For the past several years, researchers in Australia have been at work trying to develop a way to put a stop to dengue, a virus that — like Zika — is spread by way of a certain breed of mosquitoes.
The result is what’s called a Mozzie Box, and Susan Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, recently demonstrated how it works.
The Mozzie Box works by intentionally breeding disease carrying mosquitos, with a twist.
In the Mozzie Box, Aedes mosquitoes — the same kind that transmit diseases like Zika, dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, and more — are bred.
And how exactly is breeding more mosquitoes the solution to a mosquito-borne illness?
The Mozzie Box mosquito eggs contain a bacteria called Wolbachia, which renders the grown mosquitoes essentially harmless (minus a few itchy bites here and there).
When the Mozzie Box mosquitoes fly off into the wild and begin mating, the Wolbachia bacteria is transmitted to their offspring.
That bacteria will then be passed down to future generations.
As time goes on, fewer mosquitoes will have the capability to carry Zika (or those other diseases), and the virus will become much less of an issue.
There are times when science can be so freaking cool, and this is definitely one of them.
The key to stopping Zika might lie in mosquito STDs. How cool is that?
But why is it so important to take steps like these? For one:
The 2016 Summer Olympics are scheduled to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, one of the areas hit hardest by Zika.
A number of athletes, such as Spanish basketball star Pau Gasol, have expressed concern over the virus and are considering skipping the games.
Despite the worry, the World Health Organization has advised against cancelling or moving the Olympics, writing, “Based on the current assessment of Zika virus circulating in almost 60 countries globally and 39 countries in the Americas, there is no public health justification for postponing or cancelling the games.”
Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.
So even though the Olympics may go on as planned, that doesn’t make the virus any less worrisome for the world as a whole.
The most common concern is that mothers who contract Zika may give birth to babies with microcephaly, a condition where a baby is born with a much smaller head than expected.
A mother holds a 3-month-old girl with microcephaly. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.
Help from governments sometimes seems out of reach, making finding a solution in the private sector that much more important.
“Imagine that you’re standing by and you see someone drowning, and you have the ability to stop them from drowning, but you can’t,” Frieden said. “Now multiply that by 1,000 or 100,000. That’s what it feels like to know how to change the course of an epidemic and not be able to do it.”
Frieden speaks about the Zika crisis on May 26, 2016, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.
Maybe Mozzie Boxes will help bring an end to Zika and other dangerous diseases. Maybe they’ll inspire others to take up important innovative work. Maybe they’ll help make the world a better place, now and for future generations.
There’s already been so much progress in how we treat, prevent, and test for dangerous diseases. Here’s hoping that such innovation continues.
You can watch Susan Desmond-Hellmann’s Mozzie Box demonstration below:
An Operation Smile volunteer reverses an oxygen mask so a child with a cleft condition can blow a bubble for the first time in Guadalajara, Mexico. (Operation Smile Photos)
For thousands of children born with cleft conditions, Operation Smile provides simple, playful tools—like bubbles—to strengthen the skills they need to speak and thrive.
While a bottle of bubbles might seem out of place in a hospital setting, you might be surprised to learn that, for thousands of children around the world born with cleft lip and palate, they can be a helpful tool in comprehensive cleft care. Lilia, who was born with cleft lip and palate in 2020, is one of the many patients who received this care.
As a toddler, Lilia underwent two surgeries to treat cleft lip and palate with Operation Smile’s surgical program in Puebla, Mexico. Because of Operation Smile’s comprehensive care, it wasn’t long before her personality transformed: Lilia went from a quiet and withdrawn toddler to an exuberant, curious explorer, babbling, expressing herself with a variety of sounds, and engaging with others like any child her age.
Lilia is now a healthy five-year-old, with the same cheerful attitude and boundless energy. Her progress is the result of care at every level, from surgery to speech therapy to ongoing support at home—but it’s also evidence that small, sustained interventions throughout it all can make a meaningful difference.
Lilia at age 1, before surgery, and at age 5, 4 years post-surgery
Cleft Conditions: A Global Problem
Since 1982, Operation Smile has provided cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries to more than 500,000 patients worldwide with the help of generous volunteers and donors. Cleft conditions are congenital conditions, meaning they are present at birth. With cleft lip and palate, the lip or the roof of the mouth do not form fully during fetal development. Cleft conditions put children at risk for malnutrition and poor weight gain, since their facial structure can make feeding challenging. But cleft conditions can have an enormous social impact as well: Common difficulties with speech can leave kids socially isolated and unable to meet the same developmental milestones as their peers.
