The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Footless Goose Murder, Sex in Space, Viking Sicko Mode, Sports Bra Tech

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Behold: our LIVE show from earlier this year at Caveat in NYC! Rachel, Jess, Moiya McTier and Claire Maldarelli each bring a weird fact to the stage. Topics run the gamut this week. We've got an avian murder mystery, why having sex in space sucks, how preworkout is kind of like being a Viking Berserker, and how the sports bra is shockingly new. Tune in for a very special episode! 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job, credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Hello, weirdos. It's Jess, your producer here. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up that you're about to hear our live episode from back in February of this year. It was recorded at caveat in New York City. As always, the audio might sound a little different. And you'll hear the lovely audience,

including friends of the show like Ryan Mandelbaum, shouting bird facts from the audience. and you'll hear us reference some visual aids once in a blue moon. But it's the same old weirdest thing with four super mega excellent weird facts, including one from yours truly. Okay, that's it. I just want to let you guys know ahead of time. Enjoy. Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week.

Please put your hands together for Rachel Feldman. We're so excited to be back at Caviard, our favorite place in the world, for another weirdest thing live show. I have some amazing co-host. I'm going to welcome up to the stage now before we get started. First of all, our incredible producer, audio engineer extraordinaire, and Twitch superstar, Jess Bodie. Up next, we have longtime weirdest thing favorite and incredible science journalist and marathon runner Claire Maldorelli. And last but not least, a fan favorite weirdest thing guest.

and someone who I want to be when I grow up, Dr. Moia McTeer. So who here has been to a Weirdest Thing Live Show before? Great. Who's their first time? I guess everybody who didn't raise their hands. Oh my God, first timers! Oh my gosh, a lot of first timers. We love to see that. Is there anyone here who doesn't listen to the weirdest thing I learned this week? Aw. Oh, wow, I see a few hands.

You will now. Yeah. Welcome to the party. So the weirdest thing I went this week is a show where we talk about weird history, science, all of the above. And we go on little curiosity spirals together, and it's a whole lot of fun. So we are going to roll right into it because I forgot to write down the intro so that I can say here live. So when we play this in our feed later, Jess will help me figure that out. I'll fix it. Yeah, just we'll fix it.

Also, welcome everybody who's doing us to be a live stream. There are a whole bunch of you, which is very exciting. Thank you so much for joining us. I am not monitoring your comments because I am here on stage doing this other thing. But if you shoot me an email at Rachel at Pops Eye with the subject line weirdest thing and let me know where you're viewing from, whether you would like us do a live show there, I will pick a couple of you to send some fun treats to you in the mail. So again, thank you so much.

We love to have you here, even if you're not here physically. And with that, we can get started. We can get weird. We can't weird. I also, as some of you may know, if you listen to the show, I came basically straight from my improv 201 graduation class. So you might say, Rachel, don't you have a debilitating chronic illness that causes incredible fatigue when you overexert yourself.

And you could say that, but you could also say, wow, Rachel, you really limbered up comedically today. So you won't pull any muscles. You're going to be great. And I'm really psyched to be here. So thanks everybody for joining us. And we're going to get started. And there will be some trivia and prizes throughout.

So, you know, you have that to look forward to. So first, we're each going to say our teases. Because this is totally spontaneous. And definitely we could go in any order based on how exciting the teases sound, and we don't have a PowerPoint that already dictates who is going when. Jess, what's your teeth? My tease is, witness me! Wonderful. As always, Claire, what's your tease?

My tease is not bad. That's so different than normal teases. I wasn't ready. Come on, you got to spice it up and we're live. Okay. My tease is I'm going to talk about the connection between breathing, jock straps, multiple of them, weird physics and running. Wonderful. Thank you. It's so on brand.

And Moia, what's your teeth? My tease is that black holes aren't the only holes in space we should be studying. Ayo. Wow. Love that. My tease is that I'm going to talk about the unsolved mystery of a famous bird's murder

Wow, good thing that got such a response because it's what we're starting with. You have to go first. So long-time listeners will know that I have a lot of feelings about the true crime genre. It's like inherently exploitative, pretty much. No offense if you like it. I like a lot of things that are inherently exploitative.

We live in a society. Because like every victim has a family somewhere, and frankly, every alleged perpetrator has a family somewhere, and it just kind of makes me feel gross. But, of course, long-time listeners also know there are exceptions to this rule of mine. For example, if a crime was committed hundreds of years ago and feels kind of quirky and old-timey to me, or if it's a crime primarily involving geese.

We are here today to talk about an inspiring and beloved goose and a murder most foul. Yeah, yeah, he died with his boots on. We're going to get into it. So when I heard a little snippet of the story of Andy the goose, I decided I really had to give it the full true crime pasty treatment because all I knew was that this footless goose had been beloved and then had been murdered.

And that was the word that everyone used. And the killer had never been brought to justice. So with that, let's dive in. Also, I was going to have a little app on my phone that made the Law & Order, Dundtun, and it wouldn't load, and also that was probably, I was over-engineered anyway, and it was doomed to fail.

But if at any point anyone wants to chime in with a Dundtun, when it feels appropriate, as the spirit moves you, please. Say less. So the story starts in 1987 with on the farm of one Donna Mae Shook in Harvard, Nebraska, when a great goose was born without feet. His name was Andy, though I don't think she named him, but eventually his name would be Andy,

which means his name was always Andy. Andy apparently spent a couple of years like hobbling around on the farm, not having a great time, really having, you know, a lot of mobility issues. This farm was not built for him. But don't feel too sorry for him because he had enough game to bag a mate named Polly. And that's Polly.

I think she's a very comely, Goose, that's Andy. But, you know, again, he really, he had a lot of charisma. He's a beautiful couple. But, again, you know, he was living in this world that was not built to accommodate him. And after a couple of years, he had a fateful encounter with Dona May's brother-in-law, Gene Fleming. So Gene visited the farm. He was from a nearby town of, I think, Hastings, Nebraska.

And he was like, we can do better. for this guy. Like, I can do better. And so he traded his sister-in-law a pair of two other geese to take both Andy and Polly, because he was not going to break up that pair. And he took them home to Hastings with him. And luckily, Gene wasn't just a good Samaritan with a bleeding heart for footless geese. He was an inventor. He, uh, this is, I believe, not actually an ad for the thing he made. I think it was a competitor. But look, I had to include this, the injector rub oiler. What? Yeah.

