Dear Hank & John - 324: mOON NOT COLD?

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Are there more wheels or doors? Why do we have individual teeth? Are there more teeth or more legs? mOON NOT COLD? What if my colors are different? How do I use a mouse? Why do firefighters have Dalmatians? Do astronauts ever eat normal food? How does moving water cast a shadow? John Green and Hank 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 is I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the DBC advice from venue all the week's news from both Mars and FC Wimbledon. John, the other day I came out my bicycle was still locked to the thing, but the tires had been removed from the bicycle. You know how this can happen? Sometimes they're like, well, we can't steal the whole bike, but the tires had been removed from the bicycle. You know how this can happen? Sometimes they're like, well, we can't steal the whole bike might as well steal the tires. Sure. And now I'm working tirelessly to try and catch the

guy who did it. I don't know. Wait, did this really happen? No. So tireless addition to, in addition to inventing a crime, which I will remind you is itself a crime. You committed a further crime by not even really having a punchline. I did. I'm working tirelessly because I don't have tires. But even as you said it, you pulled your own punch. I'm tired. I am tired in one way, which is that daylight savings happened this morning.

And so I don't have it. That spark is gone at the moment. So I want someone to steal my tires so that I cannot be tired anymore. Is that good? Did I get something? That's also bad. But I will say, I'm glad that you brought up daylight savings time, Hank, because the Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, best known for previously his previous job, which was the head coach of the Auburn University College football team. I'm not making this up. United States Senator Tommy Tuberville has proposed a law that would enshrine the daylight savings time time as the time all year round. And this is a very notable moment in American history, Hank, because it marks the first

time that Tommy Tuberville and I have ever agreed about anything. They didn't agree about Auburn football. And then we disagreed quite extensively about politics. There were a lot of other things. But suddenly, I find myself team Tuberville. Well, I wouldn't go that far, John. But it is important to note that people can agree on some things while disagree deeply on other things. And one of the great things to agree on is that this whole thing is about idea. I tweeted about how confused I was about what I should be doing to try and

get my son on the right schedule before this happened. I completely failed and we had a very bad morning this morning. But we, uh, somebody asked in response to that, which would you, which do you want though? Do you want to be on daylight savings all the time or be on not daylight savings all the time? And I was like, I just wanted to stop changing. Which ever we are all when we pass the lies, fine. Like, don't make this hard. Don't, like, this is why making things happen

is so difficult because we all want to fix the problem, but we all disagree on how to fix the problem, but in this case, no, there's there's two choices. All solutions are better than the current solution. They were equally good. Yeah, which is yeah, the only the only bad. So whatever everyone else thinks is what I want. The only bad outcome here is is what I want. The only bad outcome here is some kind of weird compromise outcome where instead of changing the clock twice a year, we start changing it like 12 times a year. Where the bill makes its way through committee and it gets some amendments, then it passes and suddenly we're like, oh man, it turns out every 13th, no matter what, we have to change the clocks.

Yeah, and to a half hour, there's something where it is to a half hour. And I'm just like, you cannot, you cannot do this. It's unjust, it is, it truly is. I want to stick with time zones. I don't want to get rid of those. We should still have time zones. Look, time is malleable, but it's not that malleable.

I, I, I think the clocks need to stop being abused. I agree. I, I don't think that it's the biggest problem the world faces. No, but it's the easiest one to solve. Exactly. It, the easiest one to solve is to stop minting the American penny. The second easiest one to solve is to stop changing the clocks for no reason. I think now that the pandemic has gotten us pretty cashless, the getting rid of the penny is going to get a lot easier. It's, it's just kind of going to happen. Like, yeah, even if the mint doesn't enshrine it as a law, people are just going to sort of mass

stop asking for them. Quit. Yeah. This is how a lot of change actually happens. But John, do you want to do some questions from our listeners? The whole thing of the podcast. And if you don't mind, I'd like to begin with our new segment this week in Frozen Cold Hot Takes, where Hank and I analyze the issue of the moment a few weeks too late. This question came from Grace, but it could have come from any of the several hundred people who sent us the exact same question. Dear John and Hank, do you think that there are more wheels or

doors in the world? Grace. old grace. Um, I even think about this a lot, John, and what this has outlined is that, of course, it depends greatly on how expansive you want to be with your definitions. Not that greatly. No, it doesn't really, but go on. So it, so almost always, it's wheels, but it becomes doors. If and when you decide that an ion channel in a cell is a door, and some ion channels are very door like where they just have like a little flap. It's all chemicals, a little flap that lets things in and then it closes to stop letting things in.

