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These are the shownotes for Season 7, Ep 21 first published May 22, 2026.
Bonus yoyo dieting research seems to show it aint all bad
Bonus: the pain of putting ice on an injury
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00:00:00,000 --> 00:05:01,440 Hi friends, I am Scott and this show is What a Weird Week. It is a weird news roundup where we give you 10 of the weird stories from this week's news and you can get everything we talk about in more detail on the Shownotes page, which is Shownotes.page, that's where everything is about our podcast, if you want to get in touch, all of the stuff, Shownotes.page. It's Friday, May 22nd, 2026.
Number 10 is the news from the world of bugs that a whole bunch of new beetles have been discovered. 61 new beetles discovered in China. These are not teeny tiny beetles. These are described as several centimeters long, if you don't do centimeters, 2.5 centimeters is an inch. So these are good-sized beetles that went undetected by researchers or science. Here is a quote from the article. We link to this, the write-up in Popular Science. "It's striking that so many new species can remain hidden among large and colorful beetles. It shows how little we actually know," oh, I don't want to read anymore. It sounds scathing. That quote sounds like somebody done been called out. Somebody who works hard every day on their hands and knees looking for bugs, doing the bug research. It sounds like that person got called out. I don't want to be a part of this, backing away. If you want to see the photos of the bugs, they look like bugs. But if you have a chance to click some new bugs there for you, you can click Shownotes.page.
Number nine is more from the world of bugs, a spider that has been discovered and it has a smiley face on its back. Newly discovered spider with smiley face on its back. And then a quote from the article. This is Popular Science again. "I knew instantly we had a jackpot." I mean, you don't, researchers, spider researchers don't usually get that excited. If you don't have a chance to click the photo, it is a green spider that looks like it's almost like a candy. It looks like a gummy spider. And that could be because I'm hungry, but it's a green lime green gummy spider with a menacing smile on its back. Where did they find this spider? Well, it's on your shoulder. No, wait. It is in the Himalayan mountains. There are happy face spiders. The article gets into this. Happy face spiders have been found in Hawaii for quite a while, but they were surprised to find a happy face spider or menacing, terrifying, smiling spider in the Himalayan mountains. Need more? See the photos. Click the show notes. Show notes dot page.
Number eight. Solving the problem of eating utensils that don't light up. Glow in the dark chopsticks are a thing. And the article says they don't require a battery or a power source. At first I was like, well, that's impressive. But the star stickers that glow in the dark that you put on your bedroom ceiling, they also don't require a battery or power source. I think I'm not an expert. I think the technology is kind of similar. They're using photo luminescent material. It does look vibrant. I will say it's a vibrant glow from the glow in the dark chopsticks. Honestly, there are places where electricity is scarce or there's no electricity. Maybe these would help light up your night or your meal. Maybe it's all for romance. It does seem like a soft glow, almost candlelight. I don't know how I feel about this. I'm not sure how practical they are. But what's the alternative? Traditional chopsticks? What if it's too dark for traditional chopsticks? You could light your traditional chopsticks on fire, I guess. No, wait, that sounds like a bad idea.
Number seven is pickled juice. Not just any pickled juice. Pickled juice actually being offered by McDonald's in New Zealand. Little bottles of pickled juice. McDonald's New Zealand has introduced pickled juice as like a sports recovery drink. It has all the pickled goodness that an athlete needs to recover from a hard workout. And this is something they're offering up to Auckland football club players. So athletes are getting McDonald's pickled juice. And I thought it was a gimmick or something. But they are sourcing the pickled juice from their food preparation. It's things left over from their food prep process. And they are able to turn it into a sports, you know, basically a sports drink. A delicious, pickley sports drink. That's kind of my brief summary of the article. But if you want to have a look at the product or read the whole thing, I will link to that in the show notes or you can go to shownotes.page.
