406: Science Spectacular (w/ Deboki Chakravarti!)

Can gasses other than oxygen be fuel for fire? What happens to your internal organs after giving birth? How does copper work? How do other animals deal with umbilical cords? What would happen if we got our tailbones removed? …Hank and Deboki have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected]. Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Hank Green?

  You're listening to a Complexly podcast.

• 0:09Hank Green?

  Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Or as I'm calling it today, Dear Deboki and Hank.

• 0:16Hank Green?

  That's right. It's a podcast where two brothers and sometimes a brother and a Deboki talk. We've already answer your questions, give you NBC advice and read you all the news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Deboki, do you know why Congress keeps smashing plates and bowls?

• 0:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 0:34Hank Green?

  They want to seem tough on China.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Okay, I thought they were trying to pass the bill along or something, but that didn't, that wasn't working. And I don't know why I'm trying to teach-

• 0:43Hank Green?

  That's why they have, that's why they have so many ducks.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 0:47Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Yes. I don't know why I'm trying to like crack dad codes. Like, oh, if I figure this one out, I will, dad jokes will stop. They can't exist anymore.

• 0:56Hank Green?

  So Deboki, as people should know, if you listen to the last part of the podcast, works on this podcast, helps me get answers to science questions.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06Hank Green?

  So that I'm less likely to be talking directly out of my own butt and have-

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Now it's just indirectly.

• 1:12Hank Green?

  Yeah. So I indirectly talk out of Deboki's butt.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16Hank Green?

  Which is, so we've been working together on a bunch of different, this is not the only thing that Deboki and I work together on. And we've still been working together for many years. And you've been on the podcast before.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30Hank Green?

  And you have your own podcast called Tiny Matters, which is a delight.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Thank you. Yeah, Tiny Matters is made by the American Chemical Society. I work with Sam Jones and we have a lot of fun talking about science and cool science history things and all of that. Good stuff.

• 1:46Hank Green?

  Yeah. And not just chemicals, but a lot of chemicals. I, as I am on record saying, chemistry is the most underappreciated of the biggest sciences. And so I appreciate you for the work that you do. So we decided, since John, something broke on his car. I didn't tell you this, Deboki, but something broke on John's car and he is- Been towed to the car dealership where he is waiting for them to fix something to do with the spark plugs. And so he can't make our podcast and we usually meet before the podcast. So I was like, what if we just made a science spectacular where we just go over a bunch of the science questions we haven't hit and over the last like five or so episodes.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:30Hank Green?

  And we can talk about what we've learned.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34Hank Green?

  Cause we chat anyway, and it's always a good time. We might as well invite some people in sometimes.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fun. It's fun to get to go back. Cause sometimes I think I'm always in suspense for what's gonna make it to the podcast. I'm like, I know the questions. Is this thing gonna make it? And how is it gonna make it?

• 2:50Hank Green?

  It must be disappointing. Cause there's no, there's no friggin logic to it either. Like I just kinda let John be in charge. And then if he hits one of the ones that I, that we talked about, then I go, then I go off.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you know, the thing where you're like, I'm talking to the podcast as if they were my friends. I experienced that every time with this where I'm like, Hank, we just talked about this and you're not gonna talk about it again.

• 3:13Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. But it's, I mean, there is so much good stuff that we don't get to. So we should get to some of it. One of the things that my instinct is, is to talk about TikTok, which of course we cannot do because the situation is changing so extremely quickly that by the time this episode comes out, it will be entirely useless information.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I've barely been on TikTok. I think like with, in the past year, I hit a point where I was like, I don't like the way that I feel on TikTok. I don't like the feelings that I get from it. And it was surprisingly easy to quit, which was weird. Like I'm so used to like, like I just deleted Reddit off of my phone yesterday. But I know that it's gonna be back on my phone in a few weeks. It's just like, right now I need a break. And it's so hard for me to leave Reddit or leave other social media platforms. But TikTok, like, once you're off of it, it was, at least for me, it was like so easy to just be like, well, I don't like, I don't really miss it. Like if there's a TikTok that I need to know about, then I will find out about it. It will be linked. But also a lot of the things that come from TikTok just move so quickly away from the general

• 4:15Speaker 01

  consciousness that I don't know that I end up missing much.

• 4:19Hank Green?

  Yeah. It, yeah. I, I was going through, actually, I might make a video out of this experience, but I scrolled to my very first comment that I ever left on TikTok. And I watched some of those like early, early videos. And I, you know, it. It was really, for many years, it's been very vibrant and special and there's always lots of very cool stuff going on. There's still lots of cool stuff going on on TikTok, as of today, anyway.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:45Hank Green?

  But it does, you know, the sort of like balance of like, just sort of amazed at the creativity of humans and enjoying myself to like, you know, scrolling past another livestream of a person trying to get a ping pong ball into a cup and then another livestream of a person who is playing some kind of medieval stabbing game, followed by a um, commercial for a medically dubious device.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:15Hank Green?

  You know, I like, it's just, it definitely hit its moment of uh, not being like, you know, the, the, the company running TikTok needing to leverage it into making a lot of money. And it's just like a less fun place for sure than it once was. But who knows where we're at in a few days.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. In a few days, maybe I'll even have put TikTok back on my phone.

• 5:40Hank Green?

  What I know for sure is that the answers to the questions we're about to ask are not going to change in the next three days. For example, our first question comes from Dev who asks, Dear Hank and Deboki, I know Earth's fire requires oxygen. Is there another gas that would serve the same purpose on another planet with a non-oxygen atmosphere, developing a better understanding of the universe? Dev. This is a complicated question, but there are, when you sort of like think of it as oxidizers and reducers. So a weird thing about fire is that it is rapid oxidation and that oxidation sounds like it's uh, done by oxygen, which it is, but there are other things that

• 6:21Hank Green?

  can oxidize things and they can do it quickly. And so like, if you were in like a fluorine gas environment, you could definitely, stuff could definitely burn because the fluorine would do the oxidizing instead of the oxygen. But where would that be?

• 6:40Hank Green?

  That'd be tricky to have. There's also a lot of metals can do oxidizing, but usually metals aren't gases, sort of famously.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think fire is one of those weird things, right? Like, because it just feels like it's feels like it should just be this thing, but then it's also just more a reaction that we get to see, I guess.

• 6:58Hank Green?

  Yeah, the thing that we're witnessing as fire isn't the chemical reaction, it's the byproducts of the chemical reaction.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:06Hank Green?

