403: Yeah Inflation

If I make two cups of tea with the same leaves, am I ingesting twice the caffeine? Should I get a “This Machine Kills Facists” laptop sticker in 2024? When did starlings show up in America? What should I do with the leftover cups from Costco chocolate parfait deserts? …Hank and John Green 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.

• 0:12John Green?

  Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank.

• 0:14Hank Green?

  It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the best advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John.

• 0:21John Green?

  Yeah.

• 0:22Hank Green?

  My grandma passed.

• 0:25John Green?

  I know. I'm sorry.

• 0:28John Green?

  She was my grandma, too.

• 0:30Hank Green?

  Oh, that's it. We don't need. That's fantastic.

• 0:34John Green?

  They both passed.

• 0:35Hank Green?

  You did it, John. The dad joke.

• 0:38John Green?

  Most recently, it was nanny. And that was very sad, especially for mom, but it was also sad for us. Our nanny was a huge force in our lives.

• 0:49Hank Green?

  She was a force, that's for sure. That's what people say about people who were not always fun to deal with.

• 0:55John Green?

  Well, she was a force. I mean. Listen, she was a lot harder than us, Hank, but she also had to be, right?

• 1:03Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 1:03John Green?

  I don't know what kind of person I would be if I'd had nanny's childhood. I know that I'd be a lot harder than current me.

• 1:09Hank Green?

  Yep.

• 1:10John Green?

  Yeah. So like, I'm a soft, I'm a soft-handed nymph compared to nanny.

• 1:16Hank Green?

  Because of her hard work.

• 1:18John Green?

  That's right.

• 1:19Hank Green?

  That's right.

• 1:19John Green?

  That's right. Nanny was the first person in her family to go to college. She went to the University of Tennessee. She majored in sociology. She was a force.

• 1:28Hank Green?

  I didn't know that she majored in sociology. I didn't know that sociology existed back then.

• 1:32John Green?

  There's a chance I made it up. First off, I think sociology did exist, but there's a chance I made that up. She majored in something because she graduated.

• 1:40Hank Green?

  Or not. Maybe they had majors back then. Who knows? John, can I tell you something I feel?

• 1:45John Green?

  Yeah.

• 1:46Hank Green?

  I feel like I don't, I'm having a feeling about the internet.

• 1:50John Green?

  Oh, God. I mean.

• 1:54John Green?

  Hank, do you think that we've spent enough time on this podcast? You know what I don't miss, by the way? Twitter. Don't miss it. Same. I have been cured of my Twitter addiction now it turns out it has to get real bad. I have.

• 2:06Hank Green?

  And also, you have to not know how to log in.

• 2:10John Green?

  Oh, yeah, I do try. I do try to log in four or five times a day before being reminded that I can't log in because Rosiana took away my privileges.

• 2:22John Green?

  Hilariously, I can still log on as Leon Musk, but I can't log on as myself.

• 2:28Hank Green?

  That's it, you can only be Leon. As long as you're Leon while you're Leon, I encourage you to do that every once in a while.

• 2:35John Green?

  No, no, no, I have no interest in it. I'm cured, I'm cured. What were you gonna tell me is your broad observation about the internet?

• 2:40Hank Green?

  So, I mean, first of all, I'll say that we do talk a lot about the internet, but I think that we very much, a large part of our lives is lived on the internet. I think that we care about the way that we care about our states and our cities and our country.

• 2:54John Green?

  Yeah.

• 2:55Hank Green?

  And, but yeah, I feel, having spent a little bit of time on Blue Sky, I'm reminded of what it's like when the platform has less control over me.

• 3:06John Green?

  Yeah.

• 3:07Hank Green?

  And that's, it's actually very different. And I feel much more like, much less like I'm playing a game when I am creating content. Like, I don't feel like I'm trying to figure out what's gonna happen with this piece of the puzzle and this piece and like all the decisions the algorithms are gonna make. And I also feel like when I'm just being a person, I'm being, I just feel like I have more agency, like I'm sort of moving around in the space without being as manipulated. I still think that I'm being manipulated, I think.

• 3:39John Green?

  Right, but there's, there's a freedom to it. You're, you're not posting for the algorithm, you're posting for the people, which is a

• 3:45Hank Green?

  Because the algorithm is less present.

• 3:47John Green?

  Because the algorithm isn't as good.

• 3:49Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 3:50John Green?

  And I absolutely agree with you. Today, I had one of my favorite tweets of all time, which I haven't, the last time I had one of my favorite tweets of all time was like literally 12 or 13 years ago.

• 4:00Hank Green?

  Wow.

• 4:01John Green?

  Because I have not enjoyed Twitter in that long, but. I was on Blue Sky and you were talking about how in a couple of years, there are going to be a couple hundred years, there will be a lot of things that are like the four humors, the way we used to understand the machinations of the human body as the balance of these four humors, yellow bile, black bile, and the other two.

• 4:21Hank Green?

  Blood and phlegm.

• 4:22John Green?

  Blood and phlegm. And, and I responded, to be fair, the four humors kind of ruled. I mean, what I wouldn't give to let out some black bile and not be so sad all the time. And I thought that was a great response to you.

• 4:38Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 4:40John Green?

  And it was just like, we were talking again. It was like us, like, it was like what we, what Twitter used to be like for us, where we would just kind of have fun together.

• 4:48Hank Green?

  Yeah, I've had to like relearn some activities, like retweeting. You never retweet on Twitter anymore because you just like sort of expect the algorithm to do the work. You don't think anybody's going to be looking at what you post. You think people are going to be looking at what you.

• 5:02John Green?

  The algorithm posts.

• 5:03Hank Green?

  What the algorithm posts. Yeah.

• 5:06Hank Green?

  Like, we are not, you're not so much the editor of, of other people's feeds anymore. And you.

• 5:10John Green?

  Yeah.

• 5:11Hank Green?

  Used to be. That's how Twitter used to work. So it's, it's interesting, but it just, broadly, it's waking me up to the fact that so much of my life is controlled by people who are trying to get me to do things, usually so that I will watch ads. Which are further manipulative, like the whole goal was manipulation there. Yeah.

• 5:31John Green?

  But the point is, I'm not really deciding what I think about or how I feel.

• 5:37Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 5:38John Green?

  In any given moment when I'm surfing the waves.

• 5:42Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 5:43John Green?

  And that is distressing to me. It makes me feel like a dolphin in both the good ways and the smart and, and, and the bad ways. The smart ways and the dumb ways is what I was going to say, because it's like, I'm smart in the sense that I'm a dolphin. And so I'm fairly, I'm fairly smart.

