What a Weird Week Summer Special: A look back at July 2023 #Pushups #Gold #MysteryObject

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What a Weird Week gets you caught up on the weird news of the week.  https://www. 
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Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is What a Weird Week, a show about the weird stuff from this week's news. See below for a transcript of the podcast episode. To subscribe to the podcast or for social media and more links, you can get everything at www.shownotes.page. It's Friday, July 19th 2024 and these are the shownotes for Season 5, Ep 29 which is a look back at one year ago. Please enjoy this enhanced re-broadcast from July of 2023! #SummerSpecial
 
❿ update to our pushup story... the world record has changed hands again!
From Guinness World Records: "Australian fitness fanatic Daniel Scali, 30, has reclaimed the record for the most push ups in one hour."
- icymi, Australians have dominated the push-ups world record space for a long time...
- in April we covered the new world record when Lucas Helmke did 3,206 push-ups in one hour... now Australian Danial Scali has done more push-ups... 3,249 is the record to beat now.
- btw "one complete push up consists of the body being lowered until at least a 90-degree angle is attained at the elbow, then raised until the arms are straight"
- this is legit hard-core fitness...
- btw btw "Only three of Daniel’s push ups were disallowed due to improper form."
- he has a chronic pain condition also... 
- how did he do it? One of his tricks to deal with the pain is this visualization trick... he got six-second breaks between sets... and for those six seconds he says he would visualize his body... paint it red then change it to yellow... so try that next time you need to do push-ups for an hour.
see https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2023/7/daniel-scali-does-3-249-push-ups-in-one-hour-to-reclaim-record-755213
 
❾ Birds are using those anti bird spikes to build their nests now. (Just when we think we're top of the food chain, a bunch of magpies say 'Hold my beer'.)
The New York Times article says: "They’re Outsmarting Us’: Birds Build Nests From Anti-Bird Spikes"
- article quotes a bird researchers in Belgium who thought they had seen it all including nests built with windshield wipers, sunglasses, even envelopes used to package cocaine... but now, researchers have found magpie nests made with anti bird spikes. 
- this isn't a case of the birds nesting among the spikes on a building, these birds have torn apart the anti bird spikes and used them to build a nest in a sugar maple tree.
- that first case happened a couple years ago and the trend has continued... now researchers have published a paper on how these birds will become our overlords any day now (*citation: might not be actual theme of paper).
see https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/science/magpies-birds-nests.html
 
❽ Scientists invent a sucker/ lollipop to help doctors diagnose stuff... From Study Finds: "scientists have invented a lollipop-like device called Candy Collect that acts as a throat swab to collect saliva samples...." they can use the lollipop-collected samples to diagnose things like strep throat...
 - traditional throat swabs have been around a long time and they work pretty good for diagnosing stuff, but they make some people gag...
- the Candy Collect cherry flavor lollipop saliva collecting device seems like a delicious sweet treat but it is designed to collect your lollipop drool...
- the article seems to indicate that the lollipop diagnostic tool may work better than traditional throat swabs and volunteers found the lollipop method way less disgusting *paraphrase.
 - editor's note: more candy breakthroughs please.
 see https://studyfinds.org/lollipop-diagnose-infections/
 
❼ When you find gold coins buried in your yard, that's a good day...
 - they calling it "The Great Kentucky Hoard” ... hundreds of Civil War time gold coins from between 1840 and 1863...
 - the article quotes Coin World as saying the treasure is worth millions of dollars... also they include an Eff Bomb in the article, I think to indicate the incredulousness* (spelling?) of this treasure find situation...
- article also quotes an expert who suggested the coins might have been buried to keep them hidden in advance of a Confederate raid...
see https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/kentucky-man-finds-700-civil-war-coins-buried-farm-2023-7%3famp

 
❻ Burger King Brazil launches limited time Barbie Burger... which contains a lot more pink than we are used to in a hamburger...
like usually if someone says their hamburger is pink, that's bad... don't eat that burger... but in this case that's what they're going for... 
a Burger King burger with a slathering of pink sauce... 
- whole Barbie meal includes "a Pink Burger with a smoky pink sauce, cheddar cheese, crispy diced bacon and a brioche bun" also “Ken’s Potatoes” (which are BK fries) and a “Barbie Donut Shake,” which includes pink liquid accompanied by a pink donut. 
- the Barbie PR machine is firing on all cylinders. 
- the world reacted to the Barbie Burger in a civilized and even measured way. jk. They freaked out.

