India is home to the world’s largest population of blind people and not nearly enough optometrists to provide the care the country needs. But recently, some doctors there have been receiving help in the fight against eye disease from an unexpected source. As Mashable reports, machine learning is being used to better understand the spread of blindness and predict the success rates of eye surgeries.

The initiative is part of a collaboration between Microsoft and the Indian not-for-profit LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI). At the center of the project are their Azure machine learning and Power BI services: After analyzing the anonymous records of 1.1 million people, the AI system can trace patterns of eye disease. Doctors can then use projections of surgical outcomes for certain types of patients to make informed decisions on how to treat them.

On December 19, Microsoft announced partnerships with the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami, the Flaum Eye Institute at the University of Rochester, the Federal University of Sao Paulo, and the Brien Holden Vision Institute in Australia. The company plans to continue working with eye doctors to examine new data and zero in on how to help blind children in particular, 200,000 to 700,000 of whom live in India.

Equipping doctors to treat visual impairments is just one of machine learning’s many potential medical applications. Earlier this year, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School taught an AI system to detect breast cancer with near-human accuracy.

[h/t Mashable]

If the holiday season makes visions of sugar plums dance in your head, the caloric austerity plan you have in mind for the new year will feel like a rude awakening. Between snacks, drinks, and the main meal, the average American consumes over 4500 calories on Thanksgiving Day alone, and with a calendar full of holiday parties, this over-indulgent lifestyle usually persists until January 1.

For anyone who’s planning to pursue a fitness- and health-related New Year’s resolution, it’s important to start preparing before the clock strikes midnight on December 31—it’s nearly impossible to make a drastic lifestyle change at the drop of a hat. Use these expert tips to get a head-start on your fitness goals in order to maximize your success.

1. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE DEDICATION NEEDED TO MAKE A CHANGE.

It takes a lot of patience and persistence to follow through on your fitness goals. “The problem that most people run into is that they don’t think through what they’re getting into,” says Dean Gavindane, a certified personal trainer and CEO of SuperMe Performance.

Gavindane says that underestimating the level of commitment needed to stick to a new fitness routine is common because people see their fitness goals “as a sprint instead of a marathon.” Understanding that your new diet and workout routine won’t achieve results overnight is the first step to shedding pounds and toning up.

2. START COUNTING YOUR CALORIES.

Losing weight is a simple math problem: Eat fewer calories than you burn each day. In order to count calories effectively, you therefore need to know how many you are taking in through your food as well as how many you are expelling when you exercise. Use a fitness tracker and a calorie-counting app to help you make smart snacking choices during the holidays.

3. KEEP A FOOD DIARY.

Jen Hazzard, cross country coach and adjunct chemistry and physics professor at Fulton-Montgomery Community College, has her clients keep a food diary where they record what they eat on a daily basis, using each day as a benchmark for the next. She says the diary is a way to be honest with yourself and to change the way you think about your nutrition changes. “I avoid the term diet,” says Hazzard. “It suggests giving up things you love for things you don’t like. You should never make fitness about denial, but about finding a middle ground. A good start to finding that middle ground is treating certain meals like rewards.”

Hazzard also says that by cutting out processed and junk foods, you’d be surprised at the quantity of healthy food you can consume without gaining weight. There’s no shame in filling up the pages of your food diary as long as they’re healthy foods.

4. STICK IT OUT FOR 66 DAYS.

Hazzard has also worked as a consultant for a wellness program called Commit to 66, which is based on a 2009 study that showed the average length of time it took participants to form a new habit was 66 days [PDF]. It’s important to remember that 66 days was the study’s average, so it may take you more or less time. What’s important is setting a long-term goal to help you curb your impulses as well as keep from getting discouraged.

5. DON’T BE AFRAID TO EXPERIMENT WITH FITNESS.

It’s easy to get in a rut at the gym (do you head to the elliptical every time you’re there?), but keeping an open mind about your physicality and trying new things is an important part of shedding weight. “Simple yet effective exercises and workouts can be done in several different ways depending upon the time allowed and equipment provided,” says Tiffany Tatlock, a certified personal trainer, meal planner, and competitive bodybuilder.

6. INCORPORATE BODYWEIGHT WORKOUTS INTO YOUR ROUTINE AT HOME.

If a gym isn’t available for you (or if it feels sub-Arctic outside and you can’t bear to leave the warmth of your home) it’s still possible to get in a great workout, no equipment required. Here are some body-weight circuits that Tatlock has suggested that can be performed at home and aren’t very time-consuming.

