News Sidequest

Oxford researchers just published the most comprehensive answer yet to why 90% of humans favor their right hand — and it turns out it has everything to do with how we learned to walk. Also: a three-bedroom colonial on Nantucket that sold for $3 million five months ago is yours for free — you just have to move it off the property in 180 days, and the moving bill runs between $150,000 and $500,000. And the debate over whether human brains have been shrinking for thousands of years is genuinely unresolved — with one side saying yes, and the reasons pointing toward collective intelligence, and another side saying the data doesn't hold up. Plus a six-year-old who may be the rightful King of Norway, a Qantas flight diverted by a man who bit a flight attendant, and a 100-year overdue library book.

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The research on money and happiness has been debated for 15 years, but the most current numbers adjusted for inflation put the sweet spot around $100,000 to $111,000 — and the story of why problems scale beyond that is more interesting than the headline. Also: Dawn Zuidgeest-Craft got a microscope when she was seven years old, wanted to be a doctor her whole life, raised four children, worked as a neonatal nurse practitioner for 45 years, used her retirement savings to attend medical school in her late 60s, and is graduating this month at 72. And Gen Z — the generation raised on Amazon and Instagram — is driving a shopping mall renaissance, and the reason why is actually the same reason they put down their phones for a month. Plus sleeping Windsor Castle guards, the TSA's official position on rotisserie chicken, Southwest's robot ban, and the great glutes longevity story.

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At NC State's Wilson College of Textiles commencement on May 8th, donor Anil Kochhar stood up and announced he and his wife were paying off the final-year student loans for all 202 graduates — in honor of his father, who came from Punjab, India to study there in 1946. Also: a man who changed his Bitcoin wallet password while high eleven years ago just recovered $400,000 worth of cryptocurrency by dumping his old college computer files into an AI — which found an older wallet file he didn't know existed. And a new academic study finds tarot readers are increasingly using AI to interpret their cards, which raises a genuinely interesting question about why people consult tarot in the first place. Plus drunk deer in France, a ChatGPT confession, the Alabama annoyance defense, and a wine bottle hidden somewhere remarkable.

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Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth researchers just published a national education scorecard and the reading results are sobering — scores have been declining since 2013, well before COVID, and the states making gains all have one thing in common. Also: new data shows college-educated dads cut their paid work by six hours a week and added four hours of childcare between 2019 and 2024 — the biggest shift in household labor in decades. And a new JAMA study of 76 million children finds that 15% — 11 million kids — had a family member criminally charged in the past five years, triple the rate from 2000. Plus the Knight Rider car's speeding ticket, a Zoltar machine with a winning lottery number, the vomit fee restaurant, and a fertilizer spill on a Pennsylvania highway.

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Adult band camps are having a moment — and they're being described as an antidote to isolation, which tells you something about why they're catching on right now. Also: the optimism research is genuinely interesting — optimistic brains are measurably different, they process good and bad news in distinct ways, and about 80% of people have an optimism bias they don't even know about. And Oxford physicist Vlatko Vedral just published a piece in Popular Mechanics arguing that your alternate universe selves are literally shaping your fate — and the physics behind it is more grounded than it sounds. Plus the Manson mansion for rent, fingerprint theft from selfies, Dante as the Simpsons of the 14th century, and federal charges on a Carnival cruise.

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A new Gallup poll of 141 countries finds young Americans are more pessimistic about the job market than their older counterparts — creating a generational gap bigger than any other country in the survey. Historically, young Americans have always been more optimistic than older ones, even through the Great Recession. That pattern just broke. Also: the American Academy of Pediatrics just released its first new recess guidance in 13 years, and one of the doctors accidentally summarized the whole thing perfectly: "We all kind of need recess." And a professor in Searcy, Arkansas spent a week noticing his shoes had moved, food was disappearing, and chairs kept turning up in different places — before his family found a man living in a storage closet under his basement stairs. Plus an earthquake machine under the Alps, a pencil running for governor, a hospital wall smashing, and a dead rat in an energy drink.

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A new survey of 6,400 older Americans finds that looking back, people report peak life satisfaction at age 52 — and the reasons why make a lot of sense once you hear them. Also: a major new study finds that one specific flavor of anxious, neurotic personality is linked to a 35% lower risk of death over 15 years — and the mechanism behind it is genuinely interesting. And the Wall Street Journal spent time with the Hadzabe of Tanzania, one of the last true hunter-gatherer societies on Earth, who are quietly debating whether to join the modern world. The answer, in my opinion, should be no. Plus AI self-replication, Bigfoot sightings in Ohio, a brain-eating amoeba warning, and someone tracking private jets to predict the apocalypse.

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A new study confirms what every teenager already knew: they're not telling their parents about the sketchy stuff they see online, because they're afraid of the freak out that would follow. Also: just one night of bad sleep can spike the exact brain proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease by 25 to 30 percent — and a week of poor sleep makes it worse. And four volunteers at NASA's Johnson Space Center just hit 200 days inside a 1,700 square foot 3D-printed habitat pretending to be on Mars, with 178 days still to go. Plus a hacked robot lawn mower, a Buddhist robot monk, two Florida alligators, and a bear that wanted a pastry.

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A new study finds 37% of Americans have ended a friendship, family relationship, or romantic partnership over political differences — and the rate has accelerated since 2016. Also: a new Allianz retirement study finds 67% of Americans are now more worried about running out of money than about dying, up 10 points in just three years. And a Texas A&M researcher has identified the specific compounds in coffee that explain why it's been linked to longer life and lower disease risk for decades — and it has nothing to do with caffeine. Plus a 28-year-old posing as a high school student, Apophis getting closer, a Wile E. Coyote car crash, and a woman who took poultry protection very seriously.

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A new survey finds the average American with a $79,000 household income would spend $57,000 a year — nearly three-quarters of it — just to feel okay. Also: a TikToker named Hunter Peterson posted a joke video about buying Spirit Airlines after it shut down Saturday, and 125,000 people pledged $88 million in four days. And a major 15-year study of nearly 40,000 older adults finds that eating at least one egg a week is associated with a 27% lower risk of Alzheimer's — and the mechanism actually makes sense this time. Plus a porta-potty explosion, a man whose seizure saved his life, children drawing fake mustaches to bypass age checks, and 64 stolen calves.

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