We’re a bit embar­rassed to admit that it took us three times to spot the change in this fas­ci­nat­ing video illu­sion at New Sci­en­tist, even after read­ing about the research behind the video. The test was devel­oped by Kevin O’Re­gan and his team at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Paris Descartes as part of their work on per­cep­tion. O’Re­gan is best known for his work on change blind­ness, our rel­a­tive inabil­i­ty to per­ceive grad­ual change, and our ten­den­cy to focus sole­ly on what we per­ceive to be the most dynam­ic or inter­est­ing ele­ment of a scene.

If this video isn’t enough to con­vince of you of O’Re­gan’s the­o­ries, he’s post­ed a whole slew of demon­stra­tions at his web­site. Bet­ter yet, you can dis­pel any remain­ing doubts (or self-esteem) by tak­ing this aware­ness test, which is even more dra­mat­ic. It bowled us over. Let us know in the com­ments if it did the same for you.

via Kirstin But­ler

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

In this high­ly NSFW video pro­duced by the Aus­tralian tele­vi­sion show Hun­gry Beast, a posse of bona fide, degree-hold­ing cli­mate sci­en­tists put the ulti­mate smack­down on cli­mate change deniers. By NSFW, we mean that the rap is “more exple­tive-rid­den than the lat­est Lil’ Wayne sin­gle.” Still, after a few lis­tens we did find a cou­plet clean enough to quote:

We’re scientists/What we speak is true
Unlike Andrew Bolt/Our work is PEER REVIEWED!

If you feel like drop­ping $1.69, you can also buy the extend­ed sin­gle on iTunes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hayek vs. Keynes Rap

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

The cen­tral intel­li­gence of ants – the way ant colonies orga­nize them­selves with­out a leader and get things done – con­tin­ues to amaze sci­en­tists and sci­ence writ­ers alike. Back in 2003, Deb­o­rah Gor­don, a Stan­ford biol­o­gist, gave a whole TED Talk called “How Do Ants Know What to Do?,” which sheds light on how ants can form stun­ning­ly com­plex, lead­er­less sys­tems. Then, sev­er­al years lat­er, Radi­o­Lab con­tin­ued to mull over Gor­don’s fas­ci­nat­ing research in one of its very first episodes.

Now we get this great bit of video. It comes to us via researchers at the Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, and it shows how ants, when placed in water, can form a com­plete­ly water­tight raft in under two min­utes. “They’ll gath­er up all the eggs in the colony and will make their way up through the under­ground net­work of tun­nels, and when the flood waters rise above the ground, they’ll link up togeth­er in these mas­sive rafts,” says Nathan J. Mlot, an engi­neer­ing stu­dent involved in the project. Amaz­ing­ly, even the ants at the bot­tom of the raft nev­er get sub­merged. They all sur­vive, which rais­es the ques­tion: Can this research lead to new floata­tion devices for the rest of us to use?

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via Dai­ly Mail and Geek Sys­tem