Surgery is a vital step in treating cleft conditions, but it’s also just one part of a much larger solution. Organizations like Operation Smile emphasize the importance of multi-disciplinary teams that provide comprehensive, long-term care to patients across many years. This approach, which includes oral care, speech therapy, nutritional support, and psychosocial care, not only aids in physical recovery from surgery but also helps children develop the skills and confidence to eat easily, speak clearly, and engage in everyday life. This ensures that each patient receives the full range of support they need to thrive.
Marie, 11 months, with her mother at Operation Smile Madagascar before her cleft surgery (Operation Smile Photos)
A Playful (and Powerful) Solution
Throughout a patient’s care, simple tools like bubbles can play a meaningful role from start to finish.
Immediately before surgery, children are often in a new and unfamiliar environment far from home, some of them experiencing a hospital setting for the first time. When care providers or loved ones blow bubbles, it’s a simple yet effective technique: Not only are the children soothed and distracted, the bubbles also help create a sense of joy and playfulness that eases their anxiety.
Milagros Rojas, a volunteer speech therapist in Peru, using bubbles in a screening with a patient. (Operation Smile Photos)
In speech therapy, bubbles can take on an even more important role. Blowing bubbles requires controlled airflow, as well as the ability to form a rounded “O” shape with the lips, which are skills that children with cleft conditions may struggle to develop. Practicing these skills with bubbles allows children to gently strengthen their facial muscles, improve breath control, and support the motor skills needed for speech development. Beyond that, blowing bubbles can help kids connect with their parents or providers in a way that’s playful, comforting, and accessible even for very young patients.
Finally, bubbles often follow patients with cleft conditions home in the “smile bags” that each patient receives when the surgical procedure is finished. Smile bags, which help continue speech therapy outside of the hospital setting, can contain language enrichment booklets, a mirror, oxygen tubing, and bubbles. While regular practice with motor skills can help with physical recovery, small acts of play help as well, giving kids space to simply enjoy themselves and join in on what peers are able to do.
Bubbles at Home and Beyond
Today, because of Operation Smile’s dedication to comprehensive cleft care, Lilia is now able to make friends and speak clearly, all things that could have been difficult or impossible before. Instead of a childhood defined by limitation, Lilia—and others around the world—can look forward to a childhood filled with joy, learning, discovery, friends, and new possibilities.
CTA: Lilia’s life was changed for the better with the care she received through Operation Smile. Find out how you can make an impact in other children’s lives by visiting operationsmile.org today.
We see many symbols in our everyday lives that we likely don’t pay much attention to: the @ in our email addresses, for instance, or the % in our weather forecasts. But do we ever wonder where these symbols came from? Why they look like they do? Or how they came to mean what they mean?
One of the most commonly used symbols that most of us are clueless about is the dollar sign ($). Why does it have an “S” if there’s no “s” in “dollar”? Is there supposed to be one line or two? And where did the $ symbol even originate?
The first written use of the dollar sign as we know it appeared in a handwritten letter sent by a man in New Orleans in 1778. Some may be under the impression that the $ is an amalgamation of “U” and “S,” as in United States, but nope. Its origin isn’t actually from the United States at all.
The international origins of the U.S. dollar start in Spain
In fact, we have to take a whole international tour through hundreds of years of currency history to arrive at what we think is the origin of the $. As Watts shares, we don’t know with 100% certainty.
The story begins with the Spanish real, the silver coin that served as the currency of Spain in the 14th century. A larger coin, worth eight times the value of the real, became known as a “piece of eight” in English. Those pieces of eight made their way to the Americas through colonialism in the 15th and 16th centuries.
“The discovery of huge, gleaming reserves of silver in Central and South America meant that they could also be made there, too,” Watts shares. “At the local mints, they took on a new name as well, based on the fixed weights of silver they were made from. They became known as the ‘peso,’ meaning ‘unit of weight.’”
Because of their reliability and divisibility into smaller units, these pesos started being used not just in the Spanish-speaking colonies, but in British colonies in the Caribbean and North America as well.
Hold the peso thought. We’ll come back to it momentarily.
The word “dollar” can be traced back to the German Joachimsthaler coin
In the meantime, another coin of similar value from the German town of Joachimsthal had gained traction in Europe.
“In precisely the same way that a round slab of beef from Hamburg became known as a hamburger, this round slab of silver from Joachimsthal became known as a Joachimsthaler,” Watts explains. “And in exactly the same way that a hamburger is sometimes just called a ‘burger,’ a Joachimsthaler was sometimes just called a ‘thaler.’”
