A conspiracy theorist could be accused of wearing a tinfoil hat. If so, you should credit Aldous Huxley's brother, Julian, for popularising the concept in his 1926 short tale, The Tissue-Culture King. In it, Huxley's characters realize that metal is excellent at preventing telepathy efforts and make "metal foil hats" for themselves.

Your gynecologist's primary interest may be the health of your reproductive organs, but it is far from the only thing they are concerned with. OB-GYNs, like any other doctor, is concerned with your overall health. "We check for a number of things," one OB-GYN said when asked what they look for while assessing a patient. "The first thing to consider is how the patient is doing. Any new worries, life changes, attitude, happiness, and so on."

According to Psychology Today, the brain patterns triggered while a weightlifter lifts heavy weights are also activated when the lifter simply imagines and visualizes the activity of lifting weights. That is, your mind is unable to distinguish between what is real and what is imagined. When you envision yourself shooting the basketball, your skill will develop just as if you were doing physical practice. This is one of the primary reasons why visualization is so effective in assisting people in reaching their goals. Several elite and exceptional sportsmen, such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Usain Bolt, picture and rehearse their practice and game victory many times before they actually do it. 

Nail polish was used to represent class in Ancient Egypt. The lower classes wore naked or light colours, while the upper classes favoured red hues (naturally). Cleopatra's tips were dyed a rusty colour with henna plant juice, while Nefertiti's were painted ruby colours.

When you bite into a slice of pie, your mouth seems to fill with flavor. However, the majority of that taste sense occurs in your brain. More precisely, cranial nerves and taste bud receptors in your mouth deliver food molecules to olfactory nerve endings in your nose's roof. The chemicals connect to these nerve terminals, signaling the olfactory bulb to deliver scent instructions straight to two major cranial nerves, the facial nerve and the glossopharyngeal nerve, both of which communicate with the gustatory cortex in the brain. As taste and nerve information progress through the brain, they combine with smell messages to produce the impression of flavor, which appears to emanate from the mouth.

We may not anticipate it, but what we wear directly impacts why mosquitoes won't leave us alone. These little insects are drawn to dark colors because, according to this study, black attracts more mosquitos than white. According to the same study, these flying insects are drawn to heat, which dark colors absorb more than bright hues.

Belgium only has 11 million residents. This makes it a densely populated country… Especially when you consider that 50% of the island is covered in forest and therefore uninhabited. In fact, 90% of the population lives along a strip of land along the east coast.

There is no clear link between a full moon and howling wolves. Wolves communicate by howling, and they elevate their heads to make the sound go further. Wolves may also howl in full darkness. However, because moonlight evenings are generally windless, the howling is just easier to hear. Furthermore, without moonlight, it is impossible to observe a howling wolf.

Several famous couples have won Oscars, but only one Hollywood family can claim to be truly Oscar-winning - The Minelli's. Liza Minelli, daughter of Vincente Minnelli (who won Best Director in 1959 for Gigi) and Judy Garland (who received a miniature Juvenile Award in 1940), won Best Actress for Cabaret in 1973.

The same is true for knitting. Your overall health is improved by needlecrafts because they significantly lower your stress and blood pressure. They maintain your flexibility and improve the blood flow to your hands. The simultaneous stimulation of both hemispheres of your brain by using both hands in various ways gives your brain a workout that not many other activities can. You can learn more about this topic here and here.

Popsicles could end up being one of the world's most happy accidents if we have our way. According to National Public Radio, the magnificent summer treat was created in 1905 on a winter's night by a little boy by the name of Frank Epperson. He mistakenly left it out in the cold overnight after mixing a soft drink with soda water power and water with a wooden stirrer, which was thought to be a popular activity at the time. That's when a popsicle appeared!

Vitamin D is commonly lauded for its role in bone health and good moods, but new study suggests that it may also have a role in metabolism and weight loss. In one prior study, for example, when vitamin-D-deficient women increased their blood levels of vitamin D to recommended levels, they lost more weight. According to the National Institutes of Health, potential symptoms of vitamin D insufficiency include bone pain and muscular weakness. Even if you take vitamin D pills, don't assume that your levels are enough. When the women in the research took supplements, they absorbed varying levels of the vitamin.

