Quantum computing is a major trend in computer science. It’s jaw-dropping to think that it all started from observing the weird properties of light! There have been several pioneers in quantum computing, the main one being Richard Feynman—he explained that quantum computers are feasible and that they are the future of computing.

Quantum computers have existed since way before you think. The first quantum computation was carried out in 1997, using NMR on chloroform molecules.^[1] Nowadays, we’ve been trying to slap the “quantum” buzzword on just about anything. Even then, there are still a few applications—in the endless list of quantum technologies—that are really mind-boggling.

10 Improving Cancer Treatment

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death around the world. In fact, according to a recent survey from the World Health Organization (WHO), respiratory cancers alone claimed 1.7 million lives in 2016. However, if cancer is recognized at an early stage, the chances of recovery through treatment are much higher. There are many ways cancer can be treated. One is to remove it by surgery; another is through radiotherapy.

Beam optimization is critical in radiotherapy, as it is important to make sure that the radiation damages as little healthy cells and tissues near the cancer region as possible. There have been many optimization methods for radiotherapy in the past that use classical computers. In 2015, researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute came up with a new technique that uses quantum annealing computers, like the ones manufactured by D-Wave, to optimize radiotherapy in a manner that is three to four times faster than that of a regular computer ^[2]

9 Better Traffic Flow

Many of us are familiar with waking up early and setting off for work, only to find a traffic jam waiting on the way. And then comes the terrifying feeling that you’re going to be late for work. Google has been working on fixing this problem by monitoring traffic and suggesting alternative routes to its users. However, Volkswagen is taking it to another level with their research.

In a 2017 experiment, Volkswagen tried to tackle the issue of traffic, not through monitoring but rather by optimizing traffic flow itself. They used the Quadratic Unconstraint Binary Optimization (QUBO) technique with quantum annealing computers to find the optimal route for a select number of cars and possible routes in consideration.^[3]

So far, they have tested this with 10,000 taxis in Beijing to show how their method can optimize traffic flow significantly faster than a classical computer. However, many people are skeptical of Volkswagen’s claims, since they used a D-Wave quantum annealing computer to do the processing. Many scientists state that the quantum annealers D-Wave manufactures do not offer a speedup as significant as Volkswagen claims.

8 Better Mobile Data Coverage

We have all been in a spot where the mobile data reception is excessively bad, and we’d rather just use that slow WiFi hotspot in that nearby coffee shop. Well, it seems that a company called Booz Allen Hamilton might just have found the solution to the horrible network coverage problem, with the help of quantum computers, of course!

In a 2017 publication, they suggested that optimal satellite coverage is pretty tough to figure out. This is because there are a lot of possible alignment combinations, and it is really hard to check all these combinations with classical computers.

The solution? They suggest that using the QUBO technique, as previously mentioned, with the help of D-Wave’s quantum annealing computers, can help find the optimal satellite coverage position required.^[4] This would not mean that the satellites would be able to cover all the bad reception spots, but the likelihood of being able to find a spot with better reception can be increased significantly.

7 Simulate Molecules

Molecule simulation has been a crucial field in biology and chemistry, as it helps us understand the structure of molecules and how they interact with each other. But it also helps us discover new molecules.

Although classical computers nowadays may be able to simulate these molecular dynamics, there is a limitation on the complexity of molecules in a given simulation. Quantum computers are able to effectively break this barrier. So far, they’ve only been used to simulate small molecules, like beryllium hydride (BeH₂), for example. It might not seem like much, but that fact that it was simulated by a seven-qubit chip shows that if we had more qubits at our disposal, we might be able to run extremely complex molecular simulations.^[5] This is because the processing power of quantum computers increases exponentially as the number of qubits increase.

Other hardware—like D-Wave’s quantum annealing computers—has also been used by researchers to come up with simulation methods that might be just as good, if not faster, than current methods.

6 Break Currently Used Cryptosystems Other Than RSA

Some of us might have heard of the scare about quantum computers being able to break cryptosystems such as RSA or DSA. This seems to be true for some cryptosystems, as they rely on prime numbers to generate a key based on prime factors. An algorithm, called Shor’s algorithm, can be used by quantum computers to find the prime factors used to generate the key, and they can do it much more efficiently.

But what about the other cryptosystems which do not rely on prime numbers to generate keys? There is another algorithm called Grover’s algorithm which might be used to brute force a key faster than a classical computer. However, this is not as big of a speedup as Shor’s algorithm would offer, compared to a classical computer (quadratic vs. exponential speedup). This would mean that we would need significantly faster quantum computers than the ones that currently exist to even attempt to break these cryptosystems.

Even with that, there are some cryptosystems that would be impossible for quantum computers to break. These cryptosystems are categorized within the field of “post-quantum cryptography.” Overall, though, it would seem that at least RSA—which is often used in digital signatures—would be obsolete.^[6]

5 More Humanlike AI

Artificial intelligence is an extremely trending field in computer science. Scientists have been trying to make AI more humanlike through the means of machine learning and neural networks. Seems terrifying, but now add quantum computers to the concoction, and it is taken to a whole new level.

Neural networks run on matrix-based data sets, and the processing done in neural networks is computed through the means of matrix algebra. However, quantum computing itself fundamentally works in such a nature that matrices are often used to define and determine the quantum states of qubits.^[7] So with that, any computational process done on the neural network would be similar to using transformational quantum gates on qubits. Hence, quantum computers seem like the perfect fit for neural networks incorporated in AI.

Not only that, but quantum computers can also help to significantly speed up machine learning compared to a classical computer. This is why Google has been investing in quantum computer research to improve Google AI by means of quantum hardware.

4 Quantum Cryptography

This is very different from post-quantum cryptography, as it is not meant to prevent quantum computers from breaking cryptosystems, though it does that, anyway. This type of cryptography uses the means of quantum mechanics itself. But how is it more versatile than other forms of cryptography?

Quantum cryptography mainly focuses on the key distribution part of a cryptosystem, here two pairs of entangled qubits are used. One is sent to the receiver, while the sender keeps the other. Entangled particles in a superposition, when measured, affect the other qubit. Send a stream of these qubits, and you have a key usable for encryption.^[8]

The best part about it is that eavesdropping is impossible, as the qubits cannot be copied. They can’t be measured, either, as there are methods to determine whether the qubit has been tampered with before being received by the intended recipient. This makes it a robust method for cryptography, which is why scientists are still researching this field.

3 Forecasting Weather

We’ve all had that time where we’ve checked the weather forecast, and it said that it was going to be a wonderful, sunny day. Then, only moments later, it starts to pour, and you didn’t bring your umbrella. Well, it seems quantum computers might have a solution for that.

In 2017, a Russian researcher published a paper about the possibility of using quantum computers to predict the weather more accurately than classical computers. There are a few limitations with current computers in predicting all the intricate changes in weather.^[9] This is because large amounts of data are involved, but quantum computers seem to offer a big speedup compared to classical means because of Dynamic Quantum Clustering (DQC) methodology, which is claimed to generate useful datasets that classical techniques cannot.

Even so, it must be noted that not even quantum computers can predict the weather with absolute accuracy, but at least it will be less likely that we will regret not bringing an umbrella on suspicious sunny days!

2 More Efficient Customized Advertisements

We all hate it when we search for an article, only to find it to be littered with advertisements. Most of it doesn’t even seem relevant! Luckily, Recruit Communications has found a solution for one of those two problems—the relevancy of ads.

In their research, they explained how quantum annealing can be used to help companies wanting to advertise to reach a wider range of people without spending too much. The quantum annealing can be used to match relevant advertisements to customers so that they’re more likely to click them.^[10]

1 Gaming With Quantum Computers

With all the speedup quantum computers offer in the computing field, one thing gamers might be curious about is whether they can be used to make a sweet gaming rig which can run games at blazing high framerates. The answer would be, “Sort of.”

At this point, the field of quantum computers is still at its infancy, and current hardware still hasn’t reached “quantum supremacy”—which is when quantum hardware can compute faster than the current best computers, though the definition is still vague. This is because quantum computer algorithms work very differently from classical ones. Even with that, quantum gaming still seems to be possible.

There have been a few games which have been developed to utilize quantum computers. One of them is called Quantum Battleships, which is based on the Battleships board game.^[11] Furthermore, Microsoft has been working on a programming language called Q#, which uses both classical and quantum hardware to compute. It is also very similar to C#, which would mean that it is very possible to develop games using Q# that take advantage of quantum hardware. Maybe we’ll have Call of Duty Q one day!

I am a small music producer from the UK with a newly acquired side hobby for writing articles!

One of the most baffling mysteries in human history has been trying to explain the incredible feat of engineering that resulted in the Great Pyramids of Egypt. For thousands of years, historians, architects, and scientists have tried to come up with their best explanations for these massive constructions.

To this day, the mystery is still not fully solved. No one truly knows just how it was done. But there have been plenty of explanations given, and we will examine the top 10 most plausible construction theories of the Great Pyramids.

10 Ancient Machines/Cranes

Naturally, the first thought that pops into our minds when we think of constructing a building is the use of cranes to lift and carry heavy pieces of metal or stone. The first pyramids were step pyramids with large flat surfaces on which heavy cranes could stand and operate.

Certainly, ancient cultures were aware of levers and pulley systems, and they likely used something like this to construct the first pyramids. However, cranes have almost no plausibility when it comes to explaining the Great Pyramids of Egypt given such small surfaces on which to stand.

More advanced building techniques are needed to explain how to build the geometric pyramids found at Giza.^[1]

9 The Pyramids Were Originally Hills

An interesting yet bizarre explanation behind the pyramids is that they began originally as natural mountainous formations, and then the rocks were laid over these hills top-down rather than bottom-up. This idea was first proposed in an 1884 article in The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette by a conference of scientists.^[2]

Perhaps this is what Herodotus meant when he said the pyramids were built “top down.” Hey, at least it’s an imaginative proposal despite being ridiculous and implausible.

8 Smoothing/Flattening By Hand

One of the most challenging feats involved in building the pyramids seems to be the way in which the Egyptians were able to cut the rocks with such extreme precision so as to stack them with almost no space at all in between. Not even a piece of paper can fit where two stones touch.

How did the Egyptians achieve such tightness and perfection? We can’t even recreate this today with our most powerful diamond-tipped blades. Well, it may surprise you to know that they may have been able to achieve this with basic hand tools and some ingenuity. It’s not that they had better tools then we do now. They were just much better at using what they had.^[3]

They achieved this smoothness to the rocks by using two poles of equal height connected with tight rope, under which the rocks were placed. This allowed them to see whether the rocks could just barely slide in and out from under these ropes.

If they found a point at which the rope made obvious contact with the surface of the rock, they could simply mark it using red ocher and then scrape away the high spot using a flint scraper or a sunstone rubber. It is possible to chip away at granite rock, one of the hardest materials on Earth.

7 Limestone Concrete

Perhaps an even better and more plausible way to achieve the perfectly smooth surfaces of the rocks was that the stones were made by pouring liquid limestone concrete, which was then encased to easily form a perfect geometric shape. There seems to be some evidence to support this theory.

Under a microscope, Egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer detected what appears to be air bubbles on the surface of the stones, signifying that air may have become trapped under liquid concrete. According to the Journal of the American Ceramic Society, it also appears that the elements inside the stones were formed in a process that happened very quickly, which suggests that this is evidence of cement.^[4]

6 Zigzagging Ramp

Here is the first of the various ramp theories that made the list. The flat ramp theory is not here because such a ramp would have had to be bigger than the pyramid itself. A flat ramp would have to extend outward 1.6 kilometers (1 mi) from the pyramid, given an estimated 7-degree slope. Quickly realizing this problem, researchers devised other types of ramp theories.

In order for a ramp to make sense, it would have needed to be constructed throughout the process of building the pyramid. Though a zigzagging ramp would require less material than a straight ramp, it is nearly as implausible because it would have required constant adjustment as the pyramid structure was built higher and higher.