“Thaler” became “daalder” in the Netherlands, “daler” in parts of Scandinavia, and “dollar” in the English-speaking world.
But that dollar wasn’t the dollar we ended up with.
“By 1700, the thaler had been adapted to have almost exactly the same silver content as another coin that was competing for usage in Europe: the ‘piece of eight’ or peso,” says Watts. “And so, to help differentiate between the two similarly valued coins, people started referring to the peso as ‘the Spanish dollar.’ This Spanish dollar was the de facto currency of the Americas right up until the American Revolution.”
The dollar sign actually comes from the peso symbol
Prior to declaring independence from Britain, the U.S. used the British pound for accounting. But the Spanish dollar, or peso, was the coin most often used as currency, so post-Revolution, the U.S. adopted the dollar as its own. (The first official U.S. dollar coin was minted in 1792.)
So, long story short, the Spanish dollar, or peso, was the basis for the U.S. dollar. Which finally leads us to where the $ came from.
The symbol used for pesos way back when was “ps,” with the “s” written like a superscript. When written with a pen in one stroke, the “s” ended up with a line through it. And when someone wanted to indicate plural pesos, they would write the symbol twice. The second instance, written more quickly, ended up blending the “p” and “s” together to look more like a $.
How did the $ with two lines come about? As shown in the image above, the two lines often lead people to the “U” plus “S” theory. However, Watts points out that the first printed version of the dollar sign appeared in 1797. That dollar sign actually had two lines, with no indication that “U” and “S” were the reason. Both versions of the symbol were in use by the close of the 18th century.
Watts goes into some of the other theories about where the double-lined dollar sign comes from. However, there doesn’t seem to be solid evidence to back any of them up.
Isn’t that wild? Who knew that our currency had such a complicated origin story? Or that we don’t even really know for certain why we use $ for the almighty dollar?
Thanks, Rob Watts, for making us all a little bit smarter. You can follow him on YouTube for more word fun.
As the world evolves, so does the English language, which has nearly one million words, per Merriam-Webster.
And they are being added all the time. (Although some words nearly go extinct.)
From newly formed generational slang words created by Gen Z and Gen Alpha to technology that continues to change the world and the objects in it, there is a term that allows English to “keep up with the times”: retronyms.
What is a retronym?
Retronyms are a relatively new vocabulary term. The word was first used in 1980, according to Merriam-Webster. It was coined by writer William Safire, who used “retronym” for the first time in his “On Language” column in The New York Times about Frank Mankiewicz, then the president of National Public Radio.
According to Merriam-Webster, a retronym is defined as “a term (such as analog watch, film camera, or snail mail) that is newly created and adopted to distinguish the original or older version, form, or example of something (such as a product) from other, more recent versions, forms, or examples.”
Cameras are a great example of retronyms in use.
“Remember way back when cameras used film? Back then, such devices were simply called cameras; they weren’t specifically called film cameras until they needed to be distinguished from the digital cameras that came later,” Merriam-Webster added.
Linguist Adam Aleksic broke down how retronyms are created in a helpful video.
“A retronym is a new name given to an old thing to help differentiate it from a recent invention,” he said. “Like the way we use ‘acoustic’ guitar to differentiate from ‘electric’ guitar, even though ‘acoustic’ guitars use to just be ‘guitars’ because there were no ‘electric’ guitars.”
He offers a few more examples:
“Or when you have to say ‘analog’ watch to specify that what used to actually just be a regular watch is not in fact digital. That’s why ‘World War I’ is no longer ‘The Great War.’ We had to make a retronym for it once we had a second Great War. If you put ‘whole milk’ in ‘regular coffee,’ those are both retronyms because we’ve since invented things like ‘almond milk’ and ‘decaf coffee.’”
Aleksic explains that geography also has retronyms:
“The ‘East Indies’ used to just be the ‘Indies’ until Columbus rediscovered the ‘West Indies.’ And ‘Baja California’ used to just be ‘California’ until the Spaniards sailed a little further north and named what we now think of as ‘California.’ The ‘Continental U.S.’ was just the ‘U.S.’ until we added a few states.”
Finally, he explains another type of retronym: one that is a reduplication of an original word.
“If I want the ‘regular salad’ and not the ‘tuna salad,’ I can ask you to pass the ‘salad salad’ and you’ll know what I mean,” he said.
