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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Even before we knew what bacteria were capable of, we were using certain metals to help fight off their effects.. Hank Green explains how on this episode of SciShow.
Hosted by: Hank Green
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Sources:
Antimicrobial activity of metal: mechanisms, molecular targets and applications (2013)
www.nature.com/...
Metal-based antibacterial substrates for biomedical applications (2015)
pubs.acs.org/do...
Antimicrobial polymers with metal nanoparticles (2015)
www.ncbi.nlm.ni...
Images:
en.wikipedia.o...
simple.wikiped...
en.wikipedia.o...
"Dude, you have some bacteria on your face.. lemme just fetch my brass knuckles.."
lmao
Somehow I can only say that line using Mitch Hedberg's voice 0_o
Metal kills bacteria?
*Grabs electric guitar*
We're not talking about heavy metals
JonatasAdoM *Grabs lead pipe* Heavy metal where?
Silver wound guitar strings will kill every germ
EXIIIIIIT LIIIIIIIIGHT
Heavy metals kill everything down to the DNA.
It's actually the reason why silver is used so much in mythology (Silver bullets kill werewolves, Vampire's regeneration cannot go against a wound with silver, etc) because of the medicinal properties it had.
bloodborne 👌
+Todd Buda It's interesting how a mythological treatment actually turns out to work pretty well!
+Todd Buda Silver is used in water-cooling in computers. It's hard to keep a system that needs regular tops ups completely free of bacteria unless you always use antimicrobial fluids, I just use distilled water and my system has a tiny coil of silver sitting in the reservoir. Any bacteria introduced during a top up is killed by the silver.
If any one is wondering why you would worry about bacteria in a cooling system it's because bacteria can multiply quickly enough that water can turn in to a mulch with so much organic matter in it (look at the jelly-like skin on a stale pond!) and this organic matter lowers the conductivity of the water to transfer heat away from the hot parts of the computer.
+Rob Fraser Actually youre just brain damaged.
@@General12th im pretty sure its the other way around. because of there medicinal properties it was believed that they could kill these mythical beings as well
I remember my grandmother used to keep water in copper bucket and made us drink it on empty stomach every once in a while.Its an age old remedy here in India.
Its nice to see that knowledge being passed through generations
I've really become a fan of ancient Indian medicine lately!
So is typhus......
Seems like you would risk getting too much copper from that. Copper is bad for bacteria and body(in too big quantities)
"you cannot kill... the metal"
+jr123 But the metal can kill you, or bacteria. Sounds pretty metal to me. \m/
+jr123 Bacteria tried to kill the metal, THEY FAILED as they were thrown to the ground!
+jr123 "The metal will live on"
+jr123 34 minutes too late ... damnit !!!!
+jr123 It comes from hell!
Copper toilet seats. thank you. Where's my nobel prize?
flushed down the drain
Yumiko the Random lmao
Donny Kiles rather cold than filthy mate
The only problem is that copper is really expensive. A copper-_plated_ seat would be a good way to go rather than a solid copper seat.
Kevin Benoit
Or just go with brass.
“It looks like those ancient Egyptians were on to something”
Pretty accurate words for a lot of things honestly
150 years ago, most moderately affluent families had a silver pitcher. This was reserved for keeping the milk from going bad almost immediately, especially before the "ice box".
@Dj Luminol Probably caused by some corruption that the history books conveniently left out.
@Dj Luminol who gives kids milk at dinner?never heard of that
@Guerilla gaming prohibition came about from the temperance movement, which was started by women who were tired of their husbands coming home drunk and beating/assaulting them. They figured their husbands couldn’t be bad men, so it must be the alcohol.
@@brentlichtenberg Thanks for reading between the lines of the history books and bringing that info to light. (The part of the husbands coming home drunk and beating/assaulting [and terrorizing] the wives and likely the children.) Context conveniently left out of the history books. Maybe written to make women of the period look bad?
@@oreganopotatohead8901 Milk is extremly common in Sweden.
I wanted to design a silver-impregnated fabric to be used in hospital gowns for my fourth year research project. A professor said it's not feasible so my group abandoned that idea.
After I graduated, I found out one of the companies that I interned at actually has a product like that.
Lol you got ripped off, mate
Sorry about that jeez who is ripping people off
Professors aren't the be all end all of knowledge, ever.
