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A safe, stable home can change lives for the better. Here’s how Habitat for Humanity wants to make that possible for everyone.
Better health, better jobs, and a brighter future all start with access to a safe, affordable home.
A single door can open up a world of endless possibilities. For homeowners, the front door of their house is a gateway to financial stability, job security, and better health. Yet for many, that door remains closed. Due to the rising costs of housing, 1 in 3 people around the world wake up without the security of safe, affordable housing.
Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has made it their mission to unlock and open the door to opportunity for families everywhere, and their efforts have paid off in a big way. Through their work over the past 50 years, more than 65 million people have gained access to new or improved housing, and the movement continues to gain momentum. Since 2011 alone, Habitat for Humanity has expanded access to affordable housing by a hundredfold.
A world where everyone has access to a decent home is becoming a reality, but there’s still much to do. As they celebrate 50 years of building, Habitat for Humanity is inviting people of all backgrounds and talents to be part of what comes next through Let’s Open the Door, a global campaign that builds on this momentum and encourages people everywhere to help expand access to safe, affordable housing for those who need it most. Here’s how the foundation to a better world starts with housing, and how everyone can pitch in to make it happen.
Volunteers raise a wall for the framework of a new home during the first day of building at Habitat for Humanity’s 2025 Carter Work Project. Globally, almost 3 billion people, including 1 in 6 U.S. families, struggle with high costs and other challenges related to housing. A crisis in itself, this also creates larger problems that affect families and communities in unexpected ways. People who lack affordable, stable housing are also more likely to experience financial hardship in other areas of their lives, since a larger share of their income often goes toward rent, utilities, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience health problems due to chronic stress or environmental factors, such as mold. Housing insecurity also goes hand-in-hand with unstable employment, since people may need to move further from their jobs or switch jobs altogether to offset the cost of housing.
Affordable homeownership creates a stable foundation for families to thrive, reducing stress and increasing the likelihood for good health and stable employment. Habitat for Humanity builds and repairs homes with individual families, but it also strengthens entire communities as well. The MicroBuild® Initiative, for example, strengthens communities by increasing access to loans for low-income families seeking to build or repair their homes. Habitat ReStore locations provide affordable appliances and building materials to local communities, in addition to creating job and volunteer opportunities that support neighborhood growth.
Marsha and her son pose for a photo while building their future home with Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity in Georgia. Everyone can play a part in the fight for housing equity and the pursuit of a better world. Over the past 50 years, Habitat for Humanity has become a leader in global housing thanks to an engaged network of volunteers—but you don’t need to be skilled with a hammer to make a meaningful impact. Building an equitable future means calling on a wide range of people and talents.
Here’s how you can get involved in the global housing movement:- Speaking up on social media about the growing housing crisis
- Volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build in your local community
- Travel and build with Habitat in the U.S. or in one of 60+ countries where we work around the globe
- Join the Let’s Open the Door movement and, when you donate, you can create your own personalized door
- Shop or donate at your local Habitat ReStore
Every action, big and small, drives a global movement toward a better future. A safe home unlocks opportunity for families and communities alike, but it’s volunteers and other supporters, working together with a shared vision, who can open the door for everyone.
Visit habitat.org/open-door to learn more and get involved today.
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Dermatologist explains why you absolutely must wash new clothes before wearing them
Only 22% of Americans say they always wash new clothes before wearing them.
It is not unheard of for someone to grab something off the rack to wear immediately after purchasing. In fact, this is a fairly common occurrence in the United States. But a dermatologist warns that this behavior could be damaging to your skin.
Cleveland Clinic dermatologist Dr. Shilpi Khetarpal tells WDIV 4 that she recommends everyone wash their clothes before wearing them. “There’s a few reasons why. The first is that many bright colors can bleed onto skin or other fabrics before the first wash. So when you wash them at home first before wearing them, you’re preventing that from transferring onto your skin,” she tells the outlet.
Two women shopping.
Canva PhotosAnyone who has purchased dark blue or black jeans knows just how annoying it is when the ink bleeds onto other clothing, furniture, and skin. This isn’t new information for most people, and those with very sensitive skin are likely more apt to pre-wash new clothes to avoid skin irritation. Those without hypersensitive skin may feel more inclined to keep yanking those tags off and stepping into unwashed new clothing.
