... about Chemistry. James May's Things You Need to Know


... about Chemistry.

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For many of us, there are few subjects more confounding than chemistry.

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But, in truth, it's actually a lot like cooking.

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You take some ingredients,

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you mix them together in a bowl, or maybe a beaker,

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and you end up with all sorts of surprising concoctions.

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Although, in chemistry, it's probably a good idea

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if you don't lick the spoon afterwards.

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I'm here to distil the truth, with mind-bending questions, such as -

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why do things go bang?

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Can I turn lead into gold?

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And why would anyone want my pee?

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Just a few of the things you need to know about your chemical life.

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Let's start with something nice and simple.

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Hopefully.

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The world is like one big laboratory,

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full of chemical reactions.

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But you don't need a PHD to prove it.

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You just need some household ingredients.

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TV ADVERTISEMENT: It's pure and good. And it's so thrifty!

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Baking soda is used in muffins to help them rise.

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But God forbid that you mistake your vanilla extract for vinegar,

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because it'll blow your muffin top off.

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Oh!

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Why is that?

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Well, the chemical recipe for this muffin gone wrong looks like this.

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Which looks massively complicated,

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but really, it means that baking soda is a base substance,

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made up of sodium, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms,

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forming a molecular structure

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that looks like this.

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Vinegar, meanwhile, is a carboxylic acid made up of these atoms

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and its molecular structure

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looks like this.

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The thing you need to know about acids and bases

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is that they're opposites.

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And when they're forced to mix,

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the atoms rearrange themselves to form new substances.

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And it's this act of two substances coming together to form another one

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that's at the heart of all chemical reactions.

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The simplest chemical reaction that everybody has seen all the time

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without even knowing, probably, that it's a chemical reaction, is burning.

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You are combining things together, air and paper,

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and you're producing new chemicals.

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You're producing carbon dioxide and water.

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Part of the fun of chemistry is the ability of chemicals

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to transform products which are often quite unlike their parents.

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In the case of our vinegary muffin,

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it's the production of carbon dioxide

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which accounts for all the frothy mess.

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The lesson you should take from this is - always read the label.

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You will no doubt have noticed a lot of letters

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and numbers making up those chemical equations.

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And those letters, like...

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..they represent the elements -

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the basic building blocks of chemistry.

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And they are very interesting things, elements,

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because, just like us, each has its own persona.

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And, just like us,

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they don't necessarily get along with each other.

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Which makes me wonder...

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Oxygen, lead,

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neon, mercury.

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In total, there are 118 elements.

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And, like us,

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they all behave differently.

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To keep them in check, we've created

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a kind of chemical prison -

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the periodic table.

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And it works like this.

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Vertically, elements are organised into three main groups -

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metals, nonmetals and metalloids.

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Horizontally, the elements are arranged into rows

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according to their atomic number.

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The lightweight hydrogen has been put right at the top,

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because its mass is just one,

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which means it only has one proton.

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The atomic number of an atom is defined

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as the number of protons, as well as the number of electrons

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that are spinning around, or orbiting around that nucleus.

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And it's the number of electrons on the outside of each element

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which governs its chemical reactivity.

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There are 98 naturally-occurring elements in the periodic table,

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plus there are some additional ones,

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which we have to synthesize artificially.

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And the lower you go, the heavier an element becomes.

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Down in the basement,

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the radioactive ununoctium has a mass of 118 -

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a superheavyweight.

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And which cell an element has been assigned to

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can tell us how it will react to another.

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Carbon, for example, has little trouble mixing with others.

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Amigos!

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Whereas Francium is notoriously violent, especially when wet.

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But it's the combinations that you really need to keep an eye on.

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When sodium meets chlorine, you get sodium chloride -

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common table salt.

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But add three oxygen atoms, and give it a jolt,

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and you get sodium chlorate -

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weed killer.

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And if that comes into contact

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with sugar, you get an explosion.

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And we could go on forever,

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because the potential combinations are endless.

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As you would expect, most of the ones we know about

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were found by accident, or through trial and error.

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But we should probably end things at this point.

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We might give the inmates ideas.

