Curse Tablets Found in 2,400-Year-Old Grave

Here, the lead tablet engraved with a curse against husband-and-wife tavern keepers, Demetrios and Phanagora.

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Jessica Lamont

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Ancient Water Basin Found in Rome: Photos

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Italian archaeologists have unearthed the largest Roman water basin ever found, right in the heart of modern Rome. Lined with hydraulic plaster, the massive basin was found some 65 feet down near St. John in Lateran Basilica during the excavation of the new metro C line.

Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Roma

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As shown in this reconstruction, the water basin was impressive. It measured 115 by 230 feet and could hold more than 1 million gallons of water.

Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Roma

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The archaeologists unearthed a road that led to a 3rd-century B.C farm.

Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Roma

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In the first century A.D., the basin was added to existing structures, such as water wheels, used to lift and distribute the water, as shown in this reconstruction. The basin most likely served as a water reservoir for crops as well as an area that made it possible to cope with overflows from the nearby river.

Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Roma

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The all-woman team of archaeologists led by Rossella Rea found the exact spot where the water wheel was allocated.

Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Roma

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The excavation also brought to light various agricultural items, such as a three-pronged iron pitchfork, and remains of storage baskets made from braided willow branches.

Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Roma

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Lined up jars with their ends cut open were recycled as water conduits.

Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Roma

View Caption + #8: Used tiles were recycled to make water canals.

Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Roma

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The tiles were inscribed with the encircled initials "TL" -- evidence that the farm belonged to a single owner.

Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Roma

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The farm was obliterated at the end of the first century A.D., its structures, including the water basin, demolished and buried.

Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Roma

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Five lead tablets that cursed tavern keepers some 2,400 years ago have been discovered in a young woman’s grave in Athens, Greece.

Four of the tablets were engraved with cursesthat invoked the names of “chthonic” (underworld) gods, asking them to target four different husband-and-wife tavern keepers in Athens. The fifth tablet was blank and likely had a spell or incantation recited orally, the words spoken over it.

All five tablets were pierced with an iron nail, folded and deposited in the grave. The grave would have provided the tablets a path to such gods, who would then do the curses’ biddings, according to ancient beliefs. [ Real or Not? 6 Famous Historical Curses]

One of the curses targeted husband-and-wife tavern keepers named Demetrios and Phanagora. The curse targeting them reads in part (translated from Greek):

Are there times when the two overlap, when fervent belief in science functions much like devout faith?

DCI

“Cast your hate upon Phanagora and Demetrios and their tavern and their property and their possessions. I will bind my enemy Demetrios, and Phanagora, in blood and in ashes, with all the dead…”

“I will bind you in such a bind, Demetrios, as strong as is possible, and I will smite down a kynotos on tongue.”

The word kynotos literally means “dog’s ear,” an ancient gambling term that “was the name for the lowest possible throw of dice,” Jessica Lamont, an instructor at John Hopkins University in Baltimore who recently completed a doctorate in classics, wrote in an article published recently in the journal Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. The “physical act of hammering a nail into the lead tablet would have ritually echoed this wished-for sentiment,” Lamont wrote.

“By striking Demetrios’ tongue with this condemningly unlucky roll, the curse reveals that local taverns were not just sociable watering holes, but venues ripe for gambling and other unsavory activities in Classical Athens,” Lamont wrote.

A woman’s grave

The grave where the five curse tabletswere found was excavated in 2003 by archaeologists with Greece’s Ephorate for Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities. The grave was located northeast of the Piraeus, the port of Athens. Details of the burial have not yet been published, but Lamont said that excavation reports indicate that it contained the cremated remains of a young woman. Lamont has been studying the curse tablets at the Piraeus Museum, where they are now kept.

“The way that curse tabletswork is that they’re meant to be deposited in an underground location,” such as a grave or well, Lamont told Live Science. “It’s thought that these subterranean places provided a conduit through which the curses could have reached the underworld,” and its chthonic gods would then do the curse’s biddings, Lamont said.

The woman buried in the grave might have had nothing to do with the curses or tavern keeping, Lamont said. Perhaps she died at the time when someone wanted to cast these curses on others in the same community, Lamont said.

During the ceremonies surrounding the woman’s death, the grave “would have been accessible, a good access point for someone to deposit these tablets underground and bury them,” Lamont said.

Who cast the curses?

The writing on the curse tablets is neat and its prose eloquent, suggesting that a professional curse writer created the tablets. “It’s very rare that you get something so explicit and lengthy and beautifully written, of course in a very terrible way,” Lamont said.

This curse writer, who probably provided other forms of supernatural services — including charms, spells and incantations — was likely hired by someone who worked in Athens‘ tavern-keeping industry, according to Lamont. “I think it’s likely that the person who commissioned them was probably in the world of the tavern himself or herself,” possibly a business rival of the four husband-and-wife tavern keepers, Lamont said.

Original article on Live Science .

Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Finnish study determines why everyone hates Nickelback so much

Nickelback, one Finnish researcher has figured you out.

Gary Miller/Getty Images
Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger plays his heart out.

Most simply accept the universal truth that people hate the purveyors of "How You Remind Me" and other elevator rock hits, but Salli Anttonen, a doctoral student at the University of Eastern Finland, proved it scientifically.

She recently scoured 14 years' worth of reviews of the Canadian rock pariahs to pinpoint the true explanation of the widespread ire: the band lacks "a sincere identity."

"Nickelback is too much of everything to be enough of something," Anttonen wrote, according to the BBC. "They follow genre expectations too well which is seen as empty imitation."

She also discovered that early reviews didn't skew so negative — but as the eardrum-grating rockers exploded, so did their volume of vocal critics.

Anttonen's paper, appropriately enough, is titled, "'Hypocritical Bulls--t Performed Through Gritted Teeth': Authenticity Discourses in Nickelback's Album Reviews in Finnish Media."

Paul Bergen/Redferns
"Nickelback is too much of everything to be enough of something," wrote a Finnish doctoral student.

There are other observable data.

Australia's Queensland Police Service last year tweeted a "Wanted" posteraccusing the group of "crimes against music."

"Urgent police warning: Men matching this description expected to be committing musical crimes in Boondall tonight," the police agency wrote.

Another hater in 2014 launched an online fundraiserto bar the band from performing in London.

"Just imagine, thousands — perhaps tens of thousands of music lovers — all not witnessing an exclusive concert by Nickelback in London," wrote Craig Mandell. "It will be glorious. Legendary. Dare we say, game changing?"

Nick Jonas recalls first kiss with Miley Cyrus — and how unromantic it probably was for her

Nick Jonas' lips weren't sealed when it came to dishing on locking lips with Miley Cyrus.

"The first person I kissed was Miley Cyrus and I kissed her outside of California Pizza Kitchen in Hollywood. Very romantic," he said during an interview with BBC Radio 1 on Wednesday. "I'd just had a pizza that had onions all over it. I'm sure that my breath smelled terrible."

The "Jealous" singer dated Cyrus from 2006 to 2008, back when they both were Disney Channel stars.

During the interview, the 23-year-old played a game of "Snog, Marry, Avoid" and had to choose between Cyrus, Demi Lovato, and Kate Hudson.

"Demi and I are really good friends so I'd marry her because you want to marry your best friend — even though it's weird to say that," he told host Nick Grimshaw. "I watched her in one of these that she did and she said she'd marry me, so I have to pay it back."

He then chose to snog Hudson to whom he had been previously linked romantically.

Jordan Strauss/Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Nick Jonas dished he ate and onion-infused pizza and forgot to pop some gum before making out with Miley Cyrus.

Nicola’s Notes: Let’s right the rand

One of the most lingering aspects of travelling overseas is when the reality of just how weak the rand is hits home.

Credit: INDEPENDENT MEDIA

Nicola Mawson, IOL Business Editor. Picture: Matthews Baloyi, Independent Media.

One of the most lingering aspects of travelling overseas is when the reality of just how weak the rand is hits home. It’s one thing to look up the exchange rate, and another to feel the pain of a cash withdrawal, or your credit card statement.

A trip lingers because it takes ages to clear the debt - debt that accumulated because you still have to eat, and get gifties for the peeps back home, and sight see.

Even if you went totally budget (no visiting cathedrals, no gifts, el cheapo food) you would still have a hefty amount to pay back.

Travelling to the UK exaggerates the strain on wallets because of just how badly our currency is doing against sterling.

Currently, it’s just more than R20 to a pound, but when I left almost two weeks ago, I bought forex at R24.

