The Taxonomy of Candy

In our previous video 'What is a Species?,' we talked about the many ways scientists approach classifying organisms. So, I thought it'd be fun to get a few scientists from The Field Museum to apply their taxonomic know-how on something we're all familiar with: candy! How would you have organized these various confections?
This experiment in classification can be used with anything from pasta, to cell phones, beverages, cereals... seriously, start asking your friends and family if they think Pepsi and Coca-Cola are synonymous species, or similar via convergent evolution, and you're sure to have a lively Tuesday night.
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Thanks to Drs Olivier Rieppel, Janet Voight, Margaret Thayer, and Larry Heaney for entertaining this very serious topic.
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Producer, Writer, Creator, Host:
Emily Graslie
Producer, Editor, Camera, Graphics:
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This episode is supported by and filmed on location at:
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[@nathanong]

Of course, we can also look to the candy manufacturing process for more insights into this phylogeny. For example, fetal M&Ms lack their candy coating, which suggests that they are more closely related to groups such as truffles or chocolate-covered peanuts.

[@joshuahadams]

Nathan Ong so, as a "fetal" peanut M&M is a peanut, would that be a highly derived nut or a weird members of the chocolates?

[@tylerpeterson4726]

Josh Adams Horizontal gene transfer.

[@TheImpiroGirl]

I suppose the common ancestor of all this candy would be sugar?

[@tessatalmi4252]

TheImpiroGirl but if we take the common ancestor we should be doing phylogenetics :3

[@artemisa92]

What a great way to explain the difficulties commonly found in taxonomy. Great content as usual. Keep up !

[@eyesofmuffin]

'guts of chocolate' is my new favourite phrase

[@ericvilas]

What about looking at the history of each candy company? You definitely have some convergent evolution there.

[@mamatembo24]

This is absolutely charming! I love seeing the scientists play with this"problem"

[@cupcakeinacid5546]

Woohoo Janet Voight! More octopus genatalia please!

[@thebrainscoop]

Thumbs up for remembering Janet's research on octopus reproduction!

[@Kaneanite]

I've been waiting for this since yesterday, and I have to say it was definitely worth the wait.

[@joelights6476]

You must be millennial if you think one day will ever qualify as a "wait" that's substantial, haha. ;-P

[@Kaneanite]

I'm not a millennial, I'm just really impatient when it comes to The Brain Scoop.

[@SimplyMayaBeauty]

Adorable and educational!

[@kehroro]

I was expecting an actual taxonomy at the end of this .___. chocolate vs non chocolate would be where i start

[@kpepperl319]

I would group them by similarity in ingredients

[@JimboPalmer]

Emily can skin, dismember and gut a mammal; but eating red Peanut Butter M&Ms with Cinnamon Jelly Bellies together grosses her out. We each have out own hangups. Good stuff!

[@qpid8110]

Do each of the curators get a snazzy title name so they dont feel left out? 🤔

[@karatefylla]

I've also "lost" plenty of black licorice in my days.

[@hkwhsu]

Excellent video. I wanted to get to a point of seeing the different possible criteria for segregation. A phylogenetic tree seemed just about to emerge. I think the licorice would have been interesting as it is likely an evolutionary dead end. Would licorice jelly bellys be convergent candy evolution?

[@inshadowz]

Dang! I read it as Taxidermy of Candy!

[@besmart]

Great video! I wonder if you could sequence candy DNA, would that settle this once and for all? PS - Reese's Pieces do not have chocolate in them! PPS - Black licorice are definitely Archaea, as I predicted on Twitter :)

[@michaelyadchuk8649]

Hey, Joe. I have been wondering, philosophically, is my life satisfying. With so much suffering in the world, I just want to know, how do I get through life without thinking about this, and how to positively understand the surrounding world of my daily life. Sorry if this is not your interest.

[@RegalPlatypus]

Well, it'll make the molecular taxonomists happy, but you'd get a lot of pushback from comparative anatomists who would call into question the ability of genetics to resolve the explosive diversification of M&Ms.

[@michaelyadchuk8649]

RegalPlatypus excuse me?

[@LogicalNiko]

+RegalPlatypus True. A peanut m&m and pretzel m&m are much more of a evolution of the m&m, versus being a covergent evolution of the peanut or pretzel.

