Business Insider recently published a list of the 50 richest people on earth with data provided by Wealth-X, a firm that conducts research on the super-wealthy.

Of these 50 billionaires, only four (8%) are women — Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs, Mars Inc. heiress Jacqueline Mars, L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, and Walmart heiress Alice Walton — and each of these women inherited rather than built their fortunes.

Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of the world's 50 richest people are men who built up their wealth from nothing.

What might explain the gender gap at the very top of the wealth spectrum?

Billion-dollar fortunes are typically built by launching hugely successful companies (think Google, Facebook, and Amazon), and women entrepreneurs have had a harder time finding similar success as men in this arena.

Although women are creating 40% of new businesses — in 2014 they created an estimated 470,000 — many have difficulty growing past $1 million in revenue without generous funding from investors, who are typically men. Plus, women in the US still earn 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, giving them less capital to start with.

Despite the odds, the landscape is changing. Today, women own 30% of all private businesses across all sectors and hold the majority of management, professional, and related positions in the US, according to a report by Bank of Montreal's (BMO) Wealth Institute. And women-led private tech companies that are able to secure funding achieve 35% higher return on investment than male-led tech companies.

As more women hold lucrative positions, the number of female billionaires worldwide continues to increase: There are now 145 female billionaires, up from 22 in 1995. However, it's still a far cry from the 1,202 men who belong to the billionaire club.

Getting wealth in the hands of women could be good for everyone.Research indicates that women give more money away than their male counterparts at all income levels.

Indeed, the four richest women in the world have a strong record of philanthropy. Learn more about them below.

SEE THE FULL LIST: The 50 richest people on earth

AND: 16 billionaires who inherited their fortunes

Laurene Powell Jobs

Net worth:$14.4 billion

Age: 52

Country: US

Industry: Media

Source of wealth: Inheritance; Disney

The widow of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, Laurene Powell Jobs inherited his wealth and assets, which included 5.5 million shares of Apple stock and a 7.3% stake in The Walt Disney Co., upon his death. Jobs' stake in Disney — which has nearly tripled in value since her husband's death in 2011 and comprises more than $12 billion of her net worth — makes her the company's largest individual shareholder.

Though she's best recognized through her iconic husband, Jobs has had a career of her own. She worked on Wall Street for Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs before earning her MBA at Stanford in 1991, after which she married her late husband and started organic-foods company Terravera. But she's been primarily preoccupied with philanthropic ventures, with a particular focus on education. In 1997, she founded College Track, an after-school program that helps low-income students prepare for and enroll in college, and in September she committed $50 million to a new project called XQ: The Super School Project, which aims to revamp the high-school curriculum and experience.

Last October, Jobs spoke out against "Steve Jobs," Aaron Sorkin's movie about her late husband that portrays him in a harsh light, calling it "fiction." Jobs had been against the project from the get-go, reportedly calling Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale to ask them to decline roles in the film.

Jacqueline Mars

Net worth:$28.6 billion

Age: 76

Country: US

Industry: Candy

Source of wealth: Inheritance; Mars Inc.

Siblings Forrest, Jacqueline, and John Mars inherited a stake in the iconic candymaker Mars Inc. when their father, Forrest Sr., died in 1999. The notoriously private trio co-own but don't actively manage the maker of M&M's and Milky Way bars, which their grandfather started in 1931 as a confectionary business in his kitchen in Tacoma, Washington.

In 2008, Mars Inc. branched out from chocolate to gum, when it acquired the Wrigley Jr. Co. for $23 billion. Since then, it's delved into pet food, buying Iams and two other brands in 2014 from Procter & Gamble for close to $2.9 billion.

Together the three siblings run the Mars Foundation, which gives primarily to educational, environmental, cultural, and health-related causes. 

Liliane Bettencourt

Net worth:$29 billion

Age: 93

Country: France

Industry: Cosmetics

Source of wealth: Inheritance/self-made; L'Oreal Group

The heiress to the L'Oreal cosmetics fortune and the company's largest shareholder, Liliane Bettencourt is the richest woman in Europe and the second-richest woman in the world, with a net worth of $29 billion. She no longer has a hand in business operations, but L'Oreal and the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation she cofounded with her late husband continue to prosper. She's an avid art collector, owning pieces by Picasso, Matisse, and Munch.