So a few decades before, Gene had crafted this device that allowed cows to scratch itches on themselves without damaging their skin and while also depositing soothing oils and insecticides to keep them from getting bit. I want that. Yeah, right. They had a rub on it, over it, straddle it, really use it. Oh. And they did. Anyway, so Gene had been very successful.

and he loved to tinker. He apparently had like a whole whole workshop for coming up with ways to make animals' lives better, among other things. And so his first attempt in fixing Andy's mobility issues was apparently a little skateboard. His plan was that one of Andy's legs

would fit into a groove in the skateboard. And then the other one, Andy would spontaneously intuitively know to skateboard with it. And which, you know, does seem like a bit of a reach. I imagine it would have looked like this. But the problem is that Andy was a 40-pound goose. Wait, 40 pounds?

Yeah, yeah. Is that big for a goose? I feel like that's like for a... I don't know. I can't say I know. I can't say I know. But it's a hefty bird. Yeah, I want Andy to be extraordinary.

So let's say it's... Yeah, yeah. Is Ryan here? Ryan is that a normal size for a goose? I don't know. It's pretty big. Okay, thank you. Ryan's a, I don't know.

it's pretty big. Yeah, yeah. Ryan said, I don't know, it's pretty big. And Ryan is the foremost bird expert I know, so I'll take their word for it. Shockingly, this did not work, but Gene landed a better solution soon enough. The goose needed shoes. Yeah, they will soon. Someone asked if they have Nike switches, and that pair might be a pair of Nikes, but that's, we're getting ahead of ourselves. So he bought a pair of $13 size zero white leather shoes, you know, baby shoes never worn, if you will. And he packed them with phone rubber so that they, he wouldn't like wiggle around in them. And he was like, I think this is going to work. And he even put holes in the soul's other shoes to, so that when Andy went for a swim, they would drain.

He really thought of everything. And he, there are all these quotes where Gene like remembers what it was like to teach Andy how to walk in shoes, which as you can imagine was a process. And he said, I held Andy upright for three hours before he figured out what to do with those shoes. But when he got the hang of them, he just took off. Now he struts around like a peacock. There was a great love between this man and this goose. It's a beautiful story. But those shoes wore out super fast. Turns out geese aren't really conscientious about the care and keeping of their baby shoes. So Gene ended up switching Andy to sneakers, though he apparently also tried to get him

interested in custom flippers and cowboy boots. Yo! Yehaha! But, yeah. Ready for the Cowboy Carter tour. But no, sneakers ended up being the name of the game. And then actually, once Nike learned that Andy was particularly fond of their brand, they sponsored him.

and they would send him custom baby shoes every month. Oh, my God. That's so cool. And the article starts with Take a Gander. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, there's a lot of good people really enjoyed writing articles and headlines about Andy, the Footless Goose, as you can imagine.

This one reads, a footless goose becomes a footloose goose in Sneaks. So, meanwhile, Andy was becoming a real superstar. The local news loved him. I love this picture of him with Gene, where he says, Dr. Gene Fleming, the quack doctor. Oh, brother. And they took Andy to loads of events at schools and libraries. There is a story that once apparently,

Fleming was with Andy in a motel. I guess they were on their way to an event. And Andy took off down the hallway, and he caught up with him as the goose was running into a ballroom. And there, a local organization was meeting to announce the winners of its annual election of officers. And just as the guy at the podium was saying, like, and our new president is someone you all know very well,

and then Andy ran it. And in fact, everyone there did know who Andy was and laughed, thinking it was like an amazing joke that had been set out by the organizers. They were especially into doing events for kids who had mobility issues. This one, I feel like he was angling for Coca-Cola sponsorship, personally.

Big time. Totally. Because, you know, Gene really hoped that, you know, Andy's use of a prosthetic and the very rich life he was living would provide some inspiration. And according to many people who have spoken about Andy over the years, it did. In 1989, he even appeared with Andy on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson with a fellow guest being Martin Short. Now, I did look for any images or clips of Andy the Goose on the Johnny Carson show. I couldn't find that, but I did find a clip of Martin Short's appearance from that same night

where he made a rather tasteless joke involving presenting Johnny Carson with a... No! Yeah. With a cooked bird with sneakers on. Yeah, duh, duh, indeed. Because then in 1991, Martin Short really felt like an asshole probably because tragedy. I forgot this was about murder. I know, don't worry.

As I was writing, and I was like, people are going to forget this. I did forget. I promise we'll have an uplifting ending about Andy. So, unfortunately, a goosefoot wearing a shoe was found in a local park. Wait, how old is Andy at this point? He just had such a life. Yeah, he really did have such a life. So this would have been, he would have been four years old at this point. I know.

He had a lot of life left in him. And when somebody called Jean saying, you know, we've found these suspicious remains in the park, is Andy okay? He went out, and unfortunately the pen was empty. Polly and Andy were both gone. And there were some, like, adult-sized sneaker footprints. It's important to note because if there had, you know, he could have just run away. There could have been very little sneaker footprints, but.

And people, you know, were very upset about them. there was a local first grader with Spina Bifida who was quoted saying he was my favorite goose because he had no feet. Why did they do it? There were many tabloid headlines about foul deeds. And folks rallied to find the murderer. They raised thousands of dollars to aid in the cause. It even became part of the infamous satanic panic of the day with a special investigations unit from all the way. in Colorado reaching out saying, we found some mysterious bird remains. Do you think this is the

work of a satanic cult? And strangely, no one accused known goose-sico Martin Short. Yeah. But the case went cold. Dun-dun. So that's the part that I heard about that got me all excited. I was like, no one's ever solved this. There's got to be like something we can do to. to figure this out. Then I read a recent piece in Alice Obscura that focused on Jean's granddaughter, Jessica Fleming. She recently decided to dive into this cold case, and what she found is both unsatisfying and very complicated. Basically, after years of the police department saying this had just gone cold, they got somebody to admit that just two years after this event,

they had figured out the person they think is responsible, but they, um, did not want to release their name because they were someone who they considered not responsible for reasons of cognitive impairment. So obviously it would not be any kind of celebration of Andy's legacy to, you know, name and shame someone who was cognitively impaired as a perpetrator of this crime. And Jessica shared that same sentiment. She actually pivoted from doing like a documentary about this to having a one-woman show called Andy Interrupted. No way. Yeah. Which I hope to see someday. plug, go see this show, if it's anywhere near you. So actually, maybe there's no such thing as a victimless true crime story.

