i genuinely love the idea that nerds across generations and science have written freaking papers on a fictional animal and planet. "just because it isn't real, does not mean it can't be fascinating!"

my marine biology teacher told me a funny story about how he had students that were doing a report on marine sandworms but all their sources were mistakenly referenced to Dune wiki forums. My teacher had to stop the presentation once he realized what was going on

Another fun fact about the sandworms. Inside the Dune universe, they are the ONLY confirmed non-terrestrial life. Everything else was seeded from Earth originally, but the Sand Trout were brought to Arrakis from... somewhere undefined, and show no trace of terrestrial origin.

Im honestly way more interested in the worldbuilding of Dune than the actual story. The giant sand worms, the way spice is formed and harvested, the way the Fremen have adapted to the harsh desert climate of Arrakis. I find all of that so fascinating.

speculative biology. love it.

7:52 sand is a good insulator, it's cooler below the surface.

Regarding the sand worm's heat exchange, I'm reading the third book right now and it's stated that the tail end of the sand worm is blisteringly hot so you have to avoid it when you're getting off a sand worm. That's probably how they shed their excess heat, in addition to being much more heat tolerant in general.

Absolutely love this!! Just saw Dune for the first time and I immediately fell in love with the sandworms, absolutely fascinated with how they might work. This video is such a fun exploration of that concept!

My head canon was that they were silicon based life forms and that's why they worked so well breaking down and metabolizing the sand, minerals and metals at every stage of their lives. As sand plankton, they filter feed with a symbiotic colony of bacteria that they host. The bacteria feed on yeast that grows wild on the grains of sand and other substrates that the sand plankton consume. Since labs have been able to synthesize psilocybin from bacteria that feed on yeast, I theorize that a similar process is what gives the melange it's psychoactive properties. This digestive process also provides the O2 and other gasses that make up the planet's atmosphere. The sand plankton would reproduce asexually with budding polyps so there's always a growing and thriving population for the base of the food chain. Their imperative at this stage would just be to eat and reproduce. They would be able survive in dry and wet conditions. In God Emperor of Dune, when a sand worm falls into a river, it breaks down completely into sand plankton and is able to survive so a new cycle of worms can be started. When conditions are right, perhaps when the sand plankton have built up enough nutrients, they instinctively come together into sand trout. The sand trout can still break down and metabolize particulates from the sand or other substrates, and they feed on the plankton to maintain their stores of the bacteria and yeast and to absorb supplemental nutrients from them. While there is a certain level of moisture in the environment, sand trout is the highest form they will take. Their imperative is to eat and sequester water so they can band together and morph into their final forms. When enough water has been sequestered, the sand trout instinctively band together into the sand worms and form Little Makers that grow into Shai-Hulud. The sand worms are always churning away like any good detritivore, only instead of plant materials, they break down silicates, other minerals and metals. If they have any bone like structures besides their teeth, these are the what they are made of. This is why their teeth make such great Crysknives. They are described as being ivory like, as hard as steel and gleaming like a crystal almost lit from within. They also feed on the sand plankton and sand trout to supplement their nutrition and help produce their spice essences which would work similarly to plasma. The friction from their locomotion ignites the particulates which aids in their break down and fuels their internal furnace that in turn expells gasses like O2 and H20 back into the atmosphere. The sand retains most of the H20 which is further sequestered by the sand trout. Sand worms may reproduce with a combination of broadcast spawning and budding, which may be another way for them to spread the desert. They would leave a budding segment as close to the moisture as they can get. These buds can normally survive on their own and become another Little Makers then Shai-Hulud, but if the environment it too moist, they'd 'die' and break back down into sand plankton. Then the cycle would start all over and thus spread the desert. Alternatively, two or more sand worms could leave their buds in the same space so there would be a chance for sharing DNA when the sand plankton eventually reform into sand trout. Thank you for coming to my Dune Talk!

If oxygen is a excretion of sandworms does that mean every time they breach the surface, theyre sticking their faces into an atmosphere/ocean of their own farts?

It's great to see more than a just a few frames of you on camera, You did very well! You pushed yourself to do something new and the results were fantastic!

