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Carbon Monoxide: Please Just Listen Anyway · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Attention everyone, This is a public service announcement that you
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: should hear.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: That's right. We have mentioned it before quite a few times,
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: but this is what we would call the last call
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: for our live shows coming up May fourth in Washington,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: d C. May fifth and Greater Boston and Medford, mass
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: And Saturday the sixth in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. There are
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: still tickets left. We are not going to do any
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: other shows in the Northeast this year for this topic,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: so aside from a few shows in the southeast this fall,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: this is your chance.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so come see us if you want to, you
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: can go get your tickets at linktree, slash s y
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: s k l I you and k t R dot
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: e E slash s ys kit will take you to
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: all of the various ticket sites to buy those tickets
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and come see us.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Should Know. PSA edition.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we haven't done a good old PSA in a while.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Do you remember some of our other ones? I can't
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: bring any to mind.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Sure, don't play in the street.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Uh, don't jump out of a hot air balloon without
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: a parachute.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, h celo fane bags in you?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, boy, that was a good one, sure was.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then this one, it's it carbon monoxide. I
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: wonder if there's a few people out there that are
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: searching for our cellophane bags episode.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Now, well here's the short version. Don't put them over
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: your head.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: That was it. Yep, that was our first short stuff.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, I.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Probably shouldn't have laughed at that because that exchange wasn't
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: funny at all. And chuck, we should not be joky
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: at all. This is a very serious episode.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Right, carbon monoxide.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Not dioxide, manaide. It's I lesser.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Said co two when I was talking to you offline.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you search for carbon monoxide or COO,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: carbon dioxide still comes up page one.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: It's if I were a carbon monoxide i'd be seething
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: with rage.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, put COO in the limelight for a change.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: The reason that this is well, that's what we're doing
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: right now, and the reason that this is a PSA everybody,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: is that carbon monoxide is a deadly gas. Deadly poisoned
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: toxic gas to humans. But you can't tell that you're
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: being poisoned until it's potentially too late and you're either
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: very very sick or very very dead. And the reason
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: why this is a PSA further is because we live
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: among carbon monoxide quite a bit or else, potential carbon
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: monoxide sources all over the place. Our whole world is
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: laden with them.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, if I can pull a little piece from
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: later in this great article from Libya, let me spring
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: this one on you. It's also it's a silent killer,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: known as the silent killer, but it's not the same
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: thing as like a gas leak, So a gas leak
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: is a completely different thing. They make a gas leak
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: smell bad on purpose, so you can detect a gas
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: leak that they don't do that with CEO because it's
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: a smell that's produced as a result of something. So
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: it's not like they can say, hey, let's add a
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: farty smell to CEO so everyone knows when it's around.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Right, Because a gas leak is like the actual fuel
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: that hasn't made it to the combustion process yet. Yeah,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: so they can add something, but carbon monoxide is a
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: is one hundred percent produced by combustion, right, in particular
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a specific kind of a combustion, which would be incomplete combustion.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and boy, I never knew this at all in
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: my life. And I've heard of carbon monoxide, have carbon
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: monoxide detectors. I knew a little bit about it here
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: and there, but I never knew that combustion like is
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: generally almost always inefficient. And there is apparently a perfect
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: combustion called stoia chiometric combustion, which it's the most efficient
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: way something can burn, releasing water, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: full stop. But apparently that's just that never happens. There's
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: always an inefficiency, and that's where the carbon monoxide comes from.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw another term for that kind of combustion
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: is theoretical combustion. Like it just doesn't exist. Yeah, there's
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: no such thing as perfect combustion, but I'm sure there's
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: people out there trying to crack that egg. Sure, so
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: with because like just about anytime we burn a fuel,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: it's incomplete or imperfect combustion. Those byproducts that could release
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: with complete combustion are joined or replaced by some much
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: less desirable ones like carbon monoxide, which again is the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: silly killer.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: That's right, silent but deadly.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: And there's a few reasons why combustion is typically incomplete,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: at least as far as stuff that you and I
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: would mess around with.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I mean there may not be enough. It's
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: got to have the right mix of air kind of
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: like and we'll get into car into car engines a
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: little bit later, but the mix of like air to
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: fuel as far as a car burning lean or burning
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: rich or a fuel burning leaner rich. The same thing
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: with just a fire, if there's not enough air there,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: or the air doesn't mix with the fuel like it should,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: maybe if it is extinguished too quickly, or the temperature
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: cools down before the fuel has burned up. Yeah, this
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: is where you can get those inefficiencies.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And like whether you have too much or too
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: little air, it's not a good thing. So it's really
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: really difficult to get it just perfect. Actually it's impossible,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: but even to get close is really really difficult. So
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: there's always going to be some carbon monoxide, right, And
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: we've known for quite a while that it's a real problem.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: At least as far back as the thirteenth century. There
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: was a alchemist in Spain named arnolaue Villa Nova. Yeah,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and he said that I don't know how he figured
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: this out. I looked, I couldn't find it. That burning wood,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: in complete combustion of wood produces some poisonous gas that
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: he didn't attempt to name, but he did identify it first.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there you have it. Thirteenth century. Yep,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: they knew something was out there and could kill you.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: A little bit later, in sixteen forty four, there was
