Strontium: It Knows Where You've Been

Your teeth contain traces of strontium isotopes that can reveal where you lived while they were forming.
Hosted by: Michael Aranda
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Sources:
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books.google.c...
archive.archaeo...
www.sfu.museum/...
classic.geology...
www.ncbi.nlm.ni...
westerndigs.org...

[@EugeneKhutoryansky]

Getting some information out of people is like pulling teeth.

[@seanyworny104]

Nice

[@avi8aviate]

Not a bad joke!

[@eviltigz]

Is it safe?... :p

[@516btaylor]

⬆️⬆️Underrated comment⬆️⬆️

[@Sam-gj8kr]

West Cahokia born and raised, the mass grave was where I spent most of my days

[@TitanOfClash]

+Sam.donald Taylor You should be more appreciated.

[@Monochromicornicopia]

+Sam.donald Taylor Chillin out, maxin, relaxin, all cool and shootin some strontium outside of school

[@stiimuli]

+Sam.donald Taylor this made me lawl =P

[@MidorinoNinja501]

+Sam.donald Taylor, When another tribe, they were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighborhood

[@stiimuli]

Kaila P. We got in one little fight and we all got dead and then paleontologists pulled the teeth from our heads!

[@CaptNSquared]

If you told me you could tell where I lived for the past 20 years I would be shocked. I'm only 16 after all.

[@noahwilliams8996]

That is just the power of forensics :)

[@luisandkristinebaez6332]

N Squared I'm act

[@MelodySharp.]

Miao Music and her mom’s ovaries. Don’t forget half of her comes from her mom.

[@StealthCoder967]

😂

[@micaonyx5301]

Good one LMAO 😁

[@Misty994]

How can this still apply to us if we eat a diet that is shipped from around the world?

[@DubTurd]

That's why they are talking about anthropologists researching decayed, old, human bodies, not modern day humans.

[@lather7785]

+Crash Bandicoot I was thinking the same thing. I think they just mean they can tell where people were from a fair amount of time ago, he just worded it badly.

[@mohammadhijazi4498]

and the water you drink has it unless you drink imported water.

[@edi9892]

+Crash Bandicoot Isotope analysis got also messed up by the nuclear tests and catastrophies.

[@nitelite78]

Yeh they should have said the importing/exporting of food now makes it redundant. Still, really cool for historic research.

[@6darkness6eternal6]

♫Through the rain of strontium 90♫

[@AbbieBrockhurst]

literally the reason i clicked this before i went to bed

[@jenniferalt4493]

I was hoping someone would comment that. It was the first thing in my head when I read the title 😂

[@Nobody-vr5nl]

it's not 19? I've been singing that song all wrong...

[@6darkness6eternal6]

Nob ody No sorry strontium 90 is a radioactive isotope

[@CardboardCreative]

omG NOT Sr90 !!! we'd ALL DIE

[@jameswray50]

Strontium, the NSA's favorite element.

[@Sc4r4byte]

+DaCamponTwee not for it's practicality, as our diet's food and water is so frequently imported but for the ideals that strontium has upholded.

[@TheFishCostume]

+DaCamponTwee The NSA is the tooth fairy.

[@Sc4r4byte]

+DaCamponTwee not for it's practicality, as our diet's food and water is so frequently imported but for the ideals that strontium has upholded.

[@flubs2298]

+DaCamponTwee Big Brother is ripping.

[@erkdoc5]

+DaCamponTwee It would probably be silicon. Why travel to pull out someone's teeth, when you can just tap everything and get all the information and more that the poor sap is posting online.

[@Cadam_]

♫Crawl out through the fallout, baby When they drop that bomb Crawl out through the fallout With the greatest of aplomb When your white count's getting higher Hurry, don't delay I'll hold you close and kiss those Radiation burns away Crawl out through the fallout, baby To my loving arms Through the rain of Strontium 90 Think about your hero When you're at Ground Zero And crawl out through the fallout back to me Crawl out through the fallout, baby You know what I mean Crawl out through the fallout 'Cause they said this bomb was clean If you cannot find the way Just listen for my song I'll love you all your life Although that may not be too long Crawl out through the fallout, baby To my loving arms While those ICBM's keep us free When you hear me call out Baby, kick the wall out And crawl out through the fallout back to me 'Cause you'll be the only girl in the world Why don't you crawl out through the fallout back to me. ♫

[@gabriel300010]

+Cameron Morr tell me the name of this song, I pay 50 caps

[@Cadam_]

gabriel ferraz The name is in the first line, Crawl Out Through The Fallout.