In recent years, Bettencourt became a household name in France as the central figure in an infamous trial in which judges examined whether the billionaire was taken advantage of by those close to her. The trial closed in May 2015 when eight people, including trusted friends and financial advisers, were convicted of exploiting the heiress.

Bettencourt was back in the news again late last year after accusations were made against her former butler and five journalists for recording meetings with the billionaire and thus violating her right to privacy. The butler, Pascal Bonnefoy, claimed that he made the recordings to show Bettencourt's fragile state — all six were acquitted in early January.

Candy hearts and boxes of chocolate line the shelves of stores, just waiting to be purchased by smitten lovebirds.

But if that doesn't describe you, or at least not yet, don't fret!

In the interest of bolstering your love life, here are some science-backed ways to fall and stay in love:

SEE ALSO: 6 strange things love does to your brain and body

DON'T MISS: Couples in lasting relationships typically wait this long to start having sex

For a first date, get coffee, not ice cream.

Yale psychologist John Bargh has conducted a couple of studies that reveal an underlying connection between body temperature and personality.

He found that when we feel warm physically, we also tend to behave more warmly toward others. Therefore, if you want your first date to go smoothly, seek out warm places and foods — they might just help to heat things up later on.

Another first date tip: Be positive.

Contrary to popular belief, men aren't just interested in how you look. That's what a large 2010 study revealed after grouping over 2,100 male university students into three categories. The first group were given photos of women and asked to rate whether they found the women attractive, or not.

Two other groups were provided the photos along with information about the women's personalities — one group had mostly positive personality traits and the other mostly negative. The researchers discovered that the group with mostly positive personality traits found a wider variety of women attractive overall than the other two groups. So, when you're on that first date, just remember to be positive!

Listen up.

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it's actually super critical for all parts of a relationship — at the beginning and when that honeymoon period ends and the inevitable conflicts arise.

A 2010 study of 373 couples from the University of Michigan found that those who were able to discuss issues calmly and listen to their partner when having an argument were less likely to separate later on than couples who didn't do this.

Business Insider also chatted with psychotherapist M. Gary Neuman, who said that listening is key to falling in love because we have a need to be heard.

African King Musa Keita I is thought to be the richest person of all time — "richer than anyone could describe," reports Time.

Literally. His fortune was incomprehensible, Time's Jacob Davidson writes: "There's really no way to put an accurate number on his wealth."

He ruled the Mali Empire in the 14th century and his land was laden with lucrative natural resources, most notably gold.

"His vast wealth was only one piece of his rich legacy," reports Jessica Smith in a TED-Ed original lesson. Read on to learn more about the legendary king and see what it was really like to be the richest person in history:

SEE ALSO: How old 17 self-made billionaires were when they made their first million

Musa Keita I came into power in 1312. When he was crowned, he was given the name Mansa, meaning king. At the time, much of Europe was famished and in the middle of civil wars, but many African kingdoms were thriving.

While in power, Mansa Musa expanded the borders of his empire tremendously. He annexed the city of Timbuktu and reestablished power over Gao. All in all, his empire stretched about 2,000 miles.

Mansa Musa was in charge of a lot of land. To put it into perspective, he ruled all (or parts) of modern day Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Chad.

The rest of the world caught wind of his great fortune in 1324, when he made the nearly 4,000 mile pilgrimage to Mecca. He didn't do it on the cheap.

No. 11: Hinge (22/100)

Hinge's innovation was that it only matched you with your extended social network — friends of friends. The app presents you with around a dozen matches a day for you to swipe yes/no on.

Download Hinge (iOS, Android)

No. 10: Grindr (28.5/100)

Grindr's mission was to help gay guys meet up, quickly, wherever they were. It quickly became a smash hit, and recently sold a majority stake to a Chinese gaming company.

Download Grindr (iOS, Android)

No. 9: Zoosk (30/100)

Zoosk recently had to lay off a third of its staff after being crushed in the market by apps like Tinder. It has features like photo verification, which lets you confirm that your photos are actually you.

