A 132-year-old message in a bottle turned up on an Australian beach earlier this year, but it’s not a love note or a treasure map: it’s a science experiment.

The message in a bottle found by Andrew Leaper—certified by Guinness World Records on August 30 as the oldest ever recovered—belonged to a century-old science experiment. To study local ocean ...

It took over a century for a long-lost message in a bottle to wash up on shore, and it may be the oldest ever found. There was even a reward involved. Found after 108 years: Message in a bottle ...