How do geckos stick to walls?
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 that helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life.
Melissa:You almost took my line, Jam.
Jam:Wait. What?
Melissa:You open your mouth on the, and welcome to chemistry for your life Alright.
Jam:Well, you paused unusually long. And I was like, yes. You want me to do that?
Melissa:No. It's my don't be a line usurper.
Jam:I think that's that's a really catchy phrase you've come up with for, what that is. I think
Melissa:it's gonna catch on. Thank you. Line usurper. Okay. Are you ready to get started?
Jam:Let's do it.
Melissa:Do you wanna know what you're gonna learn about today?
Jam:Oh, yeah. Yeah. I guess I'd like to do that first before I commit to anything.
Melissa:Yeah. So yeah. Have you ever seen a gecko?
Jam:Oh, yeah. I've seen lots of geckos in my lifetime.
Melissa:Where have you seen them?
Jam:Well, I guess I don't know what exactly breed of Lizard it is or whatever. But I'm pretty sure they're geckos. Mhmm. And they like to hang out on front and back porches of The houses that I've lived in?
Melissa:Yep. I remember.
Jam:Oh, yeah. Many of them.
Melissa:Yeah. When I was a little kid, we saw my grandma. It's just a big window Uh-huh. That she never had curtains on or closed or anything, and we would just watch the geckos crawl around in the window.
Jam:Yeah. It's pretty normal for us to, like like I say, it's already nighttime, and I'll walk out of our front door to go get something out of my car from my dad. For, like, I'll flip on the light, for our porch and then walk out, and all that sudden change. Mhmm. All these geckos just go it's like you just see, like, the corner of your eye, all these little tiny shapes, like, scurry away.
Melissa:Yeah. Yeah. So have you ever thought about, oh, I don't know, How they hold onto the walls and walk around?
Jam:You know, I have not thought about that probably since I was a kid. Like, So I have not thought about that in a while.
Melissa:You've lost your little scientist inside you. Yeah. I like to say that all children are Little scientists because they all have this sense of curiosity and asking questions, and we can either foster that or squash it out. You've squashed out your little scientist.
Jam:Or maybe my little scientist just got, like, numb from not knowing. It's like all this curiosity that went un can I use the phrase unrequited in the situation?
Melissa:Sure.
Jam:Unrequited curiosity. It's never got answers to those that little scientist, and they're just like, oh, man. I guess this I guess the world's just Dumb and boring, and it's always ever gonna be
Melissa:Well, I'm gonna hear to undumb and boring it for you. I'm gonna liven the world up for your little scientist inside you.
Jam:Perfect.
Melissa:For the little little kid inside of you.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So do you wanna know how geckos walk on the walls?
Jam:Yes. I do. How do they do it?
Melissa:Are you ready?
Jam:I think so.
Melissa:Oh, do you wanna guess?
Jam:Okay. I mean, I can definitely try Yes.
Melissa:Try. Don't look at my notes.
Jam:Okay. I'm not looking at your notes. One thought that comes to mind is thinking about how in Spider Man 1, the Tobey Maguire one that came out in, like, 2000 and something.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:He has these like, it shows, is, like, a really close-up shot of wondering if he after he gets to it, about this pattern he first discovers he can crawl on the walls. He has this tiny little, like, Fiber things sticking out his fingers.
Melissa:That is good. And so is it about those fibers?
Jam:Well, he has those. And then Because of that, I guess it can, like, increase friction enough because there's a lot of them. I don't know. Really, they don't explain that part, obviously, because they're just showing a movie. But he starts then putting his hand on the wall, and then it's like, it stays with these little things that with the brick walls, something like that.
Jam:So he does that, and it works. And so that's my only theory. Because I don't think that they're like, they have some sort of glue. Maybe Right. Maybe, like, 5 year old me would've thought that.
Jam:But it seems like it could be likely that, they based Spider Man on or sorry. They based Geckos on Spider Man?
Melissa:Yeah. Definitely Spider Man can't work.
