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hello and welcome to the 80th episode of technically speaking where scientists and Engineers come together to chat about common interest share knowledge and satisfy some curiosity as well as being the 80th episode this is the start of our fourth year in podcasting amazing I'm Antonia and in this Milestone episode I'm joined by Laura, Nick and Ellie to talk about explosions fire and some explosive animals all way but we'll get to that so uh Laura you wanted to talk about this why was
that basically plutonium seems to be portrayed in a very strange way in films from what I can tell so normally someone will say be careful with that it's plutonium and I get why the script writers have said that basically to essentially get across that it's plutonium they're working with rather than something else but it always makes it sound like if that person drops it it will suddenly explode like it's I don't know C4 or something and it's it's not really true when it just winds me up so
there you go I want to have a bit of a rant you drop C4 will it that's what films portray I actually don't know having never done anything with it maybe we'll find out hopefully we will because we have Nick here who is a forensic engineer and you probably could tell us a little bit about fire and explosions yes yes a bit so yep I'm my name is Nick I am a forensic engineer I investigate engineering failures and and mostly a lot of fires um and as part of that I investigate um quite a few
explosions including gas and chemical explosions wow that's uh it's going to be really interesting to see what we can learn from you and Ellie you are resident zoologist and surprisingly animals fit into this agree well this is what I want your help with later on because I have some examples and they are literally called exploding animals so when I get to it you can tell me what you think and whether they're truly exploding I think they are so I'm always on the animal side let's read that by
now but it'll be it'll make a good discussion point about what is and is an explosive and how do they get their name anyway so to start off with Laura brought up the point about portrayals in films especially um plutonium but we've seen a lot of other types of explosions in movies and sometimes you just think How likely are they yeah so uh that be bear bearing that in mind for example if you drop a box of plutonium it's not going to explode it's more risk radiation there's a specific
mechanism of of course there I caus it an explosion with PL plutonium which is a bit out of my scope when it comes thankfully to nuclear explosions um as far as I know there's not been a nuclear exp explosion in the UK you know God willing there isn't going to be one in the future but um when it comes to other explosions such as gas explosions a famous example being of course um Hot Fuzz um if we all remember that one of the murders in hot f is committed by uh The Village Council
spoilers um opening all the um uh hob rings on a on a hob in a mansion and then leaving when lighting a match or lighting a cigarette and eventually the entire Mansion explodes of course in in reality that won't happen at all for a gas like methane which comprises mostly of what natural gas comp comprises mostly of you need a specific mixture of gas and air to cause a combustion effect to result in an explosion um usually with methane gas you end up with something called a deflation
um so it to basically from a hob you need enough uh enough gas to be fed into the atmosphere with a low enough exchange rate so you get a high enough concentration of gas for an explosion to actually occur if that makes sense does so realistically if I left all my Hobs on if they were gas the house wouldn't explode if someone was just smoking nearby No in fact if you left your Hub on and your Hub was made in the last five well no H if your Hop was made in the last 20 years beg you pardon um your
gas would turn off as about 20 seconds after you turn it on after due to a flame failure device inside your hob turns the gas off that's very reassuring it is I'm pretty sure I've used Hobs that are older than that yeah so Hobs and heat older than that um they can cause what we call a a a very small flash or um tiny little explosion like a warm effect um and then you C may you may end up with like a bit of a a flaming um vent but um but ultimately for an explosion to occur you need a
large enough as I said a what we call a a limit above what we call the l l lower explosive limit um and Below U uh l u l upper no u l u l the upper explosive limit where you don't in sorry just say the upper explosive limit it's all methane there's no Oxygen you can't have the combustion that causes the explosion that's the problem you you do need that oxidization that combustion to for the explosion to actually happen if that make sense yeah so really we're talking
about the fire triangle well we're always talking about the fire triangle but but some people are a lot closer to fires than than you than I'm not I'm never talking about the fire triangle I didn't know there was a fire triangle yeah so a fire triangle basically for any fire or on the basic version sometimes we talk about a fire tetraedron but we don't talk about a fire tetrahedron um oh my God I don't think I'm ready for that let's start with a triangle let's
