WEBVTT - Heavy Water 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.520 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.640 My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.640 today I wanted to start off by talking about something 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:22.119 that may have come up in the past on the 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.200 show before. I don't quite remember, but I don't think 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:27.960 we've ever gone into great detail on it. So there 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:32.360 is this popular chemistry prank that that goes something like this. 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:36.040 You you approach somebody with a petition or a public 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.519 service announcement. Uh. And if I could do the Donald 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.159 pleasants like Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water Voice, I 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:44.720 would do this. But just imagine it. Can you imagine 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:47.720 I'm Donald Pleasant saying this to you? What if I 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:51.080 told you there was a household chemical present in more 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:55.000 than of homes in America which is used as an 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:59.200 an ingredient in everything from packaged foods to cleaning products 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.600 to children's medicine. And yet this chemical has been proven 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.160 to cause severe burns to the skin and mouth, can 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.959 be lethal if it's inhaled, and is the primary constituent 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:14.320 in acid rain. According to historical sources, this was the 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:17.679 main ingredient in the poison that Socrates drank to commit 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.520 suicide after his trial and Athens. It's so corrosive that 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.720 it can eat holes in solid iron, and yet we 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.560 expose our bodies to this chemical every time we have 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.600 a cup of tea or take a shower. Studies have 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.440 found that trace amounts of this compound linger in our 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:37.560 decomposing bodies, even for months after we die. It is 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.199 so addictive that the average human cannot at this point 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.360 survive more than a few days without receiving a dose. 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.600 This chemical is called dihydrogen monoxide, and it has already 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.840 been found in nearly every natural environment on Earth, and 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:53.760 if we don't ban it soon, there will not be 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.880 a single patch of the planet left uncontaminated. Now, there 0:01:57.920 --> 0:01:59.840 are million versions of this, but a lot of them 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.760 will ask people to kind of sign on and be like, oh, yeah, 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:04.720 you know, we've got to get this thing out of 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:06.720 our out of our homes and all that. Yeah, because 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:08.840 then it's clearly we're talking about something that's a threat 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:13.440 to the children, uh, to America, to life as we 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.000 know it. And it's it's funny because when I think 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.600 about this prank, so obviously the joke is that what 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.639 it's talking about is water. And so it's a joke 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.320 that works on several levels. For one, it's an example 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:29.480 of how even technically true statements can be extremely misleading 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.640 without being put in the proper context. Uh. And I 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.080 think it's also just used to sometimes suggest that people 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.480 should get like better education and chemistry in the natural sciences, 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.320 which sure, you know, fair enough, I also wish I 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:46.000 was better educated in chemistry. But I think it's on 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.320 the other side it it does take advantage of something 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:55.519 that is a totally justified anxiety that people have about 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:59.520 chemistry in the natural world and especially the modern world, 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.400 because when we make decisions about deadly risks about physical 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.640 cause and effect, you know, our intuitions and our knowledge 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.560 about how things work are are strongly biased towards perceiving 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.120 physical threats within what you might call like the Newtonian 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:19.040 physical domain, like threats from big moving objects somewhere between 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.640 the size of a pebble and a landslide. But especially 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.120 since the Industrial Revolution, the world is also full of 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:29.880 chemical threats that are really somewhat invisible in this respect, 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.160 like they don't really show up on the Newtonian physical domain. 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.960 And so we've got some natural defenses against chemical threats 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.480 like this. We've got our senses of taste and smell, 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:44.280 and we have some aversion reactions in like our digestive 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.640 system or respiration system. Like sometimes you detect a noxious 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.720 chemical and you bar where you start coughing or something. 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:54.160 Our our bodies can can help detect and reject things. 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:56.839 But we all know by this point that there are 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:01.880 in fact extremely dangerous chemicals that are essentially undetectable to 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:06.000 our senses, either because they have no strong smell or taste, 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.920 or the relevant doses are so tiny that we wouldn't 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.720 notice them before it's too late, or because maybe they 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:15.360 don't have an effect until they've had until you've had 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:19.160 extreme repeated exposure or consumed the lots of chemicals we're 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.640 gonna be talking about one of the latter today, and 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:23.400 so this is the kind of compound that we're going 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:27.320 to be getting into. A chemical that has proven fascinating 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:33.080 and very useful, but also strangely dangerous depending on the context. 