WEBVTT - The Quest for Hollywood Acid 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:05.600 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:15.160 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:17.480 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Hey 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:19.200 real quick at the top of the show here. If 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:21.880 you want to explore more of Stuff to Blow your Mind, 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:23.919 head on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:26.160 That is our mothership. That is the main website where 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:28.040 you will find all of our episodes. You find videos, 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:30.479 blog post links out to our social media accounts. And 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:32.680 if you want to support the show, a great way 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.040 to do it is to simply rate and review us 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:38.959 wherever you get the show. Yeah, so, Robert, I've got 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:40.919 a question for you. All right, hit me, Joe. I'm 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:42.720 gonna take you to a dark place. This might be 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.879 a little traumatic, Okay, okay. Do you remember nineteen nineties 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.839 the Batman movies of the nineteen nineties, Think back to 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.840 Batman Forever. Oh that was That was a Dark Time, 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:59.880 directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Val Kilmer as Batman and 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:03.000 Tommy Lee Jones in it as the as two face, 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:05.720 a very manic to face if I recall, Yeah, he 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:07.280 was he was kind of all over the place. That 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:10.080 one was snarling a lot, kind of whipping his body 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.800 around in a frenzy, and that, of course was the 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.120 acid scarred and that telling of the Uh I believe 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.320 he was. Yeah, they So the story of two Face 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.400 in that version is that he's a Harvey Dent is 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.720 the lawyer who becomes two Face believe he's a district's 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:27.800 attorney and he gets scarred on one part of his 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.760 face and it drives him insane, and uh, yeah, I 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.479 don't think they go deep into the backstory and Batman forever, 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.120 but anyway, it's Tommy Lee Jones and he's he's going 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.959 wild and he's really trying to get Batman in this one. 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.000 So there's a scene where Batman goes into a bank 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.720 vault where there is a I believe a vault guard 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.160 of some kind tied up, and when Batman goes in 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:53.920 to rescue this guard, the door slams shut and acid 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:56.720 starts pouring out of all of the I believe out 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.520 of the safe deposit boxes. Okay, so a lot of 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.240 people may we were keeping their precious acid in this vault. Uh. 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:06.600 And the the vault guard realizes what's happening as as 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.400 Two Face taunts them that they're going to die in 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.760 this bank vault, and the guard says, oh no, it's 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:18.239 boiling acid. There's like a seven second YouTube clip of 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.480 this that I watch at least once a week. It's 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:22.800 one of my favorites. I I watched this for the 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:24.560 first time, I think because I don't know that I've 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.120 actually seen this. Uh, this Batman film. I was super 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:29.919 into the first two. Yeah, when I was a kid. Yeah, 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.200 the Burton Batman's were great, and I wanted to get 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.720 into the Schumacher ones, and you know, it didn't work. 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:37.640 And I think part of the reason it's not worth 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:42.079 it is that boiling acid. Uh. It tightly sums up 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:44.920 everything about those funds well exactly. And one of the 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:47.240 things that I find so funny about it is, well, 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.760 if two faces trying to kill them, why couldn't it 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:54.959 be Oh no, it's boiling water. I mean, if it's 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.880 boiling what what difference does it make? Or if it's acid, 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.600 or hey, if it's just water, if you're flooding, if 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.280 you're flating a sealed right, I mean, it can be 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:08.160 that it's room temperature water. We're gonna drown. Yeah, And 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:13.040 so this obviously brings in a favorite old trope of 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:16.400 the superhero genre. But really it's all throughout the movies, 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.440 and this is movie acid. Notice that the guard in 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.280 the vault doesn't say what the chemical compound is. It's 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:28.160 not like he recognizes. Oh no, it's hydrofluoric acid. No, 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:31.520 it's just acid. And this kind of acid plays a 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.359 role in all of our favorite you know, our favorite cartoons, 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:39.000 science fiction and superhero stuff. It's it's movie acid. It's 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:43.360 Hollywood acid. So you're probably familiar with this. You remember 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.480 lots of other scenes from Batman. I bet right, it's 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:50.120 always in Batman, like the villain captures Batman, is the penguin, 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.200 or somebody's got Batman tied up on a rope dangling 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.800 over a vat of acid. Yeah, I mean, it's such 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.600 a like a vat of acid is one of those things. 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:03.200 It's it's a it's a perfect u like human technological achievement, 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.720 and then we can then utilize for menacing purposes. You know. 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.400 It's like it's like having a whole bunch of molten 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.800 steel on hand or a hydraulic press. Right. It represents 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.320 all of the evils of human industry and sort of 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:19.600 the cold killer nature of technology. But at the same time, 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.120 it's it's a great just sort of like a vertical peril. 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.440 It's a like a thing to have below you. It's 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:27.880 like a pit of piranhas or a pit of crocodiles 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.840 or something, and a pit of molecules that want to, uh, 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.200 want to play nice with all of your skin. So 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:38.920 what are the properties of Hollywood acid or movie acid 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:40.880 we might call it. I want to list a few 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:42.640 and maybe you'll have some of your own. Okay, go 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.320 for it. One of them is that it causes severe 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:49.080 and immediate burns to the skin and soft tissues. That 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:55.719 sounds about right, yeah, just immediate scarification, meltification, um. And 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:58.000 we can run through some examples of that in a minute, right. So. 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.520 Another one is if you put organicterials such as a batman, 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:04.360 into a vat of acid, it will kill and then 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.920 rapidly dissolve that organism. So it has not only killing 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:12.920 and burning powers, but also liquification powers. Okay, yes, you're 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:15.960 with me so far. Another one is that the colors 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.760 can vary, but it's never clear like water. You notice 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.320 that the acid in the movies it always is usually opaque, 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:27.119 usually a shade of green, purple or orange I find. Yeah, green, 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.520 I think is the big one. And and I'll mention 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.440 a few examples that I have instilled that that idea 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:34.719 to me. But like if I was to draw a picture, uh, 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:36.960 you know, doodle something with acid on the side of 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.279 a piece of paper, it would be green. Yeah. A 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.120 good example of the green acid is in that classic 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:46.159 episode of The Simpsons where Millhouse becomes fallout Boy and 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.000 there's there's radioactive man. They're filming a scene from the 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:53.760 movie that's real ascid. I want to see goggles people, Yeah, exactly, goggles. 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:58.120 They do nothing. It's great. But so another thing about 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:01.720 the acid is that it displays am being bubbling, so 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:04.240 you don't have to heat it up. It just naturally 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:06.640 boils like a like a pot on the boil. Well 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:08.120 that's so you can look at it and know that 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.200 it's acid, like it's it's bubbling, it's green. It could 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:14.080 not be more acid. Yeah. And of course the final 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:16.960 the final effector is often kept in a giant vat, 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.080 though sometimes also kept in something that squirts it out. 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:21.520 Do you want to keep it in an open vat, 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:24.640 open open top with with some you know, room to 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.280 have some sort of a chain system in place and 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.960 some pulleys or whatever, however you want to position your 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.440 nemesis above it. Right now, Robert, tell me your movie 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.400 Acid story. What what? What are your memories from childhood 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:40.960 of beloved movie Acid. Oh? I have I have several, uh, 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.839 but probably the most scarring was at a young age, 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:47.720 like too young of an age, I saw a RoboCop. 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.120 Who lets you watch RoboCop at a young age? I 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.320 think it was like, um, like an uncle's house. Uh, 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.560 and it was on. But then again, RoboCop is so 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.839 violent it's hard to determine exactly what age during a 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:04.960 childhood is appropriate to watch RoboCop. A RoboCop an R 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.760 rated ultra violent picture for which there were toys, and 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.520 I think still our toys produced. Another thing I mean 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:13.920 to say about RoboCop is that the level of violence 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.640 and it isn't incidental. It's deliberately hyper violent, I would say, 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.960 in a satirical uh, for satirical reasons. Yeah, I mean 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.680 it's a great film. Um, but who I think back 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.559 about to my seeing it as as a young person, 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.400 and I'm a little appalled at times. But yeah, there's 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.320 a scene where and I'm sure anyone who has seen 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.400 this has this et burned into their mind as well. 