A Musical Secret Weapon, Low Cortisol Beakmaxxing, Roller Coaster Science

Dropout's Grant O'Brien joins the show to talk about all things weird roller coasters. Plus, Jess hops on to discuss how a Gregorian chant has infiltrated all of our favorite media, from Shrek to Elden Ring. And Rachel gets into how having less of a beak can actually make you more of a chad. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tweet at us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to learn more about all of our stories! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rachel now has a Patreon, too! Follow her for exclusive bonus content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to Jess' Twitch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to all of Jess' content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.jesscapricorn.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Jess Boddy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Popular Science: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/PopSci⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Theme music by Billy Cadden: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Shop plans at https://MINTMOBILE.com/weirdest Order RIGHT NOW and save up to $20 at https://STORYWORTH.com/weirdest Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:00Speaker 02

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• 1:33Rachel Feltman?

  At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and tech stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of Popular Science. I'm Rachel Feltman.

• 1:53Speaker 04

  I'm Jess Bodie. And I'm Grant O'Brien.

• 1:56Rachel Feltman?

  Grant, welcome to the show.

• 1:58Speaker 04

  Woo!

• 1:58Rachel Feltman?

  Welcome back.

• 1:59Speaker 04

  Thank you so much. Thank you. Yes, I'm a friend of the pod now. It's great.

• 2:02Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, exactly. A regular contributor. Last time, we broke format, but then I found out that you have a thing you like to nerd out about.

• 2:10Speaker 04

  Uh oh, yes, I do.

• 2:11Rachel Feltman?

  And I could make you come back and talk about it.

• 2:13Speaker 04

  And it's very sciency. It's to do with physics, folks.

• 2:17Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, listen, it is. It's all to do with physics. Would you tell our listeners who have forgotten since the last time you were on, a little bit about who you are? What your whole deal is?

• 2:26Speaker 04

  Uh, my whole deal is that I am a comedian actor in LA. If people know me, I imagine they know me through my work with Dropout. There's a billion shows over there that I'm on, and I think people should watch all of them. I think they're all quite good.

• 2:44Rachel Feltman?

  I agree. And Jess was an audience member participant, for one. Fun fact.

• 2:49Speaker 05

  I was.

• 2:50Rachel Feltman?

  I don't know if you've ever said that on the pod.

• 2:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if they did either. I was, when they did the stand-up spinoff show.

• 2:56Rachel Feltman?

  The crowd control one?

• 2:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, crowd control. I was in the audience for that.

• 2:59Speaker 04

  I just did an episode of that. How was it?

• 3:01Speaker 05

  It was a blast, as I'm sure you found out.

• 3:04Speaker 04

  Oh, I had a, who were the, I don't know if we can say, but hey, you know what? Hey, don't tell me who the comedians were. We'll wait for that to be announced.

• 3:11Speaker 05

  Yes, I'll send it to you.

• 3:13Speaker 04

  But I bet all three of them were great.

• 3:14Speaker 05

  They were phenomenal. Yeah, it was so cool to go and see how everything gets made over there, too. It's, everyone was so lovely. Like, I was so impressed.

• 3:23Speaker 04

  They do such a, it's, they walk the walk, which is nice.

• 3:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:27Speaker 04

  It's not just branding that they're cool to people. It's a nice thing that it's actually true. It really is that we're not lying when we're like, oh, we're all fun friends. This is nice.

• 3:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was a really pleasant surprise. I feel like not very many places are like that.

• 3:42Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. Great hack for getting a reputation for being fun and friendly is being fun and friendly.

• 3:46Speaker 05

  To actually be.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  To be fun and friendly.

• 3:47Rachel Feltman?

  Wild.

• 3:49Speaker 04

  Someone else should try that one. So it's a good idea.

• 3:51Speaker 05

  It's crazy. Pro tip.

• 3:53Rachel Feltman?

  Well, let's get into it. So on the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of fact or story we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, having a few laughs, et cetera, and decide just what we absolutely have to hear more about first. Then, once we've all had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was. Except, we don't do that part anymore. There's no winner. We had too many three-way ties. It was getting goofy. Jess, what's your tease?

• 4:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm gonna talk about four musical notes that are historically and scientifically engineered to make you really sad.

• 4:29Speaker 04

  Mmm, great.

• 4:31Rachel Feltman?

  Great. I love being sad. For my tease, I'm just gonna read the headline of the press release for the study I'm pulling this from. Disabled parrot is undefeated alpha male of his group, thanks to novel Beak Jousting.

• 4:44Speaker 05

  What a Chad.

• 4:45Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  That's a story about me, actually. Sorry about that. You got a little mixed up. I got a big old beak.

• 4:51Rachel Feltman?

  How embarrassing for me. Grant, what's your tease?

• 4:55Speaker 04

  My tease is 155 miles per hour.

• 4:59Rachel Feltman?

  Wow. Who can live at that speed?

• 5:01Speaker 04

  Who, indeed?

• 5:04Rachel Feltman?

  Jess, why don't we kick things off with you?

• 5:06Speaker 05

  I would love to. So this is my latest hyperfixation for a while. It's also gonna be my next big YouTube video essay. It's in, I'm editing it as we speak.

• 5:16Rachel Feltman?

  Can't wait. Love your video essays.

• 5:18Speaker 05

  You know when you have a... Thank you.

• 5:19Speaker 04

  This does feel like hyperfixation's the show.

• 5:21Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:22Speaker 05

  It really is.

• 5:23Speaker 04

  It's a delightful thing.

• 5:24Speaker 05

  Yes. Yeah. So it's a hyperfixation that's, it's like a creative project that's ruining my life a little bit. You get, have you ever had one of those?

• 5:31Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, yeah. Every day.

