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These are the shownotes for Season 7, Ep 13 first published March 27th, 2026.
A study has found that some sharks off the coast of the Bahamas test positive for caffeine, painkillers, and cocaine. We had a similar Cocaine Sharks report a couple years ago from Brazil. Researchers think it's because of human pollution. What is it doing to the sharks? To be continued. But I doubt it is making them more docile. right? Maybe while we're all distracted by how AI and social media is destroying the world, the Cocaine Sharks will make their move!?
(https://www.vice.com/en/article/sharks-in-the-bahamas-are-full-of-cocaine-caffeine-and-painkillers/)
(watch https://youtu.be/9vNQuv1P1vc?si=zUAEFV-NbGEkezXm)
9) ***PG13*** The government of Bern, Switzerland, has rejected a proposal to alter its coat of arms, ruling that the iconic bear will continue to be depicted with a prominent ding dong.
Question: did you know that the coat of arms has a red bear ding dong? I did not and this was educational. So the ding dong will remain in its place of honor.
(https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/various/the-bernese-bear-will-continue-to-display-its-red-limb-on-the-coat-of-arms/91049271)
Bonus: I found out that a number of coat of arms have some kind of ding dong going on. First I learned that you call it pizzled. An animal with a visible ding dong is pizzled. Lots of coat of arms feature a bear or lion that is pizzled. It's possible that the coat of arms where you're at is dinged to the dong. I looked up mine for my province and it might be. There's a lot going on in my coat of arms so I can't be sure, but maybe the Atlantic Salmon is pizzled.?
(https://share.google/aimode/dlIKmCOCCTGyHMppX)
(https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/pch/images/services/provincial-territorial-symbols-canada/new-brunswick/armoiries_n_b-n_b_arms.jpg)
8) Firefighters in Vermont came to the rescue of a raccoon that got its head stuck in a peanut butter jar and then climbed 25 feet up a tree. They had to get out the big ladder and they were able to free the raccoon from his peanut buttery prison. They use the opportunity to remind us all about important it is to properly dispose of our trash, and I agree that it's important not to litter and all that, but my experience has been that if a raccoon wants your garbage, it will find a way to get your garbage. You could lock a peanut butter jar in a bank vault and a raccoon would still find a way to breach security. (https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/03/20/Shelburne-Fire-Department-raccoon-peanut-butter-jar/7831774027521/).
7) The ongoing plight of Texas town of Bug Tussle. They are in the headlines because so many people steal Bug Tussle signs. The running tally is ~ 70 of its road signs stolen! Experts believe it's because Bug Tussle is one of the greatest names in the history of signage. Now the Department of Transportation has stopped providing the the town with new signs!? How will people know that they're being welcomed to Bug Tussle? To be continued.
BTW, why is it called Bug Tussle? Well according to the article from Ben "Hoops" Hooper,
"The Texas State Historical Association lists multiple potential origins for the name Bug Tussle... (one is) that two men arguing about the town's new name were distracted by the sight of two bugs tussling."
(https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/03/23/Bug-Tussle-Texas-sign-thefts/6351774286086/)
6) A new study seems to indicate that sleep-tracking apps and those things we wear to measure our sleep quality, can actually make sleep worse for some people by causing increased anxiety and an unhealthy obsession with sleep data. According to the research, nearly half of adults have used a sleep tracker but hardly any of us report that it actually improves our sleep
(https://studyfinds.com/sleep-tracker-may-make-sleep-worse/).
5) A dancing humanoid robot at a California restaurant had to be removed after it malfunctioned and began smashing plates and knocking over tableware. There's video. I take back what I said before, THIS is how the robot uprising begins. The dancing robots are how it all starts.
(https://nypost.com/2026/03/18/tech/dancing-robot-bounced-from-restaurant-after-scaring-patrons/).
4) Article this week from the Mirror gets into how China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, reported hearing a mysterious knocking sound outside his spacecraft during his 2003 mission. Other crews have reported this too. Wait 'til you hear what caused the knocking! ... just kidding, they don't know. #mystery
(https://www.themirror.com/news/weird-news/chinese-astronaut-heard-mysterious-knocking-1757326).
