SciShow Tangents - Bonus Backlog Bonanza - Ep. 28

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

This bonus episode was originally posted on Patreon on July 12, 2023 titled "Bonus Episode #25."Original Patreon description: Dr. Sam and Esteemed Co-host Ceri are answering your questions, science and non-science!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents!And go to https://complexly.store/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on socials:Ceri: @ceriley.bsky.social@rhinoceri on InstagramSam: @im-sam-schultz.bsky.social@im_sam_schultz on InstagramHank: @hankgreen on X

Hello and welcome to the SciShow Tangents Patreon bonus podcast with me, Sam Schultz and my esteemed co-host, Sari Reilly. Hello. Sorry, I was staring into space, resetting my brain. And my other esteemed co-host, AP Faith. I like how Sari's been demoted to esteemed co-host and no longer science expert after last month's podcast. Oh yeah, I'm a doctor now. Dr. Sam. to esteemed co-host and no longer science expert after last month's podcast.

Oh yeah, I'm a doctor now. Dr. Sam. Ooh, I like the sound of that. Dr. Sam. All right. So every episode of Tangents, we ask for questions from our listeners and you guys send us in. Lots of questions, but we can only pick one of them. And there's many, many left on the floor to answer. And Sari has done a little bit of cursory research on many of those questions.

So in this bonus podcast, we're going to answer some of the questions we didn't answer on the main show and also because I can't talk about science stuff all the time, I've added a few non-science questions to this round that people in discord and on the YouTube community tab asked us. So here's the first one. Are you ready, Sarri? I'm ready, as ready as I am. What are you doing over there?

What are you typing? What? Typing in the questions so that I can have a better answer. Oh, okay. I'm doing some pre-Googling. Oh, okay. Hannah Tiss asks,

how do you make windshield glass shatter into small harmless pieces? And at Wizarding Mama asks, how do they make the glass that they make for movies? Parentheses doesn't cut different than regular glass. I love parentheses doesn't cut. I will, you know, for some reason, whenever they fall through glass in a movie, I always think that's made of sugar, but I think that's like the bottles they hit you with, right? Like you get hit with a bottle and that's made of sugar. But yeah, sugar glass. I thought that too. You can have a big pain of that, I would not think so.

Cause it wouldn't be, I just don't think you can make it clear. I don't think you can make it look good enough. So the glass, I'm not a prop maker. The times that I have made glass for theater has been sugar glass. Okay. But you have done it before.

That's cool. You've made it? Yeah. What'd you make? That's cool. Plates, so that people could have like a kitchen scene fight on stage. Yeah. And like smash each other with them or smash them on the stage.

Yeah. So I like in college, it's been a whole week taking over the kitchen in my, my dorm and being like, I'm making more sugar plates guys. So sorry. Were people mad at you? Uh, no, they wanted to smash some though. And so I was like, I guess I'll make extra. Like, thank you for letting me take over the stove.

I'll make a bite every now and then while you're making them. No, it was, it was like gross. It was just pure sugar. Uh, I don't remember what the emulsifier was probably like some sort of corn syrup and then food dye, like white food dye to make the plates more, like look more ceramic-y as opposed to clear. But yeah, we threw them down the stairwell to test them. I was like, okay, I will need a test

to make sure that these will look good on stage. So my friends like tossed them down the stairwell and we had to clean up sugar. So sugar glass for small objects, but a lot of them are also breakaway resins made of plastics instead of glass. And this is like a windshield. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. All right. Though this is the movie stuff.

