Thank you! Maybe you know the answer to this: What is the minimum f/number for a multi-element camera lens made with glass in air? One of the other comments indicates the theoretical minimum is f/0.5 due to numerical aperture of the final element being limited to 1. Thinking about microscope objectives, this seems to make sense, but I feel like there are a lot of assumptions being made, and that the theoretical limit would be lower if the focal plane can be curved, or if non-spherical optics are used, or if the lens design is asymmetric, or if the object is at infinity. I searched around the web, and there is a whole bunch of conflicting information and poor explanations. What do you think?
@@AppliedScience Indeed the maximum NA of air microscope objectives is around 1, which is caused by the critical angle of the light passing the last glass air interface. This critical angle is generally around 42 degrees but is also dependent on the difference between the refractive indices. It's the reason why ASML uses (water) immersion lithography in their DUV machines, otherwise they cannot get the light out. Same for oil immersion objectives. So if resolution is your goal, then you should find the "water plant equivalent" of the Geranium ;-). I don't think that is the case though, so if you are determined to increase NA, try projecting on a spherical image surface and you can go higher than NA 1. At some point though, the local temperature increase by the light might slow down or even stop the photosynthesis.
So rare to find a channel that ONLY uploads complete, well produced and documented projects. These are ideas I’ve never and likely never would have heard of. These would make unbelievable gifts
I understand your sentiment and agree with it. However, I don't think the word "complete" actually works. It's almost always "I have been working on this for a while, and I'm comfortable saying I have learned X much about it so far." Ben rarely ever seems to "complete" anything, because most of the videos he shows us are about interesting tangents or simply play. (Which is TOTALLY fine. Taking those "Huh. I wonder if/how/what..." thoughts and actually DOING something with them is a rare gift indeed.)
@@Prophes0rhe probably talks about how other channels do 15 minute video only about lenses, and the whole process will be like 5 or 10 videos to make more profit
@@bulka5305It isn't always for profit. When I plan lessons, even ones showing a single topic like this video, I like to break them up into bite-sized pieces to make it easier to digest. It can also make them easier to return to specific sections to refresh yourself on specific segments. But, there certainly are some who would break things up for profit reasons...
The youtuber Neptunium is building a homemade particle accelerator and needs applied science’s advice, please help ben get in touch with neptunium. And go watch his video!
Bravo! Gas exchange is primarily done on the underside of leaves. The top of the leaf is usually used for photosynthesis and the bottom for gas exchange. You stumbled on this so fast it is impressive...
@@TheNewton not that I am aware of... I don't know much about this, to be fair. Gas exchange is required for carbohydrates, but no idea about size correlation.
Something you can do to extend the useful life of the alcohol is to include charcoal to it. For a while at my job we were having to remove chlorophyll from IPA and a filter impregnated with charcoal worked fantastically.
As always, you come up with something even experienced science enthusiasts have never heard of! What a fascinating interaction with physics and biology
Great manual! We tried to make these images for my son's 2nd grade school project. And we did it according to the internet instructions. Now when I saw your video, it is hilarious to realize that we got EVERY step completely wrong! We did: 2 days in a dark room, clamped the leaf from both sides, indoor lamp, isopropanol, iodine tincture, drying with regular paper. We had no chance for success 😂
My parents were professional geranium growers when I was very young, and photogrammetry was my favorite darkroom technique in school; so this was an amazing intersection of these things for me! Thank you, I may have to dabble..:::😄
If you want to try scaling this up to an absurd size, you should start growing some Petasites japonicus. Makes absolutely huge yet thin and delicate leaves. I've got some growing in my backyard, maybe I'll give it a go if I find myself with an empty weekend.
Can we learn something about the plant by e.g. adding a grayscale bar? As far as I know, photosynthetic activity saturates as the light intensity increases, so this could be a way to average out daily exposure and measure it under real-world conditions?
Ugh I love your channel so much. Such a fantastic combination of whimsical engineering, interesting science, and thorough, clear presentation. Always the best thing I see that day when you release a video.
