Awesome

Help make Weird Things Awesomer!!!

Hey guys! Brian Brushwood, Justin Robert Young and Andrew Mayne are launching a Patreon campaign to support our Weird Things podcast. If you’re not familiar with Patreon, it’s kind of a Kickstarter for episodic content....

Microsoft’s Illumi-Room Is Baby-Step To Holodeck

There’s really not much to talk about here with a bunch of words. They’ll just get in the way of you pressing play and smiling like a little kid as your brain sort of automatically speculates on the possibilities of this in peoples’ homes....

Weird Things Podcast Recording LIVE!

Watch live video from scamschoolbrian on www.justin.tv

Support Weird Things, Take Dredd Home with You in this Awesome Amazon Deal

We told you to check this film out in theaters. We pleaded on the Weird Things podcast, we begged you on Twitter. We even asked you all to take the Dredd Pledge. Some of you did. For those of you who didn’t, or those of you who love, love...

Weird Things Podcast Recording 9/17/12

Watch live video from scamschoolbrian on www.justin.tv

Rare Audio: In 1982 Penn Jillette Locked Himself in a Hotel Room and Listened to Records for a Week

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Ralph Records, Penn Jillette took part in a very odd tribute. He agreed to be locked into the Bently Motor Inn in San Francisco and do nothing but listen to the entire decade’s worth of Ralph Records...

Flying Dragon Spotted in California!

Several months ago, people had claimed to see flying humanoid figures in the skies. Most of the viral surge was from various consipiracy groups online. It turned out to be simple, flat, human-shaped RC planes. We have a feeling that same...

Weird Things Recording 7/2/12

Watch live video from scamschoolbrian on www.justin.tv

Military Weaponizes Lightning! Hell Yeah!

Here’s your ‘Hell Yeah!’ moment of the week! If you enjoy phrases like “a device that shoots laser bolts” or “50 billion watts of optical power” you may want to continue reading about how the military is weaponizing lightning with a device...

Weird Things Podcast recording 6.18.12

Watch live video from Justin Robert Young on www.justin.tv

Insane, Hand Carved Alien Guitar!

With Prometheus landing in practically every cinema this weekend and all the renewed interest in the franchise, it’s not surprising that THIS thing popped up. Gig Goldstein, the artist behind this piece of work, took up carving about 12...

Robot/Chemical Rehab Teaches Paralyzed Rat to Walk Again

In an amazing scientific feat, a paralyzed rat was taught to walk again. First, Courtine and colleagues injected the rats with a chemical cocktail that binds to dopamine, adrenaline and serotonin receptors on the spinal cord’s neurons....

Man Builds Motorcycle from Car, MacGyver-Style

If Elon Musk and MacGyver had a love child its name would be Emile LeRay. Emile had left Morrocco and was going to drive across the Sahara in a specially prepared Citreon. His plans came to a grinding halt when he came across a military...

Debate Rages Over Man Who Attached a Fricking Laser Beam to a Shark

A man named Luke Tipple, marine biologist most recognizably known for his work on the Discovery Channel, attached a laser beam to a shark. It was temporary. The laser was the lowest powered model produced by Wicked Lasers, which promoted...

Blue Origin Ready for Next Step

Blue Origin, the space exploration company founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is ready for it’s close up. Although notoriously secretive in comparison to companies like SpaceX, May is a huge month for Blue and now they’re ready to...

Read the Short Story Hunger Games AND Battle Royale Ripped Off

Okay, that’s a deliberately provocative headline, I apologize. But after all I’ve read pushing back on the popularity of the Hunger Games film and book series while citing the 1999 novel and 2000 film Battle Royale as the originator of the...

Seven Awesome Facts Learned in the Planetary Resources Press Conference

One average asteroid, half the size of the conference room they made their announcement in, can contain enough resources to power every space flight in the history of the NASA space program When asked during Q and A how many resources can...

Silicon Valley Billionaire Starts Fund for Development of 6 Insane Projects

Peter Thiel has long been a heavy hitter in Silicon Valley. He was a co-founder and CEO of PayPal and made an early stage development in Facebook, even earning himself the “honor” of being portrayed in The Social Network film about the...

