Weekly Weird News for 17 June 2022

Here come the hotsteppers

Welcome to another edition of WWN! It was a “hot” one with several stories related to fire and heat. First, a bit more on the very hot but stupid story of last week as it took an interesting copycat turn.

Sure, it looks like this story has (people) legs

Last week’s top story was that of the “mysterious” creature outside the fence of the Amarillo (TX) zoo. I hadn’t seen such a “mass opinionation” event possibly since the Montauk Monster of 2008. People felt compelled to pronounce their interpretation of what they thought it was, and they sure got creative. Lots of rumors circulated without basis - such as the one where there was a “furry” convention nearby. That was someone’s goofy guess, not a fact. Yet it was taken as fact because many people wanted very much for their preferred conclusion - a person in an animal suit identifying as a “furry” - to sound solid. I still see little evidence it was a person at all.

The concept of considering plausibility was nowhere to be found in these discussions. Clearly, this scenario hit some buttons with people. They must participate in the group discussion where everyone can be an equal expert because no answer can be confirmed.

It’s very much a social media-driven phenomenon. The fact that I used the picture on social media for this post was likely the cause for an uptick in the typical click rate for WWN. Maybe they thought I had more or better info. I didn’t because there isn’t any. From my clicks, only about 1 out of 10 articles on this topic had anything unique to say, and it was most often humorous Twitter posts on it. This story was almost completely valueless. Almost…

It didn’t take long for other media-savvy people, namely at other zoos, to capitalize on what had become a meme. The San Antonio zoo posted a “mysterious figure” that was really Timothy the hippo. https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/06/12/strange-creature-caught-wandering-brackenridge-park-after-amarillo-mystery-sa-zoo-says/

And the Fort Worth zoo posted a photoshopped baby elephant named Brazos. I’m not sure this meme is out of gas yet. https://www.audacy.com/krld/news/state/zoo-mysterious-figure-posts-popping-up-across-texas

Next, we have several stories about animals behaving naturally, with negative outcomes.

The myth of the elephant with a grudge

In India, a story about a dead woman and an elephant’s hard feelings has also spawned a meme reminding us that “elephants never forget”. The report says a 68 yr old village woman was trampled to death by an elephant when she encountered a herd near a water source. When the body was brought back for the funeral, the same elephant returned to attack the dead body. However, it appears the herd was responsible for the attacks, so it’s not possible to say if it was the same elephant each time. But it does seem very likely that it was the same herd. The woman’s body was thrown by one of the animals as the rest of the people fled. Obviously, she couldn’t run away. I’m not seeing any evidence that could reasonably conclude it was the same animal who was holding some sort of grudge, as various social media is irresponsibly suggesting.  https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/odisha-elephant-tramples-woman-to-death-again-attacks-body-before-funeral/articleshow/92184167.cms

Elephants in India are increasingly coming into conflict with humans as their habitat is diminished. Millions of people live near protected areas. The conflict results in about 500 human deaths per year and around 100 elephant deaths per year.  https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/20/asia/human-elephant-conflict-india-krithi-karanth-c2e-spc-intl-hnk/index.html

Firestarter dog

A curious dog was doing what dogs left at home often do - looking for something left over to eat. In Kansas City, a family left a pan of grease on the stove when they left for the day. Not long after, the neighbors called fire services about the smoke. The homeowners returned to find a damaging fire destroyed their kitchen. Their home video showed that their dog had touched the stovetop triggering the burner under the pan. Two dogs were rescued. https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/house-catches-on-fire-video-shows-the-dog-did-it

Touch controls within reach of animals or kids are a menace. Recall a previous story from the 7 January WWN alleging that cats also cause house fires by turning on stoves, particularly in South Korea. 

