Dear Hank & John - 254: It Ain't Easy Being Green Bunnies

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

How do eels reproduce? Why isn't there green fur in nature? Is small talk a betrayal? Where do rights come from? What do I do about a late birthday present? What's the name of our solar system? Hank Green and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Nor is I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and F.C. Wimbledon John. Yep. It's your birthday. I know. You're turning 43 years old today, which means John, you're in your prime. And you will be several more times, I think,

between on average seven and nine more times, you will be in your prime, but enjoy it this year, because you won't be in your prime for another, I think, until you're 47. Right, so enjoy while you can. I have always wanted to live to a prime number age, but I just want to state for the record that I don't find either 43. A 91, is that prime?

I think 91 is prime. 91 smells prime to me when I give it to six. 91 or 87 are prime. Oh, I just gave 91 a big sniff and it came up prime. That's weird. Okay. What about, give me another one. What about 93's not prime, 97?

I don't wanna go to be 97. What about 87? The close? Little older than that. 89? Yeah. Is that a good one? Oh, that's perfect.

Okay, we've decided. Oh yeah, that's where I, I mean, that's where this rocket ship is aiming. I get to see Haley's comment for a second time, which is one of my great life ambitions. Uh huh. And I would get to die before I'm 100, which is one of my other great life ambitions.

And you get to die before I'm 100, which is one of my other great life ambitions. And you get to die on a prime, and then you can sit, is there a thing you want to say? Do you have your last words planned out? You seem like the kind of guy who would. No, I feel like they're always better when they're spur of the moment, like the writer Paul Claudel, who said to his physician doctor, do you think it was the sausage? I think those are about the ideal last words. Well, John, what are my favorite?

This isn't last words technically, but it was on Max Schultz's deathbed. He's a biologist and he said, all the important questions had now been settled. All of them that is except the eel question, which brings me to the first question of this. I love this so much. Wait, whoa, yeah?

Before we get to the question. Okay. And he actually say that, or did you just make that up? No, that's for real. He really said all of them except for the eel question, but he didn't, do we know what the eel question is? Oh, we know exactly what the eel question is, John,

and Bethany asked it. Oh, what's the eel question is? Oh, we know exactly what the eel question is, John. And Bethany asked it. Oh, what's the eel question? This question is from Bethany, who asks, Steerhank and John, I just watched the Ted Ed video called, No One Can Figure Out How Eels Have Sex. And discovered that scientists literally don't know how eels reproduce. Is this true?

If so, how do you think little baby eels come into being? Do they just appear? Do you be a surprised, appreciated birds and bees and eels, Bethany? Don, this isn't just a question that we have about eels. It's a question that we've had about eels for millennia. Wow. Eels are very confusing. Now Bethany is a little bit overstated the case and a lot of people overstate the case

when it comes to the eel question that we don't know where baby eels come from or how they reproduce. We've got, and often times you'll hear it said that we cut open eels and there are no gonads. So there's like no reproductive systems. So how do eels even happen? But John, before we get into that, how do you think baby eels happen?

Or if you are just going to assume scientists don't know, put together your best world view into how you think this should occur. Yeah, I would think it would be sort of like, near the tail to near the tail kind of action, you know, like a conflagration. And then, I don't know, 40 short weeks later, you get a one baby eel. And then, I don't know, 40 short weeks later,

you get a one baby eel. Just say come out one at a time. I assume that's how it happens. Is that wrong or is that right? That's, well, we're not entirely sure. We could be right. So, so the thing that we have gotten to the point of is that now we do know that sometimes

eels do have gonads. Only sometimes. Only sometimes. In fact, Sigmund Freud nearly had his entire career waylaid into eel gonads because one of his first paper that he published was about eel reproduction. And that could have been his life because it certainly could have been because there was plenty to learn and was learned during his lifetime. And we are still learning.

So he could have done that instead, but instead, Sigmund Freud became a fairly influential psychologist. I think that rather understates the matter, but yes. So let me tell you about the life cycle of the eel. They start out as a larva. So we're just gonna like say egg, and ignore the chicken at this point. So they don't come out,

they don't come out like regular baby eels. They come out like tadpoles. Yeah, well, not only that, John, they start out, they basically turn from tadpoles into a different kind of tadpole, into a different kind of tadpole, into a different kind of tadpole, until they different kind of tadpole and to a different kind of tadpole until they become the eel.

