To be more specific, the research found some correlation between the type of people with whom we tend to hang out when we experience a certain type of mood. For example, they found that when we feel happy, we go out of our way to meet strangers. But when we feel sad, we turn to our friends and loved ones.

The study’s authors provide this portrait of what their results mean: If someone were especially unhappy at noon on a Saturday, that person would be almost two times more likely to see a friend that afternoon than if he or she were especially happy at noon.

Meanwhile, if that person were particularly happy, his or her odds of interacting with a stranger that afternoon would go up by 20 percent. Those interactions might then feed on each other, with strangers making the person uncomfortable and less happy and close friends cheering him or her up again—and make the person eager to spend time with more strangers.

These results, as the researchers mentioned, only show correlation and not causation which means that these events or patterns of behavior do not necessarily follow one after the other. So say, if a person were expecting to meet someone new, they might try to pump themselves up to prepare for the interaction.

-via Kottke

(Image credit: Priscilla Du Preez/Unsplash)

Proof that Instagram influencers have ruined everything👇

My hopes & dreams were shattered when I found out the “water” at the Gates of Heaven is actually just a piece of glass under an iPhone 😭 pic.twitter.com/oiahI5VCIo

— Polina Marinova (@polina_marinova) July 4, 2019

The picture captured on Bali’s “Gates of Heaven” with a reflection of a clear body of water is truly a breathtaking photo. 

You might have seen the stunning picture of Bali’s “Gates of Heaven,” featuring the temple’s gates over a clear body of water reflecting the architecture’s details. 

The temple’s beautiful gate made it a popular location for social media pics, but that beautiful body of water pic is quite fake. There is actually no water around this stunning split gate. 

Twitter user @polina_marinova showed proof that the “water” is really just a piece of glass under a camera.

Image: @polina_marinova/ Twitter

Pima County Sheriff posted some photos on Facebook about a peculiar incidence of car versus cactus. Somehow, the driver of this car managed to impale his vehicle with a large saguaro cactus. As you can imagine, alcohol was involved.

On July 10, 2019, at approximately 9:20am, deputies responded to the area of 1st Avenue and Agave Place reference a vehicle that crossed the median, and struck a saguaro cactus. Once on scene they located the vehicle with a large section of cactus through the windshield. The driver, who appeared disoriented, sustained minor injuries, and was later detained after deputies observed possible signs and symptoms associated with impairment.

Image: Pima County Sheriff’s Department/ Facebook

For the ultimate in home security, you need a fortified offshore tower armed with muzzle-loading cannons.

This gun tower in Pembroke Dock, Wales, UK, was built in 1851 to protect the harbor from invasion. It was manned during World War I and II, when the UK was again under threat.

And now it's for sale! You can buy the fort and live in at as a home for a mere £70,000 ($87,000 USD). Here's the real estate listing.

It even comes with the original cannons! Really, the place has everything you could ask for in a residence. The Daily Mail reports:

The Grade II listed tower has substantial curved walls that are 13 metres high and up to 2.7 metres thick in some parts. [...]

It is accessed via a long walkway built on land owned by the Crown Estate, which would be leased for an annual 'peppercorn' rent, according to John Francis, the estate agent handling the sale.

A peppercorn rent is a nominal rent--usually consisting of a single peppercorn. I suggest trying to buy the walkway, then rigging it with demolition charges for emergency use.

-via Ace of Spades HQ

Sure, a skilled parent with time and proper sewing equipment on hand can adapt a costume to suit a child with special needs. But wouldn't it be nice if big retailers offered them for sale, ready to go? Now they do. Biz Women reports:

Target will offer four costumes this Halloween that cater to children with special needs, including covers that transform a wheelchair into a pirate ship or princess carriage and costumes without the tags and seams that can be problematic for children with sensory-processing disorders. [...]

In April, the company added adaptive pieces to its Pillowfort kids’ furniture collection that accommodate both the need for stimulation and for calming, per Fast Company, including a foam “crash pad,” a desk chair that rocks, a weighted blanket and bean bag chairs with waterproof covers.

In addition to the pirate and princess wheelchair-friendly costumes, the Halloween line includes a shark and a unicorn costume both with flat seams and no tags and detachable parts and hidden openings to accommodate dressing challenges.

-via TYWKIWDBI | Photo: Target

Animator Tibo Charroppin has a muse: his cat, Lizzy. Not only is Lizzy a good cat, she can step in for any movie star in any movie, or just improve a film with her presence. Lizzy has become a famous internet star known as OwlKitty.   

Aside from being “just really stinking cute,” Lizzy is a seamless star in these blockbusters thanks to Charroppin’s animation and video manipulation skills. With the help of a green screen and a knack for impeccable timing, Lizzy swats, pounces, and scratches her way into the center of everything. The videos are meant to make you laugh, which is why Charroppin began creating them in the first place. “We [he and Olivia, Lizzy’s mom] started this account,” he says, “wanting to make stupid videos for our friends and it really blew out of proportion.” But, there is a heartwarming, earnest point to all the fun. “We’re trying to show that shelter cats, adopted cats, foster cats,” Olivia explains, “that they all have this star power.”

