Hi friends, we get support from Wild Interest, the new podcast created by Curious Kids for Curious Kids.
Wild Interest is the new podcast that explores the magic that happens when grownups give up the mic and let kids run the show.
Hosted by hilarious siblings, Wild Interest explores nature, science, current affairs and even the paranormal.
Parents, you're going to love Wild Interest because it's rooted in kindness, compassion and curiosity.
Check out Wild Interest, the new podcast for curious kids by Curious Kids.
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It's wild. You're listening to Brains On, where we're serious about being curious.
Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Hey Squirlithin. Oh hey Squirliffer.
What are you up to today?
Oh you know, eating some acorns, gathering some acorns, burying some acorns.
Being a squirrel. How about you?
Oh, me? I got big plans.
Really big plans. This is where I'm supposed to ask you what your big plans are, right?
Yes, oh, thank you for asking.
I'm going to become the most famous squirrel in the world.
By collecting the most acorns?
Oh, no. Better than that.
I'm going to star in a video that humans will not be able to resist.
They will watch it.
They will laugh, and they will share it with all of their human friends.
And it'll be a video of me.
Doing what? Collecting acorns?
Oh, no. See that guy sitting on that bench?
Uh -huh. And you see how he's waving to his friend taking a video of him?
Uh -huh. And do you see how he's also holding an ice cream cone in one hand?
Uh -huh. Well, while he's distracted waving for the video, I'm going to grab the ice cream.
Maybe take a lick. Maybe carry it around.
We'll see where the moment takes me.
Okay! Got to go. Bye!
Okay. Bye, squirrel -ifer.
Hey! Come back here, you squirrel!
That's my ice cream!
Dude! That was hysterical!
I got to upload that, like, right now.
You're listening to Barreins On from APM Studios.
I'm Molly Bloom, and my co -host today is Kacen from Tarboro, North Carolina.
Hi, Kacen. Hi, Molly.
So, Kacen, I'm so happy you're here today.
I'm just wondering, how do you use the internet on a typical day?
So, I use it most of the time of my day.
I use it when I'm bored, and I use it when I don't know where to go.
If I have to talk to somebody, I can use the internet.
Yeah, the internet is so useful.
I also use it for all those things when I'm bored.
I do a crossword puzzle with the internet.
I love to talk to my friends on FaceTime.
It's a very useful thing.
So, I'm wondering, before this show, had you thought at all about how the internet works?
So, I knew that it would go through towers and stuff.
The only thing I didn't know about the internet is how does it get through continents.
Nice. You were like, towers are involved.
You knew that. Yes.
But you didn't really understand how it would get, like, so far.
Yes. So, can you imagine life without the internet?
Not really, because it would be so hard to talk to other people without the internet.
You can't really talk to your friends.
The only way you can talk to your friends is going over to the house, which you don't really want to do all the time.
Yeah, the internet makes it so much easier to talk to your friends.
Like, you can send them text messages.
You can do video chats with them.
And without the internet, you would have to, like, go to their house or use an old -fashioned telephone, which a lot of people don't have anymore.
Are there other things in your life that you're like, wow, that would be really hard to do without the internet?
Going somewhere. Because if you need a map, you need, like, Google Maps or something like that, and you need that to figure out where you're going.
Totally. Yes, I use my maps on my phone all the time.
There's not that many places I could get to without my maps these days.
So, yeah, the internet is a really, really big part of my life.
And it sounds like it's a big part of your life, too.
And there was a time when the internet didn't exist.
Your grandparents didn't have the internet for most of their lives, and when I was little and your parents were little, we didn't have it either.
So what do you think were the good parts about not having the internet?
The good parts about not having the internet is probably, you can just go outside when you're bored, you don't think about what's going on your phone as soon as you don't know what to do, and mostly that.
Mm -hmm. Yeah, you do, like, have to find other ways to entertain yourself by going outside, maybe a little more variety potentially.
Ba -ba -ba -ba -ba -ba -ba -ba -ba -ba -ba, brain's on.
Today's episode was inspired by this question sent to us over the internet, of course, by Jack.
My question is, how does internet flow around the world?
