What a Weird Week Fri Feb 21 2025: snakes! bananas! asteroids!

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What a Weird Week gets you caught up on the odd/ interesting/ strange/ fun and weird news that happened this week. Ten stories in 15 minutes!
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Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is What a Weird Week, a lighthearted look at the odd, interesting, strange, fun and weird stories in the news. See bottom of shownotes page for a transcript of the podcast episode.  To Subscribe, get in touch, and more see www.shownotes.page.
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These are the shownotes for Season 6, Ep 8 first published on Friday Feb 21, 2025.

Man cannot stop setting world records, it's your move, juggling world
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/02/17/Guinness-World-Records-David-Rush-juggling-tricks/3391739808759/ 

Venomous Snake Found in New Hampshire Banana Shipment
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/02/17/venomous-snake-banana-shipment-New-Hampshire/7681739812069/


Kayaker Swallowed and Regurgitated by Humpback Whale in Chile
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/02/14/chile-humpback-whale-kayaker/1921739555842/

 

14-Year-Old 'Human Calculator' Breaks Six Guinness World Records
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/02/12/india-Guinness-World-Records-human-calculator/1921739393971/  

Opossum Eats Entire Costco Chocolate Cake in Nebraska
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/02/12/nebraska-wildlife-rehab-opossum-chocolate-cake-costco/4611739382611/

^cake hangover face

Lab-Grown Chocolate
https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/good-food/lab-grown-chocolate-bird-flu-beans-egg-substitutes/lab-grown-chocolate 

^MMM mmm ???

🎵
 
we are hard-wired to want to dance like no one is watching
https://studyfinds.org/body-hardwired-to-dance-music/

 

 
Limited-Edition Pepperoni Pizza Soda
https://drinkperfy.com/products/pepperoni-pizza
^remember when stuff like this only happened on April Fools Day?
 
 
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Transcript: 
 
00:00
There's a snake in the bananas. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. It's weird. This is like Crazy Boom Hill. Weird. Really weird. Bigfoot eat out of my trash. Well, I got a great joke for you. It was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi, friends. I'm Scott and this is What a Weird Week. It's a show where we catch you up on the weird news, the odd news, the interesting things that happen in the news this week. We do 10 stories in about 15 minutes. So if that is the type of thing you like, please subscribe.

00:30
Tell a friend, tell an enemy. What a weird week. If you want our show notes, everything about our show is at shownotes.page. Shownotes.page. This is season six episode. I can't remember first dropping Friday, February 21st, 2025. This week we kick things off with David Rush, the fellow from Idaho who has the most world records. He has the world record for having the most world records and he doesn't know how to stop setting world records.

00:59
It's the only life he knows. And every time he tries to leave, it keeps pulling him back in. That's I've had no psychological training there. I just, you know, that's my theory on David Rush. He always shines a light on STEM education when he gets attention for setting world records. So that's nice. And this time around, it was performing 49 juggling tricks in a minute. That's the world record. Way to go, David Rush. This is a record I've wanted to break for about six years. It's the most juggling tricks performed.

01:28
in one minute. I have been practicing for weeks to get this exact sequence of juggling tricks down so I can perform them reliably and quickly. Here we go. So there you go. He practiced for weeks. He did 49 juggling tricks in a minute. Another world record for David Rush. I don't know where you go from here, David. I mean, it's okay to take a break. Maybe, is it just that you need to hear that from someone? Listen, I'm telling you, you're the world records guy. I get it.

01:55
People are always like, hey, what record are you breaking this week, David? It's OK to take a break, man. Number nine. The snake and the bananas story is our number nine story. This week, it made headlines when a venomous ornate cat-eyed snake, which is native to Ecuador, was discovered within a banana shipment at a New Hampshire market. They called the officers from New Hampshire Fish and Game, which I imagine that call went something like, Hello, go for Officer Wilson. A snake. OK. Well, we're

02:25
We're just finishing up with a moose and then we'll be right over. Bob! It's the snake call we've been dreaming of our whole career! You know, because venomous snakes are not very common in New Hampshire. Anyway, the two-foot-long snake was eventually given over to the folks at Rainforest Reptile Shows, and they, those experts, said the snake not particularly dangerous to humans. So happy ending for the snake and everyone involved.

