A total of five tombs were unearthed by archeologists in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara in Cairo, Egypt. The burials were estimated to be over 4,000 years old, with some dating back to  Egypt’s Old Kingdom (2700 B.C. to 2200 B.C.). Well-decorated walls with hieroglyphs surround the area where the gravesites were discovered. In addition, figurines, pottery, and wooden and limestone coffins were discovered. 

Each tomb held corpses of important people in the palace, such as regional rulers, priests, and senior palace officials, according to Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. 

Image credit: Simon Berger

This “potato” just took a DNA test, and it turns out that it wasn’t a real potato! 

New Zealand couple Colin and Donna Craig Brown’s gigantic vegetable, fondly called “Dug,” was submitted to Guinness World Records to try and get the world’s heaviest potato record. Seven months after their submission, a DNA test revealed the vegetable’s true type. "Sadly the specimen is not a potato and is in fact the tuber of a type of gourd. For this reason we do unfortunately have to disqualify the application," a Guinness World Records spokesperson told the couple via email. 

Colin went through the results sent by the organization and discovered that Dug came from a choko, a starchy plant that looks like a wrinkly, green pear. Even when the couple taste-tested the tuber to check if it was a potato, it turns out that chokos have a similar flavor to the root crop. "At least I answered all the questions and don't need to lay awake at 3 in the morning trying to figure out what has gone wrong with Mother Nature," he said.

Image credit: Donna Craig-Brown

Now, this is just so cool. I wonder how long she worked on this one! 

Canadian-based artist Shanell Papp took the art of crochet to another level by creating a life-sized skeleton. The artwork includes both the skeletal framework and the organs inside the human body. Papp referred to a human skeleton she borrowed from a university and some anatomical textbooks to fully render the details in this piece. “I was curious about the human body and I wanted to make a human body. I was interested in medical history and how we attempt to solve everything, but we are fragile. I was interested in medicine and applied to become an x-ray technician, but never attended. I stayed in art school, I wanted to continue learning new skills with my hands and I loved talking about art. Otherwise, I still read many books on medical history, death, and crime. I am interested in knowing about all the things that scare me,” she said in an interview. 

Image credit: Shanell Papp

This series of phones from Samsung has a hidden menu that users can access– all they need is to dial a set of numbers and symbols. The menu is usually for people running diagnostics on a Galaxy phone. It contains tools for determining whether a component in your phone is experiencing problems, including the display, S-Pen, speaker, camera, vibration motor, and more. If you’d like to see if your Samsung phone has one, it’s important to note that the menu is available on devices that have the One UI. It may also appear on older Galaxy phones running TouchWiz. Learn the steps in unlocking the menu here! 

Image credit: Christian Wiediger

Peruvian historian Donato Amado Gonzalez and American archaeologist Brian Bauer concluded in their study that the popular archeological site in Peru has been called the wrong name for a very long time. The Incans who built the city called it Huayna Picchu or simply just Picchu. The paper, published in Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of the Institute of Andean Studies, cited multiple historical sources that refer to Machu Picchu as Huayna Picchu. The name “Machu Picchu” stuck after  American explorer Hiyam Bingham heard from a different guide that the site was called Machu Picchu. "It's true that at the time it was not so well known to people, but there is a lot of concrete evidence suggesting that those who did know it did not call it Machu Picchu," Amado Gonzalez told NPR. 

Image credit: Agnieszka Mordaunt

This discovery was a great gift for archaeologists! A stone covered with Pictish geometric carvings was discovered in Aberlemno, Scotland. The 5.5-foot-long (1.7 meters) object was estimated to have been designed about 1,500 years ago by the Picts, which were the Indigenous people of the region. The meaning of the symbols remains unclear, but the best guess for now is that they are “a naming system representing Pictish names," according to Gordon Noble, the excavation leader and a professor of archaeology at the University of Aberdeen. 

Image credit: University of Aberdeen

While we all have our subjective opinions on what is the messiest or most disgusting part of an airplane, we can all agree that some trash cans in an aircraft are just gross. Matador Network’s Morgane Croissant  shared her opinion on this topic, stating that she would bet money “that every single person who has ever used an airplane bathroom trash can in the economy [class] has done so with absolute revulsion.”

The bathroom trash cans in this flight class have a manually operated flap, which forces people to actually touch the equipment with their clean hands– who would voluntarily do that, anyway? Imagine the dirt and bacteria there! Croissant further points out that airplane companies can actually fix this issue, by having as few touch surfaces as possible. “Airplane toilet lids should open and close on their own at every use, the toilets should flush automatically, the tap and the soap dispenser should be motion-activated, and airplane bathroom trash cans should not require that passengers put their hands halfway down the hatch,” she wrote. 