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.920 One of the villain's Hinchman's gets gets just coated in acid. 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:40.360 Leave his name is Emal Is that is that his name? 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:43.400 So Emal gets coated in acid. I don't even remember 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.400 how it happened, Like the RoboCop shoot a vata acid 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.200 that was behind him and they're setting well, there are 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:50.880 a lot of there's a lot of sort of ambient 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.640 industry in the movie. It takes place in a dystopian 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.200 future Detroit, and they're like old factories with what we 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.920 would presume are just vats of toxic waste and asked 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.600 it hanging around, Yeah, and somehow this guy gets it 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.440 splashed all over him during a car chase scene. Yeah, 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.280 and then he comes just zombie like walking out shambling, 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:13.560 totally meltified, and and then a car runs over. Like 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:15.800 there's a second there where you just horrified, like, oh, 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.680 this poor guy, look at the Stadi's in and then 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:20.640 like robocopper, one of the villa I think it's the 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:22.680 main villain gets him with the car and he just 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:27.280 like splatters like a like a water balloon full of blood, 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:29.960 and yeah, it's the dad from that seventies show who 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.080 gets in with the car And I never trusted that 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.440 seventies show because of RoboCop. I knew what he was 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.120 capable of. Clarence Botocker, he's a great villain. Yeah, so 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:38.680 he hits him with the car and he just turns 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.679 to liquid. He's like a bag of soup and uh 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.640 and I remember the villain he turns on the windshield wiper. Yeah, 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.720 it's gross, but it's also there's tons of acid in 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.559 video games, right. Video games love this, I guess because 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.360 acids probably fun to animate. Yeah, and if and a 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:57.440 lot of games. If you're doing a platform game, right, 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.200 it's a it's a wonderful thing to have to fall 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.760 into and of bounce out off. But my favorite example 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.920 is from Mortal Kombat two, which was like a major 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.600 major game for me when I was younger, and in 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.280 that you have two wonderful uses of acid. You have 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.000 a stage uh called I think the deadpool where you're 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:19.480 fighting on a platform and there's just just green acid, 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.240 uh through fills the room or ambiently bubbling, I can't 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.360 remember it's bubbling or not. But if you upper cut 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.680 your opponent into the acid at the the end of 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:32.760 the match for the fatality. Then they just splash, they scream, 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.439 they disappear under the acid, and then when they float 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.679 up to the top, they're just a completely clean skeleton. 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:43.160 Oh how long does that take? One second? Two seconds? Yeah, 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.040 And then of course that game also introduced the character Reptile, 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:51.520 who is a reptile, a lizard man ninja um, which 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:53.440 I just you know, you just think that for granted now, 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:55.920 but he also spits acid. So he takes his little 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.600 mask off and goes and this, uh, this green glob 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.000 comes flying across the screen and burns you. One of 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.840 the most horrible acid scenes I remember from a kid 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.280 was from the movie The Fly. We shouldn't dwell on 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:11.320 this kind of great movie, but yeah, the fly has 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.600 digestive enzymes. I suppose that he sort of like spits 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:20.679 out on people too, uh, to homogenize their flesh. Yeah. 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.079 I think there's an early scene where Brundle fly be 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.319 of course, you know, if you haven't seen it, first 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.319 of all, go see it. But mad scientist and a 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:33.840 fly their DNA is spliced the teleportation accident, and there's 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.920 a scene where he's recording himself feeding on something like 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:40.360 so just a bunch of sugary junk food, right, and 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:42.400 you don't actually see it, happy to just hear it 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.760 and it's horrific. And then of course later he weaponized 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:50.719 is this biological effect? And speaking of weaponized acid biology, 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:52.680 we would have to mention I guess this will be 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:56.800 a final example of the xenomorph from the films. Uh So, 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.560 in Ridley Scott's Alien you might remember this the old 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.080 classic Alien, we first see the xenomorphous acid blood during 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:06.440 the scene where if you remember, John Hurt's character gets 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.439 a gets an alien parasite attached to his face called 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:14.560 a face hugger, like burns through his helmet. Yeah, yeah, 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:16.800 it comes through his face mask and then it's attached 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.160 to his face and and they're trying to decide if 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.199 they should cut it off of him on the spaceship 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.760 and Ian Holme eventually decides to cut one of its 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:26.640 fingers off to see if they can remove it, and 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.800 it squirts blood, and this blood hits the floor and 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.360 it sizzles when it splashes on the floor, and then 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.080 continues to eat right through the material of the spacecraft's 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.400 floor and then drops down through like two more floors 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.479 I think through the levels until it eventually stops reacting 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.320 a few levels down, finally neutralizes and goes through the 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:49.520 entire hole. And then Tom Skret's character Captain Dallas. He 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:52.160 says he's never seen anything like that before, except quote 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:56.000 molecular acid, which is funny that that term doesn't really 0:11:56.000 --> 0:12:00.000 make any sense since all acids are composed of molecules. Uh. 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.040 And in the sequels they correct this by saying the 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.559 aliens have concentrated acid for blood, which does make more 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.800 sense in the sense that they're suggesting. It's not like 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.840 vinegar or some of their friendly acid that's highly deluded 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.439 to a safe concentration. It's a highly concentrated, strong acid. 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.760 But later in this episode, we should explore exactly what 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.080 might be going on in terms of the aliens blood, 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:25.480 how it could be that acidic, if there were something 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.280 truly like that in nature. Yes, we will circle back 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:31.040 around to the xenomorphes at the end. But anyway, so, 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.120 why why this obsession with acid? We we love this stuff. 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:37.040 I mean, it keeps showing up in our media all 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:38.800 the time, even though we were not really we can't 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.160 be bothered to learn all the chemistry of exactly what 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.840 chemicals are are out there that could do real harm 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.040 to our body. So it's always just acid. You know, 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:52.760 there's some acid. It's just basically like a magical corrosive substance. Yeah, exactly. 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.600 So we we wanted to talk today about the real 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.120 science of strong acids. And I don't know to what 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:01.840 extent you can find chemicals in the real world that 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:06.120 match up to these the movie Acid and how close 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.280 you can get, Yes, okay, So to give you the 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:13.360 basics before we get into the strongest assets out there 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:15.640 the movie Acid, we we should do a real simple 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.319 overview of acids, bases and pH I'm not going to 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:20.520 turn this into a chemistry class, but we do need 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:24.480 to sort of explain how they work. So, first of all, 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:29.640 picture your periodic table and then go directly to square one. Hydrogen. 