Weird News

NASA says it needs some guinea pigs to test out what life on Mars would be like for a year -- right here at home -- and they're asking for regular Earthlings to help out.

The space agency put out a want ad this week, asking for "healthy, motivated" U.S. citizens and/or permanent residents to sign up and volunteer for a year-long simulated experience ... which will apparently put 4 lucky participants together in a 3D printed bunker-like environment.

NASA has an idea of what the fake 1,700 square-foot Mars fort (of sorts) will look like ... something like what you see above.

Anyway, sounds like they're going to be doing a few of these "missions" -- with the first set to begin in Fall 2022 and take place at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where they'll recreate Mars conditions and put these folks through different tests ... for, like, research and whatnot.

Some of the things one might expect to be dealing with while there ... handling resource limitations, equipment failure and other environmental stressors. There's also the strong possibility NASA will make you go through simulated spacewalks, scientific research, use of virtual reality and robotic controls and "exchanging communications" ... as they put it. 👀

There might be some pay, it seems ... but the amount isn't specified in NASA's press release. But, still, it's kinda cool ... right??? BTW, we know we said ordinary people are wanted -- but that's isn't entirely true ... NASA is seeking the best and the brightest for these simulations.

You've heard of people falsifying their vaccine cards to avoid having to get the jab -- but here's another example of the same exact thing ... in the opposite direction.

The AP reports that a small handful of Americans have been caught red-handed trying to lie about their vaccination status -- this in order to receive a third booster shot before it's officially approved by Uncle Sam ... all because they're freaked out about the rising variants.

In one instance, a 26-year-old grad student named Gina Welch admitted to the AP that she'd successfully gotten her third booster already ... by simply going to a clinic and telling 'em it was her first. Her rationale boils down to ... I've done the research and I'm sick of waiting.

It's unclear if the healthcare system/her insurance company has caught on over the discrepancy yet -- but even if they have, it's too late by now ... Welch was able to prance in and get the damn thing without much checking or hassle, it seems. Ditto for at least 900 others in the country, who appear to have already triple-dipped for inoculation, so says AP.

It would appear some folks -- a vast minority at this point -- are fed up with having to respond to government entities ... which admittedly move slow on this sorta thing. That's pretty ballsy -- but it's also incredibly telling ... for a multitude of reasons, really.

For one, our own healthcare experts -- including Dr. Fauci -- have, indeed, said that a booster will likely be needed in the future to ward off Delta, Lambda and all these other COVID variants that are springing up ... and they're even working on rolling that out for the elderly and immuno-compromised right now. 'Til then, the rest of us gotta get in line.

O.J. Simpson says he had such a tough battle with COVID last year, he was worried he was going to die ... explaining the virus made it nearly impossible for him to catch his breath.

The former NFL superstar went in-depth with The Athletic about his 2020 battle with coronavirus ... saying things at one point got so dire, death crossed his mind.

"When I had COVID, I almost couldn't get out of bed," Simpson said in a lengthy interview. "I made it to my balcony, trying to breathe. I couldn't catch my breath."

Simpson said his symptoms were so bad, he actually spoke with his children about final arrangements.

"I felt vulnerable," 74-year-old Simpson said, "and for the first time thought I might be near the end."

Simpson was able to recover ... and said he's grateful for it, explaining he's loving his life out of prison in Las Vegas.

Simpson said he golfs "four or five days a week" now, and bragged about how he's still treated like a celebrity.

"People want to buy me drinks," he said. "I'm always taking pictures with people. Ladies hug me."

"People truly care for me," he continued. "You don’t know who truly cares about you until you've gone through some serious stuff, and I've gone through serious stuff."

"The media won’t say it, but that is my life. I'm living a good life now."

Simpson, though, did say his life now includes far less trips to Los Angeles.

He explained he's troubled by being in the city because he's concerned Nicole Brown Simpson's killer could still be there.

Britney Spears just told a long, bizarre story about getting locked in her bathroom in the middle of the night ... and it's eyebrow-raising for sure.

The pop star just shared her wild bathroom adventure, explaining how she got trapped in there in the first place and detailing the lengths to which she and others went to set her free.

