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MIT’s trillion-frames-per-second camera can capture light as it travels

"There's nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera."

a man holds out his arm toward a ball of light
photo from YouTube|Nova50

Photographing the path of light.

A new camera developed at MIT can photograph a trillion frames per second (fps).

Compare that with a traditional movie camera which takes a mere 24fps. This new advancement in photographic technology has given scientists the ability to photograph the movement of the fastest thing in the Universe: light.

The actual event occurred in a nano second—that is one billionth of a second—but the camera has the ability to slow it down to twenty seconds.

time, science, frames per second, bounced light

The amazing camera.

Photo from YouTube|Nova50

For some perspective, according to New York Times writer John Markoff, "If a bullet were tracked in the same fashion moving through the same fluid, the resulting movie would last three years."


In the video below, you'll see experimental footage of light photons traveling 600-million-miles-per-hour through water.

It's impossible to directly record light, so the camera takes millions of scans to recreate each image. The process has been called "femto-photography" and according to Andreas Velten, a researcher involved with the project, "There's nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera."


This article originally appeared seven years ago.

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A man discovered a letter his wife hid from him for 56 years. It held a life-changing secret.

"Tony, please don't be angry or surprised to hear this..."

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via SHVETS production/Pexels and Suzy Hazelwood/Pexels
Tony Trapani discovers a letter his wife hid from him since 1959.

Writing a letter is truly a lost art form, and many young people will never know the joy of it. You had to choose your words carefully and say everything you wanted to say. Once you sent it off, there was no way to be sure it was delivered. No way to know if it had been opened or read. You couldn't take it back or send it again. You just put it in the mailbox and hoped for the best. It was excruciating and magical all at the same time.

One story of a letter never delivered has captured the hearts of readers everywhere. A heart-warming local news story gone viral for the best reasons.

Tony Trapani and his wife were married for 50 years despite the heartache of being unable to have children. "She wanted children,” Trapani told Fox 17. "She couldn't have any. She tried and tried." Even though they endured the pain of infertility, Tony's love for his wife never wavered and he cherished every moment they spent together.

letter, secret letters, love letter, love stories, dads, fatherhood, father and son, parents, parenting Tony Trapani received the most important letter of his life, but he didn't see it for 50 years Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash

After his wife passed away when Tony was 81 years old, he undertook the heartbreaking task of sorting out all of her belongings. In particular was a mountain of papers stuffed into filing cabinets. Trapani diligently went through every single one.

That’s when he stumbled upon a carefully concealed letter in a filing cabinet hidden for over half a century.

The letter was addressed to Tony and dated March 1959, but this was the first time he had seen it. His wife must have opened it, read it and hid it from him. The letter came from Shirley Childress, a woman Tony had once been close with before his marriage. She reached out, reminiscing about their past and revealing a secret that would change Tony's world forever.

"Dear Tony, I bet you are surprised to hear from me after so many years. I was just thinking about you tonight like so many other nights. But I thought I would write you and find out how you are," the letter reads. "Tony, please don't be angry or surprised to hear this. I have a little boy. He is five-years- old now - grey eyes and beautiful black hair. What I am trying to say Tony is he is your son."



"Please, Tony if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, please come and see him," Shirley wrote in the letter. "Every day he asks me where is his daddy and believe me Tony I can't even answer him anymore. I would be forever grateful to you if you would just see him. ... I'll close now hoping and praying you will answer. P.S. His name is Samuel Duane."

Now, Tony faced the fact that he had a son that would be around 60 years old and he set out to find him.

For over a year, Trapani’s sister tried to track down the mysterious Samuel Duane Childress, until she finally contacted his wife, Donna.

Tony and Samuel met in January 2015 and he felt like a new dad. After meeting his father, Samuel said his mother told him she sent the letter, but Tony never responded. "Why my wife didn't tell me," said Trapani, "I don't know. She wanted children. She couldn't have any. She tried and tried."

