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13 times Ohio State's marching band threw hilarious next-level shade on Michigan

By next-level, we mean WOW.

@historyinmemes/X

Ohio State's marching band throwing the Michigan flag into the "trash."

What do you get when you mix a 127-year college football rivalry with highly competitive and talented musicians? The Best Damn Band in the Land, that's what.

Ohio State's marching band, which unjokingly refers to itself The Best Damn Band in the Land—or TBDBITL for short—even has the acronym for the nickname included in its website URL.

The rivalry between The Ohio State University and University of Michigan football teams is legendary, and so is the back-and-forth between their marching bands. Ohio State just keeps upping its delightfully petty game of trolling Michigan in its pregame and halftime shows, much to the delight of Ohio State fans.

In one performance, the Ohio State marching band members form two ships, one bearing the Michigan flag and one bearing Ohio State, and the Ohio State ship "sinks" the Michigan one. In another, the create a car race between the two teams with Ohio State hitting the "finish line" first. In another, the band storms a Michigan castle and replaces its banners with Ohio State flags.

Michigan's flag has been thrown away, donkey kicked, smashed with sledge hammers, stomped on, sliced with scissors and more as the TBDBITL members pull off impressive feats of choreography, all while playing their instruments.

Even if you don't give a rip about college football or either of these teams, you gotta admit this is unbelievably cool:

— (@)

Marching bands don't often get the respect they deserve, especially in the shadow of the big football programs they support. But what these folks do is not easy. They work hard—in fact, one study found that “the physical challenges and demands of participating in competitive marching band is similar to athletes who compete in sports."

Add in the skill of playing a musical instrument and the coordination it takes to do both in a highly choreographed performance, and phew. Seriously, give these kids some accolades.

And in case you were wondering, yes, Michigan's marching band does similar trash-walking in their performances, such as this 2021 game in which they made Ohio State lose a game of beer pong:

Michigan marching band just performed a beer pong skit with an Ohio State ping pong ball missing the cup and a Michigan ball going in the cup.
— (@)

People can root for whatever team they want, but I think we should all root for the marching bands, whatever side they're on. They certainly deserve it.

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marching bands

Non-Muslim students formed a protective circle.

Just days after the election, a Muslim student at the University of Michigan was approached by a stranger who ordered her to remove her hijab under threat that he would set her on fire.

According to Nusayba Tabbah, the internal vice president of the school's Muslim Students' Association, this was not an isolated event, but rather, an acceleration of an anti-Muslim climate on campus.

— (@)

In response, the school's Muslim students decided to reclaim their space on campus — a reminder that they have the same right to be there as any other student.

MSA program committee member Rami Ebrahim suggested the group gather to pray one of their five daily prayers, ishaa, in public. In doing so, the community would be making a powerful statement, letting those who seek to antagonize them know that they will not be bullied into hiding who they are and what they believe.

The Muslim Student Association held a group Ishaa prayer at University of Michigan, with two hundred non-Muslims standing guard in a circle around them
Posted by MSA National on Monday, November 14, 2016

A few non-Muslim friends were asked to circle around the group during the prayer as a show of solidarity. What they got was so much more.

"I was surprised and overwhelmed by the number of people there — both Muslim and non-Muslim," Tabbah wrote in an email. The crowd was made up of an estimated 300 people.

Mohammed Ishtiaq, University of Michigan’s Muslim chaplain, leads prayer. Photo by Benji Bear.

"It reminded me that I have a lot to be grateful for," she continued. "We are part of an amazing community that has repeatedly spoken out about the growing hostility towards Muslims and other minorities."

Photo by Benji Bear.

Solidarity and compassion for one another is crucial. Nobody should be made to live in fear because of their religious beliefs or skin color.

"We must not stand silent while facing expressions of bigotry, discrimination or hate that have become part of our national political discourse,” wrote school president Mark Schlissel in an email to students.

Photo by Benji Bear.

Right now, more than any other time in recent history, we must stand on the side of acceptance; we must stand against bigotry. The Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks hate crimes and hate groups, has found the uptick in hate crimes to be greater in the current post-election landscape than even in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Since Election Day, the group has logged more than 400 events of harassment and intimidation.

Now is the time to be an ally to Muslims and other minorities, and that means taking action.

For one, it's important to educate yourselves and to help educate others. Tabbah recommends getting to know your Muslim neighbors, noting that many people who fear or hate Muslims simply don't know any.

Photo by Benji Bear.

