Last month, researchers were able to map majority of the land mass of Zealandia, which was considered the lost eighth continent. This month, a group of Dutch geologists have found another lost continent which is said to have broken off from Australia some 155 million years ago. It's called Argoland, and they have detected tectonic "mega-units" of it scattered on the ocean floor.

After it broke off from Australia, researchers said it drifted westward to Southeast Asia and disappeared until they found traces of it stretched throughout the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. Estimates indicate that it once spanned 3,000 miles and parts of it can also be found in Myanmar and Indonesia. From the remnants they had found, the researchers were able to piece together what Argoland looked like until it became fragmented and later sunk at the bottom of the sea.

(Image credit: CC0 Public Domain/Phys)

While we tend to prioritize happiness and positivity in order to live a fulfilling life or one without stress, researchers suggest that a mix of both positive and negative emotions can lead to the best outcomes. Certainly, we shouldn't neglect negative emotions and why we feel them. There is a reason why they surface. Some people try to suppress those emotions thinking that they only do harm, but it's not the emotions per se that are harmful, rather it's what we do with them and whether they take hold of us instead of us managing them.

In an experiment, researchers showed participants visuals which elicited certain emotional or neutral responses and then presented them with a challenging goal. Based on the results of the experiment, when participants evoked the emotion of anger, it aided them in achieving the goal set before them. Apart from this, the researchers also looked into surveys conducted during the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections. They found that when voters said that they would be angry if their candidate did not win, they were more motivated to vote.

These findings suggest that anger can become the impetus for people to do something to reach whatever goal they have set or to take action for something that they thought would be unfavorable or detrimental to them. It just shows how negative emotions such as anger, sadness, or even boredom can be effective in pushing people to success. -via Phys

(Image credit: Nik/Unsplash)

Human beings are temporal creatures. We move, and live, and breathe subject to time constraints. We depend on time to know when to wake up or go to sleep, to make appointments and hold events, and to finish the tasks for the day. We have schedules which we try to keep, important dates to remember, and goals we want to achieve before or upon reaching a certain age.

During the Industrial Revolution in Britain and Ireland, time was such a luxury for many people. People's livelihoods were dependent on whether they were able to get up on time and go to work on time, otherwise, they would have to find some other means of surviving. But not everybody had the resources to buy clocks or servants to wake them up. So, instead, they relied on the "knocker-uppers". Essentially, these were people whose job it was to wake other people up, like human alarm clocks.

Though this may be considered as resourceful or even ingenious by some, taking advantage of the opportunity that the circumstances had presented, the economist Helen Dendy had despised the profession and saw it as mere residual labor, something that doesn't add value to the economy as a whole. Later on, knocker-uppers were replaced by alarm clocks, but some had stayed active and working as late as 1960.

(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

When it comes to search engines, Google is king. We all know that, and it has practically become synonymous to looking for any kind of information. I remember the days when Yahoo search was still a thing, and I didn't even use MSN or Bing. I was in grade school when Google became a part of my consciousness as most of my classmates had already been using it. So, I used it too. Now, it's ubiquitous and it intends to stay that way, as Google's own senior vice president and search head revealed how much they paid to companies to keep Google as the default search engine.

Currently, Google is locked in the midst of an antitrust trial because of this. Meanwhile, Google defended the need for them to maintain their default status, as it is their means of keeping up with their competitors. In the same vein, keeping Google search as the default also keeps Chrome's value intact. It was also reported that Google paid Apple around $18 billion in 2021 to keep Chrome as the default browser on their devices.

Depending on what the result of the Google antitrust trial will be, the state of the internet will be drastically affected. History shows how these antitrust cases go for the company on the spotlight. IBM had their time. Microsoft came after. And now it's Google's turn. No matter what happens, it will be a game-changer.

(Image credit: Firmbee/Unsplash)

It's been 10 years since the film Her came out in cinemas, and now people are living that movie in reality with ChatGPT's recently added voice features. People have reported that they have been talking for hours with ChatGPT, and not only that, but they say that it also feels natural because of some ticks and noises that they added to make the conversation feel as though you were talking to a human.

On Reddit, people are sharing how they use ChatGPT's voice feature as a brainstorming partner, as a means to pass the time having a chat while driving or walking the dog, and some even developed such an intimate relationship with ChatGPT that they consider it one of their closest friends. Of course, there are still limitations on the chatbot such as a lack of situational awareness, a lack of a long-term memory, and a very stringent filtering mechanism so as to prevent conversations from becoming too personal or intimate.

Though these chatbots along with other AI popping up are giving people an outlet for their emotions or using it as a soundboard, it does make one wonder about how people are doing in terms of their relationships with friends, family, and other humans. Have we become so detached or isolated from others such that we turn to AI to develop meaningful relationships? Maybe not to that extent, maybe people are just curious about this new technology and are trying it out. However, it may not be long before sci-fi turns into reality.

