Looking at someone directly in the eye can be an uncomfortable feeling. We know it is polite to make eye contact when you're talking to someone but you don't really have to look into their eyes to "make eye contact". You can fake it.

It’s well-documented that mutual gaze can be emotionally intense and distracting, even uncomfortably so for some.

If this is your experience, you may welcome a study published recently in the journal Perception that documents a phenomenon known as the “eye contact illusion” – put simply, we are not that good at telling whether an interlocutor is looking us in the eye or not.

In fact, we tend to think they are, even when they’re not (a bias that is magnified after we’ve been rejected). Thanks to this illusion, you can give the impression of making eye contact simply by ensuring you are looking in the general direction of your conversant’s face.

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Thousands of tourists visit the town of Chimayo every year. Apart from the historical sites, tourists come to buy Chimayo's special chile powder which many consider one of the best, if not the best, powders around.

“We sell a lot of it. It’s our biggest seller,” says El Potrero Trading Post manager, Nicolas Madrid. Madrid’s customers are willing to pay a hefty $45 per pound for the richly aromatic, respectably hot chile powder, made from ground, sun-dried chimayó peppers, just one of about two dozen or so “native” or “New Mexican landrace” chile peppers endemic to northern New Mexico. That’s roughly six times the cost of your average, mass-produced New Mexican red chile powder. The reason, say locals, has a lot to do with that same, sacred dirt in the neighboring church.

(Image credit: El Potrero Trading Post)

The companies that have access to our personal data may be selling these data but sometimes they are just being deceived into giving it away. Stalkers, debt collectors, and other bounty hunters pose as law enforcement officers to get real-time location data.

In some cases, these people abuse telecom company policies created to give law enforcement real-time location data without a court order in “exigent circumstances,” such as when there is the imminent threat of physical harm to a victim.

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In the evolutionary chain, scientists suggest that early mammals evolved from being cold-blooded to warm-blooded in order to survive but they paid a high cost. This leaves us vulnerable to heart attacks.

"Many of the lower vertebrates can regenerate body parts and organs, including the heart, but most mammals cannot. This feature was lost somewhere in the ectotherm-to-endotherm transition," said Guo Huang, Ph.D., investigator at UCSF's Cardiovascular Research Institute, assistant professor of physiology and senior author of the new study, published March 7 in the journal Science.

The connection between endothermy and heart tissues (a so-called Faustian evolutionary bargain) lies in the thyroid hormone according to the study.

The thyroid gland produces a pair of well-studied hormones that are known to regulate body temperature, metabolic rate and normal heart function. But Huang's study revealed that these hormones are also responsible for shutting off cardiac cell division, thus preventing heart tissue from repairing itself after an injury.

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Still on the subject of the quest for remnants from the universe's distant beginnings, astronomers have found a galaxy that might have been a relic from the dawn of time.

DGSAT I, discovered in 2016, is an ultradiffuse galaxy (UDG), meaning it is as big as a typical galaxy but gives off very little starlight. And this strange galaxy seems to break many of the rules that govern even similar UDGs.

What scientists think is quite strange about this galaxy is that it's all alone. Why is it out there without any neighboring galaxies? And taking a look at its chemical composition leads them to hypothesize that it might have formed at a much earlier point in time, when the cosmic landscape was completely different from today.

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University of Iowa law professor Greg Shill has done research on how the US legal system has been lax in enforcing laws on driving with disastrous consequences for all others on the road.

He lists down several areas of law where motorists are given leeway and where law enforcement tends to let them go from what should be considered a serious offense.

“Rules from virtually every field of law that codify subsidies for driving, including dangerous driving, should be repealed,” Shill writes. “These laws are not the root cause of automobile supremacy, but they armor it in law and give it agency of its own.”

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Today, a stigma still exists regarding people's mental health and how to help them deal with it. However, we have made progress as people going through mental distress can now cope with their thoughts, emotions, and psychological disposition with help from therapy, medication, and support groups coupled with regular exercise, good sleep, and a balanced diet. At least now, they can talk about it and can feel a little bit of relief.

Back in the 16th century, oftentimes these sort of afflictions would be associated with spirits, lunacy, or dismissed as utter nonsense. Except for one physician who thought it would soothe his patients if he were to address what they had consulted to him. There are stories of people who think they have an elephant's nose, frogs in their stomach, and a butt made of glass. All of these cases he addressed promptly with consideration.