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: a scientist from France named Johann Baptista von Helmont.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Very French name names used to be so much better.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: For sure, they had like curly cues on them.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: You know, my god, it's amazing. He described dying basically,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: or coming close to dying, from inhaling what he called
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: gas carbonum, which was, you know, probably a mixture of things,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: but carbon monoxide was definitely in there.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Right. And then jose Priestley came along, right, not Jason Joseph.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Hmm, you took the Jason right out of my mouth.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: You remember him. He showed up in our nitrous oxide episode.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, I knew he had heard of him before, because
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: I knew he had made a Jason Priestley joke before.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, for sure, there's no way you can't.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So he was a chemist from England and he's
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: the one that they point to as sort of the
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: true discoverer of carbon monoxide, even though he had a
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: really bad name for it too. He was doing experimentation
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: in the seventeen seventies and he's the guy that basically said, hey,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: you know what, air isn't just one thing like air
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: has a lot of gases in it, and this one
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: thing is really important we should pay attention to it.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna call it deflogid Oh man, I had it
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: so good earlier, deflogisticated air. Yeah, And everyone else said, eh,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: call it oxygen.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: He said, fine, I like Miney Moore. He's got curly
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  Speaker 1: cues on it.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Deflogelisticated. Wow, that's a mouthful.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: That's an old timey word. If that's not I've never
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: heard an old timey word.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So he also found carbon monoxide, which you called heavy
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: inflammable air, and I finally just taved and looked up
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: why inflammable inflammable are the same? Yeah, inflammable was original,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: but apparently it just confused everybody so much, and because
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: it described such a dangerous thing. They dropped the ind
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: and just went with flammable from that point on.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Why did we talk about this before?
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know. It sound new to me.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: No, we've talked about this before. For once, I remember something,
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: okay in my little feeble brain.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Well what was it.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't remember the topic, but I definitely remember
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: us talking about this. But you know what, I don't
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: think you had that little tidbit.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay, we just wondered about it maybe.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: I think so that was back in our days of
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: just like complaining about not knowing something.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Well, here at the advent of year fifteen. Uh huh,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: we have finally solved that mystery. Chuck.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, niversary, Happy.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Anniversary, Happy anniversary too, Jerry.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: She could speak through the tape your mouth.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: So uh wow, Jerry just threw me off. That's why
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: we don't let her talk, Chuck.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I know. Quiet you. And by the way, people that
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: think we're being mean to Jerry just down.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: We've had to go through that before him.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I think people thought we were genuinely mean to Jerry
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: about this stuff. But we're family, we're siblings, so we
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: poke fun at.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Each other exactly and we haven't for a while.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: No, we don't poke. You and I don't poke fun
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: at each other on the air generally, No, But boy,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: off the.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Air, Wow, it's a poking fest.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're always poking my belly.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: You're doing mine, and I say, oh.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Man, kids did that when I was a kid to usually, Yeah,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: because the same thing happened to you, right.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I was such a people pleaser. I
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: just went along with it like it was hilarious.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I had a little chubby belly and then I
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: got skinny, and then I got chubby. So I'm thinking
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna get skinny again.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: That's the cycle in that.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Way, Yeah, the circle of life.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we should get back to it though. Eh.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So you might say why Okay, guys, I get it.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Carbon monoxide the silent killer, and you have to make
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: air quotes every time you say that. Everybody. By the way,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I get it. It's deadly. I don't want to be
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: around it. But exactly how is it deadly? And that
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: is one of the reasons we are here. We're here
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: to explain why it's deadly, because if you look at
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the chemical makeup of a carbon monoxide molecule, one carbon atom,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: one oxygen atom. Right, but they are bound really tightly.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: They have a triple covalent blond, which means that they
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: don't react with stuff very easily, so plants are safe
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: from it. Basically, anything that doesn't breathe has no problems
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: with carbon monoxide. But we breathe, and carbon monoxide tricks
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: our bodies into substituting oxygen for carbon monoxide because it
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: binds to our hemoglobin, which transports oxygen throughout the body
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and the blood.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Right right.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why it takes oxygen's places
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: because it's two hundred and ten times more attractive to
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: hemoglobin than oxygen. Iss.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: That's right. And just quickly, you and me and Jerry,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: we have also a triple covalent bond.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: That's all right. It just occurred to me and we're
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: very non reactive.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: That's right. But what you were saying was hemoglobin is
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: like hubba hubba when it comes to that CEO, and
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: oxygen's like, no, you're supposed to be bonding with me,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: and hemoglobin says, but I'm so much more attracted to
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: the carbon monoxide. And it's it's just one of those
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: weird things that happens in the body.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: It's like that meme where the guy is walking with
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: this girlfriend, but he's turned around looking at another girl.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: The other girl is carbon monoxide, his girlfriend's oxen. He
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: is hemoglobin.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I've actually seen that one. I'm not the biggest meme guy,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: but I know exactly what you're talking about.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Good and it's really apt if you ask me. It
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: actually fits a lot of stuff. But one thing that
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: we have to point out, and this is the reason
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: why carbon monoxide is so deadly. It's deadly in very
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: very small amounts because it can so quickly replace the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: oxygen in your blood stream and your tissues. Your organs