Download Zoosk (iOS, Android)

Love is mysterious, but it's probably not destiny.

According to the research, your hormones, interests, and upbringing all help determine who you fall for — and who falls for you.

Since your partner plays a significant role in your long-term health, happiness, and even your career prospects, we've scoured the studies and collected some of the psychological reasons two people click.

This is an updated version of an article originally written by Maggie Zhang.

SEE ALSO: Science says people decide these 9 things within seconds of meeting you

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If you're really, really alike

Decades of studies have shown that the cliché that "opposites attract" is totally off.

"Partners who are similar in broad dispositions, like personality, are more likely to feel the same way in their day-to-day lives," said Gian Gonzaga, lead author of a study of couples who met on eHarmony. "This may make it easier for partners to understand each other."

If you look like their opposite-sex parent

University of St. Andrews psychologist David Perrett and his colleagues found that some people are attracted to folks with the same hair and eye color of their opposite-sex parents, as well as the age range they saw at birth.

"We found that women born to 'old' parents (over 30) were less impressed by youth, and more attracted to age cues in male faces than women with 'young' parents (under 30)," the authors wrote. "For men, preferences for female faces were influenced by their mother's age and not their father's age, but only for long-term relationships."

If you smell right

A University of Southern California study of women who were ovulating suggested that some prefer the smell of T-shirts worn by men with high levels of testosterone.

This matched with other hormone-based instincts: Some women also preferred men with a strong jaw line when they were ovulating. 

Click for the story >

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Frugality is a subjective term. To the average Joe it could mean eating meals at home or scouring the internet for cheap flights. But to a billionaire it means showing up to work in a T-shirt and jeans, driving a Toyota or Volkswagen, and, in some instances, foregoing the purchase of a private jet or lavish vacation home.

A handful of frugal billionaires appear on our list of the richest people on earth, and each one has his own penny-pinching habits.

From eating lunch in the office cafeteria with their employees to residing in homes worth a fraction of their wealth, these seven self-made billionaires — many of whom are also generous philanthropists— know the secret to keeping their net worths high.

SEE ALSO: The 50 richest people on earth

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Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, still lives in the same home he bought for $31,500 in 1958.

Net worth:$60.7 billion

The "Oracle of Omaha" is one of the wisest and most frugal billionaires around. Despite his status as the third-richest person on earth, he still lives in the same modest home he bought for $31,500 in 1958, doesn't carry a cellphone or have a computer at his desk, and once had a vanity license plate that read "THRIFTY," according to his 2009 biography.

Buffett also has a decidedly low-brow palate, known not just for investing in junk-food purveyors like Burger King, Dairy Queen, and Coca-Cola, but also for filling up on them as well. The Buffett diet includes five Cokes a day, as well as Cheetos and potato chips.

At his annual shareholder's meeting in 2014, Buffett explained that his quality of life isn't affected by the amount of money he has:

My life couldn't be happier. In fact, it'd be worse if I had six or eight houses. So, I have everything I need to have, and I don't need any more because it doesn't make a difference after a point.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, drives a manual-transmission Volkswagen hatchback.

Net worth:$42.8 billion

Despite his status as one of the richest tech moguls on earth, Mark Zuckerberg leads a low-key lifestyle with his wife, Priscilla Chan, and their newborn daughter. The founder of Facebook has been unabashed about his simple T-shirt, hoodie, and jeans uniform.

"I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community," Zuckerberg said.

The trappings of wealth have never impressed the 31-year-old. He chowed down on McDonald's shortly after marrying Chan in 2012 in the backyard of their $7 million Palo Alto home — a modest sum for such an expensive housing market and pocket change for a man worth almost $43 billion. In 2014, he traded in his $30,000 Acura for a manual-transmission Volkswagen hatchback.

Carlos Slim Helú, founder of Grupo Carso, has lived in the same six-bedroom house for more than 40 years.

Net worth:$23.5 billion

Rather than spending his fluctuating fortune, Carlos Slim funnels his billions back into the economy and his vast array of companies. He once mused to Reuters that wealth was like an orchard because "what you have to do is make it grow, reinvest to make it bigger, or diversify into other areas."

