Last weekend I went to Open Sauce, which is a big maker fair and gathering of a bunch of nerdy YouTubers. As you might imagine, it was VERY MUCH my scene. Orin came, and we got to see battle bots, test Mars rovers, and meet some of his favorite YouTubers like Joseph's Machines and Alec from Technology Connections. Orin is very interested in YouTubers. I would expect him to be extra shy because he often is too scared to order his own sandwich at a restaurant. But instead, he's just moderately excited and very friendly.

At one point, I was talking to Emily Graslie in the backstage area, and when I looked up, he had vanished. I found him halfway across the room, just casually chatting with The Backyard Scientist. He doesn't seem to see these people as famous, just as folks he knows and is happy to see.

I have lived through so many weird eras of YouTube, and been on both sides of the parasocial equation SO MANY TIMES that I'm aware that there isn't one specific normal way to do it, but it's weirdly very fun to see Orin being a fan of things in ways I don't expect.

Three cheers for the Open Sauce team, who put together a very weird, fun, and joyful event!

Hank

Tracking the occurrence of natural disasters can save lives by helping countries prepare for future ones.

In our work on natural disasters, we visualize data from EM-DAT, the most comprehensive international disaster database. Make a chart of the number of recorded disaster events over time — like the one above — and it looks like the number of disasters rose alarmingly from the 1970s to the millennium. This has led to many media outlets and organizations claiming that the number of disasters has quadrupled over the last 50 years.

However, as EM-DAT itself makes clear, most of this is due to improvements in recording. The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, which builds this database, was not established until 1973, and didn’t start publishing EM-DAT until 1988.

The number of recorded disasters increased due to more focused efforts to obtain globally comprehensive data and improvements in communication technologies, which allowed more events to be included, even in the planet's most remote areas.

EM-DAT suggests that only data from 2000 onwards is relatively complete and comparable. The number of events before 2000 is likely to be underestimated. Note that this data does not tell us anything about the intensity of disasters.

For the first time, Complexly is asking for your help to create a brand-new show! It’s called Endlings and it’s nominally about the last member of a species (aka the ‘endling’), but it’s really about people and our relationship to extinction. If you back the project, you’ll not only be making this show possible—you can also get some very cool merch!

While dinosaur bones from the Late Triassic Period are few and far between, the other clues they left behind can reveal how this epic saga played out to those with the stomach to decipher them. Because, it turns out, the story of the rise of the dinosaurs is a tale written in puke and poop.

SpellCheck.xyc (by Answer in Progress)

Download Gubbins on iOS or Android!

7 Clicks to Tuberculosis

If you play this game, let us know what article you started with and how many clicks it took!

Last week’s 4×3 answer key:

If you post your results on social media, we’d love it if you post a link for folks to subscribe to “We’re Here” (https://werehere.beehiiv.com/subscribe)

Last week, we asked who your top 5 dinner party guests are. Thank you to everyone who sent us an invitation list!

For a little summer fun, fill your cart with Good Store goodies and get 30% off select items. Shop fun socks, limited edition undies, loose leaf teas, luxury shampoo bars, and more! Now through July 31st, use code GOODSUMMER at checkout.

We’d love to see some fish art! Build a pipe cleaner anglerfish, doodle a goldfish, or maybe sculpt a mudskipper. The options are endless!

Send your fish art to [email protected].