468: I Will Not Be Licking Any Doorknobs

Key takeaways

• Multicellularity evolved independently many times across life's history—not just once for plants, animals, and fungi, but potentially 25+ times including in various algae and slime molds. Plants figured out multicellular life completely separately from animals, which explains why their growth systems feel so alien: instead of a nervous system, they use hormones released from branch tips that suppress nearby branch growth, preventing branches from crowding each other.
• Fossil formation is wildly biased toward certain environments and animal types, which skews our entire picture of prehistoric life. Insect-eating bats fall into lakes often and fossilize well, but fruit bats live in tropical rainforests where scavengers destroy remains before fossilization; so their evolutionary history is nearly invisible in the fossil record. When researchers compare today's species diversity to what the dinosaur-era fossil record shows, the numbers don't add up, suggesting either far more undiscovered ancient diversity or genuinely fewer species existed then.
• John describes intense pre-publication anxiety around his new novel Hollywood Ending, noting that "making fiction is a vulnerable thing inherently" and that raw vulnerability takes time to fade regardless of how a book is received. He also pushes back on writing advice that frames only one method (like pure emotional immersion without conscious thought) as legitimate, comparing it to rigid parenting judgment.
• On spoilers, John explains his rule for book tour events: he'll reference plot points from roughly the first 15–30 pages but avoids revealing anything beyond that, prioritizing the experience of readers discovering the book "in community" with partners or book clubs; something he calls one of the greatest honors of writing a book.
• Sound behaves differently on Mars: wind itself may be silent (sound requires something to strike, like a rock or eardrum), and Mars's thin, carbon-dioxide-heavy atmosphere carries lower frequencies better than high-pitched ones, meaning voices and wind would sound noticeably different than on Earth; if you could survive without a suit, which you couldn't.
• Hank criticizes tech-industry priorities, arguing society pours unlimited resources into data centers while resisting investment in the infrastructure needed to actually deliver existing medical cures to people in poverty, calling it a systemic failure rather than a technology problem.

Notable moments

• John on writing under pressure: "the only way out is through," quoting Robert Frost about finishing his book tour week.
• Hank's aside on ants: the vast majority "die virgins," setting up a runaway bit about Noah's Ark and interspecies logistics.
• Hank's imposter-syndrome coping mechanism: imagining that better writers throughout history simply had their work lost to time, joking someone should "cast John's books in bronze."
• The Ferris Bueller advice for faking sick: taking an extra dose of Miralax so "nobody ever checked diarrhea."
• Hank corrects himself mid-answer about wind and sound, working through the logic live: "Wind is silent except that earth life makes it loud."
• A listener correction reveals Hank misidentified newscaster Theresa Manion as Scottish when she's Irish; prompting jokes about needing Ireland as an "exit strategy."
• AFC Wimbledon news: returning goalkeeper Joe Bursick, a former youth player now on loan, made nine saves in a win over last-place Doncaster, while the women's team sits fourth in their table.

Time saved: 55 minutes.