0:00

All in a hot and copper sky. The

0:02

bloody sun at noon, right

0:04

up above the mast, did stand no

0:07

bigger than the moon. Day

0:09

after day, day after day, we

0:11

stuck nor breath nor motion. As

0:14

idle is a painted ship upon

0:16

a painted ocean. Water

0:18

water everywhere, and all the

0:21

boards did shrink water,

0:23

water everywhere, nor any

0:25

drop to drink,

0:29

A speck, a mist, a shape.

0:31

I whisked, and still it neared

0:34

and neared, as if it dodged

0:36

a water sprite. It plunged,

0:38

and tacked, and veered, with

0:40

throats unslaked, with black

0:43

lips baked. We could not laugh

0:45

nor wail through uttered

0:47

drought. All dumb we stood. I

0:50

bit my arm, I sucked the blood

0:52

and cried A sail, a

0:54

sail with throats

0:57

unslaked, with black lips baked

0:59

agape. They heard me call gram

1:01

Mercy. They for joy did grin,

1:04

and all at once their breath drew in

1:06

as they were drinking. All. Welcome

1:16

to stuff to blow your mind from How

1:18

Stuff Works dot com.

1:25

Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name

1:28

is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick and Olst

1:30

Coleridge invading your ears. That's

1:32

right from his poem

1:35

the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Uh.

1:37

In the first chunk there, we're

1:39

we're getting the famous lines about

1:42

about being thirsty at sea, having no

1:44

fresh water to drink, the ironic

1:47

situation of finding yourself stranded

1:50

and inst all this water and yet none of it

1:52

is sufficient for for human consumption.

1:55

And then in the second section, the

1:57

sailors are so thirsty that they turn

2:00

to drinking their own blood h

2:02

to to satisfy their thirst.

2:04

Now, this is a horror

2:07

movie of the Romantic period. Yeah,

2:09

it has everything. It has ghosts, it has an albatross,

2:13

it has c madness. Why

2:15

is this classified as Romantic literature?

2:18

I need to go back to my English literature education

2:20

and understand what I think.

2:22

It's about the spontaneous outpouring of

2:24

overpowering feelings, right, I

2:27

think so. But it's just about people going crazy

2:29

at see. Like one of my favorite lines

2:32

is is as follows, I took

2:34

the oars. The pilot's boy, who now doth

2:36

crazy go, laughed loud and long,

2:38

and all the while his eyes went to and

2:40

fro ha ha quoth eeful plane.

2:43

I see the devil knows how to row. That's

2:45

great. It has a great tell offline

2:47

too. Uh So it starts. I don't

2:49

know if you remember the framing of the Rhyme of

2:51

the Ancient Mariner. Most of the poem

2:54

is this crazy old mariner telling the story

2:56

about how, you know, he killed an albatross and

2:58

brought a curse upon his ship up and they saw death

3:01

and all this. But the framing

3:03

narrative is that there's this dude on his way

3:05

to a wedding and the crazy old

3:07

sailor just grabs him and

3:09

starts telling his story. And as the

3:11

poem goes on, the narrator gets totally

3:14

horrified and engrossed in the old man's

3:16

tail. But at first the narrator just

3:18

yells, unhand me, graybeard,

3:20

loon. I

3:23

often think of that when somebody is like bidding

3:25

for my attention at work and I don't have time

3:27

to pay attention to them. Now. One thing that's

3:30

great about the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, in addition

3:32

to how fantastic of a poem it it is,

3:34

is it's got really great old school illustrations,

3:37

like this Gustave dore A graving.

3:39

We've got here of it, where everybody's

3:42

huddled in fear as they're watching the albatross

3:44

perching on the deck. Oh. Yeah, the his

3:47

his artwork always goes great with a kind of dark

3:49

story, right, I mean his his his illustrations

3:52

of the divine comedy, various biblical

3:55

h stories that he illustrated. There's

3:57

a there's a darkness to those woodcuts.

3:59

Yeah. Now, the line that often

4:01

gets quoted from the Ryme and the ancient

4:03

Mariner water water everywhere, I think slightly

4:05

misquoted as and not a drop to drink.

4:08

Uh, of course, signals the fact that

4:11

you often, as a sailor, be stuck

4:13

out in the ocean, and you might be very,

4:15

very thirsty, and you're surrounded by

4:17

water, but the water is

4:19

not going to help you with your thirst. That's

4:22

right. This is this is one of the most

4:24

important survival facts

4:27

out there, is that if you were stranded

4:29

at sea, upon a desert island,

4:32

upon a deserted ship, you name it, uh,

4:34

do not drink the salt water. Every

4:36

survival handbook out there will tell you the same,

4:39

no matter how how tantalizing

4:41

it may seem, no matter how how logical

4:43

the solution might appear, you

4:45

should not drink the salt water. Because you're

4:48

gonna You're gonna lose that race, because

4:50

it is going to catch up with you. Yes, you,

4:52

you are going to lose the chemical race against

4:55

the solvent wait, the salute

4:57

the salt anyway, against this solution

5:00

of in a c L in H two

5:02

O. And I also wanted to think

5:04

about how I think it's fascinating

5:07

to make just a chemical compound

5:09

such a grim apocalyptic

5:11

figure in a poem like

5:14

as a grim apocalyptic tale about death

5:16

by sea water. I think the rhyme of the ancient mariner

5:19

is pretty much the best, but I

5:21

often think about what sorts of chemistry is

5:23

could figure into modern apocalyptic

5:25

sci fi, and I think salt would be

5:27

a really great one. So, Robert,

5:29

do you want to hear my pitch for the sci

5:32

fi version of the saltwater Apocalypse?

5:34

Sure, though, I you're gonna you have quite

5:36

a challenge here in capturing the same cadence

5:38

you know. Well, no, it's I can't

5:41

do the romantic poetry, but I'll try

5:43

to do the scenario. So the fact

5:45

is, the Earth's oceans were not always

5:48

as salty as they are now, because salt

5:50

is not intrinsic to the ocean

5:52

water. I don't know. Sometimes you

5:54

think about, well, most of the water on the

5:56

Earth is in the oceans. The

5:59

salt water therefore, or vastly out numbers

6:01

the the amount of freshwater out there, and out

6:03

numbers is the right word, because it's not enumerated.

6:05

But there's way more salt water than there is fresh

6:08

water. The vast majority of water is saltwater.

6:10

Therefore, it would seem rational to

6:13

to guess that this is the natural

6:16

state of water. No, it's not. Freshwater

6:18

is the natural state of water. The

6:20

ocean's got salty,

6:22

and they got salty from billions

6:25

of years of rinsing the rocks.

6:28

See Earth's crust is about two point eight

6:30

percent sodium, the most common compound

6:33

in rock salt being in a cl or

6:35

sodium chloride. This is the same as

6:37

common table salt. It's what you'd put on your food,

6:40

and as slightly acidic rainwater

6:43

and freshwater runoff rinses

6:45

and dissolves the rocks of Planet

6:47

Earth over long periods of time. It

6:49

dissolves little bits of that sodium

6:52

chloride and carries all of

6:54

that sodium downstream and eventually

6:56

into the ocean, and then this salt

6:59

accumulates the oceans. Because the sun

7:01

heats the ocean water causes it to

7:03

evaporate, it forms clouds,

7:05

and those clouds eventually rain the water

7:07

back down on the land, but the salt pretty much

7:09

stays where it is now.

7:12

Fortunately, there are natural processes

7:14

known as salt sinks, and these help remove

7:16

salt from the ocean and deposit it back

7:18

on land or in the crust. And for this

7:20

reason, the salt content of the ocean seems

7:23

fairly stable for now. But what if

7:25

in the future the oceans became

7:27

more like the fatally salty dead

7:29

sea, where if you've ever seen what people

7:32

look like when they swim in the dead sea, they bob

7:34

like a bob blur like you just totally float

7:36

on the surface because of the high

7:38

salinity of the water. But also what you'll

7:41

notice is you don't see any fish or

7:43

any seaweed or anything. No macroscopic

7:46

organisms can live in water that's salty,

7:48

So we could have a salt apocalypse.

7:50

They caught the dead sea for a reason. Yeah,

7:52

what if the whole sea was the dead Sea?

7:55

I like it. I like it. You can eat that. It can even be

7:57

the title dead sea. And then

8:00

holand and then whatever sci fi year you

8:02

want to go with, it's like dead sea the

8:04

saltan ng. Yeah,

8:07

alright, I like that. I like that. I

8:09

guess we should talk a little bit about just how much

8:12

salt is in the ocean currently.

8:14

Uh just the what are the current sea salt

8:17

levels to the ocean About a hundred

8:19

pounds, right, Well a little bit

8:21

more than that. Uh So, seawater

8:25

is saltwater to the tune of three

8:27

point five average

8:30

salinity, So that's thirty five parts

8:32

per thousand and there.

8:35

The crazy part here is that there's so much salt

8:37

in Earth's oceans that supposedly, if

8:39

you were to remove it all and spread it evenly

8:41

across the surface, you'd have a forty

8:43

story layer of salt. Now,

8:46

it should be fairly obvious that

8:48

drinking salt water is not a good idea

8:50

when you're thirsty. But there's

8:53

a reason we keep returning to this idea

8:55

in our fiction, right because

8:57

in much of human history, there are lots

8:59

of areas where you could get stuck out on

9:02

the ocean without fresh

9:04

water. I mean, we love those type of stories, right, I

9:06

mean, the there're stories of of of man

9:08

versus nature, a human being trying

9:10

to survive and again, like I accluded

9:13

to earlier, there is something deeply ironic

9:15

about being surrounded by water and

9:17

not being able to drink any of it. What's that Simpsons

9:20

episode where Homer starts drinking the

9:22

salt water? Oh yeah, that's a boy Scouts

9:24

in the hood where he misquotes the

9:26

poem and says, water water everywhere, so let's

9:29

all have a drink, and starts drinking

9:31

palm full and palm after palm full

9:33

of salt water until they just pull him

9:35

away from the edge of the life raft. Um.

9:39

You know. It shows up other places as well, in

9:41

in the Song of Ice and Fire saga, George

9:44

r and Martin's Iron Islanders, the sort

9:46

of love crafty and vikings of

9:48

the series, the ones that everybody's

9:51

always saying, give us more chapters with them,

9:53

that's who I want to spend my time with. Well,

9:55

yeah, I ended up feeling that way. I ended up

9:57

feeling that way where real TV series. I was like, Hey,

9:59

there's all sorts of stuff you could be doing with the Iron Islanders.

10:02

They're kind of cool. Oh sorry, I said that.

10:04

Ironically, I feel like most people are just

10:06

kind of like paging through the Iron Islands chapters

10:08

like, come on, give me back to the other character. I feel like

10:10

maybe I did at one point, but they

10:13

reached a point in the Iron Islanders

10:16

narrative where I got really invested in it. Well,

10:18

they do have a really cool religion that has

10:20

to do with an underwater god who has a

10:22

major salt component. Yeah. Yeah,

10:24

and then the whole drowned god

10:27

that that pops up in their religion. Uh,

10:29

they have these priests, they have these ritualized

10:32

drownings. It's sometimes a little vague, like

10:34

to what extent it's just like a violent

10:36

Viking baptism in the sea, or if there's

10:39

some sort of supernatural

10:41

element going on as well. But they drink seawater.

10:44

They do drink seawater. I mean, you're gonna drink

10:46

it as the priest is attempting

10:48

to drown you. But then also it said that their

10:50

priests drinks seawater to quote to

10:52

strengthen their faith. But you should

10:54

not drink seawater to strengthen your

10:56

body. So the

11:00

thing is, yeah, humans need a lot of

11:02

water, certainly, but we

11:04

don't need a lot of salt. We

11:06

can consume small amounts of salt, certainly. We do

11:09

it all the time. Uh, we love

11:11

salty foods and also we

11:13

need salt to maintain our body chemistry.

11:15

So it's it's not a situation where it's

11:17

just a completely alien component. It's part

11:19

of who we are. But we don't need that

11:22

much, but we absolutely do need some.

11:24

Like at any given time, the average

11:27

human body contains I read this today,

11:29

about two hundred and fifty grams

11:31

of sodium. That's

11:33

about eight point eight ounces. Your

11:35

standard cylinder container of Morton

11:38

table salt, you know, the you know the can as salt,

11:40

the big one. This is the one that larger

11:43

than a soda can. Well, it's

11:45

the twenty six ounces can. Yeah, exactly.

11:47

Uh, that container of Morton table salt

11:50

twenty six ounces. So if you've got eight point

11:52

eight ounces in the average human body, depending

11:55

on your body size, more or less, about one third

11:57

of those containers is inside you right

11:59

now, that seems like a lot of salt,

12:01

right, Like, if you put that much salt

12:04

on a meal, the meal would be, I

12:06

dare say, too salty. I think most people

12:08

would agree with that. Yes, I want to tell a

12:10

story that a friend of mine once told me. So,

12:13

Uh, my friend, she she's very

12:15

smart outdoors person. She does a lot of hiking,

12:17

and she knows how to handle herself

12:19

in the wilderness. And she was out hiking

12:22

one time on a trail in Zion

12:24

National Park and it was out in the heat.

