This is Bishop’s Avenue in North London. It is dubbed as the “Billionaire’s Row” and is one of the richest streets in the whole world. The average property on this avenue is about £5 million, not to mention that more grander mansions cost many times more. Take for example the Toprak Mansion. Originally owned by Turkish tycoon Halis Toprak, it was bought by the President of Kazakhstan in 2008 for £50 million; it is one of the most expensive houses in the world. There’s a catch to this place, however.

The entire neighbourhood is owned by the super-rich, ranging from Saudi princes to East European arms dealers to Indian business magnates. Yet, no one ever lives here for more than a few weeks each year. Most have been left to the staff who looks after the properties while the owners are away. Others have never been occupied. Several huge properties have fallen into ruins after lying vacant for more than 25 years. These once expensive homes are in a terribly bad shape with peeling paint, rotting carpets, water streaming down bedroom walls, collapsed ceilings, and ferns growing between broken floor tiles.

One property owner, the developer Anil Varma, describes the place bluntly. He calls it “one of the most expensive wastelands in the world.”

Know more about this over at the Amusing Planet.

Would you buy a house on this avenue?

(Video Credit: Beyond the Point/ YouTube)

Is it a bird? No.

Is it a plane? Definitely not.

It’s just the Bloodhound LSR surpassing its 450 mph speed target and came close with its current target of 500 mph. Now that is speed!

Head over at New Atlas for more details about this.

(Video Credit: Bloodhound LSR/ YouTube)

Back in 2012, no fewer than nine researchers conducted a psychological study. In this study, they discovered that drinking alcohol can be fun. But we might be sneering at their discovery, and respond with a “so what?” It’s true after all that this does not sound like an earth-shattering conclusion.

But the team, led by Michael A. Sayette of the University of Pittsburgh, pointed out that many previous studies had found no statistically significant mood improvements when people drink. That’s largely because they typically studied drinkers in isolation. “It is unsurprising that, without considering social context, investigators have struggled to explain effects of alcohol on affect and the mechanisms underlying these effects,” they write.

So what happened when they investigated the topic at a larger context? Find out the answer over at JSTOR Daily.

(Image Credit: Republica/ Pixabay)

In 2004 a paper titled “Music Lessons Enhance IQ” appeared in the journal Psychological Science. The paper was authored by author, composer and University of Toronto Mississauga psychologist Glenn Schellenberg. 

… [she] had conducted an experiment with 144 children randomly assigned to four groups: one learned the keyboard for a year, one took singing lessons, one joined an acting class, and a control group had no extracurricular training.

For those children who either took keyboard or singing lessons, their IQ increased by an average of seven points in the course of a year. Those who joined an acting class, along with the control group, on the other hand, only gained an average of 4.3 points.

Does this mean then, that those who take music lessons become smarter? Find out the answer over at Undark.

(Image Credit: stevepb/ Pixabay)

Scientists have been on alert since July because of the warning signs in the Pacific Ocean. The waters around Hawaii were so unusually warm that divers could swim without their usually obligatory wetsuits. The once-bright coral are losing their color. These all point to a terrifying likelihood that the “blob” which appeared 5 years ago — which brought death in everything in its path — has now returned.

The original “blob” was an ocean heatwave that got its name for the splotch of red it made on maps in 2014 and 2015. Scientists had never seen anything like it before. It was massive, spanning the Pacific from Mexico to Alaska. Ocean surface temperatures rose as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit above average. In the reefs surrounding Hawaii, that was enough to kill between 50 and 90 percent of corals.

The scale of death was drastic, but there’s still some uncertainty over just how much was lost. “We were totally unprepared. We were naive as a science community,” says Greg Asner, director of Arizona State University Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science, who is based in Hawaii.

More details about this news over at The Verge.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Arizona State University Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science)

Did you know that when Paul Lauterbur thought of the first concept for the MRI machine, he sketched it out on a restaurant napkin? And did you know that J.K Rowling first scribbled down the idea of the Hogwarts houses on the back of an air sickness bag? 

