466: An Argument with a Mouse

Why do things get less blurry when you squint your eyes? Do the water particles in waves on the beach come from far away, or do they stay in the same area? Why aren’t there any legally binding concrete goals from governments about tuberculosis? Do I absorb any caffeine through my skin when I use soap that contains coffee grounds? Should I get married at the courthouse to save money? ... 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 Produced for Hank and John Green by Complexly 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 dubious advice, and then play the New York Times Word Game Connections.

• 0:21John Green?

  Nope, that's Hank's channel.

• 0:23Hank Green?

  That's sorry, I made that up. And give you all the week's news from both the Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, what do you call two monkeys who share their Amazon account?

• 0:33John Green?

  Hmm, what?

• 0:34Hank Green?

  You can get there. Work on it. Work it. Work the problem.

• 0:37John Green?

  I don't want to. It's not in my heart.

• 0:40Hank Green?

  Primates.

• 0:41John Green?

  Primates. Oh, so they've signed up for Amazon Prime.

• 0:47Hank Green?

  Mm-hmm, and they're sharing. It's one of the worst. It's one of the, I can't give you all, but I need you to groan. I need you. Last, last time I gave you a good one, this time I give you a bad one.

• 0:58John Green?

  In general, I find with your jokes, and this is true for everyone's jokes, right? You need there to be a C minus so there can be an A plus.

• 1:07Hank Green?

  It's, yeah, I mean, that's also how I did college.

• 1:13John Green?

  As a, as a wise man once wrote, "Without pain, how could we know joy?" I, it's funny, I wrote that line and everybody quotes it all the time, but they're quoting it out of context. In context, Hazel is making fun of people who say, "Without pain, how could we know joy?"

• 1:28Hank Green?

  That's, that is, uh, yeah, yeah. And, and you made a whole book about how the manic pixie dream girl trope is a thing that is fake and that actually these people are complex humans that, that aren't, uh, aren't existing just to please people. And then people were like, John Green, the manic pixie dream girl guy.

• 1:48John Green?

  I know. Yeah, I remember that one too, Hank. What are they gonna think of Hollywood ending? We'll find out in three weeks, or actually 13 days as we're listening to this.

• 1:57Hank Green?

  Yeah, as, as it's being released. Oh, my gosh, John, how are you doing? How are you feeling? What's it like?

• 2:03John Green?

  It's fine. I had a, I had a lovely, there is something very strange about doing a press tour for a book that is about how unpleasant press tours are.

• 2:17Hank Green?

  Have you started doing that yet? Have people read it and are asking you questions about it yet?

• 2:20John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, I've done, I've done quite a bit so far, and I've got more to come, which is great. I, I want to emphasize that I remember when my books would come out, and on the day the books would come out, nothing would happen, and that was not as fun as this is.

• 2:35Hank Green?

  Okay, good. I'm glad. I'm glad that it's fun so far. I just feel like, I, I don't know, man.

• 2:40John Green?

  I'm gonna feel overexposed inevitably, Hank. Like, that's a side effect of writing fiction, is that, you know, it's autobiography and code. What did, uh, what did Faulkner say? Never let the truth get in the way of the facts. But people are very curious about how you got to whatever truth you got to. They're curious about whatever facts may lie behind a story, and that's very stressful and challenging for me to navigate. But we don't have to talk about that. Can I talk to you about a book I read that I loved?

• 3:14Hank Green?

  Sure.

• 3:15John Green?

  It's called Heart the Lover by Lily King. I've actually read the book before, but I read it on a plane, and something about the altitude caused me, this time reading it, to just weep uncontrollably, such that the flight attendant asked if I was doing okay.

• 3:33Hank Green?

  Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, that's, that's a good thing if a book can, can do that to, it's, it's a, it's a power of a book.

• 3:42John Green?

  But it wasn't just a sad book. It was also a delightful book, full of wonder and light and wit and repartee and all the things that I love in a story. I love Lily King. I can't believe that I get to be on stage with her in Portland, Maine. It is silly, silly to think about sharing a stage with her. Also, some of the people I'm sharing a stage with are just ludicrous. Like, obviously, there's Hank Green, Sarah Yurist Green in Birmingham, Alabama. That's a little, that, those are, those are ones I can handle. But like, Gillian Flynn, the author of Gone Girl, Brandon Sanderson.

• 4:14Hank Green?

  Oh, uh-huh. He's written a lot of words.

• 4:18John Green?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:19Hank Green?

  And try, and wants to think that he could reach your record for the number of signatures signed, but...

• 4:26John Green?

  Well, there's no way that he can ever reach my record for number of books signed because he's too busy writing. He spends so much time writing. The key is to not spend that much time writing. You gotta focus on the signing part of writing.

• 4:38Hank Green?

  Yeah. Can I show you something and have you describe it to people?

• 4:42John Green?

  Yeah, great.

• 4:43Hank Green?

  For the audio listeners.

• 4:45John Green?

  Great. I am looking at

• 4:46Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 4:47John Green?

  A, what appears to be a knife stuck into a piece of soap.

• 4:54Hank Green?

  Uh-huh.

• 4:55John Green?

  If I had to guess, that's what I would guess.

• 4:57Hank Green?

  Tell me more about this piece of soap, John.

• 5:00John Green?

  The piece of soap appears to be silver gray. Uh, it could theoretically be a piece of foam, but I think it's a piece of soap. I actually think I can see the word Sun Basin on it. It might be a piece of Sun Basin Soap, our soap company that donates all its profit to charity.

• 5:16Hank Green?

  Uh-huh.

• 5:17John Green?

  And it looks good, man. I mean, I, I love our soap. I'm a big fan.

• 5:21Hank Green?

  You're missing a crucial detail here.

• 5:24John Green?

  Oh, there's a big, there's a big part bitten out of it.

• 5:27Hank Green?

  Yeah. What, what appears to have bitten that?

• 5:31John Green?

  A man?

• 5:34John Green?

  Was it a man? Did you bite a piece of soap?

• 5:38Hank Green?

  I did. I was, I was, uh, I was inspired to record a number of promotional videos for Sun Basin Soap yesterday. And by the end of it, I was, I was getting a little loopy, and I was like, would you go and check out Good Store if I ate this right now? And then I kind of made a deal with this imagined version of the person watching it. And I was like, you will, won't you? If I take a bite, you will. And I, and I realized that they, that they would if I did. So I did.

• 6:09John Green?

  It's non-toxic. I will say, when I was a kid...

• 6:12Hank Green?

  I wouldn't call it non-toxic. Look, it's all, it's all high-quality natural ingredients before the soap part gets made. But all soap is not good for you to put in your body. Don't do that. And it tasted not good for me to put in my body.

• 6:27John Green?

