[Intro]
Michael: Today on the show we have New York Times bestselling author John Green, and younger
brother of New York Times bestselling author, Hank Green.
Hank: I know fewer things just because I've been here less time.
John: Oh, 'cause you're my younger brother.
Hank: Yeah.
John: Right.
I know more things.
Definitely.
Hank: I'm actually—I'm not so sure that that's true.
John: Well, do you know why the sky is blue?
Hank: I do.
John: I don't.
Hank: Do you know, uh, all five of the Pillars of Islam?
John: Yes.
Hank: I don't.
John: Okay, I hope that's the questions!
On Scishow!
Fingers crossed!
Michael: Hank, you will be competing on behalf of Andrew Villarreal.
Hank: Hello Andrew.
Michael: And John, you've got Anna Dilley.
John: Hi Anna.
Hank: We're gonna win for y—I'M gonna win for you.
John: Anna, I apologize in advance.
Michael: To find out how our contestants can play for you, go to subbable.com/scishow.
Okay, you guys both start out with 1000 Scishow bucks.
John: Mmm.
Michael: Each time you answer a question correctly, you will win an arbitrary number of points,
you may also lose an arbitrary number of points if you don't get it correct.
John: Okay.
Michael: [Clears throat] Uh, whoever has the most money at the end of the game randomly
wins a selected piece of DFTBA merchandise.
Stefan, what do we have today?
Stefan: Thanks Michael.
One of our contestants is going home today with this fabulous Pizza John blanket!
Which'll keep you nice and warm in those winter months.
Back to you.
John: Anna, I am going to win you that thing.
Michael: Okay, you guys ready?
John: Yes.
Hank: Yeah.
John: Ahh hands off the table!
You said you can't have the hands on the table!
Sorry I'm not competitive.
Michael: Okay, Round One is called: The Fault in our Earth.
John: Mmmmm.
That's funny.
It's a pun.
Hank: Yeah.
Michael: Earthquakes, as you know, most often occur at the edges of tectonic plates like
those that form the so-called Pacific Rim of Fire.
But they also occur away from the edges of plates, where the stresses of the plates's
movement form faults.
Different kinds of quakes happen at different kinds of faults, depending on how the rock
formations move in relation to each other.
Which of these is NOT a type of earthquake fault?
A: Normal Fault; B: Forward Fault; C: Reverse Fault; or D:
Strike-slip Fault.
[Beep]
Hank: You were underneath me.
John: …Can I have the options again?
Michael: Normal Fault; Forward Fault; Reverse Fault—
John: Reverse Fault!
Michael: Incorrect!
John: Nooo!
Hank: I'm gonna go—
John: Anna!
Hank: Oh.
Yeah.
John: I'm so sorry!
[Beep]
Hank: I would like to say Normal Fault?
Michael: Incorrect!
John: Anna we did it!
We did it together!
Hank: Oh, we just—we're equally bad.
John: Yes!
Michael: Okay, that is, uh, minus 100 points from both contestants.
The answer is B: Forward Fault.
A normal fault is where one chunk of rock drops down in relation to the other.
In a reverse fault, one chunk is pushed up.
And in a strike-slip fault, the blocks of crust slide horizontally against each other.
Forward faults we just made up.
John: That was my second guess.
Hank: Well I figured if there was a reverse, there would be a forward.
John: Well you were incorrect.
Hank: I was.
John: All right, we learned something today.
Hank: A normal fault is just like, "well it's the normal one."
That's just very un-descriptive.
How boring of them.
John: Have you not noticed that scientists always name things in the most boring possible
way?
Hank: That's often true.
Though "strike-slip fault" is a pretty cool name.
John: It's pretty cool.
Michael: Sounds like a bowling thing.
John and Hank: Yeah.
Hank: Oh, well done on that strike-slip!
Michael: Yep.
Michael: Okay.
[Clears throat] Round Two.
John: Yeah.
Michael: An Abundance of Katherines!
Hank: Oh!
John: Oh, it's another pun.
Hank: Are we going to have three different Katherines?
John: "Which of these Katherines is not a scientist?"
Michael: Oh.
No, that's not the question.
John: Oh, okay.
Michael: Katherine Johnson was a mathematician who calculated the trajectories, launch windows,
and orbits of NASA's most important and famous missions.
And before NASA used computers, she did them all by hand.
Hank: Oh.
