In 1936, a young retail clerk found an interesting piece of metal near near San Rafael, California. He could make out the words "Sir Francis Drake" on the inscription. A year later, friends convinced him to take it to the local college, where UC Berkeley historian Herbert Eugene Bolton recognized it as an artifact he'd been looking for for years. Not long afterward, he called a meeting of his colleagues.

For centuries, historians had searched for Drake’s plate, the only physical evidence of Sir Francis Drake’s expedition to the California coast. The English privateer, fresh off raiding Spanish ships and towns along the Pacific coast, found safe harbor in the Point Reyes area in June 1579. While resting and restocking there, he claimed the territory for Queen Elizabeth I. He named it New Albion.

According to crew member accounts, Drake left an inscribed brass plate in the area to stake his claim. But in the 350 years since, no one had seen it.

Bolton was convinced it was still out there. Whenever his students said they’d be taking a weekend trip to the seashore, he asked them to keep an eye out for Drake’s plate.

Now, he had it. It was not what he expected, sure, but Bolton had explanations for everything. He told the assembled crowd and the media there was no doubt this plate was real. Its craftsmanship and writing (“BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND IN THE NAME OF HERR MAIESTYQVEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND AND HERR SVCCESSORS FOREVER, I TAKE POSSESSION OF THIS KINGDOME,” it read in part) was consistent with the 1500s.

There was skepticism from the start, but Bolton died in 1953 believing he had Drake's plate. In 1977, the plate was exposed as a hoax, but the full story didn't come out until 2003. Read the rest of the details behind Drake's plate at SFgate. -via Digg

How do bears spend their energy as they search for food? To find the answer to this question, scientists from Washington State University’s Bear Research, Education, and Conservation Center trained grizzly bears to run on treadmills. What they found in this experiment is that bears are lazy creatures who want to be efficient with their energy usage.

Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) need to stock up on energy before they slip into winter hibernation. As opportunistic omnivores, they eat just about anything—berries, roots, grass, insects, and meat—to put on weight...

This is the reason we usually see bears around popular hiking trails: they can save energy as the hiking trails are mostly flat. So,...

If you’ve ever worried a bear might be after your picnic basket, you may want to take the hardest, hilliest trail to your destination.

(Image Credit: Anthony Michael Carnahan/ Science Magazine)

The librarian in me finds mutilating books deeply unsettling. But if a book is already damaged, why not put its corpse to a good use? Perhaps Inès Mélia, an artist in Paris, agrees. She turns old books into classy tissue boxes that would look elegant in any home.

-via Messy Nessy Chic

Scientists are still analyzing data from NASA's twin study, in which astronaut Scott Kelly spent a year aboard the International Space Station, while his identical twin brother, retired astronaut Mark Kelly acted as a control. A new research paper reveals that over 340 days in space, Scott Kelly's heart shrunk 27%!  

That might sound alarming, but it’s a reflection of how adaptable the human heart is, explains study author Benjamin Levine, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas, to the New York Times’ Kenneth Chang. On Earth, the heart has to pump blood hard enough to move it upward while gravity pulls it down. But in the weightless conditions of orbit, gravity is no longer a factor, and the heart shrinks to an appropriate size.

The study assures us that Kelly's heart is just fine now, and he has recovered from the changes his body went through during his 2015-16 space sojourn. However, you must imagine the strength necessary to re-adapt a smaller heart to dealing with the force of gravity again upon return. Scott Kelly has since retired from NASA, while his brother Mark left retirement to serve as a US senator. An article at Smithsonian explains what went on with Kelly's heart and also that of long-distance swimmer Benoît Lecomte as he attempted to swim across the Pacific Ocean.

(Image credit: NASA/Scott Kelly)

What makes the Mii Channel and the Wii Sports themes so good that people are willing to listen to extended versions of these themes (which last ten hours)? In this video Charles Cornell analyzes the music and explains to us why these pieces of music sound really good to our ears.

(Image Credit: Charles Cornell/ YouTube)

Because an environment has an established ecosystem which governs the circle of life of the flora and fauna in that area, new species introduced to that environment can bring about massive changes and disruption to that ecosystem. These changes brought about by the new species are usually not beneficial for the natural inhabitants of the area; the said changes could be a new disease or a transformation of the landscape (such as devastation of crops).

Over the years, we humans have traded and have introduced foreign creatures to our local environments, and this has caused us more harm than good to our respective environments. It costs a lot in resources trying to control the damage.

ScienceNews gives us the top five costliest invasive species in the world, with the Aedes mosquitoes, which cost the global economy about $149 billion, taking the number one spot.

More about the list over at the site.

(Image Credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim/ Wikimedia Commons)

Like the butterfly whose days inside its cocoon are finally over, Ingenuity, the tiny helicopter that hitched a ride in the Perseverance rover, slowly unfolded itself and found its landing legs suspended just a few inches above the Martian soil. The unfolding process took about a week. The future looks bright for the first helicopter on Mars.

Next, the Perseverance rover will set the helicopter down in what will be the center of Ingenuity's airfield, a 33-foot (10 meters) square section of Mars hand-selected by mission scientists to be as safe as possible for the little aircraft.

Then, Perseverance will drive away and give Ingenuity time to charge up its solar batteries. Mission personnel will run a series of tests on the helicopter to ensure its ready to attempt flight.

