Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
From the brains behind Brains On, this is the Moment of Um. Answering those questions that make you go, Um. Moment of Um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Eunice the Unicorn. Hi, hello, I'm Eunice. Oh,
I said that already. Okay, well, some fun facts about me. I sneeze sparkles. I love grapes.
And, oh, and my favorite color is rainbow. Yep. Okay. Is that cheating because it's all the colors? Nah, I'm magic. I can do what I want. Oh, and I'm not just a magic unicorn. I said I was a unicorn, right? Well, I'm not just a magic unicorn. I'm also a budding microbiologist. That's just a fancy word for someone who studies really tiny stuff like germs.
I'm taking microbiology classes at Unicorn U to study all the things cute and tiny. Sometimes I combine my love of all the colors and my love of tiny things to make micro rainbows. Here, look in this microscope. See this tiny rainbow? Well, it's made of grains of sand from different beaches. We got green sand, pink sand, red sand. Oh, and see this slide?
It's my multicolor mold collection. You know, mold, the stuff that grows on old food and in wet places. We've got yellow mold, white, green, pink. My favorite is all of them. You know why there are lots of different colors? No, I'm really asking. Do you know why? Because I have no idea. My pal Max asked too. Why does mold have different colors? Let's ask someone who knows a lot about this.
If you like molds to some degree, they're kind of pretty because they have lots of colors. I'm Jonathan Schilling. I'm at the University of Minnesota in the College of Biological Sciences. For one, the fungi are more similar to us than they are to plants.
They are an entire, what are called kingdom of organisms. And they include the yeasts. We use those for making bread and other things. And then they also include these filamentous fungi, which produce things like mushrooms that we can grow and eat. But one of these filamentous groups is really focused on growing very fast.
and producing spores, lots and lots of spores, so that it can grow as quickly as possible in one place and move on to another location that might be more favorable. And those pigments are specific to these fungi. So some of them are green. They produce tons and tons of green spores. Some maybe produce brown spores. Some might be black. And every once in a while, you'll get like pinks and yellows.
They will grow, and as soon as they can, for some of these fungi, as soon as they can, they will begin producing more spores. So that's what happens with it, and that's why it can grow so fast. Wow. Okay. Wow. Mold is a type of fungus, so it's in the mushroom family. I met a family of gnomes that lived in a mushroom house once. It was pretty small, though, so I guess it didn't have mush-room.
Good one, me. And isn't it wild that mold spores have melanin in them? That's the same stuff that gives human skin color its color, too. Mold makes melanin as a way to protect itself from the sun's rays, extreme temperatures, and other stressful stuff. It's like its rainbow-colored armor.
I gotta gallop. I need to get to my microbiology class. I don't want to be late. The teacher is an actual troll and you do not want to make a troll mad, okay? Because he'll take points off your grade. Yikes! If you like this episode, take a second to subscribe to Moment of Bump wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you like unicorns, then who doesn't? Check out Smash Boom Best. We have a whole episode about debating dragons versus unicorns.
Want to see our shows come to life? Head to YouTube where we've got awesome animated Brains On episodes. Search Brains On Universe on YouTube and subscribe. If you have a question, we'd love to help you answer it. Drop us a line by going to brainson.org slash contact. See you next time and the next day and every weekday. Until then.
Hmm, which colored pencil should I take notes with today? I know, all of them.