Ever heard of “highway hypnosis”? If you never went over it in American Driver’s Ed, it’s the phenomenon during which we tend to zone out while driving on long, repetitive stretches of highway or on routes we’ve taken a thousand times. It’s that feeling of pulling into your driveway and having very little recollection of actually getting there.
Suffice it to say, going into pure autopilot mode on the road isn’t ideal. It’s not safe, and we tend to ignore important signage, like speed limits.
One high-traffic area in Wisconsin just debuted a new, eye-catching speed limit
The Outagamie County Recycling and Solid Waste facility in Appleton gets a lot of through-traffic. Big trucks, commercial haulers, and plenty of civilian cars make their way through the facility on any given day.
Keeping a low posted speed limit helps keep everyone safe. Usually, in places like this, you’d see speed limits of 15, 10, or even 5 miles per hour.
Outagamie County went in a slightly more offbeat direction: 17.3 mph. No, it’s not a typo. See for yourself:
The sign isn’t just for laughs. It’s not a temporary fixture meant to get a few likes on social media or encourage people to stop for photo ops.
Its purpose is far more important: to get people to pay attention. The unusual number causes people to do a double-take. Instead of eyes glazing over at yet another 15 mph limit, the 17.3 sticks out like a sore thumb and makes drivers’ brains perk up—and hopefully, their feet ease off the gas.
Kraig Van Groll, the site’s solid waste superintendent, said the sign is working, per Supercar Blondie:
“We’ve definitely seen positive engagement and behavior changes across the site. That includes residents using the site daily, people visiting on tours, and commercial users operating here regularly. If nothing else, it’s really opened the door for more conversations around overall site safety and awareness for all users of the site.”
Jordan Hiller, recycling and solid waste program coordinator, told WBAY-TV that the sign has caused a bit of an “uproar” on social media—in a good way. People get a kick out of it, and it has ultimately done its job: drawing more attention to road safety around the facility.
Not just Wisconsin: Odd speed limits are becoming more common
While major roads and highways will probably stick with nice, round speed limits, smaller areas—shopping centers, parking lots, private facilities—are turning more and more to eye-catching numbers like Outagamie’s 17.3.
A shopping center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, features an 8.2 mph speed limit:
Some areas are resorting to even more unusual and eye-popping methods, with speed limits that include fractions. This one was featured on Denver local news: a parking lot with an official posted speed of 6 and 7/8 mph:
Safety officials have all kinds of methods to try to keep distracted drivers focused
The science of being behind the wheel is fascinating and often studied. Tons of experiments and studies were conducted on how to get drivers to slow down in certain areas before we came up with radar signs that tell drivers their speed in real time, for example. That visual feedback has been shown to be effective at reducing speeds.
Roads in America are also full of speed bumps, rumble strips, and reflectors designed to break drivers’ autopilot patterns.
It’s part psychology and part neuroscience; a big reason we slip into autopilot mode, or highway hypnosis, has to do with the way our brain waves work. According to Radar Sign, “Shifting a driver from a Theta ‘autopilot’ state to a Beta ‘engaged’ state requires a trigger, identified by the Reticular Activator (RA), responsible for categorizing sensory input.”
Simply put, one of the best ways to keep drivers safe on the road is to present them with something unusual: an input that disrupts the expected pattern. It could be a radar sign, a strip in the road that causes your tires to gently buzz, or now, a speed limit sign so bizarre you can’t help but look twice.
Nearly everyone has suffered from the dreaded flu and can agree that the hacking coughs, achy bones, and sneezing are more than just a tad miserable. The silver lining, if there can be one, is that the flu (and colds in general) brings out some old remedies that some might find rather charming. Even better, some of them may actually work.
In a clip from the late 1950s on the BBC Archive Facebook page, a random assortment of men and women are asked for their personal “flu cures.” Their answers ranged from typical homespun ideas like hot tea and plenty of water to more curious alternative remedies. But many were eager to share their personal treatments and seemed sure of their effectiveness.
Shot on black-and-white film, British interviewers Fyfe Robertson and Alan Whicker ask people what they do or take when they have the flu. One woman answers, “Well I take Vitamin C and lemon, barley, and whiskey.” The next man agrees that he can “defy the virus” with whiskey and tea, but adds bacon, porridge, and eggs.
In fact, quite a few included whiskey in their flu routine. “I’m a great believer in whiskey,” one man proudly shares. “I’m like a Scotch man. I believe in a drop of whiskey, warm, and it sort of kills the germs.”
In keeping with the alcohol angle, another Brit answers, “A jolly good hot rum punch. And a jolly good sweat, and stop in bed until it’s all over.”
