With solar rays in full force, wearing sunglasses is more than just a matter of comfort and style — UV-blocking shades can help protect your peepers from cataracts, eye cancer, and other conditions. And different colored lenses offer different benefits when it comes to things like light filtering and perception. For instance, yellow tinted lenses are scientifically proven to boost contrast sensitivity, while brown lenses can ease eye strain and improve depth perception. Learn more about how varying lens hues affect vision, courtesy of Popular Science. — the Nice News team
Featured Story
What Happens in the Body When Your Heart Is Broken — And How to Heal It
Malte Mueller/ fStop via Getty Images
When was the last time you had your heart broken over a relationship ending — and on a scale of 1-10, just how awful did you feel? For Assistant Editor Rebekah Brandes, the pain ranked at a solid 11, and many of you can likely relate. From the comfort of the present, that past experience provided fertile ground for questions about the science behind heartbreak: What actually goes on in the body when we go through something so emotionally painful, and are there ways to speed up the healing process? Explore the answers to both at the link below.
Warren Buffett says a "great business is the one that takes very little capital and grows a lot." Well, this couldn't describe ConsumerDirect any better. From the start, it's grown from completely bootstrapped to now over $100 million in gross revenue in 20241 alone, building a profitable, fast-growing business. All without outside venture capital or private equity. The secret? Helping address the $130 billion Americans overpay on loans and other financial products6 by providing the right tools and technology. No wonder ConsumerDirect's credit-maximizing tools have more than 300,000 monthly active users.17 Now, after reserving the ticker symbol CNDR24, ConsumerDirect is preparing for a potential public listing.8 And given its employee-owned story, the company is turning to everyday investors instead of VCs. Share in ConsumerDirect's growth as an investor as it prepares for future milestones.
This is a paid advertisement for Consumer Direct's CF offering. Please read the offering circular at https://invest.consumerdirect.com/. Reserving the ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on a national securities exchange is subject to approvals. Important details available in disclosures #1, #6, #8, #17 & #24 of the attached link: https://bit.ly/3YApFU6.
This Week's Top Stories
Environment
Hawaii Is Dropping Containers of Mosquitoes Over Forests — For a Good Cause
Nancy Strohm/ iStock
Drones flying through the sky and dropping containers filled with thousands of mosquitoes may not sound like "nice news," but bear with us. This seemingly strange scene is unfolding over forests in Hawaii as a conservation strategy to save the state's endangered native birds, mainly honeycreepers, that have been wiped out due to avian malaria. The buzzy solution — spearheaded by a partnership called Birds, Not Mosquitoes — is to release male mosquitoes, which don't bite (phew), over Maui and Kauai. The lab-engineered insects carry an otherwise harmless bacteria that interferes with reproduction, thus shrinking the population of biting mosquitoes. That will hopefully reduce the spread of malaria and give the birds a better chance of survival. Although this effort was previously executed via helicopter drops, the team recently opted for drones because they don't require humans to be on board. Another perk: They're easier to deploy on short notice, which comes in handy as Hawaii's weather is often variable. "What this does is it erects an invisible barrier so that these mosquitoes can't get up to the forests where these birds remain," Chris Farmer, the program director of the American Bird Conservancy, told Vox. He added: "This is the last chance to save most of our remaining songbirds. When we've succeeded, the birds will come back." Watch the drone drops in action.
Science
"Revolutionary": World's Largest Digital Camera Debuts Its First Images of the Cosmos
RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/T. Matsopoulos
A groundbreaking observatory in Chile is off to a sparkling start, as evidenced by the debut images released Monday. While the initial photos are all mesmerizing (you can check them out here), they're just a sliver of what's to come from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a massive U.S.-funded telescope perched at the summit of Cerro Pachón. "These images are fantastic. They're incredibly high-resolution. But they're just a tiny, tiny fraction of what's been captured," Kevin Reil, a staff scientist with the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, told NPR of the observatory, which is named after an astronomer who made essential contributions to the concept of dark matter. Using the world's largest digital camera, the observatory's main goal is to chart all changes in the sky over a decade, providing researchers an unprecedented amount of data and resulting in a high-def time-lapse of the cosmos. "It's a very special telescope," said Scott Sheppard, an astronomer with Carnegie Science. He added: "It's going to be revolutionary. Astronomers are going to change from observing little areas of the sky to basically data mining. It's going to be like a firehose of data coming in."
Humanity
There's Power in Feeling Hopeful, Study Finds
ipopba/ iStock
In a world that might often feel dominated by things that keep us up at night, holding room for hope can be easier said than done. But being hopeful doesn't just feel nice — it's key to bringing meaning to our lives, perhaps even more so than feelings of happiness and gratitude, recent research found. Analyzing six previous studies with more than 2,300 participants from myriad backgrounds, researchers at the University of Missouri studied a range of emotions, including amusement, contentment, excitement, and happiness. They found that hope goes beyond playing a role in goal-settingand motivation and stands out as "a vital emotional experience that enriches life's meaning," co-lead author Megan Edwards said in a press release. And having more meaning in life leads to other positive outcomes, explained fellow lead author Laura King: "Experiencing life as meaningful is crucial for just about every good thing you can imagine in a person's life. This cornerstone of psychological functioning is not a rare experience — it is available to people in their everyday lives and hope is one of the things that make life feel meaningful." While there's no one way to go about cultivating more hope, the university suggests paying close attention to the good moments — and when times are tough, remembering things can (and often do) change. Check out eight more ways to feel more hopeful, even during rough patches.
If you're on Instagram, Elias Weiss Friedman, also known as The Dogist, has likely popped up on your feed at some point. The photographer made a name for himself asking NYC dog owners if he could snap photos of their pups and then posting their stories online, earning himself millions of followers in the process. He's collected and compiled many of those tales in his new book, using them to illustrate the myriad ways dogs make people's lives better — from helping us practice patience to bringing us purpose and deepening our relationships with our fellow humans.
Critics are singing the praises of Bruce Springsteen's new seven-album box set that dropped Friday: The Telegraph went so far as to call it "the greatest musical treasure trove of all time" and Salon referred to the compilation as the "lost albums of a restless genius." Guess that's why he's the Boss, right? The collection spans 35 years of Springsteen's career, and of the 83 tracks, 74 have never been heard. Have a listen at the link above.
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This Week in History
Sony Releases the First Walkman
July 1, 1979
Aflo Co. Ltd. / Alamy Stock Photo
As far as music innovation goes, the release of the Walkman was a pretty massive milestone. Before it launched, the only option music lovers had for toting their tunes was to carry around transistor radios. In fact, the lightweight, handheld cassette player only came to be because Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka wanted to be able to listen to music on long flights, and had asked then-Executive Deputy President Norio Ohga to rig something up for him, per Time. When Ibuka saw the result, he pushed to create a marketable version. The company expected to sell 60,000 in the first year — instead, it hit that sales mark in just over two months. Check out how the device has evolved over the years.
Brad's Deals: Hidden Perks of Your Amazon Prime Membership
Free shipping and exclusive shows and movies are perks Amazon members love — but there's a lot more to take advantage of. And if those classic Prime benefits haven't convinced you to join, hidden perks like free music and podcasts, access to lightning deals, and try-before-you-buy just might. Don't miss out, and start getting the most out of Prime today.
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