just for listeners for no reason at all on a video feed I I'm holding my hands in a triangle um we for for any for a fire to occur you need three things you need a heat you need fuel and you need oxygen now usually for oxygen you've got that in the air for heat that that's usually where a a spark or a hot surface comes in you need a fuel and in the case of most explosions particularly gas explosions that fuel is going to be methane or some other explosive gas or
combustible gas I should say um so for a fire or in this case an explosion to occur um for example in hot F the the fuel would be the natural gas um the uh the heat would be from the cigarette and the oxygen uh just from RE oxygen in the General Air um all combustion and all fire is a simple Chic reaction of oxidization resulting in heat and light and a luminous um G gas we all call Flames thank you very much and now look at me learning things about explosions
already so if that's how a fire starts then an explosion is something else right and I'd think of it as you can get like really volatile substances that suddenly release load of energy kind of what plutonium does and it explodes in a certain environment so essentially it has this kind of buildup of pressure inside something that surrounds it that releases yes exactly so typically an explosion involving gas tends to be a sudden expansion of of that gas so that can occur in in a sort of a fire
explosion sense that's caused by the sudden heating of the air suddenly expanding um due to the combustion of methane um in the case of I I worry about treading towards a nuclear explosion cuz my Nuclear Physics is is wobbly at best where you can simulate an explosion in if you over pressurize a oxygen canister for example or a canister of any any gas to the point where the pressure inside uh reaches the uh beyond the safe Li limit of that container can hold and that if there is
a weakness in the canister that gas will then explosively vent um a sudden disruptive um Force blowing open the canister and that will also cause air in the room that canister has ruptured in to also be pushed to the sides of that as that the content of a canister is also pushed out we often find no that's not an explosion because it's not violent enough is there a definition of how violent it has to be that's the movie classic as well they always can always do like a shot like um Old Die
Hard where they like hand dramatically across to the movie the oxygen canisters for no apparent reason in an office building andless yeah so all start to steam and and you know the tops flying off exactly exactly but of of course if a top has flown off we've already released the gas and it's fine there's actually much that's just venting well well precisely um for example if you if you heat up a canister like that or canister catches fire what tends to happen is the safety me mechanism at top
breaks and it just Vents and catches fire you know you have event I do with this a lot um for listeners I'm waving my hands around to imitate Flames flying out of the canister yeah so we are so you know you do so we've kind of established you don't have to have fire to have an explosion an explosion is something different from a fire yes exactly um in fire investigation it's often the case it is a working out chicken or egg what came first the explosion or the fire um and that forms part of that
investigation because often you'll have a mechanical failure that results in a gas explosion that then damages equipment cause a fire oh that that must be fun to pick apart because at that point everything's kind of spread out and everywhere yeah it's fun but that that can also give you information about how the explosion C was caused and the extent of the explosion which can give you information about how much of it how much pressure or how much of what kind of material was involved based on
distances of debris for example or how how blown out all the windows are or if it knocked or if it blew out the side of a house this sort of thing in in reality um it's the case that you don't need all that much pressure to cause this um that level of damage for example um blowing out the front of the house you just end up with a lot of pressure points or pushing on a wall at once which will often overwhelm the structure and push it over ah so it's not so much an explosion
it's more of a just general it's a mixure slightly too much pressure well all explosion do too much pressure that's just for nature of them yeah slightly experiences may vary um so yeah definition definitions of explosions we we've somewhat covered um in a in a fiery sense um the classic in in fire investigation Kirks describes describes explosions as a rapid oxid oxidization with the evolution of considerable heat accompanied by a disruptive effect well a disruptive effect what
understatement does it have to be disruptive what if it is St what if an explosion happen and no one was Disturbed is it still an explosion that's there's a tree falling in the woods all over again that is a good philosophical question I'll write electus to Kirk and ask well yes isly but is something to bear in mind with explosions we always talk about in a destructive effect but of course explosions are in a controlled sense very useful you know all combustion engines work through tiny little
explosions in the Pistons or buff the Pistons to push from up and down and give us Automotion For Better or For Worse I suppose that is some technical stuff that I think we'll be lost on people soon now we're moving more to electric vehicles I find that a bit sad Anno way yeah that's true you're trying to get your head around how an internal combustion engine works I find quite complicated with the four different stages and I was going to say it blows our mind a little bit but I feel like
