Lulu Miller: Three, two, one! Imagine …

Ashley Eliza Williams: … You're slowing way, way down.

(As you slow down, you hear a sound almost like the tiniest animal snoring. Then, a jungle bed of sounds opens up around you. Strings pluck and helicopter seed-notes whirl around.)

Lulu: And your body is turning strange colors. 

Ashley: Bright safety-cone orange. 

(Beside you, another plant whirrs to life.)

Ashley: Or a toothpaste green.

(The clink of metal tapping a glass full of water.)

Lulu: (As Lulu talks, a slimy sound spreads between her words, too.) And as you slowly spread over a rock … 

Ashley: You're eating the rock. [A moment.] And you might be being nibbled by a caribou. 

(Ow! Nibble nibble–the caribou is getting you!)

Lulu: You have become–

Ashley: –A lichen!

(The sounds around you go quiet.)

Lulu: Alright, now is the part where I make you sing the theme song with me.

(Drums and a theremin trade a rhythm back and forth as the theme song starts.)

Songbud Alan Goffinski: (Joined by Lulu) Terrestrials, terrestrials, we are not the worst, we are the …

Ashley: (Unable to finish the song, embarrassed.) I don’t know! I–my brain is gone. 

Lulu: (Trying to help Ashley guess.) We're not the worst. We’re the …

Ashley: (Excitedly.) The best! 

Songbud Alan: (Finishing the song.) … Best-rials! 

Ashley: Oh man! 

Lulu: You got it! (Lulu claps for Ashley.)

Ashley: Okay.

(Like raindrops in a storm, the music steadily drips back.)

Lulu: Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness waiting right here on Earth. I am your host, Lulu Miller, joined as always by my song bud …

Songbud Alan: (Through autotune–it sounds like there are three Alans, maybe more!) Woah-ho-ho!

(With two deep drum beats, the music starts coming down heavier.)

Lulu: Alan.

Songbud Alan: Lichen, love it, want some more of it!

Lulu: And this season we are looking at creatures that are usually …

Songbud Alan: … Overlooked. (Songbud Alan shushes us. It’s a secret!)

(The theremin drones back, like a nice mosquito.)

Lulu: And today’s lichen lover is … 

Ashley: Ashley Eliza Williams! And I am an artist … 

Lulu: … Who paints … 

Ashley: … Lichens! I'm obsessed with lichens! (Ashley laughs gently.)

(Our friend the theremin returns, this time driven on by a melody played by a calliope – an instrument you might hear at a circus!)

Lulu: Now, even if you don't think you've ever seen lichen, you probably have. It’s that often green or yellow fuzz that grows up trees or on top of rocks. 

I honestly used to think it was a kind of mold.

(Uh-oh–the music winds down! Then it turns scary, like electronic nails on a chalkboard.)

Ashley: I mean, some people think they look like something has gone wrong, and [Lulu laughs.] they try to power wash them off things. 

Lulu: I mean, I get that! It looks [Searching for a word.] kinda scuzzy!

Ashley: (Laughing as if to say, “Fair!”.) But, when you get up close, lichens are extremely beautiful.

(A bright twinkling sound enters into the music. It feels lighter now.)

Lulu: And Ashley knows this because when she walks through the forest, she wears a necklace with a special charm at the end called–

Ashley: –A loop. It's a little magnifying glass. 

Lulu: Huh.

Ashley: And when I look at lichens really closely under this magnifying glass …

(The music deepens–not scary, but rich, mysterious, exciting!)

Lulu: She sees a different world.

Ashley: Some of them look like antlers. 

Lulu: Fuzzy little reindeer antlers.

Ashley: Branching in all directions. 

Lulu: Some of them … 

Ashley: Kind of look like sea creatures. 

Lulu: Or … 

Ashley: Bubbles and cups. 

(Bubbles flow up in between and around all the other sounds.)

Lulu: Some look like tiny heads of lettuce with tons of wrinkly leaves.

Ashley: And when you look inside the wrinkles, there are even more wrinkles! (Lulu laughs at the thought.) 

Songbud Alan: Wrinkles on wrinkles on wrinkles on wrinkles!

