Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday,
Speaker 1: and I would go into the vault, but my feet
Speaker 1: are melting. It's all this green goo that you were
Speaker 1: stepping in and now it's dissolving our feet by a
Speaker 1: wonderful active coincidence. Today we're going to be exploring the
Speaker 1: quest for Hollywood Acid. This is an episode that originally
Speaker 1: aired May twelve, two thousand sixteen. It's about the idea
Speaker 1: of that perfect movie acid, the acid that burns right
Speaker 1: through everything. Uh. And this episode I think was highly
Speaker 1: inspired by a scene in the movie Batman Forever where
Speaker 1: a guy gets locked in a vault with a bunch
Speaker 1: of acid. Oh that's right, that's right, it's perfect. Think
Speaker 1: we discussed it in the episode. I will just wager
Speaker 1: that I don't need to go ahead and explain it here, right.
Speaker 1: The other major touchdown, of course, being the blood of
Speaker 1: the Xeno morph. But what is that You were the
Speaker 1: one I think you can up with the idea for
Speaker 1: this episode because you were watching these movies with these
Speaker 1: oulous acids in them and saying, well, what what would
Speaker 1: that be? What actual, naturally occurring or even artificial acid
Speaker 1: could eat through the whole of a ship like this
Speaker 1: and have such such instant flesh melting capabilities. Right, So
Speaker 1: we just thought we'd have a little rapid corrosion party. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's get into it. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. I Hey, welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert
Speaker 1: Lamb and don Joe McCormick. Hey, real quick at the
Speaker 1: top of the show here. If you want to explore
Speaker 1: more of Stuff to bow your Mind, head on over
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That is
Speaker 1: our mothership. That is the main website where you will
Speaker 1: find all of our episodes. You find videos, blog post
Speaker 1: links out to our social media accounts, and if you
Speaker 1: want to support the show, a great way to do
Speaker 1: it is to simply rate and review us wherever you
Speaker 1: get the show. Yeah, so, Robert, I've got a question
Speaker 1: for you. All right, hit me, Joe, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: you to a dark place. This might be a little traumatic. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: do you remember nineteen nineties the Batman movies of the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, Think back to Batman Forever, who that was
Speaker 1: That was a Dark Time directed by Joel Schumacher, uh
Speaker 1: starring Val Kilmer as Batman and Tommy Lee Jones in
Speaker 1: it as the as two Face a very manic to
Speaker 1: face if I recall, yeah, he was. He was kind
Speaker 1: of all over the place that that one was snarling
Speaker 1: a lot, kind of whipping his body around in a frenzy.
Speaker 1: And that of course was he acid scarred in that
Speaker 1: telling of the Uh, I believe he was. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: so the story of two Face in that version is
Speaker 1: that he's a Harvey Dent is the lawyer who becomes
Speaker 1: two Face. Believe he's a district attorney and he gets
Speaker 1: scarred on one part of his face and it drives
Speaker 1: him insane. And uh yeah, I don't think they go
Speaker 1: deep into the backstory in Batman Forever, But anyway, it's
Speaker 1: Tommy Lee Jones and he's he's going wild and he's
Speaker 1: really trying to get Batman in this one. So there's
Speaker 1: a scene where Batman goes into a bank vault where
Speaker 1: there is a I believe a vault guard of some
Speaker 1: kind tied up, and when Batman goes in to rescue
Speaker 1: this guard, the door slams shut and Acid starts pouring
Speaker 1: out of all of the I believe out of the
Speaker 1: safe deposit boxes. So a lot of people maybe we're
Speaker 1: keeping their precious acid in this vault. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: the vault guard realizes what's happening as as Two Face
Speaker 1: taunts them that they're going to die in this bank vault,
Speaker 1: and the guard says, oh no, it's boiling acid. There's
Speaker 1: like a seven second YouTube clip of this that I
Speaker 1: watch at least once a week. It's one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: I I watched this for the first time, I think
Speaker 1: because I don't know that I've actually seen this. Uh,
Speaker 1: this Batman film. I was super into the first two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a kid. Yeah, the Burden Batman's were great,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to get into the Schumacher ones and
Speaker 1: it didn't work. And I think part of the reason
Speaker 1: it's not worth it is that boiling acid. Uh. It
Speaker 1: tightly somes up everything about those films well exactly. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I find so funny about
Speaker 1: it is, well, if two Faces trying to kill them,
Speaker 1: why couldn't it be Oh no, it's boiling water. I mean,
Speaker 1: if it's boiling what what difference does it make? Or
Speaker 1: if it's acid, or hey, if it's just water, if
Speaker 1: you're flooding, if you're flooding a sealed right, I mean
Speaker 1: it can be that it's room temperature water. We're gonna drown. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so this obviously brings in a favorite old trope
Speaker 1: of the superhero genre, but really it's all throughout the
Speaker 1: movies and this is movie acid. Noticed that the guard
Speaker 1: in the vault doesn't say what the chemical compound is.
Speaker 1: It's not like he recognizes, Oh no, it's hydrofluoric acid. No,
Speaker 1: it's just acid. And this kind of acid plays a
Speaker 1: role in all of our favorite you know, our favorite cartoons,
Speaker 1: science fiction and superhero stuff. It's it's movie acid. It's
Speaker 1: Hollywood acid. So you're probably familiar with this. You remember
Speaker 1: lots of other scenes from Batman. I've bet right. It's
Speaker 1: always in Batman, like the villain captures Batman, is the penguin,
Speaker 1: or somebody's got Batman tied up on a rope dangling
Speaker 1: over a vat of acid. Yeah, I mean, it's such
Speaker 1: a like a vat of acid is one of those things.
Speaker 1: It's it's a it's a perfect like human technological achievement.
Speaker 1: And we can then utilize for menacing purposes. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like the it's like having a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: molten steel on hand or a hydraulic press. Right. It
Speaker 1: represents all of the evils of human industry and sort
Speaker 1: of the cold killer nature of technology. But at the
Speaker 1: same time it's it's a great just sort of like
Speaker 1: a vertical peril. It's always like a thing to have
Speaker 1: below you. It's like a pit of piranhas or a
Speaker 1: pit of crocodiles or something. In the case, it's a
Speaker 1: pit of molecules that want to h want to play
Speaker 1: nice with all of your skin. So what are the
Speaker 1: properties of Hollywood acid or movie acid we might call it.
Speaker 1: I want to list a few and maybe you'll have
Speaker 1: some of your own for it. One of them is
Speaker 1: that it causes severe and immediate burns to the skin
Speaker 1: and soft tissues. Does that sound about right, Yeah, just
Speaker 1: immediate scarification, multification um. And we can run through some
Speaker 1: examples of that in a minute, right. So another one
Speaker 1: is if you put organic materials such as a batman,
Speaker 1: into a vat of acid, it will kill and then
Speaker 1: rapidly dissolve that organism, so it has not only killing
Speaker 1: and burning powers, but also liquefication powers. Okay, yes, you're
Speaker 1: with me so far. Another one is that the colors
Speaker 1: can vary, but it's never clear like water. You notice
Speaker 1: that the acid in the movies it always is usually opaque,
Speaker 1: usually a shade of green, purple, or orange. I find Yeah, green,
Speaker 1: I think is the big one. And and I'll mention
Speaker 1: a few examples that have instilled that that idea in me.
Speaker 1: But like, if I was to draw a picture, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, doodle something with acid on the side of
Speaker 1: the piece of paper, it would be green. Yeah. A
Speaker 1: good example of the green acid is in that classic
Speaker 1: episode of The Simpsons where Millhouse becomes fallout Boy and
Speaker 1: there's there's radioactive man. They're filming a scene from the
Speaker 1: movie that's real ascid. I want to see goggles people, Yeah, exactly, goggles.
Speaker 1: They do nothing. Uh, it's great. But so another thing
Speaker 1: about the ascid is that it displays ambient bubbling, so
Speaker 1: you don't have to heat it up. It just naturally
Speaker 1: boils like a like a pot on the boil. Well
Speaker 1: that's so you can look at it and know that
Speaker 1: it's acid, like it's it's bubbling, it's green. It could
Speaker 1: not be more acid. Yeah, and of course the final
Speaker 1: the final factor is often kept in a giant vat,
Speaker 1: though sometimes also kept in something that squirts it out.
Speaker 1: Do you want to keep it in an open vat,
Speaker 1: open open top with some you know, room to have
Speaker 1: some sort of a chain chain system in place and
Speaker 1: some pulleys or whatever, however you want to position your
Speaker 1: nemesis above it? Right now, Robert, tell me your movie
Speaker 1: Acid story? What what? What are your memories from childhood
Speaker 1: of beloved movie Acid? Oh? I have, I have several,
Speaker 1: but the most scarring was at a young age, like
Speaker 1: too young of an age? I saw RoboCop. Who lets
Speaker 1: you watch RoboCop? At a young age? I think it
Speaker 1: was like um, like an uncle's house and it was on.
Speaker 1: But then again, RoboCop is so violent it's hard to
Speaker 1: determine exactly what age during a childhood is appropriate to
Speaker 1: watch RoboCop. A RoboCop an R rated ultra violent picture
Speaker 1: for which there were toys, and I think still our
Speaker 1: toys produced. Another thing I mean to say about RoboCop
Speaker 1: is that the level of violence and it isn't incidental.
Speaker 1: It's deliberately hyper violent, I would say. In the satirical uh,
Speaker 1: for satirical reasons. Yeah, I mean it's a great film. Um,
Speaker 1: but who I think back about to my seeing it
Speaker 1: as a as a young person, and I'm a little
Speaker 1: palled at times. But yeah, there's a scene where, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure anyone who has seen this has this ed
Speaker 1: burned into their mind as well, one of the villains
Speaker 1: Hinchman's gets gets just coated in acid. I believe his
Speaker 1: name is Emial. Is that it is that his name?