  Or it is the chemical reaction continuing as it floats up because it is so hot.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and apparently, I guess, only Earth has fire.

• 7:18Hank Green?

  That we know of. Yeah, we've never seen fire anywhere else.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Which I just like had never thought about, but then it's like, okay, I guess that makes sense. And it's like, apparently connected to the fact that we have oxygen and then to get oxygen to this degree, you have to have life. And like, that's, that's what we have. Other planets, as far as we know, don't. But that's wild to me. I, I don't know why, like, you just kind of take it for granted. Like, if I were gonna like conjure up a planet in my head, I would be like, oh, yeah, there's gonna be an icy planet, there's gonna be a fiery planet. Like, those are, those are planets.

• 7:52Hank Green?

  But those things are not similar. Fire, fire is an active chemical reaction. Ice is just a rock.

• 8:00Hank Green?

  It's just another rock.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:01Hank Green?

  I fought this battle on TikTok a few years ago about whether or not ice is a rock. And it is, it just is. It is, and we're lava monsters.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we are fire. I know, but lava is not fire, right?

• 8:15Hank Green?

  Lava is not fire. Lava is just, lava is just liquid rock.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:20Hank Green?

  I said Java, which is not, probably once was.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:25Hank Green?

  It seems volcanic, just from the vibes I get from picturing it. Is Java volcanic? It must be.

• 8:35Hank Green?

  Uh, vul- volcanic activity has not built the landmass of the island. What? Has not only built the landmass of the island? With lava flows, lahars, and air and waterborne ash, it has also spawned many of the most ingenious and resilient human cultures on the planet. All right, Java, I was right.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:58Hank Green?

  Sometimes the vibes are correct.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:01Hank Green?

  But you also have to check them. Fire is, uh, is, as far as we know, kind of, it requires life. Because you have to be both, like, the stuff that burns was once alive, and the oxygen in the atmosphere was also created by the living stuff. And oxygen doesn't tend to hang out for a long time, so you always have to be replenishing it somehow. Because it reacts, it reacts really fast. That's like, one of the things about oxygen is, like, also, a huge, this, I found this out at one point in my life, and I just blew my mind,

• 9:39Hank Green?

  like, a huge portion of the minerals that we have would not be possible on a planet without life, because they are, uh, they require a high concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere to form.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah, and I guess, like, that's part of why the Earth used to look so completely different from what it looks like now, like, different colors, completely different composition.

• 10:06Hank Green?

  It's just, it's like, the geology of the Earth and the biology of the Earth are very much connected, and, and we wouldn't have thought, you know? Like, like, that, that's not intuitive.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  If we're looking for life on other planets, like, we should look for fire. That's the thing.

• 10:23Hank Green?

  We should look for fire. If there's smoke.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  I'm sure, I'm sure someone's thought of that. And I'm sure there's a good reason, like, the astrobiologists listening right now are like, "Deboki."

• 10:35Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, what if, what a cool field that, that exists now, and you could actually be a part of, theoretically, if you wanted to, if you worked hard on that. But there's a book called Becoming Earth, where I learned all about, uh, the, the connection between geology and biology, and how they are. How the, we're just like, uh, we're just a living planet. Very cool.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:57Hank Green?

  Also, I, when I looked into this question, I found out that there are some circumstances where metals can burn, like very reactive metals can burn in carbon dioxide atmospheres, which is like, that seems wrong, but it's because they strip the carbon off of the carbon dioxide and free the oxygen to then do the oxidation. So.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Wowee.

• 11:21Hank Green?

  Chemistry, man.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  It's weird.

• 11:24Hank Green?

  And that is a gas that can theoretically do oxidation, if only you break some very strong bonds.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  That, I mean, that's just like casual. If you just do this, then.

• 11:36Hank Green?

  Yeah. If, if you could only turn carbon dioxide into just oxygen, then you could definitely

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:43Hank Green?

  burn.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  So like, I mean, so like astronauts have like done flames in space, right? Cause that's a whole thing about how you get spherical flames. So like, are those like the first flames that have existed outside of Earth?

• 11:55Hank Green?

  Yeah. That, I mean, that we know of, again, like it's a big universe. So there's definitely, there's definitely some kind of forest somewhere that's burnt down in some galaxy.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:05Hank Green?

  But the, uh, yeah, I, I, you know, just that, that is also the first time there was life out there.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:13Hank Green?

  Fire just follows us around.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:15Hank Green?

  And which is, which is a problem and it's terrifying for the people of the space station. You think, what, like, what do you think is the scare, the thing that they're most afraid of on the space station? Cause I think it's gotta be fire.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, uh, I mean, I'm just listing off my anxieties would be like being forgotten.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  The next word that came to my mind, which makes no sense is plummeting to my death.

• 12:44Hank Green?

  Yeah, no, you can't do that.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  I don't know how you do that in space.

• 12:47Hank Green?

  It'd be really hard to plummet to your death from the space station. It would take a long time.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's what makes it scary.

• 12:53Hank Green?

  Yeah. It's not like the movie Gravity, which was trying apparently very hard to be accurate, but then just gave up.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  I didn't even see it.

• 13:01Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  I don't trust a movie called Gravity.

• 13:04Hank Green?

  Someone just falls to the earth from space, which is not, not how it works. If you're in orbit, you are going very fast around the earth. And in order to fall down, you would have to slow down, which takes energy.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:16Hank Green?

  Which is why you can't shoot nuclear waste into the sun. When I realized it was easier to shoot nuclear waste into outer space than to shoot it into the sun, truly mind bending, like a mind melting moment. We can get it out of the solar system more easily than we can get it into the sun because you don't fall down.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  You don't fall down? Like, what do you mean? Like the?

• 13:38Hank Green?

  You'd have to decelerate it. You'd have to decelerate it until it's not orbiting the sun anymore, which is just like a huge amount of energy to decelerate it.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we could just make it someone else's problem, like very far away, but not the sun.

• 13:50Hank Green?

  We could crash it into Mars.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:52Hank Green?

  We could crash it into the moon much easier than any of that. But you'd have to, in order to do that, the, you know, you'd have to shoot it through the atmosphere on top of a giant bomb, which is not ideal.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would take a little while and probably be expensive. And it would probably be easier if we just didn't.

• 14:08Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Didn't get to that point.

• 14:09Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, I thought, look, it's a big planet. We can figure out what to do with the waste. I just don't, I just don't want the chance of it exploding in the atmosphere to happen.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:18Hank Green?

