07x02 - Structure of Matter

[bunniefuu]

Dragonfly TV is all about nano, and

this time we're facing off on the hockey

rink, chasing down

butterflies and discovering their sticky

stuff on the ocean floor.

Major funding for Dragonfly TV is

provided by

the National Science Foundation,

supporting education and research across

all fields of science and engineering.

The National Science Foundation, where

discoveries begin.

Hi, I'm Eric and this is Dragonfly TV

Nano. This episode is brought to you by

the small stuff that everything is made

of atoms. Here I am looking

pretty good pretending to be a carbon

atom. Nanoscale is small, but atoms are

even smaller. See, I'm less than one

nanometer in size. And when I hook up

with my carbon atom buddies, hey guys,

we bond to become a molecule.

Carbon atoms can connect in ways that

form different shapes or structures. This

molecule here is graphite, like this

stuff. It's soft and breakable,

and it's used in pencils.

Now look at this diamond molecule.

It's hard to believe, but diamonds are

made of carbon also. The diamond

molecule's structure makes it one of the

hardest things on Earth. And if I write

on the lens with this diamond, Eric,

stop. Kidding. If I wrote on the lens

with this, I'd ruin it with scratches.

Nanotechnology lets scientists use

special carbon molecules like these

buckyballs and carbon nanotubes to make

cool new products. And Next up,

Jordan and Nick find out what these

nano-sized particles can do for a hockey

stick. He shoots. He scores.

One, two...

That's my buddy, Nick. And I'm

Jordan.

We play sports together all the time.

Good game. That's how we roll. That's

how we go

Is that a new hockey stick?Yeah, CNT.

CNT, what does that mean?Carbon nanotube.

Well, that tells me a lot. Well, first

there was the wood sticks, then

composite. Now there's the carbon

nanotube stick. It's supposed to make it

stronger and better. What is a nanotube?I

don't know. Can you see them?I don't

know. Want to cut it open and see if

there's really tubes inside?No, it's

brand new. I think we should test it to

see if it's any stronger or better. Well,

I think we should find more about carbon

nanotubes first. OK.

Nick's question made me think of that big

model of a carbon nanotube that's hanging

at the Museum of Science.

Carbon nanotube. Cool. We're inside of

it. Hey, guys. I'm Tim. I'm one of the

nano guys here at the museum. I'm Nick.

He's Jordan. You're not really a nano

because nanos are small. That's true. A

nanometer is way too small to see with

the naked eye. Yeah, I just got a new

hockey stick made of CNT. We were

wondering what the nanotubes do to affect

it to make it better. Good question.

Follow me. Now, you guys remember the

balloon model downstairs?Yeah. Yeah

Another good way we can make a model of

that structure is using chicken wire.

Carbon atoms often arrange themselves in

big honeycomb patterns like this, into

big sheets. And the carbon nanotube is

just the same structure that's been

rolled up from the sheet into a tube. Why

don't you guys see if you can get the

nanotube to support the weight of the

bowling ball?Whoa. I

notice that doesn't work at all, right?

This one's real sloppy and it collapsed

easily. Now let's try it with the other

model rolled up the other

way. Exactly. Now remember, we started

with the same thing. They're both just

chicken wise. But by rolling it up in a

different way, by changing the shape,

we've changed the properties. So in the

hockey stick, they'd probably use the

more flexible and light one. What makes

the carbon nanotube any better than the

rest of the hockey sticks?Well, my dad

said it was better than the wood stick.

You're not just going to take his word

for it. I guess we could test all three.

Let's go.

We went to the hockey rink to do our

tests. We set up a radar speed detector

and compared our CNT stick to other

sticks. I took 10 shots with each stick.

In the first round, I have my old wooden

stick. The second round, I have this

composite stick. And last is my new CNT

stick. It's composite stick with a bunch

of other stuff and carbon nanotubes.

Let's see which one shoots the fastest

slap shot. Take a best shot

Take a best shot Take a best

shot, baby Take a best shot

Now let's make a graph of this. Okay.

We discovered that the average speed of

the wood stick was 40.5 miles per hour.

The composite stick had an average of



fastest average speed at 44.5

miles per hour. Well, it looks like the

CNT lived up to its expectations. It

handled really good, too. It's fast and

light. I'm still not convinced this is

strong, so I'm gonna try toNo, that's not

scientific. I didn't know a lab that can

test its strength, though. All right,

let's go.

