You're listening to BrainsOn, where we're serious about beingcurious.
Brains On is supported on part by a grant from the National ScienceFoundation.
What's a fern like you doing on a plane likethis?
Needed to uproot myself for abit,darling.
I know thefeeling. I'mgreen.
Mogreen. Longed on tame isgreen.
The name isfraud. Jameswronged.
International fern ofmystery.
Your soil is looking a littledry.
Would you care for adrink,Mr.
Fraud? Ofwater. Shakeit.
Notstirred. Coming rightup.
Youknow, I'm actually on my way to Brains OnHQ.
Have you heard ofit? Brains OnHQ, yousay?
I don't thinkso. But I have a funny feeling you won't be gettingthere,Mr.
Fraud. Did you just pull for a nominally largescissor, sort of your tight-fitting greentrousers,Mr.
Brain? Idid,Mr.Fraud.
Because it's time to give your fern fronds a littletrim.
I don't thinkso. How are you going toescape?
Ferns don't havefeet. You're not goinganywhere.
Double-O's,Demon.Yes, but you forgot onething.
You are about to step on that large green button on thefloor.
I just stepped on the large green button on thefloor.
Which just opened this handy little trap door next tome.
Time to activate my emergency parachute and let thesefrauds...
...fogs! I'll get you nexttime,Mr.
Fraud. Just youwait. You're listening to Brains On from APMStudios.
I'm MollyBloom, and my co-host today is Amaya fromTuscaloosa,Alabama.
Hi,Maya.Hi,Molly. And today we're talkingferns.
Ferns are a kind ofplant.
They don't haveflowers, but they do have what are calledfronds.
So,Maya, how would you describe what a fern lookslike?
Small, spiky plants with longleaves.
When I think aboutit, I sort of think it's like if a feather was aplant.
And ferns are super cool because they're found all over the world and in all kinds ofclimates.
Maya, you live inAlabama.
Do you have any ferns nearyou?
I have a fewferns. Most of them are likeplanted, not reallywild.
I know you're something of a gardeneryourself.
Can you tell me your favorite part aboutgardening?
Plank in thewater. They're using ahose, acan.
Like, how do you water yourplants?
Sometimes we usecans, but for the firsttime, like when we plantthem, we usehoses.
Awesome. And what kind of plants do you have in yourgarden?
We have a bisquisttree, two ofthem, someflowers.
And do you grow any like vegetables or anything foreating?
Maybe this year wewill.
Cool.Okay, let's say there's other kids out there who are interested in helpinggarden.
Well, what advice would you givethem?
Like, make sure you water them almost everyday.
Even when it'shot, maybe water them like two times a day to make sure it gets morewater.
Goodadvice. And what's your favorite thing about hanging out withplants?
Watching themgrow. It's verycalming, like being outside innature.
Those are all really goodreasons.
Well, this whole episode is inspired by this excellent question sent to us by Gideon from New YorkCity.
How did firms around the dinosaur extinction and are they the same for us slowly seennow?
That is an excellentquestion.
You may have heard that firms have been around since before thedinosaurs, and that'strue.
But dinosaurs are extinct and firmsaren't.
So, we're going to tackle Gideon's excellent questions by looking at the second partfirst.
Are the firms we see today the same as the ones the dinos livedwith?
The answer is yes andno.
That's a firm friend with an excellentname, WestonTesto.
That is an excellentname.
He studies plants at the University ofVermont, and he's also the director of the Pringle orBarium.
It's a museum dedicated toplants.
Okay, soWeston, what do you mean when you say the answer is yes andno?
So, firms have been around for avery, very longtime.
There's evidence that firms have been around probably at least 360 millionyears.
That means they were around even before thedinosaurs.
But most of the species that we have around today are muchyounger.
So, they seem to have evolved much more recently than the age of thedinosaurs.
But there are some species of firms out there that we think have been basically unchanged since the time of thedinosaurs, which I think is reallyexciting.
