Dear Hank & John - 259: Infinite Bird

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

Could the pandemic wipe out lice? What's up with the "birds aren't real" conspiracy theory? Do you think this will be over by the end of the year? What would human pet food taste like? Are birds pee-shy? How do I convince my partner that alligators aren't that big a deal? Can listening to music really loud really damage your hearing? 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 Dubies advice, and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I like a lot of different kinds of pizza. I like it when there's pepperoni. I like a Hawaiian pizza.

I like this crazy pizza where there's goat cheese and caramelized onions that the local place does. But John, nothing tops a plain pizza. I'm mostly just offended that you like Hawaiian pizza. I do. I wrote a whole Anthropocene Reviewed episode about Hawaiian pizza because it's the most fascinating food that humans eat. For those who don't know, Hawaiian pizza because it's the most fascinating food that humans eat. For those who don't know, Hawaiian pizza was invented in the 1960s by a Greek immigrant who was living in Canada and who was inspired by Chinese cuisine to put an originally South American food onto an Italian dish.

It is a very global phenomenon pineapple on pizza. It sounds like the perfect reason to love it also because it tastes good. Well Hank, as you know from the Anthropocene Reviewed episode, the history of pineapples in particular and pineapple on pizza especially is complex and at times troubling. And I, for one, don't like the way that it tastes. But I also try really hard not to harsh on other people's buzz. If you like Hawaiian pizza, thank God somebody somewhere like something, that's what I always say. All right, let's answer some questions from our listeners, beating with this question from Chloe, who writes, Dear John and Hank, could Lice become eradicated

because of the pandemic? The other day I was scratching my head and I began thinking about headlice. The main way people get headlice, right, is like going to school, summer camp, sleepovers, all that stuff isn't happening. One time I heard that Lice can only survive for 24 hours without living on a human, and if there's minimal human contact during the pandemic,

could that mean the end of the transmission of Lice? Chloe, Chloe, I applaud your efforts to find a silver lining to this nasty, reprehensible, horrid cloud, but oh, laughs. But oh, laughs, I mean, first of all, we can't eradicate lice because I got a million dollar idea for a lice eradication business, but it requires that we don't get rid of all of them

for it to be sustainable. No kidding. I don't actually want to start a lice business. So first of all, Chloe, you say here that they can't live for more than 24 hours of that being on a living human, but like they stay on the human. So, lice don't need to move from person to person. They can stay on one person during the pandemic, lock it down, and then just spread to somebody else once it's moved on, right, John? Right. Lice are also practicing social distancing.

It's going fine for them. In fact, arguably better for them than it's going for us. The other thing to remember here is that Chloe, people have not stopped coming into close contact with each other. Turns out. It's true that there are fewer sleepovers,

but I wouldn't say that there are no sleepovers. Yeah, there's also plenty of going to school still. And honestly, like, rice is not the thing that I'm most concerned about in terms of eradicating disease. I am interested to see how the pandemic affects the flu season. I think that the hypothesis being that it will be a better flu season because people will be protecting them from themselves from COVID. That will transfer to protect from the flu.

But we don't know. And so that will be another experiment we will get to run during this time. Hopefully a silver lining of this dark cloud that is much larger than it's silver lining will be good research that will allow us to come out knowing more about disease transmission and epidemiology and the immune system. But we won't know that for quite a ways still. Yeah.

And just to reiterate what Hank said, it's really important to me that we not say that the silver lining is brighter than the cloud. Oh, no. Yeah. Hopefully we will learn something. But as is so often the case with learning lessons from tragedy, we could have learned the same lessons at a much lower cost. All right, John.

This next question comes from Sarah who asks, dear Hank and John, I recently noticed a sign on my college campus that said, birds aren't real. And then I started to notice some stickers on cars. I looked into it and found that some people don't think birds are real, but that they are drones used by the government to spy on us. I'd be really bummed out of this for true because birds are really beautiful. I know you all don't usually comment on conspiracy theories, but I wanted to know your take on it. Growing suspicious of birds, so God, Sarah. First, let's get off on the right foot here. There's

