• We tried a beauty treatment where you wear a LED mask.
• It’s meant to boost collagen production and regenerate skin cells.
• LED mask treatments are popular with celebrities.
• Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson Kourtney Kardashian, and Chrissy Teigen have all tried it.

Wearing a LED mask is meant to boost collagen production and regenerate skin cells.

We went to Ella Di Rocco in London to try the mask with the right light setting, which is specifically for skin rejuvenation. Here, the mask is combined with a facial treatment called chronocare.

"Chronocare is based on nanotechnology meaning that there are photosomes in the cream that get activated with light," Marketing Executive Sonia Milena Brilli told Business Insider.

"By putting the LED mask afterwards, the photosomes and the active ingredients in the cream are intensified."

The red light treatment includes a facial cleansing and a face massage. It costs £250 ($333).

LED mask treatments are popular with celebrities. Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson Kourtney Kardashian, and Chrissy Teigen have all posted a photo wearing the mask on their social media accounts.

Produced byClaudia Romeo. Filmed by David Ibekwe.

SEE ALSO: We tried wine therapy — a £245 beauty treatment where you bathe in red wine poured straight from the bottle

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• LaGuardia Airport has a reputation for being one of the worst airports in the US.
• When I used the airport in December 2017, I noticed it was dirty, cramped, and poorly lit.
• The airport is undergoing significant renovations over the next few years.

While the future of American transportation could involve self-driving cars, supersonic jets, and flying Ubers, our current transportation infrastructure needs some work.

Airports, in particular, have struggled to keep up with an increasing demand for air travel. Compared to some of their international counterparts, American airports are lacking. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the American aviation industry a "D" grade in its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card. 

"Progress at the nation’s airports and in the air traffic control system is slow, as investment has been consistently lagging in the past 18 years, unable to keep up with demands of increased traffic and new technologies," the report said.

New York's LaGuardia Airport has a reputation for being one of the worst airports in the US. A 2017 study of more than 34,000 travelers by J.D. Power found that respondents were less satisfied with their experiences at LaGuardia than at any other large or medium airport in North America.

While renovations to the airport's terminals, parking system, and drop-off and pick-up areas are underway, the airport is cramped, poorly-lit, and dirty in its current state.

I used LaGuardia when I flew to Chicago in December 2017 and realized why its reputation is so horrible.

Here's what I saw.

SEE ALSO: The 14 most beautiful airports in the world

Construction for the renovations began in 2016, and for the moment, it made the airport look like even more of an eyesore.

The pick-up and drop-off areas were narrow, and anyone who wanted to take an Uber or Lyft home from the airport had to take a shuttle to a designated pickup area.

The ticketing area had poor lighting and low ceilings.

These are the movies that you can never escape — and that's not a bad thing.

They are the movies that you stop everything to watch, can get sucked into even if it's halfway through, and know every single line of.

These are the best rewatchable movies.

From Steven Spielberg classics, like "Jaws" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark," to romantic comedies, such as "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" and "Hitch," to classics, like "The Godfather" and "Toy Story," these are the titles that keep us in love with movies.

Here are the 29 most rewatchable movies of all time:

SEE ALSO: 'The Staircase' is Netflix's latest addictive true-crime series that will keep you guessing

"A Christmas Story" (1983)

Perhaps it's because of the 24-hour marathon of the movie on TV every Christmas, but Bob Clark's adaptation of Jean Shepherd's stories is a nostalgic look at the holidays and childhood that never gets old no matter how many times you watch it (even in one sitting during Christmas Day).

"Back to the Future" (1985)

From the premise to the performances to the soundtrack, everything about Robert Zemeckis' classic makes it a movie that you can never get tired of.

"Big" (1988)

The playfulness of Tom Hanks playing a teenager in an adult's body is the essence of this movie and a joy to watch, even decades later.

• Humans produce an estimated 300 million tons of plastic every year.
• But plastic is increasingly being recognized as one of the biggest threats to the environment.
• Reuters sent photographers around the world to document what a week's worth of plastic looks like for average families.

The use of plastic has exploded in the last half century, so much that we produce an estimated 300 million tons of the stuff every year.

But plastic is increasingly being recognized as one of the biggest threats to the environment — it takes so long to decompose that much of our plastic waste ends up in oceans, rivers, beaches, and other natural habitats.

How much plastic are we really using at a household level? Reuters sought to answer that question by sending photographers around the world to document a week's worth of plastic waste generated by a typical family.

The photos are a sobering reminder of how ubiquitous plastic is in our everyday lives, from the packaging our food comes in to the shopping bags we use to carry it home.

Read on to see how much plastic a typical family generates in a week:

SEE ALSO: The World Cup starts on Thursday — these photos from around the world show why soccer is the world's most beloved game

DON'T MISS: Inside the eerily quiet streets of Kazakhstan's 20-year-old capital city, where futuristic skyscrapers tower over the grasslands of a former prison camp

Brandy and Anthony Wilbur from Wenham, Massachusetts, said they are trying to cut back buying products with plastic packaging. "We're aware and try our best to reduce our use of plastics, but it's hard," Brandy said.

Source: Reuters

Here's all the plastic they consumed during a week in May. "When shopping, I do try to buy products with minimal packaging, but that's challenging too, everything is packaged," Brandy said.

Source: Reuters

Roshani Shrestha, a mother from Kathmandu, Nepal, said it's hard to avoid plastic bags where she lives. "We would use alternatives to plastic since it helps the environment, but it is not possible, since most of the products come either in plastic wrap or some other forms of plastic," she said.

