The random opening could be related to an oil well abandoned in 1950 that’s close to the home. The only silver lining now is if the opening leads to a Goonies-style adventure.

But it probably won’t.

Unless it does.

[KTLA]

Apparently “quantum cats” are “photons (particles of light), boosting prospects for manipulating light in new ways to enhance precision measurements as well as computing and communications based on quantum physics” and not a new Saturday Morning cartoon featuring super powered felines solving mysteries and learning a little about themselves and others along the way.

[Science Daily]

A crimson rainfall in India at the turn of our most recent century has been rumored to feature properties that we’ve never seen on Earth before or since. New research demonstrates that the cells of the rain can replicate in extremely hostile environments. The results also suggest that the rain might have originated in extragalactic dust clouds.

This only ends one of two ways. 1) the rain creates the zombie disease outbreak which changes our lives (and since it will be local to India: Bollywood films) forever 2) this is the first sign of the coming of Galactus.

[arxiv.org via Kurzweil]

Well… duh.

Other theories (notably less awesome than an all powerful, semi-emo superman) include an “oblique impact, when a small body struck the surface at a very shallow angle.”

Boring.

[Pop Sci]

Thanks to Weird Things reader Dan Wheeler for sending this in.

The oldest known shaman died and was buried in a Northern Israeli cave. Everyone thought it would be a good idea to stuff their faces with food in her memory. Because of this, you ate a ham plate at your Uncle Barry’s wake.

Life is strange.

A study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Grosman and Natalie Munro, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Connecticut, reveals that the shaman’s burial feast was just one chapter in the intense ritual life of the Natufians, the first known people on Earth to give up nomadic living and settle in villages.

The other traditions? Carried the dead bodies along with the party supplies up the mountains to their elevated resting places. Who’s got two thumbs and is pretty psyched we dropped that one?

[Nat Geo]

So your kindly grandfather makes it a point every Thanksgiving to spook the kids with a little ghost story. Back in 1832, he’d say whilst wiping the remains of cranberry sauce from his white button down, 57 Irish immigrant railroad workers were murdered and buried in a spooky old spot by the rail road tracks called Duffy’s Cut.

Fat on stuffing, everyone would shuffle home, wondering why grandfather kept telling that story on Thanksgiving instead of Halloween.

Timing aside, it turns out that story wasn’t so much as a spook tale meant to give the youngins nightmares as it was a grisly confession that he had proof of a few dozen murders. Now a pair of twin grandsons are spearheading a project to dig up the bodies and find the truth.

Oh grandpa…

A letter found in the ruins of a collapsed Spanish colonial church in Peru could be the key to a heretofore undiscovered language. Awesome.

“Even though [the letter] doesn’t tell us a whole lot, it does tell us about a language that is very different from anything we’ve ever known—and it suggests that there may be a lot more out there,” said project leader Jeffrey Quilter, an archaeologist at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

The letter was preserved because the caved in structure protected the relatively unharmed library and offices of the facility.

[Nat Geo]

Stop me when you’ve heard this one. A Thai national is trying to smuggle a two-month old tiger cub to Iran, so she drugs the cute little buggers and tosses them into a carry on bag filled with stuffed tigers so as to throw off security.

And then she’s arrested.

You hadn’t heard it? Okay, well now you have.

[Nat Geo]

Researchers have found that Mayans protected their drinking water by installing a layer of ceramic shards. Pretty crafty…

If so, that would be a minor sensation — merely due to the quantity of ceramics required. The aguadas in Uxul were each as large as ten Olympic-size pools. Maybe there used to be even more artificial lakes. After all, the precious commodity had to be enough to last a population of at least 2,000 through the 3-month dry season.

Mayans! What will they have thought of next!

Who does the mysterious Yacht belong to? Authorities in the Redington Beacharea of Florida were left scratching their heads Wednesday when this unmanned craft arrived on the sand. The $1,000,000 craft was never registered after it was sold by the previous owner 2 years ago, leaving the police to wonder who the new owner might be and what might have happened to them.

Police hope that the owner will report the craft as missing… if he wasn’t lost at sea.

The dream is real! Marty McFly’s self-lacing shoes could become science fact as Nike filed a patent for the tech in 2009.

[Nice Kicks]

Cut off from nature! Fenced in by the sea! The only recourse? Rob the humans blind! This summer… they’re not monkeying around. They are South African Baboon Thieves!

[BBC]

If you thought staying away from airports would keep you safe from the new full-body scanners that were recently deployed think again. As this video shows back-scatter enabled vans are already rolling out.

According to Forbes:

American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents

Due to this recent development, now may be the perfect time to invest in lead underwear.

Okay, it’s really the most detailed picture of a sun spot ever taken. Still…

[Pop Sci]