"you are dealing with biology, which can be kind of fickle" spoken like a physicist xD awesome project Ben - you undersold it! I want to go back to the photography project world - I'm still thinking about a potato... those have lots of starches lol
Amazing video! I had no idea you could also do it like this. I've done this before but much simpler. You take a leaf (already cut from the tree/plant. needs to be deciduous.), you print your POSITIVE image on some transparent or semi-transparent paper, put on top of the leaf and that pressed together with a glass and a sheet of wood or something, then expose to direct sunlight until you notice in parts of the leaf that are visible that it starts turning yellowish-brown (maybe a few hours, maybe a couple of days). So when you take it out you already have an image. The parts blocked by the positive are green and the parts not blocked are yellowish-brown. If you put it in a book or something it might last a couple of years but otherwise it'll degrade pretty quickly. There's some people that use a fixing process that uses glycerin and some house-hold chemicals. They call them "chlorotypes"
" The parts blocked by the positive are green and the parts not blocked are yellowish-brown." Am I not reading that right, wouldn't the blocked parts be yellowish-brown from lack of sunlight?
Professors George Porter and Eric Laithwaite were childhood heroes of mine. Watching their Christmas lectures on tv in the late 60s and 1970s was a big motivation for me to pursue a career in science.
In a time when half of America denies science as truth it is refreshing to watch videos like yours. Just looking for answers and exploring ideas that benefit us and make us all just a little bit smarter each time. I thank you for what you do.
Making a photo of the leaf and make it see it itself photography 🤯 And from another point, leaves and trees could some sort of seeing things, amazing. Even it each leaf could feedback to tree "neural" system (or whatever they have) that light info tree could see changing of light from morning to evening. And it is LITERALLY true, while small plants could move leafs to the source of light, like to the window at home. Or some flowers closing petals to night time. Some kind of vision of light and understanding day and night... Amazing concept...
Loving that your range of production topics is wide - it shows that science is all things. As always, I learned from your efforts and I applaud your awesome. Thanks!!!
By about the 2.5 minute mark my jaw was dropped. Actually dropped- not exaggerating. And then you whipped out the "plant camera" Wow. Great job man. 11/10.
This was very interesting. A topic I'd never considered, explored accessibly and in some detail. Great presentation, excellent editing and clearly a ton of work & experimentation in the background. Much appreciated.
I'm no biologist, but it seems there'd be a photosynthetic sweet spot for the plant: the balance between water, sunlight, temperature, soil composition, age, available nutrients, pH, etc. Perhaps even known ways to encourage extra starch storage in the leaf. This is the best project I've seen in a while. It's simple, the reagents are readily available, the result is fun&interesting.... In the future, we'll discover new ways to reinvent the past.
What a delightful experiment! Super cool, thanks for digging into this rabbit hole and sharing 🙂 I wonder if separating fixation for extraction might help, particularly with thicker leaf varieties? I.e. replacing the ethanol step with a fixative (paraformaldehyde or similar) and a membrane permeabilizing agent like Triton-X. That could then be followed with a more mild clearing step to remove the chlorophyll since everything has already been fixed in place. At least that's how I'd tackle it in cell bio... but plants are weird so huge grain of salt 😅 There's also been some recent work on clearing protocols like ClearSee (DOI: 10.1093/pcp/pcab033) and ClearSeeAlpha (DOI: 10.1242/dev.127613) that produce remarkably transparent specimens, intended for fluorescent imaging. Maybe these could be used in some way? The urea content of the ClearSee would be problematic with the starch I think, so it'd probably have to be fixed -> iodine stained -> ClearSee, which maybe wouldn't work? Dunno, but very cool project. Thanks again for sharing, love this stuff!
You make my brain make those happy chemicals every time you upload. Thank you for that. And thank you for being such a nerd. Makes me feel less lonely :D
Rather than making a faster lens, I wonder if using a Newtonian reflector would be an easier thing to experiment with? Amateur astronomy telescopes can have pretty massive apertures, and are pretty hackable with standard diameters in the focused etc
Cool experiment, and I love your scientific approach testing different reagents and conditions 💖 I was shocked to see you boiling methanol outside a laboratory fume hood though 😱 I wouldn't even know where to buy methanol for private use anywhere in Europe because of its toxicity.
This experiment was actually in my middle school text book to demonstrate plant synthesize starch during photosynthesis. Our teach clipped a trip of black paper on the leaf and left there for few days, but in the textbook it was suppose to leave the plant in darkness for some days, the expose it to light with the mask. I don't really remember the result, the experiment was performed by teacher on stage. In the text book they used ethanol. Its is great to see how good it turns out. And it is really interesting to see that you used the exact same plant as our teach but not the same as the textbook IIRC. It was really cheap and easy to acquire ethanol in my country, but very rare to see isopropyl alcohol.
