January 24, 2026 • 40 mins
So what exactly IS cotton candy and how does this curious confectionary concoction tie into other culinary traditions, including China’s Dragon’s beard candy? Find out in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. (part 2 of 2) (originally published 2/4/2025)
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb. Today is Saturday, so we have
a vault for you. This is going to be the
Invention of Cotton Candy, Part two. We just re aired
part one, so here we go Part two of two.
It originally published two four, twenty twenty five. Let's have it.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick.
And we're back with part two of our discussion of
cotton candy. In part one, we talked about the chemistry
of candy making, how sugar syrup heated and reduced to
a precise, precise consistency gets turned into everything from saltwater
taffy to lollipops to sponge sugar. We talked about the
(00:59):
properties of still in sugar versus sugar glass, and we
described the standard process for making cotton candy in a
dedicated machine. And we also got into some historical predecessors
of cotton candy, like spunge sugar and especially the Chinese
culinary invention known as Dragon's beard candy and we're back
(01:19):
today to talk about more Rob. Did you end up
eating any cotton candy between our two parts.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Here, you know, I did not. I was like, it,
surely we can make it out to the place where
I know there's a Japanese cotton candy machine, because these
are quite quite impressive. Japanese cotton candy is known as
watame and there are these nice automated machines that make
it no humans involved in the process at all, comes
(01:46):
out like super colorful. I don't know about the taste.
I'm assuming the taste is still very much cotton candy
but sugar. Yeah, But I know where one is in Atlanta,
and I was like, we can go out and try
it out. But our week ND ended up just being
super busy, so we did not make it out to
try cotton candy. But as is always the case, we
(02:09):
ask any listeners out there, if you have experience with
cotton candy, Japanese or otherwise, right in and give us
your feedback on the sugary trade.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Now, we promised in today's episode we would go into
a little more depth on the invention of the cotton
candy machine, and I figured maybe that's the place we
should start today or you gained for that.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Rob Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Let's spin it up. Okay, okay. Now, in the previous episode,
we talked a bit about how cotton candy is made
with a dedicated machine in a manner that is somewhat
similar to the industrial method of producing fiberglass. So your
standard cotton candy machine consists of a large, deep metal
dish with tall sides. Think halfway between like a dog's
(02:53):
water bowl and a kiddie pool, kind of a large,
you know, wash basin sized. This large outer dish will
remain stationary, but in the middle of that large outer
dish and there is a small secondary dish which spins
rapidly and contains a heating element. This inner dish is
known as the spinner. And to make the candy, you
(03:16):
take a sugar mixture. This is something you usually just
buy fully prepared. Maybe some people make artisanal cotton candy
sugar mixtures, but usually you just like buy a box
of this powdered stuff. And so it's like sugar with
some coloring and flavoring included, and you pour that into
the spinner. Inside the spinner, the sugar gets melted by
the heating element and then once melted sugar glass leaks
(03:41):
out of extremely tiny holes in the walls of the
spinner because it's being driven outward by centrifugal force. I
think sometimes also there's a fourst air component that's kind
of blowing it out of these little holes. And as
the melted sugar flies out into the colder air outside
the spinner, it rapidly cools and solidifies into tiny hair
(04:02):
like strands of sugar glass. And these are they collect
in the outer dish. And then you can watch the
operator kind of you know, take a stick or a
cone and wave it around, almost like they're dusting for cobwebs.
They're just collecting all of the strands onto the eating utensil,
and then they hand it to you.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I wonder if it's ever marketed as such, you know,
if you want to like really goth up your cotton
candy install of cobwebs. Yeah, candy cobwebs and so forth.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, I don't know, we'll have to look that up afterwards.
But as we've said, so, when you get cotton candy,
it's almost always made with a specialized machine. It's not
really something as far as I could find that you
can easily do with just you know, repurposed home equipment.
You kind of need a cotton candy machine to make
cotton candy. So where did these machines come from? Well,
(04:50):
that question takes us back to the Saint Louis World's
Fair of nineteen oh four. This was the first big
public debut of what inventor William J. Morrison and John C. Wharton,
both of Nashville, Tennessee, called the electric Candy Machine, a
machine for making a novelty confection that they called fairy floss,
(05:12):
which at the nineteen oh four World's Fair was sold
in boxes for twenty five cents of serving. And as
pointed out in a blog post by Morgan Byrne for
the Tennessee State Museum, a ticket for the nineteen oh
four World's Fair was fifty cents, and so a box
of cotton candy's twenty five cents. This is this is
a candy treat that cost half as much again as
(05:35):
the full admission price.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
All right, all right, So depending on where you're going,
like you could compare this with like paying like five
to ten bucks for it these days.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know what canton candy usually costs.
On one hand, I think it's amazingly cheaped, Bruce.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
It's just like you know, yeah, twenty five cents feels good.
It feels reasonable by today's standards. Yeah, like that's probably
the material cost. Oh, I'm sure it's costing three to
four bucks, right.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, probably was fair prices, so that everything's jacked up
to is so maybe it's ten box, who knows.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, it's a meltdown on a stick though for a
kid like you know what you're getting into.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, But anyway, so over the six months the fair
was open, they sold almost seventy thousand boxes of this stuff.
And just a few funny notes about the nineteen oh
four World's Fair. We've talked about the weird culture of
triumphalist futurism at these near turn of the century World's
Fair events. One that we talked about extensively on the
(06:32):
show in the past was the famous World's Columbian Exposition
in Chicago in eighteen ninety three. We did a live
show in Chicago one time where we talked about various
aspects of that event. But you can see a lot
of that same spirit in the nineteen oh four fair.
In Saint Louis as well with its naming conventions. So
the fairy Floss machine was an exhibit at what was
(06:52):
called the Palace of Electricity. Now, while nineteen oh four
was the big the year that the cotton Candy machine
made a big public impression, the two inventors had actually
created the machine many years before the fair way back
in eighteen ninety seven. I found some more detail about
the history here in an entry for the cotton Candy
(07:15):
machine within a reference book called Technical Innovation in American
History and Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, edited by Roseanne
Welch and peg Lamfeir. The cotton Candy entry is by
a scholar named Stepka Zanova, and according to Zenova here,
the better known of the two inventors was William Morrison,
(07:36):
who lived eighteen sixty to nineteen twenty six. And just
from the little bit of detail we get here about
his life, I'm picking up on something. He sounds to
me like one of those real late nineteenth century Renaissance eccentrics.
So he was a dentist and a children's book author,
and a prolific inventor, having drafted a novel process for
(07:59):
extra acting cottonseed oil among other patents. But then Senova
also mentions that he received credit for creating his hometown's
first water purification plant, and he was also active in
Tennessee based professional associations for dentists. So I don't know
if this is right or not, but I'm kind of
getting a picture of like the town wizard that sounds
(08:21):
like his partner in the creation of the fairy floss
machine was a Nashville based confectioner a candy maker named
John Wharton, and together they filed for a patent on
December twenty third, eighteen ninety seven. Their machine worked basically
the same way the machines do today. There's not a
whole lot of difference that you know, modern machines are
(08:42):
pretty close to what they originally came up with. You
you have a central spinner with a heating element inside
walls perforated by tiny holes to let the threads of
melted sugar glass stream out. They freeze in the cooler
air of the surrounding dish. However, one thing that Senova
notes is that while Wharton and Morrison are usually credited
as inventors of the electric cotton candy machine, their original
(09:06):
design in the eighteen ninety seven patent was not exclusively
to be used with electric power, and instead included a
mechanism to operate on foot power. So I think that
means there was like a foot operated pedal or pump,
though they specified that a different power source could be
applied without changing the core mechanics of the device. So
(09:26):
when this machine made it to the Palace of Electricity
at the nineteen oh four World's Fair, it was a
huge hit. It won the fairs Novelty of Invention prize
and to make the final sale numbers I've read they
must have sold something like three hundred and seventy five
boxes of cotton candy a day, though it wasn't called
cotton candy yet it was still fairy floss. Actually, the
(09:49):
name cotton candy came from another dentist in cotton candy business.