Jam:And so maybe there's something like that. That's my only idea.
Melissa:Okay. So that's a really actually good idea.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:Actually, that's pretty smart.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:I'm gonna give you the brief, and then we're gonna go in-depth.
Jam:Oh, sweet. Okay. Cool.
Melissa:So this is stickiness Part 2. Oh, nice. The gecko story.
Jam:Dang.
Melissa:We talked about How everything in the world that is stuck to another thing is usually as a result of
Jam:Intermolecular forces.
Melissa:That's right. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And geckos are no different. Geckos walk on walls from intermolecular forces.
Jam:Dang. Wow.
Melissa:But So
Jam:they have the force?
Melissa:The forces with geckos. Yeah. Absolutely.
Jam:Got it. Okay. Cool.
Melissa:May the intermolecular forces be with the geckos.
Jam:Man, there's so much more than meets the eye with the geckos.
Melissa:There is. You know? You're at a cocktail party with some friends. You're trying to impress them. You say, did you know how geckos climb on walls?
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:It's intermolecular forces.
Jam:But if at at this party, which I can't envision myself at because it sounds, like, fancy and stuff, wouldn't the people around me be like, oh, yeah? Well, how?
Melissa:Maybe so. And that's what we're gonna talk about next.
Jam:Okay. So I gotta remember a lot in order to make an impression at this party.
Melissa:Well, hopefully, you already remember a lot From all the other episodes you've listened to before. So you could pull out your microwave business if you want.
Jam:That's true. Or
Melissa:The microwave pot boiling business.
Jam:The Remember thing is a great, like, party story kinda thing. Yeah. Because everybody wonders it. I mean, even if they feel, like, a little bit too down to mention it, it's like, okay. I still don't understand my question.
Jam:Everybody's got that.
Melissa:So, intermolecular forces are responsible for geckos being able to walk on walls. However
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:What kind of intermolecular forces is the question. And how do they allow geckos to walk on walls? So we talked about 1 kind of intermolecular forces, the strongest kind last week.
Jam:Hydrogen.
Melissa:Hydrogen bonding.
Jam:Yes.
Melissa:Yeah. So hydrogen bonding is what we talked about last week. Uh-huh. And this week, we're gonna talk about the weakest in molecular force, Dispersion forces.
Jam:How is it the weakest one? Like, what makes it less strong than the hydrogen bonding?
Melissa:That's a good question, Jim. So do you remember last week, we talked about how magnets have poles, and we use that as an analogy for dipole in molecules?
Jam:Yes. I do. Yeah.
Melissa:There's a negative on one side. There's a positive on the other.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Well, in some molecules, that's built into the molecule. Right? It's permanently like that.
Jam:Yeah. Like, the same thing is true with the hydrogen bonding. Right? It's like Yes. Totally built in.
Melissa:Totally built in, permanent, and very strong. Yeah. In some other polar molecules like we talked about with soap, it's less strong but still built in. Uh-huh. What we haven't talked about yet is dispersion forces, which are those weak, weak forces.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So dispersion forces what makes them so weak is that polarity is instantaneous, and then it goes away.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So we talk about it being an induced polarity in science. So do you ever remember this is the best way I can think about it. Did you ever have one of those things when you're a little kid that if you drag like, drag the pin along a glass, whatever Mhmm. You would see those little magnetic shavings move with it?
Jam:Yes. Yeah.
Melissa:And then if you took the pin away, it would go away? Yeah. Yeah. It would just fall down?
Jam:Yeah. Well, actually, I thought for somebody you had to shake it to get that to happen.
Melissa:I think I might be thinking of something at a museum then instead.
Jam:Oh, okay.
Melissa:But if you you can have something that it's temporarily Yeah. Going to stick. And then when you take the thing that's causing it to stick away, it won't be that way anymore.
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:Yeah. So dispersion forces are like that.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Dispersion forces, if you they come into contact with another molecule because 2 negative charges don't wanna be near each other, 2 positive charges won't be near each other, They will momentarily create a 1 will be negative and 1 will be positive. It'll be a momentary dipole, and then it'll go away.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:You got that?
