Something Offbeat

Ben Naman, Director of Medicinal Plants Research at the San Diego Botanic Garden, joined "Something Offbeat" to tell us about the creepy, poisonous real-world tree at the center of one of the season's hottest shows, season 3 of "The White Lotus".

Have you ever taken a good look at the player's facial hair when you watched a game of baseball? You might not realize it, but the topic of grooming in the major leagues is actually full of interesting tales. Just this year, managing partner Hal Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees (son of the legendary George Steinbrenner) released a statement that the team would amend its longstanding facial hair policy, adding another chapter to the saga. Marty Appel, former PR director for the Yankees, joined “Something Offbeat” to help us understand how it fits in to the history of the team and how it has approached grooming through different eras of fashion.

What is the likelihood of an apocalypse like the one in “The Last of Us” actually happening? Dr. Cameron Carlson of the Zombie Research Society told Audacy's “Something Offbeat” podcast that one of the greatest zombie risks may be hiding in litter boxes.

Chris and Lauren catch up on the astronauts lost in space and a bunch of interesting animal news.

And more weird story rundowns with Chris and Lauren.

Did you know that some school districts have been trying to ban Crocs? We're diving into the history and current application of dress codes in this episode of “Something Offbeat” with Grace Goble, an actor, singer, playwright, and more who changed her school's dress code and Richard Thompson Ford, the George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and author of Dress Codes: how the laws of fashion made history.

This week on Something Offbeat, Mike Rogers talked to the Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, about something you might not know takes place every 13 to 15 years: Saturn's rings appearing to disappear.

Chris and Lauren discuss four weird news stories: the Old Testament-esque tale of a kayaker being spit out by a whale, smelly flowers in Australia, an ambitious ocean voyage that departed from Philly and a weird Walmart car wash project.

This week, people around the world have a change to see a “planetary parade” – you can read about it here. Back in 2023, “Something Offbeat” investigated why people love looking into the sky. We reached out to two experts: Dartmouth researcher Nathan H. Heller, who specializes in pareidolia – hearing or seeing a specific sound or image in a seemingly random auditory or visual stimulus – as well as well-known astrologer Jessica Lanyadoo, host of “Ghost of a Podcast”.

Instead of harvesting long-lost DNA like they do in in the “Jurassic Park” film franchise, a company called Colossal is planning to take living species and genetically engineer traits of the extinct animals such as the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger and the dodo bird into them. The company employs around 170 scientists and plans are moving forward… faster than you might think. Faye Flam, a science journalist who is researching the topic for Bloomberg, joined the show to discuss the project.

Stories about stolen eggs, Taylor Swift's Super Bowl experience, people getting stuck on theme park rides and the possible end of the penny all reminded us of “Something Offbeat” tales from the past.

A coin from ancient Rome featuring a depiction of Brutus -- yes, the Brutus who killed Julius Caesar -- sold at auction for $2 million. It got us wondering, in 2,000 years, could a penny be worth just as much? And what's the future of physical currency look like anyway? To find out, we talked to Aaron Klein, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, about what our money could look like in the future.

George Musser, a contributing editor at Scientific American, contributing writer at Quanta as well as the author of Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation (2023) and Spooky Action at a Distance (2015) joined “Something Offbeat” to help us get a better understanding of the multiverse and what it has to do with computers.

Camp Century was a US military base that was used for less than a decade in the 1960s. Now? It's all but a memory. William Colgan, a glacier and climate change researcher, currently in Copenhagen, Denmark, as part of the Camp Century Climate Monitoring Program, joins the show to discuss it.

Today we're talking about one of the most notorious, long-enduring real-life mysteries out there. The tale of one of the most infamous skyjackers of all time – DB Cooper. Researcher Eric Ulis joins the show to explain the decades-old enigma and help us unpack the latest theories about who Cooper might be.

Here's a taste of the best stories from the past year to get us ready for 2025.

Offbites: Where the good gifts are full 1175 Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:00:19 +0000 jkCbR2PVzkZWJ7pHird3XBZqqFsgV948 news Something Offbeat news Offbites: Where the good gifts are What’s the deeper story behind that weird headline you forwarded to your friends or shared at the watercooler? We ask questions to gain grounded insight into the stranger news of the week. 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc News False https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=https%3A%

Rodney Jacobs of Stinson Lumber in Oregon joined the show. He's responsible for selecting the tree that is placed in downtown Portland every year. And there's a lot more that goes into it than you'd think.

