Taking a glimpse into the vastness of the universe might make you feel small, but it will also make you feel part of something beautiful. We are thankful for the photographers who bring those distant places down to earth for us. The Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition has selected winners for their 2020 competition.

This is the 12th running of the photo contest, which is managed by Royal Observatory Greenwich in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine and Insight Investment. For this year’s contest, judges had to pore over and shortlist 5,000 entries gathered from six continents.

French photographer Nicolas Lefaudeux’s stunning picture of the Andromeda galaxy (pictured up top) earned him the overall top prize of £10,000 ($12,860). Lefaudeux’s composition makes it appear as if the Andromeda galaxy—the closest galaxy to our own—is at arm’s length, even though it’s 2 million light-years away. The photographer created this tilt-shift effect by 3D-printing a part that held the camera at a key angle, while the blurring effect was created by a defocusing the outer edges of the photo.

There were also winners selected in various categories, such as Our Sun, Our Moon, Aurorae, People and Space, Skyscapes, and Planets, Comets, and Asteroids. See those winning images at Gizmodo.

Physics professor Vitaly Vanchurin attempted to change our perspective about the reality we’re living in. In a study uploaded to arXiv this summer, Vanchurin suggested that we’re living inside a neural network that governs everything around us. According to the professor, artificial neural networks can “exhibit approximate behaviors” of quantum mechanics and general relativity, a feat that physicists that have been trying to  reconcile for years, as Futurism details: 

Since quantum mechanics “is a remarkably successful paradigm for modeling physical phenomena on a wide range of scales,” he writes, “it is widely believed that  on the most fundamental level the entire universe is governed by the rules of quantum mechanics and even gravity should somehow emerge from it.”

“We are not just saying that the artificial neural networks can be useful for analyzing physical systems or for discovering physical laws, we are saying that this is how the world around us actually works,” reads the paper’s discussion. “With this respect it could be considered as a proposal for the theory of everything, and as such it should be easy to prove it wrong.”

Image via Futurism 

This rehabilitation center in Switzerland caters to royalty, politicians, oligarchs, business tycoons, and A-list celebrities. It isn’t a surprise that the Paracelsus is labeled as the most expensive in the world. A five-week residential rehab in the Paracelsus costs £315,000 (around $400,000)! The rehabilitation center provides a 24/7 limousine transportation, a personal chef, butler, and concierge. It feels like their clients are staying for vacation and less for rehabilitation. Well, they did pay a huge amount of money for it! 

Learning how to fish is perhaps the most valuable skill that we can learn in this lifetime. As the old proverb goes, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day,” but “teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” But of course, learning something new takes time, and fishing is no exception.

It’s already been half an hour since this kid started fishing, and it seems that she hasn’t caught anything yet. According to her mother Marsha who took this photo…

“Time after time she would throw her line out and then…. much to her surprise she caught herself!”

She might have been frustrated because she did not catch any fish, but hey, her catch is much more valuable than all of the fish she could have caught at that time.

What do you think?

Image via Awkward Family Photos

The ability to concentrate and react quickly to the things in the game is what makes a gamer competitive. That’s why Razer designed a drink last year that will keep a gamer’s focus sharp for hours. This year, the company released yet another product for gamers: a fortified gum called Respawn By 5.

Razer has partnered with Wrigley’s 5 gum… to make a gum specifically for gamers. The product is infused with B vitamins and green tea extract to help improve your focus and reaction time, according to a statement from Razer. Choose from a classic cool mint flavor, or two flavors already time-tested in the Respawn drink: pomegranate watermelon and tropical punch.

If the Respawn drink seemed a little out of left field, this gum is a bit of a surprise as well. However, Respawn By 5 could be an alternative for those who don’t want the caffeine in the Respawn drink but still want a “mental performance supplement.” If you think a stick of gum could be the difference between beating the next boss in your video game or becoming an esports master, you can snag 10 packs for $27.99 at the Razer website.

While this gum is intended for gamers, it could be used by other people as well, like those who work in the office.

Well, what do you think?

(Image Credit: Razer/ Engadget)

In a surprising turn of events, Microsoft finally announced the price of the Xbox Series S. The next-gen Xbox will cost $299 in the US, housed in the smallest console ever. Microsoft released details on the budget-friendly console in reaction to leaks that surfaced all over the Internet, as Gamespot detailed: 

In terms of design, Series S looks exactly like the leaked image that surfaced on September 7--it's a small, white rectangle with a minimalist design and no disc drive. The front features nothing more than a power button, USB port, and a sync button for the controller.