Khetarpal and other dermatologists say, not so fast. Skin irritation doesn’t only occur because someone has sensitive skin. Still, a recent survey conducted by Tommy John reveals that only 22% of Americans always wash new clothes before wearing them. Other things are going on in the construction and packaging of new clothing that might give others pause.
According to Dr. Khetarpal, some manufacturers add formaldehyde and other chemicals to keep clothes from wrinkling or molding when shipping. There’s also the concern of fungus, bacteria, and other things lingering on clothing from people handling the items or trying them on.
“You never know who tried on the garment before you bought it, so you don’t know about germs on their skin, nose, mouth. In fact, a few studies have been done looking at bacteria and viruses lingering on clothes after they have been tried on—fecal bacteria and nasal viruses were commonly found. Lice, scabies, and even bed bugs can also live on clothing for a few days,” Dr. Jami L. Miller, Associate Professor of Dermatology at Vanderbilt Health and Medical Director of the Dermatology Clinic at Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks, tells Southern Living.
Woman shopping for clothes.
Canva PhotosA 2014 study completed by Stockholm University in Sweden tested 31 different clothing items. The scientists found “Quinoline and ten quinoline derivatives were determined in 31 textile samples. The clothing samples, diverse in color, material, brand, country of manufacture, and price, and intended for a broad market, were purchased from different shops in Stockholm, Sweden. Quinoline, a possible human carcinogen, was found to be the most abundant compound present in almost all of the samples investigated.”
Quinoline was classified as a “possible human carcinogen” in 2016 by the Environmental Protection Agency, linking it to “tumor-initiating activity on the skin” of female mice. The agency points out that while it is listed as a possible carcinogen for humans, it is used in medicine safely. One study shows the compound works well as an antiviral without the adverse effects mentioned above.
Woman loading washing machine.
Canva PhotosWhile it all sounds very scary, Dr. David C. Gaston, Assistant Professor of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology at Vanderbilt Health, tells Southern Living, “The risk of obtaining a communicable disease from clothing in a retail store after being tried on by another person is vanishingly small and essentially non-existent if the clothing is new.”
The scientific consensus is to wash new clothes just to be on the safe side, but if you don’t have sensitive skin, you’re most likely fine-ish.
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In 1958, NASA recruited 11 Deaf men to test how zero gravity affects humans
Their work helped build the incredible space missions that followed.
We are constantly being reminded of Isaac Newton’s famous quote, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Eleven such giants were recruited as volunteers from Gallaudet University (then Gallaudet College) in Washington, D.C. in 1958. Their task was to help researchers understand the effects of weightlessness on Deaf people who didn’t experience motion sickness.
Deemed the Gallaudet Eleven, they helped pave the way for hundreds of space flights, including the most recent Artemis II. Ranging in age from 25 to 48 years, the eleven men included Harold Domich, Robert Greenmun, Barron Gulak, Raymond Harper, Jerald Jordan, Harry Larson, David Myers, Donald Peterson, Raymond Piper, Alvin Steele, and John Zakutney. Each and every one of them selflessly gave their time and their bodies to what would become monstrous breakthroughs in astrophysics.
Houston had a problem
Actor and Deaf activist, Nyle DiMarco, recently took to social media to share the historical tidbit, lest people forget. In an Instagram reel, he wrote,
“Everyone’s talking about Artemis II. The first humans to travel to the moon in 50 years. Historic mission. But nobody’s talking about the Deaf men who made it possible.
In the late 1950s, NASA had a problem. They needed to understand what weightlessness does to the human body. But every test subject kept getting violently motion sick.
So they came to Gallaudet.
Eleven Deaf men. Most of them had lost their hearing to spinal meningitis as children, which also damaged their vestibular system. Their inner ears couldn’t be overwhelmed. They were immune to motion sickness.
NASA put them in centrifuges. Zero-gravity flights. A rotating room for twelve straight days. One experiment on a ferry in choppy Nova Scotia waters. The researchers got so seasick they had to cancel it. The Gallaudet Eleven? They were playing cards.
Their bodies gave NASA the data it needed to send humans into space.
No Gallaudet Eleven — no Mercury. No Mercury — no Apollo. No Apollo — no Artemis II.
