Bonus: Why do bug bites itch? (and other questions)
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:Yes. This is the bonus edition, you guys. You know how it goes. You write in questions or Comments for us to respond to.
Jam:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Melissa:And we just tell you about them. So here we go. Do you wanna start with the first question?
Jam:Let's do it. So This is a question from Renee, and she asks, you talked about allergies a few episodes ago. But why do bug bites itch?
Melissa:Renee, thank you for asking this. I'm so sad I forgot to include this in the episode. But, essentially, many I don't wanna say predators, but creatures that will bite or attack us, have basically optimized our sensitivity to histamine, and that is in their stingers or bites or whatever. Mhmm. Or whatever they put into your bodies triggers the release of histamine, and that's why they itch.
Melissa:And they've just weaponized Histamine. And I had that written down in the episode notes, and I forgot to say it. Yeah. Thanks for asking.
Jam:Got it. Got it. Interesting.
Melissa:Yeah. I was bummed. But, yeah, they basically made a weapon of histamine, which I think is crazy. Wow.
Jam:That is nuts. Thank you question.
Melissa:And why we're itchy.
Jam:And then this next question is more of a statement. It's from Caiba, A PhD student from Brazil, and he wrote us to explain a little bit more about histamine. So he said, histamine is mainly produced and stored in a Cell called a mastocyte, which has the h one receptors that bind to the antibody. This is a special antibody, IgE, usually different from the ones that combat viruses or bacteria. IgM and then IgG are the ones that do that.
Jam:IgE is related to the response against big things like pollen or worms. I believe that IgM can also trigger the h one receptors, but not as strongly as IgE, But I'm not sure. I think I only sort of understand, but it sounds cool.
Melissa:Yeah. I when he sent this, I had to ask a lot of questions because Biochemistry is above my pay grade or maybe just my same pay grade, but 2 slots over. So, essentially, I think what he's saying is that the release of histamine is triggered by this IgE Mhmm. Which is the thing that binds the pollen. Mhmm.
Melissa:So yeah. Thanks for sharing that, Kaiba. He also sent A little memo so that we could try to pronounce his name right. So we really did our best. But thank you so much.
Melissa:I thought that was really interesting, and I love hearing more. I always wanna hear from Other people who have different fields of expertise because it can give a depth to our episodes that I can't give. So I was really thankful for that. Thank you so much.
Jam:Kaiba also asked, I've got a question about the jellyfish sting. Since one of the ways to prevent a worse outcome is to denature ate the proteins in the organelles, wouldn't alcohol be a good resource to to use in that situation? Like, everyone has a hand sanitizer with alcohol in it nowadays. It would also disinfect the wound. I know it would hurt, but just for a brief moment.
Melissa:So I don't know the answer to this, and I also called up on my sister, and she said, I don't know. I do know that alcohol can denature proteins, But WebMD says that the meat tenderizers, the scraping of the stings off are all home remedies, and you shouldn't Try them.
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:Okay. I definitely wouldn't try it with anything that wasn't a high percentage of alcohol because otherwise, you're gonna get that osmosis situation.
Jam:Oh, I see.
Melissa:So but probably better to stick with the tried and true research approved, hot Enough water.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Salt water from the ocean or vinegar.
Jam:Mhmm. Mhmm. Got it.
Melissa:We also got another jellyfish comment. This was from my brother, Anthony c. He had a very Intense jellyfish sting where he was wearing some scuba gear, and it kinda got caught under it and was Held Andre's back, and it hurt very badly. I remember him
Jam:Yikes.
Melissa:Coming out of the water and screaming, like yelling in agony. Like, He is a sea monster. He emerged from the water and was like
Jam:Yikes, dude.
Melissa:As he was emerging.
Jam:That's crazy.
Melissa:And he said at that time That being stung by a jellyfish felt like being stabbed by a 1000000 needles over and over, and that's kind of what's happening. He felt so justified when he listened to the episode.
Jam:Wow. That is crazy. That makes sense. Yeah. Hearing that hearing more about how that works and hearing description of being stung like 5,000,000 needles or whatever.
Jam:Makes total sense and sounds horrible.
Melissa:Yeah. Oh my gosh. And I've never experienced that, and I really don't want to.
Jam:Yeah. Dang. This next question is from Drea, and she asks, why does water affect different people's hair so differently?
Melissa:Priya, that's a great question, and I think what it comes down to, honestly, is intermolecular forces. So just like so many things. Mhmm. Hair is made up of atoms, and different people's hair, different textures of hair are gonna have a different chemical makeup. It'll Pretty much be the same thing, just probably a different arrangement of atoms would be my suspicion.
