Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry. This is Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know, the Sick Edition, the annual sick Edition.
Speaker 1: You aren't well, my friend. No. And it really stinks
Speaker 1: to Chuck because, like I like to think that I
Speaker 1: take pretty good care of myself, so to be able
Speaker 1: to be felled not once, but twice in just a
Speaker 1: few months by some stupid bug, it's irritating to me.
Speaker 1: I know, you get mad every time he gets sick, though,
Speaker 1: just so you know I do. I hadn't noticed that. Actually,
Speaker 1: uh my wife is the same way. Well it's not fun,
Speaker 1: I know, but she gets like kind of yeah. You
Speaker 1: both get a little angry, like why did this happen
Speaker 1: to me? I get more pitiful, like, oh, somebody helped me.
Speaker 1: Oh I've got going on too. So does that mean
Speaker 1: people have the next like eight episodes to look forward to?
Speaker 1: This or no? No, man, no way, this is it.
Speaker 1: This is it right here. I think actually yesterday might
Speaker 1: have been the worst day. Oh well good, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean today was a close second. But we'll find out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is spad. I gotta be a pro man, I
Speaker 1: gotta I gotta get well, the show must go on
Speaker 1: as so today, Chuck Charles, we're talking elastic. Yeah, did
Speaker 1: you know much about this? No? I thought this is
Speaker 1: actually super interesting and it also contained to uh, what
Speaker 1: we like to call um dinner party factoids that people
Speaker 1: can bust out. We need a jingle that says that
Speaker 1: so we can play it when when it comes up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's lots of cool stuff in here, and
Speaker 1: please don't correct us on factoid because oh yeah, man,
Speaker 1: that's so two thousand, nine eleven. Maybe, but yeah, two
Speaker 1: really cool facts in here that I think people can
Speaker 1: just keep in their hip pocket. Okay, are you good?
Speaker 1: So until we get a jingle made, I'll bet NOL
Speaker 1: will make one for us. But until we do, maybe
Speaker 1: you should you want to practice one? Um, jeez, what's
Speaker 1: a good dinner party jingle? It should It should be
Speaker 1: like wine glasses and plates and forks and things clinking right,
Speaker 1: and then maybe like this Orwellian voice going dinner party
Speaker 1: fact toward. Yeah. Here we are eight years in, still evolving. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a work in progress. Okay, So we're talking elastic Chuck.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that much about it either. In this
Speaker 1: article written by one William Harris, yeah it is. It
Speaker 1: makes a pretty good point um that it's just one
Speaker 1: of those things, and specifically say, like a rubber band,
Speaker 1: you just kind of think it's always been around, and
Speaker 1: you know you've always you just think, like you know,
Speaker 1: elastic waistbands have been around for eons. It's basically the
Speaker 1: second thing discovered after fire, is what I've always thought
Speaker 1: until today, since Adam first popped Eve's bra strap, it's
Speaker 1: been around. Yeah, you'd think that's actually not the case
Speaker 1: at all. It's a elastic itself. And elastic, we should say,
Speaker 1: is basically any rubber, natural or synthetic, uh thread woven
Speaker 1: with another kind of fabric usually like say cotton or
Speaker 1: nylon or whatever that produces a stretchy fabric that's elastic. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I think a lot of people don't even realize
Speaker 1: if they took their underwear waistband, don't do this because
Speaker 1: then you ruined it. But maybe if you have an
Speaker 1: old pair, if you just kind of cut it, you
Speaker 1: would see these these little elastic threads. It's all it is, Yes,
Speaker 1: you little rubber bands or or you could go to
Speaker 1: like a thrift store or something by a pair and
Speaker 1: then cut those If you're buying a thrift store underwear,
Speaker 1: then I don't know, I wouldn't recommend that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think they even sell it. Actually they do. We're
Speaker 1: really ye used underwear. Yes, wow, so skid free, that's probably.
Speaker 1: That's gotta be one of the more difficult tasks. It's
Speaker 1: like getting those things just prepared for resale, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be unprepared for resale duty to
Speaker 1: day anyway, when you do, if you cut it open,
Speaker 1: if you look very closely, have you ever done this?
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen like an elastic waistband come come
Speaker 1: loose as you've got If you look really closely, you
Speaker 1: can be like going to like the little threads that
Speaker 1: are sticking out, because some just hang limp and loose.
Speaker 1: That's cotton. Nobody cares about that. But the ones that
Speaker 1: are just kind of still sticking out a little bit
Speaker 1: and you can throw them though. That's the that's the
Speaker 1: rubber or um natural or synthetic rubber that that gives
Speaker 1: that elastic it's stretchiness. And again it's a fairly recent invention,
Speaker 1: especially if you're talking about, um, waste bands for underpants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and especially if you're talking about elastic that really kind
Speaker 1: of worked. There were two sort of dives into making elastic,
Speaker 1: and one quite a long time ago and then one
Speaker 1: more recently that obviously worked much better. And basically the
Speaker 1: reason it worked much more better more recently is better
Speaker 1: techniques to making rubber and then better techniques changing that
Speaker 1: rubber into something that you could actually use, like in
Speaker 1: a wasteband right exactly, but we've known about rubber for
Speaker 1: a very long time since well I should say those
Speaker 1: of us in the West have known about it for
Speaker 1: a very long time. Those indigenous peoples of the Amazon
Speaker 1: have known about it even longer. But I interrupted. You
Speaker 1: were talking about waste bands. Oh okay, so yeah, so
Speaker 1: with with underwear waste bands in particular, right, Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: apparently humans have felt shame uh for thousands of years
Speaker 1: because the oldest pair of underwear, identifiable underwear are seven
Speaker 1: thousand years old and he bought him at Goodwill right
Speaker 1: last week. So the these this underwear originally, well, even
Speaker 1: before that, I should say, um, there was something called
Speaker 1: breech cloth and that was just basically strips of leather
Speaker 1: that just kind of hung down and coverage junk maybe
Speaker 1: kept the gnats out that kind of thing, right, or
Speaker 1: kept them in. Yeah, that was your things probably catch
Speaker 1: the um. And those are even older than the first underwear,
Speaker 1: which would be considered a loin cloth, of course, which
Speaker 1: is basically that. And there are loincloths that are at
Speaker 1: least five thousand years or seven thousand years old, and um,
Speaker 1: they are basically in uh linen diaper that is folded
Speaker 1: in a certain way, worn by grown ups, including very famously,
Speaker 1: most recently Gandhi used to wear a loincloth everywhere. It
Speaker 1: was called the dati um. But it's a loincloth, no
Speaker 1: matter what you call it, that's right. So those stuck
Speaker 1: around for quite a while in the West, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't until basically the Middle Ages that someone said we
Speaker 1: can do better than this, Yeah, and they brought around
Speaker 1: these things that are that were much longer than a loincloth. Um,
Speaker 1: most of them kind of for my research, these braids
Speaker 1: be r A I E s went below the knee even. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were like a cross between a loincloth and jams. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sort of, Um, it says here that they were laced
Speaker 1: to the waist and legs, but um, there may be
Speaker 1: lace under the waist, but they're also generally kind of
Speaker 1: rolled over many times at the waist, I think to
Speaker 1: probably tighten it up a bit. Yeah, and everyone said, great,
Speaker 1: this is work. Yeah for a while, I'm happy with this,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, then it went a different way
Speaker 1: and we should do an entire episode just on course
Speaker 1: it's I know, there's a good article on the site
Speaker 1: on it, but um, after Braise, the the called the
Speaker 1: union suit was invented? What dinner party fact? Okay, there
Speaker 1: you go. I never knew. I thought it was called
Speaker 1: the union suit because it had something somewhere along the
Speaker 1: line to do with unions, but no, in fact, the
Speaker 1: word union suit. Now we know them as long John's,
Speaker 1: even though long Johns are generally two piece. The one
Speaker 1: piece union suit is called that because it is one piece.
