SciShow Tangents - Magnets

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to SciShow Tangents, the lightly competitive knowledge showcase starring some of the geniuses that make the YouTube series SciShow happen. This week, as always, I'm joined by Stephan Chin. Hello. Stephan, how do you like the cover of my new book? Oh, it's good. Beautifully foolish endeavor. It's the best cover I've ever seen.

Starting point is 00:00:35 Thanks. It's very bright. It'll be out July 7th, but you can pre-order it now. Oh, wow. Oh, my God. What's your tagline? It's almost wing night. And Sam Schultz is also here. Sam. Yeah. Where? Oh, my God. What's your tagline? It's almost wing night. And Sam Schultz is also here.

Starting point is 00:00:46 Sam. Yeah? Where can you preorder my new book, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor? I don't know. Am I going to get in trouble for not knowing? No, you just guess some places that might have it. Amazon.com? Yeah, it's there.

Starting point is 00:01:00 Your local bookstore? Uh-huh. Anywhere a fine book is sold? That's correct. What's your tagline? A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor. Wow. Hi, Sarah.

Starting point is 00:01:12 It's great to see you. Oh, thanks. What's your favorite book? Oh. Don't get this wrong. I feel like I'm reserving the top book spot for A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, which is coming out July 2020. I think we're going to get in trouble. What do you mean?

Starting point is 00:01:32 I don't know. We're probably fine. If you guys have a book coming out, we can dedicate a whole intro of Tangents to yours as well. Oh my god. What's your tagline? Water casket. And I'm Hank Green, and my tagline is woo. Water casket. Very well, May. The rest of the team gets to vote on whether or not it was worth it. And if it isn't, then you have to give up a Sam Buck. And now, as always, to introduce this week's topic, we have the traditional science poem.

Starting point is 00:02:14 This week, it's part poem by me, part poem by someone else. So it starts out with a different person's poem and then we segue. Yeah, this is great. Music is a lot like love. It's all a feeling. And it fills the room from the floor to the ceiling. I see miracles all around me. Stop and look around. It's all astounding. Water, fire, air, and dirt. Fucking magnets. How do they work?

Starting point is 00:02:40 Thus spoke the men of the insane clown posse. They go on to say that they will not trust me. Scientists are lying. Scientists get them pissed. But I think the ICP, well, a couple points they missed. Forces are a kind of miracle, these connections we cannot see. They drive the entire universe from Betelgeuse to me. And when you send an electron down a wire, it does seem odd that fields arise, send an electron down a wire, it does seem odd that fields arise, fields that never tire. I know that science has answers,

Starting point is 00:03:10 but after all these years on Earth, I still sit here and ask, Sari, fucking magnets, how do they work? Oh my gosh. Cameo by Beetlejuice in there, too. Beetlejuice the star. I know, but come on. I also got distracted.

Starting point is 00:03:24 Beetlejuice. You said it only once but now collectively we've said it three times i have a hard time with with magnets on it i guess i have a hard time with all forces though yeah like it just feels like gravity makes sense because i've always like i feel it all the time but it doesn't really it doesn't make any more sense than magnets. But magnets, I'm just like, I can't see it. And yet they're interacting. And it makes things don't go down that you feel like should go down, like gravity. It makes things don't go down.

Starting point is 00:03:54 Yeah. Magnets go on the wall. Yeah. Shouldn't work. They should go down. I feel like that was a mini poem from Sam. I think I know how magnets work. and so i will talk and explain them but as soon as someone asks me a question it's gonna fall apart okay so i'll just be very quiet

Starting point is 00:04:12 so a magnet is an object or a piece of technology that we've created that gives off a magnetic field and it applies a force on things like other magnets. So magnets can either be natural. An iron containing compound called magnetite is a natural magnet. And this is where it gets wibbly. There are parts of it, like very small parts of it that when aligned generate a magnetic field. So like when you draw a magnetic field you draw it as like if it's a circle and the north pulls on the top and the south pulls on the bottom it like comes out of the north and then goes into the south and that is how you draw a magnetic field if those particles or electrons or or whatever physics is happening inside the rock are aligned in some

Starting point is 00:05:01 direction that is like the direction the magnetic field will align but if they're randomized so if it's just like a nail with randomly oriented particles then it will not be magnetic is that sorry i'm gonna ask a question is it that there's no magnetic field because there's a bunch of magnetic fields that are canceling out and then when they do align they all add together and create something that affects things. Yes. So it's like atoms or particles or electrons or some sort of like subatomic atomic particle have what are known as magnetic moments.