It's easy to understand why it may have been hard for Trapani's late wife, Dolly, to pass along that sort of news. Though we'll never know what exactly must have been in her heart and mind when she hid the letter all those years ago.

"I always asked my mom, I said, 'Well what does he look like?'' Samuel said. "She said, 'Well, go look in the mirror."

The two met and caught up on a lifetime of memories with the understanding that they could never change the past. "Just to know him now is so important to me. It's going to fill that void," Samuel said.

But just to be sure, Tony took a paternity test to ensure they were father and son. Stunning everyone involved, the test came back negative. Tony was not the father.


letter, secret letters, love letter, love stories, dads, fatherhood, father and son, parents, parenting Tony and Samuel didn't waste time thinking about what might have been if he'd seen the letter earlier. Photo by Ire Photocreative on Unsplash

The news upset Tony and Samuel, but they still had a unique bond. They shared a relationship with Samuel’s mother and both have been on an incredibly wild ride after Tony found the mysterious letter.

“They're keeping that bond,” Donna said. “That paper doesn't mean anything to him. That bond has been made—and we're going to move on from here.”

Tony Trapani passed away in 2017, leaving him just two short years to connect with the man he once believed to be his son. If he'd seen the letter earlier, maybe they would have had more time. But that's all in the past, and by all accounts the men treasured the time they got together, and the relationship that they did have — not the one they wished for.

This article originally appeared earlier this year. It has been updated.

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Video of a 1949 kitchen design has people drooling over its brilliant features

Can we bring back some of these "step saving" design elements?

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US National Archives/YouTube

People are fascinated by the features in this 1949 kitchen design.

Modern kitchens are pretty epic in the historical scheme of things. We have refrigerators that dispense ice, cold water, and even hot water. We have faucets that turn on and off with a touch. We have garbage disposals, automatic trash-can lids, and pot-filling faucets over stoves—all manner of modern conveniences that might make us assume that today's kitchens are superior to every era that came before.

In some ways, they are. But a video from the National Archives demonstrating the features of a 1949 step-saving kitchen design has some of us rethinking just how much. The video was put out by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Home Economics division and it details every part of this efficient kitchen design:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

No wonder kitchens from that era feel small compared to most new homes today. Modern kitchens tend to be sprawling but far less functional. This design may be small, but it’s mighty.

The movie itself is a bit of a time capsule—not only in the cabinetry and clothing styles, but in the clear assumption that only women would be using the kitchen. On one hand, it’s great that work traditionally viewed as "women’s work" became the focus of innovation aimed at making life easier. On the other hand, it’s interesting to see how much has changed around gender roles since the 1940s.

But why did the government even make a video like this in the first place? Why would the government even care about kitchen design?

kitchen design, home design, functional kitchen, interior design, kitchens Design 3D GIF Giphy

It all began with a push for science and innovation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

As food historian Sarah Wassberg Johnson wrote, "This kitchen design is the culmination of several decades of work studies. During the Progressive Era, American interest in science began to increase, and scientific theories were applied to everything from factories to households. The Efficiency Movement was part of this application of scientific principles to everyday life. Led by mechanical engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, the movement posited that everyday life, from industry to government to households, were plagued by inefficiencies, which wasted time, energy, and money."

This movement, known as "Taylorism," spilled over into the home economics movement, which eventually became of interest to the U.S. government. A USDA report published in 1948 explained the push for efficient kitchen design:

"To help homemakers reduce time and work involved in kitchen activities, the Bureau is designing and preparing construction drawings for kitchens, with different arrangements of equipment — the U, L, broken U and L, and parallel-wall types of arrangement. They are designed to reduce walking, stooping, and stretching to a minimum, in accordance with accepted principles of work simplification."

And that's how we ended up with this glorious video.