  I remember when I was a kid, I cursed in front of one of our friend's parents, and they made me wash my mouth out with soap.

• 6:35Hank Green?

  Wow.

• 6:36John Green?

  And they weren't even my parents. I was like, wow, I can't believe someone else's parents are making me wash my mouth out with soap.

• 6:44Hank Green?

  When in our household...

• 6:46John Green?

  No, I mean, cursing was frankly encouraged.

• 6:49Hank Green?

  What, what, how did our parents feel about this?

• 6:52John Green?

  I don't think they ever knew.

• 6:53Hank Green?

  We've had this conversation on the podcast before.

• 6:55John Green?

  I think we might have.

• 6:56Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:57John Green?

  Probably while promoting Sun Basin Soap. All right, let's do questions from our listeners before we fall down a rabbit hole of promoting our promotions within promotions.

• 7:06Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 7:07John Green?

  All right, let's begin with this question from April, who writes, "Hi, John and Hank. Why, when you don't have your glasses on, do things get less blurry when you squint your eyes? Thanks, April." Now, Hank, I have a guess for this. I bet you have science for this, but I have a guess for this. I think that nearsightedness

• 7:27Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 7:28John Green?

  and potentially farsightedness as well are actually problems with the shape of your eye. And when you are squinting your eye, you are changing its shape. That's my guess.

• 7:42Hank Green?

  That's wrong.

• 7:43John Green?

  Dang it.

• 7:44Hank Green?

  I mean, it is, there's certainly shapes that are wrong here, but you're not changing the shape of your eye when you squint. You're changing the amount of light that's getting in. And when you've got a bunch of light, that can go in all kinds of, like, it's coming from a lot of different directions. This is how I understand it. When you're getting a little bit of light, it's only coming from kind of the one direction. So, so effectively, you are, you're kind of like making your pupils smaller. You're letting light, less light in. So like, the flesh becomes artificial pupil.

• 8:16Hank Green?

  And, uh, and so that lets fewer light rays in. Uh, that might, that might end up getting to the wrong part of your eye. And so you're only letting the, the very middle part in, I think, is how I understand it. Uh, here's what Deboki wrote. Squinting helps focus the light in your lens.

• 8:33John Green?

  Hank doesn't understand anything about optics, man.

• 8:34Hank Green?

  I hate optics so much. It's true.

• 8:36John Green?

  What, Deboki, just read that again, Hank, because Deboki just confirmed my guess.

• 8:41Hank Green?

  Okay, squinting helps focus light on your lens. Also, it helps make sure we don't get too much light in our eye. Our, also, uh, yeah, um, but, but there, I don't know, maybe there's some, some effect where it's actually changing the shape of your eye. I don't think that's what's happening. You, you can do it the same thing if you just look through a little hole in your fingers, though. So, so like, I know that it's not just that. Like, if you, if you, yeah, that totally works. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that works great. I can absolutely see what my, my computer screen says, even when I can't, if I do a tiny hole with my finger.

• 9:16John Green?

  I can't. But then again, I can't see anything. I am, I am so unable to see past the end of my own nose, both metaphorically and literally, that it's a real hindrance. It's a real hindrance, Hank.

• 9:31Hank Green?

  Look, here's what I'm gonna say, April. There's diagrams on the internet. I can't explain this with words, but there's diagrams, and I can't give you one of those here.

• 9:40John Green?

  I love that if Hank comes within a mile and a half...

• 9:43Hank Green?

  Some things are for pictures.

• 9:43John Green?

  I wanted to start with this question, because I know that if Hank comes within a mile and a half of optics, he gets very stressed out.

• 9:48Hank Green?

  I don't like it.

• 9:52Hank Green?

  Tavoki is moving right now, so we didn't get a chance to have a pre-call about the facts.

• 9:58John Green?

  It was probably, she was probably gonna say how good a job I did with my guess.

• 10:03Hank Green?

  You did great, John. But nobody write that on your term paper or anything, okay?

• 10:08John Green?

  I've got another question. It's from Colleen, who writes, "Hi, John and Hank. I'm a listener from Taiwan, and I've been a fan of Vlogbrothers and John's book since 2014. I'm currently at the beach, looking at the waves roll over and over again. And I was just wondering, do the water particles from really far away eventually reach the shore, or are the ones washing up on shore always the same water particles? If some do come from far away, roughly how much of the water is actually new? Thank you. Currently curious, Colleen." Now, this is a great ques- I know that some of the water must be from far away, because sometimes, like, you know, things from miles, hundreds of miles away, or thousands of miles away, wa- wash up on further shores, right? Like, you get wetters in bottles that have

• 10:52John Green?

  gone 10,000 miles, or whatever, across the Pacific Ocean. But how many of the water particles in a, in like, a wave lapping against the shore are the same water particles from like, six weeks ago, lapping against the shore?

• 11:08Hank Green?

  You know, I don't think anybody's like, done the math on this. I think that there's, uh, it's, it mixes, but it's slow. And, and this is like, a wild thing to think about the ocean. And, and the way that it mixes is so important to life on Earth. So, so one of, one of the things that you really want is for like, the cold, uh, the cold water from down low, that, uh, contains a bunch of nutrients to like, come up and, and be able to, because you can't, the, the ocean has so much light, that all the nutrients will get used up pretty quick. So it, like, the top level of the ocean, it's like, there's like, the, the, the limiting factor is not the fuel of the sunlight. The limiting factor

• 11:49Hank Green?

  is the nutrients. And so that nutrient availability is a huge deal. And so, there, there's not just like, the top of the water, there's the depth of the water. And all of this mixing matters so much, because that water carries stuff around. I was just reading about, uh, how, you know, we killed most of the whales, like, like, a lot. We, there's, we're nowhere close to the old whale populations.

• 12:12John Green?

  Right.

• 12:13Hank Green?

  And they looked at, at this, and they were like, "Well, the krill population must have skyrocketed, because these whales weren't eating the krill anymore." And what they found was that the krill, actually, they were fewer krill than, uh, the, now, than there would have been back then, when the whales were eating them, which made no sense initially, but it turns out that the whales were part of nutrient cycling. They were bringing nutrients to the surface, and that was allowing more phytoplankton to be created, which was allowing more krill to survive, which was allowing more whales to do their whale stuff. And that's-

• 12:46John Green?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let me stop you. So the whales were creating nutrients by dying and falling to the bottom of the ocean?

• 12:53Hank Green?

  By pooping.

• 12:53John Green?

  By pooping?

• 12:55Hank Green?

  Yeah, so by pooping at the surface of the ocean.

• 12:57John Green?

  By pooping, and then that would create, that would help create some nutrients, which would allow for phytoplankton, which would allow for krill, which would allow for whales, which would allow for more pooping?

• 13:08Hank Green?

  Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:09John Green?

