The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - A Musical Secret Weapon, Low Cortisol Beakmaxxing, Roller Coaster Science

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

Dropout's Grant O'Brien joins the show to talk about all things weird roller coasters. Plus, Jess hops on to discuss how a Gregorian chant has infiltrated all of our favorite media, from Shrek to Elden Ring. And Rachel gets into how having less of a beak can actually make you more of a chad. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tweet at us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to learn more about all of our stories! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Rachel now has a Patreon, too! Follow her for exclusive bonus content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to Jess' Twitch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to all of Jess' content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.jesscapricorn.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Jess Boddy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Popular Science: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/PopSci⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Theme music by Billy Cadden: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Shop plans at https://MINTMOBILE.com/weirdest Order RIGHT NOW and save up to $20 at https://STORYWORTH.com/weirdest Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Start your Alienware Journey with the streamlined Alienware 15 with a design that refines the essentials for a more focused gaming laptop, featuring a brilliant 15.3-inch 16-hirt display seamlessly engineered into a portable 15-inch body, powered by an Intel Core 7 processor for high performance during every session, all wrapped in the elite and durable alienware design. It's everything you need for an immersive gaming experience distilled into one iconic machine. Visit alienware.ca slash Alienware 15 today. At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and text stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles,

we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of Popular Science. I'm Rachel Feltman. I'm Jess Bodie. And I'm Grant O'Brien. Grant, welcome to the show. Welcome back.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Yes. I'm a friend of the pod now. It's great. Yeah, exactly. A regular contributor. Last time we broke format, but then I found out that you have a thing you like to nerd out about.

Uh-oh. Yes, I do. Come back and talk about it. And it's very sciencey. It's to do with physics, folks. Yeah. Listen, it is. It's all to do with physics.

Would you tell our listeners who have forgotten since the last time you're on a little bit about who you are, what your whole deal is? My whole deal is that I am a comedian actor in L.A. if people know me, I imagine they know me through my work with Dropout. There's a billion shows over there that I'm on. And I think people should watch all of them. I think they're all quite good. I agree. And Jess was an audience member participant, for one.

Fun fact. I was. I don't know if you've ever said that on the front. Yeah. I don't know if they did it either. When they did the stand-up spin-off show. The crowd control one? Yeah, crowd control.

I was in the audience for that. I just did an episode of that. How was it? It was a blast, as I'm sure you found out. Oh, I had a ball. Who were the, I don't know if we can say. But hey, you know what? Hey, don't tell me who the comedians were.

We'll wait for that to be honest. Yes, I'll send it to you. All three of them were great. They were phenomenal. Yeah, it was so cool to go and see how everything gets made over there, too. It's everyone was so lovely. Like, I was so impressed. They do such a, it's, they walk the walk, which is nice.

Yeah. It's not just branding that they're cool to people. It's a nice. the thing that it's actually true. It really is that we're not lying when we're like, oh, we're all fun friends. This is nice. Yeah, it was a really pleasant surprise. I feel like not very many places are like that.

Yeah. Great hack for getting a reputation for being fun and friendly is being fun and friendly. To actually be fun and friendly. Wild. Someone else should try that one. It's a good idea. It's crazy. Pro tip.

Well, let's get into it. So on the weirdest thing I learn this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of factor story we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, having a few laughs, et cetera, and decide this one we absolutely have to hear more about first. Then once we've all had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was, except we don't do that part anymore. There's no winner. We had too many three-way ties. It was getting goofy. Jess, what's your tease? Yeah, I'm going to talk about four musical notes that are historically and scientifically engineered to make you really sad.

Nice. Great. Great. I love being sad. For my tease, I'm just going to read the headline of the press release for the study I'm pulling this from. Disabled Parrot is undefeated alpha male of his group, thanks to novel beak jousting. What a Chad. Yeah.

That's a story about me, actually. Sorry about that. You got a little mixed up. I got a big old beat. I'm embarrassing for me. Grant, what's your tease? My tease is 155 miles per hour. Wow. Who can live at that speed?

Who indeed? Jess, why don't we kick things off with you? I would love to. So this is my latest hyperfixation for a while. It's also going to be my next big YouTube video essay. It's in, I'm editing it as we speak. Can't wait. Love your video essays. Thank you.

This does feel like hyperfixations at the show. Oh, yeah. It really is. It's a delightful thing. Yes. Yeah. So it's a hyperfixation that's like a creative project that's ruining my life. little bit. You get, have you ever had one of those? Oh yeah. Every day. So I decided I would

bring it to this show and infect you all with my favorite piece of knowledge. So what we're here for. My journey with all of this began last year when I started to play what would become my game of the year, my video game of the year. And that was hollow night silk song. Are either of you familiar with this video game? Only through you. Okay. I'm not at all. Amazing. Okay. So this game has a predecessor, Hollow Knight. the first game that came out. Let me look it up. It was a long time ago.

The original Hollenite came out in 2017. And it was the indie game darling, basically. It blew up, it exploded. Everybody was so excited for it. They announced a sequel. And everybody was so stoked for the sequel. But then they went Radio Silent for eight years. And it's just this tiny little team of five people in Australia who make the game.

It's indie. It's indie. It's indie. It's truly indie. They were kind of releasing stuff about it for a while, like their development process, and then people got a little too crazy about it and put too much pressure on them. So I think they went, we don't know why they did that. That's healthy.

Stop for telling us anything. And then all of a sudden last year, they dropped a YouTube video and said, hey, the sequel's coming out in two weeks. And it broke the internet. And then when the game finally released, it broke Steam, which is the app people used to buy and download games pretty universally. It broke it, which is not a normal thing. No.

And it came out and it lived up to the hype somehow. It was like truly an amazing game. It's about bugs, but it's also somehow about like duty and parenthood and feminism and self-sacrifice. It's just an amazing game. It's like a Pixar movie. Straight up, straight up, kind of similar vibes. So I would recommend you guys check it out if you're interested at all.

Or just like watch some cool YouTube videos about them. I think it's a really cool. Ordin story of the development and also of the game itself is really cool. Anyway, that's the backdrop. And with this amazing game comes an amazing soundtrack. So it's done by this guy named Christopher Larkin. And he did the music for the first game and the second game. And there are like a million fun facts I could tell you about the OST.

Like for example, you know, I mentioned it's a game about bugs. And a lot of these bugs spin like silk, magical silk into strings and stuff like that. And so Larkin uses a lot of string instruments that are central to a lot of the big moments. So he does cool stuff like that. But the thing that shook me the most about the OST is that he uses this weird motif throughout the soundtrack. and he uses it truly from start to finish. It's on like the launch menu before you open the game. And then it's also in the final boss theme.

And everywhere in between. It's everywhere. And it's four little notes. And it sounds like this. I'm going to pull it up. Oh, yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah, that guy.

Which, you know, might sound familiar because it sounds like the opening of the shining. I was just going to say, that's the opening of the shining. Yeah. I'm at the Overloat Concelle. Yeah. Exactly. Those first like four notes of that are actually a more longstanding historic motif. So it's in so many other things. It's in Star Wars, The Lion King, Alien, Jurassic Park. It's in Shrek and lots of TV shows. It's like the blatant core theme of the White Lotus and the intro song. Like I said, this goes back way further than just the shining, which is crazy because that move movie came out in what 79 80 something I'd believe 79 but 79 sounds right but basically it goes back like 800 years to Gregorian monks so they would sing this or chant it basically as part of the

Catholic Requiem which they'd sing in the church at big like funerals basically so it's a you know it's a part of this giant Latin hymn and those four notes I've been talking about that da da da da they have lyrics and the lyrics are D.C. Ray. And it means the day of wrath. Oh, boy. And then there's a requiem up there, right? You tack the requiem on at the end.

Yeah, pretty much. Is that unlocked something in my brain? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It makes total sense that it was a, because it's all in like a human voice range. It's like, oh, a person ought to be singing that. A hundred percent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very lyrical. And after, after these first two words, there's like 20 more stanzas of Latin,

basically like Rachel's saying that are all a part of this one particular song and yeah that one song the disarray song is one piece of the larger catholic requiem funeral production whatever it is and yeah the ds area song is all about like the scary stuff that goes down on the judgment day like fire and brimstone and when the world turns to ash will you go to heaven or hell like you're being judged just some light stuff. And so why are modern composers taking those first two words out and putting it everywhere in all media for the end of time? You might be wondering. And it isn't just like a fun little Easter egg to like point to religious themes. There's actually like a lot of very powerful science, like sound science and psychology that can explain how this motif actually alters your

emotional state and predisposes you to like bursting in tears and being sad. So to fully understand this, I did an interview with a professor of musicology. He is at the Berkeley College of Music. His name is Alex Ludwig. He's known as like the Diasira guru. That is what his website says. Nice. What a goth thing to be known for. And he's such a nice, cheery, normal dude. But yeah, very goff. And he's studied that's forever. He just published a big old book on it. Cool. It goes. deep and I was asking him like why does this sound so sad and he came back with three main