“Elderflower wine,” says an older woman. “If you take a good glassful tonight, and you go to bed, and you sweat it out, you know, and you’re alright in a day or two.”
Not everyone used alcohol in their remedies. One woman swaps the whiskey for water: “Rinse your inside out continually with boiled water. About four or five half-pint glasses a day, boiled water.”
But then things get interesting. A woman clad in an oversized sweater coat shares this trick: “Well my remedy for the flu is to get a small Spanish onion, chop it up finely, and put some brown sugar over it and a little vinegar. And then when it turns into a syrup, take a spoonful before you go to bed. It’s a very good remedy.”
A man, seemingly eager to share his mother’s recipe, steps in: “Well my mother recommends an old sweaty sock with salt right round your throat. A good pullover and a good hot water bottle. Sweat it out.”
Now things take a turn for the more unique. “There is a good cure in mustard and lard,” one woman says. “And you rub the two well together and get a good blend. I don’t know how to do it, but my father does.” After the interviewer asks if one should eat it or rub it on one’s chest, she clarifies: “Rub it on your chest, on the front and the back, and it’s a good cure.”
Just when it seemed that possibly “mustard and lard” were the most interesting answers, the woman next to her takes the cake: “Goose grease. You can rub that on your chest. You know, after you’ve been cooking the goose, then keep the grease and run it on your chest.”
This next idea is a bit complicated, but it also involves goose grease: “A large piece of brown paper and cut it to go under the arms and you warm it first, and get hot warm goose grease and then spread mustard over the brown paper first. Get warm goose grease, which most people have got in the house. You spread it over the mustard on the paper to avoid burning of the skin. And should inflammation be setting in, as the doctor says does sometimes, you boil the elderflower and give the patient a dose of elderflower water.”
Understandably, the reporter pushes back: “But then do you go to bed with this brown paper? Don’t you find it a bit messy?” She answers with a resounding yes, adding, “And the goose grease avoids it from burning.”
And just when it seems like someone is going back to a more popular cure, it takes a turn: “I take a nice big tumbler full of hot lemonade. Put in about three teaspoons full of rum. Two aspirin. Get into bed and cover myself well. Tie the stocking that I’ve been wearing around my feet. One of them around my throat with a safety pin, and stay in bed and sweat it out.”
Finally, a younger gentleman is asked his “best way to cure the flu.” His answer is rather philosophical: “Well, just think that you haven’t got it.” He adds a few other ideas about onions and then shocks the interviewer with this final thought: “I’ve still got it now, and I’m about.”
“You’ve got the flu now, have ya?” the interviewer asks. “Well in that case, I won’t keep you another minute.”
Reactions
Just this clip has 35,000 likes and over a thousand comments. And perhaps not super surprisingly, many Facebook users back up the remedy claims:
“After all, where do people think ‘medicine’ comes from? My Hungarian grandfather would eat raw garlic if he felt under the weather. Drank tea daily with a little red wine in it. Lived to be 101.”
“Whiskey and stinky socks are to men as goose grease and mustard are to women.”
“How Alan Wicker (sic) kept a straight face to these people being interviewed is amazing.”
Putting some of these cures to the test
Onions
According to the National Library of Medicine, onions do in fact contain antibacterial properties: “Onion skin possesses various health benefits due to its phenolic and antimicrobial components.”
Time published an entire piece called “Medicine: The Healing Onion,” where they discuss the roots of this theory:
“The onion, at one time or another, has been enthusiastically recommended as a remedy for colds in the head and worms in the intestines. For centuries, the onion’s medicinal value has been praised by witch doctors, old wives, and bartenders. Rome’s Pliny the Elder listed the onion as a cure for 28 diseases. Early New England settlers believed that the onion would prevent fits; Neapolitans of the Middle Ages thought it averted the evil eye. A 16th Century French surgeon, Ambroise Parè, used it instead of ointment to heal powder burns.”
While they have more recently found that the onion itself doesn’t create health benefits, cutting the onion actually does, according to Time:
“Food Chemist Edward F. Kohman has found that the active chemical agent in onions is a thioaldehyde, a close relative of the common antiseptic, formaldehyde. Chemist Kohman put raw onions through an ordinary household meat grinder, distilled the onion vapors, put them through a series of chemical tests. In a recent issue of Science, he reported finding about 1/20 of a gram of thioaldehyde in a pound of raw onions.
