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These are the shownotes for Season 7, Ep 2 first published Jan 9, 2026.
10 Big Tuna!
A massive bluefin tuna sold for a record $3.2 million at the first auction of 2026 at Tokyo's Toyosu fish market (Bluefin tuna sells for record $3.2 million at year-opening auction at Tokyo fish market). The prized fish was purchased by the owner of the popular Sushi Zanmai chain, continuing a tradition of high bids at the celebratory New Year event.
https://www.uppermichiganssource.com/2026/01/06/bluefin-tuna-sells-record-32-million-year-opening-auction-tokyo-fish-market/
9 World's Oldest Twinkie Celebrates Birthday, Inspires World.
A Twinkie placed atop a chalkboard in a Maine high school chemistry class in 1976 as an experiment on preservatives has just turned 50 years old (The world’s oldest known Twinkie turns 50 at a Maine high school). Now housed in its own glass case, the remarkably intact snack cake has become an international news sensation and a long-running lesson in scientific curiosity.
Also see https://youtu.be/_yqOstfugjI?si=_kBi3v5aJQbRY0e7.
8 AI tool used by Utah police department generated a false report claiming an officer had been turned into a frog. The AI had transcribed audio from the movie "The Princess and the Frog" playing in the background (AI-generated police report states Utah officer was turned into a frog - UPI.com).
7 Robocop Rabbits to take care of a Fla. python problem.
Scientists in Florida are deploying robotic rabbit decoys in the Everglades to lure and detect invasive Burmese pythons that have devastated local wildlife (Scientists Create Robotic Rabbits to Fight Invasive Burmese Pythons in Florida). These "cyber-bunnies" mimic a real rabbit's heat, movement, and scent, triggering python strikes that are captured on camera and alert teams to the snake's location for removal.
"Despite their massive size, reaching lengths of up to 16 feet (about 5m), these snakes are so elusive that officials estimate only about one to three specimens are detected for every 100 present in the ecosystem."
https://scienceclock.com/robotic-rabbits-invasive-burmese-pythons-florida/
6 Happy New Year? False.
According to new data, many workers face a "time-off tax," spending an average of 17 extra hours catching up after a week's vacation, which can make the first week back a struggle (Time-off tax: Workers may struggle in first week back: data). This contributes to a dip in overall worker happiness, leading experts to suggest that employers should implement better vacation coverage and cross-training to ease the burden.
5 Again this year there were no fireworks, and again this year people were tricked into showing up.
For the second year in a row, hundreds of people in Birmingham were tricked by an online hoax into attending a non-existent New Year's Eve fireworks display (Birmingham revellers turn out for non-existent fireworks – for second new year in a row | Birmingham | The Guardian). Police had warned there were no official events, stating that such misinformation creates safety issues by straining public services when large crowds gather for events that are not real.
4 Sober Second Thoughts.
A thief returned two valuable mandolins to a New Jersey music store along with a handwritten apology note that read, "SORRY, I BEEN DRUNK, MERRY CHRISTMAS" (‘Sorry, I been drunk’: Thief returns stolen mandolins to New Jersey guitar store with apology note - ABC News). While the instruments have been recovered, police are still investigating the incident and have not yet made any arrests.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/drunk-thief-returns-stolen-mandolins-new-jersey-guitar/story?id=128748055
3 Scientists believe they may have extracted Leonardo da Vinci's DNA from a Renaissance-era drawing, as the genetic material shows similarities to that found on a letter from one of his relatives (Leonardo da Vinci's DNA may be embedded in his art — and scientists think they've managed to extract some | Live Science). However, the sketch's authorship is disputed, and experts caution the DNA could belong to a student or a later curator, making the findings uncertain.
2 Scientists using a remotely operated vehicle have spotted a rare giant phantom jellyfish deep in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Argentina (Giant phantom jellyfish spotted deep in Pacific | Popular Science). The species is one of the deep sea's largest invertebrates and is so rarely seen that it has only been officially sighted about 118 times in 110 years.
https://www.popsci.com/environment/giant-phantom-jellyfish-spotted-deep-in-pacific/
1 New research suggests that moderate screen time for "Me Time"—like watching TV or playing video games—can help people recover from daily stress and household demands (A little TV after a long day is good for your brain | Popular Science). The study's authors caution, however, that the benefits likely exist within a "Goldilocks Zone" and are not an excuse to "veg out" indefinitely.
https://www.popsci.com/health/tv-good-for-brain/
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Transcription:
Big tuna and old Twinkies. What a weird week. Hi friends, I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week, a show where we go back through the news of the week and we pick out 10 of the weird stories or the fun, interesting stories. We tend to keep things lighthearted, never anything too serious. And you can get all the show notes to everything we talk about. If you go to shownotes.page, we keep the show notes at shownotes.page. If you enjoy the program,
00:29
I appreciate a good review on your podcast provider. This is the episode first dropping on January 9, 2026.
