Brage Vestavik, a Red Bull sponsored Norwegian mountain biker, has made a name for himself by riding terrain that most would avoid. His latest project, Trolldom, shot in the dense forests of British Columbia, is a POV ride that feels like a high stakes dance with gravity. Shot with an action cam, this is a raw display of skill, planning and fearlessness in freeride mountain biking.
Ford Australia’s engineers are masters of turning punishment into proof. At their You Yangs Proving Ground in Victoria, they put the Ranger Super Duty through a brutal test. They didn’t just drive it through mud – they buried it in 600kg of thick, sticky clay to see if it would still work.
You won’t find artists with hand-drawn designs hunched over at New York City’s Bang Bang Tattoo, just a robotic arm, guided by artificial intelligence, that etches precise grayscale designs into skin. This is Blackdot, a startup from Austin, Texas, that’s redefining what a tattoo machine can do.
Matty Benedetto of Unnecessary Inventions has a habit of turning fleeting ideas into tangible realities. His latest project, a 3D-printed 3D printer, is proof of that. Built from a Japanese open-source design called the Fraxinus 00TW, this tiny printer is a mix of ambition, creativity and just enough chaos to keep things interesting.
Paul Davids, a Dutch guitarist, walked into the vast halls of Austria’s Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant three years ago. The plant was built in the 70s, but never operational. However, it had an acoustic wonder: a reverb so big it felt like the notes went on forever. Davids captured this with guitar in hand, and the result was a sound akin to playing in a concrete and steel cathedral. Fast forward to 2025 and that experience has been transformed into the Nucleo Reverb, a pedal made by Italian boutique maker Cornerstone Music Gear.
Deep in the misty rainforests of North Queensland, where tree canopies stretch like green cathedrals, a monster has been found. A stick insect, 40cm long and as heavy as a golf ball, has been discovered in the high altitude forests of the Atherton Tablelands. Named Acrophylla alta, this is likely the heaviest insect ever recorded in Australia, a find that sounds like something from a prehistoric tale but is very much real today.
GamiFries, a 3D printed accessory for the Nintendo Switch 2, keeps a McDonald’s medium fries box close during marathon gaming sessions. Made by a gamer who goes by 7R135, it clips onto the console’s magnetic connectors, a fun and practical solution for gamers who want to snack without having to pause.
In Louisville, Kentucky, a starling named The Mouth, rescued as a fledgling, has learned to mimic a sound encoding a digital bird image. Guided by Benn Jordan, a science and music enthusiast, this project combines the starling’s natural mimicry with technology to show how songbirds can carry data.