This is a fascinating question, and one that I think a lot of us take for granted.
I mean, I use the internet all the time, and I really never stop to think about what exactly it is or how it brings me all these pictures and videos and stuff.
So when I send an email to you in Minnesota, how does it get there?
Or when I watch a video someone posted in the UK, how does it travel to my phone?
The answer might surprise you.
It's all about cables.
That's right. The internet, the thing that brings us movies, e -mails, games, and so much more, seems like it just shows up on our phones and computers through thin air.
But a lot of the journey takes place through actual physical cables.
You probably see cables all the time.
Power cables strung up along big metal towers.
Or telephone cables hanging on those big wooden poles.
You might even have a cable running from the wall to your TV or one for a desktop computer.
The internet travels in cables of all different sizes to get to us, even if it jumps through the air for the last leg of the journey.
We'll explain how that works in a bit.
But first, how do those cables get internet to our houses?
That's something Andrew Bloom won the two.
He's a journalist who wrote a whole book about this.
And I wrote a book called Tubes Adjourning to the Center of the Internet.
Andrew first got interested in the topic because of a squirrel.
A squirrel? That's nuts!
See what I did there?
Because squirrels like nuts?
Eh. Anyway, here's Andrew.
When my internet at home broke and the cable guy came to fix it and he followed the wire from the clump behind my couch out to the back of my building and then saw a squirrel chewing on the cable and said, that's your problem.
A squirrel is chewing on your internet.
And I realized that if a squirrel could chew on that piece of the internet in my backyard, there had to be other pieces of the internet that squirrels could chew on.
Squirrels. It always comes down to squirrels.
So he traced the path of the wire from his home in Brooklyn to see where it would take him.
The first place it goes is a manhole on the corner.
From there, it goes to the cable company office just outside the city.
And from there, it goes to a big building located at 60 Hudson Street in Manhattan.
More about this address in a minute.
For now, just know that this is what's called an exchange point.
That's where the cables that come from all the different internet companies physically connect to one another.
So let's say you want to watch a squirrel documentary on Netflix.
Or look up squirrel facts on Google.
Cables from those companies...
Like Netflix and Google...
Have to physically connect somewhere down the line to the cable that's connected to your home or office or school or library or wherever you're accessing the internet.
And all those different cables meet up at exchange points.
It's like a giant party palace and all the cables are invited.
Here's journalist Andrew Bloom again.
One of the most important internet exchange points and one of my favorites is 60 Hudson Street in lower Manhattan.
It looks like a regular office building from the 1930s.
Kind of a Superman sort of look to it.
But inside are small offices that are made out of metal cages.
You can kind of peer into them.
And inside of them are racks and racks of these telecommunications equipment that are sort of like your home Wi -Fi router, but on a kind of industrial scale.
Not all of us live near huge exchange points like this one, but at some point our internet goes through a place like it.
And so if you live in a small town, there's most likely a kind of a small old telephone building that probably has a bell symbol on the lawn and front.
And that's almost always the place where the network connection goes from your neighborhood to a more regional network and then from the regional network to a big city like Chicago or Denver, Miami and from there next to the big international networks.
So you have these spots where all the cables from different companies are hooked together.
But the cables are just connecting two points.
If one point is your home, where's the other point?
This chain of cables starts at big machines that hold lots and lots of data.
These big machines are called servers.
Whether it's a movie, an email, a game, all that information is stored on a server.
It might be a server, the hard drive in it that holds web pages that might be the size of a pizza box, or it might be a building as big as a warehouse or factory that holds literally millions of these servers that store all of the things we see on our screens, all the movies and pictures and news articles.
So everything on the internet is stored in machines called servers that take up actual physical space in a place called a data center.
The most famous of them, probably the ones owned by Facebook and Google.
They do look like giant warehouses.
They can be a quarter mile long.
And then inside, they're often dark and cold.
They need to be kept cold to keep the equipment working properly and filled with sort of blinking lights everywhere.
When you try to think about just the amount of data that's stored on your phone or on your laptop, and then you stack that up and then you begin to make rows and rows of it like a library and have an entire building, you can begin to grasp.
