Science Vs - Hank Green: What No One Tells You About the Algorithm

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Hank Green is one of the most beloved science creators on the interwebs. He’s been making videos for almost 20 years, spanning LOTS of eras of the Internet, from YouTube prank videos to TikTok dance challenges to AI slop. In this episode, Wendy sits down with Hank to talk about this wild ride. They reminisce about his path to YouTube stardom, and they’ll pull back the curtain on social media algorithms — how they’ve changed, and the sneaky ways they draw us in. And while Hank has been publicly fighting off internet trolls, he’s also been dealing with his own personal battle with cancer. He takes us through what’s changed for him since he got diagnosed, and the science he learned about pee and chemotherapy along the way.  Find our transcript here: https://tinyurl.com/ScienceVsHankGreen In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Hank Green’s journey to YouTube (06:26) How ‘going viral’ has completely changed (11:58) How social media captures your attention  (23:47) What Hank is and isn’t worried about with AI (29:33) Hank’s cancer diagnosis (37:45) The fracturing of communication (40:46) Oddball questions Credits This episode was produced by Wendy Zukerman and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, with help from Michelle Dang,  Rose Rimler, and Meryl Horn. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Wendy Zukerman is the executive producer. Video editing and sound mix by Bobby Lord. Music written by Bumi Hidaka, Peter Leonard, Emma Munger and Bobby Lord. Thanks to the Humdinger Studios in Melbourne, and Wolf Island Studios in New York City.  Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. You can also find us on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ten years I've been trying to figure out how to do science on whether butt hair prevents chafing, and I still haven't gotten it done. Because when you had chemo, you lost your butt hair. It's true. Yeah, yeah, it was great. Way preferable to the alternative, I have to say. Did it, did you have any less chafing? Well, I wouldn't know. I wasn't jogging.

You know? with our favourite nerds. Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and this is Science Verses. Today on the show, Hank Green. Hank is one of the OG science YouTubers. He has been doing it for almost 20 years, racking up millions of followers, bazillions of views,

as he talks about the weird and wonderful world of science. And Hank has had this remarkable front row seat into the internet as it's morphed from this curious, exciting new thing, to the cesspool of AI slop that it is today. And by making viral content for all this time, nearly two decades, he has been able to see how the algorithm has changed and what it takes to make a viral video these days. So in our chat, we talk about what people tend to misunderstand

about the algorithm, and we're going to talk about big stuff, like where AI is heading, and will a computer ever suffer? Plus, a few years ago, Hank was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma and became his own science experiment, learning many things about his body and cancer, including why chemo can make your pee cloudy. And it is a surprisingly inspirational science story. So my chat with Hank Green is coming up just after the break. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer.

That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-me meat products for always 375. And get life brand pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each.

At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more. Today we are talking to the one and only Hank Green. Hello, welcome to the show. As far as I know, it's just me. So before you were a YouTuber, you worked at a fungicide. company. I did. Yeah. Correct. Was it fun? Just that? No. Oh, no. No. It was a really weird job because I was the only person in the lab. Oh. So there's a lot of like managing supplies. But then in addition to that, there was nobody else in the building. Like it was just me and fungicide and liquid nitrogen,

four armadillos, out the back door, a bunch of wasps, and a lot of produce. So you and the armadillos not having the best time of your life? No, yeah, pretty bored. It was weird because I'd like been in college for four years and I'd been socializing all of the time. And then it was just like back to my parents' house, long commute by myself in a building, yeah. So then in 2007, you see a little baby website called YouTube. What makes you? Many years went by, by the way.

I went to grad school, and a bunch of other stuff happened. But, yes, I saw this little website called YouTube. The site itself was pretty crappy in 2007. Yeah. And in fact, like, our biggest inspiration, Zay Frank, he hosted everything on his own. He just, like, uploaded QuickTime files to his server and paid the bills. And he got people to, like, crowdfunded money so that he could stream on his own website. And that is how the biggest video blog project that had ever existed happened in 2006.

It's crazy. It's crazy. So what made you think I want to be on this? It was John, mostly. Your brother. My brother, John, was obsessed with a couple of these video blog projects. And I am three years younger than him. And it took me 40 years of my life before I was willing to accept that there might be something that he, he thought was cool, that wasn't extremely cool. You know, like, just like that guy, like, younger brother vibe where if John liked a band, that's because that band was the best band.

And if he liked online video, that's because his online video was the best thing, which was amazing for me because I'd never questioned it. I just was like, I am in all the way, and I was in all the way, and remain in all the way. So I thought we could watch your very first video from 2007 together. This is science versus. This isn't YouTube reverses. We'll get to that. We'll get to the weird science.