Coleus, which comes in all sorts of colours including pale green, is fast growing and can have larger leaves than Pelargoniums (which is what the 'geraniums' you used really are, even though they are often sold as Geraniums). For really large leaves, you could even look at something like the Princess Tree or Paulownia Tomentosa. Easily grown from seed and one of the fastest growing trees in the world. When young (or cut to the ground every year) they can have leaves around 0.5m or larger and they are very flat.
It's a shame you don't get more views. Each video should easily get over 1m views 😢 I think this is the only channel i have actually watched every single video with Nile red coming in second
I'm just glad that this isn't a "what emergency responders tell you when you encounter grey scaled leaf negatives" derivative. And what I'm mostly relieved about it is that there's probably little chance of it becoming a medical emergency call...
I have been enjoying your videos for a long time now. I just wanted to say thank you for all the epic level screwing around! It is so very interesting, thank you for sharing the fun!
Leaves have stomatas only on the underside. These are openings/"mouths" that facilitate gas exchange (O2 and water out, CO2 in). Makes sense, that closing the back side didn't work.
ben might not make the most videos.... but you KNOW when they are released they are above top notch and FULL of information and original research thank you for the continued INSANELY high quality productions
First thought when thinking about the artificial lighting version. Using a laser projector to have X-Y control and "print" the carbohydrates at specific points. I did a bit of quick research and it seems there are some studies relating to low-power and/or indoor plant growth using single-wavelength photosynthesis. A leaf could be isolated in a dark box while still connected to the plant, and the laser image projected onto it's surface.
A rainy sunday without plans besides tidying up my workbench and living room; and I'm greeted with a new amazing Applied Science video right in the morning. Thanks as always, Ben, super interesting as per usual.
great video! safety tip for those trying to replicate: i would consider methanol really toxic. in terms of lab procedure, don’t get it on your hands without gloves. you might be able to do the boiling step outside if you step back from the setup while it boils; but keep in mind that boiling solvents are incredibly flammable (i mean, its kind of like boiling gasoline).
19:15 THESE. If i ever get the Fabrication Abilities this is one of the FIRST projects i want to do! This may be better suited to a channel with a huge glassblowing capability, but i would LOVE to see more on this! I need to read up if the studio lamp ones and others added in other elements to get the spectra right, but otherwise (if my understanding is correct) it’s basically just sulfur in an ampule that you hit with microwaves and get VERY bright, high cri light. And *in theory* very long bulb life (although the issue of cooling the bulb might be major)
Been a (small) patron of Krasnow's for years now, and this is absolutely why. Accept no substitutes for inspirational work. So now I'm left wondering.. Projector?
a beautiful and comprehensively made project, I think this is one of your most appealing and should be reproduced in many high school biology/physics and chemistry crossover lessons! Thanks Craig!
In many other photographic alternative processes we have to use glass as acrylic will block some UV as you noted. Also, put the inked surface of your printed negative against the leaf. The frosted layer of your transparency material (pictorico, fixxons) can rob you of some sharpness. We usually use super thin transparency material (completely clear, write on kind) if we're putting the negative on a process that can damage it. None of this may matter, but wanted to share.
looking forward to seeing that lamp. the technology was tested by a major agrochemicals company, they decided it wasn’t worth the investment and kept growing their lab plants with MH lamps.
A plant that is relatively easy/fast to grow and that gives large soft leaves that I can think of is Argyreia Nervosa. Haven't tested it, but that could be nice for larger heart shaped images
I found that SUPER interesting and am so excited to see you next time Ben! Who else but you can casually bring supercritical drying into an experiment series and widely communicate the results!