Okay, I get the yes and the nonow.
Yes, there are some species that were here when the dinoswere, but not all firms we see today have been around thatlong.
One of the oldest firms species still around today is a cinnamonfern.
You can see them all over North and CentralAmerica.
They havebrown, shaggy cinnamon colored stocks that grow up from the middle of thefronds.
If you see one ofthese, we recommend pretending you're adinosaur, at least for a littlewhile.
Here's my dynoimpression.
What'syours,Maya?Oh,yeah.
Here's as much more fierce thanmine,excellent.
And in addition to beingold, firms areeverywhere.
They lovehumidity, like in tropicalplaces.
They also do great enforets here in NorthAmerica.
But you can also find them in lots of other placestoo.
There aremany,many, many firms that grow indeserts, which I think is really surprising to a lot offolks.
But thinking within the UnitedStates, forexample, one of the states that has the highest richness of firms would be NewMexico.
And the same species of ferns can be found in parts of the world that are really far away from eachother.
You see the same species of ferns in far off places likeguirabinasia.
This isn't because humans have planted them all over theworld, like say tomatoes orpotatoes.
Yeah, ferns have become world travelers all theirown.
And it's all thanks to the special way they grow and make moreferns.
Lots of plants need pollinators to help them make moreplants, like a bee needs to take pollen from one flower to another before the plant can makeseeds.
But ferns don't need any help frompollinators.
That's because they make something calledspores.
Spores are like teeny tiny seeds as size of a piece of dust that ferns release into thewind.
And those blow around in thewind, and if they land it in the right kind ofhabitat, they'll produce a new fernthere.
And because ofthat, ferns are really good at getting around theworld.
One of the most interesting experiments I've ever heard of is researchers put double-sided tape on little microscope slides and hung them off airplane wings and flew those airplanes way way upthere.
And they've picked up lots ofspores.
If you're ever in an airplane going a really longdistance, you can imagine that there are ferns where it's blowing around way up in the air aroundyou.
Spores are internationaltravelers.
That is socool. And that surprises you when Iexist.
JamesFrond, international fan ofmystery.
How did you get inhere? James Frond has hisways.
And they are topsecret.
Okaythen, movingon. Okayfine, I'll tellyou.
How would you react if I told you there was a network of top secret fern agentsunderground?
Hmm, probably likethis.
Gas! And I'd probablygo,whoa,whoa,whoa,whoa,what?
Well there is a network of top secret fern agentsunderground.
Gas!Whoa,whoa,whoa,whoa,what?
Hmm, since you were honest about yourreactions, I feel comfortable telling youmore.
Yes, I'll becool. Allright.
Goon, if youwant, youknow,whatever.
We ferns have at our calledrhizomes.
They're undergroundstems.
And that's where our leaves comefrom.
And many of us have intricate creeping networks of these rhizomes that can stayalive, even if all of our leaves aregone.
So even if you got munched on by an animal or your leaves got burned in a forestfire, you could easily grow back from those undergroundstems.
You're right on the moneyhoney.
Okay, that is some super secrets by stuff rightthere.
We ferns areunstoppable.
We've survived notone.
Nottwo, butthree, mass extinctionevents.
Whoa, those are times millions of years ago when most species on the planet went extinct and only a fewsurvived.
One of those was the mass extinction event that wiped out thedinosaurs.
Gotta say we ferns don't miss thedinos.
They never watched where they were going and they had such bigfeet.
It's pretty cool that ferns have outlived so many otherspecies.
I have yet to meet afoe. I couldn'tfanquish.
And by vanquish do you mean an outlived by staying very still and using your evolutionary advantages tosurvive?
I'll nevertell. That's for me to know and you to fern itout.
And withthat, I must beoff.
That wasthrilling, but you know what might be even morethrilling?
It's time forthe... Here itis.
Here itis.Hmm,Maya, what do youthink?
I believe it's like chopping something hard like celery or like akeyboard.
