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Read more: Milton Cooper to QAnon: How Behold a Pale Horse Shaped Modern Conspiracy Culture
On a November night in 2001, in the high desert of Arizona, a peculiar chapter of American conspiracy lore came to a violent end. Milton William “Bill” Cooper—an ex-Navy radio broadcaster turned author—died in a shootout with sheriff’s deputies on his own property, guns blazing. Cooper had often declared he would never be taken alive,…
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Read more: Conscious Agents and the Simulation of Reality
Imagine sitting at your kitchen table, pressing a solid mug of coffee to your lips. It feels undeniably real… the cool ceramic against your skin, the bitter aroma of coffee in the air. But can you be certain the mug exists as you perceive it? Throughout history we’ve been prompted to doubt our senses. In…
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Read more: The History of Miniature Mt. Fuji Shrines
In a quiet corner of a Tokyo neighborhood, tucked behind the gates of a Shinto shrine stands a small mound of rocks and earth shaped unmistakably like the cone of Mount Fuji. These are miniature Mt. Fuji mounds, known as fujizuka, and they are far more than just playgrounds. They represent a link across centuries…
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Read more: How Beer Domesticated Humans
Imagine a time in prehistory when humans stumbled upon a happy accident: a mash of wild grains left in a pot that turned into a fizzy, mildly intoxicating brew. The standard story of civilization suggests that our ancestors first domesticated grains to fill their bellies with bread, and only later discovered the pleasant side effect…
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Read more: Rethinking the Rat: From Villain to Hero
In the light of an early morning in a quiet field in Cambodia tiny paws scurry across the ground. A handler walks behind each creature, holding a thin tether. Suddenly, one of them stops and furiously scratches at the earth. The handler’s face cracks a smile. A soft click! sounds – a signal that the…
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Read more: Can Light Really Heal the Body?
Can light help us heal? From infrared to red light and beyond, we’re living in an era where light-based wellness devices are becoming part of our everyday routine. But where did the idea for these technologies come from and is there real evidence to support their claims? Companies like HigherDose are leading this revolution, but…
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Read more: The Predator Wars: How Man Changed the American West
In the fading light of a 19th-century prairie evening, a rifle’s crack shatters the silence. A wolf collapses in the sagebrush, and a triumphant rancher collects his prize – another predator eliminated. Scenes like this played out thousands of times across the American West. For more than a century, a war was waged on wolves,…
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Read more: Are Interstellar Objects Alien Spacecraft? The Mystery of ‘Oumuamua
In late 2017, astronomers in Hawaii spotted an object hurtling through our solar system that defied all expectations. It was small, elongated, and moving so fast that the Sun’s gravity could not hold onto it. This visitor was quickly recognized as the first interstellar object ever observed up close – meaning it came from another…
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Read more: Blue Zones: Places Where We Live Longer & Why
High in the mountains of Sardinia, Italy, a 95-year-old shepherd sets out at dawn, trekking up and down rocky hills with his goats. Half a world away on the Japanese island of Okinawa, a 100-year-old woman begins her day tending a small vegetable garden, later meeting her lifelong friends for a chat and green tea.…
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Read more: Could Our Consciousness Exist in Another Spatial Dimension?
Consciousness is the simple word for the complex processes of how we experience our world. Each of us has a vivid inner life that accompanies the firing of neurons in our brain. Yet the nature of consciousness remains one of the greatest mysteries in science. How does the soggy, electric tissue of the brain produce…
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Read more: A New Dawn for Psychedelics – Microdosing and the Road to Legalization
In the mid-20th century, psychedelic substances like LSD and psilocybin mushrooms went from scientific curiosities to symbols of the counterculture. In the 1950s and 60s, researchers explored LSD’s potential to treat mental illness, and some psychiatrists reported promising results. But by the late 1960s, these hallucinogens escaped the lab and exploded into popular use, sparking…
