorporating them into human designs. In 2000, Speedo introduced the shark-inspired Fastskin suit line. So it has these compression panels, but some of the panels have these ridges on them, inspired by the shark denticles. So it has shark-inspired texture on the suit itself. So the year that these Fastskin suits were introduced, of the swimmers who won medals at the Olympics, 83 percent of them were wearing the Speedo Fastskin suits. So the vast majority of Olympic medal winners were wearing these shark suits.

Speaker 2:
[24:00] Now, are these like full body suits or are we talking like original Speedo kind of...

Speaker 1:
[24:06] It's not that kind of Speedo.

Speaker 2:
[24:08] I was like, how much drag is that really helping with...

Speaker 1:
[24:10] That is such a small fraction of the suits that Speedo makes.

Speaker 2:
[24:14] But that's the marketing.

Speaker 1:
[24:16] I guess for us normies who aren't steeped in swimming content, I guess, and when you hear Speedo, you think of the tiny little...

Speaker 2:
[24:24] When you see a guy go off and say, wait one second, let me put on my Speedo. That's what you...

Speaker 1:
[24:29] That's what you think of. These are like, you know, when you see swimmers at the Olympic, like Michael Phelps wore a Fastskin suit. Right, like they have a good bit of coverage.

Speaker 2:
[24:40] Are they just swim trunks, basically?

Speaker 1:
[24:41] No, it's like a, you know, have you ever seen Olympics?

Speaker 2:
[24:45] Not in many years. I don't watch the Olympic.

Speaker 1:
[24:47] They're like, you know what, I'll just Google it. Great, it is the tiny little Speedo that came up when I Googled it. Told you. It's not what I wanted. No, they look like this.

Speaker 2:
[24:56] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[24:57] Here's Michael Phelps wearing one.

Speaker 2:
[24:58] Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:
[25:01] It's pretty good coverage. Anyway, the point is also 13 of the 15 new world records were set in Fastskin suits. Wow. That year, there were 15 world records set and all but two of them were wearing these specifically Speedo Fastskin suits. Speedo then collaborated with NASA to develop a new suit called the LZR Racer, which is like part of their Fastskin line, and in the 2008 Olympics, it was used by swimmers who set, and this is a quote, 23 out of 25 world records winning 94 percent of races and 89 percent of medals. So this suit is on almost all of the people who are winning every event, breaking every world record, getting every medal, which part of me is like, I wonder if that's just because Speedo had some deal with those swimmers, right? Like maybe they happened to give suits to the swimmers who were the highest performers.

Speaker 2:
[26:03] Yeah, I feel like you would need to compare this to out of all of the competing swimmers, what is the percentage of them that had this?

Speaker 1:
[26:09] Right. Like is that just because most of them had the suit, right? Yeah. No, I would like to see comparison of like the same swimmer swimming with the Fastskin suit and without the Fastskin suit, right, to see if it had an actual difference. But anyway, the suit was wildly successful. Like it had huge wins, huge gold medals. And then the organization called World Aquatics, which was then at the time known as FINA, F-I-N-A, which is a French acronym for the International Swimming Federation. This is the organization that basically oversees international swimming competitions, including the Olympics. They banned the Fastskin suits in 2009. They were too good. They were suffering from success. They like updated their guidelines for like criteria to approve swimwear for the Olympics and other international swimming competitions. And the guidelines that they put out effectively like banned. There were like material criteria that excluded the Fastskin suits. It was like doping basically. They were like, it was like a performance enhancing like swimsuit. They were like, they're too good. You can't use these suits anymore.

Speaker 2:
[27:13] They should just say, swim nude, sorry.

Speaker 1:
[27:16] Now we're talking. Olympic viewership skyrocketing. Whoever is working the sensor bar has to like... You were that pole vaulter. No, I can't. I can't. So yeah, it was just giving me this sort of like, look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power moment. Cause like they make this suit inspired by like shark skin and human performance in the water just like skyrockets. That's very funny to me. The next thing I want to talk about for great white sharks effectiveness is their teeth. So white sharks typically have around 300 teeth present in the mouth at any given time. The teeth grow continually throughout the shark's life. They have a bunch of rows of teeth. If you've ever seen a picture of a great white shark, you've probably seen them with their mouth open and you can see all the, what is it? Like seven, I think it's seven rows of teeth. So you can just see these layers and layers and layers of teeth. It's a little nightmarish looking. So the teeth grow continually and are regularly falling out and being replaced by new teeth behind them. Cause sort of like pushing out like conveyor belt style, right, like the old ones move towards the front and then eventually fall out. Always being replaced by a bigger tooth, right? Because the shark is growing. So the teeth are getting bigger and bigger. I didn't know this, but the teeth also change shape as the shark grows. So if you look at the teeth of a very young white shark, they will be very needly. They're like long and skinny and more like needle shaped. But then as they get older, they get more sort of broad triangle shaped and they also get more serrated, like more jagged.

Speaker 2:
[29:06] That makes sense.

Speaker 1:
[29:06] Can you think of why that would be? Why they would want to change shape?

Speaker 2:
[29:09] Well, this goes back to being able to get a good idea of what a shark's diet is based on the kind of teeth, right?

Speaker 1:
[29:16] Yeah, for sure. Yeah, because you'll see lots of different sharks will have different like shapes of teeth, but this is the same shark. It's just it has different shapes of teeth throughout its life.

Speaker 2:
[29:23] That is because the thin needle like teeth are very good for catching things like fish and other slippery things.

Speaker 1:
[29:29] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[29:30] Whereas the big broad teeth that we know and love are very good for things like sea turtles and mammals.

Speaker 1:
[29:36] Yeah, mammals especially, because once a shark reaches those massive sizes, that's what they're going for. They're going to be going for very large prey. So they're going to be going for things like seals and sea lions. Whereas when they're very small, they can't take down prey that big yet.

Speaker 2:
[29:50] Yeah, there aren't any mammals that small.

Speaker 1:
[29:52] So I didn't know that. I didn't know that they like had different types of teeth throughout their life. I had only ever heard that different shapes are for different prey, but I didn't realize that even the same species could have multiple different types. There's also some differences between the shapes of the top and bottom teeth. Or one of the sets is more made for holding prey still, grasping, whereas the other set is more made for sawing. So when the shark thrashes its head around, the teeth are acting like a saw, cutting through. So actually a lot more diversity in not just shark teeth, but in the teeth of one shark. One shark's teeth can look wildly different based on where in the mouth it is, how old the shark is. So very interesting specialized teeth. But also the jaws are not rigidly attached to the skull. You've ever seen this in action?

Speaker 2:
[30:43] Yeah, especially in slow-mo of them biting at something. But also if you ever see a pair of jaws in a fish shop or a seafood restaurant, are you real or not? There's no part in that anatomy that connects to a skull.

