Dear Hank & John - 280: Music in the Wind (w/ Katherine Green!)

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

How many songs go on a perfect playlist? What's the statute of limitations on sending people photos? Do outside plants get dusty like houseplants? Does the moon's orbit line up with Earth's the solar system's? Why don't eyes fog up like glasses? What did people think of static electricity before the discovery of electricity? How do I track down a mystery smell? What is Groundhog Day? Can you make art in space? Hank Green and Katherine 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 Catherine. Oh, or is that like to think of it? Do your Catherine and Hank, I thought you were going to say Dear Hank and John. Oh, yeah, I guess I usually do that. It's a podcast where two family members answer your questions, give you a DBS advice and bring you all the week's news from Mars. And only Mars, Catherine. I did not prepare anything about football, teams.

And John will be back. You'll get two weeks worth. John will be back next week with news about AFC Wimbledon. Or there's always GIGL. You could also look it up yourself. And I'm sure that it will be important. He's right now working hard on the Anthropocene Reviewed Book, so he wanted a little extra time. So we have given him that time.

Katherine, do you remember the time you got really mad at me right after you told me to put ketchup on the grocery list? You were like, oh no, I can't read at all! Oh no. I forgot that that was happening and I realized what was happening and then I didn't know how to react. Yeah. Did you get what the joke was going to be? No, I mean not really, but my brain shut down. Turn off. She turned up. It's like, oh no, it's happening. I realized what was happening. I was like, oh god. Oh, this is regress. So see a tip. Oh, yeah. When you put it. Being this close to you, for Dear Hank Adjohn podcast, energy is a little painful. It gets a lot, isn't it? He's loud, you guys.

Delete this energy was lower than this. It was not the same energy. You really, you really project right out into it. Yeah, well, I'm, I gotta bring your energy up too. And all the people at home listening. Let's bring it up. I'll just keep my finger in the ear that is closest to you. Is it that loud? Might your hurt.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Okay, hold, I'll try and hold it back. Then a little bit. I know a lot of people try to sleep while listening to this podcast, which does seem like a peculiar choice. Yeah, what's what?

Yeah, there's all kinds of podcasts that I feel like will be better at that. Yeah, you're going to miss all the extra good advice. I mean, is that what you do on this podcast? For a long time, you slept during Maclroy podcasts. That was just because I was extremely sleep deprived as a, as a, as a, new off. Yes. Yeah, but you could have listened to like anything. I never knew when I was going to be sleeping though.

Right. And just occasionally happened that I was also listening to. It's, it's so. It's not my strategy is I just listened to Prudence Audio Book or Jane Austen Audio Book. I've listened to them so many times, it doesn't matter if I fall asleep. And they put me into sleep immediately. That's good. Ask me a question.

This question is from Ella who asks, dear Hank and Catherine, how many songs should I put together to make a perfect playlist? I've found that too many makes the playlist feel disparate. Like, it's just a collection of random, unconnected songs, but having too few leads to frequent repetition, which feels samey and boring. It's true, a 10 song playlist really cannot carry you

through anything. Where should I aim to get the correct balance of musical spice and unity? Also on a related note, how many playlists do you recommend having? How do you categorize them? Pumpkins and Polkas, Ellas? You're not talking to the right people here. I mean, I would, I'd buy, yeah. But I can, I can have an opinion on something I know nothing about. Okay. Pretty effective. I mean, yeah, it sounds like this person knows a lot more about Megan Playlist than we do. If you're gonna have shorter playlists,

you have to have more of them. And so if you're Playlist, like to get that feeling of unity, like you're telling a story, I just can't imagine having the time to like do this. But do you, we used to, we used to do it. I guess, yeah, and we used to do it with like actual

TAPES and CDs. And CDs. Yeah, I know. And with that, you had a cap. You could only put like max 20 songs on a CD. Oh, and that was the real thing about making a mixed CD is like you want to get as many songs as possible. Right.

Without wasting space. Yeah, because you got like, if you have like two minutes at the end, you're like, I got to find a one minute, 58 seconds song. Uh-huh. We're gonna take one of these longer ones off. Oh, another one off and put a longer one. Put two on, yeah.

Luckily, we listened to music where there were many very short songs. Many very short songs. It was really pretty easy. Just stick one in there to fill it up. I wasn't worried about Sammy and boring, though. Yeah, well, you, that's the point of a playlist is like, so you vibe.