I'm wearing a t-shirt using the polygiene stuff right now. It's great. Sorry to hear you didn't make all the monies.
How about a fabric spray incorporating colloidal silver liquid?
those ancient Egyptions are always on to something
We wuz kangz n shiet
We were tho 🤷🏽♀️
And look at Egypt now that Islam has taken over the country
Nothing good comes from there since Islam took over
MWB Gaming You forgot about the Islamic golden age, didn't you? We invented algebra ffs.
@@lilsomething8905 No, you did not invent algebra. Algebra existed before Islam. The only thing Islam/arabic did was to give it the name Algebra. Just as the word "sugar" derives from Islamic Arabic, does that mean Islam invented sugar? Of course not! The concept of algebra had already been worked on by hellinistic, hinduistic and persian mathematicians far before Islam was even born. I myself having been born in an islamic family and thankfully remained rational, I can tell you that Muslims are good at one thing, and that is to steal credit and brag about things that don't belong them. Just like how they will curse America yet everything they wear and use in their modern lives is made by Americans. I suggest you do research on the topic of algebra, and you will find that historically there have been plenty of philosophers, physicists and mathematicians that have contributed to the concept before it was given a name.
Also, I mean no offence either! Just tired of seeing this misconception and lie being spread around the world. It's like the whole Edison / Tesla deal y'know. Thankfully though some universities are starting to discover the truth and are educating people about the history of Algebra, where they make it clear that it wasn't islam nor arabs that invented it.
Silver is used to kill vampires, so vampirism is an infection?
+AsciiGDL totally
Isn't it werewolves not vampires?
+AsciiGDL It is on The Elder Scrolls.
+Stewart Hornick
It's werewolves, but some hollywood movies got it wrong. (Blade for example)
+Agamemnon Well, actually it vastly depends on the mythos you're drawing from. Also some mythos have vampires not showing up only in silver-backed mirrors
Now I want a copper door knob. >:-|
+TheKimpula just rub your hands with a penny it literally will only cost you a penny
+Deathcap Rabadon (Deathcap9087) technicly it will cost you two penny's. :-)
+TheKimpula Brass doorknobs are actually pretty common and shouldn't be too hard to find or expensive. I need to replace every metal surface in my house with brass or copper now, so please excuse me.
+The Mammal Technically it won't cost him anything because the penny doesn't lose any value because of hand-rubbing. He'll have just as much money afterward as he did to start with.
lol exactly what I was thinking. Now I want to replace all my door knobs lol I am a bit of a germaphobe.
brb gonna go lick the statue of liberty
+Carson Troeh You can taste the freedom.
*****
FREE fish!
*****
I do not, but now I am curious.
'Merica
XD
We have many powders in Germany, which are containing silver. Those are antibacterial agents and help to disinfect wounds on your skin. So we still use stuff like that for treatment of wounds.
I grew up in a village where Anti-biotics were almost impossible to get your hands on. What we used was water in a silver pot and pouring it on wounds and cuts. We also did the same thing with Honey and Spider webs.
Did your folks brew any kind of alcohol?
Aw man, this makes me so excited to be a microbiology student :D
+Annika Victoria Hey, it's so much fun, but its a lot of studying! if you got enough mental strengt to study every day till you fall a sleep that is. I hope you'll have a lot of fun! when you join us :P
Pro tip. remember this. if you ever get the chance. learn big data and bio-informatics. I have a feeling that especially in what I am doing, it is the future.
+Annika Victoria what are you planning to be if you dont mind me asking?
+MrDisgruntledGamer1 Research scientist, but I have no idea in what field yet. I really like synthetic biology and medical microbiology though.
+watbenikgoed I've been studying microbiology for a year now and I'm totally obsessed. I've already gotten through a molecular biology major and I reckon that if I can do that, I can do this!
not sure whether they already made a video on it or not, but it'd've been good to mention in this one too: modern medicine is currently also working on antibacterial agents that act on multiple places at once. As mentioned in the video, right now the likes of penicillin work on only a single weak spot, making it relatively easy to patch that one weak spot up with spontaneous mutations. Having multiple lucky mutations at two very different spots in the genome, however, is far less likely to occur.