7:30 I read a long time ago that some of the biggest dinosaurs may have had hollow bones, just like birds, which provides great structural support and reduced weight, could be similar for the worms. Regarding the heat, a silicon-based life-form would be able to withstand much higher temperatures without any issue, and if needed to cool down, it could simply burrow deeper, where the sand is colder, and exchange its heat against the surrounding cold sand.

The sandworm were said to have furnace like insides, similar to a combustion engine. They had an extremely strong aversion to water. That's the most dramatic feature for me aside from spice creation. They're like organic 'fire hoses'.

I had to do a double take when I realize you were on camera. Congrats for putting yourself out there. I think it's a great addition to your format.

You're doing great on cam. And it was quite fun to watch as an old Dune fan. Many years ago I saw a video somewhat like this speculating over a plausible biology for dragons. They addressed the need for more stomachs and a digestive system, almost like cows, to build up and hold methane, to "lighten" their total body weight making them able to fly (even with hollow bones the skeleton was to large a portion of the body to let them fly otherwise). They also used the methane to breathe fire in rival combats, which was often ended by one part not having enough methane left to both fight and fly. To actually be able to make the fire, they also suggested that they'd have to have minerals as a part of their diet (apart from ofc grass for making the methane). This could potentially mean, that through their diet, they also get a catalyst mineral to spark the fire when they breathe out the methane (in high pressure ofc to avoid a blow back). All in all a very funny and interesting way of making a fantasy creature plausible.

Just an awesome review of Sandworms after I just seen the new Dune. Thank you for connecting a face to the voice I have listened to so long. Keep up the great work. Big fan as always

You’re great on camera, I know that may not help the nerves but you’ve got what it takes!!! Thanks for stretching through the tough stuff and being an awesome example

All hail the silicon-based caffeine worm! One question I’d still like answered is how they would move so fast through sand. Sand is extremely heavy and doesn’t exactly move like a liquid but they seem to make it do so with the harmonic vibration they emit. Are there any examples of organisms on Earth that do something similar?

It was nice seeing you talk about this topic, I quite like this interview style format

7:26 ceramics? Several 'problems' would all go away at once as ceramics also cope well with heat & can be abrasion resistant.

On the subject of heat dissipation on Arakkis, I think this is one of the examples of a system that we may not be able turn to earthly analogs to explain, since the environment is so different. While life on earth can give us a lot of hints about what extraterrestrial life might be like, it is quite likely that extraterrestrial life will contain unique adaptations to their own environments completely unlike what we would find on earth, and in these situations, I think that considering what sorts of mechanisms could solve *their* problem, rather than looking at earth life, might be more fruitful. Earth is kind of a cool planet, overall. There are a lot more places where getting up to an optimal body temperature is a challenge than where getting rid of heat is the primary problem, and in the places on earth where heat dissipation is the main thermoregulation challenge to deal with, the temperatures being accomodated are nothing compared to the hottest times and places on Arakkis. Living on a relatively cool planet, species on earth have developed various mechanisms to produce heat internally, resulting in the various flavors of "warm blooded" that exist across species on this planet, often combined with heat dissipation mechanisms like sweating to get rid of extra heat produced by the metabolism. On Arakkis, these sorts of mechanisms would never evolve. Nothing freezes to death on Arakkis. The primary thermoregulation challenge is heat dissipation, so why not develop internal metabolic heat dissipation mechanisms like the mechanisms of homeothermy on earth, rather than relying on our relatively inefficient evaporative cooling mechanisms? I considered this during a speculative biology project many years ago, and the solution I came up with wasn't based on biology, but engineering. I looked at how air conditioners work for inspiration. Nitrogenous waste is something all species have to deal with, and we deal with it just by expelling it, but ammonia is a fantastic chemical for absorbing heat. Imagine that instead of the bladder being just a bag that held urine until you could expel it, it contained enzymes that could convert the urea back into ammonia and then pump it into a rigid, blood vessel rich structure where it could expand, absorbing large amounts of heat before being expelled as gaseous waste. The result would be the equivilant of having an old ammonia AC unit inside your body. Perhaps life forms on Arrakis would be separated into "hot blooded", only able to dissipate heat passively and lacking metabolic cooling mechanisms, and "cool blooded", able to dissipate heat chemically using energy derived from the metabolism, rather than "cold blooded" and "warm blooded" as they are here on earth. Sweating may be the Arakkis equivalent of needing to bask to get warm.

drake vs largest sandworm:

I love this channel so much! Thank you, it’s my fav!

