Cool things

The smooth-billed ani (Crotophaga ani) is a large near passerine bird in the cuckoo family. It is a resident breeding species from southern Florida, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, parts of Central America, south to western Ecuador, Brazil, and northern Argentina. This species is called “el pijul” in Venezuelan folklore. 

Charred fragments found in 170,000-year-old ashes in a cave in southern Africa are the earliest roasted root vegetables yet found. The finding suggest the real “paleo diet” included lots of roasted vegetables rich in carbohydrates, similar to modern potatoes.

“I think people were eating a very balanced diet, a combination of carbohydrates and proteins,” says team leader Lyn Wadley of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

In 2016, her team found dozens of bits of charcoal in an ash layer in the Border cave in South Africa. This ash layer is what is left from the fires of early people.                     

By studying the charred remains of hundreds of modern plants under a microscope over the following years, the team were finally able to identify the charcoal fragments as being the rhizomes – subterranean stems – of a plant from the genus Hypoxis.

A rare and deadly fungus, the only one that can poison a human from mere touch, has just showed up where nobody expected - in suburban Queensland, in the far north of Australia.

Originally discovered in China in 1895, the reddish-orange poison fire coral (Podostroma cornu-damae) is predominantly encountered in Asia, including Korea, Japan, and the Java Islands.

When even a tiny amount is touched or consumed, it can cause your skin to peel off, your hair to fall out, your brain to shrink, and a whole lot of other terrifying and potentially lethal symptoms.

“I thought ‘no, this can’t be it because this is in Australia’ — it’s not known to be in Australia,” the self-proclaimed fungi fanatic who found the mushroom told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

The Faces of Bélmez

In August 1971 in Bélmez, Spain a woman and her grandchild noticed something strange on the kitchen floor of their home. Imprinted on the floor appeared a face. The face appeared sad and troubled. When the family tried to rub it out the face only appeared sadder, and the eyes widened. Disturbed, the home owner had the floor removed and a new concrete one replaced it. Three weeks after the first incident, another face appeared on the floor.

It is one of the most admired planets in our solar system: Saturn. But a new study suggests that the ringed beauty will lose its most stunning feature.

According to the study published in the journal Icarus, Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun and the only one in our solar system with such an intricate and large ring system, is losing its beloved rings.

The particles of ice that make up the rings are being pulled into the planet at a rate that could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every half hour, something that scientists refer to as “ring rain.”

This would mean that the entire ring system could be gone in 300 million years. But, if you factor in additional data collected by the Cassini spacecraft that flew through the rings in 2017, it could be as soon as 100 million years.

While that may sound like a long time, in the scale of the planets, it’s the blink of an eye. Our solar system is roughly four billion years old.

The Rosary Pea, (Abrus precatorius) named so for it’s frequent use in Rosaries, is highly toxic thanks to high levels of Abrin found inside the seeds. Each seed contains more than enough to kill an adult human, though the seeds are quite safe as long as they are intact. If you have any jewelry made with these pea’s, be very careful not to chew them!

An international team of researchers have uncovered the remains of a new species of human in the Philippines, proving the region played a key role in hominin evolutionary history.

The new species, Homo luzonensis is named after Luzon Island, where the more than 50,000 year old fossils were found during excavations at Callao Cave.

Co-author and a lead member of the team, Professor Philip Piper from The Australian National University (ANU) says the findings represent a major breakthrough in our understanding of human evolution across Southeast Asia.

The researchers uncovered the remains of at least two adults and one juvenile within the same archaeological deposits.

The pretty flowers, and succulent, sweet berries are so toxic that merely brushing up against this plant will cause pustules. A favourite of poisoners for centuries, Atropa Belladonna, better known as Deadly Nightshade, will provide those unlucky enough to consume it’s fruit with a painful death. Atropine, the toxin in these beautiful plants, causes paralysis of the involuntary muscles, including the heart and lungs. Other signs of Atropine poisoning include racing pulse, confusion, seizures, and hallucinations.

These beautiful white flowers are extremely dangerous! Water Hemlock (Cicuta maculata) is the most toxic plant on the North American Continent. Famous for being the plant that killed Socrates, this innocuous looking flower is often confused for Queen Anne’s Lace, or wild parsnip and wild celery plants. Survival is rare, and survivors often suffer lasting tremors and amnesia. The roots are the most deadly part of this plant, but the leaves, stems, and flowers, are all toxic as well.

The Amazon Rainforest is not only among the most famous of earths forests, it’s also one of the oldest. Over 55 million years old, this massive forest has stood, spanning much of the South American continent. Sadly, continued logging and clear-cutting has destroyed huge swaths of the old growth, but there is still some left, and more efforts are now being made to protect this ancient site.

Reddit user Kappnfalcon works in a small store as a stocker. Some unusual stuff has happened in his place of work. Black footprints have been appearing overnight. The footprint sizes range from adult to child. Sometimes they lead a trail into the walls and other times they lead nowhere. They have motion detectors and cameras that never catch anything.

They often appear overnight, but he has seen them appear mid-day behind the cash register where only workers are allowed. Both him and his manager have seen the footprints, but have no idea who they belong to.

The Bialowiza is the last old-growth forest in Europe, stretching through Poland and Belarus. At over 7000 years old, this forest was once the hunting grounds of Kinds and Tzars until it became a national park on both sides of the border it spans. As of 2015, you can cross the internal border without a Visa (but you should have one for the other side of the forest!)