12:26

And of course, you know when you're hiking out in the

12:29

heat and the desert on the rocks, you know

12:31

you need to take plenty of water with you and to

12:33

keep drinking in order to keep yourself hydrated.

12:36

And under that desert sun, dehydration

12:38

and overheating can really sneak up on you.

12:40

So the smart thing to do is not wait

12:43

until you're super thirsty to drink some

12:45

water, but keep sipping. Be very conscientious

12:47

about keeping yourself cool, keeping water

12:49

coming in. And this this friend

12:51

of mine, as I said, she knows how, she knows what to

12:54

do in the outside. So she was drinking

12:56

plenty of water out on the

12:58

rocks, but she noticed that she started

13:00

to feel terrible. She felt

13:02

nausea, as she had a headache, weakness,

13:05

and I think she said she was kind of confused

13:07

and foggy, and normally

13:09

in that situation you'd think, Okay, I'm

13:11

out in the desert, I'm probably getting dehydrated.

13:14

I need to rest and drink more water.

13:17

But she kept drinking water and the symptoms

13:19

didn't get any better, so she didn't

13:22

know what was going on. They got concerned and

13:24

she came back down off the trail and ended up

13:26

at a shuttle station where they called for emergency

13:28

services. So what's going on? Right?

13:31

It seems like the symptoms of dehydration

13:33

almost but she had been drinking so much

13:35

water it didn't really make any sense. So

13:38

the paramedics arrived, they got the lay

13:40

of the situation. They and what they eventually

13:42

did was they got her to eat some pretzels.

13:46

So the problem wasn't a lack of water,

13:49

It was too much water deluding

13:51

the salt content of her blood plasma,

13:54

and what she needed to bounce back were some

13:57

salty snacks. All right, So that sounds

13:59

like what everyone needs to bring with

14:01

them on a on a hike from now and to just make sure you do

14:03

have some pretzels tucked away for emergency use.

14:06

I wonder if you need a rapid infusion of

14:08

salt, like, what is the best thing to eat?

14:10

I imagine the situation is fairly rare

14:12

in America. Yeah, like, yeah, we

14:14

do love our salt. Yeah, well, I

14:17

I love salty foods too, but like, what

14:19

is it like Doritos? Or should you take a jar

14:21

of pickles or a stick of pepperoni? But

14:24

see, other people might see you taking

14:26

that bag of Doritos or jar

14:28

of pickles, would be on the hike, and they're gonna, they're

14:31

gonna they might judge you for your your your choice

14:33

in trail food. I guess you just need like a salty

14:35

trail mix or packets

14:37

of soy sauce, which will come back

14:39

to in a bit. Okay, Yeah, Well, I wonder

14:42

if some people, in addition to their

14:44

hydration when they're like running and exercising,

14:47

they squirt those little electrolyte gel

14:49

things, right, and those have some amount of salt

14:51

content to help keep you balanced. Right. Yeah?

14:53

Yeah, anyway, gross side note

14:56

of the story she told me about the shuttle station.

14:59

Uh, my friend, she felt so bad

15:01

after she got down there that she vomited out

15:03

on the ground somewhere. And then later, while she

15:05

was waiting around, she got to watch a wild

15:07

fox wander over and start eating it. Oh

15:09

well, that's kind of beautiful, really. Cycle, yeah,

15:12

the cycle of whatever her life. She ate and then vomited

15:15

and then something else got to you. Yeah, I mean she was. She

15:17

was behaving much like certain buzzards

15:19

do when threatened. You know, a vomit

15:22

which a vomiting display that is either meant

15:24

to scare off a

15:26

predator or to distract it with

15:28

a bribe. Yeah, here you can have this. Yeah,

15:31

have these pretzels, and you know in gatorade.

15:33

So we totally need sodium

15:35

to keep our bodies functioning right. If you don't have

15:37

enough sodium in the body, this is called hyponotremia,

15:40

and you can experience some really messed up symptoms.

15:43

And in addition to what you heard about in that story,

15:45

nausea, vomiting, headache, fatigue,

15:47

and all that, you can on the far

15:49

end of problems, if he gets bad enough, you can end

15:51

up with seizures in coma.

15:54

So I mentioned that sodium is an electrolyte,

15:56

that that's one of the reasons that it's necessary

15:59

in the body and in a electro light is a substance

16:01

that tends to dissolve in a solution

16:03

and produce ions, or charged particles.

16:06

The presence of these charged particles makes

16:09

the solution a better conductor of electricity.

16:11

For example, salt water is a much

16:13

better conductor of electricity than fresh

16:16

water. And if you want proof of this, you can look up videos

16:18

of salt water circuits. Have you ever

16:20

seen one of these? Yeah, it's kind

16:22

of interesting. I wouldn't advise you to try

16:25

this on your own at home unless you really

16:27

know what you're doing. Electricity and water can be

16:29

a dangerous combination. But the basic

16:31

setup is you've got a circuit, uh

16:34

and it's connected to a battery and to

16:36

a light bulb, and at one point on your

16:38

circuit you have open wire ends that

16:40

are stuck down into a jar of water. So the

16:42

electricity would need to go through the water

16:44

to complete the circuit. And if

16:46

you've just got regular tap water, especially if

16:48

you've got something like distilled water, the

16:51

bulb is not going to light up. It can't generate

16:54

enough current to really complete the circuit.

16:57

But if you stir some salt into the water,

16:59

suddenly the boat the bulb will come to life.

17:01

And there's some kind of rough equivalence to that

17:04

within within the body, Like the body

17:06

is an electrochemical machine, and one

17:08

of the ways it regulates itself and does

17:10

its stuff is through electrochemical signaling

17:13

and electrochemical exchange. So

17:16

your body cells have membranes surrounding

17:18

them, and these membranes are electrically

17:20

permeable. They can allow ions to

17:22

pass through to balance electrical

17:25

charge on the sides of the membrane, and

17:27

by exchanging potassium ions and

17:29

sodium ions across the cell membrane,

17:31

the cells can for example, direct an

17:33

electrical impulse, which means

17:36

a chain of nerve cells can pass a message

17:38

from one part of the body to another. But

17:40

you can also think of sodium and potassium

17:42

as one of the ways that stuff gets

17:44

into and out of a cell. This

17:46

electrolyte exchange across the cell membrane

17:49

can be used, for example, to exchange

17:51

glucose to get glucose into the cell,

17:54

and the body also uses sodium to maintain

17:56

overall fluid balance and regulate

17:58

blood pressure. So you need sodium. It's

18:00

an important part of everything your body needs

18:02

to do to survive. Without it, you would not be

18:04

able to live. But like

18:07

we were saying, you don't need a lot of

18:09

it. It's interesting, isn't it. How

18:12

you end up revisiting the body

18:14

as this kind of chemical equation. But

18:16

for the most part, it's a self regulating

18:18

chemical chemical equation, provided

18:21

that you have you have your your your

18:23

typical resources around you. Yeah,

18:25

unless there's something really wrong with your inputs.