Beautiful narrating skills, your tone keeps me intrigued. Great science videos!

I for one am really glad you put yourself on film for this. It's good to put a face to the voice.

Well done. I love your biology deep dives and speculating about what is possible helps us consider what biology can achieve in the real world

While this was about as far from "real science" as one could possibly get, as a Dune fan, I still found it to be incredibly intriguing. Thanks for sharing, as usual, RS! Keep up the great work!

When I was a kid I found a copy of dune at a market stall. I wish I still had that copy. I've been hooked ever since.

Never underestimate the value of "science fiction" science. By imagining possibilities, we open the door to opportunities. Lovely to see you, and not just hear you. ❤❤😊😊👋🏼👋🏼

I'd love more episodes like this, it's just so fascinating thinking of this stuff!

Did Frank Herbert ever say how much gravity was on Dune? If Dune has less gravity, then the worms would be better able to handle their own mass. But then you'd have to explain why humans walk similar to earth-bound humans; maybe you could say that the Harkkonens and Atraiedes homeworlds also have less gravity, so people have adapted to that level of gravity

You are officially the coolest scientist ever. This was so fun. I had no idea the writer of Dune went into such detail about these.

The courage required to expand on the scope of your channel is admirable. Content is top notch, as per usual!

You are a terrific and engaging communicator. Great Stuff!

Great job on your production! This must've consumed loads of time and attention - well done. As RE: the biomechanical construction and overall propagation of the sandworms, given that they are indeed fictional, one's imagination can run joyfully and completely wild!!! I've also read the Tolkien and C.S. Lewis epic fiction tales as well (not sure if i've read them all) and the initial Dune trilogy is equally amazing.

Not what I was expecting from this channel but still amazingly informative and interesting! Keep up the amazing content

The 3/4 filming angle really doesn't work for this kind of expositional video. It's used to suggest a dialogue between interviewer and interviewee, so it looks kind of jarring when someone is explaining something to the audience but not looking towards them. In the frontal shots you were perfect and very natural tho!

I’ve been watching this channel for a long while now and this is the first time I’ve seen the lady of the voice. Trippin me out! You’re on of my favorite narrators of all time. Do any audio books?

I'd never had guessed Real Science and Dune cross paths but how wonderful!! You're like my favorite scientist

You were quite good in front of the Camera ! Continue what you are doing ! This is undoubtedly the best biology channel on KZfaq !

Great work stepping out of your comfort zone. You did a really good job and you will only get more comfortable over time. I don't think the two camera setup is adding anything here though. If a second camera angle serves a narrative or functional purpose I'm all for it but on KZfaq the presenter is ostensibly speaking to "me" the individual viewer. Seeing the person speaking to me directly and then switching to see that person still speaking to me but from the position of an outside observer is very strange and takes me out of the video every time. 2 camera setups were used originally as a way of covering edits but then became shorthand for high budget network broadcasts who could afford multiple cameras that each cost many tens of thousands of dollars. Anyway it's a little anachronistic and it really wasn't working. Love the Dune content and looking forward to more wonderful informative videos.

That was great! I always like your voice and it's cool to connect a face to it. Congrats on coming on camera.

But hey, that's just a theory A FILM THEORY

This episode is amazing. Thank you for sharing!! I will be tuning in for every episode you share lol 🫶🏾✨

Loved this video, and also loved the nebula show. Still greatful every day I use it that there seems to be enough of a market to sustain a platform like nebula and its content. P.S. Your eyebrow movement seemed regular to me :D

I watched Dune 2 yesterday and loved it. Had all sorts of questions about the Worms, and you did a great job answering them Next, where did all those people get their food from? I didn’t see a Costco anywhere nearby

She makes it sound so genuine i love it. This channel is great

If one of those things took the energy to cut thru sand for a couple miles to eat 1 human, it would starve to death. Do that more than like 3 times (scurry after a human) and the caloric intake versus the energy output would result in the worms withering away.

