Speaker 1: Strange News Daily. It's a production of I heart Media.
Speaker 1: In a world full of bizarre events, unsolved mysteries, and
Speaker 1: a billion stories from all corners of the globe, some
Speaker 1: news gets lost in the shuffle. This is your gateway
Speaker 1: to the stories on the fringe of the mainstream map.
Speaker 1: These are your dispatches in the dark. I'm Ben Bolan,
Speaker 1: and this is the Strange News Daily, our first story today.
Speaker 1: Hearkens back to an earlier report about a strange series
Speaker 1: of deaths and injuries in Russia, when multiple medical professionals
Speaker 1: died due to falling out of windows. Uh In many
Speaker 1: cases these were ruled accidents or suicides, but just this week,
Speaker 1: a police major in far eastern Russia fell to her
Speaker 1: death from a window after testifying against her boss in
Speaker 1: a criminal extortion case. Security cameras captured the body of
Speaker 1: criminal investigation officer Yeka Tarina Mishkina, who was thirty seven,
Speaker 1: near a nine floor apartment building in the city of Kabarovsk,
Speaker 1: more than eight thousand kilometers east of Moscow. At this point,
Speaker 1: it was unclear what mis Kinna, who was dressed in
Speaker 1: plain clothes at the time, had been doing, and she'd
Speaker 1: been pursuing someone. What were her activities before she plunged
Speaker 1: to her death from what appears to be a window
Speaker 1: on the fifth floor. Various domestic news websites reported that
Speaker 1: security cameras showed Miskena unsuccessfully trying to get access to
Speaker 1: the building's rooftop and then descending a few further flights.
Speaker 1: There are also anonymous sources in local law enforcement agencies
Speaker 1: who say that Maschino was a witness in a criminal
Speaker 1: case against her one time boss. This boss was suspected
Speaker 1: of extorting subordinates. Miskina was reported to have testified against
Speaker 1: him at some point before her death. Authorities opened that
Speaker 1: criminal extortion case after Miskena's former boss retired. The regional
Speaker 1: police have launched an internal inspection into Michkena's death, and
Speaker 1: there's an interesting line here. The spokesperson for the police,
Speaker 1: Yaka Tarina Tarasova, told local news that the investigator assigned
Speaker 1: to the case was on quote yet another vacation at
Speaker 1: the time. Another unnamed source close to the investigation claims
Speaker 1: that a shoals found a note in Miskin's purse listing
Speaker 1: a set of key tasks she had to complete until
Speaker 1: a certain point This note leads this anonymous source to
Speaker 1: believe there was pre meditation involved here, saying quote this
Speaker 1: indicates that what happened was not spontaneous. Mosquito was divorced
Speaker 1: and she leaves behind a fourteen year old daughter. As
Speaker 1: we noted at the top of this story, this death
Speaker 1: follows at least five other separate incidents of Russian healthcare
Speaker 1: workers falling from windows at the height of the coronavirus
Speaker 1: pandemic this spring, as well as two young journalists back
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen to two thousand nineteen, before the
Speaker 1: pandemic began. Our second story today is a bit surreal,
Speaker 1: or some people it may be the stuff of nightmares.
Speaker 1: Imagine you're like any other homeowner, and one day your
Speaker 1: walls start leaking. They're not leaking water, They're not leaking
Speaker 1: some kind of coolant from the air conditioning system. No,
Speaker 1: your walls are leaking honey. This is what happened to
Speaker 1: Andrea and Justin Isabelle, a Pennsylvania couple who did not
Speaker 1: know that unexpected house guest until they saw fresh honey
Speaker 1: dripping down the walls of their home. The isabel family
Speaker 1: has lived in their one year old home in Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: for five years, and so far they haven't had any
Speaker 1: major issues, apart from the regular wear and tear that
Speaker 1: comes with owning an older home. Andrea reported that her
Speaker 1: neighborhood had received heavy rain from tropical Storm Fade, so
Speaker 1: at first she and her husband thought these streams coming
Speaker 1: down the wall of their mud room were from water storage.
Speaker 1: That weekend, the couple took a closer look and realized
Speaker 1: the liquid was actually fresh honey. We've never heard any
Speaker 1: buzzing or anything, says Andrea, when we saw this stream
Speaker 1: coming down the wall, we just kind of worked our
Speaker 1: way up. Isabel has made it to their bedroom window
Speaker 1: and looked outside, and that's where they found honeybees entering
Speaker 1: and exiting and opening along the roof of the house.
Speaker 1: In a video posted on social media, Justin Isabel offered
Speaker 1: a sketch comedy like homeowner tutorial called how to Tell
Speaker 1: if you have a b issue. The honey streams have
Speaker 1: traveled from the attic, through the second story, the main floor,
Speaker 1: and now down to the basement. Alan Lazani, who was
Speaker 1: a general contractor and has been an apiarist for eight years,
Speaker 1: looked at the home on weekend and estimated the bee
Speaker 1: colony was anywhere from twenty thousand to thirty thousand strong.
Speaker 1: He continued saying, I think water got into the colony
Speaker 1: and washed the nectar out of the comb and made
Speaker 1: it more liquefied, and that's what was running down the wall.
Speaker 1: The isabel say their children think the stream is crazy,
Speaker 1: and the family dog certainly seems to be into the
Speaker 1: idea of fresh, free honey literally oozing from the walls.
