1
00:00:01,560 --> 00:00:04,720
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff

2
00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:16,440
Speaker 1: works dot com. Wow, hey guys, and welcome to the podcast.

3
00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:18,600
Speaker 1: This is Alison Madamilli like the science editor at how

4
00:00:18,640 --> 00:00:21,160
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science

5
00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:25,040
Speaker 1: writer at how stuff works dot com. Today we're gonna

6
00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:28,520
Speaker 1: start things off a little differently. We're gonna do a

7
00:00:28,520 --> 00:00:32,600
Speaker 1: blindfolded sniff test. So Robert, why don't you kick it off? Okay,

8
00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:35,320
Speaker 1: Well I'm already blindfolded, so let's do it. Okay. So

9
00:00:35,320 --> 00:00:37,000
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hand you a book, all right, and I

10
00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:38,760
Speaker 1: want you to sniff the book and tell me what

11
00:00:38,800 --> 00:00:41,160
Speaker 1: it smells like. All right, let me see. Let's see.

12
00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:50,720
Speaker 1: Ah ah, let's see. I'm picking up a combination of

13
00:00:50,760 --> 00:00:58,160
Speaker 1: grassy notes um, tang of acids, hint of vanilla um,

14
00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:01,959
Speaker 1: and just in an underlying mus tinus. M hmm. I'm

15
00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:05,920
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna say this is probably Clifford D. Simmos

16
00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:10,920
Speaker 1: seven sci fi novel The Werewolf Principle. Excellent. Robert, h Yeah,

17
00:01:10,959 --> 00:01:13,240
Speaker 1: I got it. Yeah, see, I thought it'd had that

18
00:01:13,319 --> 00:01:17,839
Speaker 1: signature sort of old sci fi um, you know, bookstore

19
00:01:17,959 --> 00:01:19,720
Speaker 1: kind of odor to it, you know, and just a

20
00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:23,640
Speaker 1: little hint of loneliness. Alright, my turn, Okay, go for it.

21
00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:28,280
Speaker 1: Put the blindfold on. Alright, alright, I will be begin

22
00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:35,080
Speaker 1: commencing my sniff. What am I smelling. I'm smelling cats,

23
00:01:35,080 --> 00:01:40,480
Speaker 1: something with cats, I'm smelling. Oh, this is nice, like

24
00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:46,480
Speaker 1: a faint hint of somebody pressing flowers between the pages. Oh,

25
00:01:46,720 --> 00:01:50,000
Speaker 1: there's a whiff of drug store perfume. I think maybe

26
00:01:50,120 --> 00:01:54,920
Speaker 1: lady Stetson or something. Oh, a little bit of steam.

27
00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:57,120
Speaker 1: Somebody might have got a little sweaty with this book.

28
00:01:57,880 --> 00:02:00,640
Speaker 1: Oh I know what it is. This has to be

29
00:02:01,560 --> 00:02:05,800
Speaker 1: Ruthless billionaire inexperienced Mistress by Robin McDonald. That's it. You

30
00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:10,280
Speaker 1: got it exactly right. Yeah, Harlequin Romance Classic. Yeah, I'm

31
00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:14,440
Speaker 1: not through that yet, so hand it back. Some books

32
00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:17,720
Speaker 1: smell right depending on who has them in their hands. Yeah,

33
00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:19,400
Speaker 1: I mean that's one of the great things about books,

34
00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:22,360
Speaker 1: Like I will never well, I won't say never, but

35
00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:24,400
Speaker 1: I'm really opposed to the idea of going over to

36
00:02:24,600 --> 00:02:28,520
Speaker 1: the Kindle or any kind of digital book reading device

37
00:02:28,639 --> 00:02:31,760
Speaker 1: because they're not as Yeah. I just like the smell

38
00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:34,240
Speaker 1: of a good book, you know, I do too, I

39
00:02:34,280 --> 00:02:36,480
Speaker 1: definitely do. I actually like books so much and the

