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Via Alex Tabarrok and Geekolinks, I have to admit that this is one of the damnedest illusions I’ve ever seen. What’s really surprising is that if you cover up 90% of the white line in the middle and let only a tiny part show, the illusion still works. The top looks darker. The fact that both halves are the same color (which, by the way, I confirmed in Photoshop) isn’t apparent unless you cover it up completely.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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