Speaker 1: So in me gets coated in acid. I don't even
Speaker 1: remember how it happened, Like did RoboCop shoot a vada
Speaker 1: acid that was behind him? And setting Well, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of there's a lot of sort of ambient
Speaker 1: industry in the movie. It takes place in a dystopian
Speaker 1: future Detroit, and they're like old factories with what we
Speaker 1: would presume are just vats of toxic waste and acid
Speaker 1: hanging around. Yeah, and somehow this guy gets it splashed
Speaker 1: all over him during a car chase scene. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then he comes just zombie like walking out shambling, totally meltified,
Speaker 1: and and then a car runs over Like there's a
Speaker 1: second there where you just horrified, like, oh, this poor guy,
Speaker 1: look at the state he's in and then like Robocopper,
Speaker 1: one of the villain, I think it's the main villain
Speaker 1: gets him with the car and he just like splatters
Speaker 1: like a like a water balloon full of blood. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the dad from that seventies show who gets in
Speaker 1: with the car. And I never trusted that seventies show
Speaker 1: because of RoboCop. I knew what he was capable of.
Speaker 1: Clarence Bodker, he's a great villain. But yeah, so he
Speaker 1: hits him with the car and he just turns to liquid.
Speaker 1: He's like a bag of soup and h and I
Speaker 1: remember the villain he turns on the windshield wiper. Yeah
Speaker 1: it's gross, but it's also there's tons of acid in
Speaker 1: video games, right. Video games love this, I guess because
Speaker 1: acids probably fun to animate. Yeah, and if you and
Speaker 1: a lot of games, if you're doing a platform game, right,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a wonderful thing to have to fall
Speaker 1: into and sort of bounce out off. But my favorite
Speaker 1: example is from Mortal Kombat two, which was like a
Speaker 1: major major game for me when I was younger, and
Speaker 1: in that you have two wonderful uses of acid. You
Speaker 1: have a stage called I think the Deadpool where you're
Speaker 1: fighting on a platform and there's just just green acid.
Speaker 1: Uh it fills the room or ambiently bubbling, I can't
Speaker 1: remember it's bubbling or not. But you if you upper
Speaker 1: cut your opponent into the acid at the end of
Speaker 1: the match for the fatality, then they just splash, they scream,
Speaker 1: they disappear under the acid, and then when they float
Speaker 1: up to the top, they're just a completely clean skeleton.
Speaker 1: Oh how long does that take? One second to seconds? Okay? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then of course that game also introduced the character Reptile,
Speaker 1: who is a reptile, a lizard man ninja um, which
Speaker 1: I just you know, you just take that for granted now,
Speaker 1: but he also spits acids. So he takes his a
Speaker 1: little mask off and goes and this, uh, this green
Speaker 1: glob comes flying across the screen and burns you. One
Speaker 1: of the most horrible acid scenes I remember from a
Speaker 1: kid was from the movie The Fly. We shouldn't dwell
Speaker 1: on this kind of great movie, but yeah, the fly
Speaker 1: has digestive enzymes. I suppose that he sort of like
Speaker 1: spits out on people too homogenized their flesh. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think there's an early scene where Brundle fly the of course,
Speaker 1: you know, if you haven't seen it, first of all,
Speaker 1: go see it. But mad scientist and a fly their
Speaker 1: DNA is spliced via teleportation accident, and there's a scene
Speaker 1: where he's recording himself feeding on something like just a
Speaker 1: bunch of sugary junk food, right, and you don't actually
Speaker 1: see it, happy just hear it, and it's horrific. And
Speaker 1: then of course later he weaponizes this biological effect. And
Speaker 1: speaking of weaponized acid biology, we would have to mention
Speaker 1: I guess this will be our final example of the
Speaker 1: xenomorph from the films. Uh So, when Ridley Scott's Alien,
Speaker 1: you might remember this the old classic alien. We first
Speaker 1: see the xenomorphous acid blood during the scene where, if
Speaker 1: you'll remember, John Hurt's character gets a gets an alien
Speaker 1: parasite attached to his face called a face hugger. Yea
Speaker 1: like burns through his helmet attached. Yeah, yeah, it comes
Speaker 1: through his face mask and then it's attached to his
Speaker 1: face and and they're trying to decide if they should
Speaker 1: cut it off of him on the spaceship and Ian
Speaker 1: Holme eventually decides to cut one of its fingers off
Speaker 1: to see if they can remove it, and it squirts blood,
Speaker 1: and this blood hits the floor and it sizzles when
Speaker 1: it splashes on the floor, and then continues to eat
Speaker 1: right through the material of the spacecraft's floor and then
Speaker 1: drops down through like two more floors, I think, through
Speaker 1: the levels until it eventually stop reacting a few levels down,
Speaker 1: finally neutralizes and it goes through the entire hole. And
Speaker 1: then Tom Skirt's character Captain Dallas, he says he's never
Speaker 1: seen anything like that before except quote molecular acid, which
Speaker 1: is funny that that term doesn't really make any sense
Speaker 1: since all acids are composed of molecules. Uh. And in
Speaker 1: the sequels they correct this by saying the aliens have
Speaker 1: concentrated acid for blood, which does make more sense in
Speaker 1: the sense that they're suggesting it's not like vinegar or
Speaker 1: some of their friendly acid that's highly deluded to a
Speaker 1: safe concentration. It's a highly concentrated, strong acid. But later
Speaker 1: in this episode, we should explore exactly what might be
Speaker 1: going on in terms of the aliens blood, how it
Speaker 1: could be that acidic, if there were something truly like
Speaker 1: that in nature. Yes, we will circle back around to
Speaker 1: the xenomorphs at the end. But anyway, so, why why
Speaker 1: this obsession with acid? We we love this stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: it keeps showing up in our media all the time,
Speaker 1: even though we're not really we can't be bothered to
Speaker 1: learn all the chemistry of exactly what chemicals are are
Speaker 1: out there that could do real harm to our body.
Speaker 1: So it's always just acid. You know, there's some acids.
Speaker 1: It's just basically like a magical corrosive substance. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So we we wanted to talk today about the real
Speaker 1: science of strong acids, and I don't know to what
Speaker 1: extent you can find chemicals in the real world that
Speaker 1: match up to these the movie Acid and how close
Speaker 1: you can get. Yes, okay, So to give you the
Speaker 1: basics before we get into the strongest acids out there
Speaker 1: the movie Acid, we we should do a real simple
Speaker 1: overview of acids, bases, and pH I'm not going to
Speaker 1: turn this into a chemistry class, but we do need
Speaker 1: to sort of explain how they work. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: picture your periodic table and then go directly to square one. Hydrogen.
Speaker 1: It's the most basic atom in the universe. It's got
Speaker 1: one proton and one electron, and most of the hydrogen
Speaker 1: in the universe has no neutrons, but if you want
Speaker 1: to add one or two, you can get deuterium or tritium.
Speaker 1: But we're not really concerned with that right now. So
Speaker 1: your hydrogen atom one proton, one electron, and it's electrically
Speaker 1: neutral because it's balanced like that. The electron has a
Speaker 1: negative charge, the proton has a positive charge. If hydrogen
Speaker 1: loses its electron, it becomes a hydrogen ion, which is
Speaker 1: just a proton. It's one single, lonely proton with an
Speaker 1: unbalanced positive charge, and of course nature hates that unbalanced
Speaker 1: positive charge. It wants to get back together, so that
Speaker 1: lonely proton is going to be looking for a way
Speaker 1: to join up with something that has a negative charge
Speaker 1: and again become electrically neutral. So water is made of
Speaker 1: the electrically neutral molecule H two. Oh. That's one oxygen
Speaker 1: atom bonded with two hydrogen atoms. And if one of
Speaker 1: the two hydrogen atoms in the water molecule breaks free,
Speaker 1: it just runs off, says I'm gonna do my own
Speaker 1: thing free of a water molecule, and leaves its electron
Speaker 1: with that water molecule you're left with a hydrogen ion
Speaker 1: on which is just that positively charged free proton proton,
Speaker 1: and then a hydroxide molecule which is O H minus.
Speaker 1: It's a molecule with a negative charge with one oxygen
Speaker 1: atom one hydrogen atom. Now, this can happen naturally in water.
Speaker 1: Sometimes this is called the the ionization of water autoionization
Speaker 1: of water. You can just have water sitting there in
Speaker 1: a glass and some subset of the molecules within it
Speaker 1: are going to undergo this reaction where a hydrogen proton
Speaker 1: leaves one of the molecules, joins to another one, and
Speaker 1: that creates this hydroxide molecule OH negative, negatively charged. And
Speaker 1: then also and I H a molecule called hydronium, which
Speaker 1: is H three Oh. It's a positively charged water molecule
Speaker 1: that has three hydrogens on it. And so here's where
Speaker 1: we get into acids and basins bases. There are several
Speaker 1: different chemical definitions, but we're gonna go with the Bronze
Speaker 1: stead Lowry definition because you know which other definition would
Speaker 1: you go with? This is obviously the best. It's named
Speaker 1: after the Danish chemist Johannus Nicolaus Brounze said and the
Speaker 1: English chemist Thomas Martin Lowry. And so the way it
Speaker 1: goes is this, an acid is a hydrogen ion donor,
Speaker 1: in other words, a proton donor. It's a chemical that
Speaker 1: when you put it into water, it wants to send
Speaker 1: free hydrogen ions, these protons out into the solution, and
Speaker 1: in turn that increases the concentration of hydronium or H
Speaker 1: three oh, that positively charged molecule. Is talking about the
Speaker 1: opposite of this is a base. A base is a
Speaker 1: hydrogen ion recipient or a proton recipient. When you put
Speaker 1: it into water, it wants to increase the hydroxide concentration.
Speaker 1: It makes more molecules of O H minus the negatively
Speaker 1: charged variant of water. So what would be an example
Speaker 1: of this, Okay, So one would be, for example, hydrochloric acid.
Speaker 1: So you put hydrochloric acid in the water, and it
Speaker 1: wants to break apart and donate that positively charged hydrogen
Speaker 1: ion to the water, creating some negatively charged chloride and
Speaker 1: positively charged hydronium. And here hc L is the acid
Speaker 1: and water is the base by the Bronze Dead Lowry definition.
Speaker 1: But all this stuff about acids and bases is generally
Speaker 1: going to be concerning aqueous solutions, in other words, putting
Speaker 1: stuff in water. Uh. And so this has a really
Speaker 1: awesome name, by the way, and it's known as protonation.
