A simplified illustration of the various brain functions...

An illustration of the magnus effect by trying to score a basket - with a twist. See for yourself!

This is the Wilson's bird-of-paradise, found exclusively on the tiny islands of Waigeo and Batanta in the Raja Ampat archipelago of West Papua. That turquoise cap isn't made of feathers - it's actually a patch of very brightly coloured bald skin.

Watch this guy get a tattoo as he explains the science behind the equipment and the pain.

Watch as one of nature's most efficient killing machines slowly chows down on the face of a fly as it writhes helplessly in its arms. It's the sound that really got to us...

This might be painful to watch for some viewers, but as tattoos become more popular, you might need this done to you one day.

This video offers up one of the strongest natural hallucinatory illusions we've ever experienced.

"We don't live in a world of reality but a world of perception." Try to read every letter on the screen...

Watch the fastest animal in the world - a peregrine falcon - effortlessly accelerate to speeds of more than 290 km/h to chase a plummeting skydiver.

India’s tiger population has risen from 1,706 individuals to 2,226 in the past four years, officials have reported. With the global population teetering around 3,000 individuals, this kind of growth is incredible.

Lost Lake, located in central Oregon, is known for rapidly draining every year through a six-foot (two-meter) wide hole in the lake's bottom (as shown in the video). Early in the following spring, however, the lake fills up again, as snowmelt from the surrounding mountains accumulates faster than water can drain out through the hole. That hole is really a lava tube - a geologic feature made when lava cools around the edges of a river of molten rock. After the hot lava drains away, it can leave an empty space. ...

This lion, named Will, spent his life with a traveling circus in Brazil. "For 13 long years, the lion had been confined to a cramped cage and denied any semblance of a normal existence," the Sao Paulo sanctuary wrote.

What's happening: The foam used in this experiment is a type of synthetic carbon, which means it's so dense, it doesn't allow for air-flow. Because of this, the heat smoulders through the material, rather than forming a proper flame, sucking the oxygen out as it goes, and leaving behind the dried out remains. This is the same reaction that happens when you turn wood into charcoal.

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This is Richard Feynman's take on a simple question, why do magnets repel each other?

A little more on Richard Feynman. He was an American theoretical physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model.

As always: A scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, but one who asks the right questions. ...

At only eights years-old, Zion Harvey is the youngest person with a double hand transplant ever. Four teams of surgeons worked over 11 hours to complete the complicated operation. Zion lost both of his hands and feet when he contracted sepsis at age two and experienced multiple organ failures. When he was four, he received a kidney transplant from his mother, and leg prosthetics have enabled him to engage in many activities.

Turkish communities living in the mountains in the north east of the country use a remarkable whistling language to communicate. Around 10,000 people use the bird-like whistle, which researchers suggest is the first known form of language to use both sides of the brain.

Whistlers usually speak Turkish when talking near each other, but switch to whistling when they want to convey a message over longer distances, which can be up to five kilometers. The whistling language has the same vocabulary and grammatical structure as Turkish, it’s just a different format. Scientists have previously assumed that all spoken language, written texts and sign language mainly utilize the left hemisphere, but this doesn't seem to be the case for the whistling l ...

It's true, and this estimate is the same for tomorrow, and the day after. This video explains the Years of Life Lost measurement - a measurement which takes into account the age at which deaths occur by giving greater weight to deaths at younger age and lower weight to deaths at older age (more information can be found here). The video neatly displays the leading causes of death in each country from 2013. According to statistics, Saudi Arabia really needs to chill out with its driving antics given that death by vehicle is the leading cause of early death there at 19 people per day!

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Just wait until they put these in phones so that they can self-destruct once a user's contract is through!

What can we learn from chimps swinging their hips? In this Nature Video, the walking style of our primate cousins are investigated, and we see what they can teach us about our ambling ancestors.

Could the most widely used personality questionnaire simply be a farce?

In case you don't know, the Myers-Briggs test is an assessment test believed by many to measure psychological preferences in how they perceive things and help them in making decisions. According to the Myers-Briggs test, there exist sixteen different types of personalities. This Myers Briggs Test has a series of questions that require your answers, which in turn determine the type of personality you have and provides you with general assumptions concerning how your personality type best suits you.

Back in year-3 of my undergrad., I had to spend $20 to take the test for an assignment I had to write. While it was interesting to note how my personality could be read throug ...

As soon as we're born, we're destined to age. Some of us age gracefully - we enjoy years of youthfulness - while others experience hair loss, wrinkles, and greying earlier than expected.

Found in the core of each hair, a pigment known as melanin gives rise to a person's hair color. This universal pigment is also found in our skin and eyes, giving use our unique physical traits. Dark and light versions of melanin - eumelanin and phaeomelanin, respectively - combine in various combinations to create all natural hair colors.

