Snapchat's Spectacles may be hard to come by, but we got ahold of a pair to see how they work. Tech Reporter Avery Hartmans shares her thoughts on the popular wearable device, which lets you record video, hands-free, and have it upload directly to your Snapchat app.
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Donald Trump’s signature branding was removed from three luxury apartments in Manhattan after about 600 tenants signed an online petition.
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As a photographer who generally stays on the ground, I've always been fascinated by the so-called "daredevil Instagrammers" who climb atop bridges and dangle their feet out of helicopters just to get jaw-dropping shots for their thousands of followers.
So when Blade, an on-demand transportation startup that's been dubbed the "Uber for helicopters," offered me the opportunity to fly in a doorless helicopter over Manhattan, I jumped at the chance without a moment of hesitation.
Blade's specialty is in shuttling well-heeled travelers on helicopters and seaplanes between New York, the Hamptons, Nantucket, the Jersey Shore, and Miami. But Blade's newest flights — which they're offering for $395 a person as part of a partnership with the aerial photography company FlyNyon— are more about the journey than the destination, with unforgettable sightseeing of events like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as well as tours of fall foliage from above. I went on November 13, the night when the supermoon was at its brightest since 1948.
I had never flown in a helicopter before, so riding in a doorless one, at night, with my feet dangling out over the Hudson River, was like jumping into the deep end. Keep scrolling to see what it was like, and learn the tips you'll need to know when you're ready to become an Instagram superstar.
SEE ALSO: Meet the man behind the on-demand helicopter startup that the 1% use to get to the Hamptons
Hot off the trails of launching a sneaker made from ocean plastic, Adidas has debuted a shoe made from a fabric called "Biosteel."
Unveiled at the annual grown fabrics conference Biofabricate in New York City on Thursday, the shoe is called the Adidas Futurecraft Biofabric. It's a high-performance shoe made from a revolutionary kind of fabric.
Based on a replication of natural silk, Biosteel's German manufacturer AMSilk says the material is the strongest fully natural material ever. It's also 15% lighter than conventional silk fibers, and is 100% biodegradable.
The way that translates to this shoe: the woven upper for the shoe is more sustainable than, lighter than, and just as flexible and strong as the more traditional offerings available right now.
Adidas told Gizmodo the shoe will not decompose off your feet, however. It will only dissolve when put in contact with a high concentration of the digestion enzyme proteinase, which occurs naturally. When done so, the shoe can decompose within 36 hours.
"By using Biosteel fiber in our products, we have achieved an unrivaled level of sustainability," James Carnes, VP of strategy creation at Adidas, said in a statement. "We are moving beyond closed loop and into an infinite loop – or even no loop at all. This is a pioneering stride forward beyond sustainability into a new territory of bionic innovation.”
Adidas says the Biofabric is just the beginning of using Biosteel. The renewable textile will appear in future products by the triple stripe down the line.
SEE ALSO: Nike, Under Armour, and Adidas are selling 'dad shoes' — and it seems to be a brilliant move
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NEW YORK — After five rounds, the 2016 World Chess Championship is deadlocked.
Title holder Magnus Carlsen of Norway and challenger Sergey Karjakin of Russia each have 2.5 points. All games thus far have ended in draws.
There has been no end of complaining at the elite levels of chess about so-called "Grandmaster draws" — relatively quick agreements to call it even after less than 40 moves.
Draws are common in big-time chess because the best players can tell when a position is headed in that direction. In the interest of preserving energy — or avoiding the chance of a loss early in a tournament — GMs will sometimes bail out on a game.
Many vocal commentators and fans hate this. They think it's killing "fighting" chess and making the game boring.
So far at the WCC, Carlsen and Karjakin have done their best to avoid GM draws. Game 5, concluded on Thursday night, went to 51 moves, but Game 3 was drawn after 78 moves — and Game 4 endured for an epic 94 moves.
Carlsen has obviously been aiming to get into long endgames with Karjakin, to test the Russian's mettle. Thus far, Carlsen has missed a couple of winning chances, although they were chances that would have entailed very complicated execution, and Karjakin has shown himself to be a resourceful defender.
In Game 5, Carlsen's strategy almost backfired. With the white pieces, he went for an ancient opening called the "Italian Game" (Giuoco Piano, or "Quiet Game," dating to the 1500s) — an opening that is rarely seen at this level, but is common among much lower rated players and amateurs. If fact, Carlsen opted for the "very quiet" variation of the Italian Game, the Giuoco Pianissimo.
