418: Fifty-Three, That’s It For Me

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You're listening to a complexly podcast.

Hello and welcome to dear Hank and John.

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

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

John, one time

the milk,

I threw it right past my friend.

I did.

I did, and it splatted all over the wall.

And she said, why did you do that?

And I said, it was pasteurized milk.

Oh.

I don't know.

I didn't have one.

So I just had to grab that one out of somewhere.

I ever tell you my favorite joke about the pig?

Maybe.

Guy from the city goes to visit his brother, who's a farmer, and the guy from the city notices a three-legged pig.

You know this one?

I don't think so.

Guy says,

hey, why you got a three-legged pig?

Uh-oh.

This is starting to sound familiar.

The farmer says, oh, Bessie?

Oh, Bessie's an incredible pig.

Bessie's like, that's a cow name.

Not this pig, Hank.

This pig is named Bessie.

You know what I like about my jokes is that they're over by now.

Yeah, that wasn't a great joke, but to be fair, most of them aren't.

How are you doing?

I'm good.

Can I hit you with an idea I have?

Of course.

Is it a million-dollar idea?

Yes.

Great.

Wine is over.

Wine is over.

If you, like, the way war is over, if you want it, like John and Yoko?

Yeah, so wine is over.

This is the first, this is the first half of my idea.

You know what?

You know, wine?

Yeah, of course.

They're like, here it is.

Intimately.

Here it is.

It's this special grape juice that we did magic to so that it makes you feel weird.

And

some of it's like $10 and some of it's like $1 million.

Uh-huh.

Wine is over.

People are done with wine.

People don't want wine anymore.

I think wine is not over.

Wine is over.

Look around.

Look at the grocery stores.

There's no wine anymore.

Wine is over.

No, wine is not over.

Wine might be declining among the youths, but wine is over.

So there is definitely an actual thing happening where wine is declining among the youths, the wine deconnists, they they call it.

I think, did we used to go over to our friends' houses with a bottle of wine?

You know, it's like you invite me over, I'm going to bring a bottle of wine.

That's what you do.

You go to the store, you get a bottle of wine.

One, people don't want goods anymore.

They want acts of service.

So we have to do a little thing for our friends.

Two, people don't drink as much anymore.

So like bring in alcohol, maybe the only guy, not maybe half the people who even want any wine.

Three, wine was always dumb.

It was always a bad idea.

It was always stupid.

It's just grape juice.

And it's all, everybody built up this fancy stuff around it.

And I know there's going to be some sommaliers listening to this and some ventures listening to this.

And they're going to be mad at me.

Livelihoods under the bus right now.

Wine was always dumb.

It's always been dumb.

I've always

completely disagree.

I love wine, but go on.

Now what we're going to do, what the new thing, the new big hip thing that everybody's doing is they're making at home on their own, they're making bespoke iced teas, and they're bringing that over to drink with their friends.

Using tea, no doubt, from Good Dot store.

Using tea from Good Dot store.

Oftentimes, some of the delightful decaffeinated varieties we have, because you're going over for an evening with friends, you don't necessarily want to be juicing yourself up.

I like it.

Getting gaked, as they say in my friend group.

Getting geeked, as the kids apparently say.

Over July 4th,

Alice said to mom, I think dad is geeked.

Oh, because you were drunk?

Well, I had had some wine.

I wouldn't say I was drunk, but wine is not over in our hands.

Gaked is when you're over caffeinated.

Oh, I see.

Okay, and geeked is when you've had some wine.

So anyway, I don't dislike the idea because it's good for good.store and what's good for good.store is good for the world.

But wine is definitely not over.

But I kind of do know what you mean because I recently went to this young person's party.

I was with my friend Nat Wolf, who was in the Faultner Stars and Paper Towns movies.

And Nat's just one of my favorite people.

And he was like, listen, I don't want to stop hanging out with you, but I have to go go to my friend Olivia's birthday party.

You should come with me.

And I was like, do I know your friend Olivia?

And he was like, nah, but she's cool.

She'll be fine with it.

She'll be fine with some 47-year-old guy she's never met showing up to her birthday party.

And she was, to be fair.

Olivia was very polite and a lovely, lovely person.

Was it a famous Olivia that I know of?

I don't think so, but I wouldn't totally bet against it.

You know, I don't have a good eye for famous people.

There were a bunch of famous people at the party.

And so it's very possible that she's a famous person.

And I just don't know who she is.

One time I talked to

Bella Hadid for 45 minutes and at the end, Sarah said, how is Bella Hadid?

And I said, who's Bella Hadid?

So, you know, anything's possible.

Was her last name Rodrigo?

No, no, it wasn't Olivia Rodrigo.

I would have recognized that person.

Anyway, Olivia was super cool.

