0:00

Brought to you by the all New Toyota

0:02

Corolla. Welcome to

0:05

Stuff you should know from House Stuff

0:07

Works dot com.

0:13

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

0:16

Josh Clark, and there's Charles Bryant

0:18

Chuckers. You might know him. An Sure, there's

0:20

a w in there somewhere at sure for the

0:22

Wayne. Yeah, named after Wayne

0:25

coyn Right,

0:28

No, we talked about that before. Yeah,

0:31

John, Wayne, how are

0:33

you doing. I'm great, man, Um,

0:36

I am all over this

0:38

NASA activity. Oh yeah,

0:41

yeah, good because it seems

0:43

like i'll we hear about NASA these days is how they're

0:45

having to shut down uh

0:47

space programs, Right, that's

0:50

the other stuff is cool. Well, that's the impression

0:52

I have is that they're kind of taking their

0:55

um, their field of vision

0:57

the mountain to outer space and turning

0:59

it planet word towards Earth. Why

1:02

not, That's where all the people are that

1:04

are buying Big Max. Right. Well,

1:06

if if space exploration is

1:08

going private, you got the

1:10

Elon Musk's and the

1:13

Richard Branson's of the world saying we

1:15

got this, NASA, you go

1:17

do something else with all of your high tech remote

1:19

sensing equipment, then it

1:21

makes sense that NASA would say, Okay, we'll

1:23

become the watchdog guardian of

1:26

the planet. And that's what they've they've

1:28

become. Plus, also, if you're the United

1:30

States using NASA's remote

1:32

sensing equipment on Earth, is a dynamite

1:35

cover for intelligence gathering? Well

1:38

yeah, I mean you have all sorts

1:40

of satellites carrying out different functions,

1:42

but really all of them are taking pictures

1:45

of the Earth, highly

1:47

detailed ones too. You want

1:49

to know about Russian troops formation

1:53

as NASA yet

1:56

of volcano? Sure? If

1:58

you want to know what kind of sand way? Uh,

2:02

Julian Assange had today, asked

2:05

NASA, Well, that's NASA. Everyone

2:07

knows that what Juna fish is, That

2:09

what his thing is. Sure every day,

2:12

that's how he keeps his white main white.

2:14

Him and Michio Kaku. Yeah,

2:17

the white mullet. Actually it's not so

2:19

mellody. It's just more of a main main

2:22

for sure. Both of them have a main, a

2:24

big helmet of hair. So chuck

2:27

um. But I

2:29

guess the question we've posed today I

2:31

feel like we need to answer is can

2:33

NASA predict natural disasters?

2:36

I think we can go ahead and answer and say not yet. Right,

2:39

But now that again, they've

2:41

kind of mothballed space

2:44

exploration to an extent. I mean

2:46

we're still hitting Mars. Yeah, yeah, we're not. They're

2:48

not mothballing it, but they're they're they've

2:50

reached the point where they're like, Okay, we've got all this really

2:52

good equipment, let's start monitoring Earth

2:54

a little more because there's a lot of questions we have.

2:57

Um. Now, they've reached this point where

3:00

since the beginning of twenty one century, they've started

3:03

conducting missions. They have planned ones that are

3:05

just being started now, some

3:07

that are coming in the next couple of years, and from

3:10

all this data they'll be able to analyze

3:12

it and start to be able to predict natural

3:15

disasters. So they have this whole

3:17

like toolbox. I guess if you wanted

3:19

to go into like corporate buzz speak of

3:22

of programs and missions that they're carrying

3:24

out that will help them predict natural

3:26

disasters pretty soon. That's right, not

3:28

the low hanging fruit, right, they're

3:31

just trying to reach out and play together with

3:34

the Earth in the same in the same space,

3:37

in the same space. Maybe Java storm

3:39

boy at the corporate talk, Yeah,

3:42

we shunned that at all costs here, Um,

3:45

all right, so let's talk about this. We talked about remote

3:48

sensing. That is UM

3:50

basically detecting energy reflecting

3:53

from something UM when

3:55

it's pointed out in space, like when you're

3:57

looking for new planets, it's

4:00

pointed out in space. When you pointed on Earth,

4:02

it's a heck of a lot closer, right,

4:05

And to get more detail. And they're they're using

4:07

different kinds of UM detectors.

