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Science

Results are in: Electric cars are making big improvements to people's health

They’re great for people and the planet.

electric cars, ev, asthma
via Pixabay

An EV owner charges his car.

Most of the time, when people tout the positive environmental impact of electric vehicles, they talk about how EVs are an excellent way for people to reduce their carbon footprints. Electric cars are responsible for less greenhouse gas production than traditional combustion engines.

But a new study from the University of Southern California has found that EVs are also great for creating healthier communities in California. A team of researchers from the university recently released a report that found EVs reduce air pollution and asthma-related emergency room visits.

Currently, nearly 2.9 million adults in California suffer from asthma.


“When we think about the actions related to climate change, often it’s on a global level,” lead author Erika Garcia, Ph.D., MPH, said in a statement. “But the idea that changes being made at the local level can improve the health of your own community could be a powerful message to the public and to policy makers.”

To see if EV adoption lowered air pollution, they compared the number of vehicles registered in California zip codes between 2013 and 2019 with the frequency of asthma-related emergency room visits. Over this period, the number of EVs in the state increased from 1.4 to a still-modest 14.7 cars per 1,000. California was the perfect place to track pollution improvements related to EV purchases because studies show that the state is about five years ahead of the rest of the country regarding EV adoption.

In 2022, EVs were nearly 16% of new light-duty vehicles sold in California.

The study found that for every 20 cars per 1,000 residents in a given zip code, the number of asthma-related ER visits decreased by 3.2%. Therefore, by increasing the number of people who drive EVs, we can lower the number who suffer from asthma.

The study also makes the case that more EV vehicles are needed in low-income neighborhoods to improve public health. EVs are more prevalent in affluent areas, which already have lower rates of air pollution than in low-income areas. However, California is already working to reduce this gap by providing low- to moderate-income Californians rebates for purchasing electric vehicles.

los angeles smog, california ev, downtown los angeles

A smoggy day in Los Angeles, California.

via Pixabay

Starting on March 1, people with low-to-moderate incomes are eligible for rebates of $7,000 for a fuel-cell electric vehicle, $4,500 for a battery electric vehicle and $3,500 for a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

The good news from the study gives people another compelling reason to switch to EVs. They’re great for the planet and good for public health, too. Further, EVs are a win for the health system because fewer visits to the ER lowers health costs for everyone.

“The impacts of climate change on health can be challenging to talk about because they can feel very scary,” Sandrah Eckel, Ph.D., an associate professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine, and the study’s lead author said in a statement. “We’re excited about shifting the conversation towards climate change mitigation and adaptation, and these results suggest that transitioning to [EVs] is a key piece of that.”

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ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

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If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

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18-year-old took her college savings and bought the restaurant where she was a dishwasher

Samantha Frye, the newest owner of Rosalie's restaurant, is proving there's more than one way to invest in your future.

Canva

There are many way to invest in your future

Eighteen year old Samantha Frye has traded college life for entrepreneurship, and she has no regrets.

Frye began working at Rosalie's Restaurant in Strasburg, Ohio at 16 as a dishwasher, working up the ranks as a kitchen prep, server, then line cook. All while working a second job, sometimes third job.

After graduating high school, Frye started college at Ohio State with plans of studying business or environmental engineering. But when she came back to work a shift at Rosalie’s for winter break, an opportunity arose—the owners had planned to sell the restaurant.
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Family

My family of 5 traveled the U.S. for nearly a year, and it cost us less than staying home

It's amazing what a little creativity and willingness to step outside the box can do.

Photo courtesy of Annie Reneau

We made countless memories during our slow travel year.

Whenever people share money-saving life hacks like living on a cruise ship or exploring the country via the #vanlife, I see comments like, "That might work for a single person or a couple, but what if you have kids?"

When our kids were 12, 8 and 4, we packed up all of our earthly belongings and spent a year living around the U.S. And no, we didn't live in a van or RV. (Nothing wrong with that life, it just wasn't for us.) We traveled from coast to coast, seeing and experiencing the vast array of gorgeous landscapes and fascinating sites America has to offer, and the best part is we did it for less than what we would have spent staying home.

Was it easy to plan and execute? Not exactly. But was it worth it? Absolutely, hands down, 100%.

Here's how we did it and what we learned.

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Joy

13-year-old uses a slingshot to rescue his little sister from being abducted

He had two projectiles and both hit the suspect, forcing him to drop the little girl.

Owen Burns, 13, rescued his sister from a would-be abductor using a slingshot.

