Hank: Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

Emily: Or as I like to call it, Dear Emily and Hank.

Hank: It's a comedy podcast for two brothers and sometimes just one brother and a special guest. Answer your questions, give your dubious advice, and we'll bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. And today, our special guest host, our guest, not John John. is Emily Graslie, the chief curiosity correspondent at the Field Museum in Chicago and host of The Brain Scoop and natural history expert and etc.

Emily, how are you doing?

Emily: I'm doing good.

Hank: How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm angry.

Why? I have an anger in my soul. Why?

Because, well Katherine and I, a year ago when Oren was four months old we went to the Netherlands and we went to the Kuchenhof Gardens in the Netherlands. beautiful like basically a showcase of all of the best tulip breeders in the world and it's a beautiful place. that sort of makes me marvel at the ability of humans and we bought a bunch of tulip bulbs from the tulip breeders there. I don't think of the tulip breeder is the. right word. but whatever that's what they do. they breed tulips yeah and and then they sent them to us and then we planted them and then after five years of living in this house suddenly the deer have found us and they are only eating the Dutch tulips and not any of the normal like Home Depot things we got that are all over the yard but they have selectively chosen to eat the and maybe this is why. maybe this is why the Home Depot tulips are the Home Depot tulips. Right.

That maybe they're just not as tasty as the good good. they're basically like Dutch tulips are like hot dogs to deer.

Emily: yeah Hank these deer have champagne taste like that's right. they know that you've put in all this effort and energy to bring these wonderful tulips back and they think that it's a gift to them the native deer of Montana.

Hank: is it a gift to them? is that how I should think of it?

Emily: yeah they can't get on a plane they can't go get them themselves. they're not gonna. They have no land bridge that they can take advantage of.

Hank: So I've. been fantasizing about like, because we can, I think I know when the deer are showing up. They're showing up at like five o'clock in the morning. Because occasionally I'm awake at five o'clock in the morning and I can see that there are no deer prints in the snow and then there are deer prints in the snow. And so I've been thinking about just like hiding in the bushes and then jumping out grabbing the deer and killing it with my bare hands. but you're saying that I should think of this as if I I am doing a solid for the deer. and this is part of a.

It's part of like a cultural exchange program in which deer get to try new kinds of tulips.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I mean it's all about framing man You know, it's just just reframe the situation in your mind and then you can every morning just think oh the deer are so grateful. They're looking at how grateful they are for what I have done for them.

Hank: Yeah, yeah, they eat half the tulip and then they move on to the next one because, you know, they want to. try every individual tulip.

Emily: Right, and you can say, you're welcome. Oh, you liked the orange ones. Well, me too. So that makes two of us now.

Hank: Well, I don't even know what color they are because they haven't even gotten to the tulip part of being tulips yet. They're just leaves.

Emily: How are you getting tulips already? We have snow.

Hank: Oh, we have snow, too. There's snow on our tulips.

Emily: Those are some resilient tulips.

Hank: Well, maybe, I mean, they seemed very healthy before the deer ate them.

Emily: Well, yes. A life cut short. Well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about your deer and tulip problems.

Hank: Yeah, I don't even know, like, I don't even feel like the bulbs can come back from this. Anyway, you're probably not too much of a tulip expert. You have a number of areas of expertise, but... But other than my struggles, are things going well in Chicago aside from it not being tulip season yet?

Emily: Yeah, well, I mean, kind of in that vein, I'm a little sad this week. I had to cancel my vacation that I was going to leave for tomorrow because I had a plan to take a five. and a half hour road trip to go witness this giant snake migration in southern Illinois. But the high's only 38. And there will be no snakes. in my future.

Hank: Oh, so you had to cancel the vacation not because of anything to do with you, but to do with the snakes. Like the snakes aren't going to come out.

Emily: No, they'll be too chilly.

Hank: But can't you just wait until it's warm and then go?

Emily: I can, but you know when you have your heart set on something? It was going to be March 5th. I was going to go on this intrepid voyage to go find a migration of danger noodles and now it's not happening.

Hank: Did you mean April 5th? Just to be clear. Yeah.

Emily: What did I say? May?

Hank: March. March. I was like, you got a month girl, just chill.

Emily: No, it was going to be tomorrow. So, but anyway, my, my, I'll, we're going in May, so I shouldn't really be that upset about it. I'm just.

Hank: So wait, May is a long time from now. Is it, are the danger noodles going to wait that long to come out? Well, I don't know. Are they going to come out at all?

Like just, you should just have somebody down there like like waiting or like a nest cam set up so that you can be like oh there we go let's go let's go now now now now it's happening.

Emily: yeah yeah yeah yeah. like what they like kind of what they do with the uh the the blossoms the cherry blossoms in dc. i need like an indicator tree version of that for a snake. yes but it should be a person who has my cell phone who can call me at a moment's notice and be like emily danger noodles.

Hank: Emily, my clothes are covered in snakes. Emily, they're everywhere. Emily, they're inside of my mouth, I'm dying.

Emily: Emily, there's a venomous snake coiled around my legs and I need medical attention. Maybe that's not how that should go.

Hank: They're so hungry, they're eating each other. Oh god, it's humanity.

Emily: But at least there's no snow, so come on down.

Hank: Yeah, so that sounds very cool. But the snakes are gonna be okay. They're not like in bad shape.

Emily: No, I think they'll be fine. They're just going to probably wait. to come out. So they kind of, from what I understand, I've never actually witnessed this great snake migration. There's like a limestone or sandstone shelf in this national park where a bunch of them overwinter and then it starts to warm up and they're like, hey, it's time for me to make some snake babies.

And then they all kind of come out of these cliffs and start to disperse and they just happen to all cross this one road that they've actually renamed Snake Road. So we were going to go down to Snake Road and just hang out and just watch the snakes come across the road.

Hank: And they are venomous, like they're nasty snakes.

Emily: Well, there are a number of species. So there are garter snakes, there are green snakes, there are cottonmouths, there are rattlesnakes. So it was going to be a whole smorgasbord of danger noodles and just regular noodles, frankly. 

Hank: Danger noodles and cuddle noodles.

Emily: Yeah, and and little boops, you know, just Everything just everything happy. Do snakes eat snakes?