  Worrying, but who knows? Maybe that's not that big of a, of a concern. That is one of my concerns, though. I think my, in general, I feel like my concern in being in space is, is that the, that is decompression.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:31Hank Green?

  But I think probably fire is actually scarier.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  It does seem, yeah, I think I could see that. I think, I think fire would be up there with things that I would be freaked out about. And just also anything that would end up floating around me that I like couldn't get a handle on, I think, would freak me. I, I think, I think just in general, being in space, if I were in space, I've already done the thing that is scariest to me, so.

• 14:55Hank Green?

  Well, there was, there was the moment on the Apollo missions, because of course, everything is public record, where they found a poop. Just a free floating poop in the capsule, which was really sort of like, they were like, what's this? Oh, it's a poop. It must have smelled so bad in there that that they weren't like, oh, there must be a poop floating around in here.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, do you smell things differently up there?

• 15:18Hank Green?

  You do, but I think you still smell.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:21Hank Green?

  You do. I think you, I think you do smell worse in space because your head's all full of blood.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:28Hank Green?

  Makes you stuffy. But anyway, do you have another question for us? Or should I try and hit one?

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Oh, I can, I can do one. Um, there was one from a recent recording that we didn't get to, um, that I felt personal kinship with. And this is from Keely, who says, hi, Hank and John, I'm Keely and I'm currently pregnant. I know that when this baby gets bigger, all of my organs will get squished into other parts of my body. I was wondering if my organs stay smaller for a while, or if they bounce back pretty quickly after birth. Just wondering when I'll be able to eat a full meal again, which I relate to. I was pregnant last year. It hurts your stomach, your ability to eat. I like, early on, I

• 16:09Hank Green?

  It's so weird. Like, where does, where does it all go? It all has to keep moving through. It has to move past the baby.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And it moves. And I think some of the changes for me were very gradual. Like, I didn't fully realize that, like, my stomach was getting squished and that was uncomfortable. But it was like, but I could realize, like, oh, I can't breathe as well. Or like, I had acid reflux. So I was like, oh, a lot of foods just like, don't feel good anymore. Um, so yeah, by the end, I was definitely ready to have a baby. And then also, just like physically, I was also like, very curious, like, what is it gonna feel like? Like, I remember, like, in the days leading up to labor, being like, huh, like, I am huge right now. There is a baby inside of here. In a few days, there is not gonna be a baby inside of here. Like, what's gonna happen?

• 16:55Hank Green?

  Just a bunch of space. Isn't it all like rattling around in there at that point?

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, I think it still is. I'm not sure all of my organs have found their way back to the original location.

• 17:08Hank Green?

  To like where they're supposed to be.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:10Hank Green?

  That, is there like a time lapse? There should be like an MRI time lapse of a person after pregnancy.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think the sheer exhaustion. I would just be like, yes, please stick me in the MRI.

• 17:22Hank Green?

  Oh, a chance to have a break? Okay.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:25Hank Green?

  Can I listen to a podcast?

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like apparently before pregnancy, like the, just to give a sense of the scale, apparently before pregnancy, your uterus is about the size of a lemon. By the time you deliver, it's about the size of a watermelon. So that's

• 17:42Hank Green?

  Like a big watermelon too. Not like one of those, not one of those like picnic watermelons. Everybody's coming. The barbecue watermelon.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Big old watermelon.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Like you took time to pick out this watermelon.

• 17:53Hank Green?

  Uh huh. Yeah. You've got all the family coming over, watermelon.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so obviously like that, like presses everything around you're also, you've got the placenta. So that's like something else that is taking up space in your body, which is another thing that like, I have a bone to pick with the birth people. I thought like originally before I give birth, I'm like, okay, you give birth to a baby and you're done. It's like, no, no, no. You give birth to the baby and then you gotta give birth to an organ.

• 18:20Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Luckily it's at that point, you've done the worst part, but like.

• 18:25Hank Green?

  Does not sound nice though.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  I, I mean, by that point I was just like so hopped up on like this baby that I was like, oh yeah, cool. Placenta.

• 18:34Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  But it takes us apparently about six weeks after delivery for your uterus to get back to its original size. And that's through a process called involution. Yeah. Which is

• 18:46Hank Green?

  Involusion, is that where your body eats your uterus?

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Maybe. It sure sounds like it.

• 18:55Hank Green?

  Yeah. Involusion. I've never heard that word.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  It's

• 18:59Hank Green?

  The shrinkage of an organ. Uh, it can be the shrinkage of an organ at any time. But also after childbirth.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I guess that's probably the most notable one that happens.

• 19:10Hank Green?

  Yeah. It also apparently happens to organs as you age, your organs get smaller.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  So yeah, I mean, for, for Keely, all I'll say is you will be hungry probably pretty soon after giving birth. Um, especially anyone who does breastfeeding, like you're just starving all the time because a big chunk of your body is now being dedicated to feeding another body. So I wouldn't worry about needing to eat, like wanting to feel the need to eat again. I'd worry more about like having. The ability to savor your food and sit down and eat, but that'll come back eventually.

• 19:41Hank Green?

  Yeah. But the rest of the organs don't shrink, do they? They just get

• 19:45Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 19:46Hank Green?

  Pushed around.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Squished.

• 19:47Hank Green?

  Yeah. Cause you got

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Cause it would be weird to have your stomach like shrink like that and then expand again.

• 19:52Hank Green?

  Right. And you'd need more resources than ever before. So like, if anything, it feels like your organs would, would beef up a little bit. Your heart is

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:01Hank Green?

  Pumping more blood. Your lungs are oxygenating more blood.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:05Hank Green?

  Your liver is filtering more blood. Your kidneys are filtering more blood.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's a lot of blood.

• 20:12Hank Green?

  I think, I think I'd like to take it back. I talked about blood too much.

• 20:19Hank Green?

  I didn't mean to freak you out. Pregnant people, but you got a lot of blood in you right now.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 20:24Hank Green?

  You got like twice the number of bones as usual and a third more blood.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah. Sorry, Haley. I didn't mean to turn this into like, oh my God, pregnancy is scary. It'll be great. It'll be fine and you'll get to eat and it's all fine.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. But also like, you know that your body is doing a lot. You get, it's inescapable.

• 20:46Hank Green?

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  I still remember having this conversation like way back where we were talking about like pain receptors in the gut. And you were like saying something like, oh, I wonder if like, what it would feel like to feel a hand like in your gut. And I was like, yeah, I, I can tell you, it feels weird. There's, there's, there are limbs inside of me moving right now. And it's weird.

