Bonus: Are candles toxic? (and other questions)
Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist. And I'm not. And welcome to chemistry for your life.
Jam:The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your day
Melissa:life, bonus edition. I forgot you say that part. I was about to say bonus edition on top of you. Yeah. I was Trying
Jam:Yeah. You're you're ready to jump together.
Melissa:He caught me. Yeah. He looked at he looked grinned at me.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Well, I'm really excited for our questions. Let's Jump right in.
Jam:Okay. This question's from Brian. Why do smells fade over time, and where do they go?
Melissa:This is such a good question, and it goes So well with the episode we just, had last week about the states of matter. Ah. Because, smells are vapor chemicals. Right. And they enter your nose, and you they hit your the olfactory.
Jam:Yep. Good olfactory.
Melissa:Your olfactory receptors, And they trigger, like, oh, this is this or that, whatever.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:So but they're just gas molecules, basically. Right? It's like the whatever it is into a gas form, and that's how we smell it.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So where they go and why they fade is because they're just gas spreading out. And so then there's not a large enough concentration of them To trigger your receptors. It's like 1 molecule instead of, like, you know, a bunch. Right.
Jam:And the other thing, they're more abundant. So there might be all these smell instead. Interesting. Yeah.
Melissa:Or they just don't have they can't trigger enough of your receptors if there's only, like, one One molecule in the whole breath you take in. You know? Right.
Jam:So how many yeah. It's interesting to think about it. Because there's smells that are still around. We just can't detect them.
Melissa:Oh, yeah.
Jam:You could say. Mhmm. 1 mic, I'd say.
Melissa:Yeah. So that's where they go. Wow. They spread out. Basically, the gas just the gas just be gassing.
Melissa:Wow. That's crazy. Spreads out.
Jam:What a question. Good job, Brian. Yeah.
Melissa:That was I was like, yay. This goes so well.
Jam:This next one is from Kiana. Diana asks, why is vinegar recommended for cleaning out of a bottle of oil if oils are nonpolar and vinegar is polar?
Melissa:Yana, that's a great question. I have 2 questions. Have you heard of this being recommended before? I've never heard of that before.
Jam:No. I've only heard vinegar, like, recommend for cleaning stuff. Gotta break some things down, which kinda makes sense to me. Yeah. Or, like, kind of grimy stuff or whatever, but not this.
Melissa:Okay. So I have a I have some theories.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:My first question is, does it work? Because just because something is recommended, doesn't mean it works.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And then my second question is, Vinegar is acidic, which means it, it has, like, an abundance of extra, or easily give upable protons, basically. You have a vinegar molecule. It's also called acetic acid. And literally, you can just sort of give up that, proton and the electrons that are left behind are pretty easily stabilized. So It's possible that the vinegar reacts with something in the oil to protonate it, Essentially making the oil then polar, and then the water wash it away.
Melissa:But I don't know. There have to be something like oxygen in the in the oil that could be protonated or something. So Yeah. I think it would depend on what type of oil it was. And, The other thing I thought about is yeah.
Melissa:Is vinegar just acidic enough? That's what that's what acidic usually acidity does, really, is it gives it But does it do something else? Is it I don't know. Is it it has a very Yeah. It doesn't really have long enough of a chain to be like an emulsifying agent.
Melissa:So those are the only questions I had is, does it work? And if it does, Maybe it gives a proton up to make the oil be suddenly polar and able to be rinsed by water.
Jam:And would it be better And my thought would be, like, my guess would be not, but it would be better than just throw some soap in there and some warm water and shaking it around and letting the Soap do its thing to the oil.
Melissa:The only thing that soap does though is bubble up, and then it's so annoying to get out of those bottles.
Jam:Right. I mean, it is, but it Gets all the oil out.
Melissa:It does get all the oil out. So it was probably more effective. It's just more bubbly.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:So that would be a question I have.
Jam:Yeah. Interesting.
Melissa:It thought.