Okay. But first, trip down memory lane. Okay, there it is, there it is. Okay. Hey, John. I guess you've heard by now. Auto power off. Still some glitches to work out.

Hello, John. By now you have received my message that we will no longer be communicating through any textual means. No more instant messaging, no more emailing. Only video blogging. I've learned

a lot. Now that I know the background, it really does have little brother energy. When you do think about kind of where YouTube and the broader internet is today, and you watch that kind of beautiful dinky video, what does it make you think of? It really makes me want to re-edit it. And then there's also the piece where I feel quite strongly that we never could have made it if we weren't starting at the very beginning. And that the quality of a person's first video now has to be so, like, so much higher. Like, it has to be much more written. It has to be much more charismatic. They're like, there's nothing charismatic about that, poor child. But I, it's just gotten, there's so much

value in being a YouTuber that was not there then and that's great but at the same time it means that like you don't get to have it happen unless you're really hungry for it which we weren't that hungry for it we were just messing around

your very first viral video was Asio Deathly Hallows Correct Oh Axio Deathly Hallows Incendio Book sales and bargers it'll be like So when you think of what makes a video go viral back then versus now.

Yeah. So the big difference now is that it used to be that virality was like a contagion, which is why it was called that. Whereas like, I saw this and so I'm going to share it with five people. And then those five people are going to share it with five people. And it is a cultural contagion. And that doesn't happen anymore. Yeah. That is no longer how.

virality happens, virality happens entirely through recommendation algorithms. And so that's the big difference. And so that does to some extent mean that you are playing a different game. Everyone has already seen 20,000 videos this week. They're going to see 20,000 more by the end of the week, and the recommendation algorithms are sort of trying to find the thing that is holding on to people's attention the most, getting the most clicks. There's like a viral YouTube video that's been you know, slow burning for the last six years of a high school band playing a Weezer song. And they start playing in the moment the first, the thing is about to sing the first line, the keyboard stand collapses.

It's good. And everybody in the auditorium is just like perfectly silent. Okay, but then that's the beautiful morality. That's just like a regular viral video. But like most of what is happening is people. telling a story that is trying to capture and hold your attention. Yes. And also on YouTube trying to put it inside of some kind of frame that will, you know, be like,

oh, I kind of actually kind of like I feel like I need this information. And a lot of times that information comes in the form of a threat. So if I, like, made a video that was called like, here's why you can't trust the AI companies, people would watch that because it's like, ooh, a threat. Like, I want to know. Like, why can't I? Hank, Hank has some thoughts about why I can't trust the AI companies. Yes.

And it's all very salient. It's very of the moment. And so that's like a title that I would have if I wanted to get a couple million views. And then I'd interview an AI safety researcher and it would be extra long, which is also something that YouTube now rewards. Have you ever used one of these tricks and then just felt real bad about yourself? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's this thing in SciShow that we call or that I call a head lie.

So it's a headline that is a lie until you watch the video. Mm-hmm. And you got to be careful with these. So sometimes this is okay. Like sometimes it's fine. Like we did a video recently that was called like everyone on Earth has the same commute. And the video was about the fact that like everywhere, no matter where you look in the Himalayas or in South America or in Texas, there's this, there's like an average commute time. And it's like 47 minutes.

It's very strange. But, like, if you took that headline seriously, you'd be like, well, I guess everybody, like, the person who lives five minutes away from work and a person who lives 45 minutes away from work have the same commute time. I'm not worried about that one because you don't think that. You're not like, you're like, you're like, you are confronted with. The stakes are low. Yes. But there are also times when I have written a headline where it's like, if somebody just saw that headline and they didn't watch the video, they, and that's most people who read the headline. headline. Most people aren't going to click. They're going to walk away with an incorrect idea in their head. And we like, you know, like sometimes I'm like, but it don't get more of views. What's an example? I can't. There was like, it was something about a bee. Wendy, I'm sorry. It was something about a bee and I can't remember what it was. I'll give you, I'll give you another example, which is recently John made a video where he went and, and like,

like, towards some facilities where they're testing people for tuberculosis and trying, like, like, uh, doing a bunch of work to help people, uh, know when they get, have tuberculosis, make sure they know what kind they have, treat them, um, because the treatment's different depending on, on the strain of TB you have. And, uh, and he put this video out and it was getting like no views, which of course, you know, like, that's just not like a super sexy topic for the average American. TV is hard. Yes. Yeah. And so I changed the title to Elon Musk canceled this. We're doing it anyway, which I feel a little bad about. Did Elon Musk say anything about tuberculosis?

Oh, no. I mean, he canceled all of U.S.Aid. Oh, okay, okay, right. Yeah. And it was connected to U.S.Aid. Okay, so it was true. It was true. Yeah, it was true.

