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Another year, another epic birthday for Colo, the oldest known gorilla on Earth.

Colo, the world's oldest gorilla, is a great-great-grandma at the Columbus Zoo.

Today, Colo — the oldest living gorilla in captivity — turns 59 years old!

In Ohio, where Colo lives at the Columbus Zoo, they're celebrating in style.

A photo from this party animal's 58th birthday last year. Photo courtesy of Grahm S. Jones, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium; used with permission.

"It's not yet the big 6-0," Audra Meinelt, an assistant curator at the zoo, said in a press release provided to Upworthy. "But it's the big 5-9."

59 years old may not seem that outrageous. But for gorillas? It's a big deal.

Seeing as the average female gorilla lives about 37 years, Colo's matriarchal status as the "queen of the Columbus Zoo" is seriously deserved.

Colo isn't new to this whole "making headlines" thing, either. She's been a celebrity in her own right for decades.

Long before Colo first began setting records for her old age in 2012, Colo made news for being the very first gorilla to be born in human care. That was way back in 1956.

Check out the video evidence below.

All GIFs via the ColumbusZooMedia/YouTube.

Seeing as she was the first gorilla to be born in a zoo, mistakes were made while raising her. They'd separated her from her mother out of fear that her mother would harm her, for example.

"Everyone was terrified to give her back to her mom," veterinarian Dr. Richard Vesper told The Columbus Dispatch. "Their fears overwhelmed their scientific rationale, and they wouldn’t take the risk. They made decisions at the gut level.”

But much was learned about the species and its protection because of Colo and her long, long bloodline. She's the great-grandmother of Timu, the first surviving baby gorilla conceived through artificial insemination.

And, by the way, since Timu gave birth to her first little one in 2003, Colo is a great-great-grandmother.

Clearly, Colo's big day is a big deal. So the zoo celebrated with cake, special surprises, and lots of colorful construction paper chains.

And the whole world was invited.

Photo, taken at Colo's 58th birthday party, courtesy of Grahm S. Jones, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium; used with permission.

Partygoers dropped in between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. on Dec. 22, 2015, to celebrate with Colo, who snacked on treats of clementines and tomatoes and opened presents. Rumor has it there were also some specially made cupcakes for her and her gorilla friends.

Even cooler, those of us who couldn't be in Columbus got to watch the party online. (Last year, 4,000 people from 31 countries did just that to ring in Colo's 58th year.)

As far as her health? Colo's in great shape.

There's no reason to think there won't be a 60th birthday coming next holiday season.

Photo taken at Colo's 58th birthday party, courtesy of Grahm S. Jones, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium; used with permission.

“She is amazing because she is the oldest gorilla in a zoo and doesn’t have significant health problems,” Meinelt said. “Her biggest ailment is arthritis. She hasn’t had any noticeable health changes in the last year. Her health has been fantastic.”

Cheers to another year well-lived, Queen.

Check out this incredible video that was produced by the Columbus Zoo in recognition of Colo's 57th birthday a couple years ago:

Science

Sustainably good news: Recycling is getting better and this family is showing us how

What if instead of focusing on what isn’t working, we looked at these stories as an invitation to do better?

Via Ridwell

Ryan Metzger and son Owen

There is no shortage of dire news about the state of modern recycling. Most recently, this NPR article shared the jaw-dropping statistic that about 5% of all plastics produced get recycled, meaning the rest of it ends up in landfills. While the underlying concerns here are sound, I worry that the public narrative around recycling has gotten so pessimistic that it will make people give up on it entirely instead of seeing the opportunities to improve it. What if instead of focusing on what isn’t working, we looked at these news stories as an invitation to do better?

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Brendan Fraser showed up at a screening of 'The Mummy' completely decked out in costume

The audience went wild.

The Prince Charles Cinema/Youtube

Brendan Fraser dressed as Rick O'Connell.

Brendan Fraser might be making the greatest career comeback ever, racking up accolades and award nominations for his dramatic, transformative role in “The Whale." But the OG Fraser fans (the ones who watch “Doom Patrol” solely to hear his voice and proudly pronounce his last name as Fray-zure, for this is the proper pronunciation) have known of his remarkable talent since the 90s, when he embodied the ultimate charming, dashing—and slightly goofball—Hollywood action lead.

Let us not forget his arguably most well known and beloved 90s character—Rick O’Connell from the “Mummy” franchise. Between his quippy one-liners, Indiana Jones-like adventuring skills and fabulous hair, what’s not to like?

During a double feature of “The Mummy” and “The Mummy Returns” in London, moviegoers got the ultimate surprise when who should walk in but Brendan Fraser himself, completely decked out in Rick O’Connell attire. The brown leather jacket. The scarf. Everything.

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Two couples move in together with their kids to create one big, loving 'polyfamory'

They are using their unique family arrangement to help people better understand polyamory.

Instagram/Polyfamory

The Hartless and Rodgers families post together


Polyamory, a lifestyle where people have multiple romantic or sexual partners, is more prevalent in America than most people think. According to a study published in Frontiers in Psychology, one in nine Americans have been in a polyamorous relationship, and one in six say they would like to try one.

However popular the idea is, polyamory is misunderstood by a large swath of the public and is often seen as deviant. However, those who practice it view polyamory as a healthy lifestyle with several benefits.

