Gilbert Arenas hasn't played for the Washington Wizards since 2010, but he just sold his house in D.C. for $2.5 million, according to Curbed.com.

Arenas put the house on the market two years ago for $3.5 million, and the home would just not sell. Since the house first went on sale, it has seen some renovations, like the removal of a giant built-in shark tank in one of the rooms.

The house has 7 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms, a gym, and a movie theater. Perhaps the best part of the property is the backyard which has a pool with a slide and a grotto with a full wet bar. 

The before and after picture of the fish tank. It must not have been a big selling point...

The outdoor space is gorgeous.

A full view of the pool.

Nonprofit organization TED launched in 1984 with a mission to present ideas worth sharing.

It has since become a cultural phenomenon, bringing together thought leaders from around the globe to give short, 18-minute talks about ideas that could change the world.

Of the more than 1,800 TED Talks, which have been viewed a total of 2.5 billion times across all platforms, a few have risen to the top. The following 20 talks are the most popular ever on Ted.com.

This is an update of an article written by Samuel Blackstone and Aimee Groth.

20. Keith Barry hacks the most complex thing in nature, the human brain.

Views: 8 million

Keith Barry is well known in Europe for his mind-blowing (literally) stunts. Some call him a magician, others call him a brain hacker. Whatever the name, Barry entertains with "brain magic," composing routines that exploit the human mind's loopholes and bugs. The effect is a revealing look into the complex software between our ears. 

19. David Blaine explains how he held his breath underwater for 17 minutes.

Views: 8.5 million

Magician David Blaine reveals how he hit this world record and why he chooses to put his life on the line to entertain audiences. When he decided to see how long he could hold his breath, for example, a surgeon told him anything longer than six minutes would risk serious brain damage. "So, I took that as a challenge," Blaine says.

18. Cameron Russell describes what it's really like to be a supermodel.

Views: 8.5 million

The Victoria Secret underwear model knows that she "won a genetic lottery," but she also admits that she is insecure, since she has to think about what she looks like every day. "If you ever are wondering, 'If I have thinner thighs and shinier hair, will I be happier?' you just need to meet a group of models, because they have the thinnest thighs and the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes, and they're the most physically insecure women probably on the planet."

Rob Bliss of Rob Bliss Creative filmed New York-based actress Shoshana B. Roberts walking around New York City for 10 hours and getting harassed by men on the street.

The video quickly went viral. He posted it on YouTube on Tuesday, and at the time of this story, it already has been viewed almost 6 million times in less than 24 hours.

“Things are very, very overwhelming,” Bliss told Business Insider. “This is the most social viral video I’ve ever done.”

Bliss says the response to the video has been incredibly varied. “People are sharing their personal experiences, they’re saying how it’s changed how they look at the issue,” Bliss told us. “[But Shoshana] is also receiving threats which is the really frustrating part.”

But many commenters — most of them men — were confused why this was even harassment at all. Bliss says without a doubt that it is. 

“In New York City, you don’t just say hi to random strangers,” he said. “If a guy is asking you how you’re doing, there are motives there outside of just wondering about a complete stranger’s day. Who cares about that? It’s because they have other motives and everyone involved in this situation knows it.”

And for those who still disagree, Bliss says to imagine yourself in this situation.

“Imagine that you are that girl — or, better yet, imagine that you are you,” he said. “And you’re walking down the street and every guy you saw in that video said those exact same things to you. How would you feel? And not only that, add in the fear that you have because you are vulnerable because these men are stronger than you and have the ability to overpower you. That is the real world. So imagine that you feel that vulnerability that these people could overpower you if they wanted to and most of the time you would lose that fight. Ask yourself how you would feel about that.”

Bliss approached Hollaback!, a nonprofit dedicated to ending street harassment, about his idea to film the catcalls that women have to deal with on a daily basis. He said he’d never seen anything like it done before, and that it was something people needed to see.  

