I'm a watch fan. I love looking at them, feeling them, and admiring them. But, I also realize not everyone who owns or wants to own a luxury watch sees them in the same way.

It's no secret that people buy and wear luxury watches for different reasons. While I appreciate their complexity and history, another man might see it as a status symbol.

But that's ok! People enjoy watches for a variety of different reasons. 

This is important not because one reason is better than another. Instead, it's important because your reason for buying a watch can often dictate what type of watch you end up purchasing.

Take, for example, the biggest decision people make when buying a watch: quartz or mechanical.

I will always choose mechanical over quartz because it's more interesting to me. And I think, if you fancy yourself a watch fan, you should (usually) too. I like to know that it's my hand winding the gears and the motion of my wrist powering it. I like to see the intricate clockwork seen in the rear of the watch, and see it move as it ticks. I enjoy knowing that I'm wearing the pinnacle of such an old technology on my wrist.

But many people don't care about any of that. They just want a nice-looking watch on their wrist that is from an impressive brand and tells the time accurately. They don't want to have to worry about it running out of power and needing to be rewound and reset after becoming inaccurate.

Those people should certainly look at quartz watches. They're more accurate than mechanical, they run off a simple battery that is very cheap to replace, and they look virtually the same as mechanical watches. The only difference is that they're less "interesting" to watch aficionados. Which isn't something you should worry about.

After all, you'll be the one wearing your new watch.

SEE ALSO: This may be the end of the Swiss watch as we know it

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Much of America's charm is predicated on small-town life. It's community oriented, nostalgic, and generally more affordable than living in a big city.

In its October/November print issue, AARP The Magazine highlights 10 great hometowns for anyone on a modest budget of $40,000 per year. (Check out the shorter online version here).

To create the list, the magazine partnered with Sperling's Best Places, which focuses on quality of life research, to determine a livability index, factoring in metrics on housing affordability, access to work and recreation, transportation, healthcare, and safety. Each city on the list has a score above the average livability index score of 50.

Read on to check out 10 US cities where life is robust and affordable.

DON'T MISS: 15 of the most fun American cities that are actually affordable

SEE ALSO: The 25 cities with the best quality of life in the US

Sheboygan, Wisconsin

Livability index: 65

Population: 115,300

Median housing price: $127,300

Sunny days per year: 188

Just one hour North of Milwaukee you'll find this distinctly Midwestern town on the shores of Lake Michigan at the opening of the Sheboygan River, the area's main draw and a hotspot for surfing and sailing. Residents laud Sheboygan's free and affordable events and activities, including the annual Brat Days festival, a celebration of the city's most famous culinary export.

Eugene, Oregon

Livability index: 59

Population: 358,300

Median housing price: $222,000

Sunny days per year: 155

Nestled in the lush Willamette Valley, Eugene has "carefully cultivated its image as an outdoor-lover's paradise," according to AARP The Magazine. Its high concentration of nature mavens — including both the area's college students and retirees — frequent farmer's markets, vineyards, hiking and biking trails, museums, and galleries.

Cleveland, Ohio

Livability index: 56

Population: 2 million

Median housing price: $124,000

Sunny days per year: 166

Situated on the shores of Lake Erie, Cleveland has experienced a cultural renaissance of late, led by growing populations of baby boomers and millennials alike. The city's robust art and music scene is complemented by lively nightlife and award-winning restaurants, not to mention a renewed excitement among NBA fans with the return of hometown hero LeBron James.

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Hair transplant surgeon Dr. William D. Yates stopped by Business Insider to explain the best way to predict if you're going to experience male pattern baldness. 

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Markets are closed in Canada on Monday for Canadian Thanksgiving. 

The holiday is pretty similar to American Thanksgiving — it definitely involves a turkey — but there are a few big differences.

For one thing, it's always held on the second Monday of October. That said, Canadians will feast on the Saturday, Sunday, or Monday of the Thanksgiving long weekend.

The Canadian holiday also has a different history and origin than the US one — and many argue it actually came first.

Here are a few things you need to know about Canadian Thanksgiving.

SEE ALSO: 35 things Canadians say that Americans don't understand

Canadian Thanksgiving dates back to 1578 — so it's actually older than American Thanksgiving.

The earliest Thanksgiving celebration in Canada dates back to explorer Martin Frobisher's third voyage to Canada. He lost one of his ships along the way, so when he landed in Nunavut, he held a big celebration to give thanks for his safe passage.

Harvest season is earlier in Canada than in the US, which might be why Canadian Thanksgiving is held in early October.

Another theory for where Canadian Thanksgiving came from is the French settlers who came in the early 17th century and celebrated their harvests in New France every year. 

Many places in Europe held end-of-harvest celebrations long before either the US or Canada started doing it.

Canada did copy the US a little bit...

After the American Revolution, many British loyalists fled to Canada as refugees, and brought with them a few American-style Thanksgiving traditions, like eating turkey!

Few dishes compare to a hunk of juicy steak.

And even fewer home-cooked steaks compare to those of your local favorite steakhouse.

From fridge to plate, there are a lot of little secrets steakhouse chefs employ.

Thanks to executive chef Billy Oliva, we're now hip to those secrets. Oliva oversees the kitchen at one of Wall Street's favorite steakhouses, Delmonico's, established in 1837.

Here he lists nine common mistakes that keep home-cooked steaks from reaching their full flavor potential.

1. Don't cook a steak that's fresh from the fridge.

Oliva says this is the No. 1 mistake people make when preparing steak. "In the restaurant, we always like the steaks to come up to room temperature because you get a more even cooking process ... If it's too cold, the outside will char and the inside will be a little bit rarer than it should be."

2. Don't put a piece of steak in a pan or on a grill that isn't screaming hot.

If you don't let the pan heat up, you'll lose out on caramelization and you'll end up steaming your steak. The juice and blood will escape, and you'll be left with what Oliva describes as "that gray piece of meat."

3. Don't be afraid to douse the steak with seasoning.

According to Oliva, people either don't season the steak enough or they season only one side. "We season both sides," he said. "We use a combination of kosher salt and sea salt, and we use a fresh-ground-pepper mix that has about seven different types of peppercorns in it."

4. Don't leave a steak on an open flame for too long.

When grilling a steak, sear it fast and move it to the side — unless you want a charred piece of meat. "What we like to do is sear it to give it color, and then move it to [a slightly] cooler part of the grill when we're grilling ... You want to cook around the open flame."

5. Don't poke the steak with a fork to see whether it's done.

You're testing steak, not cupcakes. "Once you poke a hole in it, all the blood and all the flavor and juices in the steak are going to leach out." (Here's a graphic that shows how to tell whether a steak is done without puncturing it.)

6. Don't flip the steak more than once.

Put it in a hot pan, leave it alone until it starts to caramelize, and flip it only once. "You don't need to keep flipping it every two minutes because then you're removing the steak from the hot surface. You're kind of defeating the purpose of searing the outside and locking in all the juices."

7. Don't press down on the meat.

Oliva says putting pressure on the meat with a spatula or pair of tongs is "almost as bad as poking it with a fork." Your main job in cooking a steak is to keep the fat (read: flavor) locked inside the meat. The more pressure you put on the steak, the more fat you lose.

8. Don't serve a steak fresh from the pan or grill.

"After it's cooked, you always want to let it rest," Oliva said. "Let the meat relax and let the juices run back into the center." The amount of resting time depends on the size of the steak. Oliva lets the Delmonico's 42-ounce double porterhouse rest for 10 to 15 minutes before serving it. But he recommends 10 minutes for most any cut.

9. Don't forget to reseason the steak before serving.

A lot of the seasonings get lost in the cooking process, so Oliva and his staff give the steaks at Delmonico's a sprinkle of sea salt before they leave the kitchen.

