In the event of a cataclysmic turn, a lot of everything that we've built would probably become ashes and we will be left with almost nothing. So in the face of such an event happening, Nova Spivack wants to store all human knowledge in miniature form and keep it safe somewhere like the Moon.

Nova Spivack's dreams are the stuff of science fiction but he's serious about making them real. Spivack, a successful tech entrepreneur, is chairman of the Arch Mission Foundation—Arch pronounced as in "archive."

Newsweek gives us some other details about the initiative.

(Image credit: Alex Fine/Newsweek)

Donald Trump wasn't the first billionaire to run for president, the late Ross Perot was, who died Tuesday after battling leukemia. Perot started in the computer services industry, establishing the Electronic Data Systems Corp. which later became Perot Systems Corp.

In 1992 and 1996, he ran an independent and third-party presidential campaign which he both lost but were very strong runs nonetheless. Newsweek compiled some of his best quotes and here are some of them:

The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.

Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.

Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You'd be amazed how many companies don't listen to their customers.

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There are so many microorganisms that inhibit our bodies and the interactions these have among one another determine how our bodies cope with different scenarios that occur in various environmental conditions. Yet with numerous interactions, it's difficult to predict these interactions. So a team developed a mathematical framework that would map these patterns.

“We’ve built a rigorous mathematical framework that describes the ecology of a microbiome coupled to its host. What is unique about this approach is that it allows a global view of a microbiome-host interaction landscape,” said Ludington. “We can now use this approach to compare different landscapes, which will let us ask why diverse microbiomes are associated with similar health outcomes.”

Here's a link to their paper published in the Journal of Mathematical Biology.

(Image credit: William Ludington et al/Carnegie Institution for Science)

If your child has peculiar eating habits such as severely limited food preferences, hypersensitivity to food textures or temperatures, and pocketing food without swallowing, then these may be indicators that your child should be screened for autism.

Research by Susan Mayes, professor of psychiatry, found that atypical eating behaviors were present in 70% of children with autism, which is 15 times more common than in neurotypical children.

According to Mayes, these behaviors are present in many 1-year-olds with autism and could signal to doctors and parents that a child may have autism.

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It's not all about the looks as people in relationships would often say. Though some form of chemistry should be there, stronger relationships are based on more than just outside appearances, and in a way, that's why we're most attracted to people who make us feel happy.

A major factor in our attraction to others is the way they make us feel. We are drawn to people who make us feel happy, hopeful, and optimistic, and when they are gone, we want to see them again. Research reveals how this works.

We love to be around people with whom we are most comfortable. We tend to avoid toxic people and we gravitate toward those who give us good vibes. The research found that there are two types of emotions involved in relationships: trait affect and trait affective presence.

They found positive affective presence to be linked with greater “network centrality”—reflected in the number of individuals who listed the participant as a close friend—and negative affective presence linked with greater extraversion, but lower agreeableness.

Finding that affective presence goes beyond emotional contagion, they recognize that the emotion elicited is not just about catching the emotions others are experiencing. They suggest that mechanisms of transmission may include differences in expressive style—non-verbal cues, for example—as well as patterns of interpersonal behavioral, such as acts of warmth or dominance.

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There have been a lot of debates about English grammar and perhaps some of the most confusing topics involve symbols and punctuation. In this case, the semicolon. We rarely see semicolons being used these days and with good reason. It's hard to find its place in contemporary English.

A semicolon’s main purpose is to connect two independent clauses. These are both fully formed statements that could each stand alone with their own periods. And that’s perfectly fine; go ahead and do that if you want. If the two clauses are closely related, though, and you want to emphasize their bond, you can connect them with a semicolon.

To make things clearer, Meghan Moravcik Walbert of Lifehacker discusses the ways in which semicolons are used correctly so that we won't have to feel intimidated with them as much.

(Image credit: Mauricio Balvanera/Flickr)

When people tried to capture panoramic photos of themselves in different situations and scenery, they ended up with some of the funniest takes, from faces getting distorted and bodies becoming elongated. Sad and Useless has a great compilation of these panoramic photo fails.