Jam:Yes. I do.
Melissa:Can you say it back for me and the listeners?
Jam:So, basically, the other types of, intermolecular forces that are stronger are kinda built into the structure in some way.
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:For whatever reason, which I guess we'll get into a little bit more. But in this case, they are not built into the structure.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:They're able to be induced by something Mhmm. That causes there to be that force temporarily
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:Like the Temporary magnet thing.
Melissa:Exactly.
Jam:Which makes sense. The illustration is helpful because it is like, oh, yeah. That's easy. Like, you take the you take the magnetic thing away. Mhmm.
Jam:And things gonna fall. That's, like
Melissa:Exactly.
Jam:Makes a lot of sense.
Melissa:Yes. That's it. That's exactly right.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:You got it. So They're induced basically by being near each other.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:That's a thing that causes the in induced dipole. It's just coming close to Another electron cloud. They'll both polarize to where the negatives are opposite sides and the positives are on opposite sides, so they're touching each other.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:It and it's hard to explain. That's why I saved it for last Yeah. In our intermolecular forces, exploration. So that is the basics of dispersion. Really, that's all of dispersion forces.
Melissa:Yeah. So does that make sense to you?
Jam:It does, actually. Yeah. I'm surprised kind of
Melissa:that it does surprised. You're you're good at learning.
Jam:It just sounded and at the right off the bat, it sounded like it was gonna be more complicated to, like, even get a little bit of a foothold in. The other ones are built into the structure. This one's, like, it's temporary. And it's, like, okay. That seems like it's the area that's gonna have the most exceptions.
Jam:Like Mhmm. Like, there's so many things where it's like, hey. Here's a clear cut thing. Here's a clear thing, and then here's the exceptions category. Here's all where all the crazy stuff happens that we had to just lump into a category.
Jam:And so I kind of Maybe thought that was gonna be more like that.
Melissa:Well, you did it. You got it.
Jam:Woah.
Melissa:Congratulations.
Jam:So the geckos are Magnets? I'm just kidding.
Melissa:No. That's a I mean, they kind of can do that. So now we'll get into geckos.
Jam:So Okay.
Melissa:You know the overview. We talked about how do geckos stick on walls. Mhmm. Well, they use dispersion forces. Dispersions are the temporary induced weak intermolecular forces.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So how do they use those weak, relatively weak Intermolecular forces to hang on walls. Well, I'll tell you. They use a bunch of them.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:So you talked about how Spider Man has those little tiny, almost hair like things on his On his fingers.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:Geckos have that. They have now let me look to make sure I get the word right. So they have lots of I mean, we're talking hundreds of thousands of teeny tiny hairs on them. Uh-huh. And each one of those hairs is also branching up into a bunch of hairs.
Melissa:The thing it made me think of, was When you have split ends.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And you have your 1 strand of hair, and then sometimes it'll split, and then that split will split. And it will have all these Teeny tiny hairs coming off of it. Yeah. That is what geckos have.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So they have Teeny tiny hairs, and each one has I am sure this is at the microscopic level. Uh-huh. A flat triangular tip. Uh-huh. They actually call those.
Melissa:I think it's pronounced spatula, but it's basically little spatulas. Uh-huh. And so because there are So many of those tiny spatulae
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:On the gecko's feet. There's a huge surface area, and All over that surface area, there is weak the possibility for weak intermolecular forces. Yeah. And so they use that where they can curl or uncurl their toes. And when they're changing the way their toes are, They can induce that dipole and use it to stick on the wall.
Jam:Wow. That is crazy.
Melissa:Isn't that amazing?
Jam:Yeah. That's nuts.
Melissa:I could not believe it. And I wanna give a shout out. I'll do some references at the end, but I had no idea this was true Uh-huh. Until I listened to a podcast called Ologies, and there was an interview with a Graduate student Uh-huh. Who studies geckos.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Or all lizards maybe.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa:And they started talking about these intermolecular forces, and I was so excited. And then I went and do more research. And, actually, there's information about this in every organic chemistry book that I've been looking at. Uh-huh. I had no idea.