• 5:58Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 5:58John Green?

  But, but all I'm actually doing is surfing the waves.

• 6:02Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. I can't surf on a place where there's no waves.

• 6:05John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just flying. I'm just living. I I I'm I'm literally surfacing and going under and surfacing and going under and

• 6:14Hank Green?

  It's a good metaphor because like it's more fun. It's more dangerous. You can only do it in certain areas. And that's where people congregate in those areas. But actually, maybe there's like a lot more joy and peace to be found in spots that aren't so tumultuous.

• 6:30John Green?

  Right.

• 6:30Hank Green?

  And uh, and and like, you can't surf the waves if there are no waves. But like, maybe I should be sailing instead of surfing.

• 6:40John Green?

  Hank, I'm just gonna tell you how I feel about Blue Sky right now, which is how I felt about Tumblr in 2011. And if I learned one thing from Tumblr, it's that everything is gonna work out just fine.

• 6:52Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:52John Green?

  This is gonna go great.

• 6:54Hank Green?

  It's the Trojan horse. It's the Trojan horse meme where it's just like, it's like, here's a plat- a social media platform that's actually good. And then inside of it, it's like, everything you fear will be here in in eighteen months.

• 7:09Hank Green?

  All of the stuff you don't like is is also in here, but we won't let you know about it for eighteen months.

• 7:15John Green?

  I wonder if like, on my deathbed, I'm gonna be like, you know, the weirdest and least pleasant thing that ever happened to me was Tumblr.

• 7:26Hank Green?

  I wouldn't be surprised.

• 7:29John Green?

  Well, I mean, that would have meant I had a pretty good wife.

• 7:31Hank Green?

  Yeah, no, I mean, I think I I I hope, I hope. Yeah.

• 7:34John Green?

  I will say, like, you getting cancer was very bad for me, but it wasn't as bad as Tumblr.

• 7:42Hank Green?

  Well, yeah, I mean, it turned out okay. I think I think it could have been worse.

• 7:47John Green?

  Tumblr turned out okay, too. Tumblr turned out fine in the end. It was what uh, it was what foul dust trailed in the wake of Tumblr that temporarily aborted my interest in the short winded elations of man. Um, to borrow a line from F. Scott Fitzgerald that I butchered, let's answer this question from Keegan, who writes, Dear John and Hank, when I make loose leaf black tea, especially the delicious, incredibly good, I'm not kidding, tea available at Keats and Co. and at Good Store, a place for holiday shopping needs and many self care joys. Keegan, I love you.

• 8:20John Green?

  Wow.

• 8:21Hank Green?

  This is the wave I want to be surfing.

• 8:25John Green?

  Speaking, speaking of advertisements, why write them when Keegan writes them so well for us? But yeah, go to, go to good.store for all your holiday gifting needs. Keegan recommends it. Anyway, Keegan says, when I make loose leaf black tea, I often steep it twice before disposing the leaves. If I drink a cup of tea, then make and drink another cup of tea using the same leaves. Am I ingesting twice the caffeine or does most of all the caffeine leach out into the first cup of tea? What a great question. And then what a great sign off. You reap what you steep, Keegan.

• 8:57Hank Green?

  That depends. It, well, always you're going to have more caffeine in the first cup. I actually have done a fair amount of research on this because I became obsessed with tea. And so I know the answer to this question without even having to look it up. So there's a bunch of stuff in tea and they are all different amounts of soluble in water. So there's a compound called L-theanine, which is maybe or maybe not responsible for actually mitigating some of the effects of caffeine. So it takes, it kind of maybe takes the edge off of the caffeine a little bit. And it dampens anxiety maybe a little bit.

• 9:34John Green?

  No, no, I don't want that. I like, I like it when I just drink coffee and tea and I feel anxious. And then the solution to it is to drink more caffeine.

• 9:41Hank Green?

  And there's more L-theanine in green tea than in black tea, but there is in both. And L-theanine is extremely soluble in water. So it's in the tea within seconds of put it of like putting some tea into hot water. Okay. And is less soluble in water. And so it comes out more slowly, which is why you want to steep for three to five minutes to get all of it out. And then there's also all the flavors and there's a billion of them. And even in, even in a pure black tea with nothing else in it, there's so many different compounds that your nose can smell and your tongue can taste. And, and those like are different from tea to tea, but I've made this more complicated than I need to, because most of the caffeine is going to get out in the first three minutes.

• 10:23Hank Green?

  Almost all of the L-theanine is, and so your second cup is going to be a less caffeinated. And it's going to have more of the stuff that comes out slowest, which is like the more bitter tannins from the tea. So it's. Uh, probably you're gonna want to put a little more sugar in that second steep.

• 10:40John Green?

  I steeped the tea twice too, because Sarah and I usually make both of our cups in the morning with the same tea.

• 10:47Hank Green?

  Hmm.

• 10:48John Green?

  And I don't have, it tastes, tastes good to me. I, I mean, I don't have the incredibly sophisticated palate that you apparently have where you can taste billions of different flavonoids. Like I can only taste the 23 flavors that are available in Diet Dr. Pepper at one time. More than that is wasted upon me.

• 11:03Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 11:04John Green?

  Uh, 23 is the right number of flavors. You want a prime number of flavors. That's what Dr. Charles Alderton was thinking back in the day. Anyway, point being, uh, it's interesting to know that it's a little less caffeinated, but it's also, it's also got a little bit less of that juice that makes you less anxious and takes the edge off the caffeine. I assume coffee has none of that juice based on my response.

• 11:24Hank Green?

  That is correct.

• 11:25John Green?

  Yeah, that makes sense. Cause when I drink coffee, I do not feel like anything's taking the edge off. I feel not good and I love coffee. That's the problem, but I've been drinking more tea, both because Keats and Co is, is genuinely very good and because I am trying to take the edge off a little bit. So I have one big cup of coffee in the morning. It's called a red eye. It's a, it's coffee with a shot of espresso in it.

• 11:47Hank Green?

  Oh my God.

• 11:48John Green?

  I use the Keats and Co coffee for that. It's very good. The, the dark roast. And then I have uh, tea throughout the day, which is much better for me than just if I keep drinking coffee, coffee, coffee.

• 11:58Hank Green?

  Wow. You'd like, you, you're a coffee drinker all day. I do not do that. I had one big cup of tea this morning, uh, where I added, I did a double batch in like a big cup and that was too much. It turns out I was not feeling right, but I made some mistakes on social media. So there was that at, at least.

