• A fringe political group is calling for a "New California."
• The aspiring 51st state would incorporate the central, mostly rural counties and contain roughly 15 million people, according to the group's organizers.
• A split between California and New California is highly unlikely.

"New California" is swiftly taking over social media.

On Monday, a fringe political group out of California called for the state's central, mostly rural counties to break away from the rest of the state. Organizers gathered in a government building outside Sacramento for a reading of their own Declaration of Independence from California.

Unlike the "Calexit" movements of the past, which gathered steam on Twitter after the election of President Donald Trump, these Californians want to leave the Golden State, not the country.

"Well, it's been ungovernable for a long time. High taxes, education, you name it," Robert Paul Preston, the movement's cofounder, told CBS Sacramento.

New California would be made up of roughly 15 million people across 42 counties, leaving the state's coastal urban enclaves like Los Angeles and San Francisco on their own. According to the group's website, the existing California would surrender between 25 and 27 seats in the US House of Representatives to New California, based on 2016 population estimates.

The split would result in, effectively, a blue California and a red California.

Preston believes there's a path to statehood that is legal. The group cites Article IV Section 3 of the US Constitution, which allows for a state to be formed from another state with the consent of the original state legislature and the permission of US Congress.

Preston told CBS Sacramento that the group has representatives from counties across the state, and it plans to organize over the next 10 to 18 months. Then it will engage the state legislature.

"We have to demonstrate that we can govern ourselves before we are allowed to govern," Preston said.

This week, people took to Twitter to express a range of reactions.

A breakaway from California is highly unlikely. The last state to be created out of another state was West Virginia during the Civil War. Farmers living in the western part of the state declared independence only after Virginia left the union, and with approval from President Lincoln.

The latest reincarnation of "Calexit" may be only a conservative pipe dream.

SEE ALSO: Some Californians are talking about trying to leave the United States in a 'Calexit'

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NOW WATCH: The 15 most expensive ZIP codes in America

All eyes turned to doctor and rear admiral Ronny Jackson as he gave his report on President Donald Trump's physical at a press conference on Tuesday, wearing a slick military suit displaying his various honors.

Jackson delivered his findings without the kind of fanfare and over-the-top bravado that Trump's personal doctor Harold N. Bornstein used when he said that Trump would be the "healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency" in 2015. But the Navy and Marines veteran still managed to raise some eyebrows with comments about Trump's "incredible genes."

Trump's measurements and overall good health that Jackson reported were called into question in the media and on Twitter, where celebrities and journalists alike claimed he had given a low-ball measurement of the president's weight, giving birth to the "Girther Movement" conspiracy. Others, like CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, claimed the numbers Jackson reported indicated that Trump had heart disease.

But Jackson has served in the White House for 12 years — personally caring for three presidents — and many former White House officials have lined up to defend his credibility.

Here is a rundown of his impressive and varied career:

SEE ALSO: Here's Trump's full health report from his first physical exam as president

DON'T MISS: Trump's doctor says he's in 'excellent health,' but the numbers tell a different story

Jackson was born in Levelland, Texas in 1967. He studied Marine Biology at Texas A&M University at Galveston before graduating from medical school at University of Texas Medical Branch in 1995.

Source: US Navy

Jackson led an impressive career in the US Navy, gaining highly specialized skills in submarine medicine. He served for years in states from Florida to Hawaii, and trained to defuse bombs as part of an Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit in Sicily, Italy.

Sources: Harvard Medical School, New England Journal of Medicine, US Navy

A few years after finishing his medical studies in 2001, Jackson was deployed to Iraq to serve as the Emergency Medicine Physician in the US Marine Corps. In 2006, he was chosen to be one of the White House physicians for former President George W. Bush.

Sources: Harvard Medical School, US Navy

Do you ever think about the language used in job postings like these and wonder how it affects who applies and, ultimately, the kinds of people the company hires?

Do you want to know everything there is to know about particular jobs and industries and unearth lesser-known insights from the people working them that we could all benefit from knowing?

Business Insider is hiring a full-time reporter for its Careers verti cal, one of the most-read sections of the world's No. 1 digital business publication.

We're looking for someone who is insatiably curious about the intricacies of interesting careers and industries; jobs that are perfectly tailored to people's particular abilities, experience, or needs; workplace issues and trends like paid parental leave and pay equity; and strategies for getting ahead in your career.

As a Careers reporter, you will spend your time researching, pitching, writing, and producing stories. Candidates should be comfortable writing quick, aggregated stories that high light the most interesting angles of the day's news, while simultaneously working on reported medium-length and long-form featur es.

Ideal candidates will have:

• Insatiable curiosity about everything job-, work-, and career-related
• A strong voice and the ability to write with authority
• An ability to package information in a fresh and original way
• An understanding of digital media and how readers consume news on the web
• At least a Bachelor's degree, journalism degree and/or background preferred
• Previous writing experience
• Knowledge of SEO best practices
• Copy-editing skills, light HTML and Photoshop experience, and knowledge of social media are also useful

APPLY HERE with your resume and cover letter telling us why this is your ideal job.

This job is full-time and based in our New York City headquarters. Business Insider offers competitive compensation packages complete with benefits. 

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NOW WATCH: A former HR exec who reviewed over 40,000 résumés says these 7 résumé mistakes annoy her

• There's a new Japanese girl group called "Virtual Currency Girls" who sing about cryptocurrency.  
• Each of the eight women represents a different digital currency such as bitcoin and ripple.
• They aim to educate the public in a fun way about the digital currency.

The cryptocurrency craze has taken center stage — this time, in the form of an all-female Japanese pop group. The eight women who make up the group "Virtual Currency Girls" sing songs about the digital currencies while wearing wrestling-style masks in the theme of bitcoin, ripple, and others.

Rara Naruse, the group's leader told Reuters of the money: "They're so convenient you kind of have to wonder why we didn't have them before." Each member is dressed in the color scheme of different digital currency brands, and their logos grace the front of their masks.

The band's merchandise sold at the venue can be purchased in bitcoin — along with the concert tickets. The band's salary is also paid in digital currency. 

This week, bitcoin fell to a six-week low as South Korea said it planned to ban cryptocurrency trading, and reports came in that Russia could also impose stricter regulations on the sector.  

SEE ALSO: 17 of the most bizarre photos from this year's CES tech industry trade show

Reuters photographed the group "Virtual Currency Girls" during a performance in Tokyo, in January.

In Japanese, the group's name reads "Kasotsuka Shojo."

During the show each member introduced themselves and the currency they represent.

• Shuttle buses carrying Apple and Google employees were hit by unknown objects, possibly rocks or pellet gun ammunition, on Tuesday.
• Four buses carrying Apple employees and one bus carrying Google employees were targeted. The buses suffered broken windows.
• No one was injured.
• Apple has rerouted some of its buses following the incidents.