Starting point is 00:05:38 Beautiful. Like how a molecule can be a dipole and have a charged end. They can also have a magnetic moment, which is like a magnetic field in some direction. And so when they're all misaligned, then there's no strong field in any direction. But if they're all aligned in one, then it like cumulates in a giant magnetic field. So like with an electromagnet, is it something that you turn the power off? That's a totally separate thing.

Starting point is 00:06:02 Oh, it is? Well, it's not a totally separate thing. It's still magnets. But like the power's off and they're all not aligned and then the power's on That's a totally separate thing. Oh, it is? So electromagnets... Well, it's not a totally separate thing. They're still magnets. But, like, the power's off and they're all not aligned, and then the power's on and they go... So, with an electromagnet, it is a coil of wire around, like, a piece of iron or something like that. And in that, the electric current is generating the magnetic field. So it's actually the electrons passing through the wire. When you push electrons through a wire, they create a magnetic field around them.

Starting point is 00:06:30 Okay. But magnetism and electricity are different. Well, technically they're the same thing if you go deep enough. So like there's Faraday's law, I think, which is how it relates it. Like your E field is your electric field and your b field is your magnetic field and there's a relationship between those things it's like how energy and mass are the same thing but not like that stuff out there we got to give up we got to rewrite all the rules that's why there's like new editions of board games and stuff you get rid of the rules that

Starting point is 00:06:58 are just too complicated you can't keep track of all those rules yeah yeah that's right we have to do that with magnets okay Okay. You're just... Magnets, you're done. We don't need you. Deprecated. No longer supported. Sari, is there an etymology to magnets? There is, and it's kind of cool.

Starting point is 00:07:15 So it comes from the old French magnet, which is magnetite, which is from Latin magnetum, which is from Greek, homagnus lithos, the magnesium stone. There's a region in Greece called Thessaly, and then there's a sub-region of that called Magnesia, where they found lodestones. And so they were like, this rock from this place is so

Starting point is 00:07:37 cool, and so it's named after a place. Oh my gosh. All magnets. That's amazing. That's my favorite part of the show. And now it's time for Truth or Fail. One of our panelists has picked three science facts for our education and enjoyment, but two of those are fake. So you didn't really pick them. You just created them out of your head. The other panelists have to figure out either by deduction or wild guess which is the true fact.

Starting point is 00:08:02 And if we get it right, we get the Sam Buck. If not, Sam gets the Sam Buck because Sam is doing truth or fail. Magnets, frankly, seem pretty miraculous. Am I right? So it's not really a big surprise that many people throughout history have believed them to have healing or spiritual powers. This belief has led to a variety of inventions claiming to cure people of any ailment you can think of, physical, mental, anything magnet magic so these are all real quote inventions but only one of them actually

Starting point is 00:08:31 use magnets so which was it number one a large console filled with knobs and dials sort of like an electric organ which sold for home use in the 1960s and cost thirty five hundred dollars that claimed to use magnetic fields to analyze and diagnose blood samples and then you could Ooh, Theranos. Two, yeah. would disrupt communication between the left and right side of your brain, allowing the creative right side to take control, which allowed users to perceive an otherworldly presence that was said to be God. Or three, a magnet-lined water jug sold in the early 1900s that claimed to refresh water by pulling toxin and other undesirable elements from it. The makers claimed that it would cure flatulence, senility, arthritis, and more.

Starting point is 00:09:24 Okay, so we've got three things here. Things that inventions, quote, inventions. Well, I guess they were inventions. They just didn't work. Right. At least ideas. Something from the 1960s that used magnetic fields to analyze your blood sample and then send you a magnetic field to cure you. Two, a helmet that separated your brain hemispheres

Starting point is 00:09:47 this was in the early 2000s that let you see god or in the early 1900s a magnet lined water jug that pulled out toxins and cured your flatulence magnets have kind of always been around so like like what like was there a big peak in magnet crazes? But I think now I wouldn't be surprised if there was a magnet-lined water bottle. Because we're always sort of like waving our hands over water and being like, things happened! Water especially right now for some reason. Like, let's find a way to make this more expensive and exclusive. Right. We were fooled by Tom Brady's water.

Starting point is 00:10:22 Fake water. It was pants! It was pants. It was pants instead. There are quartz water bottles with crystals inside of them. That's cool. Love a crystal. I believe that. That makes sense.