[@purplejellyfish395]

Mnms and

[@turdl38]

Characteristics of Taxonomists: cute, grandparent-ish, wears glasses

[@thebrainscoop]

+turdl38 Not true for all! A few of the younger taxonomists on staff were out of town giving lectures, or on field expeditions when we filmed this.

[@turdl38]

I figured as much, just made me laugh that these 4 all are.

[@srpilha]

+turdl38 +thebrainscoop We evidently need a clearer taxonomy of taxonomists. I propose we start grouping them according to which candy they like best.

[@turdl38]

+srpilha Brilliant!

[@RobKinneySouthpaw]

Well, you have Fatty and Low-Fat kingdoms. Chocolate and Reeses Pieces are phyla in the Lipid-Rich kingdom. Under chocolate, you would have things coated in chocolate, and solid chocolate with things in it (bars and so on). Under the chocolate-coated phylum are candy-coated and uncoated classes (m&M species vs truffles). Orders under these would include coated or uncoated chocolates, each with a set of families covering solid, liquid, or peanut butter, or nougaty centers). In the kingdom of Low-Fat or "sugar-based" candies, you have Hard, Chalky, and Soft phyla. Under Soft you may have Taffy vs gummy classes. In this regime, the starburst, both genera in the family of jelly-beans, and most of those other gummy-types would be in an order based on their common ancestor -- Turkish Delight, and their genera would be by flavor.

[@thebrainscoop]

+Rob Kinney Brilliant.What do you make of candies that have a chocolate coating surrounding a gummy center? (See; Brookside candy bit.ly/1RkcFJN)

[@Super165i]

+thebrainscoop I LOVE CANDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@junglekiity]

+thebrainscoop They're the fungi of the candy world.

[@LogicalNiko]

+thebrainscoop I think it depends on what is more important to the identity/appeal of the candy. Is it a gummy that has branched off traits of a chocolate. Or is it primarily a chocolate with gummy as an added bonus. I think the difference with candy evolution is that you have high cross kingdom/phylum/order/family/species breedings so a classic tree arrangement is probably not going to hold. My guess is you will need a multi-dimentional graph.

[@RobKinneySouthpaw]

+thebrainscoop Well, it could be considered a chocolate candy that has a gummy-derived organelle at its center. A gummyplast, if you will. Or they might be a symbiotic compound candy, similar to corals with their obligately symbiotic zooxanthellae. In any case, they are by their gummy nature descended from Turkish Delight, so this does have to be accounted for in their classification.

[@schmittelt]

I understand the larger lesson you're trying to teach here, but seriously, as far as the candy is concerned, I want a consensus and a chart. This is important.

[@thebrainscoop]

+schmittelt There was no final consensus! But, I do encourage viewers to come up with charts they believe logical. And then they must defend their methods in front of peer reviewers

[@schmittelt]

+thebrainscoop I support JoneseyBanana M&M theory. I believe that should be a starting point. Anyone else?

[@OnAStickPoop]

+schmittelt I support the theory that each type of candy, Jelly Belly's for instance, are a genus and each different colour/flavour is a species

[@RolandHutchinson]

Different colors could equally well be subspecies, or merely phenotypes, based on the available evidence. Clearly more study is needed, but in the cases where they were collected together I lean towards phenotypes.

[@babyteeth4]

I just love the juxtaposition of applying advanced taxonomic schemes to something as commonplace as candy! I guess that was the whole point.

[@massiveconehead]

I love your channel!

[@pbsideachannel]

This was so fun! I also really appreciate the ending point - asking whether order is inherent or observed after we've seen all the ways different professionals may construct their candy taxonomy. Also, until I went college I said "Ree-sees Pee-sees" because that's how my family says it, for some reason. I just never thought about it and finally read the label when I was, like, 20? Was mortified to think how many people I'd said that in front of and who just kindly nodded without saying anything. Probably not many - but juuuust enough.

[@thebrainscoop]

+PBS Idea Channel Thanks Mike!! and never fear, I still call them Ree-sees Pee-sees much to the chagrin of everyone around me. I didn't do it in this video 'cuz... people would write lots of comments about it. PEE-CEES FOR LIFE.

[@RolandHutchinson]

Reese's Pieces, an American brand of candy with a peanut-butter flavored center inside a thin sugary shell (like M&Ms, but with peanut butter instead of chocolate). Neither monkeys nor fish (pisces) involved!

[@lestariabadi]

Sweet!