00:05:01,440 --> 00:10:00,419 More food news. This is from Science Daily and it's great news if you like eating grapes and you also like being incredibly good looking. Because eating grapes, according to the article, eating grapes daily could unlock powerful skin protection. It does something at the genetic level when you eat grapes and it changes how your skin behaves and reacts to UV exposure. That's what they believe is going on based on the research of people eating grapes every day and then looking into how the skin reacts to UV exposure. So probably they are going to want to do some repeat research or look deeper into this. But if you've got somebody on your case about how you eat grapes every day and they're all like, what are you doing eating grapes like some kind of grape freak? Well now you get the last laugh because you're incredibly good looking. Way to go, grape lover.
This one was research written up in Science Daily about an ancient exercise, an ancient Chinese exercise, which they actually did a study, people with hypertension, and this exercise helped people with hypertension. It would appear as though it had positive effects and long-lasting. The exercise is called Ba Duan Jin, I'm pretty sure I got that right, but no, you know what, I'm 50-50, I got it right. It's described as a gentle mind-body exercise combining slow movements, breathing, and meditation. It seems as though it's very good for high blood pressure. And it's easier than some other exercise or, you know, some people who maybe wouldn't go for a brisk walk or hit the gym, maybe you don't have gym equipment, access to the heavy things. Well, you can do Ba Duan Jin and get the positive effects from it. That is cool, an 800-year-old Chinese exercise, which is helping people today. Sometimes the old remedies are not good, but in this case, research is backing up the goodness of it.
Number four is the bag frog, which maybe you saw, it got picked up a lot, it was a kicker on a lot of newscasts. The Associated Press headline is, let us, you know, like the vegetable, let us introduce you to the live frog found in this grocery store salad bag. And that's kind of it. A person in Australia opened up a bag of lettuce and there was a live frog in there. I linked to the Associated Press article. They quote some people in the story. And I don't know if it's Australian jargon or if it's something, if it would be bad for me to say, so I'm not going to say the quote, but it would seem that one person was surprised to see the frog in their bagged salad. And the other person was in disbelief that the first person saw what they saw. The article says the store apologized and offered a replacement bag of lettuce. I will say when this happens, if you're ever in a situation where it happens, they recommend that you don't just let the frog go or whatever the wild beast is that you discover in your salad, because it could be some sort of invasive species. So you're supposed to contact somebody official and not just like catch and release the bag frog. For the link to the photos in the video, click shownotes.page.
Number three is the kid who found the ancient sword while on a class trip. Six-year-old boy found an ancient Viking sword. That's a pretty great school trip. This happened in Norway. Shout out to our friends in Norway. According to the metrics, three of you listened to this program. So thank you. They believe the sword is around 1300 years old. The young fella discovered a rusty piece of metal. This is a fun school trip, eh? There's rusty metal. I mean, it's nice that some things haven't changed from when I was a youngster going on a school trip. Rusty metal. So the youngster saw a piece of rusty metal sticking out of the ground, picked it up to show the teachers. It turned out it was what they believed to be a wonderful piece of history. If you want to see what it looks like, we have a photo and more details if you click the show notes.
Number two is also from Norway. The teenager who allegedly stole a bus for the third time and is possibly a very good driver. This is a 14-year-old who, according to the headline, has gone on a joyride in a stolen bus three times in six months. The 14-year-old in Norway allegedly likes buses a lot and returns to buses with not a scratch. Nary a scratch on these buses. Look, it's wrong to steal, and I don't know what's going on, what the teenager has going on. I don't know any of that. People always have something going on, right? So it's wrong to steal, but that's kind of impressive.
00:10:00,419 --> 00:14:48,959 To go on a joyride three times in six months, the buses returned with not a scratch. I for one am impressed by that, and I'm sure the situation is complicated. Perhaps I could make the teenager an apprentice bus driver. Could that is that possible? No, what am I now? What am I some sort of legal expert? I'm not a lawyer But if I were that teenager's lawyer, I would try to plea down to some sort of bus co-pilot time served.
