Dear Hank & John - 397: A Top Podcast for Teens

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

Why don’t we know why gravity works? What if the Green brothers went on Dancing with the Stars?  When jaundiced, do smurfs turn green? Why am I always thirsty even though I drink lots of water? How is Potato doing?  Do you ever go down internet rabbit holes learning about the things that plague you? …Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

You're listening to a Complexly Podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Of course, I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars, the planet, and AFC Wimbledon, a third or fourth-tier English soccer club. Which is it, John? Fourth, fourth at the moment. So I've been thinking the arc of history bends toward Wimbledon.

That's right. That's right. It's not a fast thing that happens, but it is a thing that happens. That's right. Like justice. I maybe I have been thinking, John, and I've been I've been brought around to, I don't think the earth is flat, but I think it is mostly flat. And I would like to present to you a little bit of evidence.

Okay. That some natural spring formations do produce carbonated water, but almost all the rest of it is not. So most of the water on earth is flat water. And that's a joke. That was just so everybody knows that was a joke. Look, it did feel necessary to point out,

John, I have something I need to talk to you about immediately after that. If you go to Google and you type in top 10 best podcasts for teens. And I know this friend of mine has a teen and type this into Google to try and find a good podcast for teens and found that first of all, Google suggests us after stuff. You should know radio lab stuff you missed in history class Ted talks. And then it's us. Wow. stuff you missed in history class, Ted talks, and then it's us.

Wow. That's amazing. And then if you go to the top Google result, we're third down after my favorite murder, which I don't think that I would personally suggest to my teen. Yeah. And the mortified podcast,

which is all about the cringe-worthy moments that teen life is made of. Which also we do do. We don't do true crime. That's true. But we do mortifications. Heavy mortification podcast over here. I was just thinking about some of your mortifications recently. Some of mine?

Yeah. Oh no, those are just supposed to be me thinking about them. No, I cycle through all of mine so often that I ran out briefly, but then I had a new one come up, so it was all good. I think we are a top podcast for teens. I think we should amend the intro to say, hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John, a teen podcast. A top podcast for teens. A top podcast for teens. I love it. I'm so proud to be a top podcast for teens. I had no idea and I can say- We do sometimes hear from teenage listeners to be fair. Oh, for sure. I also say we work, we try to not say dirty words, though I think teens do do that.

Oh, I mean based on the teen in my house, that is not the issue. My best friend Chris told me a story that he was walking past the area where the PlayStation is and he heard Henry say a bad word and Chris said, and I'll tell you John, it sounded like he'd said it before. It didn't sound like it was new in his lexicon. Yeah. No, I mean, when I was in high school, we used a particular bad word as what they call a filler word, the way that you might say like or um. Yeah. We would use a particular word.

And it's so like, it was, it started with F. It was probably the, and it was conjugated. It was the infinitive form. It was a gerund. A gerund. Yes, that's what it is. I'm not good with that. John recently- That's why you have a grammar brother. There's a science brother and a grammar brother. I actually am making a video soon about the difference between M dashes and N dashes, which is going to be a massive hit on YouTube. Oh, there's an N dash?

There's an N dash, E-N, yeah, dash. Why are they named after the letters M and N? They're not named after, I don't know that they are named after the letters, it's E-M and E-N is how they're spelled. Well, that's how the letters are spelled. I don't know if you know this. Oh, I didn't know that.

So I guess now we also have a spelling brother. Yeah. you know this. Oh, I didn't know that. So I guess now we have also have a spelling brother. It is definitely not me. John, can I hit you with zucchini? Go. Z-U-C-C-H-I-N-I. Damn boy, you're the spelling brother. But I'll tell you what I don't have. That was some hot spelling.

That was top tier. I don't have anything up there visually. I mean, I'm made out of words, Hank. I am entirely lexicographical. You wish, you wish. There are no visions in my mind. I have aphantasia, you know, so like I can't see anything in my brain.

I thought you meant like presenting to the world all you are is words. Oh, wouldn't that be the best? What I wouldn't give to be words. Ooh, nice. That's beautiful. It's so much trouble to be this biological phenomenon. Someday you will just be words.

I know. That's a great point, Hank. My afterlife is gonna rule. I'm gonna live my dream of just being made out of words. Oh man, I was so taken aback at being a top podcast for teens. I will say that among the other top podcasts for teens are lots of podcasts that I listen to. So it's not like they're just for teens. No, no, no. Radio Lab is not a teenage podcast. It's just a top podcast for teens. And Science Friday is on there. I was just listening to Science Friday yesterday. Another top podcast for teens.

