Hey, it's us, your friends from the stuff they don't want you to know podcast with the huge announcement.

We finally did it. We made a book. It's out now and it's just for you.

Interested in government cover-ups?

Biological warfare and human experimentation.

The stuff they don't want you to know book has all this and more.

If you like the podcast and you want to support us, this is the best way to do it.

Go to your favorite bookstore and find stuff they don't want you to know right now.

Are you crime curious?

I Heart Podcasts has gathered the best true crime all in one podcast feed.

I Heart True Crime Plus. It's packed with podcasts about unsolved murders, missing persons, organized crime and more.

So there's always something good to binge and share.

I Heart True Crime Plus subscribers also enjoy ad-free listening, early access to select episodes and exclusive bonus content.

Subscribe to I Heart True Crime Plus today exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I Heart Radio.

Hi, my name is Joe McCormick and this is The Artifact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing on particular objects, ideas and moments in time.

On the western coast of Australia, there's a place called Shark Bay and within Shark Bay, there's a nature reserve known as Hamlin Pool.

Today, you can walk out over a wooden jetty at Hamlin Pool to see the shallows up close.

Down below, there are hundreds of strange, bulbous mineral formations peaking up over the water line or sitting just below it.

It's hard to describe exactly what they look like. Blackstone broccoli perched upright in the still water.

Atomic mushroom clouds frozen in place, or dark pebbly brains flocking out of the Indian Ocean.

These are stromatolites. If you stand on the jetty at Hamlin Pool looking out at this army of mineral bulbs,

you're getting a pretty close approximation of what most visible life on planet Earth looked like for something like 80% of its history.

...