It's our 500th episode! We're celebrating with a visit to the Compass Festival in Leeds, which will feature an art installation that will ring many of the community's pay phones at exactly the same time. Plus: did you know the first race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway wasn't a road race?

This is why every phone box in Leeds will ring in unison on the same day at Compass Festival 2021 (Yorkshire Evening Post)

1909 National Balloon Race (Indianapolis Motor Speedway)

Thanks to our Patreon backers for keeping us going through 500 episodes!

In Scotland's Shetland Islands, on the island called Unst, a 7 year old's request for a new bus stop led to a community tradition of making the space comfortable and colorful. Plus: a museum in South Bend, Indiana is showcasing cars of the 1970s, a time when cars were cars - sometimes a car was multiple cars. 

Waiting in Style (Futility Closet)

Website for Unst bus shelter is ‘essential reading for future generations’ (Shetland Times)

Disco Decade Rides: Cars of the 1970s (Studebaker National Museum)

Our Patreon backers keep this show moving forward every day

A big problem in food waste is that people often refuse to buy fruits or veggies because of how they look. But a new study finds that grocers can sell misshapen or odd-looking produce if they market them as "ugly." Plus: if you're weary of remote meetings, a new web tool called Zoom Escaper may help you get a break. 

Why calling food 'ugly' makes us want to buy it more (Vancouver Is Awesome)

Zoom Escaper lets you sabotage your own meetings with audio problems, crying babies, and more (The Verge)

Our Patreon backers make beautiful things happen on our show

Today in 1980, the big U.S. TV networks began regularly using closed caption technology to serve Deaf viewers as well as hearing ones. That alone was a game-changer, but closed captioning has proven useful in some other big ways as well. Plus: in Russia, fans of a certain TV show set in a galaxy far, far away have built a replica of a certain ship that's home to a certain adorable baby puppet. 

How Deaf Advocates Won the Battle for Closed Captioning and Changed the Way Americans Watch TV (Time)

Closed captioning (Quartz)

Star Wars fans ‘land’ Mandalorian’s Razor Crest spaceship in Russia (South China Morning Post)

Let's join forces on Patreon like Mando and Carl Weathers do

Mary Fields was the first Black woman to receive a Post Office contract to deliver the mail, and in the Wild West, no less. Here's a little more about a pioneer who definitely made some history. Plus: the story of a sibling who found a practical use for her identical twin. 

The Life and Legend of Mary Fields (Montana Women's History)

Stagecoach Mary Fields (National Postal Museum)

Fields, Mary – aka Stagecoach Mary (Amazing Black History)

More women’s history on Cool Weird Awesome

I’m not a twin but... (Reddit)

Welcome to the world of electroceuticals! That's the word for treatments that involve electricity, and a new study finds steady current applied to wounds can actually get healing agents to the site more quickly. Speaking of quick: the "tossed rice art" of Maria Lynn may only last an instant, but what an instant it is. 

Electricity could help speed wound healing, new study shows (Ohio State University)

Artist Tosses Colorful Rice To Create 3D Portraits of Pop Culture Characters in Mid-Air (My Modern Met)

Our backers are the most electrifying backers in all of Patreon

Blueswarm is a school of autonomous robot fish who scan their surroundings and calculate how they can swim together without colliding, like a school of actual fish. And the technology modeled on "implicit coordination" may be useful for lots of other high-tech devices in the future. Plus: GLYPHS is a project to develop new perfumes based on typology. No, there isn't a Comic Sans scent just yet.  

Meet Blueswarm, a Smart School of Robotic Fish (IEEE Spectrum) 

Love typography? Now you can smell like it! (Creative Boom) 

Our Patreon backers make this show run swimmingly

Scientists have spotted three species of sharks near New Zealand that give off a faint blue light while in darkness. Yes, our world is home to glowing sharks. Plus: artist Calvin Nicholls is making extremely detailed sculptures of animals out of paper.

Glowing sharks found near New Zealand (Inhabitat)

Intricate Paper Animals Spring from Textured Sculptures by Artist Calvin Nicholls (Colossal)

Our Patreon backers are a bright light all over the internet

The internet and social media don't do a great job making the very visual world of meme culture accessible to blind users. The new podcast "Say My Meme" describes those memes so everyone can enjoy them. Plus: Madagascar is home to the "nano-chameleon," believed to be the smallest lizard in the world. 

This delightful new podcast describes memes for people who are blind or visually impaired (Fast Company)

'Smallest reptile on earth' discovered in Madagascar (BBC)

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A team of German developers may have just made the pool safer, by developing a water-based lifeguard robot that can rescue swimmers in distress. Plus: today in 1969, musical history, as "Happy Birthday To You" becomes the first song ever performed in outer space. 

New Robot Lifeguard Will Save People from Drowning (Interesting Engineering)

50 Years Ago: Apollo 9 Completes its Mission (NASA)

Together with our Patreon backers we can make beautiful music