Recommended Links of the Week #718

Welcome to the Recommended Links of the Week! This week we bring you lucid dreams, a thousand-year-old city under a house, end-of-the-world movies, iconic film scores, strange foods, and the smartest woman in the world. If any of this catches your eye, you're bound to enjoy the rest. Enjoy!

Why doesn't the oxygen we breathe run out?: "To the question: “Where does the oxygen we breathe come from?” most of us would answer 'from plants', thinking of the Amazon rainforest or our mountains, tied to the importance of their conservation. However, the correct answer includes, along with plants, tiny marine organisms that float by the thousands in every drop of water: cyanobacteria."

Lucid dreams: the best techniques to control your dreams, according to science: "I first heard about lucid dreams as a teenager, and for a brief period I was fascinated by the subject. The idea of being conscious in your dreams and even being able to direct and adapt them is appealing. Have you ever wanted to fly? Or walk on walls? Everything is possible, at least in theory, in a lucid dream. A lucid dream is a dream in which you realize you are dreaming while you sleep."

A man finds an entire thousand-year-old city while digging a hole in his house: "This man, who was renovating his house in Turkey, least expected to find a completely underground city beneath his basement. It happened in 1963 in Derinkuyu, Cappadocia. This gentleman was carrying out renovations in his home when the workers knocked down one of the basement walls. It was then that they discovered a new room that none of the tenants knew existed."

Soylent Green: Charlton Heston against hunger and overpopulation: "The greenhouse effect is shown in its crudest expression: in the film's context, seasons have ceased to exist, and constant heat reinforces the idea of a 'hell'. Sol Roth, the veteran played by Edward G. Robinson, remembers snow as a phenomenon of his youth, now extinct. Hunger is also exposed as one of the film's central themes, to the point that eating meat is a privilege even for affluent classes."

The 25 best end-of-the-world movies: "End-of-the-world films differ in the concrete ways they end the human race, but they almost always agree, in one way or another, that it is our fault. For playing gods with nuclear weapons, for spreading deadly viruses, for not agreeing on what to do about a meteorite, or for provoking Mother Nature. But ultimately, it's always our fault!"

What is the most iconic film score in history?: "This survey arrives waving batons to the rhythm of epic fantasies, underwater bites, duels in Almería, space odysseys, and tear-jerker dramas. The question we pose today is a review of cinematic staves: what is the most iconic film score in the history of cinema? We offer a collection of possible candidates."

China tests an AI by giving it control of a satellite, and the result is disconcerting: "Testing the reach of an AI, or how far it can go when granted certain powers that until now were only available to humans, can be dangerous. In China, a group of researchers put an AI in control of their satellite to take images of Earth's targets, and it took a disconcerting route."

Why doesn't the Sun illuminate space?: "A frequent question, with a good justification behind it, is the one posed here. It's not just about the Sun, but any other star in the Universe. These luminous bodies emit such strong energy that it's at least curious to note that the cosmos remains relatively dark. So, why doesn't the Sun illuminate space? To resolve the issue, we spoke with Dr. Vladimir Avila-Reese, researcher at the Institute of Astronomy of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)."

The hero of Soyuz 1, between myth and reality: "On April 24, 1967, Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov (March 16, 1927 – April 24, 1967) became the first fatal victim of a space flight, three months after the three Apollo 1 crew members lost their lives on the launch pad due to a fire during a test. Like those of the three American astronauts, the story of the Soyuz 1 pilot is that of fallen pioneers in the search for new horizons."

The 10 strangest foods in the world: "Food is an essential part of all world cultures. However, what is considered a delicacy in one part of the world may be considered repugnant in another. Below, we present the 10 strangest foods in the world. (...) Balut is a fertilized duck egg that is cooked and eaten with its embryo inside. It is often considered a nutritious and energetic food, and is consumed throughout Southeast Asia."

The math puzzle that Marilyn vos Savant solved: "Marilyn Mach vos Savant, now 76 years old, was for a long time the columnist for "Ask Marilyn" (Ask Marilyn), a space in the U.S. press where she answered questions, riddles, and offered her views on many topics. She is also the author of fiction and nonfiction books, and was an investment entrepreneur. But since childhood she had a more notable title: after taking a couple of IQ tests, on one of them she scored 228."

The Russian physicist and thinker who inspired Elon Musk's neotranshumanism: "But the capital figure in the emergence of cosmism was Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov, a philosopher and futurologist who in his work The Philosophy of the Common Cause (1906) showed his conviction in the basic principles of that belief. According to his postulates, technological development is essential for the expansion of humanity in the universe, in which it plays a key role, requiring it to work to fulfill its cosmic destiny."

Videos

Videos: Ricky Gervais - Sharks and Nazis (with Spanish subtitles), parrots making video calls, Dune in the style of H.R. Giger, dog breeds with the most powerful jaws, the process of making Japanese masks, how to drill a square hole, how oil filters for cars are made, the world's largest LEGO roller coaster, how mosquitoes survive rain, a commercial made entirely with AIs, unique moments in nature, women with and without makeup, sending photos by cable in 1937, how pearls are extracted, how different animals fight, crazy frog plays the piano, U.S. police try to stop an autonomous taxi, 'Eternal Spring' (the beauty of ice melting), the opening ceremony of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland, How My Grandmother Became a Chair (2D animation), HIDARI and the regeneration of the Enterprise D.

Galleries

Galleries: Scrinkl's paper illustrations, the parallel dimension that is South Korea, realistic Simpsons, Walmart people, pixel art portraits, Eyeland Photography 2022 awards, Hera Therapy's portraits, magical realism, art with bruised bananas, mixing reality with imagination, the Weekly Dump and the Visual Dump.

Thanks for reading! I hope to see you next week. Cheers!