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What if one of the Earth's natural recycling methods stopped working? Because that just happened.

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Natural Resources Defense Council

Remember "the water cycle" from like 2nd grade?

To recap: Liquid water gets evaporated by the sun and turns into condensation in the sky, which moves with the clouds and then gets turned back into rain (or snow, or sleet, or...), which falls back down to Earth and eventually runs off back into a major body of water and evaporates again, and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

Hooray Earth!


Now for a visual:


Image by John Evans and Howard Periman/U.S. Geological Survey.

If you don't remember this from elementary school, it's probably because you were distracted by this other incredible (fictional) feature of the ocean:

GIF from "The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure."

It's one of Earth's built-in features and a crucial component of our ecosystem. It would totally suck if we broke that.

Clouds and rain and sunshine and, well, everything that qualifies as "weather" are affected by water circulation — and it makes life on earth possible.

It causes things like how water from the Pacific gets dumped over London, or how the cold fronts collaborate with winds to spread seeds across across the Amazon rain forest that get buried by soil runoff (and fertilized by rain from the Arctic Circle) and sprout into trees that bear fruit, which feed the animals and humans alike, and then —

You get the picture, right?

Aquaman <3 water circulation. GIF from "The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure."

Water circulation isn't just a neat little feature like that weird backup-assist camera on your car (those things freak me out). It's the wheels that keep the world in motion. (Wheels ... cycles ... seasons — are you sensing a motif here?)

It's what has allowed the Earth to keep running these past 3.5 billion years without having to go back into the shop for a tune-up or left for weeks with GalactiCare tech support.

Too bad it's already broken. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


GIF from "The All-New Super Friends Hour."

See, while global temperatures continue to rise, there's one patch of Atlantic Ocean up near Greenland that insists on keeping cool. It doesn't sound like the worst thing, until we consider the global ramifications.

Why is this happening? In the same way that hot air rises, warm saltwater is less dense than cold saltwater, and when the cold saltwater sinks below the warm, it helps create currents in the water. (This is called Thermohaline Circulation, or THC. No, not that THC.)

But! Cold freshwater stays near the top. And right now there's a lot more cold freshwater pouring into the Atlantic Ocean due to melting ice sheets.


Poor Aquaman. GIF from "Batman: The Brave and the Bold."

So instead of warm saltwater rising to the top and evaporating into warm clouds to be carried by wind across the rest of the European continent, the cold freshwater is evaporating into the cold clouds and ... just kind of staying there, because the Earth's automatic air cycles are expecting a salty warm front and not a dense mass of cold freshwater.

Then, when it finally rains, the cold freshwater goes right back into the ocean and floats back to the top and the same water keeps on circulating in the exact same place.

Kind of defeats the point of that whole interconnected global climate system, huh?

While there's no GalactiCare tech support for planets, we still have a chance to help the Earth heal itself.

Breaking one of the Earth's core functionalities is a lot harder than, say, breaking your iPhone screen by dropping it on the floor again. (Seriously, you should probably get a case for that.)

Even more frightening is that this worsening water circulation problem is just one of the symptoms of the larger climate change issues the world is facing.

Fortunately, we haven't quite passed the point of no return, and it's still possible to fix some of the damage that we've done to the environment.

YAY! GIF from "The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure."

Unfortunately, at the rate we're going, that could all change tomorrow. So we should probably get on that like ASAP.

Sigh :( GIF from "Batman: The Brave and the Bold."

President Obama recently announced a Clean Power Plan for the United States, but we can still come together and demand global climate action before it gets too late.

GIF from "The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure."


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Making new friends as an adult is challenging. While people crave meaningful IRL connections, it can be hard to know where to find them. But thanks to one Facebook Group, meeting your new best friends is easier than ever.

Founded in 2018, NYC Brunch Squad brings together hundreds of people who come as strangers and leave as friends through its in-person events.

“Witnessing the transformative impact our community has on the lives of our members is truly remarkable. We provide the essential support and connections needed to thrive amid the city's chaos,” shares Liza Rubin, the group’s founder.

Despite its name, the group doesn’t just do brunch. They also have book clubs, seasonal parties, and picnics, among other activities.

NYC Brunch Squad curates up to 10 monthly events tailored to the specific interests of its members. Liza handles all the details, taking into account different budgets and event sizes – all people have to do is show up.

“We have members who met at our events and became friends and went on to embark on international journeys to celebrate birthdays together. We have had members get married with bridesmaids by their sides who were women they first connected with at our events. We’ve had members decide to live together and become roommates,” Liza says.

Members also bond over their passion for giving back to their community. The group has hosted many impact-driven events, including a “Picnic with Purpose” to create self-care packages for homeless shelters and recently participated in the #SquadSpreadsJoy challenge. Each day, the 100 members participating receive random acts of kindness to complete. They can also share their stories on the group page to earn extra points. The member with the most points at the end wins a free seat at the group's Friendsgiving event.

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3,700-year-old Babylonian stone tablet gets translated, changes history

They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.

via UNSW

Dr. Daniel Mansfield and his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia have just made an incredible discovery. While studying a 3,700-year-old tablet from the ancient civilization of Babylon, they found evidence that the Babylonians were doing something astounding: trigonometry!

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Mom’s blistering rant on how men are responsible for all unwanted pregnancies is on the nose

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Mom has something to say... strongly say.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons, are a conservative group who aren't known for being vocal about sex.

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Terrified, emaciated dog comes to life as volunteer sits with him for human connection

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Terrified dog transforms after human sits with him.

There's something about dogs that makes people just want to cuddle them. They have some of the sweetest faces with big curious eyes that make them almost look cartoonish at times. But not all dogs get humans that want to snuggle up with them on cold nights; some dogs are neglected or abandoned. That's where animal shelters come in, and they work diligently to take care of any medical needs and find these animals loving homes.

Volunteers are essential to animal shelters running effectively to fill in the gaps employees may not have time for. Rocky Kanaka has been volunteering to sit with dogs to provide comfort. Recently he uploaded a video of an extremely emaciated Vizsla mix that was doing his best to make himself as small as possible in the corner of the kennel.

Kanaka immediately wanted to help him adjust so he would feel comfortable enough to eat and eventually get adopted. The dog appeared scared of his new location and had actually rubbed his nose raw from anxiety, but everything changed when Kanaka came along.

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She tattooed half her face and you'd never know it. Her skills are just that good.

This incredible medical tattoo technology is giving renewed hope to burn victims.

All images via the CBS/YouTube

Basma Hameed runs a tattoo shop, of sorts...


Meet Samira Omar.

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Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

Updating the kitchen.


Remember those beloved Richard Scarry books?

Books from when you were a kid?

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Voice recordings of people who were enslaved offer incredible first-person accounts of U.S. history

"The results of these digitally enhanced recordings are arresting, almost unbelievable. The idea of hearing the voices of actual slaves from the plantations of the Old South is as powerful—as startling, really—as if you could hear Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee speak." - Ted Koppel

Library of Congress

When we think about the era of American slavery, many of us tend to think of it as the far distant past. While slavery doesn't exist as a formal institution today, there are people living who knew formerly enslaved black Americans first-hand. In the wide arc of history, the legal enslavement of people on U.S. soil is a recent occurrence—so recent, in fact, that we have voice recordings of interviews with people who lived it.

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