WEBVTT - How Clean is Too Clean? 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:15.040 Forward Thinking, either everyone and welcome to Forward Thinking. The 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:17.520 podcast that Looks in the Future says, there was a 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.480 young sailor who looked through the glass. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.720 I'm Lauren Pokon, and I'm Joe McCormick. Guys, Now, if 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.360 I were to give you just a term, just saying 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:32.400 starship Enterprise, what are some of the ways you would 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:40.680 describe the interior of that starship? It's so perfect and immaculate. Yeah, 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:46.000 Busters everywhere, Yeah, yes, space Dustbusters of the future. Yeah, 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:50.879 I was looking for Lenz Flair, but my Starship Enterprise 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:55.200 doesn't involve that much. Lens Flare. Clearly Abrahams has nothing 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:59.880 to do with Lauren's Starship Enterprise. Um. Yeah. If you 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.360 think about the inside of the ships in Star Trek, 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.760 they look disgustingly clean. Well, not all the ships in 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.880 Star Trek, though, that's all the Federation. Yeah, that's right. 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.240 If you go you look inside the clingon ships, they 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:17.560 look really grungy. And I don't know if it's just 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.319 bad lighting or if there's like filth on the surfaces. 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:23.679 I always assumed it was some kind of like since 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.200 the Klingons to me were always a terrific parallel for 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:28.880 Communist Russia, that it was clearly some kind of like 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.479 in Communist Russia clingons. I don't I can't really finish 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:36.800 that statement where I don't have anything clean. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:39.200 it's it's one of the exactly the machine oils you. 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:42.640 That would be what the way I'd go, Um, yeah, 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:45.199 it turns out that, you know, when we think about 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:48.160 the Star trek Uh universe, whenever we're thinking about those 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.040 Federation ships, we have those incredibly pristine, clean ships. This 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:57.680 is not the only example of futuristic worlds where everything 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.280 is spotless and immaculate, right, I mean the spaceship on 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:03.200 two thousand one or the space station I guess I 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.960 should say two thousand one absolutely spotless. I would say, 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:10.120 especially if you look into earlier science fiction, they envisioned 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:13.239 the future is an extremely clean place. I think one 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:15.840 thing that was a sort of revolution in later sci 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.880 fi depictions is they sort of dirtied up the future 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.640 a bit. That's something you saw once you had Star 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:25.079 Wars and Blade Runner and stuff like that. Fifth Element, 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.639 although technically Star Wars is not the future that happened 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.880 a long time ago. Well whatever, although lots of depictions 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:32.840 in books, I mean you can't see the grid, and 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:34.880 I think that a lot of this was also design elements. 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.239 More so, I mean it was style over the substance 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.560 of a concept of the future. Um, not that something 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.280 like the fifth element isn't very stylish, but Highland for example, 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.040 certainly never sometimes he did, but but he usually didn't 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:50.239 describe his his future escapes as being pristine. Well, no, 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.680 I would tie it probably to an idea, a sort 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.520 of utopian idea of about the future, like like in 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.520 Star Trek. I mean, when you look at and Vary's 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.079 vision of the future, he has this vision that's generally 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.880 better than today, very optimistic, right, and and and again 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.239 that's where that kind of clingon thing comes in, because 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.240 the Federation was this utopia and cling on society was 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.280 portrayed as very much not now. However, I will counter 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:20.040 that by saying, there are several dystopian versions of the 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.400 future that are also very very clean. And in this case, 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.800 the it's meant to be more sterile, a clockwork orange, right, Yes, 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.160 So these are world these are worlds where the cleanliness 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:34.000 is a symptom of something that's actually rotten in that 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.160 world where it's not you know, it's not that everything 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:41.520 is beautiful and lovely, it's that things are cold and impersonal. 