Some of Earth's Oldest Water Found

"Old" might not top the list of the adjectives you'd use to describe water, but that could very well change after reading this story: Scientists say they've found water whose age clocks in at no less than 1.5 billion years, making it the oldest cache to have ever been...

Rare Dialect Dying in US ... Texas-German?

Another unique American dialect is fading into obscurity, and it's a safe bet that most never knew it existed in the first place: "Texas German." It's so unusual that University of Texas linguist professor Hans Boas tells the BBC he has "found no two speakers that speak roughly alike." And...

Navy Dolphins Make Amazing Torpedo Find

The discovery itself is notable enough: Navy specialists found a rare torpedo off the San Diego coast, an 11-foot brass gem called the Howell that dates back 130 years or so and was one of the first torpedoes to propel itself, reports dvids . Only 50 were made, and only one...

Alaska Town to Vanish by 2017

When it comes to the fate of the 350 residents of Newtok, Alaska, the Guardian pulls no punches: "Exile is inevitable," it writes. That's because their coastal village, located some 480 miles west of Anchorage, is in the process of being washed into the Bering Sea. As the Guardian explains...

Americans Are Cheating on Their Partners ... on Netflix

Are you guilty of "Netflix adultery"? That's secretly watching a video on Netflix you were supposed to be waiting to watch together with your significant other. According to a survey by the site itself, 51% of adults in committed relationships said they had or would cheat. Only 12% of those...

Mayan Pyramid Crushed—for Gravel

Archeologists have been horrified to discover that one of the largest Mayan pyramids in Belize has been almost completely annihilated by road crews looking for an easy source of gravel. The 2,300-year-old temple at the heart of the Nohmul complex—at 60 feet, one of the country's tallest structures—...

Neighbors Give Cold Shoulder to 'Hugging Saint'

It sounds like a plan that should be met with warm fuzzies and hugs—literally. Devotees of India's Amma, or the " Hugging Saint, " want to build a facility outside Sante Fe to house thousands of admirers for one week each summer, but neighbors are turning a cold shoulder. Though proponents...

Moon Smash Could Be Seen From Earth

If you happened to be glancing skyward the night of March 17 and noticed a bright flash on the moon, NASA has your explanation: A meteor slammed into it, reports National Geographic . A 90-pound rock hit the moon at 56,000mph, creating an explosion 10 times brighter than any previously...

Ben Franklin Tried to Change Our Alphabet

If Benjamin Franklin were alive today, he'd probably be a dynamite texter. As Smithsonian explains, Franklin once designed a phonetic alphabet for the nation because he thought the one in place was too unwieldy. Alas, it never caught on. Some highlights of his "A Reformed Mode of Spelling," first developed...

Americans Don't Like Hipsters

Some groundbreaking research in the study of American society this week: New polling by Public Policy Polling has found just 16% of Americans have a favorable opinion of hipsters, while 42% view them unfavorably. The study does not define what, exactly, it considers a hipster to be. Other revelations: Only...

Brazil's Ambitious Plan: Erect 10K-Mile Virtual Fence

Brazil's border is pretty mammoth (here's a visual reminder ), and a growing economy has made illegal activities (chief among them illegal immigration) an equally growing concern. But the country has a plan: a 10,000-mile fence ... except that this one is virtual. For reference, America's southern border is only...

Coming Soon: Caffeine-Infused ...Toothbrush?

Who needs a morning coffee when your toothbrush releases a dose of caffeine? Colgate has applied for a patent on a brush that could do just that. The application describes "a toothbrush that releases a chemical into the mouth during use," but it won't stop at caffeine, reports Yahoo . The...

Bacon Restaurant Shut Down for Smelling Too Bacon-y

Perhaps not everything is better with bacon, after all. A San Francisco bacon restaurant—called "Bacon Bacon"—is being forced to shutter after neighbors complained that the "porcine aroma" emanating from the establishment was too overpowering, and it was illegally disposing of its bacon grease in the sewers. The complaints...

Google Maps Reunites Boy With Family, 23 Years Later

A Chinese man who was abducted as a 5-year-old boy finally found his way home, 23 years later, thanks in part to Google Maps. After he was snatched on his way to kindergarten in a small town in Sichuan province, Luo Gang was raised by adoptive parents (no word on...

Found in Cookie Jar: $4.85M

Ricardo Cerezo's wife was cleaning the kitchen when she told the Illinois man he'd better get the lottery tickets that had been piling up in a cookie jar for the past month checked—or she was going to throw them away. Good thing, because that prodded Cerezo to take the...