• 12:15John Green?

  Did you tell me about your mistakes on social media or do you save that for your other podcast? Delete this.

• 12:19Hank Green?

  I jumped into, I jumped in. I went on Twitter because I wanted to tweet about Twitter to Twitter. I know. And I immediately saw tweets where I was like, I have to argue.

• 12:29John Green?

  No, Hank, you jumped in on Twitter.

• 12:32Hank Green?

  I did. And then I went back to Blue Sky and I was like, going on Twitter is like walking down the stairs into a Fight Club, but, but except that would be the case if I ever did it, but I'm not saying I do because you don't talk about the Fight Club.

• 12:46John Green?

  I can't believe you. What, what arguments did you get involved in? Were they Trumpy?

• 12:50Hank Green?

  They were actually, uh,

• 12:55Hank Green?

  They were political. They were about politics. But I don't, there was also Elon Musk argument that I jumped into.

• 13:01John Green?

  Did the people you disagree with come around to your position and apologize to you? Oh, God, not, that's not what we need. We don't need Hank empowered.

• 13:12Hank Green?

  It worked. Well, this one wasn't really an argument. Well, first I wrote a snarky tweet and then I deleted it. And then I wrote a nicer one. And then he was like, yes, you're, you're kind of right about that.

• 13:23John Green?

  Okay.

• 13:24Hank Green?

  So, but like, yeah, you're right. I shouldn't be doing that. But I also tweeted some true all out snark. So.

• 13:31John Green?

  I just accomplish just so little.

• 13:33Hank Green?

  I know. I know.

• 13:34John Green?

  But it feeds the algorithm and it makes you feel like a dolphin.

• 13:37Hank Green?

  This isn't from this morning, but this person was tweeting about how wind turbines aren't actually good for the environment because they aren't carbon neutral. And I said, it's okay to admit that you don't know what words mean. So that's the kind of thing you should not tweet.

• 13:52John Green?

  That does nothing. It does nothing good. Makes everything, well, if you're embarrassed by it, you shouldn't share it.

• 13:59John Green?

  You're, you're out here talking about Fight Club and I don't like it. Let's answer another question. It comes from Seth who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm 24. I came from the generation of students raised with a lot of crash course. Seth, that generation continues.

• 14:10Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:11John Green?

  I don't want to brag. I don't want to brag.

• 14:14Hank Green?

  Just because you're not in school doesn't mean the kids in school are current.

• 14:17John Green?

  Anymore. Yeah. We're still, we're still at it, Seth. But, but thank you. And he says, thank you. Seth says, thank you. I learned a lot, but one of the main images that stuck with me was your This Machine Kills Fascist Laptop sticker. It was the first one I bought for my computer several years ago. And now getting a new laptop recently, I questioned whether I should get another sticker.

• 14:33Hank Green?

  Yikes.

• 14:34John Green?

  I'm a massive believer in an open internet and informed public, which is why the message really stuck with me back then. That's also why I had it on my, on my computer, Seth. Now I'm not sure if our machines are still doing their job of killing fascists. What do you think the relationship is between machines and fascism? Has it changed in the last 10 years? Thanks for all that you do, pumpkins and penguins, Seth.

• 14:52Hank Green?

  Can I add like a separate additional question on top of that question?

• 14:57John Green?

  Yeah. I mean, let me just answer the question, which is that I love to sell goods at dftba.com. But I cannot bring myself to recommend that sticker in 2024.

• 15:09Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:10John Green?

  Despite, despite my clear bias toward the company that prints them.

• 15:15Hank Green?

  Yeah. Yeah, we, uh, it's very weird that now that sticker feels very political in a way that it did not back then. Like you were not actually trying to be like, I'm gonna, I'm trying to just like, help you understand who to vote for. No, it was just like fascism bad.

• 15:33John Green?

  Yeah, well, I mean, I stand by that.

• 15:37Hank Green?

  Yeah. So, um, that's been, that's just a sign of how much things have changed in that time. And I worry so much about crash course becoming politicized. And I see it happen. Like, like I see, um, fo- folks grabbing stuff out of crash course and being like, look at what the liberals are teaching your children. Right. Out of context. And the, like, the, the, the thought that, like, PragerU becomes like an official part of state curricula in the US. And, and like, I feel like there's an absolute chance that in the next four years, crash course

• 16:19Hank Green?

  becomes explicitly not allowed in some places.

• 16:24John Green?

  Yeah, for sure. It's a worry. It's a worry. It keeps you up at night.

• 16:28Hank Green?

  And like, and like, me being political on Main makes that worse, you know? And so part of me is like, I just want to like, I should just get out so that I can like, leave the good in place. But of course, I, I cannot stop myself from doing this stuff.

• 16:41John Green?

  No, I've noticed that about you.

• 16:44Hank Green?

  Maybe I can. Maybe I'll be able to someday. If I, if I ever do, that's why. Well, that's part of why.

• 16:50John Green?

  Yeah. I mean, I think that there's a, I, I go back and forth on, on where our responsibilities lie. Believe me, I am tortured by it. But I think the larger question of, does the machine kill, or which, by which I mean discourage?

• 17:05Hank Green?

  The actual question.

• 17:06John Green?

  Fascism. I am not convinced the machine. discourages fascism. In fact, I think the machine, the machine can be a tool of fascism. And that is why I don't have the sticker on my laptop anymore.

• 17:19Hank Green?

  Yeah, the, um, it could be, it could be that your individual machine and just, it's just this that true of guitars as well. Like you can, there's lots of propaganda music.

• 17:29John Green?

  Sure, of course.

• 17:30Hank Green?

  nationalist propaganda music.

• 17:32John Green?

  But my point, yeah, that's true. So this, the, the, the sticker came from Woody Guthrie's guitar that had this machine kills fascist painted on it back in the day. And obviously Woody Guthrie and I don't line up politically a hundred percent, but there's some, there's some overlap in that Venn diagram, I think it's safe to say.

• 17:48Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 17:48John Green?

  But I used to believe so much that an open internet would solve totalitarianism, that it would, it would create democracy on its own, without any kind of assistance, that it would create strong governments with strong social safety nets. And I was so wrong. I was like so fascinatingly completely wrong.

• 18:12Hank Green?

  And it's so weird. I was also very wrong. We were, everyone was all wrong together and we all had this like tremendous amount of optimism. And then like, now that we're here, I'm like, oh, this makes so much sense that this would be exactly what would happen.