I'm making a really bad pun you've got to do it you have to make the bad but has just occurred to me that it is called a combustion engine then leads on to the explosion idea does like mini explosions to make your car go forward that's why you have a spark SL as well that starts the Fire doesn't it diesel cars don't have spark plugs that's different isn't it I think we're getting really distracted though I think I don't think we need to go down the internal combustion engine route anymore
do we I think we did an episode on Turnal combustion engine as well I think do they pretty sure yeah diesel still has spark plugs um cuz that that's the way so essentially all cars all internal combustions engines diesel or petrol work for the same principle of you fine mist of um fine mist of liquid into or vapor into the vapor of petrol or diesel into the um combustion chamber and then spark PL likes it and it lights it and that little explosion pushes a piston up and then it drops down again
and then the same thing happen again then again that seems like it shouldn't be safe I know that it is and I know that millions of cars drive across the world every day but seems Seems dangerous well it depends on your flavor for safe if you just let it if if if you just run an engine forever and ever like that eventually it overheats so it needs to be cooled and ventilated um so yeah and also it breaks down over time every little every little explosion causes a
little bit of damage and everything wears down even in a control sense all moving Parts fail eventually entropy another episode yeah we did ages ago on thermodynamics yeah but yeah I feel like um started off saying plutonium and trying to have a bit of R about it I feel like I should kind of mention that in a bit more detail so I've worked with quite a lot of nuclear scientists over the years um I don't know anyone that's tried to build a nuclear weapon because I don't work with those people
but the people that I work with that have mentioned things to do with plutonium is basically like you need something called the critical mass you need enough plutonium to make it do something so similar to what you were saying about setting up a fire say there are various conditions you need to meet to make your plutonium do anything even vaguely interesting um so just carrying it around it's probably going to be fine unless you've packed it into a certain type of mass and have certain types of
plutonium is to ups and you've surrounded it with the right amount of moderator to reflect enough neutrons to have a sudden massive release of energy from the plutonium as it absorbs neutrons it's just not really going to do much so in a film telling someone to be careful unless you're trained on what is safe and not safe is next to meaningless so exactly what you were saying about what you consider safe neck what what does plutonium look like like normally could you you can just
hold it with gloves on I know nothing about plutonium so I really tree I've never actually met any in real life I think it's just like a gray metal there are different types of plutonium though I think it's like a in a all form it's like a yellowy stone I know we call it yellow cake for that's uranium uranium ah mixing it up but it's not by itself explosive it doesn't have to be kept under like lock and key it normal no it gives off neutrons some isotop give off um alpha particles some
are more active than others um so it's kept behind locking key because people could potentially do bad things with it yeah yeah and you need to be trained on how to handle it could you start a fire with it so you might not have an explosion but you could have a plutonium fire some form do like to absorb water from the atmosphere quite quickly which results in quite a significant output of heat which could potentially start a fire I believe it's pyrophoric I think it's the
ter oh but I don't know any more specific than that uh you can look it up though if you want I think that information is freely available online that's a new word that I learned pyro that's taken me right back to where level chemistry that I don't know oops I'm going to say quite I I think I've heard the word before but I'd be I'd struggle to Define it I I'll try to remember your definition I think of plutonium fire would be a very specialist uh situation yes well on our risk
assessments we do have a radioactive um option to tick so Never Say Never Go get my iron uh uh well my my not my IR my lead PP on and off we go iron he's just sticking on Armor yeah this will help with radiation I'm sure it won't hurt yeah there highly unlikely though there are so many layers of safety in place that getting to that point is just just probably having going to happen in any realistic scenario here's a layer of safety I don't understand right I I was always told that you
weren't allowed to use your phone at a petrol station cuz your phone could cause spark that could ignite the petrol and cause an explosion but is that just uh over begging health and safety or is that a legitimate concern yeah so I I did look into that uh a bit so I've not found an actual source for the concern around using your mobile phone while at with petrol station other than being distracted Ed um there is no source for mobile phones causing electrical faults or any
