Ever since chests of tea were thrown out into the Boston Harbor during the American Revolution, coffee had been the staple beverage for Americans. So it didn't come as a surprise that one of the main factors that the Union considered as an ingredient of their victory during the Civil War was coffee. However, coffee at that time was pretty hard to come by, given the blockade that the Union had set up in the South, preventing coffee imports from Brazil from entering the country. Luckily, Stephen Allen Benson, who was born in Maryland but emigrated to Liberia to escape tensions in the South, had an interesting proposal to the North.

Being president of Liberia, Benson had told the Americans in the North that they had ample supply of coffee in their country, and they would gladly export them. Thus began the partnership between Liberia and George W. Taylor, a member of the Free Labor Movement, which would continue for the next decade, and supplied the North with coffee for much of the remainder of the Civil War.

However, one thing stood between this partnership, and it was that Liberia had not yet been recognized, and so, no formal trade treaties had existed between the two countries until President Abraham Lincoln officially recognized the republic in 1862. This created an opening for Liberian coffee to enter the American market, and before long, the Union Army was once again invigorated by the sweet-smelling aroma of caffeine.

On the other hand, the dwindling supply of coffee in the South made it difficult for the troops to maintain morale, with some soldiers even attempting to engage in secret trades with the North for their coffee in exchange for tobacco. This was further aggravated when Union troops destroyed 500 sacks of Brazilian coffee in Atlanta, which showed just how much coffee the North had, as instead of consuming the South's supply themselves, they just destroyed it.

At the end of the war, Benson unfortunately died but the trading partnership between Liberia and the US continued, even paving new partnerships to be formed with other countries like Britain and Germany. By 1885, Liberia was exporting about 800,000 pounds of coffee per year, which drastically jumped to over 1.8 million seven years later.

This whole trend of drinking coffee became embedded in American culture, and soon enough, the US was importing 11 pounds of coffee per person, per year.

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It has only been 70 years since Alan Turing suggested the idea of computers that can think or act similarly to the way any human would. Now, we have AI like ChatGPT that can write entire books with the help of some prodding and prompting, which goes to show how far we have come from those days when Turing and a colleague of his, Christopher Strachey, programmed the Mark 1, one of the largest computers in those days, to generate a random love letter.

Some of the love letters generated by the Mark 1 can be seen above. They read and sound mechanical, although it's perhaps one of the earliest works of artificial intelligence, preceding ChatGPT, and the story behind Turing and Strachey's collaboration is one that can be considered riveting and poignant at the same time.

Both were students at King's College, Cambridge, where Turing was a master's student in mathematics while Strachey was an undergrad in the same department, but was struggling with his academics, unlike the more prominent Turing, who was considered a genius in his field. Despite Strachey's struggles, he was a brilliant computer programmer.

Their friendship continued until Strachey wrote to Turing about his work on the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine), but mentioned that he was limited by the ACE, and he wanted a more powerful machine to test out some of his programs. Since Turing was working at Manchester at the time, he invited Strachey to visit him so that he can work on the Mark 1.

With that, Strachey was able to program the machine to play a song as well as a run a computer game of checkers. During that period, the two men had also been discussing the future of machines and machine intelligence. Intrigued by the subject, they experimented on how the computer can act more like a human with its own "free will" of sorts, despite being more limited since computers needed to be programmed to function.

In order to bypass this limitation, Turing suggested adding some feature of randomness to give the computer the appearance that it was thinking on its own. Ecstatic at the prospect of programming a computer to think like a human, Strachey collaborated with Turing to create a love letter generator. The rationale being that, to Strachey and Turing, writing love letters was a benchmark of intelligence.

They created a template and gave the computer a pool of choices from which it wold randomly pick words to fill in the template for the love letter. This is why, like the examples shown above, the letter reads a bit clunkily, albeit one can argue that, despite the clunkiness of the output, it had its own personal flavor and, to some extent, originality. In any case, the same can be said about human beings: our free will is limited by an exponentially greater pool of options, but still we can choose.

And so the love letter generator was born, the lovechild of Turing and Strachey, and perhaps, as Patricia Fancher asserts, was the only form through which the two men could express their sweet nothings to each other in a time when such acts were considered criminal in England. Still, it was the "something new" that Turing had been looking for, in his pursuit of developing machine intelligence.

Of course, later on, Turing would be convicted for gross indecency and given a choice between serving time in prison or chemical castration. Choosing the latter, Turing lived his final years, ultimately succumbing to cyanide poisoning ruled as suicide. It's a poignant story, but one that shows how our curiosities, passions, and ambitions can lead to riveting discoveries and creative endeavors.

(Image credit: Gwen Bell/Computer History Museum)

When I quit my job in mid-2022, I had no idea what was going to happen, and I was anxious about how I'm going to support myself during the period that I would be unemployed and looking for a job. That whole situation was exacerbated by the fact that I'm living abroad and would also have to deal with the ramifications of being unemployed while applying for a residence visa.