Speaker 1: It is the union of a top and a bottom undergarment. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's right. It's a one piece long John with a
Speaker 1: flap in the bottom. They usually button all the way
Speaker 1: up front from the growing up to the neck. Do
Speaker 1: you have any of these? I'm wearing a couple of pair, right,
Speaker 1: now obviously you just can't see him because they're under
Speaker 1: my clothes. Do you really have some? No? I have
Speaker 1: Long John's. I've got this one called the Silkies that
Speaker 1: work really well. Yeah. Um, but I don't have a
Speaker 1: union suit. No, do you know I don't anymore? My
Speaker 1: brothers still Scott swears by the union suit. Um. I
Speaker 1: think he has the classic red and then of course
Speaker 1: they famously have like you said, the it's either called
Speaker 1: an access hatch. I've also seen them called a drop
Speaker 1: seat or a fireman's flap. Yeah, I saw that too.
Speaker 1: Where you can see that, Yeah, where you can unbutton
Speaker 1: your you know, because generally you're wearing this out in
Speaker 1: the cold, so you don't want to stripped down to
Speaker 1: the naked if you want to go pp or poopoo, right,
Speaker 1: so you just open the old access hatch and there
Speaker 1: you have it. Yeah. Now that see that to me
Speaker 1: makes sense, um in the nineteenth century when the union
Speaker 1: suit was invented. Today, though, it's like, I guess Scott
Speaker 1: just likes to add a little panic too when he
Speaker 1: has to tinkle, like having to get that flap open.
Speaker 1: I think he's just a classicist, not classicist, a who's
Speaker 1: someone who's into the classic things. Classicist. Okay, that sounds
Speaker 1: like he doesn't like poor people. That's a classist. Okay,
Speaker 1: that extra makes a big difference. Okay, he's a classicist
Speaker 1: then yeah, yeah, okay, so you should tell him this.
Speaker 1: Here's another little sub dinner party factoid. Union suits were
Speaker 1: originally invented for women from what I understand, all right,
Speaker 1: and they were invented in response to the corset craze
Speaker 1: because apparently courses were so out of hand. It was
Speaker 1: basically like remember our footbinding episode. So but that's basically
Speaker 1: what women in Europe and the United States, in the
Speaker 1: western countries were doing with corsets. They were engaging in
Speaker 1: what was amounted to footbinding, but with their waists, they
Speaker 1: were they were literally deforming themselves, uh, using corsets. And
Speaker 1: and there was a Reformation movement against the corset and
Speaker 1: against that look and what it's fall and ultimately was
Speaker 1: the union suit, which were so great that men were like,
Speaker 1: these are ours, now, yeah, we should do one. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's I assume that they did this because men were like,
Speaker 1: no more of an hour glass. Yeah and yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that's where the Reformation came out of like,
Speaker 1: shut up, man, do you have any like? We're disfigured
Speaker 1: now thanks to you idiots. Uh well, I hate to
Speaker 1: pack another dinner party fact right next to the other one,
Speaker 1: but that's kind of where we are. So my second
Speaker 1: factoid that you should bring up next time you're among
Speaker 1: friends or next time you see an injured friend perhaps
Speaker 1: is if they're using an AS bandage, ask them what
Speaker 1: it stands for and they'll say, uh, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: But it, in fact is an an acronym. Correct, yes
Speaker 1: it is, And what does it stand for? All cotton, elastic, ace,
Speaker 1: all shot an elastic bandage. I never knew that until
Speaker 1: today and it's been around since en apparently that the
Speaker 1: three M company introduced it. Amazing um. And so so okay,
Speaker 1: you've got an ACE bandage, which is essentially, uh, an
Speaker 1: elastic waste band used to to keep Shack's elbow in place?
Speaker 1: Right Seaquille O'Neil? Yeah, all right, um, what you do
Speaker 1: you think? This is? What's what's crazy is uh? This
Speaker 1: is eighteen that that three M introduced the ACE, and
Speaker 1: it took until the forties before somebody thought, why don't
Speaker 1: we just like attach like underpants a lowincloth to that
Speaker 1: and as we pull it up, snap it in place
Speaker 1: and be like, oh baby, modal. I guess because I
Speaker 1: mean the only thing I can think of is because
Speaker 1: they were tying them and they disfigured. Well, that works
Speaker 1: pretty well for now, Yeah, I guess, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what That's what William Harris says. He says it
Speaker 1: was basically a sort of fashion inertia. That's everything was fine,
Speaker 1: Like you could use buttons or ties or something like
Speaker 1: that and keep it in play, so who cares. But
Speaker 1: it's just so much easier to pull up your underpants,
Speaker 1: snap them in place, and go, oh baby, that's right.