Jam:Wow. That's crazy.
Melissa:Yeah. So I thought that that was So exciting.
Jam:So each of the little so you got the hair thing that comes off
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Then splits it into a lot more hairs
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And then has a spatula at the end.
Melissa:Mhmm. And so whatever spatula. Yeah.
Jam:Just call
Melissa:it a spatula. That's Uh-huh. Sorry, biologist, but it's a spatula now.
Jam:Yeah. And Because each of those little ones, each of those little spatula spatulas Mhmm. Create that dispersion Mhmm. Force.
Melissa:When the gecko knows how to basically move its foot to induce the charge.
Jam:To induce it. So each of those make a little bit of that charge. And because there's so many of those little hairs Mhmm. And spatulas Mhmm. It all had to be enough to hold their weight?
Melissa:Yes. And to hold their weight onto the surface.
Jam:Yeah. That's pretty crazy because it's like I mean, like, it seems like just 1 would be almost nothing. Right. One little hair and thing like that would not be enough to hold anything on there. Yeah.
Jam:But it's like, if you need to pack them in there, they all add up enough.
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:Which which is fascinating. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of, like like, engineers who are like, oh, no. That's how it works. Like, any structure you build is a lot of Things.
Melissa:Little things adding up.
Jam:Adding up to to be a strong structure. But to me, I don't I don't know anything about that. And so it's, like, amazing. It was like this little These little hairs that can do that just because they have strength in numbers kinda deal.
Melissa:Right. It's pretty incredible. And it's incredible to me that, also, That that's developed and then that the geckos know how to use it. And because they can pick up their foot. Their Their foot still feels sticky when you touch them, but they know how to turn their toes to get it to where they're going to stick On and they're suddenly, quote, sticky.
Jam:I wonder what it feel like to have a gecko do that on your hand. Like, Actually, engage it. Like, if you held up and down. Maybe it wouldn't feel that weird, but, like I
Melissa:don't know.
Jam:Now I'm wondering. I mean, I'm I think I probably have held a gecko, but I don't think I ever had it, like, try to, like, Stick to me. You know what I mean? I wouldn't I don't think I've experienced that.
Melissa:Well, I wanna say one more thing.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And this to me is really impressive. So
Jam:Do
Melissa:you wanna know how the scientists figured out that it's dispersion forces and not one of the other ones?
Jam:Yes.
Melissa:So this is going a little deeper into the science. Uh-huh. So if you're just happy knowing to the listeners out there, if you're just happy knowing its dispersion forces And that's that. Mhmm. That's fine.
Melissa:But the way they figured it out is they tested to see how well geckos stuck On both a polar surface and a nonpolar surface.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So remember polarity, that's where it's built in the negative and positive Into the molecule
Jam:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Melissa:And nonpolar. The electrons are equally shared. There's no positive or negative. Mhmm. And the geckos could stick On a nonpolar surface
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:As equally well as they could stick to a polar surface.
Jam:Woah.
Melissa:Which means their feet had to be inducing the positive or negative, and it wasn't a built in positive or negative on their feet.
Jam:Got it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jam:That makes sense. So, like, if it wasn't their feet, then then there would have been a clear difference between the surfaces. Right? Like, they would have just been not not been able to stick to one of them?
Melissa:Yes. Okay. They could have only they could have even been repulsive by 1. If the positive charge was the one that was out, and then they came to the positive side of a surface, maybe they'd be repulsed. Or if it lined up right, they could maybe easily climb up a polar surface, but not a non polar surface.
Melissa:Yeah. But geckos can climb up any surface equally well, which means that they are inducing the charge on the tips of their feet without Regard to what the surface they're climbing up on, they can induce a pull in their feet that climbs up on the surface No matter what.
Jam:Oh my gosh. We've gotta figure out how to get this to humans.
Melissa:Isn't that amazing?
