Find out what happens to your body when you see someone you love (and more!)

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Ever wonder what the science behind heartbreak is? Find the answer here.

Love doesn't have to be all about romance. It can also be about SCIENCE.

And who doesn't love some science? Let's take a look at some of the hard facts of the history and science of the heart.

Hahhhh. Get it? Limbic system = part of the brain.

FACT: By 2000 B.C., Chinese doctors had uncovered the heart's role in pumping blood throughout the body.

This diagram of the heart is from a medical book published in 1864.

Yep, they figured that ish out in 2000 B.C., as in 4,000 years before today. Also known as a ridiculously long time ago. Meanwhile (or rather, about 1,600 years later), Aristotle was busy hypothesizing that the heart was the center of intelligence. Even through the Renaissance, many great thinkers believed that the heart governed a person's emotions — "a notion so powerful that it still persists today in a different form."

FACT: Even though feelings of love come from our brain, we really can physically feel them.

Pretty cool, huh? Let's take a look at both sides of this coin.

The "happy side" of feeling love is that when you see a loved one, your brain stimulates the release of neurotransmitters that make you feel real good. Epinephrine and norepinephrine are secreted from your adrenal glands, which cause your heart to beat faster.

Yay!

Of course, those aren't the only neurotransmitters involved in love. There are SO many chemicals and hormones at play — dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin ... on and on. They all work together to govern sex drive, partner preference, and attachment. It's complicated science, but the bottom line is simple: When you're in love, your body reacts big time. It's far from "all in your head."

Slightly cute, mostly creepy. For more info on other chemicals involved in love, check out this video.

The "heartbroken side" of feeling love is that emotional loss activates the same region of your brain as physical pain. This can lead to great levels of neurological stress, which can actually overstimulate your vagus nerve, causing nausea, dizziness, and physical pain. That's heartbreak.

And that's why you can actually feel a broken heart.

FACT: Many animals average 1 billion heartbeats in their lifetime, no matter their size or life span.

The billion beat hypothesis says that an animal's heart will beat around 1 billion times, no matter their size or life span. Smaller animals have shorter life spans and faster heart rates whereas larger animals have longer life spans and slower heart rates.

That's heart beats per minute, life span in years, and lifetime heartbeats in billions.

Small animals have a larger ratio of surface area to mass, so they lose heat more quickly and have higher metabolic rates — which are linked to shorter life spans. As mass goes up, so do life spans while heart rates go down.

Is this all just a complicated way of saying that mice don't live very long? Maybe so.

But HUMANS defy the billion beat hypothesis. We live three times as long as we should with about twice as many heartbeats as we should be "allotted." Why? Because modern science and medicine have extended our life span. It's pretty corny, but ...

Caring for one another helps humans defy the principles of science.

Awwww. Want to catch the whole video, with even more facts about loooooooove? Here it is:

Pop Culture

Folks are admitting that Boomers weren’t totally wrong. Here are 19 things they got right.

OK, Boomer, you're right about this one.

via Patrick Lannigan/Flickr

The gaze of the approving Boomer.

Over the past few years, Baby Boomers (1946 to 1964) have been getting a lot of grief from the generations that came after them, Gen X (1965 to 1980), Millenials (1981 to 1996), and now, Gen Z (1997 to 2012). Their grievances include environmental destruction, wealth hoarding, political polarization, and being judgemental when they don’t understand how hard it is for younger people to make it in America these days.

Every Baby Boomer is different, so it's wrong to paint them all with a broad brush. But it’s undeniable that each generation shares common values, and some are bound to come into conflict.

However, life in 2023 isn’t without its annoyances. Many that came about after the technological revolution put a phone in everyone’s hands and brought a whole new host of problems. Add the younger generations' hands-on approach to child rearing and penchant for outrage, and a lot of moden life has become insufferanble.

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baby boomers

Pop Culture

Little boy steals the show at his sister's end-of-year dance school concert

This kid was born to dance.

@kleinkwagga1/TikTok

Klein Kwagga understood the assignment at his sister's concert.

