04x21 - Even More Scientists

[bunniefuu]

-[Mooshu meows]
-[fanfare playing]

[chirping]

♪ How, what, where, why? ♪

♪ What, where, why?
How, what, where, why? ♪

♪ What, where, why?
Ada Twist, scientist ♪

♪ She's gonna find out
What the answer is ♪

♪ Under here, over there ♪

♪ Science is everywhere you look ♪

♪ I'm Iggy Peck, architect ♪

♪ And I'm Rosie Revere, engineer ♪

♪ Technology, that's me, Benny B. ♪

♪ A mystery, a riddle
A puzzle, or a quest ♪

♪ There are wonders to discover
And hypotheses to test ♪

♪ Science is the best
Ada Twist, scientist ♪

♪ I'm gonna find out what the answer is ♪

♪ Everywhere science is
She's forming a hypothesis ♪

♪ Connecting polka dots
'Cause this is scientist, Ada Twist ♪

[Ada speaking]

[Ada] Know what we need?
A deep dive to learn more about science.

Let's go!

B.R.I., we wanna learn more about science,
but we can't decide what kind.

[B.R.I.] Random selection,
my favorite way to search.

Exploring my files for information on…

all kinds of science.

Oh! Look at all the fun science
I have found.

Enjoy, Questioneers.

[crowd laughing]

Oh, hi. I'm Alie Ward.
I'm a science communicator.

And today we'll talk about
the science of laughter.

-[toy squeaks]
-Oh, hold on.

[laughs] Wait, what?

[chuckles]

Do you know that you are born to laugh?

If you've ever laughed,
it's not just all in the mind,

it affects your whole body.

What's controlling
all these physical actions?

Well, it's your brain.

When you laugh, a lot chemically is
happening in your brain,

and those chemicals
affect your whole body.

It's not enough
to just think something's funny.

The actual act of laughter…

[laughing]

…of gasping… [gasps]

…and smiling, even slapping your knee,
all releases endorphins.

And that's a physical chemical process.
It doesn't happen if you're just going…

[flatly] "That's funny."

One of the best things
about laughter is that it's contagious.

So, one person laughs…

[imitates laughter]

…before we know it,
someone else starts giggling.

We have something in our brain,
those are called mirror neurons,

and they see other people
experiencing emotion,

and we start to feel the same emotion.
Why? It helps us bond.

So, you start laughing in a group.
Boom! What's the result?

Friendship, smiles, and more laughs.

So, now that we've learned about laughter,
what is funny?

Well, usually the unexpected.

He wasn't expecting that.

I was expecting this, though.

[kids laughing]

Fun fact!

Did you know that even rats laugh?

It's true. And it's so high-pitched
human ears can't detect it.

Next time you see a rat,
it could be giggling.

[both giggling]

What's up? Maynard Okereke here,
also known as the Hip Hop M.D.

I'm a civil engineer
and a science communicator,

and today we'll learn
about the engineering and science

behind building a tent.

Tents give us an understanding

about some cool engineering principles,

but before we discuss those concepts,
we need to build this.

What's probably the most important
structural element, our rods.

These rods are important,
because they're strong and flexible.

They'll hold your tent up. It won't break.

We have two rods in the middle,
a rod on either side,

this provides the framework of our tent,

which we can now inhabit,
and be able to sleep comfortably inside.

One thing you'll notice
about our tent structure

is this unique dome shape.

But why is it shaped like a dome?

This shape gives it
the ability to be aerodynamic.

When you're out
camping in windy conditions,

the wind flies right over this,
gives it wind resistance.

Also, when it rains,
all the water runs nicely to the sides,

so you stay nice and dry
while you're camping.

So many elements go into play

when designing something
as simple as a tent.

Fun fact.

Instead of tents being constructed
out of materials like nylon or polyester,

like they are today,

some of the earliest tents ever built

were made out of
the fur of woolly mammoths.

Hello, I'm Kanten Russell,
skate park designer.