A single zigzagging ramp alone would be another mystery. How could this type of ramp make its way up the pyramid? Ramp theories such as this have been widely discredited.^[5]

5 Wetting Sand

Today, some advocates still believe that the pyramid stones were moved over piles of sand that were made wet so as to much more easily drag the stones without causing friction. This theory would explain the transportation of the stones from quarries hundreds of miles away from the building site as well as how the workers moved the stones upward using some type of ramp.^[6]

But would a wet ramp provide enough stability for stones to be elevated upward when some of the stones weighed up to 20 tons each? And what about the men who would pull these stones up a wet ramp? Wouldn’t they have a hard time grounding their feet on this type of surface?

At best, this theory can only explain the transportation of the rocks. As a method of lifting the rocks, it fails.

4 The Spiral Ramp Theory

Here’s the first theory on this list that starts to make a bit of sense. When trying to devise a plausible ramp theory, people eventually began to realize that a spiral ramp could be constructed simultaneously with the pyramid.

It would run along the outside of the pyramid and would continually rise upward as the pyramid was built. Proponents of this outer spiral ramp theory include Mark Lehner, an archaeologist with a Yale doctorate.

The main problem in using a spiral ramp is maneuvering the stones around the corners. It’s hard enough hauling huge stones up a ramp, but also having to turn the stones creates another difficulty. This is where the outer spiral ramp theory breaks down, and more plausible methods are required.^[7]

3 Water Shaft Theory

What about constructing a long water causeway underground from a local water source within reasonable distance from the quarry and then using water shafts to float the stones upward? This theory suggests that a water causeway was used to transport the stones and that the stones were cut and shaped in the water.

After a stone was cut to precision, light pieces of flotation material were attached to the stone. That way, it would float upward and its surface would be protected from bumping against other stones.

There is some evidence to suggest that these types of water shafts were used to aid in constructions from other parts of the world. For example, it is believed that canals were used to build Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

However, if such a canal were used to build the Great Pyramid of Giza, where did it go? Why was it torn down?

Allegedly, it took 10 years to build and would have had to be 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) long as that is the distance from the Nile River to the Giza site.^[8] Furthermore, even if this theory is true, it still doesn’t explain some other details within the pyramid, such as the quarry blocks used to build the King’s Chamber.

2 Extraterrestrial Intervention

The more time spent trying to figure out how the pyramids were built by man, the more it seems as though the answer points elsewhere. Although extraterrestrial intervention is generally rejected by mainstream scholars, a healthy number of Egyptologists and historians believe that the pyramids were built by aliens.

Upon hearing this theory, many will immediately scoff at it. However, extraterrestrial intervention is a completely natural theory. Given everything we know about the pyramids, it may be rational to conclude that ancient cultures could not have built these incredible structures on their own.

Even with all our advanced technology today, we are wholly incapable of constructing pyramids like the ones in Egypt. Therefore, it seems unfathomable that an ancient primitive civilization possessed both the technology and the ingenuity to construct the pyramids with such extreme precision.^[9]

The Great Pyramid of Giza faces almost exactly true north, with a variance of just 3/60th of a degree. This is even more precise than the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, which points off true north by 9/60th of a degree.

Another remarkable mathematical feature of the Great Pyramid is that the perimeter divided by the height is equal to 2π, varying by only a minor amount. A whole slew of other precise mathematical figures surround the pyramids, but most importantly, we must consider the rate at which they were built.

Given 2.3 million stones weighing on average 2.5 tons each, it is estimated that one stone would have been put in place every two minutes. This includes all the time needed to perfectly cut the rocks, have them transported miles across the desert, haul them up the ramp of the pyramid, and then lay them perfectly in place. It’s very hard to believe that primitive human beings did all of this.

1 Jean-Pierre Houdin’s Internal Ramp Theory

In recent times, one man stands apart from all others who have attempted to solve the mystery of how the pyramids were built. He is a French architect named Jean-Pierre Houdin. Since the 1990s, he has devoted all his time to studying the Great Pyramid and has been able to design the most brilliant pyramid construction theory ever conceived.

According to Houdin, the Great Pyramid was constructed with the use of two separate spiral ramps. The first one was an outer spiral ramp ascending about 30 percent of the way up, and the second was an internal spiral ramp through which the heavy stones were dragged the rest of the way to the top.

Houdin calculated that this internal ramp had a slope of 7 degrees. This spiral ramp also included open sections on the corners for the workers to turn the blocks. This is where it is thought that cranes were used.

In addition to the internal ramp, Houdin has also been able to explain how the King’s Chamber was built as well as the most mysterious room within the Great Pyramid—the Grand Gallery. The massive granite blocks above the King’s Chamber were pulled up through the Grand Gallery with a long pulley system.

Thus, the Grand Gallery exists for a practical purpose. Inside are signs that support this theory, such as holes that have been wedged into the rocks. They are believed to have been used to support the pulley system.

Houdin’s theory has a lot going for it. Using digital technology, a team of computer programmers was able to test the idea. They have been able to confirm that Houdin’s blueprints for the pyramid measure up mathematically and that the internal ramp is plausible.

Most astonishing, however, is that they were able find evidence for the actual existence of a ramp using a low-density scan of the pyramid, which revealed a spiral-shaped image. This could very well be the remains of an internal ramp. By far, this theory gives us the most plausible explanation for how the pyramids were built.^[10]

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DNA is present in every living thing, including humans. It carries our genetic information, passing our traits onto the next generation. It also allows us to trace our origins down to our earliest ancestors.

It also works the other way. By analyzing the DNA of ancient humans and prehumans and comparing it with ours, we are able to discover more accurate information about our origins. The following are but some of the many things science has learned from studying ancient DNA.

10 Humans Are Descended From A Single Man And Woman

According to the Holy Bible, every human is a descendant of Adam and Eve, the first humans to ever live on Earth. Science partly backs this theory, albeit with some interesting differences. First, the scientific versions of Adam and Eve were not the first humans ever. Second, we’re not their direct offspring. Instead, every man is descended from the man, and every woman is descended from the woman.

Scientists call the man “Y-chromosome Adam” and the woman “mitochondrial Eve.” Y-chromosome Adam lived in Africa sometime between 125,000 and 156,000 years ago. Mitochondrial Eve lived in East Africa sometime between 99,000 and 148,000 years ago. Unlike the biblical Adam and Eve, it is unlikely that Y chromosome Adam and mitochondrial Eve ever met, although they could have been alive at the same time.

Scientists concluded that Y-chromosome Adam was the ancestor of all men after sequencing the Y chromosome of 69 men from seven different ethnic groups. For mitochondrial Eve, they tested the mitochondrial DNA from the 69 men as well as 24 other women. However, the timeline for Y-chromosome Adam is debated, since other studies have concluded that he could have lived between 180,000 and 200,000 years ago or even from 237,000 to 581,000 years ago.^[1]

9 Different Species Of Early Humans Interbred

In 2012, archaeologists unearthed a bone fragment from Denisova Cave in Siberia. The bone was part of the shin or thigh of an ancient human they named Denisova 11. DNA tests subsquently revealed that Denisova 11 was female, lived around 50,000 years ago, and was over 13 years old at the time she died. She was also a hybrid of two species of early humans: the Neanderthal and the Denisovan.

Denisova 11’s father was a Denisovan, and her mother was a Neanderthal. Interestingly, Denisova 11’s father was also a descendant of a Neanderthal-Denisovan hybrid. However, unlike his daughter, who was a direct descendant, his hybrid ancestor lived between 300 and 600 generations before him.

Scientists know Denisovans and Neanderthals separated 390,000 years ago. However, they never knew they interbred prior to this discovery. DNA tests also indicated that Denisova 11’s Neanderthal mother was more closely related to Western European Neanderthals than to a Neanderthal that had lived in Denisova Cave at an earlier point in prehistory.^[2]

8 Tibetans Are Descendants Of The Denisovans

Speaking of interbreeding, DNA tests have proven that Tibetans are descendants of the Denisovans. This does not mean Tibetans are Denisovans; they are Homo sapiens. One of their Homo sapien ancestors just happened to mate with a Denisovan.

Scientists discovered this when they compared the genomes extracted from Denisova 11 with the genomes of 40 Tibetans. They discovered that the Tibetan EPAS1 gene was similar to Denisova 11’s EPAS1 gene. The EPAS1 is found in all humans. It is responsible for managing our body’s natural response in low-oxygen environments.

Our bodies naturally produce more hemoglobin to transport oxygen to our tissues when there is not enough oxygen. While this ensures our survival, it also puts us at risk of heart problems. However, Tibetans have a mutated EPAS1 gene. Their bodies do not produce more hemoglobin when short of oxygen. This is why they are able to live at high altitudes, where oxygen is low.

Scientists suspect the ancestors of the Tibetans got the gene when one of them mated with a Denisovan between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago. However, scientists have not confirmed whether the mutated EPAS1 gene also allowed the Denisovans to cope at high altitudes as it does for the Tibetans.^[3]

7 The First Brits Were Black

In 1903, scientists uncovered the 10,000-year-old remains of a British man in a cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England. A 2018 DNA analysis of the man, who they call the Cheddar man, revealed that he had either dark brown or black skin, with curly black hair and blue eyes.

Considering that he is the oldest complete human skeleton ever found in Britain, this means the earliest Brits were black. Interestingly, in the 1990s, Professor Brian Sykes of Oxford University tested 20 people in Cheddar village and compared their DNA with that of Cheddar man. He discovered that two people were descendants of Cheddar Man.^[4]

6 King Richard III Of England Was A Hunchback

In 2012, archaeologists from the University of Leicester started digging at a car park in Leicester. The parking lot was the site of the former church of the Greyfriars, where King Richard III was supposedly buried. They found the remains of the monarch there, making Richard III famous for being the king whose remains were found under a car park.

Scientists confirmed that the skeleton truly belonged to the king when they tested its DNA against that of a living relative. The skull also had damage which matched fatal head injuries King Richard III sustained during the Battle of Bosworth. They also found something else. His spine was curved. This meant that the king truly was a hunchback—a fact historians had deliberated on for years.^[5]

5 King Tut’s Parents Were Siblings

King Tutankhamun remains one of the most famous pharaohs to rule over Egypt. He started ruling when he was just ten and died around 1324 BC, when he was just 19. Archaeologists excavated his tomb in 1922. Surprisingly, they found it intact—complete with precious stones including gold.

Physical analysis of King Tut’s remains showed that the king did not enjoy his short life. His left leg was deformed, forcing him to walk around with a cane. In fact, 130 canes were found in his tomb. Further DNA analysis showed that his deformed leg was the result of inbreeding. He also suffered from a bout of malaria, which would have stopped the deformed leg from healing.

DNA tests revealed that King Tut’s father was Akhenaten, the son of Amenhotep III (King Tut’s grandfather). DNA tests also showed that King Tut’s mother was also a daughter of Amenhotep III. This would make King Tut’s father and mother siblings. Some historians believe his mother was Queen Nefertiti, although this has been challenged because she was not related to Akhenaten.^[6]

4 The Clovis People Were Not The First To Settle In America

The Clovis people are believed to be the first settlers of America. They reached North America 13,000 years ago, moved to South America 11,000 years ago, and disappeared 9,000 years ago. However, in 2018, DNA tests on ancient humans revealed that the Clovis culture were not the first people to settle in the the Americas.

While DNA from ancient humans found in North America proves that the Clovis people lived in North America 12,800 years ago, it is a different story in South America. DNA tests conducted on the remains of 49 ancient South American people show that the Clovis people first appeared in South America 11,000 years ago.

Interestingly, archaeologists already have evidence that some unidentified culture lived in Monte Verde, Chile, 14,500 years ago. A 12,800-year-old set of human remains found in South America is believed to have belonged to this tribe, since it does not share DNA with Clovis people.

The oldest DNA evidence scientists have to prove that the Clovis people ever settled in South America was taken from an 11,000-year-old human. Scientists are unsure about the relationship between the Clovis people and this strange tribe. However, they are sure the unidentified tribe really existed, because today’s South Americans do not share DNA with the Clovis people.^[7]

3 Columbus Did Not Introduce Tuberculosis To The Americas

It is often said that Christopher Columbus’s voyage introduced several deadly diseases, including tuberculosis, to the Americas in the late 15th century. These diseases ended up killing 90 percent of the Native American population. However, DNA tests tell otherwise. Seals introduced tuberculosis to the Americas long before Columbus arrived.

