Newton's Apple; No. 1004

<v Speaker 1>[music begins] You're invited to a monster of a bear. <v Speaker 2>Maybe this is too scary to watch. <v Wolf creature>Don't you dare cut that ?vial?. <v Speaker 1>Everybody's comin'. <v Speaker 3>Are we there yet? <v Speaker 2>We throw a heck of a party. <v Speaker 4>Congratulations on making science fun throughout 10 years. <v Narrator>Newton's Apple is made possible by a grant from 3M encouraging innovative <v Narrator>ways of looking at the world around us. <v Narrator>3M: innovation working for you. <v Narrator>[dramatic music] [buzzing]. <v Narrator>[applause] And now here's your host, David Heil.

<v David Heil>Thank you all. <v David Heil>Welcome to Newton's Apple, the program that answers your questions about science, <v David Heil>technology and the world around us. <v David Heil>Our first question comes from John Carl in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, who writes, "How <v David Heil>do they pull off those great monster transformations in the movies?" Good question. <v David Heil>We sent field reporter Peggy Knapp to Los Angeles to investigate how Hollywood creates <v David Heil>those high tech horrors. <v Peggy Knapp>Who's your favorite old-time movie star? <v Peggy Knapp>Nelson Eddy, Jeanette Macdonald, Wallace Beery? <v Peggy Knapp>One of my favorites is Lon Chaney Sr., the man of a thousand faces, really. <v Peggy Knapp>Chaney became his characters because he insisted on doing his own makeup. <v Peggy Knapp>Nobody does their own makeup anymore. <v Peggy Knapp>When he became the hunchback in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Chaney wore a 42 pound <v Peggy Knapp>rubber hump on his back that shrank him from 5'10" to 4'1". <v Peggy Knapp>As the Phantom in the Phantom of the Opera, rumor has it, Chaney <v Peggy Knapp>wore fishhooks inside of his nostrils and under his bottom eyelids to pull back <v Peggy Knapp>his nose and bulge out his eyes and make his face look like a skull. <v Peggy Knapp>You got to admire the guy.

<v Peggy Knapp>And not only did Chaney play the parts, he concocted his own makeup through countless <v Peggy Knapp>scientific experiments [shrieking]. <v Peggy Knapp>Today, experimentation continuous with creations like Freddy Krueger in Nightmare <v Peggy Knapp>on Elm Street 4 and Slimer in Ghostbusters. <v Peggy Knapp>If you look behind the masks, you'll see makeup artist Steve Johnson, whose expertise <v Peggy Knapp>comes from a lifetime of curiosity. <v Steve Johnson>...was a real creative kid and I liked monster movies and uh I just started playing <v Steve Johnson>around with the stuff, getting books, any books I can get my hands on. <v Steve Johnson>And um I think it's kind of a natural progression when you're a kid to be doing this kind <v Steve Johnson>of stuff, because when you do this kind of restructuring of your face and <v Steve Johnson>masquerade, you can have so much fun with it. <v Steve Johnson>You totally lose all inhibition. <v Peggy Knapp>At Steve Johnson's XFX studio, you'll see faces only a mother could love. <v Steve Johnson>To do a fantasy creature like this, um we first of all have to know a lot about anatomy. <v Steve Johnson>Uh we have to think about the skull underneath. <v Steve Johnson>Um we have to wonder how the muscles are gonna stretch back as it makes a fierce

<v Steve Johnson>expression, and then we have to know what expression to give it in order to evoke fear <v Steve Johnson>from the people that are seeing it. And there are a lot of things that are pretty much <v Steve Johnson>commonsensical. If you see a mouth with big scary teeth, you're gonna be afraid of that. <v Steve Johnson>But one of the reasons kind of is, I mean, it can- you can trace that kind of back to the <v Steve Johnson>animal kingdom. Um if you ever look at your dog real close and do like this, they don't <v Steve Johnson>like it, because that's kind of a standoff thing with animals a lot of times. <v Steve Johnson>And it's the same thing with people. <v Peggy Knapp>So it's the pearly whites that make our skin crawl. <v Peggy Knapp>And here's another angle on monsters. <v Steve Johnson>45 degree angles frighten people, for some reason. <v Peggy Knapp>On a face? <v Steve Johnson>Shar- on a face. Sharp, pointed things. If you notice this, the brows are going in at 45 <v Steve Johnson>degree angles. That makes him look mean. <v Steve Johnson>Actually, the whole face is structured at a 45. <v Steve Johnson>The way the chin is pointed this way and the ears go back up here, there are 45 degree <v Steve Johnson>angles all over this thing. <v Peggy Knapp>Want to see something really scary? [music begins] Well, hang on as Steve and his <v Peggy Knapp>assistant transform me into a gruesome, I mean horrifying, creature. <v Steve Johnson>The first step of this particular makeup is to put the back of the wig on.

