Dear Hank & John - 447: Everything Is Over

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

What do you do with a check once it’s deposited? How does Vitamin D work? When someone compliments my necklace, is there a concise way of saying it’s cremation jewelry and contains the ashes of my grandpas (plural)? What should I do in my free time? How do glow in the dark stickers work? What’s up with teeth? …Hank and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohnProduced for Hank and John Green by ComplexlySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Welcome to Dear Haganjohn. Or is I prefer to think of it, dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers try to answer your questions, give you to me some advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, yeah. When Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, he said,

I am Buzz Aldrin. First man to walk on the moon, kneel before me. Well, second man to walk on the moon. Neil before me. Well, yeah, but yeah, just the first, aside from Neil before me. I think, I don't like to workshop your jokes. I'll workshop it. I think it's two revisions away from being a really good dad joke.

It's there, it's almost there, okay. Speaking of revisions, I am deep, deep in edits for Hollywood ending, my new novel that comes out September 22nd, and I do not have time to make this podcast. but I'm going to, out of respect for you and our listeners, and especially out of respect for one particular listener, who I want to mention here at the top of the podcast. You know, Hank, we have a top podcast for teens,

top podcast for elderly people. Of course, a hit exercise podcast and a hit sleep podcast. But did you know that we have a hit migraine podcast, according to Tiffany, who writes, Dear John and Hank, since you all have been discussing the different types of hit podcast you are, I wanted to let you know that you're my migraine podcast. Treating my migraines usually involves lying down in a dark room for a while, but I don't want to sleep because it'll totally screw up my sleep schedule.

Enter dear Hank and John. You'll hit on just the right balance of silly and serious. Well, thank you, Tiffany. Sorry about your migraine. Sorry about your migraine, and I'm glad that we don't do a million-dollar idea anymore. That probably wouldn't help. No, it's too loud. It's too loud of a segment.

Oh, God, the editing is overwhelming, Hank. It's so... It requires such intense concentration. Oh, interesting, because right now in my expert reviews, it's really not that way. like scroll, scroll, they have a comment, I read the comment, I change a line. Scroll, scroll, they have a comment, I read the comment, I change a line. It's great. It's like the best thing that I've ever done in the writing experience because it's just like, you mess this up, fix it. And I'm like, okay, I just feel like I'm being directed by experts to do something I know

how to do. I remember that wonderful feeling when everything is tuberculosis was being fact-checked. this is different because a novel, everything has to fit together just so. It's like a thousand piece puzzle, and every time you move a piece, you have to move a bunch of other pieces, and some of those pieces might have been 200 pages ago. Yeah. And so that's the kind of concentration it requires is like you have to remember not just is it Tuesday, but also what color is this person's hair and what's their name, and what do they want out of life and are they satisfied with the role that they're playing in my story.

Would they say these words? Would they make this choice? Would they react to this situation? And oh, man. Yeah. And it's dual point of views. So making sure that the point of views not just are different in terms of voice, but that, you know, they don't make similar observations or make them in the same way, things like that. It's exhausting. It's fun. I mean, look, look, this is child's play. I should not complain about my child's play job,

but it just requires focus. You're feeling it. I'm feeling. I can feel you feeling it. I remember doing multiple points of view and at the end of it being like, I shouldn't say this. But, boy, these people are all quite similar to each other.

Yeah, I mean, there's only two of them, so it's a little easier to make them different from each other. Yeah, it was easy to make them. make the space alien different. That was the big, that was easy. Everybody else was all humans. And I only really know one of those close up. I wish I had a space alien. Yeah. Yeah. That is one of the challenges of writing a novel or indeed participating in any kind of artistic endeavor is that it's inherently an attempt to get out of the prison of oneself, which of course one cannot actually do. Preach. All right, Hank, let's answer some questions from our listeners. But full disclosure,

this entire time we're recording, I'm going to be. thinking about my novel. The other day, Sarah, it was like Sunday and Sarah was like, you're thinking about the story, aren't you? And I was like, I'm never not thinking about the story, just so you know. All right, M. writes, dear John and Hank, I just got a tax refund for $1.44 from the U.S. government in the form of a check. A gross pennies. A gross of pennies, that's right. If they still made them, which they don't. While I contemplate what to do with my newfound wealth, what should I do with the check after it's deposited? I deposit all my checks with the bank app, and so it feels wrong

to throw them away, but like, I'm not going to buy a shredder. Taxes in Tyrannosaurus, M. What do you do? I don't, I'm, now I'm worried about what I'm doing with my checks. I don't want to say. Oh, I keep them. You keep them in like a bag? Basically. I should probably shred them.