Source: Reuters

• Tiger Woods' $20 million luxury yacht, Privacy, was seen docked in the Hamptons, where it's staying during the US Open golf tournament.
• At 155 feet, Privacy is slightly longer than the 151-foot tall Statue of Liberty.
• While Privacy is bigger than the luxury yachts owned by other celebrities, it has nothing on Steve Jobs' or Paul Allen's yachts.

Spotted: Tiger Woods' $20 million, 155-foot yacht, Privacy, docked in the Hamptons. And it plans to stay there during the US Open, one of the biggest golf tournaments, Woods told press at a pre-tournament USGA event. 

According to Woods, staying on board during the competition provides a respite from the "tournament scene" and reduces traffic chaos en route to the competition.

This luxury yacht may be impressive in both its price tag and its size, but when it's stacked up against other things, it doesn't even begin to compare — especially when it comes to other luxury yachts owned by celebrities.

Privacy — which is roughly the same size of the 151-foot tall Statue of Liberty — is around a hundred feet smaller than the yacht Apple cofounder Steve Jobs commissioned, the 256-foot Venus. If you think that's a disparity, dock Privacy next to Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen's 416-foot yacht, Octopus.

Take a look below to see how Privacy stacks up compared to other things around the world and luxury yachts owned by celebrities.

Privacy is 200 feet smaller than the Hollywood sign. At 352 feet, the Hollywood sign is bigger than the luxury yacht Venus but not as big as the luxury yacht Octopus.

And if you lay the Leaning Tower of Pisa on its side, it has 20 feet on Privacy.

But that's not to say the size of Privacy isn't a force to be reckoned with. After all, it's bigger than comedian Jerry Seinfeld's yacht Moka, which is 138 feet and actress Nicole Kidman's yacht, a 74-foot Sunseeker Manhattan.

Privacy is also bigger than another frequenter of the ocean, the blue whale, which can get as big as 105 feet, as well as another means of transportation — a 116-foot Boeing 737.

SEE ALSO: Tiger Woods has reportedly docked his $20 million, 155-foot yacht in the Hamptons — and he apparently plans to stay there during the US Open

DON'T MISS: The world's most expensive superyachts come with helipads, movie theaters, and swimming pools — take a look

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The simple rule this couple follows to avoid fighting about money

• Many minimum-wage workers can't even afford a modest one-bedroom apartment, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition's annual report.
• The national housing wage for a modest one-bedroom apartment is $17.90, while the federal minimum wage is $7.25.
• A low-income worker earning the federal minimum wage would need 2.5 jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

What do you get when you combine minimum wage with increasing apartment rents? Many workers who can't afford a place to live.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition's (NLIHC) annual report recently took a look at the Housing Wage, an estimate of the hourly wage a full-time worker needs to earn to afford a rental home at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's fair-market rent. That means spending no more than 30% of their income on housing costs — the typical rule of thumb when budgeting for housing.

NLIHC found that a worker needs to earn $17.90 an hour at a full-time job — 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year — to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment. That's over $10 more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

Let's look at the math: If a worker holds two full-time minimum wage jobs, they'd be earning $14.50 an hour total — still under the $17.90 needed to afford rent and have 70% of your income left over for non-housing related expenses. The worker would have to take on another, part-time, minimum-wage job to make up the difference. All things considered, that's a 99-hour work week, 52 weeks a year.

The map below shows the hourly wage needed to afford a fair-market rent, one-bedroom apartment by state, assuming a 40-hour work week, 52 weeks a year, as calculated by the NLIHC. This is also known as the "housing wage."

Only five states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington — have one-bedrooms affordable for minimum-wage workers across 22 counties.

All of these states have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage, but if you're looking for housing outside of the 22 counties, even these higher minimum wages aren't enough.

The housing wage for a one-bedroom apartment in Washington is $21.65. A worker would need income from two jobs at Washington's minimum wage of $11.50 (the highest of all five states) to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

Workers fare a little better in Arizona, where the minimum wage of $10.50 is actually the lowest of the five states. The housing wage for a one-bedroom apartment there is $14.64.

Even Arkansas, which has the most affordable housing in the country, according to NLIHC data, has a higher one-bedroom housing wage ($10.98) than minimum wage ($8.50).

Lastly, Hawaii, the state with the most expensive housing: The minimum wage there is $10.10, and the housing wage for a one-bedroom apartment is $27.44. If a worker held 2.5 full-time jobs, they would make $25.70 an hour — that's more than the national housing wage, yet still not enough for Hawaii's steep real estate market. A worker in Hawaii would have to work almost three full-time jobs just to afford a one-bedroom rental.

SEE ALSO: The only right way to save money for a house

DON'T MISS: Here's how much the typical worker makes at 15 retail companies, from Amazon to Walmart

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How this couple saved enough to pay for their own wedding while living in New York City

“Twine-namic Duos” is presented by Twine. Sarah-Beth and Reuben's rule is that they have to discuss any purchase over $100. This allows them to stay on the same page as they plan both the immediate future and larger-scale things further down the line. Following is a transcript of the video.

Sarah-Beth: Coming up with a savings plan has been the hardest thing for the two of us. Once we like, combine things together with the joint account and the joint credit card, trying to figure out how we want to meet those long-term goals, saving for a house, different things like that, maybe one day buying a car. Just all those long-term goals, you have to come up with a plan on how you're gonna save and manage the month-to-month but also the year long and the two-year things.

Reuben: We came up with this number that was — we said if you're spending over $100 on something — that isn't a present — you have to talk about it with the other person, and it's a conversation, and it's not merely just like the other person can approve or disapprove of it, but it's more of you can talk about it. Like I do a lot of running races and stuff, that sometimes get very expensive, and we  talk about like, you know, which races I'm going to do for the year, so that we can, you know, plan it out versus me just willy-nilly just like, registering for, you know, 20 races, and then all of a sudden I spent $3,000 on race entries, you know, without —

Sarah-Beth: Yeah, and most of the time we're like "Oh, of course you need to spend, that's what the cost of it is," but it's just having that conversation just keeps both of us in the loop, and there's no surprises when the bill comes, and yeah, just keep the communication open.