Windshields are made of sugar at the end. Everything's made of sugar if you think about it hard enough. Yeah. Have you ever bitten a windshield? I haven't. No? Okay. I can't say that I have. Liquid next time and you'll see. And so for movies, it is usually not glass is the answer, either sugar or plastics that look kind of like glass,

but the advantage to it is you don't actually need it to behave like optically like glass. So you can really make it out of whatever and then have people crash through it or do stunts. You can maximize safety rather than function. As far as windshield glass, there are a couple different ways. One way that we talked about in the glass episode is tempering the glass, which involves

specific heating to really high temperatures and then quenching and cooling it in addition to certain chemical additives that make the glass dice up into smaller chunks rather than jagged shards. It's the same process with a lot of glasses that have uses in highly occupied human spaces like a bathroom or a kitchen table sometimes or things like that. Windshields tend to go through the similar tempering processes. There are also laminated glasses, which are where the glass, whether or not it's tempered, usually it's also tempered, has thin layers of stretchy plastics, like polyvinyl butyral or other things to make sure that those, even those little like, yeah, when it shatters, it still like sticks together kind of like, I don't know.

Like the closest I could think of is if you like put a piece of packing tape on something else before shattering it or something like that, the tape would keep it together. And so in that way, when a windshield shatters, you can often see in pictures of shattered windshields, like it looks like there's a thin film on top. And that is intentionally designed so that when the pieces shatter,

it still kind of stays together as opposed to like crumbling into your car. Rith asks, it is currently 1 23 a.m. and I cannot sleep. What are your best tips for when you're hit with sudden insomnia? Do either of you ever have insomnia? All the time. Oh yeah.

Oh wow. Yes, I'm very restless. I hate it. Okay, well, I sleep like a baby. You sleep great. I sleep like a baby. Be Sam. Be Sam is the answer. That's the other two, a lot of things, you know?

Well, so, okay. Walk us through it. Faith, what do you do? Usually I lay there with my eyes open for like 10 minutes and then I'm like, Oh, I should really try and go back to sleep. And so I lay there with my eyes closed for like an hour. And then eventually, um, I either give up and go do something else or, uh, like turn on a podcast or something and just try and distract my brain enough until I go back to sleep.

But sometimes I'll be awake for like three hours. Sari, how do you deal with insomnia? So I'm not gonna include heat and cold insomnia. I am very particular with temperatures, but I feel like that's separate from this question. This is like fast brain, can't stop thinking about things insomnia. Rith wasn't very specific.

So I don't know. Okay. So if you're too hot, put an ice pack on your head. If you're too cold, kick one foot out of the blanket. If that's not enough, two feet out. Why does putting one foot out help so much? Like what does that do? I have no idea.

It's like a little- Is this a, do you like release a lot of heat from like your feet and palms? Is that a thing? OK. Oh, yes. I think in general, I think you have a lot of capillaries there, which is also why they're like the first parts of your body to get frostbite. So if you you like, there's a lot of heat exchange happening there.

I'm not bougie enough or put together enough to order a sleep mask in my life. I just put a pillow on my head. Sylvia makes fun of me for it. I like put it over my eyes, but then my nose and mouth are exposed so that I can breathe. Which is functionally.

Why don't you drink like a shirt on your face or something? I don't know, a pillow is so much more satisfying. Why don't you just buy a sleep mask? Yeah. I don't know, a pillow is so much more satisfying. Why don't you just buy a sleep mask? Yeah. I don't know, a pillow is so much more satisfying. They're like five dollars. Okay. You don't have to order one either.

You can go to the store. But the other thing I do is listen, not like to specific sounds. So like lo-fi hip hop mixes on Spotify. Yeah, like lo-fi hip hop to study to, but it's also to sleep to. It's very soothing. It's just like monotonous background music. Or it's not an ad for Headspace, though I would love to get it for free.

But Headspace? Sponsor the Patreon podcast. Somebody who works for you is listening to the Patreon podcast. Yeah, just in case. But I think it's the combination of like a breathing exercise, like telling me what to do that I have to stop thinking about my own things. Like breathe in for five seconds, hold for five seconds, out for seven seconds. And just like something to passively listen to that I don't care about.