18:28

Generally, if the body is healthy, it's going

18:31

to be balancing the sides of this equation

18:33

on its own, and so the body usually

18:35

tries to keep the sodium content very stable

18:37

between about a hundred and thirty five and a hundred

18:40

and forty five milli equivalence of sodium

18:43

per liter of water in your body. And mill mill

18:45

equivalence is a measure and chemistry often

18:47

used to measure the amount of solute and a solution.

18:50

In this case, it's sodium and water and

18:52

there are one thousand milli equivalents and an

18:54

equivalent. So notice that's a pretty tight

18:56

range for normal sodium levels right

18:58

on to one forty five mill equivalents.

19:01

Means that the body needs to be constantly managing

19:03

its retention and excretion of sodium

19:06

to keep those levels in the optimal functioning

19:09

range. But having too much

19:11

salt is I would guess a more common

19:13

problem than having too little, and certainly

19:16

just as potentially harmful, and

19:18

drinking seawater puts you at immediate

19:20

risk for over salting. Your body

19:23

and your cells can basically start to get

19:25

like salted slugs. It's not

19:27

good. It's not good. It's really it's

19:29

really kind of diabolical. The way it plays

19:31

out, it seems like some sort of the

19:33

punishment from the inferno.

19:36

So basically what happens is humans were

19:38

eating and drinking a lot to dilute our

19:40

salt intake. So you're fine

19:42

normally, if you have a salty meal, it's

19:44

not going to kill you immediately because you

19:46

can drink water to make up for it. Your your

19:49

kidneys will help you excrete all that salt

19:51

over a period of time. There's a reason you

19:53

have that super gulp of sugary

19:56

soda water, right right, But

19:59

yeah, if we consume to much salt, the body

20:01

has to dump it. But that that body has to get rid

20:03

of that salt the only way it knows how through

20:05

urine evacuation mode exactly.

20:07

But the human kidneys can only make

20:10

urine that is less salty than salt water,

20:13

so it cannot it can't get rid

20:15

of it as fast as it's coming in. To

20:17

get rid of all that excess salt from saltwater,

20:19

you have to urinate more water than

20:21

you drink and this is the path to do you

20:24

die of dehydration, becoming

20:26

thirstier and thirstier with every gulp.

20:29

It's one of those faiths that is not only cruel

20:31

but ironic. All Right, we're gonna

20:33

take a quick break and when we come back,

20:35

we're gonna get more into this situation.

20:38

What happens when we do drink

20:40

saltwater? And another

20:42

outline question, does it lead to madness? Does

20:44

it lead to sea madness?

20:47

Than? All

20:49

right, we're back. So, Robert, we've talked about

20:51

how the body needs sodium to survive, but

20:54

if you have too much of it, it's going

20:56

to be a big problem for you. And if

20:58

you start drinking seawall or when you're

21:00

thirsty, it will not cure your thirst,

21:02

but will take you down a bad road. That's

21:05

right, the road to doom. So

21:07

the body tries to compensate for fluid

21:09

loss by increasing the heart rate and constricting

21:12

blood vessels to maintain blood pressure

21:15

and flow to vital organs. So

21:17

you're you're also most likely to feel nauseous,

21:19

weakness and even a sense of delirium.

21:22

But if you become more dehydrated, the coping mechanism

21:25

fails. If you still don't drink any water to reverse

21:27

the effects of the excess sodium. The

21:29

brain and other organs receive less blood,

21:32

leading to coma, organ failure and eventually

21:34

death. Right. So, as we've said several

21:36

times, now, if you're thirsty out on the

21:39

ocean, don't drink the sea water. That's

21:41

right. And the delirium

21:44

condition there that that underlies

21:46

the whole idea of sea madness. Right,

21:48

you could become delirious from drinking the

21:50

seawater. We see a good bit of that portrayed,

21:53

I think in the rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, even though

21:55

well I don't know if it ever establishes in the poem

21:57

a cause and effect saying like, oh,

21:59

somebody he drank the seawater and then they went mad.

22:02

I can't remember. Is that in there? At

22:04

least you get that vibe. I mean, it could be that this,

22:07

this character, the old man from the sea,

22:09

is just making up this whole story. He could be

22:11

may he just drank seawater right just

22:13

right out of the bay and walked up to this guy

22:15

on his way to the wedding. There's really no uh,

22:18

no epic survival story to to

22:21

relate. Now, if this guy was going to

22:23

an ancient Greek wedding. It's possible he

22:26

may have been on his way to drink some seawater

22:28

himself, right, yeah, this so this

22:30

is interesting. I I was not aware

22:32

of the medicinal consumption of seawater

22:35

prior to researching this episode, but I

22:37

ended up running across it and it's it's fascinating.

22:40

So we mentioned the fictional Iron Islanders

22:42

earlier, a seagoing people

22:45

in George R. Martin's book who who

22:47

honored the sea and believe their god lives

22:49

under the sea. And uh, this

22:51

of course lines up with a number of different traditions

22:55

of ocean going people, particularly the

22:57

ancient Greeks, who were a

22:59

sea faring culture, and they placed a lot

23:01

of emphasis on the power of the ocean

23:05

and the if you anger Poseidon, it could

23:07

really come back to bite you. Oh yeah. And of

23:09

course, really most of the Greek gods were

23:11

terrible entities to even attract

23:14

the attention of much less tick

23:16

off. But Poseidon does

23:18

fit feature into a number of these tales. I mean,

23:20

in that what happened to Odysseus he made Poseidon

23:23

that yeah, he's he's kind of the central

23:25

antagonist of that one, isn't it. But the

23:27

Greeks they sometimes added seawater to wine

23:30

to to adjust the flavoring.

23:32

Um Kato the elder reportedly served

23:35

it to his slaves, a

23:37

mixture of wine and seawater to keep them energized.