And for a very long time, we thought all of those different things were different species of eel. Oh, wow. So there's the glass eel or elver. And that oftentimes is in freshwater and moves up coasts. Then it becomes the yellow brown eel.

They like to live in ponds and they can hibernate in mud and live for a pretty long time in that stage. And then they become the silver eel and that goes back out to sea. And at that point, the eel's stomach dissolves and so it is no longer capable of eating and its reproductive organs then develop. And then they do something somewhere to make baby eels. But that last part we don't actually know about.

We figured out that the whole eel lifecycle a pretty long time ago, but we don't know where they breed and we've never been able to get them to breed in captivity. So we don't know what it looks like. That is wild. I can't believe I never knew this. Is the eel question.

It's really big on TikTok right now. Is it? Yeah. Where are you kidding? I can't believe I never knew this. Is the eel question. It's really big on TikTok right now. Is it? Yeah. Where are you kidding? I can never tell a TikTok. Yeah, I mean, I think that it might be really big in the part of TikTok where I am. But I get the feeling that that might not be

the most mainstream TikTok place. Yeah, so the other day, I was trying to show my kids TikTok and how great it is and how TikTok is just a collection of people in their 40s, talking about the problems of people in their 40s. And so I downloaded TikTok onto a new device and it was like, do you wanna sign in? And I was like, not really.

And wow, that TikTok were no resemblance to the TikTok, they were all these wildly famous TikTok celebrities like driving Lamborghini's and I was like, what? I thought it was just a bunch of like moms and dads talking about the joys and complexities of parenting. I love parenting TikTok. It's surprisingly good.

I've seen some really like actually legitimately useful advice, but also funny. I have also seen some legitimately useful advice. But also funny. I have also seen some legitimately useful advice. The main thing that I've seen is people, oh, Hank, I just want to state for the record that since we started the eel question, I solved a Rubik's cube. So I have been listening.

I can almost, so what I'm trying to learn to do is I'm trying to learn to solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded, like to look at the Rubik's Cube before I start and think about the, I'm not very quick, so I have to do like 80 different moves to solve it. Think about the 80 moves I have to do, and if I can do all of them, and I almost just did it blindfolded.

I looked down like, I don't know, maybe 30 or 40 times, but I did, I solved a Rubik's Cube. I don't wanna brag, but I'm getting so good at solving a Rubik's Cube that I can do it now in like under two minutes and 30 seconds, but I watched a documentary called The Speed Cubers on Netflix, and they could do it in five seconds, or four seconds.

It's not fair. I mean, this is my ASMR. I just listened to this all day. Oh, God, John, well, I know what to get you for your birthday. No, actually, I already bought the like most expensive nerdy a speed cube or speed cube, and I can only do it in two minutes and 30 seconds. So, all right, hey, let's keep it going with the biology questions. I'm excited to find out the answer to this question. Maybe it's that we also don't know. This question comes from anonymous,

who I don't know why they felt like they couldn't put their name on this question, but they didn't. Hey, so there are green feathers and there are green scales. And why no green fur? Why no rabbits turning green to blend in with green grass? That's a great question. Why don't rabbits turn green to blend in with green grass? Why, we, Devoki and I did so much research on this question. Why don't rabbits turn green to blend in with green grass? Why we, Deboki and I did so much research on this question.

We've spend it a, I got truly embarrassing amount of time. And we, there's, I mean, how much do you want to know, John? I just, how deep do you want to go? I mean, third grade level. Okay. Give me the, I'm nine. Yeah. I have a little the, I'm nine. Yeah. I have a little tabular of 1200 words. And I spend most of my time thinking about Pokemon.

Right. Lay it on me. Okay. So, there are two really important parts of evolution. Like, if you're going to evolve a new trait, two things need to be true. One, that trait has to be advantageous, or at least not disadvantageous, and two, it has to be possible with existing mechanisms and existing genes. Like, for example, there are some lizards that are green, and they have used a pigment that is produced by us.

