The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Ant Yogurt, Bunny Horns, Deadly Feather Fashion

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Liz Clayton Fuller joins the show to talk about the deadly feather trade. Plus, Jess hops in to explain the strange virus causing bunnies to sprout horns, and Rachel gets into the way some folks are using ants to make yogurt. (It's actually kinda good...) Check out all of Liz's art: https://lizclaytonfuller.com/ 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 Thanks to our Sponsors:  Visit ⁠⁠https://GrowTherapy.com/WEIRDEST⁠⁠ today to get started.  Make the switch at ⁠https://MINTMOBILE.com/weirdest Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and tech 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 end. editors of popular science. I'm Rachel Feldman. I'm Jess Bodie. And I'm Liz Clayton Fuller. Liz, welcome back to the show. It's always so great to have you. Thank you. Just keep having me on. I will keep coming back. Our weird bird correspondent. Yes. Me. So on the weirdest thing I'm in this

week, we start by offering up a little tease about a factor story we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first. 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. Jess, what's your tease? Rabbits are growing horns, and that's actually not really that scary if you know what's up, and also I'm going to tie it back to Eldon Ring. Shocking. I know. I know. I was shocked. How did I know that was coming? Yeah, I know. Shocking. Liz, what's your tease? My tease is how two women,

put an end to the deadly feather trade and why those ladies are the reason that you can't keep feathers that you find when you're hiking. Well, you can't? Nope. Yeah, I did not know that. We'll talk about it. It's okay if you didn't know. But that is true. Well, cool.

My cheese is, what is this? Yogurt for ants? No, don't be silly. It's yogurt from ants. Oh, brother. Ew. Yeah, I'll start because what the heck. Agreed.

So the study came out in September in the journal I science that showed how this traditional recipe for yogurt used a kind of unusual, funky secret ingredient to kickstart the fermentation process. Ants. So first, a quick refresher on what yogurt is. So basically, yogurt happens when microorganisms break down the lactose in some kind of milk. They produce lactic acid while they're doing that. And that does a couple of things.

It thickens up the dairy. And then it also makes that signature tangy flavor that any, you know, traditional unflavored yogurt will have. And the cool thing about yogurt is that it was probably discovered accidentally and repeatedly just wherever people domesticated animals for their milk. It happened probably when you just happened to get the right bacteria in there while dairy was sitting around, which dairy was want to do before you had refrigerators and stuff. And one common theory is that people would carry around milk in bags made from goat stomachs or other animal skins and that that had some nice, you know, microflora on it that got the job done.

Another idea I've read is that some of the helpful microorganisms for creating yogurt tend to live on plants. And so maybe animals udders would get this bacteria on them from like brushing up against grass and stuff like that. and that then that would get into the milk. And up until the 1900s, yogurt was a staple in many diets, but it was pretty regionally specific. Central Asia and the Caucasus, Western Asia, Southeastern Europe, and the Balkans, Central Europe, and the Indian subcontinent all had loads of yogurt, loved yogurt. And then around the turn of the 20th century, this Bulgarian medical student in Geneva, he actually looked at the microflora in Bulgarian yogurt. And he basically described this like rod-like bacteria that made lactic acid. And people were generally getting interested in yogurt at this time.

There were some researchers in Paris who were looking at this guy's research on the Bulgarian yogurt and were like, Bulgarian peasants live a long time. Could it be this weird stuff they eat that's yogurt? And that kind of, yeah, people started getting into the idea that baby eating yogurt would make them live longer. In 1919, we started to have our first industrialized production of yogurt. This guy in Barcelona, he named the business Danone after his son Daniel. It was like a pet name for Daniel, which of course became Danes. Oh, yeah. Fun fact. What?

Wow. De Non. And Pod favorite Kellogg, who had a lot of weird feelings about constipation and fiber, he loved a yogurt enema. So he also really helped popularize yogurt in the U.S. I think he also is into the idea of eating it for your health, but the yogurt enema's loom large in my mind. So basically, once people... people outside of these regions where it was traditional, got into yogurt, commercial production followed not long after. And that sort of led to us honing in on a couple of bacterial species

and really relying on those to make all of our yogurt for like consistency and safety. Because as anybody who's had like a wild ale or like wild sourdough or something knows, if you're relying on just ambient microflora, you don't actually really know what you're. going to get in any given time. So it makes sense that we narrowed the scope and ambitions of our yogurt, but the downside is that there were tons of traditional regional methods that fell by the wayside. And one of those was a traditional practice from the Balkans and Turkey involving ants. So the authors of this new study decided to take a closer look at the ant yogurt recipe. And apparently this all started because some food scientists,

