Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hey guys, it's Josh. And Chuck, Jerry, Ben, and I put together a nice new playlist for you to chase the winter blues away and get ready for one of the four greatest seasons around, spring. It's our Stuff You Should Know Think Spring playlist.
And even if there's still snow on the ground where you live, it will put you in a mind to grab your trowel and sit by the window and wait till everything melts. You can get the Stuff You Should Know Think Spring playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dick and Paul show are geniuses.
We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand.
Better version of play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Yes.
Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time.
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Chapter 2: What are wetlands and why are they important?
I actually, I thought it was. I got that wrong.
But hey, no one's perfect. We're pretty close, though. Listen to the Nick Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math & Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing.
Math & Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing. Coming up this season on Math & Magic, CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cesario.
People think that creative ideas are like these light bulb moments that happen when you're in the shower. Or it's really like a stone sculpture. You're constantly just chipping away and refining. Take to interactive CEO, Strauss Zelnick, and our own chief business officer, Lisa Coffey.
Listen to Math & Magic on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everybody. Chuck back again with another edition, I believe number eight, in our Think Spring playlist. And today, you're going to be learning all about wetlands, because the name of the episode is Wetlands! Wetlands! Can you tell we love wetlands? I think you will, too.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Charles, and Jerry's over there, and this is Stuff You Should Know, the Dripping Wet Edition. In these wetlands. What? I knew that you would not get that. Is that a Seeger reference? Oh, gosh. Why do you have to say Seeger when you always mean Springsteen? Was that Springsteen? Yeah, it's Badlands. Oh, okay.
Baby, these wetlands were born to run. Sure. Run water. I don't like myself anymore. Run water. That was a great save, Chuck. Thanks. So we're talking wetlands. I have to say we have to give a shout-out to Tom Peterman, the foul-mouthed wetland biologist who keeps asking us to do this episode. Oh, is that where this came from? Mm-hmm.
It was a Tom Peterman suggestion, although I had already wanted to do it anyway, so... Yeah, I mean, we love our earth sciences, man. This one was, I was just smiling from ear to ear researching this. Can you imagine watching a blacksmith forge something in a wetland, in a flooded woodland? No. That's nirvana right there.
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Chapter 3: How do wetlands contribute to biodiversity?
Like they're all hiding out in the wetlands? Because it's a terrible place to hide out. No, it's not bad because it's got 31% of the plant species. I mean, it's a pretty rich, biodiverse area to live in if you're an endangered species. For sure. All right. You say tomato, I say tomato. We'll have to hear from Thomas Peterman, the foul-mouthed wildlife or wetland biologist, who can let us know.
What does he say? Like, do effing wetlands already? Yes. That kind of thing? Yeah.
Yeah.
I like this guy. I think that's an exact quote. Yeah, he's my kind of dude. So another stat that I thought was pretty interesting that just kind of needs to form the basis or the undercurrent of this whole episode is that, so we keep talking about the U.S.
There's wetlands found all over the world of different types and varieties and different climates and different continents, every continent except Antarctica. But in the United States in particular, we have a long history of filling in and and draining wetlands for other purposes.
So much so that, let's see, I believe, I don't know how much we've lost, but in the 1600s, the lower 48 states were covered with 220 million acres of wetlands, which is 11% of the total surface area of the lower 48 states. And I think starting in the 50s, we were doing away with wetlands at a rate of about 60,000 of those acres per year.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's gotten better since then. But, yeah, in the, boy, up until the Clean Water Act, it was just like, hey, you know what would look great there? A resort. Right. With, like, three golf courses and a bunch of tennis. That's been such a driving force. Like, it's like looking at land or ecosystems and being like, are humans making money off of it? No. Well, then drain it and repurpose it.
Set it on fire and repurpose it. Stop it from burning and repurpose it. Like if we can't make money off of it, it can't possibly be useful. And luckily, since the environmental movement really started in the 70s, we've realized that that's not necessarily true.
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Chapter 4: What types of wetlands exist around the world?
It was Bobby Jim. Bobby Jim. This is one of those scream at the pod player moments. Was it in the Prince of Tides? Yeah. Lowenstein. Was that it? Lowenstein. You're sure it wasn't Bobby Jim? I think it was Lowenstein. Yeah. Was it his, oh, his shrinks, his shrink girlfriend's name? Yeah, Babs. Okay, yeah, I don't remember. I think it was Lowenstein.
All right, so anyway, tidal marshes, yes, Prince of Tides. They, obviously, it's because they're tidal, they're going to come in and out with the high and low tide. And like you said, they're generally saltwater. And the salt marshes are very nutrient-rich, and they do have a lot of diversity, but But obviously, only the kind of things that can tolerate the salt as far as plants and animals go.
