Strange Maps — July 23, 2010

9 – Germany wins World War I(French worst case scenario)

What would Europe have looked like, had Imperial Germany won World War One? This image is taken off a French magazine at the start of the war, painting an exaggerated picture of German (and Austro-Hungarian) land-grabs in a Europe dominated by the victorious Central powers.

In this Europe, ‘grande Allemagne’ has gobbled up all of Luxembourg and Belgium, most of France (leaving only a mini-French state around Biarritz) and extends far into Eastern Europe. Great Britain is a German colony, Ireland a dependency of Austro-Hungary, which rules most of southern and eastern Europe.

www.greatwardifferent.com

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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