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 14 first published Fri Apr 4th 2025.
Thanks for rating and reviewing!
These are the shownotes for Season 6, Ep 14 first published Fri Apr 4th 2025.
Video Game Playing Linked to Increased IQ in Children
https://www.sciencealert.com/playing-video-games-has-an-unexpected-effect-on-kids-iq-study-finds
https://www.sciencealert.com/playing-video-games-has-an-unexpected-effect-on-kids-iq-study-finds
Three-Year-Old Girl Discovers 3,800-Year-Old Scarab Amulet in Israel
A $12 Antique Store Drawing Could Be a Renoir Masterpiece Worth $1 Million
https://nypost.com/2025/03/27/lifestyle/12-drawing-bought-at-antique-store-could-be-a-renoir-and-worth-1m/
https://nypost.com/2025/03/27/lifestyle/12-drawing-bought-at-antique-store-could-be-a-renoir-and-worth-1m/
Cold Water Immersion Improves Cellular Resilience
Mokele-mbembe: Resurfaced Claims of Dinosaur Sightings in the Congo
https://www.themirror.com/news/weird-news/curiosity-congo--dinosaur-sightings-1064283
https://www.themirror.com/news/weird-news/curiosity-congo--dinosaur-sightings-1064283
Pennsylvania Storm Aftermath Yields Possible Bigfoot Sighting
https://www.themirror.com/news/weird-news/bigfoot-sasquatch-sighting-pennsylvania-mountains-1060721
https://www.themirror.com/news/weird-news/bigfoot-sasquatch-sighting-pennsylvania-mountains-1060721
Tonguejenga©
Minnesota Cat Receives Guinness World Record for Longest Tail
Dreamies Cat Treat Billboard Campaign
Octopus hitches a ride on a shark's back in New Zealand
CIA's Psychic Search for the Ark of the Covenant
🎵
Transcript below.
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00:00
The cat with the longest tail in the world. And the raiders of the lost ark in real life. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. It's weird. This is like crazy. Really weird. Bigfoot eats 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. You give us 15 minutes. We'll give you 10 of the weirdest news stories of the week. The weird, the odd, interesting.
00:28
Sometimes uplifting even I would say like maybe once and you can get all our show notes if you go to show notes dot page if you want to find out about our podcast or get in touch all of the things are at show notes dot page. This is season six, Friday, April 4th, 2025. Number 10 is the video game study written up by a science alert this week. They look at the study involving kids aged nine and 10 and what does playing video games
00:56
due to those kids? Well, there seems to be a correlation between playing video games and higher IQ. Remember when video games were supposed to be bad for us? Well, this study does not seem to lean that way. I mean, more research needed and all that stuff. It's a correlation, but put down the works of Shakespeare, start playing a video game. Serious. How about this? A video game.
01:24
starring William Shakespeare. He's the main character. And you have to slice a bunch of fruit that people are throwing onto the stage at his actors. Hey, I think I just wrote a video game, you guys. There's more to this study. And again, it's a correlation. They didn't look at some things. didn't look at, you know, increased screen time, what it does to your sleep.
01:46
patterns and that sort of thing. So you're going to want to do a deep dive before you present your case to somebody who says you shouldn't be playing video games, but there is something there. Number nine is the three year old girl who discovered the 3,800 year old scarab amulet in Israel. Articles says she was playing amongst the rocks and saw a beautiful stone, picked it up. It was an amulet. Archaeologists say it is middle bronze age.
02:15
almost 4,000 years old. It is beautiful. mean, I guess I don't really have a good, I'm not really good at that sort of thing. Like I still have a mood ring. I think a mood ring is beautiful. By the way, this is not a mood amulet. It's just a regular, regular amulet. We have a link if you want to see what it looks like. It was covered a lot in the news, but if you haven't seen it yet, click show notes dot page. And you guys, you know, I'm an ideas machine, but let me throw this one out here. I don't know controversial, but
02:44
It seems like little kids a lot of times find these really cool things amongst the rocks. so why don't we just start like, sure, you can go to university, become an archeologist, but also let's send some kids out to the dig site sometimes. Just maybe like some sort of daycare situation where you take a bunch of kids to a pile of rocks that you suspect maybe there's something, some artifacts in there and you just let them play for the morning.
