You're listening to Brains On, where we're serious about being curious.
Okay, I'm here.
You can get started now.
Um, hi, I'm Molly and this is Layla.
Hello.
So nice to meet you.
I'm Crystal.
Nice to meet you, Crystal.
Although I'm a little confused why you're in the studio.
We're just about to start taping.
Then I'm right on time.
I thought I was late.
Um, I, um... I was so thrilled when I heard that you were doing an episode all about crystals.
Oh, I see.
Your name is Crystal.
You bet it is.
But this is our time to start taping.
Hi there.
Sorry I'm running a few minutes late.
So nice to meet you.
I'm Crystal.
Likewise.
Oh, how fun.
Two crystals.
Hi, um, is this where the crystal taping is?
Sure is.
Come on in.
Let me guess.
Your name is Crystal.
Oh, wow.
How did you know?
Crystal!
This is Crystal.
Hi.
And I'm Crystal.
Such a pleasure.
Come on in, Crystal.
Oh, good.
You were expecting me.
Sorry I'm late.
Hi, everybody.
Hey, Crystal.
Hi, Crystal.
Crystal, this is Crystal, Crystal, and Crystal.
What a treat!
Hi, is this the studio?
It is indeed.
Welcome, Crystal.
Thanks.
Wait, wait, wait.
Hold the door, hold the door.
Here I come.
Oh, thanks.
Hi, I'm Crystal.
Crystal.
Hi, Crystal.
Hi, Crystal.
Hi, Crystal. case you've lost count, we're now at six crystals.
It's starting to feel really crowded.
On Is my Aunt Crystal in here?
Now we are really off the rails.
You might as well come on in and look around.
Oh, thanks.
If your Aunt Crystal isn't in here, we have several possible substitutes.
Aunt Crystal!
Auntie Crystal!
Are you in here?
Oh, hi!
How are you guys doing?
Should we tell them this Crystals episode isn't about them?
Not sure they'll listen, but I do know one surefire way to get the episode started.
Play the theme music.
You're listening to Brains On, part of the Brains On universe.
I'm Molly Bloom, and my co-host today is Layla from Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Hi, Layla.
Hi.
And today, we're taking a look at crystals.
But not humans named Crystal.
Right.
More like the shiny see-through rocks.
Sorry, crystals.
I totally get it.
No worries.
Oh, no.
So Layla, what got you interested in crystals?
Well, I just really like how like shiny they are.
And I haven't learned a lot about them in school yet, but I see books about them and I get them in library and stuff.
And I just really think they're really cool and pretty.
They are.
I agree.
So is there a color of crystal that you like a lot?
Ooh, I like pink, like pink and purples.
So why do you think humans are so fascinated by crystals?
Maybe just because they're shiny and a lot of people like shiny things.
Mm-hmm.
I'm always distracted by shiny objects myself.
You wrote in with a great question about crystals.
Do you remember what it was?
I wondered how crystals form and where did they come from?
It's a really wonderful question.
And actually the way crystals are formed is what makes them special and different from ordinary rocks.
Crystals are made of atoms.
Those are the tiny chemical building blocks that make up everything around us.
And in lots of materials like plastic or concrete, the atoms are just jumbled up.
But when something crystallizes, all of its atoms link up in special order.
That repeats over and over, not a jumble at all.
We asked Brains On producer Maynika Wilhelm to look into what makes a crystal a crystal for us.
So she'll be here in just a moment.
Oh, while we wait, I should show you this app I use.
It's called Crystal Clear.
You tell it a material and it tells you if it's a crystal.
Check it out.
Crystal Clear Oh, wow, the app has a soundtrack?
Okay, how about, okay, that purple see-through gemstone, it's called amethyst.
That's a crystal.
Amethyst is actually a purple form of quartz.
And now how about salt?
That's a crystal.
So is sugar.
So fun to put those little crystals in and on your food.
Hmm, let's try something a little more out there.
How about amber?
You know, that golden-y clear stone?
No.
Not a crystal.
It is see-through, but it's a fossil.
Its atoms don't follow any order or rules.
What about a pearl?
No.
Well, kind of.
