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Tickets go on sale to the general public June 30th at somethingworthknowing.com. So come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing you can get your ticket at Complexly.info slash something. And welcome to Dear Hank and John. You always I prefer to think of it Dear Hank and the world's tiredest boy in tired town.
It's a podcast where one person who's doing okay and one person who's doing not as okay. Answer your questions, give you a surprising video. All the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, did you know that some turtles pee out of their mouth and other turtles breathe through their butts?
I didn't know that. That is just a fact. We're not doing it today. It's just facts.
Well, I appreciate learning that. That's a wonderful thing to know to go forth into the world with that knowledge is a beautiful gift. I am very tired and emotionally and psychologically not in the best spot. It's always destabilizing to talk about your mental health in the context of fiction, which is kind of what I've been doing on stuff for the last two months.
And then there's just the inevitable sort of release of the movie coming out, which has been great to be clear. I couldn't have asked for a better reception to the movie. It's 90% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with critics and 96% fresh with audiences. So obviously, we did something right.
And the responses to the film have been overwhelming and just a source of absolute gift to me. But full disclosure, yeah, I'm like clinging to a branch. And it feels like it's a long way down, but it's not. I'm fine.
I'm only going to fall in good if I fall, but it feels catastrophic. It just, my brain doesn't work great at times like this. There's also, I think I've had to learn from my own self when big things happen in my life that the week after it kind of ends, I'm going to crash. I'm going to emotionally be not in a great way.
No, no. I mean, even if it goes well, in some ways, it's almost scarier to be honest if it goes well, because now it's good. This was of course what we wanted. When you have a very very small marketing budget, your dream is that the movie will catch on with enough people that they'll share it with enough people that they'll share it with enough people that it'll have a good life.
And that's happening, which is great, but it also means like it's kind of not over. Like I remember, you know, and I want to emphasize that I'm complaining about the world's best problem. It just happens to be my problem at the moment. And I'm not.
So yeah, I have this like a horrible ache in my stomach all the time, and I can't eat and I can't sleep, and I'm not doing great, but I'm excited to make a podcast with you and forget all about that. And we have to begin the podcast by talking, are we going to do this scene? Because I think we should feel like we have to at this point, we've gotten so many space turtles. So we made this thing about how if a space turtle cuddled up to the moon, it might change Earth's climate in interesting ways.
And we asked people to send in space turtles and people send in so many high quality space turtles, you can't even believe it. We'll put some of them on the patreon for free patreon.com slash your handcon john, but like there's no way we can put all of them on the patreon for free or else there would never be other content on our patreon forever. Yeah, we so we cannot, we're not going to include all of the space turtles. No addition, we also have people send in captions for what the space turtles might be thinking.
And we're going to match captions to picture. But weirdly, I feel like we got more pictures than captions, which is surprising because captions you would think are easier. I would think would be easier. So we're going to we're not going to make it available for this one.
So good. What is this? It's just it's like a color pencil drawing. It's a great really good.
Yeah, I mean, some of them are some of them are really Charles. Thank you, Charles. Thanks everybody. But I don't think we can make it available for pre-order just yet, can we?
No, definitely not. All right, so you're gonna have to wait for your space turtle zines. In the meantime, we're gonna answer some questions from our listeners. I know that people are hotly awaiting their space turtle zines.
Um, yeah, okay, let's answer some questions from our listeners. We're gonna move this one from Quinn. Dear honk, Dear honk, Jane, it's raining on my walk to work. How do you effectively hold an umbrella?
I'm holding it sort of in front of my head to accommodate for four momentum, but now my back is going to help the mighty Quinn. I think your umbrella is too small. This is the thing that you learn when you go to New York City is that people have umbrellas that are the size of, I don't know what's the size they are. They're the size of space turtle size.
There's not much else that's that size. No, no, I mean, size of a New Yorkers umbrella. You can either you can either get a larger umbrella or you can get exceptionally good at reading wins and tides and whatnot such that you and then you hunch, you got to you got to stand up very straight, but at the same time get very small. Yeah, and then the umbrella is close to you.
It gets like make it as close to you as possible, right? Yes, you have it basically it's part of your head. Ideally you want to get one of those umbrellas that actually fits on your head. Oh, yes.
