Well, sort of. The worldwide gaming industry has been in the mainstream for quite a while. Different games have exploded in popularity and sales, such as Epic Games’ Fortnite, Mihoyo’s Genshin Impact, and the indie hit Among Us by Innersloth. According to Accenture, the worldwide gaming industry is worth over $300 billion! 

Games are products themselves and they are used as advertising spaces for different brands. The fashion industry has seen the potential of promotion in big video games-- with some big brands like Balenciaga partnering up with Fortnite. Gucci has also partnered with cult games like Tennis Clash, The Sims, Genies, Roblox, Pokémon Go, and Animal Crossing to create items available for digital avatars to wear. 

While the cosmetic items we see in games are a fun little way for us to customize our avatars, it is undeniable that they are also used as advertisements for different brands. No surprise there. 

Image credit: Epic Games 

Maybe it’s time to let the data do the talking. In order to find out if left-handed people were actually smarter than the rest of the population, researchers studied the mathematical achievements of right- and left-handed students in Italy. Left-handed students had a significant edge on the more difficult math problems compared to the right-handed students. 

According to a meta-analysis of 43 studies, left-handed people have a larger corpus callosum. This is the bundle of nerve fibers that connect the two hemispheres of the brain. A stronger connection between the two hemispheres allows left-handers to have stronger spatial abilities, which are linked to mathematics. 

To learn more about the possible explanations as to how left-handed people are smarter, check Live Science’s full piece here. 

Image credit: wikimedia commons 

Popular Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo, known for its simple and minimalistic apparel, has opened its first cafe in Ginza. The new shop, called Uniqlo Coffee, is located on the top floor of their global flagship store. The cafe follows the brand’s minimalist look, with white walls and simple yet refreshing wooden accents. 

This place will now be added to my travel bucket list!

Image credit: Uniqlo 

Aww! A stray dog interrupts a street performance in order to comfort an actor who was pretending to be hurt. This adorable interaction between actor Numan Ertuğrul Uzunsoy and the dog is truly heartwarming! 

The stray pupper interrupted the play to offer Uzunsoy comfort when his character was injured and in great pain. The actor admits that he did not see the dog approaching him during his scene. At first, Uzunsoy thought his costar was approaching him. Upon realizing that it was a dog, he broke character and smiled. “I was very happy when I felt the dog's kisses,” Uzunsoy said. “I was very touched. He was like an angel who wanted to help me. It was a very emotional moment for me. I was not expecting it.”

Image credit: İzmit Belediyesi

Bright, saturated flowers are the central point of Sophia Ahamed’s new series. The clusters of flowers in vibrant shades of red and pink are behind the expanses of cloudy, blue-ish violet skies. The striking difference between the vibrant flowers and the subdued, faded background is designed to skew perceptions of fiction and reality. Ahamed further explains her work to Colossal. “We associate color with how we perceive the world around us, memories, and emotion,” she says, “Often at times, these elements can act as well as a gentle escape into something more soothing.”

See more of her work here! 

Image credit: Sophia Ahamed 

Aiming for a long life? This honey might do you wonders! Ikarian honey is now hailed as the ‘liquid gold’ for longevity. This type of honey is from Ikaria, Greece. The island is home to some of the longest-living people in the world. Their locally sourced honey is part of a healthy diet among Ikarians: 

[...] Whether it's stirred into their morning tea or eaten directly by the tablespoon, Ikarians reportedly consume a bit of honey at least twice a day.

While it's certainly tempting to book a flight to Greece for some island-hopping, there's an easier, more affordable way to find Ikarian honey. Many retailers, like Etsy and Amazon, carry the longevity-loving nectar online, allowing you to buy it from anywhere in the world.

The sticky nectar is loaded with natural proteins and antibacterial enzymes to support gut health and promote healing. It's also loaded with antioxidants to boost immunity and reduce inflammation, and—thanks to its pollen content—can help with relief from allergies.

Image credit: Art Rachen

Decision fatigue is a very real concept. Also known as ego depletion, the concept is described as the inability to make decisions after making multiple choices in a short time. Sounds familiar? Well, if you feel mentally exhausted after just one day, maybe that’s because answering simple questions such as what food will you be eating, or what tasks will you be doing for a day can contribute to decision fatigue: 

As much as we longed for our social freedom throughout 2020, psychologist Lee Chambers believes that it's the blurred boundaries of normality and restrictions that are causing 'micro stresses' among us. “From deciding what to wear and which activities to start again to even simply how to greet other people, many clients are finding themselves overwhelmed trying to build a new post-lockdown routine,” he explains. “There are also the expectations of others now that we are venturing outside our domestic environment more often – some are struggling to say 'no' while others are struggling to find their own pace. Some of my clients are already suffering elements of social burnout, and the cognitive processing of making more decisions is playing a part in that.”