Sticky rice, the flexible national staple, is consumed more in Laos than anyplace else on the planet. Every year, Laotians devour 155 kg of this national food, which is customarily eaten with their hands and offered sweet, fermented, or sour. In comparison, the average European or American consumes about 9 kilograms of rice per year. Indeed, Laotians are usually referred to as "luk khao niaow," which translates to "children or descendants of sticky rice." This seems fitting.

Speaking the name of the play in a theatre is said to bring a curse. Actors commonly refer to it as "The Scottish Play." No one knows where this idea came from; some speculate that it was inspired by the death of the actor who played Lady Macbeth in the first production during the run of the play. Another theory is that Shakespeare used real witches' spells in the play. If an actor makes a mistake, he or she must leave the room, turn around three times, spit, say a curse word, and then knock to re-enter.

Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, as it is officially known, is the second-largest country in the European Union, after France. If you add the Canary Islands and the Spanish territory along the North African coast, it totals roughly 506,000 square kilometres.

Jordan is home to the world's oldest dam. The Jawa Dam was the first dam to be built, and it was built in 3,000 BCE in the driest areas of Jordan's Black Desert. 

We could sit here and argue that a massive asteroid is to blame for this enormous crater, but it isn't. The fact is that when trees are removed from soft, sandy ground, the earth practically collapses and continues to slide away from natural reasons every so often.

Humans and slugs have a lot more in common than you may assume at first appearance. Our DNA is 70 percent identical to slug DNA. All creatures, like plants, have a common ancestor a long time ago: the DNA of a person and a banana is 50 percent same. As a result, a human is half a banana or 40% cucumber. To some extent, all living organisms on Earth are related — this just means that our evolution took a different course at some point in time.

A student went 264.4 hours without sleep while still in high school, winning first place in the 10th Annual Great San Diego Science Fair in 1964. Randy said emphatically "no" when asked if he'd do it again. Others claim to have broken Randy's record, but none of their attempts were done under close scrutiny, as Randy's were, so there's no way of knowing if they're genuine.

This is an unfortunate fact because many of us have been told the opposite and have tried to cut it far too frequently. However, it is important to remember that split ends prevent our hair from growing, which means that we must cut them as soon as they appear.

We used to think that stress caused sores in your stomach that doesn’t heal. We now know that prolonged use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as aspirin, ibuprofen (Motrin®, Advil®), or naproxen (Aleve®), can interfere with stomach mucus.

Ulcers result when stomach acid reaches the lining, and when they bleed they can cause pain and even be life-threatening.

A bacterium called Helicobacter pylori, or H. pylori, also can cause ulcers. An Australian doctor proved this by drinking the bacteria himself, and he and his colleague won a Nobel prize for the discovery. 

If you happen to be in Key West, Florida, for the holidays, stop by the Bourbon St. Pub, where each new year is greeted by a massive shoe. Sushi, a local drag queen, climbs into an oversized piece of footwear and is (carefully) dropped from a balcony every December 31. Meanwhile, Eastover, North Carolina residents have taken to dropping 30-pound ceramic fleas on the last night of the year. In North Carolina, the town of Mount Olive (home of the Mt. Olive Pickle Company) holds a New Year's Eve "Pickle Drop," in which a giant pickle slides down a flagpole.

Aliens may inhabit one out of every 37 to one out of every 70 sun-like stars. These discoveries alone suggest that there are billions of planets in our galaxy that potentially support life.

Hong Kong is the phonetic equivalent of (heung gong) in Cantonese, which literally translates as "fragrant harbour," derived from the delicious perfume of Aquilaria sinensis, Dongguan incense.

In truth, Sweden is Europe's sixth biggest country. The overall land area of 450,295km2 is more than that of Norway and Denmark combined. Despite being one of the biggest countries in Europe, Sweden has one of the lowest population densities.