WEBVTT - Diatoms and Diatomaceous Earth, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:14.960 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:15.600 is Robert. 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.439 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going to 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.439 be doing the second part in our series on the 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:27.640 single celled photosynthetic organisms called diatoms, and also focusing on 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:32.120 the silica based sedimentary material made out of the fossilized 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:37.640 remains of diatom shells. This material is diatomaceous Earth. If 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:39.600 you haven't heard part one, I would recommend you go 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:42.199 back and listen to that one before today's episode, but 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:45.320 for a brief refresher. In the last episode, we talked 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:51.200 a bit about dietom biology. Diatoms are single celled, eukaryotic 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:55.960 photosynthetic algae found in nearly every natural water source on 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.520 planet Earth, including not just lakes, rivers, and oceans, but 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:04.360 even more out of the way places like damp soil 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.920 and Arctic sea ice. They are not plants, they are 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:11.120 not animals, they're not fungi, but they do have a 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.679 cell nucleus and they make their own food using energy 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:19.120 from the sunlight. Diatoms are a major source of both 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:24.640 oxygen in Earth's atmosphere and primary organic material in the ocean, 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:29.800 So they're responsible for estimates vary, but about one fifth 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:32.280 of the air we breathe, and they make up a 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:35.800 major part of the base of the marine food web. 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.039 So if an animal is eating something in the sea, 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.360 there's a good chance that either it's a diatom, or 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:44.840 it's something that aid to diatom, or it's something that 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:49.920 it's something that aa die tom. So one of the 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.920 most important and unique characteristics of diatoms, the thing that 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:58.320 really sets them apart from other algal and planktonic organisms 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:03.640 in the water, is that they create a rigid, fortified 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:09.080 cell wall out of amorphous silica. So essentially, each diatom 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:13.400 is a little cell of algae that surrounds itself with 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.600 a porous piece of armor, a shell made out of 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.359 a material that is very similar to glass, and this 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.960 shell is called the frustule. We spent a lot of 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.520 time in the last episode just looking at and talking 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:32.799 about these microscopic shells because the bizarre and the diverse 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:37.800 forms these frustules take have been a source of amazement 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.760 for people ever since they were first observed under microscopes. 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.520 More than three hundred years ago, and you get kind 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.440 of different imagery depending on the first of all, in 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.160 the different species of diatom you look at, but then 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:54.160 also on the type of magnification and imagery you use. 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:59.919 So under light microscopes, diatoms often appear delicate and transparent, 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:04.200 so they're often compared to like jewels or fine glasswork, 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.800 whereas under electron microscopes they often look much stranger and 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:12.239 in some cases alarming, like these these shattered pieces of 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:18.200 alien machinery, and these frustules often accumulate in layers at 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.520 the bottom of bodies of water. After the diatoms dies, 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.720 the diatom's dye, the shells sink down and they turned 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.440 into a kind of diatom skeleton sludge or ooze that 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:34.200 over the eons can solidify into a porous, low density 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:38.200 kind of rock that we call diatomite. So millions of 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:42.200 years later, this sedimentary material can be dug up and 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:46.960 ground into a powder and sold in bulk for tons 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:51.920 of different household and industrial uses, including as an insecticide 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.800 like we talked about last time. Something we'll get into 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.240 a bit more this time is its use as a 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.200 filtration medium for liquid. It's used as an abrasive, it's 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.520 used in some toiletry products, it shows up in all 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.440 kinds of things, and so in the last episode we 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.200 were talking about just how bizarre it is that you 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.200 can go to the hardware store or the tractor supply 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.280 and buy a bag of this dust or a can 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.279 of this dust. But if you put that dust under 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.599 a high powered microscope, depending on how it's prepared, you 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.200 can probably still see that the grains of this mundane 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:31.279 stuff are filled with the broken remnants of Martian pocket 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.479 watch gears and these tiny, you know, jagged mesh tubes 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.479 and things that look like a stadium built for viruses. 