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.520 A sort of Dopple gang or of water. The wetness 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.080 of the shadow realm. Today, I wanted to talk about 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.320 heavy water, and it is heavy, literally heavy but I 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.159 want to want to say this is not to be 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.360 confused with hardwater. Uh So, if you're out there listening, 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.240 we're talking about heavy water, not hardwater. Hard water is 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.760 just water with high mineral content. Oh is that what 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.320 it is? I think I literally didn't know that. Yeah, 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:57.120 this is the one that, like, you know, they can 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:59.640 can mess with how your soap SuDS up, that sort 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.320 of thing. Oh okay. Uh though some people like it 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:04.600 because it makes their hair look good, right or at 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.280 least yeah, I don't know. It's one of those things. 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:09.680 I don't have a lot of experience with it or 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.960 maybe really even knowledge of of hard water. So when 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.360 you brought up this topic, I initially thought you were 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:19.479 talking about doing, uh an episode or episodes about hard water. 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.200 But it's not hard water. Again heavy water. The washers 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.520 in your shower will really rust after this episode. Alright, 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:28.080 So for the rest of the episode, we're going to 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.400 discuss a few things that that we found interesting about 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.200 heavy water, its role in the natural world and history, 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:36.279 and maybe the question of whether you should drink it. 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.520 Um So at the molecular level, as we all know, 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:44.120 regular water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:48.479 oxygen atom. It's H two O, and this trifled structure 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.599 makes for a really amazing and powerful polar molecule that 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.520 acts as kind of master solvent that makes life itself possible. 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.240 Every cell in your body depends on the particular kular 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.560 chemical properties of this molecule. Without H two O, nothing 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:08.039 in the organic world works. Now. Heavy water is an 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:12.320 alternative form of the same molecule which relies on a 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:16.960 different isotope of the hydrogen atom, known as deuterium. A 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.640 normal hydrogen atom also known as protium, just to distinguish 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.280 it from deuterium, is composed of two sub atomic particles. 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:26.480 So it's got a nucleus that is just one single 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.719 proton and nothing else that has a positive charge, and 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.880 then orbiting that it's got one single electron which has 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:37.480 a negative charge. Deuterium adds a third element to the mix. 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.880 It adds a single neutron to the nucleus of the 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.599 hydrogen atom. Uh. Now, again, this makes it an isotope 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:47.560 of hydrogen, and isotope is a is a version of 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.560 an atom that has a different than usual number of 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:54.400 neutrons in the nucleus, and a new a neutron doesn't 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.040 have a charge, but it does have mass, so an 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.800 atom of deterium is almost twice as heavy as an 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:04.800 a time of ordinary hydrogen. Deuterium is a stable isotope, 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.120 and it is found in nature. It's not something that's 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.240 just a product of the Industrial Revolution or of nuclear 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.680 reactors or something like that. It's found all throughout water 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.480 in the Solar System, it's found all throughout Earth's oceans. 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:21.120 Roughly one out of every sixty hydrogen atoms in the 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:26.200 ocean is actually deuterium. So if deuterium occurs in nature, 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:28.680 you might wonder, well, where does it come from? With 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.760 most other elements, you can trace their origin to some 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:36.240 form of nucleosynthesis within stars or during high energy events 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:40.600 like supernova. However, almost all of the deuterium found in 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.200 nature is a leftover product of the Big Bang. These 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:48.000 atomic nuclei are not generated by stars, or when they are, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.360 they're usually destroyed soon after they're created. They've been the 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.480 way they are for thirteen point eight billion years, and 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:57.720 on Earth, one major place to find hydrogen is bound 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:02.840 up in water molecules. So in most ways, deuterium behaves 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:07.360 chemically the same as ordinary hydrogen, so deterium gets locked 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.840 up into water molecules, uh, and it just floats around 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.520 there in the ocean. The technical name for a water 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:18.240 molecule with deuterium in place of hydrogen is deuterium oxide 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:20.200 or D two oh. So if you ever seen D 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.560 two oh written out, that means heavy water water molecule 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:27.400 with deuterium instead of regular hydrogen. It's also sometimes called 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:32.800 deuterated water, but more commonly it's just known as heavy water. Now, 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.480 as I've said, in many ways, deuterium behaves just like 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.600 protium hydrogen, and so in many ways heavy water blends 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:43.080 in with and behaves like regular water, but not in 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.199 every way. And a lot of what we're gonna be 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.400 doing in this episode is exploring some of the fascinating 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:52.680 and historically relevant and weird differences between regular water and 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:56.320 heavy water. That's right. So one good place to start 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.520 here and that the history of the discovery of heavy 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.640 water is to go back to nineteen That's when chemist 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.840 Author Lamb and Richard Lean of New York University tried 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.839 to define the density of pure water and they kept 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.560 getting varying results, which ultimately paved the road for the 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.840 discovery of isotopes. That's variant those are variants of particular 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.800 chemical elements due to differences in neutrons. And then also 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.199 the discovery of heavy water itself. And this is key 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.520 because because again heavy water isn't something that's you know, 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.320 entirely man made or anything like that. It's in water. 