Now, it would have been a relief if I had some financial support from the government as I ventured into the unknown in search for another job. However, I was pretty much left to fend against the world all on my own, and that took a lot of hoping and searching to get through, but in the end, I was able to find another job that fit my needs at the time, and so, I didn't have to burrow through my savings too much.

I also had the option of having my folks back at home to wire me some of my money just so that I could survive for a couple more weeks, but thankfully, I didn't need to resort to that option. My case is a bit different than those in the US, since the US has what is called "unemployment insurance" or UI, which can be summarized as financial aid or support for those who got laid off of their jobs.

Focusing on the part where it only applies to people who were laid off, that meant that people who voluntarily quit aren't eligible. Thus, it forces people who may be working in low-wage jobs to continue working at their less-than-ideal job just so that they don't have to face the brutal reality of the current job market.

Despite this, a handful of economists are suggesting that perhaps they need to revisit the UI system, which they think requires a major overhaul, one in which people who voluntarily quit their jobs would be able to apply for UI and receive the benefits. That seems a bit counterintuitive to the ethos of the program itself, but some economists have argued that giving people the incentive to quit their jobs will actually be beneficial to the economy as a whole as it helps in the efficient matchmaking of workers to jobs.

I'm not really an economist so I won't be able to explain the nitty-gritty details of the concept, but in essence, the reason behind this idea is the assumption that there are many people who are mismatched to their jobs, or basically have awful jobs and whose skills are being under-utilized. But since it would be more disadvantageous for them to quit and try to look for another job, they just endure and stay at their current jobs.

This also assumes that these people will go on a search for better employment when they do quit, and that they're not simply taking advantage of the unemployment benefits out of laziness. In theory, the idea makes sense. You're giving individuals a sort of safety net that would allow them to look for better, higher-paying jobs that match their skillset which should make the economy better off as a whole. 

You might ask whether this is what would happen in reality. Well, the pandemic actually gave us an avenue to test that theory out, as many people were either laid off or quit their jobs voluntarily, and were given increased UI benefits. With the dataset provided by the unique circumstance of the pandemic, it showed that, despite the moral hazard of giving people financial aid for quitting their jobs or being unemployed, studies found no connection between the boosted UI and laziness or joblessness.

The truth of the matter is people want to work and given the stress and pressure being heaped upon them by the hard-pressed economy at the moment, they don't see being unemployed as an option. People will continue to look for work, but what they need is the kind of work that fits their skills, their goals and career path, and their threshold for satisfaction.

Now, even the country I lived in for four years had that kind of program. I knew someone who became a naturalized citizen, and after she became unemployed, the government sent her support every month for the next six months while she was looking for a more stable job. And it didn't diminish her desire to look for a job, rather, it pushed her even more to find employment. Given, she was a single mother of two, whose children were already going to college.

Of course, we cannot haphazardly overhaul the entire system simply because it's outdated. We still need to identify the proper eligibility criteria and closely monitor whether the unemployed are actually looking for jobs, but in a capitalistic system, people should be given the freedom to choose what they think would be better for them. The whole idea of capitalism is predicated on allowing individuals to let their preferences dictate where the market should go. And so, stifling that freedom makes the market less efficient.

Should people who quit their jobs be given an incentive? It's a complex issue but one in which these alternative perspectives should not be ignored.

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When I try to recall the times when I heard the word "please" being used as a means of being polite toward someone, especially when asking for a favor or requesting for something, I only imagine it being said by a mom or another family member who's asking one of the other members of the family to pass something from the other side of the dining table, i.e. "Could you please pass the salt?" or something along those lines.

However, upon reflection, I also realized that you can still say that sentence without using the word "please", and it would still be acceptable. Although we were taught as children to use the word "please" whenever we ask someone to do something, as I grew older, I found other ways of making requests without having to use the word, as I found them softer or gentler than simply adding the word "please" in the sentence. In fact, some experts say that using the word "please" may come off as pushy or intrusive.

A new study from a team at UCLA has found that people use the word "please" only 7% of the time when making requests. Tanya Stivers, a sociology professor at UCLA and one of the researchers in the study said that people only used the word "please" when they expected their requests to be turned down as a means to convince or coerce the other person to actually do the request.

As an example, it would probably be excusable for a child to say "please" when making an unreasonable request or one to which they know that their parents wouldn't agree. And, to drive the point home a bit further, we often see a scene in which a child will even go so far as to say "pretty please" in order to convince their parent or the person being asked to acquiesce to their request. At that age, it's cute, but it's not something that well-adjusted adults usually do whenever making a polite request.

In other words, whenever people use the word "please", it can come off as condescending. Even outside the context of making requests, we often hear "please" being said in a sarcastic or patronizing tone. Furthermore, they found that this isn't a recent trend, but rather, research has shown that the same is true going back as far as the '70s.