It serves the purpose in the digestive system. It's like a bile thing. It's like a bile. Oh yeah, I've barfed it. I know what it is. Yeah. And so it's green, and they use that as a green pigment. And they've evolved it to be more green and to tolerate having more of it in their

bodies so that they can be green and also be potentially maybe toxic, which they are. So like there, there was a way to get to green. Now it probably isn't that there is no advantage. Like it may like there's probably some, there could be situations in which there would be a slight advantage to having green fur. But I would say more than slight, if you're a rabbit having green fur, yeah, would be an absolute game changer. So it seems like, but maybe brown fur is better.

Maybe brown fur is a little bit better. Yeah, because there are also situations where brown is good. Really, most of the ground is brown, most of the time. If you live in a place that isn't like Florida, there's a lot of brown, especially in winter when other predators are hungry. Yeah. So maybe you want to be brown.

So, but it seems like it's probably more of the second thing where it's just difficult to evolve pigments that will turn you green. So we have yellow pigments, so those exist, but the thing that makes blue happen usually in nature is something that is specific. It's not really a pigmented structural. And so it relies on really a really regular structure to create basically ways for light to bounce around that allows it to look blue. And this is what happens in some skin of mammals. So there's

some monkeys that have blue areas of their skin. But this apparently can't happen easily with hair, or maybe not at all with hair, because hair isn't, there's like not enough of it for it to do the structural thing for it to have the order necessary for the light to bounce around in the correct way for it to turn blue. And you would need to evolve a separate blue pigment or a separate green pigment, which apparently just is very hard to have happen. So it was fascinating. I liked going down this rabbit hole, but I don't know if anyone else cared. Oh, I'll tell you what, I cared for the first half of the answer. I thought that was really interesting. And then I thought the second half of the answer was not appropriate for third graders.

And I felt like you weren't taking seriously my genuine feeling that I have a third grade level understanding of evolutionary biology. And it's never going to get better. All right. So basically, just to sum all that up for those of us who followed some of it. It ain't easy being green. Oh, wow. That's exactly correct. It genuinely ain't. It genuinely ain't.

I also wish that it could be green bunnies, though. Ah, you know, I feel fine. When I think about what's wrong with the world today, like if I close my eyes and think like, oh, what problem problems would I fix? The color of bunnies is, it's not in the top billion. I'm angry with you, John. All right, Hank, this next question comes from Jared.

I really enjoyed it. Jared writes, dear John and Hank, today I had a checkup at the doctor and it turned out I needed a tetanus shot. The nurse and I were casually chatting and she asked me what was my favorite spot in town for breakfast and I started to tell her. And then before I even knew it, the shot was over and she was putting a bandage on my arm.

Now I know when you're a little kid, nurses try to distract you so that you don't notice the shot and cry, but I'm in my early 20s now and I seriously didn't expect this practice to continue into my older age. And in a weird way, I feel almost lied to. Like, how can I know our interaction was genuine if it was predicated by this goal of smooth vaccination?

Was she really even curious in my pancake selection or was she trying to make me not notice the shot? Is there even a difference? No, there's no difference, Jared. I mean, what is 99% of small talk that occurs in a doctor's office? It is intended to make you feel comfortable and acknowledge that there are two people in the room.

It is in, when you're discussing the weather or your favorite breakfast spot, nobody's like, oh God, I really need to find a new place in this town I've lived in for the last 57 years to eat pancakes. Well, I mean, or maybe she has some connection to the restaurant lobby in town, and she's doing an influencer fan. This is an alternate means of income generation.

That it should be, this is a great, this is the chamber of commerce should pay nurses to ask questions about the commerce in town, and let's see what people think. Do you think that there should be more soup sandwich or sandwich shops in town? Thick and then just write that one down. They're doing a bunch of these every day anyway. I mean, Neat was to say that's a terrible idea.

You know, it's fun. Like, you have to keep... I don't even think I need to explain why that's such a dumb idea. You have to keep the medical stuff confidential, but not the sandwich opinions. I think you do, actually. I think I think a hip belong the United States protecting healthcare-related privacy extends to how much

subwear you eating these days. When's the last time you went to Jimmy John? Yeah, I don't go to the doctor to have market research performed on me. Jared, what's happening here is, I mean, first off, it might just be genuine curiosity, but it's definitely genuine curiosity that is timed to minimize your suffering during the shot,

which I would argue is like kind of one of the main points of healthcare, right? Like, yeah. Health care exists to try to lessen overall human suffering and extend our health spans. And your nurse was doing a great job of that. Yeah, regardless, the question was for you. It was in service of you, right? In any case.

