President Biden spoke with former President Donald Trump by phone Monday after a second assassination attempt, a White House official said. The official said Mr. Biden spoke with the former president and “conveyed his relief that he is safe.” “The two shared a cordial conversation and former President Trump expressed his thanks for the call,” the official said. Earlier Monday, Mr. Trump blamed Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, for fomenting the violence against...

Space is more accessible than ever thanks to the proliferation of small satellites and more affordable launch prices, which opened the door to bespoke applications like global pollution monitoring, crop observations, and new ways of collecting weather and climate data. Now you can add wildfire detection to the list. Satellites have observed wildfires from space for decades, but a new initiative partially funded by Google's philanthropic arm aims to deploy more than 50 small satellites in low-...

The White House called Elon Musk’s now-deleted “joke,” which questioned why “no one is even trying” to assassinate Vice President Harris, “irresponsible,” in a statement Monday. “As President Biden and Vice President Harris said after yesterday’s disturbing news, ‘there is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country,’ and ‘we all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence,’” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said. “Violence...

Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan on Monday grilled Green Party candidate Jill Stein on whether or not Russia's Vladimir Putin is a war criminal or not — and the presidential hopeful struggled to offer a straightforward response. Pointing out that Stein hasn't hesitated to call Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal, the Mehdi Unfiltered host wondered why she had such a difficult time condemning Putin, who invaded Ukraine in 2022. "You called Netanyahu [a war criminal], which I think he is,"...

There are some things that you just can't believe unless you see it with your own eyes. Sometimes even after seeing it, you still can't wrap your head around what you just witnessed. But usually when it comes to artwork, you don't need to understand how it's made to appreciate the beauty of the piece. That is until you come across something that combines the awe that comes with witnessing something beautiful and the awe that comes with seeing something unbelievable. It's like a double whammy to the senses where your brain has no idea what to make of it. Willard Wigan is one of those artists that will leave your mouth agape as you try to reconcile everything that goes into what he creates.Wigan creates tiny art. Scratch that. Wigan creates microscopic art in the form of sculptures that aren't visible to the naked eye. Take a minute and let that sink in. The sculptures he creates are so small that you cannot see them with the human eye but people can't stop staring at them.Wigan and his itty bitty sculptures have made it into the Guinness Book of World Records twice. Once for a 24 carat gold motorcycle in 2013 and again in 2017 for his sculpture of a human embryo made out of a carpet fiber placed inside a strand of Wigan's hair. The embryo sculpture measured 0.05388 mm according to Guinness Book of World Records. Recently the artist went viral after Max Klymenko featured Wigan in a video on social media. Klymenko interviewed the sculptor to find out about his process of creating such tiny fragile art. They go through the sculptures from largest to smallest which most people would think the largest sculpture would be something you could easily distinguish from a piece of fuzz, but alas, it wouldn't be microscopic. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dr Willard Wiggan MBE (@willard_wiggan)The largest sculpture Wigan has created is of a woman playing the violin and the entire sculpture fits inside of the eye of a needle. The microscopic violinist measures at a whopping 0.08 mm. He had to use loose fibers he dusted from his shirt in order to make the violin strings before using an eyelash as a paint brush.Wigan even had a chance to delight Queen Elizabeth with a sculpture he made of her royal carriage before she died. The carriage was painted gold with just as many intricate details as the real thing. Queen Elizabeth had to use a microscope to look at the sculpture and even though she saw it, she couldn't believe that it was real. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dr Willard Wiggan MBE (@willard_wiggan)"One mistake and it won't look like it was supposed to look like. I work between my heartbeat. So then I stop when it stops then I move when it stops, then I move," Wigan says.Believe it or not, the sculptor wasn't always great at creating these micro-mini works of art. Back in 2012, Wigan spoke with Modern Art explaining that when he was working on sculpture of Alice in Wonderland he had a catastrophic miscalculation, telling the publication, "There was a tragedy when I first tried making this piece…I inhaled Alice!” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Max Klymenko (@maxoklymenko)Since the pieces of art are so small, it's highly unlikely that he had to seek any medical treatment for inhaling the fictional character. Soon Wigan learned to create his sculptures between breaths, demonstrating in the video with Klymenko his unique ability to hold his breath for long periods of time. People were extremely impressed by his ability to sculpt out of things as small as a speck of dust. Wigan shares with Klymenko that he is autistic, which seems to be the missing piece that explains his eye for the micro art according to several commenters, but most were simply awestruck. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dr Willard Wiggan MBE (@willard_wiggan)"How do you even paint with dust! super impressive," someone shares."Watching this video I'm like how the f**k can someone focus so intently that they can move in between their heart beat consistently? 30 seconds later: autism ahhhh lol," another writes."So many hours and so many pieces and he’s got nothing to show for it unless you look through the microscope in all seriousness… he blew me away when he talked about paining in between heartbeats," one person admires. "Wow!! Incredible patience and self-control, as well as other things (steadiness/accuracy etc). Plus a pretty unique thought process (I'm calling it "thinking outside the matchbox" ? coz of the miniature aspect ratio of his art) when it comes to what materials/medium etc he could use. Amazing," someone else gushes. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dr Willard Wiggan MBE (@willard_wiggan)One commenter can't believe someone could reach that level of artistic talent without first losing their minds, "There HAD to have been a time when he went clinically insane then pushed past it to reach this."There seems to be something for everyone in his collection, that is if you can see it. He's got historical figures, cartoon characters and even a gold ring mounted on an eyelash to pay homage to Beyoncé. You can check out his work on his website where no microscope is required. But if you ever get the chance to see something he sculpted in person, do him and other art admirers a favor...don't sneeze!