The germ-killing thioaldehyde, Kohman said last week, probably does not exist as such in the onion. More likely, it is produced by the complicated enzyme activity that goes on in the onion when it is cut. Cooking would eliminate it completely; a boiled onion is no more good for a cold than a boiled turnip. But chewing a raw onion might help a cold (it would undoubtedly prevent the spread of colds by keeping non-onion eaters away from the cold sufferer).”
“Although no clinical research supports their claims, advocates of wearing wet socks to bed to cure a cold are convinced that the practice is effective. Here’s their explanation: When your feet begin to cool, the blood vessels in your feet contract, sending good nutrients to your tissues and organs. Then, when your feet begin to warm up, the blood vessels dilate, which releases the toxins in the tissue. The technique most recommended includes two pairs of socks: one pair of thin cotton socks and one pair of heavy wool socks.”
And while they can’t claim it works completely, they note that many believe it does, which can be enough:
“There’s no scientific evidence that wearing wet socks to bed will cure your cold. But there’s anecdotal evidence. One explanation for people believing that it works could be the placebo effect.”
Whiskey and other alcohol
Since so many mentioned whiskey (and rum), we took a look at that claim too. Sad news: this one appears to be nothing but a myth.
Again, turning to Healthline, they take the claims step by step to debunk them. Some believe that because alcohol is a “disinfectant,” it should help kill viruses and bacteria:
“It’s true that alcohol is a key component of hand sanitizers, which help kill germs that you may pick up when you touch contaminated surfaces. However, alcohol is only effective as a topical disinfectant. In other words, it works on the surface of your skin, but not as a disinfectant when you drink it. This means alcohol doesn’t help kill cold viruses or other germs inside your body.”
In fact, though many believe it helps open up the sinuses, it’s not accurate.
“Alcohol is rumored to work as a decongestant, but actually, the reverse is true,” the Healthline article noted. “Small amounts of alcohol can cause vasodilation — a widening of blood vessels — which can worsen a runny nose or congestion. Medicines with pseudoephedrine will tighten blood vessels (vasoconstrict), which is why they can help relieve congestion.”
This doesn’t stop people from sharing their flu-fighting whiskey recipes. Perhaps these, too, create a placebo effect. At least they might be more fun than wet socks.
Christine Kesteloo has become popular on TikTok with over one million followers because she shares what living on a cruise ship is really like. Kesteloo is the wife of the ship’s Staff Chief Engineer, so she gets to live on the boat for free. She only has to pay for alcohol and soda, which she gets for half off according to Business Insider.
So what is life actually like on board?
“I live on a cruise ship for half the year with my husband, and it’s often as glamorous as it sounds,” she told BusinessInsider. “After all, I don’t cook, clean, make my bed, do laundry or pay for food.“
Kesteloo’s life seems pretty stress-free. After all, she’s basically on a permanent vacation. However, even though she lives on a cruise ship as a “wife on board,” there are a few things she either can’t or shouldn’t do.
Here are the four things she cannot do
She shared these four things in a TikTok video with nearly 10 million views.
Kesteloo says she cannot sit at a slot machine and “play my heart out until I win.” She believes it would “look a little weird if I, as the wife of the staff chief engineer, won a big jackpot.”
2. Leaving the ship with the guests
When the ship arrives at a destination, she can’t get off with the guests. She must wait about an hour and exit the vessel with the crew. When returning to the ship, she also has to be on time. “No, they will not wait for us,” she says. And the same goes for her husband, if they “miss the ship, someone else will take over the role.”
3. Sitting in a crowded pool
Although Kesteloo has access to the pool, gym, and all the ship’s amenities, she’s cautious not to interfere with the guests’ good time. She’ll exit the pool if it’s busy because “it’s just the right thing to do.”
4. Traveling without international traveler insurance
She must have insurance in case of a misfortune on the ship. But as a citizen of the Netherlands, they already have coverage and just have to pay a few extra dollars a month.
The comments had one big question
Though folks generally welcomed Kesteloo’s advice, some of the most popular commenters on the video were from women regretting that they married men who aren’t chief engineers on cruise ships or those who want to know where to find a single one.
“OK, can you explain how to marry a cruise ship engineer?” one female commenter wrote.
“How. in. the. H E double hockey sticks do I become the wife of a cruise ship engineer???? I don’t have to work AND cruise for free!” another added.
“Does he have any single friends with same job??? Asking for me,” one more asked.
For even more tips on living this charmed life, follow Kesteloo on TikTok. Who knows, by now she might even have some advice for landing your own cruise ship engineer spouse.
This article originally appeared three years ago. It has been updated.
