This Egg Leather is About Dinosaurs

0:00 I was reading about dinosaur bones and now I've made

0:02 leather out of eggshells and this rabbit hole gets very weird,

0:04 but I promise I will bring it all together at the end.

0:07 And and then there's the moldy fish tank with a bone in it.

0:10 I was reading some papers that scientists

0:11 have been finding collagen in dinosaur bones.

0:14 And this is very surprising because collagen is a protein and the peptide

0:18 bonds that hold together the protein typically

0:20 have a halflife of about 500 years.

0:22 But dinosaur bones are millions of years old.

0:25 So all these papers got me thinking about whether

0:27 or not you could stabilize collagen for millions of years.

0:29 And then I started wondering if I could stabilize collagen.

0:31 And that is how I found myself dumping a bunch

0:34 of collagen supplements into a bowl and thinking about cross-linking them.

0:37 But the problem with collagen supplements is that they really

0:40 often are not fulllength collagen and they're also kind of expensive.

0:43 But do you know where they get that collagen?

0:47 Eggshells or fishkins.

0:48 But that is for another video.

0:50 So that is how I found myself blowing the insides out of a bunch of eggs.

0:54 Blowing out the insides is an art technique.

0:56 Dissolving the hard outer shell layer in vinegar so

0:59 that I'm left with just the membranes is a me technique.

1:02 But I am left with thin sheets of collagen.

1:04 Also, I hate eggs.

1:05 And one of the most common ways

1:07 to stabilize collagen is by making it into leather.

1:09 Because that is really what leather is,

1:12 is it is just stabilized sheets of collagen.

1:14 It's just normally animal skin and hides, not eggshells.

1:17 Now, I hadn't made leather before,

1:20 so I bought this very generic high tanning formula on the internet.

1:23 I'm not actually 100% sure what this stuff is.

1:25 The bottle says how many bear and deer hides it can tan,

1:28 but it does not specify how many eggs it can tan.

1:31 Is it because no one has ever done this before?

1:33 I don't know who would ever do this other than me.

1:36 And that kind of worked, but dinosaur collagen definitely was not stabilized

1:40 with like an orange bottle of goo.

1:42 So, I wanted to try some other DIY methods.

1:44 So, how about tanning with metals?

1:46 Now, chrome tanning is super common,

1:47 but the internet made it seem really scary and dangerous.

1:50 So, instead, I decided to try alum tanning.

1:53 And really, what can't alum do?

1:55 It can help keep pickles crisp.

1:57 It can purify water via fauculation.

1:59 And it can apparently tan leather if I mix them up into a gloopy

2:02 paste with some baking soda and then

2:04 sort of shove my eggshell membranes into it.

2:06 Checking in on it a few days later.

2:08 It definitely did something, but it did not smell good.

2:10 I washed it in borax to neutralize the solution and then checked back

2:13 in on it again and it kind of folded up on itself in a weird thing,

2:17 but you know, it was a stable piece of leather that wasn't just disintegrating.

2:20 Look, it's not the most exciting,

2:21 but like this has been sitting out in my studio for months now, and it's fine.

2:27 Can you see it?

2:29 It's not disintegrating, so that's good.

2:31 The problem is that it just didn't look like leather, right?

2:34 Imagine leather in your head.

2:35 It does not look like my little alum egg.

2:38 We got bark in the mail.

2:40 Bark tanning feels like how you're supposed to make leather, you know?

2:43 I steeped oak bark.

2:44 I gently simmered it to make a tea, and then I let my membrane sit in it.

2:49 It feels very woodsy.

2:51 Probably because it's made of trees.

2:53 That's probably why it felt woodsy.

2:54 And because this is a video about dinosaurs while these were soaking,

2:57 I actually went to go look up a diagram of how tanning works.

3:01 And I I actually think this diagram helped me get it.

3:04 So this is the peptide chain backbone.

3:06 And these are the tannin molecules.

3:08 They are reacting with the carboxyl groups

3:11 of the peptide bonds via hydrogen bonds.

3:13 And they're sort of holding them together a little

3:16 bit like the suspension cables on a bridge.

3:18 This is also similar to how alum and other

3:20 metal salts stabilize collagen in those kinds of tanning.

3:22 So that's what's happening in tanning.

3:23 And while it's definitely not the same

3:25 thing that's happening in the dinosaur bones,

3:27 it might be sort of related to stabilizing the collagen molecularly.

3:32 It's maybe somewhat closely related.

3:33 Now, these membranes looked so beautiful.

3:35 They looked so much like leather.

3:37 But the problem was that when I did let them sit out,

3:40 the tanning solution was kind of astringent and it really pulled

3:42 a lot of the like oil and moisture out of them.

3:45 So they got a little crunchy.

3:46 So to get them to be nice and supple,

3:48 I have to put some of that hydration back in.

3:51 I did that first by soaking them in egg yolks.

3:53 And while that did feel very wast in this situation,

3:56 and it did make them feel nice and supple, the process was kind of disgusting.

4:01 Remember, I don't like eggs.

4:03 So I also bought some neatsfoot oil.

4:05 This is what you're actually supposed to use to soften,

4:08 lubricate, and moisturize leather.

4:09 So I rubbed that in.

4:11 And then these came out kind of truly beautiful to me.

4:15 Look at these.