Speaker 1: So when you add a strong acid to a water,
Speaker 1: because you're giving away those positively charged uh hydrogen ions,
Speaker 1: you're proton ating the water. Uh and on. Of course,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you can use a base to
Speaker 1: d protonate a solution. One more piece of terminology. You've
Speaker 1: probably heard of the strength of acids and bases expressed
Speaker 1: in terms of pH. They say, you know, an acid
Speaker 1: as a pH of three or pH of six. What
Speaker 1: does that mean? pH is just the concentration of those
Speaker 1: high hydrogen ions in a solution. So normal water that's neutral,
Speaker 1: and the neutral pH is usually said to be seven,
Speaker 1: So that would be one times ten to the negative
Speaker 1: seven moles per leader of hydrogen ions. And we're not
Speaker 1: going to stay on this math for a long time,
Speaker 1: but just to be clear, a mole is just a
Speaker 1: measure of how many molecules you got in something, and
Speaker 1: moles per leader would be the concentration of how many
Speaker 1: molecules you've got per leader of water. Specifically, a mole
Speaker 1: is six point o two and then some more numbers,
Speaker 1: but basically six point o two times ten to the
Speaker 1: twenty three. There's a lot of molecules out there. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so this is this is expressed by saying it
Speaker 1: has a pH of seven. So if you have a
Speaker 1: compound with a lower pH, that's gonna get more acidic.
Speaker 1: They donate protons harder, they say, take these protons, take them.
Speaker 1: I can put that in um in perspective, what lemon
Speaker 1: juice is it too? I believe, yeah, that's about right.
Speaker 1: In fact, we can read a few a few examples
Speaker 1: of phs and and then also on the other end
Speaker 1: of the scale, uh, compounds with higher pH values are
Speaker 1: stronger bases, they're more alkaline, they steal protons harder their
Speaker 1: recipients of protons. Uh. And so just to give a
Speaker 1: few examples on the pH scale, I just found an
Speaker 1: illustration online that gives some basic general ideas. Like we said,
Speaker 1: distilled water is going to be a seven. It's neutral.
Speaker 1: That seawater is going to be a little more of
Speaker 1: a base, it's more like an eight. And then you
Speaker 1: get baking soda solution, it's a little more it's like
Speaker 1: eight points something bleach is gonna be like thirteen. That's
Speaker 1: a strong base. But then going lower on the scale,
Speaker 1: acids are going to be things like vinegar is going
Speaker 1: to be around a three or four. Orange juice is
Speaker 1: going to be around a three or a four. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that vinegar is between orange juice and carbonated beverages,
Speaker 1: with carbonated beverages being higher acidic level than vinegar. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they usually say Coca cola is pretty urn acid, and
Speaker 1: I think that was their original slogan. Taste the acid.
Speaker 1: And then once you get really low, closer to zero
Speaker 1: on the scale, you've got something like battery acid. Just
Speaker 1: really intense, strong acid. Take all the protons, take them all, right.
Speaker 1: And that's that is often where we see the at
Speaker 1: least the idea of Hollywood acids in that area, The
Speaker 1: idea like this is battery acid, this is industrial acid.
Speaker 1: This is highly corrosive stuff that will pick your skeleton dry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I should point out that we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about how strongly acids can dissolve things like organic materials today.
Speaker 1: And so because the acid that reacts with you does
Speaker 1: so through a chemical reaction, the chemicals involved matter, so
Speaker 1: some acids might actually have a lower pH than others
Speaker 1: but still be less harmful. For example, hydrofluoric acid, when
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about today, is one of the
Speaker 1: most deadly acids out there, but it doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: the lowest pH. And then when we're talking about the
Speaker 1: deadly aspects of acids, another thing we'll touch on two
Speaker 1: is that sometimes it's not only the corrosive aspects of
Speaker 1: the acid, but what happens when it when it has
Speaker 1: when it undergoes a chemical reaction, what kind of gases
Speaker 1: can be admitted there. Some of these examples you end
Speaker 1: up with with toxic gases that are released when the
Speaker 1: acid comes into contact with the with the right substance exactly.
Speaker 1: And another thing tying into hydrofluoric acid, which we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about a little more in a minute, uh,
Speaker 1: the danger associated with it isn't just from say, topical burns.
Speaker 1: It doesn't just burn you from the outside in and
Speaker 1: and kill you that way. By getting into your skin
Speaker 1: and then getting into your blood, it can cause systemic
Speaker 1: problems that can kill you, for example by causing a
Speaker 1: heart attack right and for longed exposure to Some of
Speaker 1: these have also been linked to cancer, So there are
Speaker 1: a number of ways that these these dangerous substances can
Speaker 1: can harm you. Yeah, okay, So let's say, based on
Speaker 1: everything we've just looked at, you're going to try to
Speaker 1: dissolve a organic material such as a batman. So you
Speaker 1: have a very strong acid, so you've got a vat
Speaker 1: of it, and you put that acid into an aqueous solution,
Speaker 1: meaning water. So you've got your acid dissolved into water,
Speaker 1: and then you put your batman in. What's going to
Speaker 1: happen to your batman? Well, depending on the makeup of
Speaker 1: the solution, what's probably gonna happen is that the acidic
Speaker 1: solution will begin breaking the chemical bonds of molecules on
Speaker 1: the outer surface of the batman, so that you know,
Speaker 1: the excess of protons and charged molecules can form bonds
Speaker 1: with other molecules in that batman material, and assuming it
Speaker 1: can eat through the batman's suit, is going to start
Speaker 1: hacking up the lipids and the protein molecules in the
Speaker 1: batman's skin, forming new chemical bonds and slowly turning this
Speaker 1: imbalanced acid water batman solution into a more homogeneous gloup. Basically, Yes, however,
Speaker 1: there are probably some materials in the Batman and the
Speaker 1: Batman's suit that will not react with the acid, meaning
Speaker 1: you're not likely to end up with a perfectly homogeneous mixture.
Speaker 1: You might get some glupe with some lumps in it. Essentially,
Speaker 1: the villain's acid just wants to bring Batman into equilibrium.
Speaker 1: Isn't that a nice way of thinking about it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He is definitely a character out of balance with the world, right,
Speaker 1: and so unless somebody perhaps comes along with a dump
Speaker 1: truck through full of a week base like baking soda
Speaker 1: to pour in and neutralize the solution, that's what's going
Speaker 1: to happen. Though I'm not sure exactly how that would
Speaker 1: work out for the Batman if he's still in the
Speaker 1: vat while they're neutralizing it. Yeah, would it? Would there
Speaker 1: be an explosion, an eruption? I don't know that. I
Speaker 1: think the classic Batman TV series, of course, with its
Speaker 1: rigorous approach to science, you would probably see Robin show
Speaker 1: up dump the base in. Everything would turn to a
Speaker 1: big foam and uh everything, it would It would be
Speaker 1: like a foam slippery dance fight party. Yeah, yeah, everybody
Speaker 1: does the twist. All right, We're gonna take a quick
Speaker 1: break and when we come back, we're going to look
Speaker 1: at a rogues gallery of dangerous acids. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: Well let's yeah, let's let's roll through a few examples
Speaker 1: of some powerful, potent real world acids. And again we're
Speaker 1: not we're gonna try not to just really chemistry class
Speaker 1: you too much on these, but we're gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: roll through the some of the basic health ratings and
Speaker 1: um and and attributes of these substances. Well, we talked
Speaker 1: about early on the idea of these these acids that
Speaker 1: occur in biology, and one acid that definitely occurs in
Speaker 1: biology is hydrochloric acid HCl. So this is going to
Speaker 1: be a bond between hydrogen and chlorine and it gets
Speaker 1: the job done. And I want to note that, uh
Speaker 1: these properties are coming off of the m s d
Speaker 1: S as Material Safety data sheet. It's a good sheet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you if you're interested in pretty much any substance,
Speaker 1: any chemical substance, you can journal. We find um an
Speaker 1: MSDS on on the internet for this and uh it's
Speaker 1: it can be a little bit interesting, a little bit technical,
Speaker 1: depending on how much that you read. Uh So, the
Speaker 1: appearance of hydrochloric acid, it would not work in a
Speaker 1: Mortal Kombat game because it's it's colorless, though it is
Speaker 1: a fuming liquid, has a pungent odor of hydrogen chloride,
Speaker 1: which means you're you're doing the bank vault with Batman
Speaker 1: might be able to sniff it out. And um, when
Speaker 1: it comes to its solubility, infinite solubility, and water with
Speaker 1: slight evolution of heat, not necessarily boiling, but slight evolution. Right,
Speaker 1: And so the the MSDS comes with these ratings. It's
Speaker 1: a great rating system. It's kind of like the the
Speaker 1: m p a A for acids. Know what you're getting
Speaker 1: ahead of time exactly. Um, the most of the ones
Speaker 1: we looked at use the JT. Baker s A f
Speaker 1: T data scores essentially given it. Like you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like character classes and done and dragons. Right,
Speaker 1: it's health rating, it's flammability rating, reactivity rating, contact rating, etcetera. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna deal with all these, but but as
Speaker 1: far as hydrochloric acid goes, it's health rating is a three,
Speaker 1: which is severe like a poison level zero in flammability.
