We all crave a bit of peace and quiet every now and then; just some time to be alone with our thoughts. But silence isn’t as golden as we’ve been led to believe, according to the people who’ve been to the quietest place on Earth. You might expect this to be in a remote part of some great desert whereas, in actual fact, it’s located in a research lab in Minnesota. Inside the anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories, it is so silent you can hear your own blood flowing and bones moving. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Made of 3.3ft-thick fibreglass acoustic wedges and double walls of insulated steel and thick concrete, the room absorbs 99.99 per cent of sound. The conditions within its Fort Knox-style walls are so intense that the longest amount of time anyone’s been able to endure in there is 45 minutes. “We challenge people to sit in the chamber in the dark,” the lab’s founder Steven Orfield told Hearing Aid Know. “When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You’ll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly. “In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound." What he means by this is that, with the absence of external noise, your ears are forced to adapt to unimaginable silence and start to focus inwards on your own mind and bodily functions. Furthermore, after as little as 30 minutes subjects begin to hallucinate. Orfield explained that it is also impossible to stay in the room for more than half an hour without sitting down because a person’s orientation is largely grounded in the sounds they make when moving. "How you orient yourself is through sounds you hear when you walk," he told the Daily Mail. In the anechoic chamber, you don't have any cues. "You take away the perceptual cues that allow you to balance and manoeuvre. If you're in there for half an hour, you have to be in a chair." The Quietest Place on Earth: Orfield Laboratories youtu.be For anyone who reckons they could top that 45-minute record, it is possible to experience the chamber for yourself. The Laboratories offer a tour, named “The Anechoic Experience”, which enables participants to take on the challenge, provided they’re willing to fork out a cool $600 (around £470) per hour for the privilege. The Orfield website states: “We have witnessed many seeming miracles, some of which have explanations and some of which remain mysteries, as a result of time spent in our anechoic chamber. “We remain curious about the nature of the chamber's impact on all people, its therapeutic properties, and how it can influence human perception. While anechoic chambers are traditionally used to study products, ours is becoming also about the people. “The Anechoic Experience is designed to be an opportunity to personally inquire about the chamber's therapeutic and spiritual effects.” We reckon we might be better off just lying in bed with the duvet over our heads next time we want a moment's peace. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

A TikTok trend has received a mixed response online for depicting unrealistic beauty standards. The 'tanning' filter is exactly that. It alters users' complexion with a sunkissed glow, and many have taken to the platform to share the noticeable difference. In one clip that racked up over 50,000 likes, one user wrote: "My biggest red flag is that I'd rather look like an oompa loompa than be pale. This. Is. Concerning." The self-recorded footage showed the woman stunned by her newfound tan achieved by the filter. One person questioned: "Why does everyone hate on their pale skin, like, what’s the issue?" Another added, "felt this heavy," to which the TikToker responded: "The hard reality of our tanning addictions." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter In a separate clip that racked up 5.6 million views, TikToker Em (@orig_faygo) compared her before and after shots. "Proof everyone looks better with tan," she wrote as the on-screen text. @orig_faygo i finally got to tan again, the filter was my before ? [NOT A FAKE TAN] #trending #audios #real #relatable #tan #fyp #fy It comes after yet another problematic filter, the Bold Glamour makeup. The TikTok filter applies an incredibly realistic full face of makeup to users, with many suggesting it's more damaging than it's worth. Generally, filters glitch and sometimes slip away from the face. In this case, it doesn't. The filter is so advanced that if TikTok didn't disclaim it was being used in videos, viewers wouldn't know any different. In a viral video viewed over 4 million times, TikToker Joanna (@joannajkenny) urges people to not use the filter. "I don't want to say this about myself but I actually look ugly when I take this filter off," she said, adding: "I've done a lot of work to unlearn that I owe prettiness to anyone." She continued: "Here's a reminder for anyone who needs it, filtered skin is not a skin type." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Sometimes you Google something and Reddit gives you the best result. That just became slightly

Amazon's annual shopping event, Prime Day, has kicked off and is now in full swing,

In Italy, Stellantis NV is cutting jobs and being accused of skimping on janitorial work. In the US,

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 12, 2023--

The Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness program Friday, blocking millions of borrowers from receiving up to $20,000 in federal student debt relief, just months before student loan payments are set to restart after a yearslong pause.

Twisted sections of a reactor unit remain exposed at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant and a crushed metal

After massive layoffs earlier this year, technology giants have found one more item to slash: marketing budgets. Several

NerdWallet's mission is to provide consumers and small businesses with the tools, information, and insight

The tough, stuck-on messes on your baking sheets require aggressive cleaning products.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will announce his 2024 presidential campaign in a Twitter Spaces event with Elon Musk on Wednesday