Set 1:
Floor Touch Squats (10 reps)
Wide-Grip Push-Ups (10 reps)
Squat Jumps (10 reps)
Full Tuck Crunch (10 reps)
Rest (60 seconds)

Set 2:
Forward and Backward Lunge (10 reps each leg)
Tricep Dips (10 reps)
High Knee Skips (10 reps each leg)
Bicycle Crunch (30 seconds)
Rest (60 seconds)

Set 3:
Flutter Kicks (30 seconds)
Swimming Plank (10 reps each side)
Diagonal Squat Thrust (5 reps each side)
Toe Touch Beetle Crunch (10 reps)
Rest (60 seconds)

Set 4:
Lateral Lunges (10 reps each leg)
Close-Grip Push-Ups (10 reps)
Single-Leg Skater Squat (10 reps each leg)
Vertical Leg Lift (10 reps)
Rest (60 seconds)

Set 5:
Plank (30 seconds)
Skydiver (30 seconds)
Tick-Tock Squats (10 reps each leg)
Spinal Rock-Up (10 reps)
Rest (60 seconds)

Completing sets one through five marks one round, and Tatlock advises performing up to five rounds in your workout session. “Effective and great workouts are all about giving it your all,” says Tatlock. “Typically, three to four of these sessions per week can be effective when the gym isn’t achievable.”

Standing at the helm of the Santa Maria off the coast of Bermuda in 1492, Christopher Columbus was captivated by a faint light “like the light of a wax candle moving up and down” in the water. At first, he mistook it for a sign of land, but it wasn’t: It was the unexplained phenomenon that sailors knew as “the burning of the sea.” It had been known for centuries—Greek sailors attributed odd twinkles and eerie glows to the powers of the god Poseidon or one of his nymphs—but it wasn’t until the 18th century and the advent of microscopes that the true source was identified.

Today, we know the phenomenon as tiny planktonic creatures that, when a wave or boat or swimmer disturbs them, twinkle blue, thanks to the same bioluminescent enzymes that give fireflies their glow. In the depths of the ocean, the only light available is the one these creatures create themselves; they use it to communicate, to find food, to find love, and to warn off predators. For us, it provides a stunning a shoreside glimpse into the oddities of our oceans.

Dinoflagellates are one of the most common bioluminescent organisms found in shallower water. They light up when a boat cuts through the ocean—in the past their light has exposed submarines and torpedoes. Bioluminescence almost never occurs in freshwater, but it’s such an important function for marine animals that live deep in the ocean that it’s evolved independently at least 40 times. Australia’s Gippsland Lakes aren’t always salty enough, but when enough seawater seeps in, the dinoflagellate Noctiluca scintillans thrives. These feed on phytoplankton; other bioluminescent bacteria consume rotting wood or dead fish, which, left long enough, can also start to glow blue. Bioluminescence can be visible on the beach in Vaadhoo, in the Maldives‚ but only when a passing ship disturbs the water.

On December 24, 1955, the red telephone at the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado began ringing.

The red phone meant it was either the Pentagon or CONAD commander in chief General Earle Partridge on the other end, and their reason for calling would probably not be pleasant.

U.S. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, director of operations at the center, rushed over to the phone and grabbed it.

“Yes, Sir, this is Colonel Shoup,” he barked.

Nothing but silence in response.

“Sir? This is Colonel Shoup,” he said.

Silence again.

“Sir? Can you read me alright?”

Finally, a soft voice on the other end.

“Are you really Santa Claus?” a little girl asked.

Shoup was stunned for a second. This must be a joke, he thought. He looked around the room, expecting to see his men laughing at their prank, but found stony, serious faces all around.

He realized that there was “some screwup on the phones,” and decided to play along.

“Yes, I am,” he answered. “Have you been a good little girl?”

The girl explained to Shoup that she would leave some food out for both Santa and his reindeer and then recited her Christmas list to him. Shoup thanked her for her hospitality, noting that Santa had a lot of traveling to do. How did he get to all those houses in one night, anyway, she asked.

Apparently, that was classified intelligence in Shoup’s mind. “That’s the magic of Christmas,” he said. If anyone asks her about that, he said, she should tell them to stop asking so many questions or Santa would put them on the naughty list.

“That red phone, boy,” Shoup later recalled. “That’s either the old man—the four star [General Partridge]—or the Pentagon. I was all shook up.”

The red phone would keep ringing throughout the night. Not because of Soviet nukes or fighter planes heading toward U.S. soil, but because of a typo.

That day, Shoup would later learn, a local newspaper ran a Sears Roebuck ad inviting kids to contact Santa.