It stacks of little crystals, so it's not one crystal, it's bunches of crystals.
So not all of the stones we put in jewelry are crystals.
And there are crystals in ordinary things, too.
That's right.
Yoo-hoo!
Molly?
Layla?
I'm here to charge up our crystal knowledge.
Is, uh, someone else here?
Hi, Randika.
We're using this cool app Layla uses to see what's a crystal.
I'm an app.
Oh, perfect.
Because I brought along two of my favorite crystals.
One you might expect.
Ooh, a diamond.
Hmm.
That's a crystal.
And one you might not.
A pencil?
It's lead is a crystal.
Wow, that app is spot on.
Yeah, but it's probably time to close it for now.
Goodbye.
It's so interesting that all these different looking things can all be crystals.
Yeah.
It turns out crystals are defined by their insides and not their outside shape or color.
I asked Joy Akuli to tell us about crystal insides.
She's a chemist at California State University Fullerton.
Yeah, I wish there were some way that we could like zoom in super far so we could see what was going on.
Oh, there is a way.
The Zoom Ray.
That's right.
Our patented handy dandy device that lets us shrink down to any size.
We keep it in the studio for exactly this reason.
It's ready.
Oh, how awesome.
So let's check out this diamond first.
Sure.
We'll just zoom on down to the size of an atom.
Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom.
Okay, so at this scale, we're smaller than the tip of a needle, smaller than a tardigrade.
We're smaller than any of the cells in the human body.
We're smaller than bacteria and viruses and way tinier than DNA.
We are so tiny that if we walked up to a small sized grain of sand, it would feel like we were walking up to a really giant shopping mall.
And that means we're small enough to see the structure of this diamond.
It's atoms.
Whoa.
It never stops being amazing to see the building blocks of the universe up close like this.
Yeah, so I see a bunch of circles all stacked together.
Yeah, the diamond has kind of like a 3D honeycomb thing going on.
That's a great way to describe it.
All a crystal is, is a regular repeating pattern of something.
And these atoms are made of a chemical called carbon.
They're bonded together in a super organized way.
So you get this really cool 3D structure where it goes up and down, left and right and front and back, basically.
She's right.
It's the same pattern in all directions.
And repeats over and over and over again.
If we hop over to our pencil now and check out its lead at the same scale.
Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom.
This material, the pencil lead, is called graphite.
Whoa, it's made of all-carbon atoms too, just like the diamond.
Good eye.
But the atoms in pencil lead are arranged in a really different shape than the diamond.
Now, the carbon atoms are forming six-sided rings, hexagons.
Oh, they look like on a soccer ball, the shapes that are white.
And then those six-sided rings attach side by side to form a flat blanket of hexagons.
Again, it's still carbon. but there isn't really an up and down to it.
So that's why graphite is great for pencil lead, because it's just got this sort of sheet-like structure.
It comes off in sheets when you're writing.
So that's actually what happens when you're writing.
It's crystal sheets sliding onto your paper every time you use a pencil.
But diamonds are also crystals, and they're made of the same atoms as pencil lead.
And writing with a diamond would not work.
So just being arranged in a different crystal pattern makes these two really different materials.
Yeah, and some crystals also form from multiple kinds of atoms and groups of atoms, too.
There are lots of different kinds of crystals, and they're made of all kinds of stuff.
But the one thing that they have in common is that they're built with this very organized repeating pattern.
Cool.
Okay, I think we're ready to zoom back out and talk about how these crystal shapes form.
So in a crystal, the atoms are all bonded together in their nice pattern.
They're solid.
But lots of crystals, like quartz for example, start out as atoms floating in a liquid.
Whoa, like atoms dissolved in water?
Yeah, in some cases.
Other times, quartz forms from rock that's so hot it's liquid.
That's called magma.
And when the atoms that make quartz are floating around in a liquid, they're not all bonded together.
They're floating free.
But if they bump into each other, some of those atoms will stick together and then more atoms will stick to those atoms, kind of like how, when you're making a snowball, more and more snow will stick to the outside of your snowball.
And when atoms that form crystals stick together, they bond in an ordered pattern.
They're more stable that way.