Brittany Fowler wrote an earlier version of this post.

SEE ALSO: The best steakhouse in every state

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Of the world's 10 richest tech billionaires, four are college dropouts. All are men, all are from two countries (the United States and China), and all currently are or were heads of companies. 

These are some seriously wealthy folks — the entry level to this list is $18.2 billion net worth (that includes cash, stock, and various other holdings). Some now spend their time trying to change the world, others spend their time owning sports teams, and some are still running the company that made them rich.

Heck, one of them is launching stuff into space:

This list of the 10 richest tech billionaires in the world comes from a collaboration between Business Insider and wealth analytics firm Wealth-X, which recently created a list of the top 50 richest people on Earth.

Emmie Martin and Tanza Loudenback contributed research to this report.

Let's jump in, starting with number 10:

10. Pony Ma

Net worth: $18.2 billion

Age: 44

Country: China

Industry: Technology

Source of wealth: Tencent Holdings

Having made money early on in the stock market, Ma Huateng (Pony Ma) started Tencent with college friends. The company's first major product was a messaging service in China named QQ, which cost nothing and became a standard in early online messaging services. Tencent has since expanded dramatically, investing in a variety of different business types, from music distribution to major video game studios like Riot Games (makers of the world's most popular game, "League of Legends").

9. Michael Dell

Net worth: $18.9 billion

Age: 51

Country: US

Industry: Technology

Source of wealth: Self-made; Dell

While a premed student at the University of Texas at Austin in 1984, Michael Dell started a company called PC Ltd. — the predecessor to Dell. He soon dropped out of college to build computers full-time, which became one of the fastest-growing companies in the country.

By the time he was 23, the company went public and raised $30 million — $18 million of it going to Dell personally. Outside of a brief period, Dell has run his namesake company since its inception. The company employs over 100,000 people in several countries, and remains based in Texas where it's the second largest non-oil company behind AT&T.

8. Steve Ballmer

Net worth: $25.9 billion

Age: 59

Country: US

Industry: Tech

Source of wealth: Self-made; Microsoft

Steve Ballmer dropped out of business school at Stanford in 1980 to join Harvard friend Bill Gates at Microsoft as the company's first business manager, earning a $50,000 salary and a stake in the company. He went from business manager to CEO during his time at Microsoft, and that early stake in the company paid off handsomely: He's only the second person, not including founders and their family, to ever become a billionaire from employee stock options.

Nowadays, he's no longer with Microsoft. He paid $2 billion in a deal to buy the Los Angeles Clippers back in 2014. He's also fond of slamming basketballs, as seen to the right.

Your home viewing setup might be as simple as watching Netflix on a 13-inch laptop while laying on the couch, curled up in a blanket burrito. That certainly works for some people, but creating a bigger home theater can take your binge watching experience up quite a few levels.

Many people shy away from creating a home theater because gear hunting can get expensive, and looking over specs can be exhausting.

Luckily, it's possible to make a home theater setup without spending a heinous amount of money. Here are a couple of reasonably priced AV and streaming products that will help you on your way.

SEE ALSO: How to create an amazing home theater setup for under $1,000

Surround-sound speaker set

If you're in the market for a dedicated speaker set, Monoprice sells a full surround-sound set for a penny under $100. The set comes with four satellite speakers for better sound distribution, a center speaker for mid and high-frequency sounds, and an eight-inch subwoofer for the cinematic bass sounds.

The kit comes with mounting brackets for satellite speakers as well, so you can mount them onto walls.

You can grab a Monoprice speaker set on Amazon for $99.99.

Speaker stands

If your speakers are sitting on a table, media console, or other flat surface, lower-frequency sounds are likely to create a bit of shuddering. So when watching a bass-heavy movie, you'll might see your speakers bouncing around, creating noise that interferes with the actual sound of the movie.

