Only about 1 in 4 Americans said that they had trust in the nation’s institutions in 2023 – with big business (1 in 7), television news (1 in 7) and Congress (1 in 12) scraping the very bottom.While institutional trust is decreasing, political polarization is increasing. The majority of Republicans (72%) and Democrats (64%) think of each other as more immoral than other Americans – a nearly 30% rise from 2016 to 2022. When compared with similar democracies, the United States has exhibite ...read more
When you use your fingerprint to unlock your smartphone, your phone is looking at a two-dimensional pattern to determine whether it’s the correct fingerprint before it unlocks for you. But the imprint your finger leaves on the surface of the button is actually a 3D structure called a fingermark.Fingermarks are made up of tiny ridges of oil from your skin. Each ridge is only a few microns tall, or a few hundredths of the thickness of human hair.Biometric identifiers record fingermarks only as 2 ...read more
The fate of old notes is a critical issue for central banks that oversee their disposal. These notes cannot be thrown away like ordinary rubbish. Instead, central banks have developed standards to ensure the disposal is safe and secure. This often involves a type of shredding that slices each note into hundreds of tiny pieces, each typically smaller than about thirty square millimeters. The shredded paper, or increasingly plastic, can then be disposed of, or recycled, off site. Some central bank ...read more
Dietary supplements fall into a sort of gray area. They often resemble medication —pill-shaped and sold in bottles with child-safe screw tops. Their labels might also suggest certain health benefits. However, unlike medication, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers supplements to be a food and doesn’t give them the same scrutiny it devotes to drugs.“The FDA does not analyze the content of dietary supplements until consumers complain about it,” says Lina Begdache, a regist ...read more
In any list of famous cryptids, you’ll find Bigfoot, of course, the Abominable Snowman/Yeti, or even the Chupacabra. But one name that always ends up near the top is the Loch Ness Monster — or Nessie, as it’s known to its friends.For at least 1,500 years, the monster has been a part of local legend and achieved international fame in the last century or so, with hundreds of sightings reported down through the decades. But what is the Loch Ness Monster? Is there any chance it could be real, ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine