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In Iceland if somebody is very wise you say that person is “vitur”. It means they have a lot of “vit” or “sense”. And the opposite of that, when someone is not wise at all they are “vitleysingur”. It means that person does not have any “vit”, essentially they are “witless”. A recent study showed that learning new words activates the same region that is active when you do pleasurable activities like eating cake or seeing your favorite band perform. We hope you find “vitleysingur” mind-blowing. In the study researchers gave participants two tasks: one was learning new words and the other was a gambling task. FMRI scan showed that the ventral stratum, the kay area involved in reward and motivation was active in both tasks. It sorts of makes sense because communicating with people gives us pleasure. Research shows that through human <a href="https://rumble.com/v30na7-10-unsolved-mysteries-of-evolution.html" target="_blank">evolution</a> we were motivated to acquire linguistic skills and learn new language because it is tied to this reward system. We describe things as mind-blowing all the time, but what does it actually mean? The emotional aspect to learning new languages is extremely important because we need emotion to engage our learning cycle. Research shows that we are <a href="https://rumble.com/v4cks7-learning-the-language-while-you-travel.html" target="_blank">learning</a> best when we are in a state of relaxed awareness, not too aroused or totally disengaged. Learning comes best when you are in this mood and you experience awe and curiosity. When we learn new cool bits of information we activate that same reward region of our brain as when we learn new words. You feel good because you have learned something cool and you want to learn more. Curiosity is contagious and it is sort of addictive as well. Learning new words activates the reward area of our brain and, perhaps, learning surprising new bits, or “vits” of information does too.

The *mind-blowing* story of Phineas Gage, a man who survived with a hole in his brain – and what we learnt from him.

A halfalogue is that distracting half-of-a-conversation that you overhear. And you absolutely must know the other half. Because you're a curious human and your brain circuitry rewards you for finding out. Here's the lowdown.

Feel disoriented when you wake up? One in seven people suffers from this effect called 'Sleep Drunkenness'. It is the same for everybody: you wake up to the annoying sound of your alarm clock, telling you it is another day for you to get out of your bed and go about your day, but instead you talk to the phone, thinking someone is calling you and then ‘hang up’ to go back to your sleep. It is called ‘severe sleep inertia’, a state when you wake up suddenly from your slumber and you feel groggy and disoriented, thinking how confusing life is. According to research, one in seven people experience this phenomenon, with episodes typically lasting up to 15 minutes after you are so rudely woken up. During those episodes, it is quite normal to pour your morning cereal in the dishwasher. When we <a href="https://rumble.com/v3qc5z-our-sleep-patterns-inherited-from-hunter-gatherers-says-study.html" target="_blank">sleep</a>, we cycle through three stages of light and deep sleep. The first and second stages are light, called non-REM 1 and non-REM 2 stages. During these stages, we can be woken up pretty easily. But when we hit non-REM 3, we enter deep sleep, followed by REM, which stands for Rapid Eye Movement. Yes, our eyes actually move back and forth and we are most likely to dream during this stage. Sleep drunkenness occurs when we are woken up from this REM stage, while our brains still contain a chemical called adenosine. It is a neurotransmitter that travels between nerve cells, promoting sleep and suppresses arousal. When you have your <a href="https://rumble.com/v47itx-starbucks-menu-change-could-be-game-changer-to-morning-coffee-routine.html" target="_blank">morning cup of joe</a>, the caffeine fights the morning effects of adenosine and speeds up the rate our nerve cells communicate with each other. This is especially helpful if you reach for your hot, black beverage as soon as you wake up. So, next time you find yourself talking to your alarm in the morning, remember - there could be a sleep drunkenness anonymous group somewhere if we weren’t all so far apart.

These cool glasses give new hope for visually impaired people to see again.

Do you have food nostalgia? Why are our memories of food are so vivid (and delicious).

Your love of social media may have a bigger impact than you thought.

Some of the biggest evolution questions finally answered.

They say people can always tell if you are faking a smile because your eyes are not mirroring your mouth. In reality, when you are tired or stressed, a fake facade is sometimes the only thing you can muster. But according to this explanation, even a fake smile can sometimes be better than none at all. In the mid 19th century, a French scientist by the name of Guillaume Duchenne studied <a href="https://rumble.com/v378lf-puppy-surprise.html" target="_blank">emotional responses</a> in humans by stimulating different areas on his subject’s faces with - you guessed it - good old electricity. This helped him isolate the muscles that we use to express fear, sadness and joy. But it also helped him distinguish which muscles on our faces create a fake smile, and which create a genuine smile. There are two muscles: one just under our eyes called orbicularis oculi, and another on the sides of our cheeks called zygomaticus major, that work together to give our expressions that real smile. It is also called a Duchenne smile. Charles Darwin was inspired by Duchenne and conducted his own research. In it, he suggests that our facial expressions actively influence our mood, calling it the facial feedback hypothesis. In a more recent study, subjects were given Botox shots for the corrugator muscles in their brows so they could not express sad or distressed emotions on their face. They reported that their positive mood was higher than the other participant who received different medications. The conclusion is pretty simple, although a bit controversial. If you bear through your periods of sadness and stress with a fake smile, the happiness you present will eventually catch up with you. You can always watch this <a href="https://rumble.com/v34932-cute-labrador-loves-to-smile.html" target="_blank">dog smiling on cue</a>, it always works for us.

