
From The Hustle: “Just after 11 PM on February 15, 1992, a janky ball machine at the Virginia State Lottery HQ spit out 6 winning numbers on live television: 8… 11… 13… 15… 19… 20. In the coming days, officials would find out that one “person” had secured not only the $27,036,142 jackpot, but 6 second prizes, 132 third prizes, and 135k minor prizes collectively worth another $900k. What unfolded next was the strangest, most improbable lottery tale in history — one involving thousands of international investors, dozens of complex computer systems, and a mathematical savant. This is the story of the man who “gamed” the lottery by buying every possible combination. In the late 1960s, a young Romanian economist named Stefan Mandel was struggling to get by. Many Romanians might have turned to a life of crime. But Mandel, a self-described “philosopher-mathematician,” saw another way out: The lottery.”
Researchers have brought prehistoric algae back to life after 7,000 years in Baltic Sea mud

From Phys.org: “A research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) was able to revive dormant stages of algae that sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea almost 7,000 years ago. Despite thousands of years of inactivity in the sediment without light and oxygen, the investigated diatom species regained full viability. Many organisms, from bacteria to mammals, can go into a kind of “sleep mode,” known as dormancy, in order to survive periods of unfavorable environmental conditions. They switch to a state of reduced metabolic activity and often form special dormancy stages with robust protective structures and internally stored energy reserves. This also applies to phytoplankton, microscopically small plants that live in the water and photosynthesize. Their dormant stages sink to the bottom of water bodies, where they are covered by sediment over time and preserved under anoxic conditions.”
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