The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Teeny Frogs With Tarantula Bodyguards, the Science of Hair Magic, an Everlasting Lightbulb

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

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!  Click here to follow our sibling podcast, Ask Us Anything!  -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman Purbita Saha: www.twitter.com/hahabita Claire Maldarelli: www.twitter.com/camaldarelli Popular Science: www.twitter.com/PopSci Produced by Jess Boddy: www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy Theme music by Billy Cadden: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/popular-science/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/popular-science/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of Popular Science. I'm Rachel Fultman. I'm Pramita Saha. I'm Claire Maldarelli. So on the weirdest thing I learn this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of fact or story that we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear 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. Pervita, what's your tease? I'm going to tell the fun story of a genius black woman who turned, boring old dandruff shampoo into a miracle cure worth millions. Excellent. Wow. Claire, how about your teas? Yes, I'm going to talk about something less exciting, I guess. That's a bad way to start. I am going to talk about a really, really old light bulb. You know what? I believe in you. I think you're going to make it thrilling. I'm ready for a roller coaster of emotion. My tease is that there are tiny frogs that use giant spiders as their bodyguards. It's very cute.

That's cool. What do we want to start with? Lightbulb. Woo! I mean, it's a great idea. Light bulb flicks on. We begin. So, Claire, tell us all about it.

So, Claire, tell us all about it. So everyone always asks me what? my favorite story I've ever written for popsye.com is and or I guess all of popular sciences, various entities, we have so many. And I will say all of my stories are like my children, so I cannot pick. But there is one story that I always use as my favorite. So maybe it actually deep down is my favorite. This story takes us to the fire station in Livermore, California where a light bulb hangs in the garage where like all the fire trucks are kept. I don't know.

I don't spend a lot of time in fire stations, but the garage is a very important place. And thank you, yes. And if you ask any of the current or former firefighters at this station, they'll tell you that the light bulb itself is basically an institution. Most people who have worked there at that station will basically tell. you that it's been there forever. And that's kind of almost true. According to Tom Bramel, who is a former deputy fire chief for the Livermore Pleasanton Fire Department, when he began working there in the early 1970s, they'd essentially like swat the light bulb for good luck, but never really

thought that much of it. They were just like, here's this old light bulb, it's been here forever. Now we just have to swat it before we go fight fires. That is until 1972 when a local news reporter was hearing stories that the light bulb had been there for decades. And he was like, how is a light bulb just still glowing for decades and decades? And he just kept in hearing of this light bulb. And he was like, maybe they're all just talking about like the idea of the light bulb. But first, sure the light bulb has been replaced many times. So he did this big like investigation into a light bulb. Now, I would love to just like spend months and months investigating a light bulb. It sounds amazing as like a journalistic endeavor. This is why we need to support local journalism. Who else? Yes, Rachel,

exactly. Yes. So with the help of some scientists, of course, he was able to help date the light bulb to the early 20th century. So you might be thinking an old broken light bulb is hanging in the fire department garage. Like what's its significance? The catch is that the light bulb seriously still works. Today, more than 100 years after it was made, it still turns on and glows. It even has its own webcam that you can visit online. And to this day, despite many studies after this initial 1972 investigation, scientists have yet to pin down exactly why it still works. So here's what they do know. The bulb, and this took me into like a deep dive of light bulbs, and now I have this great appreciation for all light bulbs, like whenever I turn off my

Christmas lights that are still up that I need to put down, and whatever all their lights in my house, I'm just like, I appreciate the light bulb. So I hope you will too. This bulb was made by a company called the Shelby Electric Company, which was a, I believe it is now not a company anymore. But it was an Ohio-based company established in 1896, and in its heyday, which was like the early 1900s, it was known for creating some of the best products around. Most notably, the company attracted the attention of the sky Adolf Shelle, a French inventor and electrical engineer who eventually moved to Ohio to work at Shelby. And the most significant thing he did was improve the filament, which is the wiring inside the glass that produce the light when electricity runs through it of this light bulb.