Why did the CNT stick, help Jordan slap

shot?Well, like Nick,

I would love to smash this and see what's

inside.

Ah But I bet Jordan and Nick find a

better way to break these in the lab.

Anyway... Have you ever noticed how

much the word nano shows up these days?I

mean, there are ads for nano hair

dryers, shampoos, umbrellas. There's even

a car named Nano. But I wonder how

many of these things actually use

nanotechnology?Or do their nano names

just mean that they're kind of small?Hmm

Something to think about. Now let's head

to the real nanoscience frontier with

today's Nano Challenge.

How can you get into space

without a rocket?Can you

figure it out?It's a tough one, but I

believe in you guys, and I'll be back

with a clue later on. But now it's back

to Jordan and Nick. who are about to bust

up some hockey sticks in the name of

science. Me and Jordan have

known each other for ten years. What I

like about Nick is he's nice. Jordan and

I are always together. I'm better at

hockey than him. He's not, like, the

greatest skater ever.

I am probably better at him in

multiplication and division. We sometimes

are competitive. We will always end the

game nicely. We

weren't convinced that the CNT stick was

actually stronger, so we went to see Joe

at Harvard, who has a machine in his lab

that tests the strength of things.

Hi, Joe. Thanks for having us. We bought

three sticks of wood, a composite, and a

CNT. We want to test their strength. OK,

over here I have three sticks just like

the ones you brought in today. Why don't

we test these instead?Could we weigh

these?Because the CNT stick felt larger

than the other two. We have a scale right

here. We made a chart to compare the

weight of the three sticks. The CNT stick

is .67 pounds. The

composite stick is

.85 pounds. And the wood stick

is 1.15 pounds. All right,

since we've weighed them, let's go break

some sticks. This is a strength

testing machine. We'll be able to

determine the load that the hockey sticks

actually break at. We started by breaking

the Santee stick first. Well, that's

cool. Whoa. Whoa.

That's so good. 1,422 pounds it took to

break. Can we do the composite one now?

Sure. The

composite stick broke at 1505

lbs, and the wood stick took



Looks like the CNT wasn't what I thought

it would be. This one's thinner. Thin

layer. Yeah. Fiberglass is like, we're

spiked. It's not even hollow.

It's solid wood. The fact that the wood

stick was solid explained the weight

differences, but it brought up another

question. If all the sticks weighed the

same, how would their strengths compare?

Joe showed us a way to compare sticks

that takes their different weights into

account. All you have to do is divide the

pounds of force by the stick's weight

using Arnie's strength rating. CNT had



Composite had



and wood had



like the clear winner is CNT, like I told

you. Let's look at the CNT stick to look

if there's nanotubes inside. Well,

I don't see anything. How about you?

Nothing. I guess they're too small to

see. So Joe

sent us to see David Belle, a scientist

who uses microscopes to see things on the

nanoscale. Hi, guys. How are

you?Hi, you must be Dave. What's that?

That is what's called a helium ion

microscope, and that allows you to look

at very small things. I couldn't find the

nanotubes inside his hockey stick, and we

were wondering if you could help us. So

what I did was I grabbed a piece of your

hockey stick, and I matted it on a sample

holder, and I put it into the microscope.

And there are these fibers. Do you see

anything that looks like a carbon

nanotube?That little line right there.

Well, those are carbon fibers in

diameter. They're about 5 microns. So a

nanotube's going to be a lot smaller than

that. It's possibly that little thing

there. It's hard to tell, but to see it

with a little bit more clarity, I decided

to put a little piece of your hockey

stick in another microscope with even

higher resolution.

So this is a transmission electron

microscope or TEM, and I put a piece of

your hockey stick in this microscope. And

I saw this. Can you see that line?Yeah.

So that looks like a bundle of carbon

nanotubes. It's about 10

nanometers in thickness. That's the

nanotube?That looks like a bundle of

carbon nanotubes. Can you put carbon

nanotubes in other things?Sure, you can

put carbon nanotubes in a lot of things.

Tennis rackets?Yep. Baseball bats,

lacrosse sticks, snowboards, kayaks,

skis, bikes. Yep, sounds like you've got

a lot more to investigate.

