A 15-year-old boy is now slated to become the Roman Catholic Church's first millennial saint. His name was Carlo Acutis, and he died in 2006 from leukemia. Sixteen years later, Pope Francis has approved a second posthumous miracle which the Medical Council of the Congregation for Saints' Causes had investigated and confirmed the validity of said miracles.

Acutis was born in London, and according to accounts from his mother, he would regularly engage in charitable acts toward the marginalized and disadvantaged in society, such as donating his pocket money to poor people, standing up for his disabled peers being bullied, and giving vagrants in Milan sleeping bags and meals.

At a young age, he taught himself how to code and he created a website that documents miracles around the world in an effort to help Catholic organizations.

The path to becoming a canonized saint for the Roman Catholic Church requires that the deceased person be involved in at least two verifiable miraculous accounts. According to the Vatican, once these two miracles attributed to the person in question has been verified, then they become candidates for sainthood.

The first of the two miracles attributed to Acutis was the recovery of a Brazilian boy from a rare pancreatic disorder after having been in contact with one of Acutis' t-shirts, at the same time, a priest had prayed to Acutis for the healing of the child.

And recently, in 2022, a Costa Rican woman claimed that she had been healed after a bicycle accident when her mother went to Acutis' tomb to pray for her. Valeria Valverde had undergone brain surgery but was still in critical condition. At that point, her mother went to Acutis' tomb to pray for her daughter, and immediately afterward, it is said that Valeria began to breathe without a ventilator and slowly recovered.

According to reports, Valeria was discharged 10 days after the miracle, with scans showing that the contusions on her brain had disappeared. - via The Daily Grail

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I don't know about you, but whenever I went out to eat at this ramen restaurant with a friend before, I always found it soothing to have some blues-y music or a chill playlist in the background while I chow on some spicy seafood noodles, and it actually helps me enjoy the food more, along with some casual conversation with my friend. Whenever it was some type of upbeat, pop music, I get fired up and focus more on eating the food.

There is something about the way music affects us and our behavior especially while we're eating. Ever wondered why high-end restaurants sometimes have classical or jazz music playing in the background? Apart from setting the atmosphere of the restaurant and giving off an elegant mood, it enhances our gastronomic experience.

Some research even suggests that the louder a restaurant's music plays, the more motivated patrons are to order unhealthy foods, likely due to the increased stimulation and stress brought about by the sounds.

There was also an experimental culinary experience conducted by the Italian Futurist movement in the 1930s, in which they would let their customers play musical instruments while eating their food. It sounds disconcerting, but the idea is that the combination of music and cuisine heightens the experience people have of both.

Whether or not customers find it pleasurable depends on who you're asking, but this is to say that there is precedent for the intermingling of auditory and gustatory senses.

In more recent times, the concept of "sonic seasoning" has floated about, suggesting that there may be a direct link between sound and taste. This link may be associated with synesthesia, or the perceptual phenomenon wherein our brains allow us to experience multiple unrelated senses, or said in another way, we're able to experience one sense through the lens of another.

Such is the field of sonic seasoning, in which the sounds that we hear can be described through taste. Some synesthetes say that listening to the piano is akin to eating caramel or chocolate, meanwhile, synthesizer sounds feel like eating black licorice.

The pasta company Barilla created "Pasta Playlists" on Spotify with which they recommend people eat their pasta, and in 2024, they commissioned the Al Bronzo Soundtrack Experience from White Lotus' composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer. For example, you may listen to the sounds of twinkling bells and vocal accents while taking a bite out of their rigatoni. Or, that rolling bassline as you savor their bucatini.

Whether it be a nice meal or a cup of coffee, I think most of us would not mind having some music playing in the background. Depending on the mood and context, it may impact our culinary experience in more ways than one.

Perhaps, the more intriguing part of this concept is the fact that you can hone in on particular sounds with which our brains would associate to further enhance the way we enjoy our food. But then again, who's to say that bells can make tomatoes taste sweeter, or rock music can make us crave for stuff like fries and burgers?

At the end of the day, some argue that music and food are highly subjective, so it would be difficult to concretize these connections and say that they produce the kind of effect they are purported to do. It's an interesting idea to explore, and see if there's any way to induce certain culinary experiences through music. But for now, we'll just have to wait and see.

