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!
See https://www.shownotes.page or "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts/ incl YouTube.
See https://www.shownotes.page or "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts/ incl YouTube.
Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is What a Weird Week, a look at the odd, interesting, strange, fun and weird stories that made news this week. See bottom of shownotes page for a transcript of the podcast episode. To Subscribe/ get in touch/ other see www.shownotes.page.
Thanks for rating and reviewing!
These are the shownotes for Season 6, Ep 12 first published Fri March 21 2025.
Thanks for rating and reviewing!
These are the shownotes for Season 6, Ep 12 first published Fri March 21 2025.
How to win at social media through science
HEINZ Launches Limited-Edition Chip Dip (spoiler alert: it's ketchup)
Regular Blood Donation May Improve Blood Health at a Genetic Level
Massive Gold Deposit Discovered in China *citation
Wine Glasses with removable stems are here
We need First Aid Kits for Mice
Chewing Wood May Boost Brain Antioxidant Levels and Memory
wiener dogs on parade #worldrecord
Cheboygan Gator!
Regular Seafood Consumption in Children Linked to Improved Prosocial Behavior
Gold toilet check in
Should we stop signing emails to save the world? / The Environmental and Human Cost of Email Signatures
🎵
Transcript below.
Spotify Stream...
YouTube stream
Transcript:
00:00
The scientific way to win at social media. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. It's Weird. This is like Crazy New Year. Weird. Really weird. Bigfoot eats out of my trash. Well, I got a great joke for you. The name is so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi, friends. I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week. If you're new here, we go back through the news of the week and we pick out the weird stories, the odd stories, the interesting, the amusing, perhaps silly stories.
00:28
And we catch you up on 10 of the weirdest news stories of the week. We do it in about 15 minutes. You can get all the show notes if you go to show notes dot page show notes dot page.
00:40
This is season six episode I can't remember first published on Friday, March 21, 2025. Number 10 is how to win at social media according to science. And you might not have to quit social media. If you would miss it, you would be lonely without social media. You might not have to quit it. According to this new study from the University of British Columbia, first things first.
01:05
Pretty much all the researchers agree the data does seem to indicate that social media can have a negative impact on your mental health. And if you abstain from social media, if you just quit it, that can improve your anxiety levels, your depression. The data seems to indicate that. But what if you had a fear of missing out? And what if you got lonely without social media? Is there a way to stay on social media and not be bummed out all the time? And yes.
01:34
According to this study from University of British Columbia, Canada, North America, planet Earth, they say take a tact that is mindful engagement. What that is, my paraphrase, is just be mindful when you're on social media. If you have negative feelings, if something upsets you, don't follow that account anymore. Or if you have a bad interaction, you don't have to be friends with that person online anymore or whatever. Snooze that person.
02:01
And as you weed out those interactions, you'll be happier online. This according to, and that's my paraphrase. You can read the whole thing. This according to the university of British Columbia study. One of the things is the comparison. Eliminate that comparison thing. We all do it where you're on Insta or somewhere and you're like, wow, that person's life looks glamorous and wonderful. And mine ain't. Stop doing that. According to his science, you'll be happier.
02:29
Again, that's my paraphrase. We link to the whole study. Click show notes dot page. There needs to be a follow up to this. It wasn't a huge study. It was like 390 something social media users involved in the study. So more research needed to be continued. nine is chip dip, a new kind of chip dip from our friends at Heinz. This portion of the program not sponsored by Heinz, but you know, they make the ketchup and now they have chip dip that is ketchup flavored.
02:59
How is it different from ketchup? I couldn't even tell you. I think it's just ketchup. You guys, it's in a more dippable container, but it's ketchup. So you go buy regular flavored chips and you dip the chip in the ketchup. Now where I live, we have ketchup flavored chips. I realize you don't have ketchup chips everywhere. So maybe you wanted to try dipping your chip in ketchup. What was stopping you before? Were you trying to dip your chip?
03:28
And you were like, well the bottle's too narrow. I can't get a chip in there. Is that? No, right? You weren't doing that. No. If you wanted to try this, you tried this. So I'm not exactly sure. I always applaud when the marketing department cuts through the noise and they make headlines and this got written up and shared online, the Heinz ketchup chip dip. But I'm baffled.