This honorable mention is not too weird or crazy bonkers out there But I wanted to throw it in here because I am constantly on a diet I don't know if you're new to our program. Let me just say I am constantly on a diet And there's a study out a new study that looks at yo-yo dieting where you lose some way you put weight back on I always thought that was terrible for you and this new research kind of debunks that according to the write-up Researchers found little convincing evidence that losing weight and regaining it actually causes long-term harm I'm sure more research is needed and all of that don't print this article out and run right down to your dietician Well, you know, it would be good exercise actually if you printed this article out and ran to your dietician Anyway, consult your physician before embarking on any running excursions.
Honorable mention number two This is another one that shoots down something, you know how you get an injury you're playing sports you're doing something perhaps you're just bending over to pick up a coin from the ground and You pull a muscle and you're supposed to ice that down right the research that has come out Surprising me icing an injury may make pain last twice as long According to the study we linked to in the show notes This was done on mice. So teeny tiny ice packs on mice who I assume were playing sports Football maybe and became injured and then teeny tiny mouse size Ice packs were put on the injury some of that is speculation But the mouse research seems to indicate that putting ice on an injury Roughly doubled how long the pain lasted I'm gonna stop there But the article does get into why they think it shakes down that way.
Number one number one is the mystery of the car that got the ticket So maybe you saw this it got picked up as a kicker a lot of newscasts I think was in the late night shows this has to do with a car from a TV show And if you're of a certain age, perhaps you remember the TV show Knight Rider But if you don't it was a show starring David Hasselhoff actually Co-starring David Hasselhoff you could argue the real star of the show Was the car that solved crimes the talking car that solved crimes in Conjunction with David Hasselhoff doing some stuff also to help solve the crimes. So this cool-looking car is a pretty awesome-looking car I think there was a replica of that car in a museum and the museum Got a speed that speeding ticket the car got a speeding ticket the museum got sent that ticket because they Identified the car which hasn't moved from the museum. It's been in the museum this Knight Rider replica car But somehow it was identified in the photo as being the vehicle that was speeding And so the museum got the speeding ticket and at time of recording this It's still a mystery how the Knight Rider in a strange ironic twist The Knight Rider car is no longer solving crimes But is accused of a crime the crime of speeding that's kind of where we are right now I'm sure more will come out from this because now it's getting written up and talked about a lot It made the national news. So we'll see how this one lands. The offense took place in New York City United States of America and the museum is in Illinois if you want to read more we'll link to the article Maybe you've never seen the Knight Rider car and you want to check it out It is a black Trans Am that talks in the still photographs You won't be able to you just have to use your imagination. It won't be talking Anyway, we'll link to photos and stuff click show notes page.
And that is all she wrote for this week's what a weird week show where we look back at the weird news of the week I appreciate you were tuning in. Please tell a friend and tell two enemies Let's really grow the numbers and get your enemies tuned in as well Hey You can get everything we talked about in more detail and links to subscribe to our podcast If you go to show notes dot page We'll catch you next Friday with 10 more weird stories from the news on what a weird week
9 also meet the newly-discovered smiley face spider https://www.popsci.com/environment/himalayan-happy-face-spider/
8 solving the problem of eating utensils that don't light up, it's glow in the dark chopsticks https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/lunaris
7 McDonald's pickle juice https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/mcdonalds-nz
6 eating grapes might do what now? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260517211427.htm
5 simple ancient exercise seems to be like medicine https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260510234724.htm
4 bag frog https://apnews.com/article/australia-frog-lettuce-salad-esperance-4134acf75e814dedd7789c1423c26ab1
3 kid finds ancient sword while on class trip, world reacts https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/clyp37py7mqo
2 teen allegedly steals bus for third time, possibly is very good driverhttps://www.oddee.com/14-year-old-goes-on-a-joyride-in-a-stolen-bus-for-the-third-time-in-six-months-78704/
Bonus yoyo dieting research seems to show it aint all bad https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260515233331.htm
Bonus: the pain of putting ice on an injury https://studyfinds.com/icing-injury-pain/
1 famous tv car gets impossible speeding tickethttps://apnews.com/article/knight-rider-car-speeding-ticket-new-york-24d37fa3e975363d8bcef5bbbb7bf089