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From today's featured article

Simplified model of cognitive processes associated with perception and memory

Cognition encompasses mental processes that acquire, store, retrieve, transform, or apply information. It is a pervasive part of mental life, helping individuals understand and interact with the world. Cognition includes perception, which organizes and interprets sensory input; memory, which stores and retrieves information; and thinking, which considers and manipulates ideas. Cognitive processes can be conscious or unconscious, and controlled or automatic. Classical computationalism conceives cognition as symbol-based rule processing, similar to how computers execute algorithms. Connectionism models the mind as a complex network of nodes where information flows as they communicate with each other. Many disciplines examine cognition, including psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. Its study originated in antiquity and has gained interdisciplinary prominence during the cognitive revolution in the 1950s. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Gore trout statue

... that "Trouty McTroutface" was submitted in a naming contest for a trout statue (pictured)?
... that two inches of excess beam doomed the Confederate gunboat Appomattox?
... that Stamford Raffles collected over thirty tons of Javanese objects to help him write The History of Java?
... that football player Jamie Duncan was described as a "one-man horror show"?
... that VRMMORPG fiction such as Sword Art Online influenced public discourse surrounding modern virtual-reality technologies?
... that the cover of GreenGreen, an extended play by Cortis, features a bridge that the band's members frequently walked past when they were idol trainees?
... that British opera singer Suzannah Clarke performed annually in North Korea?
... that there are three genders in Plato's Symposium: man, woman, and the union of the two?
... that a darts player nicknamed "the Reaper" works at a funeral home?

In the news

Beth Mooney

Thirteen people are killed in a wildfire in Almería, Spain.
A series of coordinated attacks across Pakistan's Balochistan province leaves at least forty-two people dead.
The IOC provisionally lifts its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee.
In cricket, the Women's T20 World Cup concludes with Australia defeating England in the final (player of the match Beth Mooney pictured).

On this day

July 15: Statehood Day in Ukraine (2022)

SG-1000

1410 – The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald, the decisive engagement of the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War.
1815 – Aboard HMS Bellerophon, French emperor Napoleon surrendered to Royal Navy captain Frederick Lewis Maitland, concluding the Napoleonic Wars.
1983 – Sega's first home video game console, the SG-1000 (pictured), was released in Japan.
2009 – A M_w 7.8 earthquake struck a remote region of Fiordland, New Zealand, the country's largest earthquake magnitude since the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake.
2018 – Croatian Mario Mandžukić scored the first own goal in a FIFA World Cup final in their defeat to France.

Rembrandt (b. 1606)
Nina Bari (d. 1961)
Cherry (b. 1975)
Celeste Holm (d. 2012)

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From today's featured list

Tracks of all cyclones in the 2002 Pacific hurricane season

Nineteen systems formed during the 2002 Pacific hurricane season, with fifteen further strengthening into named tropical storms; eight became hurricanes, of which six attained major hurricane status. The 2002 Pacific hurricane season consisted of the events that occurred in the annual cycle of tropical cyclone formation over the Pacific Ocean north of the equator and east of the International Date Line. The official bounds of each Pacific hurricane season are defined by the National Hurricane Center (NHC), beginning on May 15 in the Eastern Pacific and June 1 in the Central Pacific, and ending on November 30 in both areas. Activity in the 2002 season was generally near normal, with the number of tropical storms and hurricanes matching the respective 1991–2020 averages; however, the number of major hurricanes was above the average of four for the same period. Hurricanes Elida, Hernan, and Kenna achieved Category 5 strength on the Saffir–Simpson scale, tying a record set in 1994 for the most storms to do so in one season since reliable records began in 1971. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Glaucus atlanticus, commonly known as the blue dragon, is a species of sea slug in the family Glaucidae. It is pelagic and found in tropical and temperate oceans worldwide. The species floats upside down at the ocean's surface using a gas-filled sac in its stomach, with blue and silver countershading to help camouflage it from predators. It preys on venomous cnidaria such as the Portuguese man o' war, storing the prey's stinging nematocysts in specialised sacs for its own defence. Handling the slug can result in a painful sting and symptoms such as nausea and allergic contact dermatitis. This G. atlanticus sea slug, about 35 millimetres (1.4 in) in length, was found washed up on a beach at Surfers Paradise in Queensland, Australia.

Photograph credit: Taro Taylor

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