Bonus: Animals have tears? (and other questions)
Hey, guys. Before you listen to this month's q and r, I wanted to give you a heads up that, unfortunately, this q and r has a little bit of technical difficulties, and I discovered them just now at about midnight before the episode is gonna air in the morning. Nothing like crunch time doing your homework last minute. Right? So there's just a there's a few moments, a little more than a few, where there's like a quarter of a second blip, kinda drop out of audio.
Jam:And it doesn't really affect understanding what me or Melissa are saying, but it's annoying. And we're really sorry, and we're gonna try to figure out what the heck happened and why that happened. And, hopefully, it will not happen again. So, anyway, no time to redo the episode real quick. And so we're at gotta leave it in for now.
Jam:But in the future, we will do everything we can to prevent an annoying thing like that because, trust me, it's gonna drive me crazy just as much, if not more than you guys. So sorry about that. Enjoy the episode. See you guys soon.
Melissa:Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist.
Jam:And I'm not.
Melissa:And welcome to Chemistry For Your Life.
Jam:The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life bonus edition.
Melissa:Yay. Bonus edition. Before we get started today, I wanna listener is something that I'm pretty excited about.
Jam:Okay. I will allow it.
Melissa:Okay. Good. I'm glad you'll allow it. So as a bonus, All those of you who are tuning in today, you get to hear that I have finished my dissertation. It's been emailed to the powers that be.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:And I'll have to do a defense To where I present all the information in that dissertation and, get some questions over it, and That means I'm really close to being done with school. And I know a lot of you have asked and sent encouragement, and I feel happy to have this big milestone done, and I'm really, really close to Finishing and being doctor Collini, so that's so exciting.
Jam:Dude, that is very cool. Awesome. Dang.
Melissa:Yeah. So that's your 1st bonus thought for today. And I'm really happy, and I feel lighter than I have felt In mutts. So I'm wondering if it'll come through on the mic. Although the podcast does usually make me happy, so maybe Yeah.
Melissa:Maybe it is kind of, like, hard to Tell, but I feel so much better than I felt for a really long time.
Jam:Yeah. Awesome to have, like, that much work already behind you. And so somewhere to go, but, like, that you're close. You are so close.
Melissa:I'm so close. Yeah.
Jam:So Dude, that's awesome.
Melissa:Thanks for all your support, Jam. I'm so excited, and I'm so happy to be here doing an episode. For the 1st time, I feel like my brain's really in it again today for for a long time. So Yeah. Let's get into some of our listener thoughts and questions.
Jam:Okay. Sweet. This first one's from Chelsea, and she sent in a in an analogy that has something to do with our lobster episode a few weeks ago. So here's what she said. I thought of an analogy for today's lobster episode, hands.
Jam:They're super useful and have multiple fingers that help with dexterity. During the winter, I wear mittens to keep my hands warm. However, when I'm wearing mittens, I can only move my fingers together. So grabbing things is a lot harder. Once I get inside and warm up, I take my mittens off, and I can use my fingers independently again.
Jam:My fingers are like astaxanthin.
Melissa:Astaxanthin. Astaxanthin. I think it's how it's pronounced.
Jam:Oh, there we go. Okay. Astaxanthin. And the mittens are the protein that surrounds and changes their arrangement. As a bonus, hands and mittens kind of look like lobster claws.
Melissa:They also hands and mittens also usually change colors, which also happens to the astaxanthin.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So I really like that analogy, especially because of the color change, and think it's fun that they look like lobster claws, and I've been doing lobster claws the whole time this analogy has been has been being said behind the camera.
Jam:Yeah. That was really good.
Melissa:So that's a good analogy, Chelsea. Thanks for sending that in. She also sent a cute little lobster emoji. I love emojis. That really drove it, So good job, Chelsea.
Jam:Yeah. Totally. Sorry. I forgot to say the lobster emoji that was in there, but it was definitely there and definitely added to the whole message.
Melissa:And I really like it when listeners send analogies because I think every person can kind of think of a chemo topic differently. I actually think that one was kind of harder to Follow. And so having extra analogies is really helpful. So if you have a good analogy, please please send it in. We totally wanna hear it, and we'd love to share it on a q and r.
Jam:Yes. A 100%. This next message we have from listener is from Kaiba, and it's more of a thought, more of a thing to add in there. So Kaiba said, hey, just listened to the tears episode, and you forgot to tell what for me is the most awesome thing about tears. The tiers have an enzyme called lysosyme, which function as an antimicrobial agent to protect your eyes from bacterial infections.