Taya Hartless, 28, and Alysia Rogers, 34, along with their husbands Sean, 46, and Tyler, 35, are in a polyamorous relationship and have no problem sharing their lifestyle with the public on social media. Even though they risk stigmatization for being open about their non-traditional relationships, they are sharing it with the world to make it a safer place for “poly” folks like themselves.

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A guy may have met his 'dream girl' at a bar but she only gave him part of her phone number

Talk about playing hard to get.

via Tod Perry

An artist's recreation of Jackie's napkin note.

A woman named Jackie pulled a move straight out of a romantic comedy recently, and it has the internet rallying around her potential love interest. Jackie met a guy at a bar and liked him so much that she gave him her phone number. Well, 80% of her number, that is.

The world heard about it on January 17 when Twitter user Henpecked Hal and shared a picture of the napkin with her partial phone number written on it. "My 22-year-old cousin met his dream girl at a bar and it's going pretty well,” Hal wrote in the tweet.

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Woman without an internal monologue explains what it's like inside her head

“She's broken my mind. I don't even understand what I'm not understanding."

PA Struggles/Youtube

An estimated 50-70% of the population doesn't have an internal monologue.

The notion of living without an internal monologue is a fairly new one. Until psychologist Russell Hurlburt’s studies started coming out in the late 90s, it was widely accepted that everyone had a little voice narrating in their head. Now Hurlburt, who has been studying people's "inner experience" for 40 years, estimates that only 30-50% of the population frequently think this way.

So what about the other 50-70%? What exactly goes on inside their heads from day to day?

In a video interview originally posted in 2020, a woman named Kirsten Carlson gave some insight into this question, sharing how not having an inner dialogue affected her reading and writing, her interactions with others and how she navigates mental challenges like anxiety and depression. It was eye-opening and mind-blowing.
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Community

Native Siberian shares what daily life entails in the coldest village on Earth

See how the people of Yakutia, Siberia take showers, do laundry, go to school and more in minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit.

Kiun B./YouTube

A man in the Yakutia region of Siberia takes an ice bath in minus 50 degrees Celsius.

For most of us, waking up to a temperature of minus 50 degrees would spell catastrophe. Normal life would come to a screeching halt, we'd be scrambling to deal with frozen pipes and power outages, school and work would be canceled and weather warnings would tell us not to venture outside due to frostbite risk.

But in the Yakutia region of Siberia, that's just an average winter day where life goes on as usual.

When you live in the coldest inhabited area on Earth, your entire life is arranged around dealing with ridiculously cold temperatures. Villages don't have running water because freezing pipes wouldn't allow for water treatment. Kids go to school unless the temp drops below minus 55 degrees Celsius (which is then considered dangerous). Showering involves spending hours stoking a fire in the bathhouse to create a steamy, warm room.

Native Siberian Kiun B. has created a series of documentary short films detailing what daily life is like in Yakutia's frigid winters. She was born and raised in Yakutsk, Siberia, widely recognized as the coldest city on Earth, where average winter temperatures hover around minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. As seen in her videos, smaller villages in the Yakutia region regularly dip down into the negative 50s, with the lowest recorded temp in the Yakut village of Oymayakon reaching a mindblowing minus 96 degrees Fahrenheit.

The popularity of Kiun's YouTube channel demonstrates how curious people are about life in such harsh conditions, as her videos have been viewed by tens of millions of people in the past year alone.

Check out this video detailing a day in the life of a family in a Yakutia village.

Can you imagine going out to use an outhouse in minus 40 degrees? Oof.

Another of Kiun's videos goes into more detail about how people shower and do laundry in the region. You might assume they wouldn't line-dry their laundry outdoors, but they do.

Watch:

What do people wear to protect themselves from the negative temperatures? Frostbite is a real risk, so it's important to have the right kinds of clothing and outdoor gear to stay safe and relatively comfortable.

Kiun shared some frigid fashion norms from Yakutsk, which include traditional fur hats and boots as well as lots of layers and down jackets.

However, there are some Yakut folks who see the cold as something to embrace. For instance, this man takes an ice bath out in the elements as a morning ritual. It's something he has worked up to—definitely not something to try on your own during a cold snap—but it still has to be painful.

(Seriously, please don't try this at home.)

The way humans have learned to adapt to drastically different environments, from the sweltering tropics to the Arctic tundra, is incredible, and it's fascinating to get a close-up look at how people make life work in those extremes. Thank you, Kiun B., for giving us a glimpse of what it's like to experience life in the dead of winter in the world's coldest inhabited places.

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Facebook is finally 'freeing the nipple' thanks in part to how it censored one harmless photo

It's a major win for inclusivity.

Photo by Taylor Harding on Unsplash

Grayscale photo of woman in bikini.

Facebook has been a great place for people to bare all when it comes to their emotions. But when it comes to baring all with regards to bodies, Facebook has always seemed as if they’d rather people bare none of it. Facebook has received criticism for over-sexualizing breasts, but a new recommendation from Meta’s advisory board says the nipples can come out for nonbinary users.

Recently, Facebook censored two posts from a transgender and nonbinary couple that featured the couple appearing topless. Even though their nipples were covered, an AI system took the photos down for "violating the Sexual Solicitation Community Standard" after they were flagged by a human user. The couple appealed to Meta, and the photos were reinstated, but it was enough to catch the attention of Meta’s oversight board, which advises Meta on content moderation policies and is made up of academics, politicians and journalists.

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