John: Wow.
Michael: The question is, what was the first NASA mission to be calculated using computers?
A: Alan Shepard's Mercury Mission in 1961; B: John Glen's first orbit of earth in 1962;
C: Edward White's first space walk in 1965; or D:
The Apollo Moon Landing of 1969.
John: Hmm.
Hank: No one wants to answer.
John: I'll let you go first—
[Beep]
John:—Astronomy Boy.
Hank: B.
John: Nope.
Michael: You are correct!
Hank: Heeeey!!!
Michael: The answer is B: John Glen's first earth orbit in 1962.
Katherine Johnson manually performed all of the calculations for the United States's first
manned mission into space in 1961, and while she also mapped out Glen's mission the following
year, NASA used a computer for the first time to do the preliminary math.
But even after NASA started using computers to plan their missions, they continued to
run all of the calculations by Johnson afterward to verify them before sending anyone into
space.
Johnson went on to calculate the mission trajectories for the Apollo Moon Landing and worked for
NASA through the launch of the space shuttle program in the 1980s.
Uh, let's give 200 points to Hank.
I mean, Scishow bucks.
John: Yep.
Remember, you can redeem those for real goods and services.
Hank: I like how—I like how you were so sure that I was wrong.
John: I was sure that you were wrong.
So angry.
I'm not—
Hank: What did you think it was?
John: What did I think it was?
I thought it was A or C or D.
The only thing I knew for sure is that it wasn't B.
Hank: [laughs] Um, I figured it was because that requires a fair amount of precision for
him to come down in the right place.
If he's going to orbit the whole earth.
John: Mm.
Hank: That was my guess.
John: Well, I, maybe Katherine could do that by hand.
She seems very confident.
Hank: Proba—yeah, it's true.
It's true.
Y'know.
John: All right.
Michael: Doctor Katherine Kuchenbecker is an engineer and pioneer in the field of haptics,
or technology that provides tactile feedback to its users.
Her lab's most recent invention is a system that allows physicians to actually feel their
surgical tools, interactic with tissues and each other during remote robot assisted surgery.
Hank: Hmm.
Michael: Which of these is not an example of haptic technology?
A: Video game controllers that shake and recoil in response to gameplay; B: Smart phones that
vibrate when you key in a number; C: A touch-activated ATM screen; or D:
A robotic hand—
[Beep]
John: Dohh!
Hank: That "C" one.
Michael: You are correct!
The non-haptic technology is the ATM screen because even though it's activated by touch,
it doesn't provide tactile feedback to the user.
But the work being done at Kuchenbecker's lab (called GRASP) at the University of Pennsylvania
is contributing to those other technologies, including robots that can respond to tactile
information.
200 points to Hank!
John: It's 'cause you had your hand hovering over.
Hank (innocently): What are you talkin' about?
John: All right.
Hank has thirteen hundred.
Hank: Also, John is not—not quite aware of the fact that you get to buzz in before
all of the—the—
John: I didn't know 'til I saw you go—anyway, go, what's the next question?
Michael: [clears throat]
Doctor Katherine Esau has been described as the grande dame of American botany.
In 1954, she wrote what's considered to be the definitive text on plant anatomy, which
is still used today.
But to botanists, she also known as the scientist who discovered how viruses infect plants.
Specifically, she found that viruses spread through the tissue that plants use to transport
food down from their leaves.
What is the name of that tissue?
Is it A: The pith; B: The cambium; C: The xylem; or D:
The phloem.
[Beep]
John: …
Hank: [laughs] He's like, like repeating a—
John: A.
Hank: Mnemonic from—
Michael: Incorrect!
John: Ahh!
God, I hate this game!
Michael: That is minus 200 points for John!
Hank: Ooh, 200.
[Beep]
Hank: Is it—
[Beep]
Hank: I had to hit the button.
Michael: Whatcha got?
[Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep]
Hank: Uh, the xylem.
Michael: Incorrect.
Hank: Awww.
Michael: Minus 200 from Hank.
The correct answer is D:
phloem.
Hank: Aaahhh.
Michael: The answer is D:
phloem.
The xylem carries water and dissolved minerals up from the roots, while the phloem transports
sugars down from the leaves.
The cambium is the layer that separates the xylem from the phloem, among other things,
while the pith is where the nutrients are stored.
