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Van Gogh's Starry Night, 1889.
Vincent van Gogh never got to enjoy his own historic success as an artist (even though we've been able to imagine what that moment might have looked like). Van Gogh died in 1890 at the age of 37 in Auvers-sur-Oise, France after shooting himself in the chest with a revolver. It was a tragic end to a turbulent life marked by mental instability and severe self-doubt.
According to the Van Gogh Museum, in a letter to his brother Theo in 1890, just a couple of weeks before his death, Van Gogh wrote, "...my life, is attacked at the very root, my step also is faltering." The man was struggling and exhausted. The high standards he had set for himself and his art were taking a toll. He was unsure about his future and, up to this point, had not received much recognition for his work and thought himself a failure "as a man and as an artist."
His most well-known work, Starry Night, was famously painted while Van Gogh was staying in an asylum in France 1889 after he mutilated his ear during a psychotic episode. According to the Van Gogh Museum, though, this may not be the full story. While it is widely agreed that Van Gogh did in fact cut off his own ear, the museum notes that it was because of a fight between Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin, the artist he had been working for in Aries, that led to the violent explosion that highlighted his deteriorating mental state.
Vincent Van Gogh's Self-Portrait, 1889Image via Canva.
As one of the best known and most studied artists of the 19th century, Van Gogh's madness and how it influenced his work is not new information. But it turns out that those of us who have appreciated his work have been missing out on some critical details for more than 100 years—revealed in the 2010s thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope.
We known Van Gogh was an artist—and a genius artist at that—but, it turns out, he was also scientist. Kind of.
Whether intentionally or not, fresh eyes have found that Van Gogh's art—aside from being breathtaking—also captures one of science and nature's most elusive concepts: Turbulence.
The concept of turbulence is hard to understand with math, but it turns out art makes it fairly easy to comprehend through depiction. So, what is turbulence?
According to Britannica, turbulence, or turbulent flow, is a concept of fluid dynamics in which a type of fluid flow (liquid or gas like air or water or air) undergoes an irregular fluctuation or energy cascade. In other words, the air or water swirls and eddies as it moves: big eddies make smaller eddies, and those make even smaller ones, and so on. Common examples of turbulent flow include blood flow in arteries, lava flow, atmosphere and ocean currents, and the flow in boat wakes or surrounding the tips of aircraft wings.
It looks like this:
Turbulent flow illustrated and animated.All Van Gogh GIFs via TED-Ed.
The thing is, scientists only started figuring this out pretty recently.
Animation of art referencing science.All Van Gogh GIFs via TED-Ed.
And yet, there was Mr. Vincent van Gogh, 100 years earlier in his asylum with a mutilated ear and able to accurately capture this turbulent flow in what would become his most famous work, Starry Night.
Animated Starry NightAll Van Gogh GIFs via TED-Ed.
The folks who noticed Van Gogh's ability to capture turbulence checked to see whether other artists did the same. Most of the Impressionists achieved "luminance" with their art—a striking and lifelike depiction of light's effect on color. While impressive, they did not capture or depict turbulence the way Van Gogh did.
An animated depiction of The Scream.All Van Gogh GIFs via TED-Ed.
Not even Edvard Munch's The Scream, with it's swirling color and movement, could recreate what Van Gogh had accomplished.
Who would have thought that the beauty Van Gogh captured was foreshadowing what scientists would observe in the real, natural world in a century's time? To learn even more, watch the TED-Ed video below:
- YouTubeyoutu.be
This article originally appeared twelve years ago. It has been updated.
A female doctor was confused for a nurse after taking a male colleague's advice on how to introduce herself.
Years ago, a story went viral about a school kid asked to fill in a blank word containing the letters "u" and "r." The clue? Hospital lady. The kid wrote "surgeon," which was marked incorrect. The answer sheet was looking for nurse. The resulting kerfuffle showed, clear as day, that gender bias still exists almost everywhere. Worse yet, it's still being unintentionally ingrained in our kids from a very young age.
The worksheet in question was from 1997. The story cropped up in 2017. Surely, things have gotten better by now! We've come a long way when it comes to gender bias, discrimination, and, well, pure sexism, right? Right?!
Abbie Cantwell, a doctor from Portland, Oregon, recently shared a story from her hospital that sadly proves otherwise.
Abbie Cantwell wouldn't dream of disrespecting nurses. But she's not one.Giphy
In a TikTok video, Dr. Abbie describes getting some questionable advice from a male mentor and colleague at her hospital. He told her it would be more approachable and humble if she introduced herself by her first name (Abbie) instead of by her full title (Dr. Cantwell). Cantwell was hesitant to take the advice but eventually decided to give it a shot. She was vindicated almost immediately.
"I did that one time with a family. I was like 'Hi, I'm Abbie, I'm the doctor in the ICU.' And they legitimately nominated me for a DAISY Award."