23:39

That doesn't sound like an energy drink, well,

23:43

or does it? Like the electrolytes. I guess you know,

23:45

it's kind of like ancient cruel

23:47

gatorade. I guess all energy drinks

23:49

are cruel, but that that is crueler than usual.

23:52

Yeah. Now, during the eighteenth century,

23:54

physicians took inspiration from the works

23:56

of Hippocrates and Celsus

23:58

and they revived the pract this. Uh

24:00

now, one of the classical approach was to sweeten

24:03

your saltwater, your sweeten your seawater

24:05

with honey. The British like to

24:07

dilute it with milk. This sounds gross

24:09

and just a big glass of salty

24:11

milk to uh, you know, to

24:13

to enhance your constitution. I guess

24:15

I'm trying to imagine how salty it was

24:18

like. As we've said that they're they're electrolytes

24:20

in some sports drinks, So is this going

24:22

to end up being about as salty as

24:24

gatorade or is it going to be like a salty

24:27

salty drink. Well, I think we find one

24:29

possible answer in an excellent two

24:31

thousand thirteen Atlantic article by

24:33

Addie Brown titled the historic Healing

24:36

Power of the Beach. I'll include

24:38

a link to this article on the Landing page for this episode

24:40

of Stuff to Put Your Mind dot Com, because she gets into

24:43

not only the idea of drinking saltwater,

24:45

but just this idea of the beach as a

24:47

place where one might go to heal

24:50

oneself, which is which

24:52

is an interesting topic onto itself and one that

24:54

I find myself believing

24:56

in and yet yet unsure

24:58

of the scientific you know, underlying

25:02

truth to it. Well, it seems like part of a broader

25:04

phenomenon, especially in the eighteenth century.

25:06

I can think of of people who have a disease

25:09

being prescribed by their doctors, not to like

25:11

take a drug or I mean, though that

25:13

did happen too, but to go to a specific

25:15

climate. I think about, you know,

25:17

keats being prescribed you need

25:19

to go to like a Mediterranean climate

25:21

to get well or something. Yeah. But as

25:24

she points out in the article, there was a time when hanging

25:26

out of the beach that's what peasants did. It's

25:28

only as this, uh, this resurgence

25:30

of the healing power of the beach becomes

25:32

a thing that you see the higher

25:34

classes heading out there as well. Now.

25:38

In this article though, she points out that

25:40

in seventeen fifty Dr Richard

25:42

Russell published a treatise titled A

25:45

Dissertation on the Use of Seawater

25:47

in the Diseases of the Glands, particularly

25:49

the scurvy, jaundice, King's

25:51

Evil, leprosy and the glandular

25:54

consumption. Okay,

25:56

so the King's Evil, the King's evil.

25:59

So the King's evil was a swelling

26:01

of the lymph nodes associated with the tuberculosis.

26:03

But of course the idea was that this condition

26:06

could be cured by the touch of a

26:08

royal royal person who

26:10

was blessed by the divine right of king. We

26:12

know now that that that that cure

26:15

does not work. They're probably a great way to get syphilis.

26:18

Just looking back on the history. Wait, was

26:20

this also known as the SCROFULA Is

26:23

that I think I've read that? Yes, I believe so

26:26

so Dr Russell. He he prescribed

26:28

a lot of seawater, including to

26:30

one of his patients who who suffered from

26:33

leprosy, and he required uh this

26:35

particular patient to sprinkle himself with seawater

26:37

and quote drink a pint of seawater

26:40

every morning during nine months without

26:42

any intervals, and he reported a full

26:44

recovery. I don't believe that a

26:48

pint of seawater that is a lot

26:50

of salt. Yeah, I would

26:52

think so. I kept thinking about it during my recent

26:54

trip to the beach, like what have I? What have I followed

26:57

Dr Russell's advice and I

27:00

myself just drank a pint of this stuff

27:02

every morning just to kick off the day. Now

27:04

here's a question I wonder. I wonder if maybe

27:06

people were in some cases

27:09

not drinking enough fresh water, and

27:12

that by getting people to drink seawater

27:15

it made them thirsty,

27:17

so they would end up drinking a lot of

27:19

fresh water to make up for it, and that

27:21

that would actually increase their overall

27:24

water consumption and make them healthier.

27:26

Well. But of course then that depends on their access

27:28

to fresh water. Does it result in the

27:30

drinking more fresh water? Does it result in them drinking

27:32

more beer? I

27:35

don't know. I'd say the answers probably beer.

27:39

So if you were if you are stuck at sea

27:41

or on a deserted island or

27:43

what have you. Obviously beer would

27:46

be the better choice. But but let's say you

27:48

definitely have to drink seawater. You should

27:50

not drink seawater. But let's

27:53

say it starts looking like a good

27:55

idea, how might one go about

27:57

that? Wait a minute, didn't we say you shouldn't do it?

27:59

No matter what? Exactly all the survival

28:01

manual say do not drink seawater. And

28:03

yet you will find particular survivalist

28:06

who say, look, you shouldn't drink seawater, but

28:08

here's how you do it. Here's

28:10

how I did it and survived. All right, Well,

28:13

let's hear some salty prescriptions. Okay,

28:15

So once again, to be clear,

28:17

there are accounts, and sometimes rather disputed

28:19

accounts, of individuals surviving their

28:21

or their ordeals at sea through

28:24

the balance consumption of seawater.

28:26

Balance. So that means not just like

28:29

ladling it out and drinking it, but maybe

28:31

mixing it with consumption of freshwater

28:33

or something else. Yeah. Noteworthy

28:36

examples of this include French biologist

28:38

Alan Bombard, nor Even Norwegian adventure

28:41

thor Hira Dhrynch and sailor William

28:43

Willis. I'm gonna talk a little bit about

28:45

bombard here. He lived through

28:48

two thousand five, he went to an Oceano

28:51

graphic institute in Monte Carlo to

28:53

develop ways for people lost

28:55

in small boats to survive. This after he

28:58

and a friend survived in a boat for five

29:00

days with only a half kilogram of

29:02

butter. Of butter, what is that supposed

29:04

to say? Water butter? Just butter?