Not for kids? Yeah, I think there's cursing, probably. Well, I don't know. I don't know how graphic it might get, but did this become a meta-commentary on true crime? Yeah, I guess, sorry. But even though there's no satisfying end to this caper, we can still celebrate

Andy's remarkable life. He was a picture-perfect role model and celebrity goose. Also, one question that's been raised for me that is a case I will be chasing for the rest of my life is that this picture is captioned with his compatriot peg-leg Pete, who I could find no other information about. What? So who was he? What was his deal?

What was he like? and I want to know that. But Fleming told the Chicago Tribune that geese are generally mean creatures who like to sneak up on you when you're bent over and give you a good bite and then you know what. But Andy was the nicest, sweetest guy you ever met. He also said that he seemed to understand

that Jean had helped him out, that he was devoted to Jean. He said, he's a one-year-old. man goose. And we can celebrate Jean, who was always keeping a lookout for ways to broaden Andy's horizons.

Apparently, at one point, he attached some little cleats to a pair of sneakers because Andy had never successfully mounted Polly, which is fine. You don't need that to have a loving relationship. But Gene wanted to make sure he knew he had the option, and he wanted to help him get a better grip, better attraction.

So he made him these cleats. Apparently Andy was not into it. He never even tried to make that work. So then he got them a pair of gosslings to adopt. And then he also decided he needed to make a little vehicle for Andy. He made this little two-wheeler bike. Wow. And Andy loved, like, being pushed around on his little bike.

And, you know, I, I just think this is a lovely story about two creatures finding each other in the great big world against all odds and definitely making each other's lives better. And also, true crime kind of sucks. But that's just me. But anyway, that's the story of the end of the goose. That's the whole story. Yeah.

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Next up, we have Claire's FACT. Yay. The middle button's the pointer. The arrow's up. Thank you so much. The subway failed me today, and I was late to our orientation to the buttons. I don't get it.

Okay. Aha. Nope. It's just the right arrow, right? I'm doing the right arrow. I'm doing the right arrow. You're doing great. Thank you.

Okay. So, like I mentioned, I will be talking about sports raws, jockstraps, and non-Newtonian goo. It's my favorite kind of goo. All right, so I'm going to start my rabbit hole of all of this. I'm going to switch my hands because I'm left. Okay, moving on. Now, this is a study that came out in the Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, and it astonished me, and I'm hoping it will astonish you too because it's the basis for the entirety of my segment, so if it doesn't, then just relax, I guess. This study was funded by the athletic apparel company Lulu Lemon, so take that with a grain of salt, as you do as science journalists.

And it was conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia. And one of the researchers that did this is a former elite athlete. So she was an Olympian in the steeplechase, which is this weird, bizarre. Intense. Yeah.

The worst. Yeah, it could be by some considered the worst. Sorry, what is that? The worst for my survival. Oh, you don't know the steeplechase. I don't know the steeplechase. I don't know the steeplechase. I don't know the details, but it's involved.

I'm going to get, oh, everyone who has run the steeplechase is going to hate me because I don't, I wasn't ready for this question. It involves running over hurdles into giant puddles of water and then not drying off and keeping going on the track for a couple laps, a many laps until you're done. It's like a structured obstacle course kind of. Yeah, okay, okay, got it. It involves water and hurdles and sprinting, yeah. It would be my least favorite one for sure. Okay, so, why is this hating me? Yeah, so she did the study.

Back to this, I was not meaning to spend all this time on the sequel case. So she followed the breathing and lung function of nine elite runners as they ran on a treadmill. And the crux of this story of the study was that they wore this custom sports bra that had a, like the, what do you call this? like the band. It was extremely adjustable in a way that sports bras that you would buy at the store or not. Some are adjustable, some aren't, but this one was made to be weirdly adjustable, such that they could tighten it and loosen it.

And so they told the athletes that tighten this sports fraud to whatever you feel comfortable at and then run on a treadmill. And I won't go into the details of how they tracked, how much oxygen, and they took in into their lungs because it's gnarly and weird, and it gives me the queesies. So, but it involves tubes down your nose and into. Oh. Yeah, so we're going to pass on that. You know, I do feel like I love science and health and medicine, but whatever.

Yeah. So they found that when the athletes tightened it themselves and said, like, this is a comfortable positioning for, like, if I were to go out for a run right now, that they, um, their lungs were so constricted that they consumed less oxygen than if they had loosened it to like the loosest setting. And so that makes you think like, what the heck is up with sports bras? Why are they constricting my lung functioning when I'm supposed to be running? Um, and so there has been a couple of other studies, obviously. This one is very small.

It's only nine people. There have been other ones that found similar conclusions. But all of this is to say that sports bra research and innovation is, like, very bad. Like, it could get like a D, like barely past the class. What about a double D? Come on. Come on. So that is going to take.

me to the rest of my talk, which is how did we get there? How do we have so much innovation in every other area of science, tech, whatever, even in running? Why do we have $300 plus marathon running shoes, but yet we don't have a sports bra that doesn't constrict our long functioning? So that takes us to the OG bra, the jog bra, I just jumped all of my slides. So now I'm going to find where I am. Okay, the sports bra. It was invented by Lisa Lindale, Hinda Miller,

and Polly Palmer Smith wanted to get their names right in 1977. And it was a fairly pivotal moment for women's sports. So up until this time, the jogging era, which is like just fun to look at all the weird outfits. We were like, we're going to jog in this in the 70s. It was taking off, but for women, at least on the official stage, they were largely left out of this. And that was all the way up until June 23rd, 1972, when President Nixon signed the education amendments of 1972, which included Title IX, which stated that no person in United States shall, I just think that we should say it. Like, what is Title IX? It's boring.

but on the basis of sex, but excluded from participation in be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. So this act essentially required that grade schools and universities provide equal access and perhaps more important, most importantly, the resources for women including athletic scholarships, equipment, and facilities. As such, Title IX exponentially increased the number of women in sports across age ranges. So in 1972, about 30,000 women participated in college sports. And now in 2020, there are 222,920 female athletes. So incredible.

But here we still have a problem. Women didn't have the proper tools to run with. For one, shoes at the time and still now, that's a whole other topic. My God, I love doing segments on this. But they're still unisex and designed with men's feet in mind. And second, perhaps most importantly, and the point of this talk, I'm going on way too many tangents, there was no such thing as a sports bra.

