The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - REVISITING Art Crime Doesn't Pay, Canines Cooking Meat, Eggs Gone Wrong

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

⁠⁠While Rachel is on parental leave, here's a vintage episode from our vault! Rachel, Sara, and comedian Josh Gondelman discuss dogs cooking in kitchens, chickens laying eggs inside themselves, an...d one of the most peculiar art heists in history. 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: Buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus at https://cargurus.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:43 I'm still on parental leave for a little bit, but I wanted to pop in to say hello and, of course, to introduce this week's awesome vintage rerun episode. What's wild about the episode we're about to air is that it was top of mind as soon as, as I tried to think of my favorite Weirdest Thing episodes ever. But when I first thought of it, I was like, no, that's way too recent an episode to use as a rerud.
Starting point is 00:02:06 But then I checked, and it's almost been an entire full actual five years since this first aired. So I guess you could say that the weirdest thing I learned this week is that time continues to progress in a linear fashion. This episode from 2021, which it turns out was not just a couple of years ago, features one of our beloved original Weirdest Thing co-host, Sarah Chodosh, and a very special guest, the delightful comedian Josh Gondleman, who has been rightfully compared to a sentient cardigan. I got in touch with Josh to ask him what we should plug for him today, and he says it would be great if people would check out his new stand-up special positive reinforcement, which is available now on YouTube and wherever you stream audio. I'm also a subscriber to his newsletter, That's Marvelous, which you can get for free by going to That's MarvelousNewsletter.com.
Starting point is 00:02:54 That's Marvelous Newsletter.com. If you, like me, spend a lot of your day wishing that we lived in less interesting times, I really have to recommend Josh's comedy if you haven't checked it out already. He's so hilarious but also has so much heart. So I promise you'll probably come away feeling at least a little bit better than you did before you sat down to watch or read his work. And he's not even paying me to say that. I just think he's a really nice, funny guy.
Starting point is 00:03:19 That's probably why this episode is one of my favorites. And one fun fact about Josh's fact for this episode before we get into it, So I believe this episode came out in May of 2021. And when it did, you may have recognized his art heist fact from a Netflix documentary that came out on April 7th, 2021, called This Is a Robbery. But in fact, Josh had pitched this as his fact for the show back in March of 2021. And we even recorded it before the Netflix documentary got dropped. He then sent me an email saying, in all caps, that he was so sorry that he had accidentally picked something that was about to be a Netflix documentary. which, of course, I told him was completely fine.
Starting point is 00:03:58 So listen, when it comes to the thrilling tale of the 1990 robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, you may not have heard it here first, but we said it here first. Okay, now let's jump into the episode. I hope you enjoy. I know things are pretty messed up right now. I hope that the next hour or so can feel a little bit better than the rest of your day. Or I hope your whole day feels awesome. That's also okay.
Starting point is 00:04:21 You don't have to feel bad about having a good day when the world is bad. I, for example, just had a very giggly conversation with a baby. And I'll play some of that for you at the end of the episode so you can enjoy it too. Okay, on with the show. At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and heck stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of Popular Science.
Starting point is 00:04:55 I'm Rachel Fultman. I'm Sarah Trottosh. I'm Josh Gondelman. Josh, welcome to the show. Listeners, I'm sure people who enjoy podcasts have heard Josh's voice before. He is a frequent guest on Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me. He hosts a delightful show called Make My Day, which I caught up on a few episodes this morning, and they did truly make my day. So thank you.
Starting point is 00:05:19 Oh, my gosh, thank you. That is, like, truly the kindest compliment because it's like literally the premise of the show is in the I really just wanted to be like a fun, breezy half hour that makes people feel better on the way out than they came in feeling. And then you also, after writing for some time for John Oliver, you now write and produce for Jesus and Mero, which I often forget because I kind of just think of your job as being like a national resource to like help us all feel better. That's so sweet. Yeah, no, I've been at Deasis and Mero. this is the third season of the Showtime show. And I've been with them since they started at Showtime since we started.
Starting point is 00:06:01 So it's been, yeah, it's been really wonderful. And I've just, like, had really great fortune to go from, like, dream job to dream job in the past, over the past, like, eight-ish years. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So we wanted to have you on Weirdest Thing because I was like, here's a person who is great at talking about interesting facts in a fun way. and we often get accidentally depressing your own weirdness thing. I'm looking at Sarah.
Starting point is 00:06:27 It's mostly me. My beat on this podcast is just like the saddest thing I learned this week, also with a little weirdness. It's like, hey, guess who got polio? Yeah. This is also, I would say, by far the most Jewish episode of Weirdest the Gayalee this week we've ever had. That's what I was going to say as well. Anticipating this, I was like, oh, we should have aired this, like, during the week of Passover, just so we could fully be maximally Jewish.
Starting point is 00:06:57 Oh, yeah, just charging up. So on the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of fact or story we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, making people's days, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first. Then once we've all had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was. Sarah, would you like to start with your teas? Yeah, I'm going to talk about how chickens sometimes accidentally miss their op-a-duct and
Starting point is 00:07:34 lay a little bit of an egg inside their body cavity and other assorted weird egg facts. Weird chicken facts is my beat today. This is not your first weird egg fact rodeo either. No, it's not. I actually referred back to the other one because I was like, I don't want to repeat a weird egg fact. It really says a lot about you as a reporter that you're able to get two full episodes of weirdest thing content out of chicken eggs specifically. Yeah, if anyone needs a chicken egg reporter, I'm your gal. Listeners just listening like, more chicken egg facts? All right, Sarah, we get it.