It was looking like a dead draw until after move 40, when Carlsen allowed Karjakin to open the h-file, setting up a checkmating threat and enabling a pawn sacrifice to get the black bishop, rook, and queen all gunning for the white king.
But Karjakin couldn't pull it off, and the draw was agreed upon. Afterward in a press conference, Carlsen admitted that he had "screwed up."
As an aside, the games have obviously been demanding, physically an intellectually. A video feed of the players lounge area has shown Carlsen sacked out on a couch between moves, which prompted questions about whether the feed should be discontinued.
"I don't care," Carlsen said.
With Game 6 scheduled for Friday at 2 PM ET, the feeling-out period could be coming to an end. Carlsen now knows that Karjakin has the stamina to play long, grinding games. And Karjakin knows that Carlsen is going to pick his moments to play attacking chess — if he intends to do that at all.
Quick draws aren't in the playbook.
Fans would probably like to see a decisive result, however. And both players know that in a 12-game match, it's risky to draw game after game, upping the pressure for a late win. A loss with a lot games to play can be overcome. A loss with just a few games could be a disaster.
UPDATE:Well, right after I said these guys were killing the GM draw, they played a 32-move quickie to end Game 6 with a draw that looked suspiciously Grandmaster-y. It's possible that both players are getting a bit fried and just wanted to get some additional rest time before the weekend.
Carlsen did play an interesting pawn gambit early and created some significant activity for his knights as black, but the position eventually evened out and the game was over after only about and hour and a half.
SEE ALSO: Magnus Carlsen is trying to avoid expectations at the World Chess Championship
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Work can be taxing for everyone, and we all occasionally feel weary after a long day at the office.
But if your life is a chronic state of stress and exhaustion thanks to work, you're probably suffering fromjob burnout.
Sometimes it's hard to notice when the physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion from work is taking its toll, but with the help of burnout specialist Ben Fanning and medical experts, we're able to identify some warning signs.
By taking note of these common signs workers exhibit when they're burnt out at work, you can take steps to avoid burnout entirely in your current role or reignite your career, Fanning says.
DON'T MISS: 14 TED Talks to watch when you're feeling totally burned out
SEE ALSO: 16 signs it's time to quit your job
Consistently lacking the energy after work to do regular things like cook, go to the gym, or spend time with your family is not a good sign.
If you're planning to quit or you're just sick of dealing with the same people every day, it may be reflected in how you treat your coworkers.
Do your coworkers often approach you because they're worried that you're struggling or down on yourself? This is a signal that others are picking up on your misery.
Known for its incredible perks, impressive salaries, and great corporate culture, Facebook is one of the world's most desirable places to work.
The Menlo Park, California-based tech giant consistently earns top spots on rankings like Business Insider's annual "best companies to work for," Glassdoor's "best places to work," and LinkedIn's "top attractors," among many others.
To see what all the fuss is about, Business Insider recently visited Facebook's Manhattan office ... and let's just say, we get it.
Here's what we saw and learned during our tour:
Every traveler wants to pack light, especially when it comes to carry-on luggage. No one wants to be that passenger who is forced to check baggage they were hoping to bring on the flight.
In order to avoid this, you'll need to pack only the essentials.
From passports and headphones to extra underwear and socks, here's what you should always pack in your carry-on bag.
SEE ALSO: 11 etiquette rules to remember next time you fly
SEE ALSO: Here's everything you should do before you travel abroad
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Zika is no longer being considered an international public health emergency.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared on Friday that the Zika virus and related neurological complications no longer constitute an emergency. Even so, the virus is still around, and the agency said it would continue to work on the outbreak through a "robust program."
The WHO's Emergency Committee, which declared Zika an international public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) in February, said in a statement that "the Zika virus and associated consequences remain a significant enduring public health challenge requiring intense action but no longer represent a PHEIC."
"We are not downgrading the importance of Zika, by placing this as a longer program of work, we are sending the message that Zika is here to stay," Dr. Peter Salama, Executive Director of WHO's Health Emergencies Program, told a news briefing.
Since May 2015, Zika has been spreading around the Americas and the Pacific, and countries and territories are still encountering local transmission via mosquito. On Wednesday, the CDC added Palau to its list of countries and territories with local transmission of the Zika virus.