I wish I had CNT gear as a kid. My first

pair of skis weighed more than I did.

You're exaggerating. Well, yeah,

but they were really heavy.

Anyway, carbon nanotubes aren't only

about making things lighter and stronger.

Their special structure makes lots of

other new products possible. CNTs can

help store energy, help cancer medicines

work better, and scientists have

built a carbon nanotube that acts like a

radio. Yeah, it's



of this pin. Hard to believe,

but they've already done it. A

nano radio. How amazing is that?

Think about how small those dials must

be. Really small. Speaking of

cool technology. Have you thought about

how to get to space without a rocket?

Here's a hint. Part of this device is so

long it could wrap around the planet 2



answer is coming up soon. Next up, we're

going to see a mimic. Yeah, you know

someone who likes to pretend that there's

someone else. OK, actually,

she's a nanoscientist who looks at how

nature makes things and then figures out

how to imitate those designs. Remember.

Imitation is the sincerest form of

flattery. Yah!

Let's go! I'm Leslie Hamming at

Northwestern University, and I'm a muscle

scientist. Not these muscles.

These mussels. I study mussels because

these guys have very, very fascinating

sticky properties. They can stick to

everything, wood, rocks, and even each

other. Inside the mussel's shell is a

tongue. Every so often it comes out of

the shell and it deposits its glue. Our

lab is working on ways to copy the

amazing glue of these mussels.

But if you can imagine if we made a

Band-Aid out of the mussel's glue. We

could have an everlasting Band-Aid. As

test subjects, muscles are very

well-behaved. The muscles are very easy

to work with. They just kind of sit

there. Just sitting around. Oh, my. It's

really not practical to get our glue

directly from the muscles. So instead, we

make it chemically. We want to mimic what

nature has already created. Admittedly,

we are pretty far off from her elegant

solution. But we're getting close.

So after we make our chemical version

of the glue, we coat different

surfaces with it and test its adhesive

properties. We have found that it's one

of the strongest bonds in nature.

Here's an image of tiny nanoparticles

that have been coated with our muscle

adhesive, and the goal of this was to

reinforce plastic with. These muscle

adhesive coated particles and this

way we can make super strong plastics

that might have the potential to replace

metal in airplanes and cars. I was a

professional triathlete for two years and

I was on the US national team. To be a

good scientist, it's really important to

have passion for what you do because it's

that desire that will keep you coming

back to the lab and discovering new

things.

Mussels are underwater engineers,

and I just thought they tasted good. But

they are masters at making nano-glue

that works underwater. We like to

call ourselves gluologists. Get

it?

Gluologists.

Leslie and lots of other scientists make

good use of nature's designs. And why not?

Nano and nature has been getting better

and better for millions of years.

Consider the spider web. Some spider

silk is 10 times finer than human

hair, but by weight it's stronger than

steel, thanks to its nano

structure. By the way, spider webs hold a

clue for the nano challenge. How do you

get to space without a rocket?A spider

web into space?Not quite, but

keep your brain spinning. And now it's

time for the Zoom cab.

Must be Zoomer time.

We're heading toward an iridescent

Madagascar moth. Now the wing looks

painted from here, but Zoomer knows

there's a lot more going on than that. So

let's zoom in a little closer.

Check it out. The wing is covered by

layers of tiny folded flaps, and these

fragile flaps actually help the moth to

fly. And as we get a little

closer, we see that each flap is

covered with delicate ridges. Kind of

look like potato chips, but I would not

recommend munching on a mouthful of moth

wings. Let's zoom

way, way

in. You see those black spots?They are

only 100 nanometers wide. And

they're nothing but pockets of air, but

they reflect light in surprising ways to

create the moth's iridescent colors. Oh,

I know, buddy. You can't zoom any

further. Let's head on back.

Now Emily and Julie take on the blue

Morpho mystery. Nano can turn up

in surprising places. Butterfly

'cause I can't find nothing bad aboutyou.

I'm Emily. And I'm Julie. And we

love butterflies!

Mono Sarah have very unique colors.

There's more peach there and darker

there. They're polka dotted. Yeah, I like

that part. Hey, I know a place where we

can find tons of different butterflies.

You do?Yeah, let's go there. OK.