According to a report from Windows Central, the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X will both release on November 10, with the Series X selling for $499. The Series X price and release date both remain unconfirmed, but given that the Series S information was correct, it seems like a safe bet.

However, a leaked Xbox Series S trailer also made its way online, revealing some of the key details about the system. That trailer has now been released officially, and you can watch it above. It states that Series S comes with a custom 512 GB SSD to allow for fast load times and instant game switching and support for 1440p gaming at 120 FPS. In other words, it appears to largely be what the rumors suggested: a box that's every bit as capable as the Series X, but one that isn't intended for native 4K gaming.

Image via Gamespot 

And it’s that time of the year when the smiles from the children’s faces turn into frowns, as they realize that it’s time to go back to school. Gone are the days when children would just wake up, eat, and play, and here come the days of school work and early mornings. But not all people are frowning because it’s back to school; some welcome it with open arms and a happy face — the parents.

See the pictures of these happy parents over at Sad and Useless.

(Image Credit: Sad and Useless)

I’m not sure if there are other fruits that you can heat up in the microwave, but grapes shouldn’t be one of them, unless you want to set those grapes on fire. Heating grapes in a microwave will spark and create plasma. That’s not how you impress your guests! Not at the expense of an appliance! A research article published in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explained the process of how it happens, as BroBible details: 

I think we’re going to need a translation. Take it away, Wired:

The appliance pushes microwaves into the two grape halves, where the waves bounce around and add constructively to focus the energy to a spot on the skin. Both grape halves happen to focus the energy to the same tiny point. That intense energy jostles the atoms and molecules at that spot, heating them up so much that they can no longer hold onto their electrons, which turns them into a plasma — and boom, fireball.

They also discovered that the grapes don’t have to be cut in half to get the same results and in fact they don’t even have to be grapes, they can be gooseberries, large blackberries, or even quail eggs. “Anything grape-sized will work, if it’s watery enough,” said physicist Hamza Khattak.

The next thing the researchers said they would be tackling with regard to this phenomenon is finding out why the two grapes placed side by side repeatedly bump back and forth into each other when heated up in a microwave.

Image via Wired

Imagine being subjected to long days and years of basic science and see a teacher, who you deemed an expert in the basic sciences fail to answer such a simple question. Frustration (directed towards the player who failed to answer) is what people who watched Who Wants to be a Millionaire felt when retired science teacher Pat Lucas failed to answer a chemistry question. Mirror UK has more details: 

Pat Lucas from Lincoln left the show with just £1,000 as the pressure got the better of her when faced a question from host Jeremy Clarkson.

The retired science teacher was asked: "A skull and crossbones is a warning symbol that specifically indicates a material is what?"

The options were A) Toxic, B) Corrosive, C) Hazardous to the environment, and D) Flammable.

Okay... Being a science teacher I see a lot of this symbol, you'd think I would have paid more attention to it," said Pat.

"Erm, can i use my 50:50 please?" she asked, and Jeremy obliged so just A and C were left.

"I wish one of the others was gone, I am sure it means hazardous to the environment.

"So I will go for hazardous to the environment, final answer," she said.

"Well you are a science teacher, so you could have got that right... But I'm afraid you didn't," Jeremy broke the bad news to Pat.

"You've just lost £1,000, I'm sorry about that I really am, I hope you had a nice minute or two in the chair," he said

Image via Mirror UK 

As The Walking Dead universe expands, its flagship series has aged unevenly. The current story left us hanging, waiting for the final episode of season ten back in March. And now AMC has announced the end of the series, although it will take a while.

“The Walking Dead” will end after the upcoming Season 11 on AMC, with the network also ordering a spinoff series built around the characters Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier, Variety has learned.

Season 11 of AMC’s flagship show, which was originally meant to air this year but was delayed due to the pandemic, will air over two years and consist of 24 episodes in total beginning in late 2021. It was previously announced six additional episodes that will be considered part of Season 10 will be shot and aired in early 2021, meaning 30 additional episodes of “The Walking Dead” remain to be filmed and aired through late 2022. The episode originally intended to be the Season 10 finale is set to air on Oct. 4 after being delayed in April, also due to the pandemic.