Lulu: And the deeper she looked into lichen, she saw not only textures, but messages!

(The twinkling comes back, a little faster, a little more excitable than before.)

Lulu: Messages that could help humans trying to heal the earth–and one very special message that would help her overcome a fear she had been carrying since childhood.

Ashley: Yes!

(A beat.)

Lulu: All right. So our story starts millions of years ago–

(With one plunk, all the other sounds go away. In the empty space, you can hear wind rushing.)

Lulu: –When the Earth’s land was much more barren. 

Mostly a lot of rocks. And, at some point, lichen shows up and begins spreading and chomping its way all over those rocks.

(Snack time for the lichen! It chomps away at the rocks just like you might eat broccoli. The bright sounds of the forest from before come back, too, now with birds chirping.)

Lulu: And as it chomped, it helped turn the rocks into soil, which made a nice cozy place for trees and other plants to take root and grow.

(Roots sink deep into the soil. Even more bugs and animals chime in.)

Lulu: And slowly the lichen spread farther and farther, all over the planet, to every corner, in almost every imaginable color. And one day, in 1985, a little baby girl is born in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

(The jungle full of animals goes quiet, leaving only music behind. Then, little by little, the sounds of an Appalachian forest creep in.) 

Ashley: The thing is, there were lichens all around, but I didn't really notice them. 

(Frogs croak in the forest.)

Lulu: Ashley was outside a ton as a kid.

Ashley: There was a creek behind my elementary school and I liked looking for all the little fishes and the bugs–the water bugs. I was fascinated by the water bugs. 

(A bird twitters in the middle of the mountain forest.)

Lulu: And even though there were lichens right under her nose … 

Ashley: They were invisible to me. 

Lulu: Now, part of the reason Ashley spent so much time in nature was that being around humans–in big groups, at school or parties–was really hard. 

(The forest sounds fade out. In their place, mysterious electronic sounds come in–maybe the sounds of a time machine?) 

Ashley: I was an incredibly shy kid. Um, so I didn't really speak much … Or really at all. I didn't speak at all, um, for a couple of years in school. 

Lulu: At–at all? 

Ashley: Yeah. [A moment of quiet.] I so badly wanted to connect to other people. But for some reason I couldn't quite do it. It was too scary to kind of say a word. And I re-remember kids kind of asking me to speak or telling me to speak and I remember feeling kind of paralyzed, like I actually couldn't speak. 

Lulu: She said she'd blush and the kids would sometimes start laughing. 

Ashley: Oh, it was terrible. I hated it. I was so embarrassed. 

Lulu: So Ashley started avoiding people as much as she could. 

(We leave the time machine and move back to the forest, with all its sounds.)

Ashley: I spent a lot of time by myself reading and spending time in the woods. And because I wasn't talking very much, I became really curious about quiet beings. 

Lulu: Like snails. Or ferns. Or those water bugs rippling the water.

(Plink-plink-plink go the water droplets, dripping and ringing in the woods.)

Ashley: Creatures that are quiet and maybe easily overlooked. 

Lulu: She would stare at their movements and colors and try to understand them. 

(Back out of the forest, an exciting melody begins to bounce up a keyboard.)

Ashley: That's probably why I became an artist. Because painting and making art is a kind of way to communicate without words.

Lulu: So Ashley painted and she drew creatures of the forest. And when she grew up, she landed a dream job, teaching art at Colorado State University. Only problem? Because teaching means talking in front of big groups of students … 

Ashley: I was a wreck before every single class. 

(The music softens, like a sunrise, delicately exploring the waking world.)

Lulu: So to calm her nerves, she'd go for runs through the mountains before class, just as the sun was coming up.

Ashley: The light would change, and the rocks would turn different colors. 

Lulu: And she decided she wanted to paint a portrait of one of those rocks. But, as she started looking closely at it …

(Scritchy-scratchy lichens grow just as Ashley notices them.)

Ashley: I realized there were little creatures growing on the rock.

Lulu: Lichens! She was noticing lichens for the first time. 

Ashley: They were all different colors: bright yellow and tangerine orange and–and strange blue-green. 

Lulu: And she thought, “Forget the rocks–I want to paint these!”

