A Little Bit Of Science

Besides unnecessary wars, assassinations and scandalous affairs, what comes to mind when you think about American presidents? The Oval Office, the Star-Spangled Banner, Air Force One, the official military salute… and of course golf.   With the exception of three presidents (Hoover, Truman and Carter), golf has been the presidential sport of choice throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. While Hoo...

We all have our idiosyncrasies, those automatic things we do each day that form the way we are in the world. Whether we scrunch or fold, or leave the toilet seat up or down, these are things we do (or don’t do) automatically. Much like the urgent need to crap your dacks in a Japanese bookstore.    That’s right, there is a significant portion of Japanese people who feel overcome by a heaving sensat...

Have you ever seen someone in public and you swear you know them from somewhere, you just can’t pick where? Are they an old school friend? The guy who delivers bread to your local cafe? You feel like you know them but it would probably be weird if you started a conversation. Well, that’s a glimpse into the life of a small percentage of the population who recognise with freakish accuracy every face...

Over the millions of years of evolution, we humans have developed into a highly intelligent species. We’ve developed the ability to communicate, we’ve created social order, and established norms and protocols that facilitate a (mostly) harmonious coexistence. Take, for example, the fact that we all know how to stand in line to order a beverage.   But now, after millennia of humans lining up and wa...

Humans love their independence. Wars have been fought for it, songs have been written about it, and history is filled with examples of individuals and communities seeking to raise a flag towards more liberating ideals. And some have taken the flag very literally.    Project Minerva was an ambitious endeavour led by Michael Oliver in the 1970s to create a libertarian utopia on the coral reefs of th...

When you think of the word ‘cult’, what immediately comes to mind for most of us are things like hooded velvet robes, secretive gatherings and doomsday prophesies. Then there’s the charismatic yet nefarious leader brainwashing followers, maybe a forced orgie or two, a spot of mass suicide. Generally not good stuff.   Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton outlines three primary characteristics of destruct...

The teen years can be tough. Let’s be real, it was an awkward time for the best of us. During those tender years, we all did our best to navigate the tumultuous world between childhood and adulthood amidst raging hormones, love triangles and knife fights... the usual teenage stuff.   Ok, perhaps not every teenager gets in a knife fight, but this particular case has all the drama you would expect t...

What’s the deal with redheads? It sounds like the beginning of a Seinfeld bit but in all fairness (pun intended), for a group of people who make up only 2% of the population, our flame-haired ginger guys and gals have attracted much attention throughout history. Some of that attention is due to the obvious: redheads are babes.   But the fascination with redheads over the centuries hasn’t all been...

When you think about the Cold War, you immediately think about whale songs right? Okay, maybe not everyone makes that connection, but in a delightfully random way, the political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s had a lot to do with the discovery of the beautiful whale song, and ultimately, the collapse of the commercial whaling industry altogether.    Back in the...

Politicians get a bad rap, don’t they? Every mutterance and every action falls under intense scrutiny from the press and the public eye. If they make one wrong move, we’ll know about it and keep talking about it for ages too.   Maybe that’s why politicians go to such great lengths to win the people over. Like when Governor Carey of New York volunteered to drink a glass of PCBs (Polychlorinated bip...

On November 24, 1971, Dan Cooper, a quiet, nondescript man (wearing the classic business suit everyone wore back then) wandered into Portland airport and paid cash for a one-way ticket to Seattle. He drank his bourbon and soda in the lounge and boarded the plane like every other passenger.    Cooper was your average guy, at least until shortly after takeoff, when he handed the flight attendant a n...

We all forget things sometimes. We leave the car keys in random places. We look all over the house for our sunglasses, only to find them already on our heads. And we’ve all experienced the angst of double booking, completely (or conveniently) forgetting about a dentist appointment booked for the time we were meant to meet up with friends at the pub.   Sometimes our brains just have enough stuff in...

What are the most common fears and phobias that people have today? Most of us can relate to having a healthy fear of sharks or getting sweaty palms at the idea of being stuck in a tiny space. It’s also pretty socially acceptable for someone to opt out of bungee jumping, or for a fellow aeroplane passenger to need a few deep breaths to calm themselves before takeoff.    Then of course there’s the f...

