BONUS: A 30-million-year-old dog fossil, learning to love mosquitos, public Wi-Fi peril and the Premonitions Bureau

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Welcome to a Weird News Roundup, presented by Odyssey's Something Offbeat podcast. We explore strange tales reported on by Odyssey's radio newsrooms from coast to coast. I'm your roundup host, Lauren Barry. This week, we'll hear about something called the Premonitions Bureau. and about an ancient fossil that reveals more about man's best friend. Then, do you hate mosquitoes? We'll hear from an expert in defense of these blood-sucking insects. Finally, we'll get the scoop on why connecting to free Wi-Fi when you're out of town might actually be putting you in danger. First, let's check in with the Dana and Parks podcast out of Odyssey Station, KMBZ, and Kansas City. They're discussing the Premonitions Bureau, a real-life effort to study whether some humans have the ability to predict future events. Yeah, the Premonition Bureau was not exactly a success. If you're just getting into the program today, Dana was talking. Explain what this is a run, do not walk that you had. It was a podcast that introduced me to this bureau called the Premonitions Bureau back in the 60s. And for any of you who watched The Crown, a huge hit Netflix series, there is an episode called Aberfan. And the entire episode surrounds the coal mining disaster where they had all of this coal sludge on the side of a mountain. And it was a byproduct of the coal mining. And so they would pile it up and pile it up and pile it up. And after a whole bunch of rain, one day the coal sludge pile slid. Killed 144 people. 144 people died mostly children because it slid right into... the town and the country day school there, right? And so the Premonition Bureau was born out of that disaster because three people before it happened foreshadowed it's happening. And one of them, her name was Errol May Jay Jones. She was a 10-year-old local girl who died in that disaster. And she told her mother the day before. I had a dream last night that I went to school. My school was not there. Something black had come down all over it. There was an eight-year-old boy named Paul Davies, who on the eve of the disaster drew pictures of figures digging into a hillside under the words, The End. He also died in the school. And then a woman named Kathleen Middleton, she was a music teacher living near London, who awoke at the exact time of the catastrophe, choking, gasping, and sensing the walls caving in. And on those three premonitions, married with a fourth one, actually, that was a guy working at a telephone operator agency, those four became the nexus for this premonitions bureau because scientists wanted to know, are there people among us?

who can predetermine or feel the foreboding that something very bad is about to happen. And not in a general way. I mean, the little girl saying that I had this nightmare and I can't get out of my school and something dark has fallen upon it, that's pretty specific 24 hours before this happened. So they wanted to study it. And for two years, they did. 18 months to be exact. Yeah. founded in 1966 after Aberfan, they collected more than a thousand visions over 18 months. 90% of logged premonitions failed to match any real life event, although there were a few premonitions that seemed to depict the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. So with millions and millions and millions of people around the world. who have a bad feeling every single day about something, is it anything more than just coincidence? And that's what they wanted to know. Honestly, their goal was if there are people that are, I don't know if you want to call it clairvoyant or something enough, is it possible to predict a disaster? And of course, the answer that came from all of this research is no. Well, and then probably the most famous of these would be Nostradamus. The way that he wrote, and I've watched a handful of documentaries about him, the way that he wrote, you could almost twist it to mean something else. Does that make any sense? You could. Sure. And like, the people who studied Nostradamus say that he was really close to naming Hitler. I believe he called him Hister. It was H-I-S-L-E-R, yeah. H-I-S-L-E-R? Sounds similar to when you're whistling and humming. Histler. H-I-S-L-E-R. That's called whoming, Sam. So they've looked into this. Part of it is confirmation bias where people can easily remember the one vague dream or bad feeling that matched a real tragedy later while forgetting the thousands and thousands of bad guesses that meant nothing. Right. Probability, billions of people dream or worry every day, so random matches between a negative thought and a real world disaster are bound to happen by pure chance. And then there's subconscious processing where your brain notes small details and risks around you without you actively noticing creating a gut feeling or bad warning. At VistaPrint, we know you've got that idea for your business. Like the one that nails the trade show, levels up your brand, or makes your team say, we're really doing this. But an idea is just an idea until it's printed on signage, giveaways, custom apparel. Once it's in my hands, on my team, out in the world. Then it's happening. It's so happening. Vistaprint has thousands of products, easy design tools, and real support to turn that idea into something possible. Print your possible with code new 20 for 20% off your first order at Vistaprint. com

Injured bra? Call the bros. Call the Skinner Brothers, accident and injury lawyers. They deal with the insurance company so you don't have to. The bros are here to help you navigate what happens after an accident. Call 540 8888888. Skinner accident and injury lawyers, real support, clear steps, and a team that can take on the insurance company for you. Let the Skinner Brothers fight for you. 540 8888888. That's 8888888. Hey, it's the sports junkies. If anybody knows about die-hard sports fans, it's us. We get to live and breathe the excitement of the season all year long. For advertisers, that passion matters. It's exactly why sports radio performs for brands. People who listen to sports on the radio via streaming or on sports podcasts are nearly three times more likely to consider a brand that supports their favorite team. If you're interested in reaching sports fans, we have the playbook for you. Check out our comprehensive e-book, state of audio, sports fandom. Check out state... While research doesn't seem to back up claims of human premonition, It does show that the animal, now known as man's best friend, has been roaming the earth for at least 30 million years. University of Michigan paleontologist Anne Court recently joined Christina McDaniel out of Odyssey Station WWJ News Radio in Detroit to discuss her publication about a prehistoric dog, nicknamed Corey. You played a role in helping confirm the identity of a 30 million-year-old pre-ice age dog. That's pretty exciting. So tell me, how did you even become aware of this fossil? How did it come across your... your desk or your your workshop so speak so back in 2018 and 2019 I worked as an intern out at John Day fossil beds National Monument in Oregon where the fossil was found and and I really enjoyed working out there and form some good relationships with the park paleontologists, and I'd continue to kind of work on and off with them.

And then in 2024, they started putting together this special issue for the Journalist Paleontology for the 50th anniversary of the park. And they wanted me to be part of that because of the work I had done there, but I didn't immediately have any ongoing research to go into it. So the park paleontologist, Nick Famoso, who is my supervisor for the internships, said to me, you know, we have this. dog fossil that's been undescribed and basically what that means is they have it in their collection but it hasn't been published anywhere so pretty much no one outside the park knows it exists the publishing and description is the way to tell other scientists, hey, this fossil exists, and here's what we know about it. So he said, you know, I work on carnivores and how they move, and he offered it to me as a project and said, I think you could write up a good description of it and put it in this special issue. So my job then was to take what they knew was a dog fossil. They were pretty sure it was a species called mezzocyan Caripheus. But beyond that, they didn't really know a lot of the details of it. So my job was to go through bone by bone, look at kind of the size of the muscle attachments, describe each and every little bit of the anatomy and put that together to get this better understanding of what this animal actually looked like. In layman's terms, as I know nothing about paleontology, but find it fascinating. Describe to me, like, kind of walk me through what that process is like and how you start putting together, you know, an animal or a picture of an animal that lived so many years ago. Yeah, so the first step is just to identify all the bones. And for this fossil in particular, that was easy because all of the bones were in beautiful condition. Very rare to get, you know, perfectly fully intact bones. Normally you're getting pieces and fragments and stuff. And then the second part is to look at the shape of certain muscle attachments. So on our upper arm bone, we have attachments for a lot of big shoulder muscles, and the size of those and even kind of the shape of the joints will change how well an animal can do kind of like a hug-like motion versus kind of running back and forth like modern dogs do. And a lot of this is comparing to modern animals where we know how they move. So being at University of Michigan was really fortunate for that because I was able to go into their zoology collections.

