I'm sure everybody has at least watched a video or read an article about tips on getting good sleep, or advice on how to cure insomnia. I read articles which talked about tricks that supposedly helped anyone to sleep anytime anywhere. It's something that the military used, according to those articles. But what exactly does science say about good sleep and how to get it? Well, theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder gives us a rundown in the video above.

There are a few myths that we need to bust about getting good sleep or being able to fall asleep. The fact is there's no trick, hack, or shortcut to sleeping. There's no sleeping position, stress point, nerve ending, or whatever that could induce sleeping faster or more effectively. There's just no scientific evidence to support such claims.

Sleeping pills and melatonin might work but they're only temporary. There's still no substitute for natural sleep. The fact of the matter is our lifestyle, habits, and environment are the major contributing factors to whether we get good sleep or not.

Furthermore, although it is often recommended that we get, on average, eight hours of sleep each day, the amount of sleep necessary to function properly is different from person to person, as is the method of getting to sleep.

Perhaps one key advice I took from the video is that, when you find that you can't sleep, toughing it out and staying in bed is not the best way to address it. Getting out of bed might be more beneficial in inducing you to fall asleep. That and more dos and don'ts of good sleep from Back Reaction.

(Video credit: Sabine Hossenfelder/Youtube)

Public toilets often have a negative reputation of being dingy and uncomfortable. But there are some places in the world where the condition of public toilets are decent and acceptable. And then there are public toilets with majestic views of surrounding nature and an aesthetically appealing architectural design that will just leave you in awe. Norway's Uredd Rest Area tops that list.

Ureddplassen, as it is known locally, is located near the coast, with scenic views of the Fugleøya Island and the Lofoten Islands across the open sea. The Norwegian government strategically placed it along the Norwegian Scenic Route Helgelandskysten and has become a landmark for people to take a rest stop and enjoy the beauty of nature while on the road.

Apart from the sleek wave-like (or to some eyes, mammoth-like) design, marble benches have also been placed just outside and one can even come closer to the water through some amphitheater steps built nearby. The name Uredd had been inspired by the Norwegian "Uredd" submarine in World War II, which means "fearless". There's also a WWII memorial at the site, to remember the 42 sailors who lost their lives during the war. -via Everlasting Blort

(Video credit: Atlas Obscura)

Stanley Schtinter, an artist and the author of a new book titled Last Movies, was curious to find out what film famous people had seen before they died. What spurred this project on was Schtinter's fascination about the former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who had been assassinated in 1986 as he was leaving a movie theater in Stockholm. He watched The Mozart Brothers by Suzanne Osten, who had coincidentally offered Palme a role in the film.

It was these coincidences perhaps, that led Schtinter down this path. For example, what ties JFK and Elvis Presley together? Well, the book answers that. Apparently, they both saw a Bond film before their unfortunate deaths. JFK watched From Russia With Love, while Elvis Presley watched The Spy Who Loved Me.

Another fascinating but eerie coincidence recorded in the book is the film that director Rainer Werner Fassbinder saw. It was 20,000 Years in Sing Sing. Coincidentally, the day he died was the same date shown on a telegram in the film. It was dated June 10, 1932 and Fassbinder died June 10, 1982.

Other famous people included in the book were Franz Kafka, Charlie Chaplin, and Stanley Kubrick. They too have an unseeming connection which the book unfurled. Kafka watched Chaplin's The Kid, and Chaplin watched Kubrick's Barry Lyndon before he died. Finally, Kubrick watched a trailer of his own film, Eyes Wide Shut.

The book has not yet hit the shelves but preorders are currently being accepted. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Mason Kimbarovsky/Unsplash)

Benjamin Breen of Res Obscura has been researching the different uses of AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude (from Anthropic), and as an enthusiast of demonology manuals, he decided to challenge the LLMs to translate a page out of the 16th century book titled Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex (lit. "Book Six of the Discourse on Magic") by Jesuit theologian Martin Delrio.

He made the endeavor much easier on himself by simply feeding the AI with an OCR-rendered image to extract the text and copied that onto the prompt. What follows is a rough translation of the passage, but intelligible to a certain extent. It may not be accurate but it can aid researchers, for example, in getting a quick idea of the essence of materials which they cannot translate on their own.

Claude apparently does a better job at translating than ChatGPT. However, he still concludes the same thing many others have said before, AI tools are merely tools and not replacements. What they can do is simply make the process faster and more efficient for us who would rather put our time and effort into more critical aspects of our work.

(Image credit: Bavarian State Library/Google Books)

Since Spotify has this annual tradition of curating the top songs that users have played throughout the year, and presenting it in a "Best Of" collection format, they have transformed the data they have collected into an interactive map which shows you which songs are the most played songs in different cities around the world. They call it Wrapped Mapped.

Each year, Spotify summarizes users' listening activity which they can share with other people. Users can also check to see if their favorite songs and artists have made it onto the most streamed list on Spotify.

