Dear Hank & John - 311: Confurious (w/ Deboki Chakravarti!)

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Could we clone a neanderthal today? Would I get sick if I ate the Mona Lisa? Why aren't there other animals as smart as humans? What is the skin of your teeth? Would turning on a flashlight in space, would it move you? Has anyone ever tried to use lightning as a power source? Hank and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I like to think of it, Dear Deboki and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers and sometimes a brother and a friend answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Today we are joined by Deboki Chokravarti who is our editorial assistant who is always helping with interesting science facts, Deboki. I recently got mad at my son because he was inhaling helium out of a helium balloon.

Uh-huh. I just didn't like him talking to me in that tone of voice. Thanks. Appreciate that. How long do I have to pretend that I'm laughing for? That was good. That was perfect. So, Deboki helps with a number of things,

but mostly is a sort of science consultant Don Deerhank and John, because we get a lot of science questions. And there was a time when I would wing them, which went well 90% of the time, but that 10% was a problem. And now I don't have to wing them. And what we do is, Deboki and I, before every episode of During and John, we have a little phone call where we talk about science questions and Mars.

And I learn some things and make sure that I don't get anything too wrong. So Deboki is always on this podcast kind of. And what we've decided. I'm the silent voice in the back being like, no, don't say that. And since John is on a little break, I was like, why don't we bring Deboki into not a silent voice? And we can just answer science questions for a day. Yes. So now I can listen to this afterwards and say, no, to myself, like I can have the retroactive

self criticism instead. You should not have no, you should not have. But look, that's that's part of the fun. No one expects it to be 100% right. It's dubious advice and almost definitely correct science information. Those are my specialties. So. Where are you? And what are you up to these days? So physically, I am in Massachusetts

in the Western part between a bunch of schools and professionally, emotionally, all over the place. I do a lot of different things for complexly, I guess. I work on this, on tangents, on Journey to the Microcosmos. We've still got Crash Course Organic Chemistry going up, so I've been hosting that as well. Oh, right, yeah. So a lot of different things, yeah.

And then you also do freelance editorial work for a number of different places. Correct. And you started and your degree is in my background in biomedical engineering. So I did that through undergrad. I also double majored in English, but that was kind of just for fun, because I wanted to be forced to read books while I was in college. And then after I did my PhD in biomedical engineering and spent a long time trying to teach T-cells

how to do things. Oh, I actually tried to teach T-cells how to do things in my undergrad. Yeah, they don't listen. But they just don't want to do it. They do all kinds of stuff. They, it's wild. I did not realize how stupid the immune system is until I started to work

on it. But it is extremely complicated. And they're just like, I'm going to be a different, I'm just going to be a different person. You know, like some days you kind of wish you could wake up and be a different person. So I can't I be a Reese Witherspoon for a day. A T cell can do that. Yeah. It's just the sign it. And the thing is, it's so stupid, but it's also so brilliant. Like, that's why it's so hard to understand. Like, you can spend your entire life trying to map out the immune system and trying to understand what it's doing. I mean, people have been trying to spend their entire lives doing that.

And you get to a point, I think, where you just have to accept the large amount of things you're just never going to get about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank God for the immune system, though mine does attack me. But look, it's complicated. And I get it. It's confusing in there.

There's a lot of different cells. And you have to decide which ones are bad, which ones are good, and it can get confusing sometimes. And then you just make me miserable for periods of time. I'm mostly better now, but only thanks to modern miraculous and tremendously expensive medicines. Yeah. Yeah, what little we have learned about the immune system has already made a lot of progress, so that's the great thing. That is the great thing. So we have a lot of science questions, but we've also got to, like, we're not able to answer all the science questions and there is

Often been times and we're like, what do we do with all of this solid gold material? And we haven't really figured out a thing to do, but here's one thing we can do. We can have all science question episode of Dear Hank and John. And I assume you've listened to the podcast. I have. That's great news. I assume you've listened to the podcast. I have. That's great news. With, this is a podcast. I've just been waking up on Monday and answering science questions for fun. And, and I think that we're just answering some science questions.

I liked this one. It was from Ben who asks, dear Hank and Deboki, could we bring back Neanderthals today? Like if we really wanted to for some reason, considering we have sequenced their genome and all, pumpkins and penguins Ben, have we seen against their genome and all? I think so. I guess I kind of accepted the premise of the question. Now I guess I got a throw an arranging. Yeah, I think that we've, I think that we've got pieces. I don't know that we've got all of it. Genome.gov says that in 2010, researchers had produced the first whole genome sequence of the three billion letters in the Neanderthal genome.

That sounds like a whole genome. Yeah. Geez. I guess they're not. It's wild. You forget how recent it was. Yes. That we had other members of our genius. Yes. And I just can't imagine it. I just can't imagine.

Oh my God. Oh, there is this other sort of different kind of version of me just like around. Yeah, yeah, that is yes. And you know, that they would have had to have, I don't know, maybe they wouldn't have had to have, but it feels as if there would have to be some kind of large geographic separation.

But if there was that large geographic separation, it seems entirely possible that a civilization could evolve and then discover that, oh my gosh, we actually aren't alone here. Though, I don't trust us to not end that situation pretty rapidly. Yes. I'm curious, like, who would have been the most trustworthy of all of all of these early humans, but maybe the fact that we're here is the sign that we were the least trustworthy

of all. I've been watching a lot of Survivor lately, so I'm feeling very nihilistic about the group of people on islands. Tell you what, tell you what, then the end of the thoughts would not have made it through this. They would have gone in the first week. Yes. Just far too nice.