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: they need oxygen. So if instead they're getting carbon monoxide
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: delivered to them, they're they're going to enter hypoxia, and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: you become oxygen deprived, your organs become oxygen deprived, maybe
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: your heart's going to stop, you might suffer brain damage.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: If you survive, at the very least, you're probably going
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: to faint, maybe throw up. And again, it's because it's
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: two hundred and ten times more attractive to hemoglobin. So
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I saw the stat chuck.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if there's.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: A concentration of ero point zero five percent carbon monoxide
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: in the air you're breathing and nothing nothing, and fifteen percent,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: fifteen percent of the air is oxygen. When that when
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the amount of carbon monoxide in your blood like reaches equilibrium,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: forty one percent of your blood is going to be
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: carbon monoxide from just from that, that's the disparity that
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: takes just that little amount to overwhelm the oxygen in
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: your body, and all of a sudden you're in big trouble.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it depends on who you are and
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: what's going on. If you're one of our senior friends.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: If you're a little baby friend, you're going to have
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: a bigger trouble with co Obviously, if you're like exercising
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: really heavily and like, you know, breathing a lot more
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: and your heart rates really high, then it's going to
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: be a little more dangerous if it's in the air.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: But here's some parts per million stats for you. Sixteen
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: thousand parts per million, which is a lot. Yeah, So
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I mean we're not saying like, and this could happen,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: you know, just walking around and breathing air.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but thousand parts per million, you're basically taking rips
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: off of a tailpipe of a nineteen seventy buick.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's a ton. But you know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: as evidence, that will kill you off in like a
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: few minutes, right, So don't do that. PSA, let's cut
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: it down to like four hundred, Like three fifty to
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: four hundred should be fine, right, No, you will die
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: in three to five hours. You're gonna, you know, feel
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: like symptoms coming on. So hopefully it's the kind of
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: thing that you recognize is going on, like bad headaches,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: you know, probably nausea, dizziness, stuff like that.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Well, that's one of the problems is it's like you
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: could be nauseous or dizzy from anything.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Most people like carbon monoxide poisoning well.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: And they do say like, if I mean there's something
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: this is the acute kind of poisoning, but there's also
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: the uh what's the other kind?
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Uh chronic?
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the chronic kind. They say, if like, if everyone
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: in your house gets sick at the same time, you know,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: it's not always a cold, like, you might want to
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: check for carbon monoxide in your house.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Right, So the carbon monoxide in your blood mixing with
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: hemoglobin creates a molecule ca carboxy hemoglobin, and it sticks
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: around for four hours and as long as you have
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: a bunch of carbon monoxide streaming through your blood and
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: then your tissues. Yeah, even though you've stepped out into
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: like fresh air, you figured it out. You realize you've
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: listened to this episode. You know that you have carbon
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: monoxide poisoning. You've left your house or breathing fresh air,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: you still got four hours of working that stuff out.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: And during that four hours, it's going to be a
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: very it's going to be very dangerous for you. So
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: you want to go to the hospital. When you get
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: to the hospital, they're probably going to stick you in
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: a hyperbaric chamber and start pumping you full of oxygen.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, at the very least puts you on oxygen in
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: some fashion, just with a mask, even while you're waiting. Probably. Yeah,
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: although this seems like one of those emergency situations to
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: where hopefully it's recognized and they get you in like
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: very quickly.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: And here's the other thing. If you I mean, eventually
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: when you flush it out, you can be okay, But
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: can you can also relapse like a few weeks later? Right,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: you can get relap symptoms, and all of a sudden,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: you've got a brain fog or fatigue or that headache
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: or nausea or dizziness or something coming back on. And
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: you know, you can get permanent damage if it's if
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: it's severe enough.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we talked about chronic poisoning. You can get
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: chronic carbon monoxide poisoning if you're exposed to something as
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: little as nine parts per million for longer than eight hours,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: which is well below the OSHA standard.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, fifty per million days in a row.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this basically wants to be part of
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: your life. Right. So, and actually, if you go to
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: the hospital and you're like, I've got all these weird,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: unexplained symptoms, but I'm not fainting or anything like that,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: there's not you know, I haven't been sucking off a
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Buick tail pipe or anything. Right, They're gonna start asking
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: you questions about your lifestyle, like where do you live,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: what do you do? And if it turns out that
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: you like live above a greyhound bus terminal, right, and
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: make those phone calls, obscene phone calls where you're breathing
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: heavily a lot, they might say, I think you have
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: carbon monoxide poisoning of the chronic variety.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: We should do one on bus strips.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: I thought you could say obscene phone calls.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: No, well, we should do that too, Okay. The Jerky Boys.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been wanting to do one on the history
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: of prank calling. There's actually a pretty rich history there.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be fun. Actually, I remember we'll take a
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: break here in a sec, but very quickly. I was
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: one of those guys who got the Jerky Boys from
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: a friend on a cassette like years before it was
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: you know, the internet obviously or any kind of like.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: They I think they did like a movie even, didn't they, Yes,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: they did. Yeah, this is when like the cassette was
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: being passed around the school yard kind of thing. Nice
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: and boy, I thought it was a funny thing I
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: ever heard.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: It was funny. Even just saying the name makes me laugh.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Jerky Boys, Yeah, they didn't laugh.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I laughed inside.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, should we take that break?