a number of questions that we're going to go over today that will clear some things up that are important. This one is birds are real. Birds are real. Birds are real. You can catch a bird and look, or, or, or, you could look at a bird that was caught by a cat, which does happen fairly regularly in my neighborhood and see that it's made up of bones and organs and stuff. Yeah. If you walk around enough, you will eventually find dead birds and you will notice that they are not government-issued drones, but instead organisms that have died. Also, Sarah, if we imagine a world where birds aren't real, and I find this is a problem with a lot of conspiracy

theories, but putting aside the fact that birds are real and that we know birds are real and that birds have always been real. Like, here's how real birds are. They're not only older than us. They're dinosaurs, but putting that aside. Putting that aside. Okay. Here's my fundamental problem with this conspiracy theory and most conspiracy theories. If birds aren't real and birds are United States government drones that spy on us, why are there birds in other countries? I have the same problem. All the birds got replaced in the US.

Here's the fascinating thing about birds aren't real. I think in general, the vast majority of people who have birds aren't real stickers, this is a joke about conspiracy theories. It's a commentary on conspiracy theory that you can like say the most outlandish thing and you can defend any piece of it. You can find a story to tell. But here's the thing that I love the most is for the people who do think that birds aren't real.

So the joke about conspiracy theories then latched onto some people's heads and they're like, actually, maybe birds actually aren't real, which is a troubling found. That's something that happens with a lot of conspiracy theories, though. It does. It does. And like, it's the, it's a problem that I have with the joke. Yes. Is that it actually may be worse to have the joke than to not have the joke, right?

And I'm not sure. It might not be, but I don't know for sure. But for the people who do believe birds aren't real, they think that the US government has put an ability in their drones to be able to poop. The vast majority of times the drones poop, they poop just on this just on the sidewalk. Yeah. But sometimes they poop on people, but they don't like poop on people more or less since they've become drones. This is just a thing that happens like

the government bird drones, yeah, poop on people. And I'm like, good, that's just like, first of all, the technology necessary to make it possible to have a bird drone be able to excrete a pellet of urea, or you, it's not urea, it's actually uric acid and birds, it's different than in mammals, and feces, it's just like, wow, that, like that level of technology would solve so many problems that we have.

If we could do chemistry at that, like that controlled biochemical level, but unfortunately we can't. So, in summary, birds are real. Birds are real. I became fascinated Hank this week, and I know that it's dangerous to become fascinated with hating conspiracy theories, because it really is like one small step

to believing in the conspiracy theory. Yeah, well, it's, it has a very similar vibe to like rabbit holes, where you can rabbit hole into the, into the disproving the conspiracy theory and then you're doing the exact same thing. Right. Right.

You find yourself like battling the conspiracy theory point by point. And at that point, you're like, well, I mean, maybe some of this stuff is true. Anyway, I, I, I fell down the rabbit hole this week of the conspiracy theory that the fires in the western part of the United States are being lit by the government. And that it's all being done on purpose. And the wild thing is just like saying this thing out loud.

And it may be that just saying it out loud on this podcast makes it worse, right? Like, that is part of how conspiracy theories travel. It's part of how they work on us. And I say us because they work on me as well as they work on anybody. And I say us because they work on me as well as they work on anybody else. But the main map that was used to justify this conspiracy theory was like, look, look at this. All the fires end at the Canadian border. Oh my god. And that's how we know that the United States government is setting these fires. But the thing about the map is that it was a map of fires in the United States. And if you look at the map of Canada,

there's a lot of fires in Canada. But that's what a different map because Canada is a different country. Captain a different database. Yeah, yeah. It's easy to forget that Canada is a different country because I have a conspiracy theory that Canada is and long has been part of the United States.

That's my one. I'm gonna make Canada's part of America merch and people are gonna love it and they're gonna put it on their cars and then people are gonna start to believe it. All right, Hank, I have another question. This one's from Anonymous. It's a really great question.

It's here, John and Hank. Do you think this whole thing will be done by the end of the year? Also, why do donuts have holes in them? I don't know the answer to the second question. Well, if it's the whole thing, I don't think it'll be over by the end of the year, because this whole thing being over is like, that's when the sun swallows the year. That's when the whole thing is over. I'm almost sure this whole thing is going to last into 2021 and beyond.

