New Plant Language Discovered. Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects. This course gives you easy access to the invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines. We’ll learn about the how the brain uses two very different learning modes and how it encapsulates (“chunks”) information. We’ll also cover illusions of learning, memory techniques, dealing with procrastination, and best practices shown by research to be most effective in helping you master tough subjects. The Science Of Fireworks. Something surprising happens to your body when you freedive. Featured image: Photo of freediver Hanli Prinsloo by Annelie Pompe.
In 1949, a stocky Italian air force lieutenant named Raimondo Bucher decided to try a potentially deadly stunt off the coast of Capri, Italy. Bucher would sail out to the center of the lake, take a breath and hold it, and free-dive down one hundred feet to the bottom. Waiting there would be a man in a diving suit. Why Is Yawning Contagious? Does the Universe Have a Purpose? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Animated. Naked Mole Rats: The Animal Kingdom's Most Functional Dysfunctional Family.
The naked mole rat lives as bees or ants do — in a colony with a queen and soldiers.
Naked mole rats are very cute, in a very ugly way. "They have very little hair, no fur, some whiskers, some hair between their toes, like hobbits, and actually some hair inside of their mouth, which keeps their mouth nice and clean while they dig because they dig with their teeth, says David Kessler with the Smithsonian's National Zoo. "They're virtually blind 'cause they spend their entire lives underground, their skin is very thin and wrinkly, and almost translucent. " Russell Foster: Why do we sleep? Wait but why: Putting Time In Perspective. Humans are good at a lot of things, but putting time in perspective is not one of them.
It’s not our fault—the spans of time in human history, and even more so in natural history, are so vast compared to the span of our life and recent history that it’s almost impossible to get a handle on it. If the Earth formed at midnight and the present moment is the next midnight, 24 hours later, modern humans have been around since 11:59:59pm—1 second. And if human history itself spans 24 hours from one midnight to the next, 14 minutes represents the time since Christ. Brains flush toxic waste in sleep, including Alzheimer’s-linked protein, study of mice finds. Scientists say this nightly self-clean by the brain provides a compelling biological reason for the restorative power of sleep.
“Sleep puts the brain in another state where we clean out all the byproducts of activity during the daytime,” said study author and University of Rochester neurosurgeon Maiken Nedergaard. Those byproducts include beta-amyloid protein, clumps of which form plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Staying up all night could prevent the brain from getting rid of these toxins as efficiently, and explain why sleep deprivation has such strong and immediate consequences. Too little sleep causes mental fog, crankiness, and increased risks of migraine and seizure. Rats deprived of all sleep die within weeks. Although as essential and universal to the animal kingdom as air and water, sleep is a riddle that has baffled scientists and philosophers for centuries. One line of thinking was that sleep helps animals to conserve energy by forcing a period of rest.
These kickass games let you do real-life science. I like that there's all these games out there that actually contribute to real science.
It's nice to know that I'm Contributing to Science! The 10 inventions of Nikola Tesla that changed the world. Nikola Tesla is finally beginning to attract real attention and encourage serious debate nearly 70 years after his death.
Was he for real? A crackpot? Part of an early experiment in corporate-government control? We know that he was undoubtedly persecuted by the energy power brokers of his day — namely Thomas Edison, whom we are taught in school to revere as a genius. He was also attacked by J.P. Besides his persecution by corporate-government interests (which is practically a certification of authenticity), there is at least one solid indication of Nikola Tesla’s integrity — he tore up a contract with Westinghouse that was worth billions in order to save the company from paying him his huge royalty payments.
But, let’s take a look at what Nikola Tesla — a man who died broke and alone — has actually given to the world. The Story of Saliva. Humans secrete two kinds of saliva, stimulated and unstimulated, no more alike than most siblings.
The prettier child is stimulated saliva. It comes from the parotid glands, between cheek and ear. When a plate of Erika Silletti’s spaghetti carbonara makes your mouth water, that’s stimulated saliva. It makes up 70 to 90 percent of the two to three pints of saliva each of us generates daily. We’re going to gather some now. The Salivette instructions are printed in six languages.