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After being disqualified for breaking a tournament's 'no girls allowed' rule, her team had her back.
Thursday, August 06, 2015 10:16 AM

Kids' sports don't need to be split by gender.

For the past two seasons, 10-year-old Kymora Johnson has played basketball for the Charlottesville Cavaliers.

For years, Kymora wanted to be part of a team, and as soon as she was old enough, Kymora's mom, Jessica Thomas-Johnson, signed her up.

Kymora has played point guard for the Virginia-based team ever since and played with them in the national championship tournament each of the past three years. And while the first two trips to the tournament went without a hitch, things didn't go so great this time around.

Photo from Jessica Thomas-Johnson.
On Aug. 1, 2015, Kymora's team, the Cavaliers, beat the New Jersey Shoreshots 47-45, or at least, that's what everyone thought.

After the game, however, tournament officials told Cavaliers coach Joe Mallory that the team had broken a rule and that the game would be recorded as a 1-0 loss.

The Cavaliers had been disqualified. And the reason? Kymora is a girl.

    Charlottesville Cavaliers 0, NJ Shoreshots 1, 11U - G10 Gold @exposurebball— NTBA (@playNTBA) August 1, 2015


As it turns out, a new rule had been added to this year's tournament rules: No girls allowed.

In an interview with ABC News, Mallory said he had no clue there had been a rule change, and he has a point; there's no mention of this rule on the tournament eligibility website.

    "As adults we know life isn't fair all the time but it was very touching to see these kids hold their heads high and stand up for what is right." — Facebook post by the Cavaliers

"I said, 'You checked us in.' We went through the whole process," he told ABC. "They already knew that she was a female from the check-in. ... They go through an interview process with the staff of the NTBA, and they ask them questions. She had a pink bow and had her hair down. They knew she was a girl."

    A basketball tournament disqualified a team because one player is a girl. In 2015. http://t.co/nSF7JwWKyM— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 5, 2015


The rule is actually hidden on a separate page titled "Other Rules/Regulations."

The tournament states that because there are both girls and boys divisions, Kymora needs to play on a girls team. There's just one catch: The Cavaliers don't have a girls team in her age group.
Staying true to the team motto, "Team first, me second," Kymora's teammates came together in her support.

The team showed up to the semifinal game they would have played in wearing the pink uniforms they'd worn in the past to show support for breast cancer awareness — this time to support their teammate, Kymora.

Photo from Jessica Thomas-Johnson.

The team posted a message to their Facebook page:

    "Everyone at this tournament knows these kids deserved to play. We were in pink to once again represent Breast Cancer and also support our own Kymora Johnson. We had our own quiet protest in what we believe is not right. Everyone else cheered us on and shook the kids hands. As adults we know life isn't fair all the time but it was very touching to see these kids hold their heads high and stand up for what is right. As we say often 'basketball is more than just a game.' ‪#‎lifelessons‬"

Heartwarming stand of solidarity aside, Kymora's story begs the question: Why is it necessary to split things into "boys" teams and "girls" teams, especially at such young age?

In an article for Reason, A. Barton Hinkle asked just that: Why do we still segregate sports by gender? The reason behind sex-segregation is usually explained by pointing to the fact that men typically have higher levels of testosterone than women and have more upper body strength on average as a result.

    "Sports are one of the last bastions of society where equality of opportunity reigns – and equality of results is out of place. Boxing and mixed martial arts make allowances for physical type by dividing participants into different weight classes. Most sports don't. And many sports, from fencing to diving, demand qualities other than mere brute strength. So why segregate them?

    "Granted, most women can't perform at the level of professional male athletes. So what? Most men can't perform at the level of professional male athletes either. Averages and medians are beside the point. Elite sports is a celebration of those so far beyond the ordinary that most of us can only sit back and gaze in awe, whether they're men or women."

And this goes without mentioning the fact that at 10 years old, prior to puberty, it's not as though there's any difference between boys and girls in terms of athletic ability.

Photo from Jessica Thomas-Johnson.

Splitting kids up so young serves what purpose exactly? To instill the idea that when it comes to sports, girls are less awesome than boys? To prepare them for a lifetime of being told they "play like a girl?"
There's nothing wrong with "playing like a girl." If youth sports are meant to teach life lessons, that's a good one. It's a shame the tournament organizers didn't agree.

Thumbnail image is used with permission from Jessica Thomas-Johnson.
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They're here, they're bike lanes, and sometimes a really strong man can make sure you respect them.
Thursday, August 06, 2015 8:42 AM

Bike lanes. Respect 'em. Or else...

This man was riding his bike in Brazil. And lo — a car had parked right in the middle of the bike lane. So he did what he had (the strength) to do.

He got off his bike, grabbed the car, and ever so gently lifted the car out of the bike lane.

GIFs via Joe Loreto.

Here's the whole video so you can hear the bystanders cheer.

This guy is the hero we all need.
In the battle of bikes vs. cars, it's usually cars that win. But this guy proves, in his own unique way, it's not a battle, it's a beautiful dance. There's room for everyone.

New York City is a great example of this. The city has increased its commuter cycling population (people who ride bikes to and from work) by "nearly doubling the citywide on-street bike network."

That means ... bike lanes.
In real life, working together means everyone respecting everyone else's space and lane.

That means cars staying out of bike lanes and bikers staying out of the way of cars.

You might already know about the different kinds of car lanes, but do you know your bike lanes???

If you drive a car or ride a bike, here's a quick top three:

    The bi-directional protected lane (like the one above)

    The good old-fashioned shared lane, or "sharrow"


    Or my favorite, the physically protected lane


Parked cars are protecting you from traffic. Note the position of the parked cars — not in the lane! Images via TransAlt.
According to NYC.gov, commuter cycling in NYC increased by 26% in 2008-09 and has more than doubled since 2005. Bike lanes are working.

But bikes and cars can't play a zero-sum game. The different lanes work together to help prevent nasty interactions between bikes and cars. But what really prevents nasty interactions is people. Smart people. Kind people. Inhumanly strong, Herculean types of people. Now that bikes and cars are sharing more roads, all different types of people have a chance to help each other.
Bike lanes help both cars and people ride off into the sunset ... together. Now that's something I want to lift up.


Video and thumbnail image by Joe Loreto. I first saw it on Kottke, and it inspired me to lift up the message of bike lanes. For more on all the bike lanes you'll find in this world, Transportation Alternatives is a great source. They gave us permission to use their lovely bike lane images up there!
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Millennials are struggling to be the dads they thought they'd be. This study shows why.
Thursday, August 06, 2015 8:41 AM

American work policies are making it harder for young fathers to "have it all."

Young men today grew up planning to "have it all."

The fulfilling job...

Millennials have been found to care more about having a job that both pays the bills and has an impact.

...the satisfying, equal partnership...

Millennials have the most feminist generation of men yet. They are a lot more equal in their beliefs about family and gender roles and want to be a true equal in every aspect of their relationships.

...and the ability to be a present father.

Part of their more egalitarian beliefs stems in the desire to be active participants in raising their children.

Image via PublicDomainPictures/Pixabay.
But now that they're working fathers, they're finding it a lot harder to do than they thought.

A recent study published in the American Sociological Review found that work policies are behind the change in millennial men's attitudes about family and gender roles once they have children. Despite having the best intentions, they struggled to maintain the equal partnership when they had to balance career, parenting, and love.

If only it were as easy as making this ponytail. GIF from " The perfect ponytail in 5 seconds."
It turns out that a dose of the real world made them change what they expected from their relationships almost entirely.

The Families and Work Institute found that before they have children, only 35% of millennial men believed women should stay at home as caregivers while men should "bring home the bacon." Once they have kids, though, that number jumps to 53%.

OK, not this type of bacon, but you know what I mean. Photo by Didriks/Flickr.

It's not that working and having children suddenly makes men more sexist. Rather it's that millennials find that the workplace doesn't offer the flexibility that they need to reach their goals of having an equal partnership. So they make do with what they have and find that going the traditional route works better.
Why? Experts found that family-friendly work policies still skewed heavily toward women.

Young men might be more feminist, but their work policies are lagging a bit behind. While we often hear about maternity leave policies, paternity leave is far from the norm (about 10-15% of employers offer it paid). This is particularly depressing when we consider the United States often seems to rank last in global paid parental leave rankings. Even President Barack Obama has said we need to stop treating family leave as an issue only women care about in his 2015 State of the Union address.
And even when these policies are available to men, they are often are discouraged from using them.

Netflix's recent announcement to offer up to a year's parental leave (for men and women) is a great example of the kind of family-friendly policies we need across the board. But it isn't enough just to have a good policy on paper.

Men have reported facing stigma in the workplace when they did take the family-friendly options available to them. Mets player Daniel Murphy was infamously criticized for taking a three-day paternity leave. This makes it clear we need an attitude shift that doesn't judge men for doing what they believe is best for their families.
The fix is simple: We need policies — and attitudes — that empower fathers to be the men they want to be.

It isn't just great for the fathers' participation in child care and child development. It has economic benefits for family members as well. It sounds like everybody wins. And who wouldn't want that?

Read more about the study in The New York Times, and check out the entire thing in American Sociological Review.

Thumbnail photo via froot/Pixabay.
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Judge abolishes Idaho law that made it illegal to expose factory farm cruelty.
Thursday, August 06, 2015 8:30 AM

If you're like me, nothing beats a big, meaty cheeseburger off the grill.

And if you're like me, you probably don't really like to think about where your food comes from. But we really need to.

Of course, I try to buy responsibly farmed meat for the most part, but I'm definitely guilty of purchasing lower-grade beef in a pinch or when the sale price is just too good to beat.

This image lives permanently in the depths of my subconscious.

It's just way too easy to not think about what horrible things may have happened to that package of beef on its journey to my supermarket's cooler.

Unfortunately, out of sight, out of mind is exactly what the meat industry wants.
That's why many big factory farms have proposed laws to prevent animal advocates from exposing their practices.

Animal rights groups have spent years fighting for more transparency about what goes on inside factory farms, often in the form of undercover videos taken inside poultry and pork factories that aren't playing by the rules.

In 2013, the meat industry processed over 100 million pigs. Photo by Nick Saltmarsh/Flickr.

But instead of cleaning up their farming methods, a lot of these manufacturers have been trying to punish the people who capture and distribute this kind of evidence via "ag-gag" laws, as they're known, that try to keep these videos from ever seeing the light of day. Not cool.

Some of them make it illegal to enter an animal facility with intent to use a camera or video recorder. Others inflict harsh penalties on people who lie on employment applications in order to gain access to these places.

Starting around 2011, state-level ag-gag bills started cropping up everywhere. Thankfully, most of the bills have died due to strong opposition, but the laws have passed in several key areas, like Iowa and Kansas, for example, both of which are central hubs for factory farms.
We may not want to watch the horrifying behind-the-scenes videos filmed at factory farms, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have access to the truth.

In 2007, The Humane Society of the United States shot one such undercover video at the Hallmark Meat Packing Co. plant in Chino, California. The footage showed appalling treatment of sick cows, yes, but it also tipped off the USDA that the resulting meat may not have been safe for consumption. What followed was one of the biggest meat recalls in U.S. history.

Ag-gag laws make obtaining that kind of footage a punishable crime.

Going vegetarian or vegan is a great way to make a difference, but it's actually OK to eat meat. It's even OK if you don't want to know where it comes from.

It's just not OK for factory farms to escape accountability for their actions.
There is good news, though. A federal judge in Idaho just struck down the state's whistleblowing law.

Big Ag, meet your maker — Judge B. Lynn Winmill. Photo from U.S. Courts website.

U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled on Aug. 3, 2015, that Idaho's ag-gag law violates the First Amendment (free speech, ftw!) following a lawsuit from a coalition of animal activists and civil rights groups.

"Audio and visual evidence is a uniquely persuasive means of conveying a message, and it can vindicate an undercover investigator ... who is otherwise disbelieved or ignored," Winmill wrote in his ruling.

You said it, buddy.

And it's a good thing this ruling came down because Idaho's ag-gag law really sucked. In addition to making it damn near impossible for anyone to collect hard evidence of wrongdoing, its penalties for whistleblowers were actually worse than the ones for inflicting animal cruelty in the first place!

Absurd.
Good riddance to ag-gag in Idaho. But there's a lot more work to be done.

    Judge strikes down Idaho #AgGag law, raising questions for other states http://t.co/RLf4o0JM9H @LukeRunyon @nprDanCharles @NPRFood— NPR (@NPR) August 5, 2015


Big Agriculture is an extremely formidable opponent. According to the North American Meat Institute itself, meat and poultry sales in the U.S. were over $150 billion in 2009. That kind of money buys you some serious lobbying firepower and a lot of influence when it comes to public policy.

But the industry as a whole needs to be held accountable.

Yes, trespassing and lying on employment applications should be illegal, but the factory farming industry shouldn't get to inflict special penalties just because they have friends in high places. And they definitely shouldn't be shielded from following — at the very least — basic animal welfare guidelines.

Ag-gag is currently holding strong in at least six states (as of March 2015), but the federal court throwing its weight around in Idaho definitely bodes well for the future of this battle.

Check out this handy chart from the ASPCA that shows where your state stands on ag-gag. And read more about the Idaho ruling from NPR here.

Thumbnail photo by Mercy for Animals/Wikimedia Commons.
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Listen to Kevin Bacon's epic plea to 'Game of Thrones' to include more male nudity.
Thursday, August 06, 2015 8:14 AM

One way to fight Hollywood sexism? More male nudity, says Kevin Bacon.

Let's cut to the chase. Gentlemen, Kevin Bacon wants to see more of your "bacon" in movies.

GIF via Logitech/YouTube.

And he's not talkin' breakfast food. He means your junk. Your stuff. Your ... you get the picture.
Hear him out, fellas. He brings up a great point.

GIF via The Watercooler.

"Game of Thrones — we got three sex scenes an episode. How hard would it be to just show one or two weiners every couple minutes?"
The facts back him up here, too. Women are way more likely to appear nude in films than men are.

A study out of USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism analyzed the 100 top-grossing films of 2014 and found some troubling facts when it came to the sexualization of women in film.

Last year, women were significantly more likely than males to appear nude, be shown in "sexy attire," or be referenced as physically attractive on screen.

Check out the numbers:

Chart from "Inequality in 700 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race, & LGBT Status from 2007 to 2014" via the Media, Diversity, and Social Change Initiative at USC Annenberg.
As Bacon explains in the video below, those stats are whack.

    "In so many films and TV shows, we see gratuitous female nudity, and that's not OK. ... Well, it's OK. But it's not fair to actresses, and it's not fair to actors. Because we want to be naked, too."

And I have to agree with Kevin. It makes sense that a show that tosses bare breasts around like candelabras as set dressing might also benefit from a little male nudity.

Let's keep the conversation going about Hollywood's sexist double standards. I'm gonna keep my clothes on for now, but Kevin, you keep doing you.

GIF from "Diner."
You can hear Bacon's full argument in this video from Mashable's Watercooler:

(Warning: you are about to hear the words "weiner," "balls," and "butt.")



Thanks to USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism for providing information used in this piece. Thumbnail image via Mashable.
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These Grammy-winners don't want you to pay for their album. They want you to pay for someone else's.
Thursday, August 06, 2015 5:06 AM

From pop stars to indie rock, some of the biggest names in music are speaking out in support of the creative working class.

On July 17, 2015, Wilco unexpectedly released a brand-new album as a free download on their website.

The album is called "Star Wars" and it features a cat on the cover, which is pretty much the most Internet thing ever.

But the Grammy-Award-winning rock band isn't just giving their album away for free. Oh no. They're encouraging fans to spend their money on lesser-known artists instead.

A few days after the album's release, they explained their actions in a blog post:

They're hardly the first band to experiment with different models for sharing their music on the Internet.

But Wilco is one of the first high profile acts to do so for the explicit purpose of stimulating the creative economy.

I'm sure you've heard it all before that the Internet is ruining the music industry. Hell, musicians have been fighting the same battle since the advent of the phonograph. But music fans don't want hear to the same complaints over and over again, ad nauseam. They just want to listen to the music.

What Wilco is doing is something different. They're encouraging fans to spend their money elsewhere — to enjoy music for free, if they want to, while also contributing to the continued creation of new music by working-class musicians. It's like a trickle-down stimulus package for rock 'n' roll. And that's pretty cool.

Wilco may have used the Internet to stick it to the man back in 2001, but now they're just one of several big-name bands using their power to stand up for the little guy.
Taylor Swift also stood up to the streaming music industry recently, speaking out against Apple Music and Spotify.

OK, so her approach is mostly going to benefit her own profits, but that's not a bad thing. In the case of Spotify, Swift pulled her entire catalog to protest their low, low royalty rates. And she had a few choice words to say when Apple Music refused to pay for the music streamed during a user's free trial period.

Both Wilco and Swift used their positions to champion the rights of working-class musicians, each in their own respective way.

Neither way is necessarily better or more "right" than the other. (The last thing I'm trying to do here is start a feud between Wilco and Taylor Swift; my wife and I already have that battle every time we get into the car.) Both just want to make sure that someone is getting paid for their music.

Yes, Taylor Swift is a pop music powerhouse. But it doesn't matter that she doesn't need the money — she believes artists deserve to be paid what they're worth, on every level. (To be fair, Wilco did previously manage to get Warner Bros. Records to pay them twice for the same album.)

T-Swift and Wilco are just the latest in a long, long line of musicians who have raged against their own machine.

In 2007, Radiohead famously released "In Rainbows" as a pay-what-you-want album and have been very outspoken against Spotify. Fugazi was famously stubborn about keeping prices low for albums and concert tickets alike. Bands like The Backyard Committee (full disclosure: I sometimes perform with them) and the aptly-named Bomb the Music Industry! have democratized their music through free album downloads as well as open musician rosters. Chance the Rapper has made major waves with his self-released mixtapes and has used that success to turn the spotlight onto the other members of his multimedia supporting group, the Social Experiment.

And that's just a few examples from my own music library.


GIF from TayTay's "Shake It Off" music video.
What matters most, though, is that we find ways to support artists of every kind — after all, they make the stuff that makes our lives worth living.

What can you do about it? If you can afford it, put your money where your mouth is, and support artists at all different levels of success.

Every now and then, try to drop $10 on an artist who deserves it. (Wilco's aforementioned "suggested music" list really runs the gamut, from metal to chamber-pop to J-Pop and beyond. I personally downloaded the new record from Speedy Ortiz.)

And when possible, support musicians directly, or through Bandcamp or Kickstarter, instead of bigger companies like Spotify, iTunes, or Amazon.

If you believe in the importance of a strong middle class, it only makes sense that you support the creative working class. Art shouldn't be a privilege produced and enjoyed by an exclusive elite. It's a necessity that nourishes and improves the quality of our lives, and we need to nourish it in return so that the cycle can continue.

Wilco GIF from "The David Letterman Show."

Thumbnail Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images
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6 times something Jon Stewart said or did actually made a difference in the world
Thursday, August 06, 2015 4:32 AM

On more than one occasion, his influence was real.

"I'm not an activist, I'm a comedian."

Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images.

For 16 years, Jon Stewart has maintained that his only job is making people laugh. As for real-world influence? Well. As far as he's concerned, we're likely just imagining it.

For the most part, he's been right. Despite producing some of the most hilariously incisive television ever committed to air, "The Daily Show" is just a comedy show at the end of the day. And Jon Stewart is just the comedian who hosts it.

Mostly. But not always.

In honor of Jon Stewart's last "Daily Show" appearance, here are six times something he said or did on TV actually made an impact in the world.

'Cause he's right. Mostly, he didn't change stuff. But the few times he actually did? Those moments were pretty great.
1. That time he got a terrible TV show cancelled

Thanks to a million breathless social media headlines, these days it has become cliché to say, "Jon Stewart destroyed X," or "Jon Stewart annihilated Y," or "Jon Stewart drop-kicked Z into the center of the sun."

But sometimes hyperbolic clichés are clichés for a reason.

And in this particular case, Jon Stewart actually, legitimately, for real destroyed CNN's "Crossfire."

If you weren't alive or paying attention in 2004, it's hard to express just how bad "Crossfire" was. But, oh, was it bad.

In the second year of a war fought under ever-thinner pretenses, in the midst of perhaps the most important election of the 21st Century, the signature show on America's "Most Trusted Name in News" was entirely devoted to pundits screaming at each other about which candidate looked lamer windsurfing.

And then, on October 15 of that year, just a few weeks before the election, Stewart appeared on "Crossfire." He was ostensibly there to promote his book, but instead, he spent nearly 15 minutes berating hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson for cheapening the public discourse, letting themselves be rolled by politicians, and generally "hurting America."

"Crossfire" never recovered. Two-and-a-half months later, it was off the air. And then-CNN president Jonathan Klein straight-up told The New York Times that Jon Stewart's critique was a big reason why. The network subsequently tried to reboot the show with new hosts in 2013. Predictably, it failed miserably.