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Let me preface this by saying that, no, this has no political connotation, it has no relation to Brexit or anything of the sort, and it isn't remotely suggesting that Ireland finally wants to secede from the United Kingdom. It's far less serious than that, depending on which perspective you're going to take.

Have you ever been at a party and as the night wiles away, you find yourself getting the urge to leave but cannot find the right moment to say goodbye to the host or to other guests? So, you end up simply slipping away without anyone noticing? Well, it's not exactly "ghosting" per se, but this act has become known as "the Irish exit".

Conventional social etiquette and perhaps, at times, even our own consciences would dictate that, at the very least, we should let the host know that we'll be taking our leave, but some would argue that depending on the situation, it might be even more polite to simply leave without saying goodbye.

For instance, if you were in a large informal gathering of people, without an RSVP, then it might be excusable. Or, if the host is entertaining several guests and it would be considered even rude to interrupt them as you take your leave, then it would be acceptable to simply skedaddle without a hoot. However, such would probably not be the case when it's a more intimate gathering, or when the host themselves personally invites you to the party, and they welcome and see their guests out as they come and go.

The Irish exit seems to be peculiar however, as we generally have this image of Irish people being very jovial, warm, and hospitable, so to think that such a cold or rude act may be associated with them appears to be a misnomer or misleading. In fact, the term never originated from Ireland, but according to Irish author Judith McLoughlin, it's purely an American term.

There are a few theories as to the origin of the phrase, and some associate it with the 19th century Irish Potato Famine, which forced a lot of Irish people to depart from Ireland, perhaps never being able to see their loved ones again. And the sadness that came from that time in history may explain the use of the term, as for any host to simply not notice one of their guests leaving without saying goodbye, could be quite saddening indeed.

Another theory is that it was taken from the idea of hard-partying Irish Americans who needed to avoid the embarrassment at a party after they have consumed too much alcohol and become completely inebriated to the point that they have lost a grip on themselves. It can be seen as a face-saving gesture in this sense.

Whatever the origin of the term really is, it is used to describe that act of slipping away from a party or social gathering without saying goodbye. It's not a universal term, but several countries have a similar concept, which they call differently. For example, in Great Britain, they use the phrase "the French exit" or "the French leave" to mean the same thing. In turn, when you're in France, Russia, or Poland, they would say "leaving the English way". While in Germany, they would use "the Polish exit".

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June 26, 1974 - This was the fateful day when the whole process of grocery shopping was revolutionized forever. It was on this day when Sharon Buchanan, an employee at Marsh Supermarket in Troy, rang up a seemingly insignificant pack of chewing gum for Clyde Dawson, Marsh's head of development and research.

The whole event seems to be utterly normal, mundane, and unamusing to many of us today, but that's only because the supermarket scanner has been a part of our daily lives, and for many of us, we don't remember a time when we went grocery shopping without it waiting for us at the counter.

If we had lived before that time, then not only did we have to wait for the cashier to ring up our groceries, but we even had to check whether the tally was accurate at the end of it all, since store clerks manually entered the price of each item on the cash register, instead of just swiping them on that red laser which automatically identifies the item and how much it costs.

But it was thanks to the invention of Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard "Bob" Silver, who created the bar code system which enabled data to be stored in that rectangular label with lines of varying thickness and numbers written on top, that we are able to enjoy the speed and convenience of grocery shopping today.

Their invention was a remarkable step toward the ease of scanning grocery items. It wasn't until the National Cash Register Company and Spectra-Physics collaborated on developing the Spectra-Physics Model A, or the ancestor of the modern-day supermarket scanner, that the whole landscape of grocery shopping experienced a game-changing breakthrough.

With the new machines, it only took minutes to get through a whole bag of groceries as the device can easily detect loads of information and display them for verification, and it also reduced the number of mistakes that could have been committed with a manual system of input.

The original Spectra-Physics Model A currently sits at the National Museum of American History's electronic collection. Though it was a big, bulky steel-encased machine, much of the magic happened inside, out of sight from people who could care less what was going on. But that was the wonder of "frictionless" technology, something designed to be an "invisible" technology.

Today, we often take it for granted especially with the advent of the self-checkout register. But let's just take a moment to remember that on June 26th, 50 years ago, our lives would forever change.