Yeah, it keeps you in a mood. It's the repetition where you're like, if you listen to the same playlist over and over again, then you're like, oh man, like now listen to shaky shaky again. And I just heard that song. Well, you don't have to worry about that with CDs because you can only have it be so long. Yeah.

And then you just put another one in if you get bored with it. So that's what I think. Just make it the the average length of a CD. Exactly. Just put a cap. Forty five or sixty minutes. Yeah. I feel like it's you think of it as like an episode of television. Yeah. Like because that's about how much time you have. Yeah. You know, it's like a unit of time. And then you do that thing while you're listening to this playlist for that long. And then you move on to the next thing.

And I think it's just hard to define any kind of structure beyond that length. Because I think that playlist structure is important, but beyond that length it's just like, okay, so you can have sort of a rise and then you sort of coast for a long time. Yeah, I mean, if it's like a wedding DJ kind of playlist. Right, I mean, you think of it as like a rise and then you sort of coast for a long time. Yeah, I mean, if it's like a wedding DJ kind of playlist. Right. I mean, you think of it as like a film

where it's got like a beginning of the one and end. Yeah. So if you wanted to make, if you want to make it longer, then you have to script it. On your related note, how many playlists do we recommend you having? I think there is never too many and I think that you have to share them like candy, like little gifts for all the people in your life. I love to find playlists that my

friends put together and be like, look at you, you weirdo. Yeah, I do, like some of my favorite music came from CDs that people gave me in the past that no one does that anymore, but I guess people listen to other people's plays. Yeah, you can just, it's very easy to just click and share a playlist, which kind of cheapens it a little bit. Yeah, it does, because you don't have to do that work. You don't have to mail it to me, it's a mail. And just like wait for your computer to go, oh, for a while.

Just do to figure out what this is. There's a little weed whacker in there, making music somehow. Just get it real hot. Turn the fan on real hot. Oh my god, the fan would come on and you'd be like, I guess I'm in the wind now. Yeah, my listening to this music is hot. I'm listening to this music in the wind.

Uh-huh. I guess my legs weren't hot because I used to have it on my desktop. Yeah. My big tower. Even have laptops. Yeah. God. And I think it was like, to there'd be a two CD drive so you could like burn straight from one to the other. Oh yeah. That's the one. You had to do it that way. Mm-hmm. You weren't gonna like put all those files on your computer. Is that space for that? Oh my god. I really, I do, this is, it has really happened now, where I'm really aware of how a macronistic my childhood was.

Absolutely. And it's actually, like, it is changing my perspective on the world, where I'm like, things change. They change a lot. They do. And we can continue to expect that. And it's kind of, it's, I think, making me a little more hopeful. Oh, though I may just be in a hopeful place because spring is arriving. The sun is out. Oh, God. And, and many of the people who I love have gotten

vaccinated. Yeah. So I think, who knows what's next and how much it's gonna change things and help people. There's an mRNA malaria vaccine now, which is exciting. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, wow. So, so who knows who knows where we're headed. Hopefully a good place, a better place. All right, Hank, here's one. I was going through some old photos with my wife and came across some of a couple we knew eight years ago. We haven't remained in touch with them but have remained Facebook friends. I sent a couple of pictures there, wishing them well, but was wondering after the fact if this was weird. What's the cutoff time for such a thing? Should I just let the past be the past? Picture problem in Texas.

Oh, picture problem in Texas like we're a regular old advice column. Yeah, right? I don't see anything wrong with this. Oh, picture problem in Texas. Like we're a regular old advice call but I wouldn't be like, I would love to hear from them. Yeah. And for the most part, for the most part, if you're out there and you're the ones that we don't want to hear from, you know who you are.

They don't, no, they don't. Ah, ah, ah, ah. Yeah, no, I mean, unless there was like some reason you fell out of touch, that was just, I think it's just a thing. Yeah, I think it's lovely to reconnect and reminisce. And if they don't get back to you,

it just probably means they're not on Facebook right now. Yeah, or their phone number's changed, depending on how you sent a picture to them. I don't know, I don't know what you actually did. Did you mail it? Facebook. Well, they said their friends on Facebook. Oh, that's true.