And one of the secrets of success was the formula for this filament. So the filament was construction from a plastic cellulose substance, which is like, very, very strong. And when properly, essentially, baked at the exact right temperature, it becomes almost like pure carbon. So just incredibly strong and intact and like doesn't break down easily. The carbon was so compact and hard that scientists who have looked at Shelby light bulbs have found that it approaches the hardness of diamond. Whoa. Yeah. And it's most and it's like this chemical reaction essentially that happens when you bake it. So it's not as strong until you bake it at this like perfect temperature. And Shalai figured this out. And his initial claim at the time was that the new

light bulb was 20% more efficient and would last 30% longer than the bulbs on the market at that time. Now, if I were a customer, I'd be like, I'm buying this light bulb for sure. And in March 1898, it was declared the quote-unquote best lamp on earth. So the lamps that contained this light bulb. But just as quickly as the Shelby bulbs rose to popularity, they stopped being produced. And that was mostly because from a profit perspective, a light bulb that essentially lasts for decades means that no one is going back to Shelby Electric Company to be like, give me some more light bulbs. They're like, no, it turned on every day. It's good. It still works. And so those types of bulbs, kind of the companies Shelby and others that kind of took on this technology essentially.

We're like, we're going to restructure how we make our filaments. And quickly, bulbs that had filaments that broke down far more easily began to take over popularity. And these are the ones that before LEDs were like the most popular. So you would screw in a light bulb into your lamp and it would last for three months or so, maybe a little longer if you remember to turn the lights off. But that is essentially it. So goodbye Shelby light bulbs forever, essentially. Now, there have been many Shelby light bulbs that have.

stayed working for many, many decades. And eventually, though, the filament inside, as strong as it is, nothing lasts forever, right, does break down. So there have been like 80-year-old light bulbs, 70-year-old light bulbs, and all of them have gotten attention, but then eventually they have died out. The one in the Livermore Fire Station, though, is still functioning. And researchers at the live webcam right now. Yes, Rachel, it's riveting. It is truly riveting. Well, and it's even more riveting because it's not a live video.

It's a photo that updates. It says every 30 seconds, but it seems like every minute. But anyway, that makes it even more fascinating because it's just like, once it's going to change. And the answer is it never changes. I mean, I guess periodically there's probably someone in the background, but it's just a light bulb that's still burning. Unless it shuts off. and then you're witnessing history. Imagine being the person who saw that happen. Right. So yeah,

over the years, researchers have known this and scientists have always been intrigued by this light bulb in the Livermore Fire Station. And they know that it is a super strong filament that is, you know, as that like other ones have been broken apart and looked at and it's like, you know, this diamond-like heart. But they still believe that there is just something different and special about the Shelby light bulb because every other Shelby bulb has broken down eventually. And so unfortunately, you can't really take it apart, understand it, and then be like, oh, this is the answer, and then put it back together. Once the filament is taken apart, it's then the light bulb no longer works.

And this light bulb is so beloved that I can never see that. happening. But they do have a guess as to what is kind of making the quote unquote magic. I feel like that's a bad phrase. We are science people. But they suspect that the bulb's filament has a perfect vacuum seal that further protects its innards. So essentially like if it's sealed so tightly and nothing is getting through, then the filament literally can't break down. And that is what they think. is happening. So I talked to this guy, Tom Brammel, who was the former deputy fire chief at the fire station. And he will definitely agree with me in saying this, that the light bulb is essentially like his baby or his child. So he, you know, of course it's been turned off. They try to keep it on

forever because first like having a light on in the fire station is super important but then also just like or it's this light bulb's own you know posterity I guess they like to keep it on all the time but they have turned it off on occasion and one of those times um was that they had were moving from one station to another um or one building to another and so he was put in charge of essentially like carrying his child from the old station to the next. And when he did, and then he brought it there, and they plugged it in, and it literally didn't turn on. And he panicked so much and was like, well, this is, this is the end. It has died. We did it. We broke it. But it turns out that just like the connector, I believe like they put it through some like surge protector. And everyone who was trying to

like figure out whether it had actually broken. Finally, they were like, maybe we should just put in a new surge protector. And when they did that, the light bulb turned right on. So it even bypassed, or even lived past all of these other technologies. And it still lights up to this day. And Rachel is watching it right now. Yeah. Trilling stuff. Truly. I would say that it has just given me like an appreciation for things that last and that maybe we should be creating more things like the Shelby light bulb where you actually don't need to buy a light bulb every couple of months. Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of, it's not surprising, but it is such a bummer that the reason they stopped

making them sway is like, yeah, because we weren't selling enough light bulbs. It also, I mean, listeners should definitely look up the live cam. It is definitely, it is an old-fashioned light bulb. It's not giving off like super high-powered light. It won't meet all your light bulb needs. But it would be like aesthetic. You'd have it as like your cute industrial lighting and it would last forever. That would be great.

Yes, exactly. I agree. I would love to have it in my apartment as like my night light that I go back to. Yeah. Oh, yeah, perfect. Has it been like, reclassion? created anywhere else or I guess it's still a bit of a magical mystery as you said. Yeah, it's totally a mystery. I mean, there have been other Shelby bulbs that have eventually burnt out like

80 year old ones. But all of those seem to like eventually break down. So they're like, why is this one not breaking down? It must be this like perfect seal that wasn't even intentional by Shelby. their intention was to create like a filament that was super hard that wouldn't break down. But in making this like perfect seal around it, they kind of created like another layer of protection. I wonder if when it finally dies, assuming it doesn't just outlive all of us, I wonder if they'll entrust it to an expert to do like a postmortem and maybe we can figure out what was so special about it. Oh, most definitely. There are a ton of physicists that are like obsessed with this life.

bulb. I bet you there is like a list of people who are like, if this dies, it's mine. Or like, I have ideas for it. I have a grant written up. They're ready to go. Yeah. Well, I hope that the light bulb keeps going strong, but that is perhaps an exciting science story to look forward to when it finally gives out. Yes, definitely. I want to be one of the reporters that are there, like being on the scene. On the scene. Waiting for it to happen. Yes.

I wonder if they're like, will it start to dim? I can just see it becoming like an event if they're like, oh, she seems like she's going to go any day now. It's flickering. All right. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with more facts. Did you know that there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door?

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you can get 20% off with code weirdest. I'm eyeing mood.com's Delta 9-THC buttercream caramels because in addition to not being able to have THC, I also can't have dairy right now. So the idea of having a caramel that also me me out and sends you to Dreamland sounds very nice. And speaking of fun edibles, mood.com has Delta 9-THC freezer pops. So if you're looking to try some new cannabis products, head on over to mood.com. Get 20% off your first order now with code weirdest. That's code weirdest for 20% off. Okay, we're back. And Perbita, talk to me about hair. Yay. Yeah, I think hair is in a lot of people's minds right now. The stress of the pandemic and everything else in life, people have been, you know, reporting like hair loss, gray hairs, early gray hairs. I know I can

attest to that. But this story is a little more different. It goes back, you know, more than 150 years. And the exact year is 1867. So we're going to talk about this great, great woman, an inventor named Madam C.J. Walker, who was born as Sarah Breedlove in a rural Louisiana town on the Mississippi River. Her parents were poor but hardworking. They got paid pennies for tending to the same cotton plantation that they'd been enslaved at in the early 1800s. So Sarah had no formal education. She took on a blue-collar job as a laundress when she was very young, then got married, had a child, and moved to St. Louis, where she started working around barbershops. Now, this was

the late 1800s, and she learned that hair loss was quite common, especially among black women, for multiple different reasons, but in part because of poor access to clean water

for washing and shampooing, lack of nutrition in their diets, and increased exposure to chemicals in the manual jobs that they had to work. And Sarah herself was losing giant chunks of hair, probably because of the chemicals she was around when she was a laundress.

And she was really embarrassed about this. She refused to just, you know, wrap her hair and cover it up. She wanted an actual solution. So at the time, there were a lot of pharmaceutical companies, especially big ones like Johnson and Johnson. who were kind of catering to this growing population of people who were losing hair. But they kind of took advantage of black women. And instead of making products that were actually treating hair loss,

they instead made formulas that were more focused on, like, relaxing and straightening hair. And they kind of sold that as hair growth because technically it may. makes your hair longer. But Sarah, she needed something that would reverse baldness and actually promote better health. So like any good entrepreneur, she started networking. And at the time, you know, the World's Fairs were a big, big hub of science and innovation. So she went to her local World's Fair in 1904. and she met a black hair care specialist and began using her treatment.

