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Why People In Other Countries Live Longer Than Americans
It looks like that "socialism" thing seems to be working out pretty well for the rest of the world.
05.17.12
Photo by Milos Prelevic on Unsplash
brown fish beside coral under body of water
The ocean covers more than 70 percent of our planet—yet there’s so much about it that we don’t yet know. Experts, in fact, believe we’ve only explored about five percent of the ocean so far—meaning that most of it remains completely unseen and undiscovered.
What we do know, however, is that the ocean is truly wise. Not only does it sustain all human and animal life on the planet, the creatures under the sea continue to give scientists insight that can transform human lives as well (just read about the amazing axolotl below to see what we mean).
A happy ocean makes for happy, healthy human beings (not to mention a healthy planet)—so this summer we’re helping our friends at Ocean Wise spread the word that no action is too small—holding a cleanup on a local shoreline, for instance. Learning about our ocean and all its wonders is another step anyone can take for conservation, so buckle in and prepare for a tidal wave of info that will blow your mind.
1. Playing music—specifically, recordings of healthy reef soundscapes—can help grow coral reef populations.
live coralsPhoto by QUI NGUYEN on UnsplashHealthy coral reef populations are filled with diverse sounds, thanks to the fish, snapping shrimp, and other marine life that live there. Scientists have found that playing recorded sounds of healthy reefs actually attract coral larvae, since the sounds indicate a healthy, vibrant habitat. Using this knowledge, scientists have taken recorded reef sounds, played them near degraded reefs, and in doing so, have increased the settlement rates of coral larvae, helping the coral reefs regenerate.
2. Dolphins like to party with pufferfish.
Photo by Talia Cohen on UnsplashHow’s this for a good time? Dolphins, particularly younger ones, have been known to seek out pufferfish to play games with them, chewing on them and passing them back and forth between each other like a hacky sack. Not only is this entertainment for the dolphins, scientists theorize that they may intentionally be trying to get the pufferfish to give off a neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin (TTX)–which is a chemical they release when threatened. This chemical is highly toxic in large doses–but in small quantities, experts think that it might induce a mild, pleasurable effect in the dolphins, similar to a narcotic. Party on.
3. Male humpback whales are total crooners.
A male humpback whale breaches the water.
Photo by Thomas Kelley on UnsplashAll humpback whales can vocalize, but male humpback whales actually sing.
During mating season, scientists have observed male humpback whales making sounds that are distinctly different from other humpback calls. Unlike other sounds, these songs have a clear structure, and use small, repetitive “phrases” organized in a specific sequence—in the same way humans sing different verses during a song. Even more amazing? Male humpbacks all sing the same song together in “choruses,” in sessions that last from five minutes to several hours.
4. Axolotls have superpowers (and scientists think it could benefit humans one day).
a couple of animals that are in some waterPhoto by T K on UnsplashAmong biologists, axolotls are known for their ability to regrow lost or damaged tissue. When an adult axolotl loses a limb, they can actually grow it back in just a few months time, thanks to a substance they produce called retinoic acid, which plays a large role in regenerating skin cells. (If the name sounds familiar, it’s because retinoic acid is a derivative of Vitamin A, and it’s commonly found in skin creams.) While we already know that retinoic can make our skin look fabulous, scientists are currently studying whether it could someday help human limbs regrow, similar to the axolotl’s.
5. A healthy ocean can help reverse climate change
green algae underwater photographyPhoto by Brian Yurasits on UnsplashThe ocean generates half of the oxygen we breathe and absorbs nearly a third of the world’s carbon emissions. Phytoplankton, the microscopic algae that float near the ocean’s surface, are a big part of the reason why. But there’s another unsung hero—kelp. Unlike phytoplankton, kelp are large seaweeds that grow in dense underwater forests along coastlines, absorbing CO2 and supporting ecosystems. Ocean Wise is helping bring back these powerful carbon sinks one kelp forest at a time.
Help us #BeOceanWise by doing one small thing for ocean conservation in your community (because just one thing can start a huge wave of positive change). Visit ocean.orgfor tips and tricks to keep our oceans healthy because no action is too small.
A baby shower invite for a child named Chernobyl left people resorting to dark humor to process.
Just when you think you’ve heard every unusual baby name there is, another one (or more) pops up out of the woodwork to set a new bar—and perhaps make you question your sanity a bit.