I never get really able to fully grasp how much data is actually stored in each of these buildings.
And there are a lot of these kinds of buildings, more than 8 ,000 globally.
And more are being built all the time.
We keep making more data that needs to be stored.
So data is stored on servers, and those servers are physically wired to us through a series of cables.
Sometimes those cables are buried underground, sometimes above ground strung between poles.
But what if we want to watch a video from France or read a website from Japan or send an email to someone in Senegal?
It's still about cables, a network of cables.
They run all the way from you to France or Japan or Senegal, even with an ocean in the way.
The cables just go underwater.
Stop and think about that for a moment.
There are cables carrying the internet running all the way across oceans underwater.
Thousands of miles along the ocean floor.
That is so far. That's a lot of cable.
It's truly bananas.
Nicole Staraselski is a professor at UC Berkeley and she studies these undersea cables.
The network travels under every ocean all around the world, and these are really small cables.
They're about the size of a garden hose.
Today they're carrying almost 100 % of all digital communications that run between continents underneath the ocean.
And how do these cables get to the bottom of the ocean?
Scuba divers? No. Nope.
Highly trained cable carrying squids that are paid in fish?
That would be cool, but still, no.
What is it then? They drop them off the back of a boat.
Excuse me? They drop them off the back of a boat?
As the boat crosses the ocean, they have very precise equipment to gauge how fast the boat is going.
And so they'll make sure that enough cable is let out at the right speed so that way it will exactly line the seafloor.
So if there's a mountain on the undersea floor, then the cable will go right over that mountain.
It won't group between mountains.
It'll stay on the very bottom of the floor.
And this is not a new thing.
There have been underwater cables going across the bottom of the ocean since the mid -1800s.
That's when people started using telegraphs to communicate with each other.
Telegraphs were machines that used cables to send coded messages across really long distances.
This was before telephones, even.
We're still using underwater cables today, but we're using lots more of them because we're sending more and more information all the time.
There are now more than 500 undersea cables, and we need to keep adding new ones.
But being out in the open sea isn't easy.
These undersea cables get damaged over time.
But contrary to popular belief, it's not because sharks think they'd make good snacks.
It's us, humans. And we do more damage than you might think.
Once every three days a cable is cut or damaged, most of the time it's by a fishing ship or somebody just tosses an anchor off their boat and accidentally stuffers the cable on.
Far more than any other destruction, this is the biggest problem for our global internet infrastructure, our people and boats.
When cables break and need repair, they're brought back up to the surface.
Repairs are made, then they're dropped back in the water.
So, all these skinny cables, the width of a garden hose, run across the ocean floor.
And that's how the internet gets from continent to continent.
Okay, but tablets or phones are only connected to wires when they're targeting, right?
Yeah, they're only connected to wires when they're charging.
Sometimes not even then.
So how's the internet getting to those things?
We're going to tackle that question in just a second, but first I have another wireless delight for you.
It's time for the...
Mystery Sound You ready for the Mystery Sound, Kacen?
Yes. Yes, I am. Okay, great.
Here it is. Mystery Sound Whoa.
I have no idea what that is either.
What do you think it is?
I think it's a drill.
Oh, a drill? Or a race car, a toy race car.
Nice. Those are both good guesses.
A drill or a toy race car.
Do you want to hear it again?
Yes. Alright, here it is.
Mystery Sound Okay, any new thoughts?
No, I still think it's a drill or a race car.
Okay, drill or a race car.
Maybe even some combination of race car and drill.
A race car that can go down the track and then screw a screw into the wall?
Maybe? I don't know.
Who knows? Well, we'll have another chance to hear it and guess at the end of the show and then we'll find out the answer after the credits.
Stay tuned. We're working on an episode all about sneezing.
Every sneeze is unique from big loud honkers like a true to tiny little squeakers like a chee.
So, we want to hear from you.
If your sneeze had a name, what would it be?
Record yourself doing your best sneezing impression.
Tell us what you'd name it.
Kacen, do you have a sneeze you would like to tell us about and what you would name it?
Okay, so my sneeze probably sounds like this.
Laju. Ooh, I like it.
