/oss/taxonomy/term/549/all en /oss/article/critical-thinking/making-sense-synaesthesia-harder-it-looks <p>Does the sound of a drill smell like bleach to you? I don’t mean that in a poetic, “trying to be interesting” kind of way. I mean, when you hear the sound of a drill, can you <i>automatically </i>smell bleach?</p> <p>Odds are, you can’t, but for someone out there, that is their reality.</p> Wed, 27 Jul 2022 20:06:24 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 9192 at /oss /oss/article/health-general-science/can-you-picture-some-people-cant <p>A daydream solved an important problem in the 19<sup>th</sup> century. Chemists were trying to elucidate the molecular structure of benzene, a petrochemical that is now used in the production of styrene and nylon fibres. It was in front of a fireplace that<a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ed035p21"> chemist Friedrich August Kekulé dozed off</a> and was rewarded with a vision of a serpent biting its own tail, a mental image that nudged him in the direction of benzene’s ring-like structure. This image was not voluntarily conjured up by Kekulé; rather it came to him in a dream.</p> Fri, 17 Apr 2020 17:22:50 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8220 at /oss /oss/article/history-news-quirky-science/power-imagination <p>Apparently, stores in Poland once ran out of red underwear because a study that showed girls wearing the red under garment did better on their high school exams that those who favoured other colours. Now I don’t know if such a study really exists, or whether it is an urban legend, but it doesn’t matter. If students believe that such a study was done and saw the results, then they will likely benefit from wearing red underwear.</p> Wed, 30 May 2012 18:19:32 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 1701 at /oss