People Sniffer

“People sniffer was the field name for a series of U.S. Army personnel detectors used during the Vietnam War. The purpose was to detect enemy soldiers in hidden positions, which were often employed in the jungle combat conditions of Vietnam.”

“The detection method used by people sniffers depended on effluents unique to human beings; such as those found in urine and sweat.”

“While useful, the detectors had to be used with some caution. People sniffers were known to be oversensitive and would often detect civilians or animals excreting bodily waste.”

-- WIKIPEDIA, People sniffer

Zeigarnik Effect

"The Zeigarnik Effect is the tendency to experience intrusive thoughts about an objective that was once pursued and left incomplete. The automatic system signals the conscious mind, which may be focused on new goals, that a previous activity was left incomplete. It seems to be human nature to finish what we start and, if it is not finished, we experience dissonance."

-- Psychwiki, Zeigarnik Effect

Fata Morgana (mirage)

"A Fata Morgana…is an unusual and complex form of superior mirage that is seen in a narrow band right above the horizon."

"Fata Morgana mirages significantly distort the object or objects on which they are based, often such that the object is completely unrecognizable. A Fata Morgana can be seen on land or at sea, in polar regions or in deserts. This kind of mirage can involve almost any kind of distant object, including boats, islands and the coastline.

A Fata Morgana is often rapidly changing. The mirage comprises several inverted (upside down) and erect (right side up) images that are stacked on top of one another. Fata Morgana mirages also show alternating compressed and stretched zones.

This optical phenomenon occurs because rays of light are bent when they pass through air layers of different temperatures in a steep thermal inversion where an atmospheric duct has formed."

-- WIKIPEDIA, Fata Morgana (mirage)

Sonic hedgehog

"Sonic hedgehog is a protein that in humans is encoded by the SHH ("sonic hedgehog") gene."

"A potential inhibitor of the Hedgehog signaling pathway has been found and dubbed 'Robotnikinin', in honor of Sonic the Hedgehog's nemesis, Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik."

"The gene has already been linked to a condition known as holoprosencephaly, which can result in severe brain, skull and facial defects; motivation for some clinicians and scientists to criticize the name on grounds of it sounding too frivolous. They point to a less humorous situation where patients or parents of patients with a serious disorder are told that they or their child "have a mutation in [their] sonic hedgehog"."

-- WIKIPEDIA, Sonic hedgehog

VY Canis Majoris

"VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) is a red hypergiant located in the constellation Canis Major. It is one of the largest stars (at one time the largest known) and also one of the most luminous of its type"

"If placed at the center of the Solar System, VY Canis Majoris's surface would extend beyond the orbit of Jupiter, although there is still considerable variation in estimates of the radius, with some making it larger than the orbit of Saturn."

-- WIKIPEDIA, VY Canis Majoris

Antikythera Mechanism

"The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient analog computer designed to predict astronomical positions and eclipses for calendrical and astrological purposes, as well as the cycles of Olympic Games."

"The artifact was recovered in 1900–1901 from the Antikythera shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera. Believed to have been designed and constructed by Greek scientists, the instrument has been dated either between 150 to 100 BC or, according to a more recent view, at 205 BC.

After the knowledge of this technology was lost at some point in Antiquity, technological artifacts approaching its complexity and workmanship did not appear again in Europe until the development of mechanical astronomical clocks in the fourteenth century."

"Generally referred to as the first known analog computer, the quality and complexity of the mechanism' manufacture suggests it has undiscovered predecessors made during the Hellenistic period. Its construction relied upon theories of astronomy and mathematics developed by Greek astronomers, and is estimated to have been created around the late second century BC."

-- WIKIPEDIA, Antikythera Mechanism

Fermi Paradox

"The Fermi paradox…is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilization and humanity's lack of contact with, or evidence for, such civilizations. The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi and Michael H. Hart, are:

•  The Sun is a typical star, and relatively young. There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are billions of years older.
•  Almost surely, some of these stars will have Earth-like planets. Assuming the Earth is typical, some of these planets may develop intelligent life.
•  Some of these civilizations may develop interstellar travel, a technology Earth is investigating even now (such as the 100 Year Starship).
•  Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the galaxy can be completely colonized in a few tens of millions of years.

According to this line of thinking, the Earth should already have been colonized, or at least visited. But no convincing evidence of this exists. Furthermore, no confirmed signs of intelligence…elsewhere have yet been spotted in our galaxy or (to the extent it would be detectable) elsewhere in the observable universe. Hence Fermi's question, "Where is everybody?""

--WIKIPEDIA, Fermi paradox