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Stem Cells and The Usual
Hank Green & Payton Mitchell
April 11, 2025
Hello!
What a wild week to be a vlogbrother. First, John made a video about how DOGE has not decreased the US budget (because we're spending more this year than last year). Then I made a video about how, no, a company didn't actually de-extinct dire wolves. (What they did was still very interesting and weird, though.) Then John went to DC to lobby Congress to try and keep them from making more cuts to TB treatment and research. (Amazing work, everyone!!) Then I made a video about how freaking weird the Trump Tariff story has been.
Sometimes I feel like staying in my lane and just being a goofy, happy science guy, and sometimes I feel entirely incapable of living that life. I can see that in lots of people around me, too. Sometimes people are exhausted and want to get under the blankets, drink some tea, and watch dorks play Dungeons and Dragons, but sometimes they want to be out there in the streets, being a visual representation of how abnormal and unacceptable the world is.
Of course, because of these choices, more shitty things might happen to us individually. I've certainly had plenty of people yelling at me this week. But also, there are social consequences. I have friends who have worked on projects with Colossal (the company that did the "de-extinction"), and I worry that that extra tension in our relationship will be a problem. But that's an easy one. I can disagree with friends about the definition of "dire wolf" and still be friends with them. It's harder when the disagreement is about the definition of human rights.
But the outcome of sticking our necks out (so far) has been pretty great, honestly, and not as unpleasant or scary as one might have thought it would be. When I see the pictures of people getting up and marching in their towns, I'm pretty sure those folks feel the same.
As always, to everyone doing what they believe in, fantastic work out there.
Hank
You can always email us at [email protected]
This Week in Stuff
John spoke about Everything Is Tuberculosis on 99% Invisible!
Michael Moses tests how long it takes for a restaurant to offer you “the usual.”
Dandelion Crayon superfan LaKenzie Powell attended Crayola’s National Dandelion Day celebration.
A nerdfighter named Chris became a stem cell donor after learning about DKMS through vlogbrothers!
Is a real hill harder to run on than an inclined treadmill? Steve Mould ran an experiment to find out.
Artist Amanda Key creates wonderful nature illustrations. You can print some of them as free coloring sheets!
Please send us stuff you think we should feature to [email protected]
Most of the world’s foreign aid comes from governments, not philanthropic foundations
Hannah Ritchie
Foreign aid provides millions worldwide with life-saving treatments, emergency food supplies, and humanitarian assistance.
But where does most of this money come from: the governments of rich countries, or wealthy individuals?
95% of foreign aid comes from governments. Less than 5% comes from private philanthropic donors. This data focuses on larger private donations in the form of grants; it does not include the smaller, individual charity donations you or I might make.
This means that those of us living in wealthy democracies — which is many of our readers — play a key role in determining the size of the global foreign aid budget. If we want more aid to reach the world’s poorest, we hold some power through the governments we elect and the priorities we demand of them.
Most of our governments — including my own in the United Kingdom — do not meet the UN’s target of giving 0.7% of their gross national income in aid. In fact, the UK has recently announced plans to cut its aid budget significantly.
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
In the second season of the Eons podcast, Eons: Surviving Deep Time, host Kallie Moore takes Eons hosts and guests on a deep-dive into a geologic time period where they explore the question, how long could a human survive? Surviving Deep Time has been nominated for the for best science & education podcast Webby. Can you take a moment to vote for our show? Your support means the world!
It's no secret that humans have big brains, especially compared to the rest of the animal world. But big brains require big energy to power them, and shifting around all our calories to fuel our massive brains was no small feat. From the Taung Child to modern biometrics, SciShow explains how we can learn all about what it took to make our species such egg-heads.
Our Gamble Paid Off
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Some Games to Play!
Squeezy (by Jeff Chen)
SpellCheck.xyc (by Answer in Progress)
This Gubbins postcard was made by Loralie. 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)
A Gift for Mom That Supports Moms
What’s better than a gift for mom? How about a gift for mom that supports other moms? Check out Good Store’s Mother’s Day Bundle, the perfect starter kit for a relaxing day, featuring a bag of Keats & Co Evensong Chai, a lotion bar, a citrus scented candle, and a bar of Garden Party from Sun Basin Soap. Plus, 100% of the profit from this bundle is donated to support maternal healthcare in Sierra Leone. It's moms all the way down.
Your Secret Language
Last week, we asked for your favorite made-up words or phrases you use with the people you love. Thank you to everyone who shared their secret language with us!
My mom and I are both workaholics that don't get much sleep, so we tend to nap on the weekends. Everytime one of us makes it through a full day without napping we say we pulled an "all-dayer".
When I was young, the door to our attic was in my bedroom. Obviously my parents didn’t want me snooping around in there and getting hurt, so it was off-limits. We called it the “attitude” because when my sibling and I got in trouble(usually for having an attitude with our parents), that’s where our toys would go!
My friends and I all met teaching summer camp where we coined the term "brain couch" to mean thinking the same thing. If someone says something you were thinking, you simply say "brain couch" or "we are brain couching".
In high school my friends and I invented the word "skudiklier," an adjective to describe a group of people stalling and putting off saying goodbye. We'd always find ourselves extending plans (like by going to get ice cream after a movie), talking by our cars when we meant to leave, etc.
When I was around 3 or 4, mom and I were going through the grocery store. She pointed at the rotisserie chickens and asked “what’s that?” I confidently responded “monkey”. And now some 30 years later, rotisserie chickens are still “roasted monkeys”.
I use the word "Siblingry" to describe my connection with my brothers, and similar connections other siblings share. I'm very close with my brothers, and "Siblingry" refers to the almost twin-like psychic moments we sometimes have, where we can read each others' minds simply because we often follow the exact same line of thinking and arrive at the same place. It means we can understand each other when someone says something like "You remember that one thing from that place?" or predict each others' actions in games!
My family calls herons “hickenloopers” instead. I have no idea why that started, but it’s been going on for generations. I found out they were not called hickenloopers when I was 16. My dad didn’t know until his mid 30s.
My brother and I watched Insidious together over a decade ago. It freaked us out so much that we came up with a made up codeword and an answering phrase that we can use to check for demonic possession. One person says the made up word, the other says the answering phrase, and we can rest easy knowing neither of us are currently facing an Insidious-type possession. For obvious reasons, I can't tell you what the word is.
My BFF Deborah was a master at making up words that gained regular use among her friends. (“Jeez-o-flip” remains my favorite interjection for almost any occasion.) Her most useful phrase has to be the made-up punctuation ///, or “triple slash” if you speak it aloud, which she invented in the middle of a gchat to indicate she was changing subjects. Every time I introduce this concept to someone new, they immediately adopt it. That’s how good it is, and she was. (Deborah died of brain cancer in 2020, but her wit and creativity live on.)
Excited to finally have a response to send in! In my family, we use the word "chum chumed" to indicate we're sick of something. "Chum chum" is an indian dessert (picture attached). When I was 13, my mom ordered a few boxes of chum chum for a party which I may have had too much of. I spent the next few days spewing chum chum from every orifice in the body including literally sweating it out. Since then we use chum chum as a metaphor for anything we've had too much of for e.g. I'm so chum chumed of politics right now.
In honor of an influx of new We’re Here subscribers, we're bringing back a fan-favorite prompt.
Have you gone out of your way to do something kind recently? Has someone gone above and beyond to show kindness to you? Tell us about it!
Send your kind moments to [email protected].
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