Fired Groupon CEO Records 'Business Music' Album

Groupon's co-founder seemed to take it pretty well when he got fired , which somehow still doesn't detract from the nuttiness of what Andrew Mason has done since: recorded an album ... of "motivational business music." The tidbit comes in an otherwise fairly unremarkable Chicago Tribune piece about Mason's decision to start...

Poop Found in Most Swimming Pools

The CDC sampled 161 public swimming pools and discovered a very good reason to keep your mouth closed in the water: 58% of them had fecal contamination, reports USA Today . The pools were in Atlanta, but a CDC official says the findings would almost certainly apply to any city. Researchers...

New in Factory Farming: Exploding Poop Foam

The latest thing out of industrial agriculture isn't too appetizing: Burbling up from the manure pits beneath factory hog farms is an oozing substance that's charmingly being dubbed "poop foam"—and it's un-charmingly explosive, reports Mother Jones . The ooze is wreaking havoc on large hog farms, trapping the toxic gases...

Guy Mad at Neighbor's Tall Grass Torches House: Cops

There's probably all kinds of good ways to resolve an argument with a neighbor about mowing the lawn, but none involve two cans of gas and a match. That's what 58-year-old Phillip Roger Bennett used to set his neighbor's house ablaze, say police in Cartersville, Ga. Luckily, the neighbor and...

The Angry World of Oscar Pistorius

Oscar Pistorius returns to court next month for his murder trial, notes the Huffington Post , and anyone interested in the case should make a new Vanity Fair piece required reading. The article by Mark Seal doesn't have any bombshell revelations on the main question—did the amputee Olympian murder girlfriend...

How a Fallen Soldier's Dad's Story Became a Country Hit

After Paul Monti lost his 30-year-old son Jared in Afghanistan in 2006, he did what he says he's since learned a number of parents of fallen soldiers do: He began driving his son's truck. As Monti explained in a radio interview several years later, "What can I tell you? It's...

Inside the Wild, 4-Hour Trek to Smuggle KFC Into Gaza

They say everybody needs a little KFC, and it seems they're right. Gaza residents don't have access to a local branch—so they're willing to pay more than twice the going price to get it delivered from Egypt in a highly complex process that takes some four hours. Sure, it's...

Dogs Really Do Attack the Mailman; 6K Times Last Year

Dogs biting the mailman: It doesn't just happen in the movies. The USPS reports that a not-exactly-insignificant 5,879 letter carriers were attacked by dogs last year. And as one of the forces behind National Dog Bite Prevention Week (May 19-25), the USPS has released a list of the cities...

Kim Has 2 Daughters —by 2 Women: Source

Looks like one of the planet's craziest dynasties is ensuring that it'll be around to entertain/horrify future generations: Kim Jong Un, that baby-faced dictator who is said to have fathered a daughter late last year, reportedly has another kid on the ground. Chosun Ilbo reports by way of a Beijing...

Virginia Man Wins $500K in Lottery ... for 3rd Time

Melvyn Wilson won $500,000 in the Virginia lottery in 2004, so it was a surprise when he won $25,000 five months later. Six months after that, he scratched off a card to win $1 million. He retired shortly afterward, but the money keeps coming in for the 72-year-old...

Drunk Frat Guy Left at Hospital ... With Post-It

Frat fail: An Arizona State University student who put back an estimated 20 shots of tequila ended up passed out in the emergency room, but his fraternity brothers were nice enough to stick a Post-It note on him asking for help before leaving. The 19-year-old is fine now, but he...

Lost 'White City' May Lie Hidden in Rainforest

A little of bit of high tech may have found what 16th-century conquistadors could not: the legendary Ciudad Blanca, or White City, of Honduras. Archeologists think they've spotted the ruins of some kind of metropolis hidden by the Mosquitia rainforests, reports LiveScience . They won't know for sure until they start...

Tumblr Post Spurs 8-Hour Race to Stop Teen's Suicide

Tumblr: It isn't all animated GIFs and Ryan Gosling. USA Today recounts the incredible story of how one teen's cry for help in a May 6 Tumblr post set off a nationwide search to find the girl before she committed suicide. It started when 18-year-old Jackie Rosas from Cathedral City,...

Inside the Messy Fight to Adopt a 9/11 Victim's Child

When Catherine Gorayeb died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, the single mom left a 2-year-old behind. Her sister, Claire—three months pregnant herself—immediately moved from Boston to New York City to take care of Gorayeb's daughter, was quickly appointed her niece's legal guardian, and started the process...

Pilot's Bathroom Break Forces Landing

A sillier reason to ground a plane than a woman singing Whitney Houston songs ? How about the pilot locking himself out of the cockpit? An Air India flight was forced to divert and land after a pilot went for a bathroom break ... and couldn't get back to his seat,...