A bunch of nice people at the party.

But I'll tell you what, there's not a lot of alcohol.

They had like two bottles of wine for like 20 people and the bottles of wine weren't getting drunk till John Green showed up.

Yeah.

And the amount of iced tea at this party was unhinged.

Or it certainly should have been, you know?

All the hip Hollywood people are just drinking iced teas.

We're drinking good.store iced tea.

That's right.

Olivia and Nat and all the other hip Hollywood people were drinking good.store iced teas.

All right, Hank, let's answer some questions from our listeners, beginning with this one from Grace, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I know you're a hip podcast for teens, but I'm hoping you can help out a young adult.

Oh, don't worry, Grace.

We're also a hit podcast for 20-somethings.

I remember once

in an old episode, John remarked that he disliked being 13 almost as much as he disliked being 23.

I remembered that mostly because I also really hated being 13 and thought that I should probably watch out for 23.

Well, now I am 23, and while I don't think I tried to make this a bad year, it has sucked pretty bad, definitely among my least favorites.

So my question is, are there more ages I should watch out for?

Is 33 okay?

How about 43?

Hoping for a little bit of me, Grace.

I don't mean 43 was pretty bad for me.

Oh, yeah, that's when you got the cancer.

I don't want to say that you're always making it about cancer, but

I was just thinking of 43, you know?

I think 33 was really pretty good.

33, things were pretty stable.

I think I was on my feet.

I think I was doing all right.

What year was that?

That was 14 years ago.

So that was 2011.

Yeah, I mean, things were fine.

I was right in the Fault in Our Stars.

Actually, actually, actually, 33 was really bad.

I just remembered.

33 was, so I needed my gallbladder out.

I was in a terrible headspace.

I lost like 40 pounds.

I wasn't doing good at all, Hank.

It felt like to get that book out of me, like I was like drowning or something.

It was just horrible.

Grace, maybe the issue is numbers that end in three.

Yeah, it's a cycle.

13, bad.

Three, I don't know.

Three is pretty good from what I could tell.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I think you got a lot of anger built up and you don't have a good way of expressing it.

I'm not sure what to do with it.

It is a very transformative time.

Yeah.

I remember when Alice was three, we called her our threeenager.

Yeah.

She acted like a little teenager.

So 3, 13, 23, 33, 43, you get cancer, Grace, not to concern you.

Or half of us did anyway.

53?

That might be it for me.

That's the rhyme.

53, that's it for me.

It's actually where nowadays, in the new, in the new way, we're going to take all the politicians when they hit that age and just put them out to pasture.

That's it.

They got to eat grass now.

Well,

in that case, we won't have a Congress.

Yeah, no, it's going to be a weird Congress.

It's going to have like four members of Congress.

I think that in general, the hardest years.

And of course, it depends person to person.

Like Sarah had a great middle school experience.

Lots of people have great middle school experiences.

But I think the the end of middle school, which is when you're about 13, the beginning of proper adulthood, whenever that is for you, like early 20s for most people, is really hard.

And then

at least I'm not that old, Grace, but like at least after that for me, it's gotten better.

Like things have been bad, but they've never been as bad as they were before I watched Harvey when I was 25.

23, it's weird.

I don't, it was very bad for me.

Oh, the worst.

It's just so, I mean, you know, obviously people take lots of different paths, but like the, if you kind of graduate from college after like with four years right after high school, then like that's the year where you're like out in the world trying to figure things out.

And that's both like socially very weird because your friend groups might have fractured and gone all over the place.

And it's, of course, professionally and economically very weird because it's like, all right.

Go make money now.

Figure that out.

Right.

Yeah, I think in general, what we want as humans is to be accompanied and to accompany those we love through the trials and travails of humanity.

And that is really hard when you don't have like stable long-term relationships.

And a lot of times you don't when you're that age because a bunch of your relationships is just fractured as a result of moving or as a result of other people moving.

And then you've got the issues that come with being early in your career and being treated often not very well.

You know, like I remember my teacher, Wendy McLeod, my theater teacher in college, said,

you know, you've sort of been a somebody here at Kenyon for the last four years and you're about to be a nobody.

And that was very true.

Well, luckily, I was like a nobody at school, so that was good.

I wanted to be Kenyon.

I wanted to be like locally famous very badly.

It's recently come to my attention that in general, I wanted to be famous very badly, which is hilarious because, of course, I know of no one who's less equipped to be famous or indeed enjoyed it less.

But I did want to be famous so badly.

Like somebody sent me a piece I wrote in 2003 where I was talking about how I would do anything for fans.

And it was so, God, it was so crazy.

You talked about this last week.

I don't know.

I can't get over it, Hank.

Yeah.

Can't work my way through it.

