Thursday Things: Third Issue
29 August 2019. Vol 1 No 3. By Dan McGirt. #3
Photo by Katie Drazdauskaite on Unsplash
Welcome to Thursday Things!
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Good news! Optimistic people live as much as 15% longer than pessimists, according to a new study spanning thousands of people and three decades. It makes sense. Optimistic people think things can always get better, so are more motivated to stay healthy and avoid unhealthy habits. Pessimists, less so. Ah, but even if you’re a pessimist, you can learn to be more optimistic. Science says so!
Whether you want to improve your outlook on life, or some other aspect, there are thousands of self-improvement books packed with tips, plans, and inspiration. But many people today are turning instead to self-help podcasts. If you can’t get through the paywall at the link, I just summarized the article for you. Three podcasts the author name checks are 10% Happier (about meditation and mindfulness), The Minimalists (helping you be rid of clutter and otherwise happier with fewer things) and The Hardcore Self Help Podcast (which seems to cover a range of self-help topics).
Thursday Things has a strong pro-Pluto bias and we’re glad to see that NASA agrees — Pluto IS a planet. Pluto forever!
Have you bought a new television recently and noticed that movies and other shows look strange, with a sort of hyper-popped “Soap Opera Effect”? You’re not going crazy! This is a real thing, called “motion smoothing” or “video interpolation” that is often a default setting intended to make live sports look better on the screen. Yet, tragically, motion smoothing can ruin other programs, such as the recent third season of Stranger Things (just to pick something completely at random). But there is a cure! And Tom Cruise is here to help:
I don’t go for super spicy food, yet love wasabi for some reason. I like scorpions less, but maybe I should appreciate them more. What these two things have in common is that scientists have identified a scorpion toxin that targets the “wasabi receptor,” an ion channel protein that is found in sensory nerve cells and is responsible for what the scientists call the “sinus-clearing or eye-stinging” pain experienced when eating wasabi. This is good news because researchers hope this wasabi receptor toxin, or WaTx, can help in the study of chronic pain and inflammation, and perhaps spur development of new non-opioid pain therapies. Also, Wasabi Receptor Toxin would be a great name for your new punk band.
The pythons plague is upon us! There are tens of thousands of Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades, happily devouring the native wildlife. Burmese pythons can swallow things “significantly larger than their own heads”. They cannot be bargained or reasoned with. They will not stop.
Pythons also have no natural predators in Florida. Except, of course, for Florida Man. Intrepid python hunters, such as the members of the Python Action Team, regularly suit up and wade into the muck to hunt those serpents down. Another group, the Swamp Apes, helps veterans work through their PTSD by … tracking and capturing monster snakes in the wilderness. Which can be very therapeutic, apparently. Though maybe not for everyone. I just hope Florida’s python hunters stop the sneaky snakes before they reach the Georgia line!
Thank you for reading Thursday Things. If you have comments or complaints, hit reply and let me know your thoughts. Please forward Thursday Things to anyone you think might enjoy it.
See you next Thursday!
Dan McGirt