Speaker 1: But regardless of um, what you're talking about here, these fabrics,
Speaker 1: including elastic, are made with a loom. And if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen a loom at work, uh, or a at work, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing to watch into like, what the hell is
Speaker 1: this loom doing here? Well, not at your job, but
Speaker 1: you know, I know what you mean. Sure, have you
Speaker 1: ever seen a loom doing its thing? It's pretty impressive. Um,
Speaker 1: And what I mean it's really not that complicated either. Basically,
Speaker 1: all it's doing is allowing these lengthwise threads to be
Speaker 1: interlaced with with with wise threads the warp in the weft. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is not a bad band name, by the way. No,
Speaker 1: it's not especially like like um proto folk. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what it would be. That would be at
Speaker 1: least three guys wearing vests in that band. Uh that
Speaker 1: may have been woven with a loom, yeah right, you know,
Speaker 1: and maybe uh pocket watches with the chains totally, but
Speaker 1: that's all loom does. It goes you know, it allows
Speaker 1: this interlacing place, and that's what's happening with elastic. It
Speaker 1: just takes the place of the yarn, and it's it's uh,
Speaker 1: well part of the yarn, half of the yarn, or
Speaker 1: a portion of the yarn. Well, yeah, because in the
Speaker 1: in the case of a waist band, you're obviously introducing
Speaker 1: other fabrics as well, like cotton probably or something else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's the case with any elastic. Elastic is again
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a type of fiber woven together
Speaker 1: with some sort of rubber and to create this new stretchy,
Speaker 1: resilient fabric that's elastic. You want to take a nose
Speaker 1: blow break? Thank you, char All right, we're back. You're good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I should say also, like I keep hammering home what
Speaker 1: the definition of elastic is. Then we're talking about elastic waistbands,
Speaker 1: and that's what you think of typically. But again, any
Speaker 1: fabric with fiber of one type and rubber woven together
Speaker 1: is elastic, and that has tons and tons of uses.
Speaker 1: Like bungee cords are elastic, right, um uh, you know
Speaker 1: everything else that's like that is like elastic. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: in your socks a lot of times they will be
Speaker 1: I mean there's elastic, and you know we'll get to
Speaker 1: spandex later. Um, but that that stuff is in many, many,
Speaker 1: many garments that you wear today. You may realize that
Speaker 1: you have the stuff in your clothing, right, everything from
Speaker 1: the the neck of your shirt perhaps two um, maybe
Speaker 1: the tongue of your shoes. Sometimes. Yeah, fancy shoes will
Speaker 1: have elastic in them. Those jeans that you wear to
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving dinner, they have an elastic waste. Oh I know
Speaker 1: what jeans you're talking about. I don't wear those. They're
Speaker 1: pleaded jeans, which is just weird looking. I just wear
Speaker 1: button flies. Oh yeah, so you just go pop yep,
Speaker 1: pop a couple out. You're all set that's right. You
Speaker 1: can stuff a lot of extra bits in there. All right,
Speaker 1: So let's um, should we get in the way back
Speaker 1: machine a bit and go back to uh the than
Speaker 1: uh I guess the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries. Huh, all right,
Speaker 1: we're pirates. Oh man, I'm glad you brought that up.
Speaker 1: I read this really interesting article. I found it on
Speaker 1: I think on long form, but it's from the National
Speaker 1: Endowment for the Humanities like magazine website, and this guy
Speaker 1: wrote an article about how just thoroughly we misunderstand pirates
Speaker 1: and how our conception of pirates took place basically in
Speaker 1: one decade between seventeen I think twenty six and thirty six,
Speaker 1: and everything we think of as pirates is crammed into
Speaker 1: that ten years. Everything before and after it's totally different
Speaker 1: from our conception of pirates, and that they were actually
Speaker 1: very frequently they were just sailors who would go attack
Speaker 1: like a vessel in the Indian Ocean for one big
Speaker 1: haul and then flee to the colonies and buy a
Speaker 1: bunch of pigs and set up a farm and live
Speaker 1: as like upstanding citizens from that point on. And some
Speaker 1: of them were like lieutenant governors. Um. It was a
Speaker 1: really interesting article that I recommend tremendously. Obviously, did we
Speaker 1: not cover that in our Pirates episode eighteen years ago? No,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have known that this is a brand new article.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we just totally fell for everything. And apparently
Speaker 1: that's it's not we like, that's not our fault that
Speaker 1: the guy's article and idea is is pretty new, which
Speaker 1: is one of these things that historically everyone kind of
Speaker 1: bought in on. Interesting to me that way, you got it?
Speaker 1: All right, So we're talking pirates here, and not just
Speaker 1: pirates but sailors explorers basically anyone who got on a
Speaker 1: ship in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, early eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: and went exploring. Yeah, and uh they you know what
Speaker 1: they did was they would go off and find things
Speaker 1: that they didn't have in their home country. Say, oh
Speaker 1: my god, what is this? Let me bring it back
Speaker 1: Cinnamon member Cinnamon episode. Yeah, absolutely, that's a great example.
Speaker 1: But one of the things they found in Central and
Speaker 1: South America was what the French called uh cowchook and
Speaker 1: uh it's an Indian term meaning weeping wood. And it's
Speaker 1: basically what they're talking about are now, is it an
Speaker 1: actual rubber tree, ye behavior brazilansus the rubber tree which
Speaker 1: literally oozes milky latex. Yeah naturally. Yeah, and the the
Speaker 1: earliest sailors that encountered, um, the indigenous natives of the Amazon.
Speaker 1: We're like, what's that stuff you're like putting out on
Speaker 1: your outerwear and it's keeping the rain out? Or what's
Speaker 1: that weird flexible bottle you're you're using? And they explained
Speaker 1: it to him, and those guys said, awesome, you know
Speaker 1: who love this, my fellow Europeans. So they took it
Speaker 1: back with them and then they said, and what are
Speaker 1: those awesome drugs that you give us in liquid for
Speaker 1: him every night after dinner. They said, oh yeah, husky Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they went, we'll take some of that hump too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can we get it to go back of that stuff?