Charroppin gives us a look behind the scenes of making these movies here. See a collection of the best OwlKitty movies, including Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, Rogue One, John Wick, The Matrix, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, at My Modern Met. Keep up with all the Owlkitty videos, pics, and magazine covers at Instagram.  -via Everlasting Blort

Florence Parly, the French Defence Minister, announced on Monday that the French submarine Minerve has been found. 

The Minerve submarine had been missing for over 50 years ever since it disappeared along with 52 sailors aboard, near the port of Toulon, on the French south coast, in January 1968. Previous attempts to search for the submarine have been unsuccessful.

Ms Parly announced the new recovery effort earlier this year, following fresh requests from bereaved families to find their loved ones.

"We have just found the Minerva," Ms Parly tweeted (in French). "It's a success, a relief and a technical feat. I think of the families who have been waiting for this moment so long."

[...]

The missing submarine was found 45km (30 miles) from Toulon 2,370m (7,800ft) under the surface, AFP reports.

It was one in a string of a deadly disasters involving military submarines around the world during the 1960s.

(Image Credit: AFP)

A new study published on Monday in the journal Nature Reviews Cancer suggests that a germ-free childhood followed by infections later in life can trigger childhood leukemia. The paper found out that acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of childhood cancer, is caused by a two-step process.

The first step is a genetic mutation before birth that predisposes a child to the risk of developing this form of leukemia. The second step is exposure to certain infections later in childhood, after clean early childhoods that limited exposure to infections.

More specifically, children who grew up in cleaner households during their first year and interacted less with other children are more likely to develop acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the paper says.

[...]

… "The research strongly suggests that (this cancer) has a clear biological cause, and is triggered by a variety of infections in predisposed children whose immune systems have not been properly primed."

[...]

However, other experts warn that more specifics needs to be confirmed and emphasize that hygiene and safety are still crucial.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, known as ALL, is a form of blood cancer that is most often diagnosed in children ages zero to 4 years old, though older children and adults can also be diagnosed. It develops quickly, over days or weeks, building up in the blood and spreads to other parts of the body, including the lymph nodes, liver and nervous system. The main form of treatment is chemotherapy.

Find out more about this interesting study over at CNN.

(Image Credit: PublicDomainPictures/ Pixabay)

Most of us haven’t experienced what Lilliana Labecki has experienced during our first sixteen years of life. Labecki, despite her young age, has already traveled to over 20 countries and all seven continents. She has skied in Antarctica, climbed Kilimanjaro, and went to the peaks of mountains in Peru and Nepal. Not only that; she has also been able to found her own nonprofit organization, and she has been able to spearhead six humanitarian expeditions to remote corners of the world. Amazing girl.

Since Lilliana was in kindergarten, she’d been telling her father, Mike Libecki—an accomplished mountaineer, expeditionist, and National Geographic Explorer—that she wanted to ski with penguins. Once Lilliana turned nine, Mike decided it was time they start training. Together, near their home in Utah, the father-daughter duo practiced backcountry skiing and avalanche and crevasse training. When she was 11, they went on a three-week ski expedition in Antarctica. “It’s a big deal,” says her father. “Sixty-mile-an-hour winds, crevasses, roped up, harness, real deal—not just dad-daughter, but she has to be a partner out there.” 

[...]

[Labecki] found her passion on an expedition to Tanzania in 2015, when she was 12. After summiting Kilimanjaro, Lilliana, her dad, and the rest of the team worked on a give-back project for rural communities in Boma Ng’ombe, Tanzania. They helped build two schools, two churches, and an orphanage and provided shoes and socks, solar power, and computers. The experience was moving for Lilliana, and she wanted to do more.

And that is how her nonprofit organization called Joyineering was born.

When they returned stateside, Mike created a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, with Lilliana as the president, Mike as vice president, and Lilliana’s grandmother, aunt, and uncles as board members. The Joyineering Fund was born. “Joyineering is the act of bringing joy to our Mother Earth in all possible ways,” says Lilliana.

Since its founding, the fund has raised more than $500,000 for its projects. The organization raises money through donations, grant applications, and sponsorships from companies like Clif Bar, Dell Computers, GoalZero, and more. 

The Libecki family, along with a crew from sponsoring companies, ventures to underserved, remote communities to provide basic necessities that much of the world takes for granted—shoes, socks, clean water, electricity, and education. “I know I may not be able to make the biggest difference in the world and change the world,” says Lilliana, “but I might be able to change their world.”

More of this heartwarming story over at Outside Online.

(Image Credit: Mike Libecki)

It is an understandable response. For what could be better than to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women?

Just don't say it out loud. That will tip them off as to your ultimate plans.