Which is a pretty short list, really, because salt is not conducive to life. Instead, there are some plants that have figured out how to deal with salt. But most of the time when you're looking at salt marshes, you're looking, the plant life is basically grasses of some sort. Right. There's also freshwater tidal marshes, which they are either,
connected to the saltwater marsh, but they're far enough inland that the saltwater doesn't make its way in there. So it's a freshwater marsh, but it's still affected by the tides. And then I had no idea about this. And I used to vacation on Lake Erie, but apparently the Great Lakes are so big that they have tides themselves. You didn't know that? I had no idea. I even knew that.
I'm a dum-dum when it comes to the Great Lakes. Well, Chuck, I think you got me beat big time. Well, in this case. Because I could know a million other things about the Great Lakes, and if you knew that one thing and I didn't, you had me beat. Yeah, I knew that. And so that means that they do have those tidal marches. The Florida Everglades are another good example.
And, boy, Florida just ā there's a lot of different types of wetlands in Florida. Well, there's a lot of coastline. Yeah, a lot of coastline and a lot of interior wetness.
Yeah.
Yeah, we have a lot of wetlands around our place in Florida for sure. And there's mangroves and all sorts of stuff that we'll talk about. Well, we're at mangroves. I love those things. So mangroves, I think they at least deserve a short stuff because they're one of the most amazing plants of all time. But they're a type of coastal wetland themselves, a mangrove forest.
Or if you've never seen a mangrove forest, they're these kind of ā they have ā a growth habit for the shrubbery on top of like the hair that Oompa Loompa has in the original Willy Wonka, the good one. And the trunks split out into these cool like long roots and legs that stick up out of the water. And they form this huge tangle, this riot of like shrub, woody shrub.
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Chapter 5: How do wetlands help in flood management?
Oh, really? Is that right? Yeah, it doesn't drain well. I've got a drainage problem. OK, to you, it's a problem. To nature, it's wonderful because we like things that drain really quickly and dry and then we can walk on them and the grass is fine. But there's a lot of like benefits to things that take their time. Like there's something called the vernal pool.
which is a kind of non-tidal marsh, an ephemeral wetland. And it's basically just like, say, a stretch of woods that's a little bit depressed there so that when it rains or a river floods, it fills with water. And because the underlying bedrock or clay is not very porous, it takes a while for that water to go through. But that water is also not going further downstreamā
So it prevents flooding from being as bad as it could because a lot of the water collects and stays there. And it also slowly recharges the groundwater. And because it does get dry, it can't sustain fish, which makes it a really great nursery for things like newts and salamanders and frogs, things that fish eat their eggs.
But since there's no fish, this is like a really great place for them to get a good foothold and a brand new life.
Yeah.
You've also got your prairie potholes. This is when you should definitely look up. These are usually in the upper Midwest of the United States, the Dakotas, Minnesota, maybe Wisconsin. And these are where glaciers, ancient glaciers left these big depressions in the landscape. And they fill up sometimes during rain, during the spring, during snow melt. And they're not small.
Like I heard prairie pothole and I got a vision in my head. But if you look it up online, they're beautiful and just they're very large, though, and they're kind of interconnected. Just these big round holes scattered through like a big open area full of water. And these are great for migrating birds because that could be a stopover that they might not have had had those potholes not been there.
Mm-hmm. And when they're flying over the Dakotas, they say, look, I see Van Nostrand's house. Our buddy, Van Nostrand. And then there's also, we said that wetlands occur in all different kinds of climates. They also occur in the desert. There's something called playa lakes, which are these depressions that apparently no one has any idea exactly how they formed. It could have been from erosion.
It could have been from an ancient sinkhole. But there are depressions that are deep enough that when the seasonal rains come, the water is held in there. And just like the prairie potholes, it's very useful for migratory birds to stop over at and really plays a huge role in this ecosystem where there's almost no water. And now all of a sudden there's water and it's in this nice little lake.
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Chapter 6: What role do wetlands play in water filtration?
Well, I've got good news. I am bringing those interviews and many more to this podcast. Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work with the women shaping culture right now. As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated.
So you have to work extra hard and you have to push the narrative in a way that doesn't compromise who you are and your integrity. You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Each week, I have unfiltered conversations with female founders, creatives, and leaders to talk about ambition, visibility, and what it really takes to build something meaningful in the public eye.
Because being an it girl isn't about the spotlight. It's about owning it. I think the negatives need to be discussed and they need to be told to people who maybe don't do this every day just so they know what's really going on. I feel like pulling the curtain back is important. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age. What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wagageddon change the paddock forever?
That day is just seared into my memory. I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on No Grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into the underexplored pockets of the sport.
In each episode, a different guest and I will go deeper into the wacky mishaps, scandals, and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to No Grip on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy?
Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been.
Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, the guy was a spy.
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Chapter 7: How do wetlands support wildlife and ecosystems?