What would you name that sneeze?
I would name it a tiger cat.
Ooh, a tiger cat. I love that.
Why would you name it tiger cat?
Because it sounds like a tiger kind of like a cat when they are screaming.
Yes. Yeah, can I hear that sneeze one more time?
Laju. Yes, the tiger cat.
So good. Listeners, record your sneeze name and sound and send it to us at brainson .org slash contact.
While you're there, you can send us your mystery sounds, drawings, and questions.
Like this one. Why are cactus prickly?
You can find answers to questions like these on the Moment of Om podcast, a short dose of facts and fun every weekday.
Find Moment of Om and more at brainson .org.
So keep listening. Brains On Universe is a family of podcasts for kids and their adults.
Since you're a fan of Brains On, we know you'll love the other shows in our universe.
Come on, let's explore.
Here we are in Brains On Universe.
Home to my favorite podcasts.
Brains On. Smash boom best.
Forever ago. I found one.
Forever ago. The history show hosted by Joy Dolo.
It was the early 1800s.
Beethoven was busy composing new symphonies.
Steam -powered trains were brand new inventions.
And a British naturalist named William Swainson was exploring the jungles of...
Ah! What a great show!
Need more forever ago?
No! Listen to Forever Ago, wherever you get your podcasts.
Brains On. You're listening to Brains On.
I'm Kacen. And I'm Molly.
Today's episode is all about how the internet flows around the world.
It's all about cables.
Lots and lots of cables.
But a lot of the devices we use to access the internet don't have cables attached to them.
So what's the deal there?
Here's Nicole Staraselski again.
You think it's wireless, right?
Because it's... you know, you're walking around.
You're not plugged in.
So why would you think that this is a cable technology?
But it is in fact coming through cables for most of the journey.
It's the last leg of the journey to your wireless device that sends data across the air.
Wireless data is sent from something called a cell tower.
There are cell towers all over the place, and the one closest to you will send the message data to your phone or tablet using radio waves that travel through the air.
But these radio waves can't travel too far.
So if you were only using radio waves to send a message, it would have to hop between lots of cell towers to get all the way to the person you were sending a message to.
And that would take a while.
So if I'm on my phone, it's going to go to a cell tower first.
That's not going to bounce between cell towers all the way across the country.
It's going to go down to a cable network most often and then come back up to a cell tower and beam to its send point.
OK, so let's break this down.
Say you're sending a text message.
You type it out. OMG, there's a squirrel in my backyard with a half -eaten ice cream cone.
You press send. Your phone sends that text message to a cell tower near you using radio waves.
OMG, there's a squirrel in my backyard with a half -eaten ice cream cone.
When those radio waves get to the cell tower, the data gets transferred from radio waves into a signal sent through a cable.
OMG, there's a squirrel in my backyard with a half -eaten ice cream cone.
Your text message travels through cables and eventually ends up at another cell tower near the person who's getting your text message.
That cell tower sends the message to that person using radio signals.
OMG, there's a squirrel in my backyard with a half -eaten ice cream cone.
And then your friend will know all about the squirrel in your backyard thanks to radio waves and cables.
And all of this happens in seconds.
Whoa, so you can't see the cables, but they're really important to the process.
Exactly. And Wi -Fi in your house works in a similar way.
Except instead of messages being sent over a cell tower, they go from a cable to your Wi -Fi router.
Then that router sends the information through the air to your device.
OK, but how does my text message or the squirrel video I want to watch get sent to the cables?
In order to understand, we need to know a little bit about something called binary code, which sounds kind of complicated, so we've asked everyone's favorite computer expert, Shark Manches, to help us out.
You mean Brain Zone producer Mark Sanchez?
Well, you see, in our episode about computer viruses, we found out that our buddy Mark is also a world -renowned white hat hacker, which means he helps computer users everywhere figure out how to protect themselves.
Shark Manches is his hacker name.
Isn't his identity supposed to be secret?
I mean, if he wanted it to be secret, would he have written himself a theme song?
He's Shark Manches, a white hat hacker.
That means he's smart and he can't crack your computer code while staying handsome.
This is his answer.
He's Shark Manches.
