Dear Hank & John - 216: Zombie Turtle Party

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

Why do we say “head over heels”? What should I wear to a Mountain Goats concert? What is the best thing that happened during the 2010s? Do airplanes have horns? What is my boyfriend’s interesting news?? How much money would I need to donate to PIH to get you to go bungee jumping or skydiving? What should I bring to a zombie turtle party besides a shovel? Justice or mercy? What happened to the short poems? John Green and Hank Green have answers. If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]. Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn Subscribe to the Nerdfighteria newsletter! https://nerdfighteria.com/nerdfighteria-newsletter

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or is that for the thing with Dear John and Hank? It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the least advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I was a little bit late for the podcast today. I'm sorry, but I was a bit of an emergency. Or an eight-a-bunch of Scrabble Tiles.

That seems very unlikely. It seems more like the setup for some kind of joke. Well, he seems to be okay right now, but I think that his next poop might spell disaster. Thanks. That was pretty funny. I appreciate your laughter. I mean, the only thing that's not funny about it is that actually, you know, it's quite serious when... You're laughter. I mean, the only thing that's not funny about it is that actually, you know, it's quite serious

when baby swallow stuff that is in food, but I'm gonna let that go. I'm gonna read you joke generously, Hank, which is the ass. The surest sign that I've been away from the social internet for a while. How are you doing, bud? Oh, yeah, pretty good on the whole.

It's funny you should ask that because I just went to the psychiatrist who was asking me the same question. And I was like, I don't know, I think. All right, I was like, I'm happy when I'm home and who asked when I'm not home, which I think is pretty standard. Oh, that's good.

No, that's a really good sign, actually. Yeah, that's a great point. At least I'm happy when I'm home. Yeah. Can I share with you one of the questions we have from our listeners? Uh, I would like to attempt to answer it. All right, great.

This one comes from Rachel who writes, Hey, John and Hank. Hey, Rachel. Hey. It's a pretty aggressive start. Hey, I won't take it personally though. Why do we use the phrase head over heels when talking about falling in love?

Isn't our head always over our heels? Wouldn't it make more sense to say heels over head? Head over heels, but not in love, because that's just the standard way of being Rachel. Good question. Do you know the answer to this question, John? No. Well, it just so happens that I weirdly enough do. So your head, if you were standing up right now, which I assume you're not, is not.

I'm seated, but by the way, my head is still over my heels. It's not. It's not over your heels when you're not. I'm not. I'm seated, but by the way, my head is still over my heels. It's not. It's not over your heels when you're standing either. It is above your heels, but it is not directly over them. So if you stand up and you throw your head forward, imagine what would happen.

You just like catch yourself with your big old toes. If you stand up and you throw your head backward, you have to take a step back because you don't have back toes. And so head over heels means that your head has gone back past your heels and you're falling backwards. And it comes from like a like military speak. Like if you get punched in the face, you go head over heels. Okay. You fall backwards. My central conclusion is that there's something profoundly broken about prepositions in English,

which is something I've believed for a long time. As you know, I have a lot of issues with prepositions, especially... Yeah, no, you're working on that whole chatbook about it. Yeah, especially like people who ask questions that they think are simple and straightforward that involve prepositions. And I want wanna be like, that question is impossible to answer on account of how we don't know what of means

or what in versus on means. Like why am I on an island, but in a city? That's only the beginning of it though. Like the classic example of this is when people ask the question, do you believe in God? What? Ah!

Oh, I'm thinking about it and there's noises clanging in my head. I don't like it. Yeah, well, so people ask that question as if it is a question that makes any sense. In. And every time I hear the question, it's like I'm hearing it for the very first time and I've never heard it before. And I hear someone ask me that question and I'm like, oh, my God, I have no idea what any of those words mean.

I don't really know what you is, right? Yeah. So that's troubling. I definitely don't know what you mean by God. And most of all, I don't know what you mean by in. Oh God, because we ask each other whether we believe in various things all the time. Oh right, yeah. Do you believe in justice?

Do you believe in global warming? Oh, God, in it. In? I don't know. How do I believe in something? Believe about justice? How did my believe get inside of it? I know, I believe near justice.