slash chefs at like two Michelin Star restaurant in Copenhagen. They'd been working with ants as like a funky, adventurous gastronomy ingredient. And someone, there was like some milk that had an ant in it and they noticed it started to curdle in the fridge and they were like, huh, interesting. And so they got in touch with some researchers also in Copenhagen and they were like, oh, for sure, for sure. We are also interested in why this yogurt, why this dairy is turning into yogurt things to ant. And I will say just side note for anyone who hasn't been to Copenhagen, they do have an insanely good adventurous food scene because Noma, which is like the archetypal, like fancy futuristic restaurant is there. It's closing soon, I think. But anyway, basically all these people

like move to Copenhagen specifically to become chefs at a Michelin Star restaurant. And then a bunch of them have opened their own places over time. So including ones that aren't like fancy. Like I had the best burger of my life at a like Noma offshoot and that's dope. So anyway, go eat food in Copenhagen indoors. Is there that whole episode of The Bear where the guy goes to like learn how to do pastry in Copenhagen? Is that Copenhagen? Is that Copenhagen? That sounds familiar. Is it Amsterdam? He goes somewhere. It might be Amsterdam.

I don't know. It's over there somewhere. But go to Copenhagen. They're making yogurt out of ants and having a good time. Yeah. And this was at the restaurant Alchemist, by the way, if you're curious, which I think is very fancy. So if you want to go there, you probably have to plan your trip around it. So these researchers, they wanted to test the hypothesis that you can use the ant holobiot to to ferment yogurt. A holobiont is a word I'd never heard before,

but it refers to the being and its microbial communities. So like you and your microbiome are a holobiont. Meet all my friends. Yeah, exactly. And they also, they started working with one of the study co-authors, who's a doctoral student at the University of Munich, who had been gathering oral history, from people in Turkey and Bulgaria about different methods of creating yogurt.

So basically, this cookie restaurant ended up getting a research dream team to investigate yogurt from ants. And yeah, she was, her paper had referred to this traditional Balkan ant yogurt recipe. And so the researchers got together and they actually went to this co-author's family village in Bulgaria. And apparently, like, people weren't actively making ant yogurt there, but they, like, had a recent enough oral history of it to be like, sure, we can we can help you figure out how the heck they did that. So they're in this Bulgarian village. They take four ants. They were redwood ants. Put them in a jar of warm milk, cover it with a piece of cheesecloth. Then this part I really like, They, it's really using the whole animal.

They buried it in an ant mound overnight because the heat of the colony's activity is perfect for incubating fermentation. Wow. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. And then the next day, they took the sample out and it already showed signs that it was fermenting. The milk was coagulating. It was becoming more acidic.

It had a slightly sour taste. So they also took it back to the lab and did some additional ant in dairy. experiments to figure out what was happening. And first of all, they found that Redwood ants naturally carry lactic acid bacteria on them. So perfect. They're introducing lactic acid. They also carry acidic acid bacteria, like the kind of bacteria that you might use to make vinegar, including a strain that's really similar to what's used in commercial sourdough starters. So they had everything you needed to get fermentation going, including apparently the formic acid that ants make as a defense mechanism actually lowers the milk's pH, which

probably helps create an ideal environment for these bacteria to thrive. Wait, that's so cool. They're little yogurt machines. Yeah, exactly. They bring all the bacteria you need, and they also set the scene. Yeah. Oh my goodness. The hives, the perfect temp, you know. Yeah, what the Yeah, they're all they're ready to go. How did this happen? Well, and I am really curious about how one figured this out, right? Because like the sort of very basic, yeah, some bacteria from a plant or an animal skin got into the milk. That's like not hard to imagine.

And I guess ants falling into milk and interesting stuff happening isn't hard to imagine either, but somebody had to be paying attention. So yeah, the researchers then, like I said, they had already been partnering with the chefs and food scientists and Alchemist. And they ended up actually using these ant cultures to create stuff for the menu. They had an ant witch, which was an ice cream sandwich. It had sheep yogurt made from live ants in the starter culture. And the ant... This is wild.

Yeah. And the sandwich was shaped like an ant. Oh, that's cute. That's cute. Come on. It had to be. They said it was good. Everybody who talked about the flavor of the yogurt, including, I'll link to this on

Popsada,com, such weird, but a contributor for the Guardian, like, read this study and was like, I must try it for myself. And she says the yogurt was good. And everything the researcher said in the paper said that it was good. Apparently the diners enjoyed the various ant yogurt things. They were given an alchemist. But yeah, it's like it tastes like yogurt. Yeah, it would be so curious, like how it differs.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think it depends on, as is always the case with yogurt, it depends on the milk you're using and how long you ferment it and stuff. And they talked about some like specific flavor nodes. Apparently with the sheep ice cream, it had a distinct acidity that contrasted really well with the fat of the milk. They also made a goat milk marscapone. And that texture, they said, was like the right sort of soft cheese texture. But they said the flavor was very aromatic. It was more like a mature pecorino cheese. Oh, I want that. And then one of their favorites was a milkwash cocktail that they made. So for listeners who don't know and don't live in cities where people sell you $25 cocktails. Milkwash cocktails actually date back to like the 1700s, but they are recently, like newly trendy. And basically you, there's milk in the, there's some kind of dairy in the cocktail, but they curdle it, usually by adding acid, like, lemon juice or something, and then you filter it, so you're getting rid of the dairy solids.

