IMPOTANT NOTE1: I have revised my opinion about what it smells like. In the video, I said it was like an indoor pool and I correlated it to the chlorine. However, I think it's more accurate to say the pool locker room or shower. It is musty/moldy, with a background of pool smell. IMPORTANT NOTE2: After posting this video, I got a few messages from people saying that in their experience, cyanide DOES smell like almonds. So, I spent an hour tonight doing some tests, and I think the results are interesting. I did some direct comparisons and the smell of cyanide is distinctly different from the smell of almonds. However, if I EAT the almonds, there is sometimes a faint taste of cyanide. I think this is because sweet almonds still have a very small amount of amygdalin in them, which can release HCN. I don't think it's enough to smell in open air, but in your mouth it can be concentrated enough to be detected at the back of the nose. It's subtle, but it is definitely part of the flavor profile. So, while I still don't think it's accurate to say that it smells like almonds, for some people, it might be similar to the taste. To make that connection though, the person needs to a) be able to smell HCN and b) be particularly aware of that part of the flavor. I can smell the HCN, but I never noticed it in the flavor of almonds, so I didn't make the connection. I was even looking for a similarity and eating almonds at the same time, but never noticed it. It was only when I became very familiar with the smell of HCN that I started noticing it in almonds. What's interesting too, is that now after noticing it, I feel like I've started to associate the smell with almonds. It's no longer just a "chemical" smell and it feels more almondy. However, on the flip side, I feel like almonds taste worse and are more "chemically." But either way, I still don't think that saying it smells like almonds or bitter almonds is accurate or helpful. However, based on the messages I've received, some people are naturally associating cyanide with almonds (sometimes without knowing that this was even a thing and not even knowing they were smelling cyanide). This has piqued my interest and I think it could be fun to get to the bottom of this and to do a trial with a lot more people.
I was wondering if the addition of sulfuric acid to speed the reaction may have contributed to the “chemical/pool” smell. Does dilute sulfuric acid have a smell? Love your channel!
@@1Buttonmasher Nile red is a youtuber known by A TON of people, and he conducts dangerous experiments that somebody with the likes of yiu or me, could never. We’d die. So yes I do believe he did that, because I have more supporting evidence,… also- lol I wasted your time have a nice day
@@NoNameAtAll2 Did you watch the video? He said it just smelled like cyanide and chlorine and maybe a little earthy. So he didn't think it smelled like almonds.
He also said you can't smell salt, but i can. To the point where i know what kind of salt i have under my nose. So...either he's only human (to be read, his failings are such) or not all humans are created equal (i tend to always err on this side, of caution).
I didn't expect it to be that difficult to smell almonds. I just realized that anyone referencing the smell of almonds most likely doesn't know what they are talking about and are actually more likely referring to the taste of almonds given all the effort it takes to actually smell almonds.
@@TristanHill-ju3ng I think the smell is pretty strong. My mom always eats almonds and roasts them sometimes and I hate the smell. I can even smell it when I’m sitting next to her idk what everyone’s on about almonds not having a smell. It’s a very distinct smell too
I want to cry from the start that you need bitter almonds.. but also the aroma is in some Italian biscuits, I think there called Amaretti. And fun fact, there made from apricot cores which also contain cyanide..
"No no, you misunderstand, i was just saving a couple of bucks....., and a few decades of living for my friend slumped over there, but that's besides the point!"
To get the aromatics from almonds, you need to toast them. I would blanch them in boiling water for only a few seconds, remove the skins, then dry them off. (If you try this, using nitrile gloves and simply pinching the larger round end will shoot the nuts out of the skin and leave you with the husk to throw away or use for other purposes) You can then either pan toast in a dry frying pan or lay them evenly in a shallow baking sheet. As the oils are extracted from the heat the aroma is released. The other option is to smell a concentrate via almond extract. Get a good, natural almond extract. I got a large bottle a few years back from Costco for a reasonable price. The smell is very strong and is commonly associated with cherries as well. The extract is made from bitter almonds which is also why they have a very distinct and very different smell from the sweet almonds everyone snacks on. Also note: Fresh almonds have a stronger aroma than the packaged ones that may have been in the package or sitting in a warehouse for who knows how long. If you can find them whole in the shell, it would likely produce a slightly stronger aroma. The packaged ones are likely to smell sterile and if you can smell anything, would likely be that of the packaging or seasoning that they may have flavored the almonds with. When I buy any sort of nut, almonds, walnuts, pecans, that I will use in baking I always toast them first to draw out and intensify the flavor of the nut being used. The difference is quite astounding between toasted and untoasted nuts. Something that was kind of glossed over, unsure if it was on purpose, but it was mentioned that cyanide has different smells at different concentrations. you started out with an extremely low concentration here of only 15ppm. I think in the 30-40ppm it starts forming different aroma compounds. Which I think is why you noticed a very different smell more closely associated with chlorine instead of the bitter almond aroma.
7:45 "It kind of just smells like nothing." So almonds are a solid, and like many other solids, it doesn't really smell like anything. To smell almonds, I'll have to turn them into Hydrogen Almonds, so I can smell their gaseous form.
My chemistry teacher always joked: "if you order a kilogram nobody raises an eyebrow and they'll just think you're a chemist, if you order a gram the authorities will burst through your door assuming the worst."
I read that the ability to smell HCN depends on a certain genetic disposition. 30 years ago I got hold of a bottle of KCN and as soon as I opened it, I could smell a strong almond like smell. So I surely have the genes for it. Maybe you should try to compare it to the smell of bitter almond baking oil, which is used, at least here in Germany, for Christmas bakery.
@@phonyashell and its below 30% to be able to smell it... 1 of them was his brother, their genes should be pretty close For me it smells like bitter almond too(as a chemist, i had the chance to smell it)
If you still have it around - cyanide is a key component of the synthesis of many chelating agents. The ubiquitous EDTA (ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid) is prepared by reacting formaldehyde and a source of cyanide anions, while sugar-based chelators like heptagluconate are often prepared through the reaction of glucose and cyanide.
Hey, past chemistry student here. What comes to mind with cyanide reactions is flotation of gold ore in cyanides. I don't know the details, but if you keep the cyanide ions in high pH, they're supposed to be very stable and good to help extract gold from minerals. If you could look into that and maybe do some small scale experiment - i think that could be really interesting and helpful in tearing down bad name of cyanide. Just a thought, good luck doing what you do Nile!
When he said “benzaldehyde” I was so excited because I just watched his cherry soda video and I felt so proud that I knew what that was before he said it😊
@@janishughesfan56 Yeah, but its not like i was wishing him cancer or anything similar, i get its not your cup of tea, but the dude kept commenting pretty horrible stuff to me
@@elcatrinc1996 To be fair they probably had friends or family go through it so it could be a really touchy subject to them so you have to understand if you make jokes about serious subjects people will get upset I get its only a joke but if you have had family or friends go through it its not funny I support comedy of all forms even dark humour but you gotta expect people to get upset over certain things so you can't really say you didn't see it coming I mean the fact they went out of their way to make you feel shitty over a joke obviously means it personally hurt them so they're just venting frustration out on someone and you just happened to be that someone don't take it personally they're just hurting dude it doesn't make them or you a bad person and I doubt anyone would feel bad for you given the situation so you just deal with it dude Cuz this is just life if you can't take this much there's no hope cuz the world doesn't care how you feel bro just gotta let the past be just that otherwise you're in for a real shitty time along the way However no comedy should be censored because it hurts people I mean it might not be for everyone but jokes are just another form of expression so I agree you should be able to make these jokes you just gotta expect the shit that comes back from it can't expect people to feel bad for you when it does
The person who first made the observation must have been like : Cyanide smells like nothing. Almonds smell like nothing. Therefore, cyanide smells like almonds.
Ideas for using cyanide: Demonstrate infinite carbon chain length extension (halogenoalkane => nitrile (+1 carbon) => carboxylic acid => alcohol => halogenoalkane, rinse and repeat) - you could use this in a mechanism to produce something maybe? Dissolve gold (just cause why not)
@@francomuscellini1744 order a bunch of those. wait 2-5 years so your movements arent tracked by the fbi or the inteligence agency of your country. get a job in a water treatment station on a big city. work a bit on it like 1 year. start the plan, go putting like 150g of cyanide in the water for some days. watch your kill streak go sky high. get arrested. get assfucked in the shower of the prison. get executed. meet the devil. tell the devil of what you have done. gain respect. profit???
it terrifies me that people use bitter almond trees for landscaping. same with oleander. i have a fascination for highly poisonous plants and do grow some in my garden (lily of the valley, nerium, opium poppies, and foxglove) but i keep my little deadlies cordoned off with signs and chicken wire to keep people who don't recognize them as dangerous at a safe distance. a lot of flowers are poisonous to some degree though, if ingested.
When folks say "smells like almonds" I've always interpreted this in the same way that things smell like "grape" or "watermelon"... "grape flavor" doesn't smell or taste like grapes, it's its own thing. When I think "almond smell" I think smells like Amaretto or like a shot of almond flavor in coffee - definitely distinct from literal almond flavor/smell.
Heya! I think you may have saved my gran. Before this video I didn't know there were different types of almonds. Two days after watching it my granny offered me some almonds. I tried them today to find out they were extremely bitter. Remembering this video I phoned granny and told her those are likely deadly. Luckily she doesn't have teeth so she's avoided eating them, but she confessed she got them from a rather wild tree. We had a whole bag from her for the whole family, luckily I was one of the first ones to taste it, as nobody else knew what bitter almonds are. Many thanks from Bulgaria and many thanks from my whole fam! :)
Chubbyemu fans here I see Me too is a fan Here's a classic show that I am A doctor ate 56 Eggs for breakfast.This is what happen to his channel *Stonks*
I’ve had cyanide poisoning before and I have to say I think it gave the muffins a nuttier flavour, wouldn’t necessarily say almost specifically but it had that musky nutty taste. Slight back story can get accidental cyanide poisoning from quite a few fruit seeds and pits as well as bitter sweet almonds, usually muffins and cookies and sweet treats end up being poisoned which I think is where the misconception it is sweet comes from. Also yeah if you’re gonna make anything with elderberries cook it throughly, just a fair warning because even if it isn’t enough to kill you it isn’t fun, completely wiped you of all energy Edit : also cooking throughly tends to stop it from reacting in your body so as long as it’s cooked right it will have little to no effect or so our doctor had said
• Nile Red is NOT the best subject for smelling cyanide or almonds because his other videos suggest that he has a diminished sense of smell. He barely smellef something, so he got a few others to smell it, and they were overwhelmed. • For reference smells, maybe compare the pleasant aroma of almond extract, even if it's not really cyanide. • (Interesting coincidence that the HCN smells like cherry to some, because cherry pits and stems have lots of cyanide glycosides.)