Many people cheered for the features of this nearly 80-year-old kitchen design:

"Wow! That is an amazing well thought out kitchen. And we think we are modern today. That kitchen was has way more features than our kitchen today!" – @TheCrystalLion1

"I say I want an old time kitchen all the time! Everything was so functional." –@LizSmit97381516

"Yeah, that is pretty amazing! I would be completely happy with this." – @TexasAris

"I have a garbage pail and potato drawer like this. Love it. Our kitchen is brand new tho. I requested these things. Also a full size pull out pantry, 15 inches wide and 6 ft tall. Hideaway kitchen utensils vertical pullout 6 inches wide, full size microwave drawer. Modern kitchens can be amazing or terrible." – @NativeNoticer

Some people have expressed concern about bugs in those potato and onion bins, but someone who grew up in that era noted that potatoes and onions were such daily staples that families went through them quickly:

"We kept things real clean and, no, that was never a problem - the potatoes and onions were gone through on pretty much a weekly basis. We normally figured 1/2 an onion per person per day and a potato per person. We had a small family. Grandfather, grandmother, Uncle, Mom, myself, and a kid that no one wanted - 6 people; that is 6 potatoes and 3 onions a day or a 20# bag of each a week. And they were used as hash browns, potato pancakes, baked potatoes, sautéed onions in dishes (all dishes) and of course fried potatoes and french fries. They were pretty much a staple. We also had flour bins, two types - cooking and baking, and also two different kinds of sugar. There was baked bread and a pie or cake every single day and always biscuits. And everything was from scratch. All vegetables were prepared before cooking and did not come from cans and had only when in season, same with fruits. We did can some items but not many." – @DannerFoundati1

Naturally, times change, the way we use our homes changes, and new innovations often replace the old for good reason. But there may be some things we can learn from an era when function and efficiency were prioritized over Instagrammable spaces. What good is a beautiful kitchen if it's cumbersome to use?

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Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why time accelerates as we get older and how to slow it down

Can we trick our minds into slowing down time?

time, neil degrasse tyson, time flies, perception of time. clock, science,
via Karl Withakay/Wikimedia Commons and Canva/Photos

A clock and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

When you’re a kid, time passes a lot more slowly than when you’re an adult. At the age of seven, summer seems to go on forever, and the wait from New Year’s Day to Christmas feels like a decade. As an adult, time seems to go faster and faster until one weekend you’re putting up your Christmas lights though you swear you just took ‘em down a month ago.

Why does time seem to speed up as we get older? Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson recently explained the phenomenon in a video posted to Instagram. He also offered tips on how to slow the passage of time as you age. DeGrasse Tyson is one of the most popular science communicators in the world and the host of 2014's Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and 2020’s Cosmos: Possible Worlds.

Why does time appear to speed up as we get older?


“When you're young, everything is new. Your brain is constantly recording fresh memories, and the more memory your brain stores, the longer the experience feels. But then something changes. As you get older, routines take over. Your brain stops saving so much detail. It switches to autopilot because everything feels familiar and predictable,” deGrasse Tyson explains. “And when your brain stores fewer new memories, your perception of time compresses. That's why childhood feels long, and adulthood feels like a blur.”


Steve Taylor, PhD, author of many best-selling books including Time Expansion Experience, The Leap, and Spiritual ScienceThe Leap, and Spiritual Science, agrees with deGrasse Tyson.

“This is mainly because, as children, we have so many new experiences, and so process a massive amount of perceptual information,” Taylor writes at Psychology Today. “Children also have an unfiltered and intense perception of the world, which makes their surroundings appear more vivid. However, as we get older, we have progressively fewer new experiences. Equally importantly, our perception of the world becomes more automatic. We grow progressively desensitized to our surroundings. As a result, we gradually absorb less information, which means time passes more quickly. Time is less stretched with information.”

How do we make time slow down?

There’s something a little depressing about the idea that time speeds up as we age because we have fallen into predictable routines. The good news is that we can break this cycle by changing our habits and having new experiences. The more novel information we can process and the less routine our lives become, the slower time will move.

DeGrasse Tyson believes that with some change in our behaviors, we can get back to longer summers and Christmases that aren’t perpetually around the corner.

