Dear Hank & John - 291: The Dear Hank Letter

Episode Date: May 23, 2021

Is the crust the healthiest part of bread? What would a Dear Hank letter be? How was John the one who came up with the idea for Vlogbrothers? Why do cats and dogs take small sniffs? Am I allergic to Mars? 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 Hanky John! That's the wrong podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hanky John. Or is I prefer to think of it dear John and Hank? It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you a decent advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wilmwellton John. As you can tell by my intro, I'm a little bit hungover right now and maybe a little bit slower than usual.

Catherine and I both recently had our birthdays and this weekend to celebrate them, our friends, took us to this gorgeous vineyard in Missoula, where people who can afford $10 glasses of wine get together and commiserate and talk about all the difficulties and hardships of their life, which I guess is why they call it a winery. Haha.

Did you actually go to a winery? I did. Okay. That makes me feel better about the joke. I'm trying to just lean in and laugh at your jokes instead of resisting them. I just get it myself for a while. I like, I felt a little bad about it because I didn't want, I don't, like it was actually really lovely. And we didn't want that much, but I just needed a joke.

Yeah, we did want a good joke about various things. Hank, can I read you some reviews that have just been in the last five days? Before you do it. Before you do. Before you do, I just want to say that the intro that I accidentally started with, that's the intro to our Patreon only podcast

this weekend stuff, where half word half of it before I realized, which you can, uh, be a part of it. Patreon.com slash to your hank and john anyway, john, your book is out. Congratulations. And, and by the way, that's what we're focusing on today, not the Patreon for this week and stuff. So if you make only one green brother's related purchase this week, don't join our Patreon by my book. Our Patreon doesn't come with a book. The book's job. So as we're recording this, it's the day before the book comes out, which is like in general in

in my experience of this being the sixth time I've done this the the most challenging like a emotionally challenging day because nothing has happened yet, but things are about to happen or maybe not, you know? Yeah. And it's, my stress level has been extremely high, but then I got this review from the San Francisco Chronicle

and it's so nice. So I'm just gonna read a little bit of it to you, like the way that you do when you are a little brother and you wanna make your older brother finally feel proud of you. And just because you're younger doesn't mean that you're not basically the older brother. So as a premise, it's clever.

And in the hands of another writer that conceit might stop it cute. But green is a ravenous and tender polymath. Can we talk about the fact by the way that ravenous and tender don't generally get followed by polymath? No, or by each other. Anyway, I'm a, but like honestly, that might be the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me. Yeah, you need to change your Twitter bio right now.

I'm not sure I need to change my Twitter bio, but I know what you mean. Can I put, can I change my Twitter bio to Ravenous and Tender Polymath? Because I've stolen a lot from you over the years. Mine is a little take this too. You can't. But you can say, brother of noted Ravenous and Tender Polymath, John Green, if you want to. That's okay. These tiny essays are like winding mountain passes that lead you through unexpected

landscapes, both in subject and in emotion. His reviews create a collage of factoids in a window into one person's longing fears and hope. And then the ending is so nice. The book makes the wondrous small, see his essay on Haley's comment and the small wondrous, like his ode to scratch and sniff stickers. The Anthropocene Review is the perfect book to read over lunch or to keep on your nightstand whenever you need a reminder of what it is to feel small and human in the best possible way. That was so nice, that made me so happy. And it was just really, because I, you know,

almost no one has read the book, like certainly nobody I don't know has read the book. It's just for that to be the first thing that I get to read about it was really just lovely. So thank you. Person at the San Francisco Chronicle who wrote that review. I won't Elizabeth Greenwood. John, it was Elizabeth Greenwood. Well, yeah, it was really nice. Thank you. Because I used to be a book reviewer, I'm uncomfortable with like thanking book reviewers because when people would email me and thank me, I would be like, listen, I didn't write that because I wanted to make you happy. Exactly. And I don't want you to get

mad at me next time when I don't like your book. I think we should just not have a personal relationship. That's not what this is about. Oh, so at least the initial reviews are good. Hank, let's answer some questions from our listeners. After we remind them one more time that the Anthropocene Reviewed is available now, signed copies are everywhere books are sold, and also everywhere books are lent. Check out your local library. So, John, I know it is time to ask some questions from our listeners, but not before I remind everyone that the Anthropocene Reviewed is available wherever books are stored, wherever

books are sold, not stored, and also probably most places where they're stored, and also including places where those books are lent, like your local library. All right, Hank, let's read our first question. This one comes from Autumn, who writes, dear, John in Hank, my name is Autumn, and I am confused. Growing up, my mom always made me eat the crust of my bread because, quote, it is the healthiest part of the bread. But what?

How? It's made of the same ingredients as the rest of the bread, right? Unless there's something fundamental I fail to understand about bread making. It's just cooked a little more. So how is it healthier? Not the other seasons, autumn. I mean, it's not exactly chemically the same.