Some kids are too shy to ever want to get on a stage, some will spend most of a performance staring awkwardly at their shoes, and some kids love the opportunity to show off what they've practiced in front of an audience.

And then there are the kids were simply born for the spotlight. You know them when you see them.

When Dirkco Jansen van Nieuwenhuizen hopped on stage with all of the other brothers and sisters of the dance students at René’s Art of Dance in South Africa, no one expected a viral sensation. According to Capetown Etc, it was the school's year-end concert, and siblings were invited to come up and dance to Bernice West’s Lyfie—a popular song in Afrikaans. And Dirkco, who goes by Klein Kwagga, took the assignment and ran with it.

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dance

Community

People share the most practical ways to support new parents after giving birth

Sometimes the best gift is practicality.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

People share the most practical ways to support new parents

There's a lot of preparation that goes into having a child well before they're even born. First there are the physical changes your body makes to clear up some space for a tiny human roughly the size of a watermelon. Then there's preparing the nursery, buying lots of extremely small clothes, diapers and an expected understanding that while sleep may be your friend, you won't be getting any of it for about a year.

Lots of people give plenty of advice to help you cope in the early days but after the baby arrives, the focus shifts to solely the baby. It's obviously not a deliberate shift. Babies are just more shiny and new that the parents. But not everyone forgets about the parents once baby makes their grand entrance–some go out of their way to make sure the parents feel supported.

Upworthy asked its audience, "what was the best non-baby related gift you received as a new parent," and the answers were a masterclass on how to care for new parents.

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postpartum gifts

Identity

Formerly enslaved man's response to his 'master' wanting him back is a literary masterpiece

"I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters."

GOOD

A photo of Jordan Anderson.

In 1825, at the approximate age of 8, Jordan Anderson (sometimes spelled "Jordon") was sold into slavery and would live as a servant of the Anderson family for 39 years. In 1864, the Union Army camped out on the Anderson plantation and he and his wife, Amanda, were liberated. The couple eventually made it safely to Dayton, Ohio, where, in July 1865, Jordan received a letter from his former owner, Colonel P.H. Anderson. The letter kindly asked Jordan to return to work on the plantation because it had fallen into disarray during the war.

On Aug. 7, 1865, Jordan dictated his response through his new boss, Valentine Winters, and it was published in the Cincinnati Commercial. The letter, entitled "Letter from a Freedman to His Old Master," was not only hilarious, but it showed compassion, defiance, and dignity. That year, the letter would be republished in theNew York Daily Tribune and Lydia Marie Child's "The Freedman's Book."

The letter mentions a "Miss Mary" (Col. Anderson's Wife), "Martha" (Col. Anderson's daughter), Henry (most likely Col. Anderson's son), and George Carter (a local carpenter).

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

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history

Find out what happens to your body when you see someone you love (and more!)

Ever wonder what the science behind heartbreak is? Find the answer here.

Love doesn't have to be all about romance. It can also be about SCIENCE.

FACT: By 2000 B.C., Chinese doctors had uncovered the heart's role in pumping blood throughout the body.

FACT: Even though feelings of love come from our brain, we really can physically feel them.

FACT: Many animals average 1 billion heartbeats in their lifetime, no matter their size or life span.

Caring for one another helps humans defy the principles of science.

OK, Boomer, you're right about this one.

1. App exhaustion​

2. Let kids play

3. Pricey concerts

4. Tip creep

5. Phones at concerts

6. Kids online

7. Lazy tablet parents

8. Bring back knobs

9. Bad customer service

10. Raising entitled kids

11. Emojis in work emails

12. Paper straws

13. Face tattoos

14. Gender reveals

15. People are too sensitive

16. TV sounds terrible

17. Affordable housing

18. Blinded by the lights

19. The people on your lawn

This kid was born to dance.

The 42-year-old optical illusion is still astounding people.

Sometimes the best gift is practicality.

1. Everyone has to eat, especially when you've just birthed a human

2. Cleaning is a gift of love

3. Giving parents a much needed break from their littles to do wild things like nap.

Too many women lose out on much needed support because of unwarranted stigma.

"I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters."

1. App exhaustion