Jam:This is another vinegar question from somebody else. So it's, like, kinda interesting this happened. But Samwise asked
Melissa:I I do post the questions sometimes on Insta, so I wonder if 1 person saw it and the other persons.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:They're like, and while we're thinking about vinegar
Jam:Yeah. So asked this. Well, how does vinegar curdle milk?
Melissa:Okay. So we've talked about proteins curdling before in the infamous egg episode
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:With the, example of Eggs being the proteins in eggs being, like, rolled up Christmas lights.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And then when they spread out, That's similar to denaturing your protein. Uh-huh. Because the folding of the protein kind of breaks up, and then they all link together, and that's what happens when you cook eggs.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Right. Proteins link up. So vinegar curdles milk by instead of Using heat to put energy in to break the, bonds or intermolecular forces that keep the protein folded up, It uses acid. Basically, it will the acid giving up protons or whatever will be able to break up the protein's foldedness and make it unfold in such a way that then the milk is curdled. So it's very, very similar.
Melissa:You're basically instead of heat to break the bonds and unfurl the proteins, you're using acid. You're chemically breaking the bonds instead of I mean, both of them are chemically, but you're using chemicals to break it instead of heat to break it. Interesting.
Jam:Why would you want to do this for with milk?
Melissa:Okay. Well, that is a good DIY buttermilk hack. Is if you don't have buttermilk, you can just put some acid in milk, and it will kind of curdle it. But also I I'm like, is it just because the vinegar It's acidic enough to react with whatever negative you think, and that's why it replaces buttermilk. But I have used this hack to replace buttermilk in a cake recipe Numerous times.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:Good tip. Yeah. I
Jam:was gonna say, like, if somebody just, like was like, oh, you know what my favorite drink Be the best thing. Combining them my favorite 2 things. I love vinegar, and I love milk. I just wish I could have some vinegar milk. And they keep combining it, and they're like, Oh, man.
Jam:It keeps curdling every time.
Melissa:Yeah. I don't know why else you do it other than to make fake buttermilk.
Jam:Yeah. Vinegar milk. Well, that's what they called it. Like, when you're replacing it. This next one is from Kaiba, and here's what he says.
Jam:Not a question, but Kind of a fun fact about the menthol episode. I've heard that if you take something spicy with capsaicin, your mouth gets pretty hot because of the receptors. And since the menthol gives a cold sensation a cold sensation, it can cancel out the hot. But that's actually not true because capsaicin and menthol activate different receptors, so you will feel both cold and hot at the same time.
Melissa:This makes me want to get a mint And take a minute and eat a jalapeno at the same time.
Jam:I wonder if it's not true. Like, he's correct, but, like, Something about this sensory experience feels like one's kind of in Kansas now.
Melissa:Soothing the other almost.
Jam:Or, like, you're sort of distracting your own brain a bit Uh-huh. By adding a new feeling in there. Yeah. So maybe it feels like the spiciness is going down Because our receptors are expressing something else too, but it's like a sort of fake
Melissa:Well, also, we do have an episode about capsaicin as well. So we have a menthol and a capsaicin episode. So listen to both of those in different ears and eat both at once. Yep. Just getting nauseous in.
Melissa:Yeah. And then as a follow-up, my friend Kaylee happened to ask, independent of those podcasts, where do you store your thin mints?
Jam:Why would that matter?
Melissa:It matters.
Jam:I mean, I don't have any. So If
Melissa:you had Thin Mints, do you have strong feelings about where you keep them? Nope. Okay. Well, in my family, we always kept them in the freezer.
Jam:K.
Melissa:Except I would ration when I got older. I would be like, only 3 in the freezer, or else I'll eat the whole box.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Because thin mints taste better when they're frozen.
Jam:Okay. This is one of the things I don't get because I don't like mint things. I like mints.
Melissa:Yeah. Okay. You know what
Jam:I'm saying?
Melissa:So So I think I've wondered if it's because, you know, part of what people like about thin mints is that that menthol cooling sensation. Mhmm. And if you make it frozen, it enhances that sensation alongside the chocolate.