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While some chemical combinations seem terribly dramatic,

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there are plenty of others that seem really quite uneventful.

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But even so, we couldn't live without them.

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In fact, you'd be surprised at the level of our chemical dependency.

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The truth is - if it weren't for chemistry,

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we wouldn't even make it out of bed.

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For starters, we take roughly 14,000 breaths of air every day.

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And it alone is made up of hundreds of chemicals,

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including nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide and water.

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Our bodies are made up of 60% H20,

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and without regular refills, we'd be done for.

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Next comes breakfast.

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Without the iron in our cereal,

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we'd become anaemic

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and riddled with worms.

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Not enough iodized salt

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and our thyroid glands would swell into goitres.

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And without glucose,

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we'd stumble around

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like braindead zombies.

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All in all, not a pretty sight.

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But our chemical dependency has gone well beyond food and drink.

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We use hundreds of substances in things like soaps and toothpaste,

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without which we'd be smelly, hairy and toothless.

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You may have noticed that we're still naked at this point.

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So, to keeps things decent, we cover ourselves

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with chains of repeating molecules, called polymers,

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like wool, nylon and polyester.

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A polymer is a long-chain molecule

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that's made up usually of a repeating series

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of so-called molymers.

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Like imagining putting a bead or a series of beads on a chain.

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You had two different colours.

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Then, you could alternate them red-green, red-green, like that.

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Polymers also occur in natural compounds.

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In plants and animals,

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but also, we're familiar with them

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as synthetic substances that chemists make.

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So, while some of us try to

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make up for our deficiencies

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with wigs made from breathable nylon,

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others set about enhancing their features with cosmetics.

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Once upon a time, cosmetics were truly poisonous

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and contained things like white lead,

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which turned your skin black

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and made your eyes bulge,

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and induced a slow death.

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Even today's versions contain

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trace elements of heavy metals.

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Which is why I only very rarely wear makeup.

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900 chemicals before nine in the morning,

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and your chemical day has only just begun.

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Before you leave, though,

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it's advisable to pay a quick visit to the bathroom.

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And strangely, I'm going to be coming with you,

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because I'd like to spend a little bit of time examining your urine.

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Now, oddly enough, I'm not alone in this one.

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Plenty of people would like to join me.

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Let me explain.

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You probably think of pee as waste.

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But it has some very valuable components.

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The most sought after is urea.

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A nitrogen-rich compound that is colourless and odourless.

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But when the urea breaks down, it forms ammonia

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which, while smelly, is nature's bleach.

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This explains why the Romans collected urine -

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to whiten their togas

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and even their teeth.

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Human and animal urine is still harvested all over the world.

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One town in Mexico collects 4,500 litres during carnival week alone,

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selling it for a tidy profit.

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Ole!

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Health professionals collect your pee for entirely different reasons.

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Urine analysis is a great way

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of measuring the body's overall chemical balance.

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It can tell you if you're pregnant, for example,

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or if you have an infection.

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Health professionals love urine.

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You know the expression "You are what you eat"?

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Well, that's mostly true.

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Do you know how they used to find out whether somebody had diabetes?

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Easy - you take a urine sample, you dip your finger in it,

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and you taste it.

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And if it's sweet, your patient has got diabetes,

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cos they're not metabolising sugars properly.

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It's also a good way to detect alcohol and drugs in the system.

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Although the police generally don't do this by the roadside.

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It's a bit messy.

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Pee, however, has a more dangerous side.

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17th-century alchemist Hennig Brand distilled his own,

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hoping to extract gold, but discovered phosphorus instead,

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which is what makes matches burn so bright.

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Today, urine and urea are used in everything, from fertilizers

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to fire extinguishers.

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In fact, it's so useful,

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we've had to chemically synthesise it to keep up with demand.

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You'll find it in beauty products, dish soap,

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even on pretzels to give them brown glaze.

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And urine is still used

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in the traditional manufacture of tweed clothing,

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which might explain why people will avoid you

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if you wear your tweed jacket in the rain.

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So, next time you go for a wee, remember -

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you could be flushing away a fortune.

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That gives a whole new meaning to taking the...you know what I mean.