Sixty years later, four astronauts just flew 252,000 miles from Earth and came home safely. They stood on the shoulders of eleven Deaf men most people have never heard of. Now you know! #nasa #gallaudet11 #artemisii @nasa”
The post has already received nearly 400,000 likes and over 6,000 comments. One Instagrammer writes, “Diversity in all its forms is what makes us great. And all of us working together is what helps us advance as a civilization! Thank you for sharing this and bringing visibility to this piece of history, and thank you Gallaudet 11 for your contribution.”
The tests
The official NASA website shared some of the tests in which the brave volunteers took part. “One test saw four subjects spend 12 straight days inside a 20-foot slow rotation room, which remained in a constant motion of ten revolutions per minute.”
Then, of course, there were the zero-g flights. “In another scenario, subjects participated in a series of zero-g flights in the notorious ‘Vomit Comet’ aircraft to understand connections between body orientation and gravitational cues.”
They even took the volunteers to Nova Scotia to test big waves. “Another experiment, conducted in a ferry off the coast of Nova Scotia, tested the subjects’ reactions to the choppy seas. While the test subjects played cards and enjoyed one another’s company, the researchers themselves were so overcome with seasickness that the experiment had to be canceled. The Gallaudet test subjects reported no adverse physical effects and, in fact, enjoyed the experience.”
“We were young and adventurous”
The test subjects themselves shared their experiences. Barron Gulak reminisced, “In retrospect, yes, it was scary…but at the same time we were young and adventurous.”
On DiMarco’s identical Facebook post, Harry Larson’s child, “Moose” Larson, shared a photo and wrote, “They were recently recognized with a cool plaque at Gallaudet! My dad is one of them and, funny enough, never really talked about it.” A commenter responded, “I’ve worked with your dad a lot on this project during the museum exhibition several years ago. He’s been so wonderful, always willing to come to events. I’m so glad he’s sharing his story now.”
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Gay man learning how to say goodbye ‘like a straight man’ is pure comedy gold
“No whimsy, no enthusiasm, nothing”
It’s no secret that there are certain mannerisms and speech patterns we often associate with being gay. The phenomenon of so-called “gay mannerisms” and voice has actually been the subject of quite a bit of scientific research. One study from 2002 found that people were able to accurately predict the sexual orientation of a speaker just by hearing their voice about 62% of the time. Researchers theorize that some, but certainly not all, gay men may adopt more feminine mannerisms and voice patterns as a form of subconscious social signaling.
It’s much more complicated than that, though. The way gay men speak and behave is as diverse and varied as the community itself: which is to say, very.
But one more pressing question remains: If “gay mannerisms” can be categorized and studied, can those of the heterosexual male be quantified? And, more importantly, can they be learned?
Comedic experiment ensues
Content creator Kai Cameron was up to the challenge. The openly gay TikTok star recently launched a tongue-in-cheek 30-day challenge where he attempts to learn how to do and say things “like a straight man.”
On Day 1, Cameron’s brother teaches him how to sit down like a straight man. On Day 4, they move onto answering the phone. Day 7 features more advanced material: entering a party the way a straight man would. Cameron learns to sway his hips less, talk in a deeper tone of voice, and suppress any hint of enthusiasm.
On Day 11, Cameron was ready to tackle the simple but crucial task of saying “Goodbye,” to a friend. His instructor in the clip, this time actor and filmmaker Peter Falls, demonstrates a textbook, nonchalant “Alright, see ya later,” with a barely perceptible hand-gesture-wave-kind-of-thing. Straight guys will instantly recognize it and notice Falls’ impeccable form.
The words come easily enough for Cameron, but he gets stuck on the hand movements. “Can you do the finger thing again?” he asks, before trying it with a dramatic wave. “That’s way too much,” Falls says.
After a little more practice, though, Cameron’s mostly got it. He confidently walks forward, chest puffed out, body stiff, and drops his voice a few octaves before muttering “See ya, man,” with a small (for him) flick of the wrist.
Close enough!
Viewers find the videos hilarious but revealing
Does the video series mine humor at the expense of people who exhibit “gay mannerisms?” On the contrary: thousands of commenters say that it’s rare to see such a brilliant dissection of the straight man.
Many noticed that so much of the demeanor comes from the eyes:
“U just have to lose the light in your eyes,” one commenter wrote.
