1) The black block is between the blue block and the white block.

2) The red block is not first and the white block is not last.

3) The green block is separated from the white block by two blocks.

What is the position of the red block?

And, if the red block is not next to the green block, what is the order from first to last (left to right) of the five blocks?

Leave your answers in the comments below. I’d love to see them!

If you think your friends and family might enjoy this brain teaser, please click the blue Share Buttons below. I really appreciate your support!

Click here to view the solution to this teaser.Similar Posts:

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There is one answer per circle. The word can start at any position, and it can either go clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Here’s an example:

The answer is “anywhere” as you find the “a” and move around the circle towards the right.

Alright, now it’s your turn. Leave your answers in the comments below – I’d love to see them!

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Want to check your answers? Click the link for the Circle Word Games #2 Solution.

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I love the surprise factor of optical illusions, so I won’t spoil it with an explanation. Check it out for yourself in the short video below.

Want more illusions? Check out the the top ten finalists here.

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There is one answer per circle. The word can start at any position, and it can either go clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Here’s an example:

The answer is “anywhere” as you find the “a” and move around the circle towards the right.

Here are 6 more for you to try. Leave your answers in the comments, and I’ll post the answers next week. For those of you who like to time yourself, feel free to post that too. And for those of you who prefer to work at your leisure, please do so!

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Want to check your answers? Click here: Circle Word Games #1 SolutionSimilar Posts:

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Game not showing? Click here to download the latest version of Adobe’s free Flash Player.

Green Leprechauns: In this St. Patrick’s Day brain game, your goal is to place the leprechauns in a manner that turns the entire playing area green.

You’ll see certain squares with shamrocks in them. The number represents the exact number of leprechauns that can touch the square.

If you see a shamrock without a number, you can attach any number of leprechauns to it.

Good luck!

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If you haven’t solved it yet, don’t scroll down any further. The answer is posted, along with some solutions from our readers.

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(more…)Similar Posts:

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With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, many of us are walking around with love (or chocolate) on the brain. In celebration of the sugary sweet holiday, I’ve gathered some love inspired articles and videos I think you’ll enjoy.

What Happens To Your Brain When You Fall In Love?
The chemical steps that lead to love.

Just Thinking Of A Loved One Can Reduce Physical Pain
Next time you are in pain, think of a loved one – or at least look at a photo of them.

Why You Blush
Dutch psychologists find that the presence (or absence) of blushing determines whether your embarrassing blunder will be forgiven.

The Brain In Love – Why We Crave Love So Much

Helen Fisher and her research team took MRIs of people in love — and people who had just been dumped — to figure out why we crave love.

Do I Love My Wife? An Investigative Report
A.J. Jacobs volunteers to go into an fMRI machine so researchers can “see” how he truly feels about his wife.

Here’s a short video that illustrates the fMRI test above.

How Your Brain Handles Love And Pain
Just knowing your loved one is in pain activates a specific area of your brain and leads to empathy.

Can You Stay Madly In Love With Your Spouse?
Love just might leave a strong impression on your brain, as well as your heart, suggest researchers from Stony Brook University.

And for those of you who aren’t so fond of the big red day, no worries. Monday will be here soon enough, and I’ll cease with the mushy stuff.    ;-)

image ©istockphoto/Kativ

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Last night I headed out for a hike around sunset to catch The Moon Illusion. This phenomenon occurs once or twice a year when the moon is at its closest point to us – and is full.

Doing a search on the web turns up quite a few different explanations for the illusion – and a great deal of debate. There is one agreement, though. It is a fantastic sight!

The following is background information provided by Nasa with links at the conclusion for further resources. I’ve also included some photos I took of the event.

Sky watchers have known for thousands of years that low-hanging moons look unnaturally big. At first, astronomers thought the atmosphere must be magnifying the Moon near the horizon, but cameras showed that is not the case. Moons on film are the same size regardless of elevation: example. Apparently, only human beings see giant moons.

The moon just above the horizon. ©Erin Matlock

Are we crazy?

