RE: Hank and John

Hello Nerdfighters! I just finished listening to this week's episode of Dear Hank and John , Episode 130: The LaCroix Boix , and there is one particular conversation that I have not been able to stop thinking about. The conversation was spurred by a seemingly simple question from Anna that began like this... "Dear Hank and John, how much sand is there?" Hank and John Green then dove into quantifying the amount of sand on Earth by comparing it to the number of stars in the universe. In fact, John says that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth. As pointed out by Hank, this seems to have been paraphrased from the Carl Sagan quote: "The total number of stars in the universe is greater than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth." Granted, this is no actual number, but it seems to be one of the only ways we can actually describe this quantity in a way that makes any sort of sense. However, John went on to res...

Hello Nerdfighters! I was listening to the most recent episode of the pod, Episode 129: The Worst Guest Books , and I came across a conversation that I feel needs to be discussed further. In this episode, Hank and John Green were answering a question from Brea about the structure of a snake's digestive system, and in true Dear Hank and John  fashion, the conversation devolved into a discussion of the existence of humanoid snakes. It went something like this... John begun like so:  "I've got an image in my head right now of a snake, but it has semi-normal arms and legs and it walks upright. It's really freaking me out pretty bad...It has human arms and legs, but snake sized." To which, John elaborated more: "What we haven't yet invented is a humanoid snake, Like a centaur, but for snakes." And finally, Hank had a revelation: "Well if its a centaur for snakes, then it's got a human body that sticks up out of the snake. It's a...

Hello Nerdfighters! On last week's episode of Dear Hank and John , Episode 126: The Space Alien Orange Peel Health Craze , a listener named Annie wrote in about her prom dilemma. Essentially, here is what Annie had to say: "My mom is insisting that I attend the senior prom. However, I have no one to go with since all of my friends are already in well established relationships... Should I pretend to go to the prom and then sneak off and spend the night alone... or should I come up with a devious plot to break up one of the pairs of my friends?" Now, in true Dear Hank and John  fashion, the Green brothers quickly deviated from the main question and suggested she find another person to attend the prom with (well, after John dangerously suggested that she purchase a date from the internet). But, John didn't suggest just any person, he proposed that Annie attend with none other than Ryan Gosling. A great plan indeed, however, that's a big ask. THEN, Hank aske...

Hello Nerdfighters! Over the past few months of Dear Hank and John episodes ,  one of the conversations I've thought about the most has to be the "Mermaid Diet" discussion of Episode 106: Mermaid Cannibalism . In this discussion, John and Hank Green respond to a query from a listener named Laura. Laura's question went like this: "So a mermaid is half fish and half human, right? What do mermaids eat? I know that fish often eat other fish, and that's completely acceptable. But if someone is half fish and half human... would [they] feel cannibalistic eating a fish?" Now, disregarding the fact that mermaids are totally mythical, this seems like a huge dilemma. If I were a mermaid I probably wouldn't feel comfortable eating a fish, but then again being completely sustained by seaweed seems somewhat of a nightmare to me too. John and Hank eventually came to the decision that mermaids probably do eat fish and considering fish species are very biolo...