So you have this like clarified dairy. So it adds like the richness in the body of a milk, but without actually drinking straight milk in your cocktail. Oh, that's so interesting. I don't think I've had one of those. Yeah, I've had, I think I've had one. And it was good. I'm kind of curious. I want to try it. Yeah. I feel like the reason I haven't had the more is because it does tend to be on the more exorbitant end of cocktail offerings. I've definitely had cocktails with like the egg whites and stuff in it. That's definitely more common. But like this is, this is, I'm intrigued.

I'm kind of picture what it looks like and I cannot. It's really, if you watch the process of someone making one, it's definitely like fascinating and weird. But once you receive it, it's been strained. So it doesn't look any different from a regular cocktail. I will be going on a YouTube adventure later. In this case, they use. used dehydrated ants to do the curdling, so to make the milk separate so they could strain it out.

And they said it was great. They said it had really fruity notes that was from the other ingredients. But they did note that. And they said the residual milkway, you know, made it nice and silky the way it's supposed to. But they said that the ants as opposed to the usual citrus, it came out with a more mild acidity. and that they think that the flavor amplified the fruity notes of the cocktail. So, like, very successful. And one of the studies is co-authors, I think one of the ones who's actually, like, works at Alchemist,

was quoted as saying, this is all about the holobion thing, because if you take one microorganism, the way commercial yogurt might have one or two specific bacterial strains, It's going to make a very specific compound, aromatically, taste-wise. But if you're using like a whole bouquet of microorganisms that, say, a sourdough starter has or that ants carry with them, then things are, you're getting a lot more like synergy and variety, so it's less controllable, but you're going to end up with a more interesting flavor profile at the end. You shouldn't go digging around for ants to do.

this yourself. The researchers warned that ants can carry parasites, and some of them do carry parasites that can harm humans. They did extra steps in the lab to make sure they were filtering out any potentially dangerous microorganisms. So don't do that unless you have a really knowledgeable Bulgarian uncle or something. And even then, that's probably at your own risk, but I would trust a knowledgeable Bulgarian uncle who loved Aunt Yogurt to keep me safe. Honestly, yeah. I wouldn't trust any of my personal uncles, but yeah. I really wanted to find some other like very weird historical traditional yogurt making

methods, and it seems like this might be the weirdest. But the paper does mention some of the other ones we know of, like I said, that that co-author had done oral histories about yogurt because yeah that sort of bouquet of bacteria that colonize the milk and establish the fermentation ecosystem can come from really anywhere so a lot of cultures even historically were produced by what we call backslopping which sounds so gross but it's just it's just when you take a little bit of already cultured yogurt and use it to culture the next yogurt so I could have picked something. I know.

I know. Literally anything else. Yeah. There's always a question of like, how do you start it and then start passing it around? Or what do you do if you don't have a culture ready to go? And apparently in some Turkish mountain villages, they used pine cones, which similar to the ants just have a bunch of interesting microbial species on them that get fermentation going. And then in Turkey and other countries, there have been some other. historical references of plant materials like chemamil flowers, linden flowers, and nettle roots.

And yeah, basically it seems like people have thrown a lot of different plants into milk to get it to start fermenting. And it's just a question of what microbes are on there. But these people used ants, which is obviously weirder and cooler. Yeah. I will say in my search for weird historical yogurt recipes, the one other thing I came across was from Atlas Obscura, of course. This was about the bowtie people of modern-day Kazakhstan. So they tamed wild horses in Central Asia thousands of years ago.

And that meant they had access to horse milk, which, unlike many milks, you don't actually just want to drink straight up. It's really high in lactose. I've talked on weirdest thing before about how humans started drinking animal milk before any of us developed tolerance to lactose, which is wild. We really just brute forced it. But apparently mare milk is so high in lactose that it has an almost medicinally laxative effect. So nobody was drinking that straight unless they were specifically looking to have that kind of bad time.

but you could make it good to drink by fermenting it. And that beverage is called Kumis. And apparently, according to modern tasters, it's like champagne mixed with sour cream. That sounds actually good. Yeah, yeah. Two of my favorite things. Yeah, yeah.

I'm serious. No, you're not wrong. It's not two things I would think of to put together. Yeah, right. I'm willing to try. I'm thought of a combo, but I would try it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Because it is fizzy and, alcoholic because it's like roll fermented. It makes me think of like kefir. Yeah, you know, very similar. Yeah. But starting with that really sugary horse milk that you don't want to drink straight. And yeah, basically, since it has so much lactose in it, so much sugar, you really just churn it and then let it acidify and start bubbling.