After all these years, scientists still aren’t sure. When you look at the Moon, rays of moonlight converge and form an image about 0.15 mm wide on the retina in the back of your eye. High moons and low moons make the same sized spot, yet the brain insists one is bigger than the other. Go figure.

A similar illusion was discovered in 1913 by Mario Ponzo, who drew two identical bars across a pair of converging lines, like the railroad tracks pictured right. The upper yellow bar looks wider because it spans a greater apparent distance between the rails. This is the “Ponzo Illusion.”

The Ponzo Illusion. Image credit: Dr. Tony Phillips/NASA

Some researchers believe that the Moon Illusion is Ponzo’s Illusion, with trees and houses playing the role of Ponzo’s converging lines. Foreground objects trick your brain into thinking the Moon is bigger than it really is.

But there’s a problem: Airline pilots flying at very high altitudes sometimes experience the Moon Illusion without any objects in the foreground. What tricks their eyes?

Maybe it’s the shape of the sky. Humans perceive the sky as a flattened dome, with the zenith nearby and the horizon far away. It makes sense; birds flying overhead are closer than birds on the horizon. When the moon is near the horizon, your brain, trained by watching birds (and clouds and airplanes), miscalculates the Moon’s true distance and size.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Sunset on the other side of the mountain. ©Erin Matlock

Further Resources:

The Moon Illusion Explained

The Moon Illusion, An Unsolved Mystery

The Ponzo Illusion and the Moon

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Do you enjoy word games? There are many to pick from – crossword puzzles, letter jumbles, word searches, etc. Word games are a fun way to pass the time, and many of us play word games regularly as a way to keep the brain sharp.

Does doing the daily crossword puzzle really improve your memory? The answer is: not was much as you might think.

Word games tend to be stimulating for the brain when you first start doing them. Crossword puzzles, for example, help to improve your vocabulary and challenge your brain to think about language in terms of letter count, abstractions and comparisons.

The novelty you experience when first doing crossword puzzles is a good recipe for brain exercising. But something happens after doing crossword puzzles for a little while – you start to become good at them! You start remembering all of the three letter words; you develop strategies and recognize repeating patterns. Your brain naturally adapts to the task and because of this, the task becomes easier.

Unless you diligently challenge yourself with harder and harder crossword puzzles, you are unlikely to experience the same kind of vigorous brain work out you received when first starting.

Posit Science has created a free word game called Word Wanderer that is specifically designed to overcome this issue for brain fitness. Word Wanderer’s key difference versus other word games is that it uses intelligent adaptive measures to ensure that you train at your own personal threshold, the uppermost edge of your skill level.

Word Wanderer is designed to adapt quickly to your skill level, so that you do not waste too much time working at skills that are either impossibly challenging or trivially easy. The game increases the difficulty so that you are typically training at threshold which means that you are constantly working your brain. As soon as you master a task, the program makes the task more difficult to encourage your brain to build stronger and more refined neural pathways.

You might compare the process to lifting weights. Imagine that you begin to lift five-pound weights. At first, it seems difficult, or even impossible. But after a week or two, your arms grow stronger and lifting the weights becomes easier.

Soon, it is no trouble at all. At that point, you have to switch to heavier weights to build even stronger muscles. Similarly, in Word Wanderer you start with four letter tiles. As your brain gets better at the task, you are challenged with additional letter tiles; at the highest level you must use seven letters before time runs out.

The key to engaging the brain machinery is learning. The brain must constantly be challenged with new tasks in order to forge or strengthen these neural pathways.

Word Wanderer is not only fun, but designed to engage the brain in a way that encourages positive change by keeping you at your own personal threshold during every turn. This adaptive component is critical in promoting brain fitness and not routinely found in online word games.

To try Word Wanderer, go to www.WordWanderer.com.

This article was written by our friends at Posit Science – a leading brain fitness company providing effective, non-invasive tools that engage the brain’s natural plasticity to improve brain health.

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Try shifting your focus to the green field below and move your mouse around. Let your mind relax and drift over the design that appears.

Check out more puzzles and games at Archimedes’ Laboratory.

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