Speaker 1:
[30:58] Yeah, it's just floating there. I mean, it's connected with things like tendons, muscles and tissue and stuff like that, but it's not bone that's bolted on. So this is not specific to the Great White Shark. Not just a lot of sharks, but a lot of fish have loosely attached jaw that they can sort of slingshot forward, right? Many years ago, you did a segment on the Goblin Shark, which has maybe the most, but sort of exaggerated version of this, where the whole jaw just, pew!

Speaker 2:
[31:28] And in the Goblin Shark's case, at least, the extended position is the neutral position. So they have to exert effort to have it pulled in, I think.

Speaker 1:
[31:37] Right, yeah. They had to maintain the tension to keep it pulled in and release it like a slingshot, but they still, at rest, they were holding their mouth back.

Speaker 2:
[31:47] Right, probably for water dynamics.

Speaker 1:
[31:50] Yeah, they're still keeping their mouth back, but they have to idly exert effort to keep their mouth back. So kind of like the Goblin Shark, the Great White Shark also can slingshot their mouth forward. It's not as dramatic as the Goblin Sharks, but it is very pronounced. And there's a couple of things that that's helping with. Number one is just giving them a bigger gape, right?

Speaker 2:
[32:10] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[32:10] Bigger mouth, put more stuff in mouth.

Speaker 2:
[32:12] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[32:12] Make mouth big. Bigger thing go in. But another thing that's creating, I didn't know, this is creating a vacuum in their throat that's actually making suction. So the water around their mouth is actually being pulled in towards their throat. It's called pharyngeal suction. So they're actually making this sort of like vortex that's like sucking prey into their mouth. So if they're lunging for something, if it's something that is a very fast swimmer, like a seal or a sea lion or something, it's just going to have to work that much harder to try to get away from the shark because of that vortex that's pulling them in.

Speaker 2:
[32:48] Yeah. You can see this with much smaller fish too, even videos of large mouth bass and that kind of thing.

Speaker 1:
[32:54] Yeah. A lot of fish hunt this way. Because if you imagine that you're underwater and you imagine trying to hold your hand open and imagine trying to reach forward to grab something, you're going to be pushing a lot of water forward with your hand, which could actually end up pushing what you're reaching for away from you. Water bending almost like.

Speaker 2:
[33:16] Me trying to catch a bug in the bath.

Speaker 1:
[33:19] Yeah. Anyone who's ever tried to grab something in the water, and I was like, if you just reach for it, you're probably going to be working against yourself. What a lot of fish will do is instead of doing that, they will just get as close as they can and then open their mouth really, really fast and it makes a suction that just slurps everything up into the mouth so they don't actually have to be lunging forward. So I did have a little bit of a deduction in their effectiveness for the fact that white sharks are, and you kind of touched on this a little bit ago, they are obligate ram ventilators. We've talked about this before. Do you remember what this means?

Speaker 2:
[33:57] They have to be in motion to get water over their gills.

Speaker 1:
[34:01] Yeah, this is another one of those like factoids that floats around about sharks. It is true about great white sharks. I think sometimes people extrapolate that to think like all sharks do this. So there's two types of breathing that sharks can do. Do you remember what they are? There's this one.

Speaker 2:
[34:19] I don't know what it's called. It's basically where they're moving the water through by themselves like with like moving their gill rakers and mouth and such.

Speaker 1:
[34:26] Yeah, so that one is called buccal pumping. So just like you said, opening and closing their mouth. It's pulling the water in and like pushing the water over their gills manually basically. It's like they're pumping water.

Speaker 2:
[34:38] I bet a lot of that has to do with just overall mass and how much oxygen they need. Not just a lack of the anatomy to do that, but the amount of oxygen their body needs versus a ratio of their gills, right?

Speaker 1:
[34:51] Right, because you see this type of breathing in nurse sharks. Nurse sharks can do this. The sort of smaller coastal sharks you can see, a lot of them will do this. But there are also a lot of non-shark fish that also are obligate ram ventilators. They also have to be swimming forward at all times. Those do tend to be really big fish, like tuna and marlin. They also need to be in constant motion. It's not exclusive to sharks and also it's not all sharks, but it is great white sharks.

Speaker 2:
[35:23] Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:
[35:25] So they do actually have to be constantly in motion to move water over their gills. So if they stop moving, they can suffocate and drown.

Speaker 2:
[35:32] Which in the middle of the ocean.

Speaker 1:
[35:34] Not a problem.

Speaker 2:
[35:35] Yeah. You're fine.

Speaker 1:
[35:39] This led me to a question. I wonder if you'll arrive at the same question as me. I had a question about this, because I was thinking like, this shark has to be constantly in motion. It can never stop moving. Right. What question would that prompt?

Speaker 2:
[35:52] I mean, when does it sleep?

Speaker 1:
[35:54] How do they sleep?

Speaker 2:
[35:54] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[35:55] That's exactly what I thought. I was like, what? How do you do this?

Speaker 2:
[35:58] Sleep swim.

Speaker 1:
[36:00] I mean, basically, there's a lot of animals that can do things like, I think it's dolphins who can rest half of their brain at a time. Right? A lot of animals can just go into power saving mode basically. I was looking around for like, what does this look like in sharks? What does it look like specifically for a white shark who has to be moving at all times? And I did find a paper that described a couple of interesting. This is another one of those things. It's like, since we can't keep them in captivity to study what they're doing, this is a big question mark. Like, there's not a lot known about this. But there were a couple of interesting observations. This one said, quote, An adult female white shark was filmed by an autonomous underwater vehicle in the nearshore waters off Guadalupe Island in Mexico. The submersible was equipped with five video cameras, lights in the nose of the submersible provided illumination. At night, the shark swam slowly without changes in speed or direction and swam into the underwater current with her mouth agape. Oh. It sounded like what the shark was doing was basically aiming her mouth open into a current and basically just letting the water flow around her so that she could slow down and coast without having to expend a lot of effort swimming, but still have that water flowing over her gills. And then there was another one that said, Another compelling behavior has been observed in juvenile white sharks off the east coast of Australia. To the pectoral fin of eight white sharks of equal sexes was attached a tag containing an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, depth sensor and video camera. Sharks were observed slowly swimming and indeed could be considered reotactically almost stationary by swimming into a current. Most compelling is that the sharks swam slowly in a circular pattern during the daytime, alternating between clockwise and counterclockwise rotations, taking one to two minutes per rotation. Periods of circular swimming ranged between 20 minutes to four and a half hours. The sharks appeared to be uninterested or unaware of potential prey swimming nearby. This is a case where sharks are basically slowing way, way, way, way, way down and even if there's prey around them that they very well could eat they were not.