• 5:32Speaker 05

  So I decided I would bring it to this show and infect you all with my favorite piece of knowledge. So...

• 5:38Rachel Feltman?

  That's what we're here for.

• 5:38Speaker 05

  My journey with all of this began last year, when I started to play what would become my game of the year, my video game of the year. And that was Hollow Knight: Silk Song. Are either of you familiar with this video game?

• 5:51Rachel Feltman?

  Only through you.

• 5:53Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 5:53Speaker 04

  I'm not at all.

• 5:54Speaker 05

  Amazing. Okay, so this game has a predecessor, Hollow Knight, the first game that came out. Let me look it up. It was a long time ago. The original Hollow Knight came out in 2017, and it was the indie game darling, basically. It blew up, it exploded, everybody was so excited for it. They announced a sequel. And everybody was so stoked for the sequel. But then they went radio silent for eight years. And it's just this tiny little team of five people in Australia who make the game.

• 6:27Speaker 04

  It's indie. It's indie indie.

• 6:28Speaker 05

  It's truly indie. They were kind of releasing stuff about it for a while, like their development process. And then people got a little too crazy about it and put too much pressure on them. So I think they went, we don't know why they did that. That's healthy. It stopped telling us anything. And then all of a sudden, last year, they dropped a YouTube video and said, hey, the sequel's coming out in two weeks. And it broke the internet. And then when the game finally released, it broke Steam, which is the app people use to buy and download games pretty universally. It broke it, which is not a normal thing. No. Uh, and it came out and it lived up to the hype somehow. It was like truly an amazing game. It's about bugs, but it's also somehow about like duty and parenthood and feminism and self sacrifice. It's just an amazing game.

• 7:12Speaker 04

  It's like a Pixar movie.

• 7:13Speaker 05

  Straight up, straight up, kind of similar vibes. So I would recommend you guys check it out if you're interested at all, or just like watch some cool YouTube videos about them. I think it's a really cool origin story of the development and also of the game itself is really cool. Anyway, that's the backdrop. And with this amazing game comes an amazing soundtrack. So it's done by this guy named Christopher Larkin. And he did the game, he did the music for the first game and second game. And there are like a million fun facts I could tell you about the OST. Like, for example, you know, I mentioned it's a game about bugs and a lot of these bugs spin like silk, magical silk into strings and stuff like that. And so Larkin uses a lot of string instruments that are central to a lot of the big moments. So he does cool stuff like that. But the thing that shook me the most

• 7:55Speaker 05

  about the OST is that he uses this weird motif throughout the soundtrack. And he uses it truly from start to finish. It's on like the launch menu before you open the game. And then it's also in the final boss theme and everywhere in between. It's everywhere. And it's four little notes and it sounds like this. I'm gonna pull it up.

• 8:16Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  Oh, sure.

• 8:19Rachel Feltman?

  That, yeah, that guy.

• 8:20Speaker 05

  Which, which, you know, might sound familiar because it sounds like the opening of The Shining.

• 8:26Speaker 04

  I was just gonna say, that's the opening of The Shining. I'm at the Overlook Hotel.

• 8:31Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 05

  Exactly. Those first, like, four notes of that are actually a more longstanding historic motif. So it's in so many other things. It's in Star Wars, The Lion King, Alien, Jurassic Park. It's in Shrek and lots of TV shows. It's like the blatant core theme of The White Lotus and the intro song. Like I said, this goes back way further than just The Shining, which is crazy because that movie came out in, what? Seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-something?

• 9:01Rachel Feltman?

  I'd believe seventy-nine, but...

• 9:03Speaker 05

  Seventy-nine sounds right. But basically, it goes back like eight hundred years to Gregorian monks. So they would sing this or chant it basically as part of the Catholic Requiem, which they'd sing in the church at big, like, funerals, basically.

• 9:17Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 9:18Speaker 05

  So it's a, you know, it's a part of this giant Latin hymn. And those four notes I've been talking about, the da-da-da-da, they have lyrics and the lyrics are "Diisere," and it means "the day of wrath."

• 9:34Speaker 04

  Oh, boy.

• 9:35Rachel Feltman?

  And then there's a requiem after there, right? You tack the requiem on at the end?

• 9:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 9:41Rachel Feltman?

  Because I unlocked something in my brain.

• 9:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:43Speaker 04

  Well, it makes total sense that it was, because it's all in like a human voice range. It's like, oh, a person ought to be singing that.

• 9:50Speaker 05

  A hundred percent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very lyrical. And after, after these first two words, there's like twenty more stanzas of Latin, basically, like Rachel's saying, that are all a part of this one particular song. And, yeah, that one song, the Diisere song, is one piece of the larger Catholic Requiem funeral production, whatever it is. And, yeah, the Diisere song is all about like the scary stuff that goes down on the judgment day, like fire and brimstone. And when the world turns to ash, will you go to heaven or hell? Like, you're being judged. Just some light stuff. And so why are modern composers taking those first two words out and putting it everywhere in all media for the end of time?

• 10:34Speaker 05

  You might be wondering, and it isn't just like a fun little Easter egg to like, point to religious themes. There's actually like a lot of very powerful science, like sound science and psychology that can explain how this motif actually alters your emotional state and predisposes you to like bursting into tears and being sad. So, um, to, to fully understand this, I did an interview with a professor of musicology. He is at the Berklee College of Music. His name is Alex Ludwig. He's known as like the Deus Ira guru. That is what his website says. Nice.

• 11:08Speaker 04

  What a goth thing to be known for.

• 11:10Speaker 05

  And he's such a nice, cheery, normal dude. But yeah, very goth. And he's studied this forever. He's, he just published a big old book on it.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  Cool.