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.560 It's the most basic atom in the universe. It's got 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:36.480 one proton and one electron, and most of the hydrogen 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:38.640 in the universe has no neutrons. But if you want 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.240 to add one or two, you can get deuterium or tritium, 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.240 but we're not really concerned with that right now. So 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.360 your hydrogen atom one proton, one electron and it's electrically 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.160 neutral because it's balanced like that. The electron has a 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:54.680 negative charge, the proton has a positive charge. If hydrogen 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:58.800 loses its electron, it becomes a hydrogen ion, which is 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.360 just a proton. It's one single, lonely proton with an 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.920 unbalanced positive charge, and of course nature hates that unbalanced 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:10.000 positive charge. It wants to get back together, so that 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.760 lonely proton is going to be looking for a way 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.480 to join up with something that has a negative charge 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:20.240 and again become electrically neutral. So water is made of 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:24.680 the electrically neutral molecule H two oh. That's one oxygen 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.200 atom bonded with two hydrogen atoms. And if one of 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:31.880 the two hydrogen atoms in the water molecule breaks free, 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.120 it just runs off, says I'm gonna do my own thing, 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:38.200 free of a water molecule and leaves its electron. With 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.440 that water molecule, you're left with a hydrogen ion, which 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:46.040 is just that positively charged free proton proton, and then 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:50.120 a hydroxide molecule which is O H minus. It's a 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:53.760 molecule with a negative charge with one oxygen atom one 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.560 hydrogen atom. Now this can happen naturally in water. Sometimes 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.880 this is called the the ionization of water. Do ionization 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:02.600 of water. You can just have water sitting there in 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:06.040 a glass and some subset of the molecules within it 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:10.240 are going to undergo this reaction where a hydrogen proton 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.440 leaves one of the molecules joins to another one, and 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:18.120 that creates this hydroxide molecule oh negative negatively charged. And 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.160 then also and i uh a molecule called hydronium, which 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:26.160 is H three OH. It's a positively charged water molecule 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.840 that has three hydrogens on it. And so here's where 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:33.360 we get into acids and basins bases. There are several 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.280 different chemical definitions, but we're gonna go with the Bronze 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:40.720 Stead Lowry definition because you know which other definition would 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:42.680 you go with? This is obviously the best. It's named 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:46.520 after the Danish chemist Johannus Nicolaus Braunze said and the 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:50.400 English chemist Thomas Martin Lowry. And so the way it 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:56.160 goes is this, an acid is a hydrogen ion donor, 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.040 in other words, a proton donor. It's a chemical that 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.520 when you put it it into water, it wants to 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:08.040 send free hydrogen ions. These protons out into the solution, 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:12.160 and in turn that increases the concentration of hydronium or 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.280 H three. Oh, that positively charged molecule is talking about 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.960 the opposite of this is a base. A base is 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:24.320 a hydrogen ion recipient or a proton recipient. When you 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:29.240 put it into water, it wants to increase the hydroxide concentration. 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:33.040 It makes more molecules of O H minus the negatively 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.480 charged variant of water. So what would be an example 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.840 of this, Okay, So one would be, for example, hydrochloric acid. 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:42.800 So you put hydrochloric acid in water, and it wants 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:47.360 to break apart and donate that positively charged hydrogen ion 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.840 to the water, creating some negatively charged chloride and positively 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.160 charged hydronium. And here hc L is the acid and 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:58.080 water is the base by the bronzet Dead Lowry definition. 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:00.400 But all this stuff about acids and base this is 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.200 generally going to be concerning aqueous solutions, in other words, 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:08.199 putting stuff in water. Uh. And so this has a 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.360 really awesome name, by the way, and it's known as protonation. 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.560 So when you add a strong acid to a water, 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:19.200 because you're giving away those positively charged UH hydrogen ions, 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.880 you're proton aating the water. Uh. And on of course, 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:24.440 on the other hand, you can use a base to 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:29.200 d protonate a solution. One more piece of terminology. You've 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.280 probably heard of the strength of acids and bases expressed 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:34.639 in terms of pH. They say, you know an acid 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.040 as a pH of three or pH of six. What 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:41.520 does that mean? pH is just the concentration of those 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:45.840 hydrogen ions in a solution. So normal water, that's a neutral, 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.000 and the neutral pH is usually said to be seven, 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.520 So that would be one times ten to the negative 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:55.960 seven moles per leader of hydrogen ions. And we're not 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:57.720 going to stay on this math for a long time, 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:00.080 but just to be clear, a mole is just the 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.800 measure of how many molecules you got in something, and 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.440 moles per leader would be the concentration of how many 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:09.360 molecules you've got per leader of water. Specifically, a mole 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:12.879 is six point o two and then some more numbers, 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.240 but basically six point o two times ten to the 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.520 twenty three. There's a lot of molecules out there. Uh. 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.919 And so this is this is expressed by saying it 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:22.840 has a pH of seven. So if you have a 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.119 compound with a lower pH that's gonna get more acidic. 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:30.320 They donate protons harder. They say, take these protons, take them. 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:34.040 To put that in um in perspective, what lemon juice 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.600 is a too I believe, yeah, that's about right. In fact, 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.119 we can read a few a few examples of of 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.480 phs INN. And then also on the other end of 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:46.240 the scale, UH, compounds with higher pH values are stronger basis, 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:50.560 they're more alkaline, they steal protons harder their recipients of 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.960 protons uh. And so just to give a few examples 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:57.320 on the pH scale, I just found an illustration online 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:01.359 that gives some basic general ideas. Like we said, distilled 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.080 water is going to be a seven. It's neutral. That 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:06.840 seawater is going to be a little more of a base, 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.000 it's more like an eight. And then you get baking 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.280 soda solution it's a little more. It's like eight points. Something. 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:17.359 Bleach is going to be like thirteen. That's a strong base. 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.960 But then going lower on the scale, acids are gonna 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.399 be things like vinegar is going to be around a 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:26.720 three or four. Orange juice is going to be around 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.120 a three or a four. Uh. It's interesting that vinegar 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:34.920 is between orange juice and carbonated beverages, with carbonated beverages 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:40.000 being higher acidic level than vinegar. Oh yeah, they usually 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:44.159 say Coca cola is pretty dern acid, and then I 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:50.000 think that was their original slogan, Taste the acid. And 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:52.480 then once you get really low, closer to zero on 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.200 the scale, you've got something like battery acid. Just really intense, 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:00.800 strong acid. Take all the protons, take them all, right, 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.719 And that's that is often where we see the at 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.240 least the idea of Hollywood acids in that area, the 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:08.919 idea like this is battery acid, this is industrial acid. 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.560 This is highly corrosive stuff that will pick your skeleton dry. Yeah, 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.040 but I should point out that we're gonna be talking 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.840 about how strongly acids can dissolve things like organic materials today, 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.560 and so because the acid that reacts with you does 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:27.520 so through a chemical reaction, the chemicals involved matter. So 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:31.160 some acids might actually have a lower pH than others 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:35.280 but still be less harmful. For example, hydrofluoric acid, when 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.720 we're gonna talk about today, is one of the most 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.280 deadly acids out there, but it doesn't necessarily have the 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.720 lowest pH. And then when we're talking about the deadly 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:48.480 aspects of acids. Another thing we'll touch on two is 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.719 that sometimes it's not only the corrosive aspects of the acid, 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.200 but what happens when it when it has when it 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.919 undergoes the chemical reaction, what kind of gases can be 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:00.040 admitted there some of these examples you end up with 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.920 with toxic gases that are released when the acid comes 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:07.000 into contact with the with the right substance exactly. And 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.560 another thing tying into hydrofluoric acid, which we're going to 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:11.720 talk about a little more in a minute. Uh, the 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.440 danger associated with it isn't just from say topical burns. 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:18.280 It doesn't just burn you from the outside in and 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.960 and kill you that way. By getting into your skin 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:25.240 and then getting into your blood, it can cause systemic 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:27.800 problems that can kill you, for example by causing a 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.000 heart attack and prolonged exposure to some of these that 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:32.960 have also been linked to cancer. So there are a 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:36.080 number of ways that these that these dangerous substances can 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:38.879 can harm you. Yeah, okay, so let's say, based on 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:41.040 everything we've just looked at, you're going to try to 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:45.119 dissolve some organic materials such as a batman So you 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:47.320 have a very strong acid, so you've got a vat 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:51.200 of it, and you put that acid into an aqueous solution, 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:54.000 meaning water. So you've got your acid dissolved into water, 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:56.920 and then you put your batman in. What's going to 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:00.280 happen to your batman, Well, depending on the may cup 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:02.240 of the solution, what's probably gonna happen is that the 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:07.280 acidic solution will begin breaking the chemical bonds of molecules 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:10.479 on the outer surface of the batman, so that you know, 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:14.080 the excess of protons and charged molecules can form bonds 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:18.359 with other molecules in that batman material and assuming it 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:20.359 can eat through the batman's suit, is going to start 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:23.000 hacking up the lipids and the protein molecules in the 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:26.719 batman's skin, forming new chemical bonds and slowly turning this 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:35.560 imbalanced acid water batman solution into a more homogeneous gloupat. Yes, however, 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:37.920 there are probably some materials in the batman and the 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:40.760 batman's suit that will not react with the acid, meaning 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:44.000 you're not likely to end up with a perfectly homogeneous mixture. 