The Science of Singing, Sharks, Electricity, and Mars on Earth | FULL EPISODE | S4

0:03 I'm Miranda Cosgrove and this is Mission [music] Unstoppable.

0:07 Coming up, do re mi, so you want to know more about the science behind singing?

0:12 Can we work on a little tune together?

0:14 [music] Sure.

0:15 And I spill the STEM tea about the ocean's fiercest [music] predators.

0:19 Have you not been getting my daily shark facts emails?

0:22 Then is water the natural enemy of electricity?

0:26 Chemist Tamara has the answers.

0:27 Let's test it.

0:29 Plus, if you think this is Mars, you're only [music] 85 million miles off.

0:34 Are we fishing for something?

0:35 What lies beneath the soil [music] in this California landscape?

0:39 Get ready to meet the scientists, inventors,

0:42 and heroes who help make our world a better place.

0:46 The future is here.

0:48 The mission unstoppable.

0:54 So why do some voices [music] sound like this and other voices like this?

0:59 And how come New Yorkers sound [music] like, "Hey, I'm walking here.

1:03 Pizza pie.

1:05 Go Yankees." I don't know.

1:08 But I bet our next [music] guest can answer at least one of those questions.

1:14 STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM Woo, something is not right.

1:21 [music] How do those singers do it?

1:23 I wonder if there's some science that could help.

1:26 On the field, court,

1:28 [music]

1:27 or rink, an athlete needs to learn how to train their muscles for the big game.

1:32 Same goes for a singer.

1:33 They need to [music] train their muscle

1:35 or their vocal cords for their performance.

1:38 To find out more about how singers [music] get in peak performance,

1:41 I'm talking to Anna Flavia Zuin,

1:44 associate music professor at NYU, who is a vocologist,

1:48 someone who studies [music] the science behind the voice.

1:51 I started playing piano when I was eight and I actually got

1:54 into voice science because I decided to go to a doctor and ask,

1:58 "How does a voice work?" Because I saw a lot of voice teachers that were

2:01 giving a lot of information and in my head it didn't make a lot of sense.

2:05 So I asked, "How does it work?

2:06 How does it function?" And there's a lot of misconception about the voice.

2:10 So I wanted [music] to understand more to help singers that were

2:14 not really capable of fully comprehending [music] that they are the instrument.

2:19 And that instrument is a singer's vocal folds or vocal cords.

2:23 These are two bands of smooth tissue [music] found in the voice box.

2:27 As air leaves the lungs and passes through the larynx,

2:30 the vocal cords vibrate, which produces the sound of your voice.

2:34 And as a vocologist, Dr.

2:35 Zuin [music] specializes in knowing how

2:37 to best develop and protect a singer's instrument.

2:40 What do you get to do in your day-to-day job?

2:42 I got to work with so many talented singers [music] and part of what I do

2:47 is help them strategize how to maintain their voices

2:50 while they're performing [music] in shows and productions.

2:53 So what research are you working on right now?

2:55 So I'm working on a study that has [music]

2:57 to do with calculating the vocal dose of a Broadway singer,

3:00 meaning how much are they singing in a particular

3:03 show and to figure out how much is too much.

3:06 Anna uses a dosimeter to monitor how a singer

3:08 uses their voice over a [music] certain period of time.

3:11 It consists of a transducer,

3:13 which is a contact microphone or accelerometer, and a digital recorder.

3:18 After the dosimeter is calibrated [music] to the singer's voice, Ah.

3:23 Ah.

3:25 Two.

3:27 Ah.

3:28 Ah.

3:30 And third time's [music] the charm.

3:32 Ah.

3:33 Ah.

3:34 Well done.

3:37 [laughter]

3:37 The singer wears the dosimeter [music] for a period of time

3:40 and data is collected on how a singer uses their voice.

3:43 Anna can then determine what type of athletic training a singer needs.

3:46 [music] So when training a singer, I try to work on goals.

3:52 There are an array of exercises that we

3:54 do including lip bubbles and lip trills and working

3:58 with a straw in your mouth [music]

4:00 and coming up with more articulation from the tongue,

4:02 releasing tension from the neck,

4:04 and [music] all sorts of things that are part of this coordination

4:09 of an entire system that allows the vocal

4:11 folds to vibrate more freely and easily.

4:14 It really bothers me when people say that somebody got

4:16 a voice injury because [music] they're bad at vocal technique.

4:21 That is simply not true and we are trying to work

4:23 very hard [music] to try and understand a little bit more

4:26 how things happen and that we can equip more singers

4:30 to be capable of taking care of the longevity of their careers.

4:34 Thank you so much, Anna,

4:35 for teaching me that there's so much biology and physiology behind singing.

4:39 I wouldn't have known that there was so much science behind the voice.

4:43 You're more than welcome.

