BY YAHYA KARIM

The 3-3-3 method is a simple yet effective way to structure your workday, helping you stay productive while avoiding burnout. It breaks your tasks into three phases: starting with the hardest, moving to fairly challenging tasks, and finishing with the easiest. This gradual approach allows you to stay focused without feeling overwhelmed by your workload.

In the first phase, you tackle your most difficult or important tasks when your energy and focus are at their peak. This is the time to handle complex projects, make important decisions, or complete any work that requires deep concentration. By getting the toughest tasks done early, you set yourself up for the rest of the day and avoid the stress of avoiding what matters most.

Once you’ve completed the hardest tasks, you move on to the second phase: work that is fairly easy and urgent. This might include tasks that are still important, but less mentally frustrating, like: replying to emails, attending meetings, or organizing information. By this point, your momentum is already built, making it easier to continue being productive even as your energy starts to dip.

In the final phase, you finish with light tasks that require minimal effort. These might include organizing your workspace, responding to non-urgent emails, or planning for the next day. Ending the day with easy tasks helps you wind down while still feeling accomplished, and it ensures that your day wraps up on a positive note.

One of the great things about the 3-3-3 method is its flexibility. You don’t need to stick to unmovable time slots, or hours for it to work. If you’re more productive in the afternoon, for example, you can adjust the timing to suit when your energy peaks. The important part about this method is the structure, starting strong with focus-heavy work, then gradually easing into simpler tasks as the day goes on.

Overall, the 3-3-3 method introduces a balanced routine to your day. By having distinct chunks of time for different levels of work, it helps break up the lack of variety to a typical workday, making it easier to stay focused, productive, and stress-free from start to finish.

BY KHADIJA KARIM

Have you ever been to a restaurant and suddenly felt hungry because of the delicious smell in the air? This isn’t just a coincidence. Like many fast-food restaurants, chain restaurants use scent to make us want to eat there. It’s a clever trick that uses our senses and makes us crave things we haven’t even thought about. Let’s explore how restaurants use scent to entice us. Why is it so effective?

Smell is one of our strongest senses. When we smell something, our brains can instantly associate that with memories and emotions. That’s why when it smells like freshly baked cookies, it reminds us of home, or a holiday. Restaurants know this and use scent to stimulate hunger and mood. It makes us more likely to stop and buy food.

Think about the smell of a pizza shop. The smell of melted cheese. Spicy pepperoni. Fresh, irresistible dough. You don’t plan on buying pizza, but the smell can change your mind. Like a bakery with the warm smell of bread and desserts. It makes your mouth water before you even look at the food.

Sometimes the amazing smell we notice doesn’t even come from the food being cooked. Many restaurant chains use machines to remove artificial odors. This way, the odour can travel further and be stronger than it would naturally. Popular places like Subway can use scent machines to make the surrounding area smell like freshly baked bread. Even if they weren’t cooking at the time, it makes a passerby suddenly want to stop and eat a sandwich.

These synthetic odors can be controlled and spread through vents, or even sprayed outside the restaurant to attract people. It’s like a restaurant sending out a message saying, “Smell this amazing food! Why don’t you want it? Eat here?”

Restaurants use scent to attract us because it works! Smells come to us before we even look at the food or look at the menu. Smells like those that attract what we see or hear affect us immediately and can make us hungry even if we’ve never been there before. It’s a clever way to grab attention and make us want to eat.

Chain restaurants use scent to attract us and make us crave food. Whether it’s natural odors from cooking, or synthetic odors pumped into the air. This strategy works. Smell has a huge effect on our brain and mood. The next time you walk past a fast-food restaurant and suddenly feel hungry, think about real food, or smells, they make your stomach growl.

BY YAHYA KARIM

Exoplanets—planets orbiting stars outside our solar system—continue to reveal incredible diversity and challenge our understanding of planetary formation and survival. Some planets are just forming, such as those around the star V960 Mon. Here, astronomers using advanced telescopes observed clumps of gas being made into planet-like shapes, marking the early stages of planetary birth. This discovery provides a unique view into how giant planets come into existence.

Around the star PDS 70, researchers spotted something even rarer: sibling planets in the same orbit. One planet, roughly the size of Jupiter, orbits the star, while behind it there is a large cloud of gas and dust that may be forming into another planet. These “trojan planets” are rare and offer new information into planetary systems that form in close coordination.

Some exoplanets defy expectations. For example, the exoplanet LTT9779 b reflects an astonishing 80% of its star’s light, making it the most reflective planet ever discovered. It is extremely reflective nature comes from metallic clouds composed of glass, like silicates and titanate particles. What’s puzzling is how the planet still maintains its atmosphere, given its close proximity to its star. Similarly, the exoplanet Halla, which orbits a dying star in the red giant phase, should have been destroyed, but it still survives. This “zombie planet” suggests it may have formed after the star shrank or survived an unusual stellar event.

Extreme environments are also possible for exoplanets. GJ 1214b, located just forty light-years from earth, is covered in thick clouds of steam, hinting that it may have significant amounts of water. On the other hand, TRAPPIST-1b, which orbits a red dwarf star, has no atmosphere and reaches temperatures as high as 450°F, making it uninhabitable.

Even stranger, the exoplanet KELT-9b is hotter than some stars, with surface temperatures reaching 7,800°F. Its immense heat causes hydrogen molecules in its atmosphere to break apart. Meanwhile, WASP-121b, located about nine hundred light-years away, is stretched into a football shape due to the great gravitational pull from its nearby star.

These discoveries just show how different, bizarre, and mysterious exoplanets really are. Each planet shows its properties, and how it is unique. All this information will further help us understand how to develop our knowledge about space, and maybe even help us in our future journeys in space.