“You can actually slow time down again. Do something unfamiliar,” deGrasse Tysons says. "Travel somewhere new. Break a routine you've repeated for years. Learn a skill your brain hasn't mapped yet. Because the more new memories your brain forms, the slower time feels as it passes. So if life feels like it's accelerating, it's not your age. It's your brain, and you can reboot it.”

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People rally around woman who says boyfriend's 'radical honesty' feels like humiliation

When does honesty go too far?

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via Canva/Photos

A woman being bullied.

There’s a fine line between being honest and being mean. Some people are honest but know how to couch their opinion in a positive, constructive light. Some people are proud of being "brutally honest," but they often use it as an excuse to hurt other people’s feelings. Honesty is an excellent virtue, but it takes self-awareness and tact to wield it humanely.

If your friend is getting ready to go on a date and asks if you like their shoes, instead of saying, "Your shoes look awful," you can suggest they try on another pair. Or, if they ask whether you liked their macaroni and cheese, instead of pointing out that someone else’s is better, you could simply suggest cooking the noodles a bit longer.

Was he being honest or abusive?

A 26-year-old woman posted on Reddit's Two Hot Takes subforum to ask whether her boyfriend's friends, who pride themselves on "brutal honesty," were wielding their supposed virtue as a sword to cut her down.

"When we started dating, he told me his friend group is 'brutally honest,' and I thought that just meant they roast each other a lot," she wrote. "Nope. Apparently, they have a rule that says if someone complains about their partner, that partner is fair game for group feedback. I did not fully understand what that meant until last weekend."

man and woman, couple argument, upset man, upset woman, man woman couch A man and woman on a couch.via Canva/Photos

Recently, she was hanging out with his friends when they started picking on her about traits they said she needed to improve. She wrote, "Like, 'you apologize too much, it is kind of manipulative,' 'you act shy but actually you like control,' 'you talk about your job too much, it is boring for the rest of us.' All delivered like they're doing me a favor. My boyfriend just sat there nodding and occasionally adding examples."

When the woman said their remarks hurt her, they responded that it was only because they "care to be real" with her. This prompted her to ask the forum: "Is this actually some healthy communication thing that my thin skin can't handle, or is this just a circle of people who enjoy tearing others apart and slapping a self-help label on it?"

What did the commenters have to say?

The commenters overwhelmingly agreed with the woman, and many pointed out that her boyfriend has abusive tendencies.

"Complaining to his friends and having them gang up on you is not radical honesty. He's crowdsourcing his bullying. Gross," the most popular commenter wrote. "Not radical honesty, this is public shaming. He’s prioritizing his friends over your feelings, and that’s a red flag," another wrote. "When someone puts you down like that, and the someone who is supposed to love you sit there, listens, and then contributes. GIRL, RUN! If you allow this, you're going to feel worse and worse about yourself, and then you'll be right where they want you. Down on their feet, kissing the ground they walk on," a commenter wrote.

commenter, laptop, disgusted woman, night computer, woman touching her nose A woman touching her nose while looking at a laptop.via Canva/Photos

So how do we know the difference between someone who’s "just being honest" and being abusive? According to Dr. Sheri Jacobson, it has to do with intention.

"The difference here is that a person who verbally abuses another has no intention of seeing the positive side, considering the other’s viewpoint, or helping them improve," Jacobson writes at Harley Therapy. "They have the intention, admitted or not, of hurting and controlling the person they offer their 'feedback' to. Verbal also abuse tends to criticise you as a person, not just what you did and the consequences of the action."

Ultimately, it’s unfortunate that the woman had to endure such harsh, personal criticism from her boyfriend and his friends. However, she learned something positive after sharing her problem on Reddit: people overwhelmingly agreed that her boyfriend was being abusive. Hopefully, that gives her some clarity so she can either work on the relationship or move on to someone who knows how to be honest without being brutal.