  Whoa, brother, that is crazy.

• 13:13Hank Green?

  Yeah, so they're like, part, like, weirdly, part of the non-living part of the ocean. Like, you don't think of just like, nutrients, like, like-

• 13:21John Green?

  Whale poop.

• 13:22Hank Green?

  Like potassium, and magnesium, and calcium, uh, you know, minerals, as, as, you know, that's like, geology, almost. But the whales were moving that stuff around. And, uh, and now we're starting to get that back. But like, it's, it's wild to think that the whales are kind of feeding themselves with their poop.

• 13:41John Green?

  My mind is a little blown to think about whale poop being indirectly the food that whales eat?

• 13:48Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:49John Green?

  But I guess that's true for humans, too, at least according to the Matt Damon film, The Martian.

• 13:57Hank Green?

  Famously entirely historically accurate film, The Martian. But yeah, I mean, we're all, we're all part of the cycle. They're all part of the cycle.

• 14:04John Green?

  I don't like that idea at all. I don't like the idea that whales are indirectly eating their poop from krill that ate phytoplankton and ate their poop. I don't like that one little bit. That displeases the part of me that really has what I think is very justifiable poop aversion.

• 14:23Hank Green?

  Well, and what, yes, as we've discussed on the podcast before. The thing that gets me about it is not so much the eating poop, it's the how many whales there were. And like, my instinct is, the ocean is very big. There's no way that, that like, animal, like, a species pooping could have that much impact on it. You know, it's just like, the dilution is so dramatic. But because the, the ocean is so like, has so much energy coming into it in the form of sunlight, uh, that phytoplankton's like, biggest thing that they need is any amount of, you know, nitrogen, and, uh, this, this, this good stuff that, you know, they need to build their own DNA and stuff. They're like, the, any amount of it immediately spikes

• 15:08Hank Green?

  the amount of, of production of, of life. And whales were producing a huge amount.

• 15:15John Green?

  Right, right. This reminds me of something important, that I don't think we've ever talked about in the 12-year history of this podcast, which is that I have a somewhat, I don't know if it's kind of a minority opinion, if this is like, an 80/20 issue, but I'm pretty opposed to the ocean.

• 15:34Hank Green?

  Oh, that's, I am hugely in favor. Uh, you're really wrong about this one. Unless, unless you're like-

• 15:41John Green?

  I understand that the ocean is essential for life, and that I crawled out of it, and that I carry an ocean around with me, inside of me, that, that, that allows me to be a person, and yada, yada. I understand that there is no Earth without ocean. I, I get it, that like, everything that is good and noble about life on Earth is ocean-dependent. I understand it. I'm opposed to the ocean. I think the ocean, I, I guess what I'm, what I should say is, I'm opposed to humans on the ocean. I think, I, in the same way that I think-

• 16:11Hank Green?

  You don't want to interact with the ocean.

• 16:13John Green?

  I think mice, this is, I had an argument recently with a mouse, actually, because a mouse came into my office, and I tried to explain to it that what I've offered the mouse is all of outside. Like, I've, I, I, I'm willing to tell the mouse, everything other than this 600 square feet belongs to you. And the mouse is like, "No, I want that too."

• 16:37Hank Green?

  It's warm, and you got crumbs, and all kinds of good stuff.

• 16:41John Green?

  Whatever its reasoning is, it's a bridge too far. There's also crumbs outside, right? So it's just a bridge too far. And I tried to explain this. That's how I feel about the ocean, except where the mouse.

• 16:53Hank Green?

  Right. "Don't make unnecessary journeys. Don't take risks on treacherous roads, and don't swim in the sea," as the great, uh, newscaster once said.

• 17:04John Green?

  I've never heard that before, but it's a good line. Did you make that up just now?

• 17:08Hank Green?

  Oh, no, I'll send it, I'll send it to you. It's great. It's like this, but this, I don't know, I think she may be Scottish woman dur- during a storm. And she's like, "Don't make unnecessary journeys."

• 17:18John Green?

  Oh, yeah, now, now, now I've got it. I, you had to, you had to do your bad Scottish accent for it to lock in for me.

• 17:25Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. Which absolutely, at this point in my life, there's plenty of excitement for me without unnecessary journeys, with, without swimming in the sea. And I'll swim in the sea, but like, not really. You know, the first 20 feet, that's not the sea.

• 17:42John Green?

  Yeah, exactly. That's the shore.

• 17:45Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I can stand.

• 17:48John Green?

  If you can stand, or even if you can like, go on your tiptoes and kind of scrape the sand, that's safe. Anything beyond that is the sea. And that, that's not for us.

• 17:59Hank Green?

  Man, I tell you what, I'm not go- I, I want to be able to stand up and have my shoulders out.

• 18:03John Green?

  Oh, you do?

• 18:05Hank Green?

  Yeah, because that's where I know, like, I can like, get good leverage when I'm punching the shark. I don't want to punch a shark if I'm just gonna move backward. I don't have anything to, to push off of.

• 18:15John Green?

  I love a swim in the ocean, like, looking at coral reefs and stuff, like, when I'm, when I'm snorkeling. But I, I don't like it to be, I like it to be close enough to shore, that, um, I can be rescued easily.

• 18:28Hank Green?

  I, I was, I was swimming in the sea, actually, recently. And, and I take it back. This was, I don't know, I don't think I could have stood up here. And I went face to face with a barracuda, and I was like, "Actually, I hate this."

• 18:39John Green?

  Yeah.

• 18:40Hank Green?

  And they're not even, they're not even sharks, you know?

• 18:42John Green?

  They're not even that threatening.

• 18:44Hank Green?

  Yeah, I don't ever hear about people getting hurt by barracuda. I mean, I guess it happens. But like, I, I was like, "I'm out of here. This is, this is, this is his." You know, "This is their place."

• 18:53John Green?

  Exactly. This is their place, in the same way that my office is my place, where mice aren't welcome.

• 18:59Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 19:00John Green?

  All right, let's answer another question from our listeners. It's, it's from Jan, or possibly Jan, given that Jan signs off in a very Dutch way. So I think it's Jan. All right. Dear John and Hank, "Why aren't there any clear deadlines or concrete goals set by governments or international organizations regarding tuberculosis? For example, I live in the Netherlands," no bragging, Jan, "where we have a goal of achieving a smoke-free generation by 2040. The government has introduced many measures to reach this target, and we seem to be actively trying different approaches. Similarly, there is the Paris Agreement on climate change. Even though we may not be doing enough to fully meet its goals, I would argue that the situation would likely be worse without it. So why isn't there an international treaty in which countries come together to set clear, concrete, legally binding goals

• 19:43John Green?

  for reducing tuberculosis worldwide? DFTBA, or as we say in Dutch, vergi it niet om gevelden te zien, Jan?"

