The French have a reputation for romance. While it is a stereotype, it is one that the people of France rarely deny. So it might surprise you to learn that French lovers don't often say "I love you" ("je t'aime"). Oh yeah, they communicate the sentiment in a lot of other ways, but those words don't come easy.

The French don't say, "I love you" because they don't have a verb to express heartfelt sentiments for the people they care about. There is only the verb "aimer", which means both "to like" and "to love". As a result, a French person is not exaggerating when they conjugate "aimer" to explain their relationship to rugby, a warm baguette or the smell of lilacs. Naturally, then, it feels trite and rather mundane to use the same word when describing intense feelings of love for one's newborn baby, a childhood friend or a life partner.

The upshot is that the language is insufficient to express the true depths of love. That sounds sweet, but why don't they come up with words that are sufficient? Maybe because the French know that actions speak louder than words. And there are still plenty of other words that hint at true love, too. Read more at BBC Travel.

Shmorby attempts to introduce newbies (meaning children) to the internet. While he wants to paint the web as a fun, useful place, alas, the real internet keeps butting in. Oh yeah, and don't beat yourself up over missing "the internet mascot everyone knows and loves," because the only people who knew Schmorby before last fall were his creators. -via Metafilter

Victory in warfare often goes to the entity that develops the most horrendous weapons, as we all learned in 1945. But mysterious but horrifying weapons that you wouldn't expect abound in history. In the 7th century, Byzantine warfare included the use of what appears to be a flamethrower! This weapon was called Greek fire.

The chief method of deploying Greek fire was by projection through a tube called a siphōn, which was placed aboard ships or on siege engines called cheirosiphōnes. A handheld portable siphōn was also invented that is the earliest analogue to a modern flamethrower. Byzantine military manuals also give mention of Greek fire filled jars, caltrops wrapped with tow soaked in the substance, and cranes called gerania that would pour Greek fire onto enemy ships.

The Byzantines ascribed the discovery of Greek fire to “divine intervention”, for which the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos (AD 945–959) would later account in his book De Administrando Imperio to never reveal the secrets of its composition, as it was “shown and revealed by an angel to the great and holy first Christian emperor Constantine” and that the angel bound him “not to prepare this fire but for Christians, and only in the imperial city.”

There are accounts of what went into Greek fire, but they must have not been too helpful, because the technology was eventually lost. Read about Geek fire at Heritage Daily. -via Strange Company

Some time in the distant past, African straight-tusked elephants (which were larger than existing elephants) traveled to Sicily when the Mediterranean sea level was low, and then got stranded there. They somehow evolved into dwarf elephants. The first dwarf species on the island was around the size of a Shetland pony! But it went extinct, and then came a slighter larger species which, at 1000 kilograms, was still quite small for an elephant. Fossils from Puntali cave in Sicily give a somewhat confusing timeline for Sicil's elephants, but now mitochondrial DNA has been extracted from a fossil, and its sequencing may yield answers.

It shows that the Puntali elephants were isolated on Sicily at least 175,500 years ago, but potentially as recently as 50,000 years ago.

This then allowed the team to estimate that the elephants shrank in size by up to 200kg per generation, shedding 8,000kg to reach just 15% the size of the straight-tusked elephant within 40 generations.

'We have produced a range of realistic evolutionary scenarios,' explains Victoria. 'I would not be surprised if evolutionary rates were even higher than our highest estimate, but only new data on Sicilian and other southern European material will refine this further.'

Read more about the research on dwarf elephant DNA at the British Natural History Museum. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: James St. John)

Technology is constantly improving and evolving. With the rise of facial recognition software, it comes as no surprise that there are now ways to fool these complex algorithms. An AI technique, developed by Adversa, is claimed to fool facial recognition systems into identifying a picture of one person’s face as that of someone else by adding minute alterations, or noise, to the original image: 

The company announced the technique on its website with a demonstration video showing that it could alter an image of CEO Alex Polyakov into fooling PimEyes, a publicly available facial recognition search engine, into misidentifying his face as that of Elon Musk. 

To test this, I sent a photo of myself to the researchers, who ran it through their system and sent it back to me. I uploaded it to PimEyes, and now PimEyes thinks I’m Mark Zuckerberg.

Adversarial attacks against facial recognition systems have been improving for years, as have the defenses against them. But there are several factors that distinguish Adversa AI’s attack, which the company has nicknamed Adversarial Octopus because it is “adaptable,” “stealthy,” and “precise.”

Other methods are “just hiding you, they’re not changing you to somebody else,” Polyakov told Motherboard.

And rather than adding noise to the image data on which models are trained in order to subvert that training—known as a poisoning attack—this technique involves altering the image that will be input into the facial recognition system and doesn’t require inside knowledge of how that system was trained. 

Image via Vice 

Scientists now believe that a particular group of people came first before the Neanderthals. Thanks to a cave in the Altai Mountains in Russia, experts have found evidence that another, little-known group of ancient humans, called the Denisovans occupied the site first before sharing it with the Neanderthals. Inverse has more details: 

“This is a group we know very little about,” lead author Elena Zavala tells Inverse. Zavala is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

“By increasing our knowledge, we are provided with another perspective or reference for understanding what are the elements that make us modern humans ‘human.’”

Our understanding of who exactly the Denisovans were is still murky, but it’s one that’s steadily becoming improved.

Denisovans and Neanderthals — the ancient sister kin of humans — both belong to the same Homo genus, but we knew little about these ancient peoples until 2010. This is when scientists discovered their fossilized remains in what’s known called Denisova Cave, the three-chambered site in the Altai Mountains.

Scientists had previously discovered a dozen remains of Neanderthals and Denisovans in the cave, as well as a hybrid child with a mix of Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA, suggesting that the two groups mated with each other.

However, the researchers didn’t fully understand when and how these different groups of ancient humans overlapped.

That’s where the new study comes into play. Contrary to what we previously thought, Denisovans may have actually predated the Neanderthals.

Image credit: Dr. Richard G. Roberts 

The Internet (well, a specific portion of it) was on its toes during the E3 week, waiting and hoping for announcements about the games they want to play in the future. While a lot of surprises definitely made people lose their marbles, personally, Nintendo announcing a reboot of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-boot Camp was the one that made their Nintendo Direct a success for me. Sure, there’s Metroid Dread, there’s also the new trailer for the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but the shock that went through me was different when the Advance Wars reboot was announced. So what is Advance Wars anyway? Simply put, the game is a turn-based tactical strategy game. It’s kind of like Fire Emblem-- which says something, as it was created by the same studio: 

For those who are unfamiliar, Advance Wars is a turn-based tactical strategy series that pits armies against each other on a grid map. Created by the same studio behind the Fire Emblem series, Intelligent Systems, Advance Wars is arguably one of the most beloved Nintendo series not starring Mario or Pikachu, with a fandom that obsesses over the games as much as Nintendo’s other franchises. Unlike Fire Emblem, which has seen its popularity skyrocket ever since its 3DS debut, Advance Wars has remained dormant for more than a decade. Now, fans and newcomers alike can experience the first two games in the series, revamped from the ground up.

The game is being developed by Way Forward, who are the fine folks behind the underrated platforming series, Shantae, so it’s in good hands. They also developed River City Girls and are working on the upcoming sequel. Advance Wars 1+2: Re-boot Camp includes Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, which originally launched on the Game Boy Advance. While the game is sticking with the original mechanics, it’s getting a complete makeover, with a new art style and updated graphics.

I’m very excited about this one as I remember playing it as much as possible on my Gameboy Advanced. I certainly did not expect Nintendo to revive this franchise, out of all the possible games they could. 

Image credit: Nintendo 

Back in the mid-18th century, it was assumed that the animals and the vegetation in America only grew to a modest size and were much smaller than those found in Europe, due to the climate of the continent. This absurd idea was thanks to Georges-Louis Leclerc, Compte (Count) de Buffon.

At this point, America had been flourishing for 200 years, perfectly long enough – in his eyes – to produce great and famous people. Yet, Benjamin Franklin was one of the only names that made it to Europe’s ears. Attempting to understand their strange "lack of success", Buffon hatched a theory – the environment was too swampy.  

With Europe being such an international powerhouse, Buffon concluded that America was simply an inferior version of Europe. Plagued by swampish odors and dense forest, it was of course impossible that anything of good size and stature could arise from such conditions, and therefore both the people and the animals must be smaller. 

Thomas Jefferson strongly disagreed over Buffon’s theory. He stated that he had seen moose that were taller than humans and were much larger than the English stag. Unfortunately, the Europeans did not believe him, as he did not have evidence to back up his claims. So Jefferson produced one.

Writing to John Sullivan of New Hampshire in 1786, Jefferson requested that he send the "skin, the skeleton, and the horns of the Moose, the Caribou, and the Orignal or Elk ... but most especially those of the moose" off to Paris. The animal was to be left in the skin, the horns attached to the head, and the belly and neck was to be sewn up. Certainly a strange request for anyone to receive, but Jefferson expressed that the package was of great importance, and Sullivan obliged.