• 11:19Speaker 05

  It goes deep. And I was asking him, like, why does this sound so sad? And he came back with three main reasons. So the first one is that the notes are all very close to each other on the musical staff. Like if you think of a piano, they're all like literally right next to each other. And music knowers will know that to be like a half step apart. And when you hear notes that are half step apart, they naturally sound very dissonant and crunchy was the specific word that Alex used. So they don't like harmonize and sound nice. They're just like very dissonant. So that's one. And then you also have the fact that the notes are descending. They go like down on a slope. So he compared that to music that sounds like triumphant and happy, like a lot of John Williams music. Like, think of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, stuff like that. Yeah. So

• 12:01Speaker 05

  it all goes, yes, exactly. So it's very triumphant, very happy. Uh, the opposite is sad. And that's like Deus Ira. And then the third thing is that it's in something called the Dorian mode, which is like, yes. Okay. So you guys know, I didn't really know about this, but it is like a very, um, I think it seems complicated in a musical sense. It's somewhat similar to being in a minor key, but it's not that. I know the music people are going to be like, actually, it's not that, but it's pretty similar. And,

• 12:32Speaker 04

  It is, people. It's very similar.

• 12:34Speaker 05

  Thank you. Thank you. Step off.

• 12:36Speaker 04

  We can call it a minor key and get away with it.

• 12:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. Okay. Sick. So that's, that was another piece of it that like, minor key music tends to sound sad, whereas major key music tends to sound happy. And I was, you know, hearing this and I was like, yes, of course. And then I thought about it more and I was like, okay. Why does that sound sad, though? Like, why does minor key equal sad? And so then I looked into that. This is my, I told you, it's my hyperfixation.

• 13:00Speaker 04

  Dig it.

• 13:01Speaker 05

  And basically, the answer is that here in the West, most of us grew up conditioned to think that major key music sounds happy, like truly since birth. So think of "Happy Birthday," the song they play at weddings, "The Star-Spangled Banner," all major key songs, all happy events. Also, for gamers, the Final Fantasy Victory Fan Fair, when you beat every battle, a nice, positive, major key, happy tune plays. And so, yeah, all of these celebratory happy moments punctuated by music in a major key. So we just truly instantly, from birth, get conditioned to think these things. And then, obviously, there's sad music in minor keys as well, like the other funeral song that's like

• 13:41Speaker 05

  that Chopin's Funeral March. That's a minor key. That's like the framework of how we understand music, and it's very cultural. And of course, there are exceptions to every rule. For example, this is my favorite thing ever. The classic hit from my college days, "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 13:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course. In the key of F minor, somehow. I was ripping shots and shaking ass to that song. I was not bummed out. There's exceptions every rule.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  I get bummed thinking about it, though. I'd say, like, in hindsight, my experiences with that song are all very minor key.

• 14:16Speaker 05

  OK, well, maybe then, maybe there is truth to it, then. And then the flip side, too, think of "Someone Like You" by Adele, very sad, yearning song in a major key. It's cultural. And I also found a study that was trying to find, like, if this was consistent through the rest of the world. And it largely is because Western culture is so prevalent everywhere.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 14:35Speaker 05

  But they found, I found a study that found some communities of people in Pakistan perceive the opposite. They hear minor music and they feel happy. They hear major key music and they think it sounds sad. Which... Is so, I can't imagine wrapping my brain around that. That seems so intithetical, but it is because it's so culturally ingrained. Yeah.

• 14:54Speaker 04

  Well, I have such a soft spot too for sad songs in a major key. What's one, oh, I guess it's not sad. The song All Blank Sign is in a major key.

• 15:05Speaker 05

  Oh, sure.

• 15:05Speaker 04

  But it's kind of, but it's sad.

• 15:07Speaker 05

  It's a little maudlin. It's somber.

• 15:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, it's there. There's a bittersweetness to it, which I was like, oh yeah, I get how that could be depressing.

• 15:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:16Speaker 04

  Which could also just be cultural because New Year's Eve is depressing.

• 15:19Speaker 05

  It is. Right, there's like context there, yeah.

• 15:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 15:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, but that's all part of it, right? That's why we associate things with different musical keys and arrangements and all that. But yeah, so basically those three things, the dissonance, the slope and the Dorian mode, that's all why Diaz Eria sounds sad to us. And it was so powerful that eventually it made the jump out of the church and into pop music in the 1800s. And Shrek. And Shrek, but before Shrek, secular composers like Mozart. He wrote a requiem and he, okay, he was writing this big famous requiem and he died while writing it. There's a movie about that. I didn't know this.

• 15:55Speaker 04

  The movie Amadeus, it's a great.

• 15:57Speaker 05

  I need to see the movie.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Oh, Amadeus.

• 15:59Speaker 05

  It's really good, I recommend. I will be watching the movie. It's just so on the nose, like I, it's crazy. Yeah. And then another composer or other composers like Berlioz and Verdi, they all wanted a piece of the Diaz Eria, so it leapt out of the church and into everyday music. And then, this is really cool too. Eventually when silent films had orchestras that would like improvise the music as an accompaniment, because the movies didn't have any sound. So many of the musicians knew about Diaz Eria because it had become so popular. Um, and they knew it was like a cheat code for making something sound like a bummer. And so they would use it if something happened in the movie that was like sad, like a death or whatever, they would pop it in there, even if they were just improvising, which apparently a lot of these scores were just improvised, which is so, I think that's so neat.