Jam:Also, nonaquatic animals that live or interact a lot with the sea usually have to cry tears full of salt to get rid of the excess salt in their bodies, such as turtles, crocodiles, and seabirds.
Melissa:So Kaibe is a biochemist. Uh-huh. I think he's biochemist. He might be a biologist, actually. Yeah.
Melissa:I can't remember. I should have looked it up. But He's a friend of ours, does science, sends lots of good emails, has sent a lot of especially biology focused feedback, and I didn't know any of this information. And I thought it was So so cool. Yeah.
Melissa:So thank you so much for sending that in. I love that. And I do think there's a lot more to tears than what we We kind of covered the basics, but, yeah, we didn't get into any enzymes or anything else that they really do to function. So it would be Cool to be able to do a deep dive into some of those other functions that goes on with tiers.
Jam:Yeah. Definitely. And it and it it is funny because even the what we did talk about is more than what most of us think peers have, and there's more. You know? It's like yeah.
Jam:It's kinda cool.
Melissa:Yeah. I think probably biologists were not impressed by that episode, but I was amazed By his
Jam:You're right. Right.
Melissa:Guy was like, actually, there's a lot more for you to talk about. Yeah. And I thought, this is amazing. Who knew? Yeah.
Jam:So Dude, that's awesome. Okay. Next question is from Sam, and Sam asks, is there any chemistry in lightning?
Melissa:So I think that lightning and thunderstorms are all chemistry, but I also think we're gonna have to do a whole episode on that Because I'm gonna really need to dig into the resources on it. And I actually when I put up, a story on Instagram. I got questions also on ceramic glazes and what causes patterns in irises, and all these are really cool.
Jam:I
Melissa:wanna answer. I think Aspen sent one of those. Yeah. So I wanna answer those listeners who wrote in, but those are full episodes. They are not something I can quite Dress in a q and r.
Melissa:But those were really good questions, and so I wanna encourage you to keep sending them because sometimes if I'm not sure what episode I wanna cover, I'll go back to old q and r, things like this, and look at some of these types of episode suggestions.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
Melissa:So thanks for those questions. Sorry. I do think I'll have to do a whole episode to address them.
Jam:Yeah. This next question is from someone whose name is either Nada or Nada. Sorry if I mispronounced that, but their question is is is there something science couldn't understand or make yet? Woah.
Melissa:I love that question. And, yes, there's so many things.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:Probably my favorite, and this is this plays in so well because we're gonna revisit this topic a little bit. Yes. Yes. I love this so much, but one of my favorite things is photosynthesis. So we understand photosynthesis To a degree.
Melissa:Right? Like, the stuff that you learn in your biology class in, like, high school or whatever. Yeah. We understand that much about photosynthesis and even a little bit more than that. You know, there's a deeper level of how the electrons move around that we understand, but we don't understand it well enough to create it,
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:And part of my job as a master's researcher was trying to make molecules That had some artificial photosynthesis capability so that they could act like chlorophyll and transfer electrons the way that, cells in plants do. Yeah. And, actually, just not this next week, we'll do a new episode next week, and the week after that going to revisit My master's research in honor of us coming up on my PhD research.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:So that was a really good question. Actually, the ground of this q and r episode, they asked the question with, some molecules in the background and those molecules that I made In my master's research, and they're trying to mimic photosynthesis. So your question has is, like, perfectly tied in. But there's also a lot of other things. Like, we fully don't understand how the pigmentation in lobsters changes.
Melissa:We talked about that last week.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:It's been hard for scientists to understand why cornstarch and water do that thing where they are non Newtonian fluid. You know, there's all kinds of things that I think science knows a lot about, but they don't know everything about, and they aren't able to recreate a lot of things that nature can do. So Yeah. Yeah. Those are my thoughts.
Melissa:I love that question.
Jam:Yeah. That's interesting. This next question is from Brian. Brian asks, what's the best way to study for organic chemistry. Obviously, this question is for me.
Jam:We've got a lot of fun.
Melissa:Did you get an a in organic chemistry?
Jam:I guess I just took chemistry for non majors, so who knows if that's what that counts for. And I, will defer to our chemist here because I'm definitely not a study model on that topic back in the day when I did not yet really love chemistry like I have been taught to love it now.
