What’s the weirdest factor you discovered this week? Nicely, no matter it’s, we promise you’ll have a fair weirder reply should you hearken to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Factor I Realized This Week hits Apple, Anchor, and in all places else you hearken to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favourite supply for the strangest science-adjacent details, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Widespread Science can muster. When you just like the tales on this submit, we assure you’ll love the present.
Truth: The tech that powers E-ZPass comes from Soviet-era spy devices.
By Purbita Saha
I dwell in a New Jersey suburb proper subsequent to the Backyard State Parkway. I flash my E-ZPass far more than I pump my very own fuel. So to me, and doubtless the thousands and thousands of different drivers within the Japanese US who use this digital toll system, E-ZPass is a each day important. And whereas the expertise itself isn’t cool sufficient for a Weirdest Factor yarn, the story behind it’s surprisingly juicy.
In response to a 2016 episode of NPR’s “All Issues Thought of,” the origin of E-ZPass and digital tollbooths goes again to the invention of RFID transponders. The credit score goes to 2 inventors: a Soviet spy and a NASA rocket scientist. Within the Twenties, Russian cellist Leon Theremin was experimenting with microwaves and gases when he realized he might create sounds with completely different volumes and pitches by merely transferring two antennas round. (His instrument was mass produced by RCA, and nonetheless has a cult following right this moment.) This caught the eye of Vladimir Lenin, who promoted Theremin to be a consultant for Soviet science in Europe and the US.
When Theremin returned to the Soviet Union throughout Joseph Stalin’s reign, he was imprisoned for his abroad forays and compelled to work for the state. In his new function, he designed a wi-fi bug powered by the identical electromagnetic waves from his instrument to eavedrop on the US ambassador in Moscow. Legend has it that it was hidden within the embassy’s seal all through World Battle I.
Quick ahead to the Sixties, when Mario Cardullo, a NASA house flight engineer in New York, started fiddling round with primitive variations of RFID shoplifting tags. Cardullo sampled Theremin’s method by triggering a small transponder with microwaves, however added a reminiscence chip that might maintain a bundle of data and share it with an identical receiver. The prototype measured out to in regards to the measurement of a Galaxy Z Fold4, which was too large for a window or automobile window. It took just a few many years earlier than Cardullo landed his invention in an precise tollbooth (in Scandinavia). It took off in Europe and Asia, and eventually began reworking bridges and highways within the US within the Nineties. As we speak, Cardullo’s dream of decking out the George Washington Bridge with Soviet-spy expertise has been realized.
Truth: A bisexual goose elevating a household with two black swans isn’t as unusual because it sounds.
By Rachel Feltman
Right here’s a truth from my current guide “Been There, Carried out That: A Rousing Historical past of Intercourse,” which you’ll purchase as an audiobook narrated by yours really! So, within the early 90s, a black swan flew into New Zealand’s Waimanu lagoon. Locals dubbed her Henrietta after a wing harm saved her from leaving with the remainder of her flock and he or she took up with a white goose named Thomas. For practically 20 years they have been usually seen collectively, with Thomas defending Henrietta from canines and different disturbances.
Then one other black swan confirmed up, and issues acquired… difficult. Henrietta began spending extra of her time together with her new gal pal, and Thomas acquired aggressive towards the swans. Then the newly arrived black swan laid eggs, and Henrietta began caring for them the best way you’d count on a papa swan to take care of his younger. Plot twist: Henrietta had been a boy the entire time!
Very confusingly, the tour guides who labored on the lagoon the place this all went down determined to call the newly-arrived, truly feminine chicken Henrietta, whereas the artist previously often called Henrietta acquired rechristened as Henry.
The excellent news is that Thomas didn’t maintain a grudge for lengthy, and took on a tertiary parental function as soon as the chicks hatched—and continued to take care of all of Henry and Henrietta’s 68 infants over the subsequent six years. Thomas turned an icon to vacationers from all over the world, who have been simply completely charmed by his devotion to the little black swans. He even helped train them to fly.