And like it took a lot of work to get the money together to fill the gaps to make it happen. Okay. But like, it's a little bit like, this is a story of humans doing an amazing thing, and I hate that I have to frame it inside of, like, you hate this guy. And so, like, hate watch this content. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Did it work, though?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You know, yes. Yeah, it was one of our biggest videos of the month. Okay. Wow. All right. So you talked about how you are worried that these platforms, social media, YouTube, are really optimistic.

for making money. Yeah. I mean, I would even not, I would say that they're optimized for keeping you on the site even. It's, it's just like they know that if they get more of you, then they will eventually get more money.

And that's like, that's the surrogate that they optimize for more than anything is like having you not close the app. What is something that people misunderstand about these algorithms? Oh, that they have, that like,

um, you are in, control of them, I think, is a big one. Like, people, there's this phrase, uh, when you see a TikTok or a reel that's just like really like exact, like something very weird that nonetheless you are extremely into. I built this feed brick by brick. Yeah. Yeah.

Tell me how you feel about, explain this concept first. So the concept is, is like you give the algorithm your choices. You say like, I'm going to. watch this one and I'm going to not watch this one. I'm going to heart this one and I'm going to comment on this one. And I'm going to scroll past this one super fast. And that's how that is how the recommendation algorithms. Like every input they have is a human decision.

But they are not really conscious human decisions anymore. Whereas they used to be, it used to be like, did you click on this video? You know, did you make that choice? Did you like this video? Did you comment on this video? And did you dislike this video? So you have those like decision points, whereas these modern swipable feeds are like by far the most important data point is whether you keep watching the video and for how long. And so these imperceptible, I mean, the most obvious example is just you see boobs.

You see boobs and you stop for a little longer than you want it. You were like, I was here to learn about cool science. boobs. Yeah. And it's like, wait, maybe I should show this person more boobs. Yeah. Here they are. Bigger and better.

Let's go. Which, look, I mean, boobs fantastic. So I'm not that worried about boobs in particular. But I am worried about it. So like salience is the word that I use for this. So like anything that is easy to pay attention to, boobs, great example of a thing that are a thing, two things that are easy to pay attention to. And then, but they're so, but like what are the easiest things to pay attention to is a really interesting sort of set of thoughts to go down. And then what makes something easy to pay attention to?

And am I in control of that? And I'm not really. What are some examples you're worried about? Yeah. Crime committed by people who look different from me. Yes. Is very easy to pay attention to. And very easy to sort of like, once your feed starts being.

that that's all you get. And then you're like, wait a second, I think that these people who look different from me are committing an awful lot of crime? And it's like, well, are they? Or is it just that that is something that people watch because it's scary? And so it's very easy to pay attention to. Another thing would be stories about how I'm better than other people, which we all want. I'm not, it's not just a racism thing. It's also just a political thing. Like, if you show me content about how like people who vote differently than me are dumb. I'm like, well, I did watch that. And so, so there's like this, this, this like combination of, like, outrage is really, like, this is, you know, cute is one very salient thing. Outrage is another very, like, these tests very highly.

Sexual stuff also tests very highly. Yeah. And, and the reason, like, I think about a lot about outrage? Like, what is it actually? And it tends to have a component of superiority tied along with it. So, like, I am angry about this. The world shouldn't be this way. If I were in charge, none of this would be happening. Like, there's like a morality to outrage. Yes. Yes, and you do use outrage in some of your videos. And what I would say, to good purpose. I mean, there was a graph, some garbage graph about. Climate change. As you can see, they're not occurring more than in recent years. You don't know if they're occurring more than in recent years?

Because there's all kinds of things that mess with this. The day is decreasing. What would you expect to have happen if the Earth was getting warmer? We're very angry about that. And I was too. And it did pull me in. Your anger and outrage and the fact that you couldn't go to bed. Did you have to sort out the graph?

It pulled me in. A lot of, I little did a lot of graph research at 11.30 at night. Yeah, it was not the best stories I've ever made, but. So I want to talk about just staying with the algorithm, in the early days of social media about 2010, do you remember when this idea of filter bubbles by Ellie Carissa sort of entered the fray? And it was, do you want to explain it? Sure. I mean, the filter, yeah, the basic idea of the filter bubble is very simple, which is like if you are existing inside of a, a curated environment, then you see a different world than the people around you. And, like, you kind of never interact with the world of people who have different world views than you,

which is, I feel like the sort of, like, first, like, the version one of filter bubbles was like a good first step. And then it has turned out to be all so much more complicated than that. Like, for example, I see lots of right-wing perspectives. I just see the absolute craziest ones, you know? Like, my filter bubble. That's what your algorithm's giving you. It's selects for left-wing people finding the craziest right-wing perspectives and then showing that to left-wing people, you know?