Quentin Tarantino writes all his screenplays longhand. At the start of each project, he buys a specific notebook and pen. There’s also Tinder CEO Elie Seidman who swears by pen and paper.

Stephen Moore writes:

It might sound impractical — archaic, even — but if you’re struggling with productivity or creativity, it might be time to grab a pen and paper, and let your brain flow out onto the page. I’ve been using the old-school tools, and sure, they can feel a little clunky. In my notebook, there are crossed-out words, lines, arrows, and mistakes everywhere. My hand cramps up every now and then.

And yet, the simple practice of writing longhand has done wonders for me and my work. It has given me an uncluttered way to connect with my thoughts on an emotional level. It’s also allowed me to study my own thought process — I can see how my ideas and thoughts formed, how I got from A to B. The scribbles, scored-out sentences, and underlined words tell their own story.

There’s also an actual science behind writing. MRI scans have revealed that doing this increases neural activity in some parts of the brain.

Check out the benefits of writing over at Medium.com.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: DarkWorkX/ Pixabay)

Get ready to groan and sigh a lot, as you face a barrage of pun-tastic, corny jokes on this 20-item quiz. Can you match the punchline to the proper joke?

I got 19 out of 20 on my first try. I wonder: can I be a dad now?

Take the quiz over at Mental Floss and comment the score you got.

(Image Credit: Pezibear/ Pixabay)

When Gerald Muswagon won $10 million playing in the lottery, he bought cars, threw lavish parties, showered gifts on his friends, and invested in a logging business. But then the business flopped, and the alcohol and drugs took their toll. Gerald’s reckless behavior grew more intense, until finally he hung himself in 2005.

There’s also Suzanne Mullins, who won $4.2 million, but lost all of it after she covered a mountain of medical bills for uninsured family members and losing a settlement over a loan default.

There are many stories like these about people who won lotteries but ending up in ruins.

It even has a name, the "Lottery Curse." The response to such stories is equally ubiquitous. In order: there's the "tsk, tsk" of teeth, the solemn head shake, and the dusting off one of mom's favorite aphorism, "Well, money can't buy happiness."

While lottery winners are an extreme case, the maxim that money can’t buy happiness has a partial truth in it, according to psychologists.

Psychologists often added an addendum your mother forgot to quote. Money can't buy happiness — if you don't know how to spend it.

So how do we spend our money properly? Find out over at Big Think.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: TBIT/ Pixabay)

For some medicines, it doesn’t matter what time of day you take it. For others, pharmacists may recommend that you take it at the same time every day. 

Scientists say that there are about 30% of medicines in which taking it at a certain time of day matters. And there’s also a recent study that shows that blood pressure medication is more effective when taken at night.

The question is, how do you know if the timing of your medication is crucial?

In most cases, it’s not important when you take your medicine. For instance, you can take non-drowsy antihistamines for hay fever, or analgesics for pain when you need them. It doesn’t matter if it is morning, noon or night.

What is more important is the time interval between each dose. For instance, paracetamol needs to be taken at least four hours apart, any closer and you run the risk of taking a toxic dose.

[...]

It may seem fairly obvious to take some medicines at particular times. For example, it makes sense to taking sleeping medications, such as temazepam, at night before you go to bed.

Some antidepressants, such as amitryptyline or mirtazapine, have drowsy side effects. So it also makes sense to take them at night.

More details about this over at The Conversation.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: qimono/ Pixabay)

From Kevin Hart as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, to The Weeknd as Joker. These are just some of your celebrities who spent their Halloween dressing up as a different person, or as an iconic fictional character.

Check out the rest over at BoredPanda. 

Who do you think did the best one? (For me, it was Paul Rudd as Weird Al.)

(Image Credit: BoredPanda)

Have you ever seen a popcorn popping? Maybe you have, and it is a fun thing to watch. But have you seen a popcorn popping 1,250 times slower than real time? You probably haven’t. If I were to describe it, it’s not just a fun thing to watch; it is a magnificent experience.

See the video for yourself, and tell us your thoughts about it.