I will say. Right. And there was a study back in like almost 20 years ago now that like looked at the different ingredients, the different nutrients or the different chemicals, not even nutrients, chemicals in the crust versus in the bread. And there are some different chemicals and some of them are antioxidants. And so you can make the case. And there are some different chemicals and some of them are antioxidants. And so you can make the case that maybe these are

it's slightly healthy, it's not, it's not. It is nutritionally the same as the rest of the bread, but it is food that people and our planet worked hard together to create, also a plant. The plant also worked very hard to create it. And so we should eat it because it's food. And so we tell ourselves and our children lies and we say that it's the healthiest part of the bread and you should eat it. Despite the fact that it's not, it's a lie, but it's a lie and

service of the fact that we should eat food that it is that is edible. And in fact, my son makes me cut his crusts off his freaking peanut butter jelly sandwich and I eat them. Me too. In fact, it's one of my favorite meals is my kids peanut butter and jelly crusts. I also think that sometimes the nutritional profile of crust in bread is changed further by the fact that the crust does have different ingredients in it, like sometimes true. Have, you know, like egg on them or whatever. An egg wash. Or even like our dusted with little nuts.

Right. But, but at its core, when people say the crust is healthier, even when they're pointing to this one study from 20 years ago, it's important to note that the difference is so marginal. And we get obsessed with these really, truly insignificant differences all the time when it comes to nutrition, rather than focusing on where we should actually focus, which is like eat food, pay attention to how your body feels when you eat food and period. You are absolutely right.

And it is also very true that the way that we imagine what is healthy is very weird. And it's the white egg brown egg thing where you feel like a brown egg is healthier. In what, where did that happen? How did this occur? Where people, like a bunch of chicken farmers had to switch chickens so that they could like have

a different color of egg that is nutritionally identical. Yeah. It's wild. We live in a world where branding is so important that it's hard sometimes for us to disambiguate branding from reality. Yeah, and we're patterned searchers. So we're, you know, and it's like what is true is that potato, there are more vitamins and minerals in potato skin than in the potato part of the potato.

And so they like went from that to being like, eggs, brown eggs must have, you don't even eat the shell. It's not even part of the periwete. Right, but on the other hand, you could also see this in the whole thing about drinking eight glasses of water per day, which is completely made of. But it's based on something, right?

It's based on drink water. When you are thirsty. That actually is good advice. Now, the vast majority of people can just drink water when they're thirsty, but there is some very small subset of people who have to pay attention to the amount of water they drink and when they drink it and so on. But for almost everyone, almost all of the time, you drink water and that's good. almost all of the time, you drink water and that's good. And that's the end of the sentence. Like I remember when we were doing 100 days, we went to these nutritionists and to people who had studied

all of the most recent compelling studies in nutrition science. And one of the things we learned is that a lot of these studies are based on relatively short time periods with relatively small groups of people. And so there are... And very, and often very similar people. Yeah. And so their results can be compelling without necessarily really reshaping the way we understand

nutrition. And that has all kinds of downstream effects. But I was like, so we wanna do, I wanna be maximally healthy for a hundred days. So like, what does the evidence strongly suggest? I should do how much water should I drink to maximize my health? And I'll drink that amount of water every day for a hundred days.

And the experts were like, what, huh, you should drink when you're thirsty. And I was like, but I should only drink water, right? And they were like, no, I mean, you should. Yeah, do drink water, but if you like to drink coffee, that's fine. Yeah, but doesn't it dehydrate you? No, a little bit. Maybe just drink a little bit.

A little bit of water. Yeah, it's slightly, it will hydrate you slightly less than water. It will not dehydrate you. It's not like drinking the ocean. It is almost as if water in particular is so vitally important for your body that your body has really good systems for telling you when to consume it. Right, but I do think like we want, and this is partly, I think gets into this sort of collective delusion into this sort of collective delusion around nutrition and health. But we want nutrition to be able to solve

all of our health problems, or to be able to, we want nutrition to be the key that unlocks all of human health forever. Yeah, not even like, not even like our fitness problems, but we also want to cure cancer with it and we want to knock it COVID with it. And like, you think like, I'm putting this stuff in my body, shouldn't it be able to control all of these things

that I can't control? And it's just, no, it's unfortunately, it cannot. Yeah, alas, it really doesn't. And that's kind of a tough thing. And also like, that message doesn't get spread that widely kind of a tough thing. And also, like, that message doesn't get spread that widely partly because it's not a particularly lucrative message. Now it's not an interesting one either. Yeah. And it's also not that interesting. Right. Like, so stories around wellness and around like, oh, you know,

wife transforming because of eating certain supplements or something. And there may be anecdotal experiences of that that are very true. And I don't want to deny the reality of those people's experience. But when looked at on a macro level, there's just not very strong evidence for much of it. So drink water when you're thirsty, eat the crust of the bread, not because it's healthier, but because it's food. It's food. We worked hard to create it. And John, this next question comes from Jason

who asks, dear Hank and John, a dear John letter is a letter to a romantic partner announcing the end of a relationship. So, I am aware, believe me. What would a dear Hank letter be? Dear Hank and John seems like the right place to ask this question. What do we all need to tell Hank with Argonauts Jason?

What is it to get to the question? I think we need to get to the question part of this question, but first I just need to say something, which is that everybody who emails me and they begin the email by dear John and then there's a paragraph about how it's funny to be writing a dear John letter because that's a break up letter, but this isn't a break up letter. It's a letter to a person named John. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but I've heard the joke.

