At a time when our flabbers be gasted daily, it can be hard to keep track of the biggest and breaking stories in the news cycle. One person, however, seems to have been keeping ahead of America’s latest election developments armed with nothing but asparagus.

The news that President Joe Biden was taking himself out of the running broke on Sunday, July 21. “I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” he said on X.

The announcement sent a shockwave of questions through the Twittersphere (let us know when you have an X alternative to this). What does this mean for the electoral race? Is Kamala Harris the frontrunner to replace him? But one user asked, perhaps, the most pressing of questions…

Did the world’s only asparamancer see this all coming?

For those of you who have – somehow – never before come across asparamancy, it’s the practice of trying to predict the future using nothing more than a handful of asparagus. Jemima Packington has become famous as the "world’s only asparamancer", and to date has Brexit and the passing of Queen Elizabeth II in her predictions trug.

Appearing on BBC Radio Two’s Jeremy Vine show on July 17, Packington tossed her asparagus in response to the question: Biden or Trump in November? The answer: neither of them.

“It’s a lady,” she said. “Now I keep on getting this. It’s going to be a lady. The next president of the United States is going to be a woman.”

As for whether the asparamancer has struck again, only time will tell, but it adds to a rich history of humans looking to alternative sources for news about the future. I invite you to take a walk through the methods of divination dreamt up in human history, in a list that reads as three parts “haha” to every “eurgh”, checking off such delights as oomancy (reading eggs), tyromancy (fortune telling with cheese), the crawling baby (what it says on the tin), and then *checks notes* rumpology, where one seeks answers in the buttocks.

They’re a creative switch up from looking to uncredible sources online, but is it pseudoscience or anti-science, and what’s the difference?