You got like a, like a check bag? Is it like a cloth bag with a big dollar sign on the side of it? Yes, I'm rich on. penny bags from the board game monopoly. Yeah. Throw it over your shoulder. Then when you're going camping, you bring it with you and toss it on the fire. Yeah, once a year I ceremoniously burn the checks.

That's how I deal with it. But everybody's got a different way. I write deposited really big on the front of it, and then I rip it up and put it in the trash. Oh, that's good. I like that. That's fine. Is that, am I doing? That's like having a shredder.

I should know, no, no, take this out. Because I feel like people can figure out my account number. What should I be doing? Not if you're, not if you do a good job tearing it up, but also people shouldn't be going through your trash, Hank. Well, if people are going through your trash, we've got another problem. This didn't used to be a problem because you used to deposit the checks and they'd be in the bank.

Yeah, the bank would have to deal with it. And they'd have that. Now I have the check. Okay, what should I do with my checks after I stamp it with deposited, write deposit that on it in ink or shred it. Okay, I'm doing good. I'm doing the right thing. Yeah, you're fine, Hank. I'm not worried about you. I am however worried about M who only got a buck 44 from the federal government for a tax refund. Although I guess that means you paid like approximately the right amount of taxes. So in that

sense, it's a good outcome. Apparently you should keep the check until it clears because you don't want to lose one gross of pennies. That's right. Well, I keep the check until it clears. And then I'm just like, ah, well, I throw away these checks. And then I wait a year and I put him in my rich uncle penny bag's bag and I burn them. I like that idea. That's my way. Everybody's got a different way, I'm. Yeah, you know, paper's valuable.

So maybe, wouldn't it be like a baller move to have one of your bathrooms just wallpapered in your checks? I did once frame a check in the old days when you could, yeah, when framing a check was included basically not depositing it. I received an 87 cent check from the Screen Actors Guild for my cut scene from the fault in our stars, and I framed that. Yeah. I receive a fair amount of royalty checks now that I've, like, done things. Oh, Mr. Fancy Pants over here with his fair amount of royalty checks.

And this would be a great thing to wallpaper your bathroom with, because they're all for, like, $2. Yeah. It's just sort of a hilarious, you know, just deposit your $2. And they just got, like, you got to show what everybody would. I bet like TV writers. Oh, my God. They got to be getting 200 checks.

And they still come in checks. Like, nobody will do direct deposit. They still come in checks. Dropout does direct deposit. Now SAG only sends you, they send you a royalty statement and you only get money if it's over a dollar. So like, it's like 14 cents, I think, for every, every six months or so is what I make from the fault in our stars. that I got cut from because I'm in the DVD extras. Yep.

And that means that it takes like X number of years before I get to a dollar and they send me a dollar. For all those people still buying DVDs, John, we should get back into DVD. Oh, yeah, physical media should make a return. What's the new DVD, though? Maybe there's a thing that's like a DVD, but it's not a DVD. A laser disc. It's even bigger than a DVD. An A-track.

It's even bigger than a laser disc. Yeah. or it's hmm I want it to be is like a crystal I want it to be like a little diamond that I buy

and it's like in a on like a ring pop situation we got to figure out how to get physical media really bizarre we need to get bizarre and you lick it and you actually hallucinate the film

yes so you like get the Twilight ring pop and you lick the Twilight ring pop and you see all of twilight but it comes to you like a dream People in the future will be like, can you believe that they watch these things on screens instead of just licking their ring pops? Having the movie play behind their eyelids whether they want it or not.

You can't stop. Once you look that ring pop, you will be watching Twilight. Yeah, you're being supervised by a robot to make sure you don't injure yourself pretending to be a spider monkey. Have you seen Twilight? Because based on that particular detail, I feel like you haven't. I have.

The piece that sticks out the most to me is when Edward says to Bella, hold on tight spider monkey, which is not like a name he has for her. He says it once. Yeah. But there's no spider monkeys in the movie. It's just a line of dialogue.

No. She's pretending to be a spider monkey by holding on to him like a spider monkey. Yeah. And that's what I would do. I would pretend to hold on to Edward and then we would careen through the canopy of the Pacific Northwest.

Oh, so you're imagining that it would be sort of a first-person film from Bella's perspective. Oh, heck yes. And also it would be far more detailed. Yeah. They would have wave. There would be some real choice scenes at it? Would there still be all those pregnant pauses where they're just staring at each other? That's my favorite part of the movie.

