Mind Blowing Facts

Former President Jimmy Carter has vowed to see the last Guinea Worm die before he does -- and with the parasite eradicated from all but four countries, he's close. But now the enemy has found a new place to hide. The Guinea Worm Dracunculus medinensis is a horrific human parasite. Its larvae infect tiny fresh-water copepods which then enter the human digestive system through unfiltered drinking water. The larvae then tunnel their way through the host's stomach and intestinal walls, where they mature and turn the human abdominal cavity into their own kinky sex cave. The males die in there, but each two-foot-long, fertilized female migrates to the host's skin -- generally somewhere on the lower body -- and causes an excruciating blister to form. When the host attempts to relieve the blister with immersion in water, the female seems to sense the temperature change, bursts out of the blister and excretes her foul larvae to begin the cycle anew. The entire human portion of th...

76 out of 77 scientists agree: chemtrails are nonsense. I bet some of you are angrily typing in comments to this video right now. And some of you are probably hoping this puts an old fringe theory to rest. And the rest of you are saying “What the heck is a chemtrail?” Have you ever seen long trails left behind by jet aircraft flying high in the sky? Those trails are called contrails, which is short for condensation trails. They form from the water vapor in aircraft exhaust. This is similar to when clouds form from your breath on a cold day. The air from your lungs is warm and damp. The water vapor in your breath condenses as it hits the cold air. But these breath-clouds evaporate quickly. Contrails can last for hours. What gives? The length of time a contrail holds its shape depends upon the humidity in the atmosphere. A contrail in humid air will hold its shape longer than one in drier air. If the air is particularly dry, no contrail will form at all. But people have proposed that ...

What does your dog love more: your smiling face or a fresh bowl of processed meat goo? A new study from Emory University suggests that praise more than pulls its weight against Kibbles and Bits. Pavlov's dog casts a long shadow over human/dog interaction. Your bond with scruffy might be tender. It might be the defining relationship of your life. But when you watch him hoover up dog chow -- or, let's face it, worse things -- it's easy to see him as little more than a Pavlovian beast, his entire nature warped around the acquisition and consumption of food. Neuroscientist Gregory Berns and his Emory Dog Project team decided to look inside the dog brain for answers, which is to say they took 13 fMRI-trained dogs and taught them to associate three different objects with three different outcomes. A pink truck? That's a food reward, buddy. A blue toy knight? Verbal praise from your owner! And a hairbrush? Sorry, that doesn't get you anything. The researchers tested all ...

It's become increasingly obvious that past and current methods of waging the so-called “War on Drugs” have been largely ineffective. So the authorities in Seattle are opting for a different tactic – a heroin safe zone. There's no way around it: the United States is the world's biggest illicit drug market. While use of a few drugs seems to be declining, some areas of the country are in the grip of an opioid epidemic. In Seattle alone, for example, deaths from heroin overdoses rose by 58% over the course of 2014, from 99 to 156. Seattle's proposed heroin safe zone would be a safe consumption site, different from a methadone clinic (Seattle already has those). At the safe zone, heroin addicts would use drugs under medical supervision, hopefully lowering rates of fatal overdose and transmission of diseases from dirty needles. They would also have opportunities to receive addiction treatment. The idea of a safe consumption site isn't brand new, and it wouldn't make ...

Automated features in productivity software are supposed to save us time and effort. But sometimes, these features insert errors into our work. That's the case for an alarming number of academic papers about genetics. Here's the problem: many academic papers have supplemental files filled with charts, tables and other data. Ideally, those files support the paper and provide data for other researchers in the future. But an automated feature in Excel converts some gene names into other types of information, such as dates or floating-point numbers. That ends up causing confusion and inserting errors into scientific publications. Here's an example. There's a gene called Membrane-Associated Ring Finger (C3HC4), E3 Ubiquitin Protein Ligase. But that's a bit of a mouthful and so the accepted gene symbol is MARCH1. Unfortunately, Excel sees MARCH1 and assumes it's a date, changing it to 1-Mar. And this sort of accidental conversion happens all the time! Scientists fi...