I didn't know the voice has a body. I'm scared! Great video!!!

You did great in camera!

There's another way to get rid of heat as we do in the refrigeration industry. Sandworms compress heat within itself and shifts the operation to Silicate based in the range of a thousand degrees. Another operation neglected is electrical welding and cutting, 3d construction, and friction resistance. The substance found in the chrisknife is foundational through out bone and skin structure of the sandworm. Spice would be electrical-neurological binding to all the nerves whether to the sheathe or integral to the nerve, functions as adding processing power attuned to the neurological electrical activity. Not carbon based, therefore indigestible.

Thank you for this amazing sci-fi content!! In addition to that, the biggest question I have about these sci-fi monsters: How do they manage to move with such an astonishing speed below the surface of the sand?

I love Nebula and am so glad to hear it helps. (I also rewatch on KZfaq to hopefully help here as well.) This was great fun, and as a lifelong Dune fan, awesome to think about.

Thank you for including sand plankton and sand trout. I hate that the movies leave out these crucial stages. The fact that the Fremen children will snack on the sand trout for liquid has always struck me.

It's nice to see the face behind the voice. I love all your videos, there's no wonder why you got so many subscribers so fast. Congratulations on your success.

Having seen some of your videos before where you stayed off-camera, I was pleasantly surprised when you showed your face, this time. I think you did a very good job on-camera and have nothing to worry about!

"fan base"the worst and the best thing that can happen to anything.....

Oooo this is my fav episode so far. You did great on camera! Always enjoy your content and recommend it.

I remember almost falling asleep while reading the books, and now it's the like one of the most popular things right now. I love it.

I like your style, please keep it going

Is it possible that their massive weight together with being tube-shaped (which minimizes surface area) actually make sand behave "more fluid" to the Arrakis sand worms compared to sand-burrowing earth life?

"How much is the normal human amount to move my eyebrows?" lmao ikr

Great job being on camera! I didn't actually realize until it was said. I just assumed it was an occasional occurrence in uploads I haven't seen yet.

What is abundant on Dune is sand, and Sandworms constantly burrow through it. So what if using their furnace-like internal organs and the pressure of it's own body, it can press the sand into a diamond-like material? It's even stronger by weight than steel and isn't as prone to bending, making it ideal to form it's skeleton and saving on weight. Would also go to explaining what it's scales are made of, as it's hard enough to resist the constant abrasion of dry sand.

I would absolutely love more biology videos fictional creature's this is awesomeness

10:36, nice little Hemp seedling there hatching.

It’s really nice to put a face to your voice. Thank you for the really good videos that you do for us all. ❤️💕

I LOVE THIS VIDEO CONCEPT

I wish there are animals that magnitude on earth to keep humans humble and keep their respect for nature.

"Real Science"

@Real Science, nice job on first face to face interview. Could the channel do a future episode on the realistic prospects of human biological augmentation in light of advances in gene editing tools CRISPR Cas 9, iPs Stem Cells and epigenetics/ genetic enhancement? Understandably we are not likely to see UNSC Spartan or Space Marines in the coming decades but what realistically can we expect emerging biotechnologies do in regards to augmenting baseline human beings in the areas of enhancing human physiological performance, life extension and cognitive improvements ?

Very nice. Just regarding the dry lightning - I thought that was a real missed opportunity by the filmmakers. What a dramatic and really cinematic way to introduce the worms.

I think you moved your eyebrows a perfectly normal amount

Man I love videos like this that analyze fictional lifeforms it's always so fascinating.

Thanks for the cut away, truly terrifying, kinda reminds of the sarlacc

fantastic. Very informative.

This is really cool, I'd like to see more videos like this in the future. I know you can't devote all your time to fictional organisms, but Godzilla, the synthetically evolved/mutated creatures of Resident Evil, there's a lot of really interesting theoretical/sci-fi biology that could be covered in future videos when you want to try a change of pace.

How thankful we should be to live on such a wonderful planet the Earth! There is a Russian saying: "Песок - неважная замена овсу". (Sand is a very poor substitute for oats).

Ah yes, Real Science, the channel I go for to learn about Sandworms of Dune. Still this was a fun video and you did a good job. Keep it up!

