Hi, this is Jason and I have a weird fact. Hey, where does Rachel and Jess here? We are really excited to share our first-ever voice messages episode in case you missed the little ad about it in our feed anchors podcasting app allows you to send us voice messages whenever you want. It doesn't have to be for a special episode. You can just say hi. I mean don't be weird in a bad way about it. But like seriously, you can talk to us whenever you want. But for the purposes of this episode, we asked weirdos from all over to share their favorite weird. Science Health Tech engineering what have you facts? And we have a few of those to share with y'all today Jess. Are you ready? I have never been more ready in my life. Okay, so I have listened to these already because as promised I did fact check them. I didn't want any of our weirdos to get embarrassed if they check out are yes, though. There's one that I have a caveat for but it's also one of my favorites so I certainly wasn't going to leave it out, but I am in need of more primary literature. So, okay. Let's start with the very first one we got great. Hi. My name is Susie Stewart. I wanted to share a cool weird fact with you that I teach every day at work as a neonatal intensive care NICU nurse. The cool fact that I would like to share is that breastfeeding is a positive feedback loop system. Yes. So when the baby is breastfeeding the baby saliva can travel through the nipple opening and the areola openings and these are now signals that travel to the mother and can tell them. There's body that the baby is sick or needs more fat Etc. The mother's body then responds and creates the milk medicine that the baby needs with those antibodies in it. Also if the mother is sick or nursing a cold the mother's body creates antibodies for whatever she has and passes those along in the milk that the baby won't get sick with whatever she has or has been exposed to there is of course a whole lot more information. I would love to share about this fact, but time limits are at Thing. I love your show. Bye guys. Love you, Susie. Whoa. Love you too, Susie, Susie. Thank you. That's so timely with you know, the royal baby being born as well. It's true as our editor-in-chief Joe Brown's baby. Yes, that's fascinating. Yeah. I love that one so much. Mmm. Okay. So this next one is the one that there's a caveat for okay, which is that I was able to confirm that the device described. Exists in the location that are weirdos says it does. However, I was not able to find anything confirming the purpose that she ascribed to it. So anyone hears this fact and recognize it and has some more info to send me please do okay. Here we go. Hi, my name is Kathleen from San Jose, California. My weird fact, is that in the late 1400s? It's during the Spanish Inquisition some convents in Spain used in device to encourage nuns to work faster. It was a combination spinning wheel and dildo machine the faster the none spun the spinning wheel the faster the dildo worked you can see this device in person in the Moose A lotta in Rondo and Spain. I have always thought that this device was the inspiration between that Infamous scene in the Brothers movie Burn After Reading Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I have a lot of questions. Like how would that make you more productive or I don't I don't know we did have a great episode about Hildegard Von bingen that involved nuns and orgasms. So I do feel that this is very on theme for us. Like I said, I was able to find a picture of the device which is clearly a dildo machine. There's no there's no there's nothing else like nothing else. It could be I'm fine. Arrested right now. Yeah, and I but I couldn't find any at least anything in English. Mmm. I don't you know, it's been a while since I took Spanish but like I'm pretty sure none of this stuff. I was reading in Spanish was telling me about nuns using the dildo machine. And then also it's that same museum has a lot of stuff from the Inquisition ERA. This machine is allegedly something that the Spanish Inquisition like targeted as a machine of the devil, but there are So machines there that were used for torture. Oh involving like similar apparatus. I thats dark. So ya that the the great the blurriness they're made me want to find some more verifiable sources. Yeah, it reminds me of the episode where Claire talked about the treadmill because Emma was originally invented as a torture device. Yeah. I want to know that people had fun with this particular build a machine that What I want thank you so much for that fascinating Fact one that I am desperate to know more about. Okay. Now we have another weird fact. Hi fellow, we are those I'm SHINee a student from Philadelphia. And the weirdest thing I recently learned is that capture? Aka the completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart. Basically the thing that you need to identify and type in stuff so that the computer can recognize that you are a human and not a robot is actually really helpful for Google. So the old version had users. Type in some blurry looking text that was actually used to digitize. All of what is now Google Books and the current version has you identify signposts and storefronts and crosswalks and you're actually helping train artificial intelligence and possibly self-driving cars. So next time you're mad at the website for tripping you up. Just remember that you're helping train our future overlords interesting. Yeah, and I know that training self driving in cars to interpret visual cues like that is going to be really difficult. Hmm. They're not good at reading sigh right. So it's good to know. We're training our future robot overlords. Yeah. Thanks for that fact. Also go Philly. Yay. Yeah, I love gritty We Stand goody. Okay. Now we have a weird fish fact. Hey weirdest thing podcast people. My name is Lisa Connors and here is my fast. For you, what does a handle of Fireball whiskey and a fish from Antarctica have in common? They both actually have a type of antifreeze in them. So as one can imagine it gets