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The Thinker statue by Auguste Rodin

Philosophy is a systematic study of fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, value, and mind. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its own methods and assumptions. Major branches of philosophy are epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epistemology studies what knowledge is and how to acquire it. Ethics investigates the principles of moral conduct. Logic is the study of correct reasoning. Metaphysics examines the most general features of reality. Philosophical methods include analysis of concepts and language, reliance on common sense and intuitions, use of thought experiments, description of experience, and critical questioning. Influential traditions are Western, Arabic–Persian, Indian, and Chinese philosophy. Many of the sciences were part of philosophy before they became separate disciplines. Philosophy is relevant to diverse fields of inquiry by studying their scope and concepts and providing an interdisciplinary perspective. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Black-billed magpie eating ticks off the back of a cow

... that black-billed magpies are known to eat ticks off deer and other large mammals (example pictured)?
... that unlike most skin cancers, a nevoid melanoma may have an almost perfectly symmetrical shape?
... that Storm Poly caused hundreds to be stranded at Amsterdam's central station as it passed the Netherlands?
... that children have programmed Hackaball as a Magic 8 Ball, a whoopee cushion, and an alarm clock?
... that Cisco wine was nicknamed "liquid crack"?
... that Walt Whitman's brain was donated to the American Anthropometric Society but was accidentally destroyed?
... that Edward Hopper wondered what an empty room would look like with no one to see it?
... that Let's All Go to the Lobby, a one-minute filmed advertisement, has been preserved by the US National Film Registry?

In the news

Ingenuity on Mars

Following damage to the helicopter's rotors, NASA ends the Ingenuity (pictured) mission on Mars after seventy-two flights in almost three years.
The Ram Mandir, a temple to Rama, is consecrated at a disputed site in Ayodhya, India.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's lunar module SLIM lands on the Moon.
Protests break out in Bashkortostan, Russia, following the imprisonment of activist Fail Alsynov.

On this day

February 1: Imbolc / Saint Brigid's Day in Ireland; the Fajr decade begins in Iran; Black History Month begins in Canada and the United States

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir

1329 – The Teutonic Knights successfully besieged the hillfort of Medvėgalis in Samogitia, Lithuania, and baptised the defenders in the Catholic rite.
1814 – More than 1,200 people died in the most destructive recorded eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.
1979 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile and soon led the Iranian Revolution to overthrow the U.S.-backed Pahlavi dynasty.
2009 – Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (pictured) became the first female prime minister of Iceland.

Menas of Ethiopia (d. 1563)
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (d. 1761)
Mary Shelley (d. 1851)
Harry Styles (b. 1994)

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Today's featured picture

Daphne mezereum, commonly known as the mezereum, February daphne, spurge laurel or spurge olive, is a species of daphne in the flowering plant family Thymelaeaceae, native to most of Europe and western Asia. D. mezereum is very toxic because of the compounds mezerein and daphnin present especially in the berries and twigs. The flowers have a four-lobed pink or light purple (rarely white) perianth and are strongly scented. This D. mezereum flower was photographed in a forest near Keila, Estonia.

Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus

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