Hi, Mark. I mean, Soak.
Hi, Kacen. Hey, Molly.
Yes, I heard there was a computer question for me.
Shark Manches is here.
How do cables carry all these datas?
Movies, games, text messages.
Oh, easy one. The answer is lasers.
Is that all? Okay, bye then.
Excuse me. Your answer is just lasers?
I think we need a little more explanation here.
Ah, okay. I spend a lot of time talking to computers and they get the point real fast.
I forget that humans sometimes like more razzledazzle, like sound effects.
I do really appreciate sound effects.
I know. But computers, they don't need sound effects.
They speak in binary code.
Let's start by looking at this cable.
Looks kind of like a fancy hose.
But when we cut it open, it's full of very thin glass tubes.
Whoa. Those are thinner than a strand of hair.
Dude, that's so thin.
Oh, yeah. You got a sound effect for a thin glass tube?
Ooh, I like a challenge.
How about this one?
I tip my hat to you, sir.
Thank you. These glass tubes are very thin, very flexible, and very strong.
And these glass tubes somehow send messages in binary code?
Indeed, they do. Computers don't speak in letters or words.
They understand two things.
Off and on. That's it?
That's it. And binary code uses only zeros and ones.
Zero. One. But it's not like math.
Zero means off. Zero.
And one means on. One.
But what's turning off and on here?
Well, in the case of cables, lasers.
The light from the lasers travels down the glass tubes.
But the lasers are flashing off and on.
Off and on? Like binary code?
Now I'm tipping my hat to you, Gason.
The ones and zeros are like the off and on of the lasers.
One. And you can use these on and off patterns to send a code that the computer reads and translates into things like text or an image.
I understand how you could use a code of on and off blinking lights to send a message.
It's kind of like that old Morse code where you use short and long taps to send messages that someone else hears and translates.
Exactly, Molly. But how does turning that light on and off mean I can watch a video on my phone?
That seems super complicated.
Ah, so have you heard of a pixel?
Yes, I have. Excellent, yeah.
So a pixel is a little dot on a screen.
And that dot on the screen can turn different colors.
So when you're looking at a text message, the text on the screen is actually made up of a bunch of little pixels in a very specific pattern of black and white.
Whoa! Whoa, indeed.
And when you're watching a movie, each pixel is getting a message through the cable about what color it's supposed to be and how bright it's supposed to be.
And that pixel keeps changing as the images on the screen change.
So that's like so much information just for a single second of a movie.
Yeah, but the lasers pulse really fast.
These messages are sent and decoded so, so, so, so, so fast.
And each glass tube can send lots of messages at once by sending each in a different color light down the tube.
That's so cool. Yeah, it's pretty much a rainbow of cool.
Just think of how much data flows through our lives all the time and how busy all those cables must be.
So when you're listening to a podcast, since the podcast comes over the internet, is the podcast also made out of zeros and ones?
Indeedly do, Molly.
Am I made of zeros and ones?
Well, the version of your voice that's being heard through this podcast, yeah, you are zeros and ones.
I think I need my own theme song then.
It's kisen's voice, but now it's datas, zeros and ones, are all that matter's coming through.
1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 Wow, that was amazing.
High five, Kacen. Maybe you mean high zero or high one.
Even though the devices we use might be wireless, the internet travels along a series of cables.
Across land and under the sea.
And somewhere along the line, the cable that comes from where the data is stored has to physically connect with the cable that connects to you.
All of this information travels at almost the speed of light, thanks to fiber optic cables.
Those are incredibly thin, clear glass tubes.
Fiber optic cables transmit pulses of light that computers understand and translate into things like text or videos.
That's it for this episode of Brains On.
This episode was written by Molly Bloom and edited by Shayla Farzahn.
And Sandin Totten. Fat Tekken by Jess Miller.
Engineering help from Robert Michael and Derek Ramirez with sound design by Rachel Breeze.
Original theme music by Mark Sanchez.
We had production help from the West of the Brains On Unibose team.
Rosie Dupont. Anna Goldfield.
Nico Gonzalez -Wistler.
Ruby Guthrie. Lauren Humbert.