Linguist and self-professed “etymology nerd” Adam Aleksic shared a video on TikTok explaining how many common phrases we use for thinking directly reference walking. We often use metaphors in our speech, of course, but there are many that we likely don’t even recognize as metaphors.
He starts with “by the way,” which literally means being next to the way, or the path we’re supposed to be on. It indicates that we’re taking a mental detour from the path we were supposed to be on to introduce something unrelated. On the other hand, when we’re talking about something that is actually on the path we’re meant to be on, we say, “of course,” which literally means “of the path.”
“We use this metaphor all the time when we say, ‘you’re on track’ or ‘you’re way off,’ literally implying that you’re not where you should be on the ‘path’ of thinking,” Aleksic says, explaining that there’s a greater metaphor at play here that “thinking is walking.”
Once you see some examples, it becomes so clear. Our minds “race” or “wander,” our thoughts “stray,” and we “arrive” at conclusions.
“All this relies on physical motion, even though your mind is stationary,” says Aleksic. “But it’s from that idea (that thoughts can walk) that we can then go ahead and make statements about our own cognition. Like how I just used ‘from,’ originally a preposition for motion, and ‘go ahead’ to indicate continuation. Once you know thoughts can walk, you can ‘follow’ them down ‘a line of thinking’ until you ‘come to’ a resolution.”
Here are a few more you’ll recognize
Even a saying as common as “Way to go!” is a metaphor indicating that you are on the correct path.
Once you start thinking about it, it’s easy to come up with many more examples of how we conceptualize thinking as walking:
“Let’s circle back.”
“Walk me through your thinking.”
“I’m backtracking here.”
“The thought crossed my mind.”
“No way.”
“Let’s move on.”
Other languages do the same thing
Some commenters shared that their languages use similar metaphors:
“In Norwegian you can say ‘du er på helt på bærtur’ when someone is way off, and it means that you are on a berry trip, specifically blueberry trip.”
“In Czech, you say btw as ”mimochodem’, while mimo means outside and chodem means a step or a walk, so literally meaning by the walk.”
“En passant in french is the same way. It’s like ‘I passed near this thought’ while on my way to another thought.”
There’s something to be said for “thinking is walking” even beyond the metaphorical way we describe our thoughts. Many of the world’s greatest thinkers were also obsessive walkers.
Science backs this up, too
In 2014, Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz of Stanford University conducted a foundational series of studies on 176 people, mostly college students, to see if walking had any effect on different types of thinking. In one test, they had some people walk outside and others walk on a treadmill to see if the environment made a difference.
It didn’t. Wherever people walked, their answers were more creative than those who sat or were pushed in a wheelchair. Participants consistently came up with more creative responses on tests commonly used to measure creative thinking, such as thinking of alternate uses for common objects or coming up with original analogies to capture complex ideas.
“Incorporating physical activity into our lives is not only beneficial for our hearts but our brains as well,” Oppezzo said. “This research suggests an easy and productive way to weave it into certain work activities.” Could we perhaps say, “walking is thinking” in addition to “thinking is walking”?
A 2021 study of students in Japan found similar correlations between walking and strong responses on alternate use tests that measure divergent thinking.
So it appears at least some types of thinking are enhanced by walking, which of course makes it all the more fun that we use so many walking metaphors to describe our thoughts.
You can follow Adam Aleksic for more on TikTok here or check out his book, Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language, here.
This article originally appeared one year ago. It has been updated.
The case called attention to the fact that there are motifs and musical structures common in pop music that no one owns, and all are free to use. When it comes to chord progressions, the 12-bar blues and basic I, IV, V, I progressions you hear in country and folk have been used and reused since people first picked up the guitar.
In the wrong hands, the progressions can result in music that is boring and formulaic, but in the right hands, they can be a springboard for fresh ideas.
Guitarist playing their instrument. Photo credit: Canva
A comedy group proved the point perfectly
In 2009, Australian comedy group Axis Of Awesome did a funny sketch showing how one four-chord progression, famous for being the basis of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” has been used countless times by musicians to great effect.
They played a medley of 38 major hits using the same progression to prove their point. For musicians, it’s known as the I–V–vi–IV progression, and when played in the key of C it would be C, G, Am, F.
Warning: Video contains strong language.