To avoid that, secure your speakers on stands. Atlantic's speaker stands are unobtrusive, and reviewers on Amazon (where it's the best-selling pair of stands) say the speaker wires can be completely hidden.

You can grab a pair of stands on Amazon for $35.08.

A soundbar

If you're working with a limited amount of space and want the ease and simplicity of having just one audio device, get yourself a soundbar. 

The VIZIO SB3820 is a 38-inch soundbar that's easy to set up and sounds great outside the box — or at least much better than the internal speakers in your TV.

You can grab one for $93.97 on Amazon.

People who travel for business or work remotely are increasingly seeking out spaces that feel like a hybrid between a home and office. 

That's why a new kind of hotel, called the Zoku Loft, packs in everything you need to work and socialize into 270 square feet. Think of it as a combination between Airbnb and a WeWork coworking space.

The first Zoku micro-loft hotel opened in Amsterdam in June 2016, and co-founder Hans Meyer now tells Business Insider that the model will soon expand internationally.

Within the next 10 years, the team plans to open 50 Zoku locations around the world, with the first ones coming to the US by 2018. The exact locations aren't determined yet, but Zoku is currently talking with developers in New York City, Chicago, Boston, and Seattle. By 2020, the company also plans to launch two locations in Paris.

The micro-lofts start at $123 a night. Take a look inside.

SEE ALSO: Airbnb is turning into the travel agency of the future

Zoku is a Japanese word meaning "work, thrive, family, cleanse."

The hybrid loft is designed for young entrepreneurs — Meyer refers to them as "global nomads" — who work across time zones.

While hotel rooms usually center around the bed, Zoku’s lofts center around a wooden table that seats four. "People can have a business meeting there or have a cappuccino with friends — they can really make it theirs," Meyer says.

Blue Bottle is one of the hottest coffee chains in Silicon Valley.

It should come as no surprise that founder James Freeman and CEO Bryan Meehan know the best gadgets for brewing the perfect pour-over coffee at home.

Meehan's pick is the Chemex, a simple, elegant machine for making pour-over coffee for a crowd. It retails for about $40.

Invented in 1941, the Chemex is about as low-tech as coffee-makers get. It's a hourglass-shaped vessel made of heat-resistant glass that holds coffee grounds. The user pours water over the opening and lets it filter, creating three to six cups of perfection.

"I find it's a very sociable way of making delicious coffee," Meehan says. "It doesn't have a plug. It doesn't have a leash, which I like about it, too."

Its stunning designed earned the Chemex a spot in New York's Museum of Modern Art. It was also named one of the 100 best designed products of modern times by the Illinois Institute of Technology. You can also find the Chemex in most Blue Bottle cafés.

Freeman, who launched Blue Bottle out of a San Francisco garage in the early 2000s, says a gram scale will help drinkers nail the coffee-to-water ratio every time.

In Blue Bottle cafés, coffee grinds and water are carefully measured using a scale to ensure each individually poured cup is as robust as the last. Some devices, like the Blue Bottle-approved Acaica Pearl Scale ($130) and the Hario Scale ($60), have built-in timers so you know exactly how long your brew should sit.

Freeman says the idea of weighing ingredients sounds like too much work for some people. But the result is so worth it. He guesses most people use too few grounds in their brew.

"More butter is almost always better than less butter, and to a certain extent, coffee can be that way," Freeman says.

SEE ALSO: Here's how much you should tip a coffee barista

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NOW WATCH: This may be the perfect coffee to-go cup

Kenneth Bone, an undecided voter who asked a question to the candidates on Sunday's televised second presidential debate, asked a menial question on energy policy.

But no one really remembers exactly what he asked — all they remember is his "earnest delivery, bright sweater, and suggestive yet punchy name" according to Business Insider's Maxwell Tani.

Let's take the sweater for instance. It's a bright red cable knit half-zip sweater, likely sold by a mall store. Polo Ralph Lauren sells one that looks almost identical, save for the pony label. GQ says it thinks it's identified it as this Izod model, though it's sold out on Amazon.