Reuben: And I think also like, discrepancies in salaries between a couple is also a hard thing to navigate, because I mean we're pretty close but if it was a bigger gap.

Sarah-Beth: We're not that close. That's not true.

Reuben: Okay, if it was a bigger gap I think it would be harder, and I think that navigating that where like, one person thinks they can spend more than the other, or whatever it might be, and like figuring out what is ... is 50/50 the real — while your relationship should be a 50/50 partnership, the financial relationship — if one of you — if one of us — or one person's making a lot more than the other, then it shouldn't be a 50/50 relationship, because that's not real.

Sarah-Beth: But also like, we value a lot of the same things in life, so, the way we look at money is definitely similar in that way where we agree to spend on certain things and save in other areas because that reflects what we value as a couple.

Reuben: Yeah.

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• Gaslighting is a psychologically abusive form of manipulation that occurs in dating and relationships.
• When someone is gaslighting you, they exert power over you and make you think you’ve lost your ability to think, remember, and rationalize.
• There are several key signs to watch out for. Here’s how to spot it if your partner is gaslighting you.

There are so many dating terms these days, it’s hard to keep up. Some may be more popular than others, such as ghosting — disappearing on the person you’re seeing without a trace — while others may be more dangerous.

Gaslighting falls into the latter category, since it’s a manipulative tool some people use in their romantic relationships.

“Gaslighting is a psychological tactic used to make another person believe they are losing their mind,” Joshua Klapow, a clinical psychologist and host of “The Kurre and Klapow Show,” told Business Insider. “It is literally a manipulative attempt at making another person think they are losing their ability to think, remember, and be rational.”

According to Vox, the term “gaslighting” became popular with the 1944 movie “Gaslight,” which was based on the 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton. In the psychological thriller, a husband, Gregory (Charles Boyer) “gaslights” his wife, Paula (Ingrid Bergman).

Throughout the movie, she questions her sanity, and her husband convinces her she’s acting strange. For example, when Paula notices that the gaslights in the home have been dimmed, Gregory lies and tells her she’s imagining things, which makes her believe she’s going crazy.

Here are some signs of gaslighting to watch out for.

SEE ALSO: I'm a serial 'ghoster' in dating — here's why I do it

1. They deny things you’ve said or done.

Being forgetful sometimes happens to everybody, but gaslighters take “forgetfulness” to a whole other level.

“If your partner begins to call into question things you have said or done by saying they didn’t happen, it’s a sign they may be gaslighting you,” Klapow said. “Or they will make statements about things you have said or done that you know you didn’t do. You may temporarily ask yourself ‘Could this be true?’ or ‘Did I really not say or do that?’”

He said to pay attention to how you are feeling if something doesn’t seem right.

2. They use manipulative language.

Manipulative language is another sign of gaslighting. “Gaslighting is very commonly found in those with narcissistic-personality disorder” relationship therapist Carolyn Cole, told Business Insider.

“It often occurs in abusive relationships, as it is a form of emotional abuse. For example, if you don’t do something they want you to do, they may say something like, ‘Mhmm, you know, if you really loved me, you would do this for me,’” she said.

3. They project what they’re doing onto their partner.

If the gaslighter is guilty of something, they may project it on to their partner instead.

“A common one is if they are cheating,” Cole said. “If so, they will continually accuse their partner of being unfaithful. Maybe the partner has to stay late at work and the gaslighter will say, in an aggressive tone, something like, ‘Sure, you had to stay late at work. Who were you with? Who is she/he?’”

• Generation Z, Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers begin their days in different ways.
• Some of the differences in their morning routines can be attributed to age. Baby Boomers are increasingly retiring, so they tend to wake up later than working folks.
• But some of it can be attributed to generational differences. Millennials, for instance, are the most likely to get their news from online. 

Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers are very different — and their differences are apparent from the moment they wake up. 

A poll from MSN surveyed Americans on their morning routines. It then used machine learning and big data, such as the census, to model how a representative sample of the US would have responded. It's as accurate as a traditional scientific survey, MSN said.

Some of the differences in their morning routines can be attributed to age.

Baby Boomers are increasingly retiring, so they tend to wake up later than the working population. Nearly a third of them wake up after 7 a.m., compared to 15% of those aged below 65. 

Older age also correlates with healthier mornings. Those aged 65 and up tend to exercise and eat breakfast — two recommended components of any morning routine. 

Some discrepancies are also unsurprising, considering generational trends. Millennials, for instance, are the most likely to get their news online, while 13% of Baby Boomers read the paper every morning. (Just 1% of 20-somethings say they read the morning paper.)

Here's how the generations differ in their sunrise habits.

SEE ALSO: The dramatically different morning routines of Americans at every income level

DON'T MISS: 7 things not to do when you first wake up

Adults aged 64 and under are more likely to lay out their outfits the night before.

Of those younger than 65, 85% wake up before 7 a.m. That drops to 68% once folks reach retirement age.

The older you are, the more likely you prioritize breakfast. Two-thirds of young adults never or seldom eat breakfast.

• People with depression, the leading cause of disability worldwide, have been limited to using the same types of drugs for 30 years.
  
• Unsurprisingly, drug companies are on the hunt for new treatments, and a few of their candidates look particularly promising.
  
