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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff from how Stuff Works dot com where

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Speaker 1: smart happens. This podcast is brought to you by Go

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Speaker 1: meeting dot com slash Brainstuff. Hi, Am Marshall brain with

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Speaker 1: today's question, why doesn't paper money disintegrate when it gets

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Speaker 1: washed in the washing machine? Normal paper, which includes notebook paper, newspaper,

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Speaker 1: construction paper, is all made out of cellulos, which comes

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Speaker 1: from trees. The trees are chemically broken down into their

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Speaker 1: individual wood fibers, and the cellulose fibers are formed into

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Speaker 1: very thin sheets to create paper. Paper. Money, on the

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Speaker 1: other hand, is made from a different kind of fiber,

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Speaker 1: cotton and linen fibers. To be exact, you've probably heard

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Speaker 1: of rag paper or fine linen writing paper. This is

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Speaker 1: where it comes from, and money is made from the

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Speaker 1: same thing. It turns out that cotton and linen fibers

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Speaker 1: bond together much more firmly than fibers in regular wood

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Speaker 1: fiber paper. Cotton and linen fibers are basically unaffected by water,

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Speaker 1: whereas cellulose fibers absorb water and come apart when they

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Speaker 1: get wet. So paper money comes through the washer just fine,

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Speaker 1: while cellulose paper comes on glued. Do you have any

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Speaker 1: ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send

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Speaker 1: me an email at podcast at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, go

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Speaker 1: to how stuff works dot com.