Scientists made this discovery when they analyzed three sets of human remains from Peru. The people are believed to have died 1,000 years ago—500 years before the arrival of Columbus. DNA tests revealed the strain of TB they had is closest to the strain found in infected seals and sea lions.

Europe, Asia, and Africa were experiencing deadly tuberculosis epidemics at the time the Peruvians died. Scientists suspect seals and sea lions somehow got infected during one of the epidemics in Africa and unwittingly took it along when they migrated to the Americas. The Peruvian natives contracted the mutated strain of tuberculosis when they hunted the seals and sea lions for food.

This does not mean that Columbus and his men were completely innocent, however. For all we know, they probably still introduced the deadlier European tuberculosis to the Americas. The tuberculosis in America today is of European origin.^[8]

2 Descendants Of The Vikings Are At Risk Of Emphysema

A 2016 paper by researchers led by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine revealed that Viking descendants have a higher-than-usual risk of developing a serious lung problem called emphysema. Normally, smokers are the likeliest to suffer from emphysema.

Analysis of a Viking-era latrine in Denmark showed that the Vikings suffered from worms so much that their alpha-1-antitrypsin (A1AT) inhibitor gene mutated to stop the enzymes of the worms. The human body naturally produces inhibitors (including A1AT) to stop powerful enzymes secreted in our bodies from digesting our organs.

However, for the Vikings and their descendants, the A1AT inhibitor’s increased ability to deal with the enzymes secreted by the worms also decreased its ability to stop the enzymes secreted in their bodies from digesting their organs.

Today, the mutated A1AT inhibitor is useless, since we now have drugs to deal with worms. But DNA tests show that the descendants of the Vikings still have the mutated inhibitor. This means the descendants of the Vikings are left to cope with their bodies’ inability to deal with their own enzymes, leading to lung diseases.^[9]

1 Malaria Contributed To The Fall Of Ancient Rome

Researchers have always suspected that malaria contributed to the fall of ancient Rome. However, they have now confirmed that malaria did indeed plague ancient Rome and contributed to its demise. Scientists made this discovery in 2011 when they analyzed the remains of 47 babies and toddlers excavated from an ancient Roman villa in Lugnano, Italy.

The oldest of the children of Lugnano, as they are called, was just three years old. All died and were buried around the same time. More than half died before they were born. They were victims of one of a series of malaria plagues that ravaged ancient Rome and stopped farmers from going to their farms. However, the worst-hit was the army, which couldn’t mass enough soldiers to repel foreign invaders.^[10]

Trains have been staples of our travel, shipping, and overall culture for a long time. Over the centuries, trains have grown up and expanded from the humble steam-powered versions of old to the modern, technologically advanced, driverless trains which cross entire continents with ease today and serve as the backbones of our transportation infrastructures.

In fact, many trains today are wholly automated. But even with modern technology, they are still extremely difficult to slow down in a short amount of time. Anything in their way is likely to experience a not-so-nice collision if it doesn’t get out of the way quickly.

Some statistics are quite surprising when it comes to trains. Did you know that a person or a vehicle gets hit by a train every two hours in the United States? This includes the most disastrous of all accidents—a train-on-train collision, which can have catastrophic consequences.

Approximately 1,000 people per year are killed in train accidents. However, the individual hit by the train sometimes survives and lives to tell the story of what it was like.

10 Sebring, Florida

In one of the most unusual cases of someone getting hit by a train, a 34-year-old woman in Sebring, Florida, was walking along the tracks just before 5:30 AM on August 17, 2018. The woman was suddenly hit by a passing train that she had not seen coming.

Almost unbelievably, the woman was still conscious afterward and capable of calling for paramedics to tell them that she was injured. At almost exactly the same time, another phone call came in to emergency services: It was the train crew reporting that they had hit someone on the tracks.^[1]

When paramedics arrived, they had to dig through some groves to find the woman. She’d been off the beaten path of the road. Nevertheless, they managed to take her to the hospital and treat her injuries. Imagine being able to tell that story for the rest of your life.

9 Eugene Barb

In the middle of the night on October 3, 2018, in Cincinnati, Ohio, 43-year-old Eugene Barb was walking along the train tracks after having been drinking—a lot. To put it plainly, Barb was drunk. As an oncoming train barreled down on him, the stumbling Barb tried to get off the tracks. But he didn’t quite make it in time, and the train hit him.

A man on the train reported that he had seen Eugene Barb hanging his legs over the rail that ran alongside the train tracks and then Barb moved out of sight as the train approached. The man heard a thud, which was the train hitting Barb.^[2]

The man got off the train to see if Barb was okay and knew instantly what had happened. Surprisingly, Barb was not only standing but walking toward the man’s general direction. Barb looked at the man, turned, and drunkenly stumbled off.

Rail authorities found Barb hours later close to where the accident had happened, but they didn’t press charges against him for trespassing. It seems that being hit by a train was punishment enough.

8 Darryle See

Darryle See is one of the more interesting stories about a survivor who came head-to-head with a moving train. One major cause of train accidents involving pedestrians or people in vehicles is headphones—the people simply don’t hear the train coming until it’s too late.

This was the case with 22-year-old See. He was hit in August 2013 when his headphones prevented him from hearing the approaching train until it was too late.^[3]

See was casually walking on the tracks and listening to music when the screaming mass of speeding metal smacked straight into him at 177 kilometers per hour (110 mph). It threw See like a toy over 6 meters (20 ft), and the force launched his shoes off his body. They landed approximately 46 meters (150 ft) away.

Though he doesn’t remember being hit at all, See was conscious and coherent by the time the police arrived. Except for a few broken bones, he was perfectly fine.

7 The Manhattan Incident

In mid-December 2017, an unidentified 41-year-old man was hit by a train in Manhattan in the worst of ways. He was standing on the platform of the New York subway at Union Square when two men crossed the tracks to assault him. They punched him in the head and fled the scene.^[4]

As he was punched, the 41-year-old victim fell to the ground and his head crossed into no-man’s-land. At that moment, the southbound Q train hit him directly in the head and fractured his skull. He was bleeding, as would be expected when someone gets hit by a train.

Miraculously, the man was okay. Police followed up on the incident by releasing video taken by the subway’s cameras of the two men responsible in hopes of catching the people who punched the victim.

6 Chicago, Illinois

In December 2018 in Chicago, Illinois, a man stepped onto the train tracks at the corner of 71st Street and South Exchange Avenue. He simply didn’t see the oncoming train.

The man walked right into the path of the train and was hit. The force knocked him to the ground onto the rocks surrounding the tracks. That’s when bystander Terrence Sims approached the victim, who was still conscious. The man asked, “What happened?” Sims replied, “You got hit by a train.”^[5]

The man simply said, “Nah.” Sims replied, “Yeah.” That was the extent of their exchange. Sims called 911 and waited with the man until help arrived.

5 Martha Sharp

In November 2018, 36-year-old Martha Sharp was hit on her butt by a train. The only reason she survived is that the train struck the left side of her body, propelling her away from the tracks and the moving train rather than sucking her underneath to be crushed by the train’s massive wheels.

The incident happened around 4:04 PM on East Fort Wayne Street in Warsaw, Indiana. Sharp was taken to the hospital and treated for cuts to her head from the force of being launched aside by a moving train.^[6]

4 Opole, Poland

In a terrifying incident that was caught on CCTV in Opole, Poland, a man was struck by a train in November 2015. The video is shocking. It shows the man approaching the train tracks on his bicycle at the exact moment that a speeding train comes seemingly out of nowhere. The cyclist runs right into the moving behemoth.

The CCTV video of the incident was posted on YouTube in December 2015 and quickly garnered over one million views. The footage shows the man instantly launched from his bicycle with ferocious speed. It’s a wonder he survived the accident—but he did.^[7]

3 Melbourne, Australia

Probably the most miraculous tale of survival on this list was caught on CCTV in Melbourne, Australia. In October 2009, the person struck by the train was a six-month-old baby—and he lived through the incident.

As the train approached, the baby was sitting in a stroller that was just a little too close to the tracks. As the child’s mother looked away for a moment while tugging at her pants, the stroller rolled into the path of an oncoming train.

The baby and stroller were carried along the metal tracks for a full 30 meters (98 ft). The driver had frantically slammed on the brakes, but trains are difficult to stop quickly.

When it finally came to a halt, everyone was amazed that the baby was still alive and had only suffered a bump on the head. Authorities said that the six-month-old just needed a good meal and a nap.^[8]

2 Elijah Anderson

Elijah Anderson was just four years old when Atlanta doctors started calling him Superman. On November 5, 2009, Elijah was out with his dog, Poochy, when the Jack Russell terrier ran off toward the train tracks. Elijah was trying to catch the dog when an oncoming 1,594-meter-long (5,229 ft) train struck the boy at 48 kilometers per hour (30 mph). Elijah didn’t even see it coming. He was too focused on getting Poochy home safely.^[9]

When paramedics arrived, they took Elijah to the hospital. He was treated for a concussion and received stitches in his head. Surprisingly, within 24 hours, his condition was upgraded from critical to stable. Two days later, the boy was back home and returning to a normal life with Poochy. The dog was unharmed and had also returned home shortly after the accident.

1 Friendship Heights Station

The accident which took place at the Friendship Heights Station in Washington, DC, caused major delays and almost took the life of the woman who’d been hit by the train. In a wheelchair, she approached the platform to board the train just like every other day. But this day would take a drastic turn for the worse.

CCTV video from the station captured this event as the woman went a little too far. She drove off the platform and onto the tracks—right into an oncoming Red Line train, which knocked the wheelchair-bound woman some distance. The staff quickly cut the power to the tracks. They found her still alive and rushed her to the hospital to be treated for her injuries.^[10]

If the happenings of the past week have got you down, perhaps this list can cheer you up a bit. Here we only talk about stories that are positive, amusing, or inspirational. Meanwhile, you can also check the Saturday offbeat list for a glimpse at some of the most bizarre news items that made the headlines.

This week, we look at a few commendable stories regarding children who impressed with their skills or heroics. There are also a few touching reunions. A boy in the hospital is comforted by the arrival of his canine best friend, while a musician reunites with his long-lost guitar after almost 50 years apart.

10 Reunited And It Feels So Good

Canadian rocker Myles Goodwyn was reunited with his beloved Gibson Melody Maker guitar. He thought it had been destroyed 46 years ago.

Back in the early ’70s, Goodwyn was still an unknown musician trying to make it big. His career took a turn when he got his hands on a new Gibson guitar. He customized it and then used it to write and perform most of the songs for April Wine’s first two albums.

The Melody Maker was the only guitar Goodwyn used, but he thought it was lost forever in 1973. While touring in Montreal, the truck that carried all the gear crashed. The guitarist was not able to inspect the wreckage but was told that his beloved Melody Maker had suffered a broken neck.^[1]

Obviously, Goodwyn has played other guitars since then. But he still inquired online about the Gibson every once in a while, hoping that perhaps someone took it from the crash. His persistence paid off. Last year, on the day before Christmas, he received a message saying that the Melody Maker was at an address in Victoria, British Columbia.

After 46 years apart, Goodwyn was reunited with his cherished guitar. The artist is still piecing together the history of the instrument, but it has changed hands multiple times over the last five decades. Fortunately, most owners treated it as a collectible or a showpiece and never actually played it. Therefore, the Melody Maker sounds like it did the day Goodwyn lost it.

9 The World’s Youngest Go Pro

Nine-year-old Japanese girl Sumire Nakamura is set to become the world’s youngest professional Go player.

In recent times, Japan has instituted a program that encourages new generations to start playing Go to compete with Chinese and Korean challengers in international competitions. Sumire will become the youngest person to play Go professionally when she debuts in her first tournament on April 1.

The girl from Osaka started playing the ancient board game when she was three years old. She was inspired by her father, Shinya, who also plays Go professionally and won a national title in 1998. Japanese Go officials are hopeful that Sumire’s involvement will help boost the popularity of the strategic game, mirroring how the success of Sota Fujii brought renewed interest to the game of shogi, popularly known as Japanese chess.^[2]

8 How Friendly Are Canadians?

As far as national stereotypes go, Canadians have it pretty good. They are known for being exceedingly friendly and apologetic. One person from Saskatchewan decided to put this to the test and spent most of 2018 walking from one corner of Canada to the other.