This was a guy named Joseph Lascaux who was based
in Louisiana, who t He tried to introduce improvements on
Morrison and Wharton's design, though apparently his modifications did not
catch on. Tzanova's entry here casts doubt on whether his
(10:10):
improvements were actually improvements or not, but he kind of
tried to say, no, here's the way you should do
these machines. His machine didn't stick, but the name did so.
In the US now basically everybody calls it cotton candy,
though in some other places in the world fairy floss
or candy floss is still the more popular name. Now, Rob,
(10:31):
I'm attaching here an advertisement for a version of Wharton
and Morrison's machine that appeared in the program for the
nineteen oh seven Tennessee State Fair. You can examine, but
I wanted to include because this has a lot of
good text on it. So at this point they're calling
the device the Wonderful Electric Candy Machine. It's being sold
(10:53):
by the Electric Candy Machine Company of Nashville, and it
explains the virtues of their product as followed quote. The
candy made by this machine is absolutely pure. Granulated sugar
is poured into the spinner and is instantly changed into
flossy filaments of pure candy without the touch of a
(11:15):
contaminating finger.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
What I'm kind of wondering if this is going back
to what we talked about in part one that old
confectioners used to test the temperature and consistency of their
boiling sugar syrup by feel which once again please let
us empthesize, do not try this at home. You can
get horribly, horribly burned.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Yeah, I mean also just the I guess, the novelty
of it. Like here, candy is spun out of out
of thin air. You know, it's not made by human
fingers and hands, it's not shaped by a druggist's hands
or anything. Nope, it's just you just stick the cone
or the stick in there and you just spin it up.
And of course, like I was saying, modern cotton candy
(11:58):
machines have taken this to an even they have gone
a step beyond, like it's just completely automated. No one's
even sticking a stick in there.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Maybe that is it. There just seemed something old fashioned
and unsanitary about a human having to be involved in
the making of your candy. And you know, it's just
like the machine does it all, except it doesn't. You've
got it. You still somebody had to pump the pedal
on this thing, I guess, or I don't know, maybe
that by this time, in nineteen oh four or nineteen
oh seven it was the fully electric model. I'm not
(12:27):
sure which way this is.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I mean, the poster is advertising to me the wonderful
electric candy machine. So yeah, and electric candy electric candy machine.
Which part is the electric part? I mean, it seems
like the candy itself is kind of electric.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Why not the electric candy machine? Ascid test. Yeah. The
advertisement also tells us these machines are expressly made expressly
for here's the list. Druggists, fruit stands, confectioners, and hotels.
Hotel my god, but think of the cleaning staff. They're
selling cotton candy at hotels. Also, I love fruit stands
(13:07):
because cotton candy is my favorite fruit. Also, they make
a special appeal coming back to the Druggists. I think
they say, make the soda fountain space pay in winter.
Oh okay, So that's an interesting pitch. They're probably saying, like,
you're gonna sell a lot of cold soda in the summer,
but you know nobody wants to come in for a
soda in the winter. So what do you do instead
(13:28):
that space? You have a cotton candy machine.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, which is I guess it comes out hot. I
don't think it stays hot long, but yeah, at least
it's not cold.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Also, this ad is full of ludicrously aggressive small texts.
Can I read you the intellectual property section? It says
our machines are fully protected by our patents. A number
of pirates have infringed on our patents. We prosecuted the
first who attempted it. The United States Court at Saint
(13:57):
Louis has just rendered judgments staining our patents and perpetually
enjoining infringements. We own the exclusive right to the only
method of making floss or spun candy, and will prosecute
every maker and user of infringing machines. Man's coming on hard.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, they like the villains in a Willy Wonkom movie here.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Yeah, a number of pirates have tried. But anyway, So,
after going into more depth about how cotton candy is made,
you know, what its characteristics are, and the history of it,
I thought maybe we should come back to a question
I asked at the beginning of part one, and that
question is why is cotton candy particularly associated with fairs
(14:44):
and carnivals in a way that other candies and treats
are not. I mean, you know some other treats are
I guess you think funnel cakes. That's especially fairs and
carnivals within the United States at least, But why cotton
candy and more so than most other candies. I now
have a of thoughts on that. First of all, we
just have this history that cotton candy began its life
(15:07):
as a fair grounds attraction, winning fame and publicity as such.
You know, most people in their very first encounter with
cotton candy was probably learning about it at this World's
Fair exhibit, or it's some subsequent fair or public event.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
And this seems to have played a role in then
allowing it to spread out around the world.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Yeah. Another thing is what we talked about last time.
Cotton candy is very delicate and sensitive to heat, moisture,
even just to humidity in the air. Remember the sugar
here is hygroscopic, so it will attract moisture, will pull
humidity out of the very atmosphere around it. So if
it is not sealed inside a tight moisture barrier, within
(15:49):
just a few hours, cotton candy will lose its fluffiness
and shrivel down and transform into a sticky, disgusting blob.
Remember those slow death of cotton candy time laps videos
we talked about in the last episode. Now you can
make it last longer if you seal it up tight
inside plastic, but at that point your packaging costs are
(16:10):
going to increase. And I would also imagine that cotton
candy is not super efficient to ship in its spun
form because of its volume relative to its weight. You know,
I imagine that would be kind of like shipping trucks
full of pre inflated balloons.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah. Yeah. Like, just as a quick example from today's
candy market, there's all sorts of stuff that is labeled
cotton candy that you can buy prepackaged and have shipped
to your house. But I mean, it's clear that it
is not at all the same as fresh spun cotton candy.
It you could almost classify it as a different sort
of candy, I think.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, yeah. And also, I mean, not to judge people's products,
but even though you can buy this cotton candy in
sealed tubs, however similar or dissimilar it is from the
cotton candy you get at the fair, it just seems
that generally this pre made stuff is not a very
appealing and probably not a super cost effective product. So
(17:13):
ideally cotton candy should be made right when and where
you're going to eat it. You know, you need to
get it fresh. Where is ideal for that.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Well, you need a lot of turnover exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, So you can't really make cotton candy with regular
kitchen equipment. You need a special machine. And most people
do not want to eat cotton candy or don't want
their kids to eat cotton candy often enough that they're
going to buy a machine for the home. So, you know,
we mainly like it for the novelty, the visual and
textual novelty, not because it's delicious. So it's a you know,
(17:48):
it's a it's a lark, it's a once every now
and then weird, interesting little experience. So you need to
sort of have a system where people go where the
machine is. So where does it make sense to have
the machine. It's probably where you have a lot of turnover,
where people can do a lot of business, ideally in
a space that the operator of the machine, you know,
(18:08):
will not have to clean up sticky messes left by
the customers later on. So an outdoor fair is kind
of perfect. The customer takes the mess with them and
it's outdoors anyway. So that's where I'm at the more
I think about it, the more it absolutely makes sense
that cotton candy is carnival food. It's fair food. It
comes from that world, and for a number of practical reasons,
(18:29):
it probably will stay in that world.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah. Yeah, Like you can think of other fair and
carnival foods, and a number of those kind of transcend
the limitations, you know, like the corn dog. Yeah, corn
Dog's totally a fair and carnival type of food. But yeah,
you can buy it frozen, you can you can make
it at home. It's you know, all those things are possible,
and it's just as good, if not better, in those situations.
