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You don't need to be an eccentric billionaire or rugged survivalist to take up residence in a cave. All around the globe, living in an rocky recess is just a fact of life and can be way more homey than any manmade structure. Here are some real estate destinations to investigate should you attempt to cultivate that post-modern caveman chic.

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Remember that autonomous swarm of drones that built a 20-foot-tall indoor tower in Orléans, France? The FRAC Centre has now released a start-to-finish reel of the quadrotors completing the tower. You can watch the entire process above, fast-fowarded quite a bit. More »
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You may remember French puppeteering group Royal De Luxe's mechanical elephant, but here's an even more deliciously absurd contrivance. This is the piano catapult, a musical siege weapon that was recently shown off in the city of Nantes. It's not particularly effective, but at least we'll know what to expect if Billy Joel ever tries to conquer the globe. More »
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I imagine amusement park safety was lax in the 19th century, but this is ridiculous. An 1891 issue of Scientific American showcased this invention by a one Monsieur Carron of Grenoble, France. You know something's a bad idea when it makes the notorious Action Park look tame. More »
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The old idea of Neanderthals as a species of brutish primitives has already been pretty well exploded, but this is as good a nail in the coffin as any: Neanderthals were treating themselves to fancy foods 250,000 years ago. More »
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The amazing inscriptions on ancient cave walls represent some of humanity's first known creative work, but it wasn't just master artists who were allowed to paint. Kids as young as two or three were cave-painting 13,000 years ago. More »
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I'm not sure what compulsion drives some artists to reimagine pop culture stalwarts as horrifying babies, but Alexandre Nicolas' prenatal versions of the comic book pantheon are on display at the HEY! exhibit in Paris. You can see more photos at his website. More »
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I have no idea where this is is from. I don't know who this is. I can't understand 75% of what's he saying. More »
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During the last weekend this May, the Royal de Luxe marionette company trotted their disconcertingly large she-marionette — which is adorned with the hair of 70 horses — down the streets of Nantes, France. Now we know the dread the citizens of Metropolis feel whenever Toyman is on the loose. More »
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We recently looked at devilish automata from the 15th century; here's Gustave Vichy's mildly terrifying mechanical harpist, which was built in Paris in 1880. Her golden harp is invisible to the living; you can only see it on your deathbed. More »
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It would probably look like this "Escape Machine" in Paris, which doles out free vacations (or oversized invalid tickets). It's like HAL and the monolith had a bastard child, and it was adopted by a nice couple from Candyland. More »
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You're not going to believe this, but science has proven that men are way more likely to take women up on random offers of sex than vice versa. But some brave truth-seekers asked the vital question...what about in other countries? More »
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The Barry Troglodyte Village is a small complex of homes build undeground in the south of France. Though underground homes are unusual, that's not the weirdest part about this place. These subterranean houses have been occupied continuously by people for thousands of years - from the neolithic era of roving tribes, to the early twentieth century. More »
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In a 1931 issue of Mechanics Illustrated, designer Leon Feoquinos presented plans for this floating pleasure city smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This artificial island contained not one, but four recreations of the Eiffel Tower. More »
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Here are some gorgeous illustrations from the French science fiction compilation Club Du Livre D'Anticipation. Check out the works of Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick depicted by French artists like Moebius. More »
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We've been excited for directors Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher's cops versus gangsters versus the undead flick The Horde for a while, and now you can watch this neat-looking film on IFC Midnight. More »
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This is but a small sampling of the mostly Gallic (and totally bonkers) theatrical posters from Double M2's Cirque Flickr set. My personal favorite is the fellow whose stage moniker is "Nostradamus Jr." [Spotted on Morbid Anatomy] More »
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Charlton Heston's ape overlords may have spoken English, but telling those damn dirty apes to get their stinking paws off of you can be said in any tongue. Here are Planet of the Apes comic covers from around the globe. More »
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Welcome to Soundtrack Saturday, a now-and-then column which showcases music that's tickling our aural syntax nodes. Today's artist is undead deejay Kavinsky. His music sounds like John Carpenter and Jan Hammer fighting crime together and working out in abandoned warehouses. More »
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Despite its long opposition to nuclear power, the Golden State may soon be building several nuclear power plants - because they are environmentally friendly. More »
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Deep in the forests of Alsace, adventurous explorers can marvel at this strange installation that looks very much like what an invisibility cloak over a secret ship might look like in 100 years. No it's not a Romulan craft — it's actually a sculpture made of stones, glue and mirrors by Michel De Broin. More »
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The Eiffel Tower has remained exactly the same for 120 years, but this year builders will be attaching a temporary, carbon Kevlar observation deck to its uppermost reaches. French architecture firm Serero will help Paris celebrate the 120th birthday of the tower by more than doubling the floor space at its top. We've got a full frontal tower view below. More »
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This concert hall, just completed in Aurillac, France, holds over 4,000 people and glows in changing rainbow patterns at night. In the daytime, the soaring, curved walls are otherworldly. But at night fluorescent lights that peek out from between concrete blocks create an eerie, alien look that you can see below. More »
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A common French weed known as Crepis sancta underwent a form of superaccelerated evolution to cope with the difficulties of spreading their seeds in cities. Scientists studying C. sancta discovered that over a period of just twelve years, the plants went from mostly producing "dispersing" seeds that spread on the wind, to producing "nondispersing" seeds that fall to the ground nearby. Why would a plant shift its reproductive cycle so radically and quickly? More »
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French artist Tania Mouraud likes to make giant black-and-white installations that look like bar codes but are actually just letters written in a crazy font she invented to communicate with aliens. Apparently, aliens don't like to see spaces in between words (or letters, for that matter), but the more educated ones have learned English. Here, Mouraud asks them: "How can you sleep?" A question any decent host would ask their jet-lagged visitors. Click through for another message to our extraterrestrial visitors. More »
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