SciShow Tangents - Money

Episode Date: January 7, 2020

Listening to Tangents is like making an investment with your brain. And the dividend? Knowledge. Invest today, won't you?Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Stefan- @itsmestefanchin Ceri- @ceriley Sam- @slamschultz Hank- @hankgreenIf you want to learn more about any of our main topics, check out this episode's page at SciShowTangents.org![Truth or Fail]Supernoteshttps://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/magazine/23counterfeit.htmlhttps://www.uscurrency.gov/historyCounterfeit $1 billshttps://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/finding-mr-880-case-1-counterfeit-article-1.109016https://www.nysun.com/on-the-town/little-old-moneymaker/9282/pictures: https://thehustle.co/worst-counterfeiter-in-history-mr-880/https://www.secretservice.gov/about/history/events/Costume jewelry scamhttps://books.google.com/books?id=ELgiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85https://o.canada.com/technology/nigerian-email-scams-royally-obvious-for-good-reason-study-says-3[Fact Off]Xerox machine anti-counterfeitingYap stone moneyhttps://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/sea2.12154?referrer_access_token=PoYDhuZQ2I3K6rW0TZp1r04keas67K9QMdWULTWMo8PSbwnv52oah6avTUlc6Ncg2Fsq-XbfQibDgqrz1_Z5GxRdKzRhmEzfI08Tv5kPNn5935yywdPadRZC0bxzVlqKx6dktyKOLwawQhLnG1PcSg%3D%3Dhttps://www.sciencealert.com/the-original-bitcoin-still-exists-as-giant-stone-money-on-a-tiny-pacific-islandhttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0012186[Ask the Science Couch]Plastic vs. paper billshttps://www.banknoteworld.com/blog/the-pros-and-cons-of-polymer-banknotes/https://www.euronews.com/2018/05/16/polymer-vs-paper-banknotes-which-one-is-better-for-environment-https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2019/08/21/englands-new-currency-is-harming-the-climate-report/#543d2d76524fhttps://www.moneyboat.co.uk/blog/paper-vs-polymer/https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/banknotes/polymer/lca-of-paper-and-polymer-bank-notes.pdf?la=en&hash=7D3845CE11AD21F300CFA023F8FCF4AA37FB73CCComposting or washing U.S. moneyhttps://www.cnet.com/news/cash-to-trash-watch-millions-of-dollars-turn-into-compost/https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2014/acs-presspac-january-8-2014/laundering-money-literally-could-save-billions-of-dollars.html[Butt One More Thing]Penny swallowinghttps://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-12-01-9812010102-story.htmlhttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/12/981201033841.htm

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 Stefan Jahn. Hello. What's your tagline? Cold mozzarella sticks. We're also joined by Sam Schultz. What's your tagline, Sam?

Happy New Year. Sari Reilly has joined me as well. What's your tagline, Sari? Salty beans. Salty beans. Oh, salty beans. And my tagline is E Pluribus Langzyne. Wow.

Oh, no. We ran out of taglines. We really hit bottom here. Every week here on SciShow Tangents, we get together to try to one-up, amaze, and delight each other with science facts about this universe of ours. We're playing for glory, and we're also keeping score and awarding Sam bucks from week to week. We do everything we can to stay on topic, but if we go on a tangent that the rest of the team deems unworthy, you'll be forced to give up one of your Sam bucks. So tangent with care. And now,

as always, we introduce this week's topic with the traditional science poem, This Week From Me. If you would like to receive compensation in exchange for your employment situation, there's just one system you should use, and it's not thanks or shoes or love or booze. A system of exchange that may seem a little strange, though it has no intrinsic value under no circumstances shall you question what it's worth on every corner of the earth. If you want to get the things you need, you're going to need currency. Put it in the bank or in your under-mattress stash, your transferable, portable, lovable cash. That was kind of foreboding in a way, I thought.