This really is a lovely, and incredible project. As always, I love the obvious joy you find in the investigation. I wondered whether you might be able to improve the control of the exposure by sort of pre-biasing the leaf with a huge, uniform dose of sunlight which sort of maxes out the photosynthesis process, so that a second light field, the image, can be added to the first, and cause starch grains to grow. I'm imagining adding an additional path for light by bouncing sunlight from a large parabolic reflector, or fresnel lens, through a ground glass to remove any image information, then onto the leaf at an angle compared to the image rays coming through the lens setup you've made. I know that CCDs and photomultiplier tubes often have a biasing voltage (sometimes a high one) to ensure that the small energy of photons is enough to make the system flip states. This would be a similar idea, but using light for biasing? I'm definitely going to give this a try with my students at the University of Washington. I'll also report back on using French Sorrel and Butterbur leaves, which are much larger, but still similarly delicate, and might allow for bigger prints. Thanks again for the amazing project.
A lot of hours of repetitive labour to give us this awesome summary video - well done! Would be interesting to see the differences between annual plants' leaves, like sugar cane (supposedly one of the most photosynthesis efficent plants) and long lifers like maple or oak tree. Looking forward to your artificial light source findings. There are LED lights which cater specifically for highest photosynthetically active radiation with mixture or red and blue diodes. Excellent work!
In Australia, ethanol is available pretty much everywhere and is considerably cheaper than isopropanol. As long as it still works with a little bit of bittering agent, it should be fine.
As a photolithography enthousiast, I approve this video😊. Fantastic work Ben!
Collab opportunities!??
Thank you! Maybe you know the answer to this: What is the minimum f/number for a multi-element camera lens made with glass in air? One of the other comments indicates the theoretical minimum is f/0.5 due to numerical aperture of the final element being limited to 1. Thinking about microscope objectives, this seems to make sense, but I feel like there are a lot of assumptions being made, and that the theoretical limit would be lower if the focal plane can be curved, or if non-spherical optics are used, or if the lens design is asymmetric, or if the object is at infinity. I searched around the web, and there is a whole bunch of conflicting information and poor explanations. What do you think?
@@AppliedScience always like these projects that bring up interdisciplinary questions and the big meta question of how to find quality answers.
@@AppliedScience Indeed the maximum NA of air microscope objectives is around 1, which is caused by the critical angle of the light passing the last glass air interface. This critical angle is generally around 42 degrees but is also dependent on the difference between the refractive indices. It's the reason why ASML uses (water) immersion lithography in their DUV machines, otherwise they cannot get the light out. Same for oil immersion objectives. So if resolution is your goal, then you should find the "water plant equivalent" of the Geranium ;-). I don't think that is the case though, so if you are determined to increase NA, try projecting on a spherical image surface and you can go higher than NA 1. At some point though, the local temperature increase by the light might slow down or even stop the photosynthesis.
Maybe just add sun reflectors to illuminate the subject more.
Miss your projects Ben.
came here just to say that.
@@sparc5 same here. Hope you're doing well Ben
Been 8 months, he is still active on X
So rare to find a channel that ONLY uploads complete, well produced and documented projects. These are ideas I’ve never and likely never would have heard of. These would make unbelievable gifts
I understand your sentiment and agree with it. However, I don't think the word "complete" actually works.
It's almost always "I have been working on this for a while, and I'm comfortable saying I have learned X much about it so far."
Ben rarely ever seems to "complete" anything, because most of the videos he shows us are about interesting tangents or simply play.
(Which is TOTALLY fine. Taking those "Huh. I wonder if/how/what..." thoughts and actually DOING something with them is a rare gift indeed.)
@@Prophes0rhe probably talks about how other channels do 15 minute video only about lenses, and the whole process will be like 5 or 10 videos to make more profit
I appreciate that he doesn't premeire and just uploads the vid
@@bulka5305It isn't always for profit.
When I plan lessons, even ones showing a single topic like this video, I like to break them up into bite-sized pieces to make it easier to digest. It can also make them easier to return to specific sections to refresh yourself on specific segments.
But, there certainly are some who would break things up for profit reasons...
LTT take note.
I've been so excited for this video since we spoke about it at opensauce and it's even better than you described. This is amazing!!
The youtuber Neptunium is building a homemade particle accelerator and needs applied science’s advice, please help ben get in touch with neptunium. And go watch his video!
Bravo! Gas exchange is primarily done on the underside of leaves. The top of the leaf is usually used for photosynthesis and the bottom for gas exchange. You stumbled on this so fast it is impressive...
Do you know if the gas exchange affect starch production granule size?
@@TheNewton not that I am aware of... I don't know much about this, to be fair. Gas exchange is required for carbohydrates, but no idea about size correlation.