(Ashley’s brush moves against the canvas, scritchy-scratchy just like the lichen.)

Lulu: And as she painted more and more of their wild shapes, she began to wonder ...

Ashley: … Who they were.

Lulu:  She couldn’t tell: Were they mushrooms? Were they plants?

(A glimmer.)

Lulu: And we’ll get back to that. But the thing that really amazed her as she started to research them was just how much they could do.

(Plucky strings begin to play.)

Lulu: ‘Cause it turned out lichen doesn’t just live on rocks and trees. 

Ashley: They live on metal. They live on statues and gravestones, even on the backs of bugs.

Lulu: (Shocked.) What? 

Ashley: Yes.

Lulu: Kind of bobbing along as it goes? 

Ashley: Yes. 

Lulu: Just catching a ride?

Ashley: Yes. Yes! 

Lulu: They can also live in the freezing cold. 

Ashley: In the far Arctic, under lots and lots of snow! 

Lulu: Or the burning hot.

Ashley: In the desert. 

Lulu: Or right after a volcano erupts! 

(A volcanic eruption explodes onto the scene, and the plucky strings speed up as if running away while playing.) 

Ashley: Huge explosion! 

Lulu: After the lava rolls through … 

Ashley: Some of the first creatures to arrive are lichens. 

Lulu: They can even live– 

Ashley: –Unmoored!

(After an exciting musical moment, the strings and volcanic winds give way to a soft breeze and the sound of wind chimes.)

Lulu: In the wind. 

(A moment to enjoy the wind.)

Lulu: And because of all this, many species of lichens are what’s known as …

Songbud Alan and Lulu: Extremophiles! (A hard rock guitar riff plays.) 

Lulu: Yeooooow! [Laughs. Then, with heavy emphasis on each ‘extreme,’ continuing.] Extremophiles: creatures going to the EXTREME, living in an EXTREME environment, and for an EXTREMELY long time. 

Ashley: The oldest lichen, I believe, is 9,000 years old.

Lulu: (Gasping, then choking, then coughing.) Oh my god! 

Ashley: And–

Lulu: I'm authentically choking on my water. Here, hold on.

(Ashley laughs.)

Lulu: Wow!

Ashley: I was shocked too. Yeah, 9,000 years old in Sweden. 

(A low chord begins to play, taking us back in time.)

Ashley: Imagine being that old! [Lulu laughs.] And, like, those lichens have seen a lot of things. 

Lulu: The building of the pyramids. The invention of the wheel. Wooly mammoths! 

And because they've been around for so long, they contain messages. Messages they've recorded about the past. 

So if you were to look out at a field of lichen with a trained eye, you could tell when there was a flood, or a fire, or someone trespassing. 

Lulu: And so, lichens are used by historians and forest rangers and even [A beat.] detectives. 

(A 1960-style detective theme song begins to take shape.)

Ashley: Lichens can help us solve crimes. (Lulu laughs.)

Lulu: She is not kidding! Lichens have been used in court cases! And they can also tell us about things we can’t see with our own eyes.

Ashley: Like, the color of the lichen will change in areas with worse air pollution. 

(The theme song changes a little, becoming lower, growl-ier, with horns playing every few beats. In the background, someone coughs–oh no, air pollution!)

Lulu: Huh. So, like, you wouldn't even need some fancy device. 

Ashley: Right!

Lulu: You could just go walk around in a forest.

Ashley: Yes!

Lulu: And see: It is healthy here.

Ashley: Yeah! 

(We’re back in the 1960s musically. It’s Adam West’s Batman, but with lichen.)

Lulu: It is dangerous here. 

Ashley: Yeah!

Lulu: Neat!. They are like these understated superheroes – 

(Pfoo-pfoo-pfoo!)

Lulu: –That can do all kinds of things that almost no plant or animal on Earth can do.  

(A grand superhero detective finale, and the music is gone!)

Lulu: Which got me wondering … 

[To Ashley.] How are they able, like … What do you think the source of their superpower is? Like, just the fact that they [A breath.] can last so long? They can live on sand …

Ashley: Yeah.

Lulu: … They can live after lava, they can live in the air, they can live under snow …? Like, what is their power? Where does it come from? 