There be a lot of that. There's a lot of that. And it's like 14 minutes long. And then in the third movie, there's actual pregnant pauses. Hey-o. Which would be on. unpleasant to live through, but, you know, we all got to know. Yeah, I was going to say, in the third movie, you're going to get pregnant, and not just pregnant, but pregnant with

a special kind of baby. Special kind of baby that's going to kill you if you, let's not spoil it. I actually haven't seen the third movie. I just know. I just know these things. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a problem. This is one of my big issues is that, like, way more people have opinions on books like Twilight and the Fault and Our Stars than have actually read those books. We're seeing this a little bit now with, um, uh, there's always like some kind of like drama in the world of publishing. But the books that generate all the drama don't necessarily sell that well. It's just like a vehicle for discourse. Yeah. And then people have the discourse and the book doesn't actually get read. What a terrible thing to have like a fault

norstar's level discourse without fault norris level sales. Totally. Would be like, deep misery. Because like there was a lot of discourse around the fault in our stars, some of which I found annoying. But at least 30 million people bought that book. Yeah. Which nobody gets. These days, if you're part of the discourse,

that doesn't mean that you're selling even 10,000 copies. It just means that, like, the discourse has picked you up for whatever reason. And usually when the discourse picks you up, it's to be dismissive of you or your work. And therefore, you don't have to read it because you can just have an opinion without reading. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Oh, boy. But you can watch somebody have their opinion about what they read. Anyway, you do want to read Hollywood ending, the new book from John Green coming out in September. It's John's first book in nine years, not novel, first novel in nine years. He's been doing it this whole time. He's been writing books that weren't Hollywood ending and then giving up on them this whole time.

Well, I also wrote a lot of Hollywood ending in the period when I was also writing other books that I gave up on. What was the initial title slash frame of Hollywood ending? The Junkett. Yeah, okay. It was called The Junkett, and it was entirely about the lead-up to the premiere, not about the movie at all. And I've decided that was so joyless that I needed some movie in there.

As the kids say these days, I don't think I would suck on that ring pop. All right, John, this next question comes from June, who asks dear Hank and John, I recent got my blood tested, and my doctor told me I had vitamin D deficiency. I'm from California. I moved to Washington State last year. Thus, I have not seen the sun in many weeks, and this got me wondering how vitamin D works.

How is it that I go into the sun and it hits my skin and the levels of the vitamin in my blood go up, the sunniest month, June. Oh, that's lovely. I have also been wondering this, Hank, because I have to take a vitamin D supplement now. Yeah, me too. But I would rather just get five minutes of sunshine per day,

which seems to be enough. I don't know what the actual timing is. I did not look that up. But I did look up the mechanism. All right. Walk me through the mechanism. How does my skin turn sunlight into a vitamin that lives in my blood?

So there is already a molecule in your blood. It's called 7 dehydrocholesterol. God, they got to work on these names. I mean, it says what it is, I promise. And UVB, so this is specific, wavelengths of UV light, can turn that into vitamin D3. So the sun does not, like, inject you with vitamin D.

It is triggering a chemical reaction in your skin that makes this precursor form of vitamin D. And that vitamin D3 goes into your bloodstream, then goes to your liver, and there it is converted into 25 hydroxy vitamin D. And that's the main circulating form of vitamin D, though there are, like, others. But when you take vitamin D,

you're usually taking one of these various, molecules. I think a lot of times you take the precursor and then it just gets converted. And it's weird, so this is a strange thing. Most animals that you run into don't do this. Like, imagine a cat, for example. When does that sun touch a cat? Never. They're covered in hair. So they get their vitamin D. Some animals get their vitamin D from eating things that make vitamin D. And some animals make it themselves. So we have lost the ability to make vitamin D. But we could, like, we, you know, we couldn't. But, like, there's no physiological reason.

There's no, like, chemical reason why a body can't make vitamin D. And indeed, many animals do make vitamin D. But we don't. And so we, because it happens naturally when you're out in the sun and all of our ancestors spent enough time in the sun that we got it. But now, we're always wearing clothes. We're always inside. We're protecting ourselves from the harmful effects of the sun, which are many.

And then we don't get this. and so we have to take a supplement, which is, I think, probably a pretty good trade-off. So I was never a believer in supplements, and my doctor was like, you have low-vitamin D, and I was like, well, just get out in the sun more. And she was like, no, you won't. I know you.

Like, you're an inside cat. And so she was right. And eventually I was like, well, take the vitamin D supplement, but my vitamin D is not going to go up because supplements are BS. And she was like, well, your vitamin D will go up because supplements are BS if you don't have low-vit-d, but you do. I also have low vitamin B12 And I started taking them

And it worked If you felt better Well I don't know if I felt better But my numbers went up The lab says that I'm fine I have had to fight to get my vitamin D levels up Because I'm not really I have not been good at taking the pills every day

But But interestingly vitamin D There's like debate over whether it's technically a vitamin Which I think is Very weird What is it instead? It might be, it's like kind of more like a hormone. So, so like vitamin C, for example, is like very quintessential vitamin. It is a necessary chemical to make collagen, I think. Which is why when you get scurvy, what's happening is all of your collagen is breaking down because you can't repair or create new collagen. I think that this is right. This is like information that I have last looked at like more than a month ago. So fact check me. But, um, a But I think vitamin D is more like sort of just a carrier of information and it like activates certain things in certain places. It like maybe fills more of a hormonal role than like a catalytic role.