Always an instant click from me. This channel is an absolute gem
Ditto
Same here!
Yup!
Something you can do to extend the useful life of the alcohol is to include charcoal to it. For a while at my job we were having to remove chlorophyll from IPA and a filter impregnated with charcoal worked fantastically.
As always, you come up with something even experienced science enthusiasts have never heard of! What a fascinating interaction with physics and biology
Ben.. where'd you go?
Great manual! We tried to make these images for my son's 2nd grade school project. And we did it according to the internet instructions. Now when I saw your video, it is hilarious to realize that we got EVERY step completely wrong! We did: 2 days in a dark room, clamped the leaf from both sides, indoor lamp, isopropanol, iodine tincture, drying with regular paper. We had no chance for success 😂
This channel is quickly becoming the last bastion of youtube greatness, never change, never give in to the algorithm!!!
I'd be super interested in a sheet of "photo paper" made from algae. Would love to see if it captures more detail than the leaves. Great video!
Interesting thought, though not sure how you'd make something robust enough to survive boiling in alcohol without falling apart.
Oh i love this idea
Keeping the algae alive wouldn’t be easy, the paper would have to be pretty moist. Also I’m not sure to what extent algae stores energy as starch.
@@Scrogan Seaweed is made of algae. He could just go to the ocean and pick some and cut it into sheets
@@ferrumignis It could be made of cloth, like a painter's canvas.
My parents were professional geranium growers when I was very young, and photogrammetry was my favorite darkroom technique in school; so this was an amazing intersection of these things for me!
Thank you, I may have to dabble..:::😄
Photogerammetry, lol
@@thenickdude😂 Or would it be "photogerainometry?"
If you want to try scaling this up to an absurd size, you should start growing some Petasites japonicus. Makes absolutely huge yet thin and delicate leaves. I've got some growing in my backyard, maybe I'll give it a go if I find myself with an empty weekend.
Tobacco leaves are the leafiest thing in the universe. If grown in a high humidity environment they're extremely wide and long.
I was thinking banana leaves for a large format photo
Gunnera manicata, prickly but massive.
Can such plants leaves grow sandwiched in glass plates to be even flatter or more uniform?
@@TheNewtondon't forget to let them breathe CO2!!
As an arboriculturalist this blows my mind. Many many thanks for sharing this amazing project.
Can we learn something about the plant by e.g. adding a grayscale bar? As far as I know, photosynthetic activity saturates as the light intensity increases, so this could be a way to average out daily exposure and measure it under real-world conditions?
Ugh I love your channel so much. Such a fantastic combination of whimsical engineering, interesting science, and thorough, clear presentation. Always the best thing I see that day when you release a video.
"you are dealing with biology, which can be kind of fickle" spoken like a physicist xD
awesome project Ben - you undersold it! I want to go back to the photography project world - I'm still thinking about a potato... those have lots of starches lol
Every time there’s a new Applied Science video, “My Hero” by the Foo Fighters starts running through my head.
Amazing video! I had no idea you could also do it like this. I've done this before but much simpler. You take a leaf (already cut from the tree/plant. needs to be deciduous.), you print your POSITIVE image on some transparent or semi-transparent paper, put on top of the leaf and that pressed together with a glass and a sheet of wood or something, then expose to direct sunlight until you notice in parts of the leaf that are visible that it starts turning yellowish-brown (maybe a few hours, maybe a couple of days). So when you take it out you already have an image. The parts blocked by the positive are green and the parts not blocked are yellowish-brown. If you put it in a book or something it might last a couple of years but otherwise it'll degrade pretty quickly. There's some people that use a fixing process that uses glycerin and some house-hold chemicals. They call them "chlorotypes"
I thought it might be something like chlorotype. With starch/iodine it could be an amylotype from the Greek for starch.
What about using the change to fall/autumn colour? Cercis has a reasonable size leaf and the pink/orange colours are from chlorophyll breakdown.
" The parts blocked by the positive are green and the parts not blocked are yellowish-brown."
Am I not reading that right, wouldn't the blocked parts be yellowish-brown from lack of sunlight?
@@TheNewton this is using dead leaves. The sun turns them yellow/brown. You stop that process by blocking the sun :)
Professors George Porter and Eric Laithwaite were childhood heroes of mine. Watching their Christmas lectures on tv in the late 60s and 1970s was a big motivation for me to pursue a career in science.