Right. Well, and also at this point, do we even use that phrase anymore? I feel like the only time we use that phrase is an ennickless sparks movie that came out 10 years ago. And then when people are emailing me, the only times I see the colloquial meaning of Dear John used. I have to shout out to anybody who remembers this theme song, which for some reason is in my head.

Dear John. dear John, by the time you read these lines, I'll be gone. It was like, oh God, what is that? It was like an 80s sitcom. Is it from my two dads? No. It was a show called Dear John. Oh, no way. Yes.

No, I would remember if there was a show called Dear John. Yes, and it had that guy in it. That guy who's still famous, he's still doing stuff. No. Yes. No way. It's Judd Hersh. Oh my God, it has that guy in it. He's an easy and everything, he's still doing it.

That guy. Apparently, Dear John was on American television from 1988 to 1992. Four of my peak television watchers. Totally. I have no memory of this program. I'm sure I saw it a million times because when you sang that song, it something came back to me. Yeah.

And I'm sure that that's part of the reason why in the 1990s, like when my friends and I would write letters, they would always be like, it's not that kind of dear John letter. Right. Oh, I wonder if it's good. John, for the project for off in this year, do you want to do a commentary of the of Dear John because you can just watch it on YouTube?

It is just available. Yeah. You know, like the streaming rights to friends sold for $50 billion or whatever, but the streaming rights to Dear John, like they couldn't get a five cent offer. So they were like, I guess we'll just upload them. Right. The first, the top comment on Dear John Pilot season one episode one is from Tom Willett.

He says, I am Tom Willett. I was Tom in this series. It's great to see the pilot again. The cast was fabulous to be with for the four seasons of the show. The entire crew and production company was all first class. We did this at Paramount.

The pilot was originally written for the UK where the series began. We worked on this from 1988 until 1992. I wish they would release this on DVD. Thanks for posting this eight years ago. Ah. Ah. Ah.

That's great. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom Willett. I was proud. This series makes me think that like 40 years from now when people start like re-uploading vlogbrothers videos to whatever exists after the collapse of civilization and YouTube falls apart.

And we're gonna come across like a re-uploaded vlogbrothers video and be like, oh, hey, thanks for posting this. I remember we made this. We made this in my basement in Indianapolis for 17 years in the before times. And it was so fun. Then of course, there was the tremendous amount of destruction that we brought. We're really sorry about that. And thanks for posting.

Anyway, I gotta go now because I have to light the ring of fire that I use each evening to protect my home from the zombie horde, but it's really nice to see these old videos. Glad we're getting the internet back online. Looks good. Thanks for saving those. Yeah, thanks to whoever downloaded Vogue Brothers videos onto a hard drive and saw this whole zombie apocalypse thing coming.

My God. Boy, I tell you what's not on a hard drive somewhere is almost all Vogue Brothers videos. Yeah, gosh. Yeah, makes me think we should go through and download them. Yeah, I guess. I don't know. John, do you want to actually answer this question at all?

Yes, because I think it's a great question and I'm sorry we got sidetracked by early 90s TV. What would a deer hank letter be? I've got a meaning answer the question because I know exactly what it would be because I received them all the time. Dear Hank, where does the wax go when the candle melts? No, no, no, no. I mean, like a dear Hank letter has to be like a universal letter. And I have, if a dear John letter is this just isn't going to work, I'm leaving. this just isn't gonna work. I'm leaving.

I think a dear Hank letter is, I have long, harbored, a deep love for you that I am now revealing in this letter. Oh, okay. Is it like, does it come along with a dear John letter

where it's like, you're leaving one person for the best friend? No, no, no, no. The dear Hank letter is the letter that you write where you're like, I'm just going to say it. I've been thinking it for 15 years. I'm just, I'm going to reveal these feelings to my best friend and we'll see how it goes.

And then of course, the deer john letter is the letter that you get in response. That's not what I, that's not... I don't know that that's what... If I could pick, here's what I pick, for any letter to be a dear, dear Hank letter. It would be a letter that you write to a person who you want nothing from, but want, and they are relatively minor player in your life, but a person who you see in the real world. And it's just letting them know that you appreciate something about them. But it has to be someone who you want nothing from. So, Dere and Glitter is like to the person that you see at the grocery store sometimes who has very good shoes or like the person who has a very clever license plate,

personalized license plate, and you leave it on their front of their window and you say, I just wanted you to know, I see this license plate around town and it makes me smile every time. I want nothing from you. And that's a big mistake. And you don't include that sentence to me.

Nothing sounds more like you want something from them than like it sounds almost like a threat. I don't want anything from you. Why would you think that? Just say, yeah, I really, it sounds like a threat. I don't want anything from you. Why would you think that? Just say, yeah, I really, I do like that idea. That's a great idea for a deer hang clutter. And I have to say I've been writing more thank you notes in the last few years.

And one, somebody in the Anthropocene Reviewed email told me once that thank you notes are a double mercy because they bring mercy to the writer and to the reader. And I thought that was so beautiful and so true. Like I feel better after I write a thank you note. So I love the idea that it's a thank you note, but it has to be a thank you note from somebody, even if you dig deep down into your heart,

you do not want anything from. It is a true, it is a true thank you note. Yeah, that is good. And I, it is a thing that I, I know that you do much more effectively than I do, because I don't form habits that are healthy. Thank you very much. All right, Hank, we have another question.