“For men, I wanted to show them what street harassment looks like because I don’t think they’ve ever really seen it or been able to experience it,” Bliss explained to us. “And for women, I wanted to empower them and give them the ability to look at it from the safety of their home or their phone and to be able to better understand this issue without being so close to it.”

Bliss filmed Roberts with a hidden GoPro camera strapped to his chest and hidden under his t-shirt for 10 hours total, walking around all areas of Manhattan over the course of a few days for two to three hour shifts at a time. They started in lower Manhattan and walked all the way up to Harlem — anywhere there was a heavy pedestrian presence.

The video captured men saying a variety of things to Roberts, from “have a good day” to “smile” to people shouting “sexy” at her. In addition to the hundreds of instances of verbal harassment, she had men winking, staring, and whistling at her.

This is all while she’s walking down the street, minding her own business, and not saying anything.

One man in the video even followed her for almost six minutes. “That was especially bad,” Bliss said. “What was sad was that I had no idea it was happening until it was over. I can’t imagine how helpless she may have felt especially since I asked her not to respond or react in any way.”

In a world where it’s not unheard of for women to be stabbed, choked, shot, or brutalized for not responding to a man’s advances, it’s important to remember that street harassment is real, and that it happens every day.

Check out the work of Robert Bliss Creative here >

And follow the Hollaback! campaign >

SEE ALSO: No One Should Have To 'Deal' With Catcallers — Here's How To Handle Street Harassment

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All cats love boxes – that's a scientific fact (we think). Dr. Stephen Zawistowski of the ASPCA explains why.

Produced by Will Wei

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Fireball Whisky is facing a scandal in Europe, where its liquor was recalled for containing too much of a chemical found in antifreeze. 

The company said it accidentally sent a batch of its US product to Europe, where standards are more stringent.

The liquor is increasingly becoming a threat to more established brands.

In 2011, Fireball sold $1.9 million worth of whisky in gas stations, convenience stores, and supermarkets, writes Devin Leonard at Bloomberg Businessweek. By 2013, sales had leapt to $61 million, putting Fireball ahead of Jameson Irish Whiskey and Patrón tequila.

The $61 million figure doesn't even include bars, another popular place to consume Fireball.

Fireball, which is described as tasting like cinnamon gum, has become a go-to shot for "young hedonists," Leonard writes.

The whisky beverage is even close to surpassing Jägermeister, another liqueur commonly consumed as a shot.

Leonard highlights a few ways that Fireball's marketing campaign helped it skyrocket to success.

1. Targeting college towns. Marketers first dominated the Nashville, Tennessee bar scene, then moved on to Austin, Texas. The company would offer free shots of Fireball to the entire bar. The bar would then take the shot as a group, which left an impression on customers. Eventually, people in those markets began ordering the shots on their own.

2. Enlisting celebrities. Fireball targeted celebrities with large social media followings. For instance, Josh Harris, who stars in Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch," posted about the beverage on his Facebook page.

3. Drinking contests. The brand ambassadors encouraged bars to have Fireball drinking contests and post pictures of the results to Twitter and Facebook. "Our customers got a big kick out of that," a former executive said.

As a result of Fireball's aggressive marketing, it has become the go-to shot, writes Leonard.

"Jäger is dead," an Austin bartender told Businessweek.

SEE ALSO: How One Of The Worst Mexican Beers Became A Bestseller

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U.S. News & World Report released their inaugural "Best Global Universities Ranking" on Tuesday, naming Harvard University the best school in the world — somewhat of a surprise, considering that Harvard ranked second on the publication's recent list of top American universities.

U.S. News is known for its national universities and liberal arts college rankings, which this year named Princeton University and Williams College as the top schools in America. Last year, U.S. News changed its methodology to emphasize "outcome-related measures" — such as graduation and retention rates — which now account for 30% of a school's ranking.

As The Washington Post points out, it's a little odd for U.S. News to have Princeton at the top of its national universities list, but only ranked 13 for global universities, while former number two Harvard tops the list. For their new ranking, U.S. News emphasized research prowess and global reputation, while omitting factors such as undergraduate admissions data and graduation rates.