Melissa:Well, actually, Brian, I love talking about this. So I'm really glad you asked. Actually, I have a whole different I don't wanna I guess band would be the right thing to say, But I have a whole set of social medias under the name at organic Melissa where I function as an oriented chemistry tutor. I talk about how to study for tests, how to organize your note, how to, prepare for exams, and then I also go through tutorials on specific subjects. So, like, I'll just do sort of topical reviews on different things.
Melissa:So you can find me on YouTube at organic Melissa. I have a Linktree At organic Melissa, and then also I have a TikTok. On my link tree, though, you can find a list Of all of the videos I've ever done organized by chapter and topic for organic chemistry, tutorials, and The very top of that is how to study for organic chemistry. So I've put together a lot of resources on this because I care so much about it, and I think organic chemistry isn't Top very well,
Jam:and
Melissa:that's kind of what a lot of my research shows. But I also think part of what makes organic chemistry hard is that you really have to learn how to study differently Then you may have studied before. Before, you can do a lot of memorization or maybe you learn how to do math, but organic chemistry isn't math at all. It's It's not math. It's not a lot of memorizing.
Melissa:You really have to understand how electrons move. So you have to spend a lot of time basically how to solve problems and and building your problem solving skills. So it can be difficult to adjust to that, and that's why I was try just start making resources that aren't just about the information that you're learning, but also how to learn organic chemistry well. So and if you wanna reach out to me specifically, on our Instagram, I can send you the link to all those things. Have so many thoughts, but they're already documented on videos, so you can go check all that out.
Melissa:And if you guys wanna support me, I am trying to work towards Eventually, maybe being a full time content creator in organic chemistry and on chemistry for your life. So the more subscribers I have on that, The better. So if you guys wanna go give me a follow or subscribe, then eventually, I can spend more time working on this podcast.
Jam:Nice. Yes. Great plug. We definitely want Melissa to be working less on other stuff and working more on podcast stuff. I mean, obviously, we're all a little biased.
Jam:You guys, me, we would all rather have more chemistry for your life stuff, be part of Melissa's life. So
Melissa:too. I also want that. I really love this. Yeah.
Jam:Here we go.
Melissa:And also, YouTube, you can start Making money off your videos if you have 1,000 subscribers.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And I'm close to the number of watch hours that you need, but I'm nowhere close to the Subscribers. So if you guys wanna go subscribe, that'll just give me a little boost. Yeah.
Jam:And it's also organic, Melissa. Correct?
Melissa:Yes. All of the All those pages are organic, Melissa. That's my other my other personality. Nice. That's my my 2 big Social media pushes are chemistry for your life and organic, Melissa.
Jam:Nice. Nice. Okay. This next question, is more of a statement from Kyla. And Kyla said Melissa's tip to use Benzoyl Peroxide on tough bathroom grout stains was amazing.
Jam:I tried it, and my shower has never looked better. Oxidative stress is so powerful.
Melissa:I love this because I've started to use Benzoyl Peroxide for Everything. Uh-huh. Anytime I'm like, oh, this is I like it. This probably has bacteria. How can I use Excited to get rid of it?
Melissa:So that that made me really happy that someone else is starting to witness the power of oxidative stress. But also Kyla suggested an episode of another podcast Ologies where they interview people, Experts in their field, and they interview someone from Clorox. And Kyle thought it would be really interesting podcast that's kind of related to oxidative stress, so I I also wanted to plug that if anyone wanted to go check that out. And I'll probably be listening to it because I do like listening to one off episodes of Ologies, Including the one where they talked about how geckos there's somebody who's a lizard expert, and they talked about how geckos climb on wall. And that was Part of the inspiration for when we did an episode diving deep into intermolecular forces and geckos on walls.
Jam:Oh, yes. That's right.
Melissa:So that's a good podcast to check out in here for Hear directly from experts in their field. I love shows that lift up people who are experts in their field and let people who actually do the science talk about the work. Think that's really, really powerful, and so I wanted to plug that as well.
Jam:Nice. Nice. This next thing from a listener is from a listener named Fletcher. And Fletcher said that after listening to your episode on Green Flames, I thought I would send this quick movie of our campfire.
Melissa:And I will post the movie on Instagram.
Jam:Okay. I have not seen this yet. We buy a special flame sachet that contains copper, which makes the flame green, calcium, which makes it blue, an strontium, which makes it red red salts. Those are all salts, and it makes for a very fun fire.