Speaker 1: Zanni plans to extract the colony from the home and
Speaker 1: take it to a b yard on his own property.
Speaker 1: The Isabel's say, we know bees are endangered. We want
Speaker 1: to be able to save the colony and re home
Speaker 1: them appropriately and carefully. But the damage done to the
Speaker 1: house to extract it was concerning. The repairs will cost
Speaker 1: an estimated three thousand dollars, and homeowners insurance, which is
Speaker 1: famously terrible at covering stuff like this, is probably not
Speaker 1: going to cover the unwanted b squads. The Isabels are
Speaker 1: quick to add, by the way that no one has
Speaker 1: been stung, and when you consider the damage that insects
Speaker 1: living in the home could do to the structure, it's
Speaker 1: understandable why people would want them to leave. But still,
Speaker 1: a beehive is pretty cool. Maybe just move it to
Speaker 1: the backyard. Our third story today is inspiring. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: about humanities, constant exploration of our own limits. How far
Speaker 1: can we push ourselves? Well, it's sort of about that.
Speaker 1: You see. Scientists may have just figured out how many
Speaker 1: hot dogs people can eat in ten minutes. This is
Speaker 1: a huge deal for part of the population, competitive eaters
Speaker 1: and fans of competitions like Nathan's famous Coney Island hot
Speaker 1: dog eating contest. Before we give you the answer, let's
Speaker 1: let's tell you a little bit about how we arrived
Speaker 1: at it. Our story starts with a physiologist named James Smoliga.
Speaker 1: James works at the High Point University in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: and last year he was watching the Nathan's hot dog
Speaker 1: eating contests when an idea struck him like a bolt
Speaker 1: of competitive eating lightning. Could we, he thought, apply the
Speaker 1: mathematical equations used to estimate the limits of athletic performance
Speaker 1: to feats of competitive eating. This set him off on
Speaker 1: his journey. He analyzed nearly forty years of the hot
Speaker 1: dog eating contests. The current record of seventy five hot
Speaker 1: dogs is an improvement over the competition's early days, where
Speaker 1: winners were crowned after eating as few as a dozen
Speaker 1: hot dogs. So, based on this data from a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty two competitors over thirty nine years, Smolega calculated
Speaker 1: what he calls an upper hot dog limit of about
Speaker 1: eighty three dogs in ten minutes. That translates to a
Speaker 1: consumption rate of about eight hundred and thirty two grams
Speaker 1: per minute and more than whenty three thousand calories total,
Speaker 1: at least according to his report published just yesterday in
Speaker 1: Biology Letters. Hey quick, note, this is producer Dylan fig
Speaker 1: In here. We just felt it was important to point
Speaker 1: out that this breaks down to almost nine packages of
Speaker 1: hot dogs and eleven packages of buns. Eating anything above
Speaker 1: that would be, according to this superhuman otherworldly or perhaps
Speaker 1: a t rex in a human suit. But let us
Speaker 1: know if you break the record, dinosaurs will be disqualified.
Speaker 1: He goes on to write that whether or not competitive
Speaker 1: eat or has ever reached that limit, the scale of
Speaker 1: improvement completely dwarfs other athletic achievements. It sounds unbelievable, but
Speaker 1: keep in mind that record performances in sports like track
Speaker 1: and field have improved approximately since record keeping began. In contrast,
Speaker 1: hot dog eating prowess has improved approximately seven hundred percent.
Speaker 1: In fact, human beings even hold our own pound for
Speaker 1: pound against other meat eating mammals when normalized for body mass.
Speaker 1: Competitive hot dog eaters have a consumption rate that's higher
Speaker 1: than that of grizzly bears and coyote, although to be fair,
Speaker 1: wolves still have a higher consumption rate. And it makes
Speaker 1: sense when you think about it, eating large quantities of
Speaker 1: food very quickly can be a tremendously helpful strategy for
Speaker 1: carnivores when food is scarce, and Smiliga says human me's
Speaker 1: capacity for a relatively high consumption rate may have been
Speaker 1: crucial at some point in our evolutionary past. However, nowadays,
Speaker 1: inhaling six or seven hot dogs a minute for ten
Speaker 1: minutes mostly is just going to lead to pretty hilarious
Speaker 1: digestive problems. And then maybe, of course, if you're lucky
Speaker 1: first prize in the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest. But
Speaker 1: there you have it something to think about, especially if
Speaker 1: you're one of those people we mentioned earlier, the fans
Speaker 1: of both sports and gambling who can't wait to bet
Speaker 1: on competitive eating contest that's all for now. We've been
Speaker 1: asking you to chime in with suggestions for stories you
Speaker 1: think your fellow listeners should learn more about. To hit
Speaker 1: us with your best or worst dad jokes, as well
Speaker 1: as your personal experience with strange stories going on in
Speaker 1: your neck of the global woods. Let us know by
Speaker 1: tagging hashtag Strange Daily on Twitter, or reach out to
Speaker 1: me directly. I'm at Ben Bullin hs W on Twitter
Speaker 1: or at Ben Bollin on Instagram. Thanks as always to
Speaker 1: our super producer Dylan Fagan, our research associate Sam T. Garden.
Speaker 1: Most importantly, thanks to you. I'm Ben Bollin. We'll see
Speaker 1: you tomorrow. Until then, stay strange