And if that counts as a door, then it is doors. And there's one other way that it can be doors, John. And I want you, but do you want to, do you want to make your wheels case first? I mean, that's a lot of key wheels. The idea that ions, I mean, that's ludicrous. The idea that doors within cells count as doors is ludicrous unless we are referring to prisons. Like doors are doors. We all know what a door is and we all know what a wheel is. And I understand that we can debate whether a hot dog is a sandwich,

but we cannot debate whether the question referred to doors, like the kind that humans open or even that dogs open at any rate. The answer is wheels. And what this whole debate has shown me, for those of you not on the internet, it's been a big debate over the last couple of weeks about whether there are more wheels or doors in the world. It is not close. There are more wheels, even in the places that people would cite as examples of why there might be more doors in the world. Like lots of people are like, what about hotels? Hotel's have a lot of hotels have way more wheels than they do doors, Hank. They have the wheelie suitcases.

They have the wheels of the housekeeping carts. They have the wheels of the luggage carts. There's the wheels that are inside every drawer in every hotel room that will help those drawers open and close. So even in a purportedly door-centric environment, there are still more wheels. There are lots of wheels. It's very, the process is interesting to me. You ask people in the first and the thing of this car is, like, that's where most of

the wheels are, which is just not true at all. But even if it were true, there would still be more wheels than doors because there are a lot of two-doored cars, and there are no two-wheeled cars. Those are called motorcycles, and they have no doors. Well, this is the other thing. There are more bicycle wheels than car wheels. Of course there are, and you know what bicycles don't have doors. I did that some research because of this question

and found out that only 20% of people in the world have a car, and that made me feel much more, what? It makes me feel terrible. Why? That you have a car? Yeah, we have two of them. Yeah, well, it just made me think, wow, I misunderstand how the world works,

which I always do. And so it was a, it was a stat that gave me a little bit of insight. John, do you want to know how we can make it doors? How could we make it doors, Hank? We just count the number of doors that are imaginary, that are imagined by human minds as doors. Like a door's a perception. If I just imagine a door and can I on my own by imagining an infinite number of doors, make it doors. Well, no, because I'm over here imagining an infinite number of wheels.

Yeah, but you're gonna be asleep sometime, and I'm over here imagining an infinite number of wheels. Yeah, but you're going to be asleep sometime, and I'm going to catch you. No, okay, so you can make it a tie, right? This is how you make it a tie. You make it a tie by having an infinite number of doors and an infinite number of wheels, including like the wheels of time and the doors of perception, right? That's how it becomes a tie because that's a countable infinity. It's the same size as another countable infinity. But that's not the question.

The question is, are there more doors or wheels in the world here on earth and the answer is wheels? It's also possible that in some distant galaxy, there is some exoplanet that's called planet Doropolis and there's nothing but doors on the whole dang planet. But like, it's all the doors. Not a relevant issue to this question. Yeah, I like that. The people are doors and all their pets are doors and they see fun doors. Their eyes are doors and they have a door where their poop comes out of that figures are little doors. The very creepy place. Just right.

It's like they have doors in WD 40. That's it. Right, right, right. Like whereas we have like a high dependency on liquid natural gas, they're like, oh God, we need a lot of WD40 to make this joint work. We need some more lubrication. I'm really freaking. I imagine them like coming to Earth, desperate low on resources, barely able to like crack themselves open anymore,

landing on Earth and like being just saying like we need we need Thought that I was ready I thought that I thought that I'd I'd predicted the joke accurately and I had I so this is what I love about Cole Hot Takes. Is that you think there's nothing left to say. But there is. Yeah. My mate, I have to tell you, Hank, it just showed me again that if you have an issue and it doesn't matter what the issue, it doesn't matter how ludicrous the issue is, if you have an issue and it doesn't matter what the issue it doesn't matter how ludicrous the issue is if you have an issue

That it is possible to take two sides of a sizeable number of people will take both sides even if one side is Obviously wrong. Yeah, this yeah, well you you side it up and oh god We love to take sides right now, especially on the internet. John, I got another opportunity. We love a side taking issue. I love, I have another opportunity for this. It's from Ashley who asks,

great, and good, John, my friend and I were recently at a restaurant that is themed around space aliens. We used to drawing of an alien on the wall and he had two teeth, one on top, one on bottom. This raised a question, why do we have individual teeth instead of just one big wide tooth on the top and bottom of our mouths? Is there an advantage to having small individual teeth?

Or would having two very wide teeth actually be better for us? Asteroids and aliens, Ashley. To book, and I talked about this for a solid 15 minutes. So, can I give you my guess? But first, I'd like your thoughts. Yeah. My guess would be that the great thing about having multiple teeth is that if you break

one, it's not a catastrophe for the rest of them. Yeah, this definitely is a part of it. So imagine that you crack a tooth. That's bad. That's a whole bad vibe. Imagine that you crack a tooth. That's bad. That's a whole bad vibe. Imagine that you crack your tooth. Yeah. And it's a big wide tooth. And then like, I don't know, like it just like like, God, that sounds so painful. First of all, how do you feel? How do you feel just before it's even broken? How do you feel about the idea of your monoteth? It's a good look.

Yeah. Yeah. Like how it looks. Oh yeah, I think it'd be a cool look. I think it would really reshape humanity to just have like a band of bone exposed. It'd be easier to brush. Yeah. I mean like, it'd be easier to brush.