The Zika virus, which is mainly transmitted by mosquitoes, has been spreading around the Americas and parts of Asia over the past year. It's been identified in the mainland US in Miami, Florida. Once infected, only about 20% of people ever show symptoms, which most commonly include fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes.
One reason this outbreak of Zika has been so troubling is that has been a cause of birth defects, including microcephaly — a condition where the baby's head is abnormally small — in babies whose mothers have had Zika. The virus has also been linked to a neurological condition called Guillain-Barré syndrome.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
SEE ALSO: Zika may be even more damaging to infants' brains than we originally thought
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The hysteria around "Calexit," a call for California to leave the union, has died out in the weeks since Donald Trump was elected to the presidency.
One group isn't giving up hope.
The Yes California Independence Campaign, which assembled long before Election Day 2016, is taking meetings in Russia to establish a California embassy.
Louis Marinelli, president of Yes California, left for Russia two months ago to join forces with the Antiglobalization Movement of Russia. The grassroots campaign shares Marinelli’s belief that a state has a right to self-determination, he claims.
His plans include a resource center that will educate Russian locals on Californian history and culture, foster trade relations, and encourage tourism. Marinelli clarified that the embassy will not conduct diplomatic affairs, but rather, serve as a promotional front for Yes California.
Marinelli envisions a network of Yes California hubs around the world someday.
"We want to establish connections with the people of these countries so that when the time comes, we have the ability to reach out and say, 'Californians just double-opted into independence. Will you now recognize that and therefore recognize our independence from the United States as a country?'" Marinelli said.
The Yes California campaign aims to put a measure on a 2018 ballot that, if passed, would bring California one step closer to legally seceding from the union.
The Calexit movement exploded from a fringe political group to a nationwide social media trend in a matter of hours on November 9th, as Californians came to terms with a Trump presidency. Yes California held a rally on the steps of the state capitol building in Sacramento.
The movement found an impressive backer in Shervin Pishevar, a well-known angel investor. He took to Twitter on election night urging California to become its own nation and offering to bankroll a secession campaign. Pishevar has since walked back those claims.
The hashtag Calexit, which recalls Britain's push to leave the European Union in a "Brexit," is no longer trending on social media.
A state has not seceded from the union since the 1860s, and those 11 southern states rejoined after the American Civil War. The event that Calexit actually happens is unlikely, and we have no idea what the impact of a California exit might have.
Marinelli first linked up with the Antiglobalization Movement of Russia at a convention on secessionist rights in Moscow in September. Yes California and roughly 30 other groups from Texas, Puerto Rico, Northern Ireland, and Catalonia gathered to submit ideas for a resolution that their Russian hosts wants to put before the United Nations. The bill calls upon the UN to establish a state's right to self-determination, according to Marinelli.
The convention ended, but Marinelli stuck around to continue drafting the resolution and to attend to some personal matters, he tells Business Insider.
Marinelli, a California resident and a former English teacher in Russia, said he has received some backlash for working with Russia, which has held antagonist views toward the US.
He maintained that Yes California will work with any group that shares its values and supports the right of self-determination, no matter how it appears to the outside world.
"That's why we don't a problem with me being in Russia, for example, or signing an agreement with a group in Russia. It sounds kind of controversial, but we want California to become an independent country and we're not going to hold any punches to make that happen," he said.
There is no timeline currently in place to establish a California embassy in Russia.
SEE ALSO: It would be incredibly difficult for California to pull off a 'Calexit' and secede from the US
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A lot of what the iPhone can do doesn't come in an instruction manual. Check out these tips and tricks to become an expert iPhone user.
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Cellphone addiction, particularly among millennials, may be hurting the labor force and the economy at large.
That's according to a $3.7 billion New York hedge fund, Tourbillon Capital Partners.
"Perhaps we aren't in secular stagnation. Perhaps we need to put our phones down and get back to work," founder Jason Karp wrote in the firm's third-quarter investor letter, a copy of which was obtained by Business Insider.
"At the risk of sounding like an old-man curmudgeon and a Luddite, I believe this to be a massive problem for society at large," Karp added. "All businesses globally, where employees have smartphones, are not getting as many true labor hours as we think."
Karp lists several concerns, including that millennials and teens are addicted to their smartphones and computers. Millennials check their phones over 150 times per day compared with about 30 times for the average adult, Karp wrote, citing Facebook data. Meanwhile, the average human's attention span has dropped.
"Undoubtedly, access to such time-saving technologies has dramatically increased our potential productivity," Karp wrote. "But what if we are spending those saved hours on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and the like. As much of the above data shows, we unfortunately are spending those hours on our phones."
That's making people less productive at work, and it might be keeping wages down, according to Tourbillon. Since the financial crisis, wages have been growing, but at a slow pace, federal data shows. That's even as wages surged in the latest figures, reported earlier this month.
Here's more from the Tourbillon letter:
Tourbillon's master fund was up 9.1% net of fees for the third quarter, compared with 3.3% with the S&P 500, according to the letter. Year to date through October 30, the fund was down 7.4% net of fees, according to a person familiar with the matter.
SEE ALSO: One brutal chart from the world's biggest hedge fund explains everything
MUST READ: WORLD'S BIGGEST HEDGE FUND: Global stock markets will tank if Trump wins
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Thanksgiving is a time for feasting.
If you're trying to watch what you eat, it can also be one of the trickiest times of year. Not surprisingly, many of our favorite seasonal fall foods — from creamy mashed potatoes to rich turkey and stuffing — are pretty high in fat and in calories. But that doesn't mean you can't indulge responsibly! Here's a visual guide to what 200 calories of your favorite Turkey Day foods looks like.
You might be surprised that some side dishes, like green bean casserole, are actually on the lighter side, while others, like pecan pie, pack the calories into a very tiny portion!
Of course, the info below only shows calories, not fat, protein, fiber or sugar content, all of which are important if you're looking to lose weight.
READ NEXT: The simplest advice for anyone who wants to eat healthy or lose weight
SEE ALSO: Most vitamins are useless, but here are the ones you should take
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Reuters' award-winning photojournalists are stationed across the world, documenting all of the major historical moments as well as the quieter ones.
Their team of editors has once again compiled the best photographs taken this year, and, with a little over a month left in 2016, we've picked our top 40 favorites. From Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, here are 40 of the most powerful photographs they've captured this year.
Editor's note: Many of the images in this slideshow depict graphic violence and injury, and many are upsetting.
Captions by Reuters and Sarah Jacobs.
I was clueless the first time my baby made me feel high.
My wife and I were headed out the door on a beautiful summer day, and I was carrying our then 2-month-old daughter in a harness, her squishy baby belly pressing against my chest while she grew heavy with sleep.
Suddenly, as I stepped into the shade of our tree-lined street, it hit me: an incredibly warm, melty glow of euphoria. It began in my heart and rushed through every appendage, leaving me giddy yet deeply at peace — and on the verge of tears. Everything seemed to slow down. I almost stopped to catch my breath.
It was powerful, and it was weird. Yet at the time I wrote it off as internalizing a nice moment: My wife and I had started a family, I was a dad, and it felt amazing.
But my next moment of ooey-gooey euphoria couldn't have been less sentimental.
The weather was hot and muggy. I was sweaty, frazzled, and running late. Into the harness my daughter went — bawling. There it was again, though, washing over me again after a few minutes of carrying her, and this time even more strongly.
"I feel high and my baby is the drug," I thought.
Strong feelings of bonding and love are well-known to me. I've shared plenty with family and friends throughout my life, most recently when I cuddle my wife or (with apologies to my wife) our dog. That close contact can trigger a satisfying, heartfelt glow.
I've also felt the euphoria of getting drunk and have, on a few rare occasions, experimented with marijuana and felt its mood-boosting effects. And when my dentist yanked out my wisdom teeth, he prescribed me hydrocodone (also known as Vicodin) — an opiate pain reliever that made me feel happy, floaty, and disconnected.
The feeling my daughter uniquely and almost instantly triggers is one apart from all of the above. While not as powerful as a drug, it isn't a far cry, either. The "baby high," as I call it, hits me like a freight train from Rainbow Happy Land. Every time.
It enhances my experience of living in the moment while engaging a grab-bag of pleasurable senses, each of which is far stronger than any feel-good buzz I have ever gotten from social interaction. And apparently it lacks side effects — no sad comedown, no aloofness, no confusion, no irritability.
I enjoy it so much that I started carrying our daughter around in the harness as often as I could, including while vacuuming the apartment. (Pro tip: This is a great way to get fussy infants to fall asleep.)