[@MatthewSchellGaming]

Yeah "lost" them... though Im not a big fan of black licorice.

[@thebrainscoop]

What actually happened was that I offered them to Margaret since she was the last interview and then we remembered we had to record the candy shots. :p

[@Majoofi]

+thebrainscoop So you're saying if we want to find the black liquorice we should start interrogating Magaret. "Pardon me Margaret, show us your tongue."

[@thebrainscoop]

+Majoofi nah I would give Margaret candy any day. She is one of the nicest people I've ever met. And, brilliant!

[@Majoofi]

+Majoofi Okay, we'll let it slide this time.

[@only20frickinletters]

+thebrainscoop It's ok as long as the black liquorice was enjoyed. I just wouldn't want any to go to waste.

[@cleodello]

"...Different species of jellybellies." How delightful.

[@Chasmodius]

I'm a little sad it wasn't mentioned how the different classification schemes will be useful to different people as a result of their specific needs. Someone might classify for color, for example, if they had an aversion or reaction to a specific kind of dye. Retailers might benefit from classification by manufacturer, whereas consumers probably wouldn't care. Someone who is planning a hiking trip might classify by weight, caloric density, or melting point. It all depends on what you need the classification to do for you. Still, this is an excellent way to demonstrate the concept.

[@BonespiritMcgee]

+Chasmodius You do realize this was just an example to be used to help explain taxonomy to kids right? Your entire post is meaningless and gives insight into your own arrogant stupidity.

[@BREAKENSTEIN]

+Mpollett OH! King of the world! I didn't think I'd meet you here!

[@BonespiritMcgee]

Sorry basic alternative white girl. I am not the king of the world. As a matter of fact there is no king of the world. Perhaps you should do some reading on international politics so you don't seem so stupid all the time. But of course we all know you will still be stupid. :)

[@BREAKENSTEIN]

Mpollett Oh, the King of the World is so humble. *curtsies*

[@TheChosenOne337]

+Mpollett This post is meaningless. Yet it's here.

[@JWentu]

Wow!, my very first subtitles for a KZbin video have just been published. Now "The taxonomy of Candy" has ITALIAN subtitles! Yay! Subtitles in KZbin: CHECK!

[@thebrainscoop]

+JWentu Thank you so much for taking the time to contribute them! I appreciate it - and I'm sure our Italian-speaking followers do, too. :)

[@piratequeen9464]

I may share this with my mom. She works at the local library and does some science programs for kids sometimes, and this would be the perfect activity to teach them taxonomy. Would have to think of something to replace the peanut candies though because allergies.

[@The_Hanged_Man_Arcana]

Lol I think that one guy is just hungry.

[@ryPish]

This is the best way to teach science. Ever. Just don't get the opinion of a dentist and trust me on this one.

[@paradoxica424]

+Ry P Since when do dentists usually teach science? Their job isn't to teach.

[@alexwang982]

Jack Lam no candy

[@jasondashney]

You kidding? Drum up some business!

[@petercollin5670]

The question I was waiting for you to ask....if you were to dump all jars into a big bowl, do the taxonomists believe that they would classify them back into their original jars, piece by piece?

[@thebrainscoop]

+Peter Collin This is an interesting point - I considered not putting the candy in individual jars, and instead dumping it all together and having them extract similar 'specimens' that way, however, an important component when classifying organisms is the context in which they were initially collected. Janet goes into this a bit when she discusses "lots" of specimens - the Reese's Pieces all from one river in 'La-La Land.' Perhaps they would be more inclined to sort by color as a first pass, should they all have been in one massive lot.

[@PanicbyExample]

+thebrainscoop to give a bowl of bats, hippopotami, people, shrews, and dogs and ask candy-ologists 'which are classed as mammalian' would be the inverse of giving boxes of claded boxes of candies and asking taxonomists to "define"... this video was great

[@micarex5256]

+

[@crochetingcanuck]

He was right about the cinnamon and peanut butter. Here in Canada not long ago the Kraft brand of peanut butter released a cinnamon raisin flavour. I haven't yet tried it myself but I have had peanut butter on cinnamon raisin bread. Yum (and I'm not even a big cinnamon fan)! Side note, when he mentioned separating them by chocolate and non-chocolate, the Reese's Pieces were moved to the chocolate side but they contain no chocolate. Just candy coated peanut butter lol.

