So many things have happened in the past century that it might seem like a long time ago even though it hasn't even been 100 years since the last war ravaged the world.

We are now in the digital era. Access to information is becoming easier through the Internet. Making decisions nowadays has become a tad complicated in the process. All of the things we experience today were products of the past century.

In the context of world affairs almost 50 years ago, the CIA wrote a report to then President Nixon about the US' state of affairs in relation to the rest of the world. Here are some excerpts of that report.

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Gadgets can be lifesavers in more ways than one. In this crazy incident, a man had been saved by his own iPhone when he was shot at with an arrow by an unnamed assailant. There are also similar stories to this such as a camera taking a bullet to save a man's life during war.

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Reversing the flow of time is an impossible feat, and even if it were made possible, it would be an impractical one.

On to the real matter at hand, scientists who were said to have "reversed time" with a quantum computer didn't actually do so. If they did, wouldn't we have all felt it? So what was all this hype about the "reversing time" experiment?

As Scott Aaronson, director of the Quantum Information Center at the University of Texas at Austin, says, “If you’re simulating a time-reversible process on your computer, then you can ‘reverse the direction of time’ by simply reversing the direction of your simulation. From a quick look at the paper, I confess that I didn’t understand how this becomes more profound if the simulation is being done on IBM’s quantum computer.”

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The man comes in the casino with a suitcase full of cash in one hand and an empty one on the other. He bet all the money on the craps table and doubled it, cashed out, then left with two full cases of money.

Four years later, he comes back and does the same thing. For this, he was called the Phantom Gambler. And tales of his extraordinary bets are quite known in Las Vegas. Despite his notoriety, he met quite a sad fate.

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Rusty nails, and basically anything that has rust, are what I thought caused tetanus infections. That's what I was told by most people. But rust has nothing to do with it.

But counter to what rusty nail warnings might have you believe, the disease has nothing to do with iron oxide, the chemical compound more commonly known as rust.

Rather, tetanus is a product of the bacteria Clostridium tetani, which is in dirt, dust, and feces—in other words, everywhere.

It can enter your body through puncture wounds, yes, but also through superficial cuts, bug bites, surgical procedures, and any other rupture to your skin. It can come from stepping on a rusty nail, or tending the soil in your garden.

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Time is relative. And yet we always want to be on time, down to the second. Given that we don't have an unlimited amount of time every day, and our perception of time varies on what we do, we need something that could accurately tell us the time.

Atomic clocks can do just that but we don't have the luxury of taking heavy pieces of machinery and equipment with us wherever we go. But researchers from the University of Sussex might have found a way to shrink atomic clocks for portable use.

(Image credit: Epic Lab/University of Sussex)

Language changes. As times change and culture becomes influenced by innovation and modern trends, the way we use language comes down to personal taste and nobody should judge anyone for it.

Though there are guidelines on how to use words properly or which ones to use in a given context, for example in formal writing, as long as one is able to make themselves understood, then that should be enough. But, purists of language and grammar have their own standards of using language.

It’s a funny, auto-antonymous kind of fact that those who consider themselves ardent language lovers are quite often also language haters.

Too often, prescriptive grammar myths are celebrated as an outward signal of virtue, class, and erudition, which can make some people fairly anxious about using their own language.

Pet peeves are often inconsistent judgments about the so-called misuse and abuses of written conventions in the spelling, punctuation, style, and usage of standard language (none of which are actual elements of grammar).

Many grammar-lovers seem to have an expectation that language should be ever logical, meaningful, and efficient, and find themselves disappointed in the topsy-turvy, nonsensical language we hear in the wild.

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We have been taught that everything in our body is connected to one another and that they interact to maintain the normal functioning of the different organs and systems within us.

But the extent to which these conversations among cells occurs is something into which we only recently took a serious look.

Nobody paid much attention to Jean Vance 30 years ago, when she discovered something fundamental about the building blocks inside cells. She even doubted herself, at first.

In a 1990 paper, Vance showed that the meeting points between the ER and mitochondria were crucibles for the synthesis of lipids. By bringing the two organelles together, these junctions could serve as portals for the transfer of newly made fats.

However, when she presented her findings to her contemporaries, they were skeptical.

