Volcanoes. Trees. Drunk butterflies. Mars missions. Slug sex. Death. Beauty standards. Anxiety busters. Beer science. Bee drama. Take away a pocket full of science knowledge and charming, bizarre stories about what fuels these professional -ologists' obsessions. Humorist and science correspondent Alie Ward asks smart people stupid questions and the answers might change your life.
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Wall to wall, Patreon, pitching questions. So instead of 1 2 hour episode, we're gonna be reasonable about it. So let's get into part 1. Oh, I love these episodes so much. They were this was such a delight to work on one of my favorites. So this guest is a science communicator who writes the comics, bird, and moon, and has written several lauded and respected books such as birding is my favorite video game, cartoons about the natural world from bird and moon, and expedition backyard. And I've been aware of her recent book, a pocket guide to pigeon watching, getting to know the world's most misunderstood bird Since it's 2021 release. And Boerding magazine calls her a leader of the flock, and she studied pigeons from every angle to bring them into our hearts. So we logged on. We had a lovely video chat from my LA studio to her Boston home base. Many, many thoughts and feelings I've had about pigeons remain forever changed because of this. So prepare for facts about their origin story, how they make it home, pigeons that save lives, whistling pigeons, nest strategies, where baby pigeons are hiding who called them rats with wings, whether or not they will give you a disease. Pet pigeons fashion pigeons, pink pigeons, doves, versus pigeons, eating pigeons, extinct pigeons, and more. Packet a stale pizza crust and let's coup over best selling author, lifelong pigeon nerd, and wonderful person, and columbidologist Rosemary Moscow. Okay. I'm Rosemary Moscow, and my pronouns are she her. I don't wanna freak you out, but we asked Our patrons for questions for you ahead of time. And we got 57 pages of questions. Pages.
It off, and then everything else can go on as normal. So they have these two main things. You have cambium layer, which is the vascular system of the tree, just below the bark, just outside the wood. That's where the trees grow and put on their new rings. That is where they send nutrients and water from the ground up, and that's called the xylem. That's a good word if you play scrabble. It's x y l e m. If you can fit that in on a triple word score with that x, man, you're killing it. You're really doing well. Okay. Buckle up because this part's gonna get a little technical, but you're gonna learn a few new scrabble words as promised and or names for your organic children. Cambium, phloem, photosynth, and xylem, of course, which is Greek for wood and yes, that is where the word xylophone comes from. So scrabble, jeopardy, you're prepped for anything. Okay. Back to xylem. Takes all the nutrients and water up to all the leaves. The leaves, they are doing the photosynthesis. So they're creating the energy from the sun. They start pulling all of their nutrients or all their, photosynthate is what some people call it, basically sugars. And they pull those down and that goes to the phloem, which is the pipes that go down, and that's basically it. Tree roots pull things up through the stem and then puts things out to the leaves. The leaves are the factory. They create all the food, then they put that down and distribute it out to the rest of the tree. Oh, are you ready for a hot tree scandal? Okay. Sometimes a tree breaks up with its own limbs. There's drama. Many times if there is competition, it actually cuts it off itself. If they are growing a limb out directly to another tree, they get shaded out. They're like, yeah. There's too much energy I'm putting in and not getting enough back, So they just cut it off. The trees no longer feed it, literally close the compartment off to that branch. That branch slowly dies slowly dies. And then as soon as it falls off, maybe a crow lands on it and it's so decayed Mhmm. Just topples to the ground. Then the tree then seals over that wound. Trees don't heal. They seal. They specifically close it up and then continue to grow like nothing ever happened. It's like ghosting your own arm. Exactly. Wow. Like nothing ever happened because everything else is
Like a quarantine flashback. The Texas Department of Transportation is putting porta potties along, like, a 90 mile route, and the mayor of Kerrville declares the event an emergency ahead of time in case they need immediate assistance from FEMA during the influx of people. By the way, we have a disasterology episode with doctor Sam Montano, highly recommended. But either way, I've waited 7 years for this. Texas is the place to see it. They're not gonna have clouds. I've been on helicopters, a tiny bush plane, a military centrifuge for TV shoots. I've driven through a tornado and an ice storm to get to work. I can handle eating protein bars for a few days and using a porta potty for fun. And then the weather reports came. Texas is expecting thunderstorms right at the time of totality. So the day before we left, this past Saturday, I talked to Jared. Okay. Here's the deal. So right now, we got clouds in Texas. K. Big, big clouds. Vermont and Maine are supposed to be clear. Right? Yeah. If we change our flights to go instead of going to Austin, to go to Kerrville Yeah. Which is declared a state of emergency Uh-huh. And might have clouds. Yeah. If we change the flights to Portland, Maine, the day before we leave. I'm just saying if is it bonkers to go, as long as we're like, gonna spend money and time, to just be like, whoop, hiccup. You tell me. I mean, are there places to stay in there? Is that gonna that's gonna be in the path we're saying? I don't even know where fucking Portland, Maine is. I can't I just can't believe that it's flipped. Tegan has family in Buffalo, so she was gonna go up there. She's up there to see it in upstate New York. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Let's go let's go sleep in a car somewhere. You know? Yeah. Buffalo's right in the middle of it. I know.