Multiple shuttle buses carrying Apple and Google employees were hit by unknown objects in a targeted spree on Tuesday. California Highway Patrol (CHP) is working with Apple to investigate.

Tech workers traveling to and from work on January 16 were startled when unknown objects — possible rocks or pellet guns, according to the CHP — struck their vehicles and broke windows. The incidents happened in both the morning and evening on both directions of Highway 280. 

There are at least five reports of shuttle buses hit, with four buses carrying Apple employees and one bus carrying Google employees. No one was injured, FOX KTVU reported.

A photo of one of the buses provided to Mashable appears in this tweet:

The tech giants operate free shuttle services between San Francisco and their offices in Silicon Valley, at least an hour's drive south. The buses are available to employees only, and they've long been a symbol of division between the tech world and everyone else. 

The buses are unmarked, so it's unclear if the attack was targeting Apple.

"This is a serious issue because if this happened to distract the driver — the driver could collide and we could have a multiple vehicle crash at the same time it could cause major injuries to the passengers of the bus and other drivers," Officer Art Montiel of the CHP told FOX KTVU.

In response on Tuesday night, Apple emailed employees to say that some buses would be rerouted around parts of Highway 280, adding 30 to 45 minutes to their commute.

"As always, the safety of our employees is our first priority. We're working closely with law enforcement to investigate these incidents," the email said, according to Mashable.

SEE ALSO: Apple is building a new campus and will hire 20,000 new employees

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NOW WATCH: Tim Ferriss explains why he left Silicon Valley

Japan, perhaps more than other destinations, is a place you travel with your taste buds. 

There are so many local specialties, from sushi and yakitori to okonomiyaki and shumai, that it'd be a shame to not try everything Japan's culinary tradition offers.

The best place to find and sample Japanese food in Japan is actually in Tokyo's department stores.

Stores like Tokyu, Mitsukoshi, and Nihonbashi Takashimaya are like miniature cities unto themselves, spanning five or more floors and selling everything you can possibly imagine. But it's in the basement where the real magic happens.

There you will find Japan's depachikas, sprawling fancy food halls with all kinds of Japanese and international cuisine.

Here's what it's like:

SEE ALSO: Inside the world's biggest fish market, where a single tuna can sell for millions of dollars

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Depachika is a portmanteau of the words for department store (depato) and basement (chika). Most department stores in Japan have them. I visited the Tokyu Food Show, a depachika in the basement of Tokyu Toyoko Department Store that advertises itself as the "Theatre of Food."

The depachika is seen as a way to draw in hungry travelers and convince them to shop in the store's upper floors, otherwise known as the "the Fountain Effect." They offer just about every type of cuisine someone might want. Some depachika offer as many as 30,000 products.

Source: Wall Street Journal

I entered the depachika through what appeared to be a grocery store. There were all kinds of fresh product and packaged goods that looked perfectly ripe.

• Roger Frampton, 33, is a model and personal trainer.
• His new book 'The Flexible Body' proposes that by practicing a sequence of movements based on stretches and gymnastics for 10 minutes a day, you'll get back to moving like you did as a child.
• Long-term benefits of the method include gaining strength and flexibility, avoiding injury, and living longer, he says.

33-year-old model and personal trainer Roger Frampton is chiselled, bright-eyed, and, surprisingly, even more handsome in real life than his photos suggest. But when we met after January's London Fashion Week Men's wrapped up, it was not to discuss his good looks nor his international modelling career.

Instead, it was to talk about his new book "The Flexible Body."

For many people stretching is an after thought, one that all too many of us forget — or can’t be bothered — to do before or after a workout.

But for Frampton, it forms one of the main bases of his workout, which he terms "The Method."

"The best description of what I'm doing is teaching people to move how they moved when they were three years old," he told Business Insider.

His book, released in January, promises to get you moving like you used to by spending just 10 minutes a day working through a sequence of movements based on a combination of stretches and gymnastics. And there's no gym membership or equipment required.

By learning to "move better" and "the way we were designed to," you'll build strength and flexibility, burn fat, lose weight, avoid injury, and live longer, according to Frampton.

He's certainly pretty flexible...

...But he hasn't always been like this.

"I was never really into exercise at school," he told us. "You'd never have found me in a PE class, you'd have found me smoking behind the bike sheds."

It was when he was living in east London as a late teen he started going to a "Rocky-style" gym in Stratford. "I got really into Arnold Schwarzenegger and I just wanted to get as big as I possibly could," he said.

That all changed, though, when at 19 a model scout spotted him in a bar while he was working towards a carpentry apprenticeship.

Back then the modelling industry was pretty rigid in terms of measurements, he says, and he was told to trim down. "I realised I couldn't lift weights anymore and that's when I came across body weight training."

Frampton looked to gymnastics for inspiration.

"Gymnasts are phenomenal athletes," he said. "Super strong, really bendy, but don't use any weights."

At a kids gymnastics class he realised how stiff he was. "I was a typical guy, really tight, with a crazy-strong chest, but couldn't touch my toes, and barely my knees.

"The teacher told me that we're all born flexible, I'd just lost it. He said: 'You can get it back, you just need to spend some time doing it.' And I said alright, so I wrote a book on it," he laughed.

Now a qualified personal trainer, when he's not in front of the camera, Frampton trains other models, celebrities, and, lately, lots of couples, he says.

Start with baby steps

"The Flexible Body" is divided into nine movements, which are broken down into 10 "support exercises." Each exercise involves a one minute movement and one minute hold, so each day he suggests you pick five of these.

"It's 10 minutes every day so it'll become a habit," he said. "I prefer people to be more consistent rather than beat their bodies up for an hour."

He says he's trying to tap into people who sit at a desk eight hours a day, or those who wouldn't normally go to the gym.

"Most gymnastics concepts are too extreme for most people so I've just really dampened down all of the exercises."

The book begins with an overhead squat from where you'll gradually work towards more challenging movements like a frog stand or headstand.

"The time transition between exercise 1 and 10 of a movement could take some people a few years," he warned. "It's a movement goal, not a change how my body looks goal."

Luckily, a smiling Frampton will guide you every step of the way, from the way you position your feet, to the angle of your ankle.

It's part of the mindfulness movement

Frampton's method belongs to a mindfulness exercise movement that's currently gaining traction following HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) overload.

"I'm really conscious of how I feel at any given time but especially when I'm training," he said. "The issue with [HIIT] is you become disconnected with how you feel unless, say, you've been training as a sprint athlete for years."

And it's not just hardcore exercise that he has swapped out in favour of his method. "I wouldn't do cardio now because I can't recognise how I feel when I do that, then I'd be prioritising my heartbeat over how I move," he said.

His method is about consciousness, learning, focusing, and engagement, he says, rather than short-term goals, such as weight-loss or fitness.

