Rik Villanueva posted a Star Wars timeline that corresponds with earth years. These aren't the years that these movies actually happened, because we were told right off that it happened "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." It's all about order and perspective. Villanueva apparently used 2019 (the year we saw The Rise of Skywalker) as a starting point and counted back, but some fans are disappointed he didn't use 1977 (when the first Star Wars movie was released) as the anchor year.

While this timeline can be useful, particularly in pegging when The Mandalorian occurs, it still leaves us wondering how Obi-wan Kenobi looked so young when played by Ewan McGregor and so old when played by Alec Guinness. The adventures of the space wizard in Disney's upcoming series may have aged him. That series is supposed to be set ten years after Revenge of the Sith and nine years before A New Hope, which would put it at 1975 in this graph. -via Boing Boing

Redditor emkay95 made a full-size apple rose tart for Christmas and wanted to show it off. Isn't it lovely? She said it was so labor-intensive she probably wouldn't ever make another. It's a good thing she took a picture before baking it.

That was a heartbreaking twist for readers, who were even more upset that she didn't take pictures of the aftermath. So no apple pie for Christmas dinner?

Well. It had tinfoil over it so it was kind of saved. We still made it and ate it but it wasn’t so beautiful anymore and kind of tasted like defeat

I'm sure it was delicious. Here's the recipe she used, although she did make a few alterations. Your mileage may vary.

To what would you compare a home run? For this commentator, he would compare it to an ex-girlfriend. Did he just break up with a girl when this happened? Was it recent that time? Only he knows.

Well, what do you think?

(Image Credit: Most Viral/ Team Super Saiyan/ YouTube)

Scientists from UChicago have created a groundbreaking tool called Voltair that allows researchers to measure voltage differences between organelles. Scientists knew that there were voltage differences in the organs of the human body. However, they weren’t able to measure these. This went on for decades.

"Scientists had noticed for a long time that charged dyes used for staining cells would get stuck in the mitochondria," explained graduate student Anand Saminathan, the first author for the paper, which was published in Nature Nanotechnology. "But little work has been done to investigate the membrane potential of other organelles in live cells."

The Krishnan lab at UChicago specializes in building tiny sensors to travel inside cells and report back on what's happening, so that researchers can understand how cells work—and how they break down in disease or disorders. Previously, they have built such machines to study neurons and lysosomes, among others.

In this case, they decided to use the technique to investigate the electric activities of the organelles inside live cells.

Details over at PHYS.org.

Awesome!

(Image Credit: allinonemovie/ Pixabay)

Can you picture your first grade classroom? How about that restaurant where you had your first date? For many of us, it would be easy, but for some, it is extremely difficult.

These individuals have a rare condition called aphantasia, which prevents them from easily recreating images in their mind's eye—in fact, the phrase "mind's eye" may be meaningless to them.

"Some individuals with aphantasia have reported that they don't understand what it means to 'count sheep' before going to bed," said Wilma Bainbridge, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Chicago who recently led a study of the condition, which can be congenital or acquired through trauma. "They thought it was merely an expression, and had never realized until adulthood that other people could actually visualize sheep without seeing them."

What goes inside the mind of an individual who has aphantasia? Bainbridge’s study, published in the journal Cortex, sheds some light on the topic. More about this over at MedicalXpress.

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If you want to be great at games, consider paying attention to Albert Einstein’s advice, which is to learn the rules of the game, and then play better than anyone else. Of course, this is easier said than done. But if you’re an AI like DeepMind, then it would be much easier for you — so much easier that you can even skip Einstein’s first advice.

DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet, has previously made groundbreaking strides using reinforcement learning to teach programs to master the Chinese board game Go and the Japanese strategy game Shogi, as well as chess and challenging Atari video games. In all those instances, computers were given the rules of the game.

But Nature reported… that DeepMind's MuZero has accomplished the same feats—and in some instances, beat the earlier programs—without first learning the rules.

Programmers at DeepMind relied on a principle called "look-ahead search." With that approach, MuZero assesses a number of potential moves based on how an opponent would respond. While there would likely be a staggering number of potential moves in complex games such as chess, MuZero prioritizes the most relevant and most likely maneuvers, learning from successful gambits and avoiding ones that failed.

More details about this over at TechXplore.

Wow!

(Image Credit: PIRO4D/ Pixabay)

For many years, scientists have been trying to understand reality through the laws of physics. However, it would seem that the more they try to understand, the more confused they become. The reason for this? Quantum philosophy. ScienceX tells us four ways of how this certain subject challenges your perception of reality. Learn more about this over at the site.