It’s the end of the science as we know it! And I feel fine! But seriously though, is it? As a global community, we are investing 10 times more money and resources into scientific research than we did in the 1950s, yet the number of groundbreaking discoveries is dwindling.    We’ve gone to the moon. We’ve discovered massive black holes. We’ve split the atom and peered through high-resolution micros...

Everyone loves a good loophole. From a clever workaround that outsmarts the tax man to exploiting a glitch in a video game (Sega Mega Drive all the way), there's something undeniably thrilling about circumventing the system. It taps into our innate desire for freedom, creativity, and that little touch of rebellion. While avoiding tax bills and gaining high scores on Sonic the Hedgehog can certainl...

Remember as a kid, having to wear that uncomfortable school uniform every single day? We were told when to sit, when to stand, when to eat, when to play, even when we were allowed to go to the toilet. Myriad rules to crush us into oppressive obedience!    Now imagine a similar scenario in your workplace. Employees are given insultingly basic commands and training that even the most sheltered indiv...

Mother Nature, in all her brilliance, has birthed some fascinating phenomena. Take the magical skies of the Aurora Borealis in Iceland for example, or the bioluminescent Maldives shores where the ocean lights up like neon blue fairy lights.    Here in Australia, we have Lake Hillier, where the water is the colour of a strawberry milkshake. In England of course, they have the synchronised sheep pan...

Back in the day, before robots and the internet, guys and gals who longed for the company of a significant other had one move up their sleeve: pluck up the courage to leave the house and talk to another human. Nowadays-ish, people search for love from home aided by computers and a social media background check (thanks Wayback Machine). Nowadays proper, the pool from which to select a lover has exp...

After the horrors of World War I, the Australian Federal Government gave thousands of discharged veterans money, land and the promise of a bright and happy agricultural life in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. Life as a farmer wasn’t easy, but at least these veterans had seen the last of the battlefield. Or so they thought.    The war was over but followed soon after by the great depress...

In our modern society, most people live their lives lurching from fix to fix from the digital syringe; relying on social media and telecommunication advances to feel connected to the world around them. Facetime, Instagram, LinkedIn, we froth it. Well, most people do. Some people want absolutely nothing to do with not only modern technology but with the rest of the world in general.    Around the g...

We’re all afraid of something. Many people live with significant anxiety due to their fear of things such as heights, flying, public speaking, the number 8 for example (Octophobia - it’s a real thing). But one fear puts disproportionately more heebies in our jeebies: taphophobia, or the fear of being buried alive as a result of being incorrectly pronounced dead. To a mad few, it may seem a genuine...

The 20th century was a golden era for ethically dubious brain studies. In 1950, Dr Jose Delgado had a vision to control aggressive behaviour using a device surgically implanted in the brain known as the Stimoceiver. How science fictiony is that?!   Delgado's journey toward creating a peaceful human race started with a bully macaque monkey who had been terrorising his cage mates. After successfully...

There are a lot of patron saints out there in the Catholic multiverse. They have saints for every day of the year and then some. We’ve all heard of the more famous saints like St. Paul, St. Peter and St. Patrick. What, no Saint Gary? Pfft. But then there are some lesser-known saints, but by no means less holy.    Take St. Bernardino for an example. He travelled all over Italy and preached to the p...

When we think of champions in the battle against climate change, names like Greta Thunberg, David Suzuki, and David Attenborough come to mind. But would you ever associate former US President Donald Trump with climate action? Probably not. But, his 2016 presidential campaign manager, Steve Bannon - you know the former investment banker, Hollywood executive, the guy who’s continuously being charged...

Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year. Festive feasting on sweet delicacies, children filled with wonder, awaiting Santa’s visit on Christmas Eve. Unless of course, you subscribe to some of the lesser-known Northern European traditions. Then Christmas is downright horrifying.    Hans Trapp for example. After being excommunicated from his local catholic church, Hans Trapp roamed the countr...