“I love how the light leaves your eyes everytime and then comes right back,” said another.
“It’s the dead eyes when channeling straight man,” another echoed.
Other viewers went even deeper and more philosophical:
“No whimsy, no enthusiasm, nothing,” someone said.
“Watching [your] content has taught me a lot about what it looks like from the outside to be a straight guy. Just beat up by life. Body language which clearly indicates no one cares about you, so you stay reserved,” one commenter noted.
“I think some cultures have done a ton of damage by brainwashing boys and men into hiding vulnerability, sensitivity or even just being themselves. That takes a psychological toll. A lot of men don’t stay reserved because no one cares but because society (other men) teach them that tough men have to keep it all in. It is not healthy for you,” another said.
A third summed it up: “Basically just act depressed while doing all things and you got it!
The fascinating origins of voice, body language, and mannerisms
Cameron’s social media video series is incredible comedy and entertainment, but it’s also a brilliant educational demonstration.
“Straight voice” isn’t just the absence of the more feminine qualities of “gay voice.” It is, itself, a learned and socially constructed behavior.
“When men enjoy doing things that are typically associated with women or femininity such as shopping, grooming their nails, giggling, etc., they are often quickly labeled as gay or soft and are negatively evaluated by many members of society,” Ayana Ali, a clinical social worker and therapist, told AskMen.
Even many gay men feel self-conscious about their voice and mannerisms, and may even mask them to adopt more traditionally masculine qualities in certain situations.
It’s an incredibly complex web of social conditioning, how we’re raised, biology, sociology, culture, gender norms, and more.
But it’s never been more hilariously deconstructed than in Cameron’s 30-day challenge.
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Married couple says the ‘3-Hour Night’ hack has totally improved their marriage
“It’s been so fun and such…a game changer for how our evenings go.”
Almost every long term relationship suffers from a rut eventually. That goes especially for married partners who become parents and have the added responsibility of raising kids. Maintaining a connection is hard enough in this busy, fast-paced world. Top it off with making sure kids are awake, dressed, entertained, well fed, oh yeah, and alive…and you best believe all you have energy for at the end of the day is sitting on the couch barely making it through one episode of your favorite show on Netflix.
And yet, we know how important it is to maintain a connection with our spouses. Many of us just don’t know how to make that happen while juggling a million other things. According to one mom, a “three-hour night” could be just the thing to tick off multiple boxes on the to-do list while rekindling romance at the same time. Talk about the ultimate marriage hack.
A couple that has lost their spark. via Canva/Photos What is the 3-Hour Night marriage hack?
The three-hour night was something that Rachel Higgins and her husband began incorporating into their lives back in early 2024. And so far, “it’s been so fun and such…a game changer for how our evenings go,” she says in a clip posted to TikTok.
Before using the three-hour night, the evening would look a bit like this: their daughter would go to bed, they would lounge on the couch, scroll through social media, then fall asleep. Sound familiar?
But with a three-hour night, Higgins and her husband divvy up the time before bed into three sections, each for a different focus. In the first hour, starting around 7 p.m., is what Higgins calls “productive time,” during which the couple sees to any household chores that might need to be done.
The hack put to into action
“So, start with like a quick cleanup of the kitchen or just like things that accumulated throughout the day, and then we try to do something that either … has been being put off or cleaning the bathroom or like organizing the pantry or hall closet or something like, super random like sharpening the knives. Anything that’s productive for the household,” she explains.
Next, the second hour is geared towards re-establishing a physical or emotional connection in their marriage. The phones go away, and they focus only on enjoying one another.
“So, that could be things like showering together or ‘having fun’ together, playing a game together, or just like anything that’s gonna get you guys talking and connecting or like debriefing from the day or just like talking about what you’re doing and like the plans for tomorrow or like how work’s going or whatever. So, anything that’s gonna connect and strengthen and build your marriage,” Higgins says.
Lastly, the final hour of the night is dedicated to anything Higgins and her husband individually want to do, any sort of personal recharge activity. Since this is a judgment-free time, Higgins states that “If you just want to lie on the couch and scroll your phone and watch TikToks or whatever, like watch YouTube videos,” it’s totally acceptable.
But can you really do this every night?
