Ten More Weird Things that Happened this Week: What a Weird Week Fri May 17, 2024

May 17 2024 • 16 mins

What a Weird Week gets you caught up on the weird news of the week. https://www. shownotes.page or search "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts. These are the shownotes for Season 5, Ep 20 first published on Friday May 17th, 2024.(BEGIN EPISODE TRANSCRIPT) ❿ Older Family Film continues to terrify grownups... https://studyfinds.org/adults-scared-of-et/
Study: "1 in 8 adults still find the movie 'E.T. ' scary."
Another interesting stat from the study... "Men are twice as likely to find E.T. scary compared to women."
Also, "37% of people believe aliens are living among us, 41% say nope. ❾ AI is lying to us https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/05/240510111440.htm
An article in Science Daily gets into the details... even some AI systems that were trained to be helpful and honest are telling lies in order to get a certain outcome... like a simple AI that plays poker and was programmed to to be honest... it bluffed in order to win at poker... the article gets into more examples... I'm not a fan of these panicky AI articles but if we can't trust AI because sometimes it lies to us... who's gonna want to use AI for anything important? Like, "Hey, AI, do I look fat in these pants? What's that? I look like a catalog model? Well thanks." #PackOfLies! ❽ Kids Eating Sugar: New Research is Great News for some Kids https://studyfinds.org/where-kids-get-their-sugar/
A study about kids eating sugar and obesity seems to indicate that it's not so important how much sugar you eat, it's more important where the sugar comes from/ what food...
Kids who eat sugar from sweetened snack foods are more likely to become obese... but sugar from fruit seems to cause less of a weight gain problem...
Also less likely to lead to obesity: dairy products (unsweetened).
Parents are advised to give their children fruit and milk instead of sweetened milk and other products with added sugar.
It's been a long time since my kids were little, but didn't we always kinda know - try to get your kids to have fruit instead of cookies? Now we have some recent research to justify it. ❼ Giant Hummingbirds make headlines https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/05/240513150528.htm
The giant hummingbird world has been rocked by this discovery... The Giant Hummingbird of western South America is actually two species... they look identical and science thought they were one kind of giant hummingbird but, nope. Really... this scientific discovery makes our weird news recap show because... did you know we had giant hummingbirds?
I did not. I was picturing hummingbirds the size of penguins! In fact, the giant hummingbird is just, bird-sized... weighing in at a whopping 24 grams... and measuring about 9 inches long... big for a hummingbird, but about the same length as a robin... ❻ Boozing it up gets revolutionized! https://studyfinds.org/alcohol-blocking-gel-intoxication/
Researchers have made this gel that you swallow and it coats your stomach, then it prevents you from absorbing booze... it has the capabilities to make you un-drunk.
They're still testing it so hang in there, but it helped mice avoid liver damage and other alcohol- related bad things.
Imagine the potential for this drug if it can sober you up!? To be continued. ❺ Thumbtacks World Record: I don't get the point. Hahahahahaha HiiiiYoooooooo!!!!!
David Record-Breaker Rush sets a world record by sticking 243 thumbtacks into a bulletin board in one minute
icymi, Dave wants to break every world record in the history of the universe and currently has 168.
He uses these record attempts to shine a light on STEM education. See https://youtu.be/kskebMYX5Ss?feature=shared ❹ Boat Owner fights City Hall with passive aggression, art. (Character Limit!)