29:07

Yes, butter, That not water

29:09

butter. So what he's saying

29:11

is, you know, if if there's no fresh water

29:13

around, you're saying, drink butter. That what

29:16

we're being told here basically. But now,

29:19

during his his time in Monding Carlo, he

29:21

concluded the drinking limited

29:23

quality quantities of seawater and

29:25

fluids pressed from raw fish and

29:28

eating raw fish and plankton that

29:30

this was the way to go. Well, it'll come back

29:33

in a little bit later in this episode, but that

29:35

maybe part of the strategy employed

29:37

by some organisms that live in the ocean

29:39

exactly, but this

29:42

case, like I said, it's it's a little uncertain

29:44

exactly how that all this shakes out. He later

29:46

put it to the test and claimed that while

29:49

the raw fish and plankton tasted

29:51

like lobster, biscuit. First it

29:53

grew tiresome. Oh, it grew tiresome

29:55

on the on the lifeboat. Yeah and

29:57

uh. And then a critic comes along, and

30:00

doctor Hans Lindeman, who lived

30:02

UH ninety two through two thousand

30:04

and fifteen, he tried to follow his

30:06

advice and drink seawater to

30:08

survive on two short voyages, resulting

30:11

in dangerous swelling of his feet and

30:13

legs. And he ended up charging

30:15

bombered with cheating, saying that he

30:17

had he'd probably used secreted provisions

30:20

to survive in this test. And

30:22

uh, and and I believe he he suggested

30:25

that it was probably beer. To

30:27

come back to our mentioned

30:30

of beer earlier. Now, he's

30:32

not the only word on the whole issue

30:34

of how much seawater should you drink? According

30:37

to the paper Metabolic Effects in Rats

30:39

drinking increasing concentrations of seawater

30:42

by z Eton and R.

30:44

Yaggle, published in Comparative Biochemistry

30:47

and Physiology, Part A UH

30:50

Physiology found that

30:52

yes, drinking seawater wind dehydrated

30:54

is quote not beneficial and causes

30:57

impaired renal function. But you

30:59

put comes to shove. They recommend

31:01

the following. Oh, so they actually got some

31:03

results that might be useful to save lives.

31:06

Yeah, now these are from These are with rats. But

31:08

they say when the concentration of seawater in

31:10

the drinking water is gradually increased,

31:13

there is a gradual increase in water

31:16

uptake and corresponding urine excretion.

31:19

At fifty seawater the maximum

31:21

uptake and excretion is reached. Following

31:24

this, there is a decline and appetite water

31:26

uptake in urine secretion. So

31:28

this is this is what they say. It is suggested

31:31

that when a man is stranded at sea, it

31:33

is not advisable to drink all the fresh water

31:35

and then be compelled to drink seawater when

31:37

be hydrated. It is better to slowly

31:40

increase the seawater uptake. This will

31:42

prolong the time before seawater

31:44

needs to be drunk and result in only

31:47

minor metabolic changes. Return

31:49

to freshwater will be followed by an immediate

31:51

return to normal homeostasis. Now,

31:54

I want to come back to soy sauce for a

31:56

second, because, as it turns out, there there are,

31:59

of course other ways to acquire salt poisoning,

32:02

such as the two thousand thirteen case

32:04

reported in the Journal of Emergency Medicine

32:06

in which a nineteen year old Virginian man

32:09

drank a quart of soy sauce what

32:12

apparently on a dare, and

32:14

he he developed a hypernatremia.

32:18

So it's the opposite of the condition you were

32:20

talking earlier. This is too much salt in

32:22

the blood. Then this is super dangerous

32:24

because it essentially turns your brain into

32:26

jerky. Now, if I had

32:29

to guess, I suppose I could, I

32:31

would guess that if the body detected

32:33

that much salt going in through the

32:35

digestive system, it would just immediately

32:38

rejected through vomiting, you would think.

32:40

And yet in this case, he drank

32:43

down the the soy sauce

32:45

and then he started complaining of

32:47

of these symptoms that he was feeling

32:51

nauseous. Because in this case, he he drank

32:53

enough to go into a seizure and had

32:55

to had had to be picked up by

32:58

the ambulance taken to the emergency room. So

33:00

so what happens here is that the water ends

33:02

up moving out of the brain into the body

33:05

to equalize the salt concentration,

33:07

and this can cause the brain to shrink

33:09

into BLEI. So

33:12

at once he arrives at the emergency room, they had

33:14

to pump one point five gallons or six

33:16

liters of sugar water into a system,

33:19

and his levels normalized after five hours.

33:21

The hippocampus, however, a region of

33:23

his brain, showed signs of trauma for

33:25

several days before returning to normal. So

33:28

we've said, don't drink the sea water. Also,

33:30

don't drink the soy sauce. Don't you don't

33:32

drink the soy sauce, and certainly don't slam

33:35

the soy sauce. Not to demonize

33:37

soy sauce. Big fan of soy sauce. Now.

33:40

Interestingly enough, in the paper, authors

33:42

Carl Berg at All reports that

33:44

in ancient China, salt ingestion

33:47

was a traditional method for suicide.

33:50

This led me to a paper. Yeah,

33:53

this this the floored me as well. That

33:55

sounds like the result of like some sick brainstorming

33:58

session at a salm movie writer's

34:00

meeting where they're trying to come up with like the

34:03

most horrible way to kill somebody.

34:05

I agree, I I was. I was

34:07

a little doubtful of it, so I ended up doing a little more

34:09

research on it. This let me do a paper in jama

34:11

titled Suicide by Drinking a solution

34:13

of salt by sea Herman Barlow sounds

34:16

good, right, except it's a nineteen twelve paper,

34:18

so that it's it's you

34:20

know, not definitive. But in this the author

34:22

says, quote, salt is taken for suicidal purposes,

34:25

sometimes in a common saturated solution

34:27

made with water as the solvent, and

34:29

sometimes in the brine from salted

34:32

crowd. Poisoning by salt usually

34:34

presents a picture of high temperature and pulse

34:36

purging, vomiting and spasm

34:39

um. Yeah, I couldn't find anything else

34:41

on this. Really. I found that I found some

34:44

some information about the

34:47

nature of suicide in Chinese society,

34:49

and in the book Chinese Society,

34:51

Change, Conflict and Resistance uh

34:53

and and in this author is seeingly

34:55

an author Kleinman. They write the quote

34:57

suicide is not simply authorized in the China.

35:00

The tradition as an unnatural death.

35:02

It was to be avoided, and it was in some

35:04

text not to be mourned. Suicide

35:06

was polluted and polluting. I wasn't able

35:08

to find much more about traditional

35:11

Chinese suicide practices other than that. Yeah.