Eventually you stop translating prices back to rand in your head; it just gets too painful to know that the bottle of water you just bought cost you a whopping R20, and a semi-decent but not top-of-the-range sarmie was R80.

Ouch.

Read also: Rand slips as greenback gains strength

Shop assistants are bemused when you say you could buy four of whatever item for the same as what you just paid for one if you were back home.

Why the rand - a volatile currency anyway - has plummeted in such a dramatic fashion has been the subject of much debate. Frankly, South Africa has been its own worst enemy with politicians making moves the rest of the world has more than frowned upon in the midst of a global emerging-market and commodities rout.

There are several ways of looking at where the rand should actually be. The most popular seems to be The Economist’s Big Mac Index, which is based on pricing parity.

I prefer the Mac index because that makes the most sense to me, as the index looks at the price of a burger in the US and then in other countries and works out what the exchange rate should be.

Not that South Africans won’t, of course, find a Big Mac costly in the US, but we do need to use something as a base point, and a Big Mac is as good as anything.

Using the index, which was initially invented by The Economist in 1986 as a light-hearted guide to whether currencies are at their “correct” level, the rand is undervalued by 64 percent and should be trading at R5.68 to the dollar instead of at R14.52.

A pound should cost you just under R10. That sounds about right, even if a sarmie is R80 and shouldn’t possibly cost R40. It sounds right because not every basket item will be so overpriced, so it will balance out.

Read also: Money pours out of SA as investors fret

So, the question then becomes how to fix the currency.

I doubt there’s a simple solution because much of the weight is out of our control. There’s not much we can do about the emerging-market rout, or about commodities falling out of bed.

There is, however, much we can do to stabilise SA internally so that we lead the emerging-market pack. That will help.

That, however, requires political will and a firm commitment to fix things, as well as action. We need to walk the talk, but are not terribly good at that.

And, even if we do start fixing our internal structures, this isn’t an overnight solution.

In the meantime, we could promote SA as a stupidly cheap tourism destination, or as a cost-effective manufacturing hub.

Sadly, there are obstacles to those solutions too, such as crime, and red tape - and piles of rubbish still lining many streets that would put most off our otherwise beautiful country.

We have a lot of fixing to do if we want SA to take its rightful spot, and I suggest we really get going now.

Let’s get everyone with clever ideas together and develop a plan, and then do it: just implement.

We owe it to the children who will inherit SA.

* Nicola Mawson is the online editor of Business Report. Follow her on Twitter @NicolaMawson or Business Report @busrep.

IOL

Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction rescued by FDNY after being trapped in elevator

Nothing's shocking for Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro — except getting trapped in an elevator.

@thespreadgroup via Instagram
Dave Navarro was stuck in an elevator in New York after it fell about 10 floors.

The "Ink Master" host was stuck with his publicist in an elevator that plummeted 10 stories Thursday morning, while the two were on their way to a Sirius XM interview with Opie.

But Navarro took it in stride during his ordeal — posting updates on social media for his fans.

"Stuck in an elevator! This is what hell is like," Navarro tweeted.

After just over an hour he was rescued by FDNY firefighters, with whom Navarro took selfies.

"The things dropped and then stuck and once you stop then you realized something scary happened," he later told TMZ. "I should have been scared but then it's over, so f--- it."

A photo posted by Dave Navarro (@thespreadgroup) on Apr 14, 2016 at 6:03am PDT

Sevens returns to Singapore

Top-level sevens returns to steamy Singapore for the first time in a decade this weekend as rugby looks for another foothold in Asia and teams firm up their plans for the Rio Olympics.

Two-time Rugby World Cup-winner Sonny Bill Williams will press his Olympic bid with New Zealand but Australia's Nick “Honey Badger” Cummins is out with an ankle injury as the sevens series nears its conclusion.

With only two more stops after Singapore, Fiji lead the 10-leg world series from New Zealand after they established themselves as Olympic favourites by beating their rivals in last week's Hong Kong final.

Organisers will keep a close eye on ticket sales for the event on Saturday and Sunday at the 55,000-seat National Stadium, as Singapore tries to make a name for itself on the sevens circuit.

“After the 10-year hiatus, the event has changed a lot, as has Singapore,” Rugby Singapore chairman Low Teo Ping told AFP.