Esau's research is credited with stoping the spread of a disease known as curly top which
plagued America's sugar beet crops in the early twentieth century.
She was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1989.
John: Xylem in, phloem out.
I was right.
Hank: I knew it was one of those ones.
John: [sighs] I thought it couldn't have been—well, anyway.
Michael: Okay.
Hank: I like that you have a mnemonic that you remember from, like, sixth grade still.
John: Sixth grade, yeah.
More like freshman in college biology.
Hank: Oh.
Whatever.
John: Probably also sixth grade.
I had—I had to learn it again.
Michael: Round three.
John: Oh boy, this is dark.
Michael: Looking for Alaska.
Hank: Ah!
John: Mmmm.
I like it.
Michael: This round is double or nothing, so you can bet any or all of your points.
Hank, you have 1100, John, you have 700.
John: I'm sorry.
I apologize.
I'm so sorry.
Michael: And while you, uh, decide how many you're going to bet, we're going to go to
commercial break.
Welcome back!
You ready for the question?
John: I'm ready.
Michael: Alaska is an abundant source of fossil fuels because its balmy climate millions of
years ago created tons of biological material that would later decompose and become compressed
into substances that we really like to burn.
Today, Alaska has the United States's largest reserves of which fuel source?
A: Coal; B: Oil; C: Methane or natural gas; D: Geothermal.
John: Per capita?
Like, per acre?
Per hectacre?
Hank: No, total.
Total.
John: Total!
Hank: [laughs] Per hectacre.
John: Thank you!
That was a fantastic joke!
All right.
Hank: John doesn't—
John: I don't know what a hectare is.
Hank: "Hector"?
John: Hector.
Hank: Hector...is a great, great man.
John: Okay, write down your answer!
Hank: I don't know!
John [to the tune of "Jeopardy"]: Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.
Hank: Oh, man.
This is…
John: Doo doo-doo doo dooo, doo-doo doo, doo doo-doo doo do—just guess!!
It doesn't—[whispers] it's not real money.
Hank: But I'm playing -- I gotta represent Andrew!
John: Anna's already given up on me.
I'm not worried about Anna.
She's moved on to sunnier pastures.
All right.
Michael: Ready?
Hank: Yes.
John: Ready.
Michael: Show your answers.
[John: $401 B. Oil.
Hank: Methane 301.]
Michael: Both of you are incorrect.
John: Gahh!
Hank: Oh, what?!
Michael: Hank loses 301 Scishow bucks, John loses 401.
The correct answer is Coal.
John: Really?!
Hank: Wow.
Michael: While Alaska is best known for its extraction of oil, it actually only has 1/7th
of the country's petroleum.
But it does contain more than half of the country's coal reserves, an estimated 5.5
trillion tons.
Very little of it is mined, however, because most of the deposits are above the Arctic
circle, where it's too cold and remote to be mined effectively.
But when you think about it, it makes sense that so much oil and coal would be found together.
The main difference is just that coal forms from the decay of complex plants, while oil
is derived from algae and plankton.
The largest gas fields are in Pennsylvania and Louisiana by the way, while the biggest
geothermal deposit being used for energy is in California.
Wow.
John: Wow.
Hank: There is plenty of coal in America.
John: I'm just devastated for Anna.
I'm sorry.
I mean, you knew you were going to lose, but I'm still sorry.
Hank: Well, I—I'm mostly upset for the future of the world.
That's a lot of coal.
John: I mean, how can you not be upset by the fact that you ended the game with fewer
than a thousand Scishow bucks?
Hank: Well—
John: You lost money today!
Not as much as I lost.
Hank: Well no, I mean, well there's that, but there's also, like, you know, trillions
of dollars of infrastructure being underwater.
That's worse than that.
It—right?
John: Not today.
No, not right now.
That's the fut—that, that's the future's problem.
Today's problem is that Anna got stuck with a—a doofus.
There's no other word for it.
I—I—I'm so—I'm such a doofus!
I should have known that about Alaskan coal.
I've been to Alaska.
Hank: Me too.
John: Thanks for watching SciShow with us.
Hank: Beautiful place.
Hello, Alaskans.
John: Thank you, Alaskans.
Michael: Thanks for joining us for the SciShow Quiz Show, if you'd like one of our contestants
to play for you, you can go to subbable.com/scishow.
Be sure to check out SciShow Space and don't forget to go to youtube.com/scishow and subscribe.