WEBVTT - From the Vault: Heavy Water 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.719 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:12.120 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today's Vault 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:17.760 episode originally aired on December, it was about heavy water. 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.400 That's right, because it's it's New Year's Day. Happy New 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.040 Year's Joe. And when you think new Happy New Year's 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.200 you think heavy water. So of course this just lines 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:32.880 up perfectly. Drink up. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:42.240 production of my Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:45.000 Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:47.960 Joe McCormick. And today I wanted to start off by 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:49.960 talking about something that may have come up in the 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:51.880 past on the show of CORP. I don't quite remember, 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:55.120 but I don't think we've ever gone into great detail 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.000 on it. So there is this popular chemistry prank that 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.840 that goes some thing like this. You you approach somebody 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.240 with a petition or a public service announcement. Uh. And 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.120 if I could do the Donald pleasants like Spirit of 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:11.200 Dark and Lonely Water Voice, I would do this. But 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.120 just imagine it. Can you imagine I'm I'm Donald Coleasant 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.040 saying this to you. What if I told you there 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:20.679 was a household chemical present in more than ercent of 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.120 homes in America, which is used as an an ingredient 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:28.880 in everything from packaged foods, to cleaning products to children's medicine. 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.920 And yet this chemical has been proven to cause severe 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.319 burns to the skin and mouth, can be lethal if 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:39.399 it's inhaled, and is the primary constituent in acid rain. 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.720 According to historical sources, this was the main ingredient in 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.080 the poison that Socrates drank to commit suicide after his 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.480 trial and Athens. It's so corrosive that it can eat 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.280 holes in solid iron, and yet we expose our bodies 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:56.440 to this chemical every time we have a cup of 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.640 tea or take a shower. Studies have found that trace 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.640 him of this compound linger in our decomposing bodies, even 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.120 for months after we die. It is so addictive that 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.680 the average human cannot at this point survive more than 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.040 a few days without receiving a dose. This chemical is 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.480 called die hydrogen monoxide, and it has already been found 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.440 in nearly every natural environment on Earth, and if we 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:22.680 don't ban it soon, there will not be a single 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.760 patch of the planet left uncontaminated. Now there are million 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:28.760 versions of this, but a lot of them will ask 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.079 people to kind of sign on and be like, oh, yeah, 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:33.080 you know, we've got to get this thing out of 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:35.080 our out of our homes and all that. Yeah, because 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.280 it's clearly we're talking about something that's a threat to 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:42.120 the children, uh, to America, to life as we know it. 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.160 And it's it's funny because when I think about this prank, 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.760 so obviously the joke is that what it's talking about 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.600 is water. And so it's a joke that works on 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.520 several levels. For one, it's an example of how even 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:58.799 technically true statements can be extremely misleading without being put 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.560 in the proper context. Uh. And I think it's also 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.000 just used to sometimes suggest that people should get like 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.840 better education and chemistry and the natural sciences, which sure, 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:10.799 you know, fair enough, I I also wish I was 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.480 better educated in chemistry. But I think it's on the 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:18.160 other side it it does take advantage of something that 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:24.639 is a totally justified anxiety that people have about chemistry 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:28.320 in the natural world and especially the modern world, because 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:32.080 when we make decisions about deadly risks about physical cause 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:35.200 and effect, you know, our intuitions and our knowledge about 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.360 how things work are are strongly biased towards perceiving physical 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:43.560 threats within what you might call like the Newtonian physical domain, 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.880 like threats from big moving objects somewhere between the size 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:51.400 of a pebble and a landslide. But especially since the 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:55.560 Industrial Revolution, the world is also full of chemical threats 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.520 that are really somewhat invisible in this respect, like they 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:02.560 don't really show up on the Newtonian physical domain. And 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.600 so we've got some natural defenses against chemical threats like this. 