I recently read an anecdote from a child of a former POW during WWII. He recounted how his father had spent three and a half years in the Philippines as a POW under the Japanese. After the war, his father returned to the US and became successful in the insurance business.

From time to time, during his childhood, he recalled how his father would wake up suddenly in the middle of the night in fits of screaming and panic, which would wake the whole house, until his mother would finally calm his father down. No doubt the memories from the traumatic experience his father lived through have become embedded in the psyche, and occasionally haunt him in his nightmares.

I have never personally witnessed someone go through those episodes of PTSD, being generations apart from that era. My grandmother would tell me stories about that period, but she never experienced the abject horrors of the war like those who were on the front lines, so I can hardly imagine what it's like living with those memories.

There have been studies conducted on how to reduce the adverse effects of traumatic experiences. One such study examined whether playing Tetris, a visuospatial video game, could help alleviate the symptoms of PTSD. The idea is that playing Tetris would overload and distract the brain from forming the memories of the traumatic experiences. And in so doing, there will be fewer recurrences of those visual memories thus fewer interruptions in a person's daily life.

The first study was conducted in 2009, but within a controlled environment under the supervision of professionals. Participants were shown footage of traumatic events, and about 10 to 40 minutes after, they were instructed to play Tetris. The researchers measured how many intrusions the participants experienced throughout the week.

The results showed that there was a reduction of the number of intrusions but whether these would translate to people who have gone through actual traumatic events in their lives was yet to be determined.

Several clinical studies attempted to use this method on women experiencing birth trauma, people who were involved in vehicular accidents, as well as war refugees and war veterans. These studies did show that there was also a reduction of the number of intrusions, but the scale of the studies is still too small to be considered significant and conclusive.

Of course, every bit helps. Even if playing Tetris will not wipe away all the traumatic memories, it is a good way of distracting people. In fact, any other visuospatial game can possibly be used. But still, people with PTSD require professional help. Therapy, along with other rehabilitative programs, can help people process the trauma and pain that they went through, as well as having a good support system in their family and community.

(Image credit: Ravi Palwe/Unsplash)

The International Space Station was launched 25 years ago and has hosted nearly 300 astronauts from around the world. Each of those astronauts carries their own natural biome into space. There have been many experiments on the effects of space on bacteria, which show the effects of microgravity, radiation, air quality, and other conditions on their rate of mutation. But there are also bacteria that just go along for the ride, and a sampling of those bacteria show evidence of mutation as well. A survey of environmental bacteria on the ISS was conducted in 2019, and further research was done on 13 strains of Enterobacter bugandensis, which can cause gastrointestinal infections.

They say what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, and that has proven to be the case for this bacteria. Scientists found that the E. bugandensis on the space station has mutated to be more resistant to antimicrobial treatment. We don't know what danger this may pose to astronauts, or the people they come home to after their mission. Read more about this discovery at Gizmodo.  -via Fark

(Image credit:NASA)

It begins with the atoms in your morning coffee, then take a detour through your body, or maybe just your imagination, and then somehow leads us into an alternative version of nature. That's when things really get weird. The animated short film Cosmohedron by Duncan Hatch is disorienting because you never know where it will go next, but the bright colors and range of images is enough to keep you watching. It's altogether baffling. At the very end, it all comes together, but that doesn't mean it makes any more sense. Does it have a message? I doubt it. One commenter says, "Themes of interconnection, fractal scales, and humorous jabs at work culture all hit home." I have to wonder where he lives. -via The Awesomer

Many of us are familiar with the idea that coffee makes you poop. There are substances in coffee that contribute to this, and not just caffeine. But it could also be that coffee is usually a stable part of one's normal morning routine. And there is also the psychological association of coffee with one's morning routine, so much that the smell of a coffee shop can make you run to the bathroom. How much each of these factors contribute to the effect is arguable, but the effect is real.

However, there are variations. The urge to poop can arise from the experience of being in a book store. This is called the Mariko Aoki phenomenon, named for a woman in Japan who wrote about her experiences in 1985. Since then, many folks have admitted that bookstores have this effect on them. While there has been little scientific interest in experimenting with the Mariko Aoki phenomenon, there have been several theories suggested for why it occurs, from scientists and non-scientists alike. And some folks get this urge at more general locations, like shopping malls. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Ryan Abel)

What would Darth Vader put on his barbecue sandwich?