And America breathed a sigh of relief.
2. That time he got the U.S. government to pay health care costs for 9/11 first responders

9/11 marked a turning point for "The Daily Show" and Stewart, who, like many Americans, was visibly, personally shaken by the events of that day. It marked the show's sudden shift away from goofball comedy into a venue for the funniest, sharpest political commentary on TV.

As a result, in 2010, when Congress floated a bill to provide health care to 9/11 first responders, Stewart was plenty interested.

Like many others, he figured passing the bill would be a no-brainer.

Like many others, he was wrong.

Republicans refused to support the bill because paying for the program required increasing taxes on foreign corporations, and then, when their hand was forced, they tried to amend it to exclude undocumented immigrants.

Democrats refused to bring the bill to a traditional up-or-down vote, for fear that voting down the Republicans' undocumented immigrant amendment would make them look soft on immigration.

It was a stunning display of political cravenness. And a Stewart let them have it.

Somehow, some way, his rant flipped a light on somewhere in Congress. About a month later, the bill passed the House.

Then, when it looked like it was on track to be filibustered in the Senate, Stewart devoted his entire last show of the year to the bill. He even convened a panel of 9/11 first responders who, predictably, savaged Congress for its inaction.

The bill passed the Senate just a few days later.

Ultimately, you could produce a long list of advocates, political leaders, and others who were responsible in some part for the bill's success.

But according to many of its most fervent supporters, Stewart's unyielding support was the real game changer.
3. That time he ridiculed Democrats for "taking advice from the opposing team's coaching staff"

After Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown was elected to Senator Ted Kennedy's old seat in a 2010 special election, the Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. They were in the middle of the initial debates around Obamacare, and without the supermajority, the Democrats feared the Republicans would filibuster the health care bill.

The Democrats were in — to use a bit of obscure political terminology — full-on freak-out mode. And, right on cue, their helpful Republican pals came out in full force to tell them how they could do better in the next election.

Specifically, "move to the center" and forget about their silly little health care plan, as well as a few of their other priorities.

While Democrats rushed to show how grateful they were for the advice by announcing their intent to water down their agenda, and possibly even give up on Obamacare, Stewart used the opportunity to politely point out that maybe — just maybe — the Republicans didn't exactly have the Democrats' best interests at heart.

Sort of, at least. What he actually said was: "Don't you get what the Republicans are doing? They're f**king with you."

Like many past "Daily Show" segments, Stewart's comments seemed to fly under the radar. But according to a report in Politico, the White House was actually paying attention and felt appropriately shamed:

    "[Obama advisor Austan] Goolsbee said he would often wince at Stewart's assaults on the Obama White House and Capitol Hill Democrats. He recalled one particularly tough January 2010 episode in which Stewart used a clip from the 1980s TV show 'The Wonder Years' to question why Democrats ever expected Republicans to negotiate in good faith on issues from climate change to taxes to financial reform. 'You're just cringing,' Goolsbee said. 'Oh God. I think the main thing that you're hoping is, you're hoping in your heart of hearts he's not right.'"

At the end of the day, they took Stewart's advice. Congressional Democrats stood firm and Obamacare passed.

And judging by the mounting quantity of IDGAF moments in Obama's second term, it seems like they're continuing to follow his advice.

It appears to be working out pretty well for them, too.
4. That time he made it much easier for veterans who live in rural areas to see a doctor

By late 2014, wait times at VA hospitals had become unbearable for many veterans. In order to help rectify this, Congress instituted the Veteran's Choice program, which allowed veterans to see doctors at non-VA hospitals. The catch? In order to be eligible, veterans either had to demonstrate that they had waited at least 30 days for care or live at least 40 miles "as the crow flies," away from the nearest VA facility, rather than 40 miles actual driving distance.

As a result, many veterans who should have been covered by the program weren't. And the most infuriating part? It was specifically designed that way to save money. Or, as Stewart put it, "dicking over veterans isn't a bug of the program, it's a feature of the program."

The very next day after "The Daily Show" segment aired, the VA adjusted the rule from imaginary crow distance back to driving distance, doubling the number of veterans who could use Veteran's Choice.

As usual, Stewart was skeptical that his segment led to the change, but considering the hotness of the fire he spit, it's more than a little bit likely that it had an impact.
5. Those times he joked, sang, and danced to raise money for people with autism

In addition to his gig as chief riffer on quick-cut cable news montages on "The Daily Show," Stewart is also the frequent host of "Night of Too Many Stars," a fundraiser that benefits New York Collaborates for Autism. According to Comedy Central, since it began in 2006, the event has raised over $18 million for adults and children with autism.

Not only is the program good for the Earth, it's also entertaining as hell, thanks in no small part to Stewart's involvement.

Example: This near-perfect musical moment from 2010, featuring Stewart and two obscure comedians from the early days of "The Daily Show" wearing pilot hats and starting a new dance craze.
6. That time he got more than 200,000 people to stand outside for hours in Washington, D.C., and listen appreciatively to Kid Rock

"The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" was kind of a ludicrous idea, in retrospect. Gathering a massive group of people on the Washington Mall to unite behind the cause of civility and calming down? To parody something Glenn Beck did? Five years later, it's kind of hard to imagine how it all came together.

But for three hours in 2010, it all made so much sense.

There have been criticisms of the rally, for sure: for being an exercise in narcissism, for missing the big picture, and for being tantamount to telling people not to care. And those criticisms are all valid — to some extent.

But in a certain sense, the rally was peak Jon Stewart. An absurd, hilarious, joyful, tearful spectacle devoted to us all getting along.

What could be wrong with that?

Especially for D.C.'s food truck operators, who undoubtedly raked it in all afternoon.

Full Disclosure: I worked at Comedy Central from 2007-2011, when many of these segments aired and events took place, and I was occasionally staffed on projects related to "The Daily Show" (including the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear).
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China is building another great wall — of trees. To hold back the desert.
Thursday, August 06, 2015 3:23 AM

As of this writing, the Gobi Desert in northern China/southern Mongolia is about half a million square miles (1.3 million km2) in area.

Yes, that's “as of this writing" — because the Gobi Desert is growing.

Due to something called “desertification," about 1,400 square miles (3,600 km2) of China's otherwise arable land is turned into desert each year, as the Gobi creeps further and further south.

To make matters worse, winds often pick up the sand, blowing it toward the densely populated areas in China, resulting in immense dust storms. (Here's a picture of a car windshield after Beijing's 2006 dust storm season.)

The desert in China is expanding — kinda rapidly, too. Image by Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images.
But China is fighting back. With trees.

In 2001, the BBC reported on what has been called, colloquially, the "Great Green Wall," a not-so-subtle reference to the Great Wall of China, but this "wall" is being made of trees.

The wall is part of a decades-long afforestation project that began in 1978 but isn't expected to be completed until 2050, and it hopes to ultimately make areas currently too arid for habitation or agriculture into fertile homes to both.


A tree-planting exercise on the edge of the Gobi Desert in 2007. Image by Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images.

One of the early phases was a forced participation drive — in 1981, China passed a law that required its citizens over the age of 11 to plant three to five trees each year — but in 2003, the country turned toward government works.
The Great Green Wall plan called for the creation of a 2,800 mile-long (4,480 km) belt of trees along the Gobi's border.

As Wired reported a year later, this was no small task:

    "To build the wall, the government has launched a two-pronged plan: Use aerial seeding to cover wide swaths of land where the soil is less arid and pay farmers to plant trees and shrubs in areas that require closer attention. A $1.2 billion oversight system, consisting of mapping and land-surveillance databases, will be implemented. The government has also hammered out a dust-monitoring network with Japan and Korea."


A photographer looks out over the trees at the encroaching desert. Image by Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images.
Whether it's working, though, is another question.

One Chinese news agency, citing the State Forest Administration, reported in 2007 that "more than 20 percent of the lands affected by desertification in the project areas have been harnessed and soil erosion has been put under control in over 40 percent of the areas that used to suffer soil erosion in the past."

And in 2014, the Daily Mail echoed these results, reporting that "a study says the measures are working, despite previous criticism."

However, that same year, the Economist noted that many of the trees are withering in the dry, hot conditions and concluded the opposite.

Finally, there's the middle ground, which the BBC reported in 2011: The afforestation process is working — but it'll take 300 years to reclaim the lands the Gobi has already taken.
Either way, China intends to push forward. Given its original timetable, they have 35 years left to figure it out.

Dan Lewis runs the popular daily newsletter Now I Know ("Learn Something New Every Day, By Email"). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.

This post originally appeared in Dan Lewis' newsletter Now I Know.
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Scientists just made a major bee-vaccination breakthrough. Here's why it's such a big deal.
Thursday, August 06, 2015 2:25 AM

How do bees vaccinate their babies? Now we know.

By now, you probably know about how amazing bees are and why we need them.

Bees are responsible for making a third of our food possible. From cherries to blueberries to cucumbers to apples and so much more, bees are essential. That, and they're responsible for the world's supply of honey — which in addition to being delicious, can be used to treat wounds because of its awesome medicinal and antibacterial properties.

Does anyone know why bottles of honey are shaped like bears? Photo by Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images.
You might also be aware that bees have been through some rough times lately.

Over the past few years, you may have seen some headlines like this:

Turns out that the die-off of an insect responsible for a massive portion of the world's food supply is enough to make people a little anxious.
But there's some great news! Researchers have made a major discovery that might help us prevent the bees from dying.

It turns out that bees vaccinate their babies against disease by feeding them a special blood protein called vitellogenin. Before this discovery, we basically had no idea how adult bees transferred disease immunity to their larvae.

Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.

"The process by which bees transfer immunity to their babies was a big mystery until now. What we found is that it's as simple as eating," said Gro Amdam, an Arizona State University School of Life Sciences professor and co-author of the study. "Our amazing discovery was made possible because of 15 years of basic research on vitellogenin."

Bee vaccinations work a bit like this:

Worker bees head out into the world to pollinate plants, build the honeycomb, and do other bee-related activities. They also are responsible for making food for the queen from the pollen they collect. The food contains bacteria, and when the queen eats, the bacteria is stored. The bacteria travels to developing eggs, and as a result, baby bees are born with immunity against some common diseases.

Photo by Frank Rumpenhorst/AFP/Getty Images.
But why should we care? Remember how I mentioned that bees are pretty important and we need to protect them? That.

Now that we know how bee vaccination works, we can start working on man-made insect vaccines to stave off colony collapse disorder and other challenges facing our honey-producing friends. Science is awesome.
Long live the bees!

Photo by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images.

Thumbnail photo by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images.
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Netflix is giving employees a year of paid parental leave so they can binge-watch their babies.
Thursday, August 06, 2015 1:07 AM

New parents at Netflix can now take up to a year of paid leave while their babies finish buffering.

Naturally, Netflix and bingeing go hand-in-hand.

I mean, who hasn't knocked out a whole season of "House of Cards" while downing an entire large pizza?

Oh, don't give me that look, Frank. GIF via "House of Cards."
But now, Netflix employees can binge on something else, too: paid paternity and maternity leave.

In a blog post published on Aug. 5, 2015, Netflix announced that, starting immediately, employees can take up to a year off after becoming new parents.

That's 365 days. Paid. In. Full.

GIF via "Orange Is the New Black."

In the blog post, Tawni Cranz, the company's chief talent officer, explained how the new policy falls in line with Netflix's “freedom and responsibility culture."

    "We want employees to have the flexibility and confidence to balance the needs of their growing families without worrying about work or finances. Parents can return part-time, full-time, or return and then go back out as needed. We'll just keep paying them normally, eliminating the headache of switching to state or disability pay."

Giving its employees freedom and responsibility is nothing new for the streaming media company — Netflix already guarantees unlimited vacation days for its workers. The new policy is, in a sense, an extra stamp of approval for new moms and dads to carve out whatever work-life balance structure works best for them.
Since new moms and dads still aren't guaranteed a single paid day off in the U.S., yeah — this is a big deal.

The U.S. is the only developed country in the world without a federal policy ensuring new moms (let alone dads) have paid time off. The only one!

    Pathetic. #paidmaternityleave pic.twitter.com/sB4SdpsB4N— Susan Wile Schwarz (@SusanWSchwarz) January 14, 2015


It's up to American employers to decide to offer time off to their employees who become new parents. But, as Netflix pointed out, that's not necessarily a bad idea for a business' bottom line. As Cranz explained in the company's blog post, the new policy gives Netflix an advantage in "competing for and keeping the most talented individuals in their field."

Netflix's parent-friendly policy is actually good for business. More companies should take note.

Thumbnail photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

And just to be clear, Netflix is not a business partner of Upworthy. I just loved that they care about new moms and dads.
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Snagging a Cecil the Lion Beanie Baby is the most adorable way to support animal conservation.
Wednesday, August 05, 2015 7:11 AM

Angry about Cecil the Lion? This Beanie Baby helps you channel that anger for good.

We're all still upset over the death of beloved Zimbabwean lion Cecil.

This is him. He was gorgeous.

GIF via Pamela Robinson/YouTube.

His death was tragic, but it helped inspire a wave of generosity for animal conservation efforts, many of which have experienced a surge in support. And the latest organization to join the cause is Ty Inc., which created the Cecil the Lion Beanie Baby.
When you buy a Cecil the Lion Beanie Baby, you're helping protect other rare animals.

Ty Warner, the founder and chairman of Ty Inc., announced on Aug. 3, 2015, that he'd created the furry toy in response to the lion's death. Beanie Baby Cecil may not be as majestic as the real Cecil was, but he sure is cute.

Photo courtesy of Ty Inc.

But that's not the best thing about him.

According to Ty Inc., 100% of the profits from Cecil the Lion Beanie Baby sales will be donated to WildCRU, a research unit dedicated to wildlife conservation at the University of Oxford in England.

The Beanie Baby is expected to go on sale for $5.99 at the end of September.

"Hopefully, this special Beanie Baby will raise awareness for animal conservation and give comfort to all saddened by the loss of Cecil," Warner said in a statement.
As expected, there's still a lot of that sadness Warner speaks of floating around the world. And anger. Lots of anger.

Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images.

The image above was taken outside Walter James Palmer's dentist office in Bloomington, Minnesota. Palmer was the guy who killed Cecil. Obviously, many people — and the Internet — aren't happy with him.

There's a big difference between lawful hunting and what Palmer did. He illegally killed an African lion — a species facing the threat of extinction by 2050 if more isn't done to protect them.

Zimbabwe, which just suspended the hunting of lions, leopards, and elephants in a popular hunting region in response to Cecil's death, is planning to seek extradition of Palmer, an official said on July 31.

So while none of us can get Cecil back, we have every right to hope there will be justice in the wake of his death.
In the meantime, you can support efforts to make sure another rare animal isn't unjustly killed.

And it's OK if furry toys aren't your thing. There are plenty of ways to have Cecil's back that don't involve Beanie Babies.

You can support efforts like National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, or Lion Guardians — all terrific groups doing important work to keep lions and other rare animals protected.
And just because Cecil was such a beautiful, fantastic creature, here's an incredible video of him hanging out in Zimbabwe.

RIP, Cecil.

Thumbnail photo courtesy of Ty Inc.

Just to be clear, Upworthy has no partnership with Ty Inc. I just love that it wants to help animal conservation efforts.
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It took 25 years for anyone to figure out this bonsai tree survived the Hiroshima bombing.
Wednesday, August 05, 2015 6:31 AM

This Japanese white pine tree is almost 400 years old.

This Japanese white pine is 390 years old, to be exact. Photo by Christa Burns/Flickr.

It lives in the U.S. National Arboretum as part of the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum, where it's the oldest tree in the collection.

It stands just a few feet tall and has carefully pruned piney branches extending from a short, mossy trunk.
Oh, yeah, and it survived the devastating Hiroshima bombing of 1945.

At 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945, two American pilots dropped a 9,700-pound atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Within minutes, the entire city had been leveled. Some accounts say everything within a four-mile radius of the initial blast was incinerated almost instantly.

Except, it seems, for this now-390-year-old Japanese pine tree, which miraculously survived despite being just over two miles away from the center of the blast.

In 1976, the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., received the tree from Japanese bonsai master Masaru Yamaki in celebration of the American bicentennial.

It wasn't until 2001, 25 years later, when Yamaki's grandsons came to visit the tree in person, that officials learned of its amazing journey.
How could such a tiny thing survive such a massive explosion?

Location, it turns out, and a little bit of luck.

You can barely even tell the tree withstood a massive atomic detonation. Photo by A. Currell/Flickr.

“Location, location, location," Jack Sustic, the bonsai's curator, told The Washington Post. “It was up against a wall. It must have been the wall that shielded it from the blast."

The tree is a true living memorial, and it is being honored this week as we recognize the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.
If trees like this bonsai could talk, they'd tell the most amazing stories.

Methuselah is estimated to be about 4,846 years old. Photo by Chao Yen/Flickr.

That towering pine tree outside your window could easily be hundreds of years old. The great redwoods in California can live upwards of 2,000 years. And there's even a tree named "Methuselah" believed to be over 4,800 years old.

But measuring years lived doesn't tell you what a tree has experienced during its lifetime. This bonsai tree could soon actually become one of the last living witnesses to the brutal realities of World War II, and a lesson for all of us to appreciate those close to us lucky enough to come out of the war alive.

The National Arboretum's bonsai tree has already outlived its life expectancy but could continue to thrive for another 100 years or more.

As long as it's alive, so are the stories of the over 200,000 lives lost on Aug. 6, 1945.

Make sure to catch the Washington Post article for the full story behind the amazing bonsai tree. You can also visit the tree year round at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.
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Ever heard of union hero Joe Hill? He's missing from most history books today.
Wednesday, August 05, 2015 4:53 AM

Joe Hill remains a legend and an inspiration today.

If you're a fan of folk music or lyrics about working people, you might be familiar with the song "Joe Hill."

The song, originally written as a poem by Alfred Hayes, has been performed for decades by the likes of Paul Robeson, Joan Baez (at Woodstock in 1969), Phil Ochs, and Billy Bragg.

Among the more memorable renditions is a version by Bruce Springsteen, who plays it here. Go ahead and start it playing while you read about who Joe Hill really was.

The song's lyrics recall a dream where Joe Hill, a workers' hero who was likely framed on a murder charge and sentenced to death, returns in a seemingly spectral form, symbolizing the spirit of the labor movement.

    "I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
    Alive as you or me
    Says I, But Joe, you're 10 years dead
    I never died, says he
    I never died, says he..."

Joe Hill isn't a fictional character. He was a poet, songwriter, and a union activist.

(He also inspired the famous union phrase "Don't mourn, organize!" — but more on that later.)

Born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, he came to the U.S. from Sweden in the early 1900s with the hopes of finding work. He adapted to his new home by changing his name to Joseph Hillstrom, which he later shortened to Joe Hill once he began to write songs.

Upon arrival in New York City, he sought employment as a migrant laborer but found opportunities sporadic and sometimes nonexistent. This sparked his interest in a labor union, which would give him and his coworkers a voice on the job no matter where they worked.

Image in public domain.
He found his calling when he discovered the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

One of the IWW rallying cries was "one big union," and its goal was uniting every working person worldwide into one union. That sat very well with Hill.

Having been raised in a musical family, he began writing songs, poems, and powerful speeches after joining the IWW. He became the resident lyricist and a frequent cartoonist.

Hill wrote songs about all different types of IWW members, from immigrant factory and railway workers to itinerant laborers moving across the country from job to job. His songs inspired people — and still do today.

His popularity grew when the IWW published the first version of its "Little Red Songbook" in 1909. The musical collection, bearing the subtitle "Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent," was made up mostly of Hill's compositions.

The first edition of "The Little Red Songbook." Image by Hunter Gray.

It included the song "There Is Power in a Union" about ... well, power in a union, and "The Preacher and the Slave," about how religion causes people to fight for things in heaven rather than on earth:

    You will eat, bye and bye
    In that glorious land above the sky
    Work and pray, live on hay
    You'll get pie in the sky when you die
    [Crowd shouts, "That's a lie!"]

(This is, in fact, where the phrase "pie in the sky" was born.)

Hill would show up at picket lines and strikes across the country, getting the crowd energized and resolute.
His activism drew the attention of authorities, too.

In June 1913, he was arrested for "vagrancy" during a dockworkers strike in San Pedro, California, and put in jail for 30 days. The real reason for the incarceration, according to Hill, was that he "was a little too active to suit the chief of the burg."

So, Hill was on the radar of cops and politicians who didn't want to see unions establishing a presence in their towns. He may have been even more worrisome to authorities than other union leaders since he could energize the workers and reinforce their solidarity with song.

Cover of "The Rebel Girl" by Joe Hill. First published in "The Little Red Songbook," it was released as sheet music in 1915. Image in public domain.
But one cold night in 1914, a turn of events made Joe Hill's name internationally known.

Hill, who was in Salt Lake City to work in the mines, knocked on a doctor's door at 11:30 p.m., needing treatment for a gunshot wound to his chest.

Hill told the doctor he had been shot by a rival suitor for a woman's affection — he never did tell anybody her name.

On that same night, a former police officer named John Morrison, now a grocery store owner, and one of his sons were killed by two people who didn't rob the store.