That was a hot one. But here's the thing. John has already started to walk down the path of the ultimate expression of this, which is first you get good at sort of like not taking up as much space and then you read the wins and you need the and then eventually you sort of get aligned enough with the storm that you don't need an umbrella and you just walk through the drops. That's right.
Like a master of weather. Like Keanu reads in the Matrix instead of dodging bullets, and your body can shape and shift form as needed to avoid all the drops and that's the real. I feel like it's totally possible. Like there's got to be like a time when it was raining outside and somebody like walking from their car to their house and just like every drop missed them.
You know what is so in my experience, thrilling is when you're experiencing what Queen just went through and you're getting your back wet and then you're getting your shoes wet and then you're getting your knees wet and then you're getting your left side wet and then eventually you close the umbrella and you realize that you are alive in a world that is raining and that's where you're supposed to be and it's who you're supposed to be and you're supposed to be getting wet right now and that's just that's just what is happening and you just accept it like like like we accept that we are floating down a river of fate that we have very little say in. Yeah, yeah, we go out of the world the way that we come into it at the mercy of some BS that we cannot control. We become the uncarved block of wood that the Dowdaching celebrates us as being. Yes, next question.
John this next question comes from Molly who asks, Hey y'all, love the show. Here's my query. I'm an older listener perhaps. I'm 34.
So old. How do you get around that Molly? You must know how to use an umbrella so well. I'm fortunate enough to be a first-time homeowner.
We got to have a lifelong love for Shaquille O'Neal. I didn't see a comment. When you said I have a lifelong love and to be positive, so many things came into my mind of what one could have a lifelong love for that would make you laugh like that and none of them were Shaquille O'Neal. Yeah, I grew up in Orlando when he played for the other Magic.
Same. My first pet, a female rat Shaquille in his honor. At the same time, my mom somehow got a life-sized cardboard cut out of Shaq that I brought to my first grade classroom and we loved it. Okay, so you are younger than us because but when we started being Magic fans, Shaq wasn't on the team.
We were actually a pre-Shaq. Yeah. A few years back, my mom gave me the awesome Christmas present finding the same thing over for finding the same young Shaq in his Magic 32 Jersey cardboard statue as a present and I love it. But what exactly am I supposed to do with it as a 3-foot-inch?
Oh my gosh. How unadulter inappropriate is it to want to display a 7-foot 3-inch cardboard cut out of Shaquille and Neel in my living room now that I have my own home? It seems like the most logical choice. I certainly don't want to get all moldy in the garage, but is it also juvenile?
Never been a ball or just a mall or molly? DICE! I got so many thoughts. First, I'm glad that you specified that it was indeed life-sized because sometimes those cardboard cutouts, you know, they're just cardboard.
They shrink you down a little bit. They shrink you down a little bit so that you're easier to ship. Yeah. But with Shaq, that's part of the deal.
He's big boy. So you want it to be Shaq size. That's a lot though. It's a lot to ask and now it does finally at the end make sense that you mentioned that you were a first-time homeowner before telling us you were a big friend of mine.
Reminds me of when you try to put a Christmas tree in your house and it's only like three-inch-ish order than a ceiling. Oh, it's like a lee-me. Yeah. And it starts to feel real crowded in that room.
And I imagine, but also on the other hand, isn't that Shaq's experience of being in such a room and aren't you here to celebrate your love of Shaq and the fact that Shaquille and Neel, who by the way, for new listeners, who may not be familiar with Shaquille and Neel's work, is a basketball player and pundit and spokesperson for Capital One credit cards. Isn't it kind of beautiful to acknowledge what the room would be like to Shaq? And movie star, we should add. I think also, here's my feeling, John.
I think that Shaq- Multi-Hiphenate. Yes. One of the Renaissance man. I think Shaq should be displayed, but secretly.
So there should be a way to see Shaq, but you should not see Shaq immediately. For example, if you can find the highest room, like that highest ceiling in the house and just tape him to the ceiling. I was thinking more, and this is an expensive solution, but I was thinking more, you build a built-in bookshelf, but it has a secret three-foot room behind it, and you can open the bookshelf instead of- When seven foot four by three feet. Yeah, exactly.