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.000 And so at the end of the last episode we 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:43.520 ended up talking for a bit about one of the 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:47.479 most common mundane uses for diatamacious earth, which is as 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.480 a mechanical insecticide, and we got into some of the 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.840 grizzly details of how this works from the bugs perspective. 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:56.440 So if you missed that episode, go back and listen 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.000 to it wherever you get your podcasts, or if you 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:01.000 want to watch a as well, you can get the 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:05.680 audio video version of that episode and this one on Netflix. 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.120 Best way to see what our heads look like. 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.320 Yeah, yeah, what sure are we wearing this? This is 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:12.240 how you do it. 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:15.720 So we're going to talk more in today's episode about 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:20.880 human uses for these fossil alkyl skeletons. And one of 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.280 the historical human uses of dietamacious earth that I referred 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.919 to briefly in the last episode is its role in 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.800 the invention of dynamite. So I'd like to come back 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.560 and talk about that a bit more today. So if 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.120 you know one fact about the history of dynamite, it 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:41.479 is probably that it was invented by the Swedish chemist 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:45.080 Alfred Nobel, the same Nobel from whom we get the 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.920 Nobel Prizes. Nobel lived from eighteen thirty three to eighteen 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:56.160 ninety six, and for Alfred Nobel, explosives were the family business. 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:58.719 I was not aware of this beforehand, but so he 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:00.839 didn't just like out of no where, decide I'm going 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.520 to start making explosives. This was like a patrilineal thing. 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:10.760 So Alfred's father, Emmanuel Nobel, was an explosives and munitions 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:15.520 manufacturer who had contracts, for example, with the Tsar of Russia. 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.760 I think this would have been Zar Nicholas making things 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:24.000 like underwater mines, for the Russian military, which, yes, that 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.440 might be kind of surprising, but naval minds did exist 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:31.800 in the nineteenth century, primarily based at the time on gunpowder, 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:37.600 which was a granular mixture of potassium, nitrate, sulfur and charcoal, which, 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.160 for hundreds of years at this point, for hundreds of 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:44.320 years since its invention in ninth century China had been 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:49.200 the most important practical explosive known to humanity. There was 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:54.800 really nothing else out there that was more powerful, that 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.760 could be manufactured practically in significant quantities. 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:01.039 And if you want to know a little bit more 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:05.120 about the Chinese history of explosives, we've recorded at least 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:06.680 a couple of episodes on this in the past. I 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.600 believe if he did an invention of fireworks episode at 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:11.840 one point, So go back, you'll find that in the 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:12.800 audio archives. 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.600 Yeah. So I was reading about Nobel in a number 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:18.600 of sources. One of them was a twenty twenty five 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.120 history dot Com article by Christopher Klein, and just one 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.880 funny thing he noted is that the young Alfred Nobel 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:28.120 had actually been interested in studying poetry. Maybe he had 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:30.880 kind of the soul of a poet or an artist, 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:33.720 but his father was not a fan of this path, 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:36.680 and so tried to steer him elsewhere. He tried to 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:41.880 funnel his son into the explosives business like his own business. 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.800 So he sent young Alfred away at age seventeen to 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:50.080 study under a prominent chemist in Paris to learn about 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.840 the cutting edge of explosives in chemistry. And while pursuing 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.640 his education, Nobel became familiar with the work of an 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:04.080 Italian chemist named Ascanio Sobrero, who in eighteen forty six 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:09.440 had discovered a new chemical explosive called nitro glycerin. 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.320 You know, this just really goes to show how crushed 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:17.000 his poetic aspirations probably were because you can't rhyme anything 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:23.040 with nitroglycerin or diotomaceous. I mean, maybe with great skill 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.800 you could, but you know, this alone had to just 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.840 really finish off his poetic dreams. 