(Video Credit: Warped Perception/ YouTube)

Compared to their peers whose parents are born in the United States, almost universally, adult children of immigrants show more upward economic mobility. Economic ability is the ability of an individual or a family to improve (upward) or worsen (downward) their economic status.

Indeed, a new working paper by Stanford University’s Ran Abramitzky; Princeton University’s Leah Platt Boustan and Elisa Jácome; and the University of California Davis’ Santiago Pérez finds that this is especially true for the lowest-income immigrants and remains true for the most recent cohorts for which data is available.

Drawing from census data, publicly available administrative data, and federal income tax data, they traced the income levels of millions of fathers and sons over time dating back to 1880. The children of immigrants climbed higher in the income rankings than those born to US natives across history and in 44 of the 47 sending countries they studied.

The paper contradicts President Donald Trump’s rhetoric suggesting that immigrants drain the social safety net rather than pulling themselves up and that immigrants from a select few countries are more desirable than others. On that basis, the president has pursued numerous policies aimed at preventing low-income immigrants, particularly those from what he has referred to as “shithole countries,” from entering and settling in the US.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

Smart devices are supposed to be smart. After all, they’re not called “smart” for nothing. Because of Bluetooth, wifi, or some kind of companion app, we’re theoretically getting something extra for all the money that we’re spending. (Smart devices are also more expensive than non-smart devices, so I guess it should be no surprise that smart devices have something extra to offer us.)

By that logic, the smart Oral-B Genius X should be more than just an electric toothbrush.

But what extra can this toothbrush offer us, and what makes it different than other toothbrushes?

The difference between the Genius X and other electric toothbrushes is it’s like a fitness tracker for your mouth. You can monitor how long you brush, how hard you brush, and what areas you covered. There’s artificial intelligence built-in so the Genius X can evaluate your brushing style, but you can also manually track things like brushing your tongue, flossing, bleeding gums, and whether or not you used an oral rinse. You can view your results over months, embark on “journeys” (e.g, if you want blinding white teeth, you can select a two-week whitening journey), and unlock achievements. Like I said, a fitness tracker for your mouth.

Find out more about the toothbrush over at the review at Gizmodo.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Victoria Song/ Gizmodo)

Perhaps one of the reasons why the popularity of electric cars is limited is because we have to charge the car batteries for hours and hours, and we can’t find a schedule to charge them, as we are already too busy with our daily lives. Is there something that can make electric cars more appealing? Can we charge car batteries at a much faster rate? Hopefully, the answer is yes.

...Penn State engineers have just figured out how to charge car batteries in 10 minutes for 200-300 miles of driving. “Fast charging is the key to enabling widespread introduction of electric vehicles,” says Chao-Yang Wang, who published his team’s work in Joule.

What’s the secret? FInd out over at Fast Company.

(Image Credit: MikesPhotos/ Pixabay)

This is the Gothic Hills Cemetery, an elaborate haunted house in the San Fernando Valley, California. It was the fruit of over a thousand hours of work by Troy Yu and Aaron Bolton. A few weeks ago, however, violent winds ripped through the neighborhood, and it tore the roof off of the majority walkthrough. It also damaged other central set pieces. It was two weeks before opening night. What can they possibly do?

Yu wasn’t sure that all the hard work could be salvaged. He wrote to his followers online, “We’ve suffered nearly complete destruction of our haunt in the 60mph winds we had last night.” The final room of the haunt, considered the most impressive part of the attraction, was hit the hardest. With ceiling framing and walls now lying on the ground, Troy went on, “We’re assessing the damage and will update when we know where to go from here. It seems no matter how much we try to increase our wind-worthiness each year, the winds have got news for us.”

After much debate, the friends finally made a decision. Even though their creation was in ruins, they would try their best to reconstruct it.

They put out a call asking for volunteers to help with repairs, and covered the cost of unexpected damage themselves. Their efforts went into overtime. They did have one comforting thought: This was not the first time they’d constructed a haunted house on a seemingly impossible deadline. And this time, they had a community to help them.

Check out Atlas Obscura for more details about this inspiring story.

(Image Credit: Shannon Brown)