• 19:53Hank Green?

  Wow, John, I can't believe you figured out that this guy was Dutch.

• 19:56John Green?

  I know, it really took a-

• 19:59Hank Green?

  That's a huge, that was like, amazing detective work.

• 20:03John Green?

  Sherlock Holmes over here, just piecing it together, using context clues.

• 20:07Hank Green?

  Like, like saying, "I'm Dutch."

• 20:10John Green?

  "I'm from the Netherlands."

• 20:14John Green?

  All right. So this is a great question. The answer, Jan.

• 20:18Hank Green?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait. You always try. You always try. Let me do it. You always try science ones. Let me try a tuberculosis one.

• 20:25John Green?

  You do it.

• 20:26Hank Green?

  I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go, we as a society don't care and are terrible.

• 20:34John Green?

  That's wrong.

• 20:35Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 20:36John Green?

  I'm glad to tell you that is wrong.

• 20:38Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 20:39John Green?

  In, I don't know, like 10 or 15 or eight years ago, there was a UN high level meeting on tuberculosis and the nations of the world came together and they said, this is ridiculous. We have known how to cure this disease since 1955. We are, we are losing at the time, you know, over 1.5 million people to it every year. This is absurd, absurd, absurd. We can't go on like this. We can live in a world where tuberculosis has ended as a public health threat by 2030. And so people started saying, yes, we can. And then other people would say, N T B. And then other people would say, by 2030. And this was a whole thing.

• 21:23Hank Green?

  It was a thing.

• 21:23John Green?

  Okay.

• 21:24Hank Green?

  Yeah, multi-part chant.

• 21:26John Green?

  In fact, at the most recent high level UN meeting on tuberculosis, they were still saying we can end TB by 2030. And they had, they had all these specific goals for what that would look like. Really practically, that looks like a 90% reduction in the burden of disease. So like, ending TB when

• 21:45Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 21:45John Green?

  one out of every three or four people is infected with tuberculosis is not probably gonna happen anytime soon.

• 21:52Hank Green?

  But you could, you could have a lot fewer people suffering.

• 21:55John Green?

  And you could have almost no one dying, right? So you could have a world where like, very, very few people die of tuberculosis. Like here in the United States, tuberculosis accounts for way less than 1% of death. And you could have that worldwide.

• 22:08Hank Green?

  Yep.

• 22:08John Green?

  So the key to Jan's question is clear, concrete, legally binding goals. We have clear goals. We have concrete goals. We do not have legally binding goals. There is not much of a stick that happens if we fail to meet these goals, especially in terms of rich countries making big pledges, which they made, that they then fail to actually deliver on, which they have failed to actually deliver on. So like funding for TB research and TB treatment. They made all these pledges at this big UN high level meeting and then just like, didn't do it.

• 22:46Hank Green?

  So we need to figure, so what you're saying is we need a stick and I want to propose one for you.

• 22:50John Green?

  Propose me a stick. I have a stick. 1.25 million people die every year. What a stick.

• 22:59Hank Green?

  But it's not me. It's not the leader of the country. So we need a stick that really affects the leader of the country. And here's my proposal.

• 23:05John Green?

  This is a great show.

• 23:06Hank Green?

  If they do, if they, if they, if they do it, then, then after they die, they get to go to like a really cool place. And if they don't do it, after they die, they go to a bad place.

• 23:16John Green?

  Oh.

• 23:17Hank Green?

  And then we, we create like a guy who kind of like chooses.

• 23:21John Green?

  Yeah. Based on whether or not TB was cured.

• 23:25Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of like the, the current version of the guy, which is very, seems very nebulous, we need like a specific guy who talks to us about this stuff.

• 23:35John Green?

  Yeah. I'm gonna throw it out there, actually. If this guy, this theoretical god type of figure,

• 23:41Hank Green?

  Yeah, I think probably not actually gendered would be my guess.

• 23:46John Green?

  Yeah. This person is not a person. This entity obviously transcends gender.

• 23:53Hank Green?

  For sure.

• 23:54John Green?

  And

• 23:55Hank Green?

  Super non-binary.

• 23:57John Green?

  If you can't conceive of that, I'm so sorry.

• 24:02John Green?

  Your life is so impoverished in so many ways.

• 24:05Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 24:05John Green?

  So this, this entity, let's call this entity God.

• 24:10Hank Green?

  Probably. Yep.

• 24:11John Green?

  This entity, if this entity is going to reward the improvements in human health and punish worsening of human health, which I love the idea of, I think this entity, and this is gonna be a controversial take coming from me, actually shouldn't start with tuberculosis. This entity should start with heart disease, cancer, like chronic illnesses that are causing a lot of suffering and death around the world, like cause, you know, like

• 24:38Hank Green?

  Yeah, those are harder, but like, there's lots of treatments that

• 24:42John Green?

  Not that much harder.

• 24:43Hank Green?

  A lot of, a lot of treatments that, that we have in the US are not available in other places. Yeah.

• 24:48John Green?

  Right. You could really reduce the number of people dying as a result of hypertension, for example.

• 24:53Hank Green?

  For sure.

• 24:53John Green?

  Like dramatically.

• 24:55Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 24:55John Green?

  So I think that we need to think bigger than just tuberculosis and say, this god figure, every year that the life expectancy of humans goes up, extra people get to the good place. And every year it goes down, extra people go to the bad place. And whether you go to the good place or bad place is decided entirely by how much power you have.

• 25:21Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah. I like that.

• 25:23John Green?

  So if you will, Hank, let me just throw this out there as an idea.

• 25:27Hank Green?

  Well, like, not, not, not, you don't like go to the bad place because you didn't have a lot of power, but there's like a, there's like a thing.

• 25:33John Green?

  The opposite. Here's my concept, Hank.

• 25:35Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 25:35John Green?

  There is a god figure

• 25:39John Green?

  who maybe comes to earth.

• 25:41Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 25:44John Green?

  And preaches about a world where the last shall be first.

• 25:50Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 25:51John Green?

  And the poor will be especially blessed. And the most marginalized and vulnerable people will actually be the people who we should pay the most attention to and devote the most resources to their care.

• 26:05Hank Green?

  I like that. And I, it'd be cool if like, the guy like spent all of his time healing people. You know, while he was here, he was like, I'll do it the way that you should.

• 26:14John Green?

  And hanging out with the most vulnerable people, like sex workers and tax collectors and lepers.

• 26:23Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 26:24John Green?

  This is my concept.

• 26:26Hank Green?

  I know, I know just enough.

• 26:29John Green?

  Yeah, you really participated in that bit, considering your total lack of understanding of Christianity. And also, to be fair, many Christians

• 26:42Hank Green?

  It's not the version that you hear. Yeah.