(Image Credit: insspirito/ Pixabay)

Sven Johnson had to make a video for the final exam in some media class, demonstrating his understanding of different technical aspects of production. What makes Sven's project stand out is that his brother is comedian and successful YouTuber Gus Johnson (previously at Neatorama), who volunteered to help out by appearing on camera. Sven has not revealed what grade he received. -via reddit

While dressed as the impulse control-impaired character Eddie Johnson from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Timothy Browning of Ashland, Kentucky celebrated Christmas morning the traditional way. He got out his flamethrower and blasted the snow off of his driveway. He is thus the model to all men about how we should conduct ourselves during this yuletide season. Let us do likewise--assuming that we can construct a functional flamethrower in our workshops.

-via Dave Barry

Flatscreen television sets have opened up a whole new world to dogs and cats, who used to pay no attention at all to cathode-ray tube TV. Ella is a senior rescue cat who loves to watch TV, but she prefers to see one particular film, every day if possible. You can see more of Ella at her Instagram page.

As soon as you get over your food coma from eating so many Christmas treats, it's time to get ready for another holiday! In the US, especially the South, it's traditional to serve hog jowl (or ham hocks or just ham) along with black-eyed peas and your favorite greens to celebrate the New Year. It's supposed to auger health and prosperity. But there's no need to limit yourself to only what you've eaten before. You might want to look to other countries if you want to institute new food traditions for the holiday. Here's a sampling:

1. Spain

In Spain, it's customary to eat 12 grapes right at midnight on New Year's Eve, representing good luck for each of the coming 12 months.

8. Turkey

In Turkey, some smash pomegranates in the doorways of their homes. As the tradition goes, the number of seeds that fly out predict how much good fortune you'll have in the coming year.

Read about more New Year food traditions at Food52. -via The Week

Mileva Marić Einstein was a brilliant physicist who is little known today, mainly because she was a woman born in 1875. The reason she is known at all is because she was married to Albert Einstein from 1903 to 1919. Their collaboration in both science and life started in 1896 when both were at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. In what appeared to be a pattern set for their entire time together, Mileva dragged Albert through his classes.

Albert and Mileva became inseparable, spending countless hours studying together. He attended only a few lectures, preferring to study at home. Mileva was methodical and organized. She helped him channel his energy and guided his studies as we learn from Albert’s letters, exchanged between 1899-1903 during school holidays: 43 letters from Albert to Mileva have been preserved but only 10 of hers remain(5).

Mileva had better grades than Albert, but the professor giving the final oral exam gave her such low marks that she did not graduate. Her four male classmates did. Albert and Mileva went on to collaborate on groundbreaking physics research, but Mileva's name rarely appeared in published papers, possibly because she knew from experience that her participation could diminish those papers and therefore Albert's job prospects. What she felt would advance their future together ended up costing her everything. Read the story of Mileva Einstein at Scientific American. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Unbekannt)

You don't like Christmas music? Shove it down people's throats!

Fun by Khöömïï, Tuvan, Sygyt throat singers.

It was hiding in plain sight, too. A graduate research assistant at the University of Kansas has discovered not one, but three new species of snakes preserved in the university’s Biodiversity Institute’s biodiversity collection. The snake specimens were overlooked until Jeff Weinell discovered that they were actually new species, and now these specimens are the only known members of a new snake genus called Levitonius: 

The newly identified Levitonius mirus, also known as Waray dwarf burrowing snake, is native to the islands of Samar and Leyte in the Philippines, an exceptionally biodiverse archipelago that includes at least 112 land snake species, according to the study.

The snake has among the fewest number of vertebrae of any snake species in the world, according to the study, and has a long and narrow skull relative to its size, Weinell explained in a conversation with CNN. Its scales are highly iridescent, and it is likely that its diet is based on earthworms.

Weinell emphasized the importance of collaboration between US-based scientists and scientists in the Philippines, furthering the understanding of biodiversity in the region.

Image via CNN 

It’s smaller than we would imagine a ‘sea dragon’ to be. The Thalassodraco etchesi or Etches sea dragon is a small marine reptile from 150 million years ago. The species, whose remains have been discovered in a marine deposit in Dorset,  England, may have been able to dive to extreme depths, and are also described as "streamlined marine predators from the Late Jurassic period." IGN has more details: 

“This ichthyosaur has several differences that makes it unique enough to be its own genus and species,” paleontologist Megan L. Jacobs said. “New Late Jurassic ichthyosaurs in the United Kingdom are extremely rare, as these creatures have been studied for 200 years. We knew it was new almost instantly, but it took about a year to make thorough comparisons with all other Late Jurassic ichthyosaurs to make certain our instincts were correct. It was very exciting to not be able to find a match.”

This specific specimen was discovered in 2009 and was estimated to have been about 6 feet long. It was discovered by fossil collector Steve Etches MBE after a "cliff crumbled along the seaside."

It appears to have some similarities to sperm whales with its "extremely deep rib cage" that may have allowed for larger lungs and space so internal organs weren't crushed under the pressure. It also had large eyes, which meant it could have been able to see well in low light.

Its hundreds of tiny teeth seem to indicate a diet that may have consisted of squid and small fish, and "the teeth are unique by being completely smooth."

Image via IGN