Jam:It's like Although, so the chocolate, I thought maybe I was part of it though because Mhmm. Of course, Putting chocolate things in the freezer is a common thing for a bunch of chocolate chip. But
Melissa:yeah. Interesting. Was my theory. Kaylee asked that, and I was like, oh, yeah. Definitely put them there.
Melissa:I and then And Kaibe had just sent this, and I was like, maybe it's about enhancing the menthol sensation, the cool receptors.
Jam:Yeah. Interesting.
Melissa:Wow. So I had to include it. Yeah. And we wanna know, listeners, where do you store your Thin Mint? Yeah.
Jam:I will say we did a, back when I had some roommates, we did a taste test deal for some of the Girl scout cookies and their imitations from Aldi. Uh-huh. I don't know how many of them Aldi does or if they always do them, but they There's at least, I think, around 3 that Aldi has a version of. Thin Mints are one of them. The peanut butter Ones
Melissa:I don't know what those are called, but I know what you're talking about.
Jam:Yeah. And then I
Melissa:was a girl scout. Don't at me. Woah.
Jam:And then the circular donut y ones that have the Stefano?
Melissa:The coconut? Yep. Those have different names.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:We call them caramel delights.
Jam:I don't remember. But, anyways, I think all they had all 3 of those. Mhmm. We had a blind taste test of them. Mhmm.
Jam:And I would do wanna say that at least for both him and the peanut butter ones, we did put them in the freezer. And I will say that in our very limited situation, no shame, no shade thrown at the girl scouts. But the all day versions One more times than they lost.
Melissa:So You know, I haven't bought girl scout cookies in a long time. Maybe I should. Yeah. But I I just don't really know any Girl Scouts.
Jam:There's 1 in our neighborhood. They posted recently, like, hey. If you need some real cookies.
Melissa:I feel like it would be so different. Like, going door to door, my mom didn't let me, but other kids' parents want them. She would, like, take it to Oregon and stuff. But I'm like, now you would sell it online to, like
Jam:Yep. Also, they do they just post it in our in our neighborhood's, like Yeah. Facebook group. And I was like, hey. My daughter's a girl scout.
Jam:We got your cookies. And they literally had this this picture There's just, like, boxes of cookies. Like, boxes and boxes stacked up, and I was like, yeah. I want some.
Melissa:Also, here's a little shout out. Recently, Mason. I made Mason watch this movie, and there were some problematic things about it. But for the most part, it's it held up, and it's Troop Beverly Hills.
Jam:Oh, never heard of this.
Melissa:Okay. Lots of people haven't. It's kind of an obscure one, but it's about these girls who wanna make a girl scout troop. It's not called girl scouts, But it's basically Girl Scouts Mhmm. In Beverly Hills, and, it's just a funny little movie.
Melissa:It's It's got Shelley Long, who's Diane from Cheers. Yeah. And I don't know. It's not very well known. And, you know, there are some things that I'm like, oh, would not Recommend that parenting style, but it's funny.
Melissa:Yeah. And it it's kind of like a wholesome little movie, and Mason actually really liked it. So Nice. Now that we're on the topic of Girl Scouts, I'll just do a little plug for that.
Jam:So this next question I'm a try to pronounce this correctly. This is from The bit name's easy, Peyton, but Peyton asked, why does cyclohexane dissolve paradigm?
Melissa:That was sorry. That was an autocorrect. Oh. Parafilm.
Jam:Oh, Parafilm. I was like,
Melissa:para to autocorrect again. That that's so funny. I never thought about I was like, what's hard to pronounce?
Jam:No. No. I just was, like, seeing didn't seem that hard, but I was like, I don't know if I've seen
Melissa:That's right. Cyclohexane dissolves parafilm. Uh-huh. Peyton also said deaf not asking because I spilled it all over the lab today, which made me laugh. So like dissolves like.
Melissa:If anything dissolves anything else, it means they're made up of this of similar things
Jam:K.
