### Ice Cream, Polio, and Misleading Statistics: Recognizing the Challenges in Medical Research In the 1940s, prior to the implementation of the polio vaccine, which provided relief to concerned parents, the illness posed a frightening risk, especially to young children. In an attempt to lower the public’s chances of contracting this debilitating disease, some health […]

# The Explosive Chemistry Behind Fireworks 🎇 Ah, fireworks — stunning displays of color and light that accentuate our celebrations, leaving us mesmerized (and causing our pets, especially cats, to hide). While most enjoy watching fireworks for their vibrant shows, there’s an extra level of understanding if you have a passion for chemistry. What’s happening […]

# Spaced Repetition: The Ultimate Memory Strategy for Effective Learning In a time characterized by excessive information, the skill to effectively retain and recall data is becoming increasingly essential. A highly effective method to boost memory retention is **spaced repetition**. But what precisely is spaced repetition, and how can we utilize contemporary tools like applications […]

# Reaction Time: Then vs. Now — A Historical and Cognitive Perspective Psychologists have long been intrigued by human reaction times, considering it a vital indicator of cognitive abilities for over a hundred years. Simply put, reaction time (RT) denotes the latency between a stimulus’s arrival and the individual’s response. Whether it’s the sound of […]

## **Analysis of John Bargh’s *Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do*** Esteemed social psychologist John Bargh is a prominent figure in the field of psychology, celebrated for his pioneering work on unconscious processes and human behavior. His latest publication, *Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What […]

## The Psychology of Belief Superiority: How Perceiving Your Views as Absolute Truth Can Foster Overconfidence Have you ever found yourself in a discussion with someone who is completely convinced that their viewpoint reigns supreme? Or perhaps, in certain discussions, you’re the one staunchly believing that your stance is not just correct but evidently superior […]

# Open Science Essentials in 2 Minutes, Part 4: Preprints In the academic sphere, disseminating research swiftly and broadly can be transformative. Historically, research articles undergo extensive peer review prior to publication in journals, often resulting in delays. In contrast, **preprints** provide a quicker route to exposure, enabling scholars to share their outcomes even before […]

It is one of the ironies of the history of science that Galileo’s most important and most  solid piece of science writing[1],  his Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze (Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences) was published almost at the end of his life, when the research that he carried out, on which […]

Aesthetic Representation of a Neuron1 The brain is capable of storing the computer equivalent of a petabyte, or 100 million gigabytes.1 That’s the equivalent of 4.7 billion books. It has 86 billion neurons, 400 miles of capillaries, 100 thousand miles of nerve fibers, and more than 10 trillion synapses.1 And yet, despite this, our memory […]

In the early 1770s London doctor Percival Pott noticed something strange about the chimneysweeps in his town: an unusually high percentage of them had a rare form of cancer. Most chimneysweeps at that time were boys under the age of fifteen because kids were better at squeezing into narrow chimneys. Orphans and street kids, most […]