And I occasionally got testy with my wife when she insisted — for perfectly valid reasons — that we put our daughter in the stroller instead of the harness.
This might seem unsurprising and obvious: "A parent who loves the feeling of holding his baby close? And craves it? Duh."
But no parents I've met openly mentioned this euphoric surge. Why does it happen — even when I'm in a terrible mood? Why haven't I felt it until now? Do all parents feel it? And how does it work, exactly?
After speaking with experts and trawling for relevant scientific studies, I learned the baby high is real, but that no simple explanations exist.
I found some alluring clues, though.
For one, babies can subtly hack the biochemistry of their parents, even before they're born. (At least with biological parents — we don't know enough about the changes that may occur in non-biological parents to make any conclusions yet.) Such changes may tune the brain's deeply rooted pleasure center to reward parenting behaviors.
"Nature's goal is to get you addicted to the baby," Maia Szalavitz, a science journalist who co-authored a book about the science of bonding, called "Born for Love", told Business Insider. "Addiction, in fact, is what happens when this [reward] system gets attached to a drug rather than a person." (Szalavitz has also written extensively about her own experiences with addiction and recently authored a book on the topic, called "Unbroken Brain".)
I also learned the baby high may be more of a spectrum.
"It's like a drug and calms me," said one relative and mother, who said she feels it as strongly as I do, in an email. "This is also similar to what women feel when they are breast-feeding."
Conversely, my wife only sort of feels it. A subtle and warm "gushy" feeling bubbles up when she's breastfeeding, and a slightly stronger one when our daughter falls asleep in her arms. But she said neither sensation seems worth writing home about.
Other parents don't seem to feel it at all. At a recent family party, I described the sensation to one dad, who was carrying his toddler-age daughter — he said he had no idea what I was talking about. And a mom wrote, "[U]uuhhh no?" in response to my open query on Twitter:
Parents: Does carrying your baby (e.g. BabyBjorn) make you feel high — i.e. a "lock-and-key" euphoria? Like you just smoked something?
— Dave Mosher (@DaveMosher) October 31, 2016I even asked a couple of brain researchers with kids if they've ever felt it. "[M]uch as I would love to experience what you describe, I have not," James K. Rilling, a father of two who studies the neuroscience of social behavior at Emory University, told Business Insider in an email.
Scientists have no doubt the baby high exists, though, even if they know little about it.
"There are not a ton of studies on this," Heather Caldwell, a hormone biologist at Kent State University who studies how biochemistry regulates behavior, told Busines Insider. "Maybe you hung out with kids before and you didn't get that feeling. There's something special about fatherhood, though maybe not for all men. We don't really know yet."
Here's what we do know about the baby high, how it might work, and a surprising if not controversial reason we may understand it so poorly.
Every emotion or feeling we experience originates in the brain.
Some of these affective experiences manifest in the mind's outermost "thinking" layers, called the neocortex. While standing on a mountaintop, you might pause to consider how lucky you are not to be working, then feel elated at your freedom. Or we may trigger our own stress and grief when we ponder a coworker's recent silence toward us, deciding it's hostility or cold disregard.
Then there are more deeply rooted, automatic, and instinctive experiences. It feels good to laugh or have sore muscles massaged. It hurts to get cut, pricked, or punched. The slither of a snake (or what we think is a snake) out of the corner of our eyes makes us fearful and alert.
The baby high may have more in common with the latter, since parenting instincts are so reflexive in mammals.
During a key experiment in the 1990s, for example, researchers damaged the neocortex of female hamsters after birth but spared deeper brain structures. Surprisingly, these hamsters could still breed and effectively parent their offspring.
However, when the researchers damaged a more central brain region called the limbic system, which is the source of emotions and pleasure (among other things), the hamsters' maternal behaviors — like nest-building, picking up pups, and nursing — never developed.
One of the limbic system's most crucial parts is a reward pathway called the mesolimbic dopamine system. Its core function is to cherry-pick activities (like eating, having sex, or playing with kids), and make them feel rewarding. It also drives neurons to grow to motivate us to feel those good sensations again, plus avoid any bad ones.
A key to making it all work is dopamine. The chemical tells individual neurons to fire off a signal or not, influencing other brain signals and pathways, and essentially serves as a traffic cop of motivation, emotion, and social behavior.
