Cool Weird Awesome with Brady Carlson

The original Olympic flag flew over the Games for the first time in 1920, in Antwerp, Belgium, but before it could be passed to the next host city, the “Antwerp flag” disappeared - for over seven decades. Plus: scientists have taught a robotic hand to play Super Mario Bros., because why wouldn't you?  OLYMPICS: NOTEBOOK; Missing Flag Returns to Glory, Courtesy of a Prankster (New York Times)...

Whenever the Olympic Games take place we see athletes giving their all to win gold and glory - but we also see great examples of competitors who show character and kindness toward each other. Here’s the story of two of those athletes, who ended up winning the only half-silver, half-bronze medals in Olympic history. Plus, a musical group finds out that the International Olympic Committee does enfor...

The men's marathon at the 1904 Olympics could have won a gold medal for biggest trainwreck in Summer Games history. Here's how dirt, dehydration, dogs and more helped make this as bizarre a run as they get. But then the 1904 Games were strange for several other reasons as well. We'll explain why.  Running a marathon was never crazier or harder than during the 1904 St Louis Olympics (ABC Austr...

For better or for worse, the Summer Olympics are finally here. We thought it would be a good time to look back at some of the lesser-known events in the history of the Games, like painting and cannon shooting. Plus: Tomas Gomez headed to the driving range just ahead of a storm, and his ball ended up getting hit by lightning.  Painting for Gold Medals: When Art Was an Olympic Discipline (Artne...

We've had stoplights to direct us and our vehicles through intersections for around a century now. A design studio in Moscow has a concept for a high-tech refresh of stoplight technology. Plus: LEGO builder Douglas Hughes pays tribute to the late, legendary game show host Alex Trebek with a LEGO kinetic sculpture of Jeopardy! The traffic light gets a dazzling, 21st century makeover (Fast Company)...

Like his famous brother Ernest, who was born today in 1899, Leicester Hemingway was a novelist and a storyteller. But Leicester did something even Ernest never did: he created his own micronation. Here's the story of the Republic of New Atlantis. Plus: back in 1958, a farmer in Florida made his first payment on a new Chevrolet in an unusual way.  Contents of a country: Leicester Hemingway’s R...

Today in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. But as the Apollo 11 mission went on, they had a problem: a broken switch threatened to keep them from returning to Earth. Fortunately, they had a solution: office supplies. Plus: the Lunar Lander Dwelling in Washington state is a 250 square foot getaway in the shape of the lunar module. When Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstron...

It's National Ice Cream Day, so it's a good day to tell the story of Agnes B. Marshall. The "Queen of Ices" helped make this frozen treat the icon that it is today. Plus: on this day in 1975, ground control played the song “Hello Darlin” by country star Conway Twitty to astronauts in Earth orbit. Only this version of the song was a little different. The 19th-century entrepreneur who pioneered mode...

Washington DC is home to monuments, memorials and the largest library in the world. Here's some of the history of the Library of Congress. Plus: a real estate listing for waterfront land in Ontario had a price of $99,000, though with one big consideration. 10 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About The Library Of Congress (DCist) Fascinating Facts (Library of Congress) Vacant lot in Ontario could be...

Today in 2006, Twttr launched; and in its early days the social media platform gained vowels in its name and fame for a cute whale that would show up during its then-regular outages. Here's the story of Lifting A Dreamer, aka the "Fail Whale." Plus: if you’re a fan of scuba diving or snorkeling, the Geneinno S2 undersea scooter is a new high tech way to do it.  Twitter launches (History.com)...

This week in 2005, Kyle MacDonald of Montreal had a red paperclip. This week in 2006, MacDonald had traded away the paperclip, and, after a few more trades, ended up with a house. Plus: over in the UK, some small towns have traded out the phones in some of their big red phone boxes for a new use.  Paperclip Cottage Cafe (Tourism Saskatchewan) From paper-clip to house in 14 trades (CBC) How Sm...

A multi-country research team has found ways to turn polyethylene, a key ingredient in single-use plastic bags, into lightweight fabric. So those bags that we don't want to throw out but can't always easily recycle? We might end up wearing them. Plus: many of us spend a lot of our waking hours typing, but James Cook turns his typing into art. Plastic Bags Could Be Recycled Into Wearable Fabrics, S...

