Hasta La Gadget!

Well, this is something.

On Monday, actress Sharon Stone uploaded a video to YouTube in which she praises and defends Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) in a spoken-word poem.

In the video, which Stone shared on Twitter, the actress recites lyrics by Shelly Goldstein over a reel of Water’s biggest political moments.

Here is a sampling:

“Say it loud, she’s black and we’re proud / Disrespect will not be allowed / Since ’91 she’s fought our battles with humor, grace and skill / She’s proved a woman’s definitive place is that house on Capitol Hill”

The poem also rhymes “Chisholm” (as in Shirley Chisholm, who was the first black woman elected to Congress) with “racism.”

Stone’s inspiration for the video seems to stem from the racist and sexist comments Bill O’Reilly made about Waters last week on “Fox and Friends.” After watching a clip of the congresswoman condemning supporters of President Donald Trump for their discriminatory and bigoted practices, O’Reilly said, “I didn’t hear a word she said. I was looking at the James Brown wig. Do we have a picture of James Brown? It’s the same wig.”

Later that day, MSNBC host Chris Hayes asked Waters about O’Reilly’s childish remarks, in which she responded, “I am a strong black woman, and I cannot be intimidated. I cannot be undermined.”

Say it loud, Maxine.

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A common antibiotic called doxycycline can disrupt the formation of negative thoughts and fears in the brain and may prove useful in treating or preventing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to research by British and Swiss scientists.

In a specially designed trial involving 76 healthy volunteers who were given either the drug or a placebo dummy pill, those who were on doxycycline had a 60 percent lower fear response than those who were not.

Scientists said the antibiotic works in this way because it blocks certain proteins outside nerve cells, called matrix enzymes, which our brains need to form memories.

“We have demonstrated a proof-of-principle for an entirely new treatment strategy for PTSD,” said Dominik Bach, a professor at University College London and the University of Zurich, who co-led the research team.

In the trial, volunteers were given either doxycycline or a placebo and put in front of a computer. The screen would flash either blue or red, and one of the colors was associated with a 50 percent chance of getting a painful electric shock. After 160 flashes with colors in random order, participants learnt to associate the ‘bad’ color with the shock.

A week later, under no medication, the volunteers repeated the experiment. This time there were no electric shocks, but a loud sound played after either color was shown.

Fear responses were measured by tracking eye blinks, as this is an instinctive response to sudden threats. The fear memory was calculated by subtracting the baseline startle response – to the sound on the ‘good’ color – from the response to the sound when the ‘bad’ color was showing.

While the fear response was 60 percent lower in those who had doxycycline in the first session, the researchers found that, importantly, other cognitive measures – including sensory memory and attention – were not affected.

“When we talk about reducing fear memory, we’re not talking about deleting the memory of what actually happened,” Bach said in a statement about the findings.

“The participants may not forget that they received a shock when the screen was red, but they ‘forget’ to be instinctively scared when they next see a red screen.

“Learning to fear threats is an important ability … helping us to avoid dangers. (But) over-prediction of threat can cause tremendous suffering and distress in anxiety disorders such as PTSD.”

PTSD is caused by an overactive fear memory and includes a broad range of psychological symptoms that can develop after someone goes through a traumatic event.

Bach said he and his team would now like to explore doxycycline’s potential effects further, including in a phenomenon called “reconsolidation” of fear memories – an approach to helping people with PTSD – in which memories and associations can be changed after an event when the patient experiences or imagines similar situations.

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As you’re probably aware, we’re animal lovers here at HuffPost Weird News. From dogs and cats to monkeys and rebellious squirrels, we adore them all.

So even though you won’t find this new cat toy in one of our great gift guides, we can declare with some confidence based on this video, posted by Angie Sapik, that a baby can be a fantastic way to entertain your pet, assuming you’re ready for all of the other responsibilities that come with raising a child.

Based on Sapik’s other social media posts, baby and cat are good buds even when the child isn’t serving as a feline plaything.

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Kerry Washington is, yet again, stressing the importance of black women in television.

In a cover interview for Glamour, which People received an exclusive look at, the actress talked about the significance of race in ABC’s hit series “Scandal.”

Washington told the magazine that it was as if her character Olivia Pope was “raceless” in the first season, despite the fact that she was one of the only leading black women on television at the time.

“[W]e didn’t talk about her identity as a black person,” she said.

But later in the series, producer Shonda Rhimes and her team started making a concerted effort to actually show Pope as a black woman.

“[Since then] the writers have become more and more willing to deal with race,” the 40-year-old actress said. “When Olivia was kidnapped, it was not lost on me that the fictional president of the United States was willing to go to war to save one black woman at a time when hundreds of black women were missing in Nigeria and we were begging the world to pay attention. Shonda was saying, ‘The life of a black woman matters.’”

The change is especially evident in certain scenes. On the season three premiere, Olivia’s dad, Rowan Pope, gave her the talk many black parents give their children in preparation for a racially biased society.

“How many times have I told you, you have to be … twice as good as them to get half of what they have,” Rowan told Olivia.

During season four, writers explored police brutality against black bodies in the Black Lives Matter-inspired episode “The Lawn Chair.” During a protest, Olivia crosses the police line to join forces with protesters and chants, “Stand up. Fight back. No more black men under attack.”

Though Washington told the magazine she’s not sure of how much longer she’ll be in what she calls her “most transformative role,” she will be doing more behind-the-camera work with her new company.

“The charge of my production company, Simpson Street, is to tell stories that are about people, places and situations that may not always be considered by the mainstream,” she said. “Inclusivity is not about, you know, creating a world where straight white men have no voice; it’s about creating a world where we all have a voice. So I’m excited to start that new journey, as a producer.”

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After documenting her weight loss journey on the reality series “Mama June: From Not to Hot,” Mama June Shannon has debuted her new body in a People magazine spread. And her transformation is truly incredible. 

Once weighing in at 460 pounds, the former “Honey Boo Boo” star has shed 300 pounds. 

The 37-year-old lost the weight after undergoing gastric sleeve surgery, combined with diet and exercise. 

According to People, Mama June also underwent a breast augmentation and lost a combined total of nine pounds through skin removal surgery on her neck, arms and stomach. She spent more than $75,000 on all three surgeries.

Before Mama June’s skin removal surgery, which was documented on her reality show, she joked, “I’m kind of going to miss my turkey neck. It’s more famous than I am!”

But these days, she’s not missing it at all. Now that Mama June has lost the weight, she’s determined to keep it off, telling People, “I can promise you I’m never going back to that size. I’m happy where I’m at.”

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