This week we’re looking back at some of our favorite Distillations episodes. First, we return to one of our first shows with the element of the week. Audra Wolfe explains the standards that make precise measurement possible. Next we visit CHF’s kitchen as Erin McLeary and Integral Molecular’s Joe Rucker try their hand at making mauvine, originally featured on our color show. Finally we revisit our nanotechnology show with a medieval application of carbon nanotubes. Jen Dionisio tells us about Damascus steel in Mystery Solved! Element of the Week: Platinum.

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Show Clock

00:00 Opening Credits
00:32 Introduction
00:50 Element of the Week: Platinum
03:03 Making Mauvine
08:30 Mystery Solved! Damascus Steel
11:17 Closing Credits

Credits

Thank you to Hilary Domush and Chi Chan who researched the shows we featured this week.

Our theme music is composed by Dave Kaufman. Additional music from the PodSafe Music Network.

This week we discuss the chemistry behind what we wear. Many modern fabrics include synthetic materials , and these synthetics would not be possible without chemistry. In the Element of the Week, we learn about aluminum’s role in creating Lurex, a brand of metallic thread. Then producer Jean Parker takes us to India and visits a tannery in Bombay to tell us more about one of the oldest fabrics known to man—leather. Finally, we explore the world of pantyhose in Chemistry in your Cupboard as CHF’s Erin McLeary describes new chemically enhanced pantyhose. Also please join us as we wish our host, Robert Hicks, a fond farewell. You can now find him as director of the Mutter Museum and Historical Medical Library at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Element of the Week: Aluminum.

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Show Clock

00:00 Opening Credits
00:31 Introduction
01:00 Element of the Week: Aluminum
03:20 Leather Tanning in India
08:18 Chemistry in Your Cupboard: Pantyhose
11:02 Robert’s Farewell
11:20 Quote: Mark Twain
11:33 Closing Credits

Resources and References

For more about Lurex, visit the company web site.
Curious about the history of metallic threads? Check out this blog posting, at Needle’nThread.com.
For an article about high-tech pantyhose look at this one from Business 2.0.

Credits

A special thanks to Erin McLeary and Jennifer Dionisio for researching the show.

Our theme music is composed by Dave Kaufman. Additional music from the PodSafe Music Network. Additional music is “Addicted to Lies,” by Frank A. LoCicero, “Back to Bach,” by Saharadja, and “Zimbobvilla,” by Podcast Troubadour.

This week’s image, “tights,” is from flickr. It was uploaded by How can I recycle this.

While chemistry often plays a silent role in art, such as synthetic additives in acrylic paints, both artists and scientists have consciously chosen to intersect the two. CHF’s Erin McLeary was astounded by the work of Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, who created images with filter paper and called them “self-grown pictures.” In this week’s episode, Erin tells us how Runge discovered the colorful pictures that grow themselves. We also visit two present-day New York artists — Steve Miller and Dove Bradshaw — who have chosen different routes to incorporate science into their art. And this week we learn about neon and how it found its way into popular art. Element of the Week: Neon.

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Show Clock

00:00     Opening Credits
00:32     Introduction
01:09     Element of the Week: Neon
03:37     Commentary: Self-Grown Pictures
06:54     ChemArtists
10:51     Quote: Bo Malmstrom
11:04     Closing Credits

Resources and References

Neon as art: Eric Ehlenberger’s virtual art gallery and the online gallery of Craig Kraft.
On Runge: Bussemas, H. H., G. Harsch, and L. S. Ettre. “Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge (1794-1867): ‘Self-Grown Pictures’ as Precursors of Paper Chromatography,” Chromatographia 38 (1994): 243-254.
For more about the ChemArtists: Steve Miller and Dove Bradshaw.

Credits

This show was researched by Erin McLeary and Audra Wolfe.
Lisa Gray produced the segment on ChemArtists.

Our theme music is composed by Dave Kaufman. Additional music was provided from the Podsafe Music Network. The music at the end of the Element of the Week is Neon Baby, by The Bad Touch. The music for the commentary is Mysterious World, by If. The music for the quotation is Fire against the Sea, by Ichiro Nakagawa.

Photo credits, from top to bottom: Six Continents, art and photo by Dove Bradshaw. Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge title page from the author’s 1858 book Der Bildungstrieb der Stoffe: Veranschaulicht in selbstständig gewachsenen Bildern (Fortsetzung der Musterbilder). Image courtesy of The Othmer Library of Chemical History at CHF, photo by Rosanne DiVernieri. Artist Steve Miller in front of his work With Strings Attached, photo by Lisa Gray.

Color literally fills our world, and it plays a dominant role in how we perceive our surroundings. Scientists have been fascinated with the question of what color is ever since Isaac Newton discovered that white light contains the entire color spectrum. Our show on color explains not only how color is produced, but also looks at how scientists use color to investigate the natural world. Join CHF’s Erin McLeary and Integral Molecular’s Joe Rucker as they whip up a batch of mauvine, the first synthetic dye, in CHF’s catering kitchen. (You can see their results in the glove pictured above.) In this week’s Chemistry in Your Cupboard, learn how you can make your own pH meter with a common vegetable. Element of the Week: Chromium.

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Show Clock

00:00    Opening Credits
00:32     Introduction
01:09     Element of the Week: Chromium
02:54     Chemistry in Your Cupboard
05:12     Making Mauvine
10:47     Quote: Claude Monet
11:06     Closing Credits

Resources and References

On chromium: Web Elements Perioidic Table and this helpful Wikipedia entry
For a good explanation of the red cabbage phenomenon: a lecture demonstration from the University of Minnesota
On mauvine: Simon Garfield, “One Man and His Color: Reflections on Mauve’s 150th Birthday,” Chemical Heritage 24, no. 3 (Fall 2006), 8–10, 35.
On color in general: Philip Ball, Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color (New York, 2001).
Quotation: Claude Monet, as quoted J. Claretie, La Vie á Paris, 1881 (Paris, 1881), p. 26.

Credits

Special thanks to Hilary Domush for researching the show.

Our theme music is composed by Dave Kaufman. Additional music was provided from the Podsafe Music Network. The music for introduction to the Element of the Week is Sage Hill Theme, by Intelect. At the end of the Element of the Week the music is Boom Boom Beckett’s In a Sentimental Mood. The music at the end of Chemistry in Your Cupboard is Dog Day Afternoon, by Freddie Wong. Both the intro and the outro for mauvine segment is Rio Colorado, by Moth to a Candle.

This week’s photo was taken by Gregory Tobias.