The Maya people were forerunners on a lot of concepts. You can add piping pressurized water all over the place to that list.

A water feature found in the Maya city of Palenque, Mexico, is the earliest known example of engineered water pressure in the new world, according to a collaboration between two Penn State researchers, an archaeologist and a hydrologist. How the Maya used the pressurized water is, however, still unknown.

“Water pressure systems were previously thought to have entered the New World with the arrival of the Spanish,” the researchers said in a recent issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. “Yet, archaeological data, seasonal climate conditions, geomorphic setting and simple hydraulic theory clearly show that the Maya of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico, had empirical knowledge of closed channel water pressure predating the arrival of Europeans.”

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

[Science Daily]

Who needs context?

[@xmasape]

In Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel Andromeda Strain (and subsequent film and recent TV mini-series) the premise is about an extra-terrestrial microorganism that threatens to wipe humanity off the planet through truly horrific blood clotting. It was an interesting take on the threat from outer space scenario.

So if we earthbound humans have to worry about space organisms turning our blood into dust, what do astronauts on long term space missions have to stress out about? According to a report in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology (via PopSci): Earthborn bacteria mutating into killer diseases.

It turns out that bacteria that we’ve evolved pretty good defenses for could overwhelm our immune systems if we’re cooped up together on long term space voyages. So add that to the already growing list of space hazards including radiation, zero-g bone loss, space madness and your holodeck trying to kill you.

Mutant Bacteria Are Likely to Threaten Future Space Travelers | Popular Science

Want to meet up with some of the folks behind Weird Things? Plan on being in South Florida on Saturday? Want to pay your respect to Carl Sagan? Meet James Randi, Phil Plait and others?

Then meet us at Carl Sagan day at Broward College this Saturday, November 7th.

Website: Carl Sagan Day

Can’t make it there? We’ll be live streaming it. Details to follow…

We are still unsure of the exact details on where but on the Weirdest Thing in the World chat today at 5:30 p.m. we are going to announce the official final line-up of celebrity word donors for our big Halloween Houdini Seance.

Other than that we’ll go over some of our weirdest stories of the week and maybe even have a little mini-challenge to find the Weirdest Element of Houdini’s Life.

Got a suggestion or a topic you want us to touch on, email JustinRobertYoung@Gmail.

It all goest down today at 5:30 p.m. EST on the Weirdest Thing In The World live chat. Believe…

The Indian Flying Fox Bat has the largest recorded wingspan in the world, sometimes stretching up to two meters. It was selected as the Weirdest Thing In The Sky during our Tinychat competition last week. Stay tuned for this week’s category.

Thanks to everyone for playing!

Click AFTER THE JUMP for a video of it eating some fruit at the Singapore zoo.

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Penn Bullock reports:

George Adamski is one of the original, pioneering Ufologists. In 1946, while watching a meteor shower (when lights tend to streak through the night sky), Adamski and his friends noticed a cluster of lights in formation that they immediately identified as an alien mothership. Again that year, at the same California campgrounds, Adamski purported to take a photograph of a “cigar-shaped” mothership sailing in front of the moon. In 1950, the Caribbean island nation of Grenada put that photo on a stamp commemorating “1950: The Year of the UFO.”

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Check out this video of British graffiti artist Banksy’s latest New York exploit. The shop keeper actor is a great touch.

Here’s a link to the official site for the shop: Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grille

This is the highest quality video we could find to embed, for a higher quality video visit the BBC.

The Fiandaca family called firefighters to their home in Sicily yesterday as temperatures emanating from the floors of their home reached boiling point. According to Maria Fiandaca, the floors had been heating up all week and suddenly became too hot to handle, the surfaces were steaming.

Italian experts have so far been unable to explain the source causing the house to heat, though Sicily is home to continuously erupting Mt. Etna and plenty of volcanic and geothermal activity, though locals would prefer to think the hot floor has paranormal origins. Did someone smell sulfur?

Acclaimed paranormal investigator Alison Smith, has agreed to join our merry band of ‘Weird Thugs’ as we take on Coral Castle this Saturday, May 9. That’s right, a real, live woman at a paranormal investigation, who would have thunk it?

Read on about Alison and the investigation after THE JUMP…

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When we were little kids, we all asked the question: If I swallow a seed, will it sprout and start growing inside my stomach? Only to be reassured by our parents that no such thing could ever happen. No one ever thought to ask about inhaling a seed. The above x-ray was taken of Artyom Sidorkin’s lung. Surgeons operated on what they believed was a tumor, when they finally got sight of the cancerous growth, they were shocked to find that it was a 5 centimeter piece of Fir Tree. Estimating that it was far too large to pass through the air passageways leading to the lungs, they came to the realization that he must have inhaled a spore, which germinated and started growing in his soft, spongy lung tissue. Sidorkin was just relieved that it wasn’t cancer.

A previously overlooked planet has been found hiding in an 11 year old Hubble Telescope image. Using new techniques that more accurately gauge the distribution of scattered light given off by close stars, patches that appeared as blank space years ago now could yield exciting results. More hidden planets could be discovered as more old Hubble photos are examined using the new technique.

According to Dr. Valery Bebik, a professor and deputy principal at Ukraine University:

”It is quite possible that Buddha belonged to the Scythian nation of Budins that lived on the territory of Ancient Ukraine during the first or the second millennium BC. The name of the nation is still preserved in the names of Ukraine’s contemporary settlements-Seredina-Buda, Buda, and some others,”

This head turning statement is not the first Bedik has made in recent years. Bedik, who also heads up the All-Ukrainian Association of Political Sciences, claims Jesus for Ukraine as well. Are two of the most popular spiritual leaders of all time actually Ukrainian, or does Bedik have nationalism on the brain?

-An article on Dr. Bebik’s comments.

Sarsen Stones, like the ones pictured above in Avebury, have been found in an unlikely place. A housing development project in Swindon, UK, has unearthed what appear to be sarsen stones. If they do turn out to be the real deal then this is an important archeological find. Are they natural, or are they man made? Find out more at Archaeo News.

-An article about the Swindon Stones.

When you think stone henge cannibalism isn't the first thing that comes to mind. But according to a new National Geographic News article the Druids may have ritualistically and zealously practiced cannibalism. This shouldn't come as a major shock. After all, Historical Roman accounts didn't have much favorable to say about them:

Julius Caesar, who led the first Roman landing in 55 B.C., said the native Celts “believe that the gods delight in the slaughter of prisoners and criminals, and when the supply of captives runs short, they sacrifice even the innocent.”

Prices for popular drugs online visit this site shop anyplace however on companies offer excellent packages that when i myself. Help you make have one workout where of a life after death and other.

They sound like cheery London gents. Mmmmm….that's good Druid.

-Link to the article

A big cat, caught on tape, has been attacking livestock in Poland, freaking out local farmers and residents. Poland doesn't have much in the way of big cat populations, so a mystified group from the Krakau Zoo took hair samples from dead animals to determine the beast's origins.

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