So, but, but, so we do have a full genome and just stick it in an egg, right? Yeah, maybe. The thing is, it's so hard to get DNA into cells to begin with. And again, just coming from that background of like trying to get T cells, which like, it is good that your T cells will not just like accept any DNA willy nilly. That is technically good unless you're trying to graduate. But it is technically good that it is difficult to put DNA into cells. But I think particularly, there are some human cell lines that people have created that are easier to engineer.

Whether or not we can then turn them into like a stem cell that's gonna become a little like, nanderthal baby, like that's a lot more complicated. And then whether or not you would even be able to have that baby develop like inside, I assume a surrogate I think. Yes, like it's to be really complicated. Yeah, we can't, we can't have babies outside of people or animals.

That's a long way off still. Though certainly the date at which you can have a baby out of a parent is getting closer and closer. What's interesting to me there is my thought is thought is just to get, stick some DNA in the egg, but it turns out cells have a lot of procedures for not having new DNA show up. That is often happens in problem situations with viruses and also just mistakes.

And so that cell might be like, oh, something's wrong, I'm just gonna off myself, which they do a lot. Yeah. But we have been able to put some DNA into cells before, right? Is that how cloning works? Yeah, yeah. I mean, for sure, you're saying with viruses,

that is actually a way that we get DNA into cells all the time. It's, again, not to the bone straight forward because even making these kinds of viruses can be like pretty difficult because viruses are all to not necessarily super excited about having a lot of strange DNA put into them. So there's like limitations on how much DNA you can put into it, what kind of DNA you can put into it, and then getting the virus into like the cell and getting it to like put all that DNA like there's just a lot of there's a lot of issues like I've had this conversation so much and then getting the virus into the cell and getting it to put all that DNA. There's just a lot of issues.

I've had this conversation so much with friends where we're just like, we know what the sequence is. I know what the sequence is on my computer of what I want to make with the DNA. Why can I not just get it into the cell? I feel like I should literally be able to print a cell out that has all this stuff. And apparently biology is pretty complicated.

We're not there yet. I have confidence that we will, that will be a much simpler proposition for students of the future. But for Deboki of the past, I'm sure that you were banging your head against a lot of walls. Yeah, it's gonna be my most children of the future

who learn how to clone and third grade. That looks great. Back in my day. So there's the question of can we, which currently I don't think we can, but I think probably, if society continues to progress, that we will be able to, and then we will be faced with the question of,

should we, which of course we should not, right? I don't think so. I, you can't. It'd be like bringing about, like I can see bringing back a willy mammoth. Even that is hard though, because elephants have strong culture, but not like a Neanderthal culture.

Bringing back a culturalist Neanderthal seems like it's almost like that's not what it is. That wouldn't actually allow us to learn very much about them, because in addition to the fact that he's created a person, theoretically just for study and for kind of to see if we could is a big problem. But then second, that's not really what we want to know so much. It's not really about their physiology. It's about who they were and how they acted.

And we can't know that because we will never recreate that environment. For sure. We're not bringing them back into the world of neanderthals or bringing them back into a completely different world. And that's where I feel like a lot of resurrection talk to me. I just, I can never tell if it's like my own failure of imagination, where I'm like, I just, I don't find myself super curious

about what it would be like to resurrect Neanderthals or woolly mammoths. I just find myself kind of like hitting a wall of like, well, like, okay, I guess we bring the woolly mammoth back. But then like, I, then like. And then you go to Jurassic Park, like, and then it's just a zoo experience. Like, I don't, it's not like the ecosystem is lacking for woolly mammoths. Yeah. I think I could be wrong.

Like it may be that the ecosystem still kind of exists in a way that like, it would be more dynamic if still kind of exists in a way that like it would be more dynamic if it had that sort of giant grass-eating machine. But I don't, I feel like the caribou are doing the job, you know? Yeah, and ecosystems are just so complicated that you just throw something in there and it's going to, I mean, it'll do something. Like something will happen if we put Mollymam that's back in the world. But it will probably more than just like a uni-directional

kind of like, oh yeah, now this is going to do that. And now the ecosystems differ. It's like gonna be like a whole series of cascading things. So I guess maybe that is like a curious thing. I just am not personally ever like, oh, cool. I want to know what's gonna happen. It is, you know, I just am not personally ever like, oh, cool. I want to know what's going to happen. It is, you know, I am interested in de-extinction when it comes to, you know, the potential future

where we have a world that can sustain that organism that went extinct. But if there's a reason it went extinct and we haven't fixed that problem yet, then there's no reason to de-extinct it because because then it will just be a lot of maintenance for a symbolic thing, really, rather than something about the Earth, something about the ecosystem. And I think we think of extinction symbolically a lot where it's like if we lose that last one,

then we've lost it forever. And that is obviously that is very true. But the reality is that the loss is that there isn't a world left where that, that organism can survive. Like, and we haven't changed that yet. Anyway, that's a bit of a bummer. I want to ask a different question. This one is from Kristen who asks, dear Hank and Deboki, would I get sick if I were to eat the Mona Lisa? Nothing funny rhymes with Kristen. Uh,

Kristen, what about like listen to Kristen? Kristen? That would be good. Listen to glistenin Kristen. Oh gosh. Yeah. Can Kristen eat the Mona Lisa? I mean, now that we've tried to rhyme her name, sure why not. But no, I don't recommend it. Would she get sick? Yeah, yeah. Didn't she was not painting the Mona Lisa with safety in my- Like edible in links, yeah.