This one comes from Julia. It gets right back to the heart of when we started this whole of business. Dear John and and Hank I've been bingeing vlog with those videos lately and I was reminded of the fact that John Was the one who suggested the idea of a collaborative video blog. Let's just take a second to be grateful for that I mean where would we be Hank right a little where would we be John's right now. Thank you. No to himself So that's good. Oh, and it's a and it's a dear Hank letter because I really don't want anything of myself. I just want to say thank you. My question is, how did John, a person who is generally anxious and stressed about public

speaking and interacting with others become excited about blasting videos and images of himself to the entire internet? Pumpkins and penguins, Julia. I don't really know, I don't really get it. But it was very different back then. Like it was never like a moment when it all suddenly felt like lots of people were looking at us because there wasn't really a moment where our audience grew dramatic.

Like now, with TikTok, you have like many people have like many people have like eight videos on their TikTok and one of them has a million views in the rest of the Mav 100. And whereas when we, like in the sort of beginning times of this, it was like every video would get the same number of views forever.

It was what it felt like. Maybe slightly increasing over time. Yeah, I mean, the first 150 or so vlog weather videos we made got an average of around 400 or 500 views. And so I know it's hard to think back to those times, but I didn't think I was. So there's two things at work. One is that I am anxious in social situations, but making a video blog is not a social situation. It's something that you do alone. It's extremely controlled.

Yeah, you do it alone in your basement and you have complete control over every facet of the process. And that was very appealing to me. I do not like being on television because it is not like that. And then number two is that it was just smaller, like the world of the internet was smaller and it felt like a world that was separate

from the real world. Yeah. And so I think both those things were at work, but like to be clear, just because you're an anxious person doesn't mean that you aren't like desperate for outside affirmation. And I think, you know, part of the reason I started writing books probably was because I wanted to tell stories to an audience, but I wanted to be able to like not, you know,

have to go outside to do that, have to go outside to do that. Not have to perform to do that. But the other thing is that I like performing. Like I do get very anxious before Hank and I go on stage if we're performing and sometimes it can be really difficult for me, but I enjoy it. I get a lot out of it. Like I love, I mean, I've said this before, but I love being on stage with Hank because it's, it's so unpredictable.

I have no idea what's going to happen. There's a terror in that, but there's also a wonder in it. And I also know that like I'm on stage with someone who is like, you know, gonna save me if I start to bomb. Like, I do feel pretty intensely anxious when it's just me on stage and there's not much, you know, I don't really get a big kick out of that really, but I'll do, I don't know, I'll do it if I need to do it for work. Like if it's an important part of selling a book or something, like I before we started vloggreathers, I did it to help sell books and

I don't know, it wasn't something I really sought out, but I was okay doing it. So in my case, anxiety and OCD manifests itself in certain ways. And for a long time, videos just weren't even part of that. Like, my life-making videos was completely separate from my life-experiencing anxiety. And then that changed, and it was a difficult thing to deal with the change. Right.

Yeah. Because it did begin to become a source of anxiety for me and it took much, much longer to make a vlog brother's video because it took much longer to like say the words that were in the video and, you know, but that's okay. Like, I just make space to accommodate it. And so I still really love making vlog videos. It brings me a lot of joy. I also have to sometimes accommodate this like thing

that I do where I repeat what I say or like can't get through a sentence because I get nervous or trip up or whatever, but that's fine. I've made space for it. Yeah, it's funny because like the things that I would think would be the cause of the greatest stress and anxiety for you are not necessarily those things,

which just goes to show that the ways that I try to imagine other people's brains is always gonna be a little bit or a lot wrong. I would imagine just the idea of putting ideas out there that people might misinterpret or that they might be wrong. That would be the thing that would be this, like chief focus, because that's sort of what I, like I have the most anxiety about.

And I know you have anxiety about that too, but it isn't the same kind of obsessive anxiety that you have around other things. Yeah, and I think like that can be a difficult thing for people who aren't inside the experience to imagine, but the example that I always use is that the white river is really, really filthy. It's profoundly contaminated. I've gotten GRD from it twice, but I do not have anxiety about kayaking on the white

river. Because for one thing, I know that if I get GRD, I'll be fine. I've done that. I know that's like. So I have all of these, I have be fine. I've done that. I know that's like. So I have all of these, I have health fears. I have all of these obsessive fears about contamination, but I'm able to do this thing that doesn't make sense to people. A lot of people because they're like, well, you have an obsessive fear of contamination.

Why would you stick your butt in the most contaminated place in Indianapolis? And the answer is because the worries are not rational. Like, it's like, I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the, not if it made sense, it wouldn't be a disorder. Right. Yeah, like my disorder thinking is disordered.

Yeah. Whereas my thing about the White River is very reasonable. I'm like, yeah, it's dirty, but like, oh, it's gonna be lovely to be down there. Right. John, I have a question I want to answer because it's fascinating and I did not know this until Bokey looked it up when she saw the question.