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we should.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Jerky Boys.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: All right, chuck? So oh, I know, I think you
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: could say the Beverly Hills supper Club fire had some
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: PSA qualities to it, right.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Sure, we were talking about the supper clubs.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: All right, we're talking about especially in northern Kentucky.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Chuck, Yeah, yeah, so flammable curtains probably too were inflammable.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: But death by fire is not a good way to die.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: But very few people die from burning to death. You
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: usually are dead long before you really start burning up
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: through smoke inhalation. And although apparently they don't quantify statistics
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: as to this smoke, this type of smoke, or this
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: compound in the smoke killed the person, like carbon monoxide,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: you can make a pretty safe assumption that carbon monoxide
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: poisoning has killed people in fires pretty frequently. I'm sure.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Sure it's part of that deadly cocktail that you're inhaling.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: It's also part of a deadly cocktail you're inhaling. If
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: you're a cigarette smoker, you are willingly ingesting carbon monoxide
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: into your body when you smoke a cigarette. There's a
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: step for you that carboxy hemoglobin we were talking about,
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: which is what happens when hemoglobin binds with the CEO.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: A typical level if you're just walking around on the
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: street is under one percent. If you smoke a packat
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: a you're living at about three to six percent. Yeah,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: if you smoke a hookah, especially in the traditional way
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: where you're actually burning the tobacco on coal or charcoal,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: gonna be a lot more CEO than that, even almost
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: at T two. And incense is another offender that can bring.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: If you're burning incense in your house a lot, like
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: all day long, you can get up to nine point
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: six parts per million in your home. And I used
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: to burn I used to burn incense in college. I
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: was into it for a little while. Yeah, me too,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: But now when I smell it, I'm so turned off.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: It's weird because it's a little bit of a nostalgia hit,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: like oh yeah, sandal would okay.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say, are you talking specifically about nog.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: CHOMPA I don't remember, no chump.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: It's like the couintessential hippie, not PETULLI like the hippie
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: incense stick would be nog chop.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Was it black or brown?
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Brown? Like a light brown?
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I usually liked most of the browns. I didn't like
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: the blacks. They were way too pungent for me.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: But uh then I just you know that was it
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: was a very short phase. It kind of overlapped with
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: my listening to the doors pace, probably, But once I
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: was done with incense, I was done such that if
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I walk into like some hippie dippy crystal shop and
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: it's got incense going, I got to get out of there. Yeah,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: I know, to mean, I don't like it.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: When I was in college, I got so into incense,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: so hardcore and incense. I moved past the stick incense
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and have little brass burns, not even little brass burners,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: with little charcoal discs that you would put like resin,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: like frankincense on, and I would sit around and burn
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: that all day long. And when I read this, I
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, it's not good and a lot for sure. Yep,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: smoking indoors too as well.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: You've cleaned up your ac now not a good champ.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, But I also you know, I used to finging
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a lot for no good reason and throw up on
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: my I saw somenight. Now I understand why.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: It's not funny at all?
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Is it not? Well, then maybe I'll just retract that statement.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, I'm laughing, but I didn't want to
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: laugh at your expense.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Oh I didn't actually faint and throw up on myself?