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.760 I would say that the association between cleanliness and a 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:48.720 sort of utopian vision of the future is understandable once 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:53.560 you look at the history of sanitation and sterilization, especially 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.520 as it comes to medicine and society. Sure, because you 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:01.000 can sort of see an arc that, oh wow, learning 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:04.480 how to clean up our medical facilities and our homes 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.120 and things like that, that was actually a big step 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.080 forward for human beings, right, And that's really what we 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.960 wanted to talk about in this podcast. Is this. I mean, 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.000 it seems kind of odd, but this is actually inspired 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.920 from one of our our listeners sent in a suggestion. Now, 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.279 his suggestion was about a very specific thing that we're 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:24.960 going to address in a future episode, but in general 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.400 it had to do with this concept of cleaning and cleanliness, 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.119 and we kind of got into this this discussion about 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.520 you know, what, what is the future of this, What 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.120 is is there such a thing as too clean? Is? 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:45.120 In what realms? Is this super hyper cleanliness necessary? And 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.880 are there anywhere it's something that would be a problem 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.159 because again, in these different versions of the future, we 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.680 have the ones where cleanliness is an example of an 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.280 idyllic society and others where cleanliness is an example of 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:02.120 some sort of uh dystopia. And of course, in order 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.039 to discuss that, we we really need to look at 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.720 at how the technology of cleanliness has developed over the 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.840 past century or so, because because it is very much 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.240 a technology or a series of technology. Sure, yeah, yeah, 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:17.000 we should. Actually, I'd say we should go back a 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:23.400 few centuries um to to the idea of say, germ theory. Yeah, 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.000 we can go back even further before we understood what 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.760 germ theory was in fact, because there were some observations 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.240 that led to the formulation of germ theory. Right, yeah, 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:36.719 let's talk about Igney simil Wise. Similwise, Yeah, a pioneer 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.360 in antiseptics. So some of ice had a friend named 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:44.680 Jacob or Jacob if you prefer the Anglo cutonized version, 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.679 but ja Cob. He was a doctor who had performed 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.760 an autopsy and in the process of performing this, accidentally 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:58.160 cut himself and then subsequently came down with a terrible 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:03.320 fever and died. And simil Wis was obviously distressed by 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.400 this because he also, being a physician, was very much 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.839 upset that his fellow physician passed away and passed away 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:15.000 from an illness, and he also was observing something unusual 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:19.320 to him. It was that in his area, women who 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:23.040 were giving birth who were assisted by midwives were having 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:28.360 more having better success with with their their babies surviving childbirth, 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.600 but the women who were giving birth being assisted by 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.400 medical students had a higher rate of infant mortality. And 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.560 so civil Wise decided to look into this, and you know, 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:40.480 it was kind of his friend's death that sort of 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.960 sparked his imagination as he looked around at what was 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:47.200 going on, and he determined that the medical students who 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.080 were assisting in childbirths were the same medical students who 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:55.719 were performing autopsies, and that perhaps they were corrupting the 0:06:56.000 --> 0:07:00.080 childbirth someway was something that they were carrying from the 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.240 the dead bodies. They had no concept of germs at 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:05.800 this time, believe it or not, that these people didn't 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.800 necessarily know that you should wash your hands in between 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.960 handling something horrible and delivering a baby. And so he 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.960 ended up demanding that medical students follow a protocol which 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:21.520 would involve them washing their hands with a chlorinated antiseptic solution, 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:26.360 and then they saw mortality rates drop significantly. So it 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.440 became clear that the practice of midwives who weren't coming 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.000 into contact with dead bodies like the medical students were, 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.040 we're better than the ones that the medical students were following. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.320 And this was a big step. I mean, it was 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.680 one of those things where you know, today we take 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.880 it for granted, but at the time it was revolutionary. Well, 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:46.880 moving on from washing your hands, just the idea of 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:52.360 water sanitation was something that came to people fairly late, 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:54.840 the idea that they needed to be really careful about 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.920 the water that they drank, and that in fact, that 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.320 could cause illness if they were careful. So a doctor 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.360 John Snow, who, as I put in my notes, obviously 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.320 did not know nothing for all your Game of Thrones 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.080 fans out there, found in the early nineteenth century he 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.680 was he was trying to figure out a cholera outbreak 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.840 in London, and there was a specific neighborhood in London 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:20.960 where there were a lot of deaths due to cholera, 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.200 and he was starting to really look into what was 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.440 causing it and He took a very kind of forensic 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.280 approach to this. In fact, made a map and plotted 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.360 out where people were, and he figured out that there 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:36.320 was this one water pump that was somehow contaminated with 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.800 cholera UH. And at the time, this was a a 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.319 big departure from the common belief, which was that cholera 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.480 was spread through some form of noxious gas that escaped 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.760 from the sewers, that it wasn't something that they were ingesting. 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:55.080 So anyway, doctor Snow was able to convince the city 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:59.520 government to shut down a particular water pump in this region. 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.600 He had determined that this one water pump was somehow contaminated, 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:04.720 and so they removed the handle. Thus you could not 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.920 pump water this water pump um and as a result, 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:14.320 the cholera outbreak started to disappear. People stopped UH coming 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:16.920 down with cholera, and part of that was also because 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:21.800 there was a general um decrease in population in that region, 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.720 not just from the depths, which obviously that would decrease it, 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.640 but people were fleeing because they were worried that this 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.640 was somehow a tainted area and they would catch cholera 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:34.760 if they stayed around. But even taking that out of consideration, 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:37.360 they saw a significant drop and that is kind of 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.840 what led them to the conclusion that water supply was really, 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:42.520 really important, and it was very important to have a 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.440 clean water supply to avoid illness. And it wouldn't be 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:51.840 until seventy when we get Louis pasteur uh sending out 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.000 this idea of the germ theory of illness, that illness 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.640 can be caused by micro organisms that are too small 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.320 to see with the naked eye. But that is what 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:05.839 truly revolutionized medicine because now people knew the reason why 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.920 you had to go through this process of sterilizing everything 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:13.240 was because things you cannot see could in fact kill you. Yeah, 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:17.359 and apparently somebody named Joseph Lister read old Louis Pastewart. 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.320 Joseph Lister promoted antiseptic surgery in the late nineteenth century, 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:26.240 and he experimented with anti microbial chemicals, so he would 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:31.200 sterilize surgical instruments, wound sites, and operating theaters with stuff 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:36.520 like carbolic acid, which was actually quite effective. Uh. Carbolic acid, 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.600 though also known as finn all, is highly toxic. It's 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:42.200 not so much used anymore now we've got other stuff 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.679 we use. Yes. And also the antiseptic listerine is named 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:50.160 after him, not not invented, yes, not invented by him, 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:55.520 named in honor of Dr Okay. Yeah. So now antiseptic 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.560 surgery and hospital facilities are basically the norm, or at 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.280 least through what we're striving for, whether or not it's 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.800 actually achieved. Um. And as a result of all this work, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.720 the medical field sort of put in place standard procedures 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.960 for how to keep operating rooms clean, how to keep 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.839 hospital rooms clean, what you should do to your instruments. 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:22.560 All right, so we understand that it's important to to 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.920 be very clean and medical procedures. Now we understand that 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:29.840 it's important to to sterilize equipment, to wash your hands. 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:34.760 What are the ways right now that medicine, Uh, what 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:39.600 are the procedures that medicine follows too to ensure this? Okay? 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.400 So currently there are a bunch of methods of sterilization 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.000 of things. So if you're cleaning off like a a 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.320 site on a person's body, you might rub them with 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:52.160 alcohol or with an iodine solution. Um. If you're sterilizing instruments, 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:56.160 one of the most common things you would use is steam. Actually, 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.000 steam is super great. In fact, it's probably like the 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:03.720 best thing to use, uh superheated steam, hot moisture in 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.800 an autoclave. So this will like locked steamer box too. 