A look at some awesome people behind discoveries in psychology, neuroscience and biology.

Amusiais an intriguing word, but what does it mean? Amusia is a musical disorder that appears mainly as a defect in processing pitch but also encompasses musical memory and recognition. Amusia may be present from birth or may develop as the result of an injury. Can you imagine life without music? We know we can’t. Take a look at these interesting facts and stories about some people who can't hear the music. Mrs. L was a young-looking sixty-seven-year-old woman. She was intelligent, but she didn’t know what “singing” meant. She also didn’t hear music like most of us do. In Oliver Saks’ book Musicophilia, Mrs. L described music to sound like pots and pans being thrown around the kitchen. This condition isn’t unique to Mrs. L. About 4% of the population is born with “amusia”. In some worse amusia, some people can’t even recognize musical information at all. A recent study looked at why beat deaf individuals are unable to keep a beat or tap along with <a href="https://rumble.com/v2zp92-freestyle-slalom-klaudia-hartmanis.html" target="_blank">music</a>. We are not entirely certain about what’s going on inside the brains of those who suffer from amsuia; a number of regions are involved in processing music. We do know that the ability to move along to a beat isn’t unique to the human brain. Other species with local learning abilities are able to keep a beat-think dolphins, seals, parrots and even <a href="https://rumble.com/v2zljm-parrot-singing-with-2-year-old-drummer.html" target="_blank">cockatoos</a> like Snowball, the dancing sensation.

Twas the night before Christmas, so here are some scientific gift giving tips.

Every once in a while we add a second onto our days. Similar to the Leap Year, this is known as the Leap Second. But, if the Leap Year already helps us account for the offset from a calendar in days, what exactly does the Leap Second do? Check out this video for the answer!

The scientific reasons you're into your bae.

The lingerling radiation from the ancient universe still surrounds us to this day.

Even those that are most productive in their lives are known to take a “breather” from the chores and obligations and just let their mind wander. Taking a break to do simple or "mindless" tasks can have a positive impact on your creativity, productivity and decision making. So if you're going to procrastinate or waste time, here's how to do it properly. And it involves one of our most favorite platforms - YouTube! There are ways you can effectively waste time that can lead to a boost in problem-solving, productivity and creativity. Researchers at the University of Melbourne have published a number of studies on “workplace internet leisure browsing”. We have to say, we are experts at workplace internet leisure browsing! In one of said studies, researchers have said that those who “surf the internet for fun at work” within a reasonable time limit, say, less than 20% of their total time in the office, are 9% more productive than those who stay clear of these activities. In the follow-up studies, researchers argue that workplace internet leisure browsing is “an unobtrusive interruption which enables restoration of mental capacity and fosters feels of autonomy”. A study titled “Inspired by Distraction: Mind Wandering Facilitates Creative Incubation” from the University of California, found that when participants did an undemanding task, it led to substantial improvement in performance on a problem they’ve encountered before, compared to those doing a demanding task, just resting or having no break at all. The conclusion is that letting the mind to wander by doing simple tasks can boost creative problem-solving. You don’t have to watch <a href="https://rumble.com/v33t8a-what-what-goat.html" target="_blank">goat</a> or <a href="https://rumble.com/v2zo8e-6-month-old-kitten-dancing-with-her-owner.html" target="_blank">kitten videos</a>; you can just go for a walk. It is equally as effective.

I smell a science storm a-comin'!!

Be grateful, it's good for you!

Are you easily fooled? Why we fall for April Fool's Pranks.