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Or are you laughing because I was such a hippie
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I burned Frankenson.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: No, I thought you were serious that you fainted and
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: threw up on yourself.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no I did. I didn't.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I have a friend who faints occasionally, so you know
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: it could be a thing.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Sure, you should ask that friend if they live above
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: a Greyhound bus terminal.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: No, he doesn't live over there. So, like I said before,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: if you're a little baby, or if you're a senior citizen,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: it's gonna if you have chronic heart disease, even if
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: you have anemia, if you have asthma, like obviously, all
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: of this stuff is going to exacerbate any kind of
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: effects from carbon monoxide getting into your body. But about
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: four hundred Americans die from and this doesn't include fires,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: This is just accidental coe poisoning every year, which isn't
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: a lot, but about one hundred thousand go to the
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: er because of this and fourteen thousand are hospitalized overnight.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: So yeah, those are negligible, not.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: And I mean four hundred people dying is I mean
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: this is all very preventable too, is We'll see, because
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: when carbon monoxide gets in your house, it's not supposed
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: to be there, there's something wrong with something you're using.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Usually some sort of fossil fuel burning appliance is the culprit,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and we talked about incomplete combustion. That basically is what's
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: to blame across the board. Yeah, one of the big
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: ones that kills people or at least makes them sick
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: and sends them to the hospital is unvented space heaters,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: which if you say those words together, you're like, this
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: sounds like a bad idea, And in fact, unvented space
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: heaters are number fifteen on a Consumer Product Safety Commission
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: list of three hundred and fifty of the most dangerous
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: household products.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and to be clear, these are natural gas or
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: kerosene burning heaters of electric heaters.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but like the kind that's maybe the size of
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: like a old timey suitcase, like an old samsonite that
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: get really bright and that you might have in your house,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: especially in the South where a lot of people in
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: the South South don't have central heat because it doesn't
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: get that that cold very often, it's not worth the investment,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: especially back in the day, so they might have an
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: unvented just a portable space heater. Basically that runs on kerosene,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: and the problem is, if you don't open your windows
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: while you're running that thing, there's a good chance you're
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: going to accidentally poison yourself with carbon monoxide. And that's
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: counterintuitive because people use those because it's cold outside, and
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: you don't usually open your windows when it's cold outside,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: so it actually does lead to a lot of problems
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: for people.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my grandmother Bryant, my dad's mom, Opal, who lived
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: to be one hundred plus, had and these weren't gas
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: fired or anything, but she had called them chill chasers
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: in the wall. Oh do you ever Did you ever
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: see those? And I'm sure they were all over the place,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: but I saw them a lot in the South in
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: older houses where they're just they're built in space heaters
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: in the wall, like recessed into the wall.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, I guess I know what you're talking about.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Sure, which is a little timer switch on it. It
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: was super super cool, like in her bathroom and stuff.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love those, like old timey details of old
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: houses like that.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Or like a cutout in the hallway for a phone.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or like a telephone like a tile toothbrush holder
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: that matches the rest of the tile. It's just he
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: sticks out and holds your toothbrushes and will love that
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: good stuff.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Speaking of those kerosene or natural gas heaters, though, if
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: you get a new one, they almost always now have
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: a sensor on it, an oxygen sensor that will read
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: the air and shut that thing off. But if you've
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: got an older one and it didn't have to be
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: like four years old, you know, I'm not sure when
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: those oxygen sensors came along, but I feel like it's
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: semi recent.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty twenty two probably.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: No, boy, I'm really getting you left.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: And right today.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Just this is gullible day for me.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, well that's good to know, noted.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: But cooking appliances obviously, furnaces, fireplaces, car exhaust is a
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: big one.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Chok. I got to stop you there, because this is
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: why we're here right now.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Bsa time.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I we have an attached garage that leads right to
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the kitchen. The door does, and I stopped our car
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and got out and went inside and just went about
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: my day. But I left the car running with the
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: garage store closed. Just I've never done it before in
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: my life, never even come close. It just happened because,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: in my defense, it's a hybrid, so it's easy to
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: forget to turn it off because there's really not a
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: lot going on when you turn it on or off
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: when it's in electric mode. And of course like it's like, oh,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I better start charging myself, and the gas burning part
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: kicked in and me opened the door and was like,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: oh my god, the car's running. And so we started
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: researching carbon monoxide and found that it's actually kind of
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: a problem. Luckily we were fine. Oh wow, Mamo was fine.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you didn't get suspicious. But what do you
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: mean then, you know, like bring you up on charges.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Like I was trying to poison a lot of us?
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Maybe?
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Sure, No, she knows me a little better than.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: That, Momo. That that's the danger there. I'm glad.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Momo was okay, yes, And that is why we were
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: most freaked out because she's tiny. So if you like,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit of carbon monoxide can and really
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: screw up somebody with a ten pound frame, you know.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, why don't those hybrids just say car on, car off?
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know, be very easy to do that, yeah,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: or just keep beeping or something like the car is
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: still on dummy, Mine doesn't get that, or just had
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: just do.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: The car on car off and then you could get
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: celebrity reads. You could have like Samuel L. Jackson do
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: it right, or Matthew mcconnie car on babe. That mine
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: would be Sammy Davis Junior.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: But do Christopher Walkin doing?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I don't do walk in that?
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Does you do.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Car off?