[Video] Jaw Dropping, Real Life Hover Bike

There are just some videos that you watch and realize, the future is not coming, it’s here. This is was one of those videos to me. Please, take a look at the Hover Bike. The full model an provide life of up to 10,000 feet. A prototype will...

Well Perserved Wooly Mammoth Found, Can We Clone Him?

A shockingly well preserved Wooly Mammoth has been found in the far flung regions of Siberia and it could lead to the future resurrection of the species. The six-month old animal died over 10,000 years ago. It’s eyes and trunk are were...

By the Time You Read This, James Cameron Could Be at the Bottom of the Ocean

It’s go time. The man who directed the most successful film in movie history twice is about to embark on his greatest adventure yet. James Cameron will begin his descent into the Pacific Ocean, weather permitting, sometime this weekend....

Paper Balloon Accident -> Fireworks Explosion -> Wild Applause in a 1:30 Video

What an awesome video of grand spectacle and awesomeness. A massive paper balloon launching goes awry which sets up hilarious consequences. Due to the crowd reaction, we are assuming no one was hurt. Enjoy. [YouTube]

Epic Violin Tribute to Legend of Zelda that Will Steal One of Your Heart Pieces

We really can’t say enough about this violin tribute to the many themes of Legend of Zelda as performed by the undulating Lindsey Stirling. Soaring vistas, sweeping renditions of nostalgia tugged melodies that would melt the heart of...

South Korean Soldiers Go Bug Nuts Insane for K-Pop Girl Band

South Korean military men find themselves all in a lather when female pop stars Girl’s Generation surprise them for an impromptu concert. We don’t have any information on where this took place, but you can’t deny that’s a toe tapper of a...

The Future of Wheelchairs? Awesome Exoskeletons

The future is now. Amazing exoskeletons will be sold to consumers with spinal cord injuries for training, under doctor supervision for now, how to walk upright with the help of the device. Your job is to balance your upper body, shifting...

Perry Bible Fellowship Creator Stars as Villainous Sheriff in Awesome Western Webseries

Stargazin’: Trails Of Tarnation – Chapter 4 from New Picture Agencies on Vimeo. Trails of Tarnation is a western serial shot on 16mm film in Upstate New York and using awesome model sets and green screen to tell an equal parts...

<i>They Live</i> Needs To Be Remade Every Major Recession [Opinion]

John Carpenter’s 1988 SciFi action masterpiece They Live needs to be remade every recession. It’s not a request, it’s a demand. And I have a proposal on when exactly to do it. We can tie the productions to unemployment numbers. Once they...

Cartwheels! Shakespeare! Moonwalking! Example Show Is Netflix’s Original Original Content

Netflix has made waves with their original programming pickups like House of Cards and Arrested Development, but either will have the honor of being the first original Netflix programming. Example Show is an avant guard tour de force...

Jet Man Flying with Jets

Our favorite crazy Swiss aeronaut, Yves Rossy, was at it again. This time flying in formation with two jets. How much more bad ass does it get? Sources tell us that shortly after he landed, Nick Fury arrived on the scene to recruit him for...

Fraking Toasters: Mitchell & Webb’s Hilarious Battlestar Galactica Parody

The crew of a human vessel under attack by robots that take human form deal with the stress. Specifically Colin. Performed by the hilarious Mitchell and Webb.

And Now… A Rhino Suspended Upside Down From A Helicopter

Houdini was a hack. The following photo comes from a new campaign by the World Wildlife Fund. In an effort to save endangered black rhinos from rampant poaching, the WWF is trying to expand their range. The problem? Getting the big lugs...

Lego Man Washes Ashore

A gigantic lego man has washed ashore in Siesta Key, Florida. Acording to Boing Boing, the 8-foot tall Lego traveller has previously washed ashore in Holland and England. Welcome to America! [Boing Boing]

Philippine Slums Are Using Water Bottles As Light Bulbs

Need light? Can’t afford electricity? Here is a novel solution being implemented in the slums of the Philippines. WARNING: it does involve cutting a hole in a roof.

Video Proof: UFOs Above 1979 Pittsburgh Steeler Football Game

Above is a clip of a 1979 victory for the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Dallas Cowboys. However, pay attention to the final few frames where what seem to be flashing objects are seen before the awesome 60 Minutes promo about a church in...

