Andrew Tarantola

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Volans

And this is your brain on LSD, it’s a good thing.

This “Canoe Car” Wants to Revolutionize Your Urban Commute

Fewer commuters are getting to work by car these days, especially in densely populated cities like San Francisco. But riding the bus or a bike isn’t for everybody, and for those commuters that want the conveniences of a car without the hefty fuel fees, there’s the canoe-inspired hybrid electric tricycle. Dubbed the Human Electric Vehicle…

7 of the World’s Weirdest Water Towers

Middle America’s decorative water towers—not those nasty things in New York—hold a special place in the annals of Americana history. They serve as both a public utility and as a community’s spiritual centerpiece—like a Midwestern totem pole, highlighting and reflecting the local cultural identity. https://gizmodo.com/nycs-charming-water-towers-are-actually-bacteria-fille-1509759091 So what do these strange towers say about their towns?…

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: How to Be

Mixing stop motion animation and time-lapse photography with Cetranger’s haunting melodies, Maxim and Katia Mezentsev create a surreal world simultaneously frozen in time and as fleeting as the life of a tongue-bound snowflake.

It’s Like Squeezing Paint from a Goat

In the days before Home Depot paint departments, people slathered color onto their walls the old fashioned way: using a mixture of pigment, lime, and milk. Now, one Northern California farm is reviving this ancient tradition with the help of its resident goat herds. Harley Farms Goat Dairy in Pescadero, California, is primarily in the…

The Air Force Prototype Fighter That Was Just Never Quite Good Enough

Despite the US military’s robust budget, not every design makes it onto the battlefield. In fact, only a select number of the very best designs ever actually fly. So what the hell was the USAF thinking choosing the defect-ridden F-22 Raptor over this gorgeous jet? When the Soviets rolled out their advanced Su-27 and MiG-29…

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Juste de l’eau

In the golden era of maritime exploration, a lonely piglet dreams of escaping his island home’s isolation only to realize that no matter where you go, you cannot escape yourself. Carlos De Carvalho produced this this visually-arresting animated short.

The U.S. Government Once Fracked Oil Wells Using Nuclear Bombs

Oil and gas fracking is big business in America, with more than two million hydraulically fractured wells across the country producing 43 and 67 percent of our national oil and gas outputs, respectively. These wells also nearly played a secondary role as nuclear waste storage sites, had the Atomic Energy Commission had its way with…

You Can Cradle This 3-Cylinder Engine Like an 88-Pound, 400 HP Baby

An engine this small should, by conventional logic, not be this powerful. But, somehow, it is. And at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, Nissan plans to see just how well its under-sized, over-powered hybrid engine prototype handles auto racings’s most grueling challenge. The minuscule engine is known as the DIG-T R. It’s an…

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: To Hear Your Banjo Play

Pete Seeger—folk icon, hippie messiah, political and environmental activist, all around national treasure—died late last night at the age of 94. In honor of his innumerable contributions to American culture, here he is in 1946, narrating lan Lomax’s documentary on the evolution of folk music. Seeger started as a fixture on American radios throughout the…

Great news, everyone! It’s so cold in Wisconsin right now that large portions of Lake Superior have completely iced over. This means that visitors to the National Lakeshore can walk right out and explore the otherwise inaccessible Mainland Sea Caves at Apostle Island. Image: Mary Dougherty–Nikon D700–The Cookery Maven

What Causes Motion Sickness?

If the motion of the ocean leaves you queasy, the open road makes you dry heave, or the floating feeling at taking off makes your head spin, you’re not alone. Motion sickness is a common occurrence among travelers—and one not easily remedied. That’s why you have to stop motion sickness before it starts. What Is…

Guam Could Get a Missile Shield to Deter North Korean Attacks

Guam’s strategic location just 1,500 miles South of Japan’s shores make the tiny island a very valuable piece of real estate for the US military and a very enticing target for Pyongyang’s missile program. To make sure that Kim Jong Un doesn’t get any funny ideas, Congress wants to arm Guam with our version of…

What’s Eating Florida? These Six Voracious Species

Just in case Florida didn’t have enough going against it already (looking at you Florida Man), the state that everybody loves to hate is currently being invaded. No, not by Cuba—by a variety of non-native plants and animals that are wreaking environmental havoc and causing billions of dollars in damage. These are six of the…

Finally, finally! After nearly a year of iOS-clusivity, the THX Tuneup App is now available for Android. Get a copy for either OS right now, for free, through February 3. [iOS, Android]

Albert Einstein and Darth Vader Duke It Out

Because of course Einstein can use the Force. He discovered it. The father of relativity and front-runner for “Worst Father in the Galaxy” let their fists do the talking in this raucous stop motion animation from Patrick Boivin. [BB]

This Gravity-Sensing Satellite Peeks Beneath the Earth’s Surface

The European Space Agency’s GOCE satellite has been on a quest to study the Earth’s interior, from space. Now the results are in, and a pioneering effort to map the Earth’s gravitational field in high detail, has just been published in the journal Nature Geoscience. It’s giving researchers an unprecedented look at our planet’s mantle.…

How to Conserve Water During a Drought

California is facing “perhaps the worst drought that [it] has ever seen since records (began) about 100 years ago,” announced Governor Jerry Brown in a recent press conference after declaring a drought emergency for the state. Here are four easy ways to minimize your water usage until the rains come again. Go Low Flow Reducing…

The Navy Almost Built a “Flying Dorito” It Couldn’t Afford to Fly

While U.S. military has had its fair share of bungled development programs—just look at the V-22 Osprey or the littoral combat ship—the ill-fated A-12 Avenger II is a strong candidate for the worst. It was so poorly managed that, if completed, the program could have sunk nearly all of the Navy’s budget. https://gizmodo.com/the-president-gets-a-personal-osprey-hes-not-allowed-t-1108783801 The A-12…

Pow!: High-Tech Boom

There’s no such thing as bad publicity in show business, right? Except maybe when your band gains notoriety thanks to being mentioned in a slightly bigger band’s smarmy tantrum of a farewell letter to San Francisco and its rapidly gentrifying ways. https://gizmodo.com/techbrats-and-tech-buses-whats-ruining-san-francisco-1508180786 Thee Oh Sees front-man and Castle Face Records co-owner John Dwyer has had…