(Image credit: Ryan Porter/Unsplash)

Public dissections were quite a spectacle in the past. Surgeons would hold anatomical dissections in theaters and crowds would flock them just to get a glimpse of what exactly is inside the human body. We don't hold such public spectacles nowadays since we have already done detailed studies of the human anatomy, and all of those have already been recorded in books. Furthermore, we have mannequins and models that can show which parts go where. But back then, just when the study of anatomy was a nascent subject, public anatomical dissections were the rage.

In 19th century Scotland, there was a surgeon named Dr. Robert Knox who did such public dissections twice a day, which earned him a lot of money. However, due to a few hiccups, there was a shortage of corpses which he could use for his public displays. There were fewer criminals being hanged due to the 1823 Judgment of Death Act, and people were getting annoyed with the growing frequency of grave-robbing. So, two men found a way to bridge the gap between supply and demand.

William Burke and William Hare conspired to make a fortune from corpses which they sold to Dr. Knox. The first one was innocent enough. One of Burke's tenants had died before paying rent of £4. So, they brought his dead body to Knox and got paid £8. The allure of money was quite tempting, and so they began their killing spree. Knox knew that the corpses he had been buying were obtained through illegal means, but asked no questions.

Everything seemed to go swimmingly for the pair until their hubris became their undoing. They were caught after Burke's tenants found a fresh corpse in their room. They were reported to the police and they were sentenced to an end befitting the crimes they committed.

(Image credit: Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt/Wikimedia Commons)

Roundabouts, if you're not familiar, are those circular intersections which are also called traffic circles or rotaries. Essentially, instead of the usual four-way intersection with right angles and crossroads, it would have smoother edges and you would go around to get across or to turn right or left. You get the picture. Though it may seem like it takes up too much space on the road, the benefits it provides in terms of safety and traffic flow regulation can make up for it.

Some of the things that I have noticed coming across roundabouts is that generally there are no traffic lights that control the flow of traffic. Motorists can freely enter the circle with caution. Of course, there are usually signs that serve as guides for drivers, but you would yield as usual for those who have right of way. One benefit that roundabouts provide is the reduction of potential conflict points. Unlike four-way intersections, cars do not cross over when they have to turn, instead they go around the circle toward their exit point.

Here's a video that explains how to use a roundabout:

Here's another video that shows how a 7-circle roundabout works:

(Image credit: Lucas Miguel/Unsplash)

For those who might be wanting to shed some pounds or regulate your blood sugar levels, you might want to try intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting, or time-restricted dieting, is characterized by a period of time in the day or the week in which you don't eat. A new study has shown that it is more effective than calorie-controlled eating when it comes to weight loss, and is also very effective for type 2 diabetics.

This is not to say however, that traditional dieting doesn't work at all. The setup for their research was that participants were divided into three groups: one group who did intermittent fasting, another group that went on the calorie-controlled diet, and the control group. They observed that both experimental groups had the same reduction in blood sugar levels, however, they noticed that the intermittent fasting group had an easier time following the prescribed regimen than those in the calorie-control group. Moreover, the intermittent fasting group also lost more over the six-month trial period compared to their counterparts.

It is possible too that the results are more visibly significant because of other factors. The average age of the participants was 55, and the group had a diverse ethnic cohort. Still, the benefits of intermittent fasting certainly favor those with diabetes, as the usual recommendation by doctors is to cut down on calories. But as this study has observed, it is much easier for people to watch when they eat as opposed to how much they eat.

(Image credit: Kirill Tonkikh/Unsplash)

What could be more terrifying than a horror show in the late 1960s that only ran for six episodes and was taken off the air, supposedly due to complaints from viewers that it was "too scary"? Well, the story goes that after it had been removed from the broadcasting slate, all six episodes had vanished. So, who knows how scary it really was? Who else can attest to it other than those who have actually watched it. And from bits and pieces of memory from first-hand viewers, we can only surmise that the tale was true, and that it was the scariest horror show at the time.

That show was called Late Night Horror, and it first went on air on the BBC in April 1968. It was produced by Harry Moore, who had promoted the show as the "first horror series ever", and he had wanted to make the show as vividly visceral as it could be. Though it wasn't the first horror series on TV, it was the first horror show to be done in color. And so, Moore and his production team went all out with the blood and gore. Presumably, it was working, as after six episodes, it was never renewed for a second season, and two years after it first ran, they had completely taken it out of circulation. Then, it went missing.

The reason why it went missing isn't so mystical or esoteric as one would assume however. It was simply because of budget restrictions. Tapes were expensive at the time and the BBC could not afford keeping tapes which cannot be shown again, so along with many other shows in the 60s and 70s, it's thought that the episodes of Late Night Horror had been erased so that the tapes could be reused. Until Chris Perry, a TV archivist, tracked down one of the surviving tapes of Late Night Horror's six-episode run.

It took Perry and his team, an organization called Kaleidoscope, 50 years to recover the lost tape, and have been able to restore it. Currently, the episode titled "The Corpse Can't Play" from Late Night Horror is available on DVD.