It's seven feet four inches tall, but only three inches wide and deep. I mean, three feet wide and deep. And then you open the bookshelf, and instead of being like a proper secret room, there's just Shaq. That would be great.
You could also build a Shaq Shaq in the backyard. It's just a specific, very small, somewhat tall Shaq Shaq in the backyard. A tiny home, but it's not a tiny home for Shaq. But here's my thought.
You might end up getting a fold-out couch. That turns into a bed. Shaq should go, get folded into the bed. So when you have visitors, you're like, it's a fold-out couch, and you're like, okay, you can set up the bed.
I'm going to sleep. And then they are setting up the bed and they get delayed and surprised. It's going to be a very long fold-out couch for that bit to work. It's going to have to be an extra long fold couch.
It's the witch. But I think you're right about the width being a problem too. Shaq, why do you have to be so big? Well, I mean, that's also why he's such a genius.
This is the conundrum we all find ourselves in, Hank. The thing that makes us strong is the thing that makes us weak. The thing that will save us is the thing that will kill us. The end of man's shock, but there's one thing he can't know.
We can't know whether that knowledge will save him or kill him. I'm going to take every single question to this energy level. You cannot stop me. This is the energy level where I'm living, and I'm going to force you to live in it with me.
There's no point, Molly. We strive and we struggle and we row against the current, and still there is an emptiness. Alton had solution, you grind up Shaq into little bitty pieces and then you make a tiny Shaq. Shaq can put Shaq in the tiny Shaq.
That's like an urn, but for Shaq. I mean, that's, I'm just going to say it. It's really up to cremation. Burshak.
Shaq is still with us. Shaq is still with us. So that's, but like, imagine like people being like, what's this? And you're like, Oh, that's the Shaq Shaq.
What's the Shaq Shaq? The Shaq Shaq is where I keep Shaq. I got Shaq, but a little tiny pieces because I love him so much and I put him inside this urn, which is a totally normal thing to have in your home. Yes.
It's really like the whole idea of having Shaq in your house is making sure that it's the most funny way possible. And I think grinding up on little pieces might be it. I think you should consult with Shaq, Molly. I think you're asking the wrong people.
It's true. You got to get my new podcast and you're hanging Shaq. It's going to be amazing. This next question comes from Nola who says, dear John and Hank, no time for Chit-Shah.
Are humans a superorganism? I was watching the Texas D lady on TikTok, you know, the one who scoops up bees with their bare hands. Anyway, she says that a hive of bees are a superorganism, meaning a collective of individuals working in synergy for the good of the whole. Don't humans do this too?
Not all the time, Nola. Not all the time. Not all the time. Oh, how many lupus?
Nola, man is a wolf to man. The man is also a man to man. Oh, how many homo? That's true.
And to be fair, we're way worse than wolves a lot of the time. I mean, sure, we don't exclusively communicate through pheromones or other physical biological means, but how will it be to find humanity other than a collective of individuals working together for the good of the species? I can think of a few other definitions, Nola, actually. Are we not superorganisms out of many one, Nola?
Hank, what do you think? Are we a superorganism? I think we are on some level are because I think the coolest thing about humans by a very wide margin is our capacity for collaboration. Yeah, yeah.
I think that we are, I think that we would be seeing that way by an outside observer. Very, like, very obviously. I have a hard time seeing it from the inside being one of the pieces of the superorganism. I don't feel like a superorganism.
Right. I feel like a person who has my own thoughts and feelings and has figured all of this stuff out myself, but that's definitely not true. It's just definitely not true. And so, like, I actually talk about this in my comedy special, which hopefully people will get the chance to watch eventually.
It's a lot about cancer and ants and humans. And that is very much the conclusion that I come to that, like, instead of signaling each other with pheromones, we signal each other with something else. And that thing, that else thing is basically culture and society. But like, also love, like also just like human-to-human connections within a family, within small groups.
And it just like all sort of like stretches out. And like, it's made of stories, and it's made of words, and feelings, you know? Yeah, I also think there are other things that just connect us practically that aren't just made of stories. But, you know, we have practical needs for each other, where, you know, my expertise and your expertise have to complement one another, because if we only if we only become experts in one thing, then we're doing the human story, agreed to service.