Speaker 2:
[38:17] Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[38:17] Yeah. I thought that was neat. They're basically using these currents of water to do their work for them.

Speaker 2:
[38:25] Yeah. That would be odd to come across, wouldn't it?

Speaker 1:
[38:29] Right. Yeah. The shark that's just hovering.

Speaker 2:
[38:31] Did it happen to say what time of day they're doing this?

Speaker 1:
[38:34] It did say that the sharks were swimming in a circle in the daytime.

Speaker 2:
[38:37] Yeah, because they're active.

Speaker 1:
[38:38] Yeah, it said during the daytime.

Speaker 2:
[38:40] Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[38:41] I guess it sounds like there's a few ways that they could be resting while not necessarily sleeping in the same way that we do. They could at least be resting metabolically, I suppose, by going into this power conserving coasting mode while swimming into a current so that they can still breathe, which is very interesting to me.

Speaker 2:
[39:00] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[39:01] Also implies that they require access to fast-flowing currents. Yeah, that's true. That they can breathe properly while, like, breathe and rest at the same time.

Speaker 2:
[39:10] Did someone try to have a white shark in captivity?

Speaker 1:
[39:13] There have been a few attempts. I'm actually going to talk about one in a little bit in the ingenuity section, which I will get to in just a minute.

Speaker 2:
[39:22] That did not go well, I'm thinking.

Speaker 1:
[39:24] None of them have gone well. No, it's never been successful.

Speaker 2:
[39:27] Not just not worked, but like, ew.

Speaker 1:
[39:29] Yeah, it's never been good. It's never worked well. Yeah, I'll talk about that in just a minute. But it is definitely a huge limitation.

Speaker 2:
[39:38] The sleeping question made me think of was the sperm whale.

Speaker 1:
[39:41] Oh, gosh, the way that they sleep is crazy.

Speaker 2:
[39:44] It's haunting, really.

Speaker 1:
[39:45] It's horrible. I hate it.

Speaker 2:
[39:48] That's something I hope I'd never come across.

Speaker 1:
[39:50] Explain it, Christian, for people who have not been deeply cursed yet.

Speaker 2:
[39:55] So they basically sleep vertical, like in the water column, right? With like head going and then tail going down.

Speaker 1:
[40:02] Right. Trailing into the abyss. Yeah. Because they're so big that literally they are losing light as their body is trailing down.

Speaker 2:
[40:10] This is at night time, I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 1:
[40:11] It's so awful.

Speaker 2:
[40:12] So they just kind of float up and down the water column to get air every once in a while as they sleep. And it's just coming across like a pod of sperm whales doing this at night is just...

Speaker 1:
[40:23] Yeah, I think I'd turn around. I'd be like, you know what, whatever I need out here, I don't need it that bad. Whatever you guys got going on, none of my business. I'm going home. Yeah, haunting, deeply haunting. So luckily they don't do that. And whatever sharks are up to has nothing on the spooky activities of a sperm whale. Let's take a quick break to talk about the MaxFunDrive, and then I'll get into ingenuity and aesthetics and other fun stuff for great white sharks. Can you believe I have a lot more to talk about?

Speaker 2:
[40:52] I can't believe that.

Speaker 1:
[40:55] But first, let's talk about the MaxFunDrive. This is a very special time of year, so we're not doing our usual network promos during this time. Instead, I'm going to talk to you about all the fun stuff going on for MaxFunDrive. I do want to talk about the gifts and the bonus content and stuff like that, but I think what is a little bit more maybe important about the MaxFunDrive is that you're supporting shows like Just the Zoo of Us. If you've listened to the show for a while, and if you've listened to a lot of other podcasts, you may have noticed a big difference about Just the Zoo of Us in that we do not run ads. We do promos for the other shows on the network, but we don't actually do commercials. It is a huge privilege that we don't have to run commercials. I don't like doing them, and you guys don't like listening to them. We are really, really privileged to not have to do commercials because we get support from our listeners through the Maximum Fun Network. So signing up for a Maximum Fun Membership for as little as $5 a month, which gets you access to the Bonus Content Library, which is not just ours, but the bonus content that's done by every other show in the network, right? So if you listen to other shows, if you listen to things like Let's Learn Everything, which I've been on a whole sort of series of bonus episodes for them where we play like TTRPG stuff, it's really, really fun. I really like going on and hanging out with them. It's also throughout the years, they have built up a library of bonus content. We do a bonus episode every single month. They can be silly and goofy sometimes. We've been for the last year or so, we've been doing a whole series that's like ripping off of our title where we do Just the Chew of Us, where we're talking about food or Just the Brew of Us, where we talked about coffee. I think last month was Pikachu of Us or we talked about Pokemon. We're always doing fun and silly little things. It's an easy listening, off-topic, we're just riffing and vibing. We do that every single month and that's all for MaxFun members. If you want to go listen to that, that's all like, you could listen to that right now. That's all up. There's, I want to say 26 episodes total. The gifts also this year are really, really awesome. We have a keychain and it's a design, it's a little roly-poly and it has text around it that says, everything's coming up isopod, which if anyone remembers, forever ago, I had on Dr. Mark Schertz, who is a researcher who studies tiny, tiny, tiny little frogs and lizards and stuff and that was just something that we said in conversation that really landed with me. That keychain is available at the $10 a month membership level or higher and at higher levels, there are other really, really cool gifts. There's a zippered pencil pouch that looks really cool. There's a hat, there's a water bottle, there's all sorts of cool stuff, cool swag that you can get that I'm pretty sure that stuff you can only get if you sign up for an either new upgrading or boosting membership during the MaxFunDrive. But once again, yes, the gifts are great. The gifts are awesome and everything. I'm really excited about them. Also, it is very crucial, I would say to us, that we get the support from our listeners because the support from listeners means that we don't have to do commercials. That just makes the experience better for everybody. We also are not beholden to a company or anything like that. The MaxFun model is such that we own the show. We are the owners, we are the bosses. I get to make the show exactly the way I want to make it. I never have to worry about things like, am I allowed to say this? I'm totally in charge, which means that I get to talk about some stuff that maybe some more mainstream media companies wouldn't allow me to talk about. I feel like in a time when everything is so catered to algorithms and what is going to make us the most money to say, I think it's really important to have this sort of like independent media and I'm able to make this show the way that I want to make it because of support from the MaxFun members. Also, the fact that the show is available for free to everybody, that is I feel like a really valuable educational tool. Not everybody has access to good educational science geared content, so if you are in a position where you can support Just the Zoo of Us and some of the other science communication podcasts on the Maximum Fun Network, if you are in a position to do so, your support helps benefit people who are not in a position to help, right? There's a lot of people out there who I'm sure would love his support and simply cannot. I totally understand that. But if you can, it would absolutely mean the world to me and to Christian and to all the people who listen to Just the Zoo of Us and would like to hear it thrive. For sure. If you want to check out some of the offerings for the MaxFunDrive, then head over to maximumfun.org/join. Listen, if you're like me, if you get to the end of the episode, you might forget about it. If you're thinking about it now and you can, go ahead. Just pull a tab open on your phone. Just do a quick, just pull that up real quick so that you don't forget about it and miss out on your chance to get some of this sick swag. There is no better time to do it. I really hope that you decide to take the sort of plunge and join with us.