[@gabriel300010]

Cameron Morr thanks dude

[@ireallyhatemakingupnamesfo1758]

I'm just gonna go clear my strontium browser history

[@LorrTube]

As an addendum to this, strontium is also stored in your hair too. And it will keep a constantly up-dating record of where you have been the last couple of months, depending on how much you let it grow. If you let it grow past your shoulders, your hair can store years of data about where in the world you moved.

[@SawtoothWaves]

This is so cool.

[@serenachristie566]

"Strontium man it knows where you been" LOL!

[@ramosveronica32]

I heard of this in a 'Bones' episode; a teen who went missing when she was a little girl. She couldn't remember her life before the abductors. It gave them an area where she may have come from and there they researched missing kids files. Obviously the story isn't real, but it's cool to know they try to keep science as accurate as possible.

[@General12th]

+Veronica Ramos (VeronicaR) Actually, that doesn't seem too unlikely. I bet this kind of situation really has happened.

[@Gribbo9999]

When I was 7 years old in 1957 there was an accidental release of radioactive materials from Windscale plant in Northern England about 200km from where I lived. At the time lots of milk was destroyed due to contamination with Strontium 90 realeased in the accident and we kids couldn't drink milk for a while. Strontium 90 has a half-life of 29 years. So if I did ingest any Strontium 90, there would be about 25% of it left by now in my teeth. A little bit scary when I think about it.

[@billyblackattacks]

i knew nothing of this until I watched an episode of blindspot. now Im seeing it everywhere

[@ilikemusic2773]

Haha. Stront.

[@SuperDuperPooperScooper4321]

Next year im writing to Strontium for Christmas

[@millsbian2962]

This must be my favorite SciShow episode to date. SO COOL.

[@PerpetratorOfTruth]

In Dutch the word 'stront' means shit. So strontium is always good for a chuckle.

[@VicariousReality7]

+Gluteus Illuminatus funny.... in swedish strunt means nonsense

[@PerpetratorOfTruth]

VicariousReality7 So the bull variety. :D

[@Cannongabang]

it is actually the same in italian

[@tizoro3]

whoop whoop

[@dicebar4712]

+Gluteus Illuminatus So we've got mouths full of shittium? Charming.

[@kylebryancagasan4447]

I'll have my doctor inject strontium into my mouth so that the ratio will be off. *investigates teeth* "Based on the strontium ratio in his teeth, he seemed to have lived in....Mars..fair enough"

[@raikuthedragon3907]

I can’t believe that if I died, right now at 18, someone over a thousand years in the future could find out where I lived and the age I was when I lived there. Science man.

[@dis_guy7]

i am going to ingest random strontium metal to confuse scientists

[@almostawalrus9970]

"What if I told you... there's a simple way to figure out every place you've lived for the past 20 years of your life..." *What if I told you* Michael is Morpheus confirmed.

[@Zeoxis6]

I love watching the scientific channels. I love learning all these different kinds of things, and it's so amazing that humans today can do this so quickly and easily, just like it's amazing that we've come far enough to be able to discover all these aspects of our universe and how it interacts with itself and we as humans interact with it. Just, mind blown man.

[@thevegastan]

Michael always have a cheesy way to end or re-spice a part of every SciShow he hosts. Nice!

[@SHIFTKICK]

Wow. That is extremely cool.

[@crystalheart9]

Fascinating! Thank you.

[@SIC66SIC66]

I have a question. Sometimes when you have muscle aches, they feel really bumpy and full of small ridges, why is that?

[@chestersnapdragonmcphistic579]

Let me have your teeth, I need to know where you've been. "I could just tell you." No! I need to do it this way!

[@JLocke0113]

I'm pretty sure threatening to pull my teeth out will get me to tell you where I've been in the past 20 years

[@TheeMusicalARM]

If strontium is collected in the body after drinking water, wouldn't the information regarding where you lived differ for people who only drink bottled water? Or is it absorbed in the body through other means as well?

[@llawilet845]

I looked at the thumbnail and at first I was like, "Hey there's the 1996 N64 controller"

[@gunguy100]

Strontium:"I know where you live and lived" Me:"No, strontium please" Strontium:"Here comes the science belt" Me:STRONTIUM NO!

