Our Hot Ones Investigation 🔥 and some news

Hi Howtowners - dropping in to let you know that our latest feature is live on the channel. Link: "The truth about Hot Ones sauces" -- on the science of hot peppers and Scoville heat units. If you enjoy spicy food or enjoy watching celebrities eat spicy food, this one's for you.

I've been watching Hot Ones for ages, and always wondered how they measure the spiciness of the sauces. Turns out, they're not actually measuring it, so we decided to spend the money on the lab tests ourselves! This is the kind of thing that our Patreon supporters make possible- so thank you!

For members, we've posted the full lab results on 17 different hot sauces, and a live version of this episode that we presented at IMI Fest in November. Here a pic of the moment we brought a volunteer (the talented YouTuber @BobbyDukeArts) on stage to taste-test the hottest sauces on Hot Ones:

Now, for some updates.  First, we're starting a monthly book club for our Patreon supporters! Except instead of books, we're reading science papers (phew!) It'll take place live on the first Monday of each month at noon EST, starting January 6. No pressure to read the whole paper or to understand it! - we'll walk through it together :) We'll send the meeting link to Howtown Heroes, Councilors, and Mayors. Afterwards, Citizens will also have access to the recording.

• Our first paper will be: "Susceptibility to online misinformation: A systematic meta-analysis of demographic and psychological factors," which was published in November in PNAS, by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

Number two: We've opened up our Discord to everyone! There are exclusive rooms for paying members, but we want to invite everyone else to join too. It's the best venue to discuss episodes, ask questions, suggest topics, and visit with other friendly nerds. On Fridays, we take suggestions for group-factchecking. And it's the only place where you can get EXCLUSIVE pics of Adam's adorable new cat (and his adorable old cat too). Join here: https://discord.gg/aM9k3nQWCG. If you're a paying member, you'll need to link your discord account on Patreon's site to get your assigned role.

Meanwhile on Shorts:

• How to find ancient geoglyphs using machine learning

• Why the Blue Marble (2002) was photoshopped

• Why the first image from Mars was hand drawn

• Tracking the meteorite that hit Ann Hodges

• How would you test astrology?

• First furry saber-toothed specimen is a lil baby

Howtown is now 6 months old and we're so happy with the community that's forming around the channel and its mission. In case you missed it, we did a little "state of the Howtown" video for our supporters, sharing some of our data and goals. TLDR: We want to continue building a direct, non-algorithmic relationship with ya'll, so thank you for reading this - it means everything.

Happy holidays pals.

Love, Joss (& Adam)