Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday. That vault door creaks open, doesn't it. This episode originally aired janu two, and it's part two of our series on Tumbleweeds. I hope you enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And the Flaming tumbleweed has rolled right back in. We're ready for part two of this series. That's right. If you didn't listen to part one, go back, give it a listen, because we get we get all into the topic of tumble weeds, talking about what what tumbleweeds are? What? What what do we mean when we talk about them in the Americans sense, in a broader sense, why do they do the tumbling? Uh? And so forth. I think it was a pretty fun episode, and we're gonna We're gonna keep the ball rolling today. Now. One of the interesting things that we discovered in the last episode is that while the tumbleweed is an icon of the American West, uh, the main species of tumbleweed. The thing people are usually talking about in the American context when they say a tumbleweed is a plant known as Russian thistle that only arrived in the United States probably around the eighteen seventies. And so this is not even native to North America. It's something that comes from the Eurasian step. Yeah, it is very much an invader. It is an invasive species, and we're gonna get into some of the ramifications of that here. But it's also one of the reasons why if you look for um for like Native American accounts of tumbleweeds, uh, you know they're not going to exist before a certain point because they don't even come in with the initial colonists, with the initial influx of Westerners, or even the first few influxes of Westerners. They come in much later. However, you do find some interesting uh uses of tumbleweed. I was reading in the Journal of American Folklore article titled The Witches Were Saved, a Zuni origin story by Dennis Tedlock. So the Zuni or one of the Pueblo people of the American West, and the author here discusses work by the author Andrew Pinesta intended for oral performance. Pinesta was a Zuni storyteller, and the story in question was apparently told in nineteen sixty five. Uh, and then Tedlock, you know, is writing about it and discussing it, and it concerns interference by the US military into Zuni affairs. But it mentions the tumble weeds in a way that I think is rather clever and drives home their invasive and uh, their their invasive nature. Here. Quote, there's a spot near Neutria where the soldiers camped. They fed hay to their horses, and there were tumbleweeds seeds in it. Now only tumbleweeds grow on that spot and they've spread all over. Oh, so framing the soldiers here is a vector of the spread of this invasive plant. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's my read of it. Anyway, you know, it's touching on the foreign invasive nature of both both the the the American military presence here and the presence of of Westerners in general and the tumbleweed, both things that kind of curse the land. In this viewpoint, I was looking around for, you know, obviously to find older sort of folklore. It takes and cultural takes on tumbleweeds. You have to go to the parts of the world where tumbleweeds were originally or would have spread to before they had a chance to take root in America literally. Um. I was reading The Rooster in the Transylvanian Folklore by Ferric POLSONI, and in it the author rights on the Transylvanian plane, people used to believe that witches would cause aridity by burning a stolen rooster feather on the tumbleweed. Oh, this is interesting. So the tumbleweed Lord does go back, you know, to to pre modernity, but in in the in the Step region rather than in North America. Yeah, and so I was. I was looking around for more references to it. I'm sure there's some good ones I missed. So anybody out there who's aware of of any folkloric treatments of tumble weeds from from any part of the world, right in and share them with us. But I found mentions of tumbleweeds in Mongolian tradition, namely as the subject of traditional Mongolian riddles as Collected and Disgusting in Mongolian Folklore, a representative collection from the Oral Tradition Part one, and this is by hanging Krueger Service and Rosiecki published in Mongolian Studies, and this came out. This is one of those volumes that came out like Bridging eight, five and six, so they cover both Mongolian folks, sayings and riddles in this paper, and this was this is actually a real pleasure to read. I know, Joe, you looked at it as well. It's it's it's almost like I think I was telling me before we recorded, like I kind of want to see this bound as its own little paperback edition and uh and available for purchase somewhere, because it's just it's full of these these fun little Mongolian folks things and then ultimately riddles, many of which you know, we're gonna have residents with with readers anywhere in the world, right though some of which are are completely like going to be lost on you if you don't know much about animal husbandry or goats or anything. But but other ones, yeah, they are very universal and and almost all the sayings are great. Uh So the first half of it concerns more like proverbs, you know, those kind of sayings that that don't they're not like a prompt in the way the riddle is uh and and a lot of the proverbs are really good. One of them that I'm just doing this from memory, but I think it was something like, uh, load a donkey up with cargo, load of fool up with praise. Yeah, they're so good