Dude, the cool unique and diverse projects you take on, with the persistence of a mad scientist lol, is pretty cool 👍
In a time when half of America denies science as truth it is refreshing to watch videos like yours. Just looking for answers and exploring ideas that benefit us and make us all just a little bit smarter each time. I thank you for what you do.
Making a photo of the leaf and make it see it itself photography 🤯 And from another point, leaves and trees could some sort of seeing things, amazing. Even it each leaf could feedback to tree "neural" system (or whatever they have) that light info tree could see changing of light from morning to evening. And it is LITERALLY true, while small plants could move leafs to the source of light, like to the window at home. Or some flowers closing petals to night time. Some kind of vision of light and understanding day and night... Amazing concept...
Loving that your range of production topics is wide - it shows that science is all things.
As always, I learned from your efforts and I applaud your awesome.
Thanks!!!
You never disappoint. I will be thinking about this for years.
This brought back the smell of doing it in school. We used 'methlated spirits', or a mix of ethanol and methanol.
By about the 2.5 minute mark my jaw was dropped. Actually dropped- not exaggerating.
And then you whipped out the "plant camera"
Wow. Great job man. 11/10.
This was very interesting. A topic I'd never considered, explored accessibly and in some detail. Great presentation, excellent editing and clearly a ton of work & experimentation in the background. Much appreciated.
I'm no biologist, but it seems there'd be a photosynthetic sweet spot for the plant: the balance between water, sunlight, temperature, soil composition, age, available nutrients, pH, etc. Perhaps even known ways to encourage extra starch storage in the leaf.
This is the best project I've seen in a while. It's simple, the reagents are readily available, the result is fun&interesting....
In the future, we'll discover new ways to reinvent the past.
You, sir, are a gem, and a national treasure!
Lugol's Iodine is fairly straightforward to make at home, and _significantly_ cheaper than you can buy pre-mixed.
... continue ...
How can we make?
What a delightful experiment! Super cool, thanks for digging into this rabbit hole and sharing 🙂 I wonder if separating fixation for extraction might help, particularly with thicker leaf varieties? I.e. replacing the ethanol step with a fixative (paraformaldehyde or similar) and a membrane permeabilizing agent like Triton-X. That could then be followed with a more mild clearing step to remove the chlorophyll since everything has already been fixed in place.
At least that's how I'd tackle it in cell bio... but plants are weird so huge grain of salt 😅 There's also been some recent work on clearing protocols like ClearSee (DOI: 10.1093/pcp/pcab033) and ClearSeeAlpha (DOI: 10.1242/dev.127613) that produce remarkably transparent specimens, intended for fluorescent imaging. Maybe these could be used in some way? The urea content of the ClearSee would be problematic with the starch I think, so it'd probably have to be fixed -> iodine stained -> ClearSee, which maybe wouldn't work?
Dunno, but very cool project. Thanks again for sharing, love this stuff!
This guy has the best job. He just does cool shit all the time. IMO this is one of the best RUclips channels ever.
Every video release is a such a special moment for me . Subscribed years ago and video is special.
Thank you.
legit one of the very best channels on the internet
WOW this would be a great pursuit for any week end scientist! Thanks for posting and take care!
Binh Danh has a lot of cool art that must use a similar technique.
This is awesome and I had no idea leaf photographs were a thing. Thanks for showing off the process!
Haha, the leaf photography with the bad ass custom lens is absolutely amazing
Can't wait to watch this tomorrow but I wanted to say, that's a great looking classic truck.
This is awesome! I work for a company that grows millions of geranium seedlings (among other ornamentals) each year.
Thanks! I'm glad that there are still practical science experiments being so well explained.
You make my brain make those happy chemicals every time you upload. Thank you for that.
And thank you for being such a nerd. Makes me feel less lonely :D
Ben, I literally dropped everything I was doing when I saw this video pop up on X. You are one of the few video makers that has that effect on me.
WOW! Your experiments are outstanding! Best channel ever and by far! Thanks for sharing! Inspiring!
