The universe is an interesting place, filled with a seemingly endless amount of unexplained phenomena. Luckily that has not stopped our species from exploring and studying every micrometer of the universe we can see (even the universe inside each of us,) in an attempt to make sense of the grand mystery. The things that these individuals learn or the theories they develop can leave us with our minds boggled and our jaws on the floor. If that isn't enough, our own social habits right here on this very planet have opened up a whole new avenue of mysteries. Lets take a look at a few of our universe's eccentricities that I find the most intriguing.
1. Are We A Hologram?
It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, but there is a good deal of evidence to support the theory that our universe may very well be a holographic projection. Crazy? Maybe not. According to Gerard 't Hooft, the man who first proposed the holographic principle, for both gravity and quantum mechanics to be true, our universe has to exist as an image of data that is stored on a two dimensional projection. Most of us consider the universe to be mainly made up of energy and matter, but many physicists consider the universe to be mainly made up of information. We know that matter is made of atoms, and that atoms are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons; those particles are made of quarks and so on. Now imagine if you continuously divide particles further down the ladder you will eventually you make it to a unit that can be divided no more. What would you have? According to the holographic principle, it is quite possible you would have a "bit" similar to a 0 or 1 we use in coding. Thanks to a series of separate tests performed by Stephen Hawking, Leonard Susskind, Tom Banks, Willy Fischler, and Stephen Shenker we now know that the holographic principle is completely possible and around how much space would be necessary to store our universe (around a tenth of a light-year.)
2. We Can Pass Situational Knowledge Down To Our Kids Genetically.
We all know that the way we look and the way we act is heavily influenced by our genetics. What some may not know is, there is another inherited factor in play that has an effect on both appearance and personality. The epigenome is essentially a series of chemical tags on your genome that tells your DNA whether to wind tighter or more loosely to expose certain letters for expression. Your epigenome changes throughout your life based on different chemical queues, and essentially means that the way you take care of your body will be passed down to your children. In 2000, Randy Jirtle made a simple dietary change to a group of lab mice whose babies were consistently fat and blonde, which resulted in a single letter of their DNA being expressed differently. The end result was their babies being born small and brown, rather than fat and blonde. In another test scientists conditioned a lab mouse to be afraid of a particular smell. His babies, whether or not they were raised around him, were found to have inherited that same fear.
3. Does the US Government Play Both Sides of the Drug War?
In 1996, reporter Gary Webb linked the introduction of crack cocaine in California to a guerrilla military force backed by Ronald Reagan. Through a Freedom of Information act lawsuit filed in 1989, it was shown that Oliver North (the National Security Council aide who helped run the contra war,) and other officials aided in the transport of cocaine into the United States, and used drug money for their operations. You may have heard of "Freeway" Rick Ross, the man who sold roughly $3 million worth of cocaine a day in the early 80's to the bloods, the crips, and other criminal organizations. Ross's dealer was druglord Oscar Benilo Blandon, who had known ties to the very same contra I just mentioned above. "Freeway" Rick Ross helped launch a crack epidemic in the United States, and he is far from the only dealer who was purchasing Nicaraguan cocaine from the contra's druglord allies. The fact is, Oliver North and the Reagan funded contras helped launch the very same epidemic that is being "fought" today, and i put the word fought in quotations because the majority of the United States no longer supports the war on drugs.
Flash forward to today; US troops have been known to routinely defend poppy fields in Afghanistan, and opium production in Afghanistan has soared since the United States first invaded the territory. More than 90% of the world's heroin comes from war torn Afghanistan, and it is definitely a prominently used drug here in the United States as well. According to this comprehensive report put together by Prof Michel Chossudovsky:
Decision-making in the US State Department, the CIA and the Pentagon is instrumental in supporting this highly profitable multibillion dollar trade [Heroin,] third in commodity value after oil and the arms trade.
This has not been necessarily proven, however....it does sound awfully familiar.
4. Money Is Essentially Debt.
Money makes the world go around, but where the hell does it come from? Most people may be surprised to find out, most of the money we use on a daily basis was not created by the United States treasury. Money nowadays is created by a private banking institution known as the Federal Reserve. That money is then loaned out to our government with attached interest. This, of course, means that our government (and its citizens,) will always owe the Federal Reserve more money than it has borrowed. Or, in short, money is debt. To learn more, visit my website Real Money Mechanics.
5. Reality Doesn't Exist Until it is Observed
Okay, I know that this one sounds a little out there; but it is actually a widely known fact that things on the quantum level, such as atoms or photons, can exist as a combination of multiple states that align with different outcomes (existing as a particle and a wave at the same time for example.) The question has always been "when do they decide what exactly to be?" Thanks to an experiment performed by Physicists at The Australian National University (ANU,) we now know for certain that they choose at the moment they are observed.
6. How Did ISIS Evolve So Quickly?
At this point, everybody has heard of ISIS, but how in the world did the group become so powerful so quickly? The issue is far too complex to have just one answer, but there are many theories circulating that are worth a mention.
Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley, have both cited climate change as playing a major role in the rise of ISIS. According to a 2015 study the drought that occurred in Syria between 2007-2010 was indeed exacerbated by climate change, and contributed in a major way to the crisis in Syria. Food prices became unreasonably high, disease spread was rampant, and 1.5 million refugees were driven into Syrian cities already crowded with over 1 million Iraqi refugees, that were displaced by the Iraq war. This, of course, had a negative effect on employment and exacerbated the political unrest the area was already facing, leading to an all out civil war.
Last month, at Jeb Bush's town hall meeting in Reno, a college student accused George Bush of inadvertently causing the formation of ISIS. It sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense at first glance, but according to this article from the New Yorker, there is actually a lot of merit to her theory. In 2003, the US invaded Iraq and quickly threw out Saddam's government and decreed the dissolution of the Iraqi Army. This left close to 150, 000 soldiers without jobs and formed the basis for the insurgency. At the time, the most powerful group within the insurgency was Al Qaeda, whereas the Islamic State of Iraq was all but defeated. After the crisis in Syria mentioned above began Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, sent groups of soldiers to the affected area. Within a few months they had gained an army of followers, and changed their name to the Islamic State of Iraq in Syria (ISIS.)
From there, ISIS was able to thrive and net huge sums of money from a variety of sources including ransom payments and the oil trade. ISIS produces an estimated 44,000 barrels of oil a day and trades it on the black market, well below market value. It is also important to note that a number of countries, including the US, have been accused of indirectly helping ISIS by arming and funding Anti-Assad militant groups within Syria.
