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What if you were swallowed by a whale, could you survive inside? · The Curious Kidcast | Fun Facts and Curious Questions

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  OK, OK, OK, stop what you're doing right now.
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  Seriously. Put down the biscuit, pause the
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  video game, and tell your little sibling to shush for a second
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  because what I am about to tell you is going to blow your mind.
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  What if, and stay with me here, what if you were swimming in the
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  ocean on a perfectly nice sunny day, maybe thinking about lunch,
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  maybe singing a little song in your head, and then suddenly,
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  from beneath you, a mouth the size of a school bus opened up
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  and whoomp, you were inside a whale.
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  Could you survive in there? Would it be warm?
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  Would it smell? Spoiler alert, yes, it would
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  smell absolutely horrifically awful.
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  And we are going to get into all of it today on the Curious Kid
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  cast. Curious.
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  Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Curious Kid Cast,
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  the podcast where we take the big, weird, wild questions
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  bouncing around your brain and actually answer them properly.
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  I am your host Charlie, and today's episode is one of my
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  personal favourites. Today's question comes from a
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  kid named Daniel who is 8 years old and lives in Nashville, TN
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  Daniel sent us his question because, and I love this, he was
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  eating a really large sandwich, like a massive comically
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  oversized sandwich, and his dad said careful, you don't choke on
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  that. He looked at the sandwich,
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  looked at his dad, and thought, but what if I was swallowed by
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  something even bigger, like a whale?
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  Could I survive in there Daniel? That is the kind of big thinking
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  the show is built for. And also respect for the
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  sandwich. Let's talk about just how big
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  whales actually are, because I don't think most people truly
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  get it. The biggest whale and the
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  biggest animal to have ever, ever lived on this planet is the
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  blue whale. And I don't just mean the
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  biggest animal alive today. I mean the biggest animal that
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  has ever existed, bigger than any dinosaur.
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  Let that sink in for a second. Blue whales can grow up to 30
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  meters long, which is about the same as three buses parked end
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  to end, and they can weigh around 150 tons, which is
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  heavier than 25 elephants. Now here is a fact that
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  absolutely melts my brain every single time I think about it.
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  A blue whale's tongue, just the tongue, can weigh as much as an
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  entire elephant. One tongue, one elephant.
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  Imagine having a tongue that heavy talking would be
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  absolutely exhausting. And when a blue whale opens its
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  mouth to eat, it can scoop up around 70,000 litres of water in
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  a single gulp, which is roughly the same as filling a small
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  swimming pool in one gulp. So with a mouth that absolutely
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  enormous, surely a whale could just Hoover up a human being,
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  right? Well, here is where things get
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  really interesting. Blue whales, despite having the
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  biggest mouths in the history of all life on earth, have throats
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  roughly the size of a grapefruit.
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  A grapefruit. Like imagine being the biggest
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  animal that has ever lived, opening a mouth the size of a
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  garage and your throat is just sitting there going sorry pal,
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  nothing bigger than a grapefruit coming through here.
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  Thank you very much. The reason for this is the blue
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  whales don't eat big things at all.
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  They eat krill, which are tiny shrimp like creatures about the
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  size of your little finger. The whale swoops through a giant
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  cloud of millions of krill, takes in an enormous mouthful of
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  water, and then pushes the water out through special comb like
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  filters called baleen. Think of it like a really,
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  really oversized colander, like the thing your mum or dad drains
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  pasta with, except instead of pasta it is thousands of tiny
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  shrimp, and instead of a kitchen sink is the entire ocean.
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  So for people accidentally scooped you up, you would not
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  get swallowed, you would just get spat back out once it
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  realised you were not krill. Which, to be fair, would still
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  be an absolutely wild Tuesday. Now, is there a whale that could
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  actually swallow a person? Yes, actually say hello to the
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  sperm whale. Sperm whales are the deep sea
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  hunters of the whale world, and they dive deeper than almost any
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  other mammal on earth, sometimes more than 2000 meters below the
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  surface, which is deeper than four Eiffel Towers stacked on
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  top of each other down in the cold, pitch black depths of the
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  ocean. They hunt squid and fish.
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  Unlike blue whales, sperm whales have proper big teeth and a much
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  larger throat, and scientists think their throats are large
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  enough that a human being could technically fit through.
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  Now before you start panicking and refusing to ever go near the
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  sea again, here is the important bit.
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  Sperm whales do not eat people. We are simply not on their menu.
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  We are too weird, too wriggly, and frankly we are probably not
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  very tasty compared to a nice big squid.
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  So has anyone ever actually been swallowed by a whale?
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  There is an old story from 1891 about a sailor called James
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  Bartley who fell overboard during a whale hunt,
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  disappeared, and was later found alive inside the whale's stomach
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  after the crew caught the whale and cut it open, having
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  apparently been inside for 36 hours.
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  The problem is, historians have looked into it very carefully,
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  and most of them think it was probably just invented by
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  newspapers who wanted an exciting headline.
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  Which, honestly, fair enough, because that is a very exciting
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  headline. There is no solid proof it
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  actually happened, but it does make a genuinely fantastic sea
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  legend and I fully respect that energy.