Ashley: Um, well …

(New synthesizer music starts. It’s almost time for the break!)

Lulu: Ashley has the answer. And she’ll tell us! Right after a short break.

(The break. After commercials, the podcast returns with the crunching of feet in snow. A plucked cello melody accompanies the footfalls.)

Lulu: Terrestrials … is back. 

Ashley: We are in Maine.

Lulu: And we … 

Ashley: Of the Northwoods. 

Lulu: Are on a hunt. 

Ashley: And it's just basically snowy everywhere. 

Lulu: A lichen hunt. 

Ashley: Okay.

Lulu: With artist Ashley Eliza Williams. 

Ashley: So I'm crouching down [Footsteps stop.] and I'm gonna dig into the snow [Digging starts.] and see if I can find some lichens.

Lulu: We’ve just come across some boulders covered in about six inches of snow. 

Ashley: (While brushing away snow.) Alright, I'm dusting the snow off the surface. 

Lulu: And, peeking out from under the white fluffy snow …

(Shiny new lichen music sparkles. It’s magic!)

Ashley: I see a lichen! 

Extremely bright, kind of tangerine-colored lichens. And it's living under here–under the snow.

Lulu: So the question we left off with was: “How?” [Laughingly.] How is lichen so boss? How can it survive in such extreme places, like under this snow where very few other things can live?

(The sparkles drift away. A stringed instrument bounces a melody up and down over the sound of wind, or maybe cars, outside.)

Lulu: And get ready, because the answer might scramble your brain a bit–might shatter a hard line you thought existed in nature. Because remember how Ashley couldn’t tell at first if lichen were plants or mushrooms? Well, it turns out … 

Ashley: They're not a plant. And they're not a mushroom. 

Lulu: They're a plant [Mysterious UFO sound effects float up into the atmosphere.] AND a mushroom. 

Ashley: It's a plant and a fungi together. 

Distorted Voice: Together … !

Lulu: Lichen is what's called a composite organism. One organism, made up of two–or more!–species. So when Ashley looks close at one splotch of lichen growing off of a rock, the thing she is looking at? It's not one thing! 

Ashley: It's actually not an organism, it's a relationship. 

Lulu: Wait, the matter that we're seeing, these wild shapes and cups and antlers … Like, that is a relationship in physical form?

Alma: Yes!

(Drip-drip-drop goes the music as it comes to a halt.)

Lulu: It's a strange idea. But here's what she means. When you look at lichen under a microscope, it looks a little like a hug. The mushroom–or the fungi–is giving a big hug, totally surrounding the plant part called algae. 

Ashley: They're kind of fitting into each other like puzzle pieces. 

(As Lulu talks, a xylophone plays softly underneath.)

Lulu: What goes on in this hug allows lichen to do incredible things because the fungus gives the lichen fungi powers–it can sip water from the air, and minerals from the soil and provide shelter for that soft algae center. 

Ashley: The fungus kinda protects the algae.

Lulu: And the algae … Well, that gives the lichen plant powers. That lets it do the incredible, magical-seeming trick of using sunlight to turn air …

Ashley: … Into sugar.

(Lulu says “Tada”! as a tiny xylophone does a quick run of notes.)

Lulu: And that hug is the secret to how lichen can handle so many extreme environments: Arctic tundra, deserts, lava fields, even air itself. Lichen can find a way to get the food and strength it needs because of the multiple species [Emphasizing each word.] that it is.

Ashley: They're a community! 

Lulu: … Which was such a strange idea. 

Ashley: To be a bunch of different beings all squished together … 

Lulu: That when scientists first suggested that's what was going on inside lichen … 

(The music fades out.)

Lulu: People just didn't believe it. 

Ashley: It totally upended everything we know about what we think of as an organism.

Lulu: Huh. 

(A moment of quiet.)

Lulu: This was back in 1869, about a decade after Charles Darwin published his big book, On the Origin of Species, which talked about how creatures compete with one another to survive. And many people took that to mean that to succeed at life you had to compete.

(Dramatic music plays, as if we are about to play the world’s biggest game of biology football.)