In 1972, no such thing. So, yeah, I'm just gonna stay on that slide. A short biology lesson here, there are no muscles within breasts. Breasts are made up mostly of fat, connective tissue, lymph nodes, and of course blood vessels, And their form and structure are heads together by fibrous, elasticy bands of tissue called Cooper's ligaments, which was named after some dude

named Cooper. That helps create this network of mammary glands and fatty tissue, but they do absolutely nothing to control how breasts move. And that's by breasts themselves can literally cause a variety of health issues from shoulder, neck, and back pain to headaches and other conditions. So athletes with breasts, up and breast, up until this point had a really huge challenge at the time

that Title IX was passed, because the majority of bras, no sports bra existed. And then if they had to choose, these bras had underwire, and the majority of them had hooks and clasps that essentially provided the opposite of holding breasts in place while you were exercising. So it was like, well, I'm guessing here, but it was potentially even worse to be wearing a bra

while running than wearing no bra at all. It was truly that bad. So enter three women, Lisa, Hinda, and Polly. And they had all recently taken up jogging for a variety of reasons. I think they were in their 20s. Perhaps one of them was their late 20s, early 30s. And some of them were trying to get in shape,

and others were just doing it for mental health reasons. But they were all frustrated by the same thing that they had no good bra to run in. So they essentially created a sports bra from scratch. And the idea, which was reported in a variety of publications from Runner's World to Defector, as well as the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, has a whole section on how the jog bra

came to Bree. But I'm going to quote from Defector, who interviewed all three of these women for an article on the oral history of the invention of the sports bra and how it came to be. Quote, my breasts were flopping all over a place, to remember. My bra straps would flip off my shoulders and I would always pull them down and sometimes it would get very hot and sweaty under my breasts. I figured that was the price I had to

pay until my sister Victoria started jogging. She called me and said, what do you wear for a bra? I said, I don't really have a good solution. I've tried wearing a bra that was a cup size too small, but that doesn't really help. Then, but that doesn't really help. And I totally cut off the best quote in this whole thing in my clips of this. So basically she says, I just wish that there was a jockstrap for women. And then her sister's like, oh my God, you're brilliant. The light bulb went off. After her Lisa said to herself, wait a minute, that's a really good idea.

So after numerous iterations, a painful process of navigating a business And just for a side note here, you should look up this defector article because it really goes into like extreme detail of how incredibly challenging it was to start a business as three women in the 70s for something that essentially no company wanted, no one wanted to sell. So the early design of the product really does resemble to jockstrap strapped together because they were taken by the utility of the design of the jockstrap, which actually like sat. It's, you know what, it's a really good product. So I get it. I really do get it. But they really transformed this idea into a really innovative, at least in my opinion, product that was so drastically different from any of the bras available at the time.

So this is the original design. It's actually in the Smithsonian, which is cool. And then this was like the first one that kind of made it to big sales. So their business grew, and they eventually employed nearly 200 workers in creative variety of bras, including the sport-shaped brawra for people. with larger breasts and a bra top that covered the midrift of the admin, very trendy, I guess. I don't know. And then eventually other sports fair companies started taking note and coming up with their own takes on the design.

And so companies like Nike started coming out with sports bras, Reebok, and they were up against competition. So once that happened, they eventually decided that at that point it was time for them to, bow out they all had different careers I think one of them that was like the main designer of the three she literally worked on the Muppet show and she was like I'm having way too much fine on the Muppet show and like done with broad let's just like let's sell out here game over and so they eventually sold in 1989 their company to playtex products which is I I think playtex is known for their tampons but I don't

know, maybe you know it as something, I don't know what else they make. And in the Defector article, it quotes Hinda saying, back then, it seems like a huge amount of money that they sold it for, but quote, now it's nothing. They got so much value for what they bought. And Lisa and Hinda have found that they agree on one aspect of the story that there was no time when I knew this was not going to be an iconic product, she said. It was a daily grind. We weren't visionaries for the future, but we were on the ground.

It was the time of our life. We were taking a chance. And I will say, like, the defector article goes way into detail. Lisa and Hinta were just, like, so into it. And then the other woman who was on the Muppets show, she was like, but she was key because she, like, created the design. Like, they were just like, I don't know how to put two drugs. chalk straps together, you do.

And she was like, I have a full-time job here. It's really an amazing article. So that's the origins. Oh, and then I skipped over a slide because this one, I don't think you can see that well. And it is like an advertisement for how to put on a sports bra from, I believe it was the 1996 U.S. Olympic team. So I just, I have nothing to say about.

this other than like I'm surprised that even in 1996 we still did not have they were like yeah can we introduce you to the concept literally yeah yeah bro bro okay moving on so uh sorry I lost my place so that was the origins of the original sports bra but where are we now so that was like 1970s. We are now in the year 2025. Where are we at? Unfortunately, there have been very few significant advances in sports bra design and innovation since the jog bra. Literally, yes. That tracks. Almost nothing. And its competitors really haven't done all that much in this space as well. There is one that I do want to highlight that I'm obsessed with. It's the Reebok Pure Move bra, which I wrote about for popular science back in 2018.

And it contains a substance that is very similar to the physics in Ublec, which is a non-Newtonian goo fluid, whatever, I like goo. Jess is like, Ublek. I'm in, yeah. And what Ublek is essentially is just like a combination of cornstarch and water, But when this happens, it takes on, the substance takes on properties that are not quite a liquid and also not quite a solid.

So that's my niece in the top right. Aw. She, yeah, we made Ublec on Christmas, and it was mad fun. So I had to include it. I'm obsessed with her. I'm an obsessed aunt. She's so old now. Remember when your sister was pregnant?

I love that. So this phenomenon, the Ublec, what it does, it does this weird physics phenomenon called sheer force thickening, where when you apply significant rapid force, the viscosity increases so quickly that the substance actually acts like a solid instead of a liquid. And then when it's at rest, it acts like a liquid. Just crazy cool. It's like where you can smack it and it's like solid, right? But then if you like pour it slowly, it's liquid.

Yeah, exactly. So that's what they're doing in that bottom right picture. And a lot of the research for shear force thickening and Ooblek is in creating helmets and other like protective equipment. But sports bras could use it as well. So what Reebok did was create a material that contains this sheer force thickening properties such that if you may be able, move rapidly, the material will act like a solid. It's brilliant. Now, is it perfect? No, I own the bra. I had the original version of it. Like I said, I wrote about it for popular science back in 2018.

