Welcome to another entry in our new column, The Week's Weirdest World News. The world, you might have noticed, is a very strange place — so every seven days, we'll be rounding up the most bizarre things that have happened across the globe, purely for your enjoyment.

From job vacancies at a "Penguin Post Office" to rats getting high on pot, these stories are sure to inspire wonder — or, at the very least, befuddlement — at the weird ol' world around us.

A 'Penguin Post Office' in Antarctica is hiring

^{[Image credit: YouTube]}

A "penguin post office" in Antarctica is looking for new recruits to work its upcoming season, the Smithsonian Magazine has reported.

The UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT) is hiring a handful of new roles at the remote post office on Port Lockroy, a historic British base near the Antarctic Peninsula.

Those lucky enough to be picked by the organization will spend their time sorting mail, selling postage stamps, looking after the base's old buildings, running the gift shop and counting the estimated 1,500 gentoo penguins that live there.

While this might sound like a dream job, the UKAHT has warned potential applicants that they should be able to stomach the smell of guano — that's bird poop — for five months. Just something to think about before you send off your resume.

Japanese town on high alert for potentially toxic cat

Officials in Fukuyama, Japan, have cautioned residents to avoid contact with a cat that is believed to have jumped into a vat of toxic chemicals. The feline was last seen leaving the Nomura Plating Fukuyama factory, and pawprints leading away from a vat of hexavalent chromium, a… pic.twitter.com/HQ23yBU6wx

— Volcaholic 🌋 (@volcaholic1) March 13, 2024

Residents of a city in Japan have been warned not to approach or touch a missing cat that is believed to have fallen into a vat of hazardous chemicals at a metal factory.

The city of Fukuyama is on high alert after a factory employee spotted paw prints trailing away from a tank of hexavalent chromium, a toxic and cancer-causing chemical, on Monday.

A Fukuyama City Hall official said neighborhood searches for the animal have so far been fruitless.

While no health problems have been reported among the factory's workers, experts say it's unlikely the poor feline could survive for very long after coming into contact with the toxic substance.

"My guess is that the cat unfortunately is dead or will be dying shortly, from the chemical burns," Linda Schenk, chemical risk assessment expert at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, told CNN.

Mysterious monolith appears on hill in Wales

Locals in a Welsh town were left puzzled by the discovery of a mysterious monolith on a hill in the area over the weekend.

One resident of Hay-on-Wye, Richard Haynes, said he came across the large, steel structure while running on the town's hill of Hay Bluff.

He told WalesOnline: "I thought it looked a bit bizarre and might be a scientific media research thing collecting rainwater," he told WalesOnline. "But then I realized it was way too tall and strange for that."

Craig Muir, another local, stumbled upon the monolith on Tuesday. In a video shared online, Muir said he had "never seen" the object before, and that it almost looked as if "a UFO's put something down."

The monolith spotted in Wales is strikingly similar to structures that mysteriously appeared in Utah, Romania and California over the space of two months in 2020.

Rats get high on pot after eating police evidence

Rats have gotten into confiscated pot at New Orleans’ aging police headquarters, munching the evidence as the building is taken over by mold and cockroaches, said the city’s police chief. pic.twitter.com/zG6fEPiZGM

— The Associated Press (@AP) March 14, 2024

A group of rats in New Orleans are "all high" after getting into evidence stored at the city's police headquarters, Nola.com has reported.

Speaking at a council committee on Monday, New Orleans's police superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick described the filthy conditions of the police department's headquarters. Her account was part of a pitch for funding to move the offices to a new location in the city.

Along with uncleanliness, maintenance issues and cockroach infestations, Kirkpatrick stressed that rats had interfered with evidence being stored at the headquarters.

"The rats are eating our marijuana," she said. "They're all high."

Kirkpatrick's case proved compelling; the committee later approved a motion to give the police department a 10-year lease on two floors of a downtown office building, provided it also passes the upcoming full council vote.

Check out last week's weirdest news stories here.

[Image credit: Avery Meeker / Svetozar Cenisev]