Here are all 38 songs in the medley
“Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey
“You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt
“Forever Young” by Alphaville
“I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz
“Happy Ending” by Mika
“Amazing” by Alex Lloyd
“Wherever You Will Go” by The Calling
“Can You Feel The Love Tonight” by Elton John
“She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5
“Pictures Of You” by The Last Goodnight
“With Or Without You” by U2
“Fall At Your Feet” by Crowded House
“Not Pretty Enough” by Kasey Chambers
“Let It Be” by The Beatles
“Under the Bridge” by Red Hot Chili Peppers
“The Horses” by Daryl Braithwaite
“No Woman No Cry” by Bob Marley
“Sex and Candy” by Marcy Playground
“Land Down Under” by Men at Work
“Waltzing Matilda” by Banjo Paterson
“Take On Me” by A-ha
“When I Come Around” by Green Day
“Save Tonight” by Eagle Eye Cherry
“Africa” by Toto
“If I Were A Boy” by Beyoncé
“Self Esteem” by The Offspring
“You’re Gonna Go Far Kid” by The Offspring
“U + Ur Hand” by Pink
“Poker Face” by Lady Gaga
“Barbie Girl” by Aqua
“You Found Me” by The Fray
“Don’t Trust Me” by 30h!3
“Kids” by MGMT
“Canvas Bags” by Tim Minchin
“Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia
“Superman” by Five for Fighting
“Birdplane” by Axis of Awesome
“Scar” by Missy Higgins
And the official video has even more songs
It’s quite an extensive (and, as they prove, accurate) list, but that’s not all. In the summer of 2011, Axis of Awesome released an official music video of “4 Chords” on their YouTube channel, which included even more songs such as Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister,” The Black Eyed Peas’ “Where is the Love?”, John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and even Men at Work’s “Land Down Under” in addition to many, many, many more.
Check it out:
Axis of Awesome officially broke up in August 2018 after a year-long break in 2017. Though the trio is no longer performing together, the impact of “4 Chords” goes on and on…much like the use of that musical progression. And, while all these songs may use the same four chords, you’ve got to admit they’re all bangers, so we’re not mad at it.
This article originally appeared three years ago. It has been updated.
You get tickets to visit the local natural history museum, and you’re psyched to spend an afternoon learning about ancient artwork, the evolution of local species, and seeing lots and lots of dinosaur bones. However, after 30 minutes, you start to yawn, look for a bench to sit on, and realize you’re not exactly stoked to walk through the next long corridor to see the buffalo exhibit.
What happened? Are you really just fooling yourself when you say you’re into an afternoon of culture? No, not at all. The reason you got exhausted so quickly was first identified 110 years ago by Benjamin Ives Gilman, secretary of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, who called it “museum fatigue,” and it’s a real phenomenon. Gilman outlined it in a paper for The Scientific Monthly.
What is “museum fatigue”?
“‘Museum fatigue’ is an admitted evil, hitherto tacitly accepted as admitting only relief. May not a study of how it comes about suggest some means of prevention?” Gilman wrote. He introduced the topic in The Scientific Monthly through a series of photographs showing how people had to stand in uncomfortable positions to study artwork.
Even though a stroll through an art museum seems like a great way to relax on a weekend, it’s actually a physically and mentally exhausting experience.
1. Displays aren’t at eye level
Since Gilman’s original piece, curators have worked to place more exhibits at eye level for the average person. However, museums have become increasingly immersive, and patrons are often required to crane their necks upward to see bones suspended from the ceiling or lean in close to ancient hieroglyphs to see the details. This can create physical strain throughout the body.
A museum can be mentally draining because your brain, which uses up to 20% of the body’s metabolic energy, is busy soaking in new information. After 30 minutes, the brain can enter cognitive overload, where taking in new information becomes increasingly difficult. It’s like sitting through a college lecture where, toward the end, you just can’t retain any new information.
3. Repetition
If you walk into a room of art from a particular era, you may see the same themes repeated over and over again, whether it’s another depiction of war or another ancient statue of a woman carrying a large pot of water. After a while, it becomes harder to pay attention.
Museums are often dimly lit to help create a relaxing atmosphere and preserve the artwork. However, this lack of exposure to natural light can make people feel sleepy.
5. Hard flooring
Museum floors are designed to handle thousands of people walking through every day, so they are often made of marble, polished concrete, or dense hardwood. There is little to no shock absorption on these surfaces, so throughout your visit, your body receives countless micro-jolts through your skeletal system. After half an hour or so, this can turn walking through a cavernous museum into a slog.
Next time you plan to visit a museum, think of it as an intense mental and physical experience and plan your day accordingly. Understand that you may need to take a few breaks or split the experience into multiple visits to get the most out of it. Also, wear comfy shoes.
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