I also love the phrase top podcast for teens. It's so good. There's something glorious about it. I'm going to have to tell my teen that I make a top podcast for teens. I think he's going to be pretty surprised. He's a big fan of podcasts, but he's not, I would say, a devoted listener to Dear Hank and John. Do you think we should redesign our podcast logo?

To have- Can make it like cool, hipster, teenish? Yeah, we could put some weed on there, some mushrooms. Is that- I don't think that's what teenagers like. What are you talking about? I don't know. That's like, that's what we are all drawing in our notebooks.

No. No? I was drawing, I was drawing spirals. I bet you were. Spir No? I was drawing spirals. I bet you were. Just spirals, spirals, spirals, spiral after spiral. Yeah, I was drawing weed way before I ever even saw weed. I don't know.

I don't even think, we can't include it. We have to cut the weed out of the podcast? Yeah, Hank, we can't talk about this stuff in our top podcast for teens. Ha ha ha ha. Geez. Let's answer some questions from our listeners. All right, Hank, we've got a question from Emily. We got to answer it because Emily is a hospital chaplain and I'm extremely biased toward hospital chaplains. I bet, yes, you are. Dear John and Hank, I am a hospital chaplain and

very science dumb. You're not science dumb, Emily. You're just science. Nobody's explained it to you in a way that clicked yet. I am engaged to a wonderful man who is an amateur astronomer and very science smart, which is to say that science has been explained to him in a way that clicked with him. We always come back to this conversation that he tries to explain space stuff to me. Lately, we are discussing gravity. My question is, why don't we know why gravity works or how gravity is? I am currently dissatisfied with the answer of it simply is, and we don't know. Still not understanding the gravity of the situation, Emily.

I mean, honestly, I feel like we understand gravity better than the other ones. No, we do not. I disagree. Well, there's a certain way in which we understand gravity in a way that makes a lot of sense, in which it like mass warps space. we understand gravity in a way that makes a lot of sense in which it like

like mass warps space. So like so. So in that way, it's just like you're you're sort of always falling unless you're being stopped by something because space is going down under you. Yes, but but in terms of like how how it like functions with the rest of physics. No, that's off the table. But the rest of physics to me is the confusing part.

The gravity thing is just like, oh, like we can see with lots of evidence that large massive objects or any object of any mass, like it warps space that you can use it as a lens. You can see it in the sky. Then that's very strange. But That's why we're falling down. It's because space is warped downward toward the center of the Earth. We don't know why gravity is. We don't know why massive things work space.

Emily is asking why. Having hosted this podcast with Dr. Katie Mack, Crash Course the Universe, which I suggest you listen to, Emily. We talk a lot about gravity and I get very confused by it. But having hosted this podcast with Dr. Katie Mack, one of my big conclusions is that why is what the Buddhists would call a question wrongly put. Cosmology is only in the why business up to a point. At. At a certain point, the why's, like why did the big bang happen was my first question for Dr. Mack and she was like, you know, that's not really a question for us because we can't get to before by definition. I know that we can't, but I do, I kind of disagree with, I have talked, every cosmologist I've ever talked to has sort of been of that opinion,

and I know that they're right, because like, what the hell do I know? Yeah, agreed. But like, I kind of feel like we don't know what we'll know someday, and there's always gonna be a why beyond that, there will always be another why, you know? Yeah. That's, I know that from playing the why game with my children when they were

younger, there's always a why behind the why. There's always a why behind the why. And, and in a way, like if there is a, if there is a answer to the last why, um, then it, it means some pretty weird stuff. Well, it just means some pretty weird stuff. Well. I just means because God. Yeah, or because like some creator, I think that it could be it could just be like a kid playing a video game for all we know.

Yeah. Or as we call it, God. Which I don't think it well, obviously, I'm saying I don't think it's a kid playing a video game. I'm not a simulation theory bro, is all I'm saying. Oh yeah, me neither. I just can't get into that business. I think the point here is that there's a lot we still don't know about gravity and we could figure it out. There is the possibility of tying gravity to the rest of physics, which so far we haven't been able to do. But there isn't the possibility of answering the why. It's an infinite regress problem, the why problem to me. It's turtles all the way down and there is no way to get to the bottom turtle. It is an infinite collection of turtles. Yeah. And so there's like, there's a certain amount of just like, instead of asking why

is, you just say this is, which is- Yeah. You say what is. What is, which is pretty great that we even have that. And we can get to a lot of whys. We know broadly speaking, like why humans have eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We like in terms of biology, we have like pretty much all the whys, except for the first one, which we in the last 20 years have gotten a lot closer to. The first one being why did life evolve in the first place? Yeah, it is like where did life come from?

