Your Brain Perceives Reality By Hallucinating
Source: The Atlantic
Are our minds playing tricks on us all the time? Click this link to watch an animated video that explains what perception and hallucination have in common.
Science & Nature
How reintroducing wolves helped save a famous park
Source: BBC
Wolves had been absent from Yellowstone National Park for more than 70 years when they were reintroduced in the 1990s – and their return had some surprising benefits.
Colorblind viewfinders in Virginia parks allow guests to experience fall foliage in full color
Source: NBC
Virginia is known for its vibrant, breath-taking autumn views, but people with colorblindness were often left out from fully enjoying the scenery. That is, until one park ranger set out to make a change.
Teen is one of the first ever to get his genes edited. Why he says the process is ‘cool and freaky’
Source: CNN
Johnny Lubin, one of the first in the world to try a new kind of medicine that uses a gene-editing tool called CRISPR to offer a potential cure for sickle cell disease.
NASA clears $5 billion Jupiter mission for launch after review of suspect transistors
Source: CBS
Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons, is an icy environment with a saltwater ocean beneath its surface. NASA plans to learn more about this ocean by sending the Europa Clipper into Jupiter’s orbit.
What Causes Déjà Vu?
Source: Scientific American
It’s an eerie feeling: You walk into a place you know you’ve never been before but are overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity—a memory you can’t quite reach. Has this all happened before?
The sensation is known as déjà vu, and though it is hard to study, scientists are slowly figuring out why it happens.
The 10 Most Intriguing Science Breakthroughs of 2023
Source: Bloomberg
It’s too early to know what the greatest scientific discoveries and achievements of 2024 will be, but now that we’ve had some time to reflect on last year, here is one site’s opinion on what the Top 10 most intriguing advancements of 2023 were. Which ones do you agree with? Are there any you think should have made the list?
Scientists Say They’ve Discovered A New Human Organ
Source: NBC News
Quick! How many organs are there in the human body?
Don’t worry, I can’t remember, either. But whatever that number is, some scientists are proposing that we add one more to the list—a newly discovered system of fluid-filled tissue that goes throughout the body called the interstitium. And understanding it may open up brand-new options for treating everything from cancer to immune disorders to gum disease!
Video shows isolated Amazon tribe emerge from rain forest in Peru amid threat from loggers
Source: USA Today
Logging in the Amazon rainforest could threaten the health and wellbeing of an isolated tribe known as the Mashco Piro people.
This year’s Olympic flame isn’t a flame at all—and that’s a good thing
Source: Fast Company
The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris had a goal of being the most environmentally-friendly games in history. One way to meet this goal was by asking the question: “What if the Olympic flame looked like a flame, but wasn’t one?” Learn how engineers came up with the illusion at the heart of the Olympic Games