BONUS: A brain-eating infection, 'popcorn brain' syndrome and wild stuff happening in the sky

Las Vegas was built for stars. And on August 22nd, two of boxing's biggest take center stage. Raleigh Romero never follows the script. This is my game. Tio Fimo Lopez has never needed one. This guy's got a big mouth. For years, they've had plenty to say. All your do is tall. But with world championship gold on the line, can they back it? Tio, I'm here. I'm going all in. It's time to put up or shut up. Raleigh Romero versus Tiofimo Lopez. August 22nd. I'll shut you up. Watch on Dazone, and Dazone on Prime. Video. Nerds! Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast. Personal finance can feel like a pop quiz you didn't study for. This podcast is your study guide. On NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast, you'll hear from trusted journalists who explain the why behind major financial decisions. You'll get research-backed insights and clear pros and cons, whether you're planning a big purchase or just want to grow your wealth. Make your next financial move with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast on your favorite podcast app. Amazon Music has everything you want to listen to. Music, podcasts, and now audiobooks. All in one app. Amazon Music Unlimited. Audio books included.

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. In this week's episode, we're looking into vast frontiers that remain mysterious, even though we deal with them every single day, our own brains and the sky above us. Lots of stuff has been going on in the sky recently. Thunderstorms, meteor showers, a planet parade, and an eclipse have all had people looking up into the clouds this week. And we'll hear all about that traffic up above us with help from experts. Then, we'll hear about a brain-eating infection and the newly coined popcorn brain condition linked to technology use. But first, we'll hear about this guy who is attracting attention from Sunset Boulevard pedestrians looking into the sky this week. Here's Odyssey Station KNX News in Los Angeles to explain. Just when you think you've seen it all. You may, you're going to question yourself. There's a man. Yeah, living in a billboard in West Hollywood, or Craig Figner with the maybe quirkyest, no, not maybe, it is the quirky story of the week. Well, the dude must be on break right now, but the billboard is like, it's stopping traffic. It's attracting a crowd. It's right here at Selma and Sunset Boulevard. The billboard looks like, you know, the front of average maintained. Home. It says the last house. The address is 11, 8, 17. Not sure if that's significant. And then underneath the front bay window there, there's a question, how long can you survive? And inside, there's a man, people have seen, who's apparently living in there for some duration of time. There's a bookcase, some plants, lights. I'm not sure if it's got all the comforts of home. On the ground, there's a team assisting with... getting him up into that space and down maybe for breaks. So I don't think he's up there 24-7. I don't know if it's air-conditioned, but it's intriguing. And I think that's what the best billboards are. Intriguing. Apparently, that was all a promotion for a new thriller movie on Netflix called The Last House. Now we're headed a bit higher up past the West Hollywood rooftops to learn about the partial eclipse that happened this Wednesday. Astronomer Tim Susan Collins joined Odyssey Station WBEN News and Talk in Buffalo to discuss just how small this eclipse really was here in North America. Yeah, we're getting a very, very partial eclipse. We're just on the edge of the outside of the end of...

visibility for this solar eclipse today. So as you've had going on throughout your broadcast here, it's Greenland, Iceland, Spain. It's a very kind of moderately late evening eclipse for them. It is a primetime eclipse for us, meaning it's in the early afternoon, sort of about 1 o'clock, like you said earlier. So 1258 begins. At 142 is the maximum, and that is when we are going to get a whopping 2.5% coverage of the sun by the moon. So a very small clip. Las Vegas was built for stars. And on August 22nd, two of boxing's biggest take center stage. Raleigh Romero never follows the script. This is my game. Tio Fimo Lopez has never needed one. This guy's got a big mouth. For years, they've had plenty to say. All you do is tall. But with world championship gold on the line, can they back it? Tio, I'm here. I'm going all in. It's time to put up or shut up. Raleighamero versus Tiofimo Lopez. August 22nd. I'll shut you up. Watch on DeZone and DeZone on Prime Video. Nerds! Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. Ever Google a money question and end up 12 tabs deep with 12 different answers? This podcast is your shortcut back to clarity. NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast breaks down financial decisions with a team of trusted journalists. They explain the why behind decisions like investing, home buying, and choosing credit cards with clear research-backed insights. No jargon, no misinformation. Make your next financial move with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast on your favorite podcast app. Amazon Music, music, podcasts, and now audiobooks, all in one app. Amazon Music Unlimited, audiobooks included. Susan Collins also discussed a celestial phenomenon that's still occurring, though it did peak at the middle of this week. It's the Persids Meteor Shower. Now, this is not a one-day event, is it? No. No, it's about a 20-day event. It's been going on for about a week and a half or so since the end of July. The maximum part of it is tonight. So it comes, I heard your piece a moment ago, and it's completely accurate. It's the remnants, but it's the debris from Comet Swift Puddle, which is causing this meteor shower every year Earth drifts through its orbit and pulls down some of these meteors. It takes 133 years for it to orbit the sun. And they said it will return in 2125, but the even better aspect to that is if you subtract 133, it was here in 1992. And that's when it refreshed the refield for us if it went around the sun. All right. These are always fun to watch. Always seems to be in August. What's the key to seeing them, though? Is it you have to be up like in the middle of the night or you have to be away from city lights?