"This is about faculty productivity and prestige ... It is meaningful for certain things and not necessarily meaningful for other things. We get that. This is about big muscular research universities doing what research universities claim is their mission," U.S. News Editor Brian Kelly told The Washington Post.

Here are the top 2o universities in the world, according to U.S. News & World Report:

1. Harvard University

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

3. University of California, Berkeley

4. Stanford University

5. University of Oxford (United Kingdom)

6. University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)

7. California Institute of Technology

8. University of California, Los Angeles

9, University of Chicago

10. Columbia University

11. Johns Hopkins University

12. Imperial College London (United Kingdom)

13. Princeton University

14. University of Michigan

14. University of Toronto (Canada)

14. University of Washington

17. Yale University

18. University of California, San Diego

19. University of Pennsylvania

20. Duke University

SEE ALSO: Princeton, Williams Top New US News & World Report List Of America's Best Colleges

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Billionaire energy mogul T. Boone Pickens didn't earn his fortune without the help of others. Most notably, he finds that some of his best advice came from his father. 

Produced by: Justin Gmoser; Reporter: Julia La Roche

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Career growth isn't usually something we consider when choosing a life partner. But as it turns out, your spouse can have a profound effect on your success. 

For best results: Choose someone who's conscientious. 

A study published in Psychological Science of more than 4,500 married Australian couples looked at how extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness affect individual success, finding a positive correlation between conscientiousness and higher salaries. 

When researchers then examined how these traits affected an individual's spouse, only conscientiousness made a difference either way.

Joshua Jackson, one of the the authors of the study and an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis, says that this is because certain behaviors, such as organizational skills or attentiveness, tend to translate to a person's spouse, reports the Washington Post. 

Unlike more inward-facing qualities such as neuroticism, conscientiousness affects those around you, inspiring successful behaviors to rub off onto a husband or wife. 

Jackson also cites a second reason why this trait makes a difference: Conscientious spouses — both male and female — are usually organized and hard working, and naturally take over majority of the household chores. This then frees up their partner to spend more time focused on their career. "You're not as stressed about certain chores or duties that need to be done while you're at work," he explained to the Washington Post. 

SEE ALSO: This Is How Americans Define Success

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Career intelligence website Vault just ranked Bain & Company's summer associate program the country's fourth best internship, and we think we have a pretty good idea why.

In addition to getting the inside track on a job at what is arguably America's best employer, Bain's 150 summer associates get sent to a Cape Cod mansion resort for three days of training, team-building, and luxurious recreation.

Even better? The consulting firm's newbies, usually between their first and second years of business school, are also allowed to bring their significant others with them if they choose.

Here's the private beach at the Ocean Edge Resort & Golf Club, the 429-acre paradise where the retreat is held:

From reading descriptions of the retreat posted by summer associates on Bain's website, we get the impression of an event that is both intensely competitive and lots of fun.

After being welcomed to a room just "100 steps" from the beach, a University of Texas MBA student named Caroline writes that she and her suitemate, a student at Harvard Business School, were given time to explore the premises before joining the rest of the associates for a kickoff dinner.

It was there that she learned what elite company she was in: of the 9,000 people who applied to the internship program from around the world, fewer than 200 made the cut.

The following two days are mixture of free time, group training, and fun team-building activities.

During training, the summer associates are split into teams of five or six, and led through exercises on how to be effective and give strong presentations.

This includes being schooled on Bain's famous Answer First method, through which consultants are taught to develop an early hypothesis for a client and then refine it throughout their work on a project.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the retreat is the Bain Olympics, in which associates are grouped into teams of 13 for an ongoing competition in athletic events ranging from limbo to races to water balloon fights.

Of course, with such high-achieving people, things can sometimes get pretty heated. Matthieu Remy, a summer associate in 2011, writes how one associate bled profusely after taking an elbow to the head during a volleyball collision.

"The injured party headed to the local hospital where he got three stitches and inherited a massive headache," Remy writes.