• 26:48Hank Green?

  Oh, oh, God. What a thing, John. What a thing to be religious. Must be interesting.

• 26:54John Green?

  It's fun. I recommend it. I mean, do I recommend it? I don't know. It's fine. You can, the truth is, you, you can, you can have a moral compass either way.

• 27:04Hank Green?

  Turns out, I hope so.

• 27:06John Green?

  And you can also, by the way, have a bad moral compass either way.

• 27:11Hank Green?

  Yeah, I don't know. Like, the, in terms of the actual stick, this is very hard. We've had this exact same problem with climate change, where it's like, everybody sort of signs up to hit the targets. And they can work really hard to hit the targets, but the moment the, the hitting of the target starts to hurt, which does, like, it's not free, then suddenly the target becomes less important. If, if it seems like you're not gonna be able to get voted in next time and your opponent is like, I don't care about those targets, vote for me instead.

• 27:39John Green?

  Right.

• 27:40Hank Green?

  It's very hard to, to have the targets continue to matter.

• 27:44John Green?

  Which reminds me, actually, that today's podcast is brought to you by the stick. The stick. Hank and I are bringing it back.

• 27:50Hank Green?

  Yes, we need to abuse the powerful, John. This podcast is also brought to you by your pupils. Your pupils. Sometimes they're a little too big.

• 27:57John Green?

  And today's podcast is brought to you by whales. Whales essentially indirectly eating their own poop.

• 28:03Hank Green?

  Also, John, this podcast is brought to you by the Dutch. The Dutch. Not pretending to not be Dutch. They're putting it right out there.

• 28:13John Green?

  If I were Dutch, I would be so proud. You would, I would, I would wear orange every day.

• 28:17Hank Green?

  Yeah, I, I spent some time in the Netherlands because that's where we did VidCon Europe for a little while. And one of the great things about being, me being in the Netherlands is everybody thinks I'm Dutch.

• 28:29John Green?

  Oh, yeah, you do look a little Dutch.

• 28:31Hank Green?

  That's gotta be, he's got like light colored hair and he's tall. That's gotta be a Dutch person. And they just ask me Dutch questions and I'm like, sissine pas um peep.

• 28:45Hank Green?

  This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Wayfair. There are a number of objects in my home that I have been extraordinarily well-served by, maybe for 15 or 20 years. Like a pair of fake leather upholstered stools that I've had forever. But they've seen better days. They maybe need a little bit of a refresh. Good news, Wayfair helps you create a home that stands up to real life with quality products, great value, and trusted reviews. Wayfair verified products are hand vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection. You can use filters, customer photos, and more than 20 million verified five-star reviews to confidently find the right fit for your home. And now those stools that I had 15 or 20 years ago, I don't have those.

• 29:28Hank Green?

  I have different stools that are very comfortable and look, let's just say, better. Find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com.

• 29:52Hank Green?

  This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Quince. I do very much like opening up my closet and finding an item that I know is gonna be both comfortable and I'm just gonna look good in it. It's gonna go well with my khakis or my jeans or my third kind of pant that I, I have like a, like a pair of orange pants. Just things that make getting dressed easier. And that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and merino wool. And the styles are timeless and they're versatile. And they're designed to become dependable pieces that you reach for day after day. This morning, I put on this jacket that I'm currently wearing with just a white t-shirt

• 30:34Hank Green?

  and I knew immediately, this is gonna work. I went downstairs and Catherine was like, look at that nice jacket. Where'd that come from? You know where it came from? It came from Quince. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman. So you're paying for the quality, not the brand markup. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. 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 too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know that it was Dear Hank and John. It's a good way to support the show. I feel like I should say it's Q U I N C E. I guess it's pretty easy to spell Quince. Quince.com. I feel tempted to make up a tagline for them, but that's not what they want me to do.

• 31:20Hank Green?

  I, I shouldn't do that.

• 31:26Hank Green?

  This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Factor. Factor makes chef crafted, dietitian designed, ready to eat meals. So you don't have to choose between real food and convenience. You can have both real food and convenience, which is good because I will choose convenience every time, even if convenience is just peanuts again. Literally, I eat a lot of peanuts. Factor meals are ready in two minutes and I'm not joking there. They are ready in two minutes and they require no prep and no cleanup. So even the days when your schedule is completely out of control, eating well is still achievable. But here's a secret I have for you. Sometimes I actually do introduce cleanup artificially. I will move it from the Factor container onto a plate so I can feel like I'm having

• 32:11Hank Green?

  a real meal and that's fine. And then I have one plate to clean. I don't have a bunch of pots and pans to clean though. Every week you will find over 100 nutrient dense menu items to choose from and new options like salmon burgers, shredded pork, collard greens and more. Plus add-ons you'll crave like pumpkin flavored cheesecake and protein shakes. 97% of users agree that Factor meals help them live a healthier life. So you can feel confident that you're doing something good for yourself with every meal. True story, right now I do not have any Factor meals in my fridge and I am hungry and I'm about to go inside and absolutely rummage for something and I'm sad about it. Some current Factor meals include chicken taco bowl with corn salsa and cilantro crema.

• 32:55Hank Green?

  This is making me so hungry. Onion portobello burger with potatoes and white cheddar. That's right, they can help you go vegetarian or eat less meat. You can also have golden corn and shrimp risotto with Brussels cabbage and pepper medley. But I can't because I'm allergic to shrimp. Let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com/dearthank50off and use code DEARHANK50OFF to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year. While supplies last until October 31st, 2026. That's code DEARHANK50OFF at factormeals.com. Dear Hank, 50 off at factormeals.com. See the website for more details.

• 33:38John Green?

  All right, Hank, I have a question from Al who writes, Dear John and Hank, my family and I are avid users of Good Dutch Stores sun base and soap available now at Good Dutch Store.

• 33:46Hank Green?

  Don't eat it.

• 33:47John Green?

  Don't eat it. Don't eat it, even though it does sometimes contain food, which is Al's question. We are particularly fond of Forager, Forager, which has exfoliating coffee grounds. When I wash my hands with Forager soap, do I absorb any caffeine from the coffee grounds through my skin? Recently, we got a kitten whose favorite pastime appears to be gnawing on fingers. Does she get at all cat finated by chomping my digits? Kittens and caffeine, Al.

• 34:20Hank Green?

  I mean, you're not getting none in you.

• 34:22John Green?

  Really? You can have transdermal caffeine?

• 34:25Hank Green?

  Yeah, I mean, certainly like on the hands, probably less, you know, they're pretty thick, hard to, hard to get through, but the backs of the hands, that can be a little thinner, but yeah, caffeine's small enough that it can pass through the skin. There are in fact caffeinated soaps and I think that the marketing of these caffeinated soaps is, but the thing about like-

• 34:43John Green?