The murders appeared to be motivated by revenge, perhaps a holdover from Morrison's previous career. Another of Morrison's sons witnessed the shooting and stated that one of the two killers shouted, "We've got you now!" before pulling the trigger.

(And just to note: At least four other people were shot in Salt Lake City that night; it's just kinda how things were back then.)

Salt Lake City, 1890, by Charles Roscoe Savage. Image in public domain.

The doctor who tended to Hill's injuries noted that it was a gunshot to the chest — the same kind as the shopkeeper's surviving son said occurred with the intruder who killed his father and brother.

Over the next few days, 12 different men were arrested for the killings — and each, in succession, was released.

Around the time that the 12th man was cleared, the doctor came forward and offered his patient as a possible suspect. Hill was arrested.

When the grocer's son who survived saw Joe, he stated, "That's not him at all!" However, a few days later after the publicity started and authorities knew they had the famous Joe Hill, he changed his mind and claimed it was definitely Hill he saw that night.
Several aspects of the case made Hill an unlikely suspect.

His injury, a shot through the left lung, would have bled profusely. Yet authorities did not find any blood in the store other than the victims'. No bullet was ever found, nor was there a motive; Joe did not know the shopkeeper, and the assailants didn't even take the money in the register.

The trial itself was a poor excuse for justice, according to author William Adler. Although two young, unknown attorneys volunteered to defend Hill, it became clear partway through that they weren't doing anything of the sort. Hill requested new lawyers, which the judge refused. From that point on, Hill refused to participate in the trial at all, and remained silent.

(In a letter written in 1949, the woman who was there when Hill was shot, Hilda Erickson, confessed that it was her former fiance and a friend of Joe Hill's, Otto Appelquist, who shot him that fateful night.)

After just a few hours, the jury found the 35-year-old guilty. He spent 22 months in prison while he awaited appeals of his sentence: execution by firing squad.

Image via Today in Labor History. Lyrics from the song "Workers of the World, Awaken!"
The IWW sought help from other labor unions around the world, and support began to build.

Backers demanding his release and a retrial sent tens of thousands of letters and circulated petitions.

Among those advocates were then-President Woodrow Wilson, the Swedish minister to the United States, 30,000 Australian IWW members, American Federation of Labor President Samuel Gompers, and trade unions across the world. Even Helen Keller, the famed deaf and blind activist (who also belonged to the IWW), wrote to the president on Hill's behalf.

The efforts targeted Utah Gov. William Spry, who had been elected to office on a platform that stated he would "sweep out lawless elements, whether they be corrupt businessmen or IWW agitators." Unsurprisingly, he did not intercede on Hill's behalf.

The IWW logo, featuring one of its main slogans: "An Injury to One Is an Injury to All." After Joe Hill was executed, it was really taken to heart.


The governor's record was clear: He had broken a large mineworkers strike and helped the Utah Copper Company bring in strikebreakers who used hired thugs to defeat the union there. Not surprisingly, this did not help Hill one bit.
There's a famous union phrase: "Don't mourn — organize!" Here's the origin story.

While in prison, Hill kept writing poetry, music, letters, and more. In a Aug. 15, 1915, article in the weekly political magazine Appeal to Reason, he stated:

    "The main and only fact worth considering, however, is this: I never killed Morrison and do not know a thing about it. He was, as the records plainly show, killed by some enemy for the sake of revenge, and I have not been in the city long enough to make an enemy.

    Shortly before my arrest I came down from Park City; where I was working in the mines. Owing to the prominence of Mr Morrison, there had to be a 'goat' and the undersigned being, as they thought, a friendless tramp, a Swede, and worst of all, an IWW, had no right to live anyway, and was therefore duly selected to be 'the goat'.

    I have always worked hard for a living and paid for everything I got, and in my spare time I spend by painting pictures, writing songs and composing music.

    Now, if the people of the state of Utah want to shoot me without giving me half a chance to state my side of the case, bring on your firing squads - I am ready for you. I have lived like an artist and I shall die like an artist."

In one of his last letters, when writing to IWW founding member and leader William Dudley Haywood (better known as "Big Bill" Haywood), he wrote these practical yet poignant words:

    "Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize... Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don't want to be found dead in Utah."

Haywood changed that to the phrase that has been used by union activists ever since: "Don't mourn — Organize!"
The memory of Joe Hill's words lives on in the hearts of working people the world over.

Hill died on Nov. 19, 1915. According to author Philip Sheldon Foner, when the firing squad was instructed, "Ready ... aim," Joe Hill himself issued the final order before the commander: "Yes, aim! Let 'er go. Fire!"

30,000 people came to his funeral in Chicago. Eulogies were translated into 10 languages. The mourners sang songs by Hill and shut down traffic for hours as the funeral procession stretched for miles. Many had IWW patches, pennants, and red ribbons with the words, "Joe Hill, murdered by the authorities of the state of Utah, November the 19th, 1915."

Especially in times like these, when unions in the United States are very much on the ropes, it's good to remember the words from "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night," aka "Joe Hill" — "I never died, says he. I never died, says he."

    I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
    Alive as you or me
    Says I, But Joe, you're ten years dead
    I never died, says he
    I never died, says he

    In Salt Lake, Joe, says I to him
    Him standing by my bed
    They framed you on a murder charge
    Says Joe, But I ain't dead
    Says Joe, But I ain't dead

    The copper bosses killed you, Joe
    They shot you, Joe, says I
    Takes more than guns to kill a man
    Says Joe, I didn't die
    Says Joe, I didn't die

    And standing there as big as life
    And smiling with his eyes
    Joe says, What they forgot to kill
    Went on to organize
    Went on to organize

    Joe Hill ain't dead, he says to me
    Joe Hill ain't never died
    Where working men are out on strike
    Joe Hill is at their side
    Joe Hill is at their side

    From San Diego up to Maine
    In every mine and mill
    Where workers strike and organize
    Says he, You'll find Joe Hill
    Says he, You'll find Joe Hill

    I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
    Alive as you or me
    Says I, But Joe, you're ten years dead
    I never died, says he
    I never died, says he

Joe Hill's story is nearly 100 years old, but it still is not often told in schoolhouses and history books today. Why do you think that is?

The song lyrics are by Alfred Hayes, music by Earl Robinson ©1938 by Bob Miller, Inc. It's referred to as "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night" and just "Joe Hill." Sources for facts: New York Times, William Adler (writing in the L.A. Times), AFL-CIO, Solidarity, H2G2, Today in Labor History, "The Case of Joe Hill" by Philip Sheldon Foner, and "Joe Hill" by Gibbs M. Smith.
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Turns out, there's a method to the madness of crosswalk lights. Here it is.
Wednesday, August 05, 2015 4:48 AM

About five years ago, municipalities across the United States, Canada, and likely points elsewhere began installing new technology for crosswalk safety.

Gone were many of the simple “WALK" or “DON'T WALK" signals (or corresponding hand or figure illustrations) like this one:

Image via Thinkstock.

They were replaced by ones with countdown clocks, telling pedestrians how much time they had before they could no longer safely cross the street. The video here is an example, or here's an image:

Image by Oran Viriyincy/Flickr (cropped).
These new crosswalk signals had a pretty clear goal: keep pedestrians safer by giving them advance warning as to when the traffic lights would change.

And guess what? According to a study published in 2014 written by a pair of economists (PDF available here), the crosswalks worked.

The two researchers, Sacha Kapoor and Arvind Magesan, studied the change in accident rates at nearly 2,000 intersections in Toronto and concluded the pedestrians stopped when the timer ticked too low and rushed to safety at other times — and as a result, dangerous intersections became less dangerous.

The planned outcome of the new crosswalk signals worked.
Unfortunately, the researchers discovered that pedestrians weren't the only ones making use of the countdown.

Drivers were noticing them too, and that unintended use had an unintended — and hardly positive — outcome. Toronto was left with a bunch more car accidents.

    Over time, the rate of accidents at these intersections increased.

NPR explains:

    The largest increase is in rear-end accidents and we think it's because two cars approaching a light, who both see the countdown, the guy behind, he sees the two or three seconds and thinks, oh, the guy in front of me is going to floor it too, I'll floor it and we'll both get through the intersection. Whereas the guy in front thinks, OK, I only have two or three seconds left, I'm going to slowdown. And this is exactly the type of accident that would happen in that case.

To make matters worse, the researchers (per NPR) discovered that “the biggest increases in crashes come at intersections that were previously safe intersections."

Further, as drivers got used to the timers, they began to realize that even having one second left on the clock is enough time to get through the intersection if they're willing to gun the engine, even if recklessly. So, over time, the rate of accidents at these intersections increased.
Unfortunately, Toronto's city government, upon hearing of the research, objected to the results and showed little interest in making any changes, at least initially.

If Toronto or any other city wishes to fix the problem, though, the solutions put forth by Kapoor and Magesan are pretty simple: either find a way to shield the countdown information from drivers or, if that proves difficult, put the old-style crosswalk signals in generally safe intersections.

That second idea wouldn't be out of the ordinary — it is exactly the strategy New York City employs.

Image via Thinkstock.

Dan Lewis runs the popular daily newsletter Now I Know ("Learn Something New Every Day, By Email"). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.

This post originally appeared in Dan Lewis' newsletter Now I Know.
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She was teased because of her skin. Now her skin's made her a star.
Wednesday, August 05, 2015 3:43 AM

The things that make us different also make us beautiful.

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Winnie Harlow grew up with endless teasing and name calling. The insult of choice? "Zebra."

As a toddler, Winnie Harlow looked like every other happy kid. But at around 4 years old, Winnie's skin slowly started to change.

    #tb.. Ya lol 👧before she was👸 #vitiligo #chantellewinnie #attitude #spicegirlsshirt lol. I wish I could ensure that little girl that things would get better, and everything would work out..💭❤
    A photo posted by ♔Chantelle Winnie♔ (@winnieharlow) on Sep 21, 2013 at 12:23pm PDT


Gradually, patches of color on Winnie's arms, legs, and face began to fade from brown to pale pink. Winnie soon learned her changing skin was a result of vitiligo. Vitiligo is a skin condition that causes skin to lose its pigment. And, as Winnie's skin changed, the teasing started, almost right on cue. Taunts of "cow" and "zebra" followed Winnie through the halls, but she was determined to keep her head up.

    "It was really hard growing up. I had to grow thick. People make fun of you and you have to learn how to deal or you break down. I'm not trying to break down so, I have to deal."
    — Winnie Harlow

Vitiligo tends to come with invasive questions and stares, but Winnie's comfortable in her skin.

Whether they're asking if it's painful or contagious, Winnie has no problem fielding questions with a dose of honesty and humor.

    "It's just a skin condition. It doesn't hurt. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm well. You can breathe the same air as me. We're cool." — Winnie Harlow

What's even more impressive is that technically Winnie could "fix" her skin if she really wanted to. There are treatments that would completely lighten her skin so she'd be all one color, or she could use special makeup to cover her spots. But she's not interested.


Original image from ThoseGirlsAreWild.

Even if you aren't religious, it's pretty inspiring to hear someone fully accept who they are. In 2011, Winnie sat down for " Vitiligo: A Skin Condition Not A Life Changer," where she shared her dreams of someday having her own talk show or working for a magazine. Now, just a few short years later, it's safe to say she's pretty much blown those dreams right out of the water. Can you say supermodel?
These days Winnie can be found strutting down runways and gracing major fashion campaigns where her skin has her standing out.

As the brand ambassador for Desigual, Winnie's face can be seen pretty much everywhere.

    A photo posted by ♔Chantelle Winnie♔ (@winnieharlow) on Aug 30, 2014 at 11:00am PDT


Here's one of my favorite photos of Winnie. To think that kids made fun of this?! Forget, "cow." This woman is a work of art. Look at how perfectly symmetrical each spot is! She's flawless.

    A photo posted by ♔Chantelle Winnie♔ (@winnieharlow) on Feb 15, 2015 at 10:28am PST

But Winnie isn't just a model. For millions of children and adults with vitiligo, she's also a hero.

Winnie's Instagram is filled with magazine spreads, behind-the-scenes photos, and tons of fan art. But those posts are nothing compared to the messages and photos from fans who've found the strength to love themselves because of Winnie.

    Came out just to meet me❤️💋 you guys give me life🙏
    A photo posted by ♔Chantelle Winnie♔ (@winnieharlow) on Apr 2, 2015 at 3:42pm PDT


According to the American Vitiligo Foundation, about 1-2% of the global population has vitiligo. And while that doesn't sound like much, that's still millions of people. Millions of people who aren't used to seeing themselves represented in the media, much less represented as something beautiful. This adorable message from the mother of one Winnie's young fans proves how important her supermodel status is for young kids growing up with vitiligo:

    A photo posted by ♔Chantelle Winnie♔ (@winnieharlow) on Apr 18, 2015 at 10:52am PDT


My heart is officially melting.
Winnie's not the only model whose skin is breaking down barriers. Shaun Ross and Diandra Forrest also prove beauty comes in many shades.

If you don't know Diandra Forrest and Shaun Ross by name (or from hanging out with Beyoncé), you might know them as fashion's first albino supermodels.

    One of many, and one of my fav shots with @shaundross
    A photo posted by Diandra Forrest (@diandraforrest) on May 20, 2013 at 10:24am PDT

But Shaun and Diandra aren't just albino, they're African-American albinos. So, of course, that adds a whole 'nother level of, "Wait, you're black but you're not black!? Whaaaa?" ridiculousness.

Original images of Diandra Forrest from Albinism Awareness Campaign.

And just like Winnie, Diandra and Shaun have both dealt with bullying. Diandra even shared in her interview for the Albinism Awareness Campaign that it wasn't just kids. Adults would stare and make comments about her too. For Shaun, it wasn't just being called names, like "powder" and "white bread"; one bullying incident ended in violence, with a classmate stabbing him six times! Today Shaun and Diandra serve as inspirations for anyone who's ever felt ashamed of their differences.


Original image from Shaun Ross' appearance on " The Tyra Banks Show."


    "I think it's important for all children with albinism to know they are beautiful. They're not any different than anyone else. ... I always wanted to start something like this just because, growing up, I know that I would love to have had someone who's older around that had albinism ... just to motivate me and that would understand some of the things that I was going through and help me through them." — Diandra Forrest

Models like Winnie, Shaun, and Diandra are showing the world that the things that make us different also make us beautiful and that's something all of us could stand to remember.

You don't need vitiligo or albinism to appreciate what these incredible models have been able to achieve. Sadly, too many of us have dealt with bullying or being made to feel less than because we're different. But the real beauty is in recognizing that we are all unique and that our differences are worth embracing and celebrating.

Thank goodness there are role models like Winnie, Shaun, and Diandra out there to remind us how important it is to work whatever it is you've got.

Original video by thosegirlsarewild. You can head over to Instagram for more gorgeous photos of Winnie Harlow, Diandra Forrest, and Shaun Ross.
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Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig visited a children's hospital in full 'Ghostbusters' garb.
Wednesday, August 05, 2015 3:00 AM

The cast of the upcoming Ghostbusters movie stopped by Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center, but they weren't there to bust ghosts.

The Ghostbusters cast (from left): Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig, and Melissa McCarthy. Photo courtesy of Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center.
The actors were much more focused on putting smiles on patients' faces.

While of course they don't fight ghosts in real life, actors Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon — who all showed up to the Boston hospital in full Ghostbuster uniform — play the part in their upcoming movie, "Ghostbusters," which is set to release in theaters in July 2016.

' Photo courtesy of Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center.
The actors showed up after the patients, knowing the movie was filming nearby, put signs up in their windows that spelled out, "Who ya gonna call?"

Photo courtesy of Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center.

(The answer is, of course, "Ghostbusters!")
The signs worked, and the hospital was thrilled to welcome the cast to visit the patients.

"We got the call Saturday morning to ask if they could come over in between shoots," Julie Jette, the hospital's director of media relations and publications, explained to Upworthy. "We were thrilled they could make it!"

Jette noted that the cast was careful to tailor the experience to each child, depending on their age and how they were feeling that particular day.

Photo courtesy of Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center.
Although nothing too spooky went down, it didn't make the day any less cool.

"The cast did an amazing job making the visit fun," Jette said. "We had several patients and parents come to us afterwards to say what a difference the visit made to them."

Photo courtesy of Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center.

"There were two children who were being discharged from the hospital ... who said it was a wonderful way to conclude their time here," Jette said. "It sent them off on a really high note."
As if I needed another reason to see "Ghostbusters," I can now add, "Its hilarious, ghost-hunting cast also makes deserving kids happy," to my list.

Remind me: How soon is too soon to buy a movie ticket in advance?

Thumbnail photo courtesy of Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center.
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How an artist developed an unbelievable tree that grows 40 varieties of fruit.
Wednesday, August 05, 2015 2:27 AM

Sam Van Aken is the creator of the "Tree of 40 Fruit," a single tree that grows 40 different types of fruit.

Van Aken is an artist and professor at Syracuse University, and his latest project just might be his most delicious yet.

Van Aken's Trees of 40 Fruit grow a wide variety of stone fruits (i.e., fruits with large pits in the center), including cherries, plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and even almonds.


This is an artist's rendering of the full-grown tree. Each one takes over a decade to mature. Photo by Sam Van Aken, courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Art.
It's all possible through an intricate process called "chip grafting."

Van Aken takes a sliver off one of his dozens of small fruit trees.

All GIFS from National Geographic.

Then, he makes a small cut on the branch of the established tree to bring them together.

Finally, he uses a special tape to seal everything, creating almost a small greenhouse right at the incision.

With some sunlight, water, and TLC, the two plants will grow together.
Hundred of chip grafts and several years later, you have a Tree of 40 Fruit.

Since each variety of fruit blossoms at a different time, Van Aken meticulously plots the location of each branch, essentially designing and sculpting the tree from the ground up.


Van Aken's road map for Tree 75. Image by Sam Van Aken, courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Art
Each tree takes years to mature and develop, which means Van Aken has over a dozen trees in progress.

Tree 75 blooming in 2012. Photo by Sam Van Aken, courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Art
He likes to plant the trees in public spaces to encourage inquiry and spark conversation.

The trees can be seen everywhere from the campus of Syracuse University, to a hotel and gallery in Bentonville, Arkansas. There's even a small grove of eight trees at Thompson Point, a mixed-use retail area in Portland, Maine.


Tree Number 75 at Syracuse University in 2013. Photo by Sam Van Aken, courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Art

Each tree is meant to be shared, enjoyed, and pondered. The entire project toys with the viewer's concept of reality, and Van Aken enjoys straddling the border of truth and science fiction.

"Once they happen upon these trees, they would start to question, 'Why are the leaves shaped differently? Why are they different colors?'" he told National Geographic in a video profile earlier this year.
But this project is bigger than art — there are conservation implications as well.

Many of the seeds and plants Van Aken used for the project are no longer used by commercial growers because of size, shelf life, and, yes, even aesthetics. As Van Aken said in a recent TED talk, "People generally don't like a yellow plum."

Delicious yellow plums that Big Produce doesn't want you to have. Photo by Sam Van Aken, courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Art

The Tree of 40 Fruit puts the seeds and plants back to work. In an email with Upworthy, Van Aken said he's using proceeds from the sale of his trees to create an heirloom fruit orchard and field guide to study the precious plants.

The Tree of 40 Fruit is a living, breathing tasty work of art. And you can see it come to life in this short video by National Geographic:

This video was created by National Geographic. Many thanks to Sam Van Aken for photos and additional content.
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A CEO raised everyone's salary to $70,000/year. The backlash against him doesn't make sense.
Wednesday, August 05, 2015 1:32 AM

Back in April, Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, announced a plan to cut his own salary in order to raise minimum pay at the company to $70,000/year.

Photo by Jimmyjay525/Wikimedia Commons.

And there was much rejoicing. At last, a CEO gets it! Finally, someone at the top is putting their money where their mouth is and striking against inequality!

And the best part: Everyone wins and no one loses!
But apparently, Price's announcement actually made some people feel like they had lost...

...including two higher-ranking employees at Gravity Payments, who said the blanket raise minimized their contributions to the organization, according to a July 31, 2015, report in the New York Times.

    "Two of Mr. Price's most valued employees quit, spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises."

Predictably, the story of the employee backlash began trending on social media almost immediately...

...fueled largely by the gloating of America's uncles.

"I told you so. Economics. Natural selection. The Fountainhead." — Your uncle. Photo by Matthew G/Flickr.

"This is why you can't reward laziness," your uncle probably posted on Facebook. "It's bad for business, and it disrespects the hard work of hard-working people."
According to some economic theories, it's human nature to think like this.

Equity theory, which was developed by psychologist J. Stacy Adams in 1963, claims that if one group of people within an organization discover that a second group of people within the same organization are being compensated similarly for work they perceive to be less valuable, the first group of people get — to use a bit of social science terminology — "pretty pissed."

And look, if I were a disgruntled employee and a bunch of my colleagues who I didn't think deserved it got raises and I didn't, I might feel like quitting too.