<v Peggy Knapp>That was easy. But the whole process is going to take four hours. <v Peggy Knapp>Next, I was fitted with a thin, rubbery mask. <v Peggy Knapp>In the biz, it's called an appliance. <v Steve Johnson>...the appliance- we call it an appliance because we apply it to the face. <v Steve Johnson>It's a soft, flexible rubber piece um that we gradually, bit by bit, apply to your face. <v Steve Johnson>And it becomes a new uh- new face blended with your skin eventually. <v Steve Johnson>So the first part we usually do with something- with a piece like <v Steve Johnson>this that's big, is we'll anchor it for the center and work outward. <v Peggy Knapp>They attach the mask with a strong bonding glue that doctors use as a medical adhesive. <v Steve Johnson>The interesting thing about this particular design, in my opinion, is it takes <v Steve Johnson>advantage of some aspects of your face, your nose, your mouth, and <v Steve Johnson>most of the really expressive areas of your face are either not covered by the rubber <v Steve Johnson>piece or very thinly covered by the rubber feet- piece. <v Steve Johnson>And that to me is what makes it a real makeup rather than a mask glued to your face, <v Steve Johnson>incorporates your personality and your expressions with the new ones,

<v Steve Johnson>which is much more exciting than just gluing a brand new face on you. <v Peggy Knapp>One hour down and three to go. <v Peggy Knapp>Now we begin the painting process. <v Steve Johnson>I'm building up layers of color that will indicate or give the illusion that you're <v Steve Johnson>seeing into the skin as you do real skin. <v Steve Johnson>Skin does not just reflect light when it hits, it absorbs a lot of it. <v Steve Johnson>It's translucent. So we have to do our best to kind of <v Steve Johnson>fool the camera into thinking the rubber is translucent and the only way to do that is to <v Steve Johnson>paint a lot of different layers over it, almost an impressionistic kind of look that may <v Steve Johnson>not look very realistic to the eye, but once it's uh translated onto film, <v Steve Johnson>it works out pretty well. <v Peggy Knapp>So the dark red color you put on first is the blood that you would see under the skin? <v Steve Johnson>Exactly. That's exactly right. <v Peggy Knapp>For a complete monster look, we must accessorize. <v Steve Johnson>Okay, we're almost finished. But there's more things that are gonna really make this look <v Steve Johnson>good, and one is the teeth um and the second is the lenses. <v Steve Johnson>Now the teeth are gonna make- make it look a lot more frightening because it's gonna

<v Steve Johnson>force your lips into more of an open configuration. <v Peggy Knapp>Before we reach the magic monster moment, let's review. <v Peggy Knapp>[music begins] <v Peggy Knapp>[Knapp growls] I've always wanted to do that. [creepy music]. <v Speaker>[mirror shattering] <v Narrator 2>[playful music] Hey yo, street smart. Hey yo, street smart. <v Narrator 3>How much dust does an average home collect in a year? <v Person 1>I would guess uh five pounds worth.