00:41
Number 10 is the record-breaking tuna which sold at auction for a lot of money made headlines. This is a famous auction in Tokyo, fish auction where they the article says at New Year's bidding does tend to get very exciting and break records. It happened again this year and the 535 pound bluefin tuna sold for 3.2 million dollars. That is a record. I'll put a link in the show notes if you're curious to know what a record-breaking tuna looks like.
01:10
If you don't have a chance to click, let me describe it. It looks like a tuna. There are a whole bunch of tunas laid out on pallets at this auction. And to my untrained eye, they all look the same. But I'm sure something sets this apart. The tuna experts would not pay $3 million for an average tuna. But I was a bit disappointed. I thought it would look magical somehow.
01:49
Number nine is the world's oldest Twinkie. Happy birthday. Hi, I'm Roger Bonatti. I'm a retired science teacher from George Stevens Academy. And this is the Twinkie that began the ongoing Twinkie experiment. This was a chemistry class. And in the chemistry class, we happened to be discussing food additives and different types of food additives and food preservatives. And one of my students just happened to ask me, how long would a Twinkie last? And my response was, I don't know.
02:18
and I said well let's do an experiment so I gave the student a couple of dollars asked the student to go down to maryland hinkley's and pick up a package of twinkies so the student came back with the package I basically unripped the package ate one of the twinkies and then put the other package up I love that the teacher ate one of the twinkies but one of them has been around now for fifty years the twinkie is still there in the main high school in a glass case and the experiment continues
02:47
Happy birthday, happy 50th to the world's oldest Twinkie.
03:05
Number eight is an AI that went off the rails in Utah a police department in Utah United States of America They're using an AI tool. I think it's just a transcription tool is what it sounds like but it made headlines because the AI claimed in the police report that it generated it claimed an officer had turned into a frog and so now that officer has been fired because The police department only hires human beings
03:34
The officer has been offered a chance to live in a zoo nearby, but that's not great. Some of that is not true. Here is the real story. The AI is transcribing from the body cam footage and the officer on scene, there was a movie playing in the background. Some reports had it as Princess and the Frog, but then some reports said, no, no, it was a Harry Potter movie. Anyway, the discussion in the movie was about
04:03
people turning into frogs. And so the AI picked that up and added it to the police report. On a related note, doesn't that sound like it could be the plot to an Adam Sandler movie? Somebody call the Sandman and let's get this thing made. It'll take three days. Adam Sandler is a police officer who turns into a frog and continues to fight crime.
05:22
Number seven is an update to the robot uprising. And your update is the robots continue their uprising. It is a slow uprising.
05:32
But it continues. This time around, robots in the news, it's about the scientists in Florida. They're using robot rabbits to attract Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades, United States of America. Burmese pythons are a real menace. They're bad for the environment, bad for local wildlife, and they're thriving, apparently. And the article says that out of every hundred Burmese pythons thriving in the Everglades, you might see one. There are that many.
06:00
the elusive Burmese python. And so they're using robot rabbits to attract the Burmese pythons so that they can manage the population of Burmese pythons. That's kind of the takeaway. If you want to read more, we'll put a link in the show notes or click show notes dot page. The robot rabbits look a lot like regular rabbits.
06:49
Number 6 is a phenomenon that you might be living through right now. If you took any time off over the holidays, perhaps you're experiencing the time off tax, which made headlines this week. I didn't know that's what it was called, but it's where you take a week off of work and then you have so much work to catch up on that it ain't fun. It is the opposite of fun. The latest numbers on the time off tax are that we spend an average of 17 extra hours
07:18
17 hours catching up on work after we take a week off.
07:36
Again this year, there were no fireworks, and again this year, people were tricked into showing up for fireworks. That's number five. The second year in a row, hundreds of people in Birmingham were tricked by an online hoax, and they went to a non-existent New Year's Eve fireworks display. We reported on this last year, I think. And I mean, fool me once, hey, you got me. Fool me twice, hey, you got me again! I think that's how the phrase goes.
08:05
So this is one you kind of chuckle a silly story. Ah, you got me, whatever. But some people are pointing to this story and saying misinformation is dangerous. You can get people to do things. Let's be careful. I kind of hope you folks in Birmingham, and by the way, am I saying it right? Is it Birmingham? This is in the United Kingdom. Maybe I should have led with that. Birmingham in United Kingdom. And I may have mispronounced it both ways I tried to pronounce it, but I kind of hope next year you do get fireworks. But then...