But here's the thing: We're not economic theory. We are human beings. With free will! We don't have to act the way obscure social science texts predict we will.

In fact, in many cases, it actually makes more logical sense not to. Even though it feels unfair.

If you think about it that way, the backlash against Price really doesn't add up.

Let's break it down, point by point.
"It's unfair that people who aren't doing as hard of a job as me are getting a lot more money, and I'm not."

B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but. But. But ... ... But. ......... But. Image via Thinkstock.

You're a software engineer at a credit card processing company. You're making $150K/year. The guy in the boiler room makes $35K/year.

Then, boom. Your CEO makes a random announcement on a Monday morning, and suddenly the guy in the (figurative) boiler room is making $70K/year. And you're pissed! "What did he do to deserve that?" you wonder. "Why does he get so lucky and I don't?"

Here's the catch: Nothing bad has happened to you. You're still doing great! It's just ... some other people are making less-not-as-much-money-as-you than before.

Yeah, the other guy just ran into a boatload of cash, and that feels unfair. But the important thing to remember is that you are still making the same amount of money as before.

Is the guy in the boiler room only worth 20% what you're worth — or half as much? Not so long ago, the latter seemed fair. Now, no one blinks an eye when CEOs make 373 times more than the average U.S. worker. But when it comes down to it, it's ... kind of arbitrary.

Either way, economic theory states you're only mad because someone else is doing better than they were last week relative to you.

That seems a little ... I don't know. Just ... I don't know. Just think about it.
"But my salary isn't just how much I get paid. It's a measure of how important I am relative to other people."

I'll give you 50,000 reasons why I'm better than you! Image via Thinkstock.

Look, I totally get it. Many people, myself included, derive tons of satisfaction from earning a lot of money and knowing that other people don't earn as much. Not only does it feel completely amazing, it's only natural to tie the number on your paycheck to how valuable you are as a human being.

But what if ... I don't know — we didn't.

Like, what if we didn't measure our self-worth against how much money we made?

Just ... as something to try.

It's not that hard, actually! Here, for example, are some other ways you can measure your self-worth:

1. How good you are at basketball.

2. Whether you can build a boat.

3. Whether you're kind.

4. Whether you've eaten at all the restaurants featured on "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives."

5. How many celebrities you know.

6. Whether you are a reliable, dependable friend, and/or you call your mother at least once a week.

These scales may not be as obvious. But they're really useful! Because there may come a time when you stop making a lot of money. For most people, it happens eventually.

And when that day comes, we'll be glad we had one of these bad boys in our back pocket. And that we called our mother all those times.
"But the work they do is not as hard as the work I do."

Not-hard work, apparently. Photo by Alfred T. Palmer/Library of Congress.

True, many of the people who received the largest raises at Gravity Payments fill traditionally "blue collar" roles in the company. People who, as one of the departing Gravity Payments employees artfully euphemism'd to the Times, clock in and clock out:

    "The new pay scale also helped push Grant Moran, 29, Gravity's web developer, to leave. "I had a lot of mixed emotions," he said. His own salary was bumped up to $50,000 from $41,000 (the first stage of the raise), but the policy was nevertheless disconcerting. “Now the people who were just clocking in and out were making the same as me," he complained. “It shackles high performers to less motivated team members."

And, sure! For someone who spends their days doing the essential work of sitting in front of a computer screen debugging Java C++ or whatever, it must be really upsetting when your boss signals that your coworkers who spend their days lifting really heavy boxes are also important members of the team whose jobs contribute real value.

It must also be hard to see them get raises that make a real, material difference in their lives. Here's the Times, again (emphasis mine):

    "Mr. Price has undoubtedly made an immediate difference in the lives of many of his employees. José Garcia, 30, who supervises an equipment team, was able to afford to move into the city and replace the worn tires on his car. Ms. Ortiz, who was briefly homeless as a child, can now visit her family in Burlington, Vt. Cody Boorman, 22, who handles operations out of his eastern Washington home, said he and his wife finally felt financially secure enough to start a family."

There are a few ways to react to this.

One way is to resent your coworkers and feel superior.

Another possible way is to be happy for them, instead of resenting them.

You could also try being more stoked that you are getting a raise than upset that someone else also is.

You could understand that, while your job is hard and one they probably wouldn't be able to do, their jobs are also hard, also important, and ones you probably wouldn't want, or even be able, to do.

You could consider that maybe the kind of work our society values and doesn't value is kind of arbitrary, and why shouldn't an equipment manager make the same salary as a web developer?

And you could realize that the financial security of your newly well-compensated colleagues will ultimately allow them to spend more of their brain space on improving the company and less on how they're going to feed their family night to night, thus benefitting the whole team.

It's asking a lot. But you could view it that way if you wanted to.
Here's the good news.

What, this isn't how you react to good news? Image via Thinkstock.

For all the commotion, all the articles, theories, and social media blowback, only two employees quit Gravity Payments as a result of the mass raise.

Two.

In a company of roughly 120.

That means 118 people stayed.

Gravity has its share of troubles. They're facing a major lawsuit (unrelated to the pay bump), which, combined with the pay increase, has created cash flow problems for the company.

Change is hard. And feelings can get complicated. It's human nature to compare yourself to others, and that gets even more fraught when money is involved. That seems to be what's playing out post-announcement. It doesn't mean anyone is a bad person — even the two people who quit.

But at the end of the day, 118 employees either benefited from the salary increase or felt that their own happiness wasn't dependent on the continuing relative misfortune of their coworkers.

It may not seem like much, but it's a decent start, at the very least.

For more context on where the Gravity Payments story began, check out this post by my colleague Parker Molloy. Gravity is on Facebook, and CEO Dan Price is on Facebook and Twitter as well. Thumbnail image by Cheon Fong Liew/Flickr.
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These fish are shooting out of a 'cannon' to keep their population alive. (Yes, really.)
Wednesday, August 05, 2015 1:17 AM

Salmon have interesting migration and reproduction habits.

They're born upstream in rivers, in gravel beds. They spend most of their developmental years in those rivers, but by adulthood, the fish swim downstream, making their way to the ocean.

While swimming in the Atlantic or Pacific, these adult salmon eat and swim until its time to spawn.

Image via Thinkstock.

At that point, the fish head back to the rivers (often the river from which they came) and swim upstream until they reach the gravel bed, start the next generation of salmon, and die.

Ecologically, this return to the river is important — the deceased fish brings vital nutrients from the ocean back upstream, and in most other cases, those nutrients wouldn't ever find their way there.
Unfortunately, humans have a tendency to get in the way: We build dams, holding back rivers and blocking the path of the spawning fish.

We've come up with some workarounds, the most common being fish ladders, which run alongside dams, allowing fish to swim upstream (Wikipedia's explanation has a lot of great pictures).

But those ladders are expensive and often take a long time to build.
Researchers are looking for other solutions ... such as shooting fish out of a cannon.


Image via Whooshh Innovations.

OK, it's not really a cannon — it's more akin to a pneumatic tube, to be fair. But “salmon cannon" sounds much better, right?

The cannon was created by “Whooshh Innovations," a Washington-based company dedicated to using such methods of transportation in various new contexts.

Transporting fish above dams seemed like a good use, so they built a set of prototypes. Here'a video of the cannon in action — the GIF above comes from it.

As seen in the video, the fish (the cannon isn't limited to salmon) enter the tube single-file and, during their trip, are in an air environment, but no matter, within a few seconds, they're returned to the water.

In most of the examples shown, the fish are loaded into the tube by a worker, although in many cases that's not required. In situations where it is, that still may be OK — in addition to fish ladders, another conventional solutions to the fish migration problem is called “carry-run-toss" (it's shown at 2:05 in the video), and that's a lot more labor intensive.

    The carry-run-toss method literally involves a person ... running up a flight of stairs and ramps and tossing the fish into the water at the top of the dam. This is a real job.

(If you can't watch the video, the carry-run-toss method literally involves a person taking the fish from a tank, running up a flight of stairs and ramps, and tossing the fish into the water at the top of the dam. This is a real job.)
The salmon cannon can transport fish up to 250 feet (with a 100 foot incline) at speeds approaching 22 miles per hour — that's about an eight-second trip for the fish.

Mental Floss reports that the tubes can transport 40 fish per minute, which is apparently a lot.

It is still highly experimental, but it has promise: Officials are already testing it out in hopes that it works.

Dan Lewis runs the popular daily newsletter Now I Know ("Learn Something New Every Day, By Email"). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.

This post originally appeared in Dan Lewis' newsletter Now I Know. Thumbnail image by EarthFix Media.
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Teen pregnancy is down 40% in Colorado, and the reason is unbelievably simple: birth control.
Tuesday, August 04, 2015 11:58 PM

A small change can make a very big impact.

Over the past several years, teen pregnancies and abortions in Colorado have been on a sharp decline.

The New York Times highlighted the state's success story, in which the teen pregnancy rate dropped by 40% and abortion rate among teens dropped by an astounding 42%.


Data from Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment.
Why the sudden drop? It's simple, really: The state made long-acting birth control free to those who wanted it.

Since 2008, Colorado has enabled more than 30,000 individuals to obtain long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), typically intrauterine devices (IUDs) thanks to a state program called the Colorado Family Planning Initiative.

Photo by Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, IUDs are one of the most effective forms of reversible birth control, with a failure rate less than 1%.

It should come as no surprise that when you make extremely effective contraceptives available to women who don't currently want to have children, unplanned pregnancies and abortions decline.
Sounds like a win-win scenario for just about everyone in the political spectrum, right?

Whatever your opinion on abortion rights, I think most people would agree they'd rather not need one. By their very nature, unplanned pregnancies are, well, unplanned. In reducing the number of unintended pregnancies, this program was able to chip away at the number of women needing access to abortion services.

Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images.
But what about the cost of providing free birth control? There's some good news on that front, as well.

Fewer unplanned pregnancies also means fewer parents who aren't financially able to care for a child; as a result, the state and federal government actually save money as the number of people in need of aid programs declines. A Guttmacher study determined that for every dollar spent on family planning programs, the government saves $7.09 on other programs. Which means Colorado's program pays for itself and then some.

The state estimates that just between 2010 and 2012, anywhere between 4,300 and 9,700 unintended pregnancies were avoided, saving the state somewhere between $49 million and $111 million in Medicaid funds.
Making birth control accessible is just one way to reduce unintended pregnancies.

Colorado's program was effective, but it's not the only way proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies. One method that's been shown to reduce teen pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases is simply being armed with the knowledge that comes along with comprehensive sex education.

Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.
Studies show that abstinence-only education is not an effective way to reduce teen pregnancy.

As of July 2015, just 18 states and the District of Columbia require that sex education courses provide information about contraception. 37 states require that these courses cover abstinence (with 25 of those states mandating that courses stress the importance of abstinence).

Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images.

Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs haven't been shown to drastically affect the age at which students become sexually active. In fact, studies show that students who only received abstinence sex education were more likely to not use contraceptives and were more likely to end up with unintended pregnancies and STDs.

Photo by Jeff Fusco/Getty Images.
All things considered, preventing unintended pregnancies is simple.

It's as easy as arming people with knowledge (comprehensive sex ed) and resources (contraceptives) to stave off unintended pregnancies. As we've seen, denying these resources to teens and adults proves to have a much more painful, expensive social and financial cost. Reducing those pregnancies will take a mix of both knowledge and resources.

As Colorado waits to find out the fate of its wildly successful program, it's helpful to look back on how simple the solution can be and why it's worth investing money and effort toward an effective public good. We should all be able to get behind that idea.

Thumbnail photo by Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images.
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After 38 members of his family died, he founded a soccer team to heal his community. It's working.
Wednesday, August 05, 2015 5:26 AM

Survivors lead lonely lives in the face of stigma.

Like many in Sierra Leone, Erison Turay plays soccer. What's unique is the reason why.

Last year, Erison was infected with Ebola. During the summer months of 2014, he lost 38 family members to the Ebola outbreak. He was infected while trying to shuttle sick relatives to safety. He and his mother survived, but their lives were forever changed.
Pulitzer Prize-winning video journalist Ben Solomon traveled to Sierra Leone to document Erison's survival story.

This powerful New York Times documentary is a visually stunning look inside the lives of a group of Ebola survivors led by Erison and how they battle stigma by forming a soccer team.
Life as an Ebola survivor is lonely and filled with stigma.

Having witnessed so much sickness and death, residents of Ebola-stricken communities find themselves wary of getting too close to anyone who has been infected. Many refuse to accept or employ Ebola survivors.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, trace amounts of the virus may linger in someone's body for some time after recovery. But because Ebola spreads only through direct contact, there's no reason to avoid normal interaction with those who've recovered.

GIFs via New York Times.
To combat stigma, Erison helped form the Kenema Ebola Survivors Football Club, where he and others could be accepted without shame.

The team is made up entirely of survivors, split into men's and women's teams. The club gave them a place to bond with one another, to escape the stigma that surrounds them, and to have some fun.

In Solomon's words, Erison's soccer club is "one of the most powerful ways to bring people together to try and understand where the country goes from here."

The men's and women's teams played against teams made up of medical personnel tasked with treating and fighting the virus. Survivors and fighters came together in competition. And in the process, they helped fight the stigma of survival.

During the Ebola outbreak of 2014, more than 27,000 people were infected with the deadly virus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 11,000 people, primarily in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, lost their lives. 10,000 children were orphaned.

While somewhere around 16,000 people infected with the virus survived, it's clear from Erison's story that all isn't well in their world.
We may not be far from ending Ebola once and for all. For now, however, it's still a very real threat.

We have the opportunity to eradicate Ebola. In July, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced that the U.S. government plans to spend upward of an additional $266 million to help West African relief efforts. This comes on top of the more than $2 billion it devoted to the cause last year.

    "Now is an important time to help support these countries in the battle against Ebola. While an Ebola epidemic causes a lot of fear, it could cause much more damage if left to become endemic."
    — Ben Solomon

WHO hopes that by the end of this year, a viable large-scale Ebola vaccine will be identified and put into production. Currently, there are two vaccines in late-stage clinical trials in Guinea and Sierra Leone. In the meantime, more than a dozen other vaccines have been proposed, but those are all fairly early in development and testing stages.

    New Ebola Vaccine Has


Solomon says long-term solutions still need attention.

    "The virus isn't gone yet. Small pockets of these affected countries still deal with aftermath. The economies have faltered, the governments have lost the trust of the people and the medical systems have all been pushed to places they never thought they'd go. Now is an important time to help support these countries in the battle against Ebola. While an Ebola epidemic causes a lot of fear, it could cause much more damage if left to become endemic."
    — Ben Solomon

But in the meantime, we must remember that for survivors like Erison, the fight goes on long after recovery.

And if it takes forming a soccer club to do that, then that's what they'll do.

Because they are, in so many ways, survivors.



The original video comes from The New York Times, and was reported and produced by Ben Solomon.
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Amy Schumer's bold words on gun control after two women were killed during a screening of her film
Tuesday, August 04, 2015 5:06 AM

The comedian joined her cousin as the senator unveiled a three-part initiative to help keep guns in safe hands only.

We were all heartbroken after the mass shooting during a screening of "Trainwreck" in Lafayette, Louisiana, on July 23.

Amy Schumer, the film's writer and star, is speaking out about the tragedy. "I'm not sure why this man chose my movie to end those two lives and injure nine others," the actress said of Jillian Johnson and Mayci Breaux's deaths, according to Mashable. "But it was very personal for me."

Now, she's calling for change in gun laws by throwing her star power behind new gun control efforts proposed by her cousin, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images.
Sen. Schumer's gun control proposals come just days after the Louisiana theater shooting, which marked yet another mass shooting in America this summer.

Photo by Yuri Gripas/AFP/Getty Images.
Amy joined Sen. Schumer at a press conference on Aug. 3 to announce new initiatives aiming to curb gun violence.

"These shootings have got to stop," she said during the conference. "I don't know how else to say it."

"We always find out how the shooter got their gun and it's always something that never should have happened in the first place."
The Schumers are hoping a "three-pronged" approach will help prevent potential mass shootings down the line.

According to a news release provided to Upworthy, their proposed approach will:

    Keep guns in safe hands: New legislation from Sen. Schumer will financially reward states that submit necessary records into background check systems. If states do not comply, they will be penalized.
    Help states prioritize mental health care: The senator and actress urged the Department of Justice to put forth recommendations on best practices regarding state standards on mental health commitments.
    Fund important mental health programs: The duo called on Congress to fully fund mental health and substance abuse programs. Currently, the Senate's budget proposal calls on cuts to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

    74% of Americans want stronger background checks. Joining @amyschumer to call on my colleagues in Congress to finally listen. More at 11.— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 3, 2015


Amy's vocal support for a change in gun laws follows a commitment she made on Twitter to a daughter of a Sandy Hook survivor.

Sarah Clements wrote an open letter to Amy on July 31, encouraging the actress to act after the tragedy in Louisiana.

In the letter, Clements brought up the fact that the killer (who was "opposed to women having a say in anything") chose Schumer's film — "an honest, unapologetic celebration of women's rights to our bodies, decisions, and independence" — to murder two innocent people.

She also discussed the fact that violence in America is too often a gender-based crime:

    "All of these problems — the disgusting comments and harassment we receive on Twitter and other social media platforms, the obsession of many mass shooters ... with anti-feminism and anti-women ideals, the over-idolization of firearms and fetishization of what they stand for, and the easy access to guns all stem from the same group of core ideologies that we must work to shut down."

In response to the letter, Amy tweeted, "Don't worry I'm on it. You'll see."

    @cdickason11 @sfclem Her name was Mayci, not Marci and I think about her and Jillian everyday. Don


Although Amy's public stance against gun violence is a first, she assured us she has more to say.

"These are my first public comments on the issue of gun violence," she said. “But I can promise you, they will not be my last."

Thumbnail photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images.
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This teacher used a game show win to surprise every student in her school. Big time.
Tuesday, August 04, 2015 4:30 AM

If I asked you to picture Australia in the winter, what comes to mind?

This, maybe?

"We're having fun, fun, fun, fun, fun in the sun..."

Not so fast.
Where Bri Dredge works as a teacher in Ballarat, a city in the Aussie state of Victoria, winter is actually a lot more like this:

GIF from "Star Wars."

"In Australia?" you ask.

Yes, in Australia! The average low temperature in July (which is winter in the Southern Hemisphere) is about 37° Fahrenheit. So, no, we're not talking Chicago in February, but still — it's cold!
That's why, when Dredge won big on a game show, she wanted to hit up the store to buy 200+ pairs of sturdy winter boots.

Dredge's prize for her win was $20,000 AUD (about $14,700 USD) on the Aussie television game show "Millionaire Hot Seat."

But instead of spoiling herself in a shoe store (because all women love shoes, amiright? #justkidding #stereotypesareboring), Dredge wanted to buy boots for a couple hundred people who she knew could use them more than she could.

Photo courtesy of Bri Dredge.
She planned on giving one pair of boots to every student at her school.

"When I walked into school on Friday morning [after the game show win], I was greeted with hugs and thank you[s] from nearly the entire student body," Dredge told Upworthy. "The smiles on their faces were worth more than any money I had won!"

    "I've always thought that if you have warm, dry feet then the rest of you is warm, which is the best condition to be in for learning."

The show's host, Eddie McGuire, actually played an important role in Dredge's win, as he'd encouraged her to "have another think" after she answered incorrectly on the final question.

"I couldn't help but get swept up in it," he told Confidential of Dredge's generous spirit and his decision to let her guess again.

"Good quality leather school shoes were the obvious 'good fit' gift as the weather here ... in winter is bitterly cold and wet," Dredge explained. "I've always thought that if you have warm, dry feet then the rest of you is warm, which is the best condition to be in for learning."
But before Dredge could hit up the mall and make the purchase, a generous shoe company decided to help her achieve her goal and let her keep her prize money.

Inspired by Dredge's generosity, Steve Gunn — the CEO of shoe wear company Blundstone Australia — announced on the radio that his company would be donating 210 pairs of boots to her students.

Needless to say, Dredge was floored: "I am so incredibly grateful for, and overwhelmed by, his generous offer."
The students had their feet measured and will get their pairs during a school assembly on Aug. 3, 2015.

They're all "very excited," according to Dredge.

She told Upworthy that — now that the shoes have been generously donated by Blundstone — she's thinking of a different way she can use her prize winnings to give back to her school and community.

Aww! Dredge said shoes seemed like the perfect gift every student at her school could appreciate, regardless of age, as they range between 5 and 14 years old. Photo courtesy of Bri Dredge.
Dredge's generosity perfectly exemplifies how one act of kindness can have a big ripple effect.

After all, here's how it went:

    Dredge decided to give back to her students, should she win the prize.
    The show's host was touched by her decision and nudged her in the right direction. And she won!
    A CEO was inspired by Dredge's generosity and decided to donate the shoes to her students, so now Dredge can do something else entirely for the good of her community with her prize winnings.

And who knows how many of these 200+ students will be inspired to do some good because of Dredge's act?

If you ever need proof that kindness is contagious, here it is.