03:13
and then see what happens. Could cut your work in half, archaeologists. Listen, no bad ideas when you're brainstorming, right? Little kids at dig sites. I feel like maybe we just saved archaeology. Hey, you guys, do you feel that too? Number eight is one of these stories I love where somebody bought a piece of art for $12. And now it might be worth a million dollars because now,
03:40
little bit of backstory. This person was an art appraiser or is an art appraiser. And so they saw a couple of telltale signs. They think maybe this piece of art is done by Renoir. Like it's a masterpiece perhaps. Right now we're in the phase where you got to get that thing authenticated. So that's the wheels are in motion, but wouldn't that be fantastic if you saw using your skills that you learned as an art appraiser, you see a couple of little clues and you're like,
04:10
Yeah, I'll pay $12 for this. And then it turns out to be worth a million bucks. I love that story. Number seven is cold plunges, you guys. And the science behind it, appears to be indications are that cold plunges are good for you. I don't, if it's not hurting anybody and you're enjoying that cold plunge, I'd say cold plunge like crazy. But I didn't realize there's a study out University of Ottawa, cold plunges.
04:39
If you do them for seven days, now that's not seven that you get in and seven days later you get out. No, it is every day for seven days. According to the research we linked to, it looks like that will improve cellular resilience and help your cells to manage stress better through cold plunging. The age of the hot tub is over you guys. Now it's the cold tub. Everybody's getting them. That's what I heard.
05:06
Anyway, I'm going to stop there on it because there's a lot of science, but maybe you're interested. can click the link. Show notes that page number six. Number six. Here's the headline. Resurfaced claims of dinosaur sightings in the Congo. Dinosaur sightings, you guys, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now that's a place that has a lot going on already. Do they need the stress of dinosaurs roaming around? Who has time for that? But there seems to be an uptick
05:35
In sightings, this is a sauropod looking dinosaur and it's a creature, it's been debated for over a century according to the article and people are skeptical but now there's been an uptick in reports and it seems to correlate with the deforestation of the rainforest. So, is that where they were hiding? That's what the true believers say. Obviously, they were hiding in the rainforest and the deforestation is driving them out. But also,
06:04
Maybe they don't exist you guys. The debate rages on if you want to see an artist rendering of what the dinosaur like creature is supposed to look like. You can click the show notes. five. Okay. Number five is another cryptid story. You guys from Pennsylvania, possible Bigfoot sighting. You're to want to click the photo. If you haven't seen this in your local newscast, well they're failing at news. I'll tell you that much. What are they covering? The trade war?
06:33
The tariffs? Is that what they're covering? We need more of the Bigfoot sightings, you guys. This one was a photo taken by the National Weather Service in Pennsylvania. And if you don't have a chance to click, we'll link to it in the show notes. But I see trees. see some, the grass looks very green in Pennsylvania. And then I see what is obviously a Bigfoot in the background. So, and then the article we linked to, I mean, there is a history.
07:02
Pennsylvania has a number of Bigfoot sightings through the years, reported sightings. And the article circles back to the National Weather Service and they are now making it seem as though perhaps it was a prank or maybe they think it's a hoax, something like that. There's only one way to find out. Let's start a GoFundMe and we're all going to Pennsylvania. We're going to live in the woods for eight months. Does that sound good? So how much are we going to need?
07:28
Let's set it at a cool million. Can somebody set that up for me? Appreciate it. Thank you. Number four. Number four. This one's fun. This is a study of 2000 people. So, you know, modest size sample there. According to the researchers, we check out three days before our vacation from work, we're already checked out in our brains. And so we're useless. Basically, they might as well. When you take a week off of work, here's my proposal. Because we're useless,
07:58
three days before our vacation. They should just let you have those three days. If you promise to stay super focused Monday, Tuesday, and then you get Wednesday, Thursday, Friday off because you're going to be checked out anyway. Like I would really buckle down on Monday, Tuesday. If they gave me the rest of the week off before my next week off, I think I'm onto something you guys. I'm making a lot of sense today. Number three, this week is this lady.
08:26
My name is Chanel Tapper and I am the Guinness World Record holder for female with the longest tongue. I like little fun, silly or what have you things like that. That's what makes my tongue. feel the most fun when I could do things that are outside the box with it. Honestly, the best reaction I could ever get when somebody sees my tongue.
08:48
is screaming. actually do like when people yell or scream or in shock or horror sometimes, but that's probably my favorite one because it's funny. So yes, that's Chanel Tapper, the lady with the very long tongue, almost four inches long. And she was written up, made some headlines this week. United Press International has a story about how she can play Jenga with her tongue. That's a thing, you guys. Tongue Jenga. Seems like you'd want to consult your physician and maybe
09:17
dentist before you played tongue Jenga. So please be safe before you attempt tongue Jenga and maybe don't ever bet against Chanel Tapper. She's very good at it. If you want to see the video, she does like it when people scream at her very long tongue. So if you want to see the video and have a good scream, click the show notes. two is the cat with the very long tail. The cat's name is Mr. Pugsley Adams, two year old silver Maine Coon from Minnesota.