Now, using names based on places, ala Ireland or Brooklyn, or even historical figures, like Kennedy, aren’t new. But a place well known in the history books, and for a very tragic reason? Can't say many of us have heard a name based on that.
And yet, here we are. Over on the subreddit titled r/tragedeigh, which is a play on weird name spellings, a person shared a baby shower invite, which read:
“Join us to celebrate the upcoming aerial of a little bundle of joy! In honor of: Chernobyl Hope.”
Perhaps the parents were attempting to instill a bit of resilience into their little bundle. After all, Chernobyl itself, which was destroyed due to a nuclear accident in 1986—killing not only dozens in the initial blast, but hundreds of thousands due to radiation exposure—has now become a haven for wildlife, thus becoming an example of nature’s endless ability to rebound after desolation. So maybe mom and dad saw a bit of poetic imagery in there.
But nonetheless, reactions weren’t so forgiving. And while the person who posted the invite wrote, “I’m speechless,” others, well, weren’t. The temptation to make nuclear puns was too great.
“Im sure everyone at the celebration will be radiant,” one person quipped.
Another retorted, “If I were a guest at that shower and heard that name I’d have a total meltdown,” while another echoed, “there’s bound to be some fallout.”
A fourth simply put, “sounds like a blast!”
Still, other responses weren’t so humorous.
“I haven’t ever met another person (aside from a cousin) who has been affected by Chernobyl. I was born sick due to it because my mother was pregnant with me and in the area when it occurred,” one person shared. “It has made my life… not fun. Being profoundly disabled at age 37 due to human error… And an error that never offered compensation for all of us who had their lives ruined by it.”
Another wrote, “What a legacy. Naming someone after something that has left people with cancer, going through 30+ surgeries just to stay alive, and losing their quality of life. I’m just appalled. Repulsed.”
Somewhere in the comments the OP wrote that they asked the parents-to-be where they got the idea from, and was told “it just sounded nice,” leading them to suspect they didn’t actually know the historical context. Which is about the biggest PSA to actually research a potential name that you can think of. Not just to avoid being considered distasteful, but to protect your future child from being the butt of a joke for their entire life.
A little bit of research prevents a lifetime of regret.Photo credit: Canva
One person urged “Even if you think your relationship with them will sour, at least for the baby’s sake, you need to talk to them and suggest they change the name and explain to them what this means, all politely, of course. If they say they will still continue with the name, you can smile and give a thumbs up.”
Another less forgiving individual said, “Absolutely remove these people from your life.”
As of now, the OP is going to “gather enough courage to tell them my thoughts.” Good luck on that.
Gen X designated the 'worst grandparents' by Millennials
Generation X, typically the children of Baby Boomers born between the years of 1965-1980 tend to have a complicated reputation depending on who you ask. Some view them as a feral generation never to be spoken of poorly without consequence, while others view them as innovators pushing us into the future. But in recent years, Gen Xers have been dubbed the "worst grandparents" by social media users.
This multi-year conversation started when a video went viral calling Gen X out for being "terrible" grandparents, claiming that they never want to help with grandchildren. It didn't take long before other Millennials piled on to air their own grievances about Gen X grandparents. Most people criticizing the "new grandparents" were genuinely perplexed as to how they did not want to be more involved in the lives of their grandchildren.
Family baking fun in the kitchen.Photo credit: Canva
Kylie Muse reveals in a video that she felt neglected by her Gen X parents growing up, saying, "It's quite a common theme for Gen X parents to be neglectful in some capacity and it's just crazy to me how more of them haven't learned from the past 20 to 30 years, instead of these grandparents seeing their kids having kids as an opportunity to restore the health in their relationships with their kids by showing up and helping them during the hardest transition of their lives, they would rather double down and compromise their relationship with that next generation. All for the sake of hyper-individualism and pride."
The critique coming from the younger generation is not lost on Gen X, and they started coming out in force to respond with such vigor you'd think John Hughes had just announced the re-release of The Breakfast Club. It would seem that some of the people complaining of the lack of involvement have not considered that Gen X could have valid reasons for not immediately jumping in to take on grandparenting in the way some expect. A man by the name of John S. Blake gives a candid look into why Gen X was neglected as children and, in turn, became hype-independent at an early age.