You wouldn't have to floss. Yeah. You wouldn't have to floss, which is a big advantage. There would be no opportunity to floss. There's nothing to floss, which I- There's have to floss. Yeah, you wouldn't have to floss, which is a big advantage. There would be no opportunity to floss. There's nothing to floss, which I... There's nothing to floss. But... I might take that trade off.

Having broken a couple teeth in my day, if you multiply that pain times 18 or 24 or whatever, I do not want to experience that. Like, I will floss every day for the rest of my life never to feel that. All right. I've never broken a tooth, but I feel like I can take your word for it. The other thing that we came up with is that your teeth fit kind of fit together

when you close your jaw. Yeah. And that is probably, in part, due to the fact that they can float around a little bit to find their sort of best situation. And if they were one big monotouth, you might end up with like one of the cusps of one of your teeth not fitting right and it just being like less good to chew. And then that might be something that was selected for so that it improved the ability of a bite to bite to have.

Yeah. But I think it's got to be mostly like, you just want some backups. So for the bad, you got others around. Yeah, it's like having a fail safe built into your airplane. You want a backup system. And this isn't that weird though, because there are animals that kind of have two teeth, which is like everybody was a beak.

Right. Two teeth. Right. Some animals have beaks and teeth, but we don't have to get into them. What? Yeah. Well, now we do need to get into them

because I don't know that. Oh yeah. So do you mean some animals have beaks and teeth? Yeah, there's birds with teeth, thank everybody knows that. Yeah, there's like, there's birds with like serrated beaks. Yeah. Like geese,

which are teeth, if you will. I guess they're kind of teeth. I guess they're kind of teeth. Teethers. They're not teeth, but they're teeth. Let me reach to you from the website, 10AmazingBirdsWithTeeth.com. Yeah, I definitely feel like they know more than I do.

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at some birds that it's difficult to argue that these birds don't have any teeth. They don't have teeth like we have teeth, but now I'm starting to think that my definition of teeth is too expansive and or my definition of doors is inadequately expansive. I'm not sure if birds have teeth. Categories don't make any sense. Let's move on to another question also about teeth.

This one comes from Paige who writes, dear John and Hank, are there more teeth or more legs? Oh no. It's got to be more legs. It's got to be more legs. It's not even close. It's more legs. It's not even close.

It's got to be, I mean. It not even close. It's more legs. It's not even close. It's got to be. I mean, insects. There's so many insects. Yeah. If you weight up all the humans and all of our livestock and all of the mammals on earth, and then you weight up all the fish and whales and dolphins on earth, it would weigh less than all the insects. That's wild.

Does that, do you have that one confirmed? Is that from a, from a reputable source? I'm not saying, it sounds completely possible. I'm not saying you're wrong. Yeah, they have the largest biomass of any of the terrestrial animals. It's possible. I, if you had a fish in maybe not, but hey, who knows? Yeah, it's possible. If you added fish in, maybe not, but hey, who knows?

Yeah, it's close. It's relatively close, but I think insects have all mammals, livestock and fish outweighed by just a little bit. I believe it. And look, they have like six legs minimum. Yeah. So it's got to be legs. Or I guess, yeah, yeah, six legs minimum.

Yeah, and we got a lot of teeth, but there's not very many of us. And some fish have a lot of teeth. But there's so many, like per unit of biomass of like fish, there's way more individual insects, and they all have at least six legs a piece. It's gotta be legs. That was easy. Yeah.

Unless it's a legs that I'm imagining, I'm just gonna imagine a lot of teeth. Can I tell you some more fun biomass facts? Sure. Fun guy. Outweigh all animals combined. Wow. Insects, fish, mammals, everything, and insects, and fungi, plus animals, plus all the spiders, way about... Spiders are animals.

One third as much as all the bacteria. This is, this is, yes, we do not have a great conception of how much of the earth is composed of bacteria, which is a lot of the living, living stuff. Bacteria outweigh animals by a factor of 35. Yeah, this is just for clarity. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. We are confused. We are covered in them. This is not clarity. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. If you are confused, you're covered in them.

This is not individuals. This is by mass. All right, there's no, yeah, there's no individual. There's no like single staff bacteria out there that's like pump an iron, weigh in 650 pounds and being like someday, someday I'm gonna be Mr. Universe. No, of course, it's all of them combined,

but there's a ton of them. There's so many of them. Oh, all right. I'm down the rabbit hole. What's there? They're mostly in the ocean. Oh, yeah. Is the thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, up to half of all bacteria die every 48 hours. John, this next question comes from Audrey who asks, dear Hank and John, moon not cold. That's the whole question. The M is not capitalized, but all the other ones are. So Audrey, Audrey turned on capsules, but then a hit shift to make the M small. Moon sometimes cold. Moon sometimes cold. Very cold. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes very hot. Rarely, rarely super pleasant. No.