Joshua Ray. Mark Sanchez.
Charlotte Traver. Anna Weigel.
Anne. Aran Woldesawasi.
Beth Perlman is our executive producer and the executive in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Cavati and Joanne Griffith.
Special thanks to Iris Robinson, Ryan Jones, Kari Jones and Frandi Mungo.
Brains On is a non -profit public radio program.
There are lots of ways to support the show.
Subscribe to Brains On Universe on YouTube where you can watch animated versions of some of your favorite episodes or head to brainson .org.
While you're there, you can send us mystery sounds, drawings and questions.
Alright, Kasen. Are you ready to hear the mystery sound again?
Yes. Alright, here it is.
Ssss... Ssss... Ssss...
Ssss... Ssss... Ssss...
Ssss... Ssss... Ssss...
Ssss... Ssss... What do you think?
I think it's a drill drilling on wood.
Okay, a drill, drilling on wood.
I think it's a cricket playing a really really tiny violin that needs to be tuned.
I think your guess seems more likely.
Yes. But let's see, should we see?
Yes. You never know what these mystery sounds.
Here is the answer.
Hi, my name is Oliver.
I'm from Japan, and that was the sound of a cicada.
A cicada? Yeah, a cicada.
Oh my goodness. They are loud.
They are loud. I think, I mean a cicada does sound a lot like a drill.
I really thought you were right.
I really did. Yes. Do you have cicadas near where you live?
Yes, because it was cicada season like two months ago, I think so.
Nice. So they're loud, right?
Yes. They're very very loud.
Wow, that's cool. Cool mystery sound.
I didn't know they were in Japan either.
I'm learning so much today from the mystery sound.
Now it's time for the brains honor roll.
These are the incredible kids who keep the show going with their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, drawings, and high fives.
Max from Ballston Lake, New York.
Max from the United Kingdom.
Benjamin and Ethan from Mount Lake Terrace, Washington.
Ruth from Provo, Utah.
Musab from Ottawa. Elena from Sorrento, Florida.
Ellie from New York City.
Olivia from Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Charles from Lacey, Washington.
Ashton from Calgary, Alberta.
Bella from Warrington, England.
Kathy from Sugarland, Texas.
Zelda from Philadelphia.
Willow from Rice, British Columbia.
Charlie and Chloe from Linwood, Washington.
Tristan and Miles from Shalfont, Pennsylvania.
Ty from Denver. Eben from Aurora, Illinois.
Cece from DeKalb, Illinois.
Parker from Austin, Texas.
Ella and Jack from Weehawken, New Jersey.
Jinsu from Seoul, South Korea.
Thaddeus from Pennsylvania.
Evelyn from Columbus, Ohio.
Peter from Buffalo, New York.
Orion Forest and Juniper from Asheville, North Carolina.
Devin and Regan from Guelph, Ontario.
Frankie, Seamus, and Clover from Fargo.
Jude from Phoenix. Liam from Fresno, California.
Lucia from Bay Area, California.
Nolan from Winchester, Kentucky.
Dean from Dallas, Georgia.
Fiona from Buffalo, New York.
Aria Jr. from Charnedah, Wyoming.
Alessio and Fiona from Hopewell, New Jersey.
Leon from Chicago. Sloan from Rosemont, Minnesota.
Noah, Gabriel and Amina from Chicago.
Luis and Jay from Seattle.
Finn from Prescott, Arizona.
Enzo from San Diego.
Eva from Australia.
Lily from Toronto. James from Wellington, Delaware.
Vivian from Pittsburgh.
Hugo from Seattle. Augie in Galileo from Park City, Utah.
Wyatt from Phoenix.
Ruby and Remy from Los Angeles.
Avery and Ashton from Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Hugo from Cupertino, California.
Charlotte and Rebecca from Johannesburg, South Africa.
Hannah from Louisiana.
Amelia from Calgary.
John from Portland, Oregon.
Bart from Princeton, New Jersey.
Rivers and Cohen from Cannon Falls, Minnesota.
And below from Montreal.
... We'll be back next week for an episode all about how, or if, animals pick their leaders.
Thanks for listening.
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