Speaker 1: Uh so yeah, they um, they were already used in
Speaker 1: the stuff because they found out when um, when it
Speaker 1: was dried out. Basically you could use it for a
Speaker 1: lot of things, like you said, bottles, shoes. It's just
Speaker 1: like this, you know, flexible rubbery material. Yeah right, so
Speaker 1: everything's hunky dory. This is a brand new thing. Europe
Speaker 1: starting to go crazy for it. But what they figured
Speaker 1: out pretty quickly was that you you couldn't do a
Speaker 1: lot with it, right, As we'll find out later. Um,
Speaker 1: rubber has a an unusual natural chemistry, and it just
Speaker 1: so happens that in the normal range of temperatures outside
Speaker 1: of the tropics, UM, it can tend to fall apart
Speaker 1: pretty easily. Uh. It has a narrow range of temperatures
Speaker 1: that that allow its usefulness. Right, So once you take
Speaker 1: it up to above the equator to say, like um,
Speaker 1: Europe or the United States or whatever. Uh, And they did. Um.
Speaker 1: They thought it was great. They thought it was terrific.
Speaker 1: People went crazy for it. Joseph Priestley actually came up
Speaker 1: with a dinner party factoy that I'm sure you'd love
Speaker 1: to share. Uh, which one, Oh you didn't. This wasn't
Speaker 1: one of them, now, I blew mine on the two.
Speaker 1: Joseph Priestley, who was very famous chemist, Jason Priestley's triple
Speaker 1: great uncle. We made that same joke in the nst episode.
Speaker 1: I'll bet we did, because yeah, that's where he popped up.
Speaker 1: That's right, Thanks for that. Oh and the nitrous oxide one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he got his hands on some of this because
Speaker 1: everybody's like he's the only chemist alive, right now, give
Speaker 1: it to him and he's like, you know what, this
Speaker 1: is amazing. I'm writing a pencil and then I'm rubbing
Speaker 1: this this latextkachuk um and it's it's rubbing out the
Speaker 1: pencil marks. And that gave rise to the term rubber.
Speaker 1: Oh that's how the name yeah came around. Yea, from rubbing,
Speaker 1: from rubbing out pencil marks, erasing ubber. Because remember the
Speaker 1: British love to change everything with an error on the end,
Speaker 1: like soccer is actually shortened association, uh football, like a
Speaker 1: soccer became soccer. There you go, rubber. That's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I screwed it past that one.
Speaker 1: I love that one. So it became a big deal,
Speaker 1: and everyone, um you know that had a little money
Speaker 1: to invest thought, hey, we can make a lot of
Speaker 1: dough with this stuff. We can transform that into something useful,
Speaker 1: like let's say in a garment. Um. But like you said,
Speaker 1: they had this problem that it was a very narrow
Speaker 1: range of temperatures where they could find it useful. So
Speaker 1: a couple of dudes uh started working on it. We've
Speaker 1: talked about Mr Charles Goodyear before we talked about him
Speaker 1: and I don't know, but I mean, definitely the good
Speaker 1: Year Blimps episode. But um, it seems like, do we
Speaker 1: not do one in vulcanization. I don't remember. I was
Speaker 1: looking up rubber or something because some of the stuff
Speaker 1: in the extra source that I said. She was kind
Speaker 1: of like talked about this before. Yeah, we haven't done
Speaker 1: this entire episode, have we? No? Definitely not. Okay, If so,
Speaker 1: then I really am just totally out of my mind.
Speaker 1: So good Year was one. He was working in the US,
Speaker 1: and then another guy named Thomas Hancock, an English inventor,
Speaker 1: partnered with a dude named Charles McIntosh and they started
Speaker 1: making raincoats basically, yeah, the Macintosh, the classic Macintosh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so Charles Thomas Hancock was already pretty well situated too,
Speaker 1: he was already working on it, right, But Charles Goodyear
Speaker 1: um had that breakthrough first. And it was actually a
Speaker 1: really big deal that he had this breakthrough because in
Speaker 1: the early eighteen thirties, Charles Goodyear basically became obsessed with
Speaker 1: cracking the rubber coat. He just knew it could be
Speaker 1: used to be made into something useful, right, And he
Speaker 1: became so personally committed to it. He all of his
Speaker 1: investors went away. He went into Debtor's prison so regularly
Speaker 1: he referred to it as his hotel. Um. Six of
Speaker 1: his twelve children didn't make it to adulthood. They were
Speaker 1: just that poor. They they had to sell their dinner wear.
Speaker 1: So he made plates for him out of rubber. Um.
Speaker 1: It was really really rough. So the idea that he
Speaker 1: had this breakthrough um was just enormously rewarding for him. Right. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: as he was shopping this stuff around, this vulcanization process
Speaker 1: or the vulcanized rubber, some of it fell into the
Speaker 1: hands of Tamas Hancock and he reverse engineered it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what he basically discovered was if you slow cooked
Speaker 1: latex with sulfur, it could it could basically transform rubber
Speaker 1: into a very durable material that uh, it was hardy
Speaker 1: under all kinds of temperature ranges. It would always snap back.
Speaker 1: Um well, not always and forever, which we'll get too
Speaker 1: later too. As you know, that waistband will sometimes leave
Speaker 1: you disappointed eventually, that's why you end up buying new underwear.
Speaker 1: Um well, one of a couple of reasons you buy
Speaker 1: new one awear, take it to the thrift store. Yeah exactly,
Speaker 1: but yeah, he that is what vulcanization is. And um,
Speaker 1: Handcock and McIntosh what they were doing. Uh, they didn't
Speaker 1: crack that code first, but they they developed called something
Speaker 1: called the masticator. Basically, they had been been making elastic
Speaker 1: threads by slicing it from rubber bottles and raw rubber,
Speaker 1: but there was just so much waste. They developed this
Speaker 1: machine called a masticator and it would basically chew up
Speaker 1: this rubber and make it into meld it together and
Speaker 1: make it into a big single sheet of material, which
Speaker 1: was really helpful. But they still had that temperature problem
Speaker 1: until good Year hit it right and and again they
Speaker 1: were verse engineered. Goodyear's process went and file the patent
Speaker 1: on vulcanization and they rip him off like fully, yes, fully,
Speaker 1: and um apparently it was one of those ones like
Speaker 1: the phone where good Year when to go file a
Speaker 1: patent and found out that someone else had that Handcock
Speaker 1: had just a few weeks earlier, so he took him
Speaker 1: to court. Um in order to settle Hancock offered good
Speaker 1: Year of the patent to drop the lawsuit, and good
Speaker 1: Year said no, and he lost the case and he
Speaker 1: died broken but he was able to, Um, he was
Speaker 1: able to generate enough royalties so that his kids were
Speaker 1: able to uh to live the good like thanks to him. Um,
Speaker 1: but he uh yeah, he got ripped off for sure.