And it's like, it's good. I just think it needs improvements. And Reebok has not done, like has not done any improvements on it since. And they're still still selling the original version. I don't think that it's going to be out for that much longer and it just doesn't seem like there's a big innovation in that space. And this all relates back to the original peg for doing this whole story is that there's

this issue with sports bras and why can't we solve it? Why can't two jockstrap, strapped together solve it? Why can't strange, bizarre physics solve this? And I mean, I think everyone has their opinions, but for me, I just truly think there's not enough money and they're not enough awareness of this problem. And unfortunately, a study funded by women in sports published in March 2022 found that one in two teenage girls right now, about 43% stopped participating in sports starting at age 14. What?

And I know, crazy statistics. So, yeah, I'm bringing. supposed to be like, let's all leave here and start making sports bras right now. But I think I'm bringing it. Wow, I'm bringing it down. Okay, we're going to bring it back up. So there's a problem. We should solve it. And there's just so many ways that we can do it, including weird physics and already in-use products. And we should make a better sports bra. Agreed. Woo.

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U.S. only exclusions apply. See Home Depot.com slash price match for details. Next up, we have Dr. Mario McTeer. Hello. Yeah, so like I said, black holes, not the only holes we should be paying attention to when we're talking about studying things in space. And so I wanted to talk to you all because this week I learned that astronomers are surprisingly prudish when it comes to studying sex in space.

Are any of you surprised? No. You are not surprised that NASA doesn't want to study sex. Okay, well then let me tell you why I am surprised. I am surprised because I am an astrophysicist. I have known many astrophysicists. I've gone to conferences with them. I've gone to conference after parties with them.

I've had to sit in lectures where they tell me the things that they have named in space. And I'm here to tell you that we're all of. bunch of horny little freaks. Yeah. Astrophysicist, f***. They, yes, we do. I corrected myself. I was like, they, no, we, yes, we.

That's right. Yes, we do. No, astronomers have looked at galaxies out in space, and they've assigned different words to different parts of galactic anatomy. So, when I was in grad school, taking a galactic astronomy course at 9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings, the way that I would stay awake was when the professor would say the Milky Way's bulge is so dense.

Like, wake me right up. We've developed software packages called sex tractor. It ostensibly stands for source extractor, where you're supposed to be able to take an astronomical image and extract the source from it? No. No, they've named it after an amorous farm tool. This is ridiculous. We have the PP chain.

chain. In one of my galactic astronomy classes, we learned about the kink instability. So we really are just thinking about sex all the time as astronomers. And it's not just that. We also study, I think, the most romantic science.

In my opinion. Because really, are you going to go on a first date to a wet lab? Are you going to go dissect a pig for a first date? Are you going to go do some titrations? No. You're going to go stargazing. You're going to go out in a field. going to get some bubbly and you're going to look up at the stars. It's going to make you all hot

and bothered. No kink shaming to the titration folks. You're valid. No. Like be safe though. Yeah. Oh, so true. Trication is all about being careful. But you know, sometimes people just get into it. They don't know the protocols. Tytrate responsibly. Yet another piece of evidence to show that astronomy is the most romantic, the sexiest science. We had a bachelor who was an astrophysicist. Really? Yes, we did. I don't know anything about him.

Should I really made more hay out of that? Yeah. Well, the astronomy community was quite proud. I think this was in 2019. Are there Bachelor fans in the audience? No, it's... No. No.

Silent. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, yeah, I don't know anything else about him other than that he was able to convince 20 plus women to try and vie for his attention based on the fact that he looked like this, I guess, and studied space.

So despite the fact that astronomers should be quite horny and we should be thinking about how sex in space works all the time, NASA's official stance is very quiet. They're going for like a don't ask, don't tell type of policy, but almost 700 people have been in space. The last time I checked the number was like 681 people have been in space. The International Space Station has been continuously occupied since Halloween of 2000 and Butch Williams and Sunni... No.

Butch Wilmore and Sunni Williams. Yeah, thank you. I had to talk about them a lot. They've been stuck a long time. They've been stuck there a long time. They're still there. They're still there. And you're trying to tell me they haven't exchanged some flirty glances. Nothing? So all of these opportunities for SpaceX have occurred, and yet NASA is trying to tell us that there have been no events of intercourse up in space. I just don't buy it. It's like being a Catholic high school.

Yes. Yes. Or working at a Girl Scout camp, you know? I say as someone who worked at a Girl Scout camp called Camp Red Wing. I heard some people in the audience. Some people in the audience reacted to that. Thank you. Okay, so NASA's official stance is that no one has had sex in space,

although we've studied animals, non-human animals having sex in space, and we have had a few hoaxes. We've had a few rumors started that NASA has studied sex in space. One rumor was started in 2000 when this guy, Pierre Kohler, although he's French, so it's probably like Pierre Collier, He published this book in 2000 called The Final Mission, and in it he talked about this space shuttle report from 1996 that NASA tried to bury.

And they said that NASA sent up a space shuttle. St.SXX was the mission code. And they were going to study 20 different sexual positions that a bunch of scientists had come together and there it is. I'd come together and decided those were the 20 we should try. In the report that Kole talked about in his book, they said that only four of these 20 sexual positions

were possible without mechanical help. I mean, they literally need to be strapped in to use a treadmill. Yes. They use mechanical help for everything. For everything. You're trying to tell me this is the one type of exercise that doesn't need bans? No, I don't buy it.

And so, I think all types of lovers in the audience might be interested to know that missionary sex, the missionary position, was deemed impossible by this 1996 report. Good, get creative. Get creative. Exactly. You know, you're in space.

Yeah, you've got to leave the low-hanging fruit on the ground. You can't reach it up in space. And so, for like, 10 years, this rumor kind of proliferated until it was discovered that Pierre Colet had completely made this up. NASA did not in 1996. Oh, my God. I said hoax before. I was distracted.

You're right. I'm just such a good storyteller. So, yeah, so it was a hoax. The community was kind of outraged, and also, I guess, their faith in the conservative nature of NASA had been restored for some people. and we kind of went on from there, not studying human sex in space, but definitely studying some animal kingdom sex in space. Wait, why did he make it? Why would you joke about sex in space?

Sex cells. Sex cells. Exactly. That's the reason. But I think Kole's hoax, Kole's little prank, does point at some interesting things that we should be studying in space. There are some people who want to colonize other planets, some people who are thinking about the long-term sustainability of humanity and what we're going to do if we need to go to another planet to survive.

