History paints a very specific picture of ancient women, especially royalty. At museums, we often see them portrayed in fine clothing, lounging in sunlit palaces, and living lives of leisure. It’s rare to see or hear of them fighting in battles or hunting game. For generations, when archaeologists uncovered weapons tucked inside the tombs of mummified Egyptian princesses, they brushed off their presence as mere decoration. Historians presumed that the daggers and bows found in their burial chambers were simply symbolic tokens, something meant for the afterlife.  Now, with the help of modern technology, we know this was an unfortunate assumption.  A mistake that ended up rewriting history During 1894 and 1895, a group of mummies and other ancient artifacts were excavated from the Dahshur funerary complex in Egypt. The findings were catalogued, but (for reasons no one can determine) six of the mummified bodies were moved and later stored, unmarked, in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Over a century later, museum staffers rediscovered the bodies. Quickly, a team of scientists at the University of Beni-Suef decided to take a fresh look at these long-forgotten remains. The group used modern bioarcheological tech and methods during their examination.  What they uncovered was remarkable and revolutionary. It shattered how historians had viewed royal daughters of pharaohs past.  Their bones told a story that modern science couldn’t ignore Led by bioarcheologist Zeinab Hashesh, the research team analyzed the skeletal remains of four royal sisters—Princesses Ita, Khenmet, Itaweret, and a fourth likely sister, Sathathormeryt. Experts believe each was a daughter of 12th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenemhat II. The team recently published their findings in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology. Instead of pristine skeletons typical of privileged, royal life, the researchers found wear and tear they did not anticipate. The bones of these princesses showed heavy, pronounced muscle and ligament attachments in their upper bodies. Their skeletal structures bore the exact physical hallmarks of high-intensity, repetitive movements—but not the kind you might expect from the Egyptian peasant women who labored in the fields. These were the signs of warriors. These individuals regularly pulled heavy bowstrings, stabilized impact weapons, and tightly gripped sword handles. @history.mae In the 1890s, archaeologists discovered several mummies of Egyptian princesses who’d been buried alongside weapons typically associated with men, including arrows, maces and daggers. Six royal mummies were unearthed: King Hor, Princess Noub-Hotep, Princess Ita, Princess Khenmet, Princess Itaweret and an unknown woman suspected to be Princess Sathathormeryt. In 2020 the six mummies were carefully examined after spending a century in the basement of the Egyptian Museum. When researchers examined the individuals’ bones, they found physiological evidence suggesting they were active users of the weapons they were buried with millennia ago. Princess Ita, for example, appears to have had strong hand muscles, perhaps built up from years of gripping weapons like daggers and maces, according to the researchers. Princesses Noub-Hotep and Itaweret, meanwhile, both had thickened forearm bones, which could have resulted from repeatedly drawing and stabilizing a bow. The bones in Princess Noub-Hotep’s right hand also showed signs of “archer’s grip,” Overall, the findings suggest the princesses “were not leading sedentary lives of luxury,” “They were well-conditioned athletes whose bodies were hardened by the same skilled force and disciplined movement as the men of their time.” #history ♬ original sound – llea – lleasqx Princess Itaweret, who lived to be between 20 and 34-years-old, displayed physical signs of being a skilled archer. Researchers even detected healed bone fractures, denoting that she’d engaged in high-risk activities. Princess Ita featured robust muscle attachments consistent with the handling of maces and other heavy weapons. They also found an ornate dagger buried beside her inside the sarcophagus.   Rewriting history proves it pays to keep an open mind This discovery has unlocked new ways of viewing and understanding ancient Egypt’s royal familial structures. Far from passive figureheads, these princesses were trained fighters. They learned by actively participating in skilled combat and hunting. We now know the weapons buried with them were not symbolic. Each had entered the afterlife with genuine battle scars. The swords and bows are testaments to the powerful, resilient lives they actually lived.  These revelations are a powerful reminder of why we should always question old assumptions. History is far from fixed in stone. Sometimes, it’s just waiting for the right discovery—perhaps in the cool, dark recesses of a museum—to help it speak again. The post 4,000-year-old Egyptian mummy rediscovery reveals 4 previously unknown warrior princesses appeared first on Upworthy.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Gillnets catch dolphins by accident. The nylon mesh hangs nearly invisible in the water, and dolphins’ echolocation, the system they rely on to navigate and hunt, can fail to detect it. The filaments may produce no detectable echo, or the dolphins may detect something but not recognize it as a threat. Either way, they swim in and don’t get out. Around 1,000 porpoises and hundreds of dolphins, including 250 common dolphins, die in gill nets in UK waters alone every year, according to Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Globally, fishing bycatch is one of the primary causes of cetacean death. The echolocation gap Echolocation works by bouncing sound waves off objects and reading the echoes to build a picture of what’s nearby. It works well for prey, obstacles, and other animals. It does not work reliably on thin nylon mesh. The material is too sparse and too close in acoustic density to water to return a reliable signal. Per Berggren, a professor at Newcastle University, looked at that specific gap and asked a simple question: what if you gave the net something that does produce an echo? His answer: attach empty bottles. How bottles work as sonar reflectors Plastic and glass bottles address the problem through different mechanisms. Empty plastic bottles contain a pocket of air, and air reflects sound very differently from water. A dolphin’s echolocation click bounced off an air-filled bottle produces a much stronger echo than the same click bounced off nylon mesh. The dolphin gets a return signal it can act on. Glass bottles take a different approach. Berggren’s team placed metal bolts inside them so the bottles would generate a clinking sound as they moved with the water. That passive noise gives dolphins an additional non-echolocation cue. What the trials found Two studies tested the approach across more than 1,600 fishing nets deployed