• 18:24John Green?

  I guess I still don't understand how we got here. And it doesn't seem obvious to me. And maybe that's the issue is that I'm still like, wait a second, this was good.

• 18:34Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 18:35John Green?

  I'm, I'm positive. It was good. And now I'm quite positive that it's kind of not.

• 18:42Hank Green?

  Yeah. I mean, I mechanistically, like each individual step on the path, I don't really understand. I don't understand how we could have done it better. But I do feel like when you revolutionize media, when you make information more accessible, the, it is very unusual for that not to head off, at least in a populist direction. And, and, you know, populism often is part of nationalist movements that.

• 19:12Hank Green?

  Uh, degrade faith in institutions and increase faith in strong men. So like from, from that perspective, like from a historical context perspective, I'm like, yeah, okay, this makes sense. I don't know why, I don't know why no one thought to themselves, oh, every other time there was a new media that made information cheaper and more accessible and, um, and more, and like gave over the ability to broadcast to more people. It was a, it, it, it took a while for everybody to sort of wake up from the spell.

• 19:46John Green?

  Yeah. Boy, and like waking up from the spell really sucks.

• 19:51Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 19:51John Green?

  At least it has in the past. I hope we have a cheaper way to wake up from the spell than, uh,

• 19:56Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 19:56John Green?

  they, they had after the printing press and the radio.

• 20:00Hank Green?

  No, those were expensive.

• 20:02John Green?

  Those were expensive.

• 20:03Hank Green?

  Um, but you know, now, now we, so one of the, this is, this is my new frame. And I was just sort of alluded to this in the beginning of the episode, but I'm just like, I want people to think about, or I want me to think about, and I want like to be upset about the ways in which these systems manipulate people and including me. And, and just to like point and be like, like I tweeted about this and, and people were like, well, how does Twitter manipulate you? And I'm like, oh my, I mean, here's some like obvious ways.

• 20:33John Green?

  Well, uh, actually one way is responding, how does Twitter manipulate you? Which is a classic bait for a Hank response, right? Like that's, that's a response that leads to a response.

• 20:44Hank Green?

  That's that person manipulating me, which is fine. Like, I think that, I think it's okay for people to try and get like, like change people's minds and.

• 20:54John Green?

  But those are, but those, those kinds of gotcha posts are always going to be shown to more people precisely because they're gotcha posts. And then you feel obligated to respond to them, which, which encourages more kinds of gotcha posts. So like, to me, that's an example of how, of how the algorithm works in the first place.

• 21:10Hank Green?

  But the, but in the, good, good situation in that case is that, uh, the argument is very clear. Like there's lots of examples we've all experienced directly of Twitter manipulating us. So.

• 21:20John Green?

  Can we talk about?

• 21:23John Green?

  Yeah, inflation?

• 21:25Hank Green?

  I don't know what that means.

• 21:27John Green?

  We used to say, yeah. Somebody would say something and you wanted to agree with it and you'd say, yeah. But now I've noticed that you say, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:36Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:37John Green?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

• 21:38Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:39John Green?

  But I say, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll say it seven times in a row.

• 21:46John Green?

  What's wrong with me? What's going on?

• 21:49Hank Green?

  Don't point it out.

• 21:51John Green?

  Don't point it out.

• 21:54John Green?

  Is that the algorithm working?

• 21:55Hank Green?

  To be out there.

• 21:57John Green?

  Who did that to me? Who gave me, yeah, inflation? The other inflation I've seen lately, Hank, is I used to say 100%. 100%. I agree with you 100%.

• 22:05Hank Green?

  And now, now John only exclusively says, hundo P.

• 22:08John Green?

  No, I say 1,000%.

• 22:10Hank Green?

  A thousand?

• 22:11John Green?

  I say, I agree with you 1,000%. I heard someone the other day, I won't name names.

• 22:16Hank Green?

  Thousand?

• 22:17John Green?

  A colleague of ours, a colleague of ours, saying,

• 22:22John Green?

  I hear you and I agree 100,000%. And I was like, that's too many percent. Too much. Can't handle it.

• 22:31Hank Green?

  Yeah. I, I.

• 22:35Hank Green?

  Hundo thousand P.

• 22:37John Green?

  You can't agree with me. You can agree with me 1,000% because I understand that. That is classic exaggeration. Right? You get to 100,000%, you've gone all the way around the circle.

• 22:50Hank Green?

  And now, I don't, I don't actually think you care anymore. Now I think you don't agree with me.

• 22:54John Green?

  I don't even think you agree with me. I think that if you agreed with me, you would say hundo P.

• 23:00Hank Green?

  I, 100, that's very specific. 100,000%. Maybe they were just like 100% and then they were like, no, no, no.

• 23:07John Green?

  No, it's gotta be more than that. It's gotta 100,000%.

• 23:10Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 23:11John Green?

  But yeah, I'm saying yeah a lot. I'm saying yeah more than I used to and I want to watch out for it. So I just want to call out the yeah inflation.

• 23:17Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 23:18John Green?

  Yep.

• 23:18Hank Green?

  And yep.

• 23:19John Green?

  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, agreed.

• 23:23Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 23:24John Green?

  Some of the things I'll say include agreed and I hear you and heard chef.

• 23:29Hank Green?

  Heard chef.

• 23:32Hank Green?

  What else? What else did we catch? Keep going.

• 23:36John Green?

  Okay. I just, I needed to get you off of Twitter and I, I felt like, yeah, inflation was my only path.

• 23:42Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:45John Green?

  It's happening. It's happening. All right. We got another question from Lennox who writes, Dear John and Hank, my 11 year old daughter recently had brain surgery, so she's home from school, recovering and very bored and asking a lot of questions. Here's a selection of just a few of those questions and we'd love it if you could answer one. Two of the questions Hank are, were starlings around when you were a kid and when did starlings show up in America?

• 24:08Hank Green?

  Oh, well, starlings were around when I was a kid. In fact, there were many of them.

• 24:15John Green?

  So many.

• 24:16Hank Green?

  So many.

• 24:18John Green?

  An endless number.

• 24:20Hank Green?

  Yeah, but if, if we were born in like the 1870s, then there wouldn't have been starlings around when we were kids. Cause a group of 100 European starlings were released in Central Park in the 1890s. By some people who wanted America to have all the birds that Shakespeare ever mentioned. That's a real story.

• 24:40John Green?

  Now, wait a second. Wait a second.