So when I was a child and I couldn't sleep, my dad, instead of telling me to count sheep, he told me to count Jigglypuff, which I thought was like very funny. Yeah. And it worked. She made people go to sleep all the time. Yeah. I think that was it where I was like, I watched Pokemon so much and he was like, just count Jigglypuff.

And so like I would think about Jigglypuff. A trusted name and sleep, Jigglypuff. And so I would think about Jigglypuff. A trusted name and sleep, Jigglypuff. Yeah. That's great. So maybe try that. Ananya Ravikumar asks, why do animal products have so much more protein than plants? I'm trying to measure my protein intake and beans and lentils have so little compared to eggs or milk or meat.

Why, why they, where did this one come from? From YouTube, from the community tab. Today. Is it, this is a science question? I didn't research it. I don't think. Well, why do they? Ananya, we're going to have to get back to you on this one.

I don't have a fucking clue. I'm surprised you had this science question. Well, on the community tab, I said, Hey, we're going to do this. Ask us some questions. And then I was like, Hmm, this is a good one. This is a good one. And I was like, well, this is a great one. But I didn't think you did.

My guess is, I just know you know it. You know everything. So, okay. I, I, after I've taken, I've been taken aback of my shock. I have credibility, but really Hank has credibility. And even if he bullshits, he doesn't get in trouble for it. I think it's because our muscles are so much protein, right? So like we need protein in order to build muscles

and like all animal product meat is the muscle fiber pieces like chicken breast, that's muscle, cow flanks, that's muscle. like chicken breast, that's muscle, cow flanks, that's muscle. And so like the, and there are of course, pieces of fat as part of it, but generally we toss the fatty parts of meat away and don't consider that to be like

a nutrition animal product. As far as things like milk and eggs, I think it's just a nature of what they're made of. Baby animals need it when it comes to milk. You need proteins in order to grow and form muscles and that mass and need it for energy. Or proteins are the molecules that like do hold a lot of functions in your body. I don't know. Why the beans and lentils have any protein?

What are they doing with it? I think so proteins are not only muscle proteins are also like like plants have proteins to do chemical signaling. Plants have protein that can provide structure. I think it's just more likely that a lot of plants use carbohydrates as structure. So any sort of like fiber is carbohydrates. And then I think the idea of like a bean or a lentil is that it happens in a seed pod.

My guess is that there are certain proteins needed for germinating seeds, germinating plants, that help with that initial growth, that help with that breakdown, that help with making sure that the chemical situation in the bean is good in order to like shoot up a sprout and soak in water and whatnot. Okay. And so I think that is my guess as to why like plants build so much more of their structure with carbohydrates and animals build so much of our structure with proteins. At the end of this, do you need to say maybe? Or do you know that?

Maybe. No, I don't. This is all a guess based on my violent reaction. According to this very scientific article called Peanuts versus Chicken, carbohydrates are significantly higher in the peanuts versus the chicken. It's like, actually, this is one cup of chicken

versus one cup of peanuts. Have the similar amount of protein, surprisingly. And I know this is not beans, this is different than beans, but significantly more like fat and a little bit more carbohydrates for sure. Coming from this as a vegetarian who is also looking oftentimes for more sources of protein.

Oh, we should have been asking faith the whole time, this question. I mean, there's tofu is pretty good, nuts are good. There's protein in more things that you think there's protein in, which maybe that's more on the science side of things. Like what? Like nutritional yeast, some milks have protein in them.

Or I mean, like a nut milks. An alternative milk. Yeah, alternative milks, protein in them. Or I mean like a nut milks. An alternative milk. Yeah, alternative milks, some of them have protein. Yeah, and I think like the nuts and stuff have proteins for similar reasons that eggs have proteins, which is nutrients for whatever is developing, whether it's a plant or an animal. It's just like an unfertilized egg so that you don't actually need the nutrients that we take it and eat it. Muhammad ML Ng asks, why does red light preserve night vision?

Do you have any guesses? Oh, no. Oh, you're going to throw me to the wolves. Is it because of where it is on the spectrum? It's on one of the sides. Yeah. Oh, that could be why there's not red. Well, there's not a lot of red getting absorbed.