So it's like, like here, here, and that, like, that's, that's like, you know, never would we have expected that this was one of the ways that it would function. Yeah. So this is fascinating because. To prepare for this interview, I definitely feel like, I think we all feel like we live in a filter bubble. It is the deep story. We've got this echo chamber. It's used to explain why there's this deep polarization when two people, political issue happens in the world.

People have these very different views of it. And there's this story that it's because we're seeing different images of what is happening. That's how divisive the internet is right now because of these personalized algorithms. But I was looking into the science of it, and researchers cannot clearly find evidence for filter bubbles. Isn't this crazy to me? Let me give you some quotes. So one report out of Oxford Uni said the research, quote, suggests echo chambers are much less widespread than is commonly assumed. Most people have relatively diverse media diets.

Another academic in a chapter said that filter bubbles were. were a, quote, unfounded moral panic. Mm. And basically the idea being that, as your case in point, is that it's much more complicated, sometimes we are fed information from the other side. But then we often dismiss it out of hand. And so this researcher was saying,

we need to, we are a part, we are complicit in our polarized views. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And then, yeah. And so, and then the other point was they were saying, actively seeking out information that further polarizes our views. What do you make of this? I mean, like, the thing that really turned me from being like, like, ah, like the version of filter

bubbles that I heard in the TED talk 15 years ago is like not entirely like going to be the version of reality is when when somebody said to me, never before have our information diet's been more diverse than they are right now. Interesting. And I think that by far the best frame for all of this is what holds your attention. And it's just really hard to, like, it doesn't seem right, but like, let me pitch you this. So we have this understanding now that we are all kind of suffering due to the hyper-pallitability of food. So we got too good at making food too delicious. And so people ate more of it because it's so good.

And if you have a French fry and then a Coke, you can have more. french fry and they pair very well and uh that doesn't seem right because coke is also food but uh so we have this like hyper palatibility problem in yes in food we also have a hyper palatibility or like a hyper salience problem in media where i and all of my colleague creators are in collaboration with like the most sophisticated software of all time to create stuff that uh is just a little bit more salient than the person next to me is creating. And I try to use my powers for good, but I don't know if I always do, but not everybody's trying to use their powers for good because they're more ambitious than me, they're younger

than me, they didn't get lucky as I did, and they have to compete, and it's harder to compete when they're them than when they're me. And my, so like imagine, like, trying to understand what a sort of hyper-saliant information object is like is really interesting to me. So, for example, you would want something that's not just threatening to you, it's maybe threatening to your children. Like, that'd be hyper-saliant. You'd also want something where it's like, there's like a big nefarious, like, thing that is more powerful than you that you can't control. So that's like another level of threat. And then, like, my favorite, favorite hyper-salient object to identify is, what if this thing that you've been

told as good your whole life is actually bad? And so that's like a different scale or like like flavor of threat. Yes. And what if I told you a thing where you could tell a story, all three of those stories at the same time about an object and that object is vaccines? I was going to say, or it could be fluoride in the water. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So many things or like NPR, you know, like like USAID, you know,

all of these things that are like FEMA, you know? Like there's conspiracies about the federal emergency management agency, the thing that like saves people when things go wrong. Yes. That's like all they do is like negotiate bottled water contracts in case something bad happens. And it's like, I don't know. That sounds pretty scary to me. Oh, goodness.

So this is like a form of the thing that worries me is not really so much that we're polarized. It's the thing that we all have started to agree on, which is that like institutions are bad, experts are bad, like completely losing faith. all of society is really bad for society and also bad for systems. And I feel like that's just sort of a lot of what gets traction in a world where everything has to compete with everything else to be as attention-grabbing as possible. Yes. And while we are on the topic of slop on the internet, let's go into AI. What is worrying you about AI right now? Can I tell you a weird thought I had that's not worrying. Please.

Do you know about Brandenie's Law? No. It's, that the, how does it? Do you know about Brandenis? Creation, to, like, refuting BS requires an order of magnitude more effort than creating BS. Oh, God, I live. I live in Brandenis' Law. We both do.

Right. Yeah, I can't believe. This is your entire life. Yes. I swim in this law. Oh, my gosh. Okay, yes. I, so there's because I would like to make the case that perhaps creating BS isn't just like an order of magnitude easier than refuting it. I think that it's free. And I think it's always been free. And I think that it's never going to be easier because it's as easy as it can be. Like there's nothing easier than just saying some BS. Yes. So you can't actually make that easier. You can't make say BS easier. Yeah, you don't need to research BS.