"I don't want people to aspire to a particular body image. There are lots of body transformations about at the moment but that's not what I'm about. I want you to learn some skills and then your body changes with it, just like athletes."

In it for the long term

And he's really not joking about it being no quick fix. The book points out that you have a lifetime to master all nine moves.

Frampton told Business Insider that he believes we're all going to live until about 90 years old, so why the rush? "People consider themselves old at 30, but that's really just a third of your life, you've got two times your life left," he said.

"The Flexible Body: Move Better Anywhere Anytime in 10 Minutes A Day" is available from Pavilion Books.

SEE ALSO: A stockbroker turned personal trainer tells us why eating 2 meals a day is the best way to lose weight and feel less hungry

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NOW WATCH: These monster machines are changing the world of construction

• Many people medicate themselves on aeroplanes, usually to get to sleep.
• But there are medical risks associated with certain medicines.
• The cramped, low-oxygen aeroplane combined with the medicines may increase the risk of stroke or heart attacks.
• Anti-anxiety medications may also be a bad idea in the long run.

We are all (hopefully) familiar with the air travel rules. Get to the airport two hours before your flight, don't have any liquids in your hand luggage over 100ml, and leave your knives at home.

But do you know what medicines you should and shouldn't take when you're on a plane?

According to pharmacist Nial Wheate in an article for The Conversation, taking certain medications when flying could be putting your health at risk.

Hormone-based medicines

Air travel can be pretty unpleasant, because you're cramped, the oxygen levels are lower than normal, and you can easily get dehydrated because of the lack of moisture in the air.

Aeroplane conditions can increase the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which is a type of blood clot that occurs in deep veins around the body, often the legs. In severe cases, this can result in blocked blood flow to the heart, lungs, or brain, causing a heart attack, aneurysm, or stroke.

The chance of developing a clot on a flight is about 1 out of every 5944 flights, so the risk is very small. But it's worth keeping in mind the medicines that also increase this risk, so you can avoid them where possible.

Some contraceptive pills for women carry a slight increased risk for developing blood clots, although it is small. Estrogen and other hormone-based fertility treatments can also increase the risk.

Wheate said that if you're at an increased risk already, then anti-platelet medication might be a good choice for you, such as warfarin or aspirin. Platelets are the components of blood which create blood clots, usually to stop bleeding.

Sleeping pills

Many people struggle to sleep on planes. They are uncomfortable and cramped, unless you're a business or first-class passenger.

This means sleeping pills are a popular option for getting enough shut-eye, especially if you're travelling long distances.

Unfortunately, this might also increase your risk of DVT. Knocking yourself out with a pill means you don't move around as much. It also lowers oxygen levels in the blood. Both of these increase the risk of DVT.

Smokers, obese people, pregnant women, or those who have recently had an operation are thought to be most at risk of DVT.

Antihistamines

Wheate wrote that some people opt for antihistamines instead of sleeping pills, because they make you drowsy. In fact, parents often give antihistamines to their children to settle them down.

However, this is not recommended as it can sometimes have the reverse effect, and make children hyperactive. They might also cause depressed breathing, which isn't ideal when you're already experiencing lower oxygen levels.

Anti-anxiety medication

Some people really hate air travel. The idea of flying through the air, thousands of feet from the ground, fills them with anxiety. Sometimes it is so bad, they have to be prescribed anti-anxiety medication just to make it through the journey.

According to therapist and airline captain Tom Bunn, who specialises in flight phobia, anti-anxiety medications on flights are inadequate, and come with a high long-term cost.

He wrote in a blog post for Psychology Today that anti-anxiety medications prevent anxious fliers from getting used to flying, they increase sensitivity to plane noises and movements, they impact the person's memory, and are addictive. Mixing the medication with alcohol can also be dangerous.

One study, published in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy, found that people taking anti-anxiety drugs may feel more relaxed psychologically. But physiologically, their heart and breathing rates were much higher than people who took a placebo.

A week later, the same subjects were put on another flight without medication. 71% of those who had taken the anti-anxiety medication before had significantly increased anxiety, a desire to leave the plane, and panic. The group who had been given the placebo reported less anxiety on the second flight.

Instead, Bunn suggests anti-anxieties on flights simple numb the panic, but don't help much in the long-term. Rather, you have to tolerate some of the anxiety to be able to get rid of it.

SEE ALSO: Taking a lot of ibuprofen could be putting men's fertility at risk, according to a new study

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NOW WATCH: Meet the 18-year-old entrepreneur making a fortune selling rare sneakers to celebrities

• Almost every celebrity on the red carpet wore black at this year's Golden Globes.
• The stunt was to raise awareness for Time's Up — a movement against sexual harassment in the workplace.
• Now, some of the black dresses and tuxes are being auctioned off on eBay from Friday.
• You could also take home a Stella McCartney gown for as little as $25 (£18) in a raffle.

2018's Golden Globes' red carpet had all the glamour, flashing cameras, and celebrities that it usually does, but there was one big difference — almost everyone was wearing black.

Both men and women donned black attire in support of Time's Up— an organisation founded earlier this year by 300 women who work in film, television, and theatre who want to confront sexual harassment in the workplace and hold predators accountable.

Now, publishing giant Condé Nast — known for the likes of Vogue and Vanity Fair — is teaming up with Time's Up and eBay to auction off a selection of the black dresses and tuxedos donned by celebrities last Sunday night.

The auction will, of course, raise money for the Time's Up cause.

Dresses worn by the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Viola Davis, Margot Robbie, Meryl Streep, and more will feature among the listings which go live on eBay on Friday January 19 at 5 p.m. GMT, or 12 p.m. EST.

All of the money raised will go to Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, which subsidises legal support for women who have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace and otherwise may not have the money or means to seek legal advice or defence to hold their harassers, attackers, and abusers to account.

If you want to get involved but aren't sure that your funds will stretch as far as a designer dress worn by an A-List celebrity, there'll also be a $25 (£18)-a-ticket raffle where tickets holders can win dresses designed by Stella McCartney, Diane von Furstenberg, and Rosie Assoulin. If your ticket comes up, you can choose which of the three dresses you want to take home.

"At Condé Nast, we've always believed in the importance of swift action to support meaningful social change," said Anna Wintour, artistic director of Condé Nast and editor-in-chief of Vogue.

"Through this auction powered by eBay for Charity, and harnessing the compelling pull of both fashion and activism, we're hopeful that the black dresses worn at this year's historic Golden Globe Awards will raise funds for the Time's Up initiative, and serve to support the stories and voices of those who have been victims of sexual misconduct."

The Time's Up website states:

"To every women employed in agriculture who has had to fend off unwanted sexual advances from her boss, every housekeeper who has tried to escape an assaultive guest, every janitor trapped nightly in a building with a predatory supervisor, […] and to women in every industry who are subjected to indignities and offensive behaviour that they are expected to tolerate in order to make a living: We stand with you. We support you."