Keep up the good work. That was obvious. So the topic of today's podcast is money, which is not traditionally science, but there's a lot of science involved in money. And I guess Sari can try to define money, but like that's not our expertise here. No, it's like especially not my expertise. I would consider myself on the low level of financial literacy. So money, like your poem said, it's a thing that we agree has value and we use it to make transactions with one another.

It like has value, can be used to repay debt. So sometimes like you can generate debt by agreeing to give a currency or money in the future and you can save it so that you can have more purchasing power later on. Sometimes it's physical. Sometimes it's Bitcoin now. Yeah. Sometimes it's just a number. Most of the time it's just numbers in a computer somewhere.

But all of those numbers in a computer somewhere, like in the bank, is there a physical money that that corresponds to? There is not a physical money that that corresponds to. There's not? There used to be. That was like the gold standard days. Oh, I thought even beyond the gold standard, we still had at least a dollar for every dollar. They only have to keep 10 cents for every dollar they actually have.

We have a wonderful system. I believe it's called fractional reserve banking. Yes, that's correct. Whoa. Stefan, what's money? It's like if you put $10 in the bank, the bank can then give out like $100 or something like that. And then those people who get that money can put that money back into the bank. And then now that the bank has that extra $90, now they can give out an additional $900. Oh, that seems like it would lead to a big mess eventually.

It's okay so far? It's okay so far. Okay. That's why runs on banks are bad. Like it's a wonderful life. Right. Because they don't have all the money. There's nothing there. That movie the vault is empty but that's the thing that now you don't need the

money to spend the money so it's not like you run to the bank to get your money out it's worth the exact same amount if you buy it with a credit card or buy it with a dollar right there's still sometimes runaway inflation in places but running to the bank does not solve the problem. The hope is that we produce the same amount of dollars as there is value in the economy. So in a way, if you create new value, which, you know, we maybe do by having a podcast, and then the government has to basically either just let that new new value exist and that sort of makes all money worth more than or it has to create more money to match with the amount of value that exists so theoretically those are matched yeah those are the same other like if they're and when they're not matched you get inflation or you get deflation it's not the fed does that is what the fed means

the federal reserve yes it attempts to talk about monetary policy on a science podcast is going to be fraught. No, I like it. Don't take any of this as gospel here. But yes, the idea is that they are helping banks lend out money. They're basically giving banks money to lend out, and they vary the amount of interest that the banks have to pay. Basically, right now, they give it away for free and have been for a long time. Is that bad or good? Well, it's been good for the economy.

OK. But it does give us nothing to do if the economy goes bad again. OK. They talk about this on NPR every morning, and I don't know what they're talking about. They talk about it for a long time, too. They do. It's important, but it's confusing. And actually, we're not even that sure how important it is.

It's not like you can run the experiment again. Can you not even do the experiment like virtually because humans make so many decisions? Yeah, no, it turns out we're completely irrational. And the idea like economics used to be like, we're going to be a hard science. And they were like, never mind. People don't make hard decisions. My mom wanted me to be an economist. Damn.

I like that you would either have been like the best science communicator or the worst economist. You have two options. I like how Sari couldn't get through that without laughing. Hopefully we won't be talking about monetary policy for any of the rest of it. My hope is that we're going to be talking about how we use science

to make money, but we'll see what happens. Wait, is there an etymology of the word money? There is. I did two etymologies for this episode because I found a fun one. So money comes from M-O-N-I-E, presumably pronounced money also. From the old French money. M-O-N-O-I-E. From Latin moneta, which is from the title that was applied to the Roman goddess Juno because her temple was where money was created or perhaps precious metal was

stored in ancient Rome. That was a good one. Yeah. And then the other good one that I found a salary. It's from the old French salaire, which is wages or pay. But it's from the Latin salarium, which is an allowance because it was originally salt money. So they gave soldiers either money for salt or like chunk of salt. Presumably you could trade your salt for a thing. For non-salt. Or were you just like putting it on your fish and now. No, salt was good. Salt was valuable.