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:48.160 You might get some gloup with some lumps in it. Essentially, 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:52.640 the villain's acid just wants to bring Batman into equilibrium. 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:54.920 Isn't that a nice way of thinking about it? Yeah, 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:58.600 he is definitely a character out of balance with the world, right, 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:01.280 And so unless somebody perps comes along with a dump 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.439 truck through full of a week base like baking soda 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.960 to pour in and neutralize the solution, that's what's gonna happen. 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:10.160 Though I'm not sure exactly how that would work out 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:11.960 for the Batman if he's still in the vat while 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:15.840 they're neutralizing it. Yeah, would it? Would there be an explosion, 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:19.840 an eruption? I don't know that. I think the classic 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:24.840 Batman TVs series, of course, with its rigorous approach to science, 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:28.280 you would probably see rob and show up dump the 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:31.840 base in. Everything would turn to a big foam and 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:33.960 uh everything, it would It would be like a foam 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:39.040 slippery dance five party. Yeah, yeah, everybody does the twist. 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:42.040 All right, we're gonna take a quick break and when 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:44.080 we come back, we're going to look at a rogues 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:54.080 gallery of dangerous acids. All right, we're back. Well, let's yeah, 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:57.480 let's let's roll through a few examples of some powerful, 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.680 potent real world acids. And again, not we're gonna try 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:04.320 not to just really chemistry class you too much on these, 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:06.879 but we're gonna, you know, roll through the some of 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:11.159 the basic health ratings and uh and and attributes of 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:14.640 these substances. Well, we talked about early on the idea 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:18.520 of these these acids that occur in biology, and one 0:24:18.640 --> 0:24:23.639 acid that definitely occurs in biology is hydrochloric acid HCl. 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:25.639 So there's going to be a bond between hydrogen and 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:29.080 chlorine and it gets the job done. And I want 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:31.919 to note that, uh, these properties are coming off of 0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:36.040 the m s d s S Material Safety Data Sheet. Yeah, 0:24:36.560 --> 0:24:39.439 if you if you're interested in pretty much any substance, 0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:44.400 any chemical substance, you can generally find um an MSDS 0:24:44.440 --> 0:24:47.560 on on the internet for this and uh it's it 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:49.639 can be a little bit interesting, a little bit technical, 0:24:50.200 --> 0:24:52.960 depending on how much that you read. Uh So the 0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:56.639 appearance of hydrochloric acid, Uh, it would not work in 0:24:56.640 --> 0:24:59.399 a Mortal Kombat game because it's it's colorless, though it 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:04.000 is a fuming liquid, has a pungent odor of hydrogen chloride, 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:06.720 which means you're you're doing the bank vault with Batman 0:25:06.880 --> 0:25:11.119 might be able to sniff it out and when it 0:25:11.160 --> 0:25:15.280 comes to its solubility, infinite solubility, and water with slight 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:20.560 evolution of heat, not necessarily boiling, but slight evolution defeat. Right, 0:25:20.640 --> 0:25:24.200 And so the the MSDS comes with these ratings. It's 0:25:24.200 --> 0:25:26.200 a great rating system. It's kind of like the the 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:28.720 m P A A for acids. Know what you're getting 0:25:28.720 --> 0:25:33.119 ahead of time, Yeah, exactly. Um, the most of the 0:25:33.119 --> 0:25:36.199 ones we looked at use the JT. Baker s A 0:25:36.320 --> 0:25:39.879 f T data scores essentially given it. Like you know, 0:25:39.880 --> 0:25:42.119 it's kind of like character classes in Dungeons and Dragons. Right, 0:25:42.240 --> 0:25:48.440 it's health rating, it's flammability rating, reactivity rating, contact rating, etcetera. Um, 0:25:48.480 --> 0:25:50.600 I'm not gonna deal with all these. But but as 0:25:50.600 --> 0:25:53.120 far as hydrochloric acid goes, it's health rating is a three, 0:25:53.200 --> 0:25:57.040 which is severe like a poison level zero, and flammability 0:25:57.320 --> 0:26:00.920 reactivity rating is a two. Contact rating is three that 0:26:00.960 --> 0:26:04.280 means it's severe. It's corrosive. Do not touch it, So 0:26:04.440 --> 0:26:06.440 you need to if you're handling this stuff in the lab, 0:26:06.520 --> 0:26:10.119 you need some protective measures in place. Yeah, it's highly corrosive, 0:26:10.160 --> 0:26:13.239 so it's dangerous for us to inhale if we we 0:26:13.240 --> 0:26:15.520 we should not come into contact with it on our eyes, 0:26:15.680 --> 0:26:19.120 on our skin, do not ingest it. Uh, you don't 0:26:19.160 --> 0:26:24.240 want to undergo chronic light exposure to it either. Um. 0:26:24.320 --> 0:26:26.560 And then oh yeah, when it's heated to decomposition, it 0:26:26.600 --> 0:26:30.480 emits toxic hydrogen chloride fumes, and we'll react with water 0:26:30.600 --> 0:26:34.840 or steam to produce heat and toxic and corrosive fumes. Yeah. 0:26:34.880 --> 0:26:37.240 But of course, as I mentioned earlier, despite all this, 0:26:37.480 --> 0:26:40.920 you've got hydrochloric acid in your body. That's right, I mean, 0:26:40.960 --> 0:26:43.840 this is the stomach acid. This is uh, this is 0:26:43.880 --> 0:26:46.040 part of you. And really it's important thing to keep 0:26:46.040 --> 0:26:48.800 in mind with acids in general. Like, acids are part 0:26:49.080 --> 0:26:52.440 of our chemical world. Acids are part of the chemistry 0:26:52.440 --> 0:26:56.440 of life. They're part of our biochemistry, uh, in varying degrees. 0:26:57.160 --> 0:27:01.200 So yeah, the even though we liked to position acid 0:27:01.240 --> 0:27:04.480 in that vat of of man made peril, Uh, it's 0:27:04.520 --> 0:27:08.000 really just a part of our world. So parietal cells 0:27:08.040 --> 0:27:10.680 produce hydrochloric acid in our body. It's a strong acid, 0:27:10.720 --> 0:27:12.879 helps you break down your food. The acid in your 0:27:12.880 --> 0:27:15.160 stomach is so concentrated that if you were to place 0:27:15.200 --> 0:27:17.960 a drop on a piece of wood, it would eat 0:27:18.040 --> 0:27:22.159 right through it. Really. Yeah, wow. And the G cells 0:27:22.200 --> 0:27:26.400 produce gastron, a hormone that facilitates the production of hydrochloric 0:27:26.440 --> 0:27:29.920 acid by the parietal cells, So the stomach, because of course, 0:27:29.960 --> 0:27:31.679 one of the big questions is, well, why doesn't the 0:27:31.800 --> 0:27:35.000 acid in our stomach consumers Right, Well, the stomach is 0:27:35.000 --> 0:27:38.840 producted by the epithelial cells, which produce and secrete a 0:27:38.880 --> 0:27:43.960 bicarbonate rich solution that coats the mucosa. Okay, so that's 0:27:43.960 --> 0:27:46.760 taking the method of saving the batman by dumping a 0:27:46.760 --> 0:27:49.240 bunch of baking soda into the vat. Yeah. Yeah, the 0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:52.879 putting in a base exactly. The bicarbonate is an alkaline. 0:27:53.200 --> 0:27:56.479 A base neutralizes the acid that's secreted by those parietal cells, 0:27:56.600 --> 0:28:00.280 producing water in the process. And this continuous supply lie 0:28:00.280 --> 0:28:02.919 of bicarbonate is the main way that your stomach protects 0:28:02.920 --> 0:28:08.280 itself from autodigestion um and the overall acidic environment if 0:28:08.280 --> 0:28:10.920 you're if you're tummy. So uh So, it sounds like 0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:14.159 this process of creating the base to neutralize it is 0:28:14.200 --> 0:28:17.200 not something you want going wrong in your body, right, Yeah, 0:28:17.240 --> 0:28:19.920 that's one you generally what a good a good balance 0:28:20.240 --> 0:28:24.120 in your stomach chemistry. Yeah, Okay, so hydrochloric acid, that's 0:28:24.160 --> 0:28:28.040 nothing to be toyed around with. But there are stronger 0:28:28.080 --> 0:28:31.200 and more dangerous acids out there, and I think maybe 0:28:31.200 --> 0:28:33.639 we should move on. So if if hydrochloric acid was 0:28:33.720 --> 0:28:36.959 sort of the I don't know, the riddler of the 0:28:37.000 --> 0:28:39.360 acid rogues gallery, I think it's time to move on 0:28:39.400 --> 0:28:44.840 to the joker. Yes, the joker would definitely be sulfuric acid, right, yeah, 0:28:44.880 --> 0:28:47.280 And this is one I would say, of all the 0:28:47.320 --> 0:28:50.560 acids they're technical names, sulfuric acid is the one that 0:28:50.680 --> 0:28:55.200 is that is most commonly used in fiction. Granted not 0:28:55.240 --> 0:28:57.640 without a real deep understanding of what it is. But 0:28:57.760 --> 0:29:00.080 like the name itself sounds a little scary, soulf for 0:29:00.240 --> 0:29:04.840 it's it's hellish, right, sulfuric the the name itself sounds 0:29:04.840 --> 0:29:07.720 a little bit evil. Well, chemically, it's H two S 0:29:07.720 --> 0:29:11.360 O four, So that's hydrogen with sulfur and oxygen and 0:29:11.480 --> 0:29:16.280 it forms this molecule that is very very keen to protonate. 0:29:16.920 --> 0:29:21.719 Oh yes, so it's it's a clear, oily liquid. It's odorless, 0:29:22.080 --> 0:29:25.080 so sorry bank vault dude. Yeah, both of these so 0:29:25.160 --> 0:29:28.320 far clear? Right? Yeah? Yeah? Nothing green? Why why not green? 0:29:28.440 --> 0:29:33.120 Or or it's also mistable with water, which means that 0:29:33.200 --> 0:29:36.440 it forms a homogeneous mixture when added to water, liberates 0:29:36.520 --> 0:29:40.560 a fair amount of heat. Um. And it's highly corrosive 0:29:40.600 --> 0:29:43.000 and dangerous to humans just across the board, much like 0:29:43.640 --> 0:29:46.280 hydrochloric acid. So how does it compare in terms of 0:29:46.280 --> 0:29:50.120 the ratings? So hydrochloric acid, for for the health rating, 0:29:50.120 --> 0:29:53.400 we had a three, and for the contact corrosivity rating 0:29:53.440 --> 0:29:56.120 we had a three, right right three on both yeah, 0:29:56.160 --> 0:30:00.160 and had a had a two for reactivity and a 0:30:00.280 --> 0:30:03.160 zero for flammability. This time around we have another zero 0:30:03.240 --> 0:30:07.200 for flammability. Um. However, reactivity went up from a two 0:30:07.280 --> 0:30:09.960 to the to a three, so we have severe water 0:30:10.040 --> 0:30:14.440 reactivity here. Uh. And then as far as health rating goes, 0:30:14.800 --> 0:30:17.640 we have another three, so it's just a severe poisonous. 0:30:18.160 --> 0:30:20.880 But contact rating goes up from three to four from 0:30:20.880 --> 0:30:25.239 severe to extreme, so it's extremely corrosive. How do they 0:30:25.320 --> 0:30:27.640 decide what word goes with that? I might say severe 0:30:27.760 --> 0:30:32.400 is worse than extreme? Well, I don't know. It's it's 0:30:32.400 --> 0:30:35.480 gonna be specific to the JT. Baker s a f 0:30:35.560 --> 0:30:37.680 T data score. I guess because I need a good 0:30:37.680 --> 0:30:40.440 poet to go through and annotate this data sheet instead 0:30:40.480 --> 0:30:43.120 of like a single word like a nice description exactly 0:30:43.120 --> 0:30:45.600 everyone is encountered with it, or an example from a movie, 0:30:45.720 --> 0:30:49.360 right like this is a you know, this is a 0:30:49.400 --> 0:30:53.360 Mortal Kombat two level ascid. Yeah, so if you're going 0:30:53.440 --> 0:30:55.680 for this movie kind of asset, I think we're we're 0:30:55.680 --> 0:30:58.080 getting more into the territory here of assets that are 0:30:58.080 --> 0:31:01.280 really gonna maybe not be of exactly like the movie 0:31:01.320 --> 0:31:04.480 acid you're used to, but get closer to that than 0:31:04.760 --> 0:31:08.320 than many other things would. Now, some other bad stuff 0:31:08.320 --> 0:31:11.960 about sulphuric acid. When heated to decomposition, it produces toxic 0:31:12.120 --> 0:31:15.880 fumes of oxides of sulfur uh. It will react with 0:31:15.960 --> 0:31:19.080 water or steam to produce toxic and corrosive fumes. It 0:31:19.160 --> 0:31:22.720 reacts with the carbonates to generate carbon dioxide gas, and 0:31:22.760 --> 0:31:27.520 with cyanides and sulfides to form poisonous hydrogen cyanide and 0:31:27.640 --> 0:31:32.040 hydrogen sulfide, respectively. It all sounds lovely. Yeah, So again 0:31:32.080 --> 0:31:34.480 that's something though that is often I don't feel like 0:31:34.480 --> 0:31:39.080 that that's utilized the the the the resulting toxic gas 0:31:39.120 --> 0:31:43.160 of acid interactions in films, like they were so concerned 0:31:43.200 --> 0:31:46.560 with what happens when the xenomorph blood gets on you 0:31:46.680 --> 0:31:49.000 or your armor or the floor. But how about any 0:31:49.040 --> 0:31:52.400 resulting fumes. Well, yeah, we're we're always so much more 0:31:52.440 --> 0:31:55.960 concerned with liquids than with gases. And what one example 0:31:56.040 --> 0:31:59.240 is volcanoes in movies. You know, volcanoes in real life. 0:31:59.280 --> 0:32:01.880 I think they're way more likely to suffocate and kill 0:32:01.920 --> 0:32:05.280 you with gases emitted or or by covering you in 0:32:05.400 --> 0:32:07.840 ash and and ejecta and stuff like that. But what 0:32:07.960 --> 0:32:09.680 you see in the movies is the lava. People are 0:32:09.760 --> 0:32:12.920 running away from liquid lava rolling down the hill toward them. 0:32:13.160 --> 0:32:16.120 Your volcano is very likely to kill you, but it's 0:32:16.280 --> 0:32:19.800 very not likely to kill you that way. Another thing 0:32:19.880 --> 0:32:21.760 that this is going off topic a little bit, but 0:32:21.880 --> 0:32:26.480 flamethrowers in a confined space, it's a staple of our entertainment, 0:32:26.760 --> 0:32:29.160 and yet it is such a bad idea to just 0:32:29.360 --> 0:32:32.600 rapidly consume. I mean, a flamethrower in general is a 0:32:32.640 --> 0:32:36.959 bad idea. A real flamethrower way to suffocate yourself. That's 0:32:36.960 --> 0:32:39.040 a great way to sufcate yourself, and it's rarely, rarely 0:32:39.120 --> 0:32:41.280 is that explored. The only example I can think of 0:32:41.280 --> 0:32:45.200 off hand is that there is a wonderful Nazi zombie 0:32:45.200 --> 0:32:50.080 film from the seventies or eighties titled shock Waves, and 0:32:50.160 --> 0:32:51.960 there's a scene where they don't have a flamethrower, but 0:32:52.000 --> 0:32:55.320 they light some flares, I think to ward off the creatures, 0:32:55.560 --> 0:32:57.360 and they're in a confined space and it just eats 0:32:57.400 --> 0:32:59.880 up all the oxygen and everybody's like gasping for breath. 