So they kind of, it's like they want to be that way.
It's kind of like sitting in a chair.
Like you could walk up to a chair and sit on the backrest or on one of the arms.
But you might fall over and then you'd have to find a new place to sit.
Right.
Your best bet is really just to sit in the butt part of the chair.
Some atoms just fit together the way the butts fit in chairs.
There are places they can sit together comfortably, and that ends up creating a pattern.
Okay, so crystals form as atoms bond together in a comfortable chair.
Butt situation over and over and over.
Right.
And the way atoms bond together often depends on temperature.
For example, if rock juice is really hot, all the atoms inside of it are bouncing around a lot.
They're moving too fast to find good ways to bond.
So when they start to cool down, then that's when they can find their buddy and say OK, I'm really stable if I just sit next to you in this particular arrangement.
But there are other ways that crystals form too.
Like if you think about the way that salt crystals form from salt water.
Salt bits bump into each other and bond as water evaporates into the air.
So that's almost like the atoms that make salt are splashing around at a pool party, but the pool is drying up and getting smaller.
So the atoms are bumping into each other more.
And when they bump into each other, they can bond and form these neat little cubes.
And those cubes are salt crystals.
And they'll keep bonding into that same structure as long as there are atoms available to bond.
So like a salt crystal would stop growing if it couldn't find another tube to stack on top basically.
So the atoms that make crystals often find each other in a mix of other chemicals, but they bond together in these really specific ways so they form patterned structures.
So organized.
I know.
Oh, speaking of organized, that's my personal happiness monitor letting me know I have a happiness-inducing activity scheduled right now.
A happiness-inducing activity?
Yep.
I organize my day around little tasks to make me happier.
And wow, my current activity is to eat some great crystals, sugar and chocolate in the form of freshly baked cookies.
I'll be right back.
Bring some back, won't you?
Bring some.
While Manica munches on cookies, let's have our ears munch on the... Mystery sound.
Ready for the mystery sound, Layla?
Yes.
All right, here it is.
Mystery sound.
Okay, Layla, what are you thinking?
Maybe in like some kind of factory or like kind of a car slowing down on its brakes really slowly.
I like both of those thoughts.
Well, we will hear it again, give you another chance to guess and hear the answer in just a bit.
Keep listening.
Today's episode is sponsored by Shopify.
When we went independent here at Brains On, there was a lot to figure out and it was pretty overwhelming.
And when you're starting something new, it just feels like the to-do list keeps growing and growing, and growing.
But that's why finding the right tool that not only helps you out but simplifies everything can be a game changer.
For us, one of those tools is Shopify.
We'll see you next time.
Thank you so much for having me.
Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash brainson.
Go to Shopify.com slash brainson.
That's Shopify.com slash brainson.
Brains.
You're listening to Brains On.
I'm Molly.
And I'm Layla.
And I'm Maynika, with a plate full of warm cookies.
Mmm, so good.
Mmm, delicious sugar crystals.
Mmm, you know what these crystals need, though?
Milk?
You read my mind.
Gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp.
Ah!
Ring!
What?
Oh, look, it's calculating my new happiness quotient.
Wow, sharing those cookies with you all added 8% more happiness to my day.
Self high five.
Now, where were we?
We were talking about the atoms that make crystals all crystal-y.
Right.
But when we typically think of crystals, it's not atoms or even salt or sugar or graphite that we think of.
It's shiny rocks.
Shiny rocks.
Exactly.
Crystals, like diamonds for example, are famous for their glistening, shimmery surfaces.
In fact, we've gotten some questions about that.
My name is Mason from Westernville, New York, and my question is, where do crystals get their shine?
Hi, my name is Wren from Santa Barbara, California.
My question is, why are crystals shiny and how do they form?
Well, it's a little different for every crystal.
Not all of them are that shiny unless you polish or cut them.
So, like for that diamond I brought which, by the way, I'll need that back Molly, that's shiny, in part because jewelers have cut it to have flat reflective surfaces.
And those nice flat reflective surfaces are great at bouncing light back into our eyes, making shine.
But also some of the light goes into the diamond and bounces around inside of it and then comes back out and hits our eyes and that makes sparkly brilliance.