• 16:45Speaker 05

  And eventually movies got sound. The tradition continued of composers using it to punctuate sad moments, making us feel even sadder. Then it was in TV and now of course it's in video games. It's in Silksong, like I mentioned, it's the core motif of almost all the music in Silksong. But it's also in the other hit game from last year, Clair Obscure, Expedition 33. It's in Final Fantasy VIII and IX, it's in Hades, Dead by Daylight, The Witcher 3, it's in Elden Ring: Night Rain, it's truly everywhere. And the final piece, I think, which is really interesting is that when I was talking to this professor of musicology, I was asking Alex, this professor, how like, how like, it is like, what's different about it in video games? Because he'd never really looked at it in games before.

• 17:26Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 17:27Speaker 05

  And he was saying that it's often used in boss fights, the same way it's used in car chases, in like stressful moments in movies. Hmm. So, for instance, the way that it's used is something called an ostinato, which basically it's like repeating over and over and over, this DS irae. And it's supposed to be like a constant reminder of your mortality. So it's like, if you have this one little piece that's like, representing death and judgment, and you play it a million times, it's like, don't forget, you're mortal. Things like, or this character could die.

• 17:58Speaker 04

  You're in a boss fight, you could die right now.

• 17:59Speaker 05

  You, or you could die in the boss fight. Exactly. So, basically, if you hear that over and over and over, it's stressing you out. You're in trouble. Yeah, that. But if you're playing a video game, it's interactive, it's stressing you out. Yeah, totally. And so, it's basically, it's changing the way you play, theoretically, because if you're stressed, do you like, perform well or worse under pressure, just in any given situation in life? And-

• 18:24Speaker 04

  See, this is why I like very gentle video games. I don't, that sounds, I don't need that. I am stressed enough.

• 18:31Speaker 05

  That's valid. That's valid. But for people like me, who are little cuckoo bananas, I eat that shit up. I think it's awesome. And it makes the wins feel that, I know. It makes the wins feel like so much better and more fulfilling and exciting. But it's fascinating to hear that this Gregorian monk chant from 800 years ago is actually changing the way we play video games now. That is such a weird trajectory. And so, basically, yeah, if you, if you know what to listen for, you'll hear this DS irae like everywhere. It's like a Wilhelm scream for music nerds. And like, I was watching Nathan Fielder's The Rehearsal. Oh, yeah. And it's in the season two finale of that show.

• 19:10Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 19:10Speaker 05

  Which is very-

• 19:11Speaker 04

  It should be.

• 19:12Speaker 05

  Exactly. And then I was also just watching my favorite new sports anime called Ping Pong the Animation. It is a sports anime about ping pong. It is truly one of the best animes I've ever seen in my life. You guys should watch it. But- It's in that too. And so I'm just like, anything I consume now, I'm like, I get activated like a sleeper agent when I hear it because it's everywhere. It's everywhere. And yeah, you guys should let me know if you hear, you two and listeners, let me know what other ones you know about and hear because it's, it's everywhere and it's very cool. And that's my story about Diazirae.

• 19:43Rachel Feltman?

  I wish we got more stuff culturally from Gregorian monks. I think they

• 19:47Speaker 05

  I agree.

• 19:47Rachel Feltman?

  They did some nice

• 19:48Speaker 04

  I don't know if you do. I don't.

• 19:51Rachel Feltman?

  Okay, that's fair.

• 19:52Speaker 04

  I know what was going on in their culture. I don't know how much of that we need. I think I'm well said.

• 19:56Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.

• 19:57Speaker 05

  What about those funny haircuts?

• 19:59Rachel Feltman?

  I think those haircuts have already come back.

• 20:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, maybe.

• 20:03Rachel Feltman?

  I've been to Bushwick recently. All right, we're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be back with some more facts.

• 20:14Speaker 00

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• 20:44Speaker 06

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• 21:14Speaker 07

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• 21:48Rachel Feltman?

  Okay, we're back. And I'm gonna talk about a little guy who's also an alpha male. Biological term from scientists, not me referring to

• 22:01Rachel Feltman?

  an individual as an alpha male in any kind of unironic way.

• 22:06Rachel Feltman?

  The first thing you should know is that the Kia parrot, which is the subject of the story, is a very smart and also very silly species. They're native to the South Island of Aotearoa, New Zealand. And the name for a group of them is actually a circus of Kia.

• 22:22Speaker 05

  Cute.

• 22:23Speaker 04

  Oh, no. Don't tell the car company about that. That's gonna get annoying fast.

• 22:29Rachel Feltman?

  They're sometimes called the clowns of the mountains, often described as cheeky, very curious about humans. They really like puzzles. Apparently, in settings where food is really easy for them to get, like around parks and whatever, they get bored because they don't have to solve puzzles to survive. So they'll start to do things like try to take windshield wipers apart or whatever.

• 22:53Speaker 05

  They're just little menaces.

• 22:54Rachel Feltman?

  Cheeky little guys, yeah, little menaces. I will say, I was telling my husband about this, and he was like, "How are they not the national bird in New Zealand? Why did Kiwis get that?" And I was like, "There is this thing where they do like to take bites out of living sheep." So I should mention that.

• 23:12Speaker 04

  Which is a big part of New Zealand.

• 23:14Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, right.

• 23:15Speaker 04

  It's an important part to the New Zealand economy.

• 23:17Rachel Feltman?

  It's not all Kia, but apparently some of them got a taste for sheep, and they'll now just very chupacabra-like.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  I'm with them.

• 23:29Rachel Feltman?

  For a while, there were these sheep that had these mysterious little gouge marks and were turning up dead. And farmers were like, "It's the Kia." And people were like, "I think that's fake. It's probably just a chupacabra." But then they actually found out that, in fact, the Kia were doing this. And the bites themselves wouldn't kill the sheep, but sometimes the bites would get infected. But still, just a very, the gumption to just be like, "This is delicious. I'm gonna take just a chunk of the sheep's butt and fly on."