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.600 We've got our senses of taste and smell, and we 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.200 have some aversion reactions in like our digestive system or 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.920 respiration system, like sometimes you detect a noxious chemical and 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.560 you bar for you start coughing or something. Are our 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:23.359 bodies can can help detect and reject things. But we 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.000 all know by this point that there are in fact 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:30.880 extremely dangerous chemicals that are essentially undetectable to our senses, 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.920 either because they have no strong smell or taste, or 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.520 the relevant doses are so tiny that we wouldn't notice 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:41.279 them before it's too late, or because maybe they don't 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.240 have an effect until they've had until you've had extreme 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.800 repeated exposure or consumed lots of chemicals. We're gonna be 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.320 talking about one of the latter today, and so this 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:51.960 is the kind of compound that we're going to be 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:56.320 getting into, a chemical that has proven fascinating and very 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:01.840 useful but also strangely dangerous depending on the context, a 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.000 sort of Dopple gang or of water, the wetness of 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.159 the shadow realm. Today, I wanted to talk about heavy water, 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:10.960 and it is heavy, literally heavy, But I want to 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:13.280 want to say this is not to be confused with 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:15.800 hard water. Uh So, if you're out there, listen, We're 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.560 talking about heavy water, not hard water. Hard water is 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:20.960 just water with a high mineral content. Oh is that 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.680 what it is? I think I literally didn't know that. Yeah, 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:25.480 this is the one that, like you know, that can 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.000 can mess with how your soap SuDS up, that sort 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.880 of thing. Okay, uh though some people like it because 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.080 it makes their hair look good, right or at least? Yeah, 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:35.920 I don't know. It's one of those things. I don't 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.599 have a lot of experience with it, or maybe really 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.640 even knowledge of of hard water. So when you brought 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:44.279 up this topic, I initially thought you were talking about 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:48.839 doing uh an episode or episodes about hard water, but 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.640 it's not hard water again, heavy water. The washers in 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.080 your shower will really rust after this episode. Alright, So 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:57.000 for the rest of the episode, we're gonna discuss a 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.240 few things that that we found interesting about heavy water, 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.080 its role in the natural world and history, and maybe 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:06.479 the question of whether you should drink it. Um So. 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.679 At the molecular level, as we all know, regular water 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.400 is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.440 It's H two O, and this trifled structure makes for 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.360 a really amazing and powerful polar molecule that acts as 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.560 kind of master solvent that makes life itself possible. Every 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:29.800 cell in your body depends on the particular chemical properties 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.159 of this molecule. Without H two oh, nothing in the 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:37.400 organic world works. Now. Heavy water is an alternative form 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:42.040 of the same molecule, which relies on a different isotope 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:46.240 of the hydrogen atom, known as deuterium. A normal hydrogen 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:50.279 atom also known as protium just to distinguish it from deuterium, 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.000 is composed of two sub atomic particles. So it's got 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.000 a nucleus that is just one single proton and nothing 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.960 else that has a positive charge, and then orbiting that 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.120 it's got one single the electron, which has a negative charge. 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.360 Deuterium adds a third element to the mix. It adds 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:10.280 a single neutron to the nucleus of the hydrogen atom. 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.640 Uh Now again, this makes it an isotope of hydrogen, 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.520 and isotope is a is a version of an atom 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.760 that has a different than usual number of neutrons in 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.440 the nucleus, and a new neutron doesn't have a charge, 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:26.400 but it does have mass. So an atom of deuterium 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.080 is almost twice as heavy as an atom of ordinary hydrogen. 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.400 Deuterium is a stable isotope, and it is found in nature. 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.040 It's not something that's just a product of the Industrial 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.240 Revolution or of nuclear reactors or something like that. It's 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.480 found all throughout water in the Solar System, it's found 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:47.200 all throughout Earth's oceans. Roughly one out of every sixty 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:52.880 hydrogen atoms in the ocean is actually deuterium. So if 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.840 deuterium occurs in nature, you might wonder, well, where does 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.600 it come from? With most other elements, you can trace 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:03.040 their origin to some form of nucleosynthesis within stars or 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:07.840 during high energy events like supernova. However, almost all of 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.120 the deuterium found in nature is a leftover product of 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:15.680 the Big Bang. These atomic nuclei are not generated by stars, 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.680 or when they are, they're usually destroyed soon after they're created. 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.400 They've been the way they are for thirteen point eight 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.760 billion years, and on Earth, one major place to find 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.880 hydrogen is bound up in water molecules. Uh So, in 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:34.040 most ways, deuterium behaves chemically the same as ordinary hydrogen. 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.040 So deterium gets locked up into water molecules, uh and 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:40.760 it just floats around there in the ocean. The technical 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.920 name for a water molecule with deuterium in place of 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.800 hydrogen is deuterium oxide or D two oh. So if 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.160 you ever seen D two oh written out, that means 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:54.320 heavy water water molecule with deuterium instead of regular hydrogen. 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:59.000 It's also sometimes called deuterated water, but more commonly it's 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.800 just known as heavy water. Now, as I've said, in 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.720 many ways, deuterium behaves just like protium hydrogen, and so 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.360 in many ways heavy water blends in with and behaves 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.720 like regular water. But not in every way. And a 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:14.560 lot of what we're gonna be doing in this episodes 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:18.400 is exploring some of the fascinating and historically relevant and 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:22.600 weird differences between regular water and heavy water. That's right. 