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: That's pretty good? You could also have passed that off
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: as a shinner.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably so car off? Goodness me. Kevin Pollack, he
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: should have been on. He should have done a very
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: quick little guest to word read for us.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Oh well, it's not too late this this episode hasn't
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: been edited yet.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: He probably would, let's find out. Speaking of bad decisions,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: if you lived in Texas in twenty twenty one, when
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: they had that terrible frozen storm that came through and
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: their power grid failed, a lot of people we're like, hey,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: let's bring in this weber grill and load it full
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: of charcoal and keep ourselves warm. It sounds like a
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: very not smart thing to do. But not everyone understands this.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Not everyone knows that COO would be omitted. I think
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: people get desperate when they're in danger. Of freezing to
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: death maybe and that kind of thing can happened. Eleven
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: people died. About fourteen hundred people went to the emergency
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: room for COO poisoning in Texas that year.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like that storm, not just the whole year, I think,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And that was almost a year's worth of statistics right there.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: And it was in like basically a few days. And
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: one of the worst things I saw I read a
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: pro public article about this is that afterward Texas considered
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: and then rejected requiring carbon monoxide detectors and houses. It's like,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: what are you talking about.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and people from all over the world with you know,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: live fires in their in their homes and their huts,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: in their small spaces. About a third of the people
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: of the world use open fires. Some of them run
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: on kerosene and stuff. But you know, as we saw
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: in Guatemala, a lot of times these things are just
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: just wood burning fires in your home that they're cooking with,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: and you know, they ventilate things as well as they can.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: But it's a big problem. The World Health Organization says
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: that household air pollution and this is everything combined, but
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: a portion of this is obviously going to be due
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: to carbon monoxide, but it killed more than three million
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: people in twenty twenty.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Do you remember we did that thing for Toyota about
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the Carnegie Mellon invention as sure like dance off. One
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of the entrants invented a portable basically a ovenvent hood
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: to be used indoors, and remember you could. It was
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: super cheap and easy to use. I mean imagine like
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: that was a heights cold kid too, if I'm not
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: mistaken her, at least a college student. And this is
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: back in like two thousand and eight, So hats off
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: to that person's foresight and insight totally.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Should we take our hats off and take a break
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: to Yes, let's all right, we'll be right back. All right,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: we're back. We did talk about all the dangers of
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: like home appliances and fires and all that kind of stuff.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: There was one more that we didn't talk about, and
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: that happens very frequently after a disaster, like say a hurricane,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: where people use a portable generator too close to their
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: house and the fuse while the carbon monox it ends
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: up drifting in and killing people.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you need to get that thing away from your window.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: At least twenty feet.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, especially if it's open. All right, I love it.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Another little psa.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Tidbit psa within a psa chuck.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: It's like seconds per second.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which I think even physics people were like, yeah,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: it's through a bonehead term.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But like I said, we were talking about all
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: these dangers of things that you can use that will
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: increase the carbon monoxide in your life, but you're also
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: going to experience it just walking around the world. In
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: urban areas, it's going to be higher, usually about ten
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: parts per million. If it's a very heavy trafficked city,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: it can be as high as fifty parts per million
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: just in the air that you're breathing walking around. And
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: this is from you know, just from humans driving cars
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: mainly or burning fuel of any type. Your old nemesis,
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: the leaf blower, And this is a hard to believe,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: but Lyvia found this estimate from this one source that
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: said a gas powered leaf blower for half an hour
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: has the same amount of hydrocarbon emissions as a thirty
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: nine hundred mile drive and a F one raptor.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked about that stat and the noise pollution
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: episode about leaf blowers that they were that also put
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: out that much emissions too.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: So all this to say that it doesn't have to
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: be some big gigondo car, right, Like your small two
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: stroke engines are putting a lot of this in the
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: air as.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Well, right, But if you put enough cars together, all
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: the little bits of CEO that they put out are
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: going to combine and be problematic, especially if you live
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: in places like Fairbanks, Alaska, right where there's something called
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: an atmospheric conversion that typically happens there where the warm
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: air gets on top of the coal there and traps
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: that coal there, which is one reason Fairbanks so called
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: them quite sure, but it also traps all that pollution
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: that would normally drift off into the atmosphere in town.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: And so Fairbanks was legendary for having really bad air quality.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I believe still has issues with particular matter, but they
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: kind of tackled the carbon monoxide problem that they had
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I think back in the seventies.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that won't surprise me. You just think of Alaska
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: as this sort of pristine, uncolluted place. But it's just
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: because the way the land is in Fairbanks.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Well, they built a city underneath an atmospheric conversion.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: It's kind of the invert.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, inverters kind of invert.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: NASA has something cool that they launched twenty four years
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: ago ish called the Terrace satellite, and it has a
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: sensor on it called the Moppet Measurements of Pollution in
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: the Troposphere. So this is measuring way above the earth,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: about twelve thousand feet above the ground, measuring carbon monoxide.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: We'd guess other things as well, but this allows you know,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: NASA to sort of find hot spots all over the world.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Obviously when there's like over a big city, it's going
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: to be hotter if there's a big forest fire or