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Hospice nurse reveals the 'one sign' that someone is going to die within 4 weeks

It's called "visioning," and it's more comforting than it sounds.

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via Canva Photos

A nurse explains how 'visioning' 3-4 weeks before death works.

Death is something, like it or not, we all must face. It's the final mystery, and it's totally normal to feel scared of the impending process. Experts say a few things can help, including using our fear to live a purposeful life and even making jokes, or using 'gallows humor'. One bit of good news is that we tend to get a little bit less afraid of death as we age. But in general, it helps to not shy away from death completely. Learning and talking about it is actually a good thing.

A new video by a hospice nurse shows an excellent reason for people to feel comfortable facing the unknown. Julie McFadden posts videos helping to demystify the dying process and bring comfort to people with a loved one in hospice care, or who may be dying themselves. Her profile reads, "Helping understand death to live better and die better." McFadden is also the author of the bestselling book, “Nothing to Fear.”

Hospice Nurse Julie has earned over half a million subscribers and has witnessed over a hundred deaths. In a recent video, she reveals that people are often comforted by friends and relatives who have passed away in their final days.

She says that when people begin experiencing these visions, it’s a sign that they will be passing away within a few weeks.

"Here's one sign that someone is close to death that most people don't believe happens,” Julie begins the video.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

"Usually a few weeks to a month before someone dies, if they're on hospice, they will start seeing dead loved ones, dead relatives, dead pets. This happens so often that we actually put it in our educational packets that we give to patients and their families when they come on hospice so they aren't surprised or scared when it happens,” she continues.

The experience is called visioning; although no one knows how or why it happens, it’s common among all her patients.

"We don't know why it happens, but we see it in definitely more than half of our patients," she continues.

People often believe that the visions are caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain. However, Julie says that isn’t true. “Because when it does happen, most people are alert and oriented and are at least a month from death, so they don't have low oxygen," she said.

The good news is that the visioning experience is almost always comforting for those who are nearing the end.


death, dying, hospice, fear of dying, hospice nurse, mortality, aging, seniors, spirituality, visions Dying patients may be visited 3-4 weeks before death by loved ones, deceased spouses, or even dead pets. Photo by Anirudh on Unsplash

It often involves relatives who 'come from the other side' to let them know everything will be okay and encourage them to let go and pass away. People also experience being taken on journeys with loved ones or having sensory experiences from the past, such as smelling their grandmother's perfume or father’s cigar.

These visitors can also appear several at a time. Patients might report the room feeling 'crowded' like they are being joined by many people at once. It's possible they may be visited by 'spirits' or people they don't know, though that's less common.

Christopher Kerr, a CEO of Hospice & Palliative Care, an organization that provides palliative care in Buffalo, New York, says that the relatives that often appear in these visions are people who protected and comforted the dying parent when they were alive. So, they may see a parent who nurtured them but not one they feared.

Kerr has extensively studied the mysterious phenomena that happen when people die but has no real explanation for why the visioning experience happens. “I have witnessed cases where what I was seeing was so profound, and the meaning for the patient was so clear and precise, that I almost felt like an intruder,” he told BBC Brazil. “And trying to decipher the etiology, the cause, seemed futile. I concluded that it was simply important to have reverence, that the fact that I could not explain the origin and process did not invalidate the experience for the patient.”

In a more in-depth video, Hospice Nurse Julie shares a real video of a dying woman experience visioning. It's extremely powerful:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Again, experts agree that once your loved one begins experiencing these visions, it's likely that they will pass on in the next 3-4 weeks. Remember that they are not a symptom to be treated or a concern to be addressed, as long as they aren't causing distress. They are simply a comforting sign of things to come.

It's comforting to know that for many, the final days of life may not be filled with pain and fear but instead with a sense of peace and joy. While we may never fully understand the reasons behind these mysterious visions, if they bring calm during such a daunting time, we can simply be grateful for their presence. They’re kind of like life, in general. In the end, we may not really know what it was all about, but we can be happy that it happened.

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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