Imagine a scenario in which the Milky Way galaxy is full of alien civilizations that are advanced enough to travel and communicate with each other, but they don't pay any attention to us here on Earth. That idea can be followed by all kinds of jokes about how human civilization isn't civilized, or otherwise deserving of company. But theoretically, there are other reasons we might not have been contacted by these advanced aliens. We might be honestly too far away to make the trip worth it. We may be relatively too young to understand them. They might know about us and have decided we have nothing useful to offer them. Or we may be among the "do not land here" list for other reasons. Yeah, some of those reasons are getting us closer to the old joke. It's easier to think that we are truly alone in the universe. This video from Kurzgesagt is really 10:15 long; the rest is an ad.

Travertine is a type of limestone that has become quite popular for home decorating because of the interesting natural patterns in it. Redditor Kidipadeli75 went to see the new travertine tiles his parents installed in their bathroom. Kidipadeli75 is a dentist, and recognized one of the patterns as a mandible! When he posted the picture to reddit, he got responses from other dentists, forensic odontologists, and archaeologists who concurred that it was a jawbone cut at an odd angle, possibly human. The tile was sourced from Turkey, and is believed to be around 200,000 years old, so it might be Neanderthal. Since the image was posted, Kidipadeli75 has been in contact with a paleoanthropology team.

John Hawks explains how this can happen, and it's more likely than you might think. Fossils abound in travertine, although they are mostly from animals. The process of retrieving and cutting travertine is fairly automated, so it would be easy to miss an obvious fossil like this one. So how would you feel about having human remains in your bathroom tile? -via Digg

(Image credit: Kidipadeli75)

Young Cal Clifford has been obsessed with octopuses since he was two years old. By the time he was nine, his parents knew that it wasn't a passing fad and decided to get him a pet octopus. They procured Terrence, a two-spot octopus, and a 60-gallon tank. What they didn't know was that Terrance was a female who had already mated. Several months later, she laid eggs that produced 50 baby octopuses!

Cal's father, dentist Cameron Clifford, consulted Dr. Tim Tytle, a reptile expert who has two octopuses. They have separated all the surviving baby octopuses (half of them, a much better survival rate than in the wild) and are housing them at Tytle's duplex. Each have names, like Pearl, Seaoncé, Jay Sea, InverteBrett, Swim Shady, Squid Cudi, Bill Nye the Octopi, and Champ. The Cliffords, who now own 90% of the octopuses in Oklahoma, are looking for homes for the babies, but will not let them go to private families. Octopuses do not make good pets. Instead, they are reaching out to aquariums and research facilities.

Female octopuses normally die soon after laying eggs, but Terrence is still around five months later. Meanwhile, she and her offspring have gone viral with hundreds of thousands of people following the octopuses on TikTok. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: docktopus via TikTok)

We all recall that memorable scene in the movie Happy Feet when all the young emperor penguins go to sea for the first time, driven by instinct. They are terrified, but eventually the first one jumps in, and lets the others know it's okay. Scientists have recorded this first plunge many times, but they also found evidence that some juvenile migrations don't just go to the sea -they go in by jumping off high glacial cliffs! When you feel you must go to the sea, you go, whether it's a gentle jump off some floating ice or a plunge down a 50-foot cliff. For the first time, this phenomena has been filmed, using drones, by cinematographer Bertie Gregory for National Geographic. This footage is part of the documentary series Secrets of the Penguins, which will premiere a year from now, on Earth Day in 2025. -via Nag on the Lake

An archaeological excavation of a Viking burial ground in Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea, revealed three adult women who had a feature not seen in Viking graves- skulls that had been shaped to produce a long cranium. Elongated skulls are shaped by binding the head in infancy, when the bones are soft, and have been found in many places around the world, but not in Sweden, and not in other Viking settlements. Why did it happen to these three women?

