Cool Weird Awesome With Brady Carlson

It's the 243rd birthday of the United States, and we've done a lot of celebrating over those years. But what were people doing on the Fourth of July before American independence? One of the most interesting stories is from July 4, 1054 - in China. Plus: check out  a different kind of July 4th celebration - the Sidewalk Egg Frying Challenge in Oatman, Arizona!  Supernova 1054 - Creation of the Crab Nebula (SEDS)  Sidewalk Egg Frying Challenge in Oatman, Arizona  Celebrate America's best podcast on July 4th by backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon!    --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Smart glasses are a thing! Not augmented reality, but an actual pair of glasses that can sense what we're trying to look at and make it easier to see it clearly as our eyes age and lose some of their ability to focus.  Plus:  the National Paper Doll Convention begins today with the theme of “Mystery, Murder and Mayhem.” I'd like to know what kind of mayhem a convention full of paper doll enthusiasts can cause.  Stanford develops ‘autofocals’ – glasses that track your eyes to focus on what you see (Stanford University) National Paper Doll Convention   See your way over to back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

On this day in 1982, a dude named Larry Walters entered aviation history as the pilot of a craft called Inspiration I - which was a lawn chair attached to 42 large weather balloons. Plus:  the story of some high school students in Toronto, Ontario, who used a weather balloon to launch a Lego figure into near space.  Up, Up, and Away! Did Larry Walters soar above Los Angeles in a lawn chair attached to helium weather balloons? (Snopes)  Teens Put Lego Man in 'Space' (Actually Stratosphere)    Back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon and help it, um, fly!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Researchers at Rutgers University have developed a system to unprint the printing on standard printer paper, in a way that uses less energy and material than the conventional paper recycling process.  Plus: the new Medi-Teddy aims to make a trip to the hospital a little more fun - or at least a little less scary - for kids, and the inventor is a kid herself.  New Unprinting Method Can Help Recycle Paper and Curb Environmental Costs (Rutgers)   12 Year Old Girl Invents an Adorable Teddy Bear That Hides IV Bags Making Infusions Less Scary to Children (Laughing Squid)  Cool Weird Awesome is listener powered. Thanks to our backers on Patreon!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

A team at Technion–Israel Institute of Technology developed a way to use medical glue to bind human tissue together instead of stitches and medical pins. They heat it up using, essentially, a hot glue gun - one that they hopefully don't leave in with their craft supplies. Plus:  the World Egg Throwing Championship is back in the UK community of Swaton, Lincolnshire!   Technion team develops medical glue to replace stitches in serious injuries (Times of Israel)  World Egg Throwing Championship  Backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon is all it's cracked up to be! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

