A list of curious facts

One: From the early days of Silicon Valley—till about the 2000s—hardware engineers would ‘sign’ their work:

Engineers would add the sketches to their microchip designs in the techie equivalent of signing their artwork. They'd etch them on chips that may end up in your cellphone, laptop or calculator. They spent hours crafting them, even though they were frowned upon by those in the C Suite.

These doodles ranged from owls to Ganeshas and most fittingly, Waldo (of ‘Where is Waldo’ fame). This silicon graffiti has now become a passion for hobbyists—who spend hours looking for these microscopic easter eggs. Check out a fun medley below. (NPR)

Two: The 5,300-year-old artefacts unearthed by the archaeological dig in Keeladi suggests that the Iron Age may have begun in Tamil Nadu—not Asia Minor, as popularly believed (Big Story here). More recently, researchers have reconstructed the skulls of two men discovered in Kondagai— an ancient burial site about 4 km from Keeladi. These are relatively young—only 2500 years old. The most fascinating bit: 

"The faces mainly have features of Ancient Ancestral South Indians — a population group believed to be the first inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent," says Prof Kumaresan. The features also reveal traces of Middle-East Eurasian and Austro-Asiactic ancestries, hinting at global migration and the mixing of ancient population groups.

See the images of the reconstructed faces below. (BBC News)

Three: The Garbage Cafe in Ambikapur, Chattisgarh, has found the best incentive for recycling—food. This brilliant establishment offers ragpickers—poor and hungry—a hot piping meal when they bring in one kg of plastic waste. Run by the local municipal authority, the cafe’s tagline is “More the waste, better the taste.” The even better news: Garbage cafes have been popping up across the country in recent years—from New Delhi to Siliguri in West Bengal and Mulugu in Telangana. A similar campaign in Uttar Pradesh hands out sanitary pads to women in exchange for waste. (The Guardian)

Bonus fact: Did you know that Arthur Conan Doyle—of Sherlock Holmes fame—had a secret life as a footballer. He played under the alias AC Smith for Portsmouth AFC during the 1880s. He was mostly a goalie or a ‘back’—best known for his ‘heavy kicking’. Not content with his football prowess, Doyle was also the founder and captain of the local cricket team. (Daily Mail)

Bonus, bonus fact: Since this is our farewell list of curious facts, we leave you with salad cakes: “Imagine biting into a beautiful cake, but instead of a sugary rush you get the fresh flavors of celery, carrot and red cabbage.” They started out as a craze in Japan—but have found new ‘Dali-esque’ life in New York. Endive on a pastry is a hard pass for us—but they do look rather pretty.

Why the Dali connection, you ask? The great man actually wrote a cookbook—which has been re-released for the first time in 40 years:

The artworks depict towering mountains of crayfish with unsettling overtones of cannibalism, an unusual meeting of a swan and a toothbrush in a pastry case, and portraits of Dali himself mingling with chefs against decadent place settings. Recipes include such delicacies as “Thousand Year Old Eggs”, “Veal Cutlets Stuffed With Snails”, “Frog Pasties”, and “Toffee with Pine Cones”.

Yikes! More on the cookbook over at This Is Colossal. (New York Times)