The English word “puzzle” is unusual, according to Marcel Danesi, a professor of semiotics at the University of Toronto. Embracing everything from riddles and logical conundrums to mathematical problems and optical illusions, he notes that “it has no equivalent in any other language.”That might seem to make sense — this constellation of brainteasers doesn’t obviously share much in common. But at the most basic level, all puzzles (jigsaws, crosswords, or detective novels) have a quest ...read more

As of today, more than 5600 exoplanets, planets that are gravitationally bound to stars other than our sun, have been discovered. Within that catalog exists a vast array of planetary classes – small rocky worlds like our own, ocean worlds completely covered in liquid water, and gas giants that dwarf even Jupiter, among many others. Planets come in a range of sizes and compositions and are differentiated from stars primarily due to their inability to sustain nuclear fusion in their cores. So ho ...read more

Children with difficult temperaments, including personality tendencies such as irritability and having a hard time being comforted, are only slightly more likely than other children to have insecure attachment relationships with one or both of their parents, according to our research. This finding refutes the long-standing notion held by many psychologists that early attachment behaviors are mainly determined by a child’s temperament.An attachment relationship reflects the child’s expectatio ...read more

Ball lightning has fascinated and puzzled people for centuries. This rare and mysterious phenomenon, often described as a glowing sphere of light that appears during thunderstorms, has been the subject of countless anecdotes, scientific investigations, and debates. But is ball lightning even real? And if so, what causes it? Here, we’ll briefly dive into the basics of ball lightning, exploring what it reportedly looks like, how rare it is, what might cause it, and whether it poses any danger.Wh ...read more

Imagine this: You pick up your phone for a video call with a friend. Not only can you see their face and hear their voice, but you can also smell the cookies they just baked. It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, but could it actually happen?I’m a computer scientist who studies how machines sense the world.What Phones Do NowWhen you listen to music or talk to someone on your phone, you can hear the sound through the built-in speakers. These speakers convert digital signals i ...read more

Artists take inspiration from many sources. For the San people of South Africa, the spark that inspired some of their rock paintings may have come from fossils of creatures that went extinct more than 200 million years ago. A study in PLOS ONE says that not only did the San draw on bones of dicynodonts — large animals with downward-turning tusks that roamed the Earth before dinosaurs — but that they beat Western paleontologists to the punch. The “winged serpent” panel depicts a creature ...read more

Everyone who has ever seen Saturn through a telescope is astonished to see the system of rings that surround it. Those rings are rock and ice that span thousands of kilometers around the planet. They are the hallmark of Saturn, but ring systems exist around Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune as well, albeit in less dramatic forms.Yet, you shouldn't need to be a giant planet to have a ring. As long as debris accumulates in the gravitational well of a planet, the rotation will cause it to form a ring a d ...read more

For humans, living in a bubble is a figurative coping mechanism. For water anoles, it is a literal description of an underwater survival strategy. The semi-aquatic lizards found in Costa Rica’s forests sometimes escape attackers by breathing a bubble over their heads that act as a scuba helmet when they dive and swim to safety, according to a report in Biology Letters. Lindsey Swierk an assistant research professor of biological sciences at Binghamton University in New York, and an author of t ...read more

Mental illness of today was typically thought of as supernatural phenomenon in ancient times. People often thought that sorcery, demons, or gods were punishing a person for their sin, explains Andrew Scull, one of the world’s foremost scholars of the history of madness.Lacking a better understanding of its causes, mental illness — from melancholy to murderous rages — was blamed on gods and demons. There is no historical corroboration to understand this, yet there are stories that reflect ...read more

Dear reader, this article discusses eating, addiction, and other sensitive topics. Reader's discretion is advised. When a 2008 study reported that refined sugar could be addicting, it sparked a slew of buzzy headlines and the infamous claim that “sugar is as addicting as cocaine.” This has since created a certain stigma around sugar and led to shifts in diet culture. The claim itself is easy enough to believe. How often does someone only have one piece of candy? Or only indulge in one Oreo ...read more