Our body is amazing at keeping pathogens at bay. The moment our immune system detects a foreign body, it springs into action to combat the unknown assailant. The body will react by sending neutrophils and lymphocytes to kill the pathogen. However, there are cases when our immune system has been compromised and it's not strong enough to fight off the infection, and that's when we get sick. However, normally, we have enough defenses to prevent that from happening, unless the microorganisms that entered our system are able to reach what is called their "infectious dose", which is the number of microbes it takes to make us sick.

Tara C. Smith elucidates more about the infectious dose on Quanta.

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Ever since climate change became a primary global concern, people have been thinking up of ways on how to counteract it and prevent further global warming. There have been measures to reduce carbon emissions and other anthropogenic emissions that could affect the ozone layer. While all of that is happening, a group of scientists have been focused on studying cloud formations, since we have found how clouds have a dual effect of reflecting sunlight but also trapping heat that's melting the icebergs.

Lubna Dada, an atmospheric scientist, is now concerned about natural emissions and how they affect the climate. Particularly, her team found that trees have been releasing chemicals that factor greatly into the formation of clouds. And this has caused quite a stir in our climate models. With this finding, we need to recalculate the effect that these natural emissions have on the ozone layer and subsequently, the climate. Read about the vapors trees emit that are messing up climate calculations on Wired.

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Precursors to "The Girl With the Green Ribbon" featured necrophilia, adultery, demons, and (of course) the guillotine.https://t.co/VWkXDvnGTp

— Mental Floss (@mental_floss) September 25, 2023

A spooky story called "the girl with the green ribbon" is today known as a Millennial thing, since many young folks were introduced to it through the 1984 book In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Stories by Alvin Schwartz. But it's actually much older. I was first told the tale in the 1960s, when it was a girl with a black velvet ribbon around her neck. It was presented as a long and involved, but spooky, shaggy dog story with a short and sudden punch line, making everyone laugh. Later, my friends and I referenced the story quite a bit when black velvet chokers became the style.

How old is the story, really? Tracing back its history, it became quite popular after the French Revolution, in which many people were executed by the ever-so-efficient guillotine. But even that wasn't the beginning! Although older stories are a bit different, you can see how the story has evolved, modernized, and simplified over several hundred years. Oh, and if you haven't heard the story, you'll get several versions, including videos, in the article at Mental Floss.

Graphic designer John Pasche was making a name for himself for his art deco concert posters in 1970, when The Rolling Stones contacted him about doing one for their 1970 European tour. They went back to him for some album art, and that's when the famous logo that became known as Hot Lips was born.

The iconic logo was first seen inside the Stones' 1971 album Sticky Fingers. I remember it well- I went to the local record store, and every copy they had already had the shrink wrap torn because everyone wanted to play with the zipper in the front.

Great Big Story talked with Pasche about his experience in making the logo that became recognizable all over the world. The starting point was the tongue, and the lips came afterward. And they are not Mick Jagger's lips. More than 50 years later, Pasche still gets a kick out of seeing those lips in the wild. -via Laughing Squid

The first camera was invented in 1816 by Joseph Nicephore Niepce. Since that time, cameras have evolved and every person is now able to hold a camera in the palm of their hands. And we've had some very interesting photos throughout history. Kaushik Patowary posed this question as regards the history of photography: who was the earliest-born person to be photographed? To learn who it is, and why s/he might be contested for the title, read about it on Amusing Planet.

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The ancient Inca civilization appears to be more genetically diverse than what we would expect according to findings by a team of international researchers who looked into the DNA analysis of the remains of 68 individuals who were buried in Machu Picchu and Cusco.

The researchers sequenced the DNA and compared that with DNA from indigenous peoples living in the Andes. For good measure, they also included ancestries from other parts of South America. Here is a summary of their findings:

Of all the DNA samples we analyzed, we found 17 individuals had ancestry from one of the distant sources tested (colored on the map below). These included all regions of the Peruvian coast and highlands as well as the Amazon regions of Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia.

I don't think it's quite surprising that they find a great genetic diversity in that region of the world. Even today, Peru is a hotpot of culture. To learn more about the research, read it here on Sapiens.

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One of the concepts I heard when I was younger when referring to a person's facial attractiveness is something called the golden ratio. You may have heard of it, and it is used to determine whether your length and width of your face is visually balanced, thus giving you a generally appealing look. Now, there is a new cosmetic fad making rounds on TikTok and it has something to do with the term canthal tilt. What exactly is it? Dr. Kassir, a plastic surgeon, spoke with Glamour and says that it is the angle or slant of the outer corners of the eyes in relation to the horizontal plane of the face. And plastic surgeons are concerned that it might instill skewed standards of beauty.

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What little I know about equinoxes is that they mean that days are as long as nights. However, even that little tidbit of knowledge is erroneous, and I stand corrected after reading this article by Phil Plait on Scientific American. It's a slight misconception but if we were to be factually accurate, then it is important to get the equinox right.

In some ways, defining what the equinox isn’t is easier than describing what it is.

