Since university, I have had this curiosity about the concept of a person's individuality. That is, what makes us unique, and how our individual experiences shape our perspective, behavior, preferences, habits, values, and beliefs.

I have also wondered what it would be like to transfer one's consciousness into another person's body, to be able to experience and perceive the world through their lens. And how different their experience of reality is. But, of course, it's quite impossible to have any empirical means of examining that. However, there is this new study that might shed light on some other aspects about our physiology and anatomy, with respect to neuroscience and psychology.

A paper has been recently published that details how organ transplant recipients have experienced personality changes after their surgeries. They recount how their preferences have changed, how they seemingly experience new memories, which apparently they describe as being attached to their donors own experiences, as well as having other changes like delirium and depression.

There were stories when recipients have dreams about their donors last moments of life, like one college professor who received a heart from a police officer who was fatally shot in the face. The professor reported having a dream similar to that moment wherein he saw a flash of light cruising toward his face and feeling his face get very hot.

Another story of a five-year-old boy, who received the heart of a three-year-old boy. Even though the recipient's family had no prior knowledge about the donor, the five-year-old boy mentioned naming his donor Timmy, who enjoyed Power Rangers, and had an accident falling down.

Coincidentally, the recipient's mother later found out that the donor fell from a window ledge as he was trying to reach for a Power Ranger toy. The name of the boy was Thomas, but his family called him Tim.

So there is this theory that our cells may have some form of storage of memories associated with our experiences. Others think that it's the electromagnetic field transfers information from the donor to the recipient. The neurons store these information through chemical neurotransmitters which then gets passed on during surgery.

Psychological theories suggest that these may be a coping mechanism that recipients have to process the transplant surgery or that they may be acting out certain fantasies regarding the donor and the organ. Whatever the case may be, organ transplants definitely change the lives of their recipients in more ways than one.

And in these cases, we just simply don't have enough data to understand the mechanisms behind the neurochemistry, psychology, and biochemical processes going on in our bodies. Further research may uncover more about the subject, but there are certain things that we may not have the technology yet to delve deeper. - via Strange Company

(Image credit: National Cancer Institute/Unsplash)

We think of Australians as a tough bunch, because it takes guts to live in a place with so many deadly animals, like snakes. It indeed requires a tough person to catch a snake right after it bit them. But hospitals in Queensland are asking that snake bite patients refrain from bringing those snakes into the hospital for identification. Live, venomous snakes in poorly-secured containers are unnecessary, and pose a danger to hospital staff and other people. Besides, trying to capture it risks you being bitten again. Yet people bring those snakes in more frequently than is comfortable.  

It's true that Australia has many species of venomous snakes, but they also have polyvalent antivenom that works on bites from multiple Australian snake species. Hospital staff can tell what kind of snake bite you have by the bite marks and symptoms, much better than they can identify a snake. The same is true for emergency rooms in the US, although the CDC says it may help to take a photograph of the snake from a safe distance if you can. However, hospitals do not want to host the snake itself. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: John Wombey, CSIRO)

Due to advances in medicine and technologies that help us make healthier choices, the current life expectancy for humans in 2024 is 73.33 years. This is a tremendous leap from 1950, when the average life expectancy of human beings from birth was 45.51 years. How about other mammals? How do they fare?

Visual Capitalist summarizes with the above infographic the average lifespans of mammals. Humans now hold the second spot of the longest lifespan, only next to the bowhead whale which can live up to 200 years.

Within the span of 70 years, the life expectancy of humans increased by 25 years. And the closest to our current life expectancy is the elephant which stands at 56 years, although it is interesting to note how that is even longer than the human life expectancy in 1950.

Of course, there are certain factors that contribute to the lifespan of these mammals. Apart from diet and lifestyle, some of them have been hunted by humans as well. Loss of habitat due to deforestation and commercial development may have also contributed to the general welfare and quality of life of these animals.

Not to mention, we don't exactly have the numbers of their populations. Even though these mammals may be able to live for that long, again due to anthropogenic activities, their numbers may be dwindling, and their futures threatened.

As the Visual Capitalist asserts, the longer humans' life expectancy has been, the larger the reduction in wild mammal biomass. Throughout the years, this biomass has seen an 85% reduction the more that human populations have grown.