Exactly this. I think Nile Red would have to smell something concentrated like Disaronno almond liquor to even begin to detect what almonds smell like.
I agree. I smelled my bag of almonds just a second ago and it had a very strong scent to me. Nile Red can't even smell almonds, so not the best guy to judge smell.
To be fair, his friend who vomited or almost vomited from that diluted dose of the smelliest chemical also said it smelled like a pool, though he didn't smell the almonds without the addition of water releasing the cyanide
I think I may be someone hypersensitive to this, because I’ve always been surprised about people loving cherry flavoring. Which I believe contains a decent amount of almond extract. I live in the US and I’d assume bitter almonds are not a component in the extract, not only because of the mainstream sweet almond use, but also that it could be deadly. I’m sure everyone gets this to an extent, but things containing cherry flavoring are incredibly bitter and almost dry out my mouth and leave a very bad aftertaste. I nailed down the connection to almonds when I tried amaretto for the first time. Exact same sensation. So I have to assume sweet almonds carry a similar component to bitter, cuz I do get a slight numbing when drinking a whole glass of fruit punch. I wonder how prominent it is to other people cuz I’ve brought it up a few times and no one seems to really get the same effect of it being pretty unpleasant. On the same note, does anyone else think that fresh tomatoes taste remarkably like pumpkin? It’s gotta be a similar thing that gives each their flavor. After processed into ketchup or sauce, or roasted/cooked it must cook off, cuz it loses all of that specific umph that makes it taste like pumpkin.
Here's an interesting medical fact for anyone that might be cofused. Not everyone can smell almonds. The specific smell receptors are genetically passed on by non-mandelian inheritence, and just like rolling your tongue or having hair on earlobes, not everyone has the smell receptors to smell almonds. It's one of those weird facts you learn in medical college. It has some importance in forensic medicine. There was a tme when criminals used cyanides for homicide. When mixed with food, it often goes undetected because many people simply can't smell it. This is why he smelled absolutely nothing despite directly smelling so many crushed almonds.
@@друг-з5ъ there are many types of non mendelian inheritence, co-dominance being one example. This isn't co-dominance though. Smell, is a complicated sensations. There are many different genes that code for different receptors, each specific to one chemical. And through permutation and combination of the receptors getting activated, we can differentate one smell from another. In co-dominance we talk about more than one dominant allele, but to 1 specific gene. Here we have many genes, working together, each with different patterns of inheritance. So, smell isn't a simple trait and you can't apply Mendel's law directly. For further interest, read on. Vision, Taste.. these are far less complicated than smell. Say vision. there are just 4 types of receptors. Rods for luminance, and RGB (red,green,blue)types of cones for colour. Similarly taste receptors is only of 5 types. Sweet,sour,bitter,salty and umami. Compare that to smell, more than 400 receptors have already been identified, and many are still unknown.
@MorrowStride most likely explanation is that you have a partial nose blockage. We have an area called nasal valve. It's common to have a blockage their, causing partial loss of smell. Visit you local doctor for evaluation. It can be rectified
I can't believe you had never tasted bitter almond ! Here in southern France, there are many almond trees in the wild. Everytime I try to eat one, hoping it is a sweet almond, and then immediately regret my decision and spend the next 5 minutes spitting to get rid of the bitter taste.. (i didn't know there was a high concentration of cyanide in them though.. But yeah, no way you'll eat more than one willingly)
Buys Dollar Store almonds and is surprised they smell like nothing... My favorite thing about your videos is that you can be so knowledgeable on a topic and then a complete infant when it comes to more practical knowledge. Cheap food always has less of an aroma because it's sat on a shelf longer or is made from more crude processing
When people say that something "smells like almonds" they're most likely referring to bitter almond extract. Bitter almond extract has a very sharp, boozy smell that's vaguely reminiscent of cherries and other stone fruits.
@@Sibula it's not the Amygdalin that causes the smell, it's what it's hydrolysed product is, Benzaldehyde. For the life of me, I would never describe either cyanide or Benzaldehyde as a boozy smell, no way, it's a sharp, intense, sweet aromatic version of almond only a thousand times more potent, if you ever get to sniff a bottle of pure Benzaldehyde, or HCN (!) or o nitro toluene you know what I am talking about. have some nitrites on hand with the HCN , lol....just in case...one sniff won't kill you tho. There are many things far, far more toxic than HCN
@@psycronizer Yes, but all of them have amygdaline, which the enzyme breaks down into cyanide, benzaldehyde, and sugar. And yes, the smell is mostly from benzaldehyde.
@@Sibula Yeah, that's true. I was actually really surprised when I first learned where almonds come from. Did you know that you can actually use stone fruit pits by themselves as a seasoning? For example you can make a syrup by boiling them with water and sugar that has a very distinct bitter almond taste.
@@psycronizer I'm not really a chemist, so I don't know much about what specific chemicals smell like, but I am a cook so I do know what a lot of ingredients smell like. I haven't used bitter almond extract in a while so that "boozy" part might have just been me thinking about amaretto, a liquor made from stone fruit pits.
An important tip on sniffing technique (for any chemical): take in a breath, hold it, remove stopper, sniff vapour or gas, breath out, replace stopper. That way it doesn’t really get into your lungs where most absorption occurs, and you expel it quickly. You may want to mention this advice in any similar videos.
He just huffs everything he makes. I have NEVER seen him waft a single thing. So he gets to the experiment where he makes THE WORST smell in the entire world and guess what? Can barely smell it. Hmmm, wonder why? Could it be because you've physically killed your smell receptors by huffing everything you've ever made including several carcinogens/pathogens/high acid/high base chemicals and projects? Well gee, I WONDER.
@@Milfappreciater It comes from the fact that non-clergy used to be called laymen. So if the priest was an expert, a layman isnt. Thats why people who arent experts are called lay-people
me: so what does cyanide smell like? CIA trainer: smells like bitter almonds. me: why do bitter almonds have the scent they do? CIA trainer: they have cyanide in them. me: so you're basically just telling me that cyanide... CIA trainer: ...smells like cyanide. yep. me: *ah yes i see*
As funny as this might be, words can't describe the essence of most experiences. We can assign words to label them like sweet to sugary stuff, but we can't precisely explain them. How does your tongue feel when you sabor something salty? It's like trying to describe a color without naming things that have it
we grow a lot of apricot and plum. i collect the kernels and mix them to my morning "birchelmüesli". 1-2 per day. it contains cyanide,so I know the smell very well. the taste is very pleasant dilluted like that.
i studied a bit of almond breeding in my degree and you can definitely tell the difference between bitter and sweet on appearance, colour, size, smell … and knowing the cultivar too
Another Sciency channel dissolved some and drank it (after doing the research and measuring) got a fizzy feeling in his arm just to prove everything could be edible dosage is toxticity. If you are smart and don`t make mistakes it is not dangerous. Especially since he even downgraded from the "this might be dangerous" option to "this is less than half as dangerous".
@@SteichenFamily not being licensed or permitted to experiment on living creatures to start with, having no way to contribute to the scientific community with said "experiments" so no one will benefit from you killing your house pet. There's a big difference dont be dense
I'm pretty sure Nile has made some benzaldehyde in the past, which is the main chemical in almonds causing the bitter flavor. FYI. Bitter almonds may yield 4-9 mg of hydrogen cyanide per almond piece, and that's where probably the notion of "smelling like almonds" comes from. By the way, dollar store almonds are not real almonds, they are make of dried poop for a dollar. lol
This is years later and pertains to your written update. The process of preparing Almonds for sale requires stripping material off usually using bleach to remove any variant of cyanide from the skin/shell. This means in the raw state on the farm they can have a faint off gassing that would be the more "chemical" smelling almond smell. If they ran into it in a smell test it would smell a lot more like almonds as a result. Second notation on that: At strong amounts in the air the smell becomes stronger as well, so if your smelling almonds that don't seem "right" your probably in concentrations that are significantly greater risk than your wisely tested.
@@Syyth_ well the cyanide is trapped in the almonds, that's why he had to put them in water to get it out. But at that point all he was smelling was cyanide that came off the almonds and not the almonds themselves
@@cat7371 I know. I'm a biochemistry student lmao The whole point is that the titles for ChubbyEmu can sound absurd. People have turned that into a joke. It's not supposed to be factual and that's the whole point.
I used to work with chemicals that smelled exactly like almonds, they smelled delicious 😅. I've also cut leaves of laurel trees and you get wafts of almonds from those too. Both were more almondy smelling than almonds and were more like almond syrup or some kind of intensified almond flavour
@Ugly boy Sorry. Next time, I would advise you not to read coments before watching a video. Especially if you decide that video is spoilable in a meaningful way.
do not worry that much. we make a cookie out of bitter almonds in Turkey and I am still alive after all that cookies that I ate. İf you want to fear from a seed than apple seed is far more containing cyanide and yet you can eat a lot. there will be nothing happen to you
For suggestions on what to do with the rest of the cyanide. Sodium cyanide is used heavily in the gold mining industry to extract gold from ore. I'm not sure if you'd have the necessary equipment to do something like that, but it might be worth looking into.
I can say that it smells exactly like almonds. My experience: So we have these type of millipede at our backyard, the species is called "Harpaphae Haydeniana", also called the "Almond Smelling Millipede" This species has a unique defense mechanism, it releases Hydrogen Cyanide gas upon facing predators or after death. I accidentally stepped on one myself and I remember a very unpleasant smell while disposing of the crushed body of the centipede. Then we had almond ice cream next week and as I was about to brush my teeth, I recognized the smell of the dead centipede, from the smell of Almond Ice cream. Now I avoid killing the poor creatures, but now they live everywhere the garden. Also: on some source it says that toasted almonds are supposed to be the one that actually have cyanide smell. Maybe that's why he couldn't smell the cyanide in the almonds?