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:33.520 It just constitutes one part in four thousand, five hundred. Yes, 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.400 that that's correct. Now about that number. I was wondering 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.240 about the ratios here because I saw I've seen that 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.600 that ratio one ind and I've also seen the ratio 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.800 of one out of every sixty four hundred UM. Like. 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:50.840 For example, of one important publication on the evidence for 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:54.920 the existence of heavy hydrogen back in one which was 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.040 published in the journal Physical Review, was a letter by 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:02.520 the American chemist Harold C. Yuri which pegged deuterium as 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:06.480 one out of every hydrogen atoms. But I've also seen 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.600 it published elsewhere that it's it's now thought that at 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.520 least one out of every sixty four D or I 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:15.679 think more more like sixty twenty or sixty four fifty 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:19.960 water molecules in Earth's ocean are heavy water UM. So 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.600 I don't know if those numbers represents some kind of 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.400 conflict or if one represents a genuine difference in what 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.480 you'd find in the water molecules in the ocean versus 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:31.240 what you'd find just in hydrogen. More broadly, I'm not 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.000 quite sure about that, but the point either way is 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.200 that UH is that deuterium is found in nature but 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.160 only in a in a very small proportion of hydrogen. 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:42.640 And thus heavy water is found in nature but only 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.440 in a very small proportion. It's one out of thousands 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:47.920 of molecules. Yeah. So it's kind of like if we 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.920 had like a cash only society and you had some 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:55.040 heavy nickels, they're right where the nickel itself like it's 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:57.520 it's not it's not worth more, it's not. It's still 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.480 just worth five cents, and factors into the figuring that way. 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.920 But you can imagine scenarios where extra heavy nickels in enough. 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.160 Uh you know, if there are enough of them within 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.720 a larger amount of nickels, that could have an impact 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.319 on things, etcetera. Or if you get into a situation 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:15.679 sort of this will discuss where people are like, oh man, 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:17.600 these heavy nickels are great, I've got to get more 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.200 of them. Can I like syth them out of the 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:24.719 existing Uh, cash population of the existing world nickels. Can 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:29.000 I make normal nickels into heavy nickels, etcetera. That's very good, Yeah, 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.959 and you could. I can imagine you'd run into unforeseen 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.520 problems if you suddenly decided you wanted to base your 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:38.240 entire economy on heavy nickels, or I don't know, maybe 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.800 a third of your economy. Uh, that'll tie into something 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.439 we get into in a minute. So I mentioned him 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:47.600 just a minute ago, that the American chemist Harold c Uri. 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:50.199 I hope I'm saying his name right, you are, e 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.400 y Uh. He's a very important figure in the discovery 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.520 of deuterium. He usually gets credit along with his collaborators 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:01.120 for proving the existence of deuterium through spectral copic experiments 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:03.720 in nineteen thirty one, and he received the Nobel Prize 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.800 for his discovery in nineteen thirty four. But I thought 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:09.959 it would be useful to just look at a couple 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.480 of the physical properties of heavy water. So one of 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.520 the key differences between heavy water and ordinary water is 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:22.240 that heavy water is literally heavier because of the extra 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.719 neutrons in the deuterium. You remember, a deuterium atom is 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.240 almost twice as heavy as a regular hydrogen atom. Because 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.240 of that D two oh is about ten percent heavier 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.720 than an equal quantity of regular water. And you might wonder, 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.200 a wait a minute, why only ten percent heavier rather 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:42.240 than double. The way We'll remember, oxygen with eight protons 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.520 and eight neutrons makes up the bulk of the mass 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.439 of a normal water molecule. It's got oxygen and then 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.240 the lighter hydrogen atom. So you're only increasing the weight 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.000 of UH two of the three atoms and the two 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.320 smaller ones in the water molecule. So so it's ten 0:12:56.360 --> 0:13:00.440 percent heavier. And this results in some very interesting party 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.240 trick potential. For example, regular ice always floats in water, 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:08.439 but with deuterium, if you make a heavy water ice cube, 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:10.959 it will sink in water because it's got a greater 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.360 density than the surrounding water. Also, heavy water is more 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.640 viscous than regular water. It's a little bit uh it's 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.880 gonna be a little bit more like a like a jelly, 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.320 and maybe not to a you know, physically perceptible extent 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:25.760 if you were to hold it in your hands, but 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.920 it is more viscous, which would probably have measurable effects 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:32.600 if say the oceans were entirely made of deuterium. Yes, 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.800 