though, obviously, Yeah, they're they're they're they're emerging from a particular culture in a particular region. They speak very much to the environment in the cultures of of the Mongolian people here. Um. But but yeah, the riddles here they have a lot in common with riddle traditions around the world. The authors here right quote the heart of the riddle is naturally the real or fancied resemblance between two ideas or things, although sometimes punning plays a role when the similarity involves two or three words which sound alike. So I have a I have a couple of riddles here. I'm gonna I'm gonna inflict them on you, Joe, and you may be able to guess the answer to a couple of them. But here's the first one. When it comes from yonder, it looks like a camel. When it crawls under the wagon, it looks like a goat. Okay, so I know the answer to this one, which is that it's a tumble weed. But nonetheless I don't get it. I don't understand why it looks like a goat when it crawls under the wagon. What what do goats do under the wagon? That is, like, do goats kind of crack and break or they brittle under a wagon? I don't know. I guess maybe they're just smaller. Like I can definitely, you know that my driving experience that I talked about in the last episode, I can definitely relate to the idea that the bumbling tumbleweed on the highway may look as big as a camel. It may be that intimidating, and then once you actually run it over, you're like, oh, well, that was more like running over a goat. Want sense. I've never run over a goat. I don't know why I laughed, would be very sad to run over a goat, But for some reason that was funny at the time, at the time, for ten seconds ago. But but anyway, I do think this is one of the ones that is interesting because it seems to require some kind of localized knowledge that we don't really have. And this is something actually that the authors mentioned uh in their introduction to the section on Mongolian riddles, they say that, you know, riddles are nearly universal and cultures around the world, and it's interesting to see what topics are the most common in each riddle culture. And so they say, for example, all cultures have riddles concerning astronomical phenomenon like the sun and the moon, but that when you look at Mongolian riddles in particular, they're going to be especially focused on topics like animal husbandry. So there will be riddles that that have to do with camels and goats and horses and things like that. And obviously also localized plants will show up in a culture's riddles about nature, and the tumbleweed would be one of these. Speaking of WAYI here's another riddle Joe from the stuff from this uh this collection. It travels by the wind, it stays in the ditch. Now this one I get more. Yeah, this is a tumbleweed. And I think that the tickling, the brain tickling part of this, Maybe that it's playing on your assumption when you say it travels by the wind. People are naturally primed to think about something other than like a plant or a feature of the natural world. Yeah, something that actually lives and in in the air, and something that flies in the air like a bird. Or you're thinking maybe it's gonna be something like song or something, but what does it mean It stays in the bitch. I thought of a boat. That's a that's a good one too, but no, it's the tumbleweed. Which I mean this feels right as well. I mean, there's this thing that is is pretty impressive when it really gets going, but it winds in a good ditch and it's done for exactly. I mean this calls to mind those images we saw last time of you know, five hundred tumbleweeds all jammed into a culvert. Yeah alright, so Joe, you knew that the answer to those riddles was going to be the tumbleweed. But I wanted to I wanted to give you a shot. It's a non tumble weed Mongolian riddles here. Okay, So these I I I realized these may be a bit difficult, but we're gonna give it a shot. Here's the first one. If I only had a tongue, I would be a witness. If I could only rise up, I could reach up to heaven. Now I saw this one before you read it, and I thought about it, and I honestly have no idea. I mean, so the second one is making me think it maybe is something that is long but not tall, you know, like, yeah, but but I really don't know. Well, you're on the right track, because the answer to this one is the road. Oh okay, uh, well, I certainly get the second half. If I could only rise up, I could reach up to heaven, you know, if you could flip the axis. But why what is it about the tongue? If I only had a tongue that could be a witness, I I don't, I don't know this one. They didn't come. They basically just explained that this one had to do with you know, they give the answer, but they didn't explain what the tongue and the witness bit means. Maybe just because you so much happens on the road, that the road is is kind of all knowing. In a sense, it connects to everywhere. Yeah, it's like if these walls could talk, but there are no walls, if this road could talk. Yeah, and in in a sense, you know, it's yeah, it is everywhere at once that this road that I am on is is also in this distant city as well as the city I came from. And it's with me right here. Interesting. All right, here's one more. I have something. Others use it a lot, but I use it only occasionally. Now with this one, I also have no idea. I was trying to think in the animal agriculture kind of zone. Would could this be something about I don't know, a like a goat? Does a goat not use its own milk very much? Or