• While some scientists pursue new treatments inspired by ketamine, others are looking optimistically at psychedelics like psilocybin, the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms."
• Still others are studying opioid-like drugs and metabolites of key hormones involved in mood regulation, such as progesterone.

Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, and it can kill. While not the sole cause of suicide, depression is often a contributing factor. And while suicide rates have climbed for nearly 20 years, not a single new drug for depression has emerged.

Imagine coming to the emergency room "with pain so bad that you can't think," said Cristina Cusin, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard University, and having the doctors give you a drug that takes five weeks to work and has a 40% to 50% chance of not working at all.

For a person who's suicidal that's "currently the best we can do," Cusin told Business Insider.

Most treatments for depression and suicidal thinking are limited to a narrow class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, which includes popular drugs like Prozac and Lexapro. While they can help some people, failure rates hover around 50%.

So researchers are on the hunt for better options.

While some scientists pursue drugs inspired by ketamine, others are looking hopefully at psychedelics like psilocybin (the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms"). Still others are studying opioid-like drugs and metabolites of key hormones involved in mood regulation like progesterone.

Ketamine is inspiring novel drugs for some of the hardest-to-treat forms of depression and suicidal thinking

A widely used anesthetic that's also known as a party drug, ketamine, was shown to have benefits as a rapid-fire antidepressant nearly a decade ago. Early studies suggested ketamine could help people who failed to respond to existing medications or were suicidal.

The authors of one paper called ketamine "the most important discovery in half a century."

As opposed to existing antidepressants, ketamine acts on a brain mechanism that scientists have only recently begun to explore. Homing in on this channel appears to provide relief from depression that's better, arrives faster, and works in far more people than current drugs.

After a lack of new drugs for depression spurred scientists to go back to the drawing board, pharmaceutical companies like Allergan and Johnson & Johnson are now in hot pursuit of several new blockbuster depression drugs that take after ketamine.

Allergan's injectable drug, rapastinel, is in the last phase of clinical trials and has received a key FDA designation designed to speed it through the approval process. The company is also working on an oral-tablet version of rapastinel, but that drug is in an earlier phase of research. Johnson & Johnson presented promising research on its nasal spray drug, esketamine, in May and told Business Insider that it expected to file for FDA approval this year. A third company, VistaGen, is studying a drug that's similar in function to Allergan's but in pill formulation. It expects to see results from an earlier phase of research next year.

Applying the brakes on the brain could help treat conditions like postpartum depression

Sage Therapeutics's treatment, brexanolone, acts on GABA, one of the neurotransmitters in the brain. The idea is that by modulating GABA, it may help to treat depression by applying a brake to slow down parts of the brain that could be getting overexcited. To start, Sage is in front of the FDA for approval to treat postpartum depression.

In two late-stage, phase-three clinical trials of more than 200 women, researchers found that women who received the injected therapy had a decrease in depressive symptoms over a 30-day compared to the women who were on the placebo control. The FDA is expected to review the drug by December.

Beyond that, Sage said on Tuesday that it was launching a phase-three trial evaluating the drug in the treatment of major depressive disorder that it would then bring to the FDA for approval as well.

Existing drugs "don't do fantastic jobs of treating people who suffer," Al Robichaud, the chief scientific officer of Sage Therapeutics, told Business Insider. "We believe we have the opportunity to it better."

The way opioids work in the brain could lead to new treatments for depression

At the same time the opioid crisis has been raging in the US, researchers have been looking into whether aspects of the medications could be useful in treating depression. That's the case with a compound from Alkermes, known as ALKS 5461. The drug is being developed to treat major depressive disorder by modulating the opioid system in the brain by combining buprenorphine — a drug often used to treat pain as well as opioid addiction — and samidorphan.

Unlike a traditional opioid, however, the drug doesn't produce a feeling of euphoria when taken, Alkermes CEO Richard Pops said. "If you're addicted to opioids and you take 5461, you'll go into withdrawal because it's functionally different," he said.

The drug is in front of the FDA for review, with a decision expected by January.

A compound in hallucinogenic mushrooms shows promise for depression that develops later in life

Last year, researchers studying psilocybin, the main psychoactive ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms, likened its quick effects on cancer patients with anxiety and depression to a "surgical intervention" for the mental illness.

Brain-scan studies suggest that depression ramps up the activity in brain circuits linked with negative emotions and weakens the activity in circuits linked with positive ones. Psilocybin appears to restore balance to that system.

With that in mind, a company called Compass Pathways, which is backed by influential entrepreneur Peter Thiel, has plans to start its own clinical trials of mushrooms for depression later this year.

That said, no one has yet presented clinical-trial data for a drug formula using psilocybin to the FDA; the compound is still a Schedule 1 substance with "no recognized medical use," according to the Drug Enforcement Administration — a designation that continues to make it difficult to study. That means an FDA-approved psilocybin drug is years away, at best.

But some researchers still have high hopes that a psilocybin-inspired drug will be approved within a decade. David Nutt, director of the neuropsychopharmacology unit at Imperial College London, told Business Insider last year that he believed psilocybin would become an "accepted treatment" for depression before 2027.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or has had thoughts of harming themselves or taking their own life, get help. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) provides free, 24/7, confidential support for people in distress, as well as best practices for professionals and resources to aid in prevention and crisis situations.

SEE ALSO: 'For a woman to have gotten this in the last 2 years was like winning the Powerball': Sprout is trying to relaunch 'female Viagra' drug

DON'T MISS: Pharma giants look to ketamine for clues to next blockbuster depression drug, and science says they're onto something big

Join the conversation about this story »

• A 32-year-old North Korean defector named Scott Kim tells the brutal story of what happened to him after he was caught in China after escaping from the isolated country.
• Kim said that he was brought to a detention camp where he and his fellow inmates were "treated like animals."
• After escaping North Korea three more times, Kim made it to South Korea where he now owns a company trading automobile and railway parts

Scott Kim first escaped North Korea at the age of 17 in 2001. At the time, he and his mother only wanted to get across the border to China so they could eat hot meals. Growing up during North Korea's deadly famine in the late '90s, Kim had spent much of his childhood starving.