Melissa:For the most part. So If you spilled something so so Parafilm is, like, this weird there's been a lot of, like, hype about it lately on the Internet. But, basically, it's like this Plasticky stuff you can use to seal off your, glassware in the lab. Mhmm. So it's almost like plastic wrap, but it's thick.
Melissa:And you, like, sort of Heat it up with your hands and stretch it over and then, like, squeeze it on, and it'll stick. So it's kinda like cling film, But
Jam:Or like the beeswax and
Melissa:science y. Yeah. People don't Like the beeswax wraps, but it's like a pure sheet. Uh-huh. And lately on Twitter, people have been talking about it being edible, which I would never put that in my mouth, so I wouldn't.
Melissa:Don't do it.
Jam:So obsessed with seeing what we can account
Melissa:for you. I know. I'm like, you're a scientist.
Jam:Like, can we cook this chicken in medicine? It's like, why?
Melissa:Why do it?
Jam:Why do that?
Melissa:But so cyclohexane dissolving parafilm is probably because they were they had a bunch of things sealed off of Parafilm, and then they spilled cyclohexane on the benchtop, and it dissolved their parafilm. So I'm assuming it happens because They have similar polarities, which means intermolecular forces, baby. Ah. That was a fun little trip down memory lane. I used to It's just so satisfying to use parafilm.
Melissa:I feel like there's gotta be an ASMR genre of, like, parafilm.
Jam:Yeah. Interesting. I need to look it up because I'm like from your description, I'm still not quite fully figuring it out. We're back. She showed me parafilm.
Jam:I said I've seen it now. I don't I
Melissa:don't know what
Jam:it is.
Melissa:Parafilm wax.
Jam:Oh, okay.
Melissa:It's why it's called parafilm, parafin wax. Nice. But, also, go on TikTok, type in parafilm, and there is good videos of it that you could see people stretching it.
Jam:Yeah. But I think No one's gonna think it's edible looking.
Melissa:It is or baptizing. Technically edible, but but don't ever put things in the lab in your mouth. It's a dumb thing to do.
Jam:Right. And also, like, it isn't like anything that we eat, though. Mhmm. That's the thing.
Melissa:Looks like beeswax. Yeah. If it
Jam:was, like, a little bit red or a little bit green, I'd be like, oh, fruit roll up.
Melissa:You know? Would look like a root roll.
Jam:But that's it, though. It's it it's still that's not really real food. That's like a made up thing we created Yeah. In a lab.
Melissa:Yeah. I don't know. People people are weird.
Jam:Yeah. That's strange.
Melissa:That was a funny one. Okay. This next one, I'm gonna address because it, Honestly, it's something I've been avoiding thinking about. So I think it is time.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So we got 2 different questions. 1st, Kevin asked, are candles toxic? What kind of chemicals do we breathe in with candles and air fresheners? And then Sandra asked oh, she said Kevin read her mind. She said, A few months ago, I was looking for a scented candle, and one of them had a warning saying it could be carcinogenic, and it's been on my mind ever since.
Melissa:So those are both really good thoughts. And the thing is, I just think that this is a really gray area because A lot of, as we know, fragrances and scents are not controlled by the FDA.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:But asking if candles are toxic is kind of, In my mind, close to asking if fire is toxic because you're getting a combustion reaction. It's burning the wax, And there is likely to be incomplete combustion that takes place, meaning that it doesn't all turn into Carbon dioxide and water Right. And heat, which should be the byproducts of it. So it is possible that there are other things in the air. Now separately, like so if you had an unscented candle and the wax completely burned, I think that, theoretically, they would be safe.
Jam:K.
Melissa:I think. I don't do any research for these episodes, but just, like, thinking about fire and what it is. But even Soot, you're not supposed to really breathe in.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:And I think soot might be, like, because, you know, sometimes, like, candles have the browns when they come up. I think it might be, like, Part of either incomplete combustion or the wick, maybe. Mhmm. I don't know. I don't know.