For example, it’s not when the day and night have equal lengths. That’s a common misconception and an understandable one. The trouble’s right in the name: “equinox” means “equal night”, implying that day and night are each 12 hours long. But it turns out they’re only mostly equal because of a couple of pernicious physical facts.

To know further what an equinox is, read the rest of Phil Plait's article here.

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I haven't watched the new Barbie film yet, and so I wouldn't know exactly what the hype is all about, and why it's polarizing people. I can only venture a guess as to the social or cultural impact of the film, but perhaps the fact that it stars an ensemble cast, directed by an Academy Award-nominated female director, and it's about the ubiquitous doll Barbie, may explain why all the hype.

However, maybe there's more to it than what meets the eye as Vox explains in this video why Jaws and Barbie were such blockbusters.

(Video credit: Vox)

I remember watching an episode of The Graham Norton Show which featured the two hosts of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, along with Joan Rivers, and there was a bit in that episode wherein they were talking about the worst car in the world, which they refused to say while the show was being taped since they were promoting the new DVD that Top Gear had released, in which they mentioned what they thought was the worst car in the world at that time. Owen Bellwood of Jalopnik shares his thoughts on what the ugliest car in the world is. What do you think of it?

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Scrolling through this collection of weird, eerily creepy, and at times, downright morbid, medical photos from the US National Library of Medicine, I cannot but wonder how or why these photos ever existed. And surprisingly, they possess 17 million more of these items in their collection. Some of these photos include a portrait of a man whose heart has been pierced by an arrow (only drawn over, no worries!), a chopped hand with an illustration of the different parts of a wrist, and what looks like a double-headed sheep.

The photo above is probably one of the more benign items in their collection, showing the different nurse uniforms representing a nation or region. Check out more of this odd collection on Flashbak. - via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Helene Fuld Health Foundation)

After having moved to a different country and then moving back home, I have learned a few things when it comes to traveling. I observed many people go about their trips with just one suitcase or even a small backpack, and I used to wonder how could they have packed all their essentials in just a tiny piece of luggage? Are they prepared enough to go on their trip? However, I have learned that packing light is the best way to travel and enjoy your trip.

But even so, you still have to know what are the essentials that you must always bring no matter where you go. Apart from your travel documents or money or your phone, of course, what is essential might be different for different people. In my case, I always make sure to bring a towel, as I have learned that not all places will provide you with towels for humans. On Huff Post, several travel experts chimed in and shared what their one thing is. What's your one thing?

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Making delicious fried chicken takes some skill and knowledge to do just right. If I were to deep fry some chicken, they won't come out the way they advertise in restaurants. If I could cook fried chicken the way they do them in fast food chains or even your local deli, then I could save a lot of gas driving to the nearest drive through, or I would not have to spend money to have food delivered. Plus, I can have them hot and fresh.

Now, even if I were to learn how to fry chicken the way they do them in restaurants, I reckon that it will be a whole different ball game if you were to make fried chicken for a big group of people like when you have friends and family over. Furthermore, you have to make sure that the taste is absolutely perfect so that it would be palatable to anyone. Thankfully, Wendy McCrory, owner of Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken, shares on Taste of Home how to fry chicken for a crowd.

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Take a gander to see if you know which city it is. If I were to think about it, it's obviously not going to be places like New York where I imagine real estate prices are skyrocketing. Perhaps, not San Francisco either, where the presence of Silicon Valley would most likely push prices up as well. So, that would probably leave us with somewhere in the midwest or the south right?

Redfin, a real-estate site, conducted a study to see which city Americans are eyeing to move to, and apparently, it's one of the most popular vacation destinations in the US. Sean Cudahy from Reader's Digest shares with us what the study showed as well as the top ten cities that homebuyers were interested to relocate to, as well as the reasons why they were choosing from among the list.

To pinpoint which cities were getting the most attention from potential homebuyers, Redfin’s analysts sifted through 2 million web searches between April 2023 and June 2023. The company homed in on members who viewed at least 10 for-sale houses, including at least one outside their current metropolitan area. In other words, it tried to focus on people who seemed to show serious interest in relocating to an entirely new place.

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It's never a good idea to date your gynecologist. But plenty of women did when it came to renowned Parisian doctor Samuel Pozzi. He developed new surgical techniques and instruments that are still used today. Pozzi hung around with the movers and shakers of the day, including Marcel Proust and Oscar Wilde, and had affairs with his patients, from actresses to princesses. It's no wonder he earned the nickname "the Love Doctor."

In his view of women, Pozzi was progressive in some ways. He advocated putting a patient at ease, and getting consent before touching, which was rarely done at the time. Pozzi also worked to improve medical practices, such as hand washing and providing a clean environment for surgery. In other ways, he was as sexist as most men of his time. He had no qualms about mixing his patients and his lovers. Pozzi discouraged his own daughter from pursuing a career in medicine, believing it would lead to more woman wanting careers, and we can't have that. He left his legacy not only in gynecology, but also in a famous portrait painted of him. Read about the uniquely alluring Dr. Samuel Pozzi at Messy Nessy Chic.