Okay, so The Walking Dead has two more years, but then will continue under a different name with the two most popular characters. So is it really ending? Meanwhile, there's Fear the Walking Dead, which changed into a whole different show last year, and the two-season limited series The Walking Dead: The World Beyond, and the planned trio of movies featuring the former main character Rick Grimes. There are also discussions of an anthology series for the future. And then there's The Talking Dead, of course. It appears that in a world where the dead rule, nothing really dies. -via Uproxx

The beginning of the development of plastic was to produce one particular little object that will surprise you, but yes, it did have something to do with the destruction of our natural environment. From there, people developed all kinds of plastic that have taken over the world. Learn about it in this new TED-Ed lesson.  

The United States was anything but united in the years leading up to the Civil War. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 threw the question of state's rights up in the air. The act obligated free states to return escaped slaves to their owners, which meant the federal law favored the rights of slave states over the rights of free states. This led to a battle that some consider to be the first of the American Civil War, which didn't officially begin for another ten years. William and Eliza Parker had escaped slavery in the south and settled in Christiana, Pennsylvania. In 1851, they were approached by four men who had escaped from Maryland. Slave owner Edward Gorsuch went to find them and demand the return of his "property."

Shortly before dawn on September 11, 1851, Gorsuch’s party arrived at the Parker house. They were met with William’s assertion that they would fight to the death before surrendering. When Gorsuch tried entering the home, Eliza repelled him by throwing a fishing spear his way. She then went to the window and blew a horn used to alert their neighbors of such trouble. Gorsuch’s party opened fire to stop her, but she kept up the alarm, encouraging all in the house to stand against recapture, no matter the cost. When one of the men in the Parker home suggested surrender, William replied, “Don’t believe that any living man can take you.”

Neighbors were quick to arrive, many armed for defense. The Gorsuch party thought the white neighbors had arrived to help them, and were shocked to discover their error. William Parker and others tried to persuade Gorsuch and his men to leave without violence, but the latter insisted on having “his property.” Both sides opened fire. Before long, the Gorsuch party was either injured on the ground or fleeing with empty guns. One of the men Gorsuch had tried to recapture beat him with a rifle until he collapsed. As for Gorsuch’s death, per William’s memoir, “The women put an end to him.”

The bigger part of the story is the trial that followed, in which 39 men were charged with treason. Read how that turned out at Mental Floss.

DoctorSbaitso shot drone footage of San Francisco on September 9 around 11AM, when skies are usually blue and the sun shines on the buildings. But this is 2020, and the bay area fires have the city shrouded in smoke and ash with an orange tint. Zach Fett took that eerie footage and added the soundtrack of the movie Blade Runner 2049, which only seems appropriate. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Michael Kirk crunched the numbers to save money on food, big time. Here's his page containing a chart that ranks foods by calories per dollar, and by protein per dollar. Wheat flour tops both lists. Now, if you don't bake your own bread, the cost will go up for flour that is baked, and the cost for that varies widely, as does the quality. You might also be interested in the page that ranks nutrients per dollar, because man does not live on bread alone. To really understand the basics of eating better while spending less money, there's also a page on how to eat for $1.50 a day. Bon appétit!  -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Flickr user ilovebutter)

A lot of the celestial objects in the sky that we call stars aren’t technically stars. If we define stars to be self-luminous objects, then a lot of the ‘stars’ in the sky are exceptions to that definition. To an astronomer, a threshold has to be met if a celestial object is going to be labeled as a star: it has to ignite nuclear fusion in its core. To be exact, it has to fuse hydrogen into helium or fuse the products of that reaction into still heavier elements. Without achieving this, astronomers cannot consider an object to be a star. Neutron stars, brown and white dwarfs don’t meet that threshold, as Forbes detailed: 

Brown dwarfs range in mass from about 13 times the mass of Jupiter up to about 80 Jupiter masses: about 7.5% the mass of our Sun. Although they’re often called brown dwarf stars, they’re not truly stars, because they don’t meet that critical threshold: they cannot undergo the fusion reactions that are required to become a full-blown star. If a brown dwarf ever merges with another or accretes enough mass from a companion to cross this mass threshold, it can raise its game to become a red dwarf star: fusing hydrogen into helium and becoming a true star.

These actual stars come in a wide variety of masses, colors, and brightnesses. The ones that range from 7.5% to about 40% of the Sun’s mass are the red dwarf stars: they will burn hydrogen into helium and that’s it; they will never reach higher temperatures to do anything else. Stars from 40% to 800% the Sun’s mass will eventually evolve into red giants, fusing helium into carbon when they do, before running out of fuel. And the even more massive stars will become supergiants, eventually going supernova when they reach the end of their lives.

Image via Forbes