And it's from Bailey who asks, dear Hank and John, why do cats and dogs always sniff in short little sniffs? Why don't they take one big sniff the way that we do when we smell something? You're friendly building and lone, Bailey. So John, it turns out we take one big sniff to breathe things in because our sniff areas

are on the way to the lungs, whereas dogs and cats take lots of little sniffs, because their sniff areas are separate things that exist off to the side. So air can go two different ways. It can go into the sniff areas, and it can go all the way down into the lungs to breathe. That about 12% of the air goes into sniff areas.

And then they breathe out through a separate hole, kind of, it's the same hole. But so like, you see the dog nose has like a, the nostrils. And then they're like slits that kind of curl up to the side and makes them super cute. That, that's like the area that air is exhaled out of, where it is inhaled through the holes. And this allows them to store air in the sniff areas and have it sit there for longer so that they can smell the stuff that's like sitting in there rather than us having to like breathe inconsistently to have more of the same air going past our sniff areas before we blow it all out with

air that just smells like our lungs. Wow. That is mind blowing. Yeah. It would be so different to be a dog. That would be very different to be a dog. It would be very different to be a dog. Though, there's a dog I follow on TikTok. That makes me think it's not that different.

That's TikTok. Have you seen Bunny? TikTok is the great equalizer. Hey, can I ask you a question about this? Yeah. So, one time, this only happened one time, but one time I went to like a wine tasting, okay? Uh-huh. And the wine tasting guy, the sommelier, is that the one?

Yep. Well, the sommelier was like, so I want you to smell the wine. I want you to inhale deeply and smell the wine. And then they always ask you, like, it's a pop quiz. Like, what do you smell? And the only answer that I ever have in my heart is I smell wine, you know? And I'm trying to smell other stuff,

but like, really it smells so much like wine. It's hard to pay attention to anything else that it might smell like. And then he said, and then we like, you know, we swish the glass around. And then he wanted us to take short, a quick sense. Like, we're a doggy. I've always wondered why he did that.

And I did, I was like, well, when I do that, you know, it still smells like wine. But I did it. And I always wondered why he had us do that if there was anything to it. Or maybe he was just like these people have such rank amateurs that I can tell them anything. And you should have been like, look amateurs that I can tell them anything. And you should have been like, look sir, I'm not a dog. I don't have a separate sniff pocket. Yeah, I should have that one.

Cause you really, one thing you definitely want to do at a wine tasting is annoy the sommelier. I, this happened to me once. I had a glass and I usually have nothing to say. I'm like, wow, this tastes like grapes. Oh, my God. And what it has overtones of grape. And then I said, oh, this like I drink and I was like, you know what that tastes and smells a little like is gunpowder. And the guy said, no. And I was like, sorry.

He was like, mad at me. And I was like like, oh right, well, I guess I'm wrong. Yeah. I had to be asleep. I usually try to express myself rather than with words with sounds like, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm Not sure. And then I feel like I can,

like if I taste one wine and then I taste another wine, I can be like, that is not the same. Yes, yes, I can be like, I have noticed a difference. I can't articulate it super well, but one of them is sort of more and the other is sort of less.

One of them tastes like big and the other one tastes a little smaller. That's how it works. It's all about metaphor. For clarity, I've been in one wine tasting in my life, so I think I was there with you. Yeah, you were. That was with my art pattern. That was a fun trip. That was fun.

You know, during this conversation, has reminded me of one of our sponsors, which is separate sniff pockets. Separate sniff pockets. They are fantastic. Only dogs and sommolliers have them. That is one kind of virtual reality. Headset I would definitely sign up for.

If they could like make me have a more sophisticated sense of smell, I would, I mean, if that's the Oculus three, take my money. Today's podcast is also of course brought to you by Tom Willett, who played Tom on the 1980s and 1990s sitcom, Dear John. Oh, Willett. This podcast is also brought to you by John's press tour for the Anthropocene Reviewed. It is about to begin and John is going to be stressed out all day. And so enjoy your day, John. You're going to do good. I wish it was only one day.

That would be true. That would be nice. And I do try to remind myself that there were several books where I did not have press tours. And I have a lot to be grateful for. Yeah. Just the fact that a newspaper wants to talk to me is great news. And so I'm trying to focus on that, that side of things. Lastly, our podcast is, of course, brought to you by deer hank letters, deer hank letters, an exciting new product coming soon from dftba.com that will allow you to write thank you letters to people from whom you genuinely want nothing.

Because Hank, I think it's one thing to have an idea, but it's not really an idea until there's a capitalist motivation for it. And so I think we need to release the first ever deer hank letter note cards if you want this idea to take off. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I agree, not least because we can't be advertising anything when we are advertising the Anthropocene Review. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

John, we have a project for awesome message. It's from Rachel and Ben from Tulsa to Judu Leo, Elena, Elijah and Sky. To our curious little nerdfighters, keep striving to understand the world in all of its beauty. Your mom and dad are proud of who you are and who you are becoming. You've lived through interesting times

and yet you stand full of wonder. Keep going. Continue to love well and live fully. The world will be stronger for it. John and Hank, thanks for impacting another generation for good. That's very sweet. I'll say you appear to have a great number of children. Also, phenomenal names.

