Ecology

The witches of Triora, the witchcraft trial in 16th century Liguria

The witches of Triora, the witchcraft trial in 16th century Liguria

The Triora witch trials saw thirty women accused of caused a famine through magical rites, in cahoots with the Evil One, between 1587 and 1589. The unfortunate women of what is still known today as the “village of witches” were unjustly imprisoned and subjected to atrocious torturedue to which an alleged witch died and another took her own life. The ...

Speaking a second language protects the brain and increases gray matter, but it comes at a cost

Speaking a second language protects the brain and increases gray matter, but it comes at a cost

Learning a new language it’s not just a way to travel seamlessly to any part of the world and better integrate with distant cultures; it’s a real biological workout that it resculpts the very structure of our brain. Science has proven that bilingual experience induces a extraordinary neuroplasticitymodifying the density of gray matter and the integrity of neuronal connections, even ...

Eric Moussambani is the slowest swimmer in history: the solo Olympic 100m freestyle race in Sydney

Eric Moussambani is the slowest swimmer in history: the solo Olympic 100m freestyle race in Sydney

Eric Moussambani in his race in Sydney 2000 – Credit: @Olympics, via x.com Eric Moussambani Malonganicknamed “Eric the Eel,” went down in history as the slowest swimmer ever. We are at Sydney 2000 Olympicsin Sydney’s huge swimming stadium, where 17,000 spectators are enjoying the exploits of their home idol Ian Thorpe (5 medals including 3 gold with as many world ...

Is dry cleaning really “dry”? No, other liquid solvents are used instead of water

Is dry cleaning really “dry”? No, other liquid solvents are used instead of water

The term “dry cleaning”, or dry cleaning in English, indicates a fabric cleaning process carried out in non-aqueous solvents. Even if it makes us think of our clothes being “magically” washed without liquids, as if only gas or strange cleaning tricks were used, there is nothing magical about it. Actually, dry cleaning is not liquid-freebut it is free of water. ...

Who were the "muckrakers", American pioneers of investigative journalism who exposed scandals

Who were the “muckrakers”, American pioneers of investigative journalism who exposed scandals

With the deadline muckrakers we indicate a small group of investigative journalists (but also, to a lesser extent, writers and photographers) who, in the early years of the 20th century, attempted to change the way of reporting reality and its articulations, exposing corruption, scandals and social injustices on all fronts, from society to politics, from economics to finance. The objective ...

The art of Michaelina Wautier, the Flemish painter whose works were attributed to men, has been rediscovered

The art of Michaelina Wautier, the Flemish painter whose works were attributed to men, has been rediscovered

Michaelina Wautier, self-portrait with easel; via Wikimedia Commons You’ve probably never heard of Michaelina Wautier: for years, in fact, the paintings of this Flemish painter, active in central Europe in the mid-seventeenth century, have been attributed to male artists who were his contemporaries. Only recently has her work been rediscovered – as had already happened for other artists, including Artemisia ...

Why are we more inclined to take risks in adolescence? The neuroscientific explanation

Why are we more inclined to take risks in adolescence? The neuroscientific explanation

THE’adolescence it is universally recognized as a time of exploration, emotional intensity and, often, impulsive behavior. The statistics confirm the premonitions, showing a dramatic peak in dangerous behaviors and reckless such as reckless driving, substance abuse and unprotected sexual activity. Why do you consciously choose the “charm” of risk? Part of the answer lies in a peculiar “time window” of ...

Tricks to do multiplication in your head with faster calculations

Tricks to do multiplication in your head with faster calculations

There are tricks to do it multiplication in mindquickly, without resorting to column multiplication. In general it involves replacing a multiplication with simpler operations that give the same result, but some of them seem like magic tricks. Let’s see some of them, those that exploit simpler operations, the magic trick of multiplication by 11 and that of the product of ...

Largest data breach in history: WhatsApp bug exposed 3.5 billion accounts

Largest data breach in history: WhatsApp bug exposed 3.5 billion accounts

A flaw in the system with which WhatsApp identifies contacts in the address book has allowed a group of academics to rebuild a global database of over 3.5 billion active accounts. We are not talking about the content of the messages, which remained protected, but about an enormous amount of personal metadata (phone numbers, profile images, information texts and even ...