Why people tend to believe UFOs are extraterrestrial

Most of us still call them UFOs—unidentified flying objects. NASA recently adopted the term "unidentified anomalous phenomena," or UAP. Either way, every few years popular claims resurface that these things are not of our ...

Curious comet's rare close approach

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) today makes its closest approach to Earth before likely leaving our solar system forever. At billions of years old and not seen since Neanderthals roamed, the green comet continues to intrigue as it ...

Moral illusions may alter our behavior

Just as optical illusions can fool the eye to present a distorted image of reality, moral illusions can fool our decision-making ability, making us more selfish. This is the conclusion of a newly presented doctoral thesis ...

New, highly tunable composite materials—with a twist

Watch for the patterns created as the circles move across each other. Those patterns, created by two sets of lines offset from each other, are called moiré (pronounced mwar-AY) effects. As optical illusions, moiré patterns ...

A solar illusion: Coronal loops may not be what they seem

Many coronal loops—ropey strands of plasma that scientists have long thought existed in the Sun's atmosphere—may actually be optical illusions, according to a new paper that challenges prevailing assumptions of what we ...

Guppies found to be susceptible to optical illusions

A team of researchers working at the University of Padova, in Italy, has found that like humans and many other animals, guppies are susceptible to optical illusions. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, ...

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