With Wrapped Mapped, the idea is that the music we listen to can sometimes be shaped by the communities where we belong. This map enables users to check what music trends are happening in places outside of their local communities. Perhaps, they might find other people who share the same music interests in the other side of the world. Thus, allowing them to become connected through their love of a particular song or artist.

Not all cities are included on the map. Spotify lists the top five songs in most of the largest cities in the US, and for other parts of the world, they simply collate data for whole countries.

For example, in Los Angeles, Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma's Ella Baila Sola tops the list with SZA's Kill Bill closely following. On the other hand, the UK has Dave and Central Cee's Sprinter at the number one spot, while Miley Cyrus' Flowers comes in second. It may not be an exhaustive list, but it's a good start if Spotify is planning to make it an annual thing as well. It's also a fun way to browse new music or to see which songs and artists were the most streamed in various parts of the world. -via Google Maps Mania

(Image credit: Spotify)

Even if you've never seen the holiday staple The Nutcracker, you recognize the music by Tchaikovsky. Every community that stages the ballet gives an opportunity to dozens of young dancers to perform on stage with real ballet dancers. But the production went through some hard times when it was new. The story is based on a rather dark tale written by E.T.A. Hoffmann in 1816. Some of the more tragic and thought-provoking details were dropped before the story became a ballet. Tchaikovsky hated composing the music. He was constrained by the choreographer's demands and considered the work dull. When the ballet debuted in 1892, it got mixed reviews from critics and audience members. The story was nonsensical, and there were too many children in it! But over the years, people came around, and those things became a big part of its charm. Read some facts about the history of The Nutcracker at Mental Floss.

When you watch a movie in a language you don't speak, do you look for a dubbed version, or do you turn on the subtitles? It makes a difference, because teams who dub movies into another language translate it completely separately from the teams who type up subtitles, which are also used as closed captions. Dialogue in dubbed movies makes an attempt to match the lip movements of the actors. Or sometimes they don't try all that hard, as you've no doubt noticed in some really cheaply made films. And then there's the problem of translating puns, which aren't funny if you just interpret it word by word, or even grammatically, if the context doesn't make sense in another culture. If you listen to a dubbed movie and turn on the captions, too, you might notice a lot of differences, which will cause you to lose the plot quickly. The last minute of this video is an ad.    

Some of the most recognizable quotes you hear are not really quotes. Abraham Lincoln never said, "You  can't believe everything you read on the internet," and Gandalf never said, "May the Force be with you," despite the ubiquitous memes. Honestly, those are pretty easy to spot as fake. But some catchphrases you've heard all your life actually never occurred in the context you think they did.

For example, when you hear "Elementary, my dear Watson," you think of Sherlock Holmes explaining to his assistant how easily he used deductive reasoning to solve a crime. You may have used the phrase to make the same point. But in all the Arthur Conan Doyle stories featuring Sherlock Holmes, he never said those exact words in that order. He came close in the short story “The Crooked Man,” but the entire phrase was just the word "elementary." Read about that and four other catchphrases that we know so well that only became famous after they were misread, misheard, or misremembered at Cracked.

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks are rife with illustrations of anatomy, physiology, inventions, and engineering sketches that show his observations and preoccupations on the subjects. But apart from those, he also wrote lists of things he needed to do, just like everyone else.

These to-do lists however, are not mere ordinary daily tasks life we often do. Many of them are larger in scope such as measuring the duke's palace and its courtyard, as well as measuring and drawing the city of Milan and its suburbs. Some of the notes he wrote actually showed the inquisitive mind of the artist.

In the note translated by NPR, da Vinci writes about asking certain professors and masters about their craft such as squaring a triangle, measuring the sun, and repairing a lock.

Even his more mundane to-do lists were quirky in their own way. He reminded himself to bring a bone saw, a scalpel, and some chalk on one occasion when he was going to dissect corpses. In that same note, he wrote that he must get a hold of a skull and nutmeg, as well as measuring the corpse using its finger as a unit. This and others on Flashbak.

(Image credit: Flashbak)

There are so many astounding feats that the 26th President of the United States is often cited for. Some of those include The Square Deal, the building of the Panama Canal, trust busting, railroad rate regulation, and the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in mediating between the two parties during the Russo-Japanese War. However, he also holds the record as the youngest ever to become president, at the age of 42.

Of course, he wasn't elected president. The youngest elected president record is still held by JFK, who was elected at 43. The story behind Roosevelt's presidency was also quite fascinating, as many of his party members didn't want him to become president. So, they had arranged for him to become vice president instead. What they didn't expect was the assassination of William McKinley, which ironically propelled Teddy Roosevelt to the presidency.

Not only this, but Roosevelt also holds the record as the youngest person to become a former president, at 50 years old. Despite his promise not to run for a third term, he did try again in 1912. That was also when somebody attempted to assassinate him, but his eyeglass case and speech papers had prevented the shot from being fatal.

(Image credit: American Press Association, Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

A global collaboration of scientists from different countries including the US, the UK, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and Italy, have found paleontological hints that point to the major role of volcanic eruptions and climate change to the demise of the dinosaurs. To be clear, they're not saying that the mass extinction event brought about by an asteroid that struck the earth did not happen. Rather, it was the last nail on the coffin, which sealed the dinosaurs' fate.

