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policygenius.com. Hello

1:28

and welcome

1:31

to Dear Hank and John. Of course, I

1:33

prefer to think of it Dear John and

1:36

Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer

1:38

your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring

1:40

you all the week's news from both Mars,

1:42

the planet, and AFC Wimbledon, a third or

1:44

fourth-tier English soccer club. Which is

1:46

it, John? Fourth. Fourth

1:48

at the moment. So I've been thinking... The

1:50

arc of history bends toward Wimbledon. That's right. That's

1:53

right. It's not a fast thing that happens,

1:55

but it is a thing that happens. That's

1:57

right. Like justice. Maybe.

2:01

I have been thinking, John,

2:04

and I've been brought around to...

2:07

I don't think the earth is flat, but

2:09

I think it is mostly flat. And

2:12

I would like to present to you a little bit of evidence.

2:14

Okay. That some

2:16

natural spring formations do produce

2:19

carbonated water, but almost all

2:21

the rest of it is not. Ah,

2:24

so most of the water on earth is flat

2:26

water and... Flat. And

2:28

that's a joke. That was just so everybody knows

2:30

that was a joke. It's...

2:34

Look, it did feel necessary to

2:37

point out, John, I have something I need

2:39

to talk to you about immediately after that.

2:42

If you go to Google and you type in top 10 best

2:45

podcasts for teens,

2:48

and I know that a friend

2:50

of mine has a teen and typed

2:52

this into Google to try and find

2:54

a good podcast for teens and found

2:56

that, first of all, Google suggests us

2:59

after stuff you should know, radio, lab

3:01

stuff you missed in history class, Ted

3:03

Talks, and then it's us. Wow. That's

3:06

amazing. And then if you go to

3:08

the top Google result, we're a third

3:10

down after my favorite murder, which

3:12

I don't think that I would personally

3:14

suggest to my teen, and

3:17

the mortified podcast, which

3:19

is all about the cringe-worthy moments that teen

3:21

life is made of, which also we do

3:23

do. We don't do true

3:25

crime, but we do mortifications. Heavy

3:27

mortification podcast over here. I was just

3:29

thinking about some of your mortifications recently.

3:31

Some of mine? Yeah. Oh,

3:35

no. Those are just supposed to be me thinking

3:37

about them. No, I cycle through all of mine

3:39

so often that I ran out briefly,

3:41

but then I had a new one come up, so it

3:43

was all good. I think we

3:45

are top podcast for teens. I

3:48

think we should amend the intro to say,

3:50

hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John,

3:52

a teen podcast. A

3:54

top podcast for teens. A top

3:57

podcast for teens. I love it.

3:59

I'm so proud of it. I'm proud to be a top podcast

4:01

for teens. I had

4:03

no idea. And I can say...

4:05

We do sometimes hear from teenage

4:07

listeners, to be fair. Oh, for

4:09

sure. I also say, like, we

4:12

work, we try to not say

4:14

dirty words, though I think

4:16

teens do do that. Oh, I mean, based on

4:18

the teen in my house, that is not the

4:20

issue. My

4:24

best friend Chris told me a story

4:26

that he was walking past the area

4:29

where the PlayStation is, and

4:31

he heard Henry say a bad

4:33

word. And Chris said, and

4:36

I'll tell you, John, it sounded like he'd said

4:39

it before. It didn't

4:41

sound like it was new

4:43

in his lexicon. Yeah. No,

4:46

I mean, when I was in high school,

4:48

we used a particular bad word as what

4:50

they call a filler word, the way that

4:52

you might say like or um. We

4:55

would use a particular word. It

5:00

started with F, and it was probably

5:03

the, and it was conjugated, it

5:05

was the infinitive form. It

5:08

was a gerund, it ended in a ding. A gerund,

5:10

yes, that's what it is. I'm

5:13

not good with that. John, recently I've got my book.