Speaker 1: And and one other thing about the about Charles good Year,
Speaker 1: the Goodyear Rubber or Tyre and Rubber company, he he
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with it. They named it after
Speaker 1: him in honor of him. Oh wow, Yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: that was pretty cool. Uh. You don't watch the TV
Speaker 1: show Shark Tank, do you? I do not. I think
Speaker 1: I've asked you that before. I you know, the whole concept,
Speaker 1: right as these people pitch their businesses to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well surrounded by sharks swimming now, they pitched them to
Speaker 1: the sharks, and they either investor they don't. Everyone kind
Speaker 1: of knows the show, but you I guess, um, but uh,
Speaker 1: I'm always at home just yelling at these people when
Speaker 1: you know, they'll offer up like of their company and
Speaker 1: then they'll get offered an investment from a shark for
Speaker 1: you know, and say, but they want like and some
Speaker 1: of these people like turn around and walk away, which,
Speaker 1: on one hand, I kind of respect that they don't
Speaker 1: want to give away that much of their company. But like,
Speaker 1: I'm always just thinking, wouldn't you rather own of a
Speaker 1: twenty million dollar company than of a three million dollar company?
Speaker 1: Like sometimes I think pride gets in the way with
Speaker 1: these people. Sure, and they don't think about just how
Speaker 1: big these people can make their company. Yeah. I don't
Speaker 1: know who's that company though? That that UM turned down
Speaker 1: a billion dollars from either Google or Facebook and just
Speaker 1: kept at it and now it's my Space. No I can't.
Speaker 1: It's one of like the big social media brains that
Speaker 1: you know of UM that that now was just worth
Speaker 1: gobs more money? Really? Yeah? Yeah, I mean you know,
Speaker 1: there's no recipe, Like sometimes it is better to hold
Speaker 1: onto more of your own company because if it gets big,
Speaker 1: then you own that much more of it. But it's right,
Speaker 1: I'm always kind of like, man, take the money now.
Speaker 1: And is Steve Miller suggested? Is you just Steve Miller's
Speaker 1: a science pologist? Is he really? Yeah? Boy? He went
Speaker 1: off on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.
Speaker 1: Why did they not um vote phenomenating? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: he got inducted in like basically trash them on his
Speaker 1: way in and out the door. Oh, you'll just have
Speaker 1: to read it's kind of too long to get into.
Speaker 1: But they were none too happy. I think he came
Speaker 1: across as just a really crabby old guy. Oh he
Speaker 1: didn't have like a point or anything. No, he had points.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, you'll you'll just have to check it out,
Speaker 1: I will. We're already getting sidetracked here. Oh we've been
Speaker 1: side checked baby so um. When regardless of who came
Speaker 1: up with it, even though it was Charles Goodyear, once
Speaker 1: vulcanization was introduced to the world, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: all of these dreams of what you could do with
Speaker 1: a flexible, durable material that can withstand tremendous pressure and
Speaker 1: force and heat, um and cold too, which was a
Speaker 1: big one. Uh, all of a sudden, the whole world
Speaker 1: just opened up. And what was interesting, Chuck, was because
Speaker 1: it also dovetailed with the Industrial Revolution. Brazil, which was
Speaker 1: the the rubber tree capital at the time, went from
Speaker 1: just being like this kind of old world quality to
Speaker 1: basically being one of the most important countries on the
Speaker 1: planet and like virtually within a year or so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that was true, uh geez for a long time
Speaker 1: until about the mid too late, about eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: when these British businessmen said, I'm gonna sneak these rubber
Speaker 1: tree seeds out, uh taken back to England and uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna see if these things grow in Southeast Asia,
Speaker 1: where we have a lot of British colonies. And it
Speaker 1: turns out it did, and just about thirty five years
Speaker 1: later the center of the global rubber market shifted to Malaysia,
Speaker 1: Singapore and Sri Lanka. As British are thieves in this one,
Speaker 1: so they kind of like totally ripped that off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Southeast Asia was the dominating rubber capital of the world.
Speaker 1: It was way better for the Brits and the Americans
Speaker 1: because we're friends with the Brits. Um. Because that meant
Speaker 1: that these were these were British colonies, um, which meant
Speaker 1: that the access to this rubber was basically unfettered. There
Speaker 1: were no trade deals. You didn't have to wine and
Speaker 1: dine a prince or a king or anything like that.
Speaker 1: You could just be like, we need more rubber please, um,
Speaker 1: which is I think how they would order it probably. So,
Speaker 1: so everything's going hunky dorry, at least as far as
Speaker 1: the British and Americans are concerned. The rubber supplies being
Speaker 1: fulfilled thanks to Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and um. It
Speaker 1: came it no too soon a time too, because the
Speaker 1: automobile was introduced around this time, the mass produced automobile,
Speaker 1: we should say, and those needed for good tires made
Speaker 1: of rubber. Yeah. And then World War Two really really
Speaker 1: increase the need for rubber. Um. I think here it
Speaker 1: says that in total, the Pentagon said that they needed
Speaker 1: thirty two pounds of rubber for every single ground troop
Speaker 1: in one way or another. That's amazing. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: why it was such a big deal that the Japanese
Speaker 1: invaded the Pacific, because that the Pacific theater featured those
Speaker 1: countries that were the rubber producing capital of the world
Speaker 1: that have been under British control. And um, now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden a rubber supply was either cut off
Speaker 1: or in danger. So the United States, led by FDR, said, hey, uh,
Speaker 1: four biggest rubber companies, we're gonna get together and we
Speaker 1: need to come up with a synthetic rubber too, suite.
Speaker 1: Let's get on it. We're all gonna split the patent evenly,
Speaker 1: and let's get to work. And in eighteen months they
Speaker 1: had come up with a synthetic rubber amazing yep. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we'll get to synthetics a bit more in a minute.
Speaker 1: But jumping back to the mid eighteen hundreds, the story
Speaker 1: of the rubber band is pretty interesting. These two chaps,
Speaker 1: Stephen Perry and Thomas barn of Us daft great name
Speaker 1: uh T b D actually uh invented the rubber band,
Speaker 1: the modern what we know is the rubber band because
Speaker 1: they started slicing these Uh. They had a rubber tube
Speaker 1: and started slicing these narrow rings from a vulcanized rubber tube.
