Zillow Gone Wild tells us about a home in Scottsdale, Arizona, that's on the market for $19.5 million. The interior living space is 21,410 square feet, with five bedrooms and 16 bathrooms in the main house, plus a guest house with another two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The number and size of the rooms make it seem more like a facility than a home to me, but we're just getting started.

The main feature is a full-size gym built underground. The listing tells us of famous NBA players who have played in it. It has a professional scoreboard and a locker room featuring five bathrooms. There's also a museum holding a collection of 290 pairs of Michael Jordan sneakers. There's a golf practice range, a nine-hole putting green, and a golf simulator. There's a jogging track around the perimeter of the property. Yeah, there's also a pool, theater, pickleball court, and spa. And it was only built in 2017. I wondered if it belonged to some NBA team owner or maybe a basketball player, so I did some digging.   

The owner is entrepreneur Brett Hardt, who is a huge basketball fan. He built this house to incorporate the dreams of all his family members, and the gym was the first thing built. Word got around about the luxurious underground gym in a private home, and it became a getaway for NBA stars. The size of the home and the amenities make it perfect for hosting guests. But now it's for sale, furnishings included, and if you have a few million to put into a sports dream house, you'll find the particulars at Zillow.

What we have here is an electric bicycle driven by artificial intelligence. In other words, it's a robot. Developed by the Robotics and AI Institute, it's called the Ultra Mobile Vehicle, or UMV. It's a marvel of balance, and it can do tricks! So it's high in entertainment value, but wouldn't it be more fun to actually ride the bike yourself? Oh well, that requires some effort, so we may as well have a robot do it for us. Besides the tricks, there's a sequence at the end that shows how this robot avoids obstacles like a dog and the ball he is carrying, but it comes across as showing us how the robot doesn't like to play with dogs.  

What RAI built this for, besides to impress us with a viral video, is to demonstrate how the UMV learns by feedback. Children learn to balance on a bicycle by feeling what it's like to get it right, and also experiencing what it feels like to lose their balance. On the YouTube page, this learning technique is called reinforcement, which is a psychological term for rewarding desired behavior. You have to wonder what kind of reward works with an AI algorithm. Still, cool robot. -via Born in Space

The Crazy Way 1950s Truckers Fit 5 Cars On Short 35-Foot Car-Haulers https://t.co/6CCK7h1bXz

— The Autopian (@the_autopian) March 6, 2025

In the early history of automobile sales, cars were delivered by train or by driving them from the factory to the buyer, depending on whether there was a road to use. After World War I, cars began to be delivered by truck to preserve the newness of a new car, since they had to be delivered from a train station anyway. However, this wasn't so easy everywhere. In the 1920s, many states enacted new laws restricting the weight, width, and length of trucks using their roads. The most restrictive length was in Illinois, where truck couldn't be more than 35 feet long. That's half the length of today'a car-hauling trucks! Trucking companies were challenged to find a way to get enough cars onto a truck to make the trip worthwhile.

Believe it or not, there were trucks specially designed to fit five new autos onto a 35-foot truck. The patent sketch above from Donald Mettetal, Jr. is for the DeArco car carrier. Your eyes do not deceive you- the truck cab was lifted high above the drive train on the front of the truck, so that a car could be shoved into that space! Despite filing for a patent in 1950, it wasn't granted until years later, and other trucking companies used the same scheme to carry more cars in a shorter truck. Read the history of car carriers and the weird things those restrictions led to, with lots of pictures, at The Autopian.

Krapong was a young stray dog in Thailand who got herself into real trouble when she stuck her head into a cookie jar and couldn't get it out. Someone reported her to Michael Baines, also known as The Man That Rescues Dogs. The organization named for Baines went out and found Krapong and got her to a veterinary clinic. They estimated that she'd been stuck in that jar for several days, since she was severely dehydrated.

Krapong made a full recovery and was sent to a TMTRD shelter. While she may never be socialized enough to be adopted, she has a home at the shelter as long as she is there, and steady meals that she never had as a stray. So her misadventure in a cookie jar may have ended up saving her life. You can see  more of TMTRD's work in Thailand, particularly with disabled dogs, at Instagram.