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:34.440 Diatomacious rhymes with gracious. You know, gracious, I feel so 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:39.760 gracious about this diatomaceous earth that goes in my nitroglycerin. Hey, 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:41.520 I'm I'm maybe. 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:46.440 I mean I've heard shakier rhymes before, so maybe it 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:47.040 could have worked. 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:52.320 So to make nitroglycerin, you start with a common and 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:57.839 widely used sugar alcohol called glycerol or sometimes sold as glycerin. 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:03.000 Glycerl is a naturally occurring organic molecule, so it's produced 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:06.240 in the bodies of plants and animals, but you can 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.360 also make it in industrial settings. For example, it has 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.840 historically been one byproduct of the process of manufacturing soap, 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:19.400 and other industrial processes can create it. And what Sobrero 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:24.880 discovered is that if you do a process called nitrating glycerol. 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:28.840 If you nitrate glycerol by mixing it with a combination 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:34.400 of nitric acid and sulfuric acid, you get a massively 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.600 exothermic chemical reaction, so chemical reaction that puts out a 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:42.720 lot of heat. This mixture starts to heat up rapidly 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:47.600 and can become very dangerous. It can even possibly explode. However, 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.600 Sobrero figured out that if you keep cooling, if you 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:56.000 aggressively cool the mixture while you're stirring the constituents together, 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.120 you can prevent this heating and you can stabilize it. 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:04.240 And what you are left with is an oily liquid 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.120 explosive sometimes described as yellow in color, though I think 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.040 it's supposed to be colorless at very high purity levels. 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:15.240 So maybe a pale yellow color often and this mixture 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:19.319 that you're left with is much more energetic than gunpowder. 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:24.200 So in the mid nineteenth century, nitroglycerin would be one 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:28.800 of the most powerful chemical explosives that anybody had ever discovered, 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:33.319 and it promised to be revolutionary for tons of industries. 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.840 When we think of explosives, of course, you know, we 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.920 can think of like the dark side, like violence and warfare, 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.400 but you can also think of lots of very productive, 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.080 peaceful uses for dynamite, and that was a major part 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:49.240 of its economic value. Value in like mining, civil engineering, 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:53.320 and transportation basically anything that involved blasting or tunneling through rock, 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.800 those industries could be could get a huge step up 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:01.400 from the invention of nitroglycerin. However, it came with a 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:09.160 major downside. While extremely powerful, nitroglycerin was also incredibly sensitive 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:11.439 and thus incredibly dangerous. 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.440 Yeah, for a cinematic example of this, you know, I 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.800 instantly think to the film The Wages of Fear or 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:23.000 the remake Sorcerer, in which you have, for plot reasons, 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:27.800 a truck loaded with nitroglycerin having to having to navigate 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:32.440 extremely bad mountain roads, and there's just a risk of 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:36.160 explosion almost you know, at every bump because of this. 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:39.840 That will get more horrifying when I start talking about 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.120 some of these historical examples. But yeah, so you had 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.520 this kind of liquid fire that before it was called nitroglycerin. 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.520 Actually Ascanio Sobrero was calling it pyro glycerin. So like 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:55.800 the glycerin of fire, this alcohol sugar alcohol molecule of fire. 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:00.760 And Sobrero's journals from early synthesis do, of course, because 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.280 it's nineteenth century, they do include tasting notes. He says 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:07.360 it is sweet and pungent on the tongue and that 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:12.160 it smells aromatic. But he also like includes a lot 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:14.520 of caution in his early writing about it. He says 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:17.160 research must be carried out with the greatest of care. 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:22.640 Several of his experiments in the lab ended with unintentional explosions, 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.880 including one case where a drop of nitroglycerin in a 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.320 test tube exploded and embedded fragments of glass in his face. 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.040 A Sobrero would also later say that he was so 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:37.640 horrified by the destructive potential of nitroglycerin that he was 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:42.000 ashamed to have discovered it, but he also took solace 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:44.280 in the idea that if he had not created it, 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.160 somebody else would have pretty soon, you know. So it 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.640 wasn't like, you know, nobody else would have ever come 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.240 across this formula. It's just kind of it's waiting there 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:53.640 in physics for us to find. 