It's Friday, Sept 11th, 2026 and here is your weird news update featuring some of the odd, and fun things from the news. This is What a Weird Week.
Show notes page is shownotes.page. Stream and Subscribe HERE.
9 Slow Jogs and Brain Scans. https://studyfinds.com/a-very-slow-jog-may-be-all-it-takes-to-lift-mood-and-sharpen-focus/
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8 Yellowstone Lost and Found. https://www.popsci.com/environment/yellowstone-national-park-lost-hats-summer-2026/ and video https://youtube.com/shorts/KP7oqMn5JEI?si=-2kW8-wKSkLnCRkU
7 Ladies, is this survey about bras your truth? https://talkerresearch.com/nearly-3-in-5-women-ditch-bras-as-soon-as-they-get-home/
6 Lady demolishes Giant Burrito. https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/professional-eater-inhales-burrito-reclaim-title-worlds-fastest and video link.
Honorable Mention: Scientists disagreeing on basic stuff? https://www.popsci.com/science/physicist-big-bang-survey/
5 I love the smell of chocolate in the morning (on leg day). https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260914102445.htm
4 Solving World Hunger and Plastic Waste through new cookie technology! https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260912220033.htm and video link https://youtu.be/8VlFjKupGdM
3 Girl Scout Cookies for Dogs. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-sweet-girl-scouts-cookies-are-going-to-the-dogs_n_6aa1a0fae4b030763605fed8 and video link https://youtu.be/IA9nKwfbhro?si=p3ZfMwinwc3YbFLo
2 Peanut Butter Floor Followup. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/dutch-peanut-butter-artwork-proves-092951043.html and icymi, the video https://youtu.be/by2maioXytw
Bonus: Mini Horses as therapy?! Yes. It's science. https://studyfinds.com/teens-felt-calmer-three-minutes-mini-horse-donkey/
Bonus: Silent Mode for Phones doesn't do what you think it does. https://studyfinds.com/what-keeping-phone-on-silent-says-about-you-2180/
1 Firefighters rescue man, mow his lawn. https://people.com/firefighters-finish-mowing-mans-lawn-after-he-s-rushed-to-the-emergency-room-12113394 someone posted this video https://youtu.be/IDKItGs8K-g
TRANSCRIPT for Season 7, Episode 38, first aired on 18 Sept 2026:
#weirdnews #odd #fun #interesting #strange #podcast
00:00
Saving the world through cookies. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. It's weird. This is like crazy. Really weird. Big foot out of my trash. I got a great job. It was so wonderful. Hi, friends. I am Scott. And this is our weird news report. We call it What a Weird Week. This episode dropping on Friday, September 18, 2026. We go back through the news of the week and we pick out the weird stories and the fun ones.
00:28
the interesting things and you can get everything we talk about in more detail on our show notes page, which is show notes dot page.
00:42
Kicking things off this week at number 10 is a fellow from Nova Scotia, East Coast Canada, Planet Earth, who is in the news for the world record of solving 211 Rubik's cubes while bouncing on a pogo stick. Congratulations, Saul, age 21. So Saul's journey to get here as a teenager, Saul learned of the record, started to practice. You get to practicing and then eventually in the year 2022,
01:12
was certified or whatever you call it that the record was acknowledged by the good folks at the Guinness Book of World Records. Fast forward to this year, 2026, Saul learns that he's going to be featured in the next edition of the Guinness Book, the actual physical book, the Guinness Book of World Records. And now it seems as though Saul will get to do some media tours and stuff. So Saul, I'm just gonna throw this one out there.
01:41
Well done on your record of solving 211 Rubik's cubes while bouncing on a pogo stick. What about now as you go on your media tour for the Guinness Book of World Records? Maybe you travel from stop to stop on a pogo stick. Another world record saw. Hey?
02:00
Number nine is brain scans and jogging. We link to an article, a write up and study finds about some research into slow jogging and how it would seem to go for a 10 minute even a 10 minute slow jog that can improve your mood and sharpen your mental focus. That's what the research seems to indicate. They did brain scans. They had people go for a short jogs.
02:28
And one of the interesting things is there seems to be some kind of correlation between the up and down bouncing that happens during running. Bouncing itself seems to have a correlation to how good you're like how pleasant you feel. How good your mood is after exercising. It could be from the bounce. More research needed but let's...