Britney says she got distracted by some leftover coffee on a hunt for some face wash before realizing she was locked inside. She says her boyfriend, Sam Asghari, was fast asleep and she had to scream 4 times to wake him up.

When Sam's attempts to pick the lock failed, Britney says she was able to call security to come open the door ... but it sounds like they were asleep just like Sam.

Britney says another 45 minutes went by before she was finally freed, but only after drinking her stale coffee.

How's Victor Robles filling the void of no more Max Scherzer and no more Trea Turner in the Washington Nationals' dugout??

Apparently with insects ... 'cause the Nats outfielder played with a praying mantis on his head for a full inning during his game Monday!!!

The hilarious scene all went down during the Nationals' tilt vs. the Phillies in D.C. ... when the 24-year-old outfielder got a surprise visit from a green friend.

Broadcast cameras captured the bug on Robles' dome while he was in the dugout ... and when he left the bench area to hit the field, the mantis stayed with him!!

For the entire inning, Robles and the mantis hung out in center field ... and at one point, Robles even informed his little friend of how many outs were in the inning!

Doesn't seem the creature brought Robles or the Nats good luck, though ... 'cause they went on to blow a 3-2 lead to lose the game, 7-5.

In fact, the Phillies went on to claim the mantis as their good luck charm, saying on social media, "RALLY MANTIS."

Someone's about to fork over good money for decades-old cake ... which shows you how much of an event Princess Diana and Prince Charles' wedding was way back in the day.

The 28-ounce slice, preserved in plastic wrap and stored in a decorative tin for 40 years, is going up for sale August 11 -- and the winning bid is expected to come in at a cool $700. Not a huge amount of money in terms of celeb memorabilia, but ... for old cake???

As you can see ... the slice still has the royal coat of arms decoration ... and it looks like no one's managed to sneak a bite -- if anyone even would, after all these years.

The sale announcement comes on the very day marking what would've been Charles and Diana's 40th anniversary. The royal wedding -- aka "Wedding of the Century" -- went down July 29, 1981 at St. Paul's Cathedral in London with 3,500 guests attending in person. Another estimated 750 million people tuned in across the world.

The slice of wedding cake going up for sale was given from the Queen Mother (Queen Elizabeth's mom) to Moyra Smith, whose family sold the cake in 2008 to a collector.

There's a notable, near-ish-collision on Earth -- or at least one that's looming -- and the object that may be about to crash is traveling at 18,000 MPH!!!

NASA has sounded an alarm that a giant asteroid is about to pass Earth. It's somewhere between 318 and 720 feet in length ... about the size of the Taj Mahal and the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The thing's even got a name -- 2008 G020.

Well, when we say near-collision, it's all relative. It's supposed to come as close as 2.8 million miles to our planet. In NASA-ese ... it's labeled an Apolo, which is a "near-Earth" designation.

To give you more context ... the Moon is 238,855 miles from Earth, while Mars is 236.5 million miles away. So, somewhere in the middle.

This won't be our closest encounter with G020. In 1901 it got 1 million miles from Earth.

Macaroni and cheese and ice cream -- 2 great tastes that, apparently, go great together -- because the, umm ... unique flavor sold out in just 60 minutes!!!

Here's the deal ... Kraft and Van Leeuwen Ice Cream joined forces to create a limited-edition mac and cheese ice cream flavor and the demand was so great for the dessert debut, the website crashed within 9 minutes and the entire 2,000 pint inventory was wiped out online within the hour.

The ice cream launched Wednesday on National Mac & Cheese Day -- yes, that's a real thing -- and, in addition to online sales, they hawked it in Van Leeuwen's brick-and-mortar shops nationwide. Well, for a brief period, anyway ... we're told it took only 3 hours to sell out of their 9,000 scoops.

"Holes" star Khleo Thomas was one of the lucky ones to get their hands on the $12 pint ... and ya gotta see his reaction to his first bite!!!

Khleo says Van Leeuwen totally nailed the Kraft Mac & Cheese flavor, something he says he wasn't expecting.

For those who missed out, don't worry ... Kraft is launching an online sweepstakes with the chance to win 2 free pints.

