2. Relativity theory explained in really simple (and most likely incorrect) terms: The faster you run from point A to point B, the less time it takes you to travel the distance. Logically, if you could go fast enough, it should take you no time at all. If you then went even faster, it should take you negative time, right?
3. Fairly recently, scientists succeeded in incorporating the brainstem of a lamprey into a robot, thus making the first full-body cyborg that I know of. (If anyone else read that article and remembers where it was, tell me so I can link to it. That was damn cool.)
4. Current research holds that savants may possess the abilities they do because their brains lack the filtering mechanism that the rest of us use to prioritize information. Experiments using magnetic pulses to temporarily deaden that part of the brain have proven successful in giving ordinary people temporary savant-like abilities. A seperate experiment involved a group of Zen Buddhist monks and a control group. Both were set alone in bare rooms with a recording of a water droplet falling playing on loop. After a short amount of time, the brains of the control group stopped registering the sound. The monks, however, continued to notice it. Interesting parallel, huh? Another area in which it may be possible to "turn on" savant-like qualities may be language acquisition. Many people who have been exposed to only one language for the majority of their lives have difficulty in recognizing and replicating sounds not found in their native language when learning a second language. I've noticed that a few people have no trouble with it, however. Perhaps it plays a part in language acquisition in infancy as well.
5. Hyperpolysyllabicsesquipedalian - A person who likes to use big words. Also the name of this site, and the only word I've so far found with more syllables than antidisestablishmentarianism. If you find another, tell me. (Give me a break. I already gave you the link up there, you lazy bum.)
6. Recently, I was trying to imagine moving through space without moving through time. (I have no life.) It is easy to move through time without moving through space; you simply sit still. Moving through space without moving through time, however, requires you to simply arrive at your destination instantaneously. In other words, movement is quantized. This is kind of like an electron performing a quantum leap - one moment it's here, next it's there. Interesting, eh? If you get the chance to look at Zeno's paradoxes, if I remember correctly, he had one about shooting an arrow that argued something to this effect. Could be wrong. Long time since I've read 'em.
7. In any given room, air molecules are in constant random motion. Therefore, for any given room, there exists the possibility, however minute, that at some point in time, all the air molecules will clump in one corner, leaving the rest of the room in momentary vacuum. Isn't that great?
8. In spoken American English, in words that contain "t" or "d" in the middle (e.g. "retina"), that sound is almost never pronounced crisply. I'm betting that, given long enough, the sound will just sort of get passed over. "Re'na." Like that. Or when there's an "n," maybe it'll double, since the dental sounds put your tongue in the right position to say it. "Renna." Phonetics is a lot more fun than people give it credit for being.
9. Caterpillars have long, tubular hearts running the length of their bodies. When the heart beats, it sort of does so in a sine wave. So fuckin' cool.