Our world is incredibly vast and culturally diverse. One of the evident ways in which cultures differ includes their religious beliefs, creating a rich array of expressions and practices. Wandering through China, for example, you are likely to encounter marvelous Buddhist temples, whereas in Indonesia, mosques are the most common type of religious building. Similarly, […]
I hate going grocery shopping, so when I go to the supermarket, I usually have a shopping list and try to quickly find what I want in the sea of grocery objects on each aisle to finish as soon as possible. I guess I’ve got better at this over the years, but I still don’t […]
AI is everywhere nowadays. Its potential to support our work is exciting, and its results can range from impressive to hilarious, depending on the context. Here is a little challenge for you. Check out the video of this gymnast and then this other one. Can you tell apart which of these gymnasts is a real […]
Last week, I was eating dinner with some friends. One friend shared his dream, in which he was taking a high school exam and was just so nervous about thinking how he didn’t study and hence wouldn’t pass. That gave us all a good chuckle – we are all adults way beyond our high school […]
Have you ever been inside an MRI scanner? I recently got in one and it was quite the experience. After a short introduction to the process, including a question about whether I was claustrophobic, they gave me earplugs – because it’s NOISY inside the machine, yes, in capitals – and then they proceeded to slide […]
The Black Mirror episode “Nosedive” (2016) introduces a society where people constantly rate their interactions with each other through their smartphones. Those ratings deeply influence outcomes in their everyday life, including high-stakes situations such as access to housing and freedom of transit. Leaving aside the dystopian aspects, people in that society managed to solve an […]
Habits can be great for you, such as flossing consistently to preserve oral health, or they can rather be a problem, such as smoking, or something I struggle with from time to time: doomscrolling. I think part of the reason I sometimes get caught in the loop of scrolling endlessly is that I actually get […]
Do you remember your prom? Do you remember your 16th birthday? Do you remember your first day of school? People usually have detailed memories of important autobiographical events. These events are usually represented in memory as being tied to a specific context and a specific moment in time. But, this specificity in recall is not […]
Have you ever noticed how movies often depict different places using distinct color palettes? Stories happening in Mexico and the Old West, for example, are frequently portrayed with sepia tones, evoking nostalgia or toughness, while movies set in cold places or warzones are often portrayed as being grayish – or technically speaking, with decreased color […]
Memories, oh memories, they can be so powerful, and detailed, and… ours. Only that, sometimes, they may not actually be ours. As we all can remember important things in our lives, and the subjective experience of remembering often tells us that our memories are coming from within, it’s easy to assume, and to feel, that […]