Descartes' automaton daughter, what you remember in dreams, the Kolakoski sequence, and curiosities of the Sahara Desert are just some of the best things you'll find in these recommended links. If you want to know what else there is, just keep reading…
The Peigneur Lake disaster or the aim error that started the end of the world: "That human beings are causing a lot of damage to the planet is something that, being so well known, is even obvious to mention. Pollution, global warming, deforestation, extinctions... just to name a few, are on the agenda every time we stick our head out the window. However, and although it might seem we've seen it all, man, in his extreme destructive capacity and even greater innate clumsiness, is always capable of surprising us and making us hold our heads once more. And this is exactly what will happen when you learn what happened in Louisiana (USA), when a mine, a lake, and an oil drilling operation aligned. The result, tremendous as it gets, is known as the Peigneur Lake disaster."
Descartes' automaton daughter: "It is said that Descartes carried his robot daughter in a beautiful trunk on all his travels, and at the end of his days, at the invitation of Queen Christina of Sweden in 1649, he undertook his last journey, informing that he was accompanied by someone named Francine. Due to terrible weather, and a crew that couldn't find Descartes and his companion, they decided to enter his room, finding a doll with a delicate porcelain face that moved and emitted human sounds."
In dreams you remember things you don't remember awake: "A curious experiment has shown that during sleep we are able to access corners of memory that we cannot access when we are awake. The study, published in the journal “Nature Communications”, was conducted by researchers from the Ruhr University Bochum and the University of Bonn (Germany). To do this, they recorded the brain activity of epilepsy patients to whom a series of images were shown to memorize, and after taking a nap they were asked to recall them, measuring the brain's reaction to those stimuli at each moment."
The oldest bridge in the world, in the Sumerian city of Ngirsu: "It was in 1929, with Genouillac already directing the excavation, when a strange structure appeared that at the time could only be described as enigmatic. Neither Genouillac nor anyone else had seen anything like it before. At first it was thought to be the remains of an ancient temple or a dam. There were even those who suggested it was a hydrological regulator. The solution was much simpler."
I've been repairing computers for 30 years and these are the tools I use: "The IT sector has changed a lot since they started in the business: desktop computers have given way to laptops and, in recent times, tablets and especially smartphones have become alternatives in a sector that has diversified and become cheaper over the years. We talked to them to find out how the sector has evolved, what their experience is, and what tools they use."
Sex slaves in Germany, Italy and Japan during World War II: "When in April 1945 the Russians liberated the Ravensbrück camp in Germany, the largest one created for women, it seemed that the horror was over for them, but it wasn't. In addition to what happened in the other camps (hunger, disease, murders, abuse, sterilizations, and experiments), something else had happened at Ravensbrück, and its protagonists decided to keep quiet. What happened?"
The mysterious Kolakoski sequence: "The mathematician Rufus Oldenburger had already described this sequence in 1939, although it seems at that time it did not attract the attention of the scientific community. In this 'problem 5304' posed in the American Mathematical Monthly, Kolakoski wrote the first terms of the sequence, proposed describing a rule to construct it, finding its n-th term, and deciding whether it is a periodic sequence."
Tell me what color you pee, and I'll tell you how you feel: "You feel the urge to urinate, go to the bathroom, and discover that your pee glows and has a blue-green, somewhat fluorescent color. You freak out and run like the devil is after you to the nearest health center. There, they run tests and discover that you have accidentally ingested a coolant that, due to one of its components, is responsible for the appearance of your urine. This is not a work of fiction, but exactly what happened to a Texan in his forties last year."
A universe created from the vomit of a god, the African myth of Mbombo: "Mbombo vomited and produced the sun, creating light and day. This caused the water to dry up, which gave rise to the land. Mbombo vomited a second time and created the moon and the stars, which divided day and night. The god vomited again and out of him came nine animals: a leopard (Koy Bumba), a crested eagle (Ponga Bumba), a crocodile (Ganda Bumba), a fish (Yo Bumba), a turtle (Kono Bumba), a heron (Nyanyi Bumba), a goat (Budi), a beetle, and an animal similar to a black cat that would eventually become lightning (Tsetse Bumba)."
Neither bloodsuckers nor broken mirrors, all the vampire myths we've been made to believe: "On the other hand, these neck biters are not born in a castle in Transylvania; they are much older. Specifically, they are documented in ancient Mesopotamia for more than 5,000 years. Back then, there was talk of beings that were halfway between the world of the living and the dead, and that interrupted the natural cycles (such as the seasons) of the former. They weren't after our blood then... yet."
16 curiosities of the Sahara Desert seen through Google Maps: "And in the Sahara I discovered a bunch of amazing things… From meteorite impacts, to refugee camps, to memorials of plane crashes. One believes that the desert is nothing more than a sea of sand where life has no place, and today I tell you that if you are one of those who think that, you couldn't be more wrong. The desert is a place full of life, sure, it has somewhat different dynamics and poses challenges we are not used to, but still, there is life everywhere."
Videos
"Hansel & Gretel" by Tim Burton, babies laughing at dogs, skiing on leaves, Pickle Rick's bloopers, the sounds of an otter, flying low over the Earth, operating on an ant, ancient Chinese printing, algorithms learning from acrobatics videos, doggy walks on two legs, the highest male note, Guinness Record, sculptures of Tom's worst moments, "Fast Travel" in the real world, Parkour 3.0, skydiving at sunset, mermaid vs nuclear bombs, mobile phone under the microscope, and the jumping robot.
Images
Film noir princesses, the cats of Veselka Velinova, lip art, art with trinkets, camouflaged things, winners of Environmental Photographer 2018, photos of illuminated glaciers, award-winning architecture photos, felt artists, Halloween records, steam locomotives, Animated scrapheap and the Visual scrapheap of the week.
Want more? Well, we close with a great horror short, so you can't say we don't pamper you here at NeoTeo. Thanks for stopping by!