The, the, yes, reading the professions of our former selves is, um, and I don't, I don't mean you and me, I mean like everybody is very uncomfortable.

Horribly uncomfortable.

Yeah.

Horribly uncomfortable.

To see what you wanted when you were 23 and what you want now.

This is the terrible thing about the internet, right?

Is that it preserves all of this?

Like otherwise it would only be preserved in my journals or whatever.

And I could at least deny it.

Well, look, I mean, I think

that most of it isn't even preserved in journals.

And we don't just deny it.

We would not believe it.

Yeah, no, I was genuinely surprised to read these words I wrote in 2003.

I was like, there's no way I thought that.

That's crazy.

That's not me at all.

That's not anywhere like the me I understand myself to be, and indeed understand myself to have been then.

I once watched a movie with Catherine and she was like, We've seen this movie before.

And I said, No, we haven't.

And she was like, Well, I have.

And I was like, Okay, we must have seen it.

You must have seen it and I didn't see it.

And then

two full years later, I found an old blog post where I review the movie.

Yeah, I mean, memory is weird that way, right?

Like, we think of memory as being reliable or as somehow at least being like our testimony about the past.

But in fact, like, memory is Swiss cheese.

Like, and what we do, both like, we don't remember much of what happened, but also like what we do remember

is not really what happened.

Instead, as I wrote in An Abundance of Catherines, what we remember kind of becomes what happened.

Not great.

Doesn't seem like that's how it is, but it is.

And

man, do we not have any idea how any of that works?

So it all makes everything, nothing about the brain doesn't make sense because nothing about the brain does make sense.

So you could tell me anything and I'd be like, sure.

Could be.

Right.

Right.

People ask me questions about the brain and dear hanging John questions.

I'm like, no, that's not happening.

I'm not answering your brain question.

I don't know.

I don't know what's going on in there.

Anyway, Grace, you're going to be okay, not in the short run and not in the long run, but in the medium run.

John, this next question comes from Anastasia, who asks, dear Jenkin Han, hope y'all are well.

I'm lying in bed late at night and a thought has struck me.

Tongues.

Hmm.

How common are they?

How many animal slash beings out there have tongues?

And are we humans in the minority?

Did we all just evolve to have tongues and tongue-like body parts?

Do they all serve the same purpose?

Not any other Asia, Anastasia.

Tongues.

Well, first off, obviously we're in the minority because most life is plants.

Plants don't have tongues.

And plants, unless Hank Green is going to go on one of his crazy Hank Green rants where he's like, you know, actually,

trees do have tongues.

They have tongues called xylem and phloem.

Unless he's going to do one of those things, trees don't have tongues.

As far as I know, insects don't have tongues either, which

though I would say that's a good thing.

It's another most of the things, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So

I don't think that they do.

A lot of vertebrates have tongues.

Now, interestingly, I just made a video on Hank's channel a few weeks ago about

the transition from life in the water to on land.

And when Deboki and I were looking at this, it seems like this was another thing that the land did because fish don't really have tongues.

They have tongue-like things that are sometimes used to manipulate food, that are sometimes used for chemoreception, like taste.

But they're just like little nubs.

And the reason is water is is much more viscous than air and so in order to like get food into the fish they just like suck water in and it pulls everything with it for the most part and so it's a lot easier to move stuff around in water than it is to move stuff around in air and so you once you get that

once you're like out of the water you have to like move things around in your mouth uh in the air and the water can't like play a part in that well it kind of can it kind of can play a part in it right because it's easier to swallow a pill with water water than it is to swallow a pill dry.

Exactly.

Yes.

Yes.

Good point.

And a good illustration of the reality of the...

The fact that we brought the water along with us.

Basically, we are still water creatures.

It's just we're living on land.

So the tongue, once it did evolve, which it mostly didn't do in water,

though it

and it's not entirely clear even if the tongue structure that fish have is related to the tongue structure that land vertebrates have.

But it did a bunch of different stuff so as you can see like snake tongues mostly don't do any manipulation they mostly taste the air uh sure

and you know like dog tongues are mostly there for panting dog tongues do a serve a panting purpose but also like a water lifting purpose which our tongues don't do but also a swallowing purpose and then human tongues human tongues i hadn't thought about how many jobs they do how many jobs i mean i feel like the main job they do is the talking job and the swallowing job well but they also the tasting job.

Oh, yeah.

I mean,

that's a job.

It's a minor job, but it's a job.

No, it's a super important job.

It helps you not eat poison, which kills you.

Yeah, no, like I said, it's a minor job, but it's a job.

Yeah.

And then

there's all the like a recreational activity that they engage in as well.

Are you talking about French kissing?

Yeah,

and et cetera.

Yeah.

How long

has French kissing been a thing?

You know, John, I do not know.