SEE ALSO: Keira Knightley doesn't like playing modern-day characters because they 'nearly always get raped'

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NOW WATCH: Expect Amazon to make a surprising acquisition in 2018, says CFRA

• Restaurant chain Nando's has launched a high-tech recording studio in central London.
• The studio is available to use completely free to successful applicants.
• The chain has worked with the likes of Stormzy and Ella Eyre to mentor new artists.

Cult restaurant chain Nando's may be known for its peri-peri chicken, but it could soon become a name in the music industry.

Nando's has opened a recording studio inside its Soho, London restaurant, complete with an in-house sound engineer and industry-standard equipment — including a Neumann U87 microphone.

And the equipment is branded, of course.

The studio, which is visible to diners in the restaurant, is targeted at "budding producers, artists, and DJs" — and it's available completely free to successful applicants.

Here's what you can see as a diner:

The chain, which claims to have been "fueling the music industry backstage" for years, just entered into the fourth year of its Nando's Music Exchange, a programme which "inspires the exchange of global music influences through mentoring, workshops, and explosive events."

The programme has seen the likes of Stormzy and Ella Eyre mentor young artists — and now they have a new place to do so, open five days a week.

The company said it hopes to grow its network of artists through the programme, adding: "Some of the best ideas have started over PERi-PERi (or so we’re told), so we’re looking forward to hearing what happens when we bring together chicken and tunes!"

Interested artists can apply here.

SEE ALSO: Inside the most reviewed eatery in the world, a Portuguese bakery where the most popular dish costs less than £1

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NOW WATCH: Netflix is headed for a huge profit milestone in 2018

• Prince William has shaved his head, suggesting he has finally embraced baldness.
• Photos of the freshly shaven head emerged on social media on January 18. 

His thinning hairline has long been the subject of ridicule by the media, but it appears that Prince William has finally embraced baldness.

New photos have emerged of the Prince debuting a freshly shaven head, suggesting he has finally taken the plunge.

The photos were taken while the Duke of Cambridge was at Evelina Children's Hospital in London to launch a programme to help veterans find work in the UK's National Health Service (NHS) on January 18.

Here he is debuting the new cut. 

Some close-up shots also emerged on Twitter.

The move appears to have been a drawn-out process.

Here's a photo of him in October, with a slightly longer, albeit wispy 'do.

In 2015, at the launch of the Centrepoint Awards, he looks to have combed some of it over. 

On safari back in 2014 he had more hair, but a clear receding hairline.

But one thing is for sure — we can officially say RIP to the head of hair he once had.

SEE ALSO: There's a theory for why Prince William always holds George's hand in public while Kate looks after Charlotte — and experts on royals say it could be true

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NOW WATCH: The bizarre history of the Yule Log Christmas special

The competition for cities wanting to host Amazon's new $5 billion headquarters — and the 50,000 high-paying jobs the company says it'll come with — just got a lot closer.

The global e-commerce giant announced Thursday that the search for its second headquarters, dubbed HQ2, has been narrowed from 238 bids to just 20 cities.

The final list includes: Atlanta, GA, Austin, TX, Boston, MA, Chicago, IL, Columbus, OH, Dallas, TX, Denver, CO, Indianapolis, IN, Los Angeles, CA, Miami, FL, Montgomery County, MD, Nashville, TN, Newark, NJ, New York City, NY, Northern Virginia, VA, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Raleigh, NC, Toronto, ON, and Washington DC.

For those living in the finalist cities wondering what their city may look like should Amazon choose it, the company's current home in Seattle is a cautionary tale. Locals point to snarled traffic, soaring housing prices, never-ending construction, and accelerated gentrification.

I recently spent a day in the Seattle neighborhood locals call Amazonia to see whether the "Ama-geddon" is as bad as everyone thinks.

In the '90s, Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood was a mess of parking lots, warehouses, and industrial buildings. Amazon has transformed the neighborhood and its surrounding areas, Belltown and Denny Triangle. Each of those pins on the map is an Amazon office.

Amazon's offices are spread across more than 33 buildings throughout the area, though some say the number is closer to 40. The company leases 100,000 square feet of office space in this building, nicknamed Otter.

Source: SF Gate

It's hard to overstate how thoroughly Amazon dominates downtown. The company is up to occupying 8.1 million square feet of office space in Seattle, reports say. Day 1 Tower, opened in 2016, is one of two towers that form the heart of Amazon's campus.

Source: Geekwire, SF Gate, CNBC

• The Walt Disney Company spent years secretly acquiring swamp land in Florida.

• The company ultimately established Walt Disney World outside of Orlando in 1971.

• Today, cities and states are publicly vying for Amazon's HQ2.

• Amazon revealed the 20 cities in the US and Canada that it's currently still considering.

• Both companies have used different methods to set up a second huge location. Like Disney, Amazon will likely benefit from an eager-to-please municipal government.

The top secret operation — known as "Project Winter" or "Project X" — began in 1958. Traveling under pseudonyms, men bounced between airports to throw off potential observers. The confidential team investigated spots around America, and eventually set up phony companies to disguise their activities.

These weren't Cold War spies at work. This was how the Walt Disney Company established Walt Disney World, its sprawling Orlando theme park.

"If they were doing that now, they would be on the FBI's watch list," "The Walt Disney World Trivia Book" author Lou Mongello told Business Insider. "What Disney did in the 1960s, in terms of buying this land in secret, could obviously never, ever happen again. This was a one-and-done type of operation in terms of how secretive it was."

Today, Amazon is in the middle of a similar, far-reaching search for a second headquarters. It's just going about things in a considerably more public manner. The Seattle-based tech titan announced its intention to found a second headquarters, nicknamed HQ2, in September 2017. This sparked a nationwide grovel-fest among states and cities looking to win them over. Offerings have included a giant cactus, free sandwiches, and big tax breaks. Business Insider's Hayley Peterson reported on Thursday that Amazon has revealed the 20 cities it's deciding between, from Toronto to Los Angeles.

The ongoing saga of Amazon HQ2 reads like a municipal perks-centric "Hunger Games," while the founding of Disney World comes off more like a spy novel about a theme park. But both quests for a second location came about during a time of diversification and expansion for huge companies at the top of their games. And Amazon seems likely to bend the government of whatever location it settles upon to its will, as Disney did with Florida decades ago.

A time of growth

Amazon may be on track to become the world's first trillion-dollar company. Having launched as an online bookstore in 1994, the tech giant is now both a colossal online and physical retailer, with a whole host of subsidiaries and increasing clout in show business.

Before the 1950s, "Understanding Disney" author and University of Oregon professor Janet Wasko said Disney's global reputation and cultural impact outweighed its actual size as a company. That changed as it began to branch out from focusing exclusively on animated films, and dipped into merchandise, film distribution, and television.

