What's the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you'll get an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci's popular podcast.
The weirdest thing I learned this week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTubeand everywhere else you listen to podcasts every Wednesday morning. It's your new favorite source for the weirdest science-related facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular science can bring. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you'll love the show too.
Checking out Weirdest Thing's new page on Reddit to meet other Weirdos!
FACT: History is full of people with pointy heads (on purpose)
By means of Rachel Feltman
While examining remains found on the Baltic island of Gotland, once home to many wealthy Viking settlements, researchers discovered an unusual example of body modification: three women from 1000 years ago with elongated, conical skullsBut this find was not as unusual as you might think.
The practice of artificial skull deformation has surfaced numerous times throughout history, in many different parts of the world—on most continents, in factBut on Gotland it appears to be a trend limited to these three women (or perhaps even just two; the article notes that one of the skulls could reasonably be an example of a naturally pointed head).
This is the first time Vikings have been seen with deliberately elongated headsThe nearest people to this on a large scale were then at the Black Sea, which may be a hop, skip, and a jump away today, but was too far away for casual cultural crossing. Some graves from hundreds of years earlier in Bavaria produced 13 women with elongated skullsbut they were reportedly genetically distinct from their neighbors, and could have originated in Romania or somewhere nearby, where skull manipulation was common thanks to the Huns.
The biggest mystery is not How these women ended up with elongated skulls – we can't know for sure, but there are many reasons why a viking girl might be born or spend her formative years somewhere else, vikings being vikings and all. But what's intriguing is that these three bodies, being from the same time period, are the only ones that have their skulls manipulated – it didn't catch on.
Listen to this week's episode to learn more about the history—and future—of cranial manipulation. Because yes, we still do itWe simply prefer rounder heads now.
(Also: No, they are not aliens.)
FACT: It's better to be popular during the apocalypse than to be popular in high school.
By Laura Baisas
The world feels a little scary right now, between another summer of potentially record-breaking temperatures and hurricanes, bird flu, wars and an upcoming election. In A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times, Athena Aktipis, a collaboration theorist at the University of Arizona and co-director of The Human Generosity Projectshows you how to change your mindset to better deal with all this chaos. In this week's episode of The weirdest thing I learned this weekI share some of my favorite—and most helpful—takeaways from her new book. Let’s get ready for the apocalypse!
If you'd like to learn more about Athena's work, check out our previous profile of her here . You can also listen to her recent appearance on Rachel's other podcast, Science fast.
FACT: Termites poop out perfect little hexagons
By means of Doctor Jessica Ware
Termites eat cellulose, but rely on endosymbionts in their hindgut to digest it. After passing through their hindgut, their feces exit their bodies through their rectal pads, which compress the feces, or poop, into hexagonal prisms!
Here are some more fun facts about insect poop: Insects that feed on liquid often have liquid poop. Dragonfly nymphs have internal rectal gills that they can relax to bring water into their butts, and then they quickly squirt it out as a form of jet propulsion to escape predators—or just to move quickly.
For more fantastic facts about insects, check out my show Insectarium on PBS.