Yes. Okay. Okay. Oh, no. Next question. Oh, no. He's kidding, but also not. Let's check with another NASA Goddard scientist, India Jackson, almost PhD. Okay. My name is India Jackson. My pronouns are sheher. So let's say that you had to describe what the sun was or, like, how big it is. I have no concept of how big the sun is. Like, none. Are there just arms of plasma that are giant coming off of it? Like, I can't even visualize it. Well, you know, the solar dynamic observatory, have you heard of that? Mm-mm. No. But you can see daily live images of the sun. And it looks like a ball because the gravity is pushing towards the center so that's why it looks like a ball. Mhmm. And then you will get some solar events. You'll see, it looks like stuff is crawling on it. Those magnetic waves pushing through and some of them connect, and then they'll snap and you'll see dark spots. Those are the sun spots. You'll see some prominences. You'll see some filaments. You'll see the big loops are the coronal mass ejections. What does that look like a big loop like a bubble? Yeah. What? Like a big loop. And I actually studied those last year during my summer internship with NASA trying to get those physical parameters from coronal mass ejections during certain events. So trying to get how long it is from the center of the sun, the angular width and all that good stuff. So a coronal mass ejection also called a CME. This is a type of solar event. And what happens is magnetic fields kind of twist around each other and snap and the sun expels a bunch of plasma and magnetic field from its surface, which can travel to earth in these big bursts. Though, with a CME, it might take a few days for that coronal mass ejection to arrive. Now,
Chicks. They have about a maximum of 3 chicks. So if you think about a pelican, they're about £16, which is quite a bit of weight. Yeah. And on top of that, they have to feed themselves, have enough energy to fly around and catch the fish. But then they also have 1 to 3 mouths to feed. They're gonna need quite a bit of fish for that. Mhmm. And these pelicans are born completely naked and with their eyes shut. So they're completely reliant on their parents for quite a few months. And then what about their wingspan? Because a 16 pound bird's pretty big. How big are the wings to keep it aloft? It's about 6 feet, which is Oh my god. Taller than me. Oh, that's huge. I had to know. That's like a condor size. Right? Yeah. It's a good social distancing size. Yeah. Oh my god. That needs to be your new campaign as everyone's day 1 pelican wingspan away from each other. Yes. Oh my gosh. So £16, 6 feet. Because they're are they all inland? Or, I mean, are they all gulf or or, coastal or are they inland too? So we have 2 species in North America. We have the brown pelican and the white pelican. And actually, the brown pelican is smaller than the white pelican by about £10 or so. And the brown pelican stays on the coastline, like, up and down the West Coast and then throughout the Gulf of Mexico and up to North Carolina ish. And the white pelicans on the other hand, you can't see them on the coast, but they breed inland. How many pelican species are there in the world? I looked it up. There are 8 in case that ever comes up in a game of pelican trivia. And now you call them floof dinosaurs? Dinosaur floofs? Dinosaur floofs. Aren't they really fuzzy? Okay. So there's, like, this middle stage. They're born naked and then they start getting these little