Humans are prone to extreme views on robots. You may see them as humanity's inevitable murderers or future lovers -- and they'll be able to excel at either task now that Harvard University has given them squishy octopus bodies. Now don't get too hot and bothered as you imagine the embrace of synthetic tentacles, because the octobot in question here is pretty tiny -- scarcely the size of the memory card in your camera.  He also doesn't really do all that much. But the little guy's still an important breakthrough: Earth's first autonomous, wireless, entirely soft and squishy robot. Inspired by the dexterous-yet-powerful bodies of real-life octopi, the team of Harvard scientists 3D printed all of the robot's functional components out of non-rigid materials. Just like its organic counterpart, the octobot lacks an endoskeleton. The subtle automaton is powered by chemical reaction. It transforms quantities of liquid hydrogen peroxide into a larger quantity of g...

Humans have really made their impact on Earth. Welcome to the Anthropocene Epoch! Scientists representing the Working Group on the Anthropocene announced at the 35th International Geological Congress that we've entered a new epoch in Earth's geological time scale! And this one is all about you! Okay, not you specifically, but all you humans out there. And the ones in here too. Essentially, the Anthropocene is an epoch in which human influences are shaping the Earth in a geologically significant way. So let's back up and brush up on our geology. The geological time scale consists of eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages. Geologists define these chunks of time by looking at layers of rock. Changes in the strata mark transitions from one chunk of time to another. So these chunks aren't defined by a specific number of years but instead by changes to the Earth itself. Eons are the largest time chunks and ages are the smallest. The Anthropocene is an epoch and a subdivision...

Sometimes spiders live in huge social communities, and sometimes they share food so equitably that they all starve to death. Spiders don't usually hang out with each other because they're highly territorial – and sometimes cannibals. But of the 40-thousand-plus identified species of spiders, we know 25 to be social. One such species, the South American Anelosimus eximius, has been observed in colonies of 50 thousand individual spiders living in communal, 3D webs that span 25 feet by 5 feet, arching through several trees. These critters cooperate on web upkeep, prey capture, and childcare. Broodcare? (It involves female spiders – which comprise between 78 and 95 percent of any given colony – regurgitating food for the youngsters. Including youngsters that aren't their own.) They self-select tasks based on what each unique spider is personally suited for. Beyond that, the entire neighborhood shares their food supply when the hunting's good, ensuring that no spider goes...

When you're suffering from sinus symptoms like head congestion, you might not understand what exactly sinuses are and more importantly, why you have them. Fortunately, we've teamed up with the makers of Sudafed to break down sinuses' functions and toss out a life raft into the sea of medical terminology. Now, sinuses catch a bad rap since they're often associated with being stuffed up, experiencing head pressure and generally feeling yucky. But in spite of sinuses' unpleasant associations, they're arguably our faces' most underrated anatomy. Sinuses are hollow cavities inside our skull and facial bones. And structural bonus: Thanks to their weightless nature, our heads are lighter and easier to hold up. To get an idea of where sinuses reside, these interconnected cavities behind and around our nose, eyes and forehead uncannily resemble a foundation contouring map No, really! Collectively known as our paranasal sinuses, these air-filled pockets are divided...

Great. First we found out catfish were eating pigeons. Now they're eating mice. Who's next? Us? Remember that scene in the shark attack classic DEEP BLUE SEA, when Samuel L. Jackson's making a big speech next to a pool and then a shark leaps out and swallows him whole? I don't know if sharks can really do that… but catfish sure can, according to a recent study in the “Journal of Arid Environments.” Catfish in Australia have been consuming mice. A lot of mice. And no one knows how. We're specifically talking about the lesser salmon catfish here, in the Ashburton river in northern Australia. When researchers cut open 18 of these bad boys, half of them had Spinifex hopping mice in their bellies.  This is the first report of Australian catfish eating land-based mammals at this high of a rate, though previous studies had found similar mammals to be about 4% of the catfish's diet. These “lesser” salmon catfish are common in north-western Australia and can weigh jus...