They just sent a picture to them. Like, I want that badly. I want people from my past to reach out. You look at me like I'm crazy. It's different for you because you are now, right? Personality. Sure, sure, sure. With influence. I don't fame and yeah, it's I don't like it sometimes. It can sometimes be like, what do you want? Yeah, they're like, let's talk about my idea I had. That obviously is not what I'm talking about.

I'm like, no. The weirdest one is, I get this surprising amount. I've had an idea about dark matter. Oh my god. And I'm like, your idea about dark matter is wrong. And also, I don't know anything about dark matter. What makes you think that I would be the first to talk about this? You have a general idea that I know science and like my,

I have an opinion on your dark matter theory? Yeah, no. I know what dark, I know, yeah, I know the exactly as much as you do about dark matter. Yeah Nothing I know I know why we think it exists, but as for what it is That's all equations and I do not want to get near them Thank you. I see the equations and I think boy, I would need... So wild tansions. Sick on on. Months to even understand the variables in that equation.

Yeah. Let alone what you're trying to do with them. So yeah, just treat your couple, past couple of friends like dark matter. Be like, I had an idea about what dark matter is. You, you probably exist. And just throw stuff at it. I don't know. Throw stuff at it.

Throw dark matter at it. Yeah. Katherine, this question comes from Ellen who asks, do you're Hank and Catherine? I was noticing the other day my house plant had dust on it. Does a similar type of dust happen outside apart from just dust blowing from the ground? Dust in time. Dust in time. Ellen, all we are is dust in the time.

Oh, that made me think about step in time, step in time, step in time, step in time. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, For Mary Poppins. I don't, but I was happy to have it keep going. Yeah. Great. I don't. I think I've not seen Mary Poppins since I was a child. Dust outside is an interesting idea because dust outside is just... Well, there is like road dust. Sure, there's dust for sure. There's dust out there, but it's just...

It's outside, dust is just a part of the dirt. It's just, but what happens is soil and dirt is outside. It's windy and rainy sometimes, and so the dust doesn't stick around. It gets taken down down to the ground where it becomes part of the dirt, but inside it never rains as long as everything's going well. I don't want it to. It's recently rained in Catherine's parents' house? Yes, it's bad. Not great.

And sorry, everybody in Texas, also apologies, if it ever, if it recently ran into your homes? Oh, yeah. Bad situation. Bad situation. And it is very, very much not windy indoors. Yeah, I don't know about like type of dust. Oh, I know all about type of dust.

Okay, because I think inside dust is mostly, you don't know about like type of dust. Oh, I know all about type of dust. Okay, because I think inside dust is mostly, you don't know. Well, it turns out Veritasium did a video on this. No, okay. He found a book that was like a book about- Why don't you just go watch that video? You can, I'd suggest that you do. Next question.

But largely, you think that it's gonna be skin cells, because that's what I'm very talking about. I think I watched this. It turns out that there's gonna be skin cells because I think I watched this It turns out that there's plenty of skin cells, but mostly it is it is pieces of your clothing. Yeah, it's just like lint Yeah, it's just tiny tiny tiny lint Yeah, and there's also like it depends on where you are like if you're in your road You get a lot of brake dust if you're in the country you get a lot of like dust dust That's just pieces of tiny little dirt rock pieces

of like dust, dust, that's just pieces of tiny little dirt, rock pieces. Yeah, and it was interesting because it's like what is dust? And it turns out, of course, very, very tiny solid particles that have settled outside. It's any solid that can be suspended in air. Like for, I don't know if they had an amount of time, but like if you put it in air, it doesn't just fall to the ground. Yeah. It's small enough that it just sort of gets pushed around. It gives adult humans a soul. Yes, yes. It, uh, yep, and the specters want to consume it. Yeah, but, you know, relatedly, your house plan has dust on it.

You can either wipe off the leaves individually with a lightly damp cloth. This pattern does know about. Gently. Uh-huh. Or? or you can put it in the shower. Give it up now! But you have to be careful because plant leaves can be tender. And it's hard to dial down the pressure on your shower sometimes. So if your sink is big enough for your plant and you have a sprayer in your sink,

you can make that, you can dial that down a little bit. Similar situation, yeah. Yeah. That's smart. I had thought about that. Regularly do this, though, because it's not great for the plants to have dust on them. There is a, so there's a laundromat we used to go to, and they had this. What is it called? J plant? Years ago. I don't know what kind of plant it was. It was those, the thick leaves. Yeah. And Because it was a laundromat as a dusty place. Lots of lint. Lots of lint. And this jade plant was, I don't know, 800 years old. It was huge.