Which do you mean? The human endeavor. Oh, okay. I'm fairly certain of that. I don't know how to strike the line between being hopeful and being realistic, but I thought Aaron Carroll had a really good op-ed in the New York Times about how this doesn't magically end if there's a good, even even a great vaccine, which is very unlikely. But it just isn't going to end overnight and the way that I think some of us have been

feeling that way as almost as like a protective strategy. And I think we need to set our expectations around a slow chapter by chapter return to a new normal, rather than like an event return to a new normal. Right, and I think that when we're talking about normal to some extent, we also have to accept that like, when we say normal, we mean the world will start to change less rapidly again. But that does not mean that it will be like what it was before.

Yeah, and on some level, when we talk about normal, we mean a new system of norms will be in place that we feel like are normal. Yeah. And I think that the human ability to adapt to different circumstances is really exceptional and we're all experiencing that but like this is we have lots of times in our lives when this will happen on an individual level where the whole of our world gets turned upside down and we have to figure out how to move through the world

with everything being different now. It's usually not that we all have that, and like different versions of it, but all having our world be turned upside down at the same time. Right. Usually when your world gets turned upside down, other people are having stability in their lives. And they can rally around you, at least in the ideal scenario. Whereas now, I feel like everyone's had a different 2020, but the vast majority of people have had an extremely, in the best case scenario, have had an extremely weird 2020. And not just COVID, although I think that's been,

obviously, the biggest thing, but I think 2020 would have been a little weird regardless. Like, you made a video in like December called Why I'm Worried About 2020. Did I? God. And you were right. I mean, you were, you obviously,

you weren't right about what was gonna happen, but you were right in the, in the broadest sense. You made this on December 27th, Hank. It was called, why I'm worried about 2020. And let me read to you, let me read to you from your video, Hank. Here are some of the reasons Hank was worried about 2020 on December 27th, 2019.

We have a growing population of young people knowing that they are gonna be the ones who actually have to solve problems like climate change. That is a reason to be worried about 2020. Also this is an election year and it's going to be stressful because of that. They're always stressful. And also we just impeached our president about the fact that he doesn't have a great deal

of respect for that process. So yeah, I'm a little worried about that. I'm also worried that there's this tension, some of which is actively manufactured by our leaders, which is the architecture of the social internet, that will continue to pull at the bonds of community. Very again, Hank, pretty good stuff. Oh God, the description says, we're really used to moving forward so much so that moving back a little bit could seem really big and really scary to people. Da da da da.

Ah! But that's so true. Hank, you and I grew up with the idea that life naturally and inevitably year by year got better. And even though that wasn't actually true in the 1980s, like I think in the 1980s in many ways human life got worse for the first time in several decades, it has been true. I think on average, human life has gotten better by most metrics, by, you know, what percentage

of people live in absolute poverty, by child mortality, it has gotten better since 1990 every single year until this year. Yeah. And it's gonna be by every measure worse. So yeah, you were worried about 2020, and that was correct. Hank, tell me what 2021 is gonna look like. I'm worried about 2021. Okay.

All right. That's helpful. Thanks for that. How do you feel about 2022? You're going to have to give me up in December of 2021, John. You tell me Hank, when you stop being worried. Okay, I'll let you know. I will communicate by lack of worry when it arrives. I can't wait for the video that you make December 27th of 2027,

which is going to be called why I'm not worried about 2028. Hell yes! 2028, I got a lot of good feelings about 2028. This next question, John comes from Dallas who asks, dear Hank and John, if aliens kept humans as pets, what would human food taste like? Not the stuff we eaten our natural habitat, but if they made kivol like what they feed dogs

with all the daily nutrients we'd need in one crunchy nugget thing. And how would that taste? I hope it isn't fish flavored. Dallas from Texas. That's a rough one. Dallas from Texas. First of all, sorry about that.

Second, craft macaroni and cheese. Oh, you think so? You think it'd be a dairy flavor. No, I think it would be craft macaroni and cheese. Like I think if I was fed like a, like a craft macaroni and cheese with all of the necessary like essential vitamins and minerals and proteins every day for my whole life

and I didn't know other food existed. Like this is the thing about dogs. It's that like they don't know and stuff besides kibble is available. Well, they kind of do. They kind of do know that other food exists actually because they eat human food and then they have to go back to eating kibble

and they're like, this just isn't as good as salmon. Yeah, it's true. I guess that's true. But I feel like if I was given Kraftmack Arne and cheese every day, I wouldn't question it. So I actually think that we already have an answer for this question, Hank, because I think that the answer is that it would taste about like a chocolate milkshake because that's