Starting point is 00:08:09 So sorry, so sorry, listeners. No, I'm intrigued. Josh, how about your teas? Mine is about, my fact is about an art heist that still has not been recovered from. Ooh, I love it. I love a good heist. My tease is that I would like to talk about a dog that was genetically engineered to serve as a kitchen appliance. All right.
Starting point is 00:08:35 Well, we have to go with that one first, I feel. Okay. All right. I accept. Okay. And I will say to you that I had it in my head, Josh, that this would be a great one to have while you were on because I have really enjoyed your comedic references to your dog. Oh, yeah. My dog, though, she's a chubby little pug.
Starting point is 00:08:55 She's so cute and so grumpy. She wouldn't serve as any appliance other than maybe like a paperweight. And even then, she's very defiant. She just doesn't have a lot of, she's not very tenacious. She's not especially strong. She eats wet food and I have to cut the wet food up into pieces because she prefers chunks to gum and she won't attack it all as one glob anymore. So she's mostly gums.
Starting point is 00:09:26 So, yeah, she can maybe be like a business card holder or a paperweight. But other than that, she's not super utilitarian as a pet. Well, the story ended up kind of being a little darker than I expected, but I'm going to do my best with it. But it is about a very utilitarian dog. And the long story short here is that people bred these small dogs to have like relatively kind of long bodies and like short crooked legs and they were very strong and very high energy. Charles Darwin actually referenced these pups as an example of genetic engineering where humans, you know, specifically bred qualities that would serve them into animals that they were raising. and the reason people did this is so that the dogs could basically power kitchen appliances, which just sounds so wild, but I'd get to explain.
Starting point is 00:10:27 So back when open fires were our best way of cooking things, the spit was invaluable. As early as the first century BC, people were sticking meat onto spits so that they could turn it and cook it, because otherwise you would get half of your mammoth was on fire while the other half stayed raw. similar issues. But for hundreds of years, that meant that somebody had to be physically turning the spit. And in medieval kitchens, this was a job for, like, the lowest of the lowly servant boys. And they would be called the spit boy, which is just, oh, God. Or.
Starting point is 00:11:03 Which is now, that's now a different thing. Don't Google it. Exactly. I mean, or Google it. I don't know what you're into. Whatever you're into, but, you know, Google with caution. Google with caution. that I think is always good advice.
Starting point is 00:11:16 Yeah. Or they'd be called like spit jack, which I think implies that they just called all the boys Jack if they worked on the spit. Joe Biden was their supervisor. And that is kind of my impression of like what medieval Europe was like that you could just be renamed to Jack
Starting point is 00:11:36 because you were basically a human rotissory Turner. So anyway, the first mention of the term Spitt Dog, which was also called the Wernerpeter Kerr or Connus Vertigus, Conis Vertigus, as in like a dizzy dog, was in 1576, and it was referred to as the Turnspete. But most of what we know about them was written down in the 1800s, which was near the end of what was apparently centuries of regular use. So these were dogs. It was a breed of dog, specifically. that had been bred to fit easily into these treadmills that basically looked like the wheels you'd see outside of a mill. But instead of water running through them, there were like cranky dogs
Starting point is 00:12:26 running through them. And this was a real thing. That's so cute. The cutest little, oh my God, I can't get over it. It's really cute, but then if you think about, the more you think about it, the less cute it is, which we'll talk about a little more in a second. But there were actually several devices that these dogs could power, like they could help mill green, really anything that you could attach some kind of like treadmill style gear to, they could power. And there was even a patent for a dog powered sewing machine in the 19th century, unclear whether anyone actually used that. That is the cutest sweatshop condition I've ever heard of. It's like really, really awful implications, but also so cute. Yeah, very, very cute and very tragic. So yeah, unfortunately,
Starting point is 00:13:16 as some listeners may have already guessed, this job totally sucked for the dogs for all the reasons that it had sucked for humans. And this was really common so that we know, like, during the period from that first mention we have in the 1500s until the early 1800s, that it was kind of like the mark of a high-end kitchen was to have at least one turn-spit dog. Because if you didn't, that meant that you had a little boy cranking the turn-spit, which, you know, maybe it was a little more obvious that that job sucked when it was a tiny human boy. But, yeah, according to at least one historian, it was an encounter with a New York hotel's turn spit dogs in the 1850s that inspired Henry Berg to found the ASPCA.
Starting point is 00:14:07 So like turn spit dogs apparently were our first instance of realizing that maybe animal cruelty was a thing and not just like what animals were for. And yeah, this feels, I mean, like obviously there are so many animals that we make do jobs for us that are like, that seem like maybe not what the animals would prefer to be doing. Totally. Like even a really fast horse, right? you know, they don't necessarily want to take Paul Revere around Revolutionary War, Boston.
Starting point is 00:14:38 But like, when you're like, when you're putting an animal, like a foot away from another animal that you're cooking, and you're just like, so you're not, we're not going to cook you, we hope, but like, hey, that's on you, dog. If time get rough, you know, we may. Yeah. Well, and like they worked really long hours. There's just in kind of the historical accounts we have that mentioned turn spit dogs,
Starting point is 00:15:04 they're always referred to as being very suspicious looking and very, like, really easily trained. In fact, there's some stories about them, like, if you were rich enough to have, like, a pair of turn spit dogs so they could trade off during the day. Like, if you accidentally kept one in for too long, it might, like, hop out and be like, my shift is over, clock it out. Go to that code to the mrs. Good for the dogs. Unionize the spit dogs. Yeah. But it does seem like they were probably treated quite awfully and it was a really grueling job.