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But hang on a minute,

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what was that about pee being potentially explosive?

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Well, it's all to do with combustion, apparently.

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That's the scientific term for blowing things up.

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And combustion can take many forms -

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some good, some bad, some downright ugly.

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So I suppose my next question should be...

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Ever since man-made fire, we've been experimenting with combustion

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with varying degrees of success.

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Bangs are usually the result of

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a fuel reacting with oxygen,

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and a heat source, like a spark.

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This creates heat, light, pressure and sound.

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Of course, none of these results

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are strictly chemical.

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This is where chemistry partners up with its old friend - physics.

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Because really, a bang is a release of energy in a short burst.

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In an explosion, you have a molecule.

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If you give it enough energy,

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it would prefer to exist in some other form.

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That other form involves breaking high-energy bonds.

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Those bonds essentially fragment apart

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in a very violent and rapid fashion,

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releasing large amounts of energy and large amounts of gas.

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The type of bang depends on the chemicals you use,

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and how you set them off.

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Fireworks contain elements that give them their distinctive colours.

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Sodium makes yellow,

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copper - green,

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and potassium - violet.

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But the explosive ingredient

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is actually gunpowder.

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If you want to big up the bang,

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you'll need something more powerful.

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Like nitroglycerine, which is highly volatile.

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Ideal for making dynamite,

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though be careful

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how you handle her.

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You CAN actually harness the power of bangs

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if you have an internal combustion engine.

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Inside the engine,

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combustion of fuel creates hot gases

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and, when trapped, the pressure pushes the pistons

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and you're off!

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Engines happen to be one of my favourite things.

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They operate on what's known as the suck-squeeze-bang-blow principle.

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Air and fuel is sucked into the engine,

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they're squeezed in a chamber,

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and that mixture is then ignited by a spark.

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That's the bang which drives the pistons down.

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And, finally, the exhaust valve opens and that's the blow.

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We may think we're in control,

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but things can still blow up in your face

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if you're not smart about it.

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So don't try any of this at home.

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A note from our lawyers there.

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Now, obviously, without combustion, I wouldn't have a regular day job.

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But cars don't rely on engines alone.

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Another key chemical component is the battery -

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big, powerful, and occasionally prone to going flat.

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Why does it do that? Or...

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Imagine a world without portable electric power.

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The wiring would cause traffic chaos.

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Thank heavens for batteries.

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Batteries convert chemical energy into electricity.

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And they all work in a fairly similar way.

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Inside are two metallic plates,

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called electrodes.

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And between them is a sort of chemical bridge,

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called an electrolyte,

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made of stuff like sulphuric acid.

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And the electrolyte allows charged electrons gathered at one electrode

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to travel to the other, creating the get up and go.

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The transfer of electrons is the basic principle of all batteries.

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In fact, you could stick two electrodes in anything organic

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and create a current.

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Even a lemon, because the citric acid in the lemon

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would become the electrolyte.

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Trouble is, you'd need a lemon bigger than a car

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just to start the car.

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The lead acid batteries in our cars

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were the first rechargeable ones

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and haven't changed a great deal

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since 1859.

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But they're a bit of a chemical conundrum, as, really,

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they shouldn't work at all.

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Because their electrodes consist of lead at one end

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and lead oxide at the other.

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And oxides don't normally

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conduct electricity.

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So where does the juice come from?

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Well, it took us until 2011 to figure this out.

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When electrons travel

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between the electrodes,

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the lead oxide LOSES oxygen,

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transforming itself into a conductor.

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And away you go!

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All batteries will die at some point,

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because there is a limit to the chemical energy stored inside.

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Even the one inside your car will die eventually.

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Battery technology is getting better and better all the time.

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But there are still problems.

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They're expensive to manufacture, they're heavy to carry around,

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they're difficult to dispose of.

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One possibility for the future is to use things like hydrogen fuel cells.

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So, in the very near future,

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lead acid car batteries could seem like old news,

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but we can't really complain.

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After all, these ones have lasted over 150 years.

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Well, I, for one, look forward to the day

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when I don't have to ask my neighbour

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for a jump-start on a cold winter's morning.