Melissa:I have a lot of questions. But so in that way, I'm like, Any incomplete combustion probably isn't great.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:But Then the the scents do stir in a question Yeah. That's like, what is that scent? It's not controlled. Just like all the fragrances that we've talked about
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:That are not controlled. And, typically, I avoid fragrances. The one exception to that really is my shampoo, but, like, my lotion, all that, face wash, I try to go unscented everywhere I can.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Except for in my personal products, my shampoo is scented and conditioner. Yeah. And then I do have a few scented candles. But as I don't burn them every day
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:So I don't know. I've gone back and forth on this. I don't think it's impossible that these fragrances are extremely dangerous, but I don't think they're likely any more dangerous than a lot of other fragrances that we have in our homes.
Jam:They just happen on their own? Or you mean, like
Melissa:Like, the other scented things.
Jam:Oh, I see. You mean candles versus, like
Melissa:Yeah. Like, other scented products.
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:Got it. But also if you're in a well ventilated area Then I guess if you're using a candle to make your house smell good
Jam:You're probably not trying to vent it out.
Melissa:Yeah. So I don't know. I guess I feel like this is a big old gray area, and I haven't done research on it. And maybe it's gonna be worth an episode. I don't think I can, like, unilaterally say candles are toxic.
Melissa:And I don't think I can unilaterally say that candles are not toxic.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:I think that this is one of those gray areas
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Wear everything in moderation, and I wouldn't freak out. People have been lighting candles in some way for a very long time, and it's been fine.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:You know? So sort of like my approach to BPA. Yeah. I avoid fragrances when I when I can. Sometimes it's just not really realistic.
Jam:Yeah. And, obviously, you know, you know, fire Such a necessity for such a long time. Like, it triggered fire even though it has, you know
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Soot and all that kind of stuff. It's like but clearly, it We've been able to
Melissa:survive Yeah.
Jam:Long enough to keep
Melissa:But a lot of times that fire was outdoors.
Jam:Right. That's true. You're
Melissa:still breathing it in.
Jam:That's the most ventilated area I know.
Melissa:And it's very smoky, though. Like, if you go to a campfire, it's like I have to wash my clothes and hair and everything.
Jam:There's no way you're not breathing it in.
Melissa:Yeah. Yeah. So I I would say don't freak out about your candles, but maybe maybe we can do an episode where we dig into it and you can try to find some good Trustworthy resources. Don't buy into fearmongering because I did see a I think it was a reel or a TikTok where somebody who said, There's all these volatile organic compounds in your candles, and you're just breathing those in. And they're dangerous, but volatile organic compounds are everything.
Melissa:We have them on our skin. Mhmm. Fresh cut grass smell is volatile organic compound. Yeah. You know, volatile organic compounds are everything.
Melissa:So
Jam:And you've even said, volatile is not a bad word. No. It sounds like it to the lay people hearing it.
Melissa:But it just means it can turn it's something they can easily vaporize, like, easily go from, like, the liquid on your skin to gas, and that our volatile organic compounds is what attracts mosquitoes to us.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:So we even have those on our skin. So don't buy into the fear mongering. But, yeah, I mean, it's possible we shouldn't breathe breathing in whatever those smells are, but I don't know because they're not regulated. Yeah. Maybe also similar to tattoos.
Melissa:Like, we just need to stay posted
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:And try to take in more information. And If you really like the glow of a candle and you're worried about it, maybe opt for a unscented one. Yeah. And I'll learn more. So I've got an open file on it.
Melissa:I haven't really dug into this because I felt like it would be a lot of little pieces. So but now that I know y'all are wondering, I'll add it to my file.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:And last are some fun ones from our patron, Bree.
Jam:Nice. This first one from Bree is Specifically, addressed to you probably because I don't know how I would even answer it at all. So I'm totally cool with that. Brie asked, Melissa, what is your favorite macromolecule and why?
Melissa:Okay. Do you know what a macromolecule is?
Jam:An you have we talked about it before?
Melissa:Probably in passing, but I usually use a different name. Okay. So you don't know?
Jam:No. I don't.