Melanin itself is the product of a specialized cell, the melanocyte, which is found in each hair follicle, from which the hair grows. As hair grows, the melanocyte injects melanin into the hair cells, which contain the s ...

The rare Iranian spider-tailed viper (Pseudocerastes urarachnoides) waggles a fake "spider" - actually a fleshy lure with leg-like scales at the tip of its tail - to tempt birds within striking distance. Until 2001, the viper was known only from a single misidentified specimen collected during a U.S. expedition to Iran in 1968. The weird structure on its tail was so unlike anything documented in other snakes that it was written off as a birth defect or an abnormal growth. While scientists had suspected its unique tail was used for luring prey, new observations of the dramatic bird captures now confirm this. The new study also revealed the viper starts growing its tail lure after birth, and that it isn’t complete until adulthood.  

After two years of work, Martin Molin of the Swedish band Wintergatan debuted a fully custom-made machine that plays music using 2,000 marbles. The marble machine features multiple instruments including a bass guitar, cymbals, and a vibraphone all played by falling marbles. Apart from the 11 mm steel ball bearing marbles, he made all the gears powering the machine by hand.

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To tap into scarce water supplies, most desert plants have extensive root systems that burrow deep or spread wide. But one desert moss has a different trick up its sleeve: a thirst-quenching structure called an awn. Awns are tiny, hairlike structures that project from the end of each leaf to capture water (above). For the first time, scientists have examined in detail how this moss (Syntrichia caninervis) pulls water right from the air using its awns. At the smallest scale, the awns are covered with grooves about 100 nanometers deep and 200 nanometers wide, the perfect size for dew to condense within them when conditions are right. Those nanogrooves lie within larger troughs that measure about 1.5 micrometers deep and 3 micrometers wide, a ...

Can you figure out this optical illusion?

Squares are magically turned into circles, then vice versa. But interestingly, it's not strictly the mirror that is fooling you - it's a combination of the shapes used and your fickle perspective.

The trick was designed by Kokichi Sugihara from Meiji University in Japan for the "Illusion Of The Year" competition. You can see the other top 10 finalists from the competition right here.

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Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a recreational, psychedelic drug that alter awareness of the surroundings, perceptions, and feelings, as well as sensations and images that seem real though they are not.

LSD works by binding primarily to the dopamine receptors and adrenal receptors in the brain. It also binds to most of the serotonin receptors. The binding process is believed to overstimulate the natural neurotransmission process, activating the receptors and altering thought and perceptions.

Though medical researchers have not scientifically proven how this process alters consciousness, they are certain about the binding process which links hallucinogenic chemicals to receptors and disrupts neurotransmission between receptors and parts of ...

Brain freeze is the name used to describe the sensation you get when you consume something really cold, really fast. The scientific name for this temporary cold-stimulus headache is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.

When something extremely cold touches the upper-palate (roof of the mouth), blood vessels in this region dilate to increase blood flow to counter the cold. The homeostatic triggers in your body perceive the cold as a threat to the brain, thinking the brain is in danger from the cold. As the warm blood rushes to your brain, this build-up of blood pressure causes the pain you feel. While brain freezes are not dangerous, they are slightly uncomfortable, so the best way to make it quickly go away is to rub or press your tongue against ...

Perhaps one of my favourite TEDtalks. Amy Cuddy’s research on body language reveals that we can change other people’s perceptions - and even our own body chemistry - simply by changing body positions. Her take-home message is simple, instead of faking it till you make it and living a life as an impostor, you must fake it till you become it.

The tough-yet-fragile physical properties of the tadpole-shaped pieces of glass known as Prince Rupert’s drops have puzzled physicists for as long as, well, there have been physicists. Bash the head with a hammer, and a drop gets barely a scratch. But break off its thin tail, and it shatters into fine powder.

Researchers long ago realized that the strength of the drops - named for Prince Rupert of Bavaria, who presented five of them to Britain’s King Charles II in 1660 - has something to do with stresses in the glass created when a drop is made by letting a blob of molten glass fall into water, so that it cools rapidly.

Twenty years ago, a pair of researchers took high-speed video of a drop disintegrating showing that, when the tail is brok ...

Want to better your vocabulary? Try pronouncing these words on your own, then attempt to use at least one in your next conversation!

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilic ovolcanoconiosis – 45 letters

• A lung disease caused by breathing in volcanic dust.

Supercalifragilisticexpialido cious – 34 letters

• Meaning "wonderful", from song of this title in the movie Mary Poppins. 

Floccinaucinihilipilification – 29 letters

• Meaning "the action or habit of estimating as worthless".

Trinitrophenylmethylnitramine – 29 letters

• A chemical compound used as a detonator in shells.

Antidisestablishmentarianism – 28 letters

• Meaning "opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England".

Electroencephalographically – 27 letters

• Relating to brain waves.

Microspectrophotometr ...