It's not like used as much in the process of chemical reactions. It is more carrying. It is more like a delivery mechanism for information throughout the body. I, after your summary of that, have no idea what a vitamin is. And not only that, I don't want to learn. There's some things I don't want to be curious. about. Some things I'm never going to know or have an opinion about, and now one of them is whether vitamin D is in fact a vitamin. I'm never going to have an opinion about that.

You probably shouldn't. I don't. I shouldn't. I shouldn't. It's like, I shouldn't. It doesn't mean it's not important. No. It means that I trust other people to have better opinions than I ever will. I feel the same way about the Super Mario Odyssey movie. It's not that I have, it's not that I, I don't think that it's important to have opinions on the Super Mario Odyssey movie. It's just that I in particular don't want to have those opinions. I don't trust myself. I don't feel like I'm invested enough in the Super Mario universe in order to have a really deeply informed opinion. And also, if I have an opinion on every single thing, then I don't do a good job of digging deep. Like, I have a lot of opinions about tuberculosis, but that's because I'm deeply informed about

tuberculosis. I don't want to have an opinion on whether vitamin D is a vitamin. I've got to tell you, as you've been talking, I've been more and more convinced that vitamin isn't a vitamin in particular, because the idea of a vitamin is that it's a thing that your body needs to function normally that you can't get naturally. And you can get it, well, like, that you have to consume in order to get into your body. But you don't consume vitamin D. Your body does kind of make it. No, you consume sunshine. The fact that it requires UVB to me is like, well, yeah, but like all of my molecules require that I breathe oxygen.

All right. They require external outputs, but this isn't, it's not that chemical that's the external output. You're so passionate about this. I find myself coming to an opinion, and it's the opinion opposite yours. I take back my previous perspective that I don't have opinions. Instead, I do want to participate in vitamin D discourse. Not only that, I want to take the provocative take that you are consuming.

something when you take in vitamin D. And the thing that you're consuming is sunshine. And that isn't the same thing as consuming oxygen, although that is also a form of consumption, because sunshine is external to our atmosphere. It's essential, but it's external. In the same way that, like, consuming broccoli to get your vitamin A is essential but external.

All right. I disagree, but I still respect you. No, the whole, Hank, that's not how fighting on the internet works. You got mad. I got mad. And now you get more mad. You don't de-escalate. I disagree with you and I no longer want to be your brother.

There you go. End of the podcast. Cancel the whole affair. Cancel the whole affair. Everything's over, everybody. We're done. We're done. It reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Dear

Hank and John, Dear Hank and John, 2016 to R-26, R-I-P. This podcast is also brought to you by One Gross of Pennies. One gross of pennies. Good luck! From the government! Today's podcast is also brought to you by Rich Uncle Pennybags.

Rich Uncle Pennybags, not just the star of Monopoly, also the way that John deals with his deposited checks. And this podcast is brought to you by Hollywood ending. You could buy it now, or you can wait for it to come out on Ring Pop. No, no, no. You can't wait. You've got to buy it now. illusion of scarcity. There's only so many signed copies in the world.

Oh, can you order it now? Is it orderable now? Yeah. Oh, it's orderable now. Yeah. Wherever you get books. Deliver it in September. Yeah. Pay now. Get in September. It's a classic bargain. It's cheaper if you use your tax return. It's only 28 bucks after your tax return. This episode is brought to you by

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Go to quince.com slash dear Hank for free shipping and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. Go to Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash dear Hank for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash dear Hank. All right, let's answer this question from Anya who writes, Dear John and Hank, I wear two matching teardrop shaped necklaces every day. They are cremation jewelry. One is gold in houses, question mark my paternal papa,

and the other is silver and houses, question. mark my maternal grandpa. They passed two months apart a few years ago and I've worn the necklaces since. The problem? Sometimes people compliment them. How am I supposed to respond to this? Do I simply say thank you? That is usually my go-to, but I feel like I should explain. Is there a concise way to say, these are my dead grandpas without sounding like complete crazy person, grandpas and grave dirt on you? That's got to be a case-by-case situation. Yeah. If you're like at a restaurant and somebody and like the servers, like I like your necklaces, you say thank you. And if you're at on a date and somebody says, I like your necklaces, say thank you, they're my grandpas.

Because what a great conversation starter. But John, what if the server is cute? Oh, then you say thank you. They're my grandpas. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It's a good opening. Because look, they want to talk about something. Like, I don't say, hey, nice shoes, unless I want to have a little bit of a shoe conversation. Sure. Sure. What if? That's true. We start a business where you get to wear your grandpa's on your shoes. Cremation jewelry, but it's shoes.