You have to be in the right place at the right time for it to be a good temperature. Regardless of the temperature, there's no air. So that's, and that's part of why moon so hot and moon so cold. Yeah. Is that there's nothing to hold on to the hot or the cold on moon. Yeah. Do you know why moon's so hot, John? Because there's no atmosphere in sunshineing on it. This is the sunshine.

I think people get like the popular media has done us dirty and made us think that you freeze when you go out into space. This is true almost everywhere in space, but not where we are. So we are in a weird spot in space where we're close, very close to a star. Almost all of space is very far away from a star. So it's quite cold, but we're very close to a star. So it's very hot as long as you're in the sun, which is also true, you know, in like Florida and stuff, but there's nothing to do. Oh, but less true, just to be clear, like, because of the magic of the sun, the magic of an atmosphere.

But yes, it is hotter in the sun than it is not in the sun. Correct. And so yeah, it's, it, there isn't a lot of stuff to get heated up, but where there is stuff like, you know, the surface of the moon, the surface of your skin, the surface of the space station, all these things have to worry a lot about being sometimes very cold and sometimes very hot because the day on the day time on moon is like two weeks long and the nighttime would be two weeks long. So you kind of got a period where things have plenty of time to heat up to their maximum heat and then they radiate away some of their energy as infrared radiation. And that's why it doesn't sort of get infinitely hot. And then you got plenty of time to cool down

on the opposite side of that. Whereas the, and the astronauts had to stay cool the whole time because when they went up for the Apollo missions, they were in the day the whole time. They did not want to have them be in the night because that makes things harder. Yeah. I'm pretty sure nobody, nobody was on the moon at the night, but now I'm not positive, so don't quote me on that. I like thinking about the fact that when I see the moon at night, even though it looks like the moon is shining down on me, and that's something we talk about,

moon light, moon shine. In fact, the sun is shining, and it's just reflected the moon is reflecting the sun's light toward me. So it is in fact like evening sunlight or evening sunshine. I think that's really lovely. Yeah, and even during the day when you see the moon, that's such sunlight bouncing off the moon. The moon is very dark too, so it's just a lot of sunlight sitting in. Yeah. So anyway, moon not lot of sunlight sitting in. Yeah.

So anyway, moon not cold, except for half the time when moon super cold. It's confusing. I mean, it is a little counterintuitive, because the moon looks cold. In the same way that Mars looks hot, it just does. Yeah, that's also confusing for sure.

And Mars cold. Mars always cold. It just does. Yeah, that's also confusing for sure. And Mars, Mars cold. Mars always cold. Mars always cold. Mars can get colder or hotter, but it's always cold. Hey, we have another science question from Addy who writes, hello, my name is Addy. I'm nine years old and I just wanted to ask you this, what if my colors look different than yours?

Like, what if my blue is your pink? Definitely not your daddy, Addy. Oh. Thanks, Addy. Good one. The, we don't, I don't think that we actually know. We don't know, no. Whether or not my blue is your pink.

Well, we, we kind of know, right? Because we understand the way. So, Addy, the way that we see color is that certain colors are, Hank's going to explain to you how we see color, Adi. So, light wiggles, and it can wiggle different. And colors are just like light that has different wavelengths. So different amounts of wiggles between physical points. So like more ups and downs in an inch,

which is wild, but this is how it works. But that's what color is. And so what we do know, Addy, is that when light shines with those different wavelengths, with a different number of wiggles in the same section of space, that's how we see color. And we know that all of our eyes that

see color, see color in fairly similar ways. And so we can presume that when you see the color blue, I also see the color blue. Well, we can presume that like you both see a color blue. Right. But there is the variation. But like is exactly the same? We don't know. Like there's, yeah. But my blue is not your pink.

My blue just might be your different blue. Yeah, probably. But there isn't a way to actually know this because we cannot experience each other's perception. Yeah, Addy, one of the super weird things about being a person is that the whole time that you're here, you're inside of one consciousness, you know, like you can only see the world

out of your eyes, which is really, really weird. And you are right to be like, whoa, this is weird. And this is a great question as a way to ask that question. And but it is not limited to color. It's limited to everything. Does pain feel the same to all people? Mm-hmm. Seems like it.

Right. But we don't have any evidence. We don't have a way to prove that. We just have lots of indications that it is the case. Does love feel the same for all people? Does flower smell the same to all people? Does an ice cream cone taste the same? Yeah, I mean, we don't know for sure. And we definitely know that people have, like we can tell, that there are cases where people do have different senses, specifically

taste as like a one that definitely has variations and that people can taste things differently. And there is reason why some people don't like some tastes. And some people aren't capable of smelling certain smells. Some people aren't capable of smelling at all. Yeah. Oh my gosh, what a world. So yeah, the world is complicated and messy and you can only see it out of your eyes.

But when it comes to trying to understand what it looks like from other people's eyes, the best way that we have invented so far is listening and trying to pay attention to what other people tell you and believing them, believing that their experience is real to them. John, which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you, Patty, by the fact that we are stuck inside of just this one flesh sack for the whole time we're here. This podcast is also brought to you by the infinite number of wheels I am imagining right now.

Boom, done. Argument settled. Except that this podcast is additionally brought to you by the infinite number of doors that I am imagining right now. Boom unsettled. We also have a project for awesome message from Sarah Bacher, who says, thank you for your kindness and support after a plane hit my house on August 17, 2019. Your care package was incredibly considerate and means the world to my sister and I. My sister Hannah is an 85% second and third degree burn survivor.

She's graduating from University of Buffalo in civil engineering soon. And while we lost everything in the fire, including my dad and our pets, and still have no answers after a year and a half of being homeless during a pandemic, we managed to buy a home and reunite the surviving family members and pets. I'm helping fight COVID as a medical technologist despite my PTSD.

And we struggle, but we manage one day at a time with both physical and emotional scars. This community taught me how to give back. So we raised money for the Ronald McDonald House of GHV and the NYBC. I still go to Agola, New York to reflect and will always give thanks to all who helped me and my family. Agolas sends its love and its regards. Please stay safe in more ways than just COVID free. I love you all. Thank you Sarah. That is so stay safe in more ways than just COVID-free. I love you all. Thank you, Sarah. That is so kind. I really appreciate that update and thank you for donating to the project for awesome. Yeah. All right, Hank, let's answer another question. This one's from Ashland, who writes,

Dear John and Hank, I just scored my first ever full-time job. I'm going to be an administrative assistant. I am thrilled, but it's only day two, and I realized that my upper arm is in pain from using this computer mouse. I've used a desktop regularly since I was in middle school, and I've only used laptop touch pads. Am I just weak? Am I holding my arm out too far? How do I office correctly?

It's not Wednesday. Ash. Lynn. That's a good Ash Wednesday, Joe. Ashlyn. I feel like I have made my whole body in service of the use of this mouse. Oh, do you still use a mouse? Oh, yeah. You can answer this question with some expertise. I was going to say, you just track bad. Yeah, I was going to tell Ashlyn to just tell work like, hey, I need to track that. This is

ridiculous. It's 2022. You can do that. Yeah, I need to track that. This is ridiculous. It's 2022. And you can do that. Yeah, you can absolutely do that. And they, I think, would pain they're more or less required to fix that. Yeah, that's also true. But in general, it is a very normal thing for people to ask for equipment. And if you say, if it will increase productivity,

it will be totally worth it. As well as the right thing to do. So I have no idea, but I do know that like my back doesn't feel great and it's probably, and specifically on the side that I constantly use my mouse on, so I'm probably the wrong person to answer this question. Yeah.

But I am a mouse user. Do you not like sit at a desk with a keyboard and a mouse? Nope. Do you sit at a desk with a computer? Do you have a desktop? I don't have a desktop and I don't sit at a desk except when I'm recording Dear Hank and John. Oh my God, that's mind-blowing to me.

I just sit in a chair and I put my lap top on my lap. I got a whole situation here. I know, sometimes I see your whole situation and I'm like, that looks like he's probably much more productive than I am, but I like to be able to stand up and sit in a different chair. Yeah, no, that's not one of my list of things

that I've even ever imagined. Oh, it's great. I haven't had a desk with a chair since 2006. Man, Ashland, well, here's what I gotta say. This is your one chance to get it right the first time, and don't make the same mistakes I did, which is that I haven't ever thought about it. And so now, I'm constantly have shoulder and back pain. So go talk to some website that will give you better advice than I could possibly give

you as a person who has done this wrong the whole time. Correct. There you go. This next question comes from Darcy who asks, dear Hank and John, why are Dalmatians firefighters dogs of choice? Arrive Darcy? Do you know the story of this? Dalmatians? Yeah.

I got, well, I got, I got some information on it, but I feel like you got more information than I do because I didn't know there was a story. Oh, so the narrative is astonishing. Okay. In the 1800s, in the early 1800s, when public fire departments were becoming a bigger and bigger deal, like we were in Boston over the weekend and we actually walked past a fire department that was from the early 1800s.

And on the side of the building, it said, this fire department has been erected by the people of Boston to combat the scourge of fire. Like as a way of acknowledging that fire was a public health catastrophe, really. And that we needed a sort of shared public government-based response to it. And in the early 1800s, when firefighters were deciding what their dog was going to be, there was a contest where a series of dog breeds were asked to perform all different kinds of tasks related to supportive firefight. I don't know if I believe you. And the Dalmatian won, and it was a big national, big national story, front page of New York Times.

You know, the Dalmatian is the firefighter of the future. I'm so, why don't I believe you? God. Thought I did a great job by setting it up with something true. That, that I felt that I was all in for. Oh. I've, I've, I'm trying to do a thing now where I try to trick you where I, I grounded in something that's so.