There's a powerful partner to dopamine, though: opioids. These pain-relieving chemicals are also made by the limbic system, and alone can cause feelings of relaxation, calm, and satiation with their own receptors, Szalavitz said. But they also trigger the release of dopamine.
Our minds don't make enough natural opioids to overdose us, either alone or with dopamine, which is in contrast to heroin, oxycodone, fentanyl, and other opioid drugs that a user can control the dosage of.
"Having too much dopamine in the wrong place can make you psychotic. Illicit drugs that dump loads of dopamine (or strongly inhibit its reuptake, which is similar to dumping loads of dopamine) include cocaine and methamphetamines," Dr. Emily Deans wrote at Psychology Today. "Therefore high amounts of dopamine can cause euphoria, aggression and intense sexual feelings."
Which might partly explain the nature of the baby high.
"There are lots of social situations that are very rewarding, including food. But there are some new dads that have the same pathways activated as drugs," Caldwell says.
This is why a few scientists I spoke with think holding my daughter releases a lot of natural opioids in my brain; that'd explain why it feels so good and satisfying. But a lot of dopamine may be released, too, which would explain the warm-and-mushy euphoria (because it feels so rewarding) — and why I want to hold my baby all the time.
But why don't all of my friends and family members feel it while holding my daughter? And conversely: Why, after holding a small army of nieces and nephews, am I only now able to experience the baby high?
Part of the answer may be that pregnancy and, more importantly, caring for babies full-time, hacks the biochemistry and brains of parents.
Hormonal changes during pregnancy are often talked about only in the context of women. But if you're an expectant father living with your pregnant partner, your hormone levels are almost certainly changing, too.
Scientists don't yet know how this works, only that it happens.
Moms might give off airborne molecules called pheromones that spur changes in the biochemistry of dads. Or the extra empathy and attention fathers (hopefully) pay toward their partners might change their hormone levels. Or significant dips or boosts in sexual activity. Or the shared stress of trying to make way for a new family member. Or some mix of the above.
And while hormones don't directly cause people to feel or behave a certain way, they do grease the wheels for certain experiences and motivations. This is why some scientists think male hormonal changes associated with a pregnancy might help prepare men for fatherhood (and in my case, contribute to the strong buzz I feel while holding my baby).
Moms see very dramatic hormonal changes during pregnancy, primarily in estrogen, a female sex hormone that helps grow the uterus and powers maternal behaviors, and progesterone, which helps grow the breasts and softens ligaments, including those of the cervix. Levels of each can skyrocket more than 20, 30, or 40 times before a baby is born.
While hormonal changes in dads are much smaller, they're nothing to sneeze at.
For example, a 2001 study compared the hormone levels of Canadian fathers-to-be to those of single men. Researchers found that an expectant dad's levels of testosterone, which helps regulate sex drive and metabolism in men, was about 1/3 lower than average. And about 2/3 of dads had higher levels of estrogen, compared with 1/2 of single men in the study.
A more recent 2014 study of a few dozen men and their expectant partners also saw the testosterone dip, but instead saw estrogen levels in dads fall just before birth. (Hormone levels fluctuate often, so this wasn't totally unexpected.) It also found a correlation in changing progesterone levels between men and their partners.
Expecting fathers also tend to see a boost in a hormone called prolactin.
"It's mostly associated with women for milk production," Caldwell said. "But it does come up in dads right before their partner gives birth. We don't know what it's doing in men, though your behaviors can also change your hormones." (One study suggests higher prolactin levels helps dads be more attentive to infant cries.)
But nothing really compares to the effect that newborn babies can have on parents.
Things get really nuts once a baby arrives, chemically speaking, and this may further "prime" my reflexive baby high.
The hormones in mom that helped keep her pregnancy going (like estrogen and progesterone) suddenly plummet, while others related to maternal behaviors (like prolactin) rise dramatically. These shifts prime mom's brain for significant changes and, as researchers are increasingly discovering, dads too. (Also like moms, rapid hormonal changes in dads can raise the risk for postpartum depression.)
Vasopressin in mammalian fathers is one example. While there's hardly any research yet on the hormone in human dads, findings elsewhere in the animal kingdom are strong and suggestive that it works in a similar way in people.
Just look at prairie voles and marmosets. Along with humans, they're among the 5% share of all mammals that biparent, or when both mom and dad tend to care for their offspring. (Dad is always out of the picture in the other 95% of mammalian species.)