Perhaps, the only context or scenario I can think of in which "please" becomes acceptable and less pushy is when somebody pairs it up with the phrase "excuse me", i.e. "Please excuse me" when apologizing for a certain behavior or when trying to leave a certain situation, such as when an awkward scene happens in a room, and you don't want to witness it any further.

Of course, we should still teach our children to be polite, and say "please" in the proper context. But it will also be a good idea to teach them alternative phrases or methods we can use to express politeness.

Oftentimes, using the words "would", "could", or "mind" can express the thought as these words imply that you're giving the listener the power to decide whether or not they want to do the thing you're asking them. They are less forceful and more considerate of the listener's circumstances and position.

Another way is to phrase your question as a suggestion with expressions like "How about..." again giving the listener the option of choosing what they want to do, instead of forcefully telling them what you want them to do.

And finally, leading with words of gratitude or appreciation also help soften the request, and so expressions like "I'd be so grateful if..." or "I would love it if..." can also ease the request into the conversation. Of course, tone and body language can also help get your point across further, and could show the listener our sincerity and humility in asking them a favor.

At the end of the day, it's not as though saying "please" automatically makes somebody sound rude or condescending, and it doesn't necessarily mean that adding it onto one's request will make it polite. It's about the attitude, demeanor, and the way we present our request to the other person, whether we respect their agency and willingness in doing the request.

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Brian Wilson was a senior at Hawthorne High School in 1960 when his music teacher, Fred Morgan, gave their class a final project in which they had to compose a piano sonata consisting of 120 measures with five key changes. Instead, Wilson wrote 32 measures with chords. Given that it wasn't exactly what Morgan had asked, the teacher gave Wilson an F. Despite this, Wilson was unfazed, and used this experience as inspiration to write the first song of their soon-to-be formed band, the Beach Boys.

According to Wilson, although the assignment was about writing classical music, it changed his perspective on music and got him to thinking about the different ways music could work. And so, the failed project transformed into the first song of the Beach Boys, "Surfin'".

Wilson had been playing the piano since he was a child, and he first started composing music in his teen years. Even though Wilson was quite a popular kid at school and according to his music teacher, "the quietest one in the class", that didn't stop Mr. Morgan from failing him on the project for not following the instructions.

Still, with this newly composed music, his brother Dennis suggested a title and theme for the song, while Mike Love, another member of the band, co-wrote the lyrics for the song. With "Surfin'", the Beach Boys were able to get a contract with a record label, which was soon released as a single, then becoming a hit with 50,000 copies sold, thus propelling the group to stardom.

Going back to that fateful day when Wilson failed his project, he recalled that he failed the class, although it is uncertain whether Mr. Morgan just failed him on the project or on the class. Still, Wilson never held any grudges against the failing grade as it started their journey as one of the most successful rock bands in history.

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Sir Ernest Shackleton is quite a legendary, spectacular figure. He led three Antarctic expeditions, originally with the desire to be the first person to reach the South Pole, but was beaten to it by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. At which point, Shackleton decided on a new goal: to be the first person to cross Antarctica through the South Pole.

In all three of his expeditions, everybody remarkably survived except on the third expedition aboard the Endurance, when he and his crewmen became stranded in ice and were forced to make the toughest decision to survive. They had several sled dogs as well as the carpenter's cat on that expedition, but due to the conditions they found themselves in, some of those dogs and the cat had to be sacrificed.

Still, the incredible ending to the story is that all 28 of the crew returned safely to London after two years and several grueling experiences at sea and on the ice. After that, Shackleton went on his last trip to circumnavigate the South Pole. Unfortunately, it was on this fourth expedition that he died from a heart attack at sea. He was aboard the Quest, which was later used as an exploration vessel by Norwegian explorers before it sank in 1962.

Now, 40 years later, a group of divers, historians, and oceanographers from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, have finally found the wreckage of the Quest. By looking through historical data parsed with modern technology, they were able to locate the ship's possible coordinates based on currents, weather conditions, and other factors.

The surprising thing about the discovery of the Quest was that Shackleton's granddaughter, Hon. Alexandra Shackleton, was a co-patron of that expedition that discovered the Quest. Later this year, the explorers plan on making a second expedition to document the wreckage and the artifacts.

(Image credit: Royal Canadian Geographical Society/X)

Video credit: CBC News

Grief is physical as much as it is emotional and psychological. It manifests itself in symptoms that affect the normal functioning of our body. Erich Lindemann had looked into the somatic manifestations of grief and he saw how people who were grieving exhibited physical changes in their behavior such as having tight throats, heavy and persistent sighing, and inexplicable pain.

Different people process grief differently, and I would argue that the intensity at which people experience grief can also require different methods of dealing or managing it. Now, there have been several therapists who have used laughter as a means of helping people cope with or process grief, particularly the physical symptoms of it.