4:09

They're detecting different kinds of energy I should say,

4:11

like microwave, radiation, X

4:13

rays. It's not just like using

4:15

your peepers. That information

4:18

can be translated into something we use our peepers

4:20

to look at, but for they can

4:22

use this equipment to sense all sorts of different

4:25

stuff. Yeah. And like you said, it's UM. It's

4:27

like mounted on aircraft or it's part of

4:29

a satellite or is a satellite and

4:31

um, yeah, it's all up. They're looking

4:34

back at you right now, yes, the wave.

4:36

Yeah, or it's looking at the Earth where

4:39

we're just the insignificant tiny

4:42

specs crawling around on the Earth. Yeah.

4:44

And this is this is a kind of a big deal. You

4:46

know, it makes sense, it's sensible what they're

4:49

doing. It's a smart thing. To do with NASA's

4:51

department, but it also

4:54

really is, um, we're

4:56

at the threshold of like a really big

4:58

change in our understanding

5:00

of our planet, you know, Like I think there's

5:03

kind of a lot of assumptions that people make about

5:06

our understanding of the planet that are just totally incorrect.

5:08

Like, for example, I would have guessed

5:10

that meteorologists and climatologists

5:13

knew how tropical storms

5:15

form. They do not, uh,

5:18

And from using things like well,

5:20

there's actually a project that was carried out

5:22

in the summer of two thousand ten UM

5:25

that was dedicated to studying

5:27

this is called grip genesis

5:30

and rapid intensification processes.

5:33

And for a couple of a couple of

5:35

months, some NASA scientists flew around

5:37

on a Gulf Stream jet and took

5:40

really precise measurements of what

5:43

they believed were the beginnings of tropical

5:45

storms to see how they form exactly.

5:48

Yeah, And the goal with pretty much everything

5:50

that we're going to talk about today is early detection.

5:53

Because you can't stop a hurricane,

5:55

you can't stop a volcano or an earthquake.

5:58

But like the old saying, that's right,

6:01

but if you know it's coming, then you

6:03

can get people out of

6:05

the way. You can thwart some of

6:07

them to some degree. Yeah, Like anybody can

6:09

point to a hurricane be like, oh, there's a hurricane.

6:12

By then it's a little too late. If you can point

6:14

to the very beginnings the

6:17

cradle of the hurricane, the formation

6:19

of a tropical storm. Now you're talking

6:21

about time that you have to warn

6:23

people, like you, guys need to get out of here. Yeah.

6:26

And there is one really cool program they've had

6:28

going since two thousand two called

6:31

GRACE. There's gonna be a lot of acronyms

6:33

today, by the way, the UM

6:37

the Gravity Recovery and Climate

6:39

Experiment, this is my favorite one. It's

6:41

it's really cool basically what they're doing.

6:44

All right, Well, let's step back a minute. Let's talk about

6:46

Newton. Okay, gravity depends

6:49

on the mass of an object. In

6:51

the case of polar ice caps, the

6:53

mass is changing. So if the mass is changing,

6:56

the gravity is changing. Right. So when

6:58

when the polar ice caps melt

7:00

and turn to water and then flow towards the equator,

7:04

um they are

7:06

often so big that they left

7:08

it in depression on the

7:10

Earth's surface. Once they're

7:12

gone, that depression could be filled

7:14

in the mantle can fill back in in the area,

7:17

changing the mass in that particular

7:19

part of Earth and hence changing the gravity.

7:22

Right, Yeah, it's one estimate

7:24

has between two thousand and ten and two thousand and eleven

7:27

UM, the Greenland ice Shield lost

7:29

two hundred and twenty four giga

7:31

tons of mats. So

7:33

not only is that going to change the land formation in the mass,

7:35

it's gonna make the sea level rise

7:38

at a rate of about point seven millimeters a year.

7:41

That's going to change the makeup of the Earth. Um.