5:15

That's why you have a grammar brother. There's a science

5:17

brother and a grammar brother. I actually

5:19

am making a video soon about the

5:21

difference between M dashes and N dashes, which

5:23

is going to be a massive hit on

5:25

YouTube. It's an N dash,

5:27

E-N. Yeah, dash. Why

5:30

are they named after the letters M

5:32

and N? They're

5:34

not named after, I don't know that they are

5:36

named after the letters. It's E-M and E-N is

5:38

how they're spelled. That's how the letters are spelled. I

5:40

don't know if you know this. Oh, I didn't know

5:42

that. So I guess now we also have a spelling

5:45

brother. It

5:49

is definitely not me. John, can I

5:51

hit you with zucchini? Go. Z

5:55

U C C H I N

5:57

I. Damn boy, you're the spelling

5:59

bro. But I'll tell

6:01

you what I don't have. That was a hot

6:03

spelling. That was top tier.

6:05

I don't have anything up there visually. I

6:08

mean, I'm made out of words, Hank. I

6:10

am entirely lexicographical. You wish you wish. There

6:14

are no visions in

6:16

my mind. I have aphantation, you know, so like I

6:18

can't see anything in my brain. I thought you meant

6:20

like presenting to the world all you are is words.

6:22

Oh, wouldn't that be the best? What

6:24

I wouldn't give to be

6:27

words. Ooh, nice. That's beautiful.

6:29

It's so much trouble

6:31

to be this biological phenomenon. I have

6:33

news. Someday you will just be words.

6:36

I know. That's a great point, Hank.

6:39

My afterlife is going to rule. I'm going to

6:41

live my dream of just

6:43

being made out of words. Oh,

6:47

man. I was so taken aback at being a

6:49

top podcast for teens. I will say that among

6:51

the other top podcast for teens are lots of

6:53

podcasts that I listen to. So

6:55

it's not like they're just routines. No, no,

6:58

no. Radio Lab is not a teenage podcast.

7:00

It's just a top podcast for teens. And

7:02

Science Friday is on there. I was just

7:04

listening to Science Friday yesterday. Another top podcast

7:06

for teens. I just, I also

7:09

love the phrase top podcast for teens.

7:11

There's something glorious about it.

7:14

I'm going to have to tell my teen

7:16

that I make a top podcast for teens.

7:18

I think he's going to be pretty surprised.

7:20

He's a big fan of podcasts, but he's

7:22

not, I would say, a devoted listener to

7:24

Dear Hank and John. Do you think we

7:26

should redesign our podcast logo to

7:29

have... To make it cool, hipster, teen-ish?

7:31

Yeah. We could put

7:33

some weed on there, some mushrooms. What

7:36

are kids with these things? I don't think that's what teenagers like. What

7:38

are you talking about? I don't know. That's

7:40

what we are all drawing in our notebooks. No.

7:43

No? I was drawing spirals.

7:45

I bet you were. Just spirals, spirals,

7:48

spirals, spiral after spiral.

7:51

I was drawing weed way before I ever even

7:53

saw weed. I don't know. We

7:56

have to cut the weed out of the podcast. Yeah,

7:58

Hank, we can't talk about this stuff in our... Top

8:00

podcast for teens. Jeez.

8:02

Sorry. Let's

8:05

answer some questions from our listeners.

8:09

All right, Hank, we've got a question from Emily.

8:11

We've got to answer it because Emily's a hospital

8:13

chaplain and I'm extremely biased toward hospital chaplains. Yes,

8:15

you are. Dear John

8:18

and Hank, I am a hospital chaplain and

8:20

very science dumb. You're not science dumb, Emily.

8:22

You're just science. Nobody's explained it to you

8:24

in a way that clicked yet. I

8:27

am engaged to a wonderful man who is an amateur

8:29

astronomer and very science smart, which is to say that

8:31

science has been explained to him in a way that

8:33

clicked with him. And we always

8:35

come back to this conversation that he

8:37

tries to explain space stuff to me

8:39

and lately we are discussing gravity. My

8:41

question is, why don't we know why

8:43

gravity works or how gravity is? I

8:45

am currently dissatisfied with the answer of

8:47

it simply is and we don't know.