Both excellentguesses, both verydifferent.
What made you think it might be choppingcelery?
Because I heard like the knife hitting a wooden cutting board or a cuttingboard.
Yeah, that's a really goodguess.
And what parts of it made you think it might be akeyboard?
At first I thought I heard like clicking on akeyboard.
Okay, veryinteresting.
Well we'll hear itagain.
Give you another chance to guess and hear the answer at the end of theshow.
We're working on an episode aboutcavities.
Those tiny holes we sometimes get in ourteeth.
Nobody likes gettingcavities, but luckily brushing your teeth helps keep them fromforming.
So we want to hear fromyou.
If you could design the toothbrush of thefuture, what would it belike?
Maya, what would your toothbrush of the future be able todo?
Mine will have tiny bristles and chewed outwater.
Like anything you put in thecapsule, like mouth freshener or likemouthwash.
And like put it in those tiny holes that you get to clean themout.
Ohnice. So it's like everything in one convenient package that you wouldneed.
Mm-hmm. I loveit. Doyou, are you a fan of brushing yourteeth?
Yes.Excellent. I love to hearit.
What is your preferred flavor oftoothpaste?
Probablywatermelon. Ohexcellent, excellentchoice.
Welllisteners, record yourself describing your super snazzy toothbrush of the future and send it to us at brainson.org slashcontact.
And while you'rethere, you can send us mysterysounds, drawings andquestions.
Like thisone. My question is how does concrete getharder?
Again, that's brainson.org slashcontact.
And keeplistening. Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buhbrainson.
You're listening tobrainson.
I'm Maya and I'mMolly.Okay.
So we just found out that some of the ferns on earth today were actually around when the dinosaurswere.
And that ferns can spread super far thanks to their teeny tinyspores.
Plus they can live in all sorts ofplaces.
But we still need to answer this part of Gideon'squestion.
How did ferns around the dinosaurextinction?
Oh such a greatquestion.
And one that scientists are actually trying to answer rightnow.
Hey, it's SaydenTotton.
Everyone's favorite brainsonproducer.
I so admire yourconfidence.
I dotoo.Anyway, I'm so excited to share this new play I've been working on about this verytopic.
Butfirst, let me wheel in my cart of highly trained polypodiopsidafespians.
You'rewhat? Polypodiopsida means fern and fespians areactors.
Youknow, ferns whoact.
Molly,Maya, meet the world's most talented slash only all fern theatertroupe.
We've gotferndresher, SporlandoBloom, Jane Fronda and Keanuleaves.
Say hieveryone.Um, I don't hearanything.
Oh, that's because they're already incharacter.
They're verymethod. And characteras?
Asferns.Sandin, they areferns.
Yes, they truly are any role they stepinto.
Oh, you should have seen their production of wicked Jane Fronda literally turned herself green for the role of the witchalphabet.
Oh, it looked soreal.Anyway, my fern friends are going to reenact key moments of the dinosaur extinction in a playcalled,mm, as the worldferns.
A new playwritten,produced, directedchoreographed,scored,financed,reviewed, and wildly praised byme, SandinTotten.
First, you'll need somebackground.
So let me tell you about a trip I took to meet our plays scientific advisor and fellowfern, a fissionado Reagandone.
Ferns are very cool for a lot ofreasons.
Reagan studies super old plants at the LeBrea Tarpit's Museum in LosAngeles.
They've lived through a lot of different events in history and they're still heretoday.
I met Reagan at her lab to learn about how fern survived the big extinction that happened 66 million yearsago.
That's one that wiped out most of thedinosaurs.
Right? It's a dramatictale.
Perfect for a play that will no doubt sweep the Tonys thisyear.
We can't go back in time to see whathappened, but Reagan says there are lots of ferny clues about what happened buried deepunderground.
Fernyclues?Yeah, stuff like ancient fern leaves and fernspores, youknow, those teeny tiny specks that ferns use to make moreferns.