Starting point is 00:15:39 And they were even bred to be not just energetic, but like it sounds like they kind of bred like hyperactivity into the dogs so that they would actually like want to run for a long time. Obviously they were still made to run for longer than they would have liked. And there are awful stories about like people doing things like throwing pieces. of hot coal in there to try to get them to go faster. But it does seem like they were really bred to be dogs that would mostly be fairly content to just run on a wheel all day. And so, yeah, there were actually as early as 1551, people had like schematics for steam-powered roasting jacks, presumably named after the boy named Jack, who turned every spit in every
Starting point is 00:16:27 medieval kitchen. That was in 1551 by Taki Aladin in the Ottoman Empire, where generally they were just doing things more sophisticated than making dogs turn their meat. But there was a version patented by an American clockmaker in 1792. And there were also smoke power jacks, described as early as the 1600s. But a lot of these things were either really expensive or they required kind of like retrofitting, your giant old. medieval oven that so many of these, like, wealthy houses still had. So I think, you know, one of the reasons that there was that opportunity for the guy who founded the ASPCA to be shocked is that they actually were, like, much less common in the Americas where the buildings were newer. So
Starting point is 00:17:13 people were more likely to be able to, like, build a chimney to accommodate, you know, a steam-powered jack versus in Europe where maybe it was just simpler to keep the dogs running. I feel like that's like one of those building codes where like you see it grandfathered in, right? Where you're like, oh, yeah, this is a new building. You can't have spit dogs in here. Or if it's like a really, it's a really old building, they're like, we're going to do these renovations, but we're going to do it so we can keep our spit dogs because otherwise it's going to be a pain in my ass to install a steam power jack. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:17:49 Yeah, and it wasn't until like the late 18th century that these and other solutions, including this jack, that had like a wind-up clockwork mechanism, which seems really, like, wildly complicated for just like making sure your meat doesn't burn. Those became accessible enough. You know, again, as we got closer to the turn of the 19th century, that people started to replace their dog treadmills. But, yeah, just a little bit more about turn-spit dogs,
Starting point is 00:18:19 which I think are a beautiful and terrible human invention, like many dog breeds that exist today. They weren't just relegated to the kitchen. The lords and ladies of the house would actually use them as like living foot warmers at church on Sundays. Oh my God. And which is way cuter than the running on hamster wheels next to a hot fire thing. Much cuter. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:44 Queen Victoria is said to have kept several of them as pets, which must have seemed really quirky. But even though she set lots of trends, that is not a trend that took off. They were generally considered ugly and mean, which I have to assume is because people kept making them run on hot treadmills that smelled like meat. Yeah, you can't blame a dog with a, like a line-cooked dog for being a little surly. Exactly. I'd be angry too. Yeah. So once they became obsolete as kitchen utensils, they just quickly disappeared.
Starting point is 00:19:17 And so they're considered extinct now, which is really funny because dog breeds aren't distinct species. so calling them extinct is kind of a misnomer. It's like how cabbage, kale, broccoli, colabi, Brussels sprouts, and a whole bunch of other plants are actually one species. So if we stopped eating cabbage and it disappeared, it wouldn't really be extinct. Like the makings of cabbage would still exist in the DNA of those other varietals. And so, like, similarly, any extinct dog breed is just one where we don't have proof that, like,
Starting point is 00:19:48 a pure descendant of that exact lineage is still around. but generally speaking, like, there's always some idea of, like, what modern dogs they're really closely related to and that sort of thing. I do have one picture of a, there's a taxidermied turn spit dog. There's the last known specimen. God, I'm so afraid. Wait, it's like one old, oh, sorry, go ahead, Sarah. No, I was just going to say, I feel like the taxidermied dog is either going to be, like,
Starting point is 00:20:21 Like, that looks just like a living dog or like, dear God, that is terrifying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This looks like a wolf that someone panseered for half an hour. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. Okay. I am attempting share screen.
Starting point is 00:20:38 And here's the dog. Oh, I think it's cute. Yeah. Wait, it's so much. What is the scale there? It looks so much more petite than I was picturing. Oh, definitely very petite. Like, the wheels were not.
Starting point is 00:20:51 were not large kind of like terrier-sized I would say and a lot of the kind of like modern dogs that sought to be related to our terriers that picture which I will post on popside.com slash weird there's a great episode of
Starting point is 00:21:10 Kitchen Sisters, an awesome podcast talking about turn-spit dogs from a few years ago and the historian they talked to about that taxonomy was like it's clearly lovingly done like there are flowers in the like shadow box that it's in, the box is painted, but it was maybe their first attempt to tax a terminating animal. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 00:21:29 Not very well done. Lovingly done, but poorly executed. Sure. So it's hard to know exactly what they look like, except that that was like their size. They were a squat, sturdy, but like petite dog. Also just like, you know, extinct dogs in general or extinct breeds, again, like a dog breed, being extinct is kind of like a weird concept. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:54 Right. Right. Limited edition discontinued dog. A dead stock dog. Yeah. But there were a couple that I found that I thought were really interesting because it really speaks to like how dog breeds, you know, go away when there was some really specific purpose we were breeding into them that becomes obsolete.
Starting point is 00:22:13 So one example is the Belgian Mastiff, which was this massive dog like all Mastiffs are. But it was used to pull carts. in Belgium and the Netherlands until the 20th century, like a little horsey. And then around World War II, I guess other countries started making fun of Belgium for having dogs pull around their groceries and they stopped using them for that. So this begs the question. Like you said, a little, like a little horse. Like, did they not know about horses in Belgium?
Starting point is 00:22:44 I really don't know. I mean, a dog. It might have been like it was just the right size maybe to be like. A horse is a little too big for your groceries, but a dog could be exactly right, you know? All right. It was like a, you know, a milkman's cart would be pulled by the value. I'm just saying, like, I guess the way we treat animals, this is what it's reminding me, is the way we treat specific animals is kind of arbitrary, right? Like which ones we assign labor to and which ones we treat as pets.
Starting point is 00:23:12 So maybe in Belgium, they just, their little horses, like, lived in the house with them and would sometimes sleep in their beds if they were very permissive. and the dogs were the ones that they gave all the jobs to until someone was like, you got to switch this up. Your pet horse that you let sleep by the fireplace, this thing could be dragging your cart around town. He got it all backwards. Instead of this team of dachshunds you have on a rickshaw. Well, and then one other defunct breed of dog I found that was really interesting.
Starting point is 00:23:44 I didn't write the name down, but there are a lot of the quote unquote extinct breeds are hunting dogs who were just bred to hunt really specific things. And like one of them, probably more than one of them, the reason it was so specific is that they wanted a dog that was really good at silently sniffing out a particular kind of prey, but not actually hunting it. Like those were the dogs that found it and they needed to do it really stealthily because then they would be like, all right, now other dog go hunt that thing that hasn't yet realized there are dogs around. And, like, people are absurd.
Starting point is 00:24:22 Just breed one dog to do that whole thing. Yeah. You know. That was the snitch collie. Exactly. Just like, I'm not, I'm not saying nothing, but if you're looking for the, yeah, if you're looking for a pheasant, uh, I've heard some things. So, yeah, that is, um, you know, a brief overview of the, um, the turn spit dog, the dizzy dog.
Starting point is 00:24:49 I would love to have one as a foot warmer. I think it sounds like they're probably really smart, industrious little dogs. And, you know, I'm really glad that, like, eating Schwarma doesn't involve, like, a dog having... Imagine if everywhere red in New York, like, every Schwarma cart was just there was a little dog just, like, going in circles outside. Like, tragic? Yes. Would it make the streets of New York a little more adorable? Maybe. Also, yes.
Starting point is 00:25:19 Yeah, for sure. I feel like that is like not, it would be like akin to the bodega cat, right? Like it feels like there's, there are openings in New York institutions for other kinds of animals. A swarmadog, a bodega cat, a deli bird. Like we get all sorts of, you know, like a hot dog cart parakeet. Well, I also think like the only thing that it would take to make this. a much more humane practice is to just have a ton of dogs. Yeah, they just go as long as they want and then they just pop out.
Starting point is 00:25:56 Yeah, and then another one pops in. Yeah, it could be a fun activity. Yeah. Yeah. I know dogs who would love to run in circles for an hour, just like burn off all that energy. There's my, my dog, as I said before, just very old, very lazy. She would absolutely not be able to resist just trying to eat the meat that she was assigned to cooking. Perhaps a good foot warmer though. A great foot warmer. Absolutely, yeah. She would be great at half of this job. Well, just a very specific.
Starting point is 00:26:28 You know, it's like the hunting dogs that divide up the labor. She's just got the foot warmer part covered. She wouldn't, I mean, I guess she could do it in church as like a vocation, but she is a Jewish dog. There's a little too much standing, I think, in synagogues to have a foot warmer be useful. Yeah, you're up. you're down, you're startling your dog who just kind of got a good snore going. Oh, she snores really loud. So she would additionally be bad for a religious setting. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just, she's got like, yeah. It's a problem.
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Starting point is 00:29:58 Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. Okay, we're back. And Josh, why don't you talk to us about art heists? Okay, so this is my favorite thing. I hope this isn't too redundant with information people already know because there have been other podcasts and books about this, but this is like my favorite fact. And it's one that I kind of like retained as a kid and resurfaced in my brain as an adult, which is there's a museum.
Starting point is 00:30:29 I'm from Massachusetts. And we went when I was a kid on a field trip to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. And in the museum, there's a little history of the museum to start with. Isabella Stewart Gardner was born in New York in the 1840s. She moved to Boston with her husband. He died in 1898. and she started doing this thing they'd always planned, which was to start a museum. So you can see like what kind of financial bracket they were working in.
Starting point is 00:31:00 If they were like, they weren't like, honey, should we have a garden? It was just like, hey, babe, you know what I was thinking? Let's do a museum. So he died and she starts getting this museum ready. And so they had been all over the world and acquired art. again, when it's the 1800s, mid-1800s, and you're just like acquiring art from other countries, I don't really want to like vouch for that process as being ethical or fair. However, what the end result was that she built this, had this mansion built, basically, as a museum.
Starting point is 00:31:41 And it's just full of all the art that she loved. and it's like the art itself I have the I have the web page open because the art is like not consistent in any way like it's from all different countries there are like paintings
Starting point is 00:32:02 there are there are like artifacts and it's it's organized just by like how she liked it like how much she liked different stuff she was like I think these look good together and she was not I believe not like trained in curating art. But she
Starting point is 00:32:19 did, she was very specific. So when she died, she was like, I'm going to leave, I want this to be a museum forever. I'm leaving this in a trust. But one of the conditions is that you can't move anything, which it's like
Starting point is 00:32:35 visiting like a grandparent's house where everything, you know, it's like that's the room you don't sit in, even though there's a couch. Like everything just stays and there's like a picture of, your grandparents in there very young and just nobody moves anything nobody touches anything there's just like a glass jar full of seashells for some reason um so this is this is all fine and good she was just like keep it like it is uh then in 1990 so yes okay so i'll just tell the story
Starting point is 00:33:08 fairly linearly in 1990 the night of st patrick's day there was no I know. I know. Okay. St. Patrick's Day in Massachusetts, nothing can happen. St. Patrick's Day in Boston is chaos. It is, so the night of St. Patrick's Day, two robbers came in, I believe, dressed as police. And they stole what the FBI has valued at over $500 million worth of art, including, yeah, including one of 32, excuse me, one of 34 known Vermeer paintings. The concert was one.