40
00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:38,840
Speaker 1: smell of them that I once considered becoming a librarian

41
00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:41,840
Speaker 1: just for the smell, just so you get a constant

42
00:02:41,919 --> 00:02:45,000
Speaker 1: daily fix of book funk. Yeah, I think it was

43
00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:47,360
Speaker 1: that and some other things. But yeah, definitely some book

44
00:02:47,400 --> 00:02:50,000
Speaker 1: smell depending on who's reading them. They also smell on

45
00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:52,920
Speaker 1: depending on what they're made of. You know, it's not

46
00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:56,720
Speaker 1: just the paper, it's the binding, it's the ink, it's

47
00:02:56,760 --> 00:02:59,880
Speaker 1: the cover, it's the leather. Perhaps if you have some

48
00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:03,320
Speaker 1: sort of fine volume in your hands. Um, their reflection,

49
00:03:03,400 --> 00:03:07,400
Speaker 1: the smell reflects what adventures they've survived, yeah, or or

50
00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:10,800
Speaker 1: just the environments they've they've been through. Um. You know,

51
00:03:10,880 --> 00:03:13,359
Speaker 1: if you know you encounter this whenever you got to

52
00:03:13,480 --> 00:03:16,080
Speaker 1: use bookstore. You know, you get one that smells really

53
00:03:16,080 --> 00:03:18,600
Speaker 1: strongly a cigarette smoke, well, it probably spent a lot

54
00:03:18,639 --> 00:03:21,760
Speaker 1: of time in a heavy smoker's house. Um. If it's

55
00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:26,119
Speaker 1: smells like cat p well, then it was probably owned

56
00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:30,160
Speaker 1: by a cat lady or a catman or a catman. Yes,

57
00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:33,160
Speaker 1: but I think they're also called cat ladies in most cases.

58
00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:35,680
Speaker 1: Scientifically speaking, what's going on to make a book smell? Well,

59
00:03:35,720 --> 00:03:39,200
Speaker 1: it's getting older, as everything does, and it's degrading and

60
00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:42,440
Speaker 1: in old books and documents. That aging process shows itself

61
00:03:42,440 --> 00:03:45,400
Speaker 1: in one way by releasing volatile organic compounds or v

62
00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:47,720
Speaker 1: o c s as we know them. And those v

63
00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:49,480
Speaker 1: c s or what you smell when you breathe in

64
00:03:49,640 --> 00:03:53,360
Speaker 1: a really nice, delightful musty odor. So, besides telling you

65
00:03:53,400 --> 00:03:55,240
Speaker 1: a little bit about the person who owned the book,

66
00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:57,800
Speaker 1: smell also matters because it can be indicative of the

67
00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:02,440
Speaker 1: condition of the book. Uh yeah, like h on a

68
00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:06,000
Speaker 1: very basic level, if it's been in a everybody's probably

69
00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:07,840
Speaker 1: picked up a book before. That's where the pages are

70
00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:11,240
Speaker 1: really brittle and dry. You know, the books dried out.

71
00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:14,000
Speaker 1: It's like a mummy. Um. There are cases to where

72
00:04:14,200 --> 00:04:16,800
Speaker 1: you know, they end up having some some outright water

73
00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:20,239
Speaker 1: damage or they're they're kind of kind of stuck together

74
00:04:20,279 --> 00:04:24,599
Speaker 1: like a big clump. Right. But at the at the

75
00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:27,800
Speaker 1: heart of everything you have the oxidation of cellulos in

76
00:04:27,839 --> 00:04:30,320
Speaker 1: the paper. All right, So is that what most books

77
00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:32,720
Speaker 1: are made up these days? Cellulos? Yeah, Well, I mean

78
00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:35,159
Speaker 1: that's that's the heart of the I mean it's in

79
00:04:35,160 --> 00:04:38,080
Speaker 1: the wood it's been it's made into the pulp that's

80
00:04:38,080 --> 00:04:40,400
Speaker 1: made into the paper. Um, and all this stuff is

81
00:04:40,400 --> 00:04:44,640
Speaker 1: breaking down. It's basically, you know, it's it's rotting the book.