<v Person 2>I would say a couple pounds. <v Person 3>Four vacuum cleaner bags full [laughs]. <v Narrator 3>It's about 40 pounds. The composition of this household annoyance is any solid <v Narrator 3>matter that can be carried by the wind. <v Narrator 3>It's not all bad. The weight of a dust particle helps rain fall to the ground. <v Narrator 3>Dust in the air also contributes to beautiful colors in twilight, something to think <v Narrator 3>about when you've dusted for the hundredth time. <v Narrator 2>Street smart. <v David Heil>Our next question comes from Eric Kading of Romeo, Michigan, who wants to know how do <v David Heil>CFCs destroy the ozone? <v David Heil>It's an important question, and this contraption here is helping scientists answer it. <v David Heil>It's a model of the actual device attached to satellites orbiting the Earth, and it <v David Heil>measures the amount of ozone in the upper atmosphere. <v David Heil>But why are we so concerned about the ozone level? <v David Heil>Here to help us answer that question is Dave Robson. <v David Heil>He's the editor of Chem Matters magazine. <v David Heil>Welcome to the show, Dave. <v Dave Robson>Thank you. <v David Heil>Now what are we doing in the kitchen? We have a question about chemistry, not cooking. <v Dave Robson>Well, kitchen's a good place to learn about CFCs, because your refrigerator has a fair

<v Dave Robson>amount of CFCs, as does uh the air conditioner in your car, and this air conditioner <v Dave Robson>has chlorofluorocarbons running through these tubes. <v Dave Robson>It's the material that does the actual cooling. <v David Heil>So it's the coolant. <v Dave Robson>That's right. And there's some applications that you probably know about that we don't <v Dave Robson>use any more. Aerosol cans used to be the propellant in there, but it's been banned from <v Dave Robson>most aerosol cans. Foam, plastic materials, the bubbles were made with CFCs. <v Dave Robson>That application of CFCs is being discontinued now. <v David Heil>OK. Let's step back for just a moment. What exactly is a CFC? <v Dave Robson>Well, that's why I got the fruit out here. Here's the orange that represents an atom of <v Dave Robson>carbon. An atom of fluorine. <v Dave Robson>Some chlorine. We'll put three of those around. <v Dave Robson>And when we group it like that, that's a typical molecule of CFC. <v David Heil>Chloro-fluoro-carbon. <v Dave Robson>Right, small molecule. Mhm. <v David Heil>Okay, great. Now, I understand the chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, the question also has to <v David Heil>do with ozone. What's ozone? <v Dave Robson>All right. Oxygen- <v David Heil>Back to the fruit basket. <v Dave Robson>Okay. There's one oxygen, two, and now you have, you know this one... <v David Heil>Uh O2, which is breathable oxygen.

<v Dave Robson>That's the stuff that we need for-. <v David Heil>Okay. <v Dave Robson>-for life. But if we put on a third one, we end up with O3, which is ozone. <v Dave Robson>This is an alternate form of oxygen, which you don't want to associate with because it's <v Dave Robson>toxic and very aggressive material. <v Dave Robson>Uh there's some in nature due to formation in- in lightning storms, but mostly it's uh <v Dave Robson>manmade now. Uh it's one of the pollutants in auto exhaust. <v David Heil>Now this is getting confusing. If uh ozone is so bad for us, why are we worried about <v David Heil>depleting the ozone in the atmosphere? <v Dave Robson>Well, ozone is bad for us here, but it's not bad for us in the upper atmosphere. <v Dave Robson>I've got a diagram of the atmosphere over here. <v Dave Robson>Come on over and take a look and I think wecan clarify that. <v David Heil>Alright. <v Dave Robson>Okay Dave, here's a nice illustration of the bottom two layers of the atmosphere. <v Dave Robson>Here's the troposphere where all of our weather takes place with clouds and rain. <v David Heil>This is where life exists. <v Dave Robson> That's right. And this is where ozone is toxic. <v Dave Robson>Up here is a stratosphere which goes from 10 kilometers up to maybe 50 kilometers, and up <v Dave Robson>here, ozone forms a layer which blocks ultraviolet light. <v Dave Robson>It protects us from it. And ultraviolet, remember, can destroy DNA and cause skin cancer <v Dave Robson>and a lot of other harmful effects.