Let's take a moment to stare at that shine and brilliance, shall we?
Ooh.
Ooh, that made me 2% happier.
I'm on a roll.
Now, to understand how crystals in nature get their slick, shine and cool colors, you probably need to ask a geologist.
Which I did.
Yeah.
My name is Marisa Acosta and I am a PhD in earth sciences, and I grow crystals in the lab to try and understand how they grow in nature.
Marisa is a researcher at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
She says that crystals in nature also grow long, flat surfaces that reflect light.
And remember how I said that some crystals first start as atoms in a liquid?
Oh yeah, that was right before you went to get your cookies.
Right.
Well, Marisa says, the slower these bits form into crystals, the bigger the flat surfaces they grow and the more shiny and impressive they become.
So if you cool a crystal really really, really slowly, then you have a lot of time for that crystal to push out impurities and to sort of form the most beautiful shape that it can form.
But if you grow a crystal really, really quickly, then it doesn't have time to form itself into the most beautiful version of itself that it would if it had all the time in the world.
And you end up with a lot of poorly formed crystal faces.
So they don't have those nice flat surfaces that blend in the light.
Oh, so that's why I am also very slow in the mornings.
I am forming into the most beautiful version of myself for that day.
Sure.
But what about all the cool colors?
Diamonds are usually white, but there are also red crystals, purple crystals, blue ones.
Right.
Crystals are truly the Skittles of rocks.
The cool colors come from minerals in the crystals, and sometimes even small amounts of a mineral in a crystal can change its color.
For instance, you know we talked about quartz before?
Yeah.
Quartz is a classic crystal, and it's just made of two things, silicon and oxygen.
Its structure is one silicon atom for every two oxygen atoms, so we call it silicon dioxide.
And normally, it's clear.
But Marisa says if a third thing sneaks in, the color changes dramatically.
If you have silicon dioxide and it grows in the presence of iron, then you can incorporate those iron impurities into the crystal lattice in teeny, tiny amounts.
Like...
50 iron atoms per a million quartz atoms, and you can get this nice purple color.
And it changes the way that the crystal reflects and scatters light and that's responsible for the color change.
Oh, right.
Purple quartz is called amethyst.
I learned that from my aunt.
You're welcome.
And sometimes you have tiny crystals that grow inside of a crystal and that can change its color too.
Crystals in crystals?
Yeah.
These are called inclusions.
Think of it like those cookies we ate.
The cookie part was like the main crystal, and the chocolate chips were the inclusions.
So if you have a crystal like quartz, it's clear normally, but if it grows with little chocolate chips of a crystal called hematite inside of it, which is basically rust,
Then the quartz goes from clear to red.
Cool color achieved.
Sweet.
Yeah, and one of the coolest things about crystals... Besides being super pretty.
Oh, of course.
But also...
Everything about a crystal helps tell a story about how it formed.
That means its shape, its size, those traces of other elements and the crystals inside of the crystals.
They all give us clues.
With enough detective work, scientists like Marisa can use a crystal to piece together the very history of our planet itself.
From these teeny, tiny crystals I can tell you about something that happened over a million years, 50 million years ago at, you know, super deep down in the earth and the mantle maybe, and you know, sort of start to unravel these bigger picture stories of plate tectonics and super continent cycles and the formation of the earth.
Those types of things are the things that I'm really interested in using the crystals to figure out.
Wow.
I guess they are more than just their good looks.
Who knew?
I knew.
I love crystals.
That is a very chatty app you have there.
I know.
I'm actually not sure how to turn it off.
Oh, totally fine.
Anyway, I just love thinking about all the stories hiding in crystals.
Ancient history packed inside of a shiny rock.
Whoa!
Contemplating the vast history of the Earth raised my happiness by a whole 12%.
Well, thank you for sharing all that with us.
Yeah, thanks.
No problem.
Now, I gotta go.
I promised all those human crystals I would show them around Brains on HQ.
It's the least I could do since they came all the way over here.
Luckily, giving tours also makes me happy.
Bye.
Layla, let's revisit the mystery sound, shall we?
Yes.
Here it is one more time.
