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Weird Please Editorial
171The 1980s Salisbury hand used three three-jointed fingers, twelve tension cables, and force sensors to adjust a grasp while inserting objects.
172Dorr Felt's prototype Comptometer used a scarred wooden pasta-shipping box, wooden skewers for keys, and salvaged mechanisms.
173Around 1762, George Adams built King George III a hand-cranked glass-globe machine that accumulated static charge for sparks and experiments.
174A cultured neural system received feedback from a simplified Pong environment and changed its activity during the experiment.
175Extreme ironing combines pressing clothes with deliberately unsuitable outdoor settings.
176Otto Steiger's 1890s calculating machine could multiply by a single digit directly with one turn of its crank.
177Arthur Porter built a working differential analyser from Meccano construction parts while waiting for a full-size machine.
178Edison's briefly sold 1890 talking doll carried a tiny hand-cranked phonograph and a wax recording of a nursery rhyme inside its metal torso.
179Very large cave chambers can sustain localized fog and cloud-like formations when moisture and temperature conditions align.
180Rube Goldberg's Self-Operating Napkin made a simple gesture depend on an escalating chain of absurd actions.
The Weird Please editorial desk collects true stories about curious inventions, peculiar history, strange science, and the gloriously unexpected.