pretty cold in the Southern Ocean usually below freezing. So that's pretty Bad News Bears for anything that wants to live in the water without their blood freezing. So there's this type of fish called a notothenioids and they're pretty dominant in Antarctica. They have this special. All type of protein that actually binds to ice crystals and prevents the ice crystals from growing. So these fish can actually live in these sub-freezing temperatures and be relatively unaffected. So yeah, they're pretty cool fish and definitely better than your average goldfish. Very cool. It is cool. I love the antifreeze fish. Yeah. What I want to know is if I drink enough Fireball will I be able to swim in the Southern Ocean? I mean you might like me. Care, but how cold you are? Yeah, don't don't drink too much Fireball, please listeners. Yeah, it's never good in moderation. Yeah all things yea, okay the title of this one is he died dot dot dot 18 months after losing his head. So here we go. Hi all this is Katie from Michigan. And this is my very first favorite weird fact. It's the story of Mike the Headless Chicken picture it Colorado 1945 and farmer. Lloyd Olsen goes out to get a chicken for dinner. He picks one. He cuts his head off any waits for it to die, but it doesn't die. It continues moving around and moving its neck as if it has a head but he does not have a head cut to they spend the next 18 months touring sideshows any charges people to see Mike the Headless. And it turns out he had cut off his head but he left just enough in the brainstem control kind of reflex action such as breathing and there was a blood clot that kept Mike from bleeding out. They fed him using an eyedropper and sometimes they would have he would start choking on his own spit and they would have to clear it using the eyedropper but one night they heard the choking noises start and realize they left the eyedropper somewhere else and Mike ended up dying 18 months after he lost his head. Thanks. Love the show. I would say wonderful a dramatic reading. I really felt like I was right there saying Colorado with that farmer and his chicken we do they see the chickens name was Mike I think so that's you know, I love when like pets have generic human names. So I love that that is also like that the chicken only became a pet. Once it was headless right for that. It was gonna be dinner. But yeah, I was recently reading totally unrelated to this an article about the investigations behind. Although is myths about people who were executed by beheading, you know, having their heads like continue to do stuff right? So maybe I'll do that on an upcoming episode because there's some freaky brain activity that happens. The other question I have about the Headless Chicken is like we know so little about how chickens experience the world. We do know that they are, you know, not the most intelligent animals. I think they get a bad rap. I think they're more intelligent. Most people assume they deserve our respect. Yeah dignified life and death but I do wonder how much cognitive difference there is between a chicken with just a brain stem and a chicken with its tiny little brain. Also Yang did his life pretty much continue the way it had always been except without a face. Wow. I have so many questions. Somebody should definitely do this. Okay. Well, let's move on to our next faves. Act like Peppers think this is Julia calling him San Francisco. I hate my favorite fact is that hummingbirds eat about the equivalent of about 200 thousand calories, like if a human were to eat it would be two hundred thousand calories a day and their amount and that they can't do it throughout the entire day because they would be weighed way way to down to like do all the little flying things they do so they have to essentially eating all those calories and 20 meeting 20 minutes like fall dusk is Right the other day until they go to bed. So yeah, that's fine. My favorite. Fun fact, I really wish I could be a hummingbird likes funny. I also wish I could be a hummingbird. Yeah fascinating stuff. I love thinking about the different rates of metabolism that different animals can have and I like to imagine a world where I too got to eat literally all day except that is what I do. Yeah, since that's the only ball game. Yeah. Yeah. Yep, always a bulk. All right, let's go on to our next one. Hey guys, this is Katie from Phoenix. And I'd like to share my fact sometimes when the sun sets the atmosphere reflects the light refracts the light and makes it Shine green for like a Split Second. Background chatter Great Gatsby my media thought yeah, the Green Flash is a phenomenon that like a lot of people try to take pictures of from what I understand. It's like it technically always happens, but it's hardly ever visible and then you have to be looking at exactly the right time interesting. I'm not quite sure like what the exact conditions are that mean get to catch it. But I know that people are always very excited when they do isn't it also a thing in Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh, yeah. Classic film this next one sounds a little bit familiar, but I'm going to play it. Anyway. Hi. I'm Chris Brasher in Manitoba Canada. The weirdest thing I learned this week is that for hundreds of years European Nobles priests and scientists Incorporated human remains, including stolen Egyptian mummies and Grave robbed Irish burial remains into medicine to treat many different ailments a Smithsonian Magazine article, but not by Maria doll. On references recent books medicinal cannibalism in early modern English literature and culture by Louise Noble and mummies cannibals and vampires by Richard Sugg William Shakespeare even referred to the practice in Othello. Keep up the great work weirdos. So we actually already have an episode on medical cannabis on it's one of my favorite episodes. It's a good one. Yeah, so I definitely recommend going back to season one if any of you haven't listened yet. There are some real gems. In there and you can hear Eleanor tell you all about when people eight