The left photo in the thumbnail image is courtesy of a video on 9News.com.au and the right photo is courtesy of Bri Dredge.
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Had a lot of friends in college? Researchers say that could mean you'll have a better life.
Tuesday, August 04, 2015 2:36 AM

Friendships may come and go, but their impact can last forever.

Did your mother say not to party too hard in college? Well, looks like all of that socializing could be of good use!

No, really. It apparently can give you a boost that will affect you 30 years later. Cool, huh?

Party on, dude! GIF from "Jersey Shore."
A recent study found that having a lot of friends when you're 20 can be a predictor of a happy midlife.

The University of Rochester study reveals that the number of friends you have when you're 20 has a direct impact on your quality of life when you're 50. The more you have, the better your life will be.

They found that having a lot of connections makes you feel better, and it makes you a better person. Connecting with a lot of people often means having to interact with a variety of folks you've never met before, which isn't always pleasant but is always educational. So those preschool goals were on point: Learning how to play well with others is important.

NBD, just hanging out with a few of my closest friends. Photo by gareth1953/Flickr.
Having poor social connections doesn't just put you at risk of loneliness — it could be deadly.

The slightly alarming part is that not having a lot of connections can be detrimental to your health. Lead author Cheryl Carmichael shared that they found “having few social connections is equivalent to tobacco use, and it's higher than for those who drink excessive amounts of alcohol, or who suffer from obesity." Yikes.
Just make sure to eventually slow down — the benefit of having a lot of friends disappears when you're 30.

In fact, if you keep up all that socializing once you hit 30, your life quality can take a hit two decades later. So make sure you have a few people you end up connecting really well with because as you age, it's all about quality rather than quantity.

Then you can have those classy, intimate dinner parties you've been dying to have. Photo by Didriks/Flickr.
Not a social butterfly? Don't start panicking yet.

Fear not, fellow introverts! You are not doomed to a miserable midlife. The researchers admit that this is a small, limited study that included mostly affluent white college students who could afford to attend in the 1970s. There's also the modern issue of technology: The study only took in-person interactions into account. Thanks to the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, folks can keep up with friends without ever seeing them in person. The effect might be different with more diversity in the group and social interactions recorded.

So until then ... just keep doing you.
Fulfilling friendships are beneficial no matter your age.

There is abundant evidence out there that the benefits of having good friends is endless. Studies have found that they can help you live longer, reduce stress, and give a serious brain health boost.
So no matter your age, go hug a friend.

It won't just feel good now — it could improve your life for years to come.

C'mon. You know you wanna. GIF from "Real Housewives of Atlanta."

If you're like me and enjoy reading studies in your spare time, check it out in Psychology and Aging. If you want to read a less science-y version, visit University of Rochester's newsroom piece about the study.

Thumbnail image via Pixabay in the public domain.
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The time the city of 'Batman' said movie producers stole its name and sued for royalties.
Tuesday, August 04, 2015 1:18 AM

When you think of Batman, you probably think of this guy:

Image via Thinkstock.

Or this guy:


Image by Evening Standard/Getty Images.

Or this guy:

Image by Junko Kimura/Getty Images.

Or, maybe even this guy:

Image via Thinkstock.
But you're probably not thinking about these people:

Image by Ferhat 72.
That last image is an aerial view of the center of the town of Batman, Turkey.

It's home to about 370,000 people and is less than 100 miles from the Syrian border. Before the discovery of oil in the region in the 1940s, Batman wasn't much of a city — it was only home to about 3,000 people.

And it wasn't "Batman," either; it was a village named Iluh. Iluh was renamed in 1957, nearly two decades after the comic book character debuted, and took its name from a nearby river called the Batman River.
The name of the river and, therefore, the city has nothing to do with the comic book character. But in 2008, a man named Hüseyin Kalkan tried to change that.

At the time, Kalkan was the mayor of Batman (the town), and he wasn't too happy about “The Dark Knight," the film written and directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale (he's the third Batman pictured).

    "The name 'Batman' belongs to us. … There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us."

He told a Turkish news agency (via CNN) that "the name 'Batman' belongs to us … There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us."
And then Kalkan sued — according to various press reports, he brought an action against Nolan seeking untold royalty amounts.

But he didn't sue Warner Bros., who produced the movie, or DC Comics, for that matter.

Absurd, certainly, but the spark for the idea was even stranger.

A few years before the movie came out, Batman (the town, again) had fallen upon hard times. And worse, a few years before that — and horribly — the town was in the news due to a spate of “honor suicides."

As the New York Times reported, these occurred because when young women were engaged in premarital affairs, the culture sickeningly called for their brothers to kill them. To avoid this, in the words of the Times, "parents [were] trying to spare their sons from the harsh punishments associated with killing their sisters by pressing the daughters to take their own lives instead."

Bad news attracts reporters and, in this case, reporters led to crazy legal theories.
During one of Mayor Kalkan's many interviews during that period, a reporter facetiously (one hopes) asked him why the city hadn't sued the comic/movie/cartoon franchise seeking royalties.

After all, those dollars would go a long way toward balancing the city's books. (According to a Turkish news source.)

Kalkan took the question as a critique of his administration, and, as he told the media when announcing his lawsuit, “we found this criticism right and started to look for legal possibilities of a case like that."

And “The Dark Knight" was the first to fit the bill.
The lawsuit almost certainly went nowhere, of course; as of this writing a year later, there are few if any news reports discussing it further.

Nolan, on the other hand, wrote and directed "The Dark Knight Rises" for a 2012 release, without any reported legal threats from Turkish cities.

Dan Lewis runs the popular daily newsletter Now I Know ("Learn Something New Every Day, By Email"). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.

This post originally appeared in Dan Lewis' newsletter Now I Know.
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The secret to truly understanding people? Meeting many different kinds and seeing what's universal.
Monday, August 03, 2015 11:20 PM

Break out from your comfort zone and carpe diem.

There are a lot of people out there. Billions of them!

But here's a question for you: Is most of humankind actually kind?

We know, it can be a tricky question. It seems simple, but the answer can get complicated — fast.

Image via Thinkstock.

Researchers were also curious about this kindness thing, so they conducted some interesting studies.

They found that when people thought about their own social circles, they said those people seemed pretty kind. But grow that circle to society in general, and the answer changes quickly.

Psychologists learned that when it comes to the big picture, people are more likely to view society in general as not-so-nice after all.
How can we change that cynicism?

Well, we can start by being curious. By getting out there. Asking questions. Chatting with strangers. Exploring. Challenging comfort zones. Carpe-ing the diem.

Thanks to increased connectivity, we have access to more people, ideas, and places than ever before. Finding the kindness in humankind just takes that one first step beyond our own walls.
Exploring our world brings out our empathy, too. Take it from Mark Twain.

He once said traveling "is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."

We'd like to think he was telling us that traveling brings out the best in all of us. It helps us understand each other.

Image via Thinkstock.

Not to mention that discovering the world brings about new ideas, different perspectives, and a refreshing sense of self (and it's terrific for your health).
Exploring the world might help you to understand other perspectives.

Sometimes it can be tough to see the good in our world when a 24-hour news cycle is full of bad news. But in many vital ways, the world is actually becoming a much better place to live.

Who knows? Maybe you just need a trip to [insert bucket list destination here] to see it all from a different window than your own.

And another bonus: Finding the kindness in others might be contagious.

Want to start a revolution? We know that acts of kindness can inspire other acts of kindness.

Image via Thinkstock.

By taking one step out into the world, you could be inspiring empathy in people you don't even know.
Exploring your world can start now.

Just as long journeys begin with one step, goodness can be found in the next state (or even street) over — no new time zone required. After all, it's all about taking baby steps.

You just need to make the first move, like this adorable tot.


Let's get out there.

Thumbnail image via Thinkstock.
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Some find this former NBA athlete's latest career move shocking. He just wants you be happy for him.
Sunday, August 02, 2015 4:59 AM

What took Vin Baker from NBA all-star and Olympic gold medalist to proud barista and aspiring Starbucks store manager?

Vin Baker is known as the greatest basketball player to come out of the University of Hartford.

In 1992, Sports Illustrated dubbed Baker "America's best-kept secret" because of his widely overlooked stardom at the smaller Division I school. At 6'11", he was an imposing defensive player and had scoring chops to boot.

Photo by Henny Ray Abrams/AFP/Getty Images.
During his 13-year NBA career, Baker logged some stats that are not to be sneezed at.

He averaged 15 points and 7 rebounds per game. And while he never won a championship, he did make four all-star teams and won an Olympic gold medal with Team USA in 1999.

Photo by Jamie Squire /Getty Images.
But his career teetered as off-the-court drinking unfurled into full-blown alcoholism.

Addiction didn't just drain Baker's health and ability to perform. It drained his finances. He earned nearly $100 million over the course of his career, but most of it was lost to reckless spending and shady relationships.

Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images.

    "I just didn't want to think about the success that I wasn't having that I had in the beginning of my career. It would just be a situation where I would try to numb myself to all the expectations."
    — Vin Baker in a 2003 interview with the Boston Globe

Today, Baker is proud to say he's been sober for four years and has found a new career off the court.

With a helping hand from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz (a friend and former team owner during Baker's time with the Seattle Supersonics) he's being trained as a barista and future store manager at a Starbucks in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.

Photo by George Frey/AFP/Getty Images.
Some people are shocked when they hear what he's up to nowadays, but Baker isn't looking for sympathy.

"For the people on the outside looking in, they're like 'Wow,'" Baker told the Providence Journal. "I'm 43 and I have four kids. I have to pick up the pieces."

Photo by George Frey/AFP/Getty Images.
To see Baker's story as a tragic fall from grace is to assume his story is over. But it's far from it.

He aims to make a positive impact every day both as a minister and as a mentor to young professional athletes who'll face a lot of the same struggles that come with money and fame. And that, to me, is the stuff of a real all-star.

Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Allsport.

    “To summon the strength to walk out here and get excited about retail management at Starbucks and try to provide for my family, I feel that's more heroic than being 6-11 with a fade-away jump shot. I get energy from waking up in the morning and, first of all, not depending on alcohol, and not being embarrassed or ashamed to know I have a family to take care of. The show's got to go on."
    — Vin Baker


This story was originally reported by the Providence Journal.
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Here's why pot advocates are loving D.A.R.E.'s recent Internet flub.
Saturday, August 01, 2015 9:37 AM

Just say ... yes?

You remember D.A.R.E., right?

If you're anything like me, this throwback serves as a haunting reminder that, no, middle school was not a nightmare, and yes, it did in fact happen in real life. Photo by Robert Mora/Getty Images.
D.A.R.E. stands for "Drug Abuse Resistance Education." I'm guessing this rings a bell.

D.A.R.E. is a program run by police departments and it aims to keep kids away from harmful drugs, gangs, and violence. It launched in Los Angeles in 1983 in the throes of the "War on Drugs" and still operates in schools across the U.S. today, meaning millions of Americans have had the D.A.R.E. experience over the past few decades.

(D.A.R.E.'s effectiveness has been questioned, but that's a topic for another time.)


Do you remember D.A.R.E.'s mascot, "Daren the Lion"?! Here he is shaking hands with actor Erik Estrada in 2002, because, why not? Photo by Robert Mora/Getty Images.
D.A.R.E., unsurprisingly, has never been a fan of marijuana — that is, until this week, apparently.

With its strong anti-drug mission, it makes sense D.A.R.E. has always been against legalizing marijuana. But on July 27, 2015, D.A.R.E. posted an op-ed from The Columbus Dispatch to its website that implied otherwise.

The article, which was written by former deputy sheriff Carlis McDerment, was titled, "Purchasing marijuana puts kids at risk." And while it may sound like it's an anti-pot essay ... it's not.

Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images.

"People like me, and other advocates of marijuana legalization, are not totally blind to the harms that drugs pose to children," McDerment wrote in the op-ed. "We just happen to know that legalizing and regulating marijuana will actually make everyone safer."

In the article, McDerment argues that legalizing and regulating weed would actually help in keeping kids away from marijuana, as dealers in the illicit market (which would cease to exist should pot become legal) don't care if a customer is under 18 years old. Legalizing marijuana would mean creating an industry that could be regulated to enforce age limit laws similar to the ones we have for alcohol.
The apparent endorsement of legal weed was a complete 180° flip for D.A.R.E. But, alas, it was also a complete accident.

After outlets like New York Magazine reported on the organization's change of heart, D.A.R.E. removed the article from its website.

When The Washington Post's Christopher Ingraham reached out to the group to learn more about its stance, D.A.R.E. clarified the article's publishing was, in fact, a "mistake."

    DARE clarifies that they do not actually condone marijuana legalization. idk why he called me "Scott" pic.twitter.com/odhemQD88Y— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) July 30, 2015


It's a bummer to hear that D.A.R.E.'s not on the legal weed bandwagon, though, because the op-ed they shared is onto something.

In the past, conventional wisdom led some to believe that loosening marijuana laws would send the wrong message to children, but lots of research tells us that's not the case.

A June 2015 study, for example, found that in states that have passed medical marijuana laws, the legalization didn't increase teenage use of the drug. In fact, the study spotted a decrease in use among eighth-graders after the laws went into effect.

Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images.
There's also plenty of evidence telling us legalizing weed would do society good...

...like providing funds for important things.

If weed is made legal and the industry regulated, taxes generated from sales could go toward things like public education.

Legal weed could also lower the incarceration rate. Some believe that decriminalizing "victimless" crimes — like the ones often related to minor marijuana offenses — would decrease the prison population without sacrificing safety.

And legal weed might even save lives. As I wrote about in July, it looks like people who seek out painkillers to ease chronic pain are turning toward legal weed instead, thereby reducing the number of deaths from overdosing on prescription painkillers.
For an organization that claims to have everyone's best interests at heart, D.A.R.E. might want to consider actually reading that op-ed they posted.

It might just change their program for the better.


Thumbnail photo by Robert Mora/Getty Images.
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Top 5 signs your ancestors were geniuses at beating the heat
Saturday, August 01, 2015 9:20 AM

We're dealing with the climate now. But it's not the first time...

Before air conditioning in the latter half of the 20th century, humankind didn't just suffer in the heat. We met the heat with creativity and a whole lot of cool.

Let me just say it: I love AC. I even own a T-shirt with an AC unit on it. I love my AC that much. Yes, AC feels good, but the fact is, it isn't all that great for the environment.

That's why I was so impressed to discover that the generation before AC was implementing lifestyle climate hacks and wide-scale architectural and infrastructure changes that truly give me and all of us AC addicts a run for my air-conditioning-loving money.

Our ancestors were smart! Here are my favorite five tricks from the past for dealing with climate, aka...
The top five signs your hot weather ancestors were complete geniuses at beating the heat.
#1: They planted trees!

Image via Ken Lund/Flickr.

There's a strategic way to do it. A 1984 paper from the University of South Florida discusses the Southern tradition of intentional planting when it comes to keeping cool:

    "Southerners would always try to plant theirs on the east and west sides of their homes, to protect from the rays of the rising and setting sun."

#2: They built things in special ways.

We're not talking small-scale here — these are huge changes. These are engineering feats to create ventilation, to avoid interior heat buildup, and more.

William Cooper, a professor at Louisiana State University, told the Boston Globe about some architecture techniques, such as building houses specifically for air circulation:

    "People with the means to do so used to construct homes that stood several feet above the ground, in order to get air circulating under the floor. ... They had long halls through the middle of the house, so if you opened a door at each end, you got a breeze coming through, and you'd have windows on the sides so you'd get cross-ventilation.'"

Image of the Marcella Plantation in Mileston, Mississippi, via the Library of Congress/Flickr.

And here's a nice equality moment. Fancy folks and non-fancy folks alike benefitted from these feats of engineering. Note how this more humble abode above has both a porch and ventilation underneath!

More architectural feats include huge, wide eaves and awnings for shade, high ceilings for the heat to rise, and huge porches to block out sun and heat. Even in the North, folks would open the basement and top-floor windows of the home to create a vertical airflow that acted like a chimney, but for heat. Hot air comes in the basement and escapes out of the top floor!
These lifestyle climate hacks from past generations weren't just green before it was cool — they were beautiful.

Check out this turret, designed to give airflow to the hotter top floors of this old home (remember, heat rises!)...

Kinda gorgeous, right? But you know there's a nice breeze up there for those hot Kansas summers. Image via the U.S. National Archives/Flickr.

...and this two-story porch!

Beautiful AND functional. Image via the Library of Congress/Flickr.

This generation was creating BEAUTIFUL, reusable things out of necessity. While we walk around complaining about rising temperatures (but not really doing anything to stop it — cough, cough, climate deniers!), a look at our grandparents shows us how smart and environmentally friendly we can be when we put our minds to it. At least, that's what they did.
#3: Windows weren't just for gazing.

They're for airflow — and a scientific understanding of hot vs. cool air.

Have you heard of a transom?

Image via the U.S. National Archives/Flickr.

I hadn't, but I had seen them. They're those windows above your door that allow hot air to circulate to higher floors in the house. On exterior doors, transoms even had special hardware. This wasn't just a life-hack — it was a full-on craftsman tradition, complete with special engineering.

In addition to transoms, double-hung windows are another innovation.

Image via JustyCinMD/Flickr.

These are a huge staple for warmer/scorching climates. They open from the top to let heat out during the day and from the bottom to let in cool night air when the sun sets.
#4: Reflective roofs.

These guys were doing fancy roofs waaay before it was cool. Their roofs were made of reflective materials and were lighter in color.

Tin roofs! Image via Florida Memory/Flickr.

Imagine that in contrast to the darker asphalt roofs that are so common now.
#5: They adapted their habits (and had fun).

Older generations didn't lean against the winds of climate — they walked with it, adapting in myriad ways.

From the huge, thick drapes to cover their big windows during the day, to the way they changed the way they opened those windows, to even just carrying a fan everywhere ... they were adapting and making newer things the norm as they found creative solutions to dealing with climate.

And let's not forget the best adaptation: hanging out on the porch. Some folks would even sleep on screened-in porches in the summer.

You could also knit and flirt, like these folks from the early 1900s. Gotta prepare for winter in similar creative ways! Image via State Library of New South /Flickr.

My family's hot weather tradition involves a HUGE iced tea on the porch.

To me, this is heaven. Image via Melissa Doroquez/Flickr.

Not a bad adaptation. Very fun, and so chill.
These old traditions got me thinking: If they managed to find ingenious ways to cope with climate, we could all get together again to deal with it, right?

The fact is, we can't all run out and build a second story on our porch or cut a hole in the wall above our door. But individually, we can make small changes and adaptations to our habits. And generationally, we can work together and innovate to find new ways to deal with our climate that are just as beautiful and fun as our grandparents did.
Not sure if anyone will ever invent anything better than a shady porch and cold iced tea on a hot day, but I'd like to see us try.

H/t to this SolarCity article, "How homes kept cool before the age of AC," which I first saw on my friend Michael's Facebook page.
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First we had windmills. Then wind turbines. Now it's time to meet the Windwheel.
Saturday, August 01, 2015 8:43 AM

Those delightfully zany Dutch have done it again!

Picture this:

You're waking up in your beautiful new apartment, looking out on the canal it's situated upon. You sit at your kitchen counter with a cup of coffee, grab the stack of envelopes waiting to be opened, and peruse the invoices within to be paid. But one is missing.

It's the electricity bill.

You frantically search through your mail — and then you remember. You don't have an electricity bill. Because your new apartment is part of a giant circular "Windwheel" that not only generates enough power for your complex, but enough to power your whole town.

Waking up in this building would be such a trip! Image from Dutch Windwheel.
Does a giant Windwheel you can live in sound like a fantasy? Well, it's actually closer than you think.

It's a plan that's so zany it just might work, and its itty-bitty prototype is expected to be easily scalable to the sizes required for the head trip we just went on to become a reality. And it could be ready to operate and live in within 10 years.
How does this Windwheel thing work?

Here's a glimpse of the concept from the Dutch Windwheel company and the Delft University of Technology. Mary Beth Griggs explains in Popular Science:

    "Horizontal beams will stretch across the center of the Windwheel. Thousands of nozzles located along them will spray positively charged water molecules into the air. When wind pushes the droplets against the beams' high-voltage electric field, it will create a negative charge.

    The negative charge will form a current as the electricity discharges, much like when the negative charge that builds up in thunderclouds discharges to the ground via lightning strike. The electricity will then be converted from direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC) for use in the Windwheel or storage in an industrial battery."

Or here's another way of looking at that.

We know we can harness energy through mechanical conversion via windmills and wind turbines, like so:

GIF via TU Delft.

But these Delft University of Technology geniuses wondered if they could get the energy without the mechanical part. (Short story — they can.)

    "We wondered whether it is possible to produce energy from wind without the conversion via mechanical energy. It is! By letting the wind move charged particles against the direction of an electric field. How does that work? This is an electric field and a positively charged particle. This can be any object that can hold charge. For example, a ping pong ball. But for the EWICON, we use water droplets. The electric force of the field moves the particle toward the negative electrode. Now when we let the wind push the particle toward the positive electrode, the potential energy of the particle is increased — similar to pushing a rock up a mountain against gravity."