7:45

And so they have a couple of buddies,

7:47

Tom and Jerry that are

7:50

in orbit satellites, twin satellites

7:52

about a hundred and thirty six miles

7:54

apart from each other. Do you know why they're called Tom and

7:56

Jerry because they're chasing each other and then only they're

7:59

on the same orbit exactly a polar

8:01

orbit. Yeah, it's very cute. So they're constantly

8:03

going from the North pole to the South Pole

8:06

um as the Earth spins below

8:08

them, right, that's right. And um

8:11

they're taking they're they're

8:13

taking measurements, two different types of measurements,

8:15

but they're precisely separated from

8:17

one another, and they're on precisely the same orbit,

8:20

so they can. Really what they

8:22

produce every thirty days is a full map of

8:24

the gravitational field of Earth. Yeah,

8:27

and they've Nanasa. They always work

8:29

with other people, it seems like, which is a good thing to work

8:31

with people around the world. But they worked with a

8:33

company in Germany to develop UM

8:35

an ultra precise distance measuring

8:38

system that basically can

8:40

measure within the precision what they say is one

8:43

tenth of the width of a hair. That's

8:46

pretty precise. Yeah. So basically these

8:48

things are flying U and between

8:50

the two they're measuring the distances and

8:52

discrepancies between these two

8:55

identical twin satellites,

8:57

and that's information is being relaid back

9:00

analyze. Yeah, because the upside of this is number

9:02

one, the Earth is not a perfect sphere. We

9:04

know that. I can't remember what we talked about that in

9:06

oh maps. Yeah potato.

9:09

Yeah, in the

9:10

the the gravitational field is not

9:13

perfectly round either. It's lower

9:15

in some places, higher in other places.

9:17

The force of gravity um. So yeah,

9:20

it's formed what was

9:23

coined the Potsdam gravity potato.

9:26

And if you look it up now there's some pretty

9:28

cool UM artists rendering of

9:30

what the Earth's magnetic field looks like and

9:32

as a three dimensional model. Yeah, it's

9:34

very cool. Um, so check that out. And that's

9:36

been updated dramatically

9:39

in the last couple of years thanks to this GRACE

9:41

project. Yeah, and the ultimate goal

9:43

basically is to measure this

9:45

gravitational field over time see

9:48

how it's changing with kind of accuracy we've

9:50

never had before, which will in turn inform

9:52

us on climate related uh

9:55

drunk right, I mean and

9:57

and is it just a correlation between

10:00

mean, like ice caps melting in a change in a gravitational

10:02

field, or does that ice cap melting trigger

10:06

that change in the gravitational field, which in turn has

10:08

some other effects. So, um,

10:11

there's a lot of I think understanding

10:14

we can gain from knowing what the

10:16

gravitational field is changing,

10:18

how it's changing. Yeah, do you like using

10:20

your GPS to get somewhere, Well,

10:23

then this kind of information can go

10:25

on to help GPS because basically

10:28

it's just gonna improve the trajectories

10:31

of these UH satellites

10:33

and everything is just more specific. It's like a hundred

10:36

times um

10:38

more detailed than they've

10:40

ever had before. So that's gonna

10:42

help everything out from detecting climate change or

10:44

temperature and in like potential

10:47

hurricanes and stuff too, like getting

10:49

you to McDonald's,

10:52

right, you know, which is pretty important

10:55

by the way, chuck. Um uh,

10:58

the tropical storms. You want to how they think they

11:00

form? Now? Um,

11:04

well, I'm gonna tell you. So. The speed of

11:06

waves on an ocean, um, if

11:09

it matches the speed

11:11

of the movement of some air

11:14

above it, and an umbilical cord

11:16

of warm, humid air can

11:19

get into this little pillow sandwich.

11:22

It forms this protective pouch

11:25

and from there a convection

11:27

current can start and form

11:29

into a tropical storm, which can then form

11:31

into a hurricane. That's what they learned

11:33

from the GRIP program. Man, it seems like they

11:35

would have known this stuff before then, you think,

11:38

so, you know, but we're talking like two when

11:40

they're I don't even think it's been

11:42

proven. I think that that's what they think based on

11:44

the data from the two thousand ten experiments. Yeah,

11:46

aren't they still analyzing that stuff? Alright?