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.200 So one good place to start here and that the 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:27.640 history of the discovery of heavy water is to go 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.880 back to that's when chemists Author Lamb and Richard Lean 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.520 of New York University tried to define the density of 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.920 pure water and they kept getting varying results, which ultimately 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:41.959 paved the road for the discovery of isotopes that's variant. 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.400 Those are variants of particular chemical elements due to differences 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.360 in neutrons. And then also the discovery of heavy water itself. 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.760 And this is key because because again heavy water isn't 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.640 something that's you know, entirely man made or anything like that. 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.800 It's in water. It just constitutes one part in four thousand, 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:03.880 five hundred. Yes, that that's correct. Now about that number. 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.439 I was wondering about the ratios here because I saw 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.200 I've seen that that ratio one hundred, and I've also 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:12.720 seen the ratio of one out of every sixty four 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:18.000 hundred um like. For example, of the one important publication 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.320 on the evidence for the existence of heavy hydrogen back 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:25.160 in one which was published in the journal Physical Review, 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.600 was a letter by the American chemist Harold c. Uri 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.640 which pegged deuterium as one out of every hydrogen atoms, 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.959 but I've also seen it published elsewhere that it's it's 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.920 now thought that at least one out of every sixty 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.520 four hundred or I think more more like sixty twenty 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.640 or sixty four fifty water molecules in Earth's ocean are 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.640 heavy water. Um. So, I don't know if those numbers 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.600 represents some kind of conflict, or if one represents a 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.439 genuine difference in what you'd find in the water molecules 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.400 in the ocean versus what you'd find just in hydrogen 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.400 more broadly. I'm not quite sure about that. But the 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.679 point either way is that uh is that deuterium is 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:06.719 found in nature, but only in a in a very 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.200 small proportion of hydrogen, and thus heavy water is found 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.520 in nature, but only in a very small proportion. It's 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.760 one out of thousands of molecules. Yeah, so it's kind 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.120 of like if we had like a cash only society 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.960 and you had some heavy nickels floating, they're right where 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:25.080 the nickel itself like, it's it's not it's not worth more, 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.480 it's not it's still just worth five cents, And factors 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.640 into the figuring that way. But you can imagine scenarios 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:34.200 where extra heavy nickels in enough. Uh you know, if 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:38.000 there are enough of them within a larger amount of nickels, 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.600 that could have an impact on things, etcetera. Or if 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:42.640 you get into a situation sort of. This will discuss 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.200 where people are like, oh man, these heavy nickels are great, 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.319 I've got to get more of them. Can I like 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:51.319 syst them out of the existing uh cash population of 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.880 the existing world nickels. Can I make normal nickels into 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.840 heavy nickels, etcetera. That's very good, Yeah, and you could. 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.000 I can imagine you'd run into unfore seen problems if 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.800 you suddenly decided you wanted to base your entire economy 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.000 on heavy nickels, or I don't know, maybe a third 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.480 of your economy. Uh. That'll tie into something we get 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.000 into in a minute. So I mentioned him just a 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.800 minute ago, that the American chemist Harold c Ury. I 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:19.680 hope I'm saying his name right, you are e y Uh. 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.520 He's a very important figure in the discovery of deuterium. 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.439 He usually gets credit along with his collaborators for proving 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:30.600 the existence of deuterium through spectroscopic experiments in nineteen thirty one, 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:32.880 and he received the Nobel Prize for his discovery in 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:37.120 nineteen thirty four. But I thought it would be useful 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.480 to just look at a couple of the physical properties 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:44.360 of heavy water. So one of the key differences between 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.840 heavy water and ordinary water is that heavy water is 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:52.239 literally heavier because of the extra neutrons in the deuterium. 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.319 You remember, a deuterium atom is almost twice as heavy 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.400 as a regular hydrogen atom. Because of that, D two 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.200 oh is about ten heavier than an equal quantity of 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.600 regular water. And you might wonder, a wait a minute, 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.760 wy only ten percent heavier rather than double the weight. 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.640 We'll remember oxygen with eight protons and eight neutrons, makes 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.240 up the bulk of the mass of a normal water molecule. 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.280 It's got oxygen and then the lighter hydrogen atom. So 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.200 you're only increasing the weight of UH two of the 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.120 three atoms and the two smaller ones in the water molecule. 