What animal do you see in this image of a nebula?
What do you see in the Carina Nebula? (NASA/)We know you are bored at home right now—we are too. Here are some puzzles and brainteasers to challenge your family and friends with, either in person or over video chat.This image of the Carina nebula shows only dust, ionized gases, and stars. But there’s a chance a dog on its hind legs looks back at you. Neuroscientists dubbed such recognition “pareidolia”—the human tendency to interpret random stimuli as familiar objects. It’s why people sometimes perceive a smile in a passing cloud or the man in the moon.Two parts of the brain cause facial pareidolia, says Kang Lee, a developmental neuroscientist at the University of Toronto. The fusiform face area, a region of the brain’s visual system, activates specifically in response to a visage. Simultaneously, the inferior frontal gyrus tells the visual system how strange an object can look and still be...