I want to believe in justice, but I don't know that I do. I don't trust myself. I definitely believe around justice. Yeah, that's the conclusion that I've eventually come to. But by the way, if you answer someone who asks you, do you believe in God by saying that you believe around God? The great thing about that answer is that it ends the conversation. Which is, it's not a conversation I need to be having right now.

Exactly. So that's perfect. Exactly. It's a wonderful way to just shut it down. Well, I'm glad that we got here. Good. Colton has a question for us, John. Great. They asked, dear Hank and John, I'm going to see a mountain goats concert and I'm thrilled as you should be. However, I don't know what I should wear. I have plenty of pizza, John apparel that I could sport, but I'm not sure it would be appropriate for what I should wear, I used to think about what I wore to concerts so much. Me too. It's the only time I thought a lot about what I wore.

Yeah. And I'll tell you exactly why, because I would think to myself, John D'Arneal is going to see me wearing this particular shirt. Ha, ha, ha. I don't care about anyone except for John. Well, yeah, it's just such an intense experience going to a concert. And you also, you're kind of with your people, right? Like, you're with people who love the same thing. You love and your love is oriented in the same direction. They're strangers. And you want to feel like you're a good,

fully enmeshed member of that community. I heard once someone say, oh, are you one of those guys who wears the shirt of the band to the band? And I was like, I mean, I was until this exact moment. I didn't know that was a thing. I can't wear a Taylor Swift shirt to a Taylor Swift concert. Apparently that's there are some people who will, what you got to do,

is find some adjacent media band thing that other people like, then it's like, oh, I see your cool. You like that other thing and this thing. Right. Yes. No, I was definitely that until you said that in a way that made me think it was bad. The one that happened to me that stuck in my mind was one of our first, like, shows that more than four people came to, one of the first events that we did together. Yeah. During the signing, someone told me, you guys dress like your fans and successful performers don't dress like their fan. And Hank, you're laughing because in the intervening 10 years,

I've told you so many times this truism that I have no idea whether it's true. It was spoken to me by one person 12 years ago. And to this day, I try very hard to like dress up when I do events because I'm worried that otherwise people are going to think that I don't care about them or I'm not taking the event seriously. Yeah, and I do think about my clothes before I go on stage more than any other time. All right, I think we've covered it.

You're going to be fine wearing pizza john stuff to the Mountain Goat's concert. There will probably be one or two other people who know what you're wearing, which is the ideal t-shirt, right? I do wanna wear a t-shirt that's adjacent to the thing that only some subsection of people will get. You don't wanna wear like a standard pizza, John shirt, you wanna wear one of the pizza-miss ones, be a little hipster about it, it's gonna be gold.

This next question comes from Will, who writes, Dear John and Hank, the decade is almost over. And I was wondering, what was the best thing that happened during the 2010s? I had a much easier time thinking of the worst things that happened. Don't forget to write your comma, will, Hank. God dang it! I still haven't done it! Oh my god! I had some meetings! Make a will, I had some meetings. It's not that easy. If I, I, I thought it was that easy, and I put a dock on my desktop

that said my last wheel and testament, and it was like, here's what you should do with my stuff, and it turns out that doesn't work. Nope, that's not great. And he is. That's not gonna be great. Okay, so anyway, will was reminding you to get your wheel done. Yeah.

Which you need to do, but that wasn't the question. The question was, what was the best thing that happened during the 2010s? Undertale. RuPaul's Drag Race. Free Shavakadu, the Vine, free Shavakadu. Bad luck, Brian. Just memes. Yeah. Well, it turns out memes.

Bad luck, Brian, was after the 20 tens, or before. Definitely wasn't after. Right, okay. So there were two really objectively good things that happened during the 20 tens, neither of which gets enough attention because we pay so much attention to bad news because it happens all at once.

We pay so little attention to good news because it happens slowly. The first thing is that child mortality went down in this decade worldwide. It didn't go down as fast as it did in the previous decade, but it did go down a lot. And also other measures of human health, especially in poor communities, got better, which is great. And then the second thing that happened is that Liverpool won the Champions League. So it's been a good decade. Yeah. Also a terrible decade.

I got another question for you. John, it comes from Gary who asks, dear Hank and John, do airplanes have horns? Auto corrected to garish every time. Gary. Yes. Plains do not have horns. I love this so much because you really, you really don't think that planes have horns,

but they really do. I spend all my time on planes. Yeah, they don't use them very often. Okay, also I think that we might have a different definition of horn. Do you wanna hear a plane horn? Oh, John, right now. Okay, you're... Sss sound like a horn to you?

