Harriet Tubman's father had a cabin and ten acres on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. But the exact location of the cabin, where Tubman herself lived between the ages of 17 and 22, had been lost. The cabin is no more, and the area was privately owned, barred to archaeologists who wanted to search for the site. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service purchased 2600 acres in 2020, opening the area to exploration.  

Last fall, Julie Schablitsky, chief archaeologist at the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration, was running a metal detector over an abandoned road in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge when she found a coin minted in 1808, the year of the Tubman parents’ wedding. Nearby, Schablitsky unearthed ceramic fragments dated to between the 1820s and 1840s. At that point, the archaeologist tells the Times, she knew that she had found the location of Tubman’s one-time home.

“She would’ve spent time here as a child, but also she would’ve come back and been living here with her father in her teenage years, working alongside him,” says Schablitsky in a statement. “This was the opportunity she had to learn about how to navigate and survive in the wetlands and the woods. We believe this experience was able to benefit her when she began to move people to freedom.”

The site is now being thoroughly excavated, and just in time, since it is expected to be underwater by 2100. Read about the discovery and what it could mean at Smithsonian.

A roller coaster got stuck far above the ground in Lithuania. It wasn't clear what the problem was, maybe the track was sticky or something. What to do? Getting out to push was not an option, but the passengers figured out a way to give it push from their seats. -via Digg

Fallout from nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and '60s spread radiocesium (radioactive cesium) into the upper atmosphere, which settled over the eastern United States. That was more than 50 years ago, but it's still around. Geologist James Kaste of William & Mary asked students to bring local foods back from spring break, and was surprised to find a sample of North Carolina honey that had a cesium level 100 times that of other foods.

So Kaste and his colleagues—including one of his undergrads—collected 122 samples of locally produced, raw honey from across the eastern United States and tested them for radiocesium. They detected it in 68 of the samples, at levels above 0.03 becquerels per kilogram—roughly 870,000 radiocesium atoms per tablespoon. The highest levels of radioactivity occurred in a Florida sample—19.1 becquerels per kilogram.

The findings, reported last month in Nature Communications, reveal that, thousands of kilometers from the nearest bomb site and more than 50 years after the bombs fell, radioactive fallout is still cycling through plants and animals.

They say the level of cesium in honey is not dangerous, but just think about what the levels may have been like in decades past. How much East Coast honey did you eat back in the day? Read about the findings at Science magazine. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: aussiegall)

The Japanese company Kandeko gives us a lovely ad for its Smart X electro-conductive thread, in which we see a miniature city light up with tiny LEDs. While I would never have the patience to create something on this scale, the idea of electricity-conducting thread is intriguing. Is it hard to work with? Can it shock you? What if it gets cut while the lights are on? How fire safe is it? I'd like to know more, but the product page is in Japanese.  -via Laughing Squid

how do you have huge stacks of books *and* a cat. i gotta know the secret

— tea ☕️ (@ahumblebunnie) April 19, 2021

Over the past year, we've developed a habit of judging people's chosen backgrounds when they appear on TV from their homes. This is not limited to television, however. Susan Sarandon, who you may know from movies such as Thelma and Louise and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, posted a picture on Twitter featuring her cat. But what got everyone's attention was the books stacked vertically with hats on top. How does she retrieve a book that's not near the top? And how do they stay stacked with a cat in the house? My cats would've launched themselves at the hats at first sight, toppling the stacks. The replies came in, exhibiting a lot of anxiety among book lovers and cat lovers. At least one person offered to buy her a bookcase. How does this work? Continue reading to find out.  

The latest on the designer gene front has scientists figuring out how to control cell replication in order to make synthetic cells produce divisions that are consistent with the original cell.

Five years ago, scientists created a single-celled synthetic organism that, with only 473 genes, was the simplest living cell ever known. However, this bacteria-like organism behaved strangely when growing and dividing, producing cells with wildly different shapes and sizes.

Now, scientists have identified seven genes that can be added to tame the cells’ unruly nature, causing them to neatly divide into uniform orbs.