And it was very happy. It was a very big plant. Happy, healthy jade plant. But it was so dusty. And I looked at it and I was like, to dust that plant would be like a four-day job. You just take it outside. And then Catherine was like, you can spray it off.

Just give it a lot. It's like that never would have occurred to me. That like every plant gets rained on and that's fine for them. Yeah. But it does, I mean, it is easier if you keep up with it instead of letting the dust get so thick that like the water just sort of bounces off the thick flare of dust. The hydrophobic dust coating. Yeah. Dear Hank and Catherine, I have a question about the moon. I know from elementary school,

the Earth rotates on its axis, and that's where we get the seasons from and stuff, but does the moon rotate around the Earth and a path around its axis? Or does it rotate around the Earth about the center plane of the solar system? Yeah. Run for us, run, Jenny.

Oh, great, Catherine. So yeah, so there's the plane of the solar system. Does the moon orbit around us in the plane of the solar system? And then there's the plane of the, how the earth spins. Does the moon orbit around us in the plane of how the earth spins? It orbits us roughly in the plane of the solar system, but not quite. You okay?

That was a big sigh. I'm trying really hard to care. To follow. Oh, okay. It's hard. All right, all right. That's good. Thank you for letting me know.

What's confusing? It's just hard for me to visualize these things without, without, like, in my brain, to just hard for me to visualize these things without it like in my brain to make my brains see all of these things. All the planets roughly are in a flat plane. Which is weird. It is weird, but it makes sense if you understand physics, which I don't.

But I've been told that there's a reason, and it's a good one. That one of the things spins, they all sort of like. Okay, sure one. That one, that one, a thing spins. Sure. They all sort of like like a, okay, sure, sure. Basically, if you spin a thing, if the matter is going to the, yeah. Yeah, all right.

So I just imagine it's like a, be like a ball of pizza dough and spin it around. Pizza dough, a sped me out. Get flattened outy. Okay. So that happened and then, and then, but the earth, while it's spinning, it is on its tilt.

Sure. So it goes around and it's tilt at the whole time. Sure. And so the question is, does the moon, while it's spinning, is on its tilt. Sure. So it goes around and it's tilted the whole time. Sure. And so the question is, does the moon go around us with our tilt? Oh, oh, oh, oh. Or does it go around us? Oh, sure. Flat in the solar system.

It goes around us flat in the solar system. And it is expected that it would be pretty much exactly flat in the solar system for gravity physics reasons that I don't understand. But it is not. It is five degrees off of that plane. And it used to be ten degrees off of that plane. We think.

Who how? How do you know? How do you know? I think how we know is that you can see the effect in fossil rocks or something. Wow. Okay. Or something. I might be wrong about scientists are amazing. But there's all kinds of tools that we yeah. But why would it have not been in the flat plane?

So, so probably probably how either how it was created or like as it was hit by other stuff during the late heavy bombardment. Sure. It's a period of time. It's got knocked around. After the initial creation of the planets, when something weird happened and a bunch of gravitation and once the ability happened and stuff hit each other a lot, which is where all the craters in the moon mostly are from, not all of them, but mostly. And that was like three billion years ago or something, or more than that.

A long time ago. OK. Right around the creation of the solar system. So way more than three billion years ago. And so, but it is a legitimate mystery that we do not know the answer to why the moon is not on the point of the solar system. That continues to baffle us. Well, a good question, then, Jenny.

Yeah. It is called the lunar inclination problem. So if you want to learn about the lunar inclination problem, look that up. And this is also why we don't get a solar eclipse every single time the moon goes around us. So if it wasn't in this five degree thing, then a solar eclipse would happen every single time, every single lunar month. Oh my god. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Turns out it's pretty important. Yeah, moon is very cool, man. I like billions of other people don't have perfect vision on the reg. I either wear glasses or contact lenses.

But during the, hmm, I've been avoiding glasses. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. During the, hmm, that's what we're gonna call it. I'm tired of calling, like, 20 years from now, we'll be like, we're not calling it the pandemic.

No, we call it the pinopticon. We call it the, put the ponderosa pie. The picky dinky. We're gonna call it the pigly wiggler. Dirty, dirty, dirty, the pantsuit. It's just gonna be a multiple syllable P word.

