Something Offbeat

And more weird story rundowns with Chris and Lauren.

Did you know that some school districts have been trying to ban Crocs? We’re diving into the history and current application of dress codes in this episode of “Something Offbeat” with Grace Goble, an actor, singer, playwright, and more who changed her school’s dress code and Richard Thompson Ford, the George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and author of Dress Codes: how the laws of fashion made history.

This week on Something Offbeat, Mike Rogers talked to the Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, about something you might not know takes place every 13 to 15 years: Saturn’s rings appearing to disappear.

Chris and Lauren discuss four weird news stories: the Old Testament-esque tale of a kayaker being spit out by a whale, smelly flowers in Australia, an ambitious ocean voyage that departed from Philly and a weird Walmart car wash project.

This week, people around the world have a change to see a “planetary parade” – you can read about it here. Back in 2023, “Something Offbeat” investigated why people love looking into the sky. We reached out to two experts: Dartmouth researcher Nathan H. Heller, who specializes in pareidolia – hearing or seeing a specific sound or image in a seemingly random auditory or visual stimulus – as well as well-known astrologer Jessica Lanyadoo, host of “Ghost of a Podcast”.

Instead of harvesting long-lost DNA like they do in in the “Jurassic Park” film franchise, a company called Colossal is planning to take living species and genetically engineer traits of the extinct animals such as the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger and the dodo bird into them. The company employs around 170 scientists and plans are moving forward… faster than you might think. Faye Flam, a science journalist who is researching the topic for Bloomberg, joined the show to discuss the project.

Stories about stolen eggs, Taylor Swift’s Super Bowl experience, people getting stuck on theme park rides and the possible end of the penny all reminded us of “Something Offbeat” tales from the past.

A coin from ancient Rome featuring a depiction of Brutus -- yes, the Brutus who killed Julius Caesar -- sold at auction for $2 million. It got us wondering, in 2,000 years, could a penny be worth just as much? And what's the future of physical currency look like anyway? To find out, we talked to Aaron Klein, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, about what our money could look like in the future.

Today we’re talking about one of the most notorious, long-enduring real-life mysteries out there. The tale of one of the most infamous skyjackers of all time – DB Cooper. Researcher Eric Ulis joins the show to explain the decades-old enigma and help us unpack the latest theories about who Cooper might be.

Here's a taste of the best stories from the past year to get us ready for 2025.

Rodney Jacobs of Stinson Lumber in Oregon joined the show. He’s responsible for selecting the tree that is placed in downtown Portland every year. And there’s a lot more that goes into it than you’d think.

Anthony Clarke, a researcher from Curtin University, joined the show to discuss new findings about Stonehenge that have revealed yet another mystery related to the ancient landmark: how did one of the stones travel all the way from Scotland to reach the Salisbury Plain?

This week Mike spoke with Oriene Shin with Consumer Reports. She tells us how to keep kids safe with the toys we get them over the holidays and answers the age old question… can you eat Play-doh?

Sam Benson Smith, digital managing editor at Audacy’s KNX, brought us a story about insurance fraudsters who clipped up by using a bad bear suit. We’ll tell you all about it.

In this episode of Offbites, Chris and Lauren offer some side dishes of weird news before Thanksgiving, including snake yoga, a bad development for wired headphones, cruel AI and volcanoes on the moon,

Paul Koudinaris, author of "Faithful Unto Death: Pet cemeteries, animal graves, and eternal devotion" and other books on both animals and death, joins the show to discuss French actor Alain Delon’s strange posthumous request and more.

We all like pizza, right? In most settings, that's the case, but pizza in the workplace has gotten a bad rap. Workplace culture expert Dr. Jessica Kriegel joined Mike Rogers to explain what other, better options managers have to say thank you to their employees.