Melissa:It is a pretty cool fire. It's mostly blue Yeah. I can see. So I think it's probably primarily calcium, but there's a little bit of, like, red rainbow around the edges.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:So I'll post that on Instagram. I think that's really cool. Thanks for sharing that, I didn't know you could buy those packets.
Jam:I heard about them recently because my mom bought some.
Melissa:Some recently That's cute.
Jam:That she thought that the kids would like it to look at a fire from far away and see its colors or whatever. So but I didn't know about that until recently either.
Melissa:Well, and the only time I've ever done, like, changing colors of flames is in lab settings. And then that one time, we made our pumpkin have green fire, which was really fun.
Jam:Oh,
Melissa:yeah. And that we did some flamethrower stuff after that that we're we made big burst of of green fire, and it was in the rain out on street. Do you remember that?
Jam:Oh, yeah. And those videos hold up. So if you've not seen those, definitely go check back in our kind of log of videos on Instagram. And I think we also have the at least 1 of them is on YouTube.
Melissa:Yeah. I think so.
Jam:YouTube channel. So check those out. It looks pretty cool. I mean, even with, like, pretty minimal equipment that we have to capture that stuff, it comes through. The green fire is very green.
Melissa:So I think my favorite one is it's all dark because we're outside at night. Yeah. And I have, like, a squeezy bottle of Methanol with copper salt or, yeah, copper salt in it, and then I light a
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:A thing on like a like a lighter on fire and squeeze the methanol, and it's just a big flame that flies through the air. But inslow me doing anything because it's so dark, so it just shows a big burst of green flame.
Jam:It was in slow mo too, so it's like you just you're waiting for a little while. Like, the I think I cut the video down a little bit, but it's like you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting, then we're
Melissa:gonna just this cool something for Harry Potter.
Jam:Yes. Yes. Definitely. It was like you just cast a spell of some kind. But, yeah, check those videos out.
Jam:They're worth a fine. We may even just have to reshare them because why not?
Melissa:And then also speaking of sharing, so our Instagram's gonna I'm gonna be able to pay more attention to it because I've wrapped up my dissertation. Right? And On Twitter at McAllister Brie, and I actually think she also has an Instagram. So I'll also put her Instagram up. Uh-huh.
Melissa:Made a really Cute chemistry lobster that's holding a test tube.
Jam:Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa:And she also has made a few other things. She visualized Benzoyl Peroxide for us Uh-huh. After that episode and once I was talking about my dissertation and then it was kind of weighing on me, she said, good luck, Melissa, and had this cool little bouncing But all the such as practice is basically, I think, animating molecules in scientific structures. So that one, she was practicing, like, The physics of the moving ball, I think. Yeah.
Melissa:But it it's not just a ball. It's a molecular ball
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:That falls. So, Anyway, I really like her TikTok where she posts those, like, sort of science graphics, I guess, is what they are.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:And we'll post the lobster on our Instagram page and tag her. And then Adriana, who's a cosmetic chemist, she's also a chemist, Started listening to our podcast because they said they wanted to learn the chemistry of everything. I'm a cosmetic formulation chemist in the New York City area, And I thought that was really cool that Yeah. And I think I did not talk about cosmetic chemist when I talked about all the jobs you could have as a chemist.
Jam:Oh, yeah. Well
Melissa:Maybe.
Jam:I think we've met we've been asked that a couple times. I do feel like at least one of the times you did because it just I don't know why I would think I if you didn't. Because I probably wouldn't have thought of cosmetic chemistry if I hadn't heard it from you.
Melissa:But But almost every industry has chemist who work to help formulate things. There's chemistry and everything. So there's food chemist. There's, like, shampoo chemist, cosmetic chemist. There's Laundry detergent chemist.
Melissa:I mean, if you if you can think of it, there's probably a chemist who works in that field. Yeah. So this I I thought that was kind of cool to highlight a cosmetic chemistry who listens to our show. And, also, honestly, being on the podcast for me helped me learned the chemistry of so much and remind me why I really love it. So it's kinda fun to know that other chemists are also getting to do that too.
Jam:Yeah. Totally.
Melissa:So she sent a cute picture of a lobster too, and it's a red lobster. And she said, I know he's red, but he's very much alive. He just doesn't make the protein that traps the pigment. Nice. Nice.
