James' World 2

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Take a glance at our solar system and beyond, and outer space seems pretty orderly. Our eight planets travel around the Sun with apparent predictability, and even the stars themselves appear to march in orbit around the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s heart. That’s why hundreds of years ago, astronomers and natural philosophers understandably referred to the cosmos as a kind of “Clockwork Universe,” one that was wound at creation and has been ticking along in complete perfection ever since.

A beautiful idea that’s also completely wrong.

In reality, the universe is filled with chaos, and nothing quite encapsulates that idea as perfectly as the Three-Body Problem. While enjoying some (long overdue) attention thanks Netflix’s new adaptation of a 2008 Chinese sci-fi novel of the same name, the Three-Body Problem is much more than some inventive sci-fi plotline — it’s a real-world astronomical conundrum that’s beguiled some of history’s greatest mathematical minds.

The problem itself is deceptively simple: Accurately predict the trajectory of three bodies (planets, suns, black holes, etc.), mutually attracted by gravity, when given their initial position and velocity. But despite the problem’s elegant simplicity, for centuries scientists have tried — and failed — to generate a solution, for the most part.

As is often the case with chaos mathematics, it’s complicated.

An Impossible Problem

To understand why determining the trajectories of three orbital bodies is such an impenetrable mess of physics, it’s best to go back — way back — to the beginning of the problem (and to most things gravitational) as first posed by Sir Isaac Newton in his masterwork, Principia. In this treatise, the English polymath laid out his laws of motion and universal gravitation, and with these new discoveries, he worked out the details of Earth’s orbit around the Sun (a classic hierarchical two-body problem). But then Newton stumbled across a problem he couldn’t quite solve: What happens when you add a third body?

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It’s more than an intriguing sci-fi book and show — it’s also an astronomical conundrum that’s beguiled some of the world’s greatest minds for more than three centuries.

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Dirty Mess

Microplastics! They’re in everything, from our bodies to the ocean.

And apparently, they’re even found in sediment layers that date back as early as the first half of the 1700s, showing microplastics’ pernicious ability to infiltrate even environments untouched by modern humans.

A team of European researchers made this alarming discovery after studying the sediment layers at three lakes in Latvia, as detailed in a study published in the journal Science Advances.

The scientists were studying lake sediment to test if the presence of microplastics in geological layers would be a reliable indicator for the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch, defined in the study as starting in 1950 and meant to delineate when humans started having a large impact on our environment.

Scientists have long used layers of ash or ice to study past events on Earth, leading to the question of whether microplastics can serve as a reliable chronological marker for the Anthropocene.

Clearly not, according to this new research, which found microplastics in every layer of sediment they dredged up, including one from 1733.

“We conclude that interpretation of microplastics distribution in the studied sediment profiles is ambiguous and does not strictly indicate the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch,” the scientists wrote.

Trash Planet

Other than the study concluding that microplastics are a poor marker of geological age, it also shows microplastics’ remarkable ability to get absolutely everywhere.

Not even Antarctica, the most remote region on our planet, is immune. Scientists have found microplastics in several snow samples, having seemingly arrived there by the wind.

Perhaps most alarmingly, scientists have even found microplastics inside our organs, with researchers only starting to grapple with their deleterious impact.

Going forward, one of the biggest challenges we face is how we get rid of microplastics from our environment. Researchers are beginning to look at novel approaches, ranging from planting birch trees in polluted soil to water filters.

Judging from the ubiquity of microplastics and our ongoing addiction to plastic products, one thing’s for sure: it won’t be easy

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It can be hard to keep up with what’s “cool” in the tech world. Half the time, by the time you’ve figured it out, it’s already passé. Or it’s an Apple Vision Pro situation, where opinions vary on whether the device makes someone look cool or like a clown. One thing that is definitely not “cool,” it seems, is having a green text bubble.

On Apple’s iPhones, instead of conversations appearing in the typical gray and blue, text messages from non-Apple phones register as gray and a sort of hot green. Personally, I don’t entirely get the fuss over the green-bubble question in text messages, but I know it’s A Thing in American culture. A former coworker of mine has a whole rant about how on dating apps women would judge him for having an Android (well, that and living in New Jersey).

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Apple has spent more than 15 years fostering an in-crowd/out-crowd scenario with the iPhone. And for many Americans, it’s working.  Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI

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It’s time to celebrate the pickle. No, it’s not quite National Pickle Day (and yet, every day is), but here at Lifehacker, the pickle is indeed precious. It’s a cucumber’s victory dance. It brings bright acidity, crunchy contrast, and a saline slap wherever it goes. It can save a sandwich or switch up a cocktail, and it’s even a pretty fun time on its own. Pickles come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and flavors. No matter which kind you have at the moment, here are some of the best things you can do with your tangy cukes. 

Pickle dip 

Kicking off the list in the best way possible is a dip composed of pulverized, caramelized pickles. This caramelized pickle dip is creamy, tangy, salty, and irresistible. It’s so good, legend has it, that it’s impossible to have leftovers. Browning the pickles properly takes a bit of time in a frying pan, but after that, the dip comes together quickly in a food processor.

Pickle pizza 

It’s expected to bedazzle your slice with some salty meats or a few veggies, but why stop there? A cheesy, salty pizza could use a few briny bites to balance things out, if you ask me. Throw some sour dills onto your pie. The pickle’s acidity mellows out slightly in the oven as the excess water evaporates, and you’re rewarded with slightly crunchy, briefly tangy morsels to look forward to. 