You can just say it. Okay. Now, at the same time, I think that they're like, I've seen some true BS artists who will do a lot of research so that they can say clever sounding things to support their BS. And oftentimes they are absolutely certain of, like, they like eat the shit they're full of. Like they, they believe it. brand and super dangerous brand of misinformation out there right now, I think. I mean

this idea, when you use these complicated sounding words, and you really, really sound smart and at the base of what you're saying is just feces. You know, it's nothing. It's crazy. I mean, that's what pseudoscience really is. Like, that's when we talk about pseudoscience. We mean things that

are like putting on the clothes of science and saying a bunch of big words and they're like, metabolism, inflammation. And then you're like, ah, I guess, I don't know. mitochondria You know, what? Yes. So wait, where do we get to the good?

I thought you was telling something good about AI. I have a, I have like this sense that, that like you can't, you can't make it easier to create BS. Yes. So actually AI doesn't make creating BS easier. Right. The bar is. Because it's already been at the bottom the whole time. But you can make more of it.

You can pump out more of it. You can make more, but like more isn't necessarily like. Like, I think that we have, like, a, like, there's already an infinite amount of information also. Like, we've already hit max capacity. Capacity for information. Keep eating more crap. And I do hope maybe that there will be tools that will make the other side of the Brandenis Law equation easier. So if your job as a researcher becomes easier because of tools with which you can research more quickly, you can find information, you can digest papers,

you can you can like if if that part becomes easier then like that is and I'm not saying because we're going to talk about other things that I'm very worried about but but but but like that's like what what I'll say that's a version of the story you can tell where it doesn't actually make it worse and so like one of the things I feel about any big transition like this having lived through a few of them is boy do I not predict what's going to happen because I'm always wrong It's like so, so weird. It's so strange. I'm going to put a prediction out there, though, that I do hear you that AI produces a bunch of BS, then maybe AI produces a bunch of facts, and they're just the AI just talking to each other while the world burns.

Yeah, a little bit of that. What I will say is I think that absolutely AI will make scamming way easier. Yes. So, like, scamming is different than, like, information BS, but, like, direct person to person. scams and grifts, I think, like, it's so, it's so scary right now. Yes. Like, I, like, I don't know. Like, I feel like, you know, I could, like, watch someone's YouTube videos, clone their voice, call their

mom with their voice and be like, hey, mom, can you send me 20 bucks? What's your bank account number? 100%. You got a safe word? You got a safe word? Yeah. Everybody needs a safe word. Everyone needs a safe word.

Okay, so when we zoom out and think about where AI might be headed, I have heard that. I have heard that you have a video that you have not released with the question of, will a computer ever suffer? Yeah. But you haven't put it out. What are you wrestling with here? Do you think a computer will ever suffer? I think a computer can suffer.

And but I don't, like, I think the kind of interesting thing I want to say here is maybe a computer won't ever suffer because, we won't need them to, they won't need themselves to, there will be no reason to build suffering. And there is like two sides to this. Like maybe there will be no reason to build suffering inside of a non-biological thing. Why would you create it? And then there's the other side, which is it is an inevitability. If you have it prefers one thing to another thing, which they already do, then if you tie experience to that, then the feeling of not having the thing that it wants,

or the feeling of failing, or the feeling of, you know, not being able to achieve whatever series of goals it has will feel like suffering. So. So. On the topic of suffering, shall we talk about your cancer diagnosis?

Sorry. Segways are so hard, hang. No, that's fair. That's a great one. That's a great one. I just want to say, before we leave AI behind, I am legitimately worried about three weird guys having this much power. Okay. That we can move on.

And they've got bunkers or structures. A lot of them seem to have structures, which is a little worrying. Yes. Yes. So, in 2023, you had a... Wait, can I do a segue? Absolutely. Please.

But their structures will not protect them from cancer. Segway. Segway. Thank you. Thank you. After the break, how Hank peed out his cancer. Literally. Coming up.

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. Welcome back today on the show. I'm chatting with veteran science communicator YouTuber Hank Green.

Let's jump back in. So in 2023, you found a lump in your lymph note and did some tech. and the doctor told you, we know you have cancer, we just don't know what kind. Yeah, in fact, it was better news than that a little bit. She said that we know, they say that you have lymphoma, but they're not sure what kind yet. Okay. Which is good because if you have cancer in your lymph nodes and it's not lymphoma, then that means it's probably metastasized from somewhere else, and that would be worse news.

So that was a little bit of good news, and she did tell me about that. So you ended up having to do chemo. You were ultimately diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, which your doctor told you. Yeah. Well, my doctor did not say that. I knew this. In fact, like, they did not need to say anything to me. Like, my doctor called me and was like, we just got it back.