about what Soilent tastes like, the weird nutritional replacement strategy that's used by some people who work in, I don't want to say it's only used by people who work in Silicon Valley, but that's certainly the only people I've ever talked to who use it. Uh huh. Yeah. The idea of being that they are the pet of an alien race that is. Mark Zuckerberg. No, the idea is at least as it's been explained to me by people who use soil and the idea

is that I'm wasting all this time every day choosing what I eat. Right. I only have so many. And just as Mark Zuckerberg wakes up and puts on the same gray t-shirt every day, I'm wasting all this time every day choosing what I eat. Right. I only have so many. And just as Mark Zuckerberg wakes up and puts on the same gray t-shirt every day, I'm gonna wake up and drink the same soy lint so that I can maximize my potential. Yeah, yeah. Both because it's fast and so efficient. And also, I only have so many decisions I can make every day before I get decision fatique.

So I will eliminate that. And I will just have the soil in. It does sound a little bit to me like they're the pet of some saying an actual alien but of like an idea. Right. Yes. Yes. They're like the pet of extractive capitalism maximize your economic utility to the social

order. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. They are the pet of efficiency. I love that idea so much. Like we're all pets to some idea. Just be careful what idea you're a pet to. Yeah, but I want to be, I want my owner to be like,

I'm not a feed who's something different, three meals a day. Cause I like that. That sounds like a nice person to be owned by. That's it. Like, when I had a dog, he ate dog food and he was happy. That was so far as I could tell. He was happy enough. Yeah, that's the thing. That's the thing.

Right. And you know what, Hank? Happy, or if I just date Kraftmacherney and cheese every day? Well, maybe. But the thing is the idea of efficiency doesn't actually care if you're happy. It cares if you're efficient. It's true. And now I am having my second existential crisis of this hour. Yeah, because you can't be, you're never happy if you want to be happy, because then you're always thinking about whether you're happy. So you have to find some other thing that isn't happiness, that makes you happy, that you focus on.

And maybe for some people that's maximizing their economic utility or just maximizing the amount of money that they make. Huh, yep, yep. But are we that? Did we do that by accident? Nope. Well, I mean, that certainly, and there is a push toward that,

if you just listen to the social voice. Have I lived my life? The whispers pushing toward. I don't think so. Some worship of efficiency. Doesn't seem like it. Utility. Doesn't above.

Maybe utility. Oh, frick. Yeah, but I think that's OK. Wait, what is the point of utility? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, think that's okay. Wait, what is the point of utility? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's back up. What is the point of being alive? Well, the thing that you have to know is that and you taught me this is that there isn't one unless you decide on one. And sometimes you don't know you're deciding. But you're still deciding. But if you are anyway.

Yeah. And what did I decide? Ha! Ha! I think it's a combination of making stupid podcasts with your brother. Yeah. Writing lovely things and taking care of your family and also educating people.

All right, yeah, that works. I think I can live with that. It reminded me, Hank, when you said writing lovely things, it reminded me of when I met former Indiana United States Senator who recognized me sort of and he was drinking, I think it's safe to say, and he shook my hand and he looked me in the eyes and just slightly slurred said, I hope you sell a lot of things. I said thank you, Senator. I've heard that story, but it's still very good. Because isn't that sort of like what everybody is hoping? Yeah, I hope you saw a lot of things.

Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by selling um things. Selling um things. It's the way to maximize your economic productivity. This podcast is also brought to you by BirdPoop. Conclusive proof! Facts are real, biochemical, but also just, why would they do that to us? Today's podcast is also, of course, sponsored by 2028. 2028. We've got a good feeling.

And finally this podcast is brought to you by... Starting your sentences without knowing how you're going to end. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I'm true strategy of Hank Green and also our mom. So true. It's so true. I've noticed that I've noticed that I start a lot of sentences with um and I have no idea what's coming after. It's just that I'm ready to talk.