Hank: Cuz it feels like if you just overwintered and you're like well There's a whole lot of snakes around and some of. them are quite small. Yeah, I mean just trump that.

Emily: I think about that sometimes when snakes eat things with legs like that creates some some Protrusions, right?

Hank: Yeah.

Emily: So if you can just eat another snake, it's just like eating a noodle just goes down easy. So why not?

Hank: Well, yeah. Yeah, it's like putting. it's like putting a cup into a larger cup. It just fits right in. Yeah, it's like all the way down.

Emily: Like a Russian nesting doll of snakes.

Hank: Snakes all the way down. Maybe that? maybe that snake had eaten the snake earlier and you ate the snake.

Emily: and because you're a snake and it's just yeah and then you end up in a museum and someone's like oh we have a boa constrictor. and then they're like no we don't we have a boa constrictor that ate another snake that ate another snake.

Hank: yeah it's like a turducken but it's just snakes.

Emily: yeah i feel like this is not offering any dubious advice to anybody. 

Hank: No, I mean you gave me dubious advice for eating the deer and I appreciate that. It's all about my mindset more than how to prevent the deer. from eating the tulips. That's very good. Very Dear Hank and John of you.

Do you have a poem for us, Emily?

Emily: I do. And the funny thing is when I thought about bringing a poem I realized like abundantly how The Eagle, A Fragment He clasps the crag with crooked hands, Close to the sun and lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world. he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls, He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Hank: Oh.

Emily: Isn't that, that's kind of neat.

Hank: I'm into animal poetry. That could be, that could be a thing I could get into.

Emily: Yeah, he did another one called The Kraken, and that's 15 lines, but we can save that for another, for the future, but that one is also very good.

Hank: You guys, everybody's just gonna look it up and tell Emily what you think of the Kraken.

Emily: Yeah, that one's got a little bit more drama, so highly recommend it.

Hank: All right. Well, and now we have entered into the portion of the podcast that is the podcast part of the podcast where we answer questions and try to give some dubious advice and. the first person that we're going to do that for is named Karina who asks, Dear Hank and Emily, Is it selfish to want to be cremated? Since you're not really going back to nature and stuff, would I contribute to the planet somehow by just being turned into ash? Pumpkins and penguins, Karina.

I think that we, like, okay Emily, what do you know about burial processes?

Emily: Well, a little bit more than I knew before I was on YouTube, actually. So there's this great creator named Caitlin Doughty. She's got a YouTube channel called Ask a Mortician. She is, in fact, a mortician.

And one of the things that she really advocates for is for green burials and all sorts of different ways of sort of disrupting the burial industry. So she's a disruptor, I would say. and so she's illuminated a lot of New ideas for me about how one can return to the earth and you can let you can be buried in Joshua Tree.

Hank: So like that's a lot like that's people like it's open.

Emily: Yeah. I mean, I think there's a permitting process There's an application process and I think it's there and there. are limited numbers of spaces. But increasingly there are more and more of these green burial opportunities cropping up with people thinking like well Why don't you just instead of injecting me with formaldehyde and all these preservatives you know just let me decay naturally in like a cardboard box or like a birch box or something and then like plant a tree and then when I die all of my bits can go back to the earth and nurture bugs and stuff and then I'll just turn into fertilizer and then there will be a healthy tree. And I think that's absolutely, what a wonderful holistic way of thinking about it.

Hank: Yeah, I mean the thing, Karina, to note is that the traditional way of being buried, you don't become that useful because there are, you do sort of get preserved. Eventually you get, you know, like all your, you know, it happens, but like the process is very slow when placed inside of a very processed a lacquered hardwood box and inside you yourself have been filled with a lot of things that are designed to make you not decay. and uh and like that's the whole goal. is to make you not is to make the the make you look like you're still alive. yeah to make you not be fertilizer. um and like I do I think this is a very personal decision for every person. um I think that there is something Good about cremation in in that like you're just not taking up a lot of space You get to sort of go where like a place that you like without needing a permitting process. I don't think that anybody needs a permit to just get scattered somewhere. Also burial at sea.

We did discuss that on a Dear Hank and John once and you do in a lot of places have to get a permit to be buried at sea but it is a thing that you can do which I did not realize. it's pretty Amazing. I think that we have too rigid an idea of what post-life disposal looks like. And I'm excited for people who are trying to think about that in different ways.

Emily: Yeah, I mean, there are logistical Space problems with everybody. if everybody who has ever lived or ever will live is going to be in addition. to this being like pretty unaffordable for most people like going into a coffin and then into a cement block in the ground like we're just gonna run out of space.

Hank: so yeah well there's a I listen to a 99% invisible about this recently it was very good in which it is discussed that it is kind of a uniquely American idea that you get your burial plot forever. that like this is where I rest and I will be here until the sun explodes I guess. In other places you lease it and like when you like when you or your family stops paying the lease they just put somebody else down there.

Emily: That makes far more sense.

Hank: Yeah.

Emily: Because then like 200 years from now someone's gonna show up and be like well I guess I could have put my grandma here but there's someone here that we don't really remember and nobody's I don't know.

Hank: Nobody's coming by. Do you really need this space right now? We don't want to think about that time eventually when people aren't thinking about us anymore. But that doesn't mean that we didn't have an effect on the world and. that effect doesn't ripple on through people who don't remember us.

Emily, do you have any other questions for us?

Emily: Yeah. I agree. I think there are lots of thoughtful ways you can think about what is gonna happen with your body. I kind of, you know, people have asked me would I be taxidermied?

I feel like that's... No. I don't want to go there.

No. But maybe in anatomy lab. I will...

Hank: Not? Yeah, that is, people have done that. I think, I can't remember, some philosopher is taxidermied at some famous school in England, and I'm just like, no, no. And he's like, I don't know if he's on display, but he used to be at least, and I just...

No thanks.

Emily: There's an anthropologist who passed away. I think he was, he's taught at University of Oregon or somewhere in Oregon, somewhere on the West Coast. And he also was a big Bigfoot believer. And I don't know why that's important to the story.

Anyway, he ended up meeting some anthropologists at the Smithsonian in DC. And he had kept all of his, his Irish wolfhounds when like all of their remains. after they had passed. away because he also was a big fan of Irish Wolf fans. Anyway, long story short, when he died in his will, he wanted to have his skeleton articulated with one of the skeletons of his beloved dog.