Zayell Johnston is a 27-year-old man from Yorkton, Saskatchewan. For years, he fantasized about trekking through the great outdoors. He wanted to see for himself if Canada was truly “the best country in the world with the friendliest people.”

In February 2018, Zayell set off on his gargantuan quest. He started in Victoria, British Columbia, where he splashed his face with water from the Pacific Ocean. Nine months later, Johnston ended his journey by splashing ocean water from the Atlantic. During that time, he walked 9,000 kilometers (5,590 mi) or, according to his Fitbit, 11.8 million steps.

The people he met along the way did not disappoint. Zayell set out with only $7,000 for food, equipment, and other necessities. And yet he hardly ever found himself in need of a place to sleep or extra supplies.

An elderly couple in Calgary was the first to offer him a place to stay. As Zayell documented his entire journey on social media, more and more people came forward wanting to help. He found it strange that everybody in Newfoundland offered him coffee.^[3]

Weather was Johnston’s biggest foe as several blizzards forced him to hunker down and wait for them to pass. He was stuck for a whole month near the Coquihalla Highway, but a stranger helped him get a job at a ski resort.

7 Netflix And Heat

A young boy from Delaware saved his mom from a fire after staying up late to watch Netflix against her orders.

Thirteen-year-old Damir Border did what all of us did at one point or another during our childhoods. He stayed up past his bedtime. In Damir’s case, it was to watch The Flash on Netflix. At around 1:00 AM, a faulty breaker box outside the Border mobile home caused a spark in an outlet which soon caught fire.

The boy’s mother, Angela, was sleeping while his father, Rich, was at work. If Damir hadn’t still been awake, the home and everybody in it would have gone up in flames. As it happened, Damir spotted the fire, was able to wake up his mom, and then called 911.

The two escaped the inferno in time, and people in the community are already collecting donations to help them replace necessary items lost in the blaze.^[4]

6 Iguanas In The Galapagos Again

For the first time since Charles Darwin visited in 1835, Santiago Island in the Galapagos has iguanas on it again following a mass reintroduction.

Over 1,400 Galapagos land iguanas have been released on the island after being wiped out almost 200 years ago. Once an important member of the island’s ecosystem, the reptile was killed off by predators introduced by humans, particularly the feral pig. The last recorded mention of the iguana was made by Charles Darwin during the iconic voyage of the HMS Beagle.

Since then, those unnatural predators have been eradicated. So the iguana should be able to thrive again and help the environment by dispersing seeds and clearing open spaces of vegetation.^[5]

Furthermore, the initiative should also protect the iguana population on nearby North Seymour Island where the reptiles came from. That island has the opposite problem: There are too many iguanas and not enough food to feed them all.

5 A Boy And His Dog

A man drove 3,700 kilometers (2,300 mi) to reunite a sickly boy he’d never met with the child’s beloved puppy.

The holidays have not been particularly joyous for eight-year-old Perryn Miller or his family. While visiting relatives in Utah, he started suffering from painful headaches. During a visit to the hospital, doctors found that Perryn had a brain tumor and required emergency surgery.^[6]

The operation went well, and various people have tried cheering up the boy during his convalescence. His favorite soccer player, Justen Glad, paid him a visit, and the West Valley Police Department named Perryn an officer for the day. But what the kid really wanted was to play with his best friend, an eight-month-old German shepherd named Frank.

There was just one problem. Frank was at the Miller home, 3,700 kilometers (2,300 mi) away in Wilmington, North Carolina. Fortunately, former trucker Bob Reynolds heard about Perryn’s story and drove 52 hours to bring Frank to him. Reynolds had never met the Millers but decided that this was something that he could and wanted to do. Reynolds has already volunteered to make the trip again to bring the dog back home.

4 The Truth About Female Scribes

The discovery of a rare pigment on a medieval set of female teeth provides evidence that nuns and other women monastics of that time were not only literate but also responsible for writing and illustrating manuscripts.

Monks from a thousand years ago get a lot of credit for writing many texts of that era and also providing masterful illustrations. However, most of them didn’t sign their work so we do not really know who did what.

In recent times, new research has suggested that nuns and other female scribes were also actively involved in book production. Tiny flecks of a blue pigment found on 1,000-year-old dental tartar indicate that we know of at least one woman who worked on medieval manuscripts.

The teeth belonged to a woman who lived in Germany between the 10th and 12th centuries and was buried in an all-female monastery. Monica Tromp, one of the paper’s authors, speculates that the staining happened when the woman licked the end of her brush while painting. Alternatively, she could have inhaled powder while preparing the pigment.^[7]

Also notable is the type of pigment found. The blue ink was called ultramarine. It was made from lapis lazuli found in a single region in Afghanistan. It was a luxury good worth its weight in gold. Only the most talented and prized illustrators would have been allowed to work with it.

3 A Doodle Earns A College Scholarship

A second grader won the 10th annual Doodle 4 Google contest with a drawing of dinosaurs shaped to resemble the company’s logo.

Google is known to create special versions of their logo which are displayed on their home page to commemorate holidays, unique events, and people. Once a year, the organization also hosts a competition open to students from kindergarten to the 12th grade to design one of their unique doodles. The winner is decided by a panel of judges. This year, it included guests such as Jimmy Fallon and Kermit the Frog.

Sarah Gomez-Lane from Falls Church, Virginia, came in first place with her dino doodle. The theme for the competition was “What Inspires Me.” Sarah’s drawing reflected her ambitions of becoming a paleontologist.

Fortunately for her, the prize for the contest is a $30,000 college scholarship. In addition, Sarah spent the day with Google’s Doodle Team to transform her drawing into an animated doodle which was featured on the search engine’s home page.^[8]

2 The Happiest Bus Driver In The World

In just 18 months, Patrick Lawson went from being a homeless drug addict with a criminal record to winning an award for being the happiest bus driver in London.

The beginning of Pat’s story is familiar—childhood abuse led to problems with drugs and violence. These led to jail time and homelessness. He lived like this for almost 50 years before hitting rock bottom and deciding that it was time to make a change.

The important part is that Pat actually followed through on his decision. First, he went to the hospital and got treated for his drug addiction. Then he received job training using London’s Single Homeless Project program.

On Pat’s first day as a bus driver, he greeted every passenger. His instructor didn’t think it was going to last. But here we are 18 months later and Pat is still doing it. He loves interacting with his passengers. He particularly enjoys when he has a reason to use the PA system and talk to the entire bus.

As it turns out, Lawson’s passengers appreciate that their driver goes the extra mile. In his first year on the job, 45 people called up the bus company to compliment Pat. This earned him a spot as a finalist for the Top London Bus Driver prize at the UK Bus Awards last year. More time has passed, more people have called up, and now Lawson has won the Hello London Award for Outstanding Customer Service at Transport.^[9]

1 Congratulations! It’s A Baby Black Hole

Scientists exploring the night sky might have serendipitously detected for the first time ever a black hole or a neutron star being born.

Back in June 2018, astronomers saw a bright glow in the sky. They called the unidentified object AT2018cow, better known simply as “The Cow.” They thought it was a nearby event of medium intensity, most likely a white dwarf. However, analyzing its light spectrum revealed that The Cow was much farther away in a galaxy about 200 million light-years away from us. It was certainly not a white dwarf.

The next sensible idea indicated a supernova, but The Cow kept doing “super weird” things that supernovae just don’t do. It was also 10–100 times brighter than your typical supernova and surprisingly brief.

Study lead author Raffaella Margutti, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University in Illinois, believes their observations indicate that The Cow represents the accretion stage of a black hole or a neutron star. This would be the first time that humans have observed this phase as we typically see these cosmic behemoths millions or even billions of years after they are formed.^[10]

The results were published in The Astrophysical Journal and presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society this week. Others have shared their own findings relating to The Cow, and not all of them are in agreement. It remains to be seen in the weeks and months to come if we can conclusively find out the identity of The Cow.

Being born is among the hardest things any creature will ever do. Going from a single cell to a fully formed organism ready to face the world is a path we all take. However, no two species face the exact same struggle to be born, and there are quite a variety of odd life cycles in nature.

It is no surprise, then, that some of the pregnancies contrived by evolution can seem extraordinarily weird, if not fodder for horror movies. Here are ten of the strangest ways animals enter the world.

10 Incest Cannibal Babies

Adactylidium mites have such a rapid life cycle that they emerge from their mother already pregnant. These mites survive by eating the egg of a thrips—a winged insect that is less than 1 milimeter long. A single egg supplies all the energy and nutrients the mite will require for her entire life. It also provides the energy needed for the mite to raise her brood.

The mite’s life cycle begins inside its mother. The eggs hatch within, producing a brood of six to nine females and a single male.^[1] The larvae proceed to devour their mother’s tissue. The larvae then develop into adults while still inside the exoskeleton of the mother. While there, the male mates with his sisters, impregnating them. Now carrying fertilized eggs, the mites burst out of their mother and look for a thrips egg of their own to eat. The male mite, his job done, makes no effort to feed himself and simply dies. The female mites wait for their own children to eat them.

9 Mammals From Eggs

Children learn in school is that one of the defining characteristics of mammals is that they give birth to live young. No one, it seems, told the monotremes. This group of mammals is identified by the fact that they all lay eggs. Today, only five species of monotremes exist—the duck-billed platypus and four species of echidna.

Monotreme eggs tend to be small and have a leathery, rather than hard, shell. The monotreme incubates the eggs for several days until the young hatch. Then, in the case of echidnas, the baby, or puggle, crawls into its mother’s pouch.^[2] Compared to other mammals, the newly hatched baby is tiny and practically helpless. For several months inside the pouch, the puggle laps up milk that is produced from mammary glands in the skin. Eventually, the puggle is developed enough for the mother to place it in a burrow, where she will return to feed it every several days until it’s mature enough to survive on its own.

8 Mouthbrooders

Fish are not always known for their parenting prowess. Often, eggs are released, fertilized, and the young left to fend for themselves. It is true that some species will defend their eggs and young, but for some fish, it is just too risky to leave them alone at all. These fish, known as mouthbrooders, carry their eggs in their mouths until they hatch and will often keep their young there well afterward.

In some species, like the pearly jawfish, it is the father who will have a mouthful of eggs. For the duration of their development, he will hold onto them, unable to feed himself until they hatch. African cichlids are maternal mouthbrooders. The mothers go up to 36 days without feeding. Once the eggs hatch, she will allow the young out to feed themselves, but she can signal them to swim back in for protection if she senses danger.^[3]

Unfortunately, not even this tactic can always protect their young. The cuckoo catfish attacks cichlids to get them to spit out their eggs. While the mother cichlid is gathering them back up, the catfish deposits her own eggs among them. The catfish eggs hatch more quickly than the cichlid’s and proceed to feast on the cichlid eggs inside the safety of the mother’s mouth.

7 Gastric Brooding

Sometimes, the mouth simply isn’t safe enough for a child to live in. For the gastric brooding frogs, eggs would be kept safe in the stomach. The mother would lay her eggs in the usual fashion but then eat them. Up to 40 eggs would be eaten, though no more than 20 young were ever seen to develop within a mother’s stomach. It is possible that the stomach acid digested some of the eggs. To avoid being dissolved, the eggs, and the tadpoles that hatched from them, produced a mucus which stopped production of the acid—leaving the mother unable to eat while carrying her young.

As the young grew, the stomach expanded with them until it took up the majority of the frog’s body space. The mother’s lungs collapsed to make room, and she had to breath through her skin. Only after six weeks would the mother release her fully formed young.

Unfortunately, the two species of gastric brooding frogs went extinct in the 1980s.^[4] But in 2013, scientists took the first steps in returning the frogs to life. Using cloning techniques, they were able to create living embryos. It is hoped that the gastric brooding frog will soon be swallowing her young again.

6 Three Vaginas

Kangaroos, as well as several other marsupials, have a female reproductive system that can seem a little confusing at first but is actually the key to reproducing quickly. In place of the standard single vagina, kangaroos have three. The two on the sides are used to pass sperm to the uteri (of which there are two), while the middle is the one that joeys pass through to enter the world.^[5] They have other developments which may allow them to remain almost permanently pregnant.