03:55
Number eight is the study in the news about donating blood and how it is good for you. They think according to the research, donating blood results in faster blood cell production, better blood health. There's more research needed and there's more science to it there. You can click the show notes if you want to do a deep dive. think I'll stop there. Donating blood good for others. Please consider donating blood. It helps a lot of people, but now also it looks as though it's
04:24
Good for you. It helps you as the person donating. That's a good news story. Hey, number seven. Number seven is the massive gold deposit that was discovered in China. It's made headlines. Some people, should say some people are like, Oh, we got to look at this a bit closer, make sure everything's on the up and up. But this was written up in science alert credible website. That's what we linked to. And the gold deposit they say is a thousand metric tons around that much gold worth
04:52
approximately $83 billion United States dollars. I like it that they're still finding gold. I thought we found all the gold. Here's what I think they should do is they should make a sculpture of a giant tooth, an enormous tooth. And then they should take that thousand metric tons of gold and make that into a filling for the tooth. Put it on display. Hey, you guys.
05:17
I've got a million ideas. Number six is a modular and space saving wine glass. New wine glass technology. You guys, I don't drink. So should I be excited by this? This is something where you can take the stem, remove the stem from the wine glass. So you have more room in the cupboard. Stack more wine glasses in there, I guess. The name brand that I see a lot and it's being picked up and talked about on some of these websites where they follow the trends. It's called Splitglass.
05:47
And I think maybe they have an Indiegogo or something like that. I'm not going to link to any of that because, know, that's if you want to find them, you can do that and send them your money or purchase a modular space saving wine glass if you want to. But they say this is the latest trend, a hot new trend in wine glasses. I remember last year's trend, wasn't it last year where the enormous, comically enormous wine glass that said mama needs her wine, the wine glass that could hold a whole bottle of wine.
06:16
Remember when that was the hot new trend in wine? Well, now it's the space saving wine glass where you can remove the stem. If you want to have a look at them, I'll link to that in the show notes. five is mice doing first aid. There's a study out that seems to indicate mice will perform first aid on one another when they need it. When a mouse isn't doing well or has fainted a fellow mouse.
06:44
We'll try to help, administer help. So I'm going to start making teeny tiny first aid kits for mice. Hey, would that be a viable business? Would you care to invest? Get in on the ground floor. Tiny first aid kits for mice. Number four. Number four. have to say consult your physician before you embark on any sort of wood chewing journey. All right. Serious. Chewing wood may boost brain antioxidant levels.
07:14
and memory. This according to a South Korean study where they had some subjects chew on tongue depressors, wooden tongue depressors. They chewed on these things for five minutes and that increased the levels of a brain antioxidant and it led to improved memory test performance. They chewed on wood, this antioxidant level went up and then they had better test results concerning memory. Why?
07:43
They're not sure yet. Do they need to follow up? Oh no, take it to the bank. It's a hundred percent. Just kidding. They need to follow up on this. They don't know exactly why it worked. That is number one. Let's figure that out. And number two is, are we sure about all this? And that's why further study is needed in the field of chewing wood for better memory. three is the record breaking wiener dog parade in Germany.
08:12
At least 897 Wiener dogs confirmed. It probably was higher than that, but the official count had to be locked in 897. That's a world record. Fake, character strong, others say stubborn, I call it character solid. Over 1,500 duckels are on Sunday and that could even be a new That's a little bit of the excitement, the coverage of the Wiener dog parade, the world record Wiener dog parade in Germany. If you want to see the video,
08:41
You can click show notes dot page. I'm not a medical professional, but it might cheer you up to see the video of the hundreds of wiener dogs. Number two is our first gator story of 2025. Live alligator found in Michigan motel room. Sheboygan police responded to a motel where housekeeping staff discovered an alligator under the bed. It's hard enough being part of housekeeping at a motel. Imagine what you got to deal with every day, but
09:10
On this day, an alligator under the bed? Like too much. Turns out this three foot alligator was named Wally. Wally was owned by a fellow who travels to schools and does demonstrations with exotic animals. He thought Wally escaped somewhere else, got out of the car or something like that. He didn't realize he had left Wally in the motel room. Wally was hiding under the bed. So they were reunited.