And now they're still on display. And you can go see him with his giant dog with its doggy paws on his skeletal shoulders. And there it is.

It's a Smithsonian. 

Hank: Well, good. What's his name?

Emily: I don't remember. But if you Google Smithsonian skeleton greyhound dog, it'll probably come up.

Hank: It's a greyhound or Irish well-found?

Emily: Oh Irish well-found. Jeez, I'm not getting my dog breeds. Anyway.

Hank: I'm looking, yeah, his name is Grover Krantz, and there he is. That's a big dog!

Emily: It is a big dog. It's a good boy, too.

Hank: Yeah, he's being a real good boy.

Emily: Yeah, so.

Hank: Aw, that's cute.

Emily: Yeah, I kind of like that. I wouldn't mind that.

Hank: Okay, yeah, yeah more of it. yeah You wouldn't mind being an articulated skeleton. You don't like the idea of being taxidermied.

Emily: Yeah, I mean I agree with you deeply.

Hank: I don't know why that that feels so very different to me, but it does Okay, this one this.

Emily: questions from Emily dear Hank and Emily How do you throw away a trash can? do you put it into a bigger trash can? What about the big ones you put by the side of the road? Are trash cans just immortal? One of many, Emily.

I feel like this really goes into the conversation we just had about snakes eating snakes.

Hank: Well then also, what do you do when you die? What do you do with your trash can when it dies?

Emily: Right. I'm sensing a theme.

Hank: Yeah, you need to take it to Joshua Tree, bury it three feet down, not so deep that it won't decompose.

Emily: Yeah, plant a tree on it, and then put a snake in it. I don't know.

Hank: I had this problem recently, actually. I had one of the metal garbage cans that rusted out the bottom, and I put it Into a larger trash can and the trash people took it out and put it next to the trash can Basically to say no no no no no you are doing that wrong. And I was like, but I don't know how to do it right, so it's just. in my garage.

Emily: So is it? could it be a recycling? could you put it out on recycling day, maybe?

Hank: Well maybe I would assume like it's a hunk of steel like it's got to be useful to somebody right?

Emily: yeah Yeah, do you what's wrong with it?

Hank: It's the bottom. the bottoms all rusted.

Emily: Oh, oh you said that I was gonna say I have giant aluminum cans full of birdseed in my backyard. So I was like you put birdseed in it, but if the bottom doesn't work, then it's not functional. You know maybe you should put it out like upside down so that they can they can See that the utility of this particular right?

Hank: Yeah expired it's broke.

Emily: That's what I was going to suggest to Emily is like maybe you need signage there.

Hank: Right, yes. In fact, this WikiHow article suggests putting the trash can upside down and then if that doesn't work, putting a sign on it that says, uh, discard or please take this or this is broken, have a nice day, I hope that things are going well with your family.

Emily: The WikiHow article says that?

Hank: Yeah, and then the the. final option if that doesn't work is to cut the trash can up with a saw and kitchen knife And put it into a bag.

Emily: I feel like that was more like that was someone's final attempt. They're just frustrated. They're like I can't handle it And then they just angrily go to the garage and get a chainsaw and start hacking it up, and it ends up working. 

Hank: Time for the machete yeah And then they also suggest recycling it. if you can figure out how to do that. Um, so probably that's what I will end up doing, uh, is figuring out how to recycle it, because it is, I think, a big hunk of good steel. Why not?

Emily: Someone could use that. Yeah, melt it down.

Hank: Yeah, you gotta turn it into something else. Make it into a birdhouse. I don't know. Metal birdhouse, sure.

Emily: Something. Put your snakes in it, I don't know.

Hank: Yeah, protect your tulips with it. Yeah!

Emily: Yeah, make a, you could hammer that real thin and hand make some chicken wire.

Hank: Maybe I should protect my tulips with it. Maybe I should just like stake it down onto the ground around my. tulips and the deer won't be able to get in and then like some sunlight will get in the rusty bottom. but then they like this the deer will be like I'm gonna try to get my head in there and it's like nope rusty edges not happening.

Emily: oh man see Hank you're still thinking about it like like it's not a gift to the deer. now you're making an obstacle course.

Hank: I am I don't. I mean I feel like I don't. yep that's correct. I want to see my tulips. I want my wife to be happy about the tulips that we have.

Emily: Yeah. Well, I mean, I also want Katherine to be happy with the tulips. The tulip situation. The tulip situation.

Hank: Okay. Well, if anybody has any suggestions for how I can deal with these deer without murder, please let me know. This next question comes from Nat who asks, Dear Hank and Emily, I recently moved in with my partner. It's both of our first times living with significant others and it's scary and weird and exciting and really amazing.

The advice I've been given pretty much has all been compromise is key, which has. proven to be true. However, a situation has presented itself that I don't know how to compromise on. He doesn't organize his books in any particular order on the bookshelf.

He says he does not feel a need to do this. Do I organize it for him? Do I ask him to do it?

Do I move out and end our relationship? This message transmitted on 100% recycled electrons, Matt.

Emily: I feel like this went to a very extreme solution without... Well, I mean, it could have...

Hank: She could have thought maybe like, let's just burn the whole place down. Let's just...

Emily: Yeah.

Hank: I think maybe books shouldn't exist anymore. Let's end it all.

Emily: Yeah.

Hank: Humanity isn't worth saving.

Emily: There's a very simple solution here. that isn't real. I mean, it is sort of a compromise. It's not even much of a compromise. Why don't you just have your own bookshelves?

Hank: I don't know that that will save the worry here. There may be some amount of like, I can't have a not organized bookshelf in my home.

Emily: Oh.

Hank: Well, but she does say the bookshelf. But also like may not be a place that is big enough for more. than one bookshelf. But yeah, it says the bookshelf, which I assume. I assume that means you're sharing a bookshelf and to me, yeah, I think Emily you're right either two bookshelves or Just organize the bookshelf.

Emily: Oh, yeah, or you just have your own shelf on the bookshelf, right? How many books are we talking here?

