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Learning

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A teacher lists his class rules.

The world would be a much better place if humans weren’t so … human. We all fall short of perfection. Common sense is, sadly, not too common. And there’s one guy out there who always manages to screw things up when things start getting good.

Call it Murphy’s law. Call it the great “reason we can’t have nice things.” Call it entropy. It feels like a whole lot of pain could be avoided if we all had just a little bit more sense.

But what if there was one rule that we all agreed to follow to make everyone’s life better? What would this magical rule be?

A Reddit user who goes by the name P4insplatter came to this realization and asked the AskReddit subforum, “What simple rule would fix the world if everyone actually followed it?” They received dozens of simple rules that if everyone got behind would make the world drastically better.

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Education

We are 'brainwashed' every time we go to sleep at night. And it's actually a good thing.

Sleep is even more important to our health than we originally thought.

Amaze Lab/Youtube

Catching Z's might be one of the best things you can do for brain health.

We know on an intuitive level that sleep is a rejuvenating process. After a really good night’s rest, we wake up refreshed with a clear mind. A 2019 Boston University study shared by Scientific American helps explain why this happens.

Researchers found that during non-rapid eye movement sleep (which happens at the beginning of the night) neurons shut down as blood flows out of the head, allowing space for cerebrospinal fluid, aka CSF, to flow in. This liquid pulses through the brain in slow, rhythmic waves, quite literally washing away toxic metabolic waste products.

So yes—while the term “brainwashing” might initially make us think of mind-controlling commercials and zombie apocalypses, it could actually be a gift from Mother Nature.

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Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

Updating the kitchen.

This article originally appeared on November 11, 2015


Remember those beloved Richard Scarry books?

Books from when you were a kid?

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Wavy text that resembles what people with dyslexia see when they look at text.

People who don’t have dyslexia may find it challenging to understand what it's like when those who have it look at a page of text. A common misconception is that people with dyslexia read things backward. But in reality, they see words that can appear inverted, cut in half, backward, mixed up, chaotic, or moving across the page.

Dyslexia is a learning disorder that makes it more difficult for people to read and spell. It is linked to genes that affect how the brain processes reading and language.

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