Like put them in the aglets. We'll put them in the rubber soles. You wear through them and then you're like, well, I guess. They're all spread across my entire town. No, I think jewelry is the right vibe for, I think we should get in the cremation jewelry business. So that seems like a great business. You know what I've always wanted to do?

I feel like we could totally do is do like copper berries. rods because copper is one of the things that lasts forever. And so if you inscribe like a little message on a copper rod, I don't know why I feel like a rod is the right way to go. I guess we could do a coin. Yeah, I think rod is the wrong impulse, but I'm with you on the copper. And there's something about a rod that I like. But anyway, I want a rod.

I want a rod. I want to be buried with a rod. You can't stop me. Okay. Not a rod. He's going to die first. I But so copper

Bold conviction I mean he's not that much older than you He has very healthy as well I was going to say and he's fit I bet he gets his 150 minutes of weekly exercise Yeah I bet he's never had shingles Jesus I bet he hasn't had it three times

So and this is a problem That like most like almost everything You bury with a person It doesn't last very long And so sometimes when you dig them up It's like what do we actually transport to the grave where we're going to move the cemetery to a new place. So they just like take a fistful of dirt or something.

But I think that if they like could grab the rod, that would be great. Just like a fistful of dirt and the rod so that there's always a little identifying information there. Okay. So you're not talking about a copper rod that's a grave marker. You're talking about a copper rod that goes into the coffin. Yeah, or the bag. Okay. The bag with a big dollar set on the side of it. That's what I'm going to be buried in.

Yeah. You remember the 1910s? You know how robbers used to haul away stuff in bags marked with a dollar sign? I'd like that to be my cremation earned. Thank you. I just want you to remember the value I delivered for shareholders. Yeah, I don't dislike the copper rod idea. And I think, again, getting into the copper rod death sales business would, would, would, be a good business. High margin, you're dealing with fine metals, you know, it seems good to me. I like it. I don't dislike it at all. Coin is also nice. I like a coin. A coin might be good. A copper coin that's got a message on it. You know, we have your grandmothers and my grandmother's wedding ring. My mom and I were looking at it and we looked at the date inscribed on the inside of the wedding ring and it was not Nanny and Papa's anniversary because it was

Her grandmother's ring. Wow. Yeah. That she inherited and that she wore her whole life. I have, Catherine's engagement ring was Papa's sister's ring, I think. Okay. And that's what mom gave me to do the proposing. I'll tell you a couple things that are unlikely about that story.

Oh, no. Papa had no sisters. It was something like that, though. And something like that, though. Oh, no. Oh, I guess there's Aunt Nell. But Aunt Nell had kids of her own. I think.

It wasn't her wedding ring. It was just like a ring that he gave her at some point, and then he got it back. He took it back? I think so. It does sound like Papa. I got to ask Mom. It was like, I don't know, it's been 20 years since I proposed.

This was all very fresh in my mind. I feel like you're besmirching Papa's good name one way or the other. It had something to do with Miami. Miami. That's a different. That's an uncle, not an aunt. Okay. All right.

Miami would be a Tad. That's a great name. He used to give us $2 bills. What? Oh. On dad's side? Huh? On dad's side?

No mom's side. Oh. I remember that dad's dad used to give us $2 bills. He gave me a $2 bill with a Clemson stamp on it. Nope. You are, I mean, your ability to misremember family history is truly astonishing. That was dad? Ask yourself, did your grandfather go to Clemson?

Or did he spend his entire life in Indianapolis? That one. Yeah. That's how you know that it wouldn't make sense for him to give you a Clemson, this whole time I've thought Clemson was in Indianapolis. Nope. It's in South Carolina. Oh.

Yeah. Go tigers. It's funny because you know so much about vitamin D and so little about your family history. That's, it is. to mom and dad listen to this podcast. Probably this episode, they will. Uncle Mike listens. Uncle Mike's sitting there horrified right now and baffled.

Yeah. All right. Here we go. This question's from Rosie. She writes, Dear John and Hank, I just got unceremoniously and suddenly laid off yesterday after a successful five-year career with a company I loved. I'm sorry, Rosie, that sucks.

I'm scrambling to pick up the pieces and just starting to deal with the emotional and financial whiplash of the situation. Whiplash is a great word for it, right? Because like, it's like everything is like ripped out from under you. your whole life becomes so different so suddenly. And, I'm just sorry. Anyway, now that I'm looking for work,

besides the typical suggestions of take a class or do a hobby, what else should I be doing with all my extra time? It's hard to focus on self-improvement things when you're stressed about your livelihood. Really appreciate any advice you have. While it's dark now, I hope the future looks a bit more. Rosie, Nerdfighter since 2007. Thank you for sticking around all that time, Rosie.

