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Why Egyptians poured water on sand: the wet-sand trick for dragging giant stones A wall painting in an Egyptian tomb shows 172 men hauling a colossal statue on a sledge, while one man pours water onto the sand in front of it. In 2014… History4 min read How your phone finds the quickest route: Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm Your phone finds the fastest route across millions of roads without trying them all. The trick is a rule Edsger Dijkstra devised in 1956: always finish the… Computing3 min read Why a dot vanishes when you look away from it: the blind spot where the optic nerve exits Close one eye, stare at a cross, and a dot a hand's width away simply vanishes. That is your blind spot: the place where the optic nerve leaves each eye, with… Mind4 min read Every eye has a hole in its vision, and your brain paints over it Every one of your eyes has a hole in its vision, about ten Moons wide, and you have never seen it. It is where the optic nerve leaves the retina, a patch with… Mind3 min read Chilli isn't hot: capsaicin trips the heat alarm on your tongue A chilli is exactly as warm as the room. There is no heat in it at all. The burn comes from capsaicin, a molecule that pries open TRPV1, the gate in your… Food Science5 min read