When archaeologists explored an underwater cavern in southern Mexico in 2014, they were shocked by what they found. The cavern is known as Sac Uayum, and is located in Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. It is technically a cenote – a natural pit that comes about after limestone bedrock collapses, exposing groundwater beneath. Local villagers were said to be terrified of the spot, because pits like this were sometimes used by the ancient Maya for sacrificial offerings. Archaeologist Bradley Russell, from College of St Rose, and a group of divers scaled down roughly 20 metres into the unknown. Inside the pit were two chambers with human bones and skulls scattered across the floors of each. The skulls were elongated, as part of an ancient practice that is thought to have involved flattening people’s heads during infancy. Archaeologists still don’t know why the ancient culture did this – but it ain't pretty. The cenote sits just outside the ruins of the ancient Maya city of Mayapán, and the researchers think this shows that, like the modern day locals, the ancient Mayans kept their distance too. Local legend says that Sac Uayum is guarded by a feathered, horse-headed serpent. Older residents of the nearby village of Telchaquillo tell stories of people seeing the serpent perching in a tree, leaping up, spinning around three times, and diving into the water. Russell explained to National Geographic that the sinkhole is said to be “evil”. “To this day, people do not get drinking water from that cenote, it is generally considered taboo. “It’s off-limits, people do not let their children plan near there and there’s a lot of beliefs around this cenote having evil forces or malevolent forces associated with it. “Cenotes are important because the main access to the water that you get is through these sinkholes. “They are also believed to be access to the Mayan underworld and the homes of Gods. “Mayapan is a large city, it’s incredibly dense, there’s nothing like it in the classic period, it’s incredibly dense for Maya history, there’s nothing quite like it.” He added that the location of Sac Uayum – south of Mayapan – is a clue as to what was going on. In Maya beliefs, south is the direction associated with the underworld. Alternatively, Russell also suggested they could have been plague victims. "You wouldn't want them near the rest of the population. And you wouldn't want to drink the water either.” How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 12, 2023--

Metallica has stepped in with a big compliment for a woman posting bagpipe covers of the band’s songs on Instagram, after she was criticised by fans online. New Yorker Ally Crowley-Duncan, known online as Piper Ally, has nearly 330,000 followers on the social media app, where she posts videos of her playing the instrument. On 20 June, Crowley-Duncan uploaded a video showcasing “Five Metallica songs you didn’t know you could bagpipe.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “Metallica and bagpipes is *chefs kiss*,” she wrote, with covers of some of the band’s biggest hits including Master of Puppets, Fade to Black, One, Enter Sandman, and Whiskey in the Jar. One Instagram user was unimpressed. “Bagpipes don’t belong in Metallica!!,” they wrote. “James [Hetfield, the lead singer] would not approve.” However, within minutes, Metallica intervened, saying: “@Ally the Piper. This guy doesn’t speak on our behalf. You’re awesome.” In a separate post, Crowley-Duncan shared the comment. She said: “When Metallica defends you in the comments of your own video.” Other users were quick to leap to her defence. One person said: “Could not have [a] bigger compliment.” Another said: “This is LEGENDARY.” Before long, the critic had deleted their comment, and later their own Instagram account. One commenter added: “This one goes out to that comment trying to talk for @metallica. Keep it up bad ass.” Another said: “Imagine getting owned so hard you up and quit Instagram. Metallica has spoken!” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Andrew Tate challenges Adin Ross to a game of Super Smash Bros in Romania, with the winner receiving $10,000 for each game

Madison Beer made her debut on Twitch recently and while navigating its complexities, she revealed that xQc is her favorite streamer

We don't know about you, but #CleanTok is a corner of the internet we find oddly comforting and addicting. Watching these ASMR videos of people tirelessly spraying, wiping, and vacuuming every surface of their households stirs up a vicarious sense of accomplishment and, in turn, motivates us to spruce up our own homes. This trend has also been a rather handy way to discover cheap but useful Amazon products.