What? Plainset horns. They have horns, John. And you've never heard a plain horn because they are only used when necessary, which is very rarely. But they are not used as you might be thinking in your head in the air.

They are used on the ground. When a train has a horn. Yes, I know. I'm familiar with that. And train horns are used both as a warning to be like, hey, we're headed into town, but also as a, if something is going wrong, please get off the tracks, kind of noise. And that is what plane horns are used for. I don't know why, but the button is called GND. If you push the GND button, it makes this noise. We're going to listen to it.

Oh, it's like a boat horn. It is very much like a boat horn, yes. And yeah, and so that's basically used on the ground when like some, something strange is going on when there's a person where they shouldn't be, when the, with plain might hit something, and so the little baggage cart needs to move or something, or when like the operators in the plane during maintenance need to get the attention of someone. Also, it tends to be when it's used the most.

So it's not used in the air, but it is used. It does have a hoot. Hank, I have another question that comes from Kay, who writes, dear brothers, green, help. My boyfriend sent me a text message that he had quote, interesting news in a bit. Okay. I have anxiety and it's been an hour since I heard from him,

what is this news? Why send the pre-news text? How do I make sure that he never does this again? Hand-ringing. Kay. There's a Twitter version of this where reporters will tweet like big news coming one hour. And I'm just like, no, no. And it never is, by the way. Not NASA did this a couple of times where they were like, big news. And everybody's like, aliens, aliens. And it's like, we discovered a layer of ice under the layer of ice

that we knew about. Right. The thing about that is that it's always a disappointment. It's all, yeah, because you're like, oh, big news, big news, aliens. A few times in my life, I have tweeted, like, I have some exciting news to share.dot.dot. Yeah.

Only a few times. Uh-huh. And every time I've done it, all the responses have been like, like I have some exciting news to share dot dot dot. Yeah. Only a few times. And every time I've done it, all the responses have been like, congratulations on your baby or whatever. And then it's like the Fault in Our Stars film comes out on May 20th. Yeah. So, K, it's not big news.

It's something dumb. It's going to be such a disappointment. But K, I have to tell you, whatever it was, Okay, it's not big news. It's something dumb. It's gonna be such a disappointment. But, okay, I have to tell you, whatever it was, you now know about. Yeah. And I don't. And we don't. And so you have made your problem, my problem. You didn't write back. So please, now it's all of these people's problems. Please email us at hankinjohnetgmail.com. We don't need to know details, but I do need to know broadly what it was.

Was it aliens? Interesting news in a bit. Hank, I have one question I have to ask you. I think it's such a good question and it also gets at something I find completely fascinating. Okay. It's a wildly hypothetical question, which is one I love to think about. It's from Caitlin, who writes, how much money would I need to donate to partners in health

to get one or both of you to go bungee jumping or skydiving? So here's my response. If you have enough money to make the world a better place. Yeah. Why would you need me to do something I desperately don't want to do? Yeah, why are you making it contingent upon my misery? I really don't want to do it. I don't want to do it so badly.

Me too. And I... Caitlin, please just make this million-dollar donation now. And don't make me jump out of an airplane. I don't want to. Cause there is a price. Absolutely. Like if some very wealthy mean person

really made me jump out of a plane, absolutely there's a price. I don't want to find out what it is. My price is so high. Like it is. It's ludicrously high. I can't even say it out loud. I can think it in my mind, but it's embarrassing and I can't say it out loud.

The level at which it would suck for me to go bungee jumping, like it wouldn't just suck. While I was bungee jumping, it would suck every minute between when I knew I was going to have to go bungee jumping. And like I would say 40 days after I went bungee jumping. So like you're asking me, like my eye just started twitching thinking about it. Yeah.

Like you're asking me to be miserable for at least two months every day. Yeah. What we need, my price goes down if it's a surprise bungee. That was saying it, now changing my mind. Right, it's not like a super surprise bungee jumper. Like the ground just falls out from under me, but like I need to know about it for less than 20 minutes before hands. Like if the next time that I'm like standing over a 12,000 foot cliff, someone just walks up to me and throws a bungee cord around me. Traps me.