I mean, to begin with, I guess the stuff it's painted on is like a thin plank. Yeah, wood. It's painted on wood. Yeah, so you're eating really old wood. I don't- Which is fine. I feel like I could, a lot of people,

there was recently a, this was on, I think I don't know, it was on Weight Weight, don't tell me maybe, or the other one, that there was a bakery that couldn't sell cookies or couldn't name their cookies cookies because they had too much sawdust in them. And I was like, oh, so then I guess you can eat wood. But what if that sawdust was essential? What if you just called it a sawdust cookie? Yeah, look, I don't know how the laws in whatever country that I heard about that thing

that I vaguely remember work. But I can tell you that if I ground up the plank that a Mona Lisa was on and mixed it into enough cookie dough, I could definitely eat it. If I ground up the plank that a Mona Lisa was on and mixed it into enough cookie dough, I could definitely eat it. But definitely sounds like something that's going to be like served at a future like billionaires evil. Food about you. Yeah.

Like the situation. Everyone eat a little of the Mona Lisa. Well, look, here's what you could do. You just shave a little bit off the back. You don't have to eat the whole Mona Lisa. Yeah. You can also just tell people that the Mona Lisa is in what you're eating. No one's going to look at the Mona Lisa and be like, is something from it missing.

So if you were to have a menu and be like, this is a Mona Lisa cookie with shaving some Mona Lisa on it, no one's going to like fact check you, except for the fact that they're not going to die because they're not eating lead and they're not eating like bone dust. Oh, okay, so there's more to it than just bone dust. I guess this was in some of the pigments. This was not a time of a very safe, well, I don't know if now are times of necessarily safe pigments.

But DaVinci was definitely painting with some stuff that could make you sick. There was a primer that had lead in it. There was bone dust. There was mercury sulfide. Like there's stuff in the pigments that will also probably not be good to eat. Interesting.

Okay, this makes sense. I, then you really do want to just scrape the back off. Look, I don't know. Like, I'm not saying that, I'm not saying this is good, I'm not saying I would do it. I'm not saying that I would, like, that if I was at a party where this was happening, I wouldn't be infuriated, but I could absolutely see someone buying a Picasso

and like scraping a bit of it off and putting it in a cookie. And like that actually, actually being a thing, like I'm not making it up. Like I could see a debauchery party in Cannes where they're all drinking gallons of rosé and it's like the cookies have a Picasso in them. I think that I think that Mona Lisa is.

Oh, you think it's safe from being turned into a cookie. Yes, I don't think it's safe to eat. Yeah, I think I disagree with you, De Boque. I've heard that lead is bad for you, but that's just the. Yeah, I mean, it's a trough. I'm going to do my own reason. I'm going to march into the loop right now and test this out. But De Boque, you said that one of the concerns was bone dust. And I have to make the case that I could definitely eat well. If you're going to make that case. So far, everything that I have found about what makes bone dust could definitely eat bone dust. Okay, well, if you're gonna make that case, so far everything that I have found about what makes bone dust bad for you

is about like breathing it in when you are cutting up bones. So, okay, I, maybe. Look, how bones are fine, animals eat bones all the time. True, true. I think we're fine. I think I can eat bone dust. I don't think that I can eat lead though. Yeah, I think maybe it's the lead.

So it would make you sick, but it probably wouldn't kill you. Is I feel like we're at. Yes. But not like a little bit sick for a little bit. I mean, how much of it are you eating? Like sick forever. I think if you eat the whole thing, you are gonna be doing so great.

Yeah, all right. Okay. I can hear that. It's all in the dosage. Everything, everything's opposed in the dosage. Everything, everything's a pleasant certain dose, including the Mona Lisa. This next question comes from Joey who asks, dear Hank and Deboki, why have no other animals evolved to intelligence similar to our own? I feel as though there are some who have had it just as much, if not more time.

Well, for clarity, we've all, like, all life on Earth has had the same amount of time. Yeah. Like, could it still happen? I think kangaroos should be next, Joey. Cute. I like the idea that it also could just be like, there are animals that have been alive as long as I have

and have just, like, not bothered to learn things in that time. Get your, Get together. Get together. This was it. This was one of my first like learning moments that I remember. I said to my teacher, if trees have been around so long, this is like third grade. Why haven't they learned how to walk? Which is like basically the same vibe as this question.

Like why didn't a tree learn how to walk? And the answer is two fold. One is the trees don't need to walk because they're doing just fine. The other is that like, the pathway to get to walking involves a lot of other changes that trees have not made. They've not had to make. And that was at a different branch of the tree, you know, so like the the like muscles are very different from how plants move and so the the and also like the requirement of I mean now about the bookie now I'm questioning I'm questioning whether or not a plant could walk Now, Deboki, now I'm questioning whether or not a plant could walk. Because they can move. Yes.

And some of them can move quite quickly. There's a whole thing about whether or not trees are in forests are migrating, right? But that's more about the collective forest. That's not like tree trees. That's not like we're not like at X. Individual tree. An individual tree can move,

but only if the ground also moves. Yeah. Could a plant walk? I think they, I think what they, okay, so I don't know if like an individual tree can walk, but I think what they've done instead is like construct a really a library system of being able to disperse. So like that is like what is valuable to them and their like method of survival. Right. is valuable to them and their method of survival.