Speaker 1: Reactivity rating is a too. Contact rating is three that
Speaker 1: means it's severe. It's corrosive. Do not touch it, so
Speaker 1: you need to if you're handling this stuff in the lab,
Speaker 1: you need some protective measures in place. Yeah, it's highly corrosive,
Speaker 1: so it's dangerous for us to inhale if we should
Speaker 1: not come into contact with it on our eyes, on
Speaker 1: our skin. Do not ingest it. Uh. You don't want
Speaker 1: to undergo chronic light exposure to it either. Um. And
Speaker 1: then oh yeah, when it's heated to decomposition, it emits
Speaker 1: toxic hydrogen chloride fumes and will react with water or
Speaker 1: steam to produce heat and toxic and corrosive fumes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But of course, as I mentioned earlier, despite all this,
Speaker 1: you've got hydrochloric acid in your body, that's right. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the stomach acid. This is uh, this is
Speaker 1: part of you. And really it's an important thing to
Speaker 1: keep in mind with acids in general. Like acids are
Speaker 1: part of our chemical world. Acids are part of the
Speaker 1: chemistry of life. They're part of our biochemistry, uh, in
Speaker 1: varying degrees. So yeah, the even though we like to
Speaker 1: position acid in that vat of of man made peril, uh,
Speaker 1: it's really just a part of our world. So parietal
Speaker 1: cells produce hydrochloric acid in our body. It's a strong
Speaker 1: acid helps you break down your food. The acid in
Speaker 1: your stomach is so concentrated that if you were to
Speaker 1: place a drop on a piece of wood, it would
Speaker 1: eat right through it. Really yeah wow. And the G
Speaker 1: cells produce gastron, a hormone that facilitates the production of
Speaker 1: hydrochloric acid by the parietal cells. So the stomach, because
Speaker 1: of course, one of the big questions is, well, why
Speaker 1: doesn't the acid in our stomach consumers right, Well, the
Speaker 1: stomach is producted by the epithelial cells, which produce and
Speaker 1: secrete a bicarbonate rich solution that coats the mucosa. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's taking the method of saving the batman by
Speaker 1: dumping a bunch of baking soda into the bat Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: putting in a base exactly. The bicarbonate is an alkaline,
Speaker 1: A base neutralizes the acid is secreted by those parietal cells,
Speaker 1: producing water in the process. And this continuous supply of
Speaker 1: bicarbonate is the main way that your stomach protects itself
Speaker 1: from autodigestion um and the overall acidic environment. If you're
Speaker 1: if you're tummy. So uh so, it sounds like this
Speaker 1: process of creating the base to neutralize it is not
Speaker 1: something you want going wrong in your body. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one you generally what a good a good balance
Speaker 1: in your stomach chemistry. Yeah, okay, so hydrochloric acid, that's
Speaker 1: nothing to be toyed around with. But there are stronger
Speaker 1: and more dangerous acids out there, and I think maybe
Speaker 1: we should move on. So if if hydrochloric acid was
Speaker 1: sort of the I don't know, the riddler of the
Speaker 1: acid rogues gallery, I think it's time to move onto
Speaker 1: the joker. Yes, the joker would definitely be sulfuric acid, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And this is one I would say of all the
Speaker 1: acids they're technical names, sulfuric acid is the one that
Speaker 1: is that is most commonly used in fiction, and not
Speaker 1: without a real deep understanding of what it is. But
Speaker 1: like the name itself sounds a little scary, sulfur It's
Speaker 1: it's hellish, right, sulfuric the the name itself sounds a
Speaker 1: little bit evil. Well, chemically, it's H two S O four,
Speaker 1: So that's hydrogen with sulfur and oxygen and it forms
Speaker 1: this molecule that is very very keen to protonate. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: so it's it's a clear, oily liquid. It's odorless, so
Speaker 1: sorry bank vault dude, both of these so far clear? Right? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Nothing green? Why why not green or orange? It's also
Speaker 1: miscable with water, which means that it forms a homogeneous
Speaker 1: mixture when added to water, liberates a fair amount of heat. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's highly corrosive and dangerous to humans just across
Speaker 1: the board, much like hydrochloric acid. So how does it
Speaker 1: compare in terms of the ratings? So hydrochloric acid, for
Speaker 1: for the health rating, we had a three, and for
Speaker 1: the contact corrosivity rating we had a three, right right,
Speaker 1: three on both yeah, and had a had a two
Speaker 1: for reactivity and a zero for flammability. This time around
Speaker 1: we have another zero for flammability. Um. However, reactivity went
Speaker 1: up from a two to the to a three, so
Speaker 1: we have severe water reactivity here. Uh. And then as
Speaker 1: far as health rating goes, we have another three, so
Speaker 1: it's just a severe poisonous. But contact rating goes up
Speaker 1: from three to four from severe to extreme, so it's
Speaker 1: extremely corrosive. How do they decide what word goes with that?
Speaker 1: I might say severe is worse than extreme. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's it's going to be specific to the JT.
Speaker 1: Baker s a f T data score. I guess because
Speaker 1: I need a good poet to go through and annotate
Speaker 1: this data sheet instead of like a single like a
Speaker 1: nice description exactly everyone encounter with it, or an example
Speaker 1: from a movie, right like this is a you know,
Speaker 1: this is a Mortal Kombat two level acid. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: if you're going for this movie kind of acid, I
Speaker 1: think we're we're getting more into the territory here of
Speaker 1: acids that are really gonna maybe not behave exactly like
Speaker 1: the movie acid you're used to, but get closer to
Speaker 1: that than than many other things would right now. And
Speaker 1: some other bad stuff about sulphuric acid. When heated to decomposition,
Speaker 1: it produces toxic fumes of oxides of sulfur uh. It
Speaker 1: will react with water or steam to produce toxic and
Speaker 1: corrosive fumes. It reacts with the carbonates to generate carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide gas, and with cyanides and sulfides to form poisonous
Speaker 1: hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulfide, respectively. It all sounds lovely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So Again, that's something though that is often I don't
Speaker 1: feel like that that's utilized the the the the resulting
Speaker 1: toxic gas of acid interactions and films, like they were
Speaker 1: so concerned with what happens when the xenomorph blood gets
Speaker 1: on you or your armor or the floor, But how
Speaker 1: about any resulting fumes. Well, yeah, we're we're always so
Speaker 1: much more concerned with liquids than with gases. One example
Speaker 1: is volcanoes in movies. You know, volcanoes in real life.
Speaker 1: I think they're way more likely to suffocate and kill
Speaker 1: you with gases emitted or or by covering you in
Speaker 1: ash and and ejecta and stuff like that. But what
Speaker 1: you see in the movies is the lava. People are
Speaker 1: running away from liquid lava rolling down the hill towards them.
Speaker 1: Your volcano is very likely to kill you, but it's
Speaker 1: very not likely to kill you that way. Another thing
Speaker 1: that this is going off topic a little bit, but
Speaker 1: flamethrowers in a confined space, it's a staple of our entertainment,
Speaker 1: and yet it is such a bad idea to just
Speaker 1: rapidly consume. I mean, a flamethrower in general is a
Speaker 1: bad idea. A real flamethrower, quick way to suffocate yourself.
Speaker 1: That's a greatay to sufocate yourself, and it's rarely rarely
Speaker 1: is that explored? The only example I can think of
Speaker 1: offhand is that there is a wonderful Nazi zombie film
Speaker 1: from the seventies or eighties titled shock Waves, and there's
Speaker 1: a scene where they don't have a flamethrower, but they
Speaker 1: light some flares, I think to ward off the creatures,
Speaker 1: and they're in a confined space and it just eats
Speaker 1: up all the oxygen and everybody's like gasping for breath.
Speaker 1: And I remember the time thinking, Ah, thank you movie
Speaker 1: for for for thinking a little bit. That's smart. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but back to sulfuric acid. So sulfuric acid, based on
Speaker 1: how dangerous it sounds, You're you're probably never going to
Speaker 1: have this in your home, right, well, not necessarily. Now
Speaker 1: you might be able to get sulfuric acid in the
Speaker 1: home in some deluded uh concentrations. So a n study
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery that
Speaker 1: I came across was called cutaneous burns caused by sulfuric
Speaker 1: acid drain cleaner. Yeah. Pretty horrible. So a lot of
Speaker 1: the commercial drain cleaner you're gonna be getting is actually
Speaker 1: going to be based on a strong base rather than
Speaker 1: a strang long acid. So it might have something kind
Speaker 1: of like lie in it to dissolve uh, to dissolve
Speaker 1: materials and the drain to do some some alkaline hydrolysis
Speaker 1: and clear it out, get all that hair and gunk
Speaker 1: out of there. But also there are some preparations made
Speaker 1: with strong acids, such as highly concentrated solutions of sulfuric acid,
Speaker 1: and and some people will sell these and you can
Speaker 1: buy them. And this has caused accidental and sometimes intentional
Speaker 1: burns in the home. So this study looked at a
Speaker 1: period of thirteen years ending in May nine six, looking
Speaker 1: at children and adults who sustained sulfuric acid burns in
Speaker 1: the home through products like these, And it looked at
Speaker 1: twenty one patients. There were thirteen kids and eight adults.
Speaker 1: And I just want to read the results. They say
Speaker 1: in eight instances the sulfuric acid burn was accidental, whereas
Speaker 1: in thirteen cases sulfuric acid was used as a weapon
Speaker 1: media and total body surface area burned was five or
Speaker 1: scent or a range of one. Approximately fifty percent of
Speaker 1: burns involved the face and the neck. Skin grafting was
Speaker 1: required in fourteen patients, or sixty six percent. And it's
Speaker 1: estimated that nationwide, approximately three thousand injuries per year are
Speaker 1: related to drain cleaners and that one third of these
Speaker 1: involved cutaneous burns. So this is, uh, this is one
Speaker 1: kind of scary fact about what sulfuric acid can do
Speaker 1: outside of the lab. And this does remind me that
Speaker 1: in um, you know a lot of films and TV,
Speaker 1: and and certainly in horror literature, uh, drain cleaner is
Speaker 1: often used that kind of household horror. This thing that
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, when you used correctly, is certainly
Speaker 1: just a part of our lives and we don't think
Speaker 1: about it, but if you turn it around, it becomes
Speaker 1: this horrible, in human thing. And uh, and I should
Speaker 1: also point out of view some people might have might
Speaker 1: have missed this in this episode because it was kind
Speaker 1: of maybe we're bearing the lead a little bit, but uh.
Speaker 1: The most recent Creepy posta episode The Christian and I
Speaker 1: did gets into the into the issue of acid attacks
Speaker 1: and the restoration of surgical restoration of individuals who have
Speaker 1: experienced act. Yeah, so it mentions the like the grafting
Speaker 1: that was mentioned in this study. Uh, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a horrible thing to think about. It
Speaker 1: in real life being used as a weapon probably doesn't
Speaker 1: behave exactly the same way we do see the movie.
Speaker 1: Acid behaving are certainly not as rapidly, but at the
Speaker 1: same time can cause it very severe burns and damage
Speaker 1: to the body. So it's not something to mess around with.
Speaker 1: But next, let's look at one more rogue in our
Speaker 1: in our rogues gallery of dangerous acids, and I think
Speaker 1: this one is going to be one of the most interesting.