  Is what? Finish the sentence. BS?

• 34:48Hank Green?

  Look, I've not tried it. I think you gotta, I think you gotta put it on some pretty sensitive areas of the body to have, have the skin be thin enough for a substantial amount to get in there. But I tell you, uh, you know, more power to the marketers, I guess. It's so weird. I had this conversation with a, with a guy who's the CEO of a big e-commerce company. And I was like, what can we do at Good Store to do a better job? And he just like pitched me on a series of manipulative tactics that I find completely morally objectionable. I just don't, which don't include this actually.

• 35:22John Green?

  No, do include it. He's not going to listen. He's not, Hank, there's only one billionaire who listens to this podcast. Everybody knows that.

• 35:31Hank Green?

  He was also like upfront with it. He's like, you probably wouldn't want to do what this company is doing, but this is working really well right now. And I'm like, you're right, I wouldn't want to do that. So he had good ideas too. But, uh, but it is crazy the extent to which, um, the world of e-commerce is just largely a system to give money to Facebook.

• 35:55John Green?

  Yep.

• 35:55Hank Green?

  In exchange for converting a tiny amount of ad spend into profit. Um, so we are, you know, we don't want to do that too much, but, uh, we want to have really effective advertising, which is mostly what we have, thank goodness. Uh, but we, we wouldn't want to tell people that, uh, this is one way to like get your pick me up in the morning is to have coffee soap. But ground up coffee, like the coffee grounds also like are going to be holding on to a lot of their caffeine. You're not going to be steeping it through hot water. So I wouldn't be thinking that much of this is going to get into your body and even less of it's going to be getting into a cat's body. And I also did no research on whether cats actually get caffeinated. This is what happened when DeBoki goes out of town. I just-

• 36:36John Green?

  Wait, no, I mean, cats, just to be clear, Al, your cat is not getting caffeinated from gnawing on your finger that was washed-

• 36:46Hank Green?

  Oh, for sure.

• 36:47John Green?

  That contained coffee grounds.

• 36:49Hank Green?

  Yeah, I just don't even know if like caffeine has an effect on cats. Like catnip, for example, has an effect on cats, but has no effect on us. So like, but I assume that it would. I think that caffeine is a fairly like cross mammal thing.

• 37:03John Green?

  Man, I used to know this guy who liked to drink with his dog. It was really sad. Um, and the dog would like drink a beer out of a dog bowl while the guy drank. Yeah. Dogs can get drunk, man.

• 37:19Hank Green?

  Uh, oh, caffeine is toxic to cats. Everybody, I Googled it. Don't let, don't let your cat have caffeine.

• 37:27John Green?

  There you go. Caffeine is toxic to cats, but just to be clear, Forager soap is not going to caffeinate your skin in a way such that your cat is going to have any negative or positive effects. Yeah, that's all marketing lies.

• 37:42Hank Green?

  I'm sure that you can get a little bit. Certainly if you do like a coffee enema, that's a thing people do and that can, that can get you jazzed.

• 37:51John Green?

  Yes, indeed. If you, if you enemasize Forager soap, you might be in a different situation. Don't do that.

• 38:02Hank Green?

  A further disclaimer.

• 38:06Hank Green?

  For external use only.

• 38:08John Green?

  One of the other ways you shouldn't use our product.

• 38:12Hank Green?

  Yeah. We got, I want to make, I want to make a video that's like, okay, we're going to talk about all the things that you should not do.

• 38:20John Green?

  Yeah, don't snort it. Don't snort it.

• 38:22Hank Green?

  Yep. Mm-hmm. Don't throw it at people.

• 38:24John Green?

  A thousand times. You know what you should be snorting?

• 38:28Hank Green?

  Uh-huh.

• 38:29John Green?

  Very little.

• 38:30Hank Green?

  Air, just air, 100%. Nothing should go up there but air.

• 38:33John Green?

  Occasionally some, some saline.

• 38:36Hank Green?

  Maybe saline, but not Afrin. Man, this bad stuff, it gets you addicted.

• 38:41John Green?

  Oh my God, I'll tell you what. Yeah. You can say a lot of bad things about Afrin, but that first hit of Afrin when you're fully blocked is a wonder. I mean, I'm not here to tell people to abuse drugs that can make you dependent upon them, but oh my God, when Afrin hits, it hits.

• 39:03Hank Green?

  You ever think about, you ever think about like what, like what you are truly susceptible to like, I know I need to stay out of casinos, you know?

• 39:11John Green?

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:11Hank Green?

  Uh, I know what I'm like. I'd be like, I figured this one out.

• 39:17John Green?

  Oh, would you? I'm, I-

• 39:19Hank Green?

  No, because I know that you can't, but I, I would think that I could and I need to stay out of casinos.

• 39:24John Green?

  You'd create a system for yourself? I personally love a casino, but I never lose more than a hundred dollars in one. Also never lose less than a hundred dollars.

• 39:34Hank Green?

  John loses $99 every time he goes.

• 39:38John Green?

  No, I bring in a hundred dollars and I walk out with nothing guaranteed every time.

• 39:41Hank Green?

  Every time.

• 39:42John Green?

  Yeah. Cause I play until they don't, until I don't have $100 anymore.

• 39:48Hank Green?

  We were in Vegas for your bachelor party and your friend, uh, needed to go to the ATM to get more money at one point because of the way that he was gambling.

• 39:57John Green?

  Yeah, we were having a good time.

• 39:59Hank Green?

  This made me so uncomfortable.

• 40:01John Green?

  I remember that Hank gambled exactly once and it was at a game called Casino War.

• 40:07Hank Green?

  Which is the worst odds. It's the one they put right in front of the elevators.

• 40:10John Green?

  It's, it's bad odds. It's also dumb. Like it's also uninteresting.

• 40:15Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:15John Green?

  You're just playing war and so you turn over two cards and whoever has the higher card wins, except you lose most of the wars. That's how the casino makes its money.

• 40:24Hank Green?

  They make the war mechanic casino slanted. Yeah.

• 40:27John Green?

  And so Hank like turned over a 10 and the dealer turned over a four and Hank won 20 bucks and he was like, great, I'm done. So based on my observation of you in a casino, I'm actually not at all worried that you would be a problem at a casino because I've seen you in a casino and you bet $20 once one and walked away, which I've never done.

• 40:44Hank Green?

  Well, you haven't seen me trade Bitcoin, John. I'm kidding.

• 40:48John Green?

  Oh my God, you're kidding, right?

• 40:50Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 40:50John Green?

  I just had a flash of panic.

• 40:54Hank Green?

  Yeah, no, there's, there, the world, the world can, can take it all away if you, you let it.

• 41:02John Green?

  I'm blessed not to be a gambler, but I do have other weaknesses like Afrin.