Yeah, that's the best optimum situation. You want to be away from city lights. We have a new moon, obviously, because of the eclipse today. So the dark conditions are almost premium. And you just need a chair. You just need to lay back. Of course, still busy. I'm going to be out at Knox Farm tonight. We're going to be teaching people how to look at them. Yeah, I mean, even, you know, say you have a clear sky. How clearly can you really see these things? Very clear. They tend to radiate out, so you're going to want to look northeast. If you know the constellations, you're going to be looking for Perseus, which is next door to what's called the W in the sky, which is Cassiopeia. So even if you're looking at the W, you still have a really good chance to look at them. But you want to hit it at about the most darkest part you can, which is between midnight and 1 a.m. That's when the sun is on the opposite end of the sky. It's opposite of the high noon position. So that's the best time to see them. But anything after sunset, it'll be great. I saw a couple last night through the haze. So I know we're going to get a good show with our 50 to 100 per hour. Astronomer Michael Narlock of the Cranbrook Institute of Science joined Odyssey Station WWJ News Radio in Detroit to discuss another interesting site in the sky this week, something that's often called a planet parade. What planets are going to be aligned that people will be able to check out? Well... First things first. It's one of the unfortunate things in astronomy that we use the word alignment because so many people, then they hear that word, they think about aligning things in their own lives. They think that when they go outside and look at the sky, they're going to see all the planets sort of stacked one on another. And really what an alignment means in astronomy is if you look down on the solar system and imagine seeing the planets sort of rolling around like on the surface of a table, you could draw a rough straight line between them. But how does that translate into our sky? Well, they're sort of grouped loosely in our sky. Now, the planets that you'll be able to see with just the unaided eye are Mars and Saturn, and then Mercury and Jupiter will sit very low on the horizon, so those will be harder to find. Parts of the U.S. have also experienced wicked weather this summer. including intense thunderstorms booming over the Midwest this week. WWJ spoke to National Weather Service meteorologist David Cook about why some of these thunder cracks seem so loud. What causes thunder to be loud enough to shake houses and make it sound like a bomb went off? Simply your proximity to the lightning strike is going to make it sound a lot louder and possibly even feel some vibrations from the strike itself.

And are there certain times of year that we see more active thunderstorms where there is lightning that's striking closer to certain areas? Or is it really just kind of a, it depends on the storm and the way that the lightning strikes? Yeah, I mean, there's multiple types of lightning as well. There's cloud to cloud lightning where the lightning stays up in the cloud level. That's not going to make these kind of impacts that people are speaking about right now. Then there's cloud-to-ground lightning that comes from the stronger thunderstorms, and that's the ones that people feel and hear much louder like that. In terms of severe weather season, we can expect these kind of lightning strikes basically from spring through fall. We do have two peaks in the season where more frequent storms occur in the spring, and then again, we're getting into that part in the fall right now. But basically any time March through about September, you can experience this kind of lightning. Somebody's house was struck by lightning. I know lightning obviously strikes kind of randomly. Is there anything that makes a house more susceptible to being struck by lightning? Or is it kind of just, it strikes where it strikes? I'm no expert in that realm, but basically the lightning will take the path of least resistance through the atmosphere. And when the lightning gets down towards the ground, it's going to find usually typically the tallest object. If there's metal antennas on the roof, it's going to affect that or reach for that. So in terms of predictability of where lightning would strike, you know, that's... not possible. So it's kind of just an unfortunate occurrence for that home. What is the best thing for somebody to do if they do find themselves outside kind of unexpectedly? Yeah, we preach preparedness for all these weather risks. And if you know in advance that there's potential for strong thunderstorms or thunderstorms in general that day, then you're already kind of more prepared. When we're back from a quick break, we'll look into a brain-eating infection linked to oysters and the popcorn brain syndrome linked to technology. All of this on our Weird News Roundup presented by Odyssey's Something Offbeat. Thank you for listening to this special presentation of weird news from Odyssey's Something Offbeat. Could you imagine enjoying a fancy steakhouse dinner only to be left with a permanent brain injury when you're done?

That's what a new lawsuit alleges happened to a retired firefighter. Here's the Dana and Parks Show out of Odyssey Station, KMBZ in Kansas City with the story. An Illinois man, this is from ABC News, an Illinois man who served as a Marine and a firefighter remains hospitalized more than a year after suffering health complications that his attorneys allege were caused by contaminated raw oysters eaten at a steakhouse. Attorneys representing Joe Belgio announcing a lawsuit and a fundraiser on his behalf, alleging that he suffered permanent brain injuries after becoming ill following a meal at Gibbon Steakhouse in Oak Brook, Illinois. Family friends and community members gathered in support of Belgio, whose fiancé Melanie said the couple had been celebrating with family at the restaurant in June of last year. Their daughter was only five months old at the time. According to the lawsuit, Belgio became severely ill after eating raw oysters leading to a medical crisis that ultimately resulted in permanent brain injuries. Oh my gosh. Catastrophic health complications. Let me ask you something. No, I've never eaten an oyster person. I am not an oyster person. I will never be an oyster person, but my father. The most dangerous place to be in these United States of America is between that man in an oyster bar. And I've said to him before, I'm like, Dad, like, have you heard people get in this like brain eating amoeba? And he's like, don't care. Don't care. Like, let's go eat oysters. He loves oysters. Huh. Worth the risk. So they will say on the menu, you've seen this. They will say on the menu on almost every menu. Raw seafood. Raw seafood. Consuming raw or undercooked seafood can lead to health issues. Is that enough? to protect anyone who, like, just because this restaurant's the one that served it doesn't mean it's the restaurant's fault. It's a raw oyster. This could be a supply chain issue. This could be whoever boxed it up to ship it to the restaurant. It wasn't on ice long enough. Like, we don't even know. They're raw. Sam, you eat oysters apparently. I love them every chance I get. All right. Do you eat them raw or are you supposed to cook them? Raw, of course. A little bit of Tabasco, a little bit of horseradish. Oh. If they're so good, why do people have to dump so much crap on them to eat them? Good question. You don't have to. It just, you know, it elevates the experience. Much like the sign that says stay back 100 feet on the truck with the rock that's falling out of the back of it. Yes, you can put that on the menu assuming a risk as a customer. However, it is still, and I know this from food safety training, the responsibility of the restaurant to ensure they are doing everything in their power to serve you food that is not contaminated. So is the question, can you sue the restaurant? Absolutely. See, it's one thing, Sam, if I say, I want you to bring me a hamburger raw. That's one thing. Or I want you to bring me severely undercooked salmon. That's one thing. Oysters come raw. What about a rare steak? A lot less likely that you're going to be sick eating more steak because it's compartmentalized inside. But hamburger is a good one. If you said to the restaurant, I want you to bring me a raw hamburger. Look, that's kind of on you if you get sick. Oysters are consumed raw.

which is apparently the way that you eat them. Scott, he's never left his hospital bed. In 11 months. Uh, can you prove that this? No, check that 13 months. Can you prove that this was the thing that made him sick? That's the other question. I think it draws a pretty direct line between the two. Yeah. I mean, if you went out and ate oysters and all of a sudden you have this brain eating bacteria. Here it is. Doctors screen, uh, Belgio for bacteria and identified several pathogens that attorneys say are associated with shellfish contamination. He is most likely bedridden for the rest of his life. Very little cognitive ability and will need care for the rest of his life. Now, the restaurant where he ate said there has not been a single other case of anyone getting sick. That's a valid point. Can you just have one bad contaminated oyster? It has to do with the temperature that they reach. So you always get oysters. They're on a bed of ice, right? That is the restaurant's way of protecting it. So if at any point, this restaurant... And it's pretty easily provable through cameras, through processes and procedures. Yeah. Let, say, one box of these particular oysters sit out and get to a certain temperature. It has the potential of being contaminated. That doesn't mean that all of them will be contaminated. I've always thought oysters just by default smell like they're going to make me sick. Just right out of the gate. They smell like they're going to make me sick. The one time I ever ate one, it was the texture of the oyster that was so disgusting to me. Yeah, it's not. Yeah. It feels like you're literally swallowing a slug. I've never understood the people that sit there in two oysters for like five minutes. I didn't chew it. I was told to swallow it. It's like a shot.

