Cool Weird Awesome with Brady Carlson

Michelangelo’s David has been one of the best-known works of art for centuries because of its extraordinary detail. Last week we learned it may be even more detailed than we knew. Plus: Clean the World has been collecting, sterilizing and recycling all those old hotel room soaps into new bars, which are sent to people in need all over the world.  A Medical Insight in Michelangelo's David, 'Hi...

Obviously one large pizza gets you more than one medium or one small, but what if you’re offered one of those deals where you could get two mediums for a special price? A bold group of pizza researchers studied how you can get the most pizza for your money. Plus: meet the Cocoa Press, the 3D printer for chocolate the world has always needed, even if we didn't realize we needed it.  One 18″ Pi...

In South Africa, a construction company has started producing and using a more eco-friendly asphalt that contains plastic pellets that come from recycled milk bottles. Plus: meet a mayor in Texas who’s bringing a VERY fresh perspective to the job.  South Africa's Roads Are Being Repaved by Recycled Plastic Milk Bottles (Interesting Engineering) America's youngest mayor takes a bath (TYWKIWDBI...

Bruins defenseman Eddie Shore missed his team's train from Boston to Montreal for a must-win game against the Canadiens. So he did what anyone would do: drove 350 miles in a blizzard without a windshield to get there. Plus: DriveTanks in Uvalde, Texas, puts you in charge of a Chieftain MKG tank, though car crushing and flamethrowers are extra.  How Eddie Shore's Legendary Toughness Extended O...

For years, on New Year’s Day, Americans could go the White House and shake hands with the president. It's a tradition that went back to John Adams and the early days of the Executive Mansion. Plus: starting the new year by ending an old relationship? Meet the Breakup Lightbulb!  The White House New Year’s Day Reception (Feather Foster) Single Woman Creates Light Bulb Device That Turns on When...

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 ball drop for New Year's with a giant Peep!  Making chocolate colourful (ETH Zurich) PeepsFest Happy New Year to ev...

In the future, gardeners won’t need backyards or containers or garden plots to grow plants anymore. They’ll just need a vest! Plus: There’s a partnership between Cartoon Network and a school called Exceptional Minds, which is a digital arts school for students with autism. This wearable vest grows you personal crops—fertilized just for you by your own waste (Fast Company) Cartoon Network Partners...

Eight years ago Samoa skipped a day on the calendar, owing to the International Date Line and some business involving its key trading partners. There just wasn't a December 30th, 2011 there! Plus: why break your back shoveling snow when you can design a radio-controlled snowplow to do the work for you?  Samoa to skip Friday, lose December 30th 2011 forever (Christian Science Monitor)  Gu...

There’s a Facebook group/Instagram account called UPS Dogs, and it collects and shares photos of the pups that delivery drivers meet (and usually befriend) on their routes, especially the ones they see regularly. Which is completely and utterly adorable. Plus: meet the world’s smallest inhabited island, with an appropos name of Just Room Enough Island. How a UPS driver used dogs on his route to ma...

Remember the beer fridge from our first episode, that two men found after a long weekend of cleaning up flood damage? The Lincoln Journal-Star has checked back in with the owner and the finders to get the latest chapter in the beer fridge story. Plus: Prince Charles owns a car that runs on wine - and, he says, "it smells delicious as you’re driving along."  Viral and vital: The Nebraska beer...

People can celebrate Christmas the way any way they like, no matter how far it strays from those common paths. We share a few unusual but enjoyable places with their own special traditions for December 25th.  Tiny town of Christmas, Fla., is home to Swampy, World's Largest Alligator  (Southern Thing) The Magical Place Near Cleveland Where It’s Christmas Year-Round (Only In Your State) Wa...

Santa Claus stuffing a terrified kid into his bag of presents? Creepy monsters chasing people? A Christmas dinner come to life, with utensils as legs? Meet some of the many terrifying designs for Christmas cards back in the Victorian era. Plus: today is the anniversary of Earthrise, the iconic photo taken by the Apollo 8 crew as they orbited the moon.  Have a Creepy Little Christmas with Thes...

Take the Hanukkah favorite, dreidel, and turn the intensity way, way up. Now you've got Major League Dreidel, a growing new sport in New York City. Plus: an agency in Nova Scotia decided people needed a break from ads this season, and released some ad-free ads.  Competitive Dreidel-Spinning Is a Thing. Here's How Major League Dreidel Got Started. (Civilized) Creative agency buys $10k of blank...