something? I don't know. Well, the answer to this one is my name. Oh oh, that's very good. It's very good. Yeah. Yeah, the the rationale being that generally you're not saying your own name as much as other people are saying your name. But this is like not a good riddle if it's delivered by Bob Dole, right yeah, or doing the Rock Johnson that kind of thing exactly. Okay, Well I pulled that one for you, Rob. Did you already see the solution to this one? Um? I don't. I'd probably not going to remember it. Okay, it's just one line. The head is the enemy of its body. M what is it? The head is the enemy of its body? Oh? Oh, I don't know. Again, I'm I'm thinking and my mind is turning to two cows and goats and horses, and I'm I'm also, you know, trying to think of like the great expanse of the Mongolian countryside, and I'm I'm drawing a blank here. I think I got us overly focused on on bovida and stuff. No, No, the answer is a matchstick. That's pretty good. So, yeah, this has got to be a more modern riddle, I guess. And I don't know when all of these come from, Like do some of these date back hundreds of years whereas others are, you know, maybe from the ninete or twentieth century. Yeah, I get the impression that that a number of them maybe more recent. Oh and another one of them that I saw was pretty interesting was just the same one that appears in the It's the riddle of the Sphinx from from Oedipus, So that that appears to be a cross cultural riddle. You know, what has four legs in the morning, two legs in the in the noontime, and three legs in the evening. It is a human, you know, because you're a baby and you crawl, and then as an adult you walk on two legs, and then an old age, you use a cane. Oh, but I got one more for you, rob. Okay, So this one is on a sunny day, there are two. On a sunless day, there is but one. On a moonlit night, there are two. On a moonless night, there is but one. I mean, I'm thinking about light and silhouettes, shadows. Yeah, that's it. It's a shadow. Is it a shadow? Okay? Wait, so the person's shadow. There are two of you on a sunny day because you have a shadow. Okay, I got that, but okay, and then on a sunless day there's just you. There's no shadow. On a moon at night, there too, Again, you have a shadow. And on a moonless night it's too dark to see anything, right, should there Yeah, there shouldn't even be one on a moonless night. I guess the stars are so bright. That's one thing I guess we have to consider. I don't know for certain, but it reminds me of things I've read about Egyptian mythology, and about how UH, an often unobscured sky, is so central to UH sort of the world view of of say, ancient Egyptians. I wonder if that holds true in Mongolian culture as well, because if you have like this brilliant starlet sky and there's you know, less probability of cloud cover, then perhaps that does illuminate things a little better. I don't know. Yeah, certainly there's going to be less possibility of you know, light pollution and artificial light kind of creating these these deeper pockets of shadow. But why does the tumbleweed under the wagon look like a goat? I mean maybe it just has to do with like, once it gets up here, it's not going to you know, kick butt like a camel would like. It's going to be more or less hiding underneath the cart like a goat kind of Uh, it's gonna be this It's not gonna be this bounding, brave looking thing. It's going to be this meek uh, a little ball that's hiding around underneath the carts or jammed under a wheel, et cetera. Mongolian listeners right in teach us help us figure this one out. By the way, the saying is collected in this this this book, or I mean in this paper also great. Uh, here's an example one that kept jumping out of me every time I sort of skimmed past it looking for tumbleweeds, men follow customs, dogs follow bones? I like that one. Yeah, that is good. So if this implies a parallel in the way that these things are followed, would it be that humans go after social customs in a kind of driven, hungry, instinctual way. You know, I'm not sure if that is the way we're supposed to take this, or does it mean that a dog like just follows their gut instinct didn't like, you know, follows immediate evidence. But mene have customs that they have to follow. Oh yeah, that's it. That could be the contrast. But but but I I find your interpretation interesting as well. I could I guess I could se it go either way. I guess there's no comparative word in there. Doesn't say men follow customs like dogs follow bones. Anyway, there are more of these and if you're interested, again, it's Mongolian Folklore, a representative collection from the oral literary tradition, Part one And that's a bit of one J store. So if you go to J S t O R dot org you can you can access it for free. I don't know if you have to sign in, Like I, I access it via membership. But um, but not a paid membership, so go for it if you're interested. Okay, one more one before we move on that this is just a proverb. It's that children who grow up spoiled are more difficult to handle than a bull's neck. Okay, what about a bull's neck, though, I guess it's difficult to get your hands around it, right, Like it's is. A bold net can be so thick that you can't even reach your arms around it and like, you know, lock your your knuckles together. Yeah, thank alright, So we're gonna we're gonna leave mongolian Um wisdom aside here for a little bit. We're gonna get back to more North American tales of the tumbleweed. And so I was just you