The Pragmatic Lair

Today we're clarifying some misconceptions we have about some things we often hear. Some people get a cold and the flu at the same time and they sure don't have a good time, it's possible. This depends on the combination of viruses you have. If you got infected with 2 rhinoviruses, for example, you may not feel much of a difference since the symptoms are similar. But if you got infected with a flu virus, when you already had a cold, then you may feel the consecuences, since the symptoms are different and you may feel even worse. When the cold weather comes, people tends to be more locked up in their homes and in their offices because they have the air conditioning there. So they are more likely to get this type of virus. Now, it is not that the virus is spread by the cold, it is not due to the cold that we get sick. Yes, it can affect our immune system and, beacause of it, it can take us longer to recover, but we actually get sick from viruses. The cold itsel...

Let's clarify some things that are not being said well. There’s a lot of misinformation in every viral news and I didn't want to hurry. You have to be very careful with what you find in the networks. One cannot make articles with true and reliable information every day without a whole production team behind. Doing it alone is impossible. That can only be done by entertainment media and, if so, it should not be taken seriously because its main objective is to entertain, even if they show news. Now to the point, the news about The Amazon began badly, full of misinformation, even from important companies. Barbarities were said from the beginning, like it is burning due to climate change, and it is not that forest fires cannot happen due to this phenomenon. The climate crisis manifests with hurricanes, floods, heat waves and forest fires, but this is not the case and you should already know. To understand this you must first have one thing clear. Forest ...

When you look at a plant your first thought is probably not "that thing's going to kill me". But in some cases, that thing is going to kill you. Plants have evolved with all kinds of compounds inside them. Sometimes those compounds don't play well with human biology. Dumbcane -  Dieffenbachia A common houseplant, it's easy to grow and nice to look at, but if you eat any of this stuff, you'll end up with blisters and swelling in your mouth and throat that can make it difficult to breathe or speak, hence the name. The main problem comes from tiny crystals of calcium oxalate and acid that's a major component of kidney stones. The crystals are shaped like needles and they'll easily stabbed through the tissues in your digestive system or eyes like some kind of poisonous acupuncture. Botanists think the needles might also contain enzymes that mess with the proteins in your cells, which help make the swelling and burning worse. The effects can last for u...

Imagine you’re the president of a great nation. That means you are responsible for the welfare of millions of people. On the "dangers to watch" board, it’s been written about greenhouse gases. We have been releasing them in the atmosphere for so many decades that they are beginning to alter the climate. Now, how big these changes will be is something you don't know, and a quick check in the internet doesn't solve it. The variety of answers you find is crazy. While on the one side they tell you that every living being is going to die in twenty years, on the other side they tell you that it is all a lie. In both cases, nothing smells quite right. The first group seems to be exaggerating a bit and those opposing seem to be very defensive: But, hey, you wouldn't know who is right either. After all, it is you who are looking for answers. So, in a world in which we have democratized to spread both the truths and the lies, where the false and...

Running water contains some minerals and impurities so it is not pure water. Those minerals and impurities give that characteristic flavor. But what is pure water? The water you drink from the bottle, the boiled water, the spring water, the river water? No, none of those is completely pure. If you drink pure water, something will happen to you and you will not like it. Yes, you’ll die. Of course, if you only drink a glass of pure water, it won't kill you but you can't drink it regularly. The problem with pure water is that it is a hypotonic solution . Water has a property called tonicity. This is the ability of some solutions to change the shape of a cell and alter the volume of water inside it. Hypertonic solutions gain water and hypotonic solutions lose water.   The cytoplasm in the cells of your body also has a certain tonicity. When exposed to hypotonic solutions, they gain water and inflate like balloons. Pure water is one of the most hypot...

Imagine you are in a spaceship heading to Mars and a friend just woke up after a good sleep. He asks: "what time is it?" What do you say? Do you lie and say it's a dream or would you say the truth? You say: There is no time in space. The amount of time that has passed since the Big Bang is different everywhere, depending on the speed of a moving object. If there were two hypothetical watchers since the beginning of time, moving at different speeds, they would say a different time has passed. In addition, time is also affected by gravity. The closer you are to objects of great mass, the slower the time. You are out of time, absolute time does not exist. Of course he will tell you: I just wanna know what time it is. Then you'll say: oh, that's a bit different. The time as we see it, is a way of measure but we can't really measure time. We use time to measure intervals between events. We also use it to define the speed, which is the distance divided by tim...

Music tugs at our heartstrings and brain cells. But how or why? Think of the excitement you feel at a rock concert or the lump you get in your throat when the first dance starts at your friend's wedding. How nice it is to dance around your kitchen to your favorite Spotify playlist. The question of why music gives us the feels is a tricky one. And it's something psychologists have been investigating for a long time. Turns out this research might be so difficult because there are a whole bunch of explanations. First, it's worth pointing out that music really is universal. Whether you are hearing it through your ears or feeling something like rhythm through vibrations. It's been found to be part of every known human culture. And even as infants we react to and enjoy it. Different cultures also seem to use similar types of music for similar things. This suggests that music has an evolutionary purpose, which is something that scientists as far back as Darwi...