Musician Luca Stricagnoli performed a lush percussive cover of the Foster the People song “Pumped Up Kicks” on his custom reverse triple neck guitar that was crafted by Italian luthier Davide Serracini. The song was suggested to him by a young American student. My version of “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster The People, played on…
The brilliant French prankster Rémi Gaillard, who has pulled off some wild hoaxes in the past, really outdid himself by creating highly believable UFO sightings in Southern France that the media lapped up with glee. The sightings then led to a stray alien with a crashed spaceship showing up in rather odd but commonplace locations….
Video producer Estelle Caswell of the Vox series “Earworm” traces the history of the male falsetto, working with Matt Daniels of The Pudding to figure how much of this vocal technique has been used throughout the decades of popular, modern music. They turned to Pandora for this data and very neatly charted the results. They…
Jazz guitar virtuoso Stanley Jordan played a mindblowing cover of The Beatles‘ heartrending ballad “Eleanor Rigby” with his trademark two-handed tapping technique while onstage at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1986. Stanley Jordan – Eleanor Rigby Recorded Live: 8/23/1986 – Newport Jazz Festival – Newport, RI via Digg
Using amazing footage from the late, great insect photographer Andreas Kay (previously) who sadly passed away in October, the very entertaining Ze Frank examines the interesting fashion choices of the tiny leafhopper, treehopper and planthopper insects for his zoologically themed True Facts series. These hoppers are part of the Auchenorrhyncha family which is related to…
In honor of Cephalopod Week, conservation biologist Samantha Cheng of the American Museum of Natural History offers up 26 different facts and figures about these incredible sea creatures, all in alphabetical order. How many hearts does an octopus have? Why do some squid glow in the dark? And what does a zebra display have to…
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Frito the Rescued Corn Chip ? (@fritotherescuedcornchip) An adorable rescue dog named Frito (because he smells “like a corn chip”) was walking with his human when they passed under a tree. Without missing a beat, Frito bounced his little self really high several times in order…
The Smithsonian Channel visited Gorgona Snake Island off the coast of Colombia to understand the remarkable symbiotic ecosystem that lives within the uniquely hollow hair follicles of resident sloths. These particular sloths, who were originally marooned on this island, move much more slowly than those in more highly popular areas due to a lack of…
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jennifer Petit (@jenniferpetit32) After the tragic death of her mother on December 1, 2021, daughter Jennifer Petit and her husband decided to surprise her father at Christmas by paying off the mortgage to his house. Petit stated that her father was concerned about paying the bills…
In a prickly TED-Ed lesson written by Maria Elena De Obaldia and animated by Anton Bogaty, narrator Pen-Pen Chen explains why mosquitos seem to prefer some people and ignore others. It turns out that these “mosquito magnets” can’t help but be attractive. While carbon dioxide exhalations and body heat consistently signal the presence of warm-blooded…
