Hypnosis is a real phenomenon, and even animals can be hypnotized. But what hypnotism is, exactly, remains unclear. In a remarkable experiment reported in the New York Times , subjects were given the post-hypnotic suggestion that they would see words that would appear incomprehensible as if in a foreign language.
It's not that living things die; it's that multicellular organisms die. But why? Every single-celled organism alive today has been in existence since life began over 3 billion years ago. This is because individual cells do not give birth, they divide. After cell division, the two cells that result are each as old as the single cell that preceded them.
This illusion is pretty fascinating. It might actually point the way to a new discovery. The color constancy effect has been known for a long time, and there are many illusions around that show (to the same viewer) how a colored surface can appear to be one hue or another depending on the circumstances.
For decades, cognitive scientists slowly accrued a solid understanding of how people learn but never bothered to tell teachers and students what they had found. It is as if, says author Benedict Carey, "doctors had discovered a cure for diabetes and spent 50 years characterizing its molecular structure before giving it to a patient." He is attempting to rectify that.