Melissa:And so I think different atoms would allow the water to bind differently. You know, some will be more available for hydrogen bonding intermolecular forces. Some would be less available for that depending on the arrangement. And so that Makes me think that it's about intermolecular forces and the different atoms that make up different textures of hair.
Jam:Interesting. It kinda throws me back to that, you know, curly hair episode we did forever ago.
Melissa:Right.
Jam:I haven't thought about hair, chemistry in a long time.
Melissa:Yeah. I really appreciated that question. I thought it was a really thought provoking one, but there's not just a ton of research on that kind of thing about why water interacts with different hair differently. So I just wanted to give a quick of my best guess.
Jam:Mhmm. Mhmm. Nice. This next question is also from Renee c from earlier, and she asked, what kind of coffee do you each drink? Judy, go first.
Melissa:That's a great question. I feel like you're gonna have the better answer. So I'm just gonna say, I drink different kinds of coffee. I mix it up. I do like that Dahlgona coffee.
Melissa:It's, like, foamy and easy and kinda fun. It almost feels like a latte because it has that Smoother consistency from the air bubbles.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:I like cold brew a lot. Mhmm. My husband made me a An iced pour over or something today that was really good. Mhmm. Basically, I like any kind of coffee as long as It's not bitter.
Melissa:I want a smoothness and a not bitterness to it. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's the kind of coffee I like. Probably cold brews, my favorite, is the least bitter.
Melissa:Uh-huh. And so that's probably up there. But, also, I will say it's been cold in the mornings, which is weird, in Texas in the summer. Mhmm.
Jam:And
Melissa:I've been working
Jam:Out
Melissa:there to write in the mornings, and I really wanted a hot cup of coffee, so I finally broke down and learned how to use a French press. Nice. Which Jam has been trying to get me to do for a 100 years.
Jam:Yep. Mhmm. It's very nice. It's one of the most classic ways, And it's hard to mess up. That's cool.
Jam:Very good news. So I do all kinds of different methods of brewing coffee a lot of times, but The best way to answer this is to say that I always I only ever drink single origin, coffees, meaning they come from 1 specific farm in a specific country. They don't get mixed in with other coffees. And I always roast my own beans, which is very, you know, extra. So
Melissa:Very
Jam:I the one I'm drinking right now today while we're recording is an Ethiopian coffee from this region that's called Irgacheffe. It's pretty famous. It's got a lot of really good coffees from there. And the farm or the specific kinda area in that region is Chelel Chelelle, something like that. Don't know how to pronounce it, but t h e l c h e l e.
Melissa:Very cool.
Jam:And it's a naturally processed coffee. So it's one of the oldest ways of Processing it where they just let it dry, the the coffee beans with the fruit still on them.
Melissa:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Jam:So, that's what I've been drinking this morning, but I also I like hot coffee. It's my favorite. I usually start every day with a cup of hot coffee, but I also like cold brew and also like ice pour overs. Mhmm. And I kind of brew coffee lots of different ways, a lot of different times.
Jam:Yeah. So just to keep it crazy, keep it fun.
Melissa:I will say my husband likes the single origin ones, has a coffee subscription, and he generally favors Colombian coffees.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:And I will say of the different kinds I've had, the fruitier ones versus the Colombian is more of a a traditional coffee. It's kind of what I think of it like. Yeah. I do favor that one over the more fruit Uh-huh. Notes.
Melissa:Uh-huh. That's my preference.
Jam:Yeah. Nice.
Melissa:So there's way more about our coffee than you ever needed to know. The next question I wanna ask, it's also for Renee C. She just sent us a bunch of fun icebreakers, and we didn't get a ton of questions this week, so that's why I went with this. Uh-huh. She asked, what is your favorite Harry Potter plot hole that bothers you the most?
Melissa:Mine is that Harry this is her answer. Mine is that Harry didn't just Assia the Murano's map when he was on the stairs in the 4th book. So I don't know. Maybe it was would have been suspicious for that thing to be flying through, but I will say, I don't know, Jim, if you love Harry Potter or not. I kinda feel like maybe you don't like it.
Jam:No. I don't love it, but I don't hate it.
Melissa:That's unusual for you.
Jam:Alright. I'm I'm a little more negative than neutral about it.
Melissa:Okay. Good to know. Well, one of my potholes is I swear the 1st time I ever read the 1st book, it said that the The sorting hat stool was 3 legged, and then later on, I think it became a 4 legged stool.