(Video credit: Atlas Obscura)

Ze Frank takes on a big subject for his latest True Facts video: crabs. Here we learn more than we ever knew about the Christmas Island crabs, which fling their offspring into the water and scurry away. Then he covers hermit crabs that grow up to be giant coconut crabs. The sponge crab uses living sponges for hats, while other decorator crabs use all manner of marine life as accessories and weapons. There are so many crab species that there's something truly weird about each of them. But they all molt as they grow, and some can be partially eaten and just regenerate. That won't make you feel any less guilty about eating crab legs, because those crabs are harvested whole. Rather, you should tell yourself about all the crabs that eat other crabs. This video is a bit long, but the whole thing is fascinating. There's a skippable ad from 2:30 to 3:30, which might save you time. As always, this video contains PG language and innuendos.

Moose are big and powerful wild animals. Every child in Canada grows up being told never to approach a moose, especially during the autumn rutting season. So what do you do when a moose approaches people for assistance? A moose wandered into a neighborhood in Fort St. John, British Columbia, with Halloween decorations tangled in his antlers. It was a length of black webbing with a skull and parts of a skeleton. The moose was drawing a crowd, but no one wanted to get near enough to grab the fabric away. One fellow used a piece of tubing to reach the moose while keeping his distance, but it wasn't working.

Shaydon Soucy and his wife Sydney came by and saw what was going on. Soucy joined Andrew Raw behind a chain link fence, and the moose approached the men. With the fence offering some protection, Soucy was able to pull the fabric and bones off the moose's antlers. But that's not the best part. The moose, now freed, came closer to the fence to lick Soucy's hand! Soucy petted the moose, and later said,

It's definitely the most Canadian thing I've done. 

We believe it, because the incident was caught on video, which you can see at CBC. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Sydney Soucy)

You never know what you'll find when exploring an old abandoned house. This one has mice who are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. See, while Cinderella got her prince and lived happily ever after, the mice were the collateral damage of the fairy godmother's magic, and they were left with lifelong scars. You get the idea this talking mouse has waited a long time to spill his guts to someone who would listen. Yeah, it's funny, and beautifully animated, but it also gives us a minute to step outside our normal perspective and consider the psychological damage left behind in the fairy godmother's victims.

The sequence is also different from the usual in that it doesn't have a setup or exposition, or even a conclusion, leaving the impression that it could have been clipped from the middle of a longer story. But then you realize all that isn't totally necessary. We don't really need to know who these people are or why they are there. Why make a two-minute story into a ten-minute story when you don't have to?

Thanks to the movies, we think of alien life as intelligent, civilized creatures, mainly because they traveled here to visit us. But even though we haven't mastered travel to other planets yet, we can see exoplanets better than ever. And there are plenty of astronomers who have their eyes out for signs of life. But how can you detect life on planets so far away? It's easier when you think of that life as plants.

In 1990, scientists conducted an experiment dreamed up by Carl Sagan. When the the Galileo spacecraft flew by earth, it took measurements and observations to determine if there was life on this planet. The point was to determine how life could be detected on newly discovered planets. And the markers were there, indicating that earth held plant life. There was enough oxygen present that it had to be generated from something on the planet. And there was the way the surface reflected infrared light, but absorbed red light, just the way plants do. This gives us some ideas of what to look for in exoplanets. Read about the signs and signals that may indicate vegetation elsewhere in our galaxy at BBC Future. -via Damn Interesting 

We have tales of humans turning into wolves that go back 4,000 years. They may go back further, but we don't have written accounts. Originally, it was all the fault of a woman, because just a woman's presence can turn a man into a beast. Over time, those stories got a bit fancier, and the werewolf legend became associated with cannibalism and murderous rampages as a way to make some kind of sense of horrific crimes, whether they were committed by a man or an actual wolf. In the 20th century, the pop culture concept of a werewolf gradually added new details, each of which can be associated with some real life concern of its time period. We know all about werewolves, because we've seen the movies. But when you dig deeper into the mythology, the steps along the way tell us surprising things about the evolution of society in general.

The following story illustrates how no question is so dumb as to prevent us from finding the answer, for entertainment if nothing else. In fact, we often take these kinds of things as a challenge. High school freshmen Elodie Yerich baked bread during a YMCA camping trip near a lake last summer. Her musings turned into a question submitted to the Minneapolis Star Tribune during the state fair. How much flour would be required to turn Lake Superior into a loaf of bread?

To find the answer, the paper turned to the bakers at Duluth's Best Bread. The bakery is owned by Michael Lillegard, a baker who has a graduate degree in math, and his brother Robert Lillegard. The math was the easy part, although the amount of flour required is exponentially more than the earth provides. The actual baking of the hypothetical loaf of bread would be even more difficult. One way to bake it would be to dig five miles into the earth to use heat emanating from its core. But that comes with its own problems. Read about the theoretical lake-sized loaf of bread at the Star Tribune. And then read the thread at Metafilter, where amusingly overthinking a hypothetical situation is a time-honored tradition.

(Altered bread image credit: Dmitry Makeev, lake image: NASA)