Speaker 1: This is hydrofluoric acid or h F, made of a
Speaker 1: bond of hydrogen and fluorine. Let's look at the MSDS
Speaker 1: scores here on this one. So health rating. Our previous
Speaker 1: two examples were both three, which were severe. This one
Speaker 1: is a four. This one is extremely poisonous. Uh. This
Speaker 1: one also has a zero on flammability. Uh. Its reactivity
Speaker 1: rating is a mere two, so that's down from three
Speaker 1: that we had on sulphuric acid. And then it's contact
Speaker 1: rating is a four extremely corrosive just like sulfuric acid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's a colorless fuming liquid. Uh. It has a
Speaker 1: very very acrid odor. Do not breathe the fumes, and
Speaker 1: it is infinitely soluble. Now, this this stuff because of
Speaker 1: the nature of it, the hydrogen fluorine bond or the
Speaker 1: hydrogen fluoride, it has a very unique sort of reactive
Speaker 1: profile that's right on contact with metals. It liberates hydrogen
Speaker 1: gas on heating to decomposition. It can yield toxic fumes
Speaker 1: of fluorides, and it attacks glass and other silicon containing compounds.
Speaker 1: It reacts with silica to produce silicon tetrafluoride, which is
Speaker 1: also a hazardous colorless gas. Yeah. Now we should linger
Speaker 1: on that last fact for a moment, because what do
Speaker 1: we say here, Hydrogen fluoride can dissolve glass. Yeah, most
Speaker 1: of the time. Glass is great for storing chemicals because
Speaker 1: it's very nonreactive. You can put stuff in a glass
Speaker 1: container and it will sit there. It doesn't it doesn't
Speaker 1: react with what's inside it. Glass is made of mostly
Speaker 1: silicon dioxide silica, same stuff as you know a lot
Speaker 1: of rocks and sand, But hydrogen fluoride smashes up those
Speaker 1: silicon dioxide bonds in order to replace them. With silicon
Speaker 1: fluorine bonds, and so for this reason you can't store
Speaker 1: it in glass. You have to store it in a
Speaker 1: special container, often one made out of something that won't
Speaker 1: react with it, like polyethylene plastic, but a few other
Speaker 1: materials will work. And I wanted to talk about a
Speaker 1: couple of videos that I found on the Internet that
Speaker 1: are very interesting dealing with hydrogen fluoride. And if you
Speaker 1: want to watch these, if you're in a physician, to
Speaker 1: watch these as you listen to the podcast episode. We
Speaker 1: will include links to these in the landing page for
Speaker 1: this episode is stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: So these were done by a group that puts out
Speaker 1: chemistry videos on the Internet called periodic videos or periodic
Speaker 1: table videos. It's out of believe the Chemistry Department of
Speaker 1: University of Nottingham, and there are a lot of fun
Speaker 1: They do some experiments with some very unsettling chemicals. One
Speaker 1: of them was hydrogen fluoride, where they they decided to
Speaker 1: put a light bulb in the hydrogen fluoride. So it's
Speaker 1: a live light bulb with power running to it, lighting
Speaker 1: up half submerged in a container of hydrogen fluoride. And
Speaker 1: what do you know, after a little while sitting in
Speaker 1: the solution, the glass part of the light bulb breaks off,
Speaker 1: and it breaks off in a very strange way, cleanly,
Speaker 1: with a circle around where the surface of the acid
Speaker 1: is is lining the outside of the glass bulb, and
Speaker 1: it just kind of shears it off as if it
Speaker 1: had been scored and then removed. And that, of course
Speaker 1: is pretty freakingly freaky because then the filament immediately comes
Speaker 1: off and it starts kind of sparking. But then they
Speaker 1: did another video which I thought was really interesting, and
Speaker 1: this one's really worth a watch. So this is comparing
Speaker 1: the flesh dissolving properties of three different acids, actually the
Speaker 1: three we've just talked about. This is the one I watched,
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah, this is a lot of it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: So in all three cases, what they did is they
Speaker 1: got a raw chicken leg and they suspended it from
Speaker 1: a string partially submerged in the acid. Uh, And then
Speaker 1: the states of the three chicken legs are monitored. And
Speaker 1: the three acids they did, like we said, are the
Speaker 1: ones we've just talked about, hydrogen chloride or HCl, sulfuric
Speaker 1: acid or H two s O four and then hydrofluoric
Speaker 1: acid or HF. Now, the the sort of the profile
Speaker 1: we saw affecting the chicken leg was very similar for
Speaker 1: the hydrogen chloride and the sulfuric acid, wouldn't you say, yes,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, they seem to do the same thing, which
Speaker 1: is that after about five minutes, not really any noticeable changes.
Speaker 1: I'm sure if that chicken leg could feel it probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't feel good, But you don't really notice any burning
Speaker 1: on the outside. After thirty minutes, still nothing really noticeable.
Speaker 1: So this already is not exactly lining up with what
Speaker 1: we know about movie acid right right, And these are
Speaker 1: best in our brightest ATHLETs, yeah, exactly. But overnight some
Speaker 1: really interesting stuff started to happen with these two. So
Speaker 1: the previously clear solution takes on a dark pigment, and
Speaker 1: the part of the chicken that has been submerged has
Speaker 1: turned into this dark, viscous jelly that drips off of
Speaker 1: the bone when you lifted up. Uh. And then after
Speaker 1: that they went a whole hog where they cut the
Speaker 1: string and just dunked the whole chicken leg in and
Speaker 1: it's gross. It just continues to darken the acid solution,
Speaker 1: turn it into this gloopy, dark and jelly, and it
Speaker 1: it sort of begins to liquify the outer layers of
Speaker 1: the chicken leg. Don't know what what would have happened
Speaker 1: if they just kept it going for weeks after after
Speaker 1: a day, it was not looking good. It was thoroughly unappetizing,
Speaker 1: that is for sure. Yeah, I don't know. People just
Speaker 1: don't for some reason, you want to eat a piece
Speaker 1: of chicken. You don't want to eat some chicken jelly,
Speaker 1: but yet you like grape jelly. Yeah, well, um, well
Speaker 1: there you know, there are different jellifications of flesh that
Speaker 1: are consumed arthur in like French cuisine. Oh I suppose so, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. What's it called aspect? Yeah? Okay, moving on
Speaker 1: now now, So that's hydrogen chloride and sulfuric acid. But
Speaker 1: the real strange one contributing here is the hydrofluoric acid,
Speaker 1: this being the one that we just covered, the one
Speaker 1: that dissolves glass. Yeah, and so similar profile at the beginning.
Speaker 1: After five to thirty minutes, really not any significant observed changes.
Speaker 1: Like we said, probably if you could be that chicken leg,
Speaker 1: it would not be pleasant. But just looking at it,
Speaker 1: nothing strange seems to have occurred, but again, overnight, some
Speaker 1: really crazy stuff starts to happen. Unlike the other two
Speaker 1: acid solutions, which darkened and took on the red red pigment, uh,
Speaker 1: this acid solution remains clear, and the part of the
Speaker 1: chicken legs submerged in the acid has sort of partially
Speaker 1: disappeared and has a white discoloration along the sheared away surface.
Speaker 1: It looked to me, I don't know what you thought
Speaker 1: about this. It looked to me like frost or freezer burn. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did have that kind of appearance. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: also the entire rest of the leg has become discolored,
Speaker 1: so all of the red pigment and the muscle it
Speaker 1: looks like it's just been drained away. And even the
Speaker 1: part way up out of the acid has become pale
Speaker 1: white with greenish spots. It's lost its pink pigment. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then after they dropped the whole thing and when
Speaker 1: they cut the string, it looks almost like extremely overcooked
Speaker 1: boiled chicken, pale white all over except for a little
Speaker 1: part sticking out which looks green and disease like they
Speaker 1: just the worst example of steamer tray lunch room chicken.
Speaker 1: Legs you can possibly imagine. Yeah, and so I do
Speaker 1: recommend the the video because the chemist who they talked
Speaker 1: to in the video has a theory about why this happens.
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to repeat his theory, but it's
Speaker 1: worth checking out. It's pretty interesting. He also has wonderful
Speaker 1: like frizzy white hair. He's just a fabulous example of
Speaker 1: of a British scientist. Yeah, all right, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break and when we come back, we will
Speaker 1: get into the realm of super acids and then we
Speaker 1: will reconverge with the Zeno morph. Hey, everybody, trips to
Speaker 1: the post office are never convenient, so why not get
Speaker 1: postage right from your desk with stamps dot Com. Stamps
Speaker 1: dot Com gives you special postage discounts you can't get
Speaker 1: it the post office, including first class, Priority Mail, Express, International,
Speaker 1: and more. You'll never pay full price for postage again. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So here's how stamps dot com works. It's pretty simple.
Speaker 1: You use your own computer and printer to buy and
Speaker 1: print official US postage for any letter or package. Then
Speaker 1: you just hand the mail off to the mail carrier
Speaker 1: or drop it in the mailbox. You're done. That's it.
Speaker 1: It's that easy, and that's all no wonder. Over six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand small businesses are already using stamps dot Com.
Speaker 1: Here in the office, we use stamps dot com when
Speaker 1: we need to send out the odd bit of mertual correspondence,
Speaker 1: and we want you to try it out as well.
Speaker 1: So right now, sign up for stamps dot com and
Speaker 1: use our promo code stuff for this special offer a
Speaker 1: four week trial plus a hundred and ten dollar bonus
Speaker 1: software that includes postage and a digital scale. So don't wait.
Speaker 1: Get started with stamps dot com today. Go to stamps
Speaker 1: dot com right now, before we do anything else, click
Speaker 1: on the microphone at the top of the homepage and
Speaker 1: type in stuff that stamps dot com inter stuff and
Speaker 1: start mailing things. Okay, here's a question. When does an
Speaker 1: acid become a super acid? We've talked about superheroes at
Speaker 1: the beginning of Batman is a Is he a hero
Speaker 1: or superhero? Well, he doesn't really have superpowers, but I
Speaker 1: guess he counts as a superhero. Oh yeah, he's got
Speaker 1: the costume, he's got the technology. So yeah, maybe if
Speaker 1: these other acids we just discussed dissolving chicken legs won't
Speaker 1: dissolve a Batman fast enough, you need a super acid
Speaker 1: to dissolve a superhero. It seems like the kind of
Speaker 1: thing is super villain would need to to look into exactly.