09:37
And everything's okay, you guys. We'll link to that story in the show notes. Honorable mention. This one's kind of wild. It's a study about kids who eat seafood and how there appears to be a link. The kids eating the seafood are more likely to be pro-social, have pro-social behavior. In other words, helpful and considerate towards others. And young kids who do not eat the seafood, less likely to be that way.
10:07
They think it's because you know, some of the stuff in the seafood and how it helps in brain development. There's going to be more research needed. The article gets into like how many portions of fish should kids eat and all of that stuff. If you want to do a deep dive, but always consult your physician or your fishmonger, let's not be hasty, but it's an interesting study. You can have a look show notes dot page.
10:34
Honorable Lenten A quick update on the golden toilet story. So we covered the golden toilet when an artist created it. A toilet, a working toilet out of gold. It was art, but also a toilet. And then it got stolen. We covered that. And then people were in court answering the charges. And now we do have some convictions. Some folks who have been found guilty. That golden toilet is cursed, I think you guys.
11:03
I don't know about you, but I would watch a movie about a haunted golden toilet. I watched that Annabelle. I watched the haunted doll movie. I'm going to watch the haunted golden toilet movie. They need to make that happen.
11:20
We made it to number one you guys. mean high five so happy. We made it. Number one little bit controversial maybe or you might want to look into it and perhaps you disagree but I'll put all the links if you go to show notes dot page. It is about not signing your email and how that might save planet Earth. The article we linked to the researcher was able to calculate how much extra energy is consumed
11:49
When you have an email signature. You know those work email signatures, nobody reads them? I used work with a fella who would change his email signature just to see if somebody read it. I think he admitted to being a bank robber one time and a bunch of stuff like that. Nobody ever read his email signature. Anyway, apparently that consumes extra energy and the researcher's point is most of the time people know who you are.
12:17
where they're not reading your email signature. So we don't need it. And you could conserve energy and perhaps save our planet. One of the best planets, you guys planet earth, right? So let's save it. If you want to do a deep dive onto that, we'll put the link in the show notes. I'll tell you what, what I would love to see happen is this gets followed up on and proven without a doubt. And then we first stop signing our emails and then we stop sending emails and receiving emails at work. Those all caps with somebody
12:47
screaming the boss screaming at me for something. Those would just go away and we're doing something good for the environment. Wouldn't that be, isn't that a nice, let's think about that for a moment. I want to live in that world. Okay. Well stop there. I appreciate when you check out the show, when you rate and review or subscribe and all those things follow whatever you do. You can get all our links at shownotes.page or just search what a weird week wherever you listen to stuff.
13:16
And we'll catch you next week with more weird stories from the news on What a Weird Week.
The scientific way to win at social media. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. It's Weird. This is like Crazy New Year. Weird. Really weird. Bigfoot eats out of my trash. Well, I got a great joke for you. The name is so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi, friends. I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week. If you're new here, we go back through the news of the week and we pick out the weird stories, the odd stories, the interesting, the amusing, perhaps silly stories.
00:28
And we catch you up on 10 of the weirdest news stories of the week. We do it in about 15 minutes. You can get all the show notes if you go to show notes dot page show notes dot page.
00:40
This is season six episode I can't remember first published on Friday, March 21, 2025. Number 10 is how to win at social media according to science. And you might not have to quit social media. If you would miss it, you would be lonely without social media. You might not have to quit it. According to this new study from the University of British Columbia, first things first.
01:05
Pretty much all the researchers agree the data does seem to indicate that social media can have a negative impact on your mental health. And if you abstain from social media, if you just quit it, that can improve your anxiety levels, your depression. The data seems to indicate that. But what if you had a fear of missing out? And what if you got lonely without social media? Is there a way to stay on social media and not be bummed out all the time? And yes.
01:34
According to this study from University of British Columbia, Canada, North America, planet Earth, they say take a tact that is mindful engagement. What that is, my paraphrase, is just be mindful when you're on social media. If you have negative feelings, if something upsets you, don't follow that account anymore. Or if you have a bad interaction, you don't have to be friends with that person online anymore or whatever. Snooze that person.