But apparently the weird part about it that I found really fun is that. that they would take the liquid and they would transport it in leather bags. And apparently they would often hang them up where passerby could punch them. And that was to keep it agitated while it was fermenting. Slap in the bag? Yeah, just slap in the bag. And yeah, that's all I found about that. But I just had to mention it because I think it's good.

And those are all my yogurt facts for today. I love that. There were so many. So many didn't know. Like, like, like from ant, from tiny ant to large horse. Yeah. True. Now I got to, I, can't you make yogurt out of?

Can you, is, is it possible to like find that the, the, the, the, the, what is it? The, what is it? The champagne sour cream. Oh, yeah. Kumis, I think you, there are places that make it now. I'm going to be in L.A. in like two weeks. I feel like LA has to have it somewhere, right?

Let's see. According to Atlas Obscura, today companies produce it, but it's rarely fermented long enough to have more than 2% alcohol. It's usually made with fortified cows milk. You need to actually go to Central Asia. You have to go to Central Asia and find some people raising courses, which you can do.

You got to go on some bags. Yeah, got to go slap the bag. Well, all right. I'll go. Twist my arm. All right. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with some more facts. Did you know that there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? I'm talking about mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis gummies and a lot more. And you can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code weirdest. I'm not a smoker myself, but I do love the occasional weed gummy to, you know,

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Hilton for the stay. Okay, we're back. And Jess, tell me about the horned hairs. Gladly, gladly. Okay, so a while back, there was a news story that y'all might have seen, like, over the summer, late summer. And it was about the rabbits with what people were calling tentacle horns. They were over in Colorado. And they were real horns.

They weren't squishy. They were horns. I don't know why people said tentacle horns. They were horns. They were horns. And at first glance, it seems pretty not chill, you know. They're bunnies with weird horns all over their heads. And they're real ass horns.

They're made of keratin, which is like the stuff that makes up our hair and nails. And the horns are on their heads, but sometimes also like on their faces. So what's up? What's going on with that? What's that doc? So the horn-faced bunnies have a virus called. Shope's papillomavirus. So this is also known as

Cotton Tail Rabbit Papaloma virus, also known as CRPV, which is what I will be calling it because it is easiest. So CRPV is mostly benign, though in a small amount of cases it can turn cancerous, but most of the time it just resolves and all the growths just fall off. The only other way it gets dicey

is if the horns interfere with their ability to eat or to see, which is very sad, and I don't like to think about that. But if you're an Eldon Ring enjoyer, this already sparks some Eldon Ring connections already, and I won't get ahead of myself. But if you play Eldon Ring, you're probably already thinking of Moog, Lord of Blood,

a demigod omen. So the omen are a sort of race or classification in Eldon Ring, and they're known for many things, including there are many tangled and unruly horns. And Moog has one growing right into his eye, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So I'll get back to that later. So let's go back to CRPV for a moment.

So this virus was discovered back in 1933 by a virologist named Richard E. Shopes. And this dude was like a capital V virologist. So before all the horn-faced bunny stuff, he helped isolate influenza A in pigs. He was working with another dude on that. And he then he begged to go with that other guy, the other. guy's name was Paul A. Lewis. He was wanting to go with that guy on a big research trip to Brazil to go study yellow fever. But Paul A. Lewis said, no, dude. And, like, I'm dying to know the drama there. Like, did they not work well together? Like, why did Paul say no to Richard? Like, was there something

juicier at play? Like, a love story? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Who's to say? But it's perhaps for the best that Richard didn't go because Lewis ended up accidentally contracting yellow fever from a laboratory incident and dying. Oh, no. In Brazil. So, yeah, there's like a whole arc there, perhaps enough for an entire episode of Grey's Anatomy. It's crazy. But yeah, anyway, Richard Schoops. In the 1930s, this guy was successful in isolating virus after virus, after virus. So he became known as like the virus hunter in the medical community. And as one does, he was out in New Jersey, hunting rabbits. It's kind of like what medical dudes, doctors do, like shooting the shit.