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It's enough to drive you to drink. Not while you're driving, obviously.

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But that brings me on to another of chemistry's most popular creations -

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a pint, or a dram.

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Whatever your pleasure,

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one chemical formula is responsible for all of them.

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We've been making merry with alcohol since the Stone Age.

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You wouldn't recognise the stuff they drank,

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as it contained all sorts of strange substances,

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including narcotic herbs.

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But the way alcohol is made has never really changed -

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it's all thanks to fermentation.

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What's that?

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This is when the sugars in fruits, grains, potatoes, or even cactus

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are combined with water and yeast

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to form a mash.

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Yeast is one of the 15,000 or so members

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of the bizarrely named "kingdom of fungi."

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It's a micro-organism and we exploit it to encourage chemical reactions

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in the making of things like bread and cheese.

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Although I'm rather more interested in its boozy potential.

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Cheers.

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The yeast causes a chemical reaction,

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converting sugar molecules into ethanol-alcohol,

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and carbon dioxide - the bubbles.

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With lots of booze, we let the bubbles out,

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but in lager and Champagne, they're trapped.

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A bottle of bubbly contains millions of bubbles

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and exerts roughly three times more

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pressure than the air in a car tyre.

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And it's thought that those tiny bubbles

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speed the flow of alcohol into your bloodstream.

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If you want even more of a kick,

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you'll need one of these - a still.

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Distillation starts by heating

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the fermented alcohol,

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causing it to boil.

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Vapours then rise and are channelled into a condenser,

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where they cool back into a liquid

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with a much higher alcoholic content.

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This stuff is like rocket fuel,

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so it has to be watered down again before it's even bottled,

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let alone drunk.

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Alcohols are a family of different molecules.

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Methanol is the toxic alcohol.

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Methanol will make you blind.

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Isopropanol. This is commonly found as rubbing alcohol.

0:19:260:19:29

So when you look on the side of your whisky bottle

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and it gives you a percentage, that's the percentage of ethanol

0:19:320:19:35

and that's the bit that makes you tipsy.

0:19:350:19:37

But whether you like your booze neat, fizzy, shaken or stirred,

0:19:370:19:42

it's all just a chemical cocktail.

0:19:420:19:44

One of the other things alcohol does

0:19:460:19:48

is give us a distorted notion of our own attractiveness.

0:19:480:19:53

And the false confidence to go and chat someone up.

0:19:530:19:56

Now, this may work out in your favour, but, of course, it may not.

0:19:560:20:00

So you should really consider alternative means

0:20:000:20:03

of making yourself more appealing.

0:20:030:20:05

Maybe chemistry could help us here, too.

0:20:050:20:08

Can chemistry make me irresistible?

0:20:100:20:15

One person you could have asked was a woman named Tapputi.

0:20:150:20:18

She was the first recorded chemist, living in 1200BC,

0:20:180:20:21

and extracted perfumes from

0:20:210:20:24

flowers, herbs, even animal glands,

0:20:240:20:27

all designed to make people more desirable.

0:20:270:20:30

Today, we're able to synthetically mimic aromas,

0:20:300:20:33

using complex chemical ingredients.

0:20:330:20:36

Smell and taste are both parts of the body's amazing ability

0:20:360:20:40

to detect chemicals.

0:20:400:20:42

The receptors inside our noses respond to give rise to a signal

0:20:420:20:47

and, in many cases, these compounds then smell pleasant to us.

0:20:470:20:52

You might think perfumes are all designed to mask your body odour,

0:20:520:20:57

but researchers claim we subconsciously choose a scent

0:20:570:21:01

that complements it.

0:21:010:21:03

Our natural odour contains pheromones -

0:21:030:21:05

aromatic compounds released through sweat glands.

0:21:050:21:09

Pheromones have less to do with love per se,

0:21:090:21:12

and more to do with your immune system.

0:21:120:21:15

Subconsciously, we're always on the lookout

0:21:150:21:18

for someone whose immune system is different,

0:21:180:21:21

because our offspring will inherit the best of both.

0:21:210:21:24

All this chemistry is happening at a molecular level.