Speaker 2:
[46:13] Well said.

Speaker 1:
[46:14] So yeah, a lot of really exciting stuff. Really excited about this year's MaxFunDrive and it would mean the absolute world to us if you could support our show. Head over to maximumfun.org/join to get in on the MaxFunDrive. Okay, let's talk ingenuity for Great White Sharks. If this is anyone's first time listening, these are behaviors, things the animal is doing with their body to solve problems that they face, navigate the world. I'm giving Great White Sharks an 8 out of 10 for ingenuity.

Speaker 2:
[46:41] That's pretty good.

Speaker 1:
[46:42] Once again, we don't really have a ton of information about what white sharks are up to out there. Who's to say? There's a few things that we are able to observe. Also, I did want to give them some points for their perceptive abilities. They have very, very, very interesting and advanced senses. The first one people have probably heard of is smell. Have you ever heard of this? For sure.

Speaker 2:
[47:12] Just sharks.

Speaker 1:
[47:13] What's the version of it that you hear?

Speaker 2:
[47:16] It's one of those like, oh, you could smell a drop of blood from a mile away.

Speaker 1:
[47:19] That's exactly. Yeah, it's always that. It's always a drop of blood from a mile away. And that is a huge exaggeration. It would be more like a quarter of a mile, like maybe, but also it's not instantaneous, right? It's not like if you get into the water with a cut on your hand that like a shark's gonna be on you. Like they don't just like spawn to your location.

Speaker 2:
[47:44] The blood moves through the water faster than the speed of light.

Speaker 1:
[47:49] Hold on. Now we've got something here. We could exploit this.

Speaker 2:
[47:52] We can make a communication system based on blood.

Speaker 1:
[47:55] And where did you hear about that, Christian?

Speaker 2:
[47:58] Mass effect.

Speaker 1:
[47:59] Reset the counter. So yeah, the blood still does have to like dissolve through the water, which is not a very fast process. It's more like if a shark was in like a really, really big swimming pool and there was like a drop of blood in it, they would eventually be able to smell it. And white sharks have much bigger olfactory like centers of their brain than most other sharks do. So yes, they do have more sensitive smell than most other types of sharks, probably based on how their brain is set up. But like it's not a sort of like superpower. It's not spidey senses, right? It doesn't work like that.

Speaker 2:
[48:40] So in the same way that you don't need to outrun the bear, you just need to not be bleeding the most.

Speaker 1:
[48:52] I'm always ranking our friends by who's bleeding the most. A tier list of which of our friends bleeds the most. So yeah, that's definitely an exaggeration. Also, like sharks don't see people as food items really. So even if they did smell your blood, it's not like they'd be like immediately aggroed or something like that. They just know that you're there and they'd be like, okay, that doesn't really mean anything to them, right? They're not like particularly interested in us.

Speaker 2:
[49:22] I would like to think the high percentage of peanut butter would throw them off.

Speaker 1:
[49:25] You think you've got a measurable blood peanut butter content?

Speaker 2:
[49:31] My doctor tells me there's no safe amount.

Speaker 1:
[49:36] You gotta blow on a thing when you get in the car. Sir, how many? How many PB&Js have you had today? White sharks actually seem to be very visual predators. They will do things like spy hopping, which is what we hear about in... Whales tend to do this. Oh, yeah. They poke their little face out of the water and they look around with their eyes to see what's going on. Menacingly. A little bit.

Speaker 2:
[50:00] Especially the latest video of that.

Speaker 1:
[50:02] What's the latest video of that?

Speaker 2:
[50:03] It's where an orca is doing it around some pack ice.

Speaker 1:
[50:07] Oh, it's quite menacing.

Speaker 2:
[50:08] On a small boat.

Speaker 1:
[50:09] Yeah, it's quite menacing. I would feel way more scared if an orca was doing that.

Speaker 2:
[50:14] And it was at a distance where you could see the actual eye.

Speaker 1:
[50:17] Yeah, I would be way more scared of an orca doing that than of a shark. Because if a white shark sees that, oh, you're a boat with people on it, it's probably going to be like, eh, it's going to move on. But if an orca sees that it's a boat with people on it, it'll be like, showtime, baby. Because orcas are in it for the love of the game. They're just tipping your boat for fun. They'll just do it because your boat makes a funny sound when they do it.

Speaker 2:
[50:43] So you got to prove to them that you're not a yacht owner.

Speaker 1:
[50:46] You got to show them your tax return.

Speaker 2:
[50:48] No, you got to pull out your base level Costco membership card. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:
[50:55] And the orca's like, oh, you're a Costco member? Me too.

Speaker 2:
[50:58] But not the executive member.

Speaker 1:
[51:00] No, the gold star member. Yeah. Ask me how I know. It's the one I have. We have. We share Costco membership as a household. Also, like other sharks, they have something we've talked about quite a few times called ampullae of Lorenzini. Remember talking about this? We actually just talked about these with the coelacanth. Yeah. So these are the little pores usually around the snout, like around the head of the shark that basically opens to these little canals that are lined with really sensitive hairs, and it's able to pick up electrical signals in the water around them.

Speaker 2:
[51:33] Is it true that metal objects in the water will throw them off because of this?

Speaker 1:
[51:36] You know, I have something in my notes about that, sort of, but before I get into that, usually these electrical pulses that they're picking up are from the muscle movements of living animals around them. So every time your muscles fire, basically, they're giving off some low-level electrical signals, like generating low-level electric fields or currents, and these nerves are so sensitive that they can pick up on even things like heartbeat or movement of a fish around them. Now, it does not have a long range. It has to be pretty close to them already, but the idea is that it actually helps them. When a shark is lunging for prey, if you've ever looked closely at a shark lunging for prey, they have to roll their eye back. You seen this? They have to roll their eye back in its socket because they don't have eyelids like we do. If they're lunging for prey, their eye is going to be at risk of getting poked or scratched or something.

Speaker 2:
[52:34] It's like right there.