In both prairie voles and marmosets, vasopressin jumps after offspring are born and is correlated with nurturing behaviors.
A 1994 study, for instance, showed that injecting vasopressin into single male prairie voles made them act just like dads. Instead of ignoring a litter of pups, the bachelor voles cuddled, groomed, and protected the pups. (Male voles injected with a saline solution didn't show any daddy-like tendencies.)
Likewise in marmosets, receptors for vasopressin in experienced dads were far more numerous compared to non-dads. This suggests there's a lot of the hormone floating around in their brains, possibly helping to explain their paternal instincts.
A similar trend likely exists in human fathers, to the point some researchers think elevated levels of vasopressin in dads helps explain why they tend to be more tactile and stimulatory with infants as opposed to soothing and comforting (as is more typical with moms).
"I think of vasopressin as something that promotes the animal being active, brave, and investigating things," Karen Bales, a behavioral neuroscientist at the University of California at Davis, told Susan Kuchinskas at the Huffington Post.
Dads also see a boost in the hormone oxytocin after birth, even though it's a bigger player in moms. The hormone first surges in women during birth, helping coax their breasts to produce milk. Oxytocin levels also go up in mom and baby each time they breastfeed.
While not really a "cuddle chemical", as is often written, the hormone does seem important in weaving the social tapestry of people and their children. (But context is important; oxytocin plays a bewildering number of roles in animals, and possibly some nefariousones in humans.)
"Oxytocin can facilitate a bond between mother and infant, and it may also play a role in fathers," Caldwell said.
In dads, playing with or simply gazing at kids raises oxytocin levels of everyone involved.
And, as it turns out, increased levels of vasopressin and oxytocin lubricate the brain's reward system— and feelings of pleasure — for social interaction.
"Babies can elicit oxytocin release and we know that the oxytocin system interacts with the dopamine reward system," Rilling said. "Excess dopamine (as with cocaine use) can lead to euphoria, so perhaps oxytocin-mediated dopamine release is responsible for the feeling you describe."
Szalavitz said "when you get [oxytocin] increase plus opioids and dopamine in some sequence, you get bonded to whoever you associate with that. This is why tons of [oxytocin] is released at orgasm."
Caldwell agreed, though she noted the "full sequence" of events with a baby high is a mystery. "How it does that, we just don't know," she said.
We're also left without an explanation as to why some parents don't feel it, or do so in different ways or to a different extent.
So there's undoubtedly much more to the story.
Unfortunately, clearly and logically explaining the basis of any behavior, emotion, or sensation is never simple, no matter how primal the human experience in question may seem.
That's because the brain is involved, and — as an astoundingly complex network of 100 billion cells and their 100 trillion connections — the organ does not easily loose its secrets.
Even if our minds could tell us how they work, they are ultra-idiosyncratic when it comes to affective experience. This is because whether you personally feel something and the way that you feel it, Szalavitz said, "depends to some degree on how you were parented and early life stress."
So while my quest to understand the nature of a powerful, lock-and-key euphoria I call the "baby high" might seem silly, researchers told me the mystery does intersect with two gravely important and possibly interconnected issues facing our society today.
One relates to addiction and its close siblings, depression and suicide.
Our brain's reward system is a gift that drives natural pleasures and motivations, like cuddling, raising kids and baby highs. But for nearly 2 million Americans with a prescription opioid drug disorder — also called the opioid epidemic— it has also become a trap with few meaningful treatment options.
"The reason people get addicted to opioids is because they carry the message of social bonding," Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist who studies psychiatric disorders and behavior, told Business Insider. "Too much psychological pain, too much social loss, we've argued for a long time, has fueled opioid addiction. It is people self-medicating themselves for depression and psychological pain."
Our culture's stigma against addiction since the 1970s, says Panksepp, hadn't made it easy to investigate solutions, nor has a dearth of government funding. That includes his team's most recent study of a withdrawal-free antidepressant opioid, called buprenorphine (which is normally prescribed to help treat heroin addictions).
Despite the study's potential to show buprenorphine "could become the first fast-acting anti-suicide drug," as Business Insider previously reported, Szalavitz said "Panksepp was rejected by major journals when he tried to publish [...] because [the manuscript] compared mother love to heroin."
The other hot-button issue, says Caldwell, is getting lawmakers and employers to understand the importance of family bonding and attachment — something which feeds into the aforementioned issue.