(Image credit: National Museum of American History)

We no longer have the problem of 'being bored' these days because there's always so much that we can do. Smartphones, high-speed internet, and a smorgasbord of content online has afforded us all with so much to do that we often find ourselves not having enough time to actually consume all the media that we want to consume or do every task on our to-do list.

We are constantly on the go, always striving for a certain future goal, or always making sure that we spend every minute of every day efficiently in order for us to be as productive as we can be. And as a result, we're doing more over a shorter period of time, but at the same time, there are record levels of stress, anxiety, depression, burnout, and other mental health issues stemming from this evolved culture of productivity and the need to do more, and to get to our destination as quickly as we can.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with striving to achieve our goals. But, as Megan Feldman Bettencourt writes on Deseret, it appears that the casualties of this fast-paced mindset and lifestyle in the modern age have been rest, relaxation, hobbies, unstructured time, in-person social connection and even boredom itself.

Pushing ourselves and taking on challenges is a noble thing to do. It helps us discover the limits of our stamina, strength, abilities, and capabilities. But sometimes, we forget the other side of the coin which requires our bodies to recharge and replenish the energy that it spent. Overstimulation and the bombardment of information on our brains have us gasping for air to breathe, mentally and emotionally.

Honing in on boredom, Bettencourt asserts that boredom is just as important to children's development as all the other structured activities we plan for them. Just as much as we are engaged in the activities that we do in order for us to maximize the output and benefit we get from them, we also need to take time to disengage ourselves from the things that occupy us physically, mentally, and emotionally.

As an example, Albert Einstein often spent time away from friends, family, and work simply to do nothing but think. Boredom, or this act of being present in the moment, allows our minds to run free. It gives our imagination time to be creative and to resolve that itching feeling of "wanting to do something". It's that nagging deep inside us that will cause us to create "play" for ourselves.

This type of "play" is defined by child development experts as an activity a child chooses to do, rather than is obliged to do. It's basically those moments when we were kids and we created our own games from nothing, making our own rules, and enforcing those rules among the participants. It's those times when we as children built forts, told stories among ourselves which transported us to a world of fantasy built by our own imagination.

Nowadays, we merely consume what others have already built for us, and we wonder why we get so easily bogged down and stressed. We have no time to chill, although it is understandable that working adults find themselves in situations like these more often than not, but perhaps, this is the time that society experiences a paradigm shift. Workplace burnout has risen to alarming levels, with at least 55% of people saying they can't find work-life balance.

Perhaps this is the negative side effect of having technology and information at the tips of our fingers and in the palms of our hands. And perhaps culture has nudged us to such a point where it's horrendous to be doing nothing. But we need to recognize that human beings need time to flourish and to just be.

So, maybe as working adults, the best thing we can do is to simply find those moments of "just being, and doing nothing". To find rest for our minds, even as we simply space out while at work, or as we find ourselves sitting outside a cafe, looking into the horizon, and just wondering how wonderful life really is at that moment in time.

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Apparently, he was listening to a Thracian slave girl playing the flute, and he was even lucid enough to critique the girl's lack of rhythm despite being in the throes of a fever. That's according to some newly deciphered passages from a papyrus scroll which had been buried after Mount Vesuvius' eruption in AD 79.

Plato is said to have died around 348 BC at the age of 80 or 81. He was said to have been buried within the Academy of Athens, the world's first university. The specific location was not known until new research about the papyrus has revealed that his burial site was in the garden of the Academy of Athens.

The team of Prof. Graziano Ranocchia, a senior researcher and Italian papyrologist at the University of Pisa, has recently uncovered these details with the use of the most advanced imaging diagnostic techniques which enabled them to reconstruct the layers of text within the papyrus which is stuck to each other.

Other information recovered from the papyrus included the fact that Plato was sold into slavery in the 4th century BC, either at the time when the Spartans invaded the island of Aegina or shortly after Socrates' passing in 399 BC. Before, it was believed that Plato had been sold into slavery in 387 BC, but once the team unfolded the papyrus and found sequences of hidden letters, the details of these events in Plato's life became clearer.

Currently, the technique that they are using is still in its early stages but it may prove very useful for other papyri that may have sequences in them which cannot easily be read without unfurling it, realigning the fragments of text, and virtually putting them back to their original positions, so as to restore the flow of thought and context of the passages.