Speaker 1:
[52:35] It's right there. It's in the spot that you're throwing forward. They have to roll their eye back, which means that they're basically blind while they're attacking. There's some suggestion that maybe this electroreception helps them perceive their surroundings while they have their eye rolled back. Now, the thing that I wanted to say about this was that in San Francisco, there was a white shark named Sandy, who was briefly kept in captivity at the Steinhardt Aquarium. We talked about earlier, white sharks are extremely difficult to keep in captivity. One reason is because they need to be continually moving, and this is a gigantic shark. They need to be moving at high speeds, which means you need a ridiculous amount of space to keep their respiratory system going properly. At the Steinhardt Aquarium, they built this very innovative circular-shaped fish roundabout, kind of like a donut-shaped tank. The idea is that the shark could continually swim in a circle around the tank without ever having to make a sharp turn or something.

Speaker 2:
[53:37] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[53:38] They hoped that this continuous space would allow her to move enough to keep breathing properly, but within only days, within days, she was not eating, and they noticed that she kept running into a specific spot in the tank. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with it. It was just the same as all the other spots on the tank, but she kept tripping up at this one spot. The aquarium director named John McCosker told the San Francisco Chronicle, We had an electronics expert come out and we discovered that there were these tiny mini volts at one point in the tank. Whenever the shark reached that spot, she turned or sank to the bottom, and we had to have someone in there to keep her moving. There was just this tiny, tiny little electrical current. It was like a fraction of a fraction of a volt. It was an imperceptible amount of electricity. There were even other types of sharks in the tank that were not responding. But she in particular, being a very, very sensitive Great White Shark, was picking up on this tiny, tiny little electrical current. Basically, in order to fix that, they would have had to take all the fish out of the tank and rebuild it. So they just released her. They set her free. Yeah, by the end of the fourth day at the aquarium, they had decided to set her free. And she survived in the wild for at least another year after being tagged. So she was okay when they set her free. That was in 1980, by the way, that they had this shark for like four days.

Speaker 2:
[55:07] Wasn't there another instance of this?

Speaker 1:
[55:09] It's been tried a few times. I think the record for the longest one has been kept in captivity was actually the Monterey Bay Aquarium. But it was like outside. You know how the Monterey Bay Aquarium is like right, it's the bay, right? I think it was like an outdoor pen. So they had the shark, but it was like in a sort of outdoor pen, not like inside the facility. And even that one only made it, I want to say like four months.

Speaker 2:
[55:35] Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[55:36] But yeah, so it's kind of a combination of needing to be continually in motion, being enormous, needing tons of space, and also being so, so, so sensitive to electrical signals that like even this tiny, tiny, tiny little thing nobody noticed just totally threw it off.

Speaker 2:
[55:53] I wonder how they cared for that sleep cycle they needed to do.

Speaker 1:
[55:57] I mean, I know a lot of facilities can have like a big current, you know, flowing through the water. I don't know. Well, not successfully apparently is how. So the last thing I want to talk about for their ingenuity, this is where I learned something I had never heard before. I learned a few things, but this was the big thing to me that was like, wow, I cannot believe I've never heard of this. So great white sharks, like you mentioned at the beginning, they do have to travel these really vast distances, right? They can go back and forth between like continents. Like you can get the same shark, you know, they could tag it in Australia and then it shows up like in Africa and then like, you know, you'll get them crossing oceans and just zipping and zooming all over the planet basically. So following food, they're following warm waters. Now between the Pacific Coast of Mexico, so like Baja California Peninsula and Hawaii, sort of in the middle, in the Pacific Ocean, there's this huge spot called the White Shark Café. Have you ever heard of this?

Speaker 2:
[56:57] I don't think so.

Speaker 1:
[56:58] I had never heard of this and I could not believe I hadn't heard of this. So this is basically a habitat used by great white sharks in the winter, in the spring. And they only identified this with like satellite trackers. Like they followed sharks to see like where are you guys going? Because sharks would just disappear and they'd be like, I don't know where they're going. So they tagged them, followed the satellite tracker and found that they all kept going to the same area. Males, females, young, old, they all kept going back to this one spot. And at first when this was identified, this was identified in 2002 and scientists were just like totally confused as to why they were going there. They're like, what is out there? It's nothing. There's nothing out there. It's just a big spot of ocean. Like it's they kind of thought it was kind of like a desert, like an ocean desert. Like there's nothing out there. There's no geographical features. Like, I don't know what's going on out there. And so eventually in 2018, the Schmitt Ocean Institute sent a research vessel named FALCOR 2. Do you know the name FALCOR? Does that ring any bells?

Speaker 2:
[58:03] It does, but I don't. I can't place it.

Speaker 1:
[58:06] You ever seen The NeverEnding Story?

Speaker 2:
[58:08] Probably NeverEnding, that's a tiredy.

Speaker 1:
[58:10] Oh, I loved that movie when I was a kid. It's the luck dragon from The NeverEnding Story, FALCOR. So named after the dragon from The NeverEnding Story. And they sent a boat with a crew out to the White Shark Café. I was wondering if they needed like a password, like what's the parking situation? Like, do they validate? Do they have Wi-Fi? So they go out to the White Shark Café and they find that there is actually a sort of deep layer of really, really surprisingly rich and diverse life. Like there was tons of plant life, lots of algae, lots of seaweed, lots of crustaceans, tons of fish, squid, like all, it was, it actually ended up being a lot more like, like a jungle than a desert. It was just thriving. But the thing is, that layer of life was just a little too low for like satellite images to pick up on. So from the surface, it looked like there was nothing there. But like a little below the surface was just, it was hopping. Very, very rich, very diverse ecosystem out there. So like, oh, that's what you guys have been doing. And they also found that males and females had different diving patterns and feeding behavior when they were in the cafe. So it kind of suggested that they might be using the spot to like meet potential maids, maybe court each other, you know, a little singles mixer at the White Shark Café. Even sharks need a third space. Would you go to the White Shark Café?

Speaker 2:
[59:43] Like as a person?

Speaker 1:
[59:44] Yeah, would you go?

Speaker 2:
[59:45] Maybe, it's in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Speaker 1:
[59:48] Yeah, but-

Speaker 2:
[59:50] Well, I guess a quarter of the way up.

Speaker 1:
[59:52] If you were a shark, would you go to the White Shark Café? Yeah. You're not too introverted for that?

Speaker 2:
[59:58] Food.

Speaker 1:
[59:58] Does that overpower your- Oh, yeah. Are you more hungry or are you more shy?

Speaker 2:
[60:06] Compete with each other.

Speaker 1:
[60:10] You remember that one time you asked me to please go ask those random people at the zoo where they got their popcorn?

Speaker 2:
[60:16] Oh, yeah, I do remember that.

Speaker 1:
[60:20] There were people like five feet away from us eating popcorn. You were like, I really want to know where they got that popcorn, but I don't want to talk to these strangers. I was like, I'll do it.

Speaker 2:
[60:30] You're much less threatening as a stranger coming out to talk to someone.

