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1 year later, the Ice Bucket Challenge funds this breakthrough in ALS research.

Money raised by the viral campaign is making a big difference.

Remember the Ice Bucket Challenge?

Of course you do. It was that viral video campaign that took off last summer where you'd log into Facebook and see a steady stream of your friends dumping water on themselves in the name of awareness and research for the ALS Association.

For science! Brrrrrr. Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images.

Some brushed the movement off as an example of "slacktivism," but it actually helped raise more than $100 million. When you compare it to the $2.8 million raised by the organization during the same period a year earlier, it's clear that the Ice Bucket challenge paid off.

ALS, also known as amyotrophic laterals sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's Disease, affects an estimated 30,000 living people at any given time.

It's a disorder that affects nerve and muscle function. Just 20% of those with the disease will live more than five years following diagnosis. It's brutal.

But there's good news — due, in part, to the money raised by the Ice Bucket Challenge.

While that man doesn't seem to be having such a great time, I really need to find out what kind of seemingly IBC-proof makeup the woman on the left is using. Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images.

During a reddit "Ask Me Anything" session, ALS researcher Jonathan Ling unveiled a major breakthrough in his work.

Ling wanted to do an "Ask Me Anything" to debunk some of the negative things being said by skeptics about the success of the Ice Bucket Challenge.

"I mainly wanted to do this ["Ask Me Anything"] because I remember reading a lot of stories about people complaining that the ice bucket challenge was a waste and that scientists weren't using the money to do research, etc. I assure you that this is absolutely false," Ling writes.

"All of your donations have been amazingly helpful and we have been working tirelessly to find a cure. With the amount of money that the ice bucket challenge raised, I feel that there's a lot of hope and optimism now for real, meaningful therapies."

So what's the big breakthrough? Well, it has to do with protein — or rather, one specific protein.

Ling's research focuses on TDP-43, a protein in cells that's he's been able to link to ALS.

Ling breaks down the purpose of TDP-43 with an analogy involving a library that's easy for us non-scientist types to understand:

"DNA is located in the nucleus of a cell. You can think of a nucleus as a library except that instead of having books neatly lined up on shelves, the books in a nucleus have all of their pages ripped out and thrown around randomly.

To sort through this mess, the cell has great librarians that go around collecting all these pages, collating them and neatly binding them together as books. These librarians then ship these 'books' out of the nucleus so that other workers in the cell can do their jobs. Think of these books as instruction manuals.

TDP-43 is a very special type of librarian. TDP-43's job is to ensure that nucleus librarians don't accidentally make a mistake and put a random nonsense page (usually filled with gibberish) into the books that they ship out.If one of these nonsense pages makes it into an 'instruction manual,' the workers in the cell get really confused and mess things up. For terminology, we call these nonsense pages 'cryptic exons.'"



His team found that in 97% of ALS cases, TDP-43 wasn't doing its job. And now that they know this, they've been able to begin work on new therapies to do TDP-43's job for it. If successful, he believes this can slow down the progression of the disease.

How cool is that?

Baseball Hall-of-Famer Lou Gehrig became the face of ALS after he tearfully retired from baseball upon diagnosis. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

But what about the other 3%? Well, we don't have all the answers just yet.

One redditor asked that question, and essentially, it boils down to the fact that ALS is still pretty unpredictable. While TDP-43 may play a large part in the disease's progression, it's not the whole picture. For those individuals for whom ALS runs in the family, that seems to be linked to a gene called SOD1, and not TDP-43.

That's why research needs to continue.

"When you look at ALS from a genetics perspective, about 10% of the cases are called 'familial', [that is], lots of people in the family have ALS and it seems to be passed down. The other 90% of ALS appears to occur completely by unfortunate chance and we call that 'sporadic.'

As researchers, we look to the genetics for clues to study the disease. One of the first family-linked genes discovered was a gene called SOD1 that is found in about 30% of familial cases. But it's starting to seem like SOD1 is an outlier because TDP-43 doesn't seem to be messed up. Instead, SOD1 seems to clump together due to the mutation. We get the 3% because 30% of 10% familial is 3%." — Ling

But yeah, this is pretty neat, exciting stuff!

Ling hopes to have therapies based on his research making their way to clinical trials within the next two-three years.