The kangaroo egg cell is fertilized by sperm and allowed to develop for just 33 days before the young joey emerges. Blind, pink, and shriveled, the joey must crawl up through the fur of its mother and make its way to the pouch and find a teat to feed from. For the next 190 days, it stays in the pouch feeding until it will begin to leave the pouch, returning to suckle. The mother kangaroo can then begin to develop another embryo that will crawl out and into the pouch. The mother will produce two different types of milk—one for the newborn and one for the older joey.

That’s not the end of it, though. The mother may get pregnant again at this point, even though she has no more room to feed a young one. Instead, any embryos created while a newborn is still suckling will be held in a form of arrested development in one of the uteri and only begin to grow again when there is a spare teat.

5 Birth Through A Pseudo-Penis

Female spotted hyenas can be hard to spot in the wild. This is not because they are particularly shy, far from it, but because they display what looks awfully like an 18-centimeter (7 in) penis. In fact, this appendage is a pseudo-penis formed from an elongated clitoris. The female pseudo-penis does pretty much everything a penis does, even getting erections, but it does not deliver sperm.^[6] To have sex, a female hyena must retract her pseudo-penis, and the male must deliver his sperm through a channel that runs directly through it.

As this is also the birth canal, childbirth in female hyenas can be very traumatic and is definitely not a laughing matter. A 1.8-kilogram (4 lb) cub must be passed through a hole barely 2.5 centimeters (1 in) across. For a first-time hyena mother, there is an almost 60-percent chance that the cub will become stuck in the pseudo-penis and die. If the cub is not eventually released, this can prove fatal to the mother, too. When the first cub is born, it tears the pseudo-penis, and a stretchy patch of scar tissue forms that makes subsequent births easier.

Why does the female spotted hyena suffer so much to have a pseudo-penis? As of yet, no researchers have come up with a compelling explanation.

4 Male Birth

In most species where eggs are cared for within the body, it is the mother who takes responsibility for nurturing them. For seahorses, pipefish, and leafy sea dragons, it is left to the fathers to get their offspring from eggs to hatchlings. All these fish perform lengthy mating rituals which involve the male and female wriggling and dancing for hours together. It is thought that their motions allow them to synchronize movements, enabling the female to accurately deposit her eggs into a pouch on the male before swimming away.^[7]

In male seahorses, the eggs are then fertilized and surrounded by fleshy tissue that regulates oxygen and nutrition for the eggs. The male can swell to a much greater than normal size, as up to 2,500 eggs develop within him. When the young are all hatched, the male with use muscle contractions to spill the tiny hatchlings out into the ocean. At this point, he is ready for his next batch of young and takes no interest in the babies he has just carried.

3 Under The Skin

The Suriname toad (Pipa pipa) is an unusually protective mother. Used to hiding from predators at the bottom of bodies of water, it will not allow its offspring to simply swim about until they are completely ready to survive on their own. When a male Suriname toad is ready to breed, it will signal its readiness by making a clicking sound with a bone in its throat. Once a female emerges, the male will cling to her back for up to 12 hours as they swim in flipping circles through the water.^[8] This allows the male to fertilize the eggs and hold them against the mother’s back.

Why is it important that the eggs remain against the mother’s back? Because it is where they will stay until they are fully developed. The mother will grow skin over the eggs and trap them within her flesh. As the young grow, they can be seen moving and quivering under the flesh. The Suriname toad will not even allow its babies to emerge as tadpoles. When the young have developed into toadlets, they will punch their way out of their mother and swim off as fully independent beings, leaving her with massive holes in her back.

2 Eating Siblings

The least you can hope for from life is that the struggle for survival will wait until after your birth. In nature, though, you can never rest easy, not even within your mother. A sand tiger shark may start with as many as 12 fertilized eggs inside her, but usually, only two will emerge. Once the eggs hatch, the largest baby sharks will kill and eat their brothers and sisters. This is called intrauterine cannibalism.^[9] This act of cannibalism allows the two survivors, held in the right and left uteri, to develop into roughly one-meter-long (3.3 ft) newborns able to survive on their own. The mother also provides unfertilized eggs for the baby sharks to eat during their nine-month gestation.

This method of motherhood gives the sand tiger shark the best chance of having strong offspring. The mother will mate with a number of males, but by allowing her children to eat each other in utero, only those with the best genes will survive.

1 Darwin’s Monsters

There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae . . .

While many see in nature the glory of an all-loving God, Charles Darwin thought it impossible that such a being could have knowingly made parasitic wasps. Only evolution is capable of making such wickedly efficient killers.

Parasitic wasps are incredibly common and target a huge number of other invertebrates.^[10] From spiders to butterflies to other parasitic wasps, they will hunt them down and lay their eggs within the still-living bodies of their prey. Some will paralyze their prey with venom, leaving them unable to move as the wasp’s larvae devour it. Others will attack caterpillars so that their own eggs can benefit from the caterpillar’s continued feeding. The larvae will often release chemicals that control the mind of their host to give them the best chance of survival, such as making a host spider spin them a cocoon. Whatever the host, the endpoint is the same—something you do not want to look too closely at is coming bursting out of you.

For most of us, memory is the cornerstone of who we are. Our past defines us and shapes both who were are now and who we will become. Many of us deliberately set out to make memories that we can enjoy later.

It is commonly known that memories fade a little with age, and conditions such as dementia can rob people of parts of their former selves. But for people with neurological conditions like amnesia, the loss of memory can prove utterly devastating and leave them with no clue as to the person that they are.

10 Henry Molaison

Born in 1926, Henry Molaison, or H.M. as he was referred to in medical journals, had suffered epileptic seizures since the age of ten, possibly as a result of being run over by a bicycle at age seven. His seizures increased in severity, and by the time he was 16, he was suffering major seizures daily. The seizures continued until 1953, when he was offered an experimental procedure which would remove parts of the left temporal lobe. Though the surgery was a success as far as controlling the epilepsy went, Molaison was left with profound amnesia.^[1]

Molaison could remember his childhood. He knew his name and those of his family. He even remembered the Wall Street Crash of 1929. However, he had trouble remembering things from roughly a decade preceding the surgery. He also lost the ability to make new memories. He would wake every day without any memory of the day before.

Henry Molaison allowed neuroscientists to study his brain for over 50 years, until his death in 2008. This has resulted in major discoveries about how we make and store memories. He even donated his brain to science after his death.

9 Ansel Bourne

Ansel Bourne was an evangelical preacher. In 1887, he “woke up” to find himself running a general store, without any knowledge of how he had arrived there. The last date he remembered was two months prior to his arrival in Norristown, Pennsylvania.

Bourne is said to have experienced a disassociative fugue, causing him to forget his own identity. People in this state often adopt a new identity and travel long distances. The fugue state is most often brought on by trauma, and there is no treatment, though the condition is often temporary. Bourne’s is probably the best known case of disassociative fugue and may have been Robert Ludlum’s inspiration when he came to naming his character in The Bourne Identity.^[2]

Though many people doubted the truthfulness of Bourne’s account of his “lost weekends,” there seems to be little to suggest that he was doing anything disreputable while he was away. In fact, he spent most of his time selling sweets and going to church. He made very little capital out of his adventure. In fact, his fugue-state self seems to have been remarkably boring.

8 W.O.

A patient, identified only as “W.O.” or “William,” visited the dentist in March 2005 for root canal surgery. Up until the time of his injection, W.O. could remember his life as well as anyone else. Since that time, however, he can only store memories for 90 minutes before they are wiped out again. Neuroscientists are baffled as to the cause of the condition.

W.O., who is believed to suffer from anterograde amnesia, can remember getting into the chair and being injected with local anesthetic but nothing from that point onward. He wakes up every morning believing that it is still 2005. His wife has written notes of major events for him in a file labeled “First Thing—Read This.”

Neuroscientists are baffled as to why the anesthetic might have caused the memory loss. Since 2005, W.O. has only managed to remember one new thing: his father’s death. It is thought that his powerful grief forced itself along the memory tracks of his brain, when everything else just slipped away. Doctors treating him hope that this means they will be able to build on this to help him create new, happier memories.^[3]

7 Clive Wearing

Clive Wearing was an accomplished classical musician when, in 1985, he contracted herpesviral encephalitis. The virus attacked his central nervous system, damaging his ability to store new memories. His loss of memory is so profound that he can hold on to current memories for no longer than 30 seconds.

The condition has left him in a constant state of confusion. He cannot understand what has happened to him, and when people try to explain, he has forgotten the question long before they reach the end of the answer. Wearing also remembers little of his life before 1985, except his love for his wife. He has kept a diary of his thoughts over the years, which has consisted of repeated variations of the same sentence: “Now I am awake.”^[4]

Astonishingly, however, Wearing’s ability to play the piano has not diminished. He continues to be able to read and play music. However, when the sheet music calls for him to repeat a section, he will repeat it over and over again, forgetting each time that he has already played it.

6 Anthelme Mangin

Anthelme Mangin was a French soldier who fought in World War I. In 1918, he was sent home suffering from amnesia, along with 65 other casualties, all of whom had, literally, lost their minds. Unlike most, however, Mangin was not carrying any identification. He gave his name as “Anthelme Mangin.” He was diagnosed with a form of dementia and placed in an asylum in France.

In 1920, a newspaper published a feature with the pictures of several unidentified patients. Some 300 families, desperately looking for missing loved ones, claimed Mangin as their own. He met with each family to try to spark recognition, but without success.

He was finally identified in 1930 as Octave Monjoin, who had been taken prisoner on the Western Front in 1914. No one knows what happened to him between his capture and his discovery in 1918. Mangin was taken to his hometown. He was left at the train station, and his caregivers watched from a distance as he walked from the station directly toward his father’s house. He recognized his hometown, including the local cafe and the lightning-struck tower of the church, but did not know his father or brother.

Though it seemed the mystery was solved, other claimants to “the ghost man” refused to accept that Mangin was not their own missing son, and he was kept in the psychiatric hospital until a court case was decided. By the time the case was over, and he was officially declared to be Octave Monjoin, his father and brother were both dead.

In a sad conclusion the unknown soldier’s story, Anthelme Mangin lived out the rest of his life in the asylum, dying in 1942 of malnutrition and neglect.^[5]

5 Michael Boatwright

In 2013, an unconscious man was found in a motel in Southern California and was taken to a hospital. His identification documents named him as Michael Boatwright, a former US Navy aircraft engineer and a native of Florida. When he finally came to, however, Michael Boatwright could remember nothing of his life in Florida or his military service. He didn’t even recognize his name, his nationality, or his language.

Michael Boatwright believed himself to be Johan Ek. And he also believed he was Swedish.

Despite being shown photographs of his previous life, he could not feel any affinity with Michael Boatwright. And, indeed, his previous life appeared to have been rather complicated. When found, he had five tennis rackets in his room but had no idea why. Investigators discovered that Boatwright had at some point married a Japanese woman and had a son, taught English in China, and ran a consultancy company with a Swedish name.

Boatwright appeared to be in a fugue state, the cause of which is most often trauma or an accident. He spoke only Swedish and appeared to have forgotten the English language. He remained at the hospital for five months while social workers tried to uncover his past. Despite finding a sister in Louisiana, Boatwright moved to Sweden, believing that this was his true home. Unfortunately, his life took another strange turn, and he was found dead in his new apartment soon after, from what is believed to have been suicide.^[6]

4 Kent Cochrane

In 1981, Kent Cochrane, or Patient K.C. as he came to be called, had a motorcycle accident which resulted in the loss of parts of his memory. Cochrane was able to recall facts but not personal memories.^[7]

Cochrane was unable to form new memories, nor could he remember events immediately prior to his crash. He knew facts about himself but couldn’t generate memories from them. So, he could, for example, look at a photograph and recognize the people in it and even the occasion when the picture was taken, but looking at it would not trigger any memories outside of the photo.

However, Cochrane’s intellect did not seem to be damaged by his memory loss, and he could learn, albeit with much repetition. He learned, for example, to check the refrigerator door for messages from his family and how to file books in the library where he worked.

Kent Cochrane was the subject of over 30 scientific papers, and his brain was studied by neuroscientists around the world. He died in 2014.