reasons so the first one is that the notes are all very close to each other on the musical staff like if you think of a piano they're all like literally right next to each other and music knowers will know that to be like a half step apart and when you hear notes that are half step apart they naturally sound very dissonant and crunchy was the specific word that Alex used so they don't like harmonize and sound nice they're just like very dissonant so that's one and then you also have the fact that the notes are descending they go like down on a slope so he compared that to music that sounds like triumphant and happy like a lot of john williams music like think of star wars indiana jones stuff like that yeah so it all goes yes exactly so it's very triumphant

very happy uh the opposite is sad and that's like deus erie and then the third thing is that it's in something called the dorian mode oh yes okay so you guys know i didn't really know about this but it is like a very, I think it seems complicated in a musical sense. It's somewhat similar to being in a minor key, but it's not that, I know the music people are gonna be like, actually, it's not that, but it's pretty similar. It is people, it's very similar. Thank you, thank you, step off.

We can call it a minor key and get away with it. Yeah, okay, sick. So that was another piece of it that like minor key music tends to sound sad, whereas major key music tends to sound happy. And I was, you know, hearing this and I was like, yes, of course. And then I thought about it more and I was like, okay, why does that sound sad though? Like why does minor key equal sad? And so then I looked into that.

This is my, I told you it's my hyperfixation. Take it. And basically, the answer is that here in the West, most of us grew up conditioned to think that major key music sounds happy. Like truly since birth. So think of happy birthday, the song they play at weddings, the star-spangled banner, all major key songs, all happy events. also for gamers, the Final Fantasy victory fanfare when you beat every battle, a nice, positive, major key, happy tune plays. And so, yeah, all of these celebratory happy moments punctuated by music in a major key. So we just truly instantly from birth get conditioned to think these things.

And then obviously there's sad music and minor keys as well. Like the other funeral song that's like, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, that show Pins funeral march. That's a minor key. That's like the framework of how we understand music. and it's very cultural. And of course, there are exceptions to every rule. For example, this is my favorite thing ever. The classic hit from my college days,

Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO. Sure. Yeah, of course. In the key of F minor, somehow. I was ripping shots and shaking ass to that song. I was not bummed out. There's acceptance every rule. I get bummed thinking about it, though.

In hindsight, my experiences with that song are all very minor key. Okay, well, maybe then. Maybe there is truth to it then. And then the flip side, too, think of someone like you by Adele, very sad yearning song in a major key. It's cultural. And I also found a study that was trying to find if this was consistent through the rest of the world. And it largely is because Western culture is so prevalent everywhere. But they found, I found a study that found some communities of people in Pakistan perceive the opposite. They hear minor music and they feel happy. They hear major key music and they think it sounds sad. which is so, I can't imagine wrapping my brain around that. That seems so intethical, but it is because it's so culturally ingrained. Yeah. Well, I have such a soft spot, too, for sad songs in a major key. What's one, oh, I guess it's not, the song, All Blangzine is in a major key.

Oh, sure. But it's kind of, but it's sad. It's a little maudlin. It's somber. Yeah, yeah. There's a bittersweetness to it, which I was like, oh, yeah, I get how that could be depressing. which could also just be cultural because New Year's Eve is depressing. It is.

Right, there's like context there. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, but that's all part of it, right? That's why we associate things with different musical keys and arrangements and all that. But yeah, so basically those three things, the dissonance, the slope and the Dorian mode, that's all why DeSeri sounds sad to us. And it was so powerful that eventually made the jump out of the church and into pop music in the 1800s. And Shrek.

And Shrek. But before Shrek. secular composers like Mozart. He wrote a requiem and he, okay, he was writing this big, famous Requiem and he died while writing it. There's a movie about that. I didn't know this. The movie Amadeus, it's a great.

I need to see the movie. Oh, yeah. It's really good. I recommend. I will be watching the movie. It's just so on the nose. Like, it's crazy. Yeah.

And then another composer or other composers like Berlio's and Verdi. They all wanted a piece of the Dias Ere. So it leapt out of the church and into everyday music. And then this is really cool too. Eventually when silent films had orchestras that would like improvise the music as an accompaniment because the movies didn't have any sound. So many of the musicians knew about Dias Ere because it had become so popular. And they knew it was like a cheat code for making something sound like a bummer. And so they would use it if something happened in the movie that was like sad, like a death or whatever, they would pop it in there.

