Covid-19 dashboard: Cases, deaths and vaccinations newscientist.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newscientist.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Earth 25 May 2021
Barbara Ferra Fotografia/Getty Images
Photographic memory is the ability to recall a past scene in detail with great accuracy – just like a photo. Although many people claim they have it, we still don’t have proof that photographic memory actually exists. However, there is a condition called Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) that allows people to recall past events in detail, along with the exact dates when they occurred. For example, they may be able to tell you what they ate for lunch on 1 May 1999 and what day of the week it was (Saturday). But HSAM has been identified in fewer than 100 people worldwide, and while their memories are exceptional, they still aren’t as reliable as photographs.
Did you know? Some people can taste music newscientist.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newscientist.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Earth 4 May 2021
Worldspec/NASA/ Alamy
You may have heard that we are all stardust, but that isn’t strictly true. There are about 20 different elements in the human body, most of which were made inside ancient stars. There’s oxygen, which makes up about half of your body’s mass but only a quarter of its atoms, and then carbon, accounting for another 12 per cent. And just after that, there’s hydrogen, the only element in your body that wasn’t made inside a star long ago and flung into space by a supernova explosion. The hydrogen atoms in your body, accounting for a little over 10 per cent of you, were formed much earlier during the Big Bang, some 13.8 billion years ago.