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Did you know...

Misophonia is a disorder in which certain sounds trigger emotional or physiological responses that some might perceive as unreasonable given the circumstance. Those who have misophonia might describe it as when a sound "drives you crazy." Their reactions can range from anger and annoyance to panic and the need to flee. The disorder is sometimes called selective sound sensitivity syndrome.

Individuals with misophonia often report they are triggered by oral sounds - the noise someone makes when they eat, breathe, or even chew. Other adverse sounds include. keyboard or finger tapping or the sound of windshield wipers. Sometimes a small repetitive motion is the cause - someone fidgets, jostles you, or wiggles their foot.

Similarly, people with misophonia also say they often react to the visual stimuli that accompany sounds, and may also respond intensely to repetitive motions. Researchers believe that those with misophonia may already have issues with how their brains filter sounds and that one of the features of "misophonic sounds" maybe their repetitive noise. That repetition then exacerbates the other auditory processing problems.

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The U.S. and New Zealand collaborated on a top-secret plan to develop a 'tsunami bomb' capable of devastating coastal cities, it has emerged.

The countries conducted covert tests of the potential weapon of mass destruction designed to use underwater explosions to trigger huge tidal waves in waters around Auckland and the Pacific island of New Caledonia during the Second World War.

Details of the secretive operation, code-named Project Seal, were discovered in military files buried in New Zealand's national archives.

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More than 6,000 people have taken out "alien abduction policies" each worth the equivalent of £ 8 million in compensation.

The bizarre deal, provided by Saint Lawrence Agency in Altamonte Springs, Florida, promises clients to cover for supernatural sites, such as Area 51.

It offers coverage for a one-off fee of $24.95 (£20) in which they will mail a paper copy of the certificate in a frame. Digital copies cost $19.95 (£16).

But there's one catch in the small print, they will only pay $1 per year over a 10 to 20 million year period.

Mike St Lawrence, who owns the firm, said the surge in interest comes after a page urging people to storm Area 51 went viral.

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After his father died, the first president's formal schooling ended when he was 11 years old. That event cut young George off from the opportunity to be educated abroad in England, a privilege that had been afforded to his older half-brothers.

Washington's mother never remarried, forcing the adolescent to shoulder weighty burdens at a young age as the oldest child of six from his father's second family. She taught him how to run a to***co farm, and at the age of 16, he took his first job as a land surveyor. Washington would be embarrassed by his stunted schooling for the rest of his life.

Dogs can tell the difference between happy and angry faces. It is not difficult for a dog to be able to pick up when you're ticked off at them. For the study, which has been published in Current Biology, scientists in Vienna trained dogs to discriminate between happy and angry faces.

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As detailed in Phil Mason's book "Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: And Other Small Events That Changed History," some scholars believe the French military leader suffered a painful bout of hemorrhoids on the morning of the Battle of Waterloo that prevented him from riding his horse to survey the battlefield as was his custom and could have contributed to his defeat.

However, Waterloo expert Alasdair White told the New York Times that the story is "an absolute myth" concocted by Napoleon boosters because they "cannot believe that the great man lost, so there must have been something wrong with him."

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Nestled in a windswept cove, the lone tree on the subantarctic Campbell Island in New Zealand shouldn't technically be there. The Sitka spruce, a northern hemisphere native, is a long way from its taxonomic cousins, and in fact, the closest tree of any kind is more than 170 miles northeast on the Auckland Islands.

New Zealand's then-governor, Lord Ranfurly, planted the lonely tree around the turn of the 20th century. More than 100 years later, the introduced spruce is considered the most isolated tree globally after the former record-holder, a drunk driver, mowed down the Tree of the Tenere in the Sahara Desert.

The conifer endures isolation and the wild weather of the "Furious Fifties" latitudes. Campbell Island has the cloudiest climate in the subantarctic, with rain for 325 days and gale-force winds for 100 days of the year. Surprisingly, the spruce seems to thrive in these conditions, growing five to ten times faster than normal.

The Loneliest Tree is a poignant reminder of the human impact on this fragile and unique ecosystem. Humans have exploited Campbell Island for whaling, sealing, and farming since its discovery in 1810. Other human imports, including destructive rats and feral cattle, have been removed, but the Sitka spruce remains, a lone sentinel.

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Camels do not store water in their humps. Instead, camels use the humps to store energy-rich fat deposits. Many animals use body fat as energy storage. Unique to a camel, however, is that it stores the fat in a hump up on top instead of around the belly or limbs. It does this to stay calm. Fat naturally insulates heat, providing a blanket for bodies covered in fat.

Being a hot-climate animal, a camel would waste energy trying to cool down if its fat were wrapped around its body. Instead, by placing the fat on a hump out of the way, the camel can stay as cool as possible while having an energy reserve. Think of it as a tourist from northern Siberia with a coat stuffed full of snacks just stepping off the plane in the Sahara Desert. What does he immediately do? He takes off his coat and slings it over his shoulder. He still wants to lug around his coat full of snacks; he does not want it wrapped around him, making him hot.

To handle hot and arid conditions, camels have many interesting adaptations. Among them is the ability to go a long time without drinking water and to drink large quantities very quickly. A typical camel can drink 200 liters (53 gallons) of water in three minutes. Perhaps this is where the misunderstanding arises that camels store water in their humps. After all, the water has to go somewhere. In reality, the water goes into the animal's digestion and circulatory system.

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Houseflies pass through four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. The life expectancy of a housefly is generally 15 to 30 days and depends upon temperature and living conditions. Flies dwelling in warm homes and laboratories develop faster and live longer than their counterparts in the wild.

The housefly's brief life cycle allows them to multiply quickly if left uncontrolled. Houseflies are known to carry over 100 diseases, including tuberculosis and cholera. They transmit diseases by feeding and carrying pathogens on their feet and mouths. Contact your local pest control expert to discuss solutions specifically tailored for your home.

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Researchers have found scientific evidence to confirm that chewing gum can speed up thinking and make you more alert.

A new study reported in the journal Brain and Cognition found that reaction times are up to 10 percent faster while chewing gum and that as many as eight different areas of the brain are affected.

One theory is that chewing increases arousal and leads to temporary improvements in blood flow to the brain.

The study carried out tests on volunteers while chewing or not chewing gum. The gum used was flavorless to avoid distractions, The Independent reported.

The brains of the men and women were also scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see which areas were active.

The 30-minute tests involved volunteers pressing a button with their right or left thumb according to the direction of an arrow on a screen in front of them. One test was more complicated than the other. During both tests, alertness and reaction times were measured.

Results showed that alertness and reaction times improved while chewing gum. Men and women who were not chewing took 545 milliseconds to react, compared with 493 milliseconds among the chewers.

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It's pretty darn impressive that scientists have been able to harness energy from the sun, wind, and water, providing us with all kinds of alternative power sources. And now they've managed to create energy from snowfall. According to a 2019 study, engineers and chemists from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have developed a device made of silicone that can harness a charge from static electricity.

Developing power generators that can function in harsh snowy environments and contact with snow can be beneficial but challenging to accomplish. Herein, Scientists introduce the first snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator (snow-TENG) that can be used as an energy harvester and a multifunctional sensor based on the principle of snow-triboelectrification.

"Snow is positively charged and gives up electrons, while silicone is negatively charged and accepts the electrons," IFL Science explains. "So, as the snow lands on the silicone, a charge is produced and then captured." Think of it as the spark of energy you create when you rub a balloon against your hair.