(tense music) - What I have here in front of me is a three and a half foot electric eel capable of producing an electric shock up to 860 volts, enough to take down a horse, let alone me. To put that in perspective, that's about eight times the voltage that's in your household outlet. And I never stuck my finger
in the outlet as a kid, I listened to my mom, but right now I'm about to
stick my hand in this tank to experience the shock
of an electric eel. If you can't tell, I
am definitely nervous. This is easily the craziest
thing I've ever done on the "Brave Wilderness" channel. (exhales deeply) Oh my
gosh, you cannot believe how nervous I am right now. (groans) All right, here we go. It's gonna go for shock, here we go. One, two, three. (tense music) (Mark groans) Now, before you witness the results of my first electrocution, it's important to note
that this electric eel is an educational
ambassador for its species and was not harmed by shocking. Please do not attempt to recreate
what you're about to see. This experiment was filmed
under the supervision of professionals. (tense music) (groans) Oh. Whew, whew, whew. Wow. Holy smokes. (exhales deeply) Ooh, yeah, that you don't expect. You definitely do not
expect that from a fish. Wow. Holy mackerel. You see an animal like this
and yeah, it looks strange, but you never in your life expect a fish to be able to shock you like that. Whoa. As soon as I made contact with
the eel, it was like instant. Oh my gosh. (groans) (exhales deeply) The good
news is my first shock with the electric keel is over. The bad news is that's not
my last shock of the day. This is just the beginning. Underneath that tarp, we
have an absolutely monstrous electric eel, one that will
dwarf the size of this one. And in case you're wondering, yes, size does matter when it comes
to shocks and electric eels. But before we get to the ultimate shock, we need to understand
a little bit more about what's going on inside
the body of this animal that allows it to produce this tremendous amount of energy. In order to do that, I've
invited my good friend, Diana, "Physics Girl" here today to put me through a few
more shock experiments so we can learn a little bit more about what's going on in the electric eel. All right, let's go meet up with Diana. (both groan) Oh my Gosh. Oh boy, Diana. I'm usually so excited to
see you, why am I nervous? (both laugh) - I mean, usually I haven't
brought one of these to our reunions. - Oh, my Gosh, what is this, speaking of? - Well, you wanted me to teach
you about how shocking works and so that's what we're
gonna do with this thing here. So what I'm gonna do here
is I'm gonna just gonna turn this on, you're going
to then touch it quickly. But as I turn it on, as it gets warmed up, you're gonna feel like a little tingling. - All right, hold up.
- Yeah. - I have to touch this? - You're gonna have to touch it, yeah. Okay, ready? - Okay, go for it. (taps machine) (machine whirling) Wait, wait, why do you look nervous? - (chuckles) 'Cause I hate this thing. - (laughs nervously) Okay. - [Diana] I've experienced it. - All right.
- Yeah. Fingers straight out to
that big metal sphere. Mm-hmm. (sparks rattling) (groans in pain) - Try your arm. - Try my arm?
- Yeah. (sparks rattling) - [Diana] Ooh, that's a big one. - Whoa, you see my hair standing up? (Diana Chuckles) I think I can smell my
hair burning actually. Whoa. - How does that feel? - (groans) That's about
as much as I can take. (Diana laughs) Now you got my attention. (Diana chuckles) How does this relate to electric eels? - So what we're doing with this thing, this is called a Van Der Graaf generator. And it's the perfect thing
for understanding charge, because what happens here is
a bunch of charges build up on this sphere. And then as soon as you
bring your hand near it, they discharge, they actually
traveled through the air to your finger. - So that's like the little lightning bolt that I'm seeing. - Yeah.
- Got it. So, okay, I think I understand now, so basically this Van der
Graaf globe represents an electric site in the eels. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. In the eel, they build up charge and then it discharges all at once just like the spark from
the Van Der Graaf generator. - Got it, so it's like a chain reaction. So very much like a battery. And here's a cool fact. The first battery is actually invented by a gentleman named Volta
and he actually designed his first battery off
of the inner workings of the electric eel. So without this animal,
there would be no Duracell and there certainly would not be a Tesla, which is pretty cool. Okay, so the eel, we couldn't
measure the first shock, but we know they can be
up to like 860 volts. - Mm-hmm.
- How many volts is this? - This is about 350,000. - Ah, what? - 350, 000 volts. - How am I standing here? (Diana chuckles) Are you trying to kill me? - That's the difference
between voltage and current. So you need to know about both. So I've got one more experiment
to learn about current. - Okay, so there's more shocks to come. - There's a lot more. Next experiment I've got, so this is a Tens unit. A lot of people are probably
more familiar with this. So this is gonna give
you some little pulses of electricity through your arm. - All right. - It is going through your
skin and some of the tissues just below your skin. And now I'm gonna turn it on and then I'm gonna go
ahead and just bump it up little by little.
- Okay. (machine beeps) - You feel anything? - Nothing. Oh, oh, yeah, somethings happening. - Yeah, you felt that? - Yeah, a little something. - [Diana] What's it feel like? - It feels tingly. Yeah, I think I can take- - How low?
- Oh, oh. (Diana laughs) I didn't do that. - Can we go up a little higher? We're at number two, by the way- - How high does it go out? - Out of eight. How are you feeling? - I think I can go to
a four, let's try four. - Okay, we're gonna go up to three. (electricity buzzes) (both laugh) - I'm not doing that, I swear. - I feel a little bad, but not that bad. We probably only got up
to about 25 volts there. - Really? - So it's really, really
low in comparison. - Oh, I would have guessed
it was like a million volts. - Nope, nope. But the thing is that
there's more energy flowing, more charge is flowing through here. Should we go higher than a four? How do you feel about that? - Let it rip.
- Okay. Ready?
- Yep. - Okay, here we go up to as high as I can. (electricity buzzes) - (groans loudly) Okay. (taps on table) I tap out, tap out, okay. - That was a six.
- That was good. - That was a six?
- That was a six. But yeah, the biggest difference is that there's more current flowing and that's, what's gonna get you because you've got more energy. Plus it's not as fast. Like the eel, the Van der Graaf generator, like bam, you're done. This is continual.
- Okay. - So yeah.
- Okay. - Current's what's going to do you in. - I still need this hand
for another eel shock. So we needed to find a
way for everyone at home to see the shock from the eel. Because like, obviously right here, you could see that I
was feeling the current. You could see the lightning
bolt from the Van der Graaf, but you can't really
see anything happening with the eel shock. How can we maybe visualize it? - Yeah, so we've got one more thing set up to be able to see there's
actually electricity running through the water. - As it turns out, the electric eel isn't actually an eel at all. It is a species of night fish
that are more closely related to carpet and catfish. But they are definitely electric. Their tail contains three electric organs that are each packed
with thousands of cells called electrocytes. These cells act like a series of batteries one stacked on top of another. And by moving electrons
across their surface, they can produce shocks on demand. And I mean big shocks and lots of them. So for this next experiment, we're going to harness all of that energy and turn it into visual
fireworks that you can see. - Whoa, what is this? - Come on in here. Okay, so this is a Tesla coil. - Okay.
- Yeah. So you remember the spark from
the Van der Graaf generator? - I sure do. - Much bigger on this one. And we are not gonna touch
this one because the sparks are gonna be like six inches. This one's dangerous. - Really?
- Yeah, yeah. I didn't bring this one. This was made actually,
rigged up by my friends from ArcAttack, and this whole system was made by them. There's some probes in
the water in the tank. We will send the electric
shock from the eel through the water, and then it's directly
connected to the Tesla coil. So we'll be able to see through the spark every single time the
eel is shocking the water or you.
- (laughs) Or me. - Or we'll see it or hear it. It's going to be really cool. - Well, this is perfect. Thank you for building this. Thank you to ArcAttack
for putting this together. I think all that's left to
do now is to reveal the eel and fire this up. It's time for the grand finale, folks. You ready?
- I'm ready. - Here we go. (tense suspenseful music) - (chuckles) Oh, so nervous. Are you ready Diana?