Today, Kim owns a business trading automobile and railway parts in South Korea. He is currently working on an English-language memoir about his experiences with the help of Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR), a volunteer-run organization in Seoul helping defectors develop English skills.

But it was a long and dangerous six years in and out of China and North Korea before he got to Seoul.

Most North Koreans defect by crossing North Korea's northern border to China via the Tumen or Yalu rivers. Then they must smuggle their way across China's vast expanse to its southern border with Laos or Vietnam. From there, they cross into Thailand or Cambodia and go to the South Korean embassy to ask for help. It's a journey that can cost up to $5,000, which must be paid to "brokers" in each country to arrange the escape.

Paying $5,000 to make it to South Korea or the United States was far out of reach for Kim and his mother. Instead, he and his mother lived as undocumented immigrants and worked as farm laborers. But one year after escaping North Korea, Kim's neighbor reported his status to the police, who brought him and his mother back to North Korea. Kim was taken to a detention center, where authorities determine where to send defectors next.

"When we reached the detention center in North Korea, we lost all our rights as human beings," Kim told Business Insider. "We were treated like animals, literally. We had to crawl on the floor to move from place to place."

Kim was put in a cell with 20 other defectors. There was one toilet in the corner and no space to lie down. Day and night, the defectors sat on the ground. 

"It was our punishment because we were sinners. I don't know why we were sinners," he said.

When he or other defectors were told to down the corridor to the warden's office, they were made to crawl on their hands and feet. Officers beat them with gloves and sticks as they went. 

An estimated 100,000 North Koreans or more currently live in detention centers, political prisons, or labor camps where they endure hard labor, torture, and starvation. 

Kim's description of his experience comes amid President Donald Trump's summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has been accused of killing his own people. But when asked about the North Korean dictator's human rights violations, Trump appeared to be an apologist for the dictator's actions.

The first time Kim was caught, he got lucky.

Despite the fact that one of North Korea's biggest reeducation camps is in Chongori, near his hometown in Musan, Kim was sent to a center further south. Because no one knew him — and internet and phone service was nonexistent at the time — he was able to lie about his age. He told the guards he was only 15 years old and had been in China looking for his mother. 

Rather than send him to one of the country's brutal labor camps or political camps, he was sent to a medical center for orphaned children. Shortly after arriving, he escaped and went back to China, where he got work as a farm laborer near Helong, a city in northeastern China.

"Everyday, I planted, farmed, logged on the mountain. Corn, beans, potatoes," he said. "Life was better because I was not starving. I could eat and be full at meals. It was enough food for me ... At the time I left North Korea, I was starving."

Kim was caught a second time when he visited a friend in China looking for his mother. A neighbor again reported him to the police. The second time he was sent back to North Korea, he wasn't so lucky. He was sent to the concentration camp near his hometown. From there he was sent to a labor camp, where he chopped down trees on a mountain for months. 

He escaped one day when he realized that all his fellow laborers were at the top of the mountain chopping while he was at the bottom. He ran away as fast as he could until he found a train that he could take him north to cross the border with China again. 

After some time in China, he was caught a third time and sent to a camp for political prisoners — the worst place to be sent, as imprisonment there is interminable. He escaped the camp by bribing the authorities through a broker, who helped him make it across the border with China a final time.

After six years, Kim reunited with his mother and made it to South Korea

In China, he went back to work to pay off his debt to the broker. One day, he got a call from a North Korean woman from Musan who told him that he had to come visit his mother. She was dying of cancer. For the first time in many years, the two saw each other.

"When I opened the door of my mother's house, I froze, and couldn't say anything, because my mother looked incredibly different," he said. "There was no fat on her, and her whole body looked like a triangle, I just went outside and cried for a long time and came back again, and I embraced my mother and we cried together."

Several days later, a friend of his mother offered his mother the opportunity to escape to South Korea via Laos and Cambodia. A broker was taking a group through; they had an extra space.

Unable to walk, Kim's mother told Kim he had to go and become educated. Once he was settled, she said, he could bring her and help others in need. He decided to go.

The night before Kim and the group of defectors were to cross the border into Laos, he received a call telling him that his mother had died. The man on the phone said he had to come back for the funeral.

"After hanging up, I couldn't say anything, I just cried all night. I really, really wanted to go back, but I thought that if I go back there, I couldn't do anything for her," he said. "I decided to go to South Korea, believing that my mother would agree with my decision."

In 2007, six years after he first escaped, Kim finally made it to South Korea. 

SEE ALSO: North Koreans understand their government lies, but there's one thing they don't know, according to a defector

DON'T MISS: What North Korean experts don't understand about the country, according to a defector who lived there for 20 years

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why the North Korea summit mattered even if it was 'mostly a photo op'

• If you say the same set of words over and over, it can start to sound like a song.
• This can happen with random sounds too, which are perceived as having more of a song-like quality than if the sequence is played just once.
• Researchers from the University of Kansas have tried to work out what's happening in the brain.
• Essentially, we have different nodes for words and syllables, and when the word node gets tired, the syllable one takes over — so we focus on the rhythm rather than the meaning.
• Illusions are a unique way to get another angle on what's going on in the brain and remind us that perception is subjective.

Repetition has an interesting effect on the brain. If you keep hearing a sequence of numbers — like 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 — chances are it'll eventually stick.