11:50

I imagine like that's got to be a pretty

11:53

good field to get into

11:55

now and in the next like five ten years,

11:57

analyzing NASA data.

12:00

Yeah, and just anything to do with the climate probably

12:03

anything, Yeah, things that's changing. It's gonna

12:05

be gangbusters. There's a lot of money in the

12:07

weather. Um.

12:10

All right, so that's tropical storms and hurricanes.

12:13

We didn't talk about the GPM project.

12:16

Um. Yeah, that they're working with UM.

12:18

NASA's working with Japan and

12:20

they're NASA, which is called the

12:23

Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency

12:25

or JACKSON, and that

12:28

is a Global Precipitation measurement

12:31

and they are using satellites to observe

12:34

all kinds of participation precipitation

12:37

patterns all over the world. And

12:41

basically, like before, we can only

12:43

place these things in certain

12:45

spots that were easier to get to, and you can't place them

12:47

out of the ocean, and you can't place them in the

12:50

andies because it's too rocky. This allows

12:52

us to study the entire globe for

12:54

the first time. So they're following they're basically

12:57

tracking the movement of water around the planet

12:59

on like a daily, seasonal, a

13:01

yearly basis um. And

13:03

what they hope to be able to gain from this it's a predict

13:06

when floods happened, because apparently a major

13:08

flood happens every day around the

13:10

Earth. Yeah, and a lot

13:12

of times those floods lead to landslides.

13:15

We saw firsthand in Guatemala what happens when

13:17

a landslide comes down. Remember, oh,

13:19

yeah, we were standing there and they said,

13:21

this is literally twelve feet higher than

13:23

it was. Yeah, we were standing on the remains

13:25

of a village that got caught in the middle

13:27

of the night and they're like, there are people down

13:30

there still. Yeah, you could still see the swath that

13:32

have been cut through the jungle on the mountain side.

13:34

Right. So they're hoping, okay, well, if we can figure

13:36

out when a flood's coming, we can

13:38

predict landslides in turns, So by tracking

13:41

global precipitation, that's what they're

13:43

hoping to be able to do with that. Yeah.

13:45

They're also using uh

13:48

L I d a R at the light R Surface

13:50

topography system. This is my second

13:52

favorite one, the list one UM,

13:55

and they're hopefully going to be able to attract

13:57

things like volcanoes, earthquakes, landslide

14:00

us and erosion. But not wildfires.

14:02

No, not wildfires. That's crazy talk.

14:05

That is crazy talk. But it's the same thing as

14:07

with tracking precipitation. As of

14:10

two years ago, we had to physically

14:12

put some sensor somewhere

14:14

and there are places we just couldn't get to, and

14:17

now that we have satellites, we can track that stuff.

14:19

Same goes with this, like we used to have to

14:21

be able to find a fault line, put

14:24

sensors there and then monitor

14:26

that um with with the list

14:29

program. With leader UM,

14:32

they're using lasers to monitor fault

14:34

lines and find new ones that we didn't know were

14:36

there before, track their movement,

14:38

and then use those to predict earthquakes and then

14:40

similarly predict volcanoes. So

14:43

listen to this. Okay.

14:46

The resolution now they have is five

14:48

meter horizontal resolution with a precision

14:51

of four inches. Previously,

14:54

the best data we could get was thirty

14:56

meter resolution with

14:59

a thirty to foot precision,

15:01

So went from thirty two to four inches. That's

15:04

pretty good. They'd be like, give it take

15:06

thirty two ft. Yeah, now let's give it take

15:08

four inches with thanks to lasers, so

15:12

they could possibly detect volcanic

15:15

activity before it happens. Right, And the way that they're

15:17

doing that, you would think, well, they're using thermal cameras.

15:19

You'd be wrong. What they're doing is looking for land

15:21

deformation. Apparently

15:23

before a volcano goes off, that

15:26

land around it literally deforms,

15:28

it swells due to pressure. And

15:31

since we are tracking topography

15:34

now using this UM this program,

15:37

we can say, oh, well that

15:39

that crater wasn't three times

15:42

larger than it is now like

15:44

a week ago, maybe a volcan

15:46

is about to go off. Uh. And

15:49

it's not just volcanoes and natural disasters.

