• Long before the use of paper, the Stimarians - people of Mesopotamia who lived around 3500-3000 B.C. - invented the Cuneiform writing system. It consisted of pictographs and phonograms that was etched on clay tablets. This method of writing was around for 2000 years.
• Papyrus Scroll dates from around 2400 B.C. They were made from the stem of the Papyrus plant and were about 10 - 40 metres long. Ancient Egyptians used reeds or bird feathers to write on the scrolls.

It is a healthy activity to reflect back on the time gone by, in an objective way, before making plans for the year ahead. However, most of us are moving towards one of the two extremes:

1. Self-ridicule or lamenting the stuff we didn’t do or did wrong.
2. Self-congratulation or patting oneself on the back for all the great stuff we did, while ignoring the mistakes.

People are fascinated with true crime. It is why so many are addicted to crime podcasts or investing hours in series like Unsolved Mysteries.

Research shows that women are more attracted to real crime than men. One possible reason is that although men are more likely to be victims of violent crime, women may feel more vulnerable to attack, therefore more ready to gain insight on how to survive a true crime scenario.

Everything we've learned about Mars over the last century suggests that the planet was once able of hosting ecosystems.

• Mars is just over half the size of Earth.
• Gravity is only 38 percent than that of Earth's.
• It rotates around its axis at about the same speed as Earth, meaning that a day on Mars is just 40 minutes longer than on Earth.
• One year on Mars takes about 687 Earth days.
• Mars has the same amount of habitable surface as Earth. It also contains ice on the polar caps.

But Mars is wrapped in a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere and cannot support earthly life forms.

Christmas is one of the few times people feel they can sing together. Christmas songs are one of the few remaining national repertoires.

As you go in from a cold night into a warm pub full of people who want to share the songs, you gain a deep sense of pride and connection, and you're sharing the traditional with past and future generations.

When we navigate a new area with a map, for example, we start looking at objects in relation to one another.

But if we are exploring a route without a map, we tend to think more about the space in terms of its relation to ourselves.

The story of positive psychology started just 20 years ago with Martin Seligman, head of the American Psychological Association. The idea he considered was: What if every person was encouraged to nurture his or her character strengths, rather than being scolded into fixing their shortcomings?

He reorientated the entire discipline of psychology away from mostly treating mental illness and toward human flourishing, then used his authority to promote it.

In 1974, Hungarian architect Ernő Rubik wanted to find a way to model three-dimensional movement to his students. At first, he tinkered with blocks of cubes, made from wood and paper, and held by rubber bands, glue, and paper clips. Later he created what he called a Magic Cube.

The Magic Cube was eventually renamed the Rubik's Cube. It became the most popular puzzle toy in the world, inspiring numerous artworks and films, and starting a competitive sport called speedcubing.

Anger and the accompanying feelings of revenge are associated with dopamine and norepinephrine secretion in the brain, which feel exhilarating to us.

The neurological chemical systems in the brain reward our anger and make it feel good, which is not the case with the other emotions like shame and sadness.

Humans are able to reproduce the computations inside the brains of others.

Human beings are great at adapting the behaviours of others through observation. A new study shows that apart from learning through observing others behaviour, we also copy the minds of others as we grow older, learning how the people around us think and feel.