Speaker 1: And they were like, here you go. It's called a
Speaker 1: rubber band. You can put it around your asparagus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and everyone was super psyched except people who hate asparagus.
Speaker 1: That was a good one man. Uh. And today they
Speaker 1: still kind of do it in the same way. Um,
Speaker 1: rubber band wise, they create this, They make this latex
Speaker 1: together um with all these chemicals. It depends on, you know,
Speaker 1: what kind of rubber band you're making. And they get
Speaker 1: this raw rubber compound uh into a long hollow tube,
Speaker 1: slip it over a round pipe called the mandrill, expose
Speaker 1: that to high heat and pressure to vulcanize it, it
Speaker 1: cures it, and then they slice that up into rubber bands. Yep,
Speaker 1: pretty neat. It is pretty neat. You want to take
Speaker 1: a We can then talk some more about how it's made. Yeah,
Speaker 1: right after this. All right, so we've been talking about
Speaker 1: rubber um and its most natural form, and uh, how
Speaker 1: they transformed that into usable rubber is pretty remarkable. But
Speaker 1: immediately after World War Two, like we were talking about,
Speaker 1: this creation of synthetic rubber was probably the second biggest
Speaker 1: invention of all time. Well maybe not of all time.
Speaker 1: It's up there though, Yeah, but when it comes to
Speaker 1: stretchy things for sure. Yeah. And apparently the the World
Speaker 1: War two research and development produced not just one, but
Speaker 1: three different types of um easily manufactured synthetic rubbers. YEA.
Speaker 1: One was a beauty dyne rubber. Another was a styrene
Speaker 1: beauty dyne rubber, and that was the one that the
Speaker 1: government went with for World War two. Uh, and it
Speaker 1: was actually ripped off from a German from the Germans,
Speaker 1: which they had come up with something similar previously. And
Speaker 1: then there's an ethylene propylene monomer and all three of
Speaker 1: those make up most of today's synthetic rubbers. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they found that this stuff worked really, really well, just
Speaker 1: as good as natural rubber had all that flex resistance. Um,
Speaker 1: it didn't deteriorate. Uh, eventually it would. Again I keep
Speaker 1: teasing like we're gonna get to that, which we will.
Speaker 1: But they found it was really well suited to replace
Speaker 1: rubber well in most applications, like an industrial application like
Speaker 1: a tire or a fan bell or some thing like that.
Speaker 1: But it didn't have that resilience that that natural rubber has.
Speaker 1: So there was an issue still, there was a kink
Speaker 1: that needed to be worked out. Well, yeah, as far
Speaker 1: as using adding textiles for sure, exactly, And they actually
Speaker 1: overcame it in nineteen fifty nine by day, I mean
Speaker 1: DuPont Corporation, who employed two chemists that got to work
Speaker 1: trying to crack this code, the final code of synthetic rubber,
Speaker 1: how to make it flexible and resilient, right, that's right.
Speaker 1: And they they started by using um a polymer, a
Speaker 1: polyurethane right, so, um, Well, we'll talk about polymers in
Speaker 1: a little bit, but basically they took a polymer, a
Speaker 1: eurothane based polymer, and watered it down and forced it
Speaker 1: through a plate with tiny little holes in it. And
Speaker 1: what came on the outside where these tiny little threads,
Speaker 1: and those tiny little threads were a magical creation known
Speaker 1: as Spandex, the trade name of which originally is micro. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. And Spandex, they found had a lot of
Speaker 1: great applications. Namely, it could accept dies, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: just the sort of dull white color. You could make
Speaker 1: it any color you wanted to. Uh, and you could
Speaker 1: wash it. It It didn't absorb a lot of moisture, and
Speaker 1: it remained really stable when it was washed and dried,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of normal moderate temperatures. So hey, you
Speaker 1: can make this, weave it into clothing, throw it in
Speaker 1: the washer, diet whatever color you want, and you're good
Speaker 1: to go. And and most importantly, took it would snap back.
Speaker 1: It would retain its original shape after being stretched. So yes,
Speaker 1: spandex changed everything. I didn't realize it was from the fifties. Um.
Speaker 1: And William Harris makes a pretty good point. He he
Speaker 1: says that Spandex might be considered the modern elastic. Like
Speaker 1: it is, it's basically the base of of anything stretchy
Speaker 1: that you used today. Yeah, and it's said here, we
Speaker 1: said it's in all kinds of stuff. They said, it's
Speaker 1: in about of all clothing bought by Americans. So even
Speaker 1: if you don't think Spandex is in something, it may
Speaker 1: have a little Spandex in there. It's in of all
Speaker 1: clothing bought by Americans, of all spandex pants bought by Americans.
Speaker 1: Think about that staff for a little while. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: including Jagging's. He points out he calls them pajama jeans,
Speaker 1: but I've always called him Jagging's. Oh is that the
Speaker 1: same thing? I believe? So yeah, interesting, we can hope.
Speaker 1: So Emily, when we put him on her daughter, she
Speaker 1: calls him jazzy pants. Oh yeah, that's a good one too.
Speaker 1: But that's just I think usually due to the pattern
Speaker 1: more than the snap back got you. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: can sit here and procrastinate for several more minutes if
Speaker 1: you want, but ultimately we're gonna end up on the
Speaker 1: chemistry part. You realize, Yes, And because I uh don't
Speaker 1: understand chemistry at all, take it away. I'll get you
Speaker 1: for this, chuck. I'll throw in some words here and there.
Speaker 1: So I don't really know chemistry either, but I know
Speaker 1: both of us crammed on this, So forgive us all
Speaker 1: you chemists out there. If we get something wrong, let
Speaker 1: us know. But from what we understand, it's magic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go the end. So, rubber, whether it's natural
Speaker 1: or synthetic, is a polymer, right, And it's a specific
Speaker 1: kind of polymer called an elastomer. It's an elastic polymer
Speaker 1: as stretchiness and resilience, it's flexible, right, And any kind
Speaker 1: of poll polymer is uh. Basically, if you look at
Speaker 1: the molecular structure of it, it's made up of these
Speaker 1: long repeating chains of the same unit over and over again.
Speaker 1: The units are called monitors, and depending on what the
Speaker 1: monitor is UM that leads to different kinds of polymers.
Speaker 1: And with elastomers in particular, if you look at some polymers,
Speaker 1: the structure is bulky and big and compact and and
Speaker 1: it's rigid and heavy and not flexible at all. Still,
Speaker 1: other kind of polymers, say like a plastic or a resin,
Speaker 1: are crystalline and structure and they fit so well together.