[@SamuraiSquash]

+Crocheting Canuck ugh, the cinnamon raisin peanut butter was my favourite! I haven't seen it in local grocery stores in almost a year now, though :(

[@crochetingcanuck]

samurai squash Nooooooo!

[@bsidethebox]

+samurai squash If you can find it, Peanut Butter & Co makes a "Cinnamon Raisin Swirl" flavor that's delicious. I can get it at most of the local chain supermarkets (I'm in Washington (USA)) and health food stores, but I've also seen it on Amazon.

[@Monicaccina]

+Crocheting Canuck Well.. A lot of candies are that hot cinnamon, which burns when you eat it at tastes awful..

[@hellozup]

This is such cool way of approaching taxonomy :) gotta love me some sweets

[@Jabrils]

this was really awesome, fun, & demonstrative!

[@IngeborgEngh]

In my taxonomy class in university the first task was to organise characters from Disney, you know Donald and Dolly and the others. The trouble is that you "know" that some are ducks and some are mice and some are dogs, but the clothes and features are not consistent within species. And when you go through them you have to decide if their clothes count as characters or not. Very funny and quicky shows how difficult it is do decide what are the important traits, like they discuss with the colours of the candy in this video.

[@thebrainscoop]

+Ingeborg Korme oh cool! That sounds like a great exercise. .... is there any other character besides Donald that only wears a shirt/no pants though?

[@IngeborgEngh]

+thebrainscoop Well, I think Daisy only has a shirt. And Mickey only has pants while Minnie has a dress with her panties showing. Oh, and Winnie the Pooh and the nephews of Donald also have no pants. Also, it is strange that Pluto is a dog, but Goofy has clothes, but is also a dog. Oh, and Scrooge also has no pants, but foot covers. :-D But I loved that you didn't just explain how taxonomy works, but by letting the experts explore the candy you also showed the real prosess and we could hear how they were thinking. Very nice.

[@remraft]

+thebrainscoop Porky Pig! Wearing a shirt with no pants can actually be called porky pigging.

[@JoneseyBanana]

The ancestor of one group is the peanut. A mutant chocolate gene causes chocolate peanuts and peanut M&Ms to arise. From there the group diverges into peanut butter M&Ms, reece's pieces, and a group which secondarily loses all peanuttiness to become normal M&Ms. I feel like the skittles and two types of jellybeans form a genus of some kind as well, but I'm not sure how the others fit in.

[@TomLeg]

I think this one should have ended with, "It still has jelly-beans on it."

[@chillsahoy2640]

I don't know about Lala Land but it certainly looks like these species all came from Wonkaland (not to be confused with Oompa Loompa Land). It's actually very interesting to see a scientific approach to classification. It may seem silly to do it with candy but in reality, this is what scientists do, especially taxonomists, when having to approach a problem. Look for as many possible variables as possible, assign them values, classify the samples according to their values for each variable, see if there are any correlations, etc. The comment about classifying by color (the red birds) made me think of something. With taxonomy, thanks to evolution, it is possible to use genetic data to understand which features take priority during classification. But with candy, it seems quite reasonable to classify by color, at least superficially. We tend to think it's normal and okay for different types of jelly beans to be different colors (and also flavors though that can vary) but we could also look at it from a different perspective, we could say that there's red candy and green candy, the red candy may be jelly beans or skittles or what have you, but they're all the same color, while the green candy will have different shapes but again same color as each other. Dr Heaney makes a good point regarding classification based on color. And ah, the philosophy of knowledge and understanding of the universe. The universe simply is, and we do our best to try and understand it even though we may be wrong or trying to force classification upon an unclassifiable world. It's still very stimulating to do, and can be helpful too.

[@euchale]

Taxonomy was the main reason why I picked chemistry over biology. Watching this video reminds me of why I didn´t pick it, it feels too random for me. ... and then I went into cancer research.

[@rabia1180]

+Euchale Ichselber as a fellow human, just want to thank you for all the work you do in cancer research (:

[@CourtOfWinter]

You could always go into quantum stuff, if you need more randomness in your research.

[@dvklaveren]

Alright, so, if we think about this.. Candy has a "survival of the fittest" mechanism behind it. It's form and taste serves a function; to please humans enough to conserve the recipe for later use. Black liquorice is evolved to be please a particular set of people (we eat them a lot more in Holland). It has a niche. In Holland, we also have different combinations with black liquorice; particularly with winegums. However, people who don't enjoy black liquorice probably are not receptive to these combinations. So, any candy which incorporates liquorice is a family of it's own. You can do this with the rest of the candy as well until you arrive at the different species of candy. Which we also call "target audience".