Dwayne Johnson is stuck between a rock and a hard place -- not being able to *easily* access a path to his car so he could get his sweat on ... all because of a hungry hawk.

The Rock couldn't really leave his house Sunday morning -- which he definitely wanted to, so he could hit the gym -- and it's all due to a gorgeous hawk that perched itself on a pillar right outside his kitchen ... with none other than some breakfast in its talons -- a tasty snake!!!

Check out the video ... DJ has a front-row seat to a feast courtesy of Mother Nature -- the hawk's got a relatively small snake in its clutches ... and it pecking away, first at its head and then at its tail. That's good eating -- at least, that's what Dwayne thinks. 😋

Anyway, The Rock laid out the sitch clearly in his caption ... writing, "I tried to open the door with some firm DJ energy and instead of flying away, he got pissed and hasn’t stopped ka kaw’ng me since 🤣." DTRJ adds, "Clearly, we both have a few things in common 😈💀 but he’s gotta eat and I gotta train…. Wish me luck, this could get ugly."

Dwayne leaves us on a bit of a cliffhanger ... although, it seems he was going to make a run for it and see if he could get past the hawk without getting scratched or attacked.

Tiffany Haddish got an up close look at tiger sharks mating for "Shark Week," and she says the experience is gonna stick with her for a long time ... and she might need therapy.

Tiff joined us on "TMZ Live" Friday and told us about her deep dive into shark reproduction ... with a fun lesson on why female sharks have two uteruses and male sharks have two penises.

There's a future in marine biology for Tiffany if she wants it -- she says she was hardly afraid as she swam with the man-eating sharks, performing ultrasounds to look for babies. She tried to blow off the fear, telling us it was no worse than anything she faced growing up.

It's pretty interesting, and graphic ... Tiffany says she got to see the sharks having sex. There's lots of thrashing and wrestling moves involved, and Tiffany says she sympathized with the female sharks.

Tiffany's shark adventure airs Sunday at 9 PM ET on Discovery and Discovery+ and she's not the only celeb getting in on the "Shark Week" fun ... Brad Paisley, William Shatner, Snoop Dogg, Eli Roth, Ian Zeiring, Tara Reid and the 'Jackass' stars are also involved.

Kim Kardashian now has legal protection against the man who allegedly showed up to her home on multiple occasions and sent a package containing Plan B and a diamond ring ... thanks to a restraining order.

KK filed docs Wednesday against Nicholas Costanza, whom she claims is the person who disturbingly shipped Plan B pills and an engagement ring to her home earlier this month ... a package that was intercepted by Kim's security team.

In her filing -- from attorney Shawn Holley -- Kim says Costanza has shown up to her property a handful of times this year ... including once in February, and then again in late May. She claims he sprung up at her gated community, telling guards he was there to pick her up for dinner on one occasion.

On top of the alleged behavior ... Kim says Costanza's been obsessing over her online as well -- posting a bogus marriage cert and other bizarre messages, alluding to her waiting for her "knight in shining armor" (which he clarified as himself).

A judge agreed with Kim's concerns and granted the temporary order ... Costanza will have to stay at least 100 yards away and refrain from contact.

This ain't the first alleged stalker who's been trying to get at her either -- remember, she filed for and received a separate restraining order against another man who said he was just dying to get into her pad.

Paul Rudd once gave Seth Rogen a massage -- which might sound goofy ... but there's a twist that makes it all the more hilarious, the details of which Seth shared to much fanfare.

The actor/director dished on the hilarious story out of nowhere Monday on Twitter, telling the tale of the time his good pal, Paul, cloaked himself as a masseuse at a parlor Seth was at ... which he didn't really realize until well into the back rub.

In Seth's own words, he writes ... "Once I was in the spa in a hotel in Vegas getting a massage. When I finished I turned over and to my shock Paul Rudd was massaging me."

He goes on to give the nitty gritty of how the heck PR might've been able to sneak his way into such a scenario, adding ... "He saw me go in and convinced the masseuse to let him take over, thinking I'd notice immediately. I didn't, and Paul did the entire rest of it."

If that sounds like something Paul Rudd would do in a movie, turns out ... it's actually a stunt he'd pull in real-life as well. As the internet has pointed out, it's very on brand for him (and maybe for Seth too).

Of course, it'd be remiss of us not to mention that these two guys have some famous history with massage/beauty parlors ... perhaps most notably from "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" -- when they watched Steve Carell get his chest hair waxed off, a majority of which was real.

NBC is running from its reality show "Ultimate Slip 'N Slide" ... after a bunch of folks on the crew experienced explosive runs themselves.

The network put the show on ice after members of the production staff experienced diarrhea ... apparently from some sort of parasite called Giardia.

The show was being shot in the San Fernando Valley and almost reached the finish line with 1 week of production left, but it was too much. After multiple crew members got sick, production was indefinitely shut down.

Neither of the hosts -- Bobby Moynihan and Ron Funches -- came down with the runs.

An environmental lab tested the water used in the competition, along with restrooms and other facilities, and initially results came back negative, but they got a positive result last month. So, with 7 weeks in the can (sorry) and one week left to go, the door was slammed shut ... this according to PEOPLE.

The show was set to premiere August 8 after the closing ceremony of the Olympic Summer Games.

Come hell or high water took on a whole new meaning when the ocean surface in the Gulf of Mexico caught on fire ... and the video's astonishing.

The crazy scene played out Friday west of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula ... where the state's oil company, Pemex, said a gas leak from an underwater pipeline triggered a blaze that looked more like a scene from Michael Bay's next blockbuster.

You can see there are HUGE, bright orange flames shooting from the surface ... looking like an erupting volcano. The video quickly spread like fire (sorry, not sorry) on social media ... aptly dubbed, "eye of fire."

Fortunately for all involved ... the blaze, which went down 150 yards from a drilling platform, was extinguished. Nitrogen was reportedly used to control the fire. More good news ... Pemex said no injuries.

John F. Kennedy Jr. was incognito among a MAGA crowd this weekend and happily posed with Trump fans at his first public rally in a while ... that is, if you buy what QAnon's selling.

Different photos have sprung up from Saturday's gathering in Wellington, OH -- where DT held his first MAGA party in an official capacity and spewed falsehood after falsehood about the 2020 election ... while also teasing his inevitable return to politics in the near future.

It was a lot of the same stuff he's regurgitated in his speeches of late -- but one of the quirky headlines to emerge from the red hat forum was photo-ops with a fella Q'ers apparently believe is the REAL JFK Jr. ... who, of course, is long dead and buried (at sea).

The dude's name is Vincent Fusca, and he's definitely a Trump supporter from what we can see on his social media. However, somehow, he's also been labeled as John John in disguise ... and is a bit of a celeb among the QAnon crowd whenever they get together.

Folks seem more than happy to snap selfies with Vince if they spot him out -- and he's kind of hard to miss ... as he always seems to be rocking the black hat and matching outfit, not to mention his signature shaggy 'do and beard. It doesn't appear Vincent has openly embraced the wild story, but based on his Twitter feed ... he ain't batting it down either.

While we will acknowledge there might be *some* sort of a resemblance to JFK Jr. (barely one, really) ... it doesn't take a genius to know, this is obviously NOT the real McCoy.

Like we said, John died in a plane crash in 1999 (along with his wife, Carolyn, and her sister) ... and was laid to rest by the Kennedy family. It's an absolutely absurd conspiracy theory -- one which we've detailed in the past -- but Q'ers, for some reason, think he'll re-emerge after faking his death, and "re-take the country" alongside Donald Trump.

God help the poor soul high on weed who sees this thing cruising the waters.

Check out the powerboat designed to look like a sports car ... and guess what? There's a plan to make it amphibious.

A dude name Karim Amin and 2 of his buddies were tooling around the ocean in Alexandria, Egypt in cars that were, well, sort of James Bond-y.

The "boats" can hit speeds of up to 40 MPH. They even have Bluetooth and a GPS. They say it rides more like a jet ski than a traditional boat. There are only 12 of its kind, but it seems there are plans to expand. They're working on a 2.0 which would function on land and on the sea.

As for the price ... they start at $19,000 (no power windows) and go up to $44k.