• 24:42Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 24:43John Green?

  I have spent an inordinate amount of time Lennox researching this question.

• 24:48Hank Green?

  Oh no, is it not a real story?

• 24:50John Green?

  So it may be a real story.

• 24:53Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 24:54John Green?

  It is a very, very good story and there are starlings mentioned in Shakespeare. And the main person who was responsible for the release of starlings into the United States did do it in Central Park. And I think there was another independent group of starlings that was released in the Northwest.

• 25:13Hank Green?

  Yeah, I do not doubt that starlings would have got here one way or the other.

• 25:17John Green?

  But, but, but.

• 25:19Hank Green?

  Not Shakespeare.

• 25:20John Green?

  Most starlings trace back to that group of, most starlings in the US trace back to that group from, that were released from in Central Park. So that's real. The Shakespeare thing, I've never been able to confirm with a contemporaneous source. And I have looked into it because that would be an incredible fact.

• 25:38Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 25:39John Green?

  That's an incredible story, and it's actually a beautiful novel, right? Like, one mad dreamer of an ornithologist who thinks that he is doing the birds of the world a favor by giving this beautiful bird a new place to live, and then it becomes the most invasive. It becomes so invasive that they don't even call it the European starling anymore. On Wikipedia, they now call it the common starling.

• 26:05Hank Green?

  Wow.

• 26:06John Green?

  Can I tell you the last sentence of the common starling article on Wikipedia?

• 26:12Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 26:12John Green?

  It's about starling meat. Even when correctly prepared, it may still be seen as an acquired taste.

• 26:19Hank Green?

  Oh, my God. That's a great one. That's great.

• 26:26John Green?

  That's a sentence. That's a sentence right out of Shakespeare. I mean, that's like as good as sentences get, and it's right there in Wikipedia. Someone wrote that for free. All right, I'm gonna try to view the version of this history and find out who wrote that sentence. You know, the other thing you need to know, Lennox, a group of starlings is called a murmuration of starlings.

• 26:46Hank Green?

  I believe that is the name for any large flock of birds that does that thing.

• 26:51John Green?

  That thing where they like become these beautiful shapes?

• 26:54Hank Green?

  Look like they somehow are intentionally making weird blobby shapes in the sky.

• 27:00John Green?

  It's beautiful.

• 27:01Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 27:02John Green?

  Hank, the sentence goes back to the earliest versions of the Starling Wikipedia page. I'm telling you that this has been in the Wikipedia article for at least 10 years, when the Wikipedia article was much shorter. But everybody who's edited the Wikipedia article for all time has been like, well, we can't take that sentence out because it is a great work of art. I'm very biased toward like really good sentences. It doesn't, yeah, there are three sources.

• 27:32Hank Green?

  Okay. Well, if there are three sources, then I tell you, there's been an argument about it in the talk page.

• 27:38John Green?

  I'm sure somebody was like, hey, this might not be true, to which everyone else said, well, it doesn't matter if it's true, it's an incredibly beautiful sentence.

• 27:47Hank Green?

  One thing I know about almost every sentence on Wikipedia, especially a page like Starlings, which I'm sure has been gone over a lot of times, is that every sentence has been fought over. There has been a fight about all of it.

• 27:58John Green?

  And I have to say, I find it very beautiful that we live in this world where Wikipedia is very good despite being full of disagreement.

• 28:13Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 28:14John Green?

  Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Wikipedia. Wikipedia, out of discord comes concord.

• 28:21Hank Green?

  Oh, ooh, if only.

• 28:25John Green?

  Was that too? Maybe I've been, you've been on Twitter, I've been on Blue Sky. That's the difference vibe wise.

• 28:31Hank Green?

  This podcast is also brought to you by the foul dust that trailed in the wake of Tumblr. The foul dust that trailed in the wake of Tumblr. Foul, stinky dust.

• 28:43John Green?

  All right, I think I can get the line right now. Let me, let me close my eyes and get it. Tumblr turned out all right in the end. It was what preyed on Tumblr, what foul dust trailed in the wake of its dreams that temporarily aborted my interest in the short-winded elations and something of men. I was close. I was close.

• 29:02Hank Green?

  You're doing great.

• 29:04John Green?

  Today's podcast, of course, is also brought to you by John's obsessive search for which Wikipedia user wrote that beautiful sentence. I've currently narrowed it down to sometime in 2011.

• 29:19Hank Green?

  Wow. This podcast is also brought to you by L-theanine. L-theanine, it may or may not somewhat dampen the effects of the caffeine in your tea, and it comes out real fast. So if you want less caffeinated tea, you can steep for less time. And it's available at good.store, where we have Keats and Co. Coffee and tea, and we have Sunbass and Soap, we got awesome socks, and you could do all your holiday shopping in one place.

• 29:42John Green?

  And of course, today's podcast is brought to you by Y inflation.

• 29:45Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

• 29:51Hank Green?

  Yeah, 100,000 times yeah. 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 gonna look good and be easy. And it's gonna take care of itself. And I'm not really gonna have to worry about what pants or shoes I'm gonna wear with this. It's just gonna look good. I'm gonna 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.

• 30:34Hank Green?

  They work directly with ethical factories and cut the middlemen out so that you can 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 of John is brought to you by Factor.

• 31:16Hank Green?

  There's so many meals that we have to work on and enjoy this holiday season, 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.

• 32:00Hank Green?

  And like, then I don't have to cook for either of us. Factor has heart smart options like the green goddess barramundi with tomato, rice, peas, kale, and green beans, or the enchilada style chicken and sweet potatoes. They're crafted with lean proteins, fiber-packed fruits and veggies, and healthy fats. You can try them out, your heart and your taste buds will be happy with you. Ninety-seven percent of Factor users agree that Factor meals help them live a more nutritious life. So yeah, Factor supports your everyday health and your long-term health. Let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com/dearhank50off and use the code DEARHANK50OFF to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until December 31st, 2026. That's code DEARHANK50OFF at factormeals.com.

• 32:44Hank Green?

  Dear Hank, five zero off at factormeals.com. See the website for more details.

• 32:50John Green?