Moreover, the majority of mammal biomass is comprised of livestock which is at 62%, and humans at 34%, leaving only 4% for the wild mammals. - via Digg

(Image credit: Visual Capitalist)

Sam Salem is a stand-up comedian who happens to be a high school teacher, and in a two-part Instagram reel, he shared some of the best burns with which his students roasted him. Now, teachers may not necessarily appreciate being insulted by their students to their face like this, but Salem does appreciate the creativity with which his Gen Z students roast him.

In the first part of the series, he recounted how a student called him Jeffrey Dahmer, as he was standing by the classroom. In another exchange, another student said he looked like Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory, which was fair given he has red hair and glasses. Apparently, #3 on the list was Logic, which a lot of people have already told him although he readily admitted that he did, in fact, look like Logic.

While he was wearing a brown glen check jacket, a student said he looked like Macklemore. And finally, as he was walking along the hallway, he passed by a girl who was filming for Tiktok, to which he made an offhand remark. The girl then looked at him and told him that he looked like a pigeon.

In the second part of the series, we had some very interesting, and quite accurate roasts from his students. Somebody referred to him only as "Mr. Facebook" because he looked like Mark Zuckerberg which, from afar, one can definitely see the resemblance.

There was one student who told him as he was leaving school that he looked like a skinny Carl Weezer, which again, was fair because of the red hair and glasses. From this, you can start to see a pattern in what students are reminded of when they look at Salem. Then, a student remarked that he resembled a random guy in the news.

Perhaps one of the weirdest resemblances that a student said of him was that he looked like a cartoon mosquito. Granted, the student was quite annoyed with him, and uttered the roast under their breath.

And finally, the funniest exchange so far is when a student asked Salem whether he saw the movie Chicken Little, and then quipped, "I think you know where this is going." - via Digg

(Video credit: Sam Salem/Instagram)

The recent floods experienced in Dubai and Sharjah last week have prompted some people to blame the cloud seeding operations which were done Sunday and Monday. The freak storms occurred on Tuesday of that week. So, that led people to speculate that it was caused by the cloud seeding.

However, experts say that this was not the case as weather forecasts had already predicted that heavy rainfall was going to occur during that time, even without factoring in the effects of the cloud seeding operations.

What caused the rare rainfall event is still uncertain. Climate change may have played a role in it, but the region has always been characterized with long periods of a dry, hot weather, and then, occasionally, heavy rainfall hits. Perhaps, the only unusual thing about the flooding which happened last week is the amount of precipitation.

The annual average rainfall that Dubai experiences, for example, is about 97mm of rain. The city of Al-Ain, last week, experienced about 256mm of rain in just 24 hours. This is the heaviest recorded rainfall in the region in the past 75 years.

Based on statements by meteorologists, the cloud seeding could not have been the culprit to the extreme rainfall that occurred last week in the UAE because, for such an amount of precipitation to have fallen, that amount must have already been present in the atmosphere in the first place. That is, cloud seeding did not produce the rainfall.

So, the most likely explanation is that there was already a low pressure system that developed over the region, which carried that volume of water. It is possible that climate change had a hand in the event, since the warmer temperatures allowed the atmosphere to hold more water, which resulted in heavy flooding.

And as has been said already, they had already expected the region to experience heavy rainfall, so it was not as though the UAE was blindsided with the heavy floods. But, perhaps, it would be high time for new strategies to be developed to respond to unexpected amounts of precipitation such as this.

Infrastructure may need to be improved so that it can withstand heavy floods like the one from last week. Measures and protocols would have to be updated to anticipate the worst-case scenarios.

(Image credit: CherryPie94/Wikimedia Commons)

It has been almost two decades since Pluto was demoted from being a planet to a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union. But still, astronomers and astrophysicists are searching for an elusive ninth planet orbiting around the sun. And so far, the places where Planet Nine could be is slowly running out, with about 78% of the sky turning up with nothing.

There were a few candidates over the years. In 2003, Sedna was discovered, although it was still considered a dwarf planet, and the distance between Sedna and the sun was about 11 billion kilometers, at its nearest, and it goes as far as 140 billion kilometers away from the sun.

