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Friendship and Tree Frogs
Payton Mitchell & Hank Green
October 18, 2024
Hello everyone!
A couple weeks ago, I was in LA filming a thing. I always feel bad about being so secretive about stuff like this, but one does have to let the marketing people have their way sometimes.
Anyway, I was in LA, and my friend Laser was performing his one-man stand-up comedy musical “A Shark Ate My Penis” which is about transgender people throughout history and also his experience transitioning. I’ve known Laser for a long time because we were nerdy comedy musicians together once upon a time.
I got there late because I had the wrong time set for the show and I had to get the security guard to buzz me in from the street. The guard asked, “What show are you here for?” and I said, “My Shark Ate A Penis” which, y’know, close enough.
The show was amazing (unfortunately there are no ways to watch it online right now) but after the show, I was standing outside the theater waiting to congratulate Laser and I saw a face I thought I knew, but I didn’t want to be weird, but it turns out it was Philip Labes, who I know from TikTok! This has been a weird jumble of a story, but the point is, on my flight home from LA, I just sat and listened to Philip’s music. It’s really beautiful, and I think you should check it out. Here are some links to his work: Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, and Apple Music.
He ended up driving me and my friends back to our hotel and we were all so tired and goofy and happy to be with each other, five of us packed into a compact car. It felt like high school, and I felt very lucky.
Hank
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This Week in Stuff
Missoula, MT is the home of possibly the only Lumberman’s Library—a library inside a railcar.
Vsauce took us to Anagram Land with fridge magnets.
Seven new species of tree frogs were named after Star Trek captains because of their unusual calls.
Hank brought us on the journey of answering the internet’s questions.
Answer in Progress explained why the food pyramid failed you.
Nerdfighter Art submissions are open until October 30! Every year for the Project for Awesome, we collect physical artwork that is sold to raise money for charity.
Please send us stuff you think we should feature to [email protected]
Infants used to have a higher risk of dying than 80-year-olds
Saloni Dattani
Infancy used to be an extremely dangerous time of life.
As the chart shows, around 20% of girls in Sweden died before their first birthday in the 18th century. This was higher than the risk among 80-year-olds — at that age, 10% to 20% died each year.
Since then, the risk of dying has reduced across all ages, but the reduction has been most profound for infants. Rates have fallen 100-fold.
This progress has come from improvements in hygiene, clean water and sanitation, vaccination, nutrition, neonatal healthcare, and surgery.
The data comes from the Human Mortality Database and the United Nations World Population Prospects. I’ve shown data from Sweden, which has the longest historical records, stretching back to the 1750s.
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
Getting stuck in a video game can be frustrating—especially when that game is the cycle of suffering. In episode #6 of Crash Course Religions, we’ll explore the ways Buddhists try to leave that suffering behind and reach enlightenment, using the teachings of the Buddha, the three jewels, the four noble truths, and the eightfold path.
In the ocean, the Cambrian Period was one of startling evolutionary innovations, but on land, it was barren, with no vegetation of any kind. In this strange world before plants made their way onto land…could you survive?
Some Games to Play!
Tightrope (by Britannica)
Twofer Goofer (by Merriam-Webster)
This Gubbins postcard was made by Klara. Send yours to [email protected]
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)
Our Holiday Traditions
Last week, we asked about your favorite holidays and what makes them special to you. Thanks to everyone who filled our inbox with festive fun! We hate to play favorites, but learning about all the sentimental (and sometimes whacky) things you all do with your loved ones made this one of the best newsletter prompts yet.
My favourite holiday is a Hindu festival, Diwali. I love lighting lanterns and earthen lamps. I love that everyone decorates their houses with lights and traditional trinkets. And I especially love spending time with my cousins and their families. Most of my fav childhood memories were made with them, during Diwali. Can’t wait to see them again at the end of the month. (That’s Diwali!)
As a kid my mom would make cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.
Now that I'm a parent, and my child is old enough to eat a cinnamon roll, I'm gonna start making them this year!
My family always has banana splits for dessert on New Years Eve. It started years ago when my mom realized you can just make up traditions if you want to.
Being Muslim, I don't celebrate a lot of holidays except for Eid, which comes twice a year. It's always crazy to stay up from the afternoon until about 10am the next morning to do all the special things as a family like dressing up to go to the Mosque and eating a lot of candy. I vividly remember making like 3 different varieties of snacks with my mom as a kid, good times. Every year I look back and think that it wasn't the same as the previous year, but in the end I have a good, warm feeling about it. I guess since it's a very rare occasion, Eid and everything that leads up to it will always hold a special place in my heart.
The summer between eighth and ninth grade one of my best friends was getting ready to move from Washington State to France. We decided to throw a surprise going away party for her and during that party we, being nerds who were obsessed with U2 at the time, decided to watch the U2 documentary film Rattle and Hum. We at ice cream sandwiches and watched the movie together to send her off on her big adventure. That day Rattle and Hum Day was created. For nearly 20 years we have gathered, sometimes in person and sometimes virtually, every single year on August 1 to watch Rattle and Hum and eat ice cream sandwiches together. We live in different states and rarely see each other, but this one tradition brings us back together every year and I love it.
It's not exactly a holiday, but my family's best tradition is that we always have cake for breakfast on our birthdays. My mom makes a cake and decorates it like something the birthday kid likes (a cartoon character, an aesthetic, a celebrity, etc.). The whole family sings happy birthday and that's how the kid wakes up on their birthday. (If you wake up before the singing you have to pretend to be asleep.) She does this for all six of her kids until we're like, properly adults and out of the house!!
My favorite holiday is St. Patrick's Day, which sounds a little funny because usually the way people celebrate this is by wearing green and drinking in a bar. But I've been an Irish dancer since a very young age, so I've always looked forward to all of the parades and performances and being able to spend time doing something I love. I still dance as an adult, and every March I get so excited to perform for family and friends and share my talents.
I wish this was my holiday story, but my friend’s family came up with a fake holiday that takes place on Leap Day called Hogwash Day. They made up a story of how their ancestral family town in England was saved from a viking raid by a pig (by making the first ever piggy bank) and now they celebrate with pig-themed party decorations, singing songs about the history of the day, and a big potluck party. It was so detailed, my friend was in her teens when she found out it wasn’t a real holiday. Best holiday parties I’ve ever been to!
I didn't realize this was my favorite holiday until later in life, but it's the Winter Solstice. Only because this means more sun is coming!
My family has owned six birthday candles for the last 15 years: 5, 9, 8, 1, 1, 4 (yes, two ones). They are falling apart, but we never get rid of them and never get new ones. Every birthday, we play “birthday candle math”, where we make an equation using those six numbers that is equal to the correct age. As I’ve gotten better at math, the equations have gotten progressively more complicated! An example: on my dad’s 54th birthday, the equation was (4!*18/9)+5+1=54. It’s fun every birthday, every year!
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