Starting point is 00:33:50 The only seascape of Rembrandts, which called the Storm and the Sea of Galilee, sketches, a Chinese goo, I think I'm pronouncing that right, which is like a, I think it's ceramic. It is a bronze vessel, excuse me. So just all the stuff stolen, never recovered. The case is open. The museum has a. a, has a $10 million reward for information leading to the recovery of this art,
Starting point is 00:34:22 which obviously hundreds of millions of dollars of artwork. I believe it stands as the largest unsolved art heist in history. But the fact that I love that was so fascinating as a child and that it is so fascinating now is that where the art was is empty. The robbers cut canvases out of their frames to just take them with them. Those frames remain empty on the wall of the museum. Yeah. So, like, you go into this museum and there's – it looks like it's vaguely under construction because it's gone.
Starting point is 00:35:01 And so there have been 30 years of investigations. And I really want to shout out the podcast Last Scene, which was a joint venture between WBUR, Boston's public radio station and the Boston Globe. And they go down all these kind of rabbit holes of like maybe it was this segment of the Boston mafia. Maybe it was Whitey Bulger. Maybe it was these other criminals from, you know, international art thieves that hit this museum knowing that on St. Patrick's Day, like, you know, midnight to 2 a.m. on Sunday night after St. Patrick's Day was Saturday into, I mean, St. Patrick's Day is kind of a state of mind in Boston. Like, some people I think are constantly, it's constantly St. Patrick's Day. But they go hard. And so they seized upon this chaos.
Starting point is 00:35:57 Oh, it was also, there were thoughts about whether it was an inside job, whether one of the two night watchmen was involved. And all these leads have come up empty as are the frame. on the wall of this museum that you can go and see, which I think is like, that's pretty fun. Like, obviously you want to see Rembrandt's only seascape, but if you can't see Rembrandt's only seascape, don't throw up just another painting there and eliminate the history of this art heist. Leave it empty and just be like, no other paintings. I was going to say, oh, sorry. Oh, how fun for the people who pulled this art heist, that there is a permanent tribute.
Starting point is 00:36:44 A lasting legacy. Yeah. Because now it's like it's both an art museum and also a museum about this one specific heist. Yes, it's an art heist museum as well as an art museum. I love that. The Isabella Stewart Gardner slash Oceans 11 Museum in the Fens. And yeah, so I'm like obsessed with the heist in general, but also. with the fact that they keep, that because of this charter, and in the, on the website to the museum,
Starting point is 00:37:13 because I remember hearing on the tour when I was, whatever, 11 years old, that it, that it was the charter of the museum that, that said that they couldn't replace the art. And on the website, they kind of, there's a whole section devoted to the theft because it's such a big deal. And I imagine it, like, drives at least some of the visitors to, to the museum. But it, It says, let me find it because they're a little gentler about the reason that they leave the frames open. I can't find it. When I was looking at it the other day, it said something like the single largest property theft in the world, they claim on the website. It took 81 minutes.
Starting point is 00:37:55 There's pictures on the website of one of the guards kind of duct tape to a pipe downstairs. And then empty frames. Today, empty frames remain hanging in the museum as a placeholder for the missing. works and as symbols of hope awaiting their return, which I think is kind of a sweet way to say that. Right. Yeah, it's kind of like the... Much sweeter than this dead lady made us promise we would never leave these frames. This dead there, this dead old lady was like, don't move anything.
Starting point is 00:38:25 I have it the way I like it. My ghost will know. And it is, like you brought up Rachel at the beginning of the podcast, Passover. And it's kind of like the idea of like, the bitterness and the sweetness at once of like hope for the return but also a reminder of like whoopsie yeah i you know i've been thinking since you uh you mentioned that there would be an art heist involved in your fact i was like what what does happen with stolen art right because you can't just like go sell it to anybody yeah people are looking for that stolen art
Starting point is 00:39:07 You've got to sell it to the right people. You do have to sell it to the right people. Yeah. And yeah, I definitely, I read a few pieces about how, you know, unsurprisingly, there are rich people who are less scrupulous than others about, you know, some rich people love the brag of having some hidden stolen art in their home that only their, you know, close friends and associates can know about. But I also was reading that it's like stolen artworks that are recovered.
Starting point is 00:39:34 It's often found that they were basically just used as like collateral. in like, you know, in mobs and, you know, various criminal underbellies where it's just like, yeah, I got the goddamn Mona Lisa so you can hold it while I go do this thing. And then I'll come back and take the Mona Lisa back. And like, what a bummer that so much stolen art is apparently just being used as like an, as like IOU markers. So one thing that that was interesting in the podcast last scene is that, that they really make the point that, like, you, we, there's this image in our, in the public imagination of like the art thief as like a, a gentleman criminal, right? Like an appreciator of art who's like, mm-hmm, I shall have the Vermeer for my own. And then they're like, they're like,
Starting point is 00:40:24 they're like, sad to have to sell it to like a fence to, you know, to like, to get that money and have the art. They're like, it's beautiful, treated well. But like, in real life, it's just like, whoever, it's the same kind of person that would do any kind of robbery. And I don't want to like, by that I don't mean like anything derogatory other than it's, it's not like an art appreciator. It is like the same kind of person who would like rob a bank. But they're like, oh, I, instead of getting the money directly, we know how to get this art. Like we know somebody on the inside or we know a security vulnerability.