Regardless, the reasons why it stood out should be obvious — a color like that easily catches the eye. It's a brave choice, even braver when you take into account the fact that a larger sweater is needed to cover Bone's frame, intensifying the brightness of the sweater since there's just more of the cotton fabric. In Bone's defence, this wasn't his first choice — he had originally planned to wear an olive suit before a wardrobe malfunction forced a change.

For larger guys, we recommend sticking to more muted colors and patterns so as to not attract as much worldwide attention as Bone did. There's no problem with dressing to attract attention — why else would we put so much effort into it?

But you want to make sure you're attracting attention for the right reasons, and dressing for your body. Because not everyone wants to become a meme.

SEE ALSO: 11 fall clothing and style hacks every guy should know

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NOW WATCH: The internet is in love with Ken Bone — an undecided voter who unwittingly starred in the debate

In 2015, Loïc Gouzer helped sell Picasso's "Les femmes d'Alger" for $180 million — a record breaking price tag for a piece of art sold at auction at that time. Today, he organizes curated auctions for Christie's based on various themes and combining works of art from all over the world. We spoke with Gouzer about his work and why he thinks art is a great investment.

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Tyson Foods, the biggest meat processor in the US, is throwing its support behind a company that aims to make veggie burgers indistinguishable from real beef.

The parent company behind Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, and Ball Park Franks announced Monday it's investing an undisclosed amount for a 5% stake in Beyond Meat as part of an effort to take plant-based "meat" mainstream, the New York Times reports.

In May, Beyond Meat made waves when it introduced a plant-based burger that "bleeds" just like real meat. A pulverized beet blend helps the patty's inside stay moist, pink, and juicy — not too dissimilar from cow's meat.

Since launch, the Beyond Burger has expanded distribution from one Whole Foods vendor in Boulder, Colorado, to 35 locations across six more states. It retails for $5.99 per case.

The new round of funding from Tyson, an industry leader in chicken, beef, and pork, will provide capital for Beyond Meat to broaden its product portfolio and reach new markets, according to a press release. Beyond Meat has offered meat alternatives like veggie chicken strips and burgers for years now, but the burger has seemed to catch on in the media.

The Beyond Burger looks surprisingly similar to a real beef patty, providing the texture, sizzle, and even the aroma of traditional beef. When it's dressed up with condiments, you could be fooled into thinking the Beyond Burger is real meat.

The burgers are sold in a case alongside other meats at Whole Foods — not in the frozen foods section, where Morningstar Farms and other veggie burgers are found.

Tyson joins a long list of backers including Bill Gates, VC fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture arm of General Mills, and the Humane Society of the United States. Former McDonald's CEO Don Thompson is on the Beyond Meat board of directors, hinting at the company's future ambitions in fast food.

"We're enthusiastic about this investment, which gives us exposure to a fast-growing segment of the protein market," Monica McGurk, executive vice president of strategy and new ventures at Tyson, tells the Times. "It means our desire to offer customers choices and to consider how we can serve an ever-growing and diverse global population."

SEE ALSO: Fast food chains could soon offer veggie burgers that are indistinguishable from beef

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After a summer of exploring, swimming, and otherwise staying fit, our bodies are in a good spot.

But this is it, folks. It's not going to get any better than this. That is, according to The New York Times' Well blog, highlighting a letter to the editor in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Anything that happens in these next 10 weeks, on average, takes about five months to come off," Brian Wansink, one of the letter's authors and a professor at Cornell University, told The Times.

That is, the time leading up to the end of December will be full of opportunities to gain weight — and that isn't an easy thing to fix.