We'll talk about designing a skate park.

There's a lot of things
we're trying to think about

to be very inclusive for everybody,
whether you're a beginner,

intermediate-level
or advanced-level rider.

So, looking at this layout,

you can see that there is
an area here for beginners.

We specifically had the most
low-elevated feature here at the entry.

We call this a manual pad,
which is a low grindable ledge.

And then as you go to the back here,

you start to get
a little higher of these blocks.

So, you can go on the bottom, on the top,

you can jump down from the top to bottom.

And then the simulated backyard pool.

That's your more advanced-level
feature in the park.

Everything has a tie-in to each other.

We have engineering that goes into this
with all the elevations and the grading.

And the structures
and the elements we're designing

have to not only be skateable,

but they also have to
be structurally sound.

After we finish the design of the park,
we have to test it.

Fun fact!

In the 1970s when skateboarding started,

people had to sneak into backyards
to skate empty swimming pools.

Now that skate parks are more common,

we have been able
to put real authentic pools

right into the design.

Hi. I'm Lieutenant Brian Cunningham.
I'm a pilot in the Navy.

I'll be talking about parachutes

and the kind we use here
at Naval Air Station North Island.

Let's go look at one.

This parachute is so big.

It's taller than I am.

This is the harness
that holds on to the pilot.

Attached to the harness,
called the risers,

that's these long string-looking chords
that go all the way up to the canopy.

When you first jump out of the plane,
it feels like you're weightless.

You're falling through air.

But as the parachute opens,
all of that air fills the parachute

and starts to slow you down,
you start feeling like you're floating,

you're moving with the wind.

You'll notice that
the parachute is different colors

so that if we have to
bail out of the aircraft,

each one of these colors
can create a camouflage for the pilot,

whether they land in a forest environment,

in a desert with lots of sand,
or in a cold area with a lot of snow.

This fourth color is orange,
so that if we need to be rescued,

we can use it as a signaling device.

All of this is actually
going to be stuffed into this pack.

How the parachute is packed
is incredibly important,

so that when it does come out and deploy,

it doesn't get twisted up or anything.

Fun fact!

The military sometimes will
have dogs attached to them

as they jump out of the plane.

They're called paradogs,

and they're trained to be able to jump out
with a parachute like this one.

Come on, pup. Let's go.

Hey, who are you?
I've never seen you here before.

My name's Elliot Gavin Keenan.

I'm a PhD student at UCLA,
and I study psychology.

Psychology is the science
of how people think and behave.

And I'm autistic.

Autism is a certain kind of thinking

and a different kind of brain
that some people have.

Today, I'm going to be talking about

some of the benefits
of having different kinds of brains.

Autistic people tend to see the world

a bit differently than
people who are not autistic.

Autistic people tend
to see the details first.

For example, someone with autism

might see and draw a house

by drawing the windows
and the doors of the house

before they draw the structure
of the house itself and the roof.

But someone who is neurotypical

is most likely to draw first
the structure of the house itself

and the roof,
and then the doors and the windows.

In the end, these houses look
pretty much the same.

A lot of what I do as a scientist

is I look for patterns,

and the ability of some
autistic people to see details first

makes them very good at seeing patterns.

Some patterns are simple.

This is a pattern
and we see three repetitions,

but there are some patterns
that are more complicated.

Now, can you tell what the pattern is?

If you break it down
into its individual units,

you can see that
blue and yellow together makes green.

Red and yellow together makes orange.

Having such
a detail-oriented processing style,

autistic people are really good
in careers like computer programming,

where the ability to see
a tiny detail makes a big difference.

Fun fact!

Your brain is
just as unique as your fingerprint.

It's different from
everybody else's in the whole world.

Hi, I'm Angela Sanchez and I'm a magician.

And today I'll show you

some magic that uses science.

Come on, let's go.

For this next trick, I need five dollars.
Anyone got five dollars?

Five do-- Oh!

Hey!

I'll do something
very special to this five dollars.