3 Michelle Philpots

In 1994, Michelle Philpots developed epilepsy as a result of two car accidents, both of which caused head trauma. Her seizures grew steadily worse, and Michelle began to become forgetful. She was eventually fired from her job after photocopying a single document over and over again, forgetting each time that she had already done it.

And then her memory stopped working altogether. Michelle Philpots is now permanently stuck in 1994. Every day when she wakes up, she is the person that she was then. Her rare form of anterograde amnesia means she wakes up next to a husband, who, to her, has aged a quarter of a century overnight. She cannot even remember her own wedding, relying on the photos to prove it really happened.^[8]

To remind herself who she is, she leaves herself notes around her home. She is rarely able to leave home alone and has to use sat-nav to walk to her local shop. Damaged brain cells were removed during an operation in 2005, but although the operation managed to control her seizures, there is no way to repair the brain damage or restore her memory.

Michelle Philpots is destined to live in 1994 forever.

2 Susie McKinnon

Susie McKinnon does not have amnesia, despite the fact that she cannot remember being a child or, indeed, any age other than the age she is now.

Having had the condition since birth, it was years before McKinnon realized that when other people told stories from their past, they weren’t just making up the details as they went along. It was only when a friend who was studying medicine asked her to take part in a memory test that she realized that her memory did not work in the same way as other people’s. She could recall events from her past but could not remember what it felt like to be there.^[9]

McKinnon suffers from Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory, or SDAM. She cannot remember how she felt when she was at school or imagine how she will feel when she goes on holiday in the future. She is unable to recall any fond memories. On the upside, however, she is never plagued by self-doubt and is incapable of holding a grudge because she forgets why she was annoyed in the first place. Her condition also means that she does not feel painful things, such as grief, as profoundly as other people.

Researchers have so far failed to discover any disease or injury which may have caused her condition. However, McKinnon also suffers from aphantasia, or the inability to picture things in her mind. Researchers are still investigating whether there is a link between her lack of autobiographical memory and her “blind mind.”

1 Giulio Canella

In 1927, Mrs. Giulia Concetta Canella saw a newspaper photograph of a man who had been found wandering around a cemetery in Turin in the dead of night. The man had been trying to steal a copper vase, but when approached, he began to cry, saying he had no idea who he was.

Mrs. Canella recognised her husband, Professor Giulio Canella, a philosophy scholar who had been missing in action since World War I. She visited the hospital and, convinced that the man was her husband, took him home, which would have been fine, except that a few days later, an anonymous letter claimed that the man was, in fact, an anarchist and petty criminal named Mario Bruneri.

Bruneri’s family were traced, and his wife, son, brother, two sisters, and his mistress all identified him immediately. Canella/Bruneri is said to have fainted when he saw them, possibly from the trauma but probably from embarrassment.^[10]

Mrs. Canella, after her beloved husband had come back to her from the dead, would not give up so easily. When Bruneri’s fingerprints were discovered in the police archives and found to match those of the amnesiac, she took the whole thing to court. After several years of trials and retrials, the court concluded that the amnesiac was Bruneri. Mrs. Canella, the man she was sure was her husband, and the three children they’d had together in the meantime all moved to Brazil.

Prof. Canella/Bruneri died in 1941 in Brazil, and his wife spent the rest of her life trying to prove that her husband had not been an imposter.

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels, and an occasional travel writer.

With their microscopic size, bacteria are everywhere^[1] and can perform feats that are unachievable for beings like us. In recent times, we have shown you some truly extraordinary microorganisms, such as bacteria that eat radioactive waste. However, there are certain species of these little creatures with abilities that we could say are true superpowers.

Now, we will show you ten types of bacteria with powers that you would expect to see in a superhero comic book instead of in real life. If this information inspires any film studio to make a blockbuster movie of superhero bacteria, we strongly recommend that you ask for scientists’ permission first.

10 Caulobacter Crescentus
(The Super-Adhesive Bacteria)

If a gecko attaches to a surface with its legs, it would take hundreds of kilograms of force to just “unstick” it from there. However, even that does not compare to what the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus can do. As if it were a bacterial version of Spider-Man, C. crescentus has an adhesion force seven times stronger than that of geckos and is three to four times more adhesive than commercial superglue.

C. crescentus lives in any wet environment and in any type of water, be it fresh water, salt water, or even tap water. The microbe moves with the help of an appendage called a flagellum until finding a place to live. Then, one end of C. crescentus attaches to the surface in question, after which the bacterium is anchored to it through thin structures called pili. When C. crescentus is finally in position, it secretes a sugary adhesive substance that sticks the creature to the surface immediately.

The results of scientific tests have shown that the “superglue” of C. crescentus has an adhesive force of about five tons per square inch. In other words, a small patch of this substance would be enough to lift an elephant or several cars off the ground.^[2] Since C. crescentus move in places where there is not much to eat, it is believed that these bacteria also use their superglue to pick up nutrients. Evidently, scientists see the practical potential of such a sticky substance, whose uses could range from surgical adhesives to durable construction materials.

9 Magnetotactic Bacteria
(Living Magnets)

A truly amazing power would be to control magnetism. Perceiving nearby magnetic fields, manipulating metal objects, and moving just by taking advantage of the Earth’s magnetic field sounds like something great but, unfortunately, far superior to human capabilities. Nevertheless, that does not mean that other living beings cannot do it, and in fact, some bacteria already have these fascinating abilities. Meet magnetotactic bacteria, the living magnets.

Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are microorganisms capable of accumulating iron oxide molecules and putting them together to form small “pebbles” called magnetosomes. These magnetic granules are 100,000 times smaller than a grain of rice, and an MTB stores many of them inside. In this way, the little inner magnets allow MTBs to feel the magnetic field of the Earth and thus move toward the South Pole or the North Pole, depending on where there is more food. But that is just the beginning.

As MTBs usually live in swamps and similar environments with little oxygen, the microbes must move using their flagella until finding a suitable place. But sometimes, the sediment is too dense to move through in that way, so the MTB uses its magnetosomes to gain thrust with the Earth’s magnetic field.^[3] MTBs could also be true superheroes. To eliminate dangerous bacteria from the human body, scientists have learned to fill these microorganisms with magnetosomes and then kill them using something called “magnetic heat.” MTBs could provide such magnetosomes and thus help eliminate infectious viruses in large quantities.

8 Thiomargarita Namibiensis
(The Little Giant)

Among the superheroes in Marvel comics (and movies), there are some characters that use a certain substance to grow up to the size of a multistory building. While, at the moment, no human is known to have such an ability, some types of bacteria already have the superpower of growing in size at will. And here we will see the largest species of all.

Thiomargarita namibiensis is considered the largest bacterium in the world, three million times larger than average bacteria. Discovered in 1997 on the coasts of Namibia, this microbe is capable of reaching a size of up to 0.75 millimeters, making it visible even to the naked eye. Heide Schulz, the biologist who discovered the bacterium, said in a report: “In terms of size, a T. namibiensis cell is to an Escherichia coli cell what a blue whale is compared to a newly born mouse.”

The extreme size of T. namibiensis is due to its feeding mechanism. The bacterium uses nitrate and sulfide to obtain energy. And since nitrate concentrations are low in the place where it lives, T. namibiensis tries to store as much nitrate as possible inside its own body. That way, 98 percent of its volume is nitrate stored inside an organelle in the center of the bacterium.

In appearance, the T. namibiensis looks white due to the multiple sulfur granules that the creature also stores inside. It is worth noting that since T. namibiensis feeds on sulfur, the populations of these bacteria detoxify seawater, allowing the proliferation of marine life. These microorganisms usually join together by a layer of mucus, forming what looks like a long string of white spheres. This is what gives the bacterium its name, since Thiomargarita namibiensis means “Sulfur Pearl of Namibia.”^[4]

7 Modified Escherichia Coli
(The Living Computers)

Humans have always tried to find the best way to store information. Many millennia ago, we started sharing our ideas through paintings inside caves. Then came books and computers, and we recently learned that diamonds are great data storage devices. But then bacteria entered the game when scientists managed to insert information into them. That’s right: Some microbes can transport text, videos, and images in their bodies, turning them into living computers.

It happens that when bacteria destroy an enemy virus, they store small parts of the virus’s DNA inside their own bodies. In this way, microbes learn to recognize similar threats in the future. Taking advantage of that mechanism, scientists from Harvard University first cultivated a population of 600,000 Escherichia coli bacteria. Then, they coded an image of a human hand and a short video of a galloping horse into a DNA strand.^[5] And finally, the E. coli received electric shocks so that they activated their defense mechanism and thus absorbed the man-made DNA.

To test if the method worked, the scientists sequenced the new genetic code of each bacterium. Then they ran the sequence in a computer program that read it and transformed it into images. Incredibly, the resulting pictures were practically the same as the original files, with just a few pixels of difference. Although this technique sounds difficult, current genetic sequencing technologies make it relatively easy to perform the process.

Anyway, this is not the first time that E. coli microorganisms have carried our information. In 2003, US scientists introduced DNA written with the lyrics of a song inside E. coli bacteria. And in 2011, Canadian writer Christian Bok inserted a poem into the DNA of a single E. coli , which then glowed red and began to “write” its own poem. If you wonder what the potential of this ability is, a gram of DNA can contain 455 exabytes (455 billion gigabytes) of data, about a quarter of all of humankind’s information. So in the not-too-distant future, we could be using modified E. coli populations as our personal microcomputers.

6 Shewanella Oneidensis
(Electric Microbes)

Electrogenic bacteria are microorganisms that can naturally generate electricity through extracellular transference of electrons. To date, hundreds of species of electrogenic bacteria have been found, and they are everywhere, from the bottom of a lake to inside our own bodies. However, a particular bacterium of this type has unique characteristics, which have made it a great object of scientific study.

Shewanella oneidensis is a bacterium discovered in the lakes of New York.^[6] While most life-forms (including us) use oxygen to get energy, S. oneidensis “breathes” metal molecules such as manganese, lead, and iron, among others. For this, many of these bacteria join together and attach to the surface of rocks containing metals. Then, they release long filaments called nanowires, which they use to connect directly to the metal. In that way, the microbes transfer electrons from inside their bodies to metal molecules, and this flow of electrical current is what keeps them alive. Sometimes, S. oneidensis bacteria do the opposite and extract electrons from such metals, so they literally live on electricity.

It is presumed that the nanowires of S. oneidensis allow it to conduct electricity over long distances, as well as to supply electrons to other nearby bacteria. The ability of S. oneidensis to generate electricity has aroused the interest of the scientific community. For example, some researchers are studying the potential of the bacterium to treat wastewater. Meanwhile, NASA took samples of these creatures to space to see if they can be used in the construction of future life-support systems.

5 Pseudomonas Syringae
(The Ice-Maker)

Just like Marvel’s Iceman, the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae can freeze water by touching it, even at temperatures above the natural freezing point. P. syringae bacteria live mostly in farm crops, as well as in many other types of plants. To feed themselves, these little creatures freeze the tissue of plants in order to easily access their nutrients, which, in turn, can cause great damage to agriculture. In addition, P. syringae have also been found in snowy environments from Europe to Antarctica. But how do these bacteria freeze things?

In 2016, scientists learned that P. syringae uses certain proteins in its outer membrane to make ice. First, these proteins modify the order of water molecules, forcing them to form a more solid structure like that of ice. And to make this process easier, the proteins also extract heat from the water, causing it to freeze regardless of the surrounding temperature.

Pure water does not freeze until it reaches around – 40 degrees Celsius (–40 °F). However, a single droplet of P. syringae bacteria can instantly freeze 600 milliliters (20.3 fluid ounces) of such water cooled to only – 7 degrees Celsius (19.4 °F). It is also believed that these microbes contribute to the formation of rain and snow when the wind drags them into the atmosphere.^[7] So we can say that our good P. syringae is both an ice-maker and a rain-maker. Due to their extraordinary capabilities, P. syringae bacteria are currently used to make snow in ski resorts, although they could even be used in biotechnological processes.

4 Modified Klebsiella Planticola
(World Destroyer)

The superpower of this bacterium gives it the ability to potentially erase all plant life on Earth, so Klebsiella planticola earns the prize for the supervillain of this list. Klebsiella bacteria are present in the roots of almost every plant on Earth. These creatures are responsible for decomposing dead plants, thus cleaning the soil of organic waste.