While we're all guilty of making bad choices at one time or another (Buffalo platforms anyone?), we know all too well the implications of poor decision-making when we're stressed or tired. “The impact is even more prevalent should those decisions be challenging and, to put it in simple terms, a day of constant decision-making will leave us depleted and more likely to make poor choices or not make a choice at all,” Chambers explains. “It's a natural way as humans that we protect ourselves from mental strain and cognitive fatigue.”

To learn how we can cope with decision fatigue, check Harper Bazaar’s full piece here. 

Image credit: Kelly Sikkema

A new study proposes that the life-size camel sculptures in northern Saudi Arabia date back around 6,000 years. Initially discovered in 2018, experts estimated that they were about 2,000 years old. The current study suggests that these artworks should most likely be dated between 7,000 and 8,000 years ago, which would make them older than the Pyramids of Giza (4,500 years old) and the Stonehenge (5,000 years old): 

Researchers dated the carvings through a chemical analysis and an examination of tool marks found at the site, reports Daniel Bardsley for the National.

“They are absolutely stunning and, bearing in mind we see them now in a heavily eroded state with many panels fallen, the original site must’ve been absolutely mind blowing,” lead author Maria Guagnin, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, tells the National. “There were life-sized camels and equids two or three layers on top of each other.”

Ancient artists carved the images into three rocky spurs, notes Ewelina Lepionko for Albawaba. In addition to about a dozen camels, the artwork depicts two animals that may be donkeys, mules or horses.

The original estimate of the artworks’ age was based partly on the existence of other camel reliefs made in Jordan around that time. But radiocarbon dating, analysis of weathering patterns and other dating methods suggested a much older origin. Additionally, a stone mason found no signs of pottery or the use of metal tools at the site.

Image credit: M. Guagnin & G. Charloux

Current city structures revolve around the use of transportation for reaching one place to another. The long distances between buildings, the heavy traffic people face every day. Different areas around the world are centered on cars (or any mass transit system). However, in the wake of the pandemic, municipalities are now looking at ways to plan cities for human beings-- thus the rise of 15-minute cities. Find out what a 15-minute city is at Euro News.

Image credit: EuroNews Next 

The rise of multiple streaming platforms gives us more options on what to watch every day. Sometimes, it’s difficult to decide what to binge from the multiple titles-- TV shows, movies, and documentaries that are available for consumption. If you’re in the mood to watch a sci-fi show, then Shortlist’s Simon Brew’s recommendations could come in handy! Check his 15 recommended sci-fi series here. 

Image credit: BBC 

Oumuamua has been the subject of debate for astronomers for years. The cigar-shaped celestial object showed up in our sky in 2017, and was classified as an asteroid. However, some of its inexplicable properties are a source of discourse concerning its true classification. Some consider it to be an alien craft of some sort, while some hold ground that the Oumuamua is an asteroid: 

Now, there's a new chapter in the saga of this mysterious 650-foot-long tube-shaped object. Earlier this year, researchers at Arizona State University published a new study claiming to "resolve" the mystery surrounding 'Oumuamua (pronounced "oh moo ah moo ah").

Published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the researchers stated in a pair of papers that 'Oumuamua was likely a nitrogen ice ball, perhaps from a planet like Pluto yet in another solar system — not an artificially made light-sail spacecraft, comet, or interstellar ball of dust, as some researchers have previously suggested. Nitrogen, the primary component of Earth's atmosphere, occurs primarily as a gas on our home planet; yet in very cold conditions, it can freeze and become solid or liquid. The frigid surface of Pluto, for instance, contains a substantial amount of nitrogen ice.

'Oumuamua's characteristics, the Arizona State University researchers argued, suggested the strange object bore similarities to the surface of Pluto.

"This research is exciting in that we've probably resolved the mystery of what 'Oumuamua is and we can reasonably identify it as a chunk of an 'exo-Pluto,' a Pluto-like planet in another solar system," said Steven Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University and an author of the new study, in March 2021. "Until now, we've had no way to know if other solar systems have Pluto-like planets, but now we have seen a chunk of one pass by Earth."

