Is it doable to dwell with out your mind? As unlikely as it could appear, scientists have found uncommon instances of sufferers lacking giant parts of their mind, but are one way or the other nonetheless in a position to dwell virtually regular lives. In 2015, a crew of neurologists and radiologists from Jinan Hospital in Shandong Province, China, wrote to the journal Brain (opens in new tab) reporting a uncommon and strange discovering.
A 24-year-old feminine affected person had been admitted with signs of nausea and vomiting. These had been new signs, however she’d additionally suffered from dizziness and strolling difficulties for many of her life. Despite these challenges, she was married and had a baby.
The docs referred her for laptop tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to go looking her mind for a trigger of those signs. What they noticed was a dysfunction so uncommon that lower than ten individuals all through the world had been identified to be residing with it. They found that the affected person was utterly lacking her cerebellum, a area of the mind regarded as essential for strolling and different actions. Discover extra about this uncommon situation and different unbelievable details about our mind in How It Works issue 166 (opens in new tab).
Also within the newest How It Works journal: Learn how your accent kinds and the way it’s formed over time; how the world retains time with the facility of atoms; see contained in the Statue of Liberty and learn the way it was constructed; what causes the unusual phenomenon of pink lightning; what family mud is made from (put together to be grossed out); how Scandinavia’s fjords are shaped, and rather more.
Read on to seek out out extra about subject 166’s largest options.
Inside the Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty has lengthy been an emblem of freedom and hope. Its official title is “Liberty Enlightening the World”, named by its sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. Also referred to as Lady Liberty, the historic landmark was created to commemorate the centenary of the Declaration of Independence, together with America’s shut relationship with France, which gifted the statue within the late 1800s.
The preliminary idea got here from the French poet, writer and activist Édouard René de Laboulaye. It’s usually reported that Laboulaye got here up with the thought at a cocktail party in 1865 following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, however research have discovered this to be false. Evidence means that Laboulaye conceptualized the statue between 1870 and 1871.
The statue’s design additionally acknowledges beliefs specified by the Declaration of Independence following the tip of the American Civil War and the abolishment of slavery. Lady Liberty has additionally been described because the “Mother of Exiles” by thousands and thousands of immigrants which have turned to the nation for refuge.
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The copper statue — which turned from reddish brown to its iconic jade inexperienced shade over time — was financed by the French public via lotteries, leisure occasions and public charges, whereas the stone pedestal on which it stands was funded by the U.S. via theatrical occasions, auctions and a profitable alternative for donors to have their names printed in “The New York World” newspaper by the famend Joseph Pulitzer.
Learn extra about how the Statue of Liberty was in-built issue 166 of How It Works magazine (opens in new tab).
How does the world maintain time?
Have you ever questioned how the entire world stays in sync? We dwell in numerous time zones, however from New York to Melbourne, a second is at all times a second. That’s as a result of everybody units their native clocks utilizing an internationally agreed commonplace referred to as Coordinated Universal Time, often known as UTC.
UTC is outlined by an company of the United Nations referred to as the International Telecommunication Union. It’s primarily based on two measurements: the ticking of tons of of ultra-stable atomic clocks (International Atomic Time) and the rotation of the Earth (Universal Time).
Nations internationally set their native time by including or subtracting from UTC relying on their place on the globe. UTC, or the world clock, has been round for the reason that first day of the Nineteen Sixties, shortly after Louis Essen constructed the primary atomic clock. This precision timepiece promised to unravel the centuries-old downside of second palms working too quick or too gradual.
Before the Fifties, essentially the most correct clocks used vibrating quartz crystals to maintain time, however the seconds would drift each day. Essen’s invention used the quantum properties of caesium atoms to maintain the crystals in sync.
Now greater than 400 extraordinarily secure atomic clocks maintain monitor of time the world over. Each one transmits a sign to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France. The bureau compares them as soon as a month to provide you with a ultimate quantity referred to as International Atomic Time. Each clock will get a distinct weighting within the calculation relying on how secure it’s.
See how an atomic clock retains such exact time within the latest issue of How It Works magazine (opens in new tab).
How fjords shaped
Walled in by steep, rocky cliffs, river-like techniques monitor via among the planet’s most mountainous terrain. The water discovered flowing here’s a mixture of freshwater that has run down from the mountaintops and saltwater filling in from the ocean. The water traverses mountain valleys like a river, however this can be a extra distinctive system often known as a fjord.
Relatively uncommon internationally, fjords are outlined by their formation. Their handy low paths had been produced by glaciers as they eroded the land over the last ice age. The motion of glaciers was strongest inland, ensuing within the deepest sections of those slender waterways — typically 1000’s of metres deep — being situated farthest from the coast.
Fjords comply with a pre-carved path, directing water between dramatic mountain peaks. Throughout historical past, people have utilised fjords for inland navigation. The time period fjord is derived from this, that means “where one fares through” in Norwegian. Norway and different Scandinavian nations maintain the best share of Earth’s fjords, however this title has been adopted internationally.
Fjords can department out into many arms, spreading far throughout the panorama. Many of those stretch into very distant areas, and on account of many fjords being troublesome to entry, they continue to be largely unpolluted. They additionally function a file of Earth’s pure historical past and a protected setting the place the motion of glaciers from many 1000’s of years in the past could be tracked.
Discover how fjords kind and see inside one in every of these historical waterways within the latest How It Works magazine (opens in new tab).