A parent never wants to imagine what would happen if their child were confronted with someone meaning them harm. We do everything in our power to mitigate the risks of things like that happening, but scary situations still occur that can leave a family irreparably broken.

A Michigan family had an extremely close call when their 8-year-old daughter was nearly abducted while playing in their backyard. The little girl was outside picking mushrooms when a 17-year-old boy picked her up with his hand over her mouth. Owen Burns, 13, was inside playing video games when he heard his sister scream. A lot of kids in his situation may not have known what to do, but Owen quickly jumped into action.

The teen saw what was happening out the window and picked up his slingshot and a marble before taking aim at the boy who had his sister.

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Pop Culture

'Recovering Doomscroller' shares how he was able to break his news 'addiction' in revealing post

He was scrolling through the news during dinner with his family and knew he had to stop.

A man sits in his chair apathetically scrolling through social media.

Keeping up with the 24-hour news cycle in real time can be overwhelming. It can lead to a negative cycle known as “doomscrolling,” or endlessly scrolling through negative news, usually without realizing the emotional impact it's having.

Doomscrollers can get fixated on various topics, such as politics, crime, social justice, celebrity news, and even the personal lives of people they know on social media.

A Reddit user named Max wrote a revealing post about his doomscrolling habit on the Taoism subreddit. It explained how he got wrapped up in the vicious cycle, how it affected him on a biochemical level, and how he freed himself from the addiction. Taoism is a 1,900-year-oldphilosophy developed in China centered around balance, harmony with nature, simplicity and spontaneity.

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Pop Culture

Simon Cowell 'broke the rules' for tear-jerking 'Unity' dance on Britain's Got Talent

The judges had reached their Golden Buzzer limit, but Cowell decided the "astonishing" act deserved a special honor.

The Unity dance troupe wowed the BGT audience and judges with their moving performance.

Simon Cowell may have made his U.S. debut as a hard-nosed grump on "American Idol," but anyone familiar with him knows he's a big ol' softie inside. When a performance moves him, he's not ashamed to say so, and when an act deserves accolades, he's not afraid to go above and beyond to make sure they get their kudos.

Such was the case with the dance troupe Unity and their emotional performance to the Wrabel song, "The Village," on "Britain's Got Talent." The group of 16 to 25-year-olds, wearing all black, began by standing together on stage as one of them explained who they were.

"We're all friends in college, so we decided to put this group together to perform a piece called 'I Will,' which is about being told that you can't or you're not enough, and how as a group that we come together and power through that," said the group's spokesperson.

As the music cued up, a screen behind the dancers read, "In nature, a flock will attach any bird that is more colourful than the others because being different is seen as a threat…" Then Emma, a girl with Down Syndrome, began to speak about how people say she "can't," while the troupe spoke in sign language along with her.

Following Emma came Declan, who stretches gender boundaries. Then came Steph and Libby, who are in love, a boy who was bullied growing up for his love of dance and a young woman who has been underestimated due to her body shape. As each person shared their personal story, the lyrics of "The Village" highlighted their struggles to be accepted.

At the same time, the group's dancing showed the support a group can give someone who feels excluded or ostracized. Ultimately, it was an incredibly moving performance with a beautiful message of inclusion: "It is not our differences that divide us, it is our inability to recognize, accept, embrace and celebrate those differences.”

The judges were unanimously impressed, and the audience chanted for them to give the group the Golden Buzzer, which would send them straight to the finals. However, the judges have a limited number of Golden Buzzers per season, and they had already used them all up.

Simon Cowell felt inspired enough by the performance to "break the rules," however, and gave them a delightful surprise ending.

Watch what moved him, the other judges and the audience so much:

Empowering, inspiring and impactful. Congratulations, Unity, on making a memorable impression on us all.

Things you would tell your 13-year-old self

There are so many times we look back on our lives and think about things we would change or do slightly differently. But many people say they wouldn't change anything because it would change who or where they are in their life now. The mystery around changing something that happened in the past is so woven into our psyches that there are entire sci-fi genres around time travel and what would happen if you altered the past.

While science fiction movies like "The Butterfly Effect" warn us against tampering with events of the past no matter how small, it doesn't stop people from wondering. A user on Reddit decided to pose a question asking what three words you'd tell your 13-year-old self, and some of the answers were surprisingly heartbreaking. (At 13, you'd think most people would want to tell themselves something silly, like the user who wrote, "Pull my finger.")

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