We would need to... We would need to make babies out in space. And we need to know how viable that is. It turns out to be pretty difficult because, first of all, just the mechanics of it. Like how do you physically stay together in microgravity when every action has an equal and opposite reaction. One thrust is just bouncing you all around the ISS. And so brilliant minds came together to think about how they could solve this problem.

And what they came up with was something called the two suit. Hopefully you can see that picture a little bit. But it is just like a flight suit with strategically placed holes and Velcro to keep people strapped together. The sexiest sound note to men. Velcro. Does that not get you in the mood, Jess? It does now. It does now.

This has been tested, not actually in microgravity outside of Earth's atmosphere, but during a parabolic where you can kind of simulate microgravity. The inventor, Vanna Bonta, did test this out. She invented it in 2006, and it has been touted as one of humanity's, like, best inventions that could help us in the future. Also, I do have, I like him. I would love to have been a fly on the wall for when they try to test it. Because it looks, from the picture, it looks like they're in one of those, like, things

where you get little parabolic, like brief zero gravity. It is. So it's like that you get like maybe half a minute. Uh-huh. So I can just see them like rushing to get something done and then like falling on the floor. And then we have two minus two minutes until our next endeavor. So I bet that was just goofy and fun. Yeah, a barrel of laughs, I'm sure, this whole endeavor.

But that's not the only issue we have to face when we're thinking about having sex in space. Sex and space is probably going to be pretty soft. It's going to be real hot and wet in all the wrong places. That is because your blood pressure is lower when you're up in space. We depend on gravity a lot to make our blood fall to the lower parts of our body. and our heart has to work to get it up to our head, but that doesn't happen in space. And so it might be difficult for blood to rush to lower parts of the body,

which is kind of essential for sex to happen. For certain kind of sex, yes. For most sex. Yes, no, it's true, because, you know, arousal. Because arousal. I'm not just talking about erections. I am talking about all kinds of arousal. It depends on the flow of blood to certain parts of the body,

and that's going to be difficult up in space. You know what's not hard up in space? aside from dicks. It's sweating. Sweating is really easy up in space because convection isn't as efficient at carrying heat away from your body. So if you're getting hot and heavy,

you're going to get really hot and you're not going to be very heavy. But it's just going to be very sweaty and the sweat's going to stick around and just float around you when you're having... Exactly. Just really picture it. Really let your imagination run.

So sex is not going to be great. Because when the fluids do eventually come out, they're going to go everywhere. It's going to be really hard to keep things contamination is going to be a huge issue with bodily fluids and with any sorts of viruses that people may be shedding. Did you know that NASA has spent about $100,000 over the last few decades trying to study herpes in space? What? Yeah. Super space mutant herpes is a problem because it's easier for the virus to move around. It is a high-stress environment, which makes reactivation a bigger problem. Actually, 60% of astronauts have had herpes infections reactivate while they're up in space.

Oh, wow. And most people have herpes. Most people do. Sure. Be weird about it. Including astronauts, yes. And so, also the cosmic radiation can add some mutation effects. So not just herpes that's very easy to spread and come back, but it can mutate thanks to extra space radiation.

So a big problem that NASA is looking out for. And then, like I said, we're interested because we want to have babies potentially on some interstellar faring thing going on. But how can we have babies grow to full term under extreme radiation environments and with microgravity? Apparently, gravity plays a pretty big role in later development stages for human embryos. And so this is just like a very rife place for curiosity and questions. And like we want to know a lot that's going on here, but we're not willing to study it in humans. So we've been studying it in other things. We did try studying some rats.

Russia set up rats. They did get pregnant in space, but the babies did not survive. They were not born live. It's very sad. We did try. Oh, no. Oh, no, roaches. Russians also tried roaches.

They did. In 2007, they sent up a roach Nadejda, I think, was her name. And they sent up two roaches, Nadezda and a male lover. Okay, so I spent a long time, RIP to my search history, because I spent a long time looking for pictures of cockroaches having sex. I was just going to ask, is that how they do it, butt to butt? Yes! I did not expect that.

Me neither. Of all of the animal copulation pictures that I looked up for this talk, they had the most variation in terms of position. Oh, really? Good for the concrete. They're getting pregnant? Oh my God. Yes.

Nadejah did get pregnant up in space, and then she came back to Earth and gave birth to 33 little roach-lit babies. Wow. And they all seemed very healthy. Yes. They all seem very healthy, but they didn't seem very normal. All of the space-conceived roach babies were born with a red coat on their little butt thing instead of a dark brown coat, like all of the earth-born cockroach babies.

Scarlet letter. You space harlot, you. America has tried to send up salamanders. We've tried to send up tadpoles. It has not been successful. But the very first instance of successful reproduction in space was in 1994 when Japan sent up to the ISS, I think, or on a NASA space shuttle. They sent up four rice fish. And they videoed these rice fish having fish sex.

And then they left the fish up there long enough for the eggs to hatch. they laid 43 eggs between these four fish and eight of them hatched up in space and were totally fine and then by the time they came back I think it's something like 30 of them hatched on Earth and they were also totally fine so we've seen some varied success

the fish do it great sometimes the cockroaches can do it but we have never successfully seen a mammal reproduce in space in 2022, the Chinese space agency floated out an idea that they would send monkeys up into space to see if they could reproduce naturally. And there was a huge public outcry. Pita was not happy.

People who looked at these adorable monkeys' faces and saw reflections of the human face staring back at them were also not very happy. How do you know the monkeys don't want to go to space and have sex in space? That's so valid. Really presumptuous, honestly. Yeah. Right? Like if there are humans who would want to do that, then there are definitely monkeys who would want to do that. But the outcry won. People called it cruel and unusual punishment, so China did not send monkeys up into space yet. Yet. We'll see what happens there. But it does seem like the international professional space community is not willing to do this type of research. However, this research needs to be done. So what's going to happen next?

I think there's just going to be a bunch of informal peer-reviewed studies happening with the proliferation of private space exploration. Oh, you know those people want to be up there. Yes. I'm sure that people will spend many millions of dollars to go have sex in space if they have the opportunity. We see that it's just getting bigger. By 2032, we expect it to be a 17-plus billion dollar industry. The private space commercial space thing. So people will be having sex and space.

We'll see what studies we can do with that information. But until then, until we know more, the next time you are knocking boots, be grateful that it's here on Earth where things are the right textures and the right humidities. Yeah, thank you. Bonjour, compadre. It's the Priceline negotiator. How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget.