8:49

Still not understanding the gravity of the

8:51

situation, Emily. I mean, honestly, I feel

8:53

like we understand gravity better than the

8:55

other ones. No, we

8:57

do not. I disagree. Well, there's a certain

8:59

way in which we understand gravity in a

9:01

way that makes a lot of sense in

9:04

which it like like mass warps space. So

9:06

like so. So in that way, it's

9:08

just like you're you're sort of always falling

9:11

unless you're being stopped by something

9:14

because space is going down under

9:16

you. Yes,

9:18

but it but in terms of like

9:20

how how it like functions with

9:23

the rest of physics. No,

9:25

that's off the table. But the rest of

9:27

physics to me is the confusing part. The

9:29

gravity thing is just like, oh, like like

9:31

we can see with lots of evidence that

9:34

large massive objects or any object

9:36

of any mass like

9:38

it warps space that you can use it

9:40

as a lens. You can see it in

9:42

the sky. And

9:44

that's very strange. But that's why

9:47

we are falling down is because space

9:49

is warped downward toward the center. We

9:51

don't know. We don't know why gravity

9:53

is. We don't know why. So

9:55

I'm actually is asking why why why and

9:57

having coast. totally

26:00

in favor of making some risky purchase decisions.

26:02

Maybe you saw a weird shirt on Instagram

26:04

and you were like, I'm gonna try that

26:06

out. Like it's a roll of the dice,

26:08

but who knows? Try out a workout class.

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If you don't know if it's right for

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you, there's only one way to find out.

26:15

Switch it up. Try out a new milk.

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I don't know. Oh, it's been

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next question is from Clara, who says, Dear Honkin'

29:21

Jane, I have a job where I have to

29:23

walk a lot. I drink a lot of tap

29:26

water during my shift. It feels like my thirst

29:28

is never quenched. Why is that? Isn't

29:30

water the thing that I need when I

29:32

feel thirsty? It's like I never had that

29:35

fresh feeling you get when you're hydrated. I

29:37

leave work every day craving a bunch of

29:39

tomatoes or cucumbers or something else of that

29:41

fresh variety. I could drink a whole bottle

29:43

of water! British pronunciation, Clara. Ooh.

29:47

That was bad. Clara made me do that. Okay.

29:51

That was my fault. All right.

29:53

So do you know the answer to this? I

29:57

assume, Clara. that

30:00

you're living in a dry. So

30:02

there's two Americas. There's wet America and

30:04

there's dry America. I live in dry

30:06

America. And

30:09

I am also always thirsty, especially

30:11

if I'm moving around because

30:13

just breathing, just like

30:17

a huge amount of water just evaporates

30:19

from your trachea and your esophagus and

30:21

the back of your throat. And you're

30:23

just like, that's the feeling you're getting.

30:25

So maybe like your body might be

30:27

plenty hydrated, but the inside of your

30:29

mouth might not be. And

30:31

so it's almost like you don't need water as

30:33

much as you just need to be holding water

30:35

in your mouth. This

30:37

is the feeling that I often have where

30:39

I just need a lot of little swallows

30:41

rather than, but like, I don't know your

30:44

situation. Maybe you live in Orlando, Florida and

30:46

you're like in one of the chief wets.

30:49

I was gonna say that maybe you just

30:51

need to drink a little more water. Like

30:53

you think you're drinking enough, but maybe you're

30:55

not if you're still thirsty. Usually thirst is

30:58

a pretty good indicator. It

31:00

is, it is. Though you, I will

31:02

say, do not live in dry America.