Songbud Alan as “Coach Darwin”: (Whistles.) It's a dog-eat-dog world out there! Do you want to win? 

Songbud Alan as “Teammate”: (Unconvincingly.) Uh, yeah? 

“Coach Darwin”: I said, do you want to win? 

“Teammate”: Yeah! 

(Others chime in.)

A Chorus of “Teammates”: Woo! Survival of the fittest! Survival of the fittest! 

“Coach Darwin”: Now get out there and crush the competition! 

(The “team” cheers, claps, and chants excitedly.)

“Teammate”: Yeah!

Lulu: And then along comes this scientist who said, “Wait! Look at what’s going on inside lichen! These two different species are …”

(The music slumps to a slow halt.)

Ashley: … Working together.

(Soft, thoughtful music lays down a bed of sound.)

Lulu: It seemed bonkers to a lot of scientists at first. But the more they looked under microscopes at lichen, the more they saw the truth inside: These two different species working together to become one organism. 

They even had to invent a whole new word to describe it. 

Ashley: The word symbiosis actually came from scientists studying lichens. 

Lulu: “Sym,” meaning “together,” and “bio,” meaning “life”–working together to live!

Distorted Voice: Symbiosis.

Lulu: And what is wild is that that hug inside of lichen? Well, if you zoom out you can see how it extends to all kinds of creatures outside of it. 

In the Arctic, for example, because lichen can stay alive in the freezing snow throughout the winter, then so can caribou and reindeer nibbling up lichen until spring. 

(Crunchy snow and crunching animals make almost the same sound on top of each other.)

Lulu: Or in the deserts of Libya, lichen growing on hot rocks, helps sheep survive through dry spells. 

(Sheep bleat, a “baa” here and a “baa” there – everywhere a “baa, baa”!)

Lulu: Or on the snowy foothills near Mount Everest, there is somebody else finding crucial nourishment from lichen.

Prashanta Kanal: (Searching.) I'm on page 40 … 42. 

Lulu: This is Prashant Kanal flipping through a cookbook he wrote of recipes from Nepal, where he lives. 

Prashanta:  … Garlic cloves, ginger ... 

(Lulu hums, thinking about how it might taste and smell already.)

Prashanta: One onion. And a handful of lichen. 

(A game show buzzer goes off – lichen food, for people! Then, soft, arpeggiated notes bounce up and down for a gentle background sound.)

Lulu: This is a recipe for a lichen curry called the yangben faksa. 

Now, some lichen is poisonous, so don’t go around tasting it–but!–Prashanta explained that in the eastern region of Nepal there grows a lichen that is totally safe to eat. And in the generations that the Limbu people have been living on those often-snowy hillsides, lichen became an essential food.

Prashanta: Yeah. yeah.

Lulu: And a tasty one too. 

Prashanta: I've never seen anyone who has tried lichen and they didn't like it. 

Lulu: Everyone is likin’ lichen? (Already laughing at her joke – the two words sound the same out loud!)

Prashanta: (Laughing a little, but not as into it.) That's a good one.

Lulu: Sorry. 

Prashanta: Yeah. 

Lulu: (Still laughing gently.) Okay!

Lulu: When Prashanta learned that lichen helped his ancestors … Well, it changed how the lichen curry tasted to him.

Prashanta: Food tastes better if you know the–the history. It changes the experience and somehow the food becomes even tastier. 

(The music slowly fades out as Lulu talks.)

Lulu: And back to our shy artist Ashley. When she learned that lichen was actually a community of species helping one another, it made her question something that she had believed for a long time. 

Ashley: I, you know, for a long time thought I maybe didn't need people. (Laughs shyly.)

Lulu: She had the woods, the quiet. But looking closely at lichen started to change her. 

(Emotional, low, slow music kicks up.)

Ashley: The fact that lichens are stronger because they're a community, um, is something that's really stayed with me. And as I've gotten older, I realize that I very much need people. I–I very much need a community. 

Lulu: Scary as crowds can be, she started to believe that there could be people inside them who could support her, inspire her, make her laugh … or, you know, help her survive.

Ashley: Lichens show us that we need–that we need each other. 