Vikings were no strangers to body modification, and sometimes sharpened their teeth to look more intimidating. But these Viking women were outliers. DNA tests showed they were from the Baltic Sea area. Could they have been born during their parents' travel to the Black Sea, were skull deformation was common? The burial sites indicate that they were accepted in the Gotland culture, and the misshapened skulls could have even been seen as a status symbol. Read about the mystery of the Viking women with long heads at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Mirosław Kuźma/Matthias Toplak; ATA/Riksantikvarieämbetet)

The literal translation of tegelwippen is "tile wiping." In this context, it means getting rid of tiles. See, most homes in Dutch cities have their yard covered with tiles to make a patio. This makes lawn care easy, as all you have to do is pull the occasional weed from between the tiles. But there's a new campaign, spearheaded by Remco Moen Marcar, to encourage people to remove the tiles and plant trees and other greenery, in order to cool the city, improve drainage, and combat climate change. And what better way to get people involved than a competition?

The competition called the NK Tegelwippen began about a month ago and will continue through October, to find which town in the Netherlands can remove the most tiles from their private land, calculated as tiles per thousand residents. Those who've already taken the plunge say they are enjoying the outdoors more with cool gardens under the shade of trees. So far, the leader of the contest is the town of Venlo, at 144 tiles per thousand, a total of 14,636 tiles whipped away. The sponsors of the contest arrange to collect and dispose of the tiles, which are being recycled into building material. Read how the tegelwippen is going at The Guardian. -via Metafilter

Disney Parks are going full Star Wars with a new line of Star Wars-themed food and drink items launching on Star Wars Day, which is, of course, May the 4th. The new items aren't limited to Galaxy's Edge, either. They will be available at various spots all across Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and Disneyland Paris. These include churros served in lightsaber hilts, a cake that looks like a stormtrooper helmet, death star chocolates, and the Princess of Alderaan Shake you see above, which is a salted caramel milkshake with whipped cream and edible glitter, garnished with two cinnamon rolls so you never forget who its named for. There are also serious entrees with alien names and various sweets with odd-colored icing to make them look alien. Check out the roundup of fanciful Star Wars foods coming to Disney Parks.

There's also an additional lineup of limited edition Star Wars food items that will only be available from May 4 until June 2, a period they call  the Season of the Force, that you can check out here. -via Gizmodo

Remember a video from a few months ago in which different species of birds raced to show us how fast they can go? Red Side has made the same type of video for terrestrial animals. They are all shown moving at their species' maximum speed, the way they would only move if their lives were in danger. That means they are all shown running comically fast, one after another, as if it's a race. You won't see any sloths in this video, but it starts with a snail, and there's a turtle near the beginning making tracks like he's on fire. It's weird to see a kiwi being overtaken by a Komodo dragon, like the reptile wouldn't slow down long enough to eat the kiwi. The animals were produced by artificial intelligence, which hasn't quite mastered the way an elephant moves. Still, as funny as the race is, you'll learn about the relative speeds of various animals at their maximum. Meanwhile, if you ever see a critter running this fast in real life, you can be sure something scary is chasing them. Or else they are about to catch lunch.

It only takes about seven minutes to show us all the animals, then it switches and shows them to us again, from the perspective of the running creatures. It's a blur of landscape! -via Laughing Squid

There are many thousands of caves that nature carved into the limestone of France. Neanderthals found shelter in them a half-million years ago, and later Homo sapiens did the same. In fact, people lived in those caves off and on up until the 20th century! And why not- they were sturdy rock fortresses that kept a habitable temperature year-round. Over time, the residents enlarged them, installed windows, doors, and chimneys, built out the fronts, and added gardens and modern amenities as they became available. There are around 14,000 such cave homes (habitations troglodytes) in the Loire Valley alone, although most are abandoned today.

These caves served as homes, churches, military bases, businesses, monasteries, and emergency hiding places for hundreds of years. One was even used as a secret place for satanic rituals. Now they are mostly empty sightseeing spots, but some have been converted into restaurants, nightclubs, and hotels. Read about the cave homes of France at Messy Nessy Chic.   

 

When I was in school, history class was about the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II, every other year until the sixth grade, when we spent a year studying World War II because my teacher's husband fought in it. And then we found out our other teachers' husbands fought in it, too. But it was all from an American perspective (world history classes in the off years stopped at Columbus). Even today, there are many Americans who believe that World War II began on December 7, 1941. Yet Europe had been in a war for two and a half years already, and Japan had been at war for four years in China. Americans think we won the war, but Russia is pretty sure they did, at least in Europe. And the former Axis powers- how do they teach schoolchildren about what happened in World War II? In this video from Weird History, we get an overview of the perspective from which various nations around the world treat the subject of World War II in their history classes. Finland would like to have a word.