• 41:12Hank Green?

  You and mom.

• 41:14John Green?

  Oh man, mom and I love Afrin. We've got, we just love it. All right, Hank, before we get to the all important news from AFC Wimbledon and Mars, let's answer this question.

• 41:23Hank Green?

  Less importantly.

• 41:25John Green?

  Yeah, sorry, did I reveal my bias there?

• 41:29John Green?

  Let's answer this question from Ethan. We've gotten, we've gotten a lot of questions in the last few weeks from folks who have been laid off recently. And so I just wanted to answer this one from Ethan who says, hi, John and Hank, a few days ago, I was told that I was getting laid off from my job, that I've put so far my entire adult career into. It was the first job I got right out of college and almost exactly a decade later, I'm being let go. That sucks. This unfortunately is due to a company-wide decision and almost the entire department I'm in is in this situation. The hard part is I just bought my first home a month ago and on top of that, my fiance and I have already started wedding planning. If worse comes to worse, I may need to hold off on the wedding to make sure I can financially support myself and my fiance. We don't have a date yet, uh, but it was going to be a 2027 wedding, which is quickly approaching. Because of all this major events, should I delay the wedding?

• 42:13John Green?

  Should we just go to the courthouse and then host a party later? Yes, is the answer.

• 42:20Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 42:20John Green?

  I'm going to stop you right there, Ethan.

• 42:21Hank Green?

  Well, or, or you don't have to get married right now.

• 42:25John Green?

  Yeah, no, I just, I, I, I think that weddings are the- Worst investment personally.

• 42:31Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, no, for sure. And they're so expensive now. Yeah.

• 42:36John Green?

  They're so expensive and like all, all you get, you are just as married at the end of an expensive wedding as you are at the end of a cheap wedding, Ethan, is what I would say about this. I want to talk about being laid off, but first I want to talk about weddings, which is that you are equally married either way. Like I had a big wedding with like 300 people at it. Blessedly, it was very important to my in-laws and, and they were willing to support it. They're amazing people. It was a great party, whatever. It was great. My friend Stan, who started Crash Course with me, got married at a courthouse in New York City. And 15, 20 years later, we are equally married.

• 43:14Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:15John Green?

  You know what I mean?

• 43:16Hank Green?

  Yeah, the, the, exactly. Yes. No, the wedding does not have much to do with the marriage.

• 43:22John Green?

  Really doesn't.

• 43:23Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 43:23John Green?

  So I think throw a party, you can even throw a party where you don't, where you don't pay for things, where you ask people to bring their own beer or whatever. And there's all kinds of ways to have a wedding at all kinds, or a wedding party at all kinds of different cost points. And don't get sucked into big wedding. And I apologize if like the knot is sponsoring today's episode of Dear Hank and John or whatever, but like,

• 43:49John Green?

  it's such, it's, it's just, it's so easy to feel like this is a really important thing. And what's important actually is to have as many people or, or to have people you love there with you, I think can be important. I think that can be meaningful. Like it was very meaning, the part of my wedding that was meaningful was being in the church and looking out at the assembled crowd and thinking so many people who love me are orienting their love for us in our direction right now. That was what was meaningful.

• 44:17Hank Green?

  Yeah. Well, I also think like you have to figure out what's important to you in this. Like it's for you. I remember realizing the extent to which it wasn't entirely for me, where there were things that I was doing for my wedding that were not about my preferences, but about other people involved.

• 44:36John Green?

  Parents, yeah.

• 44:37Hank Green?

  Yeah, particularly parents. But the, but I, I think that if you, what you want is to be married, get married. And then if, if what you want is like a big experience, nobody even needs to know that you're already married. Like, yeah, so, so like have, have the thing and do the, do the thing the way that you want to do it. But like, don't, don't put yourself in a hard situation because you feel like you've already made this choice. You know, you have to respond to the world as it exists.

• 45:08John Green?

  And more to the point about the getting laid off part of it. I'm just so sorry that you put so much of yourself and your time and your energy. And it ended this way, but here's what I would remind you of. Hopefully you learned a lot along the way. You're going to be a great, you're going to be able to contribute in ways that you couldn't have contributed before to a different organization. And, but it's very, it's, it's tough, man. Like I remember, like when, when I've had loved ones get laid off or leave jobs or get fired or whatever. It's so heartbreaking because you've invested so much in that institution and that institution says, we don't need you anymore.

• 45:51John Green?

  And that's just such a bad, like, that's such a bad feeling. It's so hard not to conflate that with your own sense of well-being and worth. But that isn't your well-being and worth. But that's like,

• 46:03Hank Green?

  Yep.

• 46:04John Green?

  A corporation that ultimately like has told you a series of stories, but what it actually exists to do is to make returns for its shareholders.

• 46:12Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. It, it, it, yeah.

• 46:15John Green?

  And it's just disappointing when, when, when that is laid bare in a way that profoundly impacts your personal well-being.

• 46:23Hank Green?

  Right. And, and when we are sort of told by society, the extent to which, you know, our value is how we can provide and how we are, you know, valued by that system.

• 46:38John Green?

  Yeah.

• 46:41John Green?

  No, I mean, I, yeah, it's really, really hard. So mostly you have our commiserations and sympathy, but as far as the wedding goes, I think get married when and how you want within the confines of what's realistic. I just, I look back at it and I think almost every day of my marriage has been more important than my wedding day.

• 47:11Hank Green?

  Yeah, the wedding can be super fun though.

• 47:13John Green?

  It was super fun. No, it can be super fun. And I totally understand the urge to have a party and to be with people who love you and to be celebrated and to celebrate this, this, this union. I understand all of that. And I think that, and I, and I understand like being denied that being very frustrating. I just think like the, the, the industry around it has just built up to such an extreme.

• 47:36Hank Green?

  Hmm, it's crazy.

• 47:38John Green?

  That, that I think it's important to note that like, like you said, a wedding is not a marriage.

• 47:43Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 47:45Hank Green?

  Yeah. I mean,

• 47:46John Green?

  And the cool thing about marriage is that it deepens over time, right? So like, you know, I'd almost rather have a party now. Like I'd almost rather have a party for our 20th anniversary than have a party for our wedding day. Even though that was an important accomplishment, like the bigger accomplishment is now.

• 48:04Hank Green?

  It's funny because Catherine and I had been married for, or we'd been dating for seven years when we got married.

• 48:09John Green?

  Right.

• 48:09Hank Green?

  And, uh, and so it did a little bit feels like, feel like that. It also felt like a billion years, like seven years felt like so long.

• 48:16John Green?

  Right. Cause you were, cause it was like a huge portion of your life.

• 48:19Hank Green?

  Yeah. And, uh, it, it felt like we had late waited forever, you know? Everyone was like, why aren't you guys married? And the,

• 48:31John Green?