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:27.280 So so it's ten percent heavier. And this results in 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:31.440 some very interesting party trick potential. For example, regular ice 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.720 always floats in water, but with deuterium, if you make 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.240 a heavy water ice cube, it will sink in water 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.600 because it's got a greater density than the surrounding water. Also, 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.760 heavy water is more viscous than regular water. It's a 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.000 little bit. Uh, it's gonna be a little bit more 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.040 like a like a jelly and maybe not to a 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.319 you know, physically perceptible extent if you were to hold 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.640 it in your hands, but it is more viscous, which 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.640 would probably have measurable effects if say, the oceans were 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.839 entirely made of deuterior m. Yes, and this is this 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:04.880 is a great question that that had been asked on 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:06.839 the Internet already. I think it originally showed up in 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.440 a as a Cora question. Uh, what would the ocean 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:12.720 be like if it was made out of heavy water? 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.840 And uh, and is sometimes the case on Cora. You 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:20.240 had a really insightful answer pop up, this one from 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:24.400 Josh Velson, chemical engineering consultant for bio and petro chemicals. 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:26.560 And it was such a neat answer that it was 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:29.960 actually featured on Slate as well. Uh, so I recommend 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:32.320 checking that out. But but I want to touch on 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.480 some of the main points that Nelson makes, and I 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:37.760 want to stress this would be if there was a 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:41.360 magical instant change, you know, like snap your fingers. Now, 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.640 our oceans are just all heavy water, so it's not 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:47.960 a realistic scenario, but it's one of those thought experiment 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.920 scenarios that I think helps to underline what we're talking 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.640 about here with heavy water and how it affects it 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:58.160 would affect, you know, various systems. So, first of all, 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.920 since any given portion of the water uh out there 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:04.440 in the oceans would be ten point six percent heavier, 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.320 Velson says that anything swimming outside of its pressure zone 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.600 would basically be instantly crushed. Now we've discussed on the 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.480 show before. However, you take certain deep sea organisms and 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.480 you bring them up into shallower waters, you have some 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.000 exploding effects that take place. And likewise, if you take 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.720 something from shallower waters and plunge it down into the depths, 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.080 there can be a crushing scenario. But this just means 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.360 everything that these sort of things would be uh far 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.520 more exaggerated. Yeah, I didn't even consider this, But so 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.000 if the ocean is suddenly about ten percent heavier at 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.240 the molecular level, the pressure at the bottom of the 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.640 ocean would also be a lot higher. So so you're 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:44.200 suddenly down there and it's like somebody's just like put 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:49.560 an extra backpack on you. Yeah. Absolutely. Also, Velson says 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.600 that everything floating in the ocean would displace more mass, 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.200 so ships would need extra ballast to stay at the 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.440 same level in a heavy water ocean. And then this 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.360 is interesting, Velson writes, quote a large portion of the 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.440 oceans would freeze instantly due to a higher freezing point. 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.040 This would release a lot of heat into the atmosphere 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:10.400 in the polar regions, causing a massive imbalance and resulting 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:14.600 in some pretty spectacular polar cyclones unquote. Well, and then 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.080 on top of this, the mass of the planet would change. 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:20.480 This would alter the Moon's orbit, and basically it would 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:22.440 just mess with weather and climate in a major way, 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:26.400 resulting in earthquakes, tidal way, it's rising sea levels. But 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.360 of course, to change the ocean is to change life 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:31.080 as well. So we'll come back to this, and I'll 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:41.160 come back to Nelson's points in a bit, all right, So, 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.120 I know what you out there are already wondering, Should 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.680 I drink it heavy water? Should I should? I? You know, 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.000 get a big bucket of it and just gulp, gulp, gulp. 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:52.760 It sounds like the the ultimate metal head like bottled water, right, 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.360 heavy water. Oh yeah, they would sell it at the 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.760 metal shows. That's really good. So there's actually a great 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.280 article about the history of drinking heavy water in the 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.440 journal Nature Chemistry by the American chemist Michelle Francel. We 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:11.040 actually quoted a piece by her, uh at some point 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.080 in the past year, because she wrote a thing that 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.240 we did for Cupid's leadon narrow That was it. She 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:20.440 wrote an article about the history of sugar of lead 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:22.840 as it was used in ancient Rome. That was really good. 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.280 But this piece is called the Weight of Water. So 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:29.040 it was published in Nature Chemistry in twenty nineteen. So 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.440 she begins the story in nineteen thirteen talking about when 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:37.399 the Hungarian chemist George to Heavish was visiting the lab 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:42.119 of Ernest Rutherford in Manchester, England. Now, eventually both of 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:45.679 these scientists would have Nobel Prizes for their discoveries, but 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.440 at this point Rutherford was the was the senior scientist, 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.000 and Heavis she was more of a young student, you know. 