That's why focusing on what you eat rather than how much you workout might be the best way to stave off the problem. Philip Stanforth, a professor of exercise science at the University of Texas and the executive director of the Fitness Institute of Texas explained it well to Business Insider in 2015:

"Thinking practically, keep in mind you'd have to walk 35 miles to burn 3,500 calories. That's a lot of walking. But if you look at eating, a Snickers ["2-to-go"] bar might have, say, 500 calories. It's going to be a lot easier to cut the Snickers bar than to do five miles of walking every day."

So perhaps, instead of trying to compensate for that third or fourth gingerbread cookie with an extra workout, it may make more sense to scale back on just how many treats you snack on over the course of the season.

To reach their conclusion about holiday weight gain, Wansink and co-authors looked at owners of Withings wireless scales (a Withings employee was also one of the authors on the study). Using the scales, they were able to monitor the daily weigh-ins of about 3,000 people in the US, Japan, and Germany for a year. About 600 people in that group were considered obese.

They found that most people's weight tended to rise leading up to major holidays, in particular Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, as well as Easter in Germany and the Golden Week in Japan.

The researchers pointed to "an increased intake of favorite foods" as the thing all these holidays have in common. Other factors could also be at play: perhaps the spike leading into colder months could have something to do with people exercising less (it's harder to go out for an evening jog when it starts to get dark around 6 p.m., for instance).

But excessive eating — say, at holiday parties filled with irresistible treats or cookie baking sessions where a fair amount of cookie dough doesn't end up getting baked — does seem to fit the timeline of weight gain leading up to the holiday. In the long term, having a healthy diet and exercising are both integral to weight loss.

And, as Wansink suggests, it may be time to enact an "October 1" proactive resolution, rather than the traditional New Year's resolution. 

SEE ALSO: 15 healthy eating habits that work, according to science

DON'T MISS: We talked to an exercise scientist about whether diet or exercise is more important for weight loss, and his answer surprised us

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You've probably heard about the five-second rule. You've probably also heard that it's not a real thing. Basically, no matter how hastily you snatch up that delicious donut from its unfortunate position on the pavement, it'll ultimately pick up a bunch of bacteria from the ground.

Here's the good news: In the vast majority of cases, bacteria isn't deadly. In fact, some studies suggest the opposite is likely true. Yes, coming into regular contact with the germs in our environment can actually be good for us!

Dr. Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, took up the case in a recent op-ed for the New York Times which he titled, "I'm a doctor. If I drop food on the floor, I still eat it."

Carroll's take-home message is simple. We interact with so many dirty, truly germ-infested objects every day — from grimy toilet handles to grungy cash — that trying to avoid certain surfaces is utterly pointless. "For most of us, our immune systems are pretty hardy. We've all been touching this dirty stuff for a long time, without knowing it, and doing just fine," he writes.

Many scientists have taken Carroll's thinking a step further. Their research suggests that instead of being merely harmless, regular contact with everyday bacteria can actually be helpful.

According to an idea called the hygiene hypothesis, exposure to germs and certain infections helps prime the immune system so it can defeat these microbes more easily in the future.

Research suggests the most important time for this exposure is during childhood. The idea could partially explain why children who grow up around animals and in rural areas appear to develop conditions like asthma less often than children who don't, though more studies are necessary.

And even for people other than young children, the hygiene hypothesis makes intuitive sense: After all, literally every surface in the world is covered in bacteria. The idea that things can be "perfectly clean" is a myth — humans need bacteria to live.

"We tend to think of our homes and personal environments as these pristine places, and public ones as dirty and infested with bacteria," Chris Mason, a Weill Cornell Medical College geneticist and the author of a study looking at all the bacteria on the New York City subway, said at a 2015 event in Manhattan. "But you should really think of yourself as a rabbit who gets to hop between two forests."

That's why Mason isn't afraid to let his own young daughter ride the subway or play in the dirt.

"I would advise any new parent to roll their child on the floor of the New York subway," said Mason.