15:51

They can also monitor erosion

15:54

and top soil loss, basically anything on

15:56

the Earth that's interesting they

15:58

can like really accurately closely monitor.

16:00

Now and this said

16:03

two thousand sixteen, is it already underway?

16:06

Um? No, it's two thousand

16:08

thirteen. Chuck. Now

16:11

that says it was gonna launch in two thousand sixteen, but it's

16:13

already Is it already going Okay?

16:15

I think it's launching in two thousand sixteen. Okay,

16:18

so this is just the plan, you're right, Yeah,

16:20

I know they have a lot of like this just started,

16:23

like the UM I think it

16:25

might have been the Grace Program

16:27

started in two thousand two and it's been going

16:30

on. It is the Grace Program, the one

16:32

with Tom and Jerry. Right, Yeah, that was right,

16:34

and it had its tenth anniversary in two thousand

16:36

twelve. I think that might have been the first project

16:39

like this and now NASA's throwing

16:42

like everything into this stuff, and we're just

16:44

at the at the forefront, at the very beginning

16:46

of this kind of thing. This is a very timely episode.

16:49

Frankly, it's actually um

16:53

they have. In fact, I think these new probes are

16:55

even newer than the List program, right

16:58

that NASA is proposing to launch, the

17:00

one we were just talking about with the volcano deformation.

17:03

Yeah, yeah, um this is a pair

17:05

of satellites that monitor little bitty changes

17:07

in the surface. And um,

17:10

I guess it's a funding thing because I don't think these

17:12

two are even uh, I

17:15

think they're still just like in the proposition phase.

17:17

So I guess we should say, like then they will

17:19

be doing this, this is coming yeah, and like this

17:21

particular project. Yeah, and the precipitation when

17:24

his launches in February of next year.

17:26

So it sounds as though these things are already happening.

17:29

But I think it's just like this is how it's gonna work.

17:31

It sounds as though they're already happening because of

17:33

us. The tents

17:36

were using that's right, we're using present,

17:39

we should be using future perfect. One

17:41

of the problems with the satellites, though, is um

17:43

and with lasers, is clouds right?

17:46

Because clouds get in the way. It's got to be

17:48

a clear day to use most of this stuff. Hold

17:52

on, I know you love talking about clouds. I

17:54

do too. But before we go any further, what do you think

17:56

about a message break? That's great? Okay,

18:04

So back to clouds. They caused

18:06

trouble with lasers and with satellites.

18:09

Yeah, so that you gotta count on clear days.

18:12

So it's not like these things are humming seven.

18:15

Weren't you surprised finding out

18:17

that clouds are still an impediment to lasers?

18:20

No, I would have thought, like, I mean, the projects

18:23

we're talking about, so like, gee, whiz, that

18:25

can't cloud I thought

18:27

that. It just seemed kind of like, well, what are

18:29

you guys gonna do about that? Because that's a pretty big obstacle.

18:32

Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, maybe

18:34

they could have an anti seating

18:37

program, Oh yeah,

18:39

to disperse clouds. Nice. Um,

18:41

so, chuck, NASA doesn't need

18:43

to turn its back fully on space, like we

18:45

said, it's still carrying out the

18:47

Mars mission. Um,

18:50

what was after that? Are they going to Saturn?

18:52

I don't know, Saturn Uranus?

18:55

Maybe they're they're

18:57

exploring some moon I can't remember,

19:00

remember it's what They haven't turned their back on space,

19:02

and they don't need to because there's a huge threat

19:04

from space bearing down on us

19:06

constantly. That's right near

19:08

Earth objects, which I feel

19:10

like we should do a podcast

19:12

just on near Earth objects. If

19:15

you want to get here then some

19:17

medium, go watch

19:19

the movie Armageddon done. Although

19:23

that is deep impact in armagedding. We're

19:25

both um, while fanciful,

19:28

not too far off, and that there are objects

19:31

that come near the Earth and we think if

19:33

we can detect them soon enough, that there is

19:35

existing technology now that can throw these things

19:37

off course. Right, and Earth is constantly

19:39

being bombarded every day about a hundred

19:42

hundred tons of material

19:46

like rain down on the Earth. We're talking

19:48

little particles, things that break up

19:50

in the atmosphere, um, mostly

19:53

like comment dust and stuff. Right,

19:55

Um, But there are

19:58

uh NASA estimates about a

20:00

thousand objects

20:03

that could collide with Earth that are

20:06

kilometer or more in diameter.