"We should spend more time in this country focusing on family leave," Caldwell said, and she doesn't just mean mom.
"There's more and more evidence that there's big value to having fathers form strong bonds with their children," she said. "And that requires something important: Spending time with their children."
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The remains of tens of thousands of ships litter the floor of the Black Sea, their wreckage telling the stories of war, trade, and the risks of crossing a massive body of water. There are ships on the cold sea floor there that have never been seen before: vessels from the Ottoman and Byzantine empires, from Venetian and Genoan merchant colonies, from slave traders coming out of Central Asia, and more.
A recent expedition using new technology to help map the sea floor has just revealed more than 40 previously unknown shipwrecks, nearly perfectly preserved, since they lie deep on the floor of the Black Sea in a region where there's no oxygen. For that reason, the wrecks have been kept safe from organisms that would normally chew through ropes and wood.
"The wrecks are a complete bonus, but a fascinating discovery, found during the course of our extensive geophysical surveys," says Jon Adams, a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Southampton and principle investigator on the sea floor mapping project, in a press release.
The ships are a fascinating bonus historic discovery from a map of the sea floor — and researchers think there's incredible potential for more to be discovered.
Here's what they've found.
On November 19, 1863, famed orator and former Secretary of State Edward Everett delivered a two-hour speech at the Gettysburg National Cemetery — but most people only remember the two-minute speech given by President Abraham Lincoln.
Arguably, Everett's words that day deserve just as much attention and praise as Lincoln's. His speech backhanded the Confederacy and directly addressed the horrific and hypocritical nature of slavery in a free country.
The day's organizers had named Everett the main attraction — no one even knew for sure if Lincoln would attend the dedication. Everett, also a former senator and president of Harvard, had every reason to believe he'd steal the show. He wrote a two-hour speech, full of beautiful language and logic, that explained the significance and the tragedy of the Battle of Gettysburg, the standoff during the Civil War with the most causalities, often thought of as a turning point. And he delivered all of it from memory, according to the History Channel.
"It is in reality a war originally levied by ambitious men in the cotton-growing States, for the purpose of drawing the slaveholding Border States into the vortex of the conspiracy, " Everett said about the start of the Civil War.
Indeed, Everett related this battle for freedom to the one the Greeks fought millenia ago:
"And shall I, fellow-citizens, who, after an interval of twenty-three centuries, a youthful pilgrim from the world unknown to ancient Greece, have wandered over that illustrious plain, ready to put off the shoes from off my feet, as one that stands on holy ground,–who have gazed with respectful emotion on the mound which still protects the dust of those who rolled back the tide of Persian invasion, and rescued the land of popular liberty, of letters, and of arts, from the ruthless foe,–stand unmoved over the graves of our dear brethren, who so lately, on three of those all-important days which decide a nation’s history,–days on whose issue it depended whether this august republican Union, founded by some of the wisest statesmen that ever lived, cemented with the blood of some of the purest patriots that ever died, should perish or endure,–rolled back the tide of an invasion, not less unprovoked, not less ruthless, than that which came to plant the dark banner of Asiatic despotism and slavery on the free soil of Greece? Heaven forbid!"
The speech goes on to describe the three-day battle fought at Gettysburg and the immeasurable losses suffered by both victor and vanquished. Everett makes clear, however, that the blame laid with the Confederacy:
"And now, friends, fellow-citizens, as we stand among these honored graves, the momentous question presents itself, Which of the two parties to the war is responsible for all this suffering, for this dreadful sacrifice of life,–the lawful and constituted government of the United States, or the ambitious men who have rebelled against it? I say “rebelled” against it ..."
The two-hour-long speech concludes with another glorification of the Union victory: "... wheresoever throughout the civilized world the accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common country there will be no brighter page than that which relates the battles of Gettysburg."
Everett's epic speech was followed by a 273 words speech from Lincoln, lasting less than two minutes. While the president never mentioned slavery and did not directly criticize the South, his words had a far more lasting impression.
Here's Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Even Everett wrote a letter to Lincoln the next day, asserting, "I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes."
A version of this post was originally written by Christina Sterbenz.
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The days of style "rules" are dwindling. As men's fashion continues to break out of its conservative past, we can throw a lot of these once-restrictions enforced by our parents out the window.
Produced by Justin Gmoser. Original reporting by Dennis Green.
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