+wesleysull English is a beautifully odd language
+undercoverduck I believe that modern antibiotic treatments involve using a coctail of different antibiotics.
+Kamiel Heeres that's not the same as one chemical targeting multiple sites tho
undercoverduck But it has the same effect. The bacteria have to gain multiple mutations in order to survive.
+undercoverduck jj
Slayer vs. Bacteria would be an excellent experiment.
And that, people, is why all "brass" (copper+zinc) instruments never get clogged with bacteria throughout all of those intricate values and tubes. Blow as hard as you want, with all of your bacterium passing through the instruments, and yet...no mold, no weird smells, no growths, and no bacteria.
I never thought of that. It makes complete sense
You know, every time I see new SciShow videos up I get so excited and it has been like this for years. I honestly do believe that SciShow is my favorite TH-cam channel.
The future is steampunk, if only because everybody else dies from a disease spread by touching non-brass doorknobs.
+David Willanski Wasn't that a plot point in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
+Gareth Dean no that was an entire planet dying of disease due to an unwashed telephone, right after they sent all of their 'useless people' such as telephone sanitisers offworld...
elgostine
So close, but so far!
Congrats on a great video! I once told this story to the CFO of a cruises ship company on the maiden voyage of one of his ships built in Germany. Brass was for centuries standard on British ships. Brass fittings should be Standard Issue for cruise ships, airports, schools and especially hospitals. I would also like to see them on buses and trains and all transportation hubs. Stainless steel spreads superbugs and requires constant cleaning to keep the germs down.
I think that stainless steel became preferred because it does not need to be constantly polished unlike brass.
Ah yes penicillin.....the thing im allergic to. At least i can lick a copper doorknob and be just fine.
Thats not a sentence i thought id ever say but here we are.
So, we can kill bacteria with a silver bullet, or with a copper bullet.
+Physics Videos by Eugene Khutoryansky
Interesting. Werewolves and vampires are anthropomorphized STD's (that's why they always prey upon the foolish virgins, who don't guard their virtue). In this light, it makes perfect sense that silver would kill werewolves.
So next time you got an infection u can just shoot a copper bullet threw your leg, #selfnursing101
+Anna E Wow. Lol much.
+Physics Videos by Eugene Khutoryansky silver bullet if rare "werewolf" bacteria.
(I don't remember writing this.. was I drunk?)
+Physics Videos by Eugene Khutoryansky Instructions were too unclear, got argyria.
The Egyptians were on to a lot of things.
We Wuz kangs n shit
autism?
Yeah, been advocating this for years but as there's little $ to be made no one has been trying to sell this to hospitals. It's gotten so $ oriented I would be surprised if big pharma tried to infect everyone with a chronic disease only they could treat.
Egyptians were highly involved in Black magic
@@namelesshero4153 Oh shut up
AG-bandages actually already incorporate silver particles in the bandage, which is applied to wounds with a larger surface area. The siler helps kill the bacteria, thus reducing the risk of infection in the wound and making it heal more healthy
Sometimes I use big words I don't fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more 'photosynthesis'.
I saw that in a Patrick meme once
I told the world about my Tin Foil Hat, and the laughed and laughed... Now, where did I put my copper sheets in my workshop ?
Some green clays also have bacteria-killing properties.
Spider silk may do this too.
THANK YOU!! Very informative. Much appreciated! Valuable and very professional service you're giving us. Keep it up - thanks from Sydney Australia.
I remember you from my college days! Now I'm in medical school. Thank you
We're all in medical school.
@@Deezuzjohn Oh nice, how so?
I did my final presentation (for microbio lab) all about the contact killing method of action from a 2014ish paper. It was great learning about this, and the current applied research on this is pretty cool!
"Medicine has changed a lot in the last hundred years. We have better laws now which forbid the use of effective natural remedies and force sick people to submit to a better man-made system which won't cure them but which will make lots of money for a small few _better_ humans."
+3D4U what we have here is another whiner that complains about a problem but does nothing about it.
+777guy1 indeed, because if you complain about a problem you certainly must also be capable of changing it with no effort.
+777guy1 He makes people aware of these things so that more see it from his point of view. one guy or a small group can't do anything. But a huge group can do a whole lot.
+3D4U Yeah, life expectancy clearly went downhill over the last hundred years...