[@ArcaneOwlchemist]

Yes, "lost" ;) I would have "lost" the M&Ms

[@miyaawilliams8868]

Right she probably ate them🤣🤣

[@Azzarinne]

Dammit Emily, now I want candy! Unless, of course, it DOES still have brains on it, in which case you can keep it. >.>

[@richardmyhan3369]

I need to find this magical river full of reeses pieces. js....

[@catsadilla324]

It's in Detroit. good luck.

[@lucstockdale]

This was super cute. I'm subscribing.

[@sylviaodhner]

Wow, I've actually been taxonomizing candy for fun lately, so I was surprised to see this video! I'll share my expertise: there's a good reason not to classify candy by color, and it's because although color is an important component of candy, it's not the most important characteristic. What makes a candy what it is is what the candy is made of: whether it's chocolate, caramel, gummy, etc. So putting red M&Ms in the same category as red Skittles doesn't make sense because the function and taste and effect of those two things are completely different. I put everything chocolate-covered in one category, but it's a complex category because a lot of things can be inside the chocolate, and those things can be very similar to a kind of candy that's the same, but not covered in chocolate. Then in another category, I have things that are basically solid chocolate, but might have bits and pieces of other things in them, like chocolate bars with peanuts or puffed rice. This has sub-categories like whether the chocolate is dark, white, or milk, and what other flavors or things are in it. Most other candies tend to be pretty homogeneous, so they're pretty easy to categorize: gummies, marshmallow, hard candy, chalky candy, taffy, gum, toffee, marzipan, peanut butter candy, candy corns and the like, and those fruity chewy things with hard shells like Skittles. Then there are the more obscure/weird things, like candy goo and pixie dust, and combinations of things might be in their own categories or as sub-categories of whatever is the main component of the candy.

[@RolandHutchinson]

The acquisition of chocolate coverings may in some or all instances be due to convergent evolution. If that's the case then, for instance, Milk Duds will be more closely related to plain caramels than they are to chocolate-covered raisins.

[@arrowzfly21]

More videos with Dr Janet Voight please.

[@genteelsatyr]

+arrowzfly21 "La-la Land" was the moment I decided to like the video.

[@aprilpants]

+arrowzfly21 Yes please. I love seeing her and she does such cool stuff.

[@MicroBlogganism]

This is brilliant! :D

[@maxximumb]

I was doing some field research into this very subject as I clicked on the link. I'm currently studying the migratory habits of American candy here in the UK. I don't know if it is linked with climate change, but a wider range of candy phyla have been discovered here, with each passing year. I know from examining the structure of the migratory packs, that some species have in fact started breeding here. Several breeding grounds, or manufacturing plants, have been discovered across the UK. I wish one day to visit the US to see how widespread the UK candy, or sweetie, migration is, as I heard reports that the predatory Hershey had driven the weaker UK sweetie into virtual extinction in the USA.

[@thebrainscoop]

I can report that a few beloved Cadbury populations have been established throughout the US, although I am aware of cellular level differences between these US vs UK groups. Experts from the UK (see: Rosianna Halse Rojas twitter.com/papertimelady/status/711228266275741696) have publicly stated the US populations are "embarrassing," indicating discrepancies in the comparative groups.

[@maxximumb]

***** I wonder if the US genus Cadbury Choclatous is different enough to have it's own taxonomic classification, or whether it should be moved to a sub-genus? If specimens of UK candies are sent to the Field Museum, would they reach you, to aid with your research and attempts to confirm a standard taxonomy of candy?

[@elainemarie9470]

Best comment & thread ever!

[@PhilGartman]

I love this video. It's an incredibly creative and fun way to introduce the subject. Great work.

[@Zeyev]

Such a wonderful concept in illustrating the difficulties of taxonomy. Yes, I will share with my librarian friends and others who have created taxonomies for websites.

[@cubedude76]

no one really divided them completely I would divide them into two major groups fruit and chocolate. Then i would divide them into groups with similar fillings/ingredients i.e. chocolate and peanut butter would go close to chocolate and peanuts and starburst jelly beans would be in between starbursts and jelly bellys. Then group them into size and then last color.

