“but Would You Know Yourself If You Weren’t Burning”

No artist tolerates reality

- Nietzsche

I feel like a lot of people don't realize how much power and control they actually have over their lives. Just learning about how we function, our instincts, habbits, and sensory experiences helped me see the world and my existence in such a different way.

All we have is our perception of the world, which more often than not is taken for a fact, when in fact, we can decide if we want to see an event as good or bad or just happening outside of our control.

If I experience a chain of bad things happening to me, If I happen to fall off my bike and break my arm, I won't think I have bad luck, or that my whole life sucks and I shouldn't even try. Rather, I try to separate the events that are out of my control, not good or bad, not personal but a flow of things that is natural and unpredictable. The thing that is within my control is how I choose to react to it. Instinctively I would get upset, curse ect. but taking a step back, looking at the situation separate from my current feelings gives me a much better perspective on things. What we feel isn't always the best way to deal with things, it's just what we have done the longest.

Anyways, I'm not sure where I was going with this except that it's within your control how you see and react to things.

X

About a month ago I was presenting at the annual conference of the Dutch Physical Society Fysica 2021. Now, I got the June issue of their magazine, in which they look back at the highlights of the conference. I was in a good company indeed!

In the Young’s Speakers Contest I ended up closely second with 34% of the votes from the 700 people listening to the story of my research. (The winner got 38%.)

Although I did not win the contest, I was presenting at the same stage with two Nobel Prize winners in Physics and got a brilliant response from the audience. This meeting will for sure stay in my memory and the magazine page goes directly on a display in my home office. I am immensly proud of myself and take this achievement as a great motivation to keep doing what I love — high quality research.

Recording of the whole virtual meeting via the link below. If you are curious about my work, jump to the presentation at 01.37.19 – Adela Melcrova: ‘No pores: The unexpected physics of a new antibiotic’. https://www.fysica.nl/

Crowd Vortices

The Feast of San Fermín in Pamplona, Spain draws crowds of thousands. Scientists recently published an analysis of the crowd motion in these dense gatherings. The team filmed the crowds at the festival from balconies overlooking the plaza in 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2024. Analyzing the footage, they discovered that at crowd densities above 4 people per square meter, the crowd begins to move in almost imperceptible eddies. (Image credit: still - San Fermín, animation - Bartolo Lab; research credit: F. Gu et al.; via Nature) Read the full article

A portrait in blood vessels. Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is a specialised medical imaging technique used to visualise blood vessels. Here, tangled white tubes represent the major blood vessels of the head, neck and upper thorax. Looking at the uppermost portion of the image, one can see the silhouette of the brain whilst the aortic arch takes the center bottom. All these vessels are hard at work beneath your skin, even as you read this post. 

i found a secret of yours in a dream last night