(18:55):
But cotton candy, again, the technology limits you and it
and also it's just not the kind of thing you'd
want to eat on even a semi regular basis. Or
you might want to if you're a child, but as
an adult, like you said, you don't want your children
having ready access to this. Meltdown on a stick.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Contradict us folks, Let us know, do you have a
cotton candy machine in your house? I don't want to
hear about that.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, I mean, and maybe you do if you also
go out to the fair and sell it, right, I mean, otherwise,
it just seems like a lot of machinery to have
just sitting around. I mean, maybe there's some sort of
a smaller apparatus for it. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
I don't know. Maybe if you've got a fancy home
theater arcade set up something like that, but it's like
people who have a fancy home theater and they've got
like one of those popcorn carts in it.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
I think it comes down to kitchen space. Because I'm
just looking around now doing a little shopping for cotton
candy machines. I'm sure this is going to screw up
all sorts of targeted advertisements for me, but it looks
like you can you can get one that's on a cart.
I'm assuming this is maybe like low end of the
professional spectrum, but you know, you can get like a
(20:07):
cart bas cotton candy machine for something like three hundred bucks.
And they do have models that are more from like
the seventy dollars to one hundred and thirty dollars range
that look like you could have room for it in
your kitchen. I don't have room for it in my kitchen,
but you might well have a kitchen with enough space
where it makes sense to fire this thing up every
now and again. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Okay, I'm looking for the bottom shelf stuff. You can
get a cotton candy maker at Walmart for thirty bucks.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
See yeah, okay, well you know it's possible. Oh boy. Yeah,
I mean it's like you can get you can get
waffle makers for really cheap, but they are exciting to
use in a way that you just might not want
that level of excitement too many mornings out of your week.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
This strikes me as something that again, maybe I'm totally wrong,
but my guess is that the majority of people who
buy cotton you know, like Domess cotton candy machines for
the home, are buying it essentially to use one time
at a party they're throwing.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, I mean that would make sense. You're doing you're
doing a kid's birthday party. You're like, well, for thirty bucks,
we can do this. So yeah, I understand that maybe
there's a case to be made where there's some sort
of special treat you're making where you're going to utilize
that cotton candy on top. I don't know, like some
sort of a trolls head muffin or something. I don't know.
But beyond that, you know, cotton candy is just one
(21:28):
of those things. It just doesn't seem like they're that
many applications, right, It's just this sugary treat. It doesn't
really have any beneficial qualities beyond sugaring up kids, and
you know, the novelty of the spectacle of watching it made.
But you know, I was, I was a little surprised
(21:48):
by this. There do seem to be some applications. I mean,
you would be forgiven if you assume that no health
benefit or medical application existed or was possible for these
miracle those clouds of pure sugar. But there's actually been
some pretty interesting research into a cotton candy based artificial
organ technology that, fittingly, like the twentieth century cotton candy
(22:13):
machine itself, has at least partial Tennessee roots.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Oh nice.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah. A lot of the research that I'm about to
talk about here is taking place in Nashville. It is
at Vanderbilt Universe. So you might have caught some science
headlines about this over the years, because the headlines and
the leads basically write themselves. You know, some sort of
cotton candy based organ transplant. It raises strange images in
(22:44):
the mind of human organs replaced with candy. It makes
me think of the old mister Bones candy from the nineties.
This was, like I distinctly remember, like a little plastic
casket that said mister Bones, and inside they were interlocking
candy bones and sometimes a heart, you know, shaped like
a heart emoji. And you would assemble these and then
(23:04):
you would look at it, and then you would eat it,
and then you could keep the little plastic casket and
you know, sometimes you could fit a little toy in there.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
I am paralyzed now by unexpected nostalgia.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Rob.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
You have brought my brain to a halt with this.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah. I think I only ever got to get this
like once. This is another one of those like how
often are you gonna have mister Bones candy. The candy
itself was not good. It was like, you know, Pez
Dispenser candy, which is another example. It's like nobody loves Pez.
It's the mechanism. It's a spectacle.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Look at this little plastic coffin. Though I want this
right now, I am.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Oh. Oh, my feelings they may have. It's just one
of those things that may have come back to varying degrees.
I don't know with the whole you know, ups and
downs of nostalgia based marketing. But anyway, now, this is
not about making organs or tissues directly out of candy,
as grotesquely amazing as that may sound. But it's also
(24:00):
a lot closer to the idea than you might assume,
because you know, obviously headlines are going to be quick
to capitalize on the candy connection. But it does have
a pretty strong candy connection. Okay, So the research in
question here was at least initially the work of doctor
Jason Spector, a reconstructive surgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital,
(24:22):
and Leon Bellin, a graduate student at Cornell at the
time of the idea's creation and now an associate professor
of biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. And so
there have been multiple reports on this research over the years,
and some of them have been reported on in the
mainstream media. Is reported on NPRS All Things Considered. Back
(24:46):
in two thousand and nine. Bellin got the idea for
the approach based on previous work with nanofibers and observations
about cotton candy. As it turns out, the fine sponge
sugar in cotton candy. With discussed about how it's hair like,
it's very thin. Well, the nanofibers here are about the
same thickness as various blood vessels in human tissue, so
(25:09):
about one tenth the diameter of a human hair.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Okay, so this would not be talking about like your
thicker main veins and arteries, but sort of the little
blood vessels that branch out from them to feed all
the tissues in the body.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah, we're talking about capillaries, like tiny capillary blood vessels
that with their thin walls deliver oxygen and nutrients to
cells and carry away waste and the threads. According to
Bellin and a Vanderbilt University Medical Center release from twenty sixteen, Yeah,
they have the size, the density, and the complexity that
matches up with capillary blood vessels. So the creation of
(25:48):
artificial capillary systems like this would be absolutely necessary for
the creation of living artificial organs. Specifically, we're talking about
hydrogel based scaffoldings upon which the organ is grown. But
to put it roughly, you can build a mansion, you
can build an enormous home, but you've got to have
bathrooms in it. And for those bathrooms to mean anything,
(26:09):
you've got to leave room for the plumbing. And so
the plumbing inside of a working human organ that's complex.
And so what we're talking about here is a way
to grow like not just the and I'm putting it
like crudely and roughly here, not just the meat of
the organ, and not just to say here's a lump
(26:30):
and this lump is liver, this lump is kidney, but
to say this lump of kidney also has all the
plumbing necessary for the organ to live and have the
necessary blood supply that it needs. Okay, so over the
years they've devised and apparently as of twenty sixteen, demonstrated
the use of a cotton candy based technique to create
(26:53):
quote micro fluidic networks that mimic the three dimensional capillary
system in the human body in all friendly fashion, according
to the the UMC release that I referenced earlier.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Okay, well, I'm seeing the visual analogy between the sugar
glass strands made made by a cotton candy machine and
the tiny capillaries that infuse an organ. But like, how
do you actually make how do you make this? How
do you make the capillaries with a cotton candy like process.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
All right, so, as of twenty sixteen, the method didn't
involve sugar spun into this delicate network, but spinning it
out of something called The abbreviation is p n I
PAM penny PAM I'm going to go with, and this
stands for poly in isopropyla krylamide, a cell friendly polymer
(27:51):
frequently used for biomedical applications, though it also has other
sort of like nano applications. I've seen studies that are
talking about using it for very small triggers and so
forth in nano constructions and so forth. But the key
to it is that it is insoluble at temperatures above
(28:13):
thirty two degrees celsius or eighty nine point six degrees
fahrenheit and soluble below that temperature. The machine, however, is
described as essentially being a cotton candy machine in its
core functions, so it's still spun out and created via
the same process. And the interesting thing is, if you
look at older writings about this research, prior experiment such
(28:38):
as the one profile by NPR back in what two
thousand and nine actually involved sugar based cotton candy that
then had a liquid polymer poured over it and then
the sugar was washed out.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Oh okay, so you'd make cotton candy and then you'd
use that as a mold and then you would melt
the sugar away.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yes, so these really thin threads, again, thinner than a
human hair standing in for the capillaries. You gel something
around that and then you just melt out all the sugar.