Ingenuity's first flight is planned to take the helicopter just 10 feet (3 m) above the Red Planet's surface and see the chopper hover for no more than 30 seconds before touching down on the now-unfolded legs.

NASA plans on having the Ingenuity’s first flight above the Martian in early April.

(Image Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ Space.com)

The Hood Internet has been remixing the songs of the year for every year, beginning in 1979. When this one dropped, people were eagerly awaiting it, but were then astonished. I myself was surprised that I knew a few of the songs. Folks know the songs that are important to their memories, and they know what year they were popular. As the video played, they saw there were errors upon errors until it became clear that this is an April Fools Day mix. Here's the real 1999 mix.

And I was still astonished that I recognized a couple of the songs.

Maneki-neko (“beckoning cat”) is a popular figurine that can be found in Asian stores. It is believed that this figurine can bring good luck to its owner, and it raises its beckoning hand. Because it has one hand raised all the time, it would be unsurprising to see this hand increase in muscle mass and grow in size. Such is the case with this Maneki-neko.

Available in both a 9-inch $70 and 13-inch $120 model (affiliate link), the cat is also wearing some cool cat sunglasses, so of all the good luck cats, this is the coolest good luck cat.

This cat is ripped!

(Image Credit: DudeIWantThat/ Technabob)

This is really silly, but it's what the internet was made for. The movie Godzilla vs. Kong is in theaters now, pitting the giant movie monsters against one another. Their ridiculous size makes them perfect for cinematic violence, but what about cleaning up after them? In other words, which would produce the most waste? Mental Floss turned to the experts: primate expert Dr. Cat Hobaiter and reptile researcher Dr. David A. Steen, who give us the poop, so to speak, on the closest real world analogies to the movie monsters. Then we can extrapolate to their movie size and determine a, uh, winner. Would you bet on King Kong or Godzilla to drop the bigger load in a typical day? Find out what Mental Floss has determined in a scientifically and mathematically sound (but still fictional) competition.

After a year of pandemic precautions, you may have trouble envisioning what a movie theater interior looks like. But think back to the movies you saw in the 1990s, and what an experience it was to go out to the local multiplex, maybe in a mall, maybe with an arcade attached. It was an era in which theaters tried to be total experiences, like a theme park. And you might particularly remember the cosmic carpets that seemed to be in every theater across the country.  

But why the carpets? According to Dimensional Innovations, it was actually a practical maneuver. Once the global blockbuster era hit full swing (think Jurassic Park, Titanic, et al) people were going to the movies in droves, spilling their sugary drinks and melty Milk Duds on the floor in record numbers. “There used to be tile underneath the seats,” says Trotter. “It made it easy to clean, but people complained about how their feet would stick to the floor. These places were dirty.”

Enter the carpets—ones with hectic patterns in every shade of neon known to Pantone. “It’s got so many different colors in it, you can spill coffee or Coke or popcorn and it won’t show,” Trotter says. The Dimensional Innovations team would actually dump Coca-Cola on these new carpets, let it soak in, walk all over them, and check to see if it changed the colors. It didn’t. Even blacklight lights wouldn’t reveal the stains. “It was a pretty genius design,” says Trotter, still laughing, “just horrible.”

The carpets were only part of the movie theater aesthetic that was unique to the '90s. Read more about the look and where it went at A24.  -via Boing Boing

Lamanna's Bakery in Toronto is famous for its preposterously huge slices of pizza. But the bakers don't stop there. What toppings belong on a pizza? The bakers are willing to try anything, and the results are clever and beautiful, such as this pizza inspired by Homer Simpson's favorite donut.

Born in 1826, Frenchman Louis Coulon couldn't keep a close shave. So he gave up and let his beard grow. And grow. And grow. It eventually reached eleven feet (3.3 meters) by 1904, according to contemporary accounts. Coulon was the subject of a slew of postcards, which changed up sometimes when he posed with other people, or birds nesting in his beard, or often his cats! If you look carefully at the picture above, you'll see a kitten climbing up the front of Coulon's beard. See a gallery of Coulon's postcards at Vintage Everyday. -via Metafilter

Keeping up with one young child is hard enough, imagine trying to keep track of four all the same age! This mother bear had her hands full trying to cross a street with four cubs in Winsted, Connecticut, on Monday. You carry one, another follows, one stays back, and one doesn't know what to do. At one point, she even tries to carry two cubs in her mouth at once, but that doesn't work. Lucky for the bears, traffic stopped completely to let the family pass through.  -via Laughing Squid

This lovely little house for sale in Baltimore is quite unique once you look past the front. It comes with some nice perks, like a detached garage, party bar, and a backyard fire pit.

The house is lighting up the internet as a statement on home decor. Every room is monochromatic, black furnishings against clean, white walls.



The current owner is easily pegged as a single male Goth football fan with a clear devotion to an aesthetic that is hard to define, although the term “American Goth” comes to mind. An interview with the real estate agent dubs it “sexy funeral goth.”

Slate: When you have a house with decor as unusual as this, do you try to get the sellers to neutralize it a little? Or do you just embrace it?

Matt Godbey: Well, you should have seen it before. He somewhat neutralized it. I told him: I’ve been doing this for 33 years, and I know what sells. Some of the things in there, I told him, will frighten people. There were about 25 mannequins in the basement and some upstairs.

Take a tour through 82 pictures at the real estate listing. -via Metafilter