<v David Heil>So it truly is making a protective layer up here. <v Dave Robson>Exactly. <v David Heil>You know, it- it occurs to me that this is a very large air mass up here. <v David Heil>Why would a few escaping CFCs give us any trouble up here? <v Dave Robson>Well, on- on this diagram, it looks big, but come on over to the globe here and we'll- <v Dave Robson>we'll uh do another comparison. How thick do you think, on this globe, how thick do you <v Dave Robson>think the atmosphere should be modeled? <v David Heil>Uh I would guess that it's a couple inches at least around the whole globe. <v Dave Robson>That's what I used to think. And- and do you have a sheet of paper? <v David Heil>Yeah I still have the ?inaudible?. <v Dave Robson>And the numbers show that- that our guesses on that are way off. <v Dave Robson>If you take a sheet of paper, typical writing paper and lay it down like that, the <v Dave Robson>thickness of the sheet of paper is the right depth for- to model the thickness of the <v Dave Robson>atmosphere. <v David Heil>No kidding. It's that thin of a layer? <v Dave Robson>That's right. It's very, very delicate. Now, I can show you some things that are going on <v Dave Robson>up in the stratosphere. If you'll come up my stratospheric ladder. <v David Heil>How high are we going to have to go here? <v Dave Robson>Uh only um 20 kilometers. <v David Heil>That's like 12 miles. <v Dave Robson>12 miles, okay. Let's get started. <v David Heil>Are we there yet?

<v Dave Robson>I think we're about halfway. <v Dave Robson>Welcome to the stratosphere. <v David Heil>Well, thank you, Dave. I didn't expect to be sharing it with jugglers. <v Dave Robson>Well, we brought these jugglers up here to represent molecules and you'll see their <v Dave Robson>apples are really representing oxygen atoms. <v David Heil>Okay. <v Dave Robson>And when a juggler holds two oxygen atoms, that represents an O2 molecule. <v David Heil>Which would be the oxygen we normally breathe in the lower atmosphere? <v Dave Robson>That's right. <v David Heil>Okay. <v Dave Robson>There's plenty of it up here as well. And when they're holding three, that represents <v Dave Robson>ozone. <v David Heil>All right. So is there a normal exchange going on in the upper atmosphere all the time? <v Dave Robson>That's what the juggling is all about, O2 to O3, O3 to O2, that goes on normally. <v Dave Robson>The key to it is ultraviolet light from the sun is necessary. <v Dave Robson>It strikes the O3 and causes an oxygen to split off. <v Dave Robson>But that absorbs the ultraviolet ray so it doesn't go on down to the earth. <v David Heil>So that's the protective coating we were talking about earlier. <v Dave Robson>That's exactly right. <v David Heil>Now where do CFCs fit into this equation? <v Dave Robson>Well, you remember when we were down in the kitchen, we had a molecule of uh CFC- <v David Heil>Right. Okay <v Dave Robson>-and here, it's drifted on up here. If you'll take that one. <v Dave Robson>A- a ray of ultraviolet light will strike this molecule and split off <v Dave Robson>a chlorine atom.

<v David Heil>Okay. So I end up with a free chlorine. <v Dave Robson>That's right. Now, when that's tossed into the oxygen equation, it changes everything. <v Dave Robson>That was an ozone before. <v Dave Robson>Now it's ozone with chlorine and in a moment it'll fall apart and pieces will come flying <v Dave Robson>down then. <v David Heil>Oh out comes the chlorine. <v Dave Robson>And then another oxygen will drift by, and first thing you know- <v David Heil>Okay. <v Dave Robson>-now, what do you have? <v David Heil>I've got uh two oxygens and a chlorine. <v Dave Robson>Okay. I'm gonna take the chlorine. And now you have only... <v David Heil>O2, I guess. <v Dave Robson>Ordinary oxygen. <v David Heil>In fact that's all we've got up here now. <v Dave Robson>Ordinary oxygen, and that's all there is. So the O3 has been rapidly-depleted down <v Dave Robson>to O2, and that's the way the chlorine destroys the ozone layer. <v David Heil>Now could that chlorine go on and do that to even more ozone molecules? <v Dave Robson>It could go back into the juggling and do it again. <v Dave Robson>This could go through a hundred thousand cycles before it was tied up in some other <v Dave Robson>?inaudible?. <v David Heil>Wow, you can see why there really is a problem with that stuff. <v Dave Robson>That's right. <v David Heil>Now, why is it that we're only seeing this above the continent of Antarctica? <v Dave Robson>Well, that's not the only place, but it's most severe there. <v Dave Robson>[soft music] At the South Pole, there are special conditions. <v Dave Robson>You have strong winds that go in a circle and trap a cold mass of air. <v Dave Robson>There's no sunlight for the long winter. <v Dave Robson>Ice crystals form in the upper atmosphere, and it's cold enough that these ice crystals