Okay, last time you were like maybe squeaky brakes or a factory.
Do you have new thoughts about what it might be?
Actually, no, because that's all I can think of right now.
Just squeaky brakes on the brain.
I do know that sound.
It does sound a lot like that.
Well, let's hear the answer.
Hi, I'm Maya from Luis Ovejo, California.
That sound was my finger turning on the rim of a crystal glass.
Oh.
That's cool.
Can you picture that?
Like, you know, the rim of the glass and you move your finger on it.
You know, you get a little bit wet and it makes that kind of noise.
Yeah, I can picture that.
Have you done that before?
Um, actually, I don't think so.
You should try it.
It's pretty, it's pretty funny.
You got to go to kind of the right speed and have the right amount of liquid on your finger.
And, you know, depending on how much water is in the glass, it'll make like a higher or lower pitch.
But I was going to tell you, it's going to maybe blow your mind.
Crystal glasses... aren't real crystals.
They're just called crystal.
So crystals have atoms that line up in that very orderly pattern.
But glass, the atoms are totally unorganized.
They're all over the place, not like a crystal at all.
And glass isn't even a solid.
Yeah, it's what's known as an amorphous solid, which means it's somewhere between a solid and a liquid.
That is so cool.
Glass, you look crystal clear, but you're actually hiding lots of cool science-y secrets.
And speaking of secrets, let's see what the hoax hunters have unearthed today.
I'm Sandon.
And I'm Mark.
And we're back with another edition of... Hoax Hunters!
We like myths, but we hate getting tricked.
Yeah!
We like myths, but we hate getting tricked.
Yeah!
We like myths, but we hate getting tricked.
We hate getting tricked.
No, we don't like it.
A hoax is when somebody tricks you into believing something that isn't true.
And today's hoax is all about Mesoamerican crystal skulls.
Say that again.
Meso.
American.
Crystal.
Skulls.
So awesome.
Picture the head of a skeleton made out of utterly awe-inducing crystal.
Whoa.
These mysterious crystal skulls range from milky white to crystal clear.
And range from the size of a bead to the size of an actual human head.
Some believe these crystal skulls can give you psychic powers.
Others think they came from the lost city of Atlantis.
It's even been said they're proof that aliens landed on Earth thousands of years ago.
Those are some bold claims.
Should we be skeptical, Mark?
Only if we don't want to get hoaxed, Sandon.
Don't get hoaxed.
These mysterious crystal skulls first appeared for sale in the 1860s.
People claimed they were made by ancient Mayan or Aztec peoples.
At the time, everybody wanted to buy cool artifacts because ancient cultures were hot.
Yeah, but so was hoaxing, and totally fake artifacts were popping up everywhere.
Private collectors and museums didn't want to get tricked into buying fakes, so they relied on the help of experts to determine which relics were real and which were not.
Enter Eugene Bobin, a French antiquarian and Mexico obsessive.
Bonjour.
I am an ancient artifact expert.
I'll tell you what's legit and what's a lie.
You can trust me.
I have a mustache.
Bobin sold a huge number of relics, including a few crystal skulls.
One of his skulls ended up at the famous jewelry store Tiffany & Company in New York.
And it was bought by the British Museum in 1897, where it still lives to this day.
Yet in 1900, just three years after the skull was acquired by the British Museum, Bobin told a newspaper journalist this
Numbers of so-called rock crystal pre-Columbian skulls have been so adroitly made as almost to defy detection and have been palmed off as genuine upon the experts of some of the principal museums of Europe.
Which basically means... A bunch of those skulls are fakie fakie eggs and bakey.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Wait, he admitted there were fake crystal skulls out in the world?
Yep.
And wasn't he the one who was famous for selling these crystal skulls?
Yep.
Hey, British Museum, it looks like...
Hmm.
Boban doesn't seem as trustworthy as he claimed to be.
Yeah, but a lot of the stuff he sold was real.
So some museums continued to show off supposedly ancient crystal skulls.
Collectors kept buying them, and the stories kept growing.
But folks like Dr. Jane Walsh weren't buying it.
She's a specialist in Mesoamerican archaeology and ethno-history at the Smithsonian.