Hank: Right? I don't know, but I also think like organize your boyfriend's books That's okay, right? I wouldn't mind if, like if to me my bookshelf is in no particular order, that means I don't care what order they're in, so if they're in an order that is equal to me as there being no order.

Emily: Oh, I just, I feel like just to each its own, right? I mean, if he's fine with not having books organized, then you just organize your books and just let him have his books be disorganized because that's part of who he is as a person someone who does not care about the organization of their shelf. I mean I guess yeah to your point. if it doesn't matter one way or another then there's no loss. but this is also coming from so my my. partner and I have very we have our own bookshelves because we cannot stand the way that the other one organizes their books. and in fact yes you know he has made his own book plate. So, he's so particular about making sure that his books have his name in them that he has his own stamp made.

And it's fine because it actually, so then I don't have to stamp my books, I just know that the unstamped books are mine and the stamped books are his. Also, they're all on his bookshelf, his books, because we don't share our books on one another's shelves. It's very rigid.

Hank: His is very rigid and yours is less rigid, your systems?

Emily: I think yeah I mean because I don't again I don't really care my books are all over the place and and I don't put my name in them.

Hank: but I mean I do like if you are merging book collections and it's not it is a relatively early. I would suggest a certain amount of labeling might be good or some system of knowing whose books are whose. Katherine and I for a long time had a lot of. two copies of the same book because our collections merged and we were like, well, I mean, I don't know. I don't know where this is going.

Like maybe someday we're gonna want to have My copy and your copy. It's like like three years into marriage before we were like, you know We probably don't need two copies of this book.

Emily: Yeah, you probably will probably add any. It's safe to say at this point that Unless both of us need the same book at the exact same time that you could probably probably you know, just hit that hit that level.

Hank: if we're gonna have to If we're going to have to divide the books up, there's going to be bigger things to deal with. That won't be the main concern. Right.

Emily: Yeah.

Hank: But you're right.

Emily: I mean, that's kind of a, at an early point of a relationship, like Nat, who had just moved in with their partner, you know, that is, that's a big commitment. I don't know if that's a conversation that maybe they're ready to have yet.

Hank: Yeah, I organize my books by sort of Kind of book like I have a science fiction. section and graphic novel session and I like a young adult section and like nonfiction. But it like eat within those sections is basically wherever I put the book I don't feel like I have enough books to need to do it differently than that Really?

Emily: I I've organized my books by how much I liked them what?

Hank: So that's awful. Yeah, but like what if somebody comes over at that that wrote one of the books? And they'll be like, oh, interesting. My book is at the bottom right.

What's your ordering system?

Emily: Well, it should also go hand in hand. Sort of like. the books that I really like usually are from people that I also know. So I can't imagine a scenario. Like maybe the author of the biology textbook fifth edition that is on the bottom shelf of my bookshelf, maybe at some point they will take offense to the fact that I have put the textbook on the bottom shelf.

But I don't see that happening. For instance, you know, John's books are on the top shelf. Because if John came over, I'd be like, look, John, books made it.

They made it. Here they. are. I enjoyed them.

Hank: Yeah, like my. yeah, that is also my chemistry textbook is also on the bottom shelf sitting there being like, you know, maybe someday you might need this. You don't know.

Emily: Yeah, but you're like, it's probably not gonna be, I mean the internet exists.

Hank: Right, yeah. Well, I mean when I was writing Crash Course Chemistry or like working on Crash Course Chemistry, I did open that book a bunch, but it's been a while since I did that.

Emily: Yeah, so the utility isn't quite there. But I do it because if someone comes over and they're like, hey, I need a book to read, it's just easy for me to go, oh, pick one on the top shelf, they're all good.

Hank: Right. It's the top shelf books.

Emily: Yeah.

Hank: Yeah, that's got to be the name of a bookstore.

Emily: Top Shelf, you know, that's not. that's a that's a good idea.

Hank: Top Shelf books. Yep, it is. It's a virtual bookshop. What?

Emily: How does that work? There's not even a physical top shelf. 

Hank: Come on. Well, I mean, if it was an actual bookstore and only the books on the top shelf were any good. Or there were only books on the top shelves. That would just be a huge waste of space.

Emily: Well, maybe there's a cafe taking up the other spaces.

Hank: All the other space, yeah. Anyway. Hit me with another question, Emily.

Emily: Okay. This one's from Elizabeth with an S. Dear Hank and Emily, my best friend raises pet chickens in Seattle while being a badass woman. Can we say badass?

Yeah. Okay, while being a badass woman in computer science. We Skyped yesterday and our chickens are teenagers.

Ugly teenagers. I know we all have awkward phases, but I was wondering which animals in your esteemed dubious opinions have the worst adolescent awkward phase? Any awkward chicken phases in your lives?

Not your mayor, Elizabeth Mayer. With an ER.

Hank: I mean, okay, I want to see some awkward teenage chickens, so I've Googled that. Awkward Teenage Chicken. I think they're actually delightful. Those are cute.

They're like almost, well it's the thing where they're like they still got their chick fluff but then they're getting feathers and it's like oh you look like, I don't know, you look not well.

Emily: That is awkward.

Hank: You look not well.

Emily: They kind of look. like they've been in a windstorm. Mm-hmm because the fluff is still there, but there are some other real feathers coming. I mean, it's exactly what I look like in middle school Like like you'd been through a windstorm. Yeah, exactly. and but it kind of had weird long legs and looked a little frazzled on top right.

Hank: yeah. now I think that that is generally the. Catherine was saying on delete this our our podcast last week that there's sort of a phase that you go through when you just turn into a bunch of noodles And like you like your arms like your arms end at your knees and it's like what's happening. Why did this happen?

Emily: and your feet are like you skis? And so you just kind of you do. you're like one of those those wind dudes outside of car dealerships Yeah, just constantly getting blown around like I don't know what to do with my appendages Yeah, yeah, and like and then just breaking things both both inside and outside of your body. There's a lot of damage happening.

Hank: Damage occurs. And which made me think that the most awkward juvenile animal I've seen. is maybe a young giraffe, which is just all made of knobby wiggles.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah, there's just like a tiny little nucleus of a body and then the rest is just sticks everywhere. Like, so much going on.

Hank: So many sticks. But so cute, though.