Higgins’ novel approach definitely interested viewers, who chimed in with their own questions. One major concern was how the heck this could be done every night. But even Higgins admits that she and her husband don’t succeed at having a three-hour night every night—they usually try for about 3-4 times a week. And honestly, even once a week could still probably be beneficial in building intimacy.
A happy couple in bed. Photo credit: Canva “Such a good idea. Good for us empty nesters too! The phone scrolling is outta control!” one commenter wrote. “This is really cool. The housework is equal. The emotional connection is equal and the self care is equal. No room for resentment,” another added. “We don’t have kids yet but I love this and want to do it because the nights slip away so fast!!” a commenter added.
Others wondered how to have a three-hour night when things randomly popped up in their schedule, like when kids won’t magically go to sleep promptly at 7pm. Higgins shares that in these cases, they tend to just shorten each phase. The point being: these can and probably should be customizable, even fun, rather than yet another rigid chore.
Making your relationship a priority
Plus, a three-hour night (or whatever your version of a three-hour night may be) is a great way to remind yourself just how high a priority your relationship has in your life, no matter what else is going on at the time. Odds are you’ll probably find you do have more time for it than you previously thought.
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
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“He’s a baby genius”: 3-month-old stuns mom by perfectly repeating full sentences
The boy’s sister couldn’t believe her ears and began sobbing uncontrollably.
Babies can’t talk. This isn’t something that needs to be studied and researched, it’s a pretty common fact of human existence. The reasons babies cry is because they can’t talk to tell us what they need, at least that’s what the general understanding has been for centuries. Not only their brains, but their bodies lack the development and coordination needed to form complete words and sentences.
But what if some babies could talk and we simply haven’t been exposed to them because the world is so big? Thanks to social media, the world has gotten a whole lot smaller when it comes to being able to take a peek into other people’s lives. This means we get to be exposed to things that may otherwise gone unseen.
Wait, did that baby just talk?
Mekeia, a mom of two, uploaded a video of her then 3-month-old son talking. Not the cute baby babble that we like to call talking, but repeating actual short sentences.
Mekeia was recording her daughter playing with the baby when they captured the moment on video.
The little girl holds the baby’s face and says, “say I am two months,” before Mekeia corrects her, “say I am three months,” the little girl pipes back up. Clearly the baby was trying to join in the conversation with what was expected to be baby babble when the mom instructed the older child to let the baby have a chance to “talk.” It was then that the baby shocked everyone by sounding like he repeated the same phrase.
The two are visibly and audibly shocked not wanting to believe the baby actually repeats what the other child says. Mekeia is on the phone with a friend when the entire thing happens. Presumably thinking this is a fluke, the mom attempts to put the phone up to the baby’s mouth. When he just babbles, she tells the baby, “say hey Bam.” Nothing. Just more babble and drool.
This was no fluke
Just when you think your ears were playing tricks on you, the baby does it again when the mom tells him to say, “hey Quintin.” Clearly the baby still sounds like a baby but you can clearly hear him repeating the sound and cadence of the words so much so that it sounds like he’s fully saying the words. His older sister is overwhelmed with emotion and begins to cry while Mekeia seems to be so shocked that she begins to laugh while the person on the phone is just stunned into confusion.
People in the comments were eager to jump in with exclaiming the baby is a genius with one person writing, “he is a baby genius start showing him math problems.”
Another person jokes, “next thing he’s writing emails and making appointments.”
“Talking so clear would scare me sooo bad he’s so intelligent,” someone writes.
There’s actually a name for this
Others explain the phenomenon with a condition called echolalia.
“Echolalia is a normal part of child development. As children learn to talk and understand words, they imitate, copy or echo the sounds and words they hear. Over time, a child usually learns to talk by connecting new words together to make unique little phrases or sentences,” according to Speech and Language Advisor Claire Smith when interviewed by the BBC.
Sometimes this phenomenon rears its head extraordinarily early. Mekeia’s daughter was just three months old in the video above. Another popular video from a few years ago shows an 8-week-old infant from the UK very clearly saying the word “Hello” in response to his parents. A 7-week-old from Ireland was shown doing the same in 2015.
While echolalia can be a sign of autism, that’s not always the case. Many kids grow out of it by the age of three and continue their typical development.
