Experts have discovered two galaxies hiding near the dawn of the universe. These ‘invisible’ galaxies, named  REBELS-12-2 and REBELS-29-2, imply that there were far more galaxies in the early universe than scientists thought. The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) captured the radio waves emitted by these stars, which existed 13 billion years ago, actually. 

According to Swiss astronomer Pascal Oesch, they were looking at a sample of very distant galaxies when they noticed the invisible galaxies. “And then we noticed that two of them had a neighbor that we didn’t expect to be there at all. As both of these neighboring galaxies are surrounded by dust, some of their light is blocked, making them invisible to Hubble,” he said. 

Image credit: NASA

We almost failed to notice it, too! 

A New Zealander who was flying home from a holiday in Samoa noticed a strange mass floating in the ocean in her airplane window. The woman took photos of the odd sight and emailed them to scientists, who then realized that this large mass wasn’t a new island popping out of the ocean-- it was a mass of floating rock from an underwater volcano that erupted. 

The volcano in question is the Havre Seamount, which was initially unnoticed by scientists until its eruption that produced the large rift of rocks to flow to the top of the ocean. The eruption is estimated to be roughly 1.5 times larger than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens – or 10 times the size of the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland

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Image credit: Rebecca Carey, University of Tasmania/Adam Soule, WHOI

Microsoft’s MSN Messenger was one of those old-school platforms that actually provided the comfort and efficiency of instant messaging during the early days of the Internet. The application competed against AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, and Yahoo! Messenger for popularity. 

While MSN Messenger didn’t initially rise to the top, its integration with Hotmail managed to overtake the competition, as it offered the convenience of instant messaging to clients of the popular web email service. While it did manage to pull some users, Microsoft phased out the application in 2013 after its acquisition of Skype. Tech Spot’s Shawn Knight details the history of MSN Messenger here! 

Image credit: Tech Spot

It’s definitely a good addition to your home! Terrariums are small enclosures, usually a glass container, that contain a select number of plants and/or small land animals. Building one is like working hard to create a living garden.

As for making sure that your terrarium stays alive for a long, long time, New York Times’ Margaret Roach says that choosing the right plants and right locations can determine your plants’ longevity. “Your subjects should be selected not just for their good looks, but for their compatibility with the environment you’ll prepare for them — inside a container of a particular size and shape — and with one another,” she adds. Learn more tips and tricks to create and tend to a terrarium here! 

Image credit: Neslihan Gunaydin/Unsplash

Egyptian pharaohs stopped building royal pyramids after the New Kingdom period (16th century B.C. - 11th century B.C.). While there is no official or recorded reason behind the ending of pyramid construction, experts hypothesize that security concerns could have been a factor. 

According to Harvard University Egyptology professor Peter Der Manuelian, “...since pyramids were inevitably plundered, hiding the royal burials away in a distant valley, carved into the rock and presumably with plenty of necropolis guards, surely played a role." Check out Live Science’s full piece on the topic here. 

Image credit: Osama Elsayed/Unsplash 

Neuroengineeer Viktor Tóth has found a way to train rats to play Doom. Yes, you  read that right-- rodents can now play video games with the right setup and methodology. Tóth made a custom VR setup for his test subjects and trained three rats to traverse a corridor rendered in the DOOM II engine. While he was able to train them to walk around the game and shoot monsters, he lacked the time to reinforce the behavior. 

The VR setup is composed of a polystyrene ball with motion sensors, a harness attached below it where the rat is placed, a PC monitor to show the game environment, and a little tube with sugary water as a treat when the rats do the ‘right thing’. Learn more about the experiment here. 

Image credit:Viktor Tóth

Imagine that! 

Italian expert on ancient stone and marble Dario Del Bufalo found a long-lost priceless Roman mosaic through a book signing in New York in 2013. His book, Porphyry, included a discussion about the particular art piece and a photo of it. Del Bufalo then overheard a man and a woman talking about she had the mosaic featured on the page. “There was a lady with a young guy with a strange hat that came to the table,” Del Bufalo told CBS. “And he told her, ‘What a beautiful book. Oh, Helen, look, that’s your mosaic.’ And she said, ‘Yeah, that’s my mosaic.’”

The expert then proceeded to trace the current owner of the mosaic, Helen Fioratti. The art dealer and gallery owner bought the item from an Italian noble family in the 1960s and then proceeded to use it as a coffee table for 45 years. Learn more about the mosaic here! 