know, thinking at this point you're probably going, well, geez, guys, I get the tumbleweeds are bad, and uh, you know that's sometimes they're like a camel and sometimes like there a goat. Okay, fair enough, but what do they mean for the proliferation of radioactive waste? Well, we're glad you ask, because it's actually an interesting question. Uh. And one of the things I found even more fascinating about it is that they're the role that tumbleweeds play in in our treatment of radioactive waste can vary greatly depending on like what source you're looking at. Well, yeah, and I think the radioactivity will play more into the second example we're talking about them the first, which might be more clearly classed as a case of toxic waste, right, yes, but but both have to do with the leavings of of the atomic age. Yeah. So the atomic ages we've discussed on the show before, especially I think the the episode or episodes in question, uh, it was titled the Atomic Scar. Uh. The Atomic Ages left various scars on the planet, including radioactive waste that we have to see laway and figure out how to symbolically worn apocalyptic wanders ten thousand years in the future that they shouldn't mess with this because it's bad. Uh. So we're always looking at for ways to secure it, to resecure it, to clean it up, et cetera. Now, you might remember another episode we did titled The Tide of Gold, and in that we discussed some sort of novel gold harvesting schemes and ideas, and we discussed how plants can harvest gold from the ground. Basically, the premise here is that some plants have the ability to absorb minerals through their roots and and uh and and concentrate metals such as nickel, uh, cadmium, and zinc. These plants are also known as hyper accumulators. There are no natural gold hyper accumulators, but there are ways to make it possible through soil manipulation. So you like treat the soil that contains the gold in a certain way, and you can sort of engineer it so that certain plants that have this natural ability will actually draw that gold up into their roots system. So you can probably see where we're going here. Um, remember how we mentioned that tumble weed roots can dive twenty feet down into the soil. Well, As pointed out by geologist Dana Ulmer Shoal of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in SoCoRo, reporting to the U S Geological Society in two thousand four, taboweed plants are actually really good. It's soaking up depleted uranium from contaminated soils and weapons testing grounds and battlefields. Now this is interesting. I guess we should do a little sidebar here on depleted uranium because you might be wondering. Okay, depleted uranium, and you you hear that, hear uranium your weapons testing grounds, and you might naturally think like, oh, nuclear bomb detonation sites, But this is actually talking about something different. Uh. So, depleted uranium is often used in heavy munitions as as a metal, not as a fissile material for a bomb, but as a metal. And it's used in these munitions because of its density and armor penetrating properties. So it's you know, you can make a very dense projectile out of it. I believe it is more than half again as dense as leads something. It's like sixty something percent more dense than lead is uh And that density all so makes it useful for certain things in like the aeronautics field. I think I've read that it's used sometimes as a counterweight or counterbalance in some helicopter rotor blades, but it's also used for plating and armored vehicles, again because it's dense so it's more likely to stop a projectile, and then also in creating shielding against radiation. But as as ammunition in particular, I think depleted uranium is used not just because it's dense, but because say, when it hits the armor plating of a tank to try to penetrate it. It has these properties where it tends to kind of fragment in a way that that makes the projectile sharper rather than blunt r And as it penetrates through the armor plating of an armored vehicle, it also tends to ignite and explode on the inside. So it has a lot of properties that you would want if you were trying to shoot through an armored vehicle. Now, to pick up on the caveat I was giving earlier about radioactivity, depleted uranium has very low levels of radioactivity. It's actually it actually has less radioactivity then is typically found in natural uranium. But uranium, whether natural or depleted uranium, has significant chemical toxicity. So it is clear that it is dangerous to ingest certain amounts of it beyond a certain threshold. But at least according to some sources, this is not really because of radioactivity. Uh, though there might be some continuing controversy about the radiological effects in particular. I'll mention a little more about that in a minute, um, but I was trying to look up, Okay, how does it work well? According to the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry or the A T. S. D R, which is a government agency under the under the umbrella of the Health and Human Services Department. UH that they put out a fact sheet on the health effects of uranium, both known and under investigation, and they say that both natural and depleted uranium have that they have the same toxic effects within a human body, the primary of which is adverse effects to the renal system, so the kidneys, so either inhaling or ingesting significant amounts of uranium compounds and I think possibly by uh by having it enter the body as shrapnel as well. UH. This is known to cause damage to the kidneys, and there may be some secondary effects as well, but the secondary effects are less clear. UM. The more I looked into this, the more complicated the picture of the health effects of exposure to depleted uranium became. UM. So like you'll find a lot of debate that there their questions about the exposure of combat veterans and people living in war zones who have been exposed to ammunition with depleted geranium content. UH. And I did not have time to wade into all of that controversy and figure out what I thought about it. But I will say, at the very least, UH, you do not want your body exposed to high levels of depleted uranium. UH, definitely because of its known adverse health effects. And then there may be other second area effects on top of what is currently known as well. But like most things, UH, the the toxicity of depleted uranium depends on dosage over time. So we're all exposed to tiny amounts of uranium from the natural environment on a consistent basis. This is completely unavoidable. It's just part of living on planet Earth. There's gonna be tiny, tiny amounts of uranium and the food you eat, in the water you drink. But if you are living in certain areas where there is significant uranium contamination in the environment, those those levels could go up above what is safe. Right. And therefore it stands to reason if you had, say a former ammunition testing ground, and you wanted to do something else with that and not just keep it, uh, you know, set aside for you know, the duration of of of human civilization or something. Uh, you might want to reclaim it. You might want to find a way to get depleted uranium out of the ground. And UH that's where a few different plants have have shown promise at drinking up that depleted geranium um. One of them, for instances, the Indian mustard plant. But as this this research points out, one of the things about many of these plants is that they thrive in um in in wetter soils. What are you gonna do when you have something out in a desert, right, Well, that's where the tumbleweed comes in. The tumbleweed, of course, famously excels in dry barren places. Uh. One rolls into a well irrigated yard in a New Mexico suburb and it's doomed. Uh. It can't compete with the grass. But if it goes into an abandoned um uh you know, a feed lot or a girl or some sort of agricultural site, uh, an undeveloped bad land, well, then that's where the tumbleweed is king. And so it's ideally suited for some of the desolate places that we find depleted uranium in the United States, especially uh in in the West uh in the Western States. So the argument here is that this could be a safe method as well, because the plants do most of the absorption well before they detach. So if you were managing the site, if you were, you know, planting intentionally the the the tumbleweed plants here, then the plants could be harvested and disposed of well before the the drawing phase begins, and then ultimately the tumbleweed breaks free and is able to roll free exactly. And so I thought this was very interesting. I did look around for more follow up on this about using tumbleweeds for for remediation of heavy metals like deplet to geranium or other toxic substances in soils, and I didn't find anything much more recent. So so I don't know, uh, if for or how much anybody's picked up on this research, but but yeah, yeah, well like like we we hinded that before. This is a This is something we often see with the tumble with tumbleweed related research. Somebody will have an idea about something we can do with the tumble weeds. What can we do with these tumble weeds? What can we do about these tumbleweeds? And someone will have a novel approach, but either it's something that doesn't seem to work out for one reason or another, or it requires more research and it's perhaps still being researched. Um, it seems like I saw this more often than not. Oh, did we ever find anything else out about what happened to that tumbleweed eating machine we talked about in part one? No, not yet. But but the as we're recording this the episode, how the first episode has not aired, So I'm hoping that we'll hear from some New Mexico listeners, like maybe maybe there are counties in New Mexico where they had one of these or have one still. I don't know, maybe we'll get some local intel. I did email one of the researchers who is involved in the original project and the original prototype, but I have not heard back from them. And and nor would I be that surprised because just some RANDO is reaching out of them out of nowhere and ask them about a project that they worked on decades ago. Uh. I can understand there there they might see that it's just a spam email, all right, So we're not done with the idea of tumbleweeds and to weapons sites and so forth. Uh. And And this week turned to an article that you you dug up, Joe. This was from Sarah Zang writing UH for Gizmoto back in two thousand fourteen, which was just a really great year for all things tumble with a number of the articles that we have end up referring to when this come from. But she cited a George Johnson piece in National Geographic particularly uh this bit quote. During the early nineteen sixties, after above ground nuclear testing finally ceased at the Nevada test site, the first thing said to grow back was Russian thistle. Radioactive south sola has come tumbling out of the old Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington, where plutonium was manufactured