What a Weird Week for January Thirty: The one with a bunch of breakthroughs and robots and elon

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This is What a Weird Week: the top ten weird things from this week's news. If the serious news gets all your attention, and anger, this is not that! (folds arms and smiles) Just cool weird news to make YOU feel cool and weird!! (unfolds arms and gives two thumbs up)
This episode has some weird and save-the-world sized breakthroughs (and one breakthrough that might trigger the robot uprising).
For all podcast links and shownotes see Shownotes.page. Email address is weirdweekpod@gmail.com
Here's the top ten for Episode 3.19

10 New record for throwing stuff...
The American Hockey League's Hershey Bears broke a record the other day... they had a charity night where you could bring a teddy bear to donate... if you've never been to one of those games, what happens is you wait until your team scores and then you throw the teddy bear on the ice... and they ended up with over fifty two thousand bears getting chucked onto the ice!! #newrecord
Holy smokes. no offense to the Hershey Bears... but how are they getting that many people out to their games? I'm sure they're an exciting team to watch, but is it also the appeal of throwing things... because that's a wonderful feeling...


9 Brain implants are getting closer to happening you guys...
(https://futurism.com/neoscope/scientists-horror-elon-musks-neuralink)
Elon Musk has this company (Neuralink) that's about brain implants... and it seems like they are getting ready to test on people... this is about being able to operate a computer with your mind... your mind is the mouse... and it seems like that would have a lot of positives for people who aren't able to use a keyboard or mouse... but more and more the articles i see are not good... one of the headlines: "SCIENTISTS EXPRESS CONCERN AT ELON MUSK’S NEURALINK BRAIN CHIP... 'I'M ALWAYS CAUTIOUS ABOUT WHAT ELON MUSK SAYS.'" Remember when that indestructable truck that Elon unveiled ended up not being indestructable? Some people are worried that Elon says things that don't jive with real life* (*that's a nice way to say it, right?). Also, what if Russian hackers hack your brain implant. How much would you pay a ransomwear hacker to get your brain data back?
OMG, what if you got locked out of your own brain?!?

8 Big Time Fines in Little Town America...
There's a town in Alabama called Brookside with a population of 1250 people. They don't have traffic lights in Brookside. In 2020, they collected like $600,000 in traffic tickets. 
The police chief has resigned and there's this good ol fashioned investigative journalist piece about how this little town with 6 miles of road could dish out traffic tickets to the tune of more than half a million bucks... almost $500 in fines for every man, woman, and child in Brookside. Allegedly not all the fines were legit ;)

7 That Lady on the subway must be an acrobat #spoiler #acrobat
A photo factchecked by Snopes last week really was a lady hanging by her hair above her seat on the subway. 99% of the time when you see a wonky photo on Snopes, they are telling you that the photo is fake or the story is misleading, but this time nope... the lady is a circus performer/ acrobat and she rode on the subway while hanging by her hair. #NotFakeNEws
Snopes link (https://t.co/sADX3DJzZo)
6 Gross Graphic Finger Story Alert (GGF) ...
This is gross. Warning Warning Warning... the alleged thieves who tried to rob a recycling plant in Italy... a guard hits the alarm so these thieves take off over a barbed wire fence... one guy got his finger stuck or something... he loses his finger... ... with his wedding ring on it... and he just kept high-tailing it outta there... there's no stopping for fingers in the big leagues of robbing places... ... the finger guy sent his buddy back to look for his finger/ wedding ring and that buddy even said "I'm here for my friend's finger?" but then took off before being detained. Now the cops are going to use that finger for i imagine dna evidence and fingerprints ... well, finger print... (https://www.thedailybeast.com/thief-in-milan-italy-leaves-entire-severed-finger-behind-with-wedding-ring?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition)
5 The new batch of emojis gets us closer to never needing words again!
This week they leaked a bunch of new emojis we're gonna be getting... it takes awhile for it to happen so they say sometime next year we'll be getting: 
melting face... heart hands... biting lip... pregnant man... beans... mirror ball... and more!


4 Incredible, world-saving breakthrough flies under the radar in a time of angry protests...
Scientists at the National Ignition Facility claim they've got some nuclear fusion action!
If i remember from my Environmental Studies class, we're talking about something that doesn't give off pesky radiation like nuclear fission... this is the beginning stages of a clean energy supply that could save the world... ... (non-smart guy take on fusion begins here) to have fusion you are getting particles to join together instead of split apart like at nuclear power plant does... ... if you can get these particles to join together it is clean energy, baby!! to get them to join together takes a lot of heat... and until now it was always more heat to get fusion than the fusion would produce... so not feasable... but now they're using the biggest laser in the world to get plasma burning... so we're on our way to more energy out than energy going in! #costeffectiveness! i like to imagine the plasma fuel as a delicious toasted marshmallow that gets hotter than the campfire... and you can use it to toast more marshmallows... an endless supply of toasted marshmallows!! and it's not radioactive which is nice for your marshmallow... (https://newatlas.com/energy/nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-burning-plasma-first-time/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter)

3 When you have to give up that trip of a lifetime...
A pilot in Florida spent hundreds of dollars on raffle tickets and ended up winning a seat on a SpaceX flight to space... so exciting! until he read the small print that there is a weight limit... and he was too heavy to go to space... he had to give away his trip of a lifetime... (he's 330 pounds and the weight limit is 250.) The contest winner, Kyle, gave the trip to his buddy. Kyle's flight was in September, but his story was in the news this past week because he didn't want to take away from the flight hype when it happened in the Autumn. 
(This story should end with Kyle opening up a big-and-tall shop for astronauts.)
(https://metro.co.uk/2022/01/28/man-had-to-give-up-seat-on-spacex-flight-because-he-was-overweight-16007328/)

2 Frog regrows leg after taking cocktail of drugs... wait, scientists gave the frog the drugs, it wasn't like the frog came up with the formula himself... lemme try again "Leg-challenged frog given drugs by scientists regrows leg!" and the headline is pretty much the story... the scientists think it could work for people but further testing first... (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/26/frog-regrows-amputated-leg-after-being-given-drug-treatment)
 
1 Robot performs successful surgery without help of humans...
This was a procedure on a pig - laparoscopic surgery - and they say the robot had better results than a human surgeon... so someday some of our surgeries will be robot surgeon procedures... and i bet dentistry robots will be a thing... and then one day the robots will be like, "We've decided to revolt... so, if it's not too much trouble, bow down before your robot overlords." *polite robot 
robot surgeon


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