This is the northern common cuscus. It is an herbivorous marsupial native to northern New Guinea and the surrounding islands. For many of us who see this animal for the first time, we would see it as cute and adorable. But for many people in Indonesia, Timor Leste, and Papua New Guinea, the cuscuses are not just cute animals. For them, these animals are good sources of fur and protein. Aside from that, they can also be great companions.

“They like to wrap their tail around you and curl around,” says Shimona Kealy, a researcher at Australia National University who, as a Ph.D. student, once handled young cuscuses. “My supervisor was trying to take a photo, and I was just there being like, ‘Can’t we take it home?’”

Kealy doesn’t endorse capturing baby cuscuses. But, as she explains, “that’s a really common thing throughout Indonesia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea.” People hunt them, and if they catch a mother, they keep the young. “You’ll see young boys that run around the village, and [the cuscus] will just sit on their shoulder.”

But why do researchers like Kealy seem to be so interested in the relationship between humans and cuscuses? What could we learn from this relationship?

As it turns out, quite a lot. The relationship between humans and cuscuses goes back millennia, preceding the agricultural revolution. And the depth of that relationship challenges some of our most fundamental beliefs about human history.

Learn more about this over at Atlas Obscura.

(Image Credit: Daderot/ Wikimedia Commons)

The next time someone asks you what color is the Moon, tell that person that it depends on the night. Sometimes the moon shines in shades of grey, and other times in shades of red and brown. The color also depends on where you view it.

Outside of the Earth's atmosphere, the dark Moon, which shines by reflected sunlight, appears a magnificently brown-tinged gray. Viewed from inside the Earth's atmosphere, though, the moon can appear quite different. The featured image highlights a collection of apparent colors of the full moon documented by one astrophotographer over 10 years from different locations across Italy.

Learn more about this over at NASA.

(Image Credit: Marcella Giulia Pace/ NASA)

The graves of three infants were unearthed at the Gravettian site of Krems-Wachtberg, Austria, in 2005. Infant burials are a rare find, as their delicate remains tend not to preserve as well as those of adults. New DNA analysis of the 30,000-year-old remains have determined that two are identical twins, making them the oldest known twins on earth (the third infant was their cousin).  

The research team who made the discovery wrote in Nature that the infants were found “embedded in red ochre and they were placed next to each other in flexed positions facing east and with their skulls pointing north.” It is believed that the red ochre earth helped to preserve the remains. The Daily Mail reports that “the grave was not backfilled, but instead was covered with a mammoth’s shoulder blade that was molded to fit the opening.”

Both of them had been buried with grave goods . The youngest had 53 exquisite beads made from Mammoth ivory, placed on his pelvis, that once formed part of a necklace. The older infant was found with shells and a fox’s tooth and these were part of some ornament. These grave goods could have been deposited with the dead for use in the afterlife or they were offerings to the gods. The presence of these artifacts may suggest some form of early religion or a belief in the supernatural.

The reference to the "older twin" means that one died at birth, and the other lived a couple of months and then was added to the first twin's grave. Read the research paper at Nature, or the simpler version here. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Natural History Museum Vienna)

This really really looks like a ridiculous parody ad, but it's real. It was originally scheduled to run during last week's Saturday Night Live but ultimately did not. Arby's really produced a pillow that fits over your head and resembles a deep-fried turkey. Too bad it's already sold out. If you still crave this pillow, you can enter a sweepstakes to win one. Happy napping! -Thanks, WTM!

Even if we spend most of the day staring at our computer screens and our smartphones, where digital clocks are readily available, there’s still something very attractive about clocks of old. And if you’re the type of person who loves retro stuff, then you will surely love this retro-styled flip clock.

Midclock’s TV clock combines two different old school devices in one: a retro flip clock, and a retro television set. Unlike the flip clocks of yore, Midclock says theirs operates silently, so it won’t wake you up ticking away. Plus it’s got a built-in night light which makes reading the time easier, and adds a gentle glow.

Unfortunately, this clock does not have an integrated alarm. Nevertheless, it looks pleasing in the eyes.

What do you think?

(Image Credit: Midclock/ Amazon/ Technabob)

The Evil Dead franchise consists of four feature films and a television series, plus another film now in development. It also includes video games, comics, and other media, but Screen Junkies focuses only on the first three movies for this Honest Trailer. That’s just as well, because over almost 40 years, it’s all too much to keep up with.

After seeing an increase in bear sightings, and after suffering from dozens of bear attacks (two of which were fatal), officials from the town of Takikawa, Hokkaido have decided to install two “Monster Wolf” robots in order to scare off the bears.

The robots feature four “legs,” a fur-coated body, and glowing red eyes. Their motion detectors can alert them of any bears nearby, triggering one of 60 different sounds. The robot maker behind the wolves has sold 70 units of them already in just about two years, The Guardian reports.

[...]

“I hope it will help create an environment where people and bears can coexist,” Yuji Ota, president of the robot maker, told NHK last month.

Will these robot wolves prove to be an effective method in warding off bears? What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: nhk_news/ Twitter)

Archaeologists in Jerusalem have discovered a small jug over 1,000 years old. The jug in question contained four gold coins, equivalent to four month’s salary for a common laborer at that time. Despite being over a thousand years old, the coins, according to a coin expert, were perfectly preserved, and did not even need to be cleaned to be identified.

Archaeologists discovered the hidden loot while surveying a site prior to the construction of an elevator to the Western Wall Plaza, a historic public square in Jerusalem's Old City. Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) inspector Yevgenia Kapil found the juglet, a clay vessel not much bigger than a coffee cup. Weeks later, excavation director David Gellman, an IAA archaeologist, upended the juglet into his hand and was shocked when a handful of coins came out with the dirt. 