35:14

One of the types of claims I'm often the

35:16

most skeptical of is just sort of like generic

35:19

claims about cultural practices

35:21

in some culture other than the one

35:23

writing about it. Yeah, and

35:25

especially when drinking salt water

35:28

as a means of killing yourself is it

35:30

does seem nonsensical. It seems like they're much better

35:32

ways. It seems like this, this

35:34

would be the sort of thing that would want to

35:37

be driven to in a survival situation or in a

35:39

case of some sort of severe

35:41

mental instability. Yeah. But if

35:43

you are out there and you know of a more authoritative

35:45

source about this, police send it our way. This would

35:47

be interesting to know. By all means. All right,

35:50

well, we are going to take a quick breaking. When we come

35:52

back, we'll ask the question, do any

35:54

animals drink seawater? And if so, how

35:59

all we're back. So, when you

36:01

think of ocean dwelling animals, if

36:04

you're like me, you probably assumed

36:06

that they just must have some way

36:08

of drinking saltwater to hydrate

36:10

themselves. That's what seems obvious, right,

36:13

But this isn't necessarily the case,

36:15

not for all of them. I

36:17

found a good explainer in this Scientific

36:19

American article by a marine biologist,

36:22

Robert Kinney of the University

36:24

of Rhode Island about how animals

36:26

that live in the sea consume saltwater. Specifically,

36:28

he was focused on mammals, and

36:30

one of the things he pointed out is that it's

36:32

not that marine mammals are like

36:34

these salt monsters with ten percent

36:37

salt in their blood. In fact, despite

36:39

the fact that they live in this salty environment,

36:42

the salt concentration in their blood is not

36:44

very different from that of terrestrial mammals.

36:47

So they're they're insides are

36:49

a lot like our inside. So their blood

36:51

is generally about one third as salty

36:53

as sea water, which is kind of close

36:55

to what ours is. But some

36:58

sea dwelling mammals get water not

37:00

by drinking from the ocean and purging

37:02

the salt, but from their food.

37:05

This kind of goes back to Bombard's recommendation

37:07

where he said, you know, maybe you can get uh

37:10

some freshwater content by pressing

37:12

the flesh of fish or something

37:14

like that, or or of marine

37:17

plants. You've heard a million times

37:19

that the human body is, you know, however many

37:21

percent water three water or

37:23

whatever. I think the real figure is something close to

37:26

by mass. Well. Other organisms

37:28

are also largely made of water, and if

37:30

you eat them, you can get water from

37:32

them. But sub marine

37:34

organisms also actually do drink

37:37

the brine wine. So how does that

37:39

work? Well, they're basically two

37:41

different approaches. One approach is that

37:43

they act as osmotic conformers.

37:46

Okay, what does that mean? So marine plants and

37:48

invertebrates they have no mechanism to control

37:50

osmosis. So their cells are the same

37:52

salinity as their environment thirty five

37:55

for ocean dwellers, and that means saltwater

37:57

intake doesn't disrupt their physiological

37:59

equal librium. So that's plants and invertebrates

38:02

that they basically say, Okay, we're just committing

38:04

to salt life exactly. But

38:06

what about vertebrates? All right, this is where

38:08

we encounter osmotic regulators.

38:11

Most fish, as well as reptiles, birds,

38:14

and mammals control osmosis

38:16

in a variety of ways. For instance, salmon

38:18

you specialized cells on their gills called

38:21

chloride cells to cope with osmosis.

38:23

Chloride cells can excrete excess

38:26

salt, allowing a fish to take

38:28

uh in water without dehydrating.

38:31

Okay, so you can imagine that in some senses

38:33

these might work kind of like the

38:36

like the water purifying plants

38:38

that that get fresh water out

38:40

of the ocean water through some process

38:42

of reverse osmosis. They've

38:44

got a membrane and it allows

38:47

water to come through from one

38:49

side to the other, but keeps the salt

38:51

out, or maybe the way the body

38:53

works by purging salt in the other way, like

38:55

it can excrete salt through a membrane while

38:57

retaining the water content. Yeah,

39:00

I think that's a that's a good way to put it now. I

39:02

recently returned from a trip to Florida, and I was sort

39:04

of churning over a lot of this salt research

39:06

while I was down there, as I was

39:08

encountering manatees both

39:11

in the wild and uh in an aquarium

39:14

set situation, as well as some exhibits

39:16

with a number of different aquatic reptiles.

39:19

So one example was the American crocodile.

39:22

It excretes salt through the use of modified

39:25

salivary glands called lingual salt

39:27

glands in their tongues salty

39:30

tongues yea, and these allow them to tolerate

39:32

partially salty water or even full

39:34

seawater in some species. And

39:36

similarly, the green and loggerhead sea

39:39

turtles have salt glands near their eyes.

39:42

Um salt glands are also

39:44

found in sharks, raised skates, seabirds

39:46

and a few reptiles. Marine

39:48

iguanas are a great example of this. They

39:50

have nasal salt glands that dislodge

39:52

the salt through this splendid nasal blast.

39:55

Oh. I wonder if that's why sometimes you see

39:57

those marine iguanas looking so crusty

40:00

on the face. Probably so,

40:02

there are a few different I want to say. It's probably

40:05

the end of the BBC series with Attenborough

40:07

where you get to see some of these these

40:09

iguanas swimming under the water and

40:11

then coming up on the surface to just blast

40:14

that salt out of their nose. Okay,

40:16

well, how about some mammals. All right, Well

40:18

the manatee is I think that the

40:20

perfect example to look to next. So

40:23

among the Sirenian species,

40:26

you have both strict fresh

40:28

water inhabitants such as the Amazonian manatees.

40:30

These are like river manatees. Yeah, and

40:32

then you have strictly saltwater inhabitants

40:35

like the marine doo gongs. Now,

40:38

if anyone's not familiar with the doo gong, it's

40:40

essentially like a manatee. It looks like a manatee.

40:42

Uh, kind of a gray Mitchell entire man.

40:45

Yeah, except its tail is more

40:47

like that of a whale or you know, even

40:49

I guess a mermaid as opposed

40:51

to the the the West Indian

40:54

manatee, the manatee that you encounter in Florida,

40:56

has this kind of paddle tail. And

40:59

yeah, the West Indian manateee is

41:01

is really most interesting because it inhabits both

41:04

fresh and salty water and

41:06

of course the brackish waters in between.

41:09

Now, given their vulnerability, the manatee has received

41:11

quite a bit of study. According to the University

41:13

of Central Florida's Physiological

41:15

Ecology and bio bio

41:18

Energetic Slab, manatees and fresh

41:20

water seem to get a great deal

41:23

of water from the food they eat. Their

41:25

voracious herbivores, after all, consuming

41:27

around nine percent of their body weight

41:29

per day, and they weigh up to twelve

41:35

thirteen pounds or so.