Speaker 1: So what is a super acid? Well, super acid is
Speaker 1: an acid that is as strong as or stronger than,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent pure sulfuric acid. Uh, And why would
Speaker 1: you ever have anything like this? What's the point of it? Well,
Speaker 1: acids are an incredibly important catalyst in the chemical industry,
Speaker 1: which is maybe why they're in you know, these industrial
Speaker 1: settings and big open vets, but they have they have
Speaker 1: a number of applications and potential applications in fuel cell
Speaker 1: technology and the chemical and petroleum industry. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: acids don't usually react with hydrocarbons you know, such as
Speaker 1: oil petroleum, but superacids do. Yeah, And so we figured
Speaker 1: it's worth looking up what's the strongest acid known to humankind?
Speaker 1: There is an answer to this question, right, It is
Speaker 1: fluoro antimonic acid or h s b F six. Then
Speaker 1: this is, as far as we know, the strongest super
Speaker 1: acid on earth. So what's the deal with it? So
Speaker 1: this is made by combining hydrofluoric acid with antimony pentafluoride.
Speaker 1: And this is gonna sound crazy, but it the resulting
Speaker 1: acid is billions of times stronger than sulfuric acid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's billions and billions of times or just many orders
Speaker 1: of magnitude stronger than sulfuric acid. That is crazy, obviously
Speaker 1: something we don't exactly know. Like, I couldn't find any
Speaker 1: videos that were clearly real of people dealing with this stuff.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find a lot of first person accounts of
Speaker 1: people dealing with it. There there's some some research materials
Speaker 1: about it, but they don't really get into, uh, into
Speaker 1: what exactly would happen by combining this with stuff. I
Speaker 1: imagine if you dipped a batman in it, some some
Speaker 1: stuff would go down. Yeah, I mean, we found numbers
Speaker 1: that were kind of all over the place, and there's
Speaker 1: no MSDS score for this. There's no s A f
Speaker 1: T data on this, so we can't we can't even
Speaker 1: like look at numbers that put it, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: to make a comparison between it and sulfuric acid. Right,
Speaker 1: But just based on on what we do know about it,
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to assume that this stuff is
Speaker 1: incredibly dangerous and dipping a Batman and it would have
Speaker 1: some some consequences. But but you might be wondering, you know,
Speaker 1: with some with an acid that's strong, something that that reactive,
Speaker 1: how would you even store it? Right? Because just the hydrogen, Uh,
Speaker 1: just with the HF you've got this problem where you
Speaker 1: you you're dissolving glass containers. Uh so what do you
Speaker 1: use to store this wasn't an interesting piece of information
Speaker 1: I found cited in several sources. You can actually store
Speaker 1: it with something you keep around the house. It's something
Speaker 1: with a solid bond that really doesn't want to let
Speaker 1: go and bond with other stuff. It's teflon ptf E,
Speaker 1: so polytetrafluora ethylene. It's a ptf E and that's just
Speaker 1: a fluorine carbon bond molecule. That's it's it's very monogamous.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't want to go bond with other stuff. Interesting, Okright,
Speaker 1: So if you are battling a lizard ninja that may
Speaker 1: or may not have of um super acid in its body,
Speaker 1: where teflon ninja costume to battle it? Exactly? That's what
Speaker 1: Batman uses, I bet sustain his encounters with vats of acid.
Speaker 1: Is a teflon batsuit. So this would be what mcbaine's
Speaker 1: underwear was made off in that that scene we were
Speaker 1: talking about from The Simpsons, because when the flood of
Speaker 1: acid and throws him through I think Millhouse's um trailer,
Speaker 1: the acid like quickly eats off all of his clothing
Speaker 1: except for his underwear. Yeah. Well, I'm sure that was
Speaker 1: done for network censorship reasons rather than than scientific accuracy reasons,
Speaker 1: but it could be. Could be uh teflon underwear protects
Speaker 1: you from the acid. Though I don't know if that
Speaker 1: would work with every acid. That's true. I just have
Speaker 1: to assume if it works for the strongest acid in
Speaker 1: the world, it's going to be generally pretty effective. Alright, So, Joe,
Speaker 1: at this point, we've we've talked about what Hollywood acids
Speaker 1: look like, we've talked about the real properties of acids,
Speaker 1: and we're already seeing how they don't really match up
Speaker 1: to our Batman dissolving needs. Doesn't mean they're not dangerous.
Speaker 1: Some of that are certainly incredibly dangerous, but they don't
Speaker 1: behave exactly like we we want them to to make
Speaker 1: Batman burn. Well, are there other things in our natural
Speaker 1: world that do behave like these fictionalized substances. Well, still
Speaker 1: probably not exactly. You're not going to get the green, bubbling,
Speaker 1: instant dissolving you kind of thing. But in many cases,
Speaker 1: I think if you want a chemical that burns through
Speaker 1: human flesh more like it does in the movies, what
Speaker 1: you want is not necessarily a strong acid, but a
Speaker 1: strong base on the opposite end of the pH scale,
Speaker 1: such as LIE, which would be usually sodium hydroxide in
Speaker 1: a O H or potassium hydroxide KOH. And so I
Speaker 1: wanna bring to your mind a scene from a movie
Speaker 1: you might or might not have seen. You've seen Fight Club, right, Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: you remember the scene in Fight Club where Brad Pitt
Speaker 1: and Edward Norton they're sitting around a table and they're
Speaker 1: making soap, because this is a plot point in the movie,
Speaker 1: and one of the ingredients in making soap, and this
Speaker 1: is true, is LIE. And in the scene, Brad Pitt
Speaker 1: he takes Edward Norton's hand and he kisses him on
Speaker 1: the hand and then he pours LIE across the wet
Speaker 1: spot where his lips were, and this causes a reaction
Speaker 1: that begins to burn Edward Norton's hand, and for the
Speaker 1: sake of, you know, kind of macho and somewhat grandiose
Speaker 1: sense of carpet d M. Brad Pitt convinces Edward Norton
Speaker 1: to just sit there and endure the pain the chemical
Speaker 1: burn instead of washing off the LIE, and he also
Speaker 1: tells him that washing it off with water would only
Speaker 1: make it worse, and eventually he uses vinegar to neutralize
Speaker 1: the acid. Now, you shouldn't take your chemical safety information
Speaker 1: from a podcast. We are not chemical safety experts, and
Speaker 1: you should always consult those real experts before dealing with
Speaker 1: strong acids or bases. But from everything I've read, brad
Speaker 1: Pitt's wisdom about the vinegar here is not exactly true. Uh.
Speaker 1: It is true that a strong base like LIE is
Speaker 1: activated in the presence of water, and that you can
Speaker 1: use acids to neutralize bases. But if you've got LIE
Speaker 1: on you, my non expert opinion is that your first
Speaker 1: priorities just get it off. You get it off your
Speaker 1: skin as fast as possible, rather than running around looking
Speaker 1: for a creative lemons to squeeze on and neutralize it.
Speaker 1: Washing it off with water would be one way, but
Speaker 1: you just want it off your skin as fast as possible.
Speaker 1: Also worth pointing out that commercial vinegar is mostly water.
Speaker 1: It's acetic acid, but it's highly diluted with water. But yes,
Speaker 1: in any case, this is an example of what strong
Speaker 1: bases can do to the skin, and in some ways
Speaker 1: the scene is kind of accurate. Like a strong base,
Speaker 1: like a lie in the presence of water on the skin,
Speaker 1: can definitely burn you. It can cause bad chemical burns,
Speaker 1: and can definitely truly dissolve human flesh under the right conditions.
Speaker 1: So this is one thing we also see the movie
Speaker 1: acid being used for. It's like the Afia hitman in
Speaker 1: the movie have some vat of acid in their basement
Speaker 1: and they wax somebody and they put him into the
Speaker 1: vat of acid and it dissolves them. But studies have
Speaker 1: actually shown that if you really want to dissolve a
Speaker 1: human body. We're not trying to give anybody pointers on
Speaker 1: how to commit murder, and this is evidence is just
Speaker 1: science presented by the Mafia Science Institute. Apparently the better
Speaker 1: way to do that would be with a strong base
Speaker 1: rather than a strong acid for for fully dissolving flesh.
Speaker 1: And one piece of evidence for this is something we've
Speaker 1: actually talked about on the podcast before and you remember
Speaker 1: the episode we did last October about the future of
Speaker 1: the dealing with human remains and green burials and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and so the method, one method we talked
Speaker 1: about is known as alkaline hydrolysis, and this is a
Speaker 1: method of disposing of condevers. It's used by lots of
Speaker 1: medical facilities and there's increasing interest in using it as
Speaker 1: a cheaper and greener alternative to traditional burial incremation. And
Speaker 1: essentially it goes like us. You put the body into
Speaker 1: a pressurized chamber that contains a mixture of water and
Speaker 1: lie so here's your strong base, and then you heat
Speaker 1: the chamber to around a hundred and sixty degrease celsius
Speaker 1: or you know, over three degrees fahrenheit, and the body
Speaker 1: is liquefied in just a few hours and it can
Speaker 1: be washed down the drain and any remaining bone fragments
Speaker 1: that can be pulverized and dealt with however you want.
Speaker 1: But now, obviously the heat and the pressure here are
Speaker 1: playing a big role in what's going on. But the
Speaker 1: strong base is crucial. It's an m v P dissolver
Speaker 1: of organic materials such as a human body or or
Speaker 1: an animal carcass or a Batman. And so one of
Speaker 1: my suggestions is that maybe we should start replacing movie
Speaker 1: acids in our fiction with movie bases. I think part
Speaker 1: of the problem is that acid sounds cooler. Acid is
Speaker 1: more even though I think most people know that you
Speaker 1: have acids and bases. Uh, it's like the just the
Speaker 1: word itself acid, Yeah, instead of like base, you know,
Speaker 1: like which one which one is just like linguistically potent? Yeah,
Speaker 1: for for fictional purposes, which one sounds scarier? To be
Speaker 1: protonated or to be deprotonated? Yeah, And then of course acid.
Speaker 1: I mean we talk about, oh, well that person has
Speaker 1: a really you know, acidic attitude or something. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like it's we we Acid is just going to
Speaker 1: make your sentence that much stronger. It's gonna make your
Speaker 1: threat to the superhero that much stronger. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it has more resonance, despite the fact that it might
Speaker 1: not be as great a wonderful dissolver of organic material
Speaker 1: or something like lie. But yeah, I'm ready Robert for
Speaker 1: you to take us back to the Nostromo. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: you know the my motion detector is going off here.
