It has been over three decades since the 1980s, ever since scientists agreed that most of the matter in the known universe is invisible, and that “dark matter” is the one responsible for gravitationally shaping the cosmos. It has also been over three decades since the search for this dark matter began.

They first set out in pursuit of a heavy, sluggish form of dark matter called a weakly interacting massive particle, or WIMP — the early favorite candidate for the cosmos’s missing matter because it could solve another, unrelated puzzle in particle physics. Over the decades, teams of physicists set up ever larger targets, in the form of huge crystals and multi-ton vats of exotic liquids, hoping to catch the rare jiggle of an atom when a WIMP banged into it.

But these detectors have stayed quiet, and physicists are increasingly contemplating a broader spectrum of possibilities. On the heavy end, they say the universe’s invisible matter could clump into black holes as heavy as stars. At the other extreme, dark matter could spread out in a fine mist of particles thousands of trillions of trillions of times lighter than electrons.

As the years passed by, new hypotheses were made, and with new hypotheses also came new methods. Quanta Magazine documents the many types of experiments and hypotheses that were made in search for the elusive dark matter. Read more about the story over at the site.

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Upper floors of an apartment in New Bedford, Massachusetts, were set on fire because of a cooking mishap. Residents near the apartment were deep-frying a turkey on their back porch when it exploded, setting fire into nearby houses. Firefighters have quickly responded to the scene, but the mayor Jon Mitchell warns people on the perils of deep frying a turkey. Be careful, guys!

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It wasn't just the Greeks; everywhere we look there are ancient writings that mention all kinds of colors, but not blue. Figuring out why takes us on a journey through time and culture and the relationship between language and observation. -via The Mary Sue

The Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, will return a rare 10th-11th-century hand-written gospel manuscript to the Kosinitza Monastery in northern Greece. The document was looted from the site by Bulgarian troops during the first world war. The museum informed the office of office of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the world leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church that they have the rare document, and offered to return it: 

According to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, the patriarch has permitted the museum to display the work until October 2021, and loaned it three more manuscripts as a gesture of gratitude for the gospels’ return.

In recent years, the Museum of the Bible’s collection, originally owned by the Green family in Oklahoma City, founders of the arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby, has been found to hold many objects that were smuggled out of their countries of origin or brought into the US improperly. The museum, which opened in 2017 in a massive former refrigerated warehouse south of the National Mall, has started to more thoroughly investigate its collection and has returned other antiquities. Now closed, the museum had a pre-pandemic attendance of one million visitors per year.

The Eikosiphoinissa Manuscript 220 was among 431 manuscripts and 470 other works pillaged from the monastery’s library, including icons, vestments and liturgical objects.

image via the Art Newspaper

Here's a finding that provides fascinating clues for ...further study. Archaeologists have found tools used by both Neanderthals and early modern humans, and a deep dive into their thumbs sheds light on how they used those tools. Scientists from the University of Kent measured the shape of thumb bones, specifically the bone connected to the wrist, on a microscopic level to determine the most common grip used by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. 

"The joint at the base of the thumb of the Neanderthal fossils is flatter with a smaller contact surface between the bones, which is better suited to an extended thumb positioned alongside the side of the hand," Bardo says. "This thumb posture suggests the regular use of power ‘squeeze’ grips, which is the grip we use when we hold tools with handles, like a hammer."

On the other hand, human "joint surfaces are generally larger and more curved," a shape which lends itself well to "gripping objects between the pads of the finger and thumb, known as a precision grip," Bardo explains.

It's not that the Neanderthals couldn't use precision grips, but rather they would have found them difficult. Instead, they adapted better to power grips for handling tools.

How did the different grips affect the two species' everyday lives? We don't know. Did the difference between grips contribute to the Neanderthals' downfall? We don't know that, either. It may have been a tiny adaptation that made less of a difference than, say, war. But it opens up a field of study that may provide answers down the line regarding the ascendence of Homo sapiens and the extinction of
Homo neanderthalensis. Read more about the study at Inverse. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Ameline Bardo)

Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, will be opening a library containing the works of well-known author Haruki Marukami. The Waseda International House of Literature, also known as the Haruki Murakami Library, will contain the author’s  books, translation work, notes, and thousands of other records. Murakami, a Waseda alumni, actually donated his personal archive to the university. 

Image via Waseda University 

Just as we saw in the Indiana Jones movies, the original Nazi party was quite interested in acquiring significant religious relics. Specifically, Heinrich Himmler, who headed the SS, wanted to procure the Holy Grail. Himmler read Otto Rahn's book in which he posited the theory that the Cathars had possession of the grail in the 13th century and managed to hide it. Rahn had been researching the grail for several years at that point. Himmler summoned the archaeologist to work for him, and even made him a member of the SS.   

A small, sensitive and bookish man, Rahn never quite fit in with the boorish, bullnecked bullies of the SS. He was also a heavy drinker, openly liberal in his political views, and gay. In a letter to a friend he wrote shortly before entering Himmler’s service, he remarked sadly that: “It is impossible for a tolerant and generous person to stay for long in this country, which used to be my wonderful homeland.”

In Otto Rahn & The Quest for the Holy Grail, author Nigel Graddon posits that Rahn never had any sympathy for the Nazis and saw them only as a source of research funding and financial support. On one occasion, when spotted by an old acquaintance in his black SS uniform, complete with ceremonial dagger and swastika armband, Rahn reportedly just shrugged and sighed: “One must eat.”