"This is the first time in my career as an archaeologist that I have discovered gold, and it is tremendously exciting," Gellman said in a statement. 

The coins were exciting not simply because they were gold, but also because they made it easy to determine the age of the treasure cache. They all dated to between the years 940 and 970, according to the IAA. This era was one of major political change, when the Shiite Fatimid dynasty conquered Egypt, Syria and Israel, all which had previously been under the rule of the Sunni Abbasid dynasty.

More details about this discovery over at Live Science.

(Image Credit: Dafna Gazit/Israel Antiquities Authority/ Live Science)

Phil Heckels draws portraits of pets that will make you laugh. He calls them "rubbish" portraits, but if you look closely, you realize that he is a caricaturist. And who wouldn't want a caricature of their beloved pets? It will cost you, but the funds go to Turning Tides, a charity benefiting homeless people in the UK. Heckels has already raised $35,000 for them!  

According to CNN, Heckels was making thank-you cards with his 6-year-old son Sam to send to his family when the idea came to mind. Though he had never drawn before in his life, Heckels, who goes by the pseudonym Hercule Van Wolfwinkle, crudely drew the family dog and then uploaded a photo of the drawing — alongside a facetious asking price of £299 (approximately $390) — to Facebook. All of a sudden, a surge of requests came in from friends asking him to draw their pets.

"I had absolutely no idea this would all pan out as it has," Heckels told Digg in an email. "The first pictures were just posted on my own Facebook page as a joke to my 90 or so friends. It's just gradually built momentum, and it's been so overwhelming!"

See a roundup of Heckels' best portraits so far at Digg. See more and keep up with his work at Facebook.

With the recent lockdowns that have been implemented in many places across the world, museums and cultural institutions have been temporarily shut down. Because of this, various institutions have decided to digitally archive artworks and historical objects.

A recent addition is Van Gogh Worldwide, a massive collection of the post-impressionist artist’s paintings, sketches, and drawings.

And this can only mean one thing: you can now view over a thousand of Van Gogh’s artworks online for free!

From landscapes to self-portraits to classic still lifes, the archive boasts more than 1,000 artworks, which are sorted by medium, period, and participating institution—those include the Van Gogh Museum, Kröller-Müller Museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands Institute for Art History, and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Each digital piece is supported by details about the work, any restorations, and additional images.

Awesome!

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

When thinking of strange-looking creatures, the things that will probably come to your mind are those in works of fiction, legends, and myths, such as centaurs and mermaids. Aliens might also come into mind. But it seems that we need not look beyond reality in order to look for strange-looking creatures, as there are many who live among us. We just need to look deeper, literally.

Gizmodo compiles photos of 12 bizarre sea animals. Check them out over at the site.

(Image Credit: NOAA/ Gizmodo)

Sora News 24 illustrates what a proper single serving Pringles container really should look like. The Japanese division of the Pringles potato chip brand declared November 11 to b Pringles Day and celebrated by distributing these extremely long cans to selected gourmands. Each one is 5 feet and 3 inches tall, which is the height of Fuwa, the brand's spokeswoman. Perhaps, in the future, you will be able to order Pringles by the Fuwa.

Photo: Sora News 24

The name California was given to the west coast of the New World by Hernán Cortés’s conquistadors as they charged through, destroying the Aztec Empire and claiming territory. The name was taken from a Spanish novel, Las sergas de Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, written sometime around the year 1500. The story tells of the fictional island of California and its queen Calafia.  

At least initially, Queen Calafia seems like she could have sprung from the pages of a modern fantasy novel, ruling a kingdom that wouldn’t have been out of place in Westeros or Middle Earth. Her island, located “on the right side of the Indies, very close to … the Terrestrial Paradise,” is filled with gold and inhabited only by Black women, who tame wild griffins to ride into battle (fed with the flesh of any unfortunate men who show up). Calafia herself is described as beautiful, strong, and courageous. The book portrays her in an unfailingly positive light, though it ultimately places her under the control of medieval European patriarchy.

The novel is an example of a "crusade romance" in which the Gospel is proclaimed to the faraway and exotic people of the world. A closer look at the book as well as its context and influence tell us a lot about medieval attitudes about race and religion as the Age of Exploration dawned.

(Image credit: Cheryl Thuesday for Atlas Obscura)

In the 1980s, Leta Powell Drake interviewed plenty of celebrities for KOLN/KGIN in Lincoln, Nebraska. She was also the station's program director, morning host, and a character on a children's show. As you can tell from these clips, she never held back in her probing the minds of those who were simply trying to promote their latest projects. If you'd like to see more, there's an archive of many of Drake's interviews from History Nebraska.  -via Kottke

A program manager at the Surrey Wildlife Trust has spotted a spider thought to have been extinct in an undeveloped portion of a British military base. The spider, known as the great-fox spider (Alopecosa fabrilis), was last seen 27 years ago, in 1993.

"It's a gorgeous spider, if you're into that kind of thing," the program manager Mike Waite told The Guardian.

[...]

Waite found several male spiders, one female and possibly some immature spiderlings, though the latter were difficult to identify conclusively.

The adult spiders have gray-and-brown furry bodies. They can spin silk, but instead of making webs, they use that silk to line the burrows that they dig in order to hibernate over the winter. Great fox-spiders are critically endangered, but they are also found on the European mainland, particularly on coastal sand dunes in Holland and Denmark, according to The Guardian.

Know more about the great-fox spiders over at ScienceAlert.

(Image Credit: Mike Waite/ Surrey Wildlife Trust)