And from there, who knows? Maybe this is the breakthrough that sets up the next big step in finding a cure for this absolutely ruthless disorder. 76 years after it first entered the public consciousness with Lou Gehrig's emotional farewell speech, a cure feels closer than ever before.

Last year, we shared a video by Anthony Carbajal, a man who had been recently diagnosed with ALS.

ALS runs in Carbajal's family. His grandmother, his mother, and he have all been diagnosed with the disorder. His Ice Bucket Challenge video was powerful because it put a face to the research and the desperation for a cure.


GIF via Anthony Carbajal.

The research made possible by the Ice Bucket Challenge gives hope to people like Anthony. It's just so important.

Saying that 30,000 people live with ALS doesn't mean a whole lot until you see the pain it causes those living with it and watching their loved ones do battle. When you watch Anthony's video, his tears welling up in his eyes, it's clear just how much the world needed something like the Ice Bucket Challenge to fund the research we need to put an end to ALS once and for all.

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Now's your chance to help someone doing good in your community win $1000 towards the charity of their choice

Upworthy and P&G are back with the #ActsOfGood Awards.

Images provided by P&G

Three winners will be selected to receive $1000 donated to the charity of their choice.

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Doing good is its own reward, but sometimes recognizing these acts of kindness helps bring even more good into the world. That’s why we’re excited to partner with P&G again on the #ActsOfGood Awards.

The #ActsOfGood Awards recognize individuals who actively support their communities. It could be a rockstar volunteer, an amazing community leader, or someone who shows up for others in special ways.

Do you know someone in your community doing #ActsOfGood? Nominate them between April 24th-June 3rdhere.Three winners will receive $1,000 dedicated to the charity of their choice, plus their story will be highlighted on Upworthy’s social channels. And yes, it’s totally fine to nominate yourself!

We want to see the good work you’re doing and most of all, we want to help you make a difference.

While every good deed is meaningful, winners will be selected based on how well they reflect Upworthy and P&G’s commitment to do #ActsOfGood to help communities grow.

That means be on the lookout for individuals who:

Strengthen their community

Make a tangible and unique impact

Go above and beyond day-to-day work

The #ActsOfGood Awards are just one part of P&G’s larger mission to help communities around the world to grow. For generations, P&G has been a force for growth—making everyday products that people love and trust—while also being a force for good by giving back to the communities where we live, work, and serve consumers. This includes serving over 90,000 people affected by emergencies and disasters through the Tide Loads of Hope mobile laundry program and helping some of the millions of girls who miss school due to a lack of access to period products through the Always #EndPeriodPoverty initiative.

Visit upworthy.com/actsofgood and fill out the nomination form for a chance for you or someone you know to win. It takes less than ten minutes to help someone make an even bigger impact.

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Education

Expert says there's only one laundry cycle you ever need, no matter what's being washed

Straight from Patric Richardson, the "Laundry Guy" himself.

Representative image from Canva

Because who can keep up with which laundry settings is for which item, anyway?

Once upon a time, our only option for getting clothes clean was to get out a bucket of soapy water and start scrubbing. Nowadays, we use fancy machines that not only do the labor for us, but give us free reign to choose between endless water temperature, wash duration, and spin speed combinations.

Of course, here’s where the paradox of choice comes in. Suddenly you’re second guessing whether that lace item needs to use the “delicates” cycle, or the “hand wash” one, or what exactly merits a “permanent press” cycle. And now, you’re wishing for that bygone bucket just to take away the mental rigamarole.

Well, you’re in luck. Turns out there’s only one setting you actually need. At least according to one laundry expert.

While appearing on HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast, Patric Richardson, aka The Laundry Evangelist, said he swears by the “express” cycle, as “it’s long enough to get your clothes clean but it’s short enough not to cause any damage.”

Richardson’s reasoning is founded in research done while writing his book, “Laundry Love,” which showed that even the dirtiest items would be cleaned in the “express” cycle, aka the “quick wash” or “30 minute setting.”


Furthermore the laundry expert, who’s also the host of HGTV’s “Laundry Guy,” warned that longer wash settings only cause more wear and tear, plus use up more water and power, making express wash a much more sustainable choice.

Really, the multiple settings washing machines have more to do with people being creatures of habit, and less to do with efficiency, Richardson explained.