Melissa:Okay. A macromolecule is a molecule with a large number of atoms.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So a good example of a macromolecule is?
Jam:Polymer?
Melissa:Polymer proteins, things like that are considered macromolecules. Okay. Well, I have an answer to this, but it's probably not very helpful to any other people. Lot there are lots of macromolecules we've talked about, and I like them all.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:But the first one that came to my mind is the first one that I learned about, which is called a crown ether.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:And they They're weird. They look kind of like crowns. They're like oxygens linked together by these 2 carbon bridges. Uh-huh. And, You can they were discovered on accident, which I think is really cool.
Melissa:I love that they were discovered on accident. This is what they look like. You can look up a picture. Oh, interesting. Type in crown ether.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And depending on how many oxygens you have, they can be bigger or smaller, And they will correspond to the size of ions, and they can capture different ions really effectively.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:And they were, sort of made on accident. He was trying to find something else, and the lore is that he, like, had a fraction of his column that he didn't throw away. So that means, like, he was doing a purifying technique, and he had some liquid that he thought was not important. And he set it off to the side, and then he came home the next day Came home, came back to lab the next day
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:And it had crystallized into a really beautiful crystal structure, and he was like, oh, what's that? Yeah. And so I like the idea that it came from an accident, and it was one of the first ones I ever learned about in my undergrad research
Jam:group. Interesting.
Melissa:Yeah. So that's probably my favorite macromolecule, but I thought it'd be a good chance to teach you what a macromolecule even was.
Jam:Yeah. Nice.
Melissa:Nice. A big it's what it sounds like. It's a big molecule, and they usually have, like, cool functions.
Jam:You know? Nice. Like, cool crystals.
Melissa:Mhmm. But she threw in a a bonus question for you, Jam.
Jam:Oh, okay. Nice.
Melissa:Which is, what's your favorite element on the periodic table?
Jam:We have been asked this before, but Mhmm. It you know what happens every time we get asked a question twice? It's always long enough there. Where I don't remember what I said.
Melissa:Well, Mercedes also asked And I just said carbon because I think I have to, because I'm an organic chemist. Right. Right. Right. Nothing else really strikes my fancy.
Jam:Okay. Here's what I think I would have said Last time.
Melissa:Okay.
Jam:I think and then maybe I didn't. But I've always been interested in tungsten because I just know it has the highest melting point.
Melissa:Interesting. I didn't know that. I haven't had that for you.
Jam:Been told that. Maybe specifically to metals. I don't know. Maybe other things have higher melting points. But
Melissa:Well, yeah, salts have really high like, Sometimes they just degrade, but it might be the highest melting point of, like, a pure element.
Jam:Right. And I remember, I just have thought, like, that's crazy. Oh, of course, you know, you got there's got you got these ones that are like mercury, which is just a fascinating
Melissa:Mercury is wild.
Jam:It's just a fascinating element. It's hard to say it's favorite because it's, like, Like, weird.
Melissa:It's bad as bad as things. Yeah.
Jam:But it's super interesting. But that's, like, easy. That's those are the kinds of criteria that, like, a Non chemist would go based off of. You know? Mhmm.
Jam:But in terms of, like, having experienced with 1 or having, I don't know, deeper interest in it or knowing how many things it's a part of or whatever. It's hard for me to really, like Yeah. Get that into it, but I don't know.
Melissa:Yeah. I feel like it's hard for me because I'm like, well, 1 atom by itself Doesn't do a whole lot.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:But if you take carbon and you put it with hydrogen and maybe just a few other little babies, like oxygen, sulfur, like, Randomly in there. It can do so many things, and that's what draws me to it. It's like, carbon is the Carbon and hydrogen really are the backbones for so much manipulation of atoms in making new things.
Jam:I have an idea. What if instead, I officially pick iron, and then your element and my element make cast iron?
Melissa:Wow. Is carbon cast iron has carbon in it?
Jam:Yeah. I think they said I remember seeing something that said it was, like, around, Like, 10 5 or 10% carbon.
