Photo credit: Shlomi Katzin / Israel Antiquities Authority
Scuba diver Shlomi Katzin discovered a 900-year-old iron sword that dates back to the third Crusade in the shallow waters off Haifa, Israel. Measuring 3.3-feet, it’s almost entirely encrusted with marine organisms and resurfaced after the shifting of sands caused by waves as well as undercurrents. The Crusades, which date back to 1096, were a set of military expeditions by Western European Christians that attempted retake the Holy Land in the Middle East after centuries of Muslim wars of expansion. Read more for a video and additional information.
There are over 2,700 active artificial satellites orbiting Earth as of now, and many of them are equipped with advanced cameras. Some managed to capture amazing footage of an underwater volcano that erupted in the South Pacific kingdom of Tonga, or more specifically, on the island Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai. The eruption sent ash plumes up to 12 miles into the air, stretching to have a radius of over 161 miles thus far. Read more for two videos and additional information.
Notorious mobster turned fugitive Gioacchino Gammino has been on the run for nearly 20-years after breaking out of Rome’s Rebibbia prison. Since then, he’s fled to Spain, changed his name, and then started a new life, or so he thought. Despite becoming a chef at an Italian restaurant in a new country, police still managed to track him down using Google Maps. That’s right, authorities tracked him to a small town near Madrid. Read more for a video and additional information.
Baljenac is one tiny island you may have never heard of, but once you spot this landmass in the Adriatic Sea, located just off the coast of Croatia on the Sibenik archipelago, you’ll probably never forget it. Why? It’s been nicknamed “fingerprint island,” and rightfully so. The islet spans approximately half a square mile and is covered by a series of dry-stone walls that give it the shape of human fingerprint. Read more for a video and additional information.
Hi Fly, a company that leases widebody aircraft, has made history by successfully landing the first ever Airbus A340 in Antarctica. Captain Carlos Mirpuri flew his crew from Cape Town to Antarctica and back, a journey that totaled 2,500 nautical miles, or just over five hours each way. The aircraft, officially called the Hi Fly 9H-SOL A340-313HGW (High Gross Weight, has a maximum take-off weight of 275 tons. Read more for a video, additional pictures and information.
Whether it be kayaks, couches, or a 100-inch TV, it most likely passes through Amazon’s largest fulfillment center in Arizona. It’s located in the Amazon Phx7 building off 75th Avenue and I-10, spanning over a million square feet to handle all of the heavy, bulky items that don’t fit in a standard-sized boxes. The warehouse opened in 2011 and has over 1,000 employees working around the clock to move things to local distribution centers, which means double time over Black Friday. Read more for a rare look inside and a bonus.
The all-electric Volocopter 2X aircraft has successfully completed its first crewed public test flight in Seoul, South Korea at Gimpo International Airport. This test flight covered approximately 3 kilometers, reached a maximum altitude of 50 meters and hit a top speed of 45 km/h. At 992-pounds, it’s built with fiber composite material and powered by nine individual batteries that run all-electric motors sending power to 18 rotors. Read more for a video, additional pictures and information.
It’s official, the world’s largest hydro-floating solar hybrid farm has opened for commercial operations at Sirindhorn Dam on Thailand’s Lam Dom Noi River. This project, built by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), is set to become a new tourist attraction of Ubon Ratchathani Province, ready to welcome tourists by early next year. It’s capable of generating up to 114,000 GW of power from natural gas, consisting of seven large angled panels of photovoltaic cells on the platform. Read more for a video and additional information.
Elon Musk has always thought out of the box, and that includes making decisions about his company, or at least in this case. Why did the question come about? Well, the U.S. Senate Democrats announced a proposal to tax billionaires’ stocks and other tradable assets that previously allowed them to defer capital gains taxes indefinitely. Musk currently owns 170.5 million shares of Tesla, so 10% would equate to around $21 billion based on Friday’s closing price. Read more for two videos and a bonus.
A mysterious black hole was spotted on Google Maps recently and that left many wondering if it was just a glitch. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this anomaly is actually just Vostok Island, an uninhabited 56-acre piece of land owned by the Republic of Kiribati and located approximately 400-miles northwest of Tahiti. It’s one of five atolls located in the southern Line Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Read more to see the map and for a bonus.