I'm going to light it on fire.

Why doesn't the bill burn?

The science, really,
behind this trick is chemistry.

We covered this bill in alcohol and water.

Alcohol is very flammable,
it catches on fire very easily.

So, while the alcohol s burning,

the water is actually
protecting your money.

This is why
science is so important to magic.

If I didn't know
the right ratio of water to alcohol,

well, I wouldn't have five bucks.

Whether you're lighting stuff on fire

or even making something change colors,

there's a lot of
different effects that rely on science.

Science helps you unlock
a bigger world of magic

and also become a better magician.

Fun fact!
There's an Olympics for magicians.

Every three years,
the World Magic Championships takes place,

and it's where magicians
show off their best tricks.

Hi, I'm Lasheeda Perry,
and I am a pastry chef.

Today, we are going to learn
how temperatures affect your ice cream.

Making ice cream is all about temperature.

Our cream and milk,
that serves as the liquid for our recipe.

We have our base,

but it will not become ice cream
until we pour it into this machine,

which freezes it.

So, I'm going to
go ahead and grab the bowl.

It's very important
that this bowl is very, very, very cold,

because that's the only way this ice cream
is going to become ice cream.

I can see the ice cream is churning.

It's not ready yet.

I'll lift it up so you can see
the consistency of it right now.

See how it is getting thicker?
It's very similar to snow.

Snow is essentially a liquid, right?
It-- It's water.

And when it's in very,
very cold temperatures,

it creates ice crystals,

and those ice crystals'll
form and compact to each other.

It's the same thing
when you're making ice cream,

you are freezing ice crystals.

Look at that.

We made ice cream!

Eventually, anything
that's frozen will melt,

because if it's supposed to be frozen,
it needs to be at a certain temperature.

But when you take it
out of that cold environment,

it's going to melt.

Fun fact!

One of the first forms of ice cream
was actually taking a flavored syrup

and pouring it over fresh snow.

Snow that tastes good.

Hi. I'm Christine.

I'm a science teacher,

and today we'll talk
about weather balloons

and [yelling] weather.

-[record scratches]
-Is it snowing?

This is our weather balloon, and this is
a really, really, really big balloon.

Weather balloons
go way up in the atmosphere.

It actually goes up
higher than an airplane does.

The balloon tells scientists

what the conditions
of Earth's atmosphere are.

It's important to know
if big storms are coming.

This right here is a payload box,

and it includes some materials

that go up on a weather balloon.

These sensors right here are
going to tell me about the wind,

the temperature, and the pressure.

But since this is going up
so high in the atmosphere,

planes need to see it,

so it's reflective
so that they know what it is.

Now, we'll get ready to launch.

We're going to release in three, two, one…

So, by launching these balloons,
we can understand

and know a whole lot more about storms.

And that can make some
of the things that we don't know about,

that maybe we're scared about,

it can make those things less scary.

Fun fact!

Every day in the United States,

almost 100 weather balloons
are launched twice a day,

morning and afternoon.

Hey, my name is Rory Aronson
and I'm a robotics engineer.

Today we'll learn how robots work,
kind of like this one.

This is where we design
and build all of the farming robots.

The robot that I created
takes care of plants for you.

Here we have some of our test robots.

Here we have all of our spare parts

in case anything breaks.

We even have stickers.

The first thing we do
when we're designing robots

is we go into our computer system
and we design the parts.

Once we come up
with a design we're happy with,

we go and we build prototypes

and we see how well this works.

This right here, this is
the very first farm bot that I built.

You can see that it's rusty now
because I used the wrong materials.

But I learned from that mistake,

and now the new farm bots are
made from aluminum and they don't rust.

So, this is version one of the farm bot.

We had to do
version one, two, three, four,

all the way up to 15

to get to this one,
which does all sorts of things.

Whenever you want to control a robot,

you need to tell it
exactly what you want to do

through sequences and code.

Pretty much every robot
that you'll ever come across

will have something like this inside.