Right, and instead of going to find someone to mate with, instead they attract pollinators to move their genetic information around. Yeah, because I think one of the things that's like, they solve the problem in a different way. Yeah, because it's like, we could look at it as well why haven't trees learned how to walk, but it's all to a question of like,

well why haven't we learned how to survive without going anywhere and everybody in our society is all just rooted to the ground. So who's really the intelligent one here? That's that also has advantages. Yep. I could just sit here and eat sunlight. Yep.

Can you do that? Can you do that little Hank Green? Yeah. I think about this every time with microcosmos, because anytime I learn about a new organism for microcosmos, I'm like, wow, you've like really crafted a great lifestyle for yourself. Like I figured it out. I've done so much in my life and then I'm just looking at this tiny little micro that can just like spring itself from a stat like a single place and just grab food and it doesn't

like have the ability to like see or hear anything. It just has all these other mechanisms. Like, wow, I don't know how to do anything. I gotta tell you, Rhoda, for you seem happier than me. Yeah. Like, if all being equal, but intelligence is great. And I do think about this sometimes, and obviously, intelligence has evolved independently

on Earth several times. The best example being octopus, they're just like these animals are very smart and they definitely didn't get smart from, and the root of their smart isn't really connected to the root of our smart. Except then, as much, it's a nervous system that has like, you know, common connection to animals.

But like, it's smart is very different and acts very different. And the, and I have, I heard people say a couple of times if like octopuses lived longer, then they would be just as smart as us. I don't think that this is how it works. But I do understand the temptation of that thought that because they are so short-lived,

like they tend to only live for like a year or three. Yeah, is there intelligence go through like aging? Oh gosh, I don't know. I'd love to talk to an octopus expert about it. Like how does an octopus learn how to be smart? How are they taught? But I have no idea. You know, I think that there is a piece of it

that is, do you need it? But so like does the tree need to move? But the other piece of it is, do you have the sort of requisite complexity to do it? Which like that is both a no for the tree in both cases with walking. Like a tree doesn't need to walk, but also doesn't have the like sort of anything

like the physiological background to evolve that trait. Yeah, and like brains take up a lot of space, they take a lot of resources like both through development and after. So that's like, that's a lot of space, they take a lot of resources, like both through development and after. So that's like, that's a lot. Like you're going to need to want, like you're going to need to get a lot out of the brain, I think, to make it all worth it. And the thing that we get out of the brain is, is good.

And we were kind of the first, I don't know, the thing that I try to remember about people is that like our smart is a side effect of our communication. So like the thing that really makes a special is that we can very efficiently communicate a lot of information from person to person. And even before we had like the internet or telephones or media, I mean, I guess we had media, even back then, we had stories. We had the systems of sharing information are really good with people.

And that is the advantage that that brought is what brought intelligence. So as we got better at that, there were more benefits. And so there was this sort of the evolutionary feedback loop where the better you got it sharing information, the better you got it surviving. And the thing that made you better at it was intelligence.

Yeah. So you just basically need that to happen in kangaroos, Joey. Yeah, yeah. Need to get all these animals to start telling each other stories. He's sitting around, he's sitting around, and he's sitting around, he's sitting around, and for a kangaroo, you need some reason that a kangaroo needs to tell a story in order to survive. Yes. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around.

He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around.

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He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. He's sitting around. in kangaroo. Yeah. I mean, we say this, we maybe we just don't know what their stories are. I mean, they could be talking a lot of smack about us and we just don't know. Absolutely. They are. Have you seen them? Oh, God. There, I used to play a lot of those Maxis Sim games. Do you know what I'm talking about? No. So back back in the day in the 80s and 90s, there's like Sim City and Sim Earth and Sim Life and Sim Ant and it was just like just

Games that didn't have a goal like you created your own goal and they didn't have an end. Yeah, they didn't have you can like beat them. Yeah. And so you made a city, but there was one called Sim Earth and on in Sim Earth you could like naturally if you sort of like had the best Environment in a lot of diversity in a lot of life and for a long enough time Intelligence would evolve and then you could have cities and etc. Yeah, but also you could You could sort of give it something like an intelligence bonus by dropping a monolith on them reference to 2001 and Now this wouldn't work on everything you can like drop a monolith on like a Bacteria and get it get a super intelligent bacteria.

But like you could sort of decide, I want my planet to be sort of full of intelligent cephalopods, which is very good. That's amazing. Like so what did that look like in the game? Like they would start like talking to each other or like they build a little like cephalopulture. No, they were just like literally just like

an icon on the screen. And like they, I think that they got like a thing. So instead of just being an octopus, it was an octopus with like a staff or something. And, and like the, the unmoving pixel icon of them would then spread and then they'd have cities. I've always felt like it'd be very difficult to have civilization underwater. And I think that this is, like, I, but I do not know why. Why you think that or why? It seems like if it would be possible.

Like, I don't know why I think both, but like those are the same thing. But it seems like if it was possible, it would have happened to their first. Because life has been there for so much longer. For sure. But also like, we know nothing about the ocean. I would not.

So what you're saying is there's a chance. That is exactly what I'm saying. I have not ruled out the possibility of mermaids is what I'm saying. I mean, whales exist. Whales and dolphins exist. And whatever is they're doing is. I was more, more complicated than we were. Yeah, yeah.