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.160 Yeah, a lot of people were working in this field 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.679 and trying to trying to find just such a substance. 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.760 Yeah. One more note about the fact that he tasted it. 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:07.480 Chemists who tasted nitro in the mid nineteenth century sometimes 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:12.360 reported that ingesting it would create pounding headaches. I think 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.560 this is related to nitroglycerin's effect as a vasodilator, so 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:21.560 it relaxes blood vessels and increases blood flow and perhaps surprisingly, 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:25.199 though I would not recommend ingesting it without the you know, 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.640 without the supervision of a doctor. It is still used 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:32.000 today to treat like angina, pectorus, like chest pain. 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:32.360 Yeah. 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:36.400 Yeah, yeah, you still do hear about people who are 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:37.640 taking nitroglycerin. 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:38.000 Yeah. 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.840 Yeah. So, sobrero kind of leaves off with nitro for 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.559 a while, and Alfred Nobel picked up the trail. He 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:50.120 saw enormous potential for nitroglycerin, given the power that it 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.440 could unleash. So Nobel started experimenting to see how he 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:58.120 could make it practical to use. Reading about the early 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:03.239 history of nitroglycerin is this morbid mix of comedy and tragedy. 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:07.800 Mostly tragedy, but there is a sort of grimly ironic 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.720 element when you just read, like tail after tale of 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:15.719 these horribly deadly whoopsies piling up. So there are constant 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:20.600 stories of unintended explosions during storage and transport. If the 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:25.560 nitro got too hot might explode. The even more important 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:29.200 thing is if it got jostled the wrong way might explode. 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:34.960 It was highly sensitive to temperature, but especially shocks, physical shocks, 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:40.520 And though this probably isn't quite true about how it works, it, 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.480 I think sometimes it seemed to people at the time 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.000 that it would just explode randomly. 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.200 Yeah, and even if not true, that's just a minor 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.760 exaggeration based on how sensitive it was. 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:58.760 So there were massive explosions in Nobel's own laboratories, including 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:02.000 one explosion that kill Old Alfred's younger brother Emil in 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.960 eighteen sixty four. These explosions in Nobel's lab also got 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:09.160 his research banned from the city of Stockholm in Sweden. 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:11.680 They were like, okay, you can't do this here anymore. 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:16.520 I think Nobel had a factory in Germany that exploded, 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:21.200 killing a bunch of people. And once nitroglycerin was being 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.000 sold to the public in the eighteen sixties by Nobel 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.560 and by others, it kept causing disasters all over the place. 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:32.760 So in April nineteen sixty six, there were two different, 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:37.160 just that one month, two different enormous, highly fatal nitroglycerin 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:41.360 accidents in the Western Hemisphere. I was reading about these 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:44.880 both of these accidents on a digital exhibit about railroad 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.840 history hosted at the Linda Hall Library of Kansas City website. 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:53.640 So the first incident was on April third, eighteen sixty six. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:58.760 There was a steamship loaded with seventy crates of nitroglycerin 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:03.360 among other carb cargo, sitting in a harbor in Panama. 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.000 I think it was eventually bound for California, but it 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:09.840 exploded while while tied up at the dock, and that 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:14.360 killed around fifty people. And then just a few weeks later, 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:18.240 a roughly three hundred pound crate was awaiting delivery at 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:22.200 a Wells Fargo office in San Francisco when the workers 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.520 noticed that it was leaking some kind of oily fluid 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.320 onto the floor, and this kicked off an inquest about 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.280 whose fault it was that the crate was leaking. So 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.360 workers at the office got a hammer and they started 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:37.400 trying to pry open the box to see what the 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.280 damage was, and the process of opening the box caused 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.960 an explosion that completely destroyed the building and killed fifteen people. 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:45.560 Nikes. 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:51.840 So yeah, horribly dangerous stuff and these mechanical shocks jostling 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.760 could set it off and then the results are horrible. 