You did an amazing talking on camera, other than the lovely concept, I urge you to uploading further🙌

Great video. Thanks!

Ok so, before I watch, based only on the intro (since I haven't read the dune books), here are some guesses: The sandworms can exist while being that big because they live in sand which provides support - same thing as whales in water. They can move through the sand through some combination of the following: Letting sand pass all the way through their body, air fluidized sand like the mark rober video, and movement by expansion. The spice is a cofactor and works like a vitamin. It can be used to recycle CO2 into O2 or the equivalent at the site in the body where it is used - circulatory system doesn't need to be as fast, is no longer the limiting factor. Magic abilities I don't know anything. The worms get their energy from the heat deeper down in the planet, the amount of energy involved might be the reason only the worms can produce spice, but that doesn't need explaining

The presentation was good and you were fine on camera. In fact (hope this doesn't come across weird) you're a fairly attractive person, and i think you'd make a good tv show host or something like that. Also, the idea of an animal being this big is absolutely wild and fascinating. I think it adds a lot to what made this book so popular, the world he built is genuinely interesting.

Something else interesting is how they move. Many speculate, but they haven't read the books. The people who speculate say the eat all the sand, then spew out their backs, or through vents on the side of the worms, underneath the layers. (We can see these vents in the 2nd movie, but they don't seem to do anything.) They also quote stuff from the books, like how in one of the books, we hear one of the characters talking about how you should never go to the back of a sandworm. (The evidence I am gonna show will disprove this, and the character probably says that because the sandworms make a big mess with how big they are and how fast. They kick up sand.) We learn in the books that they make a liquid out of the sand, and in the 2nd movie, we can kinda see that when the main character is riding the big sandworm. The sand is just free flowing. They also make a liquid on the bottom of their bodies, allowing them to slide even easier. Then they do something that I can't remember, but the word starts with an O. My guess on that is they use the vents we saw to spew air or sand into the liquid sand.

You moved your eyebrows a perfectly natural amount. Well done!

I love the video, Great job.

Thanks for the video, your face camera parts went just fine, you looked good!

Gosh, I love your channel

Bless the maker and their video!

Finally, nice to meet you!❤️

This video truly brings to life the epic scale and danger of these mythical creatures.

Beautiful & intelligent. You have the whole world by the balls. You go girl!! Keep it coming!

Awesome video, would love more like it

I finally got around to reading Dune a few years ago, and hadn't realized from the adaptations how much of the book was spent on ecology. It's fun to see some speculation on how real-world science might work on a fictional planet. Also, Nebula is great! Especially as other platforms seem to get worse every month for users and creators alike.

I'm curious to know if you've seen the movie the Core? The structure of the sand words and Virgil are very similar. In fact the sound vibrations of the sand moving before the worms appear is akin to Virgil's tonics blasting through solid rock. It's also the same method used to turn sand into liquid, using sonic vibrations. As for the make up of the sand worms all their organs are around the edges of their bodys, not through the body like an earth worm. This allows the various pieces of the worm to detach and regrow new segments as needed. Each segment is a worm in itself, and I would surmize that the scales, probably have hair on them to help move, which makes the sand worms so fast.

You have the cleanest/clearest enunciated American English I've ever heard, I wish could speak as well as you

Just the video I was looking for after watching the movie and reading the book!

I love how these biologists theorized about the biology of a fictional worm for fun basically. I’m here for it.

Sand = made out of silica which is Silicon Di-oxide.. so shed the 2 oxide ions and silicon is left behind, silicon could sustain an electrical charge. If their bones are made out of silicon or partially out of silicon then they could charge up like a capacitor due to the static electricity generated by the sand and then because they are moving they also short-circuit sometimes leading to the capacitance discharge leading to dry lightning, also the sand isn't like totally white sand leaning a bit towards an orange hue, so there could also be some iron in the sand which could also end up in their bodies. Edit: also... Like carbon, also chlorine and silicon are able to sustain complex macro molecules (also keep in mind that on that planet also other elements or different isotopes of elements with very different properties could be naturally present so that even widens the range of elements we could combine to explain the worms)

I also wondered about this in the movie. A gigantic worm in a planet which barely has life. What does it eat? How would it survive? Really nice video