As we get ready for the official start of winter, it's worth noting that some of us deal with this time of year in unusual ways. Like the people of Winnipeg, Manitoba, who spend their cold, cold winters drinking Slurpees. Plus: on this Star Wars premiere day, a visit to a German observatory painted to look like R2-D2.  How One of Canada's Coldest Cities Became the Slurpee Capital of the World...

You’ve heard about making cars smarter, but what about smarter intersections? Cornell researchers find that making intersections more autonomous could help get self-driving cars where they want to go more efficiently. Plus: on the anniversary of the last day of the last Apollo mission to the moon, how about a trip to the Museum of the Moon, now visiting Philadelphia? Smart intersections could cut...

An increasing number of museums are offering EnChroma corrective glasses to visitors with color blindness, to bring more color to the world of art and those who enjoy it. Plus: a museum in London is exhibiting a disposable cup from 3,500 years ago, proving that from our earliest times, we’ve been trying to avoid doing the dishes. When Colorblind Visitors Put On These Glasses, The Art At The MCA Lo...

Today marks 30 years since the first episode of “The Simpsons” aired, and so we pay tribute to the house Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie call home - not to mention a real-life, 3D version of the place in Nevada. Plus: the closest real-life town to Springfield, USA isn't a Springfield at all.  Duff beers, colorful walls and THAT saggy couch: Inside the real-life Simpsons house that was bui...

Fruitcake is one holiday tradition that's not for everybody, we know that, but those who love it, love it - like the Ford family in Michigan, which has kept a single fruitcake as an heirloom for over 140 years. Plus: if fruitcake is so infamous, why are there two towns that want to be known as the fruitcake capital of the world?  For Tecumseh family, 141-year-old fruitcake represents love (De...

TubaChristmas is an annual concert tradition in which musicians gather to play festive music exclusively on tubas, baritone horns, sousaphones and and euphoniums. We'll explain how Christmas got so tuba-ey. Plus: Stan Freese got so into his tuba that he decorated the tree in his yard with the horns.  For a shining moment a year, tubas get spotlight (New York Times)   About TubaChristmas...

Many communities put down road salt in winter. It can make the roads safer, but too much salt is bad for the environment and for the roads themselves. Scientists at Washington State University may have found a better way to take the ice off the roads: grapes. Plus: meet the creepiest instrument ever, a baby doll head theremin!  Sustaining roads with grape and agricultural waste (Washington St...

Today marks one hundred years since the community of Enterprise, Alabama, put up a very special monument in the middle of town: a statue of a Greek woman holding a boll weevil, an invasive pest that had ruined the local cotton crop. Wait, what? Plus: meet the most destructive holiday force ever, Treezilla!  Boll Weevil Honored (Library of Congress) Treezilla! The Godzilla Christmas Tree (Stev...

If you want a good party, you need the right soundtrack: researchers set up underwater loudspeakers in dead sections of the Great Barrier Reef, and playing sounds of healthy reefs attracted twice as many fish as areas where there was no sound. Plus: Pocatello, Idaho will give you something to smile about today. It's the law there.  Underwater Loudspeakers Make Fish Flock to Dead Coral in Radi...

There are tens of thousands of pieces of space debris orbiting the Earth. We've tried a few different ways to bring them back down over the years. Plus: in Huddleston, Virginia, a giant hay sculpture of a country music legend. Meet Will-hay Nelson!  ESA commissions world’s first space debris removal (European Space Agency) To Clean Up Space Junk, Some People Grabbed a Net and Harpoon (Wired)...

Today in 1877 the Washington Post published its first edition. It brought us landmark coverage of Watergate, and John Philip Sousa named a march for it. But the Post's biggest achievement is helping to create the teddy bear. Plus: this weekend in Ashland, Nebraska, Santa Goes To Space!  Political Cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman and the Origin of the Teddy Bear (Theodore Roosevelt Center) Sant...

The chessboard known as Square Off works if your opponent is nearby or not, because it can use Bluetooth technology to move the pieces for them on your board, and your pieces on theirs. Ron Weasley would be impressed. Plus: you haven't heard "Jingle Bells" until you've heard "Jingle Bells" played on a comb. World’s Smartest Chess Board Lets You Move Physical Pieces Without Touching Them (Oddity Ce...