Jam:We've gotta learn how to do this kinda climbing deal.
Melissa:And I do wanna Shout out the scientists who did this because I think it's really cool.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:It said it was Keller Autumn who leads a multi institutional gecko research team.
Jam:Wow.
Melissa:And this research was done in 2000. And I'm gonna give I wanna give my references at the end. Uh-huh. But, I just wanted to give a shout out. Scientists are doing such cool work.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:And that was in 2000. Yeah. So
Jam:Man, that's crazy.
Melissa:So cool. Right?
Jam:Yeah. That really is cool.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And, like, I love that the little scientist inside of those that team was, like, Still alive.
Melissa:Yeah. Yeah.
Jam:You're like, listen. We've been wondering ever since we were all 5 years old how gecko do it. Yeah. Let's get together. Let's figure this out.
Jam:Okay?
Melissa:Well and I think that they're going to be able to use that in engineering and Mhmm. Technology, whatever, the people who develop that stuff to develop better adhesives and other good applications.
Jam:Wow.
Melissa:Yeah. Like Spider Man's gloves.
Jam:Yes. Exactly.
Melissa:Oh, what it's his hands though, not his
Jam:gloves. Hands. Yeah.
Melissa:But he wears gloves over his hands.
Jam:Yeah. So it still works through them somehow.
Melissa:So it's probably on the gloves. Maybe he's inducing a dipole through the gloves.
Jam:Through it. Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm. So So they could make real life
Melissa:Spider Man gloves that hold us when we climb up.
Jam:That'd be awesome. Seriously, that'd be so cool.
Melissa:It would be awesome. Gosh. Okay. So that's it.
Jam:Wow.
Melissa:Now you know how geckos climb up walls and glass and Everything else.
Jam:Dang. They're sneaky geckos. They've
Melissa:been Sneaky geckos.
Jam:These little chemists this whole time all over our porches and our eaves and stuff.
Melissa:They've been little Spider Man using their science magic.
Jam:Also, shout out to, Spider Man one. Sam Raimi, I believe, directed that one. Tobey Maguire, looking at you.
Melissa:Yeah. I don't know anything about those people that you just said, but I do like Tobey Maguire. So Okay. Good stuff. So now it's your turn.
Melissa:Will you teach me about Will you teach me about how geckos climb up walls, Jim?
Jam:I'll be happy to. So just like we saw In the 2002 movie, Spider Man, life changing movie.
Melissa:For some reason, I thought you're gonna say in 2000
Jam:reference that one in this situation. So
Melissa:really thought that's what was about to come out of your mouth.
Jam:Some people haven't seen it too that I really probably could reference anything
Melissa:I've not
Jam:seen it. And say that movie, and people will think, like, wow. That's a crazy movie. Like, how many different crazy scenes and eras are there? Okay.
Jam:So in the life changing 2002 movie Spider Man, by Sam Raimi, we see Spider Man have these little hairs on his fingers.
Melissa:And his fingies.
Jam:And his fingies. And just like Spider Man Mhmm. Geckos have that. So that the little hair splits into more hairs Mhmm. And then has patches at the end.
Jam:Mhmm. At the end of all of that, they're able to, in some way, they know how to do it consciously
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Create The type of intermolecular force is called dispersion force
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Which creates a polar a temporary Polar dipole
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Force Mhmm. Between the gecko's hairs Mhmm. On its hands and whatever surface they're trying to walk on. And it and because of that, it can be any surface. Yeah.
Jam:It doesn't have to be some Perfect material that works well with that. They're creating that in a regular force just because they're in control of it with the hairs and stuff on their Hands. Yeah. And then that's how they're the top of the food chain.
Melissa:And it is the cumulative effect of all of those little spatulas that
Jam:do it. I think
Melissa:you had said that earlier, but I just wanna make sure. So that's how Even weak intermolecular forces help the world go around and do really cool things.
Jam:Yeah. Gosh. That's so crazy.
Melissa:Isn't it amazing?