And then there are the real prodigies
What’s really interesting is when kids start to actually understand and utilize language intentionally at an extremely early age. A boy named Michael Kevin Kearney was said to be talking by around 4-months-old, even asking his parents “What’s for dinner?” He went on to become a certified child prodigy, received a masters degree in biochemistry at just 14, and pursued a doctorate in chemistry at Middle Tennessee State University.
Most babies who repeat words shockingly early are not little geniuses in the making, just good mimics. Much of the time, they’re not able to consistently repeat the feat once the clip goes viral on social media.
But you can’t blame the parents, and social media users, for getting excited. It’s adorable and fascinating to watch in action!
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
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13 years ago, an astronaut sang live from space with singers on Earth. It’s a must-watch.
People are revisiting Chris Hadfield’s performance with Barenaked Ladies and the Wexford Gleeks choir.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield hasn’t seen Earth from as far away as the Artemis II astronauts who circled the Moon, but after completing three space missions, including a six-month stint as commander of the International Space Station (ISS), he is familiar with the “overview effect” in a way few humans ever experience.
In 2013, Hadfield captured what it feels like to see our home from space in a song he performed with Barenaked Ladies. While he played guitar and sang from the ISS, the band and the Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts Glee Club (aka “Wexford Gleeks”) performed alongside him from Earth.
The song is called “(I.S.S.) Is Somebody Singing,” and it’s all the more moving in light of the images from Artemis II.
Here’s a sampling of the lyrics:
Pushed back in my seat
Look out my window
There goes home
That ball of shiny blue
Houses everybody anybody ever knew
The song takes us on a journey: we fly out to space, around the Earth, and return home again, all while looking out the window at our beautiful planet. The visual of people singing from Earth, their “voices bouncing off the Moon,” takes on even greater significance now that we’ve returned there.
A view of Earth from near the Moon, taken during the Artemis II mission. Photo credit: NASA Even though the video is 13 years old, people are revisiting it now with new appreciation:
“I keep coming back to this everytime there’s a significant step forward in space exploration! and it’s the perfect time to watch this for Artemis II!”
“Coming back to this after watching the Artemis II launch, and it feels so magical knowing they’re going back to the moon for all of us. These launches really make me feel connected to all of humanity.”
“Cried to this as the Artemis crew returned to earth. Watching the earth grow larger through the window, seeing the glow of reentry, the clouds passing by and the big red and white parachutes.”
Commander Reid Wiseman looks out at Earth from the Orion spacecraft. Photo credit: NASA Some people have asked how it was possible for the musicians to play live together without a delay. In interviews with astronauts on the ISS, there is often a lag in communications. But that’s less of an issue for a song like this than one might expect. Most likely, Hadfield played and sang live from the ISS, while the band and choir followed along with the transmission as they heard it.
As someone explained in a Quora inquiry:
“I actually know some performers who have performed with Chris Hadfield (not Hatfield) while he was on the ISS—Trent-Severn, three women from Ontario. It’s actually quite easy. He plays his guitar and sings. It’s beamed down from the ISS to a ground station, then transmitted by whatever method works (internet, phone lines, satellite link) to get to the destination, where it goes into the sound board. The sound man or woman sends it to the main PA speakers and to the stage monitors so that the performers can hear it. And they just play along with it as they hear it. It doesn’t matter that he actually played it a second or two before. They just play in time with it as it arrives where they are.”
What is challenging, apparently, is the singing itself in space. Hadfield explained that it’s “like singing with a head cold” because of the way the fluids in your body drain—or rather don’t drain—without the assistance of gravity.
The singing astronaut had another musical performance go viral in 2013. In fact, he made a whole music video from the ISS, covering “Space Oddity” by David Bowie. Hadfield said he always felt the song should be sung aboard a spaceship. (He added that if Bowie had been there, he would have done a better job.)
Thanks to Chris Hadfield for giving us these wonderful musical connections to human space exploration.
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A researcher published a paper on a made-up disease. Then people started getting diagnosed.
If you’ve got red, itchy eyes, you might just have the (totally made up) “Bixonimania”
There have been a lot of dubious medical research papers published over the years. Famously, there was the 1998 case series that kicked off what would become an entire movement of vaccine skepticism by falsely linking them to autism. Before that, there was a whole slew of research bought and paid for by the sugar industry designed to “downplay the risks of sugar and highlight the hazards of fat,” according to NPR.