Thankfully, the scroll had been preserved at the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, which was discovered in 1750. Scholars have been attempting to decipher the scrolls for years, but due to the condition that the scrolls are in, only the most identifiable parts could be read and translated.

According to archaeologist Domenico Camardo, the impact of the Vesuvius eruption could be compared to the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima during the second world war, because the heat of the pyroclastic surge led to the instantaneous death of many in Pompeii.

(Image credit: GeArtAp/Wikimedia Commons)

It has been 112 years since RMS Titanic sank several miles off the coast of Canada, and the photo above is said to have been taken two days after the event, and it apparently shows the iceberg that sank the ship. It was taken by the chief embalmer, John Snow Jr., who was on the Cable Ship Mackay-Bennett to help recover some of the bodies for burial.

Since more than 1,500 passengers died, the crew who were tasked to search for the bodies and collect them had to choose which ones will be taken back home and which ones will be laid to rest on the waters. They were able to recover 306 bodies, and they used the class system in the Titanic as reference to determine who needed to be brought back and who could be buried at sea.

The reason behind this was that passengers who had first-class tickets were more than likely to require the body to be identified so that their bereaved family may be paid from their life insurance. One such example would be Isidor Straus, the owner of Macy's department store, who was embalmed on the ship and placed in a coffin.

Second-class passengers were also embalmed and wrapped in a canvas, meanwhile, the 116 third-class passengers recovered by the crew had unfortunately been laid to rest at sea.

As for the photo, it has never been officially verified that it was the actual iceberg that sunk the Titanic, however, given the timing of the events, it is probable that the photo taken by John Snow Jr. aboard the Mackay-Bennett was the iceberg.

It went up for auction on April 27th, and originally, it was estimated to sell for £4,000 - 7,000 (around $5,000 - 8,700). Henry Aldridge auction house was able to sell it for £17,500 or about $22,000, as part of their Auction of Titanic, White Star and Transport Memorabilia sale.

Other items that went up for sale during the auction included John Jacob Astor IV's gold pocket watch engraved with his initials, and it sold for £1.175 million (around $1.4 million), as well as the violin case of the ship's bandleader Wallace Hartley which sold for £360,000 (around $450,000). Hartley's violin had already been sold in 2013 for £1.1 million (around $1.7 million).

(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Remember that airline for dogs we shared with you last time? Well, BARK Air has finally got off the ground on Wednesday afternoon, carrying with it six dogs of varying breeds along with 11 humans, which included both passengers and crew, on a flight from New York to Los Angeles.

The idea was given birth with dogs in mind first, and their human companions second. For those who have taken their dogs along traveling, it might have been quite a hassle to figure out the best logistics to get your dog comfortable on the flight, since air travel was never designed to consider our pets as travel companions.

But with BARK Air, the primary focus of the experience are the dogs, and they intend to ensure a first-class experience for dogs in every step of the process from booking to arrival. Matt Meeker, the CEO and co-founder of the airline's parent, BARK, has shared that he had been working on the idea for over a decade.

Inspired by his late Great Dane Hugo, Meeker wanted to cater to other pet owners who wanted to bring their dogs along with them but have had to leave them in the cargo area as there would normally not be enough space for large dogs in the cabin. Furthermore, airlines have also become more strict with regard to emotional support animals, so BARK Air may just be a timely response to the current climate of air travel with pets.

Of course, because BARK Air does not own any planes themselves, they have partnered with Talon Air, which will provide the plane along with the crew and pilots, so it stands to reason that a one-way ticket will cost a hefty amount, specifically, $6,000 from New York to LA, and $8,000 from New York to London. This is inclusive of one human and one dog (or two dogs as long as they weigh under 50 lbs) and Meeker hopes that as the idea takes off, figuratively and literally, that these costs can be lowered over time.

It's basically a dog paradise in the air, as BARK is dedicated to pampering their passengers' pooches throughout the whole journey. Currently, the planes can accommodate as many as 18 human passengers, but BARK has limited that number to 10 to give way for more space for the dogs to play around. Human passengers are advised however, to keep their dogs on a leash, and out of courtesy, ask others for permission before approaching, so that order can be maintained on the flight.