That's the thing. That's what you got to do. That's what you got to do. That's really true. And very fast. Like we were in Boston this weekend. I did see that sign. And then I try to extend it out and I try to roll through the part

that doesn't make any sense. Yeah, that was the main thing. I think I might have over-set it up so that you're like, your hackles were raised as the children like to say. It may be. It felt like it shifted from something really concrete to something really,

yeah, I feel like the shift was too great. Right, okay. Do you want another actual reason? Yeah, but I've got to work on my fake story create to something really, yeah, I feel like the shift was too great. Right. Okay. But do you want to know the actual reason? Yeah, but I've got to work on my fake story while you're thinking about it. Yeah, what's the actual reason? Okay. Um, donations were noticed to run, like run alongside of horses.

Um, and they started to actually train, like donations to do this to protect. And this, now that I'm saying this, it sounds fake. This is true. The donations were trained to run alongside of horses when horses were pulling carriages to scare off other dogs that might scare the horses. So the horses were comfortable with these specific dogs and they would allow the horses to,

and they could keep up with the horses. They would just run alongside and basically protect the horses from things that might scare the horses,, and they could keep up with the horses, they would just ran alongside and basically protected the horses from things that might scare the horses, which would be dangerous. And then as that transitioned to firefighters, having their equipment being pulled by horses, donations came along with them.

As that transitioned out of needing the horses to be involved at all, they kept the domations. Wow, that does sound fake. It sounds fake. It sounds very fake. Especially when you started off with a fake thing. I think my story is actually more compelling. Yeah, well, yeah. Well, believable.

That's the case oftentimes with fake things. Oh, Hank. Yeah. Speaking of fake things. Yeah. Did I tell you about my extremely minor contribution to the history of the world? No. Hank, maybe the coolest thing that has ever happened in my entire career happened last week. So when I was writing the Anthropocene Reviewed book, I was writing about Staphael Caucus

Aureus, this bacteria that causes a lot of human suffering. And I wrote about the first person who was ever treated with a, who had a wife threatening illness, who was ever treated with penicillin. There's a police officer in England named Albert Alexander in 1941. And the story, and I read the story and all, all these medical journals and everything. The story was that Albert Alexander was pruning one of his rose bushes and his prize rose garden when he got a cut on his face that resulted in the staff infection and then he had to get penicillin. Now unfortunately, did he like prune himself in the face? Exactly. Great question. So unfortunately, Albert Alexander died of

this infection. He after receiving penicillin, he got much, much better, but there wasn't enough penicillin in the world at the time to even treat one person. And so the infection returned and he died. Penicillin is so recent that his daughter is still alive. She is in the United States. She's a painter. And this story that he was like cut by a rose bush and that led to this staff infection,

it's believable in the sense that very small scratches could be fatal back then. But it just didn't make sense to me. Like it's so metaphorically resonant, like, filled by a beautiful rose that I was like, it's, this seems a little much, you know? And also I couldn't find any good sourcing for it. Like all the sources were referring

to each other. And then finally, I found a first person account by the daughter, who was like, my dad was working as a police officer in England during the blitz and he was injured by shrapnel. And that's how he got this infection. And so that's the story that I used in the Anthropocene Reviewed book because it was the only first person account that I could find. A medical historian reads the Anthropocene Reviewed book and is like, that's not the story. That's not the story I've always heard.

And then last week, he published like a 5,000 word, a thoritative account of what actually happened to Albert Alexander. It turns out that he was injured in the blitz when the bombing was that where he was injured, what happened, everything, and this little tiny piece of history has been changed. You did it, John? Well, I didn't do it. The historian did it. But work was done.

I contributed in a small way. And it just makes me so excited and happy. The article is called Guns Not Roses, Chef's Kiss of a, of a title. And it's written by Bill Sullivan, who's a professor of pharmacology and toxicology. So cool. That is super cool. I mean, terrible, obviously, but also so cool. That's, I mean, we run into stuff like that quite frequently and our work where we come across something that is just like, this is great. It's a great story.

And there's a lot of articles about it, but they all point to each other. This is like a big circle of people saying that it came from here. Right. And I've tried to get to the bottom of some of those and you end up six hours in and like this I can't I can't. Well the classic one is this Margaret Mead quote about how the first sign of the truest sign of civilization is a healed femur in the

fossil record because that means that a human had to take care of another human. Yeah. means that a human had to take care of another human. Yeah. And you see that everywhere. Oh, you see all kinds of books, all kinds of journal articles. Not only did Margaret Mead never say that, it is in stark contrast to what Margaret Mead actually believed about civilization

and about presci- I mean, what Margaret Mead knew to be true about so-called prescivilizational people, which is that there were often healed themers in the fossil record because humans have been taking care of other humans since way before agriculture. Yeah, and also like, there are healed deer themers in the fossil record.

Right, yeah. Sometimes you figure out- Yeah, sometimes just, yeah. Sometimes people figure out a way to make it work. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Johnny, another question. What do we got?