I just heard it's Hodgkins. And I was like, thank you so much. Thank you so much. And I just hung up. And I told Catherine. And I knew that that was the best outcome. Yes. By the time I got staged like a 5% chance that I would not be alive.

in five years. What did, what possibly, what went through your mind when all of this was unfolding? Oh, so many different things. Like, there's like weird practicalities of like, I got to make sure my passwords are all in good order. In fact, I had had a weird experience before I found out that I, like, so I went to see my doctor just to get like anti-anxiety pills. And I was like, this is a crazy thing to go to my doctor and be like, I need you to help

me with my anxiety. And then I was like, second thing to help me with my anxiety, can you tell me that I'll be alive in three months? because otherwise I got some stuff to do and she was like, here's your prescription for your anti-anxiety medicine, I cannot. And so I was like,

okay, well, I guess I'm going to do this stuff. So there was stuff to do during that period of time because if it was like metastasized lung cancer or something, I really might not have lived for three months. So that was terrifying. And then when I knew, though, The landscape was like, okay, like, I've got years at least.

And that looked very much like, okay, so I have to like prepare for treatment. I have to understand treatment. I have to, I like am worrying about like, okay, like, you know, my son's not going to like be grown up for a decade. Like I thought maybe I would be more worried about work. I wasn't worried about work at all. I wasn't worried about like how everybody was going to handle life without me at work. I was worried about like my family. I was worried a little bit about like all the information that's tied up inside of my head and like feeling bad for not having mentored more people.

But I didn't feel, another thing that I was surprised is I didn't feel like worried about missing the future. Like the not like I was worried about like not seeing my son grow up. But I wasn't worried about like missing like a mission to Mars or the next scientific advance. which is like I love that stuff. So that's like so much what like I enjoy about the world is like finding some new thing that we have discovered. But I wasn't like I'm kind of freed to find out that I don't like when I die, I won't, I maybe won't actually care that I'm going to miss out on the next set of discoveries even though that is really a source of joy in my life. So that's very interesting to me. Yeah.

And you you did discover many things about your body and chemo. So one of, I think, the most fascinating is tell me what happened when your pee got cloudy. Sure, yeah. I thought I had a UTI because it burned when I peed and my pee was super cloudy. And I went in, I called. And so when you have, when you're doing chemo, they take everything very seriously because you basically have no white blood cells. And so little things can become big things really fast. And so I called in there like come in and do a urine test.

And I came in and I did. And luckily, by chance, my doctor, I was like free at that moment. So they did it. And he was like, hey, come on in. And we chatted. And I was like, he was like, you're all good. Your pee looks fine. And I was like, well, why is my pee cloudy?

And he's, well, first I said, why does it burn when I pee? And he was like, that's the chemo. It may, you, like, pee out the chemo and it irritates you urethra. And I was like. You pee out the chemo. Yeah. There's a lot of pieces in there. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, your kidneys filter it out and, you know, it isn't all the way broken down by the time it gets out. So it does some damage on the way up. But the reason it's cloudy is you are looking at literal pieces of little bits of cancer. Yeah. And so I was like, why is it cloudy? And he was like, that's the little, that's like the parts of the cells.

It's like fats and proteins from the cells that have broken down in your body. and your kidney filters them out. And like a lot of that stuff actually gets recycled by the body, but when you have like a big release of it, it overwhelms those systems and you actually can see the physical effects of the cells exiting you. Did it change the way? You looked at your pee? I mean, I find this very inspirational.

Everything changed the way I looked at everything. Yeah, no, it was very good. It was amazing to be like seeing the physical results. And a lot of times you don't, you don't, really know that you're getting that? And so you're like waiting for the next scan? I was very lucky not just to have the P, but also I had a lymph node that I could feel. Most of my lymph nodes were underneath my pectoral muscle, so I couldn't, like, palpate them. I couldn't feel what they were up to, but I had one in my armpit that I could feel, and I could feel it changing shape and

texture. Wow. And now how I... Texture is a weird word, but yeah, it was softer, I should say. It was, it was, you could feel improvement. And how are you now? I'm good. I've been in remission for almost three years, and I remain much more medically anxious than I was. I have had some, you know, almost everybody has a little bit of, like some level of disability that they can't carry out of cancer treatment, it turns out, which also is the thing that I never thought about. I have some pain that I didn't use to have. The anxiety is definitely a thing. I got shingles this year so bad, which is apparently a thing that can happen to people who've done. on chemo. And it was, it was, it just, like, I've had shingles before. And this was like, I don't know, like 30 times worse. It was so bad. It still hurts. And it's been like two months. I'm so sorry. Yeah. It's crazy. Thank you to everybody's ever done a clinical trial, by the way, who's refined these treatments so that they are now so much more tolerable.

