Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radio Lab.

Radio Lab. Shorts! From W. N. Y. C. C. Yes. And NPR.

I'm Robert Krollowicz. This is Radio Lab, the podcast.

And today we're going to talk about global warfare.

A vast battle across the planet on a scale that is really hard to believe involving trillions of deaths.

And yet, we really need this war because without it, I wouldn't be here, you wouldn't be here, Jad wouldn't be here, and you may have noticed he isn't here, and it's not because of a war, it's because he had a baby. But before Jad went on paternity leave, we sat down with Ari Daniel Shapiro. Okay. And he told us this story.

Here it comes. Right. Yeah. So here we are at the center for the culture of marine phytoplankton. This is Willie. Willie Wilson. Willie Wilson is his name? Yeah, that's tough. Just like

his grandfather, actually. Yeah. My dad's William Wilson. There's a long line of William

Wilson's. Your son? My son is Angus. But he's Angus William Wilson. There's a long line of William Wilson.

Your son?

My son is Angus.

But he's Angus, William Wilson.

I love that guy.

Willie works at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine.

Okay.

And he studies these tiny plant-like creatures that live in the sea called phytoplankton. He keeps them in a fridge in these little test tubes,

half full of kind of a greenish water.

Let's have a look at that.

He pulled one out and showed it to me, and it doesn't really look like there's that much going on in there.

But actually right at the bottom, you can see what looks like a white.

What is it?

It's the carnage of war.

...