09:47
The longest tail in the world for a living domestic cat, 18.5 inches. So for reference, that's about one large pizza across. If Mr. Pugsley sat adjacent to your pizza, Mr. Pugsley's tail would go right across that pizza. And Mr. Pugsley, come on, I was going to eat that pizza. Or if you lined up six smartphones, six of your average smartphones,
10:13
That's how long. let's say you had your six favorite smartphones out and you were showing them off and Mr. Pugsley whips that tail. Mr. Pugsley, I was trying to show off these smartphones, all these six smartphones. Your tail is in the way. There does that sort of paint a picture or I know instead of using your imagination, you could click the photo. We'll have a link to the photo in the show notes. Click show notes that page. Honorable mention.
10:40
Couple of funny stories. Another cat story honorable mentioned the dreamies cat treat billboard campaign that made a few headlines in the ad circles because they're putting up billboards in major cities and then they are attaching actual cats to the billboard. Cats are fast and they're glued to the billboard and they're like, you know, just on display. No, I'm only kidding. It's a lifelike.
11:06
cats, but they're not real cats, but they are 3D lifelike, hand painted fiberglass cats. Dreamy's cat treat billboard campaign. That's an honorable mention. Honorable mention number two. Another honorable mention about the octopus who rode the shark. And that's kind of it. It's not really, I guess it happens sometimes where an octopus will ride a shark, but they got some footage of it and we'll link to that.
11:36
If you want to check out octopus riding shark, click show notes dot page number one. All right. Our top story this week involves the real life Raiders of the Lost Ark. According to declassified CIA documents from 1988, the CIA was using remote viewing techniques. People who could remote view, you know, travel to places in their mind and see things, discover secrets using their mind power. So,
12:06
The CIA was trying to find the Ark of the Covenant in 1988. This is a project called Project Sunstreak. And the article we link to says at least one remote viewer claims to have discovered the location of the Ark of the Covenant, describes where it is. You know, the thing from the Bible, the thing that held the Ten Commandments, the Ark of the Covenant. So interesting that the CIA was
12:35
trying to locate that. It seems like a movie. There is some skepticism about remote viewing and whether the actual Ark of the Covenant was discovered through remote viewing. Not everybody's on board with the remote viewing, but it is true that there are other documents that show the CIA did try to use, try to discover secrets through remote viewing techniques. So what I would say, if you want to click the link and do a deep dive into the story, click shownotes.page. If
13:04
you decide to go to where the Ark of the Covenant is. Don't open it. Don't look inside. If you, did you see the movie? Don't just be, be careful. Okay. That's that. So thanks for listening. We're going to wrap it up and we'll be back next week with more weird stuff from the news. If you want to get different ways to listen to our show or do a deep dive into our show notes, transcripts and all that, you can go to show notes dot page, show notes dot page is where all our stuff is.
13:33
Catch you next week with more weird stuff on What a Weird Week.
The cat with the longest tail in the world. And the raiders of the lost ark in real life. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. It's weird. This is like crazy. Really weird. Bigfoot eats 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. You give us 15 minutes. We'll give you 10 of the weirdest news stories of the week. The weird, the odd, interesting.
00:28
Sometimes uplifting even I would say like maybe once and you can get all our show notes if you go to show notes dot page if you want to find out about our podcast or get in touch all of the things are at show notes dot page. This is season six, Friday, April 4th, 2025. Number 10 is the video game study written up by a science alert this week. They look at the study involving kids aged nine and 10 and what does playing video games
00:56
due to those kids? Well, there seems to be a correlation between playing video games and higher IQ. Remember when video games were supposed to be bad for us? Well, this study does not seem to lean that way. I mean, more research needed and all that stuff. It's a correlation, but put down the works of Shakespeare, start playing a video game. Serious. How about this? A video game.
01:24
starring William Shakespeare. He's the main character. And you have to slice a bunch of fruit that people are throwing onto the stage at his actors. Hey, I think I just wrote a video game, you guys. There's more to this study. And again, it's a correlation. They didn't look at some things. didn't look at, you know, increased screen time, what it does to your sleep.