The Chinese government wants to build a large, state of the art facility. Underwater. Bloomberg reports that Chinese officials are fast tracking a plan to build a large underwater platform in the South China Sea. It would be similar to a space station, only this one would be at the bottom of the ocean floor, some 3,000 meters or about 10,000 feet beneath the waves. Why build a Sea Lab? It's not because they think it's better where it's wetter.  According to Chinese officials, the plan is to build a large, movable facility in an effort to search for valuable minerals and rare earth metals. For the last several years, rare earth metals have played an important part in China's economic growth. Our computers and electronics require these materials and demand is high. But not everyone is sure that the proposed sea lab would have much luck mining more of them. According to the American Security Project, estimates of rare earth metals in the region are unreliable. They may ...

Number sense is a pretty big deal for humanity, underlying the mathematics that empowers our world -- but now a new study reveals the number sense of the ever-fascinating cuttlefish. Cuttlefish are science headline superstars, so you've probably read about their amazing chromatic communication systems, shapeshifting prowess and hypnotic powers. Of course all of these biological gifts are useless without brains to power them -- which is why cuttlefish boast one of the largest brain-to-body size ratios of any invertebrate.  These amazing little creatures have to be able to react quickly, learn and adapt if they wish to score that next meal or secure themselves a mate. That's where our latest study comes in, pondering just how much number sense they employ in deciding which prey to pursue. Number sense is essentially how the brain naturally extracts numbers from the surrounding environment, similar to how it identifies colors. It's not math or a number system, but rather th...

Market analyst Brian Hopkins of Forrester Research predicts that automated systems will eliminate 6% of all jobs in the United States by 2021. Six percent of all jobs is pretty significant. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are about 144,598,000 jobs in the US today. Six percent of that is nearly 8,676,000 jobs that robots would take from us if general employment rates stay the same. The greedy mechanical jerks. According to The Guardian, jobs that are poised for automation include truck and taxi drivers and customer service representatives working in call centers. And in a related story, it sounds like retail workers might have some similar issues in the near future. Business Insider contributor Kate Taylor writes that the retail giant Walmart has patented an automated system that could potentially displace employees. The company is the largest employer in the United States -- Forbes reported in 2015 that Walmart had 2.2 million employees. The patented system sound...

Is it really possible to ban sarcasm? We're about to find out. Since reaching an armistice in July of 1953, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, has existed in a unique geopolitical sphere. For more than half a century the population has been isolated, impoverished and subjected to levels of surveillance and state-sponsored terrorism beyond even the dystopian tomes of George Orwell. This is 1984 in real life. Many, many crimes are punishable by having not just the offender, but also his or her family to the third generation, carted off to a concentration camp. Most foreign media is banned. Some haircuts are banned! Well, technically, only 28 are approved… but anyhow, here's the latest, strangest thing. According to US-owned Radio Free Asia, North Korea is attempting to ban sarcasm. That's right – sarcasm, the use of irony to convey contempt or mock someone. At the end of August central government authorities organized mass meetings ...

Five years ago, China launched a space station prototype into low Earth orbit. Next year, it comes crashing back down. The eight and a half ton space station module is called Tiangong-1, also known as the Heavenly Palace. It's part of China's strategy to create a large, modular space station made up of interlocking parts. And by most reports, everything was going as planned until recently. Back in June of 2016, satellite tracker Thomas Dorman alerted Space.com that, based on his observations, China had lost control of Tiangong-1. He predicted that Chinese authorities would hold off announcing a problem with the module until the “last minute.” Flash forward to September 14, 2016. That's when representatives from China's space program held a press conference announcing that the module would reenter Earth's atmosphere in the next few months. While no one admitted that things weren't going as planned, there was a lot of ambiguity in the announcement itself. Here...

Thousands of Saudi women have petitioned their government to end the male guardianship system, which has long been criticized by human rights activists. Let's look at what's going on here. In Saudi Arabia, women of all ages have a male legal guardian – a father, brother, husband, or son. A Saudi woman needs permission from this guardian to marry, and must be accompanied by him or another male relative when traveling abroad. She can be asked by institutions like schools, potential employers, and hospitals for proof that she has his approval before she'll be allowed to study, work, or receive a medical procedure. The petition calls for the abolishment of male guardianship. It was delivered in person to the Royal Court by two female activists on September 26th, bearing 14,682 signatures. And its delivery was bolstered by about 2500 telegrams (used because they can be confirmed to have come from within the kingdom) sent directly to the King's office in the days leading u...