Direct messaging is reportedly coming to Threads soon as the Twitter rival app’s user base grows to nearly one-tenth of the Elon Musk-owned platform. A leaked internal report from Meta suggests DMs will be “coming soon” to Instagram’s Threads, along with other exciting features, Business Insider reported. Initially, Instagram’s chief Adam Mosseri had said DMs are not in Threads’ immediate roadmap, but the new leaked memo suggests the Twitter competitor could offer the messaging feature much sooner than expected. This expected update to the platform comes as Threads now has over 100 million user sign ups just within days of its arrival, boasting a weekly active user base that is nearly one-fifth of competitor Twitter’s. Within just its first week of launch, Threads racked up about 93 million active users globally and on 10 July, Meta announced that the app had reached 100 million signups. The app now has more than 150 million downloads, reaching this milestone “5.5 times more quickly than the second-fastest app to do so”, according to the app intelligence firm data.ai. Niantic’s Pokémon GO held the top spot as the most rapidly downloaded app for years since its debut in July 2016. Among Threads’ userbase, data.ai’s report suggested India accounts for nearly a third of the app’s downloads, followed by Brazil, with 22 per cent of overall Threads’ installs, and the US representing about 16 per cent of the total. Now, with the anticipated inclusion of a direct messaging feature, people on Threads can stay longer and chat privately without having to leave the app. Other features such as improved search, trends and topics are also reportedly coming soon, along with a feed in chronological order. It is unclear when these new updates will come. The new changes could put more pressure on Twitter and its owner Elon Musk, who said the platform continues to lose cash as advertising has dropped by half. “We’re still negative cash flow, due to (about a) 50 per cent drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load,” Mr Musk tweeted on Saturday. “Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” he said. Read More $44 billion and eight months later. It’s finally all over for Elon Musk Twitter changed my life – I’ll never forgive Elon Musk for what he’s done to it Twitter is in negative cash flow due to 50% drop in advertising revenue, says Elon Musk Twitter in negative cash flow due to 50% drop in advertising revenue, says Elon Musk Twitter starts making payments to its most controversial users Elon Musk posts series of explicit tweets about Mark Zuckerberg

MIAMI & TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 2023--

Back when blue ticks on Twitter were something you had to apply for, they were

Asmongold is waiting for a good deal from Twitch competitors. Let's get to know more about it

The UK, US and other governments have released plans they hope will stop artificial intelligence being hijacked by rogue actors. The major agreement – hailed as the first of its kind – represents an attempt to codify rules that will keep AI safe and ensure that systems are built to be secure by design. In a 20-page document unveiled Sunday, the 18 countries agreed that companies designing and using AI need to develop and deploy it in a way that keeps customers and the wider public safe from misuse. The agreement is non-binding and carries mostly general recommendations such as monitoring AI systems for abuse, protecting data from tampering and vetting software suppliers. Still, the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Jen Easterly, said it was important that so many countries put their names to the idea that AI systems needed to put safety first. “This is the first time that we have seen an affirmation that these capabilities should not just be about cool features and how quickly we can get them to market or how we can compete to drive down costs,” Easterly told Reuters, saying the guidelines represent “an agreement that the most important thing that needs to be done at the design phase is security.” The agreement is the latest in a series of initiatives - few of which carry teeth - by governments around the world to shape the development of AI, whose weight is increasingly being felt in industry and society at large. In addition to the United States and Britain, the 18 countries that signed on to the new guidelines include Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Australia, Chile, Israel, Nigeria and Singapore. The framework deals with questions of how to keep AI technology from being hijacked by hackers and includes recommendations such as only releasing models after appropriate security testing. It does not tackle thorny questions around the appropriate uses of AI, or how the data that feeds these models is gathered. The rise of AI has fed a host of concerns, including the fear that it could be used to disrupt the democratic process, turbocharge fraud, or lead to dramatic job loss, among other harms. Europe is ahead of the United States on regulations around AI, with lawmakers there drafting AI rules. France, Germany and Italy also recently reached an agreement on how artificia lintelligence should be regulated that supports “mandatory self-regulation through codes of conduct” for so-called foundation models of AI, which are designed to produce a broad range of outputs. The Biden administration has been pressing lawmakers for AI regulation, but a polarized U.S. Congress has made little headway in passing effective regulation. The White House sought to reduce AI risks to consumers, workers, and minority groups while bolstering national security with a new executive order in October. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More Putin targets AI as latest battleground with West AI breakthrough could help us build solar panels out of ‘miracle material’ OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman ousted as CEO YouTube reveals bizarre AI music experiments AI-generated faces are starting to look more real than actual ones Children are making indecent images using AI image generators, experts warn

By David Shepardson WASHINGTON The personal information of 237,000 current and former federal government employees has been exposed