<v Dave Robson>tie up nitrogen in the form of frozen nitric acid. <v Dave Robson>[bubbling] Now, normally, nitrogen binds the chlorine to stop it from attacking ozone, <v Dave Robson>but this freezing process actually frees some of the chlorine atoms in gaseous form. <v Dave Robson>In the spring, the sun hits the chlorine atoms. <v Dave Robson>They become energized. That makes them more reactive, and so they eat up a lot of ozone <v Dave Robson>very quickly. Now, the ozone hole is the name that we've given to this process <v Dave Robson>that thins the ozone in the stratosphere. <v Dave Robson>As the spring progresses, the sun gets higher, vaporizes the ice crystals, <v Dave Robson>and that frees the nitrogen and the ozone destruction slows down. <v David Heil>Okay, now how is it that scientists are able to see or keep track of that depleted ozone? <v Dave Robson>Well, they use satellite imaging and each time a satellite passes, it takes a couple of <v Dave Robson>measurements and takes- takes some more, and it's eventually assembled into- into nice <v Dave Robson>color pictures, and we have some of those now [soft music]. <v David Heil>Okay. <v Dave Robson>Starting in 1979, here's the South Pole. <v Dave Robson>Now, the lowest ozone level measurements are represented in red, and we notice- <v David Heil>You can see that red area's just increasing over time.

<v Dave Robson>Right. This is over a decade or more. <v Dave Robson>It grows substantially. <v David Heil>Now, obviously, the CFCs that we've already released into the atmosphere, we <v David Heil>can't do anything about it. <v Dave Robson>That's right. <v David Heil>So the ozone is going to be broken down as a result of those already. <v Dave Robson>There will be more depletion no matter what. <v David Heil>What can we do to prevent further depletion? <v Dave Robson>Uh looking ahead a decade or two, you can help things then by your refrigerator and air <v Dave Robson>conditioner that you have now have CFCs, don't let them get out. <v Dave Robson>When you replace that with a new one, don't just throw it away. <v David Heil>Uh huh. <v Dave Robson>Make sure it's recycled. <v David Heil>Okay. <v Dave Robson>And especially your auto air conditioner, they tend to be leaky and they have CFCs-. <v David Heil>So keep them maintained so they don't leak. <v Dave Robson>That's right. And use a repair shop which recycles them rather than opening it up and <v Dave Robson>venting them when they repair it. <v David Heil>And you should check that out with them in advance I guess. <v Dave Robson>Exactly. <v David Heil>Dave, thanks so much for clearing up the question about CFCs in the ozone. <v David Heil>Thanks to the jugglers for keeping all this oxygen up in the air. <v David Heil>If we can get out of the stratosphere here, we'll be right back [applause]. <v Speaker>[dramatic music] <v David Heil>[playful music] If you have a science question that you would like answered on Newton's

<v David Heil>Apple, write us. Send your question to Newton's Apple, 172 <v David Heil>East 4th Street, Box 1000, St. Paul, Minnesota, <v David Heil>55101. Remember, our show depends on your questions. <v Bob>[swing music] Hey, Peggy. <v Peggy Knapp>Bob, what are you doing in there? <v Bob>Why are objects in your side mirror closer than they appear? <v Peggy Knapp>Good question, Bob. There's actually a couple of reasons. <v Peggy Knapp>The first one is your brain. <v Peggy Knapp>Bob, that's a little close. <v Peggy Knapp>Ah fooled you, didn't I? You zoomed in close on me with the lens of the camera, but you <v Peggy Knapp>were physically far away from me. <v Peggy Knapp>That's where your brain comes in. Because one of the ways it's learned to judge distance <v Peggy Knapp>is by the size of the object it sees. If an object we recognize appears