Whether or not they would have built palaces is like a different kind of story or whether or not they would be like waving staffs around, that's a different story. Right, right. And they do use tools, like dolphins use tools, which is and teach and learn from each other. Yeah, I can't imagine,

like if I like try to conceive of like an underwater like civilization, it always looks like like the Atlantis movie, the Little Mermaid, Aquaman, like I cannot imagine anything that doesn't look like that. So it always seems absurd. Like I just, it always is like, is inherently fantastical. Yeah, I always try and think of how chemistry would,

like how would you build a chemistry lab underwater? That would be very hard, because there's water everywhere. Yeah. You'd have to create a big air pocket and then go into it so that you could mix things together. I bet there are underwater chemists who are like, how do they do chemistry up there? There's air everywhere.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. All right. chemists who are like, how do they do chemistry up there? There's air everywhere. All right. And also, like as the like chemistry was necessary for civilization and for like humans to evolve. Like we had, we had, we had, you know, intelligent human beings a long time before we, and I can totally imagine agriculture under water. Yes. And there's no reason that like if a dolphin figure,

like the problem is that dolphins don't eat grass. Yeah. But like maybe they could figure out a way to farm crabs or something. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I'm in.

They're farming lobsters and they're eating them and we don't know about it. They're just doing it. The way that we can't like conceive of like human beings and Neanderthals living in the same society. I think Walt Whales and dolphinsphins have figured that out. It's what I've decided now. So the underwater...

As of 15 seconds ago. I've solved it. I've now understood the entirety of the underwater empire that's going on. And they're all working together because some of them want to eat like animals, some of them don't. So like, this is a collaboration. The underwater empire. And there's a crown in there. Oh, and it's, okay, now there's no crown.

This is starting to feel more realistic if I like put it in those terms. There's no crown. No, no. We're going to remove the fantasy elements. We're going to remove the aquaman, the little mermaid. And if we describe it strictly in terms of whales and dolphins, then I think the marine biologists

have to agree with me. Okay. This is why our mutings are only 30 minutes. They were at human doctor. But we would get to the whale and dolphin and pirate part of the show. This next question, Bokey, it comes from Ray, who asks, dear Hank and Bokey,

what is the skin of your teeth? I'm quite certain that there is no skin on my teeth. Is there? I am quite certain, but not 100%. Is this one of those stupid English things? I'm confused, Ray. It's not a stupid English thing. I think it's a great phrase.

Yeah, I mean, I hear skin of the teeth, and I think of all the things that like, don't come off your teeth when you brush them. Oh, so I got through it by this, by the, the, the, the bacterial film. Yeah. Yeah. Which I do, I assume is not actually what it means, but that's just what I imagine it as. Well, I think it's a, it's an ex, I, this is how I feel. It's an excellent identification of a very weird thing, which is that we have a living body part that is not covered in epithelial cells, and only one.

And epithelial cells being the, so like, you know, like they are the skin cells, but also they are in our digestive system and they're in our mouths and at other places. And, but on teeth, they are living, but they are in our digestive system and they're in our mouths and at other places. But on teeth, they are living, but they are not, but they are exposed. So, yeah, either the skin of your teeth is urinamil, and then underneath that is the living part. So, that would be like a metaphorical skin. So, you have like a urinamil that is covering the living part, just like your skin is kind of a dead part of you that's covering the living part. But I think that it's saying like this is a living part of you that you got,

it was so barely there that you got by through by like an imaginary invisible thing. So like the only part of your body that you can't skin, you skinned it. Yeah, I don't think I ever really had like realized what an existential crisis around skin and teeth there are. But I think that makes a lot of sense. Like the idea of it being like representative of like a basically imaginary barrier. Like I was thinking like, oh, it's like something super thin. But like to the point of being basically like just metaphorical,

like because it just doesn't even exist. I like that. Apparently, like, it's actual origin, or at least where people have found it, is from the Old Testament. Well, if it's in the Old Testament, it's, it's, it's all. Yeah, yeah. And so I guess when Satan is trying to like tempt or break Job, I'm not super all completely well up on my like old testament stories. But Job like actually says, my bone cleavers to my skin and to my flesh and I escaped with the skin of my teeth. But I don't think that it's clear what skin actually referred to there.

So, but I just yeah, I mean, we're metaphorical, we're poets. Yeah, we're always been that way. I feel like, like, because I think, my, when I was in high school, because it was a private high school, we actually ended up reading the Bible, and it was sort of like, with the goal of, like, learning some of that kind of metaphorical language. And I remember the, like, was like,

the camel through a needle, or something. It's like, that's like one of those ones, where it's like one of those things that sounds impossible and it could be in one interpretation, but then it's also like maybe more about like a hair. And this feels like that kind of thing maybe then where it could be imagined or it could be super thin.

Right, so what you're saying is that potentially, this is just a mis-translation and we've just stuck with it because it sounded good. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. You, DeBoki, I've heard that you are a Bible scholar. Yes, that is actually what I'm here for. Yeah, I'm glad that we started out with, I'm here to answer science questions

and we've now come to DeBoki, the Bible scholar. I need you to do poetry and metaphor and Bible. Cause, cause John's not here, and I don't know how to do this. Yes. Well, okay. That's, that's the John job. Yeah.

It is interesting. Like it is weird to think about like what we think about what we're saying, like, cause these kinds of phrases, like you think about it all the time, like you say them, or you hear them, and I never thought twice about the skin of my teeth. I've been like, yeah, that makes sense to me in my head. But actually, now I'm gonna have a crisis about it every time I hear it, because I'm gonna be like,

well, I'm gonna ask whoever uses it. Do you mean that metaphorically this way or metaphorically that other way? And it's very important to me that I use this skin. Or is it an invisible imaginary skin? Or is the bacterial film? Which is it? Yeah.