Speaker 1:
[60:36] Okay, so should two sharks have a successful meet-cute at the cafe and they do hit it off and things go swimmingly, one would say, and they make baby sharks, the female will give birth to two to 12 pups, which are already five feet long when they're born. That's crazy. That's almost as long as I am tall. That's huge. Born. She's pushing it out. There you go. That's crazy. And more than one of them at a time? Girl, stop.

Speaker 2:
[61:13] That was a large range you said, two to 12.

Speaker 1:
[61:16] That's what I have. That's information I have access to. Now, I don't know if that's like the number that actually make it out of the shark or just the number of like, you know, they've like had specimens of sharks with, you know, embryos still inside. So I don't know if all of those embryos usually make it out of the shark. Because there is something sharks do.

Speaker 2:
[61:35] I was about to ask for this one.

Speaker 1:
[61:37] Okay, you go ahead. Go ahead.

Speaker 2:
[61:39] Well, I was just gonna ask, like, is this one of the sharks where the pups duke it out before they're born?

Speaker 1:
[61:44] Yes. This is called embryonic cannibalism. The shark that is best known for doing that is the sand tiger shark. I'm not totally sure if white sharks do this as well. They're closely related to other sharks who do. So, like, probably. One thing that there is evidence for is that the embryo, the shark pup embryos before being born will eat the, like, unfertilized eggs. So, like, if the mother still has unfertilized eggs in the uterus, the embryos will eat that. So they will at least eat the eggs. I don't think there's, like, direct evidence for them eating the other embryos, but, like, probably.

Speaker 2:
[62:22] It makes sense for being that far developed inside the mother and without a placenta to give nutrients and such.

Speaker 1:
[62:29] Yeah. Well, the shark does also produce something called, what do they call it, uterine milk.

Speaker 2:
[62:33] Really?

Speaker 1:
[62:34] It's not milk milk, but it is a very fatty, lipid-rich fluid that the shark produces that the embryos will feed off of. So, yeah, she is actually providing some, like, nutrient from her body for the shark pups. But once they're born, you're done. You're out of here. Get lost, kid. I don't think there's any evidence for, you know, any sort of parental care or anything.

Speaker 2:
[63:00] But then again, we've never seen it.

Speaker 1:
[63:01] Once again, have not seen it. But it's not like, nope. I don't think any other sharks really do that.

Speaker 2:
[63:05] Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1:
[63:06] That was one of those things that's like, it was one of those little factoids and things you hear floating around about great white sharks that sounded to me, like, I fully expected to look it up and find, like, that's totally untrue, someone who made that up, like, I fully expected that to be like myth busted sort of thing. But then I found papers that were like, no, here's all the time sharks do that all the time. I was like, oh, okay. And as I mentioned earlier also, in 2023, a filmmaker and a biology researcher off the coast of California did spot a five foot long great white shark that was like ghostly pale white. The whole, you know how great white sharks are usually more of like a gray color with like white on the bottom? It was fully bright white. And also was like sloughing off this like some, there was something on it that was shedding. Like it was like something was flaking off of it sort of like into the water around it. They had to kind of guess as to what happened because a day or two before they saw this shark, they saw a heavily pregnant female shark dive like really deep into the water. And then they saw this five foot long bright white shark show up. And so their best guess is that whatever it was shedding was like uterine fluid basically, like the embryonic sort of fluid still stuck to it. So it had to have been like really freshly born. That was in 2023 and that's the only recorded observation of a newborn shark, a newborn great white shark. Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 2:
[64:34] It is crazy.

Speaker 1:
[64:35] I have good news.

Speaker 2:
[64:36] What?

Speaker 1:
[64:36] It's really cute.

Speaker 2:
[64:37] Oh really? They got pictures?

Speaker 1:
[64:39] There's videos. It's really good. I mentioned there's a filmmaker. The filmmaker that was out there. So yeah, they were out there looking for sharks and they found one. It was really cute, which brings me to the last category we rate animals on. This is aesthetics, just how nice this animal is to look at. And I'm giving great white sharks a nine out of 10. I really love the way they look when their mouth is inside of their mouth. Like when the mouth is not protruded, when the mouth is tucked away demurely in their sort of idle state, they have much more rounded and adorable puppy features than I think people often illustrate them with. I've seen a lot of drawings or illustrations of great white sharks where they just idly have the mouth protruded. And it's like, I know that looks scarier and it looks more dramatic, but they really don't look like that all the time. They only do that for a second. They normally have their mouth kind of tucked away. And you can't even really see the teeth usually, like from the outside. They're really cute. What do you think?

Speaker 2:
[65:43] I think so. For a long time, I thought I would do a shark swim thing, like in the shark cage type thing.

Speaker 1:
[65:49] Have you changed your mind? You don't want to do it now?

Speaker 2:
[65:51] I just feel less strongly about it.

Speaker 1:
[65:55] I've been wanting to do the whale shark swim at the Georgia Aquarium.

Speaker 2:
[65:59] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[66:00] I want to do that. I think that would be cool. But you wouldn't get out there in a cage? Would you do it?

Speaker 2:
[66:06] Yeah, probably. I mean, I had to learn how to scuba dive.

Speaker 1:
[66:09] I don't think you even have to scuba dive to get... Oh, you do?

Speaker 2:
[66:12] Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[66:13] Well. Yeah, I probably wouldn't do that. I've also heard that that's... I don't know. I think there's some ethical considerations around cage diving.

Speaker 2:
[66:22] Yeah, because they have to like chum up the waters and stuff. But I was thinking about the metal thing, because I think that also messes with them.

Speaker 1:
[66:29] Oh, that's interesting. I hadn't heard that.

Speaker 2:
[66:32] They'll go after things like metal cages and boat propellers and things because of the electrical signals. Supposedly, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[66:39] Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they would probably. It's probably very confusing to them.

Speaker 2:
[66:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you'll see the horror of stories of where like... Because the way those cages are usually built is like the divers are meant to get in from the top.

Speaker 1:
[66:51] Right.

Speaker 2:
[66:52] And then there's an opening for cameras and things. But sometimes that opening is a little too big. And then you've got this massive shark that just squeezed its way into there.

Speaker 1:
[67:01] Now you're stuck in there with them.

Speaker 2:
[67:03] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[67:04] Yeah. You know, I didn't really spend too much time doing notes on this or anything. But I think the thing most people think about for Great White Sharks is attacks, right?

Speaker 2:
[67:14] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[67:15] And I didn't write down stats like that on shark attacks because I was a little focused on other stuff. But, you know, can they? Do they have the potential to? Sure. But do they? Not that much. You know, the times when white sharks do attack people and when they have been documented biting people, it is usually a case of mistaken identity.

Speaker 2:
[67:38] Right.