“Sevens rugby is now an Olympic sport, and Singapore now has a ultra-modern high-tech stadium to host the tournament,” he said.

“The sevens will create a lot of curiosity about the sport and hopefully find new fans and players. We see this as being the growth of the sport.”

Singapore already hosts some “home” games of the Sunwolves, the Tokyo-based Super Rugby team which made its debut in the 15-a-side provincial competition this year.

Singapore's return to the world series comes just a week after the Hong Kong leg, the traditional showpiece of the annual circuit and regarded as the dress rehearsal for Rio owing to its format, profile and large crowds.

Singapore, the tiny but wealthy Asian city-state, has been at pains to position itself as a centre for sports and already hosts a Formula One grand prix and tennis's WTA Finals.

Singapore's tropical heat and humidity are likely to be a factor this weekend in a sport that requires elevated fitness levels and where lung-busting runs are unavoidable.

“It was pretty hot out here, it's like playing in a sauna. But the good thing is everybody has to play in the same heat,” Williams told reporters after a training session.

But Fiji coach Ben Ryan said the conditions would suit his players, who train in high humidity on their Pacific island home.

“Some of the other teams might have a lot of trouble or worry about the humidity, but for us, Samoa and maybe one or two of the other sides, it's not going to be an issue at all,” Ryan told AFP.

New England Patriots Super Bowl-winner Nate Ebner is expected to play for the USA as he makes a late run for the Olympics in rugby, the sport of his youth before he switched to American football.

After Singapore, the sevens series heads to Paris and then London before the Rio Games in August, where rugby will end its 92-year absence from Olympic competition.– AFP

Ant Evolves Flashy Way to Beat Desert Heat

Saharan silver ant soldiers (larger) with Saharan silver ant workers.

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P. Landmann, Willot et al.

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Top 10 Hardest Working Animals Never Take a Holiday

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Phrases like “busy bee” and “workhorse” reveal how much insects and animals toil away, but even bees and horses didn't make a newly released list of the top 10 hardest working animals. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) compiled the list just before Labor Day to honor the world’s most dedicated workers. Above: Topping the list is the naked mole rat. Liz Bennett, WCS vice president of species conservation told Discovery News that naked mole rats never take a holiday. “What they lack in good looks, they make up for with their handsome work ethic,” she said. Bennett explained that these subterranean rodents form ant-like colonies and construct intricate underground chambers and tunnels, complete with a queen and workers. GET MORE: I ntimate Glimpses Of Animals: Photos

Frans Lanting/Corbis

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Although they are relatively small in size, weaverbirds are incredibly industrious. “These diminutive birds construct intricate ‘cities’ from grasses, small twigs and leaf fibers,” Bennett said. “Some of these woven condos can house up to 300 pairs of birds.” GET MORE: Animals That Decorate Themselves: Photos

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Each Alpine swift weighs less than a quarter of a pound, but they pack a lot of muscle into their tiny frames. Felix Liechti and colleagues from the Swiss Ornithological Institute attached small electronic tags on several of the birds to monitor their movements. The researchers were shocked to find that the birds stayed aloft over West Africa for more than 200 days straight. “Boy are their arms tired, I mean their wings,” joked Bennett. “Who can blame them, flying six months at a clip without ever stopping.” GET MORE: Top 10 Animal Mating Fails: Photos

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Adult American eels make heroic migrations from rivers to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It is hardly a pleasure trip.They spawn once and die. As for the newly hatched American eel young, Bennett said, “They must ride the currents on their own across half an ocean to coastal rivers where they will grow up over the next 20 to 30 years.” GET MORE: These Fish Were Made For Walking: Photos

Julie Larsen Maher/WCS

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Ants are strong, tenacious workers that contribute to tightly structured communities. Leafcutter ants, however, take the already impressive ant work ethic to a whole new level. Bennett explained that, in addition to the usual ant duties (marching, guarding their turf, taking care of young and more), leafcutter ants “harvest bits of leaves and then grow nutritious fungus from them in underground gardens.” While they are prevalent in Central and South America, leafcutter ants are also found in parts of the southern United States. Those with homes in eastern and south central Texas, for example, probably live over vast leafcutter ant underground “fungus farms.” GET MORE: Top 10 Oldest Insects, Spiders And Bugs: Photos