We decided to take a trip to the

Butterfly House at the Museum of Life and

Science. There were hundreds of really

pretty butterflies, all with different

colors. We tried to find as many

different colored butterflies as we could

and took pictures of them. Whoa, look at

the green one. Yeah, no, that one looks

so cool. Let's look at that one. We found

a couple of butterflies that had died. We

looked at the color of their wings. One

was a blue morpho. We noticed that some

butterfly wings change color when you see

them at a certain angle, but the color in

others always stayed the same. I

wonder why some butterfly wings

do have the change when you tilt it. But

I wonder why some don't. Let's go find

out. Hello, I'm Leon. I'm the

entomologist here at the museum. That

meansHe's an expert on insects and

butterflies. You might want to know that

the Latin word for butterfly is

lepidoptera. What?Lepidoptera, which

means scaled wings. Scaly wings?

Yeah, that's right. Why do the

butterflies have different colors in

their wings?Well, all animals have

something called pigment inside of them,

and that's what gives them their color.

Butterfly. 'Cause I can't find nothing

bad about you In your case, you're

holding the blue Morpho. They get their

colors from iridescence, which is a trick

of light. That's that metallic sheen that

you see. Is that something that you've

seen before?Oh, yeah, in the parking

lots, the oily puddles. And I've seen it

when I've been doing my hair in the

shower. Soap bubbles. Yes. In fact, if

you can figure out what's going on in

soap bubbles, you can figure out what's

happening in iridescence. Cool soap

bubbles. Why don't we try that, Julie?

Let's mix the bubble formula. Our recipe

was 1 cup water, 2 tablespoons of

glycerin, and 4 tablespoons of dish soap.

We could see the colors more clearly when

we looked at the bubbles against a black

background. Look at that. Look at that

waterfall there. It's so cool. It looks

like a rainbow. If we look at it, it's

really tie-dye at the top. Yeah, and like

it's swirling together, and then it's

coming down. It's funny how we didn't use

anything in our formula that was

colorful. So then where does the colors

come from?I guess the color would have to

do something with how thick it is. If you

tilt it this way, there's different

colors, darker and lighter. So there's

got to be something that's similar to the

butterfly wing in the bubble. We

realize that gravity is pulling the soap

film down towards the bottom of the wand.

The lower part of the film gets really

thick. As water evaporates off the soap

film, it thins out too. So at the top

it's super thin and black until

eventually it pops. We went to tell

Leon what we found out. So how did the

bubbles go?We noticed that the color of

the bubble has something to do with the

size of the bubble. Okay. And we also

know that there must be something like a

soap bubble inside the butterfly wings so

the butterfly can have its color. You may

have to take a closer look. Maybe you

guys should go and see my friend Fred.

He's an expert in these sort of things.

We'll take that advice. Thanks, Leon.

We visited Dr. Fred at Duke University.

He's a biologist who studies butterflies.

Well, hi, girls. Welcome to my

laboratory. I'm Fred, and I hear you've

just come from the museum. We found some

similarity between soap bubbles and

morpho butterflies. The blue color on the

morpho is made exactly the same way that

the different colors in soap bubbles are

made. And I can show you this with our

special microscope that we have. Let's

go. And that's where Fred's ultra

amazing scanning electron microscope

comes in. The nanoscientists who use it

all the time mainly just call it SEM.

We got the SEM to create images of the

blue morpho wings at the nanoscale.

I'd never guess that this butterfly

wing would have scales just like that.

It looks like a lot of little lines and

ridges on them. What are them?These

ridges have these very fine stripes on

them so that when light hits them, only

blue light is reflected back. And that's

what makes the morpho blue. So there's no

pigment. That's how close are the ridges?

Those lines are almost exactly 200

nanometers apart. And a nanometer

is--1

billionth of a meter. So it is

really tiny. The thickness of the soap

bubbles is almost exactly that thickness

between those ridges, and that is why the

soap bubble has those same colours that

we see on butterfly scales. So what would

happen if we filled in the ridges of the

butterfly wing?Well, one way in which you

can answer that question is to put a

little drop of acetone on the wing. So

the acetone fills up the space between

the ridges. In order to find out how that

works, why don't I give you a bunch of

butterfly wings to take with you and you

can experiment with that at home?OK,

thanks. We picked out four wings,

two that we think are colored by pigment

and two that we think are iridescent.