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:12.520 It'll get things clean, it'll penetrate fabrics, it'll it'll really 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:17.000 cut through and kill pretty much everything, kill or incapacitate. 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.840 This is also also why you want to make sure 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.640 if you're ever getting a tattoo or your ears pierced 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.040 or something else, pierce that the the establishment has not 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.280 a clave that they used to clean their instruments and 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.720 that they use, you know, one time use instruments for 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.640 things that are disposable and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.839 there are also instruments that are not tolerant of heat 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:41.439 or maybe not tolerant of water, and in those cases 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:43.520 there are chemicals that you can use. You can use 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:50.120 say ethylene oxide, parasitic acid, or hydrogen peroxide gas plasma. 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.200 Those are three things I read about there basically in 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:57.240 use today or at least being tested. So these methods 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:01.440 that you're talking about killing off germs, I've slee it's 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:03.679 solved all the problems. Right, So now we're we've got 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:09.160 these perfectly safe medical theaters where there's no worry whatsoever 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:16.200 of contamination, infection, Nope, what nope? Okay, So hospitals are 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.440 obviously a lot better than they used to be, you know, 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:22.480 before Joseph Lister, I think it was probably just pretty common. 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.040 You go get an operation done and then oh you 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.920 have word fever. I don't know what caused this, but 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.160 now you're dead. Yeah. American Horror Story Season two really 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.120 taught me a lot about the various hospital conditions of 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.520 the past. Yeah. And they were just they were using 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:40.160 unclean instruments, you know, it was just it's gross. Uh. 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.800 Now we're doing a lot better job. But still we 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.720 have not gotten rid of hospital associated infections. That's what 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.920 they're called now, h Ayes. Uh. They did not disappear 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:55.479 after the revolution and antiseptic medical care. In fact, I 0:13:55.559 --> 0:14:00.000 found a CDC source from two thousand two that estimate 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:04.480 did the number of hospital associated infections in US hospitals. 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.520 So this is just in the US, and basically it 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.640 came to the conclusion that were there were one point 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:17.080 seven million hospital associated infections. Uh. Part of the problem 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.200 that we're talking about here is one that we talked 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:23.200 about in our antibiotics episode, which is that in in 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:27.400 in hospitals, sometimes through the use of of drugs that 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:29.680 are drugs or other methods that are meant to kill 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.840 off bacteria, some of the bacterias survive and become more 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.080 hardy and difficult to kill. And that therefore hospitals can 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:41.320 sometimes contain strains of superbugs that that get passed around 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.520 and are difficult to get out. Yeah, because then the 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.720 drugs you would use to to take care of such 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:51.080 a UH infection are no longer effective because they've built 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.400 up a resilience to that drug, right, right, And I mean, 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:56.520 you know, and certainly things are a lot better than 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.160 they used to be. Like we've said, I always think 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.760 of that moment in an Undiscovered Country, which which I'm 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:02.920 sorry is is a terrible reference to make in a 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.440 science fiction show. But when Bones, you know, is here 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:09.240 in the twentieth century UH medical center and he's just 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.920 horrified by everything, He's like, you savages, what are you doing? Technically, 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.640 that's Star Trek for Voyage Home when they go to 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.680 rescue Chekhov who's passed out. But did I say the 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:21.880 wrong thing? I totally say the wrong thing. I did 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.920 say Undiscovered Country, which is more about cling on, cling 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.280 on medical care, which is also complicated because they have 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.680 two hearts. It's very warm in here. It is very 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.000 warm in here. Well, I wanted to talk about one 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:39.360 interesting other way I found of disinfecting in hospital facilities, 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:45.360 which is using rays. Oh yes, I've seen this sort 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.360 of stuff where you get like the little UV chamber 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:51.880 that can dal's say a device or instrument or even 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.000 like your toothbrush with uvs. Well, I'll do you one better. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.120 what if you need to disinfect an entire room. Well, 0:15:57.320 --> 0:15:59.960 so you could wipe down all the surfaces with alcoho 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.520 hall or with some kind of antiseptic solution, But that 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.800 doesn't always work, and also that is time consuming and 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:09.760 people don't always get all the surfaces they need to. 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:15.160 There is, in fact, a disinfecting robot I read about. 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.560 This is manufactured by a company called zen X, and 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.280 it's a little R two D two buddy and you 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.000 just wheel him on into a room and you shut 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.000 the door behind you, and it uses a pulse zen 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.840 on UV light that zaps micro organisms and it will 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:35.280 basically kill them. It disrupts microbial life at the cellular level, 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:40.280 so different UV frequencies can damage RNA DNA cell walls, 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:44.600 internal cellular structures, and it can do a whole room 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:46.680 in about fifteen minutes. You put it in like three 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.000 different positions for five minutes apiece with the door closed 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.200 because you don't want to be in there staring at 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.800 it with it destroying your eyes. And ultra violet light 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.560 can have a nasty effect on on us, especially if 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.720 we have prolonged exposure. Yeah, it actually makes use of 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.720 uv C light, which is the kind of UV light 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.760 that is usually blocked by our atmosphere when it's sent 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.480 in by the sun. And supposedly this thing is pretty 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:14.200 durn good. I like to imagine that when this thing 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:16.879 is is active. Even though ultra violet lights outside the 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.479 visible spectrum, we can't see it, right, but I'd like 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:21.760 to imagine when it's active, if you were outside the hospital, 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.520 you just see these crazy disco flashing lights coming out 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.000 the window and you hear the the Moss Eisley Cantina 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:31.560 song playing. But maybe that's just me. But hey, I 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.560 want to talk about something else about the future of cleanliness, 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:38.560 which is that it doesn't just matter for hospitals because 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:44.040 the more we get down into miniaturization, whether it's in 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:48.960 the medical field, or in industry, electronics research, whatever it is, 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:55.199 having contamination can really cause problems, absolutely so in the 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.920 manufacturing process for electronics, when you're trying to create semiconductors, 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.359 when you're creating micro processor chips, you're talking about working 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.679 with components that are on the nanoscale. So it's not 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.320 unusual now to have a computer with a microprocessor where 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:14.040 the trans the transistors, the individual components on it may 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:19.840 measure forty five nanometers across or even less. That's super tiny, right, 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.480 I mean these this is the a scale at which 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.920 quantum effects start to take take hold, so it doesn't 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:28.280 necessarily behave the same way we it would on the 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:32.560 classic macro scale, which basically means that if you've got 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.119 I mean, we're not talking about germs. Most of the 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.960 electronics that I know about at any rate will not 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.280 get an infection from a germ like that. But tiny 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:45.480 specks of dust could very much screw your Yeah, you could. 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:50.040 You could have an entire die of semiconductor material ruined 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:52.680 if there are dust particles inside the room. You want 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:55.680 to control for that as much as possible. So as 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.200 we get to this point where the precision is really important. 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.119 Something like a dust particle could comple completely dwarfed the 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.840 components on a chip, and if it were to fall 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.520 in place, it would ruin it. And of course, you 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.320 know that's money, right, You're you're spending money to make 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.160 this stuff, and everyone you everyone that's ruined you cannot sell, 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.080 so you lose money on the deal. Yeah, I mean 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.000 on those scales, having a piece of dust in your 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.040 semiconductor or or whatever it might be at the nano 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.080 scale would basically be like having a rock in an 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:28.880 engine block. Yeah, it's throwing a monkey causing major problems. 