I've been avoiding glasses at all. during the pantsuit. It's just gonna be a multiple syllable P word. I've been avoiding glasses at all costs because I cannot stand when I mask fogs up my glasses. That got me thinking, if my glasses fog up, why don't my eyes um... That's the end of the sentence. Let's see, if my glasses fog up, why don't my eyes... Why don't my eyes fog up? Ah, and I love a great question. I have, I mean, that is a good question, and I also very much relate to this question, because same.

Same. I don't have contacts, so I don't have that option. Yeah, I'm like, I'm going somewhere today, I'm putting my contacts on. I saw. And then if I forget, which sometimes I do,, I'm like, I'm going somewhere today, I'm putting my contacts on. I saw it. And then if I forget, which sometimes I do, and I end up having to go to the grocery store or whatever, I'm like, oh, God, this is gonna be a nightmare. Yeah.

And I just like push my glasses down to the end of my nose, and I'm like, this will have to do. Far away from everything is possible. Yeah. It's more aerosurculation. It does help if you wear that second mask underneath the top mask because you get a much tighter seal. But still can escape out there, especially if you're steaming. Yeah. Steaming breather like some people are. Oh man. Yeah, I just I just I just push them out

a little bit. Yeah. They're not quite as tight up, it's, I don't do that while you're driving. But if you're just walking around the store, you're probably okay. So that's a hack if you forget to put your contacts on and you have to go out and wear a mask somewhere. Well, just like me and always. Or if you are just Hank. So if my glasses fog up, why don't my eyes hank?

So a couple of reasons. One, your eyes are at body temperature. Yes. And the reason why fog condenses on your glasses is because your glasses are cold than your body. And so that air that's coming out of you is warm. It can hold more moisture when that air gets exposed to something cold. It cools down. It can hold less moisture than moisture falls out of the air and condenses.

Fock. Yeah, so that's one reason. And the same reason why you can see your breath in the wintertime. That's one reason. But the other thing is that even if it did, and it does a little bit, your eyes are wet. And so it's just like more wet. Yeah, it's just wet wet. Yeah, and like, where's the fog gonna form?

I mean, if you had dry glass, like if our eyes were like a mineral. Right, and like sometimes your contact lens can kind of like get a little dry and like have a, but that's just because it stops being as attached to your eye, I think. Mm-hmm. This next question comes from Michael who asks Dear Hank and Catherine.

Did people living before the discovery of electricity ever experience static electricity? And if they did, how do they react? Were people accused of witchcraft for accidentally shocking their friends? Thanks, Michael. Mm. That's a good question. I imagine that static electricity existed before... Has existed the whole time? No, yes. And people are like, that's a thing. That's a thing. And that imagine that static electricity existed before. It has existed the whole time.

The whole, yes. And people are like, that's a thing. That's a thing. And that's how we felt about everything. Yeah. We were just like, that's a thing. Well, and I think it probably, static electricity had something to do with people being like,

wonder what that, what I could do with that. Indeed. And could I make that into something that would do something else? Yeah, like plenty of the elder was like rubbing Amber on stuff and picking up like tiny little things. And so you're aware of this effect. We didn't know what it was and we called it, like the Greeks called it an electricoste or something.

That's where the award electricity comes from. So we were aware of it for a long time before we were able to like turn it into anything useful. Somebody on TikTok asked me once, what did they call the electric yield before electricity? And it turns out who are they? Yeah, because we actually don't know what electric heels were called before Europeans arrived in South America, where electric heels are from. Because we've lost that word because of colonization. So they've been called electric heels the whole time, Europeans didn't know about electric heels before they came to the Americas.

And we knew about electricity by then. But electric heels are electric, but not heels. Turns out. So we got a half-right. And only the part you thought we would have got wrong. Yeah. So yeah, electricity, people that are you thought we would have got wrong. Yeah. So yeah, electricity, we've, you know, people that they don't aware of it. They're kind of fish.

They're just not like related to eels. They look like eels. They're long skinny fish. But yes, they are fish. Okay. And eels are also fish. There's a lot of kinds of fish. I thought there was no such thing as a fish.

This is the thing. Fishing is an ease. Fishing is an ease. Saying something is something, but not something else. Or is that thing, but yeah. Taxi army is a big ol' mess. There are many things that aren't actually in a box that makes sense. Sure.