• 23:58Speaker 05

  They had a taste for lamb heroes or something.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, some mutton.

• 24:02Rachel Feltman?

  But that's not all of them. It was just like a pocket of them. But they're little tricksters on a good day. And on a bad day, maybe horrifying cryptid, but... You know, we're zooming in on this one Kia, who was already famously the subject of some scientific research. His name is Bruce. And he's missing his entire upper beak, probably due to an animal trap. If you search Bruce the Kia, you will find pictures of him from this previous study. He was found in 2013 and rehabbed, and now he lives in a wildlife rescue with the rest of a circus. And a few years ago, a study came out about how innovative Bruce's use of tools is to compensate for his missing beak.

• 24:42Rachel Feltman?

  So we know that Kia are really clever, but this was the first demonstrated tool use. And he would basically pick up a pebble in his lower beak and use it to scrape his feathers so he could preen himself. He also does stuff like- Interesting. Yeah, yeah. He would also do very innovative things, like even though the staff would give him soft foods, he would take the harder food and kind of just smash it against surfaces to break it up. He picked stuff up by, since he doesn't have both halves of the beak, he'll use his tongue pressed against the lower beak to grasp stuff, which looks pretty freaky, but is very effective. But he doesn't just use his intelligence to come up with new ways to eat and to clean himself.

• 25:24Rachel Feltman?

  And he also learned how to fight real good, which is the subject of this new study I just read. And it says that, you know, basically despite being the only disabled bird in his circus, he has single-handedly dominated the competition on every metric they measured. He won all the fights they saw him engage in, pretty much. He had priority when it came to getting food. Other birds would take a long time to go up to the feeders. They would wait for him to be done. Nobody wanted to mess with Bruce. My man. Yeah. He was the only male bird to have other birds grooming him in non-mating contexts. Oh, my god. Including other males picking like detritus out of his exposed lower beak. I love Bruce. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Also, his stress hormones were lower than the other male birds. He was- Stop.

• 26:09Rachel Feltman?

  You know, unbothered, moisturized, happy, and his lane focused flourishing. How does he do it? Basically, he's-

• 26:17Rachel Feltman?

  Taught himself to use his orphaned lower beak, the exposed lower beak, as a shiv, very different from how Kia usually fight. Usually when they're fighting for kind of like dominance or trying to get food from one another. So their top beak, the one that he's missing, it curves down. It's this very like hooked, large beak. And they'll sort of like bite downward, pretty much always on an opponent's neck. And that's just the way they're supposed to fight each other. They'll also kick each other sometimes. So Bruce instead deploys, this is straight from the study. This is a quote. Bruce deployed his exposed lower beak in jousting thrusts, both at close range with an extension of his neck and from afar with a run or jump

• 27:02Rachel Feltman?

  that left him overbalanced forward with the force of motion. So he literally hurls himself at his opponents.

• 27:09Speaker 04

  So they just gave him a knife, basically?

• 27:11Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah. No, he's got a knife on his face. That's so awesome. Yeah. He also, he doesn't just go for the neck because he's got this innovative stabbing motion. He distributes his attacks significantly more across the back, head, wings, and legs than his other fellow Kia. So these guys, they never saw him coming. They were not prepared for Bruce and his innovative beak jousting. Bruce does kick like other Kia do. He does that along with his beak thrust, but his stabbing is much more effective. I understand. It seems like he probably just kicks to fit in. He doesn't want to stick out too much. And yeah.

• 27:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, he seems like he's concerned about fitting in.

• 27:56Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, for real.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  He seems shy.

• 27:58Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. And when researchers first saw this, they knew, and I think they have actually gotten feedback from other people in the field saying, that's probably just a thing he did by accident. Come on. Bruce isn't jousting with his stabby beak. So they like sat down and took stock of all of the incidents they could record. And his jousting would immediately displace opponents 73% of the time. Yeah, like they would just back off.

• 28:30Speaker 04

  Whoa, I am not in the mood for this.

• 28:33Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 28:34Speaker 04

  Bite my neck, bro.

• 28:35Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so Bruce has, in the words of the researchers, weaponized his disability through behavioral innovation, which is a phrase I really like. The only similar work that the study authors were aware of looked at primates where a primate that was already an alpha became disabled due to an accident or age. And then they were able to maintain that rank. But in both cases, they had the help of an able-bodied ally. So they're sort of presenting Bruce as the first time they have seen an animal who has a very obvious disability and has achieved the like top rank in their group.

• 29:18Rachel Feltman?

  I really like this story because when the news came out about Bruce's tool use, it got the same response a lot of achievement from disabled humans get, which is like, wow, how inspiring, how uplifting. Like Bruce has figured out how to groom himself. He's a model for us all to follow. But speaking of someone with a debilitating chronic illness, like I don't want people to see me as an inspiration. I want them to see me as a threat. And enter Crip icon Bruce the Kia. So that's Bruce's story. And I can't wait to see what they find him doing next. What other ways will this little joker of a bird just keep beak-maxing, moggling, and otherwise crushing?

• 29:58Speaker 04

  I love that they checked his stress hormones, too.

• 30:00Speaker 05

  Me too. Low cortisol, beak-maxing.

• 30:03Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 30:04Speaker 04

  If it had been like, oh, he's just furious and angry all the time. I'd be like, OK, that's, but he's just like, no, this is great. I'm feeling good, man.

• 30:12Rachel Feltman?

  Bruce is like, I don't know what's wrong with all of you. You should really learn how to stab.

• 30:18Speaker 04

  All the other dudes trying to knock their top beak off? Like, God, you gotta get in here.

• 30:22Speaker 05

  Taking a hammer to the face.

• 30:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 30:25Rachel Feltman?