Rarely, however, are studies so heavily, and intentionally, fictionalized as a paper that quietly popped up in some small corners of the Internet in early 2024.
Researcher tests AI hypothesis
Almira Osmanovic Thunström, medical researcher at the University of Gothenburg, knew that Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, etc. draw from an expansive knowledge base they’re trained on.
Training data can include anything and everything from books to Reddit posts to song lyrics to articles published in reputable medical journals.
Crucially, hundreds of millions of people log into these AI services every year to ask about symptoms and receive medical advice. It’s the natural evolution of the “Just check WebMD” approach. Thunström wanted to see if she could effect the output of these LLMs by planting bogus ideas into their training data.
So, she made up a disease. She called it “Bixonimania,” which includes symptoms such as sore, itchy eyes and discolored eyelids. Then, she fabricated an entire research study around the condition and uploaded a “preprint” of the paper to a couple of servers—a preprint being a version of the research paper that has not yet undergone peer review, but is still made available for the public to read.
That’s “bixonimania” alright. Photo Credit: Canva Photos Finally, with the seeds planted, and the false study publicly available for anyone (or anything) to see, Thunström waited to see if LLMs would begin spitting out “Bixonimania” as a diagnosis.
Fake disease finds serious legs in AI chats
If the experiment sounds ethically dubious, that’s fair, but Thunström made every effort to make it clear that the findings were completely false. Not only did she collaborate heavily with an ethics consultant on the experiment, she left plenty of breadcrumbs along the way.
For starters, the lead author of the study is listed as “Lazljiv Izgubljenovic,” a person who does not exist. Translated from Slovenian, the name means “The Lying Loser.”
Second was the name of the disease itself, which was chosen to be ridiculous sounding. “I wanted to be really clear to any physician or any medical staff that this is a made-up condition, because no eye condition would be called mania—that’s a psychiatric term,” Thunström said per Nature.com.
Early in the paper, the text “this entire paper is made up,” appears. As does a note that all of the fifty so-called “participants” were completely fictional. Toward the end, Thunström thanks such esteemed colleagues as “Professor Maria Bohm at The Starfleet Academy … onboard the USS Enterprise” and partners like “the Professor Sideshow Bob Foundation.”
Despite the warnings, and the fact that (nearly) any qualified human reading the paper would know it was a fake, it began showing up in search results and even had the authority to appear on Google Scholar.
AI chatbots began spitting out “Bixonimania” as a possible diagnosis to users within just a few weeks—users who were probably suffering from eye irritation due to too much screen exposure. Thunström even has the screenshots to prove that certain models, including Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini, still refer to the disease as a “recently” proposed or described condition.
Then something even stranger happened.
“Bixonimania” gets cited by other research papers
The “Bixonimania” paper was never peer-reviewed or published in an official journal, for obvious reasons. But, soon enough, it was referenced and cited in a new paper that was peer-reviewed.
“Bixonimania is an emerging form of POM [periorbital melanosis] linked to blue light exposure; further research on the mechanism is underway,” the authors confidently wrote.
The papers referencing the made-up disease were later retracted.
More than just AI trickery
The TL;DR? People rarely read beyond the headline. In fact, one study (a real one!) found that more than 75% of people who share an article online haven’t even read it. Most of us trust anything that appears in a medical journal.
You’d think physicians and researchers would be more thorough, but the truth is they’re just as susceptible to time crunches, lapses of focus, and even taking shortcuts in their work from time to time. In other words, they’re only human.
This fascinating experiment isn’t just about how a researcher managed to fool AI, it speaks to bigger problems with how we use the technology and our daily media habits.
“The solution isn’t just better filters. It’s better habits, better norms, and better expectations around how we read, verify and cite. Human‑centred resilience has to come first,” an astute commenter wrote.
“This expose has huge implications for academia and ‘googling your symptoms’. I was/am worried about being the one taking the hit for a controversial experiment of this sort. It was done with very high guardrails and ethical considerations, I hope everyone reading will take that in to account,” Thunström elaborated on LinkedIn.
She recently decided to retract the papers and keep them private somewhere curious users can read them, but they’ll no longer be crawled by LLMs.