It's like golf in the winter you shoot you on rabbits. And he noticed that some of these rabbits had these horn things on their heads. And he had seen those horns on the bunnies back in Iowa when he was there on farms studying the swine flu. So he was really curious. He started checking them out. He was sampling the bunnies, taking it back to the lab, sampling the horns, doing hashtag just little virologist things and he was able to isolate the virus that he named after himself schopes papillomavirus aka cotton tail rabbit papaloma virus aka CRPV so one bunny gives the virus to another bunny

they grow a couple horns it resolves ideally and the horns fall off everyone hops away all fine and dandy and like yeah it's cool and useful to know like on its own why the heck these bunnies grow weird horns from like a population dynamics and ecosystems level that's really important and cool and useful like it'd be good to know if a new contagious cancer and rabbits suddenly appeared or suddenly became super deadly like because if that happened it could obliterate food webs in a ton of different ecosystems like if rabbits suddenly disappeared think of all the overgrown plants and weeds think of the hungry predators things could get pretty whack pretty quickly so that's like a good enough reason right there to just like catalog and

study CRPV on its own. And luckily, CRPV is pretty chill. So like I said earlier, it pretty just like resolves on its own. Like rabbits don't really get decimated in population by this. And a lot of the news stories that we saw over the summer do say that. They're like telling people chill, tentacle horns are normal. Don't freak out. Yeah, exactly. And also like, humans can't catch CRPV for the record. Like it goes. between bunny species. And it spreads also mostly through bites from ticks and fleas as well. That being said, don't go cuddle the tentacle horn bunnies. It's still a good idea. It'll keep your distance. You never know what kind of, yeah. Yeah. For just wild animals. Yeah. Yes, for one,

you know, they're doing their own thing. And two, like, you never know what kind of diseases can jump between species, like zoonotic diseases are no joke. That's how really, Yeah, you don't want to be, you don't, like, you, my mom always says when, here we go, when you're, when you're getting tested for something and like, you don't seem to have anything, it's like, well, you could always end up having Feltman disease. It's like, you don't want to be, at any time you could become patient zero of the buddy tentacle, human crossover epidemic. Exactly, exactly. You do not want that to be you, no. Just be cool, man. Just be cool. So yeah, that's a whole thing. But another slightly bigger reason

why this was a cool discovery is that it was pretty foundational in our understanding of transmissible cancers. So transmissible cancers, terrifying thought, right? Yeah, these contagious bunny horns can somewhat rarely turn cancerous. There are some other kinds of transmissible cancer as well, but basically all in non-human animals, most famously like the Tasmanian Devil, have this contagious facial tumor disease that's cancerous. Very, very sad. But there is also a kind of a human version, kind of, there's like extra steps in the middle. And that brings me to the big reason that Shope's CRPV discovery matters. It's because it directly led to the connection of the human papillomavirus, aka HPV, like the STI, to cervical cancer.

So, AKA, this is like the reason that people with the cervix have to get pap smears. So also like, man, getting a pap smear is like, it's like they access a part of your anatomy so deep. I didn't know it existed. Yeah, it's one of those things where it's like often when we're talking about screening procedures, it's so important to be like, listen, it's really manageable. Like, you've got to do it. And with the pap smear, it's like, you do got to do it. and you're going to be okay, but like not going to lie, man. It's not, it's not a fun time. It's like they have fun, no. It's like they reach your soul.

Yes. Like how, I don't know what it feels, I don't know. It's weird. Yeah, but it's important. The soul swap. The soul swap, literally. Uh, so yeah, understanding how the bunny CRPV worked helped us understand how certain strains of HPV can cause cervical cancer. So in turn, researchers were able to develop the HPV vaccine, which I've gotten and is really neat and cool and great. And it was actually so interesting to be like nine or 10 years old right as the HPV vaccine was becoming available because it was like an act of active conversation being brought up by my doctor. And at the time, it was just like, whoa, medical advancements happening before my eyes. The future is now. And in hindsight, I'm like, you know, of course we're just now getting

stuff that protects the cervix from cancer. Not that vaccine development is like a quick process in any way, But like we learned about the bunny stuff like in the early 1900s and like now 10 year old me is like I'm getting the vaccine to protect me from cervical cancer. What can you do? Yeah, there's just been so little dedicated research done on the female reproductive system and that just makes me sad sometimes. But also just as a disclaimer, not all people with services are within, not all women have services.

I'm just using the annoying medical binary language for simplicity's sake, disclaimer asterisk. But a shout out to Richard Schopes for saying, hey, those bunnies look weird because now my cervix is protected from cancer more. Thank you, Shopes. Yeah. Yeah. And anyway, I was going to tie back to Eldon Ring because why not? Because when I say those bunnies look weird, I say they look weird like Eldon Ring. They must look really weird then.

Yeah, you should Google it. Google it. I highly recommend. So, yeah, I mentioned this class of creatures in the game called The Omen. They totally have these tangled tentacle horns everywhere. They look basically one to one. I would not be surprised if it was a direct inspiration. And if you all don't mind, I'm going to round out my fact with a little Eldon Ring lore moment. Even for non-knowers of Eldon Ring, I'll make this completely digestible because it's just really, really cool.

And the horns are truly so dead-ass similar. And they use the Omen and their bunny horns as an as an amazing storytelling tool. So, okay, here's my, here's my Eldon Ring story time. Back in the day before you as the player, is in the elderly world. The omen were like pretty well regarded. They were high in command. And their horns, like the bunny horns, were considered divine gifts. But then a new queen came in, and she decided for many complex and heart-wrenching reasons, revealed in the DLC. She decided that the horns were out. She decided that they were like beastly and lowly and definitely not divine.