First, we recorded the wing color before

we put on the acetone. All right, let's

try the red wing. We think this one's

pigment really didn't do anything. Just

looks soggy. All right, now let's do the

blue morpho. We think this is iridescent.

Wow. Look at that. It turned to

green. That means the blue morpho is not

getting its color from pigment. It's

getting it from iridescence. Yeah. So now

let's put the acetone on the light blue

wing. We think this is iridescent. That

looks exactly like what happened there,

except it turned dark green. So the

color changes because it's got that

iridescence in it. Yeah, so let's put the

acetone on the last green wing. We think

it's pigment. Wow, it turned

yellow. And we thought

it wasn't. But what if it's colored by

pigment, too?Maybe it has both.

So maybe there are a few different types

of iridescent wings. Some that you can

see with the naked eye and some that you

can't see. Wow, nanostructures have cool

colors. I wonder what else gets the

colors from nanostructures. Maybe peacock

feathers. Or the insides of a seashell.

Or my mom's makeup. That gives me an

idea. Come on, Julie, let's pick our

colors. Okay.

Girls, they wanna have fun Oh, girls,

they wanna have fun

Oh, it's iridescent, just like the

butterfly wings. Maybe the makeup has the

same structures as the butterflies do.

So, how something is structured on the

inside can change the color we see

on the outside.

There's a really cool invention in

progress that uses this idea.

Nanofiber shirt, please.

Yeah, right, Eric. What a really cool

white shirt. Uh, but don't let the

surface fool you. Scientists are

developing a nanofiber that will make

clothes that can change color whenever

you want, just with a tiny electrical

charge. No, don't worry, you won't feel

it. But whenever you want to change the

color of your shirt, you just flip a

switch and zap the fabric. So,

shirts that change color. What'll be next?

And what won't be affected by

nanotechnology in the future?Planes,

cars, blenders, staplers, pens. Wait a

nanosecond!

Would I want to know if a product was

made with nanotechnology?That's a very

good question. Does that mean it would

cost more?I think it's important for

products that are used with

nanotechnology to have labels. If a

product had nanotechnology in it, I think

I would definitely want to know. I think

it would depend on what product it was so

that I would know, like, if it was food,

I probably wouldn't want nanotechnology

in it. Yeah, it's more important to know

if it's in your food, because that

actually goes in your body. But if it was

something like sports equipment, I don't

think I would mind. I think my dad's

tennis racket's made out of carbon

nanotubes. It could be cool to own

something with nanotechnology in it. If

they're putting nanotechnology out on the

market, there should be a clear

definition between what has

nanotechnology and what doesn't. I

wouldn't really buy something if I didn't

know what's in it. Hmm, I

will have to think about that.

Click on over to the Dragonfly TV website

at pbskidsgo.org. Stream a cool

DFTV video, try your hand at the new

Nanobots game, or tell us what you think

about nanotechnology. It's your place to

share your ideas. To answer our

Nano Challenge, let's start with a pop

quiz. So how do you travel into space

without a rocket?Is it A,

a transporter beam, like the one on Star

Trek?I'm giving it all she's got,

Captain. B, a giant

balloon filled with anti-gravity gas.

Whoa. Or is it C, an elevator that goes



It's C, an elevator that goes all the way

into space. Did you get it right?The

space elevator would use a really, really

long cable to carry cargo from Earth to

space. Up and away,

boys. Before carbon

nanotubes came along, scientists couldn't

figure out a way to make a really long

cable that wouldn't break under its own

weight.

Next time, I'm taking the shuttle.

But carbon nanotubes are so light and

strong, they can be used to make a

ribbon-like cable that's just three feet

wide and as thin as a sheet of paper.

So I don't know about you, but I'll be

buying a space elevator ticket the minute

they go on sale. I'll be the guy in line

with the sleeping bag and the space

station or bust sign.

See you soon on Dragonfly TV Nano. Anyone

going to the space station?Need a ride

over here. There's no use

giving up because there's so much you get

to ooh But don't worry what people say

because it all day plays on you ooh So

get up, step up to the

plate And take a best shot

Take a best shot Take a best shot,

baby Take a best shot

There's no use giving up, take a best shot

Major funding for Dragonfly TV is

provided by

the National Science Foundation,

supporting education and research across

all fields of science and engineering.

The National Science Foundation, where

discoveries begin.

PBS Kids.