Emily: Yeah. But the awkwardness is pretty endearing at that level. I was thinking the worst adolescent awkward phase is probably also, I should preface this that it's kind of gross, but it's true. Maggots.

Hank: Oh gosh Emily. What is the juvenile, aren't the maggots the juvenile phase themselves? Yes.

Emily: And they get such a bad rap. Because they're just baby flies. And if you if you think of a baby fly then you know there's something maybe endearing about that terminology. but there's a double standard here Hank and it's because people love caterpillars which are the right right. the adolescent stages little wormy basic butterflies yeah just a maggot butterfly yeah and but. but people give fly babies a bad rap. and I'm just I'm thinking of double standards here.

Hank: that's great It's a great point and I mean the thing of it is like it's not like they grow up and they become. beautiful majestic creatures though. Like I agree that I'd rather like be in the presence of well I don't know.

Emily: Of a butterfly rather than a fly.

Hank: No, no of a maggot like what would I prefer to be hanging out with like 20 maggots or 20 flies? I don't know. at least the maggots are staying in the same place mostly.

Emily: Yeah, yeah, and what you know, I think flies are kind of inherently beautiful too Especially if you see some like nice macro photography, but that also requires that they are still and usually dead. Oh interesting, so I I'm just. I did, you know. personally I'm also like not a gigantic maggot fan. I think it's because of the the quantity of numbers in which they're usually found Mm-hmm Like a little, because if you found a bush with like three million caterpillars on it, that's also kind of disturbing.

Hank: Right, yeah. Well, at least now we get to know that caterpillars are ruined for everyone now that I have the phrase butterfly maggot in my head.

Emily: I had very strong opinions about this when I first read that question and I didn't exactly articulate them out. loud. and now that I've gone down this route, I regret it a little bit.

Hank: I mean, yeah. Well, I think that all larval forms are a pretty awkward adolescent phase. They're sort of like the quintessential awkward adolescent phase in children's media, because it's always like, the caterpillar's very hungry and he gets a stomach ache and then he's a beautiful butterfly is the story that I read to Orin.

Emily: God, I wish that had happened to me. It did.

Hank: look at you. you used to be a wind-swept noodle and now you're Emily Graslie host of the brain scoop.

Emily: But I'm still hungry Hank. I'm always hungry.

Hank: Oh, right. Yeah, you didn't stop being hungry.

Emily: Yeah But what are there? any other animals that have awkward teenage? I feel just like it's a really uniting. It's something that unites all of us.

Hank: Yeah, teenagerdom is a really interesting phase of awkwardness. I think that dogs have really great awkward teenage years.

Emily: Oh, so good.

Hank: So good.

Emily: Do you go on the subreddit Blunder Years?

Hank: No blunder years is good. Oh good thing.

Emily: It's so good It's so it's. it's just for people who don't know it's blunder years. and kind of like wonder years But it's just pictures of people from their most awkward Points of their life ever. It's it's amazing. This subreddit brings me so much joy.

Hank: Yeah, I mean the nice thing about like. when I was that age I didn't Realize how awkward I was I didn't know it.

Emily: No, and that's like the beauty of it is like you're so blissfully unaware of yourself in context of your surroundings of You know your self-expression isn't quite on point and and you just don't even know Until ten years later. and you look back and you're like, oh dear. Why did my mother let me walk out of the house like that? 

Hank: Yeah, I as as a father now I think about like. I will just have to let him walk out of the house like that. There's nothing else I can do about that. No.

Like, you can't control them.

Emily: No. No, and you don't even want to because I think at that point if someone's, if they're not even listening... to you right like there's maybe that angsty teenage phase that I think many of us have been in you just kind. of like. you know what fine just go you just you can. you can recoil in disgust at yourself 10 years from now when you see your picture on the top page of blunder years and I I will just look forward to that moment and it's all fine like the top. The top picture right now is this kid who covered himself in armor made out of K'nex.

Hank: I mean, that's a win, though. Yeah.

Emily: Yeah, it's truly delightful.

Hank: Okay, okay Emily, this next question comes from Anra who asks, Dear brothers, and also Emily, I took a summer class on ecology and we had a class on invasive species. My question to you is this, are humans invasive species? If humans are, should we have global regulations on our movements? I know that there's not a way for this to actually happen, but your podcast is pretty nebulous so I thought you were the best people to talk this out.

I thought you were the best people to talk this out. All the best, even in death, Anra. Alright Emily, are humans an invasive species?

I have lots of thoughts. Go.

Emily: Oh, this question makes me so uncomfortable. Um, because, uh, I, no, yes.

Hank: Yeah. Yeah, no, yes.

Emily: Yes.

Hank: It really, yeah, it deeply depends on the definition. What I've learned from living in Montana is that invasive species Is an ecological term that is is Understood mostly in terms of economic impact. So we talk about invasive species Particularly ones that like cows can't eat. That's a big problem when you have a species that a cow is like.

Nope. I'm incapable of digesting that. they become very comfortable on the rangeland and then suddenly you have lots of plants that are not nourishing your cattle and you have land that is less economically productive than it once was. Same thing with like zebra mussels that cling to boat propellers and hydroelectric systems and you have to scrape them off and turn off the dam for a little while while you do that and it results in lost money.

So In this weird way it turns out that we of this this ecological problem that we understand and we discuss through an ecological lens in Reality when we talk about it It's a human economic problem that we actually when we actually sort of are working and spending money trying to fix it.

Emily: I never thought of invasive species in that way.

Hank: Yeah, it's totally like like living in Montana you start you get a real good look at that If you if you pay close enough attention because it's really all about rangeland and uh yeah and not about like preserving the ec the ecological diversity of a place.

Emily: right and that's i mean that's really interesting because when i think about invasive species i think there are a lot of like ideological. you know things that we can these narnias that don't exist these gardens of eden that are never going to return to a pristine habitat and and by wanting to eradicate everything that's quote invasive about it is really just sort of like a colonial approach to an environment. And so I feel really uncomfortable with the idea that someone could say that humans are an invasive species. because then where are we and where are we supposed to go? Who are we displacing or who are we advocating for the displacement of? And I really don't like that way of thinking about it.

Right.