Even if they were just improvising, which apparently a lot of these scores were just improvised, which is so, I think that's. neat. And eventually movies got sound. The tradition continued of composers using it to punctuate sad moments, making us feel even sadder. Then it was in TV and now, of course, it's in video games. It's in Silk Song, like I mentioned, it's the core motif of almost all the music in Silk Song. But it's also in the other hit game from last year, Claire, Obscure, Expedition 33. It's in Final Fantasy 8 and 9. It's in Hades, Dead by Daylight, The Witcher 3. It's in Elden Ring Night Rain. It's truly everywhere. And the final piece, I think, which is really interesting is that when I was talking to this professor of musicology, I was asking Alex, this professor,

how, like, how, like, it is, like, what's different about it in video games? Because he'd never really looked at it in games before. And he was saying that it's often used in boss fights, the same way it's used in car chases, in like stressful moments in movies. So, for instance, the way that it's used is something called an ostinato, which basically it's like repeating over and over and over, this Dias Ere. And it's supposed to be like a constant reminder of your mortality. So it's like, if you have this one little piece that's like representing death and judgment and you play it a million times, it's like, don't forget, you're mortal. Things like, or this character can die. You're in a boss fight. You could die right now. Or you could die in the boss fight. Exactly. So basically,

if you hear that over and over and over, it's stressing you out. Yeah, that. But if you're playing a video game, it's interactive. It's stressing you out. Yeah, totally. And then. And so it's basically, it's changing the way you play theoretically, because if you're stressed, do you, like, perform well or worse under pressure just in any given situation in life? See, this is why I like very gentle video games. I don't need that. You don't want the pressure. That's valid. That's valid.

But for people like me who are little cuckoo bananas, I eat that shit up. I think it's awesome. And it makes the wins feel that, I know, it makes the winds feel like so much. better and more fulfilling and exciting. But it's fascinating to hear that this Gregorian monk chant from 800 years ago is actually changing the way we played video games now. That is such a weird trajectory.

And so basically, yeah, if you know what to listen for, you'll hear this D.S. Erie like everywhere. It's like a Wilhelm scream for music nerds. And like I was watching Nathan Fielders the rehearsal. Oh yeah. And it's in the season two finale of that show. Sure, it should be. Exactly.

And then I was also just watching my favorite new sports anime called Pingpong the Animation. It is a sports anime about ping pong. It is truly one of the best animas I've ever seen in my life. You guys should watch it. But it's in that too. And so I'm just like anything I consume now, I'm like, I get activated like a sleeper agent when I hear it because it's everywhere. It's everywhere. And yeah, you guys should let me know if you hear you too and listeners.

Let me know what other ones you know about and hear because it's it's everywhere and it's very cool. And that's my story about Diasirae. I wish we got more stuff culturally from Gregorian monks. I think they did some nice. They're on to some things. I don't know if you do. I don't. Okay, that's fair.

I know what was going on in their culture. I don't know how much of that we need. I think I'm all set. Yeah, fair enough, fair now. What about those funny haircuts? I think those haircuts have already come back. Yeah, maybe. I've been to Bushwick recently.

All right, we're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back with some more facts. Start your Alienware Journey with the streamlined Alienware 15. They designed this machine to refine the essentials, creating a more focused gaming laptop for players who demand quality without the clutter. They designed a brilliant 15.3-inch 16.5 Hz display seamlessly into a portable 15-inch body. You get a larger, immersive window into your game that still travels easily wherever your mission takes you.

Inside, an Intel Core 7 processor drives high performance during every session. It delivers the speed and responsiveness you need to keep your game smooth and seamless. They wrapped all of this in our signature, durable alienware design to handle any journey and look good doing it. This is the Alienware experience distilled into one iconic machine. Visit Alienware.ca. Alienware 15 today. Start your Alienware journey with the streamlined Alienware 15.

They designed this machine to refine the essentials, creating a more focused gaming laptop for players who demand quality without the clutter. They designed a brilliant 15.3 inch 16.5 Hertz display seamlessly into a portable 15-inch body. You get a larger immersive window into your game that still travels easily wherever your mission takes you. your mission takes you. Inside, an Intel Core 7 processor drives high performance during every session. It delivers the speed and responsiveness you need to keep your game smooth and seamless. They wrapped all of this in our signature, durable alienware design to handle any journey and look good doing it. This is the alienware experience distilled into one iconic machine. Visit alienware.ca.ca. slash alienware 15

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and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. Okay, we're back, and I'm going to talk about a little guy who's also an alpha male biological term from scientists, not me referring to an individual as an alpha male in any kind of an ironic way. So the first thing you should know is that the key a parrot, which is the subject of the story, is a very smart and also very

silly species. They're native to the South Island of Altaireo, New Zealand. And the name for a group of them is actually a circus of Kia. Cute. Oh, no. Don't tell the car company about that. That it's going to get annoying, fast. They're sometimes called the Clowns of the Mountains, often described as cheeky, very curious about humans. They really like puzzles. Apparently, in settings where food is really easy for them to get, like around parks and whatever, they get bored because they don't have to solve puzzles to survive. So they'll start to do things like try to take windshield wipers apart or whatever.