German scientists took a sample of K. planticola bacteria and genetically modified them so that, by decomposing plants, they produced fertilizer and ethanol at the same time. A bacterium of this type would be easy to sell for agricultural and industrial uses, so in the early 1990s, it was planned to test K. planticola in the fields.

However, in order to test its effectiveness, a team at Oregon State University conducted a laboratory experiment with a sample of fertile, sown soil. One part of the soil was filled with the original K. planticola, while the modified bacteria were placed in the other part. The results showed that although the seeds germinated in both soils, all plants in the section of the modified microbes were dead after a week.^[8]

The modified K. planticola produced 17 times more alcohol in the soil than plants could tolerate. In addition, plants use fungi to feed on soil nutrients, but the ethanol-producing bacteria increased the presence of worms that eat those fungi. So the plants not only died of poisoning but also of starvation.

Adding to its evil characteristics, it was confirmed that the modified K. planticola bacterium was able to survive in soil for a long time, unlike other modified bacteria. In the end, the “killer” K. planticola was not commercialized. But it was contended (albeit disputed) that had it been released in the fields, this bacterium would have ended up annihilating all plant life on a continental scale.

3 Aquifex
(The Microbe From Hell)

In the early 1980s, scientists found the first known hyperthermophilic organisms, microscopic beings capable of living and reproducing at temperatures close to 100 degrees Celsius (212 °F). But it happens that most of these microorganisms belong to the Archaea domain, a group distinct from bacteria and discovered in the late 1970s. However, some hyperthermophilic bacteria have also been discovered, and their abilities make them more durable than most life on Earth.

The genus Aquifex comprises bacteria capable of reproducing in underwater thermal vents and hot springs, at temperatures up to 95 degrees Celsius (203 °F). Just to get an idea, a human body submerged in that water would begin to boil until dissolving in a matter of hours. And even so, Aquifex can live in such an environment without difficulty, even at temperatures above 100 degrees Celsius (212 °F), which makes them the most heat-resistant bacteria of all.

As if that were not enough, Aquifex are also aerobic—that is, they can breathe oxygen. Although these microbes only tolerate low oxygen concentrations, they are among the few known aerobic hyperthermophilic bacteria. If the environment does not have oxygen, Aquifex can also breathe nitrogen. But the most impressive ability of these microorganisms is that they produce water as a byproduct while breathing.^[9] For this reason, the bacteria earned the name Aquifex, which means “water-maker.”

2 Ancient Bacteria

If everything goes well, humans can expect to live a little over 70 years on average. Some reptiles can live close to 200 years, while a few trees have lived around 5,000 years. But all that is just a blink (figurative, of course) for the oldest bacteria in the world. Indeed, in 2007, researchers discovered bacteria more than half a million years old, which were still alive.

A team of scientists from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) obtained samples of these bacteria in layers of ice in Canada, Russia, and Antarctica. It is estimated that the microbes have been alive for about 600,000 years, and when scientists looked at their DNA, they were surprised to see that it was almost intact. This is something extremely unusual for creatures of that age, since DNA starts to break down after some time. To survive for millennia, many microorganisms enter a state of almost total inactivity, but even so, their DNA will continue to suffer great damage.

The key to the long life of these old bacteria lies in their amazing ability to self-repair their DNA. Instead of becoming lethargic and suspending its functions to survive, this particular creature keeps a small part of its metabolism active. In this way, the body of the bacterium will keep constantly repairing its own DNA while waiting for the environment to become more favorable for reproduction.

There have been other reports of even older living bacteria, such as 250-million-year-old bacteria trapped in salt crystals. However, these reports remain unconfirmed, and it is speculated that the samples were contaminated with modern microbes while in the laboratory. By contrast, the 600,000-year-old bacteria are authentic, since the researchers made sure to avoid any form of contamination during the tests.^[10]

1 Staphylococcus Epidermidis
(The Anti-Cancer Fighter)

Cancer is the second-leading cause of death around the world. In 2018, almost ten million people died due to this type of disease, and the annual number of cancer cases is expected to reach 23.6 million by 2030. Well, that could change, because scientists have discovered a method to radically fight cancer. And you guessed right, the method involves bacteria.

In February 2018, a group of researchers from the University of California discovered that the bacterium Staphylococcus epidermidis has anti-cancer powers. This microbe is commonly found in healthy human skin. Upon careful analysis, scientists noted that S. epidermidis produces a chemical compound similar to a certain DNA component. When the researchers tested the substance (called 6-HAP) in the laboratory, they realized that it stopped DNA production. Specifically, the chemical prevented cancer cells from multiplying further. However, 6-HAP had no effect on normal cells, since certain enzymes within them deactivated the chemical.^[11]

The scientists injected 6-HAP into a group of mice, while another group was left unaffected. The animals were then exposed to high doses of UV radiation. The results showed that although all mice developed cancer, the tumors of the mice with 6-HAP were 60 percent smaller than those of the normal mice. The researchers proceeded to repeat the experiment, this time by spreading S. epidermidis bacteria on the backs of mice instead of injecting them. Even in that way, the mice covered with the microbes developed only one tumor after the radiation dose, while the normal mice had up to six of them. Although more research is still needed on these creatures, it is believed that S. epidermidis could be used in the future to prevent multiple cancers—besides skin cancer.

Economy student, passionate about Graphic Design, an avid enthusiast of the art of writing.

The race to colonize Mars is ongoing. However, it is not as easy as sending over people to live in igloo cities. We’ve already discussed the obstacles that astronauts must overcome on a voyage to Mars. But there’s far more to mystify us and conquer once we get there.

The Red Planet’s geology is not fully understood, and the bits known by researchers include deadly phenomena capable of crushing the dream of human settlements. Apart from highlighting the harsh landscape, this mind-blowing world comes with epic geological mysteries and unique finds.

10 The Strange Cloud

In 2018, the Mars Express orbiter sailed past the Martian equator. Among the images beamed back was the odd photo of a cloud. The white streak stood out starkly against the red world and measured 1,500 kilometers (930 mi) long.

More curiously, it appeared to originate above a volcano. The possibility of an eruption was zero—Arsia Mons was a long-extinct volcano. In fact, the last time that Mars saw any kind of eruption was millions of years ago.

However, there was a chance that Arsia Mons spawned the vapor. Clouds often shroud the dead volcano, but the only ones resembling the 2018 fog trail are found on Earth.

Called orographic clouds, they form on the downwind side of mountains. Air gets pushed uphill where it spreads, cools, and condenses on dust particles. Oddly, clouds resembling this phenomenon have appeared near Arsia Mons’s peak every three years since 2009. The 2018 cloud fit this pattern perfectly.^[1]

9 First Wind Recording

The InSight lander touched down on Mars in 2018. The high-tech device’s main purpose was to find out more about the planet’s interior. After arriving, the lander had some free time while adjusting to its new surroundings. Scientists decided to listen to the wind on Mars, and for the first time, they managed to do so successfully.

The ultrasensitive equipment and sensors picked up sounds audible to humans as well as frequencies in the infrasound range. NASA recorded both, and the result was eerie. One researcher described it as a mix of Earth’s wind, an ocean roaring, and something else that gave it an otherworldly quality.

The wind gusts came from the northwest and blew across the lander’s solar arrays at 24 kilometers per hour (15 mph) and 16 kilometers per hour (10 mph). The recordings were made by Insight’s air pressure sensor and seismometer. When the lander’s real job began, researchers reversed their wind study and used the sensor to cancel the windy commotion because it interfered with the seismometer’s ability to probe inside the planet.^[2]

8 Fire Opals

In 1911, a Martian meteorite hit Egypt close to the village of El Nakhla El Bahariya. Thus called Nakhla, the space rock found a home at the Natural History Museum in the UK. In 2015, scientists reexamined it and found a first for Mars. The meteorite contained fire opals.

On Earth, these breathtaking gems have a warm, flame-like tint. They only form in the ocean around hydrothermal vents. This type of opal is useful to scientists because it traps microbes during formation.

This opened another avenue for looking for life on Mars. Previously, surface samples from the Red Planet suggested that opals could form in certain regions, but Nakhla provided the first direct gems.

Under a powerful microscope, the Martian opals showed that they were a couple of million or billion years old and very similar to Earth’s. Unfortunately, the slivers were too small to look for life. Future expeditions could target Mars’s opal regions for larger samples.^[3]

7 Mysterious Blueberries

In 2004, NASA’s Opportunity rover cruised around Mars. After a few months, it encountered something curious—tiny spheres—which scientists do not understand to this day. Working with false-color photographs that turned the spheres blue, researchers puzzled over the mysterious “blueberries” scattered around the Martian surface.

Which geological forces created them, and what did that reveal about the planet’s past environment?

Recently, researchers pounced on the nearest places that resembled the red wonder—Mongolia and Utah. To everyone’s excitement, they found something similar. The minuscule globes on Earth had calcite cores encased in iron and were likely shaped by a lengthy exposure to moving water. The “river pebble” look suggested that a lot of water had flooded the blueberry region.^[4]

Scientists cannot be sure of the chemical makeup of the Martian spheres. If they can crack that riddle, it might reveal the chemistry of the water that crafted them and whether the region was habitable. In other words, they may discover if the water encouraged any form of life.

6 Missing Methane

The world of space news lit up with exciting news in 2003. NASA announced the discovery of methane on Mars. The following year, this was independently confirmed by the European Space Agency (ESA).

It seemed like a done deal in 2014 when NASA’s Curiosity rover found more of the gas on the Martian surface. The atmosphere of Mars was packed with methane. Scientists were excited because this type of organic molecule suggested the presence of life.

However, in the years that followed, the methane-rich atmosphere disappeared. In 2016, the first sobering realization happened when the ESA sent their ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) to the planet. It was outfitted with ultrasensitive sensors capable of picking up trace amounts of methane.^[5]

As Mars had previously emitted copious amounts, nobody thought that TGO would report the methane missing. Two years later while still in orbit around Mars, it never detected any. TGO is not faulty, and a lot of its new data awaits crunching. It could still reveal the answer to the missing (or hidden) methane.

5 Medusae Fossae Formation

The Opportunity rover was forced into hibernation during 2018. The reason: Lethal dust storms had completely engulfed Mars. This event highlighted an old mystery. The Red Planet has too much dust.

Back on Earth, dust is the by-product of natural processes like rivers, volcanic activity, and moving glaciers. None of these are active on the Red Planet. Yet, about 3 trillion kilograms (6.6 trillion lbs) of the powdery stuff appears every year.

In 2018, researchers found the source of the endless dust. Most of it came from the Medusae Fossae Formation. When the formation was first discovered in the 1960s, nobody really knew what it was.

The massive geological formation, measuring 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) long, was identified as volcanic, which made it the biggest volcanic deposit in the solar system. Incredibly, the formation was once half the size of the United States.

Around 80 percent of its porous material had already eroded, which created an unbelievable amount of powder. This was confirmed when dust everywhere on Mars chemically matched the Medusae’s trademark sulfur-to-chlorine ratio.^[6]

4 Earthlike Water Cycle

In 2018, scientists investigated a site for a lander to park in 2020. This spot, Hypanis Valles, was once an ancient river system. During the check, the area revealed something amazing: Mars likely had a hydrological cycle that closely matched Earth’s—including a massive ocean.

The study found the largest river delta ever discovered on the Red Planet. It left trademark deposits at the mouth of the river system which could only have formed if moving water had flown into a sea. One large enough to cover a third of the planet’s north.

The presence of such big water bodies in the region had always been among the most critical mysteries regarding the geology of Mars. An ocean means that the desertlike world once had a water cycle supported by lakes, rivers, seas, and vast oceans.^[7]

Scientists believe that this system was global and worked in the same way as Earth’s until 3.7 billion years ago. A rapid decline of some sort destabilized the cycle until it failed for good. Today, the Martian surface is devoid of liquid water.

3 Curiosity’s Legacy

After years of exploring the Martian landscape, NASA’s Curiosity rover made history in 2018 and possibly solved the planet’s methane mystery. First, the samples it provided finally proved that there were biological compounds on Mars. Second, the rover’s observations gave a fair idea of where the methane went. Both developments were hailed as breakthroughs in astrobiology.