So you can rest assured knowing that the nurse was looking out for you, but also probably that they are curious. And if you ask that question 10,000 times, it doesn't actually make it less interesting, and in some ways it makes it more interesting. Yeah, because you get this sort of deeper understanding of the breakfast desires of your local community. Such a good point, Hank. John, what's your favorite breakfast spot in town?

Oh, man, I really messed up solving this Rubik's cube while you were talking. What? I'm putting it away. I got to put it away. I had to roll it away so far from the microphone that I can't get to it. What was the question?

What's my favorite breakfast spot? Hank, I haven't left the house in five months. My favorite breakfast spot is the kitchen, and then I guess my second favorite breakfast spot is the kitchen. And then I guess my second favorite breakfast spot is in front of the TV. What's your favorite breakfast spot? There is actually a place named called Ninja Mikes that has a walk up window that I go to fairly frequently. And even before this, it was one of my favorite breakfast spots. And now it is the only one. This next question comes from Owen who who asks, dear Hank and John,

I've been hearing a lot about what people think is their right to do or not to do something. Nowhere is it written that it's a right to not wear a mask? Where do rights come from? Best wishes, Owen. It's a great question. Where do rights come from? This is a great question.

That seems, you could write a crash course about this. And we have a bunch of them, and it is a great, that seems you could write a crash course about this. And we have a bunch of them and it is a big question. So in the United States, at least if you go to the declaration of independence, one of our founding documents, you will read the following very interesting sentence. We hold these truths to be self evident. So we don't need evidence for these truths because they are evidence of themselves, I guess, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain, unalienable rights among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So where do rights come from in the Declaration of Independence? They come from the self-evident fact that all people are created

equal and that all people are endowed by their creator with certain rights. So the rights come from God. Yeah. And that is for a long time how at least in the Enlightenment, like that's where rights came from. Now, of course, one of the many ironies of the Declaration of Independence is that it said all men, meaning all people, have these unalienable rights that they have been endowed by their creator with. And then, of course, in the United States, not all people were treated equally. And in fact, like some people could be owned and sold as property, and women did not have any of these rights that were ostensibly given to all of us by God and so on. Yes.

But now we tend to think of those rights as not necessarily coming from God. Right. Like lots of people who are atheists also believe in human rights. So my feeling is that like rights are... So obviously it's just an idea. And it's like feeling is that like rights are, so obviously it's just an idea. And it's like

the thing that like the main thing that makes me feel like a thing is a right is that I have had it. Yeah. And that if it was taken away, it would be a big negative impact on my life. And like, yeah, and that's one of the things, that's one of the things that makes the expansion of rights so challenging for people who've been marginalized or who've been denied human rights Is that the answer so often is well you just don't understand like what we mean by the right to for instance get married Mm-hmm like we know that you shouldn't have that because you haven't had it right and we know that we should have it because we have had it Yeah, yep so and oftentimes like I think an important thing to note

is that rights get expanded, like sometimes more people get rights and sometimes rights get taken away, but sometimes in order to give more rights to more people, you have to take some rights away from other people. Yeah, like there's not the case in marriage equality, obviously, but it was the case with slavery. Like you had the right to own a person and then you didn't have that right anymore. Yeah, which was a positive development in the story of human rights.

Right. And as for the question of whether or not people have a legal right to choose whether to wear masks, the answer to that question, it seems to me pretty obviously is no, because we regulate potentially harmful behavior in all kinds of ways in public spaces and in like private commercial spaces, not just in terms of like you can't smoke inside of an airport, but also like you have to wear clothes. Like that's what, and nakedness doesn't even give anybody a disease. Yeah, I mean, it's like it's actually not, like, harmful. It's kind of hard to make the case, especially with like, I don't know.

I'm glad that people wear clothes in public. Call me old-fashioned, but I am. But again, that is not the question. The question is, if you have to cover your junk, should you also during a novel disease pandemic that has led to an unprecedented level of suffering, at least within the last century, should you also have to cover your mouth? And the answer is yes. precedent and level of suffering, at least within the last century, should you also have to cover your mouth? And the answer is yes.