@Bob Saget hydrogen cyanide is a gas, and the concentration it releases is very small, you'll see nothing. Although their blood is dark greenish. And they take a looooong time to refill their supply of hydrogen cyanide, some say they are only anle to use the chemical once in their lifetime.
We have it everywhere here (yellow spotted millipede) , the smell is weird though i havent associated it with almonds. I just refer to it as the crushed insect smell. Whenever i think of insects crushed that smell is what comes to mind
@discord_pop_cat If almonds had cyanide they would probably have to say it just like how cigarette companies have to warn you about all the sh*t it has
@@hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-Mikel.Montalat they actually don't, since the cyanide is naturally occurring. The same way they don't label bananas as having potassium, or oranges having citric acid
I dont watch that often but love the content when I do. Your sense of humor, even in things expressed through the editing is great too👍🏼 btw from my understanding when they say almonds they usually mean more like amaretto if you know what thats like, a bit like cherries tbh and probably more like almonds of the raw variety. Way too late now but just fyi. Ps why don’t you look into the veracity of the effect of amygdalin on cancer cells vs the effect of radiation and chemo, and what are their side effects?
@@xyzzyx7812 No, it wasn't. He needed 3 mg. He could have bought 5g for 48.30 CAD instead of 1kg for 142.00 CAD. This video would have been almost 100 CAD cheaper to make if he only bought 5g of it. Now instead of having 4.997g left over he has 999.997g left over.
i would say eating in your own lab that you have built and always only you worked in it you could potentaily keep most things in a fumehood and thereby know whats on the benches. But in schools and other lab enviroments eating is kinda bad as ppl put stuff everywhere
Here's a thought, I know this is from 3 years ago but I'm re-watching things here. It's just too fun! I had an idea for similar things as you asked at the end of this video. I was thinking of edible but poisonous food. I don't know what you can do with this but here's some thoughts: What are some edible foods that have deadly chemicals in them? In large enough amounts or raw, they can hurt you or kill you? Do they smell or do they react somehow? Can a person detect them? And if we're saying toxic, toxic how? Cherry Pits: Like apple seeds, they contain amygdalin, which can release cyanide. Elderberries: Raw berries and seeds contain cyanogenic glycosides; cooked elderberries are safe. Cassava: Contains cyanogenic compounds in its raw form; it must be properly cooked to be safe. Potatoes: Green parts and sprouts contain solanine, a toxic alkaloid. Nutmeg: In large doses, it can cause hallucinations and other serious effects due to myristicin. Thanks, I love your videos. Keep up the good work. You're very talented and creative.
Sodium cyanide is used to bond chrome to nickel and copper. Don’t know if this helps you for a project but it is super common in old school electroplating
Breaking News: Man with no sense of smell poisons entire house with cyanide, after attempting to smell it "to see if it smelled like almonds"! There, I fixed it for you!
IMPOTANT NOTE1: I have revised my opinion about what it smells like. In the video, I said it was like an indoor pool and I correlated it to the chlorine. However, I think it's more accurate to say the pool locker room or shower. It is musty/moldy, with a background of pool smell. IMPORTANT NOTE2: After posting this video, I got a few messages from people saying that in their experience, cyanide DOES smell like almonds. So, I spent an hour tonight doing some tests, and I think the results are interesting. I did some direct comparisons and the smell of cyanide is distinctly different from the smell of almonds. However, if I EAT the almonds, there is sometimes a faint taste of cyanide. I think this is because sweet almonds still have a very small amount of amygdalin in them, which can release HCN. I don't think it's enough to smell in open air, but in your mouth it can be concentrated enough to be detected at the back of the nose. It's subtle, but it is definitely part of the flavor profile. So, while I still don't think it's accurate to say that it smells like almonds, for some people, it might be similar to the taste. To make that connection though, the person needs to a) be able to smell HCN and b) be particularly aware of that part of the flavor. I can smell the HCN, but I never noticed it in the flavor of almonds, so I didn't make the connection. I was even looking for a similarity and eating almonds at the same time, but never noticed it. It was only when I became very familiar with the smell of HCN that I started noticing it in almonds. What's interesting too, is that now after noticing it, I feel like I've started to associate the smell with almonds. It's no longer just a "chemical" smell and it feels more almondy. However, on the flip side, I feel like almonds taste worse and are more "chemically." But either way, I still don't think that saying it smells like almonds or bitter almonds is accurate or helpful. However, based on the messages I've received, some people are naturally associating cyanide with almonds (sometimes without knowing that this was even a thing and not even knowing they were smelling cyanide). This has piqued my interest and I think it could be fun to get to the bottom of this and to do a trial with a lot more people.
I would imagine that the majority of your friends are very cautious when they hear the phrase, “Hey, can you come over to the lab and sniff this random container with a beaker and a meter in it on camera for me?” . I would think that the number of “volunteers” drops dramatically as the number of tests rise.
I've always thought that people who say cyanide smells like almonds meant it smells like almond extract, used in baking, not the dried or roasted nuts themselves. Furthermore, I suspect that the cyanide they were smelling had been obtained from almonds, rather than cyanide that had been chemically synthesized. When extracted from bitter almonds, the cyanide would be contaminated by benzaldehyde, a byproduct of the breakdown of amygdalin. What they're really smelling is the benzaldehyde, which is the source of the smell in almond extract, maraschino cherries, and the liqueur Amaretto. The sodium cyanide you used had probably been synthesized, and was free of benzaldehyde. I wonder how much amygdalin is still present in the dried, packaged nuts. If you want to pursue this line of inquiry further, try cracking open a peach pit, and smashing up the fresh, moist nut inside. I've gotten a benzaldehyde smell from that.
I get your premise. But even after he formed the hydrogen cyanide from the bitter almond itself he and two other people said it still smelled like chlorine. Not much mention of the benzaldehyde smell. He did mention it but it was very faint. Last I smelled the liqueur, maraschino cherries, and almond extract; they didn't smell like a pool🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️. I mean come on, if my food smells like a swimming pool I wouldn't eat it. So I agree with his premise that this statement is just misleading; or that perhaps when it was found out that bitter almonds contain hydrogen cyanide, maybe that chlorine type smell was what they were speaking of and nothing else as the cyanide that he produced from the sodium cyanide smelled exactly the same.🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️ where terms and sayings come from and why is typically lost with time. Kind of like the aluminum aluminium argument. The difference is that one actually does have an answer as to where it came from for both terms and the correct means of saying it is Aluminum without the extra I as it was the original spelling of the word by the person who discovered it well I can't really say discovered because there are relics dating back thousands of years with aluminum, however the guy that actually dubbed it should I say; and it was LATER written as aluminium with the extra I by different people within the scientific community because his colleagues later felt that it would fit in better with the other elements that typically end in ium. But the original spelling by its Discoverer was without the extra I. So as far as I'm concerned it's aluminum because that is what it's discover called it. That would be like me naming my child Joseph with a ph and someone later telling me no I want his name to be Josef with an F🤷♂️ It's my child I get to name him. So as for the cyanide almond debate; who knows where it actually came from, but I'm pretty sure it was the chlorine like smell with that very faint hint of the benzaldehyde that they were speaking of not necessarily the benzaldehyde itself but the chlorine like smell as it is that smell that stands out the most.
@@jerichojoe307 the reason why pools smell is because of the disgusting people who pee and sweat which reacts with the chlorine. A clean new pool has no smell.
Ah that explains why almond extract is used in cherry pie recipes. I bake quite a bit and have been wondering why you use it in cherry pie but have been too lazy to look it up lmao.
@@mignonkaufman1258 Yes, almonds and cherries are closely related! You can’t taste the flavor much with typical sweet almonds. However, bitter almonds are actually what is typically used to make almond extract, and since cherries and bitter almonds both contain a good amount of benzaldehyde, they end up tasting quite similar. You can notice more of a similarity if you compare maraschino cherries to almond extract, rather than fresh cherries to sweet almonds.
I am the 50% of people who cannot REALLY detect dangerous amounts of cyanide. I've been an amateur chemist since I was 15-16, and I set up a porch lab at my dad's house that still exists 6yr later! One day, I couldn't even tell you WHAT I was doing---I think it was some sort of extraction of some plants I'd found and I wanted the dye that I found to change colour drastically by pH... anyway I didn't smell anything, but thankfully I knew full well what that locked jaw, sweaty-shaky/trembling, stomach turning over feeling meant... My vision even started to zoom in and all I did was stumble backwards into some fresh air and cough profusely till I could open my mouth again. Was it cyanide? Who knows... but it matched all the qualities and all I had to do was ventilate whatever it was... I also rediscovered chloropicrin trying to do modifications to picric acid like the biggest dumbass of all time, and that exposure was the closest to choking out in a pool of my blood for sure... I've also made 100s maybe close to a thousand litres of chlorine gas because I was fucking obsessed with all the things I could make it do... I also always wanted to scale things up, but thankfully I have my sense of smell... mostly, and I have perfect vision, and I always build extensive traps and work in filtered ventilation (working on building a new hardware store fume hood rn. Be careful out there guys. Never stop searching for knowledge, but for gods sake don't be as foolish as me. I'm lucky to be alive and not have inadvertently poisoned all my neighbor's wells. Chemistry is all about taking responsibility for the consequences of your projects.
Guess what? There was a new type of sugar found, and it's name is nucleowastose. It is going to be distributed in many candies for a "glowing effect" and it is totally safe, ignoring the fact that it is highly radioactive, emits charged particles, and can kill people, of course.
i think the main thing to note here is that cyanide doesn't smell like the kind of almonds most people are familiar with, but a specific type of bitter almond which few people would know since you kinda need to go out of your way to get your hands on some, and people who do rarely eat them as is, they're mostly used for baking. for example in germany only pharmacies are allowed to sell bitter almonds and you are only allowed to buy a limited amount at a time.
IMPOTANT NOTE1: I have revised my opinion about what it smells like. In the video, I said it was like an indoor pool and I correlated it to the chlorine. However, I think it's more accurate to say the pool locker room or shower. It is musty/moldy, with a background of pool smell.