02:52
Let's bounce. Number eight. Number eight is everything they cleaned out of the hydro thermal vents at Yellowstone National Park, United States of America, Planet Earth. think they must do this every year where they have a photo op maybe for the press. I'm not sure. We'll link to an article. The photos are quite impressive and God bless you folks. Cleaning up after millions of visitors every year to Yellowstone National Park. After the busy tourist season, it is time to clean up. And here are some of the things they retrieved. Almost 300 ball caps.
03:21
which they say one popular one was the FIFA ball cap, souvenir ball cap. That was a genre that was discovered quite a bit and cleaned out of the hydrothermal vents. A lot of lens caps, a lot of scrunchies and different things to tie your hair back. A respectable amount of pens and pencils. It looks like one snow shoe, maybe. A lot of toys, some UNO cards. That's kind of funny.
03:50
If you get bored waiting around for that geyser, play some Uno, I guess. And they say it seems anyway that people, they found $18. People throw coins into those hydrothermal vents like they're a wishing well. And they're discouraging that behavior because that can introduce bacteria or something, maybe algae, something that's not good for the environment. I think there is a Lego Jesus in there next to a Lego Stormtrooper. Maybe, anyway.
04:20
Some other interesting things there, some sort of maybe medication, some ointment. Not sure. I don't want to zoom in probably, do I? And retainers. And I see one fidget spinner. A lot of cool stuff. You could play I Spy for hours. We'll link to all of this. Click show notes dot page. seven. Number seven is the survey of five thousand women in the United States. But I believe this to be a universal truth. You tell me, though, I'm not that worldly. According to the survey,
04:50
The majority of ladies say they were in a hurry to remove their brazier as soon as they get home. So I'm not really qualified to weigh in on this. I have been married a very long time and I do have a certain amount of anecdotal evidence or anecdotal data. This survey seems accurate to me. Maybe you would like to weigh in. You can get all our social media links. Comment, the struggle is real if you want. All the links are at shownotes.page.
05:20
Number six is this lady.
05:26
Yikes.
05:33
That video is a lady named Leah from the United Kingdom demolishing a giant burrito in about 30 seconds for a world record. It's a lot of world record media attention right now because the Guinness Book of World Records coming out with their new print edition. If you want to see the video, I'll link to that in the show notes, but also Leah, there's a write-up about how she got started as a professional eater.
05:59
Leah started on YouTube just doing eating challenges and then discovered she was unofficially breaking world records with some of her eating challenges. So why not make it official? And now she has like 40 something world records. Honorable mention. Throwing in an honorable mention here. I don't know if this story would have made the top 10 weird news stories, but it's interesting. It's in popular science this week. They're reporting on a survey of scientists.
06:28
And it's all about how much scientists disagree on things that we thought they agreed on. We thought everybody was on the same page mostly. It turns out, nah, one of the things is time itself. Science can't agree on time. And if the world's finest minds can't agree on time, how are we expected to get anywhere on time? Right? Next time I'm late for a meeting, I am going to quote from this survey.
06:57
Scientists can't agree on it. How can you expect me to log into teams at 9 a.m. Eastern? What even is Eastern? I'm going to blow their minds next meeting. five is that research into chocolate on leg day. Chocolate on leg day is what we're going to call this one. Researchers had men smell chocolate and then do leg extensions and
07:24
There was a correlation between smelling the chocolate and being able to do more reps before getting tired. So to me, that part is great. Anything that can help you exercise and take away some of the tiredness, right? We're all tired. So smelling chocolate might help on leg day, but just smelling it, not enough for me. I'm going to want to eat that chocolate and probably skip leg day and just eat chocolate.
07:53
Is where I'm at right now in my brain. So they're going to have to do some more research, but you know, if this pans out, there is a company that is just waiting to put out some kind of a smell this on leg day product, right? Researchers think that certain food aromas motivate us because we are going to want to eat after we're anticipating eating. Let's get this over with leg day and then we can eat. That's one of the theories as to what's going on.
08:22
in our brains. But I'll link to the whole thing. can click the show notes and do a deep dive. Number four. Number four might be the best good news story you hear all week in a world where AI is going to destroy us all. Listen to this one. Researchers are working on a yeast that will turn plastic waste into cookies, delicious vanilla flavored cookies that are protein rich.
08:51
If this pans out, it'll solve world hunger. It'll put a dent in plastic waste. And the reason they're getting, I think the reason they're getting the funding, they're NASA backed scientists. It'll also solve the problem of, because they're going to 3D print these cookies. How do we get food going in outer space? So some problems are getting solved if this pans out. No pressure researchers, but if this pans out, it would be great.