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.680 He was still learned in the ropes. And Rutherford had 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.640 given Heavish a task here. He wanted to get him 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.800 to take quantity of lead and find a way to 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.520 chemically isolate all of the radioactive atoms of what was 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:10.040 then known as radium D from the lead and this sample, 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.040 and he Is she was unable to find a way 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.879 to do this because what they were calling radium D 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.359 was actually not radium but a radioactive isotope of lead 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.320 that is now known as lead to tin. But in 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.680 the process of working on this problem that he never 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.359 ended up solving, he Is she realized a potentially very 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:33.960 interesting implication of this failure. When a sample contains a radioisotope, 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:38.120 a radioactive atom within a massive other atoms, you can 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.680 use these radioactive atoms to track the movement of a 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:46.360 chemical through a biological system. So, for example, if you're 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.400 curious how lead in the soil is taken up by 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:53.199 bean plants and then distributed around the plant's body, you 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:57.000 can spike the soil with radioactive isotopes of lead, so 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:59.359 the plant will take them up. Because they're still lead, 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:01.560 it will treat him the way it normally treats lead. 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.240 But because they're radioactive they're radioisotopes, you can track what 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.439 the plant is doing them with them. You can use 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:12.400 equipment to track exactly how these isotopes are metabolized through 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.400 the roots. The stem the leaves. Uh. And you can 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.480 also use these radioactive tracers to track the absorption and 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:24.960 elimination of elements in animal bodies. So you could find out, well, 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.760 when when somebody ingests lead, does the body immediately purge 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:31.520 it or does the lead stick around? How long does 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:33.960 it take the body to purge it? Where does it 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.440 go in the body? And it turns out you can 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.879 use radioactive tracers to find out lots of things about 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:42.320 what's going on in the body, not just in basic 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:46.760 biological research, but actually in medicine. Radioactive tracers are used 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.080 in medicine all the time. Now Here, I wanted to 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.320 mention a couple of anecdotes that came across about Heavishet 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:54.720 that are really interesting. He seems like a kind of 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:57.399 mythic hero in a way, a sort of Romulus or 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.680 Gilgamesh here, or maybe we should say Bill Gamesh, Uh 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:03.159 Bill Gamesh to heav is she? So there were a 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:05.560 couple of the most popular stories about his life that 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:08.520 that I I couldn't pass up mentioning. The first one 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:11.399 I found recounted in a short historical article in the 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.919 Journal of Nuclear Cardiology, and it concerns how heavy she 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:18.159 first demonstrated that tracer principle that I was just talking about. 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:23.680 So this is by Strauss at all uh from and 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.600 the authors here talk about while heav is she was 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.440 working in Manchester in this lab in the early nineteen tens. 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:33.280 He was living at a boarding house that had been 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.359 recommended to him by Rutherford by the way. So his 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:38.639 boss is like, hey live in this place, and apparently 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:43.200 it was just miserable there, heavs. She started noticing that 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:46.719 he didn't just hate his lodgings, he really hated the 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.240 food at his boarding house. He had a sensitive stomach, 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.639 he suffered from indigestion, and he started to suspect something 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.200 was going on. What he thought was happening was that, uh, 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:00.639 now this is an old school boy earning house, right, 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:02.639 so they give you not just a bed, but a 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.960 bed and your daily meals. And he started to suspect 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:10.320 that his landlady was recycling food. So you know, she 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.720 makes you a great r bee frost and then you 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:15.719 eat a little bit of it and you don't finish it. 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:18.520 There's some still on your plate. He is. She suspected 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:22.159 that the landlady was just taking whatever you couldn't finish 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:24.480 off of your plate and then taking it back to 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.080 the kitchen and then mixing it up and serving it 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:31.080 again in some disguised form the next day. Well, that's 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:35.080 just being a good mom. You know. You can appreciate, 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:37.600 you know, of refraining from food waste here, But he 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:39.560 is she was not happy with it, because I think 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:43.159 the problem was the beef was already suffering from freshness 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.399 problems and was was being recycled to the point of 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:52.720 possible food poisoning. So at some point, uh he called. 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.600 He brought this up with his landlady to read from 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.280 the article here quote. His suggestion that she served slee 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.520 prepared meat more than once a week was met with indignation. 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:07.280 How could he, she insisted, accuse her of serving anything 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:10.760 but the freshest of ingredients. Uh, so have is? She 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:13.159 decided to put this claim to the test using a 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:16.119 really amazing method, in fact, using some of the exact 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.240 same techniques that he had just been discovering recently in 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:23.920 Rutherford's lab that we were just talking about. So one Sunday, 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.560 when he she had eaten as much as he could, 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:29.919