• 21:07Hank Green?

  I know. And it's like the most natural, normal thing. Every single person has been birthed.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:13Hank Green?

  And, but it still, it seems like the, like the least normal thing a person can do to just build another person.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. It's, it's really wild. And then you like, look at this baby and you're like, you were, you were made inside of my body. Like you constructed all of these things. Like when, like I, I had a feeling my baby would have hair, but seeing it

• 21:35Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  was weird. Also like first trimester, for some reason I was really hung up on the fact that there were going to be like hands and feet inside of me. And like seeing them was like, yeah, this is weird. I don't know why the limbs particularly freaked me out, but like

• 21:48Hank Green?

  Well, hands and feet are weird.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:53Hank Green?

  Just like, just like tentacles on the end of your tentacles.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:58Hank Green?

  Bodie tentacles.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  They're like fractal humans.

• 22:01Hank Green?

  Yeah, it's like whenever you picture like an animal that doesn't have hands with hands, it's very upsetting.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I think the theme of today's episode so far is life is just weird.

• 22:11Hank Green?

  Life is weird, life is weird and amazing.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and life made more life.

• 22:15Hank Green?

  So let's do more physics, though. This question comes from Alexander, who asks, Dear Hank and Deboki, how does copper work? It's not magnetic, but it seems to have some sort of connection to electromagnetism that I've never quite understood. It's commonly used in electronics and all kinds of various things. And there's that magnetic braking trick you sometimes see with copper. What's going on? Scared, Alexander. You don't have anything to be scared about, Alexander. Metal metals can do electromagnetism, whether or not they are magnetic. I think is one of the big confusing things here. So there's like a thing that means some metals can be magnetic. What is it? I always forget.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:59Hank Green?

  This is a lot of how Deboki and I's conversations go. It's like, I know that this exists, and so I can look it up.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. Yeah, that's really the trick to my job is just figuring out what is the right thing to Google. Like, what are the words that I know are vaguely associated with this?

• 23:18Hank Green?

  Dipole.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was also not entirely sure what the magnetic braking trick is. So I don't know if you know what it is.

• 23:30Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I know, again, I know enough about it to look it up. But there is the situation where if you drop a slug of something that conducts electricity through something that is magnetic, it will it will slow it down.

• 23:49Hank Green?

  Even even though the copper itself isn't magnetic, because it's inducing a current and in the in the magnetic metal, and that is creating a magnetic field that is slowing down.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:02Hank Green?

  If I got that wrong. Forgive me, but I think that's what's going on. I didn't look this up.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  It sounds.

• 24:09Hank Green?

  It's inducing, yeah. It's inducing an electromagnet, because that's what happens, right? You know, like, it's all about like, conductors moving inside of currents. And that's how you create all of the electricity that that we use and stuff. But yeah, I think that any electrons moving, moving, look, we're gonna be fudging stuff a little, but that's fine. Any electrons moving through a wire are going to, are going to create a magnetic field. And that is what we use. Like, when we spin stuff in power plants, that's what we use to actually create electricity, is just like spinning magnets. And copper can do that, but copper doesn't have this other property that submetals have that allow it to actually get

• 24:51Hank Green?

  an induced magnetic field in response to a magnet, and thus, a magnet will stick to it.

• 24:58Hank Green?

  So you can't stick a magnet to copper.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  It doesn't have that property, and so that's what makes it so that it won't do the magnet thing.

• 25:04Hank Green?

  It's, I think it seems confusing that it does like all of this electromagnetism stuff, which all metals do, but then there's this other property that allows something to be stuck to by magnets. And then there is yet a further property that allows something to be a magnet, where that, it's like a permanent, like the permanent dipole, for some reason.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, because things can do electromagnetism without being magnetic. Like, that is just a function of the ways that things are doing electromagnetism.

• 25:33Hank Green?

  And, and the copper is a very good conductor, which is why we use it in all of these things. It's a good conductor. It's relatively cheap compared to a bunch of other good conductors, like gold is a good conductor, but that's very expensive. And so it's relatively plentiful in the earth's crust. It's relatively easy to do a bunch of stuff with, like, it's ductile, so you can stretch it into a really long thread. And so that makes it good for being wires, basically.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:02Hank Green?

  But it's not.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  That's why we use it.

• 26:03Hank Green?

  That's why we use it. It's a good stuff, copper. And we need more of it than ever. Look at us.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:12Hank Green?

  It's also, it's very important for like electric motors. So we need it in all of the electrification we're doing for electric cars is a big one, but also like heat pumps and stuff. You know, anytime you're spinning, spinning something, you're going to be using some copper.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  What are like the, where are the big iron sources?

• 26:30Hank Green?

  The big iron sources? Well, if you drill straight down forever.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Just keep going.

• 26:40Hank Green?

  I don't know where we get iron. Uh, I mean, I think there's a lot of iron.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Well, did I say iron?

• 26:47Hank Green?

  You did say.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 26:51Hank Green?

  I mean, I think that copper exists in a lot of the same places as other metals. So what had, I know this because of Montana history. A lot of times you start out as a gold mine. And then you run out of gold and you become a copper mine. Because you've like got a bunch of the infrastructure already in place. You've got the, the labor, you've got the,

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:10Hank Green?

  You know, you've got a hole dug and you start to, you start to pull out copper ore. And you were kind of pulling out copper ore the whole time. But the, and then, and then oftentimes it turns into the open pit mine where instead of like following a vein, you'll just dig up the whole mountain, which is what Butte is. I don't know if you know about Butte, Montana.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've driven by it.

• 27:33Hank Green?

  Yeah, it's a, it's got a real big hole that used to be a mountain.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. That's what really struck me like, cause like, at least on the freeway route that I was taking, it felt like you're just kind of driving through a big, yeah, cavern of a town, kind of like, yeah. Yeah, I wasn't really expecting it to look like that. It was cool.

• 27:51Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Or it was neat to look at.

• 27:52Hank Green?

  Yeah. And, and we, I mean, we, with that, that mine is no longer active, but there are, you know, there are still active copper mines all over the world, of course, but also in the US. I think there's a big one in Utah. I think I, I think I've, you, I think you fly over it sometimes. Um, and it's like, holy moly, that is a big hole in the ground.

• 28:16Hank Green?

  Here is one from Jake who asks, Dear Hank and John. Again, I'm sorry. I hope this is okay if I'm doing this to you, but I'm confused about umbilical cords.