Like how did like the first living thing happen? And we're like, I'm kind of expecting this book to come out sometime soon where like some really good science journalist is gonna like hit this one well. Are they gonna talk about like the transition from like early pre-cellular metabolism type stuff to like, you know, RNA from there to cells, membranes from there.

And like, we've got like a lot of little pieces of the puzzle at this point. But nobody's like tried to build up the puzzle yet in a sort of coherent form. Oh, I thought you were gonna say like, build the puzzle by like recreating life from constituent elements, Frankenstein style, which I'm not interested in. No, well, I mean, we could already do that.

Okay. Well, I'm not interested in it at all because I read Frankenstein. We can take a cell membrane and put pieces from places and kind of build a cell that way. But we can't go from some chemistry happening in a vial to a cell. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in no hurry for that one. I trust us as a species about as far as I can throw us. It's just chemistry. Yeah, I don't want to be reminded that everything is just chemistry, Hank. I know that you enjoy being like, everything is chemistry, to be reminded that everything is just chemistry, Hank. I know that you enjoy being like everything is chemistry and I know that everything is chemistry, but I don't like being reminded of the fact that I'm like a 30 trillion cell colony that's just a series

of chemical reactions. That doesn't help me. That's making a top podcast for teens. That's not the kind of stuff that's in a top podcast for teens. That's exactly right. I think that though, that stuff is totally in a top podcast for teens. That's exactly right. I think that though, that stuff is totally in a top podcast for teens. No, no. But it is weird that 30 Trillion Cells could make a top podcast for teens. The top podcast for teens, first off, it's 60 Trillion Cells because it took both of us. Secondly, top podcast for teens are about things like Chapel Roan and-

I don't know. Battleground 6. You know what I was thinking about this morning? I don't know what that is. Like Chapel Rowan and Battleground 6. You know what I was thinking about this morning? I don't know what that is. It's a video game I made up. You know, we have a friend named Craig who has a band called Driftless Pony Club. Love Craig.

Isn't it weird that like before everybody else was a fan of a pink pony club, we were a fan of like a completely separate pony club? That's true. I am in my second Pony Club fandom. Yeah. That's a high number of pony clubs. No, I didn't, you know, I didn't even know until I had that thought. I didn't even think, what's a pony club? Now I really want to know.

Well, if you listen to the song Pink Pony Club, you can get a pretty good idea for what that club is. Yeah, you're right. I do have an idea of what that pony club is like. What's a pony club? I asked to Google. I just love Chapel Rhone so much. And that's not just because I'm trying to pander to our beloved teenagers. It is true. I love Chapelrone. I saw Chapelrone open for Olivia Rodrigo when I took Alice to an Olivia Rodrigo concert. It's the only time in my life when I've seen an opening act and I was like, that person should be a star. When was that? Maybe a year ago. I do this thing where sometimes I ask on Twitter for people to send me like songs that are just like absolute bangers. Yeah. And in 2020, somebody sent me Pink Pony Club,

and I had no idea who the artist was. And it was like on a playlist that I listened to a bunch while I was working out. And then like I heard that song on the radio four years later. And I was like, what the heck is going on? That song is I just want to point out. Apparently it got like it, it like got re released. four years later and I was like, what the heck is going on? That song is old. I just wanna point out. But apparently it got like, it like got re-released.

Yeah. Yeah. I just wanna point out that you just did something really rare, which is you bragged twice with one fact. First, that you were working out and secondly, that you basically discovered Chappellrone on your own according to you. I know, I mean like I tweeted about that and somebody was like, oh, ho, ho.

And they showed me that they had been subscribed to Chapelrone on YouTube since 2014, since Chapelrone was not Chapelrone. All right. So you didn't discover anybody. That's the point. I don't think so, no. And you probably weren't working out. I was.

I was using my rowing machine. That was my rowing machine playlist. Hank, Hank, come on, man. We can't reveal that we use a rowing machine if we're gonna be a top podcast for teens. This question comes from Katie who asks, hi guys, what if eventually at some point you both go on Dancing with the Stars,

just an idea I had please? DFTBA Katie. Well, first off, I'm thrilled that our guy Steve. Steve Niderozik is on Dancing with the Stars. Our fellow Steve, the pommel horse specialist, noted American nerd fighter Steve is going on Dancing with the Stars. I wouldn't want to take his spot,

but also I'd like to state for the record that I couldn't take his spot for two reasons. And I'm just gonna, Katie, I'm going to dig deep into the title of the show with you, if you don't mind. Dancing with the Stars? Yes. The show is called Dancing with the Stars. Now, we'll put aside the with and the the because I think you could have a show that's gerunding with the and then a noun that could fit my definition. You could have a show that was, for instance, contemplating mortality with the original YouTubers, and I would be on that show.