But then those tiny little tunnels will remain and those
can serve essentially as the capillary blood vessels for the
organ that you would grow there.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah, and apparently they managed to make that old method
work to some extent and not just dissolve the candy
capillaries before you could make use of them. But this
pinipam method, this makes it more viable because this stuff
is not going to disintegrate when a hydrogel is poured
directly around it. So they describe this hydrogel as a
(29:41):
gelatine with human cells in it, so like, and this
is their description to jell o with bits of fruit,
except the fruit is human cells and this is poured
around this capillary matrix that you've made this cotton candy essentially,
and it's gelled in an incubator at thirty seven degrees
cell and then when it's brought out, it's allowed to cool.
(30:03):
And when it's allowed to cool that pin and Pam
floss in there, well it dissolves, leaving behind that intricate
network of microscale channels that could serve as artificial capillaries.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, and so Bellin's work and the work of his
colleagues this continues. And I'm to assume this technology, or
something that has evolved out of it, remains part of
their work. They might be getting away from the cotton
candy comparisons, at least in the peer reviewed papers. But
I was looking at a Vanderbilt A affiliated twenty twenty
(30:40):
four paper in Biofabrication, the journal Biofabrication, on which Belin
was a co author, and it speaks of quote, solvent
spinning to process the thermo responsive polymer solaplus into a
sacrificial microfiber mesh, which is then employed to pattern a
high gel matrix.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Okay, sounds like a similar principle.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
It sounds like, yeah, the similar principle, if not the
same thing. So it seems like this isn't it. This
doesn't seem to be a case where we've abandoned the
what at least began as cotton cut candy based artificial capillaries.
It seems like this, this technological journey is still ongoing.
But it is. It's pretty exciting. I think we've we've
(31:26):
talked about the idea of artificial organs on the show before,
and the idea of growing these out over some sort
of scaffolding. But yeah, it's like you can again, you
can build a big old house, but you've got to
have working plumbing, You've got to have the wiring, and
this is about making sure the wiring is in place.
And as crazy as it may seem, cotton candy may
(31:49):
have been the inspiration that will help make that possible
down the road.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Truly could not have known we would end up here. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, Like I said, biomedical applications for cotton candy. I
did not expect it to be a thing, but it is.
So that's that's inner space with cotton candy. But we
also can go into outer space.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Take me there, Rob, I don't even know where you're
going with this.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Well, we have cotton candy planets, or we have we
have exoplanets that are sometimes described as cotton candy planets,
more formally known as super puffs, which also sounds a
bit silly. Puffy Jupiter's also pretty silly cool. And then
you'll find headlines that go as far as to call
them clown planets.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Surely the origin of the of the much discussed Killer
Clowns exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I mean, we don't know what their home world looks like.
We have not. We haven't gotten to see it in
any of the Killer Clowns media to my knowledge, so
this may be where they come from. Okay, so obviously
the idea of clown planets, cotton candy planets, or what
have you, this brings to mind a lot of images.
(33:08):
But what are we actually talking about here when we
get past the headlines here. Well, essentially, these are lower
mass gas giant sized exoplanets. Sometimes you'll see them described
as cotton candy planets. They're colder and less massive than
hot Jupiter's. Possible explanations include atmospheric dust making them appear
(33:29):
larger than they really are. They are also possible explanations
that involve ring systems that serve to make them register
as larger than they actually are in either case, making
an Earth mass world registering as large as Neptune or bigger.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Oh interesting. So basically just the idea is lower density
planets than we would normally expect to see. We have
a basic idea of how planets normally form, we and
they have a certain predictable type of density, and these
are showing up as like kind of bigger and less massive.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Right right, like, so they like their size as such,
they're like the radius is such that they're on the
scale of Jupiter's. But when we're looking at for them
with say radial velocity, that's where we're looking at a
stars spectrum as its planet's orbit and then shifts pointing
to massive planets like, they don't read as massive via
(34:26):
the radial velocity.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
So then cotton candy because cotton candy is low density,
is wrisk correct?
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yes, yeah, they're not. Necessarily they're not pink or purple,
though I think I saw some accompanying illustrations which showed
kind of like pink or purple worlds, which you know,
fair enough, it helps bring in the eyeballs. But there
are some examples of these. The main one I'm going
to talk about is WASP one ninety three B great
(34:53):
name for a planet discovered in twenty twenty three. It
is approximately one eighty one light years from Earth, orbiting
an F type star called WASP one ninety three in
the WASP one ninety three system. It is a big planet.
It is one point four sixty four times the radius
(35:13):
of Jupiter. It is officially classified as a gas giant,
but it is discussed by Jennifer Cheu for MIT News
in twenty twenty four. The article here is Astronomers spot
a giant planet that is as light as cotton candy. Again,
the headlines will like to play up the candy. The
(35:33):
chwo points out that it may be half again as
large as Jupiter, but it is about a tenth as dense. Wow,
and this is apparently extreme, even so far as puffy
jupiters are concerned. This made it more difficult to detect
again coming down to the radial velocity, and the likely
explanation that was at least discussed at the time was
that it just had a highly inflated atmosphere, and this
(35:58):
of course means we need to study its atmosphere and
greater detail, you know, looking at how easily light travels
through it and so forth. But apparently the very existence
of worlds like this challenge some of what we hypothesize
about planetary formation, you know, by some estimates, like we
shouldn't be running into puffy jupiters, but they are out there,
(36:20):
and it forces us to look again at everything we
thought we knew about planet formation. Another one is hat
P one B. This one is five hundred and nineteen
light years away from Earth. It's half the mass of Jupiter,
but twenty percent larger. I don't know if this would
(36:40):
directly qualify as a science fiction example of this, but
it made me think about something I saw in the
recent series Star Wars Skeleton Crew, which, by the way,
is a lot of fun. Ofvoon out there is at
least halfway interested and you haven't watched it yet. It
has kind of like a Goonies esque quality to it.
Kids on an adventure in the Star Wars universe, their
(37:01):
space pirates. It's a lot of fun. We really enjoyed
watching it, but at one point only mild spoilers here,
you do encounter a world that looks like it's some
sort of a gas giant, but it's actually an earth
like world. At the center of a essentially like an
artificial like ring system or some sort of a disguise
(37:23):
system that's set in place, so sort of an artificial
puffy Jupiter to.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Some extent stealth planet.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, like it's there's something hidden.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
There, you know, like pirates, treasure, that sort of thing. Now,
that's not to imply that, yes, sorry, I think we
both at the same time thought where people might be
running with this, not to imply there's any reason to
think that about these exo plants.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Correct, Yeah, I did not see anybody even chatting about
the possibility that puffy jupiters are, you know, are some
sort of artificial structure or or potentially a signal of
any kind of like alien technology. No, that doesn't seem
to be the case at all. But they are mysterious
in their own right, and again possibly in our estimates
(38:10):
the homeworlds of the Killer Clowns.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Sorry, I fell silent for a second because my mind
has been spinning. And here's what it was. What happens
to you if you are one of those who is
a maker and user of infringing machines, infringing upon the
intellectual property of the electric candy machine Company of Nashville.
I think they send the clowns after you.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Probably so. They're probably the enforcers. As we discussed in
the last episode, they use cotton candy based weaponry.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
You're out there whipping up a cone and the children
fall silent. You hear ten?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
All right? Well, I think on that note, we have
we have finished our cotton candy exploration here, but again,
we'd love to hear from everyone out there. What is
your relationship with cotton candy, your nostalgic memories, your current frustrations,
your your very what if your travels reveal? What kind
of cotton candy do they have in your neck of
(39:09):
the woods. Have you tried Dragon's Beard candy or any
of the various international cotton candy adjacent treats? All of
it's fair game. Send your thoughts, send your pictures. We'd
love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact stuff to Blow Your
Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
The West
Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb. Today is Saturday, so we have
a vault for you. This is going to be the
Invention of Cotton Candy, Part two. We just re aired
part one, so here we go Part two of two.