3) I thought this had to be fake, but there's been a follow-up and I guess a guy really did have a modified bicycle that ran on dog power. A man in eastern China got a lot of attention after a video showed him riding a modified electric bike powered by his golden retriever. Police have issued the elderly man a warning.
(https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/online-backlash-grows-over-chinese-dog-powered-electric-bike-11265575).
2) A snake in the bedroom! Police in Del Rio, Texas made headlines this week after they responded to a snake in the bedroom call. It was a rattlesnake, discovered under the bed. The snake was wrangled and safely relocated. We see a lot of "Snake somewhere it's not supposed to be" type stories and usually I don't mention them, but the photo with this story got me shook. It's a snake, under somebody's bed. It haunts me at night. And I live in East Coast Canada where we have zero venomous snakes - I should feel safe. The photo, though!!
(https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/03/25/Del-Rio-Texas-bedroom-rattlesnake/4281774448255/).
Bonus) A multi-year study on sitting seems to point towards a better way to sit. This involved tens of thousands of people, and it seems like it's better for your brain health to be a mentally-active sitter. So if you're sitting doing office work or knitting (a couple of examples mentioned in the article), that's better than doing passive stuff like watching TV while sitting. The article says try to replace an hour of passive sitting for the other kind of sitting.
(https://studyfinds.com/not-all-sitting-is-equal-for-the-brain/)
Bonus) Sailors have reported this weird behavior for years, but it's never been captured on film until now.
Sperm whales headbutting each other used to be a legend, now they have drone footage of whales headbutting each other. Why do they do it? Researchers think it's some kind of playing behavior... or maybe to encourage a whale to leave the pod. The important thing is you sailors are finally vindicated, Sorry we didn't believe you.
1) A vaping squirrel made headlines this week. The squirrel was at a London park and got into somebody's discarded vape or e-cigarette. Wildlife experts say please do not discard your vape pens because it's bad for squirrels. Some of those sweet flavors attract the creatures. Please just give the squirrels nuts. BTW, I have an idea for a novelty squirrel feeder. A feeder that looks like a bong. I need somebody to make that and go into business with me.
(https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/03/25/vaping-squirrel-London-RSPCA/9501774459163/).
YouTube stream
The shark appeared to be high on cocaine. What a Weird Week!
10. Cocaine Sharks Research Continues A study has found that some sharks off the coast of the Bahamas tested positive for caffeine, painkillers, and cocaine. We had a similar cocaine sharks report a couple of years ago from Brazil. Researchers believe it's because of human pollution. The sharks aren't actively seeking out the cocaine, we're polluting their environment. What is it doing to the sharks? That at this point unknown. To be continued. But, and I'm not a scientist, I doubt it's making them more docile, right? Another thing to be concerned about. Sharks hopped up on the cocaine. Maybe while we're all distracted by AI and how social media is destroying everything, maybe this is when the cocaine sharks make their move. We're looking one way. Cocaine Shark Invasion. Something to be mindful of.
9. A PG-13 Warning The government of Bern, Switzerland has rejected a proposal to alter its code of arms, ruling that the iconic bear will continue to be depicted with a prominent ding-dong. Question. Did you know that the coat of arms has a red bear ding-dong? I did not know. This was educational for me. So the ding-dong will remain in its place of honor. I found out a number of coat of arms have some kind of ding-dong going on. I first learned you call it pizzled. An animal with a visible ding-dong is pizzled. A lot of coat of arms feature a bear or a lion that is pizzled. I would encourage you to investigate the coat of arms where you're at and see if you got some sort of pizzled situation going on. I looked up mine for my province and there might be. There's a lot going on in my coat of arms, so I can't be sure. I think the Atlantic Salmon might be pizzled. Perhaps you would like to weigh in on this matter. I'll put a link in the show notes and you can have a look at my province's coat of arms. You tell me what's going on with that Atlantic Salmon.
Number eight, we want to send a shout out to the first responders, firefighters in Vermont. They came to the rescue of a raccoon, or perhaps you pronounce it raccoon, that got its head stuck in a peanut butter jar and then climbed 25 feet up a tree. So they had to get out the big ladder. They were able to free the raccoon from its peanut buttery prison. The article also takes the opportunity to remind us all about how important it is to properly dispose of our trash. That is true. That's not a controversial thing, right? It's wrong to litter, but also raccoons, they'll find a way. If they want your delicious trash, they'll find a way. In my neighborhood, I have a neighbor who has this elaborate system of bungee cords and some sort of weight on the lid and maybe even padlock. I'm not sure. And still the raccoons will find a way to get at my neighbor's delicious garbage. So it's a complicated story. Maybe the takeaway is garbage is delicious.
