Can brain scans really tell us what makes something beautiful?
When art meets neuroscience, strange things happen.
Culture & the World
Top 10 diseases with unexpected benefits
From a very early age, we learn that optimism is the key to happiness. Unfortunately, when people catch a disease, especially an incurable one, they tend to lose their optimism and fall into depression, and this only aggravates their condition. Even though this attitude is perfectly explainable, as being ill is the essence of human suffering, one should remember that there is no bad without good. To prove this point, here is a list of 10 diseases with surprising benefits for those who suffer from it.
Who controls the world?
James Glattfelder studies complexity: how an interconnected system — say, a swarm of birds — is more than the sum of its parts. And complexity theory, it turns out, can reveal a lot about how the economy works. Glattfelder shares a groundbreaking study of how control flows through the global economy, and how concentration of power in the hands of a shockingly small number leaves us all vulnerable.
New York City on different Planets
Imagine to place New York City on another planet in our solar system. Life of course would cease to exist at least as we know it. You will realize once more that our beautiful blue planet is very rare. The following illustrations were made with the help of Marilyn Vogel.
Eye – Optical illusion
This video has been carefully designed to create a strong natural hallucination. Use full screen for better results.
Tags: Optical Illusion
What Religion has to learn from Science
Krista Tippett talks about the beauty and mystery in science and religion and how they go hand-in-hand, not head-to-head.
Nikola Tesla’s amazing predictions for the 21st Century
In the 1930s journalists from publications like the New York Times and Time magazine would regularly visit Nikola Tesla at his home on the 20th floor of the Hotel Governor Clinton in Manhattan. There the elderly Tesla would regale them with stories of his early days as an inventor and often opined about what was in store for the future.
Benjamin Franklin’s phonetic alphabet
Benjamin Franklin was many things. Politician, scientist, inventor, printer author, he was a visionary whose ideas helped shape America. But he also had some notions that, while founded on sound logic and pragmatism, seem quite bizarre in retrospect. For instance, there’s his suggestion that the turkey was a more appropriate national symbol than the eagle, which he saw as “a bird of bad moral character.” Franklin’s vision for American didn’t stop with independence and iconography. He also proposed a redesigned alphabet – a new language for a new nation.
10 new things science says about Moms
Here then are 10 recent studies or surveys that give a bit more insight into the institution of 21st century moms.
Why music moves us
Why does music make us feel happy or sad? Or angry or romantic? How can simple sound waves cause so much emotion? I went from my comfy chair to the streets of Austin to investigate how it might be written into our neuroscience and evolution. Modern neuroscience says our brains may be wired to pick certain emotions out of music because they remind us of how people move!
25 famous numbers and why they are important
Ever since the development of arithmetic people have been fascinated with numbers. Some view them for their esoteric meaning while others see them through a mathematical eyes. Either way, numbers are everywhere and there is no way of escaping them. Some numbers, however, are found more often in our universe than others. These special numbers typically have some unique property that influenced us to add it to our list of 25 famous numbers and why they are important.
Macoto Murayama’s intricate blueprints of flowers
The worlds of architecture and scientific illustration collided when Macoto Murayama was studying at Miyagi University in Japan. The two have a great deal in common, as far as the artist’s eye could see; both architectural plans and scientific illustrations are, as he puts it, “explanatory figures” with meticulous attention paid to detail.
Biofuels and bioprospecting for beginners
Biofuels can provide energy without the reliance on environmentally harmful fossils fuels — but scientists are still searching for a plentiful source. Craig A. Kohn demonstrates how cellulose, the naturally abundant tough walls of plant cells, might be the solution.
Illegal Numbers
An illegal number is a number that represents information which is illegal to possess, utter or propagate. Any piece of information is representable as a number, and therefore if the information itself is illegal in some way, the pure number itself may be illegal