It originally published two four, twenty twenty five. Let's have it.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick.
And we're back with part two of our discussion of
cotton candy. In part one, we talked about the chemistry
of candy making, how sugar syrup heated and reduced to
a precise, precise consistency gets turned into everything from saltwater
taffy to lollipops to sponge sugar. We talked about the
(00:59):
properties of still in sugar versus sugar glass, and we
described the standard process for making cotton candy in a
dedicated machine. And we also got into some historical predecessors
of cotton candy, like spunge sugar and especially the Chinese
culinary invention known as Dragon's beard candy and we're back
(01:19):
today to talk about more Rob. Did you end up
eating any cotton candy between our two parts.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Here, you know, I did not. I was like, it,
surely we can make it out to the place where
I know there's a Japanese cotton candy machine, because these
are quite quite impressive. Japanese cotton candy is known as
watame and there are these nice automated machines that make
it no humans involved in the process at all, comes
(01:46):
out like super colorful. I don't know about the taste.
I'm assuming the taste is still very much cotton candy
but sugar. Yeah, But I know where one is in Atlanta,
and I was like, we can go out and try
it out. But our week ND ended up just being
super busy, so we did not make it out to
try cotton candy. But as is always the case, we
(02:09):
ask any listeners out there, if you have experience with
cotton candy, Japanese or otherwise, right in and give us
your feedback on the sugary trade.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Now, we promised in today's episode we would go into
a little more depth on the invention of the cotton
candy machine, and I figured maybe that's the place we
should start today or you gained for that.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Rob Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Let's spin it up. Okay, okay. Now, in the previous episode,
we talked a bit about how cotton candy is made
with a dedicated machine in a manner that is somewhat
similar to the industrial method of producing fiberglass. So your
standard cotton candy machine consists of a large, deep metal
dish with tall sides. Think halfway between like a dog's
(02:53):
water bowl and a kiddie pool, kind of a large,
you know, wash basin sized. This large outer dish will
remain stationary, but in the middle of that large outer
dish and there is a small secondary dish which spins
rapidly and contains a heating element. This inner dish is
known as the spinner. And to make the candy, you
(03:16):
take a sugar mixture. This is something you usually just
buy fully prepared. Maybe some people make artisanal cotton candy
sugar mixtures, but usually you just like buy a box
of this powdered stuff. And so it's like sugar with
some coloring and flavoring included, and you pour that into
the spinner. Inside the spinner, the sugar gets melted by
the heating element and then once melted sugar glass leaks
(03:41):
out of extremely tiny holes in the walls of the
spinner because it's being driven outward by centrifugal force. I
think sometimes also there's a fourst air component that's kind
of blowing it out of these little holes. And as
the melted sugar flies out into the colder air outside
the spinner, it rapidly cools and solidifies into tiny hair
(04:02):
like strands of sugar glass. And these are they collect
in the outer dish. And then you can watch the
operator kind of you know, take a stick or a
cone and wave it around, almost like they're dusting for cobwebs.
They're just collecting all of the strands onto the eating utensil,
and then they hand it to you.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I wonder if it's ever marketed as such, you know,
if you want to like really goth up your cotton
candy install of cobwebs. Yeah, candy cobwebs and so forth.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, I don't know, we'll have to look that up afterwards.
But as we've said, so, when you get cotton candy,
it's almost always made with a specialized machine. It's not
really something as far as I could find that you
can easily do with just you know, repurposed home equipment.
You kind of need a cotton candy machine to make
cotton candy. So where did these machines come from? Well,
(04:50):
that question takes us back to the Saint Louis World's
Fair of nineteen oh four. This was the first big
public debut of what inventor William J. Morrison and John C. Wharton,
both of Nashville, Tennessee, called the electric Candy Machine, a
machine for making a novelty confection that they called fairy floss,
(05:12):
which at the nineteen oh four World's Fair was sold
in boxes for twenty five cents of serving. And as
pointed out in a blog post by Morgan Byrne for
the Tennessee State Museum, a ticket for the nineteen oh
four World's Fair was fifty cents, and so a box
of cotton candy's twenty five cents. This is this is
a candy treat that cost half as much again as
(05:35):
the full admission price.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
All right, all right, So depending on where you're going,
like you could compare this with like paying like five
to ten bucks for it these days.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know what canton candy usually costs.
On one hand, I think it's amazingly cheaped, Bruce.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
It's just like you know, yeah, twenty five cents feels good.
It feels reasonable by today's standards. Yeah, like that's probably
the material cost. Oh, I'm sure it's costing three to
four bucks, right.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, probably was fair prices, so that everything's jacked up
to is so maybe it's ten box, who knows.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, it's a meltdown on a stick though for a
kid like you know what you're getting into.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, But anyway, so over the six months the fair
was open, they sold almost seventy thousand boxes of this stuff.
And just a few funny notes about the nineteen oh
four World's Fair. We've talked about the weird culture of
triumphalist futurism at these near turn of the century World's
Fair events. One that we talked about extensively on the
(06:32):
show in the past was the famous World's Columbian Exposition
in Chicago in eighteen ninety three. We did a live
show in Chicago one time where we talked about various
aspects of that event. But you can see a lot
of that same spirit in the nineteen oh four fair.
In Saint Louis as well with its naming conventions. So
the fairy Floss machine was an exhibit at what was
(06:52):
called the Palace of Electricity. Now, while nineteen oh four
was the big the year that the cotton Candy machine
made a big public impression, the two inventors had actually
created the machine many years before the fair way back
in eighteen ninety seven. I found some more detail about
the history here in an entry for the cotton Candy
(07:15):
machine within a reference book called Technical Innovation in American
History and Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, edited by Roseanne
Welch and peg Lamfeir. The cotton Candy entry is by
a scholar named Stepka Zanova, and according to Zenova here,
the better known of the two inventors was William Morrison,
(07:36):
who lived eighteen sixty to nineteen twenty six. And just
from the little bit of detail we get here about
his life, I'm picking up on something. He sounds to
me like one of those real late nineteenth century Renaissance eccentrics.
So he was a dentist and a children's book author,
and a prolific inventor, having drafted a novel process for
(07:59):
extra acting cottonseed oil among other patents. But then Senova
also mentions that he received credit for creating his hometown's
first water purification plant, and he was also active in
Tennessee based professional associations for dentists. So I don't know
if this is right or not, but I'm kind of
getting a picture of like the town wizard that sounds
(08:21):
like his partner in the creation of the fairy floss
machine was a Nashville based confectioner a candy maker named
John Wharton, and together they filed for a patent on
December twenty third, eighteen ninety seven. Their machine worked basically
the same way the machines do today. There's not a
whole lot of difference that you know, modern machines are
(08:42):
pretty close to what they originally came up with. You
you have a central spinner with a heating element inside
walls perforated by tiny holes to let the threads of
melted sugar glass stream out. They freeze in the cooler
air of the surrounding dish. However, one thing that Senova
notes is that while Wharton and Morrison are usually credited
as inventors of the electric cotton candy machine, their original
(09:06):
design in the eighteen ninety seven patent was not exclusively
to be used with electric power, and instead included a
mechanism to operate on foot power. So I think that
means there was like a foot operated pedal or pump,
though they specified that a different power source could be
applied without changing the core mechanics of the device. So
(09:26):
when this machine made it to the Palace of Electricity
at the nineteen oh four World's Fair, it was a
huge hit. It won the fairs Novelty of Invention prize
and to make the final sale numbers I've read they
must have sold something like three hundred and seventy five
boxes of cotton candy a day, though it wasn't called
cotton candy yet it was still fairy floss. Actually, the
(09:49):
name cotton candy came from another dentist in cotton candy business.