Anthony Clarke, a researcher from Curtin University, joined the show to discuss new findings about Stonehenge that have revealed yet another mystery related to the ancient landmark: how did one of the stones travel all the way from Scotland to reach the Salisbury Plain?

This week Mike spoke with Oriene Shin with Consumer Reports. She tells us how to keep kids safe with the toys we get them over the holidays and answers the age old question… can you eat Play-doh?

Sam Benson Smith, digital managing editor at Audacy's KNX, brought us a story about insurance fraudsters who clipped up by using a bad bear suit. We'll tell you all about it.

In this episode of Offbites, Chris and Lauren offer some side dishes of weird news before Thanksgiving, including snake yoga, a bad development for wired headphones, cruel AI and volcanoes on the moon,

Paul Koudinaris, author of Faithful Unto Death: Pet cemeteries, animal graves, and eternal devotion, and other books on both animals and death, joins the show to discuss French actor Alain Delon's strange posthumous request and more.

We all like pizza, right? In most settings, that's the case, but pizza in the workplace has gotten a bad rap. Workplace culture expert Dr. Jessica Kriegel joined Mike Rogers to explain what other, better options managers have to say thank you to their employees.

Here's a collection of our spookiest tales for Halloween! Full episodes available here: Ghosted: Man says ancient corpse is his 'spiritual girlfriend' https://www.audacy.com/podcast/something-offbeat-456dc/episodes/ghosted-man-says-ancient-corpse-is-his-spiritual-girlfriend-1a28c A vampire unearthed: Our interview with an heir to 'Dracula' https://www.audacy.com/krld/news/national/something-offbeat-a-vampire-unearthed Could 'The Last of Us' really happen?: Beyond the zombie https://www.audacy.com/podcast/something-offbeat-456dc/episodes/could-the-last-of-us-really-happen-beyond-the-zombie-fungus-232bd Here are the best and worst US cities to be in when the https://www.audacy.com/podcast/something-offbeat-456dc/episodes/here-are-the-best-and-worst-us-cities-to-be-in-when-the-zombie-apocalypse-happens-9a0b6

Chris and Lauren discuss Spooky season, coffee, animals where they shouldn't be and more.

Starbucks started Pumpkin Spice season in August this year, and some people thought it was a little too early. The “Something Offbeat” team reached out to an expert who could tell us all about people's reactions to pumpkin spice. Dr. Jin-A Choi is part of a team from Montclair State University that have been releasing the annual Pumpkin Spice Report. The latest just came out this month.

"Vintage Offbeat" continues with our very first episode, from June 13, 2022. ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: We all know office parties can be a drag, but for some, they can be more than uncomfortable. Recently, a court awarded a man who suffers from an anxiety disorder $450,000 for being subjected to an unwanted office party. Why do some people dismiss mental health issues such as anxiety, and why are some boundaries not respected? To find out, host Mike Rogers spoke with Dr. Kevin Chapman, founder and director of the Kentucky Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders.

The search for the perfect selfie consumes many social media users. But when does it go too far? Content creators have been seriously injured, or even killed, while trying to get that once-in-a-lifetime photo. Sam Cornell a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales and a co-author of the study titled: “Dangerous Selfies Aren't Just Foolish. We Need To Treat Them Like The Public Health Hazard They Really Are," joined Mike Rogers to explain the risks and why we do it.

For our second anniversary, we're looking back at one of our first episodes! ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: It's not hard to find gruesome, macabre images or videos – they're on TV, in horror movies and online. But what if you wanted to see them in person? Through a series of donations and transactions, the body of a 98-year-old World War II veteran from Louisiana ended up on a table in an Oregon hotel ballroom where attendees paid as much as $500 to view a public dissection. Dr. Gail Saltz, associate professor of psychiatry at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill-Cornell School of Medicine and host of the “How Can I Help?" podcast, explains what drives people to seek out such spectacles and what that fascination with death can tell us about ourselves and our society.

