The oldest remains yet of a member of English royalty are thought to have been found in Germany. Queen Eadgyth (pronounced Edith) was the sister of King Athelstan and married the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I in 929 AD. She died in 946. The bone fragments from a lead coffin in Magdeburg will be analyzed by a team of forensic specialists.

Professor Mark Horton of the Bristol University's Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, who is coordinating this side of the research, explained the strategy: "We know that Saxon royalty moved around quite a lot, and we hope to match the isotope results with known locations around Wessex and Mercia, where she could have spent her childhood. If we can prove this truly is Eadgyth, this will be one of the most exciting historical discoveries in recent years."

Eadgyth is likely to be the oldest member of the English royal family whose remains have survived. Her brother, King Athelstan is generally considered to have been the first King of England after he unified the various Saxon and Celtic kingdoms following the battle of Brunanburgh in 937. His tomb survives in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, but is most likely empty. Eadgyth’s sister Adiva - also offered to Otto as wife, but he choose Eadgyth instead - was also married to an unknown European ruler, but her tomb is not located.

Link -via Fark

(image credit: Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt, Juraj Liptak)

John and Kay Ure live in a former lighthouse keeper's cottage at the edge of a cliff on the coast of northern Scotland. On December 19th, Kay Ure left to go buy a Christmas turkey in Inverness. Before she could return, a snowstorm blocked the road and she had to stay in the village of Durness, eleven miles from home.

Mr Ure spent Christmas and New Year on his own and celebrated his 58th birthday last Sunday with a tin of baked beans.

Yesterday, for the first time since mid-December, he managed to drive 11 miles to a small jetty and cross the Kyle of Durness by boat to collect his wife and the turkey.

The couple run the country's “most isolated tearoom” at the end of an ungritted army road and were forced to spend their first festive season apart in 35 years.

John Ure was down to emergency rations before he could drive to town. He said reuniting with his wife was like a "second honeymoon". Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Peter Jolly)

The 2nd Annual Golden Gate Express Garden Railway is open at San Francisco’s Conservatory of Flowers. The garden features miniature versions of the city's most recognizable landmarks, buildings, and of course, a train! Plus, they are all made of recycled materials. The exhibition is open until April 18th, but if you can't go, you can see more pictures at Laughing Squid. Link

(image credit: Todd Lappin)

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Apple Daily in Hong Kong produced a Sims-style video to explain the Jay Leno/Conan O'Brien situation to Chinese television viewers. Portraying them as comic book heroes is sheer genius! You don't have to understand the language to follow along. -via Cynical-C

Every January 19th, an unidentified person comes to the grave site of Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore and leaves three roses and a half bottle of cognac. It's a tradition that goes back to at least 1949. About three dozen fans were waiting this morning for the toaster, but for the first time in over 60 years, he didn't show up on what would have been Poe's birthday.

Rafael Alvarez, President of the Baltimore Poe Society tells WBAL Radio he has a theory about why the mystery admirer did not show up this year. He thinks that person died last week.

Alvarez says e-mails have been circulating for the past several hours pointing to the late David Franks of Baltimore as the Poe toaster. Franks was found dead in his Baltimore apartment last week. He has been a writer, performer and poet in Baltimore for years.

"It fit David's love of the prank and the practical joke. And particularly stunts that involve sort of high literary high-wire acts," says Alvarez.

He says that Franks also wore the same clothes daily like that of the Poe toaster and he fit the physical description. "David had quite the late 19th century English dandy flair for scarves, gloves, and various caps. It would not be unusual for David to don a cape if the situation called for it," says Alvarez.

There is also a possibility that the toaster decided to stop the tradition at Poe's 200th birthday, which was last year. Link -via Metafilter

An unnamed 28-year-old man was driving over a bridge in Roseville, California when his phone activated and startled him. He drove his station wagon into Pleasant Grove Creek, where it sank six to eight feet under water.

The Roseville Fire Department said the man used his handgun to shoot out his vehicle window, giving himself an opportunity to escape and swim to safety.

The man flagged down a passing vehicle and was treated for minor injuries by emergency crews.