“All of those cycles [on the washing machine] exist because they used to exist,” he told co-hosts Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson. “We didn’t have the technology in the fabric, in the machine, in the detergent [that we do now], and we needed those cycles. In the ’70s, you needed the ‘bulky bedding’ cycle and the ‘sanitary’ cycle ... it was a legit thing. You don’t need them anymore, but too many people want to buy a machine and they’re like, ‘My mom’s machine has “whitest whites.”’ If I could build a washing machine, it would just have one button — you’d just push it, and it’d be warm water and ‘express’ cycle and that’s it.”
washing machine

When was the last time you washed you washing machine? "Never" is a valid answer.

Canva

According to Good Housekeeping, there are some things to keep in mind if you plan to go strictly express from now on.

For one thing, the outlet recommends only filling the machine halfway and using a half dose of liquid, not powder detergent, since express cycles use less water. Second, using the setting regularly can develop a “musty” smell, due to the constant low-temperature water causing a buildup of mold or bacteria. To prevent this, running an empty wash on a hot setting, sans the detergent, is recommended every few weeks, along with regularly scrubbing the detergent drawer and door seal.

Still, even with those additional caveats, it might be worth it just to knock out multiple washes in one day. Cause let’s be honest—a day of laundry and television binging sounds pretty great, doesn’t it?

To catch even more of Richardson’s tips, find the full podcast episode here.


This article originally appeared on 2.4.24

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Pop Culture

Steve Martin has the best response to hearing that his book was banned in Florida

He thinks it's for the best.

via Joella Marano/Wikimedia Commons

Steve Martin's 2000 novella, "Shopgirl."

Over the past few years, book bans have been happening in public libraries and schools across America. In the 2022-2023 school year alone, over 3,300 books were banned in 182 school districts in 37 states.

Most books that have been banned deal with LGBTQ and racial themes. According to a report from PEN America, Florida has been the most aggressive state regarding book bans, accounting for about 40% of those taken off the shelves.

On November 5, Collier County, Florida, announced that it was banning 300 books from its school libraries out of an effort to comply with state law HB 1069, which says books that depict or describe “sexual content” can be challenged for removal.

Among the books banned by the school district was “Shopgirl,” a novella by author Steve Martin published in 2000. Martin is also the star of the hit Hulu show, “Only Murders in the Building,” featuring Martin Short and Selena Gomez.

Upon hearing about his book being banned, Martin responded with his iconic wit on Instagram, saying, “So proud to have my book Shopgirl banned in Collier County, Florida! Now, people who want to read it will have to buy a copy!"

“Shopgirl” is a story about a young woman who works in a luxury department store and has an affair with a wealthy older man. It was made into a movie in 2005 starring Claire Danes and Martin. It’s believed the book was banned for its mild sexual content. On Amazon, the book is recommended for readers ages 13 and up.


This article originally appeared on 11.11.23

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Science

What will Earth look like if all its land ice melts? Here's your answer.

Climate change isn't pretty.

via Business Insider Science/YouTube.

A map of the United States post land-ice melt.


Land ice: We got a lot of it.

Considering the two largest ice sheets on earth — the one on Antarctica and the one on Greenland — extend more than 6 million square miles combined ... yeah, we're talkin' a lot of ice.

But what if it was all just ... gone? Not like gone gone, but melted?

If all of earth's land ice melted, it would be nothing short of disastrous.

And that's putting it lightly.

This video by Business Insider Science (seen below) depicts exactly what our coastlines would look like if all the land ice melted. And spoiler alert: It isn't great.

Lots of European cities like, Brussels and Venice, would be basically underwater.

In Africa and the Middle East? Dakar, Accra, Jeddah — gone.

Millions of people in Asia, in cities like Mumbai, Beijing, and Tokyo, would be uprooted and have to move inland.

South America would say goodbye to cities like Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.

And in the U.S., we'd watch places like Houston, San Francisco, and New York City — not to mention the entire state of Florida — slowly disappear into the sea.

All GIFs via Business Insider Science/YouTube.

Business Insider based these visuals off National Geographic's estimation that sea levels will rise 216 feet (!) if all of earth's land ice melted into our oceans.

There's even a tool where you can take a detailed look at how your community could be affected by rising seas, for better or worse.

Although ... looking at these maps, it's hard to imagine "for better" is a likely outcome for many of us.

Much of America's most populated regions would be severely affected by rising sea levels, as you'll notice exploring the map, created by Alex Tingle using data provided by NASA.

Take, for instance, the West Coast. (Goodbye, San Fran!)