  Bone smashing. But yeah, no, that's the whole deal with Bruce. And I've also been watching a lot of TV that takes place in New Zealand that also made me love this because I read all of the study quotes in my head in a Kiwi accent. And I think thinking about little trickster birds getting up to no good is about, I would say, 10 to 15 times better imagined in a Kiwi accent. So I really recommend that for listeners. You won't get it from me. That's something I will only attempt in the privacy of my own home. But watch some deadlock or broken wood mysteries.

• 31:02Speaker 04

  No, I won't. Please, I won't. I shouldn't have said anything. No, I won't do that.

• 31:06Rachel Feltman?

  All right, we're gonna take one more break and then we'll be back with one more fact.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 31:44Speaker 06

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• 32:18Rachel Feltman?

  Okay, we're back. And Grant, tell me about what's going so fast?

• 32:23Speaker 04

  Well, I have been watching videos and reading reviews and generally hyper fixating on the brand new record holder for the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster. I am what people in the know call a thoosie, a coaster enthusiast. I like them. I think about them a lot. Speaking of gentle video games, what got me through the pandemic was playing Planet Coaster.

• 32:55Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. That's a good one.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  It's, and this particular roller coaster is called Falcon's Flight. It just opened New Year's Eve of 2025. It is at Six Flags Khadijah City outside Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Now, I will probably never ride it for that reason. Uh, but, uh, I have been watching with great enthusiasm. These, they're basically just point of view videos of the ride. There are so many new things that have been done for the first time on this roller coaster. As someone who pays a lot of attention to developments along those lines, it's been really fun to watch.

• 33:42Speaker 04

  Uh, it was, it developed by a coaster manufacturer called Intiman. Now for, oh, man, I feel myself, I'm, I'm ramping up. So.

• 33:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, go there, go there.

• 33:55Speaker 04

  For any enthusiasts out there, you're gonna be very familiar with Intiman. They've developed the previous record holders for the world's tallest, fastest rides. They're very creative. They're crazy people. They are responsible for rides that people might know. Hagrid's motorbike ride at Universal. The, uh, King Dukkha was the previous tallest, fastest roller coaster in the world.

• 34:21Rachel Feltman?

  I rode it once, didn't like it.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  I rode it, I rode it a bunch.

• 34:25Rachel Feltman?

  I bet. I like coasters. I didn't know about that term, so no, I guess not.

• 34:30Speaker 04

  Oh, fair, that's fair.

• 34:31Rachel Feltman?

  But I do love riding coasters. My issue with King Dukkha is that the straight up acceleration and back, and plummeting back down are my least favorite part of being on a roller coaster.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  And that is really all that it does. Uh, well, did, R.I.P. King Dukkha.

• 34:45Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, R.I.P. King Dukkha.

• 34:47Speaker 04

  Now that's, that actually sets me up pretty well for one of the things that I think is very cool about this roller coaster, Falcon's Flight, which King Deca used a, kind of like a slingshot to throw the train, which is one of the reasons it's closed now and the other rides like it have really changed format, because that's just a lot of force to the structure. So instead Falcon's Flight is using the other very common kind of launch mechanism, which is a linear induction motor, which you can picture on some roller coasters, the ones that launch you from a standstill to get going very quickly, there'll be little fins sticking up in the middle of the track.

• 35:29Speaker 04

  Those are magnets that are gonna fire progressively to start pulling that train forward. But because there's, you can only get that going so fast, it's not gonna have that really punchy launch that King Deca had. It's gonna be kind of a gentle invitation to dance with the beast.

• 35:51Rachel Feltman?

  See, that's what I like.

• 35:52Speaker 04

  It's-

• 35:53Rachel Feltman?

  You gotta take a girl to dinner first.

• 35:56Speaker 04

  I have been so impressed looking at this, which should be a very intimidating ride, and it is, but it also looks gentle and lovely in the way that the world's tallest, fastest roller coaster can be. There are a few different sections of it. You get going and it's basically, it starts as kind of a normal roller coaster. But then what it does is launches up to the top of a 650-foot mountain, it's 650 feet tall. It goes to, I should say, it's 650 feet at its highest point. The actual longest drop is something like 500.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  But it gets that tall because it launches you at 100 miles an hour up a mountain, and then you just wander a little bit, kind of slowly at the top of a mountain, until then it dangles you at a straight down drop over the side of the mountain, before it drops you down, then, then, then, while you're on the way down.

• 37:00Speaker 04

  There's another, what this coaster does that others don't, even on your way down that crazy tall drop, there's another line of launching mechanisms to start pulling you even faster.

• 37:11Rachel Feltman?

  What?

• 37:12Speaker 05

  Uh.

• 37:13Speaker 04

  Because then you get to the iconic part of the roller coaster, which is the 550-foot camel back, which picture just, if you close your eyes and picture a roller coaster hill, just like a very, like a camel's back. Those have gotten, in my opinion, too rare. Let's not fight with perfection. Let's just let ourselves enjoy that hill. Man, if I, now I probably, like I said, will never go ride this ride, but I really would like to see that. I'd really like to see that happening at some point. You go over that, you've still got a lot of ride left, because this is also the longest roller coaster in the world.

• 37:56Speaker 04

  You've still got a whole bunch of time that you're still riding this train when it's really low to the ground and fast, until you land back at the Falcon's Nest, which I'm calling the station. And, and when you get there, because of the heat of the desert and the speed that you're going, the wheels on the train have to be cooled for about four minutes, because they've built up so much heat energy. So you gotta just rock and roll for a minute and decompress while you're there.

• 38:27Speaker 05

  That's wild.