Like the surfaces people touch and the ground they walk on, the human body is already teeming with thousands of different species of bacteria, from the Lactobacillus acidophilus lining digestive tracts to the Propionibacterium acnes populating the skin on faces and arms. On average, about three pounds of our body weight is accounted for by bacteria alone.

So the idea that a little more exposure couldn't hurt makes sense. Perhaps, then, everyone could afford to be a tiny bit less germaphobic.

DON'T MISS: Most of the things you do to avoid germs are useless

SEE ALSO: A microbiologist explains why the 'three-second rule' for food is 'nonsense'

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NOW WATCH: We found out if the 5-second rule is a real thing

Norman Vincent Peale, minister of the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan and author of best-seller "The Power of Positive Thinking" had a significant influence on the Trump family, says family biographer Gwenda Blair, author of "The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate." 

Produced by Arielle Berger. Camera by Jacqui Frank.

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Google Maps is one of the most downloaded apps, and for good reason: It tells us where we're going.

But centuries before we had satellite imaging, high altitude photography, or smartphones, people were jumping into ships and measuring distances between land masses to draw maps.

Those measurements, of course, made for less accurate maps. But since then, our view of the world has sharpened. 

Here are seven maps that show how far we've come in our understanding of the world. 

SEE ALSO: This video shows the entire history of the world’s cities in 3 minutes

Ptolemy's "Geographia" was one of the first treatises on geography in the Western world.

Ptolemy's world map, originally described in the year 150, was one of the first to show longitude and latitude. It placed the meridian, or longitudinal center, in the then-unidentified "Fortunate Isles" to the west of Africa. That meridian would be used up until the Middle Ages.

The map was adapted and reprinted for centuries. The version shown above is German cartographer Nicolaus Germanus' 1467 iteration of Ptolemy's Geographia. In it, the Mediterranean Ocean borders a blocky African continent, which also appears to cover the entire southern end of the map, giving the impression that Africa connects back to Asia.

The Mercator world map made it easier for sailors to navigate.

By the time this map was created in 1569, Christopher Columbus had sailed. Spanish conquistadors had brought back measurements — so many, in fact, that in 100 years, the rest of Asia was filled in, and the Americas, albeit looking like a blobby child's drawing, were finally described in detail.

Finnish cartographer Gerardus Mercator's world map was a product of these discoveries. It allowed for sailors to draw "rhumb lines," straight navigational lines on Mercator projected maps that allowed them to steer ships in one direction without constantly adjusting for the earth's curvature.

This early Dutch map, called the "Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Tabula," shows a slightly more accurate America.

Drawn by Henricus Hondius in 1630, this map provided new additions: Australia and New Zealand. Australia's outline is shown as New Holland, and New Zealand's presence is recognized though not entirely defined — its eastern and southern borders are cut off.

California is also depicted here as an island — an idea that first came about when Hernan Cortés briefly traveled to Baja California in 1535 and mistook the peninsula for a large island. North America's Pacific Northwest remains wholly undiscovered on this map, as does the part of Russia that extends out towards North America.

Photographer Miles Ladin has been documenting high-profile socialites and celebrities for publications like the New York Times and W Magazine for more than 20 years.

With his discreet camera and handheld, off-camera flash, Ladin captures candid moments of the frenzied backstage atmosphere of runway shows, the dinner tables of intimate parties, and the chaotic media flurry that surrounds these type of events.

His newest book and gallery show "Supermodels at the End of Time" takes a look back at his best shots from the 1990s and early '00s of the biggest modeling stars, and adds a sense of humor with captions from Bret Easton Ellis' satirical novel: "Glamorama."

The show is on display at New York's Station Independent Projects until October 30th.

SEE ALSO: Stunning photos give a totally unexpected perspective into how the 1% parties

Ladin's new book and gallery show is made up of photos taken between 1994 and 2002.

"For many years I had been playing around with [the idea of] combining my supermodel pictures from the 1990s with text from the Bret Easton Ellis’ novel "Glamorama,"" Ladin told Business Insider. The book, written in 1998, satirizes celebrity culture of the 90s.