So, Judah, Leo, Elena, Elijah, and Sky, we wish you well. We're sorry that we didn't make a better world for you, but we have every confidence that you are going to make a better world for those who come after. Yes. Hank, before we go to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I really want to ask this wonderful question that came in from Caitlin that I do not know the answer to, and which has real import

for what I want my future as a person to look like. Caitlin writes, dear John and Hank, in your last podcast, you mentioned that the Martian sky is filled with dust and has a brown daytime sky vibe. I'm allergic to many things on earth, particularly pollen and dust. And I was sad to learn about the extensive dust on Mars. I had hoped when we moved to Mars that I would no longer have allergies and would therefore be able to discontinue my allergy medication. I assume this is the main reason people want to visit Mars. And so I thought it was very important, Hank,

that we get to the bottom of the question, will we have allergies on Mars? Will we have allergies on Mars? Yeah, so there has been some thinking about this. I think mostly in the sort of science fiction world, often what you hear is that there are still allergens, but there are fewer. And the big problem is when people come back to earth, they are not used to the allergens of earth. And so have tremendous allergies on earth. And I think that that's just sort of like that's part of a way that science, like it's a

trope and science fiction to emphasize that we become not earth people when we leave earth. And coming back to the earth, there's sort of attention. Some science fiction authors argue that like ultimately when you come back, you are finally being exposed to the world that you were built for, and you are very comfortable in it, and you find that you've kind of been uncomfortable your whole life, versus other sci-fi authors who make the case that, like, you will... And this is certainly the case when it comes to changes in gravity, that when you come back to Earth, it will actually be really terrible, and you will be incapable of functioning

here. But, so that's what I know from my sci-fi books, which talk about allergies, a surprising amount. Now, the dust that you are allergic to on Earth is pretty, is definitely not, as far as I know, it is likely to be not just dust generally. It's likely to be a component of the dust. There are many different components of the dust. There are many different components of the dust. There could be several different components of the dust that you might be allergic to. But a lot of dust is just like pieces of carpet and furniture and clothes. And if you're not allergic to your own like the cotton in your shirt, then you're not allergic to some of the dust because a lot of the dust is just cotton particles. Now, it may be that

you're mostly allergic to dust mites, in which case you would not be allergic to the outside of, or the leaving of dust mites. You would not be allergic to the outside of Mars, but you would absolutely be able to the inside of whatever habitat you were living in because we're taking dust mites with it, with us whether we want them or not. And the same goes for mold. We're taking mold with us whether we want it or not. And oftentimes, even on the on space stations, mold has been a problem already existing space stations that we have now. So you will likely be allergic where you end up. It will probably not be the Martian dust finds that you will be allergic

to. It will be the stuff that we bring with us. So I have bad news regardless. Also, at least as I understand it, it's not like you're going to be able to get that allergic to the Martian dust because you're not going to be interacting. You're going to be like breathing it in very often because you're not going to be like romping around Mars, you know, breathing in the air that isn't there. Actually, you probably will be breathing in the dust quite a bit because there will not be a way to keep it out of the habitats because it is so sticky and tiny.

It will, it gets it'll get in the airlock and then it'll get from the airlock into the habitat and it will be, it will be a whole battle to fight. And it's also, now another problem is that the, like, I would be more worried about the components of the dust, which may include, like, it may be sharp, and so like a, like, it's best to see where it could harm your lungs, or, you know, if there's, like, chemical compounds in the dust, like, perchlorates that would be bad to breathe

then, this is one of the main concerns when it comes to Mars is that there are some chemicals in the dust that humans are not well suited to encountering regularly. It may be that Mars will be off the table because of that, but we're operating right now as if it will not be the case. So we'll see. I'm really excited for humans to go to Mars and I think it will be one of the great achievements of our species. Top probably top five. Sure. But I will say that the more you talk about what human life on Mars might look like, the more I think, wow, is Earth a good planet.

I mean, what a great planet. Yeah. It's incredible. I mean, like, no one talks about the toxicity of the soil on Mars, which does seem like a really big deal. Like the toxic soil is a big problem. And this isn't just a problem for like growing plants in it. Like you could not grow potato plants in Martian soil unless you like washed it a lot.

But like also you just like you got to do. I have to have systems for keeping it out of the areas that people exist inside of because it's right out for you? Yeah. I mean, I, earth is, I've been thinking this more and more, like I really have been trying to orient myself toward wonder because it just makes life so much more enjoyable. And in those moments when I'm able to do it,

I'm like, wow, this is great. Like, like this river is amazing. If we, if we like discovered the white river on Europa tomorrow, everyone would be like, oh my God, what a river. Oh, oh, whoa. So you're being, your, your big concern is that it's got a little too much nitrogen and, you know, like a little smidge of GRD here and there, like,

GRD on the floor would be a very big deal. Yeah. Cool, that's most exciting GRD that we've ever seen. Yeah. I mean, it would be hilarious if the first life that is discovered on a planet outside most exciting GRD we've ever seen. You know, it would be hilarious if the first life that is discovered on a planet outside of Earth is literally just E. Coli. I mean, that stuff really, it really can't make it anywhere. It is not impossible.