Do you know what I'm talking about when I say fish? That's what it means. That's what matters. That's what matters. Yeah. Yeah. One of those things. Yeah. Yeah. One of those slippery, fish-shaped things.

That's gills. Yeah. A vertebrate. Mm-hmm. Not a mammal. Cool. Fish. Breathe the gills.

Yeah. Not a bird. It's not a mammal. And it lives in the water. It's for breeze the air. Yeah. Breeze the water. Basically. Not an amphibian. Yeah. Bree the water. It's for breeze the air. Breeze the water. Basic.

Not an amphibian. Yeah. Breeze water. Breeze water. Basically. Yeah. But they can also, and often do breathe air. But can't also breathe air, yeah.

Which is frustrating. No, that'll stay. It's like, I'm, that's the one there. What is fish? For a good fish, breathe an air. That's not cool. And us, basically our breathing fish. Excuse? We're basically our breathing fish.

We are our breathing fish. Okay, we're not breathing fish. Oh my God. Did you know who goth through that there's tiny fish in the air all the time? That's so funny. That's why it smells like that. Oh, we talk about. Oh gosh, speaking of smell tank, Kaley asks,

Steerhagen Gathering, there's a strange smell in my apartment. I can only smell it when I'm standing in front of my kitchen counter. I cannot find the source. I've looked everywhere, tried to cover it up with candles. Oh, wow. And my essential oil diffuser, but I keep smelling the strange, gross smell. Brain won't stop telling me some creature has died or worse, is living in my kitchen, please help. Oh, Kaylee.

Okay, Lee, I had a very similar experience. I was in my office and I kept hearing weird video game noises. For all day. How is this a similar experience? Well, it's like I hear this. Okay. And I'm like, what is it? Okay. And I finally I like got up and I thought it was happening outside. I got up and walked around. Orrin had turned on days ago my drum set to make like a bunch of weird noises. Oh my god. I don't even know how he did it. Like I've never turned, I've never managed to make it do it.

But it was just like, boi, the fart, the poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop Oh my God. And so I literally had to turn it off and turn it on again. Like, I don't know what happened. It got very confused. But I figured it out. Yeah. And I feel like there must be a way to figure this out. Like if it's coming from somewhere, smells don't come from nowhere.

There has to be a source. And it has to get stronger when you get closer to it. Yup. You have to sniff everything. Yeah. I mean, you say you've looked everywhere. Yeah. Are you sure?

Are you sure? You need to sniff the cracks. Yeah. You need to get your nose. You need to take every drawer out of the counter. You need to get under there. In that counter. Uh-huh.

You might need to take the bottom of your counter off because there's a space between the bottom of your counter and your floor. What is the bottom of my counter? Oh, okay, the kickboard. So what it's called? That does also cover that part up, but I was talking about like the part of the counter the cabinet. Yeah. Sorry the part of the cabinet that the cabinet. Sorry, the part of the cabinet that holds things. When you put things inside your cabinet, the floor, the cabinet floor. There's a space in between the cabinet floor and the floor. And there could very well be something in there. Kaylee, have you been in your cabinet yet? I need you. I'm going to need you.

To get in your cabinet. To take everything out of your cabinet and except for can't You might need a saw Yeah, yeah, I mean if this is a smell if this is your home You know you might need to get your landlord to come over and like crack into your cabinet and be like, oh, there's a mouse. There's a dead one in there because that could be the source of the smell. I mean, alternatively, just wait and the smell will go away. It will eventually go away.

If it is a dead animal. Yeah, I have been in that situation. Eventually, the thing that is making it smell will stop being there. It might still be there. But it won't smell anymore. Yeah, like the flesh will have gone away to such a point. Done their jobs where there is nothing more to make a smell. Exactly. You know, good luck. What reminds me, Katherine, is a great coincidence that this podcast is brought to you by Cabinet Floors. Everybody's got them.

Everybody's got the floor. There's the space between the Cabinet Floor and the Floor floor. And that's where the dead things live. If nothing else, there's definitely some dust in there. Oh yes. Yes. This podcast is also brought to you by the... Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Yes. It's all right. It's all right. That's the second in his dark materials. Yeah.

The reference this episode. Buggus is also brought to you by all the people we went to grad school with, who we'd love to hear from. All the people we went to grad school with, who we'd love to hear from. What's up? Yeah. Where are you at?