Just as important: We can't let this type of bigotry and harassment become the accepted norm.

"I think it's important to speak out when we hear or see something wrong," Tabbah adds.

"We can't let ourselves become desensitized to hateful rhetoric because that just normalizes it."

Photo by Benji Bear.

We don't have to give in to a culture of fear. We can fight back. We can be a force for good in this world.

Family

Scientists just made a wild discovery: Addiction has genetic markers.

A cure for addiction might be found using, of all things, cocaine and rats.

Any elementary schooler who's completed a D.A.R.E. program can tell you about the dangers of addiction.

Remember this? Yep. Me too. Photo via U.S. Navy/Wikimedia Commons.

Far more difficult to explain, however, is how addiction can be passed from generation to generation.

We sometimes use labels like "addictive personality" for people who are born with what seems like a tendency toward addiction ... but do we know exactly which parts of the brain these addictive tendencies stem from? And if we did, would we then be able to prevent addiction before it ever became an issue?

Thanks to an all-star team of researchers, the answer to both of these questions seems to be "yes."

Researchers think we might be able to prevent addiction before it starts.

How did they come to this conclusion? With rats. Cocaine-addicted rats.

Photo via iStock.

Researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Alabama at Birmingham published a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal in April 2016, claiming that they found certain genetic differences in rats who are susceptible to addiction.

Image by PublicDomainPictures/Pixabay.

According to the study's lead author, Shelly B. Flagel, addiction can be linked to two basic genes: fibroblast growth factor and dopamine D2 receptor.

“If [the rats] have certain low versus high levels of one of these molecules, then they can be a candidate for treatment to prevent addiction in the first place. Or, if we know that they’re an addict, to prevent relapse," said Flagel to Inverse.

As dreadful as it may sound, humans and rats are almost identical on a genetic level.

Photo via iStock.

So even though this link was only found in rats, there's a strong chance that the link could be present in humans too.

The Human Genome Project explains that "the rat genome contains about the same number of genes as the human genome ... and almost all human genes known to be associated with diseases have counterparts in the rat genome and appear highly conserved through mammalian evolution, confirming that the rat is an excellent model for many areas of medical research."

Once we know for sure what these "addiction genes" look like in rats, eventually we might be able to identify those genes in humans.

Someday, we might even be able to identify these "addiction precursors" in humans with something as simple as a blood or saliva test.

Basically, this research on cocaine-addicted rats could help us prevent addiction in humans before it becomes an issue.

“That’s one benefit of this study — that we were able to look at essentially genetically similar animals, and say, this is what their brains look like before they’ve been exposed to cocaine, and then this is what they look like after they’ve gone through this prolonged self-administration paradigm and develop or exhibit these addiction-like behaviors,” said Flagel.

“It’s just providing further evidence that this is clearly a key molecule."

So in the fight to stop addiction, it seems that a useful resource is...

GIF via "Review."

Oh, the irony. Science is truly an amazing, confusing, wonderful thing.

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university of michigan

13 times Ohio State's marching band threw hilarious next-level shade on Michigan

By next-level, we mean WOW.

Allies took a stand for praying Muslim students at the University of Michigan.

Non-Muslim students formed a protective circle.

Just days after the election, a Muslim student at the University of Michigan was approached by a stranger who ordered her to remove her hijab under threat that he would set her on fire.

In response, the school's Muslim students decided to reclaim their space on campus — a reminder that they have the same right to be there as any other student.

"I was surprised and overwhelmed by the number of people there — both Muslim and non-Muslim," Tabbah wrote in an email. The crowd was made up of an estimated 300 people.

Solidarity and compassion for one another is crucial. Nobody should be made to live in fear because of their religious beliefs or skin color.

Now is the time to be an ally to Muslims and other minorities, and that means taking action.

"I think it's important to speak out when we hear or see something wrong," Tabbah adds.

We don't have to give in to a culture of fear. We can fight back. We can be a force for good in this world.

Scientists just made a wild discovery: Addiction has genetic markers.

A cure for addiction might be found using, of all things, cocaine and rats.

Any elementary schooler who's completed a D.A.R.E. program can tell you about the dangers of addiction.

Far more difficult to explain, however, is how addiction can be passed from generation to generation.

Researchers think we might be able to prevent addiction before it starts.

As dreadful as it may sound, humans and rats are almost identical on a genetic level.

Once we know for sure what these "addiction genes" look like in rats, eventually we might be able to identify those genes in humans.

So in the fight to stop addiction, it seems that a useful resource is...

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