(Image credit: Sad and Useless)

One concept sums up Elizabeth Peabody's letter to her friend, the sister of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and that is how we as human beings should not be complacent and become stagnant. We live in a constantly changing world and as such, we must continue to change if we were to adapt. She writes:

The perilous time for the most highly gifted is not youth. The holy sensibilities of genius — for all the sensibilities of genius are holy — keep their possessor essentially unhurt as long as animal spirits and the idea of being young last;

...but the perilous season is middle age, when a false wisdom tempts them to doubt the divine origin of the dreams of their youth; when the world comes to them, not with the song of the siren, against which all books warn us, but as a wise old man counselling acquiescence in what is below them.

Simply put, when we think that we have no room for growth, or when we don't seek to improve, then we fall into that trap which she so eloquently described. Stagnation saps our youth and vitality more than physical decay. How then shall we avoid that outcome? Read on to know the answer.

(Image credit: Brain Pickings)

Do everything in moderation. Social drinking seems like a convention among different groups of people in order to socialize and get to know each other and break down the walls of awkwardness between colleagues and acquaintances. But sometimes, things can go overboard and cause damage, not only to oneself but also to others.

What counts as secondhand drinking damage? The dangers of secondhand smoke, by contrast, are relatively easy to quantify — secondhand smoke inhalation is linked to heart disease, lung disease, and stroke, and it results in more than 50,000 premature deaths each year in the United States alone.

But beyond being hit by a drunk driver or assaulted by someone on the sidewalk, I was wondering what qualifies as “secondhand harm” when it comes to alcohol.

Here's a link to the study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. The researchers list down several instances which could be considered "secondhand drinking damage". They also found that such cases were more common among young people and heavy drinkers.

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Urban development as a concept should be a good thing. Well, it is but only if the benefits redound to all. However, as is always the case, things tip in favor of those who have the resources. In this little comic strip, Joyce Rice and Josh Kramer tackle the issue of high rent in America.

(Image credit: Joyce Rice, Josh Kramer/The Nib)

The invention of gunpowder was an important turning point in history. This new technology would become one of the most destructive yet convenient military weapons. But how did we get to the point of discovering gunpowder? Here's a timeline of the key moments in history that led to the invention of gunpowder.

The invention of gunpowder, followed by weapons that could make use of it, is one of the most important developments in military history. The technology emerged in China in the eighth-century, and would spread throughout Asia and Europe during the Middle Ages.

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The theory of spontaneous generation states that living organisms could be produced through nonliving matter. This has long become obsolete after scientists such as Louis Pasteur and John Tyndall conducted experiments to prove its impossibility.

However, the theory went for two millennia without opposition. Only in the 19th century were scientists able to disprove it. Here's a podcast discussing how it all went about.

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So much controversy revolved around what's probably the most shocking event that happened to a US president, the assassination of JFK. It's one laden with secrecy and even conspiracies about why it happened. Here's a rundown of what happened during and after the assassination.

After hearing three gunshots, people in Dallas, Texas, saw Kennedy slumped in the backseat of his vehicle, which quickly accelerated to get to the nearest hospital.

During his presidency, Kennedy had become known for his support of the Civil Rights protests around the United States. This action is one of the ways he made enemies, especially in a man named Lee Harvey Oswald.

(Image credit: Cecil W. Stoughton; Wikimedia Commons)

It's like the sitcom Friends but in real life. Living together with six of your best friends from retirement until the day you die must be a dream. Of course, many things can get in the way like having your own family and personal life. But for this group of seven girls, there are no such problems.

It all started as a joke among a group seven good friends who’ve known each other for two decades or more. They would retire together some day and live out their last days together.

By chance, one of them found an old 700 square meter house in suburban Guangzhou in 2018, roughly 70 kilometers away from the city center. The group pulled together some 4 million yuan ($580,000) and renovated it to create their dream retirement home.

(Video credit: Ichijou)

The long wait is over for the third installment of Stranger Things has already been released on Netflix. Without giving much away, the new season will be set in the 80s so expect to see some throwbacks and references from that era. Bustle gives us a list of some subtle Easter eggs that you might have missed or should expect.

For its third installment, Stranger Things is in 1985 when Back to the Future just hit theaters, New Coke was released, Russians were the ultimate movie villain, and The NeverEnding Story theme song was an earworm that apparently inspired teen love duets.

There are plenty of other obvious 80s nods throughout the season, but because you probably caught those, here are some of the more subtle details you may have missed, too. All that Mind Flayer chaos can be distracting.

(Image credit: Netflix)