Number seven is the ongoing plight of the Texas town of Bug Tussle. They're in the headlines because so many people steal Bug Tussle signs. The running tally is like 70 something of its road signs stolen. Experts believe it's because Bug Tussle is one of the greatest names in the history of signage. Now the Department of Transportation has stopped providing the town with new signs. They've had enough, it would seem. I'm not sure where we go from here. Somebody has to take that over because how will people know that they're being welcomed to the town of Bug Tussle if there's no sign? By the way, why is it called Bug Tussle? The article from Ben Hooper will put a link to the United Press International article. According to the Texas State Historical Association, there are a few possibilities. The one I like is the couple of fellas arguing about what they should name the town. And then they became distracted by the sight of two bugs tussling. And that ended the argument and they said, let's just call the place Bug Tussle.
[Transition music]
Number six. Number six is the new study that seems to indicate that sleep tracking apps and those things we wear to measure our sleep quality can actually make sleep worse for some people because we get anxious and we get an unhealthy obsession with our sleep data. Don't you hate it when you keep waking up to check to see if you're sleeping well? You know, you get it. According to the research, nearly half of adults have used a sleep tracker, but hardly any of us report it actually improves our sleep.
Number five. Number five is this robot. So that is the dancing humanoid robot at a California restaurant that had to be removed after it malfunctioned and began smashing plates and knocking over tableware. There is a video. We will link to that in the show notes or go to shownotes.page. I don't know how many times I've talked about the robot uprising, but I take back whatever I said before. This is how the robot uprising begins. The dancing robots. That's how it all starts. Imagine you're out for a classy meal at a place with dancing robots and then all of a sudden the robot attacks. We walked right into that.
Number four. Number four is an article this week from the Mirror that gets into how China's first astronaut reported hearing a mysterious knocking sound outside his spacecraft during his 2003 mission. So there you are in outer space and you hear a knocking at your door. That's kind of what happened, what was described. And then other crews have reported the same thing. It's kind of a fascinating article. Do you know what caused the knocking sound in outer space? Because they don't. They don't know what caused it. It's still a mystery. A mysterious space knock.
Number three. Number three I thought had to be fake. I almost didn't include it because I thought there's no way this is real. Nobody would really do this. But there's been a follow up and I guess a guy really did have a modified bicycle that ran on dog power. A man in eastern China got a lot of attention after a video showed him riding a modified electric bicycle powered by his golden retriever. The update is that police have issued the elderly man a warning. There's a photo. I'll link to it but it will probably make you angry. Almost seems like something a supervillain would do. Golden retriever powered bicycle. There's a photo. The elderly fellow is sitting on the bicycle and underneath him between the two tires is the golden retriever in some sort of harness and like Fred Flintstone style getting around. The golden retriever's little paws are running along and propelling the bicycle forward. That's kind of the deal there. Anyway, if you want to read more you can click the show notes at shownotes.page.
Number two. Number two is a snake in the bedroom. Police in Del Rio, Texas made headlines this week after they responded to a snake in the bedroom call. It was a rattlesnake discovered under the bed. The snake was wrangled and safely relocated. A lot of times you'll see a story about a snake somewhere it's not supposed to be. They found a snake on a bus. They found a snake in a suitcase. They found a snake in somebody's fridge. Often we don't, they're so common now, we don't include them in this program. But what happened this week was I saw the photo and I would caution, we're going to link to the photo, but if you're like me, maybe don't, don't click because it's a photo of the snake under somebody's bed. And I read the story, saw the photo. Then later on I went to bed and I could not stop thinking about a snake under my own bed. And so I had an anxious, fearful night. And I live in East Coast, Canada. We don't have any venomous snakes. The biggest snake we have is like as long as a pencil. But still, this one might haunt you.