Oh God. That just saying those words, like going to a cold sweat, my palms are sweating. Oh God. I don't get what is interesting about that. I mean, I support people finding their dream. And as I get older, I get less, I get further away from it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Hey, so would you rather go bungee jumping or skydiving? If you had to pick one, which one would it be? Bungee jumping. Really?

Definitely. Absolutely. Yes. Because I'm worried, because this happened to a friend of mine about getting motion sick on the way down and puking while you're hanging off of a parachute. I don't, oh, like that's extra nightmare. Oh wait, you can get motion sick while you're... You can get motion sick while parachute,

like once the parachute opens. Oh God. Isn't that sound miserable? Oh God. I've thrown up on myself enough times in my life to know that it's really unpleasant. I don't want to do it, like a thousand feet above the ground.

One of the worst things that ever happened to me was I was rolling down a hill, you know, like kind of head over heelsy, if you will, or head beneath heels or whatever preposition you want to use. And I started to throw up. And because I was like kind of spinning, I was like throwing up all over myself, you know, like I was like kidding. What age were you when you did this?

When you became this gyroscope of vomit. I was like, what age were you when you did this when you became this gyroscope of vomit? I was 19. Wow. I will say that, you know, what came before the falling down the hill thing were some some bad choices that then culminated in rolling down the hill while vomiting, which itself was a bad choice. Yeah. Hearing that story is what made K's boyfriend text, I have interesting news. Hahaha. Oh, man, which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by the gyroscope of vomit.

The gyroscope of vomit. Have you ever vomit it on your calves? Doesn't seem possible, but there it is. You can. Just believe in yourself. This podcast is also brought to you by your concert clothes. You think about them so much, and no one will notice them.

Today's podcast also brought to you by the plane horn, the plane horn. Hope you never hear it. And finally, this podcast is brought to you by sweaty jumping. It's what happens when John or I go bungee jumping. Oh God, I don't want to bungee jump so bad. I should wake up every morning

and like the first thing that I should say to myself is thank God you don't have to go bungee jumping today. What a day it's gonna be. Another day without bungee jumping. Yeah, what a great way to look at it, John. I really wanted to ask that question, but now I deeply regret asking it. Oh God. John, this next question comes from Melissa, and it's going to turn the podcast around. I'm hoping. Well, I think we've done a great job so far.

Just this particular section. Melissa says, dear Hank and John, I just started a new job at a museum last month. Amazing. That's very cool. This weekend, my boss sent me a zombie turtle party invite. I was told to bring my own shovel because we are quote, digging up an old friend. So my question is, is the shovel the only thing I need to bring to a zombie turtle party. Signed, how should I celebrate Melissa? So my question is how does this boss know where the turtle body is? Who killed the turtle, boss man? I really admire Melissa's just going for it here. Been at this job for a month,

going to a zombie turtle party. But maybe some more questions should be asked. Yeah, I've never been to a zombie turtle party. I've never heard of a, I Googled zombie turtle party. Not a, it's not a thing in case you were wondering. So I think the people you need to be asking, like I would like, I would quietly reach out to some of your co-workers and say,

Hey, they must know. Do you get an invite to the zombie turtle party? What's the dress code? Do I need car hearts? What also, why would you be asked to bring your own shovel? Like presumably this museum has some kind of archeological angle, right? So they got shovels.

Even a normal museum has shovels, you got to do groundswork. I don't I don't like any part of this. I'm getting a distinct horror movie vibe. I once again really want to know how the zombie turtle party went because I assume it's already happened. Yeah, we need we need updates on everything from everybody. Even the questions we don't answer a lot of times I want updates on. So I just want to email them and be like, hey, listen, we can't answer this question on the pod, but I do need an update. So if you've been waiting to give us an update, give us an update. Let us know how you're doing. The other day, Hank, I got an email from someone who'd emailed me when they were in middle school. And now it's like six or seven years later,

and they're not in middle school anymore. They're on their way to college. And they just emailed me and they were like, I thought you might want an update on how I've been doing. And I didn't know that I needed that update. Yeah, but it made me so happy that they thought of me. Yeah, so yeah, give us an update.

Yeah, please. Put update in the subject line so that we can see what you've been up to. It could be as general as you would like. John, I've got another question. This one's from Nor who asks, dear Hank and John, what should be morally prioritized, justice or mercy? No one ever brings anything small to a dear Hank and John podcast.