During the 1960s, the US built a secret nuclear base under the ice of Greenland. Anthropogenic climate change may reveal it to the world. It's the Cold War versus Global Warming! Let's backtrack. In the late 1950s, US diplomats worked with Denmark officials to create a scientific city under Greenland's icecap. It was called Camp Century. Scientists there would drill down into the ice, retrieve core samples and learn lots of scientific-y things. And that totally did happen! The US Corps of Army Engineers began excavating the site in 1959. They built the research center eight meters beneath the ice. But what Denmark and the rest of the world didn't know was that Camp Century was the tip of the ice, uh, cap. The real experiment was more a bit more militaristic. It was called Project Iceworm. The engineers created a network of tunnels beneath the ice that, collectively, measured about 4,000 kilometers. The goal was to install about 600 nuclear ballistic missiles under th...

The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission is over, so let's take a moment to highlight some of what it uncovered about comet 67P before ESA scientists intentionally collided the spacecraft with its icy subject. The ESA's Rosetta mission launched in 2004 and arrived at Comet 67P on August 9, 2014 to become the first spacecraft to orbit a comet. Then, on November 12, it touched its lander Philae down on the surface -- the first successful comet landing in space exploration history. Granted, the lander wound up in a less-than optimal location, lacking sufficient sunlight or connectivity to Rosetta, but it still provided surface readings and photos before going dark. Rosetta itself continued to provide valuable readings on the comet, including the revelation that the water in 67P's ice is truly unearthly. Specifically, the difference boils down to the comet water's high deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio, meaning that the water from Earth's oceans may not stem from pr...

Indian Army conducted 'Surgical Strikes' in deep inside Pakistan. Nearly 10 days after the Uri attack that claimed 18 jawans, India carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, inflicting heavy casualties on terrorists and 'those protecting them and indicating a change of stand on the rules of engagement on the disputed line of control. Indian Gen Ranbir Singh announced that Pakistan had been informed about the strikes and that India has no intention of continuing the operations but is ready for any reaction from the Pak side. The response, first of its kind across the Pakistani border during peace time, was based on specific intelligence, claim reports. Here's what happened in 4 hours of attack in Pakistan by India, according to reports: Operation begins around 12.30 am on Wednesday. According to reports, paratroopers from Special Forces were involved. The commandos were airdropped at the LoC, from where they crossed over to the Pakistani side. According...

Reaction of Pakistan, US, Britain, China, Bangladesh on surgical strikes of India. India's Director General of Military Operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said soldiers conducted surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control inside Pakistan, causing significant casualties. Pakistan denied the strikes and said two of its soldiers were killed in “cross-border fire”. A spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign Office told Hindustan Times: “We are monitoring the situation closely following reports of strikes carried out by the Indian Army over the Line of Control in Kashmir. We call on both sides to exercise restraint and to open dialogue.”  India has “all legal and internationally accepted rights” to respond to any attack on her sovereignty and territory, Iqbal Chowdhury, advisor to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said after the surgical strikes. Bangladesh always believes that any aggression or attack on the sovereignty…and legal right of a country is not a...

If you were to fly in a straight line, faster than the speed of light, directly toward the edge of the universe… you'd eventually end up back where you started, because there IS no edge. Take 5 seconds and think about that. Howdy people who want to have their mind blown. Trace here for DNews. This one was super fun to research. A study came out recently in Physical Review Letters, stating that cosmology was safe; the universe was, indeed, isotropic. I know you're relieved. When the ancient Greeks looked up at the sky, they realized the universe could be one of two things, infinite -- stretching forever in every direction, or finite -- with an edge. When Newton described the law of gravity, he thought about this too, and figured it must be infinite, because otherwise all the gravity out there would have collapsed the universe by now. Then, Einstein assumed the universe was static -- creating a cosmological constant to make his math work. But then, Edwin Hubble came along… In ...

