Cool Weird Awesome With Brady Carlson

Today we pay a visit to Athens, Georgia - specifically, the intersection of South Finley and Dearing Street. That’s where you’ll find something unusual: The Tree That Owns Itself. Plus: a Japanese design company has created a 3D-printed bonsai, which you can prune once and looks the way you want forever... as long as you don't mind that it's not an actual tree.  A Tree That Owns Itself? (Farmers Almanac) Nendo's 3D-printed bonsai tree does away with need for meticulous maintenance (Dezeen) Don't leaf us without backing the show on Patreon  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Egyptian fruit bats are known to make a lot of noise while they’re roosting. Scientists at Tel Aviv University have determined that a lot of that noise is bats getting annoyed at other bats. Plus: scientists studying endangered bats in Cuba tag them in a very fancy way, with little bat-manicures! Study of bat vocalizations shows they are communicating with one another (Phys.org) Scientists Gave One of the World’s Rarest Bats a Manicure to Help Save It (Earther) When the bats aren't bickering, they're urging you to back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The Soundshirt from high-tech fashion company Cute Circuit has embedded sensors that can sense sound and turn it into vibrations. In other words, it helps deaf people feel music.  And since we're talking about sounds, have you heard the Tiptree Sneeze, where a trombonist let loose in the middle of a concert?  The Soundshirt lets deaf people feel music on their skin (designboom) Man sneezes into his trombone during concert - Tiptree sneeze (YouTube) Tiptree trombone sneeze man tells of 'freak event' (BBC) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

For decades fans of the band KISS have called themselves the KISS Army. But now that they're set to play a concert off the coast of Australia for human and sharks fans, maybe there’s also a KISS Navy? Plus: in Oklahoma, the annual Honobia Bigfoot Festival is getting underway. Kiss to Jump the Shark for Underwater Concert With Great Whites in South Australia (The Wrap) Honobia Bigfoot Festival You were made for backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The Smart Can is a motorized, automated trash bin that will drive itself to the curb every week. Which means it's already more motivated about garbage day than I've ever been. Plus: the pinball festival known as PinBaltimore is getting underway in Maryland.  New Automated Trash Can Drives Itself to the Curb on Trash Day (Interesting Engineering)  PinBaltimore It's smart to back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The 7-10 split is the hardest show in bowling, right? Well, an analysis from 2015 put that to the test - and the results were pretty surprising. Plus: an exhibit at New York's Hall of Science includes more than 100 classic works of art recreated with Legos.  What's the Hardest Shot in Bowling? It's Complicated (Wired) See Lego Versions of the World’s Most Famous Art at New York Hall of Science (Untapped Cities) Backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon really ties the room together --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Gavin and Alice Munro run a furniture farm in England. That's right, rather than turning trees into lumber and using that to make chairs, tables and sofas, they shape living trees into furniture, to be more sustainable. Plus: today marks 15 years since the city of Melbourne dedicated a street in honor of the band AC/DC.  UK Couple Growing Furniture On Farm (Huffington Post) Bon Scott sculpture cranks up the rock in Melbourne's AC/DC Lane (Sydney Morning Herald) Backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon is something you can do dirt cheap --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

A mission to Mars would take years of travel - but today's space food doesn't last long enough. Scientists at Washington State University are working on a way to sterilize and pack food that can last 3-5 years, which is good for astronauts and for any of us who want to survive the zombie apocalypse. Plus: why a man in Vermont just put up a large wooden statue of a raised middle finger.  Getting mac and cheese to Mars (Washington State University) Westford resident gives town the middle finger—and there's nothing anyone can do about it (Burlington Free Press) Give Cool Weird Awesome a thumbs-up as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The small community of Casey, Illinois is home to the Big Things In A Small Town project - and this weekend someone will win a chance to sit in the world's largest rocking chair. Plus: tomorrow in Boulder City, Nevada, it’s the Wurst Festival. I’m not mocking the event, that's its name.  Here’s your chance to sit on the World’s Largest Rocking Chair, one of many giant attractions in a tiny Illinois town (Roadtrippers) Our Annual Würst Festival Fundraiser  It's the best when you back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Richard "Dixie" Blandy called himself the greatest flagpole sitter of all time - they say he spent more time atop flagpoles than most flags. Plus: the Great Basin Astronomy Festival today gets underway, with unusually dark skies and, to our knowledge, no flagpole sitters to obstruct the view. Among Dayton’s colorful characters, he stood above rest (Dayton Daily News) A 1971 pole-sitting champ on the great loneliness of sitting on a pole for 8 months (Splinter News) Great Basin Astronomy Festival (Travel Nevada) Would we sit on a flagpole for your support on Patreon? Yeah, probably. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