In most cases, the scientist who publishes a description of a new species in a respected journal gets the honor of naming that species. Often, this description comes from the scientist that discovered the species. This may be a shock to you, but a lot of scientists are also huge nerds. We've seen an awful lot of species named after Star Wars characters and Star Trek characters, but there are almost as many that are named after the familiar faces of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

There's a species called Smaug giganteus. What kind of animal would you suspect that would be? A dragon, of course, although this one is technically a big lizard. Could you guess what kind of creature would be named Gollum attenuatus or Psylla frodobagginsi? (Hint: one of them is pictured above.) Could you imagine what kind of story went into naming Pseudophallus galadrielae? It's a fish, and that story is not nearly as dirty as you might think. Read up on 10 animal species named after Lord of the Rings characters and why the name fits them, at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Grey Smith)

Every once in a while, you want to hear some familiar metal music, but in a easy-listening, jazzy kind of tone. Who am I kidding? You had no thought at all for any such thing, but once you get it, you'll enjoy it.

Master mashup artist Bill McClintock's latest masterpiece features the fictional band he calls Spinsrÿche. The progressive metal band Queensrÿche had some heavy licks, but Geoff Tate's vocals on the 1991 song "Jet City Woman" were smooth and melodic when separated from the instruments. It fits just perfectly into the laid-back dance song "I'll Be Around" by The Spinners. Once again, McClintock shows there is really no difference between metal and disco, since good music is good music. He always throws a bonus or two in his mashups, too. This time, it's a piece of "Do It Again" from Steely Dan for the bridge sequence. The result is a downright pleasant love song that you can dance to. 

The Church of God with Signs Following is one of the few churches left in the US that practices venomous snake handling as a statement of faith, and also incorporates the practice of drinking poison, usually strychnine. The belief stems from a literal interpretation of Mark 16: 18 which says, in part, "They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them." The snake handling is a small part of a worship service, and comes after singing preaching, and speaking in tongues as many Pentecostal churches do. Churches who still practice snake handling are mostly limited to Appalachia, and are most common in East Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia. People have died from the practice of handling snakes, which is prohibited by law in most states. When that happens, church members blame the death on a lack of faith.

The use of venomous snakes for worship in Appalachia is usually attributed to George Went Hensley. Hensley did not invent snake handling, but he certainly promoted its use in Pentecostal churches across the South in the early 20th century (he died of a snake bite in 1955). While it is believed that snake handling is dying out, it's hard to know for sure because the churches who do this are extremely secretive, especially since laws against it were passed. Read about the churches who still use venomous snakes as part of their worship at Danny Dutch.

(Image credit: Russell Lee)

Lascelles, Victoria, Australia, has a population of 93. There were about the same number of residents in 1917, or at least human residents. But there were also an estimated 100 million mice! The mouse population boomed after an abnormally warm winter, and every nook and cranny of the small town was full of mice. The residents of Lascelles buried 40-gallon drums to trap the mice, until they had killed 1500 tons of mice. You can imagine what a horror that year was, because a rodent infestation is a tried-and-true horror film plot and gave us the Black Plague, too.

But the story of Lascelles is just one story. There was also the time 11 million birds decided to roost in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and that wasn't all that long ago. Or the dust storm that was so thick it brought the temperature down 30 degrees in just minutes in Dodge City, Kansas. Or the historical shower of rocks from the sky that killed 10,000 people in China (that wasn't a small town, but it was still bizarre). Or the Michigan town that was swallowed by sand dunes. Read what happened in all these disasters at Cracked.

We all know its important to teach children how to use the emergency phone number, 911 in the US. However, it's hard to convey what an emergency is to a kid who's never experienced one, and it's hard to get very young children to take anything seriously. A toddler named Bennett in Moore, Oklahoma, who looks to be about three years old, was playing with an old cell phone. It had no service provider, but still had some battery life left, which meant it could call 911. What kind of emergency did he report? Emergency donuts!

The very patient dispatcher played along with Bennet, and may have eventually been able to talk to his mother. The Moore Police Department posted the video because it was so cute. They then went into action responding to the call, with a delivery of emergency donuts. You can see from that followup video that Bennett may have had some encouragement ("egging on") from his older brother. A good time was had by all. -via Boing Boing

Turkish delight was once a familiar term for a familiar candy that originated in Turkey. Its popularity has dropped in the past few decades as children now have an amazing variety of candies in different textures and artificial flavors to choose from. Many people are only familiar with the name from the C.S. Lewis book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But there are specialty stores that sell genuine Turkish delight, often with fancy additions like nuts, coconut, or chocolate coatings.

