Can Science Beat Counterfeit Detector Pens?

[@ACSReactions]

Is it super surprising that amylase didn’t work? It breaks down the starch, sure, but iodine can still bind to smaller starch chains. How long do you think we’d have to let that reaction sit before it really broke down all the starch in the bills…

[@the4gatekeeper]

I tried googling the brand of amylase you used, and (assuming I found the actual brand) it appears that it's temperature optimum is in the range of 52-62 °C, which means that at the temperature you used, it probably got signifcantly denatured after just a few minutes. The pH should also be considered. They just say "appropriate for use at temperature and pH conditions typical for fermentation", which makes sense considering most amylases have their optima at a pH of around 4-5. So maybe try using a buffer. As for the yeast, I don't know your exact conditions, but the amylase enyme is probably inducible, which (if true) would mean it won't be produced unless starch is the only nutrient source available in the solution, so making it work with your setup would probbably be difficult as adding starch to induce the production of amylase would probbably just add more starch to the bill. Assuming it really is starch causing the reaction, which does seem very plausible, consider trying the enzymatic reaction with amylase over night or over two nights (with an eventual addition of more enzyme after the first night to compensate for protein denaturation) at room temperature, then washing the bill in some water (a 1 hour soak should probbably suffice), and after drying trying out the pen. Or you can try 60 °C over a few hours. 2-4 hours would probably work wonders. Great video idea btw!

[@bskull3232]

Long enough to break down the paper perhaps?

[@Pilk_]

I'd taste the water to see if it was getting sweeter. 😋

[@PresidentofAntifa]

Two layers of phonebook paper beat the pen and hand feel. This is well known.

[@christopherleubner6633]

You need to use a couple other enzymes to break down the starch to simple sugars. Next treat the paper with sodium sulfite. The sulfite reacts with the iodine converting it to iodate which is colorless.

[@Kamehouse444]

Today I learned that I should actually be bleaching smaller denominations then reprinting larger ones. Thanks a bunch Alex, you're a lifesaver!

[@AlexDainisPhD]

Here to help 😅

[@Relkond]

What I learned? Most potato chips in the store are actually counterfeit.

[@kyleeames8229]

There are actually security features in modern banknotes to guard against that. They’re embedded into the paper itself during manufacture, so sorry. You’re SOL.

[@petevenuti7355]

You can use laser ablation to bleach them, stick to the older bills with the out the extra strip.

[@UrDomb]

@@kyleeames8229So use old bills. Thanks homie.

[@LaceNWhisky]

So what you're saying is it would be a bad idea to spray laundry starch on a genuine $100 bill and gift it to my boss.

[@StefanReich]

You pay your boss? You have a strange job 😄

[@AnonymousAnarchist2]

very bad. Worse would be to launder all the companies bills with starch. But we gotta do our part to keep our money clean!

[@lasagnahog7695]

Super cool video. I don't have anything profound to say but I would like to feed the algorithm some engagement since I enjoyed it so much.

[@ACSReactions]

Thanks for that!

[@douglasboyle6544]

First off I'm impressed you mentioned Crane & Co., no one ever seems to bring them up when talking about currency! However, the company is known as "Crane Currency" now, I know this because I live on the same street as their mill that makes the currency paper. In 2015 they spun off their stationery division and it retained the name Crane &Co. That's when they adopted the name Crane Currency.

[@ACSReactions]

Good to know!

[@featheredserpentartmedia5315]

That's dope that you shouted out nilered. This type of experiment is something he would appreciate.

[@Pwn3dbyth3n00b]

Thanks this is a lot of help for my printing projects

[@SpoodyFlopp]

In using the hair spray to coat the bill, you may not be able to attenuate the interaction between the starch and the pen. Pens usually have some type of solvent in them, which likely would pick up the hair spray coating and allow the iodine to meet the starch. Perhaps a more industrious finishing spray for paint/other artworks would be better. Alternating between two layers of sprays designed for water-based and oil-based would be my attempt.

[@athompso99]

And of course no one will ever be suspicious of paper money that looks like it's been varnished or even laminated, perfect! ;-)

[@Twitchi]

@@athompso99 It's a collector's bill, I keep it there for safety and now times are hard...