And it controls with electricity,

the motors and the lights

and all of the other functions
that the machine can do.

Fun fact!

There are robot parts all over your house.

For example, the microwave,
refrigerator and washing machine

all have motors, electronics,
sensors, just like a robot.

Hi, I'm Brett Doar
and I'm a contraptionist,

and that means I build
machines kind of like this.

We'll talk about friction.

So, low friction means that this can
move a lot easier across this,

and high friction means
that it's a lot harder for it to slide.

So, you can see what happens…

And it's friction that's causing this
to stop and for this to tip over.

So, the ball can
start the contraption, like so.

Building these machines is
all about trial and error.

I have to make sure
each individual part works

so that once you put them together,
they'll all work together.

The first step in making
one of these machines

is that I just start
playing with materials.

That's always exciting,

it's always thrilling to solve a problem.

And to know that there is a solution.

I got glitter all over me.

And remember, safety first!

Fun fact!

When you rub your hands together,
it generates heat because of friction.

So, the next time it's cold weather
and your hands get cold,

you can warm them up with friction.

Ooh, it's hot!

Hi, I'm Gabriel Santos.

I'm a paleontologist and today,
we'll learn about fossils.

[animals roaring]

So, when we say fossil,
fossil means evidence of past life,

so they can be multiple things.

Usually we think of bones,
but other things can make up fossils too.

You can have footprints, shells.

You can even have
fossilized poop that we call coprolites.

If you look at the fossil,
this is the bone right here

and this gray stuff
is what we call "matrix."

Matrix is the rock that
surrounds all of the fossil.

Our preparators,
which are special paleontologists,

get them all nice and pretty
and ready for research and display.

Preparators use
a lot of specialized tools.

So, here we use things called air scribes.
Air scribes are mini jackhammers.

So, here's the tip
and air goes through this part here

and vibrates it up and down

so that it'll
remove the matrix from the fossil.

For some fossils
where the matrix is very hard,

it can take months to even years
to fully prepare a fossil by researchers.

Fun fact!

This is the wing of Quetzalcoatlus,

the largest flying animal
to have ever existed.

When you put its two wings together,

it's about the size of a jet plane.

And when it stood up,
it was the height of a giraffe.

Hi, I'm Lieutenant Brian Cunningham,
call sign "Waldo."

A call sign is like a nickname.

And I'm a naval aviator,
which means I'm a pilot in the Navy.

Though I don't fly this very often,
I do fly the real thing.

Let me show you!

This is the helicopter that I fly.

This is the MH60 Sierra,
also known as the Seahawk.

And in here… is the cabin of the aircraft.

We can carry passengers,
food and water and supplies.

Make this anything we need it to be.

These are called rotors.

The main rotor allows us
to adjust our pitch,

which allows us to go up and down,

as well as our roll,
which allows us to go left and right.

All the way back here is our tail rotor.

Without the tail rotor,

our helicopter would
just continue to spin in a circle.

So, right here up front is the c*ck.

This is where the pilots
sit and steer the helicopter.

When I started flying helicopters,

it took me a long time
to get used to all these buttons.

But, just like anything,
the more you practice,

the easier it is to find
the button you're looking for.

And up here,
it even has a windshield wiper.

So, if you noticed,
there's no place to put a key,

like when you're driving in a car.
How do you start this?

Well, you can't just hop in,
push a button and get started.

It's an entire checklist.

We're checking systems
to make sure that they function properly,

checking lights
to make sure that they turn on.

We're ready to go fly!

Fun fact!

A helicopter like this one
can fly in any direction.

If it wants to fly forward,
it can fly forward.

Side to side,
or it can even fly backwards.

If a plane were flying this way
and wanted to go back that way,

it has to actually make
the entire turn the other way.

That's why helicopters are better.

[Ada] That was incredible!
I love science! Thanks, B.R.I.!

[B.R.I.] You're welcome, Questioneers.
I learned a lot too.

Bye-bye.

[instrumental theme song playing]