“Hey Kiddies!” the ad read. “Call me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night.” The ad listed Santa’s direct line, but the number in the copy was off by a digit. Instead of connecting to the special line Sears set up with a Santa impersonator, kids wound up calling a secret air defense emergency number.

After a few more Santa-related calls, Shoup pulled a few airmen aside and gave them a special assignment. They would answer the phone and give callers—barring the Pentagon, we assume—Santa’s current location as they “tracked” him on their radar.

From that night on, tracking Santa became a yearly tradition, carried on by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) when it replaced CONAD in 1958. A new phone number, separate from the red phone, was established and publicized, and people were invited to call in and find out how close Santa was to their home. Every Christmas Eve, military service members staff phones and email accounts and the Santa Tracker Twitter account to keep kids up to date on Santa’s whereabouts.

Harry Shoup passed away in 2009, remembered by his peers and the public as the “Santa Colonel” who gave a special gift to millions of kids.

This post originally appeared in 2012.

Yes, Virginia, Santa does read his mail. 

Every year, millions of kids around the globe communicate with Jolly Old St. Nick the old-fashioned way: Pen (or crayon) and paper. The top three countries that generate snail mail to Santa send more than 4 million letters annually: CNN estimates that 1.7 million come from France, 1.35 million are sent from Canada, and more than a million letters are written in the U.S. (The United States Postal Service doesn’t have an exact number, but says the number of letters to Santa from American kids is “easily in the millions.)

That’s a lot of correspondence. So what happens to all of it? Well, as with any other piece of mail, it depends on how the letter was addressed.

In 1912, the U.S. Postmaster General gave local postmasters the authority to allow employees and citizens to answer letters addressed to Santa. It eventually became known as Operation Santa, and today, multiple locations across the U.S. participate in the program to help deliver gifts to needy children. Those who want to play elf for the season can drop by any one of them and select a letter (or letters) to Santa to fulfill. If you don’t have a participating post office in your area, you can volunteer to start an Operation Santa in your city or donate to an existing location.

The USPS has another program called Letters to Santa, which guarantees children a response from the North Pole, but no presents. Parents mail their children’s letters to the “North Pole Postmark Postmaster,” along with Santa’s response and a self-addressed, stamped envelope. The North Pole Postmark Postmaster will return the letter to the child with a special postmark from Santa.

The U.S. isn’t alone in its Yuletide philanthropy—there are similar Santa programs around the globe. The Royal Mail makes sure kids who send letters to Mr. Claus receive a response, as does the Canada Post, which even gives the big guy the custom postal code “H0H 0H0.” Brazil has Papai Noel dos Correios, a program similar to Operation Santa. And in France, any child who writes to Le Père Noël will receive a response from a post office dedicated specifically to the cause. In fact, since 1962, receiving a response from Le Père Noël is actually guaranteed by law, bringing new meaning to that whole “naughty or nice” thing.

Have you got a Big Question you’d like us to answer? If so, let us know by emailing us at bigquestions@mentalfloss.com.

Most of your coworkers are out decking the halls the second half of December, but you’re not taking a vacation. Now what? You could celebrate the solitude with long lunches and Facebook marathons at your desk. Or you could do a few of these things instead. (Your career will thank you.)

1. CLEAN UP YOUR INBOX.

“If you’re like most people, all of those emails that you promise to respond to at some point get de-prioritized during the year,” says Alexandra Douwes, cofounder of millennial strategy firm Purpose Generation. “The holiday lull is a great time to go through everything.” To keep your stamina at its peak, alternate writing emails that require thoughtful responses with mindless tasks, like unsubscribing from newsletters you never open or responding to corporate surveys. Then think about what system you could set up now to prevent (or lessen) the email pile-up in the new year. If you live in Gmail, Douwes is a fan of this online Udemy course for Gmail productivity hacks.

2. INVITE A COWORKER TO LUNCH.

A skeleton crew at the office can be a good excuse to mix up your usual routine and socialize with someone new at the office. “Aim to make a new work friend with one of the other people there,” says Laura Vanderkam, a time management expert and author of I Know How She Does It and What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast. “Building tighter work relationships is associated with being more happy over the long run,” she says. And it can come in handy the next time you’re in a work crunch and need more people to pitch in.

3. UPDATE YOUR MENTORS.

Just because you don’t have a formal mentor doesn’t mean you should skip this step. “I don’t have any formal mentors,” Douwes points out. “But there are several people who have a vested interest in my professional pursuits and who have mentored or sponsored me at some point throughout my career.” The relative calm at the office this time of year is a great opportunity to follow through on sending them a quick life update: what you’ve been working on, what you’ve learned, what challenges you’ve faced. The holiday season is such a flurry of cards and family newsletters that an email or handwritten note won’t seem out of the blue.