02:51
Except now, something else to worry about when we buy bananas. I used to just be terrified of black widow spiders. Now, also snakes. Thank you, snakes. Thank you, brain. Number eight. Number eight is the kayaker who was swallowed by a humpback whale in Chile, but lived to tell the tale, and it was all captured on some wonderful video footage by the kayaker's dad. 24-year-old kayaker in Chile. Just kayaking like you do, you know.

03:20
minding your own kayaking business, and then, out of the ocean beneath the kayak, comes a humpback whale mouth. And the kayaker is consumed and regurgitated. Perhaps like a story from the Bible, if the Bible had kayaks. Or a story from Pinocchio, if Pinocchio had kayaks. If you don't have a chance to click the video footage, it is quite something, but just imagine a kayak and a whale and a meal that didn't agree with the whale.

03:49
And you've pretty much got it. But we'll put a link in the show notes or go to show notes dot page. You could say that again. Number seven is the human calculator who made headlines this week for breaking some Guinness World Records. A 14 year old from India did six different records, Guinness records involving mathematics, doing math very quickly. So try to imagine this adding 100 numbers together. But wait, they're four digit numbers.

04:19
So adding 100, four digit numbers together. Okay, time's up. The record is 30 seconds and something. How about this one? Imagine a 20 digit number. Just try to imagine that, 20 digit number. Now divided by a 10 digit number. The human calculator did that in like five minutes and something. So, oh, and got the right answers. Maybe you're thinking, this is easy, I could do this, but you have to get the right answer, which makes it a bit trickier.

04:48
Anyway, congratulations to the human calculator, who by the way practices mathematics 5 to 6 hours a day. Number 6 Number 6 is the opossum that ate the entire Costco chocolate cake in Nebraska. It maybe was a slow news day or whatever when this one got picked up, but it got shared a lot because you can picture that. It almost seems like a Disney Pixar film where, you know, an opossum eats a chocolate cake. That just seems charming. Well, it turns out...

05:16
chocolate cake not so great for opossums, which am I saying it right by the way because they don't have those things where I'm at in East Coast Canada. The opossum chocolate cake, we do have that. We do have that you guys. Anyway, this is a situation you can imagine at an office they had an entire Costco cake out and we pick up the story when the opossum was discovered in distress covered in chocolate and was taken to Nebraska Wildlife Rehab. It received treatment for basically

05:45
eating too much chocolate. Looks like the opossum is going to be OK and get released back into the wild in a few weeks. So a wonderful success story from Nebraska Wildlife Rehab. Costco, you're missing a chance. Like you need to issue a Costco membership to that opossum. Just keep the opossum out of the bakery section. Number five. Number five is Lab Grown Chocolate Making Headlines, a California company hoping to pave the way towards a future with lab grown chocolate.

06:15
We talked about lab-grown food before and you know, it's a hot button issue there. Not everybody loves it. Some people are saying it is the wave of the future and may save us all. Lab-grown meat. I remember we did a story about lab-grown fish as well. And what I recall from that is it was very gooey. Now lab-grown chocolate. First, let me say, don't want to take away the livelihood of any chocolate farmers. Chocolate farming is impacted by changes in the weather and the price of chocolate has gone up.

06:42
One of the things they think this California company, you know, they can turn it around a lot faster and maybe that could bring the cost of chocolate down. They do in the article talk about a world where there's a nice balance between traditional chocolate and lab grown chocolate. So traditional chocolate farming takes about five years. You plant the tree, five years later, you get the fruit. You can turn that fruit into delicious chocolate in the lab instead of five years. It's a week. But how does it taste? According to the article,

07:11
It has earthy grassy fruity notes and a creamy texture. So if that's what you're looking for in chocolate, it seems like the laboratory grown chocolate is, you know, on the way towards something. To be continued.