20:08

It's point six two miles in diameter,

20:11

and that if any one of these impacted Earth,

20:13

which they do about every ten thousand

20:16

years, it would be what's called a global

20:18

catastrophe. Actually, good news,

20:20

buddy, that is every several

20:22

hundred thousand years, So

20:25

what comes down every ten years? About every ten

20:27

thousand years, asteroids um larger

20:29

than about a hundred meters could hit

20:31

the Earth and that would just be like a local

20:33

disaster. So it would be like a one the

20:35

size of a football field. Yeah, and that

20:37

I mean, that's not great if you're near it, but

20:40

it's not like a what they would

20:42

call a global disaster, like the end of the world

20:44

type scenario. And that's one that's like a kilometer

20:47

in diameter. Yeah, And it says every several hundred

20:49

thousand years or so. I feel like, yeah,

20:53

what are the chances that that's going to happen the next

20:55

like forty years? I don't know, aren't we

20:57

like on a when was the last one? It was

20:59

about a quarter

21:01

of a million years ago, wasn't it. I

21:03

don't know. Was it the one that formed the

21:06

chit club creator? I

21:08

don't think I've pronounced that correctly, but you know

21:10

what I'm talking about people who are familiar with that

21:13

or they do. But the point

21:15

is we need a lead time on the

21:17

stuff. Chee Club, the

21:19

Chicken Club. It's a there's an X in

21:21

there, but it's a. It's it's in Mesoamerica.

21:24

So the X is like a hawk. Oh, it's pronounced

21:26

cutulu. No, it

21:29

was close oak,

21:32

it's like that. But there's

21:34

a chi and I believe a club

21:37

afterwards. So I'm just gonna say, chee club

21:39

creator. But I think that was longer

21:42

ago than a hundred thousand years ago, that extinction

21:44

event. Yes,

21:47

okay, Well, the good news is if we have a

21:49

little bit of lead time, like a few years,

21:52

supposedly there are things that

21:54

we can do to knock these asteroids

21:57

off course, like what

22:00

one is. Using nuclear fission

22:02

weapons, you set it off and

22:05

the trick is you don't want to blow this thing up, no,

22:07

because then you might have a lot of problems.

22:10

Yeah, that's even worse. But um, it

22:12

would just set it off course. And even

22:14

if you set something off course by a few millimeters

22:17

over the course of years, that could be enough. So

22:19

it's not like they're looking to knock at miles away

22:21

or anything, although in the movies that's

22:23

how they do it. Yeah, and the movies that's how

22:25

they did do it. I think, of course, we may mind

22:27

them, which we talked about. Yeah, asteroid

22:30

mining, um and

22:32

tracking these things has actually become

22:34

something of a crowdsource thing. There's

22:37

NASA has this um All

22:39

Sky Fireball Network that

22:41

sounds so not real, yeah, but

22:43

it is. It's a real program they have where

22:46

they have cameras that are connected to the Internet

22:48

that are constantly filming the night sky.

22:51

Most of them are along the Eastern Seaboard.

22:53

We got one here in Georgia, yeah, and Alabama,

22:56

HASM, Tennessee. Um. They're

22:58

they're grouped in clusters. Um.

23:00

And actually, if you want to propose

23:03

your location as a place to

23:05

host one of these cameras, typically

23:07

they're like on schools or

23:09

things like that, Yeah, you can.

23:12

You can submit an application and if

23:14

there's there's really just like four criteria.

23:16

It's like there can't be a lot of light pollution

23:19

or a light nearby, and that rules me out.

23:21

You have to be able to um, you

23:23

have to be connected to the internet,

23:26

like a couple of a couple of other things.