IMPORTANT NOTE2: After posting this video, I got a few messages from people saying that in their experience, cyanide DOES smell like almonds. So, I spent an hour tonight doing some tests, and I think the results are interesting. I did some direct comparisons and the smell of cyanide is distinctly different from the smell of almonds. However, if I EAT the almonds, there is sometimes a faint taste of cyanide. I think this is because sweet almonds still have a very small amount of amygdalin in them, which can release HCN. I don't think it's enough to smell in open air, but in your mouth it can be concentrated enough to be detected at the back of the nose. It's subtle, but it is definitely part of the flavor profile. So, while I still don't think it's accurate to say that it smells like almonds, for some people, it might be similar to the taste. To make that connection though, the person needs to a) be able to smell HCN and b) be particularly aware of that part of the flavor.
I can smell the HCN, but I never noticed it in the flavor of almonds, so I didn't make the connection. I was even looking for a similarity and eating almonds at the same time, but never noticed it. It was only when I became very familiar with the smell of HCN that I started noticing it in almonds. What's interesting too, is that now after noticing it, I feel like I've started to associate the smell with almonds. It's no longer just a "chemical" smell and it feels more almondy. However, on the flip side, I feel like almonds taste worse and are more "chemically."
But either way, I still don't think that saying it smells like almonds or bitter almonds is accurate or helpful. However, based on the messages I've received, some people are naturally associating cyanide with almonds (sometimes without knowing that this was even a thing and not even knowing they were smelling cyanide). This has piqued my interest and I think it could be fun to get to the bottom of this and to do a trial with a lot more people.
hi
so who else read the full comment
I was wondering if the addition of sulfuric acid to speed the reaction may have contributed to the “chemical/pool” smell. Does dilute sulfuric acid have a smell? Love your channel!
What videos did you have to take down?
confirmed: almonds have cyanide!!
the fact you went straight to sniffing cyanide before questioning whether you'd actually smelt almonds before is such a chemist move.
You actually believe that he did that? Come on...
lol
fuck around and find out
@@giu5357 the scientific method
@@1Buttonmasher Nile red is a youtuber known by A TON of people, and he conducts dangerous experiments that somebody with the likes of yiu or me, could never. We’d die. So yes I do believe he did that, because I have more supporting evidence,… also-
lol I wasted your time have a nice day
This should be renamed to: "NileRed tries to discover the smell of almonds"
That’s not click-baity enough.
@@drew899 "What do almonds actually smell like?"
@meekv2 Honorable decision
@MeekV2 Lmao Not anymore sadly
@MeekV2 Lmao It's been 2 hours since you've said that and the likes moved up to 800+
in the beginning: lets see if cyanide smells like almonds
in the end: lets see if almonds smell like cyanide
And apparently his conclusion is that they smell the same but neither of them smell like almonds???
@@Sibula almonds don't smell like almonds?
@@NoNameAtAll2 Did you watch the video? He said it just smelled like cyanide and chlorine and maybe a little earthy. So he didn't think it smelled like almonds.
And the conclusion is that almonds doesn't smell like almonds
He also said you can't smell salt, but i can. To the point where i know what kind of salt i have under my nose. So...either he's only human (to be read, his failings are such) or not all humans are created equal (i tend to always err on this side, of caution).
I love how it’s 5 minutes of the cyanide chemistry and 15 minutes of Nigel trying to figure out what almonds smell like
I didn't expect it to be that difficult to smell almonds. I just realized that anyone referencing the smell of almonds most likely doesn't know what they are talking about and are actually more likely referring to the taste of almonds given all the effort it takes to actually smell almonds.
@@TristanHill-ju3ng I think the smell is pretty strong. My mom always eats almonds and roasts them sometimes and I hate the smell. I can even smell it when I’m sitting next to her idk what everyone’s on about almonds not having a smell. It’s a very distinct smell too
@@Calle.Hutch.. I have bought almonds since that comment. You are correct.
I want to cry from the start that you need bitter almonds.. but also the aroma is in some Italian biscuits, I think there called Amaretti. And fun fact, there made from apricot cores which also contain cyanide..
I love how he waits until AFTER he's sniffed the potentially deadly gas before pondering if he remembered what almonds smell like. Love this channel.
it's not potentially deadly. It's very deadly, but not harmful enough those concentrations
It's very rational. If he dies from the HCN, he can save the trip to the dollar store.
@@anakinlowground5515 So it's potentially deadly based on the concentration, I don't know what's your point here lol
Hi
@@ritiksingh721 Hi Ritik
Next up on NileRed: Does mustard gas smell like mustard?
Obviously joking and stuff but If you ever smelled ammonia, imagine that but stronger
Does choline gas smell like a pool?
Does tear gas smell like tears?
@@orb9760 smells like pain
dude no
“I swear officer I bought a kilos worth because it was just more economically viable”
69th like on comment
Capitalism 100
Capitalism at its finest
LOL. 420 thumbs
"No no, you misunderstand, i was just saving a couple of bucks....., and a few decades of living for my friend slumped over there, but that's besides the point!"
To get the aromatics from almonds, you need to toast them. I would blanch them in boiling water for only a few seconds, remove the skins, then dry them off. (If you try this, using nitrile gloves and simply pinching the larger round end will shoot the nuts out of the skin and leave you with the husk to throw away or use for other purposes) You can then either pan toast in a dry frying pan or lay them evenly in a shallow baking sheet. As the oils are extracted from the heat the aroma is released. The other option is to smell a concentrate via almond extract. Get a good, natural almond extract. I got a large bottle a few years back from Costco for a reasonable price. The smell is very strong and is commonly associated with cherries as well. The extract is made from bitter almonds which is also why they have a very distinct and very different smell from the sweet almonds everyone snacks on.
Also note: Fresh almonds have a stronger aroma than the packaged ones that may have been in the package or sitting in a warehouse for who knows how long. If you can find them whole in the shell, it would likely produce a slightly stronger aroma. The packaged ones are likely to smell sterile and if you can smell anything, would likely be that of the packaging or seasoning that they may have flavored the almonds with. When I buy any sort of nut, almonds, walnuts, pecans, that I will use in baking I always toast them first to draw out and intensify the flavor of the nut being used. The difference is quite astounding between toasted and untoasted nuts.
Something that was kind of glossed over, unsure if it was on purpose, but it was mentioned that cyanide has different smells at different concentrations. you started out with an extremely low concentration here of only 15ppm. I think in the 30-40ppm it starts forming different aroma compounds. Which I think is why you noticed a very different smell more closely associated with chlorine instead of the bitter almond aroma.
😶🌫️
This comment is disturbing.
Thank you for your comment
7:45 "It kind of just smells like nothing."
So almonds are a solid, and like many other solids, it doesn't really smell like anything. To smell almonds, I'll have to turn them into Hydrogen Almonds, so I can smell their gaseous form.
H---Almond
Yesss! He should've roasted them geeeeesh
big brain
Giga🧠
His nose is also very burnt due to him doing so much chemical experiment
My chemistry teacher always joked: "if you order a kilogram nobody raises an eyebrow and they'll just think you're a chemist, if you order a gram the authorities will burst through your door assuming the worst."
*Noted
What's his name? Walter White?
@@313asm Bro I've been waiting on this Comment.
Note: This does not work for radioactive elements.
Ahhh... nothing like ordering enough cyanide to kill 200,000 people.
Professor: DON'T EAT IN THE CHEM LAB!
NileRed: These almonds taste nothing like my cyanide.
those aren't almonds they are a type of plants seed I believe apricot
@@ramclam2524 they might come soon...
"this cyanide tastes FAKE!"
@@Blox117 This cyanide tastes like Egoraptor.
@@ramclam2524 so are the almonds though.
Just different tree species.
I read that the ability to smell HCN depends on a certain genetic disposition. 30 years ago I got hold of a bottle of KCN and as soon as I opened it, I could smell a strong almond like smell. So I surely have the genes for it. Maybe you should try to compare it to the smell of bitter almond baking oil, which is used, at least here in Germany, for Christmas bakery.
3 people smelled it
@@phonyashell and its below 30% to be able to smell it...
1 of them was his brother, their genes should be pretty close
For me it smells like bitter almond too(as a chemist, i had the chance to smell it)
Now this is real science, you had a question and you answered it with good ol human testing and trial and error.
What kind of crossover episode is this??
Lol
Nice
Is cyanide really deadly?
wtf are you doing here peter lol
Are we going to ignore how about a fourth of this experiment was figuring out what almonds smelled like
its in the title, what did you expect
@@rossco7214 No it's probably because he smelled it after, so he can't give a good example for any of the smell before this.
its important research
Lacked a 5th one including lemons.
It's a control variable, it wouldn't be close to an experiment without it.
why is nobody talking bout the 5 star review "My skin cancer fell off"
fake reviews probably or troll reviews
@@Lolkork Yes, I've seen that one.
the cancer became it's own organism and went to seek greater things
I mean if his skin fell off, probably the skin cancer fell off too
If you still have it around - cyanide is a key component of the synthesis of many chelating agents. The ubiquitous EDTA (ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid) is prepared by reacting formaldehyde and a source of cyanide anions, while sugar-based chelators like heptagluconate are often prepared through the reaction of glucose and cyanide.
"My skin cancer fell off"
Yea I can see why that's pretty scary
Can't have skin cancer without skin!
I dont think its meant to fall off
Hey, past chemistry student here.
What comes to mind with cyanide reactions is flotation of gold ore in cyanides. I don't know the details, but if you keep the cyanide ions in high pH, they're supposed to be very stable and good to help extract gold from minerals. If you could look into that and maybe do some small scale experiment - i think that could be really interesting and helpful in tearing down bad name of cyanide. Just a thought, good luck doing what you do Nile!
This could be a fun way to strip the impossibly small gold leads from old electronic scrap, I'd watch that vid!
@@dangoldbach6570 CodysLab has some videos covering that if you'd like to see some examples.
You can also extract silver! Mac Arthur's Cyanide process.
Just in case you are unaware, Cody from Cody's Lab had done quite a bit of that. If you are interested, it might be worth a look.
nile: *porceeds to kill himself*
Things I learned from this video:
- Almonds smell like nothing
- Cyanide smells like cyanide
also beware of almond flavors things
Almond flavored stuff definitely tastes more like cyanide than almonds
Ah yes, the floor is made of floor
Cyanide smells like cyanide
Almonds smells like cyanide
Liquid cyanide is odorless.