This was a guy named Joseph Lascaux who was based
in Louisiana, who t He tried to introduce improvements on
Morrison and Wharton's design, though apparently his modifications did not
catch on. Tzanova's entry here casts doubt on whether his
(10:10):
improvements were actually improvements or not, but he kind of
tried to say, no, here's the way you should do
these machines. His machine didn't stick, but the name did so.
In the US now basically everybody calls it cotton candy,
though in some other places in the world fairy floss
or candy floss is still the more popular name. Now, Rob,
(10:31):
I'm attaching here an advertisement for a version of Wharton
and Morrison's machine that appeared in the program for the
nineteen oh seven Tennessee State Fair. You can examine, but
I wanted to include because this has a lot of
good text on it. So at this point they're calling
the device the Wonderful Electric Candy Machine. It's being sold
(10:53):
by the Electric Candy Machine Company of Nashville, and it
explains the virtues of their product as followed quote. The
candy made by this machine is absolutely pure. Granulated sugar
is poured into the spinner and is instantly changed into
flossy filaments of pure candy without the touch of a
(11:15):
contaminating finger.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
What I'm kind of wondering if this is going back
to what we talked about in part one that old
confectioners used to test the temperature and consistency of their
boiling sugar syrup by feel which once again please let
us empthesize, do not try this at home. You can
get horribly, horribly burned.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Yeah, I mean also just the I guess, the novelty
of it. Like here, candy is spun out of out
of thin air. You know, it's not made by human
fingers and hands, it's not shaped by a druggist's hands
or anything. Nope, it's just you just stick the cone
or the stick in there and you just spin it up.
And of course, like I was saying, modern cotton candy
(11:58):
machines have taken this to an even they have gone
a step beyond, like it's just completely automated. No one's
even sticking a stick in there.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Maybe that is it. There just seemed something old fashioned
and unsanitary about a human having to be involved in
the making of your candy. And you know, it's just
like the machine does it all, except it doesn't. You've
got it. You still somebody had to pump the pedal
on this thing, I guess, or I don't know, maybe
that by this time, in nineteen oh four or nineteen
oh seven it was the fully electric model. I'm not
(12:27):
sure which way this is.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I mean, the poster is advertising to me the wonderful
electric candy machine. So yeah, and electric candy electric candy machine.
Which part is the electric part? I mean, it seems
like the candy itself is kind of electric.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Why not the electric candy machine? Ascid test. Yeah. The
advertisement also tells us these machines are expressly made expressly
for here's the list. Druggists, fruit stands, confectioners, and hotels.
Hotel my god, but think of the cleaning staff. They're
selling cotton candy at hotels. Also, I love fruit stands
(13:07):
because cotton candy is my favorite fruit. Also, they make
a special appeal coming back to the Druggists. I think
they say, make the soda fountain space pay in winter.
Oh okay, So that's an interesting pitch. They're probably saying, like,
you're gonna sell a lot of cold soda in the summer,
but you know nobody wants to come in for a
soda in the winter. So what do you do instead
(13:28):
that space? You have a cotton candy machine.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, which is I guess it comes out hot. I
don't think it stays hot long, but yeah, at least
it's not cold.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Also, this ad is full of ludicrously aggressive small texts.
Can I read you the intellectual property section? It says
our machines are fully protected by our patents. A number
of pirates have infringed on our patents. We prosecuted the
first who attempted it. The United States Court at Saint
(13:57):
Louis has just rendered judgments staining our patents and perpetually
enjoining infringements. We own the exclusive right to the only
method of making floss or spun candy, and will prosecute
every maker and user of infringing machines. Man's coming on hard.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, they like the villains in a Willy Wonkom movie here.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Yeah, a number of pirates have tried. But anyway, So,
after going into more depth about how cotton candy is made,
you know, what its characteristics are, and the history of it,
I thought maybe we should come back to a question
I asked at the beginning of part one, and that
question is why is cotton candy particularly associated with fairs
(14:44):
and carnivals in a way that other candies and treats
are not. I mean, you know some other treats are
I guess you think funnel cakes. That's especially fairs and
carnivals within the United States at least, But why cotton
candy and more so than most other candies. I now
have a of thoughts on that. First of all, we
just have this history that cotton candy began its life
(15:07):
as a fair grounds attraction, winning fame and publicity as such.
You know, most people in their very first encounter with
cotton candy was probably learning about it at this World's
Fair exhibit, or it's some subsequent fair or public event.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
And this seems to have played a role in then
allowing it to spread out around the world.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Yeah. Another thing is what we talked about last time.
Cotton candy is very delicate and sensitive to heat, moisture,
even just to humidity in the air. Remember the sugar
here is hygroscopic, so it will attract moisture, will pull
humidity out of the very atmosphere around it. So if
it is not sealed inside a tight moisture barrier, within
(15:49):
just a few hours, cotton candy will lose its fluffiness
and shrivel down and transform into a sticky, disgusting blob.
Remember those slow death of cotton candy time laps videos
we talked about in the last episode. Now you can
make it last longer if you seal it up tight
inside plastic, but at that point your packaging costs are
(16:10):
going to increase. And I would also imagine that cotton
candy is not super efficient to ship in its spun
form because of its volume relative to its weight. You know,
I imagine that would be kind of like shipping trucks
full of pre inflated balloons.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah. Yeah. Like, just as a quick example from today's
candy market, there's all sorts of stuff that is labeled
cotton candy that you can buy prepackaged and have shipped
to your house. But I mean, it's clear that it
is not at all the same as fresh spun cotton candy.
It you could almost classify it as a different sort
of candy, I think.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, yeah. And also, I mean, not to judge people's products,
but even though you can buy this cotton candy in
sealed tubs, however similar or dissimilar it is from the
cotton candy you get at the fair, it just seems
that generally this pre made stuff is not a very
appealing and probably not a super cost effective product. So
(17:13):
ideally cotton candy should be made right when and where
you're going to eat it. You know, you need to
get it fresh. Where is ideal for that.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Well, you need a lot of turnover exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, So you can't really make cotton candy with regular
kitchen equipment. You need a special machine. And most people
do not want to eat cotton candy or don't want
their kids to eat cotton candy often enough that they're
going to buy a machine for the home. So, you know,
we mainly like it for the novelty, the visual and
textual novelty, not because it's delicious. So it's a you know,
(17:48):
it's a it's a lark, it's a once every now
and then weird, interesting little experience. So you need to
sort of have a system where people go where the
machine is. So where does it make sense to have
the machine. It's probably where you have a lot of turnover,
where people can do a lot of business, ideally in
a space that the operator of the machine, you know,
(18:08):
will not have to clean up sticky messes left by
the customers later on. So an outdoor fair is kind
of perfect. The customer takes the mess with them and
it's outdoors anyway. So that's where I'm at the more
I think about it, the more it absolutely makes sense
that cotton candy is carnival food. It's fair food. It
comes from that world, and for a number of practical reasons,
(18:29):
it probably will stay in that world.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah. Yeah, Like you can think of other fair and
carnival foods, and a number of those kind of transcend
the limitations, you know, like the corn dog. Yeah, corn
Dog's totally a fair and carnival type of food. But yeah,
you can buy it frozen, you can you can make
it at home. It's you know, all those things are possible,
and it's just as good, if not better, in those situations.