  Dear Hank and John is brought to you by NOCD. So you may know that I've had obsessive-compulsive disorder since I was a kid, but I was only diagnosed as an adult. I lived with intrusive thoughts and the compulsive behaviors I used to manage those intrusive thoughts for many years without treatment. OCD is not just anxiety. If you have those what-if intrusive thoughts and you cannot close the loop on them and you find yourself in thought spirals, you might have OCD. And it's not the organizing stereotype you've heard. It's a persistent, unwanted series of intrusive thoughts that feel totally out of character, along with mental or physical behaviors that you feel driven to, to get relief, even when that

• 33:31John Green?

  relief never actually comes. The good news is that OCD is highly treatable with the right kind of specialized therapy. It needs ERP, Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy, which has proven to be the most effective treatment, and it has transformed my life. NOCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment, covered by insurance for over 138 million Americans. There are licensed therapists who specialize in ERP therapy, who meet you in live, face-to-face, virtual sessions with support between sessions, so you're never facing OCD alone. So if you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NOCD can help. Book a free 15-minute call to get started at nocd.com. That's nocd.com.

• 34:17John Green?

  All right, Hank, let's answer another question. This one comes from Annabeth who writes, "Dear John and Hank, I love the little chocolate parfait desserts that you can buy from Costco, but as a result, I have a couple dozen of the cute little glass cups they come in, and I don't want to throw them away, but they're taking up a lot of space in the cupboard. What should I do with all these little glasses? Any suggestions? Super welcome." Problems in Parfais, Annabeth.

• 34:36Hank Green?

  The problem isn't that you have too many, it's that you don't have enough.

• 34:39John Green?

  I agree. You don't have a collection yet. Soon you'll have a collection.

• 34:44Hank Green?

  Yeah, but then you'll figure out how to make clothes out of them.

• 34:47John Green?

  No, I think...

• 34:48Hank Green?

  Clink, clink.

• 34:49John Green?

  The other thing that makes me think... I don't think that's a good idea.

• 34:53Hank Green?

  Clink, clink, this is a parfait dress.

• 34:54John Green?

  The other thing that makes me think is that maybe you should use them as little wine glasses, and when people come over to your house, just be like, "This is how we drink wine at my house, in little tiny parfait glasses."

• 35:10Hank Green?

  You could make them into candles. Maybe you could get really into candle making. I don't know how little these things are, but they seem like they'd be good candles. Also, you can paint them into just a variety of ladybugs.

• 35:22John Green?

  Yes. Ladybug, ladybug art. I think the key is to make some kind of art out of them that you then sell for just more than the parfait's cost, so you're in a revenue-positive situation. Hank and I love to make businesses out of things that are not good business ideas, but I think this might be our best idea yet.

• 35:44Hank Green?

  I don't know about that.

• 35:45John Green?

  Taking supplies from Costco and turning them into art that's just slightly more valuable than the supply from Costco.

• 35:53Hank Green?

  I actually don't know how big these... I'm trying to find them, but I can't tell. They look bigger than I was expecting them to be, and if this is just a cup, you take them to a thrift store, they're cups. But it might be like these ones, in which case, that's just waiting to become a candle. A lot of these are just waiting to be candles.

• 36:10John Green?

  I'm looking at them too, and I'm seeing candles. I'm seeing candles in your future that you sell for $1 more than the parfaits cost.

• 36:18Hank Green?

  Here's the situation. If you can eat enough parfait, we can make like a bunch of candles that we can sell at Good Dot Store.

• 36:24John Green?

  Oh, that's just what we need. We need to start a parfait candle business.

• 36:28Hank Green?

  One that's like really supply limited. It's just like so hard to get. This is like, you need to eat more parfait. People want to buy the candles.

• 36:39John Green?

  We're calling Annabeth like.

• 36:44John Green?

  We've got a supply and demand problem. We're calling Annabeth. We're begging her to eat parfaits. Annabeth's doing the best that she can, but like it's not enough. And so we start eating parfaits.

• 36:54Hank Green?

  Now we're eating.

• 36:54John Green?

  We're getting the parfaits and then like. I'm forcing the parfaits upon my children. It's trying. I'm making it a family business. Suddenly I'm a family vlogger, but for parfait cups, it's bad.

• 37:05Hank Green?

  You're just doing live streams.

• 37:10Hank Green?

  You're counting every bite like you're Mr. Beast, a hundred thousand and five. And then.

• 37:16John Green?

  And after I finish a parfait on live stream, I sell that particular parfait cup candle to one particular person who's viewing it.

• 37:24Hank Green?

  Yes. And they're like 500 bucks a piece.

• 37:27John Green?

  That's right. That's right. Because you saw me eat it. If you saw me eat it, then it's 500 bucks. That's the deal. You gotta pay extra if you want to see me eat your parfait cup candle.

• 37:36Hank Green?

  On it and be like, I put my anxiety in this candle. Now you can burn it and feel the anxiety yourself.

• 37:44Hank Green?

  We have a special kind of candle that gives you anxiety. It's like opposite candles.

• 37:49John Green?

  Opposite candle. It's got, uh, everybody's talking about aromatherapy that makes you calm, that makes you wealthy, that makes you whatever. We've got aromatherapy that makes you feel real anxious.

• 38:02John Green?

  It's like, you ever wake up in the morning and get one of those emails? It's like that anxious.

• 38:06Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 38:08John Green?

  First thing, you're not even dressed yet. You haven't brushed your teeth and you got that email.

• 38:12Hank Green?

  They always have those like cute little names too. It can be like, the first email of the day was a bad one. That's the name of the candle.

• 38:25John Green?

  The first email of the day was a bad one. I love it.

• 38:29Hank Green?

  They're coming to good dot store shortly. It will, they will, they will be panic wicks.

• 38:34John Green?

  Panic wicks. It's a new brand. We got Keats and Co. We got Sun Vase and Soap and we got Panic Wicks, the candles that make you anxious.

• 38:42Hank Green?

  Flicker of doom.

• 38:47John Green?

  Yes, exactly. Ruminations Rosemary.

• 38:50Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 38:51John Green?

  Like, you know, it's got some fragrance to it, but boy, does it make you worried.

• 38:56Hank Green?

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 38:58John Green?

  Well, I think we solved your parfait problem. You're welcome.

• 39:01Hank Green?

  Yeah, that's, I didn't expect that to go where it went.

• 39:05John Green?

  Never do. Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, we should answer one more question from our listeners.

• 39:11Hank Green?

  Okay, I would like to do that.

• 39:13John Green?

