It’s a dirty little habit that many participate in, and few would admit to. As many as 91 percent of the population picks their noses from time to time. Many people do it to remove the dry nasal mucus, namely boogers, that can build up and irritate the nose. If you have allergies that clog your nasal passages, there’s even more of a temptation to clear them up. And in some cases, nose-picking can become a compulsive habit, like biting your nails. Nose Pickers Researchers have found that no ...read more
Following its arrival in Coventry, U.K., Dippy the Dinosaur drew over 10,000 visitors in its first week on display. The opening marked the beginning of Dippy’s three-year stay at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum. Dippy is a Diplodocus, or more specifically, a Diplodocus fossil. Diplodocuses were gigantic dinosaurs that lived in the Late Jurassic Period, about 161 to 145 million years ago. The behemoth fossil itself is over 85 feet long and likely weighed between 22,000 to 30,000 pounds when ...read more
You might be the laziest person on the planet, but your brain never rests. So what does it get up to when you’re more or less checked out? In the 1930s, Hans Berger, a German psychiatrist who had recently invented the electroencephalogram (EEG), suggested that our brains are always active, even when we don’t seem to be doing much with them. Few people took the idea seriously at the time (maybe because Berger had spent much of his career trying to prove telepathy, or perhaps because he wa ...read more
The use of melatonin supplements has spiked significantly in the U.S. in recent years, prompting calls for more research into the effects of long-term melatonin supplementation in humans. That’s because relatively little research has been done concerning how taking melatonin pills on a regular basis affects overall health. Particularly in aging populations with Alzheimer's or dementia. Melatonin support has also been recommended for those who are blind and struggle with a regular sleep schedul ...read more
In the spring of 1993, a 30-minute program called Bill Nye the Science Guy aired for the first time on KCTS-TV, a Seattle-based PBS affiliate. Within months, the show was being syndicated nationally, and what followed was life-changing for the show’s titular host: six seasons, 100 episodes and substantial underwriting from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. Bill Nye was suddenly famous — broadcast into the homes and schools of millions of children, to explain ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine