Image missing.
It took half a century to solve the mystery of Missouri’s deadly snake panic

Popular Science Team

created: Sept. 10, 2025, 1:40 p.m. | updated: Sept. 20, 2025, 1:25 p.m.

Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’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. When he was 14, the local pet shop owner—the same one who suspiciously misidentified the first deadly cobra—cheated him in a business deal. This matters because chameleons hunt by ballistically launching their tongues like slingshots, using a tapered bone in their throat as a ramp.

2 months ago: Popular Science