0:33:00.080 --> 0:33:02.480 And I remember the time thinking, Ah, thank you movie 0:33:02.560 --> 0:33:06.000 for for for thinking a little bit. That's smart. Okay, 0:33:06.000 --> 0:33:09.400 But back to sulfuric acid. So sulfuric acid, based on 0:33:09.480 --> 0:33:11.520 how dangerous it sounds, You're you're probably never going to 0:33:11.640 --> 0:33:15.120 have this in your home, right, well, not necessarily. Now 0:33:15.720 --> 0:33:17.760 you might be able to get sulfuric acid in the 0:33:17.800 --> 0:33:23.280 home and some deluded uh concentrations. So a nine study 0:33:23.320 --> 0:33:26.120 in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery that 0:33:26.160 --> 0:33:30.200 I came across was called cutaneous burns caused by sulfuric 0:33:30.320 --> 0:33:35.760 acid drain cleaner. Yeah, pretty horrible. So a lot of 0:33:35.760 --> 0:33:38.440 the commercial drain cleaner you're gonna be getting is actually 0:33:38.440 --> 0:33:40.959 going to be based on a strong base rather than 0:33:41.000 --> 0:33:43.719 a strong acid, So it might have something kind of 0:33:43.720 --> 0:33:47.800 like lie in it to dissolve uh to dissolve materials 0:33:47.800 --> 0:33:50.760 and the drain to do some some alkaline hydrolysis and 0:33:50.800 --> 0:33:53.000 clear it out, get all that hair and gunk out 0:33:53.040 --> 0:33:56.240 of there. But also there are some preparations made with 0:33:56.320 --> 0:34:00.760 strong acids, such as highly concentrated solutions of sulf furic acid, 0:34:01.200 --> 0:34:04.240 and and some people will sell these and you can 0:34:04.240 --> 0:34:08.480 buy them. And this has caused accidental and sometimes intentional 0:34:08.760 --> 0:34:12.560 burns in the home. So this study looked at a 0:34:12.719 --> 0:34:17.000 period of thirteen years ending in May nine six, looking 0:34:17.080 --> 0:34:21.040 at children and adults who sustained sulfuric acid burns in 0:34:21.080 --> 0:34:24.120 the home through products like these, And it looked at 0:34:24.160 --> 0:34:27.280 twenty one patients. There were thirteen kids and eight adults. 0:34:27.520 --> 0:34:29.359 And I just want to read the results. They say 0:34:29.440 --> 0:34:34.160 in eight instances the sulfuric acid burn was accidental, whereas 0:34:34.160 --> 0:34:37.680 in thirteen cases sulfuric acid was used as a weapon 0:34:38.400 --> 0:34:41.680 media and total body surface area burned was five percent 0:34:42.480 --> 0:34:47.280 or a range of one. Approximately fifty percent of burns 0:34:47.280 --> 0:34:51.040 involved the face and the neck. Skin grafting was required 0:34:51.080 --> 0:34:54.840 in fourteen patients or sixty six percent. And it's estimated 0:34:54.920 --> 0:34:58.640 that nationwide, approximately three thousand injuries per year are related 0:34:58.680 --> 0:35:01.560 to drain cleaners and that one third of these involved 0:35:01.600 --> 0:35:06.479 cutaneous burns. So this is, uh, this is one kind 0:35:06.480 --> 0:35:10.840 of scary fact about what sulfuric acid can do outside 0:35:10.840 --> 0:35:13.799 of the lab. And this does remind me that in um, 0:35:13.840 --> 0:35:16.200 you know a lot of films and TV, and and 0:35:16.280 --> 0:35:20.440 certainly in horror literature, uh, drain cleaner is is often 0:35:20.560 --> 0:35:24.200 used that kind of household horror. This thing that is uh, 0:35:24.360 --> 0:35:26.360 you know, when you used correctly, is certainly just a 0:35:26.360 --> 0:35:28.120 part of our lives and we don't think about it, 0:35:28.200 --> 0:35:31.560 but if you turn it around, it becomes this horrible 0:35:31.640 --> 0:35:34.560 in human thing. And uh, and I should also point 0:35:34.560 --> 0:35:37.280 out of view some people might have might have missed 0:35:37.320 --> 0:35:39.439 this in this episode because it's kind of maybe we're 0:35:39.440 --> 0:35:42.680 bearing the lead a little bit. But the most recent 0:35:42.680 --> 0:35:45.920 Creepy Posta episode that Christian and I did gets into 0:35:46.320 --> 0:35:49.719 the into the issue of acid attacks and the restoration 0:35:50.000 --> 0:35:54.799 of surgical restoration of individuals who have experienced fact, so 0:35:54.880 --> 0:35:57.360 it mentions the like the grafting that was eaching in 0:35:57.400 --> 0:35:59.640 this study. Uh and so yeah, I mean that's a 0:35:59.640 --> 0:36:01.680 horrible thing to think about it in real life being 0:36:01.760 --> 0:36:04.839 used as a weapon probably doesn't behave exactly the same 0:36:04.880 --> 0:36:07.480 way we do see the movie acid behaving are certainly 0:36:07.480 --> 0:36:10.000 not as rapidly, but at the same time can cause 0:36:10.040 --> 0:36:13.719 it very severe burns and damage to the body. So 0:36:14.120 --> 0:36:17.080 it's not something to mess around with indeed. But next, 0:36:17.160 --> 0:36:19.480 let's look at one more rogue in our in our 0:36:19.560 --> 0:36:21.880 rogues gallery of dangerous acids, and I think this one 0:36:21.920 --> 0:36:23.560 is going to be one of the most interesting, and 0:36:23.640 --> 0:36:27.400 this is hydrofluoric acid or h F made of a 0:36:27.440 --> 0:36:31.240 bond of hydrogen and fluorine. Let's look at the MSDS 0:36:31.320 --> 0:36:35.480 scores here on this one. So health rating. Our previous 0:36:35.480 --> 0:36:38.640 two examples were both three, which were severe. This one 0:36:38.680 --> 0:36:42.279 is a four. This one is extremely poisonous. Uh. This 0:36:42.320 --> 0:36:46.520 one also has a zero on flammability. Uh. It's reactivity 0:36:46.640 --> 0:36:49.360 rating is a mere two, so that's down from three 0:36:49.880 --> 0:36:53.000 that we had on sulphuric acid. And then its contact 0:36:53.120 --> 0:36:57.560 rating is a four. Extremely corrosive, just like sulfuric acid. Yeah. 0:36:57.920 --> 0:37:00.960 So it's a colorless, fuming liquid. Uh. It has a 0:37:01.040 --> 0:37:05.680 very very acrid odor. Do not breathe the fumes and 0:37:05.760 --> 0:37:10.600 it is infinitely soluble. Now, this this stuff, because of 0:37:10.640 --> 0:37:14.680 the nature of it, the hydrogen fluorian bond or the 0:37:14.760 --> 0:37:19.400 hydrogen fluoride. It has a very unique sort of reactive 0:37:19.440 --> 0:37:23.240 profile that's right on contact with metals. It liberates hydrogen 0:37:23.320 --> 0:37:27.320 gas on heating to decomposition. It can yield toxic fumes 0:37:27.320 --> 0:37:32.239 of fluorides, and it attacks glass and other silicon containing compounds. 0:37:32.320 --> 0:37:36.279 It reacts with silica to produce silicon tetrafluoride, which is 0:37:36.320 --> 0:37:39.959 also a hazardous colorless gas. Yeah, now we should linger 0:37:40.000 --> 0:37:42.680 on that last fact for a moment, because what do 0:37:42.760 --> 0:37:47.239 we say here? Hydrogen fluoride can dissolve glass. Yeah. Most 0:37:47.320 --> 0:37:50.040 of the time. Glass is great for storing chemicals because 0:37:50.040 --> 0:37:52.160 it is very nonreactive. You can put stuff in a 0:37:52.160 --> 0:37:54.440 glass container and it will sit there. It doesn't it 0:37:54.440 --> 0:37:57.520 doesn't react with what's inside it. Glass is made of 0:37:57.560 --> 0:38:00.759 mostly silicon dioxide silica, same stuff is you know, a 0:38:00.840 --> 0:38:05.520 lot of rocks and sand. But hydrogen fluoride smashes up 0:38:05.560 --> 0:38:09.319 those silicon dioxide bonds in order to replace them with 0:38:09.440 --> 0:38:13.799 silicon fluorine bonds. And so for this reason you can't 0:38:13.880 --> 0:38:15.400 store it in glass. You have to store it in 0:38:15.480 --> 0:38:18.400 a special container, often one made out of something that 0:38:18.480 --> 0:38:21.719 won't react with it, like polyethylene plastic. But a few 0:38:21.719 --> 0:38:26.000 other materials will work. And I wanted to talk about 0:38:26.040 --> 0:38:28.840 a couple of videos that I found on the Internet 0:38:28.880 --> 0:38:32.279 that are very interesting dealing with hydrogen fluoride. And if 0:38:32.280 --> 0:38:34.200 you want to watch these, if you're in a physician, 0:38:34.200 --> 0:38:37.080 to watch these as you listen to the podcast episode. 0:38:37.120 --> 0:38:39.360 We will include links to these on the landing page 0:38:39.360 --> 0:38:41.560 for this episode Stuffable your Mind dot com. Yeah, so 0:38:41.640 --> 0:38:45.080 these were done by a group that puts out chemistry 0:38:45.160 --> 0:38:48.960 videos on the Internet called periodic videos or periodic table videos. 0:38:49.000 --> 0:38:52.840 It's out of believe, the Chemistry Department of University of Nottingham, 0:38:52.880 --> 0:38:54.319 and there are a lot of fun They do some 0:38:54.360 --> 0:38:58.200 experiments with some very unsettling chemicals. One of them was 0:38:58.280 --> 0:39:02.399 hydrogen fluoride, where they they decided to put a light 0:39:02.440 --> 0:39:04.759 bulb in the hydrogen fluoride. So it's a live light 0:39:04.760 --> 0:39:08.600 bulb with power running to it, lighting up half submerged 0:39:09.120 --> 0:39:11.520 in a container of hydrogen fluoride. And what do you know, 0:39:11.719 --> 0:39:15.640 after a little while sitting in the solution, the glass 0:39:15.680 --> 0:39:18.080 part of the light bulb breaks off, and it breaks 0:39:18.080 --> 0:39:21.240 off in a very strange way, cleanly, with a circle 0:39:21.480 --> 0:39:25.880 around where the surface of the acid is is lining 0:39:26.000 --> 0:39:28.920 the outside of the glass bulb. It just kind of 0:39:28.960 --> 0:39:31.200 shears it off as if it had been scored and 0:39:31.200 --> 0:39:34.960 then removed. And that, of course is pretty freakingly freaky 0:39:35.000 --> 0:39:38.040 because then the filament immediately comes off and it starts 0:39:38.080 --> 0:39:41.719 kind of sparking. But then they did another video which 0:39:41.840 --> 0:39:44.200 I thought was really interesting, and this one's really worth 0:39:44.200 --> 0:39:47.920 a watch. So this is comparing the flesh dissolving properties 0:39:47.960 --> 0:39:50.919 of three different acids, actually the three we've just talked about. 0:39:51.160 --> 0:39:53.160 This is the one I watched, and uh, yeah, this 0:39:53.280 --> 0:39:56.320 is a lot of it's fantastic. So in all three cases, 0:39:56.320 --> 0:39:58.560 what they did is they got a raw chicken leg 0:39:59.080 --> 0:40:02.160 and they suspended it from a string partially submerged in 0:40:02.200 --> 0:40:05.239 the acid. Uh. And then the states of the three 0:40:05.320 --> 0:40:07.879 chicken legs are monitored. And the three acids they did, 0:40:07.880 --> 0:40:09.319 like we said, are the ones we've just talked about. 0:40:09.360 --> 0:40:13.680 Hydrogen chloride or HCl, sulfuric acid or H two s 0:40:13.719 --> 0:40:17.960 O four, and then hydrofluoric acid or HF. Now, the 0:40:17.960 --> 0:40:21.760 the sort of the profile we saw affecting the chicken 0:40:21.840 --> 0:40:24.400 leg was very similar for the hydrogen chloride and the 0:40:24.440 --> 0:40:27.840 sulfuric acid. Wouldn't you say, yes? Uh, yeah, they seem 0:40:27.880 --> 0:40:29.920 to do the same thing, which is that after about 0:40:29.960 --> 0:40:33.239 five minutes, not really any noticeable changes. I'm sure if 0:40:33.480 --> 0:40:36.360 that chicken leg could feel it probably wouldn't feel good, 0:40:36.920 --> 0:40:39.320 But you don't really notice any burning on the outside. 0:40:39.600 --> 0:40:43.680 After thirty minutes, still nothing really noticeable. So this already 0:40:43.800 --> 0:40:46.720 is not exactly lining up with what we know about 0:40:46.760 --> 0:40:48.920 movie acid right right, And these are best in our 0:40:48.960 --> 0:40:54.480 brightest athletes, yeah, exactly. But overnight some really interesting stuff 0:40:54.520 --> 0:40:57.160 started to happen with these two. So the previously clear 0:40:57.280 --> 0:41:01.160 solution takes on a dark pigment and the part of 0:41:01.200 --> 0:41:04.480 the chicken that has been submerged has turned into this dark, 0:41:04.840 --> 0:41:08.600 viscous jelly that drips off of the bone when you 0:41:08.640 --> 0:41:11.560 lifted up. Uh. And then after that they went a 0:41:11.560 --> 0:41:13.880 whole hog where they cut the string and just dunked 0:41:13.880 --> 0:41:16.640 the whole chicken leg in and it's gross. It just 0:41:16.680 --> 0:41:21.000 continues to darken the acid solution, turn it into this gloopy, 0:41:21.239 --> 0:41:24.239 dark and jelly, and it it sort of begins to 0:41:24.320 --> 0:41:27.279 liquify the outer layers of the chicken leg. Don't know 0:41:27.320 --> 0:41:29.560 what what would have happened if they just kept it 0:41:29.600 --> 0:41:33.440 going for weeks. After after a day, it was not 0:41:33.560 --> 0:41:38.640 looking good. It was thoroughly unappetizing, that is for sure. Yeah. 0:41:38.800 --> 0:41:41.560 I don't know. People just don't for some reason, you 0:41:41.600 --> 0:41:43.160 want to eat a piece of chicken. You don't want 0:41:43.160 --> 0:41:48.040 to eat some chicken jelly, but yet you like grape jelly. Yeah. Well, um, 0:41:48.120 --> 0:41:51.080 well there you know. There are different jellifications of flesh 0:41:51.080 --> 0:41:54.760 that are consumed arthur In, like French busine. Oh I suppose, so, yeah, 0:41:54.800 --> 0:41:59.520 that's right. What's it called aspect? Yeah, okay, moving on 0:41:59.600 --> 0:42:02.719 now now, So that's hydrogen chloride and sulfuric acid. But 0:42:02.760 --> 0:42:07.280 the real strange one contributing here is the hydrofluoric acid, 0:42:07.560 --> 0:42:09.160 this being the one that we just covered, the one 0:42:09.200 --> 0:42:13.080 that dissolves glass. Yeah, and so similar profile at the beginning. 