Image credit:  Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images via The Guardian

Buffy Bailey discovered a tiny gold book during her metal detecting holiday near York. The English nurse was walking with her husband when their metal detector picked up the item’s presence under the ground. Instead of finding typical scraps, they discovered the miniature book that was estimated to be worth £100,000 ($134,500). 

The book is engraved with Saints Leonard and Margret, patron saints of childbirth. According to experts, this book may have been gifted to someone pregnant. Following this train of thought, since nobles were the only ones who were allowed to carry gold during the 15th century, they speculated that it could have belonged to King Richard III’s wife, Anne Neville. 

Image credit: Buffy Bailey

A researcher from the University of Warsaw’s Polish Center of Mediterranean Archaeology and her colleagues described the inner workings behind the collaborative nature of artisans when it comes to producing designs or decorations for temples in Egypt. According to Anastasiia Stupko-Lubczynska, artisans of different ability levels collaborated to produce the needed artworks for a mortuary temple in the Dayr al-Baḥrī complex in Thebes.

Stupko-Lubczynska and her colleagues analyzed two reliefs situated in the temple’s Chapel of Hatshepsut. After close examination, they discovered numerous discrepancies in artistic styles. “Chisel marks seen on the walls show where corrections were made, suggesting that master artisans worked side by side with apprentices learning the trade,” the Smithsonian wrote. 

Image credit: Antiquity

A team of restorers in England were preparing for a building repair when they discovered some well-preserved Tudor wall paintings. The artworks were hidden away under layers of plaster, in a semi-derelict parlor block, until they noticed signs of early wall paintings. According to Anna Keay, director of the Landmark Trust, a British building conservation nonprofit leading the restoration, “never in my own 27 years of working in historic buildings have I ever witnessed a discovery like this.” 

Image credit: Tom Burrows; courtesy of Landmark Trust

Photographer Slim Aarons is known for showing the public a glimpse of the lives of the rich and beautiful. The late photographer worked for publications such as Town & Country, Harper's Bazaar, and Life magazine, and has taken wonderful photos of aristocrats and socialites. From champagne parties on snowy retreats to lounging in different villas around the globe, his photos exude luxury, elegance, and money.  In a new book discussing Aarons’ work, Shawn Waldron and his colleague shared that instead of taking the photos to celebrate or critique the lavish lifestyles these people had, he was merely driven by curiosity. 

Image credit: Slim Aarons 

A new study discovered that there’s actually a possibility that our friendly, adorable puppers know when we’re lying to them. Ludwig Huber, Lucrezia Lonardo, and their colleagues from the Messerli Research Institute in Vienna, Italy found that dogs react differently to people who told them a lie without realizing it than they did to a person who knowingly lied to them. Majority of the 260 dogs involved in the study responded when they were told the truth rather than a lie. Learn more about the study here! 

Image credit: Victor Grabarczyk/Unsplash

US-based artist Angela Hao creates colorful, whimsical, and somehow comforting illustrations of different Japanese storefronts inspired by her trips to Tokyo and Osaka using Google Street View. According to Hao, her art focuses on architectural illustration. She recreates the shops she sees while using the application, and then adds dreamy touches, like luscious plants, expressive signage, and adorable cats.

Image credit: Angela Hao 

It looks stunning! 

Luxury fashion brand Burberry has launched a pop-up store in Jeju Island, South Korea. The brand added more beauty to the tourist destination with their scenic mirror landscape that promotes their outerwear collection. According to the company, the huge scenic pop-up store aims to blur the lines between “nature and technology, the indoors and outdoors, the real and the imagined.”

Image credit: Burberry via HYPEBEAST

Justin Lunsford served in the military as a paratrooper and was deployed in Afghanistan in 2012. He went back to the United States after an IED took his leg. In order to cope with PTSD, Warrior Canine Connections helped him meet Gabe, a two-year-old service dog. “He helps me with one thing to the next. I can use him as a stable surface to lean on, as I get to and from the ground,” Justin said. “If I fall, he’ll come up running next to me and I can use him to push off of to get up off the ground.”

The two became the best of friends and companions, to the point that Lunsford picked Gabe as the best man at his wedding in 2015. The dog was even the ringbearer, too! 

Image credit: WCCs Gabe II via Facebook