While humor plays a large role in Ladin's work, he made it clear it's never meant to be mean-spirited.

Warm weather vacations will be extra-risky this year.

Zika has been found in mosquitoes in much of the American hemisphere south of Florida — and the entire Caribbean. That leaves few options for virus-free travels.

Though the Zika virus only seems to be especially dangerous to woman pregnant or about to become pregnant, there is still a chance of bringing the virus back with you and infecting others.

Here are 11 still (relatively) warm places to go this winter where you won't have to worry about the virus.

According to the CDC, these regions have had no confirmed Zika-carrying mosquitoes (yet) so there's no need to stress. After all, isn't travel all about relaxing and not stressing out?

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Bermuda

Average December high: 70 degrees

Bermuda is only semi-tropical, but it's far enough away from the Caribbean out in the middle of the Atlantic to be safe from Zika. It's warm enough to go to the beach on a sunny day, and has all the palm trees you could ask for.

Southern California

San Diego average high in December: 64 degrees

Southern California boasts a mild climate all year, and that includes in the winter months. San Diego and Los Angeles are huge metropolises will plenty to do and warm temps to boot.

Malta

Average temperature in December: 63 degrees

Zika hasn't yet reached the Mediterranean — which is good for those who love their famous mild climate. Malta is an island smack in the middle of that sea, warmer than much of the region, with a booming tourist industry.

Ever wonder if your significant other isn't being entirely truthful?

First of all, there's a good chance you're right — it's perfectly normal to lie.

But if you're worried that someone's fibbing extends into the important stuff, like happiness or fidelity, you might have considered trying to catch them in a lie.

Unfortunately, science can't tell you if your partner is sleeping around, but it is getting better at spotting when someone — especially a significant other — is being deceptive.

Here are seven ways to tell if your partner might be keeping something important from you.

SEE ALSO: Psychologist says these 2 patterns of behavior are the most common signs that a couple is going to divorce

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Ask a friend.

Other people — strangers, even — have an uncanny ability to detect when something's not right in someone else's relationship.

BYU psychologists tested out this idea by having couples draw an object together, with one participant blindfolded and the other one giving instructions on what to draw. The whole thing was videotaped. Before they started, the scientists had the couples answer a few questions about their relationship in private, including whether or not they'd ever cheated. 

Then, the researchers had a group of strangers watch the footage and guess which couples included a partner who'd ever cheated. The volunteers were surprisingly accurate.

Although preliminary, the research suggests that, simply by watching a couple doing something that requires working together, an outside observer may be able to detect infidelity or unhappiness.

"People make remarkably accurate judgments about others in a variety of situations after just a brief exposure to their behavior," the researchers wrote in the study.

Mull it over while doing something else.

People are generally bad judges of character — consciously, at least. When we are given time to process another person's actions subconsciously, however, we're far better at telling truth from deceit.

In 2013, a team of psychologists had a panel of student judges watch people give testimony and decide if they'd lied or told the truth. The students who were given time to think before they made a decision — so long as they were made to think about something other than the case they were assessing — were better at figuring out whether the person they were judging had been deceitful.

"These findings suggest that the human mind is not unfit to distinguish between truth and deception," write the researchers in the study, "but that this ability resides in previously overlooked processes."

Listen carefully to the words they use.

For a recent study, Southern Methodist University professor of psychology James W. Pennebaker looked at some data he and his colleague Diane Berry had gathered from a text analysis program. They found that some specific patterns of language were helpful at predicting when someone was avoiding the truth.

Liars, they found, tended to use fewer of the following three types of words:

• First person words, like "I," "me," or "my"
• Cognitive words, like "realize" or "think"
• Exclusive words, like "but" or "except"

But they tended to use more of the following types of words:

• Negative emotion words, like "hate," "anger," or "enemy"
• Motion verbs, like "walk" or "move"