We all have seen the first Harry Potter film Professor Flitwick’s Charms class the main characters learn about the spell of Wingardium Leviosa. This might seem like pure magic but at an atomic level, everything in the world around us is never in contact with any object, meaning everything is rudimentarily levitating. As we know, the matter around us is made up of a nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons with electrons revolving around the nucleus. When two atoms come close to each other, the electrons of each atom start to repel each other, as like-charged particles repel, and Coulomb's electrostatic forces take into action. Even though this is a very minor effect in real life, it is a true phenomenon in theory. Field Lines of Levitating System This is an electrical approach, but this phenomenon can be better explained through the world of magnets. This is similar to electric charges, but the like-charges can be replaced for a system of two magnets with the like-poles opposite to each other. The magnetic approach to levitation is applicable in the real world where we most popularly see it in use with Maglev, or magnetic levitating trains.

Cuteness Overload! From blinking to your mouth becoming watery on the site of something delicious, reflexes are in every part of our daily actions. One specific kind of reflex is a conditioned reflex. This is essentially a reflex that we acquired through past experiences, for example, we as humans eat food daily and we have foods that we like and some others which we don't like as much. Whenever we see a particular food item that we previously experienced to be appetizing, the brain unconsciously works to release saliva, thus preparing the mouth for the treat! Russian biologist Ivan Pavlov is most famous for his experiments on doggies. He states that any animal under normal circumstances wouldn't salivate but when food is presented, the doggie's mouth becomes a 'fountain'. In his experiment, he observes that when a bell is rung in front of the doggie, he/she doesn't salivate, but when a plate of yummy food is introduced in front, he does. But when after the bell is rung, if a plate of food is introduced repeatedly over time, it is encoded in the doggie's natural behavior that the sound of a ringing bell marks the arrival of food, thus salivation. After a certain period of time, he noticed that just by the sound of the bell, the doggie starts salivating, irrespective of whether food is presented or not. Conditioned Reflex

In our cosmic neighborhood, the planets in our solar system would be our family. These two sets of roman and greek god named 4 rocky planets and 4 gaseous giants make up our solar system, each with its own unique characteristics. Below is the list of planets in our solar system, in order from away the sun, along with a unique characteristic: 1. Mercury: The planet, named after the most clever of the Greek gods, has wrinkles. Yes! You read that right, a planet with wrinkles. Now you might be flipping off thinking, "Oh boy, this blog is all hocus!", but hold on for a minute. Features on Mercury's surface known as Scarps were formed due to the cooling of Mercury's large iron core. As we know, a metal as it cools down becomes smaller in size. In a similar way, as the large metal core cooled down over the years, it started to contract, forming what we know see as wrinkles. 2. Venus: This scorching, vacation gone too wild of a planet, experiences acid rain regularly and has the highest surface temperature of any place in the Solar System. Scientists believe that Venus was once a habitable planet but experienced a runaway greenhouse effect about 700 million years ago. A runaway greenhouse effect is similar to a greenhouse effect, but a significant difference is, in a normal greenhouse effect, we still have the chance to stop it, but in a runaway one, the planet's doom is set in destiny. 3. Earth: Our home, is the place, as we know of so far, in the entire Universe, with a photosynthetic biosphere. In a sense, it means Earth is the only place that has the ability to harbor life, with an environment that has a light supply such that photosynthesis can occur and the solvent of life, water! 4. Mars: The Roman God of war, has over the years had 6 rovers successfully operate on it. From NASA's Sojourner (1997) to China's Zhurong (2021), we humans have had many attempts to land on this red world, out of which only 6 were successful. Namely NASA's Sojourner (1997), Opportunity (2004), Spirit (2004), Curiosity (2012), Perseverance (2021), and China's Zhurong (2021). 5. Jupiter: The largest planet in our solar system, can be called Earth's Guardian Angel. For billions of years, Jupiter has protected Earth from potential asteroid collisions. Due to Jupiter's large gravitational and electromagnetic field, it creates a sphere around Earth, such that it stops asteroids from crossing paths with the Earth. 6. Saturn: This strikingly beautiful planet, yet being so massive (more than 700 Earths can fit inside Saturn) has a density of 0.687 g/cm3, which means that it has less density than water. So hypothetically if we were to have a bath tube larger than Saturn and fill it with water and put Saturn inside the bath tube, it would float! 7. Uranus: No! I am not talking about the human body part, I am talking about the planet Uranus. This is the coldest planet in the Solar System, and each season on this planet lasts 42 years! 8. Neptune: Only visited by two spacecraft so far (Voyager 2 and New Horizons), this yet-to-be-discovered icy world is full of mysteries. For example, Neptune emits more radiation than what it gets from the Sun. From where can this extra heat be coming from? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below!