and this is this is a great question that that 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:37.600 had been asked on the Internet already. I think it 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:41.360 originally showed up in as a Cora question, Oh what 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:43.559 would the ocean be like if it was made out 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.760 of heavy water? And uh and is is sometimes the 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:51.280 case on Cora. You had a really insightful answer pop up, 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.600 this one from Josh Velson, chemical engineering consultant for bio 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.559 and petro chemicals, and it it was such a neat 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.880 answer that it was actually featured on Slate as well. Uh, 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.040 So I recommend checking that out. But but I want 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.319 to touch on some of the main point that Nelson makes, 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.160 and I want to stress this would be if there 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:13.040 is a magical instant change, you know, like snap your fingers. Now, 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.320 our oceans are just all heavy water. So it's not 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.600 a realistic scenario, but it's one of those thought experiment 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:23.560 scenarios that I think helps to underline what we're talking 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.280 about here with heavy water and how it affects It 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.880 would affect you know, various systems. So, first of all, 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.640 since any given portion of the water out there in 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:37.120 the oceans would be ten point six percent heavier, Velson 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.360 says that anything swimming outside of its pressure zone would 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:44.000 basically be instantly crushed. Now we've discussed on the show before. However, 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.640 you take certain deep sea organisms and you bring them 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.120 up into shallower waters, you have some exploding effects that 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:52.560 take place. And likewise, if you take something from shallower 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:54.640 waters and plunge it down into the depths, there can 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.480 be a crushing scenario. But this just means everything, uh 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:01.520 that these sort of things would be, uh, are more exaggerated. Yeah, 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:03.920 I didn't even consider this. But so if the ocean 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:07.800 is suddenly about ten percent heavier at the molecular level, 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:10.800 the pressure at the bottom of the ocean would also 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.120 be a lot higher. So so you're suddenly down there 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:16.880 and it's like somebody's just like put an extra backpack 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:22.200 on you. Yeah. Absolutely. Also, Velson says that everything floating 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.920 in the ocean would displace more mass, so ships would 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.080 need extra ballast to stay at the same level in 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.800 a heavy water ocean. And then this is interesting, Velson writes, quote, 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.760 a large portion of the oceans would freeze instantly due 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.400 to a higher freezing point. This would release a lot 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.080 of heat into the atmosphere in the polar regions, causing 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.760 a massive imbalance and resulting in some pretty spectacular polar 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.320 cyclones unquote. Well, and then on top of this, the 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.480 mass of the planet would change, This would alter the 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.920 Moon's orbit, and basically it would just mess with weather 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:55.800 and climate in a major way, resulting in earthquakes, tidal way, 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.240 it's rising sea levels. But of course, to change the 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.040 ocean is to change life as well. So we'll come 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.520 back to this and I'll come back to Nelson's points 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:13.360 in a debt. Thank alright. So I know what you 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:16.040 out there are already wondering, Should I drink it? Heavy water? 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:18.320 Should I? Should I? You know, get a big bucket 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.720 of it and just gulp, gulp, gulp. It sounds like 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:25.120 the the ultimate metal head like bottled water, right, heavy water? 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:27.600 Oh yeah, they would sell it at the metal shows. 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:31.120 That's really good. So there's actually a great article about 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.800 the history of drinking heavy water in the journal Nature 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:39.320 Chemistry by the American chemist Michelle Francel. We actually quoted 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.920 a piece by her, uh at some point in the 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.080 past year, because she wrote a thing that we did 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.200 for Cupid's Lead and Narrow. That was it. She wrote 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.400 an article about the history of sugar of lead as 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:54.480 it was used in ancient Rome. That was really good. 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:56.960 But this piece is called The Weight of Water. So 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.880 it's published in Nature Chemistry in twenty nineteen. So she 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:04.280 begins the story in nineteen thirteen talking about when the 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:09.080 Hungarian chemist George to Heavis She was visiting the lab 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:13.760 of Ernest Rutherford in Manchester, England. Now, eventually both of 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:17.320 these scientists would have Nobel Prizes for their discoveries, but 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.040 at this point Rutherford was the was the senior scientist, 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.639 and Heavis she was more of a young student, you know. 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.360 He was still learned in the ropes. And Rutherford had 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:31.080 given Heavis she a task here. He wanted to get 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.119 him to take a quantity of lead and find a 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.800 way to chemically isolate all of the radioactive atoms of 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.920 what was then known as radium D from the lead 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.400 in this sample. And Heavis she was unable to find 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.920 a way to do this because what they were calling 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.560 radium D was actually not radium, but a radioactive isotope 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:52.760 of lead that is now known as lead to ten. 