The 75-year-old is by far the richest man in Mexico, but he forgoes luxuries like private jets and yachts and reportedly still drives an old Mercedes-Benz. Slim runs his companies frugally, too, writing in staff handbooks that employees should always "maintain austerity in prosperous times (in times when the cow is fat with milk)."

The businessman has lived in the same six-bedroom house in Mexico for more than 40 years and routinely enjoys sharing home-cooked meals with his children and grandchildren. He's got a couple of known indulgences, including fine art — in honor of his late wife — and Cuban cigars, as well as an $80 million mansion in Manhattan, which he was trying to sell last spring.

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What if love weren't as passive as we tend to picture it being?

What if, instead of stumbling into it as a result of chance or fate, we actively choose it?

In 1997, State University of New York psychologist Arthur Aron tested the idea that two people who were willing to feel more connected to each other could do so, even within a short time.

The experiment is featured prominently in a recent Modern Love column in The New York Times, in which the author pointed to the questions as the springboard into her own romance; more on that here.

For his study, Aron separated two groups of people, then paired people up within their groups and had them chat with one another for 45 minutes. While the first group of pairs spent the 45 minutes engaging in small talk, the second group got a list of questions that gradually grew more intimate.

Not surprisingly, the pairs who asked the gradually more probing questions felt closer and more connected after the 45 minutes were up. Six months later, two of the participants (a tiny fraction of the original study group) even found themselves in love— an intriguing result, though not a significant one.

Here are the 36 questions the pairs in Aron's test group asked one another, broken up into three sets. Each set is intended to be more intimate than the one that came before.

Set 1

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

4. What would constitute a "perfect" day for you?

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

Set 2

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

17. What is your most treasured memory?

18. What is your most terrible memory?

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

20. What does friendship mean to you?

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?

24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

Set 3

25. Make three true "we" statements each. For instance, "We are both in this room feeling _______."

26. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share _______.”

27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.

29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

Try them out, and let us know what happens.

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Professional ballerina Misty Copeland, 33, made history last year when she became the first African American woman to be named principal dancer with the legendary American Ballet Theatre.

This week she's making headlines with a recent Harper's Bazaar photo shoot she did that recreated images from the famous paintings and sculptures of French artist Edgar Degas. 

Copeland told the magazine she had difficulty freezing in these certain pre-determined poses because, like all dancers, she's a bit of a control freak. "It was interesting to be on a shoot and to not have the freedom to just create like I normally do with my body," she told the magazine.

Her frame may be petite, but her stage presence is huge and has ignited opportunities that extend far beyond international magazines. She served as a judge on "So You think You Can Dance"; wrote a memoir and a children's book; was part of the Under Armour "I Will What I Want" campaign; was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME last year; and was the subject of the documentary "A Ballerina's Tale," which debuted at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. 

The dancer describes herself as an "unlikely ballerina" (it's the subtitle of her 2014 memoir), and it's true: whatever your ballet stereotypes, it's likely Copeland doesn't fit them. Here's how she went from "pretty much homeless" to dance superstar. 

Rachel Sugar contributed to a previous version of this article. 

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Misty Copeland was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1982. When she was 2, her parents divorced, and her mom, Sylvia, moved Copeland and her three older siblings to start over in Bellflower, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. The next time she saw her biological father, she would be 22 and a dancer with the American Ballet Theatre.

Source

Copeland spent her childhood "dancing to Mariah Carey videos, rewatching a movie about the gymnast Nadia Comaneci, and being very prepared for school, where she was a hall monitor and the class treasurer," wrote Rivka Galchen in a 2014 New Yorker profile.

Source

But she didn't take any formal gymnastics or dance classes until she was 13 — insanely late for a female ballet dancer. These kids below are auditioning for the super prestigious School of American Ballet. They're between 6 and 10.

Source

Ahhh, romance.

More and more often these days, people find it through dating apps and websites like OkCupid, Tinder, or Hinge. 