Pickles in blankets 

Sorry, pigs, but pickles need to stay warm too. While mini weenies have ruled crescent dough for quite some time, small, spritely gherkins work wonders as a replacement. In fact, switching out the cured meat for the brined veg makes pickles in blankets a vegan iteration of the party classic. (Always check the ingredient list to make sure.) For the ultimate party snack, I suggest pairing both pickles and cocktail weenies in one cozy pastry blanket. 

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Credit: Julia Sudnitskaya / Shutterstock.com

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Americans are flocking to drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound, drawn by the prospect of rapid weight loss. But a monthly cost that can exceed $1,000 and scant insurance coverage mean users drop off the treatments almost as quickly as they get on.

A group of companies sees this as an opportunity. Targeting current and former users of the medications, they’re offering telehealth checkups, lifestyle coaching, access to community support groups, exercise advice, and other features—all with the aim of keeping the pounds off once the treatment has ended. Monthly fees can be as high as $300.

The services are part of a broader ecosystem that’s springing up around the blockbuster drugs, known as GLP-1s, from Eli Lilly & Co. and Novo Nordisk A/S that are reshaping weight-loss treatment. Online health companies such as Calibrate Health Inc. and Omada Health Inc. in particular are aiming to fill the support role that may not be met by primary-care providers or specialists.

It’s a “huge addressable potential market,” says Ryan Daniels, an equity research analyst at William Blair & Co. And support programs could be worth as much as $2.5 billion annually, according to his firm’s research. William Blair identified more than 20 digital health companies that are supporting people who are taking one of the treatments.

Curbing Hunger Cues

Obesity affects 42% of Americans and costs the US almost $173 billion annually, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Medications such as Wegovy mimic a gut hormone called GLP-1 that the body produces after eating, slowing the movement of food but also interfering with the reward system that makes food pleasurable.

.An Ozempic injection pen. Photographer: Jaap Arriens/Getty Images

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The universe contains about 100 billion galaxies, and no two are exactly alike. In some, stars whirl around the center in neat, circular orbits, making the whole galaxy seem to spin in unison like a pinwheel. In others, the stars move in their own disorderly routes, sometimes in long, stretched ellipses and sometimes on wildly tilted orbits around the galaxy’s center of gravity.

Disorderliness comes with age, at least for stars

Croom and his colleagues used a telescope at Siding Spring Observatory to survey about 3,000 galaxies. The survey, using an instrument called SAMI (or the Sydney-Australian-Astronomical-Observatory Multi-object Integral-Field Spectrograph), collected data on the galaxies’ age and mass, as well as whether they were part of crowded galaxy clusters or more solitary. SAMI also measured the motion of the stars in each galaxy, so Croom and his colleagues could tell whether the galaxy was a neatly spinning disk, or a messy bunch of stars doing their own things.

The astronomers were interested in what made some galaxies orderly and others more free-spirited: the galaxy’s own mass, interference from neighboring galaxies’ gravity, or something else. Their answer turned out to be age: galaxies with older stars, on average, tended to be more disorderly than galaxies with younger populations of stars.

What’s important here isn’t the age of the galaxy itself, but how long ago it stopped forming new stars. In a galaxy that’s still producing new stars (in stellar nurseries like our nearby Orion Nebula), new stars are born even while other stars are aging and dying, so the average age of the galaxy’s stars stays fairly young. But when a galaxy stops producing new stars — often because it runs out of material — there are no new young stars to replace the aging ones, so the galaxy ends up with a population of older stars.

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Galaxies get more chaotic as their stars age, a new study suggests.

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Americans love our stuff. We love our stuff so much we’re willing to rent small rooms far away from our homes just to store all the stuff that won’t fit anywhere else—about 20% of the U.S. is paying for a storage unit. Most of those people are using their storage units exactly as intended—they’ve packed them with furniture, boxes of stuff, and even larger items like vehicles or appliances.

But a storage unit can be much more than just a place to dump all that junk you can’t squeeze into your tiny dwelling. In fact, a storage unit can be the ideal place to do a lot of other things. They’re secure, climate-controlled, and relatively private. Not to mention cheap: They cost an average of $185 per month. As long as you familiarize yourself with your local laws and read your rental agreement carefully, a storage unit can be a cost-effective place to do a lot more than store things.

What the laws allow

First things first: There are a lot of laws covering storage units and what they can and can’t be used for. These will vary from area to area, but there are a few constants. For one, you absolutely, positively cannot live in a storage unit—so don’t imagine you can throw down a rug and a futon and crash there every night. You also can’t use a storage unit as an office in the sense of literally running a business out of it (although you can use it for a business, as we’ll see).

And if you read a storage facility’s agreement, you’re also probably prohibited from storing food or animals in there. There may be a lot of other restrictions, so if you’re contemplating a storage unit as anything but a dumping ground, you should read the rental agreement carefully—violating it could get you evicted.

Create a personal gym

If you’d rather not go to a gym every month and get sweaty in front of total strangers, or if you have a bunch of great exercise equipment you can’t fit comfortably in your current home, a storage unit can be a terrific place to set up a small personal gym. It gets all that equipment out of the house and gives you a quiet, private space to work out.

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Credit: James R. Martin/Shutterstock

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