Surprisingly enough, these sculptures are very well-preserved. Intact prehistoric sculptures are a rare find, and these found in southwest France provide an insight into the lives and cultures of prehistoric humans. The clay bison sculptures date to about 13,000 BCE, and were among other artworks found by archaeologists, as My Modern Met details: 

Careful exploration of the caves turned up hundreds of examples of artwork by the Stone Age Magdalenian peoples. These ancient humans were known to hunt reindeer, horses, and other big game during the waning of the Ice Age. Their ancient living and ritual sites have been found in France and Spain and include cave art, engraved bones, and other artifacts. The findings at the three caves added to the repertoire of ancient art attributed to the culture. In the Enlène cave, bone and ivory fragments carved with animal depictions were discovered. The craftsman chose to depict a horse's head on a hyoid bone of a horse; a chamois (a goat-antelope creature native to the region) is also carved on the mandible bone of a bison.

The Enlène cave contained relatively few examples of wall art; however, the other two caves provide rich engraved and painted examples. At Tuc d'Audoubert cave, abstract club symbols (claviforms) shaped like the letter “P” were repeated frequently, particularly in a room which came to be known as the Gallery of the Claviforms. Throughout the cave, 103 animals are depicted on the walls and floors. These include horses, reindeer, and big cats. However, the bison seems to have been the most revered of these animals—composing a total of 40 percent of the animal depictions. In addition, 250 abstract signs and other mysterious figures have been documented by researchers returning to the cave over the decades since its discovery.

Image via My Modern Met 

First things first: hopefully there’s no eruption that will sweep our recreated menu under all the lava, right? All jokes aside, recreating something would be difficult if we don’t even know what we’re actually going to recreate, right? Thankfully, archaeologists at the Archaeological Park of Pompeii have found some information from excavating an ancient food shop, called a thermopolium, located at the western edge of the unexcavated northeastern section of Pompeii. Atlas Obscura has more details: 

To recreate a meal that comes close to what may have been served here, one can begin by looking at the archaeological remains found inside. This includes the imagery in the frescoes painted on the service counter and the contents of the amphorae and the dolia. One dolium contained the bones of duck, swine, goat, and fish, as well as shells from land snails. The duck bones in particular correspond to the fresco of two mallards painted on the front of the counter, perhaps as a pictorial menu for the illiterate majority at the time. While some scholars have proposed that these faunal remains may imply that first-century Pompeiians consumed stews or soups composed of a motley of creatures, aside from a few Apician patinae, this would be an anomaly in ancient Roman cooking. As dolia were primarily used for dry and liquid food storage, and not for cooking, it is possible that the bones and shells found in the dolium represented food waste from an in-house butchery, food preparation that took place behind the counter, or post-consumption food waste left behind by the customers.

It is also possible that these remains were evidence of something else entirely: What if these shells and bones were destined for a master stock that was used in the dishes being served in the establishment? After all, this thermopolium was situated near a fountain and water tower, providing access that would facilitate making a bulk broth on a daily basis. References to such dishes appear across historic texts: In the first century BC, Republican statesman Cicero complains of the “reek and fume” of stew-houses in his biting invective Against Piso, while Athenaeus of Naucratis, a third-century Greco-Egyptian writer, refers to food in the “common messes” as “nothing but broth and chunks of meat.” Second-century historian Dio Cassius even recounts an occasion when Emperor Claudius “abolished the taverns where [the populace] were wont to gather and drink, and commanded that no boiled meat or hot water should be sold.”

Image via Atlas Obscura 

TOI-178 is a unique planetary system. The system is not just a group of heavenly bodies revolving around a star, no. The planets dance around their star in a rhythmic pattern, and astronomers can actually hear the beat to which the planets are dancing to. Strange, indeed! 

Image via Flipboard

Researchers will have a field day with this discovery. A huge burial site in Northamptonshire, United Kingdom, was discovered, and along with it came over 3,000 pieces of jewelry, weapons, and more. The huge number of objects date back to around 1,500 years ago, and was scattered across 154 graves  in the site, as IGN detailed: 

"The Overstone Leys site contains by far the biggest Anglo-Saxon cemetery ever found in Northamptonshire," Project Manager at Museum of London Archaeology, Simon Markus, said in a MOLA release about the discovery. "It is rare to find both an Anglo-Saxon settlement and a cemetery in a single excavation. The excavations will help us understand the way people lived in both the Anglo-Saxon period, around 1,500 years ago as well as the Bronze Age, nearly 4,000 years ago."

Markus said the human remains, objects, and buildings found at the site will help them learn more about the Anglo-Saxon and Bronze Age diets, health, origins, and day-to-day life of the people that lived during that period of history.

