Clever Stuff

1. Constructed like a three-dimensional book, these temples, 100 feet under ground, are linked by hundreds of metres of richly decorated tunnels and occupy almost 300,000 cubic feet - Daily Mail

2. You don't like to be around places where people are talking loudly and laughing, okay, you don't like being laughed at, is that it? Don't worry, you don't have to feel guilty about it- you have gelotophobia. You can read about this latest avatar of the naming disease at Science News

3. A-ha!

via jwz

4. "We can create a consciousness to be whatever we want.'- Really?

What about the future of free will? We know that consciousness drives behavior. New neuromodulation techniques will increasingly become available so as to allow us to shape our consciousness to anything we desire. You could identify the neural correlates of beauty in the brain and then amplify them, applying them to any external object. You could theoretically make the average 90 year old woman appear more stunningly attractive to a male than any young female supermodel. The only reason that this isn't the norm now is because it would have been maladaptive in the past. By understanding how consciousness motivates behavior you can possibly predict how a specific change in brain function will alter the way you act. So in some sense this is improving free will, as we are uncoupling our consciousness from our evolutionary past. We can create a consciousness to be whatever we want.

via Brain Stimulant

5. The power of vision, or, how to make a white peacock, or why you should be afraid to look where you should not:

He then moved on to discuss other examples, including a recipe for making white peacocks:
So the imaginative powers of Pea-Cocks, and other Birds, whilest they be coupling, impress a colour upon their wings. Whence we produce white Pea-Cocks, by hanging round the places where they couple, with white Clothes. (p.146)
The peacocks see our white clothes and their imaginations imprint the notion of whiteness onto the offspring they conceive. This process is imagined to be like contagion:

via airswatersplaces.wordpress.com

6. Mustard Museum:

via Atlas Obscura

7. This really is clever, right?

via sloshspot. While you are there, don't forget to look at the stork.

Hmmm... That's it.

Bye.

Be Happy.