Starting point is 00:40:57 And so it's like a very funny where it's just like it's the same mob that steals other things. Like this, yes, there's not like a secret like art mafia. Right. And also then like, you know, there's always the concern that the stuff is just going to be destroyed once it's more risky than it is useful. So yeah, like if you're going to, if you're considering doing crime, just like consider doing it with something other than at priceless artwork. Well, my favorite art crime is I just watched that documentary made you look about the art. forgeries. And I think if you can forge a priceless work of art and sell it to a rich person, or, you know, through a gallery to a rich person, I think they shouldn't be able to prosecute you.
Starting point is 00:41:48 I think you win fair and square. Yeah, if you can trick someone into that, especially if you can trick someone who like verified the painting, like this is a legit, I don't know about art to insert. Insert an artist's name here who you can forge effectively. Yeah, I feel the same way, Especially the rich person. Like, jokes on you, buddy. Sorry. In that movie, there were people that were very mad that they felt defrauded out of $8 million that they spent on a Rothko.
Starting point is 00:42:15 And a Rothko that turned out to be forged. And nobody spends $8 million on a painting when they have a net worth of $8 million and $50. Right. They're not like, oh, no. How do we pay our cell phone bills? they we got screwed on this Rothko deal so like I think if you can get you know if you're selling a painting for 1.2 million dollars and it's you trick the people that are supposed to verify it I think you don't get to bribe the people to verify it this is my rule but I think if you trick them then it's it's um no take backsies it's fair and square there's a um I think that's fair there's a museum of art fakes in Vienna that I have been to and there's no there's no like quote unquote real art in it it is just about art forgery, it is incredible.
Starting point is 00:43:05 I'm a big fan of weird museums. If you're ever in Vienna, if ever we can go anywhere ever again, go to Vienna and go to the museum of art fakes. I want to do a fake version of that museum somewhere. I want to open up like... Would it be real art where it's fake fakes? Oh, whoa. Yeah, that is awesome.
Starting point is 00:43:25 Where you're just like, these are fakes, wink. I mean, you're like, these are incredible. And it's like, yeah, that's because Picasso did them. But I love art crimes. Yeah, we had an episode of We're just thing a couple years ago where I talked about this young female artist who claimed to have like uncovered the secrets of the Renaissance masters and offered to teach these famous male painters
Starting point is 00:43:54 how to effectively copy them. Yeah. And she ran a great scheme because the thing is that when the men took her courses and still sucked at painting and weren't as good as painting as she was. Her secret for copying the Renaissance Masters was just that she was a better painter than the guys were.
Starting point is 00:44:12 Yeah. See, that's a great scam. And no one wanted to admit it. So they would all just be like, yeah, I learned a lot. It was great. Definitely, definitely pay her to do the same thing. I'm like Monet now. Yeah, that's so funny. Because that's like an unprovable
Starting point is 00:44:31 scam, especially because she, He's so good at painting. It's like a, it's like the reverse of that popular, the axiom, right? This is those who can don't teach. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back with one more fact. Make every get-together chill. This Memorial Day, get up to an extra $1,000 off select top brand appliances like LG. Plus, get free delivery at the Home Depot.
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Starting point is 00:46:14 Some egg bags. So I do just have to start by saying I'm about to tell you, basically like, what I'm about to tell you will change your life. It won't change your life. But I did feel a little like I was slandering chickens because I'm just going to talk to you guys about how all the ways it can go wrong. Like how many ways can you lay an egg badly? But I'd just like to set the record straight and say that chickens are really, really good at laying eggs. They lay, most of them lay like more than 300 eggs a year, which is like a crazy production rate. If you produced an egg every single day, your life, holy crap. And like the vast majority of them will be absolutely perfect and beautiful and wonderful. But some of them are not. Don't let big chicken intimidate you, Sarah.
Starting point is 00:47:00 Sorry. My printer just made a noise. I have a new printer and the printer just made a noise. And I was like, the chickens have hacked into the mainframe. Yeah. It's going to print out for me. Yeah. It just is like, whatca. A piece of paper comes out. Okay. Okay. So, like, we're going to start with least to most wrong. So the least wrong an egg can be is like it's just like missing a yoke or it has too many yolks.
Starting point is 00:47:27 So like double yokes eggs, those are pretty common. You can get more. The Guinness World Record is five yolks inside a nine inch wide egg. I hope that that's like long ways and not wide because that's a. a rough time for the chicken. That's a chicken egg? Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I think it must be a bigger.
Starting point is 00:47:47 It must be like an ostrich egg or something. Like it must be something big. Or like Kiwis, Kiwis, by the time Kiwis lay their eggs, they can't walk. Right. Kiwis are like all eggs. It's all egg. They're a weird bird.
Starting point is 00:48:01 Is the world record attributed to the bird or the person who like found it? Because I think the bird deserves most of the credit. I mean, it's really, it's really. really to the egg, but definitely, I don't know if you know the name of the chicken or the ostrich or whatever it was. There's a record that the, there's a rumor that the real record is like nine yolks in an egg, but it's, it's unconfirmed. The Guinness World Record, people weren't there to see it. They were like, that's just nine eggs in one ball. We can tell. I cannot verify this. But yeah, I mean, that's basically for like the same, the same way like humans have like twins or
Starting point is 00:48:37 triplets or quadruplets or whatever like that. That's basically the, uh, the general idea. You can also get fairy eggs, which are also called fart eggs, dwarf eggs, wind eggs, or a lot of other names that I thought were too rude to mention here. Wow. But they're basically like little teeny tiny eggs, like the little eggs you get for Easter that are chocolate, but a real egg, sometimes they're all whites, but sometimes they're just little tiny eggs. There's like weird shell abnormalities. You can get like really rough ones, like sandpapery. And that's if your chicken, I know, if the chicken deposits too much calcium,
Starting point is 00:49:10 in the shell. It gets real bumpy, which again, I mean, laying an egg can't be comfortable and definitely laying a sandpapery one isn't. Some eggs are wrinkly, which happens when there's like a problem part way through like the egg shell breaks or something, but then sometimes the hen can like patch it back together basically and so they end up wrinkly. I've seen that before. Like I'm sure, like not a profoundly wrinkly egg because it wouldn't have been sold to me if so. but I've definitely seen some eggs that I would describe as having a wrinkly quality to that. Yeah. And then like- Chicken butt holes are amazing.