31:05

I don't, I live in wet America for sure, 100%. It

31:09

was so hot yesterday, it was a

31:11

hundred degrees, but it was so much

31:13

hotter because of the wetness in the

31:15

air. Just this, it felt like I

31:17

was walking through a soup. Are

31:19

you in corn sweat land right now? Do

31:21

you know about corn sweat? It's corn sweat land, no. So

31:23

there's this thing where when

31:26

it gets particularly hot during the

31:28

particular season of the corn harvest,

31:31

corn, because they're plants,

31:33

they take a lot of water to make themselves and

31:36

they have to pump it through their leaves and it

31:38

evaporates out of their leaves. If apple transpiration, that's how

31:40

plants work. And

31:43

so they create a huge, they are

31:46

a weather phenomenon of their own and they

31:48

produce a lot of humidity from their leaves

31:50

that would normally not be there. And

31:53

so you end up with, and

31:56

I saw that there was a particular

31:58

bad time in the Midwest. recently

32:00

with heat and corn sweat

32:02

combining to create a

32:05

very uncomfortable time. Now

32:08

is this one of the things where you're tricking me? Sounds

32:11

like it, but it's not. It's a real phenomenon. Very

32:14

impressive. Corn sweat. The weather channel says, ever heard

32:16

of corn sweat? It's a thing. And that's the

32:19

weather channel. Okay, well, I'm going to tell everybody

32:21

around here about corn sweat because my God, we

32:23

do not have a shortage of corn. No

32:27

shortage of corn or corn sweat.

32:31

Indiana is trying to rebrand itself right now. You

32:34

know how Michigan is like pure Michigan.

32:36

Well, we're not going to have that.

32:40

So we've been thinking about what we are going to have. And

32:43

we've been talking about maybe something about, because we've

32:45

got fast cars here because it's the Indy 500.

32:48

Maybe you lean into that. Maybe you

32:50

lean into the fact that we're the NCAA

32:52

capital of the world. Couldn't I

32:54

told you that? I

32:57

don't know what you lean into, but it's trying to

32:59

rebrand itself. But maybe it should just be Indiana corn

33:02

sweat. Where

33:04

it's all sweaty. Yeah.

33:07

Indiana. Moistland. Let me throw

33:12

it back at you. Indiana

33:15

moist. All right.

33:20

We got another question from Jared and Mia who

33:22

write, dear mostly John, how's potato doing? Any

33:25

good stories? Jared and Mia. Potato

33:28

is my dog. He is an Italian

33:30

water dog and he is one year old

33:33

now. And

33:36

there's only one thing you need to know

33:38

about potato really. And that's that potato will

33:40

be putting that in his mouth. Whatever

33:44

it is, it's going in his mouth. If it's

33:46

a sock, it's going in his mouth. We

33:50

found two $20 bills in his stool. Oh

33:54

my God. The kids

33:56

are stealing money. It

33:58

was one full $20 bill. bill and then

34:00

one ripped in half $20 bill. So

34:03

he did have the decency to only eat $30 or so,

34:05

but it still cost me $40. That's

34:09

not how $20 bills work. Where's

34:12

the other half? Well, I

34:15

was trying to explain that to Potato, that you can't eat

34:17

half a $20 bill and then

34:19

say that you only ate $10 worth of money. Like

34:22

that's just not, that's not realistic. And

34:24

he was like, why don't you just

34:27

clean up the money? Are you

34:29

that entitled? And I was like,

34:31

yes, I am that entitled. I

34:34

will not be cleaning this poop stained money that

34:36

came out of your anus. What's

34:41

the amount, what's the like denomination

34:43

where you clean the, where you

34:45

clean the bill? I think for

34:47

me, it might be, that's

34:50

a great question. It might be 20 for you.

34:54

I don't know. I don't know. I don't

34:56

know. I didn't see it. I didn't have the

34:58

experience. You know what? I've never seen one $20

35:00

bill and a half a $20 bill

35:03

just fully enmeshed in

35:05

poop. Yeah, that's true. It's

35:08

not like I was like one like wipe

35:10

of toilet paper away from this is now.

35:12

This is top podcast for teen stuff right

35:15

here. It's not

35:17

like I was like that close to having a

35:19

20. I mean, this was going to be a

35:21

labor involved. This is going to be about an

35:23

hour and a half of work, which would net

35:25

me about 15 bucks an hour. A

35:28

hundred? A hundred. A

35:30

hundred. I think that you'd have to strongly,

35:33

you'd have to try to figure out a solution. You'd think

35:35

through it. You'd be like, okay, what's the way that I

35:37

do this? Do I like, like put it in some like

35:39

low concentration bleach? Do

35:43

I run it through the laundry? I

35:45

remember when I worked at Steak and Shake, someone

35:48

once left me a $1 tip

35:50

inside the nacho cheese that was

35:52

left over from their nachos. And

35:55

I did, I did save

35:57

that dollar. squeegeed

36:00

it off, and then

36:03

I wet it, got it real wet, kind of cleaned

36:05

it up and just wet it dry. So you know

36:07

what this would be like? It'd be like that for

36:09

the poop. Yeah. Yeah. It's harder

36:12

to do it with your dog's poop than

36:14

it is even with nacho cheese from Steak

36:16

and Shake. But

36:19

I think with 100, I would figure it out. Yeah.