I need to explain which skin is on your teeth. I'm going to ask my dentist the next time I go, tell me dentist. You must think about this. Which reminds me to go get that this podcast is brought to you by Toothskin. Toothskin, it's, we're not sure. The only certainty is that we do not know. This podcast is also brought to you by Mona Lisa Cookies, just barely edible.

It's the dose that makes the poison. This podcast is also brought to you by T-cells. They do not do what you want them to do, which is probably for the best if you have a body, but not if you have research to do. This podcast is also brought to you by octopuses with staps, staps, staps, staps. They stab things with their staps. They've got staps, stabby octopuses and ultra-smart kangaroos who are talking about you behind your back. Yes. Deboki, we've also got a project for awesome message for this edition of Dear Deboki and Hank.

It's from Atlanta Maddie who says, hello, Hank and John. Sorry, I'm sorry, Atlanta. Yeah, I'm very sorry. Hello, Hank and John. Sorry, I'm sorry, Lana. Yeah, I'm very sorry. He'll listen, I promise. From the wonderful music community over on Twitch, we raised money for the project for awesome together this year. And it's been wonderful meeting fellow nerd fighters on the platform.

I didn't know about this music community on Twitch. This is cool. Thank you for all you do as a long time listener. First time caller. It's been wonderful following you both on your journeys and finally getting to participate in this small way is an honor, DFTBA. That's lovely, thank you, Elena. Okay, our next question comes from Ben in Ohio

who asks, in Andy Wears book, Project Hail Mary, the main character mentions that turning on a flashlight in space would move the person holding it. Is this true? If a flashlight is brighter, move the person holding it. Is this true? If a flashlight is brighter, is the force greater? Ooh, I mean, you guys don't have to guess that if Andy Wears busting out a fact like that in a book that he is gonna catch so much

flack if he got it wrong, there's a very low chance that he's got it wrong. When you write books for science nerds, that's terrifying. Yeah. I interviewed him when that book was coming out and I was like, do you, and actually, I read it beforehand and I'm like, I don't want to brag, but I fixed something. Oh, nice.

That's very exciting. Yeah, I was like, you forgot a vector. If you're how I would rewrite it if I were you and he was like, wow, that is that would have been really bad Gotta keep those vectors straight Yeah, there's there's I mean, I know it would be rude, but I would probably if I had done that I would have been like yeah I corrected and do where yeah, I do Man, I read a lot of books and I'm where I'm like,

they should have called me. But when it comes to physics and photons, do not call me, because I have no idea. But so, yes, yes, it would. But why? And how? And yes, it would be more if it was brighter. But like, explain to me how a thing that has no mass has momentum go. Like I don't know. Oh, I had decided to accept that

as the premise for the answer. I was like, cool. Physicists say that photons have momentum. I'm going to accept that. And from what little I understood when I was looking this up, because I was very confused, I was both confused and curious.

Yeah. Yeah, that actually does feel very apt to describe how I felt researching this question. There are like our equations for describing momentum that do have mass in them, but there are other ones that like then come into play that explain why light has momentum as well. And so that's basically what's happening here, but at least from what I understand, if you wanted to try to get anywhere with a flashlight in space, like you're going to get there very, very slowly, like it's, especially because if you're attached to the flashlight, you have a ton of mass. So I think that's gonna slow things down a lot.

So the flashlight on its own would travel significantly faster. But that's not what you're trying to do. You're trying to get back to your spaceship and you can't. You only have one option is to get back to your spaceship where you die and you got a flashlight. And the answer to this riddle is you die.

Yes, you sure do. Apparently this is like a very popular questions on exam. So we might be like helping some people cheat a little bit. But apparently it's like even faster. Like this is like a trick question where it's even faster if you just like throw the flashlight. Like that's what's gonna get you faster. But because you've thrown the flashlight, if you just like throw the flashlight, like that's what's gonna get you faster. But because you've thrown the flashlight,

if you get lost, like if you made a mistake, then like you're kind of screwed because you're just on whatever trajectory. You can only throw a flashlight one time. Yeah. So like the idea, and this like, you could test this in a lake, like if you're on a canoe,

you can throw a rock and it actually like, the harder you throw the rock, the more your canoe moves in the opposite direction because you've pushed against the rock and it's inertia. And that is how rockets work is they throw lots of rocks out the out their butts and it pushes them up. That's why they named it a rocket. They just put together rock and butt and took out the beat. That's correct. Put it on the Wikipedia page, everyone. And cite this podcast. Deboki Chukrovarty said this.

Don't vandalize Wikipedia. Especially in my name. There's not a lot of search results for my name. I don't want this to be one of them. Now that you have, now that you've done this, now that you've involved our names to book you, I have to get rid of the fun and eliminate it. No, you can't. No, don't vandalize Wikipedia.

Anyway, so you could throw the flashlight, or you could toss the photons out, but it's just a tiny force. But you did talk here about how it does matter, and there are things that we measure, and that we have to account for this photon stuff. Oh, yay, yay. So, there are these other weird effects that come up in terms of radiation and light and how that affects the movement of things in space. They're actually like asteroids that have their trajectory altered

because of the way that sunlight will hit them. And if they're like regularly shaped and they're kind of like rotating in a certain way, it's like the way that the light hits them will heat up one side of the asteroid. And then as it's like rotating, it'll pull down. And that actually like pushes the asteroid, like that cooling like creates a force.