and look at a couple different modern dog skeletons to compare, and some other modern animals too, and see does this look more like a, I compared it to like a coyote is one of the dogs they had. They also had a really cool animal called a bush dog, which is like this little South American dog. That's a little... Up next, we'll hear one expert explain why it's good to have mosquitoes around, even though they're really annoying and they cause disease. We'll also learn why connecting to hotel Wi-Fi on vacation might be more of a daredevil move than any water slide or zipline adventure. That's when we're back from a short break on this weird news roundup from Odyssey's Something Offbeat. Thank you for listening to this special presentation of Weird News from Odyssey's Something Offbeat. For many of us, mosquitoes are one of the more annoying parts of summer. Isn't it just the worst when you get home after a beautiful summer barbecue, only to find yourself covered with itchy pink welts from where these bugs snacked on your blood? In some cases, mosquitoes can also carry dangerous diseases, like the West Nile virus, Zika, and malaria. Scientists with the World Mosquito Program, funded by the Bill Gates Foundation, are even trying to find ways to reduce the population of some of these dangerous mosquitoes. But at least one scientist says there is some value in these little bloodsuckers. Brad Hyatt, an entomologist at Audubon Insectarium, joined Scoot out of Odyssey Station WWL in New Orleans this week to plead their case. So what's the case for us not wanting to kill every mosquito we see and just hate the mosquito in general? The mosquito's got a bad image in our society. They most certainly do. And, I mean, it's... For a good reason, throughout human history, mosquitoes have been one of the biggest forces that have, like, caused issues for humans. I mean, they're the reason, like, you know, armies didn't conquer one area because the mosquitoes bit them and the diseases they carry killed most everybody, you know? In New Orleans, you know, yellow fever. Almost made it a ghost town. One in three people were dying of yellow fever. So, of course, like mosquitoes have had such an impact on humans that, I mean, and no one liked getting bit by them that, you know, it makes sense why everyone hates them, right? Well, Brad, I mean, here's what I want to know. You know, the mosquito gets the yellow fever blood, and it gives it to us. Why doesn't yellow fever kill the mosquito? So for any of the diseases that use mosquitoes as a vector, as we call it, the viruses and parasites in regards to malaria, they infect the mosquito's body itself. So in a way, you can think of it, the mosquito is ill from it, but it doesn't kill the mosquito.

And so when they inject that saliva back in, you know, back into someone, that's when someone will get inoculated with whatever illness they're carrying. But, Brett, you're an etymologist. You're at the Orniban Insectarium. And be honest with me. Do you hate mosquitoes? So, actually, like, I don't hate mosquitoes. Actually, mosquitoes are what got me interested in entomology. When I was taking an entomology class in college, I was learning about how mosquitoes find people, you know, through smell. They're really good at it. And, you know, we're always putting out this plume of... smell and mosquitoes can tap into it to find us really effectively. That's actually what happens with a bug repellent. It's not really repelling the mosquito. You're actually more like an invisibility cloak. You're hiding your smell. The mosquito needs to smell you. to register you as a blood meal. Anyway, I was just learning all about it. And I just was like, how fascinating. This is what I want to do with my life is being an entomologist. Really? And my first experiences with entomology were studying mosquitoes. Now, like, I don't like when mosquitoes are biting me, but I do enjoy studying them. There's a lot of different species out there. They come in all sorts of sizes and colors. They're actually very pretty mosquitoes once you get them under a microscope and see very vibrant colors. And mosquitoes feed on all sorts of animals. So there's, you know, the ones that feed on humans. But there's a lot of other species that will feed on really anything that has blood that they can get to. You know, there might be a mosquito feeding on it. Well, Brad, what is the purpose of the mosquito? I mean, everything is supposed to, like, have a purpose in life. So where does the mosquito fit in in a positive way to the ecosystem? Well, so mosquitoes are food for a lot of things. The larva live in water, and in many ecosystems in the water, a lot of animals rely on mosquitoes for a food source. There's a lot of animals that will feed on the adults while the adults are flying around, right? You know, and like in a way, you know, the mosquitoes themselves, like, what is their purpose? Well, I mean, their purpose is to find mates, lay eggs, continue their genetics, right? And they fit this very particular role really well. And then, unfortunately, it does, we're kind of in the short end of the stick there.

