The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

By Popular Science

What's The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week about?

At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and tech stories every week. And while a lot of the fun facts we stumble across make it into our articles, there are lots of other weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week.

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The Truth About Soy Boys, t...

02.17.2021

The weirdest things we learned this week range from soy boy panic to a magic number found in peregrine falcon dives and Robert Pattinson's face. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing ...

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week episodes:

02.17.2021 The Truth About Soy Boys, the Sexiest Number, the Potato King The weirdest things we learned this week range from soy boy panic to a magic number found in peregrine falcon dives and Robert Pattinson's face. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing ...
12.09.2020 Immortal Jellyfish, Cocaine Hippos, Potato Chip Controversy This episode celebrates our latest print issue hitting newsstands! The weirdest things we learned this week range from a jellyfish that can live forever to invasive cocaine hippos. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? ...
11.25.2020 Moon Allergies, Singing Statues, Secrets of Famous Movie Sounds Dallas Taylor, sound designer and host of Twenty Thousand Hertz, joins the weirdos as a guest host. The weirdest things we learned this week range from statues that sing first thing in the morning to the animal sounds that make ...
11.11.2020 Meat Rain, Medicinal Sword Swallowing, a Nuclear Kodak Moment The weirdest things we learned this week range from meat raining down from the heavens to swallowing swords to help doctors look down esophaguses. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing I ...
10.28.2020 Dog Mayors, Zombie Presidents, Death By Voter Fraud In this special episode, the weirdest things we learned this week range from Edgar Allen Poe's peculiar death to how salamanders influenced the term Gerrymander. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing ...
10.14.2020 Toxic Animal Boyfriends, Birding for Freedom, Egg Yolks Explained The weirdest things we learned this week range from stage-five-clinger anglerfish to Harriet Tubman's birding expertise. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular ...
09.30.2020 Exploding Underwater Mountains, Boar Sex and Celery, Hidden History of Vaccination Contributing editor Kat Eschner joins the weirdos as a guest host. The weirdest things we learned this week range from the surprising link between pig sex and celery to blowing up a mountain underwater. Whose story will be voted "The ...
09.16.2020 Hot Dog Sports, Sexy Pseudoscience, Intestinal Power Walking The weirdest things we learned this week range from a beetle that can waltz through frog intestines unscathed, to the a man who thought he could capture sexual energy in a cage. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing ...
09.15.2020 Catch our live show TONIGHT! Tonight, September 15th, we'll be doing an exclusive live-streamed show. It'll be all of the fun of a classic Weirdest Thing Live show—your favorite hosts (calling in remotely), weird facts, drinks, jokes, atmosphere—but delivered straight to your living room! Click ...
09.02.2020 Your Car is Full of Spiders, the Cloud Whisperer, She Who Invented N95 Masks and Bugles Welcome to Season 4! For this first episode, Kendra Pierre-Louis, former Popsci editor and current reporter for the Gimlet podcast How To Save a Planet, joins the weirdos as a guest host. The weirdest things we learned this week range ...
08.31.2020 We're Back! Season 4 & Live Show Updates Hey weirdos! We have two very exciting pieces of news for you. First, Weirdest Thing is returning every other Wednesday starting September 2nd! Second, on Tuesday, September 15th, we'll be doing an exclusive live-streamed show. It'll be all of the ...
08.19.2020 We're Back! Season 4 & Live Show Updates Hey weirdos, we're back! The first episode of season 4 will hit your feeds on September 2nd, and our next online live show will be on Monday, August 31st, at 8:30pm EST. Check back in this feed for a link ...
05.20.2020 Boning Baseball Bats, Rolling Cheese, Playing With Wallpaper Cleaner It's the Season 3 Finale! The weirdest things we learned this week range from breaking bones chasing cheese down a cliff and rubbing baseball bats with cow femurs. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? ...
05.06.2020 Evasive Genital Maneuvers, A Nazi Carrot Hoax, Eternal Daytime Rose Eveleth, host of the hit podcast Flash Forward, joins the weirdos as a guest host! The weirdest things we learned this week range from a Russian experiment that tried to make daytime last forever to moths jamming bat radar ...
04.22.2020 Sailing Boulders, Mom-Eating Worms, the Most Humongous Fungus Happy Earth Day! We're celebrating with facts about worms that eat their moms' skin, the fungus bigger than a blue whale, and rocks that sail across deserts all by themselves. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned ...