[@blackshard641]

I am watching this video on my 38th birthday.

[@mariamysoul]

Thanks ! Learnt something new.

[@Morpheuss]

The word 'stront' actually means 'shit' in Dutch :p

[@ivancai9334]

morpheus1008 shitium???? XD

[@katiekawaii]

That was a great episode.

[@VixonAzaria]

Rubidium!! She's a character in my book (Zodiac by Romana Russell) too!! Lol didn't realize it was on the periodic table!

[@zack4423]

Love this channel

[@radicalbacon]

Strontium won't tell me if Michael's growing out his blond streak.

[@RainingArtillery]

Strontium's phone: **Google wants to know your location**

[@MatthewNJDavis]

Huh, I wasn't expecting that. So I suppose strontium is the element of surprise...

[@sianmorris9655]

lol. this is more useful than my reading list. my essay thanks you

[@ZXRulezzz]

So maybe that's what Cinco does with all those teeth they're pulling out, sneaky data mining? :D

[@Lexicommonzero]

Woot,shout out to my home town Cahokia

[@1829Emily]

Great info

[@Aleblanco1987]

And what about toothpastes with strontium (to treat sensitivity)?, wouldn't that spoil your results?

[@Teebs131]

Wait, what if you only ate imported foods all your life, wouldn't the strontium in those foods affect your teeth and affect the results? Or does it have no effect?

[@MyNameIsMaxYo]

+Teebs131 this method probably isnt used for modern people.

[@alexistzou7447]

i still dont understand how it knows where i have been.. i got some strontium in alaska and some in australia how can you tell?

[@Exayevie]

Will this continue to be a reliable method in the future, as more food and even drinks are imported and exported?

[@GOD2sodomyME]

if a person eats enough foods that have been shipped in to the area they live in, does this mess up the results?

[@dyingangelo]

any update on the huge mammoth tusk found in Michigan?

[@BippSpango]

Not if i don't have teeth... thank science for Pepsi and dentures!

[@jamesconnelly1387]

I'm gonna totally mess up future scientists, I'm 13 but I still have 3 baby teeth and I only started growing wisdom teeth a few weeks ago

[@coryrichards7506]

If anyone is watching the show Blindspot, this came into play in one episode

[@siddhantpathak9405]

why is strontium(87) decaying from rubidium(85.5), shouldn't the higher weighing element decay to lighter one !!??

[@kitty_gatoo]

He's so attractive. I get hyped when he's the one in the video, and he's smart?! Ugh so rare to find in a guy now a days.

[@MarshmallowMidgets]

They will think I lived in the mountain dew factory

[@KaiCalimatinus]

Just to be pendantic, its the teeth that know where you've been by recording the strontium.

[@dkdrock456]

Does the use of tooth pastes effect the readings in anyway?

[@ThePokemonPizza]

+dkdrock456 it shouldnt unless you pull your teeth out, wash them, and put them back in

[@morezco]

I read "Strontium: it know when you were born" before clicking eh

[@Miryr]

I would assume that this is no longer an accurate indicator, given that foodstuffs are often imported nowadays

[@UncommonEyes]

There is most likely Sr90 in some of teeth due to living downwind of Hanford Reservation when I was 3 years old in 1946. Possibly fallout at other locations due to moving around as USAF brat. Wish someone would test a tooth I have that was removed by a difficult extraction by a careful, thoughtful dentist.

[@NiramBG]

so, you're telling me Strontium knows what I did last summer? *shrugs*

[@finnishturtle3059]

So my teeth now where ive been that means im being stalked

[@MichaelSHartman]

If Rubidium is radioactive and will continue to be so wherever it is then as it decays in the tooth would the ratio not change? I couldn't help but think about Chernobyl, Pripyat, Keiv downstream, and all those children to the west.

[@mikejoseph6654]

Rubidium-87 has a half-life longer than the age of the universe. So only a few rubidium atoms will decay in your teeth during your lifetime, not any amount that we can measure.

[@DirtyGirlDubstep]

Given that we now get food from all over the world, I don't see that this will be as helpful for future anthropologists.

[@mylittledashie7419]

0:49 Okay, okay, I'll admit, I wouldn't have noticed this if Michael had said "he" both times, but seriously, why not just use "they"? Obviously you're not wanting to single out a gender, right? So neutral pronouns are surely the way to go?