The power of the beaver

Utility officials in British Columbia were able to determine that a beaver chewed an aspen tree that fell on the electric and cable lines leaving people without power. They were able to pinpoint the cause because of the chew marks on the downed tree. The lesson here is not to get rid of the beavers, obviously, but to have some redundancy in the grid. https://bc.ctvnews.ca/single-beaver-caused-mass-internet-cell-service-outages-in-northern-b-c-1.5944697?s=09

Mass frog death assemblage

Archaeologists discovered a site of a mass mortality event of frogs in a possibly 2000-year-old location near Cambridge, U.K. The scientists were conducting excavations related to a road improvement project when they discovered the trove of some 8000 frog bones in a single 14m long area. It’s unclear if the frogs were eaten or if this was a natural event where frogs became trapped en masse and died. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/12/mass-frog-burial-baffles-experts-at-iron-age-site-near-cambridge

Pressed roach

Many of us have had the experience of opening up an old book and finding a seemingly ancient piece of paper inside. In a news story this week from the British National Archives, a flattened cockroach was found mummified in the pages of a slave-trade ship ledger. The insect was determined to be an American cockroach, that came over on the ships from Africa. Because this species is uncommon in the UK today, it became clear the roach was a stowaway from long ago, though he didn’t fare well either. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/15/eighteenth-century-cockroach-found-in-slave-trading-ships-accounts

Don’t firewalk with me

Over two dozen people were injured in a corporate team-building event that went wrong. Volunteers walked over a bed of hot coals. Firewalking is a rather common gimmick exercise designed to be a rite of passage or to show that the mind can triumph over matter. Instead, it’s a matter of physics, and proper design and execution. Something went wrong in this event when 25 people had to be treated for burns including nearly half with severe injuries. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61811157 and https://nypost.com/2022/06/15/25-people-injured-after-hot-coal-walk-in-switzerland/ This story is trending (as of the time of this newsletter publication) on mainstream news sources as those who have never heard of this activity wonder why anyone would think it’s a good idea in the first place. Hope the fire goes out on this stupid stunt.

Latest and insanest TikTok trends

TikTok, like other social media, can be more of a social menace than anything. A draw for the teen crowd are often the “challenges” that you do while filming. There have been challenges to eat detergent pods or to gulp cinnamon. Others involved planking (lying down on a random surface), using massive amounts of duct tape, or doing things blindfolded. All stupid shit. Even though people die doing these social media “challenges”, they continue to get more outrageous. The latest trends involve jumping in front of a vehicle to see if you will be spared, shooting a gel blaster gun at people, or loosening wheel lug nuts. While it’s not clear that all of these potentially deadly challenges are really being tried, the power of social media is such that there is a strong possibility someone who is not grounded in reality will attempt them. https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/collections/the-worst-and-most-dangerous-tiktok-challenges-of-june-2022

Branding hot weather

First, hurricanes were named. This made sense for tracking purposes. It also was a branding move as people who may be in harm’s way, in particular, could associate the level of threat with a particular label. Now, we also name winter storms for the same purpose. But those are less… organized than a hurricane that even has its own “eye”. Now, public officials are edging towards naming heatwaves. https://www.axios.com/2022/06/08/hurricanes-wildfires-heat-waves-names-categories

Criteria for naming heatwaves are already being formulated, with the Arsht-Rock catagorization initiative as one of the leaders. https://onebillionresilient.org/project/categorizing-and-naming-heat-waves/

Heatwaves are actually the deadliest weather disaster and the need for calling attention to them may be just as important as the other weather emergency types. Extreme heat kills up to half a million people a year worldwide. They also hit the economy - causing decreased production for workers, in agricuture, and in tourism. Drought and wildfires affected long-term local sustainability. https://phys.org/news/2022-06-deadly-heatwaves-threaten-economies.html One look at the news each week, and you can find someplace experiencing extreme heat. This week, 20 states are suffering through record heat. https://abcnews.go.com/US/record-heat-waves-continue-100-million-affected/story?id=85408727

In Kansas, 2000 cattle died from heat stress. The animals can’t adapt to the hotter conditions here especially when they came so fast. There have been baseless conspiracy claims about the cattle deaths but it’s important to note that the number of dead cows is actually not many considering the huge numbers in typical livestock herds, and the deaths are completely explanable. https://www.kwch.com/2022/06/16/livestock-veterinary-experts-explain-heat-related-deaths-kansas-cattle/

Get ready, summer hasn’t even officially started! The solstice is June 21.