For perspective, Neptune has an average distance of about 4.5 billion kilometers away from the sun. Pluto, on the other hand, was on average about 5.2 billion kilometers from the sun. So, Sedna could barely be included within the solar system. Another celestial body, 2012 VP113, was also discovered and this gave rise to the possibility that Planet Nine does exist somewhere out there.

In fact, in 2016, Caltech astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown asserted that the alignment of the trans-Neptunian objects' orientations was far too close to be coincidental. Furthermore, they shared a similar degree of tilt with respect to Earth's orbit, so this may point to the possibility that Planet Nine does exist.

However, despite the search efforts, astronomers still have not found Planet Nine. So far, they have conducted surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey, covering about 56% of the sky and the Pan-STARRS1 survey, which looked at around 75%. Combining these two, along with their overlaps, about 78% of the sky has been searched.

After these search efforts, only 22% of the sky remains. Moreover, the part which has not yet been surveyed is perhaps the most difficult part to scour because stars are more crowded together, so it will be like finding a needle in a haystack, that is, if the needle was sure to be in the haystack. Whether Planet Nine even exists is still uncertain.

There are clues that point to the possibility of Planet Nine existing, but until the astronomers can spot an actual exoplanet orbiting around the sun, then we can only hope that it does exist. If it does exist, then that will give us more insight into our galaxy, the formation of planets, and how they transformed throughout the years.

And perhaps, apart from the fact that discovering Planet Nine would give scientists more material to analyze and study, it has been more than two centuries since the last solar system planet was discovered, and having a new one might assuage the loss some of us felt when Pluto had been demoted.

(Image credit: NASA/Unsplash)

The Matrix explored the idea that the world we're living in is actually just a simulation, and that everything has been programmed, and so we have no control over the outcome of our lives, in the final analysis. Once a person is able to escape the matrix by taking the red pill, they can finally be freed from the shackles of determinism.

Of course, the final film of the original trilogy showed us that even then, the outcome was still inevitable, and the simulation will just simply reiterate itself until, at some point in the future, one of the future iterations would find a way to break that cycle. Still, it's a work of fiction and a very elaborate thought experiment imagined. 

However, what if our world actually existed that way? Not in the sense that there is a much larger universe beyond our present consciousness, and by some means, we can wake up from the simulated illusion we're currently living in and access true reality. But, in the sense that the world operates in a deterministic manner, much like a simulation.

Melvin Vopson, a physicist from the University of Portsmouth, believes that he may have found signs that we do live in a simulation. That the entire universe is careening toward one particular end. And he says this from the lens of what he calls "the second law of infodynamics (information dynamics)". 

According to Vopson, this law states that, as opposed to the second law of thermodynamics in which entropy tends to increase over time, information entropy does exactly the opposite. If that were the case, then he says that as time passes, information will continue to decrease until such point that there is one pathway or direction where the universe will go.

He got this idea from studying the SARS-CoV-2 virus. He observed that the genetic mutations that the virus underwent was not random, which suggests that it is consistent with his second law of infodynamics. A similar experiment in 1972 ended with the same result, in that, the genome of a virus decreased over 74 generations.

If this were to be proven true, then it will completely change the way scientists view evolution and how it works. Instead of mutations or adaptations happening at random, it will become predictable, because the pool of information available has decreased, therefore, it will be a lot easier to determine the outcome and the probability of mutations before they even take place.

Of course, the logistics of trying to prove this theory is near impossible because we don't have the evidence for it. However, there is a possible experiment wherein one tries to prove that information is matter. For example, one can try to measure a hard drive before and after the erasure of information. Although, the change may be too minuscule to measure.

Nevertheless, it's a very interesting experiment to undertake. Furthermore, the estimated cost to conduct such an experiment is quite inexpensive at a mere $180,000, which simulation theory proponents may be able to scrounge up.

(Video credit: University of Portsmouth)

I used to watch Cesar Millan's show, Dog Whisperer, and I was so fascinated with his understanding of dog psychology and behavior, that when my family finally got a dog, I was thrilled to test out the stuff that I saw him do. To my surprise, it was more complicated than it looked.