Reagan and herteam, they dig up theseclues, put them on thin sheets of glass called slides and look at them under amicroscope.
She showed me some of these slides using a very big microscope at herlab.
Here is a bunch of microscope slides that have been processed and they're stacked uphere.
There's 100 slides here from one of oursites.
Yeah, it's like this little tray full of all these tiny sheets ofglass.
Each one is pretty thin and it has this like almost like it looks like a little cloud of red specks onit.
What are the redspecks?
So those red specks are thespores.
Spores from ancientferns.
Each slide gives us a picture of what Earth was like at a given moment inhistory.
Reagan first showed me one from just before the big extinction during a time called theCretaceous.
The slide was full of these ferns spores as well as pieces of lots of otherplants.
Allright, so 66 million years ago in the Cretaceous life wasgreat.
It was reallywarm. There was high carbon dioxide and there were a lot of plants growing everywhere that the dinosaurs were trompingon.
It was a great time to be alive forplants.
But then all thatchanged.
A giant asteroid came hurtling the Earth fromspace.
It smashed into the Yucatan Peninsula nearMexico.
HowBORSH! That sent massive tsunamis flooding thecoasts.
It sparked wildfires that ravaged theland.
It kicked updust. That blocked out thesun, making things super chilly anddark.
Veryquickly, around75% of all life wentextinct.
Poof! I'mdead! But what happened to ourheroes?
Spotlighton! Theferns!
Oh, that wasbrilliant,y'all.
I could see the fear on your fur andfaces, especiallyyou, KeanuLeaves.
Bravo! Make sure you channel that exact same energy forpreviews.
Wow!75% of alllife? That'shuge!
Yeah, and it wasn't justdinosaurs.
It also wiped out giant marine reptiles like the Ixthiosaurus and huge shell creatures calledamonites.
70% of all plantlife,too.
It wasgrim.Next, Reagan showed me a slide with the microscope that had stuff on it from just after the meteoriteimpact.
Unlike the lastslide, this one had hardly any signs of plant life onit.
Except forone. What wesee, if we look really closely atsamples, teeny tiny littlesamples, are the spores offerns.
So ferns were growing in these ecosystems prior to theevent, but after theevent, that's pretty much what yousee.
They really dominated thelandscape.
Picturethis. The curtain rises on a newday.
The bones of giant dinos are strewn across thestage.
There are charred husks oftrees.
It'ssilent,still. Butthen, the light shine on one plant that's stillstanding.
Ourprotagonists, theferns.
Yes,yes, great front works forlandoblume.
Furndresher, give me more resilientcourage.
Oh,yes, that'sperfect,perfect.
Youknow, I'm really buying these performances from theferns.
I'm tellingyou, they're gonna bestars.
So for hundreds of years after the asteroidhit, ferns were the main plant growing onEarth.
It was aferntopia, if youwill.
But another cool thing about ferns is they're really good at making healthysoil.
So theseferns, they ruled theworld, but they were kind and benevolent and generousrulers.
Overtime, they made rich fertile soil that helped other plants come back and new onesevolve.
Those plants fedbugs, small mammals ate those bugs and bigger mammals ate the smallerones.
Andsoon, a whole new world wasborn.
Wow, all thanks toferns?
Well, nottotally, but they played a huge role in helping the worldrecover.
We humans might not be here today if it weren't forferns.
Huh, I never thought of it likethat.
So how did they doit? How did they survive when so many other plants and animalsdidn't?
Ah, greatquestion. We don't totally know all thepieces.
But we do know that ferns have a lot of great traits that make them bornsurvivors.
You already mentioned some ofthem, but I'll let Reaganrecap.
Ferns are great survivors because they can grow in very low-lightenvironments.
One.Secondly, they have rhizomes or these stems that grow underground that can sprout and grow new plants when they've been disturbed by a fire or a lawn mower or something like that or a dinosaur tromping away atthem.
Third, they reproduce by tiny littlespores.