[@raythegardener]

+cubedude76 I would delve deeper into the color aspect. Investigate the candies in their natural habitat. See if the colors are environmental adaptations, if they have a protective purpose. Investigate their natural predators. On the surface is appears the colors are an attractant much like flowers to bees. Oooh so much to do.

[@CandyflossCottonCandy]

Random Fact Guy is here On impulse drive, it would take 400,000 years for the Enterprise to cross the galaxy Goodbye

[@PranavDhunnoo]

Interesting to see professionals in the fields having different approaches at setting up the taxonomies and they all vary from each other! I'm currently in my 3rd year of med school and learning the taxonomy of microorganisms isn't the easiest nor most intuitive job ever...

[@DeathlyTired]

Delightful. All such good sports, and managed to still explain the process effectively, despite their mouths often being stuffed with candy.

[@rurutuM]

+insomniacfolder they are not suppose to eat the specimens when sorting. this is all wrong

[@AnnaCorleone]

"I lost it!" ...or more likely "I ate it!" :D

[@joelights6476]

Nope. She seems very intelligent and therefore would not go near the abominations.

[@christiandinkel8481]

With organisms an important factor in how to arbitrarily group them seems to be how they came about. So you could, for example, group candys by manufacturer and then say that Smarties and chocolate filled M&Ms are "covergent evolution" happening in two completely different families, resulting in very similar phenotypes. I guess.

[@kelvinc]

+Christian Hildebrandt Yeah, I'm surprised with taxonomy moving toward cladism (evolutionary ancestry), nobody mentioned manufacturer, or convergent evolution.

[@henriklarsen8193]

THIS IS BRILLIANT!!! For true genius, though, have children involved in sorting the candy. Experts, you know!

[@cryoshakespeare4465]

Surely the candy should be classified by it's approach towards fulfilling a particular function. The function in this case is, of course, to be appealing to various groups of humans, as the candy would no longer be made if they did not turn a profit. This is more comparable to the taxonomy of organisms - mammalia, fungi, etc. are not classified by genealogy, but rather by general sets of traits that describe an approach towards fulfilling their particular function, which is to ultimately reproduce (similar to the continuation of production of a certain kind of candy). So classifying candy, then, is like classifying media into categories such as comedy, drama, romance, etc. - we should classify by experiential effect, because that experiential effect is what furthers their production and thus profitability (though I suppose candy, like media, could be produced for artistic-experiential merit and not profitability, but that's a whole different story). While colour, taste, texture, name, etc. all play a part in the experiential effect, it's not sufficient to classify them by that one thing while ignoring the interaction of every other factor in producing the whole - that would be like classifying both flies and birds in the same group because they share aerial mobility. So I feel like one or two of the scientists in this video perhaps took an inappropriate approach towards the field. Although, it is just candy :P Serious discussion aside, that was a great video, very amusing and informative ^_^

[@kazoosc]

fun exercise! I would use contents and form, color is secondary .. a filled shell opposed to singular material .. chocolate opposed to candy (like Skittles, Jolly Ranchers)

[@zevalexander3701]

"natural history conceived the world as a chaos out of which the scientist drew order. it was not, then, simply a matter of describing the world as it was." -Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes

[@here2watch08]

Very interesting! If I was in HS and I had a science project I would use this concept. Someone in HS, quick! This is your project!

[@1stGruhn]

Similarly as every thing is a chemical, every perspective is a philosophy. Every philosophy has some support but not all support is relevant or true, discerning which is the problem.

[@skinnymarauder333]

Guy just has a sweet tooth. I completely disagree with his way of going about it; the species shouldn't be grouped just because of physical appearances. They should be classed on their ingredients, just as animals and plants and fungus and such are all classified by their ingredients, their DNA.

[@raizin4908]

+ScrubLordAnjoo I'd say DNA is more of a recipe book than primary ingredients, but okay.

[@skinnymarauder333]

+Raizin And what is DNA made of? Primary ingredients -_-

[@raizin4908]

I mean DNA is very important and all, but it's only a teeny tiny part of the mechanisms that make up our bodies. I'm talking about bones, muscles, the nervous system, digestive tract, their shapes, sizes, functions, etc, etc. DNA is more of a recipe book than a major cog of the system. And yes, it's made of primary ingredients, but it only a small portion of those ingredients. DNA makes up about 0.5% of a human's body mass.

[@skinnymarauder333]

+Raizin Yeah, but that's not how animals, plants, and all the other things are classified by.

