Ask a Chemist: What would be worse, drinking bleach or gasoline? (and other questions)

Hey Melissa. Hey Jim. We got some questions. We do. Mm-hmm from our listeners from all over the globe. Pretty much from on the internet. Awesome. I love that. And good news. I think that almost all of them are at chemistry. Almost all of them. Yeah. Well, the good news is that I actually know some stuff about chemistry. Oh nice. That's good to get. I was thinking I got all these questions. I can't answer any of them at all. I might get answered some. Yeah, I mean, I just wouldn't I would not trust my chemistry off the cuff. But we've got some really interesting ones. One about shave ice. We've got some about weed killer. Glyphosate. Nice. We've got one about rinse aid. That stuff in dishwasher's. So kind of a lot. Yeah. Well, let's get into them then. Let's do it. Hey, I'm Melissa. I'm Jim. And I'm a chemist. And I'm not. And welcome to chemistry for your life. The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life. Bonus edition. Yes. Ask a good chemistry. And hard to change that in my brain. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Bonus is quicker obviously. Yeah. Well, what questions do you have for me? Well, let's start. Raff top. This one's from justine. One of our chem immunity members on Patreon. Yes. Hey, justine. What up? Here's what justine said. I missed the ask a chemist request. But here's mine. We are in Hawaii. How which so jealous? How does the temp of the block of ice affect the fluffiness of a good shave ice, not mainland shaved ice slash snowball or snow cones? Important distinction so that it shaves light and fluffy rather than fracturing or chipping off in chunks. Or maybe it's a special method of freezing it with certain clarity or a lack of air. Thank you. I think it's likely that's my part. Sorry. I also think that is not from justine. I think that's someone on Instagram maybe. I remember seeing that on like sometimes I'll do little questions on Instagram. Yeah, I thought the next section below was part of hers too. So anyway, well, justine's probably like listening to like, I don't think I am. Am I in Hawaii? And I don't know if I have the name of that person. So mysterious, Instagram person, what a good question. Sorry, we didn't get any that doesn't happen when we get DMs and stuff like that on Instagram sometimes. It's hard to find who asked it. So anyway, we want we want a user name if we can find it at some point. So but back to the question. Yes. About the shave ice versus, you know, the mainland shaved ice no balls. Have you had these before? Yes. I mean, I have had, yes, I have. When we were there in May, we had shave ice. And I don't get like the mainland version of snow cone that has a super frequently. So I wouldn't say I'm like great at explaining the difference. I think it falls like a frequent shaved ice or snow cone person here in Texas. And then they'd get them over there. I could have like a fresh comp comparison for you. I do not. Unfortunately. So I don't I've not had them both. But my guess is that if the texture is really different, there's two possibilities. And one is simply like the shave version is different. So are they literally shaving ice in really thin layers? So it's powdery like snow versus I think a lot of snow cone places here like actually kind of crush the ice. Rather than like literally shaving it off. Yeah. And then the other thing is ice can freeze in different, you know, like some different textures, which we experience with like snow versus sleep, right? So like water can freeze in different ways. How crystalline is it? You know, that kind of thing comes into question. That's about how quickly it freezes. But the reason I don't think that that's it is because it seems like it's a block of ice, not like snow. And they shave it off to give it that texture. So that's my guess is actually that it's not about the way that they freeze it or anything like that. I bet it's about the mechanical actual getting the ice off in that fluffy texture. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds, I mean, that would make sense. Yeah. The fluffiness is definitely like unique. I think what's hard is that even here we have some that are like crushed ice. And some that I think is trying to mimic this shave ice concept. So I'm sort of like, there seems to be this this spectrum of the ice texture rather than like a distinct like hard crunchy and software. We're hearing nothing in the middle. Yeah. But I definitely remember the one I had recently being super fluffy snowy like snow. Yeah. So there is like, you know, if they could recreate the process of snow where it's like this very slow freezing crystalline thing. But it's hard for me to think that that's what they're doing. I feel like that would be challenging to recreate. But I've never had it. Yeah. That place. There's a place over on Malone and University that used to be the popsicle place. Yeah. Push ahead. Do miss that. But they are a they're they are a particularly a shave ice place. Meaning that, you know, not that our opinion is one of we can't really vet it. But they are trying to do exactly this kind. And have you had it? No. But we could do some experimenting. I can't even find behind the scenes. Yeah. Go see what you think. And maybe take a peek in there with a window and see if you can see anything about their machinery that yeah. Shed slide on it. Or say, Hey, where can we see broadcast can we take a video? Yeah. Because I've been in one of those before. But I don't remember what they called their kind. Like if it was like, yeah, shaved ice or snow cones or whatever. Yeah. I've seen inside of one of those shacks before. But I don't yeah. I wasn't I wasn't didn't have my like, scientific hat on when I was there. Yeah. Well, yeah. Stake. So it's really jam. So all we don't know is that is my answer to this. Yeah. Man. Dang it. I mean, I not that would have been able to like really capture that and tell it to you and with it would have allowed you to answer it. Who knows? Maybe. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So more research needed maybe. Yeah. For sure. This one seems to definitely this time be from just who knows which questions we may just always fill in the blank that just you asked it. If we don't know who asked it. This is for sure from just in one of our community members. My sister just moved into a new apartment and it smells like cigarette smoke. The management office said they would do an ozone treatment to try and get the smell out. How does this work? But if it's any time we couldn't find the name we just always said just seeing. Yeah. Sorry. I was thinking about that. Everyone loves a good callback or good recording joke. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So just seeing about the ozone actually funny enough we just bought a house and it has a particular smell. Old person smell and in the garage there was a different smell which I don't know when you buy an older house we can have all kinds of smells. And we did an ozone treatment and it worked really well. Although Mason thinks now it has a different kind of chemical smell but I think it smells like kind of more neutral. Now. But to answer a question I'd like to do a deep dive on this I think. But the short answer is that ozone is pretty reactive. And so ozone very likely comes into contact with some of the smoke smell causing chemicals. The things that leave that that like it could smoke smell and it will react with them and make new molecules. But what's difficult about ozone treatments and some of the questions that I've seen when I was researching it for myself is then it can make new smaller chemicals that could also be bad for you. Very similar to what we talked about with the pig pen effect on the airplane. You're like okay well just because we don't have the things that smell bad anymore is that much better for you. And so we actually only did it in our garage. And then we were able to air it out completely with a fan. And like so a lot of those other volatile organic compounds that might be more questionable we were able to sort of eliminate them more so because it was in the garage. There are other areas of our house that also smell kind of weird. And we have chosen not to use it in those areas. But also it can be pretty dangerous like it's not good for you to breathe ozone. And so like you have to be really careful about turning on the ozone machine and like getting out. You know if it's going to be producing ozone in a high enough concentration. So but it does do really good things like we have a friend who lived in a smokers house and I've been in their house and had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. He went hardcore. He did like basically kind of every trick he found online that was like may help. Yeah. So it's like ozone. He like he did several of those machines in different parts. He He did vinegar on like a wash on the walls and ceiling and stuff. And maybe one other thing that was like, he also just, after all that, then painted. Yeah. So it was like, and it's left now, hopefully, it's trapped behind a layer of paint. But. Yeah, we had, I think it was like in the floor or something, because it was coming through after we had painted. It was like, ugh. But yeah, it could, it's a lot to get out. So, and the idea of living in a home that, it smells like that, it's probably worse for your health, honestly, than the potential side effects of the ozone. It's like, which one are we going to do? Yeah. But I would say the basic idea behind how it works is basically it does oxidation reactions. Like it gives oxygen to organic molecules and sort of breaks them up. But if I was your sister, I'll probably be sure to air out my apartment really well afterwards. It very likely will work. It might not be perfect, but it'll probably reduce the smell. If they do it correctly, which is hard, you like, everybody has to evacuate and you have to run it on, you know, like let it just generate in a closed space for several hours or whatever. And then after that, open up the, you know, everything and air it all out. Kind of thing. Yeah. Tell me. Being interesting. That's my, that's my thought. That's my chemistry off the cuff. Off the cuff. And I don't know if we've said that lately, but for these episodes, I try not to do research. I try to just share whatever I'm thinking, I'm like based on what I know in the moment. So it's not as, you know, we don't have references. It's not as in depth as an article. I just try to draw or as an article, sorry, it's not as in depth as like an episode where I'm teaching a traditional lesson. Yeah. But I try to just draw on what I do know to provide basic answers that are kind of like quickly satisfying. And then if we need to go more in depth, we can. Mm-hmm. Yeah. As if you're able to like sit across from Melissa at lunch and she has not had a chance to actually like research her questions and just have a conversation with a chemist. Exactly. Yeah. That's what it's like. Uh, this is this