Whether you've found a significant other or you're just sick of wading through cheesy bios and clumsy introductions in vain, here's a quick-n-dirty guide on how to get rid of your online dating accounts.

Because contrary to the assumption of many (including a Business Insider coworker or two), deleting the Tinder app off your phone doesn't mean you have deleted your account.

Here's how you really delete all the online dating accounts you're sick of:

Tinder

To repeat: Deleting the app does not delete your account.

To delete your account for real, navigate to the Settings pane, select App Settings, scroll down all the way to the bottom, and select Delete Account. You’ll then see a message that says "Account successfully deleted" if it worked.

"If you subscribed to Tinder Plus, deleting the app and/or your account does not cancel your subscription," Tinder says on its FAQ page. You have to cancel your subscription via email.

OkCupid

OkCupid gives you the option of deleting or disabling your account. If you disable it, your profile will be removed, but you will be able to get all your old information, pictures, and messages back if you want in the future.

To permanently delete it, just go to Settings in either the app or desktop, and select "Delete Account."

Here's a quick link to do just that.

Hinge

If you're on desktop, simply click here (the link will not work from mobile device) and remove the Hinge app from the list. Then, on your phone, delete the app icon as you normally would.

To delete your account via your phone, you actually do it through the Facebook app.

Once you've opened that up, click More > Settings > Account Settings > Apps > Logged in with Facebook > Hinge > Remove App. Then just delete the account. 

Match.com 

If you don't have a paid subscription, you can cancel your membership by visiting the Change/Cancel Membership page in your Account Settings (look for the gear icon).

If you do have a membership, cancelling it will just mean that you're not paying anymore, although your profile will remain on the site. Once you've canceled your subscription, delete your now-free account with the same instructions above. 

Rather confusingly, though, even after you've canceled your account, you can get it back just by signing back in, because Match keeps your information "stored in our database for historical and legal purposes only."

Match has a separate section describing how to delete a profile permanently, but the answer is just not to even log back in once you've cancelled:

Coffee Meets Bagel 

There's no simple, do-it-yourself way to delete your Coffee Meets Bagel profile. You have to actually contact the company and have them do it for you. Reach out at contact@coffeemeetsbagel.com.

eHarmony 

There are two steps to deleting your eHarmony account.

First, you have to "close" it, meaning matches can no longer see your profile. Do that by going to Settings > Account Settings > Billing > Close Account. 

Then, to get rid of it completely and permanently, you have to email deletemyinfo@eharmony.comwith the subject line "Delete My Account Information." In the body of the email, ask for all your personal information to be deleted.

Grindr

To delete your Grindr profile, open the app, tap Grindr Mask > Settings > Privacy > Tap delete profile >Confirm.

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Think back to the last time your partner did something nice for you.

Now think about how you reacted to that little act of kindness.

Research suggests that people who are grateful — not just by saying a quick "thanks" but also by internally processing that gratitude — get a happiness boost.

More importantly, they also tend to feel more connected to their significant other and better about their relationship overall.

A recent study by Sara Algoe, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found that on days when partners reported feeling more grateful for their significant other's acts of kindness, they also reported feeling more connected to that person. 

In other words, what mattered wasn't how often someone in the relationship did a thoughtful thing — it was how grateful the partner reported feeling about it. 

Amie Gordon, a psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley, has also studied how gratitude can affect couples. In a series of studies, she found that the more grateful couples said they were the time she first questioned them, the more likely they were to still be in that same relationship nine months later.

It's not just about saying thank you

Psychologically speaking, processing gratitude may be different than simply expressing it. So rather than simply saying "thank you" to the person who held the door open, try focusing on how you feel about the person who did that kind act.

"My definition of gratitude," writes Gordon in a blog post for Psychology Today, "includes appreciating not just what your partner does, but who they are as a person. You're not just thankful that your partner took out the trash — you're thankful that you have a partner who is thoughtful enough to know you hate taking out the trash."

Researchsuggests that one of the reasons being grateful feels so good is because it helps kick-start a cycle of positive vibes. In other words, when we start beinggrateful, we're more likely to continue to feel positive in the minutes or months ahead. 

And the people around us probably feel it too.