We got our dog when she was just about a month old, so I experienced all the highs and lows of raising a puppy until she matured. It has been about seven years since our dog became a part of the family, and throughout the years, I have learned so much more about taking care of dogs simply by observing her and trying out certain methods from Millan, but with a few tweaks.

I was never very affectionate with our dog during the early years. I would pull away when she tried to lick my face. But now, I find it quite endearing. Whenever she would jump up on my bed while I was sleeping, I would awaken and push her away. These days, I care less whether she sleeps on my bed or not, although I have found a few ways to get her out of my bed and onto her own bed.

Perhaps, because of all these actions that I have recently started to do, my dog has become more attached to me more than to my parents. And I have found it's a lot easier to coax her, for example, to take a bath because of it.

Now, this list, compiled by two veterinarians, gives us 12 things which we may unknowingly do that annoys our dogs. And as I read through them, I'm quite relieved that I have not actually done these things, except for a couple, which fortunately, did not annoy our dog as much.

I will say, however, with regard to our dog, there are a few things that she absolutely hates. Taking baths is one of them, and despite her being okay with me to give her a bath, she still abhors it. For my sake, she bears with it. She also hates being carried. Even with me, she would be annoyed if I were to grab her under her front legs to try and carry her. And she hates food droppers.

Going back to the list on RD, one thing that I have done but, to my knowledge, does not annoy our dog is the fact that I stare back at her when she stares at me. According to the vets, dogs may feel threatened when they are being stared at. In my defense, I don't stare at my dog for long periods of time.

Hugging, apparently is also a big no-no, and I learned this while observing my niece interacting with our dog. When my niece was younger, she would often embrace our dog around her midsection, and our dog would often growl at her for doing that.

Another thing on the list, which I absolutely agree with, is the fact that dogs hate being dressed up. My mother once bought a small shirt for a dog. And just by looking at the reaction of our dog, it was clear to me, she hated it. Thankfully, we threw that away, and our dog now runs natural around the house.

One thing on the list which I have found to have dire consequences was being inconsistent with routines. When our dog was about two years old, she had a bout with the parvovirus, and thankfully, she survived, but not without scars in the lining of her digestive tract.

So, there are times when we forget to feed her exactly on time, her stomach will react negatively and she will vomit. Then, she will refuse to eat and spend the rest of the day hiding under my bed. The only way to coax her out is to tempt her for a walk, and even then, it's not guaranteed she will come out.

Anyways, for the rest of the things that we unwittingly do that annoy our dogs, check out the article on Reader's Digest.

(Image credit: charlesdeluvio/Unsplash)

"I was human once" begins a soliloquy from a successful alchemist who developed an elixir that gave him immortality and magical powers. What would you sacrifice for immortality and magical powers? We find that the price was quite high, and he wouldn't do it again if he had a choice. The lesson was learned, but it's too late to back out. You can't appreciate the value of time when it's unlimited, and all the power in the world doesn't help you in your relationships with other people if you are no longer human.

Cory Williams of Daydream Studios made this animation in just five days with the help of various modern animation tools, including Unreal Engine. You can see a behind the scenes video here. It will give you a new appreciation for the technology that puts such power in the hands of animators, and you will surely appreciate Williams' voice work. -via Laughing Squid

Imagine being a Jewish soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War, in what would later become West Virginia where no one knew how to celebrate Passover. There were 21 Jewish soldiers in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment under the command of future president Rutherford B. Hayes in 1862. Most were young men who had celebrated, but had never organized a Passover Seder before. Private Joseph A. Joel obtained permission for the soldiers to take a day off for the Seder, and it was granted.

The men had to enlist help from their provisions supplier and the local residents to get what they needed for the feast. Cider was a substitute for wine, and whatever they substituted for the usual horseradish and parsley as the bitter herb was so bitter that it caused the men to drink all the cider and the Seder got quite lively, or even rowdy. Joel published an account of that Seder in 1866 in the Jewish Messenger. While it wasn't the only Passover celebration on the battlefield, it was the one best documented for posterity, and you can read about it at Smithsonian.  