We figured it out. You do not have a right to not wear a mask clearly for a number of different reasons. The main one being that the government can definitely require you to put things on your body. That's a great way of putting it, Hank, unless you're in your own home. And then you don't have to wear a mask or any clothes. It's not up to you. You do, unless you're in your own home. And then you don't have to wear a mask or any clothes. It's not tough to you. Yeah.

You do you until you're near me. And then you do us. Ha ha ha. Yeah, wow, you did it, John. You solved it. You solved it. You do you until you do until you're near me then you do us.

And can we just, in America, can we just do us? Ha ha ha ha. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by us. That's us. Us, it's like you, but me too. This podcast is also brought to you by Eel Sex. Eel Sex. Still one of the mysteries. And today's podcast is also, of course, brought to you

by Green Bunnies, Green Bunnies, not on my top trillion list of concerns. And finally, this podcast is brought to you by Dr's Office Market Research. Dr's Office Market Research. But you're a bad idea. The new fad. A lot of people are gonna go to prison.

We also have a project for us a message from Emo from New Jersey to Hank and John. That's us us Hank. Hey I'm one of the horde of Nerdfighters who passively consumes your content But there's a weird imbalance there. You both have so profoundly changed my life for the better I feel the strong desire to thank you and to know that my expression of gratitude has found you and has mattered to you So on behalf of Nerdfighteria this personal message is for both of y'all for making us better people. Thank you That is very very kind this personal message is for both of y'all for making us better people. Thank you.

That is very, very kind. It is very, very kind. Thank you. The gratitude goes both ways. We feel really, deeply grateful that you are on the other end of the line. John, I forgot to mention in the green fur question. Oh, God.

So we're going, how could we possibly go deeper? It's just a Vokin. I talked about this for so long, that sloths do have green fur. This is a short fact, but they have green fur because they have a symbiotic relationship with the algae that live on their fur. So that's what I was gonna ask.

Like it seems to me that there is a lot of green in the world and why don't more furry organisms get some of that sweet, sweet chlorophyll. Well, yeah, it turns out that chlorophyll is a good way of making an energy if you don't need to use a ton. Right. Animals just need more than,

it's basically like the solar powered car thing. It's like, why don't we make solar powered cars? Like there's not enough space on a car to create enough energy to move a car. And that's the situation with animals. Like we, we need to eat the stuff that spent a lot of time creating energy in order to, to move our like big fast bodies around. And I don't think anybody ever looked at me and said like that guy's about to move his big fast body around. But I see your move a lot faster than a tree.

I mean, it depends on the tree. Take, take pride. Alright, we have another question. This one comes from Elaine, who writes, dear John and Hank, my name is Elaine, and I'm a nerd fighter from Peru. I turned 15 nearly one month ago, and my uncle asked, what should he give me as a gift? And I told him I wanted a book that had just come out. He said that he expected me to say a phone or clothes, but that he would be happy to get me the book. It has been

three weeks. Everyone is talking about how great this book is. I don't have evidence Hank that it's your second novel of beautifully fruition, Defer, but I'm imagining that it is. Everyone is talking about how great this book is, but I still don't have it. Should I go to a local store to buy it myself, or should I wait for my uncle? My uncle gives 30 minutes away from me and lockdown is finally over in my city, if that helps any.

Sincerely, Oleg. I've been in this situation before. Yeah. Where you're like, I've had experiences like this before where somebody asks you what you want. You tell them. And then you feel obligated not to get the thing that you want.

Yes, because you're waiting for them to give it to you. And they have they forgotten. But you can't like call them and be like, hey, did you forget about that gift that you promised to give me? Because that's rude. But you also like wanna read the book. And this is a problem I have in general

with gift giving these days. I feel like I'm gonna point in my life where it's very difficult for me to want something that I don't already know I want. Right, right. The best gifts are when you're surprised. You're like, I do want that, but I didn't know it existed. Yeah, although that isn't for the record Elaine's exact problem

because she knows exactly what she wants and she asked for it. And it is both like less expensive and cooler than the phone or clothes that we're on offer. Yep. And yet somehow it still has not arrived. And this Elaine is why from now on, not with everyone, but certainly with this uncle, you ask for money. Or a phone. No, you just say, you know what, Uncle?