Melissa:We've talked about it before, but I can't remember.
Jam:So for cast
Melissa:That's cute.
Jam:For cast iron and carbon steel, they use, like, slightly different, Like blends, or what do you wanna say? Like, alloys, I guess, whatever? But
Melissa:Could you imagine, like, a little cartoon where you're iron, and I'm carbon, And together, we make, and you go and they're like iron. We, like, do, like, a little, like, chest bump or, like, fist bump or something, and then we, like, combine. And then, like, cast comes out of the smoke, and then it says chemistry for your life.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah. That'd be dope.
Melissa:That's like, it came to my mind.
Jam:The downside, I think, if we really try to stress that really far, it might Be the other way around, or I don't know. Like, iron is most of what makes up cast iron, and the carbon is super important. So it's like That wouldn't maybe be the other way around be better if we were, like, having to pick ones to be Mhmm. As part of it. So.
Jam:Yeah. Something like that. Anyway, Either way
Melissa:Either way.
Jam:We love cast iron. And That's true. Those 2 elements make it happen. So
Melissa:That was a good answer.
Jam:And iron's cool. I mean, bunch of other ways too. So
Melissa:Yeah. And you can make that Ferris wheel joke. Because Oh, yeah. Because iron is f e for, I don't ferrous is like I don't think the original word was ferrous, but
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Ferrous is used to describe iron things a lot. Anyway, so f e is the chemical symbol for iron. And so people will be like, what do you call a thing made out of iron, a Ferris wheel,
Jam:or like
Melissa:a wheel made out of iron or whatever.
Jam:Oh, I see. I see. Yeah.
Melissa:1st time I heard that, I was like, a wheel made out of iron? Heavy. Yeah. Well, that's all the questions we have. So that was really fun.
Melissa:Thanks for sending in questions on Instagram. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for letting us talk about chemistry, and have such a fun Hobby that we get to do. I think sometimes it's easy to kind of lose sight of what we're doing. Like, Oh, we've been doing this for so long, and so I research a topic and we come here and record it.
Melissa:Yeah. But then inevitably, someone will reach out and tell me how excited they are or what they're learning about chemistry. And Those mean so much to me because I think it's easy to get zoomed in and forget the impact that we're having. Yeah. And even, my boss now we're working on something related to the podcast, and he mentioned I mentioned that we got we got 45,000 downloads last month.
Melissa:Yeah. And he thought he said, I just think that's such an incredible accomplishment. Like Yeah. There are so many people learning about chemistry right now because of you. He did say the last part, but that's what I was thinking.
Melissa:Like, are so many people learning about chemistry because of because of this show Yeah. Which is made possible by all of you listeners. So it it always really when I get a moment stop and reflect blows me away that we get to take part in this and be a part of this community.
Jam:Yeah. Definitely. And we're really appreciative of y'all's Questions and being able to
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Talk about those on our q and r's is super fun. So please keep us coming our way, and you can reach out to us and send us your questions when We'll post them on Instagram most months, but also you can do it on our website at kim for your life.com. That's Kim, for your life.com to share your thoughts and ideas. If you'd like to help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the cost of making it, go to patreon.com/kem for your life Or tap the link in our show notes to join our super cool community at patrons. If you're not able to do that, you can still help us by subscribing on a favorite podcast app and rating and writing review on Apple Podcasts.
Jam:It also helps us to share chemistry with even more people.
Melissa:This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Cleany and J. M. Robinson. Jam Robinson is our producer, and the episode was made possible by our financial supporters over on Patreon. It means so much to us that you wanna help make chemistry accessible to even more people.
Melissa:And those supporters are Avishai B, Brie M, Brian k, Chris and Claire s, Chelsea b, Derek l, Emerson w, Hunter r, Jacob t, Christina g, Lynn s, Melissa p, Nicole c, Steven b, Shadow, Suzanne, Sam n, Steven b, Timothy p, and Venus r. Thanks again for everything you do to make chemistry free life happen.
Jam:We also have to give a special thanks to our team of reviewers who
