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What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.
Today’s episode features special guest Alie Ward, host of the hit podcast Ologies!
FACT: We still don’t know if the “Mad Gasser of Mattoon” was a case of mass hysteria or something even more sinister
On September 1, 1944, a young mother of two named Aline Kearney noticed a sickly sweet odor coming through her bedroom window in the town of Mattoon, Illinois. As it got stronger, she said she felt her legs and lower body becoming paralyzed.
Kearney’s husband wasn’t fighting in World War II, but he was out working as a cab driver. Luckily her sister and nephew were staying the night, and came when she screamed for help. The police were called and didn’t find anything, and Aline’s apparent paralysis resolved within half an hour. But later, when her husband got home, he claimed he saw a mysterious man lurking near the bedroom window who evaded capture.
Thus began the saga of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. The next day, the Mattoon Daily Journal-Gazette ran the headline “‘Anesthetic Prowler’ on Loose.” A Mr. and Mrs. Urban Reef saw the report and claimed they’d been hit the night before the Kearneys, recalling waking up around 3 am and being unable to move as they smelled something sweet coming through their window. Some other folks chimed in to add their own September 1st experiences, while another pair said they’d experienced something similar “a few months ago.”
Check out this week’s episode of The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week to hear how the sordid tale of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon unfolded—and became an international news sensation. The incident has been largely dismissed as an example of mass hysteria, but the truth is that we don’t really know what went down during those terrifying nights in Mattoon.
FACT: Old Bay has an origin story full of immigrants and underdogs
By Alie Ward
I’m working on an Ologies episode about crabs, and it’s sent me down a wild rabbit hole about Old Bay—the seasoning so beloved that it’s allowed into even the fanciest crab cakes that eschew nearly all other flavorings and fillers.
I soon learned that Old Bay was created by a guy named Gustav Brunn, a German Jewish immigrant. Back in 1938, Brunn was arrested along with 30,000 other Jews during Kristallnacht. He was sent to the concentration camp Buchenwald, but his wife was able to put most of their savings toward getting him a lawyer and getting him released—which was only possible because they’d already gotten American visas when he’d been taken into custody. When they landed in Baltimore in 1939, they had little with them except Brunn’s prized spice grinder. The spice business had made them enough money back in Germany to save Brunn’s life, and Brunn’s experience soon got him a job at McCormick. Unfortunately for McCormick, they soon fired him. Fortunately for the rest of us, Brunn set off on his own to start a new spice company—and created Old Bay.
A few years after Brunn’s death in 1985, his humble spice company sold for the equivalent of $24.3 million. And who bought it? McCormick. Revenge is a dish best served with a touch of paprika.
FACT: Corn sweat is real and it CAN hurt you
By Jess Boddy
When we recorded this episode late this summer, the Midwest was descending into apocalyptic weather patterns and bug swarms. The culprit? A little botanical phenomenon called corn sweat.
You might have heard of corn sweat (it did go somewhat viral over the summer), but it’s not just some buzzword. It’s a real thing meteorologists have been warning folks about for decades—and of course it’s now getting much worse thanks to climate change.
Tune into this week’s episode to hear all about how corn sweat—and an overlapping cicada emergence—tortured Chicagoans this summer.