  Meanwhile, you were like 24.

• 48:33Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, we were 26.

• 48:35John Green?

  Right.

• 48:36Hank Green?

  And I think that the, uh, because we had been together for so much of our adult lives, it really did feel like a celebration, a relationship that already existed, not like a celebration of a new joining. It was like a confirmation of a joining.

• 48:54John Green?

  When you guys celebrate your anniversary or think about that stuff, do you think about it from the wedding date? Or do you think about it from when you started dating?

• 49:02Hank Green?

  We think about it from the wedding date. I think that's just cultural though. Like I'd like to, but like there was, it was messy, you know? It wasn't like a non-messy seven years. There were times in that seven years when we broke up and,

• 49:12John Green?

  Right, right, right.

• 49:13Hank Green?

  So, uh, that, that, um, yeah, I think that, that, that it makes sense to celebrate that day. But I think about when we first got together as like a anniversary as well.

• 49:26John Green?

  Yeah, I think about the day that we committed to getting married

• 49:32John Green?

  as a bit of an anniversary because that was the day was pretty locked in. You know?

• 49:40Hank Green?

  Yeah, not that that had ever not happened for you.

• 49:44John Green?

  That's true. I had been, um, as my, as my friend, as my friend said at my rehearsal dinner, after John came home from his first date with Sarah, he said, I'm going to marry that girl. And it was only the seventh time he'd said that.

• 50:00Hank Green?

  This is, this is how, how we were built for some reason.

• 50:07John Green?

  All right, Hank, it's time for the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. The news from AFC Wimbledon is that mom and dad got to go to Plough Lane. Mom had never been to Plough Lane before. And over the weekend, I took my parents and my best friend from college, Shannon, to Plough Lane with Rosiana and we got to see AFC Wimbledon play. It was really, really special, you know, for my mom to see my happy place, for her to see the stadium, the fans built, for her to see this, this, uh, you know, great professional team playing, not the most beautiful football in the history of the world, but, but professional level football. It was just really special, you know?

• 50:49John Green?

  I love, I, I love sharing AFC Wimbledon with people in my life because it's such an important part of my life. And then like these people are so important to me. And so, you know, making that connection is very valuable. That's why I'd love to take you to a game someday, but it was awesome. And best of all, in the 88th minute, Miles Hippolyte scored our first goal of the season and we won the game 1-0.

• 51:11Hank Green?

  You only need to score once.

• 51:13John Green?

  You only got to score once and it felt so good, like hugging mom and dad in that moment felt so good. I was just, ah, exuberant. And then I was in a great mood after the game, had a couple beers, got some Mediterranean food, went to bed immediately and flew home.

• 51:32Hank Green?

  Wow, weird, crazy.

• 51:33John Green?

  And here we are. And that was yesterday.

• 51:39Hank Green?

  Oh man, that's not how I live. You're, you're always like, why, why have you never been to an AFC Wimbledon game? It's because I cannot imagine doing that.

• 51:47John Green?

  It's easy. Friday to Sunday, man, you land on Saturday morning, you leave Sunday morning. It's not the best use of resources, I confess. No, we had a couple of extra days in London, so we went to the Tate Modern and we saw all kinds of cool art stuff and it was great.

• 52:04Hank Green?

  Good. In Mars news, Mars has very weird insides. So, uh, we tend to just kind of, because this is how we model it and, you know, we don't have any evidence. Otherwise, we imagine planets to be pretty spherically symmetrical. So like, you know, it's just like ball, ball, ball, all stacked on top of each other. But scientists have found that the interior of the southern hemisphere of Mars is way hotter than the northern hemispheres Mars.

• 52:31John Green?

  The interior.

• 52:32Hank Green?

  The interior, yes.

• 52:33John Green?

  What? How is that even possible? There's weather on the inside?

• 52:37Hank Green?

  Parts can get up to 750 degrees Fahrenheit hotter. This is weird. So, uh, this is based on results from the Mars Global Survey, the Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. So the researchers did this by feeling how the gravity of Mars was affecting the spacecraft. So as the spacecraft orbit Mars, their orbits change very slightly because of the difference in the gravity, like the, the density of Mars at different places. This is called tidal tomography and, uh, and it helps them image, kind of image the inside of Mars. And that in turn create, helps you create a model of the structure and temperature of the inside of Mars.

• 53:20Hank Green?

  And the data suggests that the mantle beneath the southern hemisphere must be quite a bit warmer than the northern mantle. And we do not know why this difference exists.

• 53:31John Green?

  Weird.

• 53:32Hank Green?

  Yes, uh, but it could explain some of the weird things that we've seen about Mars, like the shape of the northern and some of the southern hemispheres.

• 53:41Hank Green?

  So the Insight Lander Seismometer also recorded that seismic waves were usually dissipated faster in the south, which could be connected to this difference. Well, yeah, different things going on and also Mars has had a weird life.

• 53:56John Green?

  I've always imagined that the interior of a planet is very consistent.

• 54:03Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 54:03John Green?

  Throughout.

• 54:04Hank Green?

  I've got news about Earth, John.

• 54:05John Green?

  Crust.

• 54:07Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 54:08John Green?

  That's not true for Earth either.

• 54:09Hank Green?

  No, we got a real weird inside, probably because we got hit by a Mars shaped, sized thing early in our history. And it still makes it weird in there. We've still got like hunks of thea hanging out inside of our mantle.

• 54:23John Green?

  That's very metaphorically resonant.

• 54:25Hank Green?

  Is it?

• 54:26John Green?

  It is. Yeah, it's got some, I might have to think over some of the resonances actually, but in the meantime.

• 54:30Hank Green?

  These things stick with us, huh?

• 54:32John Green?

  In the meantime, I want to thank you for podding with me and thanks to everybody for their questions. You can email us at [email protected].

• 54:40Hank Green?

  I'm Hank, he's John.

• 54:41John Green?

  That's right.

• 54:42Hank Green?

  This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhouse. It was mixed by Joseph Tuna Metish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halsro Hassan Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Taboki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gonna Rolla, as they say in our hometown.

• 55:01John Green?

  Don't forget to be awesome.

• 55:09Hank Green?

  Can I tell you, John, uh, something I just saw on the Nerf I subreddit? As a last part of this podcast, the people who listen through the credits.

• 55:17John Green?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Hank Green?

  This person, uh, was, was, uh, listening but was distracted and came back in a few hours after having stopped and heard me say mice have not had balls since the early 2000 and, and quote, I'm like, have we been chopping off Mises genitalia? What the actual heck? And then John answers, I wouldn't know. I've always used a track pad.

• 55:44John Green?

  That's good stuff. Good stuff.

• 55:45Hank Green?

  Good stuff.