09:21
And vanilla, mean, pretty, pretty good flavor. Maybe you wanted pumpkin spice protein cookies, 3D printed out of plastic waste. That might be next. Let's get the vanilla ones going. Proof of concept. And then pumpkin spice, perhaps also chocolate. three. You know what? We're going to do it. We're doing back to back cookie stories. The Girl Scouts of the United States of America, they announced the other day a new cookie in the new year.
09:49
a cookie for dogs. You're going to start selling cookies for dogs in the new year. This will be a blueberry flavored cookie and available online. So if you have a pooch who is online, let them know that they can order those delicious pooch cookies in the new year. two is a follow up to a story that we covered earlier this year about the peanut butter floor.
10:17
Which was a tribute, it was a work of art, an art installation at a Dutch museum. In tribute to the originator of the peanut butter floor, the artist passed away and they did a tribute. And if you missed that report, the peanut butter floor is exactly what it sounds like. They take a whole lot of peanut butter, they spread it across the floor, and that is art. People can go and visit it.
10:44
At the time I remember thinking, wow, that would smell delicious if you like peanut butter. The update is just a few stats. They ended up with 48 accidental footprints, people walking on the arch, 48,000 visitors and one licking incident. That's kind of gross. Ooh, and five people dropped their phones in the peanut butter. Trying to get that great photo for your social media and kerplunk.
11:13
We'll link to this article and they have a nice photo. The peanut butter floor is described as 25 square meters and very smooth. No lumps. Honorable mention. This one's kind of weird. I think it's a good news story. Maybe not. It's about researching the miniature horses and miniature donkeys. It would seem as though an interaction with one of them is good for your mental health.
11:43
Here's a quote from the article. So they get into some really specific things in this article. Noticing a miniature horse wiggled their lips was correlated to a drop in loneliness. Watching a miniature horse walk away
12:10
correlated to a bigger drop in sadness. So at first I'm like, this is great news. Let's get a miniature horse in every school. It is not easy being a kid these days. And if we can alleviate some anxiety, let's do it. Who's gonna, where's the funding, right? Who's gonna be able to have a mini horse in the school guidance office? Hardly any schools. And then once people discover how great it feels to be around a miniature horse,
12:40
the price of the miniature horses, the mini horse market is going to skyrocket, right? So after a lot of consideration, I think this is not a good news story. This is a bad news story. Maybe another honorable mention. One more bonus story before we get to number one. It's just about that research done by Penn State. There's a write up and study finds link in the show notes. Having your phone on silent mode. I thought that meant you were going to focus.
13:09
You were going to receive information, pay attention, get stuff done. Turns out based on this study, participants in the study who had the phone on silent checked the phone twice as much as people who had vibration phone or full volume ringtone phone. That's kind of the gist of it. We'll link to that in the show notes. That blew my mind. I thought silent phone super focused. Turns out it's the opposite.
13:35
Based on that study, number one is the fellow in Oklahoma City, United States of America, planet Earth, who became ill while mowing his lawn. Firefighters responded. The first responders got the fellow onto an ambulance safely transported to hospital. And then the firefighters are there and they're looking at the lawn while the fellow took ill halfway through mowing his lawn. And the firefighters were like, we can't leave it this way.
14:03
So they finished mowing the fellows lawn. Thank you first responders for what you do going over and above in Oklahoma city. So we're going to stop on that note. Thanks for listening to what a weird week. If you want our show notes or anything about our podcast or if you want to get in touch or something, everything is at show notes dot page, show notes dot page. We're back next Friday with more weird things from the news on what a weird week.
Saving the world through cookies. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. It's weird. This is like crazy. Really weird. Big foot out of my trash. I got a great job. It was so wonderful. Hi, friends. I am Scott. And this is our weird news report. We call it What a Weird Week. This episode dropping on Friday, September 18, 2026. We go back through the news of the week and we pick out the weird stories and the fun ones.
00:28
the interesting things and you can get everything we talk about in more detail on our show notes page, which is show notes dot page.
00:42
Kicking things off this week at number 10 is a fellow from Nova Scotia, East Coast Canada, Planet Earth, who is in the news for the world record of solving 211 Rubik's cubes while bouncing on a pogo stick. Congratulations, Saul, age 21. So Saul's journey to get here as a teenager, Saul learned of the record, started to practice. You get to practicing and then eventually in the year 2022,
01:12
was certified or whatever you call it that the record was acknowledged by the good folks at the Guinness Book of World Records. Fast forward to this year, 2026, Saul learns that he's going to be featured in the next edition of the Guinness Book, the actual physical book, the Guinness Book of World Records. And now it seems as though Saul will get to do some media tours and stuff. So Saul, I'm just gonna throw this one out there.