And gosh, I'm going to try another segue, Hank. I'm really sorry. just while we're on crappy things. Let's zoom out. Let's zoom out. Yeah. What is it like in the U.S., I guess? I mean, it's so crazy right now. It feels pretty bad.

Feels like something I never would have expected. It's heavy, for sure. And maybe I'm just beating this drum because this is my anchor. But, like, I think that when you have a communications revolution, like, existing institutions take a pretty hard hit every time. Like right now I feel like I kind of wish the internet hadn't happened. But I don't think that that is what I feel will be the long-term opinion of it. Wow, but right now you are craving.

I don't have any more like ability to feel as if things, as if it has made the world better like I used to. And like, and I'm like a optimistic hopeful person. But like this is a mess and it is a mess that is crucial. created by the fracturing of communication. You think this is all due to the fracturing of communication, as you put it? There's sort of social media spaces, the breakdown of traditional media. Is that what you're referring to specifically? I think that that's sort of like a – those are two things that are also emergent of the thing.

But the thing is many-to-many communication being free. I participate it. I ride that wave. And I don't think that on its own, does it? I think that that combined with, you know, social media, like, algorithms, social content platform algorithms doing this recommendation and promotion. I think that we do not, to any extent, understand how much we live in a world constructed by AI, but it is not large language models.

It is recommendation algorithms. Yeah. How do you feel that you are in the middle of this? I mean, you are one of the biggest YouTubers in the world. It's not true. Thank you. One of the biggest YouTubers in Wendy Zuckerman's world, for sure. I don't know about the others.

I mean, you are in this space. And yet, I mean, are you thinking of just pulling the plug and, you know, becoming a gardener? No, like me leave? No, never. No. Yeah, no, like, that's not how I think about it. at all. I think that it is vitally important for thoughtful people to be engaging with it. Yeah. In a way where you would try and understand it and understand how it's affecting society.

And like that's how we get through. It's like an ex. You're breaking up. You're in that middle breaking up period. I'm still obsessed with you. And maybe you could be good. Yeah. Maybe you become good. I don't actually like that's not. Marissa. I can fix you. Yeah. It doesn't sound like that, doesn't it? Yeah. All right, we're going to end with our oddball questions. Quick questions to cap us off. Are you ready?

I'm ready. Okay. What is a conspiracy theory that you secretly have a bit of a soft spot for? That caterpillars and butterflies used to be different species and merged. Shut up. I just tell me, we didn't like. land on the moon. I mean, it's definitely not true, and there's also all kinds of other bugs that have larval.

There's fish who have larval stages. Larval stages are totally a thing that happens that are adorable. But, like, I love the idea. Like, I agree, you look at a caterpillar, and you look at a butterfly, and you're like, there's no way. That's no way. Those are different things. And they go into the concurred. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like, you're nice what else going on in that. No, there was a worm, and there was a worm, and there was a different things. a butterfly and then they somehow merged like the mitochondria and the cell. Finish this sentence. Now that I know blank, I'll never look at blank the same way again. Now that I know how cancer works, I will never look at life the same way again. And not mine, just for clarity, the existence of multicellular organisms. Tell me more.

Do you know what cancer is? Nobody knows what can't. Can you give me the Wendy Zuckerman? answer to that question, what is cancer? Sure, I would say cancer is when the DNA mutates in your cells in a particular way that creates a cell that will then replicate faster than other cells in your body. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there is at the root of that a mechanism at work that nobody talks about, I think,

just because it's terrifying, which is that natural selection is acting on these cells. And so any cell that can replicate faster than other cells, there will be more of that cell. Any trait that allows it to replicate faster, there will be more of that trait. and thus, if you understand how natural selection works, if you're like, wait a second, then multicellularity shouldn't work. Because we should just be having these cancer-type cells. The moment that a multicellular organism starts existing,

some cell in that multicellular organism is going to be like, well, if I, like, it's not going to think this, if it acquires a trait that allows it to multiply faster than the other cells in the organism, it will just do that. Not because of anything, just because if it's able to make more of itself, there will be more of it. Yes, and there's so many cells in our body. Surely one is going to go rogue. Yeah, yeah.

Indeed, it does happen in about 40% of people by the end of their life. But what this means is that, like, the existence of multicellularity is from the first little weird jelly thing in the Ediacurin has been all based on controlling cancer. It's been controlling cancer the whole time. That's what multicellularity is. It is cells working together to try and pass their genes onto the next colony of cell rather than the next individual cell. And in order to do that, shouting at each other and working constantly to stop each other from becoming a cancer. It's fucking wild. Yes.