4:16 And because this video is about dinosaurs,

4:19 I have this beautiful oak tanned egg leather that I will make something out of.

4:24 So, this 2024 paper talks about how collagen in dinosaur bones might

4:28 be stabilized in a way that keeps it around for millions of years.

4:31 This peptide bond right here is prone to being attacked by water

4:35 because this carbonial carbon really wants to bind with an oxygen.

4:38 But collagen backbones have a lot of twists in them,

4:41 which means that there's actually another oxygen hanging around nearby

4:44 with some lone pairs of electrons that they can share.

4:47 It's this one.

4:48 It can share some of its electron density

4:50 with that original carbon and prevent it from being hydrayed.

4:53 This could help it last for millions

4:55 of years rather than just being broken apart.

4:57 Now, look, the dinosaur collagen that scientists have

5:00 found was most likely not tanned like leather.

5:02 I'm not trying to suggest that.

5:04 I'm just saying that it was also stabilized at the molecular level.

5:08 And that's how I justified these two wildly

5:10 divergent science experiments being in the same video.

5:12 But what do you make with super thin egg tanned

5:15 leather that could potentially be around for millions of years?

5:24 This is egg project runway.

5:28 Huh?

5:28 This is like a geometry problem.

5:30 I'm making this too difficult.

5:31 I'm trying to make a a round thing flat just to make it round again.

5:35 Are we seeing the vision?

5:37 Oh, come on.

5:38 I mean, tell me that's not the cutest egg leather jacket you've ever seen.

5:42 Originally, there was a point where I thought I was going to make myself

5:46 a dress out of this, and then for a lot of reasons, that didn't happen.

5:50 Look, I am unreasonably proud of this.

5:54 It might simultaneously be the cutest and weirdest thing I've ever crafted.

5:58 I still haven't named it.

6:00 Needs a name.

6:00 Do you have a name suggestion for my tenn?

6:04 Now, these membranes are still very thin.

6:06 They're between 0.01 and 0.7 mm thick.

6:09 So even though this leather is tanned, it is oiled.

6:13 It is well cared for.

6:15 It's still super thin and so it's easy to tear.

6:18 This is much more of an art piece than it is a functional piece.

6:22 I actually don't know that I could make thinner leather.

6:28 But what about thicker?

6:30 It's an ostrich bone.

6:31 It's a dinosaur.

6:32 What if a dinosaur died right next to an oak tree and then bam,

6:37 dino collagen leather?

6:38 Can you see all the air bubbling out of this?

6:43 Could this preserve this bone for millions of years?

6:46 I will literally never find out because I'm not going to be around that long.

6:50 But I will check back in in a month.

6:53 Okay, real talk.

6:53 It's like that's not actually the test.

6:55 I got this piece of marrow bone at the pet store.

6:58 This is what we're actually going to test.

7:00 I'm I'm going to see if it actually preserves this.

7:03 And this doesn't go bad.

7:04 It's not a real dinosaur, but it was an easy to obtain and replicable sample.

7:08 We're just gonna scoot scoot that right in there.

7:14 Okay, we'll check back on this in a month.

7:20 God, it's so gross.

7:22 So, it's been about 5 weeks that these have been sitting in here.

7:27 I mean, it's kind of like a kombucha scobby.

7:29 Oh my god.

7:30 Did it tan?

7:31 No way.

7:32 No way.

7:32 Did it t Oh no, it's tearing.

7:34 But look at that.

7:36 It almost looks like leather.

7:37 But gosh, is it gross.

7:39 So, this is my marrow bone.

7:42 This is not tanning how I hoped it would.

7:46 It turned brown, but it's just gross.

7:49 I think I assumed the bone marrow would tan, but it did not really.

7:54 Oh, is this too gross for the internet?

7:57 Can I go back to my adorable egg?

7:59 Where's my emotional support egg in a leather jacket?

8:02 Actually, final thoughts on that bone purse.

8:05 Oak tanning does apparently take weeks if you're tanning like a sheet of skin,

8:09 and so I do anticipate that's going to take longer.

8:12 So, I will continue to keep that from getting

8:15 too gross and refilling it with oak tea.

8:18 I guess just strangest experiment I've done in a long time.

8:21 But after all of that, I actually feel pretty good about

8:24 this oak tanned leather in all of its different states and forms.

8:29 I figured out how to make oak tanned leather in different colors,

8:34 in different sort of sizes and shapes and softnesses,

8:38 and I finally figured out how to make it in a method

8:42 that allowed me to create the tiniest little leather jacket for an egg.

8:47 I am open to suggestions for other things to make out of this.

8:50 I think I learned enough through this process that I could make bigger batches.

8:54 I don't think that this is going to be a structural leather.

8:57 I think this is something that will be much more art forward.

9:00 I love a good science craft project.

9:02 And I'm sure there are some other talented science crafters

9:05 out there who can take this even farther than I could.

9:08 My tiny little aviator egg will always be my favorite, though.

9:11 I love this kind of rabbit hole that we were talking about dinosaur

9:14 bones and then suddenly I was making a leather jacket for an egg.

9:17 This is what science is all about for me is asking questions.

9:19 And I got to ask some real weird ones here.

9:22 Happy Earth Month.

9:22 By the way, if you want to see

9:24 another video about what to do with waste products,

9:25 you can check out PBS North Carolina's new video

9:29 on Charlotte's Crush Truck over on their YouTube channel.