So she ordered horns to be cut off, literally. Or beings with horns to be sent underground and to live in the sewers. But then she has two children, and they are both omen with the horns, which is unexpected because she is like a very traditionally beautiful woman. She's tall, long, blonde hair, like gorgeous goddess woman. So yeah, she's got those two kids with all the omen horns that she hates so much because of her trauma. And one of them is that Moog guy with the horn grown in his eye that I mentioned earlier, like a Shope's CRPV Bunny.

And Moog is like, fuck yeah, I'm an omen. I'm cool and evil. And he makes a pact with this formless goddess and learns fire blood magic. And his twin brother, Morgot was a total mama's boy and renounced his blood

and sealed some of it into a sick-ass sword. Really neat. And he cut off his bunny horns. And instead, so he didn't let it like poke his. eye out and be super metal. He like cut his horns off. So yeah, it's like become evil bunny horn man or cut them off and like be a mama's boy, crazy stuff. So yeah, that's just like scratching the surface of the Eldon Ring lore. It is just a grain of sand on the beach that makes you the

Eldon Lord. Yeah, I could go on for hours. That's my Eldon Ring bunny horn cervical cancer fact. The range. Yeah. We kind of. lot in there. Yeah, I couldn't resist. I'd like to add that I feel very validated by this because when I was a kid, I thought jackalopes were real. Yes. Yes, and this is why. This is why. It turns out they kind of are actually. Totally. This is like why people were inspired to like go on that whole weird taxidermy fake journey, which is like that's a whole other weirdest thing fact for somebody to do another day. Absolutely. I would love to hear about that. Yeah. Okay, we're going to take one more quick break, and then we'll be back with one more fact.

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But too often, life gets busy. Or the price holds you back. Price Line is here to help you make it happen. With millions of deals on flights, hotels, and rental cars, you can go see the game live. Don't just dream about the trip. Book it with Price Line. Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. Okay, we're back. And Liz, stop me from ever picking up feathers on hike again, I guess.

Okay, so yeah, I guess we should start with the fact that you are not supposed to pick up and collect feathers of songbirds and various birds. There is a distinction about that, but let's just say blanket all birds for now until we get a little deeper in. into the fact here. So my teaser was how women put an end to the deadly feather trade. So we can thank two women for the end of the feather trade. And the history of that is why you cannot collect bird feathers that you find. Just take pictures of them. Or I personally can recommend drawing or painting them if you'd like to keep a memory of them.

So let me take you back to 1886, a journalist and ornithologist, Frank. Jackman went on a bird watching mission in an unlikely place, an uptown shopping district in New York City. As he walked through the crowds and looked around, he was identifying birds, not in the trees, but ones that were adorning the hats of fashionable women. Over the course of just two trips, Chapman counted 542 hats, adorned with 174 different whole birds or their disembodied parts. Oh my gosh. Yep. The more extravagant hats flaunted not just feathers, but also the eyes, wings, bodies, legs, tails, carefully arranged with other natural accessories like leaves. I just want to say, when people say that autism is new and didn't exist,

I want to point them toward this man's special interest in counting bird hats. Oh, yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh my god. Went them towards Frank. So Frank on his birdwatching trips saw at least 40 different bird species were represented among these hats.

So 19th century women were clamoring for feathers. The more eye catching the better for their fancy hats. They use the feathers of woodpeckers, blue jays, blue birds, owls, warblers, wax wings, and quails. even more sought after than those songbirds were the dramatic wings and tails of ostriches, peacocks, pheasants, egrits, vultures, eagles, swans, herons, and turkeys. So this trend of feathered hat wearing can be traced all the way back to Marie Antoinette's fashion that just simply refused to die until enter our two Boston ladies, Harriet Hemingway, not Hemingway, Hemingway, Harriet Hemingway, and Minna Hall. So Harriet was known.

This came up in multiple articles that I read, so I really felt like I needed to share it. She was known for going birdwatching in the like 1880s wearing unfashionable white sneakers. And apparently at the time, that was like a really big deal for everyone. I was like, I'm feeling a little called out here. But yeah, her white sneakers were mentioned a lot. So now I need to look up what they even meant by sneakers at that time.

What did that mean? That's honestly a whole other thing. All I can see are Air Force ones. Yeah, exactly. I'm picturing like really chunky hokas, just like huge shoes. Which I love. I do too. I'd save my ankles and knees.

Exactly. Yeah. Shout out to my planter fasciitis. Literally. So we have these ladies to thank for the activism that eventually led to the migratory bird Treaty Act and halted the avian massacre for the sake of hats. So 10 years after our guy Frank's bird hat, bird watching walk in New York City, Harriet read an article that described the harvesting of egret feathers in South Florida.