Speaker 1: I think it's actually coming from inside the room at
Speaker 1: this point. So yeah, let's let's talk about the xenomore. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so we mentioned this earlier in the episode. This is
Speaker 1: one fantastic example of movie acid. I think it's probably
Speaker 1: my favorite movie acid is the Aliens Blood right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's so well utilized and uh and and
Speaker 1: feels like a real threat and helps to just position
Speaker 1: the creature. You know, we can barely touch it, we
Speaker 1: can barely wound it in. When we do wounding, it
Speaker 1: might kill us. Yeah. So we've described sort of what
Speaker 1: happens in the scene in the first scene where they
Speaker 1: use that. There there are many different ways the asset
Speaker 1: appears throughout all of the movies that have Aliens in them,
Speaker 1: but it typically always burns and dissolves things. It's it's
Speaker 1: you don't want to get it on you. It might
Speaker 1: kill you, might burn you. But is there anything we
Speaker 1: can relate this acid too in the real world? Could
Speaker 1: an organism really behave this way? And what might it's
Speaker 1: acid blood be? Ah? Well, this is a fantastic question. Um,
Speaker 1: But before I get into it, I do want to
Speaker 1: mention that, as a fun note, there is an older monster,
Speaker 1: perhaps the most famous monster in Western literature that also
Speaker 1: boasted corrosive blood, and that's Grindel. Oh wow, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been so long since I've read from Bayol. It's been song, Yes,
Speaker 1: since I've read Bao Wolf. I've certainly read things since
Speaker 1: then that have Grendel in them, but it's been so
Speaker 1: long I didn't I didn't even realize this. I had
Speaker 1: sort of rediscovered this in our research. This is crazy.
Speaker 1: So of course be a Wolf is a classic of
Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon literature Old English literature, where you know you've
Speaker 1: got this epic. The hero Beowolf goes into slay the
Speaker 1: monster that's been harassing this Uh. I don't know, would
Speaker 1: you even call it a town, this encampment of humans? Uh?
Speaker 1: And so what's the deal? So he goes into slay
Speaker 1: Grendel and he encounters some acid blood. Yeah, but basically
Speaker 1: like he ends up getting this special sword and then
Speaker 1: at the end he's earlier, He rips off Grindel's arm,
Speaker 1: wounds him, follows Grindel back to his layer, cuts his
Speaker 1: head off, and then the blood from the from the
Speaker 1: beheading it melts the blade. This is a translation, obviously,
Speaker 1: but the sword blade began then the blood having touched it,
Speaker 1: contracting and shriveling with battle icicles towards a wonderful marvel
Speaker 1: that had melted entirely. So it's my understanding that you
Speaker 1: could kind of interpret this as maybe as blood really
Speaker 1: hot and just melted it um, you know, as in
Speaker 1: a you know, a great fire, or that it's acidic,
Speaker 1: depending on your interpretation. Either way, that's that's quite uh
Speaker 1: an adaptation on the part of the Grindel organism. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I wonder if this is the oldest single version of
Speaker 1: the creature that spits toxic chemicals maybe, you know, I can't,
Speaker 1: I can't think of another mythic creature that has this fire.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's certainly fire breathing, but as far as
Speaker 1: acids or something that is corrosive that is, you know,
Speaker 1: destroying the weapons that are used against it, I can't
Speaker 1: think of one offhand. Yeah. Crazy. Well, anyway, we we
Speaker 1: should return to our modern example though, So imagine Beowulf
Speaker 1: goes into slay a xenomorph. He'd have exactly the same problem, right,
Speaker 1: the xenomorph queens in there. She's been harassing the town.
Speaker 1: He takes in his special sword. He lops off its
Speaker 1: head and the sword melts. Right, Yes, the sword melts
Speaker 1: and you got the job done. But yeah, your your
Speaker 1: magical weapon is ruined. Yeah, maybe spraying him on the
Speaker 1: as in the process and killing him getting the last
Speaker 1: laugh after all. Oh yeah, well you know it's Beowulf.
Speaker 1: They probably dodge it. I always have this thing, I
Speaker 1: always since sympathize with Grendel. Uh yet to see an
Speaker 1: adaptation of the story where I'm like, oh, yeah, Beawolf
Speaker 1: is a good dude, I can get behind him. I
Speaker 1: always sympathize with the monster. Well, I mean, yeah, Grendel's
Speaker 1: the loner. Well, maybe one of the first places we
Speaker 1: should look to see what what the aliens blood might
Speaker 1: be would be to look behind the scenes in the
Speaker 1: movie and see, okay, so how do they create the
Speaker 1: special effect in the In the alien movies, you see
Speaker 1: the aliens spilled their blood like in the first movie.
Speaker 1: In Ridley Scott's film, you see it spill on the floor.
Speaker 1: It burns through the floor, and it just keeps burning
Speaker 1: through floors until finally it stops. What what was going
Speaker 1: on there? Well? I found some accounts online of the
Speaker 1: where this special effect came from, and supposedly It was
Speaker 1: created by the Alien special effects supervisor Brian Johnson, and
Speaker 1: the the acid effect was essentially a combination of some
Speaker 1: various chemicals and then that was applied to and this
Speaker 1: is pretty clever, styrofoam floors they just made. They made
Speaker 1: styrofoam ship hull. I don't know what styrofoam stuff that
Speaker 1: would be the floors of the ship, and then spray
Speaker 1: painted its silver to make it look like it was metal.
Speaker 1: What's the name of the company, the corporation while wit
Speaker 1: in Utani and maybe they're just super cheap and they're
Speaker 1: like styrofoam. That's great. I'm sure that's what it was.
Speaker 1: But in any sense, so what was it made of? Well,
Speaker 1: the blood they had was made of chloroform acid, tone, cyclohexylamine,
Speaker 1: and acetic acid, which is vinegar. Pretty much, acetic acid
Speaker 1: is deluded to create vinegar and then some other compounds.
Speaker 1: But I thought this is funny because so acetic acid, yes,
Speaker 1: of course, is an acid deluding deluded in in water
Speaker 1: to make vinegar with some other flavorings. Acetone is not
Speaker 1: an acid, that's neutral neutral pH of seven uh cycle
Speaker 1: hex Lamine is a base and then and then of course,
Speaker 1: the head of chloroform and stuff, and apparently it eats
Speaker 1: through styrofoam all right, but it probably wouldn't eat through
Speaker 1: a real spacecraft's hull. And one of the big reasons
Speaker 1: it eats through styrofoam is probably the presence of acetone.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever seen videos of what
Speaker 1: happens when you pour acetone on a styrofoam wighead or
Speaker 1: something like that. I don't think I've seen those videos.
Speaker 1: If you ever want to make a head melt for
Speaker 1: a bunch of children, this is a fun party trick.
Speaker 1: I just don't don't get any of the Well I'll
Speaker 1: keep that in mind from my son's a fifth birthday. Yeah, So, like,
Speaker 1: here's the head of your enemy, and you just pour
Speaker 1: some acetone on that styrofoam head, it just, oh no,
Speaker 1: it melts. So it works great for a special effect,
Speaker 1: but probably would not work for a real organism that
Speaker 1: wanted to melt through metal and plastic and all all
Speaker 1: of the other stuff that probably makes up a ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and one is a good uh, it's a good verb
Speaker 1: to use here, because, of course that brings up the question, well,
Speaker 1: how does this occur? Is this a an evolved trade?
Speaker 1: Is this an engineered trait? But what is the origin
Speaker 1: of the xenomorph? Then? Uh? Depending on how these work.
Speaker 1: But I have I have a couple of proposals here
Speaker 1: as to what could be going on with the xenomor.
Speaker 1: So my my first more modest and explosive proposition is this.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that this doesn't match up to everybody's
Speaker 1: the interpretation of the franchise or every entry of the franchise.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Okay, so we see the thing
Speaker 1: bleeding acid when it's hard, right, you shoot it, cut
Speaker 1: it whatever acid shoots out. And of course we also
Speaker 1: see it using the acid offensively occasions such as when
Speaker 1: that face hugger uh melts through the glass dome on
Speaker 1: the helmet. Oh yeah, I didn't have to cut itself
Speaker 1: to do, right, It somehow just utilized treated this. So
Speaker 1: what if this isn't the creatures blood at all, really
Speaker 1: not properly, but rather an acid stored throughout the body
Speaker 1: to react to physical harm. Uh, that in turn harms
Speaker 1: the attacker. That's interesting because it wouldn't have to be
Speaker 1: the blood, would it. I mean, you wouldn't be This
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to be the substance that's circulating molecular oxygen
Speaker 1: to the body tissues. Right, it wouldn't be serving other
Speaker 1: purposes in the body. It would be there expressly to
Speaker 1: rupture during physical harm, to uh to harm or destroy
Speaker 1: the attacker. And the thing is, we see something very similar,
Speaker 1: really identical in terrestrial termites and ants who also serve
Speaker 1: a queen. You know, they also, I mean that the
Speaker 1: termite had a huge influence on especially aliens. So um,
Speaker 1: So we call this a process, this practice autopsis, and
Speaker 1: this is the process by which a natural world organism
Speaker 1: destroys itself via the internal rupturing of an oregon or
Speaker 1: gland that in turn ruptures the skin. So it's a
Speaker 1: purely muscular exercise caused by deliberate contractions around the engorged tissue. Fascinating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's crazy because this is the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that apparently evolved from pooping on your enemy. Like
Speaker 1: what started off as like poop on the enemy when
Speaker 1: they attacked and defensive defecation, but then it becomes like
Speaker 1: if you can't get that poop out of the aim
Speaker 1: as fast enough, just like make it rupture through your body,
Speaker 1: and that has steadily evolved over time into more complex
Speaker 1: modes of self rupturing, and the body buster par excellence
Speaker 1: here is neo Kapa Termes tarracula, and this is um.
Speaker 1: This is a fabulous organism. So the species workers grow
Speaker 1: abdominal sacks of toxic blue crystals throughout their lives. But
Speaker 1: these explosive backpacks, as some studies refer to them, are
Speaker 1: are most pronounced and elderly workers, so so as they
Speaker 1: become less useful to the colony, they sort of turn
Speaker 1: into the suicide bombers exactly like you know, you don't
Speaker 1: have you have dull and useless mandibles. You really know,
Speaker 1: not that much use, but you've become a stockpile for
Speaker 1: toxic substances, and that becomes your purpose. When enemies invade
Speaker 1: the termite mound. Uh, the the ind they just rushed forward.
