WEIRD NEWS OF THE WEEK IS SPONSORED BY BREWED AWAKENING VERMILION
A SPORT WHERE THE ONLY STEROIDS ARE IN THE SHAMPOO. Late last week in Daytona Beach, attendees at the National Beard and Mustache Championships broke three Guinness World Records for the longest chains of beards, mustaches and partial beards. 86 guys stood side-by-side with their facial hair clipped together. The chain measured 195 feet and 3 inches long. Another stunt involved 27 guys in a mustache chain, measuring 20 feet and 4 inches. And the final record featured only guys with partial beard styles such as mutton chops, goatees and “musketeer-style” facial hair. This partial beard chain, made up of 24 participants, measured 42 feet and 8 inches. (UPI)
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An Idaho man balanced a running lawnmower on his chin for 9 minutes, 17 seconds to break a Guinness World Record. David Rush, who is on a quest to hold the most concurrent Guinness World Records titles, previously attempted the record about four years ago, but his time of 3 minutes, 52 seconds was disqualified because his lawnmower did not have a bag on it. The record was increased in the meantime to 7 minutes, 2 seconds by fellow serial record-breaker Ashrita Furman. Rush finished his attempt at 9 minutes, 17 seconds, short of his goal of 10 minutes but enough to take the title. The record brought Rush’s total concurrent titles to 165, bringing him closer to overtaking Silvio Sabba, who currently holds 180 titles. (UPI)
A proposed train station in Nanjing, China looks like a massive sanitary pad, social media users said after absorbing the design renderings. Chinese officials said the North Nanjing station’s design was inspired by the plum blossoms the city is known for, but that hasn’t halted a steady flow of sarcastic comments online, according to the BBC.
“This is a giant sanitary pad. It’s embarrassing to say it looks like a plum blossom,” one commenter wrote on the country’s Weibo platform.
“Why can we all tell it is a sanitary pad immediately, but the architects can’t?” another user said.
“I think we should take this chance to call for society to pay attention to period shaming. This design is ahead of its time,” someone else joked.
Construction on the site was expected to begin over the next two months, and would cost 20 billion Chinese yuan, or $2.7 billion, the Nanjing Morning News reportedly said in 2017. The design was approved by the government of Jiangsu province and China State Railway Group, according to state-owned media. (New York Post)
The proposed design of a train station in Nanjing has attracted the attention of Chinese internet users for all the wrong reasons.
Authorities say the design takes inspiration from plum blossoms.
But online, some say it looks like a sanitary pad.https://t.co/v3EEE4VoxK— Mayte Chummia (@Maytechummia) April 17, 2024
A bride was shocked, disgusted, and almost called off her wedding just moments before the ceremony, after she walked in on her husband to be … being breastfed by his mother. Wedding planner Georgie Mitchell shared the story on The Unfiltered Bride podcast. “On two occasions I’ve been told this story. I was not at this wedding but on two occasions I’ve been told this – both by makeup artists,” Georgie said in a now viral TikTok.
@the.unfiltered.bride What would you do? #weddingdrama #weddinggoss #weddingpodcast #podcast #bridepodcast #weddinghorrors #weddingfyp #groomproblems #bridedrama ♬ original sound – the.unfiltered.bride
That coffee you slurped this morning? It could be 600,000 years old. Using genes from coffee plants around the world, researchers built a family tree for the world’s most popular type of coffee, known to scientists as Coffea arabica and to coffee lovers simply as “arabica.” The researchers, hoping to learn more about the plants to better protect them from pests and climate change, found that the species emerged around 600,000 years ago through natural crossbreeding of two other coffee species.
These wild coffee plants originated in Ethiopia but are thought to have been first roasted and brewed primarily in Yemen starting in the 1400s. In the 1600s, Indian monk Baba Budan is fabled to have smuggled seven raw coffee beans back to his homeland from Yemen, laying the foundation for coffee’s global takeover.
Arabica coffee, prized for its smooth and relatively sweet flavor, now makes up 60% – 70% of the global coffee market and is brewed by brands such as Starbucks, Tim Horton’s and Dunkin’. The rest is robusta, a stronger and more bitter coffee made from one of arabica’s parents, Coffea canephora.
Exploring arabica’s past and present could yield insight into keeping coffee plants healthy – and coffee cups full – for future early mornings. (Associated Press)
Your morning coffee may be more than a half million years old. https://t.co/lyn20XlG9u
— AP Climate (@AP_Climate) April 19, 2024