A DAISY award is an honor given to nurses who show exceptional patient care and compassion. Anyone in a hospital or healthcare setting can nominate a nurse for their work, including patients and supervisors. It's a great honor and it means Cantwell did a phenomenal job caring for her patient. But, remember, she's a doctor, not a nurse!
"Love, respect, thank you, it's an honor," Cantwell says. "But an incorrect one."
In an effort to take her mentor's advice and seem more humble and approachable, Cantwell had inadvertently made herself "smaller" and stopped demanding the respect she deserved. Watch her tell the whole story here.
@abbiecantwell Women in stem baby #fyp #residency #medicine #medicalschool
Over a million viewers tuned in. Cantwell's story resonated with medical professionals, and women, everywhere who've had their achievements overlooked.
Commenters had her back, for certain:
"If I had MD behind my name, even my kids would be referring to me as doctor."But he would NEVER say that to a male. Babes you worked hard to earn that Doctor title."
"If I had MD behind my name I’d make my own mother call me doctor."
"A senior male attending pulled me aside my first week of intern year and told me to never introduce myself by my first name. He was looking out for me - looking back, I’m so grateful. I had no idea."
"Never do that again. Women docs aren’t making themselves small, for ppl anymore. You are the doctor. We need need to address you as such."
Some argued that Cantwell should look on the bright side:
"Well at least we know you’re great at your job doctor."
Again, Cantwell's story is no shade to nurses, who deserve all the respect in the world. But no one would ever suggest to a male doctor that he be more "humble" by dropping the title he earned through years of school and rigorous training. And that's the problem.
Conscious and unconscious biases are keeping women out of doctoring.
Photo by TopSphere Media on Unsplash
Men currently account for 62% of doctors, with women at 38%. This is despite women earning college degrees and masters degrees at a higher rate than men. So, what gives? An essay in The Guardian cites high levels of burnout from female medical professionals and argues that "medicine continues to systematically disadvantage women physicians at every stage of their careers, causing many to leave." Patients and colleagues alike may be distrustful of female doctors and may not give them the respect and cooperation they deserve, making their experience and job much more difficult than their male counterparts. "And so women in medicine are given advice to make themselves smaller, more palatable, more humble and approachable. And by doing so they undermine themselves."
This phenomenon reflects broader societal biases about women in healthcare," Cantwell told Newsweek. "Addressing it is essential to breaking down barriers and inspiring future generations of women in STEM."
How can anyone get by on this?
I've written extensively about minimum wage, supported by fact-checkers, economists, and scholarly studies. All of them support raising the minimum wage as a solution to lifting people out of poverty and getting them off public assistance. It's slowly happening, and there's much more to be done.
But when it comes right down to it, where the rubber meets the road is what it means for everyday workers who have to live with those wages. I honestly don't know how they do it. Ask yourself: Could I live on this small of an hourly wage? I know what my answer is.
(And note that the minimum wage in many parts of the county is STILL $7.25, so it could be even less than this).
One year of work at McDonalds grossed this worker $13,811.18.via JustFrugalMe/YouTube
The YouTube channel Just Frugal Me discussed the viral paycheck and noted there's absolutely nothing wrong with working at McDonald's. More than 2 million people in the U.S. alone work for the fast food giant. The worker's paycheck shows they put in 72 hours over the pay period, making $8.75 per hour. Before taxes, that's $631 for the week. Just Frugal Me's breakdown is even more eye-opening, breaking down this person's pay after taxes and weighing across average rent and utility costs. Spoiler Alert: the total costs for basic necessities far outweigh what this person is making even while working 12 hours per day. But they do make too much to qualify for Medicaid, meaning they will have to go out and buy their own health insurance.
A photo of a McDonald's in Hartford, CT. via Mike Mozart/Flickr
Even in states like California, where the state's $20 minimum wage ensures that people earn nearly three times as much as the federal minimum wage, which remains as low as when this paycheck first made the rounds nearly 10 years ago.
Still, even for a worker that maxed out at 40 hours per week and took zero vacation or sick time, that's only a little over $41,000 per year. That's barely half the median wage in the state of $78,000 and far below a sustainable living wage in cities like Los Angeles.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
The U.S. federal minimum wage is just $7.25 and hasn't been raised since 2009. In April 2025, the Raise the Wage Act of 2025 was introduced in the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. The bill would increase the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour by 2030 and eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped workers and those with disabilities. But supporters should be cautious that it's unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Congress.
If the Wage Act of 2025 were to pass, over $22 million workers would get a raise, which is 15% of the U.S. workforce. It would raise $70 billion for low-wage Americans, an increase of $3,200 per worker.
“No person working full-time in America should be living in poverty," Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott said in a statement. "The Raise the Wage Act will increase the pay and standard of living for nearly 22 million workers across this country. Raising the minimum wage is good for workers, good for business, and good for the economy. When we put money in the pockets of American workers, they will spend that money in their communities,”
This story originally appeared ten years ago. It has been updated to reflect new information.
There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't