And almonds don’t smell like anything.
Therefore cyanide smells like almonds!
When he said “benzaldehyde” I was so excited because I just watched his cherry soda video and I felt so proud that I knew what that was before he said it😊
IKR SAME I WAS SO HAPPY
I know benzaldehyde
It is C⁶H⁵COH
Same hahaha
“How did he die?”
“He was trying to figure out if cyanide smelled like almonds.”
shout out to that time i made a cancer joke here and an idiot went to my channel to insult me for doing that
"Did he know what almonds smell like to compare?"
"No."
@@elcatrinc1996 look attacking people is stupid but cancer jokes arent funny cause how serious it is
@@janishughesfan56 Yeah, but its not like i was wishing him cancer or anything similar, i get its not your cup of tea, but the dude kept commenting pretty horrible stuff to me
@@elcatrinc1996 To be fair they probably had friends or family go through it so it could be a really touchy subject to them so you have to understand if you make jokes about serious subjects people will get upset I get its only a joke but if you have had family or friends go through it its not funny I support comedy of all forms even dark humour but you gotta expect people to get upset over certain things so you can't really say you didn't see it coming
I mean the fact they went out of their way to make you feel shitty over a joke obviously means it personally hurt them so they're just venting frustration out on someone and you just happened to be that someone don't take it personally they're just hurting dude it doesn't make them or you a bad person and I doubt anyone would feel bad for you given the situation so you just deal with it dude Cuz this is just life if you can't take this much there's no hope cuz the world doesn't care how you feel bro just gotta let the past be just that otherwise you're in for a real shitty time along the way
However no comedy should be censored because it hurts people
I mean it might not be for everyone but jokes are just another form of expression so I agree you should be able to make these jokes you just gotta expect the shit that comes back from it can't expect people to feel bad for you when it does
“I didn’t want a gram of cyanide, so I bought a kilo” congrats on getting put on a watch list lol
Yea... I'm moving him up a bit for this one...
Well, maybe he just wants to partake in large scale gold mining
Smells like death...
Lets be real, he was probably already on one
@@RETRO-DEV he's Canadian lmao
The person who first made the observation must have been like :
Cyanide smells like nothing.
Almonds smell like nothing.
Therefore, cyanide smells like almonds.
Air smells like nothing, therefore air is cyanide
Ideas for using cyanide:
Demonstrate infinite carbon chain length extension (halogenoalkane => nitrile (+1 carbon) => carboxylic acid => alcohol => halogenoalkane, rinse and repeat) - you could use this in a mechanism to produce something maybe?
Dissolve gold (just cause why not)
Or, just hear me out... Kill people. Maybe a chemist vigilante.
He already dissolved gold, kind of.
he could try to extract gold out of a sample of rocks and dirt like mining does
@@jannikhtc88 yeah, he did it with computer parts.
@@francomuscellini1744 order a bunch of those. wait 2-5 years so your movements arent tracked by the fbi or the inteligence agency of your country. get a job in a water treatment station on a big city. work a bit on it like 1 year. start the plan, go putting like 150g of cyanide in the water for some days. watch your kill streak go sky high. get arrested. get assfucked in the shower of the prison. get executed. meet the devil. tell the devil of what you have done. gain respect. profit???
This channel has taught me that NileRed is immortal
yes
Cody's lab did it too, though I don't know if the video is still around. He drinks a cyanide solution in that video, in case you're curious.
According to the current data Nile Red will live forever and is immune to all damage
He is the human thanos
INEVITABLE
it’s like he’s... not human...
Nile: dont smell chemicals
Also Nile: "I just had to smell some cyanide"
lol
lol
Even the smartest kid is bound to do dumb things
Nile: I don't wan you to die
Also Nile:
Chemistry Teacher: always smell chemicals by wafting them
Nile: *sticks nose directly into container filled with cyanide gas*
it terrifies me that people use bitter almond trees for landscaping. same with oleander.
i have a fascination for highly poisonous plants and do grow some in my garden (lily of the valley, nerium, opium poppies, and foxglove) but i keep my little deadlies cordoned off with signs and chicken wire to keep people who don't recognize them as dangerous at a safe distance. a lot of flowers are poisonous to some degree though, if ingested.
When folks say "smells like almonds" I've always interpreted this in the same way that things smell like "grape" or "watermelon"... "grape flavor" doesn't smell or taste like grapes, it's its own thing. When I think "almond smell" I think smells like Amaretto or like a shot of almond flavor in coffee - definitely distinct from literal almond flavor/smell.
tf is a tarkov player doing watching nile red smell cyanide XD
Maybe we don’t know something and Veritas could be Veritasium
It's like saying metal smells like metal, but it really doesn't, you can't smell metal.
Grape flavor just tastes purple lol
It's about almond oil
Heya! I think you may have saved my gran. Before this video I didn't know there were different types of almonds. Two days after watching it my granny offered me some almonds. I tried them today to find out they were extremely bitter. Remembering this video I phoned granny and told her those are likely deadly. Luckily she doesn't have teeth so she's avoided eating them, but she confessed she got them from a rather wild tree. We had a whole bag from her for the whole family, luckily I was one of the first ones to taste it, as nobody else knew what bitter almonds are.
Many thanks from Bulgaria and many thanks from my whole fam! :)
P.S. I can still taste the bitterness even hours after eating 2 of those almonds, and my stomach feels weird. Be careful folks.
Still alive?
Rip
F
Rest in peace fellow, may you live forever in our hearts
2:50 "Only a few breaths of this could kill a man!"
Nile: "Oh no! Anyway..."
I understood this reference
Took me a minute.. oh f it have a thumbs up..
Insert meme
Very reference. Such me. Much understand. Wow!
@@purplegill10 A show with a Walter? Or something with a Jeff on a rock and scuba diving to rescue a city?
I can understand why his mom worries about him.
Almonds: Smell like almost nothing
Cyanide: Smells like almost nothing
=>Cyanide smells like almonds
i mean to me almonds have a very distinct and pleasant smell never smelled pure cyanide tho
Wow just saw this get 7 more likes
Yeah almonds do have a certain smell just sniff one
*_SNIFFF_* NICE AND GOOD
Good old transitive property
I think there is something wrong with his nose.
“Let’s smell some cyanide” is a 2020 mood tbh
I would smell cyanide from a room with 300 ppm of it 😍
Sorry, apparently I got into the wrong comment sub section.... *slowly leaving the room backwards*
i also felt like doing this in 2016 almost exactly
@@bosch5303 I read this as "I would smell cyanide in a room with 300 people in it" lol
@@bosch5303 i believe that's called a gas chamber
"A Chemist sniffs Cyanide for UA-cam. This is what happened to his heart".
-Chubbyemu
Chubbyemu fans here I see
Me too is a fan
Here's a classic show that I am
A doctor ate 56 Eggs for breakfast.This is what happen to his channel *Stonks*
Hahah chubbyemu reference a great youtuber
@@justajobro1266 very very great
@@justajobro1266 very clickbaity tooo
N.R is presenting ☝️ to the emergency room
I’ve had cyanide poisoning before and I have to say I think it gave the muffins a nuttier flavour, wouldn’t necessarily say almost specifically but it had that musky nutty taste.
Slight back story can get accidental cyanide poisoning from quite a few fruit seeds and pits as well as bitter sweet almonds, usually muffins and cookies and sweet treats end up being poisoned which I think is where the misconception it is sweet comes from. Also yeah if you’re gonna make anything with elderberries cook it throughly, just a fair warning because even if it isn’t enough to kill you it isn’t fun, completely wiped you of all energy
Edit : also cooking throughly tends to stop it from reacting in your body so as long as it’s cooked right it will have little to no effect or so our doctor had said
• Nile Red is NOT the best subject for smelling cyanide or almonds because his other videos suggest that he has a diminished sense of smell. He barely smellef something, so he got a few others to smell it, and they were overwhelmed. • For reference smells, maybe compare the pleasant aroma of almond extract, even if it's not really cyanide. • (Interesting coincidence that the HCN smells like cherry to some, because cherry pits and stems have lots of cyanide glycosides.)
Exactly this. I think Nile Red would have to smell something concentrated like Disaronno almond liquor to even begin to detect what almonds smell like.
I agree. I smelled my bag of almonds just a second ago and it had a very strong scent to me. Nile Red can't even smell almonds, so not the best guy to judge smell.
Nile made the smelliest chemical known to man and was like "this is nothing..."
To be fair, his friend who vomited or almost vomited from that diluted dose of the smelliest chemical also said it smelled like a pool, though he didn't smell the almonds without the addition of water releasing the cyanide
I think I may be someone hypersensitive to this, because I’ve always been surprised about people loving cherry flavoring. Which I believe contains a decent amount of almond extract. I live in the US and I’d assume bitter almonds are not a component in the extract, not only because of the mainstream sweet almond use, but also that it could be deadly.
I’m sure everyone gets this to an extent, but things containing cherry flavoring are incredibly bitter and almost dry out my mouth and leave a very bad aftertaste. I nailed down the connection to almonds when I tried amaretto for the first time. Exact same sensation.
So I have to assume sweet almonds carry a similar component to bitter, cuz I do get a slight numbing when drinking a whole glass of fruit punch. I wonder how prominent it is to other people cuz I’ve brought it up a few times and no one seems to really get the same effect of it being pretty unpleasant.
On the same note, does anyone else think that fresh tomatoes taste remarkably like pumpkin? It’s gotta be a similar thing that gives each their flavor. After processed into ketchup or sauce, or roasted/cooked it must cook off, cuz it loses all of that specific umph that makes it taste like pumpkin.
Here's an interesting medical fact for anyone that might be cofused. Not everyone can smell almonds. The specific smell receptors are genetically passed on by non-mandelian inheritence, and just like rolling your tongue or having hair on earlobes, not everyone has the smell receptors to smell almonds. It's one of those weird facts you learn in medical college.
It has some importance in forensic medicine. There was a tme when criminals used cyanides for homicide. When mixed with food, it often goes undetected because many people simply can't smell it.
This is why he smelled absolutely nothing despite directly smelling so many crushed almonds.
by non-mendelian, do you mean the genotype for smelling almonds has more than 1 dominant allele? Like blood groups that have codominant alleles?