08:35
Will anybody show up? I think it's ruined now forever. Nobody's going to trust anyone about fireworks on New Year's Eve in Birmingham.
08:52
Number four is a quick happy story. It's kind of funny. It's kind of happy. I like the way this story ends. Police are still investigating, but the headline I would write is sober second thoughts. A thief returned a couple valuable mandolins to a music store in New Jersey, United States of America. This music store received the stolen goods back, but also a handwritten apology note that said in all caps, sorry, I've been drunk.
09:20
Merry Christmas. So it would seem as though the thief was drunk, stole the mandolins, sobered up, had a change of heart like Ebenezer Scrooge, and then returned the mandolins to the music store. Again, police are still investigating. No arrests have been made at time of recording this. To be continued, I guess. Hang on, let's work this out right now. And we'll send it to the Hallmark Channel. Don't they start shooting those Hallmark movies in February? We have just enough time to crank this script out.
09:50
She's a down and out, classically trained mandolin player who was recently fired from the New Jersey Philharmonic. Cost cutting measures. They got rid of the entire mandolin section of the Philharmonic. Let's call her Mandy, the mandolin player. And maybe she went out and had a few drinks after she got laid off from the New Jersey Philharmonic. And then she wanders into this music shop, whatever. The theft happens, the end of the movie, she returns the mandolins and then the store owner
10:20
and Mandy Fall in Love. Sounds like we've got ourselves a hit on our hands. An Ebeneezer Scrooge story arc. True Love at the End. Hallmark Holiday Classic. Mandy and the Mandolins. Anyway, please don't steal that from me. But let's be co-writers on it. Send that to Hallmark.
10:40
Number three is the story about Leonardo da Vinci's DNA. believe scientists, researchers believe they have extracted Leonardo da Vinci's DNA from a drawing. If you want to learn more, do a deep dive. How did they get the DNA? How do they know it's Leonardo da Vinci's DNA? What are they going to do now? If you want to get all that, we'll put a link in the show notes. It's kind of to be continued, but
11:05
I feel like this would be a wonderful topic of discussion when you're getting together with friends and family or your colleagues. You standing around that water cooler, that coffee maker, and you're shooting the breeze. What do you think the scientists are going to do with Leonardo da Vinci's DNA? Where do we go from here? And then just open up the floor and see what people's theories are. My own personal theory is Jurassic Park.
11:34
They're going the same way the plot of Jurassic Park. They made an entire park of dinosaurs based on finding the dinosaur DNA. Maybe we're going to get Jurassic Park, but it's populated with Leonardo da Vinci's.
12:06
Number two is one of these things where they got pictures of something so incredibly rare and they're wonderful pictures. We can see what the giant phantom jellyfish looks like. It's hardly ever spotted. So rare. And researchers got some photos deep in the Pacific Ocean of the giant phantom jellyfish. It looks a little bit like a spaceship with a tail or a mushroom with a tail or... No, that's it. Mushroom or spaceship.
12:36
The giant phantom jelly. They say it can get three feet across, 33 feet long, so like a school bus. And the article doesn't get into how angry we have made the giant phantom jellyfish, but I would assume that since we bothered it and took its photo, it is planning revenge. So to be continued.
13:57
If you made it this far in the program, number one is a good news story. It's not that weird or funny, but research says watching some TV after a long day is good for your brain. If you have a crowded house, if you have a chaotic house, young kids perhaps, or just a lot happening. If the house is hectic, that is associated with more negative emotions, but it seemed to lessen the negative emotions. If you spent more time.
14:27
on your phone or more screen time. So it's like an escape from the hectic home life. There's way more to it. I'm simplifying it. You know what? I'm not a scientist and I'm not smart. I think I've said that before. I'll link to the whole thing and maybe this is something you'd be interested in doing a deep dive on. Maybe this could be your escape from a hectic household. Have a bubble bath. Put on some music from the New Jersey Philharmonic.
14:56
and read this article. And escape.
15:03
All right, that is that. Thank you for listening to What a Weird Week and Happy New Year. I don't think I said it at the start, but Happy New Year and thank you for being here. If you want to get our show notes, you can click shownotes.page, shownotes.page. We're back next Friday, another episode of weird and fun stories from the news on What a Weird Week.
Scotty and Tony Radio Show Contact Links at NEWCOUNTRY969.CA/SCOTTYANDTONY.