Bright Side

Video gaming is a popular form of entertainment. But how video games do affect the brain and behavior? Are these effects positive or negative? What happens if you play video games all day? In fact, how many hours of video games is too much? Let's figure it out! So, you cleared a week out of your schedule, so nobody and nothing can bother you for at least 4 days. You're gonna play video games for 100 hours straight!

But first, some more prep. You head to the grocery store, throw a whole crate of energy drinks in the cart. Some quick easy snacks: a dozen bags of chips, a box of pastries, frozen pizzas, another crate of energy drinks. Need to get your gaming spot ready. Make it as comfortable as possible – even the slightest inconvenience will be critical in 100 hours. Perfect! You’re all set for your 4-day gaming marathon!

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Can animals sense earthquakes? Nobody can reliably predict when and where an earthquake will occur. But there are animals that can be used to predict earthquakes! For example, oarfish can feel the electromagnetic changes happening when underwater earthquakes shake the bottom of the ocean. Plus, oarfish, the longest bony fish in the world, are really bad swimmers and can't withstand strong currents. That's why they drift to the shore before tsunamis.

But this isn't the only way to predict earthquakes. Have you ever heard of earthquake lights? They don't come out before every earthquake and take different colors and shapes. From short blue sparks to huge forks of light, they look as though some interstellar visitors decided to see how things are down on Earth. They can look like ball lightning that stays up from tens of seconds to minutes. Quake lights have been spotted all across the world over the centuries, from Italy to San Francisco and Japan. Powerful earthquakes followed them... What natural disasters can people predict? And how do we do it?

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Imagine you've got stuck in quicksand or are locked in a car by a kidnapper. Luckily these are things that normally only happen in our worst nightmares. But there is still the possibility that you might face a life-threatening situation today and, so far, humans have turned out to fall short in effectively fighting these threats. It is clear that some expert advice is needed to figure out how to cope with the most extreme situations.

Did you know, for example, that if you get trapped under some debris, for example, during an earthquake, your main task is to protect your breathing organs? Or that the most life-threatening thing about a house fire is smoke? Or how to perform the Heimlich maneuver on yourself? We suggest that you just keep calm and follow these simple survival tricks.

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July, 1957. An ordinary day in the state of Kerala, India. People walk down the streets doing their business and it begins to rain. Suddenly, people start to shout and run away in fear. Everything turns into a kind of horror movie. Because the rain drops that fall from the sky are bright red. And this is not a horror movie. It's all happening for real.

Imagine the familiar view outside your window. What if you saw it gradually turn red? The clothes of people caught in the rain would change to pink. So what caused the red rain? There's a logical explanation for it. And for white rain, too. As well as for black rain. Wait, really? What other rain colors are there? Well, a green rain fell near Calcutta in the summer of 2002, and one day a brown rain fell in southern Russia. Let's find out more about these amazing natural phenomena.

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What if the Moon was replaced with any other planet from the Solar System? The Moon is the Earth's closest space neighbor and its only natural satellite. It likely formed when a huge, Mars-sized object crashed into our planet billions of years ago. This catastrophe turned Earth into a scorching ball of molten rock. It also pushed some material into its orbit, creating the Moon.

Now, this heavily cratered sphere moves around our planet. This causes high and low tides around the globe. A bit more than one-fourth the size of Earth, it's the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System. Whatever the satellite looks like, you can always find it in the night sky and sometimes, even during the day. But imagine waking up at night and noticing that the Moon looks somewhat different than usual...

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I’m twenty, and life’s becoming a virtue. I’ve just graduated from college! I’m officially a Master of Science now and thinking of becoming a doctor, but I’m not sure my Ma and Pa will be alright without me. They’re already growing too... young now, and I’m afraid they’ll get in trouble if I’m not there. Once, Pa went to a party and didn’t come back for three days! Got Ma worried sick, she gave him a huge slap when he finally turned up. They made up real soon, though. Youth is passionate, you know.

I used to hate PE at school, but I love it now! Every chance I get, I go running in the nearby park, and even asked my parents to get me a gym membership for my birthday. It’s so good to feel those old bones creak less and less with every passing day! ... Confused? Wanna know what this is all about? Okay, have you ever thought of how life would be different if we were born old and get younger every year? We really love unusual what-if stories, and we decided to imagine what would happen if people aged backwards.

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Who would win in a fight between a Megalodon and a Titanoboa? Well, let's figure out! That would be a very unusual match. But it’d also be spectacular and intense. Okay, Megalodon! This species went extinct about 3 million years ago, but there are good reasons why it’s now a legendary animal. It's the biggest shark that ever existed, and it was a super-powerful predator in its time.

Titanoboa is way bigger than any other snake. It lived in the swamps of Colombia, and it was the real boss of the area. Titanoboa could eat absolutely any animal it decided to hunt, and it faced no competition. It could swallow a giant turtle or even a crocodile. It looked like a modern boa but behaved like an anaconda. And that's a very scary mix. But could it stop a giant shark?

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What happens if you swallow a watermelon seed? Will it grow in your stomach? Well, actually, watermelon seeds, just like the seeds of other berries, can't settle in the human body: they just float through our digestive system and remove themselves from the body during the day when we go to the toilet. To grow a watermelon, you need warm soil rich in nutrients. The human stomach is not fit for this, but mine turned out absolutely perfect for growing watermelons for some reason!

Here's what happened. I went to the hospital after eating a juicy sweet watermelon. In that afternoon I felt something weird in my stomach. The doctors scanned my body and found an unusual abnormality. A watermelon seed I'd swallowed stayed in my stomach for some reason, and it looked like it was sprouting inside me! I wanted to get rid of it, but the doctors said it was safe as long as it was controlled. They also offered me a more than decent amount of money if I let them watch the watermelon grow...

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Tyrannosaurus Rex existed about 70 million years ago. No one could defeat him in a fair battle. The largest T-Rex ever found was named Scotty. His hips were about 12 feet tall. But if Scotty straightened his back, he would be about 42 feet tall. It’s like putting 3 giraffes on top of each other. And if you wanted to pet this cute guy on the nose, you would have to stand on the shoulders of 7 people to reach him.

Megalodon went extinct about 3 million years ago, but legends about it are still alive. It’s the biggest shark that ever existed, and it was a super predator in its time. Megalodon was about 50 feet long, which is more than a school bus! It was not only the most massive shark that ever existed but also the largest fish in the world. Its closest competitor in size was a modern whale shark. But he loses to megalodon by as much as 10 feet. But what would happen if T. Rex and Megalodon meet face to face? Who would win?

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What would happen if all of the ocean water became clear so we could see through it? Well, when the water in all the oceans becomes transparent, the world will change forever. In a few years, people will discover thousands of new sea creatures that were previously unknown. Simultaneously, the planet will lose hundreds of thousands of fish and mammal species, too. The cycle of life on Earth will be interrupted, and humanity will face natural disasters and famine.

The beginning will be incredible. Imagine you're sailing on an expensive liner somewhere in the Atlantic ocean. Suddenly, you hear screams. All the shocked passengers come to the edge of the deck and watch an incredible picture. The ship seems to be floating high in the sky. Under it, the water is completely transparent. You see volcanic sea mountains and coral reefs of different colors and shades. The bottom is thousands of feet from the surface, so it feels like the ship is floating high above the ground. Only the fish swimming in this "sky" let us know that the boat is still on the water...

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