04.16.2020 Bonus: Sprained Teeth, Pina Coladas, Flying Snakes Surprise! It's Rachel and Jess, and we're popping in your feeds with a bonus episode. Join us as we listen to some voice messages submitted by you guys, and delve into facts about tooth ligaments, giant iguanas, sexy orangutans, and ...
04.08.2020 Getting Green Blood, Animal Crossing's Rarest Fish, Bird-Like Plague Masks This week, we've got the first half of our remote live show! The weirdest things we learned this week range from Animal Crossing's most fascinating fish to a man with forest green blood. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest ...
03.27.2020 Join us for a special livestream on March 30 Hey weirdos! On Monday, March 30th, we'll be doing two livestreamed episodes in partnership with Caveat, our favorite New York City venue. It'll be all of the fun of a classic Weirdest Thing Live show—your favorite hosts (calling in remotely), ...
03.25.2020 Terrifying Tumbleweeds, Coffee Poops, Three Peters Who Changed Childbirth The weirdest things we learned this week range from tumbleweeds that terrorize entire towns to a tantalizing obstetrical secret. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a ...
03.23.2020 A Weirdest Thing Update Hey weirdos! We just wanted to drop in and update you all on what's happening with our show during the pandemic. Since we're all working remotely to help flatten the curve in New York City, it would be a huge ...
03.11.2020 Chicken Hypnotism, The One and Only Ferris Wheel, Interspecies BFFs The weirdest things we learned this week range from a coyote and badger becoming BFFs to instructions on hypnotizing sharks. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is ...
02.26.2020 Syphilis But Make It Fashion, Cilantro Haters, Quarantine: From Typhoid to Coronavirus The weirdest things we learned this week range from Christmas tree-flavored burritos to XXL codpieces. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. ...
02.12.2020 Serial Poopers, Elephants on LSD, Whiskey Business The weirdest things we learned this week range from an elephant on an acid trip to people who urgently need to poop upon entering bookstores. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing ...
01.29.2020 Fletcherize Your Life, Wawa Origins, Who's Your Zaddy? The weirdest things we learned this week range from choosing your zaddy to the origin of (arguably) the best gas station convenience store in the history of the world. (Yes, Wawa.) Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I ...
01.15.2020 Chainsaws for Childbirth, A Poop-Weighing Hero, Pregnancy on Command The weirdest things we learned this week range from a man who weighed all of his poop, pee, and sweat on a homemade scale to animals that can choose when they want to get pregnant. Whose story will be voted ...
12.25.2019 A Very Weird Christmas Special On this week's special Christmas episode, the weirdest things we learned this week range from a Santa-esque giantess named Gryla and her 13 yule lads to a disease named after a boy called Christmas. Whose story will be voted "The ...
12.18.2019 The Science of ASMR (And People Who Hate It) This week, we have a very special episode all about the science behind the autonomous sensory meridian response, a.k.a. ASMR. While people who experience ASMR feel extremely pleasant and satisfying tingles when hearing their trigger sounds—which often include hair brushing, ...
12.11.2019 When Death Was Sexy, The Knuckle-Cracking King, The Pouch You Never Knew You Had The weirdest things we learned this week range from a secret pouch in your body to a literally killer fashion trend. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week ...
12.04.2019 Tying Up Penises, Dimple-Making Machines, Exotic Poop For Sale Ellen Airhart, host of the podcast Plant Crimes, joins us this week as a guest host! The weirdest things we learned ranged from Williams-Sonoma selling Bronx Zoo poo to a jaunty foreskin trend. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest ...
11.27.2019 A Marathon Catastrophe, Dangerously Spooky Tunes, Confused Cannibals This week, we've got the second half of our extra spooky Halloween live show! The weirdest things we learned ranged from eating mummy dust to a man drinking rat poison to boost his marathon time. Whose story will be voted ...
11.20.2019 Coffee or Death, Radioactive Slippers, Literally Blinding Beauty This week, No Such Thing As A Fish's James Harkin joins Rachel and Jess as a guest-host! The weirdest things we learned ranged from painting glowing, radioactive messages on your teeth to how Queen Nefertiti was the original influencer. Whose ...
11.13.2019 Harry Styles’ Nipple Count, Frankenstein’s Mom-ster, Madame Tussaud’s Macabre Origins This week, we've got the first half of our extra spooky Halloween live show! The weirdest things we learned ranged from a ship filled with a collection of wax heads to Harry Styles' surprising number of nipples. Whose story will ...
11.06.2019 A special Q&A with Rachel and Jess In lieu of a regular episode this week—which we were too swamped with live show prep to record!—enjoy this chatty Q&A; with Jess and Rachel. They talk about getting into science journalism and podcasting, the show's origins, antics that ensued ...