02:01
And as you weed out those interactions, you'll be happier online. This according to, and that's my paraphrase. You can read the whole thing. This according to the university of British Columbia study. One of the things is the comparison. Eliminate that comparison thing. We all do it where you're on Insta or somewhere and you're like, wow, that person's life looks glamorous and wonderful. And mine ain't. Stop doing that. According to his science, you'll be happier.
02:29
Again, that's my paraphrase. We link to the whole study. Click show notes dot page. There needs to be a follow up to this. It wasn't a huge study. It was like 390 something social media users involved in the study. So more research needed to be continued. nine is chip dip, a new kind of chip dip from our friends at Heinz. This portion of the program not sponsored by Heinz, but you know, they make the ketchup and now they have chip dip that is ketchup flavored.
02:59
How is it different from ketchup? I couldn't even tell you. I think it's just ketchup. You guys, it's in a more dippable container, but it's ketchup. So you go buy regular flavored chips and you dip the chip in the ketchup. Now where I live, we have ketchup flavored chips. I realize you don't have ketchup chips everywhere. So maybe you wanted to try dipping your chip in ketchup. What was stopping you before? Were you trying to dip your chip?
03:28
And you were like, well the bottle's too narrow. I can't get a chip in there. Is that? No, right? You weren't doing that. No. If you wanted to try this, you tried this. So I'm not exactly sure. I always applaud when the marketing department cuts through the noise and they make headlines and this got written up and shared online, the Heinz ketchup chip dip. But I'm baffled.
03:55
Number eight is the study in the news about donating blood and how it is good for you. They think according to the research, donating blood results in faster blood cell production, better blood health. There's more research needed and there's more science to it there. You can click the show notes if you want to do a deep dive. think I'll stop there. Donating blood good for others. Please consider donating blood. It helps a lot of people, but now also it looks as though it's
04:24
Good for you. It helps you as the person donating. That's a good news story. Hey, number seven. Number seven is the massive gold deposit that was discovered in China. It's made headlines. Some people, should say some people are like, Oh, we got to look at this a bit closer, make sure everything's on the up and up. But this was written up in science alert credible website. That's what we linked to. And the gold deposit they say is a thousand metric tons around that much gold worth
04:52
approximately $83 billion United States dollars. I like it that they're still finding gold. I thought we found all the gold. Here's what I think they should do is they should make a sculpture of a giant tooth, an enormous tooth. And then they should take that thousand metric tons of gold and make that into a filling for the tooth. Put it on display. Hey, you guys.
05:17
I've got a million ideas. Number six is a modular and space saving wine glass. New wine glass technology. You guys, I don't drink. So should I be excited by this? This is something where you can take the stem, remove the stem from the wine glass. So you have more room in the cupboard. Stack more wine glasses in there, I guess. The name brand that I see a lot and it's being picked up and talked about on some of these websites where they follow the trends. It's called Splitglass.
05:47
And I think maybe they have an Indiegogo or something like that. I'm not going to link to any of that because, know, that's if you want to find them, you can do that and send them your money or purchase a modular space saving wine glass if you want to. But they say this is the latest trend, a hot new trend in wine glasses. I remember last year's trend, wasn't it last year where the enormous, comically enormous wine glass that said mama needs her wine, the wine glass that could hold a whole bottle of wine.
06:16
Remember when that was the hot new trend in wine? Well, now it's the space saving wine glass where you can remove the stem. If you want to have a look at them, I'll link to that in the show notes. five is mice doing first aid. There's a study out that seems to indicate mice will perform first aid on one another when they need it. When a mouse isn't doing well or has fainted a fellow mouse.
06:44
We'll try to help, administer help. So I'm going to start making teeny tiny first aid kits for mice. Hey, would that be a viable business? Would you care to invest? Get in on the ground floor. Tiny first aid kits for mice. Number four. Number four. have to say consult your physician before you embark on any sort of wood chewing journey. All right. Serious. Chewing wood may boost brain antioxidant levels.
07:14
and memory. This according to a South Korean study where they had some subjects chew on tongue depressors, wooden tongue depressors. They chewed on these things for five minutes and that increased the levels of a brain antioxidant and it led to improved memory test performance. They chewed on wood, this antioxidant level went up and then they had better test results concerning memory. Why?