82
00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:48,280
Speaker 1: The book is rotting, um, no matter how how beautiful

83
00:04:48,320 --> 00:04:53,080
Speaker 1: the content uh is, you know um. And the interesting

84
00:04:53,520 --> 00:04:56,479
Speaker 1: things that we can apparently they are like two hundred

85
00:04:56,600 --> 00:05:00,800
Speaker 1: different compounds all right, that that are smelling when we

86
00:05:00,839 --> 00:05:03,680
Speaker 1: smell one of these old books and around to attend

87
00:05:03,760 --> 00:05:06,719
Speaker 1: to fifteen of these can actually tell us some very

88
00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:10,040
Speaker 1: interesting things about about what's happening to the book and

89
00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:14,320
Speaker 1: maybe even like how much longer it has, right, because

90
00:05:14,440 --> 00:05:17,039
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody's going to care about whether my harlequin

91
00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:20,320
Speaker 1: romance are Sorry, Robert, your sci fi survives into the

92
00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:23,240
Speaker 1: next century. But you know, we do get pretty concerned

93
00:05:23,279 --> 00:05:28,279
Speaker 1: about books of notes. Say, you know Charles Darwin's first

94
00:05:28,440 --> 00:05:30,919
Speaker 1: edition of On the Origin of Species published back in

95
00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:33,720
Speaker 1: ef I'm assuming a lot of people would like to

96
00:05:33,760 --> 00:05:38,359
Speaker 1: have that book around for JENNI group. Yeah. Also original letters, um,

97
00:05:38,360 --> 00:05:40,520
Speaker 1: you know, diary pages. We still have pieces of paper

98
00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:43,240
Speaker 1: that you know, Leonardo da Vinci wrote on and we'd

99
00:05:43,279 --> 00:05:46,479
Speaker 1: like to keep those for a while longer, right, love letters,

100
00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:54,480
Speaker 1: laws drafted up, Yeah, important documents. Sure. Sure, So scientists

101
00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:57,400
Speaker 1: realized I think the importance that all these paper documents

102
00:05:57,400 --> 00:06:00,120
Speaker 1: and books have in our culture, and particularly of the

103
00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:03,800
Speaker 1: scientists has developed a scientific sniff test, if you will.

104
00:06:04,560 --> 00:06:06,919
Speaker 1: And the scientists in question are out of the Center

105
00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:10,840
Speaker 1: for Sustainable Heritage at the University College London, and they

106
00:06:10,839 --> 00:06:13,800
Speaker 1: actually quantified the smell of old books by analyzing the

107
00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:17,120
Speaker 1: v o c s that these books off gas um

108
00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:20,520
Speaker 1: and they did it by GCMs and GCMs is gas

109
00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:24,640
Speaker 1: chromatography mass spectraumetry. And the scientists in question they actually

110
00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:28,120
Speaker 1: sampled seventy two different paper specimens in all sorts of

111
00:06:28,360 --> 00:06:30,360
Speaker 1: states of decay and they wanted to see what v

112
00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:34,360
Speaker 1: o c s their their samples were going to release. Okay, great,

113
00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:36,560
Speaker 1: so they collect all this data. Well, what they were

114
00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:38,880
Speaker 1: looking for is they wanted to see if particular v

115
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:42,000
Speaker 1: o C is correlated with what state the book was in.