electrical Sparks so I don't see why they would need to avoid using a mobile phone at at the pump other than of course pay pay attention to what you're doing and don't spill flammable liquid all over the place ideally I suppose flamable also is different to explosive well then you oh okay so then you run into a bit of a thing so um oh no I've opened a can of flamable worms well what what you'll find is what all flammable liquids essentially if you stick a match in a very very
specifically if you stick A Match Into um a puddle of petrol u a match will go out but if you if you wave a lit match over the top of the surface of a puddle of petrol um the vapors coming off the petrol will ignite it's always the vapors that ignite not the liquid itself but you need as I said before you need your fire triangle if you don't have that oxygen you you've got no fire oh that's a good point so you can almost make too much flammable if you just had only flammable
liquid it would be nothing but it's just trying to keep oxygen away is quite difficult on an oxygen uh oxygenated Planet it it it is it is so there's a there's an industrial example I can BR up I've just had a flashback from a a conversation I had with a colleague during covid so well not not quite during Co during that period just when we were coming off covid and uh people were starting and fuel prices skyrocketed I think it during the start of the Ukraine war um
and basically everyone was filling up on petrol buying petrol while it was cheap and a lot of there was just one person who decided to fill up a load of of open containers because they could be Borrowed by a Jerry C and so we had two uh I think four or five large um gallon buckets of the back of their car um filled with um petrol of course the vapors coming off the these petrol um fill the car and we I don't believe we worked out what the ignition Source was
but the car exploded um not because the petrol massive fire due to the petrol um what we what as I understand happen was a what we call defle regation where you have a a a low speed explosion slower than speed of sound um which blew blew out the windows the driver was apparently fine um but if you gather enough petrol vapor in one place it will combust and you will have a small explosion similar to what you get with meane vapor and gas are very similar that makes sense I feel like all
these really dramatic explosions we see in movies just they're not a thing it's not surprising really movies make things seem more dramatic than they are yeah well we're good pyro good pyro technques do present really beautiful explosions with uh very very directed with light and force as it were um it's just not the same if there's some action movie star running away from a building going you know I've saved everyone the building's about to explode and then it doesn't explode on the
H turn it all off it's just not the same Vibe like Steven Spielberg is not going safely as D no exactly but you know with it makes our world a safer place and explosions do still happen people do still get hurt in them sadly um the industrial example I was thinking of thankfully again no one was seriously hurt but it was a scenario where we have a um a a chemical processing plant that coats um Fabrics with solvents to make them more water resistant and essentially we have a situation where we
need to avoid a explosive environment as the fabric runs through a roller and that's Co in solvent and so so um they put this uh the area this happen into a high explosive protection area so we've they've got a glass cabinet around it and his ventilation making sure that the solvent the dissolving solvent inside Vapors coming off it never reach a um never reach above the L Bel lower explosive limit of the air air Vapor mixture to cause an explosion and then of course one day someone leaves the
door open um the L limit is moved Beyond and then some spark most likely from static um sets off ignites of gas and causes an explosion knocking some s over as he walked past the machine sometimes it's a lot more is it it's easier to prevent a explosive environment from being created that prevent Sparks or um other ignition sources from coming into um the situation yeah we've talked a lot about Vapors and flam liquids but they're not the only explosive environments you can
create you can also over press as you can also over pressurize vessels to result in an explosion we can also have some examples I don't know if we want to move into the animal examples or no I was thinking dust and you know F Powers although it I do often wonder um I say Wonder think about these aspects and they they are they follow a very similar um pattern but you have a fine particulate whether not be Vapor or um powder a very F I don't know if you know very famously windmills explode on a
disturbingly regular basis um because of a fine dust powder fine flower that um fills the air you can end up with a a a dust explosion that results again in a def regation pushing suddenly heating the air and causing a um pressure to push out and blow up well blow the windmill apart is that just caused by like friction between the dust grains or something else so I've heard so what's my well my understanding so in truth um investigation into dust explosions are relatively common whether
or not the grains rubbing together in the air I don't see that I don't think that would cause too much of an issue it might cause heating but no that that's that's the thing it's find us floating around in the air so we'd be well ventilated well I think it's kind of it it makes that it makes that explosive environment it's got fuel because you know flour dust is fuel for a fire you've got a good a air fuel mix and then you just need heat of some sort which could be um