And Nor certainly didn't. It's a great question. It is. I wonder if it is a, this dichotomy is false. It's a bit of a false dichotomy. I agree. So to me, what this does is it like, suppose is a definition of justice

that I am not comfortable with. So there's justice, which is like fairness, which to me is not incompatible with mercy at all. And then there's justice, which is like Batman justice, revenge style, you did something wrong and so something wrong must be done to you. And that's not like, I don't buy that. I'm not like, I don't buy into that version of justice.

So I think that you can both have mercy and justice because justice shouldn't be about cruelty and the version of justice that is about cruelty isn't one I'm interested in. Yeah, it's the same question that comes up again and again in discussions around mass incarceration. Like, is the role of incarceration to help people become the kind of people who won't commit crimes or is the role of incarceration to punish people for committing crimes. And I think the evidence is really overwhelming that a justice system that is focused on mercy does a better job of reducing overall crime than a justice system that is focused on punishment. In the United States, we have an extremely high incarceration rate, but we don't have an extremely low crime

rate compared to other countries of similar wealth. In fact, we have a very similar crime rate to those countries. Yeah. And, you know, it's right, it's in the name, like we call them correctional facilities. We don't, they're not supposed to be punishment facilities, but they are. And that is a very difficult thing to shift. And I think a lot of people are made comfortable by the idea that people they see as criminals are punished. And it is more about the comfort of the powerful than it is about any kind of rehabilitation,

or even about making society better, which is a really hard thing to have a part of your country's DNA. Also, it's a hard thing because it's a hard thing to keep focused on when there's lots of other stuff going on. And despite the fact that it remains one of the, like, most important issues in American governance right now. All right, Hank, we have another question. This one comes from Katie who writes, dear John and Hank, you may have addressed this in a previous episode of the pod and I just forgot. It's not your fault for not listening to all 700 of these Katie.

I haven't listened to them either. But what happened to the short poems? I really enjoyed them. Not that the dad jokes are bad. They are bad, Katie, thank you for putting that out, but the poetry was really lovely. Not Katie or Katie or Katie. It's more of a spelling joke. So I can see how that was not going to crush on the air. Katie, right. Katie, here's the thing. The bit ran its course as bits will some would argue the dead joke bit is running its course. We're about to change up our Patreon only podcast this weekend. Ryan's to be a different podcast

moving forward because that bit is run its course. But also we started doing ours poetic, which is a YouTube show where lots of different people read you a poem three times a week and that kind of I guess scratched my short poem itch and it's so lovely and I encourage you to check it out. You can find it on the YouTube. Speaking of bits, John, it's time for a million dollar idea. Another million dollar idea. I forgot about this bit. Somebody said it on the internet that it's a million dollar idea. This one says million dollar idea. Soap, but it's already hot. Wait, what?

S-O-A-P? Yeah. Soap, but it's already hot. But it's already hot. Wait, am I not living in a world like, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. Do people microwave soap before getting what I don't know Is it a bar people So that it's all ready

They're like they put their soap on their body and they're like oh, it's so cold But then maybe because they say already hot that means that it does get hot at some point It's gonna warm up eventually. This person lives in a world where soap is not comfortable until the soap reaches something called hot in temperature. Which is a world I have no understanding of because I have never utilized. But it's already hot.

Indeed, this phrase, as far as I know, is new to my mouth, hot soap. Ha ha ha ha. Is it like spicy? Is it like cinnamon? Like a red hot? Ha ha ha ha ha. It's all red hot soap.

But it's already hot. My only conclusion is that they don't know what already means. Like in the same way that I can't really parse, do you believe in God? I don't think they can parse already. So here's my extension of this million dollar idea, which is sunscreen, but it's already hot. Because when you pull out a lotion or sunscreen, it's sometimes like a first bed, it's like, ah, it's cold.

Yeah. But that's not how soap works. Yeah, and I guess maybe they think that sunscreen is soap. Maybe they're thinking like shaving cream, because sometimes like at the fancy barber they give you warm shaving cream, because sometimes like at the fancy barber, they give you warm shaving cream and that's nice. It is nice.