Honorable Mention. This is good news. A multi-year study on sitting seems to point towards a better way to sit. This involved tens of thousands of people. It seems like it's better for your brain health to be a mentally active sitter. So if you're doing office work while sitting or knitting, it's another one that they mentioned in the article. I would think gaming too, but I don't know. I'm not a scientist. Mentally active sitting is better than passive sitting, like watching TV while sitting. That's considered passive sitting. So the article says try to replace an hour of passive sitting with the other kind of sitting. Now you're up to date on the sitting science.
Honorable Mention again. Sailors have reported this weird behavior for years but it's never been captured on film until now. Sperm whales head-butting. That used to be a legend but now they have drone footage of whales head-butting each other. Why do they do it? Researchers have some theories. One of them is, I'm going to argue it's one of whale researchers' go-to theories, and no disrespect whale researchers, you're way more educated than me. When whales do something wacky, "oh they're just playing." Well that's the theory here too, is perhaps it's playing behavior. They're just goofing around, them whales. That was my impersonation of a whale researcher. Not great. I'm the first to call myself out on that.
Number one this week is the vaping squirrel that made headlines. The squirrel was at a London park, United Kingdom. It got into somebody's discarded vape or e-cigarette and that image just captured the imagination of many people online. Wildlife experts say please do not discard your vape pens because bad for squirrels. The sweet flavors I guess will attract a squirrel or small creatures and so then the next thing you know they're hooked. They're getting hooked on these things. Maybe that part the article doesn't say about the getting hooked. But please just give squirrels nuts, I guess.
That is a wrap on this week's What a Weird Week show where we serve up all the weird news of the week. You can get everything we talk about if you go to shownotes.page. You can find out about the podcast, you can find links to rate and review. There's even a link to the swear jar if you really feel like you owe us a dollar because you swore out loud. Maybe it was the snake under the bed story and you were like, "oh no!" I'm sorry, but that's a two dollar fine. The swear jar link and everything if you go to shownotes.page. We'll catch you next week with 10 more weird things from the news on What a Weird Week.
(https://www.vice.com/en/article/sharks-in-the-bahamas-are-full-of-cocaine-caffeine-and-painkillers/)
9) ***PG13*** The government of Bern, Switzerland, has rejected a proposal to alter its coat of arms, ruling that the iconic bear will continue to be depicted with a prominent ding dong.
(https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/various/the-bernese-bear-will-continue-to-display-its-red-limb-on-the-coat-of-arms/91049271)
8) Firefighters in Vermont came to the rescue of a raccoon that got its head stuck in a peanut butter jar and then climbed 25 feet up a tree.
(https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/03/20/Shelburne-Fire-Department-raccoon-peanut-butter-jar/7831774027521/).
7) The ongoing plight of Texas town of Bug Tussle.
(https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/03/23/Bug-Tussle-Texas-sign-thefts/6351774286086/)
6) A new study seems to indicate that sleep-tracking apps and those things we wear to measure our sleep quality, can actually make sleep worse for some people
(https://studyfinds.com/sleep-tracker-may-make-sleep-worse/).
5) A dancing humanoid robot at a California restaurant had to be removed after it malfunctioned and began smashing plates and knocking over tableware. There's video. I take back what I said before, THIS is how the robot uprising begins. The dancing robots are how it all starts.
(https://nypost.com/2026/03/18/tech/dancing-robot-bounced-from-restaurant-after-scaring-patrons/).
4) Article this week from the Mirror gets into how China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, reported hearing a mysterious knocking sound outside his spacecraft during his 2003 mission. #mystery
(https://www.themirror.com/news/weird-news/chinese-astronaut-heard-mysterious-knocking-1757326).
3) I thought this had to be fake, but there's been a follow-up and I guess a guy really did have a modified bicycle that ran on dog power.
(https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/online-backlash-grows-over-chinese-dog-powered-electric-bike-11265575).
2) A snake in the bedroom!
(https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/03/25/Del-Rio-Texas-bedroom-rattlesnake/4281774448255/).
Bonus) A multi-year study on sitting seems to point towards a better way to sit.
(https://studyfinds.com/not-all-sitting-is-equal-for-the-brain/)
Bonus) Sailors have reported this weird behavior for years, but it's never been captured on film until now.
Sperm whales headbutting each other.
1) A vaping squirrel made headlines this week.
(https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/03/25/vaping-squirrel-London-RSPCA/9501774459163/).