The idea first gained much prominence when Annette Goodheart, a painter and therapist, began to develop laughter techniques in the late 1960's and '70s for therapy. What she wanted to target was how people going through painful experiences or heavy negative emotions like grief struggle to find healthy outlets or means of release for the accumulated stress and negativity in their bodies.

Due to the fact that we have been taught to suppress our emotions, whether directly or subtly, through expressions like "Stop crying" or "You've cried enough about that", people have internalized the idea that showing emotion is unhealthy or bad. However, bottling up our emotions or having a lot of pent-up emotions is quite unhealthy because, as it continues to build up, it will try to find a way for release, otherwise, we will simply implode which is what happens when people experience breakdowns due to a prolonged suppression of their emotions.

In order to combat that, Goodheart advised people to find a means of achieving catharsis, whether it be through crying or laughing. And, according to her, we should make time to laugh more in order to remove our barriers to vulnerability. As we open ourselves up, the body is able then to release all of that accumulated stress, pain, and heaviness. Much like how a four-year-old lives its life without a care in the world, and being stress-free, laughing at least five hundred times a day, when we start to unleash the pent-up emotions, we can start to feel lighter.

Of course, laughter is not the panacea for all psychological pain or emotional distress. We still need to take the proper medication, to eat right, have enough sleep, and exercise. But laughter does open a pathway for the emotions to rise from within and find its way out.

As Cody Delistraty discovered for himself, no matter how much physical exercise he did or how long he slept, he just wasn't able to get over the grief brought about by the death of his mother. At a certain point, his body just broke down. And so, he tried out the laughter therapy sessions, and found some relief in being able to go through a cathartic exercise. He also recounts several other "grief cures" in his book The Grief Cure: Looking for the End of Loss.

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It has been almost 75 years since the Korean War was sparked, and for the most part, we are convinced that Kim Il Sung had been the instigator for the attacks on South Korea with the view of unifying the whole Korean peninsula. But, according to records, Kim wasn't actually acting alone in making his decision, as it would become apparent that the other two Communist superpowers at the time - Russia and China - had also been involved in the discussions of taking military action against South Korea.

According to messages between Kim and Stalin, Kim had been proposing a possible invasion to the South given that American troops were being pulled out, and seeing that the South Koreans were against a pro-American regime at the time, Kim had thought that the best time to make a move was the soonest possible. Initially, Stalin had been hesitant to approve of this proposal and advised Kim to wait, instead of jumping the gun and launching an offensive right away.

Stalin's concern at the time was actually the opposite of what Kim Il Sung had been saying. Stalin had feared some form of aggression from the people of the South and so he wanted Kim to be patient, and advised him to simply wait for the time for a counterattack instead of making the first move. Furthermore, Stalin saw that the northern army would not be strong enough to overwhelm the southern army, not just in numbers but in military strength with the possibility of reinforcements from the US.

On the other hand, Kim had suggested a partial operation in the Ongjin peninsula in order to demoralize the opposing forces before storming with their troops and achieving a rapid victory. Still, Stalin was cautious and wanted Kim to simply prepare for any contingencies that might occur.

Midway through their discussions, Stalin started to sing a different tune. When once he had advised caution and merely preparation, he started to communicate to Kim that he would be willing and ready to send reinforcements whenever they launch their attack on the South. What changed Stalin's mind was mainly the success of the Chinese Community Party against the Kuomintang, which paved the way for an attack on South Korea to be successful. However, Stalin also calculated that this would only be possible with the intervention of China. He urged Kim to present this to Mao Zedong, which the latter reluctantly approved.

So, on 25 June 1950, the North invaded the South and was quite successful. However, Stalin had not foreseen the intervention of the United Nations in the fray, as well as the swift response of MacArthur to launch a counterattack, when American troops landed at Incheon in September. Kim and Stalin found themselves in a bind, with Kim requesting Stalin for aid in the battle, meanwhile Stalin ran to Mao to send reinforcements to the 38th Parallel.

Three years later, after Stalin died, the offensive against the South was dropped and all the collaborators sought a formal end to the conflict. So, who exactly started the Korean War? At the end of it all, although Kim Il Sung was the main instigator, he definitely had support, mainly from Stalin and to a lesser extent, Mao.

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Three weeks ago, my dad and I were out for a drive and we decided to go get some food at a McDonald's drive-through. Everything went as smoothly as it could and we got our food. What happened after that was perhaps one of the most awkward and uncomfortable experiences we've ever had in recent memory.

The car in front of us, as they were about to exit the drive-through, suddenly broke down. It was a tight lane and there was not enough space for us to drive around the car in front, so we were basically caught in a jam. It was probably about five minutes in when I realized what had happened, so I told my dad to go and see what the issue was. I suspected that their car's battery died, and so it needed to be jump-started.

Once my dad returned to our car, he was able to maneuver our car so that we could possibly help them jump-start their car. After about 15 minutes of unsuccessful attempts, a few other people decided to just help them push the car onto the side of the road, since it was already causing a massive traffic jam. And that whole time, I felt really uncomfortable because the whole incident was holding everybody up, the people behind us in the drive-through queue, as well as those on the road. And, in hindsight, I think that the best thing we could have done, was simply to help them push their car to the side of the road in the first place.