Now, this may seem like burying the lede, since you most likely had the same reaction I did: "Scientists created synthetic cells that reproduce? What?" But no, they did NOT create life in the lab. The synthetic cells were made from existing living microorganisms. Scientists removed the DNA and replaced it with completely new genes. So we can see that while DNA may be the basis for our identity, it is not the basis for life. At any rate, these synthetic cells do not have the functionality to exist outside the lab, which is reassuring. An article at NIST explains the value in this research.  -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jerome Walker)

Remember back in the late 1960s, when it seemed like every week or two someone would hijack an airliner and demand to be flown to Cuba? Those incidents gave us the term "skyjacking" and were the subject of many jokes on late night television. While concerning, the public didn't consider them all that serious as they were mostly cases of someone wanting a ride to a country that didn't take scheduled arrivals from the US, and the other passengers were routinely returned. The Cuban skyjackings had faded out by the mid-70s, but you might not know why.

Initially, Cubans greeted the planes generously. As Latner writes, “Stranded crew and passengers alike often received extravagant treatment: live Cuban bands, steak and shrimp dinners, or a night in one of Havana’s best hotels; others were given cigars or photos of Che Guevara while they waited on the tarmac, and the bill was often sent to the airlines.”

But in September 1969 Cuba instituted an anti-hijacking law, which allowed immigration officials to make decisions about what to do with hijackers. Since it was almost impossible to tell whether a hijacker was a spy, the officials who dealt with them could interrogate them and throw them in prison for months.

Read what led to the Cuban skyjackings and how stopping them brought the two countries closer together at Jstor Daily. -via Damn Interesting

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The way we deploy satellites is pretty much just throwing them into space, after calculating the specific orbit needed. However, almost all these deployments are done mechanically, from a rocket launch. At the very end of the 20th century, the Russians developed a method that appeared much simpler -tossing them into orbit by hand.

On November 3, 1997, cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and Anatoly Solovyov were spacewalking outside the Mir space station to remove an old solar panel that was to be replaced three days later during another outing. The solar panel was retracted on command, removed from the Kvant module, and stowed on the exterior of the core module. Before returning inside, Vinogradov took hold of a small satellite named Sputnik 40 and waited until the station had oriented itself to give a clear view of the satellite’s intended flight path. Then giving it a good toss, Vinogradov launched the satellite into orbit. As the little satellite drifted away, it became satellite number 24958 in NASA's catalog and the first satellite to be launched by hand.

That satellite, nicknamed Sputnik Jr, was only eight inches in diameter and didn't do much besides transmitting a tracking radio signal to earth. An experiment, in other words. The Russians launched two more satellites by tossing them manually from Mir. The third one, launched in 1999, generated a scandal due to its fundraising problems and a novel sponsorship deal. Read about the hand-tossed satellites at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: NASA/Crew of STS-81)

People who have been in a coma got there for a variety of reasons, and their experiences vary quite widely. Some are totally unaware of the passage of time, some have vivid (and sometimes terrifying) dreams, and some were affected by the things people around them said while they were unconscious.  

2. "I was in a medically induced coma for three days during my cancer treatment. My identical twin brother died around a year prior (also to cancer). The entire time I was in the coma, I was with him. We were in a large green field with a lot of sun, and my conversations with him felt real."

"Other than that, I didn’t hear any of my family talking to me while I was asleep. It was just like I had gone to bed for three days, and I woke up feeling very tired.

I do wonder whether my interactions with my twin brother were real, or if it was just the drugs I was given causing them." —u/prince-william15

 7. "My wife was in a coma for about a month. I brought the kids to see her later after prepping them. Despite the initial shock at seeing her with a ventilator, they were vocally loving, hugged her, held her hand, etc. We sat in the room and talked. At one point, I asked the kids what their favorite vacation was. They both agreed it was the road trip we took from Vegas down to Arizona. My wife heard it all but in a hallucinatory way."

"We talked about driving all over and seeing all the incredible sights. We talked about rides and amusements along the way. It was nice, then they kissed her goodbye saying, 'See you soon.'

My wife now has — nearly 10 years later — a vivid memory of a second Arizona vacation she went on with us. She even asked me early on after she woke up if we had gone on vacation recently. Her mind went through every detail we talked about and even added to it as if it all actually happened. The memories of it are as real as any." -u/Coogcheese

Read the recollections of 18 people who have been in a coma and lived to tell the tale at Buzzfeed.

(Image credit: Edvard Munch)

There's something strangely rhythmic about pig calling. Andre Antunes noticed it, too, and put his guitar skills to work turning a pig calling competition into a heavy metal song. -via Kottke

It was a decisive moment in French history when the notorious prison known as the Bastille was stormed in 1789. The Bastille was destroyed, but the site in central Paris remained important to the people of France. What kind of monument should be in that place? For 32 years, it was a huge elephant.  