That is, I mean, it does kind of make me think of when I was in college, I had this theory, I worked at a bakery, that everything is bred. And now that you've gone through this cancer, You're like, everything is cancer. Everything is fighting cancer. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, we look in like, tumor suppressor genes are among the oldest genes in... It's crazy. It is a crazy thought now that you think about it. Yeah, we just walk... That is the, almost the basis of multicellular life, just fighting cancer. Just like bread. What's your favorite title to a scientific paper that you read recently? I was rereading the scientific paper that Thomas Hodgkin wrote about Hodgkin's lymphoma when he discovered it, which was titled,

on some morbid appearances of the absorbent glands and spleen, which we used to have better titles to papers. No. I love that. Wow. Yes. All right. Can I tell you, Hank Grain, my theory as to why when you fart and lie to match, the smell goes away?

Okay. Hit me. I have, now I have a guess, but... Okay. You want to... Have you thought about it? Like, have you used this strategy when you do a fart? I have not, but I've heard it.

Oh yeah, but we're just, we're very chill about the farts melts in our house. Yeah, you're not. That means you're not a really farty person. You don't know. You don't know what it's like, mate. If you're all, we're all fine with bars, but there comes a level you need to use the match. Okay. Why do you think it works?

I have, I, so it is not the match lighting, but the match lighting, but the match going out would be my guess. Mm-hmm. That when the match goes out, it creates a smell that overwhelms the fart smell. Okay, the mask, the typical masking theory. Yes. It's the masking theory, yeah. It's been proposed.

This is what I think the internet thinks, but I think it goes deeper. Okay. I'm excited. It goes caterpillar butterfly deeper. And now I finally am someone to tell. We should have a podcast together. This is ridiculous. I don't know why we don't.

This is... them. I'm so excited. Do you know how many people I have tried to tell this theory to and they could not give a shit? And I'm like, I want to spend every, I've spent an hour with you a week forever, is how I respond. Okay.

All right, here it is, here it is, here it is. Okay, so when you light a match, red phosphorus is at the end. And the ignition point of red phosphorus is 260 degrees Celsius, which is 500 Fahrenheit. Mm-hmm. The reason a fart is smelly is because of hydrogen sulfide in the fart.

In part, in part. That's often the smelliest part. Often the smelliest part, famously rotten egg smell. Guess what the ignition point of hydrogen sulfide is? You think you're burning hydrogen sulfide in the air? I think it's exactly. 260 degrees Celsius? I think through the magic of chemistry,

the smell, the hydrogen sulfide is splitting apart. And you are creating whatever. I think it becomes maybe water, H2O, in the air. And some kind of sulfur. I think the smell disappears. I think it's more than masking. I don't know, Wendy, because I feel like you'd have to get all of the air to 262 degrees Celsius.

which would definitely be bad because it's not like it's not going to spread around the fart smell isn't just at the strike point on the matchbox It's a good point. Had grades, got it again! We need to do some actual science.

Actual science, exactly. I've been 10 years. 10 years I've been trying to figure out how to do science on whether butt hair prevents chafing and I still haven't gotten it done. Because when you had chemo, you lost your butt hair. It's true.

Yeah, yeah. It was great. Way preferable to the alternative, I have to say. Did it, did you have any less chafing? Well, I wouldn't know. I wasn't jogging. You know? It was in bed watching Seinfeld and eating Chick-fil-A.

There's not like much opportunity for chafing. when I went up and downstairs once a day. Thank you so much, Hank. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you. I'm a huge fan. It is so great to be here, keep doing the good things you do.

That was my chat with the science communicator, Hank Green. Now, soon after I interviewed Hank, some people got a bit miffed because of how he's used AI to help make some of his content. And you might have heard about some of that controversy. Hank has, in the meantime,

released a new AI use policy, which you can find on his YouTube channel. You can also find Hank at SciShow, and his comedy special is called Pissing Out Cancer. It came out in 2024. We'd love to know what you thought of this episode. You can find us all over social media. We're on Instagram and TikTok.

We're also on YouTube now. So come and find us at ScienceVS Podcast. If you're already watching on YouTube, hello, please like and subscribe. And if you like this episode, then why don't you share it with one of your friends. This episode was produced by me, Wendy Zuckerman,

and Aketti Foster Keys, with help from Merrill Horn, Rose Rimmler, and Michelle Dang, editing by Blythe Terrell, mix and sound design by Bobby Lord, music written by Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, So Wiley, Fumihidaka, and Emma Munga.

An extra thanks to the Zuckerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar-raised matters.

On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca.