Awesome Etc

As we’ve learned before, shrimp can be fascinating creatures. Nature show host Ze Frank takes another look at these weird crustaceans to teach us about some unusual adaptations they have developed. From their jumble of gangly legs to their food-specific pincers to their camouflage abilities, each attribute helps them survive and thrive.

If we had to pick the silliest musical instrument, it would be a Jew’s harp or a slide whistle. After building a MIDI-controlled slide whistle, engineer mixtela upped the complexity by creating a slide whistle orchestrion. It combines four mechanical slide whistles to produce 4-part polyphonic sounds. The best way to describe it is a drunken calliope.

Tic Tacs are one of the world’s most popular breath fresheners. How did these little pill-shaped mints come to be? Weird History Food takes us all the way back to the origins of bad breath control and its evolution toward the minty flavors we know today. It turns out the same company that created Nutella and Kinder eggs came up with the Tic Tac.

Most guitar players use their fingertips or a single guitar pick to strum. After “accidentally” 3D printing a triple guitar pick, engineer Mattias Krantz thought it might be fun to play with even more guitar picks at the same time. His compound guitar pick looks like it would a pretty good back-scratcher too.

From Batman to Beetlejuice to Birdman, Michael Keaton is a man of many personas. Keaton sat down for an interview with GQ to talk about some of his most iconic characters, their sources of inspiration, and how he got inside their heads. For some roles, the costume and makeup provided enough of a hook, while others required him to dig much deeper.

Jared Owen presents another fascinating animation of a complex machine—or, in this case, multiple machines working together. In this video, he walks us through the automated donut factory, which you can find at many Krispy Kreme locations. These machines can crank out up to 3000 donuts per hour. Our favorite part is the glaze waterfall.

A group of talented kids celebrated their friend’s birthday with a kick-ass performance of the Nine Inch Nails track Wish. The music video serves as a fundraiser for the O’Keefe Music Foundation, a non-profit organization that helps offer free music lessons and music camps to young musicians. Crank up the volume to 11 for this one. (Thanks, Myriam!)

This electromechanical plaything from Nikola Toy automatically steadies itself and balances on its point. Its curved Reuleaux triangle shape allows it to teeter while sensors, circuitry, and a spinning wheel help hold its position. It also has built-in RGB LED lighting.

Medieval weapon expert Tod’s Workshop happened to have five different types of crossbows in his workshop at the same time, so he thought it would be fun to compare how they work and how effective each is at its job. The collection ranges from a tiny handheld crossbow to massive ballista that requires a time-consuming tensioning process.

Animals come in all shapes and sizes. In this video from Posit Pixel, they use pixel art to describe some of the extremes of the animal kingdom, from diminutive parasitic wasps to a 42-foot-long snake. Along the way, you’ll learn about a fingernail-sized frog and Quetzalcoatlus, an extinct flying animal with a wingspan as big as a single-engine airplane.

After the guys from the Hydraulic Press Channel got their new 300-ton press, they built an industrial-strength bunker around it to protect themselves and their workshop from flying debris. With the bunker in place, they used the machine to compress some large springs to see if they could make them go flying. It’s surprisingly harder than it looks.

Mixing Diet Coke and Mentos can have explosive results. JLaservideo wanted to see if he could harness that fizzy energy on a larger scale to lift himself off the ground. After watching others fail miserably or cheat with other ingredients, he did some experimentation and engineered a homebrew jet pack that runs on the stuff.

From A to Z, every letter in the English language has a story behind its shape. Language expert Olly Richards digs into the origins of all 26 letters we use today, including how “E” started as a little dude with his hands in the air and how “H” was a fence flipped on its side.

Coca-Cola sells billions of cases of Diet Coke every year. How did the drink that replaced Tab in the 1980s become a sweet and fizzy juggernaut? Weird History Foods looks at the origins of carbonated beverages and low-calorie soft drinks and how Diet Coke achieved its cult-like status to leapfrog its competition.

John Malkovich is known for his distinctive voice and intense, quirky character portrayals. In this interview with GQ, the award-winning actor revisits his roles from Being John Malkovich, Con Air, Rounders, Dangerous Liaisons, Burn After Reading, and others. We love how Spike Jonze told him, “John Malkovich wouldn’t do it that way.”

We already know it’s possible to drive a car on a frozen lake using sawblades instead of wheels. The guys from CboysTV attempted the same feat with a dirt bike. To pull off the crazy stunt, they fabricated 100-pound steel sawblade wheels for both a dirt bike and an ATV. The blade wheels work shockingly well, though falling off could be deadly.