And that worked. Like if you go back and look at some of these black and white photos of Sarah, you can see like the flash shining off of her curls. Like it grew back and it grew back with a vengeance. So Sarah herself became a door-to-door salesperson. for these hair products. But at the same time, she kind of began scheming. She became friends with some local pharmacists and chemists, and she learned how to create her own topical formulas.

And then, you know, as any good self-taught scientist without a lab would do, she began testing those formulas on herself. So by 1906, Sarah had remarried and changed her name to Madam C.J. Walker, which is a pretty epic name for a company founder. And she started selling her own wonderful hair grower. That's the exact term in her new city of Denver, Colorado. Denver didn't have a very big black population at the beginning of the 1900s. So it was still kind of a little grassroots door-to-door kind of company. But she still caught the notice of the black kind of hair care experts across the country, including her own mentors that she met at the World Fair.

So these original experts, they were pretty pissed that she had started creating her own product. They said that she had plagiarized them. But in reality, like, all of these sellers were kind of using the same ingredients that had been used for hundreds of years to treat dandruff and other scalp conditions. And two of those big ingredients are sulfur, which, you know, very ever-present in the environment. And petrallatum, which is kind of like, huh? Isn't it Vaseline? Yeah. She did mix in like a bit of coconut oil in there.

But again, like this secret formula that she had. It was time tested. It was classic. But she just knew how to market it really well. So she started growing her business out of Denver and then kind of gravitated back south. This was the time when like train travel was really was really kicking off in the U.S. So she chose like she strategically chose cities around like the big train lines and started building her base there. And again, very specifically for black women.

Like that's exactly who she was selling her product to who she was trying to, you know, like find remedies for. And it worked. Like people loved her product. She started going overseas to like the Caribbean to Haiti and all. And like within five years time, she was like she was a multi-millionaire, which was huge. first of all, in the early 1900s, when you're not a person who comes from wealth, and also you're a black woman who was born to, you know, sharecroppers. So, yeah, her product is still, like, if you go and look at, you know, some of the shampoos

and many of the hair products on your shelf, they probably include those same ingredients, sulfur and petrallatum. But her products are also still being sold, you know, like 150 years later. And she went on to not only continue this business, but also fund a lot of other black entrepreneurs in the early 1900s. So huge success story, wonderful hairgrower sounds so much better than like Dandot treatment. And I would, I think I would buy that as well and enjoy it. But yeah. That's cool. Yeah, I'm always fascinated by hair care products. There's just so many on the market and like finding one that

works for you is amazing. And then you use it forever. I think I've literally been using the same shampoo. for 15 years. That's pretty good. I've heard like such and probably none of them scientific. I've heard such varying advice from like people at the salon about how you're supposed to. Some say like you stick to the tried and tested product. But others like say you should switch on and off to like give your hair. I don't know.

Like different experiences. But yeah, I don't think anyone's. truly nailed it. The one condition, like, I see a lot of good conversation around today is alopecia. And, like,

I do wonder if there is, I think, there are higher rates of alopecia among black women as well, in part because of, like, the heavy chemical treatments used for relaxing hair and such. But, like, I was wondering,

like if Madam CJ's treatment, like if women who were experiencing alopecia were, you know, like kind of depending on her product. But I don't, it wouldn't have quite worked because I think it's also, it's like also an immune related condition. So like you have to actually treat it with like steroids and such. It's not as simple as like changing up how you wash your hair. putting a mask in it.