Why are we doing? Yeah, I got another question for you. Okay. This question comes from Floyd who writes, dear John and Hank, do astronauts every normal food? Like I've seen those packets of dehydrated astronaut food, but do they actually eat that stuff? Like I get that it could be useful because it takes up less space and it's really light and whatever. And there's a long shelf life.

But do they ever get normal food to not pink, Floyd? What a great question. I have no idea. Um, I think that they can sometimes get a little bit of normal food, but it is a special occasion type of thing. In fact, um, uh, on, in the Apollo missions, one of the, I don't remember what it was, was like a corn beef sandwich or a pastrami on rye, but like one of the astronauts smuggled a sandwich on, and it became, it was like a problem because like there were crumbs, crumbs got over the place. It smelled really strong and the other astronauts were kind of pissed off at him. So, uh, so the Apollo missions were full of like people being like, uh, just, uh, maybe not taking the, take, taking the mission as seriously as they could have.

But now I think that like, so almost all of their food is, uh, you know, it has to be reheated for sure. Like they're not cooking up there. You can't cook in space. So that's one of the reasons. You have to have the food be prepared. And then, so they're heating it up and basically, it's not a microwave, but it's a fancy oven. And it's often rehydrated because you don't want to, like, it's just heavy.

Water is heavy. They have water on the space station. They sort of want to keep those things separate. So they bring the food up without water in it. But there's oftentimes, there's also stuff that's fairly normal. They use tortillas a lot, for example, because they don't have a lot of crumbs

and they don't have a lot of water weight, they have some, but astronauts are constantly spreading stuff on tortillas. So it depends on what you mean. There's plenty of normal-ish food though. That sounds like regular food to me. That's my lunch most of the day is is spreading. Stuff's spread on a tortilla.

Yeah. Peanut butter or cheese on a tortilla. You spreading cheese? Yeah, you know. Spreadable cheese? Well, I guess you don't spread it so much as you melt it. Okay. That's fine.

I mean, if you were a spread in cheese, that'd be fine. Just cheese whizzin' it up on a tortilla and then like smooth shit around. No, I can never. That's fine. I mean, hey, if you were a spread and cheese, that'd be fine. Just cheese whizzing it up on that tortilla and then like smoosh it around. No, I can never, that's delicious. I can never use spreadable cheese ever again for the rest of my life because of all the times I had to interact with the spreadable cheese machine

at steak and shake. Hahaha. Like, you know, like people would order chili mac or whatever and I'd have to like pump out the cheese and and then like, yeah, when you have to clean out the cheese machine and replace it with new pumpable cheese, it does not, it, it lives long in the memory. And let's put it that way. Well, I am still on board with spreadable cheese, and though I don't have the opportunity that often.

Well, yeah, I do, and I just don't take it. This question comes from Elijah who writes, dear John and Hank sitting in this third four classroom, turning the complexities of linear algebra over in my head, I find myself looking out the window and seeing a sprinkler watering a grass-sunker field. And doing so, I noticed an everyday phenomenon that perplexes me. The sprinkler casts a shadow, but water generally is clear. We can see it, so it's obviously not completely clear, but still, how does moving water cast a shadow?

If this water were to sit in a clear tank, any shadows that casted would be negligible, right? I appreciate any illumination you can provide on this matter, support your favorite nonprofit, Elijah. It's a, it's a profit of my show joke. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have got there. The, the, so, so the sprinkler in question is not the actual physical. Right. It's the water that is being sprinkled.

Yeah. It's casting a shadow. The reason, so if you had a large sphere of water, it actually would cast a kind of shadow, not because it's blocking the light race, but because it is moving them. So it basically, each individual little piece of water being sprinkled by that sprinkler is a little lens and it's diffracting the water in all kinds of directions. So

effectively, all of the area around the shadow is a little bit brighter and the area in the shadow is a little bit darker because not the wall not that, a little bit of the light, but most of the light isn't being absorbed. It is being refracted elsewhere. And so you get that, that effect where it looks like there's a wow, but that light is ending up on the ground somewhere else, or it's being reflected from inside of the drop and being shined up into the sky. Cool. Well, there you go. Go back to linear algebra now, Elijah.

Well, it might come in handy if you actually want to do the calculations for how that is actually happening because optics is a pain in my butt. Oh, it's so complicated. What is the news from AFC Wimbledon? All right. So here's how desperate the situation has become. Hank, last week I got a message from somebody who works today at Sea Wimbledon.