• 38:27Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 38:28Speaker 05

  That reminds me of how in Chicago, when the train tracks get too cold in the winter to run trains, they literally set them on fire.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, right? Oh, that's the best video in the world. What a great.

• 38:36Speaker 05

  It looks so sick.

• 38:37Speaker 04

  Uh, I've been really, the, this coaster got announced in, I believe it was 2019, and a little bit delayed with the pandemic, and I was sure it was never gonna happen. I was certain it wouldn't get built. I think it's possible it still might be a monument to hubris in the desert. I have concerns about, I love Entiman. I love the rides they make. They have reliability issues. Know if building a big, heavy thing on sand is necessarily a great idea?

• 39:08Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 39:09Speaker 04

  If someone wants to ride this ride, I'd say get it early and

• 39:14Rachel Feltman?

  Still in tip-top shape.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  Ignore some Saudi Arabia stuff when you get there.

• 39:18Speaker 05

  Right.

• 39:18Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:20Speaker 05

  What other, sorry, you go. No, no. I was gonna say, what other rides have they made that we would maybe know?

• 39:27Speaker 04

  Intamin, you would know their, you, no one really. One of these things, but a person in the know would know, there's a very famous roller coaster called Millennium Force that they made. It was the first roller coaster to be 300 feet tall. They made King of the Con, Top Thrill Dragster, which are sister rides. They just, this is the one I will be riding. They just came out with a velocicoaster at the Universal Park in Florida, which looks like a pleasure. And I cannot wait to go and ride on it. My actual favorite manufacturer, oh no, this is the kind of thing I hate.

• 40:07Speaker 05

  No, please.

• 40:07Speaker 04

  Favorite manufacturer, which is actually B&M, which is a Swiss manufacturer. A Bollinger and Mabiard, or something like that. They have, their rides are really good at generating airtime, which is, it's a sensation that you get when you're in zero G. There's, there's two kinds. There's floater airtime, which is when you're between zero and minus point nine Gs, less than one G. It just gently lifts you out.

• 40:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:36Speaker 04

  Versus ejector airtime, which is, which really throws you over a hill when you get, when you're gonna fly off. Which is too much for my delicate sensibilities.

• 40:47Speaker 04

  B&M does great stuff like that. What rides you might know of theirs, oh boy. They are really well known for what's called a hypercoaster, which is a roller coaster that's over 200 feet, 200 feet tall. Which, all these words are marketing. These are all, these aren't like official designations.

• 41:05Speaker 05

  Of course, of course.

• 41:06Speaker 04

  Someone said, hey, you know, it would look cool on a poster. Anyway, they're big, they're smooth, they're people eaters. I think Falcon's Flight is gonna have a capacity problem. It's only two across trains and they don't have enough block sections, but no one asked me.

• 41:21Speaker 05

  They should.

• 41:22Speaker 04

  They should ask me.

• 41:23Speaker 05

  You should be a consultant.

• 41:24Speaker 04

  I give them my feedback.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  The only big-

• 41:28Rachel Feltman?

  Sorry. You go first.

• 41:30Speaker 05

  I was just like the only big roller coaster that I remember riding. And I used to ride them a lot and then I got a concussion when I was in college. Now I get so motion sick so easily.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 41:38Speaker 05

  And so I'm like, I'll hold you guys bags. You guys can go on roller coaster. But I used to ride the Raging Bull in Six Flags.

• 41:46Speaker 04

  Great roller coaster.

• 41:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:48Speaker 04

  Rough roller-

• 41:48Speaker 05

  That one I remember liking.

• 41:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, if you are gonna get motion sickness, that's gonna be a-

• 41:52Speaker 05

  That'll do it.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  A tough one to do. Yeah, that's no good.

• 41:54Speaker 05

  That'll do it. But yeah, that's like the big one that I remember.

• 41:57Speaker 04

  When people go to amusement parks, they call me, cause obviously-

• 42:02Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 42:02Speaker 04

  Because they're, because of this. And I went with my friend and her husband and her nephew. And she and her husband both after two tapped out. And I'm like, we can't do it anymore. So I just spent the whole day with their nephew riding rides and it ruled.

• 42:18Speaker 05

  I love that.

• 42:20Rachel Feltman?

  My favorite coaster, when I had a favorite coaster was Medusa at Six Flags Great Adventure.

• 42:26Speaker 04

  Mmm.

• 42:26Rachel Feltman?

  I just thought it was such a, it was such a like smooth, nice ride. And then they rebranded it as like the like Joker's Revenge or something.

• 42:34Speaker 05

  Really?

• 42:34Rachel Feltman?

  It like sprays water in your face and-

• 42:36Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 42:37Rachel Feltman?

  I think that one's also closed down now, but I thought it was a shame.

• 42:40Speaker 04

  It's a floorless roller coaster by B and M, which is very well known-

• 42:43Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  For their very smooth, for their smooth rides. It is, it's a, I mean, Six Flags sometimes doesn't take the best care of their roller coasters so they can get a little-

• 42:52Rachel Feltman?

  In South Jersey?

• 42:53Speaker 04

  I know, can you believe it?

• 42:55Rachel Feltman?

  You're telling me they don't take care of?

• 42:57Speaker 04

  Did you ride Nitro while you were there?

• 42:59Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah, of course.

• 43:00Speaker 04

  Oh, Nitro's there.

• 43:00Rachel Feltman?

  I remember liking it, yeah.

• 43:02Speaker 04

  Nitro's poetry. Nitro is like riding a dolphin.

• 43:06Speaker 05

  What's its deal?

• 43:06Speaker 04

  It's incredible. It's a, it is a very, this is gonna sound strange. It's a very regular roller coaster. It doesn't do, it doesn't break any records. It doesn't do anything necessarily unique. It just does everything really well. Just really, really good pacing over everything. Oh my goodness. Take me back. Take me to the east.

