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“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” – Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

Fresh Reads from the Science 'o sphere!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Fresh Science 24 July 2007

We do the hard work of trekking the globe for the most delectable science articles - so you don't have to.

Superstitions are not the province of the uneducated or the foolish (Angry Doctor - Singapore)

What would Newton do? (Bad Astronomy - USA)

Stem cells and cancer, forget everything you know (Bayblab - Canada)

Peace loving, matriarchal, and sexually liberated? (Entertaining Research - India)

Spinning silhouette illusion (Mind Hacks - USA)






















She appears to constantly spin in one direction, but if you concentrate hard enough... voila! She spins in the opposite direction!

Brainz are funny things.

2 Comments:

Hawks said...

I'd seen the spinning silhouette illusion before but never got it to work. I just gave it another try and I succeeded. The trick is to "defocus" to the extent that you see two of the spinning ladies - both spinning the wrong way. Actually, while writing the previous sentence, in a window adjacent to the spinning lady, she was spinning the wrong way as I saw her through the corner of my eye. Interesting...

The Key Question said...

When I first saw this illusion she was already spinning the "wrong" way (anticlockwise). After concentrating for a little while I can switch her direction at will.

For me, the trick is to concentrate on different parts of her body.

If I focus on her chin or her extended foot, she tends to spin clockwise.

If I focus on her extended hand, she tends to spin anticlockwise.

If I focus on her boobs, she tends to oscillate back and forth such that her back is always facing me.

That's just not fair!