Jam:I wish I could kinda see like this. I mean, I'm sure feel like they're probably something out there like this. But some, like, it has to be CGI, but, like, Zoomed in kind of thing of what that would look like if we could see it. Where, like, the gecko, like, opens its hand, and you see all the little hairs come out and then, like, kind of See, like, a little bit of a did have to make it visible because it's probably pretty interesting. But seeing that thing go onto the wall Mhmm.
Jam:That'd be so cool to watch.
Melissa:Would be. You know? So if there's any really skilled graphic animators out there that want to use their skills to make a Brief design of
Jam:Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa:Of how Giga's feet work. We would think that was beautiful. We could not pay you, but we would definitely retweet and on Instagram. Yeah.
Jam:Or you know what? If we could work it into I think if Pixar could find some way to need to, like, work that into a movie they're already developing. Mhmm. So, You know, in Coco 2, if you guys do that, add a lizard in there, gecko specifically, and then do a really detailed animation about how to sequence the wall. Just include it in there so that budget wise, it kinda makes a little more sense.
Melissa:Perfect. So Love it. Okay. So we're gonna go into our references. I just wanted to and I think I'm gonna start doing this.
Melissa:I stole this idea from another podcast that Emily told me about Mhmm. Mhmm.
Jam:Where
Melissa:I just put all my references at the end. And a lot of times, it'll just either be stuff I learned in class or my textbooks, but I'll even show the references of what I used to double check what I've learned.
Jam:Okay. That sounds great. Especially because, like, there are probably some people who, would be at the ready interested in, like, exploring those references themselves if they're that interested. It's kinda cool to give that ability to people.
Melissa:Well, not yeah. So if you if you want to, you can check these out. So the first one, you may not have access to, but it's the 11th edition of the Solomon's organic textbook, and we've put pictures of that on the Instagram before. And then I also used a textbook available on OpenStax, mostly because I don't have a PDF of chemistry, a Gen Chem textbook. Mhmm.
Melissa:And this OpenStax one is available on my computer. So this is The book is called Chemistry. It's the 2nd edition, and the authors are Paul Flowers, Klaus Theopold Hope I said your name right, Klaus. Richard Langley and William r Robinson.
Jam:Woah. Wonder if I'm related to him.
Melissa:So,
Jam:William oh, sorry.
Melissa:Are you related to him?
Jam:No. I was thinking Will Will Robinson's, like, Robinson from, Lost in Space.
Melissa:Not seen that either. But those are our senior contributing authors to this OpenStack text book that is available online. Uh-huh. And the last source I used was the episode of Ologies called Serology, which is the Ology of Lizards. Mhmm.
Melissa:And she interviewed that's Ally Ward.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:She has a podcast about Or she just interviewed scientists.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And she interviewed Erin McGee who is a lizard scientist. I believe she was a grad student. So go check out that episode because it was really cool. Those are the sources I used to put together this episode of chemistry for your life.
Jam:Awesome. Ding.
Melissa:Now before we sign out, I wanna hear about what was one thing that made you happy this week.
Jam:Okay. This one's a simple one. It's not It's cool as previous ones, but a very small thing that just brought me a little bit of joy this week is that they came out with a version of Mario Kart for phones. I think it's on Android and iPhone and whatever else. And I just haven't played the game in So, so long.
Jam:And the one I played the most was, like, the super old Nintendo 64 one. Mhmm. It wasn't the first one, but that was, like, one of the really popular ones. And so I've been playing that little app game. I'm not even, like, a game on my phone kinda person.
Melissa:No. You're not.
Jam:But there's just The the joy of like, oh, yeah. Remember how fun this game was? So simple. Just you're in these little carts going around tracks, whatever, but Just like all those fun memories about having played that for hours when I was a kid. So that's made me a little bit happy this week thinking about simpler times.
Melissa:Nostalgia. I think that's why Pokemon GO is so popular.
Jam:It probably is.