There are certain instances like this when we try to do the kind or polite thing but actually, that may not be the most polite thing to do. Granted, this was an unforeseen circumstance, both my dad and I were tired, we had a long day, it was already evening, and we just wanted to get home. So, my brain wasn't really working at its peak form, and my dad probably didn't know exactly what to do as well. I only suggested what I thought was the most helpful thing, not just for the family in front of us, but for everybody else who was going to encounter this traffic incident.

In any case, we often want to do something polite or kind to the people around us or even to the fast food workers or cashiers, but those people may find our acts of kindness a bit off-putting, annoying, unnecessary, or even an inconvenience. Charlotte Hilton Andersen shares 15 of these "polite habits" which we may be doing but fast food workers actually dislike on Reader's Digest.

To summarize some of these habits into categories, I found that several of them have to do with holding up the queue, similar to what happened to my dad and I, although that was unintentional on the part of the car in front of us, and so one could say that it was understandable.

However, we may do things like trying to pay exact change so that it would be easier for the cashiers. That's well and good as long as we already have the cash ready on hand and we're just going to give it to the cashier. But if we're still going to rummage through our wallet or change holder in the car, then we're just holding up the people waiting in line, and the cashier will have to deal with the possibly irate customers who have been waiting more than they had wanted in line.

Making unnecessary comments or remarks under the guise of being sympathetic toward the workers may also be under this category, because it just wastes time. As I have observed, and as common sense should dictate, a fast food chain needs to do everything fast, because that's what they were designed for. So any moment of slack or waiting time can disrupt the whole system. For example, queuing up without knowing what you're going to order or having to ask the cashier what they would recommend is a huge time-waster. And putting the cashier on the spot like that just makes it inconvenient for them and for the other customers in line.

I would consider other acts on the list as either misplaced sympathy or simply crossing the boundaries. For example, giving tips when these establishments generally have a policy for not accepting tips is just one way of getting the workers in trouble. Trying to pay it forward by paying for the person behind you or the car behind in the queue can be misconstrued, and it also makes things confusing for the cashier.

Other things we might say to sound polite may also come off as condescending or even downright insulting. Essentially, when we order at fast food restaurants, we give our order, pay for it, and then get our food. The addition of self-ordering kiosks actually helps to make the process a lot faster and less prone to mistakes.

Even though we have the best intentions at heart sometimes, it's best to just go with the natural flow of things without having to do all the extra stuff, and reserve them for when the conditions are ripe for some act of kindness, which won't inconvenience the people around us. For the more detailed list of fast food ordering do's and don'ts, check out Andersen's article on Reader's Digest.

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I have heard stories of people who have had near-death experiences going through out-of-body experiences (OBEs) simultaneously and although it's inconceivable in my mind, since I cannot imagine how that would work, except when it's being reenacted or visualized on film or the screen.

Oftentimes, we imagine some immaterial part of ourselves, the soul, coming out of the physical body and becoming separate for a time, giving it the ability to perceive the surrounding area as if from a third-person perspective. And, usually, these types of experiences are described as somewhat spiritual, both in the literal and the metaphorical sense, in that, people who have gone through them have reported to have undergone changes in their outlook in life or even worldview.

A team of researchers, led by neuroscientist Marine Weiler from the University of Virginia, have looked into studies regarding OBEs, and have gathered that many people who have had OBEs have an increased sense of empathy toward others, which can be connected to this process of ego dissolution or ego death, in which a person's sense of self gives way to a feeling of interconnectedness with others, and in particular, those around them.

I would imagine that anybody who has had a near-death experience would definitely consider that a life-changing experience, as they would feel that they had been given a second chance at life. But perhaps the added bonus of having an out-of-body experience in that moment might have given them a profound realization of how precious life is, and being able to look at other people without their being conscious of one's presence, thereby shedding the pretenses and showing their vulnerability must have been an eye-opener for these people.

In any case, the researchers conducting the survey suggested that the reason why people are experiencing increased levels of empathy after going through OBEs might be due to the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) in the brain which helps us in information processing and perception.

The researchers also point out the fact that the TPJ is tied to the ego as this part also handles the processing of self-reflection and internal narratives about ourselves, which can get disrupted when a person is having an OBE. For future research, the team wants to explore OBEs either by using virtual reality or having participants who can induce OBEs on demand, so that they can find out methods on how to enhance empathy.

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As a guy standing at 160cm (5 feet, 3 inches), anybody who stands at a height of at least 5 feet, 8 inches is already gigantic from my perspective, let alone anybody who stands at a height of at least six feet. We have heard legends and tales of giants, perhaps even when we were children, such as Jack and the Beanstalk, and of course, there are the Biblical stories of Goliath, or the Nephilim. Then there's the mention of the Cyclopes and the Titans in Greek and Roman mythology.

