[melodramatic music]
>> If we've learned anything
from old movies,
it's that every scientist
needs three things:
a dark laboratory,
a dramatic vocabulary...
>> Trying to bring back life?
It's not natural!
>> And lots of steaming,
gleaming, glass containers.
Of course,
those are just movies.
Real-life scientists
can do without the lingo
and lairs.
The glass, though,
that's another story.
Just ask Tracy Drier.
>> I'm very busy.
I usually have a backlog
of weeks.
>> Tracy is a scientific
glass blower for the Chemistry
Department at the University
of Wisconsin in Madison.
His counter is covered
with requests from researchers
for new equipment.
>> This department, Chemistry,
is very research-focused.
And these chemists
who are doing the research,
they might not be able
to buy something
straight out of a catalog.
>> To craft that equipment,
Tracy carefully chooses
from shelves of glass tubes
and parts.
For some pieces, he heats
the glass at a workbench
and blows into it
through a long tube.
For others, he heats two pieces
then carefully brings them
together on a lathe.
>> Ideally, you'd like to have
everything look like it grew,
you know, grew together
from one piece of glass.
>> Tracy didn't begin blowing
glass at a major university.
He started in grade school.
>> My brother and I
started with my dad.
I was probably 8 or 9,
and my brother was 6 or 7.
And my dad went to the library
to look for a book
on stained glass,
and came across this book
by John Burton on flameworking.
My brother and I, we were
so little we couldn't actually
do much other than make a mess.
I went to Western Michigan
University in Kalamazoo
for Pulp and Paper Engineering.
I just had to make the switch.
I wanted to get back
to working with my hands.
>> With special training and
after a few years' experience,
he came to Madison.
He's been here for 13 years.
Along the way, he's helped
scientists create new equipment,
like this device called
a Wisconsin Schlank Line.
It's a system used to control
gases in chemical reactions,
and it's now used
around the country.
>> That's one of the best parts
of this job.
This is brand new research,
and nobody's done it before.
>> While Tracy often works
on the cutting edge,
he also does plenty of work
with broken edges.
>> You have new students coming
every year.
Some glass gets broken.
So I will always be busy.
Of course, students aren't the
only ones who can break glass.
>> Oh, it's the worst.
It's happened a couple times,
where you have a finished piece
and you're walking to the oven,
and you have such a light grip
on it that it falls out of your
hand.
It happens, yeah.
It's a sad day.
>> Still, Tracy says those days
don't dampen the joy he gets
from this work
and the potential
of each new project.
>> In this case, they're trying
to make tiny little bubbles
in a super small space.
You don't know what these things
are going to develop over time.
These projects that you're
working on could be the next
cure for cancer.
It could be the next iteration
of solar cells, batteries.
You don't know.
>> So, maybe that's why
real-life scientists don't need
dark labs and funny voices.
All they need is the excitement
of discovery.
That, and a lot of glass.