in Zanzibar, Peru, and Brazil, published in Fisheries Research and Marine Mammal Science. Results varied by location. In Peru, where nets are set near the surface, the bottles did not reduce the number of dolphins, porpoises, or turtles caught. They did increase the catch of target fish, and also increased the number of sharks caught. Despite the Peru results, Berggren’s overall assessment is positive. “Attaching plastic bottles to fishing nets can reduce dolphin bycatch globally and is something that every fisher can afford,” he says. Cost and supply chain Part of what makes the approach viable at scale is how cheap and simple it is. The bottles attach to existing nets, require no infrastructure, and can come from waste plastic rather than purchased materials. “It’s also rewarding to know that we are using some of the plastic waste that spoils our oceans,” Berggren says. “The bottles are securely attached to the nets and we did not lose any plastic bottle during the trials.” That matters. The obvious worry about attaching plastic to fishing nets is that the plastic ends up in the ocean. In these trials, none of it did. “This is genuinely recycling that rescues dolphins,” Berggren says. The approach costs almost nothing, uses materials fishers can pull from waste streams, and requires no new equipment. For a problem that has resisted solutions for years, that combination is worth paying attention to.     Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post The Newcastle researcher turning ocean plastic into a dolphin rescue strategy first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM India launched its first hydrogen-powered train earlier this month. It was built domestically and is now operating in Haryana. Two hydrogen-powered driving cars, eight passenger coaches, a capacity of about 2,600 passengers, and a top speed of 47 mph (75 kph). Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the train, called the “NaMo Green Rail,” at Jind railway station. The name is a common abbreviation of Modi’s first and last names. “This is a very significant day in the direction of self-reliant India and sustainable development,” he said. The chemistry Hydrogen fuel cells generate electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen. The only direct emission is water vapor. The pilot includes hydrogen storage and refueling infrastructure to test how the technology performs in India’s rail network before any wider rollout. What it’s replacing India’s rail network is one of the world’s largest. Not all of it is electrified, and diesel powers most of the unelectrified routes. Hydrogen replaces diesel without requiring those lines to be fully electrified first. Several other countries have already deployed hydrogen trains on similar routes. The net-zero picture India has committed to net-zero emissions by 2070. The hydrogen rail push is part of a broader national effort to develop green hydrogen domestically, cut carbon from heavy transport, and reduce fuel import dependency. Friday’s launch is a pilot. The storage and refueling infrastructure being tested alongside the train will determine how far the approach can scale.     This solution is highlighted by The World Business Academy, the umbrella organization producing The Optimist Daily. To learn more, please visit our website.The post What India’s hydrogen train launch means for its vast railway network first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

The candidate lost the job before anyone asked him a question. He walked into the building, approached the front desk, and was dismissive to the woman sitting behind it. She greeted him. He barely made eye contact. She tried to make conversation and got nothing back. She was the hiring manager. A coworker who watched the whole thing unfold wrote about it on Reddit as u/sawta2112 in a post that went on to collect more than 46,000 upvotes. “Today, a candidate blew his interview in the first 5 minutes after he entered the building,” they wrote. The man hadn’t set foot in the conference room yet. He had, according to the post, treated the woman at the desk “like she was beneath him.” LPT: interview starts immediately byu/sawta2112 inLifeProTips Socially anxioys or just plain rude? She called him back to the conference room anyway, and told him why he wasn’t getting the job. Every person on the team, she explained, was valuable and worthy of respect. The role was client-facing, where being warm and approachable was most of the work. The obvious explanation for his rude behavior is nerves. Plenty of people go stiff and monosyllabic in a lobby because they’re running answers in their head, and that isn’t a character flaw. The poster had already considered that and rejected it. “It wasn’t just lack of eye contact,” they wrote. “He was openly rude and treated her like she was beneath him. When he thought he was talking to the decision-maker, his personality totally changed. Suddenly he was friendly, open, relaxed. So I don’t think this was a case of social anxiety.” A woman sits down for a job interview. Photo credit: Tim Gouw via Unsplash. The comments were filled with people who’d been on either side of this scenario. One person got chatty with a stranger in the elevator on the way up to an interview and found out later it was the company’s CEO, and got the job. Another described a system from the paper-resume era, where whoever accepted a walk-in resume at the front desk could draw a small horizontal line in the corner to flag that the person had been rude. Making an impression This story comes from one office and one account, and there’s no confirming the details. But the principle behind it—that how someone treats a person with no apparent power over them tells you more than a scheduled interview will—shows up in places where the names are attached. Luis von Ahn, the CEO of Duolingo, has described a CFO candidate who looked excellent on paper and interviewed well and still didn’t get an offer. “It turned out that they were pretty mean to their driver from the airport to the office, and that made us not hire them,” he said on The Burnouts podcast. “Our belief is if they’re going to be mean to the driver, they’re probably going to be mean to other people, particularly people under them.” View this post on Instagram Trent Innes, then former managing director of Xero Australia, described on The Venture Podcast with Lambros Photios walking candidates to the office kitchen for a drink at the start of an interview, then watching whether they carry the empty cup back at the end. He’s said he’d hire almost anyone who does. View this post on Instagram The advice that came out of the thread wasn’t really about interviews at all. As one commenter put it, the trick is to be a kind, mannerly person all the time, and then you never have to worry about faking it. The post A hiring manager pretended to be the receptionist. The candidate failed before he sat down. appeared first on Upworthy.