So it really upset her because the article explained that egrets have these incredibly beautiful plumes that they only sport during their mating and nesting season. So the hunters would go down when they were at their most vulnerable and the eagrots were amazing parents and they would not leave the nest. So the hunters really easily harvested all of these eagrots for their feathers and effectively would wipe out two generations at a time because they would take the parents for their feathers and the eggs would be left and they couldn't survive. So Harriet read an article about this and I, this is what happened in my mind. I pictured her looking at her hat collection in horror because she was just taking part in the fashion and wearing these hats. And she read an article and was like, oh, hell no. And also, actually, we need to do something about this.

So at the time, by the way, egret feathers were valued at $32 per ounce, which was twice the price of gold at the time. What? So highly, highly valuable industry here. Molly. And absolutely decimating egrit populations and other birds for their feathers. Oh, yeah. So Harriet called up her cousin, Minna, and was presumably like, girl, we've got to stop wearing these hats and we need to save these birds.

So the two of them called together tea meetings in Boston, which grew in popularity as their cause expanded from condemning plumage fashion to saving wild birds in general. So through these gatherings, Hemingway and Hall persuaded their influential friends to stop wearing feathered hats, and they also have them sign a boycott, which grew to a group of 900 wealthy high-profile Boston women who agreed to totally boycott feather purchasing and feather wearing. So their activism spread to other cities,

and the Chicago Daily Tribune of October 24th, 1897, asked women to save wild birds from extinction by pledging that, quote, they would not wear birds or bird plumage of any kind, accept ostrich plumes on their hats because ostrich plumes can be gathered without torturing or killing the bird. So ostrich feathers okay. Pretty much every other feather, not the same.

So as their gatherings grew, they realized, like, you know, we're having these tea parties. They're going great. But like, we need to expand. We need to get more official. We need to get some legislation on the books here. So they targeted established Boston bird experts to join. their cause, which helped establish them further. So they named this growing organization the Massachusetts Audubon Society, which was, in fact,

these ladies really kicked off the dominoes for a lot of really cool things. It was the first of mini-satellite Audubon societies that later became the nationwide Audubon Society that we know and love today. So what was known as the Bird Hat campaign of the Audubon Society in Boston, spread to Congress and influenced passage of the Lacey Act in 1900. The act prohibited interstate commerce of protected species taken in violation of state laws. Unfortunately, that law alone did not effectively slow commerce and feathers. It seemed like hunters were making too much money and they were just going to continue to do their thing. And it really didn't. It didn't

really stop things. So at the urging of these sort of newly founded Audubon groups, President Theodore Roosevelt named Pelican Island the first federal bird reservation in 1903. So this is like not too long after they started their activism and everyone is thinking, you know what? Yeah, birds are great and cool and we should protect them and protect their environment. And then of course, Roosevelt went on to name nine more bird reservations in Florida and a total of 50, bird reservations and national game preserves, which eventually, of course, became the National Wildlife Refuge System that we know and love today. So very cool. Mm-hmm. So advocacy and awareness did not stop the plume trade, unfortunately. In 1911, 15 years after the Mass

Audubon Society was founded, egrets were still being slaughtered for feathers, and William Hornaday calculated that the London market had consumed feathers from nearly 130,000 egrits in a six-month period. So absolutely catastrophic numbers of birds suffering because of this industry. So Mass Audubon knew that the most important thing they could do was to influence public sentiment and inspire Congress to enact more legislation prohibiting the importation of the skins or plumage of wild birds. In 1913, the Weeks McLean Law sponsored by Massachusetts Representative John Weeks and Connecticut Senator George McLean passed. It prohibited spring shooting, night shooting, and interstate sale of wild game. So spring shooting being especially important because that's like breeding season, breeding plumage, all that business.

Once again, despite the regulation, some hatmakers continue to fashion feathery creations. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle report. reported on February 18th, 1914, just a year after the passing of these regulations, that Oregon hunters were making good money shooting hundreds of grebes a day for their breast feathers. Grebes are like very cool. I was going to say, I love the name of that. It sounds like a cute little like a Final Fantasy anime or something. I love that.

Absolutely. I love that a lot. They would totally fit into Final Fantasy. There's a bunch of different kinds of grebes, but they would all fit. I adore that. So boxes of grebes were being sent to California factories labeled coyote skins. Oh, no. They were doing it on the sly.

Yes. Those bastards. I know, absolute bastards. While the Weeks McLean law was ultimately not as effective as they had hoped, it became the model legislation for the landmark migratory bird treaty act of 1918. So we started in 1886 and we're finally getting somewhere in 1918, which honestly, as far as like conservation and legislation goes, not the worst time imaginable.