(18:55):
But cotton candy, again, the technology limits you and it
and also it's just not the kind of thing you'd
want to eat on even a semi regular basis. Or
you might want to if you're a child, but as
an adult, like you said, you don't want your children
having ready access to this. Meltdown on a stick.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Contradict us folks, Let us know, do you have a
cotton candy machine in your house? I don't want to
hear about that.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, I mean, and maybe you do if you also
go out to the fair and sell it, right, I mean, otherwise,
it just seems like a lot of machinery to have
just sitting around. I mean, maybe there's some sort of
a smaller apparatus for it. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
I don't know. Maybe if you've got a fancy home
theater arcade set up something like that, but it's like
people who have a fancy home theater and they've got
like one of those popcorn carts in it.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
I think it comes down to kitchen space. Because I'm
just looking around now doing a little shopping for cotton
candy machines. I'm sure this is going to screw up
all sorts of targeted advertisements for me, but it looks
like you can you can get one that's on a cart.
I'm assuming this is maybe like low end of the
professional spectrum, but you know, you can get like a
(20:07):
cart bas cotton candy machine for something like three hundred bucks.
And they do have models that are more from like
the seventy dollars to one hundred and thirty dollars range
that look like you could have room for it in
your kitchen. I don't have room for it in my kitchen,
but you might well have a kitchen with enough space
where it makes sense to fire this thing up every
now and again. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Okay, I'm looking for the bottom shelf stuff. You can
get a cotton candy maker at Walmart for thirty bucks.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
See yeah, okay, well you know it's possible. Oh boy. Yeah,
I mean it's like you can get you can get
waffle makers for really cheap, but they are exciting to
use in a way that you just might not want
that level of excitement too many mornings out of your week.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
This strikes me as something that again, maybe I'm totally wrong,
but my guess is that the majority of people who
buy cotton you know, like Domess cotton candy machines for
the home, are buying it essentially to use one time
at a party they're throwing.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, I mean that would make sense. You're doing you're
doing a kid's birthday party. You're like, well, for thirty bucks,
we can do this. So yeah, I understand that maybe
there's a case to be made where there's some sort
of special treat you're making where you're going to utilize
that cotton candy on top. I don't know, like some
sort of a trolls head muffin or something. I don't know.
But beyond that, you know, cotton candy is just one
(21:28):
of those things. It just doesn't seem like they're that
many applications, right, It's just this sugary treat. It doesn't
really have any beneficial qualities beyond sugaring up kids, and
you know, the novelty of the spectacle of watching it made.
But you know, I was, I was a little surprised
(21:48):
by this. There do seem to be some applications. I mean,
you would be forgiven if you assume that no health
benefit or medical application existed or was possible for these
miracle those clouds of pure sugar. But there's actually been
some pretty interesting research into a cotton candy based artificial
organ technology that, fittingly, like the twentieth century cotton candy
(22:13):
machine itself, has at least partial Tennessee roots.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Oh nice.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah. A lot of the research that I'm about to
talk about here is taking place in Nashville. It is
at Vanderbilt Universe. So you might have caught some science
headlines about this over the years, because the headlines and
the leads basically write themselves. You know, some sort of
cotton candy based organ transplant. It raises strange images in
(22:44):
the mind of human organs replaced with candy. It makes
me think of the old mister Bones candy from the nineties.
This was, like I distinctly remember, like a little plastic
casket that said mister Bones, and inside they were interlocking
candy bones and sometimes a heart, you know, shaped like
a heart emoji. And you would assemble these and then
(23:04):
you would look at it, and then you would eat it,
and then you could keep the little plastic casket and
you know, sometimes you could fit a little toy in there.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
I am paralyzed now by unexpected nostalgia.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Rob.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
You have brought my brain to a halt with this.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah. I think I only ever got to get this
like once. This is another one of those like how
often are you gonna have mister Bones candy. The candy
itself was not good. It was like, you know, Pez
Dispenser candy, which is another example. It's like nobody loves Pez.
It's the mechanism. It's a spectacle.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Look at this little plastic coffin. Though I want this
right now, I am.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Oh. Oh, my feelings they may have. It's just one
of those things that may have come back to varying degrees.
I don't know with the whole you know, ups and
downs of nostalgia based marketing. But anyway, now, this is
not about making organs or tissues directly out of candy,
as grotesquely amazing as that may sound. But it's also
(24:00):
a lot closer to the idea than you might assume,
because you know, obviously headlines are going to be quick
to capitalize on the candy connection. But it does have
a pretty strong candy connection. Okay, So the research in
question here was at least initially the work of doctor
Jason Spector, a reconstructive surgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital,
(24:22):
and Leon Bellin, a graduate student at Cornell at the
time of the idea's creation and now an associate professor
of biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. And so
there have been multiple reports on this research over the years,
and some of them have been reported on in the
mainstream media. Is reported on NPRS All Things Considered. Back
(24:46):
in two thousand and nine. Bellin got the idea for
the approach based on previous work with nanofibers and observations
about cotton candy. As it turns out, the fine sponge
sugar in cotton candy. With discussed about how it's hair like,
it's very thin. Well, the nanofibers here are about the
same thickness as various blood vessels in human tissue, so
(25:09):
about one tenth the diameter of a human hair.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Okay, so this would not be talking about like your
thicker main veins and arteries, but sort of the little
blood vessels that branch out from them to feed all
the tissues in the body.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah, we're talking about capillaries, like tiny capillary blood vessels
that with their thin walls deliver oxygen and nutrients to
cells and carry away waste and the threads. According to
Bellin and a Vanderbilt University Medical Center release from twenty sixteen, Yeah,
they have the size, the density, and the complexity that
matches up with capillary blood vessels. So the creation of
(25:48):
artificial capillary systems like this would be absolutely necessary for
the creation of living artificial organs. Specifically, we're talking about
hydrogel based scaffoldings upon which the organ is grown. But
to put it roughly, you can build a mansion, you
can build an enormous home, but you've got to have
bathrooms in it. And for those bathrooms to mean anything,
(26:09):
you've got to leave room for the plumbing. And so
the plumbing inside of a working human organ that's complex.
And so what we're talking about here is a way
to grow like not just the and I'm putting it
like crudely and roughly here, not just the meat of
the organ, and not just to say here's a lump
(26:30):
and this lump is liver, this lump is kidney, but
to say this lump of kidney also has all the
plumbing necessary for the organ to live and have the
necessary blood supply that it needs. Okay, so over the
years they've devised and apparently as of twenty sixteen, demonstrated
the use of a cotton candy based technique to create
(26:53):
quote micro fluidic networks that mimic the three dimensional capillary
system in the human body in all friendly fashion, according
to the the UMC release that I referenced earlier.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Okay, well, I'm seeing the visual analogy between the sugar
glass strands made made by a cotton candy machine and
the tiny capillaries that infuse an organ. But like, how
do you actually make how do you make this? How
do you make the capillaries with a cotton candy like process.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
All right, so, as of twenty sixteen, the method didn't
involve sugar spun into this delicate network, but spinning it
out of something called The abbreviation is p n I
PAM penny PAM I'm going to go with, and this
stands for poly in isopropyla krylamide, a cell friendly polymer
(27:51):
frequently used for biomedical applications, though it also has other
sort of like nano applications. I've seen studies that are
talking about using it for very small triggers and so
forth in nano constructions and so forth. But the key
to it is that it is insoluble at temperatures above
(28:13):
thirty two degrees celsius or eighty nine point six degrees
fahrenheit and soluble below that temperature. The machine, however, is
described as essentially being a cotton candy machine in its
core functions, so it's still spun out and created via
the same process. And the interesting thing is, if you
look at older writings about this research, prior experiment such
(28:38):
as the one profile by NPR back in what two
thousand and nine actually involved sugar based cotton candy that
then had a liquid polymer poured over it and then
the sugar was washed out.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Oh okay, so you'd make cotton candy and then you'd
use that as a mold and then you would melt
the sugar away.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yes, so these really thin threads, again, thinner than a
human hair standing in for the capillaries. You gel something
around that and then you just melt out all the sugar.