• 28:28Hank Green?

  Not during-

• 28:28Speaker 01

  I'm here to answer all of the pregnancy science questions. I'm all for it.

• 28:33Hank Green?

  Someone recently asked, and I didn't end up doing anything with it, but someone asked if the umbilical cord has nerves and who feels it when it gets cut? And I was like, I feel like it wouldn't have nerves. And indeed it doesn't. So no one feels it when it gets cut.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Again, the idea of feeling anything after you've given birth.

• 28:51Hank Green?

  I actually asked Catherine, I was like, did it feel like anything when they cut the umbilical cord? And she was like, I have no idea.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  I relate to that feeling.

• 29:03Hank Green?

  She was like, I don't even like that you asked.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So does the umbilical cord have nerves?

• 29:12Hank Green?

  It does not. It is. And it is not the only part of the body. Most of the body is innervated in some way so that you feel it when things happen to it.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:19Hank Green?

  But the brain is not, which is interesting. So you like, you could, once you're in there, you can wiggle all around in the brain and you wouldn't feel it, except that.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  That's a thing from Hannibal, isn't it?

• 29:31Hank Green?

  Ay yi yi. No, I don't know. The show, the TV show?

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Probably both the TV show and the movie.

• 29:38Hank Green?

  I don't, I don't want to know what you're about to tell me.

• 29:43Hank Green?

  I've not watched either of those pieces of media.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  We'll let that reference pass then.

• 29:49Hank Green?

  Okay. Confused about umbilical cords, not the during pregnancy part, although that is also a little bewildering, but what happens after birth? You have to cut the cord. Uh, where? Right close up to the belly? What if you cut it too high up? Is that how outies happen? And how do other mammals deal with their umbilical cord? They don't have scissors. So also, how did ancient humans deal with the cord? What did we do before we had scissors? A former baby Jake.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I actually did not look up what happens if you cut it too high or anything like that. But I did look up what other animals do and like some of them will just bite it off.

• 30:27Hank Green?

  Yeah, they got scissors there in their mouth.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, those are nature scissors.

• 30:31Hank Green?

  They might. They might also eat that thing.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like, we probably did too, until we figured out how to use other instruments.

• 30:39Hank Green?

  Just bite it. There was like, there was like a special member of the community who was the cord biter.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:44Hank Green?

  As doing a bunch of other stuff, probably too. And then they were like, you know, I don't know. Well, humans have had sharp stuff for a long time.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:53Hank Green?

  I think we've had sharp stuff since before there were before there were people.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I I wonder what point was like the we're we're done with teeth. Like, we just gotta, we gotta go to an instrument to do this.

• 31:07Hank Green?

  Well, it's a it's a big thing. So I think from from like the advent of culture, regardless of whether it was a blade or teeth, there was probably like significance to that choice.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:18Hank Green?

  I like thinking about things that mattered a long time ago.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:23Hank Green?

  Because of course, we can't know. But you know, like babies laughed, like Neolithic babies laughed. And like giggled and were cute. So so like that was the thing. But I also like I we had so so many fewer things. I like to think that like the blade that was that that you like cut the baby's umbilical cord with was. I like to think this is the first time I've ever had this thought, but I'm enjoying having it.

• 31:50Hank Green?

  That that you get to that like then that becomes like an important object for the parents or for the baby.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah, that is nice to think. Now that I've thought it, I want to get more often.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  At least you go back to the hospital, be like, can you give me that scalpel? I don't even know if they used the scalpel again. I was so out of it. They could have used their teeth and I wouldn't have known.

• 32:14Hank Green?

  They clamp it because it does have blood still going through it.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 32:18Hank Green?

  So they clamp it and then they cut it.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:21Hank Green?

  And then what was the other part of this question?

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Like, how do you know where to cut it?

• 32:24Hank Green?

  Yeah, I think you, I think that, uh, well, do you remember your baby's umbilical? You must, if it's not that long ago.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Apparently, it was very long.

• 32:32Hank Green?

  You had a long one?

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Weird detail. Yeah, like my, my doula and the midwives were, they were all like, I've never seen an umbilical cord this long.

• 32:41Hank Green?

  I was like, I don't need to be told about any superlatives right now. The only thing I want to hear is you did the best we've ever seen.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I was going back through pictures from the birth and there's one of my doula like holding up this umbilical cord.

• 32:53Hank Green?

  Oh, my God.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Okay, I guess.

• 32:55Hank Green?

  You can jump a rope with this thing.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think you kind of could.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  At least a baby could. If a baby could jump, it could jump that umbilical cord.

• 33:05Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. So a two or three year old, definitely.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:08Hank Green?

  What a, oh my God, that's wild. That would make me nervous. That's the thing I remember. Like, everything that was unusual, I was like, is that bad, though?

• 33:16Speaker 01

  You're right, yeah. Luckily, I didn't know until the baby was here. Like, beforehand, we didn't know anything.

• 33:21Hank Green?

  They weren't like doing the ultrasound and being like, whoa, whoa, it's still going.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wonder if they can see it. They must be able to. But like, I was one of those babies that tried to, to wrap the umbilical cord around their neck as they were being born. So like, I think if I had known, I would have been really freaked out.

• 33:39Hank Green?

  You, like, you were not your baby, but you.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  I, as a baby, was like, not survival minded.

• 33:45Hank Green?

  Maybe your mom also had a really long umbilical cord.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Maybe, yeah. No one told her, apparently, but I, we, it's just like one of those things that I was like, huh. I, I, I just kind of assumed that they were all of a standard length, like, we all have a standard length umbilical cord.

• 34:00Hank Green?

  I would, yes, I, I, I mean, but with anything, there's a range, and apparently you're on the outside. And what is that related to? Is that related to long-term outcomes?

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, hopefully means the most genius baby.

• 34:12Hank Green?

  Exactly. Mozart had the longest.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Baby.

• 34:19Hank Green?

  Oh God. But yeah, I think that they cut it roughly in the middle and then they they do end up cutting it close, like an inch away from the baby's belly button. And then you wait for it to fall off.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yep. Yeah. That's what another weird thing that like, you don't like, you see these cute pictures of babies. They have a little stump on their belly. And that's where their umbilical cord was. And you had to wait for that to just come off one day before you can really give them a bath. Because you're not supposed to let it get too wet or anything.

• 34:48Hank Green?

  Because it can because it gets, you know, it's

• 34:50Speaker 01

  It's a wound.