one from Jeff Bennett. I recently listened to your episode on Goliath Estate and thought maybe I could. That's the weed killer. Oh, yes, the weed killer. Yes, yes, yes, yes. If you've not listened to that one yet or it's been a couple weeks and you forgot that that's the particular weed killer we talked about. And thought maybe I could contribute something. First applying glyphosate in the regularly available strength, which is less than 20 percent, will likely not work. The arborist can, assuming they are licensed, get the proper strength. In my work, Grassland in stream restoration, we generally do with tri-cloeper, is that you say that? Tri-cloeper, maybe? Tri-cloeper for cut stump treatments as it is selective to broadleaf plants. My training is in geochemistry and I have to look this stuff up every time. Finally, I wonder what the effect of glyphosate and other broad spectrum herbicides might have on our microbiome. Thanks for the show. Just found it and we'll listen more. That was great. That was great. I feel like there wasn't really a question other than the wondering at the end. Yeah, yeah. But I did share this email with our friend Grant and he who asked the question originally and he was like, "Can I email this person? I have so many questions for them." So that made me laugh. And then I forgot to respond and he said, "Please, it's all I think about and set me like at crying emoji." And the question at the end about what impact glyphosate has on our microbiome, that's something I think about a lot because there's lots of questions lately in colon cancer where there's increasing incidences of colon cancer in people average. And it used to be people over the age of 50. But now it's like one of the leading cause of cancer related deaths. I think it's number two for people under the age of 40, I think. And it's really confusing. Like a lot of gastroenterologists are like, "Whoa, what's happening here?" And so I'm wondering, is it our lack of fiber? Is it a processed diet? Could it be from these, like the residues of glyphosate? We don't really know. So the question he asked is, "Oh, how do you think that impacts our microbiome?" I'm like, "Yeah, I mean, maybe it does, but we just don't know." No, yeah. Right. So that's a thing that I wonder about. But we definitely have to do more research to know for sure. Yeah. I wish we could just know what's happening in our microbiome. Yeah, I thought that was good, interesting info. And our friend Grant is trying. I think the last I heard is he's trying with the strength he could get to kill some of the hackberry trees. And he's leaving some of them since they're native. Yeah, so that's the update on the hackberry saw, yeah. Yeah, one of the ones I saw, I went and viewed the situation in person. That's not the whole reason I went over there. I was just there in the background. And he was showing me around what he had done. And one of the hackberry trees that isn't quite messing defense up too badly, he's just leaving. It's like very, very fully grown and everything. But the ones that are particularly intersecting him in his neighbor's fence are the ones he's the most worried about. And he'd done like, doing a lot of holes in it and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, it was just crazy. I definitely like drilling a lot of holes in it might help with the regular strength one. I feel like really attacking it. Yeah. And yeah, I was thinking that too. And if it do a couple of areas where he was like, and even if I kill this, like it had integrated with like the fence, so it's like how long is it going to take for this wood to sort of rot away? Oh, yeah. And actually like pull it off. It was very interesting. Yeah. So I had not really, I maybe had heard about those trees. I don't really remember. But he's got them in abundance, which is interesting. I think I probably do too. We just purchase house and my yard is overrun with trees. And I'm like, this is good for the birds and I can't care about it right now. Yeah. When you first buy a house, there's so many other things to worry about. For sure. Yeah. And I do feel like it's like, yeah, I guess there's some trees that can get out of hand and cause problems. But it's like, oh, and did not rather have trees and not trees. Yeah. It's like, yeah. Even if it's not my favorite kind, I'd rather have it than not. Yeah, for sure. This next one also about glyphosate, the weed killer. This is from Crafts Zion on YouTube. Glyphosate is in the food supply. It's not just farmers affected. They bioengineer crops to be resistant, spray for weeds, then at harvest time spray the crops with enough to kill the crops. Results in a more evenly dry crop. They found glyphosate in humans and countries where it is banned, guaranteed it is in you. There is a test for it if you are curious. You also didn't mention the research that says glyphosate is an estrogen mimicking endocrine descriptor. It's been implicated in breast cancer and a 30% decrease in sperm count. One thing I'm unclear about that you mentioned is the water soluble part. I've never heard about that. Our farmers changing glyphosate to make it more water soluble before spraying it on crops. Also, if exposure to acid creates the water soluble forms, wouldn't that happen in your stomach? This is actually the first video of yours I've watched and I really enjoyed it. Bacon-side-of-minigre brought me here. That's nice. Yeah. Okay. So, I think that there's like a few parts to this question that I feel like I want to respond to. The first was facts that craft sions shared about like the, it's in the foods of blood. It's not just farmers which we talked about that some, you know, but that I thought that farmers probably were the most likely to have the significant effects to being exposed to it long term, you know? And then also, I don't know about some of the research about it being as a surgeon mimicking into crandisrupter or like, is it implicated in breast cancer? Does it really cause a decrease in sperm count? I did find research that said that it definitely did or that it definitely didn't. The best, most reliable things I could find were just that it is rated as a likely car sinogen, but it's like the lowest concern similar to red meat. So it, there's just not enough information yet that we can for sure say, yep, it definitely causes these are definitely doesn't. But if there's some, I'm totally open to reading about that. If you have some of the peer review journal articles that have that research, I'll totally look at it, but I just didn't find them when I was looking. It's also hard because there's only so much you can fit in one episode. You know, so it's like, if I hunt down every single little fact, it's like, there's a lot. But the main thing I think that I wanted to talk about and now on end the USDA organic one was, okay, well, what is the thing that we need to be worried about? And for most Americans, it's eaten enough vegetables. Right. Right. So, but then the second part about it being water soluble, I think it's often formulated in a way that's already water soluble. I think it's sold in a way that's water soluble. And if I remember the chemical structure of glyphosate has a lot of oxygens bonded to hydrogens. And in that state, it should be already, I guess, let me kind of go back. Usually when things are soluble in water, the basic idea is that their intermolecular forces can interact with each other. And intermolecular forces are literally just, if you have two molecules, are they attracted to each other or not? And if they are readily attracted to one another, you can kind of classify that into some intermolecular forces. And we've done different types of forces that attract them. We've done several episodes on that. But one kind is a really strong, attractive force called hydrogen bonding or hydrogen bridging is a better name for it. And glyphosate has oxygen-spondid hydrogens, which are really good for that hydrogen bridging thing to happen. And water does too. Hydrogen-bondid oxygen. So I would expect them to be similar enough that they could interact pretty easily. So I don't remember the specific thing that Kraftsign is talking about, like what we said about it being acid or not. But just looking at the chemical structure, I think that it should be already able to interact with water. But all that to say, good questions, good thoughts. And I'm really excited that baking soda and vinegar brought you here. That's really fun. Nice. So thanks for sharing that your thought and welcome to the YouTube channel. Mm-hmm. This next one is from Genet N. What is rinse aid that we put into the dishwasher? How toxic is it to the water supply? So I don't use rinse aid in my dishwasher, do you? We do some, like we've had times where it'll feel like, wow, these are super like water spotty or whatever. And so we'll buy it, but we don't have it every time. I'm not sure I'm good at refilling the thing, you know? Yeah. So I don't really know. I, yeah. I've never used that. Maybe I should. This is Genet who's from our community also. And she's asked that a few in a few different places, like in our email, I've seen that. And I guess it came through also on a YouTube comment. And so I'd like to actually do a deeper dive into this where I look into what it is and, you know, try to pay close attention. My guess is so it's supposed to keep it from water spotting. Yeah. And I think the water spotting and then in general, like, my guess is it, there's something about to pay on your water in general. Like because it's not always water just spot. It's like a foggyness on things that I could see being just like the water evaporated. And there's just very, there's a film of salt or something. Yeah, whatever minerals are in the water. Interesting. Yeah, but minerals, they're in the water should go away with just a quick water rinse. So if they're not coming out the water rinse, unless it's being etched into the glass, I guess I, I wonder what that is, but another question I have is like, is it interacting with the water to make it less likely to leave something behind or is it causing the water to evaporate more quickly or something? Yeah. So I think I would have to look more in depth into this. I feel like I'm not giving satisfying answers on this. This is an episode, but this is what it's like when you have coffee with the chemist is I try to only come out strong on things that I know for sure about. Yeah. And so and I've actually never used run-sade. So, but I would guess it's not super toxic to the water supply because the water supply is treated. So at least the water we drink. So I would guess it would probably be okay, but I can definitely look into it. I just didn't want to know, you know, I want you to think we're ignoring her. Yeah, for sure. I guess it's also the concern of if it's toxic to the water supply, we want to be putting on our dishes, which we will then be eating from and drinking from. So hopefully they've used something in run-sade that is pretty safe and if not, then I will not be using it anymore. But we know that chemicals are chemicals. We know that companies do sneaky things sometimes. Mm-hmm. So. Yeah, you know what I'm running to, like, we have this stuff that is like for cleaning stainless steel stuff. And I think in those cases it has like a very slight like oil kind of film at leaves on purpose, which does give it like a better finish instead of like a kind of dryer. Almost like cast iron. Yeah. So I wonder if there's any chance that that's part of it because it's incredibly like kind of like oil is. It's very like thin. You know, like if I, if I some of the drips somewhere, it like just kind of like doesn't beat up. Yeah. It's just like once it's like run and I don't know. So it seems kind of oily to me, but I haven't actually like touched it. So I don't know. Interesting. Interesting if that was really all it was. It's like, yeah, we're just coating your dishes. Well, that was something I wonder. That's what that works often as is like, you know, a layer of chemical essentially that feels soft to you on your hands. And so something I thought when I was like, oh, would it make it evaporate from the dishes sooner or they interacting with the water is like, if I don't know how it would put oil specifically on the dishes, but that would keep the dishes from interacting with the water. And so if you could do like a water rinse and then an oil coat and then the final water, it wouldn't stay on. Yeah. I don't know how you'd actually do that. Interesting. So I just, it's hard for me to think. I don't know. Very interesting. I'm never wondered about that. So thank you, Janette. Yeah. This is just like wondering aloud with a chemist this week. This next one is from Yee Fat on YouTube. And I'm sorry if I butchered that pronunciation. Why I F A T. Hi. Thanks for all the cool, important things that you make accessible for everyone. I have a question about everyday chemistry and maybe you could answer this on the podcast. What's the difference in the soaps we use? Is there a real difference between shampoos, body wash, hand soap, facial soap, etc. Or that you can use one of them for all purposes. Thank you again. That's a great question. Totally. So I think I've told you this before, but when I had to do a reading test and like fourth grade of something. There was a whole excerpt about how all shampoos are soaps but not all soaps are shampoos. It's kind of like how they're like all squares or rectangles, but not all rectangles or squares ideas. Yes. And so I always think about that. It's one of those things that you're like, it's just a reading test. You weren't really supposed to take that information away, but maybe that's a sign of my early affinity to chemistry that I was like, what? That's crazy. And that makes so much sense because I use soap all the time, but I don't want to use it in my hair. So I will say that many, all the things you mentioned, like soap, face wash, what was the other stuff? Hands-up, face wash, shampoo. All those things do the same thing in that they are meant to get rid of dirt and grease. And so they will surround those nonpolar molecules like we talked about in Be Run's way, but they are different in their formulation. So some of them are meant to be gentler, so they might just take like a surface layer off. I know that formulation chemists do things that like what they add or don't add into stuff for your hair because it's the chemistry of your hair is different than the chemistry of your skin. And so I think when they're formulating those things, they take that into consideration. And it's similar to how like, okay, so the dish soap that you put in the dishwasher is not the same as like the dish soap, the dawn dish soap that you use to clean your dishes by hand because it would studs up like crazy. And so it's in their basic function of removing grease. Yes, all of these are doing the same thing. But can you use all of them for the same purpose? No, because they have formulated that thing to take off the grease in those specific conditions for a lot of the cases. Got it. So it's like the soap I use on my hands, I think is a little bit of a harsher chemical than not harsher chemical, but maybe it still has more lyre. Maybe it's meant to take off more oil than maybe the stuff you would use on your face or something like that. So that is my guess is that the formulation chemists are taking into consideration where in what context will this be used? And they add other things to support the use in that space. Right. Right. Like a dish soap, which would be an extreme example because it's not not a shampoo or a body wash or whatever is of course when they're forming it, hopefully they're thinking, oh, this is going to interact with straight up oil and grease more than any other soap. Of course, we have oil and grease and oil on our hands and in our hair and all that stuff. But not in the amounts from when we've cooked something. So yeah, that guess that is like the extreme example. But as you were saying to about just face or hair or hands. that hopefully there is a difference and that there's a good reason not to just use one. - But they could be drinking us all, but I don't think that they are. - Interesting. - I feel like I learned some about that whenever we were, when we partnered with that company that you really like. - Oh yeah, Formula 8. - Formula 8, yeah. - We talked for their formulation chemist, and I asked for some questions about how do you learn all of this and what it means. What is really interesting? - Yeah, I wonder to Adam Methu, Fargo who is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very frugal. He only ever bought a huge thing of like three in one or four in one, like so ports like Body Wash, shampoo, face wash, - Conditioner. - It's like conditioner too, which I was like, I can't really be conditioning. But anyway, that's all he ever got. And yeah, he definitely was heavy money, but I always wondered, is it doing all these things equally well? - Were that person's initials Mb? - No, that person's initials were Db. - I don't know how to hit it. - I'll tell you later. - I do think though that I will say that one of the things the formulation chemist talked to me about was oftentimes when you use the soap to get grease off your hair, it can like lift up the, like little follicles along your shaft. What does that call it? Along your hair shaft where they like-- - Oh yeah, those like kind of, yeah. - Where they like kind of break out and then conditioner smooths them back down. It like changes the charge of the hair. - Right, sorry. - So that was interesting. I don't know. I feel like a lot of cosmetics is a little bit of a black box industry secret. And it's been hard for me to feel like I have a good grasp on the chemistry behind that because it seems like there's a lot of smoke in mirrors. So I think this is a good question. My instinct is to say, 'cause there's something that you can see a difference for. Like dish soap and dishwasher detergent are definitely different. And using them in that same situation is not gonna go well. Trading them out for each other. So I feel like there's definitely some reasons for some. There are others that I would like to learn more about before I can say for sure, but I feel like there's probably reasons in shampoo and conditioner chemistry is one of those. - Very good question. Wow. Okay, this is from Sianna. Sianna? Oh, on Instagram. If I could see this name before and I had the same question. - I think so too. - Would you rather drink bleach or gasoline? Assuming this is hypothetical and I won't kill you. - I know. I was like, it's that is tough. I think I might try to find a loophole and say, I'll drink bleach in the super small amount where it'll just purify water. And then I don't have to just drink straight bleach. - Yeah. - I just hate the way the gasoline smells. - Yeah. - So my instinct is bleach, but it seems miserable. I don't love how it smells either. - Yeah, me neither. - Is it doing no damage at all, do you think? - That's such a good question. I don't know. - I feel like bleach would do in this hypothetical. In real life bleach would do more damage on the way down, I think. - Yeah. - But I feel like if neither of them is gonna kill you and you can still feel the side effects that I might go gasoline even though it smells so bad, because I think it would mess less up on its way down. - That's so interesting. I mean, I almost would have thought the opposite. Not from a chemist's point of view at all. Just thinking one is this incredibly flammable like destructive thing that just seems like we don't handle it ever. Like we're really never handling gasoline for good reason. And it dissolves like cops and stuff. Have you ever experienced that? Whereas bleach doesn't do that, not that it's not bad and clearly the bottles that I don't ingest this and stuff. And like you don't want it on your skin. But we cover using it all the time for laundry and things. It feels so much more everyday that and it doesn't dissolve plastic cups. It just feels like if I have to do one and I didn't have a chemist I could ask, I would probably go bleach because I just, my thought would be I've watched what gasoline does and bleach, there's nothing to see. - But you know. - It dissolves plastic because they're both like nonpolar. - Is my thought. - Yeah. - So I think the gasoline would interact with our insides less but bleach is like super corrosive. Like if you get it on your skin, sometimes it feels slippery and it's like, it's like actively corroding your skin. - Interesting, wow. - Whereas gasoline I think gets on your skin and it feels weird because it's oily. - Yeah, yeah. Also the potency of like the smell bad, but the potency of gasoline I think makes it, I would have a hard time even getting it down. - I think so too. I do think that's why I was almost like, I don't know if it would take bleach. - And then you, it would just be like the fumes of it would be like kind of like in your mouth and nose and so forever. Like what would you even do? How'd you get that out? - Whenever I get a little bit on the bottom of my shoe and then I have to drive I'm mad. You know, if it's like, if like somebody spilled a little bit or one day I got it on my clothes. I don't remember what happened. It was like, I pulled the thing out and there was like a few drops and it got on my jeans and I was driving for like an hour and I was so mad. - Yeah, that's awful. - But I really think it would cause us less damage. - Okay, interesting. - I think. - I think. - But you know to your point, not that this is any, this is not good resource at all, but anytime someone's siphoning gas in like movie just TV and real life. - Mm. - There's like always they get like a little bit of gasoline, you know? And I'm like, you think that one of those would have showed like, oh wow, that person's lips like melted later. - I do think that the gasoline would have long term and I get a fix. - So if you're just siphoning gas a lot. - Yeah. - Yeah, okay. Which no one should be doing really a lot now. - But really it's the