Julie Larsen Maher/WCS

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Monarch butterflies are the only insects that make a two-way migration, just as migrating birds do, according to Bennett. “They do it multi-generationally,” she continued, “meaning that their birthright is to keep flying north, or south, as the case may be. Royally impressive.” GET MORE: Iridescent Beauties Of The Animal World: Photos

Julie Larsen Maher/WCS

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Arctic terns are four-ounce winged wonders. They log an amazing 44,000 miles each year as they fly between their respective winter and summer grounds in Antarctica and Greenland. GET MORE: Impressive Bird Flying Formations: Photos

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“Chipi chipi” means “smallest” in the Takana language of Bolivia, where these one-inch-long fish live. Bennett indicated that the fish are world record breakers, completing the longest migration for a fish of their size. “The tiny chipi chipi catfish swims more than 200 miles upstream to the foothills of the Andes in Bolivia,” she said. “No one is exactly sure why, but scientists believe it has something to do with breeding.” GET MORE: Biofluorescent Fish Light Up The Deep: Photos

Mileniusz Spanowicz/WCS

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Humpback whales made the list because of their annual 8,000-mile round trip migration. But as the human population and our presence in oceans grows, so too do the threats to whales. Howard Rosenbaum, director of WCS’s Ocean Giants Program explained, “Throughout numerous coastal and offshore areas, important whale habitats and migration routes are increasingly overlapping with industrial development.” Rosenbaum added that hydrocarbon exploration and production, shipping and other forms of coastal and offshore activities pose some of the greatest threats to whales as they travel along their long migration routes. GET MORE: Best Ocean Animal Photos of the Year

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No list of hard-working animals could be complete without mentioning busy, industrious beavers. Bennett said, “They are able to change the course of mighty streams with stick-and-mud engineering marvels. Dam(n).” Other animals that could be on this list are herbivores because, as Bennett said, “they can never take a day off. They have to move and find food for much of the day, every single day, unless they are in high latitudes and can hibernate.” As for the laziest animals, some pampered humans and their pets could be contenders. In terms of wildlife, however, snakes probably top the lazy animal list. “After a good meal,” Bennett said, “they can just hang about for even up to a month without moving much until they need to start looking for their next meal.” GET MORE: San Francisco Shelter 'Trumps' Adoptable Animals: Photos

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Life in the scorching hot Sahara Desert is no problem for an ant that has evolved an effective and stylish heat-repellant system, new research finds.

Saharan silver ants grow flashy body hairs that cause total internal reflection of light, which is a technique also used in manmade fiber optics. New findings about the cool system, published in the journal PLOS ONE, also report a scientific first.

This is “the first time that total internal reflection is shown to determine the color of an organism,” Serge Aron of the Free University of Brussels said in a press release. As the name of the ants suggest, that color is glittery silver.

Aron and his team used a Scanning Electron Microscopeto investigate the ant’s hairs, watching what happens when incoming light hits them. They also compared normal hairy ants with some that had been shaved with a tiny scalpel blade to measure how light was reflected and how fast the ants heated up under simulated sunlight.

They found that the hairy ants were almost 10 times more reflective than the shaved ones, and were able to stay up to 35 degrees Fahrenheit cooler under simulated sunlight.

The high-powered microscope revealed that each of the ant’s hairs has a corrugated surface and a triangular cross-section. Like a prism, the hairs can then reflect light, such that the light rays entering each hair undergo total internal reflection, bouncing back off the bottom plane of the hair instead of transmitting through it.

The mirror effect gives the ant its bright silver sheen, likely provides some camouflage, aids in ant communications, and reduces heat absorption from sunlight. The latter prevents the ant from overheating.

While many Sahara Desertinsects and animals come out at night to avoid daytime temperatures, the Saharan silver ant has no such fears.

Aron, lead author Quentin Willot and their colleagues wrote: “Workers come out from the nest during the hottest midday period, when temperatures exceed 50°C (122 degrees Fahrenheit), to scavenge corpses of heat-stricken animals.”

“By restricting foraging activity to the hottest period of the day,” the researchers continued, “the ants minimize the chances of encountering their most frequent predator — a lizard that ceases all activities when the temperature becomes unbearable.”

In addition to their silvery hairs, the ants are equipped with legs that are much longer than those of other ants. The long limbs keep their bodies away from the hot surface. They also allow the ants to run very fast, which helps them stay cool by convection.