In more recent times, we have seen a few people in sports and entertainment who can be categorized as "giants" who are at least seven feet tall, towering over much of the general population. People like Andre the Giant and the Great Khali in entertainment wrestling, Yao Ming, the center for the Houston Rockets until he retired in 2011, and Matthew McGrory, the giant portrayed in the film Big Fish, who stood at 7 feet, 6 inches, and sadly passed away in 2005 at the age of 32, due to congestive heart failure.

The existence of giant humans has always been a spectacle for people because they're rare. Most of the time, we only hear about them in stories, especially in legends. However, very tall human beings have been around on the earth since time immemorial.

Marta Korbonits, an endocrinology professor at Queen Mary University of London, cites the case of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who has been alleged to have stood at 6 feet, 1.6 inches, as well as many Irish giants who lived around 2,500 years ago, according to her research.

Records like these show that many people throughout history have been considered giants by their peers, despite standing at around six feet, which would be considered about average today.

Even the tallest person recorded in history, Robert Wadlow, only stood at 8 feet 11 inches. I say "only", but that's relative to how people have mythologized giants. In reality, such a height is shocking in and of itself, and completely unimaginable for me, and perhaps for a lot of people as well. Despite the fact that Wadlow had been "gifted" with such a physical "advantage", it actually came at a great cost.

According to Korbonits, many giants actually have a growth hormone problem. Wadlow's height stemmed from a medical condition called gigantism caused by a brain tumor which elevated the levels of growth hormone that the pituitary gland produced. It also affected his health, having to wear braces to support his stature. Because of complications with his condition, he only lived to be 22 years old, succumbing to septic shock, after a blister in his ankle popped, brought about in part by the poorly-fitted iron brace he had to wear to support his legs.

Of course, not all giants have this medical condition. Bao Xishun, who was formerly the world's tallest man, stands naturally at 7 feet 9 inches. Currently, Xishun is 72 years old, and lives in Mongolia with his wife.

Further research is looking into whether there were more giants in human history. Pavel Grasgruber, an anthropologist from Masaryk University, has been looking into the Gravettian culture, which he believes to have inspired the myths about giants. From the fossils that they have excavated from the Grimaldi cave system in Czech Republic, they found several skeletons who are estimated to have stood at least 6 feet, 5 inches.

Some factors that could have contributed to their height may be the abundance of food due to the low population density of the area. Although genetics also plays a large role in our height, these environmental factors can positively affect our physical build, frame, and stature. So, giant humans were not just myths, but there have been real ones in history, and perhaps they are the ones on whom the stories were based.

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For any anime fans out there, when I read the phrase "inherit memory", I immediately thought of Tanjiro from Demon Slayer when he had some sort of vision or dream where he saw somebody that looked exactly like him, but had his own family and spoke with this samurai-looking guy with a similar scar on his forehead just like Tanjiro had. Later on, it was mentioned how some people get inherited memories from their ancestors, and so Tanjiro concluded that the person in the dream was actually one of his ancestors.

Fiction aside, some researchers have conducted an experiment that purports how certain "memories" or "experiences" may be passed down to next generations. And the answer, according to them, lies in genetics. Furthermore, it's more than just memories or experiences, they suggest that even traits such as temperament, longevity, resilience to mental ill-health, and even ideological leanings can be embedded in the genetic framework of an individual and inherited by their descendants.

Originally, one of the earlier experiments on epigenetics was conducted by a team from Emory University in Georgia, led by Prof. Kerry Ressler, in which they used mice to study the effects of lived experience and acquired knowledge, and how those are transmitted from one generation of mice to the next.

First, they stimulated the mice by exposing them to the scent of cherries, immediately followed by a mild electric shock. After associating the smell of cherries with the pain from the shock, the mice had internalized a certain fear or anxiety about cherries. Next, the researchers bred the mice once. and then those pups were bred again.

When the researchers exposed the grandpups to the smell of cherries, it was quite surprising to discover that the grandpups had the same reaction to the cherries as their grandparents did. From this, the team identified a particular gene that had been changed. Instead of the nerve cells directing the stimulus of the cherries to the pleasure and reward circuits, it was rerouted to the amygdala, the part of the brain that registered fear.

In order to ensure that these results were not affected by other factors such as learning by imitation, the researchers bred the original mice again and raised the new pups away from their parents. Some of the grandpups were also fostered out. Both these groups still reacted the same way to the cherries as the traumatized mice. Furthermore, the researchers also bred mice who had no such traumatic experience and had the pups fostered by the traumatized mice, and the pups were unaffected.

This leads to the conclusion that certain traumatic events may change the way neurons are wired to react to certain stimuli and that can be passed on to the next generations through DNA. But the whole study doesn't end there. The researchers also tried to reverse the effect of the traumatic linking. And they found that after some repetitions, the traumatized mice's neural circuits had reverted to their original wiring. After breeding them again, the researchers found that the trauma wasn't passed on to subsequent generations.