+3D4U
What "effective natural remedies" are prohibited?
I saw a study that changed all the stainless fittings in a hospital ward to copper and they found that the spread of anything was pretty much not happening anymore.
better use of copper than pennies
@P. Doherty US doesn't make pennies because we make cents.
@P. Doherty But they're plated with copper and that's all you need. Doesn't take much
@@Reach1335 Haha, I get it!
I noticed when I have a sore throat or phlegmy throat and i drink water that passed through old copper pipes it kind of burns and I can really taste the copper. Without a sore throat, not so much..
Seems related to me, but silver sulfadiazene (spelling?) was prescribed topically to my dad for some very severe rope burns (climbing accident) and it was very remarkable how well it worked - very rough wounds with embedded particulates and he had almost no problem with infection.
Look up colloidal silver, lots of people use it to prevent and treat illness. Although its getting harder to find true colloidal silver products as most products claiming to be colloidal silver actually contains ionic silver. Its best to use nano particles of silver for internal use and ionic silver for topical use. Best not to consume to much however, especially the ionic silver.
There are cases of people getting permanently grey skin due to ingesting too much colloidal silver.
We still use Silividine, or silver sulfadiazine cream primarily to keep burns uninfected. It's shown efficacy in all manner of wound care when hard to kill, ulcerating bacteria, prevent healing of a wound. Pretty cool stuff.
Funny, how the cheaper, readily available metal (stainless steel), once praised as the most amazing thing to have anything built from, is super bacteria attracting/breeding ground.
I think you're mistaken. Steel is praised not because it can be used for making utensils but because its structural properties are very impressive and have enabled us to build skyscrapers, machines and many other things. So that's a complete red herring.
@@feynstein1004 You're right, what you typed is a red herring!
@ChuckNorriz Ahaha thanks, my friend
it's also very durable so when we decide to sterilize the metal item we can go to town on it
Yeah, for structural purposes, steel is much better than brass. For situations where rusting and oxidation would degrade the steel's properties dangerously, stainless steel is better (though 8 times the price of regular steel).
Brass is great for fighting bacteria -- but it does need to be polished frequently otherwise it will oxydise to vert-de-gris fairly quickly.
Dear Hank
In the era(s) before refrigeration, people used to put a silver coin in their milk jugs to make the milk keep for longer. Once again, they didn't know it, but this was due to the anti-bacterial properties of the metal. If they were able to afford silver cutlery (dare I say: Silverware?), it would be used in preference to iron or wooden cutlery, for the same reasons (foodstuffs prepared with silver cutlery would stay unspoiled for longer).
Bubble Silver Blocks (high surface area) have been used in Washing Machines and Swimming Pools, with great effect, for about 5 years.
In Swimming Pools, it seems to kill the bacteria that algae eat, allowing your swimming pool to be chlorine free without it going green.
Anyone with a water cooled PC can buy silver strips or coils that can be dropped in to the reservoir and stop smelly stuff from growing in their.
this channel is an information overload. I love it
0:09 "Lettucin has changed a lot."
Lettucout is still the same
Lettucin never changes
When I clicked I thought I was gonna watch a video about why bacteria doesn't affect metal the way it does living things. About 3 minutes later I remembered I'm an idiot. But at least I have brass door handles. Great video. Here's a comment and a subscription.
HANK! Not that I don't like the other guy, but I like Hank Green even better.
If I want bacteria to disappear I will call David Copperfield
And my parents said listening to death metal was bad for me.
I'd recommend choosing living metals over dead metals since they will last longer before corroding.
Metal core is the best
Excellent episode 🎉
Cue the silver supplement crowd with "omgz I toldz you!" without understanding it.
Hank sounded so happy talking about chemistry
I really want to know, how this evolved in the last 3 Years :)
Make that six years, still as interesting a topic as ever!
And by the way, Grüße Techtastisch, nette Überraschung dich hier zu finden, auch wenn dein Kommentar schon 3 Jahre alt ist :D
Yo
Could you guys do a show explaining the difference in cooking methods between stoves, microwaves, air fryers, campfires Etc. The differences between induction convection and all that fun stuff
Imagine a shinny copper operating room with those crazy lights 😂
I actually have heard of the impact of silver on bacteria before. There is a company that makes cleaning rags and a whole bunch of stuff called norwex that has strands of microsilver in the rags that help clean things really well.