Yeah, and there's also the part where there's like a built environment around it, like just like bees have hives, we have cities and towns and we have roads, we have things that we build to connect ourselves to ourselves. And it's very superorganismy. Well, I think you're right, that like if I have this longstanding thing that I'm sure I've told you about where I'm fascinated by what the history of humans and the history of the earth look like to an organism that is 30,000 feet above sea level and cannot move. Right, right.
And that person would definitely think that we are a superorganism, but would also think that, like, man, this superorganism gets matted itself a lot and causes itself a lot of unnecessary suffering through that bad behavior. Yeah, especially like, I feel like in the 18th century, the observer might have been like, I'm not sure this is a superorganism, actually. I think these guys might hate each other. Yeah, I mean, the thing about bees is they definitely work a lot.
They're better at it than us. They've also had it. They've also taken a longer time for them to get to where they are. Like it's true.
We've only had 250,000 years. Yeah, and we're better at it than we used to be. We're better at superorganismy than we used to be because it used to be that we couldn't pass along knowledge nearly as effectively as we can now. Yep.
Do you think Shaka's part of this superorganism? Definitely. I think he's the head of it. I think he's the queen bee, man.
I think it's almost a definition of like Beyonce. It's the queen bee, but well, no, no, nothing against Beyonce. But Shaka is the glue that holds it all together. I'm pretty sure because imagine a world without Shaka.
Imagine our lives without Shaka. You can't do it. It's not there. It's not there.
Everything disappears. I can imagine the world without anything else, except for Shaka. Wow, there is. Wow, weird.
There's no space jam. Wow, everything is different. I think it's not that I can't picture space jam without Shaka's that my mind turns into blankness. Yeah.
It's a powerful man. This next question comes from Brent who asks, hi Hank and John. I've got one of those weird questions for Hank to hopefully answer. We have an espresso barista machine at home and it has a tray that collects both coffee grounds and over pressure water from the steam wand and the espresso pump, which builds up.
However, when I empty the tray, there's a bunch of slimy algae bacteria fungus stuff at the bottom and when that is exposed to air to empty the tray, it smells like burnt hair. Why? What chemical are they releasing and why is it only when you expose it to oxygen? I presume that it smells like that.
Wow. Before you answer this question and I am fascinated to answer, can I just tell you something that I was just thinking? Yeah. I was thinking I hope I get to write a policy genius ad for this episode.
Oh, good for you. Because I can really take a dark today. You're ready for it. Yeah.
Sorry. What was the question? Do you know why it smells like burnt hair? Is there a reason?
Well, I mean, it's got to smell like burnt stuff because that coffee is roasted. So I think that there is an amount of it that is that. Do you know the smell of burnt hair? John, you smell burnt hair.
You went to the same summer campus, me. Oh, yeah. The first time I ever French kissed someone. I don't think I've heard that story.
Yeah. Well, we were. It was the last day of camp and it was a candlelight ceremony. As you well remember, you went to the same camp.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I figured it was the camp thing.
That's why that's how I know the smell of burnt hair because the freaking candle like ceremony where they didn't they never say beforehand, don't give each other hugs until you blow out your candles or else we'll have more burned hair. Like we do every single section nor indeed do they say, hey, if you're getting ready for your first French, just prepare that you might get your camera. So that's exactly what happened. Hank.
I'd heard through through the grapevine that this young woman wanted to French me, which is what it was called at the time. This is what they said back then. This is what they said back then. We're not making that up.
And I said, well, I would also like to French her. I'm looking to lose my Frenching virginity. And so we met at the end of we'd been dating for almost the entire camp. We were close and I don't know what grade I was in fifth, sixth, young, young.
But anyway, point being, we wrapped our arms around each other and we began kissing. We rizzed. We kissed. It happened.
I got my first kiss and then I smelled the smell of burnt hair because I'd wrapped my candle all the way around my up back to my head and I'd wet my own hair on fire. And that was my first kiss. That's I love that. Yeah, I have I have a similar story that I'm not going to tell because it's not my first kiss.
Well, what's your first kiss? We're not getting away without that. Well, my first kiss is boring, just boring normal kiss stuff. Did you get word in advance that somebody was looking to French?