Do you want to check it out while I talk a little bit more about tongues?

Yeah.

So a tongue is a hydrostat, which means that

it is inflated by and moves around in part through the action of filling up with fluid, which is wild.

There is a case to be made that it is a tentacle, and that makes me think that

another species, like a space alien seeing us for the first time, would hate them, would be like, oh my God, they think it's totally normal that there's a tentacle in the middle of the face um the use of the tongue to evolve to be able to be an information communication device absolutely wild not what it was for not what it evolved for and now we have made it so that a huge portion of our brain is dedicated to the movement of the tongue so that we can speak wild Yeah, it's super important because if we couldn't speak to each other with our tongues, we'd have to use our hands like they do in American Sign Language, which we would eventually, I think, have still gotten to language, but it would have been a very different kind of language.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the term French kissing has only existed since the early 20th century, Hank.

And it came from the fact that the British and the Americans just felt those French were very libertine and not at all buttoned up.

And so it was called a French kiss.

Not unlike how the

Italians called

syphilis the German disease and the Germans called it the French disease and the French called it the German disease.

But kissing with tongue has been around for a very long time, at least as long as language.

So

it is referred to in texts that go back at least 3,500 years.

So,

you know, it's been a word around.

It was probably part of the human story from the beginning.

Yeah, there are, I think, I read at some point, there are some folks who don't kiss, like some cultures where kissing isn't a thing.

But, you know,

I bet we've been recreating with the tongue for a long time.

Great.

This next question comes from Chelsea, who writes, Dear John and Hank, my partner and I are getting married in a few months, and we've begun the stressful process of preparing invitations.

We've compiled what we consider to be a fairly well-thought-out list of family and friends.

However, no fewer than five people have insisted that we send an invite to the singer whose concert we attended on our first date.

This seems utterly bizarre to me.

Is it normal to send invites to celebrities or public figures who are absolutely never going to show up?

Should I be sending invites to Brennan Lee Mulligan and the Seattle Kraken and Ben and Jerry?

Not the football club Chelsea.

P.S.

You're totally invited.

And then there's a link.

I'm going to the link right now.

So it's not weird to invite us, but it's weird to invite Brennan Lee Mulligan and Seal.

Apparently.

Musician.

Seal.

It was definitely Seal.

It was definitely a SEAL concert.

You're so right.

Kissed by a Rose in the Gray.

And that's.

Let me see where these people are getting married.

See if we can make it.

Ooh, I'm not available to go to Seattle, but I am available to get something off your registry.

I'm going to rent you a cabal.

We're going to get a lot of questions, you guys.

We're going to get a lot of wedding questions soon after

these shenanigans John's pulling right now.

Oh, hold on.

I'm putting in my credit card number.

What do you think, Hank?

Should you invite celebrities?

I invited a celebrity to my wedding, but they didn't come.

I think that it's about fun.

You know, I think it's if you think that if you and your partner think it's fun to be like, oh, let's, but they're not, you know that they're not going to show up, but I get wedding invitations.

Yeah, I get wedding invitations too.

I've never showed up to one, but I, I, I, I used to say in an early episode of Dear Hank and John, I was like, oh, I'll totally go.

But now I'm like, ah, it's a little awkward if you don't know anybody at the wedding.

In fact, I just officiated a wedding last week, and

we didn't know anybody at the wedding, but it was fine because Sarah was there and like I was the officiant and I knew the couple.

You were delighted.

I think it's weird if you're going there and you don't know the couple.

Well, yeah, you don't want to distract from the event of the day.

You know, if Jeff Goldblum's at your wedding, then it becomes all about Jeff Goldblum.

All about Jeff Goldblum.

Especially because of how he's going to be dressed, which will be immaculate and quite attention-grabbing.

A white tux just there, and it's not even a black tie wedding.

It's just that's the only thing he has to wear to a wedding.

No, he's got like a floral tux.

Yes, a tux of the rainbow, but it's very floral, and it's definitely got a cumber bun, not a belt.

It's a tongue tux.

It's just, it's very, you wouldn't know unless you looked up close.

It is a tux that features all of the variety of vertebrate tongues.

It's called Tongue Mammals of the World.

You can only get it at jeffgoldbloom.com.

The tungstedo.

I invited the New Yorker writer Hendrik Hertzberg to my wedding because it was in a copy of his book, Politics, that I asked Sarah to marry me.

He signed the book, Dear Sarah, Will You Marry John Hendrik Hertzberg?

And so I thought it would be nice to invite him.

And then he wrote back, which was nice.

I mean, looking back, it was nice of him even to write back, right?

I mean, it was nice of him even to RSVP, no.

But when he wrote back, he said, of course I cannot attend your wedding.

Of course.

That's very nice, though.

Of course, I cannot attend your wedding.

What do you mean, of course you cannot?

I cannot attend your wedding would have been adequate.

Of course, you speck of dirt.

I cannot attend your wedding.

But it is nice to be known, even by such a speck.

I am a man, and you, sir, are an ant.

And so, of course, I cannot attend your ant wedding full of other ants.

I'd get bitten and dirty.

I couldn't even fit in.

I couldn't fit into your wedding venue of ants.

What is this?

What is this?

A wedding for ants?

I can't even fit in the colony.

Oh, man.

I think my presence would just be a distraction.

It would be weird if there was a man at an ant wedding, right?

Like,

it would be weird.

And

I'm sure that's how he was thinking about it.

And probably because the queen would be like, what are you doing at the ant wedding?

I'm the queen.

You cannot just attend.

Mere man.

That's more powerful than that.

You're not even part of a super organism.

Well, he can't.

But I'm the leader of this superorganism.

My genes are in all of them.

I do think that humans are ultimately a superorganism, though, you know, like we are deeply connected to each other.

When do we get there?

When do we realize, you know?

When do we start acting like a superorganism?

I've always felt that at some point in the future,

if aliens saw us, they'd be like, oh my God, that's so cute.

They think they're individuals.

And I think they would also think it's so cute that they think the point of life is mere competition and haven't yet figured out that their secret power, their superpower is in fact cooperation and collaboration.

And the only way they have ever done anything ever.

The only way they've ever gotten anything done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or the most effective, competition gets things done, but the most effective way we've gotten things done is through collaboration and through thinking of ourselves as a superorganism, through thinking of ourselves like as a single species.

And no, and nobody ever competed alone, like except in sport.

And even in sport, they didn't compete alone.

Like even in solo sport, there's all of the infrastructure and the coaching and the

people around you supporting you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and if you're like, if you're the only human on earth, there's no reason to run a fast 100-yard dash, you know, other than to evade cheetahs.

That's very true.

That's very true.

I mean, yeah, I mean, co-op, competition exists in superorganisms, you know?

Sure, of course.

Yeah, I'm not saying get rid of competition.

I'm saying understand that lifting up humanity is way, way cooler than lifting up any individual within humanity.

Definitely true.

Anyway, Chelsea, enjoy your cabana on your honeymoon because I just got it for you.

This honeymoon is cabanas.

C-A-B-A-N-A-S.

It's cabanas.

C-A-B-A-N-A-S.

That reminds me, actually, that today's podcast is brought to you by Chelsea and Benjamin's Cabanas.

Chelsea and Benjamin's Cabanas.

They're cabanas.

This podcast is also brought to you by the tongue sito, available at jeffgoldbloom.com.

It's all tongues.

And of course, today's podcast is additionally brought to you by the ages of 13, 23, 33, and 43, not recommended.

And this podcast is brought to you by the end of wine.

The end of wine.

The age of tea is here.

It'd be great if we could catch a big wave like the size of wine with our tea.

That's what I'm saying.

I mean, in fairness, tea is and has always been bigger than wine.

That's true.

That's a good point.

It's just just like you can charge $100 for a bottle of wine.

It's hard to get $100 out of a bag of tea, but we're going to try over at Good Dot Store.

That is, for clarity, not the current business model.

You could get tea for less than $100 at Good Dot Store.

This episode of Dear Hank John is brought to you by Factor.

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All right, Hank, let's go to a serious question.

This one is from Anna, who writes, Dear John and Hank, my name is Anna, and I graduated college a few years ago with a degree in wildlife biology.

I love nature.

I want to devote my time and energy to conserving our natural world, but it's become quite difficult for me to get into grad school or get a wildlife job of any kind due to gestures broadly.

I applied to 15-plus grad programs and 20-plus jobs and got rejected from everything.

I was wondering if you had any advice for me on how not to get discouraged and give up on my dreams.

I'm thinking of pivoting and getting Pilates instructor certified.

Anna, like from Frozen, Anna or Anna.

Is it?

Which way is it?

Is it Anna and Frozen?

I think it is.

I think it is.

Sorry, sorry, Anna.

I missed that one the whole time.

Yeah, well, brutal, brutal, brutal.

Yeah, it's such a hard time right now to get into anything that's been defunded by the U.S.

government or like where the funding is suddenly

precarious.

And that includes everything related to climate action.

It includes everything related to health.

It includes everything related to our natural world.

And it...

It affects both the job market and the grad school market because one, there are fewer grad school spots because

there's less funding.

Two, there's fewer grad school spots because there are people in the situation where they're like, well, I can't immediately get into the workforce.

Another option is grad school.

And so there's more people competing for fewer spots.

This is

not to say that you can't get into grad school ever.

That's one thing that I would say to anybody in that situation.

There are lots of different schools.

There's smaller schools.

There's next year.

You can reach out to faculty directly before applying sometimes to tell a story, tell them why their work appeals to you personally.

That can help.

And

was there something about Pilates in there?

Yeah, Pilates, pivoting to become a Pilates instructor.

And

then last,

you can do all of that.

You can be aware of and focused on your future in conservation while getting certified to be a Pilates instructor and doing that work, which is good, important work.

Yeah.

No, I mean, Hank loves his Pilates class.

I do, I do love Pilates, and also I have seen how much it has helped a lot of people who I know who have had various limitations on their abilities.

It can give you freedom from chronic pain, which is, I think, one of the greatest gifts that you can give a person.

So,

you know, there's no

like hierarchy of jobs like we've been told.

You know,

this is

a falsehood that exists inside of our mind that we have created in our brains.

It's not real.

Any work that

eases the lives of others is good work.

Yeah.

And

the ability to stay interested and focused on conservation, like that work is going to continue to exist.

And I think it's going to continue to get more important.

I think that this...

I mean, I'm an optimistic person.

And maybe I should just say that I hope, but I hope that this is not a permanent situation because conservation matters a lot and it will matter more in the future.

We are going to need to figure out what to do with

a lot of shifts coming up.

You know, like the population of the world is not increasing at the speed that it once was.

We are continuing to be very efficient at agriculture.

And so like, we have to figure out a bunch of stuff to do with a lot of land.

And that land management is going to be a bunch of human decisions and a lot of hard work by humans.

So just just like stay in touch with it, stay connected to it.

But, like, it doesn't need to immediately be your career, but it, it is a passion.

And I, you know, don't advocate for giving up a passion just because it's not a career.

Yeah, I also just want to make sure that we're not minimizing how much this sucks.

It sucks.

How many people it sucks for, because

we hear a lot of this in our inbox.

And, you know, it's really a hard time to be a young person in the workforce.

It's hard to be a person entering the workforce.

It's hard to be a person for a lot of people, especially in the U.S.

right now.

And so we,

yeah, it's just, it's sometimes we don't know what to say, to be honest, because

I mean, it's just a hope.

I hope that there is a huge, that Nerdfighteria just takes over the entire Pilates infrastructure of America.

That would be awesome.

That'd be amazing.

The Pilates infrastructure and the wedding infrastructure.

Like, how cool would it be if like Nerdfighteria infiltrated the wedding industrial complex, you know?

Yeah.

I had two friends get married in the last week.

One got, one got married in a courthouse, one got married in a very nice museum.

And

whoa.

And

they both had really good experiences that were right for them.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

It's great.

I freaking love a wedding, Hank.

I can't help myself.

I love a wedding.

Me too.

Me too.

I haven't gone to a wedding in so long.

All my friends got married.

I hadn't been to a wedding in seven years.

And then I went to a wedding and I was like, ah, God, I love a a wedding.

Even when I have to wear a black tux, I love a wedding.

I know.

I feel like I should get married again.

We should both do it.

We should do a recommitment ceremony.

All four of us.

Yeah.

Sarah has said that she doesn't believe in getting married a second time to the same person.

Who doesn't?

My wife.

Oh, I didn't hear her.

A key figure in your plan.

I thought maybe it was going to be Jesus or something, and I was going to be like, come on.

Oh, no, Jesus.

Jesus is good with it.

I talked to him about it once.

This next question comes from Raquel, who asks, dear Hank, tastic and giant accular, how do we know that there aren't more elements we're missing out there that just aren't on the Earth?

The universe is very big.

Couldn't there be some random element never before seen on Earth that would be super hard to synthesize on Earth?

Just vibing out there on the edge of infinity?

Are we missing out?

Not yet in the table.

Raquelament.

Oh.

I mean, once you thought of that, you had to ask the question.

Hank, are there elements or possible elements that we haven't identified yet, or have we gotten all of them?

We got all of them.

So are we sure?

Yeah.

Because you think you have all the Pokemons and then they invent new ones.

Yeah,

I would love it if they could invent, and they kind of can invent new ones wildly.

So an element,

you can't like fit one between hydrogen and helium, right?

Because an element is just the number of protons in the nucleus.

So if you have one, you're hydrogen.

Doesn't matter what else is going on.

You know, even if you have no electrons, then you're a hydrogen ion.

And if you have two, you're helium.

If you have three, you're lithium, et cetera, all the way up to over a hundred.

And so there's not like any hiding in the middle.

That's one thing we know.

And there was this period of time when we discovered elements the way that you would imagine us discovering elements.

Like we went out into the world and we were like, oh, this thing is different.

This is like irreducible and it's a different thing.

