Gator-Catfish Hybrids, Ghost Dog, UFO App, Robotic Fairies and More Mysterious News Briefly

A 5,000-year-old tavern with an open-air dining area and a partial kitchen was uncovered by a team of archeologists from the Penn Museum in Iraq – the tavern in the ancient southern Iraqi city of Lagash had benches, a refrigerator, an oven and remains of old food. The pretzels and half-eaten burgers were stale, but the Twinkies were still as fresh as new.

From the “Duh!” file comes a new study published in the journal PLOS Biology which compiled over 5,000 attacks around the world from 1950 to 2019 by 12 different species of big cats, wolves, coyotes and bears, and found that the number of large carnivore attacks is increasing drastically in lower-income countries where humans and predators live in closer proximity, especially in farming and ranching communities. You know things are bad when even the chupacabras are nervous.

Cellular engineers at the University of California, Davis, have develop synthetic 'cyborg' cells in the lab which share many characteristics of living cells while lacking the ability to divide and grow – the researchers hope the cyborgs will help improve treatments for diseases like cancer and aid in cleaning up pollution through targeted chemical processes. They may think these cyborgs can’t divide and grow, but they need to run this by Captain Picard and see if he face-palms.

Astronomers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing think they have found the universe’s first stars to have been created after the Big Bang – they used the James Webb Space Telescope and located a distant galaxy seen as it appeared just 620 million years after the Big Bang and found it is split into two pieces, with one having the right elements to create the earliest stars. Enterprising astronomers could make a fortune if they find the first star and start selling wishes.

Netflix Anime Creators Base and WIT STUDIO in Japan the animation feature “Dog and Boy” and revealed it used an AI image generator instead of human artists in order to save money, and gave a credit at the end to "AI (+Human)." Was it worth it? Let’s just say if one of your favorite cartoons was done with AI, it would be called “Bug-filled Bunny.”

Scientists at Auburn University in Alabama inserted an alligator gene containing properties that protect reptiles from infections when wounded into catfish and increased the survival rate of the fish by fivefold when exposed to infections – the  genetically-modified gator-catfish will eventually be farmed for human consumption. This is one fried fish you don’t want to eat with your fingers.

Scientists from University College London and the University of Cambridge have created a new type of ice that resembles liquid that contains “amorphous” disorganized molecules instead of crystals and may closely resemble the ice inside frozen moons in the outer solar system – the ice is made using ball milling, a process where ordinary ice is vigorously shaken with steel balls in a jar cooled to -200 degrees Centigrade. The next James Bond will need to practice saying he likes his martinis amorphous, not stirred.

A NASA administrator admitted that the International Space Station has reached full capacity because the SpaceX capsules can carry four astronauts instead of three and the ISS has run out of room for research and science experiments. That’s not a problem in the Russian side where they just make space by opening a few cracks and letting the excess leak out.

A new ultra-low-power method of communication makes it possible to wirelessly transmit information simply by opening and closing a switch that connects a resistor to an antenna which gets its power from the random thermal noise present in all electrically conductive materials – a review by electrical engineers confirmed it works yet does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. That’s a good thing because no one on the Supreme Court has a degree in physics.

An amateur metal detectorist found a gold pendant in Warwickshire, in England's West Midlands region which has been identified by the British Museum as being associated with Tudor King Henry VIII and his first wife Katherine of Aragon – it may have been a prize for a jousting event that Henry VIII might have participated in. At least Katherine of Aragon died still having a neck to wear pendants.

Enigma Labs launched an invite-only app that will let users report unidentified aerial phenomenon on their phone or through a web portal as a way to make it easier for people to report UAPs/UFOs while helping to sort out the hoaxes and provide data for people researching sightings. Wait until you have at least two bars if you are making your report from inside a flying saucer.

The largest "dako" iron sword ever was discovered in Japan in a late-fourth century tomb mound in the western city of Nara – the 2.3 meter (7.5 foot) wavy, snakelike sword is from the Kofun period (300-710 AD) and reflects the fine metalwork of the period, but the sword was probably for rituals and ceremonies, not battles, and signified the individual was ranked high in the military. Unsheathing it was more dangerous than actually using it.

Researchers studying Viking burial mounds at Heath Wood in England discovered that the Vikings brought their pets with them when they sailed west to raid the area in the ninth century and suggests they were so close to their dogs, horses and even pigs that they cremated and buried them with their human companions. “Compassionate Viking” is a ninth century oxymoron.

Archaeologists  unclogging a drain in a Roman bathhouse near Hadrian's Wall in Carlisle, England, found an unexpected cause – the drain was blocked by 30 engraved 2,000-year-old gemstone known as intaglios which probably fell out of ring settings worn by bathers during the second and third centuries CE – the jewels were set with a vegetable glue and the hot waters of the bath melted it and loosened the stones. Hadrian may have had a wall but what he really needed was a plunger.

Researchers in the Light Robots group at Tampere University in Finland are using stimuli-responsive polymers to develop a smart material to make a FAIRY – a Flying Aero-robot based on Light Responsive Materials Assembly that floats in the air, is dispersed by the wind and is controlled by a light source such as a laser beam or LED. Rumor has it the first order is from an individual who only goes by his last name – Pan.

Aery Yormany, a 'real time traveller' who posts under the name @esthetictimewarper, claims that "all of the world's governments will be infiltrated by aliens" known as Nozics in May 2023, an animal three times the size of the blue whale will be found in the Pacific in November 2023, and a 9.9 magnitude earthquake will cause California to sink into the ocean in January 2024. That may give the folks at Sea World San Diego just enough time to train the giant animal to push the state back up onto the continent.

Experiments conducted by investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital found that people have a "spatial massive memory" (SMM) for where objects are located and a "temporal massive memory" (TMM) for when objects were last seen and together they help volunteers recall the location of about 100 items. Unfortunately, number 101 is your car keys.

A woman in Wales has CCTV video to back up her claim that the ghost of her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Jack, who passed away in October, caused her cat to steal a teddy bear from a grave in the cemetery behind her house as a sign from over the Rainbow Bridge that he’s thinking about her. If this dog ghost is powerful enough to make a cat do something, Stephen King may have the plot for his next book.

A new study reveals that one in five people in the UK claim to share their home with a ghost, with half saying it is a friendly ghost while a fifth believing it is out to do them harm – Netflix is offering all of them free paranormal investigations as part of its new supernatural fantasy series, “Lockwood & Co..” the first thing the investigators do is ask the ghosts if anyone in the household is using someone else’s Netflix password.

What was once a mysterious Unknown Protected Wreck off the coast of Eastbourne, England, has been identified as the Klein Hollandia, a 17th century Dutch warship that was involved in all major battles in the second Anglo-Dutch war (1665-1667) but was wrecked off the coast of England while carrying slabs of fine Italian marble to be used in the Netherlands to build expensive homes. Who wants marble floors in a country where everyone wears wooden shoes?