Speaker 1: The invaders then bite into their bodies, and that's when
Speaker 1: the blue crystals combine with salivary secretions to produce a
Speaker 1: deadly chemical weapon. Huh. So that would mean that the
Speaker 1: xenomorph here would simply boast a system of pressurized acid tubes,
Speaker 1: and it's it is merely the rupture of those tubes
Speaker 1: that we see uh and it and is therefore an
Speaker 1: act of autos So this would be like highly concentrated
Speaker 1: stomach acid or something else that has evolved into this
Speaker 1: defensive mode. Yeah, and of course we do see from
Speaker 1: our own stomach. So like we talked about earlier, that
Speaker 1: it's possible for a body to contain within it some uh,
Speaker 1: some concentration of acid that would be very damaging if
Speaker 1: we encountered it externally or in the wrong part of
Speaker 1: the body. You just need specialized cells along whatever you know,
Speaker 1: body tissues containing it to to buffer it essentially, to
Speaker 1: keep it, uh from reacting with the rest of the
Speaker 1: body exactly. Now, of course, all of this is taking
Speaker 1: a very terrestrial approach to it. It's taking a very
Speaker 1: carbon biased, water biased approach. But of course, not all
Speaker 1: modes of life, not all biochemistry is out there, are
Speaker 1: necessarily based on carbon or based on water. So we
Speaker 1: might have to take it a bit further. What sort
Speaker 1: of organism might have blood that is either incidentally or
Speaker 1: adaptively corrosive at least to our sort of flesh. Well,
Speaker 1: perhaps they're silicon based life forms as opposed to carbon based.
Speaker 1: So even here on Earth we have solicit acid, which
Speaker 1: is very weak acid, and our hair, our nails, or epidermists. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it seems conceivable that this, or perhaps hexafluoro silsilic acid,
Speaker 1: might play into a silicone based xenomorph's anatomy. And this
Speaker 1: is the exact sort of biochemistry that could enable a
Speaker 1: life form to thrive in a sulfuric acid rich environment.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not sure it could be as potent as
Speaker 1: what we see in the films, but this is an
Speaker 1: area where I think, you know, there any biochemists listening
Speaker 1: off to weigh in on that for us? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, how how reactive would an acid or whatever
Speaker 1: the chemical is, Maybe it's a wrong base actually that
Speaker 1: it's releasing. How strong would it have to be to
Speaker 1: really eat through the hull that fast? Is there any
Speaker 1: chemical that would really eat through the hull that fast?
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. Maybe what if it has
Speaker 1: the fluoro antimonic acid in it? Yeah, And you know,
Speaker 1: the thing is for a defense. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: if you're thinking about something that has evolved, this as
Speaker 1: a basic defense against human ooid creatures that are very
Speaker 1: or at least semi human like. All you would need
Speaker 1: you wouldn't need a very strong acid or base at
Speaker 1: all to just like get in their eyes and give
Speaker 1: you a moment's advantage in some sort of an altercation.
Speaker 1: But it seems as if it's an organism perfectly conceived
Speaker 1: to be unkillable on a spaceship for plot purposes. Indeed,
Speaker 1: it is a perfect organism. Now, some experts, including the
Speaker 1: late Great Carl Sake and have speculated that alternate astrobiologies
Speaker 1: could still entail carbon but depend on something other than water.
Speaker 1: Is the solvent such as ammonia or perhaps hydrofluoric acid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and of course this is crazy because we we mentioned
Speaker 1: the face hugger burning through the presumably glass helmet, and
Speaker 1: uh and what does hydrofluoric acid do? But it can
Speaker 1: break down glass, as we mentioned. Yeah, of course, now
Speaker 1: it does take a while. Again, one of the things
Speaker 1: that's always not quite matching upright between the movie acid
Speaker 1: and the acid in the in the real experiments we're
Speaker 1: talking about is just rapidity. It's just the time it
Speaker 1: takes to dissolve things. Right. Everything is instant in the films,
Speaker 1: and it just it doesn't seem to be that way
Speaker 1: with real chemistry. So here's a quote from Sagan in
Speaker 1: Nine Cosmos his book. Perhaps elsewhere some solvent other than
Speaker 1: the water is used, hydrofluoric acid might serve rather well,
Speaker 1: although there is not a great deal of fluorine in
Speaker 1: the cosmos. Hydrofluoric acid would do a great deal of
Speaker 1: damage to the kind of molecules that make us up,
Speaker 1: but other organic molecules paraffin waxes, for example, are perfectly
Speaker 1: stable in its presence. I like hear Carl Sagan voice.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's not that great of a voice. We
Speaker 1: really what we need as we need Chuck to come
Speaker 1: in and do his kermit the frog voice, which I
Speaker 1: think also sounds very sagany. I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: heard that. Oh you should, you should ask him to
Speaker 1: do a little kermit. But read some Cosmos. I think
Speaker 1: your Carl Sagan is pretty good man. Don't don't put
Speaker 1: yourself down, all right? Well, you know, well Sagan is
Speaker 1: not the only one to chime in on this. Uh.
Speaker 1: Plenty of other biochemists have also looked at, you know,
Speaker 1: possible alternate biochemistries, and they've presented sulfuric acid as a possibility.
Speaker 1: So it's certainly more cosmically common. You know, so it
Speaker 1: would it would make sense. In the two thousand seven
Speaker 1: book The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems, and
Speaker 1: this is a book by a number of authors, it's
Speaker 1: it's It's credited authors are the Committee on the Limits
Speaker 1: of Organic Life and Planetary Systems UM, the National Research Council,
Speaker 1: and a few other bodies. I'm not going to list
Speaker 1: them all, but in a chapter titled Hawai Water Toward
Speaker 1: more Exotic Habitats, they state the fall quote, sulfuric acid
Speaker 1: is a reasonably good solvent that supports chemical reactivity. Sulfuric
Speaker 1: acid is known to exist above Venus, where three cloud
Speaker 1: layers at KOs are composed mostly of aerosols of sulfuric
Speaker 1: acid about in the upper layer and then in the
Speaker 1: lower layer. The temperature about kelvin at about fifty KOs
Speaker 1: altitude at about one point five a t m is
Speaker 1: consistent with stable carbon to carbon covalent bonds. So the
Speaker 1: tacomb here is that, yes, it is conceivable that we
Speaker 1: would have a a a carbon based life form in
Speaker 1: which the solvent is sulfuric acid. It's reasonable now whether
Speaker 1: that life could actually match up to the just profound
Speaker 1: the standards that we set with the xenomorph. That's another issue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: are you are you breaking my heart? Robert? Are you
Speaker 1: telling me that there's probably not a xenomorph anywhere in
Speaker 1: our solar system. I'm saying that the xenomorph exists in
Speaker 1: the realm of forms. Yeah, and and but the universe
Speaker 1: that we live in, it's it may be at least
Speaker 1: willing to meet us halfway. Well, even a pale imitation
Speaker 1: of xenomorph would be welcome to my ears. Yes, so
Speaker 1: in my eyes as it burned them out. So if
Speaker 1: you yeah, if you lived to be um, you know,
Speaker 1: several thousand years old, your your life prolonged by all
Speaker 1: the various technologies available to you, and you set yourself
Speaker 1: on the perfect death. You want to die via the
Speaker 1: acidic blood of of of an alien species. There is
Speaker 1: maybe some hope. So, Robert, I've enjoyed exploring this with
Speaker 1: you because I've always loved movie Acid, and I wonder
Speaker 1: what it is that captivates us so much about Acid.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to that question I started with,
Speaker 1: why you know they so they put Batman in the
Speaker 1: bank vault. Oh no, it's boiling acid. It could have
Speaker 1: been boiling water or even room temperature water and it
Speaker 1: still would have killed him. But that wouldn't be nearly
Speaker 1: is interesting For some reason, we want acid. Why is
Speaker 1: acid so interesting? Is a way to kill people when
Speaker 1: you could get the same thing done with just a
Speaker 1: hot uh normal liquid. You know, it could be hot
Speaker 1: uh bleach. I mean, well, you know that would be
Speaker 1: that would be a pretty weird interesting way to kill people.
Speaker 1: But hot water, boiling water that people would be like, huh,
Speaker 1: why why didn't you go to acid? Well, because well,
Speaker 1: for one thing, boiling water is every day, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: or if not every day, it's like even like most
Speaker 1: people have some experience of putting the macaroni in the
Speaker 1: boiling water. Yeah, yeah, And I think that's right. I
Speaker 1: think heating. Heating is a method of changing the chemical
Speaker 1: nature of something that's very familiar to us. Whereas the
Speaker 1: chemical reactions that take place in the bond breaking that
Speaker 1: takes place when you've got an acid solution of water,
Speaker 1: that that's something that's less familiar to us. We don't
Speaker 1: understand what's going on there. And for that reason, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like magic. Yeah, it's to the the average viewer,
Speaker 1: like a bad guy dissolving an acid makes as much
Speaker 1: scientific sense as one ron silver touching on another ron
Speaker 1: silver in time cop and then becoming a big red
Speaker 1: goog of melt. But yeah, that's why they're both wonderful.
Speaker 1: That they capture the magic of nonsense exactly. They put
Speaker 1: it right into your face or on the face. Hey,
Speaker 1: so there you have it, Hollywood acid. Uh so again,
Speaker 1: you want to check out more episodes of the podcast,
Speaker 1: You want to check out the links we're talking about
Speaker 1: some related material heading over stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com. That's we'll find our podcast, including this one.
Speaker 1: The landing page WI watch some cool links to related
Speaker 1: kindent on the site and off the site. The website
Speaker 1: will also have videos, blog post links out to our
Speaker 1: social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter. We are
Speaker 1: blow the mind on both of those were stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind on Tumbler and Instagram, I believe, so
Speaker 1: check those out as well. And if you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
Speaker 1: or any other, or you want to let us know
Speaker 1: what your questions or ideas are, you can always email
Speaker 1: as that blow the mind of how Stuff course stock
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: that how Stuff works dot com. They they believe the
Speaker 1: biggest