Everybody wanted salt. But you were putting a little bit on your fish, weren't you? Yeah, I put a little bit on the fish. Yeah, you just lick it. Lick the salt. Lick the fish. Lick the salt. Lick the salt. Yeah, exactly. And now it's time for Truth or Fail. One of our panelists has brought three science

facts for our education and enjoyment, but only one of those facts is real. And the other panelists have to figure out either by deduction or wild guess which is the true fact. And this week, Sari is going to be getting the sandbox if we get it wrong. Sari, what do we got? Any monetary policy in here? Nope. I'm a Greens fan. So basically, since there has been money or things with monetary value, there have been counterfeit versions of that money.

So which of these is true? Number one, starting in the 1950s, a type of counterfeit U.S. money called the supernote was widespread. It was named for being a very accurate reproduction of $50 bills. This led to the first introduction of UV-sensitive thread in currency as an anti-counterfeit measure inspired by the glowing kryptonite from the superman comics number two one of the longest counterfeit investigations was a 10-year search for mr 880 who was nicknamed after their case file number some of the forgeries were pretty sloppy but because mr 880 only printed one dollar bills they thwarted some tried and true investigation methods. Or, number three, one of the earliest send-me-money email scams was letters in the 1800s

that promised jewels from the hidden casket of a marquee in exchange for a small loan for travel expenses. Those that fell for the scam were mailed costume jewelry made from colored glass, which only some discerning rich folks identified as counterfeit. Why did they send them the thing? Why didn't they just not send them the thing? Because then they could be like, well, I need more travel money.

I found a different marquee. Maybe. So in the 1950s, we had UV-sensitive threat inspired by Superman kryptonite. Or number two, we had a counterfeit investigation for Mr. 880, who made $1 bills but not very well. Or number three, we had an early send me money scam where you had to go investigate the hidden casket of a marquee. That first one sounds fake to me because the super note that she mentioned was a type of meme video that happened on YouTube like a few years ago. What is it?

Where you film yourself singing a note continuously and you had to go as long as possible without having a break in the tone. Early meme days. Yeah, you know. Why? Who knows? And then you had your whole community to do it and you saw how long all of you combined went. Did you do it? I don't know if I ever

competed in a super note. Not too late. It's not too late to go back in time and compete in the super note. It's 4,000 internet years too late. Bring it back on TikTok and everyone will think you're so innovative. Yeah, that'll be my whole TikTok. It's just

ahhhhhh ahhhhhh ahhhhhh So this is what I think. Kryptonite wasn't invented yet in the 50s. Kryptonite was introduced in the radio serial The Adventures of Superman in the story The Meteor from Krypton, broadcast in June 1943. Holy shit. It was early.

Okay, well, then I don't have any idea now. We have no idea. We have nothing. That's what we're learning here. What I know is that this is one of the earliest send me money email scams and i know that people were doing scams as early as they could so if there was a postal service somebody was figuring out how to be like send me a hundred dollars so that i can go to france and rob a marquee's grave yeah so i'm going with that when did mailing lists

become a thing because I feel when I imagine old mail I imagine you send a letter to your family or your wife who you left in Boston to go on the Oregon trailer whatever

and like a very specific example were people just like mass mailing because you need to mail random people if you're going to do this kind of scam

I guess you could mail your friends or you get a hold of somebody's address book or you get a hold of like a bank's address book or something I don't know also mailboxes where I don't know how the mail system evolved but like you can just put mail in it

you can just put mail in it that is right oh dang I thought you were going to say that that would be that it would be even earlier than that right there would be even earlier than that. Right. There would be one way before that. It said one of the earliest.

It didn't even say the earliest. But maybe like Hippocrates or something was like, oh shit, I got scammed. Yeah, likely, likely. I bet Hippocrates got scammed. I think just because of that, maybe it's not the earliest one. Mr. 880 is too specific a name, I think, to not be the real one. That's my guess. Oh.

Sorry, I couldn't think of a criminal name that cool. Yeah. I just like the one about the email scam. So I'm going to go with that one too. All right. We'll see how we did. How did we do? Mr. 880 was true.