Uh, where'd you just go for it? Tell me. I actually I can't I'm got I have to remember who it was. Oh, okay, I got it.
I got it. No, it was like I was like, Hey, come over to my house. Well, like me and we'll watch a movie with my friend you and your sister can come over. And then we just, you know, we had we did not watch the movie.
You're just French instead. We're French instead. I find that word, by the way, so disgusting. That's why I keep saying it is because it horrifyingly so early.
It's so weird. But at the time there were two kinds of kisses. There were like pecs. Yeah.
And then there were there was French's as they were called. And I think it's a wonderful people are always like, Oh, like we miss this. We were impoverishing our language by going into emojis and saying L O M L or whatever. Language is so much better than it was in the 1980s.
In the 1980s, we described a certain kind of kissing as Frenching rather than just calling it what it is, which is kissing. So for all those negative nancies out there, and I realized that I'm bringing a lot of negative Nancy energy to the pod today. And I'm sorry about that. But for all those negative nancies out there, just know that in fact, like language is richer and more interesting than it's ever been in all of human history.
There's so there are so many things to say and we have somebody with us to say them. True. But it is a little awkward because this podcast is actually brought to you by the word Frenching. Oh, yeah.
Well, we said we'll accept money from anybody. Frenching. It's it's not French. I mean, maybe it is.
It's no more French than it is anything else. I'm pretty sure Frenching existed before France. That's a great argument. It's a great point.
Today's podcast, of course, also brought you by Shaquille O'Neal Shaquille O'Neal, the glue. Holding it all together. The podcast is also brought to you by the Texas B lady, the Texas B lady convincing humans that we are all just a poja bees. And of course, today's podcast is brought to you by the new hit movie Turtles All the Way Down, streaming now on Max.
So last time I'll advertise it, I promise. Maybe not. It's also streaming on things that aren't Max, but are Max affiliated. That's right.
Globally, it's streaming on whatever they whatever they whatever they decided to abandon the perfectly good brand of HBO for. That's where it's streaming. Oh my God. I can say that now.
What are they going to do? Take down the movie. We got a project for awesome message. This one is from Tim to Colvin.
We took a detour last year so we could add to the ball of paint by the time this gets to you. I can't know the exact shape of our life, our hopes or our fears or what our little family looks like, just as I can't fathom the layers of paint above ours. But I know that we are here for each other hand in hand. Our layer is number 28,170.
It's blue and it is still there. Every bit of it is real, even the lumps and we made it together. That's just lovely. Jesus, Tim.
That's gorgeous. We also have a project for awesome message from Laura to Nick who says these last few years have been so hard in so many ways. Thank you for the abundance of love, patience and understanding you've given me, for being there for me when I couldn't be there for myself and for always looking out for me. You are truly my better half and my favorite person.
Here's to many more years of finding the small joys in life together. I love you. God, both just make you want to cry. Beautiful.
Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Tim. Thank you to everybody who donated the project for awesome this year. This episode of Your Hank and John is brought to you by Shopify.
There are a lot of things that stand between I have an idea and this is an idea that actually exists in the world and people are buying things from me. And that is what Shopify makes easier. When you start with Shopify, the tools, to design and launch and take payments, they're all there from day one. You don't have to build a whole machine before you can start building the business.
And this is important because you also have to look good and with Shopify's templates, you can get a site set up really quick that looks credible and professional without needing to code or duct tape a bunch of different tools together. And when things look real, that works on my brain to be like, I'm doing a real thing. It also works on other people's brains to be like, this is legitimate. Shopify also has one of the best checkout systems on the internet.
It's built to help customers finish the purchase effectively and efficiently without a bunch of roadblocks. Returning customers can check out with a single click. That means less friction and fewer abandoned carts and a smoother experience for everybody. That stuff gives you confidence early on it.
It gives other people confidence in what you're doing. You're not wondering whether the payment system is going to work. You're not wondering whether customers can get through the process. Shopify handles that foundation so you can focus on the thing that you're actually trying to do.
It's really kind of amazing to me that Shopify is a tool that works from the first day your store launches when you're just starting to get customers all the way up to being the size of good.store or dftv.com or being the size of like Mattel and Gymshark. When you build with Shopify, you're building with tools that already work at every scale. All you need is the idea, Shopify handles the rest. You can start your free trial at Shopify.com slash deerhank.
Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash deerhank with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th, 26th. See you website for more details. Those summer nights cool down. So that's why I'm wearing quince this summer and you can make your summer wardrobe easier by going to quince.com slash deerhank for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.
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With new subscription only, wild supplies last until 27th, 2026. See you website for more details. So we got to get back to this burnt hair smelling coffee stuff. Is there another reason?
Well, no, I mean, I just like, so basically of the things that are going to be in that tray, coffee has some stuff still that microbes can metabolize. So like, we're basically looking at what's feeding the thing but also there's probably going to be some milk from the milk wand and that's like milk is like the stuff for microbes. And so what you might have is like a mix of a milk curdling smell which is kind of a sour sweet smell which is kind of similar to I'm just guessing here similar to a burnt hair. And then you've got the burn smell of the coffee which is going to add the burning smell on top of the sour sweet of the milk.
But I don't know what compounds hair makes when it burns but definitely does not smell like normal smoke. Hmm. Okay. Interesting.
This next question comes from Alexis who says, I've never been very good at wearing sunscreen every day as I have pretty sensitive skin. I finally found some that I'm able to wear each day but now I'm the ripe old age of 26. Is it too late for me? Is my skin already too damaged?
Is there any point to start wearing it now? Oh, Alexis. I had to ask you this question because I have to say three things to you. The first is that yes, there is a reason to start wearing sunscreen now that would also be true if you were 60.
The second is that I can't tell if you genuinely think that 26 is old. Is it too late for me? I'm 26. Because you're just getting started in this broken world, Alexis, and everything is going to be okay.
Your skin is not too damaged. Okay, you're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. And there's always a point to starting now instead of starting and instead of saying it's too late, there's no point.
Yeah, it's true. You've got to take that the whole way. Yes. The second best day to plant a tree is now.
I mean, I got people who are kind of on the way out and they are 100 percent still wearing sunscreen. No reason to rush yourself out the door. Yeah, exactly. And also starting new things.
And I think that's really beautiful and it's not something I'd really confronted much. There's this feeling that like, well, if I'm not going to be around and why do the thing? And that's a real cause of a lot of hard things to deal with when you're sick. And the experience I've had seeing people who know that they're the thing that the disease they have now is the thing that's going to kill them.
And seeing those people start new things. It's like, oh, right. Like, I'm also, I also have a thing that's going to kill me. It's going to be alive.
And I'm starting new things. And like, why, like a person who's going to die is alive. And that's true of every person who's alive. So it's really, it's strange to how I see the sort of act of doing new things from something that's about some future thing to it being about some now thing, you know, right.
Yeah, it's really important to remember that there is no forever that we're striving for in art or in anything else, because there is no forever for us, not as an individual, not as a species. And so we're not making stuff for posterity. We're making stuff for each other. And like, maybe if we're extraordinarily lucky, some of those each others were making making that stuff for don't exist yet and we'll be part of the future.
But like, you're not making it to last forever. Like, even Shakespeare wasn't, Shakespeare wasn't writing to us. Shakespeare was writing to his time. And it just happens to still speak to us.
And that, for me, is a great reminder of what we should be up to, which is not like trying to establish a legacy that lasts forever when there is no forever, but instead trying to do cool stuff with cool people while we're here. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I thought about that a lot when you had cancer, man, because you were starting new stuff left and right, you were writing a stand up special, and you were designing socks, and you were inhabiting all kinds of identities that you'd never inhabited before.
And that didn't feel like a foolishness or naivete to me. It felt like the most human reasonable thing that you could possibly do. There was a moment when it was like, you know, there's various moments, but like, at one point, I messaged a friend of mine who had also been through cancer treatment. And I was, I was like, I just don't like, I'm just not done yet.
And he was like, hey, nobody's done yet. Yeah. And but it didn't sort of make me feel like, well, I got a couple of these things done, like the things that are in progress. You want to be done?
I want them to be done. And I love getting done. Done is great. And I'm bad at it.
I'm bad at getting done because oftentimes I make things that are perpetual. Right. Right. I also love things that get done.
Yeah. Maybe I should think about it that way. Maybe I should think like the reason I'm don't feel so great is because I finished a big thing that was hard. You did.