Melissa:I was like, we're back. In our childhood, I would lose it if a Pokemon Game like, they had the Game Boy Color red, blue, crystal version.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:If I could play that on my phone Yeah. Just an app that was, like, cheap and easy to download. I didn't have to do anything crazy. Yeah. I would love that.
Melissa:I would absolutely spend so much Channeling that.
Jam:Yeah. I think they could easily do that. I mean, those games, like, if you ever look at just the size of, like, a Game Boy game, it's it's a kind of amazing stuff, but they'll be like, oh, yeah. This is This Game Boy game that you you spent hours on was about this many megabytes of data. It's like You could
Melissa:put that on a phone.
Jam:You could put that on a phone so fast.
Melissa:Oh, and I would love it. If it looked the same and had the same noises, I would be so happy. Yeah. Yeah. And I had kept my Game Boy Color until college, and then I let someone borrow it, and they never gave
Jam:back. Oh, no. Brutal.
Melissa:Shout out
Jam:to that person? No. I won't.
Melissa:Okay. But I'm mad about it.
Jam:Just Just you know who you are.
Melissa:You know who you are. And if you wanna give that Game Boy Color back, I would be very, very happy because I'm not willing to go And then find 1.
Jam:She could share about it at in an episode just like this.
Melissa:Oh, absolutely.
Jam:I would. So so what about you? What made you happy this week?
Melissa:Well, I, I've had a pretty good week school, and everything is going well. But I did have some weird unexpected struggles. I I won't go into too much detail.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:It's just, you know, the regular ins and outs of grad school.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And I had some friends who are really willing to help me and took some stuff off my plate and just Stepped up whenever I was having a really hard time. I mean, everything else in my life is really good, but there was this one Mhmm. Weird, hard area.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And a lot of My friends just stepped up and were really kind when I was open and shared with them that I was having a hard time. And so I think Friendship is my happy thing this week is having, yeah, like, good friends that you can tell when stuff isn't going well, and they're They're willing to get in the trenches with you and and bear that with you so you're not all by yourself with this just situation. You know?
Jam:Totally. Totally. Man, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.
Jam:That makes a huge difference.
Melissa:It does. Do trying to do it by yourself is not It's just not how humans are designed to be, I think. So
Jam:Agreed.
Melissa:So that's it. That's this week of chemistry for your life. I wanna say thanks To JAM and you guys for listening and learning, but I also wanna give a shout out to some of our new and fun countries that we have listeners in this week. So we added in Nigeria. Mhmm.
Melissa:And this one's very cool and very small. Cyprus.
Jam:Oh, yeah. I don't know where that is.
Melissa:Island country?
Jam:It's just off of, away from the Holy Land. Mhmm. Like, right near there.
Melissa:Yes. We also added listeners in the Holy Land Uh-huh. And in Lebanon. Oh, nice. Got lots of people there in in, what is that, the Mediterranean Sea and just off of it.
Melissa:Yeah. So that's cool and exciting, and we added a listener or 2. It's hard to say how many. In New Caledonia.
Jam:Woah.
Melissa:That's a Pacific Island country. I
Jam:mean, that's awesome. I have heard of that place, but never don't know almost anything about it.
Melissa:Yeah. So, thank you guys so much for listening in those areas, in those countries. It's really fun to spot them. The little blue dots are adding up, and just to see our listenership grow all around the world is really incredible. And we can never thank you guys enough.
Melissa:Thanks so much for listening and tuning in. Yeah.
Jam:It's totally mind blowing. Thank you all so much. Wilson and I have a lot of ideas for topics of chemistry in everyday life, but we wanna hear from you. So if you have questions or ideas, you can reach out to us on Gmail, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook at kem for your life. That's kem, f o r, Your life to share thoughts and ideas.
Jam:And if you enjoy this podcast, you can subscribe on your favorite podcast app. If you really like it, you can write a review on Apple Podcasts that help us to be able to share chemistry with even more people.
Melissa:This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Collini and Jame Robinson. Jim Roberson is our producer, and we'd like to give a special thanks to v Garza who reviewed this episode.