[@mylittledashie7419]

***** N-no it's not that big of a deal. But they're obviously *trying* to be PC and include everyone, so why not just go all out and just use neutral ones? Just seems easier and more logical to me. I think you may have misjudged what kind of person I am.

[@mylittledashie7419]

Steven Utter www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=they%20definition Check the second definition, dude. "They" is completely acceptable to refer to a singular person. It seems it's just certain areas don't use it that way. And, in case you want to argue it's just because of it's over-misuse, well it serves a function that no other word does. There isn't another pronoun for a singular person of unspecified gender, so it *should* be a word.

[@snandgl]

Grammatically, "they" is a plural pronoun. Although it doesn't really matter in everyday English because using it as a singular pronoun isn't confusing, it's technically incorrect.

[@xxDrain]

+Vincent Freel ...what has the world come to.

[@KittyBoom360]

+Steven Utter Incorrect. "They" is acceptable in modern English to be used instead of "he or she". Makes sense if you think about it, too. Also, you used "your" instead of "you're" and "its" instead of "it's".

[@rurutuM]

this was in an episode of Blindspot.

[@KnakuanaRka]

One thing you should have mentioned: the exporting of food and water all over the globe has made this analysis technique essentially obsolete in modern times. You did make a joke about extracting a living person’s teeth, but didn’t mention that it wouldn’t work even on a recently dead person.

[@alexandranastor6853]

If I recall correctly, this method was used on a young girl in an episode of Bones a few years ago :)

[@CreamAle]

skeletons can actually tell you where they have been if you ask.. granted that they're spooky and scary enough.

[@vabese]

hey SciShow, its interesting to know that strontium allows you to do this... but what about re-mineralisation of the teeth, my dentist told me that the brown spots on my teeth were once weak spots in danger of becoming holes but instead took up new elements to reform, it would make sense for it to be a non-white colour considering the human body isn't picky on these cases, but would these spots distort any readings it gets or do they allow better results? now my teeth aren't fully brown(only 3 spots on my left molars) so you could easily use the normal method, but what is your say on this phenomena?

[@Chemanic1]

I’m so upset that I found this out after I was nine because I really want to eat a ton of strontium rich foods to confuse future anthropologists

[@Zeldaschampion]

Crawl out from the Fallout....

[@themadwriter]

This makes sense for skeletons prior to the 20th century, but how would this work for people who eat food that may not have been grown anywhere near where they live? I eat food today that comes from all over the world, in a 1000 years would this still be an accurate way of judging where a person is from considering how easily I'm able to obtain those foods from diverse locations?

[@Velata]

Here's a question: Has this Strontium-locating procedure been extended to forensic identification of unknown subjects? It might be helpful to the police departments if "where did this person live as a child/adolescent" can be determined.

[@oO_ox_O]

+Velata After death? Probably but I bet you it's expensive.

[@jordantierney6495]

Not saying TV is a reliable source of information, but I do recall this or something similar happening on an episode of Bones...

[@Velata]

+o_O Yeah... of course it'd have to be after death. I don't think anyone would be too happy to have their teeth pulled out just to figure out where they were from. But when dealing with an unknown body/skeleton that nobody can identify, this might be a useful thing. Just one more thing in the arsenal of forensic scientists, right? But yeah... it'd probably be quite expensive. And probably not yet approved by any court system.

[@seatbelttruck]

So... would that work on modern humans? There's a lot of food importing/exporting that goes on, and wouldn't better access to dietary calcium mean less strontium in our teeth? Though he mentions water, which IS usually from sources pretty close to you. Unless you drink bottled water. But even then, you still get plenty of local water through cooking, ice, brushing teeth, washing food, etc. Also, most people get their wisdom teeth out, so the information from later childhood isn't happening.

[@valseth95]

I have an exam tomorrow, and then I thought to myself: "What is better than watching SciShow?" Too bad my exam is about sound production instead of Strontium. That would be more intersesting :|

[@guerra_dos_bichos]

How does importing food affect this?

[@gillianfisher752]

I'm missing nine adult teeth (including wisdom teeth). Good luck, anthropologists.

[@Blackmeteor]

What happens in today's age when we're eating Bananas from Ecuador, Potatoes from Australia, Corn from the U.S.A, Bacon from Canada, Rice from China etc... ?

[@zirconcrystal1869]

Wait it's through your diet? Well what about eating imported food? Or like food that were grown in places with different strontium ratio.

