Ancient Plagues & A New Pandemic

Hank explores the science behind the topics of the day, including a look at the current "pandemic" of concussions in professional sports and new insights into what really caused the worst plagues in human history, and what it portends for the future. Relax, it's not all bad!

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[nicepeter]

this is my new favorite show in the world.

[kylobite]

I like the subtle reference at the end about the previous show about nachos.

[HonestHorker]

2:51
"half"
My god that sound pitch xD

[mckennak]

I'm surprised this video isn't blowing up during the covid-19 outbreak

[Melthornal]

The two best ways to increase safety in NFL are:

A:  Increase number of games per season.  Doubling the number of games from 16 to 32 would go a long way.

B:  Decrease the amount of protection and armor players can wear.

These two changes, especially lengthening the season, would force the game to move towards having different sorts of players and strategies.  The "hit as hard as you can" strategy would be gradually phased out in favor of a more nuanced game that uses more pure athleticism and endurance and less physical strength.  If you want to make the playoffs in a 32 game season (which would be roughly the same length, just twice as many games per week) then you need your best players to be healthy.  You cannot sacrifice players to injury, you cannot go all out, 100% in every game, you must scale back the aggression and hard hits.

And the best part, it would be a natural, winning centric shift in game philosophy.  Nobody would be sacrificing wins in order to maintain health, you would instead be prioritizing health in order to win.

[cestlavi.]

Wow. I just listened to the intro/outro music on my good headphones, and it's really good, especially when you can hear the bass and everything. Props!!

[Tupster]

Amazed how many people find it morally ok to offer people millions of dollars to get dozens of concussions for entertainment purposes.

It isn't OK just because the victim agrees to it.

[WisemanTimes]

Through 20 years of sports, Hockey being my main one for the length of the time, other sports including rugby, football, baseball and soccer. With the addition of partying I have had over 30 concussions almost half being major ones. However after many MRIs and scans... I seem to be ok. Besides the migraines I get very often... they say I am ok.

[BBBrasil]

Hey, Hank. Question: Why aren't all planets in our solar system similar one to another? I mean, if our solar system coalesced from the same material available, what makes the sun so rich in hydrogen, then 4 rocky planets, then 3 gaseous planets? Why isn't Jupiter just a big version of our rocky Earth?

[PEPEvsVINNY]

Scishow is awesome. I look forward to seeing this everyday after work.

[SomarMan]

about an hour ago i discovered that a close friends younger sister is a nerdfighter. in less than an hour we had discussed the tfios movie, crash course and our fav john green novels. this is just the second nerdfighter I've met in real life, but seriously i wish more people were cause its so easy to make friends with them! this community is awesome, i hope it never changes. 

[massimookissed]

If American "football" players wore giant foam heads 3x the real size of their own heads, that could protect them *AND* make it more watchable.
I know, it's genius.

[goodheeewww]

Great video Hank! Can't wait until the next one.

[Sohltaker]

I played football in to college. It's so difficult for a defender to change body position, on the fly, to avoid helmet to helmet contact. You can't change or enforce the rules anymore. You have given the offense a big enough advantage. Time to see that new technology. Having said that... Great show.

[jasonkent]

Okay, I have a question.
In A Brief History of Time (the documentary), Steven Hawking talks about a theory he had regarding the Big Crunch. At one point he believed that when the universe got so big its gravity overwhelmed its rate of expansion, it would contract and smash back together. At the time it stopped expanding and started shrinking, he thought time would go backwards as well. But after exhaustive research he determined that time would not reverse, and I think he went on to deduce that the universe would never contract.

I was eight years old when I watched it. So how he figured all this out was a bit beyond me.

So how about one about The Big Crunch?

[TheRedeye]

The History was very glad to hear that you spoke on one of its plagues. The History feels that its illnesses should be studied and talked about much more. The History thanks you.

[Waltham]

Thank you for correcting the Lunar Module animation.

[babbleingon]

I love the new intro! Gosh it's perfect!

[RightCenterBack]

I thoroughly enjoy these medical update vids, sci show team

[cheerleadersncheese]

Could you do a video some time about fire beetles? They're amazing. By the way I'm really looking forward to crash course psychology :)