Nice optical illusion

I have always been intrigued by optical illusions, seeing them as providing fascinating insights into how the brain works as well as warnings that what we think we see may not accurately represent what is actually there. I found this illusion (via David Pescovitz) to be particularly intriguing because the contradiction is so stark. You know that the four horizontal blue lines must be parallel because the background black and grey objects are all the same size, and yet to my eyes the top and third line unmistakably slope up to the right while the second and bottom lines slope down.
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Book Review: Priest of Nature: The Religious Worlds of Isaac Newton (2017)

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is one of the great enigmatic characters in scientific history, an extremely reclusive and private man with a fascinating array of foibles and personality quirks. I just finished the newly released book by Rob Iliffe, professor of history at Oxford University, that looks closely at the religious studies of this famous physicist and mathematician, based on a detailed examination of his vast collection of private notes, papers, and correspondence. The book deals largely with the first fifty years of Newton’s life, stopping around the year 1696 when Newton left Cambridge University and took up a government position as Warden of the Mint where he vigorously pursued and prosecuted counterfeiters.
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Using three simple math puzzles to measure likelihood of belief in god

I had an amused reaction to this paper titled Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief by Will M. Gervais and Ara Norenzayan (Science vol. 336, p. 493-496, 27 April 2012) based on a set of studies that looked at the correlation between analytic thinking abilities and beliefs in god. The authors use the language of System 1 and System 2 thinking to describe intuitive and analytic reasoning respectively, terms that that I have discussed in some detail earlier here and here.

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A new window of opportunity for global warming denialists?

The scientists at NASA have plotted average global temperatures since 1880, both the annual averages plus five-year averages to smooth out any short term fluctuations in any given year due to things like El Nino. They plot the temperatures as the deviation from the 30-year average taken over the period 1951-1980. As they point out, “Sixteen of the 17 warmest years in the 136-year record all have occurred since 2001, with the exception of 1998.”
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Even in death, Mirzakhani breaks taboos

The shocking death from cancer of mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani has resulted in tributes poring in for her from all over. In 2014 she became the only female winner of the prestigious Fields Medal in mathematics. She was born and raised in Iran and came to the US for graduate study, where she married a non-Muslim Czech scientist with whom she had one child. She had been initially diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013 but it had later spread to her bone marrow.
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