That's pretty cool with you. I suggest a garden. a container garden if you're not feeling ambitious, where you just use any kind of containers you got around and put some dirt in them or some compost in them or some potting soil and grow a single tomato plant or a single pepper plant or something. I just find that caring for something that's alive

but doesn't need all of the support that, say, a dog needs or a gerbil needs is very helpful. Yeah, yeah, jar, dirt, seed. all accessible things. There's this thing that Catherine does that I think is amazing where she'll take people's houseplants that are not doing well.

She'll nurse them back to health. She'll foster them. Yeah, she like fosters a plant and she's like, oh, you got a lot of bugs on this one. And she, you know, she totally repots it. She makes, she neems them up, gets that neem oil all over them. I just respect the heck out of this.

And I'm like, just got a new plant in the downstairs shower where that one come from. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe foster some struggling plants from your friends. I just think like being with stuff that's, I, somebody told me once that when you hit middle age, you either become a bird person or a tree person.

And I have very much become a tree person. And so maybe my bias is showing here, Rosie. But I feel like we are supposed to be with plants. That's the one thing. It's the one thing that I'm sure of is that this is a plant planet and we are supposed to be in communion with them. Yeah. And they make food.

And so at the end of it, you have some food, which is kind of a fun feeling. You're like, oh, man, I grew a tomato and I get to eat it. Yeah. And then also vitamins. Also gives you a real appreciation for food systems in general, because it takes a hell of a lot of work to make one tomato. Sometimes I'll see like an Instagram reel where they're out in like a broccoli field.

And I'll be like, there ain't no way. I try to grow broccoli. It's, I got slugs. It's like everything. Oh, yeah. And then they're just like, they're just like, nope. And yeah, I mean, obviously, like there's broccoli at the store,

so somebody's doing it. Yeah. Boy, they got a big broccoli field out there in California somewhere. I've seen it on Instagram. So, anyway, we wish you well, Rosie, and we're sorry that you're going through this. Hopefully, indeed, rosier days are to come. This next question comes from Soren,

who asks, dear Hank and John, tonight, I noticed one of the stickers on my sketch book, it is a possum that says, It's a beautiful day to scream. It glows in the dark. How to glow in the dark stickers and other stuff work? Why do they need to charge under light first?

The glowing reminded me of radium, which also made me wonder if glow in the dark things can be different colors or only green. If only green, brother's green, why? If they could be other colors, why do I only see green glow in the dark things? Is it meant to resemble radium? Stay curious,

Soren. I love your, I love your possum, first of all. It's a beautiful data scream. There's always a thing. There's always a reason. I know the answer to this. All right.

Hit me. It can only be green. Oh. Oh, okay. It can't be red. And it glows in the dark because it holds the energy. And the reason it, I'm not done. And the reason it is green is because of optics.

And as we all know, Hank doesn't understand optics. It's actually not very much optics going on here. How much do you get right? I think none. None. I mean, you've got one thing right, which is that it has to be charged. The light has to come from somewhere. So with radium, this actually isn't decay.

I mean, it's coming from somewhere. It's coming from radioactive decay, which is going on over a long time. So you don't have to charge things up when they're being charged up by radioactive decay. But there's some downsides to having your glow in the dark possum, the irradium possum. Yes, the energy is coming from ionizing radiation, which also might ionize your cells. But phosphorescence is what we're talking about here. So the light will get absorbed. And then it basically raises the energy of the electrons to a different higher state.

And then slowly those electrons relax back down. every time they relax from one shell to another, from one like higher energy state to a lower energy state, a photon will be emitted. And because that does not happen immediately, it happens slowly over time. You get this glowing happening, and it happens at the way,

like the color comes from the wavelength of the photon that is released by the electron shell, but like, that it's defined by the amount of energy that it's dropping. So I think that this is like a lower energy drop, In the green? All of this is literally what I said. Is it?

You were just quoting me back to myself. This is interesting. This is interesting. Yeah. That is not how I am experiencing it. It's interesting to be plagiarized. It's interesting to have somebody take your answer and then answer it the same way.

What a fun thing for our listeners to hear the exact same answer twice? Green is not the only way, that can be emitted. Is that a useful addition to know? I said that too. But I think that the higher energy wavelengths are harder. And so I don't, I think that you might get red, but you, but like in order to get red, they're doing weird things that's, but I don't know.

All right. That was helpful to me, Hank. Thank you. I didn't know that every time an electron went from a higher state to a lower state of photon was released. but that's kind of a beautiful idea. Yeah. A lot of stuff is going on down there at the weird molecular or the atomic level. And color turns out to be really freaking weird. Yeah.

