Hello!!!

I have now lived through eleven Olympic games and yet somehow I have been surprised each time by how much I love them. Like, four years is just too much time for me to remember how lovely the entire experience is. Every one of those people has been working for pretty much their entire lives to get to Paris. I sometimes have a hard time watching people lose, regardless of whether they are from "my team" because that's a bummer!! But I try to remember that just being there must be such a bizarre and rewarding experience.

Meanwhile, Paris had to try and clean up the river by building a massive system that prevents sewage from mixing with rainwater, which is actually a thing that happens in cities all over the world, including (as John often tells me) Indianapolis. But more and more cities are building systems that fix it, and Paris did just that in preparation for the Olympics, which you can learn about from Cleo Abrams.

I am loving every moment I get to watch. People are really amazing, and apparently getting more amazing all the time, as NOT A SINGLE ONE of Michael Phelps' Olympic records still stands! You can check out this video on the young Leon Marchand who has claimed several of those records!

Again...people are amazing,

Hank

You can always email us at [email protected]

This Week in Stuff

• Flavor Flav is attending the 2024 Olympics to support the US Women’s water polo team.

• How Money Works answered the question, “If AI takes our jobs, who will buy things?”

• An astrophysics professor is using his experience observing distant galaxies to spot AI images.

• Olympian Gianmarco Tamberi dedicated a poetic Instagram post to his wife after losing his wedding ring during the opening ceremony.

• David LaMotte explained why heroes don’t change the world in his TED Talk.

Please send us stuff you think we should feature to [email protected]

The global number of children not attending school has declined by nearly 40% since 2000

Hannah Ritchie and Veronika Samborska

The chart shows the global number of children and adolescents who are not in school across primary and secondary education.

According to the most recent UNESCO data, this number has fallen from 390 million in 2000 to 244 million in 2023. That’s nearly a 40% reduction. The global population of children has grown during this time, making the decrease in out-of-school children even more significant.

Many more children are getting an opportunity to learn now than 20 years ago, but progress has stagnated in the last five years.

Historically, more girls than boys were out of school, but this gap has nearly closed. Unfortunately, the global aggregate data split by gender has not been updated by UNESCO since 2019. This makes it hard to track recent progress between boys and girls.

Explore the number of children out of school in other countries.

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

There's an oft-quoted statistic that something like 5% of people are related to Genghis Khan. And the guy did have a lot of kids. But the truth is more complicated. Here's how we use Y chromosome analysis and small groups of genetic mutations to see how we're all related to each other.

What counts as design? What counts as art? And how did this debate start? In Episode 14 of Crash Course Art History, we’ll trace the history of privileging some materials and techniques over others. We’ll explore how street fashion, dinner plates, and a swan candelabrum blur boundaries that were never clear-cut to begin with.

Some Games to Play!

Pilfer (by Merriam-Webster)

SpellCheck.xyc (by Answer in Progress.)

Download Gubbins on iOS or Android!

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)

Good Words Submitted by You

Last week, we asked for good words. We picked a few of our favorites to share! Thank you to everyone who sent us words!

Braggadocio: Empty boasting

Gargantuan: Tremendous in size, volume, or degree

Minamahal: To love, cherish, or take care of someone/something (Filipino)

Indefatigable: Incapable of being fatigued

Shenanigan: A  devious trick used especially for an underhand purpose

Fingerspitzengefühl: Dexterity, sensitivity, tact (German)

Flummoxed: Completely unable to understand

Ebullient: Having or showing liveliness and enthusiasm

Facinorous: Atrociously wicked

Syzygy: The nearly straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies in a gravitational system

And that’s the end of the newsletter!

Tomorrow, August 3rd, is Esther Day! Let your friends/family know how much you love them this week. Let us know how that goes, or tell us what friendship means to you.

You can get your free tickets to the 2024 Esther Day Party here! The event starts Saturday at 8 pm EDT.

We're Here is the newsletter of Nerdfighteria; the community of people that sprung up around Hank and John Green's YouTube videos. That community has many focuses and has spawned many projects but the overarching theme is that hopelessness is the wrong response to imperfection. What makes the world better is groups of people trying to understand and solve problems, and people can only do that for an extended period if they're having at least a little bit of fun.