They're just little menaces. Just cheap little guys. Yeah, little menaces. I will say, I was telling my husband about this and he was like, how are they not the national bird in New Zealand? Why do kiwis get that? And I was like, there is this thing where they do like to take bites out of living sheep. So I should mention that.

Which is a big part of New Zealand. Yeah, that's an important part to the New Zealand. economy. It's not all Kia, but apparently some of them got a taste for sheep and they'll now just very chupacabra-like. And yeah, I'm with them. Yeah. For a while, there were these sheep that have these like mysterious little gouge marks and we're turning up dead and farmers were like, it's the Kia and people are like, I think that's fake. It's probably just a chupacabra. But then they actually found out that in fact, the Kia were doing this and the bites themselves wouldn't kill the sheep, but sometimes the bites would get infected.

But still, just a very, the gumption to just be like, this is delicious. I'm going to take just a chunk of the sheep's butt and fly on. They had a taste for lamb heroes or something. Yeah, but that's not all them. It was just like a pocket of them. But they're little tricksters on a good day and on a bad day, maybe a horrifying cryptid. But, you know, resuming in on this one Kia, who was already famously the subject of some scientific research. His name is Bruce. He's missing his entire upper beak, probably due to an animal

trap. If you search Bruce the Kia, you will find pictures of him from this previous study. He was found in 2013 and rehabbed, and now he lives in a wildlife rescue with the rest of a circus. And a few years ago, a study came out about how innovative Bruce's use of tools is to compensate for his missing beak. So we know that he are really clever, but this was the first demonstrated tool use, and he would basically pick up

a pebble in his lower beak and use it to scrape his feathers so he could preen himself. He also does stuff like... Yeah, yeah. He would also do very innovative things. Like, even though the staff would give him soft foods, he would take the harder food and kind of just smash it against surfaces to

break it up. He picks stuff up by since he doesn't have both half of the beak, he'll use his tongue pressed against the lower beak to grasp stuff, which looks pretty freaky, but is very effective. But he doesn't just use his intelligence to come up with new ways to eat and to clean himself. He also learned how to fight real good, which is the subject of this new study I just read. And it says that, you know, basically despite being the only disabled bird in his circus, he has single-handedly dominated the competition on every metric they measured. He won all the fights they saw him engage in pretty much. He had priority when it came

to getting food. Other birds would take a long time to go up to the feeders. They would wait for him to be done. Nobody wanted to mess with Bruce. My man. Yeah. He was the only male bird to have other birds grooming him in non-mating context. Oh my God. Including other males picking like detritus out of his exposed lower beak. I love Bruce. Yeah, yeah. Also, his stress hormones were lower than the other male birds. He was stop, you know, unbothered, moisturized happy in his. lane, focus flourishing. How does he do it? Basically, he's taught himself to use his orphaned lower beak, the exposed lower beak, as a shiv, very different from how Kia usually fight. Usually when they're fighting for kind of like dominance or trying to get food from one another,

so their top beak, the one that he's missing, it curves down as this very like hooked large beak and they'll sort of like bite downward pretty much always on an opponent's neck and that's just the way they're supposed to fight each other they'll also kick each other sometimes so bruce instead deploys this is straight from the study this is a quote bruce deployed his exposed lower beak in jousting thrusts both at close range with an extension of his neck and from afar with a run or jump that left him overbalanced forward with the force of motion so he literally heard curls himself at his opponents. So they just gave him a knife, basically.

Yeah, yeah. No, he's got a knife on his face. That's so awesome. Yeah. He also, he doesn't just go for the neck because he's got this innovative stabbing motion. He distributes his attacks significantly more across the back head, wings, and legs than his other fellow Kia. He's surgical. They never saw him coming.

They were not prepared for Bruce. and his innovative beak jousting. Bruce does kick, like other Kia do. He does that along with his beak thrust, but his stabbing is much more effective. I understand. He probably just kicks to fit in. He doesn't want to stick out too much.

And yeah. He seems like he's concerned about fitting in. Yeah, for real. He seems shy. Yeah. And when researchers first saw this, they knew, and I think may have actually gotten feedback from other people in the field saying,

that's probably just a thing he did by accident. Come on. Bruce isn't jousting with his stabby beak. So they, like, sat down and took stock of all of the incidents they could record. And his jousting would immediately displace opponents 73% of the time. Yeah, like, they would just back off. I'm like, whoa, I am not in the mood for this. Yeah.