Seems pretty normal. See it all the time. Why is things the colors they are? Way weirder than you think. Yeah. I just scratched my shingles, John, and it is such a crazy mix of relief and pain. Yes.

It is like the intensity of the satisfaction feeling is beyond any itch I've ever had in my life. Like I feel it in my brain. It's like full body dopamine wash. But then at the same time pain. It's like giving it to compulsive behaviors when you have that OCD. Maybe, yeah. It certainly is compulsing. I know.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that you have shingles. You've made now, I think, three podcasts while you had shingles, and I would have made none. I would, you couldn't get me out of bed for a million dollars if I had shingles. I am pretty exhausted. It is taking it out of me. Well, let's hope mom and dad don't listen because they do worry about you.

Yeah, understandably. All right, Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, let's answer one more question from Mike, who writes, Dear John and Hank, teeth? Sometimes... Teeth? Feels like I have bones growing through my skin, which is not. not great.

The need to perform daily maintenance seems to support that hunch. As to the existence of medical specialists, I need to visit annually in order to continue to have teeth. Have any creatures figured out a better answer of flossing under protest, Mike? As Titus Andromeda says, outside bones, outside bones, never forget your teeth are outside bones. They're not like 100% outside bones, but they are pretty. Amazing.

They are the closest thing to a bone currently outside my body that's connected to my body. Yeah, I wrote a short story once that took place in a magical town that was sort of, you know, like a little bit. Teen, edgy. This was when I was a young person. Oh, you wrote it when you were young. I thought this was a recent short story. But in that world, did people not have teeth? No, but they did.

There was a character. who had done a magic thing so that his fingertips were his bones. And so he could like clack them and he was like a scary guy and he clack the bones on the table when you were in meetings with him. That's kind of good.

I like that. The fact that you wrote that as an edgy teen is actually quite impressive to me. I was probably 23. Okay, less impressive. And who knows who knows if I even have a copy of that anymore? we interested to read.

But that is not actually a solution that anyone has ever created. There are, like, other tooth solutions. Yeah. Obviously, teeth are very useful. That's why so many things have them. But we, there are, of course, there's sharks that have the tooth conveyor belt that replaced them.

Actually, elephants replaced their molars, though only a certain number of times. And at the end, they, like, have, like, their sixth molar come in. And then when that one wears out, they just die. Wow. crazy unless they're in captivity and they get to eat mashed up stuff. Wow. And like rodents, they grow forever, that's a thing you can do.

Beavers have their teeth doped with iron so that they're stronger. All kinds of crazy things happen in the teeth world. But we have teeth because it's like we, like extraordinarily useful to be able to grind stuff up. You know what I was thinking this morning, John? Hmm. I'm always eating stuff. Yeah. Super, super strong ability.

Like, I can chew. I can chew some hard stuff. Yep. And you know what's like always less than a centimeter away from my hard chewers is my soft talker? He's just in there. One of your softest parts. And your soft cheek. He's just in there like pushing the food right up into the teeth so he can get chewed on.

And he gets bit so rarely. And then when you do bite your tongue, I know, when you do bite your tongue, it's so painful and so horrible. Yeah. And then you think, then you should be thinking about all the times you didn't bite your tongue. You should be, but you're not.

We should be thinking with gratitude about all the days where the tongue went unbidden. Yeah. But we won't. Because you do, you chomp with such ferocity. Oh yeah, I could eat a tongue. Oh, yeah, I think I have.

Yeah, I definitely have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel bad about it, but I've had beef tongue. Yeah. Yeah. Now that you say it, for sure. And that's a big, that's way bigger than mine.

How weird is it in general that we have to masticate recently to cease plant and animal matter in order to continue thinking? How weird is it? So weird at all. Oh, it's so weird. If you pitch that idea to an alien, they would hate it. I don't know that we can be brothers anymore. I disagree with you. And the project is over. I mean, in terms of, like, earth animals, it's extremely normal because there's nobody who doesn't do it.

Yeah, but you would think we could just keep going from sunlight. Right. Well, I feel the same way about babies where I'm like, boy, I know that this is how it all, all of us happened. But that's nuts. Yeah, live birth is pretty wild. That's nuts. That, like, do you grow one in? You grow one?

On the inside. From scratch? Yeah. instead of just having some warm eggs. I mean, even that's pretty weird. But yeah, not as weird. Yeah. I just think if you pitched...

Okay, imagine pitching it to a tree. Imagine saying to a tree, yes, the only way you can live is by eating cows. Although you can... Or eating... We're still eating other trees. Like, imagine pitching that to a plant. Yeah, the tree's going to be like,

Like the nuts? Like the nuts? No, no, the whole tree. No, the whole day. Well, what happens to the tree then? Well, it does. It's dead now. The tree is dead.