Sure, sure. So the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 made it, quote, unlawful to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, possess, sell, purchase, barter, import, export, or transport any migratory bird. Whoa. a whole stop. The whole thing. Yes, they made sure they included every possible iteration of moving a bird, killing a bird,

anything that could possibly be construed. So the Migratory Bird Treaty Act effectively put an end to the omnipresent bird and feather hats. The possession of feather and other parts of native North American birds without a permit is prohibited, still to this day by the MBTA. I'm going to shorten, so I don't have to say the whole thing every single time. This protects wild birds by preventing their killing by collectors and the commercial trade for their feathers

and extends to all feathers, regardless of how they were obtained. There is no exemption for multed feathers or those taken from the road, found on a hike, window-killed bird, no exception. So the reason that I was thinking about this is because it honestly comes up a lot on my Twitch stream someone will be like, sure, I found this really cool feather. And I'm like, I love that so much for you.

Yeah. And we need to talk about the Migratory Bird Treaty Act because you are not technically, legally allowed to possess that feather. And we're like so far removed from the history of it and the fashion of it. But how quickly we could go back if people were allowed to possess feathers or collect feathers in any of the. means so spreading the good word yes exactly please leave feathers where you find them admire them take pictures of them but please don't take them home with you lest we go back to having hundreds of bird parts on hats etc that kind of thing and I do want to say too that when this law was passed so exceptions do exist now for the feathers of legally hunted waterfowl or other migratory game bird. So like there are invasive species and game species that you are in fact

allowed to keep the feathers of like turkeys for instance. If you find a turkey feather, totally cool to keep that feather. Also like, you know, certain types of quail and pheasants and things like that. And obviously duck hunting, as we know, is like a huge thing. So waterfowl are another big part of that exception. But initially there was not an exemption. for indigenous peoples, and it was extremely harmful. Oh, yeah. Yes, because especially Alaskan indigenous folks who relied on birds for subsistence, hunting, and harvesting,

and as well as for cultural and spiritual importance. So the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was just like blanket put in place, of course, without thinking, you know, when has the government literally ever thought about indigenous peoples? So unlike them. Right, exactly. So unlike them. the MBTA rules were enforced upon indigenous populations who were of course not having the issues of

overharvesting that the hat industry was perpetuating. So if we had been stewards of the land modeled after indigenous peoples in the first place, we would not have had the problem of the extreme overconsumption of birds and feathers that led to the treaty being necessary. Crazy concept. Yes. Just wanted to make sure we address that. But all of that being said, Shout out to Harriet Heminway and Menna Hall for caring about birds. Indeed. Now no more bird hats and please leave feathers where you find them. I think people should commission their favorite artist to paint them a nice feather.

That is such a cool idea. If only we knew of such a bird artist who was up to the task. Perhaps I paint burbs maybe. They sound cool. They sound really cool. I did look up what sneakers were like in the 1800s. Oh, my God, amazing. I had to know.

Apparently, so the term sneaker was just when vulcanized rubber became a thing, and they started making shoes with rubber soles. Amazing. They were so much quieter than wooden sold shoes that they called them sneakers. What? Wait, holy shit. Oh, my God. So there were many different kinds of shoes that could be called a sneaker. And they were mostly, like, geared towards some kind of athletics.

Because it started as, like, a luxury item. So, like, why would you buy a weird rubber-sold shoe unless it was, like, helpful for what you were doing? So it was, like, ladies playing tennis, like, people at the beach. And sneaking up on birds. And bird watching. Yeah, apparently sneaking him on birds. Oh, my God. Perfect use case.

And, yeah. So, like, surprisingly early. In the early, early 1900s, Converse started up and did start making what looks very much like Converse Canvas sneaker high tops. But yeah, apparently it's, there are all these pictures, if you look up 19th century sneakers of truly just like fancy boots that had rubber soles. And they were like a mannished sneaker. But for people to actively be calling her out as wearing unfashional shoes, I think

she was probably wearing the ones that look more like a soft leather slipper. If you ever did like jazz dance as a kid, they looked like that with a rubber sole. So it was just sort of a very plain shoe with a sneaky soul. Yes. But anyway, that's something I learned just now because I couldn't leave it alone. No, that's so. I love that. Linguistics, man.

Yeah. I never had thought about that. Me neither. Not once. It seems so obvious now. Yes, it does. I never thought about shoes being wooden, like, and loud. Yeah.

Right. Just clomping around, scaring all the birds away. We would have sounded like in Monty Python with the coconut. Exactly. Yes. A group of friends just clomping through the woods. It's not a bird in sight. Oh, boy.

Well, Liz, thanks so much for coming on again. Would you remind our listeners what your Twitch channel is so they can find you? Yes, you can find me all over the internet as I paint burbs, B-I-R-B-S, and I am often doing just that, painting birds, so come say hi. The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Faltman, 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 listening, Weirdos. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition. For Citizens Bank.