2025-08-22

[public] 2.33M views, 79.4K likes, dislikes audio only

Veritasium

The strange natural material that reshaped the world. Sponsored by Ground News -

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A huge thanks to Professor James Busfield, Dr. Katrina Cornish, and Dr. Judit Puskas

We’re incredibly grateful to Toby Samples and the team at ARDL for their time and expertise.

Thanks also to Joe Jackson, Dr. Kevin Krause, Dr. Peter Polyak, Donald Shultz, Professor Robert Weiss for all their help on the project.

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0:00 Where does rubber come from?

2:59 What is rubber?

5:10 Why is rubber so stretchy?

6:29 The problem with natural rubber

9:02 Cured Rubber

15:23 Vulcanisation

18:41 What rubber is used in tires?

22:54 How fungi could destroy the world economy

29:17 Synthetic rubber vs natural rubber

38:20 Why are some people allergic to latex?

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References: https://ve42.co/RubberRefs

Images & Video: https://ve42.co/RubberImgRefs

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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, JT, Juan Benet, Keith England, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Walter Flinn, and wolfee.

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Writers - Sulli Yost & Casper Mebius

Producer & Director - Sulli Yost

Editors - Jack Saxon & Peter Nelson

Camera Operators - Adam Bonomo, Jacob Ruocchio-Cole, Henry van Dyck, Thomas Matheis, Derek Muller & Sulli Yost

Animators - Allama Nandi, Andrew Neet, Emma Wright, Ivy Tello, Fabio Albertelli & Rokas Viksraitis

Illustrators - Jakub Misiek & Maria Gusakovich

Assistant Editor - James Stuart

Researchers - HyoJeong Choi, Callum Cuttle & Gabe Strong

Thumbnail Designers - Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Abdallah Rabah

Production Team - Zoe Heron, Casper Mebius, Josh Pitt, Rob Beasley Spence, Henry van Dyck & Sulli Yost

Executive Producers - Casper Mebius & Derek Muller

Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Pond5

Music from Epidemic Sound