<v Peggy Knapp>small, like those cars, then your brain tells you they're far away. <v Peggy Knapp>Since they are, it usually works pretty well. <v Peggy Knapp>But your brain is easily fooled, Bob. <v Peggy Knapp>See, when we trick it, like with the camera and you see me as close up, you assume <v Peggy Knapp>you are close up. Not the right answer, Bob. <v Peggy Knapp>So how does a mirror fool the brain? <v Peggy Knapp>Well, it sort of depends on what kind of mirror you're looking into. <v Peggy Knapp>See, most mirrors are like the rearview mirror here, which is flat. <v Peggy Knapp>So objects reflected in it are the same size as we're used to. <v Peggy Knapp>But take a look at that side mirror over there. <v Peggy Knapp>Oh, well, actually, I think I have an extra one here somewhere. <v Peggy Knapp>Yeah. Here it is. See, it isn't flat at all, but curved outward. <v Peggy Knapp>It's called a convex mirror, and it allows you to see more of the road than if it were a <v Peggy Knapp>flat mirror. How? <v Peggy Knapp>Well imagine you're....hang on there, Bob. <v Peggy Knapp>The way your brain's been acting, who knows where we'd end up? <v Peggy Knapp>Now, this- this is a perfect place. <v Peggy Knapp>[edgy music] Excuse me, science reporter coming through. This is official business.

<v Peggy Knapp>Back up, man. This is science. <v Patron>Science? Hm. <v Peggy Knapp>[snickers] Okay. This here is our regular flat mirror, and this ball is <v Peggy Knapp>a light ray that bounces off of it. <v Peggy Knapp>It's actually easier to see if you look at it from above. <v Peggy Knapp>I'm not even gonna ask how you got up there. <v Peggy Knapp>Notice that our light ray bounces off at exactly the same angle that it hits the flat <v Peggy Knapp>mirror, and where it stops is what you'd see in the mirror from this angle, <v Peggy Knapp>right about where the ball is now. <v Peggy Knapp>Now watch what happens when we bounce a light ray off a curved mirror. <v Peggy Knapp>Hole in one! Oh, wrong game. Anyway, you'll notice that the light ray started <v Peggy Knapp>off about the same as before, but it ended up much wider, allowing us <v Peggy Knapp>to see the end of the table. <v Peggy Knapp>So my side mirror is picking up light rays farther out, letting me see a wider <v Peggy Knapp>picture than a flat mirror. Now this comes in very handy when you're changing lanes and

<v Peggy Knapp>also because it's attached to your car, but it's also where your brain is tricked because <v Peggy Knapp>your brain, in it's constant effort to identify everything, tries to fit the convex <v Peggy Knapp>mirror's wider picture into the flat mirror scale that it's used to. <v Peggy Knapp>It's like taking a larger picture and scrunching it into a small frame. <v Peggy Knapp>The end result to your brain is that things look smaller and therefore farther away. <v Peggy Knapp>The mirror has successfully fooled your brain, but because you can still read, this <v Peggy Knapp>message tells the more logical part of your brain that the objects in the mirror are <v Peggy Knapp>closer than they appear [edgy music]. <v Peggy Knapp>And if those guys are closer than they appear, uh it's time to go, Bob. <v Peggy Knapp>It's time to go fast. <v Narrator 4>[fanfare music] Welcome to this week's Science Try-It. <v Narrator 4>I think you'll really fall for today's game. <v Narrator 4>The players include a sheet of paper and a book larger than the <v Narrator 4>paper. <v Narrator 5>And there's the whistle. <v Narrator 4>The paper and the book are held at the same height and they're dropped.

<v Narrator 5>The book reached the table first. <v Narrator 4>Now the paper's placed on top of the book. They're raised to the same height and let go. <v Narrator 4>But wait, a time-out's been called. <v Narrator 4>Let's go to the super science breakdown. <v Narrator 5>Gravity pulls on all objects equally, but air resistance slows down <v Narrator 5>the paper's fall. <v Narrator 4>Will placing the paper on the book eliminate air resistance on the paper? <v Narrator 5>To find out, you'll have to try it [crowd awe]. <v David Heil>Ah. There's nothing like fresh-brewed iced tea to quench your <v David Heil>thirst on a hot summer day. But the ?lemon? <v David Heil>this day and age is what to put in your iced tea. <v David Heil>You use natural sugars, refined sugars, artificial sweeteners. <v David Heil>Here to help me sort all this out is our resident medical expert, Dr. Bruce Dan. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well hey, Dave. <v David Heil>Welcome back to the show, Bruce. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well, welcome to the Newtons County Fair and some lemon tea there for you. <v Booth attendant>More tea. <v David Heil>I'll take a refill. <v Booth attendant>There ya go. <v David Heil>That's fine. Thanks. <v David Heil>Mm-mm! Very sour, Bruce.