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Broccoli is one of America's favorite vegetables, which is great for our health — but only if we prepare it right.

A common method of preparation is boiling. This process is notorious for leeching water-soluble vitamins, like Vitamin C and B, from vegetables, including broccoli.

But there's more to this story that researchers have only just begun to discover.

It turns out, the nutritional damage from boiling goes deeper than just water-soluble vitamins:

It hinders the body's ability to absorb a class of compounds called glucosinolates, which a growing body of scientific research suggests could play a role in reducing the risk of lung and colorectal cancer.

Broccoli, supplements, and boiling

In a 2011 paper, researchers compared the level of certain cancer-fighting glucosinolates in humans who ate broccoli versus those who took broccoli supplements, made from broccoli sprout extract.

They discovered that the vegetable contains a key protein that helps our bodies break glucosinolates down for absorption while supplements lack this protein.

The result was that subjects who took supplements had up to eight times fewer glucosinolates in their blood and urine than those who ate the vegetable.

Moreover, the lead researcher of the study said that intensive cooking, like boiling, severely reduces the level of this enzyme in broccoli, so you get about as much nutrition from boiled broccoli as you do from broccoli supplements, which isn't much.

Luckily, there is a way to combat the disadvantages of boiling: Preserve the boiling water for later consumption.

Broccoli water (but there's a better way)

Broccoli water isn't a new concept. In fact, the 1999 Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide suggested that you store broccoli water to later use in soups, sauces, or even gravy, LiveStrong reported.

One concern with broccoli water, however, is pesticides. In addition to leeching nutrients from broccoli, boiling water can also absorb pesticides that farmers use to avoid rot, weeds, and insects during the growing process. One way to avoid pesticides is to buy organic.

However, if you want to avoid the extra cost of organic produce, just steam your broccoli instead, said Guy Crosby, who teaches a food science course at Harvard School of Public Health and is the editor for America's Test Kitchen.

Get the most out of your broccoli by steaming it

Crosby called preserving broccoli water from non-organic broccoli a "balancing act":

"If you're concerned about the level of pesticides — some of them are water soluble and will be separated out in the cooking water, which would offset consuming the cooking water for the nutrients that are leeched out, so it's a balancing act," Crosby told Business Insider.

The bottom line: Ditch the acrobatics and just steam your vegetables. It will benefit you in the long run.

In a paper published last November, Crosby and his colleague at Harvard, Adriana D.T. Fabbri, reviewed the literature on how different cooking methods affected the nutritional value of certain legumes and vegetables, including broccoli. They reported that:

"The total content of glucosinolates of fresh broccoli increased by steaming methods," the two stated in their paper adding that "Steam cooking: best procedure to preserve and enhance nutritional quality of fresh broccoli."

There you have it: If you want to get the most out of your broccoli, just steam it.

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In some ways marriage has taken on a terrifying role in today's society because of what can come after: divorce. It's not an unreasonable fear considering an estimated 40 to 50% of married couples in the US have divorced.

But, anthropologist and human behavior expert at Indiana University who's spent decades studying different aspect of love, Helen Fisher says that if you wait about two years before getting married, it could boost your chances of leading a happy, life-long marriage.

"There was a recent study in which they asked a lot of [dating] people who were living together ... why have they not yet married and 67% were terrified of divorce," Fisher said on Big Think.

"Terrified of not only the legal and the financial and the economic but the personal and social fall out of divorce."

Interestingly, this fear of divorce is actually giving way to healthier marriages, overall, because people are taking more time getting to know each other before tying the knot, Fisher said.

And time is the only one way to reactivate a part of the brain — responsible for logical decision making and planning — that shuts down when you first fall in love with someone new, which can explain the irrational behavior of two people who are madly in love:

"One of the problems with early stage intense feelings of romantic love is that it's part of the oldest part of the brain that become activated — brain regions linked with drive, with craving, with obsession, with motivation," Fisher, who has studied the brain on love, said. "In fact some cognitive regions up in the prefrontal cortex [shown below in red] that have evolved more recently begin to shut down — brain regions linked with decision making [and] planning ahead."