Starting point is 00:10:33 Okay, I'm going to say the brain helmet because I'm just going to take a stab about it. Just because it's like your brain has electricity, so I can assume that putting magnets near it, it's like, it's not bad, it's good. Right. electricity so i can assume that putting magnets near it's like it's not bad it's good right and like and like i was alive then but i'd still forget about it because what a boring thing to have happen and also the early 2000s were a busy time for me now i think both of you might know something no no i'd be i would i would no well i guess i wouldn't say but i but no i would have been more cryptic. I think I would have made you guess first.

Starting point is 00:11:06 I make other people guess first. That's often what I do when I know, is I make the other people guess first. But then I'm usually wrong, so nothing matters. Indeed. Well, I'm going to go with the blood magnet. Blood magnet for Stefan. Sari? Brain magnet.

Starting point is 00:11:19 Brain magnet. I'm going to go with brain magnet too. It was brain magnet. Yeah! You bastards. I quit. I'm not doing the show brain magnet too. It was brain magnet. Yeah. You bastards. I quit. I'm not doing the show anymore. You got a point.

Starting point is 00:11:30 Yeah, that's true. Okay. Maybe Stefan won't get any points this episode. And then I'll be happy. Wow. So I'll start with the real one. The God Machine is what it was called. It seems to have started as a pretty like normal experiment

Starting point is 00:11:45 to study a link between forms of epilepsy and religious visions, quote religious visions. So like near-death experiences, things like that, that would make you see like the tunnel to heaven or something. So people with temporal lobe epilepsy seem to frequently report the feeling of not being alone while having a seizure. So this device was supposed to replicate like a safer version of that but in tests the researchers reported that 80 percent

Starting point is 00:12:11 of subjects felt an unexplained presence nearby but there are a lot of other things a lot of other experiments that couldn't replicate this at all and there was a placebo experiment that did replicate it so you, you know. But now they sell, some of the people who did these experiments sell consumer versions for meditation and for helping you see God. But they're also supposed to be able to change your emotional state, like with the push of a button. I can change my emotional state with the push of a button already. It's called Twitter. Oh.

Starting point is 00:12:46 Many things flash through my mind. None of them is Twitter. And I can imagine people around me if I just turn off all the lights in my house and something creaks that I'm like, that's it, it's a murderer.

Starting point is 00:13:01 That's you changing your emotional state. Or God. Or God, yeah. I guess I always assume It's a murderer. That's you changing your emotional state. Or God. Or God. Yeah, I guess I always assume it's a murderer. The large console with knobs was a consumer thing called the electometabograph, which was like a home appliance that you would have in your house, and you would put your blood in it, and it would give you a diagnosis by blinking different lights on the front that was like kidney, bad bad or something like that and then you it was a radio so you would tune it to a frequency that would shoot healing waves into you but the fda caught wind of it opened it up and

Starting point is 00:13:35 there wasn't anything in it except for a blinking light there wasn't even a radio not even a radio inside but they sold a ton of them i think i don't think they ever even really found out who was doing it. And then the water jug was a jug lined with uranium called the Revigorator. It would irradiate your water and bring back the, quote, lost element of original freshness, radioactivity. Oh. What is called the Revigorator? Uh-huh. I like that.

Starting point is 00:14:03 Yes. That's very good. I really, like, I would totally buy a Revigorator uh-huh i like that yes that's very good i really like i would totally buy a revigorator yeah i just if it didn't have any uranium you're in luck because you can still buy one that has uranium that still works so still trademarked because you could just make the revigorator water bottle yeah put whatever you want crystals go to scishow.com where we're now selling the revigorator a blinking light like that could be what's in there it could be a water bottle with a blinking light yeah and it could just be like yeah blinked on it would be done it would just say done so they did some studies with

Starting point is 00:14:38 these jugs that still have working uranium oh yeah and they leach a ton of arsenic and lead into the water. Because I guess they were just not very well made. And they also release enough radiation to be like almost double the EPA suggested level of exposure. Oh, so it's like, it's not like a water bottle. It's not personal. It's like...

Starting point is 00:14:57 No, you have it in your house for your whole family to drink out of. Reinvigorate your whole family. Right. No, it's called the Revigator, boy. Oh, the revigator boy oh the revigator well not a real word either way no

Starting point is 00:15:10 well now we're definitely in the clear for revigorator yeah well Sam thank you for the wonderful facts thanks for guessing right I haven't made a kind of

Starting point is 00:15:18 bullshit one so that I could get some easy points didn't even work next up we're gonna take a short break. Then, the fact off. Welcome back, everybody.

Starting point is 00:15:45 Sam Buck total. Sari's got one. Sam's got one. Stefan's got none. I've got two because of my good, good poem that I am so proud of. You got to mail it to the ICP, though. What I will say is that song, ultimately, like, there's a little bit of, like, antagonism towards science. But mostly it's a song about, like, appreciating how beautiful and weird the world is i like that they like call out dirt as a miracle it's like yeah i think that we don't recognize that dirt is really wonderful and complex and it does show like a certain like

Starting point is 00:16:15 reflection and way of thinking about things yeah that i appreciate i appreciate it anyway now it's time for the fact off two panelists have brought science facts to blow the other panelists' minds. And we each have a Sandbuck to award to the one that we like the most. And we're going to choose whether Stefan or Sari goes first with this trivia question. The temperature at which magnets lose their permanent magnetic properties is called the Curie temperature. That's the only thing I knew. Which Curie is it named Curie temperature. That's the only thing I knew. Which Curie is it named for? Oh.

Starting point is 00:16:48 I can give you multiple choice if you don't know. Murray. That's the only Curie that I know. Okay, well then it's not that. So the ones you have left are Eve, Irene, or Pierre. Three, two, one. Pierre. Oh, crap.

Starting point is 00:17:04 They're both right. Oh. Can you guess what the temperature is yeah oh it's different for every for every thing but great so what's the curate temperature of gadolinium in kelvin oh kelvin it's not going to increase or decrease the odds of getting it right. 352. That is a temperature that exists. Yes. Good job. 565. 293.

Starting point is 00:17:29 Ooh. I don't know. Gadolinium is a weak one. Nickels, for example, is 627. Okay. Well, how much Kelvin is that? Is that like hot as the sun or what? No.

Starting point is 00:17:40 293 is like cold. Zero Kelvin is absolute zero. So gadolinium's Curie point is 67 degrees Fahrenheit. So you were closer, Stefan. Well, Terry, you're up. Oh. Okay. The Earth has a magnetic field generated by the sloshing core.

Starting point is 00:17:57 Yeah. Or the molten stuff around the core. And that magnetic field changes. and that magnetic field changes, and the Earth's North Magnetic Pole, where magnetic compasses point north, is not the same place as the geographic North Pole. And in fact, the North Magnetic Pole was first formally described in 1831,

Starting point is 00:18:19 but it's been on the move and has traveled over 2,250 kilometers, or 1,400 miles, since then. In the past couple decades, it's been traveling at a rate of around 55 kilometers or 34 miles per year and now at around 40 kilometers or 24 miles per year. And it's drifting from over Canada towards Siberia and Russia. And that's like not insignificant at all. That's a lot. And so the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, works with a lot of data and groups to maintain a tool called the World Magnetic Model, or WMM, that gets updated every five years. And so 2020 is out now. You can go look at it. To help everything that uses the magnetic field from compasses to maps to GPS services and other electronic navigation tools. And critically, airplanes and airports fall under this umbrella and use the WMM

Starting point is 00:19:06 because planes have to know where they're flying and they use the magnetic field to help them navigate. And so without going into too much detail, runways have numerical names from 1 to 36 to indicate the cardinal direction rounded to the nearest 10 degrees. So 180 degrees becomes 18, 360 degrees becomes 36, 18 is the North Magn pole and 36 is the South magnetic pole and everything's like relative to that. So in 2009, the Fairbanks International Airport in Alaska had to rename their runway 1L19R to 1L or 2L20R, I think, or 1L20R. Had to rename their runway because magnetic north shifted and they'll have to do so again in 2033 as predicted by these models so that means replacing all the signage repainting pilots have to relearn can't they just do those ones where you can switch out the numbers and letters

Starting point is 00:19:56 i mean you don't have to the ground too and that's because when the magnetic field gets messed up over time or even like there have been instances with where it gets messed up locally over airports. It can really mess with navigation and takeoff and landing of planes so they can like get near misses to each other or they can just be like headed in the wrong direction, which is an uncertainty you don't want to introduce

Starting point is 00:20:16 for already very mathematically complicated system. So as magnetic field changes, we have to change all our airports. Do they monitor the magnetic field or whatever around like every airport just in case something goes wild or so the world magnetic model models it everywhere in the world using data and so you can point you can put in whatever coordinates you want and know what the magnetic field is doing at that point on earth which is very cool stefan can you beat drifting runway magnetic fields causing havoc to air travelers let's find out so fluids don't normally react to magnetic fields but ferrofluids