Starting point is 00:49:49 They are. Nature is incredible. I once made a comment offhand about an egg coming out of a chicken butthole. The people I was with made fun of me being like, Rachel, they don't poop the eggs. And I was so, they so effectively embarrassed me that I was like, oh gosh, you're right. And then later on I was like, no, they do. There's one hole. Yeah, it's a cloaca, right?
Starting point is 00:50:08 It's their butt. It's just a cloaca. Yeah, they do. Because it's not strictly a butthole. Doesn't mean it's not their butthole. Right. It's a butthole plus. Who's to say when it's being used as a butthole?
Starting point is 00:50:19 Like maybe an egg comes out a butthole or maybe it's an egg hole when an egg's coming out. This is a matter for philosophers. It's more of a philosophy question than a science question. It truly is. It's the next great chicken of the egg question. So like the, okay, so then like the color of the shell can vary. a lot and that depends on like the stage at which the color gets deposited. Like you can get blue eggs or green. And if they're blue or green, that's like the whole shell all the way through
Starting point is 00:50:48 is blue or green. If they're brown, you can actually wipe off the color when they're freshly laid, which is crazy. Like they've just been painted like little Easter eggs. Wow. That sounds really fake. Yeah, it seemed not real. I googled it a lot because I was like, there's no way that that's true. But it seems to be true. Where I'm from, they, they say, sell like the eggs you generally get are brown eggs and they like the in Massachusetts and they there was some like the egg council or what whoever sold them had there was like a slogan of encouraging you to get the brown eggs because they're locally produced. Really? That's so interesting. When I was a kid I remember my or it's just something my dad made
Starting point is 00:51:28 up which is so weird. I like I kind I want to Google it but I also like don't I can't face the fact that like did my dad just make up? this slogan for eggs, but I think it's from like when he was a kid and they would like push you to buy like locally produced brown eggs. That's funny. People, um, I already said this egg fact, but in another podcast alarmingly, but if you, a lot of people think that brown eggs are like more organic or like more natural eggs, but they are not. The color of a, of an egg is just dependent on what breed of chicken pooped it. And yes, they did poop it. Um, there's also lash eggs, which are truly horrifying, I encourage you to never, ever Google it.
Starting point is 00:52:10 They are like egg-shaped clumps of goop that happen when the like aviduct gets infected. So that's real nasty. No, thank you. But the actual fact I have to share with you today, I learned because our tech editor, Stan Horacek, tweeted about his wife asking him whether they had any lube on hand because she needed to stick her fingers up the chicken's butt slash cloaca to see. if an egg had gotten stuck. Stan's wife is a superhero. She's incredible. Sarah Horjacks.
Starting point is 00:52:44 So I got, I asked Stan a bunch of questions and he was like, you know what? I don't know the answer these questions, but Sarah would. So I'm just going to connect you guys. So about an hour after he connected us on email, I got this incredible response where she was just like, let me tell you about all the weird egg stuff that I know. So half of the facts you've already heard her from actually from Sarah. So their chicken, Cleo, she thought was egg bound, which is like exactly what it sounds like like the egg gets stuck inside the hen.
Starting point is 00:53:12 And there's some solutions to that, including, I found this advice on the internet. So I don't know how legit this is. But supposedly if your hen is egg bound, you can just give her a nice little warm bath. You just want to relax her and soothe her. And then you put some KY jelly inside the cloaca to just kind of like loob it on up. And sometimes, I guess that solves the problem. But Cleo, as it turns out, was not egg bound, sadly. So she had something that's called egg yolk paratinitis.
Starting point is 00:53:44 I couldn't figure out why this happens. But as I said in my tease, like basically, chickens can start laying little bits of egg, like one without a complete shell or like one that's rupture. or like often it's just like part of a yoke or something. And it just sort of goes into their body cavity. Like it just, it almost literally slips through some kind of gap between the ovaries and the aviduct. And it just sort of goes into the body. I'm not even really clear how all the diagrams are just like egg starts here.
Starting point is 00:54:19 And then it just, it just exits this little loop. We don't actually know what's inside of a chicken. No one's ever looked. It's just a big old cavity. So yeah, but then like because it's just like a loose yolk, that's bad for the chicken. So like a lot of times they get a really serious bacterial infection. And it's like it's hard to catch stuff like this early because I don't keep chickens. I hope to keep chickens someday because I think that their happy little clucking sounds are absolutely adorable.
Starting point is 00:54:49 But because chickens are like prey species, they hide if they're feeling sick or like feeling crappy. So like it's very hard to tell when you're trying to. chicken is feeling sad or off. But also... Oh, they get shy. I know. It's so sad. They like, you know, they just want to be strong.
Starting point is 00:55:07 Right. They never let him see you cry. That's an old chicken mantra. But weirdly sometimes, so the yolks can also like solidify into like a mass. Stan said that he thought it was from like their body heat. I don't know if that's true. I could not verify like why they solicit. But they act basically like a like a tumor but made of solidified eggs.
