Fire

Ancient man harnessing and wielding the elemental power of the flame was pretty cool, I guess, but I think this being Tangent's one year anniversary is a little cooler, honestly! Plus, we announce who won the first season, so actually this episode is sort of twice as important as fire if you think about it!

 

Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! 

 

And if you want to learn more about any of our main topics, check out these links: 

[Truth or Fail]

Fire-chasing beetles

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0037627

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227016226_The_Photomechanic_Infrared_Receptor_for_the_Detection_of_Forest_Fires_in_the_Buprestid_Beetle_Melanophila_Acuminata

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/how-a-half-inch-beetle-finds-fires-80-miles-away/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3998979?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2012/05/27/fire-chasing-beetles-sense-infrared-radiation-from-fires-hundreds-of-kilometres-away/

https://academic.oup.com/jee/article-abstract/36/2/341/2202937

[Fact Off]

Surgical fires

https://www.livescience.com/65615-chest-cavity-fire-surgery.html

https://www.ismp.org/resources/surgical-fires-caused-skin-preps-and-ointments-rare-dangerous-and-preventable

Death ray building

https://twitter.com/tara_mulholland/status/374877389425086464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E374877389425086464&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffinancialpost.com%2Fnews%2Flondons-fryscraper-owners-to-spend-millions-of-pounds-to-block-car-melting-beam

https://www.pri.org/stories/2013-09-03/londons-walkie-talkie-skyscraper-blamed-melting-cars-starting-small-fire

https://www.livescience.com/39371-skyscraper-melts-cars-20-fenchurch.html

https://www.mississauga.com/news-story/4067822-london-s-fryscaper-draws-crowd-on-hottest-day/

https://www.cityam.com/exclusive-walkie-scorchie-melted-my-jag/

[Ask the Science Couch]

Flame Extinguishment Experiment (FLEX) 

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/FLEX_Video.html

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/in-space-flames-behave-in-ways-nobody-thought-possible-132637810/

Cool flames

https://blogs.nasa.gov/ISS_Science_Blog/2013/11/25/cool-flames-on-the-international-space-station-an-anatomy-of-discovery/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010218012002131

https://youtu.be/BxxqCLxxY3M

[Butt One More Thing]

Incinerating toilets

http://www.nsf.org/consumer-resources/water-quality/wastewater-sewage-treatment/electrical-incinerating-toilets

https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-06/documents/incinera.pdf