Yeah. I'm not gonna reach out to you though. No. But Hank Seemail is easy to find on the internet. Oh, God. And Hank, this podcast is brought to you by the little weed whacker inside your computer that used to turn on when you put a CD in and make a lot of wind.

It's going to fly away. Katherine, this next question comes from Kalen, who asks Dear Hank and Katherine. I keep, sometimes they do that, and I refuse. What are you thinking? Well, then with the podcast, it's Dear Hank and John. I keep hearing Americans talk about this Groundhog Day thing, and I have no idea what you are talking about. I need answers, no capacity for creating sign-offs.

Kaelin. So there is a rodent who lives in Vermont. Why? No, it doesn't. It is a very strange... No. Like, I don't understand it either. Can I just say that?

Yeah. I think it's Pennsylvania. It's Pennsylvania. Oh, that's I don't understand it either. Can I just say that? Yeah. I think it's Pennsylvania. It's Pennsylvania. Oh, that's another word we can, we can. Yeah, during the punks of Tony. Ah! I just, oh God. Can we just get through this punks of Tony?

Yeah, I think it's a, I think it's a Pennsylvania thing, but yeah, there's a, there's a road and And the people of this city decided that they wanted to make us a holiday about it They just wanted to be in charge of whether winter was gonna happen or not It used to be real important Like yeah, that like winter was coming to an end right, but like they still didn't So people would try to predict that whether it was ending or not. Yeah. And one of the predictors, and I imagine that back in the

Farmer's Almanac days, when you needed to know whether to plant your crops or not, there was a lot of different like signs. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. That you would sort of divine the future with. Yes. And the only one that has lasted is the only one in Pennsylvania. Just one single hog of the ground. And the story of why that one rodent in Pennsylvania is the one who lasted, I'm curious about, like what is it? Is it the word punksatani is weird? It's weird. I wonder if there is any tie to any other like deeper culture. I bet not. Yeah.

I don't know. I'd be interested to hear the deeper story of how Groundhog's Day became a thing. And is it Groundhog's Day or Groundhog Day? I don't even know. It didn't come up in American Gods, so imagine it's not that deep. Yeah.

Is this written to God? Kind of. but no. I didn't come up in American gods, so imagine it's not that deep. Yeah, is this written to God? Kind of. A little bit. Hey, apparently has control over the winter. That's a lot of power. Yeah. That's a lot of energy here in control of little man. Anyway, Caitlin, we don't know either. It has gotten... Can you... As I got older? Exactly. Good call, Catherine. How about you search for them and let us know? All right, Catherine, let's do one more question

before we get to the all important news from Mars. It's from Olivia who asks, dear Hank and Catherine, can you make art in space? Like for watercolor to dry, the water needs to evaporate. Can I do that? Would you even be able to apply the paint to the paper? What about acrylic paint? Additionally, how much would you be willing to pay for some space art?

Pronounced like Olivia, Vincent Van Gogh. What? Why does it say Vincent Van Gogh under there? They're saying that this question is actually from Vincent Van Gogh. But, you know. But it's pronounced Olivia. Yeah. Got it.

I caught up. You can make art in space astronauts do it all the time, not all the time, but at many astronauts have brought water colors up to the space station and done art up there because you can totally do it. Now there are certain paints you don't want to use because they might. Tiny particles. Particles. Yes. You also don't want volat because they might. Tiny particles. Particles. Yes.

You also don't want volatiles. Oh, sure. So like bad smells are harder to get a, get a scrub out of the air there. Yeah, so acrylic paint probably wouldn't be. Yeah. And oil paints. Astronauts are either discouraged from or explicitly prohibited from selling stuff. Yeah.

That was part, like bringing stuff up and then selling it and be like, this is a space coin that can give stuff away. But I think that there is a rule against selling your space art as space art. Sure. So how much I would pay for it is, I think, irrelevant. But I think I would pay extra for space art.

If I, if I liked it, I like that. I would probably pay more if I knew that it was made in space. The question of whether it would be, you could have like do things that you couldn't do otherwise is interesting to me. Could you make art in space that you couldn't make on earth? And I think you definitely could. Yeah. Like zero gravity art would be really, it is an interesting idea. Right.