The problem with Dancing with the Stars is really the gerund and the noun there. Dancing, which I can't do, and star, which I'm not. Can I be on like rowing with the dads? Just like, just like. What about, uh, what about skibbitying with the teens? No, I don't think that skibbity as far as I could tell. That's like, uh, they don't skibbity anymore. No, I think that's, I think that was always a younger than teen activity.

Okay, and is it indeed a verb? Oh gosh, talking to the wrong guy. Both because I'm not the Grammar Brother and because I don't know enough about skippitying. All right, well anyway, moving on. I can dance. And I think, I don't know, I feel like I might be on the edge of being enough of a star

to be on Dancing with No. I know that I don't have enough time. It seems like a huge time commitment, especially if you do well, which I would. I love you, but you'd get voted off in week one. I mean, maybe you'd stand for week one because of the power of Nerdfighteria. Nerdfighteria could probably get you power you through the first week just because they're that supportive. But the idea that you're going to be-

Oh no. Have you ever watched this show? Most of the stars aren't very good at dancing. I wouldn't win. Dude, you're not that good at dancing. I'm better than Rudy Giuliani or whatever the hell. Was Rudy Giuliani on Dancing with the Stars? Something terrible like that. No. No.

No, he was on The Masked Singer. That's very different. Sean Spicer, Sean Spicer was on Dancing with the Stars, and I think there's no doubt that I am both a better dancer and a better man. You might well be a better man, but you're not a bigger star. Sean Spicer is a celebrity, and you respectfully are not. Do you even know who Sean Spicer is? Yeah, he used to be the press secretary during the Trump administration.

Exactly. Nobody remembers that guy. What do you mean nobody remembers that? Like, that's a job where you're on TV every day. You haven't been on TV ever. I'm on the I'm on YouTube a million times a day. It's not like we're in the top 100 most subscribed YouTubers, respectfully. We might be a top podcast for teens, but you're really letting that distinction go to your head, man.

I want dancing with all of the members of the top podcasts for teens. Oh my God, dancing with Radiolab? How cool would that be? Yeah. Oh my, Lulu Miller and- Dancing with Lulu Miller, hell yeah. Oh, that'd be incredible. Science Friday, I'd watch the crap out of that show. Dancing with Ira Flatow. Dancing with Ira Flatow. Yeah. I think maybe we should just be on podcasting with the podcast hosts.

No, I like our job. I don't want to make it more complicated. This is the other thing is that if I were on Dancing with the Stars, and I don't know how to say this without sounding ungrateful, but if I were on Dancing with the Stars, I would become famous again, which is extremely undesirable to me. Yeah, I would be way more famous if I went on Dancing with the Stars, which is a very bad idea. People who aren't deeply invested in your work walk up to you and say hello. That's weird. I don't want that. I like it when people who are deeply invested in your work walk up to you and say hello. Yeah. That's weird.

I don't want that. Yeah. I like it when people who are deeply invested in my work come up to me and say hello. That's lovely. Yeah. John, I have a very important question I wanna ask next. It's from Rachel who asks, dear Hank and John.

My question, when jaundiced, do you think Smurfs turn green, deepest regards, Rachel? I think most likely they turn less blue because they're so blue. I think you have to bring a lot of yellow in to turn green. Yeah. But I think that we should do it. I think we should jaundice a Smurf on purpose. I think we should jaundice a Smurf. Yeah. I think we should. I've gone to the Smurf Wiki, John, just because I'm curious if they have livers, which seems like a necessary part. They have to.

Yeah, you'd think that they'd have a liver, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they have to. It says a Smurf's physiology consists of, and then it names all of the same systems that humans have. And then it's got a little map of a Smurf with all of the same systems that humans have. And then it's got a little map of a Smurf with all of the parts in it. And I can indeed see the liver and indeed also what appeared to be.

Ovaries? No, that's the bladder. It doesn't show me what's going on down. No, it does. Oh, cool. That's great. It sounds like a really detailed Smurf wiki and also like you maybe need to clear your browser history. I mean, it's just the Smurf fandom wiki, but it really, it does. Well, the important thing is that they do have a liver, which means they can get jaundice, but I don't think they turn green.