"As a Gen X who's been on this earth long enough to have some hindsight I can tell you this, being independent at a young age is not a flex, what it actually means is capitalism is so brutal that our parents were forced to neglect their own children to stay alive. My generation was struggling so much that we had to leave our children unattended in order to produce enough so that we could afford to exist," Blake says.
But perhaps one of the most heart wrenching explanations comes from an elder Millennial who goes by the name Amazing Dea. In response to another Millennial who asks about Gen X being let off the hook, Dea shares, "Being as though you look like you might be a younger Millennial, let me go ahead and enlighten you. Generation X and older Millennials had to live through more than just this pandemic. We had the crack epidemic, we had the AIDS epidemic and let me tell you something, it was scary as f***."
Dea went on to explain that there were apartment complexes burned due to high populations of people with AIDS living in them and how they would witness people go from being completely normal to being addicted to crack in a matter of weeks. It seems that depending on socioeconomic status, Gen Xers lived wildly different lives with the common theme being growing up entirely too fast at an extremely young age.
Three generations smiling by the sea.Photo credit: Canva
Another person kindly breaks down the confusion over why Gen X isn't rising to the occasion of being award-winning grandparents. In response to the criticism she replies, "We grew up in a different time, first of all. A lot of us, meaning me, Gen X, I was raised by boomers. A lot of us did not get raised by our grandparents. We were like the feral kids, like by 7 and 9 years old we were actually babysitting our brothers and sisters, alright."
The woman explains further in the video that Gen X doesn't want to raise their grandchildren or simply be babysitters, that there's a difference between expecting grandparents to be involved and expecting them to be babysitters.
In many of the response videos shared by Gen Xers, they certainly seem to love their grandchildren and children alike, but there's a discrepancy in expectation. The consensus of the forgotten generation seems to be that they had adult responsibilities much too early, were exposed to adult life experiences at a young age, and were often left to their own devices for long periods of time while also being told that their voices didn't matter.
While the argument seems to be around their lack of involvement as grandparents, they appear to be saying that they want to enjoy the freedom they didn't have as children, while being valued as a person and not a babysitter. In many follow up videos, Gen Xers gushed over their grandchildren and how they loved when they were around. It's just that they draw the line at raising them. Maybe for some, their experiences with their own childhood isn't enough to move Gen X out of the "worst grandparents" category, but for others it provides much needed context.
From Your Site Articles
Parents…why?
In the latest segment of “unhinged” TikTok trends, a NICU nurse named Victoria asked her fellow colleagues to share names that, as she wrote, “would send the Social Security office into a coma.”
And honestly, who would get exposed to more baffling baby names than nurses? No one. Victoria herself shared with Today that some of her top hits include Dracula, Messiah and Bronze and Gold.
So you can bet the answers were plentiful and, well, unhinged. Check below for our favorites:
“Blessica.”
“Ho’nasty - pronounced honesty…”
“Lucifer ... Oddly enough I took care of another baby named Messiah the same night."
“I work in pediatric dentistry and we have a kid named Sheep."
"L&D nurse here: Phelony."
Poor Phelony. Photo credit: Canva
“Dietician in a behavioral speech hospital…kid with oppositional disorder named nemesis."
“Arealtruemiracle. All one word.”
“Candida…I BEG people to research names before giving them to children.”
“Hella Shady.”
“Demon (pronounced duh-mawn)”
“Narwhal ... His name was Narwhal.”
“Frijoles Guacamole. On my life not joking. We secretly keep a bad baby name book to remind us of all the crazy first and middle names.”
“Russell, which isn’t bad except the middle name is Mania. Russell Mania.”
Many of the twin names were especially outrageous:
There's gotta some twins out there named Thing One and Thing Two. Poor souls. Photo credit: Canva
“Twins in the NICU — one boy, one girl — named Brock Lee and Callie Flower.”
“Twins: Donwanna and Doneeda…last name Mann.”
“Ya’highness and Ya’majesty. Spelled exactly like that.”
“Twins named Michael and Lil Michael. Mom threatened to beat me up when I laughed. I didn’t know she was serious.”
“Not a nurse but worked on the postpartum floor; twins named Abracadabra and Alacazam.”
“Canon and Crystal. Their last name is Ball.”