4:44 Thank you for the opportunity to share with you.

4:46 Do you have a request before I go?

4:48 Can we work on a little tune together?

4:51 Sure.

4:52 Um, shall I give you a key?

4:54 Yes, let's do it.

4:55 How about here?

4:59 [music]

4:59 STEM STEM [singing] STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM [music] STEM STEM STEM

5:04 STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM

5:07 [singing] STEM STEM STEM Mission Unstoppable [music] [laughter]

5:21 Did you know that sharks don't have bones?

5:23 How about the fact that sharks have a sixth sense?

5:26 No?

5:27 Have you not been getting my daily shark facts emails?

5:30 Check your spam.

5:31 Actually, [music] there's no time for that.

5:33 I'll just do it now.

5:34 I hope you're thirsty for knowledge cuz I'm here to spill the STEM tea.

5:46 The Greenland shark can live for hundreds of years,

5:49 250 to 500 years to be exact.

5:52 That's a lot of years.

5:54 So how do they live so long and how can I get in on it?

5:58 One theory is that Greenland sharks have a super [music] slow metabolism,

6:01 which causes them to grow at a really slow rate, less than 1 cm a year,

6:06 and allows them to go for long periods of time without food.

6:09 Its [music] flesh also contains the toxic substance trimethylamine,

6:14 which if ingested [music] can make you really sick.

6:17 So that really helps with the whole getting eaten thing.

6:20 No wonder sharks have been around for almost half a billion years.

6:23 No, really.

6:24 They're older than trees.

6:26 And you can't be around that long if

6:28 you don't have [music] super teeth like sharks do.

6:30 On average, sharks have between 50 and 300 teeth in their mouth

6:34 at a time that they grow [music] throughout their lives.

6:37 A new set of teeth are always growing inside the shark's jaws,

6:40 rotating like a built-in conveyor belt.

6:42 Sharks go through a mind-blowing 25,000 [music] to 35,000 teeth in a lifetime.

6:49 But how do sharks take care of those teeth?

6:51 Do they have little fish dentists?

6:53 Not exactly.

6:54 Some sharks' teeth are coated in an acid-resistant enamel

6:57 that makes cavities virtually impossible for them to get.

7:00 That's probably for the best.

7:02 Can't imagine a hammerhead in a dentist's chair.

7:05 So what exactly do they eat with those cavity-free teeth?

7:08 It can range from [music] the diet of fish eggs,

7:10 krill, crab larva to fish, seals, whales, and even other sharks.

7:16 Sharks don't just eat in the sunlight zone.

7:18 Sharks also eat and live in the deep ocean.

7:21 So what types of sharks can you find down there?

7:24 This is where things get spooky.

7:26 Down in [music] the dark depths of the ocean,

7:28 you can find goblin sharks whose mouths are filled with jagged

7:33 teeth literally coming out of their heads to eat their prey.

7:36 Oh, and the cookiecutter shark.

7:39 But don't be fooled.

7:40 They don't look like little cookies that swim around.

7:43 Their name is far more sinister.

7:45 These sharks get their name from the round bite left behind on their prey,

7:50 which yep, you got it.

7:52 It looks like a round cookie.

7:54 I love cookies, but not that much.

7:57 There are more than a thousand [music] species

7:58 of sharks and rays with new species discovered every year.

8:02 So there's so much more we can learn from them.

8:04 But the number of sharks found in the [music]

8:06 open oceans has plunged by 71% over half a century.

8:10 What can we do to help them?

8:11 According to studies, the best way to help is to not overfish.

8:15 We're a lot more dangerous to sharks [music] than they are to us.

8:18 So we should help save them because I'm still holding out

8:21 hope that they'll find a shark and name it after me.

8:24 Preferably not one [music] that looks like a goblin shark though.

8:27 I want a cute one.

8:31 [music] Why is water so good for fish, yet so bad for phones?

8:37 We can't ask the fish [music]

8:39 and my phone and I aren't really on speaking terms.

8:41 She knows what she did.

8:43 So we'll have to get our answers from chemist Tamara Yuwing.

8:48 We've all been there, [music] falling in the pool,

8:50 texting in the tub, and losing your grip.

8:52 You drop your phone in the water and you lose everything you love.

8:55 You did back it up to the cloud, right?

8:58 And we all know water is bad for electronics, but is it?

9:06 My name is Tamara.

9:07 I'm a chemist and today I'm going to show

9:09 you the science of what makes this possible.

9:16 We'll start with this little bot,

9:18 our electronic device and current sacrifice to science.

9:21 It lights up, blinks, it has exposed wires, it even moves.

9:28 [music] Nothing is less waterproof than this.

9:29 When I drop this in water, common sense it'll stop working, right?

9:33 Well, let's test it.

9:35 In front of me I have two bowls of water.