GIF via TU Delft.

They're already using this technology on a much smaller scale and looking to improve its efficiency. Researchers think that with funding and more work on the design, it can be ready to go, in an affordable way, in a decade. And they're betting that making it a design that actually provides housing — yes, actually being able to live in one of the magical Windwheels — is a win-win economically.

Imagine going night-night in this place. Image from Dutch Windwheel.

It's also proposed, as shown in this diagram, that the Windwheel could have solar panels to enhance its energy production capacity.

Image from Dutch Windwheel.

It's not clear if this technology could eventually be retrofitted to benefit existing apartment buildings, and we're a bit too far from the actuality to start putting in a rental application for the first Windwheel apartment just yet, but...
2025 is the projected year that the Windwheel could be up and running.

Photo by Brendan Wood/Flickr.

And for people who are looking forward to seeing their electric bills go down (not to mention switching to cleaner energy), it won't be a moment too soon.

Thumbnail image from the Dutch Windwheel Co.
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President Obama wants the U.S. to build the world's fastest computer. And he's not asking.
Saturday, August 01, 2015 7:30 AM

Every president gets one moment to encourage America to do something really, really impressive.

JFK inspired us to go to the moon.

And Stanley Kubrick really made it look like we did! Photo via Pixabay.

George W. Bush pitched putting people on Mars by 2030.

15 more years! 15 more years! Photo by NASA.

And President Obama finally had his moment this past week when he challenged all Americans to come together as one and...

...build a really, really fast computer.


One that can run Oregon Trail and WordPerfect at the same time. Photo by Cornellanense/Wikimedia Commons.
OK, so it's not as flashy as going to the moon or Mars. But it's still a pretty big deal. Possibly an even bigger deal.

'Cause Obama doesn't have just any computer in mind.
He wants America to build the world's fastest computer. By 2025.

He issued the challenge in the form of an executive order to boot. So, technically, he ordered us to build the world's fastest computer.

Second term, balls-to-the-wall, IDGAF Obama, FTW.
According to Chris Baraniuk at the BBC, the kind of computer Obama has in mind could actually be a pretty big technological leap forward.

And not just in a highly-technical-scientific-techno-I-don't-totally-understand-this-but-OK way, but in some pretty neat, tangible ways that affect lots of folks' daily lives:

    "The US is seeking the new supercomputer, significantly faster than today's models, to perform complex simulations, aid scientific research and national security projects.

    It is hoped the machine would help to analyse weather data for more accurate forecasts or assist in cancer diagnoses by analysing X-ray images.

    A blog post on the White House website also suggests it could allow NASA scientists to model turbulence, which might enable the design of more streamlined aircraft without the need for extensive wind tunnel testing."

A computer that will give us better weather and climate data? That's awesome. It could even legit help us rescue the planet.

A computer that will carry out super-advanced cancer screenings? That could save lots of real human lives.

And turbulence is ... really, really annoying. I'd sign up for having a giant supercomputer design planes that can move through it like it's NBD.

All good.

Which raises the question...
Can we actually build it?

It's probably going to be pretty expensive, requiring an annual electricity bill of around $90 million per year. And it's going to require a lot of really smart people thinking really smart thoughts for a lot of hours to get us there.

But think about it.

If we could go from this:

OK, so this isn't the plan for 2025 after all. Photo by Cornellanense/Wikimedia Commons.

To this:

Photo by Pablo Cuadra/Getty Images.

In the span of a little more than 20 years...
It's pretty cool to think about how much further we can go in the next 10 years.


Photo by Alistair McMillan/Flickr.

OK, we might have to wait another few decades for the Enterprise computer.

But with POTUS backing the project, I bet those fancy future weather forecasts are gonna be pretty neat.

Thumbnail image by William Hook/Flickr.
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Amy's Drive Thru is changing the fast food game — one vegan mac 'n' cheese at a time.
Saturday, August 01, 2015 7:08 AM

One of the nation's first vegetarian, organic fast food restaurants just opened and people can't get enough of it.

When you think about fast food, what comes to mind?

If you're like me, you probably start salivating as you imagine greasy burgers, gloriously deep-fried onion rings, and calorie-laden milkshakes. Yum.

Basically, this. Image via Thinkstock.
A new fast food restaurant in California is aiming to broaden that image by introducing a vegetarian option.

Andy and Rachel Berliner, the founders of Amy's Kitchen, originally launched their line of vegetarian frozen, canned, and prepackaged foods in grocery stores (you've probably seen Amy's organic, vegetarian, and vegan food in your local grocery store) after they found themselves frustrated with the vegetarian options available at the time.

Then the Berliners decided they wanted to take their mission one step further, envisioning a fast food restaurant where employees (who were paid a living wage plus health benefits) served vegetarian meals full of fresh local veggies.

That idea became Amy's Drive Thru, one of the first organic, vegetarian drive-thru restaurants in the country.
As of their opening in July, Amy's Drive Thru has proven to be a ridiculous success.

On opening day, Amy's served over 500 people — most of whom waited for more than an hour in line just to order. And although they expected business to slow a bit in the following weeks, the demand has just continued to grow.

There it is — the restaurant that vegetarian fast food dreams are made of. Photos via Amy's Kitchen.

Why the crazy business? An Amy's spokesperson told Upworthy that it's likely all about pent up demand. People love fast food, but they want variety. And Amy's is delivering.
Not to mention, the food at Amy's Drive Thru is getting rave reviews.

Amy's serves organic veggie burgers, burritos, mac 'n' cheese, pizza, salads, chili fries, and even milkshakes (and, yes, you can choose from dairy or non-dairy options). Every menu item at Amy's can be made either gluten-free or vegan as well.

The coffee, vegetables, and even the milk come from local farms, too. "Our relationships with farmers and our knowledge of how to make delicious food on a large scale has really made this project possible. We've been able to keep the quality high and the prices reasonable," Andy Berliner said in a press release.

Yep — that's fast food.

I know, I know — but this broccoli cheddar mac 'n' cheese is fast food, too. It's also vegetarian and chock full of local ingredients. Drool.
So here's to reimagining fast food in a new way, and keeping low price points at the same time.

A single burger at Amy's will only set you back $2.99. And a bowl of mac 'n' cheese? $4.69.

Fast food has become popular largely because it's convenient, easily available, and affordable, but we're all ears for ideas about how to add variety to that description.

Amy's Drive Thru seems to have it in the bag: fair wages for employees, local farm support, low prices, and a sustainable business model. Their tables, chairs, and building materials are even upcycled and sustainable.

So ... who wants to take a trip to California with me?

I wasn't paid to write this post for Amy's Kitchen; I just love their mission and wanted to share the cool news. You can check out the Amy's Drive Thru website for more information about their restaurant.
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In 1948, Idaho employees dropped beavers from airplanes. On purpose. And it worked.
Saturday, August 01, 2015 5:46 AM

In the wrong setting, beavers can be quite problematic.

The Humane Society of the United States — an organization dedicated to animal protection — even has a webpage titled “What to Do About Beavers."

The problem these animals cause is actually a pretty simple one. Beavers build dams, which is a very good thing if they're in a relatively rural floodplain — but it's a really bad thing if the beavers are in more densely populated suburbs or cities.

Left unchecked, beavers in an area with a lot of humans can cause damage to trees and, in some cases, flooding.

Image via Thinkstock.
Even the Humane Society understands that it's OK to take action against the beaver population at times.

The organization discourages trapping or shooting the animals, which (beyond being inhumane) is ineffective — “it only creates a vacuum into which new beavers will move, often sooner rather than later."

Instead, the Humane Society offers a few suggestions, such as fencing off trees and painting the trees with an abrasive coating.
They do not, however, suggest parachuting urban beavers into rural areas.

But, surprisingly, they probably should.

(Do not try this at home.)
In 1948, Idaho had a beaver problem.

As people moved into old beaver habitats and started building houses, the tree-chomping creatures became an increasingly sinister menace. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game wanted to relocate the city beavers to the uninhabited (by humans) parts of the state.

A man named Elmo W. Heter first tried to collect the beavers and put them on mules, but this wasn't successful — as he'd later recount in a paper (pdf here) on his efforts, the mules “become spooky and quarrelsome when loaded with a struggling, odorous pair of live beavers."

Undeterred, Heter tried a new approach.

Image via Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
In an attempt to relocate the beavers, Elmo W. Heter took an older, male beaver who would soon be dubbed "Geronimo" and started dropping him from airplanes.

Heter explained the process in the above-linked paper.

First, using weights, they tested crates until they found a type that would stay closed until reaching the ground.

Then, Geronimo's job began. Heter dropped him “again and again" from a plane and onto the field below in order to further determine the appropriate drop height and to test the crates carrying the beavers.
Once Geronimo had safely landed enough times for Heter's liking, the beaver relocation went into full swing.

It was, by and large, a success:

    "In the fall of 1948, 76 live beavers were dropped with only one casualty. On the first drops, lightweight lashings were used on the sling ropes, and one of these broke before there was sufficient tension from the shroud lines to hold the box closed. One beaver worked his head through the small opening thus made for him and managed to climb out onto the top of the box. Even so, had he stayed where he was, all would have gone well; but for some inexplicable reason, when the box was within 75 feet of the ground, he jumped or fell from the box.

    Observations made late in 1949 showed all the airborne transplantings to be successful. Beavers had built dams, constructed houses, stored up food, and were well on their way to producing colonies."

Heter estimated that transporting four beavers in this fashion could be accomplished at the relatively low price of $30 a quartet (about $300 in today's dollars) and concluded that "the savings in man hours, and in the mortality of animals, is quite evident," in case anyone wanted to repeat the process.

Image via Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

And, according to Smithsonian magazine, the air-dropped beavers' descendants still populate the region today — so the idea has staying power too.

But don't expect any more beavers to be tossed out of airplanes any time soon — even though the Humane Society doesn't specifically frown on the idea, they do suggest that we “try to live peacefully with these animals."

And that likely precludes parachuting them into parts unknown.

Dan Lewis runs the popular daily newsletter Now I Know ("Learn Something New Every Day, By Email"). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.

This post originally appeared in Dan Lewis' newsletter Now I Know.
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What happened when #ShellNo protestors went toe-to-toe with Big Oil in a daring standoff
Saturday, August 01, 2015 4:19 AM

It was only a stall, but it got the world's attention.

Drilling for oil in the Arctic? Ohhhh #ShellNo!

The Arctic's icy Chukchi Sea. Photo by NASA HQ PHOTO/Flickr.

At least that's what Greenpeace USA and its supporters say.

Shell oil company recently got its hands on limited permits for preliminary drilling in the Arctic's Chukchi Sea, just west of the northern tip of Alaska, and was all set to get operations underway this week (despite plenty of warning that a devastating oil spill is all but inevitable if drilling occurs).

Until 13 activists got in the way. Literally.

Here's what happened.
Earlier this week, Shell deployed a 380-foot-long icebreaker called the MSV Fennica to the Arctic.

The Fennica is crucial to Shell's drilling operations in the way, way, way north because it carries a special spill containment system called a capping stack that has to be on hand before any drilling can begin (though the capping stack is far from a reliable solution).

After wrapping up some repairs at a Portland, Oregon, shipyard (Shell recently crashed the ship into an iceberg and ripped an enormous hole in the hull, d'oh!), the Fennica was all set to hit the open water.

The St. John's Bridge in Portland is all that stood between the MSV Fennica and a clear path to the Arctic. Image from Google Maps.

And then Greenpeace happened. Go, Greenpeace.
To physically block the Fennica's passage out into open water, Greenpeace activists suspended themselves from the St. John's Bridge.

Stop, hammock time! Photo by carissabee/Instagram used with permission.

Loafing around in a hammock isn't usually a good way to get things done, but this might be the exception.

Protestors dangled colorful hammocks from the bridge, secured by heavy-duty climbing equipment. Activists in kayaks (kayaktivists!) also joined in the fight on the surface of the water below, forming a human blockade.

The kayaktivists! Photo by Backbone Campaign/Flickr.

The protestors arrived around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, prepared for the long haul. Most brought food, water, and entertainment to last them a number of days, with Portland residents contributing even more rations and supplies to the cause.


    Hey @portlandfashion thanks for the food and water supplies!! Portland

At one point on Thursday, Shell's icebreaker was forced to turn back and return to port.

A temporary but significant victory.
The protests ended on Thursday night, but the activists' message was heard loud and clear.

Some activists "hanging" out. Photo by opiopanaxx/Instagram used with permission.

Greenpeace had to know they couldn't keep the Fennica at bay forever.

But with Shell planning layoffs, watching its profits tank, and desperate to get started on its Arctic drilling project, the oil company couldn't afford any delays. Which is why Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace, told MSNBC, "Every second we stop Shell counts."

Thursday afternoon, a federal judge in Alaska ordered Greenpeace USA to pay a $2,500 fine every hour as long as protestors continued to impede the Fennica, with the fine set to increase every day. With hard-hitting fees heading their way and arrest threats looming, the Greenpeace activists were forced to pack it in.

The dramatic final moments of the protest. Photo by Twelvizm/Flickr.

But not before growing huge international awareness of the dangers of Arctic drilling.
Greenpeace says drilling in the Arctic could be catastrophic. And the experts agree.

The harsh conditions make it really difficult to access Arctic oil safely, or at all. Shell itself has poured more than $7 billion over the course of 10 years into trying to make this happen. Most of its competitors have given up for now.

Experts agree the risks are huge. One federal report recently estimated a 75% chance of at least one large oil spill over the life of Shell's 77-year drilling lease, which could absolutely devastate marine life in the Chukchi Sea and beyond.

A recent article in Time magazine also warned that drilling in the Arctic could release large amounts of methane and black carbon, two extremely potent greenhouse gasses. Black carbon is especially dangerous, as large buildups of the stuff collect solar energy at a rapid clip, warming the ice and water even faster.
The hammocks may have come down, but #ShellNo is still going strong.

This fight isn't over.

    The activists are down from the bridge, but you can still help. Tell @POTUS to #SaveTheArctic http://t.co/MX0C7IZ5d5 pic.twitter.com/Ps0xwhjdBa— Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa) July 31, 2015


Greenpeace says the Obama administration has shown a willingness to change environmental policy based on public outcry, so they're encouraging people to continue amplifying the issues and voicing their displeasure.

Right now, the MSV Fennica is on a course for the Chukchi Sea. But after this incredible display of international concern, revoking Shell's drilling permits certainly isn't outside the realm of possibility.

To learn more about how to get involved in #ShellNo, visit Greenpeace USA.
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How Google plans to use 13 balloons to bring Internet access to every person in Sri Lanka.
Saturday, August 01, 2015 3:30 AM

Back in the day, we all had to access the Internet through our telephone landlines.

GIF from America Online.
But soon, thanks to a new project from Google, you might find yourself accessing the Internet with the help of a ... balloon?

It's called Project Loon and it began on New Zealand's South Island in 2013 as an attempt to bring network connectivity to farmers in isolated areas where physical wires were difficult or too costly to install, or were just too remote for consistent reception.

Here's a look at the earlier phases of the project that used remote-controlled balloons (like weather balloons, not the birthday kind) in place of traditional landlines or satellites to broadcast LTE cellular service (that's the same kind of signal that pings your cellphone and lets you play Farmville on the road):
After success from the experiments in New Zealand, Sri Lanka is slated to be the first country to offer balloon-based Internet access to everyone.

In late July 2015, the Sri Lankan government signed an agreement with Google to bring broadband Internet access to all 21 million people on the island — a significant step up from the estimated 2.8 million mobile connections and 606,000 landlines currently available.

"The entire Sri Lankan island — every village from Dondra to Point Pedro — will be covered with affordable high speed Internet using Google Loon's balloon technology," IT and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said in an interview with the India Times. The Sri Lankan government will monitor and regulate the balloons just like any other utility, allowing local Internet service providers to purchase access for their subscribers.

Not bad for 13 polyethylene balloons floating above the Indian Ocean.

Image from "The Wizard of Oz."
Project Loon essentially uses weather balloons as satellites. The balloons broadcast 3G network access from the stratosphere (fancy!) to remote locations that otherwise can't get coverage.

We've all experienced those annoying Internet dead zones where signals are blocked by geographic features or where you're just so isolated that it's not practical to build a tower or install wires. Unfortunately, that's still how it is for people in large parts of the world.

Google describes Project Loon as "a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters."

Each balloon spends 100 days at a time floating in the stratosphere (about 12 miles up from the surface of the Earth, which is way higher than your next cross-country flight) and can provide LTE service to an area about 25 miles in diameter. And don't worry — they fly 'em back home when those 100 days are up, so there's no balloon-waste killing the environment.

Basically it's a giant, remote-controlled, windsurfing drone-modem. You know, in case "Internet-balloon" didn't sound weird enough.

GIF from the Webby Awards.
Regular Internet access is still only available to about a third of the world's population, but experiments like Project Loon are helping to connect people across the globe.

The Internet is so embedded in most of our lives that it's difficult to imagine a world without it — and yet, that's how two-thirds of the world lives each and every day. You know those computer kiosks at your local library? (You have been to your local library, yes?) In some countries, that's one of the only places people can get online. And there are countries where you can't even do that.

So instead of worrying about your 18-second page load times and how annoying it is when Netflix takes 20 seconds to buffer, think about all the information you can find online with just a tap of your finger. That resource is only going to get richer as we include more people in it.

In conclusion, balloons are awesome. Say it with me:

GIF from MC Webmasta.

Thumbnail image by Tiago Queiroz/AFP/Getty Images.
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The calm answer to the question, 'If gay people can get married, what about polygamy?'
Saturday, August 01, 2015 1:47 AM

Looking for a reasonable response to people who freak out about gay people getting married? Here's one.

I don't know if you heard, but gay people can now get legally married across the entire United States.

As of this moment, weeks after the ruling, with gay people getting married all over the country, I have noticed no change in my straight marriage. My wife has not divorced me because other people are now allowed to copy our totally original idea of legally becoming one entity for tax purposes and celebrating our perfect* love with the world.
(*She would argue that maybe it's not perfect.)

Most people were pretty happy when they learned about it. Some people weren't. Some responded with, "Polygamy is gonna become law now," which seems to me to be a bit of an exaggeration. Who made that argument?
Apparently, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts thought that could happen.

He had this to say in his strongly worded dissent of the ruling.

I was going to show you some really panicky freaked-out mildly insulting tweets here, but then Justice Roberts, in his dissent on the marriage ruling, made the calm, reasonable version of those in his argument.
So how do you respond when someone says, "If gay marriage, why not polygamy?"

John Corvino, chair of the Department of Philosophy at Wayne State University, is here to address the arguments of those who aren't happy.

They are totally different things to argue about.

People who like to ride down slippery-slope arguments tend to say stuff like: "What about incest? What about bestiality? What about polygamy?"

Let's get the insane ones out of the way first. Incest and bestiality.

GIFs via John Corvino.

Incest and bestiality are forms of abuse. They are perpetrated by people who are straight and gay. Sexual orientation has no relevance to abuse.

And I'm pretty sure you can't get consent from a kitchen appliance.

Which leaves just polygamy.
I didn't know that much about polygamy. So I looked it up. There are actually multiple sub-forms of polygamy.

Polygamy has its own set of issues to deal with and lends itself to abusive practices. It's rarely truly consensual. Polygamy isn't an equal-opportunity thing in the cultures where it's practiced, for the most part. It tends to be something where multiple women are subjugated and married to one man.

As Jon states, polygyny is one man, multiple wives. The vast majority of cultures that allow polygamy act in this way. Women tend to be subjugated, and poor men tend to become unmarriageable. Meanwhile, rich men tend to collect wives as trophies, and this tends to make things worse for society.

When you have one wife and multiple husbands, it's called polyandry. This is exceedingly rare and generally happens in cultures where brothers both marry the same woman because there's a high risk of male death and they want their lineage to continue.

Lastly, there is also group marriage between multiple men and multiple women. This one is the least problematic regarding the persecution of women, but also the least common. They'll have to speak for themselves.
Ergo, polygamy has nothing to do with two consenting adults committing to each other for life.

The next time someone asks you about the slippery slope, you'll know what to respond with.

You're welcome.

"If gay marriage, why not polygamy?" by John Corvino.
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A search engine like Google, except for one small detail: It plants trees!
Friday, July 31, 2015 7:16 AM

Or: How Ecosia might finally make Bing happen.

Are you ready to spend zero dollars, change one small habit, and save part of the Earth?

Meet the search engine that also plants trees: Ecosia. It might be one of the easiest ways to help out your neighbors.



Every search you make on Ecosia gives about .5 cent toward the planting of a tree in Burkina Faso, in Africa.

A huge, half-century drought devastated the region, and trees are a way to regain what was lost — and help people too!
Here's how you can help. It's almost TOO easy.

1. You search, and Ecosia makes its money from search income.

Search income is money made on the little ads you see when you search for stuff.


Image via Ecosia.