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  OK, let's be scientists about this and imagine, just
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  hypothetically, that someone did end up inside a whale's stomach.
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  What would it actually be like in there?
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  Well, first it would be completely and totally dark.
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  Not forgot to turn the landing light on dark, but absolute zero
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  light, pitch black darkness. And 2nd, it would be warm, wet,
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  deeply unpleasant and the smell would be incomprehensibly bad
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  because we are talking about the inside of a stomach that digests
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  fish and squid all day long. But here is the real problem,
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  and it is air, or rather the complete lack of it.
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  Inside a whale's stomach there is almost no oxygen, so you
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  would feel dizzy almost instantly and pass out very
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  quickly after that. And then there is the stomach
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  acid, because a whale's stomach contains powerful digestive
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  juices with strong acids designed to dissolve fish and
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  squid. And they would absolutely not be
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  kind to a human being. So the honest, scientifically
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  accurate answer is no, you would not survive inside a whale's
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  stomach. Not even close.
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  Sorry, Jonah. Now here is something that
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  actually did happen, and it is both terrifying and amazing.
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  In 2021, a man named Michael Packard, who was a lobster
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  diver, found himself briefly trapped inside the mouth of a
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  whale after it accidentally scooped him up along with a
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  mouthful of fish. And for a few absolutely wild
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  seconds, he was in there. Then the whale, apparently
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  realizing this was not a fish, released him and Packard
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  survived with some bruises and I imagine the single greatest
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  story anyone has ever told at a dinner party.
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  The whale was most likely a humpback whale, which feeds by
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  lunging through huge schools of fish with its mouth wide open.
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  So being briefly in a whale's mouth, possible but extremely
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  unlikely, and being swallowed and surviving, almost certainly
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  not. Now before we get to today's
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  quiz, I have to tell you one more brilliant whale fact.
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  Sperm whales, those deep diving hunters we talked about, have
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  epic battles with giant squid deep in the ocean.
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  And giant squid can grow more than 10 meters long with arms
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  covered in powerful suction cups that can grip incredibly hard.
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  Scientists often find round scars all over sperm whales skin
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  left behind by the squid suction cups, which means that deep
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  beneath the ocean right now, there are whales and giant squid
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  having massive underwater wrestling matches in complete
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  darkness and nobody can see them.
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  The ocean is so, so wild, right? Quiz time 3 questions, multiple
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  choice. Let's see how much you have been
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  paying attention. Get a point for each one you
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  get, right? No cheating, no pausing, just go
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  with your gut question. 1A. Blue whale's tongue weighs about
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  the same as a a golden retriever, BA car or C an
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  elephant. The answer is C an elephant.
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  Just the tongue. One tongue, one elephant.
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  Absolutely unhinged. Question 2.
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  Even though blue whales are the biggest animals ever, their
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  throats are only about the size of a a basketball, BA grapefruit
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  or CA watermelon. The answer is BA Grapefruit, the
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  biggest animal ever to have lived, and it's throat is
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  smaller than most of the fruit in your kitchen.
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  Question 3. The final one.
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  In 2021, lobster diver Michael Packard was briefly trapped
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  inside a whale's mouth. Was it a a blue whale, BA sperm
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  whale, or CA humpback whale? The answer is CA humpback whale.
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  Humpbacks feed by lunging through schools of fish with
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  their mouths wide open, which is how poor Michael Packard ended
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  up having the worst and best day of his life simultaneously.
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  How did you do 3 out of 3 and you are officially a whale
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  expert. Two out of three and you are
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  doing brilliantly. One out of three.
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  Hey you listen to the whole episode and now you know things
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  and zero out of three. Honestly, I respect the
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  confidence. And that is it for today's
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  episode of The Curious Kid cast. The big answer to Daniel's whale
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  question is this. Almost certainly no.
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  You cannot survive inside a whale because most whales cannot
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  even swallow you. The one that technically could
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  does not want to eat you, and even if you somehow ended up in
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  there, there is no air and the stomach acid situation is
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  genuinely grim. But the good news is that whales
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  are absolutely magnificent, gentle, singing giants of the
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  ocean and you have nothing to worry about next time you go for
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  a swim. Oh, and one follow up thought,
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  as whales are mammals and breathe air like us, how do they
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  sleep in the ocean without drowning?
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  That is genuinely one of the coolest whale facts out there.
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  And maybe, just maybe, it will be a future episode.
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  If you enjoyed today's episode, please tell a friend, share it
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  with your class, or play it to your parents in the car and
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  watch their faces when I get to the tongue weighs as much as an
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  elephant bit. And if you have a question you
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  want answered on the Curious Kid cast, a big, weird, wonderful
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  question about science, animals, space, history, or anything else
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  your brain has been puzzling over, head to our website at
• 10:37
  curiouskidcast.com and send it in because your question could
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  be the next episode. Don't forget to subscribe so you
• 10:44
  never miss one. This has been the curious kid
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  cast. And remember the best questions
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  are the ones that start with. But wait what if?
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  See you next time, hey? We'll let your questions rise.
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  Listen up to the endless sky. Everyone is as far so bright.
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  Curious Kid cast Ignite the Light.