- I'm ready. On three, one, two, three. Oh, it's the whole tank. - [Diana] (chuckles) Oh my Gosh. - That eel is over one meter in length, over a foot and a half longer
than the eel this morning. And like I told you, size does matter when it
comes to electric eels and their shock. Basically, the bigger the battery, the bigger the charge. Should we turn on the Tesla coil? - Yeah, yeah, let's hear it. (sparks popping) (Diana laughs) - What? - [Diana] That is all the eel. - That makes it so much worse. - Every single shot, that's all the eel. Oh my God. - I was so nervous earlier, this is making it way, way worse, okay. - [Diana] This is so cool,
but I did not envy you. - There you go. You may be wondering why this electric eel is producing electricity unprovoked. Well, there's a reason they
have three electric organs. The Sach's organ pulses
with a lower voltage shock, which is used like radar
for electro communication and navigation throughout its environment. This is important since they
live in the murky waters of South America and have
extremely poor eyesight. Then there's the main and Hunter's organs. These are the ones that
produce those infamous high voltage shocks which are used to stun their prey so they can be swallowed alive. (sparks popping) All right, here we go. (spark pops) (Mark scoffs) Okay. (exhales heavily) All right. On three, here we go. I'm Mark Vins, and this is getting shocked
by a really big electric eel. One, two, three. (tense music) (tense music intensifies) Nope. Got nervous, sorry. (sparks popping) - This really sets the
scene for you, Mark. - Sure does. (Diana laughs) Thanks Diana. I love science. All right. (sparks popping) That's the eel doing all this? - That's all the eel. - Okay, let's see if I can feel it. (spark popping) Oh.
- You felt that? - Yeah.
- That's cool. - I can tell you this, the eel this morning was not doing this. - Yeah, yeah. - This eel is feisty. This shock is gonna be bad. All right, here we go. (Diana chuckles) The shock's gonna be (mumbles) All right. Here comes the big shock. I'm Mark Vins, And this is getting shocked
by a really big electric eel. Here goes nothing. One, two, oh, I could feel in the water, three. (sparks popping fast) (Mark groans) (Diana laughs) (groans in pain) Oh, oh, oh. Oh, my... - [Crew Member] You okay, Mark? - Yeah. Hold on, give me a second. That really felt bad. (crew member speaking indistinctly) - Ooh. (exhales deeply) Yeah. That was so much worse. That was a lot worse than this morning. Holy smokes. Did you see the shock? I heard it. - [Diana] Yeah. - Oh man, like I... Sorry, I'm trying to compose myself. Let me try to describe to you
guys what I just went through. Obviously I got shocked really bad. Like holy cow, you could
hear the Tesla coil. I think it might've
exploded, I don't know. Before I could feel it, my legs were locked, my abdomen locked up. - [Diana] Are you okay? - Yeah, I'm fine. I just, sorry, I'm
trying to tell everybody what it was like. - Yeah.
- Holy cow. Did we break the Tesla coil? - I'm not sure. (laughs) - I think it exploded. - The sound is like a horror movie. Like it was like a (mimics buzzing) - I could still feel it-
- Yeah. - like up and down.
- Does it burn? Like, what is it? - It's just like, I think it's just my nerves
are just like freaking out. - Fully fired on that side of your body? - Yeah. It's definitely up here.
- Only on the one side? - Yeah, like this arm's fine. This arm-
- Crazy. - And then up through here. - Oh my God. - [Crew Member] Dude, you ear's red. - Is it?
- Yeah. - [Diana] It's bright red. - [Crew Member] Totally, look at that. - Yeah.
- It's bright red. - Is it? - Yeah.
- It feels hot. That was the craziest
thing I've ever done. - Yeah. - Lived to tell about it. - [Diana] (laughing) Oh my God. - Shocked by the electric eel. Diana, thank you so much. - Oh my God. - If you haven't checked out
"Physics Girl" on YouTube, Diana does some pretty
darn cool experiments. I highly recommend you
subscribe to her channel. Big thanks to ArcAttack, I hope I didn't break your Tesla coil. And thank you for watching this video. This is absolutely the
craziest thing I've ever done, but hopefully you learned a
lot today about electric eels and how crazy of an animal they truly are. I'm Mark Vins, Be brave, stay wild. We'll see you on the next experiment? - [Diana] Oh, God. - (laughs) Let's go. (laughter) (wolf howling) (birds chirping)
His taser is probably more powerful. Electroboom would probably have this as a pet lol
Was going to post this myself! I wonder if the ongoing tesla coil sparks were exaggerated a bit or it was really all just the 'eel' doing its thing.