<v Booth attendant>Bet you need some sugar for that. <v David Heil>Definitely [laughs]. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Sorry about that. You got to sweeten the tea a little bit. <v David Heil>Wow. Now when we uh- when we open up these little containers, obviously the granular <v David Heil>sugar comes out. But where does sugar actually come from in the beginning? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well, that's- that's refined sugar. It comes from places like sugar cane, or in this <v Dr. Bruce Dan>country you use a lot of sugar beets to get it from, and, of course, comes in different <v Dr. Bruce Dan>fruits and concentrated forms of different types of sugar, and of course, <v Dr. Bruce Dan>places like you wouldn't think: milk, milk sugar, lactose, is in there. <v Dave Robson>Much better with sweetener. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well the sweetener you're using is common table sugar. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>That's called sucrose, which is a combination of two different sugars. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Sugar is a carbohydrate, one of the three macronutrients we talked about before: <v Dr. Bruce Dan>proteins, fats and carbohydrates. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>It's an energy source for the body, and strikingly, only the brain, the only organ in the <v Dr. Bruce Dan>body that has to have sugar for energy, can't use it from any other source. <v David Heil>Hmm. Now, isn't sugar a quick source of energy? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>It is, especially from candy. <v David Heil>It burns very fast? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Yeah that's right, come over here, let me show you. At our county fair, we have lots of <v Dr. Bruce Dan>candy, including, of course- <v David Heil>What would a county fair be without cotton candy? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Yeah I think- <v David Heil>This is just spun granulated sugar, right? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Air-spun sucrose, common table sugar. But it has the property of being very uh- <v David Heil>Sweet and very sweet, sticky sweet.

<v Dr. Bruce Dan>[laughs] Idn't that great? <v David Heil>Now how is it that we taste or sense that sweetness? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Ah, we taste it, of course, with our tongue, David. And of course, we have a map of our <v Dr. Bruce Dan>tongue here [audience laughs] with the taste buds, the bitter, the sour, the salt, and <v Dr. Bruce Dan>most importantly, the sweet. <v David Heil>Right on the tip. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>It's right at the tip of the tongue and the taste buds are really chemical receptors. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>They act very much like a key that fits into a lock that turns on a signal to the brain <v Dr. Bruce Dan>and lets us know we're tasting something sweet. <v David Heil>Now Bruce, obviously we should all regulate the amount of sugar that we're intaking at <v David Heil>any given time, but aren't there some people who really have to watch their sugar intake? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well, diabetics do and they have to have an alternative. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Let me show you what that is. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well David, here's some of the alternatives I was talking about. <v Booth attendant 2>Hi, may I help you? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well, we're just browsing right now. Thanks a lot. <v Booth attendant 2>Oh, okay. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>These are sort of more recognizable things in our-. <v David Heil>So these are diet pops, here- <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Sure. <v David Heil>So in the diet pop we would have what, an artificial sweetener, in this case, NutraSweet <v David Heil>is the brand name. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>A sugar substitute called aspartame, is its real name. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>And uh actually it's two amino acids joined together chemically. <v David Heil>Now how do you get twoo amino acids to taste sweet like sugar? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Ah, remember we talked with the key in the lock theory about the receptor. <v David Heil>On the tip of our tongue. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Right. Sugar fits in the receptor. Well this particular key fits better in the lock.