There are, there are people who, who think that that is maybe even likely. If we will, we will find life somewhere else and it'll have straight up mitochondria and we'll be like, oh dang it. That's just us again. Well, we'll be like, oh dang it, but we'll also be like, oh, whoa. It's also exciting. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there is no version of finding life

that is definitely from another planet that is not incredibly exciting. Yeah, I mean, I guess the one version, which is that it's the last moment for humanity. It then spreads and just like eats all of our eyeballs until or just or no, I didn't mean like microscopic life. I'm not like if sent to come here and they're like, yeah, I mean, this is a good planet, but y'all have not done a great job with it. So we're gonna go ahead and...

This is ours now, thanks. Yeah, we're gonna go ahead and settle in on this one. Yeah, I don't know if you've heard, but your core is, I've got a lot of iron, and we need to build a Dyson sphere, so we're gonna need that. Yeah, that's a bad version, but like all the versions where humanity discovers life

on another planet or finds like strong evidence of life that we're able to observe closely is incredibly exciting because we don't know what we don't know about extraterrestrial life. And anytime something like that happens, it's so exciting. I just want to have one moment of like that in my life, where there is such big news about our understanding of the universe that my mind just... It could happen. You got some time left? I know.

Well, hopefully. Or maybe it's just the white river. Maybe it's just the white river, which is also that that's also that's also been a great joy Hank Yes, I want to talk about the news from aFC Wimbledon. It's always exciting. It's never not exciting But I just have to acknowledge that the football team that I have loved since I was a child with a pool football club had a game over the weekend. It was wild in which it's a game that we had to win in order to have a chance to qualify

for the Champions League. And so with the last kick of the game, we brought the goalie up, which is something that teams do, but it never works like. Yeah. Like an hockey club for 130 years. So it was a tie. It was like tied. It was tied.

What was an exciting game before that? Sorry. Can I get a little more context? Was it zero, zero? Like had you been losing? And you've been winning? It was one one. We went down one nil.

And then Muhammad Salah tied the game. So it was one one in the 94th minute. It was going to be the last kick of the game, this corner kick. So they brought up the goalie, Allison, a Brazilian guy who's a lovely person and also has had a horrible, horrible year. He lost his father in a terrible accident. Earlier, just a couple months ago, and he hasn't been able to go home to Brazil. So he hasn't been able to grieve with his family and it's just been very, very difficult. And so the other piece of background here that's important is that Liverpool have been a football club for like 130 years. And no goalies have ever scored for Liverpool in that 130 years.

That's how much this whole like bring up the goalkeeper for the last kick. That's how much this whole, like, bring up the goalkeeper for the last kick. That's how much it never works. Except that it did work. It did work. Allison scored not just a goal, but a really magnificent goal. It was beautiful afterwards. It was not, it was not an accident. It was not like, oh, there was another body there. He's like, he's like eight inches taller than everybody else down there It looked like to me. He's a big guy. He is and and the head the head was just like text book Oh, it was the goalie the goalie for the other side just stood there was like well not getting that it went into the side netting The liver fool. I mean I have never felt like that.

I, I was watching live. Yeah, I was alone in the house. Thank God. And I was so discouraged and I was so frustrated that we weren't gonna qualify for the Champions League and all that means for the club financially. And I was so mad. It's mad about this whole European super league

which distracted the club at a critical time. I was just mad. In the Nalison's court, this goal, and I just, I'm mean. I don't know that I will ever feel like that, ever again. I don't even know what happened inside of my body. It's like they found E. coli on Europa. It was, it was, it was that.

It was just pure joy. So happy for Allison. 94 and like 13 and 20 seconds. Oh, how long did the games last? That's longer than they said it was going to last. I know, I know. It was, it was pure, pure, pure magic. But let's talk about AMC, Wimbledon Hank. Okay.

America's favorite third year English football team is once again going to be favorite third year English football team is once again going to be a third year English football team. Thanks to some absolute end of season heroics by manager Mark Robertson and the boys. Couple big, big pieces of news. Number one, 19 year old wonder kid Ayuba Saul has, has signed a new professional contract with Wimbledon that will take him through 2024, which is key because if he continues to get better at the current rate that he's getting better, there is no way he is going to play for us much longer.

So I'm very grateful to him for signing that contract. The other thing is that even though the league season is over, Wimbledon are still participating in this thing called the London Senior Cup. It's like the under 23 team, kind of the younger kids are playing in this knockout cup competition. And we have reached the finals of that competition in the quarterfinals, we beat, you cannot make this up a team called Koch Fosters. Yeah.

And in this, I'm sure that's a place in England, because why wouldn't it be? And in the semi finals, we beat noted footballing powerhouse, cray, villy, paper, mills football club. Now, we move on to the finals. This is the first chance, Wembleton has had to win any silverware in some time. This would be, you know, like a proper trophy. It's not quite as good as like winning the Premier League, but it is something. And I am very excited to see if we can pull out a win in the London senior cup. Okay. Good.

How likely is that? You know, I mean, I think it's pretty likely, like last year it was won by Peckham Town. I don't know. I feel like we could be able to like some Peckham Town. You can do it. Yeah. Okay.

This is the stuff I have to have to keep me going during the long silly season that is the off season. So what's the news from Mars? They don't quit playing in the summer. No, they don't. Boy, I just spent the last while you were talking there just watching Alison Becker score that goal over and over again. And it's amazing that's so magical.