07:27
Okay, hang on, up next we have some interesting research on dancing. Are you a dancer? Yes, the answer is yes.

07:58
This is what a weird week we catch you up on the weird news, the interesting, the odd things from the news. Number four is the study about dancing. It was written up in study finds, their headline is, your body is hardwired to dance even when you don't like the music. In fact, even if you don't like music at all, if you prefer silence, there's something going on within us, you guys. Deep seated, our brains want to give us the pleasure things to the pleasure zones when

08:27
We hear music and we move to the music. So we're hardwired to dance. I'll stop there. I mean, they get deeper into it. And if you want to read the science of it, we'll put a link in the show notes or click shownotes.page. But I would prefer less sciency and more just dance. I'm gonna dance it out, you guys. You know, I once won a dance contest. It's a long story. Number three. Number three is one that got picked up a lot and just kept gaining momentum last week. The study about when to nap, the

08:55
best time to nap. They actually did the science on it and here's when you should take a nap. 1.42 in the afternoon at 1.42 pm. That is statistically scientifically the best time to take a nap. That according to researchers. One of the things they get into in this study is when you nap too long. If you've ever done that you know you wake up groggy. You feel worse. If you nap too long it is not good.

09:25
Well, according to the article, they say nap an hour and 26 minutes. Anything more than that and you enter into what they call the danger zone. There's a nap danger zone, you guys! Anyway, in the off chance that this portion of the program hasn't already put you to sleep,

09:44
you can click and read about the sleep study, go to shownotes.page. Number two. Number two this week, we have another follow up to that asteroid that has been in the news and may hit the earth. They keep readjusting the math on it. This is asteroid YR4, in case you have a bunch of favorite asteroids and you're like, which one are you talking about, Scott? Which one that's going to hit the earth and destroy a big portion of it? Well, it's asteroid YR4.

10:12
Every time they readjust the math on it, the odds of it hitting the Earth go up. It started at 1. something percent and then it doubled. And now it's at 3.1 percent, somewhere in that range. 3 percent chance it will hit Earth in 2032. And it's what they call a city destroyer. Is that the term? Super fun party asteroid? No, that's not it. Anyway.

10:36
It's not great news if it hits planet Earth, but still we're at a 3% chance in 2032. What are we, what do we do with the information you guys? I think we need operation fly to the asteroid and blow it up. We need that operation, which I'm not in charge of naming operations because that's not a good name is it? Anyway, to be continued. Number one is Perfie's limited edition pepperoni pizza soda, a savory beverage trend.

11:03
We don't have Perfee soda where I live, East Coast Canada, but Perfee and the promotions team did it. They cut through the noise. They came up with an interesting campaign that made headlines. The pepperoni pizza soda. They say it challenges traditional sweet soda flavors with its savory profile. It's a tomato based soda, you guys. Low calorie and caffeine free. And then also some other health claims, which I don't think I am allowed to say on a Canadian podcast that comes out of Canada.

11:33
But anyway, basically they say, healthy, something like that. Please consult your physician, consult your dietician, consult your neighborhood pizza parlor before going on an all pepperoni pizza soda diet. I have a couple of questions. Why is it low calorie? Like does your research indicate that your demographic wants a pepperoni pizza soda, but they don't want one that's high in calories?

12:02
Just, you know, I'm just curious about that. Don't get me wrong. I'm not kicking any pepperoni pizza flavored anything out of my kitchen. I'm just saying, I had some questions.

12:27
Alright, we're going to stop there and I want to thank you for listening to What a Weird Week. You can click shownotes.page to get all the show notes and find out other ways to listen, to like, subscribe, smash buttons, all of the things if you go to shownotes.page. We'll catch you next week with 10 more weird stories from the news on What a Weird Week.



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