The geological samples came from mudstone regions in the Gale crater, aged around 300 million years old. They revealed organic chemistry that was nearly identical to Earth’s mudstone but came from larger, more complex materials.^[8]

Curiosity also found a pattern: The methane appeared and disappeared. Analysis showed the exciting results: The changes matched the Martian seasons. In the northern hemisphere, methane spiked in the summer and vanished during winter.

Although the dynamics remain mysterious, one theory matched the rhythm. Crystalline water structures called clathrates could be causing the annual methane shift as they seasonally lock the gas in ice and then thaw.

2 Babies On Mars

Scientists have a serious fixation about Mars colonies. The idea is to create a sustainable population and make humans a multi-planetary species. To be successful, generations must be born and raised on Mars. Nobody knows if that is even possible. The two biggest hurdles are radiation and gravity.

Astronauts already endure space radiation, and their exposure is carefully monitored. The effects on a delicate fetus could be disastrous, resulting in serious abnormalities.^[9]

Also, gravity on Mars is only 38 percent of Earth’s. Frankly, researchers do not have a clue how this might affect an unborn baby or a growing child. Tests on animals fail to yield consistent results.

Mammalian reproduction in space is proving so complex that the best theories mean nothing. Not until people have babies on Mars or human embryos are tested in space can the real effects be gauged. However, this will cause so much ethical resistance that progress in that department is basically nonexistent.

1 Martian Terraforming Is Out

If humans want to walk and breathe on Mars, the planet needs to be terraformed. This means that the extremely cold temperatures and thin atmosphere must be manipulated to suit Earthlings. The first step would be to make Mars toastier with carbon dioxide.

A 2018 study crushed that dream. There is simply not enough of the greenhouse gas. The study did a thorough check on all the planet’s carbon dioxide reservoirs locked away in rock and ice and found that, even if we released them all, it would still not be enough. Combined, the amount of gas would only triple the atmosphere’s thickness—a mere one-fiftieth of that required for terraforming.^[10]

Another hurdle is our current tech level. Even if there was enough CO₂ sealed away in the Martian landscape, humans do not have the expertise to perform what would amount to major alterations to the surface.

There is still another obstacle: Mars does not have a magnetic field strong enough to hold onto an atmosphere. Whatever CO₂ is released eventually drifts into space.

To help you end the week on a positive note, we have gathered into one list all the news that might lift your spirits. This is where you’ll find a nice mix of feel-good stories combined with significant achievements and tales of true togetherness. If you prefer something weird and wacky, check out the offbeat list.

This week, we learn that the world’s loneliest frog has found a girlfriend. A puppy has a miraculous survival, and a man’s life is saved by beer. There are a few potentially “game-changing” medical breakthroughs, an extreme feat of endurance, and a humbling act of forgiveness.

10 Courtroom Clemency

The victim of a DUI hit stunned the courtroom when she not only forgave her attacker but also asked for his help.

Three and a half years ago, Montreal woman Tina Adams went out for a jog and was hit by 22-year-old Jordan Taylor, who was drunk behind the wheel. Nineteen surgeries later, Tina was able to overcome the fractured spine, cracked skull, brain injury, and blood clots she suffered in the crash.

She may have survived, but Adams will deal with pain for the rest of her life. She can no longer become a police officer because of her injuries and may not be able to have children. In the years since the crash, Tina has traveled to schools to talk about her experience and to warn students of the dangers of drunk driving.

She surprised everyone when she asked Taylor to join her on these school talks during his sentencing hearing.^[1] Tina believes that having the guy who hit her there will have a huge impact on the students. She had thought about doing this for a while but wanted to wait until meeting him in court to see if he showed genuine remorse.

9 Romeo Finds His Juliet

A lonely male frog once thought to be the last of his kind finally has a partner after a decade of solitude.

Romeo is a Sehuencas water frog. Ten years ago, conservationists realized that the species was in trouble so they collected him from the wild to place him into a breeding program. However, they couldn’t find a female suitable for him. Romeo was left in isolation in a Bolivian aquarium.

Now he is no longer alone. A recent expedition into the wilderness of Bolivia turned up five new Sehuencas water frogs—three males and two females. One of them, named Juliet, will be placed with Romeo in the hopes that they will breed together. At the moment, all the new amphibians are still in quarantine.

Herpetologists are hoping that opposites will attract when the two finally meet. Their personalities seem to be antithetical to each other. While Romeo is calm, slow, and doesn’t move around a lot, Juliet is very active, swims constantly, and eats everything in sight.^[2]

8 The Chief And The Good Samaritan

Last Saturday, the Kansas City Chiefs scored a playoff victory over the Indianapolis Colts and made their way to the AFC Championship Game later today. However, things might have turned out differently were it not for a Good Samaritan who stopped to lend a helping hand.

Hours before the game was set to start at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, Chiefs offensive lineman Jeff Allen was stuck in the snow. He probably would have missed the match if Dave Cochran hadn’t pulled over in his truck and helped Allen move his vehicle.

As it later turned out, Cochran was homeless and living in his truck. However, that did not stop him from aiding other people, which he considered his “natural habit.” When he pulled over, he didn’t know he was dealing with a Kansas City Chiefs player. He saw someone with Texas plates on his car and figured that he probably wasn’t used to driving in snowy conditions.

Allen was keen to return the favor and took to Twitter the next day to reach out to Cochran. Within a few hours, he was able to contact his snowy savior and give him a couple of tickets to the AFC Championship Game. Cochran admitted that he was only expecting a “thank you” but that Allen’s gesture is “like a dream come true.”^[3]

7 A New Therapy

According to a new study published in the journal Cancer Cell, Swiss researchers from the University of Basel are working on a revolutionary new therapy which can change breast cancer cells into harmless fat cells.

Cancer cells can undergo a process called epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Normally, this is something that makes them incredibly dangerous as it allows them to spread to other types of cells in the body. However, scientists believe that the same mechanism can be used against them.^[4]

During an experiment, researchers injected female mice with an aggressive form of female breast cancer. When the cells started undergoing EMT, the scientists also injected an antidiabetic drug called rosiglitazone and a cancer inhibitor named trametinib.

The combined therapy not only turned the cancer cells into fat cells but also stopped them from proliferating. Moreover, lead author Gerhard Christofori believes that the treatment will have a shorter, easier path to human trials because the drugs involved are already approved.

6 50,000 Cures For Loneliness

With his birthday approaching, World War II navy veteran Duane Sherman was feeling a bit lonely. His daughter asked friends on Facebook if they could send him some well-wishes. He received over 50,000 letters.

At the moment, there are birthday cards, thank you notes, small gifts, and mementos filling postal bins stacked one on top of another all throughout Sherman’s home in Fullerton, California. And that only represents a fraction of the total. He had to store thousands of letters at a friend’s house, and many more bins are still waiting to be picked up at the post office.^[5]

He has received letters from all 50 states and 10 different countries. Some of the senders included the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Secretary of the Navy. The commander of the USS Cowpens even took the vet out to lunch while officers from the San Diego US Navy Sonar School paid him a visit to listen to his stories.

Sherman’s birthday was on December 30, and so far, he has gone through fewer than 2,000 letters. He is legally blind, so his daughter, Sue Morse, has to read them to him. It’s pretty safe to say that they will be busy for the foreseeable future.

5 How To Get Over A Case Of The Mondays

Tomorrow is Blue Monday, considered to be the most miserable day of the year. But is there any truth to this, and are there ways of getting through the day with a smile on your face?

Right off the bat, if you live in the southern hemisphere, you’re off the hook. The cold weather is one of the main factors which contribute to the misery.

The concept of “Blue Monday” came from UK psychologist Cliff Arnall in 2005. It usually falls on the third Monday of the year. Arnall claims to have developed an equation to determine the saddest day using factors such as weather, debt level, time passed since the holidays, and time passed since people broke their New Year’s resolutions.^[6]

The whole thing was actually devised for an ad campaign for vacation company Sky Travel. It has been regularly dismissed as pseudoscience. Even Arnall admitted that he never intended to make the day sound negative but to inspire people to take action.

Let’s say you are feeling down in the dumps. Even if Blue Monday is a myth, seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is real. If you want to lift your spirits, psychologists recommend a bit of exercise, a nice walk outside, and fun, challenging indoor activities.

A healthier diet rich in good fats and antioxidants can also help to prevent depression. There is even light therapy using special SAD lamps to make up for all that sunlight you’re missing during winter.

4 Puppy Drop Has Happy Ending

A tiny puppy miraculously survived a drop from the sky with no serious injuries after being abducted by a hawk.

Last Saturday, construction workers in Austin, Texas, responded to cries belonging to a Chihuahua pooch which weighed less than 0.5 kilograms (1 lb). Wondering how the dog got there in the first place, they looked up and spotted a hawk circling above. They realized that the raptor had picked up the puppy and dropped it from the air.

The workers took the dog to the Austin Animal Center where vets were surprised to discover that the animal had only mild injuries and no broken bones. The worst of the bunch were the puncture wounds caused by the hawk’s talons, but even those will heal up completely in due time. The puppy, now called Tony Hawk, is resting with his foster family and will find a permanent home in a few weeks.^[7]

3 A Game-Changing Transplant

Medical experts are hailing a new procedure for liver transplants as a “game-changer” which will halve the waiting list.

Right now, about a third of all donated livers never make it into a patient. At the same time, 20 percent of people in need of a new liver die on the waiting list. This is due to the normal storage method which uses ice. It causes the organ to deteriorate, and there is only a limited time to transplant it before it becomes unusable.

A new treatment uses normothermic perfusion machines to preserve the liver. They constantly pump the organ with oxygenated blood and nutrients at body temperature so that it can be stored for longer periods of time with no ill effects.^[8]

Moreover, the blood treatment can actually be used to repair livers which have been damaged during removal or have come from elderly or ill donors. Therefore, they allow doctors to use organs which otherwise would have been discarded.

2 A Shattering Performance

New mother Jasmin Paris won the Montane Spine Race along the Pennine Way in the UK, smashing the previous record by over 12 hours.

The 431-kilometer (268 mi) race is one of the most grueling endurance challenges in Europe. Runners go from Derbyshire to the Scottish border, spending around two-thirds of their trek in the dark.

They cover a lot of hilly terrain and have to climb over 13,000 meters (43,000 ft) in total. They have to carry their own kit and supplies and can’t have a support team or runner join them on the course. Competitors carry an emergency button in case they are no longer able to walk.

With a time of 83 hours, 12 minutes, and 23 seconds, Paris became the first woman to win the race and had the fastest time ever—by far. The previous record of 95 hours and 17 minutes was set in 2016 by Eoin Keith.

Just a few checkpoints are allowed during the race, and Paris slept for only three hours during the whole thing. She admitted that she had begun hallucinating by the last day. She saw animals appear out of nowhere and trees doing morning stretches.^[9]

1 Beer Saves Life

Beer can be good for you, and 48-year-old Vietnamese man Nguyen Van Nhat is proof of that. When he came into the hospital unconscious, suffering from methanol poisoning, doctors pumped him with 15 cans of beer and saved his life.

Methanol is a form of alcohol. But it is a very toxic one which is typically found in paints, thinners, cleaning products, and antifreeze rather than beverages. Commercial spirit manufacturers take extra steps to remove methanol from their products, although it can still be found in dangerous quantities in bootleg liquor.

The source of the methanol consumed by Nguyen Van Nhat is unknown, but he had over 1,000 times the recommended limit. Doctors knew that he would die if his liver processed all the methanol in his system. The liver converts the alcohol into formaldehyde which is then broken down into formic acid. Doctors were looking for a way to slow down the process, and they found it with beer.

Beer contains another type of alcohol called ethanol. It is the alcohol found in most consumer drinks in the world. Although it is still toxic, its effects are far milder. As it happens, the liver first processes ethanol and only afterward moves up to methanol.

Therefore, as long as there was beer in Nguyen Van Nhat’s system, his body would not be damaged by the methanol. Doctors transfused 15 cans worth of beer into the patient at a rate of a can per hour, thus giving the dialysis enough time to remove the methanol from his system.^[10]