I'm traveling to Buffalo, New York for a book event today, so I thought I'd 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 (Atlas Obscura) A treat with heat: Lake Effect Ice Cream unveils wing-sauce flavor (Buffalo News) Make more Cool Weird Awesome as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias could do it all - she was an Olympic gold medalist, champion golfer, basketball and baseball player, vaudeville performer, celebrity and more. Once she won the US national track and field championships by herself - as in, she was a team of one and beat teams that had over a dozen athletes. Plus:  check out the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence Race, a footrace that manages cover 3,100 miles but just one city block.  Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (WomensHistory.org)  "Babe Didrikson at the 1932 Olympic Games" by Lindsay Parks Pieper, from the book Replays, Rivalries, and Rumbles: The Most Iconic Moments in American Sports Babe Didrikson (Famous Texans) Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence: The 3,100-mile race around a New York block (BBC) Back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon! It's a lot easier than running a 3,100 mile race.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Today is #BourdainDay, where we celebrate Anthony Bourdain's enthusiasm for traveling, eating, learning and especially for going off the beaten path to really get to know people and recipes and places. In that spirit, we talk about food trucks with personalities big enough to match their culinary skills. Plus: a team at Delta Airlines made a barbecue grill into the side of a jet engine. Now that's travel food. 12 Weird And Wonderful Food Trucks (Car Buzz)  This BBQ Grill Is Built Into a Jet Engine (Technabob) Back Cool Weird Awesome for just $1 a month on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The Curiosity Rover takes selfies on Mars - so how does it do it without having its robot arm in the foreground of every shot? Plus: the University of St. Andrews teaches grey seals to sing the "Star Wars" theme. For research. Why Don’t We See the Curiosity Rover’s Arm When it Takes a Selfie? (Universe Today) Curiosity Rover Report (June 13, 2013): Curiosity's Cameras (NASA on YouTube)  Grey seals copy human speech and music (University of St. Andrews) Back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon today. It is your destiny!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Earlier this month a prototype mower in Germany set a new world record by going from zero to 100 miles an hour in 6.29 seconds… while still cutting grass! Not bad for an invention that's not even 200 years old. Plus: this weekend is the grand finale of the annual Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest in New York City, which is... exactly what its name suggests. Lawnmower sets acceleration speed record in Germany (UPI)  The History Of The American Lawnmower (CBS News) A Brief History of the Lawnmower (Popular Mechanics) British Lawnmower Museum   The 2019 Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest   We will let you on our lawn if you back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Bycatch is what fishing boats catch that they're not trying to catch. It's bad for them, their nets and the bycatch - especially for turtles, which are difficult to disentangle from gillnets. But new research suggests illuminating nets with LED lights may warn turtles away and reduce bycatch. Plus:  the floating ball challenge is a sight to behold: a boxer keeping a 20 pound medicine ball floating on the power of his punches. Illuminated Nets Could Provide A Brighter Future For Sea Turtles (NOAA)  Floating Medicine Ball (The Awesomer)  Back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon today!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Juneteenth is the annual celebration of the end of the institution of slavery. Today we give some props to the African-Americans who have built the holiday over the year, including the Texan-turned-San Franciscan who used to don his ten-gallon hat and ride his horse through town as part of the festivities. Plus: if you like celebrations, why not try the Midnight Sun Festival in Nome, Alaska? It's the kind of party that would go on all night... if they had night this time of year.  What Is Juneteenth? (PBS)   Late to Freedom's Party, Texans Spread Word of Black Holiday (New York Times) Emancipation Park (City of Houston, Texas) Nome Midnight Sun Festival (Alaska.org) Celebrate Cool Weird Awesome as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Guitar great Peter Frampton starts his farewell concert tour, which means if you want to hear him use that famous voice box in “Do You Feel Like We Do," now's the time to do it. How does that talk box work, anyway? Plus: meet Ahmed Ali, a graduation speaker in Minneapolis with a very unique voice.  How Talk Boxes Work (HowStuffWorks) Retro Guitar Effects: Meet the Sonovox, Grandfather of the Talk Box (Guitar World) A first for MPS as 21-year-old gives unique graduation speech (KARE11) If you want to tell us you love our way, back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The  University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology - known better as the Penn Museum - needed to move its most famous object, a 3,000 year old Egyptian sphinx, from a gallery to the main hall as part of a renovation project. The move was only 300 feet - but the sphinx happens to weigh 12.5 tons - so it took three days to get from point A to point B. Plus: a regional minister in Pakistan livestreamed his news conference on social media... with the cat filter accidentally turned on.  A monumental move for the Penn Museum’s iconic sphinx (University of Pennsylvania)   Pakistani politician livestreams press conference with 'cat filter' on by mistake (Telegraph UK)   Our backers are monumental! Support this show on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Sorry, Simpsons fans: the world's greatest burper is neither "The Critic" Jay Sherman nor Eudora Welty, but an Italian guy in a wrestling mask who calls himself Rutt Mysterio. Plus: for Father's Day weekend, the story of the only time in big league history when father and son hit back-to-back home runs. Longest burp (Guinness World Records)  This undisputed burping master will blow your mind away (YouTube)  Sept. 14, 1990: When the Griffeys made history with back-to-back homers (The Sporting News) Be as cool as a cool dad when you back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The Songwriters Hall of Fame is inducting Yusuf Cat Stevens for his classic, mostly acoustic songs like "Moonshadow," "Peace Train" and "Wild World." But did you also know that Yusuf Cat Stevens was a pioneer in electronic music with his 1977 song "Was Dog A Doughnut?" Plus: Avon, Ohio, the Duct Tape Capital of the World, is kicking off this year's Avon Heritage Duct Tape Festival today.  Key Tracks: Cat Stevens’ “Was Dog a Doughnut?” (Red Bull Music Academy)   Avon Heritage Duck Tape Festival Cool Weird Awesome is being followed by a moonshadow - and it's backed by listeners like you on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Autonomous robot boats are a thing! Over time, researchers have taught them to row themselves gently down the stream and to connect to each other autonomously - soon they could help clean the water or even turn themselves into temporary footbridges. Plus: a band in Mexico knew just what to do when the mall they were playing in started to flood. Celine would have been proud.  Autonomous boats can target and latch onto each other (MIT)  As heavy rain floods shopping center, musicians play Titanic theme (Mexico News Daily) Keep Cool Weird Awesome exciting and new as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

We may be taking a big step forward in the effort to stop food waste!  A research team at Imperial College London has developed food freshness sensors that can be embedded in the packaging of meat and fish and detect the gases that show up when food spoils. Plus: if you like sensors, check out the  2019 Sensors Expo and Conference later this month in San Jose, California. It's even got an awards show! Food freshness sensors could replace ‘use-by’ dates to cut food waste (Imperial College London)  Sensors Expo and Conference 2019   I sense you want to back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Last week Southern California saw a bloom of ladybugs so big it showed up on radar! As it turns out, there's a whole field of science called aeroecology that's using our increasingly accurate radar to track insects, birds and bats. Plus: ladybugs have had a lot of names over the years, including - for whatever reason - bishops!  High-flying ladybug swarm shows up on National Weather Service radar (Los Angeles Times)   'Aeroecology' uses radar to track flying animals (BBC)  Meteorologist reveals cause of colorful 100-mile-wide "cloud" over Denver (CBS News) Why Birds Make Weird Circles on Weather Radars (Vice)  Ladybirds, ladybugs, and… cows? (Oxford Dictionaries) Let's make a swarm of support for Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon!    --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Today is the start of the Banana Split Festival in Wilmington, Ohio, where the banana split was born. Of course, if you were in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, locals would point out their town had banana splits three years before Wilmington. Plus: the mind-melting TV show known as the Banana Splits Adventure Hour was actually supposed to have an entirely different name! Wilmington Banana Split Festival   Birthplace of the Banana Split (Ohio Magazine) The Banana Split: A Rich History (Pennsylvania Center for the Book)  10 tra la la true facts about the Banana Splits (MeTV)   Backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon is sweet! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message