It really is quite simple: when it comes to luck, one way we can change it is by creating more variables for ourselves. The idea is that the more motion we create, the better our chance of potentially changing our lives and turning them around. In a recent Facebook post, Professor Sean Johnson discussed this idea, referencing the book Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty by clinical neurologist and researcher James Austin. In the book, Austin lays out the “four kinds of luck: blind luck, luck from motion, luck from awareness, and unique luck.” Johnson focuses on Austin’s second concept. Essentially, he reiterates that the more we “collide” with other ideas, people, and plans, the more chances we have for a positive outcome. The Kettering Principle pic.twitter.com/b37L2NPEvr— Christian Busch (@ChrisSerendip) November 16, 2020 Over a video clip with a chyron reading “How to create more luck,” Johnson shares, “You need to go outside and meet more strangers. It’s not me, this is science, actually. In 1978, James Austin proposed four types of luck. And the second was being called ‘The Kettering Principle,’ which basically says that ‘chance favors those in motion.’ In other words, curiosity, exploration, and movement create collisions that can create lucky breaks. This obviously applies to networks. When you’re stationary, your probability of luck is limited to people you already know. But when you increase your movement, your collision rate with people will increase.” Talk to strangers Next, Johnson references psychologist Richard Wiseman’s ten-year study that, he says, “tracked self-described lucky and unlucky people.” He points out the conclusion, which was that “lucky people talked to strangers more and were more willing to vary their routines and take invitations or give invitations. So if you want more opportunities, you just need to make more collisions.” He gives concrete examples. “Going to events. Sharing things on platforms like LinkedIn, or here (Facebook), or speaking on podcasts or in front of groups. Going to network events, hosting network events. Hosting events is amazing. Hosting a three-hour dinner for six to eight people, I get that it’s hard. It creates discomfort, but inertia is a real thing. And I think COVID, especially, turned us all into resting bodies. But you got to do it!” Whether you’re trying to build revenue or just change your luck, Johnson claims the same prescription is necessary. “Leave your house. Leave the comfort of your office. Have coffee. Go to that conference. Say ‘yes’ to that dinner. Share your point of view. Send a thoughtful email to someone who doesn’t know you yet. Shoot your shot, have more collisions.” View this post on Instagram You don’t stumble on things sitting down With regard to the Kettering Principle, both Johnson and Austin are referring to inventor and businessman Charles F. Kettering, who had incredibly profound insight. He was quoted as once saying, “You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.” Kettering was also reported to have said, “Keep on going, and chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.” His point was clear: movement creates chances and can therefore change your luck. The ‘Yes Man’ The 2008 Peyton Reed-directed film Yes Man, based on Danny Wallace’s memoir of the same name, tackles this concept comedically. In the movie, Jim Carrey’s character has chosen to answer “Yes” to absolutely anything presented to him. While this leads to some cinematic hijinks, the idea still remains: forward motion leads to possibilities. The comments under Johnson’s Facebook post are also quite thoughtful and supportive of the idea. One Facebooker writes in part, “I’ve learned that getting out, meeting people, and trying new experiences has led to connections, unexpected opportunities, and memories I never would’ve had otherwise.” A few introverts pushed back, with one sharing, “While Carl Jung says, ‘No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.'” And of course, “collisions” don’t always yield positive outcomes. One person contends, “Luck goes both ways. There is good luck and bad luck. Increased motion increases chances of both.” At the end of the day, it’s the possibilities that count. As this commenter put it, “This is true. We were born to live.” The post Professor shares why the key to improving your luck is having ‘more collisions’ appeared first on Upworthy.