Or the East Coast. (See ya, Philly!)

And the Gulf Coast. (RIP, Bourbon Street!)

I bring up the topic not just for funsies, of course, but because the maps above are real possibilities.

How? Climate change.

As we continue to burn fossil fuels for energy and emit carbon into our atmosphere, the planet gets warmer and warmer. And that, ladies and gentlemen, means melted ice.

A study published this past September by researchers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany found that if we don't change our ways, there's definitely enough fossil fuel resources available for us to completely melt the Antarctic ice sheet.

Basically, the self-inflicted disaster you see above is certainly within the realm of possibility.

"This would not happen overnight, but the mind-boggling point is that our actions today are changing the face of planet Earth as we know it and will continue to do so for tens of thousands of years to come," said lead author of the study Ricarda Winkelmann, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

If we want to stop this from happening," she says, "we need to keep coal, gas, and oil in the ground."

The good news? Most of our coastlines are still intact! And they can stay that way, too — if we act now.

World leaders are finallystarting to treat climate change like the global crisis that it is — and you can help get the point across to them, too.

Check out Business Insider's video below:

This article originally appeared on 12.08.15

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Joy

A homeless man asked a college student for some tea, and a deluge of kindness followed

The unlikely pair spent the day getting to know each other, and now thousands of strangers are invested in Unc's well-being.

Sanai Graden/GoFundMe

Neither Sanai Graden nor her "Unc" knew what their meeting in a parking lot would lead to.

Every once in a while, a story of two strangers turns into a shared connection that touches millions. This is one of them.

Sanai Graden is a 21-year-old college student living in Washington, D.C., who likes to vlog on TikTok while she does everyday things. As she was heading to the grocery store on a random day at the end of January 2024, she turned on her camera, and soon after, a man approached and asked her if she could help him get some hot tea.

Not money. Not even food. Just some simple, hot tea.

Graden told the man she was going to Trader Joe's and he could go along with her and they could stop at Starbucks. As they walked and chatted, Graden learned the man was homeless, had no family and was suffering from prostate cancer. He has just gotten insurance, but it wouldn't kick in for 45 days and he needed a prescription filled.

Over the next four to five hours, Graden got him some tea, helped him get his prescription filled so he could get some relief from his pain and put him up in a hotel room for the night. By the end of the day, she was calling him "Unc," and he was calling her his "angel."

She left him with some cash and her phone number and then posted this video:

@hustlanani

Please help me help him !

At the end, she said she wanted to start a GoFundMe for Unc (whose real name is Alonzo), and she did just that.

"I'm just a college student, there's only so much I can do," she shared in another TIkTok. "I did the best I could. But that man, he was literally suffering, and it broke my heart…He was so kind…I just wanted to help him."

Her initial video started going viral—it currently has over 20 million views—and people started donated to the GoFundMe. When it reached $12,000 in a matter of hours, she called her parents to tell them about it. They told her she was exactly the right person to be helping this man because she will make sure the money is used to get him what he needs.

@hustlanani

Replying to @The JasmynYvette Thank you so much eve

Little did she know that that $12,000 would soon rise to $20,000, and then to $50,000, then $100,000 and more. As of the writing of this article, two days after the GoFundMe went up, it has jumped the $300,000 mark.

At this point, so many people are invested in Unc's well-being. Upwards of 20,000 people have donated, and the number just keeps rising. As one commenter put it, "He's everyone's Unc now."

Graden went to tell him the good news the next morning when the GoFundMe was around $150,000, but when she arrived at the hotel, he had already checked out. She searched everywhere she thought he might be, even renting a car to cover more ground more quickly, but she wasn't able to find him.

Finally, she shared a brief voice message he left for her that started, "Hey, Niece! It's your uncle," and ended with "I love you!" but he neglected to tell her where he was. After she looked around some more, he called again and and told her he was at church. She told him to wait right there.

She found him in front of a church and invited him to go get something to eat. She said she wanted to talk to him in private, but he was waiting with his aunt and couldn't leave just yet. Finally, she was able to sit with him in her car and tell him about what thousands of people were doing to help him live comfortably and more easily manage his cancer.

She had to convince him the money was his, not theirs together. He also said he hadn't finished writing her a letter he'd started.

@hustlanani

I know you’ve all been waiting on his reaction. I just made it home. Please enjoy it. Thank you everyone for coming together. This would not have been possible without the endless support. This is just the beginning of something great. I’m enternally grateful. God did that !!!