So, but it's already hot. It's like, oh, this soap is so hot. I love it. Oh, it's so hot. I'm gonna try to warm up my bar of soap tonight and see how it goes. See what happens. It's just a melt. Just gonna jump in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every part of the idea is bad, but of course the worst part of the idea is that there is no way. How did this person forget about everything else? Yes. How did this person think that this was a million dollar idea? Yeah, no.

I look at a lot of million dollar ideas for this segment and I gotta tell you that none of them, this person, Carla, who is invented beer kegs except white claw instead. Oh, God. No, actually, no, that is way closer. Like a keg of white claw is several orders of magnitude closer to being a million dollar idea. That hot soap.

Yeah, you're right. Okay. We got to move on, on every level. Hey, before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, there's a few house keeping items, few updates that are critically important. Okay. First, this one from Marina who writes, hi, I've been listening to the Pots and Stay One and it's by far my favorite.

You don't listen to it enough podcast, Marina. Anyway, was listening to John discussing sea level employees. And instead of thinking about sea level, like CEO, CFO, et cetera, I have always thought that sea level employees were employees at sea level, as opposed to above or below sea level, the level at which the ocean is. What? Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Okay, we're just educating left and right, John. We are a necessary service. Also, Hank, as you know, we are about to sign a lot of small photographs of pregnant Harry styles for the project for awesome, for project for awesome perks. And Ethan wrote in to say, I believe I have some insight into the origin of the Harry styles pictures. I am a student at Utah Valley University where these photos have been showing up in random places for the last several months.

I've seen them on the floor in hallways. They're on tables in the cafeteria. My girlfriend found one on the window shield of her car. I even noticed that a couple have found their way to the message board at my apartment complex. In fact, the pandemic grew so out of control that the school newspaper had a cover story titled a very hairy situation. So it turns out this hairy style's pregnant photograph appearing everywhere thing is like the current generation's version of our thing when we

were young of all right, the giant has a posse and Andre the giant stickers started appearing everywhere on earth. And it was a beautiful subtle thing in the world. And I guess now pregnant Harry styles is that new thing. Okay, we've got a little bit of information. We still don't know how several garbage bags of these things were found. No, one of these. And indeed, there's still a lot of mystery and unclarity about everything. The best part of that article, which is entirely good. Everything about it is great.

But the best part is the line. What is motivating this agent of chaos? I mean, just like how happy Harry Styles is to be bringing new life into the world. Of the agents of chaos, this one's motivation, I understand more than almost any. Oh, yeah, absolutely. If only we could give this kind of chaos more kind of chaos, more power in the world.

All right. Speaking of disasters, AFC Wimbledon played Blackpool over the weekend. There was just absolutely nothing to recommend about this game. We were outplayed in every manner imaginable. I watched most of it. It was depressing. You guys just did not play good. Blackpool aren't even that great is the thing. Like, you know, that's the kind of game that you want to maybe get a little something from. I guess they're in fifth place right now. They're

pretty good. But we lost, however, the two teams below us, Milton Keynes and South End also lost. So we are staying in 20th place, just one spot above the relegation zone, worryingly, very, very worryingly. Bolton, which started the season with negative 12 points, but is a big club with a lot of season ticket holders. Yeah. Bolton have won three straight games and they've gone from negative 12 points to a very

concerning one point. Oh, they're coming for you. They're coming for you. They've also played three fewer games than us because they had so much financial turmoil at the beginning of the season. They weren't playing any of their games. So that means that if they won all three of those games, they would only be three points behind us.

So I began this season thinking, there's really only two relegation spots because Bolton is definitely getting relegated and unfortunately Barry has already been relegated. So I was like, it's all going to work out. But now I'm starting to think there might be three relegation spots after all. We'll see. The arc of history, it's going to be okay. I just, I would really like to move into the new stadium in the third tier of English football. You hear that?

It seems like, if we're building one thing that they're very good at is creating anxiety. Oh, we love to. We're not a middle of the pack kind of club. We love to escape relegation and or make it into the playoffs at the last possible moment. Yeah. Hank, what's the news from Mars? Well, as you have heard on the podcast, if you've been listening, there's a matter. Are we still on the drill?

No, okay. We will hopefully we still on the drill? Nope. Okay. We will hopefully come back to the drill, but this is not drill news. I was just going to ask, actually, if we could, if we can have one month with no drill news, okay, we'll see what I can do. It's just we've been very focused on like two square centimeters of bars. I was hoping to expand a little bit. We're not about to plan it a little bit.