And then they had to like figure out where it fit on the table by doing a bunch of really careful measurement.

And as they did that, they like filled in all the gaps of the table and

everything like kind of made sense.

And then there was a period of time where discovering elements was a totally different thing, where you took two atoms-ish, there's lots of ways to do this, but you took basically you took two things and you smashed them together really hard.

And hopefully, if you do it right, you will get one of these super heavy elements very, very briefly.

Because

once a nucleus gets to a certain number of protons and neutrons, and they have to have the neutrons to keep the protons from pushing each other apart, the nucleus is

too big and it wiggles itself apart.

It just like wobble, wobble, wobble, and then it becomes too, and it, you know,

it fizzes.

It fizzes.

It's like becoming too famous.

You just can't hold

the center for very long.

And then you wobble, wobble, wobble until

it explodes.

Something's holding nucleus together.

Sometimes it happens, but very, very rarely.

Very rarely.

So

there is like

a thing that people imagine that perhaps there is some island of stability where if you get a nucleus a certain size, it won't wobble itself apart if you get it super, super big.

We're pretty sure that that isn't the case, one.

And we're almost certain that that couldn't happen naturally, that it would have to

happen in a laboratory

because the

things that would lead to it happening could not happen naturally and this is like a weird thing about earth the things that happen on earth just don't happen other places like the hottest place in the universe and the coldest place on the universe are both on earth and that's very what

what

what i just made fireworks go off I don't know how, but

that was such a truth bomb that my camera was like, fireworks?

Tell me, tell me, explain this to me, how the hottest place in the entire universe and the coldest place in the entire universe are both here.

Well, first cold is like, is pretty rare.

Like, it gets down to like close to absolute zero in natural situations, but getting down to like very close to within like fractions of fractions of

degrees from absolute zero

is not something that happens naturally.

So that definitely is on Earth at any given time.

It's in a laboratory somewhere.

And there are some time, like there, there are records we've set that are much colder than anywhere else in the universe, but they don't tend to last very long.

But at any given time, there's some lab on Earth that's the cold.

Unless there's some other smart species that got slightly closer to absolute zero.

Exactly.

Yeah,

your point is taken.

I get the cold.

But the hot makes no sense to me.

I mean, we're talking about,

I know something that's extremely hot that's in our neighborhood that's that's not on Earth.

It's called the sun.

Yeah.

And on the very middle of it, crazy, crazy hot.

and then it's pretty easy to make the case that like the hottest thing that's ever happened in the universe has been like a particle accelerator so so things sped up to very near the speed of light and then crashed into each other that's hotter than the sun that's hotter than the core of the sun yeah wow

wow all right i mean that's pretty wild that is pretty wild hank before we get to the all-important news from mars and afc wimbledon i want to answer one more question from megan who writes dear john and hank i've been accepted into my local university's animal science program congratulations megan i'm a first college student and super proud of myself for taking the steps to get there.

However, I'm a 31-year-old with a middle schooler and a kindergartner who also works as a custodian in the animal science building.

How on earth do I not make things awkward when my peers and professors eventually notice that I am also the cleaning lady?

How do I connect with my classmates when we are in such different places in life, parenting and panicking?

Megan, Megan,

Megan,

weird animal masks.

It's a good solution.

It's a good and not

during the custodian job.

No blacks.

No, I think, I mean, it's a great solution, but I actually think the solution is probably just to be like, hey, I have both of these jobs.

Isn't that incredibly impressive?

Never complain again, other students.

Do you have two full-time jobs, or is that just me?

And also two children.

And also two children, or is that just me?

I feel when I was in college, I went to a college that was almost entirely young people and was like almost entirely

residential, like students who lived on campus, a small liberal arts school kind of place.

But there was one student there named Dan who was also a security guard, which is even like more awkward, Megan, because he's

essentially distinguished.

He has to tell you to do stuff.

He has to be like you're you're too drunk and now we have to take you to the hospital kind of thing.

And yet

Dan was awesome and all of us looked up to him and all of us thought like, which was true that like Dan had an amount of wisdom that we would never have, or at least like certainly that we could never imagine having.

And so I think you bring something to those classroom experiences that the other people don't have.

And so even

as I totally understand feeling nervous about it, you also have to remember that like there's

there's there's a benefit to being you that they that that other people from different experiences don't have right.

So first of all, shame dies in the light.

You know, don't put on animals.

Shame dies in the light.

Don't put on animal mask.

Yeah.

Second,

the

professors, I think will like be amazed by you and very supportive of you if unless they suck.

And then third, like as far as like being a peer with your peers, you're not going to be the same peer.

Like you're not going to like have the same relationship as if you were in the exact same moment of life.

So you like, you have to,

you have to like be a be a good presence

in the same way that they are going to be a good presence.