In the run up to Star Wars Day on May 4, the hot sauce company Truff has partnered with Lucasfilm to offer a special limited edition hot sauce styled after Darth Vader. It's called Dark Side Hot Sauce, and it comes in a bottle with Darth Vader's head, er, helmet as the bottle cap. It will be shipped in a "collectible gift box" featuring Star Wars imagery, resembling the volcanic hellscape of the planet Mustafar. They call it their hottest hot sauce so far, but also extol the virtues of its flavor. Does it taste good? Who knows? It sounds downright evil. Dark Side Hot Sauce won't go on sale until April 24, but you can sign up for the wait list at the Truff site. If you get your order in early, you could be enjoying some really spicy snacks for Star Wars Day.   -via Boing Boing

After World War II, the US continued its research into nuclear weapons and developed a bomb named Mike. That was the nickname of the first hydrogen bomb, and it was too big to ever drop from above. In fact, Ivy (for Operation Ivy) Mike (for megaton) weighed 74 metric tons, used a 20-foot tower, and required a cryogenics facility and a power plant for its liquid deuterium fuel. Why build a bomb that big? To see if it could be done.

Ivy Mike was detonated on November 1, 1952, on an island named Elugelab, which was part of the unpopulated Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. I used the word "was" because Elugelab ceased to exist on that day, and became a crater in the ocean floor. The rest of the atoll was stripped of all its vegetation. The ten-megaton explosion created a fireball five kilometers wide, and a mushroom cloud 33 kilometers high.

Ivy Mike explodes in a clip from the documentary Trinity and Beyond.

Mike's detonation left the entire atoll contaminated. Despite decades of decontamination efforts, it will still be a few years before Eniwetok Atoll is safe for humans. Read the story of Operation Ivy and the first hydrogen bomb at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: United States Department of Energy)

Charles Schulz drew 17,897 Peanuts comic strips over nearly 50 years. In the 1950s, though, he was still experimenting with the Peanuts gang. One of the characters he introduced in 1954 was named Charlotte Braun, who was loud, extroverted, and everything the beloved Charlie Brown was not. She was obviously intended to be the anti-Charlie Brown. The problem was that Charlotte had no redeeming qualities, nor any underlying issues that readers could relate to, and they really disliked her. She only appeared in ten strips, and then disappeared forever. Charlotte's absence was never addressed in the strip, and no one thought much of it.

Fast forward to the year 2000. Following Schultz's death, 66-year-old Elizabeth Swaim submitted a letter that she had received from Schulz in 1955 to the Library of Congress. It was Schultz's response to her complaint about Charlotte Braun. No doubt it wasn't the only complaint that Schulz received about the character, but it may be the only reply that revealed what happened to her behind the scenes. Read the story of Charlotte Braun and her untimely death at the hands of Charles Schulz at Mental Floss. -via Strange Company

Redditor /u/SustainEuphoria asks on the always-intriguing subreddit What Is It? about this tattoo. They say that their grandmother was forced to get it as a child. What could it mean? A possible answer is below the fold.

We've grown to known and love Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot over the years, so much that we think if him (and his dog Spot) as everyday robots that have outgrown the "wow" factor and have become part of the family. So of course, they are retiring him and now have a replacement that is all electric. Yes, our old friend Atlas has plenty of electronics, but his strength and movement relies on hydraulics. The new fully electric Atlas is smaller, has more refined movements, and can articulate its limbs at 360 degrees. The upshot is that while the new Atlas may more resemble a human shape at first glance, watching it move gives us the creeps, as if it were a sideshow contortionist or a demon-possessed little girl in a movie.  

Boston Dynamics owes a lot to the original hydraulic Atlas, and have posted a tribute video for its retirement. The first half is a blooper reel, and the second half shows what Atlas can really do.



What does a robot do in retirement? Atlas should probably stay away from cruise ships. Maybe he could take up gardening instead. -via Born in Space

The 1950s and 60s saw a vast proliferation of educational films on a wide variety of purely interpersonal topics. The Baby Boomers were still quite young and thus it was necessary to inform them of how to interact with others as they grew up and explored American society.

Although some of these films seem a bit odd by modern standards, a few stand out as immediately useful. This one, for example, by filmmaker James Parris, helps people learn how to use that technological marvel that still causes confusion: the sidewalk.