Most of us know what it's like to get a song stuck in your head, but how many of us spend most of our day with song after song playing in our brains, triggered by the things we or other people say? Quite a few of us, apparently. Social media creator Chrissy Allen shared a video on Instagram that is resonating with thousands who "can't have a single conversation without your brain thinking of a song." Watch and see if this is you: See on Instagram "My mind is a literal jukebox," Allen wrote. Same, friend. Same. Over 18,000 people commented on the video commiserating about being walking karaoke machines."I am a teacher and the other day I said, 'Okay everyone stop what you’re doing' and then without thinking said'Cause I’m about to ruin the image and the style that you’re use to' and the entire class stared at me confused and not knowing what just happened. I then realized I am 50 and my head is filled with old lyrics.""All the neurodivergent peeps having a mental karaoke session in the middle of conversations ? and we will inevitably say 'could you repeat that?'""Her: he was cheating on me, but you know what's really bananas?Me: ...B-a-n-a-n-a-s... I'm so sorry""Why am I like this! ? The willpower it takes to not sing out loud in professional settings. The struggle is real."via GIPHY"I can't distinguish an original thought from a verse in a song anymore. Send help.""Very fluent in song lyrics and movie scenes ?""Yes. I too have this problem. Lyrics and movie quotes are my language.""This is me and my husband. We can't have a conversation without being reminded of a song then singing... We were in a harsh disagreement once and I couldn't help but start laughing, it annoyed him until I started singing the song, then he laughed, then we got over the disagreement and went on with our day ?""My kids 'OH my god!!' Me 'Becky look at her butt!'Then the kids just look at me like something is wrong with me. ?"Apparently, some of us just have the entire catalog of every song we've ever heard just sitting there on standby until a word or phrase triggers the player to kick on. And yes, it can be a challenge to stop yourself from singing out loud at random times mid-conversation. via GIPHYThere's actually a scientific term for this phenomenon (and the super-related "earworm" phenomenon of having a song playing in your head on repeat). It's called involuntary musical imagery, or INMI, which refers to a "conscious mental experience of music that occurs without deliberate efforts to initiate or sustain it." A study in 2020 found that INMI appears to be a universal phenomenon and that songs with certain characteristics are more likely to be played and replayed in our brains. “Earworms are an extremely common phenomenon and an example of spontaneous cognition,” the lead study author, Kelly Jakubowski, PhD, told CBS News. “Psychologists know that humans spend up to 40 percent of our days engaging in spontaneous cognition and are starting to try to understand why our brains spend so much time thinking thoughts unrelated to our present task and how such thoughts might be useful.”While an earworm isn't quite the same thing as having songs on shuffle in your head, there are definitely some song that tend to pop into people's heads and refuse to leave more than others. According to the study, the top earworm songs are:1. “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga2. “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” by Kylie Minogue3. “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey4. “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye5. “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 56. “California Gurls” by Katy Perry7. “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen8. “Alejandro” by Lady Gaga9. “Poker Face” by Lady GagaTerribly sorry for putting those into your brain. (Apparently, Lady Gaga has a special knack for writing songs that stick in the ol' gray matter. Thanks, Gaga.)via GIPHYThe question is, are some of us more prone to INMI than others? Perhaps. According to CBS News, research has shown that being constantly exposed to music and having certain personality traits, such as obsessive-compulsive or neurotic tendencies, can make people more susceptible to earworms. And a small 2015 study found that the size and shape of a person's brain—specifically, the thickness of certain brain regions—affected the frequency with which people got songs stuck in their head. So those with jukebox brains might just be somewhat special, though judging from the responses to Allen's video there are quite a few of us out there bopping along to the soundtracks in our heads.