Otto Rahm is sometimes cited as one of the many inspirations for the Indiana Jones character. Read the real story at Military History Now. -via Strange Company

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Railroad tycoon Charles Crocker bought a lot in San Francisco in 1878 and built a big mansion. He wanted to own the entire city block, and managed to buy up all the neighbor's lots except for one holdout: Nicholas Yung. Yung saw no reason to move, and refused to sell his corner property. Well, he finally engaged in negotiations, but asked for a price Crocker wasn't willing to pay -even though it was less than other property owners were getting.

Crocker ordered his workmen to construct a three-sided wood fence around Yung's house. The fence rose forty feet into the sky completely boxing up the German immigrant’s house, depriving him of sunlight and sir. The Yungs felt as if they were living at the bottom of a well. The plants in their garden wilted, and they had to use candles even in daytime.

Yung threatened to build a giant coffin on his roof above the height of the fence, emblazoned on the side turned toward his aristocratic neighbors with a skull and cross-bones, to serve as an advertisement of his business but mostly to remind Crocker of his own mortality. The story of the feud was picked up by the media and the fence soon became one of the city’s most popular attraction. People started taking the California Street cable car just to look at the fence that rose malevolently above Yung’s modest home. The fence was so tall it had to braced with big timbers and cost Crocker $3,000.

The feud went on for a quarter century and outlasted both Crocker and Yung. Read what happened and the ultimate fate of the Crocker mansion at Amusing Planet.

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Melissa Trierweiler started posting funny stories about Disney Princesses back in 2014. She illustrates these tales with her Disney dolls. Now there are 153 episodes at her site The Official Princess Club that explore the weirdness of putting these characters together. The royal couples don't understand how Anna and Kristof can be engaged when the rest of them just met and immediately married. Anna can't resist freezing the glass of water Ariel is swimming in. Tiana can't use the kitchen utensils because they are Belle's friends. Cinderella vacuums the Magic Carpet against his will. And no one can figure out why John Smith is half the size of Pocahontas. See a roundup of 30 representative episodes from over the years at Bored Panda. Or read them all at The Official Princess Club.

In December, Inglewood Drive in Toronto becomes "Kringlewood" because almost everyone puts up a giant inflatable Santa Claus. That started in 2013, as the neighborhood embraced the absurdity of giant inflatable holiday decorations. You see them everywhere, but where do they come from?  

Most of the oversized blow-up decorations you see staked and inflated on holidays like Halloween and Christmas are from a company called Gemmy. (Last year, the company estimated they owned 90-95% of the market share.) They’re the same business behind the Big Mouth Billy Bass, the singing animatronic fish that took the country by storm around the turn of the millennium — a truly viral moment before we called things “viral moments” (just be glad that caroling fish and TikTok didn’t intersect). As the Wall Street Journal reported in 2006, Gemmy had moved on to inflatable decorations after positing that regular consumers would get a kick out of owning versions of the “gorillas and dinosaurs that retailers sometimes use to announce grand openings and sales.” They were right.

Even back then, the Journal made note of the immense size (four to 12 feet tall) and relatively high price (up to $300) of the inflatable decorations, but you get the sense in the article that the popularity was among the kind of people who set their Christmas lights to music; and certainly those who take pride in their annual festive displays — I’m thinking Tim Taylor in the sitcom Home Improvement here — go through phases and trends like any hobbyist. But slowly, surely, these inflatables started spreading to more conventional households, the kind who had traditionally just pulled out the same box of string lights and garland every year.

Read about the rise of Christmas inflatables at Inside Hook. -via Digg

In 1784, just two years after the bald eagle became the symbol in the Great Seal of the United States, founding father Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to his daughter. In the letter, he complained about the decision, and said that the turkey would have been the better choice. He reasons that the eagle is a scavenger, and is too lazy to find food for itself. The turkey, on the other hand, is “a bird of courage,” according to Franklin. Surprisingly, his claims about the bald eagle and the turkey is backed up with science.

More about this over at Discover Magazine.

(Image Credit: Dimus/ Wikimedia Commons)

I don’t have the time and patience to figure out how to play a whole musical piece using household appliances. Well, some people are talented and patient enough to do so. Watch   Kurt Hugo Schneider as he covers the Harry Potter theme with his washer and dryer. Mad respect, man. 

The holidays are near, and you’d expect big sales going around. The one unexpected sale we have right now is Nintendo, with Walmart, Amazon and Best Buy having slashed prices on some major Nintendo Switch titles like The Legend Of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and Luigi’s Mansion 3.  Most of the games are currently $20 off the digital versions, and some prices are even lower for a physical copy! If you want a deal on Nintendo’s eshop, they are also having a sale until December 2. Grab the deals while you still can! 

Image via CNET 

Apple has finally unveiled the new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini with its own M1 chip. Gone are the Intel-powered expensive MacBooks, and it has resulted in a fair amount of hype and skepticism. Is the in-house designed processor worth our money? Are the new Macs really better than Intel-powered ones? Input Magazine’s  Raymond Wong bought his own new M1-powered MacBook, and is ready to spill the tea. Check his full piece here. 

Image via Apple 

We’ve seen fictional weapons fire lasers at enemies, at the sky, at aliens, even! But laser weaponry is no longer just something you’d see in movies or television shows, it has become reliable weaponry that can be used even in the harshest of conditions. The Drive’s Tyler Rogoway writes how technological developments have helped the rise of laser weaponry. Check the full piece here.  

Image via The Drive