Right here’s the best half: For Henry and Henrietta, these household preparations wouldn’t have appeared uncommon in any respect. Analysis on the species reveals that male black swans often pair up collectively, each in captivity and within the wild. They often have chicks by briefly associating with a feminine black swan earlier than kicking her out, however they’ve additionally been recognized to easily overtake an present nest stuffed with eggs to increase as their very own. Henry might have spent the higher a part of the 90s questioning why his beloved Thomas wasn’t off robbing nests to get their household began!
Black swans can additionally arrange long-term throuples, the place all three birds—two males and one feminine—take part in mating shows, and the males take turns between mounting the feminine and parading round protectively. On this setup, the place the feminine isn’t kicked out as quickly as her laying is finished, the males truly take over caring for the nest so she will be able to instantly go lay some extra.
The New Zealand triad stayed stable till Henry died of outdated age in 2009, which prompted Henrietta to go searching for extra of her variety. Geese and swans can reproduce and create mottled hybrids often called swooses (sweese?), nevertheless it appears Thomas simply wasn’t Henrietta’s sort.
Satirically, just a few years earlier than that, when Thomas lastly met a feminine goose he fancied sufficient to quiet down with, one other goose stole the chicks for their very own. No phrase on whether or not that goose was homosexual, however I’m fairly positive the BBC would have talked about that, so we’ve got to imagine their motives have been much less heartwarming. Apparently geese typically kidnap goslings from much less highly effective birds round them to “pad” their broods—actually including further infants to the outer fringe of the nest, so predators will seize the adoptees as a substitute of the better-protected pure younger. Nature isn’t all the time cute! However whereas we don’t know the fates of Thomas’s organic chicks, I believe we are able to all agree that he acquired to expertise the thrill of fatherhood at the very least 68 instances over.
When Thomas died in 2018, he was beloved by vacationers from everywhere in the world—and, on the age of 40, extraordinarily outdated in goose-years. Lengthy might he dwell in our hearts!
Truth: Louse feeder was a job throughout WWII, and it was additionally part of the resistance in opposition to the Nazis.
By Erin Welsh and Erin Allmann Updyke
So, all of it begins with typhus. Typhus, particularly epidemic typhus, is an infectious illness attributable to a bacterium often called Rickettsia prowazekii. Unfold by physique lice, it’s understandably a illness that always would rear its head every time instances have been powerful and lice would flourish. Issues like famine, displacement, struggle—these have been usually circumstances underneath which physique lice are simply transmitted individual to individual carrying this little rickettsia and thus spreading typhus.
However simply realizing these two issues, what causes the illness and the way it’s transmitted, merely wasn’t sufficient to cease the unfold of illness. As a result of even you probably have efficient therapy for the illness, you gained’t be capable of do away with typhus should you can’t clear your garments in sizzling water after which not put on them for 5 days. When you’re on the transfer throughout a struggle otherwise you’re displaced, how are you gonna do this? Prevention was key. And the way do you forestall a illness? Vaccines.
Enter: Dr. Rudolf Weigel. Dr. Weigl got here up with the sensible concept to make use of the lice themselves as the upkeep animal to create a variety of typhus pathogen for vaccine analysis. However how do you get sufficient lice to make sufficient vaccine materials? Nicely, you want a louse colony and a strategy to feed them. And since lice are so species particular to people… people needed to provide the meals. Within the type of blood. Yep, people have been the louse feeders.
With WWII on the horizon and Nazis being afraid of typhus, they used this concern as an excuse to enact horrific insurance policies. As a result of typhus wasn’t seen as this common risk that might affect anybody – the Nazis blamed its unfold on Jewish individuals.
Beneath German occupation, Weigl’s institute grew quickly, the place it served as the one technique of survival for a lot of Polish individuals who confronted dying, hunger, or deportation. Weigl went out of his strategy to rent a whole lot of individuals as louse-feeders, usually Polish intellectuals or Jewish individuals, individuals who have been underneath unbelievable risk from the Nazi occupation. Whereas feeding the lice, individuals usually sat round and chatted, exchanging concepts about philosophy, arithmetic, and even actively working within the resistance in opposition to German forces.
To search out out extra, hearken to this week’s episode of Weirdest Factor—and take a look at This Podcast Will Kill You wherever you get podcasts. Plus, you could find out extra details about Dr. Weigl within the guide The Improbable Laboratory of Dr. Weigl by Arthur Allen.