I want a book, but I remember last year. And so what I would really like is money with which to buy a book. But I think you just go ahead and get the book now. And if you end up with two copies of the book, you give one of them away. Yeah, I think that might be what you do. All right, John, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimmelden, here's a question from JoJo who asks, dear Hank and John, does our solar system have a name? During my extra time in

quarantine, I've been doing some preliminary googling about solar systems and our solar system, only seem to be referred as our solar system or the solar system. If it does have a name, what is it? And if it doesn't, why not? There are many solar systems beyond our own. So it would help to differentiate hours without a specific name, right? Wishing you good mojo, JoJo. John. It's a great name, specific sign off. It is. But our solar system has a name. It does have a name. It's called the solar system. That is correct.

Do you know what? Because it is the system that is around soul. Yeah. Or the sun, if you will. Right. So the our sun has a name, our star, that our planet revolves around. That star is called soul.

Right. And the system around it is called the solar system. Yeah. And so like around another star, if you're like around Alpha Centauri, that would be the Alpha Centauri system. Right. And fortunately, it would not be the Alpha Centauri all system. Or, or, or, or the problem with this is that people often refer to Alpha Centauri's solar system. Yes, and that is not a solar system. But, no. But scientists do this all the time. But also, again, if we are going to rank the problems,

right? Right. Somewhere below green bunnies. There will come a time when this will be important and we'll have to, so I think this is like a chance to look at a thing that we're doing right now that's gonna cause a problem for us in the future, but it doesn't create enough

of a problem for us right now. And that will allow us to have sympathy for the people in the past who created problems for us that we're dealing with now. Sort of, except that I don't actually think it's going to be a problem in the future. Just as in 1986, everyone was saying, you can't say ATM machine because ATM stands

for automatic teller machine and you're saying automatic teller machine machine. And you know what the solution to that was? Nobody cares. Everything's fine. I posit that at some point in the future, it will be a problem if we keep calling all these solar systems, solar systems the future, it will be a problem if we keep calling all these

solar system, solar systems, because maybe we will be visiting them and we can't call them solar systems anymore. I'm not saying it's gonna happen. Yeah, we can't. We could say alpha centauri solar system. We visited it. It was great.

But then what's our solar system? Not as good as our solar system, but a good one. No, because so either we have to do one of two things. We either have to name our solar system something else and keep all of the other solar systems called solar system, or we keep our named solar system and we call the other ones something else. And that is what we have chosen to do already. We call them planetary systems. That is the technical term for a solar system. Just nobody uses it. Okay, we're moving on. Felicia wrote Hank to say, dear John and Hank, recently John has been talking about how Liverpool just won the league for the first time in 30 years or whatever.

Yeah. But didn't that happen last year? At least I distinctly remember John talking on the podcast about Liverpool winning and how he cried with a bunch of strangers in a bar or something. I believe it was in several episodes, actually. I'd be thankful for some clarification. I'm also confused. So this is something Sarah has pointed out to me many times

when I'll be watching a soccer game and crying and I'll tell her this hasn't happened in 50 years and she'll be like, every week something happens that hasn't happened in 50 years. Liverpool won the English Premier League for the first time in 30 years this year. Last year, Liverpool won the Champions League, which is a different competition in which all the best teams from Europe play against each other. So English teams played German and Russian and Spanish and Italian and Irish and Hungarian teams. Not Irish actually, but you get the picture. Okay. So that wasn't even a really a league.

It's not a league. It was more, but it is a competition. So, so like in the United States, most sports teams play in only one competition. Like if you're an NFL team, you only play in the NFL season. But in soccer in the United States and elsewhere, teams play in multiple competitions at the same time or in the same season. So that's why last year I was celebrating winning one trophy and this year I'm celebrating winning a different trophy. Is it common for Liverpool to win as we have won in the last two years, four major trophies? No, it is not common, but it still feels good.

Maybe it's about to be common. Yeah, it's good. It still feels good. I am sorry for that confusion. And on that front, Hank, AFC Wimbledon also play in multiple competitions. They play in the FA Cup, a knockout competition with all the other teams in England. They also play, of course, in League One, the third tier of English football,

and in League One and in the FA Cup, we're gonna have basically a whole new team. It's very exciting. And I've already introduced you to Ali, our gigantic new striker. Yep, the small bottom big. Very, very, very big. Very small bottom.

