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Alisha Huber

I love living in a purple city in a purple state (Virginia is for lovers!) because my neighbors represent a wide range of viewpoints, from libertarians to socialists, all striving to live with compassion. I want to bring that respectful tussling to the wild world of the Internet.

Let me know what you're fighting about on Twitter, and tag those folks you're fighting with on my Facebook page.

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Health

This Morning, I Didn't Know What A Binaural Soundscape Was. Now All I Want To Do Is Listen To Them.

The results are astounding.

Image via Pixabay.

A total mind expanding experience is a click away.

I found a hidden gem on the Internet this week: NPR has a Soundcloud set of "binaural soundscapes." Strap on your headphones — it's going to be a surreal ride.Important note: If you have hearing loss, this may not work well for you.

Maybe you don't know what a binaural recording is.

Basically, the deal is, you have two ears.

They are the width of your head apart. And there's a big lumpy meatball in the middle. So your ears hear different things. Then your brain processes these two distinct streams of information and uses them to position stuff in space. Standard stereo recording often uses a couple of mics, but it's not trying to position them in a way that mimics your ears.

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Science

Only 1% of all Americans get to experience this incredible sight.

It used to be something that everyone saw any evening when they walked out their door.

Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash

When the light is getting in the way of the night.

Wow. I never thought about how rare this is before, but many people literally can go their whole lives without experiencing the vastness of space and their own smallness.

It used to be something that everyone saw any evening when they walked out their door.

It used to be that when you looked up at the night sky, you would see deep into the farthest reaches of space and time, but now...

Nope.

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You matter. You are an important person. You are valuable.

Sesame Street/YouTube

Jesse Jackson talks to children on Sesame Street

Sesame Street is a national treasure.

I think we can all agree on that.

Sesame Street invented the idea that television could teach children, not just entertain them.

It taught kids letters and numbers and introduced them to talented and famous people, from Savion Glover to Kofi Annan.

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Education

This researcher asked kids what's wrong with U.S. schools. Here are their ideas.

Who knows the most about school? Students.

Image via Amanda Ripley/PopTech.

Map demonstrating scores of the Program for International Student Assessment for each state compared to a country that has similar scores.

This article originally appeared on 05.22.15

This is not news: America does pretty badly when it goes up against other countries academically.

This is true even if we take it one state at a time—no single state, no matter how wealthy or small, matches the top scoring countries. And yet, the U.S. spends more per student than many other countries in the world.

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Alisha Huber

The results are astounding.

Basically, the deal is, you have two ears.

Recording artists have started building these crazy microphone setups that imitate the position and direction of your real ears.

It's like a window into other landscapes. It makes the world feel so close and small and familiar.

First stop: A regular day on a street in Tibet.

Next up, a stop in the Ecuadorean rain forest to hear the song of the orapendula. (It's a bird. I looked it up.)

Let's wrap up with a visit to Dzanga Bai, a clearing in the Central African Republic, where elephants gather as evening closes in.

For more magical journeys, check out the rest of NPR's Binaural Soundscapes.

It used to be something that everyone saw any evening when they walked out their door.

Wow. I never thought about how rare this is before, but many people literally can go their whole lives without experiencing the vastness of space and their own smallness.

Not anymore. We're lighting up our cities like never before.

Over 99% of Americans in the continental U.S. live in areas that are considered light polluted.

Are you scared of total darkness?

How to encourage that impulse to grow within ourselves, our communities, and our children.

But stick around because he's going to get crazy surprising.

And, let's be honest, it's easy not to feel crazy urgent about this, right?

When we consider how we treat our planet, when we're talking about big action, we're doing it because we'd like our kids and grandkids to not live in a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

But then he offers a solution.

An international survey found that the very most perfect predictor of happiness is the quality of human relationships.

But how do we encourage that impulse to grow within ourselves, our communities, and our children?

It's time to stop giving awfulness the power to bend our lens. Here's how.

Anytime you look at the news, it's about death, destruction, abductions, natural disasters...

Shawn Achor studied happiness at Harvard.

You don't get happy by achieving success. You achieve success by getting happy.

So how can you up your dopamine?

You matter. You are an important person. You are valuable.

Sesame Street is a national treasure.

Sesame Street invented the idea that television could teach children, not just entertain them.

The most important message Sesame Street sent to its millions of young viewers was this: You matter. You are an important person. You are valuable.

These kids chant a message that we should give to every kid on earth.

Van Gogh saw something it took scientists another 100 years to see.

I'm not easily impressed, OK?

Get this: Van Gogh was a pretty cool artist (duh), but as it turns out...

...he was also A SCIENTIST!*

Here's the story.

~~~TURBULENCE~~~

Thing is, scientists are pretty much *just* starting to figure this stuff out.

Then you've got Van Gogh, 100 years earlier, in his asylum, with a mutilated ear, who totally nailed it!

But did other artists depict turbulence the way Van Gogh did?

Not even "The Scream" could hold a candle to Van Gogh!

Watch the video below to learn even more:

Who knows the most about school? Students.

This is not news: America does pretty badly when it goes up against other countries academically.

No adult could give her a satisfactory answer, so she went to the experts: kids.

She surveyed hundreds of exchange students and found three major points that they all agreed on.

To hear more from these amazing kids (and a great story about how an education reporter managed to take an international standardized test), check out the video from PopTech below:

~TURBULENCE~

Thing is, scientists are pretty much just starting to figure this stuff out.