The interns also enjoy a lobster and clam dinner, a casino night, and the opportunity to bike, swim, and surf on the resort grounds.

Remy concludes his blogpost by saying that while he didn't come away from the retreat with much new business knowledge, it was an eye-opening experience as to the quality of his fellow associates.

"I wish I could say that I learned a great deal about strategic frameworks and other consulting tools but the truth is that we only skim the surface of what is awaiting us this summer," he writes. "What I really learned is that Bainies are fundamentally nice people ... with whom it is very enjoyable to hang around."

SEE ALSO: How To Get A Job At Bain — America’s Best Employer

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Tripping on magic mushrooms may actually free the mind, a new study says. The compounds in the (illegal) mushrooms change the way the brain works.

New research suggests that psilocybin, the main psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, sprouts new links across previously disconnected brain regions, temporarily altering the brain's entire organizational framework.

These new connections are likely what allow users to experience things like seeing sounds or hearing colors. And they could also be responsible for giving magic mushrooms some of their antidepressant qualities.

When researchers compared the brains of people who had received IV injections of psilocybin with those of people given a placebo, they found that the drug changed how information was carried across the brain. (Subjects received 2 milligrams of psilocybin; the dose and concentration of the chemical in actual mushrooms — which are eaten, not injected — varies.) Typically, brain activity follows specific neural networks. But in the people given psilocybin injections, cross-brain activity seemed more erratic, as if freed from its normal framework.

When the researchers looked more closely, however, they noticed that the sparks of activity across the brains of their drugged volunteers wasn't as chaotic as it seemed.

Instead, the activity formed distinct patterns, or cycles.

"The brain does not simply become a random system after psilocybin injection," the researchers wrote, "but instead retains some organizational features, albeit different from the normal state."

Picture the information in your brain being shared across an interconnected and heavily-trafficked system of highways. In that example, psilocybin isn't removing the highways. Instead, it's simply building new ones.

These new connections allow parts of the brain that don't usually talk to one another to communicate. People who use magic mushrooms and see the number 52 as glowing bright blue and red, then, don't see it that way because the drugs have made them crazy. Instead, they associate the number with colors because the brain region that detects and interprets color has been chatting it up with the brain region that processes numbers.

This new insight into what psilocybin does to the brain could help explain years of earlier findings on psilocybin's psychological effects, including how magic mushrooms seem to curb symptoms of depression.

In a 2012 study, Imperial College London neuroscientist David Nutt found that in people drugged with psilocybin, brain chatter across traditional areas of the brain was muted, including in a region thought to play a role in maintaining our sense of self. In depressed people, Nutt believes, the connections between brain circuits in this sense-of-self region are too strong. "People who get into depressive thinking, their brains are overconnected," Nutt told Psychology Today. Negative thoughts and feelings of self-criticism become obsessive and overwhelming.

Loosening those connections and creating new ones, Nutt thinks, could provide intense relief.

Johns Hopkins psychologists came to similar findings when they induced out of body experiences in a small group of volunteers dosed with psilocybin. Immediately following their sessions, participants said they felt more open, more imaginative, and more appreciative of beauty. When the researchers followed up with the volunteers a year later, nearly two-thirds said the experience had been one of the most important in their lives; close to half continued to score higher on a personality test of openness than they had before taking the drug.

Nick Fernandez, a former cancer patient and psychology graduate student who took psilocybin as part of a New York University study, experienced those same feelings of freedom and positivity.

"For the first time in my life, I felt like there was... a force greater than myself," Fernandez told Aeon Magazine. "Something inside me snapped and I experienced a... shift that made me realize all my anxieties, defenses, and insecurities weren't something to worry about."

SEE ALSO: How Hallucinogenic Mushroom Trips Can Help People With Anxiety

DON'T MISS: 3 Things You Can Literally Learn In Your Sleep

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Bruce Willis and his wife Emma Heming just bought up 14 acres of prime New York countryside real estate, according to real estate website Trulia.

Located just one hour outside of the city, their new getaway home sits on Bedford’s highest points and provides breathtaking 180-degree views of the valley and reservoir below. 