0:42:13.080 --> 0:42:17.400 After five to thirty minutes, really not any significant observed changes. 0:42:18.000 --> 0:42:20.440 Like we said, probably if you could be that chicken 0:42:20.520 --> 0:42:23.000 leg it would not be pleasant. But just looking at it, 0:42:23.280 --> 0:42:27.160 nothing strange seems to have occurred. But again, overnight, some 0:42:27.280 --> 0:42:30.560 really crazy stuff starts to happen. Unlike the other two 0:42:30.560 --> 0:42:34.960 acid solutions, which darkened and took on the red red pigment, uh, 0:42:35.040 --> 0:42:38.360 this acid solution remains clear and the part of the 0:42:38.400 --> 0:42:41.680 chicken legs submerged in the acid has sort of partially 0:42:41.800 --> 0:42:47.400 disappeared and has a white discoloration along the sheared away surface. 0:42:47.440 --> 0:42:49.120 It looked to me, I don't know what you thought 0:42:49.120 --> 0:42:52.680 about this, It looked to me like frost or freezer burn. Yeah. Yeah, 0:42:52.680 --> 0:42:54.680 I did have that kind of appearance. Yeah. And then 0:42:54.760 --> 0:42:58.080 also the entire rest of the leg has become discolored, 0:42:58.160 --> 0:43:00.640 so all of the red pigment in the soul it 0:43:00.640 --> 0:43:03.880 looks like it's just been drained away. And even the 0:43:03.920 --> 0:43:06.840 part way up out of the acid has become pale 0:43:06.880 --> 0:43:11.200 white with greenish spots. It's lost its pink pigment. Uh. 0:43:11.239 --> 0:43:13.719 And then after they dropped the whole thing, and when 0:43:13.760 --> 0:43:17.760 they cut the string, it looks almost like extremely overcooked 0:43:17.840 --> 0:43:21.640 boiled chicken, pale white all over except for a little 0:43:21.680 --> 0:43:24.759 part sticking out which looks green and disease like they 0:43:24.920 --> 0:43:28.960 just the worst example of steamer tray lunch room chicken 0:43:29.040 --> 0:43:32.040 legs you could possibly imagine. Yeah, And so I do 0:43:32.160 --> 0:43:35.759 recommend the the video because the chemist who they talked 0:43:35.760 --> 0:43:38.840 to in the video has a theory about why this happens. 0:43:39.040 --> 0:43:41.239 And I'm not going to repeat his theory, but it's 0:43:41.239 --> 0:43:44.279 worth checking out. It's pretty interesting. He also has wonderful 0:43:44.440 --> 0:43:49.279 like frizzy white hair. He's just a fabulous example of 0:43:49.280 --> 0:43:51.960 of a British scientist. Yeah, all right, we're gonna take 0:43:52.000 --> 0:43:53.680 a quick break and when we come back we will 0:43:53.719 --> 0:43:56.400 get into the realm of super acids and then we 0:43:56.440 --> 0:44:01.560 will reconverge with the Xeno morph. Hey, everybody, trips to 0:44:01.600 --> 0:44:04.319 the post office are never convenient, so why not get 0:44:04.360 --> 0:44:07.200 postage right from your desk with stamps dot Com. Stamps 0:44:07.239 --> 0:44:09.879 dot Com gives you special postage discounts you can't get 0:44:09.880 --> 0:44:13.440 in a post office, including first class, Priority mail, Express, International, 0:44:13.480 --> 0:44:16.439 and more. You'll never pay full price for postage again. Yeah. 0:44:16.480 --> 0:44:18.880 So here's how stamps dot Com works. 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Go to stamps 0:44:56.239 --> 0:44:58.120 dot com right now before you do anything else, click 0:44:58.160 --> 0:44:59.840 on the microphone at the top of the homepage and 0:45:00.239 --> 0:45:03.560 in stuff that Stamps dot com inter stuff and start 0:45:03.640 --> 0:45:11.280 mailing things. Okay, here's a question. When does an acid 0:45:11.800 --> 0:45:14.600 become a super acid? We've talked about superheroes at the 0:45:14.640 --> 0:45:18.359 beginning of Batman is a Is he a hero or superhero? Well, 0:45:18.440 --> 0:45:20.759 he doesn't really have superpowers, but I guess he counts 0:45:20.760 --> 0:45:22.759 as a superhero. Oh yeah, he's got the costume, he's 0:45:22.760 --> 0:45:26.080 got the technology. So yeah, maybe if these other acids 0:45:26.080 --> 0:45:29.000 we just discussed, dissolving chicken legs won't dissolve a Batman 0:45:29.160 --> 0:45:33.279 fast enough. You need a super acid to dissolve a superhero. 0:45:33.360 --> 0:45:34.920 It seems like the kind of thing is super villain. 0:45:35.000 --> 0:45:37.719 Would need to look into it exactly. So what is 0:45:37.760 --> 0:45:40.840 a super acid? Well, super acid is an acid that 0:45:41.080 --> 0:45:44.280 is as strong as or stronger than, one hundred percent 0:45:44.480 --> 0:45:48.839 pure sulfuric acid. Uh, And why would you ever have 0:45:48.920 --> 0:45:52.280 anything like this? What's the point of it? Well, acids 0:45:52.400 --> 0:45:55.520 are an incredibly important catalyst in the chemical industry, which 0:45:55.560 --> 0:45:57.920 is maybe why they're in, you know, the industrial settings, 0:45:57.920 --> 0:46:00.799 some big open vets. Yeah, but they have. They have 0:46:01.040 --> 0:46:04.359 a number of applications and potential applications in fuel cell 0:46:04.440 --> 0:46:08.280 technology and the chemical and petroleum industry. So, for instance, 0:46:08.560 --> 0:46:14.000 acids don't usually react with hydrocarbons, oil, petroleum, but super 0:46:14.040 --> 0:46:17.640 acids do. Yeah, And so we figured it's worth looking 0:46:17.719 --> 0:46:20.960 up what's the strongest acid known to humankind? There is 0:46:21.000 --> 0:46:24.720 an answer to this question, right, It is fluoro antimonic 0:46:24.800 --> 0:46:28.160 acid or h s b F six. Then this is, 0:46:28.200 --> 0:46:31.640 as far as we know, the strongest super acid on earth. 0:46:31.719 --> 0:46:33.680 So what's the deal with it? So this is made 0:46:33.719 --> 0:46:39.400 by combining hydrofluoric acid with antimony pentafluoride. And this is 0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:45.000 gonna sound crazy, but it the resulting acid is billions 0:46:45.120 --> 0:46:49.359 of times stronger than sulfuric acid. Yeah, it's billions and 0:46:49.560 --> 0:46:53.359 billions of times or just many orders of magnitude stronger 0:46:53.400 --> 0:46:58.040 than sulfuric acid. That is crazy obviously something we don't 0:46:58.080 --> 0:47:01.759 exactly know. Like I couldn't find any videos that were 0:47:01.880 --> 0:47:06.080 clearly real of people dealing with this stuff. I couldn't 0:47:06.080 --> 0:47:08.600 find a lot of first person accounts of people dealing 0:47:08.600 --> 0:47:11.520 with it. There there's some some research materials about it, 0:47:11.560 --> 0:47:14.960 but they don't really get into, uh, into what exactly 0:47:15.000 --> 0:47:18.000 would happen by combining this with stuff. I imagine if 0:47:18.040 --> 0:47:21.480 you dipped a batman in it, some some stuff would 0:47:21.480 --> 0:47:23.880 go down. Yeah, I mean, we found numbers that were 0:47:23.960 --> 0:47:26.920 kind of all over the place, and there's no MSDS 0:47:26.960 --> 0:47:29.240 score for this. There's no s A f T data 0:47:29.280 --> 0:47:31.359 on this, so we can't we can't even like look 0:47:31.360 --> 0:47:34.040 at numbers that put it, uh, you know, to make 0:47:34.080 --> 0:47:38.160 a comparison between it and acid. Right, But just based 0:47:38.200 --> 0:47:40.759 on on what we do know about it, I think 0:47:40.800 --> 0:47:44.400 it's safe to assume that this stuff is incredibly dangerous 0:47:44.560 --> 0:47:49.320 and dipping a batman and it would have some some consequences. 0:47:49.880 --> 0:47:51.880 But but you might be wondering, you know, with with 0:47:51.920 --> 0:47:56.359 an acid that strong, something that that reactive, how would 0:47:56.360 --> 0:47:59.200 you even store it? Right? Because just the hydrogen, uh, 0:47:59.480 --> 0:48:02.360 just with the Jeff, you've got this problem where you 0:48:02.360 --> 0:48:06.759 you you're dissolving glass containers. Uh so what do you 0:48:06.840 --> 0:48:09.680 use to story? This wasn't an interesting piece of information 0:48:09.719 --> 0:48:13.399 I found cited in several sources. You can actually store 0:48:13.440 --> 0:48:16.000 it with something you keep around the house. It's something 0:48:16.000 --> 0:48:18.719 with a solid bond that really doesn't want to let 0:48:18.719 --> 0:48:22.640 go and bond with other stuff. It's teflon ptf E, 0:48:22.800 --> 0:48:26.880 so polytetrafluora ethylene. It's a ptf E and that's just 0:48:27.080 --> 0:48:32.600 a a fluorine carbon bond molecule. That's it's It's very monogamous. 0:48:32.640 --> 0:48:36.800 It just doesn't want to go bond with other stuff. Interesting. Alright, 0:48:36.840 --> 0:48:40.440 So if you are battling a lizard ninja that may 0:48:40.520 --> 0:48:44.160 or may not have um super acid in its body, 0:48:44.280 --> 0:48:47.240 where your teflon ninja costut to battle it? Exactly? Okay, 0:48:48.120 --> 0:48:51.840 that's what Batman uses, I bet sustain his encounters with 0:48:51.920 --> 0:48:55.319 vats of acid is a teflon batsuit. So this would 0:48:55.360 --> 0:48:58.160 be what McBain's underwear was made off in that that 0:48:58.239 --> 0:49:00.160 scene we were talking about from The Simpsons, because when 0:49:00.160 --> 0:49:03.719 the flood of acid and throws him through I think 0:49:03.719 --> 0:49:07.959 mill houses, uh trailer, that the acid like quickly eats 0:49:07.960 --> 0:49:10.839 off all of his clothing except for his underwear. Yeah, well, 0:49:11.000 --> 0:49:14.680 I'm sure that was done for a network censorship reasons 0:49:14.800 --> 0:49:18.239 rather than than scientific accuracy reasons, but it could be 0:49:18.360 --> 0:49:21.560 could be uh teflon underwear protects you from the acid, 0:49:21.880 --> 0:49:23.840 though I don't know if that would work with every acid. 0:49:24.080 --> 0:49:27.319 That's true. I just have to assume if it works 0:49:27.360 --> 0:49:29.239 for the strongest asset in the world, is going to 0:49:29.320 --> 0:49:32.479 be generally pretty effective. Alright, So, Joe, at this point, 0:49:32.480 --> 0:49:35.920 we've we've talked about what Hollywood acids look like, we've 0:49:35.960 --> 0:49:39.120 talked about the real properties of acids, and we're already 0:49:39.120 --> 0:49:42.400 seeing how they don't really match up to our Batman 0:49:42.480 --> 0:49:45.480 dissolving needs. Doesn't mean they're not dangerous something that are 0:49:45.680 --> 0:49:49.200 certainly credibly dangerous, but they don't behave exactly like we 0:49:49.200 --> 0:49:52.000 we want them to to make Batman burn. Well, are 0:49:52.040 --> 0:49:55.560 there other things in our natural world that do behave 0:49:55.640 --> 0:50:00.319 like these fictionalized substances? Well, still probably not exactly. You're 0:50:00.320 --> 0:50:03.120 not going to get the green, bubbling, instant dissolving you 0:50:03.239 --> 0:50:05.880 kind of thing. But in many cases, I think if 0:50:05.920 --> 0:50:09.800 you want a chemical that burns through human flesh more 0:50:09.840 --> 0:50:12.239 like it does in the movies, what you want is 0:50:12.280 --> 0:50:15.080 not necessarily a strong acid, but a strong base on 0:50:15.120 --> 0:50:18.880 the opposite end of the pH scale, such as LIE, 0:50:19.000 --> 0:50:22.000 which would be usually sodium hydroxide in a O H 0:50:22.160 --> 0:50:28.120 or potassium hydroxide KOH. And so I wanna bring to 0:50:28.160 --> 0:50:29.960 your mind a scene from a movie you might or 0:50:30.000 --> 0:50:33.160 might not have seen it. You've seen Fight Club, right, Oh? Yes, 0:50:33.480 --> 0:50:36.440 you remember the scene in Fight Club where Brad Pitt 0:50:36.440 --> 0:50:39.040 and Edward Norton they're sitting around a table and they're 0:50:39.080 --> 0:50:42.080 making soap because this is a plot point in the movie, 0:50:42.600 --> 0:50:44.719 and one of the ingredients in making soap, and this 0:50:44.800 --> 0:50:48.000 is true is lie. And in the scene, brad Pitt 0:50:48.040 --> 0:50:50.640 he takes Edward Norton's hand and he kisses him on 0:50:50.680 --> 0:50:53.879 the hand, and then he pours lie across the wet 0:50:53.920 --> 0:50:57.760 spot where his lips were, and this causes a reaction 0:50:58.160 --> 0:51:00.759 that begins to burn Edward Norton's hand. And for the 0:51:00.800 --> 0:51:03.880 sake of you know, kind of macho and somewhat grandiose 0:51:03.920 --> 0:51:07.320 sense of carpet d m, brad Pitt convinces Edward Norton 0:51:07.360 --> 0:51:10.040 to just sit there and endure the pain, the chemical burn, 0:51:10.120 --> 0:51:13.160 instead of washing off the lie. And he also tells 0:51:13.239 --> 0:51:16.239 him that washing it off with water would only make 0:51:16.280 --> 0:51:20.720 it worse, and eventually he uses vinegar to neutralize the acid. Now, 0:51:21.120 --> 0:51:24.160 you shouldn't take your chemical safety information from a podcast. 0:51:24.200 --> 0:51:26.680 We are not chemical safety experts, and you should always 0:51:26.719 --> 0:51:29.840 consult those real experts before dealing with strong acids or bases. 