But then those tiny little tunnels will remain and those
can serve essentially as the capillary blood vessels for the
organ that you would grow there.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah, and apparently they managed to make that old method
work to some extent and not just dissolve the candy
capillaries before you could make use of them. But this
pinipam method, this makes it more viable because this stuff
is not going to disintegrate when a hydrogel is poured
directly around it. So they describe this hydrogel as a
(29:41):
gelatine with human cells in it, so like, and this
is their description to jell o with bits of fruit,
except the fruit is human cells and this is poured
around this capillary matrix that you've made this cotton candy essentially,
and it's gelled in an incubator at thirty seven degrees
cell and then when it's brought out, it's allowed to cool.
(30:03):
And when it's allowed to cool that pin and Pam
floss in there, well it dissolves, leaving behind that intricate
network of microscale channels that could serve as artificial capillaries.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, and so Bellin's work and the work of his
colleagues this continues. And I'm to assume this technology, or
something that has evolved out of it, remains part of
their work. They might be getting away from the cotton
candy comparisons, at least in the peer reviewed papers. But
I was looking at a Vanderbilt A affiliated twenty twenty
(30:40):
four paper in Biofabrication, the journal Biofabrication, on which Belin
was a co author, and it speaks of quote, solvent
spinning to process the thermo responsive polymer solaplus into a
sacrificial microfiber mesh, which is then employed to pattern a
high gel matrix.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Okay, sounds like a similar principle.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
It sounds like, yeah, the similar principle, if not the
same thing. So it seems like this isn't it. This
doesn't seem to be a case where we've abandoned the
what at least began as cotton cut candy based artificial capillaries.
It seems like this, this technological journey is still ongoing.
But it is. It's pretty exciting. I think we've we've
(31:26):
talked about the idea of artificial organs on the show before,
and the idea of growing these out over some sort
of scaffolding. But yeah, it's like you can again, you
can build a big old house, but you've got to
have working plumbing, You've got to have the wiring, and
this is about making sure the wiring is in place.
And as crazy as it may seem, cotton candy may
(31:49):
have been the inspiration that will help make that possible
down the road.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Truly could not have known we would end up here. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, Like I said, biomedical applications for cotton candy. I
did not expect it to be a thing, but it is.
So that's that's inner space with cotton candy. But we
also can go into outer space.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Take me there, Rob, I don't even know where you're
going with this.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Well, we have cotton candy planets, or we have we
have exoplanets that are sometimes described as cotton candy planets,
more formally known as super puffs, which also sounds a
bit silly. Puffy Jupiter's also pretty silly cool. And then
you'll find headlines that go as far as to call
them clown planets.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Surely the origin of the of the much discussed Killer
Clowns exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I mean, we don't know what their home world looks like.
We have not. We haven't gotten to see it in
any of the Killer Clowns media to my knowledge, so
this may be where they come from. Okay, so obviously
the idea of clown planets, cotton candy planets, or what
have you, this brings to mind a lot of images.
(33:08):
But what are we actually talking about here when we
get past the headlines here. Well, essentially, these are lower
mass gas giant sized exoplanets. Sometimes you'll see them described
as cotton candy planets. They're colder and less massive than
hot Jupiter's. Possible explanations include atmospheric dust making them appear
(33:29):
larger than they really are. They are also possible explanations
that involve ring systems that serve to make them register
as larger than they actually are in either case, making
an Earth mass world registering as large as Neptune or bigger.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Oh interesting. So basically just the idea is lower density
planets than we would normally expect to see. We have
a basic idea of how planets normally form, we and
they have a certain predictable type of density, and these
are showing up as like kind of bigger and less massive.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Right right, like, so they like their size as such,
they're like the radius is such that they're on the
scale of Jupiter's. But when we're looking at for them
with say radial velocity, that's where we're looking at a
stars spectrum as its planet's orbit and then shifts pointing
to massive planets like, they don't read as massive via
(34:26):
the radial velocity.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
So then cotton candy because cotton candy is low density,
is wrisk correct?
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yes, yeah, they're not. Necessarily they're not pink or purple,
though I think I saw some accompanying illustrations which showed
kind of like pink or purple worlds, which you know,
fair enough, it helps bring in the eyeballs. But there
are some examples of these. The main one I'm going
to talk about is WASP one ninety three B great
(34:53):
name for a planet discovered in twenty twenty three. It
is approximately one eighty one light years from Earth, orbiting
an F type star called WASP one ninety three in
the WASP one ninety three system. It is a big planet.
It is one point four sixty four times the radius
(35:13):
of Jupiter. It is officially classified as a gas giant,
but it is discussed by Jennifer Cheu for MIT News
in twenty twenty four. The article here is Astronomers spot
a giant planet that is as light as cotton candy. Again,
the headlines will like to play up the candy. The
(35:33):
chwo points out that it may be half again as
large as Jupiter, but it is about a tenth as dense. Wow,
and this is apparently extreme, even so far as puffy
jupiters are concerned. This made it more difficult to detect
again coming down to the radial velocity, and the likely
explanation that was at least discussed at the time was
that it just had a highly inflated atmosphere, and this
(35:58):
of course means we need to study its atmosphere and
greater detail, you know, looking at how easily light travels
through it and so forth. But apparently the very existence
of worlds like this challenge some of what we hypothesize
about planetary formation, you know, by some estimates, like we
shouldn't be running into puffy jupiters, but they are out there,
(36:20):
and it forces us to look again at everything we
thought we knew about planet formation. Another one is hat
P one B. This one is five hundred and nineteen
light years away from Earth. It's half the mass of Jupiter,
but twenty percent larger. I don't know if this would
(36:40):
directly qualify as a science fiction example of this, but
it made me think about something I saw in the
recent series Star Wars Skeleton Crew, which, by the way,
is a lot of fun. Ofvoon out there is at
least halfway interested and you haven't watched it yet. It
has kind of like a Goonies esque quality to it.
Kids on an adventure in the Star Wars universe, their
(37:01):
space pirates. It's a lot of fun. We really enjoyed
watching it, but at one point only mild spoilers here,
you do encounter a world that looks like it's some
sort of a gas giant, but it's actually an earth
like world. At the center of a essentially like an
artificial like ring system or some sort of a disguise
(37:23):
system that's set in place, so sort of an artificial
puffy Jupiter to.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Some extent stealth planet.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, like it's there's something hidden.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
There, you know, like pirates, treasure, that sort of thing. Now,
that's not to imply that, yes, sorry, I think we
both at the same time thought where people might be
running with this, not to imply there's any reason to
think that about these exo plants.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Correct, Yeah, I did not see anybody even chatting about
the possibility that puffy jupiters are, you know, are some
sort of artificial structure or or potentially a signal of
any kind of like alien technology. No, that doesn't seem
to be the case at all. But they are mysterious
in their own right, and again possibly in our estimates
(38:10):
the homeworlds of the Killer Clowns.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Sorry, I fell silent for a second because my mind
has been spinning. And here's what it was. What happens
to you if you are one of those who is
a maker and user of infringing machines, infringing upon the
intellectual property of the electric candy machine Company of Nashville.
I think they send the clowns after you.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Probably so. They're probably the enforcers. As we discussed in
the last episode, they use cotton candy based weaponry.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
You're out there whipping up a cone and the children
fall silent. You hear ten?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
All right? Well, I think on that note, we have
we have finished our cotton candy exploration here, but again,
we'd love to hear from everyone out there. What is
your relationship with cotton candy, your nostalgic memories, your current frustrations,
your your very what if your travels reveal? What kind
of cotton candy do they have in your neck of
(39:09):
the woods. Have you tried Dragon's Beard candy or any
of the various international cotton candy adjacent treats? All of
it's fair game. Send your thoughts, send your pictures. We'd
love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact stuff to Blow Your
Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
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