116
00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:44,360
Speaker 1: And they found fifteen candidates that seem like they might

117
00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:47,239
Speaker 1: function as good indicators of the condition of particular piece

118
00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:49,640
Speaker 1: of paper or book is in. Great, So, what what

119
00:06:49,839 --> 00:06:53,320
Speaker 1: ramifications does this have for you? Well, it means that, um,

120
00:06:53,960 --> 00:06:56,120
Speaker 1: somebody who's looking to preserve a certain book or who

121
00:06:56,160 --> 00:06:58,520
Speaker 1: works with rare books on a frequent basis, isn't going

122
00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:01,520
Speaker 1: to have to actually handle it, as other methods might dictate,

123
00:07:01,839 --> 00:07:05,240
Speaker 1: they're going to be able to test these ancient books

124
00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:07,040
Speaker 1: and see what condition they're in, and eventually they might

125
00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:11,720
Speaker 1: actually have a handheld electronic nose. According to the studies author, Well,

126
00:07:11,720 --> 00:07:14,640
Speaker 1: I'm picturing that is is basically a little handheld device

127
00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:17,160
Speaker 1: that has like the big fake plastic nose at the

128
00:07:17,200 --> 00:07:19,640
Speaker 1: end of it. Maybe they like throbs back and forth

129
00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:22,600
Speaker 1: as it sniffs. Yeah, or maybe it kind of like

130
00:07:22,640 --> 00:07:29,080
Speaker 1: a Samantha and Bewitched, you know what kind of thing. Yeah,

131
00:07:29,160 --> 00:07:31,040
Speaker 1: And it's not to say that people handling old books

132
00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:33,320
Speaker 1: don't have other methods of telling what condition of particular

133
00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:37,680
Speaker 1: book is in. But such methods like pH analysis or

134
00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:42,000
Speaker 1: paper folding, infrared spectroscopy, they involve handling the book and

135
00:07:42,320 --> 00:07:46,160
Speaker 1: thus potentially damaging in the process. Right, Yeah, we get

136
00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:50,160
Speaker 1: oils from her hand on it, just you know, we're

137
00:07:50,240 --> 00:07:53,480
Speaker 1: rough on the material. Yeah, maybe a droplet of sweat

138
00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:59,000
Speaker 1: forms on your forehead and slow emotion this completely turns

139
00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:02,040
Speaker 1: it to dust, right, can you imagine? So what types

140
00:08:02,080 --> 00:08:03,920
Speaker 1: of paper do you stand the test of time if

141
00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:07,040
Speaker 1: it's not cellulous like we talked about before. Well, actually,

142
00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:10,640
Speaker 1: one of the best examples of durable paper you can

143
00:08:10,920 --> 00:08:14,680
Speaker 1: you can find in your wallet. Uh, and that's currency. Currency.

144
00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:19,200
Speaker 1: Paper is actually actually not paper in a traditional sense. Uh.

145
00:08:19,240 --> 00:08:22,240
Speaker 1: There're no wood fibers or starch in it. Uh. Instead

146
00:08:22,320 --> 00:08:24,800
Speaker 1: it's a blend of cotton and linen fibers, you know,

147
00:08:24,840 --> 00:08:29,120
Speaker 1: pressed together and uh and uh and blended into this

148
00:08:29,640 --> 00:08:32,920
Speaker 1: really you know, firm parchment that has to be handled

149
00:08:32,960 --> 00:08:36,600
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. Um. And of course some of

150
00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:40,120
Speaker 1: some of our oldest written texts are not on paper

151
00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:43,679
Speaker 1: at all. For instance, Uh, we found uh eight six

152
00:08:43,760 --> 00:08:47,480
Speaker 1: hundred year old tortoise shells in China that they're writing.

