You're listening to Brains on, where we're serious about being curious.

Brains on is supported on part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

The Brains on Water Detective Project is supported by funding from the HB Fuller Company Foundation,

a proud supporter of STEM education initiatives, and by 3M, improving lives through support of education, community, and the environment.

There I was, a flat-footed cop so green, my cheeks still had the imprint of a pacifier.

I thought I knew it all, and walked my beat like I own the city.

One Sunday afternoon as I patrolled the Kaya Hoga River, everything changed.

The river was a burning wreck, and needed my help.

That's when I was approached by an elite unit of crime solvers. They call themselves H2O, the Water Detectives.

We helped tamp down that river fire, and I began to work on a whole new world of mysteries.

All of them had one thing in common.

Water.

Solid gas or liquid.

Now I'm always on the lookout to protecting serve this wonderfully weird substance.

My first line of defense is to use my senses. Water might be in trouble.

If it's missing things like fish and birds, follow your nose too. If it smells off, you might need to open up an investigation.

Now I'll be back a little later. Right now I'm late for a date. With a river.

You are listening to Brains on from American Public Media. I'm Molly Bloom, and you know, my mind is still really from our last episode

about how the Kaya Hoga River in Cleveland caught fire like a dozen times between the late 1800s and mid 1900s.

Yeah, that episode was on fire.

Our partner Annie Baxter is back again. Hi Annie. Hi.

So I know that after the last fire on the Kaya Hoga in the 1960s, the government put a lot of rules in place to regulate what factories and cities could release into the river, not just for the Kaya Hoga, but for bodies of water all over the country.

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