You finished a big hard thing. Like that's so cool. It's done. And now like that's that's out there in the world forever.
Yeah. And you have other things that you can apply your energy to. Yeah. And you want to answer one more question before we get to the onboard news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon.
This question comes from Aster and Masu, right? Dear Potato Chester and Gummy Bear. Those are our pets just so everyone knows. What do you recommend doing when your people sneeze?
It isn't normal. And my person sneeze is like, at this time of year, a lot. And I run away every single time, even though I've been with my person for seven years now, do I keep running away? Do I try and get over it sneezing and scrambling after the cat and moths the person?
This is the great. This is the kind of question that I've been just dying to answer because it begins with a premise that is correct, which is that sneezing is not normal and it is not normal to sneeze. Yeah. And cats and dogs know this about us.
They are horrified by our sneezing. Astro, I think it is so rational for you to bolt out of the room when this happens because you are a cat. And it is, I think that like we can all agree that it is weird that you live in this person's house anyway, right? Like you're a cat.
Yeah. You're not a dog. You're not like some like little pet animal. You're a wild animal.
Even if you were a dog, even if you were a dog, it'd be very weird. Yeah. But not like this for a cat. I don't know.
When I sneeze, my dog runs out of the room. My dog is like, you're a hell of just happened. Something happened. Something happened inside that person's soul just now.
When red green, which you farted, red would run away. Yeah. He hated farts. Like he knew he didn't like the smell.
Yeah. He would fart and he'd be like, up and out. Yeah. But yeah.
I think, look, Astro, you have to do what your cat soul tells you to do. You are not a pet. You are a person who lives with other people. You are just a different kind of person.
A superior kind. I'm speaking as gummy bear. Oh, this is gummy bear. Now speaking, you are a superior kind person.
That's true. Those are those weird people over there. And they do weird stuff. And when they do weird stuff, you should leave and go find a more comfortable place.
Yeah. That's true. From gummy bear's perspective, it's like these servants do a pretty good job of serving me. But then sometimes they act weird.
Yeah. And I don't know how to explain to them that they are not fully fulfilling their role in my life, which is to meet my needs. Yeah. So yeah, you should run away when someone isn't meeting your needs by sneezing.
Yeah. Yeah. You're a wild animal. Not dubious at all.
Great advice, Hank. Let's get to the all important news from our agency. We've been in season wrapped up on the men's side. And we ended up finishing like ninth.
Whatever. We kind of collapsed at the end of the season. We missed out on the playoffs. But we also had a number of games where we weren't afraid of relegation, which for me anyway is an absolute delight.
But the women's team, Hank, did secure promotion and then played their final game of the season on May 5th at Plow Lane in front of over 2,500 fans, the largest crowd I see Wimbledon's ever had for a women's team. And one of the largest crowds in the fourth tier history. And most excitingly, that was also our last game in the fourth tier because Wimbledon women's team won their league. There's only one promotion spot.
We got it. We're headed up to the third tier of English football. Very exciting. So while the men's team missed out on promotion, the women's team secured it.
And I think have a very bright future sponsored by Rosie Anna and me. They were partners in health on the back of their jerseys. They're an extraordinary group of young people. One of them actually went from having a really severe stroke during a brain surgery and experiencing basically total paralysis on one side of their body and fought their way all the way back to being a footballer again and getting to participate in the season.
This season's incredible promotion campaign. So they got to lift the trophy in front of 2,500 people, Plow Lane, including over a dozen Nerdfighters and Rosie Anna, who went to the game. It always just means the world to me when Nerdfighters go to celebrate AFC Wimbledon. So thank you and congrats to the women's team on their amazing season.
This week, and Mars news, John, there's another weird rock. Oh boy. Is it like a weird rock? Is it identical to the last one?
No, it's a different, it's a number of different rocks. But they all have something in common. So obviously Curiosity studies rocks. Been doing that for a long time.
In the middle of Gale Crater using the Kim Kim Cam, which vaporizes the rocks and then it uses a laser to figure out what is inside the rocks. And inside these rocks, they found a lot of manganese oxide, which is interesting because manganese oxide on Earth only forms in the presence of there being a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere. It's not how Mars is like today. So this might suggest that Mars had oxygen levels similar to Earth in the past.