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:00.000 But eventually, after a lot of continuous work, no Better 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:05.200 Well figured out some methods for making nitroglycerin usable by 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:09.000 making it less dangerous and temperamental. And one of the 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:13.920 most historically significant of these solutions involved diatomaceous earth, which 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:19.440 Nobel knew under the name the German named Kieselgre. Now 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:23.679 there's another invention relevant to nitroglycerin that Nobel came up with. 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:28.320 It's just as important, called the blasting cap, which was 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:33.440 a two stage ignition or detonation device for nitroglycerin. This 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:37.720 was created to solve a problem which was that, ironically, 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.439 despite the fact that nitro would often explode when you 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.439 didn't want it to, sometimes it wouldn't explode when you 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:48.320 did want it to. So, for example, you could not 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.560 just run a traditional fuse to a massive nitroglycerin the 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.720 way you'd run a fuse to a massive gunpowder to 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.719 blow it up. You run a fused to nitroglycerin, and 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.120 some sometimes the presence of fire would simply result in 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.719 the surface of the nitro catching fire rather than in 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.840 what you want, which is the sudden release of all 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:14.040 of the nitroglycerin's energy in an explosion. The blasting cap 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.719 got around this problem with a clever design. So it 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:22.560 was a multi chambered, multi explosive plug that used a 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:28.680 fuse traditional fuse to ignite a primary explosive like mercury fulminate, 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.560 and the explosion of that would cause a shock wave 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:37.679 that would reliably trigger a second chamber of nitroglycerin to explode. 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:41.400 So fuse ignites the primary, the shockwave from the exploding 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:43.320 primary detonates the nitro. 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.920 Okay, So the blasting cap innovation does not in any 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:51.640 way make the nitroglycerin safer or more stable in terms 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.080 of like keeping it from randomly blowing up or seeming 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:56.639 to randomly blow up, but rather it just makes it 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.880 more reliable when you do want it to blow up. 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.280 The major safety and stability innovation comes in with the 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.000 diatamacious earth the keesel gore. So, how does that come in? 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:11.280 Nobell figured out that if you mix liquid nitroglycerine with 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:15.600 keyesel gore, so with diatamacious earth, the ground up fossilized 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:19.199 skeletons of this ancient algae, you end up with a 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:23.919 multiple paste, which is useful for multiple reasons. One is 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.000 that as a paste, you can shape it however you want, 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:30.879 so you can like shape it into rods. You're probably 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.920 imagining when you think of dynamite a cylindrical stick, and 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:38.680 that is actually useful because you can if you're blasting rock, 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.479 you can drill holes in the rock and insert the 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:42.879 sticks into the holes. 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.160 A big downside, though, is that a cartoon character might 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.359 stick one in their mouth thinking it's a cigar or 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:52.240 a cars for a light. 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:54.399 Yeah, that you don't want to get it mixed up 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:58.520 with carrot. But the other major change, or the other 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.800 major thing that makes this pay very useful, is that 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:06.639 it is far more stable than liquid nitroglycerin, less sensitive 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:11.199 to physical shocks, and less prone to random explosions. So 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:16.320 by absorbing the liquid into this porous dust. You prevent 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:21.119 physical actions like sloshing, which can happen with liquid nitro glycerine. 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.280 Slashing is really bad. That can be you know, that 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.400 can make it blow up. And I think I think 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:29.280 sort of the way it works, based on what I've 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:33.040 been reading, is that you generally limit the propagation of 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:37.560 mechanical shocks through the material by turning it into a paste. 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:40.280 So you just make it less prone to unwanted chain 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:44.399 reactions from shaking and jostling. If you picture like a 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.639 bottle full of just liquid, you know, oil or water 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:50.960 clear bottle, and you like flick the side of the bottle, 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:54.919 you can see waves rippling through the liquid inside. It 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.240 will propagate, you know, the impact will propagate through the liquid. 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:03.600 It's kind of hard to imagine waves rippling through a paste. 