36:22

That's why I don't keep hundreds in the house though, because

36:24

potato will eat them. He ate a hat. I was looking

36:26

at him the other

36:28

day and I was looking down at him and I

36:30

was like, are you eating my hat? And he was

36:33

like, I'm not eating it. I ate it already. It's

36:35

ruined. Wow. Oh,

36:37

he's the best. I love him so much. I'm a cat person.

36:39

I'll tell you. It turns out

36:42

that our entire family is cat people.

36:44

We love our

36:46

cats and they are such

36:48

good housemates. That's

36:50

great. Occasionally, they become

36:52

thunder in the middle of the night. But

36:55

mostly, mostly it's very chill. Hey,

36:59

Hank. Yeah. I got a

37:01

question from Lewis. Okay. Lewis

37:03

says, I'm a nursing student and in one of

37:05

my classes, we're talking about Hodgson lymphoma today. And

37:07

it made me think about you, because I don't

37:09

know if you know this, Hank, but weirdly, this

37:11

is crazy, but you had cancer last year. I

37:14

know. Yeah, I know. I'm

37:16

like seeing my like

37:18

this time last year notifications

37:20

and all my things and I'm

37:23

just not looking

37:25

great. How was that a year

37:27

ago? It was both yesterday and 17

37:30

years ago. I don't know, man. Did

37:33

you enjoy learning about how your cancer works? Maybe

37:35

this is also a question for John, but do

37:37

you ever fall down internet rabbit holes learning about

37:39

the things that plague you? Oh, yeah.

37:43

Side note, tips for studying

37:45

diseases are welcome. On a

37:47

quest to explore Sons-Clark Lewis.

37:50

Nice, nice. I obviously

37:53

fall down lots of rabbit holes. I mean,

37:55

I've spent the last year writing a book

37:57

about cancer because of that very phenomenon. Yeah.

38:00

And what

38:02

I've found is, I mean, it's fascinating.

38:06

It's just like, I

38:08

think disease and the human body are, like,

38:11

disease is just like the human body

38:13

not working perfectly for various reasons. And

38:17

the, and it's like,

38:20

how does it work well

38:22

all the time, any of the time?

38:24

It's so, it's so, and

38:26

like, sometimes people are like, there must

38:28

be something like some reason for things to go

38:30

wrong. And it's like, what's the reason that it

38:32

always goes right? How is

38:34

it always, how is it, how do people like

38:37

live for 80 years and not get cancer? That's

38:39

wild. Right. I

38:41

think that you, I find it

38:44

interesting that you are very interested

38:46

in mechanical

38:48

failures of the human body. Like

38:51

you're interested in when the body

38:53

breaks down or develops cancers. And

38:56

I'm interested in an infectious disease

38:58

when the body is attacked from

39:01

outside. And I think that actually

39:03

says, I mean, some of that is of course,

39:05

because you had cancer and I had meningitis. And

39:07

that's just the way that it went. But

39:11

some of it I think is about

39:13

our personalities. Yeah. Tell

39:17

me more. Are you

39:19

worried about being attacked from outside? Whereas I am

39:21

just sort of always convinced of my own moral

39:25

failings. No, no, no. I

39:27

think you're worried about the clockworks and I'm worried

39:29

about invasion. Right. Yeah. You're

39:32

worried about the, and by the way,

39:34

you are correct. Overwhelmingly the

39:36

greater threat is the clockworks.

39:39

Yeah, not historically. Not

39:41

historically and not everywhere. But currently in

39:43

rich countries, the clockworks is the greater

39:46

threat. Yeah. But

39:50

infection, invasion from outside, being

39:53

attacked by, not by yourself,

39:56

but by things that are

39:58

separate from you is terrifying. me.

40:01

I am, I am, you are right.