Speaker 1: They're also rigid and not very flexible either. Then you
Speaker 1: have elastomers, which are a kind of polymer, and because
Speaker 1: of their molecular structure, um, they are super flexible, super
Speaker 1: stretchy and they snap back into place. Yeah, and normally
Speaker 1: they're uh, I mean they liken it to this article
Speaker 1: like a coiled like a big massive snakes. But they
Speaker 1: have this really neat quality, these elastomers. When you apply
Speaker 1: force to it, the molecules actually straightened out in the
Speaker 1: direction that you're pulling it, and that's sort of the
Speaker 1: snap back you're talking about. But as soon as you
Speaker 1: release it, it goes back to that coiled up arrangement.
Speaker 1: Right when you pull it, when you apply force, they
Speaker 1: line up basically like those snakes, head to tail in
Speaker 1: one single long line. That's a scary snake. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then when you release it, it goes back into its
Speaker 1: original form of that that coiled mass right. Perfect. Okay.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why any kind of rubber, natural
Speaker 1: or synthetic is flexible. A flexible polymer is because it's
Speaker 1: um glass transition temperature is actually pretty low. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is where I kind of just got foggy. So this
Speaker 1: is it's as simple as this, chuck. A glass transition temperature.
Speaker 1: It's not a melting point. A melting point is where
Speaker 1: the substance actually basically just turns into a liquid state.
Speaker 1: A disordered liquid state. The glass transition temperature doesn't affect
Speaker 1: the um, the the molecular makeup of the substance. Instead,
Speaker 1: it basically applies this property flexibility or rigidity. It's it's
Speaker 1: as simple as that, right, And so anything that has
Speaker 1: a low UM glass transition temperature relative to what we
Speaker 1: have is normal temperatures outside in in the world or
Speaker 1: in our homes or whatever, is going to be flexible
Speaker 1: and floppy. Anything with a high glass transition transition temperature
Speaker 1: UM is going to be rigid and and um hard
Speaker 1: and not flexible. So it's just suffice to say anything rubber,
Speaker 1: whether it's satural or synthetic, has a low glass transition temperature,
Speaker 1: so it's flexible under normal temperatures. But even if you
Speaker 1: if you took a UM a piece of rubber, natural rubber,
Speaker 1: and you applied, uh, you applied the temperature of negative
Speaker 1: seventy degrees celsius or negative ninety four degrees fair hight,
Speaker 1: it would crystallize. It's below the glass transition temperature, so
Speaker 1: it would just basically turn rigid and crystallize and ultimately
Speaker 1: would break apart. And that was part of the problem
Speaker 1: with those early pre vulcanized rubbers, they would fall apart.
Speaker 1: Because the glass transition temperature is not like an exact
Speaker 1: moment where the where the thing converts from flexible to rigid.
Speaker 1: It's it's the median of a large thermal window where
Speaker 1: it starts to get get crystalline and rigid, and then
Speaker 1: it's completely crystalline and rigid on the other end. So
Speaker 1: of course you would think, you know, if you get
Speaker 1: down to say twenty degrees like it would in Boston
Speaker 1: or New York in the nineteenth century, and you're walking
Speaker 1: around with rubber soled shoes, they're going to crystallize and
Speaker 1: break off. That's what's going on. It all has to
Speaker 1: do with the glass transition temperature. Okay, So during valkanization,
Speaker 1: they heat that up with sulfur, and that makes those
Speaker 1: polymer chains linked together with sulfur atoms. I guess that's
Speaker 1: like almost like a glue. Yeah, Like it's like a
Speaker 1: molecular glue from what I understand. Yeah, okay, that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Yea. So so even when you
Speaker 1: apply intense heat um or extreme cold, it will um
Speaker 1: maintain its molecular shape. Yeah. But here's the thing I've
Speaker 1: been talking about why your elastic band doesn't last forever
Speaker 1: and why your socks will eventually be around your ankles.
Speaker 1: Um this elastic eventually will lose that snap back due
Speaker 1: to oxid oxidization, oxidization oxidation, I like oxidization uh natural rubber.
Speaker 1: This oxygen and in particular ozone is going to start
Speaker 1: breaking those bonds within just days. So it happens pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: and that's why we heat and treat rubber like we do.
Speaker 1: But even still over time, uh that ozone and combine
Speaker 1: that with light uh uv radiation, it's another culprit. That's
Speaker 1: what's gonna cause that to eventually break down over time.
Speaker 1: That would make sense because with vulcanization, what you're doing
Speaker 1: is adding sulfur to the polymer, right yeah, And if
Speaker 1: it would it would make sense then that either um
Speaker 1: uv radiation or something else could break those bonds between
Speaker 1: the sulfur and the other the other ingredients and then
Speaker 1: they would be replaced by oxygen, so oxidation would take place,
Speaker 1: right yeah. So it's pretty much ozone UV radiation and
Speaker 1: then cold actually does make a difference. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: hold up quite as well in cold weather. Like if
Speaker 1: you take if you take a pair of underwear out
Speaker 1: and like, you know, negative twenty degrees in Minnesota and
Speaker 1: you start really stretching it out a lot, it's gonna, uh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna lose its elasticity really fast. Anybody from Minnesota
Speaker 1: can tell you that. Yeah, I mean, who know, they
Speaker 1: may have to buy more underwear than like Hawaii. I
Speaker 1: have no idea they all wear Union suits up there.
Speaker 1: Now that's true. So, um, do you want to finish
Speaker 1: with Pat Benatar? Oh? Man, let's bring her out? Okay,
Speaker 1: come on, Bat, It's gonna do an acoustic set that Man,
Speaker 1: how great would that be? So? Um, we did a
Speaker 1: little digging and we were trying to figure out who
Speaker 1: basically started the eighties spandex rocker trend, the rocker spandex trend.
Speaker 1: She was the first thing that came to my mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just didn't know exactly how I I would have
Speaker 1: guessed it went back beyond Pat Benatar. And then I
Speaker 1: found out that Pat Benatar has been a musician for
Speaker 1: much longer than I realized. But um, apparently the whole
Speaker 1: thing happened on Halloween of nine seven, and by this
Speaker 1: time Pat Benatar was already like a pretty regular fixture
Speaker 1: on the New York City club circuit, and so she
Speaker 1: dressed up as a character from Catwomen of the Moon.