Jam:Oh, interesting.
Melissa:But a better one is In one of the books, Hermione has a time turner, so she can take all of her classes.
Jam:Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Melissa:And she's talks about how she is just exhausted all the time. But why doesn't she use the Time Turner to freaking take a nap so that she has time to do all her studies and sleep?
Jam:Good point.
Melissa:I I don't understand that. It drives me crazy. That would be one of the number one priorities is that she should Be able to rest Mhmm. With her extra time so that she can get all the stuff she wants to get done done.
Jam:That's a very good point.
Melissa:It drives me crazy. I just love sleep, so that's probably why.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah. One thing I'll say that is not gonna be popular at all is that Being outside of those books and movies for a long time Mhmm. And then I'm sorry, Renee. I have not read them.
Jam:I only saw the movies. My wife made me watch them a couple years ago. But one of the plot holes, I'm doing air quotes, that as an outside observer that ended up then bothering me is that Harry and Hermione didn't end up together at all, and they were never a thing. They were really close, but never a thing. And I'm like, Ron, are you just kidding me?
Jam:So that's a massive pothole. Hermione is awesome. Harry is awesome. Ron is Less than, awesome.
Melissa:But Ginny is also awesome. Sometimes awesome people don't end up together.
Jam:Okay. That's true, but they were awesome and had a really close, platonic relationship, which I think I just feel like that's a great This is the great makings of, like, a really good romantic relationship if it's already really close in a platonic way. To me, that seems like Doesn't have to be, but, anyway, they're cool. And I was as a new person to this this story, that was one of the Earliest frustrations I had, I was like, what is happening? Why are they not ending up together?
Melissa:I think I read somewhere that JK Rowling felt like Maybe she went wrong, but the person Harry ended up with is really cool too.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So whatever. Anyway,
Jam:speaking of Harry, this next question is from Harry b, and he asks, what is your favorite chocolate bar?
Melissa:Okay. No problem. I love Ghirardelli chocolate. Mhmm. The one that's filled with raspberry dark chocolate, raspberry or dark chocolate sea salt
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Or just Plain dark chocolate. Mhmm. I think it's really smooth. The best chocolate I've ever had in my entire life, and I just think about it sometimes, was when I was in Switzerland, and we went to a chocolate show, and they had all these chocolates. Every chocolate shop we went to in Switzerland was amazing.
Jam:Interesting. Okay. Okay. I immediately I like dark chocolate, and I've had some nice dark chocolates before. Mhmm.
Jam:When I first heard this question, I just thought of, like, the more, what'd you call it? I don't I can't think of a better word than
Melissa:Like candy bar?
Jam:Yes. Candy bar. Like, novelty, you know, gimmicky, whatever. And so what immediately came to mind was I love Reese's. We've talked about that when we talked about chocolate.
Jam:Mhmm. But if I had to go with a a chocolate bar, a candy bar, chocolate bar, Like, you'd think the classic you could get, like, get at the convenience store, drugstore, or whatever. I think I would have to go up Milky Way.
Melissa:Oh, that is a solid Chase, I love Milky Way.
Jam:It's just it's just good. It's classic. It's so solid. So
Melissa:In my old age, when I was younger, I definitely would have gone Milky Way. But in my old age, snicker Snickers has been
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Coming in Yeah. Closer to the top, but I don't crave a candy bar very often.
Jam:Oh, me either. I cannot tell you the last time I had one. But Milky Way. And, yeah, I like Snickers too. But for some reason, Milky Way's always had a soft place for me.
Jam:I also love space. So I think as a kid, that seemed more interesting Yeah. To me, To be called and just know that that's just very kinda just loosely connected to space.
Melissa:I did also like 3 Musketeers, but it also kinda felt like you're losing out on something.
Jam:Thing. Mhmm.
Melissa:You're getting a little bit, like, the short end of the stick because you're mostly eating puffed air chocolate instead of Yeah. This solid Sensation of a Milky Way era of Snickers.
Jam:Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Yep. Agreed.
Melissa:Well, thanks so much, Harry and Renee, and everyone else for all your questions. That was really fun. Please, we always love these. We love icebreaker questions. We love silly and serious questions.
Melissa:Mhmm. And I also
Jam:wanna thank our supporters.
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Melissa:That's right. It literally helps us keep this show going. This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Collini and Jam Robinson, and we'd like to give a special thanks to E Robinson who reviewed this episode.