No way. Yeah, but it's nice. I did say proper oxygen and all that. And like, yes, and also oxygen is weird and unstable.
And so this would be like, if we could confirm that there was like a thick atmosphere of oxygen, there are situations where that could form without biology, but it did not form without biology on Earth. We didn't give a thick oxygen atmosphere until until biology happened. But we don't know if that's how these happened. There are some, there's debate, of course, there's debate.
There's a 2022 study that found that maybe other things could convert manganese into manganese oxide in various ways, just in water. But you know, and we know that Mars had water. So for now it is still a mystery, but it is a clue. And we're, we need to do a more chemistry to figure out whether like to the extent to which it would be possible for it to happen without oxygen.
And we also need to find other things that would confirm that that Mars had an atmosphere of oxygen before we agreed for sure that that is the thing that happened. Wow. Yeah, that's fascinating. I mean, that raises the possibility that there was relatively complex life on Mars.
Not necessarily complex, but a lot of it. Right. Right. I guess more like it would be about the quantity, not the quality.
Fair enough. Yeah. And like, who knows? Like if life evolved in a different way, versus having been seeded from one to the other, then this is one of my big questions, Hank.
Yeah. We, as far as we know, life only evolved once on Earth. Oh, yeah. And yeah.
And so it must be kind of hard for it to happen. Well, I mean, it could have, it could have happened more than once at separate places. And then one probably would have taken over the other. So like all of, all the life that we have right now, yeah, descended from one kind of life, like two, four systems of life on Earth.
That is surprising to me if it's so likely that that on other planets, their life seems to have emerged in other places, even very close to us, life seems to have likely emerged at some point. Yeah. I don't know. I think.
Like tentative evidence of it, both on Venus and on Mars, the two planets closest to us. Like that's pretty wild. I mean, I know it's tentative, but like, we have tentative evidence is a strong word. We have like tentative possible indications of it.
Yeah. I mean, I, so where I'm kind of getting to is it's probably, probably not that weird for life to happen. But then why do we have more than once here? Well, it probably, it may very well, have.
It's just that that one system was better than another and out competed it. And I think that would be kind of inevitable. So if you have two systems that are like isolated from each other, and then like one is able to, like in these early, like scenarios of life on Earth, mostly what you're thinking about as hydrothermal events, though people will argue that there's other opportunities, but it looks increasingly like it was hydrothermal-based. And so there would be in these pockets that would be separate from each other.
And they would also be very reliant on that environment around the hydrothermal event. So leaving that environment would be very hard and also would require like a huge step in evolution of sort of creating the membrane around yourself to carry the environment that you evolved in with you. And so the first like thing that was able to do that was probably able to go and like see those things and be like, wow, you know what that is? It's food.
Right. Okay. Okay. That makes, I guess that makes sense to me.
I mean, it's just, the thing that, it's just kind of bad to me if it's, if it's, if it's that easy relatively, yeah, how can we have an observed it? And I guess maybe we've only had 200 years to look for it, but like, we haven't had a ton of time. And the other thing is that we underestimate how long three billion years is, which is how long, like life has existed on Earth for longer than that. And the fact that you can have like one single unbroken chain of life work that long probably is pretty unusual because we, we, we, we're used to hearing that number, but we're not used to hearing it as like a third of the life of the universe.
It's a long time. So we might actually be early. Yeah. Yeah.
We might be early in the history of life in the universe. And also we might, it might be unusual for a planet to stay stable enough for the life to last a long time. Sure. Yeah.
You know, just a nice indication that we could be at the tail end of that stability. You know, we could be. We probably aren't. Thanks.
I needed that. Thanks for plotting with me. It's been a pleasure. I really appreciate it.
And it's good to, good to chat with you. Thanks for taking time. Yeah. Thank you.
And you can send us questions at Hank and John and G. Mel.com. Thank you very much to everybody who's something questions. This podcast is edited by Joseph Dunamish.
It's produced by Rosie Anna Halser, a host, our communication coordinator is Brooke Schottwell, editorial assistant is the book you're hearing now. And at the beginning of the podcast is by the great, gonna roll up. And as they stay in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.