2. Each search earns about half a cent.

3. To plant one tree, it costs 28 cents. That's about 56 searches = one tree!

Ecosia has already planted just under 2.5 MILLION trees. So join the party, right?!
You might be thinking, "What does drought have to do with trees?" As it turns out, a lot.

During drought, vegetation dries up.

Food is hard to grow, and jobs that come from growing food become even harder to come by. The result is hunger, lack of work, loss of life, and at the end of it all ... huge terrifying dust storms?!!?

That's a giant dust storm from drought and not enough trees. Image via Jeff Attaway/Flickr

Yeah. Without water, soil becomes dust, and it wreaks havoc on humans and other life forms during a drought. Trees are the beginning of solving these problems.

By replenishing trees lost to drought, Ecosia replenishes the earth and provides work for the people of the region. Economies form around the planting of these trees. It's transformative.
So why is everyone not using this tree-planting, life-saving search engine? Well, I think I have an idea.

Ecosia runs on ... Bing.

Sure, it's a perfectly acceptable search engine, but I get that you might be hesitant to use it. Because, well, it's just not Google. And let's be real: It's the search engine used in most movies but not in most lives.

I'm signed up for Ecosia, so to ease all of your "eww Bing" feelings, I searched for some things. Let's see how it went:
1. Where is the nearest pizza place?

Google kinda won that one. But that's because Google knows exactly where I am. Creepy maybe? Ecosia isn't as stalkery. And I'm OK with that. I usually use my phone or Yelp for restaurants, so I can live with this.

But I earned .5 cent for trees! That feels good.
2. Why is Katy Perry mad at Taylor Swift?

When it comes to celebrity feuds that I kinda wonder about, I want my information fast. Google let me know it allegedly might be because Katy stole Taylor's dancers. Ecosia gave me some more up-to-the-minute news about a possible jab that Taylor made. I think Ecosia won that one.

And earned .5 cent!
3. Who is my hometown's state representative?

Hm. Both results were a little bit not helpful. Actually, I'm a little bit concerned that both Bing/Ecosia and Google are better at telling me about Katy Perry than they are about my elected officials, but that's a real talk for another time.

Again, I earned .5 cent!
Either way, that's 1.5 cents I made toward a tree, just by being curious. Totally worth it.
Go to Ecosia.org if this sounds like your kinda search.

You can use Ecosia on the web or with a browser extension! Just go to Ecosia.org and take it from there.

Happy world-saving!

Thumbnail image in public domain.
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When this CEO sold his company, he gave his longtime employees an average bonus of $237,000 each.
Friday, July 31, 2015 7:05 AM

When CEO Nevzat Aydin sold his food delivery company for a whopping $589 million, he did something very few CEOs do with that kind of windfall.

Sorry, only two pictures of this guy on Getty. Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images.

He paid $27 million of it back to his employees.
According to Ivana Kottasova at CNN Money, Aydin felt his workers "deserved to benefit from the company's sale."

    "Yemeksepeti's [the company] success story did not happen overnight and many people participated in this journey with their hard work and talent," he told CNN Money.

    The bonuses are worth $237,000 on average. They were paid from the proceeds of the sale of the company.

Though the bonus is limited to employees who have worked for the company for two years or more, many stand to benefit.

They must be elated. Salaries at the company appear on par with the national average in Turkey, where Yemeksepeti is based, meaning that regardless of the company's value, workers weren't being paid a whole lot — between $1,000 and $2,000 per month on average. That's roughly $12,000-$24,000 annually.
Aydin is the latest in a growing line of CEOs to realize that doing right by their employees is not just good manners, but also good for business.

And this is the other one. Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images.

According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for workers at the low end of the pay scale, small increases in pay can lead to large increases in overall happiness.

And large increases in overall happiness can have a positive effect on employee retention, ultimately saving a company money in the long run.
Still, Aydin's incredible generosity highlights the need to compensate workers fairly for their contributions.

And not just with occasional, unexpected money showers, but in their actual paychecks.

As recently as 1980, CEO pay in the U.S. was roughly 42 times what the average American worker made. In 2015, top CEOs made 373 times the average worker salary.

What Aydin did was incredibly altruistic, but also incredibly rare. Not every CEO is as generous, and most don't grant their employees such gigantic bonuses upon a sale of the company.

That's why workers across the U.S. and around the world are asking for things like a higher minimum wage and an expansion of overtime rules.
'Cause ultimately, it's actually pretty easy to reward an employee for a job well done.

You don't even have to unexpectedly dump $20 million+ on their heads. Though that's a super-nice thing to do.

All you have to do is...

Pay them fairly in the first place.

Preferably with giant, fanned-out money stacks. Photo by Noel Celis/Getty Images.

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5 miraculous Amber Alert rescues that prove heroes are everywhere.
Tuesday, August 04, 2015 12:50 AM

These are so frightening and so inspiring.

When you see or hear an Amber Alert, what do you usually do?

Photo by Tony Webster/Flickr

Sometimes it's the middle of the night, and the buzz of your cell phone stirs you out of a deep sleep before you can silence it. Other times, the alert interrupts your favorite song on the radio. Maybe you wait patiently for it to end. Maybe you change the station.

After all, who hasn't wondered, "What are the odds?"

Sure, the alerts are heartbreaking, but what are the odds you'll bump into the missing kid? What are the odds you'll see the getaway car? What are the odds you'll be able to do anything about it?

Turns out, better than you think.
Here are five recent stories of people who suddenly found themselves face to face with a kidnapped child ... and rose to the occasion.

High intensity situations require calm nerves and quick thinking. Kudos to these people for noticing the Amber Alerts at the right time and, in some cases, for having the courage to act right then and there.
1) 2-year-old Ronnie Tran was found when his baby sitter, John Tuong, saw an Amber Alert ... for Ronnie.

John Tuong had no idea he was baby-sitting a missing kid. Image courtesy of KOMO News

Ronnie was kidnapped by his 65-year-old maternal grandmother, who, along with an accomplice, had attacked and restrained his mother. She left Ronnie with a family friend, John Tuong, who merely thought he was baby-sitting his sister's boyfriend's son.

Tuong saw an Amber Alert on his phone the next morning and realized the kid in the alert was actually asleep in the next room. John called the police immediately and Ronnie made it home safe.
2) 6-year-old Kloe was taken from her bed on February 21, 2015. Thanks to a gas station employee, she was back home on February 22.

    Missing child Kloe Donohoo 6yoa, taken from 2002 Yorktown, has been found safe. More info coming soon. Thank you all!— Corpus Christi PD (@CorpusChristiPD) February 22, 2015


Kloe was abducted in the middle of the night by a family friend. After she was reported missing, an Amber Alert went out, which, luckily, was seen by a clerk at a local gas station. The clerk recognized Kloe from the alert and tipped off police that he had seen the girl, the man who had taken her, and the van he was driving.

The clerk's account helped police narrow their search, and Carlin was eventually stopped on the interstate by a trooper, some 300 miles from Kloe's home, and taken into custody.

Kloe made it home to her family safe and sound the next day.
3) Leah and Jordan's kidnappers' RV broke down. The cops that pulled over to help had just seen the Amber Alert.

    #AmberAlert: Leah Avila,3, & Jordan Avila, 4. Missing from Houston. May be in blue Nissan sedan bound for Colorado. pic.twitter.com/6e4iRu60cG— KRDO NewsChannel 13 (@KRDONC13) March 4, 2015


Amber Alerts aren't just for bystanders, they're for law enforcement too.

After 3-year-old Leah and 4-year-old Jordan were taken by relatives of their mother, the kidnapper's RV broke down on the side of the highway. Two deputies stopped by the vehicle to try to help them get back on the road. Luckily, the deputies had seen the Amber Alert and recognized the kids inside the vehicle.

Both made it back home safely the next day, but who knows what might have happened had the RV not broken down or if the cops weren't on the lookout for the missing kids.
4) A stranger stole a car with 3-year-old Bella inside. Later, a quick-thinking bystander physically pulled her to safety.

Leslie and Bella pose inside her bakery, Mini Cupcakes. Photo courtesy of Leslie Fiet, used with permission.

A strange woman asked to bum a cigarette from Bella's father as he walked into the 7-Eleven convenience store. He gave it to her. Then, the woman jumped in the car, with Bella still inside, and drove off.

Later on, the owner of a local cupcake bakery, Leslie Fiet, spotted the car after seeing the Amber Alert and she heroically pulled Bella from the backseat.

"My initial thought was to call 911 (when I discovered the car) but then I looked closer and saw Bella was in a tremendous amount of stress, hyperventilating and crying," Fiet told ABC News. "I just dropped my phone and ran out the door."

She locked Bella, and herself, inside the bakery until Bella's parents and police could arrive.
5) A pizza shop employee on her break spotted 7-year-old Nicolas and followed his kidnapper until police could arrive.


Courtney was brave to follow the kidnapper; and it paid off. Photo courtesy of KRIS TV.

Courtney Best, who was working at a small pizza shop in Corpus Christi, Texas, saw an Amber Alert on her phone while on her smoke break. She looked up and just happened to see the vehicle in question, a white Dodge Avenger, sitting in the parking lot in front of her with a child inside.

She followed the car, while on the phone with police, as it drove away.

"Cause, what are the odds? What are the odds of me looking at my phone?" Courtney told KrisTV. "And I usually don't even look at Amber Alerts, as bad as that sounds. I look at them and I don't really pay attention."

Thanks to her quick thinking, the police were able to recover Nicolas and return him safely to his family.
According to Robert Hoever of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, about 95% of Amber Alerts are resolved within 72 hours.

Robert, who is Director of Special Programs at the NCEMC, told Upworthy, "You can definitely see a huge change in how fast children are recovered today. The technology out there today helps."

In addition to wireless alerts, his organization also partners to issue alerts via Internet service providers, search engines, Internet ad exchanges, and even digital billboards.

And, Robert adds, if you ever find yourself in a situation like this, with any sort of information about a missing child, call 911 before you do anything. Emergency personnel will be able to help you navigate the situation.
We see a lot of Amber Alerts go viral, which is great, but we don't often get to see the happy endings.

Sadly, not every Amber Alert ends with a reunion. But the more we share these alerts with our networks, the more people they reach and the more likely they are to be seen by the right people.

In the meantime, it's comforting to know that most of these kids eventually make it home safely.

Thanks to the folks at KOMO News and KTV News for providing permission to use the photos above. Also, a big thanks to Leslie Fiet for not only being a hero, but for letting us use her photo. She says she's still in touch with Bella and receiving well wishes from around the world to pass on to the little girl. And, of course, a huge thanks to Robert Hoever for speaking with us for this story.

If you're interested in learning more about the Amber Alert system, please visit www.missingkids.org, call 1-800-THE-LOST, or check out this nifty infographic.
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Homeless people aren't safe sleeping on streets. That's why these 'parasitic pods' are so fantastic.
Friday, July 31, 2015 3:57 AM

Every person deserves a warm, dry place to rest their head.

These may look like something you'd spot in an urban design magazine for rich people:


Illustration courtesy of James Furzer.

But looks can be deceiving.

At first glance, it's not exactly clear what they are, right? Maybe a few fancy extensions on homes for the wealthy? A new public art project? Greenhouses for millionaires who grow their own kale?

Nope, nope, and definitely not.
These design concepts are intended to help some of London's most vulnerable: its homeless people.

James Furzer — an architectural technician studying his craft at the University of Greenwich — created these award-winning "parasitic sleeping pods." And while "parasitic" isn't exactly a word with positive connotations, they're actually pretty cool. The pods can be attached to any building to provide a safe space for users to rest their head.

Check these things out!

Illustration courtesy of James Furzer.
Accessible by ladder, they would be lightweight, modular, and a safer place to stay than the street, Furzer told Upworthy.


Illustration courtesy of James Furzer.

He was inspired to design the pods for a simple reason: Homeless people are people, too.

"I feel it is the duty of us as humans to be compassionate to others in need and not treat them as vermin," he said.

    "The homeless community needs to be given a safe, warm, dry space to stay."

Illustration courtesy of James Furzer.
His innovative designs aren't just cool to look at — they would help solve a serious problem.

While the pods themselves won't fight homelessness, they would help protect London's homeless from both inclement weather and street violence.

Research found homeless people in the U.K. are 13 times more likely to experience violence than people who aren't homeless. They're also more at-risk of becoming victims of theft, sexual assault, and property damage. The pods would help protect users from anyone out to harm them.

The hope would be for charities focused on fighting homelessness to monitor the pods so users could enter and exit safely, according to Furzer. Ideally, the same organizations would also provide upkeep of the pods, so they'd remain clean and habitable.
The pods are Furzer's response to an influx of public spaces that are designed to shoo homeless people away.

"Recently there has been a rise in 'hostile architecture' across London," he explained, noting the "anti-homeless spikes" (which I wrote about last week) that aim to keep homeless people from resting around town.

"These are implemented as a deterrent to the homeless, not aimed at helping."

These are an example of anti-homeless spikes. Aren't they nice? *shaking head* Photo by Space, Not Spikes.
Alas, for now, Furzer's pods live only on paper.

The designs face a few uphill battles before becoming a reality, he explained.

For one, Furzer would need to get funding for a prototype. He would also need to overcome other barriers — like political roadblocks and finding appropriate locations — not to mention the possibility of adverse reactions from the public.
But even if the designs only stay at the idea level, Furzer feels his work can make a difference.

"If my concept can help engage a shift in the mindset of the public towards the homeless," he said, "then I feel it is a success."

I reached out to James Furzer after seeing his designs on Mashable. Thumbnail photo courtesy of James Furzer.
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A short comic strip explains how our double standard about feelings hurts men, too.
Friday, July 31, 2015 1:43 AM

Let's talk about men's feelings — more specifically, how they're not allowed to feel them.

Let's talk about "manfeels." Also known as "bromotions."

Like when your fantasy team falls into last place, except different.

Isn't it weird how we always have to add masculine prefixes to things that aren't traditionally considered to be "masculine"? Sure, you could say it's meant to be funny or ironic. But is it always? And even then ... why do we have to go out of our way to create new words for completely normal things that guys do or feel, and that they've done and felt for centuries?

This great comic from Everyday Feminism explores the ways in which we oppress men's emotions.

The comic is called "The Media Is Lying to You About Men's Emotions, And It's Really F*cked Up – Here's a Healthier View," and it's by an artist who goes by Robot Hugs, which is kind of like dude-hugs but with less muscle-y pats on the back and more cold, unfeeling machinery.

Ironically, the cold, unfeeling nature of robot hugs is the exact problem with men's emotions that this comic talks about.
Hey, whoa, wait, before we continue ... men's emotions? On a site called Everyday Feminism? Actually, yeah.

There are some corners of the Internet that unfortunately conflate the idea of feminism with the oppression of men, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The grievances of those who champion for "men's rights" — issues like custody, paternity leave, and the high frequency of men engaged in dangerous jobs, such as military or construction — are actually symptoms of the larger systems that feminism aims to dismantle.

Just a heads up: I'm gonna be talking in really simplistic terms about the ridiculous way we usually talk about “dude" things and “lady" things. There is obviously more complexity within and beyond this, including lots of other layers about gender and sex and sexual orientation in general, but that's for next week's class.
The comic is about allowing people of all genders to access the full range of emotions involved in the human experience.

Think about it this way: all those problems I mentioned above? They're directly related to the idea of traditional roles, where men fulfill the hard "masculine" duties like hunting, protection, and physical labor, while women do the soft "feminine" work of nurture and caretaking.

This is what people mean when they talk about "patriarchy." When societal pressures force men and women into binary opposition, it creates a system of unfair double standards where an act of self-expression is interpreted differently depending on which gender role society assigns to us.

Or, to put it simply, if you're a man and you express anger, you're treated differently than if you're a woman who expresses anger, because of the way we perceive different emotions based on gender role stereotypes.
The comic lays this problem out with some really clear examples.

That's dudes on the left and the ladies on the right, with the shared emotional experience in the middle.

When society tries to limit and define what it means to "be a man," it implies that everything opposite — aka feminine — is wrong or bad.

This is where things start to get messy, and someone inevitably says, "But women's bodies are usually more frail!" or "But women are more emotional" which leads to "But I'm a chivalrous man and must assert my noble alpha-maleness by protecting and providing for a delicate woman!"

And hey, maybe you're not wrong about that. But you are wrong in thinking that those qualities typically perceived as "feminine" are themselves innately wrong, or somehow lesser than the stereotypically "masculine" qualities. You might not realize it, but that line of thinking has a serious effect on the language centers of your brain and the way that you perceive the world around you.

Traditional gender roles seek to confine both men and women alike, and the more we adhere to them, the more we hurt everyone.

The simple truth is that men and women and all humans alike are complex, complicated creatures, full of contradictions and inner feelings. But when men give into societal pressures to suppress their emotions (for fear of seeming too pejoratively "feminine"), those simmering feelings trapped below the surface tend to swell into something worse, which can lead to greater mental and physical damage both to themselves and to those around them.

There are some men's rights proponents who like to point to the higher rates of suicide and addiction among men, as well as the high percentage of men employed in risky and potential traumatic fields, such as military and police work.

They're right to do so (as much as it pains me to admit). But that's not the fault of feminism — it's because of toxic masculinity.

According to the World Health Organization, women are actually at greater risk for being diagnosed with a mentall illness, such as depression and anxiety. But they're also way more likely than men to seek out that diagnosis in the first place — which may have something to do with those societal pressures that tell men that these emotions are feminine and, therefore, weak and should be repressed or ignored. This can lead to substance abuse problems like alcohol dependence (1 in 5 men, as opposed to 1 in 12 women) and/or suicide (nearly twice as likely in men as women). It can also lead to violence — in the home, on the streets, or in schools or movie theaters across the country.

That's not to say that men cannot be victims of violence, of course. But this same toxic masculinity that encourages men to bottle up their emotions and hide their weaknesses also tells them to feel shame when they've been raped or physically abused — both of which do happen, and both of which are tragically underreported because they are so emasculating.
So instead of telling people to "man up," let's encourage people to confidently express their masculinity in whichever way they choose.

Here's a simple test for determining whether something is masculine: If the person identifies as a man, then whatever way they choose to express that is manly. 'Nuff said.

Check out the full comic over at EverydayFeminism.com.

Thumbnail from Everyday Feminism. Used with permission.
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Meet the incredible 8-year-old who just got two brand-new REAL hands.
Friday, July 31, 2015 1:19 AM

He lost both his hands and feet after a childhood infection almost took his life. Now an incredible surgery has 8-year-old Zion making history.

8-year-old Zion's hands were amputated after a childhood infection. But that hasn't stopped him from being a happy or healthy kid.

GIF via NBC News.

Playing guitar? Check. Video games? Check. Hide-and-seek with his little sister? You got it. And while that sounds pretty average, for Zion it's kind of extraordinary. That's because at 2 years old, Zion had his hands and feet amputated following a life-threatening infection. Then, he underwent a kidney transplant. That's a heck of a lot of surgery for a little kid. But today he lives a pretty normal life, and all with a big smile on his face.

GIF via NBC News.
Now Zion's making history as the world's first double hand transplant patient.

GIF via NBC News.

Wait. A double hand transplant?! Yup. 40 surgeons, including 10 hand specialists, worked over a painstaking 11 hours to give Zion two brand-new hands. And unlike expensive prosthetics that have to be upgraded and refitted every few years, Zion's hands will grow with him.

Even though the surgery was a success, there's still lots of work to be done. Hand transplants require a lifetime of special care, medicines, and physical therapy. And, according to the Mayo Clinic, success is not guaranteed.

GIF via NBC News.
Even though Zion's hands are still pretty new, he already has big plans. Like picking up his little sister.

image from NBC News.

Despite the challenges ahead, Zion has his eyes on the prize. When asked what he's most looking forward to once his recovery is over, he had this to say:

    "Pick up my little sister from daycare, and wait for her to run in to my hands and I pick her up and spin her around."

Do you hear that? That's my lonely, only-child heart melting. Hey Zion, if you're ever in the market for a big sister, I'm right here.

GIF from "Kristen Bell's Sloth Meltdown"
The most exciting thing about Zion's story? It doesn't end with him. His historic double hand transplant is only the beginning.

Because he's the first, doctors and physical therapists will be closely monitoring his progress as he heals and learns how to use his new hands. Just think: A few years from now, multiple limb transplants will be old news, as more and more people benefit from this incredible technology.

Original video by NBC News. Learn more about Zion's surgery on the Huffington Post.
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A 2009 police encounter nearly cost this Denver teen his life. He's alive and telling his story.
Friday, July 31, 2015 12:18 AM

He survived his 2009 run-in with police. Many others weren't so lucky.

In 2009, 19-year-old Alex Landau was pulled over by three Denver police officers.

Officially, the officers told Landau that he'd been pulled over for making an illegal left turn, a minor moving violation that ordinarily comes with a small fine.

Unfortunately for Alex, his experience was about to be anything but ordinary.

GIFs from StoryCorps.
Last year, Alex and his mother Patsy Hathaway shared the story of that evening with StoryCorps.