07:43
They're not sure yet. Do they need to follow up? Oh no, take it to the bank. It's a hundred percent. Just kidding. They need to follow up on this. They don't know exactly why it worked. That is number one. Let's figure that out. And number two is, are we sure about all this? And that's why further study is needed in the field of chewing wood for better memory. three is the record breaking wiener dog parade in Germany.
08:12
At least 897 Wiener dogs confirmed. It probably was higher than that, but the official count had to be locked in 897. That's a world record. Fake, character strong, others say stubborn, I call it character solid. Over 1,500 duckels are on Sunday and that could even be a new That's a little bit of the excitement, the coverage of the Wiener dog parade, the world record Wiener dog parade in Germany. If you want to see the video,
08:41
You can click show notes dot page. I'm not a medical professional, but it might cheer you up to see the video of the hundreds of wiener dogs. Number two is our first gator story of 2025. Live alligator found in Michigan motel room. Sheboygan police responded to a motel where housekeeping staff discovered an alligator under the bed. It's hard enough being part of housekeeping at a motel. Imagine what you got to deal with every day, but
09:10
On this day, an alligator under the bed? Like too much. Turns out this three foot alligator was named Wally. Wally was owned by a fellow who travels to schools and does demonstrations with exotic animals. He thought Wally escaped somewhere else, got out of the car or something like that. He didn't realize he had left Wally in the motel room. Wally was hiding under the bed. So they were reunited.
09:37
And everything's okay, you guys. We'll link to that story in the show notes. Honorable mention. This one's kind of wild. It's a study about kids who eat seafood and how there appears to be a link. The kids eating the seafood are more likely to be pro-social, have pro-social behavior. In other words, helpful and considerate towards others. And young kids who do not eat the seafood, less likely to be that way.
10:07
They think it's because you know, some of the stuff in the seafood and how it helps in brain development. There's going to be more research needed. The article gets into like how many portions of fish should kids eat and all of that stuff. If you want to do a deep dive, but always consult your physician or your fishmonger, let's not be hasty, but it's an interesting study. You can have a look show notes dot page.
10:34
Honorable Lenten A quick update on the golden toilet story. So we covered the golden toilet when an artist created it. A toilet, a working toilet out of gold. It was art, but also a toilet. And then it got stolen. We covered that. And then people were in court answering the charges. And now we do have some convictions. Some folks who have been found guilty. That golden toilet is cursed, I think you guys.
11:03
I don't know about you, but I would watch a movie about a haunted golden toilet. I watched that Annabelle. I watched the haunted doll movie. I'm going to watch the haunted golden toilet movie. They need to make that happen.
11:20
We made it to number one you guys. mean high five so happy. We made it. Number one little bit controversial maybe or you might want to look into it and perhaps you disagree but I'll put all the links if you go to show notes dot page. It is about not signing your email and how that might save planet Earth. The article we linked to the researcher was able to calculate how much extra energy is consumed
11:49
When you have an email signature. You know those work email signatures, nobody reads them? I used work with a fella who would change his email signature just to see if somebody read it. I think he admitted to being a bank robber one time and a bunch of stuff like that. Nobody ever read his email signature. Anyway, apparently that consumes extra energy and the researcher's point is most of the time people know who you are.
12:17
where they're not reading your email signature. So we don't need it. And you could conserve energy and perhaps save our planet. One of the best planets, you guys planet earth, right? So let's save it. If you want to do a deep dive onto that, we'll put the link in the show notes. I'll tell you what, what I would love to see happen is this gets followed up on and proven without a doubt. And then we first stop signing our emails and then we stop sending emails and receiving emails at work. Those all caps with somebody
12:47
screaming the boss screaming at me for something. Those would just go away and we're doing something good for the environment. Wouldn't that be, isn't that a nice, let's think about that for a moment. I want to live in that world. Okay. Well stop there. I appreciate when you check out the show, when you rate and review or subscribe and all those things follow whatever you do. You can get all our links at shownotes.page or just search what a weird week wherever you listen to stuff.
13:16
And we'll catch you next week with more weird stories from the news on What a Weird Week.