@@друг-з5ъ there are many types of non mendelian inheritence, co-dominance being one example. This isn't co-dominance though. Smell, is a complicated sensations. There are many different genes that code for different receptors, each specific to one chemical. And through permutation and combination of the receptors getting activated, we can differentate one smell from another.
In co-dominance we talk about more than one dominant allele, but to 1 specific gene.
Here we have many genes, working together, each with different patterns of inheritance. So, smell isn't a simple trait and you can't apply Mendel's law directly.
For further interest, read on.
Vision, Taste.. these are far less complicated than smell.
Say vision. there are just 4 types of receptors. Rods for luminance, and RGB (red,green,blue)types of cones for colour.
Similarly taste receptors is only of 5 types.
Sweet,sour,bitter,salty and umami.
Compare that to smell, more than 400 receptors have already been identified, and many are still unknown.
@MorrowStride most likely explanation is that you have a partial nose blockage. We have an area called nasal valve. It's common to have a blockage their, causing partial loss of smell. Visit you local doctor for evaluation. It can be rectified
Was just about to post this myself, this is definitely true
You think the mandaloria, has mandelian receptor or whatever you said? Bada bing wa waa
I can't believe you had never tasted bitter almond ! Here in southern France, there are many almond trees in the wild. Everytime I try to eat one, hoping it is a sweet almond, and then immediately regret my decision and spend the next 5 minutes spitting to get rid of the bitter taste.. (i didn't know there was a high concentration of cyanide in them though.. But yeah, no way you'll eat more than one willingly)
I'm French and I didn't even know these EXISTED.
@@Shalvus autour de Perpignan dans le sud ouest. Dans les collines surtout il y en a pas mal
Buys Dollar Store almonds and is surprised they smell like nothing...
My favorite thing about your videos is that you can be so knowledgeable on a topic and then a complete infant when it comes to more practical knowledge. Cheap food always has less of an aroma because it's sat on a shelf longer or is made from more crude processing
When people say that something "smells like almonds" they're most likely referring to bitter almond extract. Bitter almond extract has a very sharp, boozy smell that's vaguely reminiscent of cherries and other stone fruits.
Yes, because all stone fruits (and almonds) are closely related and have mostly the same stuff, including amygdalin, in their seeds.
@@Sibula it's not the Amygdalin that causes the smell, it's what it's hydrolysed product is, Benzaldehyde. For the life of me, I would never describe either cyanide or Benzaldehyde as a boozy smell, no way, it's a sharp, intense, sweet aromatic version of almond only a thousand times more potent, if you ever get to sniff a bottle of pure Benzaldehyde, or HCN (!) or o nitro toluene you know what I am talking about. have some nitrites on hand with the HCN , lol....just in case...one sniff won't kill you tho. There are many things far, far more toxic than HCN
@@psycronizer Yes, but all of them have amygdaline, which the enzyme breaks down into cyanide, benzaldehyde, and sugar. And yes, the smell is mostly from benzaldehyde.
@@Sibula Yeah, that's true. I was actually really surprised when I first learned where almonds come from. Did you know that you can actually use stone fruit pits by themselves as a seasoning? For example you can make a syrup by boiling them with water and sugar that has a very distinct bitter almond taste.
@@psycronizer I'm not really a chemist, so I don't know much about what specific chemicals smell like, but I am a cook so I do know what a lot of ingredients smell like. I haven't used bitter almond extract in a while so that "boozy" part might have just been me thinking about amaretto, a liquor made from stone fruit pits.
Conclusion: Cyanide doesn't smell like almond, but almonds smell like cyanide.
We think the same
69th like. Nice
The reason for that is because almonds have a trace amount of cyanide.
@@josshogenesch9511 wait they do
@@stpidstuff did you watch the video?
Amazingly, the scissor flip at 7:38 was probably the most dangerous thing he did in this video.
"Scissor me!"
(iykyk)
@@ava_niche YES!!
Totally worth it though, nice cut (In a film sense, not finger sense).
11:20 (bookmark)
06:59 it smells like bleach because of the HCl you added!
“None of my friends want to smell cyanide with me :(“
Aw that’s sad.
Thats a step up from glue sniffing...
An important tip on sniffing technique (for any chemical): take in a breath, hold it, remove stopper, sniff vapour or gas, breath out, replace stopper. That way it doesn’t really get into your lungs where most absorption occurs, and you expel it quickly. You may want to mention this advice in any similar videos.
As a layperson I'd be afraid of sniffing any random chemicals, but especially cyanide. I'll leave that to the chemists
He just huffs everything he makes. I have NEVER seen him waft a single thing.
So he gets to the experiment where he makes THE WORST smell in the entire world and guess what? Can barely smell it. Hmmm, wonder why? Could it be because you've physically killed your smell receptors by huffing everything you've ever made including several carcinogens/pathogens/high acid/high base chemicals and projects? Well gee, I WONDER.
@@Anon_E_Muss what's a layperson?
@@Milfappreciater a non professional in that field
@@Milfappreciater It comes from the fact that non-clergy used to be called laymen. So if the priest was an expert, a layman isnt. Thats why people who arent experts are called lay-people
me: so what does cyanide smell like?
CIA trainer: smells like bitter almonds.
me: why do bitter almonds have the scent they do?
CIA trainer: they have cyanide in them.
me: so you're basically just telling me that cyanide...
CIA trainer: ...smells like cyanide. yep.
me: *ah yes i see*
AH YES, THE FLOOR HERE IS MADE OF FLOOR
Yeah, it’s more a case of “bitter almonds smell like cyanide” than “cyanide smells like bitter almonds”
@@TheShizzlemop "this is a birch tree. you can tell it's a birch tree because of the way it is."
As funny as this might be, words can't describe the essence of most experiences. We can assign words to label them like sweet to sugary stuff, but we can't precisely explain them. How does your tongue feel when you sabor something salty? It's like trying to describe a color without naming things that have it
It’s like if an orange is named after the color or the color is named after the fruit.
we grow a lot of apricot and plum. i collect the kernels and mix them to my morning "birchelmüesli". 1-2 per day.
it contains cyanide,so I know the smell very well. the taste is very pleasant dilluted like that.
It's ok, he won't die. He's the main protagonist of the show.
Lev Kryvenko yeah
Ah, plot armor is TIGHT!
IS THAT AN ANIME REFERENCE..... BUT.... WHAT IF THIS WAS JOOJOOOOO
He will not die becaus he is the main caracter
What you're talking about is "plot armour". And it really depends on who the "author" is. Plenty of authors kill off main characters.
Nile: chemistry is dangerous and you need to be safe at all times
Also Nile: I think I should smell cyanide for today’s video
Agreed
XD
You seem to be confusing NileBlue with NileRed. They may look exactly the same but
“If you guys have any interesting suggestions, I’d love to hear them.”
Well, I have a few, but discussing them would be a Class A Felony.
Ironic name
I would love some for uhhh **Research purposes**
Felonies have Levels, not classes
Nilered: How i stole 30 kilos of neptunium
@@JC839 Depends on the state. Here in KS, it's classes.
i studied a bit of almond breeding in my degree and you can definitely tell the difference between bitter and sweet on appearance, colour, size, smell … and knowing the cultivar too
This whole video is just “This is really dangerous, but _theoretically speaking_ this shouldn’t kill me.”
That’s his whole channel
Well, between an idiot and a scientist the difference can be as slim as just some simple math.
@@Arelias95 a scientist is just a really determined idiot, according to my old chem teacher 😂
@@cecipasttenseseesaw Well, I guess that makes sense xD
Another Sciency channel dissolved some and drank it (after doing the research and measuring) got a fizzy feeling in his arm just to prove everything could be edible dosage is toxticity. If you are smart and don`t make mistakes it is not dangerous. Especially since he even downgraded from the "this might be dangerous" option to "this is less than half as dangerous".
I can just imagine the conversations like
"-Hey bro, want to smell some cyanide?
- Wtf bro, no!
- C'mon! Its for science!"
Anything for science
We do what we must, because, we can.
Call it coke
😂
"Some of the reviews were genuinely scary"
*"my skin cancer fell off"*
What about that person who certainly killed their dog?
@geo weo: Why? How is using an experimental treatment on a dog any worse than trying it on a mouse?
@@SteichenFamily not being licensed or permitted to experiment on living creatures to start with, having no way to contribute to the scientific community with said "experiments" so no one will benefit from you killing your house pet. There's a big difference dont be dense
@@Jonathan-gj1ie I know that their point was to help their dog, but yeah that’s still not really smart to do, I wouldn’t give that to my dog
@@SteichenFamily there's a big difference between a controlled test in a lab and just... poisoning your dog
This channel is such a great way to publish your research
Nile Red: So I always heard atomic bombs have really big explosions, but I always wondered if it really did. So I decided to test it.
Nile blue: why is the sun up? It's midnight-
Ask Cody about how that might go
Yeah I was thinking about catalytic converters, oh I thought you were talking about cyanide
"A few grams was way overpiced"
What i think hes gonna say:
"So i decided to make it myself using stuff i bought from the hardware store"
Ha... that's exactly what I was thinking too... imagine just having a kilo of NaCN lying around😳
I thought that too. Maybe he could extract it from apple seeds or even almonds next time.
@@neilgerace355 or even synthesis it himself. I assume you can... lol.. to Wiki!
"I didn't just have a bunch of cyanide just lying around..."
Me: That's...that's actually surprising.
as if some normal person would walk up to your door and ask for some cyanide.. yea sure i have some..how much you need?
well, he bought a kilo, so now he does. :D
😂😂😂😂😂😂 true I felt the same too but he it so felt that's ok
I'm pretty sure Nile has made some benzaldehyde in the past, which is the main chemical in almonds causing the bitter flavor.
FYI. Bitter almonds may yield 4-9 mg of hydrogen cyanide per almond piece, and that's where probably the notion of "smelling like almonds" comes from. By the way, dollar store almonds are not real almonds, they are make of dried poop for a dollar. lol
@@chezeus1672 Technically, he bought a kilogram. A kilo of cyanide would be one thousand cyanide molecules ;)
This is years later and pertains to your written update. The process of preparing Almonds for sale requires stripping material off usually using bleach to remove any variant of cyanide from the skin/shell. This means in the raw state on the farm they can have a faint off gassing that would be the more "chemical" smelling almond smell. If they ran into it in a smell test it would smell a lot more like almonds as a result.