Fossils Indicate Awesome Battle Between Awesome Prehistoric Sea Monsters

An era before time. An era before aquatic decency. An era of totally bitching ichthyosaur fights! New fossil finds indicate a very violent encounter (most likely) between two ichthyosaurs which left one scarred by deep gouges in the snout....

Cell Phone Company Builds Massive Gravity Marimba To Sell New Phone

Make no mistake: this is an intricate, delicate work of art no matter if it’s a commercial or not. A Japanese telco built a massive wooden gravity marimba operated by a single ball through a gorgeous woodland area. The moral of the story?...

Rocky Vs. Mech Decided In New Music Video

The amazing music video for Alex Metric & Steve Angelo’s new tune Open Your Eyes finds us visiting a man who looks not unlike a young Rocky Balboa working over bums in the Philly underground boxing scene. However, instead of Apollo Creed...

A Rifle/Machete Slingshot

Although this is barely within our news coverage area, we thought bringing you footage of this amazing machete slingshot/rifle hybrid would prove that this beautiful dream is indeed science fact. Favorite moments in video: &bull; The sound...

And Now: Killer Whales Surfing

That is all. [Adventure Journal]

Do NOT Watch This Video If You’re Afraid Of Heights

A POV trip for a engineer working on a 1,768 foot high transmission tower. Thanks to Weird Things reader Alan for passing this along.

Your Best Cryptozoological Lede Of The Year Is…

William Allen Barnes is a man on a mission. His journey to find and track the creature known as Bigfoot (although he is loathe to use that particular term) began on a fateful night camping in California. But his story, begins with the best...

Dude Sticking Entire Hand Into Liquid Nitrogen!!!! [Video]

Pretty hardcore. Granted, the publisher of this site, Andrew Mayne has been known to gargle the stuff but this is awesome just the same. Get way more detail on why this works at the man’s blog, including one of the most bad assed pictures...

Nike Files Patent For <i>Back To The Future</i> Inspired Self-Lacing Shoes

The dream is real! Marty McFly’s self-lacing shoes could become science fact as Nike filed a patent for the tech in 2009. [Nice Kicks]

Are We About To Create A Real-Life Captain America?

The FDA has given a biotech tech firm the A-OK to start embryonic stem cell therapy trails. First up? An Iraq war vet who was paralyzed from the chest down in 2005. Yesterday it was announced that Iraq War veteran and Marine Matt Cole,...

Ladies & Gentleman: The Anti-Laser

My feeble brain can’t process how this could be used, but I’m pretty sure it’s awesome. “It’s kind of surprising that we’ve been using lasers for 50 years or so, and only now somebody noticed something pretty fundamental,” says Marin...

Stuntman To Attempt Skydive From Edge Of Space

Not only will Austrian stuntman Felix Baumgartner attempt to redefine the official limitations of which height a human can fall from without dying immediately he also hopes to break the sound barrier on the way down. Starting in the...

We All Live In A Black Hole

Here is one paragraph for you to read: “Accordingly, our own Universe may be the interior of a black hole existing in another universe.” So concludes Nikodem Poplawski at Indiana University in a remarkable paper about the nature of space...

Chinese Scientists Want To Shoot A Diamond In Crystal Methane To Create Nuclear Power, Awesomeness

Shooting a diamond bullet at anything might be the most Bowie badass thing ever conceived of, but if, as Chinese scientists are now theorizing it can also create nuclear power then we have a new favorite source of alternative energy....

The Japanese City Humanity Abandoned

A Japanese coal city abandoned in 1974 has been officially off-limits for anyone looking to explore the slowly decaying buildings that once was home to thousands. That did not stop this brave explorer and his trusty guide who not only...

X-Rated X-Rays!

Japanese monitor maker Eizo released a pin-up calendar of provocative x-ray images. The company says they used computer graphics instead of real models.

Jet Pack! Jet Pack! Jet Pack! First Commercial Jet Pack On Sale Next Year!

UPDATED: with test footage thanks to @LHymas on Twitter. Aw hell yeah. The Jetpack achieves with 30 minutes of flight time and is fueled by regular premium gasoline, though you will undoubtedly earn some disbelieving stares at the petrol...

Weird Things Live: Hunting the Night Creeper

Weird Things Live: Hunting the Night Creeper from Andrew Mayne on Vimeo. Last Monday night in front of a live internet audience we set out to solve the mystery of the Night Creeper. Ghost? Frogman? Or something else? Although we’re pretty...

Oregon Rock Identified As Meteorite At State Fair

So you find a totally sweet cone-shaped rock but can’t shake the idea that it’s somehow special. Where to do you go to get clarity on what the geological oddity really is? If you are Oregon couple Donald and Debbie Wesson you haul it down...

When Science Met Awesome: Our Last Defense Against Asteroids? Nuclear Weapons!

The brilliant Phil Plait once penned an epic disemboweling of the film Armageddon which in turn morphed into a hilarious live talk that I was lucky enough to see in person. But it looks like at least one epic of the Michael Bay tour de...

For The Furry Who Has Everything…

Realistic bear paw shoes. Do I have to explain, what you can do with realistic bear paw shoes? [If Shoes Could Kill]

Penn State Using Acoustic Scientists To Optimize Drunken Screaming For Their Benefit

College football is a loud sport and in a game as verbally-dependent as football if a visiting team can’t relay their plays effectively or make last minute adjustments, it can be huge advantage for a home team. So it is no surprise that...

Heavy Metal Dinosaurs Are Finland’s Newest Children’s Music Sensation

Ladies and gentleman, meet your new favorite band, Hevisaurus: The band was born when a flash of lightning and witches’ spells revealed, cracked and brought to life five metal dinosaur eggs buried deep in a mountain 65 million years ago —...

2-Headed Lizard!

Apparently, the larger head has attacked the smaller one. Sleep with one eye open, smaller head. [BBC via BoingBoing]

Pravda Covers The Icelandic Volcano The Only Way It Knows How

[Pravda]

Jack Kirby’s Secret Plan To Stop The 2012 Apocalypse

As chronicled in yesterday’s New York Times a new wealth of heroes conceived by one of the fathers of modern comics, Jack Kirby, have been unveiled by California animation company whom he worked for later in his career. The firm that owns...

Slave Leia Metal Bikini Invade Phoenix Suns Dance Team

Who needs context? [@xmasape]

Aww… We Like You Too Michael Rooker

Thanks please follow @Michael_Rooker. Special thanks to Matt Finley for his work on the Rooker articles.

Carl Sagan Day

Want to meet up with some of the folks behind Weird Things? Plan on being in South Florida on Saturday? Want to pay your respect to Carl Sagan? Meet James Randi, Phil Plait and others? Then meet us at Carl Sagan day at Broward College this...

Join Us For The Quest for Houdini!

This Halloween Weird Things and the James Randi Educational Foundation will try to make contact with the ghost of Houdini! Details to follow… iTricks.com Magic News, Magic Videos and Podcasts » Blog Archive » This Halloween: Mayne,...

Human Powered Hovercraft – Built by Teenagers

As a rule, child endangerment in the name of science is only fun when it’s the children doing the actual endangerment. In this video three high school students (Max Shepherd, Robert Draper and Brit Garner) build and test their own homemade...

Mechanical Elephants

Need to get your mechanical elephant off your hands? Contact us at Weird Things. Thanks to Make Magazine for spotting the original YouTube clip.

Charles Babbage Confronts the Devil, Becomes a Ghost Hunter

We know Charles Babbage as the inventor of the Difference Engine, the pre-cursor to the modern computer, but what about Charles Babbage, investigator for the occult and supernatural? As a young man he decided to find out if Satan was real...

5 Of The Weirdest Moons In The Solar System

Ah, moons. So often overshadowed by your rocky, gassy, and thermonuclear overlords, you help invoke tides, stabilize axial tilts, sculpt and replenish rings, and provide at least one species with a stepping stone to timidly venture from...

Man Blows Up A Balloon With His Ear

Special thanks to Sky News’ Viewers’ Editor Paul Bromley. We writes, what looks to be a pretty awesome blog.

Attack of the Show names Weird Things one of the best cryptozoology blogs!

This was a welcome surprise for us here at Weird Things. Video Game – Game Cheats – Attack of the Show

Why just see Iron Man when you can *be* Iron Man?

Popular Science article

Gnome terror!