Upon seeing the moose when it finally arrived in Paris, Buffon was impressed and eventually changed his view on the state of wildlife in America.

Thanks, Jefferson!

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

A site in Syria has led archaeologists to hypothesize that it may be the world’s first military memorial. The site, known as the White Monument, contained partial skeletons of adults and teens buried with ammo or animals needed for battle. The monument, experts propose, likely held soldiers, who were buried with co-combatants, as Smithsonian details:  

Such a massive memorial for battle-dead suggests the town had a standing army: “people who identify as soldiers, as opposed to people who go out and fight in the offseason or when someone’s attacking,” says Stephanie Selover, an archaeologist at the University of Washington who studies ancient warfare in nearby Anatolia, but was not involved in the study.

“The possibility of standing armies that are so controlled and centralized you’re even able to make a monument… There’s nothing else like this,” in the Early Bronze Age, she adds.

The monument would have served as a conspicuous reminder that leaders had the means to maintain and memorialize an army—a message that would have been received by locals as well as outside foreigners. “Burying these people in the sort of function that they would have had in a military is really a statement of power at that point, both locally and externally, because this thing was really visible for miles,” says University of Toronto archaeologist Anne Porter, lead author of the Antiquity study.

Image credit: the Euphrates Salvage Project

People have varying ways of coping during the pandemic (may I remind you that there’s still a pandemic so please stay safe out there), from playing games to watching tv shows and movies to taking up hobbies, all are valid and are a great way to deal with anxiety and stress. Another good method has popped up: gratitude. While an additional dose of kindness in any situation is always welcome, a rise in thanking people for their efforts is evident. Shondaland’s Gina Hamadey shares her experience of how showing gratitude made her life slightly better:  

That heart-slowing sensation was real, even if I didn’t know it at the time. A 2017 study by the Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul examined the effects of gratitude and resentment on mental well-being, using heart rate as one indicator. The average heart rate was significantly lower while the participants were spending four minutes thinking grateful thoughts about their mothers, compared with spending those four minutes focused on moments or people who made them angry.

Each month of my gratitude year was dedicated to a different group of recipients, such as friends, family members, parenting helpers, career mentors, and favorite authors. The eight notes I wrote to my mother-in-law throughout the year changed the dynamic of our relationship: I became more aware of how much she does for our family, and she was touched by how much I noticed.

Among the many gratitude benefits, I experienced was a heightened sense of resilience. Writing the notes not only offered me a short-term feeling of calm, it made it easier to channel positive emotions in general. “Sitting with any feeling, whether positive, neutral, or negative, has the potential to rewire our neural connections due to our neuroplastic brains,” explains Bret Stetka, author of A History of the Human Brain. “When we use any brain network—whether for riding a bike or playing a guitar—those neuronal connections are strengthened and more easily called upon. Expressing gratitude and sitting with your positive feelings towards others bolsters these networks, making it easier for the brain to access that warmth.”

Image credit: Gina Hamadey

This chart is a work of art. I hope multiple people got paid well to make it and I hope they get hit by a bus pic.twitter.com/XS6aWwwj7P

— Katelyn Gadd (@antumbral) June 24, 2021

Charts and graphs can be wonderful for breaking down information and showing trends over time, but only if they are constructed in a way that people can understand. On TV, the viewer only has a short period of time to grab that information, but when you take a screenshot, you see that there are many things wrong with this graph. Mefite Stark takes a stab at listing them.

1. The y-axis doesn't start at zero
2. The y-axis isn't labelled correctly (it should be % of Adults who report that they think violent crime is a problem)
3. The gaps between the data points on the x-axis are not representative of the gaps between the dates
4. The margin of error is not highlighted on the chart's data points
5. Straight lines between the data points imply a steady trend which may or may not be the case
6. In my opinion the most amazing weirdness is that the x-axis dates go from right to left!

Someone else mentioned that the x-axis is labeled in alphabetical order. Andy Baio took the information and made a much better chart.

Wait so it isn't even for actual violent crime? Just adults who THINK there's a violent crime problem?????

