Every state’s license plate has undergone some change throughout the years. Nowadays, some might not look anything like they used to. That means they’re constantly getting updated to look as best they can. However, some changes proved to be failures that only angered state folk. Sometimes, officials get it wrong, and these older iterations show where.

Idaho’s 1928 License Plate Fail

Idaho’s vehicle plate in 1928 was the first among other states to have an image, but that soon proved to be a mistake for the state. The strangely elongated potato on the plate not only became a cliche but served as a symbol of cars traveling for agriculture. The plate was so iconic that people started stealing them as souvenirs, which quickly made officials eschew them only a year later.

Ohio’s Plate Fail 1998 to Present

Although Orville and Wilbur Wright first flew on the outer banks of North Carolina – they were born in, and conceived their famous flying machine, in Ohio. That’s why state officials decided to put the iteration Birthplace of Aviation on the license plate of vehicles. They wanted to honor the Wright brothers and beat out the iteration North Carolina had put on its plates – First in Flight. Ohio’s vintage plates can still be seen on some cars even today.

Alaska’s 1997 Bear Illustration

Alaska’s first mistake for its 1997 license plate bear illustration was not asking permission for the actual image. They copied the picture from the Complete Book of Hunting, but as it turned out, the original artist, Douglas Allen, had never even been to Alaska – he sketched the bear at the Bronx Zoo. But that wasn’t the biggest problem. Many residents commented that the bear looked like a ‘bad taxidermy job’ or a fat guy in a suit. Officials were forced to retire the bear image in 1981 but adopted it again in 2015.

Massachusett’s Fish Fail

The small fish illustrated on the Massachusetts plate caused quite an uproar and had to be relinquished after two consequent years of horrible fishing seasons. The residents believed the fish was a bad omen, even after the officials changed it to appear as if it were swimming toward the word ‘Mass’ – no one was happy. After the bad fishing season in 1929, the state got rid of the fish – it was the simplest thing to do.

What can state officials take away from all the license plate failures throughout the years? They must be very careful when thinking up iterations and images to put on their plates. While some might enjoy a more playful approach, others may not be so pleased with fails – but they sure make for a great souvenir!

Science can be incredibly intriguing, especially when the largest ever human genealogical network dating back 100,000 years is created! Using modern and ancient human genomes, researchers have come up with a human family tree that traces back nearly 27 million ancestors.

The Research and Finding

According to CNN, World Report, and U.S. News, an international team of scientists has produced this massive human family tree by combining genetic reports of a total of 3,609 individual genome sequences from a wide range of 215 populations across the globe. This family tree not only identifies ancestors but also shows where they lived.  The leader of the study, Anthony Wilder Wohns, has explained that through this research, a single genealogy is created, which identifies the ancestry of the entirety of humankind and also shows how we’re all related today to each other. He also has informed that the ancient genomes used in this study are from samples dated over 100,000 years ago.

The Process

As per the CNN report, the complex algorithms needed to process this large amount of data involved with this huge scale of research are developed by the scientists at the Big Data Institute of the University of Oxford. One of the principal authors of the study and an evolutionary geneticist from the institute, Yan Wong has explained that this massive study is laying the important groundwork for the next generation of advanced DNA sequencing. He has further elaborated that, as the quality of genome sequences from both ancient and modern DNA samples evolves and improves, the DNA trees will become even more precise, eventually leading the scientists to generate a single and unified family tree. This unified genetic map then will identify the human ancestors and explain the lineage of all the human genetic variations found in the world today.

The Scope

According to a report from Reuters, this study helps demonstrate the diversity of human genetics and establishes the interrelation among people around the world. The researchers have already confirmed that the human species first originated in Africa and then gradually migrated to other parts of the world. As Wohns has informed Reuters, the study had traced back the very earliest ancestors to a geographic location indicating modern Sudan. This unique research is certainly about to reveal more mysteries like this striking information, related to the ancestors of modern humans.