Lulu: So she started pushing through her fears and attending concerts, lectures by scientists, art openings, and even [Pausing briefly for suspense.] going to the grocery store when it was busy, instead of 6 AM when no one would be there.

Ashley: (Laughing and reflecting.) Yeah!

Lulu: And even though it often terrified her to do these things … 

Ashley: I have met some of the most fascinating people [Laughs.] on the planet.

Lulu: Including a certain someone named …

Ashley: Uh, Jason! 

Lulu: A scientist with spiky black hair and kind brown eyes. And one spring day, he asked Ashley if she wanted to go on a date. 

Lulu: Were you n-nervous? 

Ashley: Oh my goodness. I was incredibly shy with him. 

Lulu: But Jason didn't seem to mind that Ashley was quiet. 

They went to an art museum and stood shoulder to shoulder.

Ashley: Looking quietly …

Lulu: … And carefully at all kinds of art.

Ashley: And he was able to do that. And I was really impressed by that. 

(The music fades down.)

Lulu: She was also impressed by what kind of science he did. 

Ashley: One of the things that drew me to him is that he studies shy galaxies. 

Lulu: Shy galaxies? Like sp–like in outer space? There are … ?

(Twinkling stars intertwine with a repeated drumbeat.)

Ashley: Yes. 

Lulu: What does that mean? 

Ashley: So when you think of a galaxy, you might think of these, you know, galaxies with bright spiral arms. 

Lulu: (The two talk over each other.) Flashing, a lot's going on, they're showy? Okay! They're flashy.

Ashley: (Enthusiastically.) Yeah!

Lulu: Yeah, yeah. Literally flashy. Okay. 

Ashley: Yes! [Chuckles lightly.] But he is interested in the galaxies that not many people care about. The little, quiet galaxies that don't make very much light. 

(A keyboard melody draws us out into space.)

Lulu: In other words …

Ashley: They're kind of like the lichen of space. 

Lulu: The lichen of space!

Ashley: Yeah, he's looking at these little smudges in the sky that are really easy to overlook …

(ZAP! goes a sound almost like teleportation across the vast darkness of space.)

Ashley: … While I'm kind of crouched down on the ground looking at these tiny little lichens that are also overlooked. And I think that's really romantic.

(The music wraps up as one more teleportation ZAP! rings out.)

Lulu: (Ashley laughs softly and sweetly.) Aww. I do too. Well here’s to lichens–of all kinds.

(Drums! Guitar feedback! Could it be time for another Songbud moment?)

Lulu: Oh no!! Songbud’s got a famous punk star with him: Laura Jane Grace! 

Laura Jane Grace: Woo! 

Lulu: … And they’ve both got electric guitars.

Songbud Alan as “Fungus”: Whether you're Algae, 

Laura Jane Grace as “Algae”: Or you're Fungus,

Both: We're gonna make a fuzzy ruckus! 

Fungus: I'm not likin’ what you're likin’.

Algae: And you're likin’ what I don't. ‘Cause if I'm Algae, 

Fungus: And I'm Fungus,

Both: We're gonna make a fuzzy ruckus! 

Fungus: I eat rocks! 

Algae: I photosynthesize! 

Fungus: It’s hard to believe,

Algae: But you’re growing on me.

(Fungus says “Oh!” and laughs.)

Both: The coldest cold, the hottest sun, whatever anybody throws at us, 

[A spoken chorus.] Oh, oh, we grow together better than alone. 

Oh, oh, we grow together better than alone. 

[Singing.] We thrive united, not apart.

We face the day together, all as one.

[The spoken chorus again.] Oh, oh, we grow together better than alone. 

Oh, oh, we grow together better than alone. 

[Singing.] We found our own way to play the game, to change the rules, and stay alive!

We don't survive without each one. 

Algae: I’ll drink the wind, you eat the sun. 

Both: A culture all our own. 

We're likin’ this alliance that we've grown! 

Algae: Whether you're Algae, 

Fungus: Or you're Fungus, 

Algae: We're gonna make a fuzzy ruckus. 

Both: Together we are stronger than alone. 

Lulu: Alan Goffinski and Laura Jane Grace, everybody. 

Laura Jane: Woo, yeah! 