The Priceline app. Got hotel deals, flight deals, rental car deals, all of those deals in a bundle, deals, game day deals, concert trip deals. No one deals more deals than price line. Hold your horses. There's more. The app let you filter hotels by neighborhood, vibe, star level, and amenities like pools and spas and beach fronts. Wait, I'm not done.

Stop cutting me up. Price line! Okay, and now, Jess, take it away. I will. This is my fact. So, oh wait, this is, okay, that's something. That's spoilers. Okay, something about me.

I like to exercise. Namely, I like, I have my notes on my phone, forgive me. I like to lift weights. I like how it makes me feel. I like that it is utilitarian. I can navigate my life better. I love that it makes me be able to let, I can make toxicly masculine men feel inferior.

Absolutely. Which I already get to do because of my height, but if I have muscles too, they hate me, and that's great. converting gender norms rips, especially in our increasingly patriarchal society. Can I get a hell yeah? Hell yeah. Great. So the last year or so, I've been wanting to kick it up a notch for no reason in particular.

So I've been experimenting with pre-workout. Oh, boy. Yeah, see, mixed reaction from the crowd. I know. It's contentious. For those that don't know, pre-workout is a supplement that you chug for a hit in the gym. It helps you. Wait, is that literally what it's called?

pre-workout? Yeah, that's what's called? What would you call it? I don't know, just like, yeah, okay, no. Makes sense. I don't know if that's like a term that's been, like, you know, created by the community and then now, like, brands use it, which is my guess.

But yeah, you drink before you hit the gym, and you can lift heavier, you have more energy, that kind of thing. And, like, hardcore gym goers, the gym bros, they, like, you know, argue about the nitty-gritty details about which one, like, you know, has the best micronutrients, which one gives you the best supplement, whatever. where if you're like me, you would just like to pick the one that has the prettiest packaging

and it tastes good like a blues slushy. And, you know, isn't like a scary. You know if it has like a number in the word? You just don't take that one. Don't take that one. So, yeah, you know, also non-spawn, but I love Alani New. And if you're listening.

Alani, call us. Call us. So, yeah, pre-workouts, they can have a whole bunch of weird compounds, you know, all that stuff to make you work out better, grow bigger muscles, whatever. But mainly in most pre-workouts, it's carbs, like sugar for energy, caffeine. It's a lot of caffeine. It's usually like 200 milligrams of caffeine, which is like a Red Bull or a Celsius, basically. And a lot of them have this compound called beta-alinin, which looks like this. Oh, my God, you guys are the best owing in I for a picture of a molecule. You guys rule.

So this thing, it does, this is like a lot of, you know, a lot of supplements and stuff don't have a lot of like scientific proof that they work. This thing does, and it helps delay muscle fatigue by kind of impeding lactic acid. So it doesn't let lactate acid build up and bind and all that stuff. It has a side effect. It creates something that I like to call the creepy crawlies, which is like, it feels like there's a bunch of little friendly bugs crawling around your skin and they're kind of itchy. As long as they're friendly. They're friendly. So I like the creepy crawly.

It's like I have horrified. I like it. I think it's like fun. It's like, ooh, it's time to go to the gym. They're encouraging. Got to run away from the bugs. Getting the it. Well, the only way to make it go away is to have a really good workout.

So if you don't want the bugs, you can get pre-workout that doesn't have beta alenine if you're boring. Or if you're afraid of bugs, that's also valid. I'm not afraid of bugs. You just don't want them under your skin. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Which is valid. That's valid.

So yeah, you know, physical benefits of pre-workout, they're there. They're definitely there. Also, be careful if you're going to use pre-workout. Potent. Potent. If you have a heart condition, if you have underlying medical conditions, use caution, talk to your doctor, et cetera. This is my disclaimer.

And, you know, when I started taking it, I, like, started slow. Like, start with half a dose or a quarter dose and work up to the full thing. Because I took it for the first time, I was like, oh, this is drugs. And it is. It literally is. Caffeine's a drug. It is, yeah. Let's see, where was I?

So yeah, physical benefits are there. They're apparent, but it goes so much deeper than just the physical benefits. When you take pre-workout, you were actually partaking in a ritual. You're mentally committing and preparing yourself to go get really buff. you know, to totally pump iron, so to speak. So it's kind of like when you're playing Eldon Ring, you know, and you chug, wait, where am I pointing? You chug your physic flask before you...

Who's played Eldon Ring? Okay, yes, great. There's a handful of us. So this potion, you can formulate with your own little buffs, like, you know, more health or faster stamina regent or more damage, whatever. You formulate that, it only lasts 60 seconds. So you chug it before you go fight a box. but you know you got it you got if you're taking it you got to go through that fog door

because you can't let it run out when you're in the boss fight so this is essentially the gamer pre-workout but yeah you're like you know it's a psychological thing you are you are committing to go in there and do your thing but you know this idea of this mental commitment it goes back way farther than planet fitness alani new and the lands between this goes back to the Vikings yay yeah so there were these legendary Viking warriors called berserkers, and they would imbibe a certain concoction. We don't know what it was, but they would imbibe something before performing a feat of strength, probably going into battle.

Bers were known for their ferocity, and allegedly fighting in this trans-like state of blind rage, howling like wild animals, biting their own shields, and sometimes not even being able to distinguish friend from foe. So this 13th century Icelandic historian, his name was Snorri Sturlusan, very Icelandic name. I'm probably not pronouncing it correctly. But this person described berserker's as being, quote, strong as bears or wild oxen, killing people with a single blow and that they were not affected by, quote, edged weapons or fire. So sharp weapons or fire, they did not care at all about those things.

That's very like D&D. It's very much barbarians. They're immune to fire damage. It's so funny because like berserkers in D&D and then like, and now in a lot of JRP's, like, they are like Viking berserkers, which is so cool. Because they have their own resistances and it is just like games. But accounts of Viking berserkers, you know, they're kind of here and there. We know a lot from like stories and sagas and stuff, but they all agree on one thing, which is that they were notorious for operating in this blind, ferocious rage. We don't know what they were imbibing to kick off this berser state.

Oh, yeah, this slide. This is the Final Fantasy 8. Oh, some fans, yes. I'm streaming this on Twitch. If you'd follow me on Twitch, you know that I've been playing this for a long time. Now I'm almost at the end. So Squall here is in berserker state, which is he's all red and angry, like a berserker from the Viking times, too.