people for their health delicious. All right. Now, we're going to get to one called Charles freaking Dickens I other weirdos. My name is Chris York. I am in Raleigh, North Carolina. I am fanboying pretty hard right now because this podcast is amazing. I thought it would be cool. If you ladies could do a deeper dive into Charles Dickens. I did a report on him when I was in fourth grade. I And we actually had to dress up like the characters that we were reporting on. So there's a picture of me somewhere dressed up like Charles Dickens that I don't know where to find. I'll have to inquire with my mother, but he definitely had some quirky things going on. I remember them talking about how he always tried to sleep facing the north because it helped him to write more efficiently and then he also gave his children. I think he had a bunch to some some really weird nicknames, but it would be really really cool. If you guys could do that. If not, I love your show. Anyways, y'all are amazing keep doing it. Thank you. Well, thank you Chris. It is always great to hear from a fellow Weirdo And fan first things first. We will need to see that photo. So please do inquire with your mother. Yes. Secondly, I would love to look into Charles Dickens in a future episode because weird sleep habits of historical figures is a great topic for discussion. I just suddenly thought of the episode right talked about how Ben Franklin like to hang out in the nude. I was just He bought that too. I don't know why I guess because it was part of his leg post sleep ritual, right? It was like I wake up I take an air bath otherwise known as me sitting around to get Cool. Okay. We have one more and I have to show the title because it is sorry for cutting myself off at the end. But this was the least worst take so with that in mind. Hello weirdest thing. My name is Joe and I'm from London and I want to tell you a bit about the Chien and Zeppelin over the rail Zeppelin. Now. This was a train that was designed and developed by Franz crew kannberg in 1929 or makes it weird is that there was a massive propeller on the back of the train and that was what powered it. So the fact that I had a 600 brake horsepower engine and that was made of like really light aluminium and that it was super fast. It still holds the record for the fastest petrol-driven rail vehicle and it got up to speeds of 143 miles an hour. However Having a giant open propeller near passengers on a platform with was very dangerous. Also the fact that they couldn't pull the ditional carriages again due to the giant propeller on the back and the fact that it was just very difficult to reverse and also the fact that the hundred year old tracks weren't really ready for a high-speed train meant that this never went into production. And actually there was never more than one bill which I think is a real shame. In fact, it was done dismantled in 1939 for the war effort. And that was the last we ever saw of it, but I think this is a really cool and interesting thing and work. Work I assumed you were going to say worth an episode because I agree. Anyway, I love this fact, even though it was cut off just as so many limbs would have been cut off had this mode of transportation gone into fashion. Hmm. I just love the absurdity of a giant metal propeller totally next to a train platform. Yeah bad idea. I know about that. Wow humans, we have some bad ideas. And we love to go fast. All right, those are all of our weirdest things for today. I hope you guys liked that as much as we did. I hope you loved calling in I was you didn't you feel like you really missed out and you should call a next time. Like I said, feel free to drop us weird facts anytime you want by voice message. We can definitely look into them for you and will totally give you a shout out on the show if we use them and who knows maybe we'll do another episode like this sometimes Let us know if you liked it maybe by voice message Maybe by leaving us a positive review on Apple couple more things to note. Don't forget to buy tickets to our live show at caveat in New York City on June 14th, because we would love it. If you were there everyone including and especially the people who send voice messages today though. I realized there may be Geographic constraints. That's it for now, but we will be back on May 29th with a very special guest host. So trust me you're going to want to tune in. Keep an eye on your feeds. We love you so much. See you soon. So weirdest thing I learned this week is a popular science podcast where available on all major podcast platforms. So subscribe wherever you're listening now, and if you like what you hear, please rate and review us on iTunes, it helps other weirdos find the show, you can buy our merch including weirdest thing t-shirts tote bags and mugs at pops. I'd dot thread list.com our show is produced by all of our hosts including me Rachel Solomon and our editors just Bodie and Jason Letterman or theme music is by Billy. Kaden if you have questions suggestions or weird stories to share tweet us at weirdest underscore thing. Thanks for listening weirdos.
This week, we've got the first-ever voice messages episode of Weirdest Thing! We listen and react to extra weird, listener-provided facts that range from a dildo machine for nuns to a chicken named Mike who lived for 18 months without a head. It's always great to hear from you all—to submit your own fact, download the Anchor podcast app on Apple or Google Play, and look up our show, The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week. Click the voice message button, introduce yourself, maybe tell us where you're from, and record up to 60 seconds of gab about your favorite weird fact. Don't worry, we'll make sure it's accurate before posting it anywhere. Thanks for calling, weirdos! The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share more of your weirdest facts and stories with us in our Facebook group or tweet at us! Click here to learn more about all of our stories! Click here to buy tickets for Weirdest Thing Live on June 14th! 