(Image source: Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum)

Warning: this video contains lots of NSFW language. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is crossing its fingers that bringing back two of its more popular superheroes in the R-rated Deadpool & Wolverine will reverse its fortunes after a slew of disappointing movies with lesser-known comic book characters. Maybe a young teen audience isn't all that necessary when you've got sass, action, blood, humor, and two proven stars in Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. In this film, a disruption of the timeline is on the line, so to speak, so Deadpool and Wolverine must team up to set things right. The villain is Cassandra Nova, played by Emma Corrin, the evil twin sister of Charles Xavier. So, do Deadpool and Wolverine hate each other like it seems in this film, or is that just the way guy friends act sometimes? We will find out when Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters on July 26.

There is this phrase which says, "History is written by the victors." For much of human history, that seems to have been the case. Whoever had the power to write history were the ones who made history. Whether or not that version of history includes all the gory details, can sometimes be put into question.

For the most part, we cross-reference certain events and anecdotes with other narratives describing the same events or the surrounding context of those events, in order for us to see the bigger picture, since there's always multiple perspectives in a historical event.

We started with this because there are many historical markers installed throughout the US. More than 180,000 markers recounting different stories of people and events in US history have been placed in various states. They are supposed to capture a moment in time and place, but it seems that some of them have history wrong. Moreover, several of them are quite offensive.

This NPR special series tackles the way that certain historical markers erected in different parts of the US are attempting to rewrite US history, as well as describing other people groups like Native Americans and African-Americans in a bad light.

Currently, the federal government, or even the state governments, aren't doing anything about it because there's just so many historical markers that to try and revise each one is going to be a herculean task, and nobody has enough energy and resources to put into it.

Another reason why so many markers have been placed is because it only cost a few thousand dollars to order one. Originally, these markers were created to motivate Americans to travel to different states and spur their interest in the different towns, cities, and sights that other places have to offer.

So, with the relative ease of putting up these historical markers, it's probably no surprise how the number of historical markers skyrocketed, and the fact that nobody is regulating them, is one of the reasons why there are markers with competing claims or just downright problematic.

To see several examples of such historical markers, you may check them out here. Furthermore, there is also an online database that keeps track of all the historical markers throughout the US. So far, they have counted more than 211,000 historical markers to date.

(Image credit: Everydaypsyche/Wikimedia Commons)

Okay, this sounds ridiculous. Who would be scared to driver over a bridge? Who would pay $40 to have someone else drive them across this bridge? I mean aside from the whole ship-crashing-into-bridge thing going on lately.

But maybe not. The bridge bisecting Chesapeake Bay is six and a half miles long and has two lanes of traffic each way with no shoulder. Some redditors say that it's actually hard to drive because the design of the bridge messes with the depth perception of some drivers.

The Washingtonian reports that the Kent Island Express company drives about 12-15 people per day. Many wear sleep masks to block the sight of the bridge and the disorienting effects that some people experience from seeing it. Since the bridge collapse in Baltimore, the business is up 10-15% due to riders who have only more reason to fear bridge crossings.

-via Chris Koerner | Photos: Kent Island Express, Library of Congress

There's nothing more endearing than the symbiotic relationship developed between people and wildlife. As much as we benefit from the resources we take from nature, I think it's also our responsibility to take care of them. Although wildlife in their natural state rely on their own instincts to survive, human intervention can sometimes aid in the preservation of wildlife and to ensure that they can live and grow without too much threat on their lives or that of their young.

That is the kind of relationship that has been forged through centuries and generations of Norwegian tenders and the eiders, one of the largest sea birds in the arctic. Sort of a mix between a goose and a duck, the eiders have been under the care of bird-raising families since the 1600s. 

The caretakers of these eiders have gained much knowledge and experience which they have passed down from one generation to the next in the hopes of keeping this mutual bond between the birds and humans alive. This story, covered by Devon Frederickson, gives us a sneak peek into the lives of the eiders and their caretakers who have grown to love them even as their own family.

For the most part, during brooding season, eiders huddle into their nests where they lay their young and keep them warm until they hatch after 25 to 28 days. After that time, the eiders leave the nest and what's left are the down feathers which the caretakers collect and gather to be used as raw materials in manufacturing duvets, jackets, coats, and other apparels.

In all the world, eiderdowns are the softest, which is why their scientific name, Somateria mollissima, is such because the Latin species name mollissimus translates to "the softest". But profit is not the primary motivation for these elderly caretakers, some of whom have been taking care of these ducks for half a century, their whole lives in fact. They do it because of the legacy of love passed on to them by their ancestors.