• 34:51Hank Green?

  It's dead flesh. Yeah.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:53Hank Green?

  And so, and it has a kind of a little smell.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it sure does.

• 35:01Hank Green?

  Don't let us discourage you from having children. It's great.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:07Hank Green?

  But it is.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  It is all the weird smells you're gonna get from your child.

• 35:14Hank Green?

  It is biological. I'll say that about it.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:17Hank Green?

  It's definitely biological.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's like, I feel like it sounds scary when you talk about it. But it's also like, so cool, like pregnancy, like now that I've gone through a full pregnancy, I'm like, that was really cool. And like, looking at a baby and being like, huh, like, I was really underestimated how cool it would be to watch a baby like, learn things. Like, I like have never really had that much interest in psychology, developmental psychology, and stuff like that. But watching a baby like, learn how to sit is like, weirdly compelling because you're like, watch them putting all these little pieces together to get there. And I'm like, oh, this is so cool.

• 35:54Hank Green?

  Yeah. They don't know. They know how to do nothing.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:58Hank Green?

  They're idiots. They're so, they're like, they don't even know how to move their hands yet.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  No, yeah, they're just like, they're like, just realizing that like, sometimes I would look at a baby and be like, I think all of your neurons are just firing.

• 36:11Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  And like, you don't know which ones to use.

• 36:13Hank Green?

  That is correct. That is, I mean, I don't know. But that's the vibe that I get.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:17Hank Green?

  From the process.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  And then over time, like, those movements become more refined. And you're like,

• 36:21Hank Green?

  They learn. Yeah, they learn. It's, it's all building itself from scratch.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  It's so cool.

• 36:27Hank Green?

  Which is very, I don't know, it feels important somehow. It feels metaphorically resonant or important to the future of artificial intelligence or something. But that reminds me that this podcast, Taboki, is brought to you by the little dried up stump of an umbilical cord that some parents keep after it falls off of the baby.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Yes. It's also brought to you by my obscenely long umbilical cord that was cut down into a stump and that I did not get to keep.

• 36:57Hank Green?

  It's so long it had money to spend on sponsoring a podcast.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  It's somewhere out there in a biohazard box. Yeah. Weird that you got two umbilical cord sponsors today.

• 37:09Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a whole thing, though. This podcast is also brought to you by Butte, Montana. Butte, Montana, we electrified America. They do say something like that in Butte. They're proud of it, and they should be.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  And this podcast is also brought to you by Space Fears, the ultimate amusement park experience.

• 37:29Hank Green?

  First, they dehydrate you, then they forget you.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Bungee jumping from space.

• 37:39Hank Green?

  This episode of Dear Hank of John is brought to you by Quince. The things that you want in your closet are the things that when you open your closet, you think this is going to look good and easy, and it's going to take care of itself. And I'm not really going to have to worry about what pants or shoes I'm going to wear with this. It's just going to look good. I'm going to look put together. And Quince specializes in finding that kind of thing to sell on their website. They focus on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, Italian leather, all timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays. Their cashmere sweaters start at $60, and everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut the middlemen out so that you can

• 38:23Hank Green?

  get luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag. And when it comes to gifting, Quince actually has a lot more than clothing. You've got fine jewelry, you've got leather bags, hotel-quality bedding, chef-grade cookware, and five-star luggage. Basically, plenty of ways to find something special for everybody on your list. So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know that it was Dear Hank of John, because that's a good way to support the show. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Factor. There's so many meals that we have to work on and enjoy this holiday season,

• 39:08Hank Green?

  and that's exciting. We get to have these big, important meals. But also, there's a bunch of other meals that have to get done in addition to them. And let's be honest, if you're me and there's no Factor meals in the fridge, some of those meals are gonna be leftover Halloween candy. There's a lot going on, and that can make it hard to eat well. So, bring Factor into your life. Factor is made with good, high-quality ingredients, and these meals are ready in two minutes, whether it's lunch between meetings or dinner after holiday shopping. There's no prep, there's no cleanup, there's also no effort. Occasionally, I'll have like an extra Factor meal in the fridge, and I'll realize, I can feed this to my child. It's good for him. And like, then I don't have to cook for either of us. Factor has heart smart options,

• 39:51Hank Green?

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• 40:36John Green?

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• 41:09Hank Green?

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• 41:53Hank Green?

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• 42:03Hank Green?

  This one comes from silly who asks, Dear Hank and Deboki, what would happen if we got our tailbones removed? I biked like 20 kilometers today and I would like to sit down. I'm not silly. Silly. I don't actually know how to pronounce your name. So I just said silly, but apparently you're not. So look, we did our best.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  So we don't need our tailbones to survive, which is one of the weird things.

• 42:25Hank Green?

  Well, I mean, we don't need most of.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  A lot of things to survive. A lot of us is excess.

• 42:32Hank Green?

  It's kind of, it's kind of a brain, heart, lungs vibe.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:37Hank Green?

  Going on ultimately, the rest of it's just, just peripheral.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Yep. But it does do a lot of things. It does support your body weight while you're sitting. It helps anchors a lot of muscles, helps support your tendons and your ligaments. So.

• 42:52Hank Green?

  So there's stuff there, which is why it hurts probably because it's like all the stuff it's connected to has got strained.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. So removing it, especially if you're biking 20 kilometers, I think you're the kind of person who's making good use of your tailbones.

• 43:04Hank Green?

  You need it.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, or not your tailbones, just the tailbone.

• 43:09Hank Green?

  It's just one bone?

• 43:10Speaker 01

  The one. Yeah.

• 43:10Hank Green?

  Is it all?

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Or I assume, I assume at the very least, we all have one tailbone. Like, I don't think we have multiple tailbones.

• 43:17Hank Green?

  I, I bet, here's my guess, and we're going to try and figure out the answer to this question. I bet that it, when you're a baby, it's a bunch of bones and then it fuses into one zone. Cause it looks like it's a bunch of vertebra.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:29Hank Green?

  It's like, that has, it has the vibe of like four to six vertebra. Um, but no, I'm looking at a different part. Oh, gosh. I didn't realize it was just that little tiny part. It's so little.

• 43:45Hank Green?

  Oh, what's that part? That part's the posterior dorsal sacral something.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  So it's specifically referring to the last bone of your spine.

• 43:57Hank Green?