40:04

I am more worried and more upset by

40:06

the idea of my body attacking itself. Cause

40:08

I'm going to also have had ulcerative colitis

40:10

for over 20 years. Right. And, and, and

40:14

all, but like also I'm

40:16

fascinated by it because when

40:18

the, when the body's problems

40:20

are failures of the body,

40:23

it also highlights how the

40:25

body works. It highlights the

40:27

mechanisms of the body. And you see, you

40:30

know, this is less the case with ulcerative colitis though.

40:33

Certainly when you get into the weeds, the immune system,

40:35

it gets very wild and

40:37

weird, but with cancer, it's the

40:39

whole thing. It's the immune system,

40:41

it's metabolism, it's, you

40:44

know, it's, it's like cell signaling. It's

40:46

everything. It's like, there's nothing that it

40:49

doesn't touch. Well, your book is really

40:51

a window into how the human body

40:53

works because it's a window into cancer.

40:55

Yeah. If you understand cancer, you understand

40:57

the whole body. Right.

41:01

Right. So it's been very, very cool. And, you

41:03

know, as far as like how to

41:06

learn it and understand it, I can't

41:08

imagine it's anything but time and also

41:10

like having the foundations that you're building

41:12

from because it's all, it's all, it's

41:15

a house of cards all

41:17

leaning on itself. And if you

41:19

don't have some piece somewhere, things aren't going to click.

41:22

I should say that I feel the same

41:25

way in some, in some ways about infectious

41:28

disease, but on a broader scale,

41:30

like not that the individual human

41:32

body fails or that

41:34

you can learn everything about the biology of

41:36

a body through learning about cancer. Although I

41:38

completely agree with you that you can or

41:40

learn a lot about it, but

41:43

I think you can learn a lot about

41:45

social orders and societies and the choices that

41:47

people make in collaboration with each other by

41:49

studying infectious disease, especially

41:52

an infectious disease that wasn't

41:54

always considered infectious. That's

41:57

why I'm obsessed with tuberculosis is

41:59

because for a long time. it

42:01

was considered inherited and associated with

42:04

families. And then eventually they realized

42:06

that it was infectious and that

42:08

completely changed the way that the

42:10

disease was understood and imagined and

42:12

talked about and stigmatized. Yeah. Yeah.

42:16

And we mostly think about disease in

42:18

terms simply of

42:20

their impacts on

42:22

the individual, but

42:24

it is a

42:27

human story and the

42:30

impacts of disease can be far beyond

42:32

the impacts of the disease because that

42:34

person is existing in a society and

42:37

has to deal with all of the

42:39

social impacts as well. I

42:41

thought they fell out of a coconut tree. I

42:44

think they might exist inside of the

42:46

context. Of

42:48

all that they are and all that came before them. Yeah. I

42:50

think it might be that. That's

42:54

kind of beautiful actually. People

42:57

try to make fun of that, but it's

42:59

actually a lovely sentiment. Speaking of lovely sentiments,

43:01

it's time for the news from AFC Wimbledon

43:03

and Mars. Yes. Well,

43:06

Hank, I flew to

43:09

England to see AFC

43:11

Wimbledon play Bromley. That's right,

43:13

Hank. Bromley. At Bromley.

43:16

The White Hot Center of American Culture.

43:19

Bromley. Where it

43:21

all happens. They had a

43:23

subway, not like the underground

43:26

train, but like an actual subway restaurant.

43:28

Like a sandwich shop? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

43:31

You call a restaurant? But okay. It

43:34

was great. I really enjoyed my time

43:36

in Bromley. There was just one problem,

43:38

which is that AFC Wimbledon got their

43:40

butts kicked. We

43:43

lost 2-0 and we played about like

43:45

a team that would lose 2-0. We

43:48

did not impress in any way, but

43:50

we then went on to defeat Cheltenham

43:52

1-0. I know what you're saying. Cheltenham,

43:54

Bromley, surely these places are made up,

43:57

but no, they're real. We

43:59

beat Cheltenham 1-0. 1-0, it was a great

44:01

goal from Joe Pigott. And

44:04

he's back. We sing Feed the Pig,

44:06

Feed the Pig, Feed the Pig, and

44:08

he will score. And we fed

44:11

the pig and he scored. He scored a

44:13

great goal, actually, like on a half volley.

