Speaker 1: Welcome to How staff Works. Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,
Speaker 1: a researcher and writer. Here at How Stuff Works. Every week,
Speaker 1: I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
Speaker 1: weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
Speaker 1: This week, we take a look back at the perhaps
Speaker 1: surprisingly feminist founder of the American Home a class and
Speaker 1: unrelated Why is reheated coffee such a miserable experience? The
Speaker 1: short answer science, but first. Senior editor Katherine Whitburne, along
Speaker 1: with our freelance writer Aliya Hoyt, seek to answer another
Speaker 1: question for us. Will there ever be a more comfortable
Speaker 1: replacement for the vice like manogram? Like making a ponini
Speaker 1: with your boobs? Is hall Anne Marie Crabtree of spring Hill, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: describes getting a mammogram that sounds about right. Although mammograms
Speaker 1: are critically important for screening for breast cancer, the experience
Speaker 1: is far from delightful. It involves placing one breast startard
Speaker 1: time on a machine that clamps it between two plates
Speaker 1: while a load dose X ray of the breast is taken.
Speaker 1: Susan Brown, Director of Education, with Susan G. Coleman explains
Speaker 1: the point of the compression on your boobs like this,
Speaker 1: X rays don't go through tissue very easily, so the
Speaker 1: breast needs to be flattened out in order to spread
Speaker 1: out the tissue. This allows for a better X ray
Speaker 1: image with less radiation. Currently, mammograms are the best breast
Speaker 1: cancer screening tool we have, but there could eventually be
Speaker 1: other ways of getting the same results with no compression.
Speaker 1: There's the breast ultrasound, where a handheld device is moved
Speaker 1: over the breast to take pictures of it. It's used
Speaker 1: to check ab normal results for a mammogram, for instance,
Speaker 1: to see what's inside a breast lump. It's more comfortable
Speaker 1: than a mammogram, but currently not accurate enough to be
Speaker 1: a screening tool on its own. That could change, though,
Speaker 1: as the technology improves. A biologically based test is another option.
Speaker 1: Comen is funding research into creating a blood test that
Speaker 1: could look for the presence of certain proteins in the
Speaker 1: blood to detect cancer. Brown says a salive or or
Speaker 1: your intest could be a possibility one day too. Here's
Speaker 1: another high tech option. The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
Speaker 1: and Dylon diagnostics have teamed up to develop breast specific
Speaker 1: gamma imaging. Here, the patient is injected with a chemical
Speaker 1: that would be more likely to be absorbed by cancerous tissue.
Speaker 1: Once absorbed, any cancer cells would light up, allowing the
Speaker 1: scientists to form a two dimensional image. The imaging is
Speaker 1: done by a special molecular imaging camera created by Dylan.
Speaker 1: For this procedure, the breast is confined to make it
Speaker 1: easier to image, but at least it's not pressed down.
Speaker 1: The camera is not yet on the market, partially because
Speaker 1: the injected radiation is a higher dose than patients currently
Speaker 1: are exposed to during a regular mammogram. Researchers are working
Speaker 1: to lower this dosage level, but until we arrive at
Speaker 1: the holy grail of a comfing mammogram, here are some
Speaker 1: ways you can lessen your discomfort. Number one, if your
Speaker 1: pre menopausal, schedule your mamograms immediately after your period when
Speaker 1: your breasts are less tender. Number two, use over the
Speaker 1: counter pay medication or even breathing techniques like those used
Speaker 1: during childbirth to help with anxiety. And number three, talk
Speaker 1: to the technician doing the mammogram if you're feeling a
Speaker 1: lot of discomfort during the procedure. Keep in mind, though,
Speaker 1: that any pressure on your breast is worth it in
Speaker 1: the short and long term when you compare that to
Speaker 1: the risk of actually getting breast cants. Next step stuff
Speaker 1: uditor Eves, Jeff Cote, and our freelance writer Kate Kershner
Speaker 1: explored the fascinating life in Times of Allen Richards, the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century woman who helped make the study of living
Speaker 1: conditions into a science. Women in science have experienced what
Speaker 1: some research is called the Matilda effect, the idea that
Speaker 1: women's work is systematically under recognized or simply ignored, and
Speaker 1: men are given credit exclusively. The effect is evident, for example,
Speaker 1: when men are disproportionately given scientific awards and prizes considering
Speaker 1: the number of women nominated, but researchers have become keener
Speaker 1: to learn how women's work in science has been overlooked
Speaker 1: or prone to bias. When one scientific journal switched this
Speaker 1: review process to leave out the names of authors, women's
Speaker 1: acceptance rates rose seven point nine percent, and it's thirteen
Speaker 1: Studies showed that abstracts of scientific papers were seeing as
Speaker 1: higher quality if the author was male and wrote about
Speaker 1: a stereotypically male subject like physics. Or math, but female
Speaker 1: scientists have also been pushed aside for the very fields
Speaker 1: in which they study. Let's delve into the story of
Speaker 1: Ellen's Swallow Richards, who was instrumental to modern science, yet
Speaker 1: her legacy and even entire field was dismissed and appropriated
Speaker 1: into real scientific studies, and her story typifies the Matilda effect.