Starting point is 00:20:55 when exposed to magnetic fields form spiky hedgehog formations have you all seen these yeah so the way that ferrofluids work is that you have like a base fluid which could be water could be other things and you mix in small magnetic particles and then to keep those particles suspended in the liquid you have to coat them with a surfactant and so like one side of the surfactant is attracted to the particle so it coats them all then the other side is attracted to the water or whatever the solvent is and that keeps them suspended and prevents them from clumping together so then you get this liquid that has weird magnetic properties yeah apparently most commonly these days they use ferrofluids for speakers oh i

Starting point is 00:21:36 thought they just used them to look at no they're used in manufacturing for different things but speakers is the most common thing so it like cools cools the voice coil and also dampens some of the vibration in those, which I thought was a cool thing that I didn't know. But one potential application for these fluids is as a thruster for satellites. Smaller satellites are becoming more common and that's small satellites is anything under 1100 pounds apparently,

Starting point is 00:22:01 which still seems pretty big, but I guess some satellites are pretty heavy. And a lot of the technology for satellites has shrunk, like the cameras and GPS systems and all that stuff. So they've been able to be much smaller, but it's harder to make small propulsion systems so that they can relocate themselves in low Earth orbit or adjust which direction they're looking. One of the promising kinds of propulsion that i think has been used is electrospray propulsion and for that they have you have like maybe a hundred or so of these tiny needles and then you have like an ionic fuel and you apply

Starting point is 00:22:38 electricity to it and then it shoots this fuel out in a little stream of particles and that pushes the satellite but those systems are kind of expensive to make and they're apparently pretty fragile, so they break easily. So this team at Michigan Technological University has been working on an ion thruster using ferrofluids. And so it's an ionic ferrofluid. And when they apply the magnetic field, they get all the little spiky spikes. And then when they apply an electric field on top of that each needle can start spraying little jets of ions which are the particles that make up the ferrofluid so the ferrofluid when these fields are applied self-assembles into the thruster and then is also the fuel for the thruster which is why this becomes its own thruster yeah and if you like smash it

Starting point is 00:23:24 with a hammer, it just reforms, I guess based on the magnetic field lines. It's just T-1000 over here. It's T-1000 thrusters. All those aliens with hammers out there switching off our satellites. We're going to get them. We've got one over on them, finally.

Starting point is 00:23:39 Can we make other things that reform like that so that we can hit more things with hammers and have them reform? Like my bones? Yeah. I guess it comes down to like how carefully you can control the shape of a magnetic field. Yeah. Which you can't

Starting point is 00:23:53 do anything with a magnetic field. What if I drank a ferrofluid? Ferrofluid enemas and then you use a magnet to just spit all out. Describe yourself out. Yeah. Oh yeah, like the little fish tank magnet? So, like, over your belly, back and forth. This is great.

Starting point is 00:24:11 Oh, God, I hate it so much. Okay. Sam and I have to decide which of these facts we want to give our point to. Three, two, one. Stefan. Oh. I expected that.

Starting point is 00:24:22 Brutal. I'm cleaning house. I shouldn't have even given you a dang point. Yeah, I thought for sure Sam was going to go for Sari because... I'm strictly bound by my honor code. I'm devoted to truth and justice. Thank you. Thank you for being devoted to truth and justice.

Starting point is 00:24:36 You're welcome. Now it's time for Ask the Science Couch. We've got some listener questions for our couch of finely honed scientific minds. This question comes from at Lux in the Light. Is it actually possible for something to make magnets stop working like in Stranger Things? I just got spoiled on

Starting point is 00:24:53 Stranger Things just this very moment. So I guess at some point, for some reason, all magnets stop working? So from the article I read, have you actually seen season three? I've seen it. It basically boils down to

Starting point is 00:25:08 at some point, for some reason, this happens, and I don't remember the answer or anything, but they're just at their house, and then all the magnets fall off their fridge.

