The Invisible Organism That’s Saving the Planet

Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant

WNET

Science, Pets & Animals, Nature, Kids & Family, Natural Sciences

4.9 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2023

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In a remote part of the Amazon rainforest in Peru, there’s a river with water so hot, it actually boils. In fact, it's so extreme and so remote that for a long time people thought the river was a myth. Dr. Rosa Vásquez Espinoza risked life and limb journeying to this boiling river, called Shanay-Timpishka or La Bomba, to explore some of the smallest microorganisms on Earth. Why?? Because the untapped microbes that live in that extreme environment could save our planet! There are more microbes on Earth than stars in the galaxy, and yet only 1% of Earth’s microbe species have been thoroughly studied. Considering that several antibiotics, cancer treatments, and other medicines come from that tiny percentage, Dr. Espinoza is on a mission to unlock the potential of the remaining 99%. Microbes are a universe of microorganisms hiding in plain sight, proving that even the tiniest living things can have a huge impact. In fact, as the first microorganisms released oxygen, microbes literally made our existence on the planet possible. So what else can they do? Thanks for listening to the first episode of season three of Going Wild. We're really excited to share the rest of this season with you! You can learn more about season three HERE and catch up on seasons one and two HERE. Follow Dr. Rosa Vásquez Espinoza on Instagram or on her website. Photo credit for this episode's art is by Ana Sotelo. If you want to support us, you can follow Going Wild on your favorite podcast-listening app. And while you're there, please leave us a review. It really helps. You can also get updates and bonus content by following me, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, and PBS Nature on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook. You can find more information on all of our guests this season in each episode's show notes. And you can catch new episodes of Nature, Wednesdays at 8/7 Central on PBS, pbs.org/nature, and the PBS app. Going Wild is a new podcast by PBS Nature. NATURE is an award-winning series created by The WNET Group and made possible by all of you. Views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the individuals expressing them and do not necessarily reflect those of THIRTEEN Productions LLC/The WNET Group.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine a place that is so hot that the vapor is coming out in such intensity and quantity
0:13.0	that it almost feels like it's mixing with the clouds per se.
0:17.0	And if you're standing in one of the large rocks near the river you actually
0:22.6	can't start sweating because you feel the vapor so hot and strong that anything
0:28.6	alive that falls into it boil from inside out so not only do you need to be
0:35.6	holding onto your life on this rock that is a little slippery
0:38.6	and has these splashes of boiling water, but you also have all sorts of creatures like spiders
0:43.7	and whatnot walking around you. And if you do one wrong step, you are into boiling water.
0:50.3	Welcome back to Season 3 of Going Wild, a podcast about the human drama of saving animals.
0:57.0	I'm your host, Dr. Ray Wyn Grant.
0:59.7	This season, we're going to take a journey through the ecological web, from the tiniest of life forms all the way to apex predators.
1:08.5	We'll hear stories from scientists, activists, and adventurers as they find all the different ways the natural world is interconnected.
1:16.4	And together, we'll explore our place in the wild. This is going wild.
1:35.0	So we're starting small. At the very bottom of the food chain, smaller than plants even, down to the bacterial level. And in order to get there, nothing, wait until we get closer. The first stop of our
1:41.5	journey is to the boiling river in Peru, a place so extreme and remote,
1:46.9	that for a long time, people thought it was a myth.
1:50.1	Another big drop here.
1:52.1	No, trying to hold ourselves from...
1:56.0	I think the hardest bit was not realizing that I had boiling water below me. Somehow I was okay with that.
2:02.7	But the fact that I had all these things crawling through my hands while it was also a bit slippery.
2:11.4	This is my friend, Dr. Rosa Vasquez Espinoza. Rosa's a chemical biologist, conservationist, and artist.
2:19.3	And if you can't already tell, she's a total badass.
	...

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