The original Turkish delight is a very sweet and somewhat gummy candy that can sport all manner of flavors. The main ingredients are sugar, cornstarch, water, and flavoring. It's the cooking technique that makes it authentic, and that includes 45 minutes of stirring. So while it may seem like a lot of work, the fresh homemade candy in your favorite flavors will be a worthwhile experiment. Read up on the delights of Turkish delight at Atlas Obscura, and bookmark the included recipe. If you make it, be sure to let us know how it turns out.

The roller coaster known as Kingda Ka was erected at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, in 2005. At the time, it was the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. It also gave a memorable phallic feature to the landscape. But that was 20 years ago, and nothing lasts forever. The demolition of Kingda Ka was last month.



And it came down exactly as planned, and not even a tree was injured. But when that tower hit the ground, every beam and strut just fell apart like they were toothpicks! This might give you the impression that the tower wasn't all that sturdy for the 19 years it was in operation. But it's better to assume that the experts who planned and carried out the demolition loosened those components before detonating the final explosion that brought it to earth. -via Boing Boing

(Top image credit: Dusso Janladde)

The International Space Station (ISS) is way cleaner than your home. The modules of the station and the equipment it uses were built in dust-free and nearly sterile conditions. The items taken to the station are regulated and monitored. The vast majority of microbes that are introduced into the environment of the space station is brought in on the astronaut's skin. But is such a clean environment actually healthy?

A study of the microbes on the inner surfaces of the ISS show species from 6.31% of the phylogenic tree, which contains all known species. Compare that to an average household, which can contain twice that percentage or more. One scientist compared the microbial life on the space station to a COVID-19 isolation ward, where every surface is disinfected or sterilized as often as possible. Living in such a clean environment may be the reason that astronauts in space often suffer from immune system maladies. Read about this discovery and its implications at Ars Technica.

(Image credit: NASA)

I can feel a great disturbance in the Force. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be... unnatural. One of them is throwing rap beats in Star Wars. But Star Wars is already full of unnatural things, so why not make the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise into a rap song? All it takes is some imagination, an artificial intelligence program, and a willingness to offend the few prequel purists that still exist.

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as AI shenanigans in the Star Wars universe go. Another scene from the same movie (Revenge of the Sith) by a different YouTuber makes Palpatine a head banger as he delivers his climactic political speech declaring the birth of the empire in a metal song.



This desire among a faction of Star Wars fans to turn the saga into a musical might eventually get the attention of Disney/Lucasfilm as they continue their quest to wring every possible dollar out of the franchise. -via Born in Space

(Image credit: eightyfivekittens)

We often see lists that show us how adorably cute cats are, or how funny they can be in some situations. Every once in a while, it's healthy to acknowledge that they come with murder mittens and are, in fact, pointy on five ends. After all, your fat and lazy house cat is descended from wild predators, and they feel the need to remind you of that fact every so often. Even the tiniest of kittens can be proud of the weapons they carry around on each paw. The little guy above may have an inflated view of the actual menace he projects, but he will eventually grow up.

(Image credit: StridentStamina)

And by then, a cat will know how to use those claws to get what they want. So enjoy cats, but always keep in mind that they are capable of inflicting great pain if they so choose. You can marvel at these murder mittens in complete safety with a gallery of 50 cats showing off their claws at Bored Panda. 

When you are very much used to something, it's hard to perceive how weird it is to outsiders. Most nations of the world are small enough to exist in only one time zone. And then there's China, which is very big and still only has one time zone, but that's a different story. Anyway, I live pretty close to a time zone border, and have always been conscious of how to calculate the time elsewhere. When living in Central Time, I got used to everything on TV being an hour earlier than it should. The lines between zones aren't straight, and the reasons why are inexplicable. And then we're going to throw Daylight Saving Time in the mix. Someone who has never had to deal with time zones may find them quite confusing. Laurence Brown of Lost in the Pond explains how he first encountered American time zones and what it took to get used to them. There's a 77-second skippable ad at 3:20.