[@raizin4908]

Yes it is. Comparing morphological features (the forms and structures of organisms) is one of the primary ways to classify organisms. And it was more or less the only reliable way before DNA research came along. For example, the number of limbs is one important feature that divides vertebrates, insects, and spiders. Anything with feathers has to be a bird (or a dinosaur). And the absence or presence of certain types of bones can divide one group of animals from another. All that information can't be determined from DNA research. (At least not with our current understanding of biology)

[@razorborne]

I feel like the immediate, obvious place to start is that we know from the historical record that peanut M&Ms split off as a species from regular M&Ms.

[@RainCheck797]

You make science fun, I wish you taught my HS biology class, I might not have failed ;)

[@Mooseham]

This is the CUTEST video

[@itsybitsyspider1]

Emily and the Brain Scoop team: thank you for continually bringing educational and entertaining content to this channel that is accessible but no less thought-provoking.

[@juncajun]

I adore the Costume Designer of this video production team ! Beautiful color scheme ! Good job !

[@WDCallahan]

I was really hoping this video would end with a nice taxonomy chart for what they decided.

[@Crystalvampire66]

I love the way the experts just jump into the task at hand. At least on camera they don't question the validity of the experiment or get huffy about being silly. They just classify that candy, the best they can with the limited information they have. It was very fun to watch and I think it was a great way to explain it

[@ant420]

"lost it"

[@Paholala]

Aw, I thought in the end we would see the final classification made by them. xD

[@seanc6128]

This novel way of presenting a core concept is absolutely awesome.

[@JackOfAllTrades0404]

They should show this in every elementary/middle school and have the kids classify their own candies after👍🏽

[@howarthe1]

Scientists at the Field Museum are awesome.

[@MrDasmaster]

Hi I am candy. Of course you are..... The Kurgin Highlander

[@juddwestgate]

great video.way to make this subject accessible.

[@thewingedcroc]

I love comparing how the scientists think!

[@justinbryant9029]

Should have called this ep The Candy Scoop.

[@renatoe9648]

cool, just missing some cladograms of the candy I would go by specific characters, chocolote vs jelly body, peanut on the inside (present or absent), candy coating or not, shape, planes of simetry, etc

[@ethanferguson9530]

I was thinking the same thing

[@joelights6476]

Texture. Super important for me. I hate super soft candies. I'll take my preferred texture over my preferred flavour.

[@DavidWillanski]

Like animals, you get different candies in different geographical areas.

[@diceman199]

Over the last couple of years the non native Peanut butter cup species has been spotted in increasing numbers of habitats in the UK

[@mjen]

I didn't think I could ever not like a conversation on candy. Now, I need a grant to classify what type of candy will go into my tummy.

[@AskForDoodles]

Science and candy, you have my attention!

[@JWentu]

A-MA-ZING!!! this is one of the best tBS episode ever. This game, this example, is PURE GENIUS and is perfect to let people understand more about taxonomy, evolution and biology in general. Kudos!

[@kacey_cat]

Question: With the 'chewy Jolly Rancher thingys', they look basically the same (aside from color) and are made from almost all the same ingredients (Aside from coloring and flavoring) and were classified as the same species, seeing as how they were in the same jar. Presumably, though, they've got different 'fruit' flavors. Would this make them different subspecies? Or could they be the same species, but with sexual dimorphism? Like how males of a species are often more brightly colored/extra features/etc. (Sexual dimorphism is not a phrase I ever thought I would apply to a candy, by the way.) I don't really know anything about this sort of thing, so I'm not sure.

[@photon_shines]

Now that's what I called applied science XD Great video! Also, I'm immediately suspicious of Dr. Larry Heaney, who thinks it's okay to just group candies together by their colour. Red m&m's and red skittles should NEVER be in the same bowl. Ever.

[@duckpondwithoutducks]

This was really interesting. Often, we think of the classification of plants and animals as being definite. But, it is just one way of organizing things, and other ways may be equally as valid.

[@rurutuM]

Where are the black people? I don't think I've seen any black curator interview.

[@thebrainscoop]

It has been quite a while (10+ years) since we've hired for any curatorial positions at the Field. The researchers in this video have been at the Museum for 20 years or more - and when they were applying for their positions I doubt back then there was much diversity in their fields of expertise. We are cognizant of the lack of diversity in the natural sciences - race, gender or otherwise - and are working to change that, but new positions open infrequently so change is unfortunately slow.