  It is just the last bone of your spine, but it does look like it's three bones that decided over the course of evolution to become one bone.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is several vertebrae fuse together. So huh. So usually they're made from four fused vertebrae, but some people can have three to five. So there's a range there, too. So there is a surgery to get rid of the tailbone.

• 44:18Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  It's called a coxie get him get to me.

• 44:21Hank Green?

  A coxie.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Coxie check.

• 44:23Hank Green?

  Coxie check to me.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Get check to me. So because people do have coccyx pain and so coccyx coccyx tailbone pain.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  If it's not responding to non surgical things, like you can get it surgically removed.

• 44:40Hank Green?

  If it hurts, if it hurts that bad.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And one of the the rare side effects from the surgery is that you can get a hernia because you've got this weakened pelvic floor. So that is, that is the thing that could happen, I guess.

• 44:55Hank Green?

  Yeah, I would say, don't get rid of it. I would say you need your tailbone. You don't need your tailbone, but it's good to have your tailbone. It's doing work. It's not, it's not for nothing. It's there for a reason. But it is kind of amazing, the extent to which I hear about them being problems. But I guess if you like land on your butt too hard, that's kind of what you break.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Is that also like a we're sitting down so much kind of thing that it's like now?

• 45:23Hank Green?

  Well, what I will say is biking 20 kilometers is not what we were built for. It's not like, it's not, you know, like running 20 kilometers is what what we evolved to do. And that also creates all kinds of skeletal problems. But, but yeah, we just did a side show about the effect of

• 45:45Hank Green?

  people who bike a lot on fertility for, for men and people with

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:49Hank Green?

  with testicles and the, that situation.

• 45:55Hank Green?

  Is wild, way more wild than I expected it to be. I just like, well, it's just like a lot of, of guys have like, stuff that they have to deal with because of their, their biking. And I'm like, oh, I would just choose a different sport if I had weeks of penis numbness.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Well, so that reminds me, there, um, we did an episode of Tiny Matters about this. Um, and it's from this great book. Uh, we interviewed the author Up to Speed, who was talking about female bikers. I mean, the, the book overall is about female athletes and the lack of science around them. Um, but she was talking about like, how badly designed bike seats and bike clothing is for, um, female bikers. And it was like, there was this known kind of like, open secret that a lot of bikers were having to get labiaplasties because they were just getting like, in so, they were just in so much pain and so much discomfort after these endurance races. I was like, oh my God.

• 46:52Hank Green?

  What, what do I do that's anything like requiring that level of self-control? It's just nothing.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Or just also dedication.

• 47:03Hank Green?

  Yeah, I guess raising a child is it.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, like, we have talked about blood, umbilical cords, organ squishing. And I did do that.

• 47:11Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You did that. Um, yeah. Yeah. I mean, chemo, probably similar, but, uh, but, but again,

• 47:18Speaker 01

  But you didn't choose to go have like, go.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  You're a hero. Like, I, you know, it would be fun this year.

• 47:26Hank Green?

  Yeah. Oh, boy.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  But I did, I like, I, I, I went down the path of pregnancy, knowing it was gonna suck. And still, I would not, I, I still look at endurance athletes and I'm like, no, no, no, that's not for me.

• 47:42Hank Green?

  Definitely not. I'd, I like for at the end of the process to have a baby, at least.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:47Hank Green?

  Rather than. Just pain, but to all of the endurance athletes out there listening to this as they bike painfully.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:57Hank Green?

  We're impressed by you and

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:00Hank Green?

  You're doing great. And the reason, and yeah, I mean, maybe you just need to stop raising the bar so much on yourself. Maybe the bar, maybe that, maybe you're way over the bar. Maybe you've cleared the bar and you should just like, I had this experience recently because I go to the gym a lot now. And the first thing I do at the gym is I just like bike for five minutes to warm up. And I had to like, had like four days in a row where I felt kind of like crap the whole time I was at the gym. And then Catherine was like, uh, why are you going so hard on the bike? And I was like, I'm just trying to, I'm trying to like, you know, do a little aerobic. And she's like, you're just warming up.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:38Hank Green?

  And then I was like, oh, and then I like went like 80% as hard on the bike. And I was like, oh, the entire rest of the gym is much more fun when I'm not exhausted from five minutes of going as hard as possible.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:51Hank Green?

  First thing when I arrive.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, pacing yourself.

• 48:56Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  It's one of those annoying things. You're like, I'm here to make myself be better. But it turns out there are limits to the things that I can do.

• 49:04Hank Green?

  And also like, I'm, I'm here to make myself be better, but I'm also here to make sure I come back next time.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

• 49:12Hank Green?

  I can't make myself miserable doing this. And

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It turns out that's the secret to working out consistently is really just finding a thing that you actually like doing and doesn't make you miserable. It's like, oh, okay.

• 49:22Hank Green?

  Yep. And yeah, it's finding a buddy is a big deal. So that's always very helpful. Having, getting cancer is very motivating to be healthier for as long as possible. Um, all that stuff. All right, Deboki, do you have Mars news?

• 49:39Speaker 01

  I do have Mars news. Um, this is really a follow up to the last Mars news because the last time we were kind of being held in suspense about how NASA was going to be talking about their plans around the Mars sample return project, which is said to return samples collected by the perseverance rover. The, the project has been in limbo because it turns out it's going to cost a lot more and take a little more time than originally planned for. So NASA talked about it. And now what I've taken from this is the plan is now going to be in two limbos. Because NASA is going to try and make the Mars sample return happen, but they just don't know how they're going to do it. And so they are working through two plans and they're going to decide at the end of 2026, which one is the plan that's going to happen. So one of

• 50:24Speaker 01

  them is going to be using methods that NASA has used to land Perseverance and Curiosity. The other plan is to look at using a commercial heavy lander. And according to NASA, both of these plans should be a lot cheaper than the $11 billion that was estimated for the original plan. Like that was the amount that kind of put a pause on everything. But again, we're not going to know until the end of next year, which of these plans is going to happen?

• 50:51Hank Green?

  I think if they put me in charge of it, I could figure it out, you know?

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:55Hank Green?

  There's like, like you have to have a thing go up and then you have to have it go back down and then you have to have it go up again and then come back down. And that just seems like jumping, which, yeah.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  We know how to do that.

• 51:07Hank Green?

  We know how to do that.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Bold words from us when we were like electromagnetism. That thing.

• 51:16Hank Green?

  I know that the word dipole exists.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:20Hank Green?