Bite my neck, bro. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Bruce has, in the words of the researchers, weaponized his disability through behavioral innovation, which is a phrase I really like. The only similar work that the study authors were aware of looked at primates where a primate that was already an alpha became disabled due to an accident or age. And then they were able to maintain that rank. But in both cases, they had the help of an able-bodied ally. So they're sort of presenting Bruce as the first time they have seen an animal who has a very obvious disability and has achieved the like top rank in their group. I really like this story because when the news came out about Bruce's tool use, it got the same response. A lot of achievement from disabled humans get, which is like, wow, how inspiring, how uplifting. Like Bruce has figured out how to groom himself. he's a model for us all to follow. But speaking of someone with a debilitating chronic illness,

like I don't want people to see me as an inspiration. I want them to see me as a threat. And enter Crip icon Bruce the Kia. So that's Bruce's story. And I can't wait to see what they find him doing next. What other ways will this little joker of a bird just keep beak maxing, magging, and otherwise crushing? I love that they checked his stress hormones too.

Me too. Low cortisol beak maxing. If it had been like, oh, he's just furious and angry all the time, I'd be like, okay, but he's just like, no, this is great. I feel good, man. Bruce is like, I don't know what's wrong with all of you. You should really learn how to stab. All the other dudes trying to knock their top beak off, like, God, got to get in here.

Taking a hammer to the face. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Boat smashing. But yeah, no, that's the whole deal with Bruce. And I've also been watching a lot of TV that takes place in New Zealand that also made me love this because I read all of the study quotes in my head in a Kiwi accent. And I think thinking about little trickster birds getting up to no good is about, I would say, 10 to 15 times better imagined in a QI accent. So I really recommend that for listeners. You won't get it from me.

That's something I will only attempt in the privacy of my own home. but watch some deadlock. Well, I'll give you, I'll give you mine. No, I won't. Please, I won't. I shouldn't have said anything. No, I won't do that. All right, we're going to take one more break,

and then we'll be back with one more fact. Okay, we're back. And Grant, tell me about what's going so fast. Well, I have been watching videos and reading reviews and generally hyper-fixating on the brand-new record holder for the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster. I am what people in the know call a thusi, a coaster enthusiast.

I like them. I think about them a lot. Speaking of gentle video games, what got me through the pandemic was playing Planet Coaster. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. It's, and this particular roller coaster is called Falcon's Flight. It just opened New Year's Eve of 2025.

It is at Six Flags Cadilla City outside Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Now, I will probably never write it for that reason. But I have been watching with great enthusiasm. They're basically just point of view videos of the ride. There are so many new things that have been done for the first time on this roller coaster, as someone who pays a lot of attention to developments along those lines, it's been really fun to watch. It was, it developed by a coaster manufacturer called Intamin.

Now for, oh man, I feel myself, I'm, I'm ramping up. So, go there, go there. For any thusies out there, you're going to be very familiar with Intamin. They've developed the previous record holders for the world's tallest, fastest rides. They're very creative. They're crazy people. They are responsible for rides that people might know. Hagrid's motorbike ride at Universal.

King de Kha was the previous tallest, fastest roller coaster in the world. I wrote it once. Didn't like it. I wrote it. I wrote it a bunch. I bet. I like coasters. Are you a thusi?

I didn't know about. about that term, so no, I guess not. Fair. That's fair. But I do love riding coasters. My issue with King de Kha is that the straight up acceleration and plummeting back down are my least favorite part of being on a roller coaster. And that is really all

that it does. Well, it did. RIP King de Kada. Yeah, RIP Kinda Kna. Now that actually sets me up pretty well for one of the things that I think is very cool about this roller coaster Falcons flight, which King the Kaa used a kind of like a slingshot to throw

the train, which is one of the reasons it's closed now. And the other rides like it have really changed format because that's just a lot of force of a structure. So instead, Falcons Flight is using the other very common kind of launch mechanism, which is a linear induction motor, which you can picture on some roller coasters, the ones that launch you from a standstill to get going very quickly. There'll be little fins sticking up in the middle of the track. Those are magnets that are going to fire progressively to start pulling that train forward.

But because there's, you can only get that going so fast, it's not going to have that really punchy launch that that King Dakah had. It's going to be kind of a gentle invitation to dance with the beast. See, that's what I like. It's, it's, you got to take a girl the dinner first. I have been so impressed looking at this. which should be a very intimidating ride, and it is, but it also looks gentle and lovely

in the way that the world's tallest, fastest roller coaster can be. There are a few different sections of it. You get going and it's basically, it starts as kind of a normal roller coaster, but then what it does is launches up to the top of a 650 foot, it's 650 feet tall.