I think they turn less blue. Why, why wouldn't they, they'd have, they, you'd have an excess of bile. So you'd have a yellow tinge to your skin. Yeah. In addition to their blue tinge, I think that they would turn green. Maybe. All right, I'll buy it.

And from what I can tell, they have internal testicles, which is like elephants. Well, maybe it's just cold. It's totally possible. That reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Smurf Testies. Smurf Testies, we went there. This podcast is also brought to you by Why? Why? A question wrongly asked. And this podcast is brought to you by Steve the pommel horse guy. Steve the pommel horse guy, we really hope he is a guest host someday on Dear Hank and John. It can be after all the famous stuff passes. He's got to do all the really critical stuff now.

He's got to be on Letterman and all that. Letterman, top podcast for teens. But eventually, when the wave passes, we'll still be here, Steve, waiting for you. And this podcast is brought to you by Rowing with the Dads, my new important television show that will be on television. I've never really wanted to be on television. We also have a project for Awesome Message from Gail Lotenberg to Twyla. We wanna send a shout out to our daughter Twyla

on her 19th birthday. Can there be a bigger fan of your show? Oh my God, she's a teen, Hank. It's true. I promise we didn't set this up. No, no. If you ever need an intern, she's there. We love that for Twyla's 19th,

she asked for nothing more than a donation to PIH. So we went big and grabbed this opportunity to acknowledge her through Project for Awesome with a birthday message on your show. Twyla, love you to the biggest star and back. That is really lovely. Thank you for sharing her birthday with us. That's very cool of you. This next question is from Clara who says, Dear Honkin Jane, I have a job where I have to walk a lot. I drink a lot of tap water during my shifts It feels like my thirst is never quenched

Why is that isn't water the thing that I need when I feel thirsty? It's like I never had that fresh feeling you get when you're hydrated I leave work every day craving a bunch of tomatoes or cucumbers or something else of that fresh variety I could drink a whole bottle of water British pronunciation Clara That was bad Claire made me do that Ooh, that was bad. Clara made me do that. Okay. That wasn't my fault.

All right, so do you know the answer to this? I assume, Clara, that you're living in a dry. So there's two Americas. There's wet America and there's dry America. I live in dry America. And I am also always thirsty, especially if I'm moving around because just breathing,

just like a huge amount of water just evaporates from your trachea and your esophagus and the back of your throat. And you're just like, that's the feeling you're getting. So maybe like your body might be plenty hydrated, but the inside of your mouth might not be. And so you always, it's almost like you don't need water as much as you just need to be holding water in your mouth.

This is the feeling that I often have, where I just need a little, like a lot of little swallows rather than, but like, I don't know your situation. Maybe you live in Orlando, Florida, and you're like in one of the chief wets. I was going to say that maybe you just need to drink a little more water. You think you're drinking enough, but maybe you're not if you're still thirsty. Usually thirst is a pretty good

indicator. Yeah. It is. It is. Though you, I will say, do not live in dry America. I don't. I live in wet America for sure, 100%. It was so wet America for sure, 100%. Wet, it was so hot yesterday, it was 100 degrees, but it was so much hotter because of the wetness in the air. Just this- Oh, are you having the corn sweat problem? It felt like I was walking through a soup. Are you in corn sweat land right now? Do you know what corn sweat is?

It's corn sweat land, no. So there's this thing where, when it gets particularly hot during the particular season of the corn harvest, corn, because they're plants, they take a lot of water to make themselves and they have to pump it through their leaves and it evaporates out of their leaves of apple transpiration. That's how plants work. And so they create a huge, they are a weather phenomenon of their own and they produce a lot of humidity From their leaves that would normally not be there And so you end up with and I saw that there was a particular bad

time in the Midwest recently with with Heat and corn sweat combining to create very uncomfortable Time now is this one of the things where you're tricking me combining to create a very uncomfortable time. Now, is this one of the things where you're tricking me? Sounds like it, but it's not. It's a real phenomenon. Very impressive.

The Weather Channel says, ever heard of corn sweat? It's a thing. And that's the Weather Channel. Okay, well, I'm gonna tell everybody around here about corn sweat because, my God, we do not have a shortage of corn. No shortage of corn or corn sweat.