dose makes the poison, you know? I'm just wondering if neither of them can kill me. If we're like, which one would her worse? - Yeah. - I don't know. - Interesting. - That was a fun hypothetical good questions, yeah? - Mm-hmm. Okay, this one is from Ash on Patreon, one of our community members. Three weeks ago, heard my first shout out in episode, oh sorry, this was three weeks ago. Was that what you were saying? Okay, my first shout out in an episode last night. Maybe it's my own, but also sad because I'm so close to fully catching up currently eight unplayed episodes, including community ones. Our bonus one's specifically for our community members. Six days ago, we got another message from Ash. Now I'm fully caught up, but excited to listen to the episodes weekly. So how about another shout out to Ash? - Yay Ash, welcome. - Catching all the way up, that is impressive. - Welcome to the present. How does it feel? - Yeah, how are our past selves? Like you've kind of checked in with them more recently than we have, so. - Yeah. - How are we doing? - Yeah, that's crazy 2019, that was six years ago. - Cali, yeah. - We are, it's like almost exactly our six year anniversary for the podcast because we released our first episode, the first week of August, and it's August when we're recording this. - You're right. Yeah, we probably, when we were recording the, maybe the sweat one would have been our, our best time to have mentioned that. - Yeah. - Not that it's, we can't now, but you know, it is, that's crazy. Yeah, 'cause it was, we released on August first, didn't we? - I think so. - Like that year, that was at Thursday. - Yeah. - Wow. - That's amazing. - Crazy. - Happy six year anniversary to us. - Yeah, I can't believe it's been that long, that's crazy. - I will say when you've caught up with a podcast like that, it feels empty. - Mm-hmm. - You know, you like, any time you're doing the dishes, you're going for a run, whatever you do, I listen to podcasts, your friends are there. - Mm-hmm. - And then you get caught up and you're like, man, now who am I gonna hang out with? I have to find another podcast that I'm as excited as I was about that one. - Yeah. - And it can be a hard feeling. So drop your favorite podcast that you like to listen to other than this one, obviously, for Ash and the comments. - Yeah. - On YouTube or, you know, maybe you can comment on our Instagram so that Ash can get another idea. - Mm-hmm. It is a time where I felt like I was receiving podcast recommendations like frequently. To a point where you're like, okay, hold on everyone, I can't, I can't do that. So I will be interested in checking out whatever other people recommend and drop in there. So I may have been a little bit more, I may not listen to some of those too. So. - Yeah, so if she was moving, I like listened to a whole series in one day because I just moved by myself on Friday while Mason was at work. - I do have more audio books than I used to, but yeah, it's interesting because I don't have, I'm not interdated with recommendations now. So it's like, I don't really know what's out there. - So tell Ash and us. - Yeah, tell us. Don't hold out on us. (laughs) Okay, is this whole, are these several all from Brian? - Yes, and this goes with our anniversary theme. - Oh, nice, do you wanna read this one? - Yes, I'll read this. Okay, so this is from Brian. If you may remember, he's originally asked about film photography. And he said, it's not a really fault question, but I just wanted to say thank you so much for doing the photography episode. It was such a nice five year anniversary present and thanks for accidentally or other ways shouting out the darkroom group. I sent it to a few members I thought might enjoy it. Hopefully they join your subscribers, which I thought was fun. - Nice. - I know it wasn't a small undertaking, but I appreciate it so much. And I did actually learn some things about the art form. I've been practicing for a while now. I swear my jaw dropped when I heard there are dormant nucleation sites in my film, a process I always found fascinating. Anyways, I'm sorry I forgot about our anniversary 'cause I told him my anniversary gift was the answer to this question five years later. 'Cause that's how long it took me to respond. But I'm hoping I can make it up to you. Do you two happen to have a PO box for fan mail by any chance? Thanks again for the years of edutainment, which I thought was key. - I love that word edutainment. - I know. - I have looked into the PO box situation. There is a cost we could probably talk about that at some point. - Mm-hmm, I wondered. - But it's not a bad idea. - Yeah. - But you know, if we have a set up and we're only getting them from Brian, then we could probably find a better way to get, you know. - Yeah, so we'll reach out to you, Brian. But I thought that was a really nice message. But also I was like, do we have a PO box? So let us know if you think a PO box would be something that would be useful to get. - Yes, definitely. If you like Brian or wondering something similar, then let us know. - Yeah, for sure. - This last bit here is from Ava. Through our website, we love when we get questions and comments through the website. Helps us a lot. We recently discovered and very much enjoy your podcast. Haven't been able to listen to the entire archive yet. So apologies if this topic's been discussed. But I was wondering about the chemistry of a raceable pens and similarly invisible ink pens. - Okay, nice. Well, invisible ink pens, I think it depends on which