— Crim Lust (@Cr1ms0n_lus7) June 25, 2021

This is far from unique, though, as many media outlets rely on their graphics departments (or maybe an intern) to make charts instead of data scientists. You can go down the rabbit hole and see plenty of confusing or misleading information in charts here, here, and here. In fact, there are so many ways to make a bad chart that several sites are dedicated to explaining and shaming them. See more terrible charts archived at Bad Visualizations, WTF Visualizations, and the subreddit Data Is Ugly.  -via Metafilter

Chickfly pants are designed for women who want to enjoy the great outdoors without the need to pull down their pants every few hours to void their bladder and/or bowels. Claire Barber, a writer for Outside magazine, wrote about her practical tests of this invention:

I hung in a climbing harness and let my friend and belayer laugh as I awkwardly grabbed at my crotch and attempted to pee midair. I squatted in various locations, including beside dirt roads and in a snowy canyon. [...]

Once you’ve practiced using the fly, the process is the same as any time you pee outdoors—find a comfortable place, squat, and go—but takes half the time. And the major win here is for privacy. You don’t need to pull the pants all the way down to go, and if you’re opening them from the front, your back and sides will be fully covered. When you’re done, the stretchy fabric springs back into place so you never feel exposed for long. Granted, you’re still peeing outside, so privacy is relative, but you avoid the hassle of hoisting your pants back up and mooning other outdoor patrons.

-via TYWKIWDBI | Photo: Chickfly

In 1818, a British writer who published under the name "H" wrote an article for The Pocket Magazine in which he predicted the future of the United States. He (assuming it was a man) placed his musings 500 years into the future. It's only been 200 years, but some of them have come strangely true. For instance, Americans traveled to the moon, but some citizens didn't believe it. However, the method of getting there wasn't quite the way it really happened.

Baltimore, December 1, 2318.—“As many of our readers in distant parts of the country have doubted whether the voyage to the moon ever did take place, we do again assure them, upon our veracity, that the information was literally correct. This aerial journey must indeed appear to many who hear of it as a most extraordinary undertaking; particularly when it is recollected, that in the dark ages of English credulity, it was imagined that tubes two hundred and forty thousand miles in length, besides being exposed to many other insuperable objections, would break with their own weight. Yet such were the tubes used by our adventurers, and such were absolutely necessary to supply them with air from the dense atmosphere of our earth. At the period to which we allude, when every science was fettered with the adamantine chains of system, it was also thought impossible for goose-quill, or any other wings, to be of service where the air was so rare as to offer no resistance. This idea the undertaking of now under consideration has fully disproved; for, after the wonders one goose his quill has performed, what must we not expect from the labours of a number united […]

Other predictions in the article referred to automated doctors, the miracle of temperature control in the home, and the discovery of an unlimited liquid fuel coming from the earth. Read these predictions from 200 years ago at Reynolds's News and Miscellany. -via Strange Company

It is commonly thought that Homo sapiens came from Africa and Neanderthals evolved in Europe. However, a discovery in Israel appears to put both human species in the same location in the Levant. An archaeological dig started in 2012 at Nesher Ramla, and has yielded human remain in which a skull fragment appears to be Homo sapiens, while the jawbone sports Neanderthal features. Dental anthropologist Rachel Sarig says the discovery may force us into a new interpretation of human evolution.

Sarig’s paper describes the physical characteristics of the remains from Nesher Ramla, and the other paper describes the stone tools found at the site. The bones were compared to other members of the genus Homo using 3D morphometrics—basically, the researchers created a dataset of points in three dimensions and looked at how similar or dissimilar the skull fragment, jawbone, and teeth were from those of other humans. They also dated the specimen to between 140,000 and 120,000 years old, which would mean it lived at the same time as Homo sapiens in the area.

“The Nesher Ramla fossils certainly complicate a straightforward evolutionary story, which traditionally hinged on exclusive occupation of the Levant by either Neanderthals or Homo sapiens,” said Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History who was unaffiliated with the recent papers. “Instead, there may be multiple species around at the same time, sometimes interbreeding, learning from one another and sharing in their cultural behaviors.”

That would certainly be a new way to look at human history. Read more about the research at Gizmodo.

There is some speculation that the human remains may be a previously unknown species that was a common ancestor of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, instead of a hybrid of the two. 

(Image credit: Tel Aviv University)

It makes perfect sense to me. A running joke among carpenters is that Home Depot wood is terrible. It would be prudent to remove the demonic forces that warp it so much.

I don't know if that was the motivation behind the people who visited the Home Depot in Dickerson, Pennsylvania to perform an exorcism in the lumber aisle. We'll likely never know, as employees called police, who removed the customers from the store without incident.

-via Dave Barry | Unrelated photo by Mike Mozart