during the Cold War. I half expect to hear someday that Russian thistle has been found on the Moon. Yeah. And uh, I can't remember if we already said it so far in this episode or not, but Russian thistle is the common name of the main species of tumbleweed that that is now known in the United States. Uh. That's the number of different scientific names have been used. Sal solo tregas calli tregas. Uh. And this is the salsola sal sola that the author here is talking about in this Uh. This net g opiece has being quoted. But yeah, it is not surprising to me to hear that tumbleweed is is the first thing moving in uh at a at a nuclear testing site, right and uh and as saying explains, it's just one of many organisms that can interfere where our efforts just set aside such waste and such way side or just sort of secure such locations. UM. Now, the the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is of note here because yet and tumbleweeds were in the news as recently as January, as reported by Maria Kramer in the New York Times with the headline storm of tumbleweeds, berries cars, terrifies drivers and astounds police. But some I have to point out that some places, including I believe that the Chicago Tribune altered the headline UM or updated the headline. I would say, I don't want to say altered, like they did something super nefarious to say, um storm of quote unquote nuclear tumbleweeds, barries cars, terrifies drivers and astounds police. UM. It's in quotes because they're referring to a particular quote in the original article where they're talking about this tumble getting in which they mentioned quote. The highway is in a flat, wide open area close to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which is known as one of the sites of the Manhattan project and where plutonium was produced to help build the atom bomb. And then there's this quote from a Mr thorn Thorson that says, quote, some people are calling them nuclear tumbleweeds. So that's so that might be jumping to some conclusions here, but not not entirely without reason, right right, Yeah, the article does not discuss tumbleweeds as radioactive in nature, other and including that one little quote. Uh. But um, the the Hanford location, as discussed by Elliott Marshall in the edition of the journal Science UM has pointed out that that this is a location that has had issues with badgers, rabbits, ground squirrels, burrowing owls, pocket mice, insects, rabbit brush, and yes, tumbleweeds, uh, interfering with with human efforts to sort of leave this site alone and undisturbed. Well, yeah, they're literally having breaches due to wildlife like failures of nuclear material or high level waste containment due to breaches by things like badgers. Yeah, and then things like rabbits with like radioactive rabbit poop because rabbits have gotten in there. Yes, here's the quote from Marshall, with roots that can grow down twenty feet tumbleweeds reached down into waste dumps and take up strontium ninety, break off and blow around the dry land, and this caused them to worry that the radio ation in the tumbleweeds could then be released into the air if these weeds were to to do what tumbleweeds sometimes do, collect somewhere and then catch fire, or what happens if they reach a body of water. Remember that example from the last episode talking about a tumbleweed. Uh, this mighty tumbleweed rolling into the water and then kind of melting there. Um, you know you don't want your your your radioactive shredded wheat hitting the milk exactly. Yeah, Okay, So it's it's not necessarily actually known that these tumbleweeds from this story in January had significant radioactivity levels. But tumbleweeds are one of the biological vectors that could potentially breach some types of nuclear material containment. Right, that seems to be the case, And of course the fact that they then break off and blow around afterwards is not helpful, right, And I mean, we do have to to acknowledge the fact that there are radioactive tumbleweeds. In the video game Fallout New Vegas. So I don't know is that true the tumbleweeds? Apparently I I played New Vegas and I remember enjoying it, but I do not remember the tumbleweeds. I had not yet fostered an appreciation for the tumbleweed, so if they were there, I forgot them. But I ran across this in in my searches. So it seems to be the case. Let's say good on them a fall at the what what was the team that made that game? They did their research? Now, given all we shared about the problems posed by invasive tumbleweeds in the United States, it should come as no surprise that the U s d A has looked into ways of eradicating them, or at least significantly reducing their number. Uh and they've some some of the ways they've They've they've examined this or rather interesting. One method that has been proposed is to take the classic approach and and introduce a particular type of MIGHT. This is a Syria south soul, which kills the growing tips of the plant and stunts it. Supposedly, studies have shown that it only targets this particular MIGHT species. It only targets a few closely related species to the tumbleweed, and all of these species are pest species. Oh, but the proposed biological controls do not stop there, that's right. They've also looked into Researchers have also looked into using two fungi species native to the tumbleweeds original uh you know, Russian or Ukrainian environment. This news was making the rounds. They've also looked into viral methods of targeting invasive