So last year we had a really good player from Finland named Marcus Forz. And we liked that so much that we've decided to sign a new player from Finland named Yaku. His name is Yaku? Yaku. Okay. J. A. A. K. Wait for it. K. Ooh. Oh, wow.

Double K. Okay. Two Ks. Can't have enough Ks. We've also signed a guy named Ethan Chislett from the fifth tier of English football. So that's exciting. But the most exciting thing that happened this weekend involved one of Wimbledon's youth players who is coming

up to the senior team. We have a 17 year old kid named Troy Chiabi who has scored four goals in our last two pre-season games. Now, both of these games have been against lower league opponents, but nonetheless, four goals and he's 17. He is, like, I watched a video of him. He went to like, AFC Wimbledon summer camp. And he was the, he was the like, team cook.

And I watched a video of him talking about cooking his spaghetti boliniers. And you could feel the confidence dripping off of this guy. I mean, you could feel this is a guy who believes in his spaghetti and believes in his ability to take the dons to the promised land. And I, I'm all in on this kid. We've done it before where we take homegrown players and bring them into the senior team,

players like Will Nightingale and I think that Troy could be the newest AFC Wimbleton superstar. I'm watching a video of Trojiabi scoring a goal, but it's from the farthest away that they could get the camera. Yeah, this was a pretty low quality videography of the preseason games for sure. But I believe you and I'm excited and do you who whose name do I remember from the current AFC Wimble team? Do you still have Joe Pigot? We still have Joe Pigot.

Yeah, we still have Joe Pigot. We still have Will Knight and Gale. We still have Toby Civic. We have more players from last season than we usually have. And most of the players who moved on were, I would say, either peripheral or beginning to become less popular with the fans. It's gonna be really difficult this year

because the budget has been completely, I think this is the case for a lot of league one teams, the budget has been completely upended by COVID. A huge percentage of these teams budgets come from in-person season tickets. And so it's gonna be hard, but we're gonna do our best. Yep.

How's Mars? Mars is good, John, and the Perseverance Rover is on its way and is doing some important work on its way. For example, it's charging up the batteries of its helicopter. It's like, oh, really great sentence. It's using solar power. So there are six batteries on board, the Ingenuity helicopter, and that will be hopefully the very

first helicopter to ever fly on another planet whenever it's as Mars. It's currently lying on the belly of the rover in interplanetary space, and on August 7th NASA used charge from the rover's power supply. Charged the helicopter for the first time. It took eight hours to get it to 35%, which is its optimal charge for keeping battery health.

The fact that they could charge the battery is very good, and important for establishing that everything's gone okay with the launch. So, power supplies are working, both on the rover and the helicopter. And once it arrives on Mars, it will be deployed on some test flights. And subsequently, it'll be charged using a solar panel, rather than the roververs on board batteries. Cool. So that happened in space, in the middle of space.

That's, I mean, that is pretty mind-blowing. How long is it gonna take to get the helicopter to Mars? Let me see. And the rest of the rover? Yeah. Can anything go wrong? Is there anything that I should be worrying about Hank during this journey?

So it will be landing on February 18th, 2021. Okay. A few more months. Can things go wrong? Yes. All right. So things that can go wrong. There's not like any big, big like moments when things are more likely to go wrong. Like there are course corrections. And there are times when different, like things turn on or there's different ways of communicating with it.

But for the most part, the thing that you're gonna wanna be really nervous about happens on February 18th, 2021. Oh, believe me, I'll be sued when we nervous come February. I'm just wondering if I need to have a background worry. Yeah. It'd be great if I didn't because I actually, I don't know, this is gonna surprise you,

but I already have some. Yeah. So if I don't need to have a background worry about the perseverance rover, then I won't. Right, yeah, so I think you should just concentrate on the Rubik's Cube and all the other billion things that are more important than Green Bunnies. Great, well thanks to everybody

for sending in their questions. You can email us at hankandjohnatgmail.com. We love your questions. Thank you for sending them. We're off to record our patron-only podcast. You can find out more about that at patreon.com slash dear hankandjohn is where we talk about stuff, ideally stuff that's making us feel not terrible right now.

So I'm sure that this episode will be all about the Rubik's Cube. This podcast is produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohassen-Cheridan Gibson. It's edited by Joseph Tuneum-Edish. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. The music you're hearing now and the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. you