And so a tiny spore that is just like a quarter of the width of yourhair, one single strand ofhair, is all it needs to produce a whole fernplant.
And so all a spore needs is a little wet spot on theground.
The spork in land there and then generate a plant in a very short timeperiod.
Even with all these superpowers ofsurvival, we know things were really bad after the meteor hitEarth.
There werefires, darkskies, coldweather.
Reagan and her team wanted to know more about how fern survived allthat.
So they decided to recreate theextinction.
How do you dothat?Yeah, that soundsdangerous.
You do it on a very smallscale.
They took a greenhouse and stuffed it withplants.
Similar to the kinds of plants you would find in the CretaceousPeriod.
There are seven different species of plants including redwoods and dawn redwoods and several types of ferns and even palm trees because palm trees were also growing at thattime.
They also made the air and temperature in that greenhouse a lot like what it was back in the days of thedinosaurs.
And so we let those plants just grow in this really niceenvironment.
Everything washappy. It waswarm.
And then we decided to simulate theimpact.
To dothat, they painted thewalls.
So very little light could getin.
They lowered the temperature inside the greenhouse until it was superchilly.
And some plants even were treated withacid.
We painted it on with paint brushes because that's one of the things that happened after the impact was that acid rain rained out and that has pretty detrimental effects onleaves.
Whoa, painting withacid?
This is an extremeexperiment.
Totally. Iknow,right?
Then they monitored the plants for six months to see how theydid.
Well, it was prettysurprising.
Every plant did their ownthing.
So some plants had noproblems,redwoods.
They don'tcare. They just continue togrow.
Other plants that lose theirleaves, they lost their leavesimmediately.
And stayed sort ofdormant, like a maple tree when it loses its leaves inwinter.
And then a lot of the plantsdied.
Reagan and her team are still studying what happened in thatgreenhouse.
They're hoping to learn things about how the ferns used water during this harshperiod, how they responded to not having much light andmore.
She says unlocking the secrets of how fern survive isimportant.
Because rightnow, our climate ischanging.
Greenhouse gases are warming up theplanet, and that's going to affect a lot ofplants.
Ferns might just teach us how to help those other plantssurvive,too.
That's reallycool. Ferns really do so much for theworld.
Yeah, so how does your playend?
Well, it ends with a glimpse into thefuture.
It's the year2100. The stage is bathed in a rusty redlight.
The landscape isbare,rocky,alien.
We're onMars. Humans have just set up acolony, and they need a plant that can grow in extremeconditions.
One that can help make rich soil for other plants tofollow.
We see a platform rise from centerstage.
It's liftingup,up,up, it's theferns.
Human astronauts stand aroundthem, saluting the ferns for theirbravery.
That's yourcue,guys. Lookheroic.
Oh,perfect. The music swellsand...
...endscene. The curtainfalls.
The crowd goeswild.Yay, ferns areamazing.
We loveyou. We loveyou.
This is the best playever.
Let's give it all theawards.
Iagree.Woo,yeah! You knowwhat?
I'll totally go see thisplay.
It does soundamazing.Yeah, we'll come openingnight.
Oh, I'm pretty sure it'll be soldout.
But maybe I can get you on a stand-by list orsomething?
Now, I better get my ferns to their dressing room torest.
As you canimagine, a performance like that really takes it out ofthem.
Ofcourse.Thanks,Sandin.
Bravo,ferns! Ferns are ink-ship plants that were around during the time of thedinosaurs, and they're still thrivingtoday.
They have underground networks of stems called rhizomes that allow them to grow back even if their tops are trampled orburned.
And they spread by sitting little things called spores into theair.
Those spores can ride the wind far and wide before landing on some wet soil and growing into a whole newfern.
Scientists are still trying to understand how ferns survived the last greatextinction, what they learned could show us how to help other plants survive as our climatechanges.
That's it for this episode of BrainsOn.
This episode was written by Molly Boome in SandinTime.