But it can feel like repetition bends reality sometimes too. For example, hearing a phrase over and over again can make it sound musical. New research from the University of Kansas has looked into why this might be.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, investigated this "speech-to-song illusion," which scientists started investigating in the 90s.

"The illusion occurs when a spoken phrase is repeated — but after it's repeated several times it begins to sound like it's being sung instead of spoken," said Michael Vitevitch, a professor and chair of psychology at KU.

Previous studies have found that brain regions that process speech are active when a phrase is perceived as such, but different areas that process music fire when it is heard as a song. You can listen to the illusion here:

"But nobody had a good explanation about how this illusion was coming about in the first place," said Vitevitch.

Along with his team, Vitevitch designed six studies to look for what could be happening in the brain when words turn into song. They tested the "node structure theory" in 30 participants, which is where word nodes and syllable nodes act as "detectors" and recognise the different aspects of syllables, words and phrases.

"You've got word detectors and syllable detectors and, like with lots of things in life, as you use them they're going to get worn out — like your muscles. As you use them, they get tired," Vitevitch said. "Like with muscles, you have a type of muscle for short bursts of sprinting and also muscles for endurance, like running a marathon. Word nodes are like sprinting muscles, and syllable nodes are like endurance muscles."

Results suggested that initially when hearing the words, word detectors are activated, giving the perception of speech. But they get tired as the phrase is repeated, so when you continue to hear the same words over and over, the syllable detectors are activated. After a while, this shifts our perception of hearing a song, because syllables are associated more with the rhythm of language than individual words.

"We tried to strip musicality away by randomly putting words together without intonation shifts, so it didn't sound musical at all, to begin with," said Vitevitch. "When people hear it once, they said it didn't sound musical at all. The fact that we could get people to shift perception to something musical after several repetitions gives us confidence that we're on the right track with the mechanism explaining the effect."

Perception is an important part of language, and it can sometimes seem like our minds are playing tricks on us — like with Yanny and Laurel. For example, cognitive scientist Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis described in her work how we prefer a song when we've heard it before, and how familiar statements are more likely to sound true than unfamiliar ones, with something called the "mere exposure effect."

Strange things happen with individual words too, like semantic satiation, which is when repeating a word ad nauseam can make you stop focusing on what the word means and instead listen to the sounds — which is why people tend to say the word has "lost all meaning."

"Everyone is built a little differently so there will be some variation in how much one experiences this (or any other) illusion," Vitevitch told Business Insider. "In the case of the speech to song illusion if the rate at which the words are presented matches the rate at which your word detectors fatigue then you are likely to experience this illusion, but if your detectors are set differently you might not perceive the illusion as strong as someone else does, or even at all."

Researchers are all trying to understand how things work, whether that's the universe, the brain, or individual atoms, Vitevitch said. And illusions are a unique way to get another angle on what's going on.

"Whatever a particular scientist is trying to study in nature 'Mother Nature' hides her secrets very tightly from the prying eyes of a scientist," he said. "Things like illusions, which most people dismiss as simply a party trick or something like that, actually are useful and allow scientists to peek behind the curtain to see how things actually work."

SEE ALSO: If your music appears to slow down when you exercise, this is what could be happening in your brain

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Cristiano Ronaldo, the Real Madrid and Portugal national team striker, is one of the best soccer players in the world. He has four Champions League titles, helped Portugal win the UEFA European Championship in 2016, and is set to star for his country in the upcoming 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Ronaldo is incredibly gifted. He is one of the fittest, most athletic sportsmen in world football today. To maintain an edge over his opponents, he has to stay motivated on the training ground and ensure he eats right.

We looked into what the world's biggest soccer star eats and drinks to stay on top of his game. Here's everything Ronaldo has for breakfast, lunch, and dinner:

SEE ALSO: This is everything boxing champion Floyd Mayweather eats and drinks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

DON'T MISS: Everything tennis icon Roger Federer eats and drinks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

UP NEXT: Here's what time the Champions League final starts where you live — and how you can watch it live online

This is Cristiano Ronaldo, the powerful forward who plays for Real Madrid and the Portugal national team. The 33-year-old scored 43 goals for Real last season, and begins his World Cup campaign today.

Ronaldo does not deprive himself of good food even though he is a world-class athlete. Judging from this photo he is a big fan of big breakfasts featuring pastries, cold cuts, European cheeses, and fresh fruit — all washed down with a latte and juice.

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Being Portuguese, and specifically hailing from Madeira, Ronaldo has a taste for fruits and juices, according to Le10Sport. Ronaldo's preferences include pear, apple, or pineapple juice, but he is also very fond of coffee.

Source: Le10Sport

Globetrotters are always looking for inspired travel recommendations from those in the know in order to experience new destinations in the most authentic way possible — and those passed by word-of-mouth are always best. 

As summer kicks off, Business Insider asked friends, colleagues, and some of the world's travel experts for their favourite — and overlooked — European destinations that can be seen in a long weekend. 

From the mystical Arabic influence of Granada to the dilapidated charm of Porto, and the gothic churches of Transylvania, here's a selection of their top recommendations, along with some local tips. 

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Pretend you're in a Bond film at the Bay of Kotor, Montenegro.

Montenegro provides a less obvious alternative to neighbouring Croatia, and it's not hard to see the draw of the stunning setting of the Bay of Kotor, with its glistening Adriatic sea and mountainous backdrop. The bay is also home to the preserved medieval old city of Kotor which just so happens to be a UNESCO World Heritage site.

One TripAdvisor user from the UK called it "Europe's best kept secret." 