Melissa:So that made me laugh.
Jam:Yeah. That is so funny.
Melissa:So that was really cute. I love I love the lobster pictures. That made me so happy. But just in general, we have less questions this episode, but a lot of people sent us stuff that made me really excited to read, and I wanted to share those with all listeners. And I also just wanna really thank you all for the way that you interact with us and contribute to the show.
Melissa:We really and truly wouldn't be able to do this without you, and it means so much to us The We Get TO Make This Podcast. It really does help me remember what I love about science and keep that passion for me. Yeah. And I also wanna give a special thank you to anyone who supported us on Ko fi specifically because it It is hard to spend so much time when both Jim and I have so much else going on focused on the show, but knowing that people are wanting to help keep the show going and are willing to help support us to keep the show growing and really financially put that vote in that we we should keep doing this has meant so much. And as a special gift to all of our CoFi supporters, I want to invite you to attend My dissertation on Zoom, my dissertation defense.
Melissa:So if you're someone who's on Cofi, please reach out to us, And I'll respond to you with a link to, to my dissertation defense.
Jam:Yes. Yes. And something else I thought we could tell the CoFi folks or people who have maybe been on the fence about doing our CoFi and being like a monthly supporter, one thing we're gonna do this summer is we are hoping to get another merge campaign going.
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:And the people who will find out about it first and be able to preorder first and all that stuff Mhmm. Will be our people.
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:Our core group, our our our team, our backers, whatever you wanna call them, that are keeping things going. We wanna make sure that, they get sort of first first look at merch stuff. And so if you've been wondering about if you should be CoFi be a CoFi supporter, just know that there's some there's some incentives.
Melissa:Right. You come to my defense, and you can learn about that first.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:We Sent a little note out to all of our COFIA supporters, some stickers, and we will likely keep doing small things like that, especially now That I am almost done with my PhD. I have committed to a position in chemistry education research in the short term. You'll hear hear all about that in the next few months, For about a year. And then after that, I am hoping to be able to spend a lot more time on the podcast. So Within the next few years, we're hoping to really ramp up some of what's going on with the podcast and merch and all of that.
Jam:So now we've talked about this group of co five people. Mhmm. Let's thank them.
Melissa:Let's thank them.
Jam:So here's the people who support us monthly or have given a gift in the past month since we thanked you guys last time. So Julian e Julian e wrote, I wanted to show my gratitude again that you still keep the education cost of the podcast free. And, Julian, we wanna thank you.
Melissa:Yeah. Because
Jam:you are helping us do that.
Melissa:Yes. Definitely. All of anyone who's ever given on COFA is helping us do that.
Jam:Yep. And then Chelsea b, who actually wrote in the mittens analogy Mhmm. For this episode, and then Christina g, Hunter r, Jacob t, Timothy, a mysterious anonymous, GoFind supporter. You know who you are. Bruce in Boston, Brenlyn b, who actually gave a happy birthday gift on the donation on the COFIN, which is really sweet.
Melissa:Yeah. That was sweet. Thanks. Happy birthday back, Brenna. It was also her birthday that month.
Jam:Oh, nice. Nice. And then Avishai, who is currently doing a PhD in theoretical biophysics of biological membranes. Wow. That's crazy.
Melissa:That's amazing. We if you have any episode ideas or wanna send feedback, we love Hearing from other scientists and sharing y'all's expertise as well.
Jam:And then Andrew Elle, who is an undergrad chem student. I think
Melissa:he's chemical engineering.
Jam:Oh, sorry. I didn't get what kem e meant. Okay. I thought e student for a second. Oh, he's an e student.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Oh, so he doesn't make Caesar Diaz, he makes e's. Yeah. Yeah. No. Or I
Jam:thought I thought, like, my thought of e student is electronic. Like, like, attending college. I don't know. Anyway, so yeah. Then we got yeah.
Jam:That's another chemist or future chemist to you another scientist person. STEM person who is supporting the show and keeping it going, and we appreciate that so much, you guys. Yeah. And y'all are the best.
Melissa:It means so much to us that we get to do this podcast Every weekend to interact with y'all and get to know you, and I'm just really thankful for this, way of communicating science.
Jam:Yes. Yeah. And we'll see
Melissa:you next week with a brand new episode.
Jam:This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Cleany and Jam Robinson. And we'd like to give a special thanks to E Robinson who reviewed this episode.
