The wackiest headlines from the week as they would appear in a Classifieds section.

Careers

NBA JOURNEYMAN: Despite having a very public career, Oklahoma City Thunder’s Mike Muscala has kept on top of his LinkedIn employment history. The 10-year NBA veteran has jotted down every “Basketball Player” job he’s had as he’s switched teams.

007 CURATOR: Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry opened a new exhibit about the science behind James Bond’s famous stunts and gadgets. There is nothing cooler than gadgets.

Personal

FIVE MORE DEGREES WANTED: A loose 450-pound pig named Kevin Bacon was caught on a Wisconsin family’s home security camera before being returned to its pen. The human Kevin Bacon has not yet confirmed he’ll play the swine in Disney’s live-action version.

ISO MALLMATE: A documentary about eight friends who built a secret apartment in a Providence, RI, mall parking garage in the early 2000s will premiere at SXSW this year. The group used the space for four years and tapped the mall’s electricity for appliances, video games, and TV.

For sale

BUFFETT ON YOUR CAR: Florida lawmakers are honoring the late Jimmy Buffett with a Margaritaville license plate for drivers in the state. You will never see these cars going over 45 mph.

JOCKSTRAP, ANTIQUE: Happy 150th birthday to the jockstrap, which was invented in 1874 to protect the crown jewels of Boston’s bicycle messengers riding on bumpy, cobblestone streets.

MEME HELMET: A Dutch cycling team unveiled a new helmet that looks like it’s straight out of a sci-fi movie. The internet has already compared it to Dark Helmet in Spaceballs, so don’t even think about it.—MM

Photo of the week

Activists in Germany have taken to the trees to protest the expansion of a Tesla plant outside of Berlin that they believe could damage the environment. Between 80 and 100 protesters have descended upon a forest in Grünheide where the expansion would happen, with some building and occupying about a dozen treehouses several meters above the ground. The environmental group Robin Wood started the “Stop Tesla” initiative to raise awareness about the effects the expansion could have on the area’s water supply. Police said no action will be taken against the protesters through at least March 15.—DL

Dept. of Progress

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even pass off a Dune: Part Two viewing as educational enrichment.

🪐 Sci-fi takes a page from real planetary science. Representations of faraway worlds in science fiction have actually evolved alongside the scientific community’s understanding of real-life “exoplanets,” according to a new study. By assessing 142 sci-fi films, books, shows, and video games, including big franchises like Star Wars and Dune, researchers found that over the past 30 years, creatives have depicted fictional alien planets as less Earth-like than in older works—aligning with scientists’ discovery that most real-life planets revolving around other stars are uninhabitable (to humans, at least).

This long-bodied fish is a living, swimming fossil. Feeling nostalgic? Just look up an image of a gar. Out of all the animals on Earth with jaws and backbones, this big fish has evolved the least over 150 million years, meaning the gars that swim around today are almost identical to their Jurassic Period ancestors. All seven gar species were found to have the slowest molecular evolution rate of all jawed vertebrates. Scientists believe gars may have an especially strong ability to correct DNA mutations…something that could ultimately help researchers better understand how to cure cancer.

A German guy got 217 Covid shots and was fine. Despite overexposure warnings and the existence of common sense, a 62-year-old man in Germany elected to get pricked with 217 Covid-19 vaccinations over 29 months for “private reasons”—and didn’t get harmful side effects or a weakened immune system, according to a new study published in The Lancet. The findings can’t be globalized, since this is only one person’s experience, but it still challenges the common belief that overexposure to a disease germ could wear down immune cells. The researchers found out about the man after officials arrested him for fraud, thinking he was selling vax cards to other people.—ML

An Oscars renaissance? Bet on it

If you want to jazz up your Oscars watch party, play along with Morning Brew’s printable Academy Awards prop bets here.

Will Oppenheimer win best picture? Will Robert De Niro win his first Oscar since 1981? Will Francesca Scorsese make a TikTok with her dad on the red carpet? While you ask these important questions in your most pop culture-attuned group chats, keep in mind that you could wager real money off your expectations.

Tonight’s 96th Academy Awards marks the sixth year of legal betting on Hollywood’s glitziest night—and it’s going to be a big one. Analysts are expecting record betting on this year’s Oscars due to the Barbenheimer phenomenon and another state getting in on the action.

You can bet on the Oscars? Yep—as of 2019, you can legally bet on the outcome of the televised Oscars categories, with DraftKings and FanDuel offering odds on all 23 categories…as long as you’re in one of the seven states where it’s legal. If you’re in Ontario, Canada, you can also make prop bets, which allow you to wager money on everything from the color of Margot Robbie’s dress to whether or not someone will get slapped on stage. (These types of situational bets are illegal in the US.)

How we got here

In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down a law that prohibited New Jersey from legalizing gambling. That opened the floodgates for sports betting…and also wagering on other events, including awards shows.

• European sportsbooks had long offered Oscars betting, so American sportsbooks tried it out. FanDuel and DraftKings introduced the first legal Oscars bets in 2019, according to Variety’s Strictly Business podcast.
• The success in New Jersey triggered other states to follow suit. Now, you can bet on the Oscars in Indiana, Michigan, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Kansas, and—new this year—Arizona.

But not in Vegas? Ironically, neither California nor Nevada has legalized Oscars wagering due to the inherent risk in betting on an event with a predetermined outcome with the potential for leaks. New Jersey saw this happen in 2019, when a rumor that Yorgos Lanthimos would win Best Director for The Favourite forced FanDuel to stop offering odds on Lanthimos altogether. (Lanthimos didn’t actually end up winning.)

A new type of gambler

Legalizing betting for a significant pop culture event gives betting companies the chance to attract new customers—people who aren’t interested in sports. Johnny Avello, director of race and sports operations at DraftKings, told Reuters that the company sees greater participation from women around the Oscars. “They say, ‘I don’t want to bet on football, but now you’re talking Academy Awards and now you’re in my wheelhouse,” Avello said.

But betting on the Oscars can be a very different experience from wagering on the NBA Finals:

• Bets on the Oscars are smaller. Most sportsbooks set a $1,000 maximum bet on any Oscars category bet, orders of magnitude lower than the $1 million maximum for NFL, NBA, and MLB sports bets.
• It’s more likely that people bet because they’re watching the ceremony live and want to enhance their experience. For sports, bettors more commonly watch a game because they have money riding on it.

Will betting boost the Oscars’ struggling TV ratings?

Bill Speros, senior betting analyst at Bookies.com, sees legal Oscars betting as an avenue for bigger TV audiences, just as the legalization of sports betting led to higher viewerships and more fan engagement. And with its TV ratings circling the drain, the Oscars need all the help it can get.

The broadcast’s popularity has fallen dramatically from the halcyon days of Titanic-era Hollywood. In 2018, the Academy Awards hit what was then an all-time low with 26.5 million viewers. Three years later, the Covid-era Oscars said “hold my beer” with a measly 10.4 million viewers. Ratings have rebounded slightly since then, with last year’s event bringing in 18.8 million viewers. This year, with betting buzz and box-office hits, we’ll take the over.—CC

Place to be: The Iditarod (unless you’re a moose)

Most people are at least vaguely aware of Alaska’s annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. But before this week, few knew about Rule 34 and what it required of musher Dallas Seavey after shooting and killing a moose in self-defense along the trail.

The rule states: “In the event that an edible big game animal, i.e., moose, caribou, buffalo, is killed in defense of life or property, the musher must gut the animal and report the incident to a race official at the next checkpoint.”

Seavey was dealt a two-hour penalty after race officials determined he did not gut the moose properly.

The 1,000-mile race from Anchorage to Nome that began in 1973 has other rules you won’t find anywhere else:

• Valet tag your dog. If a dog is determined unfit to continue at a checkpoint, it’s relocated to the closest dog collection area at Anchorage, McGrath, Unalakleet, or Nome.
• Mandatory items. All mushers must carry an ax, an operational cooker and pot, and eight booties for each dog.
• No social media. Phones can only be used for two-way communication.

The last rule was a godsend, as it guaranteed Seavey could not go live anywhere with the moose gutting.

Looking ahead…the race began on March 2 (last Saturday) and typically takes teams less than 10 days to complete.—DL

Crowd work

Last week, we asked: After the first $2 million or $3 million, a paid-off home, and a good car, there is no difference in the quality of life between you and Jeff Bezos. Do you agree?

• “Strong disagree. Private jets, complete immunity to healthcare costs, and the ability to donate sums that change lives are all heavy-hitting things you can’t do with $3m.”—Spencer from Orlando, FL
• “Agree 100%. Things like vacationing on a private island or a superyacht may be cool to experience, but these are not necessarily things I’m thinking of when I think of happiness.”—Tuğba from New York
• “Bezos’s 420,000 acres probably has several views that would beat my view.”—Anonymous
• “Disagree. My quality of life will be subpar until Bo Burnham writes bops about my name instead.”—Peter from Durham, NC
• “I have a paid-off 975 sq. ft. home, a 2018 Honda CR-V, and not much spare cash. But I do have a wife (going on 49 years) who loves me, so I am richer than most millionaires!”—Glenn from Florida

This week’s question

St. Paddy’s Day is next weekend. What’s your unique “cheers” ritual or superstition when drinking in a group?

Share your response here.