Every place has different laws, but some laws are unique. One of the unusual laws is from Singapore, where chewing gum cannot be imported. In fact, it is illegal to chew gum in public places. This law is intended to help keep the city clean. In Denmark, a law prohibits parents from giving their babies unusual names. There is a list of 33,000 approved names that parents with new babies can choose from. If they want to use something different, they must ask for approval from the government. Finally, if someone feeds pigeons in Venice, they may be fined up to €500. This is because pigeons make the city's monuments dirty and spread disease. These are just a few examples of unexpected laws. Travelers should always check the laws of the places they visit to avoid getting in trouble.

Inattentional blindness is the phenomenon of failing to see a visible but unexpected object because your attention is focused elsewhere. Although it has always existed, it has become a greater issue in modern society. The world our ancestors lived in was less complex, and there were fewer objects and events that needed our immediate attention. In contrast, technology has brought the modern world numerous machines and devices that continuously require large amounts of our attention as quickly as possible. Our brains are capable of handling visual demands for attention, but not in such large amounts or at such rapid speeds. When we are walking, failing to notice something for a few seconds probably won't affect our survival. When we are driving, however, a delay of even a tenth of a second in noticing an unexpected event can have tragic results.

Foods and drinks with lots of carbohydrates and sugars cause certain bacteria to form in your mouth and attack your tooth enamel for at least twenty minutes after you eat. By brushing right after you eat, you can remove bacteria before they cause any damage. However, brushing your teeth directly after consuming acidic foods, like lemons or orange juice, can also negatively affect your tooth enamel. You should wait at least 30 minutes before brushing your teeth because the acids remaining in your mouth can temporarily weaken your enamel. Brushing your teeth in this weakened state can cause more harm than good. A good solution to this problem is to brush your teeth before eating acidic things. Then, after you've eaten, drink a glass of water to wash away any remaining acids. Eating nutritious foods low in carbohydrates and sugars after eating something acidic is another good way to help reduce harmful acids.

Thanks to modern technology, it's almost impossible to get lost these days. Wherever you may go, you are always within reach of satellites spinning through space that can help you determine your exact location. These satellites are part of satellite navigation systems that can figure out your position and speed, as well as the local time where you are. Because they are based on radio signals that reach the entire globe, people everywhere can use them. But how exactly do they work? Although there are many satellite navigation systems, they all function in basically the same way. They consist of three parts: a network of orbiting satellites, a control station on Earth, and portable devices with the ability to receive signals. Each satellite in the network transmits radio signals toward Earth. The receiving device picks up signals sent from three or four satellites and uses this information to calculate your precise location, including your altitude.

The average person's language skills are easily affected by external changes up until the age of about 12. Research on children who have been adopted internationally has shown that they often forget their native language after moving abroad. This, however, is unlikely to occur with adults, unless the external circumstances are extreme. An expert on the subject of what makes people lose their mother tongue studied the German of elderly German Jews who fled the country for the UK or US during the Holocaust. How much German they retained mainly depended on how much trauma they had experienced. Those who fled Germany when the Nazis first took power and avoided the worst of the tragic events that followed spoke better German. Those who left later and suffered more, on the other hand, spoke German poorly or not at all. For them, German was a reminder of painful memories they wanted to forget.

Everyone knows that not getting enough sleep can leave you in a bad mood the next morning. However, it can also impair your cognition and memory, cause depression and anxiety, and increase your risk of other health problems. Even a single night of inadequate sleep can adversely affect your mood and make it harder to properly regulate your emotions. A study examined participants who went through different sleep deprivation experiments whose purpose was to assess their ability to control their emotions. The researchers then took PET and MRI scans of each participant, with which they were able to analyze their brain activity. They found that low-quality sleep prevented the brain from transmitting and processing information properly. It also had a negative effect on the participants' perception of events and their ability to manage their emotions.

Generally speaking, teenagers should get 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night. Unfortunately, many teens don't get enough sleep. Part of the problem is excessive schoolwork, and staying up late playing with their smartphones doesn't help either. However, much of the problem can be blamed on the circadian rhythm, or internal clock, of teenagers. Children's circadian rhythms change during their teen years. This is most likely due to melatonin, a hormone released by the brain. It is released later at night in teens than it is in kids and adults. This is the reason why teenagers find it difficult to go to bed early. So, on Saturday and Sunday mornings, when teens tend to sleep late and get a few extra hours of sleep, they are improving their mental health, along with their memory and ability to learn.

When it comes to the way children are raised in the US these days, there are two distinct aspects. The first is praise — today's kids are praised to a greater degree than ever before. Children have always been given encouragement by their parents, but they get a thousand times more today. In fact, most American children are told continuously how special they are. The second aspect is that children are pushed to develop their abilities and talents to an unprecedented degree. Parents worry about their children getting into a prestigious college and finding a high-paying job, so they spend much more time investing in their children's skills than they did in the past. And when these two child-rearing trends combine, the results can be intense and overwhelming. Parents shower their kids with love and praise, but at the same time they manipulate their lives to ensure high levels of success and achievement.