Hank: No, I like I told. Yes, it's a. and it's also I mean the entire idea of an invasive species of exotic invasives like these. this doesn't happen. I mean it does but it almost always happens because of human intervention. and of course there is something different about people that is different from nature. but the way that I tend to think of it as not like okay you have this box over here that is human and you have this box over here. that is nature. and you have technology and you have the biosphere and they are sort of like opposing but very separate spheres. is I have been able to understand it and like keep this like sort of an internalized understanding that I don't have to like refresh in my brain. it just like it stayed with me that the biology is in us and we have this extra stuff on top of it. but like the biology will never come out of us and technology is a biological product in the same way that biology is a chemical product. and just like we have like chemistry inside of us we have biology inside of us. we have evolution inside of us like. that is all part of our story and who we are. and I think that there can be this weird like purity argument that comes out of our feelings about nature that is really kind of fake and that that stuff is always changing and it's always in disruption. and in fact what we find in ecology is that disruption actually is like not just the natural state but also where a lot of diversity comes from and that you don't have like single like wide swaths of old growth forest. you have mixes and Meshes and that mixy bit like where it's not the same everywhere is actually where the most interesting nature happens.

Emily: Yeah, I think there's a lot of really interesting things too that are happening with especially with science communication about how you know Certain things have in the past been demonized in a way that isn't necessarily fair. So if you think about like bacteria, right? It's there's a big proponent to bet have everything germ free which is tear tear. You don't not want to be germ free. no Germs are your friend number one and two.

We did a video about this a. couple of months ago, but the ecological importance of parasites. I think there's a tendency to want to eradicate any idea of anything living and feeding off of you or your livestock or anything, but it turns out that parasites are necessary in a way that a microbiome is necessary. I think it's kind of a fun way of looking at the world, if you imagine. not that there's anything pristine to aspire to but more understanding like what the role of everything is currently playing in the current structure and having a curiosity about that. so I don't know that doesn't really go back to the question about our humans and invasive species.

I guess technically maybe. but also is it helpful to think about humans as invasive species? because I'm not sure that it is right.

Hank: yeah I mean I it understanding an accurate understanding of the relationship between humans and the biosphere is very hard to like. I don't think that there is one. I don't think that there is like one right way of thinking about it. but yeah I think that the the thing that's necessary that has been necessary for me is an appreciation. of humans and a sort of like amazement at them in the same way that I have awe and amazement at the biological systems and to to appreciate both of those things and know that like yes one of them feeds off of the other more than the other feeds off of it. but um but you know we uh are remarkable and I want to continue thinking and I can like. I think objectively that like humans are extremely interesting and uh oh yeah very cool and and that that it's almost like thinking you know like the geology of the earth would be more pristine if there weren't so many animals on it. and i'm like okay but like but like you don't want no animals they're awesome right also yeah like what about the fossil record?

Emily: like the fossil record is just the gift that keeps on giving when you're like wait yeah no totally. what happened to the cambrian? this is crazy.

Hank: This is crazy. All right, I want to do one more question before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon and I would like you to ask this question about salt. because I think it feeds into this conversation we're having.

Emily: Yes. This is from from Tessa. Dear Hank and shrimp and Emily, I guess. I'm a big fan of-.

Hank: Do you have an adolescent nickname? because that was John's adolescent nickname.

Emily: Oh, oh my adolescent. Oh God. My adolescent nickname was Emily P. And I mean, that's not a good nickname. 

Hank: But it's the truth, which is what matters.

Emily: Right. And I hated it. And my sister insisted on calling me Emily P. And I don't know why, but it always bothered me.

And so she kept doing it because that's what older sisters do.

Hank: Perfect.

Emily: So Dear Hank and Emily P. I am a big fan of the pod and in need of your dubious expertise. I recently started thinking about salt, namely sea salt, and why people always make a big deal about it being sea salt. Doesn't all salt come from the sea?

I realize that actually, maybe since salt is a mineral, it's also possible to extract it from the ground. How does that process work? And do we use all kinds of salt in our food?

Why is sea salt seen as the best? and? most luxurious of all salts? Many thanks in advance, Tessa.

Hank: I like the luxurious because it is like that's. it's a weird thing that like we've created this like this marketing machine around a type of salt to be like. it's not just salt. it'll taste salty? yeah no it'll taste like salt but but it'll just like. it's more expensive so it's probably better right.

Emily: I mean this is this isn't just sea salt. I honestly Hank and Tessa I kind of think that sea salt is a little 2015. I feel like right now the rage is grey salt and Himalayan pink salt. Even though I would also say Himalayan pink salt is more 2017 than anything.

Hank: Oh now there's grey salt. What the frick. is grey salt, Emily? I've never heard of this.

Emily: Hank, get this. It's salt that happens to be grey.

Hank: But why? Is it grey? because they put like extra money in it so it costs more?

Emily: Or maybe it's just dirty and they're like, you know what? We are going to save a bunch of money by not having to clean this salt. So and but well, we'll just market it as gray. salt and people eat it up literally Gray salt.

Hank: so I I'm look I'm looking up gray salt right now. Oh god. It's it's favored by chefs 100% natural salt whatever the frick that means. I told you I even found it.

It's just rocks.

Emily: It's just rocks. An article on Livestrong.com Gray salt versus Himalayan pink salt. I mean, there's an entire, this article is far too long.

Hank: But it has opinions. It's not like. actually it's just the same as the normal salt that you use. So, I mean, I know the difference, like, there's just more minerals in this other stuff. So if you just, so there's a lot of salts, as is what we call it, any ionic compound in chemistry, we call a salt.

And there's a lot of salts in seawater. And the most plentiful one is sodium chloride, which is what is in table salt. And when you make table salt because you're like people want the thing that they want not a bunch of extra stuff mixed in because it's the 50s and we want to make things that are the things people want rather than like the most weird natural we're. not even sure what's really in this which is apparently the craze right now. you make it pure sodium chloride so they go through with some processes to make it pure sodium chloride and then they put a touch of iodine in so that people in America don't get goiters anymore. and that's table salt.