The 8,000-square-foot home has five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a swimming pool with a heated cabana, and a tennis court.

Talk about country elegance. 

Plus, Willis and his wife will have plenty of star company. Their new neighbors are Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Doguals, Martha Stewart, and Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, Trulia reports.  

Welcome to Croton Lake Road, in Bedford New York. The massive home sits on a 14-acre property.

The gorgeous shingle-styled home blends classic and rustic elements.

The interior living space of the house has been meticulously crafted.

The Gowanus Canal — the 2-mile waterway that connects the factories and industries of inner Brooklyn to the New York Harbor and the rest of the world — is widely considered to be one of the most polluted areas in the world. 

Photographer and artist Steven Hirsch set out to capture the pollution, but along the way, he found unexpected beauty in the area as well.

Hirsch's photographs of the canal depict the multitude of contaminates and chemicals floating on the slimy surface. It certainly doesn't look like clear, clean water, but those unsettling characteristics also create odd and sometimes striking geometric shapes, swirls, and a variety of psychedelic colors, likened by many to abstract painting. 

"“I would sit there on the side of the canal, and what looked like a giant painting by Monet would be there in front of me, hovering on the surface of the water," Hirsch says. 

The photographs will be on display at the Lilac Gallery in New York City starting on November 12. Hirsch shared a selection of the images here. More of his work can be seen on his website.

When the area we now know as New York City was first being settled and developed in the 1600s, the Gowanus Canal was a tidal inlet full of plant life and vegetation. As early as the first part of the 1700s, however, the waterway developed into a high-traffic shipping channel and its shores became a popular site for industry, like mills, factories, tanneries, and warehouses.

With its long history of industrial and commercial use, the Gowanus Canal has a tradition of pollution. Today, its waters are widely considered to be some of the most contaminated in the world.

According to the EPA, "as a result of years of discharges, storm water runoff, sewer outflows and industrial pollutants," the area was named a Superfund site in 2010.

Source

New York City's subway has been named the safest public transit system in a global city in the world for women by the Thompson Reuters Foundation.

Partnering with internet research firm YouGov, the nonprofit performed an Internet survey of women in the country's largest capitals in the world -- plus New York.

Sixteen cities were examined in total. The study found that, in general, less developed countries fared worse than more highly developed ones.

In the survey, women were asked if they felt safe on the system at night, their confidence in fellow riders interfering, and their general feelings about the safety of the transport in the city.

Bogota, capital of Colombia, fared the worst. with Mexico City, Lima, and Delhi following. Women in these cities claimed a high rate of verbal and physical abuse with low rates of feeling safe at night and confidence in authorities.

New York's score is benefited by plummeting crime rates in the last 15 years. In particular, about half of the women surveyed in New York reported a very high confidence that someone would intervene on their behalf 

Unfortunately, women in the city still reported a high rate of verbal harassment (which comes as no surprise).

Check out the full rankings here.

SEE ALSO: Candid Photos Of New Yorkers Riding The Subway In 1960

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Far fewer Chinese couples applied to have a second child than expected after a relaxation of the country's "one child" policy, state-run media reported Thursday, highlighting the ageing nation's demographic challenges.

The world's most populous country has restricted most families to a single child since the late 1970s, but the Communist party said in November that couples would be allowed to have two offspring so long as one of the parents was an only child, rather than both.

Authorities had expected the change to result in more than 2 million extra births a year, but out of more than 11 million couples eligible, only 700,000 had applied for permission by the end of August, the China Daily newspaper said, citing the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Of those, 620,000 had been authorized, it added.

China has a population of 1.36 billion, the  National Bureau of Statistics said in January, but its working-age population fell by 2.44 million last year.

Over-60s accounted for 14.9 percent of the total, it said, and projections show that they will represent one in four of the population — 350 million people — by 2030.

The lower-than-expected desire to have more children might reflect changing perceptions of reproduction, particularly in cities, said Lu Jiehua, a demography professor at Peking University, according to the report.