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.960 But in the process of working on this problem that 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.879 he never ended up solving, he is She realized a 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:03.520 potentially very interesting implication of this failure. When a sample 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:08.920 contains a radioisotope, a radioactive atom within a massive other atoms, 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:13.120 you can use these radioactive atoms to track the movement 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:17.679 of a chemical through a biological system. So, for example, 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.680 if you're curious how lead in the soil is taken 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.240 up by bean plants and then distributed around the plant's body, 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.359 you can spike the soil with radioactive isotopes of lead, 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.040 so the plant will take them up because they're still lead, 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.240 it will treat them the way it normally treats lead, 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.919 but because they're radioactive, they're radioisotopes, you can track what 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.119 the plant is doing them with them. You can use 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:44.040 equipment to track exactly how these isotopes are metabolized through 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:47.359 the roots, the stem, the leaves, and you can also 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.800 use these radioactive tracers to track the absorption and elimination 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:56.600 of elements in animal bodies. So you could find out, well, 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.439 when when somebody ingests lead, does the body immediately purge 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.199 it or does the lead stick around? How long does 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:05.679 it take the body to purge it? Where does it 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.080 go in the body. And it turns out you can 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.520 use radioactive tracers to find out lots of things about 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:13.960 what's going on in the body, not just in basic 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:18.400 biological research, but actually in medicine. Radioactive tracers are used 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:20.720 in medicine all the time. Now Here, I wanted to 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.800 mention a couple of anecdotes that came across about heavys 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.280 She that are really interesting. He seems like a kind 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.879 of mythic hero in a way, a sort of Romulus 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.399 or Gilgamesh here, or maybe we should say Bill Gamesh, 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.760 uh Bill Gamesh to heav is She. So there were 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.000 a couple of the most popular stories about his life 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.000 that that I I couldn't pass up mentioning. The first 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.960 one I found recounted in a short historical article in 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:46.440 the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology, and it concerns how heavy 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.080 she first demonstrated that tracer principle that I was just 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:52.480 talking about. So this is by Strauss at all, uh 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:57.919 from and the authors here talk about while heaves She 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:02.080 was working in Manchester in lab in the early nineteen tens, 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:04.920 he was living at a boarding house that had been 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:08.000 recommended to him by Rutherford. By the way, so his 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:10.320 boss is like, hey live in this place, and apparently 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:13.960 it was just miserable there, he is. She started noticing 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:18.240 that he didn't just hate his lodgings, he really hated 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.880 the food at his boarding house. He had a sensitive stomach, 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:26.280 he suffered from indigestion, and he started to suspect something 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.880 was going on. What he thought was happening was that, uh, 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.439 now this is an old school boarding house, right, so 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:34.560 they give you not just a bed, but a bed 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:37.760 and your daily meals. And he started to suspect that 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:42.359 his landlady was recycling food. So you know, she makes 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.640 you a great R. B. Frost and then you eat 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:47.359 a little bit of it and you don't finish it. 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.199 There's some still on your plate, he is. She suspected 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.800 that the landlady was just taking whatever you couldn't finish 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.159 off of your plate and then taking it back to 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:58.760 the kitchen and then mixing it up and serving it 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.760 again in some disgyised form the next day. Well, that's 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:06.719 just being a good mom. You know. You can appreciate, 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.520 you know, of refraining from food waste here. But he is. 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:11.320 She was not happy with it because I think the 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.439 problem was the beef was already suffering from freshness problems 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.520 and was was being recycled to the point of possible 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:24.680 food poisoning. So at some point, uh he called. He 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:28.359 brought this up with his landlady to read from the 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.400 article here quote. His suggestion that she served freshly prepared 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.200 meat more than once a week was met with indignation. 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:38.920 How could he, she insisted, accuse her of serving anything 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.439 but the freshest of ingredients. Uh, so have is? She 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:44.840 decided to put this claim to the test using a 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.720 really amazing method, in fact, using some of the exact 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:50.919 same techniques that he had just been discovering recently in 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:55.600 Rutherford's lab that we were just talking about. So one Sunday, 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:58.240 when he is she had eaten as much as he could, 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:01.600 he secretly spiked the food left on his plate with 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:04.880 a number of radioactive isotopes. And I'm just gonna read 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:07.720 from the article here quote. A few days later, the 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:11.480 electroscope he smuggled into the dining room revealed the presence 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:17.160 of the tracer radioactive HASH. Confronted with the irrefutable evidence, 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.480 all the landlady could do was exclaim, this is magic. 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:25.359 The first radio tracer investigation had successfully followed leftover meat 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:28.760