I want to look that up, though. I'm not quite sure Dave's right. Well, okay. So it's either river-fed or groundwater-fed or precipitation-fed. And if you're talking bottomland hardwood swamps or a river-fed swamp, there's usually also a shrub swamp, which is a transition or buffer zone between the forested swamp and, you know, somebody's backyard, which it's just dominated by shrubs.
But it's all the same thing. It's all a freshwater swamp. Yeah, I think ā I bet you anything that Okefenokee has several different types of these would be my guess because there were full-on lakes that we paddled through. Yeah. So that would be my guess. And I also think if I had a country band, we would be the bottomland hardwood swamp rats. Oh, that's a good one. Not bad.
That sounds like an all-star band, you know? Oh, sure. Yeah. So another kind of wetland that you're going to find all over the place, especially in Europe, which when I think of bogs and fens, I think of Europe, but apparently there's plenty of them in the United States too. But bogs and fens are kind of their own thing.
Bogs in particular are very unique as far as wetlands go because not only are they anaerobic, which by definition a wetland is anaerobic soil, they're like very little nutrient and very high acidity. I've heard like the kind of acid that is put out by the peat that's created in the bog has the same acidity roughly of vinegar. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's really, really acidic stuff.
And yet, some plants prefer it. Like, you can grow cranberries and blueberries in a bog. Sure. You can preserve a body from the Iron Age forward in a bog. Did we ever cover that, the bog bodies? I feel like we did. It might have been one of our video things on YouTube. Maybe mummies. Because I think, if I remember correctly, our mummy episode covered more than just Egyptian mummies.
I think it covered like Inca mummies. And the bog people. I'm sure we did. We saw some of them when we went to our UK trip. We got to visit some of those cats like firsthand, like right there in that area. And that glass, you know, all you have to do is smash it with a hammer and it's yours. And you've got a bog person. Yeah. Or at least whatever you can grab, like a bog ear. Right.
It just crumbles in your hand. But I was looking. I was like, okay, why are the bogs so great for preservation? Part of it, from what I understand, is that acidity, that the bodies are actually pickled. But another part is the ā This aerobic life is so devoid there. There's just anaerobic bacteria, and they don't decompose nearly as well as aerobic bacteria.
So the decomposition doesn't set in, and the remains are pickled. So, like, you can preserve a body in a really great state. Yeah. For a very, like, Tolland man, his whiskers are still intact on his face. Yeah. Like, that was the level of preservation, and he was sacrificed into a bog, which is a very specific kind of wetland. Yeah, and a fen, like I said, it's F-E-N.
It's sort of like a bog in that it is a peaty wetland, but they're a little bit different than bogs. The water supply doesn't come primarily from rain, and it comes from the ground. So it's going to be less acidic because I don't think we mentioned, I know it's partially because of the peat, but the acidity also comes from the fact that there's acid in rain water. That fills up these bogs. Right.
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Chapter 8: What are the threats facing wetlands today?
But not the case in a fin. No. No, because that groundwater is able to kind of dilute it a little bit. So they're much more nutrient rich than a bog is. So they're going to have a much wider diverse range of plants and animal life. Yeah, and I love that this next section from Dave was called Other Fun Types of Wetlands. Yeah, mudflats. Yeah, you got your mudflat. It's another good country band.
My favorite are seeps. These are just gorgeous little pieces of nature, if you ask me. If you have a spring that comes up out of the ground, it spills over into the ground, so the surrounding ground is a wetland, and it's called a seep. That's right. It's where gnomes, like, go and shower.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's not, like you said, it's a spring, so it's not like a creek. No. It's actually coming up from the ground. You ever drink from a natural spring? I did when I was a kid, and I think my mom fired the babysitter that, like, took us to drink from a spring. Yeah, she was like, what are you doing? It was either a spring or, like, a river in Ohio. Well, two very different things.
If it was a Cuyahoga River, then you're in bad shape. It was on fire while we were drinking it. But, I mean, we have creeks. If you're listening, you've never been to Atlanta. Atlanta has creeks all over the place. Like all of the in-town neighborhoods just are riddled with creeks. They're just sort of out of view. But we have a creek, you know, 120 feet from our house. Sure.
Which might have something to do with our drainage. Who knows? And it's spring fed? No, it's just, you know, just a part of the Atlanta. Probably all comes from the Chattahoochee at some point. Sure. So, Chuck, if that creek behind your house started meandering in a different direction and left a body of water where it originally flowed, it would be an oxbow lake.
But if you were in Australia and you were calling it its proper aboriginal name, you'd call it a billabong. A billabong. Which I had no idea. What does that have to do with surfing? Oh, I think they just probably co-opted the name and it became more associated with surf and surf gear than its true meaning. That doesn't seem right. No. Let's take it back.
But that's what an Oxbow Lake is in Australia among the Aborigines. It is a billabong, which is great. A billabong. That was some, like, along with OP was one of the... prime t-shirts to have when you were a kid in the 80s. Oh, yeah.
If you were cool.
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