9:37 One is regular old tap water and the other

9:39 one is filled with distilled or purified water.

9:42 Let's start with the tap.

9:44 Bot is on.

9:48 Slowly giving up.

9:50 RIP to this little bot.

9:52 You served science well.

9:57 [bell] But when we add a bot distilled water, look at her go.

10:00 Unfazed, untroubled, in charge, or maintaining charge.

10:05 So, why does this happen?

10:07 Is all water not created equal?

10:09 It turns out that it's not the water

10:11 itself that [music] conducts electricity and ruins electronics.

10:14 Pure H2O is actually a pretty good insulator,

10:17 meaning that it doesn't really conduct electricity.

10:19 It's the ions and impurities in the water that allow

10:22 for electrons to move and for electricity to be conducted.

10:26 Compounds like sodium and magnesium chlorides,

10:29 even acid [music] and bases in solution,

10:30 fall under a category of what we call electrolytes.

10:33 These are charged ions that can allow electricity to sort of jump around.

10:38 When we turn on our devices,

10:40 we allow electrons to flow through the internal circuits,

10:43 which is how, in the case of our bot here, we see the lights flashing.

10:47 But, when we introduce electrolytes, the electrons tend to go to places they're

10:51 not supposed to, like the ions in solution,

10:53 causing short circuits and the bot to no longer work.

10:56 Let me show you.

10:57 This is a multimeter.

10:59 It's a device that measures electricity.

11:01 And when we put it in distilled water,

11:02 you'll see that we don't get any reading,

11:04 because electricity is not being conducted.

11:07 But, when I put it in the tap water, you actually get a fluctuating reading.

11:11 Distilling water removes the ions from the liquid

11:14 and therefore removes the ability for it to conduct electricity.

11:17 When I put the probes back in the distilled water and stick my hand in there,

11:22 the ions from my hand are actually making the water more conductive.

11:25 [music] And that's because the ions

11:27 on my hands are getting dissolved in the water.

11:29 Throughout the day, our hands do collect salt and other particles,

11:32 but when we rinse them in distilled water,

11:34 that's what's making it more conductive.

11:36 Now, this doesn't mean that the tap water is dirty,

11:38 just that the tap water hasn't had any ions or trace minerals removed from it.

11:42 In fact, our bodies really need micro amounts

11:45 of the ions that exist in the tap water,

11:47 so it's good that there are some in there.

11:49 So, next time you're going to lose your grip on your phone over some water,

11:53 try to be over some distilled water.

11:55 It's an expensive bath, but it might be worth it.

11:57 That's all for me.

11:58 See you next time.

12:03 What's this next [music] guest up to?

12:05 I hope something good, or I'm going to be embarrassed.

12:08 Our record is flawless up till now.

12:11 Let's find out.

12:13 This landscape might look like a moonscape,

12:16 but it's really a huge quarry in Southern

12:18 California filled with a lot of potential.

12:21 Up ahead is Allison Everhardt.

12:23 She's a geologist and environmental manager for CalPortland,

12:27 a construction materials company.

12:29 I was the kid that was always playing with different rocks and minerals.

12:33 I actually had a diary that had

12:35 the chemical compositions of a bunch of different minerals.

12:39 Now, Allison [music] gets to oversee mining operations from start to finish.

12:44 Hi, Allison.

12:45 Hi, Marina.

12:46 Nice to meet you.

12:47 Nice to meet you.

12:48 Cool.

12:48 What are you doing?

12:49 I'm marking this hole to be drilled.

12:51 Oh, with that thing?

12:53 Yep.

12:54 Oh, amazing, but like what for?

12:56 So, today we are going to be blasting for limestone.

12:59 Oh, wow.

13:00 Is it all that surrounds us here?

13:03 Yes, this whole quarry is full of it.

13:05 This looks amazing, but why do we even need limestone?

13:09 Limestone is [music] used to make cement,

13:11 which is the main ingredient in concrete.

13:13 Uh-huh.

13:13 And concrete is the second most used material.

13:17 So, we're going to drill the hole,

13:18 and then after that, we can go down and load the ANFO in the hole,

13:22 which is ammonium nitrate and fuel oil.

13:24 Oh, man, this sounds so cool.

13:27 If you're ready, I'm ready to rock.

13:30 Let's roll.

13:34 There's a lot of science behind a mining explosion.

13:38 First, the blast pattern is mapped out by a computer.

13:40 It also determines the size of the holes a giant drill

13:44 makes for the explosives [music] and how much rock will be displaced.

13:48 Now, what?

13:48 Now, we're going to prime the holes.

13:50 So, we're going to take this blasting cap,

13:53 [music] and there is a primer right here on the end.

13:55 Are we fishing for something?

13:57 No, actually, we're going to make [music] this thing explode.

14:01 Okay, great.

