Here’s the secret to getting songs unstuck from your head

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 Popular Science‘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.

FACT: Chewing gum is a great way to get songs unstuck from your head—and it’s been part of human culture for thousands of years 

By Rachel Feltman

I host another podcast called Science Quickly, and we recently did an episode all about the science of earworms. One of the wildest things I learned while recording that episode is that, a few years back, a study found that a great way to get rid of an earworm is to chew gum.  

Scientists at the University of Reading found that jaw movement disrupts the nerve signals responsible for mentally “practicing” a song. So, next time you’re stuck with an annoying tune, try chewing on something. 

You can learn more about earworms over at Science Quickly. But this week on Weirdest Thing, I pivoted to do a deep dive on gum itself. 

Gum’s history goes way further back than the first airport impulse buy. Ancient Scandinavians chewed birch sap 10,000 years ago and Mayans loved chicle. The Aztecs picked up a chicle habit as well, but they had strict gum rules. (Men who chewed it in public were seen as effeminate, and young women who did so were loose, but kids and old ladies could chew to their hearts’ content.) 

Fast forward to today, and gum is… kind of a mystery. A lot of it contains synthetic rubber and other petroleum-based products. But it’s not all bad. Some studies suggest gum might boost alertness, reduce stress, and even improve memory if you chew the same flavor while studying as you do while taking tests. So whether you chew for the taste, the focus, or just to shake off Baby Shark, there’s a lot more to gum than meets the molars.

FACT: Rich people used to keep squirrels as pets

By Vinny Thomas

In the 1700s, colonial Americans were all about keeping wild animals as pets—none more popular than the humble squirrel. Even Benjamin Franklin had one, named Mongo (RIP, taken too soon by his dog, Ranger). 

Squirrels were so beloved that wealthy families had portraits painted of their children with their leashed, nut-cracking companions. But by the 1910s, the craze faded as people realized—perhaps too late—that squirrels are, in fact, completely unhinged. 

Imagine a world where we had domesticated squirrels like dogs, breeding them for speed, size, or extra-stupidly-long tails. Instead, we settled for guinea pigs, who lack both the intelligence and the audacity to escape over a six-inch wall. Maybe it’s for the best. But still… what could have been?

FACT: The Romans may have flooded the Colosseum for naval battles

By Jess Boddy

Okay, so you know the Colosseum, right? That massive, ancient, slightly crumbling but still standing amphitheater in Rome? You’ve seen it in pictures, travel vlogs, maybe even the 2008 sci-fi cinematic masterpiece Jumper (which, by the way, deserves more respect). But back in the day—by which I mean way, way back, like 80 AD—the Colosseum wasn’t just some cool historic site. It was the place to be if you were looking for entertainment. Think of it like ancient TikTok, except instead of endless scrolling, you got live-action gladiator fights. 

There are claims that at some point, they didn’t just use the Colosseum for fights and hunts—they filled it with water. And then they staged full-on naval battles. Like, actual ships. In a stadium. Some historians swear this really happened, and others remain unconvinced. But we do know that these types of staged naval battles happened. The only question is whether the Colosseum ever got flooded to accommodate one. 

This week, I’m diving into the weird, chaotic, and sometimes horrifying history of the Colosseum, from the elaborate stage productions to the massive, multi-thousand-person battles—and yes, even the possibility of Romans putting down a giant tarp to make themselves an indoor sea. 

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