So. Yeah. No, it's so, it's such an interesting sphere of industry and like, you know, obviously like any like basically any other, uh, realm of product like however much research there's been done on it, there has almost certainly been less research done specifically on, um, how it affects people who are not extremely Caucasian. And yeah, I mean, I've been thinking about this a lot because we do a lot of research on the Dyson hair care products for like our annual Best of What's New Awards because they do create like really weird and innovative beauty tools in a space that like doesn't see a lot

of actual innovation. And one of the things that I'm always struck by is just like they put so much R&D into just understanding hair. And every time I talk to an engineer from Dyson, they're like, we had to do this because we went looking for like, surely hair experts must have already done all these tests. And they were like, it didn't exist. Everything's just made up. And that's not to say that they're the only company making good research-based hair tools. But like, I do think that that is kind of true. That like a lot of the beauty industry, the consumer products

are like, eh? Yeah. And that's so surprising because hair is, like healthy hair is so valued. Right. And like Claire said, there's so many, there's so much focus on different hair products. But yeah, there's nothing informing it. Again, I would be, I feel like this is a running theme on weirdest thing. But I'd be interested to see how much like funding for research goes into treating

like or looking at male pattern baldness versus just like understanding general hair. And also companies know that what people want is like the latest buzzword. I mean, I've definitely seen. I love reading articles where hairstylists are just like, please wash your hair. Yes. Because there is the huge. And you know, everybody's hair is different. and for some people, probably using shampoo as little as possible is genuinely like the key.

But like not for everyone. And some people just need to wash their hair and hairstylists are like, please, please, I beg you. Well, that was, yeah, some of the writing I read on like Madam C.J. Walker's success. And one of the best books about it is written by her own, I think, great-granddaughter who helped revive her product more recently. But yeah, it says, like, there hasn't been, you know, like, complete scientific study of, like, how well the ingredients she chose actually, like, stimulate hair growth. But part of it was the treatment included, like, actual not just product, but also practices. And because, like, people were buying this, like, shampoo and mask, they were also washing their hair more and, like, massaging their scalps. And so it was like it could have been a combination of just like better hair cleanliness.

I have a little scalp massager for when I shampoo my hair. It's great. I need one. You know, it's like it can't hurt. And it makes, I'm like, you know, more blood. It's always good. Get that blood. That's what I think to myself as I scrub my, scrub my poor little head.

Anyway. You both have great hair. Oh, thank you so much. As do you. We're just three gorgeous gals with beautiful tresses on this podcast. What can we say? All right, let's take a quick break and then we'll be back with more facts. Your summer starts now with Memorial Day deals at the Home Depot.

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Okay, we're back. And I'm going to talk about tiny frogs and their spider friends. So, yeah, I came to the story because I recently saw one of those like not necessarily very reputable screenshots that are like science fact.com. And it was claiming that there are spiders and frogs that are best friends. And I lost track of the actual like memeified version that I initially saw. But I'm going to send you guys a picture and I'll link to this on popseye.com slash weird because it's very important, I think, to have a visual reference for this very cute story. I sent that in the Zoom chat.

I don't know if people actually got it. I got it and I love it. It's like, don't talk to me or my son. ever again. Exactly. It is, it is literally don't talk to beer my side ever again. That is the energy. Even though you said tiny frog, I wasn't prepared for how tiny. Oh my gosh. These frogs are the most tiny. I will get into that. It is really maximum cute factor. So yes, I had to investigate. And thankfully, this delightful fact is true. Though whether it's fair to call these arachnid and amphibian pears best friends, is an open question, as it always is when we anthropomorphize. But it's probably more accurate to call them like business partners, which is still cute, because it seems likely that it's a relationship that they both benefit from, or what we call mutualism in the world of biology. So what's particularly cool about this phenomenon is that it's not limited to a single species of frog or a single species of spider.

It seems that these mutually beneficial partnerships have developed multiple times. So like there are certain frogs that pair up with certain spiders, but that has happened more than once. It's been seen most often in micro-highlets, which are a family of nearly 700 generally very very very very very very tiny frog species. Just to give you an idea, a real wopper of a microhylid species might grow to be three and a half inches long. That's like a big boy. Many of them are smaller than an inch, and they're very cute and small. So yes, since the late 20th century, scientists have found several species of this type of frog that seem to commune with spiders, specifically. tarantulas and other big, giant, fuzzy arachnance that are closely related to tarantulas.

