geekosystem

Researchers in Germany think they have pinpointed the cause of low-levels of radiation indicated in tree rings dating from the eighth century -- a blast of gamma rays that hit the Earth in the year 775 after two far-off "stellar remnants -- like black holes or white dwarf stars --  merged together, causing a release of energy that could be felt from light years away. If that's true, though, then why aren't we all Incredible Hulks right now? Explain that, science!

A new study of priapulids, commonly referred to as "penis worms," may have just unraveled a large part of what scientists have believed about evolutionary history. The priapulid belongs is a member of the protostome family, a sub-set of living species defined by the fact that they develop a mouth and anus as embryos. After doing some genetic testing, it seems that priapulids don't actually do this, which means the whole group will need to be redefined by other common traits.

Next time you order that extra shot of espresso, know that you are continuing a tradition that has been around in America for thousands of years. Archaeologists recently discovered the residue of a highly-caffeinated ritual beverage known as "black drink" in pottery beakers recovered from Cahokia, the largest Pre-Colombian city North of Mexico. The trees used to produce the beverage, however, are not native to the region surrounding Cahokia and could have only been made available to the city by way of trade. Anthropologists believe that this discovery is indicative of a large North American trade network. Let that simmer as you enjoy that white chocolate mocha.

In an "ask me anything" thread on Reddit, a 97 year old man who allegedly worked on Apollo 1 through Apollo 14 made a claim that Apollo 13's brilliant "slingshot maneuver" idea was not the work of NASA, but that of a grad student at MIT. NASA then covered the whole thing up when they found out that the student in question was "a real hippy type." If this story is true, it completely rewrites one of the most heroic rescue efforts in United States aerospace history; many redditors, however, are calling "BS." Make the jump for the full scoop as well as our take on the matter.

The discovery of a massive east London burial pit at Spitalfields market in the 1990s was originally said to have been caused by the Black Death or Great Famine of 1315-1317. Turns out, those original declarations were wrong by around a century. New evidence, like radiocarbon dating of the bones, instead links the deaths of the 10,500 medieval skeletons to a massive volcanic event that happened thousands of miles away in 1258.

For some of you (particularly, our U.K. readers) this will probably not come as a surprise, but the "City of London" is not actually "London." In fact, as the great Internet explainer C.G.P. Grey reveals, the City of London is sort of its own thing within what we normally call London today. How this came to pass involves a little explaining about parliamentary democracy, history, and military construction, but it's imparted in just under five minutes.

Yes, they do, in fact, still make those. I was surprised too! Sony even released their newest entry into the Walkman line in Europe just yesterday. The Walkman F800 will be the slimmest ever and will come sporting the Android 4.0 operating system. But where did it all begin? We'll be taking a look at the storied past behind Sony's portable media player and sharing a few of the F800's details after the jump!

On this day, 16 years ago, a major blow was delivered to the ego of humanity when IBM's chess playing computer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in the first of the legendary series of games. This was the first time that a computer had defeated a reigning chess world champion in a standard tournament game. Though Kasparov would come out ahead of Deep Blue in the overall match -- two draws and three wins -- it was short lived. When the two next met over a chessboard in 1997, Deep Blue won the match. Deep Blue was a demonstration to the world what modern computing was capable of, and paved the way for other headline grabbing computers like Watson. I, for one, welcome our chess-playing computer overlords.

As we prepare to close the book on another year, YouTube user derDon1234 threw together a quick look back at the last 100 years of history -- conveniently compacted into 10 minutes. While interesting it's, uh, not exactly uplifting. In fact, it's nearly all wars and explosions, with a few sporting events thrown in for good measure. Also, only one woman was apparently noteworthy enough to make the cut -- and it's Lewinksy. So, while deeply flawed, its a sobering reminder of how far we've come. See the video after the break, but be forewarned that it does contain some graphic images, so watch at your own discretion.

Given the ubiquity of Google, it's hard to imagine a time when users couldn't just mosey over to the minimalist search engine and find everything they need. Or, for that matter, rely on any of the dozens of products -- like Google Maps -- that seem to make everyday life possible. This retrospective released today by Google recounts the humble origins of the search engine, and the process by which it became the pillar of the modern Internet. All that, in only six minutes.

Despite their (entirely deserved) hero status, astronauts are just everyday people like you and me. They put their pants space suits on one leg at a time, and have to fill out U.S. Customs and Immigration forms when returning from the moon. In what is perhaps the best application of bureaucracy to date, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins declared all their moon rocks and moon dust when they arrived in Hawaii after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. It was a joke, though the astronauts did spend three weeks in isolation after their return over fears they might have brought lunar germs back with them. However, Reddit tells us that this wouldn't be the only tongue-in-cheek moment for the space program. After the dramatic events during the Apollo 13 mission, Rockwell received an invoice from Northrop Grumman. It seems that since the Grumman-made lunar module was responsible for bringing the crippled, Rockwell-built command module back to Earth, it was only fair that Rockwell pay for the tow. Great moments in American history, folks. Read on below, for a closer look at the Apollo 11 immigration form.

What do an iconic peace-loving protester and easily the most hated man in all of human history have to do with each other? The answer is simple: a plea that was never heard. Mahatma Gandhi wrote to Adolf Hitler on July 23, 1939 to ask him to keep World War II from happening. At the time, Hitler was already progressing through Europe, having invaded Czechoslovakia earlier that spring. The letter never reached Hitler, (for unknown reasons) and it is hard to image that it would have had much impact if it did. Gandhi wrote two letters to Hitler, which are on display at Mani Bhavan, where Gandhi lived in Mumbai from 1917-1934. These letters are a known, but still shocking, part of the history of WWII. Certainly, they make you wonder what could have been, and even spark speculation about what the world leaders of our time really think about the current state of the world. (via World of Wonder, History Today)

The next time you terminate a program, or restart your computer using the CTRL+ALT+DEL shortcut, think of David Bradley; the IBM engineer that invented the command. During a gathering in 2004 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the IBM PC, the veteran engineer revealed that he'd created the shortcut to save time, since his work required him to frequently power down and restart his computer. He says never intended to make the combination public but was prevailed upon by IBM who found it extremely useful. Read on below to see a video of Bradley recounting the creation of this now-iconic shortcut, and watch as Bill Gates does not take a jab at Microsoft with the best of graces.

In 1969, while NASA was landing on the moon, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was busy trying to link up the then rare computers that were scattered across various U.S. corporations and college campuses. The idea was that by networking these computers together, they could improve research and also develop a networked computing system that would be less vulnerable to a nuclear attack. By 1969 the idea was up and running, with the first node of the ARPA network (ARPANET) operational at the UCLA campus. On October 29, the research team sent the first message from the UCLA node to another node at Stanford. The Internet was born, and it was good. But time passed, and  technology progressed: ARPANET grew to become the background of the international digital communication network we know today, the ARPA organization became the DARPA we're so familiar with, and the room that birthed the internet was forgotten. It wasn't until Brad Fidler, a doctoral candidate at the UCLA history program used first-hand accounts and photos to track down the cradle of the net: 3420 Boelter Hall.

Gareth Lloyd and Tom Martin won an award at this year's History Hack Day for this Wikipedia-fueled data visualization, which localizes Wikipedia articles from a given year to a world map location. Spoiler alert: The history is pretty Eurocentric, with an added dose of North America-centrism come 1700 or so. Previously in data-viz: A time-lapse map of every nuclear explosion since 1945. (via FlowingData)