41:37

They're they're large animals. Plus they

41:39

also drink a lot of fresh water while it's

41:41

there. Uh, there's

41:44

um I've heard from people who've grown up in

41:46

Florida the whole ancidote about how you

41:48

can you can and absolutely should

41:50

not, um fee give

41:53

a manateee fresh water from a hose.

41:55

Yes, actually that article I was talking

41:58

about earlier by that the marine biologist

42:00

Kenny He writes about that he said, when given

42:02

a choice of manatees and some pinnipeds,

42:05

will go to a freshwater source

42:07

to drink it, and that sometimes people

42:09

who live on salty waterways in Florida

42:12

will like put out a garden hose to

42:14

watch the manatees come over and drink from

42:16

it because they like it better than the salty or brackish

42:18

water. And of course the danger there with

42:21

with the West Indian manatee is that is

42:23

that you do not want them associating

42:25

food or fresh water with humans

42:28

because interaction between humans

42:30

and manateees, particularly interactions between

42:32

boats and manatees, this is the leading

42:34

cause of death for the species. Yeah.

42:37

Now, now that's of course when they're in freshwater.

42:40

Yeah, they can get the fresh water all around them.

42:42

In salt water, however, they seem to limit

42:44

their direct salt intake and have

42:46

been observed to cease the consumption of

42:48

sea grasses when their salt levels

42:51

get too high. So the

42:53

sea grasses I assume are saltier than

42:55

some of the other things, yes, exactly. Yeah, that

42:57

this grass is in the salty environment

42:59

and is alt here Now. One of the interesting

43:01

strategies that Kenny mentions is that he says

43:03

some seals will actually eat snow

43:06

to get fresh water. Well, I grew up

43:08

eating snow, don't. Didn't you have snow creams when

43:10

you're a child? Wait? Hold on, what is a snow

43:12

cream? How is that different from a snow cone? A

43:15

snow cream? Is you you were

43:17

allowed to go out into the snow, You get a bowl

43:19

of snow, you bring it inside, and

43:21

you put like sugar and milk on it and

43:23

you eat it. That Okay,

43:25

I have not in you

43:28

know this is real. I would I would do it as a

43:30

child up in uh Up in Newfoundland,

43:32

Canada. You get that brown slush from under

43:34

the tire and you only go for the

43:36

white stuff. You leave the brown and the yellow alone.

43:39

Uh And And I have to add I I do not

43:41

know to what extent this is still done. I

43:44

have not introduced it to my son yet,

43:47

but I do have fond memories of

43:49

doing doing this as a child. Well, I did

43:51

not expect to learn that today. Well, now,

43:53

you know, you learn something new to do with milk and

43:56

sugar every day. And

43:58

hey, and if you want to throw some salt in there. Then

44:00

you have the curative properties of that as well, you know, for

44:02

your leprosy. Right well, I think you

44:04

actually need salt if you're gonna go ahead and make

44:07

full on ice cream. Right well, that's true. Yeah,

44:09

if you're gonna go all the way, you're gonna need the salt.

44:11

So there you go. Well, and then perhaps

44:13

there are some snow cream experts out there practicing

44:16

snow cream eaters that can weigh

44:18

in on this. Now, also a

44:20

survival tactic among some seals and

44:23

sea lions is apparently too actually

44:26

get some salty water in their system and

44:28

just they just purge the heck out of it. Like

44:31

Kenny writes that measurements have found

44:33

that among seals and sea lions, their urine

44:35

can be up to two point five times

44:37

as salty as seawater. Remember

44:39

how we talked about how our urine can't get

44:42

as salty as seawater, so we can't net

44:44

purge salt, We're just gonna

44:46

accumulate it. But seals and sea

44:48

lions apparently can. They can be up to two

44:50

point five times as salty as seawater, meaning it's

44:52

seven or eight times saltier than their blood

44:55

and that is some salty urine. So, but

44:57

they have the kidneys of a creature that has evolved

44:59

to thrive in a salt water habitat.

45:02

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They think that the kidneys

45:04

have evolved to have these different types of structures,

45:06

these longer loops that allow for more

45:09

purging of water out of the concentrated

45:12

solution, that they will eventually end up excreting

45:14

in their urine. Curiously enough, apparently,

45:16

at least at the time Kenny was writing, he wrote

45:19

that we don't yet fully understand how whales

45:21

and dolphins hydrate themselves, just

45:23

because it's it's harder to study them in the

45:25

wild. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, the sea

45:28

retains so many of its mysteries, just as

45:30

the ancient mariner would have it. Yeah, I think I think

45:32

that the old man they know what the

45:34

gray haired loon I would agree with us

45:36

there. So I know you're out there

45:38

thinking like, okay, onhand

45:41

me, gray beard loon, it's time for this episode to wrap

45:43

up. Should we wrap up? Yeah, let's let's go ahead

45:45

and wrap it up. Hopefully we provided, you

45:47

know, a decent overview of of salt water.

45:50

Why we can't drink it? Uh, some

45:52

of the arguments for drinking it, and

45:54

instructions on how to drink it if you

45:56

absolutely have to. Uh. We do

45:59

want to drive home though, do not drink

46:01

saltwater. Do not do not leave this podcast

46:03

thinking that you should try a couple

46:05

of pints. Now, what should their opinion be

46:07

on snow cream? I don't know, I have I

46:09

have not researched it recently. I probably

46:12

should to see see if I should let my

46:14

my son eats snow the next time it snows

46:16

here in Atlanta, Georgia. But yeah,

46:19

I would. I would love to hear from people who are

46:21

a little more up on the science of eating snow.

46:24

Likewise, I'd love to hear from anyone who has uh

46:27

who either has a story of not consuming enough

46:29

salt or consuming way too much of drinking

46:32

seawater. I mean, it's we

46:34

have a number of listeners. I imagine some of you have

46:36

been in survival situations before.

46:38

I'd love to hear what it was like. And

46:41

I know we've heard from some listeners in the past

46:43

who have actually lived and worked on the high seas.

46:45

So what what tales did you hear

46:47

out out on the waves. Indeed,

46:50

let us know, uh, Hey, in the meantime, be

46:52

sure to check out stuff to Blew your Mind dot

46:54

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46:56

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47:15

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47:18

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47:20

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47:22

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47:24

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47:26

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47:29

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47:31

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47:33

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47:35

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47:37

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47:49

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47:51

Does it how stuff works dot com

48:00

as

48:16

idle as a painted ship upon

48:18

a painted ocean, water

48:21

water everywhere, and all the

48:23

boards did shrink water

48:25

water everywhere, nor any

48:27

drop to drink