When the Bastille fell in July 1789 and subsequently demolished, there was some debate as to what should replace the former prison. It was decided that the area would become a square celebrating liberty, and a column would be erected there. A foundation stone was laid but the column never materialized. Instead, a fountain was built in 1793, depicting the Egyptian God Isis with water flowing from her breasts. But Napoleon had more grandiose plans. In 1810, the emperor decreed that a new fountain was to be erected, in the shape of an elephant, one that would be heroic and delightful to all who beheld it.

Napoleon's vision was that the elephant should be made of bronze, incorporating the cannons he had seized from enemies. But Napoleon would only be in power a few more years, and that spelled doom for the elephant monument, although it outlived him for some time. Read about Napoleon's elephant at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Aquarelle de Jean-Antoine Alavoine)

The fjords of Norway are beautiful, but with varying widths, depths, and complicated geography, they aren't easy to navigate. The ocean around them isn't all that easy, either. To make traveling by water faster and simpler, the country has greenlit a massive project to build the world's first full-scale ship tunnel. The Stad Ship Tunnel through the Stadhavet peninsula, expected to be completed in 2026, will be a mile long and large enough to accommodate a cruise ship! This video explains why it's needed and how it will be done. -via Nag on the Lake

Norma Shearer was the supremely confident early Hollywood star whose career survived both the advent of "talkies" and the censorship of the Hayes Code. Between those two cinematic milestones, she turned the popular concept of womanhood in movies on its ear by playing woman with real personalities and sex drives. Shearer never let an opportunity slip by, and she  went from being rejected by the Zeigfeld Follies to a contract with Louis B. Mayer and marriage to Irving Thalberg.

The role that eventually won her an Oscar almost wasn’t given to her. Shearer’s own husband initially did not want to cast her in The Divorcee because he didn’t believe she had the sex appeal. She took it upon her self to organise a boudoir photo shoot to convince him that she could be cast as the sensual lead in The Divorcee.

Her character in the film was that of a wife who discovers her husband’s affair and seeks to settle the score with an adulterous tryst of her own, challenging the double standards of marriage. In the pivotal pre-code film, Shearer played Jerry to be a sympathetic character, someone strong and rather than a bitter and vindictive woman.

She was “the exemplar of sophisticated 1930s womanhood,” wrote film historian Mick LaSale, “exploring love and sex with an honesty that would be considered frank by modern standards.” Norma was able to help change the way women were viewed on screen and with The Divorcee, among other films, she helped pave the way for the likes of Mae West and Jean Harlow.

Shearer showed Hollywood that style and daring (and acting skills) mattered more than a perfect face. Read about Norma Shearer's life and her effect on cinema at Messy Messy Chic.

(Image credit: MGM)

A poll of 1,211 US adults was conducted by YouGov. The participants were instructed to choose which of two states is the better state, with seven matchups per participant. The results were ranked by which states were selected the highest percentage of the time. Whether the results reflect experience or reputation is up in the air, as we don't know whether the participants travel extensively or not. Read more about the survey at YouGov. -via Fark

Back in the day when newspapers were just about the only form of daily entertainment, New York papers printed stories that may or may not be true to fill pages, and no one complained as long as they were entertaining. The 1895 hijinks of a goat and his cat friend were just more fodder for the morning edition. A goat, "who had been living on tomato cans, nails, and broken glass for months," smelled the papier-mâché icicles that were being installed above the new ice skating rink. The goat could not reach them, and set out to enlist the help of Dolph, a cat who was renowned for doing tricks on stage.

The goat ran down Lexington Avenue and stopped in front of Mr. Falk’s house, where he bleated a special signal to summon his feline friend. Dolph saw his goat friend through the window and exited the basement door to join him. “There was consultation and then off the two started, and a few moments later halted in front of the ice palace.”

The goat gave Dolph a few instructions, and the cat took off, scrambling up the felt-covered walls toward the ceiling. He then dodged into a hole that marked the uncompleted part of the sub-ceiling. According to The Sun reporter–who noted that details of the story were not all necessarily true–Dolph bit off a few icicles for his goat friend.

After satisfying his friend’s hunger, Dolph decided to satisfy his curiosity by prowling around between the two ceilings. Meanwhile, workmen continued building the icicle sub-ceiling, eventually sealing the hole through which Dolph had entered.

This unlikely explanation led to Dolph being trapped in the ceiling for eight days, which may be true enough. Less likely was the epilogue about the goat and cat no longer speaking after the incident. Read the story and how it turned out at The Hatching Cat.  -via Strange Company