Fifteen rings, 150 brooches, 2,000 beads, 75 wrist clasps, 15 chatelaines, 40 knives, 25 spears, 15 shield bosses, and an assortment of other things like cosmetic kits and bone combs were unearthed at the site, according to the MOLA. The archaeologists also uncovered Anglo-Saxon textiles preserved after becoming mineralized by being buried next to a metal brooch.

Image via LiveScience

The short answer is to turn them into foundations for new coral reefs! Take for example, the Platform Holly, a decommissioned oil rig. Standing 235ft (72m) above the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the abandoned oil rig is now home to colourful fish, crabs, starfish and mussels that congregate on the oil rig’s huge steel pylons. BBC has more details on how we can turn other oil rigs into new homes for creatures and coral reefs: 

But there is one way in which these old rigs can be remarkably useful: the subsurface rig provides the ideal skeleton for coral reefs. Teeming with fish and other wildlife, scientists say that offshore rigs like Platform Holly are in fact the most bountiful human-made marine habitats in the world.

The practice of transforming rigs into reefs in the United States dates back almost 40 years. In 1984, the US Congress signed the National Fishing Enhancement Act which recognised the benefits artificial reefs provided and encouraged states to draw up plans to turn defunct rigs into reefs. The five coastal states on the Gulf of Mexico – Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas – all have rigs-to-reefs programmes and have converted more than 500 oil and gas platforms into artificial reefs.

When oil companies cease drilling in these states, they decommission their platform by sealing the oil well. Then they can either choose to remove the entire platform or convert it into a reef by removing just the upper section of the structure.

Image via BBC 

Yeah. Just. Yeah, furry art. There’s nothing wrong with commissioning or being a furry, sure, but furry art has become  one of the biggest industries online. A lot of rich furries pay well for an art commission, but this one just takes the cake. Izzzyzzz relays the story of the chaos and controversy behind the legendary $20,000-furry art commission on DeviantArt. 

The Brood X, also known as the Great Eastern Brood, is a species of periodical cicada that will re-emerge after 17 years of living underground. Don’t worry, these large winged creatures are mostly harmless, although their buzz isn’t that pleasant to the ears. The cicadas will show up this spring in 15 states in the US:  

“The end of May through June, it can get pretty loud – if you are in an area where they are numerous, there can be hundreds of thousands, or millions, of them,” said Howard Russell, an entomologist (insect scientist) at Michigan State University.

One of the largest broods of periodical cicadas in the nation, Brood X will emerge this spring in 15 states: Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, as well as Washington D.C.

Unlike greenish, annual cicadas, periodical cicadas are known for their black bodies and bold, red eyes. Their mass, in-unison emergence every 17 years is one of nature’s great mysteries.  

But the bugs haven’t been in hibernation since their last mass appearance in 2004.

“They are always there, that’s what people don’t realize,” said John Cooley, an entomologist at the University of Connecticut who studies periodical cicadas.

Image via USA Today 

Well, here’s our chance to prove that swearing isn’t that bad, apparently. Studies have shown that swearing may be a sign of verbal superiority, and can indicate honesty, intelligence, and creativity! CNN lists the benefits of saying vulgar words as proven by science:

Well-educated people with plenty of words at their disposal, a 2015 study found, were better at coming up with curse words than those who were less verbally fluent.

Participants were asked to list as many words that start with F, A or S in one minute. Another minute was devoted to coming up with curse words that start with those three letters. The study found those who came up with the most F, A and S words also produced the most swear words.

That's a sign of intelligence "to the degree that language is correlated with intelligence," said Jay, who authored the study. "People that are good at language are good at generating a swearing vocabulary."

Swearing can also be associated with social intelligence, Jay added.

"Having the strategies to know where and when it's appropriate to swear, and when it's not," Jay said, "is a social cognitive skill like picking the right clothes for the right occasion. That's a pretty sophisticated social tool."

If you want to read more about it, check the full article here. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to show the benefits of swearing to the old people in my life! 

Image via CNN

How did people ever wear this giant Mayan mask? Maybe the mask was just for display purposes. Imagine the heavy weight of actually trying it on! The 2,000-year-old mask, revealed at an archaeological site in Yucatan, Mexico, depicts the face of an unknown deity. The artifact was sculpted from stucco, a building material, as Live Science details: 

The discovery was made in 2017 at the archaeological site of Ucanha, near the modern-day city of Motul, and since then researchers with Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have worked painstakingly to restore it.

Stucco masks like this one "represent the faces of individuals with particular features that can be associated with deities or with characters of prominent social status," INAH said in a statement.  

Image via Live Science

Aesthetically-pleasing furniture is one way to amp up your home (and your Instagram account, for sure), but what about functionality? Some are now leaning towards furniture that is more focused on function and utility. While less abstract and visually-stunning, these furniture pieces are designed to provide comfort and efficiency in one’s home. YankoDesign focuses on Smart Furniture, a genre of tech-enhanced items that can make our lives easier. From smart work desks that run on food waste to smart beds that charge our devices and come along with an integrated home theatre system, these pieces are not something to overlook! Check the full piece here. 