And some triplet names for good measure:
“Today, tomorrow, a to’yesterday”
“Teacher here. I had triplets: Lincoln, Mercedes and Bentley.”
As one person noted, these, ahem, unique choices are undoubtedly why some countries have stringent naming laws. Iceland, for instance, has only 4,000 pre-approved baby names. Parents who wish to use a name not on the approved list must petition a three-person naming committee.
Did you know the most popular girl's name in Iceland is Emilia? Photo credit: Canva
However, while that kind of guidance might make sense (to protect kids from being on the receiving end of less-than-desirable monikers) some places do have rules that might seem a little outdated to modern sensibilities—forcing names that indicate matching genders, for example.
Even in America, certain names, like Adolf Hitler, III, and Messiah (though clearly some folks are getting away with that last one) are illegal. Still, there are far less regulations, and therefore, stories like this one.
via Canva/Photos
Plastic bottle on the beach, a man getting arrested and cows on a factory farm.
If you look back 30 years in the past, it’s easy to pinpoint things that were once accepted and changed for the better. Back in 1995, it was normal to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and they sure couldn't get married. It was still common for people to smoke in restaurants and bars, and in many places, you didn’t have to wear a seatbelt.
Go back a few years before then; littering was so common that it wasn’t even frowned upon in many places. Kids routinely rode in the back of pickup trucks, and teen pregnancy was so common in the ‘80s that students would bring their babies to high school.
Looking back on things that are embarrassing in hindsight is a great invitation to look at life in 2025 and anticipate the things we accept today as completely usual that will be very embarrassing in 30 years. A Reddit user asked the AskReddit forum for people to share the “current thing that future generations will say ‘I can't believe they used to do that’?” and the answers ranged from how we treat animals to social media etiquette. There were also many who think that, even in an environmentally conscious age, a lot of things still need to be improved upon.
17 things we accept now that future generations will find embarrassing
1. Marijuana laws
"'They used to send people to prison for life for having a little bit of weed?!' Overheard from a Gen Z. It's already happening."
"People still do in certain US states."
2. Polluting the oceans
"Why we have treated our waterways and oceans as oubliettes is puzzling to me. Do people not realize, you need water to fu**ing live!"
"The way it was explained to me when I asked essentially this very question about 20 years ago is that it started back when people thought the oceans were so big that we puny little humans couldn't possibly have an impact on them. Now, it's just a bad habit perpetuated by the rich and powerful while the majority cry out for change."
Plastic floating in the ocean.via Canva/Photos
3. Dialysis
"Isn't it basically running all the person's blood through a filtering machine and then back into the body, repeat every few days? Or am I missing some extra horror about it?"
"A filtering machine that only works as well as 10% of a functioning kidney does. It just about keeps you afloat but all sorts of chemicals aren't getting filtered properly and cause issues. It also takes a physical and mental toll on the body sitting for 5 hours 3 days a week minimum depending how bad your function is and for a lot of people they suffer from great fatigue. Not to mention the stress dialysis puts on the heart."
4. Posting your entire life online
"I honestly feel like it's gotten a bit better in some ways. Mid 2000s Facebook posts were WILDLY inappropriate by today's standards. A time when people were first learning that their actions on the internet can have real-world ramifications lol."
"Especially political opinions. People are just now starting to realise that if they posted something stupid and offensive when they were fourteen, employers will find out about it. In a job market where employers will scan through an applicant's social media and have a strict social media policy, that's very dangerous."
5. Using plastic for everything
"Plastics are a symptom of shortsightedness. In theory they were a great idea. A material that can be re-used so that we don't use finite/slower replenish-able materials instead? Get rid of cotton farms and animal wool/skins/furs? And for so much cheaper?
Unfortunately because of the cheapness of plastics, we made a lot more disposable materials (especially clothing) - more than any populace could possibly consume in a generation, never-mind in the ridiculously fast-paced season turnover of goods. And now we realize, plastics stick around for a long time, possible forever. Wood, plant and animal materials degrade and decompose. So you could poison the environment but not exploit some animals or not suck up all the water, or you could accept that unless we wanna be naked and live in far more limited environments, we're gonna have to use natural resources, even animals, for our clothing and goods."
Plastic waste.via Canva/Photos
6. Overuse of antibiotics
"Not just on humans, most antibiotics are used on livestock and animal agriculture. Human use only accounts for about a third of all antibiotic use."