Speaker 1: She was the first woman in America accepted into a
Speaker 1: scientific school, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was then
Speaker 1: male only. She was also one of the first female
Speaker 1: chemists in the United States, a creator of state water
Speaker 1: quality standards, and founder of the modern study of domestic
Speaker 1: science or home economics. Ellen Richards's career path, by all accounts,
Speaker 1: hasn't received much recognition and perhaps has been pushed aside
Speaker 1: because it wasn't seen as scientifically rigorous as so called
Speaker 1: mail field. After graduating from Vassar College with a degree
Speaker 1: in chemistry in eighteen seventy, and facing many rejections for
Speaker 1: jobs in the field, she decided to pursue more education.
Speaker 1: MTT accepted her, but only as a test case to
Speaker 1: see if women could handle the rigor of a science program.
Speaker 1: She passed the test after receiving a Bachelor of Science
Speaker 1: and chemistry. In eighteen seventy three, she became a leader
Speaker 1: in pollution studies and developed the study she dubbed ocology,
Speaker 1: which became the basis for ecology. Richard's even taught sanitary
Speaker 1: chemistry at her alma mater for nearly thirty years. Richard's
Speaker 1: development of authenics, a study she defined as the betterment
Speaker 1: of living conditions through conscious endeavor for the purpose of
Speaker 1: securing efficient human beings, demonstrates her commitment to improving public
Speaker 1: health and scientific education. Her early work as an ecologist
Speaker 1: studying air and water pollution led to her interests and
Speaker 1: in damning the home environment. She founded the modern movement
Speaker 1: of home economics to incorporate science into the tests of
Speaker 1: everyday life as a way of improving living conditions on
Speaker 1: a household level. Maybe your idea of homemach is simply
Speaker 1: sewing a button unclothed and learning to cook an omelet,
Speaker 1: And yes, the science does include these household tests. But
Speaker 1: what Ellen Richards recognized was that cooking, sanitary conditions, household organization,
Speaker 1: and raising a healthy family were absolutely based in science.
Speaker 1: Not that women universally embraced their mindset, though some early
Speaker 1: women's liberation activists were not fans, believing that homemach just
Speaker 1: enslave women to household tests and didn't promote equality. But
Speaker 1: Ellen richards work added value and scientific backing to work
Speaker 1: that women were already doing, like cleaning and raising children.
Speaker 1: She highlighted public health issues like hygiene in luncheon schools,
Speaker 1: and household issues issues like arsenic content and wallpaper and fabric.
Speaker 1: Much of Richard's progressiveness resided in her uplifting a typically
Speaker 1: female sphere instead of urging women into typically male spheres
Speaker 1: for recognition radical stuff really. Richards even brought her background
Speaker 1: as a chemist into the kitchen, making chemistry part of
Speaker 1: the domestic activities of cooking and eating. She promoted nutrition
Speaker 1: education and the science behind foods at a time when
Speaker 1: diets were often poor and people rarely discussed health. Today,
Speaker 1: the science of diet and nutrition is now studied robustly.
Speaker 1: But Richards also worked hard to give women and girls
Speaker 1: access to traditionally male spaces. In eighteen seventy six, she
Speaker 1: founded the Women's Laboratory at m I T, a place
Speaker 1: for women to study the sciences, which gave women more
Speaker 1: recognition in higher education. We still shuffle the discipline of
Speaker 1: home economics now called Family and consumer sciences into a
Speaker 1: marginalized field or considered a soft science, although the work
Speaker 1: is vital to many professions. Generally it includes the same
Speaker 1: studies as one years ago, like nutrition and wellness, housing
Speaker 1: practices and research, and family and child development. Yet it
Speaker 1: could be argued that society has largely forgotten the woman
Speaker 1: who pioneered the home economic movement in make science, education
Speaker 1: and professions more accessible for women. Many feels we might
Speaker 1: consider more rigorous or important, like sanitation and environmental studies,
Speaker 1: are closely taught to Richard's research, just like the Matilda
Speaker 1: pet might have predicted. Finally, this week staff out of
Speaker 1: our Christopher Hasiotis and our freelancer Desceline Shields calling an
Speaker 1: expert to explain the chemistry of coffee? Why is it
Speaker 1: so delicious hot or cold? And so much the opposite
Speaker 1: once it's been reheated. Hot coffee is supposed to be hot.