Image via YankoDesign

Alright, TV remote control apps are not a new thing for phones or tablets. However, the existing apps either don’t work well or have limited features. 9to5mac’s Filipe Espósito  tested the newly-updated “TV Remote”,  created by Adam Foot, the developer of the Shift Keyboard for Apple Watch. The application now supports the following brands: Hitachi, Toshiba, Sharp, LG and Samsung.

The first time you open it, the app identifies all the connected TVs in your Wi-Fi network for quick pairing. You just have to choose your TV from the list and then authorize the app to work as a remote control. If you want to add more than one TV for use with the TV Remote app, you can do so.

With just a few seconds, your TV will be paired with the app, and you can control it from your devices. There are navigation buttons to explore the interface and menus, volume and channel controls, as well as shortcuts to media playback, mute, and access the home screen. Tapping the three-dots button reveals even more options, such as subtitles, channel list, and sleep timer.

In my experience, the app works just as I expected. I have a Samsung QLED TV, and its official remote app is pretty bad as there’s a considerable delay between tapping the buttons on the iPhone and the TV responding to the commands. With the TV Remote app, everything works nearly instantly, and I don’t have to wait a few seconds until the app identifies my TV, which happens every time with the Samsung app for some unknown reason.

Image via 9to5mac 

Yezo is a small yet spectacular property in the Northern Hokkaido Mountains of Japan. The retreat, designed by Japanese architecture studio Laboratory for Explorative Architecture & Design (LEAD), combines experimental design with natural inspiration - and the result is a wonderful treat for the eyes, indeed (and I only saw the photos, imagine seeing that in real life!), as LuxuryLaunches details: 

Built using wood, stone, water, and light in major proportions, the Yezo Retreat is an ideal place for those craving solaces in the lap of nature. It features floor-to-ceiling windows and one large area complete with a bed, seating space, fireplace, and a staircase in place of separate bedrooms.

The resort’s highlight is the roof, where there is a sundeck of sorts, complete with two chairs. With elements such as a central concrete chimney and a curved roof (shell structure made using glue-laminated -GluLam wooden beams suspended from a central concrete chimney and covered with locally sourced black slate), the Yezo retreat has also managed to win the 2020 Golden Needle Design Award.

Image via LuxuryLaunches

AMP Robotics has designed a three-handed robot that can sort 80 items of recycling per minute, which is twice as fast as human sorters! The  company hopes to use it to reduce the tedious and tiring labor of manually sorting tons of recycling. The robot uses computer vision and machine learning, as Inverse details: 

Ultimately, this technology could play a key role in closing the loop of recyclable manufacturing and creating a world free from waste (or, at least, recyclable waste.)

When it comes actually sorting these waste materials, AMP Robotics' technology has two main parts:

AMP Neuron — the machine's brain and eyes

AMP Cortex — the machine's body and hands

Using computer vision, the same kind of technology employed by self-driving cars to "see" the road, the AMP Neuron first "looks at" incoming recycling and using machine learning to quickly analyze what type of material it is and makes a decision on what it should do next — either call on its suction cup arm to scoop it up or let it move past.

Image via Inverse 

Meet the Longopac, a garbage bag that is able to extend its utility while cutting down waste. The bag, created by Swedish company Paxzo, is 410 feet in length. The ‘endless’ part comes from the fact that upon placing the Longopac into a garbage bin, you can fill it up however much you desire and cut it off at the top, tie it shut, and throw it out. Input Magazine has more details: 

"The bags are manufactured from three-ply polyethylene-low material consumption and [offer] high strength. Independent life cycle analysis shows less than 1/3 koldioxid compared to traditional bags. [The bags are also] lower weight and [their] more compact packing gives less transport cost."

If you ask us, it looks like a mix between a one-size-fits-any condom in bag form and Saran wrap, and we love it.

Paxxo calls their creation "endlessly clever" and while we can't vouch for that, it's definitely a creative spin on the average garbage-bag-and-can setup. Because though we try to only take out the trash when it's full... sometimes that's just not feasible. Sometimes we dispose of something foul or food scraps that can't be composted and will be foul soon enough, and we have to throw the bag out even if's only half full.

Image via Input Magazine 

Now this is something that archaeologists in the future might discover and then spend years wondering how the civilization living in it disappeared without a trace. Sadly, no one actually ever lived in this town. The Burj al Babas is a $200 million-dollar ghost town that was a development project gone wrong. After the Turkish real estate crisis, the real estate company handling this project went bankrupt, and the once-lavish area is now in ruins.