[@sunnohh]

One of the largest counterfeiters in US history used a light coating of a particular brand of hairspray…

[@rfldss89]

Kinda crazy that the US dollar, the de facto world currency, uses the same dimensions for each one of their bills, which makes it so much easier to counterfeit money. Can't pull a stunt like that with euro or canadian dollars 😂

[@chemistryofquestionablequa6252]

The RCMP say that they haven’t seen a single convincing counterfeit since the introduction of the new bills. Kind of impressive really.

[@straphyr]

It's also an accessibility nightmare for people with impaired vision. You have to trust other people to not steal from you if you need help counting for your purchase. Size and color differences would solve this as it has in many countries.

[@Scapestoat]

Euro bills are so chock full of security measures. It is both silly and impressive! Apparently they're based on the last two generations of Dutch paper money which were made by a very clever artist, and which were the first bills to not have faces of people on them. He also, as part joke, part easy-to-identify, adopted the monopoly money colours for them.

[@debug9424]

Canadian money doesn't have different sizes for the different bills, but the bills are full of non-printed elements that are unique to each denomination, usually including the number of the denomination. 3 easy to see ones include the braille dots, the embedded metallic strips in the line window with the denomination digits punched out, and the diffraction grating in the maple leaf window of 20$+ bills. That last one is super neat, looking at a bright dot light through that window will show the denomination repeated 3 times in a circle around the light, and even works with a laser beam

[@Scapestoat]

@@debug9424 Got to love Science, right? :D

[@explosivedude8295]

Imagine Crane & Co selling money to the government to get paid in their own bills.

[@Alloyaha]

The craziest business model- where your customers give your product back, and it's a good thing.

[@johnford7847]

I found this very interesting. I think it's the kind of chemistry lesson that fits into a "Chemistry for Citizens" type of liberal studies nonmajor course really well. Thank you for sharing.

[@nickrogers3624]

As a bank teller when I look at bills I sweep over roughly 8 different checks before I even get to the marker test so if you have made a counterfeit good enough to pass those and this, it might as well be legal tender. Fun fact there are counterfeit bills in circulation so authentic looking, they actually corrected minor printing errors on the design of the bills. These counterfeits came from North Korea and are still present in circulation today.

[@ACSReactions]

This is wild!

[@dj_laundry_list]

2:22 I like how the light goes all the way to the nucleus

[@PotionsMaster666]

It does doesn't it ?

[@internetuser8922]

Right, I thought the light was from electrons absorbing photons, thereby getting bumped up an energy level, and then settling back down, releasing photons of a specific wavelength in the process. The light doesn't actually interact with the nucleus in any meaningful way, right? I'm not a physicist, so idk...

[@jeanf6295]

It kinda does : the wavelength of light is orders of magnitude above the size of an atom. The electromagnetic field that describe light is thus almost uniform at this scale. Besides, the nucleus is about five or four orders of magnitudes smaller than the electron cloud, electrons don't really have a radius, they certainly don't have a definite position at this scale. This is a rough representation that seize one basic aspect of the atomic structure : its composition. It is not meant to be perfectly accurate.

[@Insanit13s]

Fun fact: the ignition temperature of paper is where the title of the novel "451 Fahrenheit" comes from, where they ... burn books.

[@straphyr]

When she said her oven was set to 425, my only thought was, oh cool, roughly 5% (actually just over 6%) overshoot from the oven and she has potential ignition. Hopefully her oven is calibrated and reliable and the duty cycling over shooting to average it out doesn't just catch it on fire anyway. Very glad it didn't work, would be a slight problem if there was an uptick in would be counterfeiters burning down their kitchens.

[@der.Schtefan]

Uhm, actually, it is "Fahrenheit 451".

[@Insanit13s]

Fair enough, it's been a while since i read it and remembered the title backwards. @@der.Schtefan

[@justshanestuff]

​@@straphyrI wonder how long she put it in, I'm surprised it didn't change color from starting to burn

[@TheLowstef]

Alex has been doing cool crime-adjacent science explaining since that neo-noir bit on dominant and recessive alleles on her own channel way back when. Criminally underwatched!

[@3th1xs]

From beer brewing experience, you should have used a lower temperature for the amylase. Like 60c. I mashed my grains too hot once (70c) and I believe it wrecked the enzyme that would normally break the starches in the barley into simple sugars, which then yielded a low percentage abv beer because the yeast doesn't gobble up starch like it does sugar.

[@AnotherPointOfView944]

Polymer banknotes dont require this pen check and are inherently much more difficult to forge.

[@JorgetePanete]

don't*

[@metamorphicorder]

And are much more expensive.

[@dj1NM3]

@@metamorphicorder Apparently polymer banknotes also last several times longer than paper notes, so the initial printing cost is offset by not having to print new banknotes quite so often. Which also another reason why some countries (EG: UK, Australia and New Zealand) issue $1 and $2 (or, £1 and £2) coins instead of banknotes, as they will last for decades in circulation, rather than the just a couple of years for paper notes.

[@scragar]

@dj1NM3 Coins are much easier to fake though, no one checks the security features for coins. At one point the estimated number of fake £2 coins exceded legit £2 coins. It's in part why the UK has reduced supply of £2 coins and abandoned their plans for a £5 coin. The forgeries are just too hard to stop. Coins lasting forever makes them great for low values that aren't worth forging, but coins just don't get the scruitiny that notes do.

[@dwaynezilla]

Those potato chips are COUNTERFEIT

[@BRUXXUS]

I love the visual of some counterfeit operation where there’s a warehouse of a bunch of people licking paper. 😂

[@SianaGearz]

Hello.

[@supersat]

Glad I came across you again, Alex! I am subscribed to your old personal channel but missed the announcement about this channel!

[@antoniodepalma-f8i]

The amylase trial could have been affected by the temperature. If that amylase was the human version at 70 Celsius it would have worked poorly because human amylase has an optimun temperature at 37 Celsius. Bacterias amylases are different and can work at those temperatures.

[@supersat]

Another fun mystery in the video description: "This video displays proprietary technology developed by University of Copenhagen. Patent pending. The technology is undergoing development and is not yet commercially available." Wat??

[@RobCrawford23]

Of course the other option to introduce starch into a large number of actual banknotes, so a large number of false positives render the pens useless.

[@hoosierdaddy1469]

A friend told me: Use the white pages from old phone books as they don't/didn't contain starch. 2 pages together will get you to the correct thickness plus it allows you to insert the blue "security band" between the two sheets.

[@DH-bf9xb]

Great video + your dog is adorable.

[@cjomoe]

i used to like taking a piece of printer paper and showing coworkers at a previous job i had running the counterfeit pens on them to show how it changed colors compared to a marking real legitimate currency and then marking a pair of light colored jeans we all had to wear for work and how it wouldn’t change color 😅

[@GlutenEruption]

'Till you run in to that one cashier who's mom uses laundry starch on their clothes 🙇🏻😂

[@deshazo_henry]

Totally random just scrolling stumbled on your channel I love your content, you got a new subscriber.

[@dand8282]

Working retail back in the day, I noticed on a slow day that our receipt tape tested genuine.

[@soundspark]

I once bought a counterfeit detection kit that came not only with the iodine pen, but also a little LED blacklight. Once you managed to beat the pen, try beating the blacklight when your regular printer paper lights right up under that light and your colored ribbon is missing.

[@dj_laundry_list]

The awesome thing about these videos is ..... most things

[@hjacobs8972]

Sodium thiosulfate can turn iodine stains colorless. Might work in this situation too.

[@atsanonwadsanthat166]

I feel a bit attacked for watching a certain TV show. 😂

[@blue_bird7]

I didn't knew Alex Dainis makes videos for this channel other than her own

[@ACSReactions]

And we’re super glad to have her!

[@der.Schtefan]

Properly crediting NileRed/Blue? Did James Somerton teach you NOTHING? Never list your sources, rather say it is based on the works of "...." and if anybody complains, tell your fans to attack and dox them because they are misogynistic.

[@aeriumsoft]

i love this channel

[@MaleRainbowAction]

The US Mint wouldn’t be coming after you for counterfeit bills, the Secret Service would!

[@scottfranco1962]

I have another idea: spray regular bills with starch and water, say your friend's $100 bill, and watch the fun when they take it to a bank teller!

[@peterwexler5737]

In other words, if I apply starch to dollar bills and use them at self checkouts where those pens are not used, I can cause all kinds of havoc for other people who end up reusing those same bills. Got it!

[@pallasproserpina4118]

4:49 and yes, that's the origin of the book title

[@howaboutataste]

It's really easy to soak 20's in starchy water, then dry them. "misplace" it for the thieving coworker It's really hard to convince loss protection or the police that a bill that flags with the marker is genuine.

[@avlally]

What about the security strip or the textured collar or literally any of the other anti-counterfeit measures?

[@MattDiver]

That's diabolical and really clever. Sounds like a great story!

[@erictaylor5462]

Could you go the other way. Soak a bill in potato water or something so the paper gets starch in it? I'm just asking, don't ask "Why would I want to?"

[@EyesOfByes]

Iodine in your arms tonight. Must have been you said

[@BRUXXUS]

I don’t know if you win or lose with this comment. 😂

[@robertkeyes258]

heh. I grew up near Crane, I knew people that made the currency paper. They also make other security paper (for passports, etc).

[@TheJagjr4450]

Mist matte clear lacquer over the paper, that is what some guy that posted his story on youtube did until he finally got caught.

[@mosin_boi]

My boss once sent me to a store to break down some bank notes and get some goods. He did this alot. Well, the cleark, a new lady there, said one of the notes was fake pointing out that the ribbon was off. Well, she penned them and rhan realized that the note she compared my notes with was the fake. Almost funny.

[@onlyontuesdays99]

Surprised to see the number 451 still being referenced as a definitive flash point because of cultural impact, because we've known for a very long time that it's otherwise an arbitrary number by actual scientific standards. The video and the text should both say "between 440 and 480 Fahrenheit" to be factual.

[@howaboutataste]

Given enough exposure time, the ignition temperature for paper and wood can drop to 230° F, due to pyrolyzation.

[@maxximumb]

Surely a no brainer would be to make $1 bills the smallest, then increment the size of the bills by 1/4 inch - 5mm for each denomination? Then the counterfeiters have to procure actual paper and not just recycle smaller notes to $100s.

[@glitchyglitch1235]

she's on so many watchlists rn

[@KGTiberius]

“Lessons in Chemistry”

[@jamesperkins2552]

Its amazing how much you remind me of nile red.

[@Mokrator]

actually the euro has very different sizes for each value, so you can not bleach a 5€ note and just make it a 20€ note.. It's a little bit impractical if you have a small wallet where 50'th fit nice, once you get a rare 100 or 200€ note and it does not fit. When you search the 10€ note that notoriously hides between some 50 and 20€ notes. I assume it's much harder to copy a € than an $ note as the € also has a small plastic -like window with some picture in it and also watermark etc - so fitting that together without a noticeable shift from one material to another will be hard.

[@shawnmcgrath299]

Yep, made me laugh.

[@mph8759]

@1:17 Iodine is the element, but the I2 you show is the molecule

[@Paragrafo-kw4iu]

awesome video

[@jordanviray]

Great video that touches a number of topics relevant to the high school science classes I teach. However, I'm confused about the animation at 2:17 which shows a lower energy yellow photon hitting the nucleus and emitting a higher energy green photon. What phenomenon is this?

[@locklanh]

I am pretty sure that is showing how some of the light's energy is absorbed by the atom making the wavelength change, and making the light you see when it hits your eye appear a different colour. The colours in the animation represent the colour of the light itself if it hit your retina at that point in its path, so it only changes colour after hitting the particle as that is the event that causes some light to be absorbed. The transition in the animation to purple is then just demonstrating that if it was, for example, an ion, the difference in charge would lead to more or less light being absorbed and a different colour being reflected.

[@Imaboss8ball]

Pretty sure it actually isn't illegal to make fake money. Its only illegal to make it/use it as money.

[@thekingsblend]

I've heard that spraying the bills with hairspray works but never tried it

[@ACSReactions]

You mean like this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rnXEh3avhKeGqbsfeature=shared&t=387

[@BerserkJeffy]

I haven't watched through the whole thing yet but based on the premise don't you think a video about defeating a protection method of the USD would be illegal?

[@theunknown4834]

TIL how to make money using... money

[@pasixty6510]

Those pens are worthless. But your video is great! I especially love the section on the chemical clock.

[@Athiril]

So paper can be an emergency food source with amylase?

[@xja85mac]

Is there a chance these pens work for € notes as well? because I didn't heard of them except from american movies/TV series. But since you said these aren't terribly reliable, i guess we'll stick with running the notes under our fingers, seeing the iridescent bands and most important, watermark! dollars don't have watermarks! why wouldn't you?

[@rfldss89]

Yes, they're used in Europe, too. I don't know which country you're from exactly, so it might depend on local customs, but I've seen gas stations clerks check 20 or 50 euro banknotes with one of these. But euro notes are actually signficantly safer and more difficult to counterfeit than US dollars. They're not all the same size, so you can't bleach lower denominations and reprint them, they have various watermarks, holograms, fine prints and various other security measures not found on dollar bills. The euro when it came out was already safer than the dollar, and that has only become more true with the new editions. Dollar bills have basically not changed since their inception.

[@xja85mac]

@@rfldss89 I'm from Italy and I've never seen that. I have seen a lot of UV lamps and automated machines that check notes.

[@RobCrawford23]

Over the last decade quite a few additional security features have been added to US currency, but would take a magnifying glass and time to check them (micro engraving and such like.) In Northern Ireland in the late 90s the UV lamps were useless as they simply used certain sunscreens in notes, back then there was no glow under a UV lamp. So fluorescing sections had to be added. TBH intaglio printing is seldom present on counterfeit notes and is usually why people think the note feels wrong. I do wonder if the North Korean 'super dollars' have the micro printing yet

[@sabriath]

or you could just make your own cotton/linen paper....it's actually not that difficult. If you are an artist, color matching isn't hard either. In fact, nothing on any bill is too difficult, humans made them, so it stands to reason that other humans can also make them (yes, I know machines do most of the work, but humans built those machines too)

[@uranodas]

You rock ❤❤❤❤

[@srather]

What happens when you "accidentally" drop your friends genuin bills in some starch?

[@randominternetbro6562]

Or you just counterfeit fives and tens and nobody will ever check your bills

[@PetkesPaintings]

Idk man last time I gave someone a counterfeit 5 to spend they almost got arrested

[@hashtagPoundsign]

Making counterfeit money bad, and wrong… It’s Badong.

[@aggese]

The federal reserve dont recomend those pens and find them untrustworthy

[@jorgesaxon3781]

My takeaway is that all potatoes are counterfeit

[@psychosis7325]

Lol, Nigel Pink does not deserve such a nice credit. Print his method, shred it and ""pass"" it off as your own, also break some glassware in the process 😉

[@BlackSoap361]

What about heating the paper in absence of oxygen?

[@adeemuff]

01:57 why did you call iodine a metal? I'm a bit confused :)

[@crawkn]

Did you try washing out the finishing starch from the Amazon paper?

[@vortextube]

The pens check for chlorine. Virtually all commercial paper contains it it’s used while bleaching. However, chlorine is not used in the production of paper used in our currency. That’s probably why your experiment didn’t work.

[@jrhattenstein]

Your puppy is very cute they remind me of my puppy hank

[@Latuya-y1n]

No starch paper yellow pages vellum hair spray unscented but that's wack

[@nonsquid]

How about Scotch Guard?

[@tommythetoe]

Why not just use paper that the pen marks like money, phone book paper

[@camerica7400]

People starch and iron their money to make it crisp and flat 😅 funny to know this actually breaks the reaction.

[@ovalwingnut]

Very COoL

[@davidioanhedges]

Don't try this in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada, the notes are plastic ...

[@dogownrpenna]

Try it on newspaper

[@pratikkore7947]

bleaching small to big? your smaller bills aren't physically smaller?

[@straphyr]

In the US we prefer it to be hard for blind people to tell the difference between them and for it to be easy to take small money make big bill. Idk why, it just still works that way

[@sawik5]

You so obviously has a crush on Nigel ❤

[@XSpImmaLion]

It's all good... these days if you pay something with cash, particularly high value, people already suspect you of something. What is this paper thing you are trying to give me?

[@mihaleben6051]

Uh... make paper from other plants.

[@hmu958]

Good chemistry. Bad physics. Color is seen from photons emitted, not bouncing off molecules.

[@raiden9250]

Just use phone book paper . . .

[@jesscorbin5981]

chem mommy?

[@TheWangbolizhong]

👍

[@GreenDayFanMT]

Please only use metric

[@AliHSyed]

Alexxxx

[@andrewtinker7537]

For a fun prank, spray some liquid starch spray on someone's large denomination bills...

[@EyesOfByes]

Eyeyeyeyeyey

[@CatFish107]

Giving any attention or endorsement to nilered might be risky. That channel is sketchy as all get out when it comes to safety.

[@MadScientist267]

Only for show 🤦‍♂️

[@SteveMacSticky]

Your accent is way too rhotic. I don't abide that