Not any more. Close to three decades later, Vance’s paper is seen as a landmark — one that has come to transform scientists’ understanding of how cells maintain order and function in their crowded interiors, which buzz with various types of organelles, including mitochondria, nuclei and the ER.

Researchers now recognize that interactions between organelles are ubiquitous, with almost every type coming into close conversation with every other type. Probing those connections is also leading biologists to discover proteins that are responsible for holding the organelles together and maintaining a healthy cell.

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Looking at the last bits of data and photos taken by Opportunity, one might think that it is all just a barren wasteland.

But to think that we can explore different worlds apart from our own and have done so, it fills you with a sense of childlike glee and excitement. Now that Opportunity's stint has come to an end, we close one chapter and look forward to the possibilities this has opened up for us.

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU)

Charles Bonnet Syndrome, or CBS, is a particularly interesting condition that causes people to see hallucinations. But it's different from a mental disorder like schizophrenia as the person is aware the the hallucinations are unreal.

Often known today as “phantom vision” or “ghost vision,” many similar cases have been recorded in the decades since, and though it has long been regarded as a rare disease, recent evidence suggests that it is much more widespread than previously believed.

For those stricken with Charles Bonnet Syndrome, the world is occasionally adorned with vivid yet unreal images.

Some see surfaces covered in non-existent patterns such as brickwork or tiles, while others see phantom objects in astonishing detail, including people, animals, buildings, or whatever else their minds may conjure.

These images linger for as little as several seconds or for as much as several hours, appearing and vanishing abruptly. They may consist of commonplace items such as bottles or hats, or brain-bending nonsense such as dancing children with giant flowers for heads.

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It is the second longest river in the world which spans 6,400 km in length, winding its way through the Amazon rainforest. You might wonder why there are no bridges for you to cross the Amazon river. That's because it doesn't need one.

Here are a few tidbits about the Amazon River and a short explanation why it doesn't need a bridge. The bridge shown on the picture above is Ponte Rio Negro in Manaus, which doesn't count as a bridge crossing the Amazon.

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Just as cars have rules of traffic on the road, pedestrians have a similar set of guidelines that people usually observe though there is no formal written document stating what is proper or not.

It all goes by feel although over time, generally accepted "rules" have been formed and a silent agreement among pedestrians to abide by them.

Without even thinking about it, you probably abide by the common pedestrian traffic rule that faster walkers should move to the inside of a path while slower walkers gravitate to the outside.

In the United States, this aligns with street traffic rules, where vehicles pass on the left, while slower vehicles stay in the right lane of the road.

This approach to passing leads to the formation of pedestrian lanes of traffic. While they’re not painted on sidewalks like they are on roadways, these functional lanes can help pedestrians move more comfortably and quickly.

Human systems engineers like me know that pedestrian lanes emerge naturally in crowded environments.

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There have many researches looking into how we can help improve people's conditions during episodes of depression. Some research state that light therapy could be a good way to lessen the impact of depression on individuals. Others have identified certain areas of the brain that might have a connection with depression and mental health.

In this new study, researchers tried a new method of firing up the brain that could help in treating depression or helping people get through it.

Brain stimulation is a fascinating area of research, with scientists exploring a variety of different ways to tweak the brain, from firing magnetic pulses to excite certain neural pathways, to utilizing surgically implanted electrodes that zap specific regions of the brain. The UNC research, led by Flavio Frohlich, concentrates on a technique called transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS).

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A new study has suggested that one of the first signs that a person is getting Alzheimer's can be seen through their eyes, particularly the loss of blood vessels in the retina.

In people with healthy brains, microscopic blood vessels form a dense web at the back of the eye inside the retina, as seen in 133 participants in a control group.

In the eyes of 39 people with Alzheimer’s disease, that web was less dense and even sparse in places. The differences in density were statistically significant after researchers controlled for factors including age, sex, and level of education, said Duke ophthalmologist and retinal surgeon Sharon Fekrat, M.D., the study’s senior author.

(Image credit: Duke Eye Center)

The need to hold people in power accountable has always been the responsibility of every citizen. The FBI had once operated under extreme secrecy, with the media being hands off from their activities and lawmakers not meddling into their affairs.

That changed when a group of seven dissidents broke into the FBI's Media, stole classified documents, and exposed its under the radar operations. The big one being the Counterintelligence Program or COINTELPRO.

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