Second notation on that: At strong amounts in the air the smell becomes stronger as well, so if your smelling almonds that don't seem "right" your probably in concentrations that are significantly greater risk than your wisely tested.
some dude smelling cyanide: "yup, this smells like almonds"
Nile, smelling bitter almonds: "honestly it just smells like cyanide"
To be fair by that point he literally was just smelling the cyanide coming off the almonds from it reacting with water, not the almonds themselves
@@sneersh9107 what if bitter almonds just smell like cyanide but we can’t tell because they are trapped inside due to almonds being solid
@@Syyth_ well the cyanide is trapped in the almonds, that's why he had to put them in water to get it out. But at that point all he was smelling was cyanide that came off the almonds and not the almonds themselves
lmaooo
"My skin cancer fell off" - average usefulness and or accuracy of amazon reviews lol.
Dang when I ate them all of my skin fell off and it looked like I crawled straight out of Trinoble
@@videoscanbegames3487 DID YOU REALLY JUST SAY TRINOBLE
@@UglyPotato34 LMFAOOOO
You don’t no about when three of the popes nobles skinned a bunch of people alive in name of god
Next up on ChubbyEmu:
"A man tried to smell cynide. This is what happened to his brain".
funny thing my next video is a video from chubbyemu
Underrated comment
Oh, man...!
lmao
@@cat7371
I know. I'm a biochemistry student lmao
The whole point is that the titles for ChubbyEmu can sound absurd.
People have turned that into a joke.
It's not supposed to be factual and that's the whole point.
I used to work with chemicals that smelled exactly like almonds, they smelled delicious 😅. I've also cut leaves of laurel trees and you get wafts of almonds from those too. Both were more almondy smelling than almonds and were more like almond syrup or some kind of intensified almond flavour
So what we found out is:
1. Cyanide doesn't smell like almonds
2. Almonds doesn't smell like almonds
;)
@Ugly boy Sorry. Next time, I would advise you not to read coments before watching a video. Especially if you decide that video is spoilable in a meaningful way.
Ugly boy You can read the fun part after the video
*don't
Wow lol, ur comment is nearly exactly the same as mine
u forgot
3. Cyanide smells like cyanide!
Alternative title:
Guy smelling almonds for 15 minutes straight.
and they smell like nothing!
Roasting them brings out the smell. I've been to serval renaissance festivals, you can smell roasted almonds from hundreds of feet away.
Next on NileRed: Does mustard gas actually smell like mustard?
Smells like garlic that is a bit rancid.
@@worddunlap
Thanks I was curious
This should be the top comment.
Probably smells like blood and burning skin, at least that is what you would be smelling.
@@worddunlap I think he should double check 😆
There are so, so many things wrong with this video but in the best ways possible. Lova ya nilered. Keep making absolutly perfect videos
it's quite scary how easily that kilo would turn into a chemical weapon
do not worry that much. we make a cookie out of bitter almonds in Turkey and I am still alive after all that cookies that I ate. İf you want to fear from a seed than apple seed is far more containing cyanide and yet you can eat a lot. there will be nothing happen to you
@@bakidilek i think they were talking about the kilo of sodium cyanide he bought lol
@@cranberryjuice960 it is very scary scienario
I doubt there is many lab houses that don't keep lists anymore. For some reason I bet you could find one in Canada.
@@tiktokshorts7356 Cody :)
"My skin cancer fell off" LMAOOO
wtf
I CANT BREATHE
Im guessing their left toe fell off too
@@Tactix_se Neither can the reviewer
@@frandurrieu6477 im fuckin dead
6:20 you grabbed the beaker, in rolls the ad, a glass of water is handed to a child that drinks it.
Absolutely not the best ad placement there.
Lmfao
That is the BEST ad placement, actually.
What ad? All I see is the 'product placement' at the end.
Have you tried using an ad blocker?
Sounds like the ONLY time I wish I wasn't using an ad blocker!
I'm prepared to make an edit of that
I've read from a view people that it would smell like marzipan, which now seems like this was what they would presume after watching this video
Nile:Wears a t shirt for adding a catalyst to dilute cyanide
Also nile: Wears protective gear for cutting a pack of almonds
For suggestions on what to do with the rest of the cyanide. Sodium cyanide is used heavily in the gold mining industry to extract gold from ore. I'm not sure if you'd have the necessary equipment to do something like that, but it might be worth looking into.
I can say that it smells exactly like almonds.
My experience:
So we have these type of millipede at our backyard, the species is called "Harpaphae Haydeniana", also called the "Almond Smelling Millipede"
This species has a unique defense mechanism, it releases Hydrogen Cyanide gas upon facing predators or after death. I accidentally stepped on one myself and I remember a very unpleasant smell while disposing of the crushed body of the centipede.
Then we had almond ice cream next week and as I was about to brush my teeth, I recognized the smell of the dead centipede, from the smell of Almond Ice cream.
Now I avoid killing the poor creatures, but now they live everywhere the garden.
Also: on some source it says that toasted almonds are supposed to be the one that actually have cyanide smell. Maybe that's why he couldn't smell the cyanide in the almonds?
The light side of Dio
@Bob Saget hydrogen cyanide is a gas, and the concentration it releases is very small, you'll see nothing. Although their blood is dark greenish. And they take a looooong time to refill their supply of hydrogen cyanide, some say they are only anle to use the chemical once in their lifetime.
We have it everywhere here (yellow spotted millipede) , the smell is weird though i havent associated it with almonds. I just refer to it as the crushed insect smell. Whenever i think of insects crushed that smell is what comes to mind
F
So this is what vampires do when they aren't planning heaven
You should make a video explaining the chemistry of extracting gold from ore with the use of sodium cyanide.
1:53 “It also wasn’t as poisonous as I thought”
Nigel what did you do.......
Non-consensual human trials, of course. He was disappointed by the fact that his subjects survived.
Wait so it is supposed to be poisonous?
@@virginialao5132 yes cyanide is known for being used to poison people, not now days but yea
@@kaschakanofski6988 "Not nowadays"? How would you know?
@@columbus8myhw i meant like its not as common as far as i know
Nile: Smells almond milk.
Nile: "This smells like almond milk!"
Nothing like almonds at all!
Me: reads the comment
My head: hmm yes the floor hear is made of floor
Don't ask about the name I was a kid when I made it
@@uian6827 you can change your name if you want.
@@uian6827 You joined April of this year. You're still a kid. xD
>eats almonds with a high cyanide content
>”have these been washed?”
His heart’s in the right place
in a fast pace*
@@jtrudeau1506 in a no pace*
@@madkirk7431 *in the earth, 6 feet under
@discord_pop_cat If almonds had cyanide they would probably have to say it just like how cigarette companies have to warn you about all the sh*t it has
@@hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-Mikel.Montalat they actually don't, since the cyanide is naturally occurring. The same way they don't label bananas as having potassium, or oranges having citric acid
I dont watch that often but love the content when I do. Your sense of humor, even in things expressed through the editing is great too👍🏼 btw from my understanding when they say almonds they usually mean more like amaretto if you know what thats like, a bit like cherries tbh and probably more like almonds of the raw variety. Way too late now but just fyi.
Ps why don’t you look into the veracity of the effect of amygdalin on cancer cells vs the effect of radiation and chemo, and what are their side effects?
Alternative title: How I found out that cyanide smells like cyanide.
Hat about: I recreated the nazi killing gas to see what it smells like...??!! (all caps)
My dude bought a kilo, just to use a granule. Respect.
it was more economically viable
Strange how his neighbors are all dead
@@xyzzyx7812 No, it wasn't. He needed 3 mg. He could have bought 5g for 48.30 CAD instead of 1kg for 142.00 CAD. This video would have been almost 100 CAD cheaper to make if he only bought 5g of it. Now instead of having 4.997g left over he has 999.997g left over.
@@gyroninjamodder By economically viable, he means the price per gram
@@gyroninjamodder It would be 10 CAD per gram versus 0.15 CAD per gram
"Don't smell the chemicals, dont eat in the lab"
hmmmm
You *waft* the chemicals
@@thejusmar yes, you must WAFT it
Aspartame was discovered when James Schlatter accidentally ate some bread with a bit of it on his hand still and it tasted sweet.
i would say eating in your own lab that you have built and always only you worked in it you could potentaily keep most things in a fumehood and thereby know whats on the benches. But in schools and other lab enviroments eating is kinda bad as ppl put stuff everywhere
@@simedinson984 You shouldn't eat in the lab under any circumstance. Mistakes can happen easily.
Here's a thought, I know this is from 3 years ago but I'm re-watching things here. It's just too fun! I had an idea for similar things as you asked at the end of this video.
I was thinking of edible but poisonous food. I don't know what you can do with this but here's some thoughts:
What are some edible foods that have deadly chemicals in them? In large enough amounts or raw, they can hurt you or kill you? Do they smell or do they react somehow? Can a person detect them? And if we're saying toxic, toxic how?
Cherry Pits: Like apple seeds, they contain amygdalin, which can release cyanide.
Elderberries: Raw berries and seeds contain cyanogenic glycosides; cooked elderberries are safe.
Cassava: Contains cyanogenic compounds in its raw form; it must be properly cooked to be safe.
Potatoes: Green parts and sprouts contain solanine, a toxic alkaloid.
Nutmeg: In large doses, it can cause hallucinations and other serious effects due to myristicin.
Thanks, I love your videos. Keep up the good work. You're very talented and creative.
“Hopefully I’m not dying of cyanide”
-A Professional Chemist
Highlights in the “Hopefully”
His tounge felt numb sooo
Buys kilogram of cyanide:
*Uses a single crystal*
Yeah what the hell, he didn’t ingest the entire kilogram.....such a waste😒😒
@@VG-or1nu That's cody's specialty
"Few circumstances where you want to mix these two chemicals"
Mixes them because he's bored of waiting.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
He said extremely dilute though.
HUEHEHuheheuhehue youtube money goes Brrrrr. ecology and proper waste disposal is boring huehehe
Sodium cyanide is used to bond chrome to nickel and copper. Don’t know if this helps you for a project but it is super common in old school electroplating
Breaking news, man poisons entire house with cyanide attempting to, "smell it to see if it smelled like almonds."