Maybe there's more red shooting around. Yeah. Could be. Is the moon really red? I guess it's not the moon. You could be in like a basement. I don't think the moon reflects red light more than any other light, Sam. Okay.

I think we've been guessing. You know, that's the kind of guessing that I applied to the last question. I don't think the moon reflects red light more than any other light, Sam. Okay. I think we need to guess right now. You know, that's the kind of guessing that I applied to the last question. If I had said that's a Play-Doh, Play-Doh would have said, you're very smart. Let's, let's learn more about it. I'm just out of my time, out of, you know, if I was an olden times guy, I'd be a genius. Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

Play-Doh didn't have Google. You could fake your way to so many things. Exactly. Yeah. You would have been a great many things. Exactly. Yeah. You would have been a great philosopher. Thank you. Yeah.

So I think it is specifically due to the anatomy of the eye, but I don't, I would bet if I were to dig deeper, if I had actually researched this thoroughly, then it would have to do what you were saying of red parts of the wavelength. Like we just see them less and they are like lower wavelength, lower energy in the spectrum. But it's specifically because part of your eye called the fovea has mostly red sensitive cones. And so you've got red sensitive cones, green sensitive cones, blue sensitive cones, and the fovea specifically has red sensitive cones. And so you can, with red light, this particular part of your eye is more sensitive to it

so that it doesn't like blow out the rest of your eye, if that makes sense, like other colors of light, it activates all the cones in your eye and then like the super sensitive rods in night vision. And then your eye starts adjusting to that kind of light. At night, there's very low light. You've got like very, very little light in your eyes. And so cones detect color, are more active in daylight.

Rods detect like are super sensitive, detect as much light as possible in low light. In the night generally with low light, your rods are highly active, your pupils are really dilated to take in as much light as possible. And if you were to turn on like a porch light or a spotlight or something like that, your pupils would constrict

and all the optic receptors in your eyes would kind of like go overdrive. Your rods would be blown out and so you'd be swishing back to your cone cells and your eye would be swishing back to daylight mode. But red light, because there's a piece of your eye called the fovea that has mostly red sensitive cones, you can turn on this like low energy red light and you can turn on this like low energy red light and It will not Blow out your eye in the same way. It'll just be like your rods will still be active they're not gonna be messed with too much and then another piece of your eye that is

specifically attuned to red light will be able to see a little bit better and It won't change your eye like like your your pupils not going to change dramatically what's going on optically in your eye isn't going to change dramatically. And if you turn off the red light, then those rods are still active, they're not overblown, your pupil is still dilated, it's still taking in light. And so red light basically like doesn't cause as dramatic changes in your eye. Took a while, I got there kind of. Is there a part of your eye that sees all the different colors or what?

Like, is there just one part of your eye that has the red in it? And I thought they're all mixed together. So they're not all mixed together? There are different like regions at the back of your eye that have different kinds of receptors. They're like kind of all mixed together, but then there are like layers to your eye, or like points in the back of your eye where there are higher concentrations of different kinds.

So like cone cells are the ones that detect color, rod cells are the ones that are highly sensitive to intensity of light. And then at various points in your eyeball, there are places where those are dispersed more evenly, and then there are places where they are concentrated more. And so the fovea is And so the fovea is a specific part in like a specific depression and like a little nook where there are a lot of red sensitive cones in one spot. Weird. So like your eye isn't just a homogenous, uh, mixture of receptors. They only like the low and slow waves.

How do you know so much about the eye? How do you know so much about anything? In high school, I memorized some things. Like I know hemoglobin structure, and I know what mitochondria do, and I know like basic taxonomy of animals and like random stuff like that, that is just like ingrained in my memory.

