00:00There's a mysterious island that appears and disappears like magic.
00:05Just like Schrödinger's cat, this Schrödinger's island exists and doesn't exist at the same
00:10time.
00:11Officially, it's called Sandy Island, and it once appeared in maps, but it was never
00:16there in real life.
00:18Australian scientists decided to solve the mystery once and for all by embarking on an
00:23adventure to find this elusive archipelago.
00:26But when they reached the coordinates, all they found was endless blue waves.
00:31It's like the island was playing a game of hide-and-seek with them.
00:35This story goes back to 1876.
00:37A whaling ship was crossing the area and reported an island.
00:42Whoever saw it said it was over 15 miles long north to south and around 3 miles wide.
00:48About the size of Manhattan, so not so tiny at all.
00:52But every time researchers went to visit the area, they found nothing.
00:56So in 1974, an official mission from New Caledonia declared that Sandy Island was
01:02simply not a thing and excluded it from all maps.
01:07People went on with their lives until they noticed that the island was appearing on Google
01:10Earth as a black blob.
01:12In 2012, another Australian expedition went out to check out the area to get some explanations.
01:19They had to write a eulogy for the long-lost island and explain what could have created
01:24this mess.
01:25For starters, mapping technology wasn't at its peak back in the 1900s.
01:30It was easy to get the coordinates wrong.
01:33Then there was the fact that the area is big on volcanic activities.
01:37It's likely that volcanic lava cooled down and created a raft of some kind.
01:43Let's say that the whaling ship went by, saw the volcanic raft, and thought it was
01:47land from a distance.
01:49But hey, it's just a guess.
01:52Scientists have ventured far and wide across the globe, and it may have seemed at some
01:56point that we discovered each and every nook of our planet.
02:00But when Mount Liko popped up on Google Earth, scientists were overcome with excitement.
02:06This hidden gem in northern Mozambique is no ordinary rainforest – it's nestled
02:11inside a volcano!
02:14Determined to confirm the existence of this mysterious forest, experts assembled a team
02:18of top-notch scientists and specialists from around the world.
02:22The journey to Mount Liko was no walk in the park, with a daunting vertical rock climb
02:27standing between them and the forest.
02:30But after 6 years of planning and preparation, they were ready for the challenge.
02:35Once they got there, they saw it was even better than they imagined.
02:39The place was like a perfectly tended garden.
02:42The forest sounded unique and different from other rainforests.
02:46There were some insanely huge caterpillars that looked dangerous.
02:50And they even found ancient pots and evidence of an untouched human ecosystem.
02:57Terra incognita means unknown land.
03:00And one of the largest unknown territories being uncovered today is the land beneath
03:05Antarctica's ice sheets.
03:07Below the snowy surface, there is an entirely new world of canyons, waterways, and lakes,
03:12which are now being mapped.
03:15One can't help but wonder, is there really liquid water below Antarctica's frozen surface?
03:20Yep.
03:21Water can exist without freezing due to pressure.
03:24The liquid water is the result of Earth's warm interior, and that's how we get things
03:29such as Lake Vostok.
03:31You can't see it, but Lake Vostok is right here.
03:35Located in East Antarctica, it lies beneath 2.5 miles of thick ice.
03:40This huge lake is about 4,800 square miles.
03:44Scientists could only discover it with the help of some top-notch technologies like seismic
03:49soundings and ice-penetrating radars.
03:52According to these scientists, it's likely that the lake has been there for up to 15
03:57million years.
03:59Bhutan is on the map for, among other things, being the happiest country in all of Asia.
04:05But it kept a hidden gem for all these years – one of the world's tallest unclimbed
04:10mountains – Khunkhar Pansum.
04:13Bhutan is enmeshed in the glorious Himalayan Mountains.
04:16That's why the climbing community was beyond excited when they discovered an untouched
04:22mountain.
04:23Imagine being the first person to climb an unexplored peak.
04:26That would probably guarantee you a spot in the Guinness World Records for sure.
04:31The mountain has been untouched because of a Bhutanese law.
04:34For locals, the mountain peak is a sacred site, shrouded in mystery and legends.
04:40Part of their beliefs is that the sacredness of climbing a mountain lies not in reaching
04:44its peak, but in truly communing with the mountain and enjoying the process.
04:49We gotta admit, that is a bit of a newsflash for Westerners.
04:54If you're ever in the state of New York, make sure you check out the Aglo General Store.
05:00You'll have to drive somewhere around the Catskills to find a beautiful grand big nothing.
05:06Aglo is one of America's most famous paper towns, aka a fake town.
05:12But this case is different from Sandy Island.
05:15Aglo town never existed, and it wasn't a mistake.
05:18You see, there's an old copyright practice amongst mapmakers.
05:22They add in paper towns so they can know when someone is simply copy-pasting their work.
05:28What they didn't expect is that this would get completely out of hand.
05:32Some say that one day, a guy picked up a map at a gas station that had Aglo town marked
05:37in it.
05:38The person decided to open a store over there and named it Aglo General Store.
05:43Some say the guy who opened the store faced a lawsuit from the mapmakers.
05:47Anyways, it only lasted enough years to become a national joke.
05:52Americans drove from all over the US to get a picture of the town's fake welcome sign.
05:58And then we've got Bermeja Island, located in the Gulf of Mexico.
06:03This funky island appeared on many maps of the 16th and 17th centuries.
06:07It was probably drawn by Spanish explorers.
06:10Sure, the exact location varied from map to map, and its name sometimes appeared as Vermeja,
06:17but its existence was certain enough.
06:20The Bermeja Island was last seen in a 1921 Mexican map, and then, poof, it dropped out
06:26of the horizon altogether.
06:28People started talking and wondering, did the island sink?
06:32Was it destroyed?
06:33In 2009, three official investigations happened to search for the island.
06:39They used high-tech technologies to scour the Mexican seabed.
06:43But Bermeja was nowhere.
06:45Researchers had multiple guesses on what it could be.
06:48Let's delve on one of these ideas.
06:50The idea was probably made up by old-day explorers to mislead their enemies in search of land
06:57and gold.
06:58Well, that seems plausible.
06:59Now, let's take a look at Rio de Janeiro.
07:01Once, the city was filled with informal territories.
07:05These places are known as slums or favelas.
07:08They're like mini-cities inside the big city.
07:11Some favelas are known to be underprivileged territories, where dwellers don't get the
07:15same urban perks as other citizens, such as the sewage system and garbage pickups.
07:22These slums grew so quickly that the government didn't have time to keep track of their
07:26developments.
07:27So today, it's usually the dwellers themselves that name the streets and make do with whatever
07:33they have at their disposal.
07:35One of the biggest slums in Brazil is located in Rio de Janeiro, the so-called Hassinia,
07:40and it was only recognized as a neighborhood by the local government in the 1990s.
07:46Our own ocean floor is less mapped than Venus, Mars, and the Moon.
07:51In fact, 95% of our oceans are unexplored.
07:55Strange, right?
07:56We do have the available technology, which is mainly sonar soundings, sending wave sounds
08:01to the ocean bed, and registering what they hear back.
08:05One of the main advantages of mapping the seabed more thoroughly would be to get more
08:09insight to marine hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions.
08:15Plus, there are so many unidentified marine life.
08:19This could give us a great insight into preservation and discovering the true dynamics of our marine
08:24ecosystems.
08:26That's it for today!
08:27So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
08:32friends!
08:33Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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