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:08.040 You're not really going to see waves propagating. Mechanical shocks 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:12.360 in a paste are absorbed and contained locally by deformation 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:16.720 of the paste. So that's, to my best understanding, one 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.560 of the main mechanisms of how it becomes safer in 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:26.440 paste form. So anyway, this combination of nitroglycerine and diatamacious earth, 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:30.320 which Nobel patented in eighteen sixty seven is what became 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:35.520 known as dynamite. Dynamite comes from the word dynamite comes 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:39.359 from the Greek word for power dynamies, So dynamite is 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:43.679 like the paste of power. And though I don't know 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:46.800 if this was intentional, I do like also that eight 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.440 is the suffix we often apply to like a mineral 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:52.119 or a rock, so you could also, I don't know 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:54.440 if Nobel meant it this way, but you could also 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:56.679 think of it as like the rock of power. 0:21:57.560 --> 0:21:58.400 Oh nice. 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:02.280 Together with the invention of the blasting cap, dynamite paste 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:08.359 was a revolutionary material throughout multiple industries. And a funny 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:10.800 note on the name I think I also read this 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.120 in that history dot Com article. No Bell had been 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:19.280 trying to shake the bad reputation that followed nitroglycerin and 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:23.720 followed him after like all these infamous deadly explosions, and 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:26.560 so to put people's fears to rest, he initially wanted 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:31.280 to call dynamite quote Nobel's safety blasting powder. 0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:35.919 He can imagine the label, Yeah, Nobell's safety blasting powder, 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:37.120 not for military use. 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:40.840 Yeah, So the name did not stick, But if it 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:44.359 had the safety in the safety powder would come in 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:48.320 large part from the dietamacious earth. However, I do want 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:53.119 to note that diatamacious earth is not the only substance 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:56.920 that can stabilize nitroglycerin in this manner, So a lot 0:22:56.920 --> 0:23:02.040 of absorbent powders and materials will work the same. And 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:05.880 I and I believe many subsequent dynamite preparations used other 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:10.120 absorbent solids like sawdust or paper pulp, which work as 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:16.680 well or better. But dietom skeletons were there first. 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:25.800 All right, Well, you know, since we're talking, you mentioned 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:31.440 the absorbent qualities of the diatamacious earth, So let's let's 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:35.080 talk about another big one previously kind of invisible to me. 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:40.200 There are various diatomic products out there, you know, toothpas 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:44.240 for example, and so forth, but in any number of 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:48.199 industrial and product based uses. But a big one that 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:51.200 I was that I was completely unaware of is cat litter. 0:23:52.240 --> 0:23:56.240 So to refresh your indoor cat, if you have one, 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:58.920 or your friend's indoor cat, whatever your exposure level to 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:02.159 these feel lines happens to be. These are creatures of 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:05.480 the desert, and being a creature of the desert, they 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:09.080 require a miniature desert in your house in which to 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:12.080 do their business. The cat is a lonely hunter, but 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:15.919 it is also prey for larger creatures, so it adapted 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:19.480 to hide its urine and its feces in loose substrate 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:24.399 to mask its scent. You know, given you know that 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:27.679 they'll prefer to use something like sand or you know 0:24:27.720 --> 0:24:29.600 what we think of a litter But of course they will, 0:24:29.680 --> 0:24:32.320 as many of us cat owners know, they will also 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:35.320 try to use other things, be it a bedspread or 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:37.879 what have you, something where they're like, okay, I could 0:24:37.880 --> 0:24:41.760 go here and then maybe disguise it, you know, falling 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:48.159 back on these these highly evolved practices that apply to 0:24:48.359 --> 0:24:49.560 a dry environment. 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:52.399 This is interesting. This is something I feel like I 0:24:52.440 --> 0:24:54.760 should have already looked up and known the answer to. 0:24:54.880 --> 0:24:59.399 But I didn't really know. Why do cats I mean again, 0:24:59.440 --> 0:25:01.840 not all cats, that's all the time, but why generally 0:25:02.160 --> 0:25:05.240 do cats know to use the litter box without training? 0:25:05.560 --> 0:25:07.760 So you put out cat litter, cats go to the 0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:11.000 litter box and do their business there. That seems strange. 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:13.119 I guess I would have assumed there's some kind of 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:17.640 smell or scent that manufacturers add to it that attracts 0:25:17.680 --> 0:25:21.080 the cat, but you're saying it's more of an evolutionary 0:25:21.160 --> 0:25:24.720 attraction to doing their business in a sandy or gravelly 0:25:24.760 --> 0:25:28.600 substrate because that's yeah, okay, so that is their natural 0:25:28.640 --> 0:25:31.199