With this study as the background, another team of researchers led by Prof. Rachel Yehuda at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York in 2020, tried to examine whether the same neural circuitry can be found in humans by looking into the genetics of Holocaust survivors and their children, and they saw that, for people who have gone through trauma, there were particular changes to the gene linked to levels of cortisol.

In 2021, Prof. Yehuda looked at genes linked to the immune system, and they found that the changes caused by the traumatic event had affected the way the immune system interacted with the central nervous system. The disruptions caused by the immune system had been linked to depression, anxiety, psychosis, and autism.

Although we won't necessarily have the same kind of experience that Tanjiro had in the show, wherein he saw vividly the experience of his ancestor as if looking through their eyes, there are certain things that our ancestors may have passed on to us if they had gone through traumatic or life-altering experiences. Those changes may have been embedded into the genes and affect later generations, causing them to be more susceptible to diseases or mental health concerns.

(Image credit: Johnny Cohen/Unsplash)

Forget about dating with AI, there's a burgeoning trend, albeit still in its nascent stages, wherein companies can create a digital persona of our deceased loved ones, using data collected from text messages, social media posts, voice recordings, stories and reels to make a virtual reconstruction of the deceased person. It's called the digital afterlife, and it's an interesting concept but also one that's rife with potential ethical concerns.

The most glaring issue with this technology is data privacy and consent, and this is also linked to the possible psychological stress or damage that it may cause relatives or people close to the deceased. It is possible for some people to find relief or solace in being able to interact in one way or another with their deceased loved one as a means of finding closure, however, for others, it may aggravate their grieving process and cause undue harm to their mental and emotional state.

Since different people have different ways of processing their grief, the psychological and ethical ramifications of recreating a deceased person by making a virtual persona patterned after them may be quite grave. Some have even termed the negative effects that these digital afterlife personas cause as "digital hauntings".

Moreover, there are certain things that the deceased might have wanted to take to their grave and so, creating these personas may be an infringement of their right to their privacy, however, social media companies' control over people's access to data may complicate these matters.

Of course, most of these reconstructions are possible because most of us have our digital footprint online. It would be less likely to reconstruct VR or AI versions of our deceased loved ones from 50 years ago or even those from 30 years ago, before we had all this digital footprint and data.

Having said that, we may have reached the point in which, with the technology that we have, we can create avatars, holograms, or chatbots imbued with mannerisms, habits, or even the particular personality traits by which we remember our loved ones. So, it might not be long before these digital afterlife companies are able to recreate personas of our loved ones just based on photos or written documents like letters, and such.

Personally, I prefer not to linger or wallow too much in grief. Maybe there are some people who may have had regrets about not saying something to their loved ones before they passed away, or not being able to do something for them while they were still alive. For those people, I understand the value of this technology or service as it would help them get closure, even though if you think about it rationally, it wouldn't necessarily affect anything with the deceased. But it is for the sake of those who have been bereft, and their peace of mind.

There are some risks to this technology, especially with how AI is becoming more and more sophisticated, and how one can make somebody say something that they never really said while they were alive, or make them do something that they never did, through the use of AI. It may not be perfect, but the concern is still valid, and so, this would require a lot of policy conversations and legal revisions.

At the end of the day, although this technology can be helpful, we also want to consider the wishes of our deceased loved ones, and we want to be able to respectfully honor them, while still having some form of connection with them. So, the best way is to communicate these concerns properly and provide meaningful feedback to help minimize the potential risks and ethical issues that these digital afterlife technologies will inevitably face.

(Image credit: note thanun/Unsplash)

I ate a lot of McDonald's when I was a kid, and I would admit that it was a disproportionate amount compared to what nutritionists or dietitians would recommend to anyone. But McDonald's has been my favorite fast food restaurant from a very young age, and although I have been cutting down my consumption of processed food, McDonald's still remains my go-to for cheat days or cravings.

In the past two decades, many things have changed and although McDonald's was already a global force starting in the '90s and well into the '00s, their influence in the international fast food industry today has grown by leaps and bounds, and we can consider them a major player in the global economic scene, seeing how ubiquitous the McDonald's brand has become.

Without going into how McDonald's expanded their reach internationally over the past 30 years, we know that they have been very aggressive with their franchising strategy, opening stores in different locations all around the world. As of 2023, according to Statista, there were almost 42,000 McDonald's restaurants operating in more than 110 countries. Second only to McDonald's is Subway with around 37,000 chains in 2021. Starbucks, the largest coffeehouse chain in the world, has about 36,000 stores in operation globally in 2023.

From these statistics, we see just how much of a powerhouse McDonald's really is. But that doesn't mean that they aren't subject to cultural norms, practices, or trends, or that they can make universal decisions with impunity. As a matter of fact, McDonald's has had to adapt certain elements of their brand to local tastes, preferences, and aesthetics.