44:15

It was really impressive. So thanks

44:17

to Joe Pigott, we are now in eighth

44:19

place in League Two. Now, admittedly, that's only

44:21

three games into the season. So it's a

44:23

little soon to start celebrating, but still, six

44:25

points on the board is six points on

44:27

the board, 50 points we avoid relegation, 70

44:30

points we're probably in the playoffs. All

44:33

right. Get them.

44:35

One at a time. One at a time. We

44:39

will today, as we're recording this, we're about

44:41

to play Ipswich Town, a

44:44

team in the Premier League in the Carabao Cup.

44:46

And if we win that game, that would be

44:48

huge. But of course, we won't win it because

44:50

they're in the Premier League. But Ipswich Town is

44:53

best known to AFC Wimbledon

44:55

fans for having bought

44:57

our best ever player in

44:59

the AFC Wimbledon era from

45:01

us, Ali El-Hammadi. So Ali

45:03

El-Hammadi will be starting against

45:05

AFC Wimbledon. And

45:07

based on what he was like when he

45:09

played for AFC Wimbledon, that's going to be

45:11

a catastrophe. Not really looking forward to it.

45:14

No. But I

45:17

root for that guy everywhere he goes,

45:19

and I will for the rest of

45:21

his career. I'm so proud that AFC

45:23

Wimbledon, I believe Ali El-Hammadi is AFC

45:25

Wimbledon's first player who was a permanent

45:27

signing, like really what really played for

45:29

us and was one of

45:31

our squad who made it to

45:33

the Premier League. So I'm very proud of him.

45:37

That is very cool. So

45:39

you just have to score goals. Yeah.

45:42

I mean, that is the basic. You've

45:45

really cracked the code of football commentary, Hank. Maybe you

45:47

should be like the color commentator and I can be

45:49

the play-by-play. And also if you can keep the other

45:51

team from scoring goals. That's even

45:53

better. The ideal is that you score more goals than the

45:56

other team, but if the other team scores no goals, then

45:58

you only have to score more goals. score one

46:00

to score more. Yeah, you can't

46:02

lose. If

46:04

you score more than they do, you can't lose.

46:07

That's right. I

46:09

mean, if you keep them from scoring any

46:11

goals, you also can't lose. That's true, that's

46:13

true. The worst that can happen is a

46:15

tie. Speaking of not

46:17

losing, how about that OASIS reunion?

46:20

I don't know what you're talking about. OASIS

46:22

are getting back together. I didn't know that

46:25

happened. That's awesome. Well, I think because my

46:27

Twitter thinks that I'm British because

46:29

all I ever tweet about is English football.

46:32

And so Twitter was just overwhelmingly

46:35

the news about OASIS is reunification.

46:37

And I was like, I'm

46:39

not invested in OASIS at all, but then I

46:41

realized it's because they think that I'm English. Okay.

46:45

And I do like Wonderwall. Why

46:48

wouldn't you? They have a lot

46:50

of great songs. It was a great time. I

46:52

remember those times. I was aware I was in

46:54

high school when OASIS got big and it was

46:57

good stuff. Wow. That explains why Liam

46:59

Gallagher looks so old. Yeah.

47:01

It also explains why we have a

47:04

top podcast for teens. In Mars news,

47:06

the Perseverance Rover, which if you can

47:08

believe it has been on Mars for

47:10

three and a half years already. Wow.

47:12

That is astonishing to me. Really

47:15

almost upsetting for me. Time is a flat circle.

47:18

It's been doing a lot. It's been going all

47:20

over. It's been mostly in the area at the

47:22

bottom or

47:26

sort of moving up inside of

47:28

this crater in Jezero Crater. And

47:30

the idea is that this was probably an ancient lake

47:32

bed and it had like hydrological features and it looks

47:35

like it definitely was. And there's lots of signs of

47:38

long-term water there. But

47:40

now it's going to start heading up to the crater

47:42

rim. And the great thing about being in a crater

47:44

is that it's a geological

47:47

time machine. You

47:51

can see all different layers of stuff going as you

47:53

move up through the crater. And

47:57

you can see a lot about not just

47:59

what Mars was. like once it was sort

48:01

of like static and maybe there was

48:03

water there and you know

48:05

Mars is locked tectonically.