SEE IT: The terrifying moment a giant alligator eats his little friend for lunch

See ya later, alligator.

A Florida man had a memorable commute to work Sunday when he stumbled upon a massive alligator making mincemeat out of its little pal.

“I was taking a morning walk before work at Circle B Bar Reserve and I happen to witness this 11 to 12 foot alligator eating a smaller gator he or she killed,” Alex Figueroa captioned the bloodcurdling video.

The spectacle drew a crowd near the wildlife sanctuary in Lakeland, Florida, judging by the video.

The large alligator appears to be showing off his conquest in the video. After he gets out of the water, he walks around with the dead little gator hanging from his mouth, stunning onlookers.

The video, which has already amassed over 80,000 views, was uploaded Wednesday.

Alex Figueroa/via Youtube
It is unclear whether the passerby had time to join the alligator for breakfast.

17-year Cicadas Set to Invade the Northeast

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Insects and other creepy crawlies may be tiny, but their lineages are mighty, finds a new study that determined the common ancestor of mites and insects existed about 570 million years ago.

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Top 10 Oldest Insects, Spiders and Bugs: Photos

Insects and other creepy crawlies may be tiny, but their lineages are mighty, finds a new study that determined the common ancestor of mites and insects existed about 570 million years ago. The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Science, presents an evolutionary timeline that settles many longstanding uncertainties about insects and related species. It found that true insects first emerged about 479 million years ago, long before dinosaurs first walked the Earth. Co-author Karl Kjer, a Rutgers entomologist, explained that mites are arthropods, a group that's distantly related to insects. Spiders and crustaceans are also arthropods. 50-Million-Year-Old Mite Chomps Into Ant's Head

Chris Pooley (USDA, ARS, EMU)

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Spiders such as the huntsman spider can, like mites, trace their lineages back to about 570 million years ago, according to the new study. The researchers believe that the common ancestor of mites, spiders and insects was a water-dweller. Photos: Giant Spiders to Freak You Out

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Millipedes, such as the one shown here, as well as centipedes are known as myriapods. The most recent common ancestor of myriapods and crustaceans lived about 550 million years ago. Again, this "mother of many bugs" would have been a marine dweller. Kjer explained, "You can't really expect anything to live on land without plants, and plants and insects colonized land at about the same time, around 480 million years ago. So any date before that is a sea creature." Moving forward in time, the most common ancestor of millipedes and centipedes existed a little over 400 million years ago. The leggy body plan has proven to be extremely successful. Leggiest Animal Thrives Near Silicon Valley

J. Malik, Wikimedia Commons

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"This is an early insect that evolved before insects had wings," Kjer said. Its ancestry goes back about 420 million years. The common ancestor of silverfish living today first emerged about 250 million years ago. Dinosaurs and the earliest mammals likely would have then seen silverfish very similar to the ones that are alive now. Photos: Faces of Bees, Flies and Friends

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Dragonflies and damselflies have family histories that go back about 406 million years. Kjer said that such insects looked differently then, however. "For example," he said, "they had visible antennae." Their distant ancestors were among the first animals on earth to fly. Dragonfly Drone Takes Flight

Andre Karwath, Wikimedia Commons

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"Parasitic lice are interesting, because they probably needed either feathers or fur," Kjer said. As a result, they are the relative newbies to this list. Nonetheless, the researchers believe it is possible that ancestors of today's lice were around 120 million years ago, possibly living off of dinosaurs and other creatures then. 10 Worst Epidemics

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Crickets, katydids and grasshoppers had a common ancestor that lived just over 200 million years ago, and a stem lineage that goes back even further to 248 million years ago. A trivia question might be: Which came first, these insects or grass? The insects predate the grass that they now often thrive in. Nightmarish Cricket That Eats Anything Is Now Invading the US

Wikimedia Commons

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Dinosaur Era fossils sometimes include what researchers call "roachoids," or wing impressions that were made by ancestors to today's roaches, mantids (like the praying mantis) and termites. "Some cockroaches are actually more closely related to termites than they are to other cockroaches," Kjer said, explaining that this makes tracing back their lineages somewhat confusing. He and his colleagues determined that the stem lineage goes back about 230 million years, while the earliest actual cockroach first emerged around 170 million years ago. Cockroaches: The Ultimate Survivors

Gary Alpert, Wikimedia Commons

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Termites and cockroaches have a tightly interwoven family history. Termites similar to the ones we know today were around 138 million years ago. Now we often think of termites as pests, but they are good eats for many different animals, which back in the day would have included our primate ancestors.