Indiana is trying to rebrand itself right now. You know how Michigan is pure Michigan. Well, we're not going to have that. We've been thinking about what we are going to have and we've been talking about maybe something about – because we've got fast cars here, because of the Indy 500, maybe you lean into that. Maybe you lean into the fact that we're the NCAA capital of the world. Couldn't have told you that. Yeah. I don't know what you lean into, but it's trying to rebrand itself. But maybe it should just be Indiana corn sweat. Where it's all sweaty. Yeah. Indiana. Mo moist land. Let me throw it back at you. Indiana moist. All right. We got another question from Jared and

Mia who write, dear mostly John, how's Potato doing? Any good stories? Jared and Mia. Potato is my dog. He is an Italian water dog and he is one year old now. There's only one thing you need to know about Potato really and that's that Potato will be putting that in his mouth. Whatever it is, it's going in his mouth. If it's a sock, it's going in his mouth. We found two $20 bills in his stool. Oh my God. You were like, the kids are stealing money. But it was-

It was one full $20 bill and then one ripped in half $20 bill. He did have the decency to only eat $30 or so, but it still cost me $40. That's not how $20 bills work. Where's the other half? Well, I was trying to explain that to Potato that you can't eat half a $20 bill and then say that you only ate $10 worth of money. Like that's just not realistic.

And he was like, why don't you just clean up the money? Are you that entitled? And I was like, yes, I am that entitled. I will not be cleaning this poop stained money that came out of your anus. I will be throwing it away. What's the denomination where you clean the bill? I think for me, it might be 20. That's a great question. It might be 20 for you? It might be 20. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I didn't see it. I didn't have the experience. You've never seen one $20 bill and half a $20 bill just fully enmeshed in poop. That's true. It's not like I was like one wipe of toilet paper away from, now this is top podcast for teen stuff right here. It's not like I was like that close to

having a 20. I mean, this was going to be a process. Yeah, it was some labor involved. This is going to be about an hour and a half of work, which would net me about 15 bucks an hour. 100? 100? 100, I think that you'd have to strongly, you'd have to try to figure out a solution. You'd think through it. You'd be like, okay, what's the way that I do this?

Do I like put it in some like low concentration bleach? But like I remember that- Run it through the laundry? I remember when I worked at Steak and Shake, someone once left me a $1 tip inside the nacho cheese that was left over from their nachos. And I did save that dollar. I squeegeed it off, you know?

And then I wet it, got it real wet, kind of cleaned it up. And just, you know, wet it dry. So you know what this would be like? It'd be like that with poop. Yeah. Yeah. It's harder to do it with your dog's poop than it is even with nacho cheese from Steak and Shake. But I think with a hundred, I would figure it out. Yeah. That's why I don't keep hundreds in the house though, because Potato will eat them. He will eat anything. He ate a hat. I was looking at him the other day and I was looking down at him and I was like, are you eating my hat? And he was like, I'm not eating it. I ate it already. It's ruined.

Wow. Oh, he's the best. I love him so much. I'm a cat person. I'll tell you. It turns out that our entire family is cat people. We love our cats and they are such good housemates. That's great. Occasionally they become thunder in the middle of the night. But mostly, mostly it's very chill. Hey Hank.

Yeah. I got a question from Lewis. Okay. Lewis says, I'm a nursing student and in one of my classes we're talking about Hodgson Lymphoma today. And it made me think about you because I don't know if you know this, Hank, but weirdly, this is crazy, but you had cancer last year. I know. Yeah, I know. I'm seeing my this time last

year notifications on all my things and I'm just not looking great. How was that a year ago? It was both yesterday and 17 years ago. I don't know, man. Did you enjoy learning about how your cancer works? Maybe this is also a question for John, but do you ever fall down internet rabbit holes learning about the things that plague you? Oh yeah. Side note,

tips for studying diseases are welcome. On a quest to explore, Sons Clark Lewis. Nice, nice. I obviously fall down lots of rabbit holes. I mean, I've spent the last year writing a book about cancer because of that very phenomenon. Yeah. And what I've found is, I mean, it's fascinating.

It's just like, I mean, disease and the human body are, like the disease is just like the human body not working perfectly for various reasons. And it's like, how does it work well all the time, any of the time, it's so, and like, sometimes people are like, there must be something, like some reason for things to go wrong. And it's like, what's the reason that it always goes right? How is it always, how is it, how do people like live for 80 years and not get cancer?

That's wild. Right. I think that you, I find it interesting that you are very interested in find it interesting that you are very interested in mechanical failures of the human body. You're interested in when the body breaks down or develops cancers and I'm interested in infectious disease when the body is attacked from outside. I think that actually says, I mean, some of that is of course because you had cancer and I had meningitis and that's just the way that it went. But some of it I think is about our personalities. Yeah. Tell me more. Are you worried about being attacked from outside, whereas I am just sort of always convinced of my own moral failings? No, no, no. I think you're worried about the clockworks and I'm worried about invasion, right?

