Cool Weird Awesome with Brady Carlson

There's a new medical startup called Cast 21, and, as startups do, they’re looking to disrupt those traditional plaster cast paradigms and make a cast so flexible that wearers could even go swimming. Plus: for National Cookie Day, we pay a virtual visit to the National Cookie Cutter HIstorical Museum in Joplin, Missouri.  Waterproof cast lets patients swim with broken bones (Yahoo Sports) &nb...

It was 48 years ago today that kids first got to play the video game Oregon Trail - the invention of three student teachers from Minnesota who ended up changing video game history without realizing it. Plus: a hospital in San Antonio, Texas marks the holiday season by sending all its December newborns home in red and white hats… and stockings! Oregon Trail: How three Minnesotans forged its path (C...

It was the giveaway to end all giveaways - 70 years ago almost to the day, a store in Oregon advertised a drawing for a baby. How the heck did this actually happen? Plus: it's December and a good way to enjoy the season is a little thing called ice bumper cars.  Free baby? 70 years ago Fred Meyer had a strange giveaway for a store opening (KGW) Toilet seats, gall bladders and eight of the wei...

In 1953 Swanson had several hundred tons of leftover Thanksgiving turkey  - so they created the TV Dinner and changed how we eat. Plus: the 40th annual Holiday Cave Sing is this weekend at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  The Rise and Fall of the TV Dinner (Cheddar on YouTube) Mammoth Cave hosts 40th annual holiday cave sing Dec. 1  (WDRB) If you want to sing out, sing out, and if you wan...

This holiday edition of Cool Weird Awesome celebrates that for which we are all most grateful: the bewildering foods that inexplicably become part of our annual Thanksgiving dinners, from "seafoam salad" to "tunies" to hot dog chunks warmed up in pizza sauce. Plus: holiday lights are coming, and "Peteyville" in Hammond, Indiana is one of the best and brightest displays you'll find.  i cannot...

Maker and woodworker Tim Sway built a guitar out of reclaimed nails - which he calls the "Tetanuscaster." Plus: the It's A Wonderful Life Festival is in full swing in Jimmy Stewart's hometown!  Guitar Made of Nails (Tim Sway on YouTube) So Metal: An Electric Guitar Made Out Of Reclaimed Nails (Geekologie) It’s A Wonderful Life Festival  

Researchers at Penn State University have created liquid-entrenched smooth surface, or LESS. Why? To coat our toilets. Why? So stuff can't stick to them. Why? To save water, which we use by the tens of billions of gallons each day just to re-flush that stuck stuff. Why? Because life is unfair sometimes. Plus: Twitter minus words, videos, pictures and links is a pretty amazing thing, judging by the...

The busiest travel season of the year is getting underway, so here's a story about a vehicle right out of Richard Scarry’s Busytown: the Big Banana Car, which is a 15 foot long banana with four seats on the frame of a Ford F-150. Plus: the Volkspod is a motor scooter made with upcycled parts from old-school Volkswagen Beetles!  BigBananaCar.com Michigan trooper pulls over banana car, gives dr...

Some research suggests those plastic tops for disposable coffee cups make up five percent of the millions of tons of plastic waste that end up in the ocean each year. The Unocup aims to do something about that. It's a paper cup that folds up to become its own top! Plus: there's goat yoga and alpaca yoga, but Zoo Miami may top them all with its new Yoga With The Rhinos program. The coffee cup gets...

The nefarious filbertworm is trying to infest our hazelnut supply! Researchers at the University of Oregon think the solution might lie with pigs. Plus: the Ebo is a little ball-shaped robot that will play with your cat when you're not home.  Biology Major Recruits Hogs to Help Hazelnuts (University of Oregon) This Smart Robot Is Designed to Keep Your Cat Happy and Healthy While You’re Gone (...

This week marks 50 years since the Apollo 12 mission, the second time humans went to the moon and the first time we launched an artificial earthquake there. Plus: one of the two moonwalkers painted a picture that included their command module pilot on the lunar ground.  Crash Site Of The Apollo 12 Ascent Module Possibly Found After Almost 50 Years (Bad Astronomy)  Conrad, Gordon and Bean...

Today is the 60th anniversary of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, so in their honor, here's a real life moose who inadvertently helped foil a crime. Plus: a woman in Sacramento puts out a public call for her missing domesticated squirrel, Squeakers. Wandering moose stolen vehicle (CBC) ‘I just need my baby’: Sacramento woman offers reward for missing squirrel, Squeakers (Sacramento Bee) All alumn...