And like there can be like lots of productive relationships and connection there, but it just won't be the same thing.

You know, like you're not going to be going out to the bars or whatever is happening, maybe sometimes but not in not in the same way when you're in a different you know time in your life and you've got more people to take care of i don't know i don't know megan i went to i i went to olivia's birthday party anything is possible

anything is possible yeah all right hank speaking of anything being possible uh what's the news from mars this week Oh boy, we have good Mars news, John.

So this week in Mars, researchers have gotten the first visible light picture of an aurora on Mars, which I didn't even think was possible.

And this news came to us via the email inbox from a listener, Helene, who said the researcher, Elise Knutson, who works on this at my university,

I know her, and I'm sharing because I'm very proud of my colleague.

And it's very

that Mars gets auroras,

not from Troy, Helene.

So auroras are different on Mars.

Mars does not have an electric,

a magnetic field.

So the way that it works works on Earth is that they like come in at the poles, and that's why they're at the north and south.

There's like some local magnetic effects on Mars, but mostly it's just coming straight into the planet.

So it's more dispersed and so harder to see.

But then also

there's much less atmosphere for the aurora to be visible in, like much less.

So that's why I would have thought it would be impossible.

You got to do a lot of work to be able to see auroras on Mars.

So the measurements of auroras on Mars so far have been done in the UV spectrum.

And to get measurement of an aurora in the visible spectrum, Knutson had to keep track of solar storm alerts and look through situations,

simulations of how the storms will show up around the solar system.

So, basically, it had to wait for a really big solar storm that was going to hit Mars.

And in March of 2024, the sun released a solar flare that was perfect, but things were still really stressful because they had had to coordinate with people in charge of the Perseverance rover to see if they could use the camera on the rover to actually take the picture and also do all sorts of calculations to make sure the camera would be in the right position.

Luckily, it all came together and it happened.

Here's a quote from an article about this.

When I opened the file, I immediately saw that this was what we had been waiting for.

I was sitting next to my colleagues and tears streamed down.

I couldn't say much as this was classified at the time, so I couldn't really talk about it.

And it was my 30th birthday.

It was all the ultimate birthday gift from Mars.

You know it wasn't our 33rd birthday.

That would have been

some bad outcome.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Well, the news from AFC Wimbledon is that

AFC Wimbledon have played their preseason match against Watford, who are in the championship, Hank, a division above us.

And we tied 1-1.

Now, it was a lucky tie.

We had some good saves from our new goalkeeper, Nathan Bishop, but we tied.

we tied 1-1, and that's good.

Also, the AFC Wimbledon women's team, who are also in the third division, their

schedule just came out.

They will start the season August 17th against Rayal Bedford, which is a phenomenally good name for a football team.

Rayal Bedford, it's great.

I love it.

I don't understand.

What is the raid?

Are they established in 2005?

Are they Portuguese?

Or Spanish?

Maybe.

Maybe it's an all-Spanish expat team.

We don't know, Hank.

We don't know the details.

The point is, we'll be taking on Rayal Bedford

on August 17th, and the schedule goes from there.

Very excited.

And we're still waiting to see if we sign any more players.

Are you sure there's not just Real Bedford?

I'm pretty sure it's Raal Bedford, Hank, because that's way, way funnier.

Why would you not have the funny option?

I mean, Real Bedford is also funny because it implies that there's some other Bedford that was like, no, we're Bedford.

No, we're real Bedford.

It's like AFC Wimbledon being like,

no, we're the real Wimbledon.

Yeah.

Although there is a Rayall Salt Lake and they go by Rayall Salt Lake.

Like, that's the MLS team.

That's fascinating.

Yeah.

No, I guess there's like, I could see it.

You know, you just take that, take that term.

Take that term.

Anyway,

the women's team and the men's team both start their seasons in August.

I'm excited.

In the meantime, I'm hoping that

both teams actually sign some more players, but especially the men's team.

It's not clear to me exactly where the goals are going to come from, but that's okay.

I mean, who needs goals?

When does the season start?

For the men, it starts, I think, on August 9th.

Oh, okay, so that's soon.

Yeah,

we only have a little more time to wait, my friend.

Well, congratulations

for being in the next league up.

I'm excited.

Whichever one it is.

Good Good for you, Hank.

Good for you.

You're getting there.

You're getting there.

Thanks, everybody, for listening to our podcast.

We really appreciate your questions.

Thank you for emailing us at hankandjohn at gmail.com.

This podcast is edited by Chris Enkiko.

Thank you, Chris.

It's mixed by Joseph Tunamedesh.

Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell.

It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rojas and Hannah West.

Our executive producer is Seth Radley.

Our editorial assistant is Dvoki Tracrivarti.

The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the Great Gonarola.

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