On this episode of Offbites, Lauren and Chris discuss the otters who attacked a woman out for a jog, ask how many people is too many people in space, and the dog capturing people's hearts on a beach in Brazil.

Vampires are spooky, bacteria can be scary… and when you put them together? Things get a bit spooky-scary. New research published earlier this year reveal that some bacteria actually act like vampires. That is, they thirst for human blood and will feed on it when the chance arrives. Dr. Arden Baylink of Washington State University, the lead author of the study, joined Mike Rogers on the “Something Offbeat” podcast to explain.

Lauren and Chris are finally back with another episode of Offbites. This week, they discuss their Brat summers, the most unattractive qualities in the opposite sex, and say goodbye to a fast food sandwich staple.

For our second anniversary this summer, we're looking back at one of our first episodes! ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: Remember the fun of naming your pet? Now, imagine taking on the task of naming an entire species. Earlier this year, Dr. Christopher Whalen of Yale University got that chance. This week on Something Offbeat, we talk to Whalen about his discovery – an ancient ancestor of the octopus that he named after President Joe Biden – and to Dr. Brittany Kenyon-Flatt of North Carolina State University about the history behind scientific names.

According to a study released this summer, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago likely helped grapes flourish in the Western Hemisphere. While there may not be a direct correlation between dinosaurs and grapes, Monica Carvalho, the assistant curator at the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan and co-author of a study tracing the origins of grapes in our hemisphere, explains what new grape seed fossils discovered in South America reveal.

This Friday marks the 47th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death at age 42, which means that it is Elvis Week, a weeklong celebration of the late King of Rock and Roll at his Graceland estate in Memphis, Tenn. Presley may have left Earth decades ago, but he's still a household name and an enduring American icon. More than that, Audacy reported earlier this year that fans are still paying big money for Elvis memorabilia – $150,000 for a pair of his blue suede shoes. Why has our love for Elvis stood the test of time? We reached out to Sally Hoedel, author of “Destined to Die Young” and other books about the King to find out.

We love spicy food here at “Something Offbeat”. Sometimes, when the heat is intense, things can get scary. In one case, a spicy chip social media challenge has even been linked to the death of a teen. This week, we talked with Dr. Paul Terry, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine. He helped us explore the risks and benefits of eating food with lots of spice.

The Catholic church decided earlier this summer it would canonize the first Millennial saint. Carlos Acutis, an Italian teenager who died in 2006, was credited with a second miracle in May by Pope Francis. To learn more about the canonization process, the novelty of such a young saint, and saints from the United States, Something Offbeat welcomed Dr. Kathleen Cummings, a professor of American studies and history and Notre Dame and the author of the book – A Saint of Our Own: How the Quest for a Holy Hero Helped Catholics Become American.

Elon Musk's project Neuralink has been bringing a concept that seems out of science fiction, brain implants that allow users to control tech, into reality. So far, the company has implanted the device into a subject with quadriplegia. While he was able to do things like play online chess, he then lost some of the ability when parts of the device slipped out of place. This all begs questions about safety, ethics and the future of the human relationship with technology. Our team at “Something Offbeat” reached out to two experts – L. Syd M. Johnson, associate professor of bioethics and humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University, and science journalist Faye Flam – to dive into them.

From a voice assistant that sounds just like Scarlett Johansson to political deep fakes to a computer-generated sports broadcaster, AI is beginning to make some of its most public-facing moves yet in the media industry. To discuss what the future holds for artificial intelligence in sports, news, and entertainment, Dr. David Gunkel, a professor of media studies at Northern Illinois University, joined Something Offbeat's Mike Rogers.

On this week's episode of Offbites, Lauren and Chris discuss knockoff Donald Trump sneakers, the 10 most unhealthy fast food items at America's five favorite spots, and a video game argument that wound up with an in-person fight.   

When Apple released iOS 17.5 in May, some users found previously deleted files popping up on their devices, including old photos. Apple released a fix -- iOS 17.5.1 -- just days later, but it raised the question of where those deleted files came from. Victoria Song, senior reviewer of wearable and fitness tech for The Verge, joined host Mike Rogers to discuss the iOS bug and the privacy we give up for the sake of convenience with our technology.