Starting point is 00:25:14 Oh, okay. So it's very localized. Like, magnets just fall off a fridge. Yeah. Well, I mean, what could happen is if you have a big magnetic field that comes through,

Starting point is 00:25:22 you could, the magnets wouldn't necessarily be permanently demagnetized, but you could definitely push them off the fridge to like counteract the effect. And that would be a creepy thing to have happen. Yeah, I mean, that's like kind of it. mess with the magnetic field because if you apply heat to a magnet then the alignment of particles gets misaligned because heat is just like movement energy the way that they explained it in the show according to a wired article from someone who actually watched it winona rider was like oh no my fridge magnets fell on the floor and she found the science teacher and he was like I can tell you about this

Starting point is 00:26:05 the science teacher who's a beloved character from season one but she like read some books about physics and then talked to him and he was like look at this thing called a solenoid which is a cylindrical coil of wire that can generate a magnetic field so basically like an electromagnet without the

Starting point is 00:26:21 thing inside and so it can also create a static magnetic field. Then, like, the science in the show gets a little wibbly, I think, where he was like, if someone created a giant version of this, then anything could happen. Yeah, we've surrounded the entire community with a solenoid and just, like, pumped a lot of electrons through it. I think that is actually what it was.

Starting point is 00:26:43 It was the mall or something. I don't know so like the thing that you can do is disrupt the magnetic field somehow so i don't think like applying a constant magnetic field to the magnets on the fridge would necessarily mess them up completely it'd have to be like an alternating current if you if you put in an alternating current then that also creates like a changing intensity magnetic field. And that could like mess with the alignment of the particles enough to demagnetize something. Is that something that can happen?

Starting point is 00:27:17 Yes. If you did it on purpose? If you did it on purpose, yeah. If the magnetic object has what are known as deformable domains, so like iron or steel or other things, like if you magnetize a nail, you can demagnetize it. Things like neodymium are much stronger magnets. And so I think that alignment is more locked into place. And so for that, you need a more extreme thing than like an alternating magnetic field to scramble it. You need like a

Starting point is 00:27:45 really really high temperature or something that will actually disrupt its pretty stable structure the more like temporarily magnetic something is the easier it is to disrupt the magnetic field so like if you magnetize a nail you can like hit it with a hammer and disrupt it because that is enough force to mess with the alignment just so many things with hammers today. So wait, now, the other day a fridge magnet fell on my phone and I got scared. Is that something I should still be scared about? No, I don't have to worry about that so much. A really powerful magnet on a hard drive, definitely be worried about.

Starting point is 00:28:17 Okay. It feels like something that kids in the early 2000s and the 90s and stuff, magnets should be nowhere near your personal computer. Yep. Okay. Also, solid state is a totally different technology we use mostly now. But I still wouldn't want a big, strong magnet around my electric equipment. Okay.

Starting point is 00:28:36 That's it. I don't think, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about magnets. Let them be. If you want to ask the Science Couch, follow us on Twitter at SciShowTangents, where we will tweet out topics for upcoming episodes every week. Thank you to at SheSaidZed, at A-List Myers,

Starting point is 00:28:53 and everybody else who tweeted us your questions this week. Sam Buck, final scores. Sari and Sam tied with one. Hank and Stefan tied with two. Boo, boo. Boo, boo. Boo, boo. If you like the show and you want to help us out, it's really easy to do that. First, boo. Ooh, boo. Ooh, boo. If you like the show and you want to help us out, it's really easy to do that.

Starting point is 00:29:07 First, you can leave us a review wherever you listen. That helps us know what you like about the show. And we look to iTunes reviews for topic ideas for future episodes. So you can leave those there. Second, you can tweet out your favorite moment from the episode. And finally, if you want to show your love for SciShow Tangents, just tell people about us. SciShow Tangents is a co-production of Complexly and the wonderful team at WNYC Studios. Just tell people about us. without our patrons on Patreon. Thank you. And remember, the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted. But one more thing.

Starting point is 00:30:03 Fecal incontinence happens where patients can't control some part of their anus and flow of poop anymore. Yeah, that's one of the main things I want to avoid in my life. Well, so one solution if this happens to you is a magnetic anal sphincter with magnetic titanium beads on a titanium string. It's implanted in myself? Yes, that keep the opening closed unless you push poop through it. The procedure, according to this, only takes about 45 minutes and one overnight hospital stay. So very minimally invasive surgery.

Starting point is 00:30:36 That's awesome. Yeah, apparently it's just as good as... Pooping. Pooping? Yeah, and there's something else, some other sphincter replacement. Can I get a different animal sphincter replacement can i get a can i get a different animal sphincter oh i want a pig butt cow butt no i want little poops is that how it works is that how i can get little poops i need a really tiny butthole you should

Starting point is 00:30:58 get a wombat butthole then yeah you know the square poop oh square poops okay no i want to i want to be like uh I want it to be like that attachment on the Play-Doh machine where you get a bunch of little spaghetti strings. And you're like, today I feel like stars. I want rigatoni today.

Starting point is 00:31:19 Oh no.

SciShow Tangents - Magnets

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