"That led to them building into one of the Hollywood majors," Wasko said. "Those were the foundations."

The diversification also featured theme parks. Disneyland opened in 1955 outside Anaheim, California. The park was built on orange groves, but the city quickly grew up around it. The gas stations and traffic weren't a part of Walt Disney's vision — he wanted a more immersive experience for guests.

"Walt, always being the innovator, was always looking to what's next," Mongello said. "He was already starting to think, 'We need a place that's going to give us the blessing of size.'"

So, starting around 1958, the company began to search for a new spot.

'Mucky, murky, disgusting swampland'

Most Disney employees weren't aware of "Project Winter." The real estate agents Disney hired were also kept in the dark about their client's identity. In "Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando," Richard E. Foglesong writes, "the slightest leak that a large company like Disney was acquiring property would quickly escalate land prices."

Disney ended up scouting Niagara Falls, St. Louis, Baltimore, and New Orleans, along with spots in Florida, California, New Jersey, and Colorado.

Some spots came close to snagging the deal. Foglesong writes Gussie Busch, chairman of the Anheuser-Busch Companies, wrecked St. Louis's chances just by annoying Walt Disney. At a dinner St. Louis leaders held with the Disney team, Busch remarked, "Any man who thinks he can design an attraction that is going to be a success in this city and not serve beer or liquor, ought to have his head examined."

During a plane ride over Florida, Disney settled on a remote area outside Orlando, which also happened to be close to major highways.

"If you look at pictures of this area, there was nothing here," Mongello said. "There was literally nothing around. There were orange groves. There was like one bar where all the workers used to go when they first started to build it."

Disney began scooping up land — much of which was either farmland or "mucky, murky, disgusting swampland," according to Mongello. To avoid scrutiny and land speculation, it used shell companies, like M.T. Lott — or, "empty lot." That's how Disney was able to snap up 27,000 acres of land with no one noticing, although the company had a few close calls over the years. One near reveal came when Disney grabbed lunch in a Florida diner.

"The waitress is like, 'You look just like Walt Disney,'" Mongello said. "He was like, 'Oh yeah, I get that a lot.'"

Meanwhile, the local press began speculating whether large companies like Boeing, NASA, or Ford was behind the land grab. In October 1965, Disney's publicity team invited a group of reporters — including Emily Bavar, editor of the Orlando Sentinel's Florida Magazine — to visit Walt Disney at Disneyland. During the meeting in his office, Bavar asked the entertainment mogul if he was behind the land acquisition.

"Taken aback, he sputtered a non-denial denial and offered climate and population reasons why Florida would be inappropriate — but then explained how those factors could be overcome," Foglesong writes.

The Orlando Sentinel ended up breaking the news, and land prices jumped. Mongello writes the company got its first plot of land for $80, and its last for $80,000.

The home state of HQ2 can learn from Florida's experience

The state of Florida was thrilled by the news Disney would make its home there, sensing an opportunity to boost employment and tourism. Mongello said the state essentially allowed the company to form its own "quasi-government entity." Disney runs its own towns, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista. It established its own building codes. If it chose to, the company could open its own school — even its own nuclear power plant.

Walt Disney passed away several years before the park opened in 1971. But his vision has since gone on to completely transform Orlando, according to Mongello. Today, Walt Disney World alone employs 70,000 cast members, and The Orlando Sentinel reported a record 68 million visitors to Orlando in 2016.

Meanwhile, the state of Florida's decision to bestow so much autonomy on the company has also sparked concerns. Foglesong called Walt Disney World "the Vatican with mouse ears" and alleges it has occasionally worn "their public hat or their private hat, depending on what best serves their corporate interest."

Disney's move to Florida offers insight into how Amazon might relate to its new home city. In its first home, Seattle, Amazon has been blamed for skyrocketing rents, gentrification, and increased traffic in Seattle.

There are clear differences between both cases, regarding scouting methods, industries, and the realities of real estate, to mention a few. But Mongello said the strategies employed by Disney and Amazon are "two sides of the same coin." And, given how determined many places are to land the tech giant, it's not unreasonable to imagine Amazon's HQ2 search might result in an outcome somewhat similar to Disney's relationship with Florida.

"They know what having the headquarters is going to mean for them," Mongello said, "not just in the next five years, but in the next 50 years."

SEE ALSO: Disneyland has raised ticket prices 70% to ease crowds — but attendance is soaring

DON'T MISS: Amazon's new $5 billion headquarters could give these 5 cities the biggest boost

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NOW WATCH: This abandoned Disney water park has been rotting for over 15 years

• Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is now the richest man in history.

• Bezos works hard, but his daily routine indicates that he's not addicted to work.

• His daily routine includes lots of family time, and even time allotted for washing the dishes.

Jeff Bezos is now the richest person in history.

According to Bloomberg, the Amazon founder and CEO has $105 billion to his name. In addition to founding the online retail behemoth Amazon, Bezos also owns The Washington Post and an aerospace company, Blue Origin.

So what does daily life look like for this tech mogul?

Here's a look inside his daily routine:

SEE ALSO: A look at the demanding schedule of Elon Musk, who works in 5-minute slots, skips breakfast, and largely avoids emails

DON'T MISS: A typical day in the life of Mark Zuckerberg, who wears the same thing every day and tucks his daughter in every night

Bezos is a big believer in getting enough shut-eye. He wakes up every morning naturally, without the aid of an alarm clock.

Source: CNBC, Inc., Entrepreneur

He always starts the day by sharing a healthy breakfast with his wife, the novelist MacKenzie Bezos.

Source: Entrepreneur, Inc.

To spend quality time with MacKenzie and their four children, he never schedules early-morning meetings.

Source: Entrepreneur

President Donald Trump's cabinet has already gone through a couple of changes since Trump took office.

Gen. John Kelly has stepped out of his role as Homeland Security secretary in order to become White House chief of staff, and Tom Price resigned from the Department of Health and Human services after using taxpayer money to fund expensive private jet travel.

Although a number of cabinet members are not serving in the fields they have expertise in, all of them have attended universities — some of which include America's most prestigious academic institutions. Several members are Georgetown alums.

Here's where each cabinet member, including cabinet-level officials, went to college:

SEE ALSO: China and Russia have their eyes on the Arctic — and Rex Tillerson says the US is 'late to the game'

DON'T MISS: Trump reportedly didn't know about the loophole in the 25th Amendment that lets a majority of the cabinet remove a sitting president from office

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was a section leader in the University of Texas at Austin marching band.

Tillerson graduated with a Bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1975.

Source: News 4 San Antonio

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was a member of the secret society Skull and Bones at Yale University.

Mnuchin was also the publisher of the "Yale Daily News."

