Hello!
I’m headed to Indianapolis this week for the eclipse!! I assume that everything (traffic, travel, etc) will be a real mess. But I’ve had a lot of TikToks sent to me that think things will be a…bigger mess (the fulfillment of a biblical apocalypse prophecy).
I have great news! The eclipse will not usher in three days of darkness followed by the end of life on Earth, though it will probably be logistically messy. PLEASE DRIVE SAFELY! But this does leave me wondering why humans always imagine themselves to be at the end of the human story. There’s a great essay about this in The Guardian that I enjoyed. Maybe it’s because we’re so used to stories having ends. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts, though.
Hank
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This Week in Stuff
Turtles All the Way Down has a Trailer and a Release Date! The release date is May 2nd on Max (formerly (and still, in Europe) HBO Max).
Land Sudoku is like Sudoku but with land?? It turned my brain into a pretzel at first, but then it started making sense. And apparently, it’s a good Sudoku alternative for people with dyscalculia.
Answer in Progress has an amazing new video on why you can’t stay focused anymore.
Minute Earth has three new videos about Eclipses and they’re all amazing! One is about how scary eclipses used to be (makes sense) another is about why the northern hemisphere has way more total solar eclipses than the southern hemisphere (only makes sense once you watch the video) and the last one is about how animals get all weird during eclipses!
Every Spring, fish migrating through the Netherlands get stuck at the Weerdsluis lock. This obstacle makes them vulnerable to predators, so the City of Utrecht came up with a solution: a doorbell. You can watch the underwater live stream and ring the digital doorbell to tell the lock operator our fishy friends are waiting.
Get ready for the eclipse with this video from Destin at Smarter Every Day.
Check out this map of vacation rental occupancy in the US!!
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There is no need to invoke Scripture authority to prove it. The world tells its own tale and in its general decadence bears adequate witness that it is approaching its end.
This Eclipse Matters
Hank Green
I made a video this week using questions people asked on SciShow about the upcoming eclipse. I got a lot of great ones, and you can watch the full video here, but probably the most interesting was basically, “Why be excited about this? It can’t matter scientifically.”
Now, of course, I didn’t love the vibe of that question because things can matter without being scientifically important, and many millions of people getting the chance to witness a very cool, very rare phenomenon is important regardless of the science. But ALSO it is a bizarre scientific opportunity. Total eclipses allow us to look at the Sun’s corona, the hot wisps around the Sun that are usually drowned out by the Sun’s light. Looking at the corona is actually what allowed us to first identify a chemical element we had never seen on Earth. That element is named after the Sun (helios = helium).
The corona remains a mystery, particularly its heat. The surface of the Sun is about 10,000 °F. But the corona is almost TWO MILLION °F. That’s straight up weird, and a phenomenon we haven’t yet been able to totally explain. We’re getting a chance to look at it with telescopes while the recently launched Parker Solar Probe (which just passed through the Sun’s corona) allows us to fill in cracks in our data and could result in this being a very exciting year in solar physics.
What’s John Reading?
I've been reading How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell. I've been swimming in the ocean of the attention economy for so long that it's easy to assume it's normal or even natural to feel a minute-by-minute urge to check my phone, or to post to the story, or to work in ways that suit the algorithms that decide what people see (and to some extent what they believe). Reading this book has been a reminder to me that if I'm not paying attention to the way technology and economic systems are shaping my worldview, it's even easier for those technologies and economic systems to shape my worldview. Reading the book, I keep thinking of Hank's brilliant observation: "You will always struggle with not feeling productive until you accept that your own joy can be something you produce." How do we live in a world where we are reminded to produce joy as frequently as we are reminded to produce content or responses or economic output? I think How to Do Nothing at least tentatively offers important answers to that question, and I give it four and a half stars.
Cancer mortality has declined in many countries
Saloni Dattani
The chart shows age-standardized death rates from cancer in different countries since 1950.
Age-standardized rates tell us about the impact of cancer among people of the same age. This allows for a fair comparison across time and between countries — for example, to see how rates for fifty-year-olds today compare to fifty-year-olds in the 1950s.
In the United States, for example, the age-standardized death rate from cancer has declined by around a third since its peak in 1990.
A significant driver has been the large decline in smoking, which causes a wide range of cancers. But we’ve also achieved many more advances in cancer medicine and public health, such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, surgery, vaccination against HPV and hepatitis, treatment for H. pylori, and advances in screening, diagnosis, and monitoring.
Our World in Data is a UK-based non-profit organization that publishes research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems. You can find more of their data insights here.
This Week at Complexly
We go to Dear Hank and John for dubious advice but stay for John’s terrible Danish accent.
People have been asking Hank why his hair is suddenly curly so SciShow made a video about it!
Some Games to Play!
Nerdy Connections (by Complexly)
SpellCheck.xyc (by Answer in Progress.)
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This Gubbins postcard was made by Kathryn Craig. Send yours to [email protected]
People made the Bench Bolognese!
My interpretation of Bench Bolognese: Brown 1/2 pound beef in 3 tablespoons butter. Add 1-2 ribs celery chopped, 3 peeled and chopped carrots, about 1 diced small onion. Little salt and pepper (maybe 1/4 teaspoon), 3 tablespoons oil, 1/4 cup tomato paste, 2 tablespoons water. Simmer on low for 1/2 hour. Make about 1/2 pound pasta. Combine and enjoy.
My thoughts: It made enough for 2-3 meals. If I make it again I would reduce the amount of oil or omit it entirely. Also should probably add more salt/pepper. I give bench bolognese 3 stars.
I started off by getting the mince to brown, and then began chopping the veg for the sofrito. First, the onions. Then the celery. I also added the butter and olive oil at this point. Finally the carrots, salt and pepper, and I began to fry. Once the onions were definitely cooked through, I put the cooked mince in, mixed it up, and added the water and tomato paste. At this point, I thought it looked quite dry, but without any specific cooking instructions other than cover and low heat for an hour and a half, I decided I'd see what it did. Turns out more liquid came out of the veg! (Should really have seen that coming.)
Served it with pasta and garlic bread (and a bit of cheese - Parmesan for my partner, cheddar for me, as I can't stand the taste of Parmesan). All in all, it was a passable ragu. It is not our favourite, and I'll probably be using my own, standard, recipe I've been using for years from now on. But it was a fun experience!
DFTBA
Now call a friend whose name starts with the letter L! Send us an email and tell us how it went!
