Hippocrates (460–377 BC) postulated that the imbalance or excess of four fluids (called humors) within the body play a role in ones emotional and physical state. The chart below shows the four humors (row 1), the condition created by too much of each (row 2), and their respective emotions (row 3):


The Hippocratic theory of personality popularized the practice of bloodletting — opening a vein or applying leeches to "drain off" excessive amounts of the troublesome humor. In medieval Europe, it was common for barber-surgeons (whose professional practice relied on sharp instruments like knives and razors) to advertise their bloodletting services by posting a sign depicting a pale human arm traced with a crimson spiral of blood. (Remember that a ...

1)  Roman Numeral IV

Although the Roman numeral for the number 4 has always been taught to have been "IV," according to historians, the ancient Romans probably used "IIII" most of the time. This is partially backed up by the fact that early grandfather clocks displayed IIII for the number 4 instead of IV. Early clockmakers apparently thought that the IIII balanced out the VIII (used for the number 8) on the clock face and that it just looked better.

2)  Base 60

The Babylonians wrote numbers in a system that used 60 as the base value rather than the number 10. They did not have a symbol for "zero."

3)  Fraction Bar

The Romans did not use numerals to indicate fractions but instead used words to indicate parts of a whole. It wasn't until later in h ...

It's hard to fathom the difficulties our ancestors had to contend with given how our world has advanced with technological sophistication over the past century. We shouldn't, however, underestimate the power of the human-mind, and how everything that was discovered in the past paved the way for the practices used today, especially those used in science.

Of the very first astronomers, the ancient Babylonian were the first to use simple arithmetic to predict the positions of celestial bodies. Evidence reveals that these astronomers, working several centuries B.C.E., also employed sophisticated geometric methods that foreshadow the development of calculus. Historians had thought such techniques did not emerge until more than 1400 years later, ...

Further visual proof suggesting the relationship between birds and dinosaurs!

Thanks to a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea, we now know what 170-year-old champagne (kept in near perfect aging conditions) tastes like! Tasters described the aroma of the champagne - likely the oldest ever imbibed - as spicy, smoky, and leathery.

At 9% alcohol by volume, it was significantly less alcoholic than the modern version, which contains about 12% alcohol, likely due to a less efficient fermentation process. The researchers also found traces of chemicals from wood, suggesting that the champagne was fermented in barrels.

Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/chemistry/2015/04/what-does-170-year-old-champagne-taste?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=facebook ...

A new study finds that Mudskipper fish carry water in their mouths in order to eat prey outside of water. As seen in the video below, the hidden water is expelled at the moment of eating and it serves as a suction to move the water and their meal back toward the esophagus. The water suction, or “hydrostatic” tongue, may serve as the evolutionary bridge that allowed our aquatic ancestors to begin feeding on land.

I am not sure if such blogs are welcome here, but I will try sparking enthusiasm in this subject. Alongside my major field of interest, I have an unhealthy/obsessive curiosity distortion in the archaeology field, specifically Egyptology. And recently, two major discoveries have been made in the Ancient Egyptian land.

The first discovery made was that belonging to an Ancient Queen named Khentakawess's the 3rd's tomb, which was located near her husband's tomb, Pharoah Neferefre. These two, date back to the 4th or 5th dynasties, that is approximately 4000 years back in history. Around that time, the first three pyramids, yes, the ones that we see all the time and are the most famous pyramids of Giza, were being built by Pharoahs Khufu, his son ...

The bones of the male human face evolved their shape to withstand fistfights, according to a recent scientific study.