Oh. I knew it. Sam, good guess. Good job. It's a very cool weird story it's the longest time according to the internet that i found that one person who was counterfeiting money evaded the secret service because the secret service was founded as part of the department of treasury secret service was counterfeit first and then they sort of were like, oh, you should guard the president, too. They didn't have enough to do or something.

But yes, a man named Edward Mueller, but his Austrian name was Emmerich Jutner, who lived in Manhattan. He was like a junk collector. In his old age, when he was in his mid-60s, he lived with his dog and didn't have enough money. Oh, for his dog? Yeah, for his dog or him so what he did was make an impression of a one dollar bill and they weren't very good george washington's eye is a little bit wonky and sort of up washington is spelled wrong that's pretty bad yeah what do you mean he made an impression i don't really know know. Okay. He drew it? As a boy, he had some carving skills like photo engraving

and then, so I think he like made an impression of the dollar bill to give the outline of what he should engrave and then probably like carved it out

or cast it himself and then did some like small illustration. Interesting. Made his own template just for one dollar bills. If you use high denominations, you're more likely

to get caught. It's definitely when I hand a 50 to somebody, they're like, okay. And they draw on it with a marker. You get a 20 these days, I feel like. Yeah, 20s get the marker a lot too. What's the marker do? I think it shows up

if you write on something that isn't the material that bills are made out of. I don't really know because I've never had them say, hey, wait a minute, the marker did the thing it's supposed to do. Apparently the pen contains an iodine solution that reacts with wood-based paper to create a black stain, and when it's applied to the fiber-based paper, there's no... Interesting.

Because the bill's some kind of linen, right? A dollar bill? Yeah, it's basically pants. Yeah, I have it in front of me. It's 75% cotton and 25% linen stock. And so he didn't even use that. He didn't use pants to make it. He used just paper from the corner store. So when this $1 bill was sent to the Secret Service, they were like, who the heck is this? Printing $1 bills so badly, this doesn't fit the profile of any other counterfeiters that we

usually chase down. And also, he spread out his spending of these one dollar bills across stores i think because he felt bad giving businesses counterfeit money and so he would just like use it to ride the subway one day or use it to get a cigar or use it to get some food for his dog nice guy and one dollar could get pretty far back then i had to see him yeah and by 1947 the secret service had collected more than $5,000 of his $1. And they only figured it out because his apartment caught fire for some reason. And so while he was staying with his daughter, the firemen were cleaning it out and they threw away some what they thought was just garbage. But then kids pulled it out of the dump and were like, this looks like money.

And then their parents brought it to the police and were like, we found this money in this dumpster. And so then he got arrested. Freaking kids. I would have got away with it too. They got him? Yeah, so they got him, but they only sentenced him to a year in jail, a fine of $1.

One actual dollar. One actual dollar. And he was released after four months to just live with his daughter for the rest of his life what happened to the dog oh the dog died in the fire oh my god i didn't realize there would be that i was like the dog's fine no it suffocated in the fire but it saved his life um it saved his life? I think so. I think it let him know that there was a fire and so he could escape

and go live with his daughter. So a super note is a real thing, but it's a very high quality counterfeit $100 bill made nowadays and we don't have a way of detecting them

really accurately. People are making super notes. Wait, what's the recipe? Well, a lot of work. Crime. Not my favorite. and then the scam thing is an early version of the nigerian prince email scam from what i can gather they just sent letters randomly to rich people with lines like sir you will doubtlessly be astonished to be receiving a letter from a

person unknown to you who is about to ask a favor from you. And then they go on and on to explain their circumstance. It usually involved gold instead of jewels and nothing to do with costume jewelry. They didn't mail anything. Oh. Of course they didn't mail anything. You don't want expenses. You just want the paper or the pen. Next up, we're going to take a short break

and then it'll be time for the Fact Off. Hello, we're back. Sari has two points. I've got one. Sam's got one. Stefan's got nothing. And now it is time for the fact-off, where two panelists have brought facts to present to the others in an attempt to blow our minds.