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: something like that, but it will show just hot zones
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: in the world of maybe like hey, something's going on
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: down there, and if your forest isn't on fire, maybe
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: you should look at check it out.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Well, I look into why your whole population is feigning
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: and vohomiting on themselves.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Right, But that numbers, the numbers are going down, which
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: is great news. There they're Moppet map and that's with
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: two t's, which is a little redundant. You don't do
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: the tee.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I find it very satisfying that they did a letter
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: to every single word. Yeah, and it wasn't like a wedge,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: you know, those wedge acronyms. We dislike. This is the
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: opposite of that.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: No, I agree, and mop it's a fun word, sure,
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: But they they have found that the concentration of gases
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: declined since two thousand from point one two five to
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: under zero point one zero five, which.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Is great news. One of the other things they figured
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: out from the Tarra satellite and it's mopet software, and
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: then some other satellites that have been launched since then
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: that do similar things. There are a lot of countries
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: just outright lie, and a lot of companies lie about
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: their emissions. They say that they're much lower than they are.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: And these satellites can are so sensitive. They can pinpoint
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: like basically a factory's output or at least a city's
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: output and say that country's fudging their numbers about their
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: CO two or CO emissions or whatever kind of emissions.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: That satellite feels like testing that.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: Thing nice, I mean, it's dropped. In America, certainly, the
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Clean Air Act did a lot in nineteen seventy one
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: to help clean the air, and I think in nineteen
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: seventy one before they or when they enacted at ninety
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: percent of the locations that they were monitoring, the CEO
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: were in violation of what would become those new rules.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure, there's one other thing about carbon monoxide that's
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: problematic for it being an outdoor pollutant. We said, it's
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: not reactive, It just kind of bounces off of other stuff.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: But the problem is it indirectly contributes to climate change
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: in that it does hook up with hydroxyl radicals, which
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: are so reactive they'll even react with carbon monoxide. And
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: normally those molecules are running around hooking up with methane
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and turning it into other stuff besides methane, which actually
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: removes that greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. But when there's
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of carbon monoxide up there, it keeps the
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: hydroxyl busy and methane is allowed to just accumulate and
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: go on. Who ray, we need to come up with
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: the opposite cheer of.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Hooray right, Uh, let me think on that.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a very important thing for us.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: The catalytic converter was a big deal for reducing COE
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: output in cars. It was invented by a French engineer
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: named Eugene Udri. How would you pronounce that?
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I think that was pretty close.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: This is nineteen fifty, but leaded gas was still a
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: big thing back then, and leaded gas does not mix
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: well with catalytic converters. So when they finally got rid
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: of leaded gas in the mid seventies and the EPA said, hey,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: you got to start putting these catalytic converters on your cars,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: that was a huge deal. It's really interesting. I actually
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: wrote the article on the Old House Stuff Works website
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: on catalytic converters.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Oh neat. They are interesting, they are.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: And it was a bit of a because it's not
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: my thing at all, so it was a bit of
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: a slog to get through that article. But it is
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: interesting how they work. They use metals like palladium and
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: platinum and rhodium, like expensive metals, which is why people
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: will cut and steel a catalytic converter out from underneath
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: your car ooo, kind of like they'll steal copper from
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: a house being built or something. Same deal, as those
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: metals are very valuable and they trigger chemical reactions that
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: use free oxygen to turn that co into CO two
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: and H two O.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then also other stuff like nitrogen dioxide and
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: hydrocarbons all those products of incomplete combustion. Catalyated converter says,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I got this before that stuff comes out of the tailpipe. Nice,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. So catalytic converters actually coming along. Eugene Adrie,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: That's how I'm gonna say it. He kind of saved
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the world in a lot of ways. Like he really
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: helped get those emissions down. He's basically the reason why
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the f one to fifty truck driving from Texas to say,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Fairbanks puts out less emissions than a leaf blower running
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: for half an hour. That's why. So, I mean we've
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: been taking our hats off here there in this episode.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: I'm taking it off and leaving it off for your gene.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Taking that beret off, well, good for you. Ye As
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: far as what you can do in your own home,
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: obviously you're gonna want to inspect that furnace. One of
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: the problems that can happen with that inefficient burning is
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: when you don't just something simple like not having your
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: filter changed right. That means it's not your furnace isn't
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: getting the air that it needs. Deadly, It is deadly.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: So you got to keep that furnace filter clean. You
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: got to have all your exhaust fans for all your appliances.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: If you have gas appliances, make sure those exhaust fans
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: are working. You could make a switch from gas to
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: electric or to what are those called induction inductions?
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Have you ever used one? Less?
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not a fan, but really, you know, I
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: could get used to it. I guess I love them.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: You love them? Yeah, I'm a gas guy and I
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: know that they're problematic, but I gotta gotta figure this out.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Well, if you have a gas range and you're using it,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: or a gas cook top in particular, you should have
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: somebody come out every once in a while and tune
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: it up, like there's a tune up they can do,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: and they'll test your your combustion, your flame to make
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: sure that it's burning as close to not rich or
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: not lean. But in the middle of the two.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Do you mean the guy just comes out and lights
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: a fart.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Basically, but he has a very expensive little device that
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: he sticks at by it and tests how much like
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: carbon monoxide is in it?