Of course, with the advancement of medicine and technology, we are able to properly diagnose what conditions people have nowadays. But it is still good to read about physicians in the early stages of modern medicine like the Dutch doctor who had concern for their patients.

(Image credit: Wellcome Library London via Early Modern Medicine)

The rulers of Egypt were some of the most powerful and renowned in the ancient world and it takes prid as well in its queens who became symbols of stability and strength. Of course, some of the more famous queens of Egypt were Cleopatra, Nefertiti, and Hatshepsut. But their predecessors were the ones who paved the way for their prosperity. These are the three rebel queens of Egypt: Tetisheri, Ahhotep, and Ahmose Nefertari.

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I have never thought much about my birthstone. It's a nice purple hue and that's about it. Until you actually dig a bit deeper like what Dana Hunter did. It turns out amethyst has some pretty interesting stories and scientific tidbits about it that we tend to overlook or not consider at all.

So, everyone knows amethyst is a purple variety of quartz, yeah? And we're used to it being abundant and fairly inexpensive, aside from those jaw-dropping giant geodes and some really fabulous art.

So, it may shock you just a little bit to learn that gem-quality amethyst used to be considered just as valuable as rubies, celebrated in myth and legend. Rhea the Titan gave it to Dionysus, god of wine, to preserve his sanity from the vine. Royals and nobles sported it proudly. It even ended up in many a country's crown jewels. It remained an expensive stone, reserved only for the fortunate, right up until ginormous deposits were found in South America in the 1800s.

Of course, the law of supply and demand applies in the situation described above. The more amethysts available, the less valuable it becomes. Still, there are a few more things that you might want to know about the gemstone.

(Image credit: Dana Hunter/Scientific American)

Oftentimes, myths and rumors can come from exaggerated or even distorted views on controversial subjects. In order to paint a bad light, detractors may try to use conjectures and make up connections where there are none. Vaccines have been under fire for quite some time and its naysayers and skeptics want to change how these medicines are administered because they believe that it may have a link to the development of autism in children. Recently, a study has been conducted showing there is no link, and it is by far the largest study to date on the subject.

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The fastest mammal in the world is the cheetah but there are creatures like the slingshot spider that can outpace it, with the help of some really amazing threads. Because the spider can launch itself with about 100 times the acceleration of a cheetah, it is considered the fastest moving arachnid known.

Found in the Peruvian Amazon, slingshot spiders weave conical webs. These webs have a single strand attached to the tip of the cone, which the spider reels in to ramp up the tension. When the spider senses a potential meal, it releases the web. The spider and web together zing forward, ensnaring the prey. “Just like that, our spider has dinner,” biophysicist Symone Alexander of Georgia Tech said at the meeting.

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When thinking of a strong password, we are often admonished to use a random combination of letters, numbers, and symbols so that it will be harder to crack the code but it just so happens that this particular string of letters and numbers, though appearing to be a strong password, is actually quite common. Some may already know the riddle behind this password but to make it simple, Ben Macaulay explains the straightforward answer.

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Sustainable development was our answer to combat continuous environmental decline in the face of economic growth. But it may seem that even our efforts toward sustainable development are not enough to mitigate the destructive impacts of human activity on the environment.

Given the situation, environmental scientist Giorgos Kallis suggested that perhaps the best way to preserve the environment would be to enter a state he calls "degrowth".

It’s an idea that has been around for several decades, particularly among radical environmental activists, but only recently have researchers drawn together to study degrowth in a systematic way.

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The idea of harvesting resources from the moon has been floated around recently and if researchers could find evidence of possible means of inhabiting the moon, we might soon find ourselves turning our attention to space projects associated with getting people to the moon like the lunar gateway and space tourism.

But whether there are resources that could be mined from the moon is still a bit of a stretch, especially if we are looking toward possible migration and habitation to the moon. Nonetheless, several probes and exploration missions on the moon might give us more understanding of the conditions there. We will just have to wait and see.

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Fashion is a cut-throat industry but throughout history, there have been times when fashion took that essence literally.

Fashion design did not always place much importance on how comfortable clothes are. And this caused many accidents involving garments that were too tight or put people in a position prone to mishaps.

In her illustrated book Killer Fashion: Poisonous Petticoats, Strangulating Scarves and Other Deadly Garments Throughout History, published by Andrews McMeel in late 2017, Wright details myriad ways fashion—from clothes and accessories to beauty products—has literally slayed people.

Thankfully, there are standards and quality assurance controls nowadays to ensure the safety of consumers who will be wearing garments such that they wouldn't be in precarious situations that could end in tragedy.

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