nature in a experiment i don't know yet why is blight so far like it sounds so simple they had no idea

but now the data's i find this not only refreshing but but at some level astounding nature

welcome back to the Nature.

Welcome back to the Nature podcast. This week, bizarre solutions to simple problems.

And one person's journey from climate lawyer to climate activist.

I'm Benjamin Thompson.

And I'm Noah Baker.

First up on this week's show, I recently had the chance to talk to Randall Munro,

the cartoonist behind the hugely popular web comic, XKCD, which features stick figures,

a lot of pop culture references, and science jokes. If you've ever been to a scientific conference, I'm willing to bet you'll have seen at least one of his cartoon strips used by a speaker

to illustrate a point or to get a laugh at the end of their talk.

Randall has also written a series of books, the latest of which is called how to, absurd scientific advice for common real world problems. I asked him about some of the real world problems he

looked at. I took a lot of simple problems that you might encounter in everyday life, like, you know, the hassle of packing to move or how to make friends with people.

And I'm one of those people who will always find a much more complicated way to do things that I have convinced myself is going to be worth it in the long run.

And so I'll say, okay, I know this looks like it's too elaborate or too complicated, but convinced myself is going to be worth it in the long run. And so I'll say,

okay, I know this looks like it's too elaborate or too complicated, but once it gets going,

you'll see what a good idea this was. And inevitably, I'm still trying to get it working when the people who are solving the problem the normal way are already done. Yeah, and I would say all of your

questions then I've got some in front of me here, how to jump really high, how to play football, which works on both sides of the Atlantic, which is great.

I mean, they all have sensible starts, and then things quickly veer off into maths and physics and ridiculousness.

Yeah, I usually start somewhere kind of straightforward, and then I often find, you know, I'll come up with some

weird idea. And then, of course, I just want to know, would that actually work? So my friend had

ants that were in his house. And he texted me and said, I'm so frustrated trying to get these

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