A kid at Clemson has measles. Let that land. One of the most contagious viruses on earth—something we eliminated from the U.S. in 2000—is back. Not in a remote, rural pocket. Not overseas. Right in the middle of a 30,000-person university. The university confirmed the case. They’re contact tracing. The…
Culture
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Lunar Hotel Reservations Are Here — And They Cost More Than Your House
Recently, a startup began accepting lunar hotel reservations — not for a property that exists, but for one that might exist, orbiting the Moon sometime in the unspecified future. The deposit? A quarter of a million dollars. Galactic Resource Utilization Space (GRU Space) is the company behind this. They’re asking…
Culture
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The Dog Poop Business Is Real — And Making $30K a Year
I was reading about a guy in Derbyshire, England — you know, the place where sheep outnumber humans and the hills look like a screensaver — and his name is Kyle Newby. He’s 39. And he makes over $30,000 a year scooping dog poop out of people’s yards. Not as…
Consumer Protection
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Too Good to Be True? How AI Is Making It Harder to Spot Online Scam Shops
You’ve probably seen the ad. A warm photo. Soft light. Someone knitting on a couch that looks like it smells faintly of lavender. The text whispers “Hand-knit. Small batch. Family business.” Maybe it’s a holiday special. Maybe she’s retiring. It feels intimate. Human. Safe. You click. You buy. It never…
Culture
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The Super Bowl Halftime Show Has a Height Requirement
The news, such as it is, is that there’s a height requirement for people who want to be part of the Super Bowl halftime show. Not the headliner. Not the star whose name goes on the announcement graphic. The field cast. The dancers, performers, and bodies whose job it is…
Business and Ethics
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Your Pulsetto “Free Trial” Starts Before Delivery
Scam of the Week: When Your Free Trial Starts Before the Box Arrives I should say this up front, because it matters. The Pulsetto device works. The vagus nerve stimulation does what it claims. The technology isn’t the problem. The billing is. I ordered a Pulsetto on December 25th. It…
Culture
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Safety, Solitude, and the Strange Popularity of “Are You Dead?”
This week, an app with a name most of us wouldn’t put on a greeting card topped the paid iPhone charts in China — Are You Dead? — and it’s worth stopping to watch what that says about this moment we’re in. You scroll through the story, and it’s almost…
Animals
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The Bear Is Gone, the Policy Remains
The bear left. Not dramatically. Not on camera. There was no official announcement timed to the moment the crawlspace went quiet. At some point after the new year, the homeowner noticed what had been promised all along: the bear was no longer under the house. That was always the ending…
Culture
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Sometimes the Ground Really Does Give You Money
A man in Neuville-sur-Saône, France was digging a hole for a swimming pool and hit something solid. Not rock. Not a pipe. Something else. What came up were five gold bars and a pile of gold coins, wrapped in plastic bags and buried in his own backyard. Once the local…
Brands
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Why Flipz’s Latest Stunt Actually Works
It has been a long time since I’ve watched a brand stunt and thought, yes, that’s the whole thing—and that’s enough. Flipz decided that “coin toss” is the wrong phrase. Not morally wrong. Not politically wrong. Just inaccurate. Coins flip. Tossing is incidental. So they did what only a snack…