01:46
patterns and that sort of thing. So you're going to want to do a deep dive before you present your case to somebody who says you shouldn't be playing video games, but there is something there. Number nine is the three year old girl who discovered the 3,800 year old scarab amulet in Israel. Articles says she was playing amongst the rocks and saw a beautiful stone, picked it up. It was an amulet. Archaeologists say it is middle bronze age.
02:15
almost 4,000 years old. It is beautiful. mean, I guess I don't really have a good, I'm not really good at that sort of thing. Like I still have a mood ring. I think a mood ring is beautiful. By the way, this is not a mood amulet. It's just a regular, regular amulet. We have a link if you want to see what it looks like. It was covered a lot in the news, but if you haven't seen it yet, click show notes dot page. And you guys, you know, I'm an ideas machine, but let me throw this one out here. I don't know controversial, but
02:44
It seems like little kids a lot of times find these really cool things amongst the rocks. so why don't we just start like, sure, you can go to university, become an archeologist, but also let's send some kids out to the dig site sometimes. Just maybe like some sort of daycare situation where you take a bunch of kids to a pile of rocks that you suspect maybe there's something, some artifacts in there and you just let them play for the morning.
03:13
and then see what happens. Could cut your work in half, archaeologists. Listen, no bad ideas when you're brainstorming, right? Little kids at dig sites. I feel like maybe we just saved archaeology. Hey, you guys, do you feel that too? Number eight is one of these stories I love where somebody bought a piece of art for $12. And now it might be worth a million dollars because now,
03:40
little bit of backstory. This person was an art appraiser or is an art appraiser. And so they saw a couple of telltale signs. They think maybe this piece of art is done by Renoir. Like it's a masterpiece perhaps. Right now we're in the phase where you got to get that thing authenticated. So that's the wheels are in motion, but wouldn't that be fantastic if you saw using your skills that you learned as an art appraiser, you see a couple of little clues and you're like,
04:10
Yeah, I'll pay $12 for this. And then it turns out to be worth a million bucks. I love that story. Number seven is cold plunges, you guys. And the science behind it, appears to be indications are that cold plunges are good for you. I don't, if it's not hurting anybody and you're enjoying that cold plunge, I'd say cold plunge like crazy. But I didn't realize there's a study out University of Ottawa, cold plunges.
04:39
If you do them for seven days, now that's not seven that you get in and seven days later you get out. No, it is every day for seven days. According to the research we linked to, it looks like that will improve cellular resilience and help your cells to manage stress better through cold plunging. The age of the hot tub is over you guys. Now it's the cold tub. Everybody's getting them. That's what I heard.
05:06
Anyway, I'm going to stop there on it because there's a lot of science, but maybe you're interested. can click the link. Show notes that page number six. Number six. Here's the headline. Resurfaced claims of dinosaur sightings in the Congo. Dinosaur sightings, you guys, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now that's a place that has a lot going on already. Do they need the stress of dinosaurs roaming around? Who has time for that? But there seems to be an uptick
05:35
In sightings, this is a sauropod looking dinosaur and it's a creature, it's been debated for over a century according to the article and people are skeptical but now there's been an uptick in reports and it seems to correlate with the deforestation of the rainforest. So, is that where they were hiding? That's what the true believers say. Obviously, they were hiding in the rainforest and the deforestation is driving them out. But also,
06:04
Maybe they don't exist you guys. The debate rages on if you want to see an artist rendering of what the dinosaur like creature is supposed to look like. You can click the show notes. five. Okay. Number five is another cryptid story. You guys from Pennsylvania, possible Bigfoot sighting. You're to want to click the photo. If you haven't seen this in your local newscast, well they're failing at news. I'll tell you that much. What are they covering? The trade war?
06:33
The tariffs? Is that what they're covering? We need more of the Bigfoot sightings, you guys. This one was a photo taken by the National Weather Service in Pennsylvania. And if you don't have a chance to click, we'll link to it in the show notes. But I see trees. see some, the grass looks very green in Pennsylvania. And then I see what is obviously a Bigfoot in the background. So, and then the article we linked to, I mean, there is a history.
07:02
Pennsylvania has a number of Bigfoot sightings through the years, reported sightings. And the article circles back to the National Weather Service and they are now making it seem as though perhaps it was a prank or maybe they think it's a hoax, something like that. There's only one way to find out. Let's start a GoFundMe and we're all going to Pennsylvania. We're going to live in the woods for eight months. Does that sound good? So how much are we going to need?
