Perfectly Preserved Potatoes
Courtesy of Lidio Valdez
These freeze-dried potatoes date back 500 years, to the Inca empire.
Scientists recently discovered a pair of 500-year-old potatoes on the coast of Peru. Remarkably, the spuds date back to the Inca empire, which once stretched across a large part of South America.
The potatoes, which were found in an ancient Inca storage room, survived for centuries because of the way they were preserved. The Inca people grew potatoes in the Andes Mountains. Then they exposed the potatoes to daytime sunlight and freezing nighttime mountain temperatures, over and over until they dried out. This technique, called freeze-drying, turned the potatoes into what is known as chuño.
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People in Bolivia prepare chuño using a technique developed by the Inca people hundreds of years before.
Chuño was far less likely to rot than fresh potatoes, which are mostly water. Removing water from potatoes and some other foods made it last a lot longer, enabling the Inca people to transport it hundreds of miles across the empire using llamas (animals related to camels). With food arriving from the mountain farms, people in other parts of the empire did not go hungry.
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The ruins of an ancient Inca city called Machu Picchu are located high in the Andes Mountains.
Scientists believe the Inca may have discovered freeze-drying by accident. Someone may have left potatoes in the freezing air by accident and then realized the dried potatoes could still be eaten.
Did You Know?
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The Inca people also freeze-dried meat, calling the product ch’arki. Today, we call it “jerky.”
A Dog of Distinction
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Jinny Lu is ready for her closeup.
Not every dog wears a string of pearls, but Jinny Lu isn’t just any pup. The 6-year-old pug is this year’s winner of the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest.
The contest takes place each year at the Sonoma County Fair, just north of San Francisco, California. It’s meant to promote dog adoptions—many of the participants were adopted from shelters. The Sonoma-Marin Agricultural Association, which runs the contest, says the event “celebrates the imperfections that make all dogs special and unique.”
© Tayfun Coskun—Anadolu/Getty Images
Michelle Grady shows off her loveable pug, Jinny Lu.
Aside from her pearl necklace, what makes Jinny Lu special is her tongue. It’s usually hanging out of one side of her mouth. That’s just fine with Jinny Lu’s owner, Michelle Grady. She’s proud of the little dog’s differences and loves her friendly, inquisitive personality even more.
“She’s got her silly tongue, but I feel like it’s more the way she looks into people’s eyes,” Grady told the Orange County Register. “She genuinely wants to be held by people.”
The Inca Empire



Courtesy of Jeremy Spencer
Hundreds of years ago, the Inca people built cities, developed new ways of farming and preserving food, and more. Check out the slideshow, which features some Inca ruins as they look today. Then read more about this South American empire at Britannica!
WHAT'S THE WORD?
desiccated
adjective
Definition:
: having had the water removed
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