This intense feeling of love can cloud your ability to think logically or rationally about the person you're with. Therefore, by allowing time for the brain to adjust to the new situation and feelings you're experiencing, you can recognize whether who you're dating is actually right for you.

"I think ... this slow love process of getting to know somebody very carefully over a long period of time is going to help the brain readjust some of these brain regions for decision making," Fisher said. "You're going to get to know how this person handles your parents at Christmas ... how they handle your friends, how they handle their money, how they handle an argument ... etc."

Ultimately, you want to get a good sense of your partner's behavior during these real life situations, which is why Fisher suggests to wait at least two years. That way, you've been around the annual treadmill of life twice with your partner, and, therefore, should have a good sense of how they handle themselves under different circumstances.

"I think people should marry when they feel like marrying but from what I know about the brain if it were me I'd wait at least two years."

Watch the full Big Think video of Helen Fisher explaining the slow love process and how to maintain a happy relationship on YouTube, or below:

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If you're enjoying a life of wedded bliss, congratulations on beating some impressive odds.

In the US, people are getting hitched less often than they once did, and young Americans are putting off marriage more than ever before.

In 1962, half of 21-year-olds and 90% of 30-year-olds had been married at least once. In 2014, only 8% of 21-year-olds and 55% of 30-year-olds had been married.

According to Bloomberg, married Americans are now the minority.

Relationship experts believe that American marriages are more challenging today than ever before because we expect so much more out of marriage, and when higher expectations aren't met, it can suffocate a marriage to the point of destroying it.

As a result, we tend to see more extreme manifestations of struggling and healthy marriages.

While we know that marriages come in all shapes and sizes — some are short-lived, while others are enduring; some are really happy, and some aren't — how does marriage ultimately impact the many facets of your success?

Well, there's no simple answer. But these studies will begin to unpack the question a little and help us better understand the many factors at play.

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Marrying your best friend makes you really, really happy.

A recent study on marital satisfaction released by the National Bureau of Economic Research and previously reported on by Business Insider suggests that the happiest people are those who are married to their best friends.

Controlling for pre-marital happiness, the study concluded that, overall, marriage leads to increased well-being.

But while couples who saw their best friend as someone outside of the relationship were happier than single people, the study found that those who consider their spouse or partner to be their best friend get about twice as much life satisfaction from marriage as other married people. 

The authors concluded that partners can provide each other with a unique kind of social support and help each other overcome some of life's biggest challenges, and people with the most difficult lives — for example, middle-aged people, who often experience a dip in personal well-being — can benefit the most.

Married people are less social.

Your network of relationships, among other things, can help you find jobs and make you happier happier, healthier, and more open to insights. 

Unfortunately for married people, research suggests that, compared to Americans who have always been single, they are less likely to support and stay in touch with their family and less likely to help, encourage, and socialize with friends and neighbors.

Married people get some monetary bonuses.

According to two Atlantic writers who crunched some numbers, married women can pay as much as $1 million less than their single counterparts over a lifetime.

The writers looked at the tax penalties and bonuses, as well as living costs like health spending and housing costs.

According to the Tax Policy Center, a married couple suffers a "marriage penalty" if they pay more income tax as a married couple than they would have as two single individuals. A couple receives a "marriage bonus" if they pay less income tax as a married couple than they would have as two single individuals.

When couples combine their incomes, especially when they have similar incomes, this can push them into a higher tax bracket, which would result in a higher tax rate.

In addition to the tax break you receive from filing jointly, couples are more likely to receive a marriage bonus when spouses earn different amounts.

There are a lot of factors affecting marriage penalties and bonuses, but generally, according to the US Department of the Treasury Office of Tax Analysis, more married couples under the age of 65 filing joint tax returns on average see bonuses than penalties.

According to the BLS data the Atlantic writers looked at, couples also spent on average 6.9% of their annual income on their health, while single men spent only 3.9% and single women spent 7.9%.  

And when it came to housing, couples spent on average 23.9% of their annual income, compared to single men who spent 30.3% and single women who spend 39.8%. 

By combining resources and splitting costs, married people have the edge on all kinds of day-to-day expenses in addition to rent or mortgage: one cable bill, one utilities bill, and shared groceries can all lead to big savings.