And it comes mostly from mining salt, but when you mine salt that also usually came from sea salt or from inland seas like the Great Salt Lake where there were long periods of time where water was going to a place and then evaporating and then that got covered up with rock and then you dug it out. And they actually. Interestingly one of the ways that they do this is instead of digging it out with scoops they'll pump hot water down and then they'll pump the hot water out and the hot water will come out with a bunch of salt in it and then they evaporate off the water and you get the salt and then what's left behind is a giant hole in the earth where there is nothing because you've pumped all the salt out and then sometimes occasionally. and there's a video of this happening. it just collapses and like all the trees on top are like zoom and just fall inside. there's a really great video of all the like an entire swamp falling into one of these salt caves that they made pumping salt out of a place I don't know if I don't know if you can find it just by googling like salt cave tree falling disaster or something.

Emily: Salt cave disaster.

Hank: Salt cave tree fall disaster. What do we get? Video. Got to type in video.

Emily: Yeah, yes. There is video that comes up.

Hank: There is video, but it's not the video I'm looking for. Really? Yeah. Bayou corn sinkhole swallows stands of trees.

It's really good. It's like three minute long video and the whole time you're like, what's happening? are those trees really gonna fall into? just like? they're just gonna keep falling? oh man everybody look up the bayou corn sinkhole and oh there there they go. they're just they're trees and then they're just where are they going? where that's. they're not falling over they're just getting that. wait they're just going down and then they're just gone they. get sucked away and the trees are gone now and the guys with the cameras just sitting there and I'm like How do you know that's not gonna happen under you right now, right?

Emily: Hank, can I just? I am so impressed by how much you know about salt. I was not not at all anticipating All of this, but I feel like we really touched on something that you feel personally very invested in Right.

Hank: Well, I guess I may have I may have strong opinions about a number of things that I shouldn't have strong opinions on. It may be one of my, one of my vices. I, uh, but I do feel, so, and then when you make, these other kinds of salt are just the raw salt that hasn't had the other minerals, the other ionic compounds taken out of it. And, uh, and so that has more stuff than just the salt in it, which I don't, like maybe some experts can taste the difference between those things.

I don't think that you can, because salt is a very strong flavor. And, uh, and It is definitely not like healthier for you. If you want. to get extra minerals. it makes a lot more sense to just get those minerals rather than like loading it up inside of your food by making it saltier which has potential negative health effects.

Emily: Right. I mean in this article that I'm still amazed that they're So many words to compare Gray and Himalayan pink salt. I mean, they do go into nutritional profiles and differences in texture and use. So I would say some people do have strong opinions about that.

I don't know if those are based out of science. You know what I want to. I want the next salt trend that I want to see happen.

I want everybody to just go to salt licks. Just just have a salt lick on your table. And just chisel off part of the salt lick and sprinkle that on top.

Hank: No, no, no, no, no, no. You gotta go straight to the source. You eat a bite of your food and then you lick the salt. You eat a bite of your food and lick the salt.

Emily: Yeah. Can we make that happen?

Hank: And then everybody like, everybody just passes the salt lick around and you're like, hey, can I get the salt lick? Cause I'm a freaking deer. I'm like, I'm like an elk.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. I really feel like, I mean, why not? Right?

How weird can we make this?

Hank: you know I'm probably offended some chefs just now or just people who are really into their special salts but I in general. we had it. we had a question that we didn't end up asking. last week that from someone asking I was told by my barista that I was gonna that she was gonna make me the best coffee I'd ever had in my life and I was like I don't want that. cuz then like all the other coffee won't be as good forever. and I was like yeah kinda Like. maybe I just don't want to know how much better the expensive salt is. Maybe I just want to keep using the salt that costs like literally nothing. It's like basically free because of how much you can get for how low a price. Maybe I don't want to know.

Maybe I don't want to know like how much better a thing is and when honestly like it's probably not that. much better. I just want my coffee that I made in my house.

Emily: I mean, right. We're just feeding into this culture of always needing the bigger, better, more delicious salt. I don't feel like that's sustainable for people today. I think that's too much pressure.

Hank: I get that. Oh God, it's so much pressure. How, like, do I have to choose what kind of salt I'm using? Right.

I can't just... Like. do I have to feel like weirdly bad about using normal salt?

Emily: Yeah, because then you're going to have a dinner party and then and then you will. So it's a scenario where you went to a dinner party at someone's house and they had Himalayan pink salt on the table. And then you invite that person over and then you realize that you you uncultured, you know, the plebe. Only have regular table salt to offer your friend who has much more sophisticated taste than you do.

And then what do you do with that? Then you're gonna feel self-conscious and oddly inferior for no reason. Other than this weird precedent that we've set that everybody needs to, if you can afford it, then have fancy. table salt.

Hank: Everything has to be fancy, which reminds me, Emily, of our sponsor this week, which is uncultured plebe salt. It's our new product. It's just salt. It's like one cent more than the regular salt that you can get from like the salt people.

But our salt is made by us. So, but it's called uncultured plebe salt. And it's just, you can feel okay about using normal salt.

Emily: Oh, geez. I think our other sponsor for today is turducken snakes. For when one snake isn't enough, you need a snake-ception. So, get your turducken snakes.

It snakes all the way down.

Hank: Yes! We also have a Project for Awesome message from, uh, we also have a Project for Awesome message from Rodri Rann to Natalie. G'Natalie, sorry, G'Natalie, who is her favorite sister. I miss living close.

You should come visit. We have two pita pits in a ten mile radius. I will even let you sleep in a bed that is definitely mine.

Whatever that means. If we have to share it, you can have the edge and I'll take off my socks. We can stay up late playing skip bow and boggle.

It'll be like. old times. Love, your favorite sister. That sounds nice and sweet.

Emily: Yeah, I feel like I feel like there were a lot of inside jokes in there that I didn't understand, but I'm for it.

Hank: I'm for it. Is Skippo the one with the thing that goes on your foot?

Emily: Yeah. Okay. Right?

Hank: Yeah, I think so. Skippo and Boggle are two very different kinds of games. I thought they were called Skippits. No, Skippo is a card game.

It's like Uno, but different.

Emily: Oh. Yeah, because the skippets are the things you put on your foot. What happened to those? You know what, they probably got recalled because I remember playing that with my sister, and if that thing flies off your foot, it's going 20 miles an hour right in the face of the second grader in the yard won over.

That's what happened to that.