We all know at least one person who can magically find their way through an unfamiliar city, and at least one person who get hopelessly lost every time they leave familiar territory. Maybe you are one of those folks. Are people born with a sense of direction -or the lack of one? Do navigation skills depend on some innate talent or can it be trained? Or could a good sense of space and location be genetic? Scientists had trouble pinpointing the source of these skills until recently. GPS and virtual reality equipment have enabled more precise experiments that show why some people manage to get around better than others.

Navigational skill tends to run in families, but that doesn't mean it's genetic. Recent research points to a sense of direction being a matter of upbringing. Maybe you learn navigation from your parents, or possibly the culture itself. Some cultures, like Nordic countries and indigenous people of the Amazon, do better at navigating on average because everyone goes outside and travels from a young age. People who grow up in older and more eccentric European cities navigate better than those in planned cities laid out in a grid because they are forced to learn various methods of getting around. Experience matters. But what does this mean for younger generations who don't roam the neighborhood, depend on GPS, and see no reason to learn map reading or wayfinding? Read about the research into a sense of direction at Knowable magazine. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Archibald Ballantine)

Aalish started finding flowers that had been left in her home, or near the door. A secret admirer? Her partner didn't know what she was talking about, so it was a mystery until she caught a stray cat in the act of bringing flowers! What a sweet gesture; she liked the camellias, and thought Aalish would like them, too. I am glad that their camellias bear so many blooms, and the cat can only reach so many of them. The couple fed the friendly cat and gradually took her in and named her Fiddy. It turns out that Fiddy really needed a home that appreciated flowers as much as she did. Oh yeah, and for another reason that will become apparent in the video. See more of Fiddy in her beautiful home in Aotearoa (which we call New Zealand) at TikTok and Instagram.

John Albert Thompson emigrated from Norway and eventually made his way out to the western US during the Gold Rush, where he was a subcontractor for the postal service for 20 years. Thompson was called "The Viking of the Sierras," but everyone knew him as Snowshoe Thompson, because he delivered mail between Placerville and Genoa, Nevada, on skis, which he called snowshoes. His trips took three days to get to Placerville and three days to get back, a punishing trip over the Sierra Mountains in which he followed snow-covered wagon tracks. Thompson made this trip two to four times a month carrying up to 100 pounds of letters and packages -and silver from the mines.

Today, hikers can get a feel for the endurance Thompson had by retracing his route through the mountains, although there are roads in many of the spots now, plus better clothing and equipment and emergency communications. Read about Snowshoe Thompson and his service to the people of Nevada (which he was never paid for) and about the folks who hiked his route recently, at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Brent Cooper)

The latest video from Action Lab gave me new things to think about. Somehow I missed the fact that astronauts on the International Space Station are now drinking out of cups instead of squeeze bottles with straws. How does that work? That's what the video is about. Another question is, why? Well, I am very much aware that drinking coffee or hot tea through a straw does not work because hot liquids need to be introduced to your mouth gradually for safety. But it's mainly because you don't get aroma from liquids that have no contact with air, which dulls the taste. That made me think of all these little kids drinking Capri Suns. Maybe if they were getting the full flavor, it wouldn't need so much sugar and artificial flavors. Be that as it may, the new gravity free cups are pretty clever. It makes you think about how different it must be to live in an environment devoid of something as fundamental to our lives as gravity. The video is only 3:45, the rest is an ad.

You meet someone new, and if you are an American, one of your first questions is what do they do for a living. If it's something that sounds really cool, you might be jealous. But if all you know of that profession is what you see in movies or TV, you might be surprised by the truth. Few jobs are as glamorous as they sound, and you have to remember that if it were really that fun, people would do it for free. Some jobs are downright depressing, even if your own role is relatively simple.

And some are completely misunderstood by those outside the profession. Or at least those who have a limited vocabulary.  



So when you meet someone who has a cool-sounding job, go ahead and ask questions, but save your envy until you understand a bit better. Every job has its ups and downs. See a pictofacts list on the hidden truths of 40 careers at Cracked.