<v Dr. Bruce Dan>Matter of fact, aspartame is about 200 times as sweet as common sugar. <v David Heil>The artificial sweetener. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Right. <v David Heil>Wow, so you probably wouldn't even need as much of the artificial sweetener then. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>That's exactly- now let me show you a demonstration. Let me grab one can, and you da- <v Dr. Bruce Dan>grab the diet version. <v David Heil>Diet version of the same pop, okay. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Now stick it in the bottom of this water, to the bottom, and let go. <v David Heil>Wow dem- the diet ones floating. Why is that? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well, because you've let- used less of the sugar substitute, it's uh less dense and it <v Dr. Bruce Dan>floats. <v David Heil>Wow, that's a great demonstration. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>And that's particularly for aspartame. Matter of fact, there's some other sugar <v Dr. Bruce Dan>substitutes commonly used, for example, uh saccharin's been used about 100 years. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>It's about 300 times as sweet as sugar. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>And in Europe, they like to use a sugar substitute called acesulphame K, but they all <v Dr. Bruce Dan>work on the same principle of being sweeter than sugar, and they don't have as many <v Dr. Bruce Dan>calories. <v David Heil>Now Bruce, they may be sweeter than sugar. But do they last as long? <v David Heil>Cause you know sugar, you can put on the shelf for years. <v David Heil>Does something like NutraSweet hold up? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well, NutraSweet in the liquid form can last, depending on the temperature and the <v Dr. Bruce Dan>acidity, up to oh 6 months. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>For solid uh formulations like uh gelatins and puddings, it can last up to <v Dr. Bruce Dan>2 years.

<v David Heil>Well this brings up a good point. Can you actually bake with sugar substitutes? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well, you can bake with the saccharin. You can bake with the acesuplhame K. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>But as far as uh NutraSweet, aspartame, let me show you. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Come right this way. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>David, welcome to the Newton's apple pie eating contest. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Now step right in there. <v David Heil>Right inside there. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Join some of our contestants that we've invited down from the studio audience. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>They've got their bibs on. Why don't you put yours on? <v David Heil>Okay, I'll get dressed up here. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Now this is a special pie eating contest, and I'll tell you what we've done. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>We have secretly switched for sugar, a sugar substitute, namely aspartame. <v David Heil>So one of these pies doesn't have sugar in it? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Right, and the object is for you to guess which one by eating them. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>So that's the object of this contest, got to guess which pie. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Who's got the real sugar and which one has the sugar substitute? <v David Heil>And nobody really knows by looking at them. They all look like the same kind of pie, don't they? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well they do, that's right. Maybe they taste a little different. <v David Heil>Although, Bruce, uh I'm not sure I trust you. So I'm going to make sure that I just uh <v David Heil>switch mine with- sir, would you mind uh trading pies with me? <v David Heil>This probably was your favorite, but I'm going to do that just to be sure I've got a pie <v David Heil>like everybody else. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>All right. Well, everybody knows the rules. We're gonna eat the pies, but you can't use <v Dr. Bruce Dan>your hands. Put your hands behind your back. When I say go, the first one to discover

<v Dr. Bruce Dan>which one's got the NutraSweet in it wins. On your mark. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Get set. Go [carnival music]. <v David Heil>This is really bland. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Oh, well, I know why, David. You've got the pie- <v David Heil>Nobody else? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>That's right, you've got the one with the NutraSweet in it. <v David Heil>Egh. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well, there's a reason, David. You know, when we cook the pie, we heated it up. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>And when you- when you heat up NutraSweet, it decomposes the molecule and it loses all <v Dr. Bruce Dan>its sweetness. So you've got a pie that really doesn't have any sweetness to it. <v David Heil>So you really can't bake with that stuff can you? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>That's right. <v David Heil> I think I woulda much would've preferred one of the sweet ones like these other guys <v David Heil>have. <v Dr. Bruce Dan>Well if you wanna pie, you've got one, David. <v David Heil>[audience laughs] Wait a minute. <v David Heil>I guess I did sort of ask for that, didn't I Bruce? <v Dr. Bruce Dan>[laughs] What can I say? <v David Heil>Yeah well, thanks a lot, Bruce. That was really great. <v David Heil>[clears throat] Before anything else happens to me, I think I'm going to invite the <v David Heil>audience to come on down, get your own taste of pie. <v David Heil>As far as I'm concerned, the segment's over. [laughs] In fact, that's all the time we've

<v David Heil>got for now. We'll see you next week on Newton's Apple. <v Narrator>Newton's Apple is made possible by a grant from 3M and its employees, <v Narrator>dedicated to innovative thinking and scientific learning. <v Narrator>3M: innovation working for you [music]. <v Narrator 6>This is PBS.