But a lot of the way that I was taught biology in college is through critical thinking, which I think is interesting. I had a lot of open book tests and a lot of open book homework and things like that. It was a lot of problem solving. So like, if you have this genetic sequence, how would you design something in a lab to isolate one part of it or something like that? And that has kind of informed how I do science communication

where instead of thinking of things like, I've got to memorize how blood cells work, or how the eye works and all the pieces, I like vaguely know the different parts of biology that could be involved in this and then piece those puzzle pieces together as I stumble my way through an explanation. So it's like, I kind of know this about optics, that we interpret that, or like that light occurs on a spectrum and there are high energy parts

and low energy parts. And then I also kind of know that the way that the eye works is it takes in light and translates it. And then I also kind of know that there has to be something that interprets things in the eye. And then from there, it's just a matter of like Googling the details and then learning things like, Oh, there is a depression in the eye that has extra red light sensitivity and it works for me like 80% of the time and then the rest of the time. What you said is you just know a bunch of stuff and that usually works for you.

Is that basically what it is? I like, yeah, know a bunch of stuff and that usually works for you. Is that basically what it is? I like, yeah, I think that's what, that is what she said. Everything works for most of it. I know 80% of everything. I feel like I've learned how to logic my way thing through things, I guess. It's like, I know what feels right. Which I guess is different than knowing. Confidence. And then we go, ah.

Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But also like, no, like biology is just a bunch of patterns in the way that, like I'm trying to think of an equivalent. Do you ever guess something about the Muppets? I don't know, or like cartoons, or do you know the facts and then you're like, I have these facts that I'm sharing?

Or do you ever, are you ever like, I can make an educated guess that Kermit probably said this at one point because it's in character. I think it's more like, like, like if I see like a animation or something or like a drawing, I could be like, well, I know this person doesn't draw like this. So this must be, I know what you're talking about. I don't think about them up. It's like you take the clues. And I'm insulted that you didn't say that I did.

Well, I was trying to promote your other, your other project that's going to get you internet fame. But yeah, like, like how you think about art in that way, how I think about biology is like, does this fit with the patterns that I know? And I don't know exactly how you draw, but it's like, oh, I can kind of approximate like the shape of a horse, even if you haven't drawn it before. And then in the way that you can like approximate

the shape of a horse using what you know about art and like color and line and shapes and your personal style, I can approximate about horse biology using what I know about bones and toes and like, I don't know, evolution and things like that. And of course like- I can draw a horse, but you can make a horse. Kind of, but like I'm missing more pieces of it

where like I'm still like I learned about those weird papal way on their hoops. Yeah, cause you gotta go find some horse pieces and put them together. Yeah. And then I'm Dr. Frankenstein and I too will have a PhD. And then we're both doctors. And I'm a doctor like you.

Okay. Well, that's quite enough of this podcast. Thank you for listening to it and thank you for being our patrons. And I hope that you all had above average month this time. I don't know what you did last time. And if you didn't, there's always next month. Sarah, any parting thoughts? You be inspirational.

You try it. Oh, thanks for listening, everyone. Thanks for being along with this rollercoaster of us trying to answer questions in a much less polished way than the real episode. This is me saying, take everything that I said in the past half an hour with a huge grain of salt because do I really know anything about the script?

You threw your own self under the bus in your inspirational speech. Yeah, that's all I know how to do. Everything I do starts a self-deprecation, and then it comes around to thank you for listening, thanks for choosing to spend your time with us, and fight your insomnia with us, or just during a drive, or during dishes, or whenever.

We've got limited time. If you're just going off to sleep right now, good night. Good night. Good night. now. Yeah. Good night. Good night. Good night, we love you. Good night. A little ASMR treat. Uh-huh.

I don't know, I really love that we get to do this and that people listen and that people support it so that I can justify making this a part-time job and not just a hobby. And I don't know, the world is weird and hard, but sometimes we get a guess why red light helps the night vision. Educatedly-ish. And you get to listen. And talk with our friends. Yeah, and you get to listen to that. That's fun.

All right, goodnight!