Cool Weird Awesome with Brady Carlson

Welcome to the world of electroceuticals! That's the word for treatments that involve electricity, and a new study finds steady current applied to wounds can actually get healing agents to the site more quickly. Speaking of quick: the "tossed rice art" of Maria Lynn may only last an instant, but what an instant it is.  Electricity could help speed wound healing, new study shows (Ohio State Un...

Blueswarm is a school of autonomous robot fish who scan their surroundings and calculate how they can swim together without colliding, like a school of actual fish. And the technology modeled on "implicit coordination" may be useful for lots of other high-tech devices in the future. Plus: GLYPHS is a project to develop new perfumes based on typology. No, there isn't a Comic Sans scent just yet.&nb...

Scientists have spotted three species of sharks near New Zealand that give off a faint blue light while in darkness. Yes, our world is home to glowing sharks. Plus: artist Calvin Nicholls is making extremely detailed sculptures of animals out of paper. Glowing sharks found near New Zealand (Inhabitat) Intricate Paper Animals Spring from Textured Sculptures by Artist Calvin Nicholls (Colossal) Our...

The internet and social media don't do a great job making the very visual world of meme culture accessible to blind users. The new podcast "Say My Meme" describes those memes so everyone can enjoy them. Plus: Madagascar is home to the "nano-chameleon," believed to be the smallest lizard in the world.  This delightful new podcast describes memes for people who are blind or visually impaired (F...

A team of German developers may have just made the pool safer, by developing a water-based lifeguard robot that can rescue swimmers in distress. Plus: today in 1969, musical history, as "Happy Birthday To You" becomes the first song ever performed in outer space.  New Robot Lifeguard Will Save People from Drowning (Interesting Engineering) 50 Years Ago: Apollo 9 Completes its Mission (NASA) T...

Today in 1963 the Hula Hoop was patented, although by that point it had already become a worldwide phenomenon. And toy hoops go way, way back even before the toys we know today first became popular. Plus: how a very unusual photographer won the Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition.  How Hula Hoops Work (HowStuffWorks) Octopus steals camera and wins underwater photography competition (SCUBA...

On this day in 1928, the start of the Trans-America Foot Race, aka the "Bunion Derby," in which about 200 runners in Los Angeles set out to run all the way to New York City. Only 55 of them made it through the entire grueling route, which could be called a spectacle, boondoggle and landmark all at once. Plus: in honor of Vermont becoming a state today in 1791, a look at the state's famous Long Tra...

A study out of Rutgers University-Camden finds people who order cold sandwiches instead of hot ones also pick up chips, cookies and other sides much more often. Why? Plus: today in 1912, an unusual performance of a classic opera outside one of the great wonders of the world.  Consumers Buy More Food When They Order Cold Meals and Drinks, Reports Rutgers‒Camden Researcher (Rutgers-Camden) Toda...

You know about the Echo and the Google Home, but do you know about the Butler In A Box? It was a voice-controlled smart home device in the 1980s, and could do many of the same things our smart speakers do today. Plus: it's the birthday of Dr. Mark Dean, a computing pioneer who helped create some of the most important technology we have, and also saw the future of technology quite a few times.&nbsp...

People like to collect all kinds of things, but Mark Davis had a collection that even he thought was a little unusual: cassettes containing the music and announcements that Kmart stores used to play over their speaker systems, complete with announcements from "KMRT - Kmart Radio." Plus: on National Pig Day, a story about a pig in the 70s who had an unusual job.  Hear that? It's the sound of K...

In warm months, we can open the window and let in fresh air - only that can also let in a lot of outdoor noise, too. A special sound-absorbing window design from a team at the National University of Singapore might let the air in without all the extra noise. Plus: firefighters in Medina, Ohio, rescue turtles and tortoises with some special equipment.  Novel window design reduces outdoor noise...

Physarum polycephalum is pretty smart for a slime mold. It can find its way back to the places where food had previously been even though it doesn't have a nervous system. Researchers in Germany have just figured out how this organism does it. Plus: American Beatlemania may have begun in February 1964, but George Harrison made a nice, quiet trip to southern Illinois the previous fall.  A memo...