  That's from Malia, and I thought this was an important one to read because it reflects an opinion that I have that I've been nervous to share with you. And so I really appreciate Leah reaching out and expressing this so succinctly. Dear John and Hank, I would like to say in defense of hard pretzels that Hank is incorrect. Hard pretzels are a top three snack food any day of the week. Also, fun fact, did you know that the play Annie debuted at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut? As a nutmegger, I have taken many a field trip to this theater and it is absolutely one of my favorite things to tell a group of nine year olds. Now, I do not know what a nutmegger is, and I do not wish to find out, but what I, oh, also, I think you need to know that Leah's name specific sign off

• 39:56John Green?

  is epic. Sincerely, Leah.

• 40:00Hank Green?

  Oh, great.

• 40:02John Green?

  It's pretty good.

• 40:02Hank Green?

  Can I tell you, can I tell you what I've decided about hard pretzels?

• 40:06John Green?

  They're delicious, man. They're my favorites.

• 40:08Hank Green?

  They're like nanny. They.

• 40:12John Green?

  They are a force.

• 40:14Hank Green?

  They're a force. And if, if you had had a childhood like a hard pretzel, you would also. Be a hard pretzel.

• 40:22John Green?

  I mean, I guess I did have a childhood like a hard pretzel because I love hard pretzels.

• 40:25Hank Green?

  But those hard pretzels, they worked so hard so that we could have a warm, soft pretzel at Auntie Annie's today, or whatever that place is called.

• 40:35John Green?

  Listen, man, if there's, of course, a soft pretzel is better than a hard pretzel. The issue is you can't walk into a gas station and walk out with a bag of soft pretzels. And so if you can't get, if you can't get a soft pretzel, hard pretzels, that's why Leah helpfully said it's a top three snack food because number one is soft pretzels. Number two, Doritos. Number three, hard pretzels.

• 41:00Hank Green?

  I think that hard pretzels are a top 100 snack food.

• 41:07John Green?

  I like them. I'm just, I appreciate Leah pointing out what I didn't have the courage to point out.

• 41:13Hank Green?

  Look, I'm not saying that I didn't like nanny.

• 41:16John Green?

  Good, because mom listens to this podcast.

• 41:21John Green?

  And I think Uncle Mike does sometimes, too.

• 41:23Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah, that is terrifying.

• 41:25John Green?

  I know. I know.

• 41:26Hank Green?

  I hate the fact that Uncle Mike sometimes.

• 41:28John Green?

  Well, Uncle Mike says so few unnecessary words and we say so many.

• 41:33Hank Green?

  We say so many words. We're the just like truly opposite Uncle Mikes.

• 41:39John Green?

  You know who has never engaged in yeah inflation is in his entire life is Uncle Mike.

• 41:44Hank Green?

  Yeah, I don't know. Uncle Mike probably says, has said yeah fewer times in his life than we have in this podcast.

• 41:50John Green?

  His podcast, absolutely. Totally agree. Hundred percent, thousand percent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:01Hank Green?

  Yeah, like Uncle Mike, instead of saying yeah, he might go, hmm.

• 42:07John Green?

  Yeah.

• 42:08Hank Green?

  You're not even sure if he's actually yang, but it wasn't a no.

• 42:12John Green?

  It's not total agreement, but it's also not disagreement. And he will, he'll, he'll give a good nod. I mean, I don't think Uncle Mike, it's, and it's not that Uncle Mike doesn't speak. Uncle Mike speaks when it's necessary.

• 42:25Hank Green?

  That's right.

• 42:26John Green?

  Unlike us. Exactly. Speak nonstop all the time. Yeah, yeah.

• 42:31Hank Green?

  Whether there's any interest in the [BLEEP] we be spewing.

• 42:38John Green?

  Hey, you can't say that Lennox is listening.

• 42:41Hank Green?

  I'm sorry. Okay, I'll get, I'll get bleeped.

• 42:45John Green?

  All right. The news from AFC Wimbledon is good.

• 42:48Hank Green?

  Good.

• 42:49John Green?

  Uh, AFC Wimbledon won a football game. We beat Tranmere Rovers, the Rovers who crossed the mirror. Uh, Tranmere Rovers, uh, plying their trade in, uh, in, in the north of England. We, we were only able to bring 150 fans up there on a Tuesday night, but those 150 fans were treated to a show as Matty Stevens and Omar Boogal, our two, uh, forward players both scored. Omar Boogal scored on a fascinating, uh, kind of header that looked like an accident.

• 43:18Hank Green?

  Well, it was kind of a header. It might have been.

• 43:20John Green?

  Oh, I see. He got hit in the head with a soccer ball. It looked to me like he got hit in the head with a soccer ball and the ball dribbled into the goal. But then when I watched it again, I was like, dang, dang, dang. Did he do that on purpose? So maybe he did it on purpose. Matty Stevens had a nice, uh, nice goal as well. And AFC Wimbledon, having played most or all of their games in hand, depending on your perspective. So now we've played about as many games as the other teams around us. We're in seventh place, which is the last playoff spot right now.

• 43:49John Green?

  So we are in the playoffs. If the season were to end tomorrow, which it won't, there's still 30 games left.

• 43:54Hank Green?

  That's a lot more, but.

• 43:57John Green?

  A lot more games.

• 43:57Hank Green?

  It's a lot of opportunities to move up in the playoff spots.

• 44:01John Green?

  Did I tell you that, um, that thanks to my live streams at John's channel, that we're going to be able to support the purchase of a player in January? So that should help a little bit.

• 44:10Hank Green?

  You told me three quarters of a player, so.

• 44:12John Green?

  Yeah, I was, well, I said, support the purchase of a player. See, that's.

• 44:15Hank Green?

  Yeah, okay.

• 44:16John Green?

  Three quarters of a player, half.

• 44:18Hank Green?

  That was a necessary word. Yeah.

• 44:20John Green?

  Somewhere, so, so, somewhere more than half and less than all of a player.

• 44:28John Green?

  Um, unless they're really young, in which case maybe all of them.

• 44:32John Green?

  We'll see. We'll see what Craig Cope is cooking up, the director of football over at AFC Wimbledon. But great to see the boys in seventh place after 16 games.

• 44:38Hank Green?

  That is good.

• 44:39John Green?

  This weekend, taking on Dagnum in Redbridge. Dag and red in the FA Cup.

• 44:46Hank Green?

  Hell yeah. Well, in News from Mars, one thing you know is that we can't study any Martian rocks because

• 44:52John Green?

  That's right, because we can't get them back.

• 44:54Hank Green?

  That's wrong, because we can study Martian rocks, because sometimes they come to Earth. They get blown off by asteroids or by meteorites that hit the surface of Mars, and then they go into space, and then some of them land on Earth. We have Martian

• 45:07John Green?

  Wow.

