A collection of 50+ optical illusions coded with CSS and HTML. :: Blog post at Alvaro Montoro's Personal Website.

AI can now see optical illusions, revealing how the human brain constructs reality. Discover what this means for perception, neuroscience, and AI evolution.

Your eyes are lying to you. But does that mean the ghosts are real? We’ve all fallen down the rabbit hole of late-night internet mysteries. A smartphone spotted in a 17th-century painting. A car vanishing into thin air on a highway. A face screaming from the floorboards of a Spanish kitchen. But where does the optical illusion end and the paranormal begin? In this episode, we bring in the heavy hitters. We’ve assembled a panel of forensic video analysts, physicists, and hardened investigators to put the internet’s most famous viral videos and unexplained mysteries on trial. We aren't just reacting; we are breaking down the frame-by-frame science. We tackle the "evidence" of time travel in historical art (is that really an iPhone?), explain the terrifying science behind the mummified animals of the alkaline lakes, and decode whether those "teleportation" videos are glitches in the matrix or just glitches in the camera shutter. From the infamous Bélmez Faces to mysterious blue lights in the sky, we separate the hoaxes from the truly unexplainable. In this episode, we investigate: - Time Travel or Brushstroke? Analyzing modern tech in ancient art. - The Stone Animals: How chemistry creates natural mummies. - Glitch in the Matrix: The physics of camera rolling shutter artifacts. - The Verdict: Which cases remain unsolved? 🎧 Press play to find out what’s real and what’s just a trick of the light. Did we ruin the magic or blow your mind? Hit the Follow button and leave a 5-star review! Share this episode with that friend who believes everything they see on the internet.

A unique gift with a macabre theme ideal for halloween. The first reaction that "it's a skull" is natural. The actual image, of course, being of an attractive woman at her make-up table. It's a strik...

A unique gift with a macabre theme ideal for halloween. The first reaction that "it's a skull" is natural. The actual image, of course, being of an attractive woman at her make-up table. It's a strik...

Optical illusions can be playful—and they can also nudge us to reflect on how we interpret what’s right in front of us. Treat this as light…

A unique gift with a macabre theme ideal for halloween. The first reaction that "it's a skull" is natural. The actual image, of course, being of an attractive woman at her make-up table. It's a strik...

Comparing animals’ susceptibility to optical illusions can show how perception evolved.

Chances are you’ve encountered some version of the “Ebbinghaus illusion,” in which a central circle appears to be smaller when encircled by larger circles and seems larger when surrounded by smaller...

Dr Maria Santacà is a behavioral biologist who specializes in the study of animal cognition and perception. Her research at the Department of Behavioral & Cognitive Biology of the University of Vienna explores how visual illusions can reveal the evolutionary roots of perception, asking whether similarities and differences across species reflect shared ancestry and neural complexity, or unique adaptations to ecological and social environments. In a newly published Frontiers in Psychology article, she uses a trick of vision where identical circles appear larger or smaller, depending on the context, to investigate differences in perception. She studied this two very different species: guppies and ring doves. In the following guest editorial, she describes how not only how fish and birds perceive their worlds, but also how ecological pressures shape the evolution of perception.