So a lot of what we know, oh, yeah, I said this comes from myths and sagas, but there is a new study out in the last couple years. in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, which that is so cool. So these researchers say it could have been this hallucinogenic plant called Henbane. And I'll get back to that in a moment. But prior to this, people thought it was just like funny mushrooms, you know, particularly this one. Yeah. Amanita Muscaria.

You know it. It's a famous one. It's the Alice in Wonderland mushroom. It's the Mario mushroom. Not good to eat. Don't eat it. you'll drool a lot and vomit. Maybe have a trip, but like primarily be drooling and vomiting.

Yes. If you're looking for a trip, that's not the one to go for. Don't. Yeah. And yes, that was my next point. No, thank you. Thank you. I can't help myself when we're talking about mushrooms.

I know. It's partial to your interests. So yeah, like Rachel mentioned, it induces a drunken state with auditory illusions and shifts in color vision. It can also induce vomiting hypothermia. This is a pharmaceutical commercial. It can also induce vomiting, hypothermia, sweating, reddening of the face, twitching and trembling, dilated pupils, increased muscle tone, delirium, and seizures, all of which is not unlike a Viking berserker. However, did I not put a slide transition? I didn't. Oh, past Jess is not getting points today. Okay, this is Henbane. This is the other plant they think that is actually more likely

that it probably was, so it was, you know, around longer, so it was around since ancient Greece. It's been used in various cultures throughout history as a narcotic, a pain, killer, a cure for insomnia, and an anesthetic. So the new study that came out, the researchers were like, this probably accounted for the increases in strength, altered consciousness, delirium, jerking, and twitching. I wrote jerking and twitching in here, and I really wanted to make a jerking my peanuts joke, but I can't fit it in, so just pretend that I made a joke with it.

And also red face commonly associated with berserkers. So all these things that come from this plant, they were like, okay, the Viking berserkers could have just been doing a little henbane before going into battle. And also it dulls pain. So that's maybe why they were invulnerable, basically. And also, you'll like this, contributes to an inability to recognize faces. I do have that problem.

And I haven't even been doing the henbane. Yeah. The other thing that researchers said that Henbane can do is that it can cause removal of clothing. That sounds like, that. is so specific. I know. That it really sounds like someone just needed to excuse away their things. Yes. It's just the headbane. It's just the handbane. And finally, this plant can also lower blood pressure, which we're talking a lot about today.

It's important. It's important. But that's why apparently, they're saying like, oh, that's why Viking berserkers were immune to edged weapons because their blood pressure was so low. They don't bleed a lot. Like, okay, maybe. And also that the mushroom doesn't give you a hangover for like the next couple days. And Viking presergers were known to be down for the count after battle, like hangover-wise. And this one does give you a hangover. So it also grows rapidly as a weed and is known to have flourished in Scandinavia during the berser era. And they found a grave in Denmark dating back to 980, the year 980, which had a pouch of henbane seeds.

So, and yeah. So, like, you know, maybe there's other plans involved. Who's to say? This doesn't account for stuff like the biting of shields and the chattering teeth, which is such an image. Wait, so none of this stuff has made it into pre-workout? No. Okay.

But this is like their version. This is their version. Also, who hasn't bitten a shield? I'm saying. Come on. So, you know, this is a hypothesis. It's plausible. Who's to say?

We can't really go back and ask the Vikings. Anyway, hundreds and hundreds of years later, even before I started taking pre-workout to make my own version of going Viking sicko mode at the gym, even folks engaging in more modern wars kind of had their own rituals around this kind of stuff. So the Japanese kamikaze fighters would take a ceremonial sake shot before they would go on their missions, for instance.

Before I didn't research this, but my dad, I was telling my dad about my fact before I left, And he said that like, people, he said Hitler gave his soldiers meth. They were on meth. Yeah, your dad is correct. Oh. Go dad. Hi, dad.

Hi, dad. My dad's watching. And. Like in their lunchboxes. Oh, no way. And it's also steeped into pop culture, this idea of like, you know, your pre-combat, pre-workout, like, imbibing. This is Mad Max for your road, which is why I yelled witness me as my tease when they, you know, are going into what they presume to be their death battle.

They spray their mouth chrome and yell, witness me, which maybe I should start doing before I go to the gym, before I pound out a really hard set. But it's cool because these war boys, you know, they, a lot of their character design is inspired by Norris mythology, which is kind of cool because it's like a Viking berser thing.

But yeah, it all comes back to this idea I've taken the time to prepare yourself before you sit out to do something physical. you know, it has a lot of psychological power. So no matter what your pre-workout is, it could be just water. It could be like saying a mantra. It could be anything.

Use it to harness that power. I think it's valuable. Find the ritual that works for you. I'm going to stick to my bugs, who tell me to pick something really heavy up and put it back down again. I like my bugs. But, yep, that's my fact.

Witness me. Oh, and there's Alani New in there. incredible just thank you for sharing that so listeners know that on the weirdest thing i learned this week we no longer decide what the weirdest thing we've learned this week was it's no longer a competitive show but that's because when we have three people on the line who all did really good stuff it just always ended up being a three-way tie and here we are with a bunch of people who can make some noise for the fact they like the best do i have a prize for the person who wins no but we will be doing that So, whose favorite fact was about Andy the Goose?

Oh, thank you. That's really nice. Thank you so much. What about learning about the wild history of sports bras? Wonderful. How about the shocking science of sex and space? I agree. It was really good.

And the Viking origins of pre-workout. Okay. That was very close. That was very close. That was very close. But I do believe that you have taught us the weirdest thing you have before. Everybody, thank you so much for coming. This is our show.

We have a little bit more breathing room than normal because we got that Saturday afternoon slot. Thanks, caveat. So we do have to be like fully out the door a few minutes before six, but like please, you know, wrap up your business at the bar, say hello. We would love to meet as many of you as possible. And again, folks who are joining us via live stream, I am so grateful that you tuned in. And feel free to shoot me an email, Rachel at popsye.com, subject line weirdest thing. You can tell me where you're tuning in from and whether you want to be in the running

for getting some stickers or something. But everybody, thank you so much. This is amazing. We love doing these shows. It is always such a joy to be able to get in the same room with some of you. And it means so much that you come out

to share this with us. So thank you again. And everybody, have a great Saturday evening. Thank you. 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 listening, Weirdos. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your

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