Starting point is 00:55:33 And that's what happened to Cleo, Cleo the chicken. So you're going to find one of those inside me someday. I know. So yeah, if you catch it early, there is a treatment, which is that you give them hormonal injections or an implant. So there's a little thing called a deslorellin implant. I'm sure I'm not saying that right. But it's like, it's like kind of like birth control, but for some animals. Yeah. So it's like, it's like Implenon, but humans. Like, sorry, no. It's kind of like, it's not for humans. Don't give it to humans. It's kind of like Implenon is for humans, but it releases Ganatotrop and releasing hormone, and you can use it to suppress fertility in like male dogs and ferrets and also male or female cats. And this is just a thing that you can get. I mean, like, I think most of the time you wouldn't get it from your vet, but like, this is a thing. There's animal birth control, and I had no idea.
Starting point is 00:56:27 that's not just like spaying or neutering them. Anyway, vets prescribe it off-label to chickens. It's not really supposed to be for them. But if you give them this little implant, it suppresses their egg laying. So you can stop that process and then you can like treat the infection if you get it really early. And at least one chicken blogger, there's a lot of chicken bloggers on the internet. At least one of them successfully treated her hen this way. But it seems pretty rare.
Starting point is 00:56:54 And sadly, Stan told me that Cleo the chicken will not. survive her egg yolk pair toinitis. I know. So surprise. This was a sad, I know, I'm so sorry. It turned out to be sad in the end. This, this episode is so, so sorry. I just want to dedicate the episode to Cleo the chicken because without her, we would not have these facts. I'm so sorry. RIP. Play as much Sarah McLaughlin as we can afford to play here, Jess. 29 seconds worth. Yeah. In the wings of wings.
Starting point is 00:57:27 Oh, God. going to start crying just from that. So those are my egg facts. I don't think I have another episode's worth of egg facts. So this is probably going to. Maybe not about chickens. Yeah, other eggs, I'm sure. It's time to branch out.
Starting point is 00:57:39 Other eggs. Or other non-egg chicken facts. Yep. Yeah. Oh, God. All right. Well, I'm going to find one. Now you've challenged me and I have to have another egg fact or chicken fact episode.
Starting point is 00:57:50 Yeah, there are so many other animals that lay eggs. I feel like you're just scratching the surface. I was picturing when you said, the egg inside the chicken cell until I realized that it was just the yolk more or less, right, loose in their chicken tubes. I was like, could an egg just hang out inside a chicken until they give birth, like a live birth? Oh, God, like it just keeps going.
Starting point is 00:58:14 Yeah, that's what I was worried about. But it sounds like no, right? It sounds like it's not a fully formed egg with a shell, yeah. It's not. But that is why Kiwis have such big eggs because, like, most animals that lay eggs do it so you can just like cook them part way and then put them outside your body. But Kiwis, like they still lay the egg, but the little baby Kiwi develops like almost entirely while it's still inside its mom. So that's why they have such big eggs. So like a kiwi could maybe
Starting point is 00:58:44 just not, they could just do away with the egg part. They probably could. Yeah. And they just have an evolution was like, you're stuck with this forever. Wow. That's fascinating. Yeah. Kiwis are crazy. The people and the birds, to be honest. All right. Well, what was the weirdest thing we learned this week? God, I don't know. There were a lot of weird things in this one. A lot of weird things. Yeah, it's true. We had a lot of, a lot of, like, tangential weird things. Yep. I think this may, this may be a three-way tie this week. I think all three of our facts taught me new things. Me too. Is this a first time three-way tie?
Starting point is 00:59:26 Oh, no, I've definitely pulled this crap before. So we're in to size of time. Yeah. Look, I love it. I don't think there's a reason we don't need to make facts compete. No, they're all equally good facts. Yeah. Sometimes facts, yeah, sometimes it's just the love of the game.
Starting point is 00:59:43 Exactly. The game called science. That's what we do. Josh, thank you so much for joining us. What a treat. Thank you for having me. And listeners who don't already definitely check out Make By Day, where facts do not have to compete.
Starting point is 01:00:00 No. Everything is fully invented. It is chaos. It is a game show where there's only one contestant, so they always win. And each week, the winning contestant and only contestant wins a $100 donation to the charity or cause of their choice. And it's really fun. And it's the only game show that I know of where no one ever loses. And so it's very stress-free.
Starting point is 01:00:29 That's what I strive for. That's what we need right now, honestly. Thank you. Just a zero-stress game show. Thank you. The weirdest thing I learned this week is a popular science podcast. We're available on all major podcast platforms. So subscribe wherever you're listening now.
Starting point is 01:00:44 And if you like what you hear, please read and review us on Apple Podcasts. It helps other weirdos find the show. For more information on the stories you heard in this episode, come find us at popsai.com slash weird. You can buy our merch, including Weirdest Thing t-shirts, tote bags, and mugs at popsay.threadlist.com. The show is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Fultman, with editing and audio engineering by Jess Bodey. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore Thing. Thanks for listening, Weirdos. Hey, Weirdos. It's 2026 Rachel here again. I hope you
Starting point is 01:01:18 enjoyed that rerun. Just a reminder, you can check out. Josh Gondelman's latest special positive reinforcement on YouTube and wherever you stream audio. Plus, you can get pep talks from him via his newsletter, That's Marvelous, which you can find at That's Marvelous newsletter.com. Jess will be back with another new episode in your feed in just two weeks, and in another two weeks we'll have another rerun. And then I'll be back with regularly scheduled programming in May. It's going to be here before we know it. In the meantime, I'm having full-on conversations with a four-month-old because apparently this is what happens when you spend your entire gestation listening to your parent, like, interview people and read ads for Mint Mobile.
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