Yeah. You're worried about the, and by the way, you are correct. Overwhelmingly, the greater threat is the clockworks. Yeah, not historically. Not historically and not everywhere, but currently in rich countries, the clockworks is the greater threat. Yeah.

But infection, invasion from outside, being attacked by, not by yourself, but by things that are separate from you is terrifying to me. I am, you are right, I am more worried and more upset by the idea of my body attacking itself. Cause I mean, I also have had ulcerative colitis for over 20 years. Right, right. I am more worried and more upset by the idea of my body attacking itself, because I'm going to also have had ulcerative colitis for over 20 years. Right. Right.

And also, I'm fascinated by it because when the body's problems are failures of the body, it also highlights how the body works. It highlights the mechanisms of the body. And you see, you know, this is less the case with ulcerative colitis, though certainly when you get into the weeds of the immune system, it gets very wild and weird. But with cancer, it's the whole thing.

It's the immune system, it's metabolism, it's, you know, it's like cell signaling, it's everything. It's like there's, it's everything. It's like there's nothing that it doesn't touch. Well, your book is really a window into how the human body works because it's a window into cancer. Yeah, if you understand cancer, you understand the whole body.

Right, right. So it's been very, very cool. And as far as like how to learn it and understand it, I can't imagine it's anything but time. And also having the foundations that you're building from because it's all, it's a house of cards, all leaning on itself. And if you don't have some piece somewhere,

things aren't gonna click. I should say that I feel the same way in some ways about infectious disease, but on a broader scale, like not that the individual human body fails or that you can learn everything about the biology of a body through learning about cancer, although I completely agree with you that you can or learn a lot about it. But I think you can learn a lot about social orders and societies and the choices that people make in collaboration with each other by studying infectious disease,

especially an infectious disease that wasn't always considered infectious. That's why I'm obsessed with tuberculosis is because for a long time it was considered inherited and associated with families. And then eventually they realized that it was infectious and that completely changed the way that the disease was understood and imagined and talked about

and stigmatized. Yeah. Yeah, and we mostly think about disease in terms simply of their impacts on the individual, but it is a human story. on the individual, but it is a human story. And the impacts of disease can be far beyond the impacts of the disease because that person is existing in a society and has to deal with

all of the social impacts as well. I thought they saw a lot of a coconut tree. I think they might exist inside of the context of all that they are and all that came before them? Yeah, I think it might be that. Wow. Yeah. That's kind of beautiful actually. People try to make fun of that, but it's actually a lovely sentiment.

Speaking of lovely sentiments, it's time for the news from AFC Wimbledon and Mars. Yes. Well, Hank, I flew to England to see AFC Wimbledon play Bromley. That's right, Hank, Bromley. At Bromley. Bromley, the white hot center of American culture. Bromley, where it all happens. They had a subway, not like the underground train, but like an actual subway restaurant. Like a sandwich shop, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You call it a restaurant, but okay. It was great. I really enjoyed my time in Bromley. There was just one problem, which is that AFC Wimbledon got their butts kicked. We lost 2-0 and we played about like a team that would lose 2-0. We did not impress in any way. But we then went on to defeat Cheltenham 1-0. I know what you're saying. Cheltenham,

Bromley, surely these places are made up. But no, they're real. We beat Cheltenham 1-0. It was a great goal from Joe Pigott. He's back. We sing, feed the pig, feed the pig, feed the pig and he will score. Yeah. And we fed the pig and he scored. He scored a great goal actually, like on a half volley. It was really impressive. So thanks to Joe Pigott, we are now in eighth place in League two. Now admittedly, that's only three games into the season. So it's a little soon to start celebrating, but still six points on the board is six points on the board. 50 points, we avoid relegation. 70 points, we're probably in the playoffs.

All right. Get them. Get the points. One at a time. We will today as we're recording this, we're about to play Ipswich Town, a team in the Premier League in the Carabao Cup. If we win that game, that would be huge, but of course, we won't win it because they're in the Premier League. But Ipswich Town is best known to AFC Wimbledon fans for having bought our best ever player in the AFC Wimbledon era from us, Ali Al Hamidi. So, Ali Al Hamidi will be starting against AFC Wimbledon. Based on what he was like when he played for AFC Wimbledon, that's going to be a catastrophe. Not really looking forward to it. No.