The first thing Graden did was take Alonzo to Target to get him his own phone and some new clothes of his choosing. He even had a little laugh with Graden when she asked him if he wanted to get some floss, forgetting that he doesn't have any teeth.

This story is still developing and there are obviously a lot of complex details to work out as they get Alonzo settled with however much money the GoFundMe ultimately raises. No one wants Alonzo to lose his health benefits, and there are various financial as well as mental and emotional elements to consider as they move forward. But the power of the kindness of strangers to change someone's circumstances, starting with just one caring soul, is certainly worth celebrating.

Follow @hustlanani on TikTok for updates on Unc.


This article originally appeared on 2.13.24

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Health

Expert says this one odd laundry habit could indicate ADHD

Plus, how to make the habit more manageable.

Representative image from Canva

ADHD Coach Jeff Rice says this habit is a near "universal sign" of ADHD

If you were to walk into your bedroom right now, what are the odds that you’d see clothes that never quite made themselves into actual outfits piling up on the floor? Perhaps they are sitting next to—or are even mixed in with—clothes that you did wear once throughout the week that aren't quite dirty, but for some reason can’t make their way back into your closet.

If this sounds familiar, then you have what’s known on social media as a “floordrobe.” And sure, the phenomenon is common enough to warrant a slang term, but according to experts it could indicate neurodivergence—ADHD, specifically.

In a TikTok video that has been watched almost 5 million times, ADHD coach Jeff Rice explained that this type of clutter, be it actual piles of clothes on the floor or a laundry basket “that just sits there for days and days or weeks,” happens to folks with ADHD for two reasons.

“The first has to do with the clothes which are not quite dirty. Usually we leave these things out because it’s going to act as a visual cue to remind us ;this is not quite dirty and I want to wear it again,” he said.

However the problem with visual cues is that “we become visually adapted to them,” Rice noted. And after we’ve adapted to seeing these cues, we no longer act on them.

The second common reason is that it’s neither interesting nor urgent, and so it gets put off until it does at least become urgent, like when there are no more clean socks.

While it might be hard for any of us to focus on boring tasks, it can be physiologically impossible for those with ADHD. We have enough research now to prove that it has nothing to do with laziness or unwillingness, and everything to do with different brain wiring that comes with its own advantages and disadvantages.

And thankfully, Rice has a few ADHD-proof strategies that have helped him with the floordrobe issue, which can possibly help others.

@jeff_coachyouradhdbrain It seems like many people with ADHD have challenges dealing with laundry.  The clean laundry, and the “not quite dirty and I’ll probably wear it again” laundry tends to accumulate and create clutter.  This laundry clutter is often called our “floordrobe”.  Here are two thoughts on how to tackle this kind of clutter. #laundry #clutter #organizationhacks #adhd #adhdtiktok ♬ original sound - Jeff Rice - Author, ADHD Coach

First, he put “parameters'' on which of the not-quite-dirty clothes can stay out. “For example, if I’m leaving a sweatshirt sitting on the edge of the tub in the bathroom because I’m planning on wearing it tomorrow, great. If I don’t wear it tomorrow I either have to put it away or just put it in the dirty clothes,” he says.

As for putting away clean clothes, Rice decided to tackle his warped ability to gauge how long a task might take, commonly known in the ADHD community as time blindness.

“Whenever I look at a basket of laundry, I think, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going to take forever to put away,’” he said. “And objectively, it’s not true. One of the ways that I attacked this was, at one point, I had three baskets of laundry sitting in my closet and I didn’t want to put them away. So I decided to check to see how long does it really take for me to put away three baskets of laundry. The answer — 21 minutes. I set a timer, and I timed myself while I put them away ― seven minutes per basket.”

Rice shared how having the hard data help transform the emotionally overwhelming concept of “forever” into a very manageable “seven minutes” made all the difference.

“It actually makes it easier for me to look at it when I don’t want to do it, take a breath, and think intellectually ‘it’s only seven minutes.’”

And obviously, while Rice says that floordrobes are a “universal sign” of ADHD, there are plenty of other causes. Everything from depression to simply a lack of storage space could leave us making clothing piles from times to time. Still, having ways to declutter when life or our own brain chemistry seems to be working against us can help us better navigate the tough times.

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