0:21:240:21:28

But once the attraction becomes apparent,

0:21:280:21:30

there are a few things you can do to heighten your chemical romance.

0:21:300:21:35

Number one, go diving for oysters.

0:21:350:21:38

They contain dopamine, which enhances your libido.

0:21:380:21:42

Two, gorge on bananas.

0:21:420:21:45

They contain zinc, said to increase sperm and testosterone production.

0:21:450:21:50

And three, keep a bottle of mouthwash handy.

0:21:500:21:54

Hydrogen sulfide lies on the back of your tongue

0:21:580:22:01

and that's what gives you bad breath.

0:22:010:22:04

Mouthwash kills it off, using a variety of ingredients,

0:22:040:22:07

such as hydrogen peroxide, menthol, and, my personal favourite,

0:22:070:22:11

alkyletholbenzyldimemmo... alkylbetholbenzyldimeldonium...

0:22:110:22:16

This fella, here.

0:22:160:22:19

That is a bit of a mouthful.

0:22:210:22:23

If all that's led you to the bedroom,

0:22:230:22:25

and you're still in need of help,

0:22:250:22:27

there's a little blue pill containing sildenafil citrate,

0:22:270:22:30

which, well, keeps the blood flowing for longer.

0:22:300:22:34

But we'll leave that behind closed doors, shall we?

0:22:340:22:38

But I wouldn't have to rely on fragrances and breath fresheners

0:22:390:22:44

and aphrodisiacs if I were a billionaire, would I?

0:22:440:22:47

HE CHUCKLES

0:22:470:22:49

Fat chance of that happening...

0:22:490:22:51

Unless I could find a way to turn lead into gold.

0:22:510:22:57

Actually, chemists have been trying to do that for 2,000 years.

0:22:570:23:01

I wonder if any of them ever managed it!

0:23:010:23:03

To look at them, one glitters,

0:23:070:23:10

while the other one is...well, rather dull.

0:23:100:23:13

But gold and lead have some surprisingly similar qualities.

0:23:130:23:18

Both are heavy metals, and both are malleable, especially when heated,

0:23:180:23:24

which may be why alchemists have tried throughout history

0:23:240:23:27

to turn one into the other.

0:23:270:23:30

Without success.

0:23:300:23:31

Actually, many alchemists died

0:23:320:23:34

as a result of breathing in poisonous fumes

0:23:340:23:37

while trying to turn lead into gold.

0:23:370:23:39

And even the man who discovered gravity, Sir Isaac Newton,

0:23:390:23:43

he dabbled in alchemy

0:23:430:23:44

and he suffered mercury poisoning towards the end of his life

0:23:440:23:48

as a result of his more...chemical hobbies.

0:23:480:23:52

But in the 1970s, Russian scientists unexpectedly discovered

0:23:520:23:57

that part of the lead shielding in their nuclear reactor

0:23:570:24:00

had, astonishingly,

0:24:000:24:02

turned into gold.

0:24:020:24:04

The secret, it seems, is radiation.

0:24:040:24:08

The atomic number of gold is 79,

0:24:080:24:12

while lead is 82.

0:24:120:24:14

And if you zap lead with radiation, it causes an energy build-up,

0:24:150:24:19

some of which has to be released.

0:24:190:24:21

The result is that lead loses some of its protons.

0:24:210:24:24

And if you're lucky, presto,

0:24:240:24:27

you get gold!

0:24:270:24:30

Sounds easy, but here's the catch.

0:24:300:24:33

The gold would be so radioactive,

0:24:330:24:35

you'd be dead before you could bank it.

0:24:350:24:38

It turns out, though, we need gold

0:24:380:24:40

for far more than just bling.

0:24:400:24:42

It's also a fantastic conductor

0:24:420:24:44

and is found in all manner of electronic devices.

0:24:440:24:48

You have a cellphone, guess what? Your cellphone's full of gold.

0:24:480:24:51

Not enough to make a gold ring, but the circuits inside your cellphone

0:24:510:24:55

are connected together with gold wire.

0:24:550:24:57

Gold is highly conductive.

