As if today’s world hasn’t messed with your mind enough already, in late December 2020, the Neural Correlate Society announced the top designs in its annual Best Illusions contest. This year’s winner is a 3-D interpretation of a classic optical illusion, the Shröder Staircase. In the original, two-dimensional illusion, a series of zig-zagging parallelograms span a
Searching for good news about 2020, I came across an interesting article, “Ten Scientific Discoveries From 2020 That May Lead To New Inventions” by Rachael Lallensack in the Smithsonian Magazine. This piece features animals with newly discovered special abilities that may be useful to us. The lessons come from many different sources, including suckerfish, flying
One of the rituals of a new year is to plan self improvement in the form of a resolution, then ultimately slip back into your former habits. There’s got to be a better way. Actually, there is. In an article entitled “How to Set Goals You’ll Actually Achieve,” Amanda Loudin lays out a plan to
What is your trigger point, the moment when you see a wrong and feel you just have to do something about it? For Dutch clothing designer Bas Timmer, it was in 2014 when a friend’s father succumbed to hypothermia after being unable to find adequate shelter. Bas had started his own outdoor, cold weather clothing line,
A strange story to end a strange year: If you have chronic pain and have tried massage to no avail, there is one type of massage you may consider. Or not. A small spa in Cairo, Egypt uses snakes, real snakes, to slither over patients’ backs and faces. The treatment begins very conventionally, with background
The end of the year is always a good time for reflection, and it’s the perfect time to note milestones and measure progress. As such, I’ve found a very unusual milestone in the history of our planet. The year 2020 saw the total weight of man-made materials overtake the weight of biomass made by Mother
I have never understood hypnosis. Its use in numerous TV shows and movies over the years hasn’t really explained to me what actually happens. So a recent article entitled “Is Hypnosis Real? Here’s What Science Says” by Markham Heid caught my eye (https://time.com/5380312/is-hypnosis-real-science/?). “There are many myths about hypnosis, mostly coming from media presentations,” says
Have you ever read about someone’s accomplishments and think “I wish I’d done that!”? This can be doubly true if you’re a professional and you see how others in your field are surpassing you. One of the worst professions for envy is journalism. The stories your competitors found — and you missed — are on
First, the bad news — Ladakh, a plateau on the northern tip of India, has a major problem. With only four inches of rain a year, this area depends upon winter snow and mountain glaciers for most of its water. But due to climate change, the snow is melting earlier and the glaciers are receding.
What is the loudest noise you can imagine? The human ear’s pain threshold is near 130 decibels. For comparison, a jackhammer puts out about 100 decibels, and a jet engine comes in at about 150 decibels. Yet there was a sound that was measured at least 172 decibels 100 miles from the source. This source