Rather than making a faster lens, I wonder if using a Newtonian reflector would be an easier thing to experiment with? Amateur astronomy telescopes can have pretty massive apertures, and are pretty hackable with standard diameters in the focused etc
Most telescopes are f/4-f/5 which is much slower than projector lens from video (8-25 less light than f/1)
Cool experiment, and I love your scientific approach testing different reagents and conditions 💖
I was shocked to see you boiling methanol outside a laboratory fume hood though 😱 I wouldn't even know where to buy methanol for private use anywhere in Europe because of its toxicity.
This experiment was actually in my middle school text book to demonstrate plant synthesize starch during photosynthesis. Our teach clipped a trip of black paper on the leaf and left there for few days, but in the textbook it was suppose to leave the plant in darkness for some days, the expose it to light with the mask. I don't really remember the result, the experiment was performed by teacher on stage. In the text book they used ethanol. Its is great to see how good it turns out. And it is really interesting to see that you used the exact same plant as our teach but not the same as the textbook IIRC. It was really cheap and easy to acquire ethanol in my country, but very rare to see isopropyl alcohol.
Coleus, which comes in all sorts of colours including pale green, is fast growing and can have larger leaves than Pelargoniums (which is what the 'geraniums' you used really are, even though they are often sold as Geraniums). For really large leaves, you could even look at something like the Princess Tree or Paulownia Tomentosa. Easily grown from seed and one of the fastest growing trees in the world. When young (or cut to the ground every year) they can have leaves around 0.5m or larger and they are very flat.
Coleus leaves are thinner. Perhaps a Kalanchoe or Milkweed would be easier to work with?
Using photosynthesis to create photos of leafs on leafs 🤯. Very cool!
It's a shame you don't get more views. Each video should easily get over 1m views 😢
I think this is the only channel i have actually watched every single video with Nile red coming in second
The photo of the old truck is amazing. What a neat experiment
I'm just glad that this isn't a "what emergency responders tell you when you encounter grey scaled leaf negatives" derivative. And what I'm mostly relieved about it is that there's probably little chance of it becoming a medical emergency call...
I have been enjoying your videos for a long time now. I just wanted to say thank you for all the epic level screwing around! It is so very interesting, thank you for sharing the fun!
Leaves have stomatas only on the underside. These are openings/"mouths" that facilitate gas exchange (O2 and water out, CO2 in). Makes sense, that closing the back side didn't work.
ben might not make the most videos.... but you KNOW when they are released they are above top notch and FULL of information and original research
thank you for the continued INSANELY high quality productions
also, you can get any bottle of vodka and fractionally distill it in any pot or bucket pretty easily
It's always a good day when applied science uploads
Has Ben cured cancer yet? This man can do anything.
First thought when thinking about the artificial lighting version.
Using a laser projector to have X-Y control and "print" the carbohydrates at specific points.
I did a bit of quick research and it seems there are some studies relating to low-power and/or indoor plant growth using single-wavelength photosynthesis.
A leaf could be isolated in a dark box while still connected to the plant, and the laser image projected onto it's surface.
A rainy sunday without plans besides tidying up my workbench and living room; and I'm greeted with a new amazing Applied Science video right in the morning.
Thanks as always, Ben, super interesting as per usual.
This brings me so much joy.
Great science but entirely pointless and done purely for the joy of experimentation
👌😎👍To me the image of a leaf on the leaf itself is the most impressive 👌😎👍❗
Best channel on RUclips
great video!
safety tip for those trying to replicate: i would consider methanol really toxic. in terms of lab procedure, don’t get it on your hands without gloves. you might be able to do the boiling step outside if you step back from the setup while it boils; but keep in mind that boiling solvents are incredibly flammable (i mean, its kind of like boiling gasoline).
19:15 THESE. If i ever get the Fabrication Abilities this is one of the FIRST projects i want to do! This may be better suited to a channel with a huge glassblowing capability, but i would LOVE to see more on this!
I need to read up if the studio lamp ones and others added in other elements to get the spectra right, but otherwise (if my understanding is correct) it’s basically just sulfur in an ampule that you hit with microwaves and get VERY bright, high cri light. And *in theory* very long bulb life (although the issue of cooling the bulb might be major)
The result are amazing! and I'm definitely going to be building one of those lenses.
This video is awesome, I especially enjoyed then leaf that underwent explosive decompression
I'm always surprised at how many cool projects you make. I wonder how cool your "to do list" for project ideas is.
most unique brain alive. you are a gem.
Been a (small) patron of Krasnow's for years now, and this is absolutely why. Accept no substitutes for inspirational work.
So now I'm left wondering..
Projector?
Ben is truly a mad scientist!
Where are you man?
a beautiful and comprehensively made project, I think this is one of your most appealing and should be reproduced in many high school biology/physics and chemistry crossover lessons! Thanks Craig!
The idea is so simple yet elegant! Thank you for bringing it up!
Jerry: Oh, you mean, shrinkage.
George: Yes significant shrinkage.
In many other photographic alternative processes we have to use glass as acrylic will block some UV as you noted. Also, put the inked surface of your printed negative against the leaf. The frosted layer of your transparency material (pictorico, fixxons) can rob you of some sharpness. We usually use super thin transparency material (completely clear, write on kind) if we're putting the negative on a process that can damage it. None of this may matter, but wanted to share.
looking forward to seeing that lamp.
the technology was tested by a major agrochemicals company, they decided it wasn’t worth the investment and kept growing their lab plants with MH lamps.
It makes so much sense ! of course photosynthesis as a camera! very cool! I am definitely trying that!
Very interesting idea! Like most of your projects, this one presses all my buttons simultaneously 🙂 Well done!
I did not want that to stop. Very interesting! And inspiring.
What a fantastic video Ben. I hadn't considered this before, it was really cool watching your process.
Super interesting, love the prints!
I learned about this from a science fair idea book when I was a kid. Very cool!
6:44 spider climbs into frame
(bottom, mid-right)
Ah, it's my fav genius cutie! You always look like the cat who ate the canary! So cute!
A plant that is relatively easy/fast to grow and that gives large soft leaves that I can think of is Argyreia Nervosa. Haven't tested it, but that could be nice for larger heart shaped images
I imagine the size limit for an effective lens would be the point where there is so much light the leaf spontaneously catches fire
Thanks for keeping science open!
Do you have anything on diy UV-Vis spectroscopy?
Great job as always, thanks Ben.
I found that SUPER interesting and am so excited to see you next time Ben! Who else but you can casually bring supercritical drying into an experiment series and widely communicate the results!
This really is a lovely, and incredible project. As always, I love the obvious joy you find in the investigation. I wondered whether you might be able to improve the control of the exposure by sort of pre-biasing the leaf with a huge, uniform dose of sunlight which sort of maxes out the photosynthesis process, so that a second light field, the image, can be added to the first, and cause starch grains to grow. I'm imagining adding an additional path for light by bouncing sunlight from a large parabolic reflector, or fresnel lens, through a ground glass to remove any image information, then onto the leaf at an angle compared to the image rays coming through the lens setup you've made. I know that CCDs and photomultiplier tubes often have a biasing voltage (sometimes a high one) to ensure that the small energy of photons is enough to make the system flip states. This would be a similar idea, but using light for biasing? I'm definitely going to give this a try with my students at the University of Washington. I'll also report back on using French Sorrel and Butterbur leaves, which are much larger, but still similarly delicate, and might allow for bigger prints. Thanks again for the amazing project.
French Sorrel and Butterbur leaves, the membrane of a water lilliy petal
🌞🌞 That was interesting to be reminded about and being done anew. Thank you
A lot of hours of repetitive labour to give us this awesome summary video - well done! Would be interesting to see the differences between annual plants' leaves, like sugar cane (supposedly one of the most photosynthesis efficent plants) and long lifers like maple or oak tree.
Looking forward to your artificial light source findings. There are LED lights which cater specifically for highest photosynthetically active radiation with mixture or red and blue diodes. Excellent work!
In Australia, ethanol is available pretty much everywhere and is considerably cheaper than isopropanol. As long as it still works with a little bit of bittering agent, it should be fine.
Yeah as a German I was also very confused, just buy "Brennspiritus" "denatured alcohol" it is >99% Ethanol...
YT is not sending me notifications about new videos, Exelent work love your projects,
Paulownia has large delicate leaves and probably would have a greater contrast due to the C4 pathway.
You could cut them to fit picture frames up to 30 inches square.
This is really interesting Ben! It's always great to see a new video from you on my feed.
Funny thing: around these parts (Serbia) I can buy ethanol in any pharmacy but isopropyl is only found in specialized stores.
I love your videos man. More videos please! You've been away for a while.
I hope to make videos like this one day about my projects, your videos are too good ben!