American college students and Tamil speakers in India were given the same unusual task: to connect two meaningless words to two irregular shapes. The remarkable result was that more than 95% of people provided the same answer. The words in question were “buba” and “kiki” and the shapes were random drawings of closed lines, one of them round-edged and the other pointy. The people associated the round-shaped line with the word “buba” and the pointy one to “kiki”. The results of the experiment indicate that we can draw meaning from where there is none. Even when we are talking to someone in the same language, our body language, tone, pitch and accent convey information beyond what we tell. What about accents? We all have it, although no one seems to notice their own. Accents develop because people who live in close proximity share the way of speaking, and we have our own accent bias. Studies have shown that even one-year-old babies have a preference for the sounds of the <a href="https://rumble.com/v30jfx-english-language-quiz-renaissance-period.html" target="_blank">language</a> spoken at home. But why does the English speaking world have so many accents in the first place? After colonizing territories on all world continents the descendants of the English must have lost the English accent at some point and developed their local way of speaking. During the period of 200 years since the first settlement to the invention of sound records, accents have changed and even developed tendencies peculiar to a geographical area: the <a href="https://rumble.com/v4e4ut-buckeye-woman-wakes-up-with-british-accent.html" target="_blank">British</a> non-rhetoric (inaudible) vs. the American rhetoric (hard) “r”. The way we talk conveys information about our level of education, ethnicity, socio-economic status, maybe not always accurate but it can affect people’s perceptions. Especially about credibility: people with accent are more likely to be disbelieved, and the heavier the accent the less believable they are perceived to be. Also, people are more likely to rate a suspect as guilty if they have a regional accent vs. a London accent. However, we all have a bias towards our own accent – we like it because it belongs to our social group.

Is more choice really better than less?

Day by day, country by country, we tend to measure seasons differently.

Ever not felt completely like yourself? There's a good reason for that. Because a large part of you isn't actually you. Our bodies are home to ten times as many microbes as human cells. We are walking ecosystems, each of us home to thousands of different species on and inside of us. Meet your microbiome!

A 24-year-old guy known as Z decided he had enough sleeping in this lifetime so one day in 1930, he approached a couple of researchers and ask them if they could help him stop sleeping. He was convinced that sleep is a habit and that with proper procedures the habit could be broken. On several occasions, he would have gone without sleep for four or five days. There are many experiments like this in the past and in this one, the guy Z thought if he could be stimulated by tasks and other people to stay awake more than a week he would never need to sleep again. He would break the habit. So, the researchers gave him a typewriter and ask him to type for thirty minutes a day marking each minute of typing. They would compare his typing speed and accuracy as one measure to find out the effects of sleeplessness. Throughout the ten days of not sleeping, his pulse, his blood pressure and the chemicals in his pee all stayed the same. He did a bunch of intelligence tests every day and his marks belly changed. But his typing speed declined and after day four he couldn’t type any more. He couldn’t fixate on letters and numbers and he said his eyes were sore. Still, Z stayed up and didn’t complained of <a href="https://rumble.com/viral/v1217871-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-information.html" target="_blank">mental or physical fatigue</a>. He didn’t become easily irritated. He started reporting hallucinations. On the last day of the experiment he wrote a nice poem and when the experiment ended, he slept. The researchers concluded that it was possible to go with practically no sleep for ten days without any known physiological effects or damage to mental functions. Similar studies found no damage from sleeplessness. Now after 50 more years research we know that sleep deprivation leads to depression, high blood pressure, diabetes, <a href="https://rumble.com/v3he57-natural-weight-loss-and-anti-aging-secrets-to-regain-your-health.html" target="_blank">weight gain</a> and heart diseases. A good night sleep is kind of a big deal. We need 7-9 hours at night for our memory to function. If we don’t sleep, we will never learn. Your body needs sleep, just as it needs air and food to function at its best. So, don’t forget to sleep.

Sometimes you just don’t want to make a whole new dinner. You don’t have the strength to open the cookbook, much less fighting with your spouse listening to their iPod during the meals. When you see a bunch of leftovers in the fridge, it’s like you’re Tom Hanks seeing the boat in ‘ Cast Away’. You’re saved. But, not so fast my friends, when it comes to reheating those leftovers, you may not know that you are probably doing it wrong. The average US adult eats 4.8 meals per week in restaurants. That’s almost 250 meals per year or 250 superfluous Yelp reviews. Well, with the restaurant's portions larger than they’ve ever been, most people are heading home with leftovers in tow. And in 90% of all homes, microwaves have been the primary choice for reheating most leftovers. What people don’t know though, is that microwaves may not be your best reheating choice. And when it’s all you have, you are probably doing it wrong. The idea of cooking food in the microwave was accidentally discovered by Percy Lebaron Spencer of the Raytheon company when radar waves accidentally melted a candy bar in his pocket. In the video, you can find multiple choices of how to reheat the <a href="https://rumble.com/v39pcn-pizza-stuffed-burger-roll.html" target="_blank">pizza</a>, which is the most common meal to be reheated. There are also great tips of reheating French fries and rice. If you learned something new from this video, you can also watch a video of them about <a href="https://rumble.com/v4g781-cures-for-the-common-cold.html" target="_blank">cures for the common cold!</a>