Speaker 1:
[67:39] Like if a shark is swimming underneath you and they see the outline, like the silhouette from below, like a surfboard with human arms coming off of it, the way you would appear in silhouette from below, looks a lot like a seal or a sea lion, which is what they eat.

Speaker 2:
[67:53] Right.

Speaker 1:
[67:53] So it is easy for them to mistake a human for something else.

Speaker 2:
[67:58] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[67:58] They come up, they get a little chomp thinking that they have got a seal or a sea lion, but like the vast majority of the time, they get that little bite and then they go, oh, gross, oh, and then they are like, that is enough.

Speaker 2:
[68:09] Well, the problem is they are so big that just one bite can do a lot of damage.

Speaker 1:
[68:12] Even that one bite, even the test bite can really do a lot of damage. But it is not the sort of thing where they are like viciously hunting you. They are not like stalking you and they are not out to get you.

Speaker 2:
[68:23] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[68:23] They might take a bite by accident, but then they are probably just going to be like gross and they will leave you alone. I say that just so that people know that you do not have to preemptively harass sharks or anything.

Speaker 2:
[68:35] No.

Speaker 1:
[68:37] They certainly have the potential. Don't go out there thinking you are going to have your Disney princess moment. Don't go try to pet them. Don't go try to give them a big hug. Keep your distance for sure. I think it's important to find the middle ground between you don't have to fear them to the point of hating them, but you should fear them a little bit. Fear them to the point of respect. You need to understand that they can hurt you very badly. They don't want to. Don't attribute malice to it, but do understand that they can do a lot of damage if they want to. They don't want to.

Speaker 2:
[69:12] I think a lot of people underestimate water activities in general.

Speaker 1:
[69:15] How so?

Speaker 2:
[69:16] Of course, during a water activity, you have to worry about drowning.

Speaker 1:
[69:19] Right.

Speaker 2:
[69:20] A lot of people underestimate that danger and are overconfident in their abilities. A place where you don't want to go into shock from blood loss or something similar, as well as trying to swim.

Speaker 1:
[69:32] Yeah, for sure. So, take sharks seriously. I see a lot of videos because I grew up during a time when the only information you would get about sharks was like, oh, they're vicious killers. They're, because it's click bait basically. It's whatever is going to get you to turn on the TV, and it's whatever is going to get you to tune into the shark week or whatever. They're going to be like, the most menacing predator in our oceans. Everything was very like, oh my gosh, they're so scary and horrifying. Then I feel like in recent years, we've, which I think is really good that we're not talking about them like that so much anymore. Definitely still on like shark week and stuff. They do still do a lot of that. But like there has been a much more positive or at least, you know, I'll take neutral even like approach to talking about sharks. But now I feel like sometimes you'll see some content on, especially on social media, that is kind of swinging too far in the opposite direction where it's like well intentioned. Trying to be like, look, see, sharks aren't bad. They're not mean. They're so nice in fact that you can swim right up to them and pet them. And like, I get that that is coming from a place of wanting to sort of rehabilitate the image of the shark from being like this bloodthirsty predator to being like an animal that you should like love and respect. But like we can do that without, without risking bodily injury. You know what I mean? It's hard to like find the middle ground between like loving the animal in a way that the animal wants to be loved. They don't want you hanging on them, right? Like they want to be left alone.

Speaker 2:
[71:08] Yeah, yeah. Like you're doing it right if basically you don't exist to them.

Speaker 1:
[71:13] Right. They should not know about you. They're not interested in you. You should not be in their sphere. I mean, I think they're cute. I really like them. I have a lot of love and respect for them. That love and respect is also rooted in a good bit of fear, right? But like a healthy fear that they could absolutely wreck me.

Speaker 2:
[71:33] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[71:34] So I'm going to give them a wide berth. But I also think they should be protected and conserved and their habitat should be respected.

Speaker 2:
[71:42] Oh, yeah. Just a little fun fact.

Speaker 1:
[71:44] Go for it.

Speaker 2:
[71:45] I got to ride the Jaws ride at Universal Studios.

Speaker 1:
[71:48] Wow. Huge pull. Big get. Did you get to see the animatronic? Yes. How was that?

Speaker 2:
[71:55] It was good. I was perhaps a little older than Finley is now.

Speaker 1:
[71:58] Oh, so you were really little.

Speaker 2:
[71:59] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[71:59] Was that scary?

Speaker 2:
[72:00] It was scary.

Speaker 1:
[72:02] Did you watch Jaws?

Speaker 2:
[72:04] I don't remember. I think I was at least aware of it enough to know what it was all about.

Speaker 1:
[72:09] That's what I feel like I've never actually watched the whole movie start to finish. I feel like I've just osmosis it culturally.

Speaker 2:
[72:16] Yeah, it's just one of those heavily referenced movies.

Speaker 1:
[72:18] Right. I feel like I've watched the whole movie. I don't know if I've ever sat down and watched the whole thing start to finish. Do you think Finley could watch it?

Speaker 2:
[72:24] No?

Speaker 1:
[72:25] No. He watched Jurassic Park. I thought that would be too scary for him.

Speaker 2:
[72:30] I feel like Jaws is more graphic than the first Jurassic Park at least.

Speaker 1:
[72:34] Okay. We'll start him with Sharknado and we'll build up to Jaws.

Speaker 2:
[72:40] No, I bring that up about the ride because it is not there anymore.

Speaker 1:
[72:43] I do feel like Jaws is kind of, it's not a big name like it was. I mean, yes, it is definitely still one of those all-time, everyone's aware of this, but I do feel like it's not on the forefront of pop culture anymore. I could see why. The IUCN Red List does list Great White Sharks as vulnerable, which is one risk category away from endangered. So they are on the list of conservation concern. There are a lot of things that are potentially threatening Great White Sharks, not just normal marine stewardship stuff, like ocean pollution and stuff, which certainly does threaten them. But on top of that, there is also the fact that they are obligate ram ventilators, like we talked about earlier. So if a shark gets, for example, caught in a gill net, if there's a commercial fishing vessel that's out there with these big giant nets, and a Great White Shark gets caught in it, it doesn't matter. If you release it, it's already been stuck in the net long enough, it can't breathe, it's going to suffocate. We talked about that also with things like marlin, they can suffocate. So bycatch mortality is a huge threat to them. White sharks are not usually targets of a thing that affects other types of sharks more so, which is finning, like hunting them to remove their fins for culinary or medicinal purposes. It's not Great White Sharks that they do this to, but that is a thing that usually falls within shark conservation concerns, where actually under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act, which was originally made effective in 1976, if a fisherman catches a white shark, they must be released immediately, unless you have permits for something like if you're doing scientific research or something. And even then you have to set it free. You cannot keep it. But also in addition to that, shark finning was prohibited in 2000, and the sale, transportation, or possession of shark fins was made illegal by the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act of 2021. So there are actually quite a few shark conservation laws on the books, in the USA at least. Of course, a lot of this is happening not within the USA's jurisdiction. So a lot of these things are still ongoing where the US has no say in it. This is not about white sharks, because once again, sharks are not usually targeted for finning, but there are interesting shark-free alternatives where you can have mock shark fin soup, where if you live in a part of the world where shark fin soup is a traditional meal, you can get alternatives where it's basically a very similar tasting soup that's made with either mushrooms or something called konnyaku jelly, which I've had konnyaku jelly before. I can't say I'm a fan, but I've heard that the soup does not have a ton of flavor on its own anyway, so you can get a mock version of the soup that's made without shark fins.

Speaker 2:
[75:31] I assume it's mostly a cultural thing.

Speaker 1:
[75:35] From what I read about it, it's mostly like a wedding meal. It's like a wedding dish. That also seems like a wealth indicator in some ways. It is like a cultural thing, but it's also like a wealth thing. But there are ways to participate in the soup without harming the sharks for it, which I thought was interesting. That seems like a more recent push for doing mock shark fin soup. So great white sharks do have very, very long lifespans and they reproduce very late in life, usually in their 20s or 30s. And then they don't have very many pups per year. So they are very, very slow to reproduce, which means that like losing one adult white shark can be very, very impactful for the overall population and it's difficult for them to recover. So that's why shark conservation is important because they're an apex predator, right? Keystone species basically.

Speaker 2:
[76:23] Not to say they're not messed with, but.

Speaker 1:
[76:25] Someone will step to them. I know who. You know who. Not naming names. I am. It's Orcas.

Speaker 2:
[76:38] And disrespectfully, I'll put it.

Speaker 1:
[76:40] Rudely. Like on purpose. The Ops pull up. So yeah, that's why shark conservation is so important because they're a very large predator that has huge impacts on their ecosystem. You know, losing one impacts the population in some pretty huge ways because of how long it takes to basically replenish those numbers. So that's why it's important to, you know, protect your marina ecosystems and make choices when you can to support ocean conservation. And that's Great White Sharks.

Speaker 2:
[77:11] Thanks, babe.

Speaker 1:
[77:12] Thank you. I hope you learned something new. I feel like it's hard to find new facts about Great White Sharks. I found a lot of things that were like I didn't know them, but it's difficult sometimes to find the middle ground between like things people wouldn't already know and things people would find interesting, right? Because you can find a lot that you didn't know about, like the way their muscles are attached to their skulls.

Speaker 2:
[77:33] Yeah, or like the chemical compounds in their liver.

Speaker 1:
[77:35] Right. And you're like, OK, I didn't know that. Sure. But, you know, like it has to be both things you didn't already know and things you would find interesting. So I feel like I found quite a few things that I think so, too, were fun to learn about. So thank you, Christian, for listening to me talk about Great White Sharks. I hope you learned something new.

Speaker 2:
[77:54] I did.

Speaker 1:
[77:55] And thank you, dear listener, for spending this time with us and learning about not just sharks, but every other little critter under the sun with us. And also thank you for supporting the Maximum Fun Network. If you do, if you're a member of the MaxFun Network, that is the whole reason why we're able to keep on making this show, which I have heard from a lot of people over the years, people sometimes send in emails and messages and stuff talking about how the show has helped them reconnect with a love for nature and wildlife that maybe they had as kids and forgot about and are like, oh, I totally forgot. I actually love animals. So it has been helping people repair their relationships with nature, or even people tell me sometimes that they've been inspired to get into careers and conservation themselves. So, you know, it has been really awesome to hear about the way that the podcast has inspired people to make the world a better place. So, you know, if you want this podcast to keep existing so that we can keep inspiring, you know, hopefully the next generation of conservationists and scientists and zookeepers and writers and artists and, you know, whoever else is using that love for nature and wildlife to put something great into the world. So, if you want to be a part of supporting that and supporting independent media, which I think is more important now than ever, head over to maximumfun.org/join and don't forget to check out the awesome gifts and bonus content and all the cool little goodies that you will get in addition to the warm and fuzzy good feeling you will feel for doing your good deed for the day and supporting Just the Zoo of Us. A rising tide lifts all ships, you know, like if you're able to support, then that's going to go a long way to making free and accessible and engaging and fun educational content out there for everybody.

Speaker 2:
[79:47] Are they doing the like, where you can pay for memberships that they gift out to others?

Speaker 1:
[79:52] They have done that in the past. They probably are still doing it again this year. I think they're doing like a, you like donate a membership sort of thing.

Speaker 2:
[79:59] Right.

Speaker 1:
[80:00] I'll have links to everything in the episode description. So if anyone wants to learn more about either the drive, how it works, anything like that, please do go check it out. We have a Discord channel. We're on Instagram, Facebook, BlueSky. I'll have links to where you can find us in the episode description. If you have a cool animal you'd like to hear us talk about on the show, my email address is ellen at justthezooofus.com. Please email those to me. That is where I keep all of my requests organized. If you DM them to me on social media, I might lose them. So please email them to me. And we'd like to thank Louie Zong for our theme music.

Speaker 2:
[80:34] Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:
[80:35] Which doesn't have a, dun, dun.

Speaker 2:
[80:38] Oh, I was like, what song would A Great White Way even make?

Speaker 1:
[80:42] You know, in Jaws, they edit a bunch of growling and rolling sounds and stuff into it. Yeah, they don't.

Speaker 2:
[80:49] It's like Space Battle.

Speaker 1:
[80:50] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[80:51] You gotta give the audience a little something, something.

Speaker 1:
[80:54] Something to chew on. Although, I have seen a lot of space travel sci-fi movies. I feel like when I do see a sci-fi movie where they don't have, is it 2001 A Space Odyssey? I want to say it's 2001 of Space Odyssey, which you wouldn't know.

Speaker 2:
[81:07] It's so boring. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:
[81:09] Oh my God. Tell me more about how much you love Sing To and the Minecraft movie.

Speaker 2:
[81:23] It puts me to sleep immediately. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:
[81:25] Whatever.

Speaker 2:
[81:26] It's like, what would today be considered ambient, like, lo-fi music?

Speaker 1:
[81:33] Only one of the classic film standards widely recognizes one of the greatest films of all time. One of the greatest works of science fiction of all time. And you're like, no. That is the only movie I've ever heard you not like ever. Anyway, my point being, I think they didn't put sound effects in space in that one. They just used music, which is, I feel like a lot more impactful. Cause like, I don't know. I think that makes the moment cooler.

Speaker 2:
[82:08] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[82:08] We don't need the explosion. Anyway, bye. Episodes over, go home.

Speaker 2:
[82:12] Bye y'all. Maximum Fun, a worker owned network of artist owned shows, supported directly by you.