There are actually quite a bunch of bacteria that "eat" heavy metals. they are thus used for bioremediation to clean contaminated soil
Why am I just now seeing this video? Seriously, I've been watching this channel since before I graduated high school in 2014, and now it finally shows up?
So i'm healthy because of my music taste?
Now I know why I hardly ever get sick. Thanks Amon Amarth and 3" of Blood!
who cares... music is overrated anyway,
Yeah you are healthy because of your music taste \m/ \m/
Amon Amarth? Diseases be scare of you!
For you maybe. Or maybe you never delved into the chasm of music
You'd be spending some *Seasons In The Abyss* amirite metalheads!?
Burn victims are often treated with a silver-paste on their open burns. It helps promote new cell growth and prevents bacteria from infecting the wound. Honey is also a natural antibacterial as well! :)
If I remeber correctly AgCl2 eye drops (0.1% I think) are used for the prevention of syphilis in newborns.
AgCl
I heard about some woman finding an ancient cure for some particular kind of infection, didn't think it would work, but for the study of history decided to try it. It totally worked, kicked ass. She and her partner figured that probably what happened was that the bacteria developed resistance and that's why people stopped using it and forgot about it. But after a thousand years or whatever it was, the bacteria that exist once again evolved back to being similar to what they used to be and again, it is effective. So, reviewing old remedies might yield some helpful methods.
do you recall what the remedy was
@@BlockyBookworm , no, it was on some podcast. Don't remember the details.
BRB, switching door knobs and sink and toilet handles to brass.
*copper
I remember finding this when my high school biology class went around the school swabbing different surfaces. There was barely anything on the old brass door handles, but all sorts of weirdness on the wooden banisters and newer stainless steel door handles.
Last time I went to visit, I was sad to see they had removed all the brass ones and replaced them with stainless steel because the brass ones were too time consuming to clean/polish (not that they were ever polished when I went there either)
Yes, I suspect that the polishing requirements to keep brass looking good is what led to brass being replaced by stainless steel.
What does 100% fewer mean? Dose that mean it had about one half of the bacteria or that they didn't find any altogether?
I believe so. I think it was worded that way due to using 90%-100% because grammar.
+Caleb Limb It means that the amount of bacteria averaged anywhere from no bacteria up to 10% of the amount found on steel handles.
+Primalxbeast Not sure on the averaged part, but most studies give the average amount found.
+Caleb Limb Take a number of arbitrary things, now subtract an amount of said things, equal to 100% of the total number of the aforementioned things. You now have 100% fewer things than were present at the original thing-tally. You may now feel a deep sadness at the lack of arbitrary things, doo-dads and gizmos in your general vicinity ...this is normal.
+Caleb Limb *Does
Pioneers crossing the plains headed for Oregon would put a silver dollar or other silver in their milk (when they were fortunate enough to get some) to keep it from spoiling fast.
Can't believe you didn't mention Argyria (blue skin disease) or the hazards of kolloidal silver when speaking of ingesting silver. Sure, you mainly spoke about the benefits of nano particles, but I still think it's worth mentioning.
That only happens when you drink too much colloidal silver. Not that drinking it is recommend
Do your research ,that can only occur with Silver salts,not Colloidal silver
I've wondered about this for a long time. Thanks for the explanation!
So if I don't have any hand sanitizer I should just rub some pennies?
+ljmasternoob money has MANY viruses, which aren't bacteria. Viruses are already dead and much harder to "kill" than bacteria.
+havingMC So really pennies are yet another ploy of consumerism. When you buy some hand sanitizer for 99p and they give you that penny in change, you then have to use the hand sanitizer. Crafty bastards.
copper doesn't kill the bacteria as quickly as hand sanitizer. you might have to hold those pennies for hours lol
+ljmasternoob Considering the who-knows-what that's on pennies, any antibacterial effect wouldn't counter the effects of that stuff getting on your hands.
MetaBloxer
It would seem the conCENTsus is that this is a bad idea.
Hank! the buttons on your blouse look like little companion cubes!
you should paint little hearts in them RIGHT NOW!
Just don't go overboard on the silver, it will make you into a Smurf
With silver salts and sunlight, but supposedly not with nano silver. I use it and I'm not blue. Yet..