The scientists have been studying a region in India called the Deccan Traps to piece together the events that led to the dinosaurs' extinction. Their studies have indicated that prior to the asteroid crashing into earth, volcanic eruptions around the Deccan Traps region triggered fluctuating global temperatures which placed incredible stress on the earth's ecosystems, beginning the impending doom of the dinosaurs.

These findings can also help in our understanding of the current climate crisis that the earth is in and how these phenomena are interconnected with the earth's geological and biological systems, according to the scientists.

(Image credit: Jon Butterworth/Unsplash)

Most of our computers and other devices use digital processors to transmit data. Throughout the decades, we have leaned toward digital because it's more flexible and much easier to program. However, the company Aspinity says that it has finally broken the code for programming analog processors.

But what exactly is the difference between digital and analog? Analog data can be thought of as a wave, smooth and continuous, while digital are like steps on a ladder, discrete and binary, filled with ones and zeros. Most of the data we have in the real world are analog, and so, those data are converted into digital signals which can be processed by our devices and computers.

If we have analog processors transmitting analog data, then it will be a lot faster. Moreover, Aspinity says that creating analog processors that can accurately transmit and convert data might be a breakthrough in the future of computing as these will consume far less energy, about one-thousandth of the digital ones we have today.

The company says that they do not expect analog processors to replace digital ones, but they can complement them, being the processors that will always be turned on, doing all the "behind-the-scenes" work in the background, while digital processors will be on an "as-needed" basis, which should theoretically save on energy.

They have developed the first few processors, but it would take time for these analog processors to be manufactured at scale, so if all goes according to plan, they expect that these analog processors will be able to power about 30 billion devices by 2040.

(Video credit: Freethink/Youtube)

I first watched the film The Blind Side while I was in university several years back. I had wondered why it was nominated for an Academy Award, and at the time, I was doing marathons of Oscar films, but this film caught my attention somehow. It was nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress, winning the Oscar for Sandra Bullock. It lost to The Hurt Locker.

After I watched it, I felt moved and inspired by it. It was definitely a heart-warming film that can restore our faith in humanity. It depicted the true-to-life story of Michael Oher and his foster family, the Tuohys, who had adopted him during his final year in high school. He later received a scholarship, graduated with a degree in criminal justice, and eventually, was drafted into the NFL.

What the film didn't show us however, were the events prior to his meeting with the Tuohys. Although it had been mentioned that Oher's mother had drug addiction, and that he bounced from one foster care to another, the movie never showed how Oher lived despite his circumstances.

We only see how he became a beneficiary of the goodwill shown to him by the Tuohys, but in the video above, he explains how he struggled and fought to escape the environment wherein he grew up. He shares how he was inspired by Michael Jordan to have aspirations and ambitions in life, and to work toward achieving those dreams. This is the untold story of Michael Oher.

(Video credit: Big Think/Youtube)

It started around 1839 in the small village of Efailwen in Pembrokeshire, when a local farmer had dressed up as a woman, called himself Rebecca or Beca, and demolished a tollgate. Thus began the Rebecca Riots.

Nobody knows exactly why the men dressed themselves up as women or why they called themselves 'Merched Beca' or Rebecca's daughters. Some have speculated that the name was a reference to the biblical Rebecca whose offspring were said to "possess the gates of their enemies". It's quite a convincing reason, but no confirmation about the origins of the name has been recorded. Perhaps, the most plausible one was to conceal the protesters' identities.

Although the Rebecca Riots, which was what the movement was later called, began with local farmers who protested and attacked tollgates, it wasn't just against taxes that they were battling. Rather, it was the dire situation in which Wales, specifically the western agricultural communities at the time, had found itself.

Many of these communities were in dire poverty because of poor harvests and the fluctuating prices of agricultural products, forcing farmers to use up what little capital they had just to feed their families and cattle. Later on, even non-agricultural laborers joined the protests.

In the end, due to a government inquiry into the matter as well as the emergence of criminal groups posing as Rebeccaites, the riots ceased. It didn't have an immediate effect on farmers, but it did lead to a reduction on rent levels and an improvement on the toll gates as well as an act that amended turnpike trust laws in Wales.

(Image credit: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

If you've ever studied the saga of the Russian Revolution in the early 20th century, you know how important it was globally. But... actually reading the convoluted story of war and politics will make your eyes glaze over. The one character that stood out to make it downright entertaining was Rasputin, the "mad monk" who was plucked from central casting to play both the wizard and the villain. He was mysterious, outrageous, and polarizing, and his story had supernatural overtones that make him a fascinating study even today. You have to train your eye to recognize Tsar Nicholas II and his family in photographs, but Rasputin stood out as an archetype. YouTuber Antimatter tells the story of Rasputin, accompanied by hundreds of still images of Rasputin himself, the artworks he inspired, and the many movies that featured him.