"Despite seeing many images of this place before my visit, nothing really prepared me for just how stunningly beautiful this bay is," the review stated. "The waterside setting (obviously) with its mountainous backdrop was for me a cross between the Norwegian fjords and those lovely Alpine lakes."

Admire the azulejos (painted tiles) and dilapidated charm of Porto, Portugal.

Emma McWhinney, the UK head of editorial at Secret Escapes, recommends a long weekend in Porto, a coastal city on Portugal's northern coast that's steadily growing in popularity as an alternative — possibly even a cheaper one — to Lisbon. 

"Often overshadowed by bustling Lisbon, Porto, with its coastal thrills, postcard-perfect architecture, and eclectic culinary scene, is a must-visit cluster of colour and charm," she said.

Wander through Porto's hilly streets and admire the crumbling buildings and ramshackle colourful houses decorated with azulejos (painted tiles), and you'll soon see why its dilapidated charm is drawing in tourists.

Porto's proximity to some pretty stretches of beach adds to its appeal.

Soak up the Andalusian sunshine, snack on the famous free tapas, and lose yourself in a colourful maze of market stalls in Granada, Spain.

Granada, located in Spain's southern Andalusian region, is a city rich in history and culture —and its Arab influence gives it a mystical edge.

Aside from the tapas — it's one of the few places in Spain where a free tapa is religiously served with every drink — there's the majestic Alhambra Palace, abundant Arab baths that make a perfect first stop to unwind into your weekend, and the intriguing whitewashed gypsy caves of Sacromonte, where some of the city's best flamenco haunts lie. 

Sakshi, a New York-based editor who recently visited the city, told Business Insider: "We enjoyed one free tapa with each drink. So we bar hopped as is recommended, we didn't ever get a second round at the same place.

"A tip for tourists is saying 'que tapa' after letting the bartender know the intention is a drink — either a cana (a small beer) or copa (little glass of wine). Bar Bodegas Castañeda came highly recommended and is somewhat of an institution. We started our bar hop there," she added. 

Changing the world takes vision, grit, and hard work.

And it takes just enough crazy to believe you might actually pull it off.

That's what makes the young generation of innovators so important. Chock-full of fresh ideas and optimism, today's crop of up-and-comers aren't wasting time waiting in line; they're building the companies and products of the future right now.

We've rounded up a list of those ahead of the curve: The entrepreneurs, CEOs, and product gurus, ages 30 and under, who are driving innovation from Silicon Valley to South Africa. To be eligible for this list, the person had to have done something awesome in tech in 2018.

Business Insider combed the tech landscape, from startups and tech giants to venture capital firms and investors, to find the most interesting and noteworthy rising stars. Here they are:

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Shruti Merchant's startup takes the hassle out of finding affordable housing in California's ritziest markets.

Title: Cofounder and CEO of HubHaus

Age: 24

As millennials continue to move in droves to expensive cities, startups are hatching creative solutions for helping them find affordable housing. HubHaus leases large homes, typically with five to 10 bedrooms, from owners and finds community-seeking renters to fill them.

Launched by Shruti Merchant and her cofounder Kerry Jones in 2016, the company has expanded to 82 properties in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. It's eyeing an expansion outside California in 2018, thanks to a recent round of $10 million in funding, according to Merchant.

Vitalik Buterin created the blockchain technology for ethereum when he was only a teenager.

Title: Founder of Ethereum

Age:24

Vitalik Buterin first began working on ethereum when he was still a teenager. Today, the cryptocurrency built on ethereum's blockchain technology, ether, is considered one of the most influential cryptocurrencies in the world— spiking to nearly $1,500 in early 2018.

Buterin, who stepped away from venture capital earlier this year, has remained an active figure in the cryptocurrency community. In January, Buterin said that he expects 2018 to be a landmark year for ethereum: Already, the project's technology has spurred numerous blockchain applications and decentralized apps.

Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone have plans to print rockets on the planet Mars.

Title: Cofounders of Relativity Space

Age: 27, 25

Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone left their jobs as engineers at Blue Origin and SpaceX, respectively, to start their own company, Relativity Space. The pair have developed an enormous 3D printer for manufacturing rocket hardware which they hope will make it possible to build rocketships in just a few days.

In the future, Ellis and Noone hope their technology will be used to print spacecrafts on the planet Mars. Already, the pair has engineered the largest metal 3D printer in the world, which they say can currently manufacture 95% of the materials for a functioning rocket. In three years, they hope to launch a 3D printed rocket into space.

So far, the company has raised $45.1 million from investors including Mark Cuban, Social Capital, and Y Combinator.

Business Insider is hiring an associate producer who is a master of After Effects and can create beautifully animated videos. We are looking for someone who can come up with concepts for visualizing complex ideas. This producer should be able to put together simple animations on tight deadlines as well. 

Mastery of Adobe After Effects and Premiere is a must. Character animation, Trapcode Particular experience, and Cinema 4D knowledge is a plus. The producer will work closely with the video team to produce stories with a wide, general audience reach. 

The ideal candidate has a strong visual sense and can creatively illustrate a wide variety of subjects including science, business, technology, and innovation.

Here’s a look at BI Video's growing animation catalog:

• What happens when you stare at the sun
• Why cockroaches are so hard to kill
• The world is running out of sand — and there's a black market for it now
• This incredible animation shows how deep the ocean really is

If this sounds like your dream job, APPLY HERE with a resume and cover letter telling us why you should be a video producer at Business Insider. Please also send a demo reel or samples from projects that you have worked on.

Business Insider offers competitive compensation packages complete with benefits. This is a full-time position based in our NYC office.

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NOW WATCH: The world is running out of sand — and there's a black market for it now

Running out of movies to watch? We can help.

Every week, we look through Netflix's collection to recommend seven movies you can watch over the weekend.