Well, there have been these strange spikes in methane, which are a big, real and very weird, very weird. There's like methane blooms on Mars. Yes, it seems like it. And we don't know why. And we're pretty sure they're happening. But then for a while, we didn't think they were happening, but here's the, so it seems like, however, a new mystery Mars has decided to throw at us, which is this drill.

No. So oxygen, it turns out. So this all comes to us via the curiosity rover and measurements it's been taking of the gases that make up the air in the gale crater where it lives. These gases include carbon dioxide, nitrogen, argon, and oxygen, and as the seasons cycle, the concentrations of these gases change in response to changes in air pressure. When they tracked how these concentrations changed, nitrogen and argon seemed to follow a really clear seasonal pattern that they could predict. Oxygen, on the other hand, did not.

In some seasons, oxygen levels would go up above the prediction, and in others, it would go down below. The way this deviation from the predicted pattern looks, it seems as if something is making the oxygen and then removing it. These are strange spikes, and the scientists still don't have any kind of theory that seems to explain this. I've got a theory. The oxygen mystery. Yeah, do you? Yeah. Is it big news? Is it interesting aliens? Yeah. I also think it's aliens, John. Seriously? No, well, look, if you would have asked me, like if, if, like, David Bowie yelled at me,

is there a life on Mars 10 years ago? Sure. I would say no, David Bowie, there's not life on Mars. We all know that. Now it's like I also, you would have been like, hey, it's nice to meet you. Right. That would have been great. Right. But now, I don't know, like, it's the weird out there. And there's a lot of evidence that Mars was at one time a place that would have been hospital to life. And that like here on Earth, there's all kinds of life that figures out how to live and thrive in really terrible places.

So- Like Orlando. What I do know is that the scientists think there might be a link between the oxygen cycle and the methane cycle because sometimes the oxygen and methane levels seem to fluctuate at similar times. Almost as if. What's going on?

I don't know. I don't know, but I love it. And I want to know everything we can. And I'm so excited for the Mars 2020 rover to get there because it's going to have some more new sophisticated instruments that can maybe help with some of these things and also having two data points on the planet would be great. So it's great. It's it's wild and weird and Mars is strange and planets are strange, including ours and I love it. I'm really worried that we're going to go to Mars and kill

whatever is happening there. That's a legitimate concern you should have. We have a very long history of ruining whatever's good about what something is up to by showing up. Yeah, that is a legitimate concern and when that, you know, NASA currently takes very seriously. But if humans ever go to Mars, we will have to, like,

there's no not introducing, you know, microorganisms to that planet. It will happen. Oh, yeah. But like, there'll mostly be microorganisms who will find Mars really terrible, but mostly, you know, but not entirely. Well, probably entirely, but you can't be sure. It's wild. That's so wild that the amount of oxygen and methane seems to be fluctuating in conversation with each other.

In unexplainable ways. Yeah. That's a little bit like when people are pointing out all of these indicators of social well-being that started to get worse in the United States and other wealthy countries in between 2008 and 2010. And everyone's like, who knows what caused it? It could be anything. And we're all sitting here being like, yeah, no, and we appreciate that you're not confusing correlation with causation and everything, but there was the internet Yeah, all right, thanks for potting with me. It's been a pleasure

Thank you all for listening. Thanks for writing us at Hank and John at gmail.com with your questions and also now apparently with your updates We are off to record our Patreon Only podcast this weekend, Ryan's. I think it's the fifth to last this weekend, Ryan's, before we debut our exciting new podcast, which we don't know what it's going to be yet. We have some ideas. Well, we're gonna debate it during this weekend, Ryan's, momentarily.

Oh, I love it. I love it. Excellent. John, I'm looking forward to recording that episode of this weekend, Ryan's with you. It'll be great fun. John, I'm looking forward to recording that episode of This Week in Rhymes with you. It'll be great fun. This podcast is a co-production of Complexly

and WNYC Studios. It's produced by Rosie Anna Halsey-Rouhassen shared in Gibson. It's edited by Joseph Tuneh Mettish, our head of community and communications is Victoria Bon Giorno, the music that you're hearing now. And at the beginning of the podcast, it's by the great Gunnarola, and as they say in our hometown.

Don't forget to be awesome.