Eider numbers are currently dwindling. One factor is climate change, which can also affect another factor, the behavioral changes of wildlife within the ecosystem. This not only includes the eiders themselves, but also their source of food and the predators which are perhaps the biggest threat to eider numbers.

This is why the eider-human relationship is necessary, because eiders find shelter and peace in the presence of their human caretakers. They are able to breed in peace while the humans shoo away their predators. The eiders can find nesting grounds prepared by their caretakers, which makes life for the eiders easier.

They can tend to their young without the stress of having to defend them from outside interference. Although there are still instances when larger birds of prey would swoop down and take one of the ducklings from the group, which many of the caretakers find incredibly saddening, as they have already formed tight bonds with them. They consider each one already a part of their own family.

Over the past century, as many bird keepers moved into the industrial parts of Norway, only few remained to take care of the birds, and that caused their numbers to decrease drastically. From a population of about 7,000 nesting eiders in 1900, that number shrunk to only 400 nesting females by 2004.

And so now, there is a deep need to encourage more people to maintain this age-old tradition, not merely for their own profit or benefit, but mostly for the birds' future. People like Rita Johansen, Albert Stensholm, Vibeke Steinsholm, and Hildegunn Nordum, with whom Devon Frederickson corresponded to write this story, are only some of the growing number of people concerned about the eiders welfare and posterity.

Their goal is to bring the eiders' situation to national attention, and collaborate together with the government and other leading figures such as UNESCO to restore the once thriving eider population. To the bird keepers, this is more than just some hobby or business, it's their way of life. It's their history. It's their commitment and their place in the world.

(Image credit: Simon Hurry/Unsplash)

We often think of prisons to be the most inhumane places in society, because of what we see in media or what we hear from people who have been there. Or, perhaps from personal experience, whether we know someone who is or has been incarcerated, or have experienced being incarcerated ourselves. What usually comes to mind when we think of prisons is that it's a scary place, being a hub filled with offenders.

Of course, prison is partly a place to detain and isolate individuals from society so that they can be rehabilitated, if possible. Otherwise, they will be kept there for life if the courts deem them to pose a significant level of threat to society. But there are some prisons that have the weirdest rules, which can either be thought-provoking or just downright silly.

On this list compiled by Pauli Poisuo of Grunge, perhaps the most surprising prison policy is that of Bastoy Island in Norway. The prevailing rule in the prison is one of trust and respect. This can be seen from the fact that guards are unarmed, prisoners live in cabins with their own rooms, and they can even be cook their own food as well as be productive with their own jobs.

This defies the conventional notion that we have of prisons, that they are inhumane and inhospitable to its inhabitants. In fact, Bastoy has become a community in itself, like its own village. Not only that, prisoners also have the freedom to go fishing or even swim at the beach.

Perhaps, this first example would make us pause to think about how we think about the people who have committed crimes, why they did so, and how we should exact justice yet still enable them to maintain their humanity. We don't know, however, whether the prisoners here are just petty criminals or big-time offenders, committing heinous crimes. But the fact that even the guards are willing to go unarmed says much about the culture in Norway, and how they view individuals, the penal system, and justice.

Next to this, I would say that the second most humane policy is that of Aranjuez Prison in Spain. What they have implemented is something called the family cell program. That is, when both parents have been incarcerated, they allow children under the age of three to live with their parents inside the prison. And they're not living in squalid cells either. There's a special area fitted with amenities of a regular household.

This may not be the best solution, but experts agree that it is a preferable method than letting children grow up without their parents, especially during their formative years. Plus, the little children will also have playmates inside so it's not the worst environment.

This third one is the weirdest. It was a policy implemented by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been dubbed "America's Toughest Sheriff". In response to increasing cases of undergarment theft in the prison, Arpaio launched the pink underwear campaign. Everything from undergarments, socks, blankets, and even handcuffs were in pink.

It didn't last long as the new sheriff abolished all the policies that his predecessor implemented. These are only some of the most unconventional prison policies in the world. There are several more on Grunge's list, and you might be intrigued by them as well.

(Image credit: Larry Farr/Unsplash)