Yeah. God, I need to stop this. I do the same thing. When I say um, what it means is get ready, strap in something's going to happen. And none of us know what it is, including me. What, what um means is I'd like for you to stop talking. We also have a project, awesome message from Kathy S who says, this is a friendly reminder from a fellow

nerd fighter to please get your influenza vaccine this season, D-A-T-A, don't flu the booster's awesome. What a good DFTBA initialism. Very good. Yeah, we were talking about flu a little earlier, and I should have mentioned that. One of the ways that this flu season can be better than usual is because people get their flu shots

because they are more concerned and more aware of the efficacy and awesomeness of vaccines. I got my flu vaccine already. I get it every year, but this is the first year when I got it like in week one. It was like, I was like staying up all night for the midnight release of the flu vaccine. That is really adorable.

John, we have another question about, and this is, I can't help it. I gotta do it because the way that the podcast has gone, it's from from Annie who asked Steerhank and John. I've been bird sitting my cousins Parakeet for about a week and I've never once seen this bird pee. I've seen it poop plenty of times because it's a real bird. But it hasn't pee. To birds pee? You hear about bird poop all the time, but I've never seen bird pee. Is this parakeet just shy? Parakeets have poop Annie. The bird's just pee shy. Yeah.

It'll poop around you. It's not poop shy, but pee shy. Birds. It's got stage fright. Yeah, so birds do things a little differently than us. So this is really actually interesting. And I didn't think this was interesting until Deboki did some great work around researching this question.

So thank you to our editorial assistant, Deboki Chakravarti. So birds pee differently than people. Their pee and poop comes out in a single package. So pee, the reason we pee, or one reason we pee, is because we have to get rid of nitrogenous wastes. And these are soluble in water, but we do it through urea. And you can only dissolve so much urea per unit of water, but you can dissolve more uric acid per unit of water.

And it's just two different ways of getting rid of nitrogen. So like the stuff that we aren't gonna be able to use anymore. And because birds need to fly, because they're real birds, they wanna have less water in their bodies, and so they wanna be able to get rid of more nitrogen per unit of water. So they use euric acid, and that makes the p part of the p less liquidy. And so there's less water per amount of nitrogen getting gotten rid of, which is super effective for them because it means they don't have to carry around as much water,

they can fly better. Everything that birds do is so that they can be more efficient and way less and do all of the things that their bodies need to do. And uric acid is a part of that. Now, it's also, this is true of reptiles as well. They use uric acid. It's sort of a lineage break where mammals, when we broke off from other things we started to use. This other way of getting rid of nitrogen, which requires a lot more water. But I found that fascinating. So the uric acid part is the white part of a bird poop.

And then the poop part is the little pellet of feces in the middle, if you want to get technical about it. That was surprisingly fascinating and it left me with only one question. If you could be a bird, would you? Permanently? No, no, just for the rest of your life. Obviously, if you could do it permanently, you would. Because that would mean that you would live forever as a bird, which is the dream. I would be infinite bird, the Marvel superhero. Yeah, no, I want to be a person. I think that we're ultimately cooler than though it looks like a lot fun. It's like a lot fun to be a bird. I think that I would choose to be a person over any other species,

but if I were gonna be something that isn't a human, I would wanna be a bird. If I could be anything besides being a human, I would wanna be a member of some other world dominating race just to think of half-seves. So I could see how the others do it. No, I'd like to be like a two-can, laying one to four white eggs

in an already made tree cavity once every year. So that's mind-dream. Ah! Ah! Ah! Why that got me so good! Anyways, next question comes from Jason, who writes, dear John and Hank.

Hank, this question is so epic. And it's one of the few questions where we have real expertise that we can bring to bear. Okay. Dear John and Hank, my wife and I've been married for a while and we've lived in three beautiful locations, Boulder, Colorado, say, Paul Minnesota, and Madison, Wisconsin, all lovely.

Beautiful, but also very cold for half the year. I was on the verge of finally convincing her to move with me to Florida, specifically the Orlando area, Hank and I's hometown. But then I made the mistake of mentioning that they're 1.3 million alligators in Florida, and now she's terrified of being consumed by or having someone she loves be consumed by an ancient reptile. How do I convince her that the imperceptibly small likelihood of this happening is more than offset by the complete absence of blizzards and polar vortexes willing to trade frostbite for alligator bites, Jason. Well, I mean, of the things to be concerned about and for it, I will say that the alligators

are very low on the list. There are so many reasons Jason spouse for not moving to the Orlando area. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot. There are, there are, there are gators in the Orlando area. Like, not really. Just like, you stay away, yeah, like most of the ponds and lakes don't have alligators.