Although it's a comfort for dog owners, there are concerns that dogs may misbehave despite all the precautions taken. However, on the most recent test flights that Meeker conducted, the dogs did not become unruly at all. Instead, they were all calm as a cucumber, which surprised the people on the experimental flights.

BARK has received an overwhelmingly positive response. They are getting tons of requests to add more destinations, like Chicago, on their schedule, which they have already published through the end of the year to accommodate people who buy their tickets in advance. At the moment, they have four round-trip cross-country flights a month, and they are thinking of opening a new route from New York to Paris in the fall.

(Image credit: BARK Air/Instagram)

I'm pretty sure many of us criticize our public officials and leaders whenever we hear of them being involved in corruption scandals, malversation of funds, or other cases of graft and fraud. It's nothing new to us that such incidents happen on a regular basis in government and politics.

We'd prefer to do away with it, but such activities have become embedded in the political arena, especially in large governments. And it's not limited to democratic nations either, as even authoritarian or socialist regimes have their own systems which give leeway to such activities. All that is to say that it seems corruption is a given in any government, and even ancient Athens and Rome saw rampant political corruption. But what did they think about it?

According to political scientist Lisa Hill, the ancient Athenians and Romans considered it a big issue in society, one that could cause the collapse of social cohesion, because it was seen as a ticket for the rich as a "free" get-out-of-jail card, or simply to skirt the law for their own personal interests. Much like what we modern-day civilians think of corrupt practices like bribery, ancient Romans were incredibly concerned about the widespread bribery going on back then.

Even Plato went so far as to accuse officials of being "bribe-takers and money-lovers". His student, Aristotle, proposed a system of transparency that made sure that "magistrates cannot possibly make money", perhaps by having fiscal measures for checks and balances, to monitor where the money is coming from, and where it's going.

The situation even became desperate as people were taking large loans to be used for bribing officials which apparently caused such a financial crisis that it led to a civil war in 49-45 BCE. And the resolution for this whole political and economic catastrophe was a law that allowed for the prosecution of bribery clubs and individual members. Furthermore, the elimination of elections drastically reduced the frequency of bribery as Senate hopefuls could no longer buy their way into getting seats in the theater.

These days, cases of bribery and extortion are no longer so direct and easily uncovered, which makes it difficult for the public to hold their officials to account. This greatly increases the need for people like whistleblowers or upstanding political figures and common individuals to ensure that such practices can be contained.

Although such social norms as "quid pro quo" are a means of maintaining good relations among people, as it was back in ancient Athens where people thought the act of giving and receiving gifts was a crucial part of a civilized society, it can be taken to extreme levels in which this practice is used to gain power for personal enrichment to the detriment of the public.

Political corruption is a tale as old as time. And just as we are concerned about it today, the ancient Romans and Athenians were equally troubled by the deleterious effects it brought into their society.

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As I have said before, I love books, especially the physical copies of books. There are many factors that make a physical book different from a digital copy. There are the sensations: the smell of the pages, the texture of the paper, the art on the cover of the book. All of these contribute to why I prefer physical books over ebooks. But the publishing industry might not be long for this world.

Recently, the merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster was denied by the federal courts, otherwise the Big Five publishing houses would have become the Big Four. And there are several reasons why the publishing industry is struggling. But the major one is that nobody is buying books.

To be more specific, publishing houses aren't making much profit. Out of all the books that they publish each year, only a handful of books actually make a return on the investment. And only a select number of titles can be considered cash cows for these businesses. Not only that, but the growth of ebooks and digital distribution have made it even more difficult for traditional publishing houses to stay afloat.

It's a harsh reality to swallow, but for any aspiring writer, really the best option that they have is to build their own base of followers, and become independent. But that takes years of grueling hard work, and the payoff is uncertain. Since the whole publishing industry is dependent on whether titles will have demand in the market, it's oftentimes a complete gamble to even buy the rights to publishing a certain book.

And even titles that are expected to become bestsellers aren't always guaranteed that they're going to sell. It's a hit or miss, and according to many industry veterans, the hits often are just once every five years or so. Much of their profits come from franchise authors or celebrity books.

With the advent of Amazon, the whole ballgame has shifted. Publishing houses pay tons of money to Amazon to help improve their search results. But if Amazon were to start publishing books, or if authors with large fanbases decide to go independent, then that will be the end of publishing houses.