I am actually a fan of oysters, but I'm probably sticking to fried ones for a while after hearing that story. Our final dispatch today isn't about an actual pathogen like the one we just talked about. However, the phrase popcorn brain is gaining some steam, and it refers to what happens to our brains and our attention span when we're entrenched in digital distractions nearly 24-7. Scoot out of Odyssey Station WWL in New Orleans has the details. All right, let's see. Let's talk for a minute about popcorn brain. This is not a diagnosis. There's no official medical diagnosis for this, but it's a description of the way the brain works. According to Per Parents Magazine, Popcorn Brain is described as a state of being wherein individuals are so hooked on digital multitasking that slower-paced everyday tasks like school and the classroom hold no interest. Dr. David Levy at University of Washington Computer Science, he's a professor there. He said that he came up with the term. He says that it's dopamine. It's the dopamine hits. from the constant scrolling, it diminishes attention spans and interest in hobbies and tasks and even social, real-life, social interactions like school. And Dr. Christina Lee of Kaiser Permanente says that kids going back to school have this attention overload from the internet and from social media, and she says popcorn brain is not an official medical diagnosis. But it is a good way to describe what happens when your mind is bouncing around from one topic to another, one thought to another, and can't settle. It's similar to popcorn popping in a bag. Now, here are some of the symptoms. Difficulty concentrating and quick shifts in attention. Constant craving for stimulation. Now, you know, listen, based on some of these symptoms, You know, almost everybody can say, oh, wait a minute, that's me. But you know, you can't, you can't assume that it's you unless it's like, it's a really serious situation. Another symptom is difficulty retaining information. I mean, that applies to a lot of people. Difficulty following multi-step directions and feeling anxious and unable to regulate your emotions. Well, those descriptions apply to a lot of people. It's kind of like somebody says, oh, yeah, well, you know, I put my right shoe on first every day. I got OCD. No, that's not OCD.

Believe me, if you had OCD, it would be a hell of a lot more serious than that. Or people say, well, I do this every day, so I have OCD. So, you know, when it comes to ADD, ADHD, or when it comes to popcorn brain, you can look at some of these symptoms and say, oh, that's me. I got that. But we're talking about exaggerations of these symptoms. Of course, you know, sometimes you have a hard time retaining information. Sometimes I do. Sometimes you have difficulty concentrating. Yes, you always want to be stimulated, but that doesn't mean that you really have popcorn brain. So, look, this is something to consider with your kids going back to school and just maybe if you can somehow prepare them. for this idea that the classroom compared to social media and compared to the internet and how they can manipulate the internet, the classroom might appear to be kind of boring and prepare them to learn how to deal with that. 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 KNX News in Los Angeles, WBEN News and Talk in Buffalo, WWJ News Radio in Detroit, the Dana and Parks Show out of KMBZ in Kansas City, and Scoot out of WWL in New Orleans. You can find all of these programs, including the Something Offbeat podcast, on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Girl, let's get real. Some pads are just diapers with a good PR team, but not the new Kotex BioCare. That's because Kotex BioCare helps defend against odor and irritants. And it's the first and only pad with this pH-proactive system that helps optimize the pads pH. Just think of it as self-care for down there. Check out Kotex.com for more details on the all-new Kotex completely redesigned to meet your needs. You asked, we heard. Las Vegas was built for stars. And on August 22nd, two of boxing's biggest take center stage. Raleigh Romero never follows the script. This is my game. Tio Fimo Lopez has never needed one. This guy's got a big mouth. For years, they've had plenty to say. All your do is tall. But with world championship gold on the line, can they back it? Tio, I'm here. I'm going all in. It's time to put up or shut up. Raleighamero versus Tiofimo Lopez. August 22nd. I'll shut you up. Watch on DeZone, and DeZone on Prime. video. Nerds! Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. Ever Google a money question and end up 12 tabs deep with 12 different answers? This podcast is your shortcut back to clarity. NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast breaks down financial decisions with a team of trusted journalists. They explain the why behind decisions like investing, home buying, and choosing credit cards with clear research-backed insights. No jargon, no misinformation. Make your next financial move with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast on your favorite podcast app. Amazon Music, music, podcasts, and now audiobooks, all in one app. Amazon Music Unlimited. Audio books included. Presented by Team Mobile, the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings, there's never been a better time to join Team Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch today.