It goes to, I should say, it's 650 feet at its highest point. The actual longest drop is something like 500. But it gets that tall because it launches you at 100 miles an hour, up a mountain, and then you just wander a little bit, kind of slowly at the top of a mountain until then it dangles you at a straight down drop over the side of the mountain before it drops you down. Then, then, then, well,

you're on the way down, there's another, what this coaster does that others don't, even on your way down that crazy tall drop, there's another line of launching mechanisms to start pulling you even faster. What? Because

then you get to the iconic part of the roller coaster, which is the 550 foot camelback, which picture just, if you close your eyes and picture a roller coaster hill, just like a very, like, a very, like a camel's back.

Those have gotten, in my opinion, and too rare. Let's not fight with perfection. Let's just let ourselves enjoy that hill. Man, if I... Now, I probably, like I said, will never go ride this ride.

But I really would like to see that. I really like to see that happening at some point. You go over that. You've still got a lot of ride left because this is also the longest roller coaster in the world. still got a whole bunch of time that you're still riding this train when it's really low to the ground and fast until you land back at the falcons nest, which I'm calling the station. And when you get there, because of the heat of the desert and the speed that you're going, the wheels on the

train have to be cooled for about four minutes because they've built up so much heat energy. So you've got to just rock and roll for a minute and decompress while you're there. That's wild. Wow. That reminds me of how in Chicago, when the train tracks get too cold in the winter to run trains, they literally set them on fire. Yeah, right? That's the best video in the world. What a great.

It looks so sick. I've been really, this coaster got announced in, I believe it was 2019 and a little bit delayed with the pandemic. And I was sure it was never going to happen. I was certain it wouldn't get built. I think it's possible it still might be a monument to hubris and the desert. I have concerns about I love Ventiman. I love the rides they make. They have reliability issues.

Now if building a big heavy thing on sand is necessarily a great idea. If someone wants to ride this ride, I'd say get it early and ignore some Saudi Arabia stuff when you get through. Right. Yeah. What other? Sorry, you go. No, no. I was going to say what other rides have they made that we,

would maybe know. Intamin, you would know there, you, no one really, one of these things, but a person in the know would know there's a very famous roller coaster called Millennium Force that they made, which was the first roller coaster to be 300 feet tall. They made King de Kahn, top thrill dragster, which are sister rides. They just, this is the one I will be riding. They just came out with a Veloccoaster at the Universal Park in Florida, which looks like a pleasure, and I cannot wait to go and ride on it. My actual favorite manufacturer, oh no,

this is the kind of thing. I have a favorite manufacturer, which is actually B&M, which is a Swiss manufacturer, a Bollinger and Mabillard or something like that. They have, their rides are really good at generating airtime, which is,

it's a sensation that you get when you're in, There's two kinds. There's floater airtime, which is when you're between zero and minus 0-9 G's, less than 1-G, it just gently lifts you out versus ejector airtime, which is, which really throws you over a hill when you're going to fly off, which is too much for my delicate sensibilities. B&M does great stuff like that. Rides you might know of theirs.

Oh, boy. They are really well known for what's called a hypercoaster, which is a roller coaster that's over 200 feet, 200 feet tall, which all these words are marketing. These are all, these aren't like official designations. Of course, of course. Someone said, hey, you know, it would look cool on a poster. Anyway, they're big, they're smooth. They're people leaders. I think Falcon's flight is going to have capacity problem.

It's only two across trains and they don't have enough block sections. But no one asked me. They should. They should ask me. You should be a consultant. I give them my feedback. The only big... You go first.

I was the only big roller coaster that I remember riding. And I used to ride them a lot. And then I got a concussion when I was in college. And now I get so motion sick so easily. And so I'm like, I'll hold you guys bags. You guys can go on a roller coaster. But I used to ride the raging bull in six flags. Great roller coaster.

Yeah. That one I remember liking. If you are going to get motion sickness, that's going to be a tough one. to do. Yeah, that's no good. But yeah, that's like the big one that I remember. When people go to amusement parks, they call me, because, obviously, because they're, because of this. And I went with my friend and her husband and her nephew. And she and her husband, both after two tapped out. And I'm like, we can't do it anymore. So I just spent the whole day with their nephew riding rides and it ruled. I love that. My favorite coaster, when I had a favorite coaster, when I had a

favorite coaster was Medusa at Sixth Flags Great Adventure. I just thought it was such a, it was such a smooth, nice ride. And then they rebranded it as like the like Joker's Revenge or something. Really? It like sprays water in your face. And I think that one's also closed down now. But I thought it was a shame. It's a floorless roller coaster by B&M, which is very well known for their very smooth, for their smooth rides. It is. I mean, Six Flags sometimes doesn't take the best care of the roller coasters so they can get a little... In South Jersey, the land of my birth, you're telling me they don't take care of...