Image credit: Alexander Schimmeck

Photographer Alex ten Napel is known for his portraits, especially his focus on avian subjects. His Chickens, Hens, and Roosters series involves showing off the elegance and charisma of these feathered animals. Ten Napel was hit with the inspiration of incorporating animals into his work in 2014 while he was eating breakfast in France. A chicken wandered to him, and that’s when he had an epiphany. “Because we were, in a matter of speaking, on the same level, I saw her in a different perspective and noticed different aspects,” he told My Modern Met. “She was sociable, funny, touching, and curious. She was so human! At the same period, I was looking for a new subject to photograph. I had made many portrait series and had the idea that I had to change course. So why not portray hens and roosters?”

Learn more about his work here!

Image credit:  Alex ten Napel

A Viking settlement was established in Greenland 1,000 years ago. However, this group of people, who thrived for centuries, suddenly vanished in the 15th century. There was no evidence that was obtained from their area that could answer experts as to how and why their society collapsed. However, now, thanks to a team of scientists from Brown University, new evidence has arisen about the possible explanation behind the unsolved mystery. 

Boyang Zhao and his associates aimed to learn about the possible effect of climate change on the Viking settlement.  “From the climate change perspective, there are not actually many reconstructions from this area, so we wanted to revisit this spot in order to provide more detailed and updated records of climate history from this region and see if there's any connection between climate change and the demise of the Vikings,” Zhao explained. Learn more about the study here! 

Image credit: wikimedia commons

Sometimes we tend to be overwhelmed with the tasks we need to finish, to the point that we actually get nothing done. This feeling of having too many things on our mind is called decision fatigue, where we get caught in paralysis-by-analysis due to trying to pick and decide what to do. Inc.com’s Benjamin Harvey explained a simple method for how to reduce this overwhelming feeling and actually be productive. It all boils down to stripping down your list and picking only what’s needed to be done in a significant timeframe. “You've got to strip everything down to the bare essential,” he explained.

Image credit: ian dooley

Have you heard about the latest custom controller for the Xbox? Announced just on March 22, 2002, Microsoft unveiled a new Xbox Series S custom console and controllers featuring characters from Sonic. The most eye-catching in this reveal are the furry controllers, which come in red and blue, to represent Sonic and Knuckles. Reactions to this recent reveal are mixed to meme-worthy at best, with some laughing at the thought of grabbing the controllers with sweaty hands. Do the controllers look a little cursed? Yeah, a little bit. 

Image credit: Microsoft

Collectors will pay a huge amount of money to get the last items they need to complete their collection. It’s also interesting to find out what are the hardest objects to procure, say for example, for 3DS collectors. It turns out that it’s a Barbie game. Yep, you’ve read that right– one of the Holy Grails for game cartridge collectors of the Nintendo console is a game called Barbie Groom and Glam Pups.  

One of the factors that made the game such a rare find was because it was released in Canada, Europe, and Australia only. One collector spent $1,600 for a copy that was sold in Canada to complete their North American collection.  "A few years ago it was around $700," they said. "Should have bought it back then."

Image: u/Galdius

Russian artist Kristina Loginova developed her passion for art after working in a bank for a long time. Calling herself a real miniature art maniac, Loginova creates small living spaces for fictional creatures such as fairies inside walnut shells. These small works of art look like a Polly Pocket toy, where a capsule has two slots inside, one for the doll, and the other showcasing the design and some props for the room accompanying said toy. Check out more of Loginova’s work here. 

Image credit: Kristina Loginova 

Chang’e-4, a Chinese-made spacecraft, successfully landed on the far side of the moon in January. Aside from bringing samples back to our planet, it was also the first to experiment with growing plants on the moon. The spacecraft brought a small, cylindrical biosphere called the Lunar Micro Ecosystem (LME). The LME contained different seeds, such as potato, cotton, rapeseeds, and Arabidopsis thaliana, a common weed. 

Unfortunately, only the cotton plant grew two leaves before dying due to the cold temperatures after about two weeks. The rest died quickly. Learn more about the lunar experiment here. 

Image credit: KWON JUNHO

Lomography’s newly released film scanning kits will allow you to scan via a smartphone! The DigitaLIZA+ and DigitaLIZA were released to get around the fiddly, complicated, and expensive film scanners on the market. These devices will allow for versatile and accessible film scanning anytime, anywhere. Well, you need at least a flat surface to set the kit up, of course. Learn more about the scanning kits here. 

Image credit: Lomography