Whimsy
The Extraordinary Astrologer Isaac Bickerstaff
All of that was about to change in January of 1708. In that month, a short almanac under the name Predictions for the Year 1708 was published across the city by a previously-unheard-of astrologer identifying himself as “Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.” The paper was written, the author claimed, “to prevent the people of England from being farther imposed on by vulgar almanack-makers.” Such boastful tirades were nothing new; what made Bickerstaff’s publication unusual was that he seemed to have the results to back himself up. Following his opening rant, he moved into a long list of strikingly bold and precise predictions unlike anything that had been seen before. Beginning the list was this:
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Transforming the Earth
Though it has long been clear that Earth 1.0 is in need of an upgrade, it was not until a few years ago that someone began to take the notion seriously. In 2004, at a respected international design exhibition called the Venice Architecture Biennale, a young artist and architect named Christian Waldvogel displayed his plans for total global annihilation and the creation of Earth 2.0. Read the rest of this Article ▶
Silent Lucidity
The experience was one of my many brushes with Lucid Dreaming. It is a phenomenon that many discredit, naming it a hoax and naturalist mythology despite the fact that it has strong scientific evidence supporting it as a real occurrence. With a devoted training regimen, most anyone can learn to harness their own subconscious to experience surrealistic events and places. In a controlled dream, one can pursue anything from the cessation of nightmares, to investigating problems, to engaging in sexual fantasies, to my personal choice—jetting around the skies like Superman. Read the rest of this Article ▶
Hole-y Cow
Nowadays, agricultural scientists learn about the digestive system of cattle by putting holes in cows – and the cows stay alive and well. These cows (fitted with a sealing cover called a “cannula”) each have a hole into their stomach. Through this hole one can extract food caught mid-stream through the digestive system. Read the rest of this Short ▶
A Coffee For When You Feel Like Crap
This isn’t particularly surprising, given that approximately 500 pounds a year of Kopi Lowak constitutes the entire world supply.
What is surprising is why this particular coffee is so rare. It’s not the plants that are rare. It’s the civet droppings. That’s right, the civet droppings. Coffee beans aren’t Kopi Lowak until they’ve been passed through the digestive tract of paradoxurus hermaphroditus, otherwise known as the palm civet. Read the rest of this Short ▶
An Extra Second
The reason for the leap second is because of disputes between astronomers and physicists. Traditionally, our time scale is based upon the rotation of the Earth on its axis, as well as its rotation around the sun. However, this time is not a constant – that is, the length of a day has been ever-so-slowly increasing for many years. Physicists would rather have time be a constant, and thus invented the atomic clock and an exact time measurement. In order to keep the atomic clock in sync with the rotation of the Earth, leap seconds are added to the clock every few years.
How will you spend your leap second?
Quantum Mechanics and Immortality
The theory of quantum mechanics describes a tiny realm completely foreign to the one we observe normally. At quantum levels, matter exists simultaneously as particles and as waves (wave-particle duality), a particle’s position and momentum cannot be precisely known at the same time (Heisenberg uncertainty principle), and the state of two objects can be intertwined, regardless of the physical distance between them (quantum entanglement). Niels Bohr, one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, once said, “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.”
The predictions of quantum mechanics have never been disproved in any experiments in over a century of development. It has been studied by brilliant minds including Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman, and though there is much disagreement about what it all means, there is little doubt that it is true. Some even think it provides us with a means to live forever. Read the rest of this Short ▶