Lasso is a prototype for an in-home recycling system. Instead of dropping your recyclables on the curb, you'd put them in the machine, to be scanned, cleaned and broken down into the raw materials that companies buy to make new cans and bottles. Plus: meet AI Art House, a site selling wall art designed by software trying to emulate some of the all time great (human) painters.  Lasso Is A Robo...

Today in 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived in Washington, having been snuck into the city to avoid a plot against his life in Baltimore. Kate Warne, the first women detective in America, was key to getting him there safely. Plus: Alex Trebek's family has donated some of the late Jeopardy! host's suits for a very fitting cause.  Pinkerton Spy, Feminist Icon (Crimereads) The woman w...

It's true, a researcher at Purdue University and her team trained four pigs on how to use a joystick and play a video game. Pigs are pretty smart, after all. Plus: if you're in need of hugs these days but aren't able to get them safely from other humans, the robot named HuggieBot 2.0 might be able to help.  Pigs show potential for ‘remarkable’ level of behavioral, mental flexibility in new st...

This week we're replaying some of our sweetest episodes of all time. In this episode from November 2020, we marked National Candy Day, and the day after Election Day, with a visit to the back row of the U.S. Senate chamber, where, for over half a century,  senators have kept a desk drawer filled with candy to share with colleagues. Plus: in Japan, candy is also fine art, thanks to the practic...

This week we're replaying some of our sweetest episodes of all time. In this episode from December 2019, researchers in Switzerland say they’ve found a way to change the color of  chocolate, and without adding any colors or dyes to it. Instead, they  use a special imprint to give it a glowing, rainbow-y patina. Plus: the annual PeepsFest is getting underway, and they're going to do a bal...

This week we're replaying some of our sweetest episodes of all time. In this episode from October 2019 we marked National Candy Corn Day. While no candy gets more hassle around Halloween time than candy corn, it also has its fans. I mean, someone's eating those 9 billion pieces produced each year. Plus: a haunted house in Utah with an unforgettably creepy name. The Saccharine History of Candy...

This week we're replaying some of our sweetest episodes of all time. In this episode from June 2019, when I was traveling to Buffalo, New York for a book event, I decided to celebrate one of the city's beloved foods: sponge candy. Meanwhile, an ice cream shop in Buffalo has done what you might expect an ice cream shop in Buffalo to do: add Buffalo sauce to the ice cream. Buffalo sponge candy (Atla...

This week we're replaying some of our sweetest episodes of all time. In this episode from April 2019, we look at Peeps, which are the stuff of candy and cultural legend. Not only are there billions of them produced, eaten and/or used in dioramas every year, there's a PeepsMobile, a converted Volkswagen Beetle with a giant yellow Peep on top, and there's PeepResearch.org - an entire website devoted...

Today is the anniversary of the release in 1954 of the classic monster movie “Creature From The Black Lagoon.” The woman who designed the creature, Milicent Patrick, was almost forgotten, but film lovers and fans have been working to make sure her story is told. Plus: for those who find working from home isn't really working, Japan has a solution that's increasingly popular: an office-in-a-box kno...

New research shows certain types of male butterflies can create an anti-pheromone they cover their partners in, hoping that the smelly chemical will ward off other males. Definitely not the most thoughtful Valentine's Day gift ever. Plus: data analysis shows the language people use about their relationships can predict a breakup months before it happens!  Butterflies Mark Their Mates To Repel...

Frost damage is a growing problem for fruit growers, but a team at Washington State University has developed a cellulose nanocrystal coating that can insulate the buds of grapes and cherries and keep them safe during cold snaps. Plus: a meteorologist who worked in Antarctica just got back the wallet he accidentally left there more than half a century ago.  Cellulose nanocrystals insulate crop...

Millions of people are wearing masks these days to protect themselves and others. And researchers in Australia have found a way to reuse those single-use, disposable masks to make new roads. Plus: it's National Pizza Day, so here's a very geometry-heavy way to slice up a pizza and still make it equal for two eaters.  Used face masks can make roads: Aust study (The West Australian)  The P...

Building new schools can take lots of time and money, but a new initiative has developed a construction method using 3D printing that they say can put an entire classroom together in a week or less. Plus: a new photo project is recreating great images from fine art and pop culture, but with all the people and characters replaced by hot dogs! The schools of the future can be built in less than a we...