23:29

Um. But it's it's like you can

23:31

get a camera set up and be part of

23:33

the All Sky Fireball Network. That's pretty

23:35

cool. I think the plan is to eventually have fifteen

23:38

of these in place, and

23:41

um, I guess tracking

23:43

fireballs, Yeah, which were good,

23:45

good things to keep TAM's on for sure, you

23:48

got anything else? No, that's all the news

23:50

about NASA. I

23:53

wish NASA would sponsor US man, that'd be awesome.

23:55

Yeah, talk talk about someone we could stump

23:58

for NASA. Yeah,

24:00

sure, let's let's do it. NASA.

24:02

What's your problem? You guys have deep pockets?

24:05

Yeah? Uh, let's see. If

24:07

you want to know more about NASA, you can

24:09

type that word into

24:11

the handy search bar how

24:13

stuff works. That comment will bring up a bunch of articles

24:16

we love NASA here, how stuff works and stuff

24:18

you should know. Um, and since I said

24:20

handy search bar, Chuck, it's time for listener

24:23

mail. Straight to listener mail. Yeah.

24:27

Oh do you hear that chime? Man,

24:30

it's like two thousand nine? All

24:33

right, dear guys and Jerry.

24:35

It just got home from another eight hour car trip with my

24:37

hobby, during which we binge listened

24:39

to the stuff you should know. Yeah, this

24:41

has been our car trip ritual for about a year now. We actually

24:43

moved to Atlanta, Kenna

24:46

saw last August, and

24:48

we make pretty frequent trips to our hometown of

24:50

St. Louis. That's a long

24:52

car trip, Yeah, it sure is. I

24:54

wonder if they know that you can fly there

24:57

really quickly. Um. He

24:59

introduced me to the Podcas asked on her first trip down here, and

25:01

I have to admit I didn't have much hope. I'm

25:03

a ballet teacher who loves arts and fiction

25:05

in long hours with Netflix, and he

25:07

is a self tart programmer who loves biographies

25:10

and doing math for fun in its free time. So

25:13

when he told me what the show was, I was thinking,

25:15

great, I'm gonna feel dumb and bored. But we

25:17

gave it a try. Anyway. I also have to

25:19

admit, and this one is kind of funny. After listening to

25:21

one or two episodes, I told

25:23

him I didn't like it. He not understanding

25:26

how that was possible, ask me why not, and I

25:28

said, dude, it's so condescending

25:30

that the way they ask each other questions and

25:32

converse as if they don't already know what the other person

25:34

is gonna say, as if he

25:37

sniffed me off the case right away. She says,

25:39

So she's a true fan by saying, I

25:42

don't think that's fake. I think they're really right. Don't

25:44

write out a full script ahead of time, I

25:47

believe it or not. He's right, believe

25:50

or not. That changed everything, which might

25:52

seem silly, but I bet you listened to a past episode

25:54

and imagine it was totally scripted and rehearse she'd see

25:56

what I mean now, I recommended everyone.

25:59

I can't even conceive of how we would

26:01

be able to generate the level

26:04

of clumsiness that we rise to every

26:06

episode. You couldn't write that. Yeah, So

26:08

thanks guys for putting out a very entertaining program

26:10

for people of all ages to enjoy, and

26:13

for being less sad than this American

26:15

life, which we also love, but

26:17

sometimes we just don't have enough tissue and

26:20

emotional resolve to listen to it. That

26:22

is from Amber and Ben Studive Baker.

26:25

Thanks to you guys. Thanks Amber and Ben. Hey

26:27

there, if you're on one of your road trips, drive

26:29

safe and drive safe to everybody

26:31

out there who's listening on a road

26:34

trip or on a long haul

26:37

or on an airplane whatever. If

26:39

you're listening to us right now and you're traveling,

26:41

I hope it's a nice time, agreed. Uh.

26:44

If you want to tell us about those travels, you

26:46

can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.

26:49

UM. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash

26:51

Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an

26:53

email Yeah Too Stuff

26:56

Podcast at Discovery dot com,

26:58

and you can join us at our

27:00

home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot

27:02

com

27:08

for more on this and thousands of other topics.

27:10

Is it how stuff works dot com

27:17

m brought to you by

27:19

the all neween Toyota Corolla