4. WORK IN AIRPLANE MODE.

With coworkers and industry contacts out of the office, you’re probably getting far fewer emails each day. That can be a huge boon to your focus—so use it to your advantage by staying out of your inbox for large chunks of time, says Vanderkam. “See if you can be off for 90 minutes before checking your inbox,” she says. “You’ll likely make headway on projects you’ve been putting off for months.” And seeing how much more productive you are when you don’t toggle over to your inbox every two seconds might convince you to carry the habit of time-blocking into the New Year.

5. SET CAREER GOALS.

We’re all promising to lose five pounds and exercise more in our personal lives. But what about setting some work resolutions for 2017? “The holiday lull is a great time to reflect on the year ahead,” says Douwes. Think about what skills you want to gain or milestones you want to achieve in the next 12 months, then brainstorm a few concrete steps you’ll take to make them happen. Don’t just make this a mental exercise—jot it down. A study at Dominican University found that people who wrote out goals were significantly more likely to achieve them than participants who merely thought about their goals. Telling a friend increased follow-through even more, as did sharing regular updates with their pal.

If thinking of a career resolution makes you draw a blank, check out these five questions Douwes recommends everyone ask themselves at the beginning of each year.

6. DUST OFF YOUR RESUME.

Even if you’re not desperately seeking a new gig, the December lull can be a good time to freshen up your application materials so you’re ready to pounce if the right position opens up (or work hits a rough patch in the new year). Update and proofread your resume, then revamp your LinkedIn profile. In October, LinkedIn rolled out a new feature, called Open Candidates, that lets you signal to recruiters that you’re open to a new position—without broadcasting that news to your boss. (Just go to the Preferences tab and turn the Open Candidates feature on.) “The slow time over the holidays can also give you a chance to do some informational interviews,” says Vanderkam. Remember, HR teams that are in the office probably have more open calendars, too.

7. TAKE ON A STRETCH OPPORTUNITY.

Last year, Douwes used the December slow period to finally write a white paper that she’d been trying to write for months. “I’d never had enough time to sit down and finish it, because the day-to-day hustle and client requests got in the way,” she says. Your to-do list likely has similar stretch projects or things you’ve thought of doing throughout the year—and now you might have the focus and quiet to tackle them. Even covering for a different coworker than usual can help you stretch, says Vanderkam. “It’s easy to cover for a colleague who does similar work as you do, but cross-training on a different type of job lets you learn new skills and see what you might be interested in trying over the long haul.”

If you need a place to get your work done in Montreal, one coworking space is offering a great deal over the holidays. At the new Oopsmark shared office space, you can work for free in exchange for non-perishable food donations to a city food bank called Moisson Montréal, as TreeHugger reports.

The coworking location isn’t officially open yet, so it’s currently sitting unused. This initiative puts the empty space to good use, both for remote and freelance employees, and for people who are hungry over the holidays. It’s just a temporary program, though, so people will have to pay for a spot at the hip new space once January rolls around.

Take a look around the space in the video below:

[h/t TreeHugger]

Otto Frank, the only member of Anne Frank’s family to survive the Holocaust, spent decades trying to identify the person who tipped the Nazis off to the secret apartment where the family was hiding. The discovery—on August 4, 1944—resulted in the arrests of all eight occupants, and their subsequent confinement in concentration camps. But a new theory from the Anne Frank House proposes an alternate version of the events: They might have been found by chance, The Washington Post reports.

The currently accepted version of events is that an anonymous telephone call to the Germany Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, or SD) notified Nazi authorities about the presence of the Franks. But researchers at the Anne Frank House say this phone call may never have occurred. There was another reason for the SD to search the location: illegal work and ration coupon fraud took place at the building Otto Frank’s company owned, which was home to a tea business and a furniture company at the time, in addition to the Secret Annex. The investigators who found the movable bookcase that led to the Franks’ residence may have simply been hunting down people who were committing ration fraud, rather than specifically looking for Jews in hiding.

In the course of searching the building for evidence of these crimes, the SD might have found the bookcase and discovered the Franks. This hypothesis is partially based on the fact that the three men known to have been involved in the search and subsequent arrests were not regularly involved in tracking down Jews, but were more often involved in arresting both Jews and non-Jews for criminal activity and in confiscating jewelry, furniture, and more from those deported to the concentration camps.

The paper [PDF] put forth by the Anne Frank House doesn’t rule out the possibility that the families in the Secret Annex were indeed betrayed, but simply puts forth another possible route of investigation for researchers to pursue.

[h/t The Washington Post]