Speaker 1: Have you seen that movie? I haven't either, but apparently
Speaker 1: cat Women on the Moon is a cult classic sci
Speaker 1: fi movie, and I guess they wear a lot of spandex.
Speaker 1: So she dressed up in some spandex get up and
Speaker 1: decided to play a show that night at Catch a
Speaker 1: Rising Star, which is basically her house club in there. No,
Speaker 1: I haven't either. Is it still around? I don't know,
Speaker 1: is it? I think I know of it from like
Speaker 1: Comedy Central in the nineties. Yeah, I think that was
Speaker 1: the name of a show, but I think it was
Speaker 1: from that club. Yeah, I think so. I could be wrong,
Speaker 1: but anyway, she she was used to playing shows there,
Speaker 1: but she played the show in this get up, the
Speaker 1: spandex get up, and noticed that the crowd was like
Speaker 1: into it lot more than usual, and then they said, wow,
Speaker 1: we wow, what's she wearing? Pretty much, it was about
Speaker 1: as simple as that. She um. She was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's let me try this. I want to do a
Speaker 1: little experiment, and um, I'm gonna do this again, but
Speaker 1: not on Halloween. I'm gonna dress up again and do
Speaker 1: the same show, and she didn't. Got another response like
Speaker 1: way better than usual response, and she's like, that's it.
Speaker 1: I'm doing spandex from now on. And that was that.
Speaker 1: Seven Pat Benatar starts the eighties bandex Rocker trend. I
Speaker 1: would count that as the fourth dinner party factoid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say so too. And if you want a
Speaker 1: fifth Catachizing Star is a chain of comedy clubs and
Speaker 1: was also a TV series in Canada. To now you
Speaker 1: got anything else? Uh no, let's say for elastic everybody.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about it, type that
Speaker 1: word into the search bar how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: and who knows, amazing things will come up. That's right.
Speaker 1: And since I said search far as time for a
Speaker 1: listener mate, Ah yeah, I'm gonna call this um short,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of funny. Hey guys, quick and trivial
Speaker 1: email from a fan in Pittsburgh. I too appreciated. Uh
Speaker 1: in your U is the episode on Body Snatching, live
Speaker 1: episode on Grave Robbing. I to appreciate it. How cool.
Speaker 1: Charlie Chaplin's Body Robbers partner's name was Gancho Genev And
Speaker 1: I tell you we did that shoke a few times,
Speaker 1: and you and I never ceased to not crack up
Speaker 1: at the words gantcho Ganev. It's still happening being Jewish.
Speaker 1: I thought a little Hebrew Yiddish languages were involved, and
Speaker 1: Genev in fact does mean thief. Oh really and uh.
Speaker 1: Then he stretches it a bit. Then he says, Gancho
Speaker 1: for that matter, seems to be Spanish for hook like
Speaker 1: dance moves. And he said, Charlie Chaplin was a d answer.
Speaker 1: He said, so, maybe that's a stretch on the second part,
Speaker 1: but it seems as though Gancho Genev was born just
Speaker 1: the old Charlie Chaplin's body. I'll give you props on
Speaker 1: the u Genev part at least, and that is from B. D. Wahlberg,
Speaker 1: and he said, ps, you might remember me from Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: at your live show. I asked a question in the
Speaker 1: Q and A about how you find new ways to
Speaker 1: rip on the post office. And I still remember I
Speaker 1: gave my Trader Joe's bag to somebody in the audience
Speaker 1: and that was b D. He still still have Chuck's
Speaker 1: Trader Joe's bag hanging in my kitchen. Nice man, Well,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, b d we appreciate it. That was
Speaker 1: it would have been even more ironic had he been
Speaker 1: referencing the DV Cooper episode. Oh did you hear about
Speaker 1: the new info? I did, and it actually makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me. Yeah, So for anyone that
Speaker 1: hasn't seen they found some actual new science that uh
Speaker 1: seems to indicate. They found these four elements in the
Speaker 1: tie that B D D B Cooper war. And apparently
Speaker 1: these elements are very specific to work being done by
Speaker 1: the Boeing company yea, So it gives a lot of
Speaker 1: credence to the theory that he was a Boeing employee
Speaker 1: and and even more specifically because it was on his tie,
Speaker 1: if he were like working the actual machines that were
Speaker 1: manufacturing was this thing he would he would have been
Speaker 1: wearing like coveralls or something, not a tie. So it
Speaker 1: indicates that he if he worked for Bowing, he would
Speaker 1: have been like an engineer or a manager who would
Speaker 1: have been wearing a tie on the floor while he
Speaker 1: was out there. Like, I think this is like the
Speaker 1: biggest lead they've ever had. I think so too, pretty amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know who's excited about it? Secret boy? Uh, if
Speaker 1: you want to know we're talking about. We did a
Speaker 1: DV Cooper episode and this popped in right, it's a
Speaker 1: live episode that we hope will be uh available to
Speaker 1: you soon. What else? Oh? And actually, wow, boy, this
Speaker 1: is exciting. We just got literally an email reply from
Speaker 1: b D because I said we were gonna be reading
Speaker 1: this and I think this bears mentioning. What a daymaker. Guys,
Speaker 1: if you use a pronoun for me, I go by
Speaker 1: they and them rather than he or she. I know
Speaker 1: you're talking about because I am non by non binary listener.
Speaker 1: What up? What up? B D? Thank you. It's good
Speaker 1: to hear from you, and I'd love to surprise my
Speaker 1: BFF Carlyle with a great big audio high five. Well
Speaker 1: I think that just happened. Wow, all right, this is
Speaker 1: like real time correction slash back and forth with BED.
Speaker 1: Let's just see what happened email obamba, real quick. We'll
Speaker 1: sit here, let's see what happens next. We're just gonna
Speaker 1: take this for for We're gonna take this ride, all right. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, b D. Yeah, thanks a lot. Be good
Speaker 1: to hear from you. All right, Well, if you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, you can tweet to
Speaker 1: us I'm at Josh Underscore, UM Underscore Clark UH. You
Speaker 1: can also hit me up at the official s y
Speaker 1: s K podcast handle. You can hang out with Chuck
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck and at stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know U. You can send us both an email
Speaker 1: to stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and
Speaker 1: has always joined us out our home on the web,
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com