And Sari and I get to give our Sam buck to the fact that blows our mind the most. And competing against each other are Stefan and Sam. And to decide who's going to go first, here is your trivia question for the day. In 1943, the U.S. was badly in need of copper for ammunition, and the military turned to the mint for help. Rather than stopping the production of pennies, which would be the logical decision, the U.S. Mint issued pennies that instead of copper were made predominantly of what other metal? Stefan, you go first.

Aluminum? I was going to say aluminum. I don't know any others. I regret my choice. Not tin. Oh. I have to think of more metals? Yes.

Uh-oh. Ooh, lead. Nope. Nickel? No. Zinc. It's not an element, if that helps the non-science couch at all.

Brass? Is that a thing? Brass is not an element. That's good non-science couch at all brass is that a thing brass is not an element that's good okay what's one that like is like everything is made out of is it in this room

yeah steel steel that is really important too for the war time what did they make boats out of they made boats out of steel

they just had so much they just had extra you know just a little bit of steel going to the pennies. Yeah, but they make a lot of pennies. Well, Sam, do you want to go first? Oh, God. Yeah, okay. So, as Sari said, for as long as there's been currency, there have been

people trying to make copies of it. For instance, the Aztecs who used, is it cocoa beans or cacao beans? Or is it both? Cacao beans is a thing? Well, they used those as a form of currency and they had to be on the lookout for fake beans made out of mud. But as technology advances, more people have more access to more sophisticated means of reproduction,

and that means that currency has to also adapt. It can't just be recreated with mud anymore. With increasingly complicated security measures, some are basically invisible to the human eye, but some are hiding in plain sight. So in the early 2000s, color Xerox machines had just been invented, and a group of students at Cambridge were messing around

and decided to try to reproduce some money with it. So they put it in, and instead of printing out an image of the bill, it printed out a page of text saying that they were committing a crime. Whoa! But how did the machine know that they were committing the crime? Whoa. But how did the machine know that they were committing the crime? Interesting.

Yeah. This was like way before regular optical image recognition stuff. One of the students, Marcus Kuhn, set about trying to figure out what the heck was happening. And he found a pattern of five yellowish circles that appeared on British pounds of tons of different denominations and then discovered the same pattern on money from all over the world. Often the circles are hidden

in images or patterns in the money. Like on the pound note, he was looking at the circles where musical notes, like the butts of musical notes, whatever that is called. And on the $10 bill in the US, the zeros are the 10 zeros

behind Hamilton's head. Like the tens make up the patterns. So he did some testing and he concluded that the pattern of these dots, the way that they were set up, and the color of them was telling Xerox machines and even some cameras and software like Photoshop

not to let this be copied or opened in any kind of capacity. He discovered this in 2003 and he named it the Urian Constellation. And that name has stuck around because no official entity has ever acknowledged that this pattern exists. All the companies that are involved with it don't say anything about it.

But also other researchers have performed tests that make them conclude that that's not even what is stopping it from happening. Beyond that, since it seems like it's super illegal to even try to reproduce money, there are lots of different secret things built into home copiers and printers and computers that can stop you like there's these this article i was reading about some kind of new secret thing

integrated into bills that somehow can like ping people that you're trying to do stuff like your computer can be recorded if you try to open a dollar bill in Photoshop, like in Creative Cloud specifically, then you can get like a flag on your computer that you're up to no good. And also if you get as far as to print the fake money out, printers have a faint yellow micro dot pattern on them that's unique to every printer.

And there's a secret decoding method that people can use to figure out what printer printed the money and what time and what date it was all printed. So don't try to copy money because it's hard

and you'll go to jail. Yeah. See, it's hard work and crime. Yeah. What kind of constellation was it called? The Eurion constellation. E-U-R-I-O-N

because it was European Union Orion combined I think was what he was thinking. And nobody talks about it. And nobody talks about it. That's some Illuminati shit. Yeah. There's like one leaked paper from the Indian government that mentions it, but it doesn't really say anything about what it's for.

