All posts tagged: middle of the day

Time Management Tips From the Universe

Time Management Tips From the Universe

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] Time can feel like a subjective experience—different at different points in our lives. It’s also a real, measurable thing. The universe may be too big to fully comprehend, but what we do know could help inform the ways we approach our understanding of ourselves, our purpose, and our time. Theoretical physicist and black-hole expert Janna Levin explains how the science of time can inspire new thinking and fresh perspectives on a much larger scale. Listen and subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts The following transcript has been edited for clarity: Janna Levin: “The one sense in which time is frustratingly different is that I cannot extend equally in each direction. I cannot just turn around and go into the past. And I seem to be always driven forward into the future. I can stand still in space, but I can’t seem to stand still in time.” Becca Rashid: Welcome to How to Keep Time. I’m Becca Rashid, co-host and producer of the show. Ian Bogost: And …

Time Management Tips From the Universe

Time Management Tips From the Universe

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] Time can feel like a subjective experience—different at different points in our lives. It’s also a real, measurable thing. The universe may be too big to fully comprehend, but what we do know could help inform the ways we approach our understanding of ourselves, our purpose, and our time. Theoretical physicist and black-hole expert Janna Levin explains how the science of time can inspire new thinking and fresh perspectives on a much larger scale. Listen and subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts The following transcript has been edited for clarity: Janna Levin: “The one sense in which time is frustratingly different is that I cannot extend equally in each direction. I cannot just turn around and go into the past. And I seem to be always driven forward into the future. I can stand still in space, but I can’t seem to stand still in time.” Becca Rashid: Welcome to How to Keep Time. I’m Becca Rashid, co-host and producer of the show. Ian Bogost: And …

The Sadness of Seamus Heaney’s To-Do List

The Sadness of Seamus Heaney’s To-Do List

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] What is the opposite of poetry? What slows the spark and puts sludge in the veins? What deadens the language? What rears up before you with livid and stupefying power—in the middle of the night, in the middle of the day—to make you feel like you’ll never write a good line again? Stuff. Not physical stuff, but mental stuff. You know: things you should have taken care of. The unanswered email. The unpaid bill. The unvisited dentist. The undischarged obligation. The unfinished job. The terrible ballast of adulthood. “In the last two days I have written thirty-two letters … The trouble is, I have about thirty-two more to write: I could ignore them but if I do the sense of worthlessness and hauntedness grows in me, inertia grows and, fuck it, I’m going to get rid of them before I board the plane on Thursday.” This is Seamus Heaney in 1985, writing to his friend Barrie Cooke. Heaney, at this point in his career, in his life, is a poet of established greatness, a …

Have Trouble Falling Asleep? So Do Oysters.

Have Trouble Falling Asleep? So Do Oysters.

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] This article originally appeared in Hakai Magazine. In several quiet rooms in a marine lab in southwest France, dozens of Pacific oysters sit in glass tanks, quietly living their oyster lives. Each morning, the lights come up slowly, carefully mimicking the rising sun, but at night the test groups’ rooms never fully darken. The dim glow simulates the light pollution that plagues many marine species—even in natural habitats. The results of the experiment, which were recently published, found that artificial light at night can disrupt oyster behavior and alter the activity of important genes that keep the animals’ internal clocks ticking. Damien Tran, a marine scientist at the Paris-based French National Centre for Scientific Research and one of the study’s authors, was surprised that even the lowest level of nighttime light that the team tested—“below the intensity of the full moon,” he says—was enough to throw off the oysters’ circadian rhythm. It’s especially remarkable, Tran says, when you remember that oysters don’t have eyes—at least not in the conventional sense. How oysters see is …