StoryCorps has since made a short animated video featuring their retelling:

For Alex, things took a dark turn after he asked the officers if they had a warrant to search his trunk.

"So I asked them, 'Can I please see a warrant before you continue to search?'" Alex says. "And they grabbed me and began to hit me in the face."

A piece published in Westword expanded on Alex's story.

    "[The officer] then asked Landau if he could search his car.

    Landau agreed. As the cop rummaged around the seats, two additional officers, a man and a woman, arrived in a second squad car. Once he was finished with the front and back seats, the first cop took Landau's keys and went to unlock the trunk.

    Knowing about the weed there, Landau took several steps forward with his hands raised above his head, as if to show he meant no harm, and asked if the officer had a warrant to search the trunk."

After knocking Alex to the ground, the three officers continued to hit him with flashlights, radios, and, yes, fists.

"I could feel the gun pressed to my head. I expected to be shot."

As he gasped for breath, Alex heard one of the officers shout out, "He's reaching for her gun!" One of the officers then put a gun to Alex's head, saying, "If he doesn't calm down, we're going to have to shoot him."

That's when he blacked out.

Luckily, Alex survived to tell his story. Sadly, he'd be forced to relive it for years to come.

It took 45 stitches to close Alex's wounds — graphic photos of his injuries can be found here. Alex filed a report with the city, but the officers involved sidestepped responsibility for the assault. Two of the officers were eventually fired after getting caught beating another person (this time, it was on tape).

In 2013, the Denver Police Department announced that it had determined that officers involved in Alex's beating were not guilty of misconduct. Two years earlier, the department settled with Alex and his family for nearly $800,000.

    Alex Landau beating: Attorney says decision not to charge officers ignores key evidence http://t.co/jwlFgGMBQs— DenverWestword (@DenverWestword) April 9, 2013


Alex's story isn't unique and that's what makes it so important to discuss.

The past few years have been filled with high-profile instances of unarmed black men like Alex being beaten and all-too-frequently killed by white police officers.

Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Mike Brown, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Akai Gurley, Rumain Brisbon, Tony Robinson, Phillip White, Eric Harris, Walter Scott, and Freddie Gray lost their lives after being confronted by police — and these are just some of the names since April 2014.

Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images.
This is the basis of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

If you have to ask why the movement is #BlackLivesMatter and not #AllLivesMatter, it's because to much of the world — and, disturbingly, to law enforcement — black lives often don't matter. That needs to change.

It's #BlackLivesMatter and not #AllLivesMatter because that's the reality. Alex's passenger — who was caught with drugs — made it through the night of their encounter with the police without injury. He's white.

    4 things you should do when you

We've seen how this plays out. We've seen that Alex's story is not simply an outlier.

No one should have to fear that their encounter with police will land them in the hospital. No one should have to fear for their life when they see the blue and red flashing lights. But until that's the case, the most important thing we can do is to lift stories like Alex's.

Original video from StoryCorps.
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When these Nigerians are asked what their country is like, their answers come easily.
Thursday, July 30, 2015 11:35 PM

Beautiful.

We hear things about other countries that tend to form an image in our minds about what that place is like — and its people, too.

Lagos is not the capital of Nigeria. Abuja is! Map via Thinkstock.
When Nigeria makes headlines, negative stories often dominate. But how much do you really know about its people?

It has 174 million people who are pretty evenly split between Christians in the south and Muslims in the north. They've modeled their government on the United States', and it's Africa's largest economy, overtaking South Africa in 2014. Its largest export? Oil.

I just learned that it's also the second-largest producer of movies in the world, just ahead of the United States and behind India. (They call it Nollywood ... I'll let you figure out why.)

Lagos, Africa's largest city, is a port city, bustling with economic life, art, restaurants, and people.

No place can be defined by just one thing — and Nigeria is no exception. But don't just take my word for it; check out this video from National Geographic, and let's listen to what these Nigerians say about their home.
Even in our modern times of incredible interconnectedness, there are places like this that we sometimes miss.

This is just one of many places where people are doing pretty much what we're all doing: living, creating, making a living, and trying to be our best. They might be halfway across the globe, but they're people, just like us.

Video from National Geographic.
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What most people have missed about the poaching of Cecil the lion: There's someone else to blame.
Sunday, August 02, 2015 5:01 AM

The lion killer doesn't deserve all the blame.

By now, you may have heard about the killing of Cecil, a popular lion in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park.

All GIFs from "Jimmy Kimmel Live."
Cecil was killed by American dentist, poacher, and narcissistic primate Walter James Palmer.

Palmer is no stranger to poaching, though he wouldn't call it that. "I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt," Palmer told CBS News.

"Legal hunt"? Here's what local officials had to say about Palmer's "professional guides":

    "In this case, both the professional hunter and land owner had no permit or quota to justify the offtake of the lion and therefore are liable for the illegal hunt."

The story has spread quickly and angrily across the web.

And Palmer has, for a moment, become one of the most detested people on earth. But not just by those you'd expect, like conservationists.

People who don't expressly take issue with hunting are upset by this story, including folks like Jimmy Kimmel, whose July 28 monologue included an emotional denouncement of Palmer and, presumably, other hunters without a purpose.

    "But if you're some a-hole dentist who wants a lion's head above the fireplace in his man cave so his douchebag buddies can gather around it and drink Scotch and tell him how awesome he is, that's just vomitus."
    — Jimmy Kimmel

Even life-long hunters are up in arms over the unsportsmanlike killing.

Via minnpost.com commenter Rachel Kahler (emphasis added).

In an interview with ThinkProgress, hunter and author Jonny Miles called what happened "an abomination" because of how Palmer and his guides carried out the purely trophy killing:

    “On the specifics of the hunt, with baiting, with using lights, and also killing a lion that has a pride — all of it just adds up to an incredibly unethical, unscrupulous way of going about this. ... Hunting shouldn't be about ego. It should be the opposite. It should be about awe at the natural world."

But should blame rest squarely on Palmer's sadistic shoulders?

Sure, if he were even remotely concerned with the most basic ethical code of hunting, he wouldn't be preying on a protected, soon-to-be endangered animal to begin with. But one man's bloodlust doesn't explain why the opportunity to kill Cecil was ever presented to him.

Time magazine's Nash Jenkins writes:

    "Zimbabwe was once celebrated as the 'breadbasket of Africa,' whose fertile earth supplied the world with abundant tobacco, corn and wheat. Today, 76% of its rural population lives in abject poverty, dependent on foreign food aid and desperate measures — like the poaching of the wildlife ... or rendering assistance to those who want to hunt or poach."

Jenkins points out that 80% of Zimbabwe's safari wildlife population died between 2000 and 2003. He blames notorious kleptocrat President Robert Mugabe, whose land reforms in 2000 gutted property rights, transferred plots to his cronies, and essentially negated the country's once-robust wildlife regulations.

    A cocksure dentist killed a lion in a morally fucked up sport. Systemic political corruption made his task easy. The world generally sucks.
    — Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) July 29, 2015

All that said, Walter James Palmer is, as Kimmel eloquently puts it, an "a-hole."

And while he may not be the only one, he is without question a criminal.

    Killing #CecilTheLion was not hunting. It was killing a protected animal for thrills. Critique hunting, but don't equate it with this crime.
    — Matthew Savener (@msavener) July 28, 2015


Thumbnail image by Christof Koepsel/Getty Image.
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Being aware of things like a tiny green frog on the label of your chocolate makes a big difference.
Thursday, July 30, 2015 8:57 AM

There's a lot going on behind that little green frog you might have seen.

Let's meet Adrien, a cocoa farmer who is a member of a Rainforest Alliance Certified cooperative in Ivory Coast, Africa.

He's a true pioneer of sustainability who farms in a way that protects the land for generations to come.

And he's pretty delightful.
Did you know paying attention to a little frog logo could help farmers like Adrien?

On some things you might buy at the market, there is this little frog logo.

Just what is behind that?

It means the product uses ingredients sourced from a Rainforest Alliance Certified farm.
What does that mean, exactly?

It means the farm uses methods that are good for the forest, soil, streams, and rivers — as well as for farmers, their families, and their communities. I spoke with the Rainforest Alliance to get more details.

    "Rainforest Alliance certification ensures that farmers have access to housing, medical care, personal safety equipment and clean, potable water. It also promotes decent wages, educational opportunities for their children, and technical assistance to keep farmers on the cutting edge of sustainable farming practices."
    — Tensie Whelan, Rainforest Alliance

It helps farmers like Adrien (above and the video below) grow sustainably and successfully. GIF via Rainforest Alliance.

The non-governmental organization started in the 1980s, and now 13.6% of all the world's cocoa is Rainforest Alliance certified as well as just over 5% of the world's coffee and several other products grown in critically important ecosystems, such as tea and bananas.

I looked, and chocolate and coffee that are Rainforest Alliance Certified are a bit more expensive. Why spend a few extra dimes on that chocolate versus the commercial brands?

Again, Tensie has the answer:

    "When consumers choose to spend their money on certified products, it directly benefits the farmers who produced the crops. They enjoy better working conditions and a higher standard of life. Money is also reinvested in communities and schools, planting positive seeds of sustainability training and education for generations to come."

(Also, I checked, and much — if not all — is organic. That's worth a bit extra for me.)

In addition to that, though, some major companies use certified cocoa in their products, including some of the premium chocolates offered by Dove and Hershey's in the United States and Côte d'Or, Marabou, and Suchard internationally.
One last thing, though. You're wondering (at least, I hope you are!) which chocolate or coffee and such you can buy when you want to get Rainforest Alliance Certified?

Some links for you: chocolate and coffee. You're welcome!

This clip is by Rainforest Alliance. They're also on Facebook. Facts from Rainforest Alliance.
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A powerful poem about race and gender shows us what we lose if we can't speak for ourselves.
Thursday, July 30, 2015 7:54 AM

Listen to these people. Really well. They make a good point.

Remember when you were a child and it felt like everyone — parents, teachers, adults in general — tried to speak for you?

It was probably really frustrating. When I was growing up, I felt like my parents thought they knew everything about how I felt. Yes, Mom. I actually did want to go to summer camp. (C'mon, s'mores!)

Tell it, Fresh Prince.

Now that you're older, you probably don't get that from your parents anymore. I hope.

But you may experience this kind of treatment elsewhere, particularly when it comes to race and gender.
Things can get complicated when people try to speak on behalf of others.

Listen to Darius Simpson and Scout Bostley explain a bit more artfully the frustration of people who don't understand saying that they know your pain.
This sort of stuff happens every day and the consequences can be dire for the people who want to have their voices heard.

Especially if you have an identity that is often underrepresented in everyday life.

Think about it: Our mostly male government has moved more legislation regulating uteruses than ever before. People of color continue to be largely ignored in mainstream media, even when it's to discuss topics concerning them. Sounds ridiculous, right?
When people try to speak for others, those sharing their pain don't just lose their voice. They can lose a lot more.


GIFs from "Lost Voices"
By telling people you know their pain when you don't, you may end up taking away what little opportunity they have to speak their truth.

GIF from "Lost Voices"
So instead of speaking for someone, consider sitting back and listening.

Everyone likes when they feel they're being understood. Sometimes that's as simple as saying, "I don't know how that feels, but it sounds like it sucks. And I'm sorry. How can I help?"

Next time someone shares their story of pain, try to think of other ways to show that you are sorry they feel that way. Don't say you know how they feel, unless you do.

The poem was performed by Darius Simpson and Scout Bostley at the 2015 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. Stream and download just the audio of the performance here. Want to see more awesome performance poetry? Visit Button Poetry's YouTube channel.
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Imagine if we obsessed over star teachers like we do with athletes. That's what 'Key & Peele' did.
Thursday, July 30, 2015 7:16 AM

"That's a Teacher of the Year play right there."

What would it be like if the world treated star teachers the way we treat star athletes?

Thanks to a spot-on parody of "SportsCenter" by Comedy Central's "Key & Peele," now we know exactly what that world would look like. And it's awesome.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to "TeachingCenter"!

GIFs via "Key & Peele."
We live in a society where athletes are one of the most common role models for kids.

And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, some athletes make great role models — especially when they share messages of hard work, staying in school, and giving back to your community. Other athletes, well, maybe not so much.

The "TeachingCenter" sketch imagines a world where the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" can be answered with: "A teacher!"

Take this clip from the teachers' "draft" featuring superstar calculus teacher Mike Yoast:

"His father living paycheck-to-paycheck as a humble pro football player — the kid was a natural mathlete."
Joking aside, the sketch makes a great point: Teachers should be treated like the heroes they are.

Teachers make a difference in the lives of kids every day. While star athletes might make tens of millions of dollars in a single season, teachers get by on a far more modest salary while contributing so much to the success of our world's future.

On top of that, teachers' work can be pretty thankless at times.

While it's unlikely to see teachers landing endorsement deals anytime soon, we can — and should — thank them for the impact they have on our kids' lives.


Make it rain, teach. Make it rain.
Check out the hilarious sketch below.

Video and thumbnail image by "Key & Peele."
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5 Planned Parenthood services that aren't the least bit controversial
Thursday, July 30, 2015 6:48 AM

For some people, when they hear the name Planned Parenthood, the first thing that comes to mind is abortion. But that's not all Planned Parenthood does.

Every few years or so, in their fight against reproductive rights, activists refocus on Planned Parenthood as enemy #1. People who are against abortion hold it up as the representation of all that is wrong with America: "An entire medical practice set up to give women abortions! They must be stopped!" But what most of them don't admit is this really important fact:
Only a measly 3% of their Planned Parenthood services are actually abortion-related.

Do they know that? Did you know that? Well, in an effort to combat the "big bad abortion wolf" narrative, here are five facts you should know about what Planned Parenthood really does:
1. In 2013, Planned Parenthood performed half a million breast exams.

Image via Thinkstock.

Breast exams are crucial for early cancer detection. Not only does Planned Parenthood offer affordable exams, they make sure patients know how to do self-exams between screenings.
2. In 2013, Planned Parenthood performed 400,000 pap tests.

While the pap smear won't tell you if you have cervical cancer, it can detect pre-cancerous cells. Basically, if there's anything sketchy going on in your cervix, the pap smear tells your doctor so you can figure out the best way to handle it. For people who don't have insurance or need more affordable health care options, Planned Parenthood is their first stop for preventive and reproductive health care like pap smears.
3. Planned Parenthood helps prevent over half a million pregnancies every year.

Image via Thinkstock.

If you're not ready for parenthood but abstinence isn't your style, safe sex is your best bet. Luckily, Planned Parenthood offers free and affordable birth-control options like the pill, the patch, IUDs, and condoms — in addition to emergency contraception like Plan B. And while some people have incorrectly dubbed Plan B an "abortion pill," it actually just prevents conception — it doesn't terminate pregnancy. Think of Plan B as as a soccer goalie who goes in and blocks the sperm from ever getting to the egg. Yay sports analogies!

No pregnancy for me, thank you!
4. In 2013, Planned Parenthood provided nearly 4.5 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

When we talk about safe sex, pregnancy prevention is often the main focus, as if that's the only consequence of doing the deed. But sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are something we all have to consider. Condoms are a great way to prevent STIs, but sadly they don't always get the job done. That's why it's great that Planned Parenthood offers affordable STI testing and treatment options. More people who are aware of their STI status and get treatment means more happy and healthy sexual partners to go around. That's pretty much a win for everyone.
5. Planned Parenthood encourages patients to explore all their options, not just abortion. That includes adoption and parenthood.

Image via Thinkstock.

While abortion is one way to deal with an unplanned pregnancy, that doesn't mean it's the right choice for everyone. Planned Parenthood is about helping teens and adults make smart and healthy choices, not forcing people into doing things they aren't comfortable with.

When it comes to dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, adoption and parenthood are worth considering too. Whether it's online or in person, Planned Parenthood helps women who are considering all options, including adoption or parenthood.
There are millions of people who rely on Planned Parenthood for all kinds of important health care services.

Whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, I hope we can all agree to be pro-health. Right now, anti-abortion activists are pushing to defund Planned Parenthood, which would keep people from accessing health care like cancer screenings, HIV tests, and more.

If you think it's important that these kinds of free and low-cost services remain available, let Congress know you support Planned Parenthood by signing the "I Stand With Planned Parenthood" petition.

I made this list after reading this epic "Planned Parenthood Fun Facts" Twitter conversation from Helena Tacy. For more ways you can support Planned Parenthood, check out their website. Thumbnail image via Thinkstock.
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The Iran deal as explained by Jack Black, Morgan Freeman, and people who actually know about it
Thursday, July 30, 2015 6:42 AM

Raise your hand if you think we should pass the Iran deal.

Now raise your hand if you understand the Iran deal.

Have you heard about the "Iran deal"?

In case you missed it, the White House struck a deal with Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons for the next 10 years. If you've been watching cable news, there's been no shortage of pundits yelling past each other about how awesome or awful it is. The Democrats love it and the Republicans hate it. But do you really want to base your decisions on what people in Congress say? I sure as hell don't. Congress doesn't really do nuance that well.

Based on the analysis I've read, the deal itself seems to be a good idea. But honestly, how many of us can say we truly understand how it works?

If only we had celebrities to explain it to us. WAIT! DON'T LEAVE!

Just watch this explainer video. The celebrities get fact-checked at 47 seconds in. (Don't worry, they're in on the joke.) If you don't want to watch the video, scroll down for the explainer.


The details of the deal are, frankly, over my head.

Often, when major issues are brought to the American public, marketing people trot out celebrities to scare you into changing your mind on an issue. In this satirical video, movie stars Jack Black, Natasha Lyonne, Farshad Farahat, and Morgan Freeman are here to scare you. They start by explaining how we'll all die if the Iran deal doesn't happen.

All GIFs via Global Zero.

But then the video takes a turn for the interesting.
First of all, America is not going to get nuked.

But the deal is still incredibly important to stability in the Middle East.
What makes this video different is that the celebrities get fact-checked by people with experience.

I was suspicious until I watched the whole thing (again, at 0:47 it gets interesting). This video is different not because of the celebrities, but because of the actual foreign policy experts who keep the celebrities honest. Their resumes are pretty impressive when it comes to these sorts of things.

Queen Noor of Jordan (who has extensive experience fighting for human rights), former CIA agent Valerie Plame (whose work included stopping Iran from getting the bomb) and former United States Ambassador Thomas Pickering (who was instrumental in making sure we didn't get embroiled in a decade-long war the first time we went into Iraq) fact check them.
What happens if we don't accept the deal that's on the table?

Former U.S. Ambassador Pickering (who was a Republican appointee) says:

And what happens if we go to war?

Former CIA agent Plame, who again, just to remind you, worked for the CIA on a mission to prevent Iran from getting nukes, says:

And we all know how well we do at long-term invasions in the Middle East, right?
Why is this deal a good one?

We'll be able to keep an eye on everything.

According to the White House, everywhere that Iran touches nuclear material, international inspectors will have immediate access.

Image via the White House.

And if they try to create a new secret location, the inspection team has a plan for that as well. According to Joe Cirincione at Slate:

    "This makes it extraordinarily difficult for Iran to cheat. Iran might want to set up a covert enrichment plant, but where would it get the uranium? Or the centrifuges? Or the scientists? If 100 scientists suddenly don't show up for work at Natanz, it will be noticed. If the uranium in the gas doesn't equal the uranium mined, it will be noticed. If the parts made for centrifuges don't end up in new centrifuges, it will be noticed. Iran might be able to evade one level of monitoring but the chance that it could evade all the overlapping levels will be remote."

Morgan Freeman summarizes the deal more succinctly.

That's all well and good, but what do other experts say?

Having a celebrity-filled video is great but if you really want to verify that something is going to be successful, you have to see what the actual experts think.

James Fallows at The Atlantic did a great job of explaining who is for it and who is against it. I won't go into detail, but here's a summary.
People who are against the Iran deal:

The Republican candidates for president, the Republican members of Congress, a few American conservative Israel think tanks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and many conservative Israeli Netanyahu supporters.
People who are for the Iran deal:

Basically, everyone else — Democrats and Republicans from across the spectrum who have worked in foreign policy, more than 100 former U.S. ambassadors of every political stripe, including five former American ambassadors to Israel, over 60 highly respected American "national-security leaders," Hans Blix (the guy who ran inspections for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq), a bunch of optimistic Iranian dissidents, and according to The Atlantic article, "numerous Israeli analysts and former military and intelligence-service officials."

You can see a more comprehensive and in-depth list of everyone who both supports the deal and is against it in James Fallows' astute piece.
But what can you do about it?

Basically, the only thing that can stop this deal now is Congress.

Many of them are saying, "We need a better plan." But they don't actually say what a better plan would be.

And we know that experts from across the political spectrum think this Iran deal is a good compromise. So I was hoping to ask you to do something you might not normally do.

We need you to call your member of Congress at (877) 630-4032.

Ask them to give diplomacy a chance. And then consider sharing this.

And just to thank you for doing that, I'm including a GIF of U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering grinning cheesily at the camera. You're welcome.


You can read the deal in it's entirety here. Original video by Global Zero.
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