5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including a man who woke up from a coma speaking a whole new language
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 13, 2014 5:23 AM CDT
5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week
John Geiger, president of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, holds an iron fitting from a Royal Navy ship. The artifact helped lead to the discovery of a ship lost in the Arctic more than a century ago.   (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Sean Kilpatrick)

Something amazing underneath the monuments of Stonehenge and the discovery of a ship missing for 160 years were among the week's more intriguing discoveries:

  • There's a Giant 'Super Henge' Underneath Stonehenge: There seems to be new proof there are Neolithic monuments underneath Stonehenge as well as on the ground. Radar mapping that's peeked as far as 2 miles beneath the surface has uncovered an elaborate subterranean network of 17 monuments, plus evidence of more than 50 big stones around the same age as the above-ground versions.
  • Explorer Ship Missing Since 1845 Found in Arctic: In 1845, British explorer Sir John Franklin set off with 128 men on the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus to explore the Arctic's Northwest Passage. Both ships apparently got stuck in the ice and then vanished, earning their place in the annals of Canada's greatest adventure mysteries—until this week. One of the ships has been found.

  • Boy Finds 3K-Year-Old Sword in River: An 11-year-old boy from China's Jiangsu province was playing next to the Laozhoulin River in early July when he decided to wash his hands. As he dunked them into the water, he felt something graze his hand, pulled it out, and brought it home to show his dad. Experts say "it" turns out to be a 3,000-year-old bronze sword, probably from either the Shang or Zhou dynasty.
  • Man Wakes From Coma Speaking Fluent Mandarin: When Ben McMahon went into a coma after a car crash, he spoke English; when he woke up, he spoke only fluent Mandarin. Although the Australian man had taken Mandarin in high school, he was never fluent, and doctors are still trying to figure out exactly what happened.
  • 24-Year-Old Discovers She's Missing Key Part of Brain: The cerebellum is a pretty important part of the brain—it plays a key role in walking, among other movements—so doctors in China were more than a little surprised when a 24-year-old patient who lives a relatively normal life turned out not to have one.
Click to read about more discoveries. (More discoveries stories.)

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