No, and even if they do, they have like one and it's a small alligator and it's, yeah. If you don't go near the edge of a fresh water body of water, you just never, like, they don't go places. Hank and I grew up, and this kind of blows my mind when I think about it. We grew up swimming in a lake that we knew contained many alligators

that were like 10 or 12 feet long. You would see them all the time. It's true. And you just loaded the edge of the dock and you look around and you're like, any gators, and then you're like, yes, and then you don't jump in or no, and then you do. I don't know that I would like recommend that strategy day, Jason, but that's how we did it in the 80s. Yeah. It just, these conversations always remind me of how many people die in car accidents and

how we don't see that as a dangerous activity, but should. It is far more dangerous than swimming in a lake. It is the most dangerous thing that we regularly do as people and... I mean, speak for yourself. Okay, I'm speaking for myself and also for you. There are some people who do, you don't know what I do. But yeah, the main thing to say here,

more public health advice, pay attention while you're driving always, always, always, because the life that ends might not be yours. Yep. So, that's not a joke. And I'm serious about it. Yeah. I feel like we should give Jason a serious recommendation

about whether to move to Orlando. Yeah, I think Orlando is fine. I don't think there's any place that's safe, though. Yeah, I mean, we grew up in Orlando. The hurricanes are serious. Yeah. She'd be concerned about that. Yeah, Orlando is a very different city

from what it was when we were growing up. They have an MLS team now. They've got like micro-barurus. A lot of our friends who live in Orlando really like it now, even though like us, they hated it when we were kids. Yeah. And so it's definitely a different place us they hated it when we were kids. Yeah. And so it's definitely a different place from what it was when we were there. It's cool to be close to wet and wild if you like, oh god wet wilds.

If you like to get wet and or wild. Hank do you remember when we saw the band warrant? No. They at wet and wild. No, we did it. Yes we did. Hank, do you remember when we saw the band warrant? No! Play at Wet and Wild? No, we did it! Yes, we did. I've seen a warrant! You made it me!

It's possible that you weren't there, but it 100% happened because it is imprinted on my memory being in that gigantic wave pool with like 2,500 other people while the band warrant saying their hit song cherry pie. Oh my god. I mean, if that happened and I don't remember it, then then any anything is possible. It was one of the first times that I was aware of the fact that I thought differently about germs than other people because everyone was like, she's much. And I was just sitting there like in the wave pool, like literally like floating up and down with the waves. And I was just thinking this can't be safe.

Like there's no amount of chlorine that makes this an acceptable risk to me. Yeah, well. I would like to revise my earlier story with a fact-checked version of the story that is far more disturbing. The concerting question was not apparently at wet and wild. It was at Water Mania. Do you remember Water Mania? Yeah. It was like the really bad version of Wet and Wild. Hey, I would like to read to you from the Orlando Sentinel's article previewing this event at Watermania.

Okay. The band's first and only album, Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich, might describe the band's music if you take away the last word. But they have their fans, including apparently 12-year-old me. Earlier this year, the band had a hit with the Randy Downboys. Ossiola residents will have a chance to glimpse warrant Saturday when they appear alongside opening acts Blue Murder and staged dolls at Water Mania. And there I was Hank in the Wave Pool.

Ahhhhhhh the world that you could go watch a concert in a Wave Pool. That's pretty cool. Ahhhhh I don't remember it being great. You know, John, I'm glad you did that. I'm glad for you. John, I have to answer one more question. And it's applicable to your warrant concert. It's from Avery who asks, dear Hank and John, can listening to music loudly really damage your hearing or is that another lie that adults tell you to get you to turn your music down? Avery, Avery, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It can actually damage, Avery, yes, yes, yes, yes, it can actually damage your hearing,

and yes, it has actually damaged mine. So in amongst this whole deer hankin' John where we mostly seem to talk about old people advice for how to live your life more safely, please take care of your ears because you can permanently damage them, especially with ear buds turned up too loud. That's I've just I'm 40 now John. This is my job. I like this new hank who wants everybody careful while driving

Once people to know that birds are real and wants you to keep your music at a reasonable level and if there's and you should check if there's Alligators before you jump in a pond. So that's some low quality advice. It's time for the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I'll go first because AFC Wimbledon over the weekend Hank played a thrilling, but not like in a good way match. Wimbledon have scored more goals in their first two games

than they scored in their first like 10 games last season. But unfortunately, despite scoring six goals in two games, we have only managed two draws. We were up four to two against Wimbledon with our Gile with 15 minutes remaining and then gave up two goals in very, very quick succession and found ourselves tying four to four, a baseball score. I mean, in the old days, that was an American football score back when they only scored safeties.