Colloidal Silver is a fluid with silver particles in it that has been used in medicine for some time, and I was supprised that it wasn't mentioned in this video.
There have been cases of people who ingested too much colloidal silver (or over too long of a period of time) as a prophylactic who ended up with permanently grey skin from the silver.
Ah...so this is why nobody in the brass band falls sick.
Once again knowledge from the old world proves to be useful.
Those ancient peeps had trail and error, lots of trail and error. No wonder they hit the mark at some point.
+Emil Tang The trail of error. We walk upon it a lot.
+ItsTheBibby "It is only the trail of failure that leads to success" -Some Guy, Probably.
+Emil Tang you can just picture some rich dude only using silver and living longer than other people :P
+Emil Tang 'Chew this, if it works I'm a genius. If it doesn't, eh, will of God.
Trail and error is really helpful in my school science fair projects.
Scrolling through all my Sciencey subscriptions.....'nah. nah. nah. ....ooh SciShow! Must be true! Must watch!'
3:11 Rap god.
hahahah
Thanks for the info. The next time I need to replace faucet handles & door knobs, I'll get the brass or copper ones.
Werewolf hunters have known about silver for years. Nothing new here.
They used a silver bandage stapled to my hand after my skin graft when I degloved myself last year. It healed up really well.
Fun fact: The idea that silver is what kills a vampire or werewolf comes from early European farmers who accidentally discovered the infection-stopping powers of the metal and assumed it was some kind of magic.
I love this channel so much! I'm 100% sure that these videos will come in handy for science, and amazing facts! Keep up the amazing work !!! 😀😀👍👍👍👍
Surely bacteria will eventually evolve to be immune to metals, and if so, are we screwed? And will there be a day where they evolve enough to be immune to sanitisers or alcohol etc?
+boy638 that moment when I thought you used the word screwed as a pun to do with metal....and then realised that you were being dead serious :')
When adds say that alcohol kids 99.9% of bacteria that 0.1% is the stuff that was either missed our is already resistant. Continued and constant use of such methods is part of what has led to the resistant bacteria we see now. There is less chance they will evolve to resist metal because it attacks them on a non biological level. It instead uses laws of atomic bonding, something they will have a harder time adapting resistance to.
+boy638 i dont think bacteria can evolve to be resistance to alcohol, its like finding a living organism that can evolve to be resistance to fire and live in molten lava.
+boy638 bacteria have already evolved to use heavy metals as a shield to protect itself from eradication, its called biofilm. They hide under this film of metal and calcium like a shield, that's a big factor of resistance that's often overlooked. Not so much that the bacteria has developed a resistance to the cure itself, its just hiding from it, the antibiotics can't break through the shield to get to the bug. Gotta break the biofilm, then proceed with treatment.
pleure retroish There is bacteria that live in ice and bacteria that live in super boiling water at the bottom of the ocean.
When I had a clogged sebaceous gland (atherom) that broke, resulting in a huge abscess, the doctors at my hospital cut the abscess open, removed the infected gland along with the accompanying pus, washed the wound, and then stuffed the cavity with a gauze containing Ag particles to kill any remaining bacteria. They changed the gauze and cleaned the wound periodically, and had me on dicloxacillin for 10 days. So my abscess was treated with: brute force, a penicillin string, and silver. =)
sooooo licking door handles is not that weird then........ Cool!!
But copper and brass rust, right?
+Lance Armada nope... Iron undergoes rust. Copper undergoes a similar degradation which usually protects it from further degradation.
+Lance Armada No. They oxidize, but don't rust. Rusting is pretty much exclusive with anything Iron. Copper, brass or basically any non ferrous metal oxidize, but doesn't rust, only "tarnish".
+Lance Armada
"Rust" is specific to Fe2O3, iron (III) oxide. Copper and brass still undergo oxidation, but its not called "rust".
Everyone getting hung up on semantics instead of actually addressing the issue -_- Doesn't matter if it's called rusting or oxidation. What OP wanted to know is that since this will result in a relatively inert coating on the metal surface, won't that completely neutralize the bacteria-killing properties of the metal?