Wikimedia Commons

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Flies like houseflies that often buzz around homes belong to the order Diptera, which has a family tree that goes back 243 million years ago. The most recent common ancestor for modern flies lived about 158 million years ago, according to the study. There is little doubt that the earliest humans, and their primate predecessors, had to contend with pesky flies and all of the other insects mentioned on this list. All of these organisms are extremely hardy. The researchers determined that, in the history of our planet, there has only been one mass extinction event that had much impact on insects. It occurred 252 million years ago (the Permian mass extinction), and even it set the stage for the emergence of flies, cockroaches, termites and numerous other creepy crawlies. That Beer Smell? Designed to Attract Flies

Umberto Salvagnin, Wikimedia Commons

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Next month, as temperatures warm, billions of cicadas will begin to emerge from the ground as their internal clocks hit the 17-year mark. Soon, their numbers will swell in locations in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia and West Virginia, making a racket as the males call for the females.

Hawk Moths have sonar-blocking genitals and bees are electrically charged! But those aren't the only superpowers insects possess.

DCI

DCI

These red-eyed bugs began their lives in 1999, spent over a decade and a half underground, and soon will complete their life cycles as they crawl aboveground, mate, and then die after a month or a month and a half. The cicadas in this 17-year group are calledBrood V, and are actually comprised of three different species. Other cicada species follow a 13-year cycle, or an annual one.

In Ohio, the milestone in the bugs’ lives is even cause for celebration among humans— gift shops will sell a commemorative t-shirt. “It’s going to be a wild ride,” Wendy Weirich, who directs outdoor education for Cleveland Metroparks in Ohio, toldthe Plain Dealer.  ”It’s like Rip Van Winkle for insects.”

Cleveland Metroparks— which will host a number of special cicada events, including one called “Cicada Invasion”—  summed up what to expect from the brood’s emergence this way: “Overall, there will be a lot of bugs and a lot of noise.”

In fact, the bugs will be so numerous that their density can hit 1.5 million critters per acre.

The black and orange bugs won’t emerge this year until the soil hits 64 degrees. After the females lay their eggs this season, nymphs that hatch from them eventually make their way underground— where, like their parents, they will stay for another 17 years.

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Article originally appeared on FoxNews.com .

James Cameron's 'Avatar' gets four sequels!

Zoe Saldana as Neytiri in 'Avatar'
'Avatar 2' is set to release in 2017, next movies pegged to release in 2020, 2022, and 2023
Filmmaker James Cameron is extending the world of Avatar by adding a fourth sequel to his franchise plans.

The director, 61, scored a box office hit in 2009 with the release of the original fantasy blockbuster, which starred Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana.

It currently holds the title as the highest-grossing movie in history, said the Hollywood Reporter.

He then announced there would be three follow-ups, with Avatar 2 scheduled to hit cinemas in late 2016, but last year, Cameron admitted the writing process was taking longer than expected, and the second instalment was postponed until Christmas, 2017.

Cameron made a surprise appearance at CinemaCon in Las Vegas and offered up both good and bad news to fans.

ALSO READ Did 'Star Wars Episode VIII' force 'Avatar 2' to change release date?

"We're making four epic films that stand alone but together form a saga. These movies were designed to be seen in theatres first. I've been working with the top four screenwriters and designers in the world to design the world of Avatar going forward. The environments, new cultures... From what I'm seeing, the art on the wall... In pure imagination is just beyond the first film. I'm speechless."

Avatar 3 is pegged for release in 2020, with the fourth and fifth instalments following in 2022 and 2023.

Six ex-‘Apprentice’ stars to disavow Donald Trump for his ‘anti-American’ campaign

Six of Donald Trump’s ex-“Apprentice” hopefuls want him fired.

Former stars of the NBC reality show synonymous with the blabbering billionaire’s brand plan to disavow The Donald in a New York press conference Friday for his campaign of “sexism, xenophobia, racism, violence and hate,” they said in a statement obtained by the Daily News.