I've finally figured it out. Prince must've been singing about ACID RAIN that was BLUE. Because carbonic acid turns litmus paper red… Blue plus red equals purple. If you know what I'm singing about up here. C'mon, raise your hand. Hello pH-balanced friends, Trace here for DNews. If you were to compare environmental issues to fashion trends—and I mean why wouldn't you—then acid rain would be the equivalent of bell-bottom jeans. People started talking about it in the 60's, then it slowly infiltrated media and pop culture, and by the mid-1970s' seemingly everyone had an opinion on it, but since then, where did it go? To understand acid rain you have to understand pH levels. pH means power of hydrogen, essentially it measure the kind of hydrogen in a solution. It's not super important to understand how it works, but it ranges from zero to 14 with zero (battery acid) being the most acidic and 14 (lye) being super alkaline (or basic): 7 is neutral -- water is...

You know when you're minding your own business, swimming in a lake or ocean and that green blob touches you and you're NOT DOWN. That stuff could power your house, your car, and it could even stop global warming. Hey there muckrakers, thanks for watching DNews, I'm Trace. Algae is plural. It encompasses a large number of stemless, rootless, leafless usually monocellular plants that get energy from photosynthesis. Algae exist in many colors, red, yellow, purple, brown, black, and of course, green and blue-green. All of these absorb light and turn it into energy. Algae are a basic food source for both salt and freshwater animals and birds, their decomposition releases minerals into the water, and their mass provides a refuge for small fish and invertebrates. If nature loves it so much, why don't humans? it's a completely renewable source, and it's made from sunlight and carbon dioxide and water. It's a very sustainable, renewable fuel. That's Dave Hazleba...

Three-quarters of global arms sales come from just five countries. So, we wanted to know, what are these countries, and why are they world leaders in producing weapons? Well, unsurprisingly, the country responsible for the largest number of sales also far outspends the rest of the world in defense: The United States. From 2011 to 2015, the US comprised a full one third of global arms exports, according to The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Six out of the top eight largest defense industry companies in the world are based in the US, with the largest, Lockheed Martin seeing roughly 80% of its sales from arms manufacturing and defense. Although the amount of weapons sales has been rising, they are largely based on multi-billion dollar arrangements with countries like Qatar, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia which have enormous defense budgets. Roughly ten percent of US sales are to Saudi Arabia, which is often controversial as the country has been accused of human rights...

Ever feel like you're on the Highway to Hell? Well, with road injuries almost always in the top 3 causes of death for 5-44 year olds worldwide, you kind of are... anyway! Buckle up, and enjoy this ride. These are all the travel-sickness-inducing facts you need to know about the world's most dangerous roads. Since 1995, the official world's most dangerous road is the 56 kilometer North Yungas Road, which links the Bolivian capital La Paz and Coroico. The road winds around mountains surrounded by dense rainforest. It could be romantic, if only the track was larger than the width of a single vehicle. With a summit 4800 meters, getting a little off-track means tumbling down the mountainside never to be seen again…and, in 2006, that's exactly what happened to over 200 people. This perilous hellhole of a road has been an issue for almost 80 years. The 1937 comic book “Tintin and the Broken Ear” includes an eye-watering car chase round roads based on this one. Good to know th...

When you're hanging out with your friends, you probably don't think too hard about the math behind the decisions you're making. But there's a whole field of math — and science — that applies to social interactions. It's called Game Theory. Game theory was pioneered in the 1950s by mathematician John Nash, the guy from that Russell Crowe played in A Beautiful Mind. But game theory isn't about games the way we normally think about them. Instead, a game is any interaction between multiple people in which each person's payoff is affected by the decisions made by others. So, sure, that could apply to a game of poker. But it could also apply to practically any situation where people get together and get up in each other's business. Like, did you interact with anyone today? Well, you can probably analyze the decisions you made using game theory. Game theory is incredibly wide-ranging, and it's used all the time by economists, political scientists, biolog...

Have you ever wondered how many countries there are in the world? While it may seem like a fairly straightforward question, it's actually quite complicated. The problem is - it depends on who you ask as to what answer you get and there is no one generally accepted answer. Also, the word 'country' has no official meaning. A good place to start might be an organisation that knows what they're talking about - the United Nations. There are currently 193 members of the UN. This is why this is the lowest number you'll ever hear to how many countries there are. Along with the 193 members, the UN also has two permanent non-member observer states - the Holy See (representing the Vatican City State), and the State of Palestine. Despite not being a member, the Vatican City is a country and is recognised by everyone as such. Despite being a country within a city within a country and small not only by country or city standards but more comparable in size to that of a small vi...