10.30.2019 Blood Gourds, Tiny Taffeta Frog Pants, Dying for Weather Data The New York Times' Kendra Pierre-Louis—a former PopSci Editor!—joins us this week as a guest host! The weirdest things we learned ranged from gourds full of royal blood to frogs wearing tiny taffeta pants. Whose story will be voted "The ...
10.23.2019 Bisexual Situations, Limey Sailors With Scurvy, Origin of Morons Helen Zaltzman, host of The Allusionist podcast, joins us this week as a guest host! The weirdest things we learned ranged from bisexual space stations to guinea pigs with scurvy. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned ...
10.16.2019 Death By Rainbow, Face Blindness, Watermelon Snow PopSci contributor Kat Eschner joins us this week as a guest host! The weirdest things we learned ranged from how snow banks turn millennial pink to a dazzling yet dangerous chemistry demonstration. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing ...
10.09.2019 Pooping Magic Rocks, How We Ruined Bison, Common Cold Lies Arielle Duhaime-Ross, host of Reset from Vox, joins us this week as a guest host! The weirdest things we learned ranged from dunking chickens in ice baths to magical stones from porcupine bellies. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest ...
10.02.2019 Debunking Hymen Myths, Moving Corpses, Birth Control to Please the Pope OB-GYN and author Jen Gunter joins us this week as a guest host! The weirdest things we learned range from the invention of the birth control pill to corpses that change position long after their time of death. Whose story ...
09.25.2019 10k Steps is a Lie, a Secret Poop Factory, Eleanor Roosevelt's Mysterious Death The weirdest things we learned this week range from robots wiping your butt to a Cheeto-shaped bacteria killing Eleanor Roosevelt. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is ...
09.13.2019 Spiny Female Penises, Goth Girl Summer, Hardcore Flamingoes This week, we've got another voice messages edition of Weirdest Thing! We listen and react to extra weird, listener-provided facts that range from how a volcanic eruption led to the invention of the bicycle to female bugs with spiky penises. ...
08.21.2019 Calling All Weirdos For A Very Important Announcement We're dropping in to tell you about a few special episodes coming up—and how you can participate! The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our ...
07.31.2019 Feminist Butter Art, The First Celebrity Athletes, The Secret Lives of Algae The weirdest things we learned this week range from butter sculptures' feminist origins to the cutthroat world of competitive endurance walking. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week ...
07.24.2019 The Hungriest Boy, Eyeglasses for Cannibal Chickens, Champion Guppy Gulpers In the second half of our live show on June 14th, the weirdest things we learned this week range from the hungriest boy who ever lived to swallowing live goldfish for sport. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing ...
07.17.2019 Victorian Sex Drugs, Milk in Your Veins, Radioactive Dishes The weirdest things we learned range from injecting cow's milk into a person's veins (don't worry, it's fresh!), to a modern gay sex drug with Victorian origins. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The ...
07.10.2019 Nazis Eating [email protected]#!, The First Pregnancy Test, Permanently Swollen Feet The weirdest things we learned this week range from a good reason to eat fresh, steamy camel poo to injecting rats with human urine and seeing what happens. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? ...
07.03.2019 Running Naked Through 24 Time Zones, Virgin Births, Corpse Compost The weirdest things we learned range from South Pole streakers getting frostbitten nipples and weenies to pacemakers playing a role in exploding crematoriums. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing I Learned ...
06.26.2019 The Secret to Perfect Sleep, Naked Mole Rat Royalty, Baby Shark (do do do do do do) Puke In the first half of our live show on June 14th, the weirdest things we learned range from the bloody path to becoming a naked mole rat queen to a tiger shark vomiting feathers onto the deck of a boat. ...
06.19.2019 Magical Pee, a Feline Telephone, an Infuriating Math Problem The weirdest things we learned this week range from reading pee bubbles to discern one's future, to turning a living, breathing cat into a functional telephone. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest ...
06.12.2019 Labor-Inducing Salad, White Hair Overnight, Coyotes Vs. Cats The weirdest things we learned this week range from a salad that makes pregnant people have their babies to hair going white overnight. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? The Weirdest Thing I Learned ...
06.05.2019 Wendy Zukerman talks werewolf tomatoes, overdosing on placebos, and snapping necks Wendy Zukerman from Gimlet's Science Vs. joins Weirdest Thing this week. The weirdest things we learned range from a man falling unconscious after taking too many placebo pills, to why the tomato's latin name means "wolf peach." Whose story will ...

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