“Based on (our experience working for the Trump Organization) and Donald’s campaign, we do not believe he is worthy of becoming president of the United States,” said entrepreneur Randal Pinkett, who in season 4 became the first contestant of color to win the show’s U.S. version.

Business mentor and former beauty queen Marshawn Evans Daniels similarly slammed the mad mogul’s campaign as “unpatriotic, anti-American, self-serving, regressive and downright lazy” in a vividly worded condemnation.

“Trump is passionately and strategically reigniting a dirty and divisive culture soaked in a history of prejudice, fear and hate,” added Daniels, who also competed in season 4.

Goldman Sachs alum Kwame Jackson, the runner-up in season 1, will join in Friday's Trump rebuke, as will Kevin Allen (season 2), Tara Dowdell (season 3) and James Sun (season 6).

“America is at a tipping point in its demographic identity, social contract and fear of economic dislocation," Jackson said.

Who's the boss now?

"Into that void and vacuum of uncertainty and fear has stepped Mr. Trump, stoking the flames of our worst demons to the chagrin of our better angels and cherished ideals for a more perfect union."

The thin-skinned mogul shot back, of course, by insulting the “six failing wannabes.”

“How quickly they forget,” he thundered in a statement, claiming he “couldn’t have been nicer or more respectful” of the group. “They just want to get back into the limelight like they had when they were with Trump. Total dishonesty and disloyalty.”

Like many of Trump’s retorts, this one also included a thinly veiled threat.

“They should be careful or I’ll play hours of footage of them individually praising me,” he said.

Trump gleefully fired contestants on the American iteration of “the ultimate job interview” from 2004 to 2015. NBC severed ties with the businessman in the wake of his June 16 campaign launch, during which he blasted Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and drug peddlers.

Pro Surfer/Freediver Tags Elusive Hammerhead Sharks

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Jaws Beach provides the biggest, scariest waves in Hawaii.

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Jaws Beach provides the biggest, scariest waves in Hawaii. Photo: Ron Dahlquist/Corbis

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Mark Healey might be part fish. The pro big-wave surfer can hold his breath underwater for six minutes. He once swam with a great white shark, hanging onto its dorsal fin.

And recently, the freediver got up close and personal with overfished sharks off the coast of Japan so he could tag them for scientists.

Healey grew up in Hawaii and learned to swim before he could walk. He landed his first surfing sponsorship at age 13 and went pro at 17, according to his online bio. When he’s not surfing unbelievably big waves, Healey does dangerous movie stunts, goes spear-fishing and literally swims with the sharks.

This month he made the cover of Outside Magazine. ”I love having the opportunity to incorporate old knowledge like spearfishing into modern conservation and scientific discovery,” he told correspondentThayer Walker.

The guy, who has more than earned his “waterman” moniker, learned about the ocean conservation nonprofit Beneath The Wavesfrom fellow diver and marine conservationist Tre’ Packard. The group needed Healey’s expertise to tag scalloped hammerhead sharks in deep water near the Japanese island Mikomoto.

Populations of the scalloped hammerhead sharkhave declined drastically, in part from overfishing. Scientists want to tag them to better understand their migratory patterns and numbers, which will in turn help target their conservation efforts, Walker explained.

This is no simple task. Unlike other scientific shark-tagging operations, these hammerheads can’t be caught, tagged and released. Catching them would kill them. Despite growing up to 200 pounds and eight feet in length, they’re also hard to spot, given their skittish nature.

Healey and the scientific team spent nearly a week aboard the Otomaru before conditions were right for encountering them. The waterman got to work, free diving down to 135 feet, using a special device to launch tracking tags into a specific area behind the dorsal fin, and then resurfaced — without any extra oxygen.

“I get so much from the ocean,” Healey said in a recent video for GoPro, one of his sponsors. “You have to give back. You have to try to balance the scales.” Watch him successfully tag sharks here:

As a child, Healey used to accompany his father on spearfishing expeditions. “While my father was diving he’d drag me around on the buoy where all the fish were strung up,” he recountedon his site. “Looking back it’s pretty amazing that I never got eaten by a tiger shark.”

One of his most amazing shark feats was on a dive with great whites near Guadalupe Island in 2011 for a video shoot. He ended up hanging onto one shark’s dorsal finfor a ride — and somehow didn’t get hurt.

With all the shark encounters the man has racked up over the years, they probably think he’s one of them now.