[@sundaystef]

Crawl out through the fallout

[@jk21ize]

How would this be affected in modern people living in places like the US, where our food and drink often come from entirely different places in the country / different countries?

[@ttmcookies]

So, basically the local effects you describe (the Strontium getting into your food) is negated by globalization? Every time i eat bananas, drink Ananas juice or smear coconut oil over my skin, i'm confusing future scientists? Wouldn't that make any current scientist think about the false conclusions they might be drawing?

[@ttmcookies]

Or maybe the skeletons they found were actually from far from cahokia, but got their milk supply for generations from cahokia and war broke out when the milk price was raised dramatically??

[@illudian]

+Oan Nam well unless you are under 20 then no you aren't confusing anyone. While globalization is a thing that will later effect stuff like that currently most people still eat and drink stuff that was grown nearby. This isn't to say that nearby has to be a neighbor but still many foods and drinks are at grown in the same country or even regional area. Not only that but globalization only recently became "common" enough to have any form of impact.

[@oO_ox_O]

Oan Nam Milk from what? Wild buffalos? ;)

[@ttmcookies]

+illudian Taking this example: I've been eating bananas since i was little (you can smash them nicely, so that a baby eats them without any trouble) and i've never lived near to anywhere, where bananas might grow, so there's that. Of course, this is only one example. There are a lot of countries, where imported food makes a big portion of the overall consumption. The point that i was trying to make is: This one-dimensional thinking does not help "prove" anything. You might take something like that to being an indication or a clue, but not nearly as evidence.

[@illudian]

Oan Nam As I said though that isn't a problem with digs as of right now. The time period that is being looked at had little to no importing among the common class and what importing that was done for the upper class didn't make up a significant enough part of their childhood to have any major effect on their levels.Even now with globalization throwing things off, more and more as the years go on, the concentrations in your teeth are an average and with so much of peoples diet consisting of "local" food, even countries that import a lot of food still eat food they themselves grow, combined with a majority of people still consuming tap water the concentrations are still skewed heavily towards the region where a person grew up. There are of course going to be outliers,like islanders or regions with high enough concentrations of people to severely limit the amount of "local" food and water they can use but there are always going to be situations like that so you take those into account before using something like that. an example would be if you are digging and find a 300 year old skeleton far from the ocean then you can safely assume that their strontium levels will be a good indicator of whether they grew up there or not. Even if that skeleton was only 50 years old you could reliably do that if the distance from the ocean or lack of urbanization can reliably account for globalization.

[@crankysmurf]

With importation of food from around the world, wouldn't measuring strontium be more difficult?

[@PinkChucky15]

That's pretty interesting :-)

[@atropa4931]

Strontium, knows you better than yourself and Google.

[@kuronosan]

A phaser flicks in a phaser flood.

[@RobKinneySouthpaw]

With the globalization of the food and water supply, will this technique get messed up with a lot of Strontium noise? Or will it accurately reflect globalization. In some future century " this skeleton shows a strontium signature consistent with 18 different geological areas; clearly they were wealthy enough to eat a lot of imported food. That, or they moved countries every year because of work."

[@tekvax01]

to whoever edits these video's!! MAN! let the clips breathe a bit before cutting away to the next shot! I wanted to watch this video, but I am exhausted listening after only a min! timing..... it's not just for jokes!

[@haosheng12]

So how would they know where you've actually been if you had a bunch of imported foods your entire life?

[@cOmAtOrAn]

+Haosheng Xu Water generally doesn't come very far from the source to you. It would be more subtle, but still measurable.

[@LFTRnow]

Interesting, so how much truth is there in the ads of Colgate (Total) and others about "renewing and rebuilding" calcium? Does that actually work, and if so, won't it throw off future anthropologists?

[@codyhannahmary83]

So what's strontium like in NZ?

[@JamesPetts]

What about people who used toothpaste containing strontium acetate, as I did for many years?

[@VEE727]

Why do you always say "Go to youtube.com and subscribe"? Where are these videos posted normally?

[@madvic6083]

Osht..i'm scared now, i better clear my browser history.

[@1959Edsel]

No one will learn anything from my wisdom teeth. They're listed on my dental report as congenitally missing.

[@loganbailey5814]

completely unrelated fact some isotopes of strontium glows

[@catman8965]

@03:15 "Strontium, it knows where you've been." So does Google, Microsoft, China, Russia, U.S., You're telephone, .....