0:51:29.880 --> 0:51:32.680 But from everything I've read, Brad Pitt's wisdom about the 0:51:32.760 --> 0:51:36.360 vinegar here is not exactly true. Uh. It is true 0:51:36.400 --> 0:51:38.719 that a strong base like LIE is activated in the 0:51:38.760 --> 0:51:41.680 presence of water, and that you can use acids to 0:51:41.760 --> 0:51:45.080 neutralize bases. But if you've got LIE on you, my 0:51:45.280 --> 0:51:48.839 non expert opinion is that your first priorities just get 0:51:48.880 --> 0:51:50.799 it off. You get it off your skin as fast 0:51:50.840 --> 0:51:53.680 as possible, rather than running around looking for a creative 0:51:53.760 --> 0:51:56.879 lemons to squeeze on and neutralize it. Washing it off 0:51:56.920 --> 0:51:58.879 with water would be one way, but you just want 0:51:58.880 --> 0:52:02.960 it off your skin as fast as possible. Also worth 0:52:02.960 --> 0:52:07.000 pointing out that commercial vinegar is mostly water. It's acetic acid, 0:52:07.080 --> 0:52:10.680 but it's highly diluted with water. But yes, in any case, 0:52:11.080 --> 0:52:14.680 this is an example of what strong bases can do 0:52:14.800 --> 0:52:16.759 to the skin, and in some ways the scene is 0:52:16.840 --> 0:52:19.439 kind of accurate. Like a strong base like a lie 0:52:19.480 --> 0:52:21.879 in the presence of water on the skin can definitely 0:52:22.000 --> 0:52:25.879 burn you. It can cause bad chemical burns, and can 0:52:25.920 --> 0:52:30.359 definitely truly dissolve human flesh under the right conditions. So 0:52:30.800 --> 0:52:33.280 this is one thing we also see the movie acid 0:52:33.400 --> 0:52:35.759 being used for. It's like the Mafia hitman in the 0:52:35.800 --> 0:52:38.919 movie have some vat of acid in their basement and 0:52:38.960 --> 0:52:41.439 they whack somebody and they put him into the vat 0:52:41.480 --> 0:52:45.120 of acid and it dissolves them. But studies have actually 0:52:45.480 --> 0:52:48.040 shown that if you really want to dissolve a human body. 0:52:48.080 --> 0:52:50.200 We're not trying to give anybody pointers on how to 0:52:50.360 --> 0:52:53.680 commit murder, and of evidence is just science presented by 0:52:53.800 --> 0:52:59.239 the Mafia Science Institute. Apparently the better way to do 0:52:59.280 --> 0:53:01.400 that would be with a strong base rather than a 0:53:01.440 --> 0:53:05.400 strong acid for for fully dissolving flesh. And one piece 0:53:05.440 --> 0:53:07.640 of evidence for this is something we've actually talked about 0:53:07.640 --> 0:53:10.520 on the podcast before. And you remember the episode we 0:53:10.520 --> 0:53:13.960 did last October about the future of the dealing with 0:53:14.040 --> 0:53:17.920 human remains and green burials and stuff like that, and 0:53:18.040 --> 0:53:20.560 so the method, one method we talked about is known 0:53:20.560 --> 0:53:23.719 as alkaline hydrolysis, and this is a method of disposing 0:53:23.719 --> 0:53:26.960 of condevers. It's used by lots of medical facilities, and 0:53:27.000 --> 0:53:29.600 there's increasing interest in using it as a cheaper and 0:53:29.680 --> 0:53:34.319 greener alternative to traditional burial incremation. And essentially it goes 0:53:34.360 --> 0:53:37.920 like this. You put the body into a pressurized chamber 0:53:37.960 --> 0:53:40.560 that contains a mixture of water and lie so here's 0:53:40.560 --> 0:53:43.000 your strong base, and then you heat the chamber to 0:53:43.120 --> 0:53:45.799 around a hundred and sixty degrease celsius or you know, 0:53:45.880 --> 0:53:49.200 over three hundred degrees fahrenheit, and the body is liquefied 0:53:49.239 --> 0:53:51.080 in just a few hours, and it can be washed 0:53:51.080 --> 0:53:54.440 down the drain and any remaining bone fragments that can 0:53:54.480 --> 0:53:57.520 be pulverized and dealt with however you want. But now, 0:53:57.560 --> 0:53:59.920 obviously the heat and the pressure here are playing a 0:54:00.040 --> 0:54:02.280 big role in what's going on. But the strong base 0:54:03.000 --> 0:54:06.400 is crucial. It's an m v P dissolver of organic 0:54:06.440 --> 0:54:09.840 materials such as a human body or or an animal 0:54:09.840 --> 0:54:13.239 carcass or a batman. And so one of my suggestions 0:54:13.320 --> 0:54:17.120 is that maybe we should start replacing movie acids in 0:54:17.120 --> 0:54:19.960 our fiction with movie bases. I think part of the 0:54:19.960 --> 0:54:24.600 problem is that acid sounds cooler, acid is more even 0:54:24.600 --> 0:54:27.600 though I think most people know that you have acids 0:54:27.600 --> 0:54:32.680 and bases. Uh, it's like the just the word itself acid. Yeah, 0:54:32.719 --> 0:54:36.040 instead of like base, you know, like which one, which 0:54:36.080 --> 0:54:40.480 one is just like linguistically potent? Yeah, for for fictional purposes, 0:54:40.520 --> 0:54:45.000 which one sounds scarier to be protonated or to be deprotonated? Yeah, 0:54:45.160 --> 0:54:47.480 and then of course acid. I mean we talk about, oh, 0:54:47.520 --> 0:54:50.680 well that person has a really you know, acidic attitude 0:54:50.800 --> 0:54:53.160 or something. You know, it's like, it's we we Acid 0:54:53.239 --> 0:54:55.680 is just going to make your sentence that much stronger. 0:54:55.719 --> 0:54:58.719 It's gonna make your threat to the superhero that much stronger. Yeah, 0:54:58.760 --> 0:55:01.239 it's it's it has more sentence, despite the fact that 0:55:01.280 --> 0:55:04.279 it might not be as great a wonderful dissolver of 0:55:04.400 --> 0:55:08.400 organic material or something like lie. But yeah, I'm ready 0:55:08.520 --> 0:55:11.320 Robert for you to take us back to the Nostromo. 0:55:11.440 --> 0:55:14.080 All right, well, you know, the my motion detector is 0:55:14.120 --> 0:55:18.280 going off here. I think it's actually coming from inside 0:55:18.320 --> 0:55:20.359 the room at this point. So yeah, let's let's talk 0:55:20.400 --> 0:55:23.200 about the xenomore. Yeah, okay, so we mentioned this earlier 0:55:23.239 --> 0:55:26.480 in the episode. This is one fantastic example of movie ascid. 0:55:26.520 --> 0:55:28.680 I think it's probably my favorite movie asset is the 0:55:28.719 --> 0:55:31.680 Aliens Blood Right, Yeah, I mean, it's so well utilized 0:55:31.680 --> 0:55:34.360 and uh and and feels like a real threat and 0:55:34.440 --> 0:55:37.319 helps to just position the creature. You know, we can 0:55:37.320 --> 0:55:39.879 barely touch it, we can barely wound it, and when 0:55:39.920 --> 0:55:42.600 we do wounding, it might kill us. Yeah. So we've 0:55:42.600 --> 0:55:44.840 described sort of what happens in the scene in the 0:55:44.840 --> 0:55:46.880 first scene where these that there. There are many different 0:55:46.880 --> 0:55:49.279 ways the asset appears throughout all of the movies that 0:55:49.320 --> 0:55:52.920 have aliens in them, but it typically always burns and 0:55:52.960 --> 0:55:55.319 dissolves things. It's it's you don't want to get it 0:55:55.360 --> 0:55:57.839 on you. It might kill you, might burn you. But 0:55:58.239 --> 0:56:00.960 is is there anything we can relate this acid too 0:56:00.960 --> 0:56:04.120 in the real world? Could an organism really behave this way? 0:56:04.160 --> 0:56:07.719 And what might it's acid blood? Be ah? Well, this 0:56:07.800 --> 0:56:11.839 is a fantastic question, um, But before I get into it, 0:56:12.120 --> 0:56:14.479 I do want to mention that, as a fun note, 0:56:14.560 --> 0:56:18.440 there is an older monster, perhaps the most famous monster 0:56:18.480 --> 0:56:23.320 in Western literature, that also boasted corrosive blood, and that's Grendel. 0:56:23.719 --> 0:56:27.160 Oh wow, Yeah, it's been so long since I've read 0:56:27.400 --> 0:56:30.040 from Bayol. It's been so long, Yes, since I've read Beowulf. 0:56:30.680 --> 0:56:33.120 I've certainly read things since then that have Grendel in them. 0:56:33.520 --> 0:56:35.359 But it's been so long I didn't I didn't even 0:56:35.400 --> 0:56:37.760 realize this. I have sort of rediscovered this in our research. 0:56:37.840 --> 0:56:40.120 This is crazy. So, of course Beowulf is a classic 0:56:40.160 --> 0:56:43.719 of Anglo Saxon literature Old English literature, where you know 0:56:43.719 --> 0:56:46.480 you've got this epic. The hero Beowulf goes into slay 0:56:46.560 --> 0:56:49.759 the monster that's been harassing this Uh. I don't know, 0:56:49.800 --> 0:56:53.319 would you even call it a town, this encampment of humans? Uh? 0:56:53.360 --> 0:56:55.560 And so what's the deal? So he goes into slay 0:56:55.640 --> 0:56:59.200 Grendel and he encounters some acid blood. Yeah, basically like 0:56:59.280 --> 0:57:01.640 he ends up getting this special sword, and then at 0:57:01.640 --> 0:57:04.880 the end he he's earlier. He rips off Grindel's arm, 0:57:05.120 --> 0:57:08.000 wounds him, follows Grindel back to his layer, cuts his 0:57:08.040 --> 0:57:12.080 head off, and then the blood from the from the beheading, 0:57:12.160 --> 0:57:15.400 it melts the blade. This is a translation, obviously, but 0:57:16.160 --> 0:57:19.080 the sword blade began then the blood having touched it, 0:57:19.320 --> 0:57:23.720 contracting and shriveling with battle icicles. It was a wonderful 0:57:23.800 --> 0:57:28.160 marvel that had melted entirely. So it's my understanding that 0:57:28.200 --> 0:57:30.440 you could kind of interpret this is maybe a blood 0:57:30.480 --> 0:57:32.880 is really hot and just melted it um you know, 0:57:33.160 --> 0:57:36.400 as in a you know, a great fire, or that 0:57:36.440 --> 0:57:39.959 it's acidic, depending on your interpretation. Either way, that's that's 0:57:40.040 --> 0:57:43.600 quite uh an adaptation on the part of the Grindel organism. 0:57:43.680 --> 0:57:46.920 Oh man, I wonder if this is the oldest single 0:57:47.640 --> 0:57:52.440 version of the creature that spits toxic chemicals. Maybe, you know, 0:57:52.520 --> 0:57:55.640 I can't. I can't think of another mythic creature that 0:57:55.760 --> 0:58:00.120 has this fire. But yeah, there's certainly fire breathing, but 0:58:00.400 --> 0:58:05.080 as far as acids or something that is corrosive that is, 0:58:05.440 --> 0:58:07.800 you know, destroying the weapons that are used against it, 0:58:07.840 --> 0:58:12.360 I can't think of one offhand. Yeah. Crazy. Well, anyway, 0:58:12.560 --> 0:58:15.080 we we should return to our modern example though, So 0:58:15.640 --> 0:58:19.040 imagine Beowulf goes into slay a xenomorph. He'd have exactly 0:58:19.040 --> 0:58:21.760 the same problem, right, The xenomorph queens in there. She's 0:58:21.760 --> 0:58:24.080 been harassing the town. He takes in his special sword, 0:58:24.120 --> 0:58:28.280 he lops off its head, and the sword melts. Right, Yes, 0:58:28.320 --> 0:58:30.560 the sword melts, and you got the job done. But yeah, 0:58:30.840 --> 0:58:34.320 your magical weapon is ruined. Yeah, maybe spraying him on 0:58:34.360 --> 0:58:36.880 the face in the process and killing him getting the 0:58:36.960 --> 0:58:39.480 last laugh after all. Oh yeah, well, you know it's 0:58:39.520 --> 0:58:42.440 Beowulf's they probably dodge it. I always have this thing, 0:58:42.480 --> 0:58:45.800 I always since sympathize with Grendel. Uh. Yet to see 0:58:45.840 --> 0:58:49.040 an adaptation of the story where I'm like, oh, yeah, 0:58:49.040 --> 0:58:50.840 Beawolf is a good dude, I can get behind him. 0:58:50.880 --> 0:58:53.680 I always sympathize with the monster. Well, I mean, yeah, 0:58:54.240 --> 0:58:58.080 Grendel's the loner. Well, maybe one of the first places 0:58:58.080 --> 0:59:01.440 we should look to see what the aliens blood might 0:59:01.440 --> 0:59:03.360 be would be to look behind the scenes in the 0:59:03.400 --> 0:59:05.360 movie and see, Okay, so how do they create the 0:59:05.360 --> 0:59:07.600 special effect in the In the alien movies, you see 0:59:07.640 --> 0:59:10.520 the aliens spilled their blood like in the first movie 0:59:10.880 --> 0:59:13.160 in Ridley Scott's film, you see it's spill on the floor. 0:59:13.200 --> 0:59:15.600 It burns through the floor and it just keeps burning 0:59:15.600 --> 0:59:19.360 through floors until finally it stops. What what was going 0:59:19.400 --> 0:59:22.920 on there? Well, I found some accounts online of the 0:59:23.440 --> 0:59:25.760 where this special effect came from, and supposedly it was 0:59:25.880 --> 0:59:31.200 created by the alien special effects supervisor Brian Johnson, and 0:59:31.360 --> 0:59:36.360 the the acid effect was essentially a combination of some 0:59:36.520 --> 0:59:40.320 various chemicals and then that was applied to and this 0:59:40.320 --> 0:59:43.840 is pretty clever styrofoam floors they just made. They made 0:59:43.880 --> 0:59:48.760 styrofoam ship hull. I don't know what styrofoam stuff that 0:59:48.840 --> 0:59:50.960 would be the floors of the ship, and then spray 0:59:51.000 --> 0:59:53.200 painted its silver to make it look like it was metal. 0:59:53.920 --> 0:59:56.919 What's the name of the company, the corporation while wait, wait, 0:59:56.920 --> 0:59:59.040 waitl in Utahi and maybe they're just super cheap and 0:59:59.040 --> 1:00:04.800 they're like styrofoam. That's great. I'm sure that's what it was. 1:00:04.880 --> 1:00:08.120 But in any sense, so what was it made of? Well, 1:00:08.360 --> 1:00:13.760 the blood they had was made of chloroform, acetone, cyclohexylamine, 1:00:14.200 --> 1:00:18.040 and acetic acid, which is vinegar pretty much. Acetic acid 1:00:18.080 --> 1:00:20.919 is deluded to create vinegar and then some other compounds. 1:00:21.440 --> 1:00:24.280 But I thought this is funny because so acetic acid, yes, 1:00:24.320 --> 1:00:27.200 of course is an acid diluting diluted in in water 1:00:27.280 --> 1:00:30.400 to make vinegar with some other flavorings. Acetone is not 1:00:30.520 --> 1:00:35.280 an acid, that's neutral neutral pH seven uh, Cyclohexulamine is 1:00:35.320 --> 1:00:38.160 a base. And then and then of course the head 1:00:38.280 --> 1:00:42.000 chloroform and stuff. And apparently it eats through styrofoam all right, 1:00:42.040 --> 1:00:44.720 but it probably wouldn't eat through a real spacecraft's hull. 1:00:45.440 --> 1:00:47.840 And one of the big reasons it eats through styrofoam 1:00:47.920 --> 1:00:49.880 is probably the presence of acetone. I don't know if 1:00:49.880 --> 1:00:51.960 you've ever seen videos of what happens when you pour 1:00:52.040 --> 1:00:55.720 acetone on a styrofoam wighead or something like that. I 1:00:55.760 --> 1:00:57.560 don't think I've seen those videos. If you ever want 1:00:57.600 --> 1:00:59.640 to make a head melt for a bunch of children, 1:00:59.760 --> 1:01:02.040 this is a fun party trick. I don't don't get 1:01:02.040 --> 1:01:03.920 any of the Well, I'll keep that in mind from 1:01:03.960 --> 1:01:07.160 my son's a fifth birthday. Yeah, so like, here's the 1:01:07.200 --> 1:01:09.240 head of your enemy and you just pour some massa 1:01:09.320 --> 1:01:12.760 tone on that styrofoam head. It's just oh no, it melts. 1:01:13.400 --> 1:01:15.720 So it works great for a special effect, but probably 1:01:15.760 --> 1:01:17.960 would not work for a real organism that wanted to 1:01:18.080 --> 1:01:20.760 melt through metal and plastic and all all of the 1:01:20.800 --> 1:01:23.920 other stuff that probably makes up a ship. Yeah, and 1:01:24.080 --> 1:01:26.440 one is a good Uh, it's a good verb to 1:01:26.520 --> 1:01:28.840 use here, because of course that brings up the question, well, 1:01:28.840 --> 1:01:31.440 how does this occur? It? Is this an evolved trade? 1:01:31.560 --> 1:01:34.800 Is this an engineered traite? But what is the origin 1:01:34.880 --> 1:01:37.800 of the xenomorph? Then? Uh? Depending on how these work. 1:01:38.320 --> 1:01:41.640 But I have I have a couple of proposals here, Okay, 1:01:41.720 --> 1:01:43.440 as to what could be going on with the xenomore. 1:01:43.920 --> 1:01:48.080 So my my first more modest and explosive proposition is 1:01:48.160 --> 1:01:50.400 this UH. And I'm sure that this doesn't match up 1:01:50.400 --> 1:01:54.320 to everybody's UH interpretation of the franchise or every entry 1:01:54.320 --> 1:01:56.800 of the franchise. But here's the Okay, So we see 1:01:56.800 --> 1:01:59.600 the thing bleeding acid when it's hard, right, you shoot it, 1:01:59.640 --> 1:02:02.600 cut whatever acid shoots out. And of course we also 1:02:02.680 --> 1:02:05.240 see it using the acid offensively occasions such as when 1:02:05.240 --> 1:02:09.600 that face hugger UH melt through the glass dome on 1:02:09.640 --> 1:02:11.640 the helmet. Oh yeah, I didn't have to cut itself 1:02:11.680 --> 1:02:14.880 to do right if somehow just utilized treated this. So 1:02:15.160 --> 1:02:17.600 what if this isn't the creature's blood at all, really 1:02:17.680 --> 1:02:21.160 not properly, but rather an acid stored throughout the body 1:02:21.240 --> 1:02:24.440 to react to physical harm UH that in turn harms 1:02:24.440 --> 1:02:27.480 the attacker. That's interesting because it wouldn't have to be 1:02:27.520 --> 1:02:29.840 the blood, would it. You wouldn't be This wouldn't have 1:02:29.880 --> 1:02:33.640 to be the substance that's circulating molecular oxygen to the 1:02:33.640 --> 1:02:36.600 body tissues, right, It wouldn't be serving other purposes in 1:02:36.640 --> 1:02:40.640 the body. It would be there expressly to rupture during 1:02:40.680 --> 1:02:44.520 physical harm to UH, to harm or destroy the attacker. 1:02:44.840 --> 1:02:47.600 And the thing is, we see something very similar, really 1:02:47.640 --> 1:02:52.120 identical in terrestrial termites and ants who also serve a queen. 