Because gravity definitely plays a factor in how things work. How paint behaves. Yeah, that's an interesting thought. Also, Planet Labs, which is a space satellite company, but they space satellite as opposed to Earth satellites. So the ones we keep here on the ground is a telescope company,

and they accept the telescopes pointed Earth, so they like take pictures of Earth of them. Blanche of them, right? They have a bunch of them. They have a bunch of them. They basically take in pictures of everything all the time. Yeah, they like help figure out what's up with crops

or wildfires and stuff. So whatever you see like day-to-day shots of wildfires, that's banana labs almost always. Every one of their satellites they send up, one side is solar panels on one side and the other side doesn't have anything on it. So they just print art and they, like commission artists to make art

for the other side of their planet labs, little space telescopes which are pretty small. Like they're about three feet across. And yeah. Like a canvas size. Yeah, and so like up in space around us there is a space gallery that no one can see oh my god which I think is adorable yeah because the cameras on the satellites aren't pointing that way either yeah no no one can see it well and then they they come down

and crash they crash they they are just they are designed to burn up in the atmosphere. So I think it's like, well, is there a gallery of this art that you can look at? You can look at, yes, I went to their offices and they have all the art. I've been there too, I don't just remember that. Huh, cool. Well, Katherine and Mars News this week is just persevered stuff.

Yay. I feel like it should be for a while now. Maybe this is part of also why I'm feeling hopeful right now. So we're getting more great stuff out of the perseverance landing. NASA has released the audio of the Rover's landing, which is so fricking cool. That includes the sound of the breeze of Mars. Also some of the sounds of its machinery actually operating, like the things moving up and the mast cam, because of course it kind of arrives folded up and has to unfold itself. They released a 360 degree panorama and you can see the landscape that they're currently inside

of and you can see the rim of the crater in the distance in the same way that we kind of came when we're inside of Yellowstone where it's like kind of surrounded by this called era. It doesn't look very red. Mark, well yeah, what color Mars is is a really interesting question and how to take a picture and know that the like how to do white balance on Mars. Yeah. So do you. Good point. Do you show what it, yeah. So like a lot of like decisions, like there are human decisions that go into what Mars looks like. Sure. It is certainly brown.

Yes. It is browner than earth. Yeah, I mean, you would expect that it would look reddish. Yeah. Right. That's lots of iron oxide. It looks red in the sky. Yeah. Which is amazing that like. Well, that that's lots of iron oxide. It looks red in the sky. Yeah, which is amazing that like well

That's the interesting people I Ancient people could look at that and be like that one is redder. Yeah, which I guess I can notice but I don't know that I would I would notice and us someone told me first but I guess if the night sky I call you that's all you have a pretty big part of my life. Yeah night sky. That's all you had. A pretty big part of my life. That's all you had to look at at night. More. So yeah, China's Tianwen 1 spacecraft is also getting prepared for a future landing in May or June. It's closing in around Mars to take in its parking orbit. At New orbit gets the spacecraft as close as 170 miles and as far away as 37,000 miles from Mars. So it's a big elliptical orbit. far away is 37,000 miles from Mars, so it's a big elliptical orbit.

Oh, okay. And it takes about two Earth days to do that orbit. While it's at this new distance, Tion, when we're studying the landscape and the dust conditions at its primary landing site so it can prepare for a safe landing. Oh, so it's going around a few times, just be like, check and everything out. Oh, that's cool.

That's smart. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, I'm still able to do that. And out. Oh, that's cool. That's smart. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, I'm pretty sure that we share Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images with the Chinese Space Agency. So they have this access to the same images that we have. How many operating things are currently around Mars?

And looking at Mars. I don't know. That's a great question, Katherine. Thanks. So there are a bunch of orbiters. Eight orbiters right now. Lots of orbiters. Yep.

So a couple of rovers. Yep, some rovers down there. And then other things just sitting there? Yeah, some of them just sit. The landers. Yeah, the insight mission is just sits there and studies the inside of the planet waiting for earthquakes to bounce around so it can Know what's going on inside interesting. Okay. Good job, everyone. Good job, Catherine

Thank you for making a podcast with me. You're welcome. I Do miss making podcasts with you. You got to figure out something else to do You can go to listen to our podcast to delete this but only old ones because we haven't been making them lately I don't want to talk about Twitter anymore. Yeah, plus there was the whole panorama That's been a lot this podcast is edited by Joseph Tune a medic it's produced by Rosie on a Halsey Rollhawson shared in Gibson our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom Our editorial assistant is Deboki Trepper-Varty. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola

and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.