0:24:570:24:59

It's able to give up its electrons

0:24:590:25:01

and pass these electrons through the material

0:25:010:25:03

so that it can conduct electric current.

0:25:030:25:05

And other metals are less good at that,

0:25:050:25:07

because they hold on to their electrons more tightly.

0:25:070:25:10

Gold is expensive - can chemistry give us an answer? Chemistry can.

0:25:100:25:14

Now science is trying to use nanotechnology

0:25:140:25:17

to manipulate the electrons on the surface of base metals, like lead,

0:25:170:25:21

to make them behave like their precious counterparts.

0:25:210:25:24

It might not be exactly what the alchemists had in mind,

0:25:240:25:28

but it's still lead into gold, sort of.

0:25:280:25:33

The other age-old quest those ancient alchemists

0:25:340:25:38

were eternally pre-occupied with

0:25:380:25:40

was to find the potion to give eternal life.

0:25:400:25:43

I wonder if chemistry could crack that nut as well!

0:25:430:25:46

THIS is chemistry's holy grail - the elixir granting eternal youth.

0:25:490:25:54

Unfortunately, despite plenty of searching throughout the ages,

0:25:540:25:57

we haven't found it...yet.

0:25:570:26:00

But we have discovered chemicals that may help

0:26:000:26:03

to keep death at bay for a little longer.

0:26:030:26:05

The goal is to extend life by repairing the damage

0:26:050:26:08

that our cells are subjected to over time,

0:26:080:26:11

which is the cause of dreaded old age.

0:26:110:26:14

One of the mechanisms of ageing is that the genes -

0:26:140:26:17

part of your genetic code -

0:26:170:26:20

as cells split and duplicate,

0:26:200:26:23

the genes are transmitted from cell to cell,

0:26:230:26:26

but they get shorter and shorter and shorter.

0:26:260:26:28

And over time, you can start to notice their effects.

0:26:280:26:32

And that's what we call ageing.

0:26:320:26:33

Among the most promising candidates found so far are sirtuin activators,

0:26:330:26:38

proteins that trick the body into thinking

0:26:380:26:41

it doesn't need any more calories.

0:26:410:26:43

So why is that a good thing?

0:26:430:26:46

Well, these proteins can defend

0:26:460:26:48

against a major contributor

0:26:480:26:51

to cell damage - overeating.

0:26:510:26:53

When excess calories flood your system,

0:26:530:26:55

it causes your cells to age at a faster rate.

0:26:550:26:59

But to the rescue comes red wine,

0:27:000:27:03

full of a sirtuin activator

0:27:030:27:05

called resveratrol,

0:27:050:27:07

a chemical produced by the grapevine

0:27:070:27:10

in times of starvation or stress.

0:27:100:27:13

And studies have found

0:27:130:27:15

that resveratrol extends the life span of its test subjects, mice,

0:27:150:27:19

by as much as 50%.

0:27:190:27:21

Which might explain why the French,

0:27:240:27:26

for all their love of both rich food and red wine,

0:27:260:27:30

still live as long as the rest of us.

0:27:300:27:33

Other anti-ageing remedies aren't quite so appealing, though.

0:27:350:27:39

Rapamycin, for example, is an anti-fungal agent

0:27:390:27:43

found only in the soil on Easter Island.

0:27:430:27:46

And, supposedly, it can slow the ageing process.

0:27:460:27:50

Don't really fancy eating soil, though.

0:27:500:27:53

So enjoying a glass a day might actually keep the doctor away.

0:27:540:27:58

But don't overdo it. Otherwise, it might be the booze that kills you.

0:27:580:28:04

Finding the elixir of eternal youth

0:28:040:28:07

is unlikely to be something that happens in my lifetime.

0:28:070:28:11

But chemistry has always given us the power and the confidence

0:28:110:28:15

to solve problems and even dream the impossible.

0:28:150:28:18

And you can rest assured that that's not likely to change.

0:28:180:28:22

And who knows? Maybe one day, they'll come up with a formula

0:28:220:28:25

that helps us remember everything we learned in chemistry class.

0:28:250:28:29

I'd have some of that.

0:28:290:28:31

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