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Right, I'd pay for that.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you should pay for it. And then one other
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: thing you can do, Chuck, and I know you'll probably
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: go do this, right, after we finish, you get yourself
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: a wire brush and some electrical contact cleaner and you
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: take off all those little plates on the burner on
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: your cook top and scrub them until they're totally free
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: of corrosion and build up.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: I will do that.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: You should. It'll help a lot. Actually. Okay, yeah, but
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: the guy who puts out to do the tune up,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: he's actually adjusting like the amount of like gas and
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: air that's going to your stuff. It's not something you
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: can really do because you don't have that expensive device, right,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I gotcha.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, you definitely want carbon monoxide detectors in your home,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: and if you have, I mean, I think most of
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: the new like smoke detectors are also coeo detectors. I
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: haven't looked into it, but I feel like they're kind
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: of all that dual purpose.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Now, yes, yeah, what I can tell.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: But if you do have an old school smoke detector,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: it may not be also a carbon monoxide detector. So
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: check on that.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can get those pretty easy, pretty cheap.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna buzz market one. I was doing some research
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: the Kitty. You know they make the fire extinguishers. They're Nighthawk,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: which is thirty five dollars. It plugs in, has a
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: nine volt battery backup, and it tests the air every
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: fifteen seconds and as a digital readoubt of what your
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: carbon monoxide levels are in the immedia area. Thirty five bucks.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: It's everything you need right there, and just put one
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: in every single outlet in your house.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Right. Oh, it just plugs right in. Yeah, Oh okay,
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: So it's not something goes in the ceiling.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Nope, it doesn't hard why it has. Like I said,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: it's a battery, but it's a battery backup, so it's
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: actually really helpful. And one other thing you're probably going
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: to hear if you start to research this is that
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: you should put your carbon monoxide detector either up very
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: high or down low because someone will tell you that
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: it's either heavier or lighter than air. It's actually not
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: true either way. It's almost the same weight as air,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: so it mixes really well and it goes wherever air goes,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: so you can put it pretty much anywhere you got
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: air and it'll detect the carbon monoxide because it disperses
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: pretty evenly easily in the air.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: So we can close by talking about some of the
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: beneficial uses of carbon monoxide because they do use it
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: for things. Whether or not they should be for all
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: these purposes is debatable. Sometimes sure, I would like to
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: do a short stuff sometime on the fact that carbon
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: monoxide is used to keep meat looking red, not the
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: myth that it is food additive that makes meat look red, right.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: It supposedly just preserves the red color that's already there. Yeah,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: and supposedly it is not dangerous. But I started digging in,
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh boy, this is a big rats nest.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: So oh, I can't wait.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: We're gonna have to punt on that one.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: The one that stuck out to me that I thought
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: was so awesome is that it has medical uses. Paradoxically,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: they figured out that they can use carbon monoxide at
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: like relatively high concentrations, like four hundred parts per million
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: is remember, nine parts per million can give you like
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: chronic poisoning, so four hundreds a lot. But they use
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: it to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome because somehow they
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: found out that carbon monoxide has a protective effect on
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: your lungs that protects it from injury or sepsis. That's
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: just nutty, and I look to see how that happened.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I could not find it, like I think that they
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: actually don't quite know yet. It's that that new of
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: a finding.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: That groundbreaking.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: I do too.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: That's very bleeding edge technology. Yeah, you got anything else?
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: I have nothing else other than a listener mail.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: We did some good works here, chucked, if I do
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: say so myself.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna get with them kitty hawks.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: You close enough, I think you'll stumble upon it and
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: search that kitty kitty nighthawk.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: You're right, okay.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: If you want to know more about carbon monoxide and
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: kitty nighthawks, then start looking around the internet and you'll
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: probably find quite a bit about it, because we did.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: And since I said that it's time for listener mail.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: I'm just I'm picturing you and you me now, like
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: the day after your misapp leaving with a cart full
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: of kitty hawks and all sorts of other products in ournefense.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: It was two days after.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, you had a day where you just laid around thinking,
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: oh my god.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Are them online? And it took that long for them
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: to show up?
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: I gotcha? All right, here's a listener mail. This is
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: a very cute one. Hey, guys, my mom and I
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: are longtime listeners and huge fans. I live overseas in Germany,
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: so my mom and I only get see each other
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: about once a year. Your podcast so is a great
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: way for us to share something together despite the distance.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: We talk on the phone almost every day. Things we've
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: learned on stuff you should know come up off in
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: as talking points. I love this stuff. My great grandma,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: a German immigrant, used to end phone calls by saying,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: a cute old grandma boys, well, I don't know anything,
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: which is really great, and she says this is Hannah
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: by the way, says I don't know It kind of
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: meant I don't know anything new or we're talking about,
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: So I guess I'll get.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Off the phone.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Since she died, I've been using that a lot. However,
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: we got Inventive a few months ago and now have
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: incorporated something Josh says every episode into our conversations. Oh now,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: when I wanted to get off the phone, I will
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: always say, since I said blah blah blah, that means
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: time for listener mail. We both get a kick out
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: of it, and we thought you might too. Keep up
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: the good work, guys, and Jerry best regards. That is
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: Hannah and mom Amber.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Very nice. Thanks Hannah and Amber, thanks for letting us know.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: It's like your jerky boys makes you laugh every time.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: I want to be like Hannah and tangentially Amber and
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: get in touch with us to let us know something
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: cute about your family. We would love to hear that.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: and send it off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.