UCLA is testing a brain implant that takes the images captured by a tiny camera and converts them into electrical impulses that stimulate the part of the brain responsible for sight. It helps blind people detect darkness and lightness, as well as sensing motion. Plus: tomorrow in London, Kentucky, the 30th annual World Chicken Festival gets underway, and it includes the World’s Largest Stainless Steel Skillet.  Brain implant restores visual perception to the blind (UCLA) The origin of the iconic World's Largest Stainless Steel Skillet (Sentinel-Echo) Back Cool Weird Awesome for just $1 a month on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The Straw Vinyl project has lined up some high-profile bands to release limited-edition vinyl records that are made out of plastic harvested from old straws. Then your hipster friends can say they were into keeping straws out of landfills before it was cool. Plus: in London, there's a commemorative manhole cover on the site where sewer authorities vanquished the infamous Whitechapel fatberg.,  Bacardi just found the best use for plastic straws ever—turn them into vinyl records (Fast Company) 'Monster' Whitechapel fatberg unveiled at London museum (BBC) The Whitechapel Fatberg Has Its Own Hidden Memorial (Londonist) You can turn your support on Patreon into new episodes of this show!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

We always celebrate great space achievements, why not also commemorate some great space screwups? This month marks 60 years since the first time a spacecraft tried to land on the moon but crashed instead. Plus: Mount Airy, NC, where Andy Griffith grew up, is hosting the 30th annual Mayberry Days this week.  India’s Chandrayaan-2 Marks 60 Years of Moon Crashes and Hard Landings (New York Times) Mayberry Days Keep Cool Weird Awesome climbing as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The weWALK is a smart cane for blind pedestrians, with ultrasonic sensors to detect obstacles ahead and Google Maps connections to navigate through and describe the surrounding area. Plus: if you like pickles, the Big Dill festival is back this weekend in Baltimore.  Blind inventor creates 'smart cane' that uses google maps to navigate visually impaired people (designboom) Baltimore’s Little-Known Pickle History Celebrated at New Festival (Baltimore Magazine) Back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon for just $1 a month! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Today in 1975 the BBC aired the first episode of “Fawlty Towers,” a landmark comedy series that was - amazingly - received about as poorly by TV executive and the public as Basil Fawlty’s appalling attitude was received by guests at his hotel. How did it finally get its due? Plus: AC/DC songs can get the bison of Yellowstone National Park. For bison about to rock, we salute you? Fawlty Towers: the classic sitcom the BBC didn’t want (Telegraph) I'm afraid I thought this one as dire as its title (Letters of Note) Cops Blast AC/DC to Get the Reluctant Bison Moving Out of the Road and It Works Like a Charm (TIME) Backing Cool Weird Awesome is a much better use of your money than giving it to Lord Melbury --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Paintings made with Day Glo paint - some by well-known and influential artists - are losing their glow over time. Conservationists don't yet know how to solve this puzzle, but we do at least know how Day Glo got started. Plus: meet a color that absorbs 99.995 percent of incoming light. Even Nigel Tufnel would say that's pretty black.  Day-Glo masterpieces are fading. A conservator and her team are racing to save them (Los Angeles Times) How DayGlo Went From Utility Pigment to Design World Darling (AIGA Eye on Design) Engineers Just Unveiled a New Blackest-Ever Material, Even Darker Than Vantablack (Science Alert) Make life more colorful when you back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Feel the Peel is a big automated juicing machine that turns discarded orange peels into bioplastic cups. Although if you don't have the cup until you juice the orange, how do you drink the first cup's worth of juice? Plus: a new restaurant in London called Pick & Cheese puts you in front of a long conveyor belt that brings you 25 different types of cheese, paired with condiments!  A Giant Circular Juice Machine That Turns Discarded Peels of Squeezed Oranges Into 3D Printed Juice Cups (Laughing Squid) This Restaurant Has a Cheese Conveyor Belt (Food & Wine) Backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon is even sweeter than a fresh cup of orange juice --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The so-called quiet life on the farm is actually one of the most high-tech places on earth. As envisioned by the University of Kentucky research team, drones could fly above cow herds as they graze, learn which cow is which, and visually check each cow so see if they’re healthy. Plus: someone invented a decoy computer keyboard for cats to sit on so they don't sit on your actual keyboard, which is purr-fect.  Drones on the farm: Using facial recognition to keep cows healthy (CNet) This heated fake keyboard was designed to fool your cat (Boing Boing) Backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon is even better for you than drinking milk.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

It's the 50th anniversary of the premiere of “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” That’s right, the Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby have been setting traps, being danger prone, dropping glasses, making gigantic sandwiches and solving mysteries for a half-century. But originally the show was going to be VERY different. Plus: Lake Lure, NC is hosting the Dirty Dancing Festival starting today. If you go, I hope you have the time of your life.  “Like, yeah. We’ve been teenagers forever:” The Evolution of Scooby-Doo’s “Meddling Kids” (24 Frames of Silver) Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thousand Characters  Dirty Dancing Festival I swear it's the truth, we owe Cool Weird Awesome all to you, our Patreon backers --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

There's work out of the University of Arizona that says solar arrays can be even more efficient if you grow food underneath the panels. And no, the panels don't block the plants from growing by taking all the sun. Plus: Chandler, Arizona is hosting the Rockin' Taco Street Fest, which finally combines the goodness of tacos with lucha libre pro wrestling.  Crops under solar panels can be a win-win (Ars Technica) Rockin' Taco Street Fest It's always sunny for Cool Weird Awesome backers on Patreon --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message