kind you have. We used to do invisible ink right with lemon juice. Did you ever do that? - No, I don't think so. - You could write with lemon juice, but then you'd like heat up the page and it would basically do, it would turn brown. - It would get quite some independent style. - On a natural treasure. - Exactly. - Yeah. - And so that is definitely just the heat facilitating the oxidation of the lemon juice, I think. Definitely is reacting with the lemon juice there. - Turns brown, so then you're like, is it a myered reaction with the heat? - Interesting. - Maybe. But for a raceable pens, so here's my framework for how dry erase markers likely work, is that when you write on a dry erase board, they are formulated intentionally where if you, as you write, they are in a solvent. There's ink dissolved in a solvent. And when you're writing down the solvent and the quote unquote ink, which is just pigment particles, are being deposited and the solvent evaporates. So whatever liquid it's dissolved in evaporates really quickly and easily. And it leaves behind essentially a film of those pigments so that you can just wipe them away. And I'm guessing that a racable ink out and typically they don't work well with water 'cause they're nonpolar. - Right, okay. - And so sometimes the oil in your fingers can work well to get it off because that's also nonpolar. Or if you're like scribble over it with itself, you know, 'cause it can dissolve the pigments back into the solvent that was originally dissolved in. - Mm-hmm. - So I think with a racable ink pins, it probably works really similarly where there's some kind of formula and it deposits on there. And then what you use to erase it. 'Cause usually they have like special erasers. - Yeah. - Is designed to interact with that pigment in a specific way. I use a racable ink pins on rocket books, which is this reusable journal? Have you ever seen that? - Yeah, you show me yours, yeah. - I love it, it's great for teaching. And that solvent is just soluble in water. Like whatever those pigments are. And so I can use water to just wipe the whole page clean. And so I think they're formulated probably similarly to that. - Yeah. - So that's my answering what I think is working for dry erase markers and trying to extrapolate it out. So good question and thanks for the nice things. You said at the beginning, Ava, that's really sweet. And that's all we have. - Yeah, that's all we have. - So thank you all for your questions that you've sent in. We love the questions, comments, follow ups to other episodes we've done. So you have one, send it our way on our website at camforyourlife.com. That's camfor your life.com. You can find exactly where we receive questions, feedback, comments, ideas for episodes, all that stuff, easy to find on our website. If you'd like to help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the cost of making it like several of our patrons and community members you've heard from in this episode, you can join our super cool Kim immunity of patrons on patreon.com/chemforyourlife as patreon.com/chemforyourlife. You get an ad free feed of the show. You get a monthly bonus episode just for y'all. A few other things behind the scenes a bit here and there. Ways of us saying thank you for keeping the show going and keeping it free for everybody else. So we'd love to have you check it out, try it out, over there at patreon.com/chemforyourlife starting at as low as $3 a month. But if you're not able to do that, you can still help us as subscribing and a favorite podcast app, rating, writing, viewing, apple podcasts, and Spotify. Subscribing on YouTube and leaving a comment over there and also picking up some merch from our website. That's a great one time way of supporting the show. We always like to try to a couple times a year add some cool new stuff over there. We saw some hats. I'm not wearing any other chemistry stuff in another you. But we've got other cool stuff to trust us. So check it out, chemforyourlife.com/store. Those are all ways you can help support the show and keep it going and help others find out about and learn about the chemistry of their everyday life. - This episode of chemistry for your life was created by me, Melissa Kalini and him, Jerem Robinson. Jerem Robinson is our producer and this episode was made possible by our financial supporters on Patreon, like Jemson. And we think it's really important to let you know how much of an impact that you make for us. You make it feasible to share chemistry with even more people. You've made it possible for us to keep up with the types of equipment we need to make it accessible, like getting transcriptions and things like that. So you make a really big difference and so we wanna thank every one of you by name. So we'd like to thank Chris and Claire S. Hunter R. Could train a B. Lynn S. Scott B. Steven B. Timothy P. And Vince W. All of these are H. Bonders. We'd also like to thank Ash. Welcome to the present. I was gonna say welcome to the future, but Ash, Brian, Chelsea, Doreen, Elizabeth, Emily, Heather, Jesse, Latila, Rachel, all are our dipolars. And then our dispersion areas, our lended dispersion forces, our autoclave, Avishai, Chelsea, Sierra, Colin, Erica, Jacob, Janette, Julie, Justine, Christina, Suzanne, and Venus. Thank you all so much for everything you do to make chemistry for your life happen. And there are no references for this one. So you can't check our show notes for that. But you can, yay chemistry. Yeah, you can. Yay chemistry. You can a tree. [MUSIC PLAYING]