That's the only way. In fact, you have to kill the tree first. You have to use the energy you got from killing the previous tree to kill a new tree so that you can have energy to kill the next tree. There was like a time on earth before predation. You know, there was like afterlife but before predation. And I don't think that it was long. I think that it was quite brief.

But, like, there's no reason why carnivores have to exist. Well, and indeed, there's no reason why we have to be carnivores. No, yes, yes, even more specific. As I have lately learned by dramatically cutting my meat consumption. Good for you. I just had a Caesar salad. It wasn't very good. Did it have meat in it?

Anyway, I would have made it better. Anyway, we've got teeth. Lots of things have teeth, Mike. You've got to floss. And it is ridiculous the amount of maintenance the teeth require. But they have such an upside. They have such an upside. They have such an upside.

But they also have always been like a huge source of problems. Now, I will say our teeth are worse now than they probably would be if we had a sort of pure hunter-gatherer diet. But there are lots of advantages to living the lifestyle that we have. Lots of advantages. And also, many animals have lived totally natural lives and have teeth problems that they die of very painfully. So glad that we have the dentists.

Thank you for doing the work. You know what we got in addition to dentistry from our modern lives, Hank? What? Football. football, which did not exist just 200 years ago. Of course. 200 years ago, people would go farm. Most of them, people were still farmers,

and they would come home, and they would have no football to watch. Because it hadn't been invented yet. Yeah, they just had to go to bed. And now, now I can watch third-tier English football in a streaming service called Don's TV and enjoy AFC Wimbledon getting their absolute butts handed to them by Stockport County. Three-nill in that score line.

That score line does flatter Stockport a little. As my friend Jonathan, a longtime nerdfighter, texted me after the game. That was the most encouraging three-no loss I've ever seen. So there were reasons to be encouraged. But Wimbledon, realistically, I think we have eight games left in the season, or seven games left in the season. and to be safe, I think we might need one or two more points.

Okay. I think you can get them. I hope so. Are you playing any baddies? No, we're playing mostly goodies. Oh, that's not good. Like this weekend, we're playing Lincoln City, the best team in League won by a country. A whole city?

They're going to play us off the pitch. I know. It's not fair. It's not like AFC London gets to play Lincoln City. No. No, just little Wimbledon. Just in that little corner of South. West London is playing Lincoln City. Stockton, the whole county as well.

I know, it's hard. It's hard to play a whole whole Stockport County. Fortunately, coming after that, we've got Luton Town. And we got a chance there. You know, I feel like I know how Stockport got its name, John. Yes, I believe it is. Although, it is not on the coast. So there's a surprise for you.

Is it on a river? Probably. They all are. It's England. I don't like to judge places other than Milton Keynes. But I would say Stockport is a hard place. Some places are soft, some places are hard.

Stockport's a little harder than most places. Yeah, yeah. Stockport's got some calluses. Speaking of the franchise currently applying its trade in Milton Keynes, though, they are near the top of League 2. So there is a chance that next season... I know that is too bad. There's a chance that next season we could play them. but there's also a chance

that they could heroically fall down the ranks in the last few games of the season which would be very funny and losing the playoffs which would be a delight. So a kid can dream. In Mars News,

the guy who wrote The Martian wrote another book that turned into another movie that's just been an absolute smash hit. Project Hail Mary. Big hit. Big hit. Have you gone to see it yet?

I'm seeing it on Tuesday with my daughter. Oh, nice. Nice. It was a delight. I enjoyed it very much. And I also enjoy movies, you know? I just don't think we do. I do it enough.

Oren loved it. Got a little bored at certain moments. It was quite long. But was enamored and was a big fan of the secondary main character who you meet in the, you know, first half of the movie. My book, Hollywood ending, is a Hollywood story. It's about Hollywood. And it's really a love letter to movies on some level.

Like, I love movies. And as I've gotten older, I've learned to love movies more and appreciate the art of them. So I'm really excited to see Project Hail Mary in the theater. I'm one of those old people that really enjoys going to the theater, getting the popcorn, getting the Coke Zero, that whole shebang. So it should be a good time. And it's great to go to a place where you watch a movie with strangers. I still think that has value.

Yeah, for sure. You know, it doesn't have value. Uh-oh. Ring pops? Milton Keynes. Oh, wow. If you want to send us your questions, you can do that at Hankajunatjima.com. That's how we have a podcast. There's no, there isn't anything without all of your lovely thoughts.

So thank you to everybody who's sent in your questions. This podcast is edited by Bridget Kennison. It's mixed by Callie Dishman. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halsrowhoss and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Dubu Krakravardi. The music you're hearing now at the beginning of the podcast is by the Great Gunnarola.

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