Oh wow. He said, hey, can you make a video for the boys? So I did. I did. I made the best motivational video I could make. I spent half a day on it. I worked really hard on it. It's all about how spring is coming and how, you know, when you're in the depths of winter, you feel like it'll never be spring, but spring comes anyway. And spring is coming for AFC Wimbledon. And I tried

to be as fire. I tried to just channel my inner Ted Lasso and go full fire. How did that did they did they play have they played a game since then they have yeah They lost we don't we don't need to talk about it. They lost they lost to nil It did give us the occasion to sing my very favorite soccer chant. You're nothing special. We lose every week we lose every week. Oh no. Which lately we do. And yet somehow, some way, they're continued to be barely, but they're continued to be four teams that are worse than us. AFC Wimbledon have lost, well, we haven't won a game in 2022 and it ain't the beginning

of the year. It's been a really, really, really difficult time. I do not have a lot of confidence that we can stay up. Yeah, certainly if we keep playing like this, we won't. There are eight games left in the 2022 League one season. And we need to win some of them. So yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's definitely the most, I don't know. I mean, every, every year at this time of the, the season, I'm really worried, but usually I see the members of hope. And at the moment, I just

don't, if I'm being honest, like it seems like it could happen, but it's gonna be luck if it happens I mean one year we were We would have definitely been relegated if the season hadn't stopped because of COVID So we've certainly I mean, I don't know if it's correct to call anything associated with COVID luck, but um Yeah, certainly Wimbledon have been in this situation before if there is a comfort In fact, we've been in it every flipping season for the last five years. Yeah, so we'll see we'll see We've got to turn it around though, and I'm sorry that my motivational talk didn't do it. We've got to find a way though

What if You get mm-hmm now stick with me. Yeah You get, now stick with me. Yeah. Ronaldo took home and play for AFC Wimbledon. No, not interested. He plays Manchester United. I don't want any of those people. Maybe Mo Salva though could like go out on loan for six weeks.

Yeah, there it is. We're really struggling in front of goals. So if we just, what about like, what about somebody who's retired? They were really good with their retired. Sure. Bring back like David Beckham or paylay Yeah, I'd take I take 79 year old paylay at this point. Yeah He's still got an eye for goal. He's a finisher He doesn't yeah, we just put him up front and we say listen stay where you are

You're gonna be off sides most of the time, but we don't need you to be on the sides We'll get it there. We'll bring it up. We'll get it up fast. You. And then you go at the top of the box and wait and we will get the ball to you once or twice a game and then shoot. He is 81 years old. That might be an I would take him in a flash. This is a bunch of 17 year olds in Pala. We've got one adult. So at this weekend, Mars news, the Mars Ingenuity helicopter, I mean, not the, I guess it's the Mars Ingenuity helicopter. It's been flying around Mars for almost a year now.

Yeah. It is still going. Yeah. It just wrapped up almost a year now. Yeah. It is still going. Yeah. It just wrapped up its 21st flight. Wow. It's flown more than 4.6 kilometers. Wow. And it is actually now doing work.

So in the beginning, it was like, let's just make sure this thing works. And if it works, that's going to be the mission. Like, we're going to be like, hey, we did it. That congratulations, everybody. Mission success. But they did have some secondary objectives. And the big one was like, could this thing be helpful for scouting with a little bit more detail than we can get from space where we want the perseverance rover to go? And it's doing that work. And scientists have estimated that this has saved some some significant amount of time for the rover

so that it isn't making scientists aren't here on Earth like making complicated decisions. They have more data and can make the decisions faster. And the Perseverance Rover is now headed to the remains of a river delta where the helicopter is going to continue helping it figure out where on this river Delta, it best wants to go. Here on Earth, Delta's are very good at preserving carbon-containing organic chemicals, and ingenuity will be helping perseverance find paths and rocks on its own hunt for similar compounds. So it seems like ingenuity is as good as new, running smoothly, no damage, and that's exciting, given that it was made with a lot of commercial off-the-shelf parts

that didn't have to be customized specifically for Amar's mission. So that's super cool and kind of surprising, and we're very happy. Is it still, like, in terms of battery life pretty similar to what it was at the beginning like can it fly as far as it used to be able to fly? I bet it's changed a little bit. You know the battery has to be charged up by a solar panel and then discharged and so there's definitely going to be where on that system. But, you know, got enough juice that he can get up in the sky still, so feeling good about that. That's so cool. It's so exciting to think that we could like scan the surface of Mars with all these little helicopters and find the cool places to visit. I just love that idea. Yeah, and, you know, in the future, maybe we can use it to like grab stuff and bring it back or rather work. Yeah, we're gonna get some humans onto that planet, Hank.

We're gonna live to see it. It's just not gonna happen before this podcast gets renamed Dear Jon and Hank. Fingers crossed for either outcome. Jon, we're off to record our Patreon only podcast this week and stuff which you can get at patreon.com slash something Dear Hank and John dear Hank and John This week and stuff is a good perk. I have to say by far the best perk is that you get access to the monthly live streams that Hank and I do for patreon supporters which are real raw real and varnish, true blue Hank and John, patreon.com slash deerhank and john.

I love, I also love the bonus podcast, which comes out once a week and we're about to go recorded. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Meticch. It's produced by Rosie on Halls Rojas. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. The editorial assistant is Deboki Trucker-Varity. 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.