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Big Picture Science

Rip Van Winkle Worm

Big Picture Science

Big Picture Science

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2019

⏱️ 54 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

(repeat) Your shower pipes are alive. So are your sinks, books, and floorboards. New studies of our homes are revealing just what species live there – in the thousands, from bacteria to flies to millipedes. Meanwhile, life keeps surprising us by popping up in other unexpected places: the deep biosphere houses the majority of the world’s bacteria and the Arctic tundra has kept worms frozen, but alive, for 40,000 years. We embrace the multitude of life living on us, in us, and – as it turns out – in every possible ecological niche. Most of it is harmless, some is beneficial, and it’s all testament to the amazing diversity and adaptability of life. In addition, the hardiest organisms suggest where we might find life beyond Earth. Guests: Rob Dunn – Professor of applied ecology at North Carolina State University and at the Natural History Museum at the University of Copenhagen. Author of “Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live.” Lynn Rothschild – Astrobiologist and synthetic biologist at the NASA Ames Research Center. Karen Lloyd – Environmental microbiologist and associate professor at the University of Tennessee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast.

0:05.0

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0:26.4

or lower case.

0:27.5

That's Shopify. co-deekk slash special offer.

0:31.4

The world is filled with many questions such as did giants exist?

0:35.0

What is junk DNA?

0:37.0

Does it mean that you're trash?

0:38.0

Do you ever wonder if aliens have underwater bases in our oceans

0:42.0

and that's why there are so many

0:43.3

UFO sightings off the coast of islands all over the world. How serious even is

0:48.4

climate change and when should we start building our rafts? Hello everyone, you may recognize me as Gabby

0:54.2

from the History of Everything podcast.

0:56.2

And my name is Bruna, and you don't recognize me

0:58.6

from anything yet.

1:00.4

Together, we're two scientists who explore the answers to these questions and many, many more in our new podcast,

1:05.0

Mystery of Everything, available everywhere you get your podcasts. So the other day I'm changing the light bulbs in the dining room lamp fixture.

1:23.5

I opened it up, there are all these dead bugs in there.

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