Photo: AFP / RNZ / WaiΕrea Community Recycling Centre / Josh Drummond / Poppy Prendergast / Getty Images / Judith Collins / supplied
Recap - While New Zealand might be leaving 2024 with fewer reporters than it started, no one told the news - so it just kept happening. Rude.
Luckily, RNZ was there to cover it all - whether it was about brain worms, brain computer chips or brain rot, we were there. Or at least somewhere with access to a computer where we could stick it online.
Here are some of the strangest, oddest and most brain-tickling stories RNZ covered in 2024.
January
Mysterious 'Big Ring' found in space 'must surely be telling us something' - astronomer
The 'Big Ring' of "galaxies and galaxy clusters" is apparently "by no means the first likely violation of the cosmological principle", RNZ partner BBC News reported, definitely an inauspicious start to the year. Just send us an obelisk next time, ET.
Mystery envelope containing $5000 cash handed to Auckland pensioner by young man who runs away
"He knows of no debt that was ever to be repaid, favour not recognised or betrayal to be made good," RNZ's friends at the NZ Herald reported. Must have been a landlord?
Mystery of disappearing gnomes in Hastings appears to be solved
Officers discovered an array of animals, gnomes, fairies and other creatures in the garden of a suspect they were visiting after receiving a tip-off.
Elon Musk's Neuralink implants brain chip in first human
While many people who valued their brains fled X (formerly Twitter, I'm obliged to add) in 2024, one brave person in January let Elon Musk stick a computer chip in his brain - which they then used to play Civilization VI.
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