I don't know who this other guy is. He just collapses into tears. He's like running into the sky talking to his dad. I can tell he's talking to his dad and it's just it's something else. But yeah, he lifts his fingers up to the sky and he says in Portuguese, he says that's, I mean, I can barely say it now. He said that's for you, Dad. Yeah. Is this other, some other Liverpool player like dives in and like it comes right in front of Becker and has this tremendous leap and he's headed straight for the ball

and he's like, and it just like doesn't even touch him. Right over his. And then like just giant Allison Becker is just there with his head in the exact right spot. It worked. It worked. It feels so good. I don't even care. It feels so good.

It was just magical. Just magical. Yeah, the guy who was running for it and like took that great leap was Nat Phillips our hardworking central defender. But it really flew. He was flying and he just, he did.

He was doing everything right, whereas Allison was just like, I think I'm gonna let the ball hit my head. And then I think the ball's gonna go in the net. Oh God bless sports. Well, there's also good news in Mars. So there, there has so far as of, as of a couple of weeks ago, only ever been one country has managed to land a rover on Mars.

It's been the US. We've done it a number of times. We've been, it's, it is a hard planet. And as a species, we are getting better at this. And as of last week, as of now, there is now a second nation that has put a rover on Mars. It's the Jirang rover that the Chinese National Space Administration has landed on Mars. It's been orbiting the planet for a while. So, Chan-Win-Wan is the orbiter that is still orbiting.

And since February, it's been like taking pictures to make sure it's got a good spot for this thing to land. Went down, landed safely. It is, the mission is going as planned. It looks good. You will, if you look at Zhirong, you will think that's familiar because it looks very much like spirit and opportunity, which is sort of just a convergent evolution.

Like if you want a thing to fold up into a certain shape, you want a mast with scientific instruments on the top of it, you want six wheels that are sort of like having dependent transmission. And so like all of that stuff sort of comes together to make a rover that looks similar and is a similar shape. The solar panel is also kind of function similarly. So it's a, but it's another opportunity to survey another area of Mars, it's a big planet.

So any opportunity, you know, it doesn't have the same sort of suite of instruments as perseverance, of course, which is like probably at least 10 times the mass of Jaron. But it's, you know, it's got another opportunity to learn about a different spot on Mars, get more beautiful high-resolution pictures, and it will be working for at least 90 Martian days, which is basically the same as the Earth Day, a little bit longer. And it's got cameras and it's got some spectrombus, spectroscopy equipment. It's going to be studying the weather, it's going to be studying some rocks.

And it will be working with its orbiter to send all that data back to Earth. And it is China's first Mars landing and the first rover landing of any country, except for the U.S. It's basically the first successful landing from any country, except the US. Russia had a lander that landed successfully, but then broke within a day, which was a bummer. But no, that is a bummer. But it looks like we're figuring it out. I'm very happy that there is another rover on Mars. Is this probably going to be the last one because I assume Mars and Earth are getting further apart.

So it's harder to send them. Yeah, so Johnwin arrived at the same time, basically, as Perseverance, because they're sort of a two-year window when you can launch. So this is the last of the spade of missions. And, but of course, like their missions continue. And there will be news from both of these rivers as we go on.

Yeah, that's really exciting. And it's great to have more people getting involved in space exploration and interplanetary travel. Am I correct in assuming that it will be another like year, year and a half before we can make the next round of these Earth to Mars missions. Yeah, I think a year and a half will be the time when you will hear about a bunch more Mars missions launching.

We know what those are, but it's not like they plan them in less than two years, but right. Yeah, we are aware of which missions those will be, but they will not be launching. In the, I think that they will be launching in 2022 or 23. I'm excited. I'm excited to. Those launch times are very exciting and busy. And it's crazy that they sort of also all arrive at the same time.

And they're like, Hey, we're here. We're back Mars. How's it going? Well, launch, we got here. We're back, Mars. How's it going? Well, launch. We got close together again. So. Like. Yeah, I love it.

Oh, well, Hank, thank you for potting with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. You can email us your questions at Hank and John at gmail.com. We really appreciate your questions. We're off to record our Patreon only podcast this weekend's stuff. I hope you like the Anthropocene Reviewed book. Hey, if you buy the book, by the way, go to the AnthropoceneReviewed.com, a website that I am very glad now that I didn't buy. Because two Nerdfighters have made a wonderful

website there. Their names are Jim and Rh, and they built a website that allows you to post where your book ended up. And also, if you take a picture of your signature, I can see your signature, which will make me really happy because I like to look at them and rank them in my mind. But it also allows you to do- Not like the signature that- not your signature, but the one that you received from John. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. My signature that is now yours, because that's how the transaction works. But it also allows you to review the place

where you are reading the book, like review the town or the state or the whatever community in which you are reading the book. And those have been so lovely to read. It's really great. and I'm just so grateful to them for making that. So if you have a chance to to share where your book ended up and what it looks like, it would make me super happy theanthacinereviewed.com. John, this podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Mettish. It's produced by Rosiana Halstero-Has Sheridan Gibson. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. Our editorial assistant is Deboki

Trock-Ravarti, the music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast is by the Greek Anorola, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. you