153
00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:51,600
Speaker 1: There in the Indus Valley, they found uh five thousand,

154
00:08:51,600 --> 00:08:56,400
Speaker 1: five hundred year old pottery jars. So you know, maybe, uh,

155
00:08:56,679 --> 00:08:58,960
Speaker 1: maybe paper isn't the way to go or the the

156
00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:03,160
Speaker 1: kindle spottery jars. So you like to write in your

157
00:09:03,160 --> 00:09:05,920
Speaker 1: free time, right, I try and fit it in. So

158
00:09:06,080 --> 00:09:07,960
Speaker 1: after doing this podcast, what are you going to do

159
00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:10,960
Speaker 1: to ensure that your your words survived? Well? I was

160
00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:14,200
Speaker 1: thinking about the tortoise shells, but that does sound kind

161
00:09:14,200 --> 00:09:17,480
Speaker 1: of beautiful to me, but also cruel. I don't only

162
00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:22,200
Speaker 1: want a bunch of turtles to die, so that ecocentric there,

163
00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:24,120
Speaker 1: I suppose. Yeah, I mean unless I guess you put

164
00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:26,440
Speaker 1: on the outside of the turtle while it's alive. But

165
00:09:26,520 --> 00:09:28,600
Speaker 1: then it's like, how are you gonna, you know, tell

166
00:09:28,640 --> 00:09:31,280
Speaker 1: people where to pick up your your new short story

167
00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:33,480
Speaker 1: or book. You know, well, you can set the turtle

168
00:09:33,520 --> 00:09:36,320
Speaker 1: on a course. You know, you can train the turtle

169
00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:38,679
Speaker 1: to to go on a certain course so that people

170
00:09:39,120 --> 00:09:42,040
Speaker 1: can enjoy your reading. You know, you could train the turtle.

171
00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:44,040
Speaker 1: That's that's an extra step. I'd hate to have to

172
00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:47,080
Speaker 1: take his turtle training on top of of writing and

173
00:09:47,240 --> 00:09:49,920
Speaker 1: editing and all. So I've got to throw that one out.

174
00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:52,760
Speaker 1: And I'm not a big fan. I mean, the Internet's awesome,

175
00:09:52,840 --> 00:09:55,440
Speaker 1: but there's a part of me that it thinks in

176
00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:57,600
Speaker 1: another part that kind of hopes that it won't last forever.

177
00:09:57,800 --> 00:10:00,800
Speaker 1: So really, yeah, I don't know, there's just I don't

178
00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:04,160
Speaker 1: know the Internet. It's just kind of tacky. Sorry Internet.

179
00:10:04,720 --> 00:10:08,080
Speaker 1: So actually, um, for these reasons, I've chose to go

180
00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:10,400
Speaker 1: chosen to go in a different direction. Uh and and

181
00:10:10,520 --> 00:10:12,959
Speaker 1: uh that's why you can look for my, uh my

182
00:10:13,160 --> 00:10:17,320
Speaker 1: latest collection of short stories. Um wherever a your vedic

183
00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:21,800
Speaker 1: palm leaf manuscripts are sold. Great thanks for Robert and uh,

184
00:10:21,840 --> 00:10:23,520
Speaker 1: if you'd like to tell us about your adventures with

185
00:10:23,559 --> 00:10:28,520
Speaker 1: book sniffing or home libraries or book huffing. I wonder

186
00:10:28,559 --> 00:10:31,559
Speaker 1: if anybody actually huffs books. Yeah, send us an email.

187
00:10:31,600 --> 00:10:33,880
Speaker 1: It's signed stuff at how stuff works dot com. Or

188
00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:36,240
Speaker 1: you can always go read about home libraries, books and

189
00:10:36,440 --> 00:10:39,040
Speaker 1: lots more. Yeah, and while you're at and come check

190
00:10:39,040 --> 00:10:42,280
Speaker 1: out the blogs where you know we updated several times

191
00:10:42,520 --> 00:10:47,000
Speaker 1: per week with whatever our current scientific thoughts are. I

192
00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:49,200
Speaker 1: think there's one on the p funk mothership there is.

193
00:10:49,480 --> 00:10:53,000
Speaker 1: All right, that's all we got. Thanks for listening, guys.

194
00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:02,800
Speaker 1: For more on thiss and thousands of other topics, visit

195
00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:06,240
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,

196
00:11:06,520 --> 00:11:08,720
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot

197
00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:09,480
Speaker 1: com home page