In fact, if a "Netflix" or "Spotify" for books is launched, then that will be the last nail in the coffin. It will truly be the death of the traditional publishing industry as we know it. - via Metafilter

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You have probably heard of Hemingway's famous six-word short story, which won him a $10 bet with his writer friends. The story goes that as he was hanging out at lunch with some of his friends at either The Algonquin or Luchow's, he bet them that he can write a short story in just six words.

He wrote the six words on a napkin: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." And started passing around a napkin to collect his winnings. It's a legend that many writing teachers tell their students about how to write a good story. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beauty and magic of it is that it engages the reader or the listener to participate in filling the gaps to the story.

Now, whether or not that actually happened may be slightly questionable, as the first instance that this story was told, was when it appeared in Peter Miller's book Get Published! Get Produced!: A Literary Agent's Tips on How to Sell Your Writing.

Before that, several versions of the story were already published, the earliest being in 1906, on a newspaper classified section titled "Terse Tales of the Town", and the story read, "For sale, baby carriage, never been used. Apply at this office."

Other versions of the story included those by William R. Kane in a 1917 essay, wherein he wrote, "Little Shoes, Never Worn." Roy K. Moulton also wrote about it and attributed the story to someone named Jerry, and his version was, "Baby carriage for sale, never used."

There were other mentions of the story, but in the end, Frederick A. Wright proved that there was no connection of the six-word story to Hemingway at all. Still, the legend most likely grew because of Hemingway's fame as a writer, and how anybody who heard the story would accept is a plausible anecdote, because Hemingway was just that good of a writer.

(Image credit: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

Laura Young shares how her experience of buying a $35 antique Roman bust from a Goodwill store in Austin, made her viral on the internet and took her on the adventure of a lifetime.

It all happened in 2018 when she saw an amazing bargain at the local thrift store, and she later realized that this bust was actually an ancient Roman one. So she went around emailing auction houses to see how much it would sell for.

Weeks later, the Head of Antiquities at Sotheby's in London replied to her saying confirming that it indeed was an ancient Roman bust, but that it was actually catalogued under the Bavarian State Antiquities Collection. Which meant that it was highly likely that the bust was stolen.

After the call, she contacted the Germans and the art history departments at the University of Texas to help her return the bust to its rightful owners. When the Germans got back to her, she found out that it was definitely stolen during WWII, when the Allied forces bombed Aschaffenburg where the bust was being kept. And perhaps one of the soldiers looted the bust, brought it home to the US, and kept it in their attic or basement for the next 70 or so years, before being sold to the local thrift shop.

Initially, her plan was to loan the bust to the San Antonio Museum. She had to convince the Bavarian state and the German federal government about the idea, and when everything was all approved, the pandemic happened, putting a halt to all of the plans she had thought of for the bust.

So, it stayed with her for the next four years until the San Antonio Museum was scheduled to pick it up. Then, as the date was nearing, she decided to take a picture with the bust. And that blew the floodgates wide open. The picture became viral online, and news outlets started picking up the story of how she found this stolen ancient bust at a thrift shop.

The rest of her story details how her life became so busy and hectic after it all went public, because of all the interviews, calls, and appearances that she had to do on TV about the bust. And that's Laura Young's happy little accident with the stolen ancient Roman bust at the Austin Goodwill thrift store.

(Video credit: Tiny Talks)

The phrase has been used over and over in films, TV, and in daily life that there's no question as to the meaning of "Roger that." But how it all started will take us back to the 1920s, when radio became a more widespread means of communication.

These days, we have the NATO phonetic alphabet which helps us avoid miscommunication, because it adds clarity. Whenever one is asked to spell a word or a name, we turn to this alphabet to make sure that the listener at the other end understands which letters we are referring to.

But the history of this phonetic alphabet began with the International Telecommunication Union, who put out a list of the first global phonetic alphabet comprised of city names. However, even at that time, military organizations already had their own code words, and so when WWII broke out, they simply consolidated their phonetic alphabets so that it would be a lot easier for Allied units to understand each other.

The US military (Army and Navy) joined with the British forces to develop a standard phonetic alphabet which both parties will use for more fluid communication. And so, they came up with the Able Baker alphabet, which had used Roger for r, since it was one of the recommended intelligible options for r, along with robust, and Robert (the British military's preference).