  I'm sure of that.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  I've found that I can do physics sometimes. And like, so weirdly, I am better at quantum than I am at mechanics. And I think it's because the secret to physics is to know when to stop thinking. And so I feel like if I could operate with that philosophy here, like in quantum, I learned like, oh, if I stop thinking like immediately, this makes a lot of sense. Mechanics, I keep thinking I can eventually make sense of it. And that's my problem. And I do feel like with that jump, like if we just need to get the thing to go up and need it to come back down, like if we can stop there, I can make it happen. That is where my, the appropriate range of my genius.

• 52:00Hank Green?

  Yeah. And then you just fly over the surface of Mars with some kind of helicopter with a magnet on the bottom of it. And it, all of the samples stick to the bottom and then you just bundle up and get back in and go back up. Easy peasy.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:13Hank Green?

  I hope they, I hope they made that stuff not out of copper though, because then the magnet won't work.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  I can't believe we just solved it on a podcast.

• 52:24Hank Green?

  Yeah. God, this is, this is how Elon Musk feels all the time.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:32Hank Green?

  In news from AFC Wimbledon, you probably already know about this news. John did a bunch of live streams over the, just a ton. He's done a ton of live streams over the last few months and playing FIFA, signing stuff, doing other things. And he decided that all of the super chats from that, any money that came in, in the ways that people make money doing live streams these days, would go toward AFC Wimbledon's player fund, which is how they get new, good people to join the team. And they, they, they raised enough money to pay for like most of a new player, whose name is Marcus Brown.

• 53:15Hank Green?

  And they are, now John's live streams are responsible for this man. John got to do a live stream interview with him. And now, uh, he just has a huge amount of pressure on him to perform well and score goals and stuff. And I don't, I don't, I think he's a midfield player. And, but the, the, the good news is that, so like this is happening. This is how I understand it anyway. Right now, there's what's called a transfer window. In the middle of the season, the players on the teams can get shuffled around. If they're doing exceptionally well, they might move to a higher league. If they're doing badly, they might kick them out and try and get somebody else in. And usually because AFC Wimbledon is not a rich club and doesn't have a bunch of money

• 53:59Hank Green?

  behind it, the transfer window is a very bad time where a bunch of their players go to get paid more doing other things. So they've proved themselves that they're doing well. And then the second half of the season is like they're, they're bad because all of their good players leave. But they're so high, this is how John explained it to me. They're so like, they're doing so well this year. They're like fifth in the league that the players don't want to leave because they might move up to the next tier of football. Not by transferring, but just by moving up with the club, which feels better and maybe is better for like their careers to be like, I was on a club that moved up. And, uh, and so instead of losing a bunch of people, they've lost nobody, it seems

• 54:40Hank Green?

  like during the transfer window, and they gained Marcus Brown, who is probably pretty good at football.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's really cool. It's cool if live streams paid for it. That's really neat.

• 54:50Hank Green?

  Isn't that weird?

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:53Hank Green?

  I don't understand how any of this works. It just seems like a, like a weird, I don't know. I guess it's just-

• 54:59Speaker 01

  Like you don't understand how transfer windows work?

• 55:01Hank Green?

  No, I don't. Like the economics of it. There's just like so many football teams, but I guess like it's just a, it's like a live events business.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:09Hank Green?

  People wanna go see these sports players play sports.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Right. It is like fascinating to keep track of the transfer.

• 55:17Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  And the transfer window in general, I've learned is like a very funny time to follow like soccer because you're just like, there's so much rumor. There's so much weird stuff going on and then there are weird shenanigans. I think there was like, my husband's told me some of the really crazy stories of like transfers that fell apart because they didn't get in done in the deadline. I think one of them might've involved like a fax that didn't go through in time or like forms that weren't signed in time. So I think that if you watch a lot of the soccer documentaries, the inevitably at some point they get to the transfer window and you're just like watching these guys in suits run from like room to room on like phones and like with forms in their hand. It's like really compelling drama.

• 56:01Hank Green?

  Oh my God, it must be so stressful.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  Bureaucracy. Yeah.

• 56:04Hank Green?

  I just want a job that's not like that.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  Imagine if you had to have a transfer window for like writing YouTube videos.

• 56:13Hank Green?

  Oh, I'd love it if, if like all YouTubers were like somehow independent agents between the different platforms and it's like, come and get me. We should do that. That should be how it works.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can draft it.

• 56:25Hank Green?

  Sorry, I'm not gonna upload to your, your platform. I mean, that is like, that is a thing that has happened with Twitch streamers where-

• 56:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:32Hank Green?

  You know, YouTube or the Microsoft one will poach them from Twitch and be like, you can't post on Twitch anymore. So I guess kind of. But we need it. We need it for like the little guys too, for the league fours of the YouTube world.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:48Hank Green?

  Please let us matter. We're really good at this. I promise.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I guess the economics are the same, whether you're like a soccer player or a YouTuber. Like, I mean, the economics are different. The principles are the same.

• 57:03Hank Green?

  Yes, we need teams. We need teams.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 57:08Hank Green?

  I don't know how to do it. I'm scared for all my TikTok friends.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:12Hank Green?

  I'm gonna be okay.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  Always gonna come back to TikTok.

• 57:14Hank Green?

  Yeah. Where my brain is.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:18Hank Green?

  Well, thank you, Deboki, for making the podcast with me.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you for having me.

• 57:22Hank Green?

  I feel like we should have done more, but I like the idea of, since you are, you are oftentimes like have kinship to questions that don't get answered. If they don't get answered, and you're like, ah, you should put that in a list.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll start doing that.

• 57:37Hank Green?

  And then, and then we could do this every once in a while and be like, here are the ones.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  To be able to explain organs moving around, because I felt a strong kinship with that question, as someone who loved getting to explore the science of being pregnant. Like, and especially because I understand, I understand where you were at, Keely, where you were just trying to get through it. And I hope everything goes well for you and anyone else who is pregnant.

• 58:01Hank Green?

  Man, that sounds like a good book, actually, like, like an actual kind of like awe of, awe and wonder of science pregnancy book, rather than sort of, you know, prescriptive pregnancy book. Yeah.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  Oh, don't worry, I've thought about it.

• 58:16Hank Green?

  All right.

• 58:19Hank Green?

  Well, let's talk more about that, I guess.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:22Hank Green?

  Everybody, thank you so much for listening to the podcast and for being here, and also for sending in your questions, if you want to do that. It's [email protected]. This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhouse. It's mixed by Joseph Touna Metish. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Hals-Rojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is still Deboki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Benarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.