November 18, 1883 is when railroads across the United States adopted a uniform system of time, more or less getting all of us in sync with each other. But what was time like before then? Plus: Japan has had cat cafes, hedgehog cafes and bunny cafes. Now there's a minipig cafe!  Time! (Library of Congress) Standard Time Zones In U.S. Mark 100 Years (New York Times)   The Adoption of Stand...

Underwater photos are usually greenish or blueish and the brighter colors are washed out. An engineer and oceanographer has come up with an algorithm she calls Sea-thru that can bring those colors back into the image. Plus: the Las Vegas Pizza Festival is about to get underway.  Sea-thru Brings Clarity to Underwater Photos (Scientific American) Las Vegas Pizza Festival Brighten your day when...

Who knew the Twilight Zone was a dimension not only of sight and sound but of canned laughter?!? The episode "Cavender is Coming" features Jesse White, Carol Burnett, and a laugh track the network thought might help lead to a spinoff series. (It didn't.) Plus: anybody want to fly in an airplane where the whole interior looks like a giant window?  Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone: A Backsta...

Stella the dog lives with a speech-language pathologist and has been using a soundboard to "say" several dozen words, raising hopes that someday the show "Dog With A Blog" may come to life. Plus: Quilty the cat likes to spend his nights freeing the other cats at the animal shelter.  A speech pathologist taught her dog Stella to 'speak' (CNN) Sly Escape Artist Shelter Cat 'Quilty' Who Will Not...

This is Geography Awareness Week, and on our  fascinating planet Mount Everest is the tallest mountain - but it's not  actually the highest point on earth. That's actually Mount Chimborazo,  in Ecuador. Plus: the community of New Baltimore, NY gets a spooky  purple makeover thanks to Google Maps. Mount Chimborazo is Actually the Highest Point on Earth (CN Traveler) The 20 Scari...

For Veterans Day, we have the story of Claude and Ruth Hensinger, who used the parachute that saved Claude's life during World War II to help build their lives and their 49 year marriage together.  The Wedding Dress That Dropped From The Sky (Patch) Dress, 1-Piece (Smithsonian Museum of American History)

Patti Page, aka the “Singing Rage,” was one of the biggest-selling pop singers of the 1950s. But later, she lived part-time on a farm in New Hampshire where she and her husband sold maple syrup. The bottles didn't just have her name on them; they included her voice! Plus: Skyline Chess turns the buildings in world cities into chess pieces and pits them against each other.  Patti Page: A Singi...

This meringue is just about the lightest dessert ever made. Based on the lightest substance in the world, Aerogel, it's about 96 percent air and a serving weighs about a gram. We guarantee you won’t think it's too filling. Plus: the story of a light-emitting fungus gnat in Brazil, which is maybe not as appetizing as the first story. World’s Lightest Dessert Is 96 Percent Air, Weighs Just One Gram...

Jeremy John Kaplan is the artist behind the Gold Nets Project, which has replaced hundreds of broken or missing nets with shiny golden ones, and encouraged local basketball players to think about stepping up and maintaining the courts too. Plus: the northern Georgia city of Dahlonega says it had a gold rush decades before the '49ers all raced to California.  An Artist Is Installing Hundreds o...

A great painting can turn your world upside down, especially if the painting is also upside down. We take a trip through the website Weird Universe's Gallery of Art Hung Upside Down. Plus: a 9 year old who can't stop doodling, even in class, is now a professional artist. He's paid to doodle.  The Gallery of Art Hung Upside-Down (Weird Universe) 9-Year-Old Kid Who Kept Getting In Trouble For D...

It’s time to celebrate 70 years of Clue, the invention of musician Anthony Pratt, who used to play piano for murder mystery nights at big mansions and thought, this would make a good board game! Plus: the movie "Clue" is well known for the on-camera antics of its amazing cast. But what did the actors do when the cameras weren't rolling?  The Game Clue Was Borne of Boredom During WWII Air-Raid...

Today in 1800 President John Adams moved into the White House, the first chief executive to live in what was then called the President’s Mansion. One of the house's most adorable stories - though possibly an apocryphal one - is the time in 1862 that Abraham Lincoln supposedly helped a couple elope. Plus: the New England WizardFest gets underway this weekend in Massachusetts. Mischief managed! Adam...

This isn’t just Halloween. It’s also the anniversary of the passing of the legendary illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini, who they say wanted to make the greatest escape of all time... from mortality. Hence why Bess Houdini held seances every Halloween, trying to pick up whatever signals her late husband might be sending out from the hereafter. Plus: the creepiest hike of all time!  T...