I don't know if yeah I don't know if it's the frictional you know static from from dust but everything else you've got is it St the nice you've got two parts of the high triangle yeah you just need a nice spark a bit of friction maybe a door opening someone touching something with a hand and being earthed by it and little spark and is part of the reason because the dust creates this big surface areas you've got a lot of the the fuel in contact with the oxygen is that what it's more likely
yes exactly and you just need one little uh one little um example of oxidization cause enough heat to oxidize another um particle of dust to oxidize another particle of dust and then you have a chain reaction that results in a sudden um expansion of pressure due to come um over a heating up so I'm sure I remember being taught this in school and just not understanding it at all 20 years later now I do well but the scary the scary thing is you can glad you reminded me U
you can do this with anything that oxidizes so you can have um Iron fires in the same way or um Titanium fires in the same way um one of my colleagues investigated not so long ago which result in ex extremely hot um fiery explosions maybe not so much um gasas but definitely far hotter wow yeah oh yeah don't going to win M death trap is that really likely though how many windmills do we have making flower these days I think there's only one or two left in England I went to one
recently that's why maybe you think of that maybe I wouldn't have gone in if I it was extremely D I should point out these aren't the wind turbines that you see in fields and the offshore ones that create electricity that's something else entirely oh yeah these are like flower based wind powerered old buildings from way back when yeah yes but I I think I think as as Antonio was alluding to before that isn't just the old style windmills you can get back in any place you you process any Dusty
material um so flat any any modern windmill with with flow they have a lot of safety precautions to prevent um explosions through um igniting the flower in the air essentially could in theory could I ignite flow in the air in my oh yeah feel free oh well done we do not I'm not going do this but we're not but I'm just intrigued that if I threw a kilo of flour around in my kitchen and then lit a mat would it go up in FL I remember it was a while go you can do an
experiment so you can get okay you might want to edit this bit out so you you you can get those little sucker things um like a bigger one you use for getting stuff out of children's ears and you can suck up some some flower with it and you can puff that into the air and you can ignite it you'll end up with a little wood essentially yeah can do we not advocating anyone do it inside their home yes exactly quite interesting that you could in theory yes exactly exactly yeah dangerous dinner party
trick is you have candles on your table you got some pepper and if you have finally finally Mill pepper you probably throw it across and little Fireball yeah don't see why not except for safety that's why that's why not yeah no that's fair that's fair keep it safe do it outside or don't we do not want to be sending Nick to investigate what caused this fire he'll know you'll listen to the podcast one sec is that a bag of flour and a weird sucker thing Technic that sounds like a good lead in
for exploding animals yes any sucker related animals that explode no suckers I'm really intrigued what you guys are going to think about so we're going let's start they're all insects so they start with turn m going to move to an and then I've got a special bonus one for you at the end I'm nice like that is this going to be like a quiz Al we could do a quiz but maybe not um so this is a species of termite in the rainforests of fren Viana and they grow sacks of toxic blue
liquid on their backs like little termite and then they explode these onto their enemies in suicidal self-defense I mean is that just not the coolest thing you've ever heard how do they make them explode like a bucket of paint how do they make you explode I'm very glad you asked that question Laura so they filled their backpacks with blue crystals which are secreted by glands on their amb and then they I think this is the one where they tear into their bodies oh no this
is the this is the squeezy one they squeeze their abdominal muscles so hard until they explode and they have a portion of their abdominal wall which is thinner and weaker that is like primed to do this and then yeah it like explodes the contents on their enemies in and they die you see because they raptured their own abdomen is this exploding bursting oh this is the kind of content did but that's a fair point my description of a over pressurized vessel that's essentially bursting that's what
I was wondering is yeah the cre is a water balloon an explosion or is it just bursting excellent well made well well then again the water does not expand out in every dire or every direction it well I suppose it goes in a specific does didn't you say there had to be an increase in as well Nick to count as an explosion so it for a a a fiery explosion certainly but an over pressurized exp and again because of pressure you know the increase in pressure does tend to be a result of