tumbleweeds with viruses. The U. S d A was also testing viruses developed from two types of dying tumbleweeds and uh in Russia and in Hungary, and this was also reported in Again just a banner year for tumbleweed research. Now, I'm not sure where we are with any of these different approaches anyway. I mean, that's not too long ago. It seems feasible that there still could be some research going on there. Um uh, maybe it's a situation where the research did fizzle out, or maybe there's just a lot of contemplation that has to go into the massive introduction of another invasive species or some sort of other biological control to try and take care of your existing problem, because you you know, you don't want to overflow the tub anymore than it's already overflowing. You know. I was just trying to remember which previous episode we talked about some of the um controversies of using you know, different species for bio control methods of of existing invasive species. Uh and Uh, the one that came to mind that looks at least the time we talked about it like it was going pretty well was on Christmas Island, where the you know, the the big native crab populations are. Wait, where those crab abs originally from somewhere else as well. I don't recall anyway, the crab populations on Christmas Island, the glorious flows the ocean, the tide of crabs. They were being threatened by these ant populations there that were, you know, squirting formic acid into the crabs joints and and killing them. I think there were the the yellow crazy ants, right, Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, so the yellow crazy ants. Uh. There were some conservationists who had developed a plan to help try to control populations of the yellow crazy ants by deploying a predator, a predatory micro wasp that would that would cut back on the ant colonies there. Uh, and at least last time we read about that, it seemed like that was going well so far and uh, and had not had any any dangerous spillover. But yeah, you always wonder, like you don't you know, first order of businesses do no harm. And uh, it's always it's always a little risky when you say, well, let's introduce a different thing and and just hope that it only has this targeted effect that we wanted to. Yeah, I mean time was when human beings thought they could fix a problem by introducing a new invasive species, they would just do it and and that would and and a lot of times that would end up resulting in a new problem, a new invasive species. So it's it's good that, uh, we're being more thoughtful about this because ultimately you're dealing with a very complex ecosystem in any case. Um, and it's it's difficult to figure out exactly what the ramifications of introducing something new or going to be or introducing another new thing into it. Oh, but I just recalled. I had been trying to remember what was the example we talked about in that episode of of a a bio control species that had been introduced and then really backfired and I couldn't call it to mind, but I just did. It was the cane toads in Australia that were brought in, I think to control b the old populations that were threatening agriculture. But then the cane toads became a became a huge problem in their own right. Yeah, yeah, there, yeah there. There's so many different accounts one can turn to where we can move with our our cautionary tales in introducing new species to try and fix the problem. Uh And and then you know, another aspect of all of this too is that this is the things changed, the environments shift. UM. For instance, I was looking at a University of California riverside study from UM and then this was making the case that the quote unquote monster tumbleweed species salth solar or ryani was once thought to be actually going extinct, but it has since gained ground as it apparently remains green into late summer and has been increasingly been able to take full advantage of rains during that time period. Uh So it's footprint has been expanding in recent years. And this is one that grows up to six ft tall, so it is a massive tumbleweed. But just just I guess a footnote in the you know, in the lesson that you know you're you can try and solve one particular problem in at a certain period of time. But but what is the situation gonna look like, uh, you know, say ten years down the road, especially when we're looking at at at climate change and um and and other factors having an impact on the natural environment. But but then again, maybe maybe I'm wrong. And like, as we're recording this, somewhere on the roads in New Mexico, there is a massive snowplow with an enormous um grinder on the front of it. And in the back of that snowplow there are a whole bunch of mites and viruses and fun guy, and it's just making a bee line for the tumbleweed. Uh nation. So I don't know, sorry, I'm thinking now about the six foot tall tumbleweed. Okay, so I'm imagining somebody trying to like get that with a pitchfork. How heavy does that get? I know, the tumbleweeds are typically very low density, right because they need to be able to be blown by the wind. But I don't know, once you're six ft wide. You also have a lot of surface area to catch the winds, so you could probably be pretty heavy and still get blown around. Like how hard does it get? We can? Can they just get bigger and bigger and bigger? I mean they are mostly air. But that being said, I if I had to choose between hitting a four ft diameter tumbleweed with my rental car or or hitting a six foot diameter