The native Maori of New Zealand tell of a giant man-eating bird called Te Hokioi. Now scientists have identified a real bird that fits the description. Haast’s Eagle has been extinct for only 500 years, and may be the source of the Maori tales. The bird with up to a four meter wingspan was first discovered in 1870, but until recently was thought to be a scavenger. Recent scans show the bird to be strong enough to kill prey much larger than itself.

"It was certainly capable of swooping down and taking a child," said Paul Scofield, the curator of vertebrate zoology at the Canterbury Museum.

"They had the ability to not only strike with their talons but to close the talons and put them through quite solid objects such as a pelvis. It was designed as a killing machine."

Its main prey would have been moa, flightless birds which grew to as much as 250kg and 2.5 metres tall.

"In some fossil sites, moa bones have been found with signs of eagle predation," Dr Scofield said.

Link -via the Presurfer

(image credit: John Megahan/PLoS Biology)

(YouTube link)

YouTube member whoiseyevan, the creator of Ghost Busters 1954 puts together a trailer for the 1951 version of Raiders of the Lost Ark, featuring Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, and Peter Lorre. -via Metafilter

It takes a true friend to wear a dress to a funeral -if you’re a man. Barry Delaney of Dundee, Scotland wore a lime green minidress to the funeral of a soldier killed in Afghanistan to fulfill a pact the two had made.

Private Kevin Elliott and his friend, Barry Delaney, had agreed that whoever survived the other should wear a dress to the dead man’s funeral. Mr Delaney duly fulfilled the pledge as a tribute to Private Elliott, who was killed aged 24 while on foot patrol in the southern province of Helmand on August 31.

Mr Delaney wept on his knees at the graveside in Dundee as shots were fired during the military funeral. His dress plans are believed to have been known about in advance by other mourners.

Elliot, who had fulfilled his hitch and could have left the army, decided instead to fight in Afghanistan at the last minute. Hundreds turned out for the funeral. Link -via Fark

As the new Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol is released, National Geographic takes a look at the Freemasons, their symbols, and the myths surrounding them.

Freemasonry is rich in symbols, and many are ubiquitious—think of the pentagram, or five-pointed star, or the "all-seeing eye" in the Great Seal of the United States.

But most Masonic symbols aren't unique to Freemasonry, Kinney said.

"I view the Masonic use of symbols as a grab bag taken from here, there, and everywhere," he said. "Masonry employs them in its own fashion."

The pentagram, for example, is much older than Freemasonry and acquired its occult overtones only in the 19th and 20th centuries, hundreds of years after the Masons had adopted the symbol.

Link

Sean Konrad caught a 48-pound rainbow trout. That’s a world record. But should it be? The trout he caught was a genetically-modified fish that escaped from a fish farm. It has three sets of chromosomes, which makes it sterile but able to grow unnaturally big. Konrad’s brother Adam caught the previous world record trout in 2007, which was also genetically modified. Whether this counts as cheating depends on how you see the sport of fishing. No matter where the fish came from, the fisherman still landed it, which involves a certain set of skills. However, fisherman elsewhere don’t have the opportunity to even try to catch a trout that big, because they don’t exist in nature. What do you think? Link

A well-insulated 20,000 square foot home complete with an airstrip and a Jacuzzi sounds really nice. This one is underground in an abandoned missile silo! It was once the home of an Atlas-F missile built for the Cold War, but it’s been converted into a luxury home. See seven such military installations now used as living spaces. http://www.moneycompare.com.au/blog/cold-war-military-installation-homes.php -via Dark Roasted Blend

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Could you stare at a marshmallow and not eat it if it meant getting TWO marshmallows just for waiting? It’s hard when you’re a little kid! This cute video is a recreation of a well-known experiment by psychologist Walter Mischel. Link

From your experience of watching Sesame Street and the Muppet movies, it’s difficult to picture how surreal and edgy The Muppet Show was. Unless you remember watching it!

Imagine it from a TV executive's point of view: a weekly variety show, in an old vaudeville theater, featuring puppets, and a mix of A, B and C-list celebrities that catered to both kids and adults. That's not a pitch... it's a just list of random words that don't go together. Unfortunately, it's that weirdness that's been lost to the ages, as these days the Muppets are remembered more as a kids' show instead of the more adult, primetime comedy it was.

The Muppet Show's 10 Weirdest Moments has video clips of sexual innuendo, violence, and surreal guest stars that bring back fond memories. Link -via Look At This

Jill Heinerth has spent the past 14 years exploring underwater caves all over the world. Wired has a gallery of beautiful photographs she’s taken in underwater caves, lava tubes, and glaciers. This picture was taken at Devil’s Eye Spring off the coast of northern Florida. Link -via Digg

A 16-inch snake was killed at a home in China and then found to have a foot growing out of its body! 66-year-old Dean Qiongxiu said she awoke to find the reptile clinging to a wall in her bedroom. She killed the snake with a shoe and when she saw the clawed foot, she put the body in alcohol to preserve it. It was taken to the Life Sciences Department at China's West Normal University in Nanchang for study.

Snake expert Long Shuai said: "It is truly shocking but we won't know the cause until we've conducted an autopsy."

Link -via the Presurfer

Remember, your boss can see what you put on your Facebook page! This t-shirt design by Hogboy was not selected for printing, but I got a laugh out of it! Link -via Gizmodo

Three decades after I bought Queen albums, my children sing the same songs. You know the music, but how much do you know about the band Queen? Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will show you! I scored 73%, although I would have scored better during my deejay days. Link

A purebred Himalayan cat wandered into a hospital in Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia about four months ago. With an owner nowhere to be found, a nurse adopted him. The nurse was recently transferred and could not take the cat, so she took him to Donna Weber, the local veterinarian. Weber scanned the cat and found an embedded microchip. The cat’s owner was in Tasmania, 3800 kilometers away!

Clyde's owner Katrina Phillips was moved to tears when she got the call last week that Clyde was alive and well in Queensland.

"We just can't believe he's alive, it's just unbelievable and it's so emotional," Ms Phillips said.

"I bought him as a birthday present for my daughter Ashleigh and one day, about three years ago, he just disappeared.

No one knows how the cat traveled so far, or what happened during those three years. Clyde will be reunited with Phillips as soon as an escort is arranged. Link -via Arbroath

Adrian Bennett has been obsessed with the Mad Max movies since 1982 when he was a teenager in England. In 2001 he built his own Interceptor, the car Mel Gibson drove in the film. Three years ago, he moved his family from Yorkshire to Australia. Now he has settled in the remote Outback town of Silverton, where the first two movies were made. Silverton has a population of 51 (counting the five Bennetts), but draws 140,000 tourists a year and is also used often as a set for the film industry. Bennett plans to open a Mad Max museum in his new hometown. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

See more pictures of Bennett’s Interceptor.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' National Census of Fatal Occupation Injuries, fewer people died on the job in 2008 than the previous two years. Still, some jobs are much more dangerous than others. Using statistics from 2008, here are the five deadliest careers.

1. Fishers
2. Loggers
3. Aircraft Pilots and Flight Engineers
4. Structural Iron and Steel Workers
5. Farmers and Ranchers

Yahoo Finance has the statistics on each job. There is also a linked slide show from Forbes looking at the top ten deadliest jobs. Link -via the Presurfer

(image credit: Flickr user Sam Beebe / Ecotrust)