overheating we call those mechanical you can straight up have a mechanical explosion like if you if youum filled a balloon with a an O and popped it that is that not an explosion as well and mechanical one I say pop I mean you know cause the balloon to rupture like these termites yes thank you would you say on the termite would you say would you say it's still included the disruptive effect oh it's definitely disruptive if you're a you know an invasive Predator
against these T lights I think this might sway you okay so they've got a chemical reaction going on as well on so they've got two specialized glatts uh and they produce these blue crystals but then when the termites explode there's extra pouches that burst the salivary GRS and the crystals have to react with the secretions of the civr to become tox so there is an extra bit of something going on yeah although it does sound like we're spraying them with toxic cryst
Crystal which granted I wish I I wish I could spray my enemies with toxic crystals I wish I had glands that made toxic crystals but uh I know naing and it is quite disruptive it' be pretty dis especially for the lives of the termites that are exploding they're they're dead so it doesn't get more disrupted than that yeah I can't help but feel though just based on my experience a good definition an of an explosion is a sudden and I got to say disruptive expansion of gas
essentially that applies pressure somewhat equally around in all directions if that makes sense um it's similar to an implosion where you have some everything that sucks in an explosion is the opposite there um the gas in that are is all pushed out in all different directions different direction of least resistance case tends to be yeah it just about to say you get shaped explosives for helping with um demolition projects which suggests that the force is directed in a
particular place not just expanding in all directions but I guess that comes down to what you were saying so he bites around it with something on one side that directs the explosion somewhere else yes well demolition explosions tend to use um uh what we call High explosives to do high high level very powerful but small explosions in very um specific directions I wasn't sure Ellie earli on did you ask if you dropped a box of C4 will it explode yes I did ask that yeah so if you drop a box of C4 it
won't explode okay because I mean I'm very clumsy for that it's good to know but I don't think I ever be carrying SE yeah um you you need specific trigger to as I understand typically I'm not a demolition expert but uh you need a a spark or specific igniter to cause um C4 and specific modern explosives to explode older um explosives such as n RS made using nitr is it nitrate nitroglycerin um that tends to be that tends to be fairly unstable um and can explode if if um sufficiently rustled
about essentially um due to sudden oxidization from small um from small amounts of heat caused by the disruption as I understand but no one would use that anymore because it's it's a bit too uncontrollable yes Al Never Say Yeah it depends what you're trying to achieve and here you are I suppose comes back to my point about plutonium in films it's criminals trying to steal it yeah is I feel like we've distracted you Ellie from uh animals I know get back not come to a
conclusion there's another species of ant so this instead of we're moving from termites to an and it's literally called hopsis explodens uh because it's explosive and it is similar to the termite and that it flexes so hard that its abdomen bursts at the sea and they tear themselves apart to protect the rest of the colony they literally explode themselves by in selfdefense and also you said about G uh while these ones apparently smell strangely of Curry and they explode
there must be some sort of gas release going on there as well oh if it's C in yeah I never mind um yeah well possibly so is there any sort of this sounds similar to again similar to a bursting but for chemical reaction R does that usually result in um burning or uh sudden expansion to knock the um prey away um is to cover them in a toxic fluid gotcha no so they explode and release this bright yellow sticky substance gotcha what's it smells like here's my question what's the like
radius you know the blast Zone retin it is it far enough that it could be an explosion not just they leaked a little bit of toxic uh liquid I really don't know but also remember that it's an an so like realistically it's not that but relative comparative down well if it didn't work they wouldn't have evolved over millions of years of evolution to do this right so it must be a large enough radius they can protect poon from whatever's coming towards and if two species are doing it
are they evolutionary linked in any way the ants and the termites I don't know why You' know that but it seems logical to me they must have had a common ancestor they must have had a common ancestor they're too similar aren't they they're too they got too much in common unless it's remarkable convers it does happen sometimes doesn't it because if if it works for one species in one environment you can imagine another one might evolve it in a completely different environment
and they'd be totally unrelated there many examples of convergent evolution where species that aren't actually related by a common ancestor have evolved these same traits like the exploding an and ter lights even though I reckon they probably do from ancestors somewhere way back in the evolutionary history but also because you were arguing it that it's not actually an explosion it's a bursting at the sea but what about something like the Hulk because when he is Bruce Banner that's