Okay. I root for that guy everywhere he goes and I will for the rest of his career. I'm so proud that AFC Wimbledon. I believe Ali Al Hamidi is AFC Wimbledon's first player who was a permanent signing, really played for us and was one of our squad who made it to the Premier League. So I'm very proud of him. That is very cool. So you just have to score goals. Yeah. I mean, that is the basic. You've really cracked the code of football commentary, Hank. Maybe you should be like the color commentator and I can do the play by play.

And also if you can keep the other team from scoring goals. That's even better. The ideal is that you score more goals than the other team, but if the other team scores no goals, then you only have to score one to score more. Yeah, you can't lose. If you score more than they do, you can't lose.

That's right. I mean, if you keep them from scoring any goals, you also can't lose. That's true. That's true. The worst that can happen is a tie. Speaking of not losing, how about that Oasis reunion? I don't know what you're talking about. Oasis are getting back together. I didn't know that happened. That's awesome. Oh yeah. Well, I think because my Twitter thinks that I'm British because all I ever tweet about is English football. Twitter was just overwhelmingly the news about Oasis is reunification and I was like, I'm not invested in Oasis at all, but then I realized it's because they think that I'm English.

Okay. And I do like Wonderwall. Why wouldn't you? They have a lot of great songs. It was a great time. I remember those times. I was aware, I was in high school when Oasis got big and it was good stuff. Wow.

That explains why Liam Gallagher looks so old. Yeah, it also explains why we have a top podcast for teens. For teens. In Mars news. The Perseverance Rover, which if you can believe it, has been on Mars for three and a half years already. Wow, that is astonishing to me. Really almost upsetting for me. Time is a flat circle.

It's been doing a lot, it's been going all over, it's been mostly in the area at the bottom or sort of moving up inside of this crater in Jezero Crater. And the idea is that this was probably an ancient lake bed and it had hydrological features and it looks like it definitely was and there's lots of signs of long-term water there. But now it's going to start heading up to the crater rim and the great thing about being in a crater is that it's a geological time machine. You can see all different layers of stuff going as you move up through the crater.

And you can see a lot about not just what Mars was like once it was sort of like static and maybe there was water there and Mars is locked tectonically. So on earth, stuff gets shuffled around and recycled and very little of our land was here at the beginning. But on Mars, it's tectonically locked and has been pretty much since the beginning, it seems like. And so there's also much less erosion because there's not water falling out of the sky

all the time. So you can see a lot more of like what Mars, like how Mars formed by going up the rim of this crater and taking samples and learning about it. So, so perseverance is moving out of the lake bed starting its trek up to the rim of this crater, which is wild that it is going to be able to do this. I hope that that everything goes well.

It's a big old little SUV on Mars. So they know what they're doing and they're gonna do a big drive now. But the bottom of the crater is the oldest part, right? Or like, you have to go to the wall. I guess you have to go to the wall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The bottom of the crater isn't old

because it's like sediment that's been like swept by the wind or by water. Right, okay. And, but then as you move up it, but like it's not like earth where there's like a lot of sedimentary layers. So I don't know exactly how it works because it's not defined by water the way that we are.

I love- Even if there was a lot of water. I love the phrase geological time machine. That's quite lovely. We very much have that on earth. We also have historical time machines where we can see just the layers of a city over many hundreds of years as the city holds itself on top of itself over and over again. We also have a historical time machine in the sense that now we can look at photographs and even video from 100 years ago, which of course wasn't possible 100 years ago just to state the obvious. I was just watching a movie from 1925 and I was like, oh man, this was 100 years ago. All these people are dead. There's a whole new batch of folks.

This is them now. That's all there is. This is what they are. Yeah, they're made out of words. Thank God. I hope that YouTube is still around in 100 years. No, I'd rather be made out of words if that's okay. Should we put all our stuff on DVD? Yeah, that technology is going to survive. People do say that they're like, physical media is, and I I'm like plastic degrades. I'm sorry. It depends on the physical media. Yeah. I mean, nothing lasts forever, not even cold November rain. So there's no way to totally ensure against a catastrophe. Yeah. We should just carve all the Vlogbrothers videos onto a cave wall.

Yeah. That's not a bad idea. Just one scene at a time, every single shot and then little subtitles. We're going to need a big cave. We're going to need a bigger cave. Hank, thank you for potting with me. Thanks to everybody for listening and thanks for your questions at hankandjohn at gmail.com. We love your questions, we love your emails, we love your corrections, which are legion and thank you for reaching out. This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhaus. It's mixed by Joseph Tunamidish.

Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosianna Hals, Rojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Trakravarti. The music you're hearing now and the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarolla. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget. Don't forget to be awesome.