• 45:08Hank Green?

  Which is really cool. So we can study the pieces of Mars that are on Earth with great, with much more detail than we can study the pieces of Mars that are on Mars. Even though we have, you know, giant roving labs there that are autonomous, that are not humans.

• 45:25John Green?

  Oh, yes.

• 45:27Hank Green?

  Uh, but so.

• 45:30John Green?

  Although I would, I would argue that all of the rovers currently on Mars dream of being human.

• 45:36Hank Green?

  I wouldn't argue that, but.

• 45:39John Green?

  We have different ways of thinking about this stuff.

• 45:41Hank Green?

  The two of us, yes. There's a famous Martian meteorite that is often called Black Beauty. It is officially called NWA 7034, and it has a bunch of different stuff going on in it, but one of the things that it has is zircon, and zircon is a big deal because it's very hard, and also we can tell, because there's a bunch of reasons, I'm not going to get into it, but it's very cool. We can, there's a way that we can tell how old zircon is.

• 46:06John Green?

  Oh.

• 46:07Hank Green?

  And that, and so, and this zircon is around four and a half billion years old, so that's real old. That's like age of the solar system old, so it's a really old piece of rock.

• 46:19John Green?

  Whoa.

• 46:20Hank Green?

  Older than I think maybe any, any rock on Earth that we've ever found. But that's not that unusual for Mars, which is, has a lot less geologic turnover. But there was a weird pattern, and I'm not, I'm not going to pretend like I understand this. There's a weird pattern in the, in the zircon. It's called oscillatory zoning, and that's

• 46:42Hank Green?

  I hate giving you a term without explaining it, but I do not understand it.

• 46:46John Green?

  Okay.

• 46:47Hank Green?

  But there is a reason why this kind of pattern in the zircon could not have been created unless there were some very specific circumstances that include water and magma. So this is, it appears to be proof that this Martian meteorite was created in a circumstance that was like what they call magmatic hydrothermal systems. So like there's both magma and there's water and it's like a hydrothermal vent, basically. Or it's like a underwater volcano.

• 47:20John Green?

  There's hot and there's wet. And that is a very good combination for chemistry to happen and life is an advanced form of chemistry.

• 47:28Hank Green?

  That's right. It's a very weird form of chemistry. There's some people who are trying to get to the bottom of the kind of chemistry that life is. And I find this very cool and fascinating, but it is, it does feel out of my reach in terms of actually understanding it. But.

• 47:43John Green?

  Yeah, that's pretty mind blowing though.

• 47:45Hank Green?

  I would like to.

• 47:46John Green?

  Wow.

• 47:47Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 47:48John Green?

  I mean, it just makes me think that the universe a few hundred million years ago, or the solar system a few hundred million years ago, must have been very interesting in ways that we can only distantly glimpse.

• 48:01Hank Green?

  Yeah, but though we can see it, thanks to the fact that a lot of rocks outside of Earth are pretty old.

• 48:07John Green?

  Yeah, but like that's, that's seeing, but it's not the same thing as seeing. You know what I mean? Like, you gotta do a lot of science to be able to see.

• 48:15Hank Green?

  Yeah, it's amazing the extent to which we can.

• 48:18John Green?

  I think.

• 48:19Hank Green?

  Catch glimpses of the past and of.

• 48:23John Green?

  I think if I could go into the past, like I think if I had a time machine, I wouldn't go to like the 1960s, like they did in Back to the Future or whatever. I would go to like 400 million years ago.

• 48:34Hank Green?

  Yeah. You know, one reason why you'd love that, John, this is gonna be huge for you.

• 48:38John Green?

  There's so few viruses.

• 48:40Hank Green?

  No human pathogens.

• 48:42John Green?

  None. Well, that we, yeah. I guess I could be the first person to spread them. That'd be kind of fun.

• 48:47Hank Green?

  Uh, there wouldn't be people to spread them to.

• 48:49John Green?

  I know, I'd like, I'd like cough and a shark somewhere would be like, is that? Do I have the.

• 48:54Hank Green?

  Smallpox? What's this? No, I guess you don't carry the smallpox virus luckily.

• 49:01John Green?

  Yeah, I mean, if I do, the whole world's in trouble.

• 49:05Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 49:07Hank Green?

  The, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, viruses have to evolve to infect people. And because there wouldn't be anybody who's anything like you back then, there would be nothing to infect you. There may be some parasites that'd be able to get you just how they could get anything else, but.

• 49:23John Green?

  Yeah.

• 49:23Hank Green?

  Malaria, maybe, still, back then.

• 49:25John Green?

  Right, right. I don't think there were mosquitoes 400 million years ago.

• 49:31Hank Green?

  That's a good point.

• 49:31John Green?

  You're talking early. I want to go early.

• 49:34Hank Green?

  Yeah, that's a long time.

• 49:35John Green?

  I want to go like where we just got ferns.

• 49:38Hank Green?

  Hmm.

• 49:39John Green?

  You know, it's a fern planet with a lot of water life and I want to bring my scuba gear.

• 49:44Hank Green?

  Yeah, you're right. Mosquitoes were 200 million years ago. That's, yeah, 400 million. That's, there wasn't much around back then.

• 49:50John Green?

  God, I would love to predate the mosquito, just for a day.

• 49:56Hank Green?

  Yeah. Was there a life? Was there like plants yet on land?

• 49:59John Green?

  Yeah, there was life. There was life.

• 50:00Hank Green?

  Well, there was life. Yes. I don't, I don't know if there was plants. There were plants. There were.

• 50:05John Green?

  I think there were ferns.

• 50:06Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 50:07John Green?

  I don't think there were like big trees yet, but there were ferns. Ferns and sharks.

• 50:11Hank Green?

  They were just starting to be trees.

• 50:13John Green?

  I mean, that's perfect. Like early, I want to go to early tree days where, where, where the trees are like, like the way that we feel now, where they're like, man, we're new.

• 50:24Hank Green?

  We are messing this place up.

• 50:28John Green?

  Somebody eat our oxygen.

• 50:31Hank Green?

  Let's figure this out. We have, we have done, we have done a weird.

• 50:37John Green?

  That's a good summary of humans. We have done a weird. Well, Hank, thank you for podding with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. Thank you for emailing us your questions at [email protected].

• 50:47Hank Green?

  This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhouse. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna Metish. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halsroth-Hoss and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Trakravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gonna Roll Up. And as they say in our hometown.

• 51:05John Green?

  Don't forget to be awesome.