[@elainemarie9470]

Good question. I know as a female Native American studying engineering at Stanford University in 1975, I was actually studied as an anomaly, a statistical outlier. Back then, I thought the stereotypical attitudes and discrimination I experienced were so 19th Century. Little did I know they would persist. Many people believe that the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s solved the diversity issue. Current American politics exhibits differently. My last career as a Social Worker was very satisfying; but, alas, I was always "drafted" as a minority rep and Cultural Competency trainer. *SIGH* ~~Recovering Nerd

[@catherine_404]

That's exactly what I would occupy myself with as a kid. Given a box of assorted sweets, I'd group them, I'd test them, I'd classify them, I'd give them a rarity value. I enjoyed taxonomic divisions/relations in various fields as soon as I understood what they were. My mom loves biology, she encouraged that passion in me )

[@erictaylor5462]

Have you read 20000 Leagues Under the Sea? They have a character in that book who so obsessively classifies things, he even does it as he is pulled into a maelstrom to his doom.

[@pondoflillies]

I would LOVE to do this activity with kids after a lesson on taxonomy. I feel like the 4-5th grade age-group would be particularly interested and discerning about this (also they could eat the candy afterwards, which is always fun).

[@Bunnysteria]

Hi. I love the video topic. I just felt the background music was a little bit too loud and distracting

[@photosinensis]

I learned the hard way that grabbing candy by the handful and shoving it in your face is a one-way trip to obesity, blood sugar spikes, and all sorts of health problems. Then I had to take a year and burn off 80 pounds. 2/10, would not recommend. Still interested in what happened to the licorice, though.

[@hellohollydesign]

FANTASTIC video! I've been trying to understand the taxonomy of spiders for a long time. Now I can just think of them as the jellybeans of the Araneae order.

[@blighthound]

Love it! One thought though. Before classifying the jars, isn't it important to know what your goal is when choosing a classification system? Are you trying to find out if they share common visible traits? Size shape and color come into play. Trying to prove they are all came from different source material? Divide them into chocolate, jelly and shelled. All classifications act as a lens to see the world through because the complete picture is too complex to reasonably navigate.

[@tanyanguyen3704]

I think, to the last point, what may have been a more interesting approach would have been to give loose candy, and without prompting, see if they tended to color, shape, or make up. My guess is, most people what to classify by “what” a “whole” thing is, rather then classify by a single, or even several characteristics. So a candy covered chocolate (the m&ms and recesses, for exa,ple) would be grouped more closely than the gummies and jellies and hard candys. Of those, the hard candies would likely be pulled separate from squishy gummies. As a linguist, we know that if you ask a human with whom you do not share a langue, and point at a thing, almost universally the human on the other side will provide the most general name for the thing. If you are holding a glass of wine, you will say “glass” and not wine glass, or wine, or crystal, or stemwear. We seem as humans to categorize on instinct, large family to small individual.

[@SimplyApollo]

I feel like they totally failed. This is literally their job but they couldn't apply the same logic they do to animals to candy. Only one of the ladies was actually playing along. The rest were lecturing or saying they couldn't be classified. Is it that hard for them to say well some of them have chocolate and some of them don't so let's put the chocolate ones into an Order and the non choclate ones in another, and then go and make Family, and Genus, and Species? Why is this one dude talking about color? Like we all know it's not important...

[@oplu45]

I would propose that candy should be organized by it's life cycle. The way it's made, what it's made of, who made it(originally), maybe even how it's marketed?

[@thatguy4064]

Huhhhhh duuurrrr. Maybe, just maybe if you go back far enough all the candies can be traced to one "primordial candy". Some kind of salt water taffy that was stuck by lightning and became candy coated chocolate. I'm soooo smart because I know that nothing has a creator. Huhhhh Durrrrr

[@paulacushing2703]

This was a fun but silly and slightly misleading way to explain taxonomy. Since, as the taxonomists pointed out, taxonomy is based upon evolutionary relatedness, maybe the way they should have started was to group the candies that evolved from the same company (the same "evolutionary" origin).

[@strfiretiger123]

I honestly really adored how interesting and ridiculous this video was (because who would've ever though of classifying candy? Hahaha) because it's amazing how they're all going about their attempts to classify each of the candies and then they explain their reasonings and it's just great.