But, you know, that doesn't mean they don't necessarily have no purpose or, you know, and like if we got rid of all mosquitoes, you know, what would happen? Well, I'd be more worried about what would take their place because, like, they just, there's a new niche that has just opened up. There's other biting flies and other things that feed on, you know, human blood. Like, oh, yeah, good. Let's feed the biting flies. You know, let's give them food to survive. In addition to mosquito bites, another risk of summer vacation is potentially getting your phone, laptop, or tablet hacked. Free hotel Wi-Fi might seem like a great perk, but it comes with risks. Microsoft even warned people not to log on to these public Wi-Fi options. Journalist Jim Ryan with ABC joined a new morning out of Odyssey Station W-B-E-N News and Talk in Buffalo this week with the details. Microsoft issuing an urgent alert to guests of hotels and motels. with a warning, all about connecting to Wi-Fi. All right, Jim, what do we need to know? Hey, Brian. Yeah, I think people are fairly cautious now. They've heard about the threat posed in coffee shops and restaurants, places you go in and you're checking you sit down and open up your laptop and jump on to their free Wi-Fi network. It's convenient. It's easy. It's free. But now Microsoft is warning about something called Captive Crunch. which has been linked to Russian state-sponsored hackers, a group called Midnight Blizzard or otherwise known as Cozy Bear. So, I mean, the names are all kind of weird and they're sort of funky, but it all leads back to this Russian state-sponsored group, according to Microsoft. Now, Microsoft knew about this way back in May, but it's only now making this known publicly, letting people know that, yeah, when you check into a motel or a hotel or use the public Wi-Fi at an airport or a convention center, any place like... that. Consider it like a coffee shop. Just be very cautious about using that. You could be opening yourself up to hackers who are clear around the world, Brian. Wow. Captive Crunch, I think I had that for breakfast. Midnight Wizard, you can buy that in the new store around the corner that used to be a bank. But Jim, no, this is very serious. But you said people are aware to be cautious. And, you know, I am too, I guess. You don't want to connect to everyone's Wi-Fi necessarily. You know, the coffee shop you've heard it before. Like, oh, you connect to this Wi-Fi, a hacker can get you or whatever. But nobody really knows, you know, what... that caution is like if you're in a hotel it's not quite like a coffee shop or some store where all right you can not connect to the Wi-Fi you don't need to be connected right now a lot of times you're doing work or something like that in a hotel or a motel where you'd want to be on the Wi-Fi and you're wondering well how do I protect myself

Well, right, yeah. Well, don't use it. You know, but that's what Microsoft is saying is that, you know, you check in there. And you're right. I think that you're paying for a room there. And so there's some expectation of privacy, but I don't know. And you don't have that expectation when you walk into a coffee shop, buy a cup and sit down. And so, yeah, the best thing to do is just, you know, tether to your phone. Use your phone as your personal Wi-Fi hotspot and use that. And you should be okay. And it's difficult in some places. deep in a convention center where the reception may not be very good. But, yeah, that's the best way to avoid this whole thing. Barring that, if you do use a hotel or a motel or a convention center, Wi-Fi network, if it asks you for a lot of extra steps or extra credentials to get onto that network, then that could be one tip-off that somebody's trying to hack into your device. don't give away personal information to connect to the Wi-Fi. That's probably a pretty good tip. How do you get around it, Jim? If you're ever traveling, do you just stay away from it totally? Is there something else you use? Well, I've got a personal, you know, a Wi-Fi hotspot. It's about 10 years old, but it still works great. It's an old 18-T Wi-Fi hotspot. I'm not even sure who pays for it anymore, but you can use that or use the phone. Use the phone to connect. You know, it's easy enough to go into the settings, turn on your personal. Wi-Fi hotspot and use the phone. And it's just about as quick as you'd want from that free Wi-Fi network. So, yeah, I think that may be the best thing to do is just to avoid it altogether. Yeah, I used to have one from work here, and I did know who paid for it. It wasn't me. Thank you so much for listening to this Weird News Roundup, presented by Odyssey's Something Offbeat podcast. This episode was written and produced by me, Lauren Barry. Special thanks to the Dana and Parks Show out of KMBZ in Kansas City, WWJ News Radio in Detroit, Scoot out of WWL in New Orleans, and a new morning out of WBEN News and Talk in Buffalo. You can find all of these programs, including the Something Offbeat podcast, on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

At VistaPrint, we know you've got that idea for your business. Like the one that nails the trade show, levels up your brand, or makes your team say, we're really doing this. But an idea is just an idea until it's printed on signage, giveaways, custom apparel. Once it's in my hands, on my team, out in the world. Then it's happening. It's so happening. Vistaprint has thousands of products, easy design tools, and real support to turn that idea into something possible. Print your possible with code new 20 for 20% off your first order at Vistaprint. com. Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time. Drink in one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at SpinQuest. Over a thousand games including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for 10 at SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spendquest.com for more details. It's Sophia with an F, Franklin with the Y, and if you're looking for some bubble gum dumb dumb podcast, then you are in the wrong place, baby. Whether I'm reminiscing on the trials and tribulations of working in the corporate world to recapping today's latest reality TV show, you're going to want to pull up a chair and stick around. It's a good time and always 100% unfiltered. Follow and listen to Sophia with an F wherever you get your podcast. been in an accident call the bros brough skinner accident and injury lawyers don't guess your next step and don't let the insurance company rush you the bros help protect your claim handle the hassle and fight for what's fair 540 888 88 88 if you were injured in an accident get help now from the best call 540 888 88 88 put the number in your phone right now for when you need it 888 88 88 The Skinner Brothers.