LLMs are powerful tools, but they can be dangerous. Photo Credit: Canva Photos “The bixonimania experiment was never about exposing LLMs as flawed tools, or arguing they have no place in medicine. They do. It was about demonstrating that any system can be infiltrated and that researchers who blindly cite AI-generated references really should read what they’re quoting. I know this firsthand,” she says in another LinkedIn post, adding that she herself has been duped by AI-generated summaries of her own research papers.
“The failure wasn’t the system. It was how I used it.”
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Columbia shuttle astronaut shared a moving take on humanity shortly before reentry tragedy
It’s been 23 years since we lost these brave souls, but David M. Brown’s message remains timeless.
On February 1, 2003, a tragic reminder of how delicate life is struck those watching the landing of Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-107). Commander Rick D. Husband, Pilot William C. “Willie” McCool, and mission specialists David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael P. Anderson, Laurel B. Clark, and Ilan Ramon were selected for Columbia’s 28th mission. The mission involved orbiting Earth while conducting experimental research.What they didn’t know was that, during liftoff, a piece of insulation foam had compromised one of the shuttle’s heat shields. Upon reentry, with just 16 minutes remaining before they were expected to touch down, the shuttle met its fatal end.
Crew of the STS-107. Photo credit: NASA Giant leaps
Many have recently taken a renewed interest in astrophysics, inspired by the awe of the Artemis II mission. Astronauts who devote their lives to space exploration are nothing short of magnificent. It’s a pursuit defined by equal parts devotion, incredible bravery, and the ability to see the big picture, quite literally. As astronaut Neil Armstrong famously put it, even “small steps” in this realm are “giant leaps for mankind,” a reminder of the importance of perspective within the smallest scientific details.
Letter from space
Mission specialist Brown had sent an email just one day before the crew was set to land, and his aerial view of our tiny blue marble of a planet clearly gave him perspective.
A Reddit user who said they were related to Brown shared the email and wrote, “I had a family member on Columbia, Dave Brown. We were at the launch and the disaster was put in a very different perspective for us, even though I didn’t know him that well. He emailed the family regularly and the day before reentry sent a very impactful email to us that became much more so after the incident.”
The email read:
“Friends,
It’s hard to believe but I’m coming up on 16 days in space and we land tomorrow.I can tell you a few things:
Floating is great – at two weeks it really started to become natural. I move much more slowly as there really isn’t a hurry. If you go too fast then stopping can be quite awkward. At first, we were still handing each other things, but now we pass them with just a little push.
We lose stuff all the time. I’m kind of prone to this on Earth, but it’s much worse here as I can now put things on the walls and ceiling too. It’s hard to remember that you have to look everywhere when you lose something, not just down.
The views of the Earth are really beautiful. If you’ve ever seen a space IMAX movie that’s really what it looks like. What really amazes me is to see large geographic features with my own eyes. Today, I saw all of Northern Libya, the Sinai Peninsula, the whole country of Israel, and then the Red Sea. I wish I’d had more time just to sit and look out the window with a map but our science program kept us very busy in the lab most of the time.
The science has been great and we’ve accomplished a lot. I could write more about it but that would take hours.
My crewmates are like my family – it will be hard to leave them after being so close for 2 1/2 years.
My most moving moment was reading a letter Ilan brought from a Holocaust survivor talking about his seven-year-old daughter who did not survive. I was stunned such a beautiful planet could harbor such bad things. It makes me want to enjoy every bit of the Earth for how great it really is.
I will make one more observation – if I’d been born in space I know I would desire to visit the beautiful Earth more than I’ve ever yearned to visit space. It is a wonderful planet.
Dave”
Data from the mission
While these precious lives were ended far too soon, their work was not in vain. NASA was able to salvage much of the data collected during the mission.
One of many examples was video footage that appeared to show a new, unexplained lightning-like phenomenon. In an article for New Scientist, Maggie McKee explains that researchers who pored over the footage saw a reddish glow unlike anything astrophysicists had seen at the time: “The glow occurred about 150 kilometres above the ocean near Madagascar and does not appear to be linked with thunderstorms.”
Similar to the tragic end of the Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-51L) mission, astrophysicists, as all good scientists do, find a way to carry on. They use these experiences to deepen their understanding and to advance science beyond what once seemed possible. In the words of Isaac Newton, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
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