Top Ten Discoveries of 2011: Nat Geo News's Most Popular

9. Blackbeard's Sword Uncovered?

Photograph courtesy Wendy M. Welsh, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources

Could this partly gilded hilt have held Blackbeard's sword? There's no way to know for sure, though it was found amid the North Carolina wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge, the flagship of the infamous 18th-century pirate.

Since 1997, archaeologists have been excavating the Queen Anne's Revenge. The sword hilt—found in pieces but reassembled for this picture—was among the latest finds revealed to the public in January. (Related: exclusive pictures of Blackbeard pirate relics and gold.)

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Published December 20, 2011

8. Lost Maya City Revealed

Photograph courtesy Michael G. Callaghan

Archaeologist Brigitte Kovacevich crouches near a looters' tunnel inside the pyramid at the Head of Stone, an ancient Maya city that's finally coming into focus.

Three-dimensional mapping "erased" centuries of Guatemalan jungle growth, revealing the rough contours of nearly a hundred buildings, according to research presented in April. (See National Geographic pictures of excavated Maya cities.)

Using GPS and electronic distance-measurement technology, the researchers plotted the locations and elevations of a seven-story-tall pyramid, an astronomical observatory, a ritual ball court, several stone residences, and other structures.

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Published December 20, 2011

7. Planet at Right Distance for Life

Illustration courtesy Caltech/NASA

A possible Earth twin was confirmed orbiting a sunlike star 600 light-years away—and the new planet may be in just the right spot for supporting life, NASA announced in December.

Discovered by the Kepler space mission, the new planet—dubbed Kepler-22b—is the first world smaller than Neptune mission scientists have found in the middle of its star's habitable zone.

Also called the Goldilocks zone, the habitable zone is the region around a star where a planet's surface is not too hot and not too cold for liquid water—and thus life as we know it—to exist.

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Published December 20, 2011

6. Biggest Great White Shark Caught

Photograph courtesy National Geographic Channel

Talk about a big fish: An expedition crew hauled up—and released—the biggest great white shark yet caught, a team said in May.

The 17.9-foot-long (5.5-meter-long) male behemoth was found off Mexico's Guadalupe Island (map) in fall 2009.

The animal breaks the team's previous record of 16.8 feet (5.1 meters), set when they caught a female great white named Kimel. (Both records are unofficial and not maintained by a formal organization.)

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Published December 20, 2011

5. New Fungi Make "Zombie" Ants

Photograph courtesy David Hughes

A stalk of the newfound fungus species Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani grows out of a "zombie" ant's head in a Brazilian rain forest.

Originally thought to be a single species, called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, the fungus is actually four distinct species—all of which can "mind control" ants—scientists announced in March.

The fungus species can infect an ant, take over its brain, and then kill the insect once it moves to a location ideal for the fungi to grow and spread their spores.

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Published December 20, 2011

4. Biggest Crocodile Caught?

Photograph from Reuters

Caught alive after a three-week hunt, a roughly 21-foot-long (6.4-meter-long) saltwater crocodile caught in the Philippines may be the largest crocodile yet captured, officials said in September.

The 2,369-pound (1,075-kilogram) crocodile is suspected of attacking several people and killing two. The animal, named Lolong, survived capture and was held in a temporary enclosure near Bunawan township (map).

Guinness World Records in September listed a 17.97-foot-long (5.48-meter-long), Australian-caught saltwater crocodile as the largest in captivity. According to zoologist Adam Britton, Guinness rules specify that Lolong will need to wait till at least March 2012 for a shot at the "official" record.

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Published December 20, 2011

3. Yellowstone's Supervolcano Bulged

Photograph by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic

Yellowstone National Park's supervolcano recently took a deep "breath," causing miles of ground to rise dramatically, scientists reported in January.

The simmering volcano has produced major eruptions—each a thousand times more powerful than Mount St. Helens's 1980 eruption—three times in the past 2.1 million years.

Yellowstone's caldera, which covers a 25-by-37-mile (40-by-60-kilometer) swath of Wyoming, is an ancient crater formed after the last big blast, some 640,000 years ago. (See "When Yellowstone Explodes" in National Geographic magazine.)

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Published December 20, 2011

2. Rare "Cyclops" Shark Found

Photograph courtesy Marcela Bejarano-Álvarez

An extremely rare cyclops shark has been confirmed in Mexico, scientists announced in October.

The 22-inch-long (56-centimeter-long) fetus has a single, functioning eye at the front of its head. The eye is a hallmark of a congenital condition called cyclopia, which occurs in several animal species, including humans. (See "Cyclops Myth Spurred by 'One-Eyed' Fossils?")

Scientists have documented cyclops shark embryos a few times before, said Jim Gelsleichter, a shark biologist at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. The fact that none have been caught outside the womb suggests cyclops sharks don't survive long in the wild.

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Published December 20, 2011

1. Area 51 Plane Crash Revealed

Photograph from Roadrunners Internationale via Pangloss Films

Suspended upside down, a titanium A-12 spy-plane prototype is prepped for radar testing at Area 51 in the late 1950s.

After a rash of declassifications, details of Cold War workings at the Nevada base, which to this day does not officially exist, are coming to light—including never before released images of an A-12 crash and its cover-up, National Geographic News reported in May.

(Also see "Revealed: How Area 51 Hid Secret Craft.")

Area 51 was created so that U.S. Cold Warriors with the highest security clearances could pursue cutting-edge aeronautical projects away from prying eyes. During the 1950s and '60s, Area 51's top-secret OXCART program developed the A-12 as the successor to the U-2 spy plane.

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Published December 20, 2011