the character right and then he becomes the Hulk he bursts out of his own body and he like rips all of his clothes is that an explosion or is that just something else we you could make the argument about it's an explosive expansion of banner um you know similar to an explosive expansion of of gases in a caused by combustion b i I'd say bursts and explosions are similar explosions in a fire investigation sense always involve uh some um combustion oxidization of gases I I
must admit maybe saying that bursting doesn't count as exploding isn't isn't exactly Fair because you know I'm taking it as a win for the I'd say it's definitely a mechanical explosion we'll call it a biological mean bi mechanical explosion there if I make yeah there's chemicals involved than this [Music] one but I I I'd still encourage just one just one more thing in animals causing what I'd argue is more of an explosion pis pistol pistol crab a crab with a
giant claw that has is able to close the claw so quickly with such pressure it causes a burst of water at high pressure to shoot out of it and how it's Hunter spray I think it's have you heard before I think it's a species of shrimp yeah and it's like is it sonification where it causes light the reaction light as well that's correct ter there we go so we've got got got light and high pressure perfect and it's a really hot CL from just one mechanical movement or is the light
produced by a chemical yeah it's so incredibly fast and the force is like wildly wildly high this tiny little animal there's videos of it doing it really and there's a FL I have one last example this is I think bit of a schoolyard joke perhaps and I normally wouldn't say that but it's quite funny um so the the situation is that when a male honeybee mates with a female honeybee his testicles explode and he dies hilarious why would it do that yeah evolutionary why would it help evolu
then no there's always an advantage so basically his Endo phalus which is basically a BPS is then lodged in the female preventing another male from coming along and mating with the queen bee ensuring that his genes are passed on think how many offspring a queen bee would explosive reproduction it's incredible apparently it's also Audible for the human ear if you were nearby I think I think that' be a good example of an explosion you know similar to what we discussed prev viously you
know a biomechanical one well it's also I don't know if it's like a ripping more than an explosion because his endal is ripped from his body but I think there is some buildup there must be considerable Force otherwise how's it stop yeah or is it like a cork screw like some animals have cork screws to kind of make it more difficult to get away from the ra that yeah yeah there's a lot of techniques like that sort of thing to prevent other males from Bing female in the animal
kingdom is interesting but Snopes did a review on it because it's one of those things that gets like banded around and they reached out to a number of experts to confirm whether test R and they they reckon it's correct they couldn't say 100% one way or the other so they said it's a research in progress at the end of their article I was just wondering yeah how would you observe that how many bees do you have to watch me to be 100% sure but they also die this is the this
is the trade off with exploding animals the termites die the ants die unfortunately the males bees die when part of their body explodes so is a lot of this just inferred from the apoma similar to job as a parens we've linked it full precisely amazing it'll be deaths yet but I'll let you know as soon as I come across one if that caused a fire that you had to go investigate how many bees would that have to be I'll get back to you on that one I don't think bees are small enough to
cause a um a dust explosion R so we'll see we'll see a devastating effect exactly thousands of casualties B casualties on they just I don't know how that would happen explode whil surrounded by pollen in the hive that is a ridiculous kind get quite warm though can't they they like inside the hive it can get really warm inside a hive but I think that's more body heat and Hive engineering than it is Uhl yeah so we've not seen any exploded beehives not yet not yet natural causes I mean if
they get Dusty perhaps I don't I don't want I don't um B aren so someone who desperately hates bees I can't leave the bees alone we need the bees I can't think of a mechanism which cause a hive to explode and ultimately that you do need mechanisms for these things to happen good well I'm glad that's scene in um H games where she cuts the hornet nest off the is that an explosion or is that just a burst that's a bursting the bees an explosion of Anger from the bees so it seems like a good place to
leave it we've deviated quite off topic we started off with Laura's rant about how plutonium is handled very delicately in films when in fact if you dropped it it probably would not cause an explosion it would cause other bad effects but probably not an explosion but we then also learned about what is an explosion and how do you hopefully not start one um and the animal kingdom is explosive apparently thanks for listening and see you in the next one avoid windmills the
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