Oh, hey, it's the guy testing out the patio furniture at Costco.

Allie Ward, let's see how fast I can get through this intro because this episode on

seaweeds and kelps and algae and such has five, count of five ologists, and it's a wild ride

into the ocean waves.

Okay, first up, I'm just going to get into him.

We have Dr. Patrick Martone, who heads up the Martone lab in the botany department

at the University of British Columbia. He studies the evolution and anatomy and biomechanics and

ecology of seaweed. Also, he's a tech mogul. Not really, but he did invent an app called the

seaweed sorter that you can get, it helps you identify and what he has said

hopefully fall in love with more than 100 seaweed species. So that's called the seaweed sorter.

Patrick was recommended to me over three years ago by this guy named Colin who wrote in,

called him a gregarious, intelligent seaweed evangelist who exudes enthusiasm and would be a perfect addition

to ologies. And then Colin said, as nominated by his partner and longtime listener to the podcast.

So that was the cutest thing I ever read. And I'm in. He also has a seaweed tattoo. So checks

every box. But then your favorite oceanology guest, Dr. Ianna Elizabeth Johnson,

pointed me toward a gaggle of marine people right around the same time, and they pointed me

toward Dr. Charles Yarish, who has been hailed as the grandfather of commercial seaweed and also

the wizard of seaweed, both in like published media. Someone called him a wizard of seaweed. He's a professor

emeritus at the University of Connecticut and the chief scientist at greenwave.org. And he's been a

founding kind of mover and shaker in seaweed cultivation and farming. But his research spans decades

in so many branches of seaweed science. And as long as the Van Dora was just slid open, I thought,

I bet there's some great macro-picologists via black and marine science who want to nerd out with me

...