48:08

So on Earth stuff gets

48:10

shuffled around and recycled and very

48:13

little of our land was

48:15

here at the beginning. But

48:18

on Mars it's tectonically locked and

48:20

has been pretty much since the beginning

48:22

it seems like and so the the

48:24

and there's also much less erosion because

48:26

there's not water falling out of the

48:28

sky all the time. So you can

48:30

see a lot more of like what

48:32

Mars like how Mars formed by by

48:34

going up the rim of this crater

48:36

and taking samples and learning about it.

48:38

So so Perseverance is moving

48:40

out of the lake bed starting its trek up

48:42

to the rim of this crater which is wild

48:44

that it is going to be able to do

48:47

this. I hope that that everything

48:49

goes well. It's a big old

48:51

little SUV on Mars so they know what

48:53

they're doing and they're going to do a

48:55

big drive now. But the

48:58

bottom of the crater is is the oldest

49:00

part right? Well it's not you have to

49:02

go to the wall I guess you have

49:04

to go to the wall. Yeah yeah yeah

49:06

the bottom of the crater isn't old because

49:08

it's like sediment that's been like swept by

49:11

the wind or by water. Right okay. And

49:14

but then as you as you move up it but

49:16

like it's not like Earth where there's like a lot

49:18

of sedimentary layers so I don't

49:20

know exactly how it works because it's not

49:23

it's not it's not defined by water the way that

49:25

we are. I love there was

49:27

a lot of water. I love

49:29

the phrase geological time machine that's quite

49:31

lovely. We very much have that on

49:33

Earth we have. Yeah. We also have

49:36

historical time machines where we can see

49:40

just like the the layers of a

49:43

city over many hundreds

49:45

of years as the city holds itself on top

49:47

of itself over and over again. We

49:50

also have a historical time machine

49:52

in the sense that now we

49:55

can look at photographs

49:57

and and even video from a hundred

49:59

years ago, which of course

50:01

wasn't possible 100 years ago, just to state

50:04

the obvious. And I

50:06

was just watching a movie from 1925 and

50:08

I was like, oh man, this was

50:10

100 years ago. All

50:12

these people are dead. Like, there's

50:14

a whole new batch of folks. This

50:20

is them now. That's all there is. This is

50:22

what they are. Yeah,

50:24

they're made out of words. Yeah.

50:27

Some... Thank God. They're like,

50:29

YouTube's still around in 100 years. No,

50:33

I'd rather be made out of words if that's okay. Should

50:36

we put all our stuff on DVD? Yeah,

50:40

that technology is going to survive.

50:44

People do know that they're like, physical media

50:46

is... And I'm like, plastic degrades. I'm sorry.

50:48

Depends on the physical media. Yeah, I mean,

50:50

nothing lasts forever, not even cold November rain.

50:53

So there's no way to totally

50:55

insure against a catastrophe. Yeah, we should

50:57

just climb all the Vlogbrothers videos onto

50:59

a cave wall. Yeah,

51:02

that's not a bad idea. Just one

51:04

scene at a time, every single shot

51:07

and then little subtitles. We'll go with a

51:09

cave. We're going to need a bigger cave.

51:14

Hank, thank you for potting with me. Thanks

51:16

to everybody for listening and thanks for your

51:18

questions at hankandjohnatgmail.com. We love your questions. We

51:21

love your emails. We love your corrections, which

51:23

are legion. And thank

51:25

you for reaching out. This podcast is

51:27

edited by Linus Obenhaus. It's mixed by

51:29

Joseph Tuna-Medish. Our communications coordinator is Brooke

51:31

Shotwell. It's produced by Rosianna Halse-Rojas and

51:34

Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth

51:36

Bradley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Trakravarti.

51:38

The music you're hearing now and at

51:40

the beginning of the podcast is by

51:42

the great Gunnarolla. And as they say

51:44

in our hometown, don't forget to be

51:46

awesome.