So it's not the photons or just the photons. Yeah, I think it's really more radiation. Yeah. Right, okay. Oh. Yeah, sorry. I put this here at first because I was the first thing it'd come up and then I didn't delete it

just because I thought it was cool. Because I've never heard about this. It's called the Yarkovsky effect. Yeah. And it's like a thing that actually makes it harder for scientists to know if asteroids are going to collide with us, so that part's less cool. But the effect is cool. So it's not like the asteroid isn't on a perfect path.

As would be defined by gravity because they're like this tiny forces acting on them when they radiate heat away. Where they're basically giant flashlights, but in the infrared spectrum. Yeah. Neat. Space is just a bunch of flashlights floating around. Yeah.

That's always see a lot. I mean, when you kind of, you're looking at the stars, like most of the mass that is, you know, normal mass is stars. And they are big flashlights. And we can't see them. There they are. Yeah. I can't actually right now.

Stay time. And I'm inside and it's cloudy. All the different. So I daylight savings done. So the stars will be up very soon. Yeah. Oh, man, you're in Boston or in Massachusetts. So you, what do you get?

Like, what's your, what's your earliest sunset? Like 430? I think we're now like something ridiculous like that. What's our sunset? 427 p.m. to not even 430. Oh, it's the worst, yeah. This next question, Deboki, it comes from Bronwyn who asks, dear Hank and Deboki last night in Vancouver.

We had a very intense lightning storm. And I was thinking about how much power it generates. I was wondering if people have ever tried to use lightning as a sustainable power resource, like solar power, just build really tall metal poles and then capture it somehow. I don't Bronlose. I Bronwyn. I liked that. I didn't think I was going to like it as much, I, Ron, win. I liked that. I didn't think I was going to like it as much as I ended up liking that.

Is it the saying it out loud makes it more fun? Yeah, totally. So I've heard that there are people who have wanted to do this. And obviously, like, this is a tremendous amount of energy. There's a lot of, there's a lot of energy that comes from water moving around in the sky and creating all of this wind. And then that creates this electrical differential that then can bridge a gap of many hundreds of feet, or even more than that.

These lighting bolts can be huge. So there's a lot of energy, and I do want energy, and I'd love for it to be created by storms instead of by fossil fuels. Yeah. And I remember writing about this in the old days in EcoGake, in like the early, or mid-2000s, and like that there were people who had tried to do this, but there's a, there are problems. Yeah. Yeah, it seems really hard.

Yeah. Like, this feels it seems really hard. Yeah. This feels like Neanderthal DNA all over again, but like not even without having to get all biological. Yeah. It's, there's like, like lightning has a lot of energy, but like it's like over a super short amount of time. So you gotta be like super fast about it. Yep.

You gotta be able to store it all. Uh huh, yep. If you, turns it, unless there was a lightning bolt that just hit all of the time and you've ever stopped. That would be great. But unfortunately, it's like one at a time. Yeah. Maybe you could just like Ben Franklin and just like have the energy always coming down. Yeah. Well, now that you say it like that, I feel like what we should do is figure out how to generate like a very localized lightning storm that is in one spot and then just put the plant there and it's just always getting the lightning.

Well, there is. I don't see any downsides yet. There is a place on Earth that almost always has lightning. It's a lake in South America or an inlet in South America. And because of the geography of the area, it's pretty much a constant lightning storm. Well, then it's perfect. That would be the place to do it. Yeah, then we just got to figure out how to get the lightning. That's the next challenge. But okay, cool.

The everlasting lightning storm. Now I've been convinced, I think we can do this. Okay, we just have to go. We have to go to, it's in Venezuela. Venezuela? Excuse me, that's embarrassing, it's in Venezuela. Venezuela? Excuse me, that's embarrassing. It's in Venezuela, it's called Lake Monacaibo. And the shape of it, so they have lightning storms,

140 to 160 nights per year, nine hours per day, 16 to 40 times per minute. So that's a lot, but it's not every day. Yeah. But that is way lot, but it's not every day. Yeah. But that is way more than I'm comfortable with. That is a lot. It sure is. 16 to 40 times per minute.

That's like almost once a second. Yeah, yeah it is. I think I'll stay here. Yeah. We get like three lightning storms a year. Yeah, can you imagine even having to try to like construct a plant in the middle of all this? You're like, well, this is the one day of no life.

You can be sure the light thing on for just a month so we can build this thing. Yeah, but it comes in really hot. So it's hard to capture. Yeah. And then you have to store it because you can't just like send it onto the grid. That would probably create some problems. And then electricity, I store it, because you can't just like send it onto the grid. That would probably create some problems.

And then electricity, I feel the same way as T cells. It's just like, I'm not sure anyone actually knows how this works. Yes. Yeah. I feel that way about light T cells and electricity. That's it. Yeah, the rest of it. Devoking knows everything else.

So all makes perfect sense. We know everything there is to know of. And my next part also on Bible interpretations. We really, I want to pick the questions that cover my area of expertise. Right. I mean, ancient Hebrew wasn't that hard to figure out for devotees, but photons. Yeah. Has anybody done it?