It just accidentally acknowledges that they exist. Are we going to get in trouble for this podcast? I don't think so. I think we'll be okay. Okay, Stefan, what do you got for us? So on the island of Yup in Micronesia, there's no limestone on this island, but they do have boats.

So they would go to the nearby island of Palau, which is about 250 miles away, and they could mine limestone there and ferry chunks of it back to their home island. And they carve these chunks into giant coins, basically, with a hole in the middle so that they could stick like a pole through and make it easier to lift. So the smaller coins could be like a couple inches wide, but the bigger ones could be up to like 10 or 12 feet wide and would weigh thousands of pounds. And this was all definitely happening for centuries before the 1700s. And

there's some evidence that it may have been happening as early as 500 CE but the value of these stones was not set the way that you would normally think. Like bigger is more valuable and there were no set denominations. It was all based on the story and history of the stone. The individual

stone. So if it was hard to get to the limestone deposit or it took a lot of work to mine it or they used more primitive tools right or more people died trying to get it back to the island or even if famous people had done the carving or owned the stone at some point all of that was factored into the value of these like giant coins i like the idea that like they're worth more if somebody died so you're just like on your expedition to get your limestone coin, and you're like, I'm going to need two of you guys to just jump off the boat.

It would be best if you disappeared. You don't have to die, but you can't go home. Yeah, exactly. Or they could go get their own limestone stone and then come back and be like, I got kicked off a boat, swam back to the island, got this limestone stone. Ooh, very hard. Extra hard. So much.

Yeah. I swam back to the island, got this limestone. Ooh, very hard. Extra hard. So much. Yeah. I swam back 250 miles. With a rock. Holy. And so the really wild thing about all of this is that none of it was written down. So they kept track of who owned all of these through oral history.

And a lot of the stones were so big that once they got to the island, they just put them in a place and then they stayed there. But if like I owned one and then I had a transaction, we would tell the village, OK, Hank owns this coin now. Right. And then they would like disseminate that information and then everyone would update their mental ledger of like who owns what coin and where that coin is located. Yes, it is very similar to Bitcoin. And they didn't use these for like groceries

and like small day-to-day transactions. It was like social transactions, like a wedding gift or like I accidentally burned down your house. Have one of these coins as recompense. But yeah, one of the reasons this is cool is because of how similar it is to Bitcoin. Just the basic rundown of Bitcoin

is that it's a completely digital currency and all the transactions happen peer to peer. So there's no like central bank that keeps track of everything. And if you buy something with Bitcoin, the transaction goes into like a pool and then Bitcoin miners are using their computers to solve hard math problems. And if they solve the problem, then their computer gets to like organize the transactions into a block and add that block to the public ledger of all the transactions that have ever happened. And so one of the big similarities is that the value of these is from the work that was put in to acquire them, which is different from how our currency works where the government just says, hey, here are the pieces of paper. government just says, hey, here are the pieces of paper. This one, you either had to put in a lot of physical work or you have your computer.

For Bitcoins, you just have your computer put in a lot of math work. And in both cases, too, there's a naturally limited supply. Bitcoin is hard-coded to have only 21 million Bitcoins total. And the stones were limited because they had to go and trade with the island of Palau to be allowed to mine there and then transport them back. So it was a very limited supply until Europeans showed up and then had

big boats and flooded the market. And we're both very good. You made it hard for us. Yeah, they were both very good. Are you ready, Sari? Three, two, one. Stefan! Whoa! What the heck? I was pretty sure I was going to go with you. But why didn't you?

Because it's like I love the cultural component. We don't get that kind of science that often on SciShow Tangents. We really don't. I love that. It's a soft science. Well, you're such a cultural component too. Yeah, and technology. I like it because it reminds me of the first dollar when someone starts a business.

We still have stories around money in ways. This dollar is kind of worth more than the other dollars. Yeah, to certain people. And now it's time to ask the science couch. We've got some listener questions for our couch of finely honed scientific minds. And this one's from at Liz Pothier. Are plastic bills, like in Canada and Australia, more environmentally friendly than paper bills in the U.S.? They're not paper bills, though, are they?