Poorly Drawn Lines | Reza Farazmand

If you're looking for the traditional dishes of Iceland without going to Iceland, you might consider a trip to New Iceland, an area on the shores of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. New Iceland is sparsely populated (as is Iceland), but that's where you'll find rúllupylsa in both grocery stores and restaurants, and Brennivin to drink, with vínarterta for dessert. Tourists from Iceland love to stop by for a taste of home on their North American trips. The founding of New Iceland might remind you of stories of other, more familiar settlements.

The origins of this delicious diaspora are explosive. Following a volcanic eruption in 1875 that starved livestock, crippled the economy, and punctuated an ongoing series of hardships, Sigtryggur Jonasson, who had recently arrived in Canada, traveled home with a booklet titled Nýja Ísland I Kanada, or New Iceland In Canada, which Canadian officials wanted to distribute as part of an effort to attract immigrants to the lightly populated area. Over the next few decades, some 20% of Iceland’s population emigrated to North America, mainly to Canada. Jonasson became known as the Father of New Iceland, and Icelanders eventually settled, by being towed on flat boats, on Lake Winnipeg, where they hoped to fish and govern themselves in the remote territory. They named the capital of New Iceland Gimli, Icelandic for “paradise.”

But it wasn’t quite. Even hardened Icelanders weren’t prepared for the cold winters, and many died from scurvy and a smallpox epidemic during the first years. According to Stefan Jonasson, a Winnipeg-based New Iceland historian and editor of the community newspaper Lögberg-Heimskringla, at least one setter stored bodies in cold sheds until spring thaw when they could be buried. The newcomers survived in large part thanks to First Nations people, who taught these ocean-fishing immigrants how to set a net four feet under the frozen lake’s ice. The bond formed between First Nations and Icelanders persists today—intermarriage was common, as well as culinary exchanges. Many nearby First Nations families still make Icelandic dishes.

In some ways, New Iceland is more traditionally Icelandic than Iceland itself. Read about New Iceland and its cuisine at Atlas Obscura. 

(Image credit: Micah Grubert Van Iderstine)

Two decades after the events of Star Trek Nemesis we find Picard gathering a crew to protect a mysterious child whose past draws in familiar faces including Seven of Nine and the Borg named Hugh. Will Picard save the Galaxy from a new threat? We'll have to see.

Questions that we have:

Does Data get rebuilt or is Picard Playing Poker with Data in the Holodeck?

What happened to Hugh between the events of TNG Descent?

It is implied these event take place during the Kelvin Timeline what does that change in TNG?

Does that sound like the Stranger Things sound track mixed in there?

When did Seven get so sassy?

Are you ready to engage a new Star Trek story with familiar faces?

Would you like to learn about an exciting new business opportunity that can earn you a great income from the comfort of your home? Then let me tell you about snail slime!

We've previously clued you into the snail cream beauty treatment that is used by your favorite models and celebrities in South Korea. This luxury beauty product that millions of your future customers are craving is made from slime that is "milked" from snails in Thailand. Here's how one entrepreneur is using it to supplement her income. Phys.org reports:

The snails at Phatinisiri Thangkeaw's farm were once the scourge of rice farmers, loathed for eating the buds of new crops. [...]

With her 1,000 snails, the teacher makes an extra $320 to $650 a month.

It is one of more than 80 farms in Nakhon Nayok province, two hours from the capital Bangkok, cashing in on the global snail beauty market, estimated at $314 million, according to research group Coherent Market Insights.

Snail farms are popping up all over Thailand. You should get into the market now to secure your share of the future!

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Phys.org

No, it doesn't change itself.

That would be revolutionary and worth purchasing.

What the new line by Pampers does is track the baby's pee and sleep with a sensor that attaches with velcro to the front of the diaper. The camera observes the baby's movement, as well as the humidity and temperature of the room. An app pulls all of the data together so that you know what your baby is doing and when. You can see more photos at Design Boom.

Photo: Proctor & Gamble

If you listen to old radio dramas, you may notice that women's voices are often pitched higher than you may be used to. It may be because, as researchers have found, women in English-speaking countries are actually speaking with deeper voices. A BBC report from 2018 explained:

The researchers compared archival recordings of women talking in 1945 with more recent recordings taken in the early 1990s. The team found that the “fundamental frequency” had dropped by 23 Hz over five decades – from an average of 229 Hz (roughly an A# below middle C) to 206 Hz (roughly a G#). That’s a significant, audible difference.

The researchers tried to control for external variables that may result in vocal changes:

The researchers had carefully selected their samples to control for any potential demographic factors: the women were all university students and none of them smoked. The team also considered the fact that members of the more recent group from the 1990s were using the contraceptive pill, which could have led to hormonal changes that could have altered the vocal chords. Yet the drop in pitch remained even when the team excluded those women from their sample.

Their best guess is that women have habitually deepened their voices as they have gained authority in society:

Instead, the researchers speculated that the transformation reflects the rise of women to more prominent roles in society, leading them to adopt a deeper tone to project authority and dominance in the workplace.

-via Marginal Revolution | Photo: US Army Corps of Engineers