Have they, have they, have they built a, at least a pilot plant? People have tested it out in 2007, apparently, a company tried out a system to do this. That's probably the thing I wrote about an eco geek. That's probably the very story I cover. The alternative energy holdings ink. Holdings is a good name because it's a business term for like a company that owns things. And then but also it's actually literally trying to hold alternative energy. Sounds like it's mostly theoretical.

Yeah, I think it seems almost like it's mostly like research, rather than anything to do with practical. There is a company that has tried to set off electric activity in thunder clouds with ultra short lasers. So that's combining light and electricity. Great. So I believe that's... Now we are very confused.

That's definitely... Look, you convinced me. Where do I sign up? I'm an investor now. Yep. Deboki, since you are the science person on the podcast, and I probably know more about A.O.C. Wimbledon than you, do you want to do the Mars news? Yeah, I'll do it. Okay. Because this week in Mars news, it's very exciting. Researchers have found organic molecules on Mars that they hadn't found before. It's always fun to find some new molecules. And the researchers actually found out about this because there was a drill on the curiosity

rover that was malfunctioning back in 2016. And so they were like, well, we can't drill for rock samples right now, which we really wanted to do. And we wanted to collect these for later experiments, but we still want to test some things out. And they had these cups with pre-mixed solvents in them. So they were like, we've got these sand samples from a beach. We're going to just dump some of that into this little cup of wet, wet things and see what happens and see what we can learn from it. And so they're actually trying out a new technique

for them, which is called wet sampling. And so there have been previous ways that we found organic molecules used, like toluene and benzene, and those are usually by heating the sediments up. So this was the first time they were trying it out with this wet sampling technique. And from that, they found benzoic acid

and some other organic molecules that were new to them. They also found ammonia, which is inorganic, but it's produced through the breakdown of other organic molecules. And so none of these tell us like how the molecules came around, they don't tell us like, you know, was there some kind of life that was making it, but it is cool that like we have this technique

and that we can use this to find these molecules because these were things that were harder to find potentially with the other techniques that they'd been using. Doing wet chemistry on Mars. Yeah. Well, just like the octopus's wood. Yes, yeah. Maybe they've already done it.

The dolphins have already been to Mars. I mean, I wouldn't wouldn't put it past them. What if the dolphins had gotten to Mars and then that's why the water left and then they came back? What, what, what do they do drink it? I don't know. So, and as we can see, I'm building news, they're currently playing a couple tournaments that, I think that I am correct about this, don't have an impact on standing. So they're in the football league trophy tournament, which I think that they probably are done with because they lost the first two games.

But they're also in the FA Cup, and they won the first game of the FA Cup. That sounds like they won the FA Cup in the FA Cup. And that was against Gisley, which because I've never heard of that team, I think it's in a lower league, so it's like pretty good. Like if they'd lost that team, they're probably going to be in a really bad sign. They got a game coming up, so that's good. And the thing about the FA Cup, as far as I understand, is that the higher you go, the more you get paid. So if you can get a

couple rounds into the FA Cup, then like you have a chance of playing a really big team, and then you make a bunch of money because they get TV broadcast and stuff. Right. That makes sense. Very important. So if someone is not doing well, they're a couple of points out of their relegation zone.

So if you're following along and listening in real time to the podcast, you will have heard the beginning of the season when things were looking great and we were very excited. And now we're in a situation where if we lose a couple more games, there's a good chance that we, we, we, we, I guess I'm an owner of the team, thanks to a gift from my brother, that we would be in the, in the relegation zone. The good news is we've got two games coming up against teams that are not very good or aren't very high in the standings. I don't

know how good teams are. Port Smith and and and crew Alexandra. So both of those teams are lower in the standings along with AFC women. So this is not like we're playing like the best team in the league next week. So that's good. We're playing some lower down teams that we have a better chance against. And that's sort of what I look at when John's talking about I have to say I'm like, are we gonna play a team that's like really good? And like, have we played a lot of the good teams

and that's why we're lower down? I don't know. The bad news is that there are not a lot of goals being scored, though appreciate moving out from the first round of the FA Cup. We don't know who are playing for the second round if we draw a really good team for that, then maybe it'll be a little extra fun. Maybe some people can see FC Womelon play on their on their televisions. And that's all I know. Did I do a good job? I think so.

I have no idea. I don't I follow the AFC Wimbledon updates. And then outside of the podcast, I live in an arsenal household where like this is a team that started out the season. I mean, just like my one piece of life advice because I'm showing up on this podcast is like, if you have the option somehow to tie your life to someone who was an Arsenal fan, don't do it, I did it.

And luckily, I love this man a lot, but. But it's introduced a lot of tragic moments in our household and I still am now along for the ride. But you know, it is, it is what it is. So sometimes I follow the AFC Wimbledon news feeling like this sounds a lot like what being an arsenal fan sounds like. Like, yes, I love them so much. And then also, no. Ah. Yeah.

Stop doing that. Yes. Yeah. Oh, well, the AFC Women's Story is quite a story, but what we need is a billionaire to come along and give them a little leg up. Please, please. Devoki, thank you so much for being

on this podcast with me today. It was a pleasure, and I learned a lot. Thank you for having me. I also learned a lot about where my head will go with science if I'm given too much space. If you want to ask your questions to us, our email address is hankandjonatgmail.com. And without those questions, we don't have a podcast, so thank you so much to everybody for sending them in, whether they are about science or not. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Meticchits produced by Rosie on a Hals Rojas.

Our communication score at Nitter is Julia Bloom, our editorial assistant. Hey, it's Deboki ChakraVardy! 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. Don't forget to be awesome.