It was produced by Rosie DuPont and aGoldfield, our Rome walled toCeleste, and a wiggle and markSanchez.
We had editing help from ShailaFarzon, sound designed by RachelBreeze, and we had engineering help from DerekRamirez, NickGolden, GeorgeEdminson, and ElisaBeckwith.
Breath Perlin is our executiveproducer.
The executive's in charge of APM studios are ChandraCavati, AlexSchaffer, and JoanneGriffith.
Special thanks to mydad, StewieBloom.
Brains On is a non-profit public radioprogram.
There are lots of ways to support theshow, head toBrainsOn.org.
While you'rethere, you can send us mysterysounds,drawings, andquestions.
And you can subscribe to our SmartyPass.
It gives you a special ticket to Brains On Universe bonuscontent, plus add freeepisodes.
Okay,Maya, are you ready to listen to that mystery soundagain?
Yes!Okay, here itis. Think cutting celery or somethinghard.
This is anexcellent, excellentgift.
I feel like it's avegetable,though.
Okay, celery or some vegetable beingcut.
I loveit. Should we hear if you'reright?
Yes!Okay, here's theanswer.
My name isSamaya. I'm 11 yearsold.
I live inBerkeley,California.
That was the sound of me choppingcelery.
Stop.Maya. Incredibleears.
How do youfeel?Awesome.
Sogood! Oh mygosh, I think this must be because you spend so much time withplants.
That you really understood what it sounds like when celery is beingchopped.
Or my mom cuts a lot ofcelery.
Or thattoo. Nicework!Amazing!
Now it's time for the Brains honorroll.
These are the kids who keep this show going with their questionsideas, mysterysounds,drawings, and highfives.
Kevin fromBelfast, Alexander fromHawthorne,California, Cohen from KansasCity, Joshua fromCalifornia, Kabir fromMumbai, Adi from NewJersey, Joel Petra and Vera fromHollywood,Maryland, Hudson and Lily fromSurrey, BritishColumbia, Ethan from KualaLumpur,Malaysia, Josie fromKeely,UK, Philippe and Cruz fromLincoln,California, Carter and Bennett from RoundRock,Texas, Skyler and Finn fromTalent,Oregon, Hugo fromPhiladelphia, Vera and Jules fromDella,Nega,Georgia, Marit from FortLumpton,Colorado, Maya fromMarina,Delray,California, Otis fromSydney,Australia, Maddie and Max fromBrisbane,Australia, Finley and Luca fromMontpelier,Vermont, Elliott fromTucson,Arizona, Ingrid from NeptuneBeach,Florida, Alex from SilverSpring,Maryland, Simon Caleb and Ethan from Vash inWashington, Maddie from OklahomaCity, Kyla fromAcworth,Georgia, Rio fromLotsburg,Virginia, Miriam fromDurham, NewHampshire, Sianna fromBloomington,Indiana, Sophie fromArlington,Massachusetts, Clark and Whit fromMacon,Georgia, Ran fromConnecticut, Lily from PortCharlotte,Florida, Hana fromTustin,California, Adi fromColorado, Caden fromJupiter,Florida,Charlotte, Hadi andEleanor,Farlington,Virginia, Roman from theWoodlands,Texas, M Island fromLondon,Berg,Pennsylvania, Thomas from Gillian inEngland, Braden and Camilla fromIrvine,California, Nor an Aspen from LosAngeles, Julian and Penelope from LosAngeles, Jimmy fromColumbia,Station,Ohio, Rande fromTorrance,California, Morgan fromPortland,Oregon, Abby and Nathan fromMedford,Massachusetts, Eli and Nora fromBoston, Thomas fromRidgeville, SouthCarolina, Mollie fromBuffalo, NewYork, Tabitha fromVictoria, BritishColumbia, Lockland fromDartmouth, NovaScotia, Xavier fromKikali,Rwanda, Miranda fromAmes,Iowa, Shiloha fromIsrael, and Shruti fromBrisbane,Australia.