They're pants bills. They're pants bills. Correct. But still, the question stands. I mean, I guess it's really about how long they last to some extent. We talked about how bad linens were for the environment. We did talk about that. It's just with clothes

I feel like they're not good at being reused. Dollars are very good at being reused. 3-15 years is usually the lifetime of a dollar bill depending on how much oil gets on it. Like from us or pizza graffiti or things like that.

Wipe your mouth with it. It's a big waste product. In 2010, 5.95 billion dollars or notes. So like independent bills were destroyed. So it's like billions and billions of these things shredded every year. So a lot of waste gets generated with the linen bills. But this seems like another is fake Christmas tree or real Christmas tree better. Oh, great.

I feel this way about like every environmental question comes down to this. It's better to do the dishes in the dishwasher or by hand? And it's like, maybe. I'm like, well, then the dishwasher it is. So there are arguments that the plastic bills are more durable than paper. And according to some studies, they last 1.33 times longer than paper or linen ones. And so they overall achieve a lower global warming potential as far as like a waste product that ends up in landfill. Some reports have said that they're recyclable. So because it's plastic, a plastic polymer, it can be melted down and like turned into right more plastic objects whereas the paper stuff gets shredded and either just like

burned or tossed into a landfill but all of these studies like to put an asterisk on them like a payday loan company conducted one of them or thing or like funded of them. And so all this is, it seems like there's not a clear cut. This is better than that. But the European banks claim they switched over from paper to plastic because plastic is overall better for the environment. But really, shrug. Is money overall particularly bad for the environment? I can't imagine it is.

Credit card use is more more this is again like with an asterisk that this is money companies doing the study credit card use is more environmentally friendly than actually physically like manufacturing a product because you're just moving numbers around in a computer instead of like creating a thing that then needs to be destroyed later yeah so yeah i don't know big, which I guess is like the industry. Can't decide between plastic and paper bills. That's what they call it.

I mean, we're all really under the thumb of big money. If you want to ask the Science Couch your question, follow us on Twitter at SciShowTangents, where we will tweet out topics for upcoming episodes every week. Thank you to at NaomiW246, at Neru7,

and everybody else who tweeted us your questions this episode. Final Sandbuck scores. Sari with two, Stefan with two, and Sam and I tying for last with one. You're kind of owning. I hate being in last place. It makes me sick.

Which leaves it at Sari and Stefan tied for the lead with 17 total points. I have 15 and Sam has 13. 13 points. I'm a joke of a human being. It's the curse of the buck.

If you like this show and you want to help us out, super easy to do that. You can leave us a review wherever you listen. That helps us know what you like about the show. If you like this show and you want to help us out, super easy to do that. You can leave us a review wherever you listen. That helps us know what you like about the show. Also, we look to iTunes reviews for topic ideas for future episodes. Second, 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. Thank you for joining us. I've been Hank Green. I've been Sarah Riley. I've been Stefan Chin. And I've been Sam Schultz. SciShow Tangents is a co-production of Complexly and the wonderful team at WNYC Studios.

It's created by all of us and produced by Caitlin Hoffmeister and Sam Schultz, who edits a lot of these episodes along with Hiroko Matsushima. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti. Our sound design is by Joseph Tuna-Medish. Our social media organizer is Victoria Bongiorno. And we couldn't make any of this 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. If you or a kid or a dog swallow a penny that was minted after 1982, you might not poop it out because these pennies are mostly zinc. They pretty quickly erode in stomach acid and form compounds like zinc chloride, which can cause problems like stomach ulcers or kidney damage. which can cause problems like stomach ulcers or kidney damage. So if someone you know or you eat a penny and it doesn't come out and poop quickly or you have digestion pain, probably go to the ER or a vet.

Zinc's good for you sometimes, though, right? Certain zinc is good for you. Certain zinc is bad for you. Also just like high concentrations. So this is like dropping a chunk of metal into your stomach. Well, they should do slow-release pennies.