If ever there were a business with dark clouds on the horizon, it should be printing paper currency, otherwise known as banknotes. In the United States the production of bills falls upon the U.S. Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing, but for much of the rest of the world— from Armenia and Peru to Thailand and Swaziland, money is actually printed by a handful of companies, dominant among them, Munich, Germany’s Giesecke & Devrient.
When the motorcycle accident dealt my brother’s brain an irreversible blow, he and his wife were living in their newly purchased farmhouse on the fringes of suburban Chicago. Conway* had been waiting to move out of the city’s inner-ring suburbs for years, and each morning on the forested property he woke up exuberant. Shortly after moving in, he built an extraordinary tree house some 60 feet in the air, spanning two trees, with sliding joists under the floor to accommodate sway and a hammock to lie in during sunsets. He loved riding his motorcycle, and before work he’d sometimes take his bike out for a spin on the open roads just a few miles away. His wife, Caroline, loved antiques, and the area was full of shops. They were in their 50s and living in a house they planned to grow old in together. Then, after dinner on a fall day in 2007, Conway hopped on his Harley Softail Classic to go buy ice cream and cigarettes. A drunk driver barreled into him. Conway’s left femur snapped and his skull struck the traffic-warmed asphalt, splattering blood all the way to the road’s shoulder.
To demonstrate the direct effect, he extracted a large quantity of gastric juice from the stomachs of birds and placed chewed food in the juice and kept it at body temperature for three days. By repeated additions of gastric fluid, the food eventually became completely dissolved.
In July 2019, police rushed to the home of 32-year-old Silvia Galva. Galva’s friend, also in the home, called 911, claiming she overheard a violent argument between Galva and her boyfriend, 43-year-old Adam Crespo. The two lived together in Hallandale Beach, Florida, about 20 miles from Miami.
In July of 1852, a 32-year-old novelist named Herman Melville had high hopes for his new novel, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, despite the book’s mixed reviews and tepid sales. That month he took a steamer to Nantucket for his first visit to the Massachusetts island, home port of his novel’s mythic protagonist, Captain Ahab, and his ship, the Pequod. Like a tourist, Melville met local dignitaries, dined out and took in the sights of the village he had previously only imagined.
We all have some bad habits, but some of these bad habits can harm your brain. Skimping on sleep is one of those bad habits. Those who do not get enough Zzzs are more likely to get dementia and Alzheimer’s compared to those who get adequate sleep. Lack of sleep in older adults increases the risk of excessive daytime sleepiness, depression, and problems with attention and memory. They are also more likely to fall at night and rely on more sleep aids (both over-the-counter and prescription kinds). People who have trouble falling asleep at night should avoid caffeine, alcohol, and watching TV or using the computer in the evening. If you have trouble sleeping, practice a soothing bedtime routine in the evening to help you wind down and get to sleep.
As a popular Books of Adam comic has pointed out, the most difficult thing to reconcile with as a cat owner is the fact that your cat’s butthole has touched pretty much everything you own. Sometimes, your cat will decide to put his or her gnarly hole on your face, completely casually. While it might seem vaguely threatening or confusing, a cat researcher tells Inverse it’s not as weird as you think.
It wasn’t until recently that I made a shocking discovery about Bob the Builder. Specifically, his relationship with Wendy.