tumbleweed with my rental car, I'm definitely going to sort of towards the four ft uh diameter tumbleweed. That being said, again, if you're driving and the tumbleweeds come out, you don't swerve, That's where the problems really start. I suppose I'm imagining runaway tumbleweed evolution where they you know, tin foot tumbleweed, thirty foot tumbleweed, hundred foot tumbleweed, and eventually the planet is ruled by gargantuan tumbleweeds. It creates their own culture, you know. Coming back to um, you know cinematic uses of tumbleweed that we touched on earlier on UH, it does seem that that it's the symbol the the iconic scene is that lone tumbleweed making its way across the screen. Um, I don't think I've ever seen, or I don't remember ever seeing a cinematic treatment where it is like a whole herd of tumbleweeds. But that is the more impressive site, and in a way, it would seem to drive home the desolation. Not only is this place so desolate, um, that one tumbleweed is coming by, it is just taken over all life is tumbleweed here. I bet you could make a really good sentient tumbleweeds horror movie that. Yeah, well, we we were discussing this a little bit um off Mike the other day. I wonder to what extent, or any extent, the Critters franchise has any connection to Tumbleweeds. I mean, those are films that originate out of Texas. Uh, the first one was set in Texas. I believe I forgot that, so I couldn't find anything just offhand. I didn't go deep and start listening to directors, commentaries or anything. But uh, you know those those creatures, the crates, they're they're kind of like a little tumbleweeds and they rolled together, they joined together into big tumbling pods. Um. They're kind of like creature and they're invasive other from another planet. I put it out to you the listener, have you directed a Critters movie? So right in and let us know what you think about the comparison between a crit and a tumbleweed? Are you Leonardo DiCaprio, Yeah, you know was in Critters to The Critters franchise has as a lot of talent, and if you start really looking at some of the names involved, especially on the acting end of the spectrum, Uh, it's it's it's star studded. It's just the one where they just like go to a buffet restaurant. Isn't there one where they do that? I don't know, Um, the Critters movies are. It's one of those ranchises where I don't think I've I've ever sat down and just watched a full Critters movie. It's just they would come on TV a lot back in the day, and so when Critters was on, you just watched some Critters and I'm not sure you know at what point I was jumping in and out of the series. The other day you pointed out that there's one Critters movie where they go to space, which is a little underwhelming because the Critters are from space. There aliens yeah, but it's like it makes sense for when Jason goes to space, that's weird. You lepre cond in space. Okay, that's weird. But now this is like aliens in space. Well, um yeah, maybe it's a it's a it's a little odd, but it's where you gotta go. It's like they went. They went to Critters one, Critters too, Critters three, they go to l A, Critters four, they go into space. I don't know where they go after that. I think there was a TV series recently. Well I think they go on the Odyssey. Then, right, it's they're trying to return home to it Thaca maybe. So all right, we're gonna go ahead and call it there. Uh, this is gonna be the end of our two episode series on tumble Weeds. But again, we'd love to hear from everyone out there, especially those of you who live in tumbleweed Country, which you know, technically if you look at a map includes uh, you know most people in the United States. Uh. But at any rate, we'd love to hear your your your tidbits in your your hear of your experience with the mighty tumbleweed, whether it becoming actually like a camel or hiding under the card like a goat. In the meantime, if you like to listen to other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, well, you can listen to us in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We have core episodes in there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday's we do listener mail, On Wednesday we do a short form art of act or monster fact episode. And on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. That's the time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a strange film. Um. We have a number of different web presences, but if you you know, you look us up on the I Heart Radio page, or you just go to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com um, or if you just go to uh, I think the Instagram page, um, any of the others, there's often gonna be a link there for merchandise if you want to check that out. That's just kind of a fun way to celebrate the brand. If you want a shirt or a like a mouse pad or a throw pillow with our logo on it or some other various designs, go check that out. We're we're gonna see about possibly adding some more designs this year, so also, yeah, right into us and let us know if there's any kind of stuff to blow your mind merch that you think should exist. Likewise, I don't know. If there's any merch from our show that you think should not exist, let us know and we'll make sure not to create that. Should we create designer tumble weeds, which we we send to you by windmail. Obviously not huge things. As always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest topic for the future, just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.