During WWII, Roger became the shorthand for "received" and so it was understood to mean, "message received" despite what many now believe that it means an affirmative or a confirmation of some action.

Later on, the Able Baker alphabet would be revised by NATO to settle with what we now use as the standard for phonetics, with Romeo replacing Roger. But since soldiers have been using "Roger" since WWII, they continued to use that along with the meaning attached to it.

How "Roger" became more widespread can be attributed to broadcasts during the Apollo 8, 10, and 11 missions in which the communications between the astronauts and Houston often used the phrase "Roger" to mean "message received". And with around 1 billion people worldwide listening to Apollo 8's Christmas Eve message, and about 650 million people watched the Apollo 11 moon landing, "Roger" became understood by the wider population. - via Strange Company

(Video credit: Movieclips)

Since university, I have had this curiosity about the concept of a person's individuality. That is, what makes us unique, and how our individual experiences shape our perspective, behavior, preferences, habits, values, and beliefs.

I have also wondered what it would be like to transfer one's consciousness into another person's body, to be able to experience and perceive the world through their lens. And how different their experience of reality is. But, of course, it's quite impossible to have any empirical means of examining that. However, there is this new study that might shed light on some other aspects about our physiology and anatomy, with respect to neuroscience and psychology.

A paper has been recently published that details how organ transplant recipients have experienced personality changes after their surgeries. They recount how their preferences have changed, how they seemingly experience new memories, which apparently they describe as being attached to their donors own experiences, as well as having other changes like delirium and depression.

There were stories when recipients have dreams about their donors last moments of life, like one college professor who received a heart from a police officer who was fatally shot in the face. The professor reported having a dream similar to that moment wherein he saw a flash of light cruising toward his face and feeling his face get very hot.

Another story of a five-year-old boy, who received the heart of a three-year-old boy. Even though the recipient's family had no prior knowledge about the donor, the five-year-old boy mentioned naming his donor Timmy, who enjoyed Power Rangers, and had an accident falling down.

Coincidentally, the recipient's mother later found out that the donor fell from a window ledge as he was trying to reach for a Power Ranger toy. The name of the boy was Thomas, but his family called him Tim.

So there is this theory that our cells may have some form of storage of memories associated with our experiences. Others think that it's the electromagnetic field transfers information from the donor to the recipient. The neurons store these information through chemical neurotransmitters which then gets passed on during surgery.

Psychological theories suggest that these may be a coping mechanism that recipients have to process the transplant surgery or that they may be acting out certain fantasies regarding the donor and the organ. Whatever the case may be, organ transplants definitely change the lives of their recipients in more ways than one.

And in these cases, we just simply don't have enough data to understand the mechanisms behind the neurochemistry, psychology, and biochemical processes going on in our bodies. Further research may uncover more about the subject, but there are certain things that we may not have the technology yet to delve deeper. - via Strange Company

(Image credit: National Cancer Institute/Unsplash)

Due to advances in medicine and technologies that help us make healthier choices, the current life expectancy for humans in 2024 is 73.33 years. This is a tremendous leap from 1950, when the average life expectancy of human beings from birth was 45.51 years. How about other mammals? How do they fare?

Visual Capitalist summarizes with the above infographic the average lifespans of mammals. Humans now hold the second spot of the longest lifespan, only next to the bowhead whale which can live up to 200 years.

Within the span of 70 years, the life expectancy of humans increased by 25 years. And the closest to our current life expectancy is the elephant which stands at 56 years, although it is interesting to note how that is even longer than the human life expectancy in 1950.

Of course, there are certain factors that contribute to the lifespan of these mammals. Apart from diet and lifestyle, some of them have been hunted by humans as well. Loss of habitat due to deforestation and commercial development may have also contributed to the general welfare and quality of life of these animals.

Not to mention, we don't exactly have the numbers of their populations. Even though these mammals may be able to live for that long, again due to anthropogenic activities, their numbers may be dwindling, and their futures threatened.

As the Visual Capitalist asserts, the longer humans' life expectancy has been, the larger the reduction in wild mammal biomass. Throughout the years, this biomass has seen an 85% reduction the more that human populations have grown.

Moreover, the majority of mammal biomass is comprised of livestock which is at 62%, and humans at 34%, leaving only 4% for the wild mammals. - via Digg

(Image credit: Visual Capitalist)