Breaking News: Man with no sense of smell poisons entire house with cyanide, after attempting to smell it "to see if it smelled like almonds"!
There, I fixed it for you!
IMPOTANT NOTE1: I have revised my opinion about what it smells like. In the video, I said it was like an indoor pool and I correlated it to the chlorine. However, I think it's more accurate to say the pool locker room or shower. It is musty/moldy, with a background of pool smell.
IMPORTANT NOTE2: After posting this video, I got a few messages from people saying that in their experience, cyanide DOES smell like almonds. So, I spent an hour tonight doing some tests, and I think the results are interesting. I did some direct comparisons and the smell of cyanide is distinctly different from the smell of almonds. However, if I EAT the almonds, there is sometimes a faint taste of cyanide. I think this is because sweet almonds still have a very small amount of amygdalin in them, which can release HCN. I don't think it's enough to smell in open air, but in your mouth it can be concentrated enough to be detected at the back of the nose. It's subtle, but it is definitely part of the flavor profile. So, while I still don't think it's accurate to say that it smells like almonds, for some people, it might be similar to the taste. To make that connection though, the person needs to a) be able to smell HCN and b) be particularly aware of that part of the flavor.
I can smell the HCN, but I never noticed it in the flavor of almonds, so I didn't make the connection. I was even looking for a similarity and eating almonds at the same time, but never noticed it. It was only when I became very familiar with the smell of HCN that I started noticing it in almonds. What's interesting too, is that now after noticing it, I feel like I've started to associate the smell with almonds. It's no longer just a "chemical" smell and it feels more almondy. However, on the flip side, I feel like almonds taste worse and are more "chemically."
But either way, I still don't think that saying it smells like almonds or bitter almonds is accurate or helpful. However, based on the messages I've received, some people are naturally associating cyanide with almonds (sometimes without knowing that this was even a thing and not even knowing they were smelling cyanide). This has piqued my interest and I think it could be fun to get to the bottom of this and to do a trial with a lot more people.
@@connieprude3386 what
@@tavswirl5002 it was the top pinned comment that nileRed said. connie copied the entire comment (somehow) and said it as a reply.
@@thunderbuttocks28 I know I just need to know why
Nile: *smells almonds*
Nile: "It smells like nothing."
Me: *Does cyanide affect your sense of smell?*
I always wondered about that lol I was exposed once to a not unsubstantial amount and I swear it started to get a smell
I mean Hydrogen sulfide actually does damage your sense of smell by toxicity, so cyanide might do the same
cyanide is supposed to TASTE like almonds.
of course, thats quite hard to prove
@@LL-tr5et Hey guys, this cyanide tastes like al
“How NileRed assassinated the Ukrainian president, dissolved and disposed of his body and turned it into edible gummies”
ASTANAVITES
nilered scary
7:54 - 8:10 with only sound and no context
I don't get it, and I'm ukrainian.. are you talking about the poisoning of Yuschenko? What's that got to do with crushed almonds
@@anonymousbloke1 I’m Ukrainian and I don’t get the reference either. Yuschenko was poisoned with dioxin. Шо він меле?
I'm wishing on being a chemical engineer with some backup knowledge from you. Thanks for being such a teacher!
"It doesn't smell like anything" "It doesn't taste like anything"
*suspiciously looks at coronavirus symptoms list*
this is a copied comment from Luke Andris
And... Busted!!!
@¡ᒷᔑꖌ𒈙𒐫꧍𒈙𒐫¡ᒷᔑꖌ𒈙꧄𒈙I𒈙𒈙ꧥ𒈙L𒈙ᔑ𒈙𒈙ꦼ come on, we're going find who asked.
Beat me to the comment, aha
@¡ᒷᔑꖌ𒈙𒐫꧍𒈙𒐫¡ᒷᔑꖌ𒈙꧄𒈙I𒈙𒈙ꧥ𒈙L𒈙ᔑ𒈙𒈙ꦼ did i fucking ask for a copied comment?
I would imagine that the majority of your friends are very cautious when they hear the phrase, “Hey, can you come over to the lab and sniff this random container with a beaker and a meter in it on camera for me?” . I would think that the number of “volunteers” drops dramatically as the number of tests rise.
"Don't worry, it is just cyanide..."
at that point most volunteers would be other chemists
since all of us tend to be just as... yeah, not sure what to call that
... a *screaming and blinking meter* in it ...
I've always thought that people who say cyanide smells like almonds meant it smells like almond extract, used in baking, not the dried or roasted nuts themselves. Furthermore, I suspect that the cyanide they were smelling had been obtained from almonds, rather than cyanide that had been chemically synthesized. When extracted from bitter almonds, the cyanide would be contaminated by benzaldehyde, a byproduct of the breakdown of amygdalin. What they're really smelling is the benzaldehyde, which is the source of the smell in almond extract, maraschino cherries, and the liqueur Amaretto. The sodium cyanide you used had probably been synthesized, and was free of benzaldehyde.
I wonder how much amygdalin is still present in the dried, packaged nuts. If you want to pursue this line of inquiry further, try cracking open a peach pit, and smashing up the fresh, moist nut inside. I've gotten a benzaldehyde smell from that.
I get your premise. But even after he formed the hydrogen cyanide from the bitter almond itself he and two other people said it still smelled like chlorine. Not much mention of the benzaldehyde smell. He did mention it but it was very faint. Last I smelled the liqueur, maraschino cherries, and almond extract; they didn't smell like a pool🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️. I mean come on, if my food smells like a swimming pool I wouldn't eat it. So I agree with his premise that this statement is just misleading; or that perhaps when it was found out that bitter almonds contain hydrogen cyanide, maybe that chlorine type smell was what they were speaking of and nothing else as the cyanide that he produced from the sodium cyanide smelled exactly the same.🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️ where terms and sayings come from and why is typically lost with time. Kind of like the aluminum aluminium argument. The difference is that one actually does have an answer as to where it came from for both terms and the correct means of saying it is Aluminum without the extra I as it was the original spelling of the word by the person who discovered it well I can't really say discovered because there are relics dating back thousands of years with aluminum, however the guy that actually dubbed it should I say; and it was LATER written as aluminium with the extra I by different people within the scientific community because his colleagues later felt that it would fit in better with the other elements that typically end in ium. But the original spelling by its Discoverer was without the extra I. So as far as I'm concerned it's aluminum because that is what it's discover called it. That would be like me naming my child Joseph with a ph and someone later telling me no I want his name to be Josef with an F🤷♂️ It's my child I get to name him. So as for the cyanide almond debate; who knows where it actually came from, but I'm pretty sure it was the chlorine like smell with that very faint hint of the benzaldehyde that they were speaking of not necessarily the benzaldehyde itself but the chlorine like smell as it is that smell that stands out the most.
@@jerichojoe307 the reason why pools smell is because of the disgusting people who pee and sweat which reacts with the chlorine. A clean new pool has no smell.
This comment made the latest Kingsman’s eating tart scene dull and that Rasputin was not real at all! LOL! 🤭
Ah that explains why almond extract is used in cherry pie recipes. I bake quite a bit and have been wondering why you use it in cherry pie but have been too lazy to look it up lmao.
@@mignonkaufman1258 Yes, almonds and cherries are closely related! You can’t taste the flavor much with typical sweet almonds. However, bitter almonds are actually what is typically used to make almond extract, and since cherries and bitter almonds both contain a good amount of benzaldehyde, they end up tasting quite similar. You can notice more of a similarity if you compare maraschino cherries to almond extract, rather than fresh cherries to sweet almonds.
I am the 50% of people who cannot REALLY detect dangerous amounts of cyanide. I've been an amateur chemist since I was 15-16, and I set up a porch lab at my dad's house that still exists 6yr later! One day, I couldn't even tell you WHAT I was doing---I think it was some sort of extraction of some plants I'd found and I wanted the dye that I found to change colour drastically by pH... anyway I didn't smell anything, but thankfully I knew full well what that locked jaw, sweaty-shaky/trembling, stomach turning over feeling meant... My vision even started to zoom in and all I did was stumble backwards into some fresh air and cough profusely till I could open my mouth again. Was it cyanide? Who knows... but it matched all the qualities and all I had to do was ventilate whatever it was... I also rediscovered chloropicrin trying to do modifications to picric acid like the biggest dumbass of all time, and that exposure was the closest to choking out in a pool of my blood for sure... I've also made 100s maybe close to a thousand litres of chlorine gas because I was fucking obsessed with all the things I could make it do... I also always wanted to scale things up, but thankfully I have my sense of smell... mostly, and I have perfect vision, and I always build extensive traps and work in filtered ventilation (working on building a new hardware store fume hood rn. Be careful out there guys. Never stop searching for knowledge, but for gods sake don't be as foolish as me. I'm lucky to be alive and not have inadvertently poisoned all my neighbor's wells. Chemistry is all about taking responsibility for the consequences of your projects.
Next video: “I heard nuclear waste smells like candy”
@@frank8627-v8k Well yea because uranium decays into lead :/
Guess what? There was a new type of sugar found, and it's name is nucleowastose. It is going to be distributed in many candies for a "glowing effect" and it is totally safe, ignoring the fact that it is highly radioactive, emits charged particles, and can kill people, of course.
Dude this comment is Disaster.... 😂😂😂😂
@@sujathasubramanian7853 so you're saying
I can turn into a real life glowstick?
Next video: "I heard cyanide tasted like almonds. (Taste test)
Question: Does cyanide smell like almonds?
Answer: Almonds smell like cyanide.
I love how this completely reveals the end of the video but doesn't spoil it!
why is it that the good comments never get upvoted lol
Depends on which you smell first
Confused screaming
That's actually a more accurate way to put it. :D
Nile: "I want to smell cyanide."
Raycon: "I'll help you buy some."
😆😆😆😆
LOL *no*
@@ruthsalgado6775 no
I'm so mad.. I thought the same damn thing.
oh god
i think the main thing to note here is that cyanide doesn't smell like the kind of almonds most people are familiar with, but a specific type of bitter almond which few people would know since you kinda need to go out of your way to get your hands on some, and people who do rarely eat them as is, they're mostly used for baking.
for example in germany only pharmacies are allowed to sell bitter almonds and you are only allowed to buy a limited amount at a time.