1:02:52.160 --> 1:02:53.800 You know, they also I mean that the termite had 1:02:53.800 --> 1:02:59.480 a huge influence on especially aliens. So um, so we 1:02:59.560 --> 1:03:03.160 call this sub process this practice autopsis, and this is 1:03:03.160 --> 1:03:06.160 the process by which a natural world organism destroys itself 1:03:06.480 --> 1:03:09.400 via the internal rupturing of an oregon or gland that 1:03:09.480 --> 1:03:12.680 in turn ruptures the skin. So it's a purely muscular 1:03:12.800 --> 1:03:17.919 exercise caused by deliberate contractions around the engorged tissue. Fascinating. Yeah, 1:03:17.960 --> 1:03:19.520 I mean it's crazy because this is the kind of 1:03:19.520 --> 1:03:23.200 thing that apparently evolved from pooping on your enemy. Like 1:03:23.520 --> 1:03:25.600 what started off is like poop on the enemy when 1:03:25.600 --> 1:03:29.160 they attacked and defensive defecation. But then it becomes like, 1:03:29.280 --> 1:03:30.720 if you can't get that poop out of the ain 1:03:30.840 --> 1:03:34.120 is fast enough, just like make it rupture through your body. 1:03:34.480 --> 1:03:38.960 And that has steadily evolved over time into more complex 1:03:39.000 --> 1:03:44.280 modes of self rupturing and the body buster par excellence 1:03:44.320 --> 1:03:49.480 here is Neo caapa termes tarracula, and this is um. 1:03:49.520 --> 1:03:53.360 This is a fabulous organism. So the species workers grow 1:03:53.520 --> 1:03:58.240 abdominal sacks of toxic blue crystals throughout their lives. But 1:03:58.320 --> 1:04:01.880 these explosive backpack to some studies refer to them, are 1:04:01.920 --> 1:04:05.200 are most pronounced and elderly workers. So so as they 1:04:05.240 --> 1:04:07.600 become less useful to the colony, and that sort of 1:04:07.640 --> 1:04:10.760 turn into the suicide bombers exactly like you know you 1:04:10.800 --> 1:04:14.000 don't have you have dull and useless mannibles, you really know, 1:04:14.280 --> 1:04:16.960 not that much use, but you've become a stockpile for 1:04:17.120 --> 1:04:21.480 toxic substances, and that becomes your purpose when enemies invade 1:04:22.320 --> 1:04:25.400 the termite mound. Uh, the the end they just rushed for, 1:04:25.480 --> 1:04:28.800 where the invaders then bite into their bodies, and that's 1:04:28.800 --> 1:04:33.200 when the blue crystals combine with salivary secretions to produce 1:04:33.240 --> 1:04:38.720 a deadly chemical weapon. Huh. So that would mean that 1:04:38.760 --> 1:04:41.120 the the xenomorph here would simply boast a system of 1:04:41.160 --> 1:04:44.520 pressurized acid tubes and it's it is merely the rupture 1:04:44.560 --> 1:04:46.880 of those tubes that we see, uh, and and is 1:04:46.920 --> 1:04:49.400 therefore an act of autopices. So this would be like 1:04:49.520 --> 1:04:54.080 highly concentrated stomach acid or something else that has evolved 1:04:54.080 --> 1:04:56.240 into this defensive mode. Yeah, and of course we do 1:04:56.320 --> 1:04:59.360 see from our own stomach. So, like we talked about earlier, 1:04:59.360 --> 1:05:01.760 that it's possible for a body to contain within it 1:05:02.080 --> 1:05:05.520 some uh, some concentration of acid that would be very 1:05:05.600 --> 1:05:08.480 damaging if we encountered it externally or in the wrong 1:05:08.520 --> 1:05:12.240 part of the body. You just need specialized cells along 1:05:12.280 --> 1:05:16.520 whatever you know, body's tissues containing it to to buffer 1:05:16.560 --> 1:05:19.320 it essentially to keep it, uh from reacting with the 1:05:19.320 --> 1:05:22.520 rest of the body exactly. Now, of course, all of 1:05:22.560 --> 1:05:25.600 this is taking a very terrestrial approach to it. It's 1:05:25.640 --> 1:05:29.360 taking a very carbon biased, water biased approach. But of 1:05:29.400 --> 1:05:33.640 course not all modes of life, not all biochemistry is 1:05:33.720 --> 1:05:38.320 out there, are necessarily based on carbon or based on water. 1:05:39.000 --> 1:05:40.480 So we might have to take it a bit bit further. 1:05:40.600 --> 1:05:43.520 What sort of organism might have blood that is either 1:05:43.640 --> 1:05:49.840 incidentally or adaptively corrosive at least to our sort of flesh. Well, 1:05:50.720 --> 1:05:54.200 perhaps they're silicon based life forms as opposed to carbon based. 1:05:54.640 --> 1:05:57.200 So even here on Earth we have solicit acid, which 1:05:57.240 --> 1:05:59.920 is very weak acid in our hair, our nails, or 1:06:00.040 --> 1:06:04.920 but dermist. Uh, So it seems conceivable that this, or 1:06:04.960 --> 1:06:11.000 perhaps hexafluoro silsilic acid might play into a silicone based 1:06:11.280 --> 1:06:14.840 xenomorphs anatomy. Huh. And this is the exact sort of 1:06:14.840 --> 1:06:17.440 biochemistry that could enable a life form to thrive in 1:06:17.480 --> 1:06:21.520 a sulfuric acid rich environment. Now, I'm not sure it 1:06:21.600 --> 1:06:23.880 could be as potent as what we see in the films, 1:06:23.920 --> 1:06:25.480 but this is an area where I think, you know, 1:06:25.520 --> 1:06:28.040 there any biochemist listening off to weigh in on that 1:06:28.080 --> 1:06:31.680 for us? Yeah, well, I mean, how how reactive would 1:06:31.680 --> 1:06:34.400 an acid or whatever the chemical is. Maybe it's a 1:06:34.440 --> 1:06:37.680 strong base actually that it's releasing. How strong would it 1:06:37.720 --> 1:06:40.320 have to be to really eat through the hule that fast? 1:06:40.400 --> 1:06:42.760 Is there any chemical that would really eat through the 1:06:42.760 --> 1:06:45.400 whole that fast? I don't know about that. Maybe what 1:06:45.720 --> 1:06:49.360 if it has the fluoro antimonic acid in it? And 1:06:49.440 --> 1:06:51.440 you know, the thing is for a defense, you know, 1:06:51.480 --> 1:06:54.480 if you're if you're thinking about something that has evolved, 1:06:54.520 --> 1:06:57.360 this as a basic defense against human oid creatures that 1:06:57.400 --> 1:07:00.560 are there at least semi human like, all you would need. 1:07:00.600 --> 1:07:03.000 You wouldn't need a very strong acid or base at 1:07:03.000 --> 1:07:05.080 all to just like get in their eyes and give 1:07:05.120 --> 1:07:07.600 you a moment's advantage in some sort of an altercation. 1:07:08.320 --> 1:07:12.400 But it seems as if it's an organism perfectly conceived 1:07:12.440 --> 1:07:17.320 to be unkillable on a spaceship for plot purposes. Indeed, 1:07:17.400 --> 1:07:20.600 it is a perfect organism. Now, some experts, including the 1:07:21.080 --> 1:07:25.720 late great Carl Saken, have speculated that alternate astrobiologies could 1:07:25.760 --> 1:07:29.320 still entail carbon but depend on something other than water. 1:07:29.520 --> 1:07:35.080 Is the solvent such as ammonia or perhaps hydrofluoric acid. Yeah, 1:07:35.120 --> 1:07:37.160 and of course this is crazy because we we mentioned 1:07:37.200 --> 1:07:41.640 the face hugger burning through the presumably glass helmet, and 1:07:41.800 --> 1:07:43.880 uh and what does hydroflulic acid do? But it can 1:07:43.880 --> 1:07:46.560 break down glass, as we mentioned. Yeah, of course, now 1:07:46.560 --> 1:07:49.200 it does take a while. Again, one of the things 1:07:49.240 --> 1:07:52.480 that's always not quite matching up right between the movie 1:07:52.520 --> 1:07:55.240 acid and the acid in the in the real experiments 1:07:55.240 --> 1:07:57.920 we're talking about is just rapidity. It's just the time 1:07:57.960 --> 1:08:00.960 it takes to dissolve things, right, everything instant in the films, 1:08:00.960 --> 1:08:02.720 and it just it doesn't seem to be that way 1:08:02.720 --> 1:08:05.080 with real chemistry. So here's a quote from Sagan in 1:08:05.160 --> 1:08:09.680 nineteen eighties Cosmos, his book. Perhaps elsewhere some solvent other 1:08:09.760 --> 1:08:13.280 than water is used, hydrofluoric acid might serve rather well, 1:08:13.760 --> 1:08:15.760 Although there is not a great deal of fluorine in 1:08:15.800 --> 1:08:19.320 the Cosmos hydrofluoric acid would do a great deal of 1:08:19.400 --> 1:08:22.040 damage to the kind of molecules that make us up. 1:08:22.439 --> 1:08:27.200 But other organic molecules paraffin waxes, for example, are perfectly 1:08:27.240 --> 1:08:30.400 stable in its presence. I like your Carl Sagan voice. 1:08:30.439 --> 1:08:33.720 It's it's it's not that great of a voice. We 1:08:33.760 --> 1:08:35.760 really know what we need is we need Chuck to 1:08:35.800 --> 1:08:38.599 come in and do his kermit the frog voice, which 1:08:38.640 --> 1:08:41.439 I think also sounds very sagany. I don't think I've 1:08:41.439 --> 1:08:43.160 ever heard that. Oh you should, you should ask him 1:08:43.240 --> 1:08:45.720 to do a little kermit, but read some cosmos. I 1:08:45.720 --> 1:08:48.479 think your Carl Sagan is pretty good man. Don't don't 1:08:48.479 --> 1:08:51.320 put yourself down, all right. Well, you know, well Sagan 1:08:51.439 --> 1:08:53.559 is not the only one to chime in on this. Uh. 1:08:53.680 --> 1:08:56.920 Plenty of other biochemists have also looked at, you know, 1:08:57.120 --> 1:09:02.720 possible alternate biochemistries, and they've presented sulfuric acid as a possibility. 1:09:03.040 --> 1:09:06.560 So it's certainly more cosmically common, you know, So it 1:09:06.760 --> 1:09:09.479 would it would make sense. In the two thousand seven 1:09:09.520 --> 1:09:13.479 book The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems, and 1:09:13.520 --> 1:09:17.120 this is a book by a number of authors. It's 1:09:17.280 --> 1:09:20.360 it's it's credited authors are the Committee on the Limits 1:09:20.360 --> 1:09:25.040 of Organic Life and Planetary Systems UM, the National Research Council, 1:09:25.040 --> 1:09:26.559 and a few other bodies. I'm not going to list 1:09:26.560 --> 1:09:31.479 them all, but in a chapter titled Hawai Water Toward 1:09:31.600 --> 1:09:35.960 More Exotic Habitats, they state the following quote, Sulfuric acid 1:09:36.040 --> 1:09:40.240 is a reasonably good solvent that supports chemical reactivity. Sulfuric 1:09:40.280 --> 1:09:44.200 acid is known to exist above Venus, where three cloud 1:09:44.280 --> 1:09:49.080 layers at kilometers are composed mostly of aerosols of sulfuric acid, 1:09:49.120 --> 1:09:52.240 about eight in the upper layer and the nine percent 1:09:52.320 --> 1:09:56.680 in the lower layer. The temperature about three kelvin at 1:09:56.680 --> 1:10:00.840 about fifty kilometers altitude at about one point five a 1:10:00.920 --> 1:10:05.280 t m is consistent with stable carbon to carbon covalent bonds. 1:10:05.800 --> 1:10:08.519 So the take home here is that, yes, it is 1:10:08.600 --> 1:10:12.879 conceivable that we would have a a a carbon based 1:10:12.880 --> 1:10:17.559 life form in which the solvent is sulphuric acid. It's 1:10:17.600 --> 1:10:21.320 reasonable now whether that life could actually match up to 1:10:21.600 --> 1:10:25.960 the just profound the standards that we set with the 1:10:26.040 --> 1:10:30.200 xenomorph that's another issue. Yeah, are you are you breaking 1:10:30.200 --> 1:10:32.360 my heart? Robert? Are you telling me that there's probably 1:10:32.360 --> 1:10:36.120 not a xenomorph anywhere in our Solar system. I'm saying 1:10:36.200 --> 1:10:41.719 that the xenomorph exists in the realm of forms. Yeah, 1:10:41.760 --> 1:10:44.479 and but the universe that we live in, it's it 1:10:44.600 --> 1:10:46.680 may be at least willing to meet us halfway. Well, 1:10:46.720 --> 1:10:49.400 even a pale imitation of a xenomorph would be welcome 1:10:49.479 --> 1:10:52.519 to my ears. Yes, so my eyes as it burned 1:10:52.520 --> 1:10:55.040 them out. So if you yeah, if you lived to 1:10:55.040 --> 1:10:57.680 be um you know, several thousand years old, your your 1:10:57.720 --> 1:11:02.080 life prolonged by all the areas technology is available to you, 1:11:02.280 --> 1:11:04.639 and you set yourself on the perfect death. You want 1:11:04.680 --> 1:11:08.760 to die the the the acidic blood of of of 1:11:08.760 --> 1:11:13.200 an alien species. There is maybe some hope. So Robert, 1:11:13.240 --> 1:11:16.840 I've enjoyed exploring this with you because I've always loved 1:11:16.920 --> 1:11:19.800 movie Acid, and I wonder what it is that captivates 1:11:19.880 --> 1:11:21.439 us so much about acid. I want to go back 1:11:21.439 --> 1:11:23.640 to that question. I started with, why you know they 1:11:23.760 --> 1:11:25.920 so they put Batman in the bank vault. Oh no, 1:11:26.080 --> 1:11:29.920 it's boiling acid. It could have been boiling water or 1:11:29.960 --> 1:11:33.040 even room temperature water, and it still would have killed him, 1:11:33.080 --> 1:11:36.200 but that wouldn't be nearly as interesting. For some reason, 1:11:36.240 --> 1:11:39.680 we want acid. Why is acid so interesting as a 1:11:39.680 --> 1:11:41.400 way to kill people when you could get the same 1:11:41.439 --> 1:11:45.320 thing done with just a hot uh normal liquid. You know, 1:11:45.360 --> 1:11:49.000 it could be hot uh bleach. I mean, well yeah, 1:11:49.040 --> 1:11:50.920 that would be that would be a pretty weird, interesting 1:11:50.920 --> 1:11:53.559 way to kill people. But hot water, boiling water that 1:11:54.080 --> 1:11:56.519 people would be like, huh, why why didn't you go 1:11:56.560 --> 1:11:58.920 to acid? Well, because well, for one thing, boiling water 1:11:58.960 --> 1:12:01.680 is every day, right or not every day. It's like 1:12:01.760 --> 1:12:04.200 even like most people have some experience of putting the 1:12:04.200 --> 1:12:06.800 macaroni in the boiling water. Yeah, yeah, And I think 1:12:06.800 --> 1:12:10.599 that's right. I think heating. Heating is a method of 1:12:10.960 --> 1:12:14.200 changing the chemical nature of something that's very familiar to us. 1:12:14.200 --> 1:12:16.920 Whereas the chemical reactions that take place in the bond 1:12:16.960 --> 1:12:20.200 breaking that takes place when you've got an acid solution 1:12:20.240 --> 1:12:23.360 of water, that that's something that's less familiar to us. 1:12:23.439 --> 1:12:26.599 We don't understand what's going on there. And for that reason, 1:12:26.760 --> 1:12:29.479 it's kind of like magic. Yeah, it's to the the 1:12:29.560 --> 1:12:33.880 average viewer, like a bad guy. Dissolving an acid makes 1:12:33.960 --> 1:12:37.640 as much scientific sense as one ron silver touching on 1:12:37.720 --> 1:12:40.800 another ron silver in time cop and then becoming a 1:12:40.840 --> 1:12:45.519 big red goo of melt. But yeah, that's why they're 1:12:45.560 --> 1:12:49.120 both wonderful. That they capture the magic of nonsense exactly. 1:12:49.120 --> 1:12:53.160 They put it right into your face or on the face. Hey, 1:12:53.200 --> 1:12:56.800 so there you have it, Hollywood acid. Uh so again, 1:12:56.840 --> 1:12:58.479 you want to check out more episodes of the podcast, 1:12:58.479 --> 1:13:00.240 You want to check out the links we're talking about 1:13:00.240 --> 1:13:02.280 some related material head and over stuff to Blow your 1:13:02.280 --> 1:13:04.920 Mind dot com. That's we'll find our podcast, including this 1:13:04.960 --> 1:13:07.040 one the landing page. 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