Image credit: Getty Images/Aunt_Spray

You’ve heard of transparent wood, now get ready for transparent solar panels! Engineers from the University of Michigan and other institutions developed a solar panel that has an estimated lifespan of 30 years! In addition to the device’s long life, it’s also transparent and highly efficient. According to the researchers, the solar panel could be used to create entire spaces by itself: 

Currently, the most efficient solar panels are made from silicon, but the material isn’t transparent. Two types of materials are used in solar cells known as “non-fullerene acceptors” and “fullerene acceptors.” The former is more robust but less efficient than the latter.

A typical solar cell created using non-fullerene acceptors can achieve an efficiency of 18 percent, near that of a silicon cell. However, they don’t last as long. In experiments, researchers on the project showed that without using methods to protect the material in the panel that converts sunlight to electricity, efficiency declined to less than 40 percent of the initial value within 12 weeks when exposed to the sun.

Engineers studied the degradation in the unprotected solar cell and discovered where they could improve the design. The improvements included blocking UV light by adding a zinc oxide layer to the sun-facing side of the glass. They also integrated a thinner zinc oxide layer adjacent to the region of the cell that absorbs light but also had to add a layer of material called IC-SAM made from carbon to prevent the zinc oxide from breaking down the light absorber. Finally, another layer was added consisting of a fullerene shaped like a soccer ball to protect the light absorber.

Image credit: Slash Gear

Now this is a surprise! Pottery, glass, and nails were discovered by archaeologists at the site of an inn and tavern in Florence, Alabama. The team from the University of Alabama’s Office of Archaeological Research excavated the site, now called Pope’s Tavern Museum, and unearthed artifacts dated to the 1830s, and some are even estimated to predate Alabama’s admission as an official state in 1819: 

During the Civil War, Union and Confederate forces occupied Florence at different times. Both sides used Pope’s Tavern as a hospital and command center, notes Florence-Lauderdale Tourism on its website.

Today, the museum houses a number of Civil War artifacts, including a rare Kennedy long rifle and a Confederate colonel’s uniform. Staff are currently preparing for an exhibition exploring slavery and cotton in the Florence area. Among the topics set to be covered is the role enslaved workers played in constructing some of the area’s significant buildings, including Wesleyan Hall at what’s now the University of North Alabama.

Excavations at the site began with measurement of the yard in May. Then, technicians scanned the ground for anomalies and used the data to determine where to dig test pits. In addition to the pottery and other small items, archaeologists found the remains of a brick structure that may have been a hearth, privy or outbuilding, reports the Associated Press (AP). Murphy says they’re conducting a microscopic analysis of the building materials.

Image credit: Jimmy Wayne via Flickr under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

That’s nice. In order to keep troop counts a secret from enemies, ancient Chinese generals employed a mathematical technique that is very much alive in today’s modern mathematics. The ‘math trick’ involved the generals dividing their troops into different sections and rows until they had enough information to determine the total number of their soldiers without explicitly counting. In modern terms, this trick is now known as the Chinese remainder theorem:

The theorem allows you to find an unknown number if you know its remainders when it’s divided by certain numbers that are “pairwise coprime,” meaning they do not have any prime factors in common. Sun Tzu never proved this formally, but later the Indian mathematician and astronomer Aryabhata developed a process for solving any given instance of the theorem.

“The Chinese remainder theorem gives you an actual recipe for making a number,”said Daniel Litt of the University of Georgia.

To learn more about the theorem, check Quanta Magazine’s full piece here! 

Image credit: wikimedia commons 

The famous tourist destination and architectural marvel has a twin, and it’s not in Rome! The Amphitheater of El Jem is the largest and most well-preserved Roman structure in Africa. Located in the modern-day city of El Djem, Tunisia, the structure was designed to seat 35,000 people. The massive theater was modeled after the Roman Colosseum, as Open Culture details: 

Although the small city of El Jem hardly features on tours of the classical past, it was, in the time of the Amphitheater’s construction, a prominent site of struggle for control over the Empire. The year 238 “was particularly tumultuous,” Atlas Obscura explains, due to a “revolt by the population of Thysdrus (El Jem), who opposed the enormous taxation amounts being levied by the Emperor Maximinus’s local procurator.” A riot of 50,000 people led to the ascension of Gordian I, who ruled for 21 days during the “Year of the Six Emperors,” when “in just one year, six different people were proclaimed Emperors of Rome.”

From such fraught beginnings, the massive stone structure of the El Jem Amphitheater went on to serve as a fortress during invasions of Vandals and Arabs in the 5th-7th centuries. A thousand years after the Islamic conquest, El Jem became a fortress during the Revolutions of Tunis. Later centuries saw the amphitheater used for saltpetre manufacture, grain storage, and market stalls.

Image credit: wikimedia commons