14:03 Yes.

14:02 I'm ready.

14:02 I'm excited.

14:04 After Allison feeds the primer into the booster,

14:07 I help lower it into a hole 42 ft deep.

14:10 Oh my gosh, fire in the hole in later, hopefully.

14:14 Yes.

14:15 This cord is going to carry the electric charge

14:17 that will um spark the booster and [music] explode the ANFO.

14:22 Great.

14:22 Going to take this rock and wrap it around.

14:26 Looks safe.

14:27 Looks stable.

14:28 Put it there.

14:30 Dunzo?

14:31 Yes.

14:32 The next step is a crucial one.

14:36 [music] Allison bobs a weighted tape measuring 15 ft into the hole,

14:39 while I guide a snorkel from a bulk truck

14:41 as it dumps the ANFO explosive up to the measured depth.

14:45 That's it.

14:46 I did it.

14:47 Ah, that was the most important part, right?

14:51 Yes.

14:51 It's almost big blast time.

14:53 A Bobcat comes through to fill the hole

14:55 with rocks as we head off to a safe distance.

14:59 So, do you want me to be a part of this, or is that like dangerous?

15:02 I'm going to need your help for safety reasons.

15:04 Okay, cool.

15:05 So, as I let off the detonator, Mhm.

15:07 I am going to have you talk into this radio.

15:11 Yeah.

15:11 You're going to be in charge of counting down the 5 [music] 4 3 2 1,

15:14 and then your loudest fire in the hole.

15:16 You ready?

15:17 part.

15:17 Yes.

15:19 5 4 3 2 1 Fire IN THE HOLE!

15:29 WHOA!

15:30 OH, that's so cool!

15:32 Whoa, you can totally feel it on the ground.

15:34 That's crazy.

15:36 Feels [music] like an earthquake.

15:38 That's wild.

15:39 Oh, absolutely.

15:40 Wow.

15:41 That's what 12,000 lb of explosives will do.

15:44 Are you guys hiring?

15:45 Talk to me after [music] this.

15:48 After the all clear, I learn how to test a rock to confirm [music] if it is

15:52 in fact limestone by dropping a tiny amount of hydrochloric acid on it.

15:57 After putting on some safety gloves, of course.

15:59 Go ahead and drip it right here.

16:03 I'm scared.

16:05 So, how will I know this is limestone?

16:07 What should happen?

16:08 It will fizz very [music] violently.

16:11 Okay.

16:11 Whoo, very violently.

16:12 Nice.

16:12 All right, here we go.

16:15 Ooh, it is happening.

16:17 Wow.

16:18 We've struck limestone.

16:20 Yes.

16:21 Oh, man.

16:21 It's not science without some fizz.

16:23 After grabbing some sample rocks, we head to the lab.

16:27 Oh, wow, cool.

16:30 This is the lab?

16:31 Yes, this is our last step today, where my job ends and the chemist job begins.

16:35 Oh, wow.

16:36 So, what happens to these?

16:37 [music] So, now they are going to analyze

16:40 the chemical composition of these rocks for quality control purposes.

16:44 Today's been so awesome.

16:46 The explosion was amazing,

16:48 and there's so much science involved today that I had no idea about.

16:52 I'm not really going to take anything I learned today for granted.

16:57 Thank you so much.

16:58 Of course.

17:06 Welcome back.

17:07 Before we go, we have one [music] last thing.

17:10 My advice for the youth is truly follow your passion

17:13 and listen to the questions that are in your head.

17:16 I never thought that I was going to have

17:17 a path that led me to where I'm at today,

17:20 and probably I wouldn't have gotten here if it wasn't

17:23 for asking the questions that my brain was prompting me to.

17:26 That curiosity really can take you [music]

17:29 to a direction that unfolds your destiny,

17:31 and however and whatever environment that may be, in whatever field that may be.

17:35 So, follow that path and trust [music] that what you bring to the world,

17:39 only you can bring, and nobody else.

17:42 One piece of advice I have for the younger

17:43 generation wanting to get into STEM careers,

17:46 once you find your passion, chase it fearlessly, regardless of what others say.

17:51 As I was growing up, many people doubted me.

17:53 They said I would have to act or look

17:55 a certain way to be successful in a STEM career, and I told them differently.

17:59 I like to have my nails done, do my makeup and my hair,

18:02 and I still come to work every day and get the job done.

18:06 That's it for Mission Unstoppable.

18:09 Tune in next time when we try to use

18:11 science [music] to get me to dunk a basketball,

18:13 and it doesn't even work a little.

18:15 Bye.

19:06 If you're watching this, you must have really liked the video.

19:09 Make sure you follow and subscribe,

19:10 [music] and check out these other videos that are even better.

19:13 No, really.

19:15 I've seen this one over a hundred [music] times.