Source: Bloomberg

Defense Secretary James Mattis got a Bachelor's in history from Central Washington University as part of the ROTC program.

Mattis later went on to get a Master's at the National War College in Washington, DC.

Source: Britannica

• Terry Crews has built a career by doing everything from action movies ("The Expendables") and comedy series ("Brooklyn Nine-Nine"), to being a game-show host ("Who Wants to Be a Millionaire") and pitchman (Old Spice).
• But at one point, after playing in the NFL, he was broke and had a job sweeping floors at a factory.
• Now, he's one of the most recognizable faces on the planet — and even has a furniture line.

Terry Crews learned the hard way that you should never take an opportunity for granted. 

He was 11 years old when a woman at his church, impressed by his drawing ability, offered to have him create a sign for her storefront. She would give him $25 for the work, which for a kid from a blue-collar family in Flint, Michigan was quite a pay day. He was told to complete the sign within a week.

“I thought, ‘This is going to be easy!’” Crews recalled to Business Insider in a recent interview. “So I spent the week watching cartoons, hanging out, playing around, and the day before it was due I started. But the paint wasn’t sticking to the canvas, everything was going wrong, it was awful. The woman showed up at the house and looked at it and was like, ‘I’ve never been more disappointed.’ I was crushed. I didn’t put any effort into it. I vowed to work hard after that. I never wanted anyone to have that disappointment in me again.”

And Crews’ career proves that he’s never forgotten that life lesson. 

From being the face of Old Spice commercials to his memorable roles in movies ("Idiocracy," "The Expendables") and TV ("Brooklyn Nine-Nine"), thanks to his hulking size matched with his comedic talents, Crews, 49, has gone from being broke after a lackluster career in the NFL, to being an actor who seems to always have a new goal he’s chasing down.

And recently Crews also stood up and became part of the #MeToo movement — the viral wave on social media denouncing sexual misconduct in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations. Late last year, Crews said in a series of tweets that a Hollywood executive groped him at a party in 2016. This, and subsequent statements and interviews, led to Crews being included in Time magazine's Person of the Year: “Silence Breakers.”   

For this piece, Crews took Business Insider through some of the landmark moments of his career to show that when it comes to his brand, as he puts it, “I’m happy, but I’m never satisfied.”

Broke and sweeping floors in a factory after quitting the NFL

Terry Crews’ career in the NFL was not a memorable one. Basically a glorified tackling dummy in the league after being drafted by the Los Angeles Rams in the 11th round in 1991, Crews also played for the San Diego Chargers and Washington Redskins. He walked away from the game after being on the practice squad for the Philadelphia Eagles in 1996. He played a total of 32 games over his 5-year career.

With no other career to fall back on, Crews tried to get into acting, but quickly realized having the NFL on his resume didn't equal instant success.

"It was a big shock to me," Crews said about not finding immediate fame in the entertainment world. "I moved to Los Angeles thinking that because I was a football player, I was going to get a lot of big opportunities. They didn't even have a football team then, nobody cared!"

Crews said he spent a year broke, and had to get a job sweeping floors at a factory to make ends meet.

"I realized I had to start all over again," he said. "I gotta sweep these floors and make sure they are clean but I also felt like I was doing something about the situation. It was a gut check."

Finding his big break in "Friday After Next"

With no acting experience but a lot of desire, Crews got himself into auditions thanks to his size and outgoing personality. It led to him being cast on the syndicated show "Battle Dome" in 1999 — think a combination of "American Gladiators" and pro wrestling — where he played the character "T-Money" for two seasons. He also got extra work on movies like "Training Day" and the Matthew Perry comedy "Serving Sara."

Then in 2002 he got his big break.

After working security on the set of 2000's "Next Friday," the sequel to the Ice Cube stoner comedy "Friday," Cube cast Crews in the third movie, "Friday After Next." Crews played Damon, an ex-con who basically was the intimidating presence in the movie (as Tommy "Tiny" Lister's Deebo character was in the first two movies).

But Crews took the character to a whole new level and became a standout in the movie. This was particularly because his Damon character is sexually attracted to another male character, Money Mike (Katt Williams), a storyline that at the time in black culture was very taboo.

"I remember talking to Katt and saying, 'If this is the last thing we ever do, they can love us or they can hate us, but we have to make sure they never forget us,'" Crews said. "That was our whole mantra. Do something that will just make everyone's eyes bug out."

And they did just that. Crews said he pushed the homosexual tendencies of the Damon character to the point that even on set fellow actors thought it was going too far.

However, despite the movie being a box-office bomb (it grossed only $33.3 million worldwide), Crews was one of the highlights.

"At the premiere, Ice Cube came up to Katt and me and he was like, 'That whole third act with you and Katt takes over the whole movie.'" Crews said. "And I was like, wow. I got respect from people in the industry because I was willing to go all in."

The Old Spice commercials

Crews' "all in" approach led him to be a huge part of an advertising campaign that has influenced the way commercials are made today.

In 2010, he began doing commercials for Old Spice deodorant called "Odor Blockers," and the company's YouTube channel suddenly became one of the most addictive destinations on the site. Created by the Wieden+Kennedy ad agency and directed by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, of "Tim and Eric Awesome Show" fame, the videos instantly became viral thanks to Crews insanely yelling and screaming while doing bizarre things (with the help of CGI). Whether it was rolling his head down a bowling lane, popping his now-famous pecs, or suddenly appearing in another brand's commercials, Crews embodied the insanity that made the commercials — as well as Isaiah Mustafa's equally zany "Smell Like a Man, Man" Old Spice commercials — go on to win advertising awards and spawn countless imitators.

"I remember the first time we shot any of the Old Spice commercials we did three on the same day because we kept coming up with ideas," Crews said. "I had to sign contracts and fax them to Wieden+Kennedy on set because I was only signed to do one ad."

"I trusted these guys and it was a magical moment," Crews continued. "It's been eight years and I'm still doing them. I'm filming a new one on Thursday!"


President Camacho from "Idiocracy"

Through the years Crews has played some entertaining characters, but his most memorable (so far) is President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho from the 2006 movie "Idiocracy."

Though hardly anyone saw the movie when it was released, it's found a second life on Blu-ray, cable, and streaming. And Crews' portrayal of the president in a future when corporations are king and everyone is stupid has gotten to cult icon status.

There was even talk of Crews portraying Camacho in some anti-Donald Trump ads that "Idiocracy" director Mike Judge was going to make during the 2016 presidential campaign. But Crews balked, saying he would only do it if all the candidates were made fun of.

Looking back now, Crews feels he's protective of the Camacho character because of how it can be shaped to any political agenda — none of which the actor wants to be a part of.

"People are way more complex than Republican and Democrat, and that's what I love about 'Idiocracy,' it just told the truth," Crews said. "That's the comedy I like to do. I still think there's room to do Camacho stuff, I would love to. But I want to also just tell the truth and then let it lay."