07:28
Let's set it at a cool million. Can somebody set that up for me? Appreciate it. Thank you. Number four. Number four. This one's fun. This is a study of 2000 people. So, you know, modest size sample there. According to the researchers, we check out three days before our vacation from work, we're already checked out in our brains. And so we're useless. Basically, they might as well. When you take a week off of work, here's my proposal. Because we're useless,
07:58
three days before our vacation. They should just let you have those three days. If you promise to stay super focused Monday, Tuesday, and then you get Wednesday, Thursday, Friday off because you're going to be checked out anyway. Like I would really buckle down on Monday, Tuesday. If they gave me the rest of the week off before my next week off, I think I'm onto something you guys. I'm making a lot of sense today. Number three, this week is this lady.
08:26
My name is Chanel Tapper and I am the Guinness World Record holder for female with the longest tongue. I like little fun, silly or what have you things like that. That's what makes my tongue. feel the most fun when I could do things that are outside the box with it. Honestly, the best reaction I could ever get when somebody sees my tongue.
08:48
is screaming. actually do like when people yell or scream or in shock or horror sometimes, but that's probably my favorite one because it's funny. So yes, that's Chanel Tapper, the lady with the very long tongue, almost four inches long. And she was written up, made some headlines this week. United Press International has a story about how she can play Jenga with her tongue. That's a thing, you guys. Tongue Jenga. Seems like you'd want to consult your physician and maybe
09:17
dentist before you played tongue Jenga. So please be safe before you attempt tongue Jenga and maybe don't ever bet against Chanel Tapper. She's very good at it. If you want to see the video, she does like it when people scream at her very long tongue. So if you want to see the video and have a good scream, click the show notes. two is the cat with the very long tail. The cat's name is Mr. Pugsley Adams, two year old silver Maine Coon from Minnesota.
09:47
The longest tail in the world for a living domestic cat, 18.5 inches. So for reference, that's about one large pizza across. If Mr. Pugsley sat adjacent to your pizza, Mr. Pugsley's tail would go right across that pizza. And Mr. Pugsley, come on, I was going to eat that pizza. Or if you lined up six smartphones, six of your average smartphones,
10:13
That's how long. let's say you had your six favorite smartphones out and you were showing them off and Mr. Pugsley whips that tail. Mr. Pugsley, I was trying to show off these smartphones, all these six smartphones. Your tail is in the way. There does that sort of paint a picture or I know instead of using your imagination, you could click the photo. We'll have a link to the photo in the show notes. Click show notes that page. Honorable mention.
10:40
Couple of funny stories. Another cat story honorable mentioned the dreamies cat treat billboard campaign that made a few headlines in the ad circles because they're putting up billboards in major cities and then they are attaching actual cats to the billboard. Cats are fast and they're glued to the billboard and they're like, you know, just on display. No, I'm only kidding. It's a lifelike.
11:06
cats, but they're not real cats, but they are 3D lifelike, hand painted fiberglass cats. Dreamy's cat treat billboard campaign. That's an honorable mention. Honorable mention number two. Another honorable mention about the octopus who rode the shark. And that's kind of it. It's not really, I guess it happens sometimes where an octopus will ride a shark, but they got some footage of it and we'll link to that.
11:36
If you want to check out octopus riding shark, click show notes dot page number one. All right. Our top story this week involves the real life Raiders of the Lost Ark. According to declassified CIA documents from 1988, the CIA was using remote viewing techniques. People who could remote view, you know, travel to places in their mind and see things, discover secrets using their mind power. So,
12:06
The CIA was trying to find the Ark of the Covenant in 1988. This is a project called Project Sunstreak. And the article we link to says at least one remote viewer claims to have discovered the location of the Ark of the Covenant, describes where it is. You know, the thing from the Bible, the thing that held the Ten Commandments, the Ark of the Covenant. So interesting that the CIA was
12:35
trying to locate that. It seems like a movie. There is some skepticism about remote viewing and whether the actual Ark of the Covenant was discovered through remote viewing. Not everybody's on board with the remote viewing, but it is true that there are other documents that show the CIA did try to use, try to discover secrets through remote viewing techniques. So what I would say, if you want to click the link and do a deep dive into the story, click shownotes.page. If
13:04
you decide to go to where the Ark of the Covenant is. Don't open it. Don't look inside. If you, did you see the movie? Don't just be, be careful. Okay. That's that. So thanks for listening. We're going to wrap it up and we'll be back next week with more weird stuff from the news. If you want to get different ways to listen to our show or do a deep dive into our show notes, transcripts and all that, you can go to show notes dot page, show notes dot page is where all our stuff is.
13:33
Catch you next week with more weird stuff on What a Weird Week.