And in 1992 the Smithsonian received a package from an anonymous donor containing a 31-pound crystal skull.
The donor claimed it was a relic from the Aztec Empire.
But Dr. Walsh wasn't so sure.
So she took the skull to Margaret Sachs at the British Museum and they both examined it with an electron microscope.
Turns out, the marks and cuts in the crystal were clearly made by modern rotary tools, which were not around in ancient times but were pretty common in 19th century Europe.
Psyche, another skull bites the dust.
I doff my hoax hat to you, Walsh and Sax.
You're first rate.
So what did we learn today, Mark?
Just because someone claims to be an expert doesn't mean they are.
And if something seems a little fishy, do your research, like Dr Jane Walsh, because you might just uncover the truth.
That's all for today's episode of... Hope's Hot Tears!
Yeah!
And here's the studio.
Oh, right.
This is where we came first.
Good old studio.
Glad to be back.
Manica and the Crystals, you're back.
What is that music?
Oh, it's Layla's crystal identifying app.
A crystal identifying app?
Yeah.
You're a crystal.
I am.
You get me.
How about me?
You're a crystal.
Me next.
Me next.
Pick me.
Pick me.
I'm crystal.
Pick me.
She's a crystal.
Another crystal.
That's a crystal.
All crystals.
Except Layla and Molly and Maynika.
They're not crystals.
A crystal spotting app spotting a cluster of chipper crystals?
This is amazing!
Oh my gosh, that's a new record on my happiness meter!
Not a crystal!
But I'm a crystal!
Yes, you are.
You're a crystal.
I'm a crystal.
I'm a crystal.
I'm a crystal.
That's accurate.
She's a crystal.
She's a crystal.
They're crystals.
But we're all crystals.
Still accurate.
And I'm not.
This crystal chaos is such a delight.
Crystals often form as pretty rocks, like quartz, but there are other less flashy crystals too, like pencil, lead and sugar.
All crystals are made of atoms in highly ordered patterns.
They bond in those patterns to be the most stable.
And the way crystals bond changes their size, shape, and color.
Studying a crystal can tell you the story of how it formed.
That's it for this episode of Brains On.
This episode was produced by Manika Wilhelm, Shannon Totten, Mark Sanchez, and Molly Blue.
We had engineering help from Alex Simpson.
Special thanks to Billy Egan, Rachel Margolis, Lexi Pratt, Naomi Bloom, Kathy Marescu, Nancy Yang, Vicki Kreckler and Peter Hawkes.
Now it's time for the Brain's Honor Roll.
These are the incredible kids who keep the show going with their questions ideas, mystery sounds, drawings and high fives.
Olympia from Portland, Oregon.
Bryson from Mooresville, North Carolina.
Tristan from Deland, Florida.
Julia from Houston, Texas.
Isaac, Ben, and Simon from Grafton, Ohio.
We'll be right back.
Niamh from Los Angeles, Umar from Shah Alam Malaysia, Nora from Tucson Arizona, Adam from Rockford Illinois, Rumi from Denver, Louis from Seattle, Cora and Noah from Arlington, Virginia.
William from Roslyn, New York, Cohen from Sherwood Park Alberta, Leo from San Diego, Henry from Tustin California, Isla and Adeline from Melbourne, Australia.
We'll be right back.
Ellis from Cragmont, Idaho.
Lachlan from Perth, Australia.
Emerson from Los Angeles.
Madeline from Carthage, Missouri.
Tobin from Hamilton, Ontario.
Austin and Miles from Durham, North Carolina.
Dylan from Little Texas.
Helena from Mayfield Heights, Ohio.
Hannah from South Orange, New Jersey.
Mika from Ottawa.
Islay from Aberdeen, Scotland.
Ariel from Manhattan, New York.
Elliot from Durham, North Carolina.
Anita from Mountain View, California.
Zanna from Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
Carbon, Cadence, and Callan from Weston, Massachusetts.
Judah from McDonough, Georgia.
And Massimo from Roslindale, Massachusetts.
We'll be back next week with an episode all about light bulbs.
That's accurate.
Thanks for listening.
