The Aurora Effect, the most complete X-ray map of the Universe, the standard cosmological model, light phenomena, hallucinogenic mushrooms and the individual hero. An edition of the Recommended Links packed with very brainy stuff, but also nonsense in the form of videos, viral content and all kinds of galleries.
The Aurora Effect, a possible explanation for the Fermi paradox: "It is possible that technological civilizations emerge and expand across a few systems before disappearing. If this scenario were true, our galaxy could be populated by \"islands\" of civilizations that don't go beyond a few star systems around their home world. There could be regions of the Milky Way with quite a few exocivilizations and others—like ours?—with practically none."
Jill Tarter: "If civilizations in the galaxy only last millennia, it will be hard for us to coincide with them": "That could be a technomarker, clues that someone has expanded to their neighboring planets and terraformed them. At the SETI Institute we are promoting the development of new observation technologies. For example, at the University of California in San Diego, Shelley Wright is leading the PANOSETI project, a new type of observatory that will allow observing the entire sky all the time, with a temporal resolution of nanoseconds."
This is the new most complete map of the Universe in X-rays: "It took 182 days for the X-ray telescope eROSITA to complete its first full sweep of the sky. The result is this new map of the hottest and most energetic Universe containing more than a million objects. This is the first complete image of the sky from eROSITA: it is roughly 4 times deeper than that obtained by the previous all-sky survey carried out by the ROSAT telescope 30 years ago."
The standard cosmological model: "The Standard Cosmological Model constitutes one of the pillars of modern physics. Thanks to the combination of General Relativity and the Standard Model of Particle Physics, it is possible to accommodate a long list of cosmological observations. For this, it is necessary to consider an expanding universe in which we find ingredients as mysterious as dark matter and dark energy."
These are the 'sprites', an astonishing light phenomenon: "When a strong storm develops, weather warnings are usually activated for the advance of rain, wind, hail and powerful electrical activity; we already know and expect all that below the storm clouds because it reaches the surface. Above these imposing clouds, things also happen, different luminous phenomena occur that are wonderful."
Aeronautical curiosities - Rare airplanes: "With a very unusual design for its time, the XP-55 Ascender had a canard wing configuration, a fixed-wing aircraft configuration in which the horizontal stabilizer is in a forward position in front of the wings, as opposed to a conventional airplane where it is behind them." More rare planes? Click here.
LSD and hallucinogenic mushrooms help cure mental illnesses: "It has been shown to work in cases of mental illness such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and addictions. They also help break deeply ingrained habits that harm us and are so hard to change, such as in anorexia nervosa. From a broader perspective, they have the ability to heal, for example, our relationship with nature"
Now we exploit ourselves and think we are fulfilling ourselves: "According to Han, we humans show ourselves as authentic because \"we all want to be different from others\", which means \"producing oneself\". What happens is that today it is impossible to be authentic because \"in that will to be different, the same continues\". And as a result, only \"marketable differences\" are allowed."
There are people who don't understand that life doesn't revolve around them: "There are people who seem not to know that the earth revolves around the sun, not around them. They don't understand that life doesn't revolve around them, that they are not the center of the world nor of the people around them. That is why they proclaim themselves infallible, generating with their behaviors a very strong social rejection."
Camus and the heroism of the common man: "The epidemic places the characters in a state of maximum fragility. Without a god to lift prayers to, without a god to provide comfort, without a universal morality to protect against excesses and abuses, Camus bets on valuing human life for itself, an ethos sustained by mutual support and individual freedom."
Science fiction movies that predicted the future: "Not only 'The Simpsons' predict things... Here we show you several movies that guessed the future, and it is quite surprising how some of them have managed to get ahead of our present." Short and to the point. A predictable but fun list.
These have been the biggest mistakes in the history of hardware: "Reliability problems, chronic instabilities, or poorly designed technologies... there have been many errors and problems with hardware devices throughout history, and in this article we are going to expose the most transcendental ones. I'm sure many of them sound familiar!"
Videos
Soldering cables on the battlefield, can you play Tetris forever?, buy the robot dog, the Doctor Who theme on cello, stop motion with a stick, bison stampede, the story of Data, the sweet breads of Skyrim, bowling with hedgehogs, a green comet, Apple watches ejecting water, corgi has fun on a trampoline, don't touch the lions, "Concatenation" in the Olympics, stuck in the mud, cutting hair with a laser, Mortal Kombat with social distancing, Take On Me (ACAPELLA), Take On Me in Excel, the harmony of Scottish women, they cross paths with a wolf, rescuing a baby shark, "I am a square", driving in different countries listening to the radio, the dancing plague of the Muppets, how to make a Death Star out of cardboard, seeing the moon for the first time, astronaut forgets the GoPro SD card, connecting two aquariums, a bot creates Nirvana songs, and the shorts: "How to float", a recreation of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, the boy who wanted to smell life, Return of the Ewok, Dolls Don't Cry, and the rest of the chapters of the condom anime (which you can see below).
Galleries
A Photoshop genius, the monochrome awards, New York in 1938, the forest of despair, the hand art of Mario Mariotti, a cyberpunk suit, the life cycle of various things, the creepy baby, fox photos, the evolution of Windows Explorer, B-movie posters, Russian monster illustrations, photorealistic paintings of black people, the photography of Kylli Sparre, the real Tintin, the oldest dress in the world, the Animated Dump of the Week and the Visual Dump, which turned out great.