01:41
Well done on your record of solving 211 Rubik's cubes while bouncing on a pogo stick. What about now as you go on your media tour for the Guinness Book of World Records? Maybe you travel from stop to stop on a pogo stick. Another world record saw. Hey?
02:00
Number nine is brain scans and jogging. We link to an article, a write up and study finds about some research into slow jogging and how it would seem to go for a 10 minute even a 10 minute slow jog that can improve your mood and sharpen your mental focus. That's what the research seems to indicate. They did brain scans. They had people go for a short jogs.
02:28
And one of the interesting things is there seems to be some kind of correlation between the up and down bouncing that happens during running. Bouncing itself seems to have a correlation to how good you're like how pleasant you feel. How good your mood is after exercising. It could be from the bounce. More research needed but let's...
02:52
Let's bounce. Number eight. Number eight is everything they cleaned out of the hydro thermal vents at Yellowstone National Park, United States of America, Planet Earth. think they must do this every year where they have a photo op maybe for the press. I'm not sure. We'll link to an article. The photos are quite impressive and God bless you folks. Cleaning up after millions of visitors every year to Yellowstone National Park. After the busy tourist season, it is time to clean up. And here are some of the things they retrieved. Almost 300 ball caps.
03:21
which they say one popular one was the FIFA ball cap, souvenir ball cap. That was a genre that was discovered quite a bit and cleaned out of the hydrothermal vents. A lot of lens caps, a lot of scrunchies and different things to tie your hair back. A respectable amount of pens and pencils. It looks like one snow shoe, maybe. A lot of toys, some UNO cards. That's kind of funny.
03:50
If you get bored waiting around for that geyser, play some Uno, I guess. And they say it seems anyway that people, they found $18. People throw coins into those hydrothermal vents like they're a wishing well. And they're discouraging that behavior because that can introduce bacteria or something, maybe algae, something that's not good for the environment. I think there is a Lego Jesus in there next to a Lego Stormtrooper. Maybe, anyway.
04:20
Some other interesting things there, some sort of maybe medication, some ointment. Not sure. I don't want to zoom in probably, do I? And retainers. And I see one fidget spinner. A lot of cool stuff. You could play I Spy for hours. We'll link to all of this. Click show notes dot page. seven. Number seven is the survey of five thousand women in the United States. But I believe this to be a universal truth. You tell me, though, I'm not that worldly. According to the survey,
04:50
The majority of ladies say they were in a hurry to remove their brazier as soon as they get home. So I'm not really qualified to weigh in on this. I have been married a very long time and I do have a certain amount of anecdotal evidence or anecdotal data. This survey seems accurate to me. Maybe you would like to weigh in. You can get all our social media links. Comment, the struggle is real if you want. All the links are at shownotes.page.
05:20
Number six is this lady.
05:26
Yikes.
05:33
That video is a lady named Leah from the United Kingdom demolishing a giant burrito in about 30 seconds for a world record. It's a lot of world record media attention right now because the Guinness Book of World Records coming out with their new print edition. If you want to see the video, I'll link to that in the show notes, but also Leah, there's a write-up about how she got started as a professional eater.
05:59
Leah started on YouTube just doing eating challenges and then discovered she was unofficially breaking world records with some of her eating challenges. So why not make it official? And now she has like 40 something world records. Honorable mention. Throwing in an honorable mention here. I don't know if this story would have made the top 10 weird news stories, but it's interesting. It's in popular science this week. They're reporting on a survey of scientists.
06:28
And it's all about how much scientists disagree on things that we thought they agreed on. We thought everybody was on the same page mostly. It turns out, nah, one of the things is time itself. Science can't agree on time. And if the world's finest minds can't agree on time, how are we expected to get anywhere on time? Right? Next time I'm late for a meeting, I am going to quote from this survey.
06:57
Scientists can't agree on it. How can you expect me to log into teams at 9 a.m. Eastern? What even is Eastern? I'm going to blow their minds next meeting. five is that research into chocolate on leg day. Chocolate on leg day is what we're going to call this one. Researchers had men smell chocolate and then do leg extensions and
07:24
There was a correlation between smelling the chocolate and being able to do more reps before getting tired. So to me, that part is great. Anything that can help you exercise and take away some of the tiredness, right? We're all tired. So smelling chocolate might help on leg day, but just smelling it, not enough for me. I'm going to want to eat that chocolate and probably skip leg day and just eat chocolate.
07:53
Is where I'm at right now in my brain. So they're going to have to do some more research, but you know, if this pans out, there is a company that is just waiting to put out some kind of a smell this on leg day product, right? Researchers think that certain food aromas motivate us because we are going to want to eat after we're anticipating eating. Let's get this over with leg day and then we can eat. That's one of the theories as to what's going on.
08:22
in our brains. But I'll link to the whole thing. can click the show notes and do a deep dive. Number four. Number four might be the best good news story you hear all week in a world where AI is going to destroy us all. Listen to this one. Researchers are working on a yeast that will turn plastic waste into cookies, delicious vanilla flavored cookies that are protein rich.
08:51
If this pans out, it'll solve world hunger. It'll put a dent in plastic waste. And the reason they're getting, I think the reason they're getting the funding, they're NASA backed scientists. It'll also solve the problem of, because they're going to 3D print these cookies. How do we get food going in outer space? So some problems are getting solved if this pans out. No pressure researchers, but if this pans out, it would be great.
09:21
And vanilla, mean, pretty, pretty good flavor. Maybe you wanted pumpkin spice protein cookies, 3D printed out of plastic waste. That might be next. Let's get the vanilla ones going. Proof of concept. And then pumpkin spice, perhaps also chocolate. three. You know what? We're going to do it. We're doing back to back cookie stories. The Girl Scouts of the United States of America, they announced the other day a new cookie in the new year.
09:49
a cookie for dogs. You're going to start selling cookies for dogs in the new year. This will be a blueberry flavored cookie and available online. So if you have a pooch who is online, let them know that they can order those delicious pooch cookies in the new year. two is a follow up to a story that we covered earlier this year about the peanut butter floor.
10:17
Which was a tribute, it was a work of art, an art installation at a Dutch museum. In tribute to the originator of the peanut butter floor, the artist passed away and they did a tribute. And if you missed that report, the peanut butter floor is exactly what it sounds like. They take a whole lot of peanut butter, they spread it across the floor, and that is art. People can go and visit it.
10:44
At the time I remember thinking, wow, that would smell delicious if you like peanut butter. The update is just a few stats. They ended up with 48 accidental footprints, people walking on the arch, 48,000 visitors and one licking incident. That's kind of gross. Ooh, and five people dropped their phones in the peanut butter. Trying to get that great photo for your social media and kerplunk.
11:13
We'll link to this article and they have a nice photo. The peanut butter floor is described as 25 square meters and very smooth. No lumps. Honorable mention. This one's kind of weird. I think it's a good news story. Maybe not. It's about researching the miniature horses and miniature donkeys. It would seem as though an interaction with one of them is good for your mental health.
11:43
Here's a quote from the article. So they get into some really specific things in this article. Noticing a miniature horse wiggled their lips was correlated to a drop in loneliness. Watching a miniature horse walk away
12:10
correlated to a bigger drop in sadness. So at first I'm like, this is great news. Let's get a miniature horse in every school. It is not easy being a kid these days. And if we can alleviate some anxiety, let's do it. Who's gonna, where's the funding, right? Who's gonna be able to have a mini horse in the school guidance office? Hardly any schools. And then once people discover how great it feels to be around a miniature horse,
12:40
the price of the miniature horses, the mini horse market is going to skyrocket, right? So after a lot of consideration, I think this is not a good news story. This is a bad news story. Maybe another honorable mention. One more bonus story before we get to number one. It's just about that research done by Penn State. There's a write up and study finds link in the show notes. Having your phone on silent mode. I thought that meant you were going to focus.
13:09
You were going to receive information, pay attention, get stuff done. Turns out based on this study, participants in the study who had the phone on silent checked the phone twice as much as people who had vibration phone or full volume ringtone phone. That's kind of the gist of it. We'll link to that in the show notes. That blew my mind. I thought silent phone super focused. Turns out it's the opposite.
13:35
Based on that study, number one is the fellow in Oklahoma City, United States of America, planet Earth, who became ill while mowing his lawn. Firefighters responded. The first responders got the fellow onto an ambulance safely transported to hospital. And then the firefighters are there and they're looking at the lawn while the fellow took ill halfway through mowing his lawn. And the firefighters were like, we can't leave it this way.
14:03
So they finished mowing the fellows lawn. Thank you first responders for what you do going over and above in Oklahoma city. So we're going to stop on that note. Thanks for listening to what a weird week. If you want our show notes or anything about our podcast or if you want to get in touch or something, everything is at show notes dot page, show notes dot page. We're back next Friday with more weird things from the news on what a weird week.