The new policy affects mostly couples in urban areas, where the family-planning policy has been implemented more strictly than in the countryside.

But education and housing are expensive in cities, and reliance on children in old age is lower, making multiple offspring less necessary.

Chinese academics have called for an across-the-board two-child policy to be introduced to tackle emerging labor shortages.

China's birth-limit policies have at times been brutally enforced, with authorities relying on permits, fines, and, in some cases forced sterilizations and late-term abortions.

Beijing says the policy prevented food shortages and laid the foundations for the country's recent economic growth.

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London's famous tower is awash in a sea of red poppies to commemorate the day Britain entered World War I.  

This summer, 888,246 ceramic poppies were poured into the Tower of London moat; each flower representing a British military fatality during the conflict. 

Now, the installation, created by artist Paul Cummins and called "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red," is drawing more attention than ever as Armistice Day, which marks the day an armistice was signed between WWI allies and Germany,  approaches on Nov. 11. 

These photos capture a "powerful visual" reflection of WWI, with sweeping shots from above, and visits from the Queen and war veterans. 

A Yeoman Warder walks amid rain through hundreds of thousands of poppies.

They surround the historic Tower of London —"Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress."

The Queen visits the poppies with husband Prince Philip.

This post is sponsored by UPS CONNECT.

It's not easy being a small business owner. If you're not stressing out about revenue, chances are you're worrying about how to grow your business. It's no wonder small business owners often feel overwhelmed. 

We surveyed Business Insider readers to learn more about the challenges they face as business owners, and the results make up the 2014 State Of Small Business Report, delivered by UPS CONNECT. More than 300 business owners, partners, presidents, and CEOs weighed in on issues including expansion, local partnerships, and cloud technology — and the results are illuminating. For example, 43% cite not knowing where to begin as the biggest obstacle to expanding globally; 31% find it hard to keep up with the latest technology trends.

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More than two-thirds of adults are considered overwight or obese, and this research is now shaping how companies think about safety, according to ABC News.

Humanetics is the only US producer of crash-test dummies. ABC spoke to their CEO, Chris O'Connor, about how they're producing dummies these days. He says that studies show that obese drivers are 78% more likely to die in a car crash.

So his company is making new dummies that are based on what a 270-pound person looks like, and how they operate. That's a Body Mass Index of 35 (reflecting someone who is morbidly obese).

“Typically you want someone in a very tight position with their rear against the back of the seat and the seat belt tight to the pelvis,” O’Connor explained. “An obese person has more mass around midsection and a larger rear which pushes them out of position. They sit further forward and the belt does not grasp the pelvis as easily,” O'Connor told ABC News, 

The Emergency Medicine Journal did an eye-opening study in 2013 about how much worse car accidents can be for the obese. 

They note that estimated risk ratios for people with a BMI over 30 were higher. From the study's conclusion:

Findings from this study suggest that obese vehicle drivers are more likely to die from traffic collision-related injuries than non-obese occupants involved in the same collision. Education is needed to improve seat belt use among obese people, as is research to understand the potential role of comorbidities in injury outcomes.

ABC News also spoke to Russ Raider, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety, who told them that cars with good crash-test ratings are designed to protect all different sizes of people.

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Like it or not, where you decide to live often says a lot about you.

You're not totally defined by your zip code, but a website spotted by Reddit seeks to show people what zip codes say about the average demographic, culture, and lifestyle in one's area.

Here's how it works:

The "Zip Lookup" tool is powered by Esri, a geographic-information firm based in California.

Just head to the website, type in your zip code, and you'll be greeted with a breakdown of your zip code's demographic characteristics based on Esri's "Tapestry" technology, which consists of 67 unique market segment classifications.

The percentage breakdown shows you the mixture of different classifications.

Here's an example of the breakdown for Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

By clicking on the different demographics, you can see a summary of the type of person Esri's geographic data says you are.

For Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 60% are labeled as "Trendsetters," who are described as singles "not ready to settle down, unfettered by home and vehicle ownership" and with "good jobs who spend our disposable income on upscale city living and entertainment — mostly on rent."