"This is a country-specific problem. Some countries have medical systems that avoid prescribing. Some others can't get enough."
7. Terrible mental health practices
"The way the mental health system treats psych patients in hospitals and programs when you have severe symptoms. You’ll get drugged up and the whole experience is pretty traumatizing. It’s also quite surprising how little people in hospitals actually know about mental health. it’s not always specific people either, it’s just the system as a whole. getting sent home in the middle of a mental health crisis because your insurance cuts out. or losing a bed in a program because someone is 'worse' than you."
8. Marketing overkill
"The incessant inundation of marketing in our daily lives. Our technology gathers our data to tailor ads to sell us more useless trash. Your TV records you so people in an office somewhere can socially engineer ways to sell you another TV. We see something like ~5000+ advertisements a day, they’re still trying to put big ads in the night sky, it’s far too much and the future will consider us barbaric for allowing it."
Billboards as far as the eye can see.via Canva/Photos
9. Bottled water
"Buying bottled water from another continent."
"My wife and I just watched Christmas Vacation the other night, and it struck me as funny that they had the neighbor Margo with a giant bottle of Evian water. To anyone born after 1995, this part is just wardrobe, but for those who were around in the 80s, it's meant to show how yuppie and 'hip' the neighbors are. We made fun of people who carried their own personal bottle of water."
10. School shootings
"Hopefully, things like school shootings will become something we only talk about in past tense. We’ll look at a graph over time, and this time period is just a weird uptick amidst a big downward trend."
11. 5-day workweek
"I'll never understand the 'go to the office' work when you can do it just fine from home. I've been working from home for about 7 years now, been to my local office once in that time to pickup a new laptop. You're not paying my internet or other stuff while I'm working from home. You can literally downsize your office space with people working from home. Recently, my manager was discussing it with me, and she's fine with it, but there may be some push from upper management."
12. Treatment of animals
"I really think a long time from now we’ll view how we treat animals pretty distastefully. Elephants bury their dead and can paint, dolphins have language and some are growing thumbs. They’re clearly more sentient then we give them credit for and we use our lack of understanding of consciousness to justify it."
"I fully believe that in a few hundred years, people will think that eating meat is as wrong as owning slaves. I say this as someone who eats meat."
Cows in a factory farm.via Canva/Photos
13. Driving your own car
"Drive your own car, especially when drunk. Now, this is way, way in the future, but I can imagine a bunch of laughing drunk college students stumbling into their self-driving car and saying, 'OMG, how did they do it back in the old days? I can barely walk straight.' The correct answer would be, they died. That's how they did it in the old days, they died."
14. Circumcision
"My wife gave birth to my son recently and I insisted he wasn't to be circumcised. Her previous 2 boys were, because her ex just didn't care and it was done to him. I stood over my son in the warmer, saw this small, vulnerable, precious thing, and it completely baffled me how anyone could want to cut into their own child. It's such a barbaric and monstrous act that needs to stop. It only exists due to societal pressure and ignorance."
"Moreover, forced sex reassignment on intersex babies. Being trans, I've met so many intersex trans/non-binary people who are extremely upset their bodies were messed with without their consent shortly after they were born."
15. NFTs
"Yeah, that's next year. Like in 11 days"
"Future generations will laugh. The current generation is laughing now, but future generations will also laugh."
16. Urban design
"Current Urban design in the US. Someday we will realize that we have built cities 100% for cars with no consideration of people."
"I hate the term 'car brained' but the concept itself is so dam valid. It's very hard to convince people that car-centric design causes cities and towns to be laid out the way that they are. The amount of space that roads and parking take up now are going to shock future generations. Cars and roads are not going to disappear, but the alternative options will seem so much better to future generations."
17. Communism
"It has failed miserably dozens of times in different nations, leading to tens of millions dead , yet we still have like 50% of young people saying it's a cool idea. Why? Because communist criminals were never punished for their sins. After WW2 there were trials, there was widespread condemnation and disgust. Nothing like that ever happened to commie higher ups responsible for shooting people by hundreds of thousands. Nothing. Names like Mao and Stalin should disgust people just as much as the name Hitler, it should be unacceptable in society to express sympathy for them (like it is with Hitler)... yet it's the opposite, especially in colleges."