 
❺ If at first you don't succeed in getting approval to have a dog DNA database which will enable you to identify which dog pooped in front of city hall... try, try again!
- the mayor of a town in France is finally getting his wish (it looks like)... all the dogs are gonna be entered into the dog DNA database so that their poop can be traced if need be...
- if somebody doesn't clean up after their dog, they'll run the poop through CODIS (or whatever it's called... thank you CSI)... the owner will be tracked down and made to pay a fine...
- fines will be around 120 Euros (130-something US dollars)
- the mayor of the town suggested this idea before and didn't get approval... but this time around it seems like more people like the idea of cleaning up the town, the plan got an all-clear from local administration...
- mayor says that there are more than 1000 doggy doo cleanups per month in town square... that is pretty gross... 

 
❹ Headline from CTV: "Mystery object washes up on Australian beach, investigation underway"
- at time of recording the mystery continues...
- a cylinder approx 2 meters tall (so around 6 feet) washed up on a beach in Western Australia...
- they thought it might be a part of a missing airplane but an Australian news site (https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/natural-wonders/investigation-commences-mysterious-cylinder-object-washes-ashore-in-wa/news-story/f9344c0cca87181299a62f6d92547023) says that the theory has been ruled out and it's NOT from an airplane...
- authorities issued a statement that the thing "poses no risk to the community" and anyone who came in contact with the giant mystery cylinder isn't in danger...
- at time of recording the experts are saying it's probably part of a rocket... 
- in case you can't click the photo, the thing is described as a metal cylinder, at least two metres high, with cables or wires hanging from the top.
- To be continued
see https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/mystery-object-washes-up-on-australian-beach-investigation-underway-1.6482603
 
❸ Rare fish sighting, every news org shared the photos...
 - maybe it's because the fish is referred to as a doomsday fish or earthquake fish... in Japan some people think this fish beaches itself before an earthquake or tsunami, so seeing one if these is bad news... there's no science or studies behind that so try not to panic...
 - this rare fish is also called the oar fish... it is shaped like an oar...
 - they can get quite big but they live really deep in the ocean, maybe 3000 feet deep, so hardy ever seen by divers...
 - this one was filmed by divers off the coast of Taiwan...
- maybe 7 feet long (some articles say a bit smaller)... some of these fish get to 56 feet long...
 - it had weird holes in it... experts say the injuries are probably from a shark attack...
 see https://nypost.com/2023/07/14/divers-encounter-enormous-doomsday-fish-riddled-with-shark-bites/
 
❷ Dinosaur fossil is a game changer... headline from NPR was "This fossil of a mammal biting a dinosaur captures a death battle's final moments"...
- it's a 125 million year old fossil of a dinosaur (herbivore) being bitten by a smaller mammal... 
- fossil found in China...
- what the hey? the experts think the mammal was attacking the dino... and that whole dynamic is a bit of a surprise to experts... probably not an everyday occurrence, but sometimes mammals flipped the script...  
- but this fossil that has them frozen in time... what's the deal? A volcano erupted and then there was a mudslide, that's what happened. 

 
ICMYI: Last Week's Show https://www.scottyandtony.com/2023/07/what-weird-week-show-friday-july-14.html

❶ David Rush, the World Record Breaking Phenom does it again!
- David has like 250-something Guinness World Records got in the news this week for balancing an umbrella on his finger for 3 hours, 46 minutes and 16 seconds.
- that's a world record time but has to be confirmed by the folks at Guinness to be official.
- do you have an umbrella? try to beat that time this weekend maybe!?
- imagine the umbrella sponsorship dollars you could haul in for being the umbrella champion!
- David won't care if you beat his record, he has plenty* (*citation needed, may not be OK with it)

 
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 EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: (powered by Riverside.fm) (still transcribing)
 
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