They tarnish, but not rust away like iron as the oxide coating is protective unlike rust on steel
I'm Egyptian myself, and I look back in sorrow on how we are nowadays compared to how's our ancestors were in Ancient Times, making major breakthroughs in all fields at their time.
+Michel Nabil let's be fair: not all the time. they had A LOT of time for trial and error! :P
No talk about widely used coliodal silver? Not sciency enough for them I guess.
Spelled "colloidal", interesting reports. Thanks.
Yeah, very weird that every health shop carries colloidal silver, but they left that information out of their video.
This topic came up during a debate I listened to, and then I heard this very thing discussed in Radiolab. This is my third mental dose of penicillin today. :D
it is interesting just how much knowledge we have lost over the centuries.
What are you talking about? We now know more than ever before!
Is good how this man speaks fast, really puts my english to test.
+Leonardo Theodoro Some minor corrections for you:
It's good that this man speaks so fast, it really puts my english to the test.
lol
+mooxim Thank you for your corrections, I really need to pratice my writing.
You're welcome.
What do these metals target exactly? .. drugs of the penicillin family targets peptidoglycan on the bacteria, which we lack on our cells .. so how do these metals differentiate?
***** Ooh thanks man
+Adeen Dragon Sounds like a good reason to nickname someone Papa Smurf.
+Adeen Dragon The colloidal silver people take for various ailments is nothing but a massive hoax, no medical evidence behind it whatsoever, none of that stuff is anywhere near the nano level needed for what hank is referring to, and it is highly dangerous an unregulated.
+seigeengine Didn't he (Paul Karason aka "Papa Smurf" ) died a few yers ago?
***** Something having been used for something does not prove that it works.
People have used strychnine for a variety of ailments, and... oh look, it's a deadly poison.
aaaaaha, so that's the reason why anti-bacterial socks have metal linings in them... the more you know! Thank you for this video!
Perhaps we can take one of our more potent antibiotics, and tip its arrow in copper or nanosilver, and make it 100% more effective?
That was an analogy. It almost ceratinly cannot be done similarly to the way you are suggesting.
LegendBegins
Dunno, bacteria and all organisms have spots that have easy affinity, such as their little cell mouths. If it tastes like food to a bacterium, it IS food. So, let's put a bit of copper or silver in it, and when the food breaks down, it releases the metallic bomb. Human chemists are good enough to sort that out.
Kevin Zabbo It isn't a matter of the skill of chemists, it's a matter of being physically possible. Even biological creatures at that scale behave much like nonliving substances. Bacteria don't exactly have "reasons" for doing things, instinct, or anything else we are familiar with on the macro scale. A bacterium reacts to stimuli without real "reason" or purpose. If bacteria "ate" anything similar to their "food," we would have killed them years ago. there is no silver bullet (pun intended), but rather a war that is to be waged over time. These kinds of videos are often filled with comments of people who believe it's the final ultimate solution to a problem and it's so simple, we should have been doing it all this time (not saying you are), but it's quite a complex scenario.
LegendBegins
The chemystery I speak of is recent developments and advances. We're getting really good.
Kevin Zabbo We are, but we will never be able to do the impossible.
silver is used to help heal burns. The cream is called Flamazine
*dips medicine in molten copper*
*Drinks molten silver instead of medicine*
Another cool way to attack the problem of anti-biotic resistant bacteria is going after quorum sensing. Many bacteria won't attack until there are enough of them to cause a real effect, and they do this by emitting chemicals that trigger a group response. If you come up with an antagonist that blocks the receptor for this quorum sensing, you can prevent the bacteria from detecting each other and attacking. This method requires a deep understanding of the bacteria in question though, as well as some tricky chemistry. Still, it's pretty much guaranteed to work.
Is Hank pregnant?
Congrats, dude!!!!
Colloidal silver is becoming increasing popular for people to use.
If bacteria evolve really quick, then why aren't there 10 ft bacteria monsters roaming the earth
you are a 5-6 foot bacteria monster
When I moved into my rented unit, the bronze door-knob on the inside of the bathroom-door had most of the lacquer worn off so I polished it all back to bare metal. Since then it has oxidised a bit so anyone using the toilet in there can be assured that if the antibacterial hand-wash hasn't killed off all the bacteria, the door-knob will finish off any remaining!
Hahaha ! “staring at your jewelry in horror”