marine ecology

Can whales help us understand aliens? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice take a journey to understand the language of whales with marine biologist, Dr. Ellen Garland, and marine ecologist, Dr. Michelle Fournet.

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Thanks to our Patrons blufor, Timothy Dalby, Mick Mowchenko, Bobby Penney, Jason, Brian Wright, human_h, Michael Hewitt, Zach Hicks, and Hschrull1 for supporting us this week.

Photo Credit: Mother_and_baby_sperm_whale.jpg: Gabriel Barathieuderivative work: Tomer T, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Hagfish: these floppy hot dogs of the deep sea deserve our undying respect. Tim Winegard is a professional hagfishologist (YES IT'S A WORD) at Chapman University, and he dishes on the world's slimiest treasures. Prepare to hear about swift escapes, spellbinding clots of slime, patchy backstories, aphrodisiacs, outlasting extinction events, why you don't always need a spine, eating your way out of a dead whale, and -- like a slippery messiah -- turning water to slime. Also Alie confronts her fear of m*cus.

Comparative Biomaterials Lab at Chapman University: https://sites.chapman.edu/fudge/

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This week's donation went to the Wildlife Research Station: https://www.algonquinwrs.ca

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Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris

Theme song by Nick Thorburn

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