Some of our selections recently joined Netflix, and some have been available for while — you probably just didn't notice.

From the irreverent war comedy "Tropic Thunder" to Disney's "Moana," these are awesome movies on Netflix you can watch this weekend, including Netflix's newest hit romantic comedy.

Here are seven movies on Netflix you should check out (along with their scores from Rotten Tomatoes).

Note: Not all of these films are available in countries outside the United States. Sorry!

SEE ALSO: The 14 most painful TV cancellations of all time

"Set It Up" (2018) — a Netflix original

Netflix description: In desperate need of a break from the office, two beleaguered assistants team up to trick their workaholic bosses into falling in love.

Critic score: 86%

Audience score: N/A

Predictable in an adorable way, "Set It Up" follows every beat you expect it to, but brilliantly. Plus, Lucy Liu is great. This one could fill the hole "A Christmas Prince" has left.

"Inside Man" (2006)

Netflix description: A detective matches wits with a thief who's always one step ahead of the cops, and when a loose-cannon negotiator arrives, things spin out of control.

Critic score: 86%

Audience score: 85%

There are a lot of heist movies. But Spike Lee's masterful direction in the underrated "Inside man" turns a common story in the film world into a thrilling and clever one. Its stellar cast — which includes Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Willem Dafoe — helps too.

"Tropic Thunder" (2008)

Netflix description: This combat film send-up from director-star Ben Stiller tracks a group of actors who are forced to become real-life soldiers.

Critic score: 82%

Audience score: 70%

While Robert Downey Jr.'s Oscar-nominated role as a white Australian man playing a black man hasn't aged very well, this comedy is still a great social satire that blew people away for its accuracy as a Vietnam War-movie satire, and with Tom Cruise's role as a ruthless producer.

• The cast of "Solo" had no idea about that major appearance from an iconic Star Wars character at the end of the movie. 
• Han Solo actor Alden Ehrenreich said he only learned about the cameo a few months ago. 
• Please don't read this post if you don't want to know about the spoiler. 

Warning: There are MAJOR spoilers for "Solo: A Star Wars Story" below. Read at your own risk. And if you haven't seen "Solo" yet, do it. It's pretty good!

Director Ron Howard and the crew did everything they could to avoid spoiling the major cameo at the end of "Solo: A Star Wars Story," including keeping the film's cast in the dark about it as long as possible. 

At the end of "Solo," it's revealed that Darth Maul is the head of crime organization Crimson Dawn, and who Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke) was really working for this whole time. His appearance came as a surprise to many people, considering Obi-Wan Kenobi literally slit his body in half with a lightsaber in "The Phantom Menace." But in novelizations and in Star Wars series "The Clone Wars" and "Rebels," he survives. Darth Maul's appearance in "Solo" makes that canon for the films as well. (Well, minus an entire story where Darth Maul temporarily has spider legs.)

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Han Solo actor Alden Ehrenreich said that he had no idea Darth Maul would appear until a few months ago, when the cast was filming pick-ups (footage filmed after the initial filming is complete): 

"There was a part in the script where it said, 'Somebody appears', and it wouldn't say who. So there was a lot of speculation amongst the crew and cast about who is that going to be. Then I found out a few months ago. I found out pretty late. Everyone was kind of talking about it and speculating. Some people were really convinced ... there were a lot of rumors."

Ray Park, who played Darth Maul in "The Phantom Menace," returned to reprise the role. 

SEE ALSO: 7 great movies you can watch on Netflix this weekend

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Business Insider is hiring a video intern specializing in animation.

The ideal candidate has superb post-production video editing skills and a passion for the types of topics we cover for science, tech, and business videos at Business Insider.

This intern should know how to use Adobe After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, and various types of audio and digital video equipment. Must also be comfortable working under tight deadlines.

Any experience and knowledge in shooting and/or scriptwriting is also a plus. Explain any experience and interest you have in your cover letter.

The candidate also must be experienced with motion graphics and working creatively in both 2D and 3D space. And should look forward to days filled with gaining extensive experience making videos just like these:

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• MoviePass told Gizmodo that it is looking launch a family plan for its service within a month.
• The company is currently burning cash at a rate of around $20 million per month to fund its subscription service for individual users. 
• MoviePass told Gizmodo that it is projecting to exceed five million paying subscribers by the end of 2018.

MoviePass told Gizmodo that it's looking to launch a family plan for its service within the next month.

The company currently offers a $9.95-a-month subscription service that allows individual users to see one movie per day in theaters each month (with several caveats), and it's burning cash at a rapid rate to fund it. 

When it reached two million paying subscribers in February, MoviePass said that it would be profitable at between three million and four million subscribers. After the company hit three million subscribers this week, Ted Farnsworth, the head of MoviePass' parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics, claimed the company could break even at five million subscribers. It is unclear how MoviePass could accomplish this given that it currently loses money on every additional subscriber.

"MoviePass' rapid growth is within its projections that estimate the service will exceed five million paying subscribers by the end of 2018," MoviePass told Gizmodo in a statement.

The company has not yet announced a price point for its prospective family plan, but it could very well help push the service to the subscriber numbers it's projecting. 

MoviePass has said that it has secured a $300 million "equity line of credit" that could sustain it for a year despite its losses of around $20 million per month, but financial experts have cast doubt on that statement, saying that MoviePass would have to convince investors of its long-term viability and potential for profit to access that money. 

The company's stock has plummeted more than 98% from its 52-week high of $32.90 set in October. On Friday the company was trading at under 40 cents per share, as concerns on Wall Street continue to mount about the company's financial stability.

SEE ALSO: MoviePass has hit 3 million paid subscribers, but its growth has slowed

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