Swans on Tea

Pink, green
There is no spoon green dot. It’s an afterimage from seeing the pink.
Things to add — if you look away, you’ll see green afterimages. Also, if you stare at any of the pink dots for a while, they (or the rest) will still tend to disappear. When you stare at [...]

Usain Bolt: The Science of Running Really Fast
Even without knowing the times, you can see that this is a special run. The first few seconds are fairly average, and as expected the acceleration trails off after around 40m, but then he just keeps going. Bolt covers 60-80m faster than 40-60m, somehow increasing his acceleration, and [...]

Of Car Crashes and Snickers Bars
Pop quiz, hotshot. Using the caloric energy content of a candy bar (e.g. Snickers, at 250 food calories), what is the kinetic energy of a two-ton behemoth SUV traveling at about 70 mph? A first-order approximation is fine — no need to worry about more than one significant [...]

Color and Reality. Another take on color vs. the brain’s interpretation of color, discussed (OK, linked to) previously in Color on the Brain
We were all taught about Sir Isaac Newton who discovered that a glass prism can split white light apart into its constituent colors.
While we consider this rather trivial today, at the time [...]

Until you do a CAT scan.
NYT: Autopsies of War Dead Reveal Ways to Save Others
Col. Howard T. Harcke, a 71-year-old Marine Corps radiologist who delayed retirement to read CT scans at Dover, noticed something peculiar in late 2005. The emergency treatment for a collapsed lung involves inserting a needle and tube into the chest [...]

Darpa: Heat + Energy = Brains. Now Make Us Some.
The idea behind Darpa’s latest venture, called “Physical Intelligence” (PI) is to prove, mathematically, that the human mind is nothing more than parts and energy. In other words, all brain activities — reasoning, emoting, processing sights and smells — derive from physical mechanisms at work, acting [...]

It’s not quite “then a miracle occurs,” but there’s a bit of a gap between “blue light stimulates brain Gamma waves” and “people with autism and schizophrenia often lack gamma waves.” So to say that Blue Laser Could Lead to Autism Cure carries with it a disclaimer that this purported cure is in no way [...]

What is How to Measure Sleep?
As we sleep, our brains pass through a series of stages, like shifting between gears in a car. The most famous is REM sleep, characterized by fluttering eye movements. But other categories include light sleep (stage S1), stable sleep (S2), slow-wave sleep (SS), and even being awake (W), each identified [...]

Inner Ear ‘Rock Slides’ Lead To Vertigo
Experts who treat dizziness estimate that about 20 percent of all dizziness is due to loose crystals — or ear rocks — in the inner ear.

So that’s what the bottoms of limpid pools look like. Scary eh?
Eye exam the other day. (My eyeglasses problem happened after I scheduled this, but before the exam. Come to think of it, I chipped a tooth right after making my dentist appointment. Note to self: do NOT schedule a [...]

Revealed: The secrets of belly button fluff
After three years of research, Georg Steinhauser, a chemist, has discovered a type of body hair that traps stray pieces of lint and draws them into the navel.
Dr Steinhauser made his discovery after studying 503 pieces of fluff from his own belly button.

Magenta Ain’t A Colour
When our eyes see colours, they are actually detecting the different wavelengths of the light hitting the retina. Colours are distinguished by their wavelengths, and the brain processes this information and produces a visual display that we experience as colour.
This means that colours only really exist within the brain – light [...]