What should you do if you are walking along the middle of a sidewalk and someone else is doing likewise, but approaching you? Do not knock them over. There's a better and safer way to use a sidewalk.

These procedures apply to other ambulatory locations, too, such as the aisles of grocery stores and even the hallways of a house. Watch and learn.

-via The Awesomer

The odds of getting hit by a piece of space junk are smaller than the odds of winning the lottery, but they are not zero. You can reduce your odds of winning the lottery slightly by not buying a ticket, while space junk could hit anyone. We've learned that most debris that falls out of orbit burns up on re-entry, and most of the rest falls into the ocean. That still leaves a few unfortunate people who have to deal with the fallout, so to speak. Just last month, a piece of a pallet of batteries crashed through the roof of a Florida home. The falling debris was foreseen, but no one knew where it would end up.

It wasn't the first time that space junk fell on unsuspecting people and their property- it's been happening since 1969. Of course now there is a lot more junk up there. Read up on five cases of damage caused by stuff falling from space at Cracked.

(Image credit: NASA)

In 1985, the British pop rock band Tears for Fears debuted their single "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," which soared to the top of the charts across much of the world. It made heavy use of synthesizers and other electronic instruments, unlike the lower tech of the bluegrass cover band named Greenwood Rye.

This quintet includes the quintessential bluegrass instruments of the banjo, mandolin, and the fiddle. An acoustic guitar and upright bass fill the gaps to provide very convincing covers of a-ha's "Take on Me", Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al", and Led Zeppelin's"Good Times Bad Times".

-via Timothy Imholt

Archaeologists have found cannabis remains in a 2,500-year-old grave, with evidence indicating it was used at the funeral. And you thought "putting the 'fun' in funeral" was just a mortuary joke. But seriously, folks, researching the origins of cannabis is difficult because it's been deliberately cultivated for so long that any cannabis growing wild is feral instead of truly wild, and documenting historic samples is iffy because of its illegal status in many places. Scientists were having a hard time even charting out its taxonomy until gene sequencing came along. What we do know is that the plant developed its amazing chemicals to deter enemies, but the cannabis plant had no idea that humans would come along and find those chemicals so attractive.  

Yeah, this video from PBS Eons is posted a day early as far as the informal holiday known as 420 is concerned, but that leaves time for sharing. This video isn't nearly as long as it looks; the last two minutes are promotional.  

You have probably heard of Munchausen syndrome, a psychological condition in which a person is driven to spin fantastic tales about false symptoms and illnesses for attention. It is formally referred to as “factitious disorder imposed on self," or in the case of Munchausen by proxy, “factitious disorder imposed on another.” That's when a parent gains attention by insisting their child is sick when there is no illness present. The disorder was not named for the doctor who discovered it, but for a pop culture character from the 18th century.

Baron Munchausen as a character is legendary for telling tall tales about his military career, from traveling to the moon to riding a horse underwater to battling exotic beasts to riding a cannonball. His appearances over the centuries saw him change from a liar to a deluded old man reminiscent of Don Quixote. The original novel about him, Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of His Marvelous Travels and Campaigns in Russia, was published in 1785 and gave birth to a character featured in many stories and several films since then. But that original novel by Rudolf Erich Raspe only portrayed him as a teller of fantastic tales that no one believed. In reprints and translations, the story grew until Munchausen was a mentally ill buffoon.

However, there was a real Baron von Munchausen, whose name was Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, and he was not pleased at all for his title to be associated with such a character. Hieronymus was a storyteller, but not a liar, and he spent the rest of his life trying to find Raspe and suing anyone associated with the novel. Read the story of the real Baron von Munchausen at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Gottfried Franz)

Passover begins on the evening of April 22 (Monday) and will run through sunset on April 30. No, it doesn't always coincide with Easter. As they do every year, the Jewish a cappella group Six13 has unveiled another pop music parody for the holiday. This year their nine voices bring us "Matza Mia! An ABBA Passover." They've put new lyrics to four classic songs from the Swedish vocal group ABBA: "Take a Chance on Me," "Dancing Queen," "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight),” and “Mamma Mia!” They've also posted a song sheet if you want to use the new lyrics at your Seder or school program.

See also: previous Jewish holiday songs from Six13. I don't think anything will ever beat "5784" for Rosh Hashanah.