"Brooklyn Nine-Nine"

Recently, Crews' steadiest work has been playing Detective Sergeant Terence "Terry" Jeffords for five seasons on the Fox comedy series "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."

And if you're wondering, no, it's not a coincidence Crews' character is named Terry on the show.

"We designed the role for Terry, we named the character 'Terry' just to tell him how much we wanted him to do it," Michael Schur, co-creator/executive producer of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," told Business Insider in an email. "Everything about Terry Crews is impressive — his talent, his work ethic, his courage, his activism, everything. In fact, his biceps are the least impressive thing about him, which is saying something."

There is no better place than TV for actors to work on their craft, and Crews is appreciative of the show for that — and for the incredible response he's received from the show's fans over the years.

"One woman told me she watches 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' because her son passed away and they enjoyed watching it together," Crews said. "So when she watches it now it brings her back to that time. You start to realize the influence. This is beyond me."

Furniture line

That's right, Terry Crews has furniture named after him.

Crews said he was helping a friend out on a furniture line when he was suddenly offered his own.

"On the [list of] things I want to accomplish, furniture wasn't on there but art was," Crews said. "I felt, wait, furniture is art, if you make it it's art!"

Crews dove into the project, coming up with sketches on his own. It was evident for those working with him that he wasn't just going to slap his name on anything placed in front of him.

"He had so many solid ideas that the difficult part was choosing which ones to pursue for his first collection," Jerry Helling, creative director of furniture maker Bernhardt Design — which is doing Crews' line — told Business Insider in an email. "His knowledge of design and his passion for the industry, combined with his artistic skills made him an ideal collaborator."

Crews' collection ranges from seating to tables, all inspired by ancient Egypt. A second collection will be coming out in the spring.

Using his art skills to make a TV show

Before scoring a football scholarship to attend Western Michigan University, Crews got an art scholarship. He's also been a courtroom sketch artist (back in his hometown of Flint, Michigan), and even painted portraits of NFL players to earn some extra cash during his playing days (sometimes charging $5,000 a portrait).

Now Crews is trying to combine his passion and his celebrity status to make a show.

He's prepping a pitch to send around Hollywood of a talk show in which he'll interview a guest while also sketching them. The pilot has already been shot with his "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" costar Andy Samberg as the guest.

"The pilot looks great, we got a lot of pitch meetings lined up," Crews said. "Our biggest thing is will the show be 30 minutes, or 10 minutes, or even a couple of minutes? We can tailor to whoever wants it. So we're keeping it open to any format."

Time magazine Person of the Year: "Silence Breakers"

Recently, the biggest thing on Crews' mind has been an incident that happened to him at a party back in 2016, he said.

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct allegations this past October, Crews was one of the many who spoke out about sexual harassment.

Through a series of tweets, the actor said that a "high level Hollywood executive" groped him at a party he attended with his wife.

Crews later revealed that the exec he was talking about was Adam Venit, head of the motion picture department at the talent agency William Morris Endeavor. The same agency represented Crews (the actor has since left WME). After a one-month suspension, Venit went back to work at WME and was demoted.

Crews, who has since filed a report with the LAPD alleging Venit sexually assaulted him, was later named as one of the "Silence Breakers" in Time's Person of the Year issue.

Looking back on the past months, Crews said telling his story was "a good thing" because it revealed who really was in his corner.

"I found out who my friends really were through this thing," Crews said. "There were a lot of people that I thought were behind me and weren't. I didn't cry in my bed, 'Oh, I've been betrayed,' as a businessman the difficult times revealed who was there for me and who wasn't."

"I'm thankful," Crews continued, "because I would have gone for years thinking these people had my back. I would have just kept going. Sometimes you don't see until something weird happens, and it doesn't get weirder than what happened to me."

SEE ALSO: Inside the 14 long years it took for the director of Amazon's Grateful Dead documentary to finally get his dream project made

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• After meeting at D.E. Shaw & Co., Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos were married in 1993.

• Shortly afterward, the couple relocated to Seattle to found Amazon; MacKenzie was one of the company's first employees.

• Today, Jeff Bezos is worth $105 billion, making him the richest person in history.

Jeff Bezos wasn't alone when he made his cross-county road trip to Seattle in 1994. And he wasn't alone when he founded Amazon, the online retail giant some analysts now believe will be the world's first trillion-dollar company.

His wife, MacKenzie, was there for the whole journey.

In an interview with CBS, she described watching her husband build Amazon up from scratch: "To me, watching your spouse, somebody that you love, have an adventure — what is better than that?"

Today, Bloomberg estimates Bezos is worth $104 billion— making him the richest person in history, according to CNN.

Here's a look inside the marriage of Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos.

SEE ALSO: A day in the life of the world's richest person, Jeff Bezos — who made $6.44 billion in one day, wakes up without an alarm, and washes dishes after dinner

MacKenzie and Jeff first met at investment management firm D.E. Shaw. MacKenzie was a research associate and Jeff was a vice president. Jeff was the first person to interview MacKenzie — a fellow Princeton grad — at the firm.

Source: Business Insider, Forbes, Vogue

"I think my wife is resourceful, smart, brainy, and hot, but I had the good fortune of having seen her résumé before I met her, so I knew exactly what her SATs were," he joked to Vogue.

Source: Vogue

After she landed the job, they became office neighbors. "All day long I listened to that fabulous laugh," she told Vogue. "How could you not fall in love with that laugh?"

Source: Vogue

• Amazon announced the 20 finalists for its new $5 billion headquarters, nicknamed HQ2.
• Three of the locations are in the Washington, DC, metro Area.
• There are a lot of reasons CEO Jeff Bezos might want to locate there, but the two biggest might be his new $23 million DC mansion and The Washington Post, which he owns.

Amazon announced the finalists Thursday for Amazon's new $5 billion headquarters — and the 50,000 high-paying jobs that come with it — but one look at the list drops a heavy hint at where the global e-commerce giant will go.

The final list includes 20 major cities, three of which are in the same area: Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, VA, and Montgomery County, MD.

Those three are all within striking distance of Bezos' biggest recent purchase — a $23 million 27,000-square-foot mansion in Kalorama, the historic DC neighborhood home to bigwigs in media, politics, diplomacy, and lobbying.

The mansion, which was once the Textile Museum, is the largest private home in DC and blocks from the homes of Barack and Michelle Obama and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who both moved to the Kalorama neighborhood earlier this year.

As Business Insider's Dennis Green wrote, DC offers a lot of advantages for HQ2: robust transportation and education systems, a large educated workforce, and high livability.

But perhaps the biggest indicator is in Kalorama. The proximity to Capitol Hill — as well as the numerous potential government contracts that could result in deeper partnerships with Washington — can't be ignored.