(A tambourine jingles.)

Lulu: And that is it. That is the end of Terrestrials. There's nothing else cool about to happen.

(Suddenly, out of nowhere, trumpets … well, uh, trumpet! It’s The Badgers!)

Lulu: (Whispered.) What's that?

Badger #1: Excuse me, I have a question. 

Badger #2: Me too. 

Badger #3: Me three. 

Badger #4: Me four. 

Lulu: (Whispered, but somehow loudly.) The Badgers.

(The Badgers theme song plays underneath the questions.)

Lulu: Listeners with badgering questions for the expert. Are you ready? 

Ashley: Yes! 

Alma: I'm Alma, and I'm six and I’m almost turning seven. 

Are all lichens okay to eat, or–or are some dangerous?

Ashley: Okay, so, they're eaten in all kinds of different cultures, including–

Lulu: –Nepal, as we already learned, and also–

Ashley: –In India, where they're in a popular spice called garam masala. 

Lulu: (Gasps.) Garam masala! I have that in my spice rack right now! So there’s–there’s lichen in my kitchen right now. 

Ashley: Yeah! 

Lulu: But reminder: Many in the wild are poisonous! So don’t go lickin’ lichen!

Rosalind Chao: Hi, my name is Rosalind Chao. I'm an actor from Star Trek. Could lichens survive on the moon? 

Ashley: They’ve actually put lichens into space.

Lulu: Wait, like, shot ‘em up in a rocket ship? 

Ashley: Yes! Yes! They–they did! They  …

Lulu: And then, like, let ‘em out the door? 

(Whoosh! The lichens get sucked out of the spaceship!)

Ashley: Yes! And they go dormant, out in outer space. But, when they bring them back to Earth, they can revive them and they're still alive. 

Lulu: We could not do that. 

Ashley: No, we could not do that. And very few other beings on Earth could do that. 

But lichens can do that.

Niran: Hi my name is Niran. I’m 7 years old. My question is: Are lichen half-dead creatures? 

Ashley: Nope. So they're actually double-alive [Lulu laughs.] because they are, um, uh, a fungus and an algae. And actually maybe triple-alive because they're also bacteria. 

(The Badgers theme song gets quiet, then fades out. In its place: Bubbles in space! Slow, gentle, mysterious, they float around a piano melody.)

Lulu: Wow. So wait, the community just went from two to maybe three, maybe four, maybe five, and beyond? 

Ashley: Every time a new paper comes out–or more information comes out–about lichens, we're learning that they're made of more beings.

Lulu: Huh.

Ashley: (Laughingly.) So, the community just keeps getting bigger and more complex. 

Lulu: All right. Gonna leave it there. But one last question! A question for you, listener. If you had to team up with another species, which one would it be? Let us know your answer. Shoot us an email or a drawing at …

Songbud Alan and Lulu: (Singing over barking dogs, xylophones, bubbles, and autotune.) terrestrials@wnyc.org 

Lulu: (Giggles lovingly.) Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. 

This episode was produced by Brenna Farrel, Mira Burt-Wintonick, Alan Goffinski, Tanya Chawla, Ana González, Sarah Sandbach, Joe Plourde, Valentina Powers and me.

Fact-checking by Diane Kelly. 

Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation, and the John Templeton Foundation.

[Goofily.] Thank youuu!

Also, huge shout out to our advisors for this season of Terrestrials: Ana Luz Porzecanski, Princess Johnson, Anil Lewis, Tara Welty, Liza Steinberg-Demby, Andy J. Pizza, Sophie MIller, and Dominique Shabazz. [Emphatically.] We could not have made this without you!

Special thanks to Siya Sharma-Gaines, Niran Bhatt Scharpf, Scott LaGreca, Sarita Bhatt – and you, for listening! 

If you like our strange little show about the Earth and the creatures on it with the occasional singing, uhh, please rate and review us and share with your friends! It–it really does make a huge difference.

See you in a couple spins of this dirty, old planet of ours.

(The bubbles in space are back in full force, and as the episode drifts into the stars, so do we. That’s all for this episode!)

Since the release of this podcast, artist Ash Eliza Williams goes by Ash and uses they/them pronouns.