Changes, additions, or removal of food items from their menu have occurred with respect to what the local culture dictates. Although the main items on their menu stay the same, they have opened it up to variations. And photojournalist Gary He wanted to document all those changes. So, he traveled to more than 50 countries where McDonald's was, ordered food from their menu, and took pictures of his orders at his hotel room. He then compiled of these photographs in his upcoming book titled McAtlas: A Global Guide to the Golden Arches.

He shared some of his experiences with Gastro Obscura. According to He, his inspiration for going on this journey was simply to continue the "visual social anthropology" of McDonald's, how it shaped cultures and how it too was shaped by the cultures on which it landed. Taking his lead from John F. Love's own biography of McDonald's titled McDonald's: Behind the Arches, published in 1986 originally, and revised in 1995, He sought to continue that story.

Over the past six years, He collected not just photos of the food items unique to each locale, exhibiting the nuances of the cultural sphere in which McDonald's operated, but also the architectural differences that he noticed. A few such instances was the pagoda-style store in Shenzhen, the first McDonald's that opened in China, as well as the fancy-looking, dome-like, futuristic glass structure of the McDonald's store in Batumi, Georgia, pictured above.

Some notable food item changes or additions were the McBaguette in France, the Nasi Lemak burger in Malaysia and Singapore, cha chaan tengs in Hong Kong, and the McSpaghetti in the Philippines.

The last one actually has a very interesting story as, although the spaghetti dish was introduced in the 1970s, it was discontinued in 1980 except for the Philippines and Orlando, Florida. Furthermore, one particular difference in that spaghetti dish was the sauce. He explained how spaghetti in the Philippines was made with sweet sauce, since banana ketchup is the more popular condiment in the country over tomato ketchup, which has a more tangy flavor.

Culturally, the fact that McDonald's is in over 110 countries operating almost 42,000 stores is quite a feat and could also be a significant driving force in a culture. The way that McDonald's integrates parts of the local culture into its ecosystem can and is being used to export culture into different parts of the world. It's a diffusion phenomenon in which McDonald's becomes the vehicle by which culture has the ability to spread through food.

To know more about Gary He's project, and to reserve a copy of his book, check out McAtlas.

(Image credits: Ресторан всемирной сети/Wikimedia Commons; Gary He)

In this video, Big Think invited Alan Alda to speak about some concepts related to good communication, particularly the use of jargon and hifalutin' words, which are highly technical or specialized terms that people in certain professions use, but which ordinary people like us may not regularly encounter in our daily lives.

Alda argues that jargon is useful because it is able to transmit meaning and information in an efficient manner especially between people who understand what those terms mean. However, its usefulness becomes moot once one incorporates the words into a context outside of their technical background or when they are being used to communicate with people who do not often encounter them.

Take, for example, the situation given by Alda in the video. Two doctors are presenting their diagnosis of a patient's conditon, an incurable cancer, and as the lead doctor continues to expound on their findings, the woman just sat listening to these long-winded explanations with a blank expression on her face.

After the lead doctor had finished, the medical student with him asked to stay behind and proceeded to communicate in simple, relatable, and comprehensible terms what the previous doctor had just said. And it was during that moment when the woman finally understood what her condition was, and she responded with tears running down her face.

Words are useful insofar as they are able to convey the message intended by a sender to the recipient, or by the speaker to the audience. If we simply use smart-sounding words to appear smart ourselves without thinking about whether the listener will understand what we mean by what we said, then that's not good communication.

Alda asserts that when we make a connection with the person to whom we are speaking, and they understood what we meant, that's when we are able to communicate properly. The mirroring exercise that the medical student and the woman did, i.e. as the woman cried because she understood what her reality was at that point, so the medical student also cried because there was a profound sense of connection that happened through their conversation.

We often experience a temptation to sound smarter by using hifalutin' words in our speech, but it would be pointless. I have heard this concept at least twice which says that truly smart people are those who can make complex ideas simple to understand by those with whom they are shared.

To demonstrate one's understanding of complex ideas and concepts, it is a matter of practicality that one should be able to explain those complex things to even a five-year-old, and help them understand what it means. Because then, you know for certain that you have a good grasp of the essence of those ideas and concepts.

So yes, just as Alda mentions in the video, it's fun to use jargon but only when the other person is able to catch the meaning as well. Otherwise, there is no point in having a conversation using those words. It would be much better to stick with simpler words and terms, so that you can focus on progressing the conversation with your counterpart and come at a more productive or fruitful outcome.

And in that sense, there's really a great need for empathy in order for us to have good communication with the goal of making our partner or counterpart understand what we're saying, whether it be a point of view, a factual summary, or an explanation of a concept, event, or something else. In so doing, we can arrive at conclusions, paradigm shifts, and possible solutions for whatever it is we're talking about without much misunderstanding in between.

(Video credit: Big Think)