Bezos handed off running Amazon's consumer business and cloud computing to two deputies a couple of years ago to allow him to focus on developing The Washington Post. The Amazon CEO now hosts conferences calls with Post leadership twice a month, meets with them in Seattle twice a year, and visits the DC offices 10 times a year, The New York Times reported last week.

And Bezos reportedly plans to host regular "salon-style dinners" at the Kalorama house, according to The Times, to bring together DC's power elite and make his home a center for the city.

If Bezos intends to focus on developing the Post while raising his profile as one of Washington's major arbiters of power — all while keeping a close eye on his e-commerce empire — the DC metro area is the only logical option for HQ2.

We took a walk through Bezos's new neighborhood on a recent trip to DC to see why the area is such a coveted destination.

SEE ALSO: Amazon announced the 20 finalists for HQ2 — but one walk through Seattle made me very uneasy for whatever city wins

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' new DC home is in the Kalorama neighborhood. At 27,000 square feet, the house is the largest in Washington, and Bezos reportedly paid $23 million in cash in October 2016.

Source: The Washington Post

Kalorama, in northwest DC, just above Dupont Circle, is actually two neighborhoods: Sheridan-Kalorama (in yellow) and Kalorama Triangle (in purple).

The house is made up of two historic mansions that Bezos is converting to a single-family home. A lot of construction was underway the day we walked by. Bezos reportedly wants to make the house a social gathering place for the city's elite.

Source: New York Times

• Recent research suggests that when you eat might be just as important as what you eat.
• Late night meals appear to interfere with weight loss and may contribute to indigestion.
• One reason? Levels of a “hunger hormone” rise at night.

Here's what a typical weeknight used to look like for me:

I got home around 8 p.m., threw together some "dinner" (usually leftovers or something from the freezer), watched a few episodes of a show on Netflix, and went to bed.

For many of us, this nighttime meal is the most substantial thing we eat all day.

If recent research is any indication, that's a substantial health problem — especially if you're trying to lose weight.

In 2013 study of 420 overweight and obese people enrolled in a five-month weight-loss program found that "late eaters," people classified as eating their biggest meal after 3 p.m., lost significantly less weight — and took longer to lose it — than "early eaters," those who ate their main meal before 3 p.m.

And in a new study published last month in the International Journal of Obesity, researchers discovered a potential clue as to the reason why. For that study, researchers recruited 32 overweight people, half of whom had been diagnosed with binge eating disorder, and had them fast for eight hours, then receive a heavy liquid meal at either 9 a.m. or 4 p.m. Roughly two hours later, the scientists performed a basic stress test, drew blood to measure stress and hunger hormones, and had them rank how hungry or full they felt on a scale.

They found that levels of a "hunger hormone" called ghrelin not only climbed in the evening, but also appeared to  tick up during times of stress. At the same time, levels of a hormone linked with fullness dropped as the day went on.

"Our findings suggest that evening is a high-risk time for overeating, especially if you're stressed and already prone to binge eating," Susan Carnell, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the lede author on the most recent study, said in a statement.

Eating late also appears to mess with digestion.

A 2005 study of the nighttime noshing habits of 350 people found that eating dinner within three hours of bedtime was positively linked with a risk of developing acid-reflux symptoms, a fairly common condition that causes everything from heartburn and indigestion to coughing, hoarseness, and asthma. (To find out if you have acid reflux, you should see a doctor. In the worst cases, acid reflux can progress into something more serious, including a rare form of cancer.) The results held steady even after controlling for smoking, BMI, and other factors that could affect heartburn.

Physician Jamie A. Koufman echoed these concerns in an op-ed for The New York Times in 2015. In it, Koufman described how late-night dining — especially when it consists of a heavy meal followed by little or no activity — can screw up the systems our bodies rely on to process food. Proper digestion is critical for absorbing the nutrients in what we eat and discarding the stuff we don't.

"The good news is that having this knowledge, people could take steps to reduce their risk of overeating by eating earlier in the day, or finding alternative ways to deal with stress," Carnell said.

SEE ALSO: How often you need to exercise to see results, according to the scientist behind the viral 7-minute workout

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• Over the past few years, British Airways flyers have seen a number of service cuts, ranging from ultra-cramped cabins to fees for tea.
• In news sure to please passengers, the airline recently announced a revamp of its catering service in the economy cabin for long-haul flights.
• The new service began yesterday on a daytime flight from London Heathrow to New York-JFK.

It's been tough lately for British Airways flyers, but things are finally starting to look up.

As the airline has made cuts left and right over the past few years to try and stave off fierce competition in both the short-haul and long-haul markets, loyalists have seen a series of unfavorable changes, as pointed out by Skift. In the latest move, the airline recently unveiled ultra-dense cabins with "pre-reclined seats" on regional flights, more in line with what could be expected from low-cost competition like EasyJet.

Meanwhile, free snacks were eliminated on short-haul flights in favor of purchasable food — which often ran out — and even drinks were curtailed, with fees introduced for things as basic as tea. Leading to a wave of bad press, the airline even charged the full tea price for a cup of hot water — while intrepid flyers thought they could just bring their own teabags, that loophole was closed.

Harming perhaps the biggest differentiator between the legacy airline and the ultra-low cost competition was a recent announcement that the airline's long-serving frequent flyer program would follow a slew of similar programs in moving to a revenue-based model, rather than distance-based; a significant devaluation for budget flyers. 

While British Airway's approach to a diminished passenger experience has almost certainly been carried out with Europe's budget-focused carriers in mind, the airline has seen its reputation begin to plummet.

However, in an exciting about-face, the carrier has announced a significant investment in catering in the economy cabin of its international flights.

Starting later this month, economy passengers traveling in the "World Traveller" economy cabin will see an expanded menu, featuring snacks throughout the flight, a four-course main meal, and a full English breakfast on overnight flights. There will be either a substantial snack — like pizza rolls — or a second meal, depending on the length of the flight, and treats like ice cream, chocolate desserts, and chips (or "crisps") will be offered, with candy up for grabs in the galleys.

The main menus will rotate every six months, and drinks will be complimentary.

The new catering represents a "multi-million pound investment," according to a quote provided from Carolina Martinoli, the director of customer experience for British Airways. Future improvements economy flyers can look forward to include fleet-wide Wi-Fi and power ports at every seat, as well as interior renovations of a significant number of long-haul aircraft.

The big question will be whether these passenger experience improvements will be enough to help British Airways compete simultaneously against ultra-low cost carriers offering cheap trans-Atlantic flights — like Norwegian Air Shuttle — as well as major legacy carriers offering similar trans-Atlantic routes, like rivals Delta and United. 

Considering the jokes, though — "what's the deal with airplane food"— it seems likely that an improvement won't hurt in the eyes of passengers.

SEE ALSO: RANKED: The 10 best economy-class airlines in the world

Join the conversation about this story »

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