In 1989, for instance, researchers found a dotted humming frog in Peru sharing a burrow with a local tarantula, despite the fact that the spider was absolutely big enough to eat the tiny amphibian and was in fact known to sometimes munch on similarly sized frogs. Spiders were even occasionally seen kind of picking up the dotted humming frogs and like, mouthing at them, but then they would put them back down. This was especially common for juvenile spiders. And that led experts to the conclusion that there's some kind of chemical signal on the frog's skin that tells spiders not to eat their new buddies.

In fact, in one experiment I read about, I'm a little fuzzy on the details, so I'll be vague, but basically they took a spider and a frog that had been seen doing this, and they took just the skin of the frog and put it on a different kind of frog that the spider was known to eat. And when it mouthed at the skin, it was like, oh, no, that's a friend. And it stopped. Morbid, but fascinating. Skin graft. Yeah.

Sorry. Just like some light taxidermy in the research lab. But that could actually hint at how these various species came to coexist in such a strange way. It's now thought that many microchylids have toxins in their skin that make them unpalatable to certain species of spiders. Because the spiders have learned not to eat those species, because remember, sometimes like little baby spiders will be like, ooh, I want to eat that. And then they'll be like that. So it sometimes takes them a while to learn, but they learn you don't eat those frogs. And so now those lucky frogs have also learned that hanging around.

these tarantulas is safe. But then the question is, why would they do it? Even if it is safe for them to hang out, they are definitely an odd couple. Well, the answer is that it's because if you share a room with a giant spider, that spider is going to attack anything that tries to attack you. It can't be sure that a predator isn't going for it or its eggs. So they share these bros. They basically they're like literally just like sleeping in like dark little holes together. It will be just a bunch of tarantulas and these little frogs. And if anything, try to come at the frogs, the tarangulas will be like, get out of my house and they protect the frogs.

So some researchers initially kind of suggested that while the frog benefits from the spider's presence, the spider only tolerates the frog or ignores it because since it can't eat it, it's like a, that's like a non-entity to me. But others have suggested that there could be something in it for the spiders, too. Frogs can eat parasites and other tiny creatures like ants or fly larva that are too small for a tarantula to actually get their mouth parts on. Like they're too small for them to grab and eat. But those little critters can attack and eat a spider's eggs. So while the tarantula is basically a bodyguard, the frog is basically a babysitter.

And that is the whole story. That is all the information I have. But I am really delighted by it. That makes sense. Have they seen the frogs do that or it's more of a hypothesis? I think that part is still more inferred. It's possible there have been some studies on it. I didn't read any. I think it's more like, you know, we know these frogs are known to eat ants and ants are known to eat the spider's eggs. So it would make sense. And, you know, I think the important thing to keep in mind is that like it doesn't have to be. that these animals, that either one of them is like making a conscious, like, risk-reward analysis.

Like, the frogs probably are a non-entity to the spider. But the fact that the frog may have the small benefit could, like, provide some sort of, like, evolutionary selective reinforcement where, you know, the tarantulas that are more likely to, be chill with frogs hanging out in their burrow are more likely to survive. And so, so you get the kind of perpetuation of that behavior. Yeah, I've, I know like a similar parallel in like Eastern screech owls, which are very cute. You know, they, they live in like burrows and trees. And they've been seen to like catch, they'll eat snakes, but they'll catch blind snakes and like bring them back to their nests live and then similarly they'll like

have the snakes just eat any like insects and parasites that could harm sorry wow yeah they have like a barn snake like exactly to yeah keep the nest clean and keep the chicks healthy and then often the snake will just like burrow into the nest and just you know live there until the family's gone so it's not like they turn around and eat it at the end of the season. That's nice. So, yeah, this reminds me of that, just a tiny bit. Yeah, I like when animals can help each other out, especially when they're as cute as these little frogs and tarantulas.

But yeah, I love the idea that these guys are just like odd couple roommates and everybody wins. And all because these frogs happen to taste kind of bad. I love that. Although I feel like I would not want a snake in my house just to like vacuum the place. I'm going to find a robot vacuum shaped exactly like a snake. That would actually be very cute. All right. So what was the weirdest thing we learned this week? I like the oldest light bulb. I also like the oldest light bulb.

Aw. Yay. Yay. 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. And if you like what you hear, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It helps other weirdos find the show.

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