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:33.959 But how the heck do you rule out a tiny, 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.440 tiny particles micron. There are a couple of different things 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:39.920 you gotta do. Well. One, you've got to construct a 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.000 room that is sealed so that you can seal it 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.640 off from the rest of the building so that you're 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.439 not getting air drafts pulling in more dust particles from 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:53.080 somewhere else. It's like having an airlock system. Really. Secondly, 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:55.760 you have to have an air filtration system that can 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.440 recycle the air in that room and filter it out 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.399 very efficiently. So we're talking like replacing all the air 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:06.280 in that room regularly through this filtration system, and most 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:08.200 of these clean rooms that you know, that's what they're 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:13.399 called in the industry where these microprocessor manufacturing machines exist, 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:17.760 are able to do that frequently, like several times an hour. Essentially, 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.840 as you're you're putting all the air through this filtration 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:23.200 system over and over again to remove any particulates that 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.040 happened to be floating through it. So you end up 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:31.600 with like an incredibly pure air or atmosphere within. They're 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:33.800 not like pure oxygen, but as in there there's no 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.760 particulate matter flowing around. And on top of that, you 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.800 make everyone played dress up. Yeah, I'd imagine you don't 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.840 just walk in from the parking lot. No, No, I 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:46.920 mean obviously, like you know, anything on you anything like 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:50.600 in your skin, particles, your hair, any dust that's on 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:55.240 you with in my in my case to yeah and 0:20:55.320 --> 0:21:01.000 in my case to now congratulations. So anyway, which would 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.199 mean you would be uh, I'm not making any nanotechnology. Now, 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:06.960 you would not be allowed inside the clean room in 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.000 that state. So what you have to do is you 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:11.000 have to put on a special kind of suit. They 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:13.480 kind of look like hazmat suits. They're called bunny suits. 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:17.040 In the industry, that's really what they're called. But it's 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:19.840 something that covers you from head to toe so that 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.720 you can enter the room and not contribute any sort 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:27.560 of particulate matter that would otherwise corrupt the system as 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.199 it's being as it's as it's going through this stuff. Now, 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:32.800 most of the time these manufacturing processes, I mean, they're 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.280 they're automated. Obviously, when you're talking about creating stuff on 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:37.640 the nano scale, you don't have someone in there doing 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.720 it by hand. That would be impossible. But you know, 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.480 you do occasionally have to put humans into the system 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:48.680 to do various things. So imagine especially if you're doing research. Yeah. Yeah, 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:51.200 so it's one of those things where whenever a person 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:53.040 does have to go in, they have to you know, 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:55.240 get suited up and everything, make sure that they're not 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:58.520 going to corrupt it. So yeah, and it turns out 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.080 it's not just in electron x that this is important. 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:06.400 There's a lot of different industrial um processes that require 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:09.959 precision and cleanliness together, and in fact, the more precise 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.440 you get, the more important that cleanliness is because if 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:17.000 it's a really super tiny mechanism, those parts have to 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:19.760 fit together exactly, and even just a little bit of 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:23.800 grease or oil could make it so they don't set properly. 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:26.600 So what do you do? I mean, as it turns out, 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:32.159 if you make especially tiny little metal pieces components, often 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:35.280 grease or oil is part of that process. How do 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:39.119 you clean something so tiny that you can't just you know, 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:40.960 take a brush and brush it off, or take a 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:43.160 cloth and wipe it off, because it's far too small 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:46.159 for that. What would be your next best approach? I 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:49.480 have no idea. Some kind of gas exactly a gas, 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:51.159 or at least you start with a gas, but you 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:53.720 compress it and lower the temperature down so that you 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.600 convert it into a solid, specifically carbon dioxide. According to 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:01.280 Science Daily, there's one company it's been looking at carbon 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:03.440 dioxide and actually using it to cool it down into 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:08.240 what they call snow crystals, and they blast the various components. 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:10.960 Let's say that it's a clock mechanism that has really 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:13.719 super tiny components in it, and you want to get 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:16.440 all the grease and oil off of those parts before 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.360 you assemble it. They would blast it with this these 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:24.240