Nostradamus Manuscript Found, University Ghost, Cursed Presidential House and More Mysterious News Briefly

Migrating birds and animals seem to know exactly where they’re going, but a new study found that hawksbill turtles seem to have no planned route and just wander towards their nesting grounds, arriving more by luck than GPS -- one turtle in a study took 811 miles to cross a distance that was only 109 miles in a straight line. Would introducing them to crows help?

While SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk focuses on Twitter, COO Gwynne Shotwell said in an interview that the private space company’s ultimate goal is still to put humans on the surface of Mars by Musk’s desired date of 2029. Does that mean cell towers and Internet on Mars by 2028?

Investigators from Italy’s cultural heritage protection organization recovered from an auction house a 500-page, 500-year-old manuscript written by Nostradamus (Michel de Nostredame) that was stolen from a library in Rome around 2007 – this manuscript predates his prophesies tome but has some early versions of his predictions. We’d be impressed if the manuscript predicted it would be found in 2022.

Students at the Universidad Champagnat de Mendoza in Argentina are reportedly terrified of going to class after seeing security camera footage of a chair moving by itself and a security guard inspecting it and then running away – they fear it’s evidence the school is haunted by a “university ghost.” Did anyone bother to check whether there was a university test the following day?

Archaeologists in Turkey uncovered an underground Iron Age complex with rare rock art drawings on its walls featuring a procession of deities depicted in an Assyrian style, leading them to believe it may have been used by a fertility cult during the first millennium BCE – one drawing is the earliest known depiction of Atargatis, a goddess of fertility and protection. Fertility gods may help, but nothing beats good prenatal care.

South Korea’s new president Yoon Suk-yeol became the first leader in the country’s modern history to not occupy the Blue House, the presidential residence, and rumors are flying the decision was based on the advice of shamanistic healers who warned the house was cursed -- the dictator Park Chung-hee was assassinated there in 1979 and his daughter was impeached and imprisoned for corruption in 2017. Would a coat of non-blue paint help?

Researchers from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and other colleges report that supplementing a diet with the sea organisms Ascidiacea, better known as sea squirts, reverses some of the main signs of aging by improving learning and physical abilities – old mice fed sea squirts even grew new black hair. Impressive – unless they were blonde mice.

A study of forensic autopsies in Norway found that many corpses show evidence of alcohol even though the deceased did not imbibe before death – it turns out the dead body becomes a kind of brewery which heats sugar and microorganisms to brew ethanol, especially if the person was diabetic. How does one get a corpse to blow into a balloon or say the alphabet backwards? (Asking for a worried friend.)

A photo taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has many people curious because it appears to show a doorway leading to a hallway carved into a solid rock hill – Curiosity roved on without stopping to explore the potential sign of life on Mars or pareidolia. This looks the perfect opening scene of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Martian Doom.”

Invasive Jackson’s chameleons (Trioceros jacksonii xantholophus) which were released in Hawaii in 1972 have flourished there because of a lack of predators and researchers have found that the males have become a brighter shade of lemon yellow was a result – the color helps them attract females and scare away male rivals. Can they still blend into the background when caught having an affair with their best friend’s mate?