Here's the breakdown for the other two demographics, "Downtown Melting Pot" and "High Rise Renters."

You can also click on the tabs "Income," "Age," and "Population Density," to learn more about your area's trends.

Here's a look at the average income for Williamsburg.

And here's a look at the age spectrum.

Finally, here's population density.

To look up your zip code, head to Esri's website.

NOW WATCH: 5 Apps That Will Do Chores For You

SEE ALSO: Use This Trick To See A Map Of Everywhere Google Knows You've Been

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Last year, the Belgian charity the Mimi Ullens Foundation told 20 cancer patients they would give them makeovers. All that was required of them was to keep their eyes closed to make the reveal more exciting.

The patients expected that when they opened their eyes, they would look beautiful — but they were in for a surprise.

The first 1:30 of this video may seem straight out of a clichéd charitable makeover video. Then it takes quite the unexpected turn:

Leo Burnett France collaborated with the nonprofit Mimi Ullens Foundation on the project. The foundation has seven centers across Belgium and France that provide 15,000 cancer patients annually with beauty care, massages, and psychological support. It was founded in 2007 by Belgian art collector Myriam Ullens and her industrialist husband Guy Ullens.

The ad agency and foundation were inspired to create "If Only for a Second" by a patient's statement that before she had cancer she was much more carefree.

The hope was that once the 20 participants discovered how silly they looked, it would allow them to "forget their disease, if only for a second," according to the campaign's press release.

The makeovers took place in Brussels in June 2013, and the participants reunited that November for the launch party of a book collecting photographer Vincent Dixon's images of surprise and delight.

"Within a second, smiling faces were seen all over the room. At that very moment, cancer did not exist for the family members either," the campaign states.

The ad went viral on YouTube and ended up winning big this year at advertising's biggest event, the Cannes Lions festival, taking home one Gold Lion and eight Silver Lions this past September.

The foundation declined to reveal how much money "If Only for a Second" raised.

You can order the book and learn more about the campaign at the "If Only for a Second" website.

Here are a few pages from the book, courtesy of the Mimi Ullens Foundation:

SEE ALSO: Why Richard Branson Once Prank-Called His Own Company Demanding To Speak To Richard Branson

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Marissa Mayer is known for throwing elaborate parties attended by Silicon Valley's elite. 

On Halloween, she gives out king-sized candy bars to trick-or-treaters and decorates her front yard with professionally carved pumpkins. This year was no exception.

Jackie Reses, Yahoo's chief development officer, tweeted this photo on Sunday evening. 

The mortuary Reses is referring to is most likely the Roller & Hapgood & Tinney Funeral Home, which Mayer bought just before Halloween last year for $11.2 million. The funeral home is located a block east of her home, in Palo Alto's Professorville neighborhood.

On Oct. 16, one of Mayer's neighbors wrote an open letter published in Palo Alto Online, asking the Yahoo CEO not to throw her annual Halloween party in the funeral home. 

"Now there are grumblings that Marissa is staging the defunct mortuary as a haunted house for her elite group of Google and Yahoo friends (Schmidt, Brin, Page, Wojcicki) and the whose-who of Silicon Valley. Every year, Mayer's backyard and home is transformed into a haunted house and blow-out party," said the neighbor, who chose to write the letter anonymously. "While on-the-surface it seems like using a mortuary is a perfect place to create a haunted experience, it is also a place where many of us said goodbye to our loved ones ... I hope the rumors are false and that you will not be opening the doors to the mortuary for your exclusive party."

But if tweets and Instagram photos are to be believed, it looks like a haunted house was set up there anyway. 

Mayer throws a pumpkin-carving party in her backyard every year, but this year's decorations were pretty over-the-top.

Addison Elementary School, which is located just across the street from Mayer's funeral parlor, shared this photo of their view. 

SEE ALSO: The President Of Beats Electronics Bought This Stunning Hilltop Mansion For $8.5 Million

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