Hank: That's right. Oh God. Or people just started using them as weapons. Right.

Emily, getting the deer with them to stop them from eating the tulips. We've got some news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon today. I think that the responsibility for both of those news has fallen on my shoulders today.

And I have good Mars news and bad AFC Wimbledon news. Emily, are you like deeply curious about what I'm about to tell you?

Emily: Yes.

Hank: Let's start with the AFC Wimbledon news. AFC Wimbledon now, I believe, I think, so they lost their game this week. They lost despite basically having a great opportunity to not to not lose in that they had like seven corner kicks to the other teams one and they had the most of the possession and they had most of the shots on goal. and And yet still in the 22nd minute of the game The only goal was scored by the other team whoever they were. and that that means that AFC Wimbledon is now a. I think that it's the bottom five that gets relegated.

I tried to Google this, but I wasn't good enough and fast enough to do it. And if it is the bottom five, then they are at the tippy top of the relegation zone just above the, as John says, franchise currently applying its trade in Milton Keynes, whatever that means. And so it's possible that both AFC Wimbledon and the the franchise will both end up getting. relegated and will be playing in league two once more together and that would be a real bummer. but at least MK wouldn't stay up while AFC went down. so but there is still time left.

AFC Wimbledon needs to win games by scoring goals and if they can do that then they will be able to stay in league two or they will stay in league one and continue playing soccer with better teams than are in League 2 and I maybe, I don't know, make more money somehow. And that will be good for the team and the fans of the team. 

Emily: They just have to be good then.

Hank: Just make goals. Right, I think that what would help is if they would score more goals and have fewer goals scored against them.

Emily: Yeah, that's kind of what I took away from that.

Hank: Yeah. Better defense and offense.

Emily: Yes, better at playing the game. Good.

Hank: Better soccer. And we also have our Mars News for today. I don't mean to mock AFC Wimbledon. I just, that's all I can tell you.

We have a proposal out of NASA to design robotic bees, is what they're calling them. that. can fly on Mars like dump data or something and or even samples maybe and then go back off and fly around even more. and the. these things are little. so they would be like literally the. the body part would be the size of a bee and then the wing part would be bigger than a bee's wings because there isn't a lot of atmosphere on Mars. yeah they gotta fly and they'd they'd fly around on Mars like yeah doing weird science and this is very cool. There are lots of places that like rovers can't get to easily and it's dangerous to take a rover into a place where the sand might get it stuck or the grade is too steep. but a flying thing wouldn't have as many of those problems. and if even if it did land and then fall over maybe it could figure out how to get itself righted and back into the air again. Sure.

And also the sort of like there are there could be lots of them and so if like one stops working you got backups. so this is actually an idea that that that NASA is floating and. working on and trying to to engineer a lot around a little bit to see if maybe it's a potentially future Mars mission.

Emily: I I have a. I have a question. okay so why? why call them bees and not just flies? 

Hank: well so if Emily I don't know if you know this but people like bees and they make honey and they prevent the world from starving to death and Flies are annoying and we kill them and we see them as unsanitary baguette machines.

Emily: I know I just I was trying to get back to my point about about this Ridiculous bias that we have.

Hank: we do we do against flies.

Emily: I'm just it's a recurring theme not just in this podcast, but in my life, you know Emily, talk to me when a fly makes something that I eat regularly. Aren't some flies pollinators? I believe they are.

Hank: No, no, no, no. I mean like delicious, sweet sugar sauce that I put in my coffee. Because like, that's magic.

Emily: That, yeah. I mean, I don't think that flies vomit sweeteners. That is true. 

Hank: But yeah, flies do lots of great work, and there are many different types. of flies, and only some of them are the ones that end up in our homes or bite us. Oh man, a horsefly? I hate a horsefly. I cannot abide.

Emily: They don't have very many friends. But to get back to the point, that is, the Mars news is, that's cool. Did you ever think that we'd live in a time where you're talking about sending tiny little flybots or beebots to Mars?

Hank: No, I did not. And like the scope of curiosity in the Mars 2020 rover is so outside of the scope of rovers when I was, you know, first started getting excited about space exploration that it's kind of easy to be like, oh, a rover is a rover, but it's very different. To have like this like thing that's the size of a dinner plate basically versus the thing that's the size of a car Moving around and doing now over 2,000 days of science on the surface of Mars Curiosity is The coolest. and what a great. what a great name for for it.

Emily: I'm surprised that that one had was available still right like they've had that wasn't on the top five like back. in the 60s, right?

Hank: Yeah, it's like, well, we're going to name these ones Spirit and Opportunity because we're saving curiosity for when we send like basically cars.

Emily: Right. But what an amazing time to be alive.

Hank: Right. And you can also get whatever the frick kind of salt you want.

Emily: I know that the world really is your oyster, your salty, salty pink Himalayan salty oyster.

Hank: Gross. Emily, thank you for making a podcast with me today. What? What did we learn?

Do you remember? 

Emily: I feel like we've been all over the place. I feel like we learned that it's okay to have your ashes spread in the ocean with a permit. I feel like it's okay to be the sort of person who just wants basic salt in your life. 

Hank: And we also learned that Butterfly maggots are just caterpillars. And also that Emily has a favorite subreddit in which this guy is wearing K'nex armor. And it's real good, and I'm proud of him.

Emily: Yeah, I am too. He's being the best version of himself and I support it.

Hank: We support it. Thank you, Emily. Thanks, Hank. And thank you everyone for listening.

This podcast is. edited by Nicholas Jenkins. It's produced by Rosianna Halse Rojas and Sheridan Gibson. Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bongiorno, who also runs our Patreon, which you can find at patreon.com. slash dearhankandjohn.

It has a number of opportunities, including you can listen to our dumb podcast where we talk about people. called This Week in Ryans. And that money goes to support all of our shows that we make, like SciShow and Crash Course and Healthcare Triage and Sexplanations, all that cool stuff. And if you like what we do here, you can check that out.

You can also find things that we will post on that Patreon that is available to everyone whether you can support it or not. So thank you all very much. If you want to email us you can do that at hankandjohnatgmail.com and we are on Twitter at hankgreen and at John Green and Emily is also on Twitter at M-E-E-H-M-E-E.

Thank you Emily for joining us and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.