And so it was a fun match to watch. There were, I believe there were a total of 43 shots. So it was we need to tighten up the defense significantly. Yeah. But oh, are we a joy to watch going forward? New player Ryan Longman scored a magnificent goal. Joe Piggitt are captain and long time now serving forward scored two goals. It was a good game. It just, we got to, we've got to find some wins.

Sean, is the one who's named Longman? Is he a small bottom big? You know, he's a little bit of an exception to the rule. Hank, he's 5'11". So he's right in the middle of professional footballer heights. So I would say he's a medium bottom medium. Well, I was I was just hoping it would be easy to remember. Yeah, if he was a long man, he's not. But boy, for people who haven't listened to previous episodes of the podcast, this is a pretty weird joke. Moving on.

Well, in Mars News, John, I got some fancy camera news the Japanese aerospace exploration agency, Jaxa. And it's broadcaster, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, and its broadcaster, the NHK, are working together to send a super high-vision camera to film Mars and its moons. The goal is to make a camera that can film in both 4K and 8K, and then send it on the future Martian Moon's Exploration Mission, or MMX, which is scheduled to launch in 2024. The focus of the mission is to study Mars' two moons, Phobos and Demos, which will include getting a sample off of Phobos

and sending it back to Earth. And this will be the first sample return mission from someplace other than the moon or an asteroid. I think that we've gotten pieces of dust back from a comet before, but never from a planet or a moon besides our moon. Cool. And also, of course, it will hopefully be getting some very good high-resolution footage. As it takes pictures, the camera will send parts of the image back to Earth and keep the

original pictures later to send back in a capsule. So one of the problems with taking really high res pictures of Mars is that it like, the internet is slow. Yeah, the internet is slow to Mars. Super slow. And so the Martian internet is famously bad.

Yeah. So actually when you sending physical stored files back to us. And then combined, the images will give us information about Mars and its moons and combined with flight data. They'll also help the people operating the spacecraft assess how well it is working. So cool, good news from the future Mars mission. The idea is that some human being will pick this footage up.

Yeah, it will come back along with the sample. It will be delivered to us to study. With a person. A person will study it, yes. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So it will just, it will fly back to us somehow. Yes. Yeah, take a sample, will fly back to us somehow. Yes. Yeah, take a sample, fly back.

That's kind of cool. Yeah, it'll be your first, first, see sample return missions have been talked about a ton, but we have not yet been able to get one done. It seems like the hard part of that would not be getting to Mars, which we've done. It would be getting back to Earth. Equally difficult, honestly.

But you gotta have enough like would be getting back to Earth. Equally difficult, honestly. But you got to have enough fuel to get back to Earth. Right, which is why they're not taking the sample from the surface of Mars. The escape velocity of Mars as moons is you could like throw a rock off of it. So it does not take a lot of fuel to get off of, to get out back out of that gravity well. It does then you do have to burn some fuel to get back into our orbit. Right. That's always what stressed me out about the book, The Little Prince. Nobody ever talks about this,

but that book really stressed me out because that moon that that guy was on was so small. And I was like, this guy, there's nothing to hold them onto the moon. Like, what if he wakes up one morning and before thinking about it, he jumps, and then suddenly it's over? He's just gone. Nobody ever taught. Nobody taught. You know, I hadn't thought about that, John. That's just you. A lot of critical analysis of that book,

but I've never, I've never read that particular observation. Oh, God. Well, Hank, thank you for potting with me. And a big thanks to Tuna for editing this episode because it was a mess. If you wanna email us, you can do so by emailing hink and john at gmail.com. We really love reading your questions. We're sorry that we don't answer more of them, but please send in your questions. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tune of Meticch. It's produced by Rosie on a Hals Rohaston,

Sheridan Gibson. Our editorial assistant is Debuki Chakravarti and our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. The music you're hearing right now is by the great Gatoroa, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.