Remember that tip the next time you drive into a body of water. Link -via Arbroath

You'll always have a place for your slippers with this rug! The slippers fit right into spaces in the design when you're not using them, and become part of the carpet itself. The rug is called Tapistongs by French designer Lise El Sayed. It looks as if there are enough slippers for plenty of guests around the edge. Link

(YouTube link)

The folks at our favorite variety show from Japan wanted to see what kind of animal could negotiate a field of dominoes without wrecking them. You'll be surprised at which critter succeeded! Here's a hint: think of an American sport played in an alley. Link -via Buzzfeed

Listverse has some unexplained mysteries that I had never heard of. Gelatin raining from the sky? Faces appearing and disappearing after they were photographed? A boy who can make rain fall? And there's the case of the boat named the Carroll A. Deering.

Approximately 50 years after the mysterious disappearance of the crew of the Mary Celeste, a similar event occurred when the schooner Carroll A. Deering was spotted around the coast of North Carolina on January 31, 1921. When rescue ships finally reached her, theydiscovered , to their shock that the Deering’s entire crew was missing. Though evidence in the galley suggested that food was being prepared for the following day, nothing else was found of the crew. Eerily enough, no personal effects, no ship logs, no traces were left behind, much like the case of the Mary Celeste.

These can't all be hoaxes -or can they? Link -via I Am Bored

Sometimes you can see something in the shape of an animal's spots, but have you ever seen a cat shape on the back of a cat? Link -via The Daily What

I had no idea Megadeth song titles could be confused for Lifetime channel movie titles, but that's the challenge of today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. I am an expert on neither, so I only scored 60%. You will do better! Link

Every once in a while, people encounter things on their radio, TV, or interstellar wave detectors that no one can explain. Is it a secret military message? A prankster hacking just to see if it can be done? Aliens trying to contact us? Cracked has five cases that still haven't been settled. Take, for example, the case of UVB-76.

It is an irritating, electronic noise, not unlike the sound of a truck horn played through a cheese grater. It is broadcast over a certain frequency, constantly, and has been since at least 1982. But the weird part isn't the tone, but what happens when it stops.

In its 20-something year run, the sound has been interrupted only three times, the earliest known time being Christmas Eve in 1997. Each time a voice comes on and lists several Russian names and numbers before returning to the foghorn. The most recent occurrence was 2006, a mere three years before the time of this writing. It is clearly becoming more active after remaining quiet during the Cold War.

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What if Shakespearean costumes were designed by an artist who drew superheroes? That would never happen, right?

In 1969, Sheldon Feldner contacted Marvel Comics, asking if one of Marvel's artists would be interested in designing costumes for a production of William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar by the University Theatre Company at Santa Cruz at the newly-built Cowell College of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

As luck would have it, the Kirby family had recently moved to California, and Stan Lee recommended that Feldner contact Jack Kirby.

Jack Kirby {wiki} was the creator of such characters as Captain America, The Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. But he went to work designing not only the costumes but also a poster for the student production. His sketches, and some pictures of the actual costumes, are posted at the Kirby Museum. Link -via Metafilter

Linda De Croock was injured in a traffic accident 25 years ago that left her with a crushed windpipe. Since then, her throat has been held open by metal stents until a new procedure in organ transplant gave her a new trachea. Dr. Pierre Delaere and his team at the University Hospital in Leuven, Belgium transplanted the windpipe twice to acclimate the patient to the new organ.

The windpipe was taken from a dead man and implanted in her forearm where her own tissue grew around the cartilage scaffold. When the organ came to be transplanted to her throat, her body did not consider it foreign and accepted it.

It is thought to be the first time an organ as large as a windpipe has been implanted into the recipient's body to develop before the final transplant.

Ms de Croock did not have to take anti-rejection drugs, which meant she was not at risk of complications such as a higher likelihood of cancer.

Dr. Delaere waited a year after the successful surgery before reporting on it to the New England Journal of Medicine. They hope this technique will help other transplant patients live without anti-rejection drugs. Link -via Discover Magazine

(image credit: AP)

This looks like a pile of river stones, but this mat is soft and warm to put your feet on. The hand-felted "stones" are made of wool! Link -via Unique Daily