Speaker 1: Cold coffee is supposed to be cold. That's the deal,
Speaker 1: ask anybody. The problem, then, with hot coffee is that
Speaker 1: you can't drink the whole cup while it's at optimal
Speaker 1: temperature unless you're willing to really guzzle it. So when
Speaker 1: it gets cold, you've got a few choices. Just drink
Speaker 1: it cold, reheat it, or pour the cup down the
Speaker 1: drain and start over with a new pot. All three
Speaker 1: of these approaches are either perfectly fine or completely barbaric,
Speaker 1: depending on whom you ask to. Some hot coffee that's
Speaker 1: gone cold is revolting to others. The reheating process renders
Speaker 1: it completely undrinkable. But tell that to the person who
Speaker 1: pops a cup of nine hour old java into the
Speaker 1: microwave at four p m each afternoon just to power
Speaker 1: through until bedtime. Pooh pooing your scornful commentary. Research into
Speaker 1: the flavors involved in reheating this humble drink is pretty
Speaker 1: much non existent. But everything most likely has to do
Speaker 1: with our sense of smell. Humans aren't great at separating
Speaker 1: our gustatory and old factory responses our taste and smell responses,
Speaker 1: and coffee has aromas and flavors that hit all five
Speaker 1: of the tastes that can be picked up by your tongue. Sweet, salty, bitter, sour,
Speaker 1: and savory. Yes, fine, you can call it ummmy. So
Speaker 1: your personal sense of smell has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with how coffee tastes to you, whatever the temperature or
Speaker 1: however that temperature was achieved. But listen, the chemical makeup
Speaker 1: of coffee is a stou doingly complex. Even though its
Speaker 1: reputation relies heavily on the presence of caffeine, Coffee gets
Speaker 1: its flavor from around one thousand different chemical compounds. Also,
Speaker 1: the final flavor of the coffee you enjoyed this morning
Speaker 1: was the product of a dizzying array of variables, including
Speaker 1: temperatures and weather conditions, the coffee beans experienced when the
Speaker 1: beans were harvested, how they were dried, how they were
Speaker 1: stored and roasted, and how they were ground and brewed.
Speaker 1: So while the compound three methyl butinol might make your
Speaker 1: cup of joe taste a little caramel like, and ethyl
Speaker 1: nonanoate may give it some fruit of your notes, each
Speaker 1: step of the process either brings out or suppresses any
Speaker 1: one of these many aromatic compounds differently. We spoke with
Speaker 1: Christopher Hendon, a postdoctoral fellow in a chemistry department at
Speaker 1: m I T and author of Water for Coffee, a
Speaker 1: book about how coffee interacts with water. He told us
Speaker 1: reheating coffee in principle can be an absolutely fine approach
Speaker 1: to achieving a tasty beverage. In practice, this is not
Speaker 1: usually observed because people reheated in ways that promote the
Speaker 1: loss of delicious volatile compounds, and so the process of heating, cooling,
Speaker 1: and heating again drives smelly and tasty compounds right out
Speaker 1: of the cup. According to Hendon, coffee experts seem to
Speaker 1: prefer a drink that has been brewed within the past
Speaker 1: five to twenty minutes, and it turns out that most
Speaker 1: people prefer the coffee as it cools to around a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit or sixty five degrees celsius.
Speaker 1: This has to do with the way our taste pathways
Speaker 1: respond to temperature in our food. When something we put
Speaker 1: in our mouth is too hot or too cold, we
Speaker 1: can't detect all the compounds that contribute to its flavor,
Speaker 1: and since coffee has loads of these compounds, the temperature
Speaker 1: of the drink really can affect the taste. Bringing the
Speaker 1: coffee brings out these aromatic compounds, but whether the cooling
Speaker 1: process changes the actual chemistry seems to be controversial. Hendon
Speaker 1: says it's absolutely benign, while others claim it makes the
Speaker 1: drink more acidic as the coffee that's exposed to the
Speaker 1: air oxidizes, So reheating coffee to the same temperature it
Speaker 1: was when it was first brood might help you reach
Speaker 1: that sweet spot temperature wise, but it also has the
Speaker 1: potential to cause additional chemical reactions that further alter the flavor.
Speaker 1: And if you're reheating coffee that already has milk or
Speaker 1: sugar in it, that's even more in the way of flavors, proteins, chemicals,
Speaker 1: and compounds to contend with. So although many coffee condostours
Speaker 1: will tell you it's a lost cause once your coffee
Speaker 1: goes cold, others say it's just important to reheat your
Speaker 1: coffee as slowly as you can in order to prevent
Speaker 1: additional chemical reactions. If you're worried the ghosts of past
Speaker 1: foods heated in your microwave or coming back to hot
Speaker 1: your reheated coffee, Hendon says that's actually pretty unlikely, telling
Speaker 1: us that the concentration of volatile chemicals in say, splattered
Speaker 1: pasta sauce, is pretty low, so he'd be surprised if
Speaker 1: we could attribute the bad taste of microwave coffee to
Speaker 1: only that the websites of large coffee shop chains even
Speaker 1: speak out against microwaving their coffee. But also there's advice
Speaker 1: out there for nuking coffee if you must, so pass
Speaker 1: that info along before your next coffee argument pizza. That's
Speaker 1: our show for this week. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: tuning in. Further thanks to our audio tex Tristan McNeil,
Speaker 1: our producer Dylan Fagan, and our editorial liaison Alison Ludermilk.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to now Now for more of the latest science
Speaker 1: news and send us links to anything you'd like to
Speaker 1: hear us cover, plus what's your favorite flavor? Mine is bitter.
Speaker 1: You can send us an email at now podcast at
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