The US boasts some of the best colleges in the world. But they aren't limited to elite private schools — every state has public institutions that offer residents top-notch education with an affordable price tag. 

Niche, a company that researches and compiles information on schools, ranked the best public schools in the US. The site lets users sort by state, so we took a look at which public school dominated in each one.

To determine its rankings, Niche considers factors like academic strength, campus quality, caliber of professors, and quality of student reviews for more than 1,500 schools across the country.

Read on to see which school is repping your state.

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ALABAMA: University of Alabama

Location: Tuscaloosa

Overall: A

Academics: A-

Acceptance rate: 57%

"Academics are a top priority and the classes are hard, but depending on your major the professors make sure you enjoy it!" one freshman exclaimed.

School spirit runs deep at Bama as well.

"We have the Roll Tide spirit," another freshman said. "Everybody is extremely friendly and the classes are very unique."

ALASKA: University of Alaska Fairbanks

Location: Fairbanks

Overall: B

Academics: B+

Acceptance rate: 74%

"There are a lot of classes to choose from," a student reported. "The professors are very helpful."

The temperature gets cold, but students say it becomes something to bond over.

"The community is wonderful!" one junior said. "It gets a little cold, but that's what makes it fun. We have cool clubs, such as the -40 and -50 degree clubs."

ARIZONA: Arizona State University

Location: Tempe

Overall: A-

Academics: B+

Acceptance rate: 80%

"The variety of the courses offered is vast and there are a lot of unique classes that enable you to really customize your general classes to something that you'll enjoy," one student commented. "A majority of the professors are well educated in their fields and easy to talk to."

Happiness is one of the most important things in life, yet it's also one of the hardest to study.

Psychiatrist Robert Waldinger is the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest and most complete studies of adult life ever conducted. Waldinger described some of the secrets to happiness revealed by the study in a recent TED talk.

The study followed two cohorts of white men for 75 years, starting in 1938:

• 268 Harvard sophomores as part of the "Grant Study" led by Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant
• 456 12- to 16-year-old boys who grew up in inner-city Boston as part of the "Glueck Study" led by Harvard Law School professor Sheldon Glueck

The researchers surveyed the men about their lives (including the quality of their marriages, job satisfaction, and social activities) every two years and monitored their physical health (including chest X-rays, blood tests, urine tests, and echocardiograms) every five years.

They came away with one major finding: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier.

In his TED Talk, Waldinger pointed out three key lessons about happiness:

1. Close relationships

The men in both groups of the Harvard study who reported being closer to their family, friends, or community tended to be happier and healthier than their less social counterparts. They also tended to live longer. By comparison, people who said they were lonelier reported feeling less happy. They also had worse physical and mental health, as defined above.

A 2014 review of dozens of studies published in the journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass suggests that loneliness can get in the way of mental functioning, sleep, and well-being, which in turn increases the risk of illness and death.

2. Quality (not quanity) of relationships

It's not just being in a relationship that matters. Married couples who said they argued constantly and had low affection for one another (which study authors defined as "high-conflict marriages") were actually less happy than people who weren't married at all, the Harvard study found.

However, the effect of relationship quality seems to depend somewhat on age. A 2015 study published in the journal Psychology and Aging that followed people for 30 years found that the number of relationships people had was, in fact, more important for people in their 20s, but the quality of relationships had a bigger effect on social and psychological well being when people were in their 30s.

3. Stable, supportive marriages

Being socially connected to others isn't just good for our physical health. It also helps stave off mental decline. People who were married without having divorced, separating, or having "serious problems" until age 50 performed better on memory tests later in life than those who weren't, the Harvard study found.

And other research backs this up. A 2013 study in the journal PLOS ONE found that marriage, among other factors, was linked to a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

All of this suggests that strong relationships are critical to our health.

Society places a lot of emphasis on wealth and "leaning in" to our work, Waldinger said. "But over and over, over these 75 years, our study has shown that the people who fared the best were the people who leaned in to relationships, with family, with friends, with community."

You can watch the full TED talk here.

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