Today in 2006, the largest photograph ever taken was released to the world. It’s known today as The Great Picture: 31 feet tall, 107 feet wide. Here's how it was taken. Plus: in Tokyo, a giant 3D screen outside a train station is featuring a giant 3D calico cat that stares down at the people several stories below. Big picture thinking! World’s largest photograph measuring 31ft high and 107ft wide...

Today in 1929, the then-territory of Alaska flew its flag for the first time. That flag, which is still used today, was designed by a 13 year old of Aleutian descent, Benny Benson. Plus: it was this day in 1872 that John F. Blondel of Maine made pastry history.  Benny Benson: An Alaska Kid Who Made History (Alaska Historical Society) The Hole Truth: Celebrating a Huge Day in Doughnut History...

There was a story recently about how NASA was partnering with Tide laundry detergent to work on a way to do laundry in space. Which means we don’t already do laundry in space, and there are some pretty big reasons why. Plus: the Royal Mail delivers a letter addressed to a woman who’d been on TV, only the writer didn't exactly have the woman's address.  NASA and Tide team up to do laundry in s...

Today in 1928, the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri began publicly selling something new: bread that had been sliced by a multi-bladed machine, and the world gained a new way to measure greatness. Plus: today in 2017, a meteor found a way to use Earth as a “slingshot” so alter its orbit and eventually orbit Jupiter. ‘Home of Sliced Bread’: A small Missouri town champions its greatest thing (...

Today is the birthday of Roger Babson, who once hired stonecutters to carve giant motivational slogans into a series of boulders in Massachusetts during the Great Depression. Plus: a research team from Harvard and MIT has announced a new high-tech face mask with disease-spotting biosensors. It can spot germs more or less in real time!  Babson’s Boulders: A Millionaire’s Odd Dogtown Legacy (Ne...

When most of us get wrong number phone calls, we get off the line pretty quickly. But new research finds Maasai herders in Tanzania often strike up a conversation, and get to know the person who accidentally called them. Plus: on this day in 1294, the cardinals of the Catholic Church respond to a letter from a hermit monk in a way that may have made the monk wish he hadn't written them at all.&nbs...

The new book “Hyphens and Hashtags” looks at where all our punctuation marks have come from. Some of them, like the highly versatile asterisk, have been around for thousands of years. Plus: if you've had a week that made you want to scream, Japan has a Screambulance that may help.  A Star Is Born (Lapham's Quarterly) Japan’s Screambulance, is a haunted house delivery service that scares you a...

Today in 1963, the US Postal Service officially started using ZIP codes as a way to quickly sort huge amounts of mail and get it to where it needed to go. How did they get Americans to adopt ZIP codes? A mascot named Mr. Zip and a jingle sung by Broadway legend Ethel Merman. Plus: for Canada Day, the story of a runner in Ontario who ran a moose-shaped route through downtown Toronto.  The ZIP...

Our high-tech devices are amazing but also kind of fragile. But a team at Virginia Tech has a solution: “soft electronics” that can not only keep working when they’re damaged, they can heal themselves. Plus: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech have been using high-altitude balloons to measure seismic activity, and they're hoping to send those balloons someday to monitor Venusquakes! ...

Today was the birthday of Ray Harryhausen, a pioneer of special effects in movies in the days before computers. And while special effects are more high tech now than in his day, his influence is still all over the world of movies in our time. Plus: a veteran flier from World War II gets to take another flight, some 75 years later.  Ray Harryhausen: The Father of Stop-Motion Animation - The Sp...

It's the birthday of the guy who took two sports and fused them into one: Ed Headrick, known today as the Father of Disc Golf. Here's some of his story. Plus: it's Pride Day, part of Pride Month, and there's still time to see the original rainbow Pride Flag at San Francisco’s GLBT Historical Society Museum. The Father of Disc Golf (Disc Golf Association) History of disc golf (part 1): the early da...

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from September 2020, we marked the 60th  anniversary of the first broadcast of that landmark cartoon show from the town of Bedrock, which aired in the 1960s, stayed on in reruns for  decades, and continues to sell cereal and vitamins to this day. Plus: a man in England gets so lonely he s...

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from November 2019, we look at an episode of the Twilight Zone that proved the show was a dimension not only of sight and sound but of canned laughter?!? Plus: anybody want to fly in an airplane where the whole interior looks like a giant window? Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone: A Backstage Tri...