• 43:27Rachel Feltman?

  What's your favorite innovative roller coaster feature that you've gotten to experience for yourself?

• 43:33Speaker 05

  That's a good question.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  Gee, it is unfortunately, those launches on King Deca and what used to be on... So intense. You go from zero to 115 miles an hour in a... very quickly. They don't make those anymore, and the ones that exist have changed or closed down because it was a bad idea. Because it didn't work. But, ugh, to have gotten to do it. I already talked about those. What's a better... Oh, you know what? I've got one. There's a roller coaster at Knott's Berry Farm here in Southern California called Hang Time, which has, well, Hang Time, where it's a lot of inversions. And when you go up over the loop,

• 44:16Speaker 04

  you start going real slow, where it's like, oh, you're almost not gonna make it. And then you go back down the other side, hanging upside down a bit. Oh, it's intense.

• 44:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. It's so interesting to think about. Obviously, a lot of precise math and physics goes into this. But like, especially with that, like, having to time it exactly correctly to where it's like just slow enough to make it across. But scary that you're going so slow upside down.

• 44:40Speaker 04

  There's a, it's a fluke of history that roller coasters happened when they did. There's a very clear break between like pre-CAD software, pre-computer aided design, and post-CAD, where you could, you can be very specific about the forces that you're programming in versus... I'll give you an example. There, at the park I grew up going to, which was Cedar Point in Northern Ohio, there's a roller, what was the first roller coaster to be 200 feet tall is called Magnum. And it is just before CAD software became useful.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  So they just did it by hand on site. They just got there and broke out a protractor. And so there are awkward moments sometimes. They're like, hey, we're just bumping and going straight for a little while. Because what are we gonna do? We're building it on the fly. We don't know.

• 45:37Speaker 05

  That's charming, though, I find.

• 45:39Speaker 04

  It is love. There's a loveliness to it. That is, that is, it's, now, it is rough. That does make them pretty rough, but that's okay. I'm brave.

• 45:48Speaker 05

  It's like the Cyclone at a Coney Island.

• 45:51Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, yeah, I've been thinking about the Cyclone. Clackety-clackety guy.

• 45:54Speaker 05

  That one scares, that one scares me because there's one part where there's a really low, like.

• 46:01Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 46:02Speaker 05

  Overhang thing.

• 46:02Rachel Feltman?

  Oliver says the same thing.

• 46:04Speaker 05

  Oh, my God. Yeah, especially for him. I, at six foot two, I'm like, I shouldn't be here. I can't imagine Oliver.

• 46:09Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 46:10Speaker 04

  I'm six five.

• 46:11Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  It's, no, they've got our backs. They've got our backs. What could possibly go wrong?

• 46:17Speaker 05

  All right.

• 46:18Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, I mean, I can confirm that my husband is six foot five, rode the Cyclone at least once and still has a head.

• 46:24Speaker 05

  His head.

• 46:24Rachel Feltman?

  So.

• 46:25Speaker 04

  I've ridden the Cyclone. It's.

• 46:26Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  Rough.

• 46:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's what made me think of it. Yeah. I feel jostled after that one.

• 46:31Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah. No, I love how much has changed from the wooden coasters into now. Everything is so high tech.

• 46:39Speaker 04

  There are companies that are still dedicated to building wooden roller coasters. And there is, I'm gonna get it wrong. I think it's GCI, Great Coasters International, mostly their thing. There's another one. Oh, no. There's another manufacturer called Rocky Mountain Construction. And I, they're my favorite manufacturer. No, B&M's my favorite. Oh, they're all so good. Anyway. What they do is convert old wooden roller coasters into modern steel roller coasters. They invented a new kind of track that they can overlay on them and make them do all sorts of wild maneuvers. It's great. You know what?

• 47:14Speaker 05

  So cool.

• 47:15Speaker 04

  Rocky Mountain Construction is my favorite manufacturer. I'm sorry, B&M. It really is.

• 47:19Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 47:19Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 47:19Rachel Feltman?

  You heard it here.

• 47:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:22Rachel Feltman?

  Grant, this has been so great. I would love to just have you keep talking about coasters forever, honestly.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  All right.

• 47:32Rachel Feltman?

  But really, thank you so much for coming on. This has been really fun.

• 47:35Speaker 04

  Thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for politely listening while I did that.

• 47:39Speaker 05

  No, I love this.

• 47:40Rachel Feltman?

  Not at all. This is what we do the show for. Learning new stuff. And also, like,

• 47:47Rachel Feltman?

  honestly, this whole time I've been thinking, like, I did really love coasters. I do still love coasters. I just don't get an opportunity to ride them much anymore. So this summer. Gonna do it.

• 47:59Speaker 04

  Go back to South Jersey. Go there. It's there for you. It's there waiting.

• 48:03Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, it is. It's been there the whole time. Grant, thanks so much. Remind our listeners where they can find the stuff that you do.

• 48:11Speaker 04

  They should subscribe to Dropout if they haven't. The new season of Game Changer is gonna be coming out here pretty soon.

• 48:18Rachel Feltman?

  Very exciting. Exciting.

• 48:20Speaker 04

  It's as bananas as ever. My Instagram is at pictures of Grant, where you can find some links to subscriptions that I have. If anyone feels five bucks burned a hole in their pocket, they can listen to some podcasts and read some things that I've written on my Patreon. There's a, I won't plug my live shows. Go to my Instagram, depending on when this comes out, there'll be live show information there. And thank you, guys. This was fun.

• 48:49Rachel Feltman?

  The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Feltman, along with Jess Bodie, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at weirdest underscore thing. Thanks for listening, weirdos.

• 49:22Speaker 07

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