Did you ride nitro while you were there? Yeah, of course. Oh, Nitro's... I remember like you. Nitro's... Nitro's poetry. Nitro is like riding a dolphin. It's incredible. It's a very...

This is going to sound strange. It's a very regular roller coaster. It doesn't do... It doesn't break any records. It doesn't do anything necessarily unique. It just does everything really well. just really, really good pacing over everything. Oh, my goodness. Take me back.

Take me to the east. What's your favorite, innovative roller coaster feature that you've gotten to experience for yourself? That's a good question. Gee, it is unfortunately those launches on King de Kha and what used to be on. It's so intense. You go from zero to 115 miles an hour in a very quickly. They don't make those anymore. And the ones that exist have changed or closed down because it was a bad idea.

Because it didn't work. But to have gotten to do it. I already talked about those. What's a better... Oh, you know what? I've got one. There's a roller coaster at Knott's Berry Farm here in Southern California called Hangtime, which has, well, hang time where it's a lot of inversions.

And when you go up over the loop, you start going real slow. Oh, sure. Oh, you're almost not going to make it. And then you go back down the other side, hanging upside down a bit. That's cool. Oh, it's intense. Yeah. It's so interesting to think about, obviously a lot of precise math and physics goes into this.

But like, especially with that, like, having to time it exactly correctly to where it's like just slow enough to make it across. But scary that you're going so slow upside down. There's a, it's a fluke of history that roller coasters happened when they did. There's a very clear break between like, pre-executive. CAD software, pre-computerated design and post-CAD, where you can be very specific about the forces that you're programming in versus, I'll give you an example. At the park I grew up going to, which was Cedar Point in northern Ohio, there's a roller. What was the first roller coaster to be 200 feet tall is called Magnum.

and it is just before CAD software became useful. So they just did it by hand on site. They just got there and broke out a protractor. And so there are awkward moments sometimes. They're like, hey, we're just bumping and going straight for a little while because what are you going to do? We're building it on the fly. We don't know. That's charming, though, I find.

It is love. There's a loveliness to it. That is, that is, it's, now it is rough. that does make them pretty rough but that's okay I'm brave it's like the cyclone at a Coney Island oh yeah I've been thinking about the cyclone clackety clackety guy

That one scares That one scares me because there's one part where there's a really low Like Yeah Oliver says the same thing Oh my God yeah especially for him I had six foot two I'm like

I shouldn't be here I can't imagine Oliver Yeah he's six five Yeah okay It's no they've got our back They've got a ride. What can possibly go wrong? All right. Yeah, I mean, I can confirm that my husband is six foot five,

rode the cyclone at least once and still has a head. His head. So. I've written a cyclone. It's rough. Yeah, it's what I mean think of it. Yeah. You feel jostled after that one.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I love how much has changed from the wooden coasters into now everything is so high-tech. There are companies that are still dedicated to building wooden roller coasters. and there's, I'm going to get it raw. I think it's GCI, Great Coasters International, mostly their thing. There's another one, oh, no, there's another manufacturer called Rocky Mountain Construction. And they're my favorite.

No, B&M's my favorite. Ah, they're also good. Anyway, what they do is convert old wooden roller coasters into modern steel roller coasters. They invented a new kind of track that they can overlay on them and make them do all sorts of wild maneuvers. It's great. You know what? Rocky Mountain Construction is my favorite manufacturer. I'm sorry to Vietnam.

It really is. That's true. You heard it here. Yeah. Grant, this has been so great. I would love to just have you keep talking about coasters forever. If you insist. All right.

But really, thank you so much for coming on. This has been really fun. Thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for politely listening while I did that. No, I love this. Not at all. I love this. This is what we do the show for.

learning new stuff. And also like, honestly, this whole time I've been thinking, like, I did really love coasters. I do still love coasters. I just don't get an opportunity to ride them much anymore. So this summer, gonna do it.

Go back to South Jersey. Go there. It's there for you. It's there waiting. Yeah, it is. It's been there the whole time. Grant, thanks so much. Remind our listeners where they can find the stuff that you do.

They should subscribe to drop. out if they haven't. The new season of Game